HOPE • Living in Joyful Expectation

A friend was sharing with me recently how much grief she has experienced in the past two years. First, her husband of 12 years died. Then, over the next two years, six of her family members died. My friend is a Christian who has the hope of God and future Heaven where she will see them all again one day. I listened to her praising the Lord for giving her comfort through all those sorrows and rejoiced that we have a God who gives us comfort and fills our hearts with hope and joyful expectation for the future. I couldn’t help but say, “How could anyone who does not know God deal with such sorrow without it crushing them?”

Hope is so important to every human being. God created us with that need. Paul wrote this, 

remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12)

Anyone who has not trusted in Christ for salvation is without hope in this world because they are without God. It helps to know what hope is—especially biblical hope. What kind of hope does our God offer to His own? 

What God’s Kind of Hope Is Not

Biblical hope is not:

• A fearful, tentative preference. “If I make the right choice, maybe things will work out in my favor.”

• Wishful thinking. “If I wish for it really hard, maybe I will get what I want.”

• Denial of reality. “I can imagine that my life is better than what it really is.”

If not that, what is biblical hope?

What God’s Kind of Hope Is

Biblical hope is a confident reliance on God Himself and eager expectation of the fulfillment of His promises.

You can have that eager expectation that God will fulfill His promises to you because your hope is based on the character and faithfulness of God.

Hope is vital as we live in the in-between time (or “until time”) between Christ’s resurrection and His future return. Suffering happens to believers and nonbelievers during this time. God doesn’t promise an easy life for believers. In fact, if some preacher or teacher promises that you should expect success, prosperity, and health to be yours if you have enough faith, that is a lie! It denies nearly everything in the New Testament, including Jesus’ own words to His disciples,

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Jesus promises peace and help but not a lack of trouble. 

Read more about life in this “until time” in the articles from our “Perspective” articles covering 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

How Do We Live in Biblical Hope?

The New Testament is filled with promises about our hope in Christ and how to live in that hope. Here are some key aspects of our hope in Christ. 

Encouragement in trials 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from Godand not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. … Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardlywe are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16-18)

Righteousness from God

For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. (Galatians 5:5)

Glory (being made like Christ)

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

Salvation (its culmination)

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)

God Himself

That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:10)

Christ’s return

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearingof the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)

Eternal life

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-7)

Endurance

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. (Romans 15:4)

Heaven—Our Eternal Home

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hopethrough the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:2-3)

Jesus, “our blessed hope,” is preparing a place for us in Heaven and coming back to earth to one day make right whatever is wrong. But in the meantime, Jesus offers us hope now. In the midst of troubles, He satisfies our hearts with hope through healing and through comfort.

Read more in this article, “Jesus satisfies your heart with HOPE.”

Read more about biblical hope in the Perspective Bible Study.