“May the God of Hope Fill You”
We started this year with a message on the glory of God as the
ultimate purpose of everything and how this is so because God’s glory is the
supreme Good above all things. If we don’t understand this most fundamental
truth, our life ultimately means nothing. Last week we had a message on the
glory of the church, to which we belong, as the fullness of Christ, who fills
all in all. The question which faces us is whether or not these glorious truths
are making the kind of impact it should make in our lives. And
if not, why not? I hope you see the enormous importance and sheer
urgency of these questions. Think about what we may be missing in our lives!
These truths define for us what our lives are about, what privileges and joys
are ours in Christ Jesus and how to lead a life that experiences and enjoys
them in a most satisfying way! If we are missing them, not only are we wasting
our life in a most tragic way but we are also robbing God of His glory and
praise that are due His name.
I am sure that there are many reasons that a big gap exists
between these biblical truths and the way we live. Today, I just want to offer
one, which I believe is a major factor: the absence, or at least the critical
deficiency, of a real, vibrant hope that these truths can be our living,
present reality.
I would think that all of us view "hope" as a good and
positive thing. So Goethe said, "In all things it is better to hope than
to despair." Emil Brunner went so far as to say, "What oxygen is to the lungs,
such is hope to the meaning of life." In the
same spirit, a Latin proverb says, "Dum spiro, spero" ("While I
breathe, I hope."). And yet, I wonder how important and essential hope is
to us. How many of us can name five of our hopes and dreams, which are
important enough to dominate our consciousness throughout the day, to motivate
us to do what we ought to do and to steer us in the decisions we ought to make?
Pearl S. Buck once said, "None who have always been free can understand
the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not
free." Maybe many of us, living in a lap of relative comfort and luxury
even, are not as hungry and thirsty for hope. Or, maybe, we are just afraid or
too tired to hope. Because hope can be quite unnerving and
even dangerous. As someone said, "To love is to risk not being
loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure...."
We all have loved and been abandoned. We all have hoped and been disappointed.
We all have tried and failed, haven't we? Barbara Kingsolver said,
"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope
for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.” Yet we have the
difficulty doing even the very least in our life--figuring out what we hope
for. So many of us have stopped making New Year’s Resolutions
a long time ago.
In his prayer for the Romans (and all Christians) Paul appeals to
God as “the God of hope”. Just for that reason, we need to recapture hope in some sense. When
Paul says that God is the God of hope, he doesn’t mean that God is a hoping God,
someone who hopes. While hope is a generally a good thing, we do not feel quite
right attributing this quality of hoping to God. Why? Because
God is sovereign and omnipotent. It may be a bleak and unbearable thing
for human beings to live without hope—can you imagine living without any hope
whatsoever? We, in our multi-faceted creaturely limitations, are stuck between
the reality of the present and the uncertainty of the future, bobbing between
the trough of tragedy and the crest of fortune. So we hope and so we fear. But God
does neither. He does not pace back and forth, wringing his hands in anxiety
and keeping His fingers crossed that all the chips would somehow fall into the
right places. God doesn’t have to hope. To our omnipotent God, there is
absolutely no gap between His will and its fulfillment: He is almighty to
fulfill all that He wills and in His infinite knowledge and wisdom He knows all
things. Therefore, God does not hope. He does not need to hope—He never has and
He never will. God exists in an eternal, permanent state of happy fulfillment.
This is hard for us to imagine, our happiness in this fallen world
being so fragile and vulnerable and short-lived. We may even wonder how
enjoyable happiness can be if it were perpetual and everlasting. So much of our
happiness is relative to our experience of misery: if we did not know hard
times, we would not enjoy our good times as much. So it is often the case that
only those who have experienced hardships can truly appreciate even the small
pleasures of life. On the other hand, many, who have never faced any real adversity
in life, complain a lot. But the kind of happiness that God enjoys is not
relative like ours: His is absolute. God cannot be bored by the perpetuity of
His happiness because He is constantly satisfied by the supreme excellence of
His perfect work and wisdom. Even the greatest artist may be frustrated because
his actual work is not quite like the mental image he sees with the eyes of his
artistic imagination. Not so with God. For God, there is no difference
whatsoever between His artistic imagination (if God had such a thing) and the
picture He actually paints: His every stroke produces the exact hue, the exact
thickness, the exact angle, the exact proportion of what is in His mind. He is
continuously delighted and fully satisfied by the perfect execution of His
infinite wisdom by His almighty power. So, after God created all things, He
said, “It was very good!” And it is by that absolute infallibility and
sovereignly that our God controls all things. It is precisely because God
Himself has no need of hoping that He can be the God of hope for us. That means
that God inspires hope, that God is able to fulfill our hope and that God is
worthy of our hope.
