Future and a Hope

Today is New Year's Day. And I want to be among the first to say it to you, Happy New Year!

And today is a good day – as is EVERYDAY – to start the new year with a message of hope and promise and assurance from God's word. The Lord of Creation, the Lord who is FATHER to all who belong to Jesus through faith in His atonement for our sins – this same God said to Israel words that apply to ALL God's adopted children: “I know the plans that I have for you, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

I hope you caught that: Almighty God promises you and me a future in 2023. And a hope.

Now, of course, what that future and that hope will look like for each of us as individuals, only this new year will tell. And we all should know by now a future and a hope DOES NOT necessarily mean health, wealth, and every answer to every one of our prayers.

But we have our FATHER’S assurance – His promise – that it will be a good year FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE – which really needs to be OUR perspective, to see things as they really are and not how they might seem – so see things from our Father’s eternal perspective because He always, always, always causes ALL THINGS to work together for good – to those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

So, here we are on the first day of 2023. We are all a year older than we were this time last year. Some of us are a bit sicker. Some a bit lonelier, like I spoke about last week during my Christmas message. But as we face this year, I have some good news for all of us here who love the Lord – or at least are trying to love Him with all our hearts, souls, mind, and strength: And it is this: God is in complete and absolute control of nations, their leaders, and their citizens. And, oh, by the way, He is in complete control of your life, your circumstances, your situations – as He is in control of mine. And our Creator, Almighty and All-sovereign God has full and comprehensive knowledge of all their ways and all their thoughts and all their plans. But more yet than that: Our Father always exercises utter control over what He will permit any of them to do.

“Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,” He tells us through His prophet Isaiah, “[They] are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales . . . 17 All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.” (Isaiah 40:15,17)

And I love this example of God's limitless power and authority over the lives of even the most evil of national leaders. Here is a text, again, from Isaiah. This is about the devilish Assyrian king, Sennacharib, who was at Jerusalem’s gates, threatening to destroy the city and all who lived within it:

22 this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him: “She has despised you and mocked you, The virgin daughter of Zion; She has shaken her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem! 23 “Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted up your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel! 24 “Through your servants you have reproached the Lord, and you have said, ‘With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountains . . . [And then God continues: 26 “Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, from ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn [foreign] fortified cities into ruinous heaps. 27 “Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, they were dismayed and put to shame;
They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up. 28 “But I know your sitting down and your going out and your coming in and your raging against Me.
29 “Because of your raging against Me and because your arrogance has come up to My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came. (Isaiah 37:22-29)

Listen, my brothers and sisters in Christ – when God tells us He is bring to us a future and a hope – He’s not kidding.

Now again, that future and hope might not look like a future and hope from OUR very, very limited perspective. But that is not how faith works. Remember that text in Hebrews 11? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

And as many of you know, the chapter goes on to list the heroes of faith who simply believed what God had told them – even when they could not SEE those promises, or understand how God could fulfill them . . . . men and women like Abraham and Sarah; Like Moses and Rahab; Like Gideon and Barack and David and Samuel and the prophets.

Now, all that I have just said is really the preamble to what I believe God wants me to say to all of us on this January 1. And so let me now move to the primary text for today’s message of hope – but before I move into chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, I must first quickly detour to chapter 11 of the same book wherein St Paul gives us his ‘credentials’ – as it were, evidence of his first-hand knowledge and experience that supports his comments I will read in a moment from that fourth chapter.

So, in that 11th chapter St Paul writes: “Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? (2 Corinthians 11:24ff)

Those ‘credentials’ – if you will, gives Him a word of encouragement to those in the Corinthian church – as well as the Church in 2023: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body . . . .16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Paul continues this thought into the next chapter – which, in the original letter Paul penned, was simply the next line:

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. (2 Corinthians 5:1-9)

Though afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down – he and his team of other messengers of Christ do not lose heart. Why? He tells us throughout his letters – such as this one to Timothy: 12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12)

And to the Christians at Rome: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)

Did last year, 2022, find you afflicted in body or spirit? Perplexed? Persecuted? Beaten up in spirit? Did not the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God, comfort you? Did He not bring you through it all? Of course, He did. You would not be here in this church service if He did not. And I would not be preaching this message to you if I did not believe God brought me through what Nancy and I have been through. And so we do NOT lose heart because we know in whom we have believed, and we are persuaded, we are convinced that He will keep us until He brings us to our eternal home. We are here because the hope of Jeremiah 29:11 and the hope of Romans 5 does not disappoint us because we are learning to trust Him. I did not say we ‘have learned’ to trust Him because each of us are in the continuing process of LEARNING to fully trust Him.

And that, too, is what 2023 will bring to us – a growing maturity through our experiences – ESPECIALLY the bad experiences – a growing maturity as we continue to learn to trust our Father who loves us beyond all we could ever comprehend.

Let’s move on through this passage in 2 Corinthians: 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

EVEN THOUGH our outer bodies are decaying, we have hope and confidence in the future God has prepared for us in 2023 and beyond. It doesn’t take much time looking in the mirror to recognize we no longer look as we did when we were 21. And surely many of you – especially you women – recognize how much longer it takes you to get dressed and ready to leave your apartments in the morning. But OH!  Think for a while in this moment – and then think again later today when you have the time to be quiet with your God – think how while we can clearly see our body’s slow decaying, Oh! Think how your inner person, your spirit is being renewed and strengthened day after day after day.

No one enjoys the tests and trials and hardships that come to us in life, but God tells us through this text that those tests and hardships are not even worth comparing to the glory that God is building and creating and molding in our spirits through them all.

You think 2022 was hard? Was difficult?  But God would like us to look at 2022 through the lens of His promises, and to think how FRUITFUL 2022 was for your SPIRITUAL growth – even if you cannot see it today.

PLEASE, we MUST try to remember, we do not walk by sight. We walk by faith. We do not look at things which can be seen, but at things which are unseen. As we saw earlier in Hebrews 11, faith is the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for. One translation renders it: Faith is being sure about what we hope for, being convinced about things we do not see.” (EHV)

Remember what the Lord Jesus said to His Twelve – and of course, to you and me: “Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am. (John 14:1-3, EHV)

THAT is our future. THAT is our ultimate hope – our ‘confident expectation,’ as we learned in earlier studies and sermons of the definition of the Greek word. And our confident expectation is this: Jesus is preparing a place for us who trust His sacrificial atonement for our sins. And as Jesus tells us to trust God – we must also have the same trust, the same confidence in the Son, our Savior, who is right now as we sit here, preparing a place for you and for me. And when my home is completed, He will bring me to it. That might happen in 2023. And when He is done with YOUR home, He will bring you to it as well. And that might happen in 2023.

But frankly, I am listening for the Trumpet that announces the Rapture – but that’s a different subject and not for today’s message.

Back to the text in 2 Corinthians: 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. [chapter 5]

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. (2 Corinthians 5:1-9)

Paul has already introduced these thoughts in the first verses of chapter five. So, keep looking in the mirror. And as you look at yourself throughout 2023, remind yourself – put a sticky-note on the mirror to help you remember this inviolable promise of your heavenly FATHER: When your earthly tent is torn down, Almighty God will give you what He is NOW preparing for you – “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

A house where we will never, ever, again groan with heartache and chronic pain and loneliness and loss and confusion. A house promised to us by our DADDY who, as Paul wrote: “gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.”  As a down-payment. A covenantal promise.

No wonder Paul concludes his text: 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

Today is the first day of 2023. May we make it our plan – one that we will seek the Holy Spirit each day to enable us to work that plan – that we make it our plan whether we are home in our body or absent from our body to be pleasing to Him throughout 2023.

Amen