Grasping Hope - Man's Part (Part I)

Hearing
It almost goes without saying that a person has to hear about the hope of God before he/she can do anything else. In Acts 17, we find the occasion of Paul preaching to the Athenians about the "Unknown God" that they worshiped. About this God he says,

"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring" (verses 26-28)

Paul goes on to tell them about the hope that God has extended through His Son Jesus Christ. What was the end result? Some mocked Paul and some wanted to hear more about it; but verse 33 tells us that "some men joined him and believed." How could these have believed if Paul had not preached the gospel of Christ to them . . . if they had not first heard? Indeed, Paul addresses this very thing in reference to the Jews and the gospel in Romans 10:14: "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?"

Self-Examining
We see from the Scripture that it is the hearing of the gospel that leads to belief or faith (Romans 10:17). However, there is a crucial step that must be made before that faith can be established: self-examination. Before a person can believe in the hope of God he has to realize he NEEDS that hope. There has to be a realization that without the hope that God extends, man faces an eternity in hell. Consider what happened in Acts 2. Peter stood up with his fellow apostles and preached the gospel of Christ. Part of the preaching of that gospel was an indictment against those who were guilty of murdering the Son of God (verse 36). We are not told that the hearers examined themselves, but their reaction proves that some self-examination took place (emphasis mine): "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?'" (verse 37). It was the conviction that arose from this self-examination that led them to cry out for the means to lay hold of God's hope.

Paul tells us in Romans 3:23 that "all sin and fall short of the glory of God." It is the sin of mankind (past, present, and future) that required the death of Christ for atonement; so I am just as guilty of the blood of Christ as those who heard Peter on Pentecost. When faced with this reality, is my self-examination going to lead me react like those in Acts 2 . . . or like those in Acts 8:54-59?

Believing
When the gospel of Christ is sown in a true and honest heart, the first steps toward laying hold of the hope of God have been taken. Upon hearing the Word and realizing one's need for the hope of God, that person will believe in the hope of God. Jesus tells us in Mark 16:16 that belief or faith is a necessary component of salvation. The opposite of that is also true, as Jesus says in the same verse: "he who does not believe will be condemned."

Is simple faith, then, the crowning moment in laying hold of the hope of God? Consider what James says in reference to faith in James 2:19: "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!" James' point here is that faith in God and in the hope of God are not enough to lay hold of that hope. In the next verse, James says that "faith without works is dead, being alone." Consider the following questions:

• Would Abel have been counted righteous if he had not sacrificed the best of his flocks?
• Would Enoch have been "taken" by God if he had not "walked with God"?
• Would Noah have been saved from the flood if he had not built the ark?
• Would Abraham's family have been given the promised land if he had not "obeyed when he was called"?
• Would Abraham have received the promises of God if he had not offered Isaac as God commanded?
• Would the walls of Jericho have fallen if the Israelites had not walked around it as God commanded?

The answer to all of these questions can be found in one place: Hebrews 11. In that chapter the writer tells us that each of these people did what they did "by faith" or as an expression of their faith. Did they "earn" what they received by what they did? No. Was what they did a condition of receiving God's blessings? Yes. Again, consider one of the examples above. How does marching around a city's walls a certain number of times and then blowing a bunch of trumpets make the walls fall down? It doesn't unless God says that is a condition for the walls falling down. It requires a certain amount of faith in God to compel us to do things that may not always seem logical to us.

From Adam to me, God has always required not only faith, but also working faith in order to lay hold of the blessings he has promised. It is not until I exhibit this obedient faith that I can lay hold of the hope God has extended.