Our Hope: How God Works in History

How do we pierce the darkness? We pierce it in our personal lives and in our homes and neighborhoods and this city and beyond. And so, we are not going to figure out who to blame about the darkness, we are not going to complain about the darkness, we are going to ask God to do something in us and then through us where we actually, we pierce it.

And so, what I’m going to talk about today is our hope. And part of piercing the darkness is getting perspective. It’s pretty easy to feel like things are really, really, really dark and there’s maybe not a lot of hope when you look at circumstances.

In fact, let me ask you a few questions. Today, sitting here, how hopeful are you about the future of America? About the current state of the family? How hopeful are you about the economy? How hopeful are you about things getting resolved in the Middle East? I mean, honestly. How hopeful? Is it like, “Yeah, I think this is going to work out okay.” How hopeful are you about the threats of China? or Russia? How hopeful are you about the next generation and the things that we see right now? I don’t know about you, but those things make me feel like, Wow, Lord, where is, where is the hope? What are You going to do about it? How does it all work?

And so, I have given you some notes. I want you to pull them out if you will, and historically, I have an operating system. And by an operating system, these are premises sort of everyone goes into every situation in life with: here are some basic presuppositions that you believe. And the Church, for over two thousand years have had seven or eight things that we have all believed, regardless of denomination or background. And I want to run through those real quickly, because I believe these, I’m assuming most of you all do. But it changes how you look at everything.

Premise number one: No purpose of God can be thwarted. Job 42:2, “I know, O Lord, that You can do all things and no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Psalm 33 talks about, “God frustrates the plans of nations, He frustrates the plans of peoples, but the plans and purposes of God are steadfast and cannot be changed.”

Second, the gospel is going to go to the whole world. Jesus said, “Go into all the world and make disciples.” He says, “This gospel will be preached all around the world.” It’s’ going to happen. Third, God’s will for every single believer is that we become a mature, Christ-like Christian. In other words, His desire, His agenda – Romans 8:28 – He is conforming all of us to the likeness of His Son. He’s going to make you and me like Jesus. And He uses everything up, down, hard, good, Romans 8:28, to accomplish that.

Fourth, the greatest apologetic in the world is Christians loving fellow Christians radically, authentically, sacrificially. Jesus’ last words were, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another in the same way that I loved you. By this, all the world will really know that you are My disciples.”

Number five, or six, I lose track of the numbers, but [it] is the greatest need in the Church today, in fact, in the world today, is for Christians to live like Christians. When Christians live and are not just thinking about, not even agreeing with, but actually living like and acting like Jesus, there are ripples that have always happened in every season of world history. And when they don’t, the opposite is true.

And then finally, God’s agent of change, His hope for the world, is the Church. For better or worse, this body of Christ, followers of Jesus, you are, I am, we are the light of the world. And Jesus is coming back and He will judge the world justly and everything will one day be fair and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And all will be made right one day. And until then, He has left us here to help bring that about.

So, with that, there are five realities that I want to go through. And what I hope you’ll leave with is a couple things. One, a real sense of hope, because those early things, you should have seen your face when I was going through how hopeful are you about…right? I’m not too hopeful humanly speaking. But when you look at it through the lens of: how does God work? And what does He want to do? What does He promise to do? Then it’s really helpful.

So, reality number one, Max DePree says is that’s the job of leaders is to define reality, is we are living in a dark world locally, nationally, and globally. Can you agree with that? Here’s the deal. Problems don’t get fixed until problems get faced. It’s dark locally, it’s dark nationally, and it’s dark globally.

Second reality is God’s story from beginning to end gives us – underline this – a certain hope to pierce the darkness. It’s not like, oh, all is lost. What is going to happen? You’ll notice I put a little picture and John chapter 1, verses 1 to 4 is on one end and Revelation chapter 21 is at the other end. And I put the cross right there in the middle. Here’s what I want you to get is that from the very beginning, the piercing of the darkness is guaranteed, so we have hope.

And I’m going to ask you to go ahead and open your Bibles to John chapter 1, here’s what I want you to get. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing has come into being that has come into being.”