But the burning question in our hearts must be, “Just because we
hope in God, does that mean our hopes will be realized?” What do you think? The
answer is, “God will fulfill our hopes a whole lot more and better than we can
ever imagine but not in the way we expect.” To speak of God as the God of hope
is not to make Him a mere genie in Aladdin’s lamp. Our God is the sovereign
Lord of heaven and earth. That means, not only is He omnipotent, able to do all
things, but also He is the supreme Ruler, who rules over all according to the
counsel of His will! We may say that God is the God of hope not so much
because He fulfills our hopes (which He does do!); God is the God of hope more
so because He gives us the true and living hope, which does not disappoint,
ever, because it is what He is most eager and delighted to give us! And if He
is eager to give something to us, it is because it is truly, truly good for us
according to His perfect wisdom and infinite love!
Take a look at what prompted Paul’s prayer in v. 13. It is the
work of Christ for Jews and Gentiles, particularly the work of accepting us,
both Jews and Gentiles, to the glory of God (v. 7). So we read in v. 8, “Christ became a servant to the
circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given
to the patriarchs….” And Christ did the same also for the Gentiles “in order
that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (v. 9), to us, who were once
separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to
the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world! Paul
goes on to recite four Old Testament prophecies concerning the salvation of the
Gentiles (vv. 9-12). He ends this list with Isa.
11:10, which says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the
Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope” (v. 12).
So then,
Paul is not talking about any kind of hope in our passage, is he? He is talking
about the particular hope of salvation. But take a look at v. 12 and see how
this salvation is presented: “The root of Jesse will come, even he who
arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” Our salvation
is described as Christ’s kingship/lordship over us, who were once Gentiles in
the flesh!
To our 21st
Century, American mindset, having a king to rule over us is not something we
hope for. The American people were never fond of that idea. Independence,
self-reliance and self-confidence are the most sought-after virtues for us Americans.
We want to be in control of our own lives and destinies. Who of us are not
affected by this? For this is not just the “American” problem but the human
problem of sin. It is our problem as long as we have sin. But the Word of God
would have us know that our quest for independence and autonomy is a grand
illusion. Jesus said in Matt. 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either
he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” What is presupposed in
these words? First, we are destined and made to serve a master. Second, there
are only two choices of masters: God and money (which represents everything
other than God).
Some may
say, “That’s fine with me! You can say all you want about how we must serve a
master. Even if what you said were true, it won't make any difference for me.
Why should I care as long as I am the one that I am
serving? What is autonomy anyway? Isn’t it I serving myself?” Very clever. But let’s think about what it means to serve
oneself. One important aspect of serving oneself is to pursue one’s wishes and
desires. What are these wishes and desires for? A lot of them are for material
things. They could also include intangible things, such as fame, reputation,
respect from others or influence over others. But what does it mean to desire
these things? Is it not to say that we cannot be truly happy and satisfied
without them? If so, how autonomous can one be? Although a person may think
that he is serving himself by pursuing his own desires and wishes, if his
happiness depends on those things that he desires, he is surely enslaved to
them! One graphic example would be drug addiction, or an addiction of any kind.
If a drug addict craves for the next fix, is he serving himself? In some sense,
he is serving himself in a most self-centered way. For when he is looking for
drugs, he doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself. He may even steal
from his family and friends. But is he serving himself or the drugs? Who is the
master of his life--himself or the drugs? Ultimately, isn’t that the irony of
serving ourselves? We end up serving what we lust after with our eyes and flesh
and with our boastful pride, not ourselves.
