Christian Hope: Does It Differ from Optimism?

Posted on April 23, 2021 by salooper57

What is Christian hope? Is it simply a feeling that things will get better? Is it just optimism? Or is it something more?

Well, hope certainly brings a feeling that things will get better, but it is more than a feeling. It is more than optimism. Optimism is a way of thinking. Hope is a way of being. Optimism is subjective. Hope is objective. Optimism comes from you but hope come from God.

He is its source, but what is its content? We hope in God (and that is of first importance); but what do we hope for?

We are hoping – this will sound completely foreign to many of us – for the end of the war. Not the Afghan War or the Syrian War. Not the war on drugs or the war on terror. Not the culture wars. These are border skirmishes and diversionary feints. I am talking about the war to begin all wars, the war into which we – and all humans – are born: the war between good and evil, light and darkness, heaven and hell, God and satan.

We who have never been in combat will have trouble grasping our true situation, but those of you have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq will understand. You know the longing for the war to be over. You know the hope of being victorious. When the war that began all wars is over, our children will never again be captured by evil, our lives ruined by greed, our families split by hatred, our minds wracked by fear. Our nation will not be torn by hatred or our loved ones deceived by untruths.

When this war is over, we will start again and, unlike the last time, we will not start off on the wrong side. We will have peace, joy, and love. Death itself – the last of our enemies – will be undone. For this we wait. For this we hope.

We have this hope because we have this God. He will not put up with injustice, violence, and exploitation for much longer. And because we belong to him, we won’t put up with it either. We will work against these things, knowing that our labor is not in vain.

We are waiting and hoping for a world where everyone matters. Where love reigns. Where evil – not just in actions but in motives and thoughts – will trouble us no more. The early Christians summed up all this – the end of the war, the joyful peace, the restoration, the rule of love, the death of Death in one word: resurrection.

With the exception of two occurrences (one when cruel businessmen lose their hope of making money and one when weary sailors lose their hope of being rescued), the Book of Acts always links the word “hope” to the resurrection. Resurrection includes the new beginning, the restoration of creation, the redemption of our bodies, and the enthronement of the good and just King Jesus. Christian hope is resurrection hope.

The Bible expresses this in beautiful ways. It says we hope in the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints. We hope in salvation, in eternal life (that is, in the life of the age to come), in the appearance of Jesus upon his return to earth, and in our transformation, when we will receive glorious new bodies that have been designed to be like his body.

For too many of us, resurrection is a doctrine but not a hope. It is something we commemorate on Easter rather than something we long for throughout the year. But people who know they are in a war live in hope for these things, in the hope of the resurrection.

Years ago, I met Scott who was in the last stages of ALS. My friend Dave Brown introduced us. When I went to visit him at his home, I found an emaciated young man confined to a bed. Near the foot of the bed was a Lazy Suzan of sorts that someone from Lockwood had built. It held Bible memory verses. Scot would turn the Lazy Susan with his toe – one of the only parts of his body he could still move – and in that way read and memorize the verses.

I sat in a chair by his bed and we talked. Scott told me that he had only recently become a Christian – a beautiful story in which Dave had played an important role. After we had talked for a while, I asked him if he was afraid of dying.

He then told me something – and it was hard for him to talk, so I had to listen closely – that I have never forgotten. He told me that the last two months – since he had come over to Jesus’s side – had been the two best months of his life. I looked at him in wonder. Here was a man from whom everything had been taken. His former life was gone. His world was a bed. His body was a prison. And the last two months had been the best time of his life.

How was that possible? What had happened? The God of hope had come and put hope in his soul.

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8 Things Hope Does for the Believer (part 2)

Posted on April 22, 2021 by salooper57
  1. Love also depends on hope. Hopeless people do not love well. They may want to, but it’s just not in them. Hopelessness is a kind of quicksand. It causes a person to sink further and further into himself rather than to move out of himself toward God (faith) and toward people (love).

2) Hope also protects us. 1 Thessalonians 5:8 calls the hope of salvation a helmet. The person without that helmet is vulnerable—especially, it seems, in regard to his or her thoughts. Hope shields us from harmful thoughts that can penetrate our minds and cause injury.

3) Hope does something else: It stabilizes us and keeps us from drifting or being blown off course. This is Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” The Book of Hebrews constitutes one long warning against drifting away from God. Hope is the anchor that keeps that from happening.

My son Kevin and I were once fishing in Quebec from a boat that was anchored about 100 yards above a small waterfall. (I say small, but it probably dropped 30 feet over a course of a couple of hundred yards.) Without that anchor, the current would have carried us into pain and loss. And without hope, the strong currents of this age will carry you and your family where you do not want to go.

