Why Hope Is a Person, Not a Feeling

Hope is not a product. Hope is not a program. Hope is not a pill. Hope is a person. And there's only one person that you can put that hope in. Jesus Christ. He is the hope of the world. Because Jesus Christ came back to life on Easter Sunday about 2,017 years ago. It split history into AD and BC. We know three things for certain.

Number one, you might write this down. Because he rose from the dead, I know that Jesus has a great purpose for my life. Jesus has a great purpose for my life. Now, one of the most important things you have to know in life is what's your purpose? If you don't ever figure out why you're here, you're going to waste your life. You don't know why you're here. A lot of people confuse purpose with other things. Purpose is not success. You can be incredibly successful and not know your purpose. You can make a whole lot of money and not know your purpose. You can be incredibly famous and talented and very productive in your life and still miss the purpose for which you were made. I was talking to a guy one time. He said, "You know, Rick, uh, my life has a great cast. I just don't know the plot." And I said, "I think a lot of people feel that way." And another guy said, "You know, somebody said, uh, I I hope my life isn't a joke 'cause I don't get it. I I I don't get it."

Now, when it comes to knowing your purpose in life, you really only have four choices. Only four choices. Uh, the first way is to try to figure out your purpose in life by speculation. What I mean by that is you just guess at it. You could go to some university and enroll in a philosophy course and ask all of the great questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Does my life have meaning? Is there any significance to my life? Where am I headed in life? Why am I here? And you can take lots of philosophy courses, but the bottom line is you're just guessing. And your guess is as good as mine. It's just speculation. You're never going to find your true purpose in life by just guessing about it. It's much more important than that.

Another way is imagination. Not speculation, but imagination, which basically says make up your own purpose. You don't know your purpose, just pick one. There are probably 100,000 self-help books that teach that. And as I said, they confuse success with purpose. And they say, you know, you know, set your goals and have your dream and clarify your values and know your vision. That's all good stuff, but it's not about your purpose. It's about success in life. And you never need to confuse those two. Just make up a purpose. That's uh imagination.

And then there's another way that people often try to find their purpose and I would call it introspection. And what I mean by that is it's look within. Now you hear this all the time in uh Eastern philosophies. You hear it in movies, in particularly hear it on talk shows and they basically say if you want to know your purpose, trust the force, Luke, you know, look lookin and if you look within long enough, then you'll know your purpose. Now, there's one problem with that. It doesn't work. If it did, we'd all know our purpose because you've looked inside you and I've looked inside of me. I looked inside of me. I just saw a mess. I didn't get any clarity at all.

Now, follow me on the logic of this. You can't tell yourself what your purpose is because you didn't create you. Because you didn't make you. You don't know your purpose. If I were to hold up a a a um object of some kind here, mechanical object, and you'd never seen it. I said, "What do you think the purpose of this is?" Uh, we could guess, we could speculate, we could look within, you know, we could we could pretend we know, but really the only way you wouldn't have any idea what the purpose of this object was unless either a) you talk to the inventor who created it, or b) you read the owner's manual. And if you do those two things, then you can find the purpose of what I was holding up. Now, the same is true for your life. The only way you're ever going to know your purpose in life is talk to the creator and read the owner's manual. If you don't do that, you're never going to know the purpose for which you were created. You can make up a purpose, but it's not the one you were created for.

Now, the truth is, you are not an accident. You've heard me say this many times. There are accidental parents, but there are no accidental children. There are illegitimate parents, but there are no illegitimate children. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. And if God had not wanted you to exist, you would not be alive right now. You said, "Why did God give me the parents he gave me?" God was not so much interested in their parenting skills as he was interested in their DNA. Because God knew that they had just the right DNA to create you. And whether your parents were good or bad or indifferent or maybe you even never even knew them, he knew that they would create you. And God was much more interested in creating you than he was in their parenting skills. God's plan and purpose is bigger than your parents' plan and purpose. He wanted you alive. You are not an accident. And he has a plan and purpose for your life. And so God says, "I want you to know this."

