THE
TRANSPARENT
CHURCH

Hope.

It’s the wishy-washiest word we have in English.

You: Will you be there tonight at my party?

Your friend: I hope so!

Yeah, right.

You: Will someone beat the Miami Heat this year in the NBA Finals?

Me: I hope so!

Not gonna happen.

When we say hope, we liken it to crossing our fingers and rolling the dice. There’s like, a 51% chance it might happen. But the Bible doesn’t mean that at all. Hope, in the Bible, is confident expectation in a victorious future.

Which is why, out of anything, the apostle Paul prays that you and I would see…this:

 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling”

(Ephesians 1)

What’s he praying? That we would have Biblical hope.

What does that look like? Biblical hope, in a way, means knowing the final score before you watch the game.

What happens if you have recorded that big game you care about (ladies, stay with me) and you find out they win? How does that influence how you watch the game? I’ll tell you how: It changes everything.

Before, when they fumbled on the opening kickoff and went down by 21 at halftime, and time after time they couldn’t get a first down, what would happen to you? You would churn on the inside, fume on the inside, you start getting grumpy and fussing at others and maybe you start overeating and you yell at your wife or your buddy when they ask you a question, and if you’re not careful, you can even come to the point where you turn it off and give up on the whole thing.

And that is exactly what we do in our lives and with the church.

Things aren’t going well!

We’re losing!

There’s fighting on the sidelines!

We should probably just turn it off and find something else to do. Why? Because we don’t know how it ends.

Or do we?

Paul says I pray you never “turn off” church in the middle. He actually prays that God would give us something- the wisdom to be unashamedly hopeful. That’s right. Why would he say wisdom?

Because it’s always wise to bet on a winner.

And if you know what Paul is saying here in Ephesians 1- that no matter how bad it looks, God has predestined his church to triumph, that God will work out all things after the counsel of His will, that God will one day sum up all things in Jesus, than you know, in a sense, the final score, the outcome of the church- it wins, in the end.

That’s why, Martin Luther, the Great Reformer, in his darkest hour, when it seemed like the church in his day was doomed to sin and perversion and abuse of authority, could write:

            And though this world, with devils filled,

            should threaten to undo us,

            we will not fear, for God hath willed

            his truth to triumph through us

What did he know? He knew Ephesians 1, and therefore he could be unashamedly hopeful. He could have in his heart a confident expectation of a victorious future.

See, It’s the hope of His calling. It’s not your voice or mine on the other end of the phone line of history calling into the present, It’s His voice, His power, His calling. And if you will see that, you can be unashamedly hopeful about Jesus’ Church.

It’s fashionable, and quite honestly, easier, to be skeptical, judgmental, and whiny about the church in which God has placed us. As a matter of fact, if you really want reasons to complain about church, just go into ministry. You’ll find more squiggly things squirming out from under the rock of humanity’s heart than in just about any other profession.

And I’m not even talking about my life in ministry, but Paul’s- Paul had innumerable reasons to complain, whine, and quit. I mean, Good Lord, just read the Epistles as they come to you:

Adultery in the church? Check.

Getting drunk during communion? Weak leadership? Grieving the Spirit of God?

Check, check, and check.

Yet, he prays we would be unashamedly hopeful. How can he do this?

Because Paul knows:  the church isn’t my thing, your thing, a denomination’s thing, a committee’s thing, a pastor’s thing, a priest’s thing, or any other person’s thing.

It’s Jesus’ thing.

We, friends, are His church.

And He hath willed his truth to triumph through us.

Let hope rise.