A New Expectation: The Believers’ Living Hope
A New Expectation: The Believers’ Living Hope
Three New Testament epistles open with “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 1:3 looks back and praises God because He has blessed His people with every spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 1:3 praises God for the present encouragement He gives us when things are difficult. First Peter 1:3 focuses on the future and praises the Father because “he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” No Christian believer need fear death or the future because Jesus is alive and has given us a “living hope.”
Peter enjoys using the word living. Along with the “living hope,” he reminds us that the Scriptures are “living and enduring” (1 Pet. 1:23) and that Jesus is the “living Stone” (2:4), while believers are “living stones” (v. 5). A “living hope” is one that does not die because it’s rooted in the eternal. Aristotle defined hope as “a walking dream,” and many popular hopes have turned into nightmares. Psychiatrist Karl Menninger said that hope is “an adventure, a going forward—a confident search for a rewarding life.” Some hopes are froth and bubble, but when God makes a promise, you can be sure He will fulfill it. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20).
As you read and ponder John 11, notice closely our Lord’s words and actions. When He received the message that Lazarus was sick, He sent the messenger back with a somewhat cryptic message: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (v. 4). The messenger faithfully delivered the message (vv. 38–40), but it didn’t seem to encourage the sisters. If all Jesus was concerned about was the health of Lazarus and the sorrow of the two sisters, He could have healed Lazarus from a distance, just as He did the royal official’s sick son (4:46–54) and the Roman centurion’s beloved servant (Luke 7:1–10). But He wanted everyone to know that the Father gave Him permission to perform the miracle so that both the Father and the Son would be glorified and people would put their faith in Him.
Jesus sought to comfort Mary and Martha with His words, and when He came to the burial place, He wept. He knew that in a few minutes Lazarus would live again, so His tears were not for him. He wept because He beheld the pain and sorrow that sin had brought into the world, and perhaps because He knew He was calling Lazarus from a place of perfect joy to a world filled with misery. Had Mary and Martha understood and believed our Lord’s message, they would have been at peace and quietly waited for Jesus to arrive at Bethany.
Jesus has promised His people, “I will come again” (John 14:3 NASB). Paul called this “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:11–14). Because Jesus is “the resurrection and the life,” believers have the expectation of seeing Him, being like Him, and living with Him forever. Because Jesus is alive, this promise is a “living hope” that grows stronger and stronger in the hearts of His people. Yes, for centuries the church has been waiting and watching for His return, and there were many times when Christians forgot the promise and went to sleep. Peter tells us that this so-called delay gives the church more time to witness and unbelievers more opportunity to repent and be saved (2 Pet. 3:1–10).
Believers who watch for His appearing (Matt. 25:13) will be ready when He comes, but careless Christians will be caught unprepared. Every chapter in 1 Thessalonians ends with a reference to the return of Jesus Christ and the difference this “blessed hope” should make in our lives:
I recall hearing the president of a Christian university tell about a young man who was a gifted evangelist as well as a good student, and he invested his weekends preaching the gospel in churches within driving distance of the campus. He had built up a reputation that glorified the Lord, and then something happened. He began to cut back on his preaching and even his class work, and his grades began to decline. The president called him in, hoping to determine the cause of these changes, and the boy finally confessed. He had become engaged to a wonderful Christian girl and in his heart had begun to hope that Jesus would delay His return. He wanted to get married and enjoy traveling and ministering together with his sweetheart. Once that matter was settled between him and his Lord, his joy returned, his class work improved, and the power returned to his ministry.
A dear friend, now in heaven, often phoned my wife and me to chat and share prayer requests, and she ended every conversation with, “Keep looking up! It may be today!” When the “living hope” becomes a dead doctrine in the creed, our work and our witness for the Lord will gradually lose their joy and power. Please don’t try to prove me wrong—it will cost you too much! The last promise in the Bible is, “I am coming soon.” And the last prayer is, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
The apostle Paul called death “the last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26), and it is an enemy when it attacks those without faith in Christ. To the believer, death is sleep (1 Thess. 4:14; John 11:11), but keep in mind that this applies to the body and not the soul and spirit. Paul also used the word departure (Phil. 1:23; 2 Tim. 4:6), which in the Greek language is a rich metaphor. To the soldiers, it meant taking down the tent and moving on (2 Cor. 5:1–8), and to the sailors it meant loosening the ropes and setting sail. Farmers used the word to describe removing the yokes from the oxen, and we rejoice that the dead in Christ rest from their labors (Rev. 14:13). Peter used the word exodus (“departure” in most English translations) to describe his approaching death (2 Pet. 1:15), and Luke 9:31 uses it to describe our Lord’s death on the cross. Jesus compared His own death to the planting of a seed that brings forth fruit (John 12:20–28), and Paul used the same image in 1 Corinthians 15:35–49. Psalm 23 describes the death of a Christian believer as walking safely through a valley, entering the Father’s house, and living with Him forever.
In spite of the accounts we read about the near-death experiences of unsaved people seeing a bright light and losing all fear, to the unsaved person death is “the king of terrors” (Job 18:14). I recommend you read all of Job 18 and take it to heart. The resurrection of Jesus Christ declares that He is not only the Savior but also the Judge. “For he [God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).
We live in a world that denies the reality of death. People don’t die; they are “deceased,” or perhaps have “passed away” or “left us.” They are not buried but “laid to rest” or “interred.” But a change in vocabulary does not alter reality: people die! Hebrews 9:27 tells us that “people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” But the person who trusts Jesus Christ “has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). Resurrection!
Christians possessed by the “living hope” will experience “hopeful living,” and this hope will give them the faith and strength they need to fight the battles, carry the burdens, and keep going when life is hard. Even more, hope motivates them to encourage others and help to carry their burdens. No matter how difficult life may be, they know that Jesus has conquered the last enemy, death (Heb. 2:9–15), and that death has no dominion over them (1 Cor. 15:50–58). My friend Joe Bayly, now in heaven, wrote, “Death is the great adventure, beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance.”
This is because Jesus Christ is to His people “the resurrection and the life.” Let’s not have the “Martha mentality” and see resurrection only as a doctrine in the creed or a future event on God’s calendar, for the power of Christ’s resurrection is ours to experience today, as in Jesus Christ we “live a new life” (Rom. 6:4).