A Living Hope

Well, today's message I want to talk to you today about a living hope, a living hope. And so a couple weeks ago on, let's see, it was a baptism Sunday, I'm not sure. Seth and I preached twice together, I'm not sure it was Palm Sunday or baptism Sunday, but I wanted to go a little bit deeper from Romans 6 on the new birth. But this week was the National Day of Prayer, I was blessed to be able to speak in Kaiser this week at their National Day of Prayer event on Thursday morning.

And so I'm really stirred up on hope. And so this week today's message is going to be a combination of the new birth and hope. And I expect that when you leave here, you'll leave here with greater hope, you'll leave here with greater understanding, you'll leave here, your faith will be stirred up, but I want to give you a foundation to believe. I want to give you eyes to see what can't be seen.

I want to be able to paint pictures from scripture for you that you'll be able to see with your heart what maybe you can't see with your eyes. That you can believe God for whatever in the midst of whatever might seem negative, whatever might seem disastrous, that you can look at the Word, know what the Word says, know who God is and because of that, you can put your faith in a confident outcome for your situation. So the combination of the new birth and also hope. So we're going to start in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3.

And I want to combine it with verse 23 as well because this particular word in the Greek that is born again only appears here. And you might say, well, I've read the book of John, specifically John 3, where Jesus talks to Nicodemus and he tells Nicodemus, he says, you must be born again. Right? So that born again is a different word than this born again.

This born again is only used here in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3 and then also again in verse 23. So let's read this and then we'll just make a few points. So I want to start out, I just want to talk to you about your new birth. I want to talk to it in light of the resurrection because so often we think of the new birth, we think of the day we got saved and I accepted Jesus, but I just want to give you a little behind the scenes look at really what happened the day that you did that.

And then from there we're going to transition to what are the dimensions of a living hope? What are the characteristics of a living hope? We're going to look at three of them today. I'll just give to you now that it's external.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm going back and forth. So whoever's running media today, I might even do these in a different order than I came to. But living hope is eternal. Living hope is eternal.

It's anchored in the heavenly realm. That living hope is internal. It says that Christ in you, the hope of glory, that living hope is actually in you. And then living hope is external.

And I want to kind of land there I think today, whichever way we start out, we'll land on that, that the way that hope is connected to the love of God and actually should affect the way that we think and interact with people. So that's kind of where we'll go. Let's get started. First Peter chapter 1.

I feel like I need to tell a joke today. I'm not going to, but I feel like you guys awake. Is everybody awake today? All right.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again. Now that word, it says begotten again, but it's born again. Who has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead. And then verse 23 says this.

Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. I saw yesterday, I didn't watch it, but I saw yesterday was the Kentucky Derby. And I think it was the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby.

And if we get a chance, my wife and I like to watch it, but I saw a little factoid. I have not fact checked this yet. So if I'm wrong, but I did see a couple of things that said every horse that ran in yesterday's Kentucky Derby was a descendant of Secretariat. So Secretariat, who I think had won the Triple Crown, I believe 1971-ish, that every horse yesterday was a descendant, had his lineage in every horse that ran.

I just thought, that's a message in itself that we're here today and that the lineage, the seed of Jesus, runs through every one of us that are running in the race today. And so that's a whole other day. But this says that having been born again, not of corruptible seed. Corruptible means that you're subject to decay, that you can perish.

And it says that the seed that we've been born again with was what? The Word of God. And remember, a lot of times we look at the Bible and right away we go, well that's the Word of God. And it is.

It's a record of what God said. But the Word of God, really I like, as much as I bust on the message translation, which I'm not a big fan of, it actually appropriately capitalizes the W in this verse. Because I believe the black letters on a white page are not what saved me. It was the capital W, Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh that ever was and ever will be.

And it says that having been born again, not of corruptible seed. And so it's not seed. The thing that you were germinated with in your spiritual life is not subject to decay. It can't die.

And it's alive. It says living and abides forever. So the seed that Jesus implanted in you is alive. And it also lives forever.

I love the, in verse 23, having been born again is in the perfect tense, which I love looking a little bit into the Greek. It means the perfect tense is this. It means that it's an action completed in the past once and for all time, never again needing to be completed. That the seed that germinates in your spiritual life happens once and for all time, that it's alive and not subject to decay.

