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Each and every one of them. Please open up our hearts and our ears and bless Mike as he gives us your message. In Jesus' name, we pray, you can't get it.

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Helps when you turn the power on. We're past the formalities. What's up, y'all? Alright. I'm just excited to be back. I'll be honest with you. I was telling the first service. I uh there's so many people that I was just like, I really want to talk to you, but I don't have enough time. So uh if I missed you, trust me, I'm excited to see all y'all. Uh I was even telling, uh I was even telling Tom earlier. He's just like, you know, how's South Dakota? For those of y'all don't don't know, we're in Spearfish, uh, Spearfish, South Dakota. So if you want to come see uh God's country, uh it's beautiful up there. But if God granted me one wish, I would transplant this church and move it right up there with us. Because I just miss you guys so much. I miss the music. I I even miss the coffee. But I mean, I'm just so excited to be here for you guys and on Mother's Day. So happy Mother's Day to every mother in here. Believe me when I say, uh, you don't have to believe me, you know. Uh the ministry that you guys have to our kids. We've we've got uh Kennedy, that's the only one that we have, and I I credit how she turned out to my wife's ministry. I gave her a couple of years ago a custom-made Stanley Cup when you know it was the white girl trend, and uh it was I I put on there Proverbs 31 wife and rock star mom. Because y'all, let's be honest, she has two kids. And I'm just really excited to be here. So happy Mother's Day to all y'all. And uh as we get into this, if you guys want to turn to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1, we're gonna be in the first uh first chapter of 1 Peter. Just meet me there. While you're turning there, what comes to mind when someone says, I hope so? Traditionally we would say, I hope so, meaning I might get it, right? It's if I hope for something, what what are some things? I mean, holler them out to me, what are some things that we hope for? Good health, okay, yep, absolutely. Yep, loved ones, absolutely. What else? Yep, absolutely. That's a huge uh prayer right there, especially for us parents. But I mean, y'all, we're in the Midwest. What did all the farmers say? Rain. I hope it rains, it's liquid gold. I'm from Western Kansas, y'all. It's uh uh you get rain, you get gold. Uh but think about it. There are many things that we hope for. There's a couple of things that I'll share I'll share with you. These are the things that I hope for. For those of you who never knew the house that we lived in while we lived here in town, I had the best wood shop. I love woodworking. I'm a hobby woodworker, so please don't ask me to make anything. But I love working with wood, and I had the best wood shop. And last year we we got our own house up in Spearfish, and we love it. It's awesome. I love that house. It doesn't have a wood shop. So I pray that God will work in a mighty way for reasons I'm sure I don't need to go into to provide a wood shop for me at my new house. But there's another thing that I really hope for, and I think this is the more practical of the two, is a red convertible sports car. I mean, let's let's just break it down here. Uh, you live in the Black Hills, the the stereotype, oh, you have a Harley. No. I want my sports car to drive down the Needles Highway. All right. So I'm still working on my wife to see so she can see the practicality of this. And hopefully by the time we come back here, you'll see something out there that's an answer to prayer. But we all have something that we hope for. Every single one of us, I at least I hope that you have something that you hope for every day. Whether it's a job promotion, financial stability, families making wise choices, kids growing up and still following Christ after they leave our house. There's so many things that we hope for. And this is a good thing. There's nothing wrong with hoping for these kinds of things. But today I want to talk about a hope. A hope that we can be confident in. I want to talk about our living hope. And you might think, living hope? What is this living hope you speak of? This isn't a hope that's referring to something that we might get. This is a hope that this in this context refers to assurance. Assurance of what we do get. And I mean, I don't have the assurance of a wood shop. I don't have the assurance of a red sports car. It'd be nice, but it isn't a guarantee. I'm talking about someone who loves us and died in our place and wants nothing more than for us to trust in his name. That is what he hopes for. Jesus is our living hope. He is that living hope that I want to talk to you today. Uh uh, if you're in 1 Peter, we're gonna be in a short, uh, short passage here that has a lot in there. Uh, is 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 3 through 4. We're just gonna read that as a whole and then we'll dive into it. But 1 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 3, going through verse 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. Lord, I just I just want to say thank you, and I'm so thankful to be here to be up preaching in you using me for your glory. I pray that you just remove me, move me out of the way, that we all hear from you today. Help me, Lord, to speak your truth with boldness, and that you increase and I decrease. Thank you, Lord, for who you are as our God and King in Jesus' name. Amen. So going back to verse three, we're gonna look at who is our hope in? Our hope in Christ. So look at the first part of verse three again. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter starts off praising God here. Now there's a reason for this, and I'm gonna read this for you. There's a reason that the church was dealing, uh, there's a reason that uh oh my goodness, come on. The reason that the church was dealing with a loss of hope during this time was some unlawful persecution coming towards this first century church. Followers of Christ were in the spotlight, but not for the reasons that they would hope for. The Great Fire of Rome occurred July AD 64, lasting about six to nine days. This destroyed about 70% of the city, and it was recorded that Emperor, the Emperor at the time, Nero, burnt the city so he could resurrect the same city in the image he wanted. However, it backfired with all the religious elements being burnt up with the city. This caused unrest in the Roman citizens that uh that gave them a sense of hopelessness and resentment towards the Roman government. The emperor kindly redirected the negative attention toward the first century church, claiming that they had set fires to the Roman city to get rid of idols. So, not exactly the attention that they were hoping to get. This was a bunch of new Christians being blamed for something they didn't do. So it tracks that they were in this state of hopelessness because not only were they being blamed for something they didn't do, but they didn't have anyone to back them up. They didn't have anyone to go to bat for them. They didn't want to have anyone to advocate for them. So Peter's really trying to turn their focus back to where their hope needs to be. Let's finish verse 3 here. Who, according to his great mercy, caused us to be born again to a living hope. This is the hope that I'm talking about here. It's the hope that we have in Christ. It's not in a loved one, it's not in our bank account, it's not anything this world has to offer. Our hope shouldn't be in the good works that we do. How many times we go to church, how many times we pray, how many times we throw an extra 20 in the plate, it's not how good you are in front of your employer, and as the story goes, because let's be honest here, I've fallen into that trap. I'm not asking anyone to raise your hands, please don't do it. But I have caught myself being that hope, like finding my hope in how good I look in front of my employer. How good I look in front of my wife, in front of my daughter, in front of my staff, in front of the people that I'm around, trying to find hope in things of this world. But we have hope. We have this living hope because he lives. We have hope not because of what we do, it's because of what Christ did. But the question comes: who is this Jesus? A little detour here. This is what happens when you get a rental pastor, okay? It's there's probably a lot of things that you guys probably already know, but since I'm not here all the time, now I have to build a case to make sure that y'all are uh that we're all on the same page, okay? So, in well, anyway, I'll get there. So, if we look at Jesus, who is this Jesus that we're talking about? There's a lot of titles in Scripture that talks about who he is. One of the titles, a bit one of the first and foremost, is He is our Savior. John 3.16, I'm sure every single one of us can quote it. But have you ever looked at the next verse? This is John 3.17. You know, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have ever lasting life. I could give you four different translations if you'd really like. But if you read on in verse 17, for the Son of Man did not come to condemn the world, but to save the world. He is our Savior. But he's also our Lord, our Lord and Savior. That phrase right there, that uh Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that phrase occurs 79 times in the New Testament. 79 times he is referred to our Lord and Savior. Simply put, Jesus did not save, or Jesus didn't save us from our sins for us to keep living the way that we do. Or the way that we used to before we came to know the Lord. God saved us out of the mud so we could start living like Him by God's grace. But he's also our intercessor. There's some Christian ease for you. Another word for intercessor is a term you we would all probably be familiar with is uh he's our lawyer. Uh he's our advocate. He is the one that stands between us and the judge. Okay? If we look at 1 John, I'm gonna detour here. This has nothing to do with the message, but in the first service, I completely wrote down the wrong passage. I told some, uh I told y'all to, or them to turn to a different passage. It was a great verse, but it wasn't the right one. So if you guys see the the people from the first service, this is the right reference, okay? First John chapter 2, verses 1, or just uh just verse 1. So I just spaced it, so I gotta look at it. 1 John chapter 2, verse 1. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So what's he trying to say there? When we came to know, when we come to know the Lord, it's unfortunate, but it is a reality. There are still times we mess up. There are still some times that we fall short of the glory of God. And when that happens, we have an advocate standing before the throne. When Satan is up there saying, Look at what Mike just did. Hey, uh God, I wasn't sure if you're paying attention. I didn't know if you knew, but look at what he just did over here. He calls himself a child of God, and this is what he's doing. Are you for real? And Jesus steps in in between and says, He's mine. I already took care of that at the cross. That's what an intercessor is. That's what Jesus does for us who are in Christ. But the last one that I'm gonna go over, and the biggest one, is He is our God. In the Gospel of John chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was a God. Someone should be throwing tomatoes by now, okay? Does it say that? The word was many gods. The word was some gods. There just was God, right? But look over to verse 14. Because if we're reading this in the context, it says in verse one. The word in the beginning was the word, now shift over to verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Not only is Jesus our Savior, intercessor, and our Lord, but he is our God. And whether any one of us here or anyone that we run into, uh, well, that's not my God. Uh you don't have a choice. There's only one. And he is our God. He is our savior. The reason I bring this up is in the American culture, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that has run into this, uh, you can create your own Jesus. You can make your own PC Jesus that you're happy with and say, Yeah, I believe in Jesus. Okay, let's establish who we're talking about here. He did all of this to restore that relationship with us. Can you just pause and think about what happened that day? Christ was crucified, bruised, broken, spat on, laughed at, hung on a cross, died in our place for the sins that we're responsible for. There is a reason that I say in our place. He died in our place. A very catch-phrase thing that we that we say these days is, oh, Jesus died for you. Jesus died for your sins. Keep in mind, he died in our place. Because even though, yes, God did that, someone had to pay for the sins that we're responsible for. Those sins still had to be paid for. It wasn't just a matter of wiping them out, punishment had to be delivered. That is a big thing to remember about the gospel, is that right there. To remember the cross and its significance. But here's where it gets interesting. On the third day he rose again. This right here, I promise I'll I'll say this and then I'll promise I'll move on. I that day when he rose from the grave, that right there authenticated our faith. And what I mean by that, I'm a I'm kind of a numbers guy. I kind of speak in money terms, if you will. Uh when he died for our sins, he wrote a check with his life. You guys remember floating checks? Of course not. You never did that. Sinners. No, I'm just kidding. I had that down to an art. I'll just be honest. I had that down to an art. Because what happened? You would write a check on a Monday, it wouldn't hit the bank until three, four days later, right? But that's what happened. Because on the third day, the check cleared. And paid for that penalty. Paid that penalty for us. He loved us so much that he was willing to go through all of that simply to restore that relationship with you. That's how much he loves us. That is something that. We can hope for that. Is something that we need to remember to hope for. But look how P uh but as we move into verse 4, look how Peter describes this inheritance that he's talking about. Look at verse 4 with me. To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. I love how he describes it here because this word imperishable has the meaning of not showing wear or decay or being tarnished. Undefiled, another word that you can use for this is unstained or unstained from evil or sin in this context. But here's the best one, in my opinion. And will not fade away. Worldly physical inheritance passes away. After my dad passed away, he left me an inheritance. It didn't take long for that to go away. And for anyone that has received an inheritance, one of two things happened. One, the same thing that happened to me, is it goes away. Or you can invest it and you know make two, three times whatever, uh whatever you guys get. But then we don't know if we're gonna be here to enjoy that. You're about ready to cash that out, and then gone. Worldly inheritance has pass away. But this hope that we have to look forward to is a hope that we can be confident in. Folks, this inheritance that's waiting for us is going to be great. Oh, glorious day. Streets of gold, mansions that He has built for us, crowns of rewards, all the things that we could talk about that I don't have time to go into right now. But I will tell you what one thing that I am really excited for. Is finally I will be able to look my Savior in the face. I will be able