Tag: Hope

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The Marvelous Works of Jesus, Part 8: The Marvels to Come (Luke 9:10–43)

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When you think about it, Jesus and His followers had almost no political power or influence. The ruling elites of the world had no interest or even knowledge of Him. What hope would they have had to see the kingdom of Jesus change the world?

One reason might have been the marvelous works that Jesus did. They represented a power far above that of the world, a power over all sickness, all evil, all demons, and all diseases. This would have given them hope.

But what about people who only read about Jesus’ marvelous works? People can read about the power of Jesus in the past and see that these things are marvelous works worthy of admiration. But, we might ask, does that have anything to do with today? Is there power available today for provision, for justice, for healing, for restoration, for deliverance? That’s what the first readers of the book of Luke might have asked, and that’s what we might ask as well.

And that’s what this passage is all about. Jesus was telling His disciples in these stories that they would experience His power not only on the day of the miracle but also in the future. This account can also give us hope that the power of Jesus is present now and will continue to be present in the future to heal, to deliver, and to save. We will consider this by looking at the following sections:

The Coming Provision (Luke 9:10–17)
The Coming Trial (Luke 9:18–27)
The Coming Glory (Luke 9:28–36)
The Coming Victory (Luke 9:37–43)

The Coming Provision (Luke 9:10–17)
Jesus had just sent the disciples out to preach and teach. He was preparing them for their future role. When they returned, they told Jesus all that they had done. To review what they had done and give them some rest, Jesus took them to a quiet area near a town called Bethsaida.

The plan for rest was quickly short-circuited. The crowds followed Jesus. Even though He had other things on His agenda, we read, “He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing” (Luke 9:11). Even though Jesus had other things on His mind, He gave a face of welcome to the people God brought on His way. Luke points out that Jesus often had an agenda of rest and retreat, but the Father had an agenda of outreach. Jesus trusted the Father’s leading and was willing to trust that the Father would provide what He needed for Him to do the work.

Then, the Twelve disciples got nervous. They realized that it was getting late, and the people needed to eat and needed lodging. Jesus responded with a surprising statement, “You give them something to eat.” Why would Jesus say this? Sometimes Jesus does not immediately relieve our crises when we go to Him. Instead, He sometimes aggravates them. Why? To cause us to look to our real resource in Him.

The disciples responded, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd” (Luke 9:13). They were really unsure of what to do. The text tells us that there were about 5,000 people there! Continue reading “The Marvelous Works of Jesus, Part 8: The Marvels to Come (Luke 9:10–43)”

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The Marvelous Works of Jesus, Part 7: Hope for Healing (Luke 8:40–56)

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After a long string of defeats, it’s easy to give up hope. You feel like you can’t win or experience anything good. You may have battled something within yourself, and you feel like you can never defeat it. You keep going back to the same sin and the same old pattern. You feel like you’ve tried everything, and you can’t move forward. You also can experience this in regards to others. You feel stuck in a relationship. You feel like nothing can change. You’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to work. So, you wait but without much hope.

In this passage, we have two examples of people who were tempted to give up hope. Then, they saw the power of Jesus. This gave them hope when others gave up hope, and they saw Jesus do an amazing work.

There are two histories intertwined here. The account begins and ends with the account of Jairus, a synagogue leader, and in the middle is the account of a woman with an issue of blood. We will deal with the woman first and then we will consider what happened when Jesus went to Jairus’ house.

The Woman with an Issue of Blood
Jesus triumphed over the demon army on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The people, though, did not want him to stay, and so he returned to the Jewish side. There is a big contrast in this passage between the crowds who asked Jesus to leave in the previous story and the crowds on the other side of the Lake. “Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him” (Luke 8:41).

In the midst of those crowds was a man named Jairus, a leader in the synagogues. This man came to Jesus and fell at his feet begging Jesus to come to his house. Have you ever experienced something that drove you to Jesus’ feet like that? What this man experienced is the sort of thing that would drive you to your knees. This man had one child, a daughter of 12 years old, and she was dying. Everyone expects that their children will outlive them, so the death of a child is always the hardest.

Jesus tried to leave, but the crowds were pressing in around Him and nearly crushed Him. There, in the midst of the crowd was a woman who had a gynecological condition. She had continued to bleed for twelve years. She had tried everything, and no one could heal her. This was a very difficult disease, but the situation was even worse. Women who experienced an issue of blood were considered ceremonially unclean. They had to remain separate from others so as not to make them unclean, and they could not enter the temple.

That’s what makes what happens even more striking. She came up behind Jesus and touched his cloak. Immediately, she was healed. She didn’t make Jesus unclean. Jesus made her clean. Jesus healed her.

