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I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe (Ephesians 1:18-19a).

Its difficult to keep hope alive. Bad news abounds. Do Christians even have a right to be hopeful as chaos descends? Yesterday, Pastor Anthony answered that question with a resounding yes. Today, let\u2019s dig deeper into that hope.

But to do that, we need to take a step back to remember that God places a \u2018call\u2019 upon his saints. This call is not random or purposeless. God calls us for a purpose and to a future. The call and the hope are paired. Together, our calling and our hope cause us to live with expectation. We have already seen that God is the main actor in the Christian life. Thus, we believe that he will see our calling completed and bring us into our inheritance. Even as we lean into it, even as we engage in the work of discipleship, we trust that God is the one who makes it happen.

So, what is this calling and hope? It is rich and varied. He has called us to belong to Jesus Christ and live in fellowship with him. We are called into freedom from the judgement of the law and from sin\u2019s dominion over us. We are called into a harmonious fellowship in which barriers of race and class and gender fall away. God calls us into the peace of Christ and into a life of love towards others, including the capacity to forgive. Even as he names us saints, he calls us to saintly living.

When we face opposition towards are faith, we are called to love our enemies, not to retaliate. He calls us to endure unjust suffering with patient endurance, following the example of Christ. And after suffering for the gospel, we will enter the glory of heaven, for his is a kingdom of blessed glory and rest.

All this was in God\u2019s mind when he called us. He calls us to Christ and holiness, to freedom and peace, to suffering and glory. It is a call to a new way of life, the way of discipleship, in which we know, love, obey and serve Jesus and while enjoying fellowship with him. To look beyond the present hardships of this life to the glory that waits us. \xa0

Paul prays that our eyes will be opened so we see the hope to which we were called. That we will have a vision of God\u2019s kingdom in all its resplendent glory in which all creatures worship and obey God; in which there will no hatred, envy, or discord; no more debilitating addictions nor poverty; nor power plays or self-aggrandizement. And having this vision, we are called to live into it; to already shape are lives according to its realities. This is our calling and our hope.

But the vision of this glorious kingdom and the realities of this life are very far apart. Broken marriages, abandoned children, neglected seniors, insufficient housing, broken governments, the persistent destruction of life and infrastructure through war is our reality. All this, 2 000 years after Christ\u2019s resurrection, makes us wonder if our inheritance will ever come. Should we not just give up and do our own thing?

How do we keep up hope? It is to this question that Paul now turns. Again, he will heap word upon word and phrase upon phrase, tripping over his own tongue (pen) to help us see. To realize our calling and enter our hope he would have us look to only one thing: the greatness of God\u2019s power. It is only God\u2019s power that can fulfil the expectation which belongs to the call and bring us safely into the riches of the glory of our inheritance.

And so, his next petition is that we will know \u2018the immeasurable greatness of God\u2019s power\u2019 towards those who believe. As they say, the \u2018proof is in the pudding\u2019. And the pudding, for our hope and calling, is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. There are two things that we humans simple cannot compete against: death and evil. They hold us in bondage. But the power of God is demonstrated in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, in which God broke the hold of death and evil over us. This is the power that is at work in us to enable us to fulfill our calling and to bring us into our inheritance. Our only hope is in the power of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).