Read Phil. 3:13-14

We have all done things for which we are ashamed, and we live in the tension of what we have been and what we want to be.  Because our hope is in Christ, however, we can let go of past quilt and look forward to what God will help us become.  Look forward to a fuller and more meaningful life because of your hope in Christ.

Hope-Full Training

Goals:

Participants may:

1. Gain understanding of Christian hope.
2. Experience the blessings of Christian hope.
3. See how God uses the hope residing in a Christian hope with the class.
4. Grasp the many practical implications of the "Now/not yet" hope of Christians.
5. Empathize with other class members' disappointments and despair.
6. Experience Christian community with the class.

Opening Prayer

Lord Jesus, by rising from the dead, you became the wellspring of our hope.  Help us to grow beyond mere optimism to the hope that is rooted and grounded in you.  Teach us to live as a people of hope, shining as lights in a despairing world, as we wait for your glorious second coming.  Amen.

Lead-In

Hope is God's gift to us.  It is also a distinctively Christian resource for you to use in your training and relating.  Hope is one of the many qualities of a relationship put right with God through Christ Jesus.  It is, therefore, the birthright of every Christian.

Hope can be a powerful force in people's lives.  Especially in this age, an age characterized as "Hopeless" and "full of despair," the hope you have to share with the world is a tragically neglected aspect of Christianity.

Let's use this time to remind ourselves of our distinctive hope, and seek ways we can effectively engender hope in the lives of those we train and touch.

Hope-Full Training

One of the most important Christian resources yet to be covered in more detail is hope.  Part of the unique nature of Christian hope lies in its origin.  The responsibility for Christian hope is not yours, but God's.  Paul speaks of unbelievers as "having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12).  Our hope is intimately bound up with God.  To have hope solely in human capacities is to despair.  Neither you nor I can fix the mess we're in as imperfect human beings in an imperfect world.  So, one distinctive aspect of Christian hope is that it comes from and rests securely in God.

Another feature of Christian hope is that it defies the natural.  Christian hope is both now and in the future.  It is both of these at once, and so one reasoning breaks down when we consider it.

This has dynamic implications for you in your Christian training.  You will bring to your training the conviction that there is One greater than either you or the problem.  This greater one is working through you to produce the same convictions and hope in the trainee.  The Lord of the universe is active through your training.  The trainee is also assured of the now and yet of his or her hope.  Failures will come.  Setbacks and disappointments will be present.  But in the "nowness" of the hope God works, you and the trainee will be able to look at these an proclaim, "Not Yet!" You will grow accustomed to seeing things through the hope-inspired glasses of the end of all things as they converge and consummate in Jesus Christ.

As a Christian trainer, you can become a facilitator of God's hope.  Here are nine practical ways you can become an instrument through which Christian hope can flow into others.

Sticking with Them

A potent way in which hope manifests itself is when you as a trainer let people know by your words and actions that you are willing to help them struggle through their problems.  Your consistent, training presence with them through thick and thin instills hope.  The knowledge and expectation that another person will be with them during difficult times provides people with a feeling of security.

Being Available

Hope is fostered by letting people know they can get in touch with you any time they need you, especially in an emergency.  It is reassuring to another to know that there is someone available around the clock.  You might run into situations when people abuse this privilege, but rather than try to circumscribe your training relationship with qualifiers in advance, it would be better to deal with problems gently and firmly when and if they do arise.

Reducing Anxiety

Often those for whom you train will have a great deal of anxiety.  The very act of meeting with you a time or two can serve to reduce the anxiety of the trainee.  A problem shared is a problem halved.  Anxiety reduction can be very hope-producing itself.

Sharing the Stories of Others

Sometimes hopelessness comes about because people believe their problems are totally unique.  They think their problems are insurmountable because only they have experienced them.  Sometimes it can be a potent force for hope to share instances you know about in which others have met these same kinds of crises.  For example, you might say:

"You don't see how you're going to be able to go on by yourself since your wife died.  i've known other husbands whose wives have died, and they too said how difficult it was at first to be alone."