So basically, all that was created was by the Word. We’ll learn who the Word is and most of you all know who it is. It’s Jesus. I want you to get this, “In Him,” Jesus, “was life and the life,” - underline that – “was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.” Some of your translations will say, “comprehend it,” both are true.

And then, if you will, maybe it has been a while since you’ve read all the way. It’s probably the last page of your Bible. What I want you to see is there will come a day, speaking of light and truth and perfection and goodness and peace and no tears and no pain and no disease and no violence – this Jesus who pierced the darkness. Follow along as I read verse 22 through 27 of Revelation chapter 21.

This is the new heaven has come on a new earth. All judgements are over. He says, “I saw no temple, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are His temple. And the city has no need for sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its Lamb is the light. And the nations shall walk by its light and the kings of the earth shall bring forth glory into it. And in the daytime, for there will be no night there, for the gates shall never be closed and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. And nothing unclean, no one who practices an abomination or lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

And what I want you to get is reality number one is that it is a dark world right now, that we are in a crisis. And second is God’s story from beginning to end - there is hope. And from the early Church, Peter would write this in the midst of Nero burning Christians at the stake. He said, “Be sober, get your mind girded or fixed on the hope that is coming at the revelation of Christ.”

In other words, the anchor is this is how it is going to end, this is where we are now, and here are the problems that we have. If you just look at circumstance, you’ll be tempted to blame other people, you’ll be tempted to whine and complain, you’ll be tempted to do anything but be the very light and say, “There is hope,” and what we are going to talk about this morning is: How do we pierce the darkness? How did Jesus do it and how does it work?

Light brings a number of wonderful things. It brings God’s presence and glory. When there’s light there’s trust, when there is light there is purity, when there is light there is holiness and freedom. His Word is light, His will is light, His path gives us a light about how to live in every relationship. Light gives perspective and light gives guidance. By contrast, we live in a world where there is darkness, evil, chaos, disobedience, perversion, violence, secrets, immorality, impurity, people are blind, nations are blind, deception, bondage.

Now, the temptation when you think about light is that it’s like this metaphor. Oh, there’s light and there’s darkness. Here’s what I want you to get, and I’m almost ashamed to say this. I have studied the Bible for a quite a few years. About a year ago, there was an insight and I don’t know why I didn’t see it, about light that I read over for years. I had even memorized the passage. Because, I think, yes, there’s light and there is God’s Word and we need to pierce the darkness.

But it gets super clear. See, it’s not just a metaphor. You know what the light actually is? Turn the page. You know what the light actually is? We read it. The light is the life of Christ. In other words, what changes things, what pierces, what brings about life and what does things in families and individuals and cultures and nations – it’s not just an idea and it’s not just truth. It says Jesus’ life was the light of men.

In fact, if you skip down to verse 18 [John, Chapter 1], it says, “No man has seen God at any time, but He, Jesus, explained Him.” The word is exegete in Greek. In other words, if you’re a Bible student you maybe heard someone, “I am reading this text and I am going to exegete it.” That means I am going to explain what it really means. Jesus came to explain what God is like, how He thinks, what He values. He would say, “When you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”  The Word became flesh, verse 14, and dwelt among us.” And He lived this perfect life and how, it was how He lived, not just how He spoke. It’s how He treated people, it’s how He responded to evil. See, His actual life – what He actually did, not just said, was the light that pierced the darkness.

And then notice it wasn’t just His life, but His ministry wasn’t about – “You’re my disciples now. I want you to learn all that I will tell you and someday I want people to sit in small groups and read the Bible and agree with what I have said.”

When you would follow a rabbi in Jesus’ day, there were three [four] goals. Number one, you wanted to be with him, you wanted to become like him, you wanted to learn everything that he had learned, and then you wanted to reproduce or teach others in exactly the way that your teacher or your rabbi - Jesus didn’t say, “Come and learn about Me and agree with this truth and come and listen to someone talk a few times a month and then sing some good songs and go live over here.”

