Hope - Romans 4:17-25; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Lewis Smedes says:

A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving away from the Los Angeles airport, a huge, brilliantly illuminated billboard arrested my attention. It carried one simple message in three simple words: "Keep Hope Alive." I must tell you it was the most compelling billboard I've ever seen, because keeping hope alive is the number-one priority of the city of Los Angeles today. We're in trouble. We're broken. We're hurting. If hope dies, the city will die with it.

But we all need to keep hope alive. Hope is to our spirits what oxygen is to our lungs. Your spirit dies when hope dies. They may not bury you for a while, but without hope you're dead.

Discussion: What does it mean for hope to believe in hope?

Our scripture says that Abraham, even though he was almost a hundred years old, did not consider his body to be dead. Neither did he consider Sarah's womb to be dead.

Discussion: Does this really make any sense? If you knew a couple today who were a hundred years old and yet were expecting to someday give birth to a child, would you consider them crazy?

Think about the many different beliefs of Christians. We believe that Jesus died, bearing the sins of the whole world upon Himself. We believe that Jesus conquered sin and death by rising from the dead.

Discussion: Does it really make sense for Christians to have such hopes?

Discussion: Why do Christians believe things that the world probably considers crazy?

Discussion: Why did Abraham believe such "crazy" things?

The comments on verse twenty-one say, "Abraham was entirely convinced that the one who had given His word was entirely capable of carrying it out. When God goes ‘out on a limb' we rest assured that the ‘limb' will hold Him."

Discussion: Often we may feel like trusting God is "going out on a limb". If God is "out on the limb", is it really "going out on a limb" to trust Him?

Discussion: How is hope different than faith?

(Possibly - faith believes in something unseen while hope is the expectation/attitude that faith creates in us.)

Discussion: What does it mean for hope to be an identifying characteristic of the Christian?

Discussion: How or why is the Christian's hope different from "positive" thinking?

Discussion: If the Christian is to be characterized by hope, is a long-term discouragement and/or negative attitude a denial of one's faith? Why or why not?

(If one's answer to the first question is "yes", it probably needs some qualification. I don't think God expects the Christian never to be discouraged or disheartened. Yet at the same time, what about those Christians whose attitude seems to be almost completely negative? Can you really say such a person is spiritually healthy?)

Discussion: What then does a Christian life characterized by hope look like?