In This Hope We Are Saved

In the 14 years or so we've been conducting services down at the Bancroft Convalescent Home I can't remember a time when the Spirit of God was shining on the faces of the people the way it was this past Wednesday.

The room was filled with souls who had long since been bypassed by the mainstream of life in this city. Women without legs.

Men with palsy.

Folks with twisted minds.

There was a relatively young man there who had been crippled by a stroke and could hardly enunciate words and he prayed at the top of his lungs, “God bless my wife and six kids.”

As we sang Amazing Grace there wasn’t a mouth in that room that wasn’t wide open.

I heard voices that I had never heard before.

And they sang with such joy it just made you want to weep.

With their natural eye, all they could see was confusion and loneliness and chaos, but somehow by the grace of God's Spirit, these forgotten souls were able to penetrate through into the realm of the unseen and take hold of the coming glory.

And as they sang God's praises Wednesday afternoon,

they were no longer in the stuffy,

confused,

noisy,

chaotic warehouse for broken bodies and shattered minds.

They were standing on the banks of the Jordan looking across to the Promise Land which they knew was there.

They were crowded at the doorway of God's banquet.

And they were looking into the future where they could see…

the woman with no legs leaping for joy in a glorified body and

the man who could no longer support his wife and six children standing once more

with transfigured arms raised toward the throne and

little lady who won't let anybody touch her running around hugging everybody and

the man who never smiled beaming with the smile of the Son of God.

For a few minutes Wednesday afternoon these people were permitted to see beyond

this valley of pain to the high plateau of glory toward which they knew they were going.

They were lifted up out of themselves by hope.

They were having renewed to them the only vision in this world that makes life worth living; the vision of the New Creation…that sweet and blessed country toward which these people are moving through every weary day.

Don't pity these people. These people know something that many of us have yet to learn –

that this world has been subjected to futility by God and

that everything in this world is vanity and

that if we sink our hearts into anything this side of heaven,

sooner or later they are going to be broken and undone.

These people know.

They’ve learned already a lesson that many of us have not yet learned –

that in order to pass through this world without losing the Blood Bought Joys of the next..

we not only have to have faith and

we not only have to have love

we also have to have hope.

Without God-given, God-inspired hope

that reaches out and takes hold of the Coming Glory

that sees the City of God far off and settles for nothing less and

that keeps going no matter what----

---without that hope,

we are forever being distracted by joys that burn right out as soon as we get them in our hands or we’re for ever being defeated by despair.

Look at all the wrecks that are strewn along the road that leads to the City of God and ask yourself,

“What made them turn aside?”

“What caused them to give up?”

“Why did so many of them just plain lie down and die?”

The reason is that they let go of the hope that was planted in their hearts when God called them to follow his Son.

They turned aside from that blessed hope that God gave them and began taking hold of lies which seemed closer,

more attainable,

and more real.

The hope of glory is burning in every star.

Glistening in every drop water.

Whispering through every blade of grass.

Thundering in every ocean wave.

There is not a living creature, not even a stone,

that doesn't already have throbbing in itself the knowledge that the best that we now see is nothing but a shadow of the glory which is waiting for those

who are ready and

who are waiting and

who have their eyes set and their hearts fixed.

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God;

for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him

who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its

bondage to decay to obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know

the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; not only the

creation, but we ourselves, who had the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly

as we wait for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this

hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for

what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Romans 8: 19-25

Now we wouldn't be stumbling into the errors,

and the vanities,

and the sins,

and the slavery that we get ourselves into

and that beset us all the time, if we would obey our God's command

not only to have faith, and not only to love, but also to hope.

“Why art thou cast down, oh my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance

and my God.” Psalm 42: 5

The hope that we’re talking about is

not wishful thinking,

not self-deception,

not some little game that we keep playing with our minds to keep them from falling apart.

The hope that we’re talking about originates not with man, but with God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope…”

So that when God subjected this sin-stained corner of his universe to futility,

when God permitted man to reap the consequences of his rebellion

and the universe with him, he did it in hope.

He did it knowing that out of the ashes of this ruined world would rise a new creation bought by the blood of the lamb.

And when it says that God hopes, it doesn't mean that he bit his nails, and paced the floor,

and wished.

