People of Hope (North OC)

amen.

So, uh, I don't know.

But I am fired up.

Amen.

Tell us why Marcel Kyle's over here a hater.

Look at him.

He's an op right in front of us.

The ops are between this.

All right, so it, many of you might know if you don't know, I'm a huge sports fan.

Before I went into the full-time ministry, I, I worked in sports radio, and so I'm

a huge sports fan, and the sport that I'm most passionate about is college football.

Can I get an amen Mark Hankins.

Mark is fired up.

Me and him are fired up because if you did not know, I'm

gonna let you know right now.

So the, the, this school called USC plays and they won again against their

other arts rival Notre Dame last night.

And so also I have to mention my niece Jasmine is here.

Hey man, look at her.

Come on.

My niece, Jasmine also went to usc, so she's fired up.

We went from no college to mo college in my family.

Amen.

There were no college degrees and now college degrees are

coming out, so we're fired up.

And so she went to usc.

So I'm just on Cloud 29, not cloud nine.

Okay.

I went past that.

Alright?

And so I'm super fired up because we lived in some dark times for a

number of years, John, or used to come up and make fun of me and laugh

at me because he is an Oregon fan.

I don't know why and what's going on with it, but he would hurt

me even though he did love me when I went through a hard time.

When I went through some difficult, hard time through sports.

He jabbed it at me, you know?

Me.

So thank you for that.

Love . And so it's been some hard times, but by the grace of God,

I believe it's the grace of God.

We've been able to have some hope now this year.

Amen.

Amen.

And I had this epiphany, this spiritual epiphany as I was watching college

football yesterday, is that college football really has the ability to

make or break your hope in life.

Okay?

That's an exaggeration.

Not maybe life, but it's a sport that so filled with making and dashing hopes.

Because you can start off the year with, yes, we have a chance to

win it all, and you lose one game and that hope goes down the drain.

But then maybe if you lose at the right time, you still might have some hope.

And so recently here for USC fans, we've come to end the year with Zero Hope.

We had like little bit of uh, uh, you know, possibility of

maybe we're going to at least be average, but now we have some hope.

And it made me start thinking about hope that we have as the people of God.

And you know, there could be hope in sports, there could be hope.

I know some of us are really into politics and you know, and all these

different things, but as the people of God, we have a different type of hope.

We have a hope that's powerful and hope is powerful, isn't it?

Whether you have hope, whether maybe it's in order to excel

in a certain area, whatever the case may be, hope is powerful.

It can make the difference in our perspective.

Hope changes our direction, our actions, our attitudes.

And there's a clear difference when you are filled with hope

and when you are lacking in hope.

Right?

You know the stark contrast when you are hopeful or when you are hopeless.

And hopeless is a terrible, terrible place to being, isn't it?

And so it can affect our emotional and our mental health.

But when there is hope, there's confidence.

When there's a hope that stems from a relationship with God, there's

a belief that God will see you through the current situation.

And we've been talking about becoming like God, meaning in a

sense, becoming God lead to become, uh, what God has created us to be.

And so it's so powerful that because of Jesus, we become people of hope,

and that's the title for our time here this morning, is that because

of Jesus, we are people of hope.

Let's go to God in.

Father, I thank you so much for what you've been teaching me, what

you've been showing me recently.

I know I was just awestruck in reading the passage here that we're going

to read and just truly inspired.

And God, I pray right now that you may communicate a message of hope

that people will see you or be reminded that you are a God of hope.

And that because we are your people, we are a people of hope and

how that can transform our lives.

We pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

I wanna go ahead and, uh, show, uh, a video real quickly,

uh, from the Bible Project.

Many of us are fans of the Bible project videos and they do a phenomenal job.

And so I wanna show this video here real quickly to help, um,

to help us as we talk about hope.

So let's go ahead and let's play the video.

So let's say you wanna describe the feeling of anticipating a future

that's better than the present.

You might be giddy or excited or maybe unsure, but most

of us know that experience.

We call it hope.

