Dear Christian friends:

Parents have great hopes for their children. They may buy them computers, push them into early training, and sacrifice for them, only to find that their hope for their children's success is dimmed by the children's lack of gratitude and indifference. Also, the children may not have the ability or desire to achieve success in the way their parents hoped.

Hopes for our children and family often disappoint us; as do other hopes that we might have.

In our text St. Paul presents to us a most unique hope:

Without Jesus Christ we have no true hope. All may think that this statement is too absolute. However, the Bible makes it plain that the God who controls the universe promises his grace and mercy only through Jesus Christ.

Many people today place a lot of hope in their good health, especially our younger people do. The health and fitness industry is booming today. However, in spite of all this, the destruction of our bodies begins long before death. Physiologists tell us that after the age of twenty-five or twenty-six, we are already "going downhill physically." A society that makes youth and beauty its god and places so much hope in it will be very disappointed sooner or later.

Many peoples' idea of a family as something lasting and enduring is also a false hope. Families are constantly changing. Grandpa and grandma die. After a while mom and dad die, and before we know it, it's our turn to die.

Life contains many deceptive allurements. All that we do in life without saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ leaves us empty and unfulfilled.

Biblical books such as Ecclesiastes, and secular books such as Sartre's, "No Exit" and Miller's, "Death of A Salesman" portray the futility of a human striving without a faith in Christ. This includes our trying to justify ourselves by our own good life.

But Jesus Christ offers a hope both for now and eternity which is real and satisfying. Through faith in Jesus Christ we are justified - declared righteous, forgiven, and free from guilt.

In our text St. Paul states, "Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Verse 1) Since our past and future has been forgiven, we are free to hope for the future, to hope for glory. Since our faith and hope is not based on what we do or fail to do, but on what Jesus Christ has done and still does for us, our hope is sure. "On Christ the solid Rock we stand."

Even though our outward physical body is wasting away, the promise of hope and certainty in Jesus Christ, our Savior, has the super-natural power to renew us within.

The promises of Christ's Resurrection drive away all fears of aging and death. In our text Paul says, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" (verses 9-10)

In another letter St. Paul states, "We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Also, this hope in Christ gives us the right perspective regarding the family, as Gilbert Meilander reminds us: "From a Christian perspective our commitment and hope for the family cannot and ought not be grounded simply in its importance for our life here on earth. However treasured, this is only secondary and transitory. The family is also more than a basic social unit. It is a sphere in which God is at work in us, shaping and molding us, that we may become people who genuinely wish to share his life of love and his hope for eternity."

This love of God in Christ and this hope for the future is poured out in our heats through the Holy Spirit, as Paul tells us in our text, (verse 5). The Spirit through the Word and the Sacraments ever sustains our love and hope so we will not be disappointed. Families should worship together at church and pray together at home that the Spirit may ever sustain them to be prepared for the manifold changes and progressions to glory.

This Christian hope in the glory of God causes us to rejoice even now before we arrive in heaven. Paul says, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (verse 26) By this Paul does not mean that Christians are always happy in the usual sense. We still experience pain and sorrow, just as the non-Christians do, plus the inner conflict between our old man and the new man, and the ridicule and discrimination from the unbelieving world.

In the Gospel lesson for today Jesus reminds us of the necessity of denying ourselves and taking up the cross. (Mark 8:34-38) He even warns us that there may be conflicts within the family circle because of Him and the Gospel when some members of the family do not believe. He says, "Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against here mother-in- law. A person's enemies will be those in his own home. Anyone who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. The person who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. The one who finds his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for Me will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)

Families are only secondary and transitory. They may even be broken by the Gospel, yet the overall goal is that families are strengthened by the Gospel.

Our afflictions do not change the love of God in Christ or negate our hope, in fact, they enhance it! Our hope and happiness is in Christ who conquered temptation and the world, who endured suffering and death only to rise victoriously. After his afflictions Jesus entered into glory, and by his grace we will follow. This is the hope that never disappoints. The hope of glory after enduring afflictions.

Therefore, in Christ we are able to see suffering in a new light - as something God uses for good. Through it he strengthens our perseverance, character and hope. Paul says here in our text, "We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; character; and character hope." (verses 3-4)

Our sufferings help us to see the vanity and transitory nature of all the strivings and hopes of this dying world. They drive us to prayer and the Word for comfort and joy.

In another letter Paul says, "Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporal, but what is unseen is eternal." (1 Corinthians 4:17-18)

Our hope in Christ Jesus will never disappoint us as our earthly hopes do. No amount of suffering can rob our lives of meaning or destroy our peace in Christ, for He passed through suffering and death and now lives again so that we may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Amen.