Hope and The Edge of Eternity

Joshua Kehler: Ephesians chapter six, I

I'm gonna re start in verse 10, to verse 20.

Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God.

That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil for we do not wrestle

against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness against the spiritual

forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able

to withstand in the evil day.

And having done all to stand firm stand, therefore having fastened on

the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as

shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace

and all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish

all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of

God, praying at all times in the spirit with all parents' application to that,

and keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints

and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly

to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains.

That I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, and then I'm gonna

read out of First Thessalonians chapter five verse eight.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the

breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

This is the word of the Lord.

Victor Frankl was a Jewish Austrian doctor who was imprisoned in Auschwitz

in World War II and, survived.

He wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning, in which he told stories

from his time there, and described how various prisoners dealt with the despair

of being in that concentration camp.

Many, he said, responded to the hopeless situation by becoming brutal and cruel

themselves, just like their captors.

A kind of survival of the fittest was the mindset.

Others, Frankl said, just gave up, just completely gave up.

He wrote, usually this happened quite suddenly.

The symptoms of which were familiar to us who had been at Auschwitz for a while.

We all feared for this moment in our friends.

Usually it began one morning when the prisoner simply refused to

get dressed or wash or go out to the parade grounds for inspection.

No treaties, no blows, no threats had any effect.

They just lay there.

They had given up.

Nothing bothered them anymore because they had no hope.

Minnie, he said, held on to the hope that if they stayed alive,

Their health, family, professional achievements, fortune and position

in society would be restored to them.

But after liberation, they found those things irretrievably

gone or changed forever, and many went into deep depression.

Many of the survivors even died by suicide.

Popes had been shattered because their hopes were on those things.

Frankel said that the ones who truly overcame Auschwitz were those who, had a

fixed reference point outside the world, something they held onto that was beyond

the grasp of death and destruction.

Those are the ones that made it through in a healthy way, like

the prisoners at Auschwitz.

For many of us are hopes.

Is some fixed reference point in this world.

Too often we would call that a flimsy hope, indeed, building

a house on the sand that our circumstances will change, right?

One day we think things will get better.

I'll get my job back.

I'll find a spouse.

My bank account will grow while I'll be healed from this chronic pain.

But what if those things don't happen?

You don't get the job, you don't get married.

The pain doesn't go away.

Do you have a living hope?

That's what Peter called it, A living hope, that death can't touch a refuge,

that the challenges of life can't overcome a shelter, that the storms

of life can't shake a living hope.

So today I'm gonna see the helmet of salvation.

And then as it says in Thessalonians, cause I think this was Paul's

aspect, we talked about the helmet of salvation a little bit already, but

the helmet of the hope of salvation.

And then finally, and this may seem outta order why hopelessness is good.

So a little bit of background, we've been talking about spiritual warfare.

Any life that yields to the work of the Holy Spirit to be made more like Jesus.

Every day and to be involved in the mission of Jesus, what

is Jesus' mission seeking and saving that which is lost, right?

The restoration of all things.

So any life that is engaged in that walk with Jesus will

face tremendous opposition.

No matter who you are, no matter how much you've been a Christian, or if

you're just getting into the gate.

As, Spurgeon said a sword in one hand, in a trial on the other.

We are builder battlers.

We build for the kingdom of God and his kingdom, and we battle against the enemy,

not flesh and blood as we read about, but against the enemy that wants to seek to

devour and steal and kill and destroy.

we have kingdom resources.

We have the armor of God, and we are not to fight in our own strength.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, not your

strength, how do we get the Lord's strength By admitting our weakness.

It's the encounter, intuitive way of the gospel.

We don't go from weakness to strength.

A mature Christian goes from strength.

To more and more weakness.

They realize how much I can't do, and that I need Jesus every step of

the way, every moment of the day.

So it says, finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand

against the schemes of the devil.

Each piece of the armor we've learned is an aspect of the gospel applied

to different part of our lives.

And the gospel is like a diamond full of facets.

And the light hits it as you turn it, and shoots color all over and light all over.

And so the gospel isn't just, simplistic.