It's a state of anticipation and it's crucial for healthy human

existence, and it's a really important concept in the Bible.

In fact, there are many words for hope in the ancient languages of the

Bible, and they're all fascinating.

In the Old Testament, there are two main Hebrew words translated as hope.

The first is yaha, which means simply to wait for like in the story of Noah

and the arc as the floodwaters recede.

Noah had to yaha for weeks.

The other Hebrew word is kava, which also means to wait.

It's related to the Hebrew word kav, which means cord.

When you pull a cove tight, you produce a state of tension until there's release.

That's kava the feeling of tension and expectation while

you wait for something to happen.

The prophet Isaiah depicts God as a farmer who plants vines and kavas for

good grapes, or the prophet Micah talks about farmers who both kava and yaha for

mourn dew to give moisture to the land.

So in biblical Hebrew, hope is about waiting or expectation, but

waiting for what in the period of Israel's prophets as the nation

was sinking into self destruction.

Isaiah said At this moment, the Lord's hiding his face from

Israel, so I will kava for him.

The only hope Isaiah had in those dark days was the hope for God himself.

You find the same notion of hope all over the Book of Psalms, where these words

appear over 40 times in almost every case.

What people are waiting for is God.

Like in Psalm 130, the poet cries out from a pit of despair.

I kava for the Lord, let Israel yaha for the Lord because he's loyal and

will redeem Israel from its sins.

Biblical hope is based on a person which makes it different from optimism.

Optimism is about choosing to see in any situation how circumstances could

work out for the best, but biblical hope is not focused on circumstances.

In fact, hopeful people in the Bible often recognize there's no evidence things

will get better, but you choose hope.

Like the prophet Hosea, he lived in a dark time when Israel was being oppressed

by foreign empires, and he chose hope when he said God could turn this

valley of trouble into a door of hope.

Like the day when Israel came up from the land of Egypt.

God had surprised his people with redemption back in the days of the Exodus.

And he could do so again.

So it's God's past faithfulness that motivates hope for the future.

You look forward by looking backward, trusting in nothing

other than God's character.

It's like the poet of Psalm 39 who says, and now, oh Lord,

what else can I cover off for?

You are Mya Hall.

In the New Testament, the earliest followers of Jesus cultivated

the similar habit of hope.

They believed that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection was God's surprising response

to our slavery, to evil and death.

The empty tomb opened up a new door of hope, and they

used the Greek word El peace.

To describe this anticipation, the apostle Peter said that Jesus' resurrection

opened up a living hope that people can be reborn to become new in different

kinds of humans more than once.

The Apostle Paul says, the good news about Jesus announces the L peace of glory.

In both cases, this L peace is based on a person, the risen

Jesus, who has overcome death.

And this hope wasn't just for humans.

The apostles believed that what happened to Jesus and the resurrection

was a floor taste of what God had planned for the whole universe.

In Paul's words, it's a hope that creation itself will be liberated from

slavery to corruption into freedom when God's children are glorified.

So Christian hope is bold, waiting for humanity and the whole universe

to be rescued from evil and death.

And some would say it's crazy, and maybe it is, but biblical

hope isn't optimism based on the.

It's a choice to wait for God to bring about a future.

That's as surprising as a crucified man rising from the dead.

Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus in order to

look forward, and so we wait.

That's what the biblical words for Hope are all about.

Video's very helpful there.

They're doing such a great job.

They go on the website, check out, all kind of good stuff there.

But I want us to talk some more about this idea of hope.

He mentioned something about this idea of living hope.

And so I want us to look at this scripture and it's gonna be

the basis for our sermon here.

First Peter, chapter one, Peter was a follower of Jesus.

And, uh, not only was he a follower of Jesus, but he was one of the main leaders

in the church in the first century.

And so he writes this letter to several churches.

The, they're starting to experience some persecution, and the letter is filled

with this idea of hope and perseverance.

And so we read in verse three.

Says, praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope, through

the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance

that can never per spoil or faith.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are

shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is

ready to be revealed in a last.

