Topic

Sermons on Hope

64 sermons in the archive.

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Mercy You Didn't Earn

Hans-Erik Nelson · Ezekiel 36:22–36 · May 10, 2026

You'll hear why God brought his people home from exile not because they deserved it but because he still had a plan for them, and what that pattern means for how you live in a world that isn't quite your true home.

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The King We Asked For vs. the King We Need

Hans-Erik Nelson · Isaiah 42:1–4 · May 3, 2026

You'll see how the long, messy history of failed human kings in the Old Testament wasn't a detour in God's plan but the very thing that makes the promise of a different kind of king, one who won't crush the weakest reed, so striking and so specific.

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When God Went Looking

Hans-Erik Nelson · Genesis 2:25–3:13 · April 19, 2026

You'll hear why the most overlooked detail in the Fall story is God calling out 'Where are you?' and what that search reveals about the kind of relationship God wanted then and still wants now.

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Created on Purpose, by Choice

Hans-Erik Nelson · Genesis 1:1-5 · April 12, 2026

You'll come away understanding why the Bible's first five verses are not just background to the real story but are the foundation for why God bothers to rescue humanity at all. If you've ever wondered whether your existence has any weight behind it, this sermon traces that question back to its source.

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Victory Through Humiliation

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 24:13–49 · April 5, 2026

You'll hear why the disciples on the Emmaus road missed the resurrection even though Jesus had predicted it three times, and what it looks like to stop seeking a Messiah who trades in worldly power.

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Dead Things Come to Life

Hans-Erik Nelson · Ezekiel 37:1–14 · March 22, 2026

You'll hear why the ancient vision of bones rattling back together is not a historical curiosity but a direct word about the deadness we carry and the one thing that can actually change it.

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Recognizing the Right Messiah

Hans-Erik Nelson · Matthew 11:2–11 · December 14, 2025

You'll hear why John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, still sent disciples to ask 'are you really the one?' and what his doubt reveals about the gap between the Messiah we want and the one Scripture actually describes.

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Ready Without Obsessing

Hans-Erik Nelson · Matthew 24:36–44 · November 30, 2025

You'll hear why Jesus insisted his followers stay alert for his return without letting that alertness consume their lives, and what that balance actually looks like day to day.

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The Shepherd Who Gets It Right

Hans-Erik Nelson · Jeremiah 23:1–6 · November 23, 2025

You'll hear why Israel's kings kept failing their people, and how that long history of bad leadership points to a promise that still holds: you are safe under a king who actually does the job.

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The World Turned Upside Down

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 16:19–31 · September 28, 2025

You'll hear why Jesus names the poor man in this parable and leaves the rich man nameless, and what that reversal asks of you before it's too late.

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He Wouldn't Wait a Day

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 13:10–17 · August 31, 2025

You'll hear why Jesus healed a woman who had been bent double for 18 years on the one day he wasn't supposed to, and what his refusal to wait says about how urgently God wants to free you from whatever is weighing you down.

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Discipline That Aims at Rescue

Hans-Erik Nelson · 1 Corinthians 5:1–8 · July 20, 2025

You'll hear why Paul's harshest command in 1 Corinthians 5 is actually an act of care, and what it means for how the church handles sin that damages both people and its witness to the world.

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Wisdom That Actually Delivers

Hans-Erik Nelson · 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 · July 6, 2025

You'll see why the most persuasive voices in history sometimes caused the most damage, and what that means for how you trust what you think you know.

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Death Is Not the Last Stop

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 24:1–12 · April 20, 2025

You'll hear why the resurrection isn't just a past event to celebrate once a year, but the opening move in the ongoing defeat of death, and what that means for the grief, fear, and unanswered questions you're carrying right now.

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A King Who Doesn't Force Your Hand

Victoria Gilmore · Isaiah 6 · April 6, 2025

You'll see how Isaiah's vision of a sovereign, unshakeable God speaks directly to the moments when human leadership fails you, and what it means to respond to a king who cleanses rather than condemns.

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Power That Loses by Winning

Hans-Erik Nelson · Matthew 11:2–15 · March 30, 2025

You'll hear why the church's attempts to advance God's kingdom through force and political power are a sign of losing, not winning, and what the actual growth of the kingdom has always looked like.

