Help! Series: Holding Hope

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church here in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you for tuning in to the podcast today.

Today we're going to continue in our series called Help Searching

for God's peace with him, with one another, and with ourselves.

Listen closely to what God has to say to you today.

So I just want to welcome everybody to this last episode

of this version of the HELP series.

I'm sure we're going to find more issues to tackle down the

road and we'll come back and visit those again because there

are going to be those things with which we struggle and we'll

be moving on to to some other things in the meantime.

But but to think about what some of these life issues are.

And so after this series, we're going to begin a podcast series

and a live training series called Core Training, where we

really are going to ask what we would call theological triage.

Dr. Al Mohler may be credited with creating that phrase.

I'm not sure. If you think about triage in an

emergency room, how do you prioritize the most significant,

the most severe, the most urgent compared to lesser things?

If you've had emergency room experiences, you know, sometimes

that doesn't go the way you wish it would.

And 11 hours later, they see you.

But if you've had some of my emergency room experiences, but

and if some of you work in the emergency room, I love you very

much. Thank you.

So I don't mean any offense. I just know you're busy,

overwhelmed. But how do we know what we have

to believe in order to be a Christian?

And then what are some things that we need to understand what

we believe? But we could have a few

differing opinions about it and still be in the same church

together and still get along OK and still love one another and

be able to serve together all the way down to some tertiary

issues that should not 'cause conflict, but sometimes do.

Because it's, I know it's shocking some people will take

those tertiary level issues and make them primary and cause

division sometimes. And so we're going to talk

through all those things. So let me just give you a few

examples. For example, we need to know

what we believe about the Bible. You know, what do you believe

about the authority of the Bible?

Why do we believe it's God's word?

You need to know what you believe about Jesus Christ.

And so there's some primary issues that we would call

mountains on which to die. And then you have some secondary

and tertiary issues that I often call mounds of identity to

where, for example, what do you believe about eschatology?

Oh, I'm going to bring it up, don't worry.

So it's coming. Those who said that all I needed

to do was draw to draw a crowd was to talk about the second

coming. Well, don't worry, it's coming.

And so we're going to talk about the views of that and and then

also think about spiritual gifts.

Are all the gifts still at play today?

Are some of the gifts not at play today?

What do you believe about that? We're going to talk about those

kinds of interesting, sometimes even difficult conversations in

this next series. So I hope you'll come back.

It's not just a doctrinal study. It's a study of how this is

applied theology in my real life.

How does this really affect how and what I believe about church?

It'll help explain why there's some denominations even and, and

what I, what we need to believe. And then we're going to actually

have a whole thing on what do we believe in Inglewood here?

What, what, what is the specific unique identity of Inglewood,

which could be helpful. So that'll be coming up.

I hope that'll be interesting for you.

So we're going to tackle all kinds of things as well as that.

So tune in for that or be present for that in the coming

weeks and we'll make sure that that's well advertised.

But first, we still need help. We need help.

And tonight we're going to talk about an area that we need help.

The whole purpose of this series, obviously, was to

reclaim Shalom. As we've talked about every

single time, we want peace, we want wholeness, we want

satisfaction. And that leads to a fuller

understanding and appreciation of our purpose, of the reason

for our existence, if we can obtain this.

As I've shared with you previously, Adam and Eve had it

and they lost it, and we've been striving for it ever since in

our sinful nature. And so only Jesus Christ himself

ever fully demonstrated that perfect Shalom on earth.

And we, we struggle and we need help to find the peace of God,

the peace with God, the peace with others, and often the peace

with ourselves, as I've been talking to several people.

And sometimes life moves so fast, sometimes it moves so

quickly. It it's hard.

We need help to find that piece and it's hard and we just don't

think we can always keep up with it.

Reminds me of an old story about there were two city slickers 2

two boys from the city who who bought a West TX ranch and they

asked the neighboring rancher if he had a mule for sale because

they thought they'd probably need one of those and he didn't

have one. But but the slick, the, the city

boys noticed that he had some honeydew melons piled up over

against the barn. And and so they asked what those

were, because they didn't know what honeydew melons were.

They're from the city. And so they asked what they

were. And the rancher decided to have

a little fun. So he told them they were mule

eggs and if and if they and if they wanted to buy one, it would

hatch and and then they'd have their mule.

And so, naive as they were, how much are how much is a mule egg,

which is not a question you'd ask in everyday conversation.

Well, it's $50.00. So they, they bought a $50 mule

egg and, and they thought, what a deal, we're going to get a

mule for $50. Well, during the bumpy ride back

to the ranch, they, they were driving along in their pickup

that they had just bought. It was a bumpy road and the mule

egg bounced right out of the truck and a Jack rabbit saw the

melon and and as it hit the road that melon broke into and but

the Jack rabbit saw it and happily began to to eat away at

the melon. And of course the the city

slickers finally noticed that the mule leg was gone.

So they turned the truck around, and all they see is a broken

melon with a Jack rabbit sitting in the middle of it.

And so they're astounded that their mule leg had already

hatched. So the jackrabbit takes off and

they chase it through the pasture, trying to catch the

jackrabbit. And after chasing it for over a

mile, they fall down in exhaustion.

And one yelled they'd lost the mule, and the other said he

didn't care because he didn't think he could plow that fast

anyway. Sometimes we just don't feel

like we can keep up. You know, we experience stress,

we experience anger, fear, guilt.

We might find ourselves in a struggle with work or time or

money. And so I hope that you'll listen

to all the episodes of this series, if you haven't already.

I've appreciated even the testimony denied of people being

on vacation and listening on, on airplanes and, and cruise ships

and everywhere else. So thank you so much.

And I hope that wherever you are listening to this, that God will

use this in your life because at the end of the day, we need

something to keep us going. We need something to hang on to,

and we need something that's hanging on to us.

And that's what hope is about. And so we survived today, but

then there's this thing called tomorrow rising up on the

horizon. And we've got to figure out how

do I, how do I deal with that? That one too, right?

And so we need long term help. And so, as I've said in every

time we've been together, I'm very thankful for Christian

counselors and professionals who help people.

