Living With One Hope
Ephesians 4:1-4
Let’s start with our text this morning . . .
READ: EPHESIANS 4:1-4
Today we will focus on the exclusiveness of the Christian faith as we try to understand what it means for us to have one hope. But before we talk about hope, actually in order for us to understand hope, we need to properly understand one other word here . . . call or calling. I’ve purposely brought us back to verse 1 this morning to place the second half of verse 4, just as you were called in one hope of your calling into proper perspective. If you remember, weeks ago I spoke to you about how we work for unity in the church, and I told you that we are all called to it, not just leaders/pastors, but all of us, we have a calling. As Paul says, I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.
I want to say to us this morning that unless we’re clear about our calling, and what a calling is, we will not be clear about our one hope, and what that is.
1. We have a calling.
There are two words used here in this passage to express or remind us of who we are. They are the words calling and call. The word calling is a Greek word pronounced klesis(klaysis), its translated almost entirely in the New Testament as calling, in one other place scholars have translated it as vocation. Which should tell us a little bit about what calling means. It includes a vocation, a career. A way of life.
The Greek word we have here, translated as call, is the word Kaleo. This is a word found quite a bit more frequently in the New Testament than the word klesis. Kaleo in its simplest understanding is the idea of an invitation. So, if I give you a call it means I am sending you an invitation.
So what Paul is trying to remind his readers and you and me this morning is that we are an invited people, and that we have been invited to a vocation, a career, a job, a way of life.
When Paul uses these terms here, what he is really talking about is discipleship. What is a disciple? A disciple is a biblical word used to describe someone who follows a religious leader/teacher. In its simplest form, the Greek word for disciple means, pupil or student.
Disciples were not uncommon at the time of Jesus, or before Jesus. There were disciples, but there were actually so few. In Jesus’ day and age, how did one become a disciple? Well, education was valued in the Jewish community. And children went to school, they were students. They would go to school up to the age of 13. School for them was called Beth Sefer and school happened at the synagogue. It’s where everyone learned to read and to write. The curriculum at beth sefer was the Torah the first five books of our Bible. It was at beth sefer that the children would read the torah, write the torah, and would eventually memorize the torah. After finishing beth sefer children would graduate from being children to being adults. Jewish boys would celebrate their bar mitzvah at the age of 13 which the dictionary tells me would mean that they had attained the age of religious duty and responsibility. This means that now they would be held accountable by God for their actions. Girls would celebrate their bat mitzvah one year earlier at the age of twelve (I guess this means girls have always been smarter and more responsible than the boys). And school would be done. Tatum & Kelsey . . . can you guys imagine being done school? When beth sefer was done, it was the beginning of a life of responsibility. You’d learn a trade, work with your family on the farm, or get prepared to learn how to take care of a husband or family.
School was done . . . but for a few there was a hope for further education. If you were passionate enough about your religious duty you would head over to the local synagogue during your down time (like when the work was done or the harvest was in) and you would attend what was known as beth midrash. Beth midrash was like going to sit in on debates and lectures by the Rabbi’s. They would stand around debating and discussing the words of the prophets and the more profound meaning of the Scriptures. The Midrash is actually the writings of Rabbi’s connecting the dots, if you will of the Torah.
If your knowledge was growing, and you had the intellectual knowledge, and the desire to do more than just your duty for God, and you could find the intestinal fortitude, the guts, you would approach your favorite Rabbi and ask him if you could be his student . . . talmeed. A talmeed refers to someone who wants to be what the Rabbi is, not just what he knows, but a person who wants to be a disciple wants to be like the Rabbi. If you were going to be a talmeed, it was really of your own initiative. Rabbis didn’t search for disciples, rather, desirous candidates for disciples came to Rabbis and asked to follow them. “May I follow you?” Rabbis wouldn’t just say yes . . . in actual fact, most were probably turned down. A Rabbi might give you enough of a chance that he may allow you to hang around for awhile and he may watch you. If you had the stuff, if you knew your Torah and more, if you had the passion, if you had the raw potential and skill, ability, you may just be accepted to become a talmeed.