See, a lot of believers spend a lot of their life wondering, am I saved? Am I not saved? Am I saved? Am I not saved?

But I want you to have confidence when the life of Jesus comes into your spirit and makes you new. It's the same life that exists in him. So it says that we're born again through the Word of God, but we're also born again through the resurrection, verse 3 of Jesus Christ, that his resurrection, we talk about this a lot that says that in Paul tells the Ephesians, we died with Christ. We were made alive with Christ.

We were raised with Christ. And we're also seated with Christ. All these things happen at the same time. So a lot of times we say this, his resurrection is our resurrection.

His resurrection is our resurrection. When Christ raised, we were raised with him. But there's a unique aspect of Christ's resurrection. It's something that we don't talk about a lot.

It's only listed twice in Colossians 1, verse 18 and Revelation 1, verse 5 that Christ was not only resurrected, but his resurrection was a birth. That the resurrection is good. Let me just talk about this for a minute because this is good. I don't even like doing PowerPoints anymore because I'm boxed in.

But let's just see what that I had there. So here about Jesus, he says this, what do we know? So if his resurrection is my resurrection, what do we know about Jesus? That it says that he died once and now he's been resurrected to never do what again?

Never die again. Jesus says in Revelation 1 at the end, towards verse 18, he says this, he says, don't be afraid. Remember it says when John sees this vision of the Christ and it says, I fell down as a dead man and it says, he reached out, put his hand on me and said, don't be afraid. I am he who lives.

I was dead, but now I'm alive forevermore and I hold the keys to hell and death. See there was a time that Jesus died, but then when he's brought back from the dead, he's brought back to life, never to die again. And the life that he imparts to you eternal life is the same life. The life that never dies again.

And so that his resurrection, though, next slide is this, it's a birth. His resurrection is your resurrection, but it was unique in that it's a birth. Listen to this from Colossians 1. It says, and he is the head of the body of the church who is the beginning, say this, the firstborn from the dead.

The firstborn from the dead. That in all things he might have the preeminence. And then in Revelation 1 verse 5, John says this, I find it interesting that Paul and John both get the same revelation. You know, a lot of the New Testament, the revelatory writings of the epistles were written by predominantly Paul.

But this is a revelation that God also gives to John. John says this, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. So when we read that, Jesus was not the first person to ever resurrect. Right?

Hello. Okay. Occasionally I'm going to ask you a redundant question. It's not a trick question.

It's not a leading question. It's a redundant question. And if you feel so inclined, just give me a little feedback. That way I know we're tracking together.

Because if we're not here, we're building on this. So it says that Jesus was the firstborn. Jesus was not the first person to ever resurrect from the dead, right? Right.

Because we have Elijah and Elijah that both brought back a voice from the dead. We have Jesus that raised the widow from the name, raised her son. We have Jesus that raised Lazarus from the dead. But everybody that was resurrected from the dead died again.

Jesus' resurrection was more than just a resurrection. His resurrection was a birth. See, it's no wonder that when Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born again. Nicodemus is like, okay.

I hear you, but how do I enter that canal again as a man? Like I barely fit coming out. There is no way I'm going back in. And that's logical.

That's logical. And Jesus says, you must be born of water and of the spirit. Marvel not that I say to you, you must be born again. You must, that which is flesh is flesh, that which is spirit is spirit.

You must be born of the flesh. Natural, you must be born of the spirit, spiritual. See when flesh is resurrected, flesh will still die. Even if we resurrect somebody from the dead today, they will still die of Jesus.

Jesus doesn't come back. But there's another resurrection that's also a birth. And just like I can't go back into my mother to be born again because once I'm out, I'm out. When I've been born from the dead, I don't go back.

That Jesus was not just brought up from the dead and made alive. He was born out of the dead. He was born from the dead. He's not going back into that grave.

He's not going back into that birth canal. It was born out of. It wasn't born to go back to. And so it's important to know that he was born from the dead because his resurrection is our resurrection, but his birth is our birth.

In Romans 8, well, you got to see this. Don't clap yet. You got to see this because God showed me this different. I saw this different this week.

It says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And those he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might become the first born among many brethren. And those he predestinated, he justified. I'm sorry, called and those he called, he justified and those he justified, he glorified.

So what happens is we gloss over that middle a lot and we go from foreknew to predestined to predestined to called and called and justified and justified to glorified. But in the middle, God, Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, inserts a whole big phrase. He says that all things work together for good to those that love God and those who are called according to his purpose, whom he foreknew. So God knew in eternity past that you would one day choose him of your own free will.

He didn't make you choose. He didn't only die for certain people. He didn't only die for an elect number of chosen frozen. He died for everybody.

And anybody has the ability to say yes to Jesus, but God and his infinite wisdom knew and eternity past you'd say yes. And since he knew you'd say yes, he went ahead and called you anyway, not that he made you do it. But it said that those he knew foreknew, he predestined. So here's God's destiny.

A lot of times I've always read this in the past. It says that he predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son. And so I would think, okay, my destiny is to become more like Jesus every day. And that's a true statement.

I should be more like Christ today than yesterday. I should be more like Christ tomorrow than I am today. If I'm allowing God's word and God's spirit to continue to work on me, to bring drinks to the surface, to prune me, to do all the things to make me more Christ like in my actions and attitudes. While that's the true statement, I think the revelation in this passage is this.

That's Christ like character. But the predestination that God is calling us to is this, that he's given to us, that he predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son, that he, Jesus Christ, might be the first born. What did we just say he was the first born of what? He was the first born from the dead, that he would be the first born from the dead among many brethren.

That you're, when God knew that you would say yes, he predestined you so that the same way that Jesus was resurrected, the same way that Jesus was the first born from the dead, never to die again. That's what God destined your spirit to be. The same way he was born from the dead, he was the first, but he's the first among many. And that you can be confident in the new birth knowing that Jesus was born from the dead, never to die again.

You were born from the dead, never to die again. I hear a lot of people say, well, you can be saved and lost and saved and lost and saved and lost. And you can be born again, again and again. In order to be born again, again, you had to be able to die and die again.

And my Bible just told me that I can't die again because Jesus was born once from the dead, never to die again. And he's the first born among many brethren and I've been predestined to step into the birth that he was birthed out of. Now because of that, because of that. See, you were born, see, if I get a glimpse of what that looks like, that one little nugget gives me more hope than I had a minute ago.

See, if the enemy can keep you doubting what God's done, you'll never be able to step into what he has next for you. See if he can't keep you from accepting him and he wants to keep you on first base. Like you get a little lead and then he throws the ball to first base. And then you're like, oh man, you start moving into things with the spirit and he throws the ball back to first base.

You never get off. You never get off. But see, God's got more and until I'm confident in this, I can't step into the next and the next and the next. And so Peter says this, he says that you were begotten again, born again to a living hope, to a living hope.

The word means actually into or toward or unto. This was your purpose. You were born again for the purpose of a living hope. Like I see so many Christians that are born again with no hope.

That's an oxymoron. Because the only hopeless situation is the one that doesn't involve God. Paul told the Ephesians, this is Ephesians 2, 12. He's talking about their former state of being unsaved.

He said, at that time you were without Christ. That means you were separated from Christ. That you were an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, which means that you were alienated from the political rights of a citizen and that you were strangers to the covenants of promise means like you were estranged from the very promises that God made for his people and then the last phrase of verse 12 said this, having no hope and without God in this world. You see the only situation that is hopeless is the one where you're not connected to God.

Like if you're not connected to God, nothing I'm going to say today matters. Because you don't have any hope. You might have a big wish. You might have a big one too.

Your wish and desire might be a lot bigger than mine, but you're hopeless. Because apart from Jesus Christ, none of this matters. But the good news is this, that the Father who is the one that sires us, there's a way to the Father. His name is Jesus.

Jesus says that I am the way. He tells the disciples, I'm going to make a way. And Thomas was like, what? I'm not sure.

He said, Thomas or Philip, John 14. But anyway, he said, how do we know the way? And Jesus says, I'm the way, I'm the truth and I'm the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.

There is a way today that you can have the connection that you need in order to have the hope that God has for you. It's called Jesus Christ. So we're born into a living hope. What does it mean living?

Living means this. It comes from the word, zoe. Every here is zoe life. It's like the God kind of life.

This is the form. This is like the adjective form. But it means to be alive. It means to be powerful.

It means to be efficacious. Efficacious just means that it possesses the ability to get the desired result. Think about that. That you were born to have a hope that has the ability to get the desired result.

Look at this. A living hope is confident. What's hope? Confident expectation of a future good.

We've covered that before. A living hope is a confident expectation of future good. So you could have hope. You could see the thing.

But if you don't actually believe that God has instilled the power in you and that he has the power to perform it, it's just going to sit there and vanish. Right? A living hope is this. It's a confident expectation of future good.

It's active, powerful, and able to successfully produce the intended outcome. See God wants more than just to create hope in you. He wants to see the thing that you're believing for come to pass. He wants you to see it in your heart.

So that's what really hope is. Hope is this. It's seeing in your heart what you can't see with your eyes. It's the ability to see the unseen.

Paul says in Romans 824, hope that a scene is not hoped. Because why would somebody hope for that what you already have? Like if I have a pair of glasses? I don't need to hope for them.

Why? Because I have them. But if I don't have something that's been promised to me, I have to get enough word of what it is that I begin to see a picture in my mind's eye in my heart that I can see the thing that God's words describing to me and I can put my faith into that thing that I'm hoping for. See, faith can't work apart from hope.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. So hope is a powerful tool in the kingdom. Like if you don't have it, your faith doesn't really have anything to grab onto. And so today I want your faith to increase and it will.

The way it's going to increase is by increasing hope. And as your hope increases, your faith will naturally rise. So number one is this. Next slide, eternal.

Hope is anchored in the heavenly realm. Hope is anchored in the heavenly realm. Why is that important? Why is it important that hope is anchored somewhere?

You think about, God just reminded me of this, in Matthew, treasures in heaven. What does he tell us about treasures in heaven? He says, don't lay them up on earth where moth and rust do corrupt. To lay them up in heaven, we're neither moth nor rust do corrupt.

See, something that's reserved in heaven is secure. Something reserved in the heavenly is not able to be destroyed, deteriorated, contaminated, or decay. It's eternal. It's the realm that God lives in.

And so the first thing I want you to know is this. Your living hope is an eternal hope. It's anchored in heaven. Hebrews, chapter 6 says this.

Now, this is a story. The end of Hebrew 6 is talking about Genesis 22 when God makes another promise to Abraham. And if you remember, God promised Abraham that he would be blessed, that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. Abraham at the time he received that promise.

He was what, 75 years old? His wife's 65. And his wife's barren. So that's kind of bad news, right?

65 years old. This thing drags on 25 years. Until Abraham becomes 100, his wife is 90, she's still barren. But now he's past the time of life that he's able to have kids.

His body is dead physically. And so by all natural aspects, there's no way that these two could ever produce a baby and have the promise that God promised them. You know, that God fulfilled it. They have Isaac several years later.

Abraham picks Isaac to sacrifice him. And he picks him on Mount Uriah. And this quote, or this is coming from that. Because God says this, he says, surely I will do it.

And it said that he, when he couldn't swear by anybody greater, he swore by himself. So not that only God makes Abraham a promise, but now he takes the promise and he swears on top of it. It'd be like this. Anybody here is probably a redundant question.

This is a redundant question. Anybody here ever been to court? See, you don't know scripture, but you'll be able to finish this one. I promise to tell.

The whole truth. The whole truth. The whole truth. The whole truth.

Nothing but the truth. So help me God. Why do we say that? Because when we swear on something greater than ourselves, it attests to the truthfulness or gives validity to the thing that we're about to say.

So here's God. God makes a promise. And so God's like, what am I going to do? Because there's nobody greater than me.

I promise to tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. So help me myself.

So he swears on himself because he couldn't swear by anybody greater. And so here it says that by two immutable things. The two things are this. God makes a promise and God backs it up with an oath.

He swears. By two immutable things in that it was impossible for God to lie. Do you know there's things God can't do? Lying's one of them.

That when God says it, it's true. He can't lie. Lying is not his nature. It's literally impossible for God to lie.