Or, you might wish to tell them about similar struggles that you yourself have had.  For example:

"You said you were experiencing some doubts about your faith in Good recently.  Although right now I feel confident about my relationship with God, a few years ago I too experienced a period of doubt.  I would be very happy to listen to your concerns about your faith and maybe later on tell you a few things about how I dealt with my concerns."

If you choose to share what you or others have experienced, be very careful how you say it.  Don't minimize or dismiss the uniqueness of the other's problem.  The one you are training might interpret what you say as "My friend doesn't understand my problem" or "My trainer just doesn't know how I feel" or "I'm not everybody else - I'm me!" Avoid, for example, saying things like:

"I know just how you're feeling.  I lost my job once too.  Don't worry.  Just keep looking  and something will turn up.  It always does. It did for me."

Or:

"Don't you worry about having a baby.  Women have been delivering children since the beginning of time.  Once you get that baby in your arms, everything will be just fine."

When sharing examples of your own life's struggles, be cautiously selective.  There is a difference between being open and being unzipped!  For example, suppose you are talking to a teenager who has just been caught vandalizing a local school.  If you happen to have been guilty of the same offense when you were much younger, it probably would not be a good idea to share this information with the young person.  This might serve only to confuse him or her, and create doubts about the wrongness of the behavior.

Areas of similarity that you may appropriately share might include your own feelings of sadness and despondency when someone close to you died; that you too, as a new parent, where extremely frustrated and depressed: that you too felt sad, lonely, and "used up" when your last child went off to college and so on.  There is no ironclad rule about sharing aspects of your personal life with another, as a trainer.  Being vulnerable can be helpful, but don't share information that could confuse the other or reduce your credibility.  Some things are better left unsaid.

You can encourage considerable hope by sharing that others with similar life situations have successfully worked them through.  here too you need to be careful in what you say:

Don't say:

"Others have done it this way and you can too."

Do say:

"I have known others who had similar difficulties.  Although it was not easy for them as they struggled through their problems, in doing so they were able to resolve them.  I hope that as you deal with these difficulties of yours, the same will be true for you."

Without minimizing the uniqueness of their problems, tactfully impress on those you train that there is good potential for them to work through their difficulties (if this is indeed the case).  Avoid telling success stories about heroic Christians who soared through severe storms of life with flying colors.  The person might not feel very heroic and become depressed by making the unfavorable comparison in his or her mind with someone who exhibited tremendous personal resources when dealing with a problem.

Accepting the Other

By communicating through words and actions your acceptance of people despite their problems and faults, you can also instill hope.  Unconditional acceptance leads to trust, and trust is closely followed by hope.  If a person says, "I hate my mother.  I wish she were dead."  there are non-accepting and accepting ways to respond.

Don't say (gasping with shock): "That's terrible!  You should not say that." Do say: "It sounds like you are angry at your mother.  (Pause) I'm willing to listen."

By communicating acceptance to others despite their problems and their sins - just as Jesus does with you - you can produce great hope in others.

Emphasizing the Positive

Sometimes individuals feel so broken that they can no longer discover any good in themselves.  natural talents and skills are all but obscured by an exaggerated sense of their problems and negative feelings about themselves.  You can instill hope in the person for whom you are training by emphasizing those positive characteristics.  This is precisely what Jesus did when Nathaniel was brought to him.  He said, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" (John 1:47).  Jesus could have said, "Behold a sinner who needs repentance!"  Rather, in this instance he chose to accentuate the positive.

Realizing Failures and Limitations

Discovering the positive includes, by implication, the realization that no one is all positive, that everyone has failures and limitations.  Jesus often praised Peter, but did not hesitate to rebuke him publicly when necessary.  Knowing who Peter was to become, Jesus spoke the truth in love to him about his forthcoming denial on the eve of the crucifixion.  Like bad-tasting medicine, confronting in love the faults and limitations of another can engender hope.  The faults and limitations of a trainee are actually promises that Jesus still has healing to perform.  You can take heart that your own weaknesses and failures are opportunities for God's strength to show itself, and you can lovingly communicate the same vision to another.