Jesus had disciples . . . but this was not how Jesus operated. Sure, Jesus had people just follow him around, but Jesus operated differently. Instead of the best of the best coming to Jesus, Jesus went to the men on fishing boats, and tax collectors in the market square. And would call them, he would kaleo them! Offer them an invitation, “Come follow me!” He would look up into a tree and say, Zaccheus, come down from that tree and bring me to your house for dinner. It was very un-rabbi like.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he left instructions for His talmedeem, His disciples. Go therefore and make believers . . . NO! Go therefore and make disciples. And Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians. That before the foundation of the world, God chose, God called, he gave us an invitation.
Having hope and living in hope is based totally on this invitation to be followers of Jesus, to be exactly like Him. You and I may not believe we can be like Him, but God does. And so its up to you and me regarding the life we choose to live. You and I can leave here today deciding, I’m not interested in being a disciple. I will not walk in the manner in which I have been called, but we can’t leave here today believing that we can’t be disciples. God hasn’t given us that option.He believes in us. And so Paul writes to us and says . . . you were called in one hope of your calling.
What does that mean? It means you’ve been given an invitation to hope and that your hope actually becomes your vocation, your way of life, your vocation.
2. We have a hope.
Our hope is actually our way of life.
Last Sunday afternoon I called my parents to wish them well as they celebrated their wedding anniversary. I talked to my dad and my dad and I struck up the same conversation we have had every September since I left home 14 years ago. “The season’s starting soon, son. What’s the news, how do they look this year, dad?” And over the years the common response has been much the same, “Son, I think this is the year! The Leafs could win the cup this year!” Last Sunday my dad sighed and said, “Son, they just don’t look that great this year” 40 years of Stanley Cup drought has finally put a dent in my father’s blue and white armor. Wanting and expecting the Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup every year is not a hope . . . it’s a wish . . . and many of you are thinking, it’s a stupid wish indeed.
But here’s the truth . . . we take wishes and turn them into hopes all the time. We put all our eggs in the basket of temporal things rather than eternal things. We make temporal things our vocation, our way of life. Wishes are based on what will bring us pleasure and pride for the sake of pleasure and pride itself. Our vocation and our way of life are so often wish oriented for the sake of our own pleasure and pride. Whereas hope is based on what is eternal and what really matters and it is those things in the end that will truly bring us pleasure and bring us what I consider to be God oriented pride. The kind of pride that does not boast in itself, but boasts, as Paul would say, In Christ and Him crucified.
Do I need to remind you of what hope is? Hope means being sure of what we do not see. There are a few things I am sure I will see even though I haven’t seen them yet. You know, wisemen say there are two things we can be certain about, death and taxes. Well, I’m certain, even though I haven’t seen it yet, that my next pay stub will show a substantial amount of money taken from my income for taxes. And I’m certain, that my earthly destiny is that one day there will be a funeral for me. Even though everything I see right now in my life speaks of health and safety, I’m sure and certain of death. But you and I don’t wish to pay our taxes, do we. You and I don’t wish to die (unless we’re despondent, or ready to die, and I think few of us here have grasped a readiness to die). It’s interesting because the word for hope has this connotation. One of the understandings of hope according to Strong’s Greek Lexicon is the “expectation of evil”. The other is the expectation of good. Biblical hope is a realization of evil and a longing for the good. Biblical hope is lived with patience. It sees evil, pain, suffering, as the refining fire of what will be good. It sees evil as the doorway that we must enter into, in order to experience the good. There is a reason why the Hebrew word for hope is mainly found throughout the quote/unquote depressing books of Scripture. In Job and through the Psalms, and through Lamentations. It’s a word that is most found in books of lament, writings of sorrow. Painful writings.
Romans 4:14 . . . Paul writes, “In hope against hope he (Abraham) believed, so that he might become a father of many nations.” What does it mean to hope against hope? That’s what Abraham did, God told him that he would make him a father, his body was old and dying, and so was Sarah’s womb, Abraham saw the evil of the situation they were living with and knew and had a right expectation of how nature works . . . it was an impossibility, it was a hope. But Abraham hoped against hope . . . he had a certainty that they would have children even though he was certain that it was impossible. All because God said so!
