Hope Has

1
Hope Has Its Reasons
Stuart McAllister Vice President, Training
Special Projects Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries
2
Romans 818-25
For I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory that is to be revealed to us.
3
Romans 818-25
For the anxious longing of the creation waits
eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not
willingly, but because
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Romans 818-25
of Him who subjected it, in hope that the
creation itself also will be set free from its
slavery to corruption into the freedom of the
glory of the children of God.
5
Romans 818-25
For we know that the whole creation groans and
suffers the pains of childbirth together until
now. And not only this, but also we ourselves,
having the first
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Romans 818-25
fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
For in hope we have been
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Romans 818-25
fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
For in hope we have been
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Romans 818-25
saved, but hope that is seen is not hope for who
hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope
for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait
eagerly for it.
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1 Peter 13-9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to His great mercy has
caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the
10
1 Peter 13-9
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to
obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and
undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in
heaven for you, who
11
1 Peter 13-9
are protected by the power of God through faith
for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though
now for a little while, if
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1 Peter 13-9
necessary, you have been distressed by various
trials, so that the proof of your faith, being
more precious than gold which is perishable, even
though tested by
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1 Peter 13-9
fire, may be found to result in praise and glory
and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ and
though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and
though you do
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1 Peter 13-9
not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly
rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
obtaining as the outcome of your faith the
salvation of your souls.
15
Hope is bred in the bone. Our spirits were
made for hope the way our hearts were made
to love and our brains were made to...
Lewis Smedes, Standing On The Promises Keeping
Hope Alive For A Tomorrow We Cannot Control
(Nashville, Tennessee Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
1998), p. 7
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think and our hands were made to make
things. Our hearts are drawn to hope as an
eagle is drawn to the sky.
Lewis Smedes, Standing On The Promises Keeping
Hope Alive For A Tomorrow We Cannot Control
(Nashville, Tennessee Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
1998), p. 7
17
A life instinct is what Karl Menninger
called hope. Keep hoping, you keep living.
Stop hoping, you die. Inside.
Lewis Smedes, Standing On The Promises Keeping
Hope Alive For A Tomorrow We Cannot Control
(Nashville, Tennessee Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
1998), p. 7
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Hope has 3 ingredients
Wishing
Imagining
Believing
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We CANNOT be content with the way things are as
long as things are not the way we wish them to
be. Or the way they ought to be. But we CAN be
Lewis Smedes, p. 13
20
content to live with our discontent until they
get to be the way we hope they will be.
Contented discontent is hopes patient
impatience.
Lewis Smedes, p. 13
21
We must learn to live after truth..We tell a
tale of nihilism in two stages relativism and
reflexivity. When we consider the status of our
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
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theories and our truth, we are led to
relativism. Relativism, in turn, turns back on
itself and disappears into the vicious spiral of
reflexivity.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
23
Nothing is certain, not even this.This is no
ordinary time. The modern age opened with the
destruction of God and religion.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
24
It is ending with the threatened destruction of
all coherent thought. The age was held on
course by stories of progress and
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
25
emancipation.But these stories are now
exhausted. There are no new stores to replace
them.The paradigm for constructing
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
26
paradigms is collapsing .The only political
ideas left are those of the cynical and the
paranoid. Such disillusion has lurked in
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
27
the wings of European culture for two centuries.
Now it can command center stage. We are
paralyzed by the performance and we cannot leave
the theatre. All the exits are blocked.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against
Hope Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the
Millennium, (Grand Rapids, Michigan Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 30
28
Definition of hope
1 to cherish a desire with anticipation ( s for
a promotion) 2 archaic Trust vt 1 to desire
with expectation of obtainment 2 to expect with
confidence.
Merion Websters Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth
Edition (Springfield, Massachusetts
Merion-Webster, Inc., 1997), p. 558
29

• It is rooted in a reliable
• source.
• It has a basis in a proven
• track record.
• Its expectation is aroused by
• the possibility of a good
• ending.

