Well, we are in a series that we've been in for a few weeks. If you're just joining us called Child of God, I had my daughter write this today because I thought, well, might as well have a child write down the child of God title. And this is what child of God looks like from a seven-year-old's perspective. Her handwriting is better than my 11-year-old son's. But Child of God. And what we're doing is we're going through this amazing letter in the New Testament called Romans. And if you're not familiar, Romans was written by a man named Paul. And Paul's one of the foremost leaders of the early church. And what Paul would do is he would go to new places and he would start churches. And so he would plant churches. And this is, by the way, not like our world today where there's like a church on every corner, at least in America. I mean, there was one church per city. If you were a Christian who lived in Corinth, you would never walk up to another Christian in Corinth and go, oh, what church do you go to? Oh, I go to 1 Corinth church of, oh no, I go to 2 Corinth. It wasn't a thing. It was like if you were a Christian and you lived in the city of Corinth, you knew those people. That was your family. That was the church in Corinth. And so Paul would go and he would start these churches, places like Corinth, Ephesus, right? That's that's the letter of Ephesians and things like that. Rome had a group of Christians that Paul had never met, but he very, very much wanted to. And he had this idea that he had his eyes just set on Rome. He very much wanted to visit Rome to meet the Christians there because he had never done that before. And so what Paul would often do is he would travel, and as he's starting a new church, he would write a letter to the churches that he had been to before. And sometimes he's writing those letters to address issues going on at those churches. Sometimes he's just encouraging them. But the letter to the Romans is different. Because this is a group of people, like I said, that Paul's never met. He doesn't know any of them. And you can tell when you read Romans that maybe in Paul's mind he knows that he may never meet them at all. Because Romans, it's as if Paul is trying to explain to someone the entirety of who Jesus is and why we need Jesus and what he accomplished and what knowing Jesus really means for us, what it looks like to follow him, how that changes the way that we live life. He's trying to explain all of that in this one self-contained letter. Ephesians is an interesting letter if you've ever read that. Ephesians is almost like if Paul could give a message at a church, that would be Ephesians. Romans is almost like if Paul could write a book. And so Romans gives us the most comprehensive understanding of all of these different aspects of our faith, as really any letter in the New Testament. It's incredibly profound. Paul wrote it to these Jesus followers almost like he's saying, Hey, I'm in, I may never get to meet you, so if that if that's the truth, this is what you need to know. And now we have that letter today. And we find ourselves in Romans chapter 8, which might just be the climax of the entire book of Romans. If you go to any church in America and you ask a group of people to write down their favorite scriptures, their favorite verses in all of Scripture, there probably wouldn't be a single church in America where there's not at least one quote from Romans chapter 8. It is just, it's jam-packed with amazing, powerful statements. And the second half of it is all about this idea of being a child of God. That we are the sons and daughters of God. Romans chapter 8, verses 15 through 18, this is where we've gotten so far. It says, You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him Abba Father. For his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. Which is a crazy thing. In fact, together with Jesus, we are heirs of God's glory. And that's what we talked about last week. If we're to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that he will reveal to us later. This says some things, as we talked about a few weeks ago, that are absolutely audacious. Remember, Jesus called himself the Son of God. Jesus addressed God as his father, and that was so audacious in his community that it got him killed. To call God your father was so blasphemous, it was so completely and totally scandalous that it was worthy of death. And we live at a time when we can say the phrase, God is my father, I'm God's child, and it just kind of comes out it's not that big of a deal. In some ways, that's really good. That means that Jesus' mission has worked, that we see ourselves that way. But at the same time, sometimes we say it and we miss the impact of it, that we are the children of God. If you have given your life to Jesus, you are the son, you are the daughter of God. You are a co-heir with Jesus. You are you are co-with Jesus in God the Father's eyes. Think about that for a second. I mean, honestly, which of us would say, I consider myself equal with Jesus? Right? Yeah, I mean, Jesus, I mean, he's amazing, but I think I'm pretty good too, you know? Anybody? And yet, God the Father, when he looks at you, he sees you co-with Jesus. That's amazing. That's incredible. That's something that should literally make our jaws drop, that God looks at us and he sees us in the same light as he sees Jesus Christ, that we are co-with Jesus. We are the sons, the daughters of God. We're not like the sons of God, we're not like the daughters of God. It's not a metaphor, it's not saying God's kind of like a father figure. You are the son, the daughter of God. And if we