I'm thankful for our church's recovery ministry that meets on

Tuesdays. And I and, and for some, you

need these special ministries to help you through certain

struggles, perhaps that you're facing in life.

And some again, and, and you may think this is a dramatic thing

to say, but it's not in our world where we're often helping

people. You might need medical

specialists or even law enforcement to help you in times

of, of certain abuse. But all of us, regardless of

where we are in our journey right now, we, we need help from

the word of God to find this peace that we're after the

Shalom that we seek. So it's vital that we understand

what God's word says about these key areas of struggle.

So as you perfectly consider your future, as you're moving

along through this thing called life, recognize that long term

health and wisdom depend upon him and understanding his will

and word. So I, so I, so I have great

excitement, great anticipation about what God is going to

continue to do here at Inglewood because we're depending upon his

word. So, you know, I have a lot of

faults. My wife could list them for you.

She wouldn't because she's kind. But I have a lot of faults, too

many to count. But but one thing, and I, I

really have, I'm really pretty self reflective about this

because I, I wouldn't often talk of strengths, but but one thing

that I feel like I have grown to possess by the sovereign grace

and help of the Holy Spirit is hope that that's not one of my

struggles. I have a lot of struggles, but

that's not, that doesn't happen to be 1 of mine.

And so I believe and and I believe in the end, I know God's

going to work. And so I can trust that doesn't

always mean I do well in the between time, but I believe that

so so surviving this life really does require hope.

And I need you to listen to this next part.

Hopeless people, hopeless people have a very difficult time

defining and facing the future in a biblical way because

hopelessness creates a vicious cycle of cause and effect in

their life. And so that it can be the cause

of stress or anger or fear or worry or guilt or these things

we've been talking about, but it can also be caused by them.

And it can often just be this almost cannibalistic cycle that

it creates to where a sense of hopelessness, I'm never going to

get through this. It's never going to be better.

I don't think I'll ever make it. And you know, in our society

today that that hopelessness is a real part of the world out

there. And so one of the things that we

have to think about is that biblical hope, which is

different, biblical hope can actually break that spiral.

And that's what we need to talk about.

How does that work? And and what happens there?

Because true hope is not created by something earthly.

And that's the difference between a believer and a non

believer, because we have a we have a different belief about

where hope comes from. Earthly things are flimsy.

Earthly hope is flimsy. Earthly hope on often is more of

emotionalism than it is anything else of any substance, right?

And it won't last. So the world will never

completely know true hope apart from its real source.

And so that separation is part of the massive problem in our

culture today. Lasting hope demands an eternal

source and part of our problem in our culture today is that

when you have no hope, you have nothing to lose and you will act

out in ways that are sinful, violent, etcetera.

Some of you I know, and for those listening, this is taking

place. This recording is taking place

at a time when there's war happening and and fighting going

on in the Middle East. Not that that would be uncommon

in most of our lives, but with what's going on between Israel

and Iran at the current moment, at the time we're talking here,

what's interesting is, is I know that certainly we, we want to

pray over that situation and continue to pray.

What's interesting for me personally, which may not be for

you is because of my previous life and the work that I did at

the seminary. We have perhaps well, arguably

the largest, well, the only accredited training program and

theological education in Farsi, which is the Iranian language.

So we train Iranian church leaders, we train thousands of

them. The Iranian church is the

fastest growing church in the Muslim world.

And, and so we're talking to students inside.

We have people we know inside right now.

And, and one of the things that they're hoping for is they often

hope that this conflict would cause change, change in their

whole system, change in their government, change in

everything. So as you're praying for Israel,

which would be common for many believers to do, don't forget to

pray for the fastest growing church in the Muslim world,

which has massive impact upon other believers that we, we see

Muslims coming to Christ by huge numbers.

And these, these house church leaders who are in heavily

persecuted areas and their prayer that things could change.

One of my dreams with some of my friends, and I'm going to have

one of those come and share with us in November during our

missions month, is that we could start a seminary in Tehran.

And so we're praying for other things, not just some of the

normal things that you might be praying for.

And so those people have hope. They have to have hope because

they're in the middle of a pretty hopeless situation often.

And so sometimes we have to acknowledge that side.

So lasting hope does demand an internal source.

We're going to spend a lot of time with Peter tonight.

So we're going to begin in first Peter chapter one, verse 3, and

we'll be in a couple of other places with him.

But verse 3 says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus

Christ. According to his great mercy, he

has caused us to be born again to a, what does it say?

A living hope. And don't miss that adjective.

It's important. It's a living hope.

See, that's one of the differences.

We'll, I'll point this out more later that that's one of the

differences between real hope and, and what this earthly hope

might have. Our hope is a living thing.

It's a dynamic thing. And I'll talk a lot more about

that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

So we see here the source of our our hope.

So it starts off by saying blessed be or your translation

might be praise be. And so, but you got a note to

whom the praise is being directed.

The praise is being directed to God the Father.

He is to be blessed. He is to be praised.

Often people in our culture don't use his name that way.

They don't praise him that way. When my oldest son was young, we

lived, we basically had a gas station in our backyard at the

1st house I ever owned, which I think we probably would.

We pay $50,000 for that first house.

Yeah, we can. It's be hard to do that today.

And, but we basically had a Texaco station right on the

other side of our fence. And so that was often a place to

go to for the quick thing we needed, you know.

And I was in there one day with him and there was obviously a

man who was, we'll just call him inebriated, heavily inebriated.

And, and I walked in and because this was a fairly small town,

everybody knew who I was. And they said, preacher, you

know, I'll kind of walk in. And they said, would you do

something about him? Because he was basically yelling

and cussing and carrying on in the convenience store.

And he was using our Lord's name in tremendous vein in many, many

ways. And I walked up to him and I

said, Sir, you need to just be quiet and let me help you get

out of here. And he kept using the Lord's

name in vain directed at me. And I told him to stop.

I said that my son's right here, my young son, I don't want him

to hear that. And he didn't care too much

about that. So he just kept on going.