And all this you greatly rejoiced on.

For now a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater

worth than go, which parishes, even though refined by fire, may

result in praise, glory, and honor.

When Jesus Christ revealed, though you have not seen him, you love him, and

even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with

an inexpressible and glorious joy for you receiving the end result of your

faith, the salvation of your souls.

I want us again to look at this idea of living hope.

So here's what I want us to do, because this struck me this week here.

I want us to go ahead and, and twos and threes and the people in our rows

and answer this question, how does this idea of living hope strike you?

What does that mean to you when you think of this idea of hope?

And we see what Biblical hope is, this living hope that

is available for Christians.

So I'll give you several minutes to go ahead and discuss what

does Living Hope mean to you?

And if you're online, go ahead and put in the chat there.

Put it in the chat.

What does Living Hope mean to you?

In my AV people, you guys can go ahead and uh, and answer

that amongst yourselves as well.

15 more seconds.

All right.

All right.

Do wanna mention here?

We're excited.

Uh, I think last week we, we talked about Kelsey Barber being back.

We're excited.

Uh, another, uh, uh, uh, child, uh, who is now a grown man, uh, is back here

with us today from, uh, doing a, got a little little break here from his military

service, and that's Brandon Kohler.

Brandon Kohler's here with us this morning.

Come on.

I remember Brandon, several year, seven years ago, he, he didn't look

like a grown man the way he does now.

You see the way he stood up there like, yeah, Uhhuh.

Right.

Let's go ahead here.

Let's, let's have a couple people share.

What were some things that maybe either you shared or someone

that you were talking to shared about what Living Hope means?

Yes, sir.

Um, I think it makes me think of, uh, Jeremiah 12.

I know the plan I have for you to help you prosper to me, living hope.

Is there somebody actively trying to get us over you?

God is there doing things actively to help us as opposed to us just hoping

randomly, you know, like unlike you, my duck, Flo yesterday, no one was

actively trying to make them way.

But when it comes to me trying to get a job or, or trying to have a

successful marriage, God is actively trying to help me achieve that hope.

Amen.

What comes to mind for him is the idea that God is actively trying to help

you in, in all facets of life there.

Awesome.

All right.

Yes.

So, Faith grows.

The changes through testing, our hope also grow.

So as our faith grows, our hope grows through the test and changes.

Okay, awesome.

Yes.

Um, so for me, I focus on the word living, which, uh, to me sounded like

the opposite of death or so it sounds like something that, uh, will not die

and that something that is like a one time use, but something that I ever last.

So, um, that's, and something that,

so hope that is eternal.

Never, never fading or, or, or dying there.

Okay.

Awesome.

Good.

One more.

Let's go away.

All right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, I think for me, what's out in that video.

The part where it, that we have this hope cause of our past experiences with God and

seeing how faithful hes in the past gives me a living hope now that I, him, I do

amazing things in my life because of God's past faithfulness to, to you that means,

yes, he's gonna be faithful in the, in, in, in the future and coming days there.

Okay, good.

This idea of living hope that stood out to me.

I've read this passage many years, but again, it struck me

in this idea of living hope.

And so I want us to dive a little bit more into this idea.

So I'm going to probably share some things that you probably already mentioned.

That means the Holy Spirit, uh, is working there.

But I wanna share a couple more observations with you

about this idea of living hope.

And we wanna look at a couple things.

What we have hope.

What we have hope of and what we have hope for all contained in this passage.

So let's look at this idea first of the hope we have in Jesus again, in the

verse it says That in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope.

I love this imagery that the Holy Spirit led Peter in writing this, this idea

of a new birth into a living hope.

And so this idea that we are born into this hope and so that we,

now, we, we, we live in a hope once we are spiritually born.

And that's our new life.

That's our new.

Like we've had, uh, I see Nelson over there.

They just had a newborn baby, I think celebrating four months.

I thought I saw that on Facebook, right?

Four months.

There you go.

You know, that's Facebook, right?