People, Hebrews 12:2 tells us what hope is in the life and ministry of Jesus . . . “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” That’s hope! Foreseeing your way down the race track . . . knowing that down the race track is shame, down the race track is pain, down the race track is sickness or death, or a humiliating experience or loss, or mocking, or betrayal, foreseeing and being sure of all of it, but foreseeing and being sure of the end of the line, a joy, a crown, an exaltation.
Friends, Jesus did not go to the cross begrudgingly. The Father didn’t have the Son’s arm twisted behind his back until Jesus cried out UNCLE. That is another aspect of hope, not just anticipating that something’s coming down the pipe, but anticipating it with pleasure. It is not enough for us in this life to come to expect and accept the fact that we will suffer, the message of the Bible is that we are to embrace it. Luke 9:51 tells us about Jesus, that when the day was approaching for his ascension (not his ascension into heaven, but ascension upon a cross), it says that Jesus was determined to go to the cross.
In 2nd Corinthians 4 Paul writes about how someone who has been invited to a way of life should live with hope in an embracing of the suffering that comes our way in life . . . “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our body. . . Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 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.” That’s hope.
We are all too familiar with what is temporal, I think, but we may need to adjust our view of what’s eternal. So when we talk about hope, when we talk about what is believed with certainty, but not yet seen . . . what is it exactly we are talking about?
It’s a hope of glory . . . This is what Paul writes . . .
Romans 5:1-2 – “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . and we exult in the hope of the glory of God.”
Ephesians 1:18 – “I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
Colossians 1:27 – “God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Titus 2:13 – “Looking forward to the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Hope is knowing that . . .
3. We will see, experience, and share glory.
The truth is that there is a reward for us beyond the horizon of the present circumstances that we live in. Do you know what glory means? It means weight or importance, it means greatness. In the Old Testament God’s glory is often connected with a cloud or light. One of the meanings of glory actually is luminosity or brightness. It’s how Jesus is so often described in Revelation.
You and I will go to great lengths to see greatness. We’ll stand in long lines, we’ll pay a premium price. Last year fans of the Maple Leafs who sat in the lower bowl of the Air Canada Center paid $400 to watch them on plenty of nights stink up the joint. Do you know what you can do with $400 you can almost pay the entire salary of a church planter in Ethiopia for that much money. We’re far too obsessed with temporal things. God has far better things to be spectators of.
The best part about this greatness that we will see is that we won’t just get to see it, we’ll get to experience it. We won’t just be a bystander of greatness, even today, though not fully, we experience greatness because of Christ in us. And Christ in us today does not even match the experience of being in Christ for all eternity. Someday we’ll be fully involved in the greatness of God. And we’ll get to share in it fully. The language of Ephesians is that to see and experience and share in that glory is the greatest treasure, it’s unfathomable riches. CS Lewis speaks about how hard this is all to believe in a sermon he preached titled The Weight of Glory.
Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it at all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognised as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship. CS LEWIS THE WEIGHT OF GLORY
This is what I want to leave you with today . . .
You and I have been invited (Kaleo) by Jesus to a way of life (Klaysis). That way of life is to be like Him. That’s what disciples do, they don’t just know what their Rabbi knows, the mantra of discipleship is, A student is not above his teacher, it is enough for a student to be like his teacher.
Friends, were most like Jesus when we live life in the proper perspective. If we’re going to be disciples these words of Paul have to be true about you and I . . .
For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison
How light are our afflictions? I’d imagine that often our afflictions don’t feel too light. What’s plague is afflicting you? What questions are perplexing you? Who’s persecuting you? What burden is striking you down?
Paul says these are all momentary (temporal) and light (far easier to carry than we often realize). Is it your cancer? Or somebody else’s? Is it the loss of someone you hold dear? Is it the questions of why and how and when that are keeping you up at night? Is it the life details, the dreams and desires you so desperately want to work out but don’t seem to be?
Friends . . . the heaviness of our afflictions our producing the heaviness, the importance of God in our lives. It is a gift!