Then finally he suggested, and I'll say this delicately, he

suggested that I relocate myself to a place where Satan will

spend eternity. And I said to him, I said, Sir.

I said I couldn't go there even if I wanted to because Jesus

Christ has saved me and I know where I'm going to go.

I can't go there no matter what I do at this point, right?

Because I've been saved, I have that hope.

It's a living hope. It's a certainty.

We're going to see that even more later.

So we're to speak highly and publicly of God the Father.

He's the source of, look at what it says, of great mercy.

He's the source of our living hope.

He's the source of our salvation.

So Peter begins, I bless you. I praise you God because you

are. And then one of the things he

says, you're God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And don't, don't rush through that too quickly.

Notice how Peter uses this threefold title of Jesus.

It's very special. He, he's the Lord.

Curious. That just means master.

It means boss. It's a title of acknowledgement.

He's in charge. So, So Jesus is in charge.

Jesus himself, Jehovah is salvation, the purpose of his

incarnation. We see that.

And then he's also the Christ, He's the anointed one.

He's the Messiah and so the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a special title. We often would use it, but we

may not think about it too much. And God the Father deserves our

blessing and praise because of who He is.

And then listen to what Peter says.

He's done according to that great mercy he has caused.

And we could just stop there and we'll talk about that in a

minute. But He has caused us to be born

again to a living hope. How?

Why? Because of the resurrection of

Jesus Christ from the dead. So according to his great mercy,

or another way to say it would be God in his abundant mercy.

Literally the, what the Greek is saying here is that he is

forced, He is compelled, He's pushed to do this because of his

mercy. So this is a, this is part of

the very nature of God the Father.

Mercy is a part of who he is and he cannot act in contrary to his

nature. So he's compelled because of his

mercy to act this way, to 'cause this to happen.

And you got to think about this as our Creator God.

This was the plan from before the beginning.

He knew we were going to sin. He knew Adam and Eve were going

to blow it. He knew we would blow it.

He knew we were going to do this, but because of his nature

of mercy, His great mercy, we recognize that this is the pity

that God shows toward us despite our sin, you know, or because of

our sin, maybe because of our total helplessness and

hopelessness to right our own wrongs, we can't do it.

So mercy then is this keyword. I think if we're going to grasp

the full meaning of, of teachings, Peter, about

salvation, it's it's grace. That's what this is.

And hope then finds its root in grace.

So he has caused us to be born again into a living hope.

So, so we've been born again by God.

We, we can't do this by ourselves, can we?

We can't save ourselves, no matter, no matter how many, how

many Tulip petals of Calvinism you like or don't like.

I hope we all agree we can't save ourselves.

Is that OK, right? We can't save ourselves.

God has to save us, right? And so one of the things that he

has caused this to happen. So this new birth is a gift of

God's mercy, and it's also our first step of discipleship.

It's not the end of something, It's the beginning of something

for the believer. It's the new start, a completely

new life secured by this mercy of God.

And so hope then, and one definition of hope could be the

desire for something good with the expectation of obtaining it.

So hope isn't just I want something.

Hope is an expectation that I'm actually going to receive it.

And so depending upon what that is based upon, if it's earthly,

then your expectations pretty flimsy.

It you know, the, the guarantee is going to be pretty flimsy.

It's if, if it's almost gambling, if my source is Jesus,

I have a much greater certainty. I have a solidness to this that

we'll see in great detail as we walk through this.

So, so hope for the believer can be the opposite of fear of the

future. It can be the opposite of stress

over the present. It can be the opposite of anger

over the past. So all these things that we've

been dealing with, this spiralling that can happen in

our lives. And if you, you'll notice these

things tie together and one can lead to the next.

One can be the cause and 1 can be the result.

And, and this can actually break that cycle because we've been

born again by him. So it's an attitude that can

lead us to hopefulness and even thankfulness for the blessings

of the past and expectancy as we look forward and also an

appreciation for what we have today.

And so it can really change our hope.

So Christian hope then is, is, and this is the big difference,

Christian hope. And this is where people

struggle at times when I talk to folks, Christian hope is not

dependent upon circumstance. And, and so much of our world

and our life is we're reacting to our environment.

This thing happened and I'm, I'm angry about that, or I'm happy

about that, or I'm stressed out about that.

But Christian hope transcends all that.

It transcends our environment. It transcends our outward

circumstance because of its eternal source.

And that's key. And the world doesn't have this.

The world doesn't know this. Listen to what Paul wrote and

then we'll get back to Peter in Colossians 127.

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are

the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you

the what? The hope of glory.

See, Christ is our hope. He's our source.

He's also going to be our assurance.

And this is going to be reinforced by Peter here in a

moment. And, and so our hope in Christ

doesn't refer to something which may or may not happen.

Our hope in Christ is done. Our hope in Christ is a

certainty. It's not depended upon whether

I'm having a good day or a bad day.

It doesn't depend upon whether life is treating me fairly or

not. It's not depended upon whether

the stuff around me is good or bad.

It transcends all of that and that's where we have to learn to

live because we know and we worship and bless and praise its

source. And so such hope can only come

from the triune God himself. In first Peter chapter one,

verse 21, Peter writes this. Who through him are believers in

God who raised him, being Jesus, who raised him from the dead and

gave him glory. Now listen to this next part so

that your faith and hope are where they're in God.

God's a constant. So he, he, he, he's not, he's

not affected by circumstance. He's not affected by the world.

He's not even affected by time, as we've talked about before.

He, he lives outside of all of this.

And so there's, there's a, there's a rock solidness there

where I can have with hope, no matter what's going on in my

life, I can be hopeful because it's not based on me, It's not

based on my emotion, It's not based on how I feel.

It's based upon the truth of who God is and his very nature.

And So what we see here is, is then Peter's going to go on back

kind of to our original passage and he's going to describe our

future hope more fully. If you go to first Peter chapter

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

1 and go back to about verse 3. So he says again, blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great

mercy. He has caused us to be born

again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

from the dead. But then I look at verse 4.

He's going to go into more detail now to an inheritance

that is and and different translations will have different

words here that the ESV has imperishable, undefiled and

unfading kept in heaven for you. This is a powerful verse.

