CH 2: The Shadow of Despair (Recap)
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Hope and despair are all about how we see the future and what we believe about it. An optimistic outlook is a great place to start, but mere optimism is no substitute for hope.
As the chapter frames it, optimism is little more than wishful thinking. Hope is about expectation. And genuine biblical hope is rooted in what we believe about the future and how we concretely let it affect our present.
Now let’s talk about telos. Do you have a firm grasp on yours?
Telos: chief aim; the ultimate purpose your life is pointed at
Have you latched on to a faulty, insufficient, or even “slightly” misaligned telos that led to disappointment or despair?
Page 24 describes our shared telos as this (do you agree?):
“We see our true telos in Scripture. God is making all things new, repairing and renewing all the broken and dead parts around us—and he asks us to partner with him. What an ask! The calling we have in the here and now is wrapped up in the future God has planned in Christ. One day, because of the resurrection of Jesus we know the work of total restoration will be complete. Every warped and broken thing in this world is being redeemed.”
But our telos has to go from conscious thinking to a primal longing embedded in us (page 24):
“But the telos we live toward is not something we primarily know or believe or think about; rather, our telos is what we want, what we long for, what we crave.”
The book goes on to describe three common false hopes:
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A disembodied heaven
🔥 Meeting Note: This one resonated most with the group this morning. Can you imagine how this belief might negatively impact the way we view and interact with people, creation as a whole, and the mission of the church? There is a good discussion to be had here.
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No earthly suffering
- Total control
What is your reaction to this list? Is there anything you would add?
Renouncing false hope is just the first step. We need to replace it with promises and true hope from God Almighty. Here are a few the chapter gives us:
- Hope changes how we see suffering. “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17)
- Hope changes how we see our daily work. “We are… created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10)
- Hope makes us bolder. We are already “seated… in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Nothing can harm us.
- Hope fills our hearts with praise. “As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more” (Ps. 71:14)
- Hope produces fruits of the spirit. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace” (Rom. 15:13)
- etc.
🔥 Meeting Note: We discussed how a telos and identity rooted in being an image bearer of God to all creation in need of renewal gives us enduring hope—excitement and purpose in the here and now (which goes hand-in-hand with our longing for the future reality). [See telos above.]
How often or seldom in a given week does God’s promised future of glory, goodness, and resurrected life enter your thoughts?
Is there anything you’re afraid to hope in? Do you have any scars from an unmet hope?
We need men from the future. Men who are living today in the light of the resurrection and God’s good plan to restore all things.
Your workplace needs men from the future.
Your wife needs a husband from the future.
Your kids need a dad from the future.
Your friends need a man from the future.
Your neighbors need a man from the future.
The world needs more men from the future.
Biblical scholar N.T. Wright puts it like this (page 28):
“The hope is that God will eventually do for the whole creation what he did for Jesus; God is at work in the present, by the Spirit of Jesus, to prepare the world for that great remaking, that great unveiling (that great apocalypse, in fact) of the future plan.”
Prayer: May we pray for the Father to make our telos his telos, our desires his desires, our thoughts his thoughts, and our words his words.
Looking forward to next week!
Chapter 3: The Shadow of Loneliness
THU 08/08, 6:00 AM