Pastor’s Corner May 2006

The following was published in our monthly newsletter, the Redeemer Report.

A Living Hope- The Resurrected Christ

“… according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. 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” -1 Peter 1:2-3

Hopelessness is epidemic in our day. Christ’s resurrection and His living reign are just the message this world needs. The Church must capture the glory of the resurrection afresh and be diligent to proclaim it from the rooftops.

Without hope, there is despair, depression, anxiety, and even death. It has been rightly said- A man can live about 40 days without food, about three days without water, and about eight minutes without air- but only one second without Hope. Concerning this subject, Dostoyevsky noted astutely, “ Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.”

Surely there is someone reading who has experienced the loss of hope or is in the midst of hopelessness. In the above referenced passage, Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has a crucial message for you! Peter was writing to people who could have easily succumbed to hopelessness. First century Christians risked their lives confessing loyalty to Jesus. Persecuted and beleaguered, surely they were regularly tempted to lose hope. In the face of this real situation, Peter confirms those who are in relationship with the risen Savior have real hope- a living hope. No matter what trial or uncertainty you are facing- in Jesus Christ, you can confidently possess genuine hope. Unlike all other “hopes”, which are intrinsically lifeless, you have a living hope. Jesus is our hope, and He is alive! We have a living hope! These two simple verses provide the root and substance of our hope.

The root of our hope is the mercy and grace of God. Our security comes from the joint action of the Trinity to chose us for salvation, make payment for salvation, and secure our salvation. The accompanying benefit to this salvation is to have real, genuine hope. We must not forget what fuels all of this is the mercy and grace of God. Because God has mercy on us we are born in to this new hope. Bernard of Clairvoux said it well, “Great sins and great miseries need great mercy, and many sins and miseries need many mercies.” And is it not a great mercy that the children of Satan become the children of the Most High God?

The substance of our hope is the Lord Jesus and His resurrection. The proof of God’s mercy is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. Can you see how this inspires real hope? Our hope is not in one who is sinful and broken like we are. Our hope is not dependent on one who is weak like we are. Our hope is not dependent on the teaching of some dead person. Very candidly- Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, and all the other founders of various religions are dead and can give no reliable advice on how to avoid their fate. Our hope is fixed squarely on the living person of Jesus Christ and His personal defeat of death. That’s a living hope!

Hopelessness is epidemic in our times, this much is sure. We, who are united to Christ by grace through faith, have the living answer to this hopelessness. We must be bolder in proclaiming the truth to the world- there is no hope apart from a relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is our living hope! The pursuit of hope in any other way is more futile than a dog incessantly chasing its tail; we owe it to our fellow man to tell them so.

In the Lamb,
Pastor Tony Felich