And not only do we see the source of our eternal hope, then

we also need to recognize the substance of this hope.

What is this made of? What is what is our hope consist

of? Right.

So our our hope is living as we talked about before, because of

the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The purpose of the resurrection was that Jesus completely

decimates death. Death can't hold him.

Death can't have a handle on him because of his perfection,

because of who he is. And because of that we have the

hope of life. And so the resurrection gives

hope its substance. It gives it its proof, it gives

it its permanence. And so we see that this is not a

flimsy thing at all. So, so listen, real hope, this

is important. Real hope is only a Christian

experience. Non Christians can't have this

kind of hope. Now that ought to be something

that we reflect on when we go prayer walking or we share the

gospel with someone or we're trying to minister to someone

that there's a reason for their hopelessness.

They, they have no anchor. They have nothing to tie to.

They have no certainties with which they can build a

foundation upon their lives. And so hopelessness is a key

part of who they are. This makes absolutely no sense.

Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it can't be a

living hope. So it's, it's, it's no longer a

hope that will die. It's a hope that is alive.

It's not a dead, useless, earthly, short lived hope, which

is what most hope in this world would be.

It's a temporary state of emotion or being usually, but

one that is dynamically alive and vibrant and lives forever.

It's like when Jesus is talking about drawing water from a well

where you'll never get thirsty again.

It's abundance, it's the abundant life, it's it's this

idea of never ending resource. And we live in a world of decay.

We live in a world of death, which holds most people for

their entire lives. And they're slaves to that.

And, and what Peter's saying is you no longer have to be

dominated by that because Christ rose from the dead, because he's

giving you something that nobody else can give you.

He's giving you a hope that can live forever.

And I'll just be honest and I've, I've alluded to this

before, but this is often the way I share the gospel with

people. I've mentioned to you.

And I know that you may not pick up on this.

I was talking to the staff about this again the other day.

But I really do want you to key in on the importance of when I,

I teach you this, a guy, a guy named Doctor Cordon, who's a

missiologist, wrote a book called Neighboring Face, which

is a great book about comparative religions.

But at the beginning of it, he talks about what religion is.

And I've given you the definitions before at various

moments, but every religion has three pieces.

I've told you this more than once already.

I'll tell you this about 42 more times probably.

Every religion has a functional part.

It has a substantive part, and it has a formal part.

The formal part's easy to see. Some people go to church, some

people go to synagogues, some people go to temples, some

people worship rocks, etcetera. Right?

So, so that's how we do our rituals.

The substantive are the teachings, what you actually

believe. For us, it's the word of God.

It's the truth. But they have their other

teachings. They'll have the Quran, they'll

have the the Book of Mormon or whatever they have.

That's the substantive, the teaching part of it.

When I show the gospel with people, I can get in arguments

and debates about those two things very easily and we can

debate them. But that's not where I try to

land. I try to live over here in the

functional part because here's what I found with people.

Do you have Shalom? Do you really have peace?

Do you really have hope? Do you really understand your

purpose? Because the thing that's

different about reality and the truth of the scripture, what

makes Christianity unique, and the fact that it is the truth is

the fact that it actually provides you those things.

Most of these other world religions and belief systems do

not. It's a hope.

So religion, it's all works righteousness.

I'm trying to earn my way up to please of the divine somehow

trying to do my holy scale balance of doing more good than

bad. And I hope I make it.

I might make it right. There's no assurance, there's no

certainty in that. But by and large, the people

that I meet, when they get honest, which there might be a

few flames that throw first because they want to argue about

these other things, but when they get honest, they'll sit

there and admit, I don't have what you have.

What I believe doesn't give me what you have.

I don't have an assurance. I don't have an inner strength.

I don't have a peace. I don't have a hope.

I certainly don't know what joy is.

And that's where I talk to people.

And that's what hits home. It's a very authentic dialogue

with people about the reality of where they live.

Now I can sit there and talk about where that where that

comes from and I can talk about the gospel right.

Later on in the year, I'm going to share a whole personal

evangelism series with you and basically teach my masters level

person personal evangelism class to you that don't worry about

that. There'll be no tests.

The essay papers are only 10 pages long.

You'll all will do fine. No, we're not going to do any of

that. We're just going to be very

practical, but we're going to talk more about that because

without Christ, without the resurrection being a true source

of faith and, and, and salvation for you, they don't know this,

They don't understand this. So they're just caught in a

spiral. I feel better today than I did

yesterday. So today's a good day.

But tomorrow won't be again because I'm back in the spiral

again. And it's rinse and repeat and

rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and, and I'm in anger,

stress, worry, guilt. I hate my job.

I love my job. I need more money.

I have too much what? You know what I'm saying?

It's just a spiral and they can't get out of it.

They can't get off the ride. So this quality of hope that

we're talking about is a whole lot more than wishful thinking.

It's a whole lot more than fantasy and myth.

This hope is based on the truth of the resurrection and the fact

that that ought to affect our daily lives.

It ought to impact how we live. It also ought to impact our

desires for the present and the future.

What do I want? His plan, his will, his purpose

is what I seek. And, and, and because it's, it's

from that that I'm going to get this kind of strength.

So, so this is a whole lot more than the little train who said,

I think I can, I think I can. But there are people trying to

pull it off on their own. And often there are people who

guys themselves as Christians who are living by their own

strength and wisdom. That's not a guess.

They, they confess that to me. They're they're more like the

Pharisees and the religious leaders were in the time of

Christ. And that's why he had to speak

to them about new wineskins and, and a true way to salvation and

a living way, not just a ritualistic experience.

Some of the, some of the Pharisees just wanted to build a

fence around the wall and keep things running just the way they

were. And we can suffer that in

church. Sometimes we'll go through the

motions of life and we don't even know where we're going

through the motions anymore. It's just life.

We're just caught up in a cycle of life.

In fact, it reminds me of, of a what's supposed to be have been

a true scientific experience experiment.

Surely you've heard about what I'm a bit to describe to you.

