Download April 12th, 2015

“A Living Community of Hope” Acts 4:32-35; Colossians 1:3-14, 27
Pastor Matthew Northside UMC
Hope. We throw that word around these days. We get our hopes up. Our
hopes are dashed. We hope to win the lottery. We hope this year our team
will win the championship. We hope we find a cure for cancer. Hope seems
so elusive at times. And hopes, dreams, and wishes seem to be all the same.
Today we begin to look at what it means to be Resurrection people, the
church. The book of Acts describes the early church, and there are 28
chapters in the book. We will try to live out our story as followers of Jesus.
You could say we are living out Acts 29. We begin by focusing on being
people of hope.
First a few words about what hope is not. Hope is not a dream or
wish, like hoping to win the lottery or hoping to win the March Madness
Bracket. Scripture never uses the term hopeful or hopefully. There is never
a sense of hope being something that might or might not happen depending
on our circumstances. Hope is also not a crutch to make it through our
difficulties; a pill that we take that numbs the pain in our life. Hope is not a
way for us to live in a false reality where we don’t have to face the real
world. Instead, hope is always a verb or a noun in Scripture and it’s used
166 times. And God is always the source of this hope; it’s neither manmade nor based on our circumstances. Hope allows us to speak and act with
boldness. Hope is “the anchor of our soul” (Hebrews 6:19). In Paul’s letter
to the Colossians, hope produces faith and love. And in Romans, Paul tells
us that we are saved for the purpose of hope (Romans 8:24). So hope is
written all over us as Christians. Hope is to be our way of life, our
worldview as Christians.
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But what is this worldview of hope? Paul puts it succinctly: “Christ
in you, the hope of glory” (vs. 27). Hope is synonymous with Christ living
in us (New Interpreter’s Dictionary, 641). Our Christian hope is none other
than being restored to wholeness and Christ-likeness. We are not simply to
emulate Jesus and obey all his commands. The early followers could have
done that even if Jesus was not raised from the dead. But Christ was raised
and there’s more. The living Christ changed the disciples dramatically.
Likewise, we are to allow the living Christ to live in us and change us. Do
we want to be made whole? Or are we after something else? Is Christ in us?
Or are we full of ourselves? Paul uses that expression “in Christ” 80 times
in his letters to declare this reality. Christ is not something we put on like a
mask to hide the hurt and pain and anger and sin in our lives. Christ wants
to come in and change us from the inside out. To make us a new creation.
Mother Teresa puts it this way: “We must become holy not because we
want to feel holy (and I would add look holy) but because Christ must be
able to live his life fully in us.” Christ is alive and that gives us hope.
Paul says, “Christ in you—the hope of glory.” We hear Jesus say in
the Gospel of John that he and the Father are one and that he came to glorify
his Father, and so we are to do the same. What if glorifying God then is not
just singing about God on Sunday, but also glorifying God in the way we
live every day? That’s what the early believers did after Jesus’ resurrection.
Acts tells us that the apostles continued to bear powerful witness to the
resurrection of the Lord (vs. 33). What if God’s glory is not something far
away, but here and now? What if the hope we bear is not simply for eternal
life with God in heaven, but is for right now, living and walking and
breathing every moment with God, and being attentive to the Holy Spirit in
our lives? This would impact our lives and the lives of others in
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extraordinary ways. The early believers again experienced this individually
and collectively. Luke tells us “There was an abundance of grace at work
among them.” The early church functioned as a living community of hope.
But some will question our hope when there are so many tragic things
in our world like ISIS and police shootings. Or people’s lives cut short by
cancer or other diseases. How can you have hope, they say? Some think we
are just sentimental dreamers or wishful thinkers to hold onto this hope in
the midst of all the troubles around us. Others think we are crazy or at least
we are looked on with pity. Paul tells us that if the resurrection did not
occur then our faith is futile and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). Yet
Christ is not dead. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Christ has conquered
death. He is living and reigning in our hearts and lives. This is the offensive
nature of hope. Our hope is different from the world’s hope. Christian hope
does not compute in our world. Through this living hope we can face death
with courage and we can face trials with endurance.
And through hope, another world is possible! This is what Jesus
inaugurated in his life, death and resurrection. This is what we pray for in
the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.” We are to live in Jesus’ upside down kingdom where the first are
last, and in order to live you must die. In this kingdom we know the ending
of the story. I actually stayed up and watched the whole championship game
on Monday night. I didn’t tape it. It didn’t look good there in the second
half but Duke came back to win. One pastor wrote about how he tapes the
games when he’s unable to watch them live. When he’s ready to watch,
unlike most people, he doesn’t start at the beginning. Instead he goes to the
end and sees who won first. If his team lost, he puts the tape away. But if
his team wins he’ll rewind the tape and start the game from the beginning,
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get some snacks and watch the whole game. This is a strange method I
think. But the pastor’s reasoning is that no matter how bad things look
during the game, he doesn’t worry because he knows the end of the story.
We know the end of the story as Christians, as Resurrection people.
Christ has risen. The early church knew this. That’s why they shared all
things in common as Acts tells us. They didn’t need to hoard things and say,
“This is mine.” Luke tells us that there were no needy persons among them.
Wow! That’s amazing. How could that happen? It was because they
reflected and lived out the hope of the resurrection. The resurrection was
real for them. It wasn’t something that may have happened. They were
sure! They saw Jesus alive.
So how can we at Northside reflect this hope? How can we be Easter
People and live out Acts 29? First we must let Christ reign in our hearts.
Then we must let Christ rule all of our life. Our desires, our dreams, our
decisions. Our thoughts and actions. Our words and deeds. Have you done
that? Then the world will see our hope, not because we have all the right
answers in our head. They will see the hope of Christ living in us. I pray
that we will be able to express this hope to others in our community through
our continued focus on outreach and mission. By inviting people to our
community meals, in our study of God’s word. Also in our small groups as
we care for one another in love. Through caring for our shut-ins. In all
these ways may others experience Christ in us—the hope of glory. Amen.
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