actually believe that, if we can get to a place where it's more than just like a nice sentiment, where it's more than just a nice thought that gives us like a warm, fuzzy feeling. And let's be honest, there's nothing wrong with warm fuzzies. I like warm fuzzies. The opposite of that would be like cold pricklies, which is awful. That sounds like the worst thing in the world. So warm fuzzies are fine, but this idea of being the son or the daughter of God, it's not just a nice sentiment that's supposed to make you feel good. This is a life-changing reality. Who your father is matters. And if your father is the God of the universe that you exist in, that matters a lot. That should change everything from the way you see God. So many people see God as a distant, demanding ruler. He is a loving, caring father. If you follow Jesus, that is who he is. It changes the way you see God, it changes the way you see yourself. It changes the way you should carry yourself. You should walk with just a little bit like extra pep. I'm serious. You should be like, well, I'm kind of the son of God. That's a big deal. Makes me, yeah, I'm waiting in this line of McDonald's for way too long, but I'm still the son of God. You know? I'm not, it's great. Everything's better when you're a royalty. Like it just has to be. It has to be. You're royalty, you're the son, you're the you're the daughter of God. It changes the way you see yourself, it changes the way you engage with the world around you. But if we just see it as a nice sentiment, we'll never experience those blessings. And so what we're trying to do as we engage with this, as we explore it, is really understand what does it mean? What does it really mean to be a son or daughter of God? And so for the last few weeks, we've been going through this and looking at different angles. To get us in the right frame of mind to understand what we're gonna look at today, I want to ask a couple questions. Uh, I want you to think for a second about some things that children, and all of us have maybe different experiences with children, different levels of experience. Um, raise your hand real quick if you if you have had children, you have had, you have raised children, all right. Anyone like planning to, hoping to, one day that's gonna happen. Fewer hands, all right? A couple like half raises. I get it actually. Um you're not wrong. So I want you to think about some things that children are unusually bad at. Like children are just unusually bad at. I've got a few that I thought of and want to share, but I want you to think of some too. Uh let's talk about hygiene for a second. So it's summer right now, and school is out, and so our family's rhythm is just very different than when school is in session. You know, everything from when the kids get up in the morning to what they're doing. And part of part of the school year that's nice is it gives us a rhythm that allows things like regular bathing, uh brushing of teeth. It just provides that. So the other day, I looked at one of my kids, and I won't say which one it was, because I don't want to embarrass them, but uh, it's it's pretty much all of them this could apply to. But I said, hey, when's the last time you brushed your teeth? And they began to like do this thing where it's like if you're trying to solve a math equation in your head, you're trying to do something really difficult, like now, honestly, in this room, show of hands, how many of you can remember the last time you brushed your teeth? Praise the Lord. This is so good. So like I'm far enough away that the breath factor isn't a thing right now, but I get pretty up close, you know, afterwards, and so I'm glad to know that. Yeah, because it was probably like today. Or maybe a few of us are like, ah, I forgot to this morning, but it was yesterday. But if I asked you, if I walked up to any of us and just said, hey, when's the last time you brush your teeth? You probably wouldn't have to say, Hey, just give me a second. I'm pretty sure. Six, no, I wasn't six days ago. And so it's just like, I have mornings where I wake my children up and just their breath. It's just like I'm just like, oh my Lord, brush, brush your teeth. Brush your teeth, please. But children, they just don't even think too. It's not, it's just not even a thought. And I think it's because they don't have to pay dental bills. Once that happens, you're all of a sudden you're like, no, we're brushing teeth, right? Children are horrible at hygiene. How about this? Children are unusually bad at finding things. The number of times in our home that we tell our children something as simple as go find your shoes. Okay? And they can't do it. They just it's like they can't. I I've told our kids, hey, go to your room, get your shoes on, come back, and they'll come back and like be wearing less than they were when they came. It's like, what I asked you to go get your shoes on, you came downstairs without a shirt on. Like, how what happened? Like, oh, I forgot why I was there, and you know, I guess stuff happens. And so a few years ago, my son was playing basketball, and we were late to a game, and I was like, son, I know where your shoes are at, your basketball shoes, they're in your room. Why don't you go get them? And he comes down, he's like, Dad, I can't find them anywhere. And I just want you to see visually what his shoes are, these are these are the shoes. Uh I mean, I don't know if they make a brighter pair of shoes, but I doubt it. I mean, if it can you get you could see these in the dark. Like, this is the bright, and and so it's it wasn't like they were like camouflage. His room is not