Kingdom Priority (5)

Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5.1, 2

The nature of hope
Paul says that we stand in the grace of God; we stand in hope of the glory of God. All who have made the Kingdom turn and are saved by grace through faith stand in the hope of experiencing and expressing the glory of our risen and reigning King.

We’ve been considering the nature and accessibility of that glory, and we now understand that the glory and love of God are available to us, in ever-increasing measure, for ever-expanding expression, both now and in the new heavens and new earth which lie ahead. Glory now and then is the Christian’s great hope; it’s the answer to why we are Christians at all.

But what is hope? How does hope function in us? To what kinds of actions does hope lead?

It seems to me that, unless we understand the true nature of hope, our looking ahead to the experience of God’s glory and love, whether now or in the world to come, will be little more than wishful thinking. For many people “hope” means something like, “’Well, I hope so; sure would be nice if it did.”

But that’s not hope, not the kind of hope, that is, in which we as believers stand by the grace of God.

In Romans 8.24 Paul writes, “For we are saved in this hope.” OK, got that. Hope and salvation through Jesus go together; if I’m saved, I have hope. Let’s read on a bit: “but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?” This is just a kind of progress check here. Paul reminds us that, unlike most people in the world, we don’t hope in things we can see but in things we can’t see. We don’t hope in wealth, health, IRAs, favorable circumstances, or the like. All that is simply stuff we can see, and if we can see it, possess it, we don’t have to hope for it.

What’s more, such “seeable” things cannot retain their “hope value.” Once we achieve them, we use them, discard them, or we feel the need to add to them with other things and circumstances. Such hope is ephemeral, shape-shifting, and unreliable. No, Paul says, Christians do not hope in things they can see, but in things they cannot see, chief among these being Christ, the epicenter and architect of glory.

Paul continues: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” Ah, now we’re beginning to understand the true nature of hope. Hope waits. Hope endures. And hope does not disappoint, as Paul says in Romans 5.5, because the love of God never fails. Hope for it long enough, and you’ll know it soon enough.

Wait
Hope waits for glory and love. Now, again, this is not your standard sit-around-doing-nothing-waiting-till-whenever kind of waiting. For the Christian “waiting” is an active discipline. We wait for the Lord in prayer (Acts 1), by contemplation (Ps. 27), and by doing whatever tasks and duties fall to us in a manner consistent with the Word of God (Acts 1).

We are waiting for glory, in other words, when we are actively seeking to engage it by and through all these means. Glory doesn’t just “happen.” It doesn’t just fall upon us. David understood that God commands us to seek His glory, and that our duty is to get busy “waiting” until He brings us into the goodness and glory we seek (Ps. 27.8-14).

So we wait for the Lord through prayer, meditation, being attentive to His presence and leading in every situation, acting in obedient faith and love, and looking to experience and express His glory and love at all times, in everything.

Endure
And we’ll need to be patient in this waiting. We must be prepared to endure through our waiting, to persevere at it, and that for two reasons.

First, we cannot manipulate God. He makes Himself and His glory known when He will, to whom He will, and in the measure He chooses according to His own pleasure and timing. He is not capricious, and He is not cruel. He waits to make His glory known to those who hope for it when the “dosage” He applies will be precisely appropriate to the need in which we know it. So we must endure at the work of waiting on the Lord, because He knows better than we when and to what extent to bring us into His glory and love.

But, second, we must endure in waiting because the world and all its obstacles, trials, temptations, and distractions is really good at interrupting our waiting and frustrating our hope in the glory of God. Count on it, the more you resolve to wait on the glory of God, and to continue waiting, the more you will be challenged with just how serious you are about this matter. But you must endure, rejoicing in your hope, focusing your mind on it, preparing for it, longing and pleading for it, and not allowing yourself to be deterred or defeated in the waiting.

We stand in hope of the glory of God, and this means we wait and endure, day after day, moment by moment, until we know the glory and love for which we hope, if only as a mere glimpse.

But even that, my friend, will make all the waiting and enduring worthwhile.

Next steps: How would you explain to a new believer what it means to wait and endure in hoping for the glory of God? Share your thoughts about this with a leader in your church, or your pastor. Ask for help getting this straight, and hoping more consistently for God’s glory yourself.

T. M. Moore

Additional Resources

This week’s study, Kingdom Priority, is the fourth of an eight-part series on The Kingdom Turn, and is available as a free download. T. M. has written two books to complement this eight-part series. You can order The Kingship of Jesus by clicking here, and The Gospel of the Kingdom by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.