Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Grammar of Hope

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Nobody has ever asked me to preach on hope, except my wife, who asked me to do this whole series. The reason people don’t ask me to preach on hope is we underestimate tremendously what really is the engine of our lives. How you live now is completely determined by your believed-in future. We’re going to look at what Christian hope is and how it is the great life-changing dynamic in the Christian life. Let’s notice what Ephesians 1 tells us about 1) the importance of hope, 2) the content of hope, and 3) how to get it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 21, 2004. Series: Living in Hope. Scripture: Ephesians 1:13-23. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. The way you live now, your present behavior and character, is determined in a large part by what you believe your ultimate future to be. In today's teaching, Tim Keller explores how Christian Hope can transform our present behavior. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Our scripture reading tonight is found on page eight

of your bulletin. I'll be reading Ephesians 1 verses 13 through 22. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promise to Holy Spirit, who was a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those

who are God's possession to the praise of His glory. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that

you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him

to be head over everything for the church. This is the word of the Lord. We've been looking at the life of David, but we're changing gears into another series going up to Easter, and one of the reasons is this. It's great as it is to look at great figures of the past, like Abraham and Moses and David. The real life-changing dynamic of Christianity is an experience within oneself of the presence

of the future. The real change dynamic is an experience within oneself of the presence of the future. I mean, look at verse 14, becoming a Christian is to receive the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is a down payment, it's a deposit, which means it's the first installation, a first installment of the future, redemption of the universe. It's a down, it's a down payment, it's an installment of the future come into your life. That's the reason why Peter 1 has the audacity to say, we're born again into a living hope. There's a future. And when our connection to that future becomes a living thing in our lives.

It so changes us that we have to talk in terms of dying and rising. You can't live without hope. Now, of the many things that I've been asked to speak on, people are always saying, would you have preached on this, I want you to know that nobody has ever asked me to preach on hope. They said, my wife, who asked me to do this whole series on hope, and we're going to do a whole series on what Paul says about the importance on hope. They set my wife who asked me to do this whole series on hope. And we're going to do a whole series on what Paul says about the importance of hope. Now the reason, and of course I do whatever my wife asked me to do, but the reason you have not asked me to preach on hope, that people don't ask me to preach on hope really is the engine of your life.

How you live now is completely determined by your believed-in future. So we're going to take a look at what hope is and what Christian hope is and how this is the great dynamic of change in the Christian life. And we'll start with this passage, and let's notice what this passage tells us about the importance of hope, the content of hope, and how to get it. The importance of it, the content of it, and how to get it. Now, first, the importance of it.

Paul's, whenever you're studying Paul, you have to be a student of grammar, because he has long sentences and he has lots and lots of very elaborate, prepositional phrases, and unless you look carefully at what modifies what, you don't know what he's saying. But if you actually start to be a kind of grammar detective, you see some remarkable things. This famous and magnificent prayer, in verse 15 to 23, that Paul makes for the Ephesian Christians, what is the very first thing he really asks for for them? What is his highest priority?

Well, you have to wade yourself through the stuff like, he's asking for a spirit of wisdom and revelation. He's asking for the eyes of our heart to be enlightened. Now all of that language is to say that Paul is saying there are things you know with your mind that are not operating at the very center of your being. I want some things that you know with your mind to so dominate your thinking and your imagination and your behavior and the Holy Spirit is going to have to do that. But what is the first thing that He wants, the Holy Spirit, to saturate and smite your heart with?

It's there in verse 18. I pray that you will know the hope to which He's called you, the hope. Now what's hope? The biblical concept of hope is very poorly served by our English word, hope. This Greek word that comes up 80 times in the New Testament, it's always translated into English hope. But frankly, our English word is a very poor vehicle for it,

because our English word can notes uncertainty, right? If someone says, do you know that that's true, what are you going to say? You're going to say, well, I don't know it's true, but I hope it's true. See the word hope means uncertainty. But the biblical definition of hope, which you can see especially in, well, like Hebrews 11 verse 1, the biblical definition of hope is life-shaping certainty, a life-shaping certainty of something that hasn't happened yet, but you know will. Hope is a life-shaping certainty about something that hasn't happened yet, but you know will. That's hope. Here's an example of it, a kind of vivid example. One of the hymns, a great Ralph von Williams hymn called, for all the saints.

