Hope and Certainty

Transcript S2E13

Hope and Certainty

[00:00] 

Hello, I'm Tony Kostas and welcome to Led Into Love.

I want to start this episode by reading to you a verse from the Bible that many of you will know really well: Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1.

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

That verse is so well known. It's the first verse of Hebrews 11 – and Hebrews 11 is well known in turn as ‘the Faith Chapter’because it tells us about all the amazing things that were accomplished by people who believed God.

[00:48] 

And the reason why I want to start with this verse – one of the reasons at least – is because of what's on my heart right now. But even what's on my heart right now relates to something broader that I have referred to before … and that is the incredible lack amongst so-called ‘believers’ of faith. Or maybe I should rephrase that and say it's the amazing lack of faith in the lives of so many ‘believers’.

People talk about what they believe. When I became a new Christian at the age of 17 and I entered the Christian world as I talked about it before … the Christian subculture, where I found out that once I was an unbeliever, then I became a believer – and “we're all believers” and we said, “well, yeah, we believe … we believe the gospel, we believe the things that we've been told, we've had an experience with God.”

[01:46] 

But believing is not, you know, it's not just that initial act when you – however it happens in your life –  where you come to a point where you have the opportunity and the realization that you need to open your heart up to Jesus Christ … when you need to respond to the Gospel of Jesus, that Jesus died for your sins. That's a beginning. That's the belief that used to be called ‘saving faith’. You know, it's a belief that gets you into God's kingdom.

But then there is living faith – the faith that keeps believing God. Keeps believing what? Keeps believing what's in the Bible? No, keeps believing what God is saying to your heart!

[02:32] 

If as many Christians as read their Bibles and say they believe what's in the Bible actually lived by faith – then I venture to say that God's kingdom would have come to this world much sooner!

Whether that's accurate or not, I sure know that this world would be alive with people who knew God like so many Christians say they do … but don't!

Now this is actually … this is not just some kind of handy observation or something that's, that's, useful for me to kind of get your attention with, or to use as a preface for what I want to say. This is, so vital. It is so critical. For your sake, for God's sake, and for what is in God's heart, for this world. It matters so, so much.

[03:26] 

Hebrews 11, verse 1: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Faith is sureness. Faith is certainty. And it's the sureness of what you hope for, and it's the certainty of what you don't yet see.

Now, this is not something that you can psych yourself into. I remember so many, many times as a young Christian trying really hard to believe that certain things were true. Thinking ‘I'm a Christian now. I should be able to read that verse in the Bible and I should be believing it.’

And, you know, faith doesn't come by effort. Faith is active, but it doesn't come by effort. It comes first and foremost by God speaking to your heart.

God is the living God. God's Spirit comes to those who open their hearts to Him. He stays with those who walk in step with him. And He speaks to them in a voice they can hear and in a language they can understand.

[04:46] 

And if you don't experience God like that, don't ask me to define it beyond that – because relationship with God is incredibly personal, incredibly subjective. 

All I can say is that I know when God speaks to me. And if I'm … if I think I know and I'm unsure, and I ask Him to make something clear, He will make it clear. 

He is the living God – the Creator of the whole Universe – who made you and me in His image so that He could be glorified in our lives.

[05:16] 

Jesus didn't come to start churches. Jesus didn't come to start a religion. Jesus came to bring people – individuals like you and me – into relationship with His Father. The same relationship that He had with His Father when He gave His disciples what's called ‘The Great Commission’. He told them to go into all the world and to make disciples – to bring people into the same relationship with God that they now had … that Jesus had before them … that Jesus brought them into.

We all have an eye to the future. As I record this in Melbourne, Australia, it's late at night and anyone who's still awake at this time, where I am, is probably already thinking … and maybe all through the day they've been thinking … about tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We're creatures who look forward into the future. The trouble is that a future where you don't see God, or you are not certain of God, is at best something you've got to sort of try and feel good about and find things to be excited about. At worst, it's something that's fraught with fear and insecurity.