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Humble Enough to Be Used

Victoria Gilmore · Luke 1:39–55 · December 22, 2024

You'll hear how Mary's willingness to accept an honor that came wrapped in social shame points to something God offers anyone: the chance to matter not because of status, but because of surrender.

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Change Your Mind, Not Just Your Behavior

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 3:1-6 · December 8, 2024

You'll learn the difference between feeling sorry and actually repenting, and walk away with four concrete questions to ask yourself about whether your mind is being shaped toward the kind of life you want to live.

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Waiting With Open Eyes

Victoria Gilmore · Luke 21:25-36 · December 1, 2024

You'll hear why Advent begins not with a manger scene but with cosmic upheaval, and what it looks like to wait for Christ's return with active, eyes-open hope rather than anxious dread or comfortable distraction.

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Words Without Weight

Hans-Erik Nelson · Jeremiah 7:1–11 · November 10, 2024

You'll hear why saying the right religious words while living a contradictory life doesn't fool anyone, least of all God, and how Jesus changes the stakes of that ancient warning.

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Fed Beyond the Moment

Victoria Gilmore · John 6:51-58 · August 18, 2024

You'll hear why Jesus refused to be only a problem-solver for immediate needs, and what it means that the same God who fed thousands in a field also came to satisfy the hunger that no meal, achievement, or relief can touch.

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Asking the Right Question

Hans-Erik Nelson · Job 38:1–21 · June 23, 2024

You'll hear why God answers Job's cry of 'why am I suffering?' with a set of questions instead of an explanation, and how reframing that question from accusation to dependence is the beginning of an honest answer.

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Sing Something New

Victoria Gilmore · Psalm 98 · May 5, 2024

You'll hear why genuine worship isn't repetition but response, and how paying attention to what God is doing right now in your life can become the raw material for a song only you can sing.

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Blessing Beyond Borders

Hans-Erik Nelson · Psalm 22:25–31 · April 28, 2024

You'll hear how a psalm that begins with the cry of abandonment ends with a vision of every nation on earth finding their way back to God, and what that arc means for how you live and who you consider worth caring about.

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Let Go and Sleep

Hans-Erik Nelson · Psalm 4 · April 14, 2024

You'll hear how an ancient psalm about enemies and sleeplessness points toward the same move Jesus and Peter both made: offering blessing instead of judgment, and how that practice might actually give you rest tonight.

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Sought Before You Searched

Victoria Gilmore · Luke 24:13-35 · April 7, 2024

You'll hear how two grieving followers failed to recognize the person walking right beside them, and what their blindness reveals about the ways Jesus quietly seeks people out before they think to look for him.

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Too Small a Thing?

Hans-Erik Nelson · Acts 10:34–43 · March 31, 2024

You'll hear a direct case for why the physical resurrection of Jesus is the load-bearing wall of Christian faith, and what it means that the same power behind that event is available for the dead places in your own life right now.

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Talking Back to God

Victoria Gilmore · Lamentations 5:1-9; 19-22 · March 10, 2024

You'll hear how the final chapter of Lamentations transforms one-way grief into a genuine two-way conversation with God, and why being allowed to push back, argue, and even accuse God is a feature of faith rather than a failure of it.

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When Exceptionalism Meets Judgment

Hans-Erik Nelson · Lamentations 2:6-9 · February 18, 2024

You'll hear why the stories we tell ourselves about being special, chosen, or above average can actually prevent us from telling the truth about our condition, and why that truth-telling is the only honest starting point for faith.

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Learning to Grieve Together

Hans-Erik Nelson · Lamentations 1 · February 11, 2024

You'll hear why the impulse to fix, celebrate, and move on may actually be cutting you off from something real, and what it looks like to bring honest grief before God without expecting a tidy resolution.

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Faithful When the Church Fails

Hans-Erik Nelson · 1 Samuel 3:1–20 · January 14, 2024

You'll hear how God has repeatedly replaced unfaithful leaders with unexpected ones, from Samuel to David to Jesus's parable of the vineyard, and what that pattern means for ordinary Christians trying to stay faithful while the broader church loses its way.

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Start With Yourself

Hans-Erik Nelson · Mark 1:1–8 · December 10, 2023

You'll hear why John the Baptist's unpopular call to repentance drew enormous crowds, and what that says about what people actually hunger for when the world feels broken and dishonest.

