to serve you well. We ask that
you would open our hearts and open our minds today to hear
the message that you have for us. Help us to give you honor
and glory and to serve you well and faithfully. We ask that you
would do this for the sake of Christ in whose name we pray.
Amen. Let's turn together to Peter
number one. 1, chapter 1. We're still in verse
3 and verse 4. Now when you think about hope, I
want you to unpack what that means for you. It's sort of like
in the era of, you know, public questioning, you
know, what's your biggest dream? You know, you hear a lot of times,
well, I just want to have world peace. What do you want more than anything?
Well, I want love. What do you long for? Well, I just wish everybody could
get along, or what have you. And no matter what your wish
is, no matter what your dream is, no matter what your desire
is, no matter what we think about that we'd really like to have,
there comes a current on top of it, beneath it, around it,
and that current is hope. The level of hope, the level of assurance, the level
of power that comes with what we think might or won't to happen. So when you get right down to
it, and I haven't unpacked this too much philosophically, but
I believe hope is attached to everything we do. So I think it's why, not just
because of the obvious, I think it's why the scriptures deal
with the idea of hope at every turn. Because if we don't have hope,
what do we have? The absence of hope is despair. The absence of hope is meaninglessness. The absence of hope is uncertainty. And so in the absence of hope,
where is our joy? It's gone. It's nonexistent. It cannot be there. When we don't
know about the certainty of today, much less tomorrow, how are we
ever going to find a resolve to joy? So then we have to ask the question,
what is it in this life that gives us hope? What is it in
this world, in our minds, in our affections, that would provide
for us that hope? And what is it that we're hoping
for? Because it's not always positive, is it? Sometimes we're
hoping for destruction. Sometimes we're hoping for X
or Y, and it may not even, it may be damaging to the world
around us, to ourselves, to those who are our friends and family
and loved one, neighbors or even enemies. It may be focused on the negative
rather than the positive in a positive way. What's that mean? I hope
I never have to deal with this again. I hope I never have to
see this happen again. I hope I never have to experience
this again. But I believe that's a misplaced focus. Because if all we're doing
It's like the little fun jab this morning. No matter how much
sleep I get, I'm going to complain about it because it's not going
to be in the right order. It's not going to be the right sequence or whatever. But in jest, yeah, that might
be true, but isn't it also true of the way we attend our minds
to the world in which we live? Yesterday was one of those days
where I woke up just ready to be in a bad mood. Have you ever
had one? You hit your foot to the ground, everything's perfect,
the sun's shining, you have all the time in the world to do everything
that you have planned to do, but you just decide, I am going
to be in a bad mood. And you know it. And then you fight it. Well, sometimes I think that
happens when we focus our hope in the wrong place. And then
we recognize that. Then we just, we pretend. Quit
pretending. Beloved, be real, be authentic
with yourself because you cannot trick our Heavenly Father. It's
not like we can posture and get on our face and pray and, you
know, light some candles and sing Kumbaya and everything's
gonna be in gospel. Oh, he's got it together down
there. Okay, I'm just gonna move right along. No, just be honest. Be honest
with the fact that sometimes we just like to be miserable.
