Christian Hope
"There is one body and one Spirit--
just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—"
Ephesians 4:4
If you caught this past Friday’s episode of "The World and Everything In It," you heard John Stonestreet recount how Chuck Colson’s was absolutely convinced of the Resurrection of our Lord.
Chuck Colsen was one of the men involved in the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. Being arrested and jailed were integral in his becoming a Christian. He would eventually become an influential figure in evangelicalism in the late 80’s and 90’s.
But Colsen said that his experience in Watergate helped him to see how the bodily resurrection of our Lord is an undeniable fact of history. Colsen said that Watergate involved some of the most intelligent men in the world. The people who were trying to cover up the Watergate break in were no slouches. Besides brains, they had high level security access. They had power by which they could exert control over federal workers and documents.
But Colsen says, no matter how skilled these men were--no matter how influential they were, they could not keep the story from getting out. It was impossible to keep the lie going. The truth eventually came to light and Watergate, along with its cover-up, was busted wide open.
Colsen compares that incident to the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection was a fraud, just think how easily it would have been exposed. Watergate had some of the most savvy, powerful men in the world. The resurrection involved a bunch of uneducated fishermen; they were by no means capable of holding a scam of this proportion together. If it were a lie, it would have blown up on them in no time flat.
It is true. Many people would like to discount the Scriptural account of the resurrection of our Lord, but there is no possible way. The Scriptures set for the reality--the truth-- about the resurrection. The Son of God rose again and he lives today at the right hand of the Most High.
And by his resurrection he brings life and salvation to his people. The resurrection of our Lord tells us that there is a life to come for God’s people. In a word, the reality of the resurrection infuses us with hope. There is hope for a better life. There is hope for a future world. There is hope that we will be once and for all delivered from the sin and misery that currently fills the world in which we live.
Easter gives us hope.
What’s interesting is that we find this idea of hope in Ephesians 4. Paul speaking to the Ephesians about the nature of the church. And as he does so, he brings in the concept of hope. And what you find is that his ecclesiology is tied directly to his eschatology.
And this morning we want to celebrate Easter by thinking about this verse and what Paul says about the hope we as believers have. And there are three things that we can say about this hope based on Ephesians 4:4. The first of which is that our hope is a sure hope.
I. It is a sure hope
This passage says that you were “called to one hope that belongs to your call.” Hope, it says, belongs to your call. It is essential to your calling into the faith. You heard the gospel call, you heard that Jesus rose again, signifying that death was destroyed. Hope then is born out of that, especially as you are inwardly called by the Spirit.
And you need to understand that this is a particular kind of hope. This is a hope that is certain. This is a hope that is sure.
Biblical hope is a confident expectation about future realities. Because of this hope I can say with absolute assurance that my life will not end in death. I can say with 100% confidence that I will not suffer in the afterlife. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will enjoy eternal life in heaven. I have hope of eternal life because I know that when I die, I will not cease to exist; nor will I be condemned to hell.
That is the kind of hope that this is talking about. It is a sure hope.
This stands in contrast to the other kinds of hope that people might have. Many people have a false hope or a hope that is defined by wishful thinking.
A false hope is when someone puts their hope in a false Jesus. For instance, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, coequal and co-eternal with the Father, then you do not have a real, bona fide hope. Mormons think that they have hope, but they worship a false god and a false Christ. Therefore they do not have a sure hope that this passage speaks of. That Jesus cannot save. So, despite their confidence--despite all their feelings of hope, there’s no hope to be had.
But other people have a wishful thinking kind of hope. Their “hope” that things will work out for them when they die. But that’s just wishful thinking because it has no basis in the gospel.
You can ask people, “What will happen to you when you die?” And a lot of people will answer that in a very honest fashion. They will say, “I don’t know what will happen to me.” Or, they might say something like, “Well, I hope that God will accept me for the good things that I’ve done.”
