Episode 9
People of Hope (North OC)
As we near the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, we reflect on how because of Jesus we become a people of hope.
Transcript
amen.
Speaker:So, uh, I don't know.
Speaker:But I am fired up.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Tell us why Marcel Kyle's over here a hater.
Speaker:Look at him.
Speaker:He's an op right in front of us.
Speaker:The ops are between this.
Speaker:All right, so it, many of you might know if you don't know, I'm a huge sports fan.
Speaker:Before I went into the full-time ministry, I, I worked in sports radio, and so I'm
Speaker:a huge sports fan, and the sport that I'm most passionate about is college football.
Speaker:Can I get an amen Mark Hankins.
Speaker:Mark is fired up.
Speaker:Me and him are fired up because if you did not know, I'm
Speaker:gonna let you know right now.
Speaker:So the, the, this school called USC plays and they won again against their
Speaker:other arts rival Notre Dame last night.
Speaker:And so also I have to mention my niece Jasmine is here.
Speaker:Hey man, look at her.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:My niece, Jasmine also went to usc, so she's fired up.
Speaker:We went from no college to mo college in my family.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:There were no college degrees and now college degrees are
Speaker:coming out, so we're fired up.
Speaker:And so she went to usc.
Speaker:So I'm just on Cloud 29, not cloud nine.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I went past that.
Speaker:Alright?
Speaker:And so I'm super fired up because we lived in some dark times for a
Speaker:number of years, John, or used to come up and make fun of me and laugh
Speaker:at me because he is an Oregon fan.
Speaker:I don't know why and what's going on with it, but he would hurt
Speaker:me even though he did love me when I went through a hard time.
Speaker:When I went through some difficult, hard time through sports.
Speaker:He jabbed it at me, you know?
Speaker:Me.
Speaker:So thank you for that.
Speaker:Love . And so it's been some hard times, but by the grace of God,
Speaker:I believe it's the grace of God.
Speaker:We've been able to have some hope now this year.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:And I had this epiphany, this spiritual epiphany as I was watching college
Speaker:football yesterday, is that college football really has the ability to
Speaker:make or break your hope in life.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:That's an exaggeration.
Speaker:Not maybe life, but it's a sport that so filled with making and dashing hopes.
Speaker:Because you can start off the year with, yes, we have a chance to
Speaker:win it all, and you lose one game and that hope goes down the drain.
Speaker:But then maybe if you lose at the right time, you still might have some hope.
Speaker:And so recently here for USC fans, we've come to end the year with Zero Hope.
Speaker:We had like little bit of uh, uh, you know, possibility of
Speaker:maybe we're going to at least be average, but now we have some hope.
Speaker:And it made me start thinking about hope that we have as the people of God.
Speaker:And you know, there could be hope in sports, there could be hope.
Speaker:I know some of us are really into politics and you know, and all these
Speaker:different things, but as the people of God, we have a different type of hope.
Speaker:We have a hope that's powerful and hope is powerful, isn't it?
Speaker:Whether you have hope, whether maybe it's in order to excel
Speaker:in a certain area, whatever the case may be, hope is powerful.
Speaker:It can make the difference in our perspective.
Speaker:Hope changes our direction, our actions, our attitudes.
Speaker:And there's a clear difference when you are filled with hope
Speaker:and when you are lacking in hope.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You know the stark contrast when you are hopeful or when you are hopeless.
Speaker:And hopeless is a terrible, terrible place to being, isn't it?
Speaker:And so it can affect our emotional and our mental health.
Speaker:But when there is hope, there's confidence.
Speaker:When there's a hope that stems from a relationship with God, there's
Speaker:a belief that God will see you through the current situation.
Speaker:And we've been talking about becoming like God, meaning in a
Speaker:sense, becoming God lead to become, uh, what God has created us to be.
Speaker:And so it's so powerful that because of Jesus, we become people of hope,
Speaker:and that's the title for our time here this morning, is that because
Speaker:of Jesus, we are people of hope.
Speaker:Let's go to God in.
Speaker:Father, I thank you so much for what you've been teaching me, what
Speaker:you've been showing me recently.
Speaker:I know I was just awestruck in reading the passage here that we're going
Speaker:to read and just truly inspired.
Speaker:And God, I pray right now that you may communicate a message of hope
Speaker:that people will see you or be reminded that you are a God of hope.
Speaker:And that because we are your people, we are a people of hope and
Speaker:how that can transform our lives.