He didn’t say, “Become the light, try hard to be light.” He said, “You come follow Me.” Here’s the path and this path is life. And it cuts through the darkness of the world. Imagine this. You, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you are the light of the world. And so, God brought you here so you could be His disciples who pierce the darkness and change what happens. See, the answer isn’t out there. The answer isn’t someone else.

You are the light of the world. So, what does He say? Matthew chapter 5, verses 14 through 16. “Let your light so shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” That’s the agenda. The light isn’t a concept, the light isn’t just getting people to read the Bible. They have got to see the truth in ordinary people like you and me.

So, reality number three is that Jesus’ life is the light that overcomes. Not just concepts, not just truth. Reality number four, God’s greatest work has always occurred in the darkest moments of human history. There’s an historical pattern and the pattern goes something like this. There’s a very, very great need and this great need is caused by a very, very great sin. And the great sin produces bondage.

What’s the narrative that the Bible always goes back to, right? Children of Israel, in Egypt, in bondage, four hundred and thirty years, the Judges, same thing. Seasons of kings, same thing. Four hundred silent years, the same thing. There’s great need and the great need is because people say, “This is God’s path; we are not going to live His path.” And so, they end up in bondage. It’s a lot like us, right?

You know, you get discouraged, you get depressed, so you start eating a bunch of food or you drink more alcohol than you should or you start, you know, you want to do something that will sort of ease the pain and whether it’s logging onto something or spending money in a certain way. And then you do it and it feels good short-term. And then pretty soon – what? You can’t stop eating, you can’t stop drinking, you find yourself in debt up to your ears, you find yourself in a – we call it an addiction. See, the world always offers a quick fix.

And here’s the pattern that happens. When God sees people in bondage, He has compassion. And when that word is used of Jesus, the word is splagchna. It’s it literally means coming out of the bowels. When God sees people that are hurting that He loves, literally, something hurts deeply inside of Him to the point that He has to act. That’s the word compassion. When you see it in the New Testament in Jesus, when it says He has compassion, He will immediately do something. He either heals someone or begins teaching and helping.

And it’s interesting that God’s compassion, when you look at these big historical cycles, out of His compassion He allows judgment to occur. So, in other words, He actually, like a velvet vise, when we are on this path, God allows us to experience the consequences of behavior that is wrong so that we feel the pain, so that we feel the pain, so we feel the pain. So, guess what, “Help!” Didn’t that happen in the pandemic? Didn’t a lot of people turn to God like never before? I have some friends that are evangelists here and around the world, they said they had never seen an outpouring of people coming to Christ…

But then the [way] He does it is He raises up a deliverer. And whether it’s a Noah during a time of violence, whether it’s a Moses, whether it’s a Joshua, whether it’s an Esther, whether it’s a Nehemiah – He raises up a deliverer and here’s the key: the process. It’s usually through a clear, strong vision that meets the great need and I love this, usually through ordinary people.

I mean, think about when Jesus decided to pierce the darkness and change, not just world history, but I mean, change everything. He chose twelve very ordinary people. And He chose them from backgrounds that they would never get along on their own. A few fishermen leave their business, now they are going to be good Jews with a tax collector who is despised and a radical. They’ve got a guy who is not just a traitor, but he’s a terrorist.

And He takes this group of people and He says, “This is what is really important. I am what is important, God’s agenda is important, and it’s more than your Jewishness, it’s more than your background, it’s more than your politics, it’s more than your bias, it’s more than how you used to view people. This is the light and I want you to follow Me, I want you to know Me, and I am going to reveal the Father. And we are going to walk together and the world is going to be completely changed.

And over and over and over, He delivers by ordinary people. I mean, whether it was a Martin Luther, or an Esther. When things get really, really bad, He finds a man or a woman or a student whose heart is fully His who just can’t stand the status quo, that are sick and tired of whining and complaining and blaming other people and just says, “God, if there is something I could do, I will do whatever You want me to do.” And He says, “Okay, I will use you.” And He seems to have this weird deal where He likes to take the most unlikely people that aren’t necessarily the smartest, not always the best educated, don’t always come from the best stock so that when it happens, everyone knows it couldn’t have been that person. And He gets the glory.

