A little story about Hope.

Someone asked me the other day ” how do you have hope when things look so bad?” A young woman I know has had a pretty rough time of it lately. Life can be brutal no matter who you are, but she’s had her share of troubles and I told her the only genuine, lasting comfort I have ever known and that is an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. I have had my share of troubles too and spent a few long months as a young adult in lock down in a Hospital. I also spent a terrifying night and day in a psychiatric ward for drug addicts and the mentally fragile. Not a fun place to be and for many years these and other experiences haunted me. What was later diagnosed as Post traumatic stress disorder wreaked havoc on my jobs, relationships and my ability to function as a normal person for many years of my life.  I had serious panic attacks often that started in my teens and eventually  almost completely shut down before trying to commit suicide. I had gone through a lot of traumatic events at a young age and that combined with years of abuse  took it’s toll on my mental state and I could barely function.  Many years later I heard the Gospel preached and I was saved and my life changed radically. Overnight I had a profound desire to serve the Lord and follow him, and even though that is a process there was a visible change in my life. I was freed from so many of the emotional pains and scars and really healed from the inside out by trusting Jesus with the entirety of my life…and it’s miraculous to say the least how he has changed me. I was a shy, terrified mess…and I am a pretty strong person in Christ now and I am so grateful to God, only He could work such a miracle. I can cry pretty easily thinking about how life used to be, and I  have often wondered why I had to go through so many of these things, but I  trust God and I know he’s in control and that has given me so much peace.

While talking to this young woman I realized that God was using my past to help and encourage her. This  woman was in the same hospital that I was, and she was just as scared and lost and confused.  There were so many similarities in our lives and she told me she would have never believed that about me. That I seemed to “have it all together” and she had a hard time thinking I had ever been that low.  I laughed that she would ever think I “had it together”  and then God blessed me with the amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with her. I got  to tell her that Jesus was the reason I had hope, and the reason I had the strength to overcome my past, that no matter my circumstances I had assurance in Him and  that very faith in Him and learning His word had been the light at the end of my very long, dark tunnel.

I had prayed for a way to talk to this young woman for so long and even though I had no idea how God would do it, I knew he would provide me the perfect opportunity and He did. He used one of the worst experiences of my young life to minister His truth and love to this young woman. No matter the outcome, I know He is active and working in my life and His Gospel was shared with another hurting soul.

I praise His Holy Name…

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

• “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God” (PSA 146:5)
• “the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (PSA 147:11).
• “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (PSA 40:31).
• “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (ROM 15:13).
• “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him” (PSA 62:5).
• “May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word” (PSA 119:74).
• “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (PSA 42:5)
• “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope” (PSA 130:5).
• “O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption” (PSA 130:7).
• “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (PROV 13:12).
• “There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off” (PROV 23:18).
• “Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you” (ZECH 9:12).
• “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (JER 29:11).
• “through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom 5:2-4).
• “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (ROM 5:5).
• “in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (ROM 8:24-25).
• “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (ROM 12:12).
• “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (ROM 15:4).
• “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” (COL 1:27)
• “a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (TIT 1:2)
• “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged” (HEB 6:17-18).
• “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6:17-19-20).
• “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (HEB 10:23).
• “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (HEB 11:1).

The Resurrection

By John MacArthur

In 1874, a Baptist minister named Robert Lowry penned one of the most stirring hymns to ever exalt the resurrection of Jesus Christ–”Low in the Grave He Lay.” Notice how these verses contrast the impotence of death and suffering with the resurrection power of Christ:

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior;
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!
Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Death, man’s most dread enemy, is powerless to reign over the Lord of life. And that truth has significance for you and me, here and now in the twenty-first century. You can see it in the most exciting and rousing part of Lowry’s hymn, the refrain that punctuates each stanza:

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Do you see in those lines what Jesus’ resurrection means to you? If you are a Christian, you can rejoice in the fact that Christ rose from the dead as a victor, a champion who lives forever to reign, “with His saints.” That refers to the promise based on our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ–it is our hope and the reason and ground of all we believe.

But what if there were no resurrection? What if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is just a first-century myth to be ignored or marginalized as a secondary issue? The implications of that approach are devastating to Christianity.

I want to draw your attention to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19 so that you can see what happens when you forget the resurrection.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

Without question, if Jesus is still in the grave, if He is perpetually the sufferer and never the Victor, then you and I are hopelessly lost. And though that is not the case, I want to focus on the hypothetical “what if” that Paul assumes temporarily in 1 Corinthians 15. “What if the resurrection were a myth? What if Jesus Christ were still dead and in the grave?”

First of all, you would still be in your sins, under the tyranny of death along with the most vile and unbelieving pagan. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then sin won the victory over Him and continues to be victorious over you too. If Jesus remained in the grave, then, when you die you would also stay dead. Furthermore, since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), were you to remain dead, death and eternal punishment would be your future.