Now, you say, "Rick, what does all this have to do with Easter?" Well, let me show you. Look at these verses on your outline. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Jesus included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own. Now, if you're taking notes, you might circle that phrase, better life. God says, "I have a purpose for your life, and it is a better life than you would ever live on your own." Now, that's not a term we talk about a lot, the better life. The term we talk about a lot is the good life. And in California, we're supposed to be authorities on the good life. And in California, the good life basically means looking good, feeling good, and having the goods. If you look good and you feel good and you have the goods, you got the good life. There's only one problem with a good life. It's not good enough. You were made for more than just the good life. You were made for more than success. You were made for more than survival. You were made for significance. And the only way you will know your significance is by discovering God's purpose for your life. You can look good, feel good, have the goods, but you need the better life. And I've talked to people who had all of those things and still felt frustrated or empty or the nagging feeling there's got to be more. Well, of course there's more. You weren't made just to get up in the morning, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed, go to party on the weekend, retire, and die. That's not living. That's existing. Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and life to its fullest, the better life."

Now, where do we get that purpose? Well, look at the next verse. The Bible says, "Everything, absolutely everything got started in Christ." He's the creator of the universe and finds his purpose, its purpose in him. The only way you're going to find your purpose is in Christ. And the way Christ came back to life says, "I do have a purpose for your life." Look at the next verse. The Bible says this in Ephesians chapter 1. It is in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Who we are, what we're living for. Part of the overall purpose he is working. God is working out in everything and everyone. Until you get to know Christ, you're not going to know your purpose 'cause he's the one who made you. He's the one who created you. He's the one that when he rose again, split history into AD and BC.

Now, you know, here at Saddleback, of course, we're committed to helping everybody discover and develop their purpose. We're a purpose-driven church. I wrote a book about it. It was a big bestseller and I think that the reason it sold, you know, it's the bestselling book in American history. It sold 32 million copies in hardback and then it became the most translated book in the world. It's in Guinness Book of Records. Why? Not because I'm a good author. I'm not an author. I'm a pastor. But because it happens to be the number one need that people want to know about. Why am I here? What's my purpose? Without that, without purpose, life is petty and pointless. And God says we find it through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, let me give you a second thing, second benefit. I'm only covering three. The second benefit we get from Jesus Christ rising from the dead is he not only says, "I've got a great purpose for your life." He says, "I have a great power for your problems." I have a great power for your problems. And Easter demonstrated the power of God. There's not much greater power than raising yourself back to life. It is the most powerful event in history. And here's the cool thing about it. It's available to you. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead a couple millennia ago, 2,000 years ago, is available to you today. Let me show you some verses. This may be a benefit you didn't know about. And if you don't know about it, you can't depend on it. Ephesians chapter 1, the Bible says, "I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great God's power really is." How incredibly great God's power really is to help those who believe him. It is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead.

Say, "Wait a minute. Whoa, time out here, Rick. You're telling me that the same power that brought Jesus back to life is available to me in my daily life." That's exactly what I'm saying. That's a benefit you may have not known about. The resurrection of Jesus comes with a promise. Look at the next verse. By his power, God's by his power, God raised the Lord from the dead. And read this aloud with me. He will also raise us. Oh, now we're talking. The only reason you're going to be raised from the dead and have life after death is because Jesus did it. That's the reason. If Jesus doesn't raise you from the dead, you're not getting raised from the dead. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will also raise us. So, you can have resurrection power in your life.

