Displaying The True Hope Of Jesus Through Gospel Transformation
At True Hope Collister, the main reason we exist as a church is to put on display the true hope of Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.
But what exactly do we mean by the true hope of Jesus?
While it’s a very basic question and belief in our Christian faith, I think it’s one that we need to continually come back to and remember regardless of how long we have been a follower of Jesus. For when we take the time to remember the true hope of Jesus, it deepens our faith in Jesus, allowing us to then further experience the transformation of our lives through the work of His Holy Spirit.
How Jesus is our Hope
In the Bible, we learn that all people have sinned (Romans 3:23) and that our sin was what separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2). The wages of sin was death (Romans 6:23). This is terrible news as we were “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Thankfully, God had a plan from the very beginning (1 Peter 1:19-21). His plan was gracious and merciful, and it was also costly. Moved by His great love for us, God sent His one and only perfect son, Jesus, to pay the wages of our sin through dying on a cross. He became our substitute, taking our sin in exchange for His righteousness, and providing us a way to be reconciled back into relationship with God (John 3:16, 1 Peter 2:24, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Jesus was buried, and on the third day, He rose from the grave (Mark 15:46, Luke 24:6-7). Those who repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus will be saved (Mark 1:15, 1 John 1:9, Ephesians 2:8, John 5:24), and the same Spirit who brought Jesus up from the grave—which is given to each person who believes in Him, will also raise them up on their final day to live life eternally with God in heaven (1 Peter 1:3, Romans 8:11, 1 John 5:13).
This is the gospel message, and through it, we see the hope of Jesus put into action. Jesus came to not only bring us hope. He is our hope. He is our hope over the past and who we were before we knew Him and were separated from God. He is our hope in the present, as He is alive and always with us, giving us a purpose and a meaning for the life we are currently living. He is our hope for the future, providing us resurrection power the moment that we leave our earthly bodies and join Him in the place that He has prepared for each of us in heaven. There is truly no greater news to proclaim than the gospel. No other message can save us. No other message is worth putting our hope in. For in Jesus we have a hope that will not disappoint (Romans 5:5 ).
The Hope of Jesus Revealed Through the Gospel Is Meant To Transform Us
While the hope of Jesus that is revealed through the gospel definitely informs us and gives us knowledge to believe in, it wasn’t meant to simply stay put in our minds. Rather, it was meant to renew our minds (Romans 12:2), and to sink deep into the innermost parts of our hearts, making us a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) from the inside out. When we allow the work of the Holy Spirit to do this, every part of our being is transformed. The way we think and feel about life will change, how we engage relationships will change, how we invest time, money, and other resources will change. There is not one aspect of our lives that will remain unchanged when we allow the truth of the gospel to work in us the way that God intended.
Furthermore, when we are transformed by the gospel, we are then able to display the true hope of Jesus to others. God will use our transformed lives to make an impact on the lives of those around us. People will begin to take notice how differently we think and behave, and they will start to ask questions regarding what we believe and why we believe it. This opens the doors for the Holy Spirit to work in miraculous ways in the hearts and lives of others. I don’t know about you, but this greatly encourages and excites me! I want everyone to personally know
Jesus as their true hope, and how awesome is it that God made us a part of His plan in order to help make this happen?! (1 Peter 3:15, Matthew 28:16-20).
How do we display the gospel in our everyday lives so that others may discover, experience, and follow Jesus too?
It doesn’t matter your age, where you live, your marital status, or what you do for a living—the gospel can be lived out in every single area of your life, providing a way for you to show others that they are loved, valued, and matter to Jesus. While there are numerous ways that the gospel can be displayed in our lives, below are a few key ones that exemplify the counter-cultural, radical love, grace, and hope of Jesus.
Walk in humility: In this day and age, humility is hard to find. There seems to be no problem with people acting as the best, the most correct, and the most important. I’m not sure we realize as Christians how much we can make an impact on those around us when we choose to walk in humility; to consider others more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). There is no one more humble than Jesus. Jesus is God yet did not take advantage of being God. Rather, He decided to make himself nothing by becoming a servant—taking on human likeness and humbling Himself to become obedient all the way to death. Jesus asks us to have this same mindset in our relationships with one another (Philippians 2:5-8).
Forgive continually: In our culture, the concept of forgiveness has somehow been made into a sign of weakness, as if forgiving someone is somehow compromising the significance of their wrongdoing, and that you’d be better off staying strong and shutting that person out of your life. Aren’t you so glad that God didn’t do that with us? He could have if He wanted to—after all, that is what we actually deserved (complete separation from God for all eternity). Instead, God chose to demonstrate His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus died (Romans 5:8), paying the penalty and forgiving us of all of our sins. God didn’t wait for us to prove that we belonged back in His life (we couldn’t), and He wasn’t manipulative by saying one thing and then doing another (that’s not His character). As followers of Jesus, we are called to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as God forgave us (Ephesians 4:32), and we are to do so continually (Matthew 18:21-22). This does not mean that we are compromising the significance of the wrongdoing or the pain we feel when someone sins against us, it just means that we are choosing to forgive as we have been forgiven—and that points others directly to the heart of Jesus.
Love earnestly: “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). There is no greater proof of gospel transformation in our lives than how well we love. Jesus even said that our love for one another will be how other people know that we are one of His disciples (John 13:35), making it the best way to display the hope that He has to offer. It’s easy to love people who already love us, but God calls us to also love our enemies and to even do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27). It is not in our human nature to love this way—it definitely takes the power of the Holy Spirit and our sincere desire to live obediently to what God commands, but it can be done! Can you imagine how this kind of love looks like or feels like to an unbeliever? Imagine how God might work in their lives through one simple, unexpected (maybe even undeserving) act of love.
Serve joyfully: Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), and He did so for the joy set before Him! (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus knew just how incredibly difficult it would be to endure death on the cross, but He also knew the great gift that would be waiting and fulfilled on the other side. Just as Jesus came to serve, every follower of Jesus is called to serve one another in love, using their unique gifts that they have received from God (Galatians 5:13, 1 Peter 4:10-11), and the attitude that we have in our hearts when we serve is equally important. We when serve others, we are really serving God, and God asks us to serve Him with gladness! (Psalm 100:1-2, Colossians 3:23). The world is closely watching how Christians act towards one another and to those outside of the church. Even the smallest act of service done with great joy displays the hope of Jesus and makes an impact on our world. We have so many opportunities to serve here at Collister as well as within our community. If you are interested in finding a way to serve, you can use our discovery tool here, or take a look at the various partnerships we currently have here.
My prayer is that as a church the gospel continues to further transform us through the work of the Holy Spirit, deepening our personal relationships with God, and ultimately, helping us to brightly display the true hope of Jesus everywhere that we go!