Pastor’s Corner: “Hope on Hold?”
We throw around the word “hope” carelessly. We hope the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl (not!). We hope to win the lottery (hard to do if you don’t buy a ticket). But the hope of Jesus Christ is a greater hope. The message is simply this: a good God is up to good things in our world. This often feels impossible to remember in the chaos of our world.
Christ came! In spite of sin and scandal, Christ came. In spite of racism and sexism, Christ came. Though the people forgot God, Christ came. In spite of hopelessness, Christ came. In spite of, and out of, the chaos, Christ came. Don’t you need that reminder? In your world of short nights, hard work, and high stress, don’t you need to know and be reminded that Jesus holds it all together?
Proverbs 13:12 (AMP) – 12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. Have you ever struggled because you know God can do anything, but you can’t understand why He doesn’t seem to be intervening for your situation right now? You’re trying to hang on to hope, but the more time that passes without any apparent change, the harder it is. Why is God withholding this from me? Since He’s not intervening, I’ll just try to fix it myself in my way. This dangerous assumption is reminiscent of when Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We need to remember the word “deferred” is very different from the word “denied”.
Charles Spurgeon once preached, “My dear friends, you will never see the tree of life aright unless you first look at the cross … Thus then, Jesus Christ hanging on the cross is the tree of life in its wintertime. In the darkest hour this world has ever known, Jesus died on a cross, or “on a tree,” as Galatians 3:13 puts it in the New Living Translation. But just as we know that trees in the wintertime only appear to be dead, so there was a redemptive transformation at work as Jesus hung on the cross. This is Hope deferred.
Your life may be dark and confusing today. But make no mistake, there is a powerful work happening. And Jesus wants us to hear Him saying, “Eve turned to the wrong tree and received death. I hung on a tree to bring you back to life. I am the fulfillment of your every longing. I am your Tree of Life. Look to Me.” Let’s make a different choice than Eve did. Turn from the deep desire to know all of the reasons and to control all of the outcomes. That knowledge would be a burden, and attempting to control it all will do nothing but entangle you with anxiety and fear.
In the prayer journal of King David, we read this question: “When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do?” (Psalm 11:3). Isn’t David’s question ours? When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do? When terrorists attack, when diseases rage, when families collapse, when churches divide…when all that is good falls apart, what can good people do? What is the godly response to the unexpected mishaps and calamities of life? How can we walk in Hope?
Curiously, David doesn’t answer his question with an answer. He answers it with a declaration. “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his throne in heaven” (vs. 4). His point is unmistakable: When everything shakes, God remains unshaken. He is in his holy temple. His plan will not be derailed. God is unaffected by our storms. He is undeterred by our problems. God has made a business out of turning tragedy into triumph. He did with Joseph, with Moses, with Daniel, and, most of all, he did with Jesus on the cross. “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment” (Colossians 1:16–17 MSG).
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton