{Prayer}

To refresh our memories, I want to read our sermon text again from 1 John 3.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

Hope.  What is it?  Well, the answer to that seemingly easy question is really going to depend on who you ask.  To some, hope is nothing more than wishful thinking and yet to others, it is something which drives them, it is something they base their life actions on.  According to Wikipedia, “hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large.”  Hope is an optimistic state of mind, hmmm.  That definition definitely goes along with the wishful thinking side of it, it seems to fit in very well within our current cultural state, but to me, it also shows that there is more than one way, more than one definition of hope.

In general, hope can be looked at in few different ways. 

Hope is a desire for something good to happen in the future.  So for example, a child might say, “I hope daddy gets home early tonight so we can play soccer after supper before his meeting.”  In other words, this child has the desire, the hope for dad to come home early so that they can experience this good thing of playing together after supper.

Hope can also be the thing in the future that we desire.  We use this definition of hope a lot when someone we know is traveling.  I hope that my wife and kids will arrive at their destination safely.  Their arrival to wherever they are going is the object of my hope.

Hope can also be the basis or reason for our thinking that our desire may indeed be fulfilled.  Here hope is the reason why our hope might come to pass.  So for example, in this hope we would say something like this, “A good tailwind is our only hope of arriving on time.”  In other words, the tailwind is the reason we may, in fact, achieve the future good that we desire.  The tailwind is our only hope.

Now there is nothing wrong with these definitions of hope.  They are hopes we all have, these hopes are even found in the Bible.  However, the most of important feature of a biblical hope, a hope which John talks about in our sermon text, is not found in any of the ordinary uses of the word hope.  The ordinary sense of the word hope which we use expresses a hope in something uncertain rather than a hope in a certain hope.

You see, a child hoping that dad comes home early means that the child doesn’t have any certainty that dad will come home early.  The hope for my wife and kids to arrive safely at their destination means that I don’t know if they will or not, but my hope is they do.  Having hope that a good tailwind is the only thing which will get me to my destination on time means a good tailwind would bring us to our desired goal, but I can’t be sure I’ll have a good tailwind. I may have a very strong headwind instead.

When dealing with the hope, a certain degree of caution needs to be taken, because with an idea or the verbalization of something … hope can be taken away.

There’s a story of a small town in Maine which was the proposed for site a great hydroelectric plant.  Since the dam would be built across the river, the entire town would be submerged.  When the project was announced, the people were given many months to arrange their affairs and relocate.

During the time before the dam was built, something interesting happened.  All improvements ceased.  No painting was done.  No repairs were made on the buildings, roads, and sidewalks.  Day by day, the whole town got shabbier and shabbier looking.  A long time before the waters came, the town looked uncared for and abandoned, even though the people had not yet moved away.  One citizen complained, “Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power for the present.”  The town was cursed with hopelessness because it had no future.

In our lives … if there is nothing to hope for or the only thing we can hope for is something which is completely uncertain … what is going to drive us?  What is going to move or motivate us?  The word hope is used so casually, as if crossing our fingers, closing our eyes and wanting it badly enough might make what we want come true.  If it doesn’t come true … then what?

This casual, this uncertain optimistic kind of hope is not the hope John is talking about in our sermon text.  It is not the hope which you and I should have in God. 

Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future … it expects it to happen.  Biblical hope is an expectation, a trust, a confidence of what is sure and certain.

John says, “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).  Hope is not rooted in something but in someone.  Our hope is rooted in God.  The God who loves, not loved, but who loves you yesterday, today and tomorrow and who has made an everlasting commitment to always be with you.  God demonstrates this selfless sacrificial love to you in the giving up His only Son so that you may have eternal life, that you may be washed clean and stand in glory before the Lamb in white robes with all the saints. 

The saints who you will one day join in glory before the throne, John says are coming out of a great tribulation.  That great tribulation could be something specific which they went through, which they dealt with, but it can also be life in general.  This life we live, we are constantly facing different trials and struggles.  Some physically as our bodies suffer injuries, stress, and age.  Some emotionally as we deal with diseases and loss.  Some spiritually as our faith is tested by the world.  And especially mentally. 

One of my step-sisters, who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, texted me and other family remembers last Sunday to basically tell us to check in on our children and loved ones.  The high school my step-niece goes to is “a bit of a pressure cooker to excel in all ways.”  With the quarantine, the online, virtual school situations, the riots, the election and many other things going on, they all pay a toll on a person, they are all is tough on people.  The eldest daughter of my step-sister’s friend a week ago this past Friday, because of her mental stress and struggles, intentionally walked in front of a train.

The tribulations of this world are great and they are real.  The world doesn’t need hope that is based on a bunch of uncertainties or based on optimistic thinking, but on something real, something certain.  That solid certainty is found only in the one who willing suffered and died for you, but who also rose from the dead to defeat sin, death, and Satan.  Our solid hope is found in the absolute certainty of the resurrection of Christ.

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:13-17 ESV).

Our hope on this All Saints Day and every day of our life is not in the uncertainty of what is to come to us in this life, but it is in the certainty, in the solid truth that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we to may live a new life (Rom. 6:4).  You will one day rise and be with him for all of eternity.  You will stand before the throne of God and God will wipe away every tear from your eyes.  This is most certainly true.  Amen.

The peace of God, which truly surpasses our human understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever.  Amen.