Four month anniversary.

You know what I'm saying?

That's great, right?

And so they're celebrating four months a new child.

Their new child is born into their family.

That's, that's their child's existence.

That's what they know when we are spiritually born.

This is the hope now that we live in, it's a living hope that we are born into.

It's a life of hope now.

And it says that we have a living hope in Jesus, similar to what my

niece said, one that is not dead.

It's not fading.

It's not about to expire.

It's not going to pass.

It is a li being.

Hope.

It continues.

It is eternal.

That means hope is always present for the child of God.

Amen.

Hope is always present for the child of God and as disciples of Jesus.

That means we always have hope as disciples of Jesus.

We are never categorized as the hopeless.

That's not who you are, and that's not your standing nor your status.

You are never categorized with the hopeless because you were born into a

living hope, not a hope for once, not a hope a couple of years ago, but a hope

that lives for all eternity, right?

What a blessing and a privilege that is.

What a blessing and privilege that is.

What a blessing and privilege that is.

Amen.

To be born and to stay in this hope.

That's eternal.

Amen.

Boy, boy, we got a good God.

That's why he starts up, he says, praise me to the God.

He's so fired up.

He's like, praise me to God because of this new hope that we're born into.

Oh boy.

I wish we could understand how good God is.

Amen.

But let's talk about this, this hope in Jesus.

Look at this.

It says, through the resurrection of Jesus, I love this.

Our hope is not in circumstance.

It's in a person, and this person is faithful.

He's the one who's never or never will let you down.

I put hope in my wife.

I love my wife, but my wife's gonna fail me.

I put my hope in myself.

Well, I know how that's gone, that I'm gonna fail myself if I put hope.

And I love all of you.

I love you, Brian Turner.

But I can't put my hope in Brian Turner, at least maybe for some

things, but not for my life.

And so it says, we put our hope in Jesus, the one who conquered death.

Ooh.

That's what we put our hope in, right?

The one who conquered death.

I just love this because it means, look, we don't put our

hope just in the death of Jesus.

We put our hope in the resurrection of Jesus, right?

That's right.

So our hope is not in the dead.

Our hope is in the living.

Again, it's living hope.

Oh, hallelujah.

Lord, please help some people today here.

Okay, we have a hope in Jesus.

What do we have a hope of?

We have a hope of salvation.

Let's continue to read.

Church, are you still with me here?

It says here that we are giving that new birth into a living hope through

the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that

can never perish, spoil, or faith.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for.

Who threw faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of

the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Jumping on down to verse nine, for you are receiving the end result of your

faith, the salvation of your souls.

What is it talking about?

We have this great inheritance.

What's that?

Inheritance?

It's complete ation.

Mm-hmm.

. That's the inheritance that we have.

Complete salvation.

We have the hope of complete salvation.

You know, God does this a lot and you know, this is one of those,

uh, that, that it is called the, uh, now and not yet with God.

God has a lot of, now you have, but not yet as well.

For example, the kingdom of God, God's reign.

Jesus reigning supreme.

That's the kingdom of God is here now, but yet it's also.

Amen.

We have salvation.

Yes, we are safe, but it's still to come.

You guys see what I'm saying here, right?

And so we have this salvation now, but we have the hope that

it will one day be completes.

And as the children of the most high God, we have the confidence

and anticipation of eternal life with the creator of the universe.

And it says that this inheritance, check this out.

It says it can never para, spoil or fade.

Can I get an amen to that?

Amen.

I don't know about you, but I had a lot of things in my life that

Paris spoiled or faded, right?

Right.

You know, uh, I used to have this, uh, I guess it was a wishful dream.

Uh, we thought, man, you know what?

We've done a good job of being wise with our money.

Maybe we can buy a house.

And then the rates went up, dreams perished, Thanksgiving meals.

I hope you had a good meal.

But if you don't eat it this week, what it's gonna spoil.

Right.

Things fade all the time.

You know, I had this basketball signed by this, uh, by, by all

the NBA players on this team.