Now, let me ask you a very personal question. Where do you need a resurrection in your life? I'm talking about right now. Let me phrase it another way. What's dying in your life or is dead and you know it and you need God's power to bring it back to life? Where do you need a resurrection this year? Where do you need God's resurrection power? See, the truth is, and I'm sorry about this, but some of you are in marriages that are dying. They're going south real fast. Or maybe they already have died and you're just still living together. You need a resurrection in your marriage. The key to a long marriage, K and I have been married 42 years, is you have to learn how to fall in love over and over again. You don't fall in love just one time. You have to have resurrections in your marriage, in your life. Some of you need a resurrection in your marriage 'cause it's dying. Some of you need a resurrection in your career. And you think, man, I thought I'd be a whole lot further along the line than I am right now. At this stage of the game, at this point in my life, I expected to be further down the road, but I'm not. And that's disappointing. And you need a resurrection in your career. Some of you need some resurrection in in your energy. You say, you know, I'm just tired all the time. I drag through the day. I'm fatigued all the time. I don't have any energy. It's because you're living it on your power instead of God's power. God never intended for you to go through life just on your power. You don't have enough. Human power runs out. Human love runs out, which is why there's divorce. You need supernatural love and you need supernatural power in your life to make it to the finish line. Some of you need a resurrection of your dream. You've had a dream in your past about something you've always wanted to be or always wanted to do, a talent you wanted to develop, a goal you wanted to go after, and the dreams died. And this Easter resurrection day, Jesus, the power that I raised myself back to life with, it's available to you if you plug into me. Some of you need a resurrection in your health. You're not going the right direction. Some of you need a resurrection in your motivation. You know, I just, you know, I just I'm just not motivated anymore. I'm just kind of putting in the time and waiting for the payday, checking the clock. I don't I'm not motivated. Nothing motivates me anymore. You need a resurrection of motivation. Some of you have had a split in a friendship with a dear friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or just a good friend, and there's been a rift. There's been a break, a tear, a conflict. You need a resurrection in in your friendship. So, I'm just saying that in so many different areas, some of you have had your heart broken recently. And as your pastor, I'm sorry. I really am. And I pray for people in our family that have a broken heart and you need to have your heart repaired and you need you need a resurrection in that area of your life.

You see, this is the difference between human beings and God. God is God and we're not. Human beings can resuscitate. Only God can resurrect. If you know CPR, you know how to resuscitate somebody. Their heart stops. You can resuscitate them with CPR. If you're a paramedic, you've probably resuscitated hundreds of people with mouth-to-mouth or CPR, whatever you needed to do. Resuscitation happens when they've been dead for a minute or two or three minutes. But when you've been been dead for three days and buried in the ground, you don't need resuscitation. You need resurrection. And God says, I want to have that kind of power. Not resuscitation power, but resurrection power in the areas of your life that are dying or have already died. They're already dead.

And God has not only a purpose for your life because of the cross and the resurrection, but God has a power for your life, which is bigger than the problem you're going through right now. Let me show you a couple verses. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul gives a testimony of how God helps us when we think it is hopeless. You see, some of you are on the edge of giving up right now. And if we could put an X-ray to your mind, it would show you're you're pretty desperate. I'm glad you came because God wanted you here a thousand years before you were born. He knew you would be here at Saddleback on this day so he could say this to you. Don't don't don't don't give up. You maybe feel like giving up on your dream or giving up on your marriage or giving up on your health. Maybe you even feel like giving up on your life. Don't. God brought you here today so he could say this to you. You ready for it? Here's what he wants to say to you. Don't give up. Look up. Don't give up. Look up. The answer is not to quit. The answer is to get connected. Find God's purpose and get God's power in your life and you'll have a new resurrection in your life.

Now, Paul says it like this. He tells his own story of when he was ready to kick the bucket. This is probably the greatest Christian who ever lived next to Jesus Christ. And and Paul says, "There were times when I was so depressed, I was ready just to throw in the towel." And he says this in 2 Corinthians, "We were really crushed." And he says, "We were overwhelmed and we feared we would never live through it." Ever felt like that? Crushed. Overwhelmed. Filled with fear. He says, "We didn't think we'd live through it. We saw how powerless we were to help ourselves and just go, 'Okay, this is not working. I do not have the power to get done what I need to get done in my life. I just don't have it. I got an energy shortage. I got an energy crisis. I don't have the power to do what I need to do.'" And then Paul says, "We realized we were powerless to help ourselves, but that was good." Huh? How in the world could you feeling crushed, overwhelmed, fearful, and powerless to help yourself? How in the world is that good? He says, "Because then we put everything into the hands of God who alone could save us. For he can even raise the dead." That's what we're talking about at Easter. He can even raise the dead. And he said, "And God did help us and he saved us." And we expect him to do it again and again and again. If God can raise a dead Jesus, he can raise a dead marriage. If God can raise a dead Jesus, he can raise a dead friendship. He can raise a dead career. He can raise a dead dream. He can raise a part of your life that's just dying on the vine. That's the kind of God we serve. That is a benefit that was paid for you by Jesus Christ.