There's a stanza in there that I always found kind of vivid. And one of the stanzas goes like this. When the strife is fierce, the warfare long steals on the ear the distant triumphs song. Then hearts are brave again and arms are strong. It's an interesting metaphor. Imagine yourself, because the stands it does, imagine yourself fighting in a battle,

and your side is losing. You're fighting for your life, but your side is losing. Your numbers are, the people are falling, your numbers are dwindling, and you're about to give up. And suddenly you hear something. And what you hear is the music or the song of a marching army. And though the army isn't there yet, it's not on the field of battle yet, it's not engaged yet.

It's right over the hill, it's over the mountain. You know that reinforcements, that guarantee victory, are coming. But even though they're not there, even though you don't see them, even though they're not part of the battle, your arm is already stronger. Your heart is already braver. The anticipation, the knowledge of what's about to happen, though it hasn't happened yet, the anticipation changes you, affects the way in which you are absolutely now. You're connecting to the future. Now human beings, as I said, people do not, we underestimate just how much our believed

in future determines how we live now. Human beings though are irreducibly hope-based beings and creatures. We are ultimately and unavoidably shaped now by our believed in future. What we believe about our future is the main determinant as how we process and how we experience and how we handle circumstances now. Let me just give you a kind of proof of that. Imagine two guys and they both have the same job. The job is a terrible job, it's a menial job, it's a boring job, long hours, no vacation

for one year. So they have, it's all the same, the circumstance is the same. It's boring menial work, it's terrible lighting and terrible working conditions, it's 80 hours a week, it's no vacation for one year. So they're having the very same circumstances. Oh, but one thing. One guy is told, you're going to be paid $15,000 for this year of work. And the other guy is told, you're going to be paid $15 million for this year of work. And you know, it's funny, because they're

in the very same circumstances, but it's not the circumstances. They are experiencing their circumstances in totally different ways. Because of that future. The guy who knows he's going to get $15,000 is bored, is unhappy, he's grumpy, he can't stand it, and maybe a quarter of the time way through the year he quits. But the other guy whistles why he works. Goes to work, always gets there on time, very happy, works all day, and goes through his whole year.

Why? It's not the circumstances that actually make you feel the way you feel. It's not the circumstances that actually affect the way you live. Your future, your believed in future completely determines how you process and how you respond to the circumstances now. You can't live without hope. You literally can't live without hope. Victor Frankel, who was a Jewish doctor, who was put into the death camps in Germany and during World War II, but he survived. And he came out and he wrote about his experiences.

One of the things he noticed, of course, being a doctor, was that some people, some of the prisoners are sort of withered up and died, and other prisoners stayed strong. And he tried to figure out why, and he decided this. This is what he wrote. He said, if a prisoner lost faith in his future, he was doomed. And he gave this example.

He says, one of my friends in the camp had a dream that the war would end March 30th. And he was just convinced that the dream was a revelation. But as the date drew nearer, it became clear from the news reports that the war was not ending. On March 29th, he began running a temperature. On March 30th, he began running a temperature. On March 30th, he lost consciousness.

On March 31st, he was dead. His loss of hope had lowered his body's resistance to all the diseases in the camp. You literally can't live without hope. You can't stay healthy without something to look forward to. Depression is linked to hopelessness. Culture, I mean, I could go on and on and on. You know, if an immigrant comes to this country, an immigrant family comes to this country, and the main hope is to make money. They stay somewhat alienated from the culture, but if the main hope is to gain freedom from an oppressive situation,

they tend to assimilate more into the United States culture. I mean, I can go out, I have this long list. You're believed in future, your hope, the hope of your heart, is the real thing that forms the way in which you live now. But we just don't see it. But let me go even further. Your ultimate hope in your ultimate future is the most formative, inescapably formative thing about you. Two examples, back to Frick DeFronkel's,

my first example. Fronkel noticed, again, he was thinking about, why was it some prisoners withered up and died, and some prisoners went bad. They informed, they collaborated with the enemy, and some prisoners stayed not only strong, but also true to their fellow inmates. And he tried to figure out what it was, what it was in the ones that stayed strong.

