Ephesians chapter 1, and we're going to read verses 15 to 23. It's Paul's prayer to the Lord for the Ephesians, and it says this, Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Let's just take a moment again and ask for God's blessing. Father in heaven, this morning we come before you, and as we open the scriptures together, Father, we pray that the Spirit of God would have freedom to teach us and to guide us into all truth. Father, also we pray that you would encourage us and provoke us and spur us to put these truths into action, to live out the truth that we see here, that we might do so to your honor and to your glory. And Father, we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. I want you to imagine in your mind's eye a scene in maybe a World War II prisoner of war camp. There is a certain sense of despair as the prisoners are all there in that camp and they're in their torn and dirty uniforms and there's a sense of hopelessness there. There's a frustration there as well as those soldiers are longing to be outside those fences and the wire and they might be participating in the fighting. And somehow, one of the prisoners, who's an engineer, manages to build a radio receiver, and they very, very carefully hide this radio receiver away in some corner. And every day becomes a longing as the prisoners who know about this radio gather together, and they hunker down to hear what the news is outside the camp. And finally, the news they've all been waiting to hear, the Allies have landed. Every day they hear more news that the Allies are getting closer and closer and the battle is going well and the Allies are advancing steadily towards their prisoner of war camp. The promises come every night that release and freedom is getting closer and closer. These prisoners are longing and hoping with great expectation to their soon release. That hope that they have enables them to endure the beatings they receive from the guards day after day and month after month. The hardships of prison life somehow seem a little less harsh, a little less bitter, and somehow they're able to bear the difficulties of being in that place. There is hope there. There is an infused ability to endure and continue on, that radio was built in order that the prisoners might hear the news and have hope. For them, the best is yet to come. And for us this morning, the title of the message is simply this, the best is yet to come, knowing the hope of our calling. Let's entitle the message for this morning. Paul is praying for the Ephesians in the passage before us. And because he has heard of their faith in Christ, he's heard of their love for all the saints. And Paul unceasingly gives thanks for them. And he asks, first of all, that God may give them a spiritual gift of wisdom and revelation. We looked at that two weeks ago. And that comes both prior to and in the process of their gaining an experiential knowledge of God. And as we walk with God, we grow in wisdom and revelation. We learn what He is like as we walk day by day with our Savior and our Lord. We learn how we ought to walk as we walk with Him. We grow in our worship of Him. We grow in our love for Him. We grow in our service to Him, all as we walk with Christ. This Christian life is a life of obedient action based on His revealed truth, the Word of God that we have. Paul asks a second thing in his prayer. He first reminds them that the eyes of their hearts have been enlightened. That's a work of God's Holy Spirit to open and shine to our hearts that we might see. It's like a mighty search beam that stabs into the darkness and exposes it all for everybody to see. The Holy Spirit has shone into your heart and mine if you know Him as your Savior, and He's revealed to you and shown you that you are a sinner before Him. that we all face the full weight of God's anger at me for my sin. That God is also rich in mercy and great in love, and He has given His only Son to suffer and die in our place, to absorb the full weight of God's wrath against me. God has made me alive. And for those of you who know the Lord Jesus Christ, God has made you alive and called you by His gospel to live and walk with Jesus, our Savior. And all this we know because of the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit into our hearts and our minds. But the enlightening work of God's Holy Spirit goes beyond just my being saved. It's to show me how I should live and how I ought to walk before Him. God, our Heavenly Father, wants more for us than just to be rescued from hell's fire. Our salvation is more than just a fire escape out of hell. God wants us to live in the joyful hope that is ours as his children. Paul's prayer is that our eyes, having been enlightened, will be yet further enlightened. That's just kind of the form of the verb. We talked about that last time. It's a, I gotta be careful because Deb's here and she can correct me on this, but it's a perfect passive participle, which means it has a past tense completed action with results that carry all the way through to today. So the Holy Spirit worked in your heart, enlightening your heart back at the moment that you were saved. And in addition to that, the Holy Spirit is still working in your heart and still enlightening. And that enlightening effect hasn't changed. And Paul's prayer is that their