Speaker:We pray in the name of Jesus.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:I wanna go ahead and, uh, show, uh, a video real quickly,
Speaker:uh, from the Bible Project.
Speaker:Many of us are fans of the Bible project videos and they do a phenomenal job.
Speaker:And so I wanna show this video here real quickly to help, um,
Speaker:to help us as we talk about hope.
Speaker:So let's go ahead and let's play the video.
Speaker:So let's say you wanna describe the feeling of anticipating a future
Speaker:that's better than the present.
Speaker:You might be giddy or excited or maybe unsure, but most
Speaker:of us know that experience.
Speaker:We call it hope.
Speaker:It's a state of anticipation and it's crucial for healthy human
Speaker:existence, and it's a really important concept in the Bible.
Speaker:In fact, there are many words for hope in the ancient languages of the
Speaker:Bible, and they're all fascinating.
Speaker:In the Old Testament, there are two main Hebrew words translated as hope.
Speaker:The first is yaha, which means simply to wait for like in the story of Noah
Speaker:and the arc as the floodwaters recede.
Speaker:Noah had to yaha for weeks.
Speaker:The other Hebrew word is kava, which also means to wait.
Speaker:It's related to the Hebrew word kav, which means cord.
Speaker:When you pull a cove tight, you produce a state of tension until there's release.
Speaker:That's kava the feeling of tension and expectation while
Speaker:you wait for something to happen.
Speaker:The prophet Isaiah depicts God as a farmer who plants vines and kavas for
Speaker:good grapes, or the prophet Micah talks about farmers who both kava and yaha for
Speaker:mourn dew to give moisture to the land.
Speaker:So in biblical Hebrew, hope is about waiting or expectation, but
Speaker:waiting for what in the period of Israel's prophets as the nation
Speaker:was sinking into self destruction.
Speaker:Isaiah said At this moment, the Lord's hiding his face from
Speaker:Israel, so I will kava for him.
Speaker:The only hope Isaiah had in those dark days was the hope for God himself.
Speaker:You find the same notion of hope all over the Book of Psalms, where these words
Speaker:appear over 40 times in almost every case.
Speaker:What people are waiting for is God.
Speaker:Like in Psalm 130, the poet cries out from a pit of despair.
Speaker:I kava for the Lord, let Israel yaha for the Lord because he's loyal and
Speaker:will redeem Israel from its sins.
Speaker:Biblical hope is based on a person which makes it different from optimism.
Speaker:Optimism is about choosing to see in any situation how circumstances could
Speaker:work out for the best, but biblical hope is not focused on circumstances.
Speaker:In fact, hopeful people in the Bible often recognize there's no evidence things
Speaker:will get better, but you choose hope.
Speaker:Like the prophet Hosea, he lived in a dark time when Israel was being oppressed
Speaker:by foreign empires, and he chose hope when he said God could turn this
Speaker:valley of trouble into a door of hope.
Speaker:Like the day when Israel came up from the land of Egypt.
Speaker:God had surprised his people with redemption back in the days of the Exodus.
Speaker:And he could do so again.
Speaker:So it's God's past faithfulness that motivates hope for the future.
Speaker:You look forward by looking backward, trusting in nothing
Speaker:other than God's character.
Speaker:It's like the poet of Psalm 39 who says, and now, oh Lord,
Speaker:what else can I cover off for?
Speaker:You are Mya Hall.
Speaker:In the New Testament, the earliest followers of Jesus cultivated
Speaker:the similar habit of hope.
Speaker:They believed that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection was God's surprising response
Speaker:to our slavery, to evil and death.
Speaker:The empty tomb opened up a new door of hope, and they
Speaker:used the Greek word El peace.
Speaker:To describe this anticipation, the apostle Peter said that Jesus' resurrection
Speaker:opened up a living hope that people can be reborn to become new in different
Speaker:kinds of humans more than once.
Speaker:The Apostle Paul says, the good news about Jesus announces the L peace of glory.
Speaker:In both cases, this L peace is based on a person, the risen
Speaker:Jesus, who has overcome death.
Speaker:And this hope wasn't just for humans.
Speaker:The apostles believed that what happened to Jesus and the resurrection
Speaker:was a floor taste of what God had planned for the whole universe.
Speaker:In Paul's words, it's a hope that creation itself will be liberated from
Speaker:slavery to corruption into freedom when God's children are glorified.