And here's what he said. This is amazing to me. He says, life in a concentration camp exposes your soul's foundation. Only a few of the prisoners were able to keep their full inner liberty and inner strength. Life only has meaning in any circumstances if we have a hope that neither suffering, circumstances, or death itself cannot destroy. Life only has meaning in any circumstances if you have a hope that suffering, circumstances that even death cannot destroy.

One of the prisoners that achieved this was once asked, why are you being so nice to people and so kind to people in the death camp? Why even try? And you know what he said? I always remember that my wife, who was dead, by the way, and he believed was in heaven. I always remember that at any time my wife

might be looking down on me or God might be looking down on me and I don't want to disappoint them." See, at Fronkel said, that's not just a sentimental little interesting psychological trick. If you put your ultimate hope into anything in this life, into your job, into your money, into your family, into your health, into your status. If you put your ultimate hope in anything in this life, and suffering and circumstances can take it away, and your life will have a ground note. There will always be characterized by a ground note

of anxiety. You'll always be anxious. The only way you're going to be able to face life under any circumstances, if you find a way to put your ultimate hope into something that's suffering and even death can't take away. Something eternal. Let me give you the second summarizes, but let me give you the second illustration, not Victor Frankel, but Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Now, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was a Supreme Court justice and he was a leading figure in American jurisprudence. He had a lot of influence

on our jurisprudence today. But Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was also a secular man. And that is he believed that we were not created, life is an accident. Everything we are is just a product of natural selection and the survival of the fittest and genetic programming. And that when we die, we rot. And eventually universe is going to burn up, and the solar system is going to burn up and nothing that we do is going to make any difference. Okay, he was a secular man. But he let his belief in our ultimate dismal future, his belief was our future is nothingness, the void. And he let that logically affect his philosophy and his ethics.

Here's something he wrote in one of his letters. Pretty remarkable. Oliver Wendohoom's junior said, I see no reason for attributing to a man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or to a grain of sand. He says there's no basis for saying a human beings are any more valuable than rocks. And then listen, I think that the sacredness of human life is a purely constructed idea of no validity outside of the jurisdiction where it was constructed.

It doesn't just squashy sentimentality about human dignity make you want to puke. That includes people who talk of uplift about the nobility of the human spirit, as if the universe is no longer predatory, or bring in the basin. He said, what was the matter with him that day? You know, he said, what a grumpy old man. Well, you know, he was a logical old man. He simply said, we are irreducibly, hope-based creatures. And if you really do believe that our future is nothing, we came from nothing, we're going

to nothing. You know, our origin is insignificant and our destiny is insignificant. He was simply being logical. He says, there's no basis, and Nietzsche says the same thing. If there's no God, if his life is all there is, if we have no ultimate future, who's to say what is right and wrong? Justice is a social construct.

It's just all a matter of opinion. Now the average New Yorker is just as secular as all of her wonder homes, but they just don't go there. They say, well, yeah, I know what the implications are, but I just know human beings have value. I just know this such a thing as justice. I just know that the strong should not have pressed the weak. Now, Nici says, that's just an emotion.

You're just emoting. You don't have any basis for that. But even if you don't have the integrity, the intellectual integrity of an Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. or a Friedrich Nici, because you are a hope-based creature, if you really believe that our ultimate future is nothing, it will break in on you. It'll keep breaking in on you. And no matter how cynical you try to be,

how sophisticated you try to be, no matter how world-wear you try to be, there will be a ground note of sorrow in your life. There will be a ground note of sadness. There will be a ground note of despondency. Now, see us, Lewis, put it so well. He was writing to people who said, well, you know, this life is all there is, and basically we're just a,

you know, everything that I feel is just the program, my genetic programming. And he says, yeah, yeah. If you really believe that where life is an accident and when we die, we rot, he says this. He says, you might decide to simply try to have as good a time as possible, even though that's your belief

in our destiny. You might decide to simply have as good a time as possible. But you'll never accept in the lowest animal sense, ever really be in love with a girl. If you know and keep on reminding yourself that all the beauties of her person and her character are really the momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of molecules and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genins. Let me go a little further.

Some of you are going to take this one more personally. He says, you can't go on getting very serious pleasure from music at all if you know and you keep reminding yourself that its air of significance is a pure illusion and that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. In other words, you may still, in the lowest sense, have a good time in this life, but just in so far as it ever becomes really good. Just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into the real warmth and enthusiasm of real joy.

So far will you be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the future and universe in which you think you really live. If you put your ultimate hope in anything in this world, there will be a ground note of anxiety all the time in your life. And if you believe your ultimate future is nothingness, nothing out there at all, that will keep breaking in on you, and your life will be characterized by a ground note of sorrow and sadness and despondency. You cannot avoid it. What you believe the future to be, what you're

believed in future will form, will determine how you live now. The Bible says, Paul here says, there's another way. Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know there is no greater joy in hope possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 4, Although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I

want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unquenchable hope and joy, even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life, which can be considerable. Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel in life

for each more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity. And as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection.

There's a hope that God calls you to. There's a future that God has for you. And if you connect your heart to that future, you will live a life of greatness. To the degree you connect your hope, your heart, to that future, the future that God speaks to and points to, there will be a greatness about you. Now, what is that hope?

Now, in a way, this is an introductory sermon, and I'm gonna look at this in more detail as the weeks go by on the way to Easter. But let's take a look at what this passage tells us about the Christian hope, two features about the, you might say, distinctiveness of the Christian hope. The Christian hope is personal and material. The Christian hope is personal and material. Now how do we find that out?

Well let's take a look at the grammar again. If you go back to Paul, verse 15, you'll see he says there's three things that I want by the Holy Spirit for you to really get a grip on. I want you to know the hope to which he's called you. But now let's look at the next two things, which are obviously connected.

The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power, which exerded in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now let's take a look at those two things. First of all, I want you to know he says, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. Now here's what we have to look at the grammar. When you heard that read, Paul wants you to know the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. What did you think? You know, those are just wonderful spiritual words, aren't they?

They're the kind of spiritual, Pauline words, and when you hear them read, it makes you feel spiritual. But what do they mean? Well, you don't know what they mean. They just make you feel spiritual. They're so high and wonderful. But what do they mean? And when you actually look to see what they mean, and I looked, I checked eight commentaries

from liberal to conservative on this, and I was astounded. They all agreed, and they're all as astonished as I am myself right now. First of all, the word saints means all Christians. That's not for super Christians. Saints is a word that in the Bible means just the set-apart ones, and it's a reference to all Christians are called saints. Now the second word to look at is this word inheritance. Inheritance is an interesting word. Inheritance means it means the very, it means the, your worth. It means the essence of what you're worth.

It means the substance of your wealth. For example, you know, what if, what if for example you had a, you know, the essence of what you're worth. It means the substance of your wealth. For example, what if, for example, you had some savings here and savings there, but virtually all of your wealth was basically your worth was locked up in a particular piece of property. What if an 80, 90% of everything that you owed essentially, your worth was in that property?

You would say, that's your inheritance, in a sense, that that is the essence of what you would leave to somebody else. There's your inheritance. Whose inheritance are we talking about here? It doesn't talk about your inheritance and my inheritance. Paul is talking about God's inheritance, and that even use the term inheritance with God is astonishing.

Here's what I mean. Imagine trying to buy something for Bill Gates. What do you get the man who's got everything? In fact, let me go with a step further. Imagine trying to give Bill Gates something so great that once he got it, he says, oh my gosh, this is worth more than almost everything else I have put together.

This is my most treasured possession. What could you get Bill Gates? That'd be so unique and so valuable that everything else he had paled. And it would really be his most treasured possession. Well, you know what, that would be pretty hard. He's pretty wealthy. I don't know how you could do it. It's probably impossible. But something more impossible than that's happened. Because God is the most wealthy individual in the world.

He zones all the stars and all the galaxies and all the planets. And yet Paul says, God has got something. So valuable to him, it can be called as inheritance. So valuable to him that all the stars and all the earth, everything else that he's got is almost nothing compared to this by comparison. God's got an inheritance.

That's incredible. What is it? It's the saints. It's us. And what Paul is asking for, this is where the commentators all say that there's only one answer. Why is Paul praying that the Holy Spirit would come in and give us a spirit of revelation? So we would see the riches of God's glorious

inheritance in us. Paul is praying that you would be smitten by God's value, our value to God, or this is the way one commentator put it, Paul wants you to be smitten by how rich God feels when he looks at you. And until you are astounded by how rich God feels when he looks at you, that are valued to him, the people of God, are value to him, is that great. You're not going to live the life you want to live, you're not going to live the life you should live. And this is connected to hope, and here's the reason why. C.S. Lewis has a great little essay called The World's Last Night, and he has a little stream of logic in there that goes like this. He says, you know, we all desperately need to know.

We need to feel affirmed. We need to feel affirmed. And the least potent way to get affirmation is to give it to yourself. You can say, you're great, you're really great. You're talented, you're beautiful, you're great, you're great. And he says, that helps, it does help. You know, you can go through your list, you know, you done this well,

and this one, you can affirm yourself. But an outside person and gives you one affirmation outweighs about 3,000 of your own, right? If you say, I'm great, I'm great, I'm great, I'm great, I'm great. You don't feel nearly as good as when someone else, some other human being comes and says, you are great. That feels... At all ready outweighs about 300 of your own. But he says there's another kind of affirmation that outweighs that.

And that's not when just somebody tells you you're great, but when you overhear someone affirming you. You see, he says, what if you listen in on a conversation and the person doesn't know you're listening? And you hear them say, he's great. That's more potent than if he tells it to your face because you know who knows of his motives for telling it to your face. When you overhear somebody affirming, you say, oh my gosh, he really does believe that about me. So he says, an overheard affirmation is more potent than an outside affirmation.

And an outside affirmation is more important than an inside affirmation. And an outside affirmation is more potent than an inside affirmation. But he says, none of that is like what's gonna happen on the day that God and you meet face to face and you see His delight in His eyes. And on the day that He declares His love to you, you will know in that moment that in everything you've ever wanted,

you are wanting this. In everything you've ever longed for, you were longing for this. How personal is this hope? This isn't pie in the sky, buy and buy. This isn't harps and clouds. And Paul says, unless the Holy Spirit smites your heart with that, unless you connect your present with that future, you're not going to live with the greatness, you're not going

to live with the joy, you're not going to live with the imperviousness to criticism, you're not going to live the great life that you could live. If you're connected to that hope, so first of all, the Christian hope is a personal hope. The second thing, the Christian hope, is a material hope. Because if you keep on going down through the clauses, as I want you to know the hope to which he's called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believed which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead. If you want the best picture of your future, look at the risen Christ.

Why? The Bible says the risen Christ is the first born from the dead. If he's the first born from the dead, there's your future. And it's a material future. This is one of the places, not the only place, but this is one of the places in which Christianity differs sharply from every other religion on the face of the earth. Every other religion.

Eastern religions believe the material world is an illusion and that when we die, we leave the material world. And most Western religions have believed in something like a paradise so that we discard the material world. And most Western religions have believed in something like a paradise so that we discard the material world and go off into a spiritual paradise. But the Christian hope is seen at the end of the book of Revelation. Where at the end of the book of Revelation, we do not see individuals rising out of this material world into heaven. we see heaven coming down to purge and purify and renew and restore the material world.

