What does First B Jackson teach about hope?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on hope starts with a firm distinction that runs through nearly every message on the subject: hope in Scripture is not a wish or a maybe. It is an absolute certainty that has not yet arrived. Faith, as Hebrews 11:1 puts it, is the assurance of things hoped for, and the posture of someone who is fully persuaded that what God has promised will come. Pastor Ray made this plain when he worked through the hall of faith, and Pastor Kenny returned to the same point in 1 Peter: in the Bible, hope is not wishful thinking but a settled confidence in what God has already established.
The teaching at First B holds three distinct dimensions of hope together, drawn from Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1. Pastor Mark traced how Paul prays for the church to know the hope of God's calling, which is past and already certain, secured before the foundation of the world. The riches of His inheritance in the saints point forward to what is still being built toward. And the power available to the church right now is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. That framework keeps hope from being merely future-minded. It anchors present-day life in something already accomplished and still unfolding.
When suffering presses in and hope feels thin, the messages here have been consistent. Pastor Chris, in Romans 8, sat honestly with the full weight of real grief before letting Paul's comparison do its work. The point was not that suffering is small, but that what it is being weighed against is immeasurably larger. Pastor Kenny, preaching from 1 Peter, put it this way: fixing hope completely on the grace to come at Christ's revelation is what makes it possible to stop conforming to old patterns. Hope, in this church's teaching, is not an escape from hard realities. It is the ground you stand on while you walk through them.
Taught from Hebrews 11:1 · Romans 8:18-25 · Ephesians 1:18 · 1 Peter 1:3-5 · Romans 15:13
The passage taught · Ephesians 1:1-2
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- March 15, 2026 Be the Church God Wants to See in the World Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1 covers past, present, and future: God's calling, our inheritance, and the power he gives his church to carry his mission forward.
- January 7, 2024 If You Are Saved, Act Like It Peter calls scattered, persecuted believers to hope fully, live holy, fear God, love deeply, and crave God's word, all grounded in the mercy of Christ.
- November 20, 2016 Towards Unity and Diversity - Contemporary (3) A Romans 14-15 sermon on Christian unity, disputable matters, and the self-denying example of Christ, closing with a benediction on hope, belief, and the Holy Spirit.
- July 10, 2016 Not Worthy to Be Compared Romans 8 sermon on the sufferings of this present life and why Paul says they are not worthy to be compared with the eternal glory yet to be revealed.
- August 2, 2015 The God of All Comfort The pastor opens 2 Corinthians by asking why we suffer, and finds in Paul's words a God who comforts us so we can comfort others with real, hard-won power.
Mentioned along the way
- August 4, 2024 Normal But Not Natural Brad Yates of First Baptist Jackson explores why Christians suffer, what Scripture says about it, and why God's presence makes suffering bearable.
- August 4, 2024 Normal, But Not Natural Brad explores why Christians suffer, what Scripture says about evil, and why God's presence in our pain is the only answer that holds up when life falls apart.
- June 9, 2024 Sunday, June 9th, 2024 - 11am Service - Comfort in Christ: Sharing His Peace Through Suffering A pastor walks through 2 Corinthians 1 to show how God's comfort in our deepest suffering equips us to carry that same comfort to others.
- December 1, 2019 Faith Is the Assurance of Things Hoped for Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. A sermon through Hebrews 11 on what it means to live by faith, drawing from the lives of the faithful who came before us.
- July 10, 2016 The Sufferings of This Present Time Romans 8 holds hope, but Pastor Ray lingers on the suffering first, naming real losses and asking what it means to wait on God's glory while still feeling the weight.
- September 16, 2015 WWW Be Right (18) Romans 5 shows that faith brings peace with God, access to Him, standing in grace, and confident hope, even through suffering that refines and strengthens us.