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Your Confident Hope

Dr. Paul Fahnestock — June 1, 2008
 

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Introduction
This is the first message in a seven-part series on the New Testament letter written to the church located in the ancient Turkish city of Colosse—the letter to the Colossians. The history of the city of Colosse goes back to the fifth century B.C. and is intersected with the Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. It had been an influential and prosperous city on a well-traveled trading route, but by the time of Christ and the early Church the Romans evidently built a four-lane interstate to the north of the city, diverting the lucrative trade traffic, and it had declined in importance.

The letter begins by identifying the author and recipients:

This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy.
     ²We are writing to God’s holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.
     May God our Father give you grace and peace.

Colossians 1:1-2 (NLT)

The apostle Paul and Timothy co-authored this letter to the Colossians. Timothy was an early convert of Paul during his first missionary journey to Turkey, and they were ministry partners for many years. The letter was written while Paul was imprisoned in Rome, around 60 A.D. Paul had done considerable ministry in Turkey on his various missionary journeys, but this letter indicates that he had not personally started the church in Colosse, and it’s likely he had not even visited the city. However he does identify who was responsible:

⁷You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf. ⁸He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.

Colossians 1:7-8 (NLT)

Paul is writing to the church in Colosse in response to news he has received from his co-worker, Epaphras. It is Epaphras, Paul indicates, who has preached the good news of Jesus Christ to the Colossians.

³We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, ⁵which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
     ⁶This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

Colossians 1:3-6 (NLT)

Paul is praying and giving thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the Colossians because he has heard certain things about them from Epaphras. Paul wastes no time. He zeroes in on three core aspects of Christianity—faith, love, and hope. Let’s consider each of them.

We have heard of your FAITH in Christ Jesus.
Has anyone ever told you to “have faith”? Such a comment is generally in the context of an expectation for you to have a desirable outcome, but what kind of faith are you to have in which you can put your confidence? Your reaction will depend a lot on who is telling you to “have faith.” If a politician makes promises and you question him or her about those promises and he/she says, “Just have faith,” well… maybe I’m a skeptic when it comes to politicians, but I might have a problem putting confidence in their promises. It’s an issue of trust.

So, what does it mean to have faith in someone? It means you have to know a person, know something concrete, from experience, about that person to have faith about him/her. This is common sense … but when it comes to faith in Jesus Christ, some people really think they can believe in Christ, apart from believing the truth of what is revealed about him in scripture. They think they can have faith in Christ without believing he is God, born as a human to a virgin; the God/man who willingly died on a cross for your salvation; the same God/man who was raised bodily from the dead and is now at the right hand of God the Father. Yes, a person is free to believe other than biblical propositions about Jesus Christ, but that would also be to believe in another Christ, a false Christ. To believe in Christ, to have faith in Christ, is to believe what Scripture says about him.

Do you have faith in Christ? How much? How do we measure our belief in someone? Consider this story:

There was a tightrope walker in Paris who stretched his rope between poles at you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me crazy heights. He would walk across one way, then put on a blindfold and walk back. Astonishingly, he would then, blindfolded, push a wheelbarrow back to the other side. Well, an American promoter heard about the French tightrope walker, and he wrote him with an invitation to come to America. The promoter offered him really big bucks if he would walk a tightrope strung across Niagara Falls. The tightrope walker accepted the offer.
      You can imagine the crowds that gathered to watch this daring man balance and walk across the Niagara Falls. One misstep, and he would surely plunge to his death. He proceeded to step out on the suspended rope and walk across to the other side. The crowd cheered loudly. Then, he put on a blindfold and walked back over the falls. Everyone was amazed at the tightrope walker’s skill and daring. And they eagerly anticipated his final walk across, with the wheelbarrow. The promoter approached him and exclaimed how wonderfully successful the event was.
      The tightrope walker inquired of the promoter, “Do you believe that I can do it?”
      “But of course I do,” replied the promoter, “I just watched you do it.”
      “Yes, but do you really have faith in me that I can do this?”
     “You went over and came back blindfolded. I have total confidence that you can do it.”
      The tightrope walker put the blindfold back over his eyes, took hold of the wheelbarrow, and said to the promoter, “Then, please, get into the wheelbarrow.”

I believe our faith in Christ can be measured in this way. It has to do with how much trust and confidence we put in him to be not only Savior but Lord of our life. Do we really trust him with our day-planner, our money, our life?

