Lord, we just bless your name this day, God. We bless you! Who are we that we would be lucky enough, that we would be privileged enough that we would be in a place where you dwell! Where when we call on your name, when we begin to praise, when we begin to shout to the “Lord and Lords” and “King of Kings” that you come down and inhabit the praises of your people! Oh, God! What other nation can claim that? What other people can claim that when they call on God He comes and dwells with them?

He is the God of Hope!

So we thank you, God, for this day. We thank you that you are with us and we are privileged to be in your house this day. In your name, God, we pray that your Word would go forth and accomplish a work this day; that it would go fourth and go deep inside of our hearts. God, this day I pray - that hope might arise. I pray that hope might arise in your people. I pray that we would not be ones that walk around with no hope like the rest of the world because that is not who you preach to, that is not who you called, God, but you called a people of hope this day. So God, be with us as we delve into your Word this day. We thank you, in your name, amen.

There's a story this week as I was preparing my sermon that God reminded me of. It was when I had first started and I just got off training and we got a call for a guy who was unconscious in the woods. So we rush out there - lights and sirens. We get there, I run out into the woods, and I’m the first one there and I look and this guy is in the woods, on the floor. I check for a pulse, there's no pulse. I check for breathing, no breathing. This guy is 100% gone. I look and I see there's some evidence that he had maybe taken some drugs so I gave the Narcan to him and we began chest compressions. The craziest thing with the Narcan - this miracle drug - is the fact that when you hit somebody with it, they’ll be up on their feet, they’ll be 100% dead, but within minutes on their feet walking around, talking like normal. And that's exactly what happened. This guy got up and he began to talk and he was almost 100% normal again. I’m walking him out to go to the ambulance, and we’re walking out of the woods and I looked at him and I said, “Bro, you realize that you were just gone. There was no pulse. There was no breathing. You were just gone. If a guy happened to have not been walking through the woods and found you, you wouldn't be here right now.”

I’ll never forget this: He kind of looked me in the eyes and we met eyes for a moment and he just kind of like, shrugged. In that moment, I looked and I realized that this man had no hope. There was no hope in his eyes of the future, there was no hope of what was to come tomorrow, there was no hope of the next day or what he was going to do with his life, or what God was going to bring him to, or what salvation was waiting for him. There was no hope inside of him in that moment.

You see, that is so prevalent in the world we live in. We are surrounded by people with no hope. They busy their lives and kind of distract themselves from what's coming - but they walk around with no hope. That is the world we live in today and I tell you - we as God's people must be a people of hope! My message today is not only a message of hope, but a message about hope because I am praying that God would have a people who walk around filled with the hope of their salvation, filled with the hope of God to bring hope into a desolate world.

The craziest thing - that happened and I haven't seen that guy since, I never knew what happened to him. God had given me the sermon, and I wrote it, and it was all written out (I promise you, I’m not lying), it was all written out, all done, and then this week I was doing bailiff duty and the craziest thing - this guy walked in the front door! I looked at him and I knew I recognized him and it took me a second, and I said, “Are you the guy that I pulled out of the woods that one time?” And he looked at me and smiled and said, “Yeah. That was me.” And I thought - Wow, God, you're so funny. I wrote this whole sermon out this week, I haven't talked, I never told anybody about this - this week I wrote this sermon out and here this guy is! So I got talking to him. He looked a little different. I said, “You look different, what's going on?” And he began to tell me that he had been off of all the drugs, off all medications, and that he had been in church and somebody had been mentoring him and giving him the Gospel. And I’m not saying he was 100% there, but there was a hope inside of him all of a sudden; there was a light in his eyes that was different before.

Let me tell you, people of God, we serve a God of hope! There is no hope found in this world; there is no hope found in the public; there is no hope found out in all the things that the world gets themselves into, but our God, our God, our God, is a God of hope - and He brings hope to His people! Today I'm proud to say that we serve a God of hope. That we don't have to walk around like the rest of the world - not because we’re any different, not because we’re any better, but because of the God that we serve. Our God is a God of hope that puts hope in the hearts of His people - not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but for eternity because He gives us the hope of salvation. Amen!

Our lives must be centered around the hope of our salvation. Everything that we do must be surrounded by the hope of our salvation. When you go out and you go to work and you go to your jobs and you go to your schools and whatever you might do, you should be walking in the hope of our salvation. That must be the foundation of how we walk around and everything that we do.

Let’s look at our main verse for today; it’s First Peter 1:3. It says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. That's a powerful verse. That one hit my heart when I read it. You see that Word? It says “new birth”. If you look at the King James version it says “begotten us again”. This is talked about all throughout the Bible, just in different words, but it’s all talking about the same thing: in John 3 it talked about, “being born from above”; in Second Corinthians 5, “being a fresh creation”; Galatians 6, “being made new”; in Titus 3, “the rebirth and renewal”; in James 1:18 “born of the word of truth”. You see? There is a lot of different names for it, but let me tell you today that God has called you to be reborn into something new, to put away the old things.

This Christian life is not a shifting of perspective; it’s not just thinking about things differently - No! God has called you to be rebirthed into something new; into His Spirit. Put away the flesh; die to the old man and be renewed into something new! And I tell you, there is a hope of the living God; a hope of our salvation that comes upon a man who has been reborn. We have been given new birth into a living hope - and that hope is the Lord Jesus Christ! We are born into something new, something spiritual, and something imperishable.

We talk about God’s salvation like - we take the diamond out of the rough and He polishes it up - but that's not the truth. The truth is that there is no good, there's nothing good, there's nothing holy inherently found naturally in man. Everything good, everything holy, any hope that is in this world - it comes from God, it comes from His Spirit. God is asking you to put away the old man, put away the old things and be born into the Spirit of God - for that is the only place you'll find goodness, it is the only place you will find holiness, and it is the only place you will find hope.

It says, “into a living hope by His resurrection”. We are being born again into a living hope. It’s not about abilities, it’s not about ourselves - No - this is a living hope into the “God of God”, the “King of Kings’. His sacrifice becomes our hope because it opens us to something that has been greater than we could ever get on our own; it is the salvation of God. It was paid for by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He sent His Son down to pay the price so that we might be reborn into a spiritual being, into the God of hope. I know for my life, and maybe this is true for you guys, where there came a point in my life where it was almost like I was there those thousands of years ago with Jesus and seeing the events of His life unfold. I was broken. I was lost. I was so separate from God. There was nothing good inside of me. And then God! And I started to hear His Word, and the Pastors began to preach this Word of God to me, and it began to hit my ear, and hit my heart, and all of a sudden there was a little bit of an opening that there may be hope for someone like me!

And then I remember a time where I had to look at the cross and see Jesus Christ hanging on the cross and knowing that He hung there for my sins. That it was my sins that I committed, my acts that I did with these hands, the things that I did in my life that He had to go to the cross and die. And I looked up onto the cross and there was anguish inside of my heart, but that was not the end of the story - for as He hung there, He died, He went to the grave, but He resurrected again! And I tell you - I found hope in the resurrection of God! It was hope to my soul! Why? Because in His resurrection it means that I, too, can die and be resurrected and be brought into a new birth! A new birth; into a living hope - for if God died and resurrected, if He showed that death had no power over Him, then I might be able to be born into that Spirit! That Spirit that was holy, that Spirit that was good, that Spirit that was powerful that death could not hold! Oh, God! Maybe you can rebirth me into this living hope! Maybe I can put away the old man!

When you come to that point - there is hope in His resurrection, there is hope into the Gospel of God and that should change everything that you do. I’m telling you right now - if you can look at your life and you are not living in the hope of your salvation well then you are missing it; there is something wrong because God died that you would die to your old self, that you would die to the man of flesh and you would be reborn into this living hope.

So let's talk about what changes with the hope of God.

We look at something like trust. A lot of people in this world trust in different things, but I’m talking about trusting with hope. There's a lot of trust that goes on in this world. I think about that guy with the drugs; he was trusting in the drugs, he was trusting putting that needle in his arm that he was going to get high, he was trusting that he was going to feel good and that he was going to be able to get past the day - but there was no hope in that trust, there was no hope of tomorrow, there was no hope of what was to come; it was just about the “right now” and getting by “right now”. You know, we might look at this guy and say, “That's crazy. I would never do something like that. You would never find me doing that. That's not me. I'm so separate from that.” But the truth is, we all do it. It might not be to the extent, it might not be as immediately as destructive as that, but the truth is that we all go to these temporary pleasures and we trust in things of this world to get us by and we trust in the things of this world to make us feel good, but let me tell you - there is no hope in those things. Ultimately, just like the drugs, they lead to destruction. Anything that does not lead to God means destruction to your soul. Anything that does not have a path that in the end leads to the Lord Jesus Christ, I’m telling you now, it is destruction to the soul. It eats away at who you are, it eats away at the man that is inside of you and leaves you an empty husk of what God intended. In the end the only thing that builds us up, the only thing that doesn't break us down is the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation.

There is hope when you trust in God for you know that it doesn't matter what comes today, it doesn't matter what comes tomorrow, I know where my soul rests. I know my soul is in the hands of God. I know that my salvation is in the hands of God and everything else becomes easier. If we can trust God with our very soul for eternity, how much easier is it to trust Him with the simple things that we’re faced with every single day? See, we go to work and we trust work to give us our paycheck. We trust that they’re going to put food on our tables and we’re going to be okay as long as we work, but the truth is: this world is constantly changing. Companies constantly change; they're only concerned about the bottom line and in the end, what is here today can be gone tomorrow. It's a constant gamble to stay ahead, but what happens when you add hope? What happens when you stop trusting inside the world to put food on your table and you begin to trust in God? I’m not saying to quit your jobs - what I’m saying is, “God I know my food does not come from this job. I know that you have me here and you have placed me here, if it’s not here it’s somewhere else. And if I’m out of my job, you’re going to put food on my table. You will send the doves from heaven to feed me. You will send manna from heaven. Whatever it is God, I trust in you.”

Think about what God could do with that trust! Think about what God can do if you stop putting your trust in the world and begin to put your trust in Him for in Him is real hope, for in Him there is a hope for tomorrow, for in Him His hands are around you, for in Him you can say, “God, if a human father knows how to give good gifts, how much more so than you? God, every good and perfect gift comes from above. God I know who you are and I know you have me in your hands. Amen!

Let's look around us. Even looking at this building - I hate to put the Pastors on the spot - but that came out of a moment of trust. Where they were in their jobs and God had called them out and they said, “God, I know, what am I going to do? There’s food.” I’m telling you, if you put your trust in the job you're never gonna leave, you’re never going to step out, you’re going to say, “No, I have to do what I have to do.” But in that moment - I think about that that simple moment of trust with hope that took place and we look around us… look at the chairs that we’re sitting in, look at the building that we’re in, look at the lights, the sound system, and everything that God has done and that never would've happened if somebody did not stand up and say, “God, I trust you even with my finances, even with my food, even with my empty stomach, God, I will trust you - that you will not let me fail.” You see, I think about that and I look around at this congregation and I say - What could God do? What could God do with the people who rise up and stop trusting inside of the world with their empty promises and their empty reassurances for tomorrow and begin to say, “God, I trust in who you are. I trust in your name.”

There are so many temporary pleasures in this world that people look to; they look to the bar or the woman or the social media or all these temporary, satisfactory things that we look to, but is there any hope in those things? I did a funeral this week - and I know that a lot of you guys were praying for me, so thank you so much - and during that, it was just amazing because any of the funerals I’ve really been part of have been part of the congregation within us and you know, this was kind of out a little bit. I remember looking around and seeing that people were kind of struck by-- Oh man, you know, there's an end. And people were kind of struck by it at that point and I looked and I said, “Wow, you know, when we have somebody pass away so suddenly there's an opening of the eyes.” WhenI think about that and I think people started to realize: tomorrow's not guaranteed.

The truth is: we invest ourselves so much in these empty, temporary pleasures of the world. But when your eyes close, when your eyes are closing for the last time and you’re going to face God -are any of those things going to matter? Are any of those things going to matter? The only thing at that point that will matter is the hope that you have lived in and the faith you have lived by. Nothing else is going to matter in this world - no matter what you did last Saturday and what you did last Sunday, none of that stuff is going to have any meaning. The only meaning that you’re going to have is: God have I lived with you? Have I lived in your hope? Have I gone every single day trusting in you? God, have I trusted in the things of the world that let me down? For there is no salvation in this world outside of God.

I think that verse that Pastor Jerry read in the beginning from Isaiah and it said - “I’m not one of those foreign gods that offers you nothing. I am the God who offers you salvation and you are a witness to it this day.”

God has given us hope; hope to live by. This world offers nothing. It offers no promise for tomorrow; in fact, it offers destruction time and time again, but God is saying, “Will you come into my house? Will you lay down your ways? Will you stop looking to the world? Will you come into my house and come to my altar and lay down before my altar and say, ‘God, I’m done with the world and the ways of the world. God, I’m done with the way that leads to destruction and instead, God, I am bowing down to your throne. Here I am God. I trust in you.’”

One of the biggest things I see people there trust in, it’s their pensions and their retirements. They work for years and years and they sacrifice so much to build up these pensions and their retirement funds or wherever they might have - and so much so that they put their kids aside and they kind of leave their kids to the ways of the world and they’re like, “Well, I gotta work, I gotta do my thing” and they don't invest in their children, “Look, I gotta work; it is what it is”. And their children go out into world and are taught by the world and they’re taught what’s right and wrong by everyone else in the world, by other kids, and other influences, and other doctrines, and all this other stuff and they just leave them to the wolves. And they say, “No, you know, I gotta work”. And they don’t go to church, “You know, I gotta work on Sunday. I gotta put that overtime in. I gotta do whatever I gotta do to get by.” And they look and there's no trust in God, it’s all trust in what they’re building on their own. But let me tell you - the craziest thing is if you just go home and Google “frozen pensions”, “UPS”, “Boeing”, “Lockheed Martin”, “General Electric”, “DuPont”, “L.L. Bean” - these are all major corporations and every single one of them has frozen the pensions on their employees.

What is promised today? Are your eyes opening that this world has empty promises? There is no hope for tomorrow. We, as the people of God, must not be working in the hope and the promises of this world, we must be working in the hope of our salvation. Let me explain to you what somebody looks like who's living in the hope of their salvation: every day is around, “God, you have given me this day, what can I do with it? God, I know what is coming tomorrow. I know the judgment that's coming tomorrow, but Lord I am safe inside your hands. God, what do you want to do with me today? God, what do you want to do with me at my job? God, where are you calling me out to because I'm only here for 80 years - it’s so short - but I will be with you for eternity! God I’m not one that walks in this world like nothing is coming. I know the judgment is at hand. I know what's at stake. I know the price that was paid for me on the cross; it was a free gift, but it was paid for by your blood, God.” You see… that’s walking in the hope of salvation. Not being in a tornado, in a whirlwind of what this world has, but walking in the hope of our salvation.

Hebrews 6:19-20. It says, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.” It talks about hope two different ways here: it talks about hope as an anchor and then also hope entering into the inner sanctuary. But it’s just using an analogy for the same thing. I’m not a boat guy, I’d have to check with Bob, but I'm pretty sure if you take an anchor and you throw it off the boat, it doesn't float - not sure, but I'm pretty sure it goes down - Right? Bob, am I correct there? Yeah? Okay. So it goes down, you don’t see where it goes. When you throw an anchor off it goes down deep, you don't know what happens to it, you don't see where it ends up, but how do you know it's working? You know it's working because it's holding you firm and secure. You’re no longer subject to the currents of the ocean that is surrounding you. You’re no longer being dragged here and fro. You’re no longer wishy-washy. All of a sudden you are firm in where the anchor has you placed and it’s the same thing with hope.

Hope goes behind the curtain. It goes to the throne room of God and it anchors you to the throne of God; it anchors you to Him and His Spirit! You might not be able to see where it goes, you might not be able to see where it’s ending up, but how do you know it's working? You know it's working because you are no longer subject to the currents of this world. You are no longer going with the flow. You are no longer going with just what everyone else is doing. You are no longer wishy-washy. You are no longer going back and forth, changing who you are going to serve that day - NO! When you have the hope of God, it anchors you to the throne room of God.

Are we living in the hope of God? Are we living in the hope of God? Because if you're still subject to the currents of this world, let me tell you that God has something more.

We need to stop trusting in this world. For God's promises are greater than the promises of the world. The world promises temporary pleasures in return for your soul. God promises eternal salvation for a laid down life. God is calling us to trust in Him, to put your hope in Him, for in Him He has the hope. Stop trusting in HR to put food on your table, trust in God! Trust in God, the giver of all life. Stop trusting in the school system to teach your children right and wrong. Let me tell you, it changes their moral compass; it changes from day to day. Put your trust in God and they will all lack nothing and please give them a chance at eternal life. Set them up to find God. Set them up to enter in and have a place at His table. Stop trusting in Facebook and TV to tell you what's important in life and instead allow God to come in and show you the things that last for eternity. I’m not saying we need to stop working, I’m not saying we need to stop sending our kids to school - but what I'm saying is stop trusting in those things and instead shift your trust and put your trust in God because in Him is all hope, in Him is the only salvation, no other God. Then when the world looks at you like you're crazy… “How could you give a 10th of your paycheck, that’s your money? How could you miss overtime to be in Sunday service? How could you make your kid skip that soccer game to be in youth group?” You can look at them and say, “How could I not?”

The world has proven over and over and over again to lead to destruction, to let you down, to leave you broken and a mess. The world has proven it, day after day and time after time, but let me tell you about the God that has been faithful and true from generation to generation to generation - that is the God of hope that I serve! That is the God of hope that I proclaim! That is the God of hope that He is calling us into. When we walk into these walls, when we come into a Sunday service, when we walk in and sit in His sanctuary - we are sitting in the sanctuary of a God of hope! The hope of our salvation! The hope of tomorrow! The hope of eternity for me and my son and my sons to come! The hope of everything! Amen!

"Do you live every day in the hope of God?"

We know we need to live with hope, we need to have trust with hope, and finally, we need to have faith with hope. Now when I say, faith with hope, I'm not talking about the trust. I’m talking about the capital “F”. I’m talking about “living in the faith”. When we talk about “living in the faith”... if you asked somebody and said, “Hey, are you ‘of the faith’? Do you ‘live in the faith’?” What are you saying? You’re saying - Do you live every day in the hope of God? Do you live every day looking forward to the salvation that is to come? Do you live every day in the hope of God that you're not part of this world, that you're an alien of this world, that God is coming back for you, that God has not forgotten about you, that there is a place at the table of God for you? That is what it means to “live in the faith”.

My question for us today - Are you in the faith?

It might sound obvious to live in the faith with hope, but I tell you people do it. People live a hopeless faith every single day. It’s called religion. People go to church and they check it off the box or they go and it makes them feel good about themselves. I saw this Facebook post. I don’t know why it always stuck with me - or maybe it was a Google review or something, I don’t remember, but it was something on the internet - and this person wrote on this church's website: “Oh man! I finally made it to Sunday! I really needed that, it made me feel great!” I looked at that and on the surface that sounds nice, but I thought about it and I’m like - that’s not what church is meant to be. There is no hope in that. There's no hope in just kind of showing up and making yourself feel good and then leaving for another six months; that's not what church was meant to be. There's no hope in that. How is that any different than the million temporary pleasures that this world has to offer; that make us feel good for a moment, but are empty and offer us no hope?

God has called us to something more. He has called us to live this life of faith in hope of what is to come. The whole point of Christianity is that we would be living in the hope that was provided to us in the resurrection of Christ. Let me say that again - The whole point of Christianity is that we would be living in the hope that was provided to us in the resurrection of Christ. The book of the law, it condemns us. There is a price to be paid for our sins, but Jesus Christ, He stepped in and He took the punishment for me. He took the punishment for the sins that I did, that I did with these hands. He had to go to the cross and He had to die for me. But He dies and then He resurrected, proving that that has no mastery over Him! There is hope in the message! Do you know the Gospel of hope this day?

There is hope for us that we can be resurrected into a new life. There is hope for us that I will not die, but I will live eternally with God. There is hope for us that I can fulfill the call of God in my life! That is living in the hope of the salvation, the hope of His resurrection. He died and He rose again that I might die to my flesh and die to the old man and I might be resurrected into this living hope! He went and He made the way into heaven, so that I, too, might one day follow Him and have a place at the table of God. What is this world compared to that? What is this world compared to the good news of the Gospel? What temporary pleasure does this world have that can possibly compare to the eternal salvation of my soul? What could this small 80 years hold that the life of eternity with God... what could that possibly compare? I explain it to my youth group kids. I say, “One thread in this carpet is your life, where the rest of the carpet is eternity. What could possibly compare?”

We get so caught up in what’s in front of us that we miss eternity with God, that we miss looking forward to the resurrection that is to come. We look forward to knowing and living in the hope of our salvation. Hebrews 6:18. It’s the verse right before the one I just read. And it says, “...we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us might be greatly encouraged.” It says, “...we who have fled…” The beginning of this verse talks about something else; it talks about the promises of God and how we can trust in Him. I took that out because I wanted to really focus on where it talks about - Who was the one that can be greatly encouraged? The ones who have fled. This world, if you think about the world is on that wall and God's house is on this wall, you can’t hold on to both of them at the same time. They are too far apart. You have to flee the world, you have to flee the things of the world, you have to flee the destruction that is coming, you have to flee the judgment that is coming to come in to the house of God and to be under the safety of His wings and to throw it all off and say, “God, I am in your house.” If you look in the original text, it’s talking about fleeing, it’s talking about fleeing what is to come to grab onto God.

People look at the Word of God like it's a rule book that we have to follow and God calls us to abstain from all these things of the world - don't do this, don't do that, and we have to kind of sit in a corner and sit down and just not do all the other things that everyone else is doing - but that's not what it is. You see… God calls us to flee the world, to get rid of all those things so that you might grab on to something greater. So that you might take hold of something greater. And that greater thing is the hope of God, it is the Gospel news, it is the message of God to say, “I'm fleeing the world and all the things that I might grab hold of something greater.”

He asks you to put aside the world's thinking and take on the hope of salvation. To live every day knowing that I keep myself from sin, not because of some rule, but because I am partaking in the divine nature of God. While everyone else is surrounded by death and decay and their future is in the dirt - me and my family, we will serve God and we have a hope and a salvation of God! That should change things. That should change things for us. It causes us to not shrink back. People with no hope shrink back. People with no hope of their salvation shrink back because they’re not thinking about tomorrow, they’re not thinking about what is to come. But when we look, if we’re living with hope how can we possibly shrink back from something that God has already had victory over? How can we ever be the tail again? How could our friends in school ever influence us into sin? How could we not be bold as a lion? How could we ever not be ready to give an account for the hope that we profess? For this world and everything in it is heading to destruction, but my God has given me the hope of my salvation. He has given me rebirth into a living hope that I might know that He died and resurrected and there is hope in that message for me.