That sometimes we're just not looking to the gospel. Sometimes
we're just not able. It's okay. In Christendom, throughout history,
we see occasion after occasion after occasion of where people,
when they write their annals, we don't see, I mean, have you
ever seen a volume of praise? For all the good stuff? Have
you ever seen this? Psalm 122, Psalm 123. One is
for thankfulness and gratitude. Let's come into the house of
the Lord and worship. The next one is, oh God help us, we've been
oppressed long enough. Can we stare at you long enough
until you give us mercy? We're just looking at you like
a child looking to its parent. Please, feed us some grace. Those coexist. every second of
our lives. Now I've taught in the context
of this scripture over the last week ten. And I've gone through
several, I've gone through the whole of it, first three, two
verses, then up to verse 10 or verse, yeah, verse nine. And
now I've just been unpacking several nuanced details, expanding
them, expounding on them, because I think it's necessary that we
approach the scripture in its context, but also that we take
time out to think about what we're hearing and what we're
reading as it relates to our lives this very second. Being present with the Word of
God, not just always thinking about what was going on in the
dispersion. I mean, how many of us have ever
been to Cappadocia? Does it even exist anymore? See,
some of these places no longer are named this way. And if we do, I mean, is there
a dispersion there now? And sometimes we get so literal
in the application of the Bible that we miss the inspiration
of the Bible, we miss the implications of the scripture, that this was
written for the joy of these people in their context at this
time 2,000 years ago, and it is for our joy today in 2024. Because we can understand the
power of God's promises are just as good a thousand years ago,
10,000 years ago, 400 million billion trillion years ago, as
they are going to be a million years from now. And so if that's
the truth, they're certainly still powerful today. But beloved,
it's a really tough thing. It's tough to trust in the promises
of God every second. And that's why I believe that
it's so easy to get into the rote, I don't even want to say
discipline because the word discipline to me is always positive. It's
easy to get into the rote practice or habit of focusing so deeply
into the theologies of things that we don't have to deal with
the practicality of things. Let me explain that. Sometimes it's better to just
float on the currency of the love of God and the gospel of
Jesus Christ in Such a way that it never lands. It's always the
ethereal reality of the glory and the ineffable imagined unimaginable
Presence of God, but yet every single New Testament letter that
we have in our hands deals 90% with the practical implications
and the practical applications of that amazing glorious truth Because we cannot live in a state
of poetry and Get anything done Lord knows I've tried And you
know what? You just attract a bunch of knuckleheads. Because there is this idea that
we can live in that. Yes! Worship. Yes, then get up
as Paul tells the Thessalonians and Do something live your life
in the power of this thing first Peter the entire occasion of
the letter is how they are to live together with love for one
another for the sake of the name of Christ who is the eternal
God who is their Savior who is their grace who is their righteousness
and So no matter what we learn, no matter what we understand,
no matter where we are, and we need to take time out, we need
to wallow in just the mysterious. But we can't stay there. And
yet, then there's the other side, isn't there? There's the other
side of certain personality types that love to just get in the
practical. You need to brush your teeth, comb your hair, go
to work. We got time for all this, ooh,
look at the roses. Well, those people are dull. And they don't want to talk about
the road. They want to talk about the aroma. They don't want to talk about
the beauty. They don't want to talk about, hey, what was the sunset
like? And it's not that we have to find a balance. Some of us
are going to be extremely tilted one way or the other and all
in the middle. And that's what makes life beautiful. It makes
life beautiful. The contrary ideas of life makes
it beautiful. If everybody was the same, it
would be dull and ugly. But even when we are struggling,
even when we don't care, even when we are angry, even when
we are absolutely hopeless, it is still beautiful because it
is part of an awesome plan and an awesome purpose with an awesome
power that God has promised us. And one does not exist without
the other. And I've discussed what it means
in verse three. Let's read verse three through
five. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled,
and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power,
being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time. I've discussed what it means
to bless God, what it means to be adopted as children, what
it means to have the love of God and mercy, what it means
to be born again. Those are the last four weeks. And today I want to unpack the
depths of what a living hope really looks like. I want to
expose the teachings of hope and security and authenticity
that arise out of the idea, the very definition of hope. And the first thing I want you
to see is that it's a living hope. Look at this. According
to His great mercy, His great love, His great grace, we have
been born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, we've got
a cultural festival a cultural practice that's tied to our faith
in a couple of weeks. Easter, Resurrection Day, whatever
we want to call it. We have the freedom in Christ
Jesus to celebrate it. But make no mistake, it is not
something the Bible says we must do. But it certainly doesn't
prohibit it. So in good conscience, don't
pass judgment on another for whether or not they do or do
not celebrate in any way, whatever, whether it's bunnies, chocolate,
or Jesus, Easter. Relax. Christ said it's finished. Why are you trying to get it
started? But this resurrection, sometimes
I believe Christians only think about the resurrection on that
one day. When you start seeing the purple
shrouded crosses in the yards of believers and in the fronts
of churches, church buildings. And then that day, you know,
they put the white thing on there because it's symbolic of him
being raised to life, shedding the grave clothes. It's like
the only time we think about it. And then the way that we
look at our hope is like, oh, I just can't wait to die. I talked
about this a little bit last week, it's okay. If our hope is so secure in Christ,
we would be fools not to long for the day that we're with him,
whether it be through death or through his coming. It makes sense. Because when
we focus on this world, we focus on the most beautiful things
of this world, they're so temporal that it can often be overshadowed. The beauty of it can be overshadowed
just by the heaviness of it. It's okay. But we've got to understand
that we've been called to live today, presently, embodying Christ,
living out this faith. Presently hoping and not just
our death being something more glorious But our life today being
something more glorious beloved. This is not easy This is something
that I am still trying to figure out how to establish in a way
of continual focus in my life. I Thought I had it but I wasn't
right. I didn't have it And now just knowing that I don't
has been the world of difference I has made the world of difference,
a world of difference, whatever the little cliche is. But this is a living hope. Yes,
we know our future. Yes, we know the glory of the
resurrection. Yes, we know it. But Christ is alive today. And
we who are in him are alive today. The question is, are we living?
