A SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE
Mike Cunningham
August 17, 2014

Before continuing from where we left off last Sunday, I want to remind you of the fact that if we heed “The Terrifying Warning” that I explained in that message you and I will always be able to enjoy “A Sure And Certain Hope.”

Hebrews 6:11 (ESV)
11 and we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.

A couple of hundred years ago Alexander Maclarren explained that: “Many of us have seen the picture in which the artist paints “Hope” as a pale, fragile figure, blind, and bent over, wistfully listening to the poor music which her finger draws from a broken one-stringed lyre. It is a profoundly true and pathetic confession. So sad, weak, blind, yearning, self-deceived is the kind of “Hope” that most men know.
Put side by side with the figure that an unknown sculptor has carved on one of the capitols of the Ducal Palace in Vienna, where “Hope” lifts up praying hands and a waiting, confident face to a hand stretched out towards her from a glory of sunbeams. Or set by the side of the picture of our own great poet’s picture-

“Upon her arm a silver Anchor lay,
On which she leaned over, as befell;
And ever up to Heaven as she did pray,
Her steadfast eyes never swerved another way.”
Who doesn’t feel the contrast between the two conceptions? What makes the difference? The upward look! When “Hope” is directed heavenwards she is strong, assured and glad.

My text speaks of the certainty and the blessedness of Christian Hope, and of the discipline by which it is to be cultivated.

1. Let’s look first at the certainty of Christian hope.

“Experience tells us that hope means an anticipation which is less than sure. Hopes and fears are grouped together in everyday language as always being united, like a double star, one black and the other brilliant, which revolve around a common axis, and are knit together by invisible bands. But if we avail ourselves of the possibilities in reference to the future which by being a Christian puts into our hands, our hope may be no less certain than our memory, and even more sure than it. For the grounds on which Christian men may forecast their future as infinitely bright and blessed, such as the possession of an inheritance which is incorruptible, and which is as an absolute and complete conformity to the likeness of God, which is peace and joy, is triple, each of them providing a feeling of being certain.

A Christian’s hope isn’t built on a projection of his or her longings into a hypothetical and questionable future. Nor is it a deduction from probabilities or guesses. It isn’t a mere wish. On the contrary, it rests immovable on these three solid pillars-an eternal God to whom all time is subject, a past fact and a present experience.

It rests upon the eternal God to whom all of the future is certain and upon His faithful Word, which makes it certain to us. In the Old Testament God is “the hope of Israel,” and a devout persons heart’s language is, “I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait; and it’s in His Word that I hope.” In the New Testament Christ is our hope; and, putting it into context we see two immutable things, God’s promise and His oath, which lays the foundation for unshakable confidence.

And not only so, but our hope also rests on a past fact; “He has recreated us into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

The real proof that when we paint Heaven we are not painting mist and moonshine is the fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. Before that awesome event people have hoped and feared, and said: “Perhaps it may be;” or “I am afraid it is,” or “I hope it is.” However, there is all the difference in the world between saying, “A man can possibly live again,” or “he may probably live again,” or, “he will live again,” and saying, “a Man has lived again, and after dying has risen.”

There were many reasons for believing in the existence of America before Columbus came back and said, “I have been there.” And, no doubt, there are many reasons that may incline hopeful or dreadful spirits and wearied spirits, and desiring spirits to anticipate a life beyond, which shall be a hope or a dread; but there is only one ground upon which men can say; “ We know it isn’t a cloud-land, but solid earth,” and that is, that our Brother has come back from the place from which “no traveler returns,” and by doing that He has shown us by the indisputable historical fact, that to die is not ceasing to exist. On the contrary, when we die our body is resurrected. We lift our eyes upward to the heavens, and although “the cloud that took Him out of sight;” “Hope,” which is better than vision, pierces the cloud and travels straight to the throne while He bends from His crowned glory and says: “Because I live you shall live also.”

“Our everlasting hopes arise
Above the cloudy skies,”

And they aren’t built upon our dreams nor is music drawn from them, nor is the music drawn from the lyre by our poor fingers, but they are built on the steadfast Word of the eternal God, to whom the past, present and future are one; and they are built on the awesome historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Then the Christian hope is based, not only on these two strong pillars, but also on a third, which is our present experience.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, has, in two places, a very interesting and instructive genealogy of Christian hope; and in both places, (the fifth and fifteenth chapters) he traces the hope of the Christian to a double and apparently opposite source. He says:

“Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

And in a similar passage in the other chapter, he speaks about being filled with,

“Joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope.”

So then, the Apostle Paul traces the Christian hope to a believers present experience of forgiveness, and of access by faith into present grace; or as he puts it in briefer words in the other place, to every Christians wonderful experience of “joy and peace in believing.”

Furthermore, our hope rests upon the fact that;

“He has recreated us into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

The one genuine proof that when we paint Heaven we aren’t painting mist and moonshine is the fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. Before Him men and women had hoped and feared, and said, “Perhaps it may be;” or “I am afraid it is, or “I hope it is.” (A)

A modern author R. Kent Hughes explains that, “The thirteenth chapter of Matthew contains five parables universally called the Mystery Parables because they help explain the mystery of God’s Kingdom as it is lived out in the Church. It begins with the Parable of the Sower, who sows seed on four kinds of soil. The first three soils (the hard soil, the rocky soil, and the weed-infested soil) yielded no fruit. As Jesus explained of the infested soil, “What was sown among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). Happily, this was not true of the fourth soil, as he further explained: “But what was sown on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23). Authentic, living faith produces visible fruit. Jesus says essentially the same thing at the end of the Sermon on the Mount:
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:16-21)

Thus, Jesus helps us unravel the mystery of the Church as we are helped to understand that professions and experiences do not necessarily indicate authentic Christianity—such things must be validated by the way one lives.

