Week #1 - What Are We Waiting For?
Blog Series Intention Recap
The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment
The future can feel uncertain. Wars, political upheaval, cultural change, and personal loss can make us wonder what comes next. But Scripture does not tell the Church to fear the future. It tells us to expect the Messiah. Paul calls His return our "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13).
The Blessed Hope is a four-week Theology Thursday series exploring the Messiah's return for His Church. We'll look at what Christians are waiting for, what happens when believers are "caught up" to meet the Lord, why I believe Scripture teaches that the Church will be removed before the Tribulation, and how that hope should shape our lives today.
This isn't about setting dates, decoding headlines, or forcing current events onto a prophecy chart.
We are waiting for Yeshua (Jesus).
The Blessed Hope isn't simply about knowing what happens next. It's about knowing Who is coming.
This page is a post in the series “The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.
Let’s jump into Week #1:
"What Are We Waiting For?"...
What are you waiting for right now?
The test results. The phone call. The job offer. The kids to finally come home for the holidays.
Everybody is waiting for something. And what we're waiting for shapes how we live while we wait. Anxious waiting looks different from hopeful waiting, even when the waiting itself takes the same number of days.
Paul says Christians are waiting too.
But notice what Titus 2 does not say we're waiting for. Our attention is not primarily fixed on the Antichrist, the arrival of the Tribulation, or civilization finally collapsing under its own weight, though a glance at any given week's headlines might make that feel like the safer bet.
We are waiting for Yeshua.
Why it Matters:
Biblical hope gives us confidence when the future feels uncertain.
Waiting for Yeshua doesn't pull us out of the present. It changes how we live in it.
Prophecy ultimately points us toward a Person, not merely a timeline.
The certainty of His return gives us reason to live faithfully right now.
Go Deeper:
Titus 2:11–14 says this beautifully, and it gives this entire series its anchor:
"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." (Titus 2:11–14, ESV)
Read those words slowly, and you'll notice that Paul moves in three directions:
Grace appeared.
Grace trains us.
Glory will appear.
Past. Present. Future.
And right in the middle of that movement is where Christians live today.
What Does Paul Mean by "the Blessed Hope"?
In everyday English, hope can sound like a wish.
"I hope it doesn't rain."
"I hope the test comes back clear."
"I hope everything works out."
That's not the sense Paul gives us here. In this passage, hope isn't a nervous "maybe." It is confident expectation grounded in God's promise. The question isn't whether Yeshua will return. We wait with confidence because we know that He will.
That's important for everything that follows in this series. We'll talk about a real, specific, future event. But before we talk about timelines, Tribulation, or the Rapture, Titus reminds us where our confidence belongs.
Not in our ability to decode the future.
In the One who promised to return.
Grace That Appeared
Paul begins in the past: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people..." (Titus 2:11, ESV)
Something happened.
Grace didn't remain an abstract idea. It entered history in the person and work of Yeshua the Messiah.
And notice the order. Before Paul tells Christians how to live, he tells them what God has already done.
Grace came first.
That's Christianity. We don't live faithfully so that God might finally show us grace. God's grace has appeared, and that grace changes the way we live.
Grace That Trains Us
This may be the easiest part of the passage to rush past.
We're talking about Christ's return, after all. Let's get to the exciting part.
But Paul doesn't.
Grace is "training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age" (Titus 2:12, ESV).
Grace doesn't only save us.
Grace trains us.
Waiting for Yeshua doesn't mean staring at the sky while ignoring the work God has put before us.
The same grace that tells us He is coming also teaches us how to live until He does.
Glory That Will Appear
Then Paul finally turns our eyes toward the future:
"waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ..." (Titus 2:13, ESV)
Waiting isn't presented as an occasional activity. It's a posture. Christians live looking forward.
And there is something else in this verse that we shouldn't miss. The grammar points to "our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" as one person. The One we're waiting for is not simply a teacher, prophet, or religious leader.
He is our great God and Savior.
That makes the Blessed Hope intensely personal. We're not waiting for an event to happen. We're waiting for Someone to come.
Paul even ties the Messiah's two appearances together. Grace has appeared. Now we wait for the appearing of glory.
He came in grace.
He will appear in glory.
And we live between those two appearances. That is where a study of the Blessed Hope needs to begin, not with a prophecy chart, but with a Person.
Not a Prophecy Chart, But a Person
It would be easy to begin a series like this with timelines and charts. Seven years here. The Rapture there. The Antichrist somewhere in between.
Those questions matter. We're going to deal with them.
But Titus 2 doesn't begin there, so neither will we. Paul begins with grace, moves through present obedience, and then points toward glory.
That's the order I don't want us to miss.
The Blessed Hope isn't merely a doctrine to understand. It is a Person we are waiting for.
The Blessed Hope is Yeshua.
How does this help me understand the concept of “At The Table”?
Why This Changes the Way We Wait
If the Blessed Hope is a Person and not merely a scenario, then the waiting itself changes.
We don't have to spend our lives trying to make every headline fit somewhere on a prophecy chart. We don't have to wait for the world to get bad enough before we start looking up.
We live faithfully now because we know Who is coming.
Grace has appeared.
Grace is training us right now.
Glory is coming.
The Blessed Hope isn't that we have figured out the future.
The Blessed Hope is Yeshua.
So don't just ask what you believe about the Messiah's return. Ask what that belief is doing in you.
What is shaping the way you live while you wait: fear about what might happen next, or confidence in the One who promised He is coming?