Then, Jesus asked a very strange question. “Who touched me?” He was in the midst of a crowd, and people were pressing in all around Him. Jesus then clarified, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me” (Luke 8:46). Continue reading “The Marvelous Works of Jesus, Part 7: Hope for Healing (Luke 8:40–56)”

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The God of Hope (Joel)

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In 2016, fires from Chimney Tops sped down through the mountains into Gatlinburg, TN. All around the Parkway, the fire blazed and threatened to consume the town. The fire moved quickly toward Pigeon Forge. The result was thousands displaced, more than a dozen killed, and countless structures destroyed. People here had never experienced anything like it. By the morning of November 29, people were in shock and uncertain of what or who had survived.

In such times, we need comfort as we feel the loss of the normal things that support us. But these tragedies are the sorts of events that can transform us and shape our lives. These sorts of events can help us see beyond our ordinary daily lives and look to the end of life and eternity. They can help us think more seriously about who we are and what we are doing and should be doing.

That’s just what happened with the prophet Joel and with other prophets. They considered the tragedies of life deeply, and as they looked, they got a vision. They saw beyond the ordinary. They saw the big issues of life. We want to look at one particular vision today, that of the prophet Joel. I want you to see three things in this book: the God of wrath, the call to repent, and the God of Hope.

The God of Wrath
We do not know much about the prophet Joel at all. What we do know is that something terrible happened in his lifetime, an event like they had never seen. “Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?” (Joel 1:2). And what had occurred? Locusts or grasshoppers had come into the land and were eating everything. They were leaving nothing behind. “What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten” (Joel 1:4). These people depended on the yearly crops just to survive, and now the locusts were eating everything. “Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed” (Joel 1:11). This is a disaster on a scale that is difficult for us to imagine.

I always had a hard time visualizing what this sort of thing would look like until I lived in South Dakota. One year, the grasshoppers just kept multiplying. They covered everything. There were literally dozens of them per square foot in our backyard. Our kids didn’t want to go outside because they would be wading through grasshoppers. The spiders also multiplied greatly because they could eat the grasshoppers. I had never seen so many in my life. This was a small taste of what it was like to experience this terrible plague of locusts that the people of Israel experienced in the time of Joel.

So, what did they do with such an experience? The prophet Joel reflected on this event, and it enabled him to see the wrath of God coming on this world. He saw it as a vision of the final judgment where God would come back and settle all accounts and deal with every wrong in every human heart. Continue reading “The God of Hope (Joel)”

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He Is Risen! (Matthew 27:57-28:20)

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When we think about the world plunged into darkness, World War II is one of those times. The whole world seemed to be engulfed in war, and much of the world was being crushed under the boot of tyrannical government.

We have many stories that demonstrate the tragedy and darkness of World War II. One of the most poignant is that of Corrie ten Boom. She lived in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. Her family, trusting in Christ, believed that they needed to help the Jews. Eventually, they were caught. Corrie, her father, and her sister were all sent to Ravensbruck, a German concentration camp. The darkness had gotten deeper.

Jesus’ Burial
Perhaps this is the way the disciples would have viewed the death of Jesus. There was darkness over all the land, and finally Jesus gave up His spirit and died. His lifeless body hung there on the cross. Continue reading “He Is Risen! (Matthew 27:57-28:20)”

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Our Glorious Hope in Suffering (1 Thess. 4:13–5:11)

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The Fundamental Problem
When kids are little, few things are more exciting than a visit from the grandparents. They greet these visitors with an eagerness that warms the heart. But this doesn’t last forever. These same kids get busy with life and other things get their attention. They may still love their grandparents, but the relationship changes. When this chapter of life closes, it’s easy to look back on it with a joy mixed with sadness. You realize that life has moved on.

The sadness we feel at loss points to the final loss. All changes point to the final change when death closes all chapters. Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “But every hour is saved from that eternal silence, something more, a bringer of new things. Death closes all.” Death is the final loss that all losses point to.

This is what the Apostle Paul addressed in his letter. Their friends, their close companions, had departed this world. The Thessalonian Christians were, understandably, sad. They had embraced the faith, and now their friends had died. They were mourning, and they were not sure what to think of it. The ever present power of death still seemed to be at work in spite of the resurrection of Christ.

To understand this, we should consider that there is an even more basic problem than death. It is the judgment of God. God’s holiness shatters all our delusions of righteousness. We can compare ourselves to others and believe that we are better, but in the light of the holiness of God, we all stand equally condemned before the throne of God.

In this political season, we can easily demonize one side or the other. “Demonize” is a good description of what we tend to do. This is not to say that one side is not more righteous than the other, but it is always good to remember that in light of the judgment of God, Democrats and Republicans alike stand condemned for our our own pride and sins before the holy throne of God’s judgment.

