The Hope of Eternal Life, Part 2

Beach scene reflected in glass ball

How do you view tomorrow? With dread or hope? There's one thing that I noticed about my generation the other day. I was watching a video of a guy who couldn't be more than thirty who already was talking about nostalgia for the past. Some things made sense, staying at grandparents house, Christmas lights when they weren't all colorless LEDs. These are things I think we all miss. But the video went on to make the point that at the end of the day, things end. All one can do is to grab hold of the current moment, the things that will be nostalgic later, savor those things, and one day when you are older, you will look back fondly on these days, the little hugs, the sports day at the park, the ballet recitals, the family trips across the country, finally nailing that promotion, the graduation days, and so on.

That can seem hopeful. Maybe even relaxing to hear that these are the days you will look back on, but you know what? It's not. In fact, hearing that this is as good as it is going to get is something better to not think about. You're telling me it is a little bit more uphill, and after that the only thing I have to look forward to in life is how much of it I get to look back on? The destination is realizing how far away I am from what i enjoyed?

Titus has a far better hope than that. While it is not wrong for the Christian to enjoy with gratitude the lovely memories of the past, that doesn't have to be the thing that fills our chest with peace. That isn't even the best thing to fill us up. What fills us up is what we have to look forward to. No matter what moments you are experiencing in life right now, the giggles of happy toddlers (or their sleepless nights), the rush of a career in full flower (or the never-empty inbox), or the quiet settledness of a life well-lived (or the attendant back-pain), there is always something to look forward to. As one preacher I heard once say, "The best is yet to be."

This new life is given to anticipate an eternal hope.

Towner goes on to say that these Christians Paul is writing to (and by extension, us too) are now placed in history. Ezekiel gave the promises of the gift of His Spirit to God's people in exile, but now we are experiencing them (785-6).

Now all of this is just what has happened in the past up to the present time. Have we come to the end of God's plan? God promised the Holy Spirit, and now He has sent him to re-genesis us, now He has!

Believe it or not, brothers and sisters, He is only getting started. You see, this regeneration isn't just to give us joy here on earth, although it certainly does that. It is fitting us for an eternal inheritance. What is that inheritance, and how are we fitted for it? Let's start with the last one first.

In verse 7, Paul tells us that we have been justified. This is a very important word that means being "declared righteous." We have been judged to be right with God. Again, we didn't achieve that on our own as this verse reminds us. It tells us that we have been justified, our record has been declared perfect through Jesus Christ our Savior. This is why He is a savior! He does this by grace alone so that we might become heirs.

What does it mean to become an heir? Bray explains that this is a change in "standing" before God (555). What does "standing" mean? It means to have a right. I can't just walk into a law office reading of a last will and testament of a family I'm not related to expecting to receive something. I have no right to that person's property because I am not an heir. However, if that person adopted me and willed something to me, then even the blood family can't take it away from me. Bray goes on to say that what Jesus has by nature we have by grace (555), namely, sonship. He isn't saying that we become part divine, but he is saying that we will inherit the Kingdom.

Have you gotten too used to that yet? Has it stopped bringing you joy that no matter how things are going right here right now we are on our way to a world completely devoid of sadness and pain? Have you ever been away from people you love for an extended period of time? How do you feel as the day draws closer to see them again? Yes, the flight is long and uncomfortable. You might even complain, but you don't despair.

That reorients how we should look at the future. To borrow from Bray one last time, Paul says all of this at a time where the ancient people looked at the past as the golden age to try to preserve and maybe even return to. The present can be fun because there is food, drink, and pleasurable company, but the future was not something to look forward to. The future held old age, vulnerability, and ultimately death. If there was something after death, it was probably negative (556). Does that way of thinking sound familiar? Have humans really changed that much?

Don't Christians fall into that? We of all people should be hopeful for the future but for different reasons than the world does. Worldly people look to a future in which robots do all the hard work no one wants to do freeing up humans to do the work that is meaningful and fulfilling for them. That is the sum total of their hope: maybe less work. Maybe new places to travel to like Mars. These things are interesting to be sure, but they are not solid foundations of hope. For one, they may never happen, certainly within the lifetime of the hoper! Or if they do happen, it leads to more work, not less! Weren't we told in the computer age that we may work around twenty hours a week? What happened to that promise? Don't we complain about the technology we once hoped for? I was promised flying cars and got a doom rectangle practically welded to my hand?

Don't get me wrong, the problem isn't really the technology, though some of us like to dunk on it. Yes, there are negative sides to some tech, but the real problem is our own heart. I was listening to Tim Keller recently, and he was pointing out that no matter how good the future is here, my desires are bigger than that. You can get everything you want, but if it isn't God, there is simply nothing big enough you can give me that I can't consume.

My desires are eternity shaped, and that is the exact shape of the hope God is willing to me. What exactly heaven is going to look like or be like is ultimately indescribable. It will be a whole other category of joy. When we were children, we thought that literally nothing was better than ice cream. No satisfaction, no pleasure could compare. I hope that has changed for you. It will be a similar category change moving up to heaven.

That is the most important part of our lives to think on. We look at the future with hope, not because AI is going to make the robots do the laundry. How easily we are excited! We don't look to the future with hope because that's where grandchildren will be, or graduation, or marriage, or just "getting through the next two weeks to when things will settle down." We look to the future because God will be there, too. That is the fundamental orientation to the Christian life, according to Bray, and he went on to say, "Hope is the conviction that whatever happens in the present, the future will be better." (556)

So, insist on these things. We will look next time at what things we don't insist on, but this is what we have to keep in our minds. If we don't, we will always be hoping for the wrong things, and our motivation for good works will be based on the wrong reasons.

John Piper speaks about the motive for obedience to Jesus is found not in what is past but in the promises for the future. We obey not because we feel we owe God, but because we know that He will be there for us in the end.

What difference does that make? Well, have you ever got into a situation with a friend that you owed a favor and about midway through it you think, "You know, I don't think I owed them quite this much." When I said I would help them move because they helped me, my apartment was ground level and I didn't have a washer and dryer. Now I'm taking up a washer, dryer, and couch up four flights of stairs! Suddenly what your friend did for you in the past doesn't seem worth it to you right now.

If we focus only on the past, we can begin to think that the Christian life is too much trouble. Yes, Jesus died for me, and that was a tremendous sacrifice, but this temptation is too much. It isn't just that He died for you. He rose for you, and is working ahead for you.

To go back to the moving analogy, your friend helped you move what you think was little, he's asked you to do a lot, but after you get that couch up there, there are keys to a mansion up those stairs. Who would quit then?

In parenting, ministry, or marriage, there can be times so trying you just can't be motivated by duty or guilt anymore. Be motivated instead by the grace that is ahead. That is exactly what Paul is saying here in verse 8. Insist on these things so that they may be devoted to Good Works.