Podcast: S3 E49 Already and Not Yet Ep. 5
This week on the Islands Christian Church Podcast, we continue our series Already & Not Yet. Pastor Stephen Saxton shares a message from Colossians 1:24–29, reminding us that Christ living in us is the true hope of glory and the anchor for our faith today.
📖 Scripture Reference: Colossians 1:24–29
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🎧 About this episode:
Series: Already & Not Yet
Speaker: Pastor Stephen Saxton
Message Title: Christ in You, the Hope of Glory
Date: August 24, 2025
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We’re grateful you’re listening, and we look forward to sharing another message with you next week!
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00;00;04;25 - 00;00;11;12
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast. Subscribe to hear a new episode every week. Thanks for joining us.
00;00;11;29 - 00;00;31;02
Speaker 3
So today we are going to take a few minutes and wrap up this series. We've been in court already and not yet. And this series has been about. This whole idea that is prevalent in the Bible of the gospel and the truth of Christianity is already a reality and already true, and also not yet completely true.
00;00;31;03 - 00;00;48;13
Speaker 3
You know, you've picked up on this through this series, right? And, we've seen in this conversation that Christ has, already made us into new creations. If anyone is in Christ, new creation has come, or if any man is, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. And so we are already a new creation.
00;00;48;13 - 00;01;14;22
Speaker 3
But we wait for the full and complete new creation to come to all of the earth. So it's already true and not yet. That was week one. We've remembered through, a teaching on communion that Jesus has already given us his body and his blood so that, we are connected to the Heavenly Father. Even as we wait for a final banquet where he will drink of the cup again with us, there's a coming party in the future.
00;01;14;22 - 00;01;38;28
Speaker 3
We talked about that, talked about that in week two. We have prayed with Jesus, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, knowing that God's reign has already broken into our world through Christ, even as we wait for the day when his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. That was, that was last week.
00;01;39;01 - 00;02;01;05
Speaker 3
And so this week, as we're wrapping up the series, we want to turn to Colossians and see how hope, this idea of hope is our anchor in the tension of the already and the not yet. So all of us are living in the already true, but not yet completely true thing of Christianity. Everybody's living in that area in that space of life right now.
00;02;01;12 - 00;02;25;05
Speaker 3
While it is already true that God, is, has conquered the world, a new creation is coming. It is not yet fully experienced by us. And so today we want to talk about what do we do with that tension of of living in the real world, of struggling with the pain and the heartache of life? How do we get through this life knowing that there is some truth, beautiful truth of the gospel, that I'm saved and I'm connected to God and I am in right relationship with my Heavenly Father.
00;02;25;09 - 00;02;43;29
Speaker 3
But it's also true that I'm living in a world that's broken and painful and full of heartache, and that I myself, and subject to that destruction. I'm subject to that, to that pain of the world. What do we do in the in-between? How do we get through the already and the not yet? So I want to start with one little verse and, Colossians chapter one, verse 27.
00;02;44;03 - 00;03;00;15
Speaker 3
And I can't really give you a lot of context on this, because I'm going to try to preach a shorter sermon, which, to be frank with you, preaching shorter sermons are always harder than just preaching. All right. It's always harder. So. Right. John, is that true? Always hard to preach short. So in Colossians chapter one, verse 27, we're going to focus on one little idea here.
00;03;00;15 - 00;03;26;02
Speaker 3
And then we're going to jump in Colossians chapter three. So here we go. Chapter one, verse 27. Paul writing to a church in Colossae, remember, this is a letter. The Bible is not some mystery words. It's literally correspondence from a man being inspired by the Holy Spirit to help Christians. How to be Christians, chapter one, verse 27. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is.
00;03;26;02 - 00;03;44;29
Speaker 3
And what is the mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And that's really all I want you to grab, is that last little clause for this morning, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So what is the hope of glory? Everybody say Christ in me. Ready? One, two, three Christ in me. That is the hope of glory.