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• The God of Hope

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Romans 1513
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and
peace in believing, so that you will abound in
hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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• The God of Hope

• God is the creator

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Genesis 11
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.
John 11
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God.
34
(No Transcript)
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Our times are in His hands.
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• The God of Hope

• God is the Creator

• God is the Savior

37
Titus 211-14
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing
salvation to all men, instructing us to deny
ungodliness and worldly desires and to live
sensibly, righteously
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Titus 211-14
and godly in the present age, looking for the
blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of
our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave
Himself for us to
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Titus 211-14
redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify
for Himself a people for His own possession,
zealous for good deeds.
40

• The God of Hope

• God is the Creator

• God is the Savior

• God has the final word

41
John 141-3
"Do not let your heart be troubled believe in
God, believe also in Me.  "In My Father's house
are many dwelling places if it were not so, I
would have told
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John 141-3
you for I go to prepare a place for you. "If I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there
you may be also.
43
The Christian hope is finally invested not
in an extension of or development from the
conditions, actualities and
Richard Bauckham and Trevor, p. 77
44
potentialities of the present order of
things, but in a decisive activity of God who
in the beginning called this same order into
being
Richard Bauckham and Trevor, p. 77
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out of nothing, and who promises us a
transformation of our situation so radical
as to be pictured under the figure of a wholly
new creative act on Gods part.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor, p. 77
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In Romans 823, the Apostle Paul uses two
pictures

• The adoptions of sons.
• The redemption of our body.

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• The Struggle for Hope

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Dream other dreams, and better. Strange,
indeed, that you should not have suspected that
your universe and
Wilber W. Caldwell, Cynicism and the Evolution of
the American Dream (Washington D.C. Potomac
Books, Inc., 2006), intro, p. ix
49
its contents were only dreams, visions,
fiction! Strange because they are so frankly
and inherently insane..
Wilber W. Caldwell, Cynicism and the Evolution of
the American Dream (Washington D.C. Potomac
Books, Inc., 2006), intro, p. ix
50
Idealism is fostered by hope. Realism is
fostered by experience. Skepticism is fostered
by uncertainty. And cynicism is fostered by.
Wilbur W. Caldwell, intro, p.x.
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disappointment. And so it comes full circle,
for at the root of all disappointments lie the
trampled remains of hope.
Wilbur W. Caldwell, intro, p.x.
52
We snipe at ourselves from behind
impregnable barricades of cynicism, mocking
efforts to move ahead, scoffing at once cherished
Wilbur W. Caldwell, intro, p. xii
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rational ideals. Diverse and resourceful
warriors, we wield our cynicism as both sword
and shield. We are resolute in our cause, for
Wilbur W. Caldwell, intro, p. xii
54
after a hopeful beginning, we have
experienced a lifetime of disillusion and
disappointment. We have met the enemy, and
they are us.
Wilbur W. Caldwell, intro, p. xii
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• The Struggle for Hope

• Hope depends on where
• you fix your gaze Romans 818-21

56
I should say first that the kind of hope I
often think about (especially in situations
that are particularly hopeless, such as prison),
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
57
I understand above all as a state of mind,
not a state of the world. Either we have
hope within us or we dont it is a dimension of
the soul and its
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
58
not essentially dependent on some
particular observation of the world or
estimate of the situation. Hope is not
prognostication. It is an
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
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orientation of the heart it transcends the
world that is immediately experienced, and
is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I
dont think you can...
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
60
explain it as a mere derivative of something
here, or some movement, or of some
favorable signs in the world. I feel that
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
61
its deepest roots are in the transcendental,
just as the roots of human responsibility
are..
Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (New York,
New York Vintage Books, 1991), p. 181
62