And if we're living in Christ, then we have a hope. And I'll
be honest with you, beloved, I've gotten back into doing my
brain dumps every Sunday. That's where I write things down
and sort them and discard what I have no power over. And then
organize my schedule accordingly to what I do based on priority.
I've started doing that with my fears as well. And I have
a lot of fears this year. Little ones. They don't impact
me that much. But they're there. I fear the
political climate of our culture. I fear the religious implications
of that. I fear what happens to the future
of my children and my grandchildren. I fear what's going on in your
lives. I'm just being honest. But by the mercy of God, when
I contemplate these things and I give them to the Lord in prayer,
I have hope. Have hope because I'm reminded
of the security that we have in the Lord, no matter what the
outcome is, He has purposed it. But it doesn't mean that we sit
idly by with our hands folded. Let's go, whatever, if we can,
make a difference. Make a difference. But you know
what I've been told my entire life in ministry by those who
were mentors? Stay out of that conversation,
James. Don't speak to that issue, James. Don't waste your life,
James. If I got weeds in my yard and
they're taking over my grass, am I supposed to just dig it
up and have dirt? Then I'm gonna be talking to you about how to deal
with the allergies and the asthma and the infections of our lungs
because the dirt's blowing into our house and coming into our
vents. Grass keeps that from happening, you know that why.
Is it okay for me to stop for just a minute and ask you how
to mitigate a weed that you don't have? Is it eternal? Is it ultimate? No, it's absolutely
ridiculous. But it's necessary because it's
the world we live in. I have a headache, I have a earache,
and my eyes don't work. We have to go to the doctor.
We have to figure these things out. Are we not supposed to deal with
these things because we're supposed to be spiritually minded? Well,
what about the spiritually mindedness of having some common sense?
You know what? I just deal with the world having
sense because it's absolutely not common. And I count myself in that. Beloved, we can speak about things,
but we need to realize that they're not ultimate. And our hope comes
from not ignoring fears and not ignoring issues, not ignoring,
but approaching them in the context of where our hope lies. No matter
the outcome, my hope doesn't change unless my hope is misguided,
unless my vision is ill-focused, unless my affections are selfish. So what does it mean to have
a living hope? It's described as being born again through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This hope is living
because it is both active and dynamic. Because it's rooted
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died, now he's
alive. Physically, in the same way he
lived before, he lives today forever, glorified. physical
body was raised to life thus we have a continuous source of
renewal and Vitality in this present life because Jesus is
alive Now that doesn't mean that we're going to be healed of all
diseases It doesn't mean that if we have enough faith, we're
going to be rich and famous and powerful You know what happens
when everybody's rich and famous and powerful. We're normal. I If everybody had a billion dollars,
such would be a glass of milk. Oh, you want wine? That's three
trillion dollars, sir. But what is the characteristics
of this living hope? The only place I can do is go
to the scripture. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 19 says we have this
as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Now let's just stop
right there for a second. My senior year in high school,
I was part of a prayer group and we prayed, not every day,
but several times a week. And I remember one time being
around some peers and somebody asked me a question about something
and I just started talking about the gospel, started talking about
the fact that we're rooted and grounded. And from that conversation,
I realized that I could talk to people about this stuff, where
otherwise I was extremely shy about everything. I didn't want
to talk about anything. I didn't want to exercise any
of my talents. I didn't want to play in front
of somebody or sing in front of somebody or dance in front of somebody
or anything. I just wanted to hide. But when somebody asked questions
about Christ, it's just like I came alive. Something inside
of me just overflowed. And in that week, after having
conversations, more conversations, and that's where I started sort
of my Q&A ministry. That was 30 something years ago. 32 years ago. Goodness gracious,
that's crazy to think about. Feels like five. And I named
my ministry Anchoring Faith, because I name everything, right?