This is not the kind of hope that is biblical hope. This is just wishful thinking. It is the kind of hope that we have when thinking about what we would like to get for Christmas. “I asked for a new bike, and I sure hope I get it.” That is not Biblical hope. You might not get a bike. There’s no guarantee that you will get that bike. When you open up your presents on Christmas morning, you might find that the only thing your parents got you were a couple pairs of underwear. So your hopes end up getting dashed to pieces.
What you had there wasn’t not biblical hope. That was more of a dream. It was a wish. It was expectation without any sort of confidence or assurance. You really didn’t have anything to back that hope.
And that’s what a lot of people have when it comes to the afterlife. Their hope is nothing more than wishful thinking. They may hope they get to enter heaven. They may hope that they get to live forever. They may hope that God will not hold them accountable for all their sins. But, in all reality, there’s nothing to back that hope. It is merely a pipe dream.
But for you and I who believe in Christ and hold to his resurrection, we have a different kind of hope. We have a biblical hope. Biblical hope is much different than wishful thinking. It is a sure and certain hope. The hope that we have is one that is not going to fail. For it is a hope that is grounded in the truth of the gospel: Jesus, as the Son of God, died and rose again. In his death he took the penalty for our sin. In his resurrection he gained the victory over the curse of death.
And God’s promise is that if you trust in Christ, not only will your guilt will be forgiven, but you will have eternal life. You will have the sure hope that the victory that Christ achieved over death will be yours as well.
It is not just a sure hope, it is a supernatural hope.
II. It is an supernatural hope
What do I mean when I say that it is a supernatural hope. I mean that everything about this hope has to do with God. It is supernatural in that it is given by God and focused on God.
Look at our passage again. Notice what it says about how we got this hope. It says we were called to it. This hope came as a direct result of God’s having called us.
Therefore we can say that this hope has a supernatural origin.
Don’t think that you gained this hope by your own power. You did not create this hope; neither did you come to somehow do something in order to achieve it. It came to you only because God, in his mercy, called you to himself.
You understand that all hope has its origin in something outside of us. I find this in the counseling room. People often need hope. They don’t think that their situation can change. They come in despairing because things seem so bad. And part of what I have to do is give them hope. I have to show them that God can restore any marriage. God is powerful enough to deliver anyone from any problem. And it sometimes takes a lot of convincing. But most of the time people can come to gain some hope.
But that hope didn’t come naturally to them. It wasn’t something that they could conjur up on their own. The hope that they received came from the Scriptures and from a lot of different things that I point to.
It is the same thing when it comes to eternal life and the hope we have for it. The only way you get it is by God. The Lord brings the gospel to you. He makes you hear about how Jesus takes the curse of death away. Then he works inwardly to convince you of that truth. As he calls you the Holy Spirit comes down and exerts his power upon you. He convinces you that Jesus brought about this victory; he brings the strong conviction that Jesus has broken the curse of sin. And in so doing he infuses us with hope for what is to come.
That’s why this is supernatural. It’s a gift. It is a gift that only God can give.
But its not just supernatural in terms of its origin, it’s also supernatural in terms of its object.
Ask yourself this: What is it that you hope to obtain? For what do you hope?
We’ve said a few moments ago that we have hope of eternal life. We have a hope of heaven. And we can say many other things like that. We can say that we hope for beauty. We hope for comfort. We hope for happiness and joy. We have hope for a world without sorrow, sadness, or shame.
There is no doubt that those are all very nice things. Those are great things to anticipate. But you need to understand those are not the true objects of our hope. A Christian's hope is much greater than a really long life. My hope is not just that I get a nice place to stay for all of eternity.
The true object of my hope is God. It’s that I get to be in heaven for all eternity with God. My hope is in the fact that I will no longer be alienated from the God who created me and redeemed me. I will have unbroken, enduring fellowship with my Savior.
You know there are a lot of people who want to go to heaven, but they just want to go there because they are selfish and greedy. It is a really nice vacation. They don’t really have any care about God. They don’t even care if the Lord is there. They may even prefer that he isn’t there. They want to go to heaven because it is a lot better than being in hell.
