If you would open up your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. And we're in a series on spiritual warfare, starting in verse 10. Read this for us as we get started here. Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10. Paul says, finally, be strong in the, what's that next word? Lord. And in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm." Now he goes on to list all the different parts of the armor. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And then our focus for this morning, and take the helmet of salvation. And take the helmet of salvation. And the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. Amen. Pastor? Pastor, I've been here through the series so far. Many of you have been through most of this series, and if you have not, it's okay. You're going to be fine this morning. But many of you have been through the series, and you say, Pastor, I've heard about the fiery darts of the enemy. I've heard you say, week in and week out, that the Christian life is a life of war, that Christian spirituality is, to some extent, warfare. That if we are to be victorious in this life and live lives as Christians that aren't constantly defeated and fruitless and useless, that we've got to come to terms with the fact that we're at war, that there are spiritual enemies out there aiming for us. I've heard you say that. And I've heard about the fiery darts. And you've listed some, Pastor. You said that one of the fiery darts is accusation. But this morning, I don't feel especially accused. I feel forgiven. I feel like a Christian. I'm not going through a season of accusation in this moment. And I don't feel necessarily tempted either. There's no big, huge sin that the devil has just gotten me hooked on. And I don't feel deceived. I haven't joined a cult. I haven't been carried off by some false philosophy. I feel secure in my Christianity. I feel like a Christian. I feel forgiven. I'm experiencing the truth of the Word of God week in and week out. But there's just something wrong with me spiritually. In fact, I wish that I could feel an arrow piercing from the enemy, because then I would know. Then I might get excited about something for a change. I don't necessarily feel the piercing of accusation, deception, and temptation. What I feel is more like the dull thud of a club on my head every day. I feel like I'm not dying from a wound in my side, I'm dying from internal bleeding. slowly fading, slowly growing weary and dull. I have no feeling. I have fibromyalgia of the soul, Pastor. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't put my finger on the pain, but I just ache all over. I get up in the morning. I have no passion. I have no zeal. I'm weary. I'm fading. The devil is not hitting me with arrows. He's beating me with a phone book. He leaves no marks. I have no idea where he's hitting me. I just, all over, I feel like I've been in a car wreck. I have no passion or no zeal. Have you ever been there? Would you raise your hand if you've been there in your Christian life? You've gone through what's called spiritual depression. It's just a dullness. The devil is using you like a whack-a-mole. It's just thud, thud. It's blunt force trauma. It's not a piercing of an arrow. You perhaps would prefer the piercing of an arrow. At least then you could say, I'm being accused. I identify that. I see that. Now let me put on the proper armor. But it's not that clear. It's just this overall aura of my Christian life is just kind of meaningless. What's going on here? You've all felt that. I've felt that. What's going on is what I will call for the remainder of today, the weapon of discouragement. Discouragement. Now you could say hopelessness, you could say a lot of different things, but I'm gonna call it discouragement. Some of you have grown discouraged in your Christian life. Over the weeks, over the months, over the years. Some of you have become Christians not too long ago, a year or so, and you're already discouraged. We have some precedent in the scripture for this type of strategy. And don't get me wrong, you can get discouraged from the brokenness of this world. You look out in this world, and this world is discouraging, amen? You can look inside your own self and see all your weaknesses and get pretty discouraged. But it's not a far stretch to think that the enemy could use discouragement to cause you to live a fruitless and defeated Christian life. To keep you in the infirmary, rather on the front lines. And so let me show you a few texts that give a precedent for this. 2 Peter 3, verse 3. And on your worship guide, I have them listed there for you so you can look them up this afternoon or sometime this week. And I'm going to list a few here, so you're probably not going to be able to flip through all of them fast enough unless you are the sword drill champion. And if you don't even know what that means, then you're not. So don't worry about it. 2 Peter 3, verse 3, he says, knowing this first of all, here you go, Christian, you need to know this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing. And just to clear it up, we're in the last days now. Now, when I say last days, I don't mean the