And this is where it comes from. We have this certainty, we have
this assurance, the anchor of the soul. The scripture says
it's a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Where only God can be. Now God
meets us there. This is Christ. This portrays
our hope as an anchor, an immovable stability, a security for we
who are in Christ. Beloved, What does that mean for us? It's
one thing to say it. It's one thing to go, okay, I
hear you. I need to turn over there to
chapter six because I want to see some of the context. I think that's right. Oh, yeah. Verse 13 of chapter 6 of Hebrews,
for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one
greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself. saying, surely
I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham having,
listen to these words, patiently waited, obtained a promise. For
people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their
disputes, an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired
to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, the
unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with
an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible
for God to lie. We who have fled for refuge might
have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before
us. And then Paul says, we have this
as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters
into the inner place behind the curtain where God is, intimately,
where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become
a high priest forever. after the metaphoric order of
Melchizedek. And I have to emphasize that. What does it mean? What does
it mean for us? So what? Okay, okay, we get it.
All right, we got a hope. We've got a living hope through Jesus
Christ. I mean, we're alive, but you
still haven't shown us what it means to live that now. I'm just
longing for the day I'm with him, but you're with him now,
beloved. And all the letters give us that
practical implication. Romans chapter five, go there. Go to Romans chapter five, if
you can find it. Therefore, since we have been
justified by faith, here we go, we have peace with God, through
our Lord Jesus Christ. We've already talked about that
in 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2, or chapter 1. Through him, we
have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which
we now stand. So there's a present reality
of where we stand before the Lord justified, and we rejoice. So there's an absolute joyfulness,
as Peter will talk about, that comes from this standing in the
hope of the glory of God. to see him, to know him, to embrace
him. And so you're thinking, okay,
we're still there, we're still stuck in this ethereal, mystery,
spiritual reality, but where is the practical? Look at verse
three of chapter five of Romans. Not only that, but we rejoice
in our sufferings. Knowing that suffering produces,
here we go, endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, And hope does not put us to shame because God's
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us. Do you see there it's not about
our strength? Do you see there that it's not about our ability
to hold fast? Do you see there it's not about
our stoicism to just put down and not feel? Just to do the
job and no, we must worship in spirit. And in truth. No, we
must love God through our love of others. And we can't do that
if we're not genuinely understanding we have a hope in Christ that
exists this very present moment. We will not be put to shame.
Now, what does that mean? Well, of course, we understand
the legal sense. We're forgiven, but the context
there is that it's not a stupid hope. It's not a hope that we should
be ashamed of. It's not this blind, dumb, my
brain don't work type faith. It's a powerful faith given to
us by the Holy Spirit that produces a joy that we've already seen
in 1 Peter that we'll focus on a lot starting next week when
we start talking about joy. It's gonna be two or three weeks
of that. That's inexpressible at times. We're not going to be put to
shame because of our hope in Christ. And then when the world mocks
us and our peers mock us and the church mocks us and other
people mock us and the culture mocks us and our politicians
mock us or whoever might mock us, and not even in the real
sense, but in the way we feel. Because sometimes there is a
place in our lives where we look at the life we've lived and we
realize it's a joke. And if you follow me on social
media, you've seen this. You've seen my thoughts through
this. You realize, wow, I mean, what a laughingstock. But it's
not a laughingstock when we trust in Christ. We are not to be shameful
of that. But our hope is refined through
our trials and suffering. Our hope is strengthened. So
you might be saying, then when is this hope gonna come to life?
