1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If you have a Bible with you, you wanna have that handy. I know I've been printing all the scripture in the bulletin, but we'll be popping around in the scriptures a bit this morning. So 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I'm gonna go ahead and read the whole chapter again, but we're focusing our attention in particular this morning on verse 13, on faith, hope, and love. Hear God's holy word. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and I deliver myself up, I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. Let's pray. Father, this portion of your Holy Word is wonderful and rich, and we have been blessed by slowing down and taking time to consider it and meditate upon it and dwell in it over these past several weeks. We pray that as we come to the end of this chapter that you would write these words on our hearts by your Holy Spirit in a very powerful way, a way that is transformative, a way that makes us more like Jesus as we are conformed more to his image in ever increasing and growing in faith, hope, and love. This is the work that you alone can do in our hearts, and so we look to you to do it, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, you may be seated. If someone were to come up to you and ask you, what does a real Christian look like? Or how can you tell if someone is a true Christian? How would you respond? I mean, you might say, well, no one can know for sure if someone is a true Christian or a real Christian or not, because only God knows the heart, right? Man looks on outward appearances. The Lord looks on the heart. We could say that. There are certain marks, aren't there? There are certain things we look at and we see, and when we see them, we just know. Yesterday, a great Christian man was laid to rest, and his life was celebrated. He was a man that I had the privilege of getting to know for just a couple of years when I was in Georgia. His name is Jimmy Fields, and Jimmy was the head football coach at Whitfield Academy, the school where I worked, and he was also a middle school Bible teacher. He also helped coach middle school basketball, and you don't know Jimmy, didn't know Jimmy, but some of you have seen his wife, because if you've seen the Christian film, Facing the Giants, that football movie, the football coach's wife is played by Shannon Fields, and she was, the football coach's wife. Shannon's been in some other films as well. So I remember that being one of the first, you know, one of my first weeks on campus, sort of meeting people, getting to know people. And I was being introduced and I looked at her like, you know, that look that I'm sure she's gotten a hundred times, like, you look familiar. And she said, if you've seen the movie Facing the Giants, that's why I look familiar to you. they typecast me as the football coach's wife, and I said, oh, I guess it was a role you were well-prepared for. But Shannon's a very strong Christian woman, and her husband, Jimmy, was just a remarkable guy. He's a guy that, if you spent five minutes with him, you knew that he loved Jesus, and you knew that the most important thing in his mind and heart was that you loved Jesus, too. And that was really the heartbeat of the man. And faith, hope, and love very much evident throughout his life. He came down with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and deteriorated very quickly over the past six months, and went home to be with the Lord last week. But, you know, you meet certain people and they just, they have faith. They have such strong faith. I mean, with his last words that he was able to get out of his mouth, he gathered his children around and told them Trust Jesus. Keep following the Lord. Serve him, he'll never let you down. That's a life that is characterized by faith and hope and love. Those three have been called the cardinal or chief Christian virtues for centuries. And the reason for that is that we see them here in 1 Corinthians 13 as being the most important things. If you've been with us over the last several weeks, you'll see that when we came to the end of chapter 12, Paul was dealing with the Corinthians about their spiritual gifts and how they reacted to spiritual gifts. And they basically had a way of thinking that was, you know, these certain people are gifted in ways that are very public and are very evident. And so they're the special ones. They're the truly spiritual ones. And in chapter 12, he makes it very clear that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit indwelling them and has spiritual gifts that they are to use for service in the body. And so we're all blessed and gifted. But what's more important at the end of the chapter, he says, is the more excellent way, the way of love, and the higher gifts that I believe he's talking about at the end of chapter 12, earnestly desire the higher gifts, or the higher gifts of faith, hope, and love, and the more excellent way is the way of love. And then all of chapter 13 is what we call an encomium. It's a celebratory praise of love, and its superior excellence, and we've been in it for a few weeks now, and we've seen lots of wonderful things about love. And as he's come to the end here, he's been going back to this theme of spiritual gifts and saying, these spectacular spiritual gifts of prophecy and knowledge and tongues, don't prize them too much. They are impressive, they do draw attention, they are signs from God that were given to validate the Christian testimony, but you don't put your hope in them and you don't strive to cultivate them ultimately, but what is most important is faith, hope, and love. These three, those are the ones that abide. And the greatest of these is love. This isn't the only place in Paul's letters where we see these three things together. I'm going to show you a few others. Galatians. Galatians is one of Paul's earlier letters. And at the end of Galatians, as he's been teaching the Galatians what it means to walk by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit, in