00;03;45;01 - 00;04;01;29
Speaker 3
And what is what is like hope of glory, I mean, well, the hope of glory is the future, the promise. It is both the present as well, right? It's like I am connected to God. I'm experiencing the glory of God in my life. But I also have this promise of the future that it will all one day be fully experienced and fully exposed.
00;04;02;01 - 00;04;21;05
Speaker 3
And so what gives me that hope? What? What gives me the confidence that one day the future I will experience glory and all things will be put to right? What gives me that confidence? Christ in me. Not me doing well, not me going to church. Not me giving money away. Not me being morally better than others and looking down my nose at them.
00;04;21;05 - 00;04;41;25
Speaker 3
None of that. What gives me hope is Christ in me. That's it, that's that's it. That's the whole thing. Now, what I want to do now is jump into a Colossians, chapter three, verses one through four. And I want us to look at how hope, how hope works, how hope works for those of us who are believers.
00;04;41;25 - 00;04;57;14
Speaker 3
If you're not a Christian today and you don't buy and doing all this stuff, that's okay. I'm hoping that what you'll hear, what I what I hope you will hear, is that this is an anchor for us. This idea of hope is an anchor for us. So Colossians chapter three, verses one through four, how does hope work for us?
00;04;57;14 - 00;05;22;00
Speaker 3
How does hope work for us? Here we go. Since then, you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.
00;05;22;03 - 00;05;42;08
Speaker 3
So here's three ideas from this text I want to share with you. Right? Hope comes from our connection to Jesus. Hope comes from our connection to Jesus. Number one. Number two, hope is experienced by our focus. In other words, where we focus and how we focus changes how we experience hope. Hope is experienced by our focus. And number three, hope is sure.
00;05;42;12 - 00;06;07;01
Speaker 3
Hope is sure. So number one, hope comes from our connection to Jesus. So the first thing Paul says here is since then you have been raised with Christ. You have been raised. So he is drawing this very clear understanding that we are connected to Jesus, that if there is any hope in our lives, it's because we are in relationship and in connection with Jesus Christ.
00;06;07;03 - 00;06;31;14
Speaker 3
That is how we have hope in the waiting of the already in the. Not yet to say that differently is this way. I must have faith that Jesus is real, that Jesus is engaged with me personally, that Jesus loves me, that Jesus leads me, that Jesus guides me, that Jesus is for me. I must have faith in this whole story about Jesus is an actual truth and a reality, and that it's he's meant for me personally.
00;06;31;16 - 00;06;54;00
Speaker 3
I met with someone just recently who has recently become a Christian, and they said that they struggled for a long time just to believe in a personal God, and they prayed to the universe, and they prayed to crystals, and they did all these other new things. And it took a long time for them to get to a point where now they are a Christian and they believe in a personal Jesus, a personal Savior, right?
00;06;54;00 - 00;07;11;25
Speaker 3
That Jesus, that their faith is real. It was a gift of God to them, and they would be the first to tell you that. They would say, as she said to me, everything I was always looking for was found in Jesus. I could never imagine my life without him. Though Jesus is indeed inside of you and you are in him.
00;07;11;27 - 00;07;30;04
Speaker 3
John chapter 14, verse 20 Jesus said this on that day you will realize that I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Now I like it when I read that passage of scripture to people. I like to use the analogy of a big envelope, a medium envelope, and a small envelope. You anybody ever seen this before?
00;07;30;07 - 00;07;46;01
Speaker 3
So the big envelope is the Heavenly Father, the medium envelope is Jesus, and the small little envelope is you. So we take the small envelope and we put it in the medium envelope. Then we put the medium envelope inside the big envelope. All right. So what that means is where am I at? Well I'm inside the medium envelope, which is Jesus.