But you can go all through life totally unplugged. If you are unplugged from God's power, you will never know God's purpose. A toaster that is never plugged in is worthless. It has no intrinsic value unless it's plugged into the power. It cannot fulfill its purpose unless it's plugged into the power. A vacuum cleaner cannot fulfill its purpose as a vacuum cleaner unless it's plugged into the power. A microwave cannot fulfill its purpose as a microwave unless it's plugged into the power. You cannot fulfill your purpose in life unless you're plugged into the power, the power of the resurrection. And he says, you know, we got the point. We were ready to just cash it all in and we we were powerless. But that was good 'cause then we put it all in the hands of God. And God goes, "Well, thank God you finally did it. I've been waiting for you to get to the end of your rope so I could take over. How about you let me have a try at empowering and guiding your life now?"

Just be honest. Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Here's what the Bible says. Isaiah 40, "God gives power to those who are tired and worn out, and he offers strength to the weak." You say, "Wait a minute. I'm tired. I'm worn out. I'm weak. I don't feel any power." Well, let me explain how you get that power. You get it through faith. You get it through trust. You get it through believing in the Son of God who died on the cross for you and rose again to give you that power. You can complain to God all you want. God is not moved by your complaints. You can whine all you want. God is not moved by your whining. You can gripe all you want. God is not moved by griping. But the moment you put trust in him, bam, God moves. "According to your faith, it will be done unto you." God honors faith. Not griping, not whining, not all these other things. He says, "I'll give you that power." He said, "But Rick, you you just don't know what I'm facing right now." Yeah, you're right. You're right. I I I I don't I I don't know what you're facing, but I do know Luke 18:27, which says this, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." What looks like a dead end, what looks like a death is prime time for a resurrection and a miracle. What looks like you're never going to overcome. God can overcome like that. And God can do more in five seconds in your life than you can do in five years. But you've got to trust him.

Number of years ago, I was uh in China. You know, we've been doing the peace plan in China for years and years now. And one time I was in Beijing. Actually, they were doing a state dinner in my honor uh in in People's Hall in Tiananmen Square. And the government officials were there. And I was very honored to be be honored by the government in China. Um, and while I was there, the professors over at Peking University heard that I was there and they said, "Can let's invite Rick Warren and his team over to to talk with us." Peking University is the only university in Beijing that's still called Peking. It's the Harvard of China. 50,000 students. Every communist leader in China is trained at the Harvard of China, Peking University. So, we went and we had a wonderful time with these um uh professors. Had a good discussion with them. was very friendly. One of the men that I met there was with a man named Professor Joe. Professor Joe was an older man. He'd been a professor there for 50 years and now was the provost of Peking University, highest level. When we finished our little discussion, I said, "Hey, let's just go out to to dinner. Um, you find the best Chinese food." I mean, what do you expect? Tacos? You know, it's Beijing. you find the best Chinese food and I'm paying. So you you pick your favorite place. So we go and we sit down. We're having this wonderful dinner with some of these Chinese officials. And all of a sudden, Professor Joe opens up and he says, "I'm dying. I have a brain tumor and it's inoperable and I'm terminal." And he was scared to death. This is a man facing an impossible problem. He's at the end of his rope. We don't know what to do. We see no no way out of this. He had no hope in Jesus Christ. He had no hope in God's grace. He had no hope even in an afterlife. He the way it looked to him is I've got an incurable problem. There's no power to help me. And um when I die, that's it. It's over. He was hopeless.