Pay close attention to this though, because before it's

over, you will be laughing just about.

So. So there was supposedly

supposedly an actual scientific experiment.

I don't condone this in any way. I would condemn this, but it

started with a cage containing 5 chimpanzees.

Now follow this. Follow the math.

It's like a math equation. You all did good in algebra and

you'll be fine. 5 chimpanzees, They hang a banana on a string

and they put stairs underneath it.

OK, so guess what? Before long what?

What do you think is going to happen?

Chimpanzees going to what? Go for the banana?

As soon as he touches the stairs, they unleash a ice cold

fire hose on all of them, Right? So they're blasting them with

cold water. Again, I'm not condoning this.

Don't send me emails. I didn't do this.

After a while, they turn off the water.

After a while, the chimpanzees are are calming down and another

chimp makes an attempt for the banana.

They turn on the fire hose and spray them all with cold water.

Stick with me. This continues through several

more attempts until finally, when another chimp tries to

climb the steps, the other chimps will actually stop him.

They'll prevent him. Now in the experiment, at this

point, you can turn off the cold water.

No more fire hose, and this is important point, no more cold

water. Then you take one of the

original chimps from the cage and you put a new chimp in

there. So it's one new chimp with four

old chimps. The new chimp sees the banana,

goes toward the stairs. To his horror, all the other

chimps attack him and prevent him from getting to the banana.

After another attempt and another attack, he knows if he

climbs the stairs he gets assaulted.

So then you take a second of the original 5 chimpanzees and

replace it with a new one. Once again, the newcomer goes up

the stairs. He's attacked, and even the

previous newcomer will attack him for going up the steps.

But you got to remember that newcomer has never seen the cold

water, never felt the spray. He has no idea why he's

attacking him, but he sees everybody else attacking him, so

he joins in. Keep going.

Replace a third original chimpanzee.

The new one will make it up the steps and he gets attacked as

well. Two of the four chimps and that

beat him have no idea why they're participating in beating

the newest chimp. After replacing the 4th and 5th

original chimpanzees, all the apes which have been sprayed

with cold water have now been removed.

Nevertheless, no chimp will ever again attempt to get the banana.

Why? Because that's the way it's

always been, and that's the way it's always been around here.

Soak in that just a second while some protect the old.

God wants to give us something new and alive, and we need to

know why. And, and and as part of this

hope, we have this thing. Peter says it's an inheritance

and we need to talk about this inheritance.

Inheritance. He knows property you receive

because you're an heir. And so we are born again into

the status of of airship we're at.

We're an heir. Not like AI, you know what I'm

saying? HEIR, we're born to this status.

So this new birth not only offers eternal hope, but it also

guarantees A heavenly inheritance.

First Peter chapter 2, verse 10. Once you were not a people, but

1 Peter 2:10

now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy. That's this transaction of

salvation. His mercy leads to a new

identity. We have a new relationship.

We are to be changed, we are to be different.

And so we've been given this new birth and none of us can take

credit for that new birth. It's something that happened to

us and yet our inheritance is absolutely amazing.

Paul, Paul talks about this is what Paul says in First

Corinthians 2. He says, but as it is written,

what no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man

imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.

We can't even imagine it. We can't wrap our football sized

cranial cavities around what eternity is.

That's hard for the human brain. What heaven is, what eternal

life with God is. It's more than we could ever

imagine. So listen to Peter again in

first Peter 14 we read the verse a minute ago to an inheritance

and listen to these descriptors imperishable.

It's undefiled. It's unfading, kept in heaven

for you. So let's just break this down

for a minute. Let's talk about these 3

characteristics at least of our inheritance, and then we'll talk

about that 4th part. It it, it's, it's imperishable.

Your translation might say I think it's indestructible.

The idea here is it's incorruptible.

The idea here is, is it will not decay.

That's the point. That's, that's what the wording

would mean. This word was actually used in

secular Greek, not necessarily biblical Greek, but in secular

Greek. And it would be, it would be, it

would describe a land that was saved from an invading army.

In other words, the army had not ravaged that part.

That part of the land was pure. It was, it was still in its

original shape. It had not been destroyed by the

the invading army. And so our inheritance cannot be

ravaged. Our inheritance cannot be

violated by the enemy of our souls.

That ought to be encouraging. So many inheritances vanish

before they're obtained. Often we've talked about this

before and here in other passages, often there'll be

family members who'll help that vanish.

But but our treasure is secure. It will not decay.

It's imperishable. It's indestructible.

It's also undefiled. In other words, it will never

spoil. It it it.

It's something that's unpolluted.

It's something that's unstained by evil or by decay or by sin.

It's pure. Everything in this world is

fallen. Everything in this world is

defiled. Everything in this world is

defective. Everything in this world is

affected by sin, but not our hope.

It transcends it. Our hope is not based upon this

decay. Our hope is not based upon this

death. Our hope is not based on the

fallen creation. It's beyond it.

It's different than that. So don't let the fallenness

around you spiral you into hopelessness.

That's not where you need to live.

You need to live in a living hope that's bigger than that.

It's transcends all of that. And, and, and you can say, well,

I'd like to do that. I got to know how.

Hang on. It also does not fade away.

The Bible says it it literally. It's bright, it's vital.

The colour never fades. Everything else perishes.

Everything else is contaminated. Everything else fades.

But our inheritance is timeless. Our heritance, our inheritance

is sinless. Our inheritance is not going to

go away. So this should lead in, in

Peter's mind, this should lead us to great rejoicing.

It should lead us to praise. Blessed should be God who gives

us this. It should lead us to A to an

excitement. Our future is very bright.

Our our future is full of his hope.

And pray that God would fill your heart and mind with that

kind of wisdom, that kind of excitement, that kind of hope.

Think about the book of Hebrews for a minute.

You know, you have the hall of faith.

You remember that in Hebrews where all these old heroes are

mentioned and they were longing for a better country, a heavenly

1. God prepared a city for them,

and this should cause great rejoicing.

This, this should cause us to praise, to think about how much

we have to look forward to so. So a child of God has no right

to look on the dark side of things.