00;07;46;01 - 00;08;06;23
Speaker 3
And where is the medium envelope? It's inside the large envelope, which is who? The father. So where am I, then? I'm in the father. And so what? What the John is saying, what Jesus is saying in John 14 is that we are intimately connected to Jesus. And if you're going to have hope in the in-between, if you're going to live with hope, you have to have faith in this.
00;08;06;23 - 00;08;32;11
Speaker 3
You have to believe in this. And this is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. By coming to Christ and placing your faith in him, you are connected to him. But do you have enough faith to believe that? Do you have enough faith to believe that? That faith is the beginning of our hope? When Paul says, you have been raised with Christ, he is in a very real sense, I think, referring to Romans chapter six and a reference to baptism.
00;08;32;13 - 00;08;51;13
Speaker 3
All right. Because he uses very similar language in Romans chapter six. And what I think Paul is drawing our minds to is our baptism. Because baptism is a picture of resurrection. It's a picture of you being joined to Jesus Christ and being connected to Him in His resurrection, so that his resurrection becomes your resurrection. This is what Romans six teaches.
00;08;51;13 - 00;09;07;23
Speaker 3
And this is what I think Paul's alluding to here in Colossians. Do you remember a few weeks back when Ernie here was Ernie was here preaching, and he talked about baptism, and he said, your baptism is a gift from God for you to be able to look back on as a memory of your connection to Jesus Christ. You guys remember this?
00;09;07;23 - 00;09;22;08
Speaker 3
I was sitting back there. It was great. I was just drinking my coffee like all of you. And I was like, this going to church thing is pretty nice, you know what I mean? Like, I like this. Give me a few more weeks like this. Somebody else to preach. I just sit here and listen. If I just remember sitting there, I was drinking my coffee and I was like, oh, that is beautiful, you know?
00;09;22;08 - 00;09;44;08
Speaker 3
And because here's the thing, and I tell people this all the time about baptism, your baptism created a memory for you. And it's a it's a life memory. It's locked in. And I think in many ways when when Paul says, hey, you, you've been connected to Jesus, you've been resurrected with Jesus. He's drawing reference to our baptism. We've been raised with him.
00;09;44;11 - 00;10;04;07
Speaker 3
So baptism is a resource to inspire our faith. There's also things that grow our faith. It I mean, obviously it would take a whole nother sermon, but I'll just say it in a summed up kind of way. You know, spending time in the Scripture, spending time in the Bible will grow your faith. I had this friend I was just telling you about who became a Christian.
00;10;04;09 - 00;10;23;29
Speaker 3
I'm telling you, a year ago she was not a believer. She was opposed to this whole story of Christianity. And she, told me that her husband would drag her to church here, and he would promise her that if she came to church with him, he would buy her breakfast. After they come to the first service. And and he she said, if you buy me breakfast, I will go.
00;10;23;29 - 00;10;41;12
Speaker 3
And so every Sunday he would bring her to church, and then he would take her out and buy our breakfast. I mean, that's pretty outstanding, right? Just like they did that a lot. And she said that, you know, at that breakfast, she would argue about me and complain about me and like, talk about how stupid I was and so on, so forth, which even believers do that too as well.
00;10;41;13 - 00;11;05;13
Speaker 3
But that's okay. Even some in my own house. But anyway, but she said that I kept saying things like, hey, just read your Bible, just try to read your Bible, just read your Bible. And she said that she decided to start reading the Bible and she's like, not because, like, I thought I would find God or find Jesus, but because I was going to show you and my husband this whole Bible thing was stupid.
00;11;05;16 - 00;11;26;18
Speaker 3
She. Because then I started reading the Bible and I think she started like in Genesis. Okay, right. Most of us at our church, we were like, no, don't do that. But guess what? She's a few chapters into Genesis and she's like, oh, this is all real. She met Jesus in Genesis.
00;11;26;20 - 00;11;51;20
Speaker 3
Like, we don't like I'm always something. Read John, read John re John. God's like neighbor. I use Genesis. The Bible, the Bible has this way of of of waking you up. God uses it to draw you out of death. It's it's a it's it's the power of the spirit. And so if you want your faith to grow, just try reading the Bible.
00;11;51;23 - 00;12;11;01
Speaker 3
So if you want to live with hope, and hope is found in faith in Jesus, that's the connection. Don't try. Just try reading the Bible. Attend worship services regularly. Just come to worship and you know, serve at that local church. Serve here. Get involved. If you don't want to serve here, then serve somewhere in your community. Serve, serve somehow, but serve in the name of Jesus.
00;12;11;01 - 00;12;25;26
Speaker 3
Now that's a don't. I don't just serve like the whole I'm just out here doing some good things for people like serve in the name of Jesus and let people know you're serving in the name of Jesus. Like, be an ambassador for Christ when you're serving. So if you want to serve in the community, that's great, but serve in the name of Christ, okay?
00;12;25;27 - 00;12;45;15
Speaker 3
And serve organizations that are serving in the name of Christ. This church here is serving in the name of Christ. We serve in the name of the resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So you could serve here. And when you serve, you're aligning your life with the actions of Jesus. And then your faith is going to grow. So at ten, worship services serve, serve others.
00;12;45;18 - 00;13;22;27
Speaker 3
Read your Bible. These are all things that will cause your faith to grow. And as your faith grows, your confidence in your connection with Jesus grows. And then hope begins to spring forth. So that's number one. Hope comes from connection to Jesus. Number two, hope is experienced by our focus. Look at the the next verses, verses two and verses three, I'm sorry, into verse one and then verse two into verse one says, so since you've been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and set your minds on things above and not on earthly things.
00;13;22;29 - 00;13;55;22
Speaker 3
So when we are connected to Christ because we're raised with him, we're united. To him we're. I like to use the language of welded. We're welded to Christ. We've been we've been joined to him in such a way that we are one. We are inseparable. That happens through our faith. So Paul says, because we're connected to Christ, then our hearts and minds, the entire thinking and the internal feeling and the eternal stuff going on inside here, it begins to shift and begin to change.
00;13;55;25 - 00;14;15;28
Speaker 3
And and what does it how does it change? Well, it begins to be focused on things that are above, and it uses the language above. And like, that's kind of weird for us, because when we think about above, like we had this whole hang up in our culture of like it goes back to, I don't know when somebody smarter me can tell me, but the idea of heaven, you know, is like way off in the far reaches and God's way out there in heaven.
00;14;16;03 - 00;14;32;10
Speaker 3
And that's and I've taught you this before, that the best way to understand heaven is that God has a space, and man has a space, and God's space is called heaven, and man's space is called earth. And those spaces are just they're just here all the time, right? They're just like, God is God. Space is here. And this is hard for us to wrap our head around.
00;14;32;15 - 00;14;52;02
Speaker 3
So when Paul says, focus your mind on things above, it's not so much like focus on outer space out there with God is. It's more like, hey, focus on the things that God cares about. Focus on the stuff that that God is passionate about. In other words, align your life with the concerns and the ideas of God so that you do rise above the fray of this life.
00;14;52;04 - 00;15;08;28
Speaker 3
Is your life ever frayed? My life is frayed sometimes. If and so what he's saying is, I hate to rise above that fray. You set your heart and your mind on the things of God. Then this is what Paul knows. I remember what I'm teaching you here with this text in this verse, is that hope is experienced by our focus.
00;15;08;28 - 00;15;29;15
Speaker 3
Because I can say, you have hope. I can say, can't you have hope through faith in Jesus? But then you might not experience it. And what I'm trying to show you is how to make that practical. How can you actually live with hope? How can you actually experience it? And this is what Paul saying. Paul knows that when we focus on the things of God in this life, we will actually begin to experience hope in this life.
00;15;29;17 - 00;15;50;24
Speaker 3
It's by our it's by moving our heart and our mind to the things of God that we experience. Hope. Hope is experienced by focus. You remember in verse, in chapter one, verse 27, we read at the beginning of our time together it says that Christ in you is the hope of glory. Christ in you is the hope of glory.
00;15;50;27 - 00;16;12;01
Speaker 3
If you are a Christian and you say you believe in Jesus, and then you say, you tell me why. I don't really have a lot of hope for life. I might ask you, well, how much do you spend thinking about and ruminating on and reflecting on Jesus? And you say to me, I really anything? I mean, I go to church, we go to church 1.6 times a month.
00;16;12;01 - 00;16;32;19
Speaker 3
And, you know, that's I kind of think about Jesus. Then if if you don't have a focus on the things of God, then we should not expect a hope to bubble up and to come forth and spring forth inside of our lives. This is what I think this text is teaching, that it's as that hope of glory. That hope of glory comes through our connection to Christ.
00;16;32;22 - 00;17;03;04
Speaker 3
But it's experience by us having a focus on the things of God simply said, this way, if you take notes, our hope becomes real. With the right focus in our lives, our hope becomes real. It's not just religious jargon. It's not just like good preacher talk. It's real. Because of our focus. And if you grew up in church, maybe no one told him it's a great old him.
00;17;03;07 - 00;17;11;16
Speaker 3
If you didn't grow up in church, that's okay. If you've heard this, turn your gas on. I was about to saying that you.
00;17;11;18 - 00;17;46;16
Speaker 3
It's okay. I'm a great singer, right? Mallory? She said, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look, fool. In his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. It's very simple. Super simple. There's a lot of distraction. There's a lot of things going on in our lives that keep us from just living this simple truth out.
00;17;46;19 - 00;18;13;28
Speaker 3
But hope is found by turning our eyes toward Jesus and looking full in his wonderful face. I say about Jesus on the regular talking to people things like this. And when I say this, it makes men feel uncomfortable. So if you're a man here today, this is going to make you feel uncomfortable. I don't care, I will say about Jesus this you know, for me, Jesus is just beautiful.
00;18;14;00 - 00;18;39;11
Speaker 3
He's beautiful. I get emotional saying it right now on the stage. It's beautiful. And if you're a man and you're like, kind of uncertain about how to align all this Jesus stuff and Christianity stuff, you're like, I knew that dude was weird, but if you get it and you're a man here today, you could say, Amen, brother. Like Jesus is beautiful.
00;18;39;13 - 00;19;02;17
Speaker 3
It's it's. And when I say that out loud and this is the this is such a cool thing as the preacher right now, as I'm saying those words, Jesus is beautiful. He draws me to himself when I'm saying those things. Hope is springing forth in me in this very moment. Like I'm not just a super emotional dude. Like, this is literally Hope's.
00;19;02;17 - 00;19;30;03
Speaker 3
I can sense hope springing up in me as I reflect on Jesus. Now the opposite is true. If it's true that if I turn my eyes towards Jesus, the world grows dim and the hope grows springs forth. The opposite is true as well. That if my heart and my mind are all material possessions, wealth, career, political parties, anything else that gives me my self self-regard or my worth or my identity, then what will happen to my hope?
00;19;30;05 - 00;19;53;12
Speaker 3
My hope will be diminished. It will be limited. So our hope comes from our connection with Jesus. Number one, our hope is experienced by focusing on the things of God. And lastly, number three, our hope is sure. Now we tend to use the word hope in English. Today, more like the word wish. You guys notice that we tend to use the word hope.
00;19;53;12 - 00;20;20;05
Speaker 3
Like wish like, I hope she comes home next week. I hope we can go on that vacation. What? When we use the word in English, we are typically meaning wish. I wish this will happen, but that is not how the word is used in the Bible and specifically in Colossians chapter one verse 27, the spirit of the word hope there and throughout the New Testament writings is a word that means this a confident expectation of eternal salvation.
00;20;20;08 - 00;20;40;16
Speaker 3
That's how the New Testament writers are using that word, a confident expectation of eternal salvation. We tend to say, I hope this happens, but we mean I wish this will happen. Well, in the Bible, when it talks about hope, is talking about something that will confidently happen. And I see that right here in this text in verses three and four of chapter three.
00;20;40;16 - 00;21;02;12
Speaker 3
Listen to this again. I want to reread it to you. Hope is not a wish. Hope it is a confident expectation. Well, Stephen, how is it a confident expectation? Verses three and four listen, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
00;21;02;15 - 00;21;28;27
Speaker 3
Now leave these verses up for a second. Verse three we have verse three up there. Put verse three up there, verse three, the first three words of that verse say what for you died, for you died. But then it says, your life is now hidden with Christ. If you're new to the Bible, you're like, this is why I don't read the Bible, bro.
00;21;29;00 - 00;21;46;15
Speaker 3
This is right. This is this right here is. This is why I can't do this. Like for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ. How is that? How are those two things true at the same time? How did I die? And then I also have a life is hidden with Christ. Well, this is a great example of the already not yet truth of the gospel.
00;21;46;17 - 00;22;09;10
Speaker 3
So look at the verse I have literally given up my life. I have, I have surrendered to Christ. I've given up my life to Christ, and for all intents and purposes, I am dead. Meaning I've surrendered control of my life. I've surrendered, you know, being my own king or being in charge of my own dominion, I've laid all that down.
00;22;09;10 - 00;22;28;06
Speaker 3
And so, for all intents and purposes, I'm not in charge of me. Therefore I'm dead. And what did I do with my life is I gave it over to Jesus Christ. I said, hey, I don't want to be in charge of me anymore. I don't think I'm good at this. Let me give you my life here. You can have my life and follow me.
00;22;28;08 - 00;22;54;29
Speaker 3
That was a great exchange. That was a great deal. You might think. Well, that doesn't sound like a great deal. No, it's a great deal because I don't actually lose my life. Jesus says in the Gospels that I gain my I actually gain my life. I don't actually lose my life. I just relocated from something I possess to something Jesus possesses.
00;22;55;01 - 00;23;19;12
Speaker 3
So look at verse four. He is. He has my life and he's keeping it, keeping my life hidden or out of sight. For now. In other words, I don't even fully understand what or who I will be one day. But I am confident of this. I will never die, that my future is secure because my life is safely kept by Jesus.
00;23;19;14 - 00;23;31;22
Speaker 3
Then verse four says this right here when Christ, who is your life, don't just read over that.
00;23;31;24 - 00;24;01;27
Speaker 3
When Christ, who is your life, you are so united to Jesus, so interwoven with him and welded to him, that your life and his life are inseparable. It's inseparable that one day this Christ will appear. There will be a second coming in the life which Christ has been keeping safe for you. The life that you don't even fully understand.
00;24;02;00 - 00;24;22;02
Speaker 3
You don't even know what your future's completely going to be like. But that life he's been keeping safe for you will be coming with him. He will have it in his possession because he's been keeping your life, your eternal life, safe for you all this time, waiting for the day when he would come to present it back to you.
00;24;22;04 - 00;24;49;08
Speaker 3
So my hope for an eternal life is not a wish or wishful thinking. My hope for eternal life is secured in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has taken my life. So the Bible says that Jesus died once and he will not die again. Okay, so Jesus is eternal. He lives forever. So if Jesus lives forever and I don't live forever, but I give him my life and I say, Jesus here, I want you to be.
00;24;49;09 - 00;25;05;22
Speaker 3
I want you to take my life. Now you have possession of my life. And if Jesus lives forever and Jesus has my life, then one plus one equals two. If Jesus lives forever and Jesus has my life, then guess who else lives forever? Me.
00;25;05;24 - 00;25;25;20
Speaker 3
Is it because I'm a good person? No, because I'm not a good person. You're like, yeah, you are. No, not follow me around a week. Talk to my mama. My mom. Be like that boy that great.
00;25;25;22 - 00;25;53;10
Speaker 3
Is it because I'm a preacher? Well, why is my hope secure? Why is it sure? Because Christ possesses my life. He keeps it safe. So your hope is sure. So our hope is found by connect being connected to Jesus. It comes from our connection to Jesus. Our hope is experienced by our focus on things above. We experience it.
00;25;53;12 - 00;26;19;04
Speaker 3
And then lastly, our hope is sure. So what is my what is your life look like in the already and not yet? It is a life of growing faith in your Savior, a life that is increasingly focused on the things of God and the things of heaven and not the things of earth. That's what it looks like. Increasingly growing in faith and increasingly growing in focus.
00;26;19;07 - 00;26;25;27
Speaker 3
Nobody's got this down perfectly. Nobody's got their mind on Jesus all the time.
00;26;26;00 - 00;26;32;27
Speaker 3
But it's increasing. It's increasing.
00;26;32;29 - 00;26;58;29
Speaker 3
Every single act of forgiveness towards someone who has hurt you is an act that embodies the hope that you've been given. When you forgive someone, you can only forgive them because you know this life is not the only life we're going to get. You have hope for another one. Every act of service, whether it's here at islands or at your workplace or in community, is an act that reminds you that your hope is sure.
00;26;59;01 - 00;27;23;23
Speaker 3
Every sacrifice you make for others, whether it's financial or your time, is an act of resistance against a world that says there is no hope. Your sacrifice is announcing that no, indeed there is hope. And my hope is sure, because my hope is in Christ. Your hope is secured in the King who sacrificed for himself for you, who will one day return improved.
00;27;23;23 - 00;27;55;11
Speaker 3
That his word is sure that your eternity will be firmly in his hands, kept safe for that day. So every active forgiveness, every moment of service, every sacrifice for others is a small, tiny declaration that hope is in this world. Hope is in this world, in the in-between of the already and the not yet. Hope is in this world, and hope is in our own hearts.
00;27;55;14 - 00;28;30;27
Speaker 3
Every one of these acts of obedience to God, or an announcement that your life is anchored in Christ, the hope of glory. So therefore, my brothers and sisters, if you have a faith in this Christ, this King who possesses your life, who promises it to bring it to you for all eternity, if you have faith in this king, then wait, wait but wait with hope.
00;28;30;29 - 00;28;40;19
Speaker 3
Let's stand together. Let me pray for us.
00;28;40;22 - 00;28;49;26
Speaker 3
Father. I'm honored to be able to be the one who can stand in front of these amazing saints.
00;28;49;29 - 00;29;20;21
Speaker 3
These men and women who have surrendered their life to your son Jesus. And the ones who have, who are going to. I'm thankful that, I'm thankful for the young in this room and the old in this room. I'm thankful for everyone whose ears are attentive to the gospel. We pray that we would be men and women who grow in our faith, who focus on the things of heaven and live with hope.
00;29;20;23 - 00;29;46;26
Speaker 3
Give us confidence, God in the already and the not yet. And bless this church. Give us some more stories of conversion and people coming to know your son Jesus. Only you can do that work. Call us to be obedient to whatever it is you would have us do. We trust you always in Christ's name. Amen.
00;29;48;02 - 00;30;02;17
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to hear a new episode every week. You can also worship with us in person in Savannah, Georgia or watch our live stream on Facebook and YouTube every Sunday at 10 a.m.. Have a great week!
00;49;38;22 - 00;49;53;14
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe! So you hear a new episode every week. You can also worship with us in person in Savannah, Georgia or watch our live stream on Facebook and YouTube every Sunday at 915. Have a great week!
01;14;04;12 - 01;14;19;04
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe! So you hear a new episode every week. You can also worship with us in person in Savannah, Georgia or watch our live stream on Facebook and YouTube every Sunday at 915. Have a great week!