It's multifaceted, it's deep.

It's not the shallow end of the pool.

It's the whole pool.

It's the deep end, it's everything.

And so Paul is saying all the gospel I've been teaching you through

the chapters and Ephesians, I want you to put it on to apply it.

Now that can sounds so abstract.

Put on the whole armor of God, apply this piece of the gospel.

Have you ever rented a tuxedo?

I don't know if any of you have bought 'em.

No.

Or, a really nice fancy dress or a, for prom or a dance or something like that.

I remember when.

I got married, we went on a cruise, and my wife got such a bad sunburn.

She's fair-skinned, and we didn't know the, we'd snorkeled

all day without, sunscreen.

And she was just brutally and to the point.

Then the humidity hit and she was like, in such pain.

We kept going to the doctor on the ship.

We were on a cruise and, She was taking all this medicine.

They're like, try this one.

Nothing was working.

And finally it, like all hit at once.

And she slept for 20 hours straight.

I had rented a tuxedo, , cause we were gonna do a fancy dinner that night.

So I went and, put on my tuxedo and went to dinner by myself.

And I was playing arcade games, on the ship and stuff.

But I tell you like my whole mindset was different.

It wasn't flip flops and shorts and, a Hawaiian, button up.

When you put on something like a tuxedo, you almost want to talk

with an accent a little bit or, , shaken, not stirred kind of a thing.

And, it's just by putting something on it changes how you perceive things.

And what's fascinating is we forget this as adults, but kids get it

early on, , put on a princess dress.

They think they're a princess, they're like convinced and

it's, they put on this outfit.

my son, wanted to be a cowboy, and he dressed up like a cowboy,

and, he thought he was a cowboy.

He'd like, Hey, partner.

it changed everything.

And and it's fascinating me, and that's what he's saying.

He's saying, put this on and let it change how you see things, how you perceive,

how you take in information, how you walk through this world like God loves you.

It will never pull that love away.

How does that change how we walk through our workplace?

God so loved the world that he gave us on, not just for you, but for the world.

How does that change how we work alongside a coworker who's frustrating?

So we're putting on in every day, every moment of the day, these aspects of

what Paul's been preaching to us we're to take up the whole armor and we saw

the belt of truth stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth,

Jesus, who is true and truth itself is to encompass our whole being.

Making every part of us true, right?

What is what you get breastplate of righteousness and having put on

the breastplate of righteousness.

Righteousness covering our hearts and our vital organs, not a righteousness that

we provide our earn to make God love us.

But a foreign righteousness that was one for us at the cross of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus, our righteousness is making us righteous.

Jesus' life applied to us like Jesus' life had given for us, so that

when the Father at us, he sees the beauty and the perfection of Jesus.

He sees the obedience of Jesus.

He relates to you not as someone who's failed multiple times a day, but as

someone who's obeyed as perfectly as Jesus, he loves you perfectly.

And without restraint, preparation of the gospel of peace and his shoes

for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace,

something that keeps her feet from slipping into doubting God's love.

So the gospel of peace, girded about our feet, making our steps, sure and secure.

We remember that while we were enemies, Christ died for us.

When we were in open rebellion to him, he chased us and pursued

us, and made us his friends.

He.

Loves us.

Shield of faith in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with

which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Faith is simply acting on what God says is true.

That's faith.

Faith's greatest values that it connects us with the victory, the all

powerful, all sufficient Lord whose victory over the enemy is our victory.

We can face the flaming arrows of suffering by trusting our sovereign

God in King, that he is working all things together for his good,

for his glory, and for our joy.

So the helmet, and take the helmet of salvation.

We talked about the different types of helmets that were

worn by the Roman soldiers.

One was metal and it covered the ears.

It had a piece over your nose.

It protected your whole head.

It was heavy.

And so they would take sponge out of the ocean and that they would pad it.

you weren't just clanking about in a, just a metal helmet, getting hit.

If you're just wearing that would hurt.

But the idea is that it, it was this complete covering, no soldier's

outfit, cle without the helmet.

And so there is in our, , journey, as Christians, , one of the ways the

enemy attacks is our mind, right?

