This is the final message in our series called Alive.

The premise of this series is that life is available and accessible to all of us, but, oftentimes, we stumble around looking for life in all the wrong places and expecting it to look like all the wrong things. So again we will ask, and again we will attempt to answer the question: Where is life to be found? In the first message I insisted that life is entered through the twin actions of repentance and belief. By his grace, God offers life to all, and this offer is to be received by faith. Therefore, the contrast between life and death is also a contrast between belief and unbelief. In the second message I made the case that life is experienced in a community of solidarity, meaning, and action. Life is not meant to be a solo, isolated project; its an entrance into the church and its mission as the center of belonging. So the contrast between life and death is also a contrast between involvement and isolation. Now in this third message I want to say that life creates an expectation of transformation. That is to say that life creates the hope that we can become more than we thought we were and more than thought we could be. If you condensed these themes into one phrase, it would be this: Life is found on the path of believing, belonging, and becoming. Hope is the energy that propels and sustains us as we walk down this path to life. Hope has this kind of power because it dares to declare that tomorrow can be better than today. At its best, hoperefuses to be silenced by appearances to the contrary.People with hope believe that our day-by-day existence has been baptized in the glorious possibilities of renewal and restoration. They insist that the God who has acted as Creator of the world, Creator of Israel, and Creator of the church is still not finished with that part of his job description, because the prophetic visions of new creation are still to come. Hope, therefore, is synonymous with an expectation of transformation, and hope is an essential component to life. This becomes more obvious when we note that the antonym of hope isdespair, and despair is so toxic to life that Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher, called it the sickness unto death. Despair is the sense you have that no matter how hard you try, youll never measure up. Its the voice you encounter in rejection and failure that whispers youll never be good enough. It nudges you to concede that tomorrow will be the same stuff on a different day, that theres nothing new to be discovered, attempted, or explored at least not by you anyway. But despair isnt limited to those who are down and out. Its present at the parties of the well-off, well-dressed, and well-connected. They arent deaf to that same whisper. And they arent numb to those same nudges. The despair that causes the struggling student to finally stop trying is the same despair that drives the insecure businessman to never stop working. So Kierkegaard continues, The greatest danger, that of losing ones own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed (Sickness Unto Death, 13).Imagine that. Life just slips away while we incessantly interrogate every person in the house about the $5 bill that went missing from the kitchen table.

Theres a movie called 127 Hours. Its based on the unthinkable story of a rock climber named Aron Ralston who was pinned by a boulder that rolled onto one of his arms while he was climbing in Utah. Five nights he stayed there, trapped by the rock. At first he screamed for help, but then realized it was no use because the place was too remote for anyone to hear him. Eventually he decided that his only chance for survival was to use his dull pocket knife to cut off his own arm. Do you think that was a quiet operation? And thats Kierkegaards point: we would shriek in pain if we lost an arm, yet we dont even notice when our own life is being cut apart. All this leads me to think that recognizing our own despair is a step in the right direction. Most of us are so thoroughly schooled in denial that our first instinct is to tune it out or cover it up. We carry on as if everything were just fine, all the while thinking that the way things are is the best theyre ever going to be. The irony is that in so doing, we actually clog the pipe through which lasting hope is available.So the ancient proverb continues to ring true: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12 ESV). Or, we could easily imagine ourselves hearing Jesus turn that proverb into a question: What good is it to acquire everything you want in the world iflose your own self in the process? (Matthew 16:26, authors paraphrase). Hope and despair are uniquely human phenomena. So, for instance, we never hear of an animal committing suicide because its future prospects grew dim. The nightly news is filled with reports that all around us hope is giving way to despair and life is giving way to death. But, fortunately,the church has always been a community who recognizesJesus asone who ismore powerful than despair and death. They arrived at (and maintain) this conviction by reflecting on his statements, stories, and symbols. For instance, they remembered when the crowds could only mutter sinner to the estranged tax collector named Zacchaeus, Jesus announced that salvation had come to his house (see Luke 19:7-9). He told the tale of a young son who left his family, squandered his inheritance, and shamefully returned to his fathers house. But Jesus gave it a twist by saying the father ran out to meet his son and embraced him because the boy was dead and is alive again (Luke 15:24). And, of course, there is Jesus summary statement in response to a question asked by John: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor (Luke 7:22 NIV). Bolstered by his bodily resurrection, each of these factors testified to the conviction about the identity and power of Jesus. In all this, the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God,began bursting forth into creation in new and unpredictable ways. This is the news that gives us great cause for hope. It is the good news of great joy that will be for all the people (Luke 2:10 ESV). Even more staggering,though, is the scandalous news that God has given all who believe on the name of Jesus the right to become children of God (John 1:12). This is as radical a statement as there is in the Bible. Outsiders locked in despair can become insiders liberated in hope. Anyone who trusts in Jesus is granted the new identity of one who is welcomed into the family of God. Indeed, all such people are free to call upon God as Abba, Father (Romans 8:15). Such a phrase is characteristically heard on the lips of toddlers who are still innocently audacious enough to believe their daddy can do anything!

