Why did he get so much pleasure from unwrapping that gift? Because he had wanted it, he had been hoping for it. But you can guess what happened. Hotwheels has a way of making their toys look incredible on commercials. For 15 seconds kids seem to be doing an infinite amount of creative things. But when you get the toy home, you find out that it only takes 2 seconds for your car to go through the entire set. And after doing that about 100 times in one day, you are bored with it and want something else. Your hope is disappointed.

Life is filled with disappointed hopes. We grow up dreaming of the perfect marriage, the challenging job or the dream vacation. And even when we have good marriages, and good jobs, and great vacations we find a slight, nagging sense of disappointment. They aren’t quite what we hoped they would be.

C.S. Lewis has written that we have three options when we face disappointment. We can be a fool and blame the thing itself. So we always look for a better wife, a more interesting job, and a better vacation. We wreck our lives and the lives of everyone who loves us because we are pursuing happiness, and never quite get it.

We can be sensible, and blame hope. We can say that hoping is a young man’s game, but wise men know to settle for what they have. We can learn to never expect fulfillment, and grow a little cynical as we get by responsibly.

But there is a third option. We could be Christian. We could believe that nothing in this world satisfies us because we were created for a better world. If you have an appetite for something, it makes sense to believe that thing exists. Babies get hungry, and food exists. Men desire sex, and sex exists. If I desire a better world, and nothing in this world satiates that desire, I should believe a better world exists. We could live by hope.

Paul describes this life for us today, a life fueled by hope. To be a Christian is to know greater pleasures and greater fulfillment than anything this world can offer, and it is to pursue Christ. Before I launch into a life fueled by hope, I need to clarify two things.

1. We are not using Christ to get something else.

Ask yourself, what are you hoping for? Are you pressing on toward a better marriage, job fulfillment, higher grades? What is Paul pressing toward – “that I may know Christ, and the power of his resurrection and share in his sufferings.”

If your understanding of hope is that if you live by faith, you will get whatever you set your heart on, you will often be disappointed.

2. He is not trying to get saved. He is already in Christ, and therefore he wants to know him better.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Christian growth is possible and desirable. Paul is not on a frantic push to earn his way into God’s kingdom. He has not gotten access into God’s kingdom and now frantically hoping to live his life well enough that at the end he will be vindicated and not kicked out. Rather, he has tasted the sweetness of Christ, and that taste has made him want it all.

You can know Christ better, Christian growth is possible. One thing I have noticed about people who join our church, several of them after a year or so seem surprised that they actually know Christ better, that the Gospel has worked in their life. That they are doing better. Most of us don’t think that is possible, or even desirable.