A child of God does not have permission to look for the worst

that can happen to him. Now, I'm not saying that we

won't because we're, we have a sinful nature.

We stumble, we mess up, we blow it, we, we fall.

And sometimes we, we will be in that position.

But as a child of God, we have no right to be there.

Think about that. As a child of God, you don't

have permission to think that way.

As a child of God, we ought to be rejoicing and thankful no

matter what this world throws at us, and to think through about

whether the glass is half full or half empty.

Listen, we come empty before God.

We ought to be thankful there's anything in that glass.

And as the object of God's care and love, we need to look for

the best to come and to look on the bright side of things.

Shalom is not found in the amount.

Shalom is found in your attitude toward it.

And whether or not I can embrace it or not, because it's there.

It's whether you embrace it or not.

There, there was a little boy who was trying to raise money

for his team. And so he's collecting no

bottles, going door to door in his neighborhood to collect

bottles and and get the deposits on the bottles.

You know, that didn't happen as much anymore as it used to.

But when he came to the House of a woman who was in town and she

was known as kind of the town grouch, the little boy asked.

I said, do you have any Coke bottles?

And she replied with a scowl. Do I look like the type who

would have old Coke bottles? Well, do you have any of whiskey

bottles, young man? Do I look like the type of

person who would have old whiskey bottles?

Little boys kind of scratches his chin, looks at her for a

minute, says, well, you got any old vinegar bottles?

It's tragic that some people just go through life so sour, so

negative, so bitter. And some of them are right in

the church. I've alluded to this story to

some of you. This is a true story.

I shouldn't have done this. This is, you know, this is

confession now. But I've already, I've already

mended my way. He's dead now too.

So he can't, he can't get me anymore.

But, but in one of my early churches, there's a guy named

Don. And Don was mad.

This church had been through a whole lot.

I was their 4th pastor in six years.

You've heard me kind of talk about this church in different

settings if you've been around here enough.

And so I come into a big mess. They fought.

I mean, they just scream and yell at each other and fight.

This was the church at the last business meeting before I showed

up, a Deacon stood up, called the pastor a liar and had a

fistfight out in the parking lot that church.

And so I'm next and, and Don comes up to me early on and he

puts his finger right. Here's an older man at the time

and he puts his finger in my face and he goes, preacher, I

just want you to know I'm going to vote no on anything you ever

bring to the business meetings because I just know you people

aren't really counting the votes.

That was like, I, I, hi, I'm John.

I mean, it was right that I didn't even know Don, right?

Hadn't been to a business meeting yet.

But I'm going to vote no on everything you bring to the

business meeting and without hesitation.

Shouldn't have done it. Shouldn't have done it,

shouldn't have done it. Bad pastor.

But the first thing I said is, well, Don, that's great to know

Teresa's about to crack up because she knows what I'm

getting ready to say. I said, Don, that's fantastic

because the very first motion I was going to bring to the church

was whether or not to retain your church membership.

And you just vote no. I promise we'll count the votes.

He steps back and looks at me for a minute, just dies

laughing. He goes.

That's fantastic. That's pretty good.

Preacher Don became a good friend, great servant in the

church. He'd just been hurt.

He'd just been hurt. We got to remember we're heirs.

And we're joint heirs With who? With Christ, right?

Listen to Romans 8, Romans 816. The Spirit himself bears witness

with our spirit that we are children of God, and if

children, then heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with

Christ, provided we suffer him with Him, in order that we may

also be glorified with Him. Or listen to this proverb.

This is Proverbs 418. Make sure you remember that when

it should be on your sheet. But Proverbs 418 But the path of

the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter unto

the perfect day. Having a bad day?

Hush and read. Proverbs 418 Just remember whose

you are if you've been born again.

If you haven't been born again, I have pity for you.

Frankly, I worry about you. We've been talking about folks

who've lost loved ones in our church and there's a funeral

tomorrow for a family that we care about.

And, and we've been talking about people having surgeries

and, and, and what we face and even some facing cancer and

things like that. And just the difference it

makes. How do I face those moments,

which are real moments in life? How do I do that with hope in

Christ? And how would someone face that

without him? And over the years, I've, I've

mentioned to you, I've preached a lot of funerals and I've

preached those funerals where there was no hope, there was no

knowledge of Jesus, There was no trust in him.

And I, I, I, I, I don't want any of you, whether you're here in

this room with me right now or you're listening to this a year

from now or tomorrow, I, I don't want any of you to try to go

through life that way. There's no reason to.

He wants you to join him as an heir.

He wants you to be a part of this.

I, I was, I was driving home when we lived in Roseville one

day and there's a, a, a busy, busy intersection because of the

growth over there, it's gotten really, it's a horrible place to

be that intersection. And people are constantly trying

to turn left. And you know, you got to pull

out in the middle of the intersection and wait for the

light to turn red and hopefully everybody stops long enough for

you to get out of the intersection and turn left.

You ever done that? Now, Nash County, that never

happens because you're 2 inches off the bumper of the person in

front of you. I don't know who taught you

people how to tailgate, but I digress.

Somebody going to kill me out here one of these days.

But, but, but I was sitting there one day and I was watching

and I was kind of A2 cars back from the one that was out in the

middle of the intersection and, and, and it was a student driver

had stickers. I mean, it was the IT was the

driving school person who should have never put that person out

there in the first place. And that student driver was a

young lady. I could see all this happening.

She gets out in the middle of this intersection and the light

turns red and she just freezes. And so everybody, nobody waits

on her. So everybody's trying to turn

around her while she's still sitting out in that middle of

that intersection. And I thought to myself, man,

that's that driver Ed guy. That's a job I don't want.

But I also just wanted to scream, don't give up.

Don't give up, pursue Him, seek His will, seek His mission, seek

His purpose for your life in the future He has for you.

Don't give up. Now's the time to renew your

hope. Now's the time to renew your

faith. Now's the time to renew your

commitment. Now's the time to bless Him and

praise Him for what He's given you because He's just beginning

to do something special here at Inglewood.

And I hope He's doing that in your life.

