I started this short “Reasons for Hope” series last week because it is so easy for us to fall into negativity and frustration about the news of the day and the state of our culture. The Bible, though, says that Christians can and even should be hopeful and joyful. Last week I considered a couple of very encouraging promises centered on the gift of sanctification which we receive from God as his children. Those promises were for individual believers in the here and now. Today, I want to look at the bigger picture and consider two reasons for hope about the future.
The first reason for optimism is that we are citizens of a victorious kingdom—and I’m not just talking about the final judgment. For two thousand years, and at this very moment, the kingdom of God has been expanding. If the Christian church was an empire, it would be the longest-lived, farthest-spread empire in history.