, Romans, 12, one to two.

I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present

your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world.

And there's that conforming.

But be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may

discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And so there is a sense that the enemy wants you to think his thoughts, the.

Jesus wants you to think his thoughts, right?

So there's a conflict, there's a battle, but we don't only face the enemy we face

the world, the flesh, the devil, right?

As it talks about in First John, the world is trying to conform

our minds into that image.

We're just talking about consumerism, right?

Everything in our, , culture is.

Geared to, you need more.

If you just have this, finally you'll be happy.

And all you need is this and we're gonna make it so much easier.

Apple just came out with a pay later.

Amazing.

Is it?

Because now you don't have to save and screw and really think about it.

Now you get it, now, and then you'll be happy.

It'll be worth it, and so it's constantly trying to put us

in this mode, this framework.

That's something that we have to fight against.

Second Corinthians 10, four, and five says, for the weapons of our warfare, not.

Of the flesh, but have divine power for destroying strongholds.

We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion, raised against the

knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ You.

That literally means you.

Go and capture your thoughts, and then you interrogate them like in a room, right?

You, there's, it's two-sided mirrors.

It's a bright light.

You're looking at your thought and you're like, what did you mean by that?

What's behind this?

, you're literally capturing them and interrogating them, and the

truth of what is truly true.

You ever do that?

You ever have thoughts and you're like, man, That is not,

yeah, that is not of the Lord,

where did that come from?

Or do you ever react?

So happens when I'm driving.

Yeah.

I'll just leap outta my mouth and I'm like, no, wait.

And I'm like, where did that come from?

And so he's saying, there is a battle on the mind.

There's a battle to be conformed into the image of this world, to

believe the lies of the enemy.

Has God really said, does God really love you?

Why is he allowing all this suffering?

Why is he allowing all this trials?

Where's the rescue that you've read about?

And to, the battle on the mind?

And so Paul says, that the helmet.

Specifically of salvation and the hope of salvation is what

he gives us to battle against.

That sings one of the characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's opera Princess

Ida, right before entering a dual.

Here it is, this helmet, was meant to ward off blows.

It's very hot and weighs a lot.

So off this helmet goes, so off this helmet goes and that's the

temptation is to step out of what God has protected and what he's given us.

Through his work in the gospel.

Salvation in the Bible refers to the whole scope of God's saving work.

Salvation is a broader term than how we typically use it In church.

We use terms like saved.

I've been saved, redeemed, past tense.

Only.

If we're accustomed to use just the past tense when it talks about salvation, then

we might get confused when we look at the Bible and see most of it's used in

the present tense or in the future tense.

Salvation in the Bible is the whole scope of redemption.

, God created a good world not to take from us, but to give to us

out of the overflow of his heart.

God doesn't mean anything.

He doesn't need you to love him, but because he is a God whose essence

is love outta the overflow of his perfect community, he said, Hey,

let's bring more people into this.

Let's share this love , let's expand our community.

Let's make man and our image.

And it was beautiful, right?

It was walking with God in the cool of the day, like cultivating the ground.

Just amazing relationship.

there was this perfection almost to it.

And then we believe the lie and.

All of Earth got thrown into chaos.

All of our relationships got thrown into chaos.

Adam, Chuck and Eve under the bus, and the first time they were together,

with a counselor, God, as he's asking them, did you run hiding all of a

sudden who they really were hiding behind fig leaves that they had sewn

such a picture of the religion that we build up to make ourselves look good.

We cover ourselves with our apparent goodness.

To hide our nakedness and on, and Kane kills Abel and there's war

and infighting to the point where at Noahs time it says, I see.

And I go across this earth and every thought is only evil, continually.

Like it's just a constant, it's turn the channel and every

station is only evil, continually.

And so salvation.

Not only did we break, but creation broke.

Romans eight says That creation's groaning.

It's waiting.

, in Psalms it says the day when the Lord comes back, the trees are gonna clap.

Like they're gonna celebrate, they're gonna worship, they're gonna break out

of their bark, and they're gonna bark.

They're gonna go for it.

Yeah.