Galatians 5, 5 and 6, he says this. For through the Spirit, by faith, We ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness, for in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. So we wait for the hope of righteousness. And while we wait, we realize that what matters in our lives are not external works of righteousness that other people might commend, but they are – it's faith working through love. First Thessalonians, another earlier letter of Paul, written around the same time as Galatians, probably his first two letters ever written. He opens the book of First Thessalonians by giving thanks for the Thessalonians, which he does in most of his letters. He opens by giving thanks. And he says this, we give thanks to God always for you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So he says, we know that you're true believers. We know that when the gospel came to you, it wasn't just talk. It wasn't just a human being standing up and telling you information. It was the power of God for salvation, and the evidence that we see of the power of God for salvation that has been at work in your life is seen in three things that we constantly remember in prayer before God, and that is your work of faith, your labor of love, and the steadfastness of your hope in Jesus Christ. One more, the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter one, he gives a very similar thanksgiving for the Colossians, but this is how he puts it there. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven of this you heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. So we see this connection, the gospel comes and the gospel brings us good news of salvation. And as the Holy Spirit draws our hearts to Christ in response to the preaching of the gospel, as the gospel bears fruit in our lives, it is seen in these three key and distinct ways. Faith in Jesus Christ, love toward his people, and a steadfast hope of the future glory of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope that is laid up in heaven. And these three are really the fuel of our Christian life, and they are the essence of Christian character. They're indispensable to living life as a Christian. And that's why he concludes 1 Corinthians 13 by saying, so now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. But what are faith, hope, and love? Because those are words that I think if you went up to anybody, anywhere, and you said, should people have faith? Oh yeah, faith is really good. You know, some people say, my faith is very important to me, right? Someone pointed this out to me several years ago. The way some people talk, especially some politicians talk, it's almost like their faith is in their faith. My faith is so important to me. My faith has held me steady through difficult times. My faith has been the anchor of my life. My faith has been the guiding force in my, like, Your faith in what? Like, just your faith, right? And hope, of course, who could be against hope, right? And love, everybody loves love, right? So how is it that these are distinctly Christian virtues and distinctly necessary marks of the Christian life? Well, if we understand them biblically, we'll understand what, why they are. So let's start with faith. Hebrews 11, the great hall of fame of faith says this, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That's what verse one says, and verse six says, and without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So faith is a trust, a trust in God being real, right, and in God being good, and in the promises that God has spoken that we believe in such a way that the unseen becomes the deep conviction of our hearts. The things hoped for become strong assurance for us. So faith is faith in God, in his character, and in his promises. And it is a substantive anchor. It is a reality that It's impossible to approach God without. You can't go to God in prayer. You can't come to God for salvation unless you believe that he exists, unless you believe that he is good, unless you believe that the promises that he's given through Jesus Christ and the scriptures are reliable promises. Having come to God by faith, the scriptures tell us that we are to walk by faith. Earlier in the worship service, we had the catechism question that talks about what is saving faith, right? Saving faith is a grace of God. It's a gift of God's grace, right? Whereby we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. That is saving faith. That is the faith by which we stand. That is our salvation, our hope. And that kind of faith, unites us to Christ and brings us all the benefits of Christ to our soul. Full redemption, complete forgiveness of sins, adoption as children of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, an eternal inheritance in heaven kept for you. All of that is received by faith, by the faith in which we stand, the faith which God himself gives us, which unites us to Christ. That's, if you will, standing by faith. But there's also walking by faith. You know the big difference between standing and walking, right? Standing is positional, and it's steadfast, and it's unshakable, but walking has to do with how we live our lives. And in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says, so we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. In this life, we are called not just to stand, before God in faith, but we are called to walk by faith. And it's explicitly not by sight. You see, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And so we walk by faith, not by sight. What does that look like? What does it look like to live a life that is walking by faith? This past week, I ran across a really good article on bible.org by Dr. Richard Patterson, who's a seminary professor, and he connects faith, hope, and love in different ways, and he does something which I thought was very, very helpful, and that is he connects both faith and hope back to some Psalms that help us flesh out what it looks like to live this way. And so to get a concept of what it looks like to walk by faith, he says