BibleProject | What Gives You Hope?

Scripture: Psalms 39

Hope Versus Optimism

Imagine the feeling of waiting for a job offer when you really need a job. Then imagine the feelings you might have when losing a loved one. Those experiences are very different, yet they share the desire for a better life, a better situation than the present one. This is where many people turn to optimism.

But what if optimism distorts the way we hope for a new future? 

Optimism is often impersonal and a stranger to our emotions, so it relies on circumstances as a compass. Biblical hope is different because it is a choice to rely on a person (Jesus), not our circumstances. The biblical authors talk a lot about hope, and while they hope for the same things we all hope for—peace, safety, healing, love—to them, “hope” is not focused on the things or the stuff. Instead it’s focused on the promise and power of God. So they write things like, “My hope is in you, God!” (Ps. 39:7). 

Unlike optimism, which only measures the surface, biblical hope goes deep to ask that Jesus would meet us in our sadness or anticipation. Jesus often reminds his friends that they cannot understand how everything works—why people harm one another, why sickness continues, or when evil will finally end. But he does promise to set the world right, and he invites us to join him in repairing the world. 

So we find hope in every Jesus-like act of love, forgiveness, and generosity. His life, death, and resurrection are the anchor for our highest hopes that one day Jesus will come again to make all wrong things right.

Scripture: Matthew 6:9-13

Hope in Renewal Versus Escape

On a scorching hot day, we instinctively hope for shade. And when violence breaks out, we automatically hope for safety. Similarly, when we experience suffering and ongoing corruption in our world, we often hope for an escape to Heaven where we can rest in peace after we die. But what if such hope is misplaced? 

What if Jesus teaches us to rest in peace right now, while we’re alive, and to hope for God’s promised reality of a renewed Earth more than for a divine escape plan?

The New Testament does offer a few ambiguous ideas about people joining God in heavenly paradise after death, but those are not the Bible’s focus. From start (Genesis) to finish (Revelation), Scripture tells a story about God uniting Heaven and Earth together into one beautiful world, where all the goodness of his Kingdom is the same on Earth as it is in the skies. Ours is an escape from death and corruption in our world, not from our world itself. 

Like God’s heavenly realm, his renewed creation will be free from death and decay, filled with endless provision and love between all living creatures. Jesus prays to the Father: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). He is not generally teaching people to hope for an escape to somewhere better; he’s specifically teaching us to hope for God’s promised renewal of all things. 

By hoping this way, we learn to love and bless people more than avoiding or judging them. We learn to care for God’s world rather than to abandon it. Our desire for God’s promised renewal becomes real living hope, and that moves us toward resting in peace right now, here in our world that God is renewing. 

Scripture: Matthew 4:23-25

Hope in the Good King

Gospel means “good news,” and in the ancient world it’s always connected to the announcement of a new king. The Gospel of God’s Kingdom, then, is the good news that God’s promised king is here; his Kingdom is arriving. Why does this matter, though? Isn’t the Gospel about Jesus dying for sins and then resurrecting?

In the New Testament, notice how Jesus is preaching his Gospel long before his crucifixion or resurrection. He’s not focusing on that in his early ministry. Instead, he’s saying that God’s ancient promise to send a good king and set up his own kingdom on Earth is happening. It’s becoming real! The King (Jesus himself) has arrived—good news! 

Notice how this Kingdom of God begins with acts of healing and generous provision. He’s founding an amazing new world on the basis of loving care for humanity, not on the basis of military power. Our world’s normal kingdoms usually find strength in victorious violence, but God’s divine-human Kingdom begins and expands only with the infinite power of love. 

That’s especially good news today if you’re a human being experiencing the pain caused by average rulers and so-called authorities. Those listening to Jesus’ Gospel announcement soon learn that he himself is now the true ruler over all creation, the only real authority over any of us. We have hope in God himself as King Jesus, the incorruptible one who rules with love and uses his power not to coerce or destroy people but to heal each of us and set us free.

Scripture: Acts 2:16-21

Hope for Rescue and the End of Evil

To imagine a world without violent conflict or death is borderline impossible, yet we all long for it. How can we hope for something we can barely imagine? The answer might have something to do with the Day of the Lord.

