The Gift Of Hope (Part 1) – 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. All of us like getting gifts. They're special moments we remember, but beyond thoughtful presence, there are four gifts we simply can't live without. Today, we begin a series exploring each of these gifts, beginning with the gift of hope.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, why is having hope so important? Well, Dave, I think the answer is this, that when the Bible uses the word hope, it's not using the word like we use it when we say, well, I hope that my favorite sports team is going to win. That's the hope of uncertainty. When you get to the Scriptures, you discover that hope is something that is certain. It is a future realization that we look forward to.

So I think to simplify it, we could say that living with hope simply means living with eternity in mind and thinking about the future. And what a wonderful reminder it is, even as we are here on the beginning of a brand new year, to remind ourselves that our priorities have to be readjusted. And I trust that even as we begin now in January, that you and I will take the time to make sure that we are living with hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope that is the gift that God gives to all those who believe, and to remember, as you have frequently heard me say, the only thing that really matters is what matters forever. So now, let's listen.

Well, I begin today with a question, and that is this. What does the Moody Church have to offer the city of Chicago and the world? Of course, I need to remind you that I'm not insisting or thinking that we're the only church who can give these gifts to the city of Chicago. There are many fine evangelical churches who are doing the same thing, but our emphasis is Moody Church.

A few years ago, we came out with a promise statement, Moody Church is a trusted place where anyone can connect with God and with others. I need to tell you right from the beginning that it's not about us. If we exist only for ourselves, we will die and we deserve to die. It's about others.

We exist for the city of Chicago, and eventually, of course, we exist for the world. But what gifts do we have to offer them? Today, I'm speaking on the topic of the gift of hope, the gift of hope, because as you look around our world, you will agree with me that there are few reasons to hope. Politically, you look at the political campaign, you think of a war that we are engaged in that's not going very well, and you say, where is the hope?

Religiously, I could go into that in detail. We don't have those many reasons to hope. And then you think morally and spiritually as we continue the downslide as a nation. And then you watch the news and you begin to ask the question, where is hope? Where is hope in an age of terrorism and mad people and disease and AIDS around the world, especially with children? Where is hope?

Well, where do we look for hope? Maybe things are so bad that we should decide to become atheists like some people. Things are so bad, there can't be a God. And so we become atheists. Atheism is a terrible, terrible decision to make. It's an irrational decision, very irrational. Because you see, in an atheistic world, there's no such thing as good and evil. There is no such thing as hope. There cannot be at any level. I always admire atheists that strive at consistency.

99.99% are totally inconsistent. They don't believe in God, and yet they speak about good and evil. But some atheists at least have begun to see the consequences of atheism. I'm thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche, who said these words, that the greatest evil of all evils is hope, because it prolongs man's agony.

Wow. He proclaimed the death of God, and he knew that in an atheistic world, there could be no hope. That's why Albert Camus said that the only serious philosophical question is suicide, because as atheism forced him to conclude, there could not possibly be a rational reason to live. Yet suicide is a bad option.

It's putting a period where there should be a comma. It's a terrible, terrible option. And as Shakespeare even said, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. Some people, to get out of their misery, who commit suicide, discover that they're in greater misery than they could have ever imagined. But finally, I found a consistent atheist. Go looking around the world, Lord. When is atheism going to be consistent? And I came across this quote by Richard Dawkins. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and we don't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, catch this, no good, no evil.

That's true. In an atheistic world, there is no good, no evil, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music. Atheism has absolutely no hope.

Can't even use the word consistently. Where do we turn? Well, if we're going to have hope, I think that hope has to have at least three components. First of all, we need the assurance that the evils of this world are going to someday support a greater end. Somehow at the end of the day, evil has to be redemptive. There has to be something good that comes out of the evil without justifying the evil, of course. That has to be part of hope if we have hope.

I think also we need justice. There was an atheistic Jewish friend of mine who lived near us. As a matter of fact, sometimes I took him to work. He was a wonderful man, and we had long conversations together, but he was committed to atheism. And I said to him, does it bother you, the fact that Hitler will never have to answer for his deeds, that all of the terrible injustices of the Holocaust will go unanswered because in your world there is no God and therefore no justice?

And he said, yeah, that does trouble me. I think we need the assurance of justice. I also think that we need the assurance of eternity, the fact that this is not the world where all of the wrongs are going to be made right, but there is a world coming that will enable us to understand better this world and eventually will all contribute to some good.

So where do we turn? Think with me for a moment about the word hope. We use it always in this way, like my wife and I might say, you know, we hope that our children made it home safely. Or maybe you said to yourself today, I hope that I will get a raise, and it probably is a vain hope, a vain hope, but you hope that you will. One man said, I hope I will win the lottery.