eyes, having been enlightened, will be yet further enlightened. Paul's prayer is that we will live in the hope God's calling produces. People of God, listen. We must learn to pray like Paul prayed, that each of us, all of us, will know really know the hope of the calling of God. To live not knowing the hope we have in Christ is to live like that little old lady whose wretched hovel was stuffed and wallpapered with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, but she lived in abject poverty because she never lived in the realization of the wealth that she had. She was living as a miserable, emaciated pauper, even though she had great wealth. It's my prayer for all of us that we'll live in full realization of the infinite riches of the gospel hope that we all have. Living alive that untold wealth of the gospel hope of His calling will enable us to endure, just like those soldiers. in the prison of war camp, and they heard the news that the allies are coming, their redemption was drawing near, the release was soon to be, and they had a hope that enabled them to endure all the hardships. So also all of us have a hope this morning, and it enables us to endure the afflictions we face as believers in Jesus Christ. It's gospel hope that enables us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and sickness and financial collapse and broken relationships. It's the unfading promise that God holds out to us that this is not the full measure of life as an adopted child of the King of Kings. There is so much more. Listen, the best is yet to come. And that's the hope we have this morning. Well, in order to understand the hope better, I want to ask and answer three questions this morning. Number one, what is the calling of God? Number two, what is Christian hope? And number three, how can we know the hope of that calling? So first of all, what is the calling of God? The beautiful thing about our God is God is a personal God, a relational God. He speaks to us through his word. And in the wisdom of God, he spoke to us the truth about himself and his son, the Lord Jesus. He spoke to us about us and our creation, our condition, our responsibility to live in relation to God. If you look at most of Paul's writings, you will find that they almost always divide roughly into two parts. There's information, there's truth, and there's teaching, and then subsequent to that, there's a call to put those truths into action. For example, take the book of Romans, and all of Romans can be divided pretty much into two parts. 1, chapter 1, verse 1, all the way to 11 and verse 31, I think it is. That's all the truth that God reveals about the gospel. And then Paul says in 12 and verse 1, therefore, or in light of everything I just said, here's how we ought to live. So there's a call to live and to put into action all the truth we've just heard. The calling of God is a calling for us to respond in obedience to what he has revealed to us. When scripture talks of calling, it does so in connection with the gospel. So he presents to us the truth of the gospel. And we need to look at it briefly. God is holy, righteous, and just, the creator of all things. Man is born in sin, he lives in sin, and he loves to sin, which is to act against the laws of God our creator. And Jesus Christ, the promised perfect Son of the living God, perfect without sin, He came and He lived and walked in perfect obedience to His Father. He suffered the most horrible and vile death known to man, suffering in my place and your place as a perfect substitute to pay for my crimes, my lawlessness against the God of heaven. And God promises us if we believe in Him, we will be saved from His wrath. We will be filled with the Holy Spirit. We will be empowered to live a life of obedience and we will enter one day into the unspeakable, infinite joy of God's own presence. All of those things are facts. We can mine through the scriptures and see those facts presented in a whole different host of ways again and again and again. But listen, just knowing those facts does not save you. It's not knowing the facts that saves you, even if you agree. You can say, yeah, I agree, God is holy, yeah, I agree, I'm a sinner, I'm born in sin, I live in sin, I love sin, I agree, I agree that Jesus died for me. That doesn't save you. What saves you is when you respond in obedient belief to those facts. The calling of God is a call through the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit for us to respond to those facts, to believe. The Bible records for us a number of biblical gospel calls from Jesus' mouth. Listen to what he said. In Mark chapter one, the Bible says that Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Repent and believe is a command, a call that is to be obeyed. In Matthew 16, 24, Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. That's a call of the gospel, the call of God to follow Jesus, is to respond in obedience to what he's just told you. Matthew 11, 28 to 30, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's a promise. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is life. There's truth revealed. There's promises given. There's a call extended to the believer to listen, sorry, to the listener to respond. Come. That's the first call. Come speaks of leaving everything behind. It's a depart from one place and move to another place. It speaks of repentance, turning away from the sinful way you are walking and move to stand behind and beside Jesus and walk with him the way he walks. The act of leaving our sinful life and coming to Christ is an act of faith, trusting God, trusting Jesus to keep his promises. Take my yoke. Again, it's a call to the disciple to willingly submit himself to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Learn from me. Again, it's a call. It's a call. It's a command to us to come and respond. Learn from me. It's a call to discipleship to Christ. He is our teacher. His spirit has been given to us to guide us and teach us and enable us to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to learn from him. So what's the calling he's talking about here? He says that you may know what is the hope of his calling. It's a call to obedient action involving repentance and faith and submission and learning from Christ as the Holy Spirit is our teacher. But the great news is the gospel call opens us up to so much more than just salvation. It's more than a fire escape from hell. The Bible calls us In first Corinthians 1 9 God is faithful by whom you were called into fellowship of his son Jesus Christ the call the gospel It isn't just to get out of hell and be saved from a fire. It's a call into a deep intimate relationship and friendship with the Living God is have fellowship with his son. The gospel call to repent and believe calls us into fellowship with Christ. You know what else? 1 Thessalonians 2, 11 to 13 says this, for you know how like a father with his children, we exhort each one of you, it's preach and call, and encourage you to come sorry, encourage you and charge you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, you responded to it, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. The gospel call to come and follow Jesus calls us into the kingdom of his own dear son. You haven't just been called out of the kingdom of darkness to leave you hanging there. You've been called out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's own dear son. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7.15, God has called you to peace. Peace with God and peace with each other and peace internally. Galatians 5.13, for you brethren have been called to liberty. You know what the Bible says? For freedom's sake, Christ has set you free. Isn't it an incredible truth to know that we have been set free from sin and death? We've been set free from all those other things that we might enjoy. God, to describe it accurately, we have been set free from sin to be slaves to righteousness. It's a beautiful thought. The calling of God is to freedom, and calling to liberty, and calling to peace, and calling also, in 1 Peter 1, to holiness. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which are yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy also in all your behavior. The gospel call to come and walk with Christ is a call to holiness. How quickly we forget that. We treat it like it's a call to get out of hell and live any way you please. That's not it. It's a calling to come and walk in holiness. The text in front of us, Ephesians 1, verses 17, 18, the eyes of your heart being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling. When he says that we may know the hope of his calling, it means the hope that his calling produces. God reveals the truth of the gospel to us. We hear the truth, we agree with it, and we trust God for salvation. God, through the sharing of the gospel, calls us to repent and believe, and that believing that call produces in us A hope. So you ask the question, then what is the gospel hope? What does hope mean? In general, it means the anticipation of receiving a promise. Now, in the world we live in, people will say, well, are you going to do this? And I'll say, well, I hope so. And then what they mean is, well, I'm kind of hoping, but I don't really think it's going to happen. It's sort of a mediocre, sort of wishy-washy kind of hope. The Bible knows nothing of that, by the way. The gospel hope that we have, the biblical hope is this. Listen, it's the sure and confident expectation of God's future grace and faithfulness. It's founded on the promises of the Bible and is confirmed by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit and our present experience of God's grace. You catch that? I'll do it again. Biblical hope then is the sure and confident. In fact, the Bible presents hope only in one way. It's absolutely certain. It's a sure and confident expectation of God's future grace and faithfulness. Those hopes are founded on, based on the promises of the Bible, and it's confirmed by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit and our present experience of God's grace. That's the hope we have. We don't, well, we kind of hope to go to heaven. We are going to heaven. And they'll let me in. They don't have a choice because I believe in Jesus and that's it. Well, they do have a choice. Don't get me wrong. But you know what? I'm absolutely confident. I'm absolutely sure. based on the Bible's promises, based on the faith I have, based on the fact that the Spirit of God testifies in my own heart that I belong to Him, that I'm a child of the King, I know for certain, my hope is absolutely