Speaker:So Christian hope is bold, waiting for humanity and the whole universe
Speaker:to be rescued from evil and death.
Speaker:And some would say it's crazy, and maybe it is, but biblical
Speaker:hope isn't optimism based on the.
Speaker:It's a choice to wait for God to bring about a future.
Speaker:That's as surprising as a crucified man rising from the dead.
Speaker:Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus in order to
Speaker:look forward, and so we wait.
Speaker:That's what the biblical words for Hope are all about.
Speaker:Video's very helpful there.
Speaker:They're doing such a great job.
Speaker:They go on the website, check out, all kind of good stuff there.
Speaker:But I want us to talk some more about this idea of hope.
Speaker:He mentioned something about this idea of living hope.
Speaker:And so I want us to look at this scripture and it's gonna be
Speaker:the basis for our sermon here.
Speaker:First Peter, chapter one, Peter was a follower of Jesus.
Speaker:And, uh, not only was he a follower of Jesus, but he was one of the main leaders
Speaker:in the church in the first century.
Speaker:And so he writes this letter to several churches.
Speaker:The, they're starting to experience some persecution, and the letter is filled
Speaker:with this idea of hope and perseverance.
Speaker:And so we read in verse three.
Speaker:Says, praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker:In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope, through
Speaker:the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance
Speaker:that can never per spoil or faith.
Speaker:This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are
Speaker:shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is
Speaker:ready to be revealed in a last.
Speaker:And all this you greatly rejoiced on.
Speaker:For now a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
Speaker:These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater
Speaker:worth than go, which parishes, even though refined by fire, may
Speaker:result in praise, glory, and honor.
Speaker:When Jesus Christ revealed, though you have not seen him, you love him, and
Speaker:even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with
Speaker:an inexpressible and glorious joy for you receiving the end result of your
Speaker:faith, the salvation of your souls.
Speaker:I want us again to look at this idea of living hope.
Speaker:So here's what I want us to do, because this struck me this week here.
Speaker:I want us to go ahead and, and twos and threes and the people in our rows
Speaker:and answer this question, how does this idea of living hope strike you?
Speaker:What does that mean to you when you think of this idea of hope?
Speaker:And we see what Biblical hope is, this living hope that
Speaker:is available for Christians.
Speaker:So I'll give you several minutes to go ahead and discuss what
Speaker:does Living Hope mean to you?
Speaker:And if you're online, go ahead and put in the chat there.
Speaker:Put it in the chat.
Speaker:What does Living Hope mean to you?
Speaker:In my AV people, you guys can go ahead and uh, and answer
Speaker:that amongst yourselves as well.
Speaker:15 more seconds.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Do wanna mention here?
Speaker:We're excited.
Speaker:Uh, I think last week we, we talked about Kelsey Barber being back.
Speaker:We're excited.
Speaker:Uh, another, uh, uh, uh, child, uh, who is now a grown man, uh, is back here
Speaker:with us today from, uh, doing a, got a little little break here from his military
Speaker:service, and that's Brandon Kohler.
Speaker:Brandon Kohler's here with us this morning.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:I remember Brandon, several year, seven years ago, he, he didn't look
Speaker:like a grown man the way he does now.
Speaker:You see the way he stood up there like, yeah, Uhhuh.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Let's go ahead here.
Speaker:Let's, let's have a couple people share.
Speaker:What were some things that maybe either you shared or someone
Speaker:that you were talking to shared about what Living Hope means?
Speaker:Yes, sir.
Speaker:Um, I think it makes me think of, uh, Jeremiah 12.
Speaker:I know the plan I have for you to help you prosper to me, living hope.
Speaker:Is there somebody actively trying to get us over you?
Speaker:God is there doing things actively to help us as opposed to us just hoping
Speaker:randomly, you know, like unlike you, my duck, Flo yesterday, no one was
Speaker:actively trying to make them way.
Speaker:But when it comes to me trying to get a job or, or trying to have a
Speaker:successful marriage, God is actively trying to help me achieve that hope.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:What comes to mind for him is the idea that God is actively trying to help
Speaker:you in, in all facets of life there.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, Faith grows.
Speaker:The changes through testing, our hope also grow.
Speaker:So as our faith grows, our hope grows through the test and changes.
Speaker:Okay, awesome.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Um, so for me, I focus on the word living, which, uh, to me sounded like
Speaker:the opposite of death or so it sounds like something that, uh, will not die
Speaker:and that something that is like a one time use, but something that I ever last.
