As we start to think about Easter this week on the program, we’re going to take a bit of a different tack. It’s a time when we don’t just look back on what Jesus did, but when we also look forward to what Jesus purchased for us in this amazing transaction of grace, that we call … Easter. Reunited with Jesus Hope is one of the most important things to our wellbeing that there is. It’s a feeling or an expectation or a desire for good things to happen in our futures. You know when you sit there, and you daydream about this or that, it’s always about good things, isn’t it? It’s as though you’re creating a photo-album in your mind of the good things that you want to happen to you in the future. Worry and fear is pretty much the same, but that photo-album is full of dark and negative images. When we lose hope in the future, we often lose the will to go on. That’s why hope for tomorrow is such an important part of who we are. It’s really interesting. The word hope appears around 133 times throughout the Bible, but it’s meaning is a little different to what we’re used to today. See, when we talk about hope, when we hope for something, it has that sense of uncertainty about it generally. ‘I hope I’ll get a promotion at work. I hope the scans didn’t detect cancer. I hope that my kids will grow up to lead healthy, productive, successful lives.’ When something is certain, like you know that you’re going on a 2-week holiday starting next Thursday, we look forward to that with anticipation, but when something is uncertain, then we hope that it’ll happen, but the Biblical word for hope doesn’t make any room for uncertainty. The moment you read hope in the Bible, it’s an indication of absolute certainty. As the article on Bible.org says, ‘The word hope in Scripture means a strong, confident expectation’. So you see, there’s a profound difference between the way that we use that word hope today, and the way it’s used in God’s Word. And if we transpose our meaning onto that word hope in Scripture, then we completely miss the point. Take this passage, for instance. Romans 8:24-25: For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he can see? But if we hope for that we do not see, we wait for it in patience. Now if you read those words using our modern-day understanding of the meaning of that word hope, it’s not a very helpful passage at all. Let me give you the contemporary version: "For in uncertain hope you were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he hasn’t seen? But if we have a wishy-washy, uncertain hope for what we don’t see, then we’ll wait for it with patience". Now, not only isn’t it helpful, but it just doesn’t make sense because if we wait with a wishy-washy, uncertain hope, then there’s no way we’re going to feel patient on the inside. So, let’s read it the way it was meant to be read when it was written: "For in a certain, rock-solid hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen isn’t hope, for we don’t hope for what we can’t see. But if we have a strong, certain hope for what we do not see, then we can wait for it with patience". Now that makes sense! Now it’s a help! So the hope that God talks about, the hope the Holy Spirit puts into our hearts, is a rock-solid, guaranteed, done-deal, it’s going to happen, certain kind of hope. It’s more akin to our understanding of anticipation. You know you’re going on holidays next Thursday, so you anticipate and savour that certainty. That’s what the Biblical word hope actually means, and one of the things that we can hope in with absolute certainty is that when we die, and when Jesus comes again, we will be reunited with Him. In those days before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. Now that was a scary thing for them because they could sense the assassination plot, and they were wondering if they were going to be next, but this is what Jesus said to them. John 14:1-3: ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me, for in My Father’s house, there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be.’ So this Jesus who was born as a babe onto the earth for us, this Jesus who died for us and who rose again, this Jesus who sits now at the right hand of the Father, this Jesus whose name is above every other name, to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, this very same Jesus is the one with whom we’ll be reunited on that day. The apostle Paul puts it this way. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18: For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangels’ call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. Forget the dramatic happenings around Christ’s second coming for a moment, as glorious and as wonderful as that day’s certainly going to be. The bit that grabs my heart is this: That we will be with the Lord forever – forever! We will be reunited with Jesus and we will be with Him forever, and ever, and ever, without end. ‘Therefore,’ writes Paul, ‘Therefore encourage one another with these words’. That’s exactly what I want to do today – to encourage you with these words. Because whatever your present circumstances are, and the disciples when Jesus told them that He was going away – their circumstances were terribly desperate; they were in fear of their very lives ... So, whatever you’re going through at the moment, if you believe in Jesus, then you have the absolute, rock-solid, it’s-a-done-deal hope that one day, you will be reunited with Him. You will dwell with Him forever and ever and ever, amen. Now that’s what I call something to really look forward to. A New Body Eternity, as things turn out, is rather a long time. Right now, the oldest person I know in my circle of friends has just turned a hundred years old. This woman is a great lady with a sharp wit; I love her dearly, but at aged one hundred, her body ... Well, it’s starting to show the signs of her age, you understand. She walks with a walking-frame and she’s kind of stooped over, her eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be and of course, she has just a few more wrinkles than the rest of us. Her body is in pretty good nick for her age (a hundred years old), but as you’d expect, age is taking its toll. One day, she (like you and me) will return to dust. That amazingly complex, finely-tuned body that we’ve all been given, that has served us all so well, one day will be no more. So the question then arises, ok; we die, so what happens then? The Bible promises resurrection. That’s the point of Jesus rising from the dead. The writer of the book of Hebrews puts it this way. Hebrews 1:18: He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. So, how does that work? You’re dead, your body’s decayed either in a coffin or through cremation, and then one day Jesus returns. You and I are raised with Him, but what do we do for a body? It might on the one hand seem like a bit of a strange esoteric question for us to ask and a...

Released on 3 Apr 2022