Let’s Talk Hope

OK, let’s take stock of a slice of our times…

  • A most contentious presidential election

  • Continuing warfare between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas

  • An economy that we are told is improving but the grocery store tells a different story 

  • Many nations struggling with floods of immigrants from distant countries

  • Smoky skies and soaring temperatures 

  • Homelessness in most every town without concrete solutions

  • Families balancing face-time with InstaFace

  • …and the Ducks beat the Beavers

Kind of a challenge to be people of hope, yet that is just what we are called to be. 

Sure, we have hope in an afterlife promised by Jesus and all that implies. When he appears and establishes his kingdom here, we hold with confidence that it will be all he said it would be, and we will have our hands full of worthwhile work in that new place. That’s not wishful thinking, but trusting in Jesus’ word. 

However, the hope in Jesus we carry isn’t just for some future time, but right now. Hope is a cousin to optimism and our optimism is sourced in a settled belief in the God who brought us, lovingly, into light and life. Peter gets at this in the first part of his letter to believers who lived as exiles, aliens, pilgrims because of their faith, living in regions of what is now Turkey. Take a listen to what some call Peter’s doxology, or hymn of praise.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be reborn to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

If you follow Peter’s thought-line he says driven by the Father’s God-sized loving mercy we have been made new, from the inside out, through Jesus’ triumph from the grave. And that was done so we can hold onto a future inheritance and a present confidence to face every bit of life with hope.

My mind says, “That’s all well and good, but I need something practical to put shoes on theory. And, thankfully, that’s where Peter goes a few lines later. 

Therefore, girding your minds for action and keeping sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, don’t be conformed to the former driving desires that were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy for I am holy.”

In other words, rather than fixing on the buzzing flies of negativity of the hope-less and the vendors of chaos, the value for Jesus followers who want to build up their hope-full hearts lies in turning to all that God is doing behind the scenes and into the future. We experience grace right now, but Peter says that our life now is just the appetizer before an overwhelming feast to come.

And the qualifiers define the mindset that will help us along a hopeful way.

Girding minds for action is just another way of calling for us to resist lazy spiritual thinking, rather to mentally roll up our sleeves and think wisely and critically of our world. How this looks is not falling for every conspiracy or boogie-man story created to get looks and likes from countless sloppy thinkers searching for the next tender bite.

Ask questions. Check sources. Get counsel. Compare it to Jesus and his ethic.

Keeping sober in spirit can be a confusing phrase to understand, but is easy to say what it’s not. This does not call for an unsmiling, overly-serious, judgmental-looking to all that is ungodly with a wagging finger of shame. Think of what un-sober looks like. Too much of whatever that leads to staggering and woozy thinking. The call is for us to moderate intake so as not to wobble, but to stay sharp. Too much booze or news, work or play, interweb or the next novel can all challenge our sobriety.

Moderate. Balance. Willingly limit. Be your friend group’s designated driver.

Then, to build up our living hope muscles, Peter says, “Choose.” Not being conformed to former desires calls believers to choose to not be squeezed into the world’s mold, like so much pliable clay. Avoid bandwagon living so many ascribe to on either end of any argument in play. We walk around as new creations in Jesus, so it just doesn’t fit who we are to mimic an angry, confrontational, fearful, often hopeless world. Don’t go back to where you were, Peter says, go forward.

Then choose to be different, like an obedient child surrounded by rebellious kids. The call to be holy is call to stand apart and to stand with. As believers we are citizens of another kingdom, so we naturally stand apart from this kingdom. And we take our compass heading from the God who showed up—Jesus. His ethic and modeled behaviors become ours in our times.

When he writes, “in all your behavior” he underlines the truth that there is no separation between secular and spiritual…it’s all spiritual. We can’t keep Jesus in a box to trot out on Sundays then lock away when we engage in work or play or politics. Jesus is relevant to every corner of life, and to excuse ourselves from that because of some desire in our life or the life of the country ought not be encouraged.

During the last evening with his apprentices, as Jesus gave his final instructions and encouragements, his close followers finally begin to get some of what was in store for them all. At the end of John 16 Jesus says,

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.

So, let’s talk hope. Not wishful thinking, but thinking with a ready and steady mind that is fixed on the grace here and now that will be fulfilled in its time. Each day we train our thoughts and actions to choose to be a bit more like Jesus and a bit less like the world we left behind.

Paul says it best as he was navigating his crazy world.

If God is for us, who could be against us?

Be hopeful today, friend, because it’s what you were made for. You were born in God to a living, right now, today hope. It sure beats the alternative.

Music for the week

How ‘bout a couple of lame jokes for the win?

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.

The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.

"That laundry is not very clean," she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap." Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.  I wonder who taught her this?"

The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."

__________

DAFFYNITIONS

Baloney: Where some hemlines fall

Bernadette: The act of torching a  mortgage

Burglarize: What a crook sees with

Control: A short, ugly inmate

Counterfeiters: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets

Eyedropper: a clumsy ophthalmologist

Heroes: what a guy in a boat does

Misty: How golfers create divots

Parasites: what you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Pharmacist: a helper on the farm

Polarize: what penguins see with

Primate: removing your spouse from in front of the TV

Relief: what trees do in the spring

Rubberneck: what you do to relax your wife

Selfish: what the owner of a seafood store does

Al Hulbert

Retired pastor, teacher, school administrator, and master of witty sayings.

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