So then, the
issue is not whether we serve or not serve. The issue is what we
serve and whether it is worthy of our service. Just as Jesus said, we
have no choice but to serve a master and we have only two choices: serving God
or serving something other than God. The choice should be the most obvious
thing. But I still want to survey what Paul has said in Romans concerning the
kind of things that have mastery over us when we do not serve the Lord.
We read
in
We read
in
When we
are not under the lordship of God, we are under the reign of sin and
unrighteousness (6:12ff), under the condemnation of the law (8:1), under the
law of sin and death (8:2) and under the reign of the flesh (8:5, etc.). These
things have no sympathy for us in any way.
What about
serving the Lord, being under the reign of Christ? It means being under the
reign of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8:2). What kind of king
do we have in Jesus Christ? A sovereign God, who laid down His life for us
while we were yet sinners! If we are under the reign of Christ, we are under
the reign of the greatest and noblest love of all! The love of Christ is an
unbreakable love—who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or danger, or sword (Rom.
And
what about His Spirit?
His Spirit is called the Spirit of life: the Spirit grants us eternal life in
Jesus Christ--not death, not condemnation, not eternal punishment. And this
Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, who testifies to our spirit that we are
children of God—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ—not children of
wrath, not servants of unrighteousness, not slaves of evil desires and shameful
passions! What can be a better blessing, a greater privilege to be under such a
King and such a reign? Is it not worthy of our deepest hope and longing?
And this
wonderful and glorious hope is not something that we came up with our
imagination out of the destitute condition of our misery. The basis of Paul's
prayer is not that we are a people of hope! The basis of Paul's prayer is that God
is the God of hope! Paul's prayer in v. 13--as he prays under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit!--is an expression of God's own desire. Our God, who is the
God of hope, desires that we abound with hope, with the hope of our salvation,
of Christ's loving, benevolent and triumphant reign over us! This marvelous
hope is the stream of refreshing water that flows from God's wonderful plan of
salvation for us!
Then how
does He give us the hope? “May the God of hope fill you with hope…”? No, that
is not what Paul says! He says instead, “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!” So rich is God’s grace that it is as though God were not
content to give us just hope, as wonderful as it is! He adds to hope joy and
peace, in fact “all joy and peace”! More precisely, God makes us abound
with hope by first filling us with all joy and peace! For many, the hope
they hold on to is not much more than a knee-jerk reaction, an instinctive
defense mechanism, to the present reality of misery and suffering; merely a
movement of desperation trying to grab anything it can not to drown, even a
greatest fiction, which has no root in reality. Even such a false hope can have
benefits: it may help them keep going for awhile. But Christian hope is not merely
an imaginary opposite of the depressing present. In fact, it is fostered by our
present enjoyment of “all joy and peace”, the foretaste of the full fruition of
our hope in Christ. In “all joy and peace” we are already experiencing the
fulfillment of our hope in Christ. That which gives us the hope for the future
is that which gives us “all joy and peace” in the present! For it is anchored
in the eternal, unbreakable plan of God and in the irrevocable, historical
fulfillment of that plan in Jesus Christ—in His death, the symbol of absolute
despair, and in His resurrection, the symbol of that absolute despair overcome
and conquered--which is the guarantee for the day of its glorious consummation!
If so, is it so surprising that our hope should abound all the more through
“all joy and peace”? We now drink from the fountain but we look to the future
when we shall drink of the ocean-depth! That is the glory of Christian life
But we
must also keep in mind that this “all joy and peace” come to us in our believing:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing…,” prays
Paul. Here again we see the importance of faith in Christian life. We need not
build a false dichotomy between God’s work and our faith here. Our faith is
God’s gift. But God calls us to believe. Take a look at v. 13. This prayer
makes it clear that it is God, who fills us with all joy and peace. But the
prayer makes it equally clear that we are filled with all joy and peace in
our believing. What do we make of this?