When is that joy gonna really, it comes in seasons, and the
greatest that our hope is and the greatest that our joy becomes
is in the seasons of trials and suffering. Because I don't know
about you, but until God messes up my body or my brain to put
me in a place of submission, and I say that, let me change
the word there, to put, because that's positive for me, to put
me in a place of dependence. I don't really focus enough on
Him and the gospel. And when I focus on Him and the
gospel, because I'm at the end of myself, my joy is so full. And then I come alive. Isn't
that the way it is? This living hope is in the gospel. Hope is the fundamental, excuse
me, hope is, as I've already said, fundamental to the human
experience. It is something that surrounds everything that we
do, even when we don't see it. Hope is what makes us get up
in the morning, even when we say, ah, there's nothing worth
getting, it's not even worth getting up. It's hopeless. You can say it's hopeless, but
the essence of hope is what's making you get up and do anything.
No, it's obligation. That obligation rests in hope. It motivates our actions. And
when we have it in the right place, when we can see it for
what it really is in Christ, the gospel motivates us. The gospel propels us forward.
Our hope gives us a reason to endure hardships. We're not,
you know, what's the word? We're not just like oblivious
and numb to the reality that suffering is hard. It's not like
we get up and go, hey, you know what? Send me into the fire.
I'm ready. No, we're like, please, I don't want to go in the fire.
Your will be done. Walk me through whatever it is
that you have for me. But this is my request. But your will
be done. And so what happens is what God's
will is. But our hope does not wane when
it's anchored in the person, the work of Jesus Christ and
an anchor. of our soul. His resurrection offers a tangible,
powerful reality to this promise. It transcends every circumstances
of this temporal world. It transcends all of our pain.
It points us toward an eternal future and a restored creation
like we see in Romans chapter 8. and hope in the gospel. And beloved,
this influences how we live our lives, which is where Peter's
going to go in just a few short chapters. He's going to go and
start talking about their force. Therefore, because of this, because
of who God is, because of what he's done, because of what he's
promised, because of his power, because of his love, Because of where you stand, because
of whose you are, therefore, live this way. Approach each
other in this way. And why does he say that? Because
he loves us and he gives us the prescription for our joy, for our purpose, and for his
power in our lives affecting the world around us. So this
hope influences how we live. It shapes our perspective on
suffering. It informs our engagement with the world around us, our
little fears, our frustrations, our happiness, temporal happiness.
It shapes our perspective on how to commit to the mission
that God has called us to. How does it do that? Roots are
hope in the gospel. We live with profound assurance,
listen to this, that our labor is not in vain. Sound familiar?
First Corinthians 15. Verse 58, by the way, that's
a long chapter. Some of Luke's writing in Acts. And that our future is secure
in the hands of God. And that's the next point. That's
the next point that Peter makes. We have a hope in the gospel,
this living hope that affects our lives, and because of that,
we need to understand that it's a secure hope. It's imperishable.
Look at these words. It's an inheritance. It cannot
be denied. It cannot be erased. You might
say, well, God can take the inheritance away. That's not true. We've
already seen in Hebrews 6, God is not a liar. He cannot withhold
what he's promised. He cannot withdraw what he's
given. when it comes to Christ. God cannot do that or he would
be guilty of sin and he would not be God. You cannot be separated from
the love of God in Christ Jesus. You cannot decide to remove yourself
from the love of God and God cannot decide to remove you from
his love. He cannot, he is eternal, he
is immutable. So that which he has loved, he
has loved before there was time, eternally, forever, for he is
eternal. And that which he has not loved, he has not loved.
And nothing changes in the mind of God. Nothing. You cannot be taken away from
him. Therefore your inheritance is
so secure that if you threw it in his face, it's coming right
back to you. Look at Luke 15 and the imagery
of that. Those, the son that's at home
that serves and serves and serves and does and follows all the
rules and everything, and he's the son, he's got everything,
but the wicked little brother who just decides that he just
wants what, he wants his father dead so he can have what's his,
and he wastes it. And it's still his when he gets
back. And it infuriates the religious obedient one. Because the obedient
one kept himself in the Father's love by obedience. By discipline. When the Father
loved him anyway. And in that picture there, I
won't get into the reality of it, but he's using that as a
picture of the Pharisees, the older brother. That they were getting upset
when the children of God were being brought to the father.
