Optimism Versus Hope - 2nd Corinthians 4:13-5:1
There is a story of identical
twins. One was a hope-filled
optimist. "Everything is coming up
roses!" he would say. The other twin
was a sad and hopeless pessimist. He thought that Murphy, as in Murphy's Law,
was an optimist. The worried parents of
the boys brought them to the local psychologist.
He suggested to the parents a plan
to balance the twins' personalities.
"On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their
gifts. Give the pessimist the best toys
you can afford, and give the optimist a box of manure." The parents followed these instructions and
carefully observed the results.
When they peeked in on the
pessimist, they heard him audibly complaining, "I don't like the color of
this computer…I'll bet this calculator will break…I don't like the game…I know
someone who's got a bigger toy car than this…"
Tiptoeing across the corridor, the
parents peeked in and saw their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure
up in the air. He was giggling. "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's gotta
be a pony!"
“Where there’s this much manure,
there’s gotta be a pony!” You can’t get
much more optimistic than sitting in a pile of manure, tossing it up in the
air, and thinking there is going to be a pony somewhere.
Optimism is a good thing,
right? I mean optimism is an attitude
that things are really better than they seem.
Optimism is sitting at a Duke and
University of Miami football game thinking that Duke is going to come out in
the second half and wreak havoc on the Hurricanes, pulling off a win.
Optimism is thinking that 6 month
CD is going to provide enough interest this year to provide some real security.
Another way to define optimism
could be that it is an attitude that denies a negative reality.
It’s like saying, “I can run out
to the mail box in a torrential downpour and not really get too wet.”
It could be like looking at once
side of your vehicle totally demolished and saying, “It’s probably only a
couple of hundred dollars’ worth of damage.”
Optimism…thinking things are
really better than they actually are.
That’s a good thing to have, right?
That’s what Christian hope is all about isn’t it? We are supposed to be filled with optimism, right? Don’t we call it hope?
Actually, optimism and hope are
not synonymous. If we read carefully
into our Scripture from this morning, we will come to see the difference. When we read our Scripture this morning,
there does not seem to be any notion from Paul that things are better than they
seem:
Paul says, “Even though our outer
nature is wasting away…”
“…this slight momentary
affliction…”
Paul doesn’t seem to deny any
negative realities as he says, “…if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed.”
Paul is straightforward on
this. Paul is no Pollyanna. He acknowledges that things are or will be
tough on Christians. Paul, himself, has
experienced the negative reality of being a Christian. A little later in this same letter to the
church in Corinth he shares the reality of living as a faithful messenger for
Christ: “Five times I have received from
the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I received a stoning. Three
times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent
journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own
people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness,
danger at sea; danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship,
through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold
and naked…[i]” Paul did not sugarcoat things, life as a
follower of Christ is tough…He never tried to convince anyone that if we just
follow Jesus and think positively about things our lives will be a bed of roses
and God will make us prosper with solid bank accounts, full cupboards, and
peaceful living. Paul is definitely not
of the “Power of Positive Thinking” optimistic way of living.
On the other hand, Paul, though he
lives with and brings light to the negative side of following Jesus, is no
pessimist either. Paul was not a
disciple of Murphy, thinking that “if anything can go wrong, it will.” Paul was a disciple of Jesus Christ and that
gave Paul something much more powerful than optimism, it gave Paul hope. It gives us hope.
To complete the verses I offered
earlier, Paul says:
“Even though our outer nature is
wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”
“For this slight momentary
affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure…”
“For we know that if the earthly
tent we live in id destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
In the verses just before we began
this morning, Paul tells the church in Corinth:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not
driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not
destroyed…”[ii]
Optimism relies on changing the
way we think about a given situation. Dictionary.com
defines hope as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will
turn out for the best.” This definition
pushes hope beyond thinking that things are or will be different than they
actually are, but a deep down feeling that everything is going to be okay
regardless of what happens.
For Christians, hope is centered
in more than a feeling…it is grounded in our faith. Hope is not about changing our perspective,
but about putting our trust completely in God to handle a situation. Hope is acknowledging the ugly around us and
saying it does not have the final word. Hope
is about belief and trust in a God that is bigger than any problem we
face.
Paul says, “do not lose
heart.” “Do not give up.” “Hope.”
Where is Paul’s hope
grounded? It is in these words, “…we
know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and
will bring us with you into his presence.”
Hope is centered in the fact that no matter what else happens, when all
is said and done, God is in control.
How does hope come into play for
us? It is the assurance that God’s plan
is much bigger than what we can see, and that His plan is far greater than
anything we could think or imagine.
Hope means facing the reality of a
job lay-off with the assurance that God has something even greater in store for
us.
I remember six years ago when
Anita was laid off from Alan Tate Reality.
The financial burden would have made it easy to give up hope. The fact that week after week of submitting
resume after resume, making call after call, putting in application after
application and not receiving anything back other than letters stating, “Thank
you for your interest in this position.
Unfortunately we have decided to go with another candidate,” could have
made it easy to give up hope. Optimism
was not going get us through the situation.
Yet hope did, the hope that God would provide, and God was faithful…He
opened up the door for Anita at First Baptist in Graham and it has turned out
to be the best job she has ever had, definitely God-designed employment.
Hope means facing illness or
disability with the assurance that God can use us despite those struggles, that
God has something greater in store for us.
Consider the depth of faith that comes from knowing “Blessed Assurance,”
“Praise Him, Praise Him,” and “To God Be The Glory,” along with more than 8,000
other hymns were written by Fanny Crosby, a woman struck blind as an infant.
Hope is realizing that our past
sin does not dictate our future with God.
Consider Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus…Consider Paul’s persecution of
Christians…Yet in Christ, through God, they found forgiveness and redemption,
and we are here today because in God they found hope and faith despite their
failures.
Hope is realizing that despite
being betrayed by a trusted friend, despite being abandoned by everyone else,
despite being falsely accused by one liar after another, despite after being
tossed from one authority to the next, despite after being beaten within an
inch of His life, despite being humiliated and mocked, despite being brutally
put to death, despite being buried, that God was still in control and raised
Christ from the dead…there, is where Paul says our hope is to be found…that the
one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also…
Paul was all about offering this
hope…not just to the Corinthians, but to all he wrote. If we consider beyond Paul’s writing here to
the Corinthians, and turn to his letter to those Christians struggling in Rome,
we read: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth
comparing with the glory about to be
revealed in us…We know that all things work together for good for those who
love God, who are called according to his purpose…What then are we to say about
these things? If God is for us, who is
against us?...Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness or peril, or sword?...No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, [nor
unemployment, nor difficult bosses, nor insurmountable bills, nor bankruptcy, nor
cancer, nor heart attacks, nor family strife, nor friend betrayal], nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[iii]
That, my friends, is where hope
far exceeds optimism…for hope is not sitting in a pile of manure thinking that
there must be a horse somewhere…Hope is knowing that despite all the manure in
our lives, God is still at work, and that despite being covered in manure,
having a life filled with manure, that God still cares for us, wants us, and
loves us and that the manure is going to be used by God to fertilize us for
something even greater,.
In the Name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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