And so salvation, when the Bible talks about salvation,

it's this whole sweeping epic.

It's this picture from beginning to end of man lost creation, lost man, found a

man saved creation, being redeemed and restored, thorns and thistles being done

away with, sickness, being, given , a time limit, death being put in the grave.

it's all this sweeping thing of what God is doing.

And so we come to that Salvation Pastor.

We, last time we talked about salvation past and salvation present, and , I

just want to touch on it briefly and then we'll anchor in on hope.

Second Peter tells us how we should be growing in grace

and in Christ-like character.

And then in chapter one, verse nine, he says, but those who fail to develop

in this way are short-sighted or blind, forgetting that they have

been cleansed from their old sins.

Why is he blind?

Because he is forgotten that he was cleansed from his sins.

You guys know the story?

I haven't told it in a long time, but you guys know it.

It's ha Ironside tells a story about, a group of settlers who are coming

out west and they hit this prairie, right this flat, and it's just long

grass for as far as the, I can see.

they would send out a scout just to make sure everything's okay up

ahead and they had noticed that there's some smoke in the distance.

the scout rides back.

As fast as he can, he jumps off his horse and he gets everybody around.

He says, there's a fire coming this way, and the wind is

blowing it right towards us.

So they're surrounded in this tall, dry grass in every direction.

And everybody starts to panic.

We need to start, we need to leave now.

We need to try it out, run it.

And they can see the smoke is just growing.

They can now see the orange from the blaze getting close.

There's no way they're gonna outrun it.

And they know that.

And there's all this panic.

And then somebody, Has a good idea.

They say, why don't we light a fire behind us and by the time the fire gets here,

we can go and we can put everything on the burned out ground and we can be safe.

And so they're like, that's brilliant.

And so they start a fire behind where they were and the wind

takes the fire and it clears out.

This burn scorched earth, and then they move all their stuff just in time.

And as the fire's approaching, this little girl asked her dad, she

says, dad, are you sure we're safe?

They could feel the heat of the fire.

It's close.

And the dad says, yes, daughter, because the fire can't go

where the fire's already been.

That's why

Paul says there's therefore now no condemnation.

For those who are in Christ Jesus.

There's the word there I is so strong in Greek, it means that

there's not even a trace of it left.

Like when there's a fire and it burns everything, you could still smell it.

You can't even smell the smell of condemnation.

It's gone.

And we're safe in him because he took the fire.

It fell on him.

No more condemnation.

And I just wanna say, we should celebrate and praise and

worship every day of her life.

Yes.

Just for that fact.

You remember the story of the 10 lepers?

They have leprosy, they're dying, they're gonna die, and they're dying

outside of their community, away from their families, their outcast.

And Jesus says, I'll heal you.

Go show yourselves to the priest.

And on their way there, they're healed.

is that limbs being restored?

Back sores.

all of a sudden, all the skin and one comes back who is an outsider Samaritan,

he couldn't go show himself to the priest.

He couldn't go into the temple.

So we went to the priest that all the other priests pointed to, and he fell

down on his sneeze and he said, thank you.

And it was a sign.

That because Jesus actually says, your faith has saved you.

And he uses the word for salvation, not just healed.

And and that was just a sign of that thankful heart thankfulness.

Spurgeon said, I do not think the church rejoices enough.

We all grumble enough and grown enough, but very few of us rejoice enough.

It can be often that we're known.

The church is known more for what we're against than what we're for.

yes.

Uhhuh, Instead of being people of perpetual gratitude, we can fall, I do

fall quickly to grumbling as the next person instead of this never ending.

Thanks.

We're prone to constant complaining like the rest of the world.

The variations of the word thank and thankful are used

almost 150 times in the Bible.

38 of those times were specifically told to give thanks.

So this is like kind of important, the Greek word thanks is eucharisteo,

which is where we get Eucharist, the Lord supper, communion.

it's the word that Jesus used when he was administering the Lord

supper with the disciples as he broke the bread he gave thanks.

That's where we get the idea of the Eucharist, which is an amazing

thing to think about because he's literally, Giving Thx that he's

about to be torn apart for them.

