Hope and Optimism: Hallmarks of the Christian Worldview

I am so tired of hearing and seeing Christians caught in a pessimistic worldview!




"The country is in a downward, immoral spiral...."
"Obama's gonna make this nation godless and socialist...."
"The whole world's going to hell in a hand-basket...."
"Iran's gonna nuke Israel and set off Armageddon...."
"Things are going to keep on getting worse and worse...."

Brothers and sisters, I ask you: Where is our HOPE?!

We serve the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has conquered death and now sits on his glorious throne in heaven, interceding for us! He is the Lord of History, and will move all things toward his ultimate purpose and fulfillment. He has already won the crucial battle, and has already passed judgment on the rule of evil and death in our world. We are victors according to his faithful self-sacrifice on the cross, which redeems us from sin, separation from God, and the decay of this world. We live in anticipation of the new age realizing that, in Christ, it has already dawned! We live in the light of his glorious resurrection, which is our guarantee--along with the deposit of his Holy Spirit--that Christ will come again! We know that all of history is moving toward the final day when he will make all things new! We know that not a single event falls outside of his redeeming plan for creation. We have hope!

Need I say more?

Paul emphasized three essential characteristics of the Christian way of life: faith, hope, and love. I think we get the love part--at least we talk about it enough, even if we don't get it yet. And we probably talk enough about faith as well (although we often tend to privatize and individualize it). But what about hope?

We don't talk enough about hope.

We need to remember that we have great hope because of Christ's first advent and the promise of his second advent. We live in the interim--in "this present age," longing for "the age to come." And we have great hope that it will arrive, and that all of history is moving toward its arrival. And so we ought to be more optimistic, because even though there is great evil in the world, we also know that there is great good in the world as a result of Christ's work within it, through his Holy Spirit. Moreover, we know that the great evil in the world will ultimately be removed when the kingdom of God is consummated at the return of Christ.

And so we are optimistic, but not in the way the world sometimes is. We don't place our hope in any politician, political party, or new movement or activism.

We do not have the hope this poster suggests (and we would not have the hope it would have suggested had McCain or Pat Robertson won)!

We don't tout the great "ideal of progress," as Western science and politics so often do. We don't buy into the idea that human progress is inevitable, because we have seen what man can do on his own--two World Wars, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


We do, however, remain optimistic because we know that God has broken into history and is redeeming it for his own purposes, even against the will of those who would rebel against him.


Do you have hope? If you serve the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, you do!




He has come and he will come again! Therefore, we wait with optimism and hope!