Speaker:So, um, that's, and something that,
Speaker:so hope that is eternal.
Speaker:Never, never fading or, or, or dying there.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:One more.
Speaker:Let's go away.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, I think for me, what's out in that video.
Speaker:The part where it, that we have this hope cause of our past experiences with God and
Speaker:seeing how faithful hes in the past gives me a living hope now that I, him, I do
Speaker:amazing things in my life because of God's past faithfulness to, to you that means,
Speaker:yes, he's gonna be faithful in the, in, in, in the future and coming days there.
Speaker:Okay, good.
Speaker:This idea of living hope that stood out to me.
Speaker:I've read this passage many years, but again, it struck me
Speaker:in this idea of living hope.
Speaker:And so I want us to dive a little bit more into this idea.
Speaker:So I'm going to probably share some things that you probably already mentioned.
Speaker:That means the Holy Spirit, uh, is working there.
Speaker:But I wanna share a couple more observations with you
Speaker:about this idea of living hope.
Speaker:And we wanna look at a couple things.
Speaker:What we have hope.
Speaker:What we have hope of and what we have hope for all contained in this passage.
Speaker:So let's look at this idea first of the hope we have in Jesus again, in the
Speaker:verse it says That in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope.
Speaker:I love this imagery that the Holy Spirit led Peter in writing this, this idea
Speaker:of a new birth into a living hope.
Speaker:And so this idea that we are born into this hope and so that we,
Speaker:now, we, we, we live in a hope once we are spiritually born.
Speaker:And that's our new life.
Speaker:That's our new.
Speaker:Like we've had, uh, I see Nelson over there.
Speaker:They just had a newborn baby, I think celebrating four months.
Speaker:I thought I saw that on Facebook, right?
Speaker:Four months.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:You know, that's Facebook, right?
Speaker:Four month anniversary.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:That's great, right?
Speaker:And so they're celebrating four months a new child.
Speaker:Their new child is born into their family.
Speaker:That's, that's their child's existence.
Speaker:That's what they know when we are spiritually born.
Speaker:This is the hope now that we live in, it's a living hope that we are born into.
Speaker:It's a life of hope now.
Speaker:And it says that we have a living hope in Jesus, similar to what my
Speaker:niece said, one that is not dead.
Speaker:It's not fading.
Speaker:It's not about to expire.
Speaker:It's not going to pass.
Speaker:It is a li being.
Speaker:Hope.
Speaker:It continues.
Speaker:It is eternal.
Speaker:That means hope is always present for the child of God.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Hope is always present for the child of God and as disciples of Jesus.
Speaker:That means we always have hope as disciples of Jesus.
Speaker:We are never categorized as the hopeless.
Speaker:That's not who you are, and that's not your standing nor your status.
Speaker:You are never categorized with the hopeless because you were born into a
Speaker:living hope, not a hope for once, not a hope a couple of years ago, but a hope
Speaker:that lives for all eternity, right?
Speaker:What a blessing and a privilege that is.
Speaker:What a blessing and privilege that is.
Speaker:What a blessing and privilege that is.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:To be born and to stay in this hope.
Speaker:That's eternal.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Boy, boy, we got a good God.
Speaker:That's why he starts up, he says, praise me to the God.
Speaker:He's so fired up.
Speaker:He's like, praise me to God because of this new hope that we're born into.
Speaker:Oh boy.
Speaker:I wish we could understand how good God is.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:But let's talk about this, this hope in Jesus.
Speaker:Look at this.
Speaker:It says, through the resurrection of Jesus, I love this.
Speaker:Our hope is not in circumstance.
Speaker:It's in a person, and this person is faithful.
Speaker:He's the one who's never or never will let you down.
Speaker:I put hope in my wife.
Speaker:I love my wife, but my wife's gonna fail me.
Speaker:I put my hope in myself.
Speaker:Well, I know how that's gone, that I'm gonna fail myself if I put hope.
Speaker:And I love all of you.
Speaker:I love you, Brian Turner.
Speaker:But I can't put my hope in Brian Turner, at least maybe for some
Speaker:things, but not for my life.
Speaker:And so it says, we put our hope in Jesus, the one who conquered death.
Speaker:Ooh.
Speaker:That's what we put our hope in, right?
Speaker:The one who conquered death.