• The Struggle for Hope

• Hope involves perseverance and faith Romans
  822-25

63
Thus faith believes God to be true, hope awaits
the time when this truth shall be manifested
faith believes that he is our Father, hope
anticipates that he will ever show himself to be
a Father toward us
John Calvin, Quoted in David Aikman, Hope The
Hearts Greatest Quest (Ann Arbor, Michigan
Servant Publications, 1995), p. 141
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faith believes that eternal life has been given
to us, hope anticipates that it will some time be
revealed faith is the foundation upon which hope
rests, hope nourishes and sustains faith.
John Calvin, Quoted in David Aikman, Hope The
Hearts Greatest Quest (Ann Arbor, Michigan
Servant Publications, 1995), p. 141
65

• The Struggle for Hope

• Hope in Gods enablinggrace

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Romans 826-27
In the same way the Spirit also helps our
weakness for we do not know how to pray as we
should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us
with groanings
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Romans 826-27
too deep for words  and He who searches the
hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is,
because He intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God.
68
Discontent is the way of the traveling life, and
we are all born to travel we are discontent
until we get to where we hope to be, but as long
as we have hope of getting there, we can be
content with the discontent of not being there
yet.
Lewis Smedes, p. 41
69
The open future is an invitation both to
responsible action and to trust. The final
future is an invitation to hope for the
ultimately satisfying end that only God can give.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, p. 43
70

• It is anchored in the character
• and goodness of God.
• It endures the struggle with
• human weakness and frailty.

71

• It results in deep groanings
• and longings for release.
• It receives the promise of
• Gods help now and final
• fulfillment in His time.

72

• Maintaining Hope

73
The hope of salvation supports the believer in
the greatest afflictions. The Christians
patience is his back, where he carries his
burdens and some afflictions are so heavy that
he needs a broad one to carry them.
David Aikman, Hope The Hearts Great Quest (Ann
Arbor, Michigan Servant Publications, 1995), p.
155
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But if hope does not lay the pillow of the
promise between his back and his burden, the
least cross will prove too much. Therefore this
promise is called the patience of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 13).
David Aikman, Hope The Hearts Great Quest (Ann
Arbor, Michigan Servant Publications, 1995), p.
155
75

• Maintaining Hope

• Pay attention to the
• promises of God

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1 Peter 113
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep
sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the
grace to be brought to you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ.
77
Faith and hope are two graces which Christ uses
above all others to fill the soul with joy,
because these fetch the wine of joy out of doors.
Faith tells the soul what Christ has done and
hope revives the soul with news of what he will
do.
David Aikman, p. 160
78

• Study the word of God diligently.
• Keep a pure conscience.
• Ask God for stronger hope.
• Increase your love.
• Exercise your hope, and
• Recall past mercies.

David Aikman, p. 176
79

• Maintaining Hope

• Dont lose sight of
• the Power of God

80
Revelation 17-8
BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every
eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him and
all the tribes of the earth will
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Revelation 17-8
mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. "I am the
Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is
and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
82
Christian resurrection hope is radical
faith in the God who became incarnate in
material and mortal human nature, setting the
seal of his own presence on its eternal
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, p. 124
83
value for him. Christian resurrection
hope is radical faith in the God who raised
Jesus from death, thereby pledging himself to
raise also those who believe in Jesus.
Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, p. 124
84

• Maintaining Hope

• Seek rest in the
• protection of God

85
1 Peter 13-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to His great mercy has
caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the
86
1 Peter 13-5
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to
obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and
undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in
heaven for you, who
87
1 Peter 13-5
are protected by the power of God through faith
for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time.
88
Faith, whenever it develops into hope, causes
not rest but unrest, not patience but
impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart,
but is itself this
Jürgen Moltmann, The Theology of Hope (London,
UK SCM Press, 1967), p. 21
89
unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ
can no longer put up with reality as it is, but
begin to suffer under it, to contradict it.
Peace with God
Jürgen Moltmann, The Theology of Hope (London,
UK SCM Press, 1967), p. 21
90
means conflict with the world, for the good of
the promised future stabs inexorably into the
flesh of every unfulfilled present.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Theology of Hope (London,
UK SCM Press, 1967), p. 21
91
HOPE..has its reasons!
Stuart McAllister Vice President, Training
Special Projects Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries