What would the average person on the street say if you asked them, "What is your hope?" What about your friends, your kids, or the people you work with? What about you? What do you hope for?
Hope for a young person might be getting an iPhone, a car of their own, a boyfriend or girlfriend. Hope for a young adult might be going to college, getting a decent job, becoming debt free. Hope for a young family might be getting a home, having healthcare, living in a safe neighborhood, having a strong marriage.
Hope for an older adult might be to stay healthy, save enough $$ for retirement.
Of course, some types of hope are universal. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback, author of Purpose-Driven Life, is dedicating the next season of his life to the P.E.A.C.E. plan. In his own words, the PEACE Plan is:
"a hopeful response to the five giant problems in the world: Spiritual Emptiness, Self-Serving, Leadership, Poverty, Disease, and Illiteracy. PEACE is a movement to mobilize Christians in churches working together to... Plant churches that promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, and Educate the next generation."
Hey, I'm a fan of Rick Warren. He is an incredible, visionary, transformative leader. We human beings don't function very well without hope. There is no question that to some extent, we are to bring these kinds of hopes to our world. 1 Peter 4:9 says were to, "Love one another earnestly. Love covers over a multitude of sin." 1 Peter 4:10 says were to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." 1 Peter 3:8-17 speaks of the power of good to drive out evil.
On September 21, we've invited a great lineup of speakers to Lakeside who are in the trenches doing extraordinary good . . . bringing hope to under-resourced schools, young coffee drinkers, families in poverty, people in crisis, professionals in the inner city of St. Louis, single moms, politicians, athletes, economically devastated communities.
If you take a person's hope away, they become less than human. They get desperate. They grow angry, resentful, violent, carnal, lawless. This is what we are seeing right now in our culture. Without hope, people turn to sin, looking to right wrongs, correct injustices, get their own slice of pie, or coerce benefits for themselves at expense of others. Hope is the great stabilizer of societies.
But not all hopes are equal. There are two types of hope--there is living hope, and there is dying hope. A dying hope is something that isn't sustainable in this life.
You might get a job, but jobs end.
You might get healthy, but our bodies are wasting away.
You might educate yourself or others, but future generations forget.
You might get the American Dream, only to have it snatched away.
You might find the man or woman of your dreams, but there are no guarantees you'll grow old together.
You might cure one disease, only to succumb to another.
You might feed a person today, but tomorrow their hungry again.
You might drive out one evil dictator, but another rises in his place.
You might get that gadget/gizmo, toy/tool, car/home, but all are subject to decay.
These are "Dying Hopes." A dying hope may better your life, or better society, but it cannot save your soul. A dying hope can provide relief, comfort, or happiness for a time, but ultimately dying hopes fail us . . . leaving us disillusioned, disappointed, dissatisfied, longing for the eternal.
Many Christian preachers have supplanted living hope (the hope of the gospel) with "Dying Hopes"... "Social Hopes" ... "Political Hopes" ... "Humanistic Hopes." It's quite possible that you have anchored your life, not to a living hope, but to a dying hope, to a kind of pseudo gospel. So I want to take a few moments and question your hope--to see whether you've anchored your life to a living hope or a dying hope.
Do you have a Future-Oriented Hope?
1 Peter 1:3-5, "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, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
A dying hope is oriented to this life, and limited to this side of the grave. But here Peter is reminding us that our hope transcends death itself, even the grave. That just as Jesus died and was raised, so when we die, we too will be raised to life. A dying hope spoils, fades, rots, and rusts over time. But look, our hope is imperishable, undefiled, unfading. It's being kept in heaven where it can be enjoyed for ETERNITY!
Let's put eternity into perspective. Imagine if we drew a long line that had no ending point. It just went on and on. Now imagine we put a dot on that line, to represent our life now. Do you live for the dot... or do you live for the line?
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 focuses us on the line, not the dot. Paul says, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
Do you have a Praise-Worthy Hope?
1 Peter 1:6-7, "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
So here is yet another dimension of hope. Think of hope as a power tool. Now men, you know how us guys are always putting our power tools to the test. If you get a new truck, you want to know if it can pull a stump out of the ground. If you get a chainsaw, you want to see a big a log it can cut through.
Women do the same thing! I bought my wife, Lara, one of those Kitchen Aid mixers. She'd burned through some of the cheaper models. But you should see her now. She don't melt the butter. She throws those big chocolate chunks in there. If that flour/eggs doesn't fly across the room or stick to the ceiling, she's not satisfied.
Hope is like a power tool. When it's tested, does it burn out or does it get the job done? At the end of the day do you stand back and say, "Wow. Awesome, Thank you Jesus. Glory to God. That carried me through a really rough patch in my life..."
Do you have a Transformative Hope?
1 Peter 1:8-9, "8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
Consider the byproducts of hope. A living hope fills you with love, faith, endurance, joy of salvation, a right mind, a right attitude. Later, in 1 Peter 2:24, Peter describes how our hope enables us to "die to sin and live for righteousness." We no longer live for pleasures and passions but with a godly purpose. If your hope isn't changing your life, or is changing it for the worse... change your hope! It's probably not a living hope! It's probably not future-oriented, it's probably not praise-worthy.
Do you have a Well-Grounded Hope?
1 Peter 1:10-12, "10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look."
This is a very significant fact. Our hope is anchored in the thousands of years of salvation history that's recorded in the Old and New Testament. The men who authored our Scriptures, under the inspiration of the Spirit, died for what they preached. If you knew you were going to have to die for something you believed, wouldn't you do everything in your power to test what you believed? The prophets died proclaiming the hope held out in the gospel. Jesus Christ died. The apostles died. The early Christians died. The Christians in 1 Peter died. Their hope yesteryear was that you and I would have hope today. Shouldn't we want to make good on their sacrifice?
Do you have a Hope worth Preaching About?
1 Peter 1:12, Peter refers to "those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit"
As you reflect on your life, ask yourself, who shared the gospel hope with you? My parents shared Christ with me from my earliest recollection. Two brothers, Brooks and Lance Hurley, and their wives, regularly shared Christ with me. Faithful Sunday school teachers, and youth leaders, men like Donn Shroeder who later became a pastor, preached the gospel to me. God has even used people who later stumbled. What hope would you have, had someone not preached to you? And what hope do you have, that you share Jesus with others?
[Plus One Conference}