And God takes someone who is light and who is very ordinary, who is willing to not just agree with what the Bible says or agree that I’m a Christian, but actually will do what Jesus did and actually teach what Jesus taught. And here’s the final part of this reality, is that Jesus’ life, what He actually did launched His kingdom of light movement by starting small, dreaming big, and going deep.
When Jesus decided to pierce the darkness and change, not just world history, but I mean, change everything. He chose twelve very ordinary people. And He chose them from backgrounds that they would never get along on their own. And as you go through Church history, I mean, whether it was a Martin Luther, or whether it was a Deborah in the Old Testament, or an Esther. When things get really, really bad, He finds a man or a woman or a student whose heart is fully His who just can’t stand the status quo, that are sick and tired of whining and complaining and blaming other people and just says, “God, if there is something I could do, I will do whatever You want me to do.”

And He says, “Okay, I will use you.” And He seems to have this weird deal where He likes to take the most unlikely people that aren’t necessarily the smartest, not always the best educated, don’t always come from the best stock so that when it happens, everyone knows it couldn’t have been that person. And He gets the glory. And here’s the final part of this reality, is that Jesus’ life, what He actually did launched His kingdom of light movement by starting small, dreaming big, and going deep.

If you study Jesus’ life, it’s somewhere between three, three and a half years of ministry. The first six months He kind of built some relationships, did enough miracles to get the people to hate Him in Jerusalem so He went to the Galilee area.

So, the religious leaders then said, “We don’t want You,” He’s rejected as the king. And so, He goes to His family and they reject Him. In fact, He ends up in a synagogue that we’ll look at in just a minute and He reads the Old Testament, talking about Messiah and says, “Today in your hearing it has happened. I am Him.” And they take Him out to a cliff and try to kill Him. And He walks past them because it’s not His time.

But it’s so interesting. Eighteen to twenty months of His whole time was with twelve men and a handful of women. And He went deep with them. It was very, very small. He said, “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed,” it was a like a mustard seed conspiracy. You have this itinerant teacher that, you know, either you love Him or you hate Him. He claims to be God, He raises a few people from the dead, He’s an amazing teacher, you’ve got, you know, a pretty good meal once, you know, with five thousand other people. And so, I mean, He’s a rockstar on the one hand and despised on the other.

And then when He’s going to change the whole world, instead of, “Hey, we’ve got to get as many, we’ve got to leverage this, we’ve got to scale this. We’ve got to go big or go home,” right? No, no, He says, “We’re going to go small,” because at the end of the day, it was true of those disciples and it’s true of you, you need to listen very carefully, who you are and who you become is one hundred x more important than anything you ever accomplish.

When He chose these twelve, it says, “He chose them that they might be with Him.” They ate with Him, they walked with Him, they had private conversations with Him, they shared their struggles with Him, they watched His miracles, they were invited into and participated with Him. They saw how He responded to Samaritans and Jews and terrorists, how He reacted when He was attacked, and little by little by little, they became like Him. He knew the last eighteen months, they need to have their hearts sold out to the Father.

They need to understand that it’s going to be very challenging. They need to face, like I did - the Scripture in Isaiah says Jesus looked at the cross and set His face like a flint and knew this would be the price tag - and every one of the disciples did as well. All were martyred but one, and he was preserved to write the book called Revelation for us, in exile.

He started very small, but He dreamed big. But imagine if you’re one of the, you know, one of the eleven. Let’s just take Judas out of it right now. And, you know, there’s, there are other people. Maybe a hundred and twenty or so that are really committed. And He tells you, “I’m going up to heaven, “I want you to take this message to the world.” No technology. I mean, that we would think of. No satellites, no printing press, an oral world.

Can you imagine, like, one day, in an honest moment, “Hey, John?” “Yeah, Pete.” “This is nuts. I mean, there are eleven of us. The whole world? I’ve got to admit, man, He’s a great teacher and we have seen a few people get raised from the dead, but…“ They did. It wasn’t because they were great [preachers], they were ordinary. They didn’t have the best theological education, they didn’t come from the best places, they didn’t have power. So, what was it?

