Hope In Your Heart

Paul is a Jew, but the Lord has called him to work with Gentiles. His ministry among them is flourishing and he knows that God is well pleased with this Gentile mission, as He continues to bless this work abundantly. In the midst of all of this victory with his work among the Gentiles, Paul is carrying a ‘Heart of Hope’ for his own people, the Jews, who are rejecting God. This is how Paul is speaking at the moment to the Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my people to envy and save some of them. Romans 11: 13b – 14.

These words of a popular song of long ago, called ‘Hope In Your Heart’, have come to mind. They go like this.

“Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone, you’ll never walk alone.”

But why is Paul speaking like this to them about the hope in his heart for his people? Listen to the Honesty, Opportunity, Propriety and Enigma of his HOPE, in doing his called work. He makes much of his ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles, in the hope that he might somehow arouse his own people to envy and save some of them. Let’s take a more sincere and fuller look at this HOPE which Paul carries in his heart for the Israelites.

Honesty

Paul is addressing the Gentiles, the people whom he serves and he is being most honest, open and frank with them. He does not hide the fact that although he is serving them, he has not forgotten his own people. His heart is for them, the Gentiles, but his heart is also for the Jews, his own, whom he passionately loves.

The Hope he carries in his heart, is an Honest Hope.

Opportunity

Paul is seeing his ministry to those who are not his people, as the opportune time, the ideal time and the perfect time to be used to help his own. Remember, his own people are being de-branched in order for the Gentiles to be grafted onto the vine as fruit. Paul takes this as the right time to work diligently and obediently to God the Father, for in so doing, his own people will have the visible realities of what they are forfeiting. He wants them to see, through what is being granted to the Gentiles, their own folly and return to their God. He uses this as the now time to arouse his people.

The Hope he carries in his heart, is an Opportune Hope.

Propriety

Paul is being genuine and bold in his use of the word envy. He wants his own people to become envious, not of him, but of the God in him. They will see what the Spirit is accomplishing in him and how much the non-Jews are receiving. Paul has the quality of holding on to this fact most strongly and confidently. He sees it as proper and wants this envy to take hold of his people in a big way. They are to be touched deeply, to be stung in their hearts and minds, so that they will come to see their impropriety before God and repent. When they see the things of God which they are denying themselves they will know that they have lost all propriety with God. He wants them to see the grace of God in those non-Jews who are hearing the Gospel News and leaving their pagan lives to follow Jesus. They must be made to see that they are leaving The Way, to follow pagan ways and just how much their impropriety is causing them to lose out on. Paul makes envy the right way to save some of his own.

The Hope he carries in his heart, is one of Prudence or Propriety.

Enigma

Paul’s hope does not tell him exactly how the change in his people will come about. It is not clear to him. He does not spell out how he expects it to happen. Paul specifically tells the Gentiles that his hope is that he may “somehow” help his own. The very use of the word, somehow, tells that he does not know, but he is stubborn in his belief and in his hope that even if he does not know exactly how these changes will come and when they will come, he believes that they will be done. The entire process of his own people changing, may be a mystery to him, but never an impossibility by faith.