Hope and Healing - A New Set of Values
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: Hope and healing come when we detach from the value system of the world and finally find our joy in the eternal realities of Jesus Christ.
Values
Our Present Hope
Our Future Hope
Values
Hope and healing begin its work when we look to what God says will actually provide it.
Luke 2:22-32 ESV
“And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord") and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."
God the Father’s timetable is not our timetable and his goals are not always congruent with our picture of how our stories should go.
Remember that in the advent that Elizabeth and Mary were on two ends of the spectrum of life and were able to see this (Luke 1).
It’s a matter of values.
A life submitted to God means that I am his servant submitted to the plans that bring glory to Jesus within his redemptive plan.
My hope and full healing, joy and reward will be found in the eternal life to come.
This is God’s focus, though it is not always ours.
And in the meantime, our joys and sorrows are shaped by both our societal and personal values.
*Just because something is part of your present value system doesn’t mean that it is right or good.
Why?
Because we know that historical values can and have been shaped by sin to the detriment of individuals, families, societies and nations.
Think about what the following value systems have produced in the nations:
Self-actualization and the disintegration of the family unit
Greed and materialism
Sexual objectification and misogyny
Racism and slavery
The idea of the uber man and the Holocaust
Victor Frankl, a respected psychiatrist in Austria before being sent to Auschwitz during the Holocaust expresses things this way:
“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”
-Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
We need a renewed hope that leads to healing by reorienting ourselves around God’s values and eternal purposes in Christ.
When we talk about hope and healing, it’s not just societal, it’s personal.
The questions we have to ask are:
Is it possible to have joy and not have everything else that everyone else has?
Is it possible to be whole and not have everything that you thought that you wanted or needed?
The answer is yes when you have Jesus Christ.
Consider things understood by the apostle James:
James 1:9-12 ESV
“Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”
James 2:5-7 ESV
“Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?”
The world offers temporary and imperfect substitutes for what can only be and is only meant to be found in Jesus.
Simeon and Anna exemplified great joy because in their latter years they were able to receive their reward.
Some might have thought their lives as having been lacking, full of misery while they waited for the consolation of Israel or bore with the loss of human companionship.
*Yet their joy was made complete because they learned through loss that these temporary comforts were not the true prize.
You can only be freed to know true value through the cross.
If you’ve always had things done for you, you never know true strength.
The idea that it is a failure to not obtain your Hallmark story can come from the underlying values driven by the idols of our society.
For example:
“One sign that you’ve made success and idol is the false sense of security it brings. The poor and marginalized expect suffering. They know that life on this earth is nasty, brutish, and short. Successful people are more shocked and overwhelmed by troubles.”
-Timothy Keller in Counterfeit Gods
“I’ve often heard people from the upper echelon say, “Life isn’t supposed to be this way” when they face tragedy. I have never heard this language among the working class and poor. This false sense of security comes from deifying our achievement and expecting it to keep us safe from the troubles of life when only God can.”
-Timothy Keller in Counterfeit Gods
It is not bad to desire certain things that bring enjoyment in life.
Yet we need to identify what value systems are shaping us and what has truly become Lord of our hearts and lives.
“Whatever controls us is our Lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves, we are controlled by the lord of our lives.”
-Timothy Keller
When Christ has truly become Lord of our values, we have a pathway to hope and healing when like the Psalmist we can say,
Psalm 73:25,26 ESV
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Our Present Hope
There is healing when we begin to identify what is the true lord or our present hopes and dreams.
Luke 2:33-35 ESV
“And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."
Christ’s arrival would cause the rising and falling of many in Israel as Jesus came to challenge their value systems, while offering true hope and healing.
When the Holy Spirit is working in our lives, he brings his word to be a sword to pierce our souls (our minds, wills and emotions) to reveal what is truly driving us.
God’s leadership in our lives forces us to ask the questions, if God is authoring my path:
What is a good life?
For what should we hope?
“If you ask for something that you don’t get…you may become sad and disappointed, then you go on. Those are not your functional masters. But when you pray and hope for something and you don’t get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god.”
-Timothy Keller in Counterfeit Gods
There is power and healing when we find that God gives our life meaning when we focus on his eternal hopes and values.
Luke 2:36-38 ESV
“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Even in loss, Anna’s life found great meaning.
Her devotion to worship at the temple forged a committed life of fasting and prayer that God would use to shape history.
At the time of Christ’s arrival, she would be attuned and prepared to speak of Jesus to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
In this, Anna was able to experience a present hope and healing.
Yet what could have pulled her off the path would have been idols which Keller described as:
“…anything more important to you than God. Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God. Anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.”
-Timothy Keller
Mid-life (or adulting) crises can be eye-opening allowing us to reorient our thinking to resign to what God says is good.
Aging is good (Romans 8)
Doing without can be good (James 1 - the rich and poor in this world)
Suffering can be good (Romans 5)
When we have these Biblical, God-ordained perspectives, it changes the ability that we have to enter to a present hope and healing.
Full of faith, we can once again pray like the Psalmist..
Psalm 27:11-14 ESV
“Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
In what ways has God been faithful to you and healed your heart as you’ve waited upon him?
Rather than making a list of worst-case scenarios or things that you lack, make a list of things for which you can, like Anna, give thanks to God because he has filled you with hope by fulfilling his good promises to you.
Our Future Hope
Our eternal hope is that in Jesus, there will be healing for the nations.
There’s a theme of at least three significant trees throughout the Scripture.
The first tree was the tree of life (Genesis 2:9) that brought sustenance and vitality to the world in Eden.
But when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3) - they assumed moral autonomy while resigning to their own wisdom and fell.
All of the damage that we see in the world whether rape, murder, familial dysfunction, ethnic strife and relational degradation are a result of this sin entering into the world.
How do we still in our own wisdom, still eat from the first tree and allow damage to enter our lives, relationships, churches and world?
The second tree was one of redemption where Jesus Christ not only took the punishment and shame for our sin through his sacrificial death on the cross, but reconciled us to God and one another offering us the hope of healing in all things through his resurrection from the dead.
The final tree is one that those who repent of their sin, choose to put their faith in Jesus and love the Lord will one day eat from.
It is the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:1-5 ESV
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
Once again, in this place, we will see clearly, the Lord’s values will be our own, and Jesus will be forever exalted as the fulfillment of our hope - the author of our eternal healing.