sure that one day I will see Jesus face to face as my Savior and my Lord, not as my judge. Notice something else, in Scripture, faith and hope are totally tied together. Okay, so faith is placed in the giver of the promise, God, so I trust in God. Hope is the anticipation, the expectation of the keeping and the receiving of that promise, right? It's your birthday coming up. Happens. Everybody has to go through it. Admit it. It comes around and you have this expectation. What's going to come in the mail? You start looking at the mail and you get letters from the bill collectors. They're all one shape, long like this. And you get those cards in the mail and they're more square shaped and you know what those are so you throw the bills at your wife and then you open the other cards up because those are the birthday cards. And there's an expectation, hey, what's coming on my birthday? And you know it's gonna come, and you're waiting for it. And there's a sense of kind of joy and hope, because you know it's almost there. Well, that's exactly what it means to be a believer, is to have that hope. Hope is the anticipation, the expectation of the keeping and the receiving of a promise. And in scripture, sometimes they kind of merge together, like we have faith in God, but we also hope in God. We have faith in God and we also hope in eternal life. There's a hope there for that. We'll talk about that in a minute. So what does the Bible say about hope that Paul prays that we will know? First of all, I gotta say this. There is no hope outside of Jesus Christ. If you look over in your Bible, if your Bible's open like mine, you should have Ephesians 2, should be in the same open set of pages. In Ephesians 2, 11 to 13 says this, therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, that at that time, means previously, you are without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Listen, if you're a believer, you have hope. If you're an unbeliever, there is absolutely no hope for you. That's a chilling thought. If you ask Justin, he'll tell you in order to get through his SAS training, physical strength was one thing, It was important. Just the equipment, the training, the strength, all those things were important. But to get through, he needed more than anything else in this world. He needed the mental strength, the hope of getting through. It was so important. In this world, we can survive so many days without food, so many hours without water, but about 15 seconds without hope. The reality is the gospel message that we hold out to the world is a message of hope. And what Paul is saying, listen, without God, without the hope of the gospel, there is no hope at all. It's futile. But the believer's hope is so much better. Listen to what the Bible says. Romans 8, 23 to 26 says this. We ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body, for in hope we have been saved. Catch that? In hope we've been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it, in the same way the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Hope is future-oriented and always involves faith in the keeping of the promise. It's an eager expectation. It's a longing to see the promises kept. The hope of the gospel call produces in us an eager expectation. The hope we have is a conviction that God will keep His promises. The hope that our calling produces is the conviction that there is still something so much better, that this life is yet to be enjoyed. Listen, believer. Listen, Christian. The best is yet to come. There's so much more that's so much better. What does the Bible say about this hope we still have as believers? In Psalm 131, we're to hope in the Lord. In 1 Timothy 1 verse 1 says that God and the Lord Jesus Christ, they are our hope. The gospel promises are so wrapped up and so tied together with the Lord Jesus Christ that when we hope in him, we're hoping in the promises being kept as well. When Christ comes to finish the work, listen, he's bringing all the promises with him and he's going to fulfill them all to us. Titus 2, 11 and 14 says this, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We hope in God, we also hope in Jesus appearing. The best, who's that? It's Christ, right? The best who is Christ is yet to return. He's come once, he's coming again. Sorry. He's coming again. Listen to what Philippians 1 says, being confident, that's a hope, being confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That confidence is the hope, the hope that Christ will finish the work. Acts 22, verse six says this, 23, six, sorry. We have the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time can. Listen, we got a hope of eternal life. This life, in a few eons of eternity, will be a distant, blurry memory, like a dream you had about three weeks ago. There is eternal life. That's the hope we have. Christ Jesus was raised from the dead as the first fruit of all of us who also will be raised from the dead. We have a hope of eternal life. Romans 5.2, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Isn't that a great thing to think about? Your salvation, your justification, your sanctification, all those things are building up and working towards a day when we'll be caught up to be with Christ. The work will be finished and we'll be glorified just like He is. We have that as a