My original pick to win the March Madness national basketball tournament has managed to advance to the final game. As I write, it’s 12 hours until tip-off for the Monday, April 8, evening championship contest. “Think your team is going to win it all?” asked a fellow round-ball enthusiast at church on Sunday.  I replied, “I sure hope so.” My answer was not a certain forecast. It was simply an expression of my desire, describing a mere wish for the future, but definitely not my foreknowledge of the outcome.

 If you combine a desire with the absence of any assurance it will come about, you may have the equation for the common meaning of the word hope. Because of this customary usage, we often stumble when we meet the word hope in Scripture.

 Scripture places hope among the great triad of virtues that defines the Christian life – faith, hope and love. In biblical parlance, hope elevates as high above wish projection as a Zion Williamson slam dunk. It races quickly ahead of desire like some of those meteoric fast-breaks. Hope is Gatorade inundated with assurance and championship-capped with certainty. This kind of hope is looking into the future…where the victory already is! (Okay, I confess, I’ve been watching too many games.)

 Faith and hope can be distinguished, but that doesn’t mean they are disconnected. There’s a certain reciprocal relationship between them. The author of Hebrews 11.1 tells us faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

 Here, the word faith is defined in a manner that collides with the frivolous way it is used today. Notice that Hebrews speaks of faith in terms of assurance and conviction. Faith without assurance can be superstition, and faith without conviction (evidence) can be naivety. Scriptural faith is not some blind, irrational leap into the dark. Rather, it both has assurance and gives assurance. This kind of faith is firm. It is based on the surety of the reliability of God. In faith, we trust God not only for what He already has done for us, but for what He inviolably promises to do in the future.

 Believing in God is one thing, but believing God can be entirely different. When our faith moves beyond a head nod to the existence of God (god) to heartily trusting His Word, then we experience faith. 

 Faith in things past carries over to trust in things yet to come. Because God has proven Himself in the past, His declarations for the future give substance and real conviction to our hope. The sports commentators and experts are regularly wrong in their predictions about the outcomes of games. Dicky V, Sir Charles, or Jimmy the Greek never had a perfect record with their “sure bets”.

 However, God doesn’t guess about future events. Neither does He offer expert prognostications. His promises carry the very properties of who He is. In this sense, we experience hope as faith looking forward. A hope that anchors our souls (Hebrews 6.18, 19).  A hope that is particularly blessed and realized in Christ’s appearing (1 Timothy 2.13). A hope that unequivocally comes from the God of hope (Romans 15.13).

 This is our hope, and it cannot disappoint (Romans 5.5)….regardless of who wins tonight.  (Go Wahoos!)

 ~Pastor Mullinax