LESSON 2J

PURCHASE PURSUING THE CHRIST

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Lesson: Hope

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Lesson Overview

Biblical Passage

1 John 4:9-10 Read the passage in a different translation and watch for new thoughts or insights.

Supporting Passage Romans 2:5-8

Biblical Truth

Because God is faithful and true to His Word, we are never without hope in the world. The Incarnation demonstrated in 3-D Technicolor surround sound that God is never outmaneuvered and is always fully in control.

Context

Every detail of the Incarnation was timed and executed precisely as had been planned and promised from the days of creation. When things seem hopeless and dark, we can know that God is carrying out His strategy and bringing events to His intended outcome.

Learning Goals • Students will examine hope and its revelation in the Incarnation. • Students will identify how hope impacts their present situations.

Lesson: Hope

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Biblical Commentary and Insights

Introduction

Take note of the setting of Christ’s Incarnation—His coming to earth. It was in the midst of our hopeless situation, our no-way-out circumstances, our all-is-lost setting. When we were so mired in sin that our situation was hopeless, hope in human form entered our world and demonstrated the love of God toward us. “But here is how God has shown his love for us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

1 John 4:9

Love is far more than a feeling. When God calls us to love as He loves, He is not calling us to an emotion but to a decision. He is calling us to an action or a response that demonstrates God’s kind of love.

God Himself will supply His own love so we can pour out that love in ways reminiscent of His eternal love. “God has poured his love into our hearts. He did it through the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us” (Romans 5:5). He pours His own love into us so He can pour it out through us. He doesn’t pour love into our hearts so we can hoard it, but so that we can let it slosh over into the lives of those around us.

1 John 4:10

What is love? John asks his readers. In answer, he describes a love that has its genesis in God. The love to which we are called is not a love conceived by humans but a love foreign to us except that God supplies it to us. Its full expression—when He showed us in real time what His love looked like—came in the form of giving all He had to rescue us from the darkness and death of sin. When we were hopeless, love turned everything around.

Romans 5:2

Hope is expectation of good. Paul says what fills him with joy no matter the circumstances is the expectation he will share in God’s glory or he will be a vessel through which God’s glory shines. He will be part of the great plan for filling the earth with the glory of God. No matter what is going on, God is working in and through it.

Lesson: Hope

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Romans 5:3-5

He finds hope (expectation of good) in suffering because he has learned that difficulties in life instill perseverance, and perseverance develops character. The word translated “character” means something that is tested and proven genuine. (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 2) Once character is produced, then hope is in place. The person who has been tested and proven in the middle of life’s messiness has learned by experience that we always have hope. Hope will not let you down.

When the Messiah came, He came into a world void of hope. The Israelites had longed for His appearing for generations and been disappointed time and again. But when it looked as though God was nowhere to be seen, the truth is He had been laying the groundwork since the beginning of time.

Zechariah and Elizabeth

As I think this evening on Your unspeakable Gift, I let my mind wander, considering the careful, detailed preparation You made. I contemplate the patient advance work You did. I remember how You miraculously put each piece in place in its perfect time, all leading up to the moment when You would wrap Your Gift in flesh and lay Him in a manger. (Pursuing the Christ, December 8)

Let’s examine a piece of the nativity story for glimpses of hope in action.

Zechariah and Elizabeth

Zechariah was a priest whose division was on duty at a particular time—a time appointed and arranged by God, though it appeared to be the luck of the draw. It was simply his division’s turn. The priest chosen to enter the Holy of Holies was chosen by lot. "Chance." Zechariah was chosen by the casting of a lot. This might fall to a priest once in his lifetime. So, it just happened Zechariah’s division was on duty, and it just happened Zechariah was chosen by lot to enter before the Lord, and it just happened to be exactly the time in history when God was putting the finishing touches on the events that would culminate in the birth of Jesus.

Timing is everything. You arranged the Incarnation so precisely that each piece of the puzzle had to fall into place exactly at the appointed time. You do not depend on chance or fortunes. You are never hoping for the best. You are arranging the best. (Pursuing the Christ, December 9)

God had Elizabeth and Zechariah in mind from the beginning. He had been preparing them all their lives for this—to bear the forerunner of the Messiah. John the Baptist had to be born only months before the Messiah. The timing was intricate and detailed. John had to be born with a certain personality and drive. It’s all in the details.

But the stage was set in the midst of hopelessness and disappointment. Zechariah and Elizabeth were past childbearing years and had never had a child. Don’t you think they had put that dream to rest? Come to terms with their situation?

When by "chance" Zechariah was exactly where God wanted him exactly when God wanted him there, the angel of the Lord appeared to awaken an expectation that had died a difficult death. It took some coaxing back to life because what had seemed a reasonable expectation in time past, now seemed an impossible hope. But the Lord

Lesson: Hope

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knows how to breathe life into dead hope.