And the father restores everything. Why did he do that? Because it
was his. It belonged to the son. It was the son's all along. He
didn't give him everything he had. He just gave him a portion
of it. We have everything in Christ. Everything that is Christ
is ours. This world belongs to us. And
the power over it. And don't read into that. Don't
hear the weirdness and all this other stuff that we see people
grab hold of and then try to take that into some sense about
what you can manifest. You can't manifest anything that
God has not purposed. Let me say it that way. But you
can manifest a negative outlook on life by continually talking
to yourself in a way that's incongruent with the hope of the gospel. You can tell yourself you're
ugly and you will be the most handsome, most beautiful person
in the world, but you will never know it and you will never feel
it. And because of that, you will not be seen as you really
are. We can have the confidence. We
can have security. It's an inheritance that cannot
be erased. It is imperishable. It is undefiled
and it is unfading and it is kept in heaven for you who you
by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready
to be revealed in the last time. So we're on a journey as recipients
of the power of God, the promises of God, the security in God's
power, guardianship by God's power. Believers, as believers,
we are being guarded. And it's not passive. It's an act of protection by
the power of God this very moment. God's power holds us in His love. So what does it mean to keep
ourselves in the love, as Paul would say to the Thessalonians? By
resting in the knowledge of the power of God, which is faith. Resting in the promise of the
power of God is faith. How do we do that? It comes and
goes, doesn't it? It's strong some days and it's
weak some days, There's a reason that Jesus uses the mustard seed,
which is the smallest physical thing that, you know, one of
the smallest physical things that they knew of at the time. And beloved,
do you know what I would give to have that much faith every
day? Everything. If this were written today, we'd
be seeing the metaphors on a molecular structure. We'd be looking at inside portions of things that
we don't even know exist. If you just had this much faith.
Why? Because Christ is the faithful one, not us. God is the faithful
one. We have security. We can take
it to the bank. We don't have to worry about
it. In John 10, Jesus talks about
giving eternal life to his sheep. He says they will, listen to
these words, he says they will never, ever, ever, ever perish. No one can snatch them out of
his hand. I want you to hear that. Now as a father, as a husband,
as a man, there's this grand idea inside my conscience sometimes
where I feel like I could push a dump truck over a cliff while
Wing Chun kicking the bad guy back off the other side of the
mountain. And of course we can't. But we
really do intend to have that type of protective power, right?
And sometimes we implicate the power of God with the understanding
of our inability to truly protect and to keep. And that's why God allows us
to fail in that window so many times. So if you look at me to protect
you spiritually, you should look beyond me and look to God. Emotionally. Whatever. I'm not the one. And none of you are either. There's
not a man or woman in this world who is the ultimate defender
and protector of anybody. Christ is. And that might not mean much
to you, but when you start seeing the joke Remember we talked about
the life of authenticity is like getting the punchline to a joke
that you realize is your life. It's not a joke anymore. It's
an opportunity for grand praise. Wow. The security is in Christ. No one can snatch us out of his
hand. Nothing can separate us, Romans
8, from the love of God. And so that's security in God's
power, which is security in the gospel. Security addresses our
deep need for safety. You know, security is rooted
in belonging, not just living in protection, but in belonging,
because where we are safe is where we belong. With whom we
are safe is where we belong, or where we feel belonging, where
we feel assurance. If we're not safe, Emotionally,
we don't belong. We don't feel like we belong.
If we're not safe spiritually, we don't feel like we belong.
If we're not safe physically, we don't feel like we belong. We're
outcasts. These people in the dispersion,
they didn't feel safe. They didn't feel safe about their
future. They didn't feel safe about their money. They didn't
feel safe about their family, their health, where they were
going to eat, where they were going to stay, what enemies were
going to come alongside the road. They had no wall to protect them,
no homes to live in. They didn't have a battalion
of soldiers setting up a camp and putting up tents and having
guard posts. They needed safety. They needed
security. The gospel offers security not
based on achievements, social status, material wealth, emotional
intelligence, psychological fortitude, Intelligence, but on God's steadfast love and
the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. And I hope you can see what I'm
about to say. I hope you have it for yourself.