The purpose of trusting in Christ is for forgiveness of sins, because it is from sin that we need to be saved. “Christ died for our sins” and “was buried, and … raised on the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). If Christ was not raised, His death was in vain, your faith in Him would be pointless, and your sins would still be counted against you with no hope of spiritual life.

Second, if there is no resurrection, then “those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” That means every Old Testament saint, every New Testament saint, and every saint since Paul wrote would be suffering in torment at this very moment. That would include Paul himself, the rest of the apostles, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Moody, and the faithful and prayerful saints you’ve known–every other believer in every age also would be in hell. Their faith would have been in vain, their sins would not have been forgiven, and their destiny would be damnation.

In light of the other consequences, the last is rather obvious. “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” Without Christ’s resurrection, and the salvation and blessings it brings, Christianity would be pointless and pitiable. Without the resurrection we would have no Savior, no forgiveness, no gospel, no meaningful faith, no life, and we could never have hope for any of those things.

To have hoped in Christ alone in this life would be to teach, preach, suffer, sacrifice, and work entirely for nothing. If Christ is still dead, then He not only has no ability to save you in the future, but He can’t help you now either. If He were not alive, where would be your source of peace, joy, or satisfaction now? The Christian life would be a mockery, a charade, a tragic and cruel joke. Christians who suffer and even die for the faith would be just as blind and pathetic as those “believers” who followed Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and Marshall Applewhite and the Heaven’s Gate cult.

Since a Christian has no Savior but Christ, no Redeemer but Christ, and no Lord but Christ, if Christ is not raised, He is not alive, and our Christian life is lifeless. We would have nothing to justify our faith, our Bible study, our preaching or witnessing, our service for Him or our worship of Him, and nothing to justify our hope in this life or the next. We would deserve nothing but the compassion reserved for fools.

But, God did raise “Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:24-25). Because Christ lives, we too shall live (John 14:19). “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30-31).

We are NOT to be pitied, for Paul immediately ends the dreadful “what if” section by saying, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). As Paul said at the end of his life, “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him [i.e. his life] until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Those who do not hope in Christ alone for salvation are the real fools; they are the ones who need to hear your compassionate testimony about the triumph of Christ’s resurrection. So don’t forget the resurrection; rejoice in it and glory in it, for He is risen indeed.

---

The Lord of the Dance

by RC Sproul Jr.

I was reminded this afternoon of a liturgy within a liturgy that I practice. My two youngest daughters, Erin Claire and Maili had their first dance recital. They are a part of a small ballet group made up of homeschooled little girls in our broader community. They danced beautifully, received their applause, smiled as only little girls can, and came and sat beside me, giving and receiving hugs. The entire rest of the family was there to cheer them on. The second dance troupe was a little older, and they danced to Pachelbel’s Canon in D. As they danced I glanced over at my eleven year old daughter Shannon, smiling joyfully as she took in both the music and dancing. She sat there in her wheelchair and rejoiced.

Each Lord’s Day at Saint Peter Presbyterian Church we confess our faith together. Usually we sing together either the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed. That is the liturgy I was reminded of. The liturgy within the liturgy is this–when we get to that part in either creed where we affirm our belief in the resurrection of the body, I look to my little girl Shannon. For her, and therefore for me, the resurrection of the body isn’t merely a theological affirmation. It isn’t merely a careful add-on to the really important thing, getting our souls saved. It is instead a promise to long for, to cling to, to rejoice in.

Our Lord came not just as a soul saver, but as a redeemer. The good news is not merely that our spirits do not end up in hell, but is instead that we will be saved to the uttermost, that our resurrected Lord has secured us completely. The effect of sin in the life of my precious little girl, the illness that leaves her so unsteady on her feet that she spends most of her days either in bed or in that wheelchair, this too will be beaten. Jesus, our hero, has promised to rescue my precious little maiden.

It was, however, in the context of that music and that dance that this became so much clearer. I once heard that Pachelbel wrote his Canon in D in a fit of ecstasy, believing he was hearing the very music of heaven. I heard he was so moved by what he heard that he never wrote another piece of music. And so I too think of heaven when I hear those strains. And there up front these little girls are dancing. I remembered as I watched Shannon watch, that Jesus would not only heal her body, that He would not only make her mind whole, but that He will on that great day dance with her. He will hold her close, and twirl about His throne room to the music of the spheres, and together they will laugh at the joy of it. As Aslan roared “Ohhh Children!!!” as he frolicked with Lucy and Susan after he was raised, so will Jesus roar “Ohhhh Shannon!!!” I will watch, and I will give thanks. This is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Dance.