He's like, thank you that I get to, that should melt our hearts.

Like he's breaking, he's giving thanks as he is breaking the bread,

saying this is what I'm going to do right now, but he's giving thanks.

I get to do this for them.

Lord, I get to do this for them Lord.

in, in Hebrew there are at least seven words, for praise and thanks.

Listen to these toda, a Thanksgiving choir, Barack, to Neil in Thanksgiving.

Tequila, not tequila, to sing a song of Thanksgiving.

Hello?

Where we get our word, hallelujah.

To give thanks.

By boasting and praising God.

I love that boasting about God.

He welcomes that.

That's amazing.

Yadda to give thanks.

With expressive gratitude to extend your hands.

That's a very biblical thing, where, why do we raise our hands in worship, Amar

to give thanks with a musical instrument.

Shabbat to give thanks and a loud tone or a shout that doesn't really have words.

CS Lewis talked about how being thankful is woven into a life of worshiping God.

He notes that our tendency is to give God thanks for what he has done for

us, the blessings that he has bestowed upon us, namely the gift of salvation

through Jesus, which is awesome.

We should definitely do that.

Literally count our blessings.

But when we really get down to the, what our thankfulness should spring

from for the believer, it is not just from what God has given us.

We should be thankful simply for who God is.

Being thankful is one thing Lewis says, but knowing who we're

thanking leads us into a life saturated with both Thanksgiving

and listen to this than living.

Living a life of worship, often we say it's, we have an attitude of gratitude.

No, no, no.

It's much more than that.

It's a whole life of joy and worship and gratitude and thanks and

fellowship with the one true God.

think about again, we're saved.

But he also saved you to himself.

So that you might know how good he is, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Like he saved you, not just to have you do your own thing.

he took the people out of Egypt to bring him to himself into covenant relationship.

Like he took you out of the, grave of death to bring you

into the newness of life.

That's him.

Like he brought you out to bring you in.

It's about him.

So not only are we thankful for what God has done in saving us, but we're

thankful that he saved us to himself.

And that's like a deep rooted thankfulness that he is good.

God is good all the time, right?

Present Grace.

God is at work in you and at work for you.

Philippians one, six, and I am sure of this, that he who began a

good work and you'll bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12, two says that he is the author and the perfector of our faith.

Or the finisher.

He is the potter.

We are the clay.

Second Corinthians three 17.

Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is

freedom and we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are

being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the other.

For this comes from the Lord who is spirit.

So the Lord is making us more like Him as we behold Him.

So the present work of salvation is to get us to gaze at Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is preaching to our hearts as Romans eight says, you're

adopted, you're part of the family.

You're his beloved child.

One of my favorite parts of First John is he's writing and he emotes on the page.

he says, behold, What man, which is terrible writing if you're sending

somebody a letter, but he is behold, what manners, of love is this, that

we should be called the sons of God.

This is insane.

It's like it overwhelmed him as he is writing.

He's behold, where children of God, what love is this?

So we gaze, the breathtaking method of the spirit is to show us the glory of Christ.

The complex verb that Paul uses, it means to behold in a mirror.

This word combines the ideas of looking long and hard at something

and resembling or reflecting the thing that you're looking at.

Yeah, we are called a long contemplative gazing at the Lord Jesus and

changing so as to reflect his image.

What a vivid image that is.

The more we gaze and contemplate Jesus, the more the spirit shows us

his glory and we become transformed into the likeness of what it sees.

So what does it mean to see the glory of something cvo in the Old Testament?

It's weight, right?

It means you realize in your heart its importance, the beauty and

how it connects and affects you.

So the way the spirit creates character in you is by affecting

the heart and the life by what in the person and the work of Jesus.

That's why Jesus is central.

That's why he's gotta be everything.

That's why he didn't say, if you lift your theology up,

I'll draw 'em in onto myself.

He didn't say, if you lift up celebrity pastors, I'll draw 'em in unto, he didn't

say, he didn't even say the church.

He said, if I'm lifted up, if you lift up Jesus, he'll draw all men unto himself.