hope. Excuse me. Sorry. Paul is praying for them to know the hope, for us to know the hope that the call of God produces. The gospel message gives us, calls us, sorry, to obedient action. Our faith is placed in God and we trust in Him to keep His promises. Our hope is the eager anticipation of receiving those promises. Our hope is in Jesus Christ because those promises are all bound up together with Him. But you know what? There's even more. Just so you know, I was doing research for this and the hope, all the verses about hope that came out, there were so many. I wish I could just take the whole morning and just run through them and unpack for you and absolutely overload you with all the reasons and all the benefits of hope. Listen to what the benefits are. There is blessing and happiness. Who here wants to be happy? Nobody. Oh, one person. Good on you, Becky. Somebody here wants to be happy. We all want to be happy. Nothing wrong with that. The Bible says, listen to this, happy is he who has, I'll read it again. Psalm 146.5, happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. There is an encouragement that comes from hoping in God. Isaiah 40 verse 31, listen, but those who wait, that's hope, Wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. The idea of waiting on the Lord is hoping in the Lord. It's hoping in the Lord who gives us spiritual strength to continue the walk of faith. There's a tremendous amount of encouragement that comes from the hope we have in Christ. Romans 12, listen to what it says. Be kindly affectionate to one another, with brotherly love, in honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. Listen, I'm not talking about prosperity gospel nonsense, where everything you'll have will be just so much happy and bliss and you'll be wealthy and healthy and all that nonsense. It's a lie. The Bible equates these things, that we have a hope, but that hope comes through enduring and rejoicing, not only in the hope, but also in the suffering. And look what Paul said. He said, builds it up to it, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, side by side, hope and tribulation going together, continuing steadfastly in prayer. Hope, exercise, produces a joy, a deep, lasting joy in the Lord. There's so much more. I'll run through just a couple, just to give you a taste. 1 Thessalonians 5.8, hope equips us for spiritual warfare. Romans 5.3-5, hope enables us to face suffering with confidence. Psalm 16.9-10, hope enables us to face death with confidence. 1 Peter 1.3, hope assures us of a heavenly inheritance. That's the assurance we have. And Paul is praying that we may know the hope that the call of God produces in us, the calling we've been through, the hope we've been through. It's a hope of eternal life, the hope of the glory of God, the hope of His appearing, the hope of the work being finished in you. Listen, if you're struggling with your life and you're wondering, is God ever gonna finish the work in me? Listen, Paul says, being confident of this very thing, that he who began a work is going to finish it. He's not like me in furniture projects. I start them and leave them for a few years. No, no, no. The Lord Jesus Christ in beauty, He starts the work and He carries it through to completion. He's going to finish the work in you. Last question, how can we know the hope that comes from His calling? How can I know that hope? You say it should be automatic, right? No, the very fact that Paul prayed tells me it's not automatic. He's praying that you may know that hope. First of all, know this. You're struggling with this, you think, I don't have much hope. I don't feel that hope, that joy, that life inside of me that I should have. Listen, God has done all he needed to in order for us to know that hope. He revealed himself and his will to us in the scriptures and through the Holy Spirit. He called us to salvation and holiness through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He enlightened the eyes of our heart through the work of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. He will continue to enlighten the eyes of our hearts. God has provided everything we need to know the hope that we have. So you ask the question, so then why do I not have that hope? Why don't I know that? Why do I not have the boldness in speaking that comes from hope? Why don't I have the happiness that comes from hope? Why do I not long for his appearing the way I should? Why do I not have the confidence to face suffering and even death? And the answer I can give you is this, number one, look at what Paul did, he prayed. Pray like Paul prayed. Pray and plead with the God of heaven that he will continue to enlighten the eyes of your heart through the work of the Holy Spirit. The enlightening work of the Holy Spirit is his work of taking the scriptures and applying them to our hearts. It's taking the truth of the word of God and shining it deep into our hearts and our minds and our understanding. That enlightening comes as a result of two things. I heard it in Sunday school and it never got more profound when we sang it as little kids. Read your Bible, pray every day and you'll grow. That's how the song goes, I know that much. Read your Bible, pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow. It doesn't get any more profound. Are you