Why Hope Matters (Part 2)

Called to Become a People of Hope

“If the gospel you’re preaching isn’t about transformation, you aren’t preaching a biblical gospel.”

A church of internalized hope is a church of transformation. Scott McKnight accurately states: “If the gospel you’re preaching isn’t about transformation, you aren’t preaching a biblical gospel.”

Too often we settle for a gospel of data and right thinking. But the gospel of the New Testament writers is the story of holistic human change. A change of belief. A change of trajectory. A change of character. A change of mind. A change of heart. All reverberating through the culture and communities surrounding the people of God. 

What is the task of the church today? How do we take up our place as hope dealers in our society? 

1. Embody the Story

Highly influential missiologist and theologian, Lesslie Newbigin succinctly describes that responsibility: “The business of the church is to tell and embody a story.”

Too often we evaluate the health of our churches by finances and attendance or the growth of programs. Some, more robust discipleship oriented churches might have a metric based on what the people in the church can faithfully do or how well the understand core concepts. Others look toward service, generosity, church plants, and missional success. All this data is good to understand. However, the church of the coming decade will process its health by how much the story of the gospel transforms the lives of people. A message of grace from a community of grudges will not penetrate a divided culture. A doctrine of forgiveness without confession is like an unused lifeboat on the Titanic. An audience of millions of YouTube subscribes without the embodiment of transformation is clanging gong.

2. Believe the Story

The greatest apologetic for the gospel of Jesus is a church that believes it. Newbigin goes on to ask and answers another important question:

“How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it.”

3. Reject the Habit of Despair

“The Church has to reject the habit of despair.”

In Albert Camus’ 1940s philosophical novel, The Plague, he describes a town ravaged with death, quarantines, lockdowns, and the impact it had on the humans involved. The increasingly dark story of a community grown into despair offers this observation: “This precisely was the most disheartening thing: that the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.”

The Church has to reject the habit of despair. It starts with leaders. It flows through our congregations. Despair and anxiety are contagious. The antidote is lament and care.

4. Talk More About Hope and Less About How-To

A church of hope would place less of its confidence in church models, movements, or mechanisms and cling to the power of Christ. Paul says it this way in Romans 5:5-8:

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

The church would make the case about how Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection alters, not only the course of human history on a global scale, but also every weary souls daily life, too. 

5. Have Great Compassion and Grief for the World 

“Hopelessness is a catastrophe for the human soul.”

Hopelessness is a catastrophe for the human soul: isolation, depression, drug dependence, uncontrollable anger, and suicide. When there is no hope left, we radicalize, abandon our marriages, numb the pain with consumption and distraction, or pursue temporary pleasures at the cost of our bodies, minds, and souls. Without hope, there is nothing but idols left to live for, and just like Jesus they will demand our entire lives. Every version of this story you’ve seen play out is a version of hopelessness.

But Jesus offers the greatest message and reality of hope the world will ever know. And we have a responsibility to articulate that hope in a way our neighbors will hear and understand. 

Called to Testify

The ancient Greek word for witness is martyr. That’s what Jesus said when he announced his disciples would receive the Holy Spirit and become witnesses to his power. They would see and experience the power of the Spirit of God. We believe we’re called into that, too.

Before we came to associate martyr with persecution or death for a cause, Jesus said we had a new role: to witness. To see, experience, and share with others. To know the hope of Christ is to become an eye-witness to the greatest reality on earth: death to life by way of love. Eugene Peterson says that makes each Christian a walking billboard through every neighborhood we set foot in: “Coming Attraction to a Neighborhood Near you: Love, Hope, Grace”. 

“We share what we’ve seen because it’s life-or-death kind of news .”

The word witness is also that of a courtroom level testimony of the highest stakes. Like the first women at the empty tomb, we share what we’ve seen because it’s life-or-death kind of news and we share with authority. We make the case in the courtrooms of our community. Meaning, we’ll become versed in the objections, questions, and cross-examinations our culture is throwing at us. 

This requires a different kind of mental work christian leaders are used to expending. Reading. Study. Processing. And finding conversation partners in our communities who have rejected christianity. We’ll have to understand how to make the case for Christ within the fabric of this cultural moment. But the entire case it starts with and centers around hope.