It's the goal of the church is to make much of Jesus and the

goal of the Spirit is to make much of Jesus through the church.

Yes.

That's.

The mission, and it's to impact us, in effect in every way.

So we come to first Alians five, eight, but since we belong to the

day, there's that new identity.

Let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and

for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

So the biblical word, hope we talk about it versus the worldly

we use hope, like I hope so.

is so-and-so coming over?

I hope so.

Is so-and-so coming Sunday?

I hope so.

And, we are stuck in that way of using hope, biblical hope.

Never used it like that.

We use it like maybe we'll see.

I don't know.

que what will be, will be.

Biblical hope is a concrete expectation of future.

Good hope is an indication of certainty.

That's what Hebrew says in chapter six, that it's an anchor for our souls.

Yes.

It's a concrete expectation of future.

Good.

So it's, it is being convinced so thoroughly that what God says he's

gonna do, he's gonna do, and then shaping your life around that.

when you woke up today, What was the first thing you hoped for?

Go back to sleep.

I, that's the first thing I wrote down.

Maybe for a better night's sleep.

You're so tired.

pain-free day.

Traffic Free ride over here to Manteca.

Maybe you're hoping this week the inspection at work would be

delayed cuz you're not ready yet.

Or perhaps you just hoped that someone, had left you something for breakfast.

probably a few days go by without us using the word hope.

I hope we're on time.

I hope it doesn't rain.

I hope it does rain.

I hope it's not cancer.

I hope she'll understand.

I hope he'll be okay.

I hope he isn't angry.

I hope God hears this.

I hope he loves me.

From the smallest concerns to the grandest ones, our lives are shaped, directed,

motivated, and frustrated by hope.

Everyone hopes, everyone hooks their hope to something or someone every.

Person is motivated by hope.

Remember that Victor Frankl story about the people and the Auschwitz.

Human beings are not like animals living moment by moment, by instinct.

No matter who we are or what we have experienced.

We live by hope, and hope transforms.

We view the present.

And shapes us.

You take the two workers, we're gonna hire him on, to dig, trench for us.

we just had, one of our apprentices tell us that, he didn't want to dig

and that if he's gonna be a laborer, he needs to be paid way more.

we're like, never heard that one before.

we're like, we all dig, we all gotta do it.

But, so you've got two guys and you tell one of 'em, you tell one of 'em, you

know you're gonna make 20 bucks an hour.

to dig this and you tell the other guy, you get this done.

By the end of the day, I'm gonna bestow my inheritance on you.

And he signs it over right there, geez.

And it's a couple million dollars he's worth.

Those two people are gonna work entirely different in the present.

One's gonna be like 20 bucks an hour, I can't believe, I need to be

paid more, And I've just begrudging.

I can't believe we're d the other guy's what?

What?

You know what?

You know that hope because he's certain it's been signed over.

He has a guarantee.

A concrete expectation of future good.

And it shapes the present moment.

In Ephesians, it says that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance.

like he's, yes, exactly the down payment.

He's the signatory, he's the hey and the proof that it's

so is the resurrection, right?

That we've been talking about.

So it, it depends on what your hope is of how you're shaped in the present.

It depends on where your anchor is.

It depends on where you're building that foundation, first.

John three, two to three.

Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared,

but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see

him as he is unveiled faces and everyone listen to this, who thus hopes in him.

Purifies himself as he is pure.

Literally, just the expectation of Jesus coming back and seeing him face

to face changes you right now today.

Literally just all of a sudden changes you, changes how you see things, what

you value, changes, starts to change attitudes and behaviors in these things.

It's called the Vizio Day, right?

The day where we see him with unveiled faces.

We're purified just by thinking on return.

We are to prepare our hearts of that heavenly meeting.

We're to fix our eyes on eternity.

The life, this life is compared to a vapor, compared to eternity

and the glory that awaits right it puts suffering in perspective.

It puts.

Sacrifice into perspective.

It put generosity into perspective because I'm laying up treasures in heaven.

I don't have to build riches here because they actually don't translate there.

I wanna invest in what actually translate.

It changes generosity.

It changes kindness and gentleness that like God is saving, seeking, and saving

the lost, that's what this time is for.