This is an indispensable truth for understanding the visible church. But misapplied, it can foster far-reaching abuse by self-appointed spiritual fruit inspectors who misapply their own subjective, fallible criteria for true Christianity. Realizing this, Jesus follows up his first parable with a second Mystery Parable, that of the weeds or tares, which describes how the enemy sows bad seed among the good seed of the Sower, so that “look-alike” weeds grow up with the wheat. The servants asked him:

“Do you want us to go and pull them up?” “No,” he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” (Matthew 13:28-30)
Tragically, disregard of Jesus’ advice has brought untold misery to the Church, as history sadly attests.

There is much wisdom in the first two Mystery Parables. We can generally discern the authenticity of another’s faith by the way the person lives, and we ought to be discerning and, at times, confronting if another’s life appears fruitless. However, we must also remember that there are “copy-cat,” bogus believers in the Church whose artificial fruit is very good—so good in fact that a spiritual search-and-destroy mission will uproot real believers along with the counterfeit Christians. We must therefore let God be God!
At the same time, what is to be done pastorally when, say, the preacher sees some dangerous drifts? The book of Hebrews issues terrifying warnings to the corporate church, hoping that those in the church who really need them will hear. The latest have been the thunderous warnings of verses 4-6 (discussed in our previous chapter). The chilling warnings in that passage, followed by the challenge of verses 7, 8 to lay bare the soil of one’s life to the sweet rains of God’s grace, no doubt made some of the more sensitive believers in the church begin to question the validity of their own faith. Such questioning can be healthy, but there is also the danger of losing one’s proper confidence in salvation. So in verses 9-12 the writer works at shoring up the confidence of the believing majority in the storm-tossed little church.

The author begins by tenderly expressing confidence in their faith, calling them “dear friends” (literally, “beloved”)—”Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation” (Hebrews 6:9). He is confident that the things that characterize a real work of salvation are part of their inner and outer experience.

Inwardly, the “things that accompany salvation” are evidenced by the witness of the Holy Spirit as he testifies with our spirits that we are God’s children, as is described in Romans 8:16. We have a subjective voice within that authenticates our relationship with God. One of the primary evidences of this is the sublimely compulsive desire to address God intimately as “Father” (Romans 8:15). At the very root of this is the inner awareness that we are forgiven and reconciled. We also have an inner peace/shalom that is supernatural. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). This is nothing less than the personal peace of Christ! These unique inward realities that characterize our experience of salvation are substantial grounds for confidence.

Outwardly the “things that accompany salvation” are witnessed to by the graces of character that come from truly knowing Christ: a pure life—a truthful tongue—a forgiving spirit—a generous heart. It is true that such graces may be partially produced without “salvation,” but those are like artificial flowers in comparison with the real thing. They have no real life—no true fragrance. Authentic Christian life produces authentic Christian character—and such character is added ground for substantial confidence.

When we have the inner and outer evidences of the “things that accompany salvation,” we have reason for great confidence.

When the Holy Spirit whispers that we are children of God, when the reflex of our heart cries, “dear Father,” when we have a sense of the shalom of Christ, when our character has been spiritually altered by Christ, we can be confident of our spiritual state

.

The writer was confident about the church in general because he knew most of them knew the “things that accompany salvation.” But his confidence was grounded even further in their past and present lifestyle, as the next verse indicates: “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Hebrews 6:10).

The essence of their past lifestyle is noted in his saying, “as you have helped his people,” a direct reference to their initial heroics when the church began, as recorded in Hebrews 10:32-34. There we are told that they stood tall in the face of suffering public insult, persecution and confiscation of their property. But even more heroic is how they unselfishly committed themselves to helping their suffering brothers and sisters, for it says, “At other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated [i.e., insulted and persecuted]. You sympathized with those in prison” (Hebrews 10:33-34). Their Christian lifestyle was one of daring courage and compassion—giving themselves for others.

And this reaching out, this care for the Body of Christ, was not just a thing of the past but was part of their present lifestyle because the whole of the phrase reads, “…as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” Their lifestyle was an actual living out of Christ’s new commandment to love each other with the sacrificial love with which He loved them, (John 13:34-35).
So we see that many in that little church lived an exalted Christian lifestyle, and if we look closer we see that it did not escape the notice of Heaven:

“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him…” (Hebrews 6:10). They will be rewarded because in helping God’s people they were helping God! Jesus taught the same thing:

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)

Their caring lifestyle for others was ultimately a caring for God

!

Thus the writer has a well-grounded confidence in the spiritual authenticity of his people. A lifestyle that caught the rewarding eye of God, which, in serving others, was serving him—this lifestyle, coupled with the inner “things that accompany salvation” such as a sense of forgiveness, shalom, and God’s Fatherhood, plus the outer character changes coming from salvation, was substance for the author’s great confidence that the church would go forward.

And it is the same with us. If we have undergone an inner change through Christ that affects us outwardly in our character, producing a lifestyle that causes us to care for others, we can have the greatest confidence about our faith. Conversely, if there is no subjective inner experience of shalom, if our ostensible character changes are more like plastic flowers and our lifestyle is focused inward upon ourselves, we had better take careful stock of our destiny. (B)

May the Lord who blessed you each of your yesterdays do the same today and all of your tomorrows with “A SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE.”

Lord willing, next week….

Expositions of Holy Scripture by Alexander Maclarren, D. D. Reprinted 1984 by Baker Book House Company. p. 367-370.
Preaching the Word–Hebrews, Volume I: An Anchor for the Soul. © 1993 by R. Kent Hughes. Published by Crossway Books, 1300 Crescent Street, Wheaton, Illinois