God staged the opening act of the Incarnation in such a way that nothing could explain it but God. When all seemed lost, hope made an appearance. When it seemed God was distant and unengaged, the reality was something different. God was managing events and circumstances and timetables to bring about His well- planned, love-filled, beneficial outcome.

Lesson: Hope

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Teaching Plan

Lesson Materials and Discussion

Teacher Tips

Have someone read the focal passage aloud, then take it verse by verse. Use discussion questions and activities to explore the major concepts in each verse.

Discussion Starter

Have you ever been in a situation in which you lost hope? How did that feel? Have you ever seen hope rekindled out of loss or disappointment?

1 John 4:9

What was the situation of humanity when God sent His Son? Why do you think that was the perfect setting for God’s love to show up? After discussion, feel free to share more information from the Biblical Commentary and Insights section with your group.

1 John 4:10

If God wants us to love as He loves, what does this show us about how to love? God wants to demonstrate His love to others through us. Are there settings and situations where love requires a decision on your part rather than an emotion? After discussion, feel free to share more information from the Biblical Commentary and Insights section with your group.

Comparing 1 John 4:9-10 with John 3:16 Point out that most readers of 1 John 4:9-10 are reminded of the words in John 3:16. Read John 3:16 and share that scholars note major differences between the two passages. Instruct learners to review John 3:16 and call out the verbs used in the verse (i.e., loved, gave, believes, not perish). Write these on one side of the board and note that the first two are God’s actions and the second two are about us.

Then, lead learners to review 1 John 4:9-10 and call out the verbs used in the passage (i.e., revealed, sent, live, loved, loved, sent). Add these to the other side of the board. Point out the verbs used more

Lesson: Hope

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than once in these verses, and suggest they indicate how these passages are different. Then lead learners to find the differences between the two verses. Explain the differences are found in the outcomes of God’s love in each passage. The statements below can help you guide the discussion.

1. John 3:16 focuses on God’s saving love that draws people to Him and assures them of eternal life with Him.

2. 1 John 4:9-10 includes God’s sacrifice for our sin (“propitiation”) and includes the idea that God’s love is revealed in the way believers live for Him.

After responses, emphasize that God’s love is revealed to us through Jesus and is meant to be shared with others.

Romans 5:2

How does hope (expectation of good) change the way you go through life with all its challenges? After discussion, feel free to share more information from the Biblical Commentary and Insights section with your group.

Romans 5:3-5

How does the reality of Jesus give you hope in life’s challenges? What do you think it would be like to face life without Jesus as your hope?

When you face heartache? When you experience disappointment? When you face the reality of death?

After discussion, feel free to share more information from the Biblical Commentary and Insights section with your group.

Embracing Hope Explain that the word hope in this passage goes far beyond hoping or wishing something will happen. Write these words across the board, inserting an arrow aimed to the right between each one: AFFLICTIONS → ENDURANCE → CHARACTER → HOPE. Lead learners to determine how each word can lead to the next (such as: dealing with afflictions can teach us how to endure difficult times, build up the character of our faith by learning to lean on God, and ultimately help us embrace our hope in Him). Ask: Based on this progression, what does the word hope mean in this passage? (Our dependence on God during tough times; our understanding of how great God’s love is for each of us; our knowledge that God’s love is so deep that it cannot disappoint us, but can carry us through anything we encounter.) Say: Our ultimate hope is found in God’s promise that He is with us in this life and will be with us in the next. Nothing we encounter is too big for our God.

Zechariah and Elizabeth We are going to consider the familiar story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist, who had lost hope of conceiving a child.

Lesson: Hope

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Can you put yourselves in their shoes and share how you imagine their struggle impacted them? Watching others have and raise children? Thinking about the expectation they had as a young couple? Grief as month by month no pregnancy occurred? Feeling embarrassed and left out? Wondering where God was in their pain?

In the realm beyond their sight, what are the evidences of God’s activity?

How can you draw hope from knowing God is always acting on your behalf and working in the details of your life?

After discussion, feel free to share more information from the Biblical Commentary and Insights section with your group.

Conclusion Disappointment can breed hopelessness. When our focus is on our circumstances as they appear from earth, hopelessness is the logical conclusion. But God is always working out His eternal plan, and at the point when hopelessness looms large, God breathes hope into our hearts. The enormity of His love in sending His Son to set us free from sin awakens hope and expectation. A love so enormous and so active will not leave us abandoned.

By expressing God’s love to others through our actions, we can be the instruments through whom God brings hope into the lives of those who are drowning in hopelessness.

Closing Prayer Let’s ask the Lord to pour His love into our hearts for those we will encounter this week. Ask Him for opportunities to be living hope in your world.