Session 5: Courageous Hope

By Andy Bond

Aims

By the end of this session you should be able to:

outline a biblical understanding of hope
convey what a Christian understanding of hope is to a person who isn’t a follower
of Jesus
reflect in your own life where you have suffered and whether or how you had hope in
that season.

Prayer

Father God we thank you so much for the hope we have in you. We ask that as we reflect on this value of ‘courageous hope’ that you send your Spirit to help us recognise again that hope has a name and His name is Jesus.Amen.

You might also want to spend some time worshipping God using the song in the video which focuses on Jesus Christ our Living Hope.

Introduction

This session is made up of four parts, part 1 begins to explore the theme of hope, part 2 uses a video to look at the distinctly biblical basis for hope, part 3 seeks to enable a discussion about the relationship between suffering and hope and part 4 is a reflection on Psalm 62.

Part One - Our Hopes

Professor and writer Karen Swallow Prior writes “ "The four conditions of hope are that it regards something good in the future that is difficult but possible to obtain.” (Swallow Prior K (2018) On Reading Well)

Pastor and writer Timothy Keller says “"what we believe about our future completely controls how
we are experiencing our present. We are irreducibly hope-based creatures." (Keller T (2016) Making Sense of God)

What are your hopes for the next 12 months?

What are your life hopes?

Think about your friends, family, neighbours or colleagues who are not followers in the way of Jesus; what do some of them believe about the future? How does this affect how they live?

In the West (as a whole) in many many ways we have the highest standards of living and healthcare ever and globally things continue to get better - literacy rates, access to clean water etc. However“70% of young Americans between 13 and 17, say that anxiety and depression are serious issues among their peers” (Sacks J, Morality, o27, ebook) and many seem hopeless.

Questions for Reflection

Why do you think so many suffer from a loss of hope?

1 Peter 3 v 15 speaks of us always needing to be ready to give a reason for our hope. Would you be able to do this in 2 minutes without using overly Christian language and ensuring that you mention Jesus and his death and resurrection ?

Part Two - Biblical Hope

Please watch the short video opposite from The Bible Project exploring a Christian understanding of hope. then think about the following questions:

How did the video say that Christian hope different from optimism or positive thinking? Do
you agree?
The video spoke of a bold hope, our Diocesan value speaks of a courageous hope. What do
you think that might look like for us individuals, as a church and as a Diocese?
The video refers to God’s actions in the past revealing his faithfulness and character and
therefore these are the basis that we can trust Him for His future promises.

As individuals or communities how can we continually focus on God’s past faithfulness?

Part Three - Hope & Suffering

Howard Thurman, an African American scholar at Boston University in the midtwentieth century,gave a famous lecture at Harvard in 1947 on the meaning of “Negro spirituals.”

He engaged the criticism that the African American spirituals were too otherworldly, too filled with references to heaven, to crowns and thrones and the robes the singers would wear when Jesus returned. The argument was that such beliefs made people docile and submissive. On the contrary, Thurman argued, this sung faith served to deepen the slaves’ capacity for endurance. The spirituals encompassed the Christian belief in a final judgment, a day on which all wrongs would be made right. It also included a belief in personal immortality and the reunion with loved ones forever. Out of these doctrines “the conviction grew that this is the kind of universe that cannot deny ultimately the demands of love and longing. … Uniting with loved ones turned finally on the hope of immortality and the issue of immortality turned on God. Therefore God would make it right.”

Thurman denied that this Christian hope weakened the slaves’ self-respect or ability to face their captors. Rather, “it taught a people how to ride high in life, to look squarely in the face those facts that argue most dramatically against all hope, and to use those facts as a raw material out of which they fashioned a hope that their environment, with all its cruelty, could not crush. … This … enabled them to reject annihilation and to affirm a terrible right to live.” Why could nothing destroy their hope? It was because it was otherworldly, it was not based on any circumstance within the walls of this world. It lay in the future of God. This hope enabled them to “affirm a terrible right to live.” (Keller, 2016).

Exercise

Read Romans 5 v 1 - 5. The conclusions from the above research and the bible passage speak a link between suffering and hope. We follow a suffering saviour who rose from the dead. Right at the heart of our faith is arelationship between suffering and hope.

Discuss or reflect on how you might have seen this link between suffering and hope work out in your own life or where you have really struggled with it.

Part Four - Psalm 62

Read Pslam 62.

In Psalm 62, David is surrounded by murderous enemies. Though he had little reason to cling to hope, David still was able to say, “My hope comes from God.” David, like many other people in the Bible, faced difficult times with no evidence that things would get better, but they chose hope anyway.

Questions for Reflection/Discussion

What problem was David up against, and how did he respond? What problemsare you facing today? How will you respond?

Notice how David repeated the word “only.” What do you think the significance of that is? What other things do people tend to put their hope in besides God (see 62:9-10)?

Review verse 11-12. What do you think would change in your life if you believed this without any doubts? How do the truths in verses 11-12 help you put your hope in God
Review verse 8. Take some time now to pour out your heart before God. Tell him everything that’s weighing you down and trust him with every detail. He hears you.

*Adapted from The Bible Project (https://bibleproject.com/church-at-home/hope/)

Reflect

How might you use what you have learnt in your journey of faith. Make some notes in your journal.

Pray the Diocesan Vision Prayer
Gracious God,

in your mercy, and for your glory,

renew us, reshape us, revive us

with generous faith, courageous hope,

and life-giving love

that, in transformed lives,

through growing church and building community,

we may see your Kingdom come

and be good news for all.

Amen.

Something Practical to Do this Week

Be praying for specific opportunities to verbally share the hope that we have with someone in the next week who isn’t a follower of Jesus. (And then when it comes - to go for it).