Sermon Tone Analysis

HOPE The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.

Biblical faith rests on the trustworthiness of God to keep His promises.

The biblical view of hope is thus significantly different from that found in ancient Greek philosophy.

The Greeks recognized that human beings expressed hope by nature; however, this kind of hope reflects both good and bad experiences.

The future was thus a projection of one’s own subjective possibilities (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2.517).

Biblical hope avoids this subjectivity by being founded on something that provides a sufficient basis for confidence in its fulfillment: God and His redemptive acts as they culminate in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

24 For in this hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what he sees?

25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

2016.

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.