Things That Make Christians Different From The World: Hope
Hope is a remarkable word in our world and in the world it can mean anything from I sure do hope that it rains today to I hope I win the lottery today to I hope that I’m saved or I hope that I’m going to go to heaven.
But for Christians, and I mean true believers here, it means that we have complete assurance and confidence in what we believe, who we believe in, what He has promised us and where we are going to spend eternity.
Early Edition was a popular television program in the 1990s that featured a young man who received the next day’s newspaper a day ahead of time. And because he always knew the future, this man’s purpose in each episode was to save people from a tragedy or problem he had read about in tomorrow’s paper. So if he knew a building was going to burn, he tried to keep people from entering it. Or if someone was going to be hurt by an act of violence or an accident he tried to prevent the encounter from taking place.
If you own a Bible, you have an “early edition” of future events. By reading God’s prophetic Word, you can know God’s plan for all eternity. Perhaps you’re thinking, “I’m not interested in prophecy and all this end times stuff.” To which I would reply, “Do you long to have hope?” By hope I mean absolute confidence and peace in your present and future circumstances. Hope is one of the great characteristics of Christian reality.
At the start of the letter, in 1st Thessalonians 1:3 which says this: “constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father…” Paul tells us that hope produces steadfastness and through steadfastness we build perseverance. If there is no hope in the church, there will be no perseverance, and no perseverance will mean the demise of local churches. Fortunately, there is good news: God provides hope in a hopeless world. In 1st Thessalonians 4 verse 13-18 we read this:
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we, who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
In 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul shares two truths that we can always count on.
The first one is the hope or assurance of your resurrection. There is no room in a believer’s heart or mind for doubt about this wonderful promise from God to us. The Christians in the church of Thessalonica were under the false belief that their loved ones who had passed away were not going to heaven because they died before Jesus came back the second time.
So Paul did what he was so good at and that was educating people on the things of Christ and he explained to them that their loved ones were being well taken care of and that they needed to know that since Jesus died and rose from the dead that their loved ones would also be raised from the dead if they accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior.
This hope or assurance from God about where Christians go after death is pretty much just the opposite of what the world believes happens to people when they die. So when Paul said “don’t grieve as those who have no hope” what that means to me is that when lost people are faced with death or dying either their own or someone else’s they can get very scared, distraught, and apprehensive because they are not really sure in their mind or in their heart what exactly is going to happen to them or their loved ones when they pass away.
Because we have as our foundation the truths that are recorded in the Word of God we as Christians know exactly what is in store for us as believers and we also know exactly what is in store for those that we know who are not Christians and that part is what breaks the hearts of many a believer.
The world “hopes” that everything will turn out alright at the end of things but they don’t want to take the steps that are required now to know for sure what will happen when life ends here on earth.
I would hate to go through life in this world and just have to guess about what happens after death. As Christians we know that what Paul wrote for us in Philippians chapter 1 verse 2 is very true and also reassuring: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And also what he wrote for us in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 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. What wonderful assurances these promises are to Christians!
Both of these verses tell us that it is better to be with the Lord than here on earth. Now I understand that as Christians that we all want to be in heaven with Jesus one day. And I am very confident that all of us here today are prepared to go but we may not want to go on the next busload! But the key here is that we as Christians know what is going to happen to us when we do leave this earth and we also know exactly where we are going and we all know that heaven will be way better than what we have here on earth!
But what it must be like to live life on this planet and have no real understanding of what happens after we die. That to me is just scary!
The second truth that I want to talk to you about today is the promise that we will all be a part of a great big reunion in heaven one day!
Verses 16-18 of our Scripture text say this to us: 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
When Jesus comes back the second time, He will appear in the eastern sky and the whole world will witness an incredibly miraculous event of global proportions! Jesus will raise all of the dead saints of God first and then we who are left will be caught up with Him in the air. That is if we are alive when Jesus comes back.
But the main thing here is that all believers from all ages of the earth will have all of their remains no matter how small, gathered up and taken out of this world before it is finally done away with. God will take everyone who belongs to Him out of this old world and take them home to heaven.
In 1st Corinthians 15 verse 51-52 Paul wrote for us this description of what will happen when Jesus comes back: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Sleep in the Bible is a form of imagery that refers to Christians only. While it is a metaphor for death it is not true that our souls are asleep but rather it refers to what happens to our bodies when we pass away. Our bodies “sleep” until we are raptured when Jesus comes back and He raises up all the “sleeping” saints and gathers them up to take home to heaven.
But we will all be changed in a moment. The word moment is a little long for what will be happening to those who are still alive when Jesus comes back. When Paul says that we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye what he means is that in the time it takes for our eyes catch light around us, which is a very short time indeed, we will all be given our glorified bodies and we will be ready to enter heaven.
The world, for the most part, doesn’t understand this concept of being changed and being ready for heaven or being reunited with our loved ones. They just don’t have these assurances like we do. They all “hope” that they will see their loved ones again one day and they may even believe that, but the truth is that if they and their loved ones don’t know Jesus as their Savior then they will be very surprised at what they will find at the end of this earthly existence. And it won’t be a pleasant surprise either!
It is our job as Christians to help spread the hope or the assurances that we have in Christ with a world that whether they realize it or not is hopeless. We have to tell them and show them why what we call hope and what they call hope are two completely different things. We have to tell them that without a relationship with Christ there is no hope for them or their loved ones. There will be no hope of going to heaven or being with any of their loved ones who are Christians either.
The world is watching to see how we deal with adversities in our lives. They watch to see how we deal with death. We have to show them that we grieve but when we grieve for a fellow Christian it isn’t the same way that they grieve for their lost loved ones.
A lot of times they grieve like it will be the last time that they will ever see them but when we grieve for a Christian we know for sure that we will see them again one day and what a day that will be when we all get to heaven and get to spend eternity with Jesus!
Hope in a biblical sense is critical to all believers so keep hoping and keep on believing in the assurances and promises that we know are in God’s Word!
