Good morning, today is Tuesday, April 28, 2020. My name is Keith and I am the Worship Pastor at Green Acres Baptist Church in Athens, GA.

I hope your Easter and spring season has been going as well as it can so far. Yesterday I introduced a new song that we will continue to learn this week called Christ Our Hope in Life and Death.

Hope has been one of the major themes we have been exploring since this whole quarantine life started. And really, we have been talking a lot about the idea of having hope since Advent this past year. We began the church calendar that we have been following this year by lighting the candle of hope during Advent and reminding ourselves that we have hope because hope was given to us in the birth of baby Jesus. The hope of the world had come and now we can have hope when we place our trust in Jesus.

We now end the church calendar this Easter season reminding ourselves that Jesus’ life, his death, and now his new life helps gives us a more robust understanding of what it is and who it is that we can hope in. Jesus’ new life is the new life he now offers us, his life that we have been exploring since Advent. As we die to ourselves and find new life in Christ, we end up finding hope.

This is a story that is different than what you hear in the world. It isn’t in money, health care, a nice house, good friends, or even lots of toilet paper that we find hope for this current moment, it is in Jesus.

The Heidelberg Catechism begins with this first question: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” Its answer is: “That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” It goes on to say, “He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

We will talk more tomorrow about this question and answer, but for today know that this song we are learning comes from this particular question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism and that it is a reminder that those of us who claim Christ do not belong to ourselves, but instead to Jesus who forgives us.

Christ Our Hope In Life And Death

Verse 1

What is our hope in life and death
Christ alone Christ alone
What is our only confidence
That our souls to Him belong
What holds our days within His hand
What comes apart from His command
And what will keep us to the end
The love of Christ in which we stand

Chorus

O sing hallelujah
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death

Verse 2

What truth can calm the troubled soul
God is good God is good
Where is His grace and goodness known
In our great Redeemer's blood
Who holds our faith when fears arise
Who stands above the stormy trial
Who sends the waves that bring us nigh
Unto the shore the rock of Christ