Overcoming Hope for Overwhelming Challenges! | Part 1 – Hope-Fueling Reasons!

Working definition of “biblical hope” —

Biblical Hope is realizing and believing that God is in control!

Hope-Fueling Reason #1: I am by God!

1 Peter 1:2 (NLT) — God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy.

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)

Even before he made the world (doesn’t get more first than that), God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵ God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Hope-Fueling Reason #2: I have a hope-giver!

1 Peter 1:3 (NLT)

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation (living hope),

“The resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing!”

Hope-Fueling Reason #3: I have an eternal !

1 Peter 1:3 (NLT)

… Now we live with great expectation, ⁴ and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.  

2 Corinthians 5:4-6 (GN)

While we live in this earthly tent, we groan with a feeling of oppression; it is not that we want to get rid of our earthly body, but that we want to have the heavenly one … ⁵ God is the one who has prepared us for this change, and he gave us his Spirit as the down payment/guarantee of all that he has in store for us.

John 16:22 (NIV) — Now is your time of grief (loss), but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 14:27 (GW) — “I’m giving you my peace. I don’t give you the kind of peace that the world gives.”

Hope-Fueling Reason #4: I am !

1 Peter 1:5 (NLT)

And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power …

John 10:27-30 (MSG)

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.”

Romans 8:35-39 (NLT)

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? … ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Daniel 12:13 (MSG)

Relax. When it’s all over, you will be on your feet to receive your reward.

Hope-Fueling Reason #5: God is me for more!

1 Peter 1:5-6 (NLT) — God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. ⁶ So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 

Salvation’s “past tense” — we have been !

Ephesians 2:8 (NIV)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…

Salvation’s “present tense” — we are being !

1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV)

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT)

The Holy Spirit—makes us more and more like him, like Jesus, as we are changed into his glorious image.

Salvation’s “future tense” — we will be !

1 John 3:2,3 (NIV)

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.