Listen to what the Psalmist says: “Whom have I in heaven but you; and there is none upon earth that I desire besides you.”
The Christian knows that heaven would be an empty place if the Lord were not there.
So you understand that true Christian hope is supernatural. For it has God as its origin and God as its object.
There’s one more thing we can say about the hope we have. The hope we have is not just a sure hope and a supernatural hope. It is also a shared hope.
III. It is a shared hope
Notice what Paul says again. We are called to one hope.
Here in this context Paul is talking about our unity as a congregation. He’s pointing out that we should be a people who are getting along. We shouldn’t be putting up walls when it comes to our fellowship together. He’s talking about how these Jews and Gentiles in Ephesus should be able to pray with one another, worship with one another. They should be able to hang out together and share meals together. Real fellowship should exist between them and no one should let anything stand between them.
And one of the reasons why we should be able to get along is because we have a shared hope. There’s one hope.
When Jesus died, he didn’t die to make some of us have a better hope than others.
It’s not like going to a professional baseball game where you have different seating. If you are just an average Joe, you might pay 25 dollars to get into the game. But you end up sitting in the upper deck out all the way out in right field. You look out and you can barely see the baseball because you are so far away.
But if you are a little better off, you can pay $50-70 and you can get a seat right behind third base. You feel like you are right there on field. You have a pretty good view of the players and there’s even a good chance you might get a foul ball come your way. You might get to go home with a souvenir baseball.
But if you are really loaded, you can pay a couple hundred dollars and get one of those posh boxes that the rich people get to enjoy. I’ve had some friends who have had connections and have been invited to these things. They are like luxury hotel rooms right there at the baseball field. One of my friends talked about how there was a whole a buffet of food, an assortment of drinks, and there are really comfortable chairs you get to sit in. There’s none of these hard stadium seats. There’s even a TV - you can watch the game on the TV while at the game. It sounds pretty amazing.
Heaven is not like that. There’s no elite seating in heaven. When you get to heaven it’s not like there is going to be a place where all the really good Christians go and the sorta average Christians get to behold Jesus from afar. There’s not a Jewish section where you get all kinds of amenities and a Gentile section where you’re lucky just to have soft toilet paper.
We all have the same hope in that we all will have a share in its blessings equally. There may be some people who savor those blessings more. Maybe, because of their capacity of grace, they are able to enjoy the blessings of heaven in fuller way. But the blessings themselves are all the same. We all get to be with the Lord. We all get to bask in the realities of his grace. We all get to sing in the same choir. We are all going to walk the same streets.
There have been a number of times in my life where I have had some real problems with other Christian people; specifically people with whom I went to church. And I have been tempted to be bitter about how they have handled certain things.
And I know there have been times when I haven’t handled things right either. I’ve sinned against people. And in each case I’ve been tempted to just shut things off. I could have just walked away.
But I’ve been held back by one thought. I have been forced to claim responsibility, work things out, and talk with that person because of this one truth: Someday I am going to spend eternity with this person. I will likely have to stand next to this guy in heaven. Perhaps I'll cross paths with him on the streets of gold.
I know there will not be anything awkward in heaven, but imagine how awkward that would be! Here is a person who I am to have union with in the age to come. Should that reality not have a retro active effect that causes me to do my best to keep fellowship with him in this present world?
And that is what Paul is talking about. We all have the same hope in that we will enter into the future world. There we will share in living out our lives for all eternity. And since we have this same hope, we ought to be zealous to protect the relationships we currently have in the church.
Conclusion:
Dear friends, Isn’t it wonderful how our ecclesiology is tied to our eschatology? Our actions in the church are directly tied to the sure realities that are laid up for us in the future world.
Someday we will meet the risen Lord. Our hopes will be fulfilled because we will have opportunity to see him who triumphed over death and hell.