Speaker:I just love this because it means, look, we don't put our
Speaker:hope just in the death of Jesus.
Speaker:We put our hope in the resurrection of Jesus, right?
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:So our hope is not in the dead.
Speaker:Our hope is in the living.
Speaker:Again, it's living hope.
Speaker:Oh, hallelujah.
Speaker:Lord, please help some people today here.
Speaker:Okay, we have a hope in Jesus.
Speaker:What do we have a hope of?
Speaker:We have a hope of salvation.
Speaker:Let's continue to read.
Speaker:Church, are you still with me here?
Speaker:It says here that we are giving that new birth into a living hope through
Speaker:the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that
Speaker:can never perish, spoil, or faith.
Speaker:This inheritance is kept in heaven for.
Speaker:Who threw faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of
Speaker:the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
Speaker:Jumping on down to verse nine, for you are receiving the end result of your
Speaker:faith, the salvation of your souls.
Speaker:What is it talking about?
Speaker:We have this great inheritance.
Speaker:What's that?
Speaker:Inheritance?
Speaker:It's complete ation.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. That's the inheritance that we have.
Speaker:Complete salvation.
Speaker:We have the hope of complete salvation.
Speaker:You know, God does this a lot and you know, this is one of those,
Speaker:uh, that, that it is called the, uh, now and not yet with God.
Speaker:God has a lot of, now you have, but not yet as well.
Speaker:For example, the kingdom of God, God's reign.
Speaker:Jesus reigning supreme.
Speaker:That's the kingdom of God is here now, but yet it's also.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:We have salvation.
Speaker:Yes, we are safe, but it's still to come.
Speaker:You guys see what I'm saying here, right?
Speaker:And so we have this salvation now, but we have the hope that
Speaker:it will one day be completes.
Speaker:And as the children of the most high God, we have the confidence
Speaker:and anticipation of eternal life with the creator of the universe.
Speaker:And it says that this inheritance, check this out.
Speaker:It says it can never para, spoil or fade.
Speaker:Can I get an amen to that?
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:I don't know about you, but I had a lot of things in my life that
Speaker:Paris spoiled or faded, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, uh, I used to have this, uh, I guess it was a wishful dream.
Speaker:Uh, we thought, man, you know what?
Speaker:We've done a good job of being wise with our money.
Speaker:Maybe we can buy a house.
Speaker:And then the rates went up, dreams perished, Thanksgiving meals.
Speaker:I hope you had a good meal.
Speaker:But if you don't eat it this week, what it's gonna spoil.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Things fade all the time.
Speaker:You know, I had this basketball signed by this, uh, by, by all
Speaker:the NBA players on this team.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Uh, I won't mention it was the Clippers, but Amen.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:It was still cool.
Speaker:And so I was giving this basketball and it was autographed by all
Speaker:the players on the Clippers.
Speaker:And so I said, have it up in my room.
Speaker:And then one day I'm like, I think we were moving.
Speaker:And I get it and I'm like, oh, no, what in the world happened to these autographs?
Speaker:And I was like, you know what?
Speaker:I probably shouldn't have put it close to the window.
Speaker:And so all these autograph, it was a clipper, so it was probably
Speaker:worth $8, but still it was the Clippers before they were good.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And so it started to fade.
Speaker:But here's the awesome thing, brothers and sisters, our inheritance isn't
Speaker:like any of those things, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Our complete salvation will never spoil, will never fade,
Speaker:and sure enough will not perish.
Speaker:Yeah, our salvation is like that.
Speaker:It says it's kept, his inheritance is kept in heaven for you, that
Speaker:Greek word is really a, a kind of a military term, and so it's given
Speaker:this idea that our inheritance is protected like military style.
Speaker:You're complete salvation.
Speaker:God has it on lockdown for you.
Speaker:He's protecting it.
Speaker:So as followers of Jesus Christ, we now hope.
Speaker:We now wait with great anticipation for the return of Jesus, which
Speaker:will make everything complete.
Speaker:Hallelujah.
Speaker:We are people of hope.
Speaker:Boy, oh boy.
Speaker:We are people of hope.
Speaker:We have hope in Christ.
Speaker:We have hope of salvation.
Speaker:But guess what?
Speaker:We also have the hope for change in the future.
Speaker:One Peter one, verse six and seven, it says, these things have come.
Speaker:They're proven genius of your faith.
Speaker:The greater worth than goal, which parishes, even though refined by
Speaker:fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Speaker:He said, Hey, there's going to be a transformation and it's gonna be glorious.