looking for a magic pill to know the happiness and joy that's yours in Christ? I can't give it to you because there isn't one. But the beautiful thing is that God has given you everything you need to know that hope, to know the joy. It's read your Bible, pray every day, and it will unveil to you the glories and wonders of Jesus Christ. The more you soak your mind, your heart, your understanding in the scriptures, the more he will show you, the more he will pull back the veil, if you like, and reveal a little more, but does something else as well. The more you soak your heart, your mind in the scriptures, that will unveil to you the sin that needs to be dealt with. As you read your Bible, it will expose to you your sin. The enlightening work of God will result in several things. It will reveal to you the sin that remains, and it will show you that the sin you have tolerated and allowed to remain. It's like this. We're at Camp Imbedine. You probably heard me mention that place a couple times. And we had this game we used to play called the Spotlight Game or the Search Game. Well, the night game, the tower game. And what it was, we had this spotlight, handheld spotlight thing, it was about this big. Maybe exaggeration, it might have been this big or whatever. It was huge. And they carried up this big tower way up high, and a person stood up there with this big spotlight, and it was a wooded area in the woods of Victoria where we lived. And it was kind of like being an SAS guy, so all the kids would dress up in black from head to foot, and they'd paint their faces black, and they would run through the trees. It was a camp director's nightmare, okay? And I tell you, I just spent the time praying that nobody would get really badly hurt, because someone always did. And they'd run through the trees like mad, you know? And the tower, they're up there, and they shine the light around, and that massive light was so powerful, it would penetrate way off into the distance, and it put this focused light beam on, and the kids would duck and dodge, and they'd crawl through the bushes, and then under the trees, and they got poison ivy, and stuff on them, and all kinds of junk. And if they got caught with the light, They had to go back. And if they didn't get a camp counselor, they put a black felt marker, texta, on their faces. It was the best place. They'd come in and make breakfast in the morning, they'd be covered in black marker and bug bites and poison ivy. It was the highlight of the whole week for the kids, right? Yeah. But that searchlight is like what the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit is. That light can shine with an incredible intensity and power, like into a darkened room, and the light fills that room. And it goes into every deep corner and recess of the darkness of that room, and it exposes everything in that room. And we can see exactly what our lives are. When we read the Bible, we soak our minds in the word of God. We're on our knees praying. The word of God and the spirit of God opens up and points deep into your life and he will point out the things, the sin that you need to deal with. But you know what the problem is? When we leave sin there, you know what it's like? Roddy and I, Rod Hall and I were talking about this on Friday. We got all excited. We came up with this great illustration. It's like taking a piece of cloth thin cloth, and laying it across the lens of that great big searchlight. The light is still powerful. The light's still bright. The light has its shine. But because sin's allowed to remain, it just dims the light just a little bit. And the effect of that light is just a little bit reduced. And every time we allow sin to remain, and every time we leave the reading of the word of God alone, it's like placing another piece of cloth across the light. and another piece and another piece. And as the layers of cloth get thicker and thicker and thicker, the light in the room gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. And what it means is the light's still powerful. The word of God still has effect. The spirit of God still has effect to show us our lives as they really are. But the sin that we leave and our failure to open our hearts and minds and expose the word of God to it covers up that light, and eventually the light is so dim that you can't see. You can't see your sin anymore. Now maybe there's a bit of comfort in that, but the reality is you can't see the glories of Christ anymore. You can't see the promises anymore. And all of a sudden, what you can see in your life gets very, very shadowy and very dim, and you start to lose hope. That's the reality of it. That's exactly what it's like. The light's just as powerful. The Bible says this, for whatever things, Romans 15, four, whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. That's how we get our hope. It's soaking the Word of God into our hearts and minds, allowing the Spirit of God to take that Word of God and shine it into the darkest corner of your life, exposing the sin that needs to be dealt with and put aside, and also showing and brightening up so that you can see the glory of Jesus. You can see the wonders of the promise that we have. And maybe you're sitting there thinking, I'm not tolerating sin, but I still struggle with hope. Let me ask you, when