Keep It Simple Week 2: Hope is a Promise

I hope I get into my top school! I hope I get married someday! I hope you have a good day! Using hope as a verb is similar to how we use the word “wish.” Using hope as a noun is different. As a noun, hope is an intense desire accompanied by the expectation that what we desire will happen. In the movie The Hunger Games, President Snow understood the power of hope as a noun. He said,

“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.” – President Snow, The Hunger Games Do you know why hope is so dangerous in stories like The Hunger Games? It’s because when people are confident that something will happen if they can just hold on, they tend to hold on.

And that’s exactly the type of hope we’re talking about when we talk about our hope in Jesus.

13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13:13 – NLT)

This week, we’re looking at hope.

In many ways, the choice of faith is what makes hope possible.

SCRIPTURE (What does God’s Word say?)

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. (Romans 5:3-5, NLT)

There’s a progression:

Problems develop endurance. Endurance develops strength of character. Character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. But it all really boils down to the final verse, doesn’t it?

Paul is telling us that even in the most difficult of circumstances, we can have hope because that hope isn’t based on our problems. Instead, our hope comes from having faith in what Jesus has done for us. You see, hope is only as strong as what that hope is based on.

Paul says:

"The Christian life hope never proves an illusion, for it is founded on the love of God."

INSIGHTS (What might this Scripture mean?)

1. Hope comes from trusting God and God’s promises.

A promise is only as good as the person who makes the promise and their ability to make good on it. Any broken promise can hurt, but the ones that result from intentionally misleading someone are especially painful. So, what makes God’s promises worth trusting?

16 Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding.17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. 18 So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. 19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.

(Hebrews 6:16-19a – NLT)

Ok, that’s a lot of words. Like, a lot, a lot. Thankfully, the author of Hebrews said it much simpler a few chapters later:

23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. (Hebrews 10:23 – NLT)

Both of these passages are basically saying that we can trust God’s promises because God has shown Himself to be trustworthy over and over again. God has never lied to us, and He’s not going to start now.

2. You can’t trust what you don’t know.

It’s pretty much impossible to have hope from trusting God’s promises if we don’t actually know what God has promised us. And reading your Bible on a regular basis is the best way we have to know God’s promises. Even though we can’t cover them all, I do want to share a few of them with you that I find particularly meaningful.

31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31 – NLT)

And, in the New Testament, Jesus offers a similar promise in the Gospel of Matthew:

28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 – NLT)

My absolute favorite promise Jesus ever gave us is one of the very last things He ever said to His disciples before He ascended into Heaven.

20b And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b – NLT)

3. Hope in Jesus doesn’t disappoint.

5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. (Romans 3:5a – NLT)

Paul knew that people have a tendency to put hope in lots of things that will ultimately lead to disappointment.

I know I’ve done this, and my guess is that you have, too. But there is one person in whom we can place our hope and be sure that we will not be disappointed. This person is Jesus. Why can we be certain that having hope in Jesus won’t lead us to disappointment?

It’s because God has already shown us how much He loves us. God sent His Son Jesus to willingly give His life for the forgiveness of our sins. Then, God guaranteed our forgiveness by raising Jesus from the grave. We can trust God because He’s already accomplished what no one else could!

Romans 5:5 (MSG)

—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

ACTION (How could we live this out?)

1. Find God’s promises in Scripture

Two kinds of promises in the Bible:

Promises for specific people – These are the promises that God makes to an individual or a group of people that are meant primarily for them. For example, in the Book of Judges, God promises Samson’s mother that she will have a son and that he will rescue Israel from the Philistines. That’s a promise that’s specifically for her, not for us.

Promises for everyone – These are promises that God makes to an individual or a group of people, but they are meant for everyone, including us. For example, in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells His disciples that whoever listens to Him and believes that God sent Him will not be condemned for their sins. That’s a promise that Jesus gives to His disciples, but it’s meant for all of us. But we can learn a lot about who God is from both kinds of promises. How to find promises in the Bible:

You can literally just Google, “God’s promises in Scripture,” and it’ll come back with hundreds (if not thousands) of sites that have list after list of God’s promises. Or, you could just pick a point in the Bible and start reading until you find one. My guess is that if you take this second approach, you won’t have to read very far. Once you find them, don’t just stop there. Write them down. Share them with someone else in your small group. Put them somewhere where you’ll see them throughout the week.

2. Ask someone else to share a story about a time when God kept a promise to them.

Our hope is strengthened when we remind ourselves—and each other!—of how God has fulfilled His promises in our lives. I’d also encourage you to keep a journal or a note in your phone where you write down examples of God being faithful in your life and in the lives of people you know.

That way, you can easily remind yourself of God’s faithfulness, even on your worst days. Then, when you begin to feel your hope might be fading, fight back against that hopelessness by reminding yourself of all the times your hope has sustained you and how God has kept His promises to you.

Two people can meet the same situation:

To the one, it can mean the end of hope; to the other, it can be a challenge to greatness.

Life has challenges and is very hard at times, and you have two choices when hard times come:

Hang your head and say “it’s hopeless,” or rise to meet that challenge, trusting that God’s got you.

When our hope is in the love of God, it can never be an illusion, for God loves us with an everlasting love backed by an everlasting power.

-Barclay

*Prayer*

Related Media

Related Sermons