I said to him, I hope you won't. So what is the characteristic? What is the word? How do we use the word hope in society?

I'll tell you how we use it. We use it with all kinds of uncertainty. We hope, but it's uncertain. Oh, you turn to the Bible and you discover there's a different definition of the word hope. Hope in the Bible means a confident assurance. That's why it says in the book of Hebrews that you can enter into the full assurance of hope.

The full assurance of hope. Psalm 43, the psalmist is preaching to himself. It's okay for you to preach to yourself. I preach to myself often. Even when I'm talking here, sometimes I'm preaching to myself. How does that line go if all the members of your church were laid end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.

Isn't that the way it goes? But the psalmist preached to himself. He says, why are you downcast, oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope, thou in God.

And then there's this. This is one of the most powerful biblical images. I wish I could explain it to you, but I don't have the time. Sometimes it is deserving of an entire message. It says in the book of Hebrews, speaking of our time of death, it says, which hope we have as an anchor for the soul, most sure and steadfast going into the veil where our forerunner is.

Wow. Jesus made it to heaven and our hope is an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast. In the Bible, hope simply refers to something you look forward to in the future, but it is something for which you need not have a centilica of doubt. Now, what I'd like to do in the next few moments is to give you three certainties, three certainties, and they are the three R's so that if you go out later today and somebody says, what did the pastor preach about?

He said that we could be hopeful because of the three R's, reading, writing, arithmetic. No, three other R's that are found in the book of first Peter. Would you take your Bibles please and turn to first Peter and in this message, by the way, I didn't know what text to use this week until yesterday because you know, the word hope occurs in the Bible about 120 times.

I could have preached on my wife's favorite verse, Romans chapter 15 verse 13, which speaks about the God of hope filling you with hope. Wow. What a text, but I chose first Peter and what are the three certainties, the three R's.

The first R is the R before I tell you what it is. You see, you look around the world and you say, well, yeah, you know, you're making all these promises, but what is their basis? When we think of what happens in our schools and we think of the terrible epidemic, you look around and there's no hope.

Absolutely. There's no hope. And the reason that we have hope is because of the intervention of God, the intervention of God on this planet. That's why we have hope. First Peter chapter one, verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Wow. A living hope. Why is it living? It's as living as Jesus. It's a hope that is triumphant as Jesus at the resurrection. And what does the resurrection signify? The resurrection signifies the fact that the payment that Jesus made on the cross for sinners was accepted by God.

Imagine this, when God entered into the world, God in the flesh became a victim of cruelty and violence and lies and injustice. And there is no hope of making sense out of the world or believing that sense can be made out of the world unless we go to the cross and see there that Jesus himself became a victim of all the things that we read about in the newspapers. That the cross represents the love of God and the acceptance of God by those who believe in Jesus. In his book, The Silence of God, Sir Robert Anderson writes, but of all the questions which immediately concern us, there is not one which the cross of Christ has left unanswered. Men point to the sad incidents of human life on earth and they ask, where is the love of God? God points to that cross as the unreserved manifestation of love.

So inconceivably infinite as to answer every challenge and silence doubt forever. And that cross is not merely the public proof of what God has accomplished. It is the earnest of all that he has promised. The crowning mystery of God is Christ for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

And those hidden treasures are yet to be unfolded. It is the divine purpose to gather together all things in Christ. Now notice sin has broken the harmony of creation, but that harmony shall yet be restored by the supremacy of our now despised Lord. Where was your God when my son was killed? A woman said to her pastor in anger when her boy was run over by a truck.

He was in the same place where he was when his son was killed. The pastor said softly, God in Christ has suffered. And it's not just the resurrection of Jesus that gives us encouragement, triumphing over violence and death itself. It is also our own resurrection because because he lives, we shall live also.

What the cross reminds us of is one of the answers to what hope is. That it is possible for evil to become redemptive. It is possible for the violence that nailed Jesus to the cross.

It's not only possible, it's actual that the violence that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross turned out for our good and became a means of redemption, a means of a higher end. Well, you say, how does a massacre in a college do that? I don't have all the answers. I have some answers, but not all of them. And to people who grieve, we weep with those who weep and we don't come with a bag of answers in our back pocket as if we can read the divine print and the footnotes of God.

We can't. But we do have this, the assurance that at one time God took violence and used it for his purposes. And we have the deep settled assurance that in ways we may not understand in this life, God will take even the violence and the insanity of men today and use them also for some higher purpose. And that's why the first reason to hope is the word resurrection.