God is with You

What a comfort that God is not only in you, but with you - with both the trainer and the trainee.  The Christian condition is not just Jesus inside you, wonderful as that news is.  It is the joy of realizing that God is an objective, supportive presence on the outside as well.  he is before you to lead you.  He is behind you too guard you.  He is beside you that he may support and comfort you.  He is above you to bless you.  In short, he is with and for you!

Being Christian

Finally, you can instill hope by simply being Christian.  By speaking in Christian terms and relating to others in a Christian manner, you convey your competence as a Christian trainer, thereby instilling hope.  The language of hope is one aspect of Christian training.  The fact of hope is what Christian training aims for.

These practical ways to bring hope to a person in need have a common tread: they ask you to imitate Christ.  You stay with the person as Christ stays with you.  You are available to the other as Christ is available to you.  You reduce the other's anxiety as your union with Christ reduces yours.  You lead others back into human community, ending their isolation as Christ accepts you, freeing you from judgment.  You accentuate the positive as Christ does for you.  You strengthen the other to confront failure and limitation as Christ strengthens you.  You are Christ to the trainee by your Christian training.

All this hope-producing power is yours because God is in you, with you, above you, beside you, behind you, and for you.

Homework

1.  Can you think of a time when you were hopeless or almost hopeless?  Describe the feeling?

2.  The course lists nine ways we can bee instruments of hope:

What are some situations where Jesus acted as an instrument of hope in any of these nine ways?

3.  What does it mean that Christian hope is both now and not yet?

4.  How can you continue to hope when that for which you hope seems never to come or seems to be far away?

5.  In what types of situations would it be appropriate to share spoken words of hope?  Inappropriate?

6.  How does your ultimate hope in Jesus Christ help you in your training relationships?

7.  A hopeful Search-15-20 minutes 

We are going to find and share some parts of the Bible that deal with the distinctively Christian concept of hope.  I'll give you one aspect of hope to consider, then I want you to find one or more passages that illustrate the point assigned to them.  You have five minutes for each concept.  Quality is more important than quantity, but if you've found a passage that you like, try to find some more.

All right, the point of your passages should be assurance that God will stick with us no matter what.  Go ahead, take five minutes, and come up with as much scriptural assurance as possible.

Find passages that assure us that God is always available to us any time we call on him.

Find passages showing men or women of God working their way through troubles far greater than those we are likely to face.

Find passages that convince us that God accepts us, just as we are."

Find passages in which Jesus emphasized the positive aspects of people.

Find passages showing us that human failures, weaknesses, and frailties are important to God and are used by him for his own purpose.

Find one or more passage's assuring us of Jesus' presence with us.

Please find passages speaking directly of Christian hope.

8.  Personal Experience of Hope-10-15 minutes

I'd like you to share an experience you had in which hope played an important part.  For instance, was there a time in your life in which distinctively C Christian hope made it possible to continue despite difficult circumstances?  Think about this for a few moments, then share.

9.  Disappointed Hope

a.  What effect did this have on your faith?
b.  How does this affect your ability to hope now?
c.  What lessons about hope did you learn as a result of this incident of disappointed hope?

In this exercise please share a time when you have very strongly hoped for something and ended up not receiving it.  Include your answers to these three questions.  You have 10 minutes or so for this.

10.  Sharing Hope

In the next 15 minutes think of a situation that you or someone else was in that appeared quite hopeless.  Discuss the ways hope might be shared with you or the other person in that circumstance.

Closing

May the hope that flows from Jesus life, death, and resurrection fill you fully, giving you faith for your despair, joy for your sorrow, peace during your times of stress, love for all, and compassion and good news for all those you encounter.