The Mystery of Hope
The words we use are powerful. Yet we often use them without giving any thought to what they actually mean. We live in a world filled with an ocean of words… we literally swim around in them every day. We say one thing, when we truly mean something totally different. In short, we stand and fall by the thoughts and intentions conveyed by the words we use, not only to others, but to ourselves as well. It’s a mystery.
Hope is one of those words. Hope, it has been said, is something mankind cannot live without. It’s a word widely used in our world, but often taken wildly out of context. When we say something like, “I sure hope so” in responding to a question about a certain issue, what are we really saying? Is hope simply a wish we want to come true? In fact, every person who buys a lottery ticket possesses this type of hope; there’s a chance, no matter how slight, that all their dreams could come true. It’s a mystery.
Most of our hope is centered in our immediate personal circumstances and the temporal situations of the world in which we live. There are those whose hope is to see the world change. They advocate for change. They fight for change. My question is this: Will the world change? Is it possible to bring about peace, justice and truly equitable treatment for every person living in this world? Is it possible to eradicate evil in the world? Will the world finally, after all these millennia, turn its back on evil and embrace truth, justice and love? Isn’t that our hope and often even our fervent prayer? Have we relegated the word ‘hope’ to the realm of wishful thinking? It’s a mystery.
Here is the big difference; how the world defines hope and how God reveals true hope.
Hope is not a dream, a wish, or even a situational reality. Hope is a Person.
In Colossians 1:15-27, the Apostle Paul lays out the true meaning of hope. He begins in verses 15-20 speaking of the One whom Peter calls our “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3).
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)
Paul goes on to tell exactly how this Hope can become our reality:
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you
continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. (Colossians 1:21-23).
Then, Paul says something that defies all human logic:
I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 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 1:25-27).
Authentic Christianity is an inexplicable mystery to many people. That is because Christ is a mystery. The Apostle Paul even said that “Christ is God’s mystery” (Colossians 2:2). The good news we share with the world is “the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3).
Because of our intimate personal relationship with Him, we are a mystery to the world. Those who do not know Jesus Christ will not and cannot be expected to understand true hope until they, too, have a saving knowledge of Him.
A. W. Tozer got to the heart of this mystery when he alluded to the fact that life in Christ does not make any worldly sense:
Real Christians are an odd lot. They feel supreme love for One whom they have never seen, they talk familiarly every day to Someone they cannot see and they expect to enter heaven on the virtue of Another, not their own. They empty themselves in order to be full, admit that they are wrong so that they can be declared right, deny themselves in order to move forward. They are strongest when they are at their weakest, richest when at their poorest and happiest when they are the most broken. They die so they may live, forsake in order to have, give away so they can keep, they see the invisible, hear the inaudible, and know that which surpasses knowledge.
So, what are we to do with this living hope? Paul concludes with this thought in verse 28, saying, “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).
Jesus Christ is our hope. There is no hope apart from Him. Those who willingly lay down their lives to Jesus have hope. Those who do not, have no hope. We must hold out the truth held out in the Gospel—Jesus: The Way, The Truth and The Life.
Christians are meant to be different. We are to be salt and light. We are in good company, for it is not we who live, but it is Christ living in us, for we have been crucified with Christ.
Paul states, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Can you imagine Christ Jesus, in all His glorious fullness actually dwelling in us, through His Spirit, at work in our lives right now? God’s goal is to make us, in every respect, just like Christ. God is at work. He is sovereign. He is not busy changing the world, He is busy transforming every willing human heart into the exact likeness of God the Son. How does He actually do this in us? It’s a mystery.
That’s our hope. That’s our glory. That’s the Gospel.
Larry Bowles and his wife Cathy are two of our favorite partners in Christ. They live in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma where they are members of Muskogee Church of Christ. Together, they minister to former Muslim refugees in Athens, Greece at the AcroCenter.