When they were being punished, observing the boldness of Peter and John, the religious leaders would say, “And now we identify those as having been with Jesus.” They recognized that they had been with Him, because they thought like Him and they lived like Him and they had His convictions. And so, they reproduced and they multiplied.

Can I say this as nicely as I possibly can? What happened, somehow over time, we got the idea that reading the Bible, coming to church one point six to two times a month, and then maybe if you’re really committed you get in a little group and discuss what the Bible says, “Yeah, I believe this about Jesus. What did you get on question six?” “The answer is Jesus.” “Oh, that’s very good.”

And so, what has happened is, we have a quality control problem. Christians don’t even go to church anymore. Forty percent of evangelicals don’t attend church at all. We don’t live like Christ, our lives are not holy, we are not raising our kids to follow Christ, and we have all these emerging problems and what we have done primarily is find someone else to blame.

God is looking for some ordinary people. Guess what – you’re the solution. You’re the light of the world. That’s the reality. And the fact that America is in the state that it’s in tells us that we have not been the kind of followers that transform the culture. It starts small, dreams big, it goes deep, and now I’d like to be, in kindness, show you practically. Okay, then, what does it mean to do the things that Jesus did? What did He actually do?

He modeled being surrendered to the Father. In the garden, He would surrender His will, “Not My will but Yours be done.” Jesus would model for the disciples: to follow Me, you must let go of everything and everyone and be willing to do the will of the Father with no holds barred. There’s power, “Unless a grain of wheat fall unto the earth and die it remains by itself alone,” Jesus said, “but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” Whoo. You wonder why not a lot of people followed Him.

The second thing He modeled was being separate from the world. The next thing after His baptism, He went into the wilderness, right? And He’s temped by the evil one. “If You are the Son of God, turn this stone to bread. If You are the Son of God, if You are the Son of God,” lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. The same three things that the garden – Adam and Eve were tempted with, Jesus is tempted with, and He declares, “It is written, it is written, it is written,” and He defeats the enemy and He demonstrates being separate from the world’s values.

Third thing that happens is He has a sober self-assessment. Jesus heard, “You are My dearly loved Son. I’m pleased with You.” His identity wasn’t for God’s favor. He lived His life from God’s favor. And the New Testament teaches the same for all of us. As a believer, our identity comes from the Father’s view of us and what the Word says.

When He opened that scroll in Isaiah 61, He read, “This is what the Messiah will be and do.” Good news, preach to the poor, the lame will walk, the blind will see, the dead will be raised, the prisoners will be set free.” In your hearing, Word of God, this is what it says, the Messiah, this is who I am. His view of Himself isn’t what other people think, it’s not what He owns, it’s not how many likes He has, it’s not where He lives, it’s not how much money He has. It comes from God. This is who I am, a Son of the living God.

Fourth, He serves in love. “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom of many.” The last night He would pour the water and He would wash the disciples feet and He would say to them, “I being your Lord and teacher observe, blessed are you if you, in like manner, serve, lay down your lives for one another.”

And then finally, He would supernaturally respond to evil with good. He would hang upon the cross and say, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” So when He said to them, “Take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Me,” He wasn’t saying, “Hey, I think I’ll start going to church. And I’m going to get really committed; I’m actually going to get a group and talk about what Jesus said.”

By the way, those are important steps. That’s how you learn these things. But what He was saying is: Leave your fishing business and make Me your priority. For others, it would be, “Stay in your business and make Me your priority. We are going to start small. We’re going to start a little Bible study in your neighborhood. You’re going to start a little Bible study, invite your friends. We are going to start small, we are going to dream big, but we are going to go deep.

And He would say to the disciples: You’re going to surrender like I surrendered, you’re going to be separate from the world, and it’s a process and you’ll fail. And you’ll have a clear, sober self-assessment from Scripture of this is who you are. The world will not identify. You’re not a somebody because [of] anything out there. And then He would say: We are going to love each other with such radical, sacrificial, others-centered love that costs us. That means if a friend is in the hospital and you need to pay their bill, it doesn’t matter whether you get a tax deduction.