We are to look at Christ's victory, who is one and that

he'll bring, bring that victory through every inch of the universe.

Every place the soul of your foot treads, he will belong to you.

And that same mindset, that like this universe belongs as part of our

inheritance, this restored, there's a boldness there, to this and for us.

Would anything change if you knew that Jesus was coming

back at the end of the week?

I'll have to play that in my head.

Like for some reason he's Hey, I know I said nobody knows the

day or the hour, but I like you.

I'm don't tell anybody else.

No, just kidding.

I'm coming back in five days.

does anything change in your mind?

Five days, And that's the genius of him saying no one knows the day or the hour.

It's, I'm, it could be by the end of today.

I've always imagined I would love to just be worshiping,

Andrew's plane or Matt singing.

All of a sudden they get really good, my eyes close, and

you're like, what is happening?

They're going next level, And they're just like, you're like,

and everybody's singing so well.

Like Tony, you sing so well.

your eyes still closed, and then you open it in your own glory.

Literally could happen today.

See how it's the mind and the world wants to conform and say, oh no,

you gotta burn yourself out and you gotta get this and work for

this and spend your life this way.

and the hope of salvation has come in and say, oh, eternity, it's already begun.

eternity isn't something that's coming when you come to Jesus, eternity starts.

Eternal life.

Everlasting life, So I think sometimes our hopes are divided too.

we're building on the sand and on the rock.

A singleness of hope though is our life shape, structured and directed by the

pursuit of one glorious hope, fulfilling, heart, satisfying longing, or is our life

a picture of constantly changing narrative of fickle affections, careening from one

hope to the next, like a pinball machine.

That's how I feel sometimes I'm just like, and I'm got an obsessive personality, so

I'll be like all in, I study everything.

I read everything.

I like, learn everything.

And then I'm like, okay, next.

and it's just Karina off.

I love, David's writing, psalm 27, he says, one thing, have I asked of the Lord

that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days

of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

This is an incredible statement, one that I'm not sure I always make,

and it's even more powerful when you realize that it was written by a man

who is under attack, his one thing.

Isn't safety or vindication or victory?

His one thing isn't power control or retribution.

No.

Even under personal duress, the one thing that David wishes for is to be in

God's house, taking in the grandeur and the glory and the beauty of the Lord.

That's amazing.

Did we put on the helmet of salvation?

And think about meeting Jesus.

Think about being next in line.

As you meet your savior, you behold his scars as he takes you into his arms.

Romans eight 18, for, I consider that the sufferings of this present

time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

So how can we defeat hopelessness or this.

Double mindedness.

Ironically, single minded hope starts with hopelessness.

Yes, you have to realize by God's grace that nothing can

carry the weight of your hope.

But God alone, despair of everything else.

See it for what it is.

Let ask the Lord.

Lord, show me how you see things in this world.

Show me how, what you put value on, We should despair of all other

things to anchor our hope in.

But God alone, he's the only one.

Where cuz you can hope in family, you can hope in good

things, you can hope in marriage.

But what if that, what if the spouse dies?

What if there's a divorce like.

Relationships fall apart.

It like we can't anchor our hope, our meaning, our life shaping

hope, expectation of what's gonna happen and shapes the present

into anything other than God.

He's the only one who could hold that frame.

The only hope, the only help, the only rescue, the only healing, the

only solace, the only balm, the only redemption, the only restoration for

a broken, dysfunctional sins scarred, evil, infected, morally fallen, dark,

and dangerous world isn't found in information socialization education.

Political solution.

Psychological insight are personal reformation, but in the willing birth,

righteousness, humiliation, suffering, sacrifice, and resurrection of godman.

The redeemer, Jesus, no idea can liberate, no power, can save, no institution

can redeem, restore, resuscitate, or recreate what sin is destroyed.

So son had to come.

Son of God, son of man, creator, came to recreate the savior came to

the sacrifice to be the sacrifice.

The blessed one came to suffer and an end suffering to bless the world with

hope, help rescue healing, solace, bomb redemption, and restoration.

The cost of it all was his life.