4) Hope does something else. We all have things that don’t belong in our lives: fears, prejudices, lusts, and resentments. Anger lives in us. Gossip settles into our conversations. Greed becomes a mindset. These things are hard to dislodge even when we are doing well spiritually. But they are impossible to dislodge when we don’t have hope.

Hope is the environment in which sinful habits can be removed and replaced. St. John, writing about our great hope, says, “Everyone who has this hope in [Christ] purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). Purifies himself. Removing those sinful habits – we’ve tried again and again – can only succeed when we have hope.

With hope we can endure trials that would otherwise derail us. Hope enables us to work harder, better, and with more satisfaction. Hope provides opportunities to tell others about Jesus and gives us the boldness to seize those opportunities. It keeps us from getting carried off-course by the strong currents of the age. It makes it possible to remove the engrained habits that plague our lives, obstruct out love, and dishonor our God. Obviously, we need hope.

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8 Things Hope Does for Us (According to Scripture)

Posted on April 20, 2021 by salooper57

(Part 1)

1.) hope in our Lord Jesus Christ inspires endurance in our trials and in our work (1 Thess. 1:3). It is not weariness that makes people give up; it is hopelessness. All of us have known people who are great at starting things but terrible at seeing them through. Why, when they are so capable and talented, are they always giving up? Lack of hope could be the reason. Hopeless people don’t endure.

Hope enables us to work longer and better. Professor James Avey led a team that studied the correlation between hope and absenteeism at work. They began by surveying employees and dividing them into two categories: high-hope and low-hope workers. Over the course of one year, high-hope workers missed an average of 20 hours of work (not counting planned leaves and vacations) while their low-hope counterparts missed between three and four times that much. Avey found that hope is a far more accurate predictor of productivity that any of the usual workplace metrics – like job satisfaction, commitment to the company, or competence.[1]

Hopelessness makes work seem pointless, but hope has the opposite effect. It is no wonder that the New Testament’s most hopeful chapter closes with these words: “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). You know that when you have hope.

2) Another thing hope does: It makes us bold. St. Paul, one of history’s most hopeful people, wrote: “…since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Cor. 3:12). A literal translation could go, “Therefore, having such a hope, we proceed with much boldness.” When we don’t have hope, we hang back, cling to what we know. Hope enables us to venture out, discover new opportunities, and grow as people.

The word translated as “boldness” carries the idea of speaking freely. Hopeful people can say what is on their minds. Think of what a difference the boldness of hope could make in sharing the good news of Jesus.

We are seeing a historic drop in church attendance, membership, and affiliation. 8o percent of churches in America are plateaued or declining. Evangelism is in peril. There are both social and philosophical reasons for this, including a rise of commitment phobia and a descent into postmodernism. But at the base of it all is hopelessness.

3) But hope not only gives us boldness to speak for Christ; it gives us opportunities as well. St. Peter wrote, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). When we are hopeful, people come to us. When we are not hopeful, we don’t get opportunities.

4) Here is something else. St. Paul writes in Colossians 1:5 that “faith and love spring from hope.” That means faith is hope-dependent. Take away hope and faith withers. Hopeless people become faithless people toward God and others.

(The other four things hope does for us will be posted on Thursday, 4/22)

[1]  Adapted from Shane J. Lopez, Making Hope Happen (Atria Books, 2013), page 52.

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Hope – I Need Somebody (Hope- Not Just Anybody)

Posted on April 18, 2021 by salooper57
Viewing time: 28 minutes (approx)
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“I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins”

Posted on April 17, 2021 by salooper57

One of the tenets of Christianity, found in every faith tradition and denomination, is that God forgives sins. Many examples of this belief can be found in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in the liturgy of the Church.

The most widely used creeds in Christian liturgy are the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. One or the other (or both) are recited in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and many Protestant Churches. In these creeds, which are summaries of the Christian faith, the worshiper acknowledges belief in the forgiveness of sins.

What does it mean to declare, as a worshiper does when reciting the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins”? What – and whose – sins are in mind?  Who is doing the forgiving? Does the forgiveness of sins make any difference in a person’s life?

When a Christian claims to believe in the forgiveness of sins, is she talking about her sins, her neighbor’s sins, or everyone’s sins? Are these sins little or big, foibles or atrocities?

The scope of forgiveness is vast. Jesus said that forgiveness would be proclaimed to all nations (or people groups). St. John wrote that Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Forgiveness is universal in scope but conditional in application. The condition is faith in God through Jesus Christ.

No sin is by nature beyond forgiveness (except the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but that is a topic for another time). Many people find the extravagant breadth of Christian forgiveness objectionable. Should even Hitler, if he has expressed “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,” be forgiven? What about the sexual predator? The murderer?