painted this color. The floors in his room are not this, there's nothing else this color. And I'm like, son, go find your bright sunshine yellow shoes. Like, just go, he's like, Dad, I'm I'm I looked. They're not up there. And I'm like, I saw they were in the floor. I saw them. I was there like 15 minutes ago. He's like, uh, you're wrong. And so I go upstairs, open the door, and guess what? Like, without even trying. Because they're bright yellow within three seconds of my eyes being open. I'm like, right there. He's like, oh, I didn't see him. You know? And what's crazy is I don't even I don't even get mad at him about that because I have memories of my dad asking me to find things. He used to send me to the garage to get screwdrivers. He'd be working on something. I was the ladder holder and screwdriver finder. That was all he ever let me do. And uh and he would go, go get me a Phillips head screwdriver. Uh, it's it's on the shelf in the garage, and I would go there and I'd look at the shelf, and there'd be two, it wouldn't be there. I'd go back to dad, it's not there. He'd be like, oh, he'd get off the ladder and it would be right where he said it was, and I would be like, Dad, I don't know what just happened. But like, I promise you, I looked right there and I did not see it. And so I don't know what it is, it's a kid thing, but they're not good at finding stuff, right? There's a lot of stuff that kids are just they're just bad at. That's why they need us. But there are things that kids are unusually good at. For example, kids are amazing at forgiveness. The number of times that I have had to ask my children to forgive me because I've just acted like an idiot, been a they've seen me at my worst. It's incredible how completely and quickly they forgive. You know, I say to my kids, hey, I'm really sorry, I messed up. Will you forgive me? And they go, Yeah. And it literally is like it never even happened. It's it's instant. It's amazing. As adults, we're we're less good at that. Like someone might come to us and ask for forgiveness, and we're like, Yeah, sure. I forgive you, but I will never forget what you've done. You know? And I mean, there's a difference between forgiveness and trust. Just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you give them your whole trust. But I'm just saying, kids, they forgive completely, quickly, like God does. That's the way he forgives us. It's pretty amazing. This is what I want us to focus on for the most part today, that this is something that children naturally are just unbelievable at, is they are so good at hope. There is not a 10-year-old in the world who believes that his or her best days are behind them. You'll never find a kid who says, you know, I peaked at six. There's no kid that's like, man, my eighth birthday, that was the it was amazing, and I just know it is all downhill from there. That was the highlight, that was it. Now, what do I have? No, there's no such thing as a child who doesn't have a hope in the future. And I've experienced this so many different times. Uh, my third child, Judah, had his preschool graduation. Those of you who have young children, we live in a world where you have ceremonies for everything children do. And you have to go, or you're horrible parents. Like, you didn't go to your child's preschool graduation? No, because he can't tie his shoes. So they didn't do their job. So I'm not going to a preschool graduation until my child can tie his shoes. Right? That's how I didn't say that, but I felt it, and then I went. And uh and you sit there and they're getting diplomas in preschool, they're getting diplomas, it's it's fine. And uh, and one of the coolest things though, in all honesty, not being cynical, but like at this preschool graduation just a few months ago, each of the kids said what they were gonna be when they grew up. There were nine astronauts in his class. Nine. Now, I don't know if you know what it takes to be an astronaut. It's not easy. You have to be like this unbelievable specimen of incredible intelligence, and you have to be like a pilot, which is hard, and you have to be able to do engineering in your mind, and it's like you're a scientist pilot, superhuman. It's incredible what it takes to be an astronaut. Nine astronauts. Now, if that proves true, if those, if all nine of those kids become astronauts, that preschool should be charging 25 grand a year. Because it's like, look, we just churn out astronauts in this place. You know what I mean? They can't tie their shoes, but they are on their way. Trust us. You know, but it's it's like part of you, like I actually get kind of in this cynical sense of humor sometimes, and Megan has to sort of go, just stop. It's just the way my brain works. And so I'm sitting there, and every time it's like an astronaut, I was like, I don't think that kid's gonna be an astronaut. And and then what I didn't realize is that my son was like, astronaut. And I'm like, well, he might, you know, but but kids, like when you ask a child, what are what are they gonna be? I mean, that there's no limit in their minds. It's it's all available. There's so much hope. And that doesn't go away without some things happening in life. I've even experienced it with older children, like when you hit that stage of life where you're like kind of a child but kind of an adult. I'll never forget, this is like one of those moments that gave me chills. Uh 10 years ago or so, I was doing sports journalism, and I was uh I was in the Duke basketball team's locker room covering Duke, and I was interviewing a player named Nolan Smith. And it was his junior year, and he was playing