Right?

Uh, I won't mention it was the Clippers, but Amen.

You know what I'm saying?

It was still cool.

And so I was giving this basketball and it was autographed by all

the players on the Clippers.

And so I said, have it up in my room.

And then one day I'm like, I think we were moving.

And I get it and I'm like, oh, no, what in the world happened to these autographs?

And I was like, you know what?

I probably shouldn't have put it close to the window.

And so all these autograph, it was a clipper, so it was probably

worth $8, but still it was the Clippers before they were good.

All right.

And so it started to fade.

But here's the awesome thing, brothers and sisters, our inheritance isn't

like any of those things, right?

Right.

Our complete salvation will never spoil, will never fade,

and sure enough will not perish.

Yeah, our salvation is like that.

It says it's kept, his inheritance is kept in heaven for you, that

Greek word is really a, a kind of a military term, and so it's given

this idea that our inheritance is protected like military style.

You're complete salvation.

God has it on lockdown for you.

He's protecting it.

So as followers of Jesus Christ, we now hope.

We now wait with great anticipation for the return of Jesus, which

will make everything complete.

Hallelujah.

We are people of hope.

Boy, oh boy.

We are people of hope.

We have hope in Christ.

We have hope of salvation.

But guess what?

We also have the hope for change in the future.

One Peter one, verse six and seven, it says, these things have come.

They're proven genius of your faith.

The greater worth than goal, which parishes, even though refined by

fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

He said, Hey, there's going to be a transformation and it's gonna be glorious.

It's going to be praiseworthy, and it's going to be honorable.

John mentioned this earlier, this verse, John, oh, that's Romans 15.

We'll read this anyway, but it says, may the God of hope fill you with all

joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope

by the power of the Holy Spirits.

Jeremiah 29 11 says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,

plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Plans to give you hope and a future.

And so God has always been in this business.

Why?

Because he is a God of hope, of giving His people hope that you can

change, that there's a future that he has in store for you that can

lead to praise, glory, and honor.

And so again, we're never categorized with the hope.

Because we have a Christ who we have hope in.

We have the hope of complete salvation, and we have the hope for change

transformation in a bright future.

You know, there's so many stories in this room.

If we've had number of people come up and share how they came to know

Christ, we've even had, uh, uh, or Daisy share earlier, right?

Hey, you know what?

There was, there was this time here, and she still had to struggle to be refined.

But now what?

Because of the cross, she has hope that she can overcome her pride.

We've had a number of people in here share before they came to know

Jesus, there was thought of suicide.

There was maybe non, uh, clinical depression.

Uh, there were destructive behavior, bad relationships, but the hope

of God changed their lives.

I'm so far about my, my, my, my buddy, uh, Leo Sanchez.

Leo Leo's, uh, brother in here, in the church here.

Uh, uh, um, and, and so Leo, um, you know, he, he, um, is a, a, a

mechanic, but Leo made some poor choices and that led him to prison.

And he was in prison for several years.

And Francis, uh, Francis, that was her, her me, Leo was Francis' Mechanic.

You guys with me there?

All right, there you go.

I don't think Francis is a mechanic.

That would be impressive if she was a mechanic for Leo.

I'd like higher up.

All right.

And so she would reach out to him for years.

Hey, you gotta come to church.

He's like, no, no, no, no.

But then he goes and he does this stint in prison.

And, and that led him to start thinking about God.

And as he was in, it was as he was in prison, he started to, to read

his Bible and started to go more to the Bible classes that were offered.

And then when he comes out of prison, he finds Francis or Francis

finds him, whatever the case is.

The Lord found him.

And then this happened, and then he was baptized into Christ

here and we say Hallelujah.

And so there was hope for change.

And you know, he wrote this message on GroupMe the other day

to our, our little family group.

We, we, uh, we had this family group GroupMe, and he says, Hey, dear family,

it is an honor to be a part of this group.

I remember when being in prison and being behind those walls, I pray to our Lord

Jesus Christ, that when I got out to find the best church for me to attend,

and he gave me more than I expected.

