Hope In Present And Future Grace

“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;” (1Pe 1:13 AV)

We use the phrase “hope to the end” to mean we are holding out hope that something might or probably will happen.  More times than not, we use the phrase to describe faithfulness amid a hopeless outcome.  This is not how Peter used this phrase.  The cause for the hope is the grace of God which is to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Or, the grace that appears when we see Jesus face to face.  Some commentators believe Peter is speaking to lost Jewish worshippers who had started down the road of salvation and were contemplating exiting the process before saving faith was made complete.  One understanding is the encouragement to continue to journey of faith that began in Genesis and runs through the gospels that the lost soul might hope perfectly until Christ be revealed in the heart.  Other writers speak of yielding to faith and allowing faith to have her perfect work.  As it does, grace is revealed from faith to faith.  It continues to grow as we trust the LORD for the trials at hand.  Still, another sees the grace of God and the object upon which hope is based.  Some grace is seen now.  Other grace will be seen in glory.  No matter how a writer expounds upon this verse, one thing is for certain.  Faith, faithfulness, or hope are closely related to grace.  Either present grace or grace yet to be realized.  Rather than contemplate one or the other, let us consider both together.

Living in the snow belt of New York, it was not uncommon for one’s employer to ask the current shift to hold over to the next one as more and more employees called in unable to brave the weather.  There were a few times while working the second or third shift this happened.  Our employer could not force us to stay and work.  Rather, he asked us to keep the lines going and he would make it worth our while.  New Your state law does seem to favor the employee more so than the employer when it comes to continuous hours worked.  Breaks increase as well as the time allotted for those breaks.  However, in one factory I worked at, the managers went above and beyond simply extended breaks.  No matter how many hours we were scheduled to work that week, that extra shift was automatic double time.  In one such storm, we were allowed to earn a sick day plus the double-time.  A call-in was erased from our past.  Still another incident earned us free product from the factory store plus the extra money in our pocket.  Each time a shift was asked to stay over, the terms of our labor changed to make it work our while.  The grace that was shown in the present got us to commit.  However, it was also the grace that was coming at the end.  The grace of a promised end time.  Law only allowed us to work 16 hours at a time.  If we stayed over, we knew it was only for one shift and they had to let us go.  We had the grace of plowed roads and safe travel.  We had the grace of hot meals prepared for us in the cafeteria.  We had the grace of calling in the next day for a half-day so that eight hours in between wasn’t torturing.  There was present grace.  But there was also grace promised at the end of our shift.  This present and future grace was the foundation that made faithfulness, or hope, perfect.  Without the experience and promise of grace, there was no hope and faithfulness disappears.

The grace we have now is wrapped up in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  He is largely ignored.  We seldom stop and think that a person of the Trinity is actively working in our minds and hearts to get us through this life.  He is actively working that we might be transformed into the likeness of Christ.  This grace of God by the ministry of the Holy Spirit is provided in several ways.  The word of God is that influence that primarily changes us, leads us, encourages us, and gives us ministry towards others.  We have the fellowship of Spirit-led saints.  Most of all, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.  This present grace is sustaining grace.  This present grace is the strength behind the hope of which Peter speaks.  This present grace is why we get through the hard times of the present.  But it is the future grace that finishes the race.  It is seeing what awaits us that keeps us in the battle.  As the time clock at the end of our lines, it was a constant reminder that eventually our shift will end and we will go home.  That time clock was a symbol of grace yet to come.  Every time we walked past that clock and noticed the movement of its hands, we were reminded that no matter how hard the last 14 hours were, we only had two more to go.  Our home is in heaven.  We read of it in Revelation.  The presence of Jesus Christ awaits us at our finishing line.  Therefore, run the race with patience and hope for the grace which you experience now cannot even be compared to the grace that awaits.