was the last time you opened and prayerfully read and soaked your heart and your mind in God's holy word? I meet with people occasionally for counseling. I say, how are you doing your Christian walk? Well, not so great. I say, where are you reading right now? Well, I'm not really reading anywhere. I say, how's your prayer life? Well, it's not so good. So what would you like me to tell you? Yeah, I know. Go home, get my Bible, and start reading. Read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow, grow, grow. It's as simple as that. The answer, the message for us this week is this, pray. This series is about prayer. And looking at Paul's prayer, his first response, and he hears of their faith, and he hears of their love, is to pray. He prays that they will know, really know, the hope of their calling. He prays that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will continue to enlighten your heart, my heart, our hearts to know the hope of the calling. Soak your minds. There's no simple solution. It's opening your word of God. It's patient, daily soaking up the scriptures. Soak your hearts and your minds, your understanding in the scriptures. They are the words of the breathe, sorry, the Holy Spirit's breathing out. You hear about people crying out to God for a word. They want to hear a fresh voice or a fresh word from God. And I find it so strange that they have the full counsel of God in their hands, on their phones, on their computers, multiple copies. You can get it in Precious Moments or Military Green. It's all there. It's all the word of God. Open up and soak on it. Think long and deep. Sorry, meditate on the person of Christ. Think long and deep about Christ as you discover more of him. Turn those things into prayers of praise and worship to God. So as you read, you're hearing him speak and you're responding back in worship and devotion. Meditate on the promises of God. Get a book on the promise of God. Get the Bible out and work your way through and just mark out all the promises of scripture for you as a believer. Meditate, think about those things, chew them over. It's incredible to just refresh in your minds the promises of God. I was just enjoying so much this week preparing this, because it was just reminding me, myself, of all the promises that God has made to me. Fasten your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ and look for his coming. Don't get so caught up in this world. The problem is we walk around like this, don't we, as Christians? We're all looking at the world in front of us. We need to lift our eyes and see afar off. See the Lord Jesus coming. He's on His way back. It won't be long. He is coming, and that hope is absolutely sure. Would you stand with me? We're going to pray, and then we'll be done. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we give you thanks this morning. And Father, we stand back in awe as we consider the scriptures and the story of the gospel that you have worked out both in past time and in our lives today. Father, we thank you for the hope that we have. Father, we thank you for the promises that you have made. And Lord, my heart keeps going back to that same promise in Philippians 1, that we are confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work will complete it. And Father, we recognize that all of us are works in progress. And Father, it is easy for ourselves to get our eyes off of you. Father, to turn away from the scriptures, to look for some easier, quicker, cheaper, faster answer. But Father, we give you thanks that when we go to the Scriptures and we look deeply there, we mine deeply in the Word of God to know you, to know the hope that we have. Father, we thank you that the Spirit of God can take those words and can enlighten the eyes of our understanding, the eyes of our hearts, that we will know the hope. Father, thank you for the hope that we have. Father, thank you that our hope is in God. not in our own works, not in our own strength, not in our own abilities. Father, thank you that our hope is in you. Father, we give you thanks also that our faith is in you. And Father, this morning, as a company of your people, we are trusting you to keep your promises. And Father, we just rejoice this morning. Father, for the few that are here this morning that are struggling with this, and don't live in the light of the hope that is theirs, Father God, we will cry out to you for them. We pray, Father, that the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit would continue in their lives, that they would be spurred and encouraged to open their Bibles and to soak their minds and their hearts in the Word of God. And Father, to turn what they discover into prayers of worship and praise. Father, we pray that you would give them, you would open their eyes to see the hope that they have, to know it. Father, we ask you these things and we give you thanks. Father, for Kathy left and not doing well, we pray, oh God, for your blessing for her. Encourage her, oh God. Strengthen her. Father, too, for others that can't be here for health reasons. Father, we pray for them, especially for Karen, Lord, still struggling. We ask you, oh God, for strength for her, to give her a joy, Lord, in you this morning. And we ask you these things, Father. We give you thanks, in Jesus' name, amen.