I have had to be clear about this in my own mind. The forgiveness of sins is easy enough to believe when you are sitting in a church pew. It is another matter when you are sitting in a jail cell with a man accused of molesting a two-year-old child or a woman who shot her sleeping husband and then decapitated him so she could be with another man. In such situations, could I honestly say that I believe in the forgiveness of sins?

Yes. I have been able to believe in the forgiveness of sins – even in those cells – because I believe in the God of Jesus. I am, however, in doubt about whether the people I came to see believed. They didn’t stop making excuses long enough for me to find out, but people who believe in the forgiveness of sins make confession, not excuses.

When Christians, reciting the creed, say that they believe in the forgiveness of sins, it is important that they believe in the forgiveness of other people’s sins, not merely their own. Do we believe that God will forgive our enemy’s sins? If we do not, it is likely that we have fallen into the trap of thinking that others need to be forgiven while we need only be excused.

When we say that we believe in the forgiveness of sins, are we assuming that forgiveness resides in God’s domain but not in our own? Another way to put the question is to ask if God is the only forgiver or if others are included? When I acknowledge the forgiveness of sins, do I recognize that I too am called to be a forgiver?

God is surely the Primary Forgiver and it is his forgiveness that is central in the Scripture and in the creeds. But belief in the forgiveness of sins does not end at God’s throne. It descends to my desk chair, to the break room in the factory, and to the family kitchen. Jesus and his apostles will not allow us to exclude ourselves from the responsibility to forgive, anymore that they exclude us from the need to be forgiven.

Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” To believe in the forgiveness of sins is to believe that I need to be forgiven, not merely excused, that God will forgive, and that I must do likewise.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Faith Is Work

Posted on April 15, 2021 by salooper57

Amy Carmichael, said: “The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding [at all]. Yet they can knock a strong man over and lay him very low.” “The best training,” she says, “is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves.” [1]

She is talking about meeting these things with faith in our loving Father. Yes, that faith gets tested. It might feel like we cannot go any further in it. We want to retreat. Long to turn to distraction and self-indulgence. But whoever said that faith is easy?

This is Walter Wangerin, Jr.: “Faith is work. It is a struggle. You must struggle with all your heart. … And on the way, God will ambush you.” We struggle to trust. The doubts keep coming. We refuse to give in. We fight, fight to trust God; but it is so hard. We feel like we’re losing faith every other moment. But we aren’t. That is just the contaminants burning up. Our faith is being purified! And when we just can’t do it anymore, our heavenly Father comes from behind us to help.

I love the true story – many of you have seen the video – that came out of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was the 400-meter race. Derek Redmond of Great Britain entered the back stretch with a real possibility of winning gold and fulfilling his lifelong dream. And then it happened: his hamstring tore and all the other runners went flying past him. He crumpled, kneeling there on the track, in excruciating pain.

A nearby photographer captures the moment of his dream-ending collapse. Frustration and dejection are written on his face. The race is over. The other runners are crossing the line.

Then, surprisingly, Derek stands and begins to hop toward the finish line. The crowd, which has been watching, begins to clap, and then cheer, louder and louder.

Then the applause hushes a little. What is happening? There is a man running toward Derek on the track. It’s his father. He throws his arms around his son and in a voice full of emotion, whispers, “Come on, son. Let’s finish this together.” The applause grows louder than ever. The crowd cheers and weeps as they watch Derek’s father bearing his injured son across the finish line.[2]

How many times you and I have struggled to trust God! Our faith has come up short and we have fallen. We won’t win the race. We’re not even sure we can finish it. But we get up, broken and limping, and begin again.

We will cross the finish line, as every one of his children do, upheld by our Father’s arms. The hosts of heaven will be on their feet, and there will be jubilant praise, abundant honor, and resplendent glory. And we will hear the words – is he speaking to me, who fell, who failed, who lay crumpled on the ground? We will hear the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21).

[1] Amy Carmichael, “Candles in the Dark.” Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 2.

[2] Source: Jim Nicodem, “The Father Heart of God,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 152.

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Everyone Gets Tested (Not Everyone Passes)

Posted on April 14, 2021 by salooper57

Everyone gets tested. Ordained ministers get tested. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines get tested. High School and college graduates get tested. Lawyers get tested. Police officers get tested. Corrections officers get tested. Pilots get tested. Drivers get tested. Do followers of Jesus get tested? And, if so, does everyone pass the test? To get personal, will I pass the test?

