Living Hope - by Jeremy Duke

I’m excited to sing our newest congregational song, Living Hope by Phil Wickham. It tells the story of the gospel from our separation from God to the mercy and kindness of God in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to restore us. 

In what sense is Jesus our living hope?

Certainly he is living today! The grave could not contain him, death could not hold power over him (Acts 2:24, Romans 6:9). 

As Princess Leia says in Star Wars: A New Hope: “Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope”. He was in her mind a last chance to save the universe from the rule of evil forces. 

So Jesus is our only hope: without him we are dead in our sin (Eph 2:1), separated from God, without hope (Eph 2:12). We had no ability to make ourselves right before God - all are under sin (Romans 3:9) and by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight (Romans 3:20).

As Paul cries in Romans 7:24 - “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Romans 3:21 - “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all whose believe.” 

Romans 5:8 - “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”!

Ephesians 2:4-5 - “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—”

What a certain and sure hope of salvation we have in Jesus!

And the biblical thought of a living hope comes from 1 Peter 1:3, where by and according to God’s great mercy we have been born again (spiritually) into a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). What does Peter say about this living hope?

·         It comes to us through God’s great mercy and love

·         It comes to us through God’s power working in Jesus’ resurrection. As He is born again into a new body, so we are born again with new spirits awaiting the day when we receive our new bodies and live eternally with him in the new heavens and new earth. 

·         The living hope is of an inheritance, kept in heaven for us, that is imperishable, undefiled (unstained by sin) and unfading. 

·         This is an inheritance in the eternal city of God, our portion in the new creation and all its blessings - where God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, death shall be no more, and there shall be no mourning, crying or pain anymore. Add in all the joy we are able experience in this world and more - joy that we can experience in a world untainted by sin, in perfect fellowship with each other and our Father God! 

Could our hope also be living in the sense that it grows in strength with time? One commentator suggests that 

"If such a growing hope is the expected result of being born again, then perhaps the degree to which believers have an intense, confident expectation of the life to come is one useful measure of progress toward spiritual maturity"

May we grow our living hope in our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.