Bring People Hope
Introduction
Twenty-one-year-old Matthew had been homeless for three years. Mark Russell (who was appointed head of the Church Army aged only thirty-one) met him on the streets of Charing Cross in London, bought him some food and led him to Christ.
As he was getting up to leave he said, ‘Matthew, over the next month I am going to be on platforms speaking to thousands of people. What piece of advice do you want me to give to the Church of England today?’
Matthew replied, ‘The church’s job is to stop arguing and to bring people hope.’
Mark Russell commented, ‘I have never heard a better definition of what we should be about: Don’t we have a gospel of hope? A gospel that brings hope? A gospel of life, a gospel of transformation and above all a hope of eternal life, the hope of Jesus.’
Many people see only a hopeless end; but with Jesus you can enjoy an endless hope.
Hope is one of the three great theological virtues – the others being love and faith. As Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa writes, ‘They are like three sisters. Two of them are grown and the other is a small child. They go forward together hand in hand with the child hope in the middle. Looking at them it would seem that the bigger ones are pulling the child, but it is the other way around; it is the little girl who is pulling the two bigger ones. It is hope that pulls faith and love. Without hope everything would stop.’
Psalm 89:46–52
46 How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?
47 Remember how fleeting is my life.
For what futility you have created all humanity!
48 Who can live and not see death,
or who can escape the power of the grave?
49 Lord, where is your former great love,
which in your faithfulness you swore to David?
50 Remember, Lord, how your servant has been mocked,
how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the nations,
51 the taunts with which your enemies, LORD, have mocked,
with which they have mocked every step of your anointed one.
52 Praise be to the LORD forever!
Amen and Amen.
Commentary
Know the hope of eternal life through Jesus
‘To live without hope is to cease to live,’ wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky. ‘What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life,’ wrote Emil Brunner.
This psalm ends on a note of hope, ‘Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen’ (v.52). The psalmist clings on to hope in spite of the fact that he is wrestling with his own situation.
Hope in the midst of suffering and despair
‘How long, O LORD?’ (v.46a) is a rhetorical question. It is a cry of despair. Will this suffering go on forever?Hope in spite of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death
Life is so short: ‘Remember how fleeting is my life’ (v.47a). If death is the end then there is no ultimate meaning or purpose, ‘For what futility you have created all humanity!’ (v.47b). No one can raise themselves from the dead: ‘Who can live and not see death, or who can escape from the power of the grave?’ (v.48).
But the psalmist does not rule out the hope of the resurrection. He knows human beings cannot save themselves. He looks to the Lord: ‘O LORD, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David… your anointed one’ (vv.49–51). What the psalmist saw only in blurry outlines is made crystal clear in the New Testament.
Prayer
Romans 14:19, 15:1–13
19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.
15 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please our neighbours for their good, to build them up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’ 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
12 And again, Isaiah says,
‘The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.’
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Commentary
Overflow with hope through the Holy Spirit
Faith releases hope, joy and peace in our lives. Doubt steals our joy and peace. Faith means trusting in ‘the God of hope’. Paul prays, ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow [‘bubbling over’, AMP] with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit’ (15:13).
The origin of hope is ‘the God of hope’. The reason for hope is Jesus. The source of hope in you is the Holy Spirit. This hope is not wishful thinking. It is rooted in what God has done for us and is doing in us.
This hope is the driving force for our day-to-day living. As Erwin McManus comments, hope ‘lifts us out of the rubble of our failures, our pain and our fear to rise above what at one point seemed insurmountable. Our ability to endure, to persevere, to overcome is fuelled by this one seemingly innocuous ingredient called hope.’
The hope for the whole world is in Jesus. He is the hope for Israel. He is also the hope for the rest of us. Paul quotes a number of passages in the Old Testament to prove this, culminating with the words of Isaiah prophesying that Jesus would be ‘Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!’ (v.12, MSG).