at an unbelievable level, and Duke had just won the 2009 ACC tournament. And so I'm there and I'm I'm talking with him, and I've got my little microphone, and I'm taking notes and all this stuff. And so uh they had just won this this huge tournament. The only thing left was the big tournament, and uh sorry, it was 2010. And so I'm there and I'm talking to him, and I'm like, Nolan, you've had so many accomplishments this year. I mean, he was he was just an unreal player at that time. They had just beaten their rival by 32 points. It was the largest margin of victory in the history of that rivalry. I mean, it was just it had been really incredible. And so I looked at him and I said, What do you think the highlight of this season has been? And he looked at me without, I mean, without blinking, he says, It hasn't happened yet. You know, they just won their conference tournament, they just beat their rival by 32 points, all these amazing things. You know, he's he's like playing at an all-American level, and I look at him and say, you know, what do you think the highlight of your season is? He says, It hasn't happened yet. Three weeks later, they won the national championship. And when that happened, when I watched them win the national championship, my mind went right back to him confidently saying, best moment hasn't happened yet. And he was right. There was this undeniable hope, this view of the future that the best is yet to come. And so, with that in mind, like children, I want us to read Romans 8, we're gonna go back to verse 18. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse, but with eager hope. The creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory. For we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. And we too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope and we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. We have hope. Because we are the children of God, because we've been adopted into God's family, we have blessings that we experience right now because of that. But as it says there is a day coming when we will receive our full rights as his adopted children, when our full inheritance of the glory that we talked about last Sunday, if you weren't here to listen to the message, we talked all about God's glory, what does that mean? We receive our full rights to God's glory. That day hasn't happened yet. Because you're a child of God, you should be able to live with an absolutely undeniable, unbridled, unstoppable hope about the future. We should be the most hopeful people. We literally should be people, as Jesus followers, that are it's like impossible to make us negative. Because we believe that our best days are always ahead. We have such a passionate hope, but let's be honest, that's easier said than done. Because there's a lot in this world that makes it really hard for us to have that kind of hope. And so I want us to explore for a few minutes why we struggle with hope, what stands in the way of us actually living that hope out. Because again, if this is true, and I believe with all of my being that it is, your best days, your best days are ahead of you, not behind. Doesn't matter if you're in your 20s, your 50s, your 80s, your best days are ahead. You should have hope. But there are some things that make that tough. For example, I've got three that I want us to go through. Number one, is uh is the the here and now. And this is kind of a subtle thing, but one of the things that actually gets in the way of us experiencing the hope that we're meant to live with is we just get really used to the life and the stuff and all the things that we have right here and now. Like we like it. And this is kind of a unique, it's a unique thing for us. For example, uh, in our culture today, it is not uncommon to find a Jesus follower who's like, man, I hope Jesus doesn't come back in my lifetime. I hope that happens after my time is done. That is completely and totally unique in the history of our faith. Previous generations would pray like, Jesus, hurry up, come back, finish things. And part of that is just because we live much more comfortable lives than most people have ever lived. And so we can we have this struggle. Sometimes we just get so caught up in our lives here and now that we just we don't want to think about the future too much. We we even sometimes struggle to wonder is heaven gonna be that much better than my life right now? See an interesting example of this in Matthew chapter 19, starting in verse 16, it says, Someone came to Jesus with this question, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? Well, why ask me about what is good? Jesus replied. But to answer your question, if you want to receive eternal life, just keep the commandments. Which ones? The man asked. And Jesus replied, Well, you must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely, honor your father and mother, love your neighbor as yourself. I've obeyed all of these commandments, the young man replied. What else must I do? Now Jesus told him, Well, if you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. And then Jesus said to his disciples, I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. I'll say it again. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, we read that, and most of us are like, Good, good thing I'm not rich. But we have to understand, guys, and there may there may be some exceptions in the room, there might be some exceptions to those of us watching from home, but but just understand that chances are, and I put the chances in the 99% range, your life today is much more comfortable, much more blessed than the life of the richest person who lived in Jesus' time. I mean, by the standard of Jesus' day when eating three meals a day was almost unheard of. I mean, literally almost unheard of. And we live in a world where we're like, man, what do I want to eat? I don't want Mexican because I had that last night. Oh, it's just tough. Don't want steak, don't I want sushi? I don't know. You know? I mean, honestly, you just drive through the average drive-thru. You're eating a better meal than kings ate a couple hundred years ago. Like, honestly. I I mean, seriously, we could go back, we go back in time like 300 years and give you know King George III a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich and fries, and he would just be like, I've never experienced anything like this in my entire life. Like honestly. We have more, we have more than practically any group of people that have ever walked the face of the earth. And so just understand that rich just means that the actual word means having more than you need. And Jesus said, It's tough, it's tough for rich people to experience heaven. Why? Well, what was the issue with this young man? The idea of letting go of what he had here and now, he couldn't process it. He was so wrapped up in what he had, he was so wrapped up in what was going on right now that the idea of letting that go, he could not handle it. And so he missed this chance to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus once told a very famous parable. It's called the parable of the four seeds or or the parable of the soil sometimes, four soils. And it it talks about how the kingdom of heaven is like seed that's been put on these different types of soil, and the soil represents different different hearts, the status of people's hearts and how receptive they are to the news about Jesus. And he said the first soil is like it was the rocky, it was the road, basically, a rocky path. And it doesn't plant at all. It just seed hits it, bounces right off. The second soil was shallow, and so it plants for a little bit. Maybe you see some growth, some enthusiasm, but there's not enough depth for roots to really take hold. The third soil, though, is really interesting. Jesus explained it in Mark chapter 4, verse 18. He says, The seed that fell among the thorns, that's the third soil. It represents others who hear the word, but that they're all too quickly. The message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced. And it gives the illustration that the soil is such that the message of Jesus actually hits and it plants and there's some development, but it gets crowded out by all the here and now. It gets crowded out by all of the stuff of this world, the the worries about life, the lure of wealth, all of those things. What I'm trying to say is simply that we miss out sometimes on the hope that we're meant to live with because we unfortunately put our hope in this. We put our hope in the wrong stuff, and it robs us. It robs us. I by the way, I want you guys to know I'm super guilty of this in my own life. In fact, I I got kind of a bad wake-up call to this, is uh uh I I got into the whole cryptocurrency thing. I don't know if anyone else did that. It's fun. I was like, why not? And uh so I bought some Bitcoin, which I still don't even know what it is. Um that's fine. Anyone else do the Bitcoin thing? Any any Bitcoin, we can maybe form a support group after church. We can all go like share our okay, we're good. Diamond hands. Okay. Uh Bitcoin. Sorry, all right. Anyway, so what happened was was uh and I'm new to the whole investing thing, it's never been something I've really done, and and I don't have a lot to work with, so it's like let's just let's go for it, you know? Um, because how can I be a great pastor if I have to figure out which private school to send my children to? You know what I'm saying? Everyone's not known to laugh. That's a joke, okay? I drive a 2006 Scion, I've had it for uh like 13 years, it's paid off, it's great. But but here's what happened. I'm just being honest. So, like, I oh, I'm gonna start trying to do this, you know, have some goals with my family. It's a good thing to do. You want to be a good steward of what God's given you. And so I started checking Bitcoin on my phone all the time. And the first two letters in Bitcoin, BI, happened to be the first two letters in the Bible. Well, my phone got smart enough to know that whenever I typed in BI, it was like, you want to look at Bitcoin. And one day I was like, no, I want to read scripture. And it was like, why is Bitcoin? Oh, that's what I check every morning, first thing, instead of going to the Word. Because that's what I put my hope in. I'm so sorry, Lord. I like literally had this moment where I'm like, God, I'm sorry, I've put my hope in something here and now, and and forgive me. Lord, forgive me. Because it's easy to do that, guys. It's so easy to do that, to put your hope in something today. This stuff disappoints, this stuff fades away. You gotta put your hope in something eternal, you gotta put your hope in something that lasts. Okay? Let's move on. Something else that robs our hope. By the way, the private school joke, I just have to say there's a whole thing about like pastors of churches and all that kind of stuff. I was a joke, but I don't think it read as a joke, so I just want to make sure we're clear on that. Alright? We're good? Okay. I recognize on this one my A's and my G's are very similar. And so this is just sort of this weird line of it, it looks odd. Um, baggage. Anybody have baggage at all? Anybody carrying some baggage today? Liars. You all have so much