last of the last days. I don't know when the last of the last days are. When Jesus splits through the sky, then I'll know. Right now, we're in a general period called the last days, which is between the resurrection of Jesus and the return of Jesus. So don't get carried away here. But we are in the last days, these days. In these days, you know, that we're living in, there's people are gonna come around following their own sinful desires, and they will say, and here it is, They will say to you, scoffers will say to you, where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Christian, I'm glad you've become a Christian. I'm glad you've experienced the Holy Spirit's saving power in your life, but really seriously look around, nothing's changed. Ever since the beginning, things have never changed. They've always been the same. You can do your Christianity, you can go to church every Sunday morning, but really the world's not changing. I'm not even sure you're changing. Things are staying the same. You can see how that could be discouraging, couldn't you? Especially after all the turmoil and the strife and the difficulties you're going through as a Christian. That could be rather discouraging. Listen to 1 Corinthians 15 and 58. He says, therefore my beloved brothers, who's he talking to when he says brothers? He's talking to the church. He says, my beloved brothers, the church, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Here's how you can be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. You see, there is a tendency in the Christian life and a potential in the Christian life to think that your labor is vain, to think that your labor is futile, to think that your labor is meaningless, that everything's just going on the same as it always has, and I'm doing all this work and really nothing's happening, it's all vain. Paul says, no, it's not vain. Keep on keeping at it, steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord. It's not vain, but we feel like it's in vain sometimes. Would you raise your hand if you feel that way sometimes? You know, you're beating your head up against a brick wall. Nothing's changing. It's all vain. And then Galatians 6, 9, Paul's writing to the church again, and he says, and let us not grow weary of doing good. Why does Paul have to tell the church, don't grow weary in doing good? Because sometimes in the Christian life, we grow weary of doing good. For in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. One of the most demoralizing aspects of warfare, Christian life is a war. One of the most demoralizing aspects of war is that you get up every morning, you get up out of your sleeping bag, you grab your M16, you put your rucksack on, you pack up your tent, you head off into the bush. I'm in Vietnam here. And you are constantly bombarded with the media spin that what you are doing is not changing anything. What you are doing is vain and meaningless. And what you are doing is basically serving no purpose whatsoever. And that can cause massive weariness. A dullness. Day in and day out you get up for war and you are seeing people die. You have almost died many times and it's difficult and hard and you're enduring trench foot and Viet Cong soldiers and the media is constantly saying it's worthless, it's useless, nothing's changing, you're there for nothing. It grows weary on you. One of the most demoralizing aspects in war is to think that you're fighting for nothing. And some of you are living the spiritual life of Vietnam. You are going through a Vietnam of the soul. And the devil is constantly sending to you over the radio waves. Nothing's changing. You're doing no good. As soon as you die, everything's gonna go right back to the way it was before. Your work is all meaningless. And that causes you to grow weary. It causes you to be discouraged. It causes you to be discouraged. Then on top of that, he points to you and he says, not only is the world not changing based on your efforts, but you're not changing either. In fact, we think that you might be worse than you were before. You've become a Christian, you listen to everything that evangelist said and everything he said and he promised, it's not coming true yet. Things are actually worse than they were before. You have more trouble and more strife in your life. Then the enemy adds on top of that, on top of you being the whack-a-mole for the enemy, day in and day out, what you're doing is useless and weary, and you're not changing, the world's not changing. Then he says, but look over there at your neighbor. He's not concerned with the things of God. Look over there into the world. They're not following the commandments of the Lord, and they're living carefree. They're footloose and fancy-free. Their life is filled with joy and delight. And look at you, wallowing. Have you ever felt that way before? You are the victim of discouragement. Discouragement from this world, discouragement from your own sin, discouragement from the enemy. And what you need is a suitable defense. And I believe that the Bible, in fact, in Ephesians chapter six, gives us a suitable defense for discouragement. What do I mean by a suitable defense? I mean that