Right now we have the sure guarantee now that we will be with him forever. He has given us hope because he has called us into the hope that belongs to our calling. And may we all stand united in our fellowship; may the reality of that great harmony and fellowship that awaits us bring us into greater fellowship with one another.
Chuck Colsen was one of the men involved in the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. Being arrested and jailed were integral in his becoming a Christian. He would eventually become an influential figure in evangelicalism in the late 80’s and 90’s.
But Colsen said that his experience in Watergate helped him to see how the bodily resurrection of our Lord is an undeniable fact of history. Colsen said that Watergate involved some of the most intelligent men in the world. The people who were trying to cover up the Watergate break in were no slouches. Besides brains, they had high level security access. They had power by which they could exert control over federal workers and documents.
But Colsen says, no matter how skilled these men were--no matter how influential they were, they could not keep the story from getting out. It was impossible to keep the lie going. The truth eventually came to light and Watergate, along with its cover-up, was busted wide open.
Colsen compares that incident to the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection was a fraud, just think how easily it would have been exposed. Watergate had some of the most savvy, powerful men in the world. The resurrection involved a bunch of uneducated fishermen; they were by no means capable of holding a scam of this proportion together. If it were a lie, it would have blown up on them in no time flat.
It is true. Many people would like to discount the Scriptural account of the resurrection of our Lord, but there is no possible way. The Scriptures set for the reality--the truth-- about the resurrection. The Son of God rose again and he lives today at the right hand of the Most High.
And by his resurrection he brings life and salvation to his people. The resurrection of our Lord tells us that there is a life to come for God’s people. In a word, the reality of the resurrection infuses us with hope. There is hope for a better life. There is hope for a future world. There is hope that we will be once and for all delivered from the sin and misery that currently fills the world in which we live.
Easter gives us hope.
What’s interesting is that we find this idea of hope in Ephesians 4. Paul speaking to the Ephesians about the nature of the church. And as he does so, he brings in the concept of hope. And what you find is that his ecclesiology is tied directly to his eschatology.
And this morning we want to celebrate Easter by thinking about this verse and what Paul says about the hope we as believers have. And there are three things that we can say about this hope based on Ephesians 4:4. The first of which is that our hope is a sure hope.
I. It is a sure hope
This passage says that you were “called to one hope that belongs to your call.” Hope, it says, belongs to your call. It is essential to your calling into the faith. You heard the gospel call, you heard that Jesus rose again, signifying that death was destroyed. Hope then is born out of that, especially as you are inwardly called by the Spirit.
And you need to understand that this is a particular kind of hope. This is a hope that is certain. This is a hope that is sure.
Biblical hope is a confident expectation about future realities. Because of this hope I can say with absolute assurance that my life will not end in death. I can say with 100% confidence that I will not suffer in the afterlife. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will enjoy eternal life in heaven. I have hope of eternal life because I know that when I die, I will not cease to exist; nor will I be condemned to hell.
That is the kind of hope that this is talking about. It is a sure hope.
This stands in contrast to the other kinds of hope that people might have. Many people have a false hope or a hope that is defined by wishful thinking.
A false hope is when someone puts their hope in a false Jesus. For instance, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, coequal and co-eternal with the Father, then you do not have a real, bona fide hope. Mormons think that they have hope, but they worship a false god and a false Christ. Therefore they do not have a sure hope that this passage speaks of. That Jesus cannot save. So, despite their confidence--despite all their feelings of hope, there’s no hope to be had.
But other people have a wishful thinking kind of hope. Their “hope” that things will work out for them when they die. But that’s just wishful thinking because it has no basis in the gospel.
You can ask people, “What will happen to you when you die?” And a lot of people will answer that in a very honest fashion. They will say, “I don’t know what will happen to me.” Or, they might say something like, “Well, I hope that God will accept me for the good things that I’ve done.”
This is not the kind of hope that is biblical hope. This is just wishful thinking. It is the kind of hope that we have when thinking about what we would like to get for Christmas. “I asked for a new bike, and I sure hope I get it.” That is not Biblical hope. You might not get a bike. There’s no guarantee that you will get that bike. When you open up your presents on Christmas morning, you might find that the only thing your parents got you were a couple pairs of underwear. So your hopes end up getting dashed to pieces.
