Christian Spirituallity Unit 11

welcome to Christian spirituality this is unit 11 I'm Professor Timothy Moore and we're going to be talking about living The Hope filled life in a Christian spirituality course um it's it's all about Christ it's what Christ has done for us it's what Christ wants to do in us and what Christ wants to do through us and so in unit 11 this is Christ through us what does what does he want to uh share with the world through our lives and uh Jesus wants hope to be shared with the world and the way that his hope

is shared with the world is through his followers living a hope filled life and so why do we need to focus on this um because there's a hope deficit um life is hard we all have wounds we all have trauma we all have TR tragedy betrayal loss in this world um the world is broken it's not as God intended it to be the Bible talks about the world being under a curse and it's a curse of Brokenness because of sin and so because of that we all have our own brand of Brokenness and therefore we

have a hope deficit in our lives um but Christ can come into any life bring Beauty out of the ashes and bring hope into those places where there's a hope deficit there are people walking around with very few indicators that they have a hope deficit on the surface on on the surface you think everything is fine and what we see on the outside of a person is not an adequate indicator of what's Happening internally um I listened to a a friend who's a church planting missionary uh in the city in the city of Seattle and

he had recently had a conversation with a very wealthy young man that had been attending one of their small groups and he had built enough trust with this with this um young executive that he began to open up with him and talk to him about um his life um the missionary told me that this young man made a fortune uh he drove the best cars he wore the best clothes he had a yacht and he would take his family on eight week vacations several times a year on his yacht um but in their meeting he

confessed to to my friend that he felt like his life was meaningless and hopeless now we may look at his life on the surface and say that man has it all he's a corporate CEO at a young age he's got all the best of everything but inside there's a hope deficit so we need to look at what God's word says about how we are filled with real hope learning what the Bible says hope is and how we build that hope level in in our own lives in our own hearts and Minds through following Christ uh

Psalm 34:18 says the Lord is near those who are discouraged and he saves those who have lost all hope let's pray about this together father there is a great hope deficit in the world and your word promises that there is great hope to be found in Christ and so I pray that you would enable me today to look into your word and explain your word in such a way that we we know how to Live Hope filled lives and share that hope with others in the world who may look like they are fine on the

outside but inside be filled with that cavernous hope deficit and I pray for you to help us with this God enable us for this in Jesus good name Amen in in our culture the word hope hope um actually can conjure more doubt than than certainty uh it's it's come to convey doubt and what I mean by that is uh if you ask someone um are you are you sure this will happen ask him about anything that that might happen in the future do you think that's going to happen and they will say I don't know

I hope so and really what they're expressing with the word hope is a degree of doubt and when when they're saying I hope it happens it's not a deep-seated confidence it's actually that expression of Doubt um and we need a better form of Hope the hope that Christ gives and uh we need to know how to unleash that hope as Believers and so um the the kind of hope that we that we need is the kind of hope that Dr Timothy Keller was talking about when he said um biblical hope is the life shaping certainty

available to us in Christ Jesus so it's not doubt at all it is a certainty and the biblical Greek word for Hope is idos and it means a confident and joyful expectation and so what the Bible means by the word hope is completely different than the usage uh often in today's culture it's a confident and joyful expectation and so what I'd like for us to do is dive into a hope passage Ephesians chapter 1: 18-23 and do some exus get some um meaning and understanding out of the text that that's a big theological uh word

uh that I don't know if I've explained in this course but um ex Jesus means to get the correct meaning out of a text of scripture as opposed to ISO Jesus which means you're reading your thoughts into scripture and therefore not getting the correct meaning of the text so when I say exod Jesus what I mean by that is getting the correct understanding and interpretation of the scripture and so let's go Ephesians 1:18 says I pray this is the Apostle Paul praying I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can

understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him this is the same Mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the Heavenly Realms now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else not only in this world but also in the world to come God has put all things