Speaker:It's going to be praiseworthy, and it's going to be honorable.
Speaker:John mentioned this earlier, this verse, John, oh, that's Romans 15.
Speaker:We'll read this anyway, but it says, may the God of hope fill you with all
Speaker:joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope
Speaker:by the power of the Holy Spirits.
Speaker:Jeremiah 29 11 says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,
Speaker:plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
Speaker:Plans to give you hope and a future.
Speaker:And so God has always been in this business.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because he is a God of hope, of giving His people hope that you can
Speaker:change, that there's a future that he has in store for you that can
Speaker:lead to praise, glory, and honor.
Speaker:And so again, we're never categorized with the hope.
Speaker:Because we have a Christ who we have hope in.
Speaker:We have the hope of complete salvation, and we have the hope for change
Speaker:transformation in a bright future.
Speaker:You know, there's so many stories in this room.
Speaker:If we've had number of people come up and share how they came to know
Speaker:Christ, we've even had, uh, uh, or Daisy share earlier, right?
Speaker:Hey, you know what?
Speaker:There was, there was this time here, and she still had to struggle to be refined.
Speaker:But now what?
Speaker:Because of the cross, she has hope that she can overcome her pride.
Speaker:We've had a number of people in here share before they came to know
Speaker:Jesus, there was thought of suicide.
Speaker:There was maybe non, uh, clinical depression.
Speaker:Uh, there were destructive behavior, bad relationships, but the hope
Speaker:of God changed their lives.
Speaker:I'm so far about my, my, my, my buddy, uh, Leo Sanchez.
Speaker:Leo Leo's, uh, brother in here, in the church here.
Speaker:Uh, uh, um, and, and so Leo, um, you know, he, he, um, is a, a, a
Speaker:mechanic, but Leo made some poor choices and that led him to prison.
Speaker:And he was in prison for several years.
Speaker:And Francis, uh, Francis, that was her, her me, Leo was Francis' Mechanic.
Speaker:You guys with me there?
Speaker:All right, there you go.
Speaker:I don't think Francis is a mechanic.
Speaker:That would be impressive if she was a mechanic for Leo.
Speaker:I'd like higher up.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And so she would reach out to him for years.
Speaker:Hey, you gotta come to church.
Speaker:He's like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker:But then he goes and he does this stint in prison.
Speaker:And, and that led him to start thinking about God.
Speaker:And as he was in, it was as he was in prison, he started to, to read
Speaker:his Bible and started to go more to the Bible classes that were offered.
Speaker:And then when he comes out of prison, he finds Francis or Francis
Speaker:finds him, whatever the case is.
Speaker:The Lord found him.
Speaker:And then this happened, and then he was baptized into Christ
Speaker:here and we say Hallelujah.
Speaker:And so there was hope for change.
Speaker:And you know, he wrote this message on GroupMe the other day
Speaker:to our, our little family group.
Speaker:We, we, uh, we had this family group GroupMe, and he says, Hey, dear family,
Speaker:it is an honor to be a part of this group.
Speaker:I remember when being in prison and being behind those walls, I pray to our Lord
Speaker:Jesus Christ, that when I got out to find the best church for me to attend,
Speaker:and he gave me more than I expected.
Speaker:And I thank you for the support everyone has given me.
Speaker:I'm thankful to our God.
Speaker:God is awesome.
Speaker:Thank you family.
Speaker:There's hope for change.
Speaker:There's hope for change.
Speaker:Again, many of us can come up here and testify, but the
Speaker:question is, do we still believe?
Speaker:that there's hope for us.
Speaker:I wanna remind every single one of us that hope is alive.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:That hope is alive.
Speaker:There's hope for you.
Speaker:There's hope for your future.
Speaker:There's hope that you can grow and that you can be stuck where you are.
Speaker:There's hope you can change and be a better person.
Speaker:There's hope that you can overcome that struggle, that sin, or that addiction.
Speaker:There's hope for you to be used by God in a miraculous way.
Speaker:There's hope for you to be used to have an impact in someone's life.
Speaker:And in this world.
Speaker:There's hope for your job and your career.
Speaker:There's hope for your emotional and mental health.
Speaker:There's hope for your loved ones.
Speaker:There's hope for your parents.
Speaker:There's hope for your children.
Speaker:There's hope for your spouse.