In the Bible, the Day of the Lord refers not to one day but to many different events, happy or sad, with one common characteristic—God rescuing people and eradicating evil from the world. If you enjoy doing evil and benefit from it, then the Day of the Lord is sad for you. But if you hate evil and long for goodness, then the Day of the Lord is awesome. 

Jesus shows up, and this represents a big Day of the Lord. He starts destroying evil, but not with violence against human beings. He destroys evil by generously healing and forgiving people. His power is through love, not coercion or force. 

After his crucifixion and resurrection, possibly the most important Day of the Lord so far, he speaks of yet another Day of the Lord event on the way—when he returns, when the world we’ve imagined and hoped for becomes real. May that good day arrive soon!

Scripture: John 14:25-31

Hoping for Guidance and Renewal

Many of us hope to become better people as we journey through life, but we often get stuck and wonder if we’re getting anywhere. We might want to be better at showing patience to others, but we also get exhausted from day-to-day work, and then irritable, and then impatient. We forget Jesus’ ways and often feel like we’re caught in a trap. And yet, the Holy Spirit is actively inviting us to be more like Jesus every moment. Our hope is to learn how to hear the Spirit’s voice.

When a friend vulnerably cries in front of us and we feel deep compassion, that’s the Holy Spirit reminding us to have compassion like Jesus. We can embrace that compassion or ignore it. 

When we sense a desire to offer kindness to someone we disagree with, the Holy Spirit is reminding us to love our neighbor, just like Jesus does. When we open our homes to help someone get back on their feet, the Holy Spirit is cultivating a posture of generosity in us, like Jesus. All of the Spirit’s work points us toward Jesus-like ways of living. 

When we forget or fail to love others well, the Holy Spirit sparks new interest in Jesus, reminding us to return to his way of life. In this way, we’re never alone—the Spirit is always speaking, always drawing us toward Jesus’ own life. Knowing this, we can experience deep hope. Through his Spirit, Jesus is always with us, always guiding, always molding us into people who live like he does.

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-9

Hope for Resurrection 

When people harm Jesus, he does not retaliate or try to get even. Instead, he loves and forgives. Even when soldiers are humiliating and killing him, Jesus is compassionate toward them: “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they do” (Luke 23:34). Can you imagine loving and praying for your opposers even as they hurt and kill you? 

How can Jesus be so weak when he’s supposed to be powerful? Even more, how can he ask us to be vulnerable like him? Wouldn’t we be humiliated or even put to death, like him? 

Jesus believes that death is part of his human story—not the end of his human life. He trusts God to preserve his life and restore it, even through suffering and death. Three days after his burial, Jesus is restored to new life. Resurrection!

Jesus promises that, as his brothers and sisters, we will eventually experience his same resurrection. Brutal and dark as it is, death does not defeat the goodness and light of life that God creates. 

So we stop fearing death. We stop hoarding resources and start sharing generously. We care for and pray for our opposers rather than trying to get even. We trust the power of God’s patient love and learn to live peacefully with one another. 

Our hope is not focused on ways we can prevent death. Instead, we embrace the death that all of us, including Jesus, have to experience. And we do so with living hope in the resurrected, living Christ Jesus—our friend. 

Scripture: Hebrews 3:1-6

Hope in God’s Faithfulness

Dependable friends are priceless. When they promise to help and then show up to truly help us, we call them reliable, trustworthy—faithful. 

Throughout the biblical story, God is described as faithful because he truly does what he says he will do. At various moments in the story, God makes promises to Abraham and his descendants. They trust what God says, placing their hope in his promises while believing God would be faithful. God rarely makes good on his promises in the ways that people expect, but he is still faithful to do everything he says he will. 

When God takes on human flesh through Jesus, he remains just as faithful and true as he always has been. We hope in Jesus because Jesus is God—constantly trustworthy, always faithful. He promises to renew humanity and all creation, and because he is faithful, we can trust him and embrace deep hope. 

When we become weary and heavily burdened from our jobs, relationships, and circumstances, Jesus is faithful to give us rest. When we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful to forgive us. When we live generously with our resources towards others, Jesus is faithful to care for our needs.

We have hope in Jesus’ ability to renew everything and to reunite Heaven and Earth, as he promised. We can trust him because he is dependable, trustworthy—faithful.