under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church and the church is his body it is made full and complete by Christ who fills all things everywhere with himself there's a lot there in that passage um the first thing I want us to focus in on is that Christ is the source of of biblical hope verse 22 says God has put all things if I was with you in person I would have everybody say all things that's everything God has put all things under the authority

of Christ and he has made him the head over all things for the benefit of the church Christ is reigning he is on his throne he has been lifted up and Philippians 2 says he's been given the name that's above every name he is the king of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords he's the head over all things and it's for the benefit of the church the church uh that he's referring to is the church Universal not a a particular single location uh a building he's talking about the family of God for all

who are in the family of God Jesus is over all things for the benefit of the family of God for for believers for those who have um believed in what Christ has accomplished for them received Christ into their lives there are two dimensions of elpos there's two dimensions of Hope the first dimension of Hope is what I call Salvation hope it is future oriented it's the assurance that God's promises will certainly be fulfilled we have a confident and joyful expectation that all the promises of God in his word are going to be fulfilled because of

Christ the second dimension of Hope is sanctification hope sanctification is progress oriented and so it's the belief that God's transformative power is at work in US shaping us into who we are meant to be and so salvation hope is future oriented sanctification hope is pretty much now oriented because it is our progress into the person God has designed us to be it's how God's working in your life today and day by day to make you into the person he created you to be so let's talk about the future oriented hope as it is alluded to

in our passage Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18 it says I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called it's it's a hope that's been given it's something that's done and complete and it is a future oriented hope it's something that's been accomplished that's going to be um experienced fully in the future and so someone might ask you know is that is that even really relevant today to F focus on the future oriented hope and I would say it's extremely relevant

because what we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present I would say it always shapes how we live in the present why should we focus on Heaven why should we ah you know for nothing else time right I mean 90 years is just a blip it's just uh when you when you we're Eternal creatures Eternal and James 4 14 says this life is just a vapor that appears for a moment on a cold morning you breathe you see it it's gone that's life according to the Bible That's this life and so

to focus on this life when we are Eternal creatures we're Eternal imod day we're just makes sense this life is a Transit Lounge you know you know when we we did 34 4 hours of traveling there and 34 hours to get back which means it doesn't take 34 hours if you can fly straight through but you don't fly straight through the other side of the world you have to sit you know you sit on a plane then you got to sit in a they're either called Transit lounge or departure Lounge I don't know if you

knew that I had to look it up but like what are the seats you know when you're waiting on a plane what's that called Transit lounge or departure lounge and guess what right now we're in the transit Lounge like this world is the departure Lounge to a connecting flight and we're going somewhere all right with Jesus we're going somewhere he said let not your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me my father's house or many mansions John 14 I would have told you I go if I go I'll come again I'll

receive you to myself where I am there you may be also that's the promise of Jesus you know when somebody says yes to Jesus they immediately get a new address and a citizenship in God's Eternal Kingdom like and I'm not making that up it's right in the Bible Philippians chapter 3:2 it says now we are citizens of heaven where the Lord is and it says he will take our weak and mortal bodies and changed them into glorious bodies like his own using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control I mean

there are snapshots of Heaven throughout the Bible Revelation 21 verse3 it's beautiful three and four it says uh I heard a loud shout from the throne it says behold God's home is now among his people he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and he says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more pain no more sorrow no more crying no more death for these things are gone forever that's what it says Hallelujah and the one sitting on the

throne throne said this behold I'm making all things new amen so let's get to Colossians we better get there Colossians 3:1 says this since you have been raised to New Life with Christ that's wonderfully weird statement but we'll get back to it because it's past tense you've been raised you you go through Colossians and it's all the verbs are almost all the verbs are in past tense you read the book of Revelation and the verbs are in past tense and that's weird because it's talking about the future in the past tense you got to you

got to know God to do to make that work out you got to know what God is like you got to know what we call theology proper which is what is God like what does God do what does God not do it's all about the character and the actions of God that's called theology proper and you're going to need to learn a little bit of that to know why all the verbs are in the past tense I might need to just tell you that now or you're not going to know what we're reading you're not

