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Dear Friends,
How are you doing? This week, I’d like to share from Brother Ethan Wang’s sermon regarding hope.

We often hear that hope is what keeps people alive in harsh circumstances. For example, many people survived the Nazi Internment camps or the Cultural Revolution in China because they had something to hope for. Others have overcome grave illnesses or handicaps because of a hope or dream.

Even though hope can be a positive force in our lives, true hope can only come from God. Without hope in Christ, everything we do in this world will be futile. Just like the civilization, good deeds, and splendor of the world that perished with the Great Babylon in Rev. 18, our worldly hope will disappear with time.


In this week, let us be reminded of the Lord Jesus’ great grace in including us in His eternal, heavenly kingdom. Let us pursue heaven with perseverance and wait patiently upon the Lord.


”A Living Hope”

- adapted from Ethan Wang’s Canoga Park sermon on 11/23/07

Introduction
College students study very diligently and forgo work opportunities because they have the hope of getting a better job when they graduate.
Young people work hard because they have the hope of someday fulfilling their dream of owning a house.
After Thanksgiving, many people sacrifice sleep because they have the hope of finding a bargain. Ethan witnessed this when he went to the Camarillo outlet mall at midnight after Thanksgiving. It took him one hour to find a parking spot because there were so many people. One particular store had about 200 people lining up outside, waiting to get in.
Typically, people in the world hope to live in a bigger house and enjoy a longer life.
However, the Bible tells us that we do not have true hope without God. Without Christ, we are ”strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12)

A. What do we hope for as Christians?
An inheritance from God
Recently, the California wildfires have devastated many homes. Houses have also been foreclosed because of the mortgage crises. But real estate in heaven is not the same. It’s an inheritance that does not change or fade away.
1Peter 1:3-4 tells us that God has ”regenerated us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in Heaven for you” (ASV).
Eternal life given by God
What’s eternal inheritance without eternal life to enjoy it? God, who does not lie, promised us the hope of eternal life even before the beginning of time (Titus 1:2).
True freedom in a glorious body
No matter how much time and effort we spend to make ourselves look young and beautiful, the breakdown of our body is inevitable. Our flesh also carries many desires and weaknesses that our spirit has to constantly battle against.
Therefore, we hope for a body in heaven that will be completely free of sickness, weakness and bondage.
Rom 8:19 -23 describes this hope: ”For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was not willingly subjected to vanity, but because of Him who subjected it on hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruit of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting adoption, the redemption of our body.”
To see God’s face
The best part of our hope is to finally see God, face to face. How wonderful when we will be able to be with our Creator and ask him all the questions we’ve wanted to ask!
David understood this sweet hope and wrote, ”As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your image” (Psalm 17:15).

B. What are the benefits of having hope?
We will have joy without shame
When we have the hope of eternal life in heaven, we will experience true joy from the bottom of our hearts.
For example, before a certain brother was baptized, he kept on wondering why his believing mother-in-law was so joyful all the time. Later, when he became baptized into Christ, he felt joy even by walking into the church and greeting others.
Just as Rom 5:2-5 describes, ”Through Him we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice on the hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we glory in afflictions also, knowing that afflictions work out patience, and patience works out experience, and experience works out hope. And hope does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us .”

We will be close to God
Heb 7:18-19 tells us, ”For truly there is a putting away of the commandment which went before, because of the weakness and unprofitableness of it. For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by which we draw near to God.”
Indeed, hope in eternal life will draw us closer to God.
We will feel thankful and have more strength to work for God
A Christian without hope is just like a nice car with little horsepower. Even if we floor the gas pedal, the car won’t go much faster.
When we have hope in Christ, we will constantly remember the great grace God has given us. As Titus 3:3-7 describes, ”For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and his love toward man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

C. How do we build up our hope?
Have faith
Heb 11:1 tells us, that ”faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
The most important part of faith that is related to hope is that we believe Christ’s resurrection. As stated in 1 Cor. 15:17-23,

”and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable. But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; then they that are Christ’s, at his coming.”

Indeed, our hope is ”living” because Christ has resurrected from death.

Pursue heaven with perseverance
We should not be satisfied with this world, but constantly look for a better place.
Our spiritual forefathers set a good example for us. For ”if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they stretch forth to a better fatherland, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Heb 11:14 -16).
Because Moses looked forward to his reward in heaven, he ”refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose to ”share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb 11:24-26).

Wait with patience
Many times, we lose sight of hope because we can’t see or feel the promises of God in our lives.
During these times, we must remember that ”hope that is seen is not hope; for what anyone sees, why does he also hope for it? But if we hope for that which we do not see, then we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:24-25).
The believers before us had the hope to wait for something they did not obtain in their lifetimes. As Hebrews 11:39-40 describes, ”And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, did not receive the promise, for God had provided some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us.”