And as he began to share that with me, I looked at him and said, 'You know, Professor Joe, my father's dying. Because at that time, my dad was dying of cancer at the same time. I said, but you know, my dad's lived the full life, but more important than that, he knows God. He's been a friend of God's for many, many years. He knows Jesus Christ. And my dad is not afraid to die. He's made his peace with God. And he's not he's not afraid to go to die. and he knows where he's going. When he dies, he has hope. And I explained to him that that kind of hope that you get and the p kind of power that you get to go through those kind of situations only comes from a relationship with God. You don't earn it. You don't work for it. You don't buy it. You don't deserve it. God's power in your life is simply a gift of his grace because God is good and God loves you and he made you. And God's gift to you is a free gift if you're just a friend of his son. And to explain this to him a little bit better, I told him a story of a friend of mine, this true story. I said, I had a friend uh dad who he took his son to the carnival for uh his son's birthday. And he allowed his son to choose three friends that they would party with. And this was going to be his birthday party. So he bought a large roll of tickets. And at every one of the uh carnival rides, uh he would give his son a free ticket and he would give his three guests, his three friends, a ticket. They'd ride that ride to go to the next ride, everybody gets a ticket. They ride that next ride, everybody gets a ticket. And this friend of mine said, "You know, Rick, on about the seventh ride, I looked down and as I was handing out tickets, I saw a fourth little hand." And I'd never seen this kid at all. I looked down this little kid and said, "Who are you?" The little boy said, "I'm your son's new friend." And your son promised that if I was his friend that his daddy, his father, would give me a free ticket. He said, "Rick, you think I gave that kid a ticket?" He said, "He was with us the rest of the afternoon."

And I looked at Professor Joe and I said, "Professor Joe, your heavenly father has a ticket for you to heaven. You can't earn it. You can't buy it. Certainly never deserve it. You'll never be good enough on your own to get to heaven because heaven's perfect and you're not. And neither am I. The only way you get this ticket to heaven, salvation, is by being a friend of the father's son. His name is Jesus Christ." And I looked up and this gentle man about in his 80s had tears coming down both sides of his cheek. And he looked up and he said to me in simple English, "Rick, I would like one of those tickets."

Now, I've been in China many, many times, and Chinese people are among the most polite people in the world. They are amazingly polite. I didn't know if he meant it. He was just kind of being nice to me. I never ever pressure anybody to make the most important decision of their life. You take the time, you need to make it because if you take the time and you're intellectually honest, you'll make the right decision. And I I said, "Well, you know what? Why don't we do this? Why don't we just set it aside for a second? Let's finish our meals." And at the end of this meal, if you still want to open your life to Jesus Christ, it would be my honor to lead you in a simple prayer to invite Christ in your life, the provost of the Harvard of China. Well, we get to the end of the meal. We've talked about a bunch of other stuff and and uh he brings it up again. He said, "Rick, I I would like one of those tickets." So there with a table of Chinese officials, we held hands together and I led him in a simple prayer to open his life to receive all that Jesus Christ did for him by dying on the cross and rising again. It's a prayer similar to the one I'm going to invite you to pray with me in just a second. And when he finished praying that prayer, he looked up and tears were coming down his cheeks again, but this time he's smiling.

Now again, I didn't know if he meant it or not. I don't ever judge anybody's motive. It's between them and God. But I gave him a Bible and some spiritual material to grow. And we've got a packet like this called Fresh Start with God. I'll give to you if you want to start your journey. Uh, and I gave him some material. Just get him started. And as we left, I thought, I'll never see that guy again. The next morning, I was preaching in the most famous church in China, Chongwenmen Church. Very famous church. About the size of the number of people here right now. And as I stood up to speak, who should walk in at the back door but the provost of the Harvard of China, Professor Joe. He walked to the front to the front row, turned around and said, "I am publicly proclaiming my faith in Christ." And the crowd went crazy because they knew who he was. 50 years of communist indoctrination, which the official policy is atheism. There is no God. So official policy of pro-communism is none of that filled the hole in his heart when the heat was on. When he was facing his own mortality and the folks, the fact is the mortality rate in the world is still 100%. Everybody's going to die. Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what you know is inevitable. That's called denial. But he gave his life to Christ and what was impossible became possible. By the way, his his cancer went into remission for about 10 more years and he began to uh basically be a missionary to other professors and I wrote him many many letters over over the next 10 years.