A good part of my prayer life is devoted to preparing my heart and mind, developing a relationship of trust, to be ready to get into the wheelbarrow when Jesus asks me. [I should say that it is the Lord preparing my heart and mind.] When Linda and I left our careers 16 years ago and I went to seminary, it was in response to Jesus’ invitation to “get in the wheelbarrow.” And we never felt as much like we were getting into a wheelbarrow to cross Niagara Falls as when we went to Uzbekistan, Central Asia as missionaries. That was an adventure with God. Then to Brazil and now to FPC. You might be thinking, “How can coming to FPC Bonita Springs be like getting into a wheelbarrow on a high tightrope?” I invite you to come on up with me now and see what it feels like to be here preaching! Any volunteers?

Can you think of times in your life when Jesus has asked you to get into the wheelbarrow? What was your response?

• It may mean giving him some time to serve others that you would otherwise use for leisure or hobbies.
• It may mean supporting his kingdom plans with your finances—money you were going to use to buy a new car or boat or house, to take another cruise, or buy new golf clubs.
• It may require redefining your understanding of retirement.

If you claim Jesus is your Lord, you can count on it: He will invite you to get into the wheelbarrow. He will give you opportunities to prove your faith in him—to prove that you believe who he is and trust him with your life.

We have heard of your LOVE for all of God’s people.
What kind of love is Paul referring to? Is it a feeling that can come and go? Is it warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely? Is it something that you can fall in and out of, like so many modern marriages?

Speaking of love and marriage, someone has said, “Love at first sight is easy to understand.” I’m sure you can remember the feeling of first love—how your heart raced and your breathing quickened at the beginning of a relationship. It’s when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle. That’s when you know that your marriage is based on the God-kind of love.

Biblical love is not a feeling. Paul defined love in his letter to the Roman church, saying:

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.

Romans 13:8-10

Did you hear what Paul said? Love does not replace God’s law. It is the fulfillment of God’s law. Biblical love is obeying God’s commandments. And we love God in the same way we love one another. Listen to Jesus speaking about love in John’s gospel:

All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.

John 14:23-24

And in the next chapter, Jesus continues:

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

John 15:12-14

Think about Jesus’ courageous and sacrificial obedience in our behalf. The Creator of heaven and earth chose to leave his glory and become a human being in order to restore our relationship with him. He wasn’t born to a powerful king in a comfortable palace in Rome. He was born to a poor family in a stable in a backwater town of Israel. And he took our penalty for our sin in an excruciating death on the cross. We can’t even conceive what God’s Son sacrificed in order to come to our rescue. If God would sacrifice so much for you, what would you do for him?

His commandment is to love. It is not an emotion; it has nothing to do with how you feel. Christian love is a decision to obey God’s command which will lead you to think and act, lead you to courageous and sacrificial action, in the best interests and for the benefit of others.

Your confident HOPE of what God has reserved for you in heaven
Faith in Christ and love for God’s people come from your confident hope, and Christian hope is specific; it is reserved for you in heaven. This is much more than a wish or a desire for something positive to happen in the future. A wish may have no basis for fulfillment. How many of you really believe that if you make a wish when you see a shooting star, it will come true? How many wishes do you make without really having any confidence that they will come to pass? Christian hope is not a wish, and it is not something we work for. It is based on the promise of God and the reality of redemption. It is not a possibility but a reality which God has accomplished and which nothing or no one can take away.

Listen to how Paul describes Christian hope, in his second letter to the Corinthian church:

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands … we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

from 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

Paul has given four sure promises of God on which to base our hope:

1. When we die and leave this earthly body behind, God has prepared a heavenly body for us.
2. Our mortality will be swallowed up by eternal life.
3. We can be sure that God has made us exactly for this purpose.
4. God has given us his Spirit as a guarantee.

Christian hope is the very foundation of our faith in Christ. Our hope is not based on presumption or possibility. It is God’s accomplished reality of eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Conclusion
The very characteristics of Christianity are faith, love and hope. No other religion can claim the same thing. We do not have just any general faith. Christian faith has an object, and he is Jesus Christ. Non-Christians do not have this faith. If someone had this faith, he would be a Christian. Christian love is based upon God’s commandments as revealed in Scripture (the Bible). Love is not a feeling, but obedience to God’s commands. Christian hope is specific and exclusive; it is God’s sure promise of eternal life in Christ.

You need not look, nor will you find truth, in any other place. No other religion, philosophy or ethical view is equal to or can produce Christian faith, love, and hope. This was Paul’s message to the Colossians and it is God’s message to us today.

Prayer
God and Father of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, we pray: May this Good News, the gospel, produce in us confident hope and an expectation of all that God has promised, prepared, revealed, and completed for us. May our lives be forever transformed as we hear and understand the absolute and eternal truth of God’s grace. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.