the best place to go is Psalm 37. So if you have a Bible with you, I would encourage you to turn there. We're just gonna look very briefly at the first eight verses of Psalm 37. And the key here is in verse three, And verse five, trust in the Lord, trust in him. That's what faith is, right? So here's what faith looks like lived out. Fret not yourself because of evildoers, be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices, restrain from anger and forsake wrath, fret not yourself, it tends only to evil. Now there's a lot there, but it's a powerful picture of what it looks like to walk by faith. At the heart of it, Verses three to five, we trust in the Lord and we do good. Paul talks in Romans about the obedience of faith. And in First Thessalonians, we heard about the work of faith. We trust in the Lord and do good. And then in verse four, we delight ourselves in the Lord. And then in verse five, we commit our way to the Lord. And then in verse seven, we are still before the Lord and we wait patiently for him. So this kind of faith is not just up here. It's not just, yes, I know there's a God. Yes, I believe what he has spoken. Yes, I'm trusting, you know, as an intellectual exercise. It involves our emotions, delighting ourselves in the Lord. It involves our will, committing ourselves to the Lord. It involves our hope too, to wait for the Lord, to wait patiently for him. They're all part of what it looks like to walk by faith. And there's also things that when we walk by faith we don't do because they're contrary to faith. And number one, something we've all been tempted to do so much this past year, Look at it, verse one, verse seven, verse eight. There's one commandment that's repeated three times in these eight verses that are describing walking by faith. Fret not, fret not, fret not. And then specifically it's fret not because of evildoers, right? and then fret not for it tends only to evil. So faith does not worry, faith does not get angry, and faith does not seek revenge because faith is trusting in the Lord, delighting in the Lord, committing our way to the Lord, and waiting on the Lord. And all of that is absolutely contrary to then saying, I need to be all stirred up with worry and anxiety and anger because of all the evildoers who are prospering in the world. No. We trust in the Lord. We trust in the Lord. He will save us, He will defend us, He will vindicate us, and He will carry out His perfect justice in His perfect time. And notice how faith strengthens our hope, right? We can be still before the Lord and we can wait patiently for Him in hope, right? That's the language of hope, hope. What is hope? Well, hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without any words and never stops at all, right? That's what Emily Dickinson says. Sounds good. I'm not quite sure what it means, but hope in the world's eyes is like wishful thinking. Every once in a while, The Mega Millions and whatever other jackpot gets up real high, north of $500 million. And what happens? People start lining up to get those lottery tickets. And what are they all doing? They're all hoping that they're going to win the big jackpot. And they say, well, it's just a hope. I hope I win. How many use that line, like, oh, I hope, right? I'm hoping the Terps will make the NCAA tournament this year, because I was really crushed last year when it got canceled, and they had their best team in years, and they didn't get a chance to compete. So I'm hoping they're going to make it. And I'm hoping they make it really far. I mean, like, it'd be great to see. Is that hope? That's not hope. That's just like wishing. That's just like wanting. It's like dreaming, right? There's no substance to it. Biblical hope. is a deep and settled assurance that comes from a certain expectation that the God who's made promises to us, promises that we are trusting, will in fact keep those promises. The difference between faith and hope is that faith is more focused in how we're living our lives today. Are we walking by faith? Are we trusting God now? whereas hope is future-oriented. It's the hope of the expectation of what God will do in the future. Romans 8 expresses this hope by saying that we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And remember that Hebrews 11 said that faith is the substance of things hoped for. What do faith and hope have in common? They both trust more in the unseen than in the seen. Hope stands at a graveside. knowing that the body of our loved one is going to go into the earth, but knows with certainty, not a wishful thinking, not a dream, not a when I wish upon a star, knows with settled certainty that the Lord Jesus Christ will come again with the last trumpet and with the cry of command and that the dead in Christ will rise first. That he is the first born from the dead, the first fruits of the resurrection and hope says that coming day of promise is more real and more relevant than this present day of burial. Not that this isn't real, the loss is real, the separation is real, but the hope is more real. The hope is the anchor that keeps us. In that same article from Dr. Patterson, points to Psalm 42 and 43 as the psalm for hope. So Psalm 37 is the psalm for faith. And Psalm 42 and 43, which were actually originally one psalm in the Hebrew, but they got separated. Long story, but they're really one psalm. It's the psalm of hope. So let's hear just the opening of this first five verses. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food, day and night, while they all say to me, all day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation. And that's the refrain that comes again and again. It comes again in verse 11. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. And then the reason we know it's one Psalm is that it comes again at the end of Psalm 43. Which. Verse five, why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So if we see from Psalm 37 that faith does not fret, we see that hope is not cast down. Why are you downcast, O my soul? What's the opposite of that? Hope in God. for I will again praise him. So faith doesn't fret and hope is not cast down. But faith and hope put their full rest for present keeping and for future redemption in the Lord. And notice there's a longing to hope. Hope is a longing and a desiring. It doesn't mean that everything's fine. You know, it's not just, oh, there's nothing wrong in my life. There's no problems at all. You know, the psalmist is hungry, thirsty, longing. Of course, I can't even mention hope in the Psalms without mentioning Psalm 130, which is, I think, the most powerful psalm of hope. which says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. So hope, longs for, waits for, trusts in, and looks up. and is not downcast even in the midst of evil circumstances or discouragement. Faith, hope, and love. Now love is different from faith and hope fundamentally in that faith and hope are primarily or even really exclusively to be directed toward God. In fact, we're told over and over again in scriptures not to put our faith and our hope in earthly things, right? The Psalms tell us don't put our trust in either our bow or in princes. That means don't trust in your own resources and don't trust in others to help you. And the psalmist says that the war horse is a false hope. That's looking out for someone who's gonna come along and rescue me from this situation. That's a false hope. False hope. So faith and hope are to be in God alone, and in his great and precious promises. But love, love is something that comes from God to us, and while we are first called to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, we are then called to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to love one another. In fact, the Bible makes it pretty inescapably clear that we're to love everybody. And that's hard sometimes. Jesus tells us that the second great commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. And you know, not all the religious leaders liked that so much. So one of them, a scribe, asks him, well, exactly who is my neighbor? Like how far does my love need to extend, Jesus? And Jesus answers that question by telling the parable of the good Samaritan, because Samaritans were the hated enemy. They were the ones who were impure, compromised, false worship, false doctrine, and the one who loved, the one who was a neighbor, was the Samaritan. Jesus says, love your enemies. He says, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, Matthew 5, 43 and 44. So love your neighbor as yourself, love even your enemies. But then Jesus gives us a higher call. And that's probably the love that Paul has in mind here. And that is the higher call is to love one another within the body of Christ. On the night he was betrayed, on the night when the agony of the cross was looming for him the next day, Jesus taught his disciples in John 13 through 16 and twice in that final night of teaching he repeated this commandment to them. John 13 he says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And then in John 15, he says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this. Then he laid down his life for his friends. And this, commandment to love one another within the body of Christ is so strong that later John would write in First John, if anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. It's an absolutely necessary mark. You cannot claim to love God in truth without loving one another in the body of Christ. And that's why in Colossians and in Ephesians both, Paul mentions faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for all the saints as being the two distinguishing marks that he's giving thanks to God for. But what is this love? Well, Jesus told us, didn't he? Love like I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends. Ultimately love, we looked at it over the past couple of weeks, love is selfless, love is others-centered, love is ultimately defined by Jesus, love is cross-shaped. Love takes on whatever is necessary to ensure the good of the other. especially within the body of Christ where we're told to love one another in this way, there is a dramatically self-sacrificing cross-shaped way that we are to prefer our brothers and sisters over ourselves. We are to be willing to suffer in order to bless one another. That's love. And love is connected to faith and hope because that kind of love, is only possible as an outflow of faith and hope growing in our souls, in our lives. You see, the more you trust in God, the more you believe His promises and His goodness towards you, the more your hope is fully set on the glory to be revealed, the more you can do two things. You can let go of the things of this world, because you know that they're not eternal, you know that they're not your hope, you know that they're not lasting, and you can give yourself freely to one another within the body of Christ because you're remembering all the time of how much God has given himself for you and how undeserving you are of that. If I was God's enemy and he gave his one and only son for me, then how can I not give to my brothers and sisters in Christ that God's made us family just the little things of this world that aren't lasting and eternal anyway. So we give more freely because the things of the world are put in their perspective and the love of God is put in its perspective. But the other question to ask here is then why is love the greatest of these? Why does he say, you know, for the Christian in our lives, faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love? Aren't we saved by faith? Isn't it faith that unites us to Christ and all his promises? Didn't I just say that as we have more faith and hope that will fuel greater love for one another? Doesn't it all start with faith? Why would he not say faith is the most important? Why love? Well, there's two very specific reasons for that. And the first is, It all starts with love. Not our love, of course, but God's love. It's God's love that gives us the gift of faith. And that gives us hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's God's love that gives