The day of the Lord is the word the Bible uses to describe the final judgment, when all of the world will be evaluated according to God’s standard and weighed in the balance. The question of the day of the Lord is always this, how will anyone survive, since all are sinful and deserve God’s wrath?

And none of us knows the time when we will be summoned before the throne of God. We do not know the time of our death. You may take all the precautions and avoid COVID, and you may die on the way home. You may wake up dead tomorrow. This is hard for us to hear, but it is one of the most important facts of life.

That is how the day of the Lord is. It comes like a thief. The thief doesn’t call you and give you a date and time when he will rob your home. He comes at a time you least expect it. That’s how death is and that is how the day of the Lord will be.

In light of these facts, we might wonder, is there any hope?

The Glorious Hope
Indeed. There is. A glorious one.

The first aspect of our hope is that we know the day of the Lord is coming. “But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness” (1 Thess. 5:4–5). We don’t need to be in the dark. We know the day of the Lord is coming.

Second, the good news is that we are not appointed to receive wrath. “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). We might expect wrath and condemnation because of our sin, but that will not be our end. The Lord will come to end our suffering not give us over to suffering.

Now, we must add, this is only true for those who have accepted Jesus as their representative before God. Whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. Christ has made the sacrifice, but we must accept it. It is only those who are anticipating Christ’s return who will be saved from the wrath of God. Is that you? Where do you stand? You may enjoy community at church or feel good about being here, but have you given yourself to Jesus and accepted Him as the one who saves you? Remember. The day comes like a thief. You need to be ready.

The third aspect of the hope is that we will be with the Lord. “He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him” (1 Thess. 5:10). God tells us what it will be like when Jesus comes again:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thess. 4:16–17).

We will always be with the Lord. He died for us not only to save us from our sins but also because He values us so much that He wants to experience our presence to all eternity. Jesus love you and values you that much! Don’t let anyone look down on you!

This past week, I had the great privilege of witnessing the marriage of a cousin on my Mother’s side. She was the last of my generation to get married, and now all of us are married. Marriage is a beautiful thing. One of the things that we say in our wedding vows is, “Until death do us part.” We can only commit as long as life lasts.

With Jesus, it is not like that. He wants to be with us forever. We are united with Him forever to enjoy Him, the person who fulfills all our desires for fellowship and friendship and loves us and values us more than we can imagine. That’s the relationship He wants to have with us.

That doesn’t mean that we will go there alone. That is the fourth aspect of this hope. One thing Paul emphasizes is that though the Thessalonian Christians may mourn their Christian friends who have died, they do not need to mourn as those who have no hope. We will all be together with the Lord. That’s a great hope.

Our Appropriate Response
So, how should this affect us? How should this change our lives? Paul has very practical instruction that is immediately applicable to each one of us right now, today.

First, we need mental space. Last week, I went camping up at Indian Boundary by myself. There was zero cell phone reception. It was really strange not to be able to text people when I thought about it and not to hear from anyone or be able to look things up I had questions about. But it was good. It allowed me some extra mental space.

Every bit of growth we experience comes from this extra space. The Bible will not necessarily say, “clear mental space,” but it presupposes it. Everything it tells us to do requires time and mental energy. Unless we have that, we will not be able to grow.

Second, we need to use that mental space to think about the big issues of life, including death. What would happen if you died today? If you die 30 years from now, what would you have wanted to do with it? What would be a good life? We’ve got to think about these questions in order to live well. I tend to think we should consider each day as a completed whole. We should think of this day as in some ways as our last and live it doing what our Lord would want us to do. We should lay our head down on our pillow ready to meet the Lord, if He should call us home.

Third, we should develop the virtues that lead us to hope. We need to tell ourselves the stories of God’s love for us. We need to tell ourselves the story of God’s interest in us. We need to tell ourselves of the stories of God’s eternal plan for us. We need to take these stories in deep and receive them with all our hearts. That’s what it means to put on faith, hope, and love as armor. The Apostle Paul says, “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet” (1 Thess. 5:8). Like armor protects a soldier from the missiles of the enemy, so faith, hope, and love enable us to keep moving forward in the face of the opposition that can keep us from becoming what God has called us to be.

Finally, we don’t do this alone. Growth is a communal activity. At the end of 1 Thess. 4, the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.” He gives further explanation and then says again, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11). So, let’s help each other. Let’s encourage one another, as we are doing. Let’s not run from the reality of death, but let’s encourage one another that in the face of this ultimate suffering, we have a glorious hope! That’s something we can and should do . . . today. Amen.

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