But here's the promise, and I want you to have this same promise. The promise of purpose and the promise of power. First Peter chapter 1. Second Peter chapter 1. "As you get to know Jesus better, he will give you through his great power everything you need for living a truly good life." Now, you say, "Well, Rick, I I don't have everything I need." Well, then you just need to get to know Jesus better. As you get to know Jesus better, he's the source of your purpose and he's the source of your power.

Now, let me quickly give you the third one. The third thing that I know for certain, not only is it God have a great purpose for your life and God has a great power to solve your problems, but here's the third one. God has a great place for me after I die. We learn that from the resurrection of Jesus. We learn that there is more to life than here and now. We learn that death is not the end. One day your heart is going to stop. That's going to be the end of your body, but that's not going to be the end of you. Oh, no, no, no. You were made to last forever. And God says, "I have proven that there's life after death by raising my own son." I think Jesus knows more about the afterlife than you do or I do because he's been there. And this gives us hope. Death is not the end. And in John 11, here's what Jesus said. "I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again." If you're going to come back to life after your death, it's going to be Jesus who does it. Nobody else is going to do it. It's going to be Jesus. He says, "I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life." How do I know that he's telling the truth? Because he did it. Nobody else did. It's one of the most attested to miracles in history. Jesus spent 40 days in Jerusalem after. He didn't just say, "Bye to your friends and go back to heaven." After he raised himself, he walked around, ate meals, talked to people, one time, trained 500 people, many, many eyewitness accounts over 40 days. And he says, "I am the one. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies, shall live again. And he gives he is given eternal life for believing in me and shall never perish." How do you get eternal life? Not by doing good, not by going to church, not by promised to be perfect, not by giving a whole lot of money to help the poor. What he says one thing, you believe that Jesus can raise you back from the dead, too. You trust him as your savior. He is the source of hope.

Now, let me just summarize this. You're never going to find ultimate hope in anything you can lose. If you want to have a hope that gets you through the toughest times of life, you must put your hope and put your trust in something that cannot be taken from you. If you put your hope in your bank account, you can lose your bank account. If you put your hope in your spouse, you can lose your spouse. If you put your hope in your health, you can lose your health. You can lose your mind. You can lo You must never put your hope in something that you could lose. If you put your hope in your good looks, you've already lost them. So that that ship sailed, friend. I'm sorry. If you put your hope in your job, it's going to let you down. If you put your hope in another person, they will disappoint you. Why? Because they're not God. You know, I when I used to do marriage counseling, I discovered that one of the biggest problems for marriage problems is we expect our spouses to meet needs in our life that only God could meet. Nobody could possibly meet all your emotional, physical, spiritual needs. And you can't meet anybody else's total physical, spiritual, emotional needs. Only God can do that. And if you expect your spouse to meet all your needs, you're treating them like God. It's not only unfair to them, it's going to be frustrating and disappointing to you 'cause it's not going to happen. You have to put your hope in something or someone that can never be taken away from you. And there's only one thing because you can lose everything else in life and that is your relationship to God. Your relationship to God.

What I'm saying this Easter is that hope is not a principle. Hope is not a product. Hope is not a program. Hope is not a pill. I get this pill then I'll have all the hope I need. Hope is a person and there's only one person that you can put that hope in. Jesus Christ. He is the hope of the world. That's why it's split in the AD and BC. That's why your birthday is dated according to this event. You need to get to know Jesus. And since Jesus raised himself from the dead, we know that there's life after death. Here's what we have. Look at the next verse. 1 Peter 1. "Now, we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. So, we know death's not the end. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. That's you who've trusted in him. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God in his mighty power will protect you until you receive this salvation because you are trusting him."