us the great and precious promises that we can rely on and that keeps those promises, even at the cost of his own son. It's God's love that begins it all. Because God is love. And that's the number one reason why the greatest of these is love, is because God is love. And it's his love that is the origin of every good thing in the world. You see, you can't say that God is faith, or that God is hope. Did you know that? It's kind of a funny thing to think about. God doesn't have faith. Doesn't need it. Right? Faith is the faith in the unseen things. The things that we don't have right in front of us. Right? I don't have to have any faith that this pulpit is here, because it's here. Right? God sees everything. God knows everything. But also, faith is faith in someone. Right? Faith in their character. Faith in their promise keeping. Faith in their faithfulness. The only one that God could put his faith in is himself, because he's the only one who's absolutely unfailing. God is not hope either, God doesn't hope. God sees all things, he ordains all things, he commands the end from the beginning, and sees the things that are not yet as though they are, because in his decree they've already taken place. And I say this because sometimes I hear things that really just make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Sometimes from, I'm gonna be charitable and say from well-meaning Christian teachers. There's other part of me that's like Christian teachers who should know better. But I'll be nice. Well-meaning Christian teachers who are trying to encourage people and who are trying to make God seem more relevant to our lives. And so they'll say things like, God believes in you. or God has great hopes for you, or God hopes in you. And I guess I understand why they say it. I mean, it sounds good. It sounds kind of warm and fuzzy, and if we're gonna place our faith and hope in God, doesn't it help to think that God also places his faith and hope in us? No. No, not at all. Absolutely no. If God were to have faith in me, that would make God foolish and an idolater. So God is not faith, God is not hope. God doesn't need faith or hope because he's in command and control of all things and he sees all things perfectly. But God is love. And because love is of these three virtues, love that is the most reflective of the heart of God himself, love is the greatest. And the second reason is that love alone endures for all eternity. One day our faith will be sight. Our hope will be realized. and we won't need them anymore. One day, we won't need faith anymore, and we won't need hope anymore, because we'll be with the Lord. We'll be face-to-face. We will have realized and received our hope. How many of your kids on Christmas morning might wake up, and before the presents are opened, they might say, oh, I hope I'm really going to get whatever it is that you wanted for Christmas, right? Oh, I hope I really get it. And then they open the presents, and they receive it, and it's right there in front of them, and they say, oh, I really hope I'm gonna get this thing. You would say, something is wrong here. You either don't understand the meaning of the word hope, or you're delusional in some way, shape, or form, because it's right in front of you, you have it, right? And so there will be no more faith. There will be no more hope. But there will be love forever. nothing but love in its purest and truest form. And that day is coming. And so as we close, I want us to take these three virtues and think about our lives in the light of them by asking ourselves these questions. Where are we heading? What's the goal? What's the trajectory? What are you really waiting for? What are you really longing for? I mean, I joked about sort of hoping that the Terps make the NCAA tournament. I'm also kind of waiting for the Sixers to make the NBA finals. Have Joel and B dunk on LeBron James. Anyway, that's just wishful thinking, but those things really aren't that important. I have a passing interest in them as a pleasant thing. But what's the longing of your heart? Where are you going? Sometimes it feels like we're not going anywhere, especially this past year, a year that never ends. Where are we going? That's our hope. And then second, what's gonna get us there? What are you trusting in to get you to where you are going? That's your faith. Your hope is where you think you're going and your faith is what you're trusting in to get you there. Hebrews 11 tells us of the Old Testament heroes of the faith, that these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, by faith, right? Having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they'd been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. And then later Hebrews 11 says of these men and women that they are people of whom the world was not worthy. And then turning attention from those saints to us, Hebrews 13 says this, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Is that your hope? Is your faith that God who brought you to himself will bring you all the way to the fulfillment of that hope? That will anchor your souls. That will put ballast in your ship and wind in your sails and point the compass to true north. And there's a lot of flotsam and jetsam along the way. which you can sail right past it all looking unto Jesus. Let's pray. Father, you have called us to be your own. You have called us by the great and precious promises of your word and nothing Nothing this world promises, nothing this world offers, nothing our flesh craves or desires could begin to hold a candle to the greatness of who you are and what you have promised us in the gospel. So, oh Lord, would you anchor our souls in hope? Would you fill our souls with faith in you? And out of that, would you pour forth your love to flow through us to one another, that we might pursue love as the source of our hope and as the goal of our hope is to be with you and you are love. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for putting us on this path to heaven. Be with us. Step by step, we pray, in Jesus' name.