What you had there wasn’t not biblical hope. That was more of a dream. It was a wish. It was expectation without any sort of confidence or assurance. You really didn’t have anything to back that hope.
And that’s what a lot of people have when it comes to the afterlife. Their hope is nothing more than wishful thinking. They may hope they get to enter heaven. They may hope that they get to live forever. They may hope that God will not hold them accountable for all their sins. But, in all reality, there’s nothing to back that hope. It is merely a pipe dream.
But for you and I who believe in Christ and hold to his resurrection, we have a different kind of hope. We have a biblical hope. Biblical hope is much different than wishful thinking. It is a sure and certain hope. The hope that we have is one that is not going to fail. For it is a hope that is grounded in the truth of the gospel: Jesus, as the Son of God, died and rose again. In his death he took the penalty for our sin. In his resurrection he gained the victory over the curse of death.
And God’s promise is that if you trust in Christ, not only will your guilt will be forgiven, but you will have eternal life. You will have the sure hope that the victory that Christ achieved over death will be yours as well.
It is not just a sure hope, it is a supernatural hope.
II. It is an supernatural hope
What do I mean when I say that it is a supernatural hope. I mean that everything about this hope has to do with God. It is supernatural in that it is given by God and focused on God.
Look at our passage again. Notice what it says about how we got this hope. It says we were called to it. This hope came as a direct result of God’s having called us.
Therefore we can say that this hope has a supernatural origin.
Don’t think that you gained this hope by your own power. You did not create this hope; neither did you come to somehow do something in order to achieve it. It came to you only because God, in his mercy, called you to himself.
You understand that all hope has its origin in something outside of us. I find this in the counseling room. People often need hope. They don’t think that their situation can change. They come in despairing because things seem so bad. And part of what I have to do is give them hope. I have to show them that God can restore any marriage. God is powerful enough to deliver anyone from any problem. And it sometimes takes a lot of convincing. But most of the time people can come to gain some hope.
But that hope didn’t come naturally to them. It wasn’t something that they could conjur up on their own. The hope that they received came from the Scriptures and from a lot of different things that I point to.
It is the same thing when it comes to eternal life and the hope we have for it. The only way you get it is by God. The Lord brings the gospel to you. He makes you hear about how Jesus takes the curse of death away. Then he works inwardly to convince you of that truth. As he calls you the Holy Spirit comes down and exerts his power upon you. He convinces you that Jesus brought about this victory; he brings the strong conviction that Jesus has broken the curse of sin. And in so doing he infuses us with hope for what is to come.
That’s why this is supernatural. It’s a gift. It is a gift that only God can give.
But its not just supernatural in terms of its origin, it’s also supernatural in terms of its object.
Ask yourself this: What is it that you hope to obtain? For what do you hope?
We’ve said a few moments ago that we have hope of eternal life. We have a hope of heaven. And we can say many other things like that. We can say that we hope for beauty. We hope for comfort. We hope for happiness and joy. We have hope for a world without sorrow, sadness, or shame.
There is no doubt that those are all very nice things. Those are great things to anticipate. But you need to understand those are not the true objects of our hope. A Christian's hope is much greater than a really long life. My hope is not just that I get a nice place to stay for all of eternity.
The true object of my hope is God. It’s that I get to be in heaven for all eternity with God. My hope is in the fact that I will no longer be alienated from the God who created me and redeemed me. I will have unbroken, enduring fellowship with my Savior.
You know there are a lot of people who want to go to heaven, but they just want to go there because they are selfish and greedy. It is a really nice vacation. They don’t really have any care about God. They don’t even care if the Lord is there. They may even prefer that he isn’t there. They want to go to heaven because it is a lot better than being in hell.
Listen to what the Psalmist says: “Whom have I in heaven but you; and there is none upon earth that I desire besides you.”