So you can just on that one little nugget when you find a promise in the Word of God, you can know that God can't lie and therefore you can't lie. I can believe this thing. It says by two immutable things that show more abundantly the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel we can find by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, that we might have a strong consolation. That is a similar word to the Holy Spirit, the one called alongside, the comforter.

He's not just talking about rubbing elbows. It's just not a little bit like this. It's like this. Yeah?

I can do that. She's my wife, right? If you didn't know that, it's my wife. It's a strong consolation.

I'm just not like getting the warm and fuzzy on this. I'm not just like a little fluttering in the inside. It's a strong, confident. I know that I know because God said it.

He said that we have fled for a wretched made lay hold of the hope said before us. See there's hope that was said before us. There's hope said before us. See, hope is there.

But what do I got to do if hope is an anchor? What do I got to do to the rope? I got to grab on. Like, what good is it do if the hope is anchored in the heavenlies, but I don't grab on the rope.

Right? I'm going to fall. He thought I really fell, didn't he? Huh?

We're going to have raising from the dead practice here in a little bit. Or at least healing. No, faith is what grabs on to that rope. It says that we have an anchor set before us.

This hope we have as an anchor for the soul. So think about this. When things don't go the way that you planned, anybody ever have that happen? What's the first thing that gets sideways?

Right here. The way I think, the way I decide. My attitude, my emotions. All of a sudden my mind goes, what do we call it?

My mind's in the toilet. I'm not even sure where that saying came from. Like, how do you get your mind in the toilet? If your mind's in the toilet, flush it.

Flush that thing. Don't like, man, I don't know why God reminded me of this, but the place I remember I told you I grew a little sheltered life, we had a family next to us that wouldn't flush their toilet because they were saving water. I went over there one day, I was like, whoa. They're like, don't flush that thing.

I'm like, oh no, you need to flush that thing. If your head's in the toilet, flush it. But we have the, I don't know where I'm going now, but we have an anchor. We have an anchor.

I got an anchor for my soul. I've got an anchor that keeps my mind fixed that when things might be going, hey, why are my mind is fixed? My thoughts are fixed. My mind.

See, what do our emotions tend to do? It's like a roller coaster. No, my emotions are like this because they're fixed. My thoughts are like this because they're fixed.

I've got an anchor for the soul. It's sure. It's not just sure and it's not steadfast. It's both.

That's it. Like the word both is important. What if the anchor was sure? Like, it's the best quality anchor.

It's made of the, like, I don't know, some sort of the best gauge of steel and it's the best quality anchor, but it's not anchored to anything. Or what if it's anchored in the rock, but it's made out of plastic? That won't work either. It's got to be both stable and it's got to be steadfast.

And the anchor we have is secure. It's the best anchor that can hold us, but it's also anchored behind the veil. It's anchored in the presence of God that when Jesus went into the holy of holies with his blood, he goes in and applies it to the mercy seat. And the fact that he's applied to the mercy seat and sin is paid for.

Sickness is dealt with that I have an anchor that's anchored behind the veil of the holy of holies in heaven that I can hold on to. See what happens is the anchor of, I call it the anchor of hopelessness is anchored in the world. The anchor of hopelessness, what direction is that going to pull me down? What direction does the anchor in heaven pull me?

It pulls me to a place that's eternal. It focuses my attention on the eternal realm. Since you have been resurrected with Christ, set your affections on things above, not on things of earth. Colossians 3-1.

It's like that's where your mindset is because that's where the anchor is. The hope is there. What do we know about in next, Abraham? Abraham, it says this is back before he had Isaac.

It said it was an impossible situation. He's got no womb and he's got no sperm. They're both gone. She's barren.

He's dead. It says that he hoped against hope. He actually believed in hope against hope. It's a tricky way of saying this.

That when everything seemed hopeless, he still believed in hope. That he had it so ingrained on the inside of him that he could actually believe in something when by all logical deductions it wasn't going to happen. See, what did it say? It says so that he against hope believed in hope so that he might become.

He believed so that he would become. You can't become anything you don't believe. You've got to believe it in order to become it. He became what?

According to what was, you guys awake? According to what was spoken, social your descendants be. He became the word that was spoken. What was spoken about his social your descendants be?

Your descendants, he says, your descendants will be as the dust of the earth. Come outside, Abraham. I want you to look at the stars and if you're able, number them. Because if you can number them, that's how your descendants will be.

Oh, come over here. You see all the sand on the seashore? That's how numerous your descendants will be. So what's Abraham?

He's looking in his, he's got a bedroom. He's already made for Isaac and nobody's in it. Every day he's walking by that bedroom. There's nobody there.

He walks outside and he sees the stars. He walks outside and he sees the dust of the ground. He walks outside and he sees the sand of the seashore. And all of a sudden he begins to see in his heart what he can't see with his mind.

And that picture that God created with the words that God spoke became hope in him. And hope against hope. He had hope in here, but it was hopeless out there. And he believed in the thing that he saw with his imagination.

He believed in the thing that God spoke. So shall your descendants be. See the hope that we have is anchored by the fact that God said it. He's anchored in the fact that God said it.

Forever, O Lord. Psalm 1, 1989. Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Forever.

It wasn't settled because I just, it wasn't settled the day I discovered. Oh my gosh, there's a promise. I'm claiming that one for me. It didn't get settled the day I found it.

It didn't get settled the day I believed it. It didn't get settled the day I meditated on it. It didn't get settled the day I quoted it. It got settled in eternity passed when God said it.

And he said it. And it settled there. It's secure there. Forever remain there.

It's my decision on whether I want to tap into what God's already provided. Every promise in him is yes. Every promise. Where is it at?

Next slide. The promises of God are where are the promises there in him? He is the word of God. Every promise in him is yes.

And what do we got to do? Oh, I got to do is put my let it be so to it. That in him, my yes, my amen is to the glory of God. It's eternal.

It's there. It's secure. It's anchored. All I got to do is say amen.

Let's practice. Amen. Amen. Number two is this.

It's in you. It's in you. See, this revelation alone should change the way you see things. I'm going to go quick.

I'm trying to give you two weeks in one today because I'm going to be gone. It's in you. Say this. Hope is in me.

Hope is in me. Hope is in me in the form of Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 verse 26 and 27 say this. It says the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations has now been revealed to his saints.

Who's the saint? If you are saved, you are a saint. If you're saved, you're a saint. To them.

To the saints. God will. So here it is. This is God's will.

If you want to know this is another aspect of God's will that you know this. To them, God will to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Glory is this. Here's a very basic definition of glory.

Glory is the result of God manifesting himself. Glory is the result of God manifesting himself. When Jesus turned the water in the wine at the wedding of Kena. He says this was the first miracle he began to do as he manifested his glory.

When Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead, he says to Martha, didn't I tell you that if you would believe in John 11, he says, didn't I tell you believe that you would see the glory of God. When Jesus was raised from the dead, Paul says that he was raised by the glory of God. That miracles are an attestation, a manifestation of the glory of God. So that within me, there is a confident expectation because Christ is in me that something good is going to come out of my life.

That there's going to be rivers of living water that are in me, that are not in me for me, but they're in me for you. That there is hope, there's confident expectation that the glory that is in me is about to be revealed. See Paul said, I quote Paul so much, I just say Paul, it's said that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. How is the knowledge of the glory of the Lord going to cover the earth if we're not manifesting his glory?

Like he's not here anymore in the flesh, but he's here in you. He's here in me. See, it should make a difference that 1 Corinthians 6, 19 says that he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit with him, that I'm united with him. It should make a difference that Colossians 2, 2, 9 says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, that the fullness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is in him, which is in me.

It should make a difference that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God. The wisdom of God and the power of God are in me. That should make a difference on how I see life. All of a sudden when I encounter something, what am I renewing my mind to?

The truth of God's Word or the reality of the situation? Like the truth of God's Word says that Christ in me is the confident expectation of the manifestation of God or the result of God's man. Something's going to happen. These things that we encounter in life that have names have to bow to the name of Jesus.

They must. They must. Let's skip over that. The greater your revelation of Christ in you, the hope of glory, the more you will confidently expect to live a transformed and powerful life that reflects his glory.

See, if I don't renew my mind to the fact that Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah took up residence in me and then I just walk around. You talk about stewardship or lack thereof. Forget material things. What about the stewardship of Christ in you, the hope of glory?

What are you doing with that? I feel like most believers are walking around like the guy that buried his treasure because you're walking around with buried treasure in you. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. He's in us and he wants out.

He didn't come here to be a recluse. He didn't come in me to spend the next 50 years in hiding. He wants out. He wants to display his power.

He wants to transform lives through you. It should change the way you see things. The final thing is this and here's where I really want to get to today. External.

My hope is anchored. It's secure. It's eternal. It's in the heavenly.

I have hope in me. I have the Messiah, the anointed one in me. But what am I doing with it? Since past week, the verse of the National Day of Prayer was this.

It was Romans 15, 13. It says, now may the God of hope. Everybody say this, the God of hope. Now may the God of hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. That you may abound in hope. Say that abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. The God of hope.

What God really spoke to me this past week was this. It's not so much that God is the source of hope because he is. It says in Romans 11, 36 that all things are of God through God and to God. Like everything comes from him.

But this one thing really hit me this week that God is the most hopeful person in the universe. God has more hope for your situation than you do. Like nobody has more hope than God does. I know the thoughts I have for you.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil. Thoughts to give you a future and a hope or an expected end. Jeremiah 29, 11. What's David saying?

Psalm 139, 17, and 18, he says this. He says, how wondrous are your thoughts to me? Because a lot of times we read that. Well, okay, I get to God.

He thinks some good thoughts about me once in a while, but you know, then there's the times when he's up there like, because he really knows what I did yesterday. God says the thoughts I think are your thoughts of peace. Thoughts of everything being connected. Everything that was broken being put back together.

David says this. He says, how wondrous are the thoughts you think of me? What is the sum of them? If I were able to number them, they would be greater than the sand of the sea.

So not only does God think thoughts of peace over your life, he thinks them in quantity that's infinitesimal. That if you take sand and you put it in a one cubic inch, one inch by one inch by one inch. Depending on the size of the sand, grain of sand, you can fit somewhere between half a million and a million grains of sand in one square inch. A million.

Multiply that by one beach. Multiply that by every beach in the world. That's God's thoughts of peace for you individually. See when he sees your situation, he sees it with hope.

I don't know if I can do it another day. I don't know if I can stay married one more day. I don't know. Boy, there's no good employees left.

God corrected me this week. He pruned me. I'm preaching this message. And then my CFO quits the same day.

Oh man, the last time boy was just difficult. There's no good people. God's like, are you hopeful or hopeless? Because I'm the God of hope and I see a confident expectation of good for your future.

See God's hope is limitless. See his hope, his infinite hope is a derivative of his love nature. Think about this. First John 4-8 says this.

You all know this. God is, I'm going to try one more time. Some of you got it right. God is love.

We learned this in Sunday school. God's love. Get the big red heart. God's love.

Everybody, we're good there, right? Okay. God's love. God is love.

In 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul gives us the characteristics of love. In 1 Corinthians 13-7 it says that love hopes all things. That everything God sees, every situation you encounter, every bad thing that you go through, he sees it with a confident expectation that it's going to be okay. He hopes all things.

Let's go to the next slide. I want this to sink in. Because we always talk about operating in the love of God, right? If God is love and love hopes all things.

Any thought, any emotion, any attitude, any decision, any action that I express that is bare of hope is operating outside of the love of God. Let that hip shift between the eyes. Because we all talk about, oh, you know, I'm operating in the love of God. But how about the hope part of the love of God?

Because if God is love and love hopes all things, any expression that I have in thought, decision, action, whatever, that exhibits a lack of hope is operating out of the love of God. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 14-16, he says, the love of God constrains me. The love of God compels me. It means to urge forward, to push forward, that the love of God actually pushes me towards something.

And he says this, he said that if one died for all, then all died. And basically saying that the fact that when God died, he died for everybody. And so it should change, that his love for people should change the way that I see people. Verse 16 says, he says that from now on, because of the love of God and that love hopes all things, from now on, I no longer regard anyone according to the flesh.

For there was a time that we knew Christ that way, but no longer. See, when I look at somebody, anybody can look at somebody laying on the curb and say, oh, I bet he's an addict. I bet she's a prostitute. But it takes hope to look at the person living in prostitution and say, there's a mom one day.

There's a wife one day. It takes hope to look at somebody laying on the corner and say, that guy's going to run a company one day. You see somebody running around on their spouse and saying, there's a faithful man. Hope believes all things.

It takes no spiritual equity or anointing to be able to discern what the person's living in. An idiot could do that. But hope looks beyond that. Hope looks beyond that.

Anybody can look at a politician and say, that guy's crooked. You didn't have to go to school to figure that one out. It takes hope to look at a political situation and say, there's hope here. Anybody can look at something and complain about it.

Anybody can look at your neighbor and complain about it. It takes no spiritual andointing to do that. It takes hope from the power of the Holy Spirit to actually, Paul calls it abound in hope. Do you realize that God can give you more hope than your situation demands?

See when we're living less than hope, we're living in spiritual poverty. Because I know a God that fed 5,000 people plus women and children, they collected up 12 basketballs and leftovers when it was all said and done. Are you going to look at the fish and the loaves? Are you going to look beyond that at the basketfuls?

Because Paul says in this prayer that gives us legal access into the infinite hope of God that you can actually abound in hope. You can look at any situation, no matter how bleak, no matter how disastrous, no matter how negative, no matter how impossible. And you can have leftover hope. You can have hope to pass out.

But we would rather go around with our thumb and our mouth and walk around and complain about how bad things are. You're not releasing the power of God with your thumb and your mouth. That's what the world does. Shouldn't we be different?

Shouldn't we be like, we're connected to the vine. We're connected to the one that never dies. What's the worst that can happen? I'm going to be with him.

I don't care. It takes a lot to get me to that place. But then I was telling Pastor Seth, here I am preaching it but talking about both sides of my mouth. And God had to prune me this week.

He had to say, you're saying it but you're not living it. I'm like, yeah, but God, we're just talking about collecting resumes. Because the last time I looked, job applications were included in all things. And he said, I'm hopeful for all things.

Are you? I'm like, well, when you put it that way, yes, I am. See, God has a way of taking the word and it's alive. And it cuts to the dividing line of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

It discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And if I'll allow it to do its job, the thing that seemed hopeless now a sudden becomes hopeful. You can be full of hope. You can look at any person and be hopeful.

You can look at any situation and be hopeful. You don't have to go along with what the crowd says. There was a guy named Zacchaeus. Anybody ever hear Zacchaeus?

He was a wee little man. We need to lead. Just remind me, I was in my wife put a picture of me up. We were in Ireland one time.

It was me as a leprechaun. And I had my hands through this board holding a beer and I'm like this tall. So if you ever see that, I think it's Zacchaeus. We little man.

But it said that Zacchaeus was short and stature. It said that he was the chief tax collector, which people hate. I don't know. It's funny that even 2,000 years ago, people hated tax collectors.

They still are not well liked today. And he was rich. And we find out later in the story, the reason he was rich is because he extorted money out of people to get money so they don't pay their taxes. And it said, but he saw Jesus coming because he's short.

He wanted to see Jesus. So he runs ahead, climbs up in a tree. Here's what I find interesting. Jesus is going to go to his house.

The crowd, the multitude say this. There's Jesus going to the house of a sinner. Actually calling sinner. He was going to the house of a sinner.

It took no spiritual discernment to know that God was a sinner. Bless you. Anybody. Anybody could discern that.

But Jesus didn't say this. He didn't say, hey, sinner, come on down now that tree. I'm going to your house today. He said Zacchaeus is the Greek form of the Hebrew word zechai.

He was actually Hebrew guys. So Jesus would have said, zechai, zechai, come down. I'm going to your house today. Zechai means pure and innocent.

The crowd saying Jesus is going to the house of a sinner, but Jesus is calling the man innocent while he's living a lifestyle of sin. Jesus never addressed his sin. He just exposes him to the person of grace. And because of the encounter with the man of grace, Zacchaeus on his own gives 50% of his money to the poor and restores fourfold to those he stole from.

Zechai. Innocent. See, Jesus is hopeful in all situations. Jesus didn't say, hey, I'll come to your house, but here's what you got to do.