if you're being attacked by lies, what you need is a belt of truth. If you're being attacked by doubt, what you need is a shield of faith. If you are being accused and condemned, what you need is a breastplate of righteousness. If you are dealing with discouragement, what you need is a helmet of salvation. You don't see the connection yet. I'm going to show it to you. Just bear with me, okay? What you need for discouragement for that weariness that slow Bleeding to death on the battlefield that that um blunt force trauma that you can sometimes feel in the christian life is a helmet See a helmet protects you from the thud from the blunt force trauma of the club of the enemy You need a helmet of salvation. Let me explain to you what I mean by that But i'm gonna start big and then get really specific and then you'll finally see so you're not going to see for a while But bear with me, okay? What is salvation if I ask each and every one of you? What is salvation this morning each and every one of you would have probably a slightly different answer Now in the church in the south which we are in the south if you didn't know sorta Acadian is sort of the south but we are sort of in the south here and churches especially churches that are filled with people from the actual South and Here in Acadia, they like to use the word saved. Do you like that word? Have you been saved, brother? Have you been saved? Now, I used to be the guy that would show up at your door and knock on the door and ask you, you know, if you were to die tonight, where would you go? I used to be that guy. And I would do it a lot back when I lived in Florida. And I remember knocking on one door and the lady came out and said, you know, if you were to die tonight, do you know if you would go to heaven? You know, there's several questions you ask. And one of them is, are you saved? And she said, oh yeah, I get saved every Sunday. I thought, now this person has a different definition of the word saved than I do. And I used to think they were absolutely wrong, but I'm not so sure anymore. In fact, the word saved, we say in the church, is past tense, isn't it? You see the ed on the end? Have you been saved? I'm asking you a question about your past. Have you been saved? And churches that use the word saved are sometimes not thinking of salvation broadly enough. They're only thinking of salvation in the past tense. But salvation is the past tense, but so much more. Salvation has three tenses, past tense, present tense, and future tense. Have you been saved is a legitimate question. Are you being saved is a legitimate question. And will you be saved is a legitimate question, each of which have biblical foundation. Salvation, the helmet of salvation, in general could refer to past salvation, present salvation, or future salvation. Which are you referring to, Paul? We need some help here. We need you to be a little bit more specific, right? And not only does salvation save you from the past and present and future, each one of those tenses saves you from a different aspect of sin. In the past, if you've been saved, you have been saved from the penalty of sin. The penalty of sin is? Death, physical and spiritual. Jesus Christ came to this world to die the death that we should have died. To be executed, not just by physical spears and governmental officials, but to be executed by the wrath of God. He lived the life that we're supposed to live and he died the death that we're supposed to die. And he was raised from the dead. Amen. That happened in the past. And if you believe in that, if you trust in that for your salvation, you've been saved from the penalty of sin, which is execution from the father. Jesus died in your place. Amen. Amen. I hope that moves you. It should move you. You've been saved from the penalty of sin. But in the present, Jesus said that he would ascend, and he did ascend, and he's in heaven, and he's praying for you. And he said he would never leave you nor forsake you, and no one could ever snatch you out of his hand. Amen? And if you are holding to that, if you're trusting in Jesus Christ and continuously turning to him for the forgiveness of sin, he's praying for you right now. He's in fact maintaining your salvation. Have you been saved? Are you being saved? Another question. But Jesus also said that one day he's going to return, that he's going to raise up Christians from the dead and he's going to live with us for all eternity. And so the question is, will you be saved? The past, he saves us from the penalty of sin. In the present, he saves us from the power of sin in our lives. And that's what this spiritual warfare series is all about. It's about present day salvation. And in the future, he's going to save you from the presence of sin. In other words, even if you were perfect in this world, and you're not, but even if you were, you would still suffer because this world Broken amen and in the future. He's gonna save you from the presence of sin completely. So have you been saved? Are you being saved? Will you be saved and not only are there three tenses and three aspects of sin that salvation saves you from it saves not just you but it saves the church as a whole