How Should Future Hope Shape My Obedience Today?

“But when am I ever going to use this?” 

I think every student on the planet has asked that question of a parent or teacher at some point. Sometimes the work we do in the present doesn’t seem as though it will pay dividends in the future.

Maybe you feel the same way about obedience to the Lord. Perhaps obedience feels distant and detached from eternity. Maybe it even seems like “busy work” while we bide our time until eternity. In one sense, that’s true: If we lacked an eternal hope, our obedience would be futile. So why not simply live for the pleasure of today? 

As Christians, however, we reject that premise because, though we may die tomorrow, death is only the beginning. 

As C. S. Lewis famously observed, this life is just “the cover and the title page.” The real story is yet to come.¹ That future story—the one to which we look with confident hope—ought to shape our obedience in several important ways. 

Our Hope Shapes Our Affections

What do you love? What do you fear? What makes you happy? What makes you angry? These heart level “X-ray questions”² help to reveal the affections and idols of our hearts. Our actions inevitably follow our desires. Consider these verses from James: 

What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. (James 4:1–2)

Why do you become angry? Often it’s because you aren’t getting something you love, or because something you treasure feels threatened. Lewis put it this way: “We are far too easily pleased.” We settle for “making mud pies in the slum because [we] cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.” Lewis understood that our future hope shapes our present affections. We “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), not because doing so earns God’s favor, but because we understand that true delight is found in pursuing Him rather than chasing the temporary pleasures this world offers.

A divided heart will always drift toward idolatry. That’s why Jesus said in His greatest sermon, “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matt. 6:24). When our eternal hope shapes our affections today, we experience genuine and lasting joy. That joy may not look like worldly success or material prosperity, but it is infinitely richer.

Pastor John Piper has devoted much of his ministry to what he calls “Christian Hedonism”—the conviction that we are called to “glorify God byenjoying Him forever.” Or, as the Desiring God motto says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” So, my friend, don’t allow the “pride of life” (1 John 2:16 ESV) to shape your desires. Let your hope in Christ do that instead.

Our Hope Shapes Our Response to Grace 

Recently, I attended commencement exercises at the Christian school where I teach. The day these young men and women had anticipated for so long had finally arrived. They proudly received their diplomas, turned their tassels, and walked back down the aisle as alumni rather than students. During their final week of school, most of them knew they weren’t in danger of failing to graduate. As long as they submitted something for their remaining assignments, they would still walk across the stage.

Sometimes we treat God's grace the same way. We tend to think of our sin like these seniors who know their graduation requirements have been met. We know that no one can snatch us out of Jesus’ hands (John 10:28–29) or separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:38–39), so what’s the big deal if we sin? The church in Rome wrestled with that same question, but Paul wasted no time in squelching their cheap view of grace: 

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1–2)

A similar truth appears in the Psalms. The psalmist recognizes that he has no chance of standing before God’s judgment seat if the just Judge were to give him what he deserves. He muses, 

LORD, if you kept an account of iniquities,
Lord, who could stand? (Psalm 130:3)

What a hopeless thought! But the next verse changes everything: 

But with you there is forgiveness,
so that you may be revered. (Psalm 130:4)

Did you notice that last line? We’re not forgiven so we can live however we please. We are forgiven so that we might fear the Lord. At first glance, that seems backward. We might assume that the threat of judgment would produce reverence. Yet Scripture says forgiveness does. When we truly grasp the magnitude of God's mercy toward us, our hearts should be filled with awe and worship—not a casual attitude toward sin or a desire to indulge it.

Our Hope Shapes Our Relationships

Finally, our living hope should fundamentally change the way we interact with other people by reminding us that they are not merely temporary beings but eternal souls. C. S. Lewis put it this way: 

You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.⁴

The driver who cuts you off in traffic, the child who bullies your son or daughter, the teacher who looks the other way, the politician whose views oppose your own, the person with dementia who can’t remember his own name, the unborn baby conceived as a result of rape—every one of them is an eternal soul destined either for eternal glory or eternal judgment.

Our hope of spending eternity with Christ ought to shape both our interactions with others and our desire to share the hope we have in Him. It changes the way we respond to slights, conflicts, frustrations, and disagreements. It transforms the way we disciple and evangelize. Simply put, our eternal hope changes everything. We love, forgive, encourage, exhort, welcome, disciple, and proclaim the gospel because eternity is real.

Made for More

Ultimately, we must remember that we are “elect exiles” (1 Pet. 1:1), not meant to find our ultimate comfort in this world. As we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:1–2), our desires, our understanding of grace, and even our relationships will be transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). 

¹ C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1956), 211.

² A phrase coined by biblical counselor David Powlison

³ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1980), 26.

⁴ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory,46.