[06:34] 

So what does it say about Faith in Hebrews 11:1? “Faith is being certain of what we hope for …”

And I want to particularly focus on this word hope – because it has been, like, so watered down in our normal usage of the word. You know, you say, “Well, I hope I have a good day, or I hope things work out or, you know … hope, hope, hope. 

Hope is always, like, about a ‘maybe’ or, or wishful thing – something that you'd like to happen, or something you hope won't happen. But hope is never a definite thing. It's a maybe.

[07:13] 

But when we read the word hope like this in the Bible, we are talking about not ‘maybes’ – but ‘will bes’. Not what may happen, but what will happen.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for.

Now, the whole basis of … for your hope and my hope as people of God … is that God has already made real to us what we are to hope for what is ahead. What is our destiny, or what today will bring or tomorrow will bring. Not like, not like in a premonition, fortune-teller way. No! But puts before you things that are to be the focus of your life. I don't mean specific events. In times you … at certain times … you'll do that. But just the very purpose for which you're living. 

[08:14] 

When you get up in the morning, what is your life about? I should ask the question: who is your life about? For many people, even many Christians, for me, talking like that you can think, “Oh, that's getting a bit super spiritual”. But no! What is the purpose of our existence if we're God's people?

The purpose of our existence is to glorify God. The apostle Paul wrote those well-known words: “Whether you eat, therefore, or whether you drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” Your privilege and my privilege – and to me, privilege doesn't doesn't compare with what it really is. Privilege doesn't adequately describe the wonder of living for God. To think that me, a mere human being indwelt by God's Spirit and living my life with God, has the privilege of living for God's glory … that my life counts for God's glory.

[09:11] 

Don't try and define what that means, because Christianity is very good at packaging these things up and giving you a definition of what it means to live for God's glory. But if you're responding to God and if you're walking in step with God's Spirit, He knows how to be glorified in your life.

Doesn't have to be something big and spectacular, but He'll be getting what He wants.

But if we look at hope: hope is not based on something that might happen. It is based on something that will happen. Hope is not based on something that might be. It is based on something that is.

Hope is an aspect of faith. And I like to think of hope as ‘faith for the future’. In other words,

God speaks to you now … or God has put something in your heart about now … and you're believing in the now for what is in your heart.

But He also puts hope in your heart because He speaks to you of the things that He focuses you on ahead.

[10:12] 

And he says, “Now, walk in this way. Live in this. Believe me for this. Know this. Obey me and know that my will will be done in your life.”

And all those things … hope … they have not yet happened. They are not here yet. But you know they will. If you do not have hope in your heart because you do not know what it is to believe God, then you don't have that. 

You know, when I speak of hope, you could say, “Well, yeah, I hope that tomorrow this will happen, or that will happen. I hope that I will live my life for God. I hope that I will not yield to temptation.”

…I hope, I hope, I hope.

But that sort of hope has always a caveat. But it mightn't work out … or it mightn't be like that … or I mightn't … I mightn't fulfill that desire.

But when God puts a hope in our hearts, it's a sure thing.

[11:13] 

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for.”

No uncertainties there. Therefore, it is certain of what we do not see. Faith is certain. Faith is sureness. Faith gives you hope.

But the hope that we have as Christians is not the hope “hoping against hope”. It is sure hope.

Hope. This doesn't happen in a kind of a big, sweeping way. This happens when you simply give yourself as the person you are in total genuineness and authenticity and sincerity. Not being what you're not but knowing God because you have yielded your life to him. And walking with him, moment by moment, day by day, you discover what it is to walk with God – to walk by faith, to live by faith – and therefore to live in hope. To have a certainty.

[12:17] 

Not a kind of an otherworldly thing where you walk around kind of with your head in the clouds – because that becomes fantasy. And there couldn't be anything more removed from relationship with God. 

But the way some Christians live, you'd think that it wasn't so because they fantasize about what the Christian life is all about and they love to talk about it. And unfortunately for many Christians, a lot of this is second-hand. They read Bible stories and Bible narratives and accounts of things and, and they sort of, in a second-hand way, get inspired. Or they hear other people's testimonies or they read other Christian books and biographies.