NT write in his book on the resurrection of Christ, a wonderful book, terrific book says, the amazing thing about the risen Christ, this is unique in all world literature, unique in all spiritual literature. When Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, he's more physical than he was before. He's more solid, he's more permanent. I mean, our future is a material future. He eats, you can touch him, you can put your hands in his fingers and his hands.

What does that mean? I mean, it's really unique. I told you, oh, long we've been saying that your believed in future really affects the way in which you live now. What if that's your believed in future? I mean, for some of you, you hadn't even thought of that. Well, now, think about that because the more you understand the Christian hope, the more you understand your future,

the more that's going to affect the way in which you live now. And there's two ways in which the idea of a material hope, a material future, affects, we live now. First of all, it has enormous implications for suffering. I'll only say this briefly because we're gonna get back to this. The promise of Christianity is not that you're just gonna get a consolation for your suffering. You see, if you believe in heaven

or if you believe in the kind of Eastern idea of leaving the material world, when you're on earth, what is suffering? Suffering means that either things that you had in this world were taken from you or suffering kept you from having the things you wanted. Suffering keeps you from having the life in this world you wanted or takes away the life you had. If you believe in a heaven or something like that, what it means is you get a consolation for the suffering.

But the material hope of Christianity is not just that you get, suffering is not just consoled for, suffering is undone. You don't just get a consolation, you get a restoration. The Christian hope is not that you get a kind of spiritual, you know, heavenly experience that can soles you for the life you never had and you always wanted, but now you're never going to have.

It gives you the life you've always wanted. It gives it back to you. It's a real life. It's a life of eating. It's a life of dancing. It's a life of hugging. All the things you ever wanted a million times over come back to you. And what does that mean?

The significance of it, you can start to see if you think of something, probably an experience you've all had. Imagine losing some object that really is important to you. Really important, could be anything. And you lose it and you can't find it and your heart sick about it. You can't believe it, you can't replace it. And then suddenly you get it back, you about it. I can't believe it. You can't replace it. And then suddenly you get it back. You find it.

Because you lost it, you appreciate it more than before you lost it. Because you lost it, you enjoy it more. It's almost as if the experience of the lostness and the time of the lostness, now that you've had got it back, is taken up into the joy that you have in it now. And it actually, the lostness only makes the joy greater if it's true and it is, that our future is a material future, that we don't just get a consolation. Suffering is not just consoled, but it's undone.

Then that means that even the worst suffering you experience in this world will only make your eventual joy greater for it having happened. And that's a real defeat for suffering. We're not just getting a consolation for the suffering. The suffering in the end will only serve to make your ultimate glory, your ultimate joy greater for having happened. That's astounding. And the second implication of a material hope is not just an implication for how you handle suffering here, but Christianity gives you the most astounding resources and motivation for working for a better world and especially for justice in this world.

If, as homes, Oliver Wendell Homes, and Nietzsche say that, you know, this Wendell Homes, and Nietzsche say, that this world is all there is, then justice is a social construct. If, as the Eastern religion say, this world is an illusion, why work that hard against hunger and poverty and trouble like that? And even if you believe that ultimately,

we're going to go live in a heavenly world and discard this world, then that world's more important than this world. The important thing is to prepare for this world. Why worry that much about poverty? Why worry that much about hunger? Why worry that much? This world is going to burn up, but what if Christianity is true and it is? What if our future hope is a material hope? Then you've got, then you know that this world matters. This world matters to God. then you know that this world matters, this world matters to God.

And he's gonna do something about it, so get with the program. Think about this, Martin Luther King, Jr. did his, I have a dream speech. The reason it was so powerful was because it was completely infused with the material hope of Christianity. He did not get up there and say, I wanna create a society in which everyone has the freedom to define what is right or wrong for them. He did not get up and say,

today I have a personal choice. No, he had, I have a dream. And what is that dream? It was the hope of God's justice. Listen, this is just from his, I have a dream speech. He says, I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain will be made low. The rough places will be made plain, the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed." That's Isaiah 40. That's talking about the future, glory of God coming, the Messiah bringing in the kingdom, the Messiah bringing in the justice of God.