and not only does it save you and the church it saves the earth and and all the animals and the plants, and it saves the universe. Amen? The plan of salvation is not just you individually, but also the church and the world as a whole. And it doesn't just save you and the church and the world from sin, it saves you from sin, Satan, death, decay, corruption, brokenness, injustice, poverty, you just name it. And the job of the preacher is to every Sunday pick out one aspect of salvation And unfold it for you so that you might delight in it. Amen So when paul says put on the helmet of salvation, how does that help us with? discouragement I mean we could think of a few ways but salvation is so huge and broad We need to be more specific And so when we read in first thessalonians Here it is. You got to see this first thessalonians chapter 5 verse 8 paul uses the same metaphor of a helmet And he uses the word salvation. But he is more specific in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 8. He says this, he says, let us be sober, having put on, as for a helmet, the hope of salvation. So more than likely, are you with me? Notice there, he uses helmet, he uses salvation. He wants us to put it on, but he adds another word. He defines what he means specifically by salvation, hope of salvation. So we, everyone, Christians for 1,900 years now, believe that in Ephesians chapter six, the helmet of salvation is probably, in Paul's mind, the helmet of the hope of salvation. He's probably talking about salvation in the future, in the future. Would you raise your hand if you're with me so far? All right, I know it's a little technical. Okay. He's talking about hope. Hope beats discouragement. If you are dealing with a dull thud, attack from the enemy, the suitable armor, the armor which is the proper defense for discouragement is the hope helmet, is the helmet of hope. If you have hope, you have freedom and victory over discouragement. If you have no hope, you have hopelessness, a.k.a. discouragement. Quite simple. So what does it mean to have hope? What does it mean to have hope? Here's the definition of hope. If you look it up in a dictionary or a thesaurus, you can see there are synonyms for hope. One of the synonyms for hope is faith. And another synonym for hope is belief. But I'm not going to use those terms interchangeably this morning. Hope is specifically, here it is, a faith that focuses on the future. Amen? Here it is. Hope looks to the future. Hope is faith that is forward-focused. So for example, we Christians, when we think of the way history unfolds, when we think of the world, We have a linear worldview. You probably know that Eastern worldviews have a circular worldview. That when they don't look forward in time and backward in time the way we do, they think of themselves as going through the loop of reincarnation over and over again. The goal is to escape history, to escape this world, and to be absorbed into the cosmic oneness, or something like that. But we are linear people. So what that means is that we, where we're standing in time, can look backward into the past, of what Christ has done for us in faith, and we call that remembrance. We do that in the Lord's Supper. We look backward in time in faith, and if you look back in time to the historical events that happened on Calvary, Jesus' perfect life, His death and His resurrection, you look back in time and you say, that's my hope of salvation there. That's my ticket. His death is my life. Then you are having remembrance. You are exercising the memory of faith. But if you look in the present sense, and you see that Jesus is up on the throne, and He's putting all things under His feet, and He's praying for you, and He's holding you in His hand, you're having faith in the present sense. But if you look forward into the future, all the way to the end of time, when all things are consummated, and all things are brought underneath the foot of Jesus, and the kingdom of God finally comes, and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, all that we hope for, if you look forward into time, and you grab those promises and those hopes and you bring them back into the present, that's called hope. It's a faith that looks forward into the future. And that is the cure for discouragement. In other words, what we're saying is this. that for you in your mind, what you are to do as a Christian, you are to go forward into the future of this world. Can you do that? Do you have a window into the future? Yes, the Bible's given it to us through revelation. He's told us a little bit about what it's gonna be. You are to go forward into the future and grab hold of some of the things that happen up there and bring them back into your world and put them on your head. A hope helmet. In other words, today you are to have tomorrow in mind. You're supposed to reach out to the promises of future grace. The promises when all things are fulfilled. When you were raised and you blossom like a rose from your current state, you're to grab hold of that. Grab hold of that you that you will one day be. The planet, the universe that will one day be. Grab hold of the absolute presence of God. In all