The trouble with that kind of thing is that's inspiration. And inspiration will make you feel good and make you resolve to be like this or like that. But it will not have … it will not lead to … God's will being done in your life.

[13:19] 

We're not talking about inspiration. We are talking about revelation. We are talking about your eyes being opened because God is speaking to your heart … because your heart is open to Him. 

And I say this to you. If I was standing in front of you in the flesh, if I could look you in the eye and you could look me in the eye – whoever you are – if you are sincere, if you mean business with God, I'm saying: this is for you. This means you. 

I don't have to know details of your life to know that this means you. Because I know that this is fundamental to the relationship with God that every human being who's ever known him, who's ever experienced him, has had.

It's what you're made for, but it has to be lived.

[14:11] 

The verse in Hebrews 4:12 about the word of God being alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. That penetrates, like, even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow that judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

When I was a young Christian … myself and others who were New Christians, you know, we, we proudly walked at church with our big Bibles (and they were big Bibles) in our hands. And we’d joke about the Bible being … ‘it's the sword!’ “Have you got your sword with you?” 

And, sure, it was a bit of a jokey thing too. But the danger with that is we think, like, if we've got this book in our hands, or we're learning this book, or we're memorizing this book, we can quote this book – then we're using the ‘sword of the Spirit’.

But it doesn't say … it does not say that the Bible is alive and active and is sharper than any two-edged sword. It says the word of God – that which you know is God speaking to your heart! Whether it's something that you read in the Bible, or something you've heard preached, or something that comes to you in any other way from God because of your relationship with God, and you know God has spoken to your heart – then that word, if it's God's word to you, it's a living, active thing. Which means it must be believed and responded to in a living, active way.

[15:52] 

You do not have faith in a passive way. You live faith out in a living, active way. Read again Hebrews, chapter 11 – the whole chapter. And read of these people and these situations involving God's people where, by faith, amazing things were accomplished. Not because people sat around and patted themselves or one another on the back and said, “We believe. Isn't it wonderful? We're all believers!” 

What is a believer? A believer is someone who hears from God, knows what God has said to them, believes it, has the hope in their heart. They are sure of what they hope for because God has said it to them, and they are certain of what they do not see because God has told them it is real.

[16:50] 

When I say these things, because I know that for so many Christians it might be an inspiring thought – but for so many Christians, it's not your experience.

It weighs heavily on me because I know, whoever you are, if you're one of God's people or you desire to live for God, I want God to be glorified in your life – because I know that's what Jesus came for.

There is no other purpose for our living. If you don't have that hope in your heart, if you don't have that certainty because God and His Word, therefore, are not living and active within you, then on what basis do you live out your Christian life? 

You know, we talk about ‘the Christian life’, but the Christian life is not like someone in bed on life support. The Christian life is someone who is moving and acting and expressing God in their lives – maybe not always in some great, overt way, just simply because they are walking in step with the Spirit.

And that's what Paul wrote about when he said, “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.” That is the Spirit of God who longs to fill you, to guide you, to lead you, to open your eyes to the things that God wants to show you … that God wants to say to you. Because God wants to uniquely be glorified in your life.

[18:24] 

The relationship that you have with God is not the same as the relationship I have with God because God relates to us in a very personal and individual way. But you can be sure that God wants to be glorified in you in a way that is uniquely, perfectly tailored to you – that relies on you being completely yielded to Him. 

And believe him, believe him, believe him, believe Him. Without faith it is impossible to please God. 

There is no other way. So never stop believing God. And if you haven't started believing God, don't try and believe things about God.  Draw close to God. Live close to God. Open your heart to God. Make up your mind and tell God that you only want Him to lead you, to guide you, to speak to you – that you want to know when He speaks to you, that you want to live your life for Him. And when He puts a hope in your heart, believe – not as a maybe. Believe it as it will be.

Share these things with other people that know Him, or want to know Him, like that.

These are the kind of people that God wants to be glorified in – the only kind of people in whom God can be glorified.