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Ready Without Knowing When

Victoria Gilmore · Mark 13:24-37 · December 3, 2023

You'll hear why not knowing when Jesus will return is actually the point, and what it looks like to live with urgency and hope when you can't calculate a deadline.

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Preparation You Cannot Borrow

Hans-Erik Nelson · Matthew 25:1–13 · November 12, 2023

You'll think through why a life of faith is something that can't be handed off to someone else at the last moment, and what that means for how urgently you live right now.

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Nothing Can Separate You

Hans-Erik Nelson · Romans 8:31–39 · July 23, 2023

You'll hear why Paul's famous list of things that cannot separate us from God's love isn't just triumphant poetry, but a direct answer to real accusation, real suffering, and real lament, and what that means for the hardest weeks of your life.

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Death Sets You Free

Hans-Erik Nelson · Romans 6:1–14 · June 25, 2023

You'll hear why the Christian life begins with a kind of dying, and how that changes the way you face both sin and physical death.

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Trading Kings

Hans-Erik Nelson · Romans 5:12-21 · June 18, 2023

You'll hear how Paul's repeated use of one word, 'dominion,' reframes what salvation actually means: not just a debt erased, but a transfer of power from death's reign to grace's reign, with you restored to a role you were always meant to have.

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Spirit Spills Beyond Boundaries

Hans-Erik Nelson · Numbers 11:24–30 · May 28, 2023

You'll see how a forgotten pair of men who missed the official gathering still received the Spirit anyway, and what that ancient moment says about whether you have to be in the right place or the right group for God to reach you.

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When the Vineyard Goes Bad

Hans-Erik Nelson · Isaiah 5:1-7 · October 30, 2022

You'll hear why Isaiah frames God's disappointment with Israel as both a love song and a courtroom case, and what it means that God's response to covenant-breaking is grief before it is judgment.

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Held While You Suffer

Victoria Gilmore · Philippians 1:12-30 · September 18, 2022

You'll hear how Paul, facing likely execution, could write with genuine calm and even joy, and what his example offers for the moments when your own life feels like it's coming apart.

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Second Acts Are Real

Hans-Erik Nelson · Genesis 18:1–10a · July 17, 2022

You'll hear how Abraham's long story of false starts, detours, and deferred promises finally turns a corner, and what that pattern means when you (or your community) feel stuck waiting for what God said would come.

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Why Jesus Raises the Dead

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 7:11–17 · May 22, 2022

You'll see why Jesus raised people from the dead not as a demonstration of raw power, but out of gut-level compassion and a concern for justice, and how those smaller resurrections point toward the one that actually defeats death for good.

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Power Over the Darkness

Victoria Gilmore · Mark 5:1–20 · May 15, 2022

You'll hear how one man's liberation from a legion of demons is a picture of what Christ does for every person trapped in brokenness, and Victoria Gilmore makes that concrete by describing her own years of being overwhelmed by bipolar disorder until scripture became the only thing that brought silence to the chaos.

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Remember What You Forgot

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 8:1-3, Luke 24:1-5 · April 17, 2022

You'll hear why the women at the tomb came expecting a corpse, and what it means for you when darkness makes it hard to remember the promises you've already been given.

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Eager to Give Himself

Hans-Erik Nelson · Luke 23:24-56 · April 10, 2022

You'll hear why Jesus described his final meal before the cross as something he 'eagerly desired,' and what it means to actually receive what he was offering, not just admire it from a distance.

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Born for the Least Expected

Victoria Gilmore · Luke 2:1-20 · December 24, 2021

You'll discover why the shepherds were the first to hear the Christmas announcement, and what it means that the newborn Jesus was wrapped and laid exactly like the lambs those shepherds raised for sacrifice.

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When God Interrupts

Victoria Gilmore · Zephaniah 3:14–20 · December 12, 2021

You'll hear how the God of Zephaniah is not a distant observer but one who breaks into ordinary life with judgment that aims at healing, and what it means that this same God sings over you with the kind of joy that cannot be contained.

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Purified Before You're Vindicated

Hans-Erik Nelson · Malachi 2:17–3:5 · December 5, 2021

You'll hear why asking God to judge the world's injustice is dangerous, because Scripture suggests he starts the refining process with you, not your enemies.