aspects of life, total justice and total peace and shalom and grab hold of that and bring it back to today and put it on like a helmet. And that's what protects you from the dull, daily, droning weariness that the devil can hit you with. Hope beats discouragement. I don't mean, listen, our world uses the word hope wrongly and not very nuanced. When I was in college in seminary in Florida, I had a friend and he's one of those guys who constantly had a new get-rich-quick scheme. In every new get-rich-quick scheme, he had a whole lot of quote-unquote hope. He had faith, you know, he was claiming the promises and he said one time he made a pitch to me He said Brandon listen to get this one off the ground. I need some support I need some backing but listen when I'm a millionaire, I'm gonna support you. So why don't you support me now? Hmm Very hopeful, but not the type of hope that I'm talking about. Not biblical hope. Why is it not biblical hope? Well, because it's baseless. There was no precedent of him making a million dollars. There was no evidence that he was going to be a millionaire. God certainly hadn't promised him to be a millionaire. There was no revelatory, no promise in the Bible. He just wanted me to believe, kind of like when the football season starts. And you say, I believe in my team. I believe they're going all the way. You don't have any evidence for that. You know, it's baseless. It's just a type of wishful thinking. And that's what he had, and I'm certainly not going to put money down on that, right? And a lot of times, Christians, we Christians, we sort of synthesize our views with pop psychology and what goes on on talk shows. And on talk shows, they have a whole lot of that, that wishful thinking, positivity, sentimentality, sort of a superstition that you stomp your foot and you claim that your healing day is on its way. I'm claiming it. I'm claiming my miracle. I'm claiming the promise. God is going to heal me. And we sort of mix our faith with sentimentality. And the problem is it's baseless. If you stomp your foot and you declare your healing day is coming, if by that you mean the resurrection of the dead when Jesus Christ splits the sky, then I'm with you and I believe it. And stomp your foot and shout it from the rooftops, because that's a promise of God that you should claim. That's the hope helmet. But if you stomp your foot and claim that you're going to be healed of this and that, God has not promised that to you. Your name did not come up in the Bible. He has not promised for the kingdom to come in all of its glory in your life before the rest of the world. Can the kingdom break in in a miraculous way and heal you? I hope it does. But he hasn't guaranteed that to you. He hasn't promised it to you. And for you to stomp your foot and claim it is baseless. It's a type of superstition and wishful thinking and sentimentality. It's not hope, like the Bible says hope. And it will not be discouragement. It will in fact lead you to becoming more discouraged when it doesn't come true. Say amen if you understand what I mean. It leads to more discouragement. It leads to apostasy. It leads to great doubt. We only stand on the promises of God that have been revealed to us in Scripture. Everything else is wishful thinking. That's fine if you want to be a positive, wishful thinker, but at least distinguish that from biblical hope, from a faith that is future-focused, if you want to do battle with the enemy and his tactic of discouragement. So hope is faith that looks forward. We are to look into the future, grab what God is going to do in the future, bring it back into the present, and put it on like a helmet. That's the hope helmet. So how does it work? How does it work? Anybody have solar panels on their house? I think it's a great analogy. Solar panels, the way they work is they aim themselves at the sun, which is not here in this world. It is far off, incredibly far off. The solar panel aims itself, it tunes itself into the rays of the sun way out there, and it sort of grabs the particles that are coming from that sun, grabs the particles, pulls them in, and stores up those rays of the sun as energy for this world. Energy to be used in this world. This is what hope does for you. Hope is like a solar panel. Hope is a soul panel. If you like play on words and puns, I know some of you do. Hope is a soul panel that aims not at the distant sun, the star, but aims into the future when there will be no need for a sun. Because God is the Son. And we will live in His presence and we will burn. Oh boy, we will burn, but we will not be consumed. We will be filled with passion and beauty. We will be all that humanity was ever meant to be. And the hope is a soul panel that points forward to that time and grabs some of the particles and pulls them into the present as energy for today. It's a simple principle. Some of you are in college. I'll tell you who's gonna make it and who's not. The person who makes it through college is the person who can look forward into time, past the end of college. They can look to that graduation day. They can look beyond the graduation day to the successful career and the ability to help other people. And