Read Romans 5:1-5.

Paul in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Romans makes a ground shaking statement, a statement so counterintuitive that it immediately both stirs and challenges the reader. “Hope does not disappoint.”

Paul in chapters four through eight of Romans systematically lays out the legal right of atonement for those that have received new life through faith in Christ Jesus. These chapters of scripture are full of declarations that every born-again believer should be deeply acquainted with.

There right in the first couple of sentences of the fifth chapter, Paul introduces the reader to the purpose for which he writes. He makes a three-fold statement  profoundly, definitively, and emphatically announcing the glorious privilege of the Christian: peace with God, access by faith into grace, and the resulting hope of the glory of God.

Hope. Hope in the glory of God. Oh how so many have been robbed of that life giving unseen substance, hope. There are few God given anchors as powerful as hope. The kind that doesn’t disappoint, the hope in the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 13 states “now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest is love.”

Love certainly is greatest, there is no force as strong as the love of God, love is the fuel that strengthened the feet of our Lord to climb Calvary. It’s is a truth that while sin nailed Him to the cross that day, it was the love of God on display that kept Him there those six hours. Our text in Romans would even tell us that the source of any hope we have is founded in the recesses of our heart where “the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost”.

Much also should be understood of faith, “for without faith it is impossible to please God”. Faith has the ability to transcend time and space, faith manifests into reality the power of Christ’s finished work.

What of hope? Moreover why are we so indoctrinated to be afraid of hope? Why does this life attempt again and again to teach us not to get our hopes up, and to wait for the other shoe to drop?

And: Not to put all of our eggs in one basket and countless other hope-robbing proverbs meant to keep us from disappointment, when the Word clearly states that hope does not disappoint? That answer has to be determined in the light of how powerful a force hope is and how important it is to the cause of Christ.

Imagine we as a people begin to put hope in our community, our family, and our lives, simply for God to be glorified. We crucify our earthly passions, settle at a heart level what makes the heart of God glad, and makes His name famous in the Earth and what doesn’t and without fear invest hope. Hope that gives life purpose.

To be specific, we need hope in this community. Charlotte county may never be a booming metropolis, maybe it shouldn’t be, however to harbor down trodden feelings that paralyze us from doing anything doesn’t glorify God. Charlotte County can, however, be a place where God is glorified! A community of people who believe for His kingdom to come, and as its established to be manifest in a growing economy, a living interweaved community, and for our children to live without impossibilities. All while loving in a way that reconciles and redeems, the sort of community that transcends differences of race, nationality, and class, where there are no outsiders or transplants. The Kingdom of God. God glorified. In our lives, our families, our community.

That’s worth hoping for, and hope doesn’t disappoint.

David Malcom is the pastor of Trinity Gospel Church. He can be contacted at davidmalcom75@gmail.com.