Speaker:There's hope for your marriage.
Speaker:There's hope for your neighborhood.
Speaker:There's hope for your university and your schools.
Speaker:There's hope for you to become who God created you to be, because hope is alive.
Speaker:And again, what's the avenue?
Speaker:The resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker:The tomb is what?
Speaker:Still empty.
Speaker:Still empty.
Speaker:We talked about that in Easter.
Speaker:The tomb is still empty.
Speaker:That helps us get perspective.
Speaker:But what does it do?
Speaker:It reminds us of the hope that we have.
Speaker:Hallelujah.
Speaker:That the tomb is still empty, that Jesus rose from there.
Speaker:As we saying earlier, God robbed the grave and Jesus resurrected.
Speaker:That means he is Lord.
Speaker:That means his promises are true.
Speaker:That means salvation is now and to come.
Speaker:You know, it's sad though that many in this world don't have this hope.
Speaker:Many in this world don't have this hope.
Speaker:You know what I, I thought about this.
Speaker:I thought, man, that's, that's terrible at that.
Speaker:But man, you know what's even worse is when we as disciples
Speaker:of Jesus, we forget this living hope and don't live in this hope.
Speaker:Yeah, because we've tasted it, we've experienced it,
Speaker:but yet we don't live in it.
Speaker:So therefore, we're not experiencing life to the fool.
Speaker:Therefore, we're not experiencing the victories in our lives.
Speaker:We're not becoming more like Christ who we were created to be.
Speaker:But again, we can fall into looking at the past in the wrong way or looking at our
Speaker:presence in the eyes of a humanistic view.
Speaker:Or we can tell Satan that he's a liar and we can say no.
Speaker:The hope is a lie because Jesus resurrected and because of Jesus,
Speaker:you and I are people of hope.
Speaker:So no matter what happened last night, last week, or even coming
Speaker:in, or maybe what you were feeling up to this point, there's hope for
Speaker:you because there's hope in Christ.
Speaker:There's hope of salvation and there's hope for change in the future.
Speaker:And so what should we do?
Speaker:Well, this makes me think here that we got, we have to
Speaker:remember the hope in Jesus.
Speaker:We have to remember this hope.
Speaker:We have to fight to retain this hope and live in.
Speaker:Because it can fade if we don't constantly remind ourselves, we can forget
Speaker:about it and not trust in situations.
Speaker:I know my struggle is I can lose grip of this hope.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Maybe you're not like me.
Speaker:Maybe I can lose grip of this hope for things to get better.
Speaker:There's a situation, uh, you know, this week here we're having a good
Speaker:time with our family, but you know, it wouldn't be appropriate for me
Speaker:to share all the dynamics there.
Speaker:But there's just a dynamic that was starting to occur in the
Speaker:family, and I was just praying and I was like, God, can you help?
Speaker:And I was just like, man, I just, I'm discouraged.
Speaker:I'm like, man, can this get better?
Speaker:Is this going to get better?
Speaker:And so I can easily forget and I can just see things.
Speaker:Now I'm looking at the circumstance instead of looking at Christ.
Speaker:And so of course looking at the circumstance like,
Speaker:man, this doesn't look good.
Speaker:But if I go back to who Christ is was and what he will do, it got
Speaker:my mind thinking there's hope.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:This can change.
Speaker:Marcel, stay in your his will.
Speaker:And that's something that we need to do as we, as we remember.
Speaker:I appreciate we wait and persevere.
Speaker:You know, the same quitters never prosper, right?
Speaker:Is that the same, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You said, I don't know.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You don't know either.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I think it's quitters never prosper, right?
Speaker:Or quitters never win.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:And maybe Adam both, and maybe that's what it is.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And so why don't quitters prosper?
Speaker:Why don't they win?
Speaker:It's because they stop . So they never saw it to fruition.
Speaker:They never saw it to completion.
Speaker:But think about the times when you held on, you're like, wow, God was faithful.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:And so as we remember it calls for us to wait upon the Lord.
Speaker:Doesn't mean we do nothing, but it means we wait in expectation, anticipation.
Speaker:God will change this.
Speaker:And I'm gonna persevere.
Speaker:I'm going to persevere.
Speaker:I'm going to take one step forward today along with his will.
Speaker:And I also believe we should share our hope.
Speaker:The world lacks hope.
Speaker:I believe this is the reason for increased nonclinical,
Speaker:depression, suicide, mass murderers.