It means that God knew things would look bad now, but that there will be an end to this valley of shadows.

“Out of this darkness I will bring forth light.

Out of this race of rebels I'll bring forth a race of sons.

It will be.

I will bring it to pass”, says the Lord.

When a man or woman is born of God he is saved in that hope.

He reaches out and takes hold of a reality which he cannot see,

but which he knows is there better than he knows his own name.

By faith he takes hold of a day still to come:

when the mourners will be comforted,

and the meek shall inherit the earth,

and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled,

and the merciful shall obtain mercy,

and those who are pure in heart shall see God,

and the peacemakers shall be called the children of God.

(We taste these blessings now, but soon they will be ours in fullness forever.)

He reaches out with his heart, with his hope, and takes hold of that hour when the Lamb of God, who has already taken away the sins of the world, will come back from the Fathers throne

and judge the nations,

and destroy every lie and the fruit of every lie,

and will raise his beloved ones out of their graves and out of their corruptible bodies into incorruptible glory,

and then he will take the creation itself out of its bondage to decay into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God.

When we say we have that hope, it doesn't mean that we wish, it means that we know. Therefore we anchor our lives in this hope….

We live and die for the hope of coming glory,

If we live and die for the hope of the coming glory, how in the world can we let ourselves be caught up and dragged down into the temporal, passing, superficial goodies of this world and all those lies that Satan keeps jingling and jangling off to the side to distract us?

“Why art thou cast down, oh my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.

To hope in God means three things:

1. To “hope in God” means to take hold of God's future, not my future.

My future is a dream that can be smashed in a minute.

It can be snuffed out with an accident, a war,

an earthquake, or even one false step at the wrong time.

But God's future - the thing God promises, the kingdom, which God reveals - that thing is solid.

- If God says that Jerusalem will be trodden down to the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, that's what's going to be.

- And if God promises that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled,

if he promises us that there is coming a day when every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus, so it will be.

- If he offers a kingdom to those who trust him and obey him, that's what will be.

As we reach out and take hold of those promises with our hearts,

with the hope which God has put in us,

a stream of blazing light flows back from the coming glory and fills the present moment with eternity. And the blind receive their sight.

And the lame walk.

And the lepers are cleansed.

And the deaf hear.

If we take hold of that glory, by hope,

then the signs of God's kingdom come back from that glory into this moment

and touch our lives, so that the alcoholic among us today quits drinking.

And if we take hold of that hope, the addict is set free.

and the troubled conscience is given peace.

All we have to do is take hold of that hope now and we change now.

2. To “hope in God”, means to let go of the visible.

“For who hopes for what he sees.”

If you can see it with your natural eye: whether it's a Cadillac, or a mansion, or new career, it's not worth pouring out your life to get it. It’s not worth hoping for.

And so we deliberately begin to let go, with our hearts,

of all those vanities that we've been holding onto and

reaching out for

and thereby make room for hope in God to vastly expand within us.

Our Lord tells us the same thing:

“Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.” Matthew 6:19

That which is visible - is temporal. It’s going to pass away.

Only that which is unseen - is eternal, and will remain.

And so we deliberately discipline ourselves to let go, with our hearts, of the things that we can grab hold of and see.

And as we do, the things, which are unseen and eternal, are going to come rushing in

and fill us

and change us.

3. To “hope in God” means that we wait for that thing we’re hoping for with patience.

He says, “If we hope for we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Patience that never gives up.

Patience that gets up every morning and glorifies God

for his wonderful promises, no matter what we see.

Patience that keeps fighting its way right through the lines of the enemy to God.

Patience that keeps moving toward that glorious City of God, no matter how rough it gets.

And we can be patient.

And we can wait with patience, because we know that what we’re waiting for

is in no way tied to the things that are visible.

So that no matter what the visible tells us,

even if everything we can see and,

touch and,

hear and,

feel screams at us that there is no use - we still wait.

Because our hearts are fixed on the unseen.

Because we know that there is a day coming soon,

when the light, which already shines in our hearts by the Spirit, will be blazing around us.

And those things, which always seem so solid, will be gone.

Vanished as in a dream.

And the unseen glory of the unseen God, will break forth as the dawn of a day that will never end.

God grant that we may be found worthy by the blood of his Son to enter into that day and may he keep us in this hope until it comes.