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Ready Before He Arrives

Hans-Erik Nelson · 1 Thessalonians 3:9–13 · November 28, 2021

You'll hear what the Greek word 'parousia' meant to ancient towns preparing for a royal visit, and how that picture reshapes what it means to spend Advent getting yourself ready rather than just getting ready for Christmas.

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Light Over Darkness, Now

Hans-Erik Nelson · Daniel 7:9–10, 13–14 · November 21, 2021

You'll hear what a mysterious figure from an ancient vision has to do with Jesus as king, and why that promise is meant to push you into action today, not just comfort you about the future.

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Don't Panic, But Be Ready

Victoria Gilmore · Mark 13:1-8 · November 14, 2021

You'll hear why Jesus refused to give a date for the end of the world, and what that refusal actually asks of you in the meantime: not fear, not indifference, but a specific kind of faithful, peaceful readiness.

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Angry at Death

Hans-Erik Nelson · John 11:32-34 · November 7, 2021

You'll hear a close reading of John 11 that argues Jesus wasn't just grieving at Lazarus's tomb but was angry, and what that fury aimed at death itself means for how you understand the resurrection.

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Bloom Where God Plants You

Victoria Gilmore · Jeremiah 29:1-14 · July 18, 2021

You'll hear why Jeremiah 29:11 means something harder and richer than it's usually made to mean, and what it looks like to trust God's goodness when he has led you into the very situation you'd most want to escape.

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Grace Stronger Than Memory

Hans-Erik Nelson · Jeremiah 31:31-34 · July 11, 2021

You'll hear how God's promise of a new covenant shifts the burden of faithfulness from your shoulders to his, and what it means that God chooses not to hold your past against you.

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Slogans Won't Save You

Hans-Erik Nelson · Jeremiah 7:1-20 · June 6, 2021

You'll hear why repeating the right religious words while ignoring injustice outside the church is a form of self-deception, and what Jeremiah's temple sermon reveals about the gap between what we say and how we actually live.

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Death Does Not Win

Hans-Erik Nelson · John 20:1-18 · April 4, 2021

You'll hear why the resurrection is more than a historical claim, and how the reality of it can hold you steady when a diagnosis, a loss, or your own mortality makes the future feel terrifying.

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God Who Enters the Mess

Victoria Gilmore · John 1:1-18 · December 27, 2020

You'll hear why the opening verses of John's Gospel are not just a poetic prologue but a claim that God has always chosen to move toward chaos rather than away from it, and what that means for the darkest places in your own life and in the lives of people you love.

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Clear the Road Inside

Hans-Erik Nelson · John 1:6–8, 19–28 · December 6, 2020

You'll hear why John the Baptist matters beyond being a footnote to Christmas, and walk away with a concrete question: what's cluttering the road through your own heart that makes it hard to receive what Advent is actually about?

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Faithful When You Don't Know

Hans-Erik Nelson · Mark 13:24–37 · November 29, 2020

You'll hear a honest look at why Jesus said his return was 'near' 2,000 years ago and still hasn't happened, and what it means to live faithfully today when you can't control what comes next.

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God's Word Always Finds Its Way

Hans-Erik Nelson · Jonah 3:1-10 · September 27, 2020

You'll hear how God's word moves through broken, reluctant people to reach the people they least want to help, and what that means for the moments you feel unqualified or unwilling to speak up.

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Die to Rise Now

Hans-Erik Nelson · 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 · September 13, 2020

You'll hear why the resurrection isn't only a future promise but a present challenge, and what it might look like to let go of your own carefully built self so something new can take its place.

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God Repays Lost Years

Hans-Erik Nelson · Acts 2:1-13 · May 31, 2020

You'll hear how the first Pentecost was a precisely timed act of global reach, and what Joel's promise that God 'repays the years the locusts have eaten' might mean for time you feel you've wasted or lost.

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You Will Wake Up Home

Hans-Erik Nelson · John 14:1-14 · May 10, 2020

You'll hear why Jesus told his closest friends not to be afraid on the worst night of their lives, and how that same promise speaks directly to whatever is keeping you anxious or grieving right now.

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He Knows Your Name

Hans-Erik Nelson · John 20:1-18 · April 12, 2020

You'll hear how a single word cut through Mary Magdalene's grief and confusion on the first Easter morning, and what it means that Jesus calls each person by name rather than through argument or explanation.