Speaker:I've been watching the news or just snippets here.
Speaker:I think there's like three Mass.
Speaker:Murders.
Speaker:Murders, uh uh this week.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like three.
Speaker:I mean, we're getting numb to it now, aren't we?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like before you hear about, oh my goodness, now you're
Speaker:like, oh man, that's sad.
Speaker:And you just move on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We're becoming numb to this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What does that show?
Speaker:This is to me, this is the, these are the symptoms of what a lack of hope.
Speaker:If people had hope the way we have, we wouldn't see the things that are
Speaker:taking place because many people don't believe there's more to this
Speaker:life, or they don't believe that their lives can change and get better.
Speaker:But as Christians.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We know there is hope.
Speaker:We know there's someone who can bring hope and transform lives.
Speaker:And we have experienced, and we've tasted this hope, and so
Speaker:we know who to have hope in.
Speaker:We know that we have the hope of complete salvation, and we have
Speaker:the hope that one day God will transform and redeem this world.
Speaker:So we can't just sit back and hold it to ourselves.
Speaker:We gotta go out and freely distribute this to others.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Your neighbor, right now, you have no idea what they might be going through,
Speaker:but if we shared hope, it might transform.
Speaker:We were in a Bible study the other day, uh, me and a couple of the guys there.
Speaker:And, uh, and so the guy, you know, he starts sharing about an interaction with
Speaker:his friend and he come out, his friend was, um, was, was contemplating suicide.
Speaker:And we're like, wow, that's terrible.
Speaker:I'm like, man, but look at what you're learning right now.
Speaker:You're learning about the hope that is in Christ.
Speaker:What do you think God wants you to do?
Speaker:He wants you to take it, but he wants you to go quickly and share
Speaker:with your friends before that person becomes a news clipping.
Speaker:And so God wants us to share our hope.
Speaker:We have the treasure of the world.
Speaker:We're called to share it.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Not to sit back and just hold it.
Speaker:Not to just wait, but to freely give that.
Speaker:And if people don't accept it, they don't accept it, but at
Speaker:least we shared it with them.
Speaker:We say, God can change your marriage.
Speaker:God can change that situation if you submit and trust him.
Speaker:And so I believe BR Sisters recalled to share our hope.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:Let me ask you this as we close out.
Speaker:What if the living hope of Christ started to spread just this month?
Speaker:What if the hope in Jesus, the hope of salvation, the hope for
Speaker:the future started to be your norm.
Speaker:What if hope was more than a word, but started to become your reality?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:What if the living hope started to spread?
Speaker:What if you went into work or class tomorrow reminded of
Speaker:the living hope that you have?
Speaker:What if you faced that challenge?
Speaker:You know what I'm talking about?
Speaker:That challenge in your life.
Speaker:You faced it this week with the God of hope.
Speaker:What if the living hope of Christ started to spread?
Speaker:What if your household started to understand the hope
Speaker:that is available to them?
Speaker:What if your family group started to share this hope with others?
Speaker:What if this living hope started to spread to your neighborhood and your complex?
Speaker:What if our cities, our governments, our government officials, were
Speaker:influenced by this living hope?
Speaker:What if the living hope of Christ started to spread ? What if the world knew about
Speaker:the living hope that is found through the resurrection of Jesus the Christ?
Speaker:What if all of us started to live as people of hope?
Speaker:What if all of us started to spread the living hope of Christ?
Speaker:I think it would read like this here, or lemme give you some action steps.
Speaker:Sorry, here I got, I got ahead of myself.
Speaker:I'm fired up.
Speaker:Let me give you some action steps here.
Speaker:Here's some action steps real quickly here.
Speaker:Thank God for the hope you have in Jesus.
Speaker:Spend some time this week, just, just some time this week.
Speaker:Maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's 20 minutes.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But spend some significant time thanking God for the hope that you have in Jesus.
Speaker:And then do this.
Speaker:Encourage someone to seek hope in Jesus.
Speaker:We all have a family member, friend, neighbor, coworker, classmate.
Speaker:Encourage them to seek hope in Jesus.
Speaker:And then let us take this from being an idea and concept and
Speaker:cool religious vernacular to becoming our reality in lives.
Speaker:As we close out, I believe we would also praise God in saying, praise be to the
Speaker:God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his great mercy has given us a new
Speaker:birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
Speaker:Dead Brothers sisters, I pray that we may, that we may live as people of hope.