But that revolution of identity doesnt happen when were hopelessly denying our despair. Its only by recognizing it that were given access to this peculiar hope. And its only by exposing our despair to the God of the gospel that were permitted to see ourselves differently and empowered to actually become something else: members of Gods own family. So were told in Ephesians 2:19 (ESV) that, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God This entrance into the family of God can be construed as adoption, and the Scriptures provide us with at least two different images for making sense of it. First is the image of slaves becoming sons and daughters. Slaves are present in the household, but they arent members of it. They are retained only for the work they can perform and the value they can add. If they maximize profits and minimize losses, then they remain in good standing. If they dont, then there are plenty of other slaves willing to take their place. But it was while they were performing as slaves in Egypt that Israels history was carried forward. The Israelite slaves sounded a cry of desperation, and God responded with a declaration of adoption: This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son; and I told you, Let my son go, so he may worship me (Exodus 4:2223 NIV). And so it was that slaves of Pharaoh were given a new identity as sons and daughters of God. The second image is that of orphans becoming sons and daughters. Orphans are, characteristically, without parents, without roots, without place, without currency, and without power to change their circumstances. Many pastors, in the name of church growth, have been taught to avoid such people and instead to pursue people who are popular, pretty, and well-resourced. But the Bible issues a healthy corrective to such thinking because it unswervingly announces that God takes the orphans into his own family to give them a new status, dignity, and provision: In [God] the orphan finds mercy (Hosea 14:3 ESV). So whether slaves leaving the brickyard, orphans leaving the streets, or something else altogether, hope is available because all people are invited to receive a new identity from God and, hence, a new future with God. This identity and this future empower the sons and daughters of God to new hope and new life. We can hope because God is utterly faithful. We can hope because there are still promises for God to keep. We can hope because God still loves and grieves and strives with his creation. We can hope because God has adopted us and he will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). In our own families, sons and daughters can keep hoping because they remember what their father has done, they see what their father is doing, and they anticipate what their father will yet do. Likewise in Gods family, sons and daughters learn to recognize Gods ways in the world and anticipate Gods dream for the world.Sons and daughters in the family of God are called to align themselves with those ways and that dream, and are given great freedom as they determine how to faithfully and wisely advance his purposes in the world. This kind of historically-informed, newly-created, future-oriented freedom is hinted at in Ephesians 2:10: [W]e are Gods masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ

Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (NLT).Such an inclusive view of the past, present, and future gives significance to theseemingly random threads of our lives. Those threads are all gathered up into the eternal tapestry of God where theyre given meaning and coherence far beyond what they have on their own. Or, to change the picture, we could highlight Romans 8:28 which says [W]e know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (NIV).The fragmented plot lines of our lives are picked up by God and worked into a larger script that is part comedy, part drama, partromance, part documentary, and part mystery. All the parts of the scripthavesignificance because they all have a way of moving the story along with the silence of despair giving way to the cadences of hope. So it has been said that, The little story I call my life is given cosmic, eternal significance as it is caught within Gods larger [story] (Stanley Hauerwas and WilliamWillimon, Resident Aliens, 55). And where is Gods story headed? I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, Look, Gods home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. And the one sitting on the throne said, Look, I am making everything new! (Revelation 21:2-5a NLT). We are presently living between the times. Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God, but its consummation has not yet come. Life as we know it brings its share ofblessings and curses, triumphs and trials, laughter and tears. But in all things we remain sons and daughters of God. Therefore, we will hope and work and pray for Gods kingdom to come and Gods will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Eventually the day will arrive when all manner of death is finally dealt with, and we will see God face to face (Revelation 22:4). This is an expectation of transformation. And this is the Christian hope where life has the last word.