But I know that the only way that you're going to see it is
by probably being at the lowest place of your life. This security
frees us. It liberates us. from the fear
of judgment, from the fear of isolation, listen to some of
these, from the fear of commitment, from the fear of intimacy, from
the fear of anxieties tied to this world and the worldly measure
of what it means to be free, what it means to be secure. And
for me, it's never been in the material world. And so it allows us to live genuinely,
to embrace the security found in the gospel, enables us to
live in a manner that is bold and generous. I want you to listen
to that. There's an outpouring of generosity
that comes when we are secure in the gospel. There's an outpouring of generosity
that a child has when it's secure in its relationship with its
parents, or a spouse has when they're secure with their relationship
with each other, or that parents have when they have secure relationship
with their parents, I mean with their children, and so on and so forth. it becomes
an ability to be ourselves and to be generous and to be giving
and to be vulnerable. You know, generosity and vulnerability
are the same thing. Otherwise, generosity that is
just for the image or the feeling of, wow, at least I tried, is
not genuine. It's posturing, it's acting,
it's hypocritical. And God knows it's where most
of us live. And we don't even know it. Knowing that we are secure in
the love of God then is the ultimate security. We can take risk for
the sake of other people. We can take emotional and financial
and physical risks. We can be vulnerable in such
a way without reservation. That means we can love somebody,
genuinely love them. That means that we can show our
true selves without fear of whether or not they're going to reject
us or not. Because if we don't understand this, we can't show
our true selves to our Father. And the only way we show our
true selves to our Father is to know who we really are. We can pursue justice. We can
pursue mercy. And we can reflect the secure
love of Christ in a world that's characterized, even in its most
intimate poets, it is characterized by insecurity and fear that we'd
swim the freaking ocean because of our love, or that we've climbed
the highest mountain that we could not even climb because
of our love. That's insecurity. You complete me is insecurity. Christ completes us. Now as a
complete child of God, I can completely give myself to someone
else, to you, to serve. Rather than worrying about what
someone might be thinking, or what someone would think, or
what I'm thinking, or what the Father is thinking. I know what
the Father is thinking. He's not thinking at all. He
sees perfectly well who I am. and other people's ideas and
how they love me and what they think of me is none of my business.
And that doesn't mean I don't care. That means I shouldn't
worry about it. And this inheritance, oh my goodness,
do you know in order to have an inheritance you have to literally
be a child? I mean, it's not the way it is
then, it's not the way it is now. I mean, you can bequeath
anything to anybody. However, even in probate, no
matter what your will says, genuine children can fight against the
will. Now, they usually won't win,
but they can try, and they can hold up stuff for years, decades
even. Depends on what state you live
in. But there's an authenticity of
this inheritance. Verse 4 describes inheritance as we've seen, imperishable,
undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for believers. This inheritance
is authentic because it is divine. It is not subject to decay or
corruption. It cannot be contrasted with
what we know about inheritance in this earth. In Ephesians chapter 1, go back
to Ephesians. Chapter 1. My hands are not working today. Verse 13. Well, no, verse 11. I was off. In Him we have obtained
an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him
who works all things according to the counsel of His will, desire,
purpose, and power. And you see the word will there.
You need to understand all that's inclusive. so that we, who were first to
hope in Christ, might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you
also then, when you heard the word of truth, the good report
of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. God has sealed his assurance
with his own character, with his own spirit, with his own
name, with his own reputation. And he has done so with himself. Dying on a cross. And being raised to life. This passage confirms the authentic
and assured future of what we are guaranteed to receive. In
Colossians chapter 1, Paul thanks the Father. He thanks the Father for these
people. We thank God, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray for you since we heard of your
faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all
the saints. Verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in
heaven, of this you have heard before the word of the truth.
the gospel which has come to you as indeed in the whole world
it is bearing fruit and increasing as it is also does among as it
also does among you since the day you heard it and understood
the grace of God in truth just as you learned it from Epaphras
our beloved fellow servant. He's a faithful minister of Christ
on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the spirit.
And also, verse 9, from the day we heard, we have not ceased
to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge
of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so
as to walk, verse 10, in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing
to Him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in
the knowledge of God. being strengthened with all power,
according to His glorious might, for all endurance, and all patience
with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you
to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered
us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom
of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness
of sins. It's everywhere. I mean, this
is everywhere. Every New Testament letter reiterates
and encourages us as children of God to rest in the authenticity
of what God has made for us, promised to us. So our hope is lived out by engaging
the world from a place of assured victory, not naive optimism.