going to understand it can we just have a theology proper lesson right now I mean you've heard me say it before the Greek word for time is Chronos that's why you know chronology Kronos and it's a created thing to understand what the Bible talks says about God one characteristic of God is that he's outside of time time is a created thing we live in konos things unfold chronologically for us but not for God and you're like whoa I don't I don't get that well no you don't because God's not an inch taller than us he's

infinitely above us he breathed and galaxies formed and the whole universe is held together by just him breathing and so God's Not a Human okay we're Made In His Image that means we can reflect something of his character but he's infinitely above us Isaiah says his ways are higher than our ways and past finding out and so God can talk about things that are true about you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ because they're true to him he sees it he's outside of time and and and and the thing that it should do

I'm just talking loud it's working right now the effect that that should have on our lives in the here and now is that there's a sovereign God outside of time talking about what you Bound by chronology will no doubt experience it's a done deal it's a it's finished one time I I uh I heard a story about um about two people and and it's a madeup story okay okay but it's a it's a really good illustration about how uh future oriented hope shapes how we live in the present and in the story um there were

two people identical age and uh two and they were they're both same set the the same one both male identical age and they were hired to do the same exact job and they were to do that job in the same size room same temperature same tools same task everything is the same except each of them signed a contract and the person let's say room a and room B the person in room a signed the contract to screw this little uh we'll call it the the widget onto the wget to to to put put screws into

this let's say box and uh and then set that aside and repeat it's just screwing this piece onto this piece set it aside repeat eight hours a day every day he signs a contract to do that for $10,000 so if he's if he puts this part on to this part and keeps doing that for eight hours a day for a year they will pay him $10,000 he signs a contract that has what's called a non-disclosure which means he can't tell anyone what he's making for for doing this he can't tell anybody he's going to make

$10,000 at the end of the year that's the person the guy in room a in room B same situation exact same situation does the same thing all day every day but they tell him in his contract at the end of a year he's going to be paid 10 million ion dollar well about a month in um these two guys are in the breakroom they can't talk about the money that they're making from doing this but the guy in room a who's getting $10,000 at the end of the year for doing this he comes in complaining

he's just like I'm bored to tears I you know this is this is the most terrible thing I've ever done in my life he said I'm really I really think I'm going to quit uh it if it's just tedious and boring and it's not worth it isn't that the way you feel and he talks to the guy in room B who he doesn't know is going to make $10 million and the guy in room B says no this is the easiest thing I've ever done in my life I can't believe I get to do this

this is awesome well it's the same job but not really right it's not the same job because one job it's the same task one gets 10,000 the other gets 10 million it's not the same job um even though you have identical circumstances it's being processed in completely different ways because they have two different Futures to believe in and you and I are unavoidably and irreducibly hope based creatures we are controlled in the Here and Now by our understanding of the future state so what we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present

and the Bible this idos this hope of that is a joyful and confident expectation is connected to incredible promises there are a plethora of promises and I just want to focus in on maybe I don't know six or so promises and so here we go the Salvation hope the future oriented hope that's what we're talking about right now so One Promise hope promise is eternal life we have eternal life John 36 16 famously declares God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but

have eternal life and so This Promise assures Believers of Life Everlasting in the presence of God so if somebody believes that to their core about the future how does it affect them in the present second we're promised the very presence of God Revelation 213 says uh Heaven is a place where God himself will be with them and be their God the intimate close presence of God is Central to the promise of heaven where Believers will dwell in his presence forever another salvation promise or part of our Sal salvation hope is no more suffering Revelation 21:4

assures us he God will wipe away every tear from their eyes there will be no more death or Mourning or crying or pain for the old Order of Things has passed away so in heaven all the pains and Sorrows of this life will be replaced with joy and peace Envision imagine someone believing that to the core of their being that that's going to happen No More Tears No More Death no more crying no more pain all of the hurt is gone and it's replaced with joy and peace that's our future hope how does that affect

