Sermon Tone Analysis

Faith brings you to God

Hope sustains you while you wait to be in His presence,

Love is the actual experience that one will have eternally with God in heaven

Hope – Webster’s Dictionary

“A confident expectation that a desire will be fulfilled.”

When the Bible uses the word hope it uses it in this sense.

•A cord

•Attached in safety

•Longing and expectation

•Security, desire, waiting

In the earliest times the Hebrew word for hope in the Old Testament was a word that meant a cord or an attachment, signifying that a person was attached in safety.

By the time the book of Job was written this word included the sense of longing and expectation.

When David and Solomon expressed this idea in their writings they included all three concepts of security, desire and waiting.

Earthly Hope vs. Heavenly Hope

Earthly Hope

– Relative, not 100% sure

Heavenly Hope

– 100% sure

There is one important difference with the meaning of the word hope that is in Webster's Dictionary and the meaning of the word hope contained in the Bible.

The hope in Webster's is based on the idea that one is relatively sure that things are going to work out.

For example, final exam.

Based on what you know, your hope to pass the exam is well founded.

BUT ARE YOU 100%?

Stuff can happen

In other words, the hope referred to in Webster's is relative, that is why they call it hope, you are pretty sure but not one hundred percent sure.

When the Bible mentions hope, however, it is talking about something that is one hundred percent sure!

The Bible uses the term hope when it refers to something that is not yet present or visible but is certain to take place.

WHY - it does not depend on me.

Pretty sure vs. one hundred percent sure!

Explain “assurance”

Hope in this world is for things we do not have now but expect to have in the future... maybe (i.e.

good health, prosperity, etc.).

Biblical hope, on the other hand, is certain because God not only guarantees it but has already given to us the things we hope for, we simply do not see all of them yet.

Planning + Hard Work = Earthly Hope

Faith in Christ = Biblical Hope

We have hope because through Jesus Christ we possess all the heavenly blessings.

We may not see all of them yet, but our names are on every one of them and God is saving them for us until the appropriate time (when He comes and we are resurrected like children awakened to finally open the gifts awaiting us).

Do you have

100% Hope of Heaven?

HOW DO I GET THIS HOPE?