It makes you not compromise. People with no hope, they compromise - Why? Because why not? There’s nothing to hope for, there’s nothing to look forward to, there’s no thinking about tomorrow, and there's nothing holding us inside of our hearts so you compromise back and forth. But when you realize that God died for you, when you realize that what was the price that was paid to bring you into this Gospel, to give you rebirth into a new hope - hope of resurrection - there is no compromising that message because God has called us to something greater. God has called us to the hope of God. We are not living for today. We’re not living for what's right in front of our eyes. We are ones who have set our eyes on what is to come. We are ones that run the race with fervor because we know the crown at the finish line. Amen.

Faith without hope, it’s nothing. God has called us into hope. Jesus Christ came to bring hope. Hope of your salvation. Hope of the resurrection. Hope for transformation. Hope for change and hope for an eternal life with Him.

I’ll leave you guys with this verse: Second Corinthians 4. It says; “Therefore, do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” My favorite part, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” You see... the world’s eyes are fixed on what is right in front of them. They’re fixed on the things that are right in their face and are constantly looking to what is right there. This is how people get overcome, they go into depression, they can't handle the pressures of the world, the mountains are too big, and the pressures are too much, and they take it out on their children and their wives, then their families crumble, and they turn to alcohol, and they turn to drugs all because our eyes are fixed on what is right in front of us. God has called you to have the blinders taken off, to stop living with your eyes focused on the natural and start to live in the spiritual: to see the resurrection, to see the Gospel message, to see the salvation that God has brought us into. Amen!

It's to fix our eyes in the coming salvation for God's people. To see the judgment and know that God has rescued you. That God has paid the price for your sins. That God went to the cross for each one of us so that we might live, so that we might be reborn into a living hope. Everything we do must be centered around the message of salvation. Everything must be centered around the hope of our salvation. We are not a people who live with no hope like the rest of the world, we are not a people who are bogged down and can’t do it and can't get up in the morning - no - we are living our life in the salvation, in the light of our salvation! Living every day, getting up and saying, “God, thank you for this day. I don't know how many more I have in this world, but God I know your salvation is at hand. God, I’m waking up knowing, Lord, what is eternity compared to 80 years? But God I will do every one living in the hope of my salvation. For there will come a time where you will come down, the trumpets will call, and you will come down and take me by hand and I will be with you for eternity.”

He has given us hope. Hope to be called son of God. Hope to be called unto His table. Hope of not what's right in front of us - for this world is temporary, fading away. There will be a day when fire will come and it will just burn up - but God, only in you is there hope for eternity, only in you is there hope of salvation. I think about that verse again that Pastor Jerry read from Isaiah - “I’m not just some foreign God. I offer you salvation today. Be a witness to the salvation of God.” Be a witness to the rescuing of God and live every day in the hope of your salvation. Knowing what is coming, knowing what is coming tomorrow and saying, “God, what will you do with me today for I am living in joy. My joy can't be taken away, for what could this world do when I know what's coming in the end? Oh, God. Oh, God. You have rescued my soul.”

God, I pray Lord, that you would begin to infiltrate the hearts. Lord, you are a God of hope. You are the only hope in this broken and fading away world. You are the only hope for the lost. You are the only hope for the broken. You are the only hope for me. Lord, what else would I have without you? There is no hope in this world, God. What would I have, Lord? Everything would be fading away, everything would be taken away. God, this world is crumbling, it’s decaying, it’s falling apart - but God with you is eternal glory! With you is eternal life! With you is salvation!

I look to you, God. You are my hope of salvation. You are the hope for my soul. God, I pray we would lay it down this day. Lay it down to your throne. This hope is for those who lay it down. This hope for those who put aside the world, who flee this world, who flee the things of the world to grab hold of something greater; and that something greater is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no in between. There’s no grabbing hold of both sides. God, you have called us to flee the ways of the world - that we might grab onto you. You paid the price for me. You paid the price for me, God.

Lord, may I live in that hope of salvation every single day. The hope of your resurrection. The hope of what you did. The hope of you entering heaven. The hope of you sending your Spirit down.