There's a second reason to hope, and that is today, you get them all with the word are, and that is the word rewards, the word rewards. Now let's pick up the text in verse four. To an inheritance, we have been born again. This is first Peter chapter one, verses three and four, born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to an inheritance that is, I love this, imperishable, can't be blown up by terrorists. Undefiled, we defile ourselves through sin. In heaven there is no sin.

That's why only holy people can go to heaven, those whom God makes holy through Jesus. And it is undefiled. It is unfading. It's not like those flowers that you gave your wife for her birthday last year. This is unfading.

It doesn't last just for a day or two. Our inheritance is fixed and unalterable. And your fingers on the text, isn't it? You'll notice it says kept there in verse four, kept in heaven. The word is guarded. It's guarded in heaven just for you. Do you realize that there is a place in heaven, a room that only you can enter and a crown that only you can wear if you're a believer? Did you know God is guarding it? Did you know that it is a place that is reserved in heaven for you? You say, well, isn't Jesus still working at it? Is it?

No, no, no. All the rooms are finished. It's all done. It's just waiting for your arrival. It is in heaven and it is kept for you and it is guarded by God. Heaven is the safest place in the universe. You don't think this world is safe? It's not, but I'll tell you when you get to heaven, it is safe. Now that's not all. All right. Look at what the text says.

This is enough to bless even somebody who's depressed this morning. You'll notice it says, and it's for those verse five who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation. Now I discovered that the word kept in verse four or guarded in verse four is a different Greek word than the word guarded in verse five. The word in verse five is a very strong word.

It was used for guarding a city. What he's saying is not only is our inheritance kept for us and guarded for us in heaven, he's saying that God is guarding you on earth so that you can't escape and lose your salvation. God is guarding you on earth and also protecting you so that your inheritance that is waiting for you, you're actually going to make it so that it is not only that the inheritance is up there for us guarded, but we are guarded to make sure that we get it. If we were not guarded by God, protected by him, let me tell you something. Satan would have us for lunch. He'd have us for lunch, but we're guarded by God. This morning we as elders were praying for a young woman for her health. We anointed her with oil, but we also prayed against some evil spirits that are troubling her. You know, there are people like that and they're not crazy.

They're not crazy. Satan wants to get us and harass us through temptation and through his wiles, but praise God, we are guarded all the way to the heavenly city. What are the three R's? First of all, resurrection. Secondly, rewards. They are reserved in heaven for us.

Is there anything more secure? No wonder the hope is called a living hope. And now, return. You'll notice it says that it is guarded for us in heaven, ready to be revealed in the last time. I take that to be the return of Jesus. Well, you say, well, Pastor Lutzer, when people die now, when Christians die, don't they go to heaven and already enter into their inheritance?

Yes, they do, but not completely. Those friends of yours that you buried, that husband, that wife, that child that is in heaven today does not yet have its complete resurrection body. It has an intermediate body that is able to function and the soul takes on the characteristics of the body, but it is not the final redemption. No special rewards have yet been given for faithfulness on earth because the judgment seat of Jesus Christ is still future. So what he's saying is that the full redemption will be revealed when Jesus comes at the last time.

This is Pastor Lutzer. Could I speak to you for a minute at the beginning of this brand new year? I think it would be very appropriate if we would take time to remind ourselves of the fact that this life is not all that there is. Nobody knows the future. God does, but we don't. We know that we're living at a time when there is a great deal of confusion, a great deal of deception.

We're living at a time when there is such deep antagonism. How do we navigate all that as we approach 365 days of the brand new year? Well, the answer is we always keep our mind and our heart on the hope that you've just heard about. Reminder of the fact that eternity is long, time is short, and no matter how difficult this life is, it will end and eternity will begin. And my friend, if you've never put your trust in Jesus Christ, today would be a wonderful day to do it. Of course, it's always a wonderful day whenever people do that.

But at the beginning of this year, let me ask you a question. Have you savingly believed on Christ? Is your hope in Him and in Him alone? I can assure you, and certainly history has proven, that the arm of flesh fails us.

We trust people. The Bible warns about putting faith in humanity because humanity is always failing, failing to keep its promises. Our hope has to be in something more secure. Admit your sinfulness, admit your need, and then come to Jesus Christ in faith and you'll receive the kind of hope that I spoke about in this message. Let me pray. Father, I ask right now that there might be many who are listening, who at the beginning of this brand new year might put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, bring about a sense of conviction, a sense of their great need, and I pray that even as they give themselves to you, it might be with anticipation that no matter what this year brings, you are with them. And in the end, there's the blessed hope.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Life can get pretty dark. War, economic stress, politics, all of these sap our sense of hope. We're learning about three keys to having hope, the promise of resurrection, the potential of rewards, and the certainty of Christ's return. Next time on Running to Win, more about the gift of hope. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.