And then he says, this is our hope. With this faith we will be able to heal out of the mountain to despair a stone of hope. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro and Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no. We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream, Amos 524.

If Martin Luther King Jr. had gotten up and said, I have a personal preference today. My personal choice is that I want to be free. Of course, justice is a construct, but I'm just exerting my personal...no, he said, I have a hope. I have a dream. God's justice is coming. Get with the program. His hope was the hope.

The early Christians had cultural power to change that brutal Roman Empire. Why? Why did they stay in the plague, stricken cities, and take care of the poor, and in the sick when everybody else was leaving? Their hope shaped them so they could stay. They didn't care if they died.

Why is it when they were persecuted? They did not pick up the sword and just get sucked into the cycle of vengeance and retaliation because they had a hope that God was a God of judgment and He was going to put everything right in the end. Their hope made them who they were, gave them the cultural power, gave them the personal power. It was the personal power. It was a personal hope, it was a material hope, and if you connect to that, there'll be a greatness about you.

To the degree you connect to that, you'll have that greatness. One last question, how does this hope activate in your life? You know, you know about it, but Paul's saying, I want it to be active. Well, here's my suggestion. Do you notice at the very end of the whole long, long prayer, all this dying and all this rising and all this exalting and all this ruling and all this stuff that Jesus is doing, who's it for? It's all for it.

It all comes down. You can see the grammar takes you away to, it's all for the church. Everything he's doing is for the church. Even ruling history he's doing for it, all comes down. You can see the grammar takes you all the way to, it's all for the church. Everything he's doing is for the church. Even ruling history he's doing for the church. Even ruling everything in history he's doing for the church, it's all for us. So to get the significance of that, let me ask you a question. If it's true that you can only handle troubles in the present moment by looking to a believed in future,

what was Jesus' living hope that got him through his suffering? He was pierced for us, you know, he was crushed, he was forsaken, he was whipped, he was nailed. What got him through it? He must have had a living hope or he couldn't have gotten through it. What was his living hope? Hebrews 121 says,

there was the joy that was set before Him. So He endured the cross. Well, what was it? It tells you right there. It was for us. In Isaiah 53 it says, he was crushed, he was oppressed, he was afflicted, he was pierced, but the results of his suffering he shall see and be satisfied. One of the great lines in the Bible. He lost everything and yet he thought it was worth it because of the results. What are the results?

Us. To the degree you realized that you were his living hope, to that degree he'll become yours. To the degree you're melted by the thought that what got him through his suffering, what was the only thing that he didn't have before he suffered, that he did have after he suffered? I mean, he had the universe, he had everything.

The only thing he didn't have was you. And therefore you and I were his living hope. That's what got him through it. If he loves you like that, if he values you like that, to the degree that you realize that you were his living hope to that degree, he'll become your living hope. You know that place where Victor Frankel said he had that little man in the prison camp

that said the way he was able to maintain equity and poise and kindness to other people was he was thinking of his spouse looking down on him from heaven? What about this ultimate spouse, this ultimate lover? Who's done all this for you, looking down? Think of the impact of that. Let it have the impact.

1 Peter, verse 1, tells you over and over again, everything depends on this. You know, there's a place when 1 Peter where he says, therefore prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled. How? Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. That will affect everything. That's what you have to connect to.

Let us pray. Father, we ask that as we take the Lord's supper, you would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, illumine the eyes of our heart so that we can know our hope. So we can know our value to you. So that we can know the power of the bodily resurrection. So we can connect to this future,

which will so change the way in which we live now. Help us to do that. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you continue to join us throughout this month as we look at the uniqueness of the Hope Christ offers. If you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the Hope and Joy of Christ's Love. Thank you again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. The sermons and talks you here on the

Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.