There is no
doubt that the One, who fills us with all joy and peace and makes us abound
with hope is God. That is why Paul is praying
this prayer. It is explicitly said that it is “by the power of the Holy Spirit”
that we are made to abound with hope! This shows how Christian hope is a
supernatural hope: it is supernatural in its origin (it comes from God) and in
orientation (it is focused in heaven). It is not something we conjure up with
positive thinking and self-motivation and optimism. Christian hope is kindled
and enflamed and kept alive by the power of the Holy Spirit. As such, Christian
hope is stronger than death itself and surpasses human understanding. It is by
the power of the Holy Spirit that countless Christians have faced their
martyrdom with hymns and praises on their lips; so many Christians, even now,
face unspeakable persecution without denouncing Christ; so many Christians
endure their illnesses and adversities, refusing to be pitied but rather
comforting others and rejoicing that they are considered worthy to suffer for
Christ's sake. And it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are not
consumed by the temptation to be content with what we have in this world!
Our hope,
though origination from heaven and focused on heaven, is not just for our life
after the return of Christ. Its only benefit is not to make us grit our teeth
and wait for Christ’s return, just to make our suffering in this world more
bearable! The glory of our Christian hope is that its realization does not lie just
in the future: although its consummation lies in the future, its fulfillment
has already begun! The dawn of heaven has already broken through and we feel
the warmth of that heavenly light awakening us! The life of heaven has already
begun in us and we are growing in grace, being transformed from glory to glory!
The power of the Spirit, which will raise our dead bodies from the grave, is at
work in us now, to raise us from the death of sin and trespasses, to make us
put off the old self and put on the new self, to put to death the deeds of the
flesh and bear the fruit of the Spirit, to be conformed to the image of Christ
more and more!
But how
does the Holy Spirit accomplish all this? By enabling us to believe so that, in
our believing, we may be filled with all joy and peace to the abounding of our Christian
hope! Why does God do it this way? Because joy and peace and hope are not some independently
packaged gifts that God passes out. These things cannot be enjoyed apart from
God, who is the God of joy, peace and hope. We may even say that these things
are what we feel and enjoy when our relationship with God is the way it should
be. Imagine all that you enjoy when you are spending a time of special intimacy
with your soul mate. It is like that, but so much better. That is why the
Spirit works faith in us to establish and nurture joy, peace, hope and other
spiritual blessings. For by faith we engage our mind, heart and will in our
relationship with God to understand the will of God and trust in His promises
and grow deeper in the relationship. And how does the Spirit work faith in us?
Through the Word of God! The Word not only shows us what to believe but also commands
us to believe the Word!
In his
portrait of hell, Dante had the famous phrase inscribed upon the gate of hell,
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” (Dante, Inferno). If hell is
characterized by the total absence of hope, what about heaven? It is
characterized by the perfect fulfillment of hope. And we may say that the
starting line of our pilgrimage to heaven has these words: “Abandon all
despair, ye who pass through this line.” We cannot believe in the God of hope
without being a people of hope. And the hope that we have is “a living hope”,
which never perishes away into despair. As long as we continue on our
pilgrimage to heaven, we must abound in hope, grow in hope and increase in
hope! Think about Paul’s prayer. He was not praying that we start hoping for
the first time. He was speaking to the Christians in
Paul
prayed, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, that by the power
of the Holy Spirit you may abound with hope.” As this prayer was uttered under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it will not fail. Now, pray that prayer for
yourself and for your brothers and sisters. You may be discouraged by the slow
progress of your spiritual life. It may seem to be backsliding. So, having been
discouraged, you may be just trudging along in your pilgrim journey, barely
carrying the load of your heavy heart. But I hope today that the glory of the
God of hope has been displayed before you in the reading and preaching of the Word,
that you have been convinced by the power of the Holy Spirit, that you are made
and destined for something far more glorious than what your life may look like
now. This, I hope, is true even for those of you, who may be thriving in your
spiritual life! Grab a hold of the hope, in believing, which God has given to
us in Jesus Christ—the hope that our salvation is God’s glory; the hope that we
are part of the church, which is Christ’s body, the fullness of Him, who fills
all in all! As long as we hold on to that hope of salvation, the hope of
Christ’s triumphant and benevolent reign over us, we will not be disappointed. Believe
in that God of hope and you will be filled with all joy and peace and you will
abound with hope more and more each day, until that day, when we shall stand
before the presence of God and see that all of our hopes in Him have been fulfilled
and outdone far beyond our imagination by the infinite magnanimity of God!
©
Copyright 2008 by Jeong Woo “James” Lee
All
Rights Reserved.