What does that verse say? Well, let me summarize it all in this. Once you've trusted God for salvation, it is not your job to keep yourself saved. It's the Savior's job to keep you saved. It says he will protect you. He will make sure you get to heaven. He will guard what you've given to him. When my kids were little, Kay and I took them on vacation to the Grand Canyon. And my two youngest, uh, the boys, Josh and Matthew, immediately jumped out of the car, ran right up to the edge like this. I'm going, "That ain't going to happen." So, I went out and I grabbed their hands and they grabbed mine. They were fine. They put their hand in my hands. We started walking down the path, and they started squirming and started trying to say, you know, I I don't want to hold on to daddy anymore. and they didn't want to hold on to my hand, but I was not going to let go of theirs because I am a loving father. When you come to Jesus and you go, God, I'm giving you my whole life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's not clean up your life and then come to Jesus. It's like, God, here's my greasy hands, my dirty hands, my filthy hands. God, just all the mess in my life. I put my hand in your hand. And God grabs your hand. You put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water. And he grabs your hand. And then as life goes on, there are going to be some moments that you don't want to hold on to God's hand. God, I'm going to a party tonight with a bunch of unbelievers. I I'd like to not be a believer for about an hour, okay? And and I like to pull. And you may want to let go of God's hand, but he's not letting go of yours. Once you have been saved, he will keep you saved. That's the hope you have. A lot of people think, "I don't want to give my life to God because what happens if I start on it and then I kind of mess up and screw up and fail and then I'll feel really stupid and then I lose my salvation." No, you won't. That's not what the Bible says. It is safe, secure. It's paid for. It's done. It's beyond the reach of change and decay. God in his mighty power will keep you saved. It's not your power. He doesn't save him. He didn't. He saves you. He keeps you saved. You don't save yourself.

So, what am I saying? That the Bible tells us because of the resurrection, we have hope because there's more to the story than just here and now. And we have hope because God protects your salvation and keeps it and you can't lose it. And that causes you to face the most difficult times in life with a whole new confidence. As a pastor, I have stood at I couldn't count the number of gravesites that I've stood at in 40 years. I couldn't count the number of funerals that I've done. And so I'm a pretty good expert at knowing the difference between people who have hope and people who don't because you can see it in their eyes. I have been at the funerals of people when nobody in the family knows God. Nobody in the family has the hope of the resurrection. Nobody in the family knows the hope of heaven. And for them, they're losing this person. They're never going to see him again. And it's over. That's it. It's over. And the terror in their eyes is something you don't want to see. I've seen it over and over and over. And I compare that to people who know the Lord that when they use lose a loved one, who knows the Lord, they grieve, but they're not grieving for them because they know where they're going. They're grieving for themselves because they're going to miss them. And it's a whole different kind of grief. It's a grieving with hope.

You know, the older I get, uh, and the more of my family that's in heaven, and the more of my friends that are in heaven, some great, great saints who've been in this church for over 30 years, they're going on. The more of my friends and family on the other side, the more heaven becomes attractive to me. I have to be honest with you, when I was a young man, heaven didn't seem very attractive to me in the first place. No picture of it on earth is correct. I mean, the picture of heaven on earth right now that you hear, there's heaven. It's all white. There's no color in heaven. There's fog up to your feet. You walk around, everybody's in a white robe with wings playing a harp. That would be hell if that's heaven. No, thanks God. I just soon have my sunrises, sunsets, and a cool surf. That's not heaven. You can't even understand what heaven's going to be like. It's so cool. Even in a world that's broken, filled with suffering, sorrow, sadness, sickness, it's still a pretty cool place. Most of you know that four years ago, the week after Easter, our family lost the youngest member. My youngest son, Matthew, after a lifelong battle with mental illness, died. And it was the worst day of my life and his brother and sister's life and his mom's life and everybody else in our family who loved him. Many times over the last four years, I've been asked, "H how did you handle that? How did you handle the death of a son who'd struggled his entire life with mental illness?" I want you to listen very carefully because you're going to have loss in your life. I guarantee it. There is no life without loss. There is no loss without pain. There is no pain without grief. You're going to go through this in life. So, somebody who loves you as your pastor, as your spiritual coach, that's my job to help you get get ready for this kind of stuff. Listen carefully. The way you live with hope in the middle of pain is to enlarge your perspective, to change your viewpoint, to get your eyes off of what's happening right here and now. Shift your perspective, change your focus, and begin to live in light of eternity.