to say, what up, Jesus? Maybe, maybe I won't tell. Anyway, but that's how I think about it is we will be able to see his face, and it'll be worth this tiny bit of time that we spend here going through this tiny little bit, trials, whatever you want to call it, and we get to spend eternity with him. And this is a hope that we can be confident in. If you do me a favor, if you don't memorize any verse from me anyway, this is my challenge. Turn to 1 Peter, not 1 Peter, uh, turn to 1 John, 1 John chapter 5 with me. If you don't memorize these two verses and the verses that we've gone over, that's my challenge for you. And if you're here thinking, oh, I can't memorize these things, I don't have a good memory, I bet you anything. You can quote your favorite song from the 80s. Yeah, some of y'all nodding. You know I'm right. I know you can do it. 1 John chapter 5, verses 12 and 13. These are verses for a Christian to live by. Starting in verse 12. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. There's no room for gray here. If you're here and you're struggling with confidence of the hope that we have, I encourage you to read the book of 1 John. It's written to a believing Ottoman uh audience to strengthen their faith. And you're probably also sitting there thinking, why is he getting so loud and passionate about this stuff? I'll bring it down a little bit. It's because I'm struggling with this, or I did I was struggling with this. When I talked to Paul a couple months ago when he asked me to uh to do this, I was just like, well, what do you want me to preach on? He's just like, whatever God is, whatever God is bringing you through right now. This is it. Guys, I'm just being honest with you. I went through a season of I was struggling with confidence in the promises that I have in Christ. But if we look at this, we have a living hope that we have to look forward to if we're in Christ. We can have confidence in that because my wife will attest to this. I am not a fan of gray areas. It's either one or the other. It's either black or it's white, it's either yes or no. That is how I operate in my mind. And if you look at this again, verse 12, he who has the sun has life. He who does not have the sun doesn't have life. You do or you don't. You either do and you have the hope of a better future being in heaven with Christ. Or you don't, and you will spend eternal separation from Christ in hell. Every single one of us has a final destination. Whether this is something that either you yourselves, or if you're going to work, going to your mission field, talking to people that you know and love and care about, and they're like, eh, that's really not my thing, you might want to take a second look. Because we can have confidence in that. So my question is, are you struggling with that today? Are you here as a believer struggling with, I don't know. Am I? Guys, I'll be the first to admit to you I was asking those exact same questions. But if you're here struggling with that, guys, memorize this passage. This passage right here is a, if you're struggling with the hope that we have that we can be confident in, this right here, I give you my word, will help strengthen that. Do you have that hope? That's another question. Guys, here's another benefit of being the rental pastor. Is I cannot, I mean, I know most of you, but I see some new faces in here. I cannot stand up here and just take for granted that because you are sitting under the best teacher that I've ever sat under, that you guys know Jesus. That everyone in here knows Jesus. If you have not made that decision today, don't leave without making that decision. And if you don't want to come talk to me, I don't blame you. Paul will be back tomorrow. But there's no guarantee you'll make it to tomorrow. If you are here and you do not know whether or not you are a believer in Christ, do not leave that chair without saying, Lord, I am a savior, or I'm a sinner in need of a savior. Lord, save me from my sin. And if you are here and you are a believer, take heart. We can know. Remember the promises that we have in Christ, which I'm already out of time. But remember the promises that we have in Christ. This being the primary one is that we can know. And if you are here and you do not know, or you're wondering, yeah, maybe I don't know, maybe I'm not sure. Don't get out of your seat until you know. Lord, I am a savior in need, or I am a sinner in need of a savior. Lord, save me. Turn in faith to Christ. Today is the day for salvation. Lord, I just thank you. Thank you, Lord, for this truth. Thank you for the confidence that we don't have to wonder. I'm just so thankful to be used by you. Lord, I pray for anyone in here struggling with that confidence. That you comfort their hearts with this passage. Both of these passages. I pray, Lord, that you strengthen all of us in that manner. I pray for anyone here who doesn't know you, anyone that's watching online that doesn't know you. That they will come to know you as their Lord and Savior. Help them make that decision today, Lord, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thank you, Lord, for who you are as our God, our King, great God. You have always been for us. In your name. Amen.