And I thank you for the support everyone has given me.

I'm thankful to our God.

God is awesome.

Thank you family.

There's hope for change.

There's hope for change.

Again, many of us can come up here and testify, but the

question is, do we still believe?

that there's hope for us.

I wanna remind every single one of us that hope is alive.

Amen.

That hope is alive.

There's hope for you.

There's hope for your future.

There's hope that you can grow and that you can be stuck where you are.

There's hope you can change and be a better person.

There's hope that you can overcome that struggle, that sin, or that addiction.

There's hope for you to be used by God in a miraculous way.

There's hope for you to be used to have an impact in someone's life.

And in this world.

There's hope for your job and your career.

There's hope for your emotional and mental health.

There's hope for your loved ones.

There's hope for your parents.

There's hope for your children.

There's hope for your spouse.

There's hope for your marriage.

There's hope for your neighborhood.

There's hope for your university and your schools.

There's hope for you to become who God created you to be, because hope is alive.

And again, what's the avenue?

The resurrection of Jesus.

The tomb is what?

Still empty.

Still empty.

We talked about that in Easter.

The tomb is still empty.

That helps us get perspective.

But what does it do?

It reminds us of the hope that we have.

Hallelujah.

That the tomb is still empty, that Jesus rose from there.

As we saying earlier, God robbed the grave and Jesus resurrected.

That means he is Lord.

That means his promises are true.

That means salvation is now and to come.

You know, it's sad though that many in this world don't have this hope.

Many in this world don't have this hope.

You know what I, I thought about this.

I thought, man, that's, that's terrible at that.

But man, you know what's even worse is when we as disciples

of Jesus, we forget this living hope and don't live in this hope.

Yeah, because we've tasted it, we've experienced it,

but yet we don't live in it.

So therefore, we're not experiencing life to the fool.

Therefore, we're not experiencing the victories in our lives.

We're not becoming more like Christ who we were created to be.

But again, we can fall into looking at the past in the wrong way or looking at our

presence in the eyes of a humanistic view.

Or we can tell Satan that he's a liar and we can say no.

The hope is a lie because Jesus resurrected and because of Jesus,

you and I are people of hope.

So no matter what happened last night, last week, or even coming

in, or maybe what you were feeling up to this point, there's hope for

you because there's hope in Christ.

There's hope of salvation and there's hope for change in the future.

And so what should we do?

Well, this makes me think here that we got, we have to

remember the hope in Jesus.

We have to remember this hope.

We have to fight to retain this hope and live in.

Because it can fade if we don't constantly remind ourselves, we can forget

about it and not trust in situations.

I know my struggle is I can lose grip of this hope.

Yeah.

Maybe you're not like me.

Maybe I can lose grip of this hope for things to get better.

There's a situation, uh, you know, this week here we're having a good

time with our family, but you know, it wouldn't be appropriate for me

to share all the dynamics there.

But there's just a dynamic that was starting to occur in the

family, and I was just praying and I was like, God, can you help?

And I was just like, man, I just, I'm discouraged.

I'm like, man, can this get better?

Is this going to get better?

And so I can easily forget and I can just see things.

Now I'm looking at the circumstance instead of looking at Christ.

And so of course looking at the circumstance like,

man, this doesn't look good.

But if I go back to who Christ is was and what he will do, it got

my mind thinking there's hope.

Amen.

This can change.

Marcel, stay in your his will.

And that's something that we need to do as we, as we remember.

I appreciate we wait and persevere.

You know, the same quitters never prosper, right?

Is that the same, right?

Yeah.

You said, I don't know.

Okay.

You don't know either.

Okay.

Right.

I think it's quitters never prosper, right?

Or quitters never win.

Something like that.

And maybe Adam both, and maybe that's what it is.

All right.

And so why don't quitters prosper?

Why don't they win?

It's because they stop . So they never saw it to fruition.

They never saw it to completion.

But think about the times when you held on, you're like, wow, God was faithful.

