Hope in the Finished Work of Christ
What is hope? In high school I played baseball; not very well. So I was in right field one inning and the batter hit a line drive that was curving toward foul territory, until it stopped curving. I realized that I needed to switch from spectator to sprinter to try and make the catch. I dove for the ball hoping that I would catch it. Thankfully I did and the inning was over. But to be clear, my coach was not impressed, because he knew I should have been moving much sooner to get the ball.
But I share that story because we often think of hope as just that. I hope that…fill in the blank will happen. Hope in that sense is longing for a good outcome but not knowing for certain the good outcome will come to pass. There are other times we use the word hope to mean the basis for why we think something good will happen. We could go back to my high school baseball team and say if our final at bat and the outcome of the game came down to our last player, we might say he is our only hope of winning.
What is amazing, is that the Bible has a new and better definition for the word hope. The Bible describes a unique hope. The Bible says hope is confident assurance of a great outcome, and that great outcome is so certain it gives us joy now! Biblical hope is our basis for joy now and forever. This is because of verses like Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
My exhortation for us this morning is to hope in the finished work of Christ. In this season as we celebrate the coming of Jesus, our hearts should burn with love and joy for the hope we have in Christ. Where else can you find hope, true eternal hope? Hope that never changes and hope that deals with your greatest need and fulfills your heart’s greatest desire? By hoping in the finished work of Christ you have assurance that you have been forgiven, your heart has been made new, all of your sins have been nailed to the cross, you have now been adopted as sons and daughters of God, and you have hope! We have assurance that we will be forever in God’s perfect presence and place, worshiping our father as holy, holy, holy!
Brothers and sisters, the only hope we have is in the finished work of Christ! Hope that is in the work of Christ on our behalf is certain and provides full assurance that we are adopted in God’s family and that he will never leave us or forsake us because our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness! It is finished! There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.