Word: What Does God S Word the Bible Say?

The “Most Important Things” Study

Week Three: HOPE

Word: What does God’s Word the Bible say?

●The theme verse: 1 Corinthians 13:13 - “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.”(ESV)

●This week’s verse: Lamentations 3:24-25 - “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will HOPE in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” (ESV)

Whisperings: What truth are we learning from God’s Word?

●True HOPE is being confident in God’s character and anticipating (looking forward to!) the fulfillment of His promises!

●HOPE is focusing on God and believing that He will fulfill His promises no matter what.

Welcomings: What can we learn about this truth?

What are you kids hoping for right now? A super fun birthday party?A certain Christmas present?A new pet?Your driver’s license? These are all wonderful things to wish for, and we have so much fun thinking about things like that. However, the Bible teaches us that true HOPE focuses on one very important person. Can you think of who that is?

This week, we are going to talk about the second character trait mentioned by our verse in 1 Corinthians 13:13 – “And now these three remain: faith, HOPE…”

The whole Bible tells a story of sadness and HOPE. Sadness comes because of sin and suffering; HOPE comes because of God’s solution for sin and suffering: salvation.

In the Old Testament (the part of the Bible that is to your left as you hold it), sin caused lots and lots of sadness. The people of God (known in the Old Testament as “Israel”) would go through times where they would not put their faith in God, like we talked about doing last week. When they chose not to have faith in God, they would begin to sin against Him, and that sin always, always led to suffering.

In one Old Testament book called Lamentations (which is just about right in the middle of the Bible), a prophet named Jeremiah “lamented” or, was really really sad, over the consequences of his people’s sin and suffering. In fact, he was so sad that he wrote a bunch of sad poems using all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There are lots of ways that sin and sadness are in our lives.

Right smack in the middle of his poems about sin and suffering, Jeremiah wrote these great words of HOPE:

Lamentations 3:24-25 - “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him” (Lamentations 3:24-25). (be sure to repeat the “address” of the verse)

Based on this passage, do you know what true HOPE is? True HOPE is confident anticipation in God’s character and His promises. HOPE is focusing on God and believing that He will fulfill His Word no matter what. HOPE is enduring through hard times by believing that God will always, always, always make a way.

How is HOPE in God one of the Most Important Things? Well, you can lose your stuff, your place in line, your health or your spot on the (name the sport) tea. You can lose your looks, your friends, your perfect attendance or your straight-A record. You can lose just about everything in life; we don’t get to control everything that happens to us. However, there is one thing that you can hold on to no matter what: your HOPE. And not just HOPE as in, I “hope” tomorrow is a better day or I “hope” I get this for Christmas. I’m talking about HOPE, as in, God has made promises and He is going to keep those! HOPE as in, I can put my confident trust and FAITH and HOPE in Him because I know He is going to be true in my life!

So, there are lots of things in life we may wish for, like Christmas presents, birthday parties and new puppies. However, the Most Important Thing to HOPE for is God and His promises. No matter how hard or great life is, we can always place our HOPE in Him, knowing that He will take care of us when we seek Him.

Wonderings: What questions do we have about this truth?

➢What is the difference between wishing for something and having true HOPE? (In the most basic, biblical sense, the difference is the object of the wish or HOPE. True HOPE focuses on God.) What are some things we wish for? Is it okay to wish for those things?

➢Our memory verse says, “’The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul.” What is your soul? (your innermost being, the core of who you are) When your soul “says” something, then that is what is most true of you. When your soul says that God is your “portion,” you are saying that He matters most to you. Is this true of us as a family? How is this true of you?

➢The context of our memory verse starts this way: “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope” (3:21). When life is hard, we must “call to mind” – or, remember – who God is so that we can have HOPE. What do you already know about God that leads you to be able to HOPE in Him?

➢HOPE always requires us to wait, and, sometimes, that means waiting through hard times. Is there an area of your life that feels hard right now? Tell me about it. During your time of waiting on God during this difficult situation, what does Lamentations 3:25 say you should do? (wait on Him, seek Him).

Walkings: How can we live out this truth?

●Old Testament Example of HOPE: The prophet Jeremiah was really sad because of what had happened to the people of Israel. They had continually sinned against God, even though time and time again, Jeremiah begged them to repent of their sin and follow God. Eventually, the punishment for their sin came; God allowed the people of Israel to be taken hundreds of miles away from their homeland into captivity in Babylon. However, even there, they could still have HOPE, because God still had a good plan for them if they would just stop wishing for lesser things and start putting their HOPE in Him. God told Jeremiah to write a letter to the captives, encouraging them with these words, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future’” (29:11 NIV). Can you imagine getting a letter from God like that during the hardest time of your life? The prophet Jeremiah is an example to us of somebody who allowed God to speak HOPE through him into other hurting people’s lives.

●New Testament Example of HOPE: When the Apostle Paul gave his life to Jesus, everything about him changed – including the fact that, now, his life was in danger because of the gospel. However, the more difficult life became, the more Paul chose to HOPE in God. In Philippians 1:20, the Apostle Paul wrote: “It is my eager expectation and HOPE that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” What he was communicating was that his HOPE in God was so strong that he was going to live unashamed and completely courageous, no matter what. The Apostle Paul’s example reminds us that, though no matter what we face in life today, we can choose to have courageous HOPE in God, too.

●Mommy Disciple Me (What Does this Mean to Me?) We as a family are going to HOPE in God. This is not always easy, but it is an attitude and character trait that we are going to seek to live out. We are going to HOPE in Him when our lives are hard. We are also going to give HOPE to others to whom God has called us to deliver HOPE. Who do you kids think God would have us bring HOPE to this week? How can we bring God’s HOPE to those people? (get ideas from your kids.) Those are great ideas kids! Why don’t we do that (name the time when your family might be able to invest in giving people HOPE that way).

Worshipping: How shall we respond to the Lord for this truth?

●Worship through Praise: “This I call to mind, and therefore I have HOPE. The steadfast LOVE of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:21-22). Thank You God for being the Giver of true HOPE!!!

●Worship through Prayer: “For you, O Lord, are my HOPE, my trust, O Lord, from my youth” (Psalm 71:5). God, help me to HOPE in You no matter what hard things come my way, beginning now, in the days of my youth. Amen!!!

Daddy Disciple Me: (Talk to your kids like this…) The author of Lamentations was so sad about the sin and suffering of his people that he wrote acrostic poems about it. Acrostic poems are a type of poetry where the first letter of each line begins a new word or message. Jeremiah wrote his acrostic poem in Hebrew, a language that we do not speak, so it is hard for us to see this special poetry in the book of Lamentations. However, we can do the same thing Jeremiah did, except our poem can be in English. Why don’t we try to write a sad acrostic poem, using letters of our alphabet to stand for things that make us sad: “A” is for ___ (ex.: anger); “B” is for _____ (ex.: bullying); “C” is for ______(ex.: crying); “D” stands for _____ (ex: death); etc. (Make up words to go with the sad acrostic poem all the way up to letter “G” then say…) All these words we have written down are definitely sad things that happen in this world. I have experienced them, and you have and will, too. However, when we experience these things, God wants us to wait on Him and – look at the next letter in our alphabet! – put our “H”- HOPE in Him. It is a choice we make in a world that’s full of a lot of sadness sometimes. Because we are a family of FAITH, we are also going to be a family of HOPE. Let’s pray!