baggage. I had a friend that actually said something really cool a few weeks ago, and it's like stuck with me ever since. She said one of her favorite things about his hands is that people leave lighter than when they come in. And that's always been how this church is, that you can bring your baggage with you, uh, or maybe you you don't know you have baggage and it comes up, and then you leave, you get to leave it behind. You get to leave a little bit lighter. The truth of the matter is our hope, it gets it gets weighed down by the baggage that we carry. Like, guys, we we all have stuff that's happened to us, we all have junk from our past that we carry with us. And and sometimes the reason we lose hope, the reason we're not like little children who just have this the best days are ahead is because there's some things in our past that have hurt us, they've wounded us, they've they've hit us really deep. And we don't we don't know how to get past it. And every time we start to make progress in life, it's like it comes back up and and it weighs us down and it gets us fixated on what's behind us instead of being hopeful about the future. Guys, Jesus actually says, Come to me, all of you who are weary, and I'll give you rest, for my burden is light. Jesus is not someone who just lays a bunch of baggage on you. But but we pick it up anyway. You know, it's amazing how many times in life I've almost missed the best that God has had for me because of the baggage that I was carrying. In fact, um, when I was in college, I interned at a church and I put a lot of my heart into it, and I just had a really negative experience that made me question whether or not I actually wanted to do the whole church thing. At that time, I felt called, like God really wanted me to do this. And I was focused on it. So I interned at this church and I'm like, yeah, let's go, let's do this. And then this experience happened, it was just people being people, and I was like, man, I don't know. And so I walked away. And I I just started doing something else. And a buddy of mine called me, and he actually, I was 22 at the time, and he said, Hey, what are you doing? I said, Oh, I'm working at this company. He said, Dude, I thought you were called to ministry. And I was like, Yeah, I I don't know, man. I I did this thing at this church, and and it just went really south, and I put a really bad taste in my mouth. I don't know if I want to do this. And he said, Justin, people are people, and God is God. God told you what he wanted you to do, and you're running away from it. And then he said, I have a phone number of a church I want you to call in Georgia. They're just getting started, they're looking for a youth person to call them. And I was like, fine, I'll call him. And it was his hands. And the amazing thing is, is I was at a point in my life at that time where I was ready to leave what I felt God had wanted me to do. Why? Because it was just some silly baggage. Some stuff had happened to me. People are people, and and people hurt you. People say things, people do things, and sometimes it's the deepest stuff you can imagine. But the truth is, you're not meant to carry all this unnecessary weight. You're not meant to live with it. You're not meant to walk around weighed down by all this junk from your past. Because when you do that, you inevitably become fixated on what's behind you. And you live your life looking back, thinking, oh man, if that had not happened, if that had gone differently, if maybe I would have made a different decision then. And you cannot live life looking backwards. It doesn't work. In fact, if you want proof, I challenge you today, spend the rest of your day looking backwards physically, see how it goes. Right? It will not go. You won't make it to your car. You won't. Maybe you will. I don't know. Maybe you're really good at that. But the truth of the matter is you're not supposed to live life looking behind you. And what we've got to do with the baggage that we have that we all carry in, the hurts and the woundings and all the things that people have done and said, is we we gotta we gotta move on from it. We gotta let it go. There's a really interesting scripture in 1 Samuel. Samuel was a prophet, and God had called him to find Israel's first king. And it was a really crazy story. He found this man named Saul. Samuel poured his heart and soul into Saul, and Saul failed miserably. And when Saul failed as king, Samuel was crushed because he had put everything into Saul. And one day God speaks to Samuel, and it's in verse 1 of 1 Samuel chapter 16. God says to Samuel, Samuel, how long are you going to mope over Saul? You know I've rejected him as king over Israel. Fill your flask with anointing oil and get going. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I've spotted the very king I want among his sons. He says, Samuel, you've got to move on. And I say this fully recognizing that some of the baggage that we're carrying is heavy, it's deep, and it's stuff that's so personal for us that the idea of letting it go, it's weird, right? How you can almost become addicted to the pain of the things that have happened to you in the past. And you're like, I want to let it go, but I kind of also want to hold on to it. Because it's what it's what I've gotten used to, it's what makes me feel justified in my anger and my frustration with life. You've got to let it go. You've got to move on. And if you don't, you'll never have the hope that you're meant to have. Because you can't have a hope for the future if you're constantly thinking about the past. So pray and ask the Lord, Lord, help me let it go. Help me move on. And seriously, right now, like identify is there is there some baggage that you've been carrying, some broken relationship, some wound from your past, some regret, some sin, maybe it's even something you did to yourself, and you carry it all the time, you think about it constantly, you think that it defines you. It does not define you. The love of Jesus is what defines you. So drop that bag, let the baggage go, move on and say, Hey, Jesus, in your name today, I'm just dropping it, and I'm gonna leave here lighter than when I walked in. Let it go. One final thing. Expectations. This is the last one. This gets in the way of our hope so so much because we learn naturally, we learn to have low expectations in life. It's the best way to never be disappointed, is to never expect too much, right? Because we've all we all know what it's like to have our expectations lifted and raised, and we're really excited about something, and it just fails miserably. That happens constantly. The number of times I've had a friend be like, You have got to watch this movie, it is amazing. And I believe them. And then I watched the movie and I'm like, What no? But if I didn't have those expectations, if someone was like, Yeah, that movie's not that good and I watched it, same movie, I'd probably be like, it wasn't that bad. Right? And so we get used to having to develop low expectations. In fact, we have a phrase that uh that we we see pop up a lot. You guys can fill this in. What is the phrase? I'm really strong. Hold on. My hands are sweaty. All right, don't get your what? Don't get your hopes up. We say this kind of thing all the time. You know what you'll never hear a 10-year-old say? Don't get your hopes up. Like my son last year, I said, What do you think you're getting for Christmas? A PlayStation 5. I was like, Don't get your hopes up, dude. Bitcoin hasn't done that well. I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen. And honestly, it was a great moment because what he actually said is, I want a PlayStation 5 and maybe like a 4K TV to go with that. And I just laughed. I was like, ha ha, that's awesome. You realize something you're asking me like a $2,000 Christmas gift. And he's like, Well, yeah, you know, I said, I don't know if you're aware of our family's financial situation. Go find those yellow shoes and we'll sell them on eBay and we'll we'll uh I don't know where they are. But but honestly, like that's normal for kids. Like you don't see children who say, like, and if they do this, by the way, it's like a ploy. Like young children, what do you want for Christmas? Nothing. I mean, I do, I just don't want to get my hopes up too much. You know, I don't know, maybe some Skittles or something like that. I don't like you'll never hear a kid do it. And again, if they do it, it's manipulation. They're really good at that. But you ask a kid what they want, and they're just like, all the things. I want it all. We got one of those uh those Amazon catalogs in the mail, which is amazing. You know, you used to get the Toys R Us catalog back in the day. If you're nostalgic about those days, that doesn't exist anymore. But Amazon prints out part of their online store and sends it to you filled with toys. And so, same experience, and my kids were like circling the stuff that they wanted, and every page had something circled, every single page. And I was like, guys, I don't think you understood this exercise. It's supposed to help me, you're supposed to help me narrow some things down. But kids, they don't think in these terms. Don't get your hopes up. They don't, it's like that's it's foreign to them. But you know what, guys, Jesus followers? Oh man, I didn't think this through. There we go. Just can't don't worry about me. I'm good. Uh if you're a child of God, you should be someone who constantly gets your hopes up. Like, I'm serious, get your hopes up. Think about it this way: where do you feel the pain right now in life? Where's the pain? What's the part of life that hurts right now? You know, maybe it's it's your marriage, maybe it's a relationship you have with a child, maybe it's something in your job, your career, maybe it's health. Could be your finances, could be could be some other thing. Maybe it's you know, sometimes people get really wrapped up in what's happening in the world around them, and they're just so frustrated and angered by what they see. And that's where the pain is. Well, whatever, whatever part of your life that you're feeling that pain, you're feeling that hurt, that that worry, that stress, that hurt. I want to challenge you. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, this isn't something you just have to make yourself to manufacture, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, get your hopes up. Do you believe that that that is going to get better? Honestly, do you believe that it's going to get better, or do you believe that it's it's probably only gonna get worse? I struggle with that sometimes. I have I have aspects of my life where if I'm being honest in seasons of my life, I'm like, yeah, that's probably it's probably just gonna get worse. It's probably doomed. It's toast. I used that phrase a few weeks ago, and my daughter was like, What do you mean it's toast? I like toast, she said. Actually, I like toast too. But that's just the phrase, it's over. But I'm serious. Where do you feel the pain? What part of life hurts right now? Get your hopes up. You know why? You're the son or the daughter of God, and he loves you and he listens to your prayers, and there's nothing that he can't do. There's nothing he can't do. That's