Listen to this message on hope here, or via the trotters41 podcast. (21 minutes)

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Some excerpts and quotes:

“The prophetic poet asserts hope precisely in exile.” — Walter Brueggemann

If you’re not really feeling it. If you’re not feeling happy-clappy-Jesus-is-alive-and-all-my-problems-are-fixed, then take heart, because that’s precisely where hope lives.

“Hope expressed without knowledge of and participation in grief is likely to be false hope that does not reach despair. Thus…it is precisely those who know death most painfully who can speak hope most vigorously.” — Brueggemann

We need this reminder.

We need to remember that true hope is not just optimism. True hope is not a flimsy, fluffy thing. No, true hope, Biblical hope, sees it all. It sees the bad, the hard, the pain. It sees the depths and the darkness. It sees the world’s sin and my own sin.

And it keeps on seeing… all the way to Christ. In the end, deep hope must be securely grounded in the character and love of God.

“Speech about hope cannot be explanatory and scientifically argumentative; rather, it must be lyrical in the sense that it touches the hopeless person at many different points. More than that, however, speech about hope must be primarily theological.” — Brueggemann

“Hoping is not dreaming.” “[Hope is] a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith.” – Eugene Peterson

“Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair.” –Thornton Wilder

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Psalm 130 A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

1From the depths of despair, O LORD,

I call for your help.

2Hear my cry, O Lord.

Pay attention to my prayer.

3LORD, if you kept a record of our sins,

who, O Lord, could ever survive?

4But you offer forgiveness,

that we might learn to fear you.

5I am counting on the LORD;

yes, I am counting on him.

I have put my hope in his word.

6I long for the Lord

more than sentries long for the dawn,

yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

7O Israel, hope in the LORD;

for with the LORD there is unfailing love.

His redemption overflows.

8He himself will redeem Israel

from every kind of sin.