And the Christian life isn’t about all these good people in my life so I become a better person. You will become a better person, but the eyes are outward. It’s caring for other people to the point of time and energy and money, whatever it takes. And being as committed or more committed to them than you would a blood relative. That’s the call. That’s what a disciple is.

That’s what He modeled and then notice, what did He command? He commanded surrender all. Take up your cross, follow Me. Luke 9:23 and following He says, “You can’t be My disciple unless you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.” He said to be separate from the world. Paul would say it in Romans 12:2, but he says it’s not what goes into the mouth that makes you unholy, it’s what comes out of your heart. That righteousness is an internal issue. You have heard it said, but I say to you.

Third he would say, call them to have a sober self-assessment. To get accurate. Peter, “I can do it. I’ll – everyone else will let you down, not me.” Peter, let me give you some clarity about your own bravado. Before the cock crows, you’ll deny Me three times. That’s the negative, and then the positive, Peter, you can’t believe this about yourself yet, but because your declaration and your convictions, the kind of man you’re going to become, rock on which I’m going to build My Church. And everyone else who is willing to declare that in the midst of a world that is going this way and you’re going to go this way. That’s who you are, Peter. It's not what your dad said, your mom said, your fishing business said. It’s what I say.

And then fourth, He calls them to serve in love. Wash each other’s feet. That’s how the world will know. Yeah, we need good books, we need apologists, but here’s the greatest apologetic: they way you guys treat each other. It’s like a magnet, it’s like honey that draws the bees. When people have need and hurts and struggles, like in a pandemic.

It’s not what you argue about. It’s being willing to say Jesus is, and the mission is what is really important. We can agree, disagree, masks, vaccines, politics, have lots of opinions. Wonderful, great. We are individuals, it’s America, have your opinion. But in the Church, we are missional. Jesus takes precedence over all of that and we can agree to disagree and I will speak and post grace and kindness. I will have my words be wholesome, upbuilding.

And finally, supernaturally responding to evil. Jesus told His disciples, think how radical. Love your enemies. Pray for those who use you and persecute you. Do good to them. See, here’s the deal, you know what changed the world? It wasn’t some rapid movement. What changed the world in the first century was discipleship. Discipleship is following Jesus. It’s actually doing what He did and then teaching what He taught to help others learn how to do what He did. And then you model it first and foremost, very imperfectly, like all the rest of us.

The greatest need after evaluating the entire Church all around the world is the lack of discipleship. People living out their faith. The way we might say it is: Christians living like Christians. Here’s the application, and it’s sobering. And this isn’t just for you, it’s me too. I’m with you. We must be what we want others to become. You want people to be kind and gentle, forgiving, generous, you want your kids to be that way? Putting them in a Christian school and bringing them to church, great. Those are good steps. Your kids are going to be like you. A disciple, when he is fully trained, according to Jesus, will be just like his teacher.

And so, I would ask you these questions to ponder as we close. And then trust that the Holy Spirit will guide and lead you. I believe God is up to something in this church and in other churches. And it won’t be by how many people we can get in a room or how many people get online and do this and do that. It’ll be how many people that actually do what Jesus did and speak like Jesus spoke and love like Jesus loved. That’s what is going to change things.

So, lest you have that some ethereal thought of what that might look like, here are some questions to ponder. Ask yourself: Am I all in? Have I fully surrendered my life, my future, my career, my money, my dreams, my possessions to a good and loving Father who has my best in mind? Have you?

Am I living separate from the world’s value? Has pleasure, power, position, popularity, or pleasing people, or pride become subtle barriers or idols in my life? Is there anyone I need to forgive that has hurt me or betrayed me? Boy, that’s a dead ringer for stopping your growth. And finally, do you know where you fit in God’s body to make a difference? Are you engaged deeply with fellow believers to bring light in darkness? And here’s the deal. This isn’t like, “Hey, everyone, get up, rah, rah, rah.”

Start small. You start really small. Take a baby step of obedience, whatever it is. But dream big. God could use you to do amazing things.