The Christian knows that heaven would be an empty place if the Lord were not there.
So you understand that true Christian hope is supernatural. For it has God as its origin and God as its object.
There’s one more thing we can say about the hope we have. The hope we have is not just a sure hope and a supernatural hope. It is also a shared hope.
III. It is a shared hope
Notice what Paul says again. We are called to one hope.
Here in this context Paul is talking about our unity as a congregation. He’s pointing out that we should be a people who are getting along. We shouldn’t be putting up walls when it comes to our fellowship together. He’s talking about how these Jews and Gentiles in Ephesus should be able to pray with one another, worship with one another. They should be able to hang out together and share meals together. Real fellowship should exist between them and no one should let anything stand between them.
And one of the reasons why we should be able to get along is because we have a shared hope. There’s one hope.
When Jesus died, he didn’t die to make some of us have a better hope than others.
It’s not like going to a professional baseball game where you have different seating. If you are just an average Joe, you might pay 25 dollars to get into the game. But you end up sitting in the upper deck out all the way out in right field. You look out and you can barely see the baseball because you are so far away.
But if you are a little better off, you can pay $50-70 and you can get a seat right behind third base. You feel like you are right there on field. You have a pretty good view of the players and there’s even a good chance you might get a foul ball come your way. You might get to go home with a souvenir baseball.
But if you are really loaded, you can pay a couple hundred dollars and get one of those posh boxes that the rich people get to enjoy. I’ve had some friends who have had connections and have been invited to these things. They are like luxury hotel rooms right there at the baseball field. One of my friends talked about how there was a whole a buffet of food, an assortment of drinks, and there are really comfortable chairs you get to sit in. There’s none of these hard stadium seats. There’s even a TV - you can watch the game on the TV while at the game. It sounds pretty amazing.
Heaven is not like that. There’s no elite seating in heaven. When you get to heaven it’s not like there is going to be a place where all the really good Christians go and the sorta average Christians get to behold Jesus from afar. There’s not a Jewish section where you get all kinds of amenities and a Gentile section where you’re lucky just to have soft toilet paper.
We all have the same hope in that we all will have a share in its blessings equally. There may be some people who savor those blessings more. Maybe, because of their capacity of grace, they are able to enjoy the blessings of heaven in fuller way. But the blessings themselves are all the same. We all get to be with the Lord. We all get to bask in the realities of his grace. We all get to sing in the same choir. We are all going to walk the same streets.
There have been a number of times in my life where I have had some real problems with other Christian people; specifically people with whom I went to church. And I have been tempted to be bitter about how they have handled certain things.
And I know there have been times when I haven’t handled things right either. I’ve sinned against people. And in each case I’ve been tempted to just shut things off. I could have just walked away.
But I’ve been held back by one thought. I have been forced to claim responsibility, work things out, and talk with that person because of this one truth: Someday I am going to spend eternity with this person. I will likely have to stand next to this guy in heaven. Perhaps I'll cross paths with him on the streets of gold.
I know there will not be anything awkward in heaven, but imagine how awkward that would be! Here is a person who I am to have union with in the age to come. Should that reality not have a retro active effect that causes me to do my best to keep fellowship with him in this present world?
And that is what Paul is talking about. We all have the same hope in that we will enter into the future world. There we will share in living out our lives for all eternity. And since we have this same hope, we ought to be zealous to protect the relationships we currently have in the church.
Conclusion:
Dear friends, Isn’t it wonderful how our ecclesiology is tied to our eschatology? Our actions in the church are directly tied to the sure realities that are laid up for us in the future world.
Someday we will meet the risen Lord. Our hopes will be fulfilled because we will have opportunity to see him who triumphed over death and hell.
Right now we have the sure guarantee now that we will be with him forever. He has given us hope because he has called us into the hope that belongs to our calling. And may we all stand united in our fellowship; may the reality of that great harmony and fellowship that awaits us bring us into greater fellowship with one another.