Our Hope Ahead

Published in the Omaha World Herald’s “From the Pulpit”

January 5, 2025
Reverend Eric L. Jay

“Our Hope Ahead”

Isn’t it strange how the longer you live, the shorter each day and each year seem to be? I suppose it is because, with each day that passes, we become increasingly more aware of how short life is. Perhaps it is also because we become much more aware of our failures and mistakes as we age. The more years behind us, the easier it is to see how broken we are.

Though there is certainly a healthy and necessary place for remorse and sorrow over our sins and failures, because of God’s free gift of forgiveness and salvation given to us in Jesus Christ, we can look back on the best and worst of times and find every reason to look forward full of hope and encouragement. As author and speaker Craig D. Lounsbrough said, “Any new beginning is forged from the shards of the past, not from the abandonment of the past.”

In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul is looking back on his life.  Specifically, Paul is looking back on what many would define as a life of success. Not only was Paul born of the right people and in the right place, but Paul was in the top of his class, even becoming a teacher to his teachers.  As regards Paul’s rigor in following the religious laws of his order, Paul says he was “blameless”.  As Paul looked back on his life before Christ came to him and revealed the Truth of God’s salvation, Paul would have been classified as a raging success in the eyes of the world and especially in the eyes of the religious elite.  Yet, about all of this, Paul says in verse 8-9, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”

By God’s grace given to Paul in revealing to him His Son Jesus as the Risen Lord, Paul was now able to realize that there never was nor would there ever be hope found in the accomplishments of human efforts or endeavors.  What you and I count as victories in this short life do nothing for us in light of the eternity that awaits us.  The only victory that will give us reason for hope is Christ’s victory over sin and death.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Regardless of what we see when we look back on 2024, we can look forward to 2025 with all confidence because we put our faith in the faithfulness of our God and Father and in the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Knowing of His mercy and remaining rooted in His Word, we can look to the New Year and say as Paul does in verse 14 of Philippians 3, “…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”