Turn now to Hebrews 6:9. Here we have a very interesting section in regard to hope. We're going to go all way to the end of the chapter.
Here hope's source and function is expanded on considerably. It's been said, The quality of a person's hope is the measure of the man. Now the writer of the book of Hebrews hoped for the people to whom he was writing was for the better things of salvation. That appears in verse 9. Now better than what? The context from the beginning of the chapter shows that he feared they were falling away. His hope for them is then clearly stated that he wants them to have a full assurance of hope [verse 11]. Why? Whoever wrote this was no dummy! He knows that hope motivates!
These people needed to be stirred up, and so his hope for them was that they have a full assurance of hope to the END! Other translations translate that or the full development of the hope. Now why? In order that they not become lazy, but get moving!
To put it in a more positive light, is that they be diligent and in earnest about their responsibility to God in heaven all the way to the end. It is that they be fully spiritually enthusiastically energized in going about their Father's business. Why? Because a movement, an ideal, or a dream that does not inspire hope will not grip the hearts of people so that they will give themselves over to its accomplishment. The writer's spoken prayer is that somehow they will capture again the full assurance of hope, that somehow it would ignite in them the desire to plunge on, to fill them with expectancy so that they would get out of their spiritual funk, and get going.
Again we have another context here in three verses (10 through 12) of faith, hope, and love. All appear again. I think brethren that we frequently overlook the importance of hope's motivational qualities. He tells them in verse 12 that they be not slothful or lazy, but followers. The word would have been better translated imitators. It doesn't mean just merely to follow along the same path. It means to do exactly as those who went before them. It means to copy them, to imitate them.
Do you remember the song High Hopes? He's got high hopes, high hopes! Frank Sinatra made a real popular recording of it a number of years ago. Let me give you one little stanza of that song:
Once there was a little old ant,
Thought he'd move a rubber tree plant.
Now everyone knows that an ant can't move a rubber tree plant.
But he's got high hopes. He's got high hopes.
He's got high-apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.
The problem's just a toy balloon. They'll be bursting soon.
They're just bound to go pop!
Oops! There goes another rubber tree plant.
Then another verse talks about a goat which had a dam in its way.
Now a goat can't knock down a dam, or can it?
Whoops! There goes another million kilowatt dam!
You get the point of the song! You get the point of the context here, why the writer of Hebrews wanted these people to have a full assurance of hope. It motivates people to overcome because they have such expectancy, such anticipation, such desire, such hope of what lies at the end. Because of the promises of God, they are willing to pay the price and drive themselves to do what seemly is impossible.
The people to whom the author was writing were going through a hardship that is never fully explained. It is explained that they were regressing from what they formerly had been. Hardship in many cases is a trial in which little can be done except to patiently endure it. The world is out there. We can't change it. We can keep ourselves from getting involved in that which is evil in it, but we can't change it, so we have to patiently endure the fact that it is there putting its pressure on us. But that patient endurance all by itself is a good work, because, at the very least, it's exercising self-control.
The author goes on and gives them the example of Abraham who lived by hope. In fact he tells us in Romans 4:18 … . . .
He had just told them that if they do not turn around, they are going to go in the Lake of Fire.
He is speaking harshly to them. Though he is speaking harshly, he is very confident that they are going to turn things around.
He tells them God has not closed His eyes to the good that they were doing.
Now notice what Paul encourages them to do here. He says in verse 11 that they show the same diligence to the end. This is earnestness, zeal, deep commitment with eagerness. Plunge your whole life into this, he says, to the end. What we are supposed to be doing in this is imitating those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. So what they had to do was - since they had put their conversion on hold because they had allowed themselves to drift - they needed to launch zealously into a campaign of regaining all that lost ground.
