The hope we have in Christ changes how we live and how we approach the world today. According to Dr. Larry Osborne, there is a big difference between the world’s definition of hope and how we define it as Christians.
“In English language the word hope means I wish something happens: I hope you have a great vacation, I hope my team wins.’
“The biblical concept of hope is absolute confidence. When we call Jesus ‘our blessed hope’ we don’t mean, ‘Boy, I’m hopeful that He comes back.’ No. We mean, ‘I am so sure He’s coming back – it changes everything about how I live.’”
We need to be confident in the truth of Jesus Christ. Dr. Osborne uses the analogy of a basketball game,
“Anybody who’s a sports fan knows that your greatest and fondest memories are not games where you won by a zillion points, but games where you were hopelessly behind and somehow pulled it out.”
“At the end of the day, we have been absolutely assured that we will win. The further I’m behind in the third quarter, than the greater the fourth quarter comeback is going to be.”
If we hang onto the hope of Jesus, does that mean we should pull back from engaging the culture? Dr. Osborne says no.
“We’re always called to be salt and we’re always called to be light. We happen to live in a culture where we have a very strong voice. It still has to be a Godly voice. We can’t fight fire with fire and use the weapons of the world.”
“We’re allowed to be part of the process. I look at any Christian who says ‘I’m not going to be part of the process’ as missing it big time. But our hope is not in the process. If somehow we were ever marginalized and not allowed in the process, well, welcome to most Christians and most of history. We still can honor Jesus quite well in that environment.”
Dr. Osborne points us towards a period of time when the outcome looked grim, but the hope of Christ prevailed.
“We would have thought the worst that happened was in China and The Iron Curtain, because Christianity was essentially forbidden and kicked out. We would’ve said, ‘At least we have freedom of religion in Western Europe.’”
“In God’s overarching timeframe, we looked at it now and say, ‘Wow. He was really at work behind the scenes in the places that we thought there was no freedom.’”
We can have absolute confidence in Jesus Christ, regardless of what is happening in our world.
Dr. Larry Osborne has served as a senior pastor and teaching pastor at North Coast Church—one of the ten most influential churches in the country—since 1980. Dr. Osborne is the author of numerous books, including and .
Thriving in Babylon
