ἐλπίς: expectation, trust, confidence
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13
This is the first Sunday of advent, from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming”, a time to pause and prepare our hearts for the coming of the Christ Child. Christmas is upon us, our Hope has come in the flesh and will one day return to take us to live with Him forever. Yet while we have head knowledge of this Truth, we struggle with living out the abundant life in this fallen world, the greater life that Jesus’ birth, ministry, death and resurrection purchased for us. We lose hope because of our struggles with sin are very real and the evil that we see permeating society makes us long for heaven. Yet the God of Hope is where we must put our trust and not in our own failed attempts at goodness.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7: 14-25
This struggle, so eloquently put by Paul, rings with empathetic exactness for us, as the vicious cycle of “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” invades daily life.
Where is our hope, when our reality demonstrates failure to live above the fray of sin? Paul says emphatically, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Thanks for what? He is thankful that he, and we, as wretched men, have been delivered from this body of death and our Hope in this fact:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you,” Romans 8:1-9.
The Christmas story of Hope is this: “By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” Romans 8:3-4. “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God,” 2 Corinthians 5:21. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin,” Hebrews 4:15.
Our hope, confidence, expectation and trust is not in how well we battle sin and the flesh, but in the finished victorious work of the cross, the reason Jesus left heaven to come as a baby.
“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit,” and we make this our prayer for you this Christmas season.