they look forward into time and they grab that hope, all right, and they pull it into the present when they sit down to study. If you don't have that vision, if you don't have that forward focus and pull it into the presence, the professor of the day is going to just drive you insane. The test of the day or the deadline of the day is going to break you. You're not going to be able to make it through the four years of agony unless you can look forward and pass the four years of agony and bring it into the day. It's a very simple principle. If you are expecting in the future an inheritance of millions of dollars, Then why are you so riddled with the anxiety over your bottom line budget right now? Why? If you are expecting to be a millionaire in a few weeks, then you have no anxiety over your budget today. In fact, you start blowing and going, right? Think of the Wright brothers, first men to fly for an extended period of time. I'm not a historian, but I have to put myself in their shoes. And I know that the Wright brothers spent every single day focused on this one thing. They burned out for it. They sold out for it. Everything submitted to the goal, to the prize of flight. Now, how did they give their lives away to it? It was only because they had seen when they got on their first model and the man sat on there and they saw that he got like three feet off the ground. That was it. That's all they needed was a little window to open up and show them the future. to give them a vision of the future. And they look through that tiny little opening, that three foot of flight, and they look forward to the future and thought, man, it's going to be able to fly one day. And they pulled that energy back into the day and allowed them to work and to work and to work and to sell their whole lives out for man to be able to fly. It's a very simple principle. The trip to the beach with the five kids in the back. Oh, it's filled with expectation, anticipation. Parents, it's so much easier going than coming, isn't it? It's the hope of the beach, the hope of that beauty of the sunset, the fun, the joy, the anticipation, the expectation, the hope, which allows the trip there to be fun, even though there's a lot of chaos going on. But the trip back is not fun. It's discouraging. You wonder, why did we ever do this? We'll never do it again. The next year, there you go again. Because of the anticipation, the hope is an energy for you. The hope is an energy for you. Do you see? Do you see, amen? Do you see that? All right, it's a simple principle and Paul, listen. Man being able to fly, if that's an energy for the Wright brothers, there's a song we sing that says, we will fly to worlds unknown. Now that should be an energy, right? If the fact that you are going to inherit a million bucks in a few years, the Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth. Why are you so anxious? Right? Why can't you spend it all for the kingdom? Why can't you be generous and let it go? You're not grabbing the future promises of grace and bringing them back into the present. Oh, and a trip to the beach is nothing. It's only, it's just a tiny taste compared to the trip to heaven. Amen? The energy that could be absorbed if we would aim ourselves at that future kingdom, it would change the church, it would change the city. Paul said this, we read the verses earlier. Paul said, listen, listen carefully to this. He said, therefore, my beloved brothers, talking to the church, therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Knowing that your labor is not in vain. Now, how do you get the energy to always abound in the work of the Lord? The only way you can always abound in the work of the Lord is if you know that your labor is not in vain, if you're not beaten with discouragement. And the only way to not be beaten with discouragement and the only way to know that your labor is not in vain happened before he said the word, therefore. I'm a teacher. I'm getting real textual here. But when a verse starts with the word, therefore, what do you have to read? Stuff that comes before it. This verse is 1 Corinthians 15, 58. It is the last verse in the chapter. At the very end of the chapter, he says, therefore, keep working, it's not in vain. What did he say the whole chapter before? The whole chapter is about the resurrection. You see what Paul's doing there? He's looking forward into the future, and he sees the day when he'll be raised from the dead, and all the Christians will be raised from the dead, and the trees will sing and shout, and the animals and the curse will be lifted, and Jesus will rule and reign. And he sees that day, and he says, therefore, don't give up. Keep standing. Keep on working. Your labor's not in vain. See how he's reaching into the future and pulling back into the present? He says in Galatians chapter six, verse nine, he says, and let us not grow weary of doing good. You're growing weary, drudgery, monotony, dullness, discouragement. Let us not grow weary of doing good for and here it is for here's why you shouldn't for in due season. We will reap. What's he doing? He's looking into the future. He's saying, that time in the future, that due season, it's