He's going to bring us to a living hope.

Listen again, first Peter chapter 1, verses 4:00 and 5:00

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and

unfading, kept in heaven for you see when we've got to talk about

this part kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are

being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed

in the last time. We've also got to look at the

security of our hope. See praise the Lord is not

dependent upon me. Our inheritance, our hope, our

salvation is being kept. The by this, this translation

uses that word. Another word might say reserved

for us. The the root word to this terrio

is is means we're being guarded. It's a military term and it

means to watch. It means to observe.

It means to protect, it means to even set aside.

We're being kept, we're being shielded, we're being guarded.

That's what this term means. It means to Garrison.

It means to place A and it's written, and I don't want to

bore you, but it's a present participle, which means nothing

to most of you. But what that means is is that

it's in progress and it's a continuous process.

In other words, this is a never ending protection.

It's happening right now and it will never end.

That's what it means the way this is written in the original

language. So it's going on right now.

If you have been saved, your inheritance is being kept right

now for you and it will be kept for you.

It's not going anywhere. And so it it, it suggests this

idea that this is something made possible by the resurrection of

Jesus Christ, something that he's done in the past for us and

is now being kept by him until the proper time of delivery.

It's being held for us until the proper time.

So our hope is not only living, it's guarded, it's kept for us.

And this is only possible because of Jesus Christ and, and

it's being kept by him and only by him.

So in other words, our heavenly, our heavenly heavenly

inheritance that God has prepared for us already exists

and is waiting on us. And, and, and I often say it

this way, but it's kind of weird and people look at you weird

when you say things like this. I'm an eternal being right now.

I'm an eternal being right now. I'm just on assignment here for

a while, but I'm going to live forever and I'll be more alive

then than I am now. And frankly, I'll have a new

knee, which is will be a good thing.

But no burglar, no bandit, nobody can break in where this

inheritance is kept. It's kept in the in the heavenly

safety deposit box, so to speak, where God is guarding our

inheritance. And it's under what this word

means is it's under constant surveillance by God.

This word was actually used like the constant watch on a ship or

the guarding of precious jewels. And so Peter is using the

strongest possible Greek terms and grammatical structure.

You got to understand this to to point out security and

certainty. He couldn't say it stronger than

the way he just said it in the original language, that he's

there's a certainty of the reward that awaits believers.

We are kept by God's power, and there's no other power like

God's power. Who can overpower God's power?

So who can take away my security?

James Moffatt, who has his own translation of of the Bible,

which is initiating translation. He wrote this.

He said God stands between you and all that menaces your hope

or threatens your eternal welfare.

The protection is entirely and directly the work of God.

And the way this is written is the garden never changes.

They don't have the changing of the guard.

This isn't Buckingham. And you couldn't slip in between

the in between the garrisons. This this guard is on 24/7 until

we arrive safely. So we are kept for salvation,

ready to be revealed in the last time, or as some would say,

until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be

revealed in the last time. We have been saved from the

penalty of sin. We are being saved from the

power of sin. And eventually we'll be saved

from the what? The presence of sin.

Salvation's holistic. It's not just something you did

when you were eight at camp. It's not just something you did

and you walked up there and you got dunked.

And that's the end of something. True salvation is holistic.

It's it's your life, it's your hope, it's living.

And so we recognize that all of this is by God's power through

faith. And so the Greek word faith

pistas it is, it actually comes from an old word, pith, which

means to become one with. So the idea of of believing.

And I really do wish sometimes in our Greek, our English

translations, it's kind of like baptism.

I wish we didn't have the word baptism in English.

Frankly, what I and I'll talk about this more Sunday, but I

really wish we had just translated baptism into English

words, which means it would have said immersion.

You you can't baptize Non immersion is not baptizo.

It's something else. It cannot mean to sprinkle or to

pour. And I'm not going to get into

that right now. We'll do more that Sunday.

But but I just sometimes wish we were more literal in our

translations. And this is one of those times

where the word faith sometimes can can get or the word believe

I wish was just translated as faithing because that would be a

more literal translation. When I believe whosoever

believes whosoever faiths, that's what that word really

means because it's just the verb form of the noun for faith.

Sorry if I'm becoming academic, but in other words, we're

faithing together. So it's the power through faith.

And that word for faith has this idea of to become one with.

So the whole point of I'm believing means I am becoming

one with something. This isn't just some head

knowledge. I know the facts about Jesus,

for I've been in a lot of studies.

Therefore I'm a disciple. This is the fact that I've

become one with this teaching, I've become one with this truth,

I've become one with my salvation.

And so we exercise faith to receive salvation, but

ultimately is God's grace gift that to us.

And so the key to our shield is that it depends upon God's power

and not mine. And that's a good thing.

My security of salvation, my security of hope.

It's not dependent upon me. It's not dependent upon how I

feel. It's not dependent upon even

what I think. I believe today it's based on

something far more, something far steadier, something sure.

And it's kept first Peter 113 says, Therefore, preparing your

minds for action and being sober minded, let set your hope.

Excuse me? Set your hope fully on the grace

that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He will keep us, as the old hymn says, He will keep us until that

day. And so how do I cope with now,

which is what this whole series has been about?

How do I deal with day-to-day in the meantime?

How do we deal with stress? How do I deal with worry?

How do I deal with anger? How do I deal with fear?

How do I deal with guilt? How do I use my time?

How do I how I do the best work? How do I use my money as godly

stewards? Well, set your hope fully on the

grace. True Christian hope is faith and

grace. That's what it is.

We believe God, so that means we believe God.

Can we believe God? Will we believe God has, and

that makes all the difference. That makes all the difference.

We need His help if we're going to get this thing that we've

been after called Shalom, this peace.

But hope is based upon God's grace and His grip on us.

But it also gives us something to hang on to.

It gives us something to grab. It gives us something to cling

to. And in fact, let me give you 3

quick ropes of hope, right? Remember that God is the

greatest. I don't say that flippantly.

That's that's a deep theological truth.

There is no one. There is nothing greater than

God. I don't care what you're facing.

I don't care what the doctor says.

I don't care what's going on in your family.

I don't care. I mean, I do, but I mean, you

know what I mean. There's nothing greater.

He's greater than that. He's greater than your lostness.

He's greater than your addiction.

He's greater than the pigpen you're sitting in right now.

He's greater because he's the greatest.

There's no, there's no greater, there's no greater risk than

God. God is the greater risk, right

#2 Though God is very gracious now that that's this, that's

this balance of God, isn't it? He didn't have to be with with a

whim. We'd all be gone if we we wanted

us to be. He didn't have to tolerate us.

I've been working through the book of Exodus a couple

different times this year. I'm on my second round right now

and, and just do you know how long it took them to start

griping after they he parted the Red Sea?

Three days. I mean, three days ago he parted

the Red Sea. We walked through the middle of

the sea with water piled up on both sides.

He swallows up the most powerful army in the world three days

later. Where's the water?

God, man, if I was God, I could have shown you some water.

But he's gracious. Why?

We were yet sinners. What did he do?

Nobody else. Nobody else did that.

Nobody else teaches that. That's the truth.

It's grace. And then thirdly, God is our

guard and we've got to remember that He's the one who's keeping

us. He's the one who has us.

He's the one who's holding on to our salvation.

And we need Christ to bring us hope.

That's the only real source of hope that's going to last.

You want to feel better emotionally for a minute?

The world sometimes can help you with that.

You want, you want to have hope that lasts forever.

You can only find that in Jesus. It's a living hope.

It's a lasting hope and only He can protect that until the end

of our days. To where I don't have to fear

the end of my days. The end of my days could come

right now be great. I think I have some work to do,

so I'm going to keep doing it. But in the meantime, I don't

have to worry about that. I was talking to someone earlier

today who's facing some interesting diagnosis in their

life and they and, and the basic bottom line was I know where I'm

going. So it really doesn't matter,

does it? It might be the hassle of going

through treatment. It might be that hassle and it

might be painful and it might be a a pain to go through it all.

And, and yet maybe there's somebody who needs to see you.

Maybe there's somebody who needs to hear along the way.

But in the end, I know where I'm going.

I know where I'll be. It's kept in a safety deposit

box for me. It's already there.

So sometimes one action, one decision, 1 moment can change

everybody, everybody's life. And for you it might be this

moment tonight. For some, some of us, it was the

moment we received Christ into our life and He saved us.

Some of us needed a little extra help along the way to stay with

Him, but He didn't give up on us.

There's a guy named Don Calhoun who worked for a few dollars an

hour at an office supply store in Bloomington, IL as real

person. And he loved the Chicago Bulls

basketball back in the heyday, Bacon back in the Michael Jordan

days. He loved to go to the games, but

he could never hardly afford it, you know, and, and every now and

then he'd, he'd, he'd find a way to go.

He, he, he met somebody who worked for the organization and

every now and then he'd get a ticket and he could go to, to an

event. And one night he, you know, one

of the few games, maybe the third game he'd ever been to in

his whole life. It, it was a special event night

where it was the million, million dollar shot night.

And, and the shot came in the third quarter and, and, and they

picked, they picked one random fan out of all these thousands

of people to take the shot. And Calhoun gets picked and he,

he'd have to shoot a basket from 79 feet away.

And if he could make it from 79 feet away, it's $1,000,000.

That means that means that he had to stand behind the free

throw line on the opposite side of a basketball court, right,

right to make the shot. So he took the basketball,

stepped to the line and just let her fly, and the ball went

straight through the hoop without hitting the rim.

The stadium crowd goes wild, of course.

And when Don Calhoun went home that night, he had $2.00 in his

billfold. But from that point on, he

received $50,000 a year for 20 years.

One action, one decision, 1 moment and change your life.

That $1,000,000 will be gone one day.

But fortunately, my my Lord who died on a cross and rose from

the grave, as we say back home, he ain't going anywhere.

He's right there interceding on our behalf and looking forward

for us to come home. And you can know him.

He can bring you hope and my friends, the whole point of this

entire series, whether you're listening or you're here, He can

bring you Shalom, peace, wholeness, completeness,

satisfaction, purpose. You can know why you're here and

what's in store for you. So let's thank him for that.

Father, I'm very thankful that we could walk through your word

together. Through this time, Father, we've

addressed a lot of issues, real issues in life.

Thank you, Father, for writing words for us, to help us, to

encourage us, to guide us. Thank you for inspiring

perfectly these writers in an inerrant way in your Word so

that even thousands of years later we're still touched or

still move because your word is living and active.

It's not a dead book, it's real truth.

And Father, I just pray for those who are here or listening

who would recognize they have no hope.

Maybe there's somebody who's at the very end of hopelessness,

maybe to the point of even self destruction or doubt about

whether they should even exist anymore or not.

And Father, I pray right now that you would just Pierce

through that dark fog. The Lord.

You would give them a sense of purpose and hope, a light to

cling to the Father. They would reach out to others

who would love them and help them, but mainly they would

reach out to you. Maybe there's someone in this

room tonight who needs to reach out to one of us.

I pray before they leave, they'll come and find me, that

we might talk about their life and their hope.

Father, you have such a grand scheme, this incredible thing

called life that you give us. It's something that that,

Father, we shouldn't dread, we shouldn't, we shouldn't worry

through, but something we ought to seize, something we ought to

celebrate. And so, Father, I pray that

you'll forgive me when I'm distracted, but I'm not focused

the way I should be upon your blessings.

And then, Father, you would help all of us, all of us to cry out.

Blessed be our God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Father, for the resurrection.

Thank you, Father, for the cross.

Thank you, Father, for salvation.

Thank you, Father, for grace. Thank you, Father, for your

greatness and thank you Father, for guarding us.

We pray, Lord, your blessings. We pray, Father, that you would

move in our hearts through your spirit so we might walk even

closer to you. Thank you for purpose and peace.

Thank you, Father, for Shalom in Christ's name, Amen.

God bless you all. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening today.

And I also hope that you'll go to

[email protected] as well as our app and find many

other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.