Enduring Hope: Trusting God When the Future Is UncertainSample

His Love Never Fails

Read: 1 Corinthians 13; 1 John 4:9–11

SOAP: 1 John 4:9–11

By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.

Into the Text

Love is the foundation of our hope. Hope doesn’t disappoint us because it is rooted in God’s love. Without love, we have no hope. If God did not love us, He would not have sent Jesus to die for us and give us complete redemption through His sacrifice. Without love, God would not have gone to great lengths to restore us to Himself and give us eternal life. Without love, there is nothing to hope for.

The hope we have will never disappoint us because it is rooted in God’s love: our hope never fails because God’s love never fails. We can have hope because of the extravagant way that God loves us, the way He sent His only Son to die for us. Our hope is based on His unchanging, unwavering, unfaltering, love.

We can’t fully understand the gift of hope without understanding God’s love. We can have hope—not only in eternal life but in all our present circumstances—because of God’s love. Jesus loves us so much that He died for us, and He loves us so much that He gives us the joyful and confident expectation of good. He allows us to see that He is working, that He is faithful, and that He is with us, even as we live in a broken world.

We can love those around us because God loves us. We can have hope in our relationships and expect good for others because of God’s love. We will not be utterly devastated when people disappoint us. Our hope is not ultimately rooted in them and their goodness but in Christ and His love. Because of this greater hope, we will be able to love those who hurt us.

As we continue in our study we will see how faith and hope are connected and how love is the foundation of both. Love is the reason we have faith and hope. And what a gift this is! No matter what, our hope is secure because God’s love for us never changes.