It was his birth mission, his resurrection, victory, history

marched toward his coming.

There was no other way.

That he could save us, but he was glad to do it.

Nothing else can carry the weight of our hope, but Jesus

alone, can carry the weight.

So we put on the hope of salvation.

So there's some theology I wanna read, Psalm 27 again and I'll be done.

We'll just look at verse one.

The Lord is light.

And salvation, whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of whom shall I be afraid?

I left some words out there on purpose

because the difference between going away with the Theology of Hope

today and it penetrating your heart.

Is to read it in the way that David said it.

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid?

This hope isn't just.

An idea.

It's not just a theology, but it's something that's for you personally.

Like he rescued you.

He knows all about you.

He knows all the hidden rooms.

He knows the things that you would never tell people.

At least you think you wouldn't.

He knows it all and he loves you.

He's after you like, like this has to go from just being something we

know into something that's for us.

like this eternity where he's restoring all things includes you per on purpose.

Yeah.

Like he's taken note of you.

It says that he keeps your tears in his bottle.

The psalmist writes that your name's written in the lamb's book of life,

not in a pencil, but in his blood.

He knows he heals you.

And We need to despair of all other things, putting our hope in all other

things, and be liberated and be free.

Like whom the sunset's Free is free indeed.

And when our hopes are anchored onto people or places or achievements

or things, we are not free people.

We're tethered to the things of this world and we're being conformed

into the image of this world.

But when our hope is anchored in him, when he is who we're after who we're

for like that changes everything.

We're free.

That's why the apostles were like, what can man do to us?

Nothing.

You can't take Jesus away.

You put us in prison.

We're not in prison.

We're free.

We've been liberated from the prison of sat sin and death.

We're free.

It just changes how we touch and walk through this world.

it changes things.

And so I would say bring hopelessness and ask God to do that for us

because we can't just go generate it.

We can't, work hard.

Okay, now I'm gonna make this mine.

We have to just cast ourselves on the mercy of God and come boldly before

his throne to obtain grace in the time of need, who he loves doing.

He loves when you come to the throne and say, I need help.

I will see this.

I want this in my life.

I want to be shaped by hope.

I need you to do it.

My, I'm too wily in this way and that way, and the new shiny

thing has caught my attention.

I need you to grab my face in your nail scarred hands and just hold me.

I need you to capture me.

I need you to rescue me once again.

I need you to take me captive unto you.

and that is the hope, and that's the helmet that we wear.

the Lord appeared to him.

Jeremiah 31 13 says, From far away.

I've loved you with an everlasting love.

Therefore, I've continued my faithfulness to you.

I've loved you with an everlasting loved.

You have been saved.

Be thankful you are being saved.

You are being made like Christ Yield to that ongoing work you will be saved.

That work will one day be finished as you stand with him face-to-face.

The helmet of salvation fuels thankfulness.

Us like the leper who came back and worshiped.

I have been saved.

The helmet of salvation encourages my present, surrender to his work

rescuing me daily from the power of sin and making me more like my Jesus.

The helmet of salvation grounds my assurance that I am my beloveds and

he is mine and strengthens my hope that the night is far spent in the

day is at hand, that salvation is near than when we first believed.

He's coming soon.

Are we ready to meet him?

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you.

We thank you for your, word.

we thank you for just this aspect of the armor and spiritual warfare, the enemy

who wants to steal, kill, and destroy.

Lord, we just ask for help.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

We need your rescue, Lord, every moment of every day.

Lord, we need to lean on you.

Lean into you.

To be our everything.

God, we pray that you would capture our hearts once again with your beauty, with

your glor nest, that Lord, you would just

make much of yourself and our hearts right now.

So we thank you.

We thank you Lord, again that you broke bread and said, this is my body that's

broken for you that you gave thanks.

That you're willing Lord to come and to chase us and to rescue us.

And that your blood was shed.

That it's the only way that we have redemption.

A life for a life you had to your life, exchange for our life.

It's the only way.

So Lord, we just say thank you.

And we can't wait for the day where we see you face to face.

So continue your work in and through us in Jesus' name.

Amen.