As I said, your life on earth is short. You get maybe a hundred years. That's not very long compared to the trillions of years you'll spend in eternity. And so you get your eyes off the here and now and you get it on eternity and you see the hope that's there. Here's what the Bible says. Look on the screen. "So we don't focus on the troubles we see right now. Instead, we look forward to what we don't see yet. For the troubles that we see now are temporary. But the joys that will come to last will last forever." I mean even if you had a chronic problem your entire life, it's only a hundred years or 80 or 70, nothing compared to thousands, tens of thousands, millions, and trillions of years in eternity. And the truth is what comforts me when I think about the death of my son is not thinking about the happy moments in his past, but thinking about the holy moments he's having right now. That comforts me because my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And because I know where he is and if he was able to talk to me, and he can't, but if he was, he'd say, "Dad, what are you worried about? This place is so cool. It's so great. It's far better than any of the sermons you preached about it. And I can't wait for you to get here." That is my hope.

We live in a society today, friends, that is filled with hopelessness. We we are in an epidemic of hopeless hopelessness. I think it's one of the reasons why uh, you know, Purpose Driven Life was such a big seller because there was no people are lacking hope and they're looking for hope and they they want to know where it is. And where is it? It's in God's word. It is in God's word. Look at this next verse. People want to know about heaven. "No eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no mind has ever imagined the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love him." He has a purpose for your life right now. He has a power to help you solve the problems tomorrow. And he has a place for you after you die. The reason why you can't explain heaven is because your brain power isn't big enough to handle it. It would be like an ant trying to understand the internet. We live in a 3D world. But there are dimensions that we don't even know about. And if God built this world and it's all broken now from sin, how much cooler is heaven going to be?

You say, "Well, how do I get this? How do I get a new purpose in my life, God's purpose? How do I get a greater power in my life? And how do I get a greater place which becomes my ultimate hope that even when I'm going through tough going, this is not the end of the story. I have read the last chapter of the book. We win. It doesn't always look good, but I've read the last chapter. We win." Sometimes you're going through a tough time in your life and really what you're feeling is the world is coming to an end and that's the way you feel. The world is coming to an end. No, a season may be coming to an end. A moment in your life may be coming to an end, but it's not the end of the world. Why? Because when the world ends, Jesus is coming back. And that's our hope.

Let's bow our heads. Because of the resurrection, we know for certain that God has a great purpose for your life, has a greater power for your problems, and has a wonderful place for you after you die. How do you get these benefits? "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." That's what the Bible says. So, I want the honor and the privilege of leading you in a very simple prayer much like Professor Joe prayed in Beijing. It doesn't matter what your background is. You may be Buddhist or Muslim or Mormon or Methodist or Baptist or Buddhist or atheist or Catholic or doesn't matter what background you are. Jesus isn't interested in your religion. He's interested in you having a relationship with God and you just confess it to God. So why don't you pray these prayers? So I I'll just say a little prayer and you it doesn't even matter the words you say. It's that you be humble. If you're humble before God and say, "God, I need you." And that's it.

So just say, "Dear God," say that in your mind. "Dear God, I do not want to go through life not knowing my purpose. Thank you that my life is not an accident. Thank you that you planned me whether my parents did or not and that you've loved me every moment of my life. And so today, as much as I know how, I want to open my life to Jesus Christ who died on the cross for me and rose again so that I could have hope. Jesus Christ. I want to know God's purpose for my life and I want to spend the rest of my life learning it and fulfilling it in Jesus Christ. Amen."

"I I want to put my trust in your power. I want to plug in starting today. I want to stop living on my own power and start living by your power. I know that you're greater than any problem I face. And Jesus Christ, I ask you to reserve a place for me in your heaven, in your home. I want to learn to love you and to know you, to follow you. Thank you for loving me even before I knew you. Thank you for dying for me before I even was created. But you knew I would be. And so I humbly ask you to accept me into your family that I may experience all the benefits of what you did 2,000 years ago. And I pray this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen."