Genesis 12:1-4, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 

I came across an AP news wire story, which I guess we could say fits into the category of one of those sadly humorous ‘stupid thief’ tales. But as Craig Brian Larson, editor of PreachingToday.com adds, “Actually, if you knew him, his story is probably only very sad.’ 

But there is a lesson in here somewhere… It seems that this guy out in Pittsburgh wanted money. Maybe he really needed money. Maybe he had a substance addiction or owed a staggering credit card debt… Maybe he owed bookies ... whatever the reason, he somehow came up with the idea to go into a grocery store, hand the checkout clerk counterfeit money, and ask for change. If it worked, he would end up with real money in exchange for fake money. Brilliant! 

 But he was a big thinker. So, he figures… “I’m not going to pass off a counterfeit $100 bill, not a counterfeit $1,000 bill, not even a $10,000 bill. No, I’m going to get change for a $1,000,000 bill! Brilliant! 

I guess that we can credit this guy for big thinking, but we also have to knock him for thinking badly. There were a few minor flaws in his plan that perhaps he might have realized had he considered it a bit more thoroughly. For one, it is not likely that a grocery checkout clerk was going to keep a million dollars in her drawer. (Even on a Saturday.) Second, he might have realized that a $1,000,000 bill was going to attract some attention, like maybe even the store manager… or the police. But the clincher here is that there is no such thing as a $1,000,000 bill. [The largest currency currently printed in the U.S. is a $100 bill. The largest ever printed was a $100,000 gold certificate from 1934, long out of circulation.] 

Nevertheless, we can perhaps imagine this counterfeiter walking into the Supermarket on that Saturday in Pittsburgh, holding that one million dollar bill in his hand. Imagine his soaring hopes, his quickening pulse. Because in just a few moments he would be able to pay off his bills, have a nice car, maybe a new home – all the things he could have ever wanted. He wouldn’t have to work another day in his life. This was going to be his lucky day!

Needless to say, all didn’t go as planed. The checkout clerk refused to give him change for his bogus bill. Then the manager came and confiscated the forgery. His dreams going down in flames, he went a little berserk on the ATM, and ended up in police custody. 

Again, PT editor Craig Larson, comments: “It’s a sad, sad thing when a person’s high hopes come to nothing. How do you know when your hopes are resting on something true and legitimate and real, instead of on something bogus and stupid? Where do you place your hope?”[1]

Well, I thought that last one was a pretty good question, and so it’s one that we’re going to explore for a few minutes this morning.  And I’d like to rephrase Larson’s ideas into two similar questions, and we’ll spend most of our time on the second one. 

1. What is your ultimate hope?  As a human being, here in February of 2008, what’s at the top of your personal ‘hope list’?

2. On what are you basing that hope? 

Now, we’re going to spend most of our time on the second question, not because I’m guessing that there will be too many different hopes on the first list to speak of generally. Actually, it’s because I think that the ultimate hope of every person – whether they are religious people or totally secular people, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, Eastern or Western – the ultimate hope of most people is very similar. Maybe exactly the same. And it has something to do with what happens after death. 

You might think, “How can that be? For someone who doesn’t believe in an afterlife, their ultimate hope would be for something in this life – to be able to make a difference in the world, to be relatively comfortable until they die, to be able to pass something important along to their children or the next generation, or something like that.” And I disagree. 

Those things may be important – as they are to most of us – but they are not ultimate. The ultimate hope of a non-religious person I believe, logically speaking, would be pretty much the same as that of a religious person. And it would be this: “I hope that my idea of what happens after death is correct.  Because I’m basing not only my happiness and my meaning in this life on that hope, but I’m wagering all eternity that I’m right.” 

Think about it. Even in a death denying culture such as ours, the ultimate question is still – ‘what happens after this life?’  And the ultimate hope is “I hope that my answer to that question is correct.”  A person who insists that they are simply ignorant, who says, “I don’t know what’s coming, I’m just going to wait and see…’ is basing their hope then, on their belief that ignorance, or sincerity, or something of that sort will get you a pass in the afterlife, if there is one.”  Right or wrong, that is their ultimate hope. 

My hope is that when I die, I will be with my Lord in a place prepared for me. That I will be welcomed home with joy and celebration, not because I may eventually achieve something worth a heavenly party, but because I am loved beyond human understanding by my Creator.  Now that’s my hope – yours may be similar. 

Religious, or secular, theistic or atheistic, we all have a similar ultimate hope. ‘I hope that I’m right about what comes next.’ (I certainly hope I’m right!) 

So really, the much more important question is the second one, and it’s the one that Craig Larson suggested: on what are you basing your hope? That seems, to me, to be pretty significant. 

I know that there are a lot of people who base their ultimate hope on what I would consider to be a very shaky foundation. On things like intuition, or feelings… on personal experiences. On mass media – how many people picture God as some character that they saw in a film they really liked, or the afterlife based on a touching scene from a movie or a novel? 

People have chosen to follow false leaders from David Koresh to Shirley McLain, et al, who speak with authority out of what amounts to simply their own voice. Other philosophers and thinkers have had more integrity, and certainly more intelligence, but my question is always, ‘These are your words. Even if they sound impressive, and logical (given certain conditions) what is the source of your authority?’ If I’m going to base my eternity on someone’s thoughts, I sure want to know where they’ve come from! Don’t you? 

In the book of Acts (17) Paul goes into a town called Berea to share the message of the Good News of Christ.  And we read there of a very significant New Testament value in verse 11: 

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” 

The Bereans were of ‘more noble character’ because they examined the Scriptures every day to check out Paul’s teaching.  They didn’t simply base their hope on the word of a man, but they went to the Word of God to check his words out. 

(Now this raises some good questions that we don’t have time to address, but I want to acknowledge them… of course, one might ask, “How do we know the Bible is God’s word? How do we know that we’re understanding it as it is meant?”  The very short answer is that ultimate hope is always going to be faith based. But faith, Kierkegaard’s ideas notwithstanding, is not a ‘leap into the dark’; faith does not bypass our intellect, or our brains, or our common sense. Someone described faith instead as a ‘step into the light’. I like that. 

I believe by faith that the Bible is God’s word, but I also believe I have good evidence to support that conviction.  And I would rather stand on the weight of such evidence, in the face of a Plan that makes such good sense, and one that has been verified for thousands of years as meaningful and true by the changed lives of countless people, supported by archeology, and the human reason of thousands of scholars, than trusting simply in my own thoughts, or the thoughts of someone who happens to be better at language than I am.) 

If we want to get really specific I would say this, and I suspect this is true for many of you as well (I pray that it’s true for all of you!) I believe by faith that the Bible is God’s Word, but my ultimate hope – my belief as I put it earlier that after death I am going to be with my Lord in a place prepared for me, that I will some day be welcomed home with joy and celebration, because I am loved beyond human understanding by my Creator. That hope is based on my further belief that my Creator has opened the door to that eternity because of something that He did for me, not because of anything I have done or will do for him. My hope is based on something God has done. 

See, I change. But God does not. So this is a solid rock hope, one based on God’s unchanging, holy, character. As the great hymn puts it:

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame [i.e., the eloquent and seductive words of talented thinkers]
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand…
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand. 

The former CEO of WorldCom, Bernard Ebbers, stood before the judge and asked for mercy. He had recently been indicted for orchestrating an $11 billion accounting fraud that shut down the telecommunications firm in 2002, yet on this day he asked for mercy. 

His company’s collapse represented the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and devastated the lives of thousands of employees, yet he asked for mercy. 

Speaking on behalf of his client, defense attorney Reid Weingarten cited 169 letters from Ebbers’ supporters, detailing the 63-year-old man’s heart condition and numerous (often anonymous) charitable gifts. 

“If you live 60-some-odd years,” said Weingarten, “if you have an unblemished record, if you have endless numbers of people who attest to your goodness, doesn’t that count? Doesn’t that count particularly on this day?” 

The judge said, “No!” and sentenced Ebbers to 25 years in a federal penitentiary.[2]

If our hope is based on our performance, we’ll find ourselves standing before God in the same boat as Bernard Ebbers.  According to Jesus, any letters of recommendation or accolades from others will not be enough for any of us. The Bible tells us that we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. And that Divine justice demands that only holiness can come into the presence of God. 

But just imagine someone stepping before Ebber’s judge and saying, “I’m willing and able to pay back everything that this man owes… and I will do that on the condition that I be allowed to receive any punitive damages as well. I will pay the entire debt, so if he will accept this gift, this man is free to go…” 

That is the kind of scenario upon which I am basing my hope.  In the Scripture we read earlier from Romans (in which Paul refers all the way back to the book of Genesis) we see that this has always been God’s plan. Right from the beginning, when God called Abram.  Abram, it says, “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” His faith is what made him acceptable to God, not his works. 

Paul says, “That’s still the way it is.” Righteousness does not come through a Law, it comes through faith. This is the consistent teaching of the Scriptures, written by many different writers over a long period of time. Many authors, one message: Righteousness (right-ness with God) is a gift from God. Because of that, the only reliable hope there is, the only solid ground we can ever find, is this hope which is not based on anything from this world. It is based instead in the character and promises of God… it is based on the completed work of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of those promises… it is a hope based on God’s Love and God’s Grace. 

And it is freely offered to us all.

On what do you base your hope?