Paul helps us to see different aspects of the hope that Jesus brings to the world today including:
Hope for unity
Paul continues to plead that every effort is made for unity: ‘Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification’ (14:19). Guard this unity by being sensitive to your brothers and sisters in Christ and not offending them unnecessarily (14:20–15:1). Each of us should ‘please our neighbours for their good, to build them up’ (v.2).Follow the example of Jesus
‘For even Christ did not please himself’ (v.3). Like Jesus, be a God-pleaser, not a self-pleaser or a people-pleaser. People-pleasers are those who try to please people even if they have to compromise their own conscience to do so. Paul tried to please people as long as pleasing them did not cause him to displease the Lord (Galatians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 10:33).Hope from the Scriptures
The purpose of the Bible is to give us hope. ‘For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope’ (Romans 15:4). It is through the Scriptures that you know about Jesus and the hope that is in him. The way to keep your hopes up is to study the Scriptures regularly.
This hope leads to ‘All joy and peace as you trust in him’ (v.13). I love the way that Corrie ten Boom puts it: ‘Joy and peace mean going around with a smile on our faces and an empty suitcase.’
Prayer
1 Chronicles 11:1–9
11 All Israel came together to David at Hebron and said, ...2 In the past, even while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the LORD your God said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler. ’”
3 When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, he made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel, as the LORD had promised through Samuel.
9 And David became more and more powerful, because the LORD Almighty was with him.
Commentary
Put your hope in the coming of the King
Our hope is in Jesus, the King, who will one day return and establish his kingdom forever. As we read of the kings of the Old Testament, it is important to remember that they, even at their very best, only faintly foreshadowed the ultimate king, Jesus.
In the chronicler’s eyes, David was the ideal king: ‘You were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the LORD your God said to you, “You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler”’ (11:2). They ‘anointed David king over Israel, as the LORD had promised through Samuel’ (v.3). ‘David became more and more powerful, because the LORD Almighty was with him’ (v.9).
David did not do it all on his own. He needed a team around him. He had a group of thirty Mighty Men, which included the Big Three. I am so grateful for the mighty men and women who support and encourage Pippa and me as we try to lead. We could not begin to do what we do without an amazing team around us.
Amasai, chief of the thirty, ‘moved by God’s Spirit’ said to David, ‘We’re on your side… We’re committed… all’s well with whoever helps you’ (12:18–22, MSG). This must have been a huge encouragement to David.
In these scriptures, we see a direct equation of the Kingdom of Israel with the kingdom of God (see 1 Chronicles 28:5; 1 Chronicles 29:23; 2 Chronicles 13:8). There was no question about the continuity of kingship because it was guarded by God.
Yet, when the chronicler was writing this (hundreds of years later) there was no king. He wrote about the past in the hope that in the future a king like David would arise. This was the hope of Israel – a coming king. Jesus was that king. He was ‘the anointed one’, the ‘Messiah’ (Psalm 89:51).
Now our hope is in the return of Jesus. As Bishop Lesslie Newbigin put it, ‘The horizon for the Christian is “He shall come again” and “we look for the coming of the Lord.” It can be tomorrow or any time, but that’s the horizon. That horizon is for me fundamental, and that’s what makes it possible to be hopeful and therefore to find life meaningful.’
Prayer
Pippa adds
1 Chronicles 11:10–25 talks about David’s mighty men.
I have mighty men (and women) in my family. They are taking on the giants of injustice. They are also useful for carrying suitcases!
Verse of the Day
Romans 15:13
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit’
Thought for the Day
Many people see only a hopeless end; but with Jesus you can enjoy an endless hope.
Action for the Day
Pray for God to use you as a symbol of his hope to others.
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References
Bishop Lesslie Newbigin excerpt from, Andrew Walker, Different Gospels: Christian Orthodoxy and Modern Theologies (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1993)
G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Coming of God: *The Emanuel Ajahi Dahunsi Memorial New Testament Lectures 1981 **(***Wipf and Stock, 2007), p.7.
Erwin McManus, Soul Cravings (Thomas Nelson, 2008) p.2.
Raniero Cantalamessa, Life in Christ (Liturgical Press, 2002) p.81.
Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from my Notebook (Triangle, 1983).
The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel (commentary formerly known as Bible in One Year) ©Alpha International 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Compilation of daily Bible readings © Hodder & Stoughton Limited 1988. Published by Hodder & Stoughton Limited as the Bible in One Year.
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.
Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)
Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.