Amen.

And so as we remember it calls for us to wait upon the Lord.

Doesn't mean we do nothing, but it means we wait in expectation, anticipation.

God will change this.

And I'm gonna persevere.

I'm going to persevere.

I'm going to take one step forward today along with his will.

And I also believe we should share our hope.

The world lacks hope.

I believe this is the reason for increased nonclinical,

depression, suicide, mass murderers.

I've been watching the news or just snippets here.

I think there's like three Mass.

Murders.

Murders, uh uh this week.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like three.

I mean, we're getting numb to it now, aren't we?

Yeah.

Like before you hear about, oh my goodness, now you're

like, oh man, that's sad.

And you just move on.

Yeah.

We're becoming numb to this.

Yeah.

What does that show?

This is to me, this is the, these are the symptoms of what a lack of hope.

If people had hope the way we have, we wouldn't see the things that are

taking place because many people don't believe there's more to this

life, or they don't believe that their lives can change and get better.

But as Christians.

Right.

We know there is hope.

We know there's someone who can bring hope and transform lives.

And we have experienced, and we've tasted this hope, and so

we know who to have hope in.

We know that we have the hope of complete salvation, and we have

the hope that one day God will transform and redeem this world.

So we can't just sit back and hold it to ourselves.

We gotta go out and freely distribute this to others.

Amen.

Your neighbor, right now, you have no idea what they might be going through,

but if we shared hope, it might transform.

We were in a Bible study the other day, uh, me and a couple of the guys there.

And, uh, and so the guy, you know, he starts sharing about an interaction with

his friend and he come out, his friend was, um, was, was contemplating suicide.

And we're like, wow, that's terrible.

I'm like, man, but look at what you're learning right now.

You're learning about the hope that is in Christ.

What do you think God wants you to do?

He wants you to take it, but he wants you to go quickly and share

with your friends before that person becomes a news clipping.

And so God wants us to share our hope.

We have the treasure of the world.

We're called to share it.

Amen.

Right?

Not to sit back and just hold it.

Not to just wait, but to freely give that.

And if people don't accept it, they don't accept it, but at

least we shared it with them.

We say, God can change your marriage.

God can change that situation if you submit and trust him.

And so I believe BR Sisters recalled to share our hope.

Amen.

Let me ask you this as we close out.

What if the living hope of Christ started to spread just this month?

What if the hope in Jesus, the hope of salvation, the hope for

the future started to be your norm.

What if hope was more than a word, but started to become your reality?

Right?

What if the living hope started to spread?

What if you went into work or class tomorrow reminded of

the living hope that you have?

What if you faced that challenge?

You know what I'm talking about?

That challenge in your life.

You faced it this week with the God of hope.

What if the living hope of Christ started to spread?

What if your household started to understand the hope

that is available to them?

What if your family group started to share this hope with others?

What if this living hope started to spread to your neighborhood and your complex?

What if our cities, our governments, our government officials, were

influenced by this living hope?

What if the living hope of Christ started to spread ? What if the world knew about

the living hope that is found through the resurrection of Jesus the Christ?

What if all of us started to live as people of hope?

What if all of us started to spread the living hope of Christ?

I think it would read like this here, or lemme give you some action steps.

Sorry, here I got, I got ahead of myself.

I'm fired up.

Let me give you some action steps here.

Here's some action steps real quickly here.

Thank God for the hope you have in Jesus.

Spend some time this week, just, just some time this week.

Maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's 20 minutes.

I don't know.

But spend some significant time thanking God for the hope that you have in Jesus.

And then do this.

Encourage someone to seek hope in Jesus.

We all have a family member, friend, neighbor, coworker, classmate.

Encourage them to seek hope in Jesus.

And then let us take this from being an idea and concept and

cool religious vernacular to becoming our reality in lives.

As we close out, I believe we would also praise God in saying, praise be to the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his great mercy has given us a new

birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the

Dead Brothers sisters, I pray that we may, that we may live as people of hope.

Amen.