us in the present next Future Hope promise everything will be made new revelation 211 says there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth and the old order of sin and Decay is replaced with perfect unspoiled creation This Promise includes the restoration of all things to their original Beauty and their original Perfection everything will be made new there's a promised inheritance that's a part of our future hope 1 Peter 1:4 says that heaven is a place of inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade we're promised an eternal inheritance reserved and protected by God

himself we're also promised a place in the father's house in John 14 Jesus said in my father's house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go and prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also so this assures the believer the disciple of a personalized Dwelling Place in heaven prepared by Jesus Christ himself so if we let the the oil of those promises run down into

the gears of Our Lives it affects how we live our lives in the here and now those are all future oriented um hope but it affects us in the here and now it gives us joy and peace today but there's also progress oriented hope and that's in our text in Ephesians chapter 1 he says I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him this is the same Mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in

the Heavenly real Realms now there the the progress oriented hope starts with the fact that we have a new kind of power in our lives and that power is the third person of the Trinity of the Triune God the Holy Spirit the holy spirit in you in me as Believers as followers of Jesus he is the creative power power of almighty God and the directing intelligence of the all- knowing god and the Bible teaches that when we receive Christ into our lives the Holy Spirit comes into our lives he lives within us as the creative

power of almighty God and the directing intelligence of the all- knowing god and so if you believe that that that power and that intellig Ence is within you and accessible to you that's what the scripture teaches it says that this same power that raised Jesus from the dead and put Jesus at the right hand of the Father in Heaven is in you available accessible to you as a follower of Jesus Christ know his tricks can I tell you what his trick is yes can I tell you how he wants to keep you wounded let me

ask you again are you ready for the ministry of the Holy Spirit here this morning because there's something going to happen here this morning there are people who are going to get healed of emotional wounds this morning thus saith the Lord so here's what he does we have this emotional wound he will lie to someone they'll agree with it and they'll speak that lie into your life and let's just take for instance just for example one lie you're worthless okay you are worthless so somebody will make you feel that or somebody will actually say that

you are worthless Satan and the domain of Darkness because there's just the kingdom of God in the domain of Darkness According To Jesus and I believe him you know he said he was going to die and rise three days later and he pulled it off so I believe him anyhow the kingdom of God domain of Darkness the lie you're worthless these people need to hear it too I need to look at them too keep walking over there here's the agreement he's looking for okay the agreement is an identity statement all right he's looking for an

identity statement and here's the identity statement I'm worthless you are worthless I am worthless are you following me so he lies and it's it's I love to fly fish he's laying that fly out there and he's looking for you to rise to the Fly and say I am worthless he's looking for an identity statement and then once he gets the identity statement he's looking for a vow and a vow is something that expresses permanency and so the vow looks like this I'll never be worth anything you see that permanency I will never be worth anything

I know what people see on the outside but what I feel deep down is I'll never be worthy or worth anything if people only knew that they would know that I'm unworthy and I'll never be worth anything look I'm not yelling at you Satan is a damn liar he's looking for your agreement he's looking for your vow and here's what the truth is you want you want to see how God uses the truth I need five volunteers come on up stand up here I need five just five y'all can receive everything that that we give

the five all right all right so y'all can receive everything that we give the five y'all just stand over here and receive if if we're going to have more than five come on Brother come on stand over here I need five right over there standing over there five people right over there and these extra people over here and those extra people out there you can if you want to receive every promise that I'm about to give these five all right because I'm going to show you how the Holy Spirit works because the enemy wants the

the LIE he wants the agreement he wants the vow and some of you don't know how the Bible is supposed to be used but the holy spirit says in Ephesians chapter 6 the Bible is my sword it's my weapon not my weapon his weapon and it's his weapon not to be wielded against people like religious idiots do it is the holy spirit's weapon to eradicate the the lies of the [Music] enemy and we're walking wounded because we're believing lies and I'm just going to pick five verses I just picked five verses Ephesians 1 3-8 I

could pick one of 7,487 verses and I'm not making that that up there 7,487 verses with direct promises from God to break the eyes of the enemy I want to focus on three things that happen number one you have the new Power it's accessible to you and the main way that you you receive that power and the benefits of that power I don't have the verse on here but you can look it up it's in Galatians 5 and verse 16 where it says for us to yield ourselves to the holy spirit so on a daily

basis we should yield ourselves we should say holy spirit I yield myself to you for whatever you want to do in and through my life he knows best he's the directing intelligence of God he can accomplish more than we can ask or think because he's the empowering presence of God in our lives so we have this new power that's part of our sanctification hope we have a new identity and we have new promises now let's focus on the new new identity we know we have this new power and we can yield ourselves to the Holy

Spirit and experience that new power we also have a new identity that's a part of our sanctification hope it affects us right now to consider ourselves uh different um 2 Corinthians 5:17 says therefore if anyone is in Christ the new creation has come the old has gone the new is here another translation says the old has passed away the new has come we have a new identity in Christ and here's what I mean by that your concept of identity tells you who you are and where you belong it is the UR statements that you agree

with by saying or at least thinking I am you turn the you are statements into I am statements and we're going to we're going to do this together so we're going to see some you are statements there's lots of them in in the Bible but we're going to just look at a few Romans 15:7 says you are accepted as a child of God as someone who's received Christ you're accepted by God and so it becomes your identity when you believe it and it becomes an I am statement I am accepted the Bible says you are

accepted I believe I am accepted the Bible says in John 15:16 you are chosen it becomes your identity when you believe I am chosen Galatians 4:7 says you are free it becomes your identity when you believe I am free 1 John 1:9 says you are forgiven I am forgiven 2 Corinthians 5:17 you're a new person I am a new person John 1:12 you are a child of God I am a child of God Genesis 1:27 You're Made In God's image I am God's image 1 Corinthians 3:23 you belong to Jesus I belong to Jesus jeremiah:

15 you were made with a purpose I am made with a purpose Ephesians 2:10 you are God's Masterpiece I am God's masterpiece so these this is just a handful when you when you're reading through the Bible especially the New Testament the book of Ephesians is is sort of an overwhelming new identity book each chapter has a couple of dozen statements that you can say there you are statements that I can believe and say I am but even if these were the only ones the only new identity statements how would your life be different how would

your outlook and mindset be different if you woke up in the morning knowing that before God I'm accepted I'm chosen I'm free I'm forgiven I'm a new person I'm a Child of God I'm God's image I belong to Jesus I'm made with a purpose and I am God's Masterpiece what if you face the day that way with that mind mindset I tell you what's going to happen you're going to have confident and joyful expectation that's what's going to happen you're going to be a person who's living a hope-filled life and a hope-filled life is very

contagious because of that hope deficit and you get new promises uh second Peter 1:4 says and because of his glory and Excellence he has given us great and precious promises and these are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires there are 7,487 verses that contain promises from God that can never be be broken 7,487 verses that's a lot of good news that's a lot of uh it's a lot of hope those that those are things that you can build your life on as you

learn the word of God 2 Corinthians 1:20 says all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding yes and through Christ our amen which means yes ascends to God for his glory what that is saying is um all of those promises contained in 7,487 verses belong to you if you belong to Christ so if you've given your life to Jesus and someone says is that verse for you no matter where it is if it's a promise in God's word is that for you the answer is a resounding yes and so when when

we go back to um those identity statements those are all promises so there are hundreds of those can you imagine building your life your your life will look like confident and joyful expectation it'll look like elpos it will look like hope biblical hope if we know and live in our new IDE identity with new power and new purpose because of Christ so it's my hope that you become hope dealers that's what my I don't know if you can see that but my mug says hope dealer I'm a pastor at ctk Hope Church and that's what

we're supposed to be we're supposed to unleash this hope in the world it's what Christ wants to do through our Lives May It Be