Let me answer those questions. Yes, followers of Jesus get tested. No, not everyone passes. But, yes, you can pass the test. As C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it: “The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God” (italics added).[1]

But not everyone passes the test. Listen to what the author of Hebrews says (12:16-17): “See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected.”

The word translated as “rejected” is a quality control word. It refers to something that cannot be used for its intended purpose because it has not passed quality or safety testing. The way Esau responded to a difficult circumstance indicated a flaw in his character. He was not yet a person to whom God could safely entrust his blessing. His response to the test showed that, in a critical moment, he would not turn to God but would turn elsewhere. It was his faith that was tested and it was found wanting.

Esau’s trial – so mundane and familiar – was a test of faith. It tested his trust in God, his dependence on him, and the integrity of the connection between him and God. We can get the idea that people who pass the test prove that they are smart or that they are spiritual or that they are strong. Not so. What is being tested – whether the test is mundane or exotic, familiar or extraordinary – is a person’s faith: his or her trust in God. It will help you to remember that.

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

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The Christian and Testing: Will We Pass the Test?

Posted on April 12, 2021 by salooper57

The Bible is uncomfortably clear: God test people and nations. Not everyone passes the test. Yet, as C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it: “The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God.”

This encouraging sermon explores what the Bible says about testing: why God tests, what is being tested, and how to pass the test.

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When Does Happily Ever After Start?

Posted on April 10, 2021 by salooper57

In faith-friendly books and movies, principal characters always face struggles and frequently experience doubts. As their circumstances worsen, their doubts grow and then, at some critical moment, they face a difficult decision. Will they trust God or will they go their own way?

In the few movies and books in this genre with which I’m familiar, a secondary character usually models the wrong choice for the reader or viewer. The protagonist then models the right choice by trusting God. After that moment of faith, the suspense grows greater still. The question of whether the hero will trust God is already decided. Now the question is whether God will prove himself worthy of that trust.

He does. The football player wins the big game, the protagonist gets the guy or girl of their dreams, and answers to prayers multiply like loaves and fishes in the hands of Jesus. And they live happily ever after.

My question is: what role does faith play in their lives then? When you, the conquering hero, are living happily ever after with the love of your life, do you really need to trust God any longer? 

Most of us will never know the answer to that question—at least, not from personal experience. Most of us, even if we have found the love of our life, haven’t got to start the happily ever after part yet. We know that’s down the road—and it will be a bumpy ride getting there.

If one compares the plot lines from contemporary movies and books with the stories of the Bible, there seems to be a divergence. Yes, God answers prayers. Miracles happen. But troubles don’t end. Joy is present, but it is joy in spite of troubles, not in place of them.

Consider some of the heroes of the faith. St. Peter was crucified. St. Paul was beheaded (after a lengthy stay in prison). St. Stephen was stoned. In fact, all the original apostles, with the exception of John, died violent deaths.

And it is not just the way people of faith died, it is also the way they lived. Euodia and Syntyche, friends and co-workers “in the gospel,” had a falling out and were unable to reconcile without help. Aquila and Priscilla, an extraordinary married couple who were full of faith, were forced to leave their home and live in exile.

Paul and Barnabas, the superstars on God’s evangelistic team, got into an argument that ended their working relationship. St. John was arrested, removed from home and friends, and sentenced to exile on a remote Island in the Aegean Sea. These were people, every one of them, with a genuine and vibrant faith, but not one of them got happily ever after on earth.

Consider the men and women the author of Hebrews inducts into the Faith Hall of Fame (as chapter 11 is sometimes called.) They were all faith-filled people, and yet he says: “Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. … These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”

Not a lot of happily ever after there. Not yet, anyway. But there is an important lesson we can learn from these women and men: A person does not learn faith when everything is going smoothly. If we will not learn to trust God when things are tough and situations are scary, we will probably not learn to trust him at all.

And after we have first learned to trust God, we will have many opportunities to practice our lessons. We learn that too from faith’s Hall of Famers. For David, fighting Goliath was an introductory course. Far more difficult lessons lay before him. Likewise for Moses. Pharaoh and the Red Sea were just a warm-up.

St. Paul describes the life that God wants for people as one that progresses “from faith to faith.” In other words, one never outgrows the need to trust. Faith is required throughout life, until the happily ever after finally arrives – which it will surely do – for the faithful.

(Published previously by Gannett.)

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The Sorrows of the Past Will Hurt Us No More

Posted on April 9, 2021 by salooper57

In this 28-minute narrative sermon, we learn that Jesus’s people get confused, sad, broken, and hurt. In this world we have trouble – just as Jesus promised. But Christ enters our trouble and meets us there – and that changes everything. That changes us.

Sermon begins at 00:54. Listening Time: 28:00.
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