why Romans chapter 8, verse 31 says, If God is for us, who can be against us? If God is for us, who can be against us? If God is your dad, if he is your father, if you have his ear, if he listens when you pray, if he desires to bless you, if he desires to give you what you need, do you think that there's one area of life where you feel genuine pain and you would go to God and He would say, Deal with it? There's no way. I mean, I love my kids and sometimes they drive me crazy and they come to me with all kinds of things. But if one of my children came with a splinter in their foot, I would never look at him and be like, toughen up, walk it off. I would literally, I mean, in that moment, that becomes my priority. But I hear Jesus followers, I talk to people sometimes who love Jesus and they know that Jesus loves them, and I'll ask them, Oh, have you prayed about that? And they'll say, Ah, I don't know. I just have a hard time praying about stuff. No child has a hard time asking their father for something that they need or something that they want. And the only reason they would have a hard time with that is because their father or their mother, whoever's raising them, has not done the appropriate job to show them the love that they have for them in a way that gives that child confidence that they can come to their parents with genuine needs and to be cared for. And sometimes we're raised by people, some of us have had this experience, we're raised by people who don't do a good job of reflecting what a healthy parent should be. And so we begin to look at God through that same lens. No, no, no, no. God is good, he is loving, he is kind, he is patient, and he desires to bless his children with what they need. There is not one time that you will go to God and say, God, fix my marriage. Show me what to do, show me what to say, give me a step, just show me where I can, I can I can have some traction, God. There's no one time you'll do that, and God the Father is like, deal with it yourself. It's never gonna happen. There's not one time you go to God about a broken relationship in your life, or about some some dream that's just dying, that's DOA, it feels like, because, because life has not gone the way that you've wanted it to go, even if it's your fault. There's not one time that you'll go to God the Father and express that and get some type of like nonchalant, don't care, deal with it yourself response. Even if you even if you're not seeing the results happen right now, just keep asking. Keep asking. Why? Because God the Father loves you, you are his child. Jesus Christ died on the cross to, among other things, prove to you just how much God the Father cares about you. And so you've got to be someone who gets your hopes up, even when there's not one indication that things are gonna be better. Even when everything looks like it's falling apart, you gotta have this unbridled hope that says, I know that my best days are ahead. I know that the glory days are not behind me, the glory days are in front of me because one day God's gonna share all of his glory with me. I know that my best days haven't happened yet. I have hope for the future because I'm a child of God. That's how we're supposed to live our lives. That's how we have to live, because that's who we are. Get your hopes up. In fact, with that in mind, let's pray right now. Father, thank you so much for all that you've done for us. Thank you, Lord, for the blessings that you've given us. Thank you, Lord, for the blessings that we haven't even experienced yet. And Father, by blessings, you know, sometimes that word just becomes so trivial. And we can think of it in just pure material things. That's not what we mean. Lord, your love is a blessing, your presence is a blessing, your faithfulness is a blessing, your power active in our lives through your spirit within us is a blessing. And Jesus, we just want to ask in your name. We want to ask that you would get our hopes up today. Lord, I ask that for every person in this room that's dealing with pain, for every person in this room that has hurt, for every person in this room that has some area of life where they're tempted to give up hope, where they're tempted to throw in the town, because they just believe it cannot get better, it will not get better. I pray in your name, Jesus, that you get our hopes up, that we set our eyes on you, that we believe in who you are, and we believe in who we are because of what you've done for us, that we are your sons and daughters, Father God, and there is nothing that you cannot do, there is nothing that can stand in our way. If you are for us, nothing can be against us. If you are with us, nothing can stop the love that you have for us and the life that you've planned for us. And we know, Lord, that life is not easy, and we know that it's not perfect, and we know that having a life blessed by you does not mean having a life devoid of problems. But Father God, in your name I pray that no matter what our problems are, no matter what circumstances we're looking at, thinking about, no matter what's standing in our way, we be people who are so filled with hope that we can smile in the midst of our enemies. That we can have joy in the midst of our troubles because we know that you haven't even gotten started yet. Our best days are not behind us, they are in front of us. The glory days are yet to come because you will share all of your glory with your children. So get our hopes up, get us focused on the future. Help us be like children who hope with everything inside of us for what's to come. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.