That's the word I was looking for earlier. We don't naively
just say, well, it's absolutely divine. Security allows us to
serve others selflessly, knowing our worth and future are firmly
established in God's promises, and authenticity emerges as we
live in alignment with our true identity in Christ, embracing
our vulnerabilities as spaces where God's strength is made
perfect. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9. Therefore, I will boast all the
more about my weaknesses, for in my weakness he is strong. These virtues, beloved, these
things, this assurance, this hope allows us and compels us
to love deeply, listen to this, to act justly, and to extend
grace abundantly, embodying, that means living in our bodies,
the reality of the good news in a world that desperately needs
hope, security, and authenticity. So it not only informs our understanding
of these things, but empowers us to live. This is a review
of what we've just done. Empowers us to live these things
out. And we can look at Jesus as the
ultimate example. We can emulate Jesus in our relationships. With the same compassion, the
same grace, the same truth. Valuing each person as someone
made in the image of God. We can emulate Jesus. We can apply the example of Christ
as we serve others, serve as Jesus serves. How do we do that?
We look for opportunities to serve with humility, small, daily,
compassionate acts. And we can speak hope. We can
use our words to build up, to encourage. This is, you know,
the psychological systematized way in which some people have
talked about love languages. This is one of my largest ones,
is being encouraged, being built up. I used to think it was weak.
Why do I need that? Why does that make me feel good when somebody
says, yeah, no, that's great. You can do this. You've got this.
It empowers me. You'd think it was weak, but
it's not. It's exactly the way the Bible tells us to treat each
other. So it's a promise of God that if someone encourages you,
you feel better about it, and it empowers you to do more with
it. So to deny that to one another is just literally sin. It's pride. So why would I deny
that? Encourage one another, build
one another up, point others to the hope found in the gospel.
And that's when we become a light to the world that's shrouded
in darkness. But I want you to understand
that it's not just about knowing this and understanding this and
living this. It's about knowing that Christ
is this. Christ is our hope. Christ is
our assurance. Christ is our authenticity. Christ is our inheritance. Jesus
is the foundation and the object of our hope. Not just saying,
hey, look what I've made, but look what I am. I am the resurrection
and the life. Waiting for our blessed hope,
we see in Titus 2, the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Savior, Jesus Christ. But it's not just that eternal.
Remember, the temporal hope, the Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. He's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. Beloved,
do you understand that there is a temporary hope on this life
that points to an eternal security and hope that we have in Christ?
Jesus is our security. His life paid the ransom. They will never perish. Jesus
exemplifies authentic living. How so? He aligned everything
He thought, said, and did with the will of the Father in every
way. without exception. He was very transparent in his
interactions, calling his followers to live a life of genuine faith
and integrity. Integrity means speaking the
truth in love, being honest, not just not lying, being honest
about what you think and feel and need. Jesus says, I am the way and
the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except
me. Jesus is the truth. He is the
truth. So as we reflect on these things,
the stuff that we've learned, I want to ask you a question. What is your hope? And the call to action is not
choose to hope in Christ. The call to action is hear the
words of Christ and rest in Him. By the power of God alone will
you do that. Through suffering will that become stronger. That ultimately through it all
and every circumstance our joy will be full, which is what our
time next week will begin. Father, we are glad for your
word. I am glad for this word today,
Lord. It has encouraged me, given me
a deeper sense of hope than I had yesterday in the mood that I
was in. And Father, it will prepare me,
Lord, for a day this week that may not be as pleasant. So, Lord, if you are doing that
for me, you're doing that for us. and you've promised it for all
of your people. So, Lord, we pray for those who
are suffering. We pray for each other. We're
all suffering in some way. So, Lord, we ought to be praying
every day. And I thank you, Father, that we can pray and that we
can know and that we can rest. And, Lord, I thank you that the
power to sustain this is not found in us, but, Lord, is found
in you. So be our power in our weakness. Be our strength when
we have none. Be our eyes of sight and our
heart of rest when we can't see or even stop. Lord, thank you for being our
hope. In Christ's name we pray, amen.