Amen. What we've been in this Romans 12 series, which has been incredible. You guys got Bibles? Yes.
Let's crack them open to Romans. We have two incredible messages on Romans 12, 11. By Mark Colson's garden, Pastor Ben, and we're picking it up in Romans 12, 12. And similar to some of these other verses, we're breaking multiple messages out in one verse.
So tonight, we're going to focus on the first three words of Romans 12, 12. Rejoice in hope. So with you still open to Romans, let's fast forward a little bit to Romans 15, three more chapters ahead. Verse 13.
Yes, there? Yes. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. So just pause.
One of his names is being a God of hope. I was talking to somebody earlier this week on how I don't actually think I've heard an entire message on hope before. You think through that 1 Corinthians 13, you know that's the love chapter, right? Last verse of that chapter.
The Apostle Paul's like, there are three things that remain. Faith, hope, and love. And I'm very grateful because the greatest of those is love. I'm grateful that love isn't very mysterious, that there is actual and phenomenal clarity and teaching, even in this house on the topic of love.
Alrageously important. I would argue that it's probably the most powerful key to the kingdom. However, faith and hope are often so wrapped in mystery that very far and a few between our preachers that actually risk preaching on them. I just took a peek exactly a year ago to this weekend.
We ventured out to just preach an entire message on faith. Faith is something that has essentially driven me and haunted me for over a decade. I want you to feel the weight of this because I'm talking about the sum total of the finished work of Jesus. Being packaged in this thing called the kingdom, handed to you into your way to access his finished work is by faith.
How you're saved is by grace through faith. He's after that parable of the prayer of the persistent widow, a lot of people, where she just had grit and wouldn't give up. It was that mustard seed resilient faith. At the end of that, parable, Jesus is even haunted by the question of, when I return to the earth, will I even find faith on the earth?
There's a verse that says, without faith it's impossible to please God. Do you feel some weight around the faith topic? Yeah. Like, so what's faith?
We have one chapter, friends. Hebrews 11, one chapter. And it starts by saying, well, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. That's what it is.
Right. So how do I get faith? Easy. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word.
Hearing by the word. Sweet. That's confusing. But we took an entire message and just broke down what we can know about faith.
Friend, just maybe hop on YouTube or hop on the app, search everyday MPLS faith and dive into that message. It's so important. We're going to be tying a lot of things with hope tonight into faith. And Romans 15 and 13 talking about the God of hope, filling you with joy and peace as you're believing.
Why? So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Abound is like overflow. It's like a bubbling and overflowing of hope.
I believe that those who carry hope carry influence in their spirit. Friend, the world is hungering and thirsting for many things that are in the kingdom. One of those things is hope. I think there's an ache in the heart and an ache in the soul for hope.
And in the midst of the most hopeless circumstance, sons and daughters that speak a different word about the circumstance will rise in influence. That you can actually birth hope and reproduce after its own kind by planting seeds of hope into your sphere. We need to understand hope though. There's some, I don't know why it's almost like hope gets overlooked.
I don't know if, why there aren't many entire messages or sermons on it because there's not a ton of content on hope. It gets sprinkled in to messages. But oftentimes you don't just focus on it. Even once you start getting into, I don't know, like more charismatic or spheres that are pursuing signs and wonders.
We'll even find some dissonance and almost like, is hope the enemy of faith. And hope almost gets overlooked and ignored because no, we're faith people. But I actually want to spend some time on hope. The more I've studied things, the more I'm uncertain that there are certain things that aren't physical that come from the spirit.
And there are certain things that aren't physical that come from our soul. And you hear about, I don't know, the world's perspective on hope. And one of the first phrases that maybe comes to mind is don't get your hopes up. It's anti-gospel.
It's anti-kingo. But it's, I think it's because the hope that the world is talking about with that phrase is not God hope. I love the gospel through and through for many reasons. One reason that I'll focus on right now is that when you said yes to him, you didn't have to create righteousness before God.
You couldn't through your best efforts. You couldn't earn it. You couldn't create it. So you became the righteousness, not of your own of God.
A year ago when we talked about faith, we talked about that Mark 11 passage that almost gives like a breakdown for seeing manifestation of miracles. And you should read it again at some point. But Mark 11, it actually says, have faith in God, do not doubt in your heart. Believe it's already happened and it'll be yours.
But we broke down the very first step because even though your English translated Bible say have faith in God, the original language says have the faith of God. Have God's faith. There's freedom here for that. Because you could pray for Sally and Susie.
Sally gets healed. Susie doesn't. He's not the same. Pray the same.
Same. Same. Maybe ailment. Whatever.
And you would walk away saying it's a faith thing. If you have courage, if you don't, you'll blame it on her. And say, she must have unforgiveness in her heart. Or he blamed it on God saying, yes, it wasn't his will or timing.
Either way, the one example we have, Jesus says it was actually an unbelief and a faith thing. There's a different message. But you could walk away from that being like, okay, I get it. It's an issue of unbelief and faith.
How do I get more faith? And it's not enough to just say it comes by hearing and hearing by the word and then the confusion around that. Just like he gave us his righteousness, right? He gave every man a measure of his own faith.
He finished the word, packaged it up, and then gave you his own faith before he did it to access it. Do you realize he says, come to me if you're weary, tired, and heavy lady, I'll give you rest. That means you don't have to stir up your own righteousness. You don't create your own faith.
The list could go on and on, but in this, there is God hope that he gives you. And it's so different than the world's hope that actually comes from our soul. The reason that they say it is like, don't get your hopes up is because there's nothing sure and stable underneath it. There's no foundation.
Man, I got this picnic Saturday. I hope the weather holds up. I just interviewed for a job. I hope I get the promotion.
You start going to a new school or church or group or something. I hope they like me. You track that there's nothing sure and stable here. It's a risk town.
I say, you know what? I hope that when there's no certainty, it's a shot in the dark and at its core, world hope is wishful thinking. And if you were to actually put it into a family, I would put it into the feeling family that the world hope is actually a feeling. God hope is so different.
God hope you can write this down is the confident expectation of future good. You study that word out. It's the confident expectation of future good. We'll give you the right to the foundation to confidently expect something.
Well, note takers, the character of God, the word of God, the promises of God and his covenants. Character, word, promises, covenants, it's sure, it's stable. God hope is an anchor for your soul. It doesn't say that there's not waves and winds, but it says you have an anchor.
The winds we need an anchor and your sphere needs an anchor for the soul. And there's only one thing that I could find. I could be wrong, but when I search it out, there's only one thing that I could find that the Bible says makes the heart sick. Hope deferred, hopelessness.
It's the only thing I could find. Heart disease begins with the removal of hope. Your sphere is yearning and aching for hope. And you're a carrier, not of the world's hope, but of God hope.
There's so many things like righteousness and faith and hope that it gives you peace, not as the world gives to I get to. I give you God peace. I let not your heart be troubled, and you let it be afraid. We're talking peace that passes even your wildest imagination and understanding.
I'm just telling you, everything you bought and paid for in that thing called the Kingdom, friend, is power. Not a feeling, power. You access happiness from the soul, but you access joy from the spirit. Joy of the Lord's strength.
It's an actual powerhouse that brings strength to your being. And it makes sense if you don't tap into God as a spirit and become one with Him, those who are in Christ or one spirit with Him. It makes sense that what you're left with are soul things, carnal things, because you have nothing else. That's why your life's greatest aim in that life is happiness.
And it's not that it's a counterfeit for joy. It's just the world's version, the carnal version. It's dust, it's ashes. But it gives you power.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it's the power of God unto salvation. And everything in that Kingdom that He put on the inside of you is power for your spirit. It's power for your own body and in your own life. But you are to be salt in light.
That's what we're talking about. Those with the greatest hope will have the greatest influence in their spirit. So while the Bible doesn't say, don't get your hopes up, no, it says hold fast, clean. It's the anchor.
It'll prevent you from making your heart sick. There's power here, friend. There is an issue of, I will just say, being a magnet that hope brings. And it's this concept that we've talked about it a couple of times before, how when I don't know, roadkill on the side of the road releases a fragrance and attracts flies and scavengers, there's spiritually fragrance that you release that can attract unseen powers to the fragrance that you're releasing.
And I firmly believe that all of heaven is attracted to the aroma of Jesus. And you're like, man, it sure would be nice to have His mind, but you have the mind of Christ. Do you realize you lack nothing? Ephesians 1 says you have every spiritual blessing.
2 Peter says you have everything you need for life and godliness. Everything that you need for life and godliness. Have we just meditated on that for a second? What says you're complete in Him?
You lack no good thing. You have all the fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control, our spiritual powerhouses. You lack nothing. This should change how you think.
It should change how you speak. And I believe that when you start to tap into His mind about your life, about your circumstance, that you will actually release fragrance into the spirit realm to attract all of heaven to what you are actually stepping into. And they will empower what you're believing for. If you put seeds into the ground and water it, and you give it some sunlight, there is a time period in between when you do that and when something comes forth from the ground.
I'm going to give you a few examples to just wet your whistle on hope. This is the god kind of hope. The spiritual promises, character, word, covenant, et cetera. But I'm actually going to go as basic as I can into carnal language and then bring a spiritual.
Okay? Even in the carnal way, we understand that there are laws that govern the universe and govern the world, like gravity. We'll allow someone to read that. You have a confident expectation that this plant is going to come up from the ground.
It's hope from a standpoint that you don't know when, but you know what's going to happen. A lady who's nine months pregnant is expecting that labor would kick in at any moment. It's a confident expectation. Are you tracking with some of this?
I'm on my lazy boy at home. I grab my phone, hungry. Could go door dash today to decide dominoes. I love dominoes because it is the pizza tracker app.
So I take a look at a few kinds of pizzas, wings and breadsticks, click order, and all of a sudden, confident expectation of future good starts bubbling on the inside. This is the gospel. But track with me. You have that on the app, the pizza tracker says it's going up.
Says the guy is going to bring it to you or go. Sorry. The pizza person is bringing it to you. But I want you to see what hope does.
Hope pulls me out of the lazy boy to go out to my front door to get a gaze for what's coming. Then I see this pizza person walking towards the front door carrying the glory of what was ordered. But I want you to notice I could actually have stayed in my chair without hope and never would have gotten up to receive what was on the way and what was already sent to me. There is this marriage between hope and faith that we need to understand.
If you re-listen to that message, you're actually going to understand from a year ago on faith that there is, you can't really separate faith from action and have it still be faith. Because in James he says, faith without action is dead in the same way that a body without the spirit is dead. So it does beg the question for me is like, when God formed our bodies from the lump of clay, it said what made it a living being, what made it a man was that he breathed spirit into it, right? So the question is, was it a man before the breath?
No, it was a lump of clay. In the same way James is saying, it's not faith if there's no action. If you are not acting on what you believe and are having hope for, it's not faith. The one chapter that we even have on faith, Hebrews 11, it lists out all the greats of the faith and it doesn't stop at what they believed and thought.
It says, here is what they did in faith. So faith is actually what gets you to jump out of the boat to walk on water. Faith is the action. That's why you'll see in Hebrews 11 to bring some clarity to this mystery is faith is the substance of things hoped for.
The action, the verb, it's the tangibility. I'm taking this belief in this thought, this expectation, and I'm actually putting feet and substance to it. I'm making something unseen, physical, tangible evidence. The tangibility is the action.
So you're actually taking action on what you're hoping for. The hope isn't the enemy of faith. Sometimes in faith circles and faith movements, we think it is because where faith language is actually different than hope language. Because let's, I mean physical healing, for example, hope language sounds like God is for sure going to heal me someday.
I just don't want to win. That is hope language and it is not the enemy of faith. Faith language doesn't say God is going to heal me someday. Faith language sounds like by his stripes, I was healed.
I'm taking hold of this healing right now today. It's a now faith. It's the first two words of Hebrews 11. Now faith.
You even look that up in the amplified. It puts in all caps now and all caps faith. As if to not say now, da, da, da, faith is a substance of things hoped for. It's saying now faith looks like this.
It's bringing the unknown of when in the future into the real life right now by putting feet to your faith. Faith is so different because belief is based on information and faith is based on application. You're not stopping at the head knowledge or the heart knowledge. I believe there's mental ascent and then you go to it like you have this line that you cross and act to the well that's like, I don't just believe this is true in my head.
There's something where knowing becomes believing in your heart and you're taking hold of a belief in your heart. And that's important and it's all a progression on the way to actually taking action on what you believe. What hope friends is where it starts. Getting a grid for the miracle signs and wonders begins by getting a grid for how God sees, how God thinks.
That's why we just said a few moments ago, he gave you his mind. Mind to Christ, you need access to it because if you're facing an addiction in your life, you're facing insurmountable debt, you're facing prodigal situations or contending for the salvation of loved ones situations. You need his vision. You need his insight.
And one of the best foundation building blocks I can think of is his desire that it would be on Earth as it is in heaven. Start there. Whatever the area of your life is that you've maybe been experiencing hopelessness, start by actually saying on Earth as it is in heaven, that's the desire of God referring to his character and he's released the power and finished the work and the promise and the word and the covenant. There's a firm foundation to hold fast to hold.
Start the anchor again and throw it down on what he said. Anchor your soul friend. I think we've tolerated hopelessness. I have.
When I look at my own life in a certain areas of my life that I've just never seen break through, I've tolerated hopelessness. I've allowed heart disease to come in and take place in what's interesting as you can catch it in your speech, not just your thoughts. Because if you're language about that relationship, well, that'll never change. I don't know if this will ever, blah, blah, blah.
You can out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks and you can catch it. You can see what's going on inside by what's going out of our mouths. And so I just find that it's so important to just stop for a moment and get anchored again to what he sees. In the last few minutes, I actually want to focus on the three words we're here to talk about.
Rejoice in hope. Bibles, we've still got them. Second chronicles is where we're going next. Second chronicles, 20.
We're going to do two Old Testament passages here. Everybody there? I think it's Ephesians 5 that talks about unwholesome talk coming from our mouth. Is that correct?
Ephesians 4, where? So it's in Ephesians. Unwholesome talk coming from the mouth. But it says at the end, if you actually read the message translation, I like that best because it says Thanksgiving is the dialect of the believers.
Second chronicles, 20. When he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who would sing to the Lord and who would praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army. Hold on a second. Two armies collapsing on one another.
One of them was the army of the Lord and they sent out lead worshipers and musicians ahead of the army. Everything in the Old Testament is a type and a foreshadow pointing to spiritual truths of what's to come, pointing to the man Jesus, pointing to the new covenant. So track this. This is a type and a foreshadow of what's going on in the spirit.
So they appointed some people to go out ahead of them and they were saying, praise the Lord for his mercy and doers forever. This is right before they started literally killing each other in war. Praise the Lord for his mercy and doers forever. Super intense spiritual violence.
Now when they began to sing and to praise, I want you to catch this. When they began to sing and praise in advance of this victory, it says that the Lord set ambushes against their enemies. Track this is important because the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, it says, but the violent take it back by force. We think violence is so often white knuckling it, trying hard where he says into my rest, there is kingdom violence that is different than every other kind of violence.
Kingdom violence in this context looks like literally rejoicing in hope before the manifestation. Now still in the Old Testament, let's go to Isaiah 54 verse 1. Yep, Isaiah 54 verse 1, sing O'Baron 1, who did not bear or did not have children, break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in later. Where the children of that desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married says the Lord.
In the face of barrenness, lift up your shout of praise. In the face of your enemies, lift up your shout of praise. There is something about rejoicing in hope. Joy is that powerhouse that gives strength to your soul and you're rejoicing, rejoicing releases power into the spirit realm.
It's actually an act of faith. The reason it acts as a spiritual power is because that act of worship before the manifestation is an act of faith. You're not just sitting in your lazy boy with that on the way. You're getting out and putting feet and receiving the good.
So these are so important because it does, it's amazing that very first passage we read in Romans 1513 that he's giving us joy and peace as we believe. In that context of joy and peace and believing him, he overflows us with hope. There is this link between hope and joy that you're seeing here, that when you get your eyes fixed on honor as it is in heaven, get your eyes fixed on his character on his promises in his way. Spontaneous joy bubbles out of your mouth.
And there is this link because he says he gives us joy and peace as we believe in Romans 15. There's this link between hope and peace. There's actually a verse in Psalms that says that our physical friends, our bodies rest in hope. Your physical frame is affected by hope.
We have no idea. But in that place of peace, because you know the work done, because you know his character and what he said, you can actually rest in peace. And all you do is just get up out of that chair and receive. You didn't have to make the peace.
Peace has already been made. You received the good thing. So you see how hope is tied into peace and joy. We've taught someone rejoicing in advance of a manifestation before.
I don't want to skip over that. There is a place for celebration after the manifestation. No doubt. But if your celebration is tied to, whoa, I can't believe it.
That is not faith. I want to put some language to this, that when the manifestation happens, there is what you've heard us preach before of, I knew it. And this isn't that language isn't just mental assent or belief. It's that hope for that manifestation was tied with faith in action.
And it was actually manifested before it was manifested. So when it actually comes forth, you're like, yes, this makes sense. Rejoicing in hope, this whole before a war or in the midst of bearing this, that is the rejoicing. This is kingdom stuff, friend.
This is foolishness and finds the wisest stuff, friend. It doesn't make sense that in the hell of our circumstances, we lift up a shout of praise for the manifestation of the breakthrough, but it's kingdom. And in that moment is your celebration. You are celebrating for real, as if it already happened.
And it's real and it's tangible. And it's a step of faith. And it's that Mark 1124, you have the faith of God. You're not doubting in your heart.
You believe you've already received it. And then the manifestation comes. Are you tracking that? God's faith, not yours.
Doubt's not the picture. Believe you've already received it. And then the manifestation comes. That's the order according to Jesus.
It's faith that's building on hope that starts by hearing. You're tracking all that. All right, all right, Thomas to come up. I also want to just say that I think things are easier than we might assume to step into hope.
I want to double down on it not being a work. So let me use different language. I do not believe that hope is a product of determination, but hope is a product literally of submission, surrendering. And what you're doing is you're surrendering and submitting to what he has said, what he has promised, his character, and his covenant.
And I want us to get this because it's really important to understand that hope, that we're people of hope, he's a God of hope, are not living in denial because there's tension there between the current present circumstances of bear in this and that fight, et cetera. We're not living in denial of the circumstances, but we are denying the circumstances, Lord Chip. We're denying the circumstances of throne. They're real.
They're facts and they're true, but there is something greater. It's a more powerful law. The law of the spirit of life has set me free from the inferior law of sin and death. It's like the law of gravity is real until a higher law of lift gets introduced to allow a thing to fly.
We have access to power on the inside. So this is part of a sermon series on this verse, the next section that we're going to talk about in two weeks, next week, every day, turns eight, two weeks, is patience and tribulation. What do you do when the stuff hits the fan in your life? Well, let's first talk about hope and we're joy-singing the hope.
Why don't you guys close your eyes? I actually just want us to facilitate a moment with him. Just repeat after me, Holy Spirit. Is there any area of my life?
Is there anything in my sphere that's under the influence of hopelessness? It could be bringing to mind freedom from addictions or behaviors that you want to change. It could be bringing to mind broken relationships that seem hopeless. It could be bringing to mind loved ones that are on the run.
It's prodigals. It seems hopeless. It could be chronic pain or physical health issues. It just won't go.
It could be mental health issues. It just won't, the anxiety and the depression just won't, won't lift. It could be infertility. It could be unemployment.
It could be not being able to get over the grief and the loss of love alone. Debt, any of these things. But friend, you have access to something inside of you called hope and literally catalyze change in every one of these situations. It starts by on earth as it is in heaven, on earth as it is in heaven.
If that is your will, and I don't have to pray for an open heaven because you put the kingdom of heaven inside of me, what does the manifestation of heaven look like into these specific things? Only again, the Holy Spirit. Friends, we call this disciplined imagination. We need to get a grid in our mind's eye and our imagination.
It's the bridge between our soul and spirit. It's our imagination. It's our bridge between the physical and the spiritual. Let him paint a portrait on your imagination of what's already true in the spirit.
If it's physical healing by his strength's past tense, you were healed. Let him paint on your imagination what it looks like to be totally restored in your body or in a body of somebody in your spirit. The grip and a grid of his mind about that situation starts there. Show us Holy Spirit.
And from there, it's all about the word becoming flesh. So you read it, you write it, you say it, you sing it, you pray it. Read it, write it, say it, sing it, pray it. Read it, write it, say it, sing it, pray it.
Get it in you. The word is fine, but we want the word to become flesh. We want to see the word manifest. We need new neural pathways in how we're thinking.
And that gets forged by reading, write it, say it, sing it, pray it. Get it in you. Become obsessed with his perspective. Obsessed with the promise, not the problem.
Become obsessed with what he says, not what your circumstances say. Submission to him, will birth hope. Surrender to him, will birth hope, and hope will catalyze faith. Hope will catalyze joy.
Hope will catalyze peace. Hope will catalyze manifestation of that future good. Why don't you guys stand? I'm grateful that in Peter, it says we have a living hope in the person of Jesus.
And in all my studies on hope, I'm stirred by the passage in Zacharya that says, return to the stronghold, you prisoner of hope. It reminds me of that Romans 6 passage where it says we used to be slaves to sin. Now we're slaves to righteousness. I love the gospel.
A friend, you're a slave for sure, but to righteousness. You're a prisoner of hope. You can't go anywhere. So I just feel like it's about submission.
So it's just like, take me. It's your prisoner. I'm a willing prisoner. Yes.
I want to take me back to the stronghold. I want to return to the stronghold as a prisoner of hope. God, if it's true that those with the most hope, carry the most influence. You as the God of hope, we just say yes to your invitation and Paul's prayer that you'd fill us with joy and peace as we believe what you said and that you would overflow us with hope in Jesus name.
Amen.