1. Christian hope is rooted in the Resurrection: An act of God in history is the promise of what awaits you in your future. What happened to Jesus' body on Easter Sunday is what will happen for all creation and for you.
2. “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” - Lesslie Newbigin (I have this over my office door and pray it over people's situations routinely)
3. The "all-surpassing power" you need to make it through life’s trials is from God, not you. This means hope is divine.
4. Hope lets you be “hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
5. Someone in your same circumstance in the world sees it through a lens of complete hope. If they can, that means it’s possible.
6. “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
7. IOW, our hope comes from the love God has for us that will not have an end. If you knew you would always be loved, you would always have hope.
8. This is why the Christian gospel is about hope and puts hope into hopeless people. “You are loved with an everlasting love.” What’s more hopeful than that?
9. You won’t get more hope by hoping bad things go away. You get hope by receiving God’s love.
10. Hope stands over the troubles of the world and says, “Put away your worry, this is not the final chapter.”
11. Disillusionment is when you have your illusions dissed. Who wants to live on illusions? So disillusionment is a doorway to hope.
12. The Resurrection means you can hew out of your mountain of despair a stone of hope that “will become a huge mountain and fill the whole earth.”
13. All leaders lead with hope, God most of all.
14. "Three things will remain. Faith, love, and hope." Faith because we’ll always need trust. Love because we’ll always need to be close. Hope because anticipation is part of enjoyment.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13
Pastor Scott Marshall, Wichita First Church of the Nazarene