Ready?
My brother in arms here, Bob, and I had a few texts back and forth, commiserating about how terrified we were and all that stuff. He said, “I don’t know what to do, brother. I got all these notes, and I’ve got to pare it down.”
I said, “Great deal. You take the whole hour.”
And his text back was, “I don’t think so.”
So, the good news for you here is this message is fully scalable. I can stop at any point.
What I have is basically a collection, and I hope you’ll see the connection here. These may seem like disjointed thoughts, different verses, but the connecting thought here is eternal hope.
I’ve been considering—and I really tried to—I thought I had a title: Eternal Hope: Past, Present, Future. But I think the more you hear these verses and what I’m going to share from them, you’ll see that there is not really a time period here. A lot of this is really transcending time. You can’t put it in a box: the past, the present, the future.
I’ve been recently considering eternity, and the hope we have in knowing Christ, and really, kind of what Bob was talking about: being part of His eternal purpose, what He’s trying to do.
Especially the last two weeks, but I think everyone would agree, the world around us seems to be really spiraling out of control—faster and faster.
I’ve been brought to this thought often recently: How does anyone live? How does anyone carry on? How does anyone even survive the days we’re living in without some type of anchor, some type of assurance, something outside themselves that tells them, “Hey, it’s going to be okay”?
When you think about that, it seems to describe someone who doesn’t know Christ. And that’s true, but even those of us who do equally need that same type of encouragement. Sometimes, I think maybe everyone in the room can agree, we need that just to get through the day.
So today, I just want to overwhelm you with hope. That’s my goal here.
By the end, I want you to be exhausted looking at just some of the promises of God.
Any of these verses we’re going to look at could be expounded much more. Like Bob, I’m not going to go into extreme detail. I’m going to go into maybe a little more detail on some that I’ve had more experience with.
But there is so much more in these verses. My hope is just to scratch the surface enough to kind of whet your appetite, give you an appetizer, so to speak.
My prayer is that we would go back to the Word, go back to His Word, seek Him, and allow Him to make these things deeper and more real in our lives.
Let’s jump right in. Isaiah 9:6-7 is the first passage I’m going to look at. As I looked at this, the thought came to me that it’s important at the outset to establish Who is in control. So just think about that.
These are very famous, probably very familiar verses too. I’m reading most of these from the New American Standard translation.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
From right here, you see the establishment of authority. You see Who is in charge. You see Who has the ultimate responsibility here.
Other translations, instead of “government,” say “rule” or “dominion.” Like what Bob was talking about in the Psalms, throughout the Psalms you will see example after example of whether it is the psalm writer or the Lord Himself declaring His sovereignty.
We do not have to worry. Remember the theme here: eternal hope. These are just some thoughts to encourage you. We do not have to worry about Who is in charge, Who is in control, and really, in the end, Who wins.
We can rest knowing the Lord is the Victor and will, in the end, accomplish His purpose, just like Bob was talking about. He’s going to have what He’s after in the end. He’s going to build His church.
Let’s go to the next one. This is 2 Peter 1:3.
Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and excellence.
As this verse came to me, the thought seemed to come to me that this is one of those verses that, on the surface, really seems to be a motivator verse—one of those pump-you-up kinds of verses that people will hold on to and claim, in a sense, saying, “See, God has given us everything we need. We’re not lacking anything.”
But the real context, the actual crux of the verse, comes in the next phrase: “through the true knowledge of Him.” That’s the important part right there.
All we need is in Christ. It’s all about Christ. More of Christ is what we need.
So the real encouragement we have there is that we already have everything in Christ. Look at that verse again: His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.
You’ve probably heard this many times before: He doesn’t just give us salvation, and then add on these things that we need. Our salvation is Christ. So in that, everything we need.
Let’s look at Ephesians 1. We’re going to look at verse 14.
Who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
When I first looked at this verse, for some reason I was only focusing on verse 14, which is wonderful, but it is only half of the thought. So back up just a little bit to verse 13.
You were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.
What a picture that paints for us. At least it did for me. We are sealed in Christ.
As I considered this, the thought that immediately came to mind was that in medieval times, a king, dignitary, or noble would need to send a letter or some communication. What would they do? They would seal it.
I believe they would have some ball of wax, or whatever it was, heated up, and they would have their fancy ring. That communication would be sealed. It would have a big old blob of wax with their seal on it.
That was really meant to convey a number of things, but in the end: authority, their endorsement, adding that bit of weight to the letter and the communication. It even has this aspect or connotation of possession.
In a way, it says in that letter, “This is mine. My name is on this. The weight behind my name is conveyed with this.”
Really, thinking back to the verse, that would be enough for me. Look again at verse 14: the Holy Spirit is given as a pledge of our redemption. And there is that word again, “possession”: “the redemption of God’s own possession.”
We are His. Do you realize that? We’re His. Is there really anything else we need to hear to encourage us? What a simple but powerful word there. We are God’s.
Let’s jump ahead to the next one. This is also in Ephesians, chapter 2. Look at verse 19.
A few verses earlier in this chapter, Paul talks about how we have been brought near in Christ and by His blood. I think we tend to sometimes forget the truth in the Scriptures about what our position was.
What I mean by that is not just that we were a sinful people, that we had no hope, but that God had this plan for Israel. They were His chosen people.
So if you do the math, as they say, where did that leave us? It is really simple. There were those on the inside, and there were those on the outside. We were on the outside.
The verses we looked at in chapter 1 talked about us being His possession. We are not only His—not just some type of object or trophy on His shelf.
Look at that verse again, verse 19:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.
Think about that. Think about where we started, where we should have been, and now what we’ve been brought into.
I even see this as a type of spectrum or progression. You go from strangers and aliens, to citizens, to God’s household. To me, there is a clear increasing positivity, if I can call it that.
If you look in the Amplified, there is actually a parenthetical phrase added to clarify the term “aliens.” The Amplified adds, “outsiders without rights of citizenship.” That’s pretty clear to me. Not a good picture.
As citizens, you think about certain rights that you are guaranteed. In this day and time, we are pretty big on that. You just have to look at the news or talk to somebody out in the world. We are pretty big on our rights and the like. We even take many of these for granted in our society today.
You are a citizen of this country, so that means you get to do this, you get to go here. We take so much of that for granted.
But again, moving through the progression, when you talk about a household, I, for one, at least immediately think of family. So there is automatically a more intimate environment.
In this verse, you can see that we are brought into the closest relationship possible with our heavenly Father.
We start completely on the outside—no rights, nothing. We are brought in to be citizens, but also into that much closer relationship as part of the family of God. How wonderful is that?
We’re going to look next at John 13. This is John 13:1. I’m going to read it, but focus on the last phrase in this verse.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
That phrase right there: “He loved them to the end.”
This is a really interesting verse. It really transcends time. It is not past, present, or future. We know that it happened in the past, yet it is a present truth applying even to our future.
This describes a very specific event in the Gospels, and even a very specific moment there. Yet we know this is truth for us.
For the disciples, the Lord loved them. We know He provided for them and really took care of them until the very end.
The way that verse is written or phrased, it almost makes it sound like He loved them all the way through until the very end of His earthly life, and that was it—like there was a definite timestamp on this, like it stopped at some point.
Let me give you an example, and I’ll come back to this verse. A number of you probably know that I work for a staffing agency. A huge part of our week is devoted to timesheets.
If you’ve ever worked in an hourly capacity, or if you have ever managed those working in an hourly capacity, you know what I’m referring to here. Simply put, that is just the process for documenting the time that our workers worked and getting them paid for it.
Every week, we have a deadline for receiving these timesheets and getting them into our payroll department. Inevitably, there are times when someone does not get paid because they submitted their timesheet late. That does not make for pleasant circumstances on Fridays sometimes.
Of course, they usually try to argue that it was not late. You would be just blown away by the excuses we are given. Really, what it comes down to is trying to convince us why they still should be paid.
Oftentimes, we have to pull the records and look at the timestamp. Here is where I’m tying it in: we look at the timestamp and show them, “No, sorry, you submitted it at such-and-such a time, and it was too late at that point.”
That is a regular part of our week, our normal daily lives. Everyone here can probably relate to deadlines, to timestamps, as I’m calling it. We are subject to them, and many of them are for good reasons.
But the thought came to me: I am so glad the Lord does not operate this way. He does not put a limit on His love for us. He does not say, “Okay, I love you up until this point, and that’s where it stops.”
We usually think of it in terms of a limitation based on what we do or do not do. “Oh, I messed up too many times,” or, “I did this,” or, “I did that, and now there is no way the Lord can still love me.”
How often has each of us thought that? Even when we are not consciously thinking that, we know that we have walked through those periods of life.
There is a song we sing. The line goes, “Not because of who I am, but because of what You’ve done; not because of what I’ve done, but because of Who You are.”
Follow the pronouns in that phrase or else you’ll miss it. “Not because of who I am,” speaking of me, “but because of what You’ve done,” speaking of Him. “Not because of what I’ve done, but because of Who You are.”
So in that verse, “He loved them to the end.” Think about that again. Our Lord’s love is limitless.
Here is really the security, the hope: it is based on Him. It is based on Who He is and what He has done.
Young’s Literal Translation has an interesting addition, if you would say, that helps clarify. It says the same before that: “having loved His own who were in the world”—and then there is almost like a huge stop, two dashes—and it says at the end, “to the end He loved them.”
I like the way that really calls it out and makes it very specific and clear. He loves us to the end.
Just a few verses further down, skip to John 13:3.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God.
The verse goes on, but what I want to focus on is right there in the middle: “had given all things into His hands.”
Do we realize that everything is His? There is no corner, there is no shadow, there really is no area of our lives that is out of His reach.
This ties back into one of the first verses we looked at: the aspect of His sovereignty. So often—I will just speak for myself; I do not know about you all—I limit Him, even if I am not saying it outright or consciously thinking it.
There are so many times that, by my actions, I am really saying, “Lord, this is too much. This is out of even Your reach. This is beyond You, Lord. What am I going to do?”
That is why I think verse 3 here provides some great comfort. When we see that He is in control, that He is aware of everything, whether in our lives or really anywhere, it allows us to let go of many burdens that we take on unnecessarily.
When we see Who is on the throne, so to speak, there is great comfort in that.
These first couple of verses in John 13 show the Lord’s great love in serving the disciples, even in these last moments on earth. They show His great love, but they also display His steadfastness and resolve toward His Father’s purpose.
What security and hope we have because the Lord of the universe does not change. The Lord of the universe does not change, and He will accomplish His purpose.
This is just like Bob was saying: He is going to have what He is after. He is going to build His church. In many ways, it does not matter how crazy life gets, how evil, how bad the world around us looks. He is going to have what He is after. He is going to have His way.
We are coming into the home stretch here. Isaiah 25 is the next one I want to look at. This is Isaiah 25:8-9.
Pay attention to the first phrase, and then we’ll go into it.
He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.And it will be said in that day,
“Behold, this is our God for Whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for Whom we have waited;
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
These verses are very similar to those in Revelation. In fact, the ones in Revelation are probably the ones we think of when we hear that phrase—the ones speaking about the new heaven and earth.
When you read these verses and those in Revelation, it is really hard not to long for heaven. We had some prayers this morning, some worship, and I believe Bob touched on it a little bit as well.
Sometimes the days are so evil, so oppressive, that we can only hang on to hope like this—that there will be a better day, and that this age we are in will not last forever.
What a thought: He will swallow up death for all time.
In Revelation 21, it says, in that similar verse, “There will no longer be any death.”
I get so accustomed to this fallen state, to the fallen world that we live in, that I forget oftentimes: this is not the way it is supposed to be. Again, it will not be this way forever.
The verse in the New Testament says, “our light and momentary afflictions.” It does not feel like that in the moment. It does not feel like that. The Lord, in His sovereign plan, can have those seasons of struggle go on for years.
There are many special saints who had to endure basically a lifetime of what seemed like unending sorrow and pain. But we have hope. It is not going to be that way forever.
I’ve got one final one, and then I’ll just read a few verses for you. This is Hebrews 7. We’re going to look at verse 25.
Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Again, here is that eternal perspective we have been looking at a little bit. He is able to save forever. Look at that verse: He is able to save forever.
We are not just saved to some temporary solution that will expire at some point. The King James actually says, “save them to the uttermost.”
That is not a word we use a lot these days, but I think we all know what it means. It means the ultimate, the best. One word I saw was “the maximal,” the supreme.
Why is He able to save forever? Look at the second half of that verse: He always lives to make intercession for us.
There are really two huge things right there in the second half of that verse.
I’m going to blow your mind with something. Okay, you ready? Christ is alive.
I know, it sounds obvious, right? You have probably heard that before. But do we realize that?
Christ died for us. Yes, that is wonderful, what He did on the cross. But do we equally take into account the reality that He is alive right now, interceding for us, bringing us before the throne?
I think so often I can get into this mindset: “Lord, You saved me. I’m grateful for it. I’ve been cleansed. My salvation is secure.”
Then I forget that I am not just out here floundering, having to figure out my own way, my own salvation. As the hymn goes, “There’s a man in the glory,” and the next phrase of that song says, “His life is for me.”
It is not that we have this: “Okay, great, I’ve been saved. I’m fixed completely. I’m secure. I’m good for eternity,” and then we are supposed to figure out the rest.
Christ is there, alive, interceding for us, like the verse says. What security, what hope we have.
The verse says, “He always lives.” There is this thought to me, this connotation with that verse, of a continual present and future—not going to stop, not going to change, ever.
Let me just read two more quick passages. You can turn if you want, but these are ones that I like to call self-explanatory, so I am not really going to say anything about them.
Second Thessalonians 2:16-17:
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father,
Who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace,
comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.
The last one is in Philippians 3. Philippians 3:20-21:
For our citizenship is in heaven,
From which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory,
By the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray.
Lord, Your Word is life. Your Word is our very life and breath. We thank You that even in these days—the days we live in that are so evil, seemingly just running in the opposite direction of what You want—Lord, that even in these days You still speak to us.
Thank You, Lord, for the eternal security and hope that we have. Thank You, Lord, that You are doing a great work. You are always working, building Your church, preparing that bride.
Lord, help us in these days to run hard after You. Guard our hearts, guard our families and homes.
May we pursue You, Lord. It is only You, Lord. It is only by Your grace that this can happen. So we look to You, we give this word back to You, and we ask it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.