not here yet, but it's coming. The reaping day is coming, and that gives me the energy for the harvest. That gives me the energy to sow the seeds. Paul's doing it, and Paul's applying the same principle of hope. He's putting on the hope helmet. Jesus, the Bible says in Hebrews, it says, Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross. Jesus knew. He was able to step into the fury of the cross because he knew what was on the other side of it. Christians, so this is it. Christians, so you are living the dull, discouraged, weary life. You've been, you know, blunt force trauma of the devil. The only cure, the only solution is the hope helmet. The only way you're going to be able to continue on is if you can look with the eyes of faith into the future and absorb energy from it, absorb power from it, to be able to continue to work and abound in the work of the Lord and to know that your labor is not in vain. If you are constantly beaten by the dull thud, It's because you're not looking forward. You're either looking inward or outward. You need to look upward. Set your mind on things above, not here on earth, amen? All right, you've got to today keep tomorrow in mind. So I believe, based on 1 Thessalonians 5 and the hope helmet and Ephesians 6, that if you had hope, if you could walk out here this morning with hope, that you would have some, salvation present day, sanctification concerning discouragement today. So I want to increase your hope with a few things. I want to say just a few things to increase your hope. First of all, if you are discouraged, you're not alone. Abraham was promised a child from God. Now, this is not wishful thinking or sentimentality. He wasn't claiming a promise that God didn't make. God spoke to him and told him, I'm going to give you a son. And you would think that it is in the character of God to fulfill his promises rather quickly. But I'll have you know, and you might have experienced this already, that God likes to take his time. Well, it seems like he's taking his precious and sweet time. And he tells Abraham, and decades go by, Abraham is getting old and crusty, and still God is saying, I'm going to give you a son. Abraham's waiting. He's in the waiting room with you. The book of Hebrews chapter 11 says that Abraham and his descendants didn't even receive the promise. They died having not received it. They were in the waiting room for so long, they finally keeled over and died. Simeon, Simeon's a very interesting character, and he is one of the few people we know who saw Jesus as a baby. And he was there in the temple when Mary and Joseph showed up. And the Bible says that Simeon had been promised by God that he would see the Messiah with his eyeballs, with his eyes of flesh, not in heaven, but there on earth. Pretty neat. I don't know how Simeon, how that happened. Pretty neat. And Simeon, though, he did get to see Jesus. But if you read the story, he's already got one foot in the grave. It's like his heart is on the last beat. He finally sees it. And he basically says something like, now I can die. Listen, you're not alone. We're all waiting. We're all waiting. We're all in the waiting room with you. Look around at one another. We're all staring at each other's faces in the waiting room. And what we have to do in our mind, we have to reflect on and meditate on. We have to look outside of the waiting room, through that door. Amen? We're all waiting together. The Bible even says that creation is waiting with us. Creation in Romans chapter 8 is waiting for that day to come, the consummation of all things. You're not alone. So have hope in that. Here's another one. God does not delay. You might think that's strange you just said it seems like God is taking a sweet and precious time And I said that it seems like he is from my perspective from your perspective But the Bible is clear that God does not take his time in that sense. He does not delay He's always right on time. Let me give you just a few it's in Habakkuk Now it might take some of you a really long time to find that one Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 1, but if you just listen, I'll read it to you It's a minor prophet in the Old Testament. Habakkuk 1.1, he's asking this question. Listen carefully. Oh, Lord, how long shall I cry for help? How long do you want me to be in this waiting room, basically? How long am I going to do this? How long shall I cry for help? And you will not hear or cry to you violence. He's saying, look, God, look what they're doing over there. Look at the injustice in the world. Don't you see the pain in our world? How long will I cry to you violence? And you will not save. Why do you make me see iniquity? And why do you idly look at wrong? Just sitting up there in heaven, what's taking so long? There's an entire class at UL designed to ask this question. The problem of pain or the problem of evil in this world, what's taking so long? Why doesn't God do something about it? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth. Perverted. What's going on, God? What's taking so long? Look at this world. The good die young. The evil are winning. God answers him. There's a whole book of answers, but I'll just give you a couple of verses here. Chapter 1, verse 5, God says, I am doing a work in your day. You see that? I am doing a work in your day. And then he says, that you would not believe if I told you. That's good to know. Okay, okay. Then in Habakkuk chapter two, verse three, God says, write it down, Habakkuk. Write the vision down. Here you go. I'm gonna give you a little glimpse into the future. I'm gonna open up a window for you into the future. Write down the vision. Make it plain on tablets. For still the vision awaits its appointed time. If it seems slow, Habakkuk, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay. This is showing us a little glimpse of the character of God. God says to Habakkuk, and I believe he says to you as well, you see the problem with the world out there. You see the brokenness in the world. You see your own brokenness. Sure, there's a problem with evil in the world, but I'm doing a work in your day that if I told you, you wouldn't believe. Secondly, if it seems like it's taken a long time, notice it doesn't say it's taken a long time. It says if it seems like it's taken a long time, wait for it. The vision is waiting for its appointed time. It's coming. It will not delay. Now what this means is that the promises of God, which are to be fulfilled in the future, they're not on hold. They're not slow. God is not tarrying. There is an appointed time, which he and his wisdom has appointed, and it's the perfect time. It's right on time, and it will not delay. Can you trust that? Can you trust it? Don't you know if there's a God out there that He knows when to do things better than you do? Amen? Of course. Amen. He will not tarry. He does not delay. He's doing things in the perfect time. Thirdly, it's okay to groan. It's okay to. In Romans chapter 8 it says, we groan, the creation groans. It's okay to groan. And what he means by that, it's okay to pray. It's okay to pray and to cry and to shout and to just be, to wear yourself out asking God to come. Grown. God, I wish you'd come now. Come, Lord, quickly. Grown. But it's, listen, but it's not okay to grumble. We must wait patiently, enduring, letting God do his work inside of our lives. Amen? Wait. We groan, but we do not grumble. And finally, it will be worth it all. Amen. There's a principle in the Bible that says that God is one day going to come and bring justice to this world and that those who reject him, here it is, are storing up wrath for themselves for the day of judgment. Every day that the evil people who turn against God and do not live in a fear of Him and reject His commandments and reject His Son, every day that they live another day of evil, turning their back on God, they store up more and more wrath for the day of judgment. I think we could imply from that. that those who are walking in the ways of the Lord and are trusting in Him and looking forward to His promises, who are reaching forward into the future and putting on the hope helmet, are storing up for themselves joy. More and more, the longer you wait, hope deferred makes the heart sick. And the longer you wait, the sicker it gets. But you know how the rest of that verse says? It says, but in the end, a tree of life, it's gonna be. In the twinkling of an eye, when no one is expecting it, when you least expect it, a tree is going to burst forth. This world is going to blossom and there's going to be fruit on every branch, fruit for all of us to pick. The joy will be abounding. And listen, it will be worth it when we stand up and walk out of that waiting room to wait on the Lord. Wait by, while waiting, reach forward into the future, pull back into your current situation, hope, put it on your helmet, and don't get weary, don't get discouraged, don't give up, keep on going, and don't let the enemy get you down. Amen? I'll finish with this. Romans chapter 15 verse 13, Paul says this, and I think it's a great request for us as well. May the God of hope fill you with all joy. The God of hope fill you with all joy. and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we ask that you would give us the eyes of faith this morning. All week long, we have looked inside of ourselves and not come back very encouraged. And we have looked at the pain and the misery and the injustice and the distressing factors out in the world, and we have not come back encouraged. When we meditate on those things, they give us a weariness of soul. I pray, Lord God, that you would show us with the eye, give us the eyes of faith that we might not look inside or look outside, but look forward into the future. The day promised to us when you would return. You said you were preparing a place for us and that you're gonna come back and get us. You said you're gonna come back to this world and when you touch down, the acorn will become the oak tree. We will put off mortality and put on immortality. Help us to see it, though we see it dimly through a tiny little window now. We see through a glass dimly and we only know in part. Help us to know at least in part and reach forward into the future. Pull back that and use it for today. We ask this in Jesus Christ's name, and if you agree, would you say amen? Amen.