The book of Romans chapter five, that's where we're going to be at today. But he said, I got the call on Saturday morning that brother Aaron and pastor were sick. I was like, hey, sure, I'll fill in for you. I'll do the Sunday school lesson if you want. He's like, you might have to do the Sunday morning service. Immediately, you might have to do the main service. I got a little bit nervous. Normally, when I get up and preach, I like to give myself a good two, three weeks notice in advance so I got something prepared. I can really think into it. I'm like, man, what am I going to do on such short notice? Well, I thought, well, I'm going to talk about the thing I know best. I'm going to talk about myself a little bit. Right. But what I was thinking is because about a few weeks ago, a pastor preached on the power of a personal testimony. And I've heard. been listening to Scott Paulie a lot of his podcasts and he's a couple of times lately in his couple of his podcasts he's saying there's nothing better you can do for the gospel sometimes than to share your own personal testimony. So that's what I'm going to kind of do today. I'm going to introduce you off tell you a little bit about me and tell you how I came to know the Lord and specifically the Bible verses that brought me to the Lord and then how I keep going back to those Bible verses even after I was saved and how those Bible verses keep working in my life. The same thing that brought me salvation I'm calling it life after salvation today. So I know most of you and some of you may have heard this, but I see there's quite a few new faces, so a lot of you are not gonna know this. But I'm originally from a small town in Illinois. Grew up in central Illinois. 2,300 people in the town, and that was the big town of the county, because the whole county had 15,000 people in it. I grew up in a Catholic household, and I don't remember a bunch of the doctrine, but I was an altar boy. I used to go to church in a small town. I'd ring the little bells when they held up the communion, and that's about all I knew. At that time, I quit going to church at the age of 12, because my parents got divorced, and we just kind of fell away from all religion there. When my parents got divorced, though, I became a little brat at the time. I learned how to play mom and dad against each other. You know, when dad got mad at me, I'd go running to mom. When mom got mad at me, I'd go running to dad, and all that. And that seemed to work out good for me, but it really wasn't good for the family life. I had two younger sisters that I wasn't really close to because of that. But growing up in this small town, I was always a good athlete. So I don't know if you can think back into the 80s and the 90s. If you were a good athlete living in a small town, you got away with an awful lot of stuff. And that's when I very first had my first taste of alcohol. when I was about 14, 15 years old, and I started drinking, and we'd get caught, and the police, they'd just come knock it over and tell you, go on your way, and no real punishment. At the age of 16, I started traveling with a baseball team with a bunch of people, and we ended up winning a World Series at the age of 16. A guy by the name of Jason Wirth was on our team, ended up being a professional baseball player. We were really good, but that group of people also got me into doing some other stuff, like smoking cigarettes and smoking marijuana. But my athletic end up getting me a baseball scholarship, where I went, and I was only in school for one year. I flunked out because of the drinking of the beer and the doing of the drugs and everything. It became more important to go into classes. So I came back home at the age of 19 and I started working on a farm, on a hog farm there in Central Illinois. And I did that for a couple years, but I was still drinking an awful lot at that time. And one night I wrecked a car. Then never got caught by the police, but I wrecked a car driving down the freeway. And I woke up the next morning and I realized something needed to change in my life. But of course, I was young and dumb then. I didn't go looking for God at that point in time. No, I thought, you know what, I just need a change of scenery. I need to change my life around. So what I decided to do is when I woke up that morning, all hungover, I saw a commercial for the United States Navy. I was like, that's what I need. I need a change of scenery. I'm going to join the Navy. So I called a Navy recruiter and two weeks later, they had me all signed up and I was sent off to boot camp. I was gonna do cryptological technical maintenance, meaning I was gonna work on the computers for the NSA. That was supposed to be my job. Well, I went through boot camp, made my way down to Pensacola, Florida, where I stationed on the base down there, learning how to do this kind of stuff. And while I was there, I got in trouble for drinking again, twice while I was down there. Obviously, I did not clean up my act by going into the Navy. The second time I got caught, I was told, this was on a Friday, I was told on Monday I was gonna have to go see the captain. and they were going to basically give me a discharge from the Navy because of the field I was in. Two drinking offenses like that, you were going to be gone. I met a guy that was just getting out of the Army there, and he told me how he could go to a new town and start his life from nothing. So I went AWOL from the Navy at that point in time, hopped on a Greyhound bus, and went out to San Francisco, California. I lived homeless in San Francisco, California for six months, working through Labor Ready, a place where they'd pay you cash every day. And it was enough just to get me a couple big bottles of wine when I got off work, a pack of cigarettes, and enough left over for bus fare to get back to work. And that was my life for six months. Until eventually I turned myself in, tired of living that life. They sent me back to Pensacola, Florida, where ultimately I got an other than honorable medical discharge from the Navy because they considered me an alcoholic. And I got shipped back to Illinois. So I'd be in about 21 at the time. I started working then at a gas station. I was working the overnight shift. And that's where I met my future ex-wife. We dated for about three months. And it was a lot of drinking, a lot of partying, and stuff like that. I didn't think she was necessarily the person for me, so I broke up with her. And a month later, I got my first DUI. And all of a sudden, she didn't look so bad, because she had moved back to New Mexico. And she was out of Illinois. So I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna give her a call, tell her how much I missed her, and how much I wanted to be with her. And that's what I did. And I didn't tell my family, I didn't tell anybody, I just packed everything I could up, and I drove with my little Ford Escort, and I drove out to New Mexico to be with her. Thinking, you know what, this changes scenery this time, this time I'm really gonna change my life around once I get out of Illinois, right? When I got out there and found out that she was three months pregnant with my daughter, my daughter was born in 2001, into Mexico, and we lived out there for about six months, but there was a lot of friction with the in-laws out there. My ex-wife's a full-blooded Navajo Indian, and it was kind of a big culture shock for me out there, a big culture clash. So we only lived out there for about six months, and we were gonna move from our town of Gallup into Albuquerque, right? And I worked my way up out there. I was managing a gas station, and life seemed to be good, But the day before we were supposed to move, the bank deposit for the store that I was managing came up missing. Now I know I didn't take it, but I was the boss. I ultimately got blamed for it. Now we were moving to Albuquerque, no money, no job, nothing, because I lost my job for it. We stayed in Albuquerque for about a month or two, and then I told my ex-wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, we still weren't even married, that I'm taking my daughter and I'm going back to Illinois, I don't care if you come or not. She decided to come, we left our whole life there in New Mexico, packed what we could into our car, and in the middle of the night, one night, just drove back to Illinois. When we got back to Illinois, we had an imperfect relationship. You know, we were a perfect couple out in public, but every time at night, we were drinking an awful lot together, we were fighting and arguing all the time. So we decided, we did what every young couple should do whenever you're arguing and fighting, we decided to get married, because that's gonna fix everything. In 2005, we went out, we made a trip to Las Vegas, and I got married in a little white wedding chapel. Less than a year, I was signing the divorce papers from that, and that was the hardest part of my life. my personal life, because that's when I fell into really bad drug use then. It no longer was just the drinking and the smoking pot that I'd been constantly doing. I got into doing some harder things, into smoking some crack and doing some cocaine. Eventually I got pulled out of the hard drug use by my family. My stepdad got me into umpiring high school sports. So I was reffing high school basketball, umpiring high school baseball, and that kind of got my life a little bit together. But I didn't give up on the drinking or anything like that. For the next six years of my life, I was working at McDonald's as an assistant manager and working these school events. And that was my life. And things was going pretty well for me, I'd say, relatively speaking, right? You know, I didn't have a lot of trouble. But in November of 2012, I went and refereed a basketball game. And I remember we stopped off at a bar on the way home. But I don't remember how I got home that night. I woke up all wet in my bed, I had missed work, and I just, something hit me, you know, at this point in time, I knew something had to change. So I started, I took myself into a rehab clinic. I was there for the 30 days, and that's when they told me, you know, part of the rehab in the 12-step program is finding that higher power. And I knew I grew up Catholic, so I knew a little bit about Jesus, but I really didn't know much. But I knew that if I was going to have to find God, Jesus was going to be my higher power. So I got out of the rehab clinic, and I started going to a non-denominational church there in Central Illinois. And that's when I first had the gospel preached to me by a young minister. His name was Chance Newingham. And he presented the legitimate gospel to me, and I was excited to hear it. I'm like, yeah, I want that. Within a week, I told him that I accepted Jesus as my savior. I got baptized. And all of a sudden, good things started happening to me. And I thought that was what Christianity was. In retrospect, I would tell you, I really wasn't a believer at this point in time. Because good things started to happen to me. I was still working at McDonald's, but I got hired on as a general manager of the Dairy Queen in my small town of 2,000 people. Brand new store. They said, hey, we want you to treat this like it's your own. We want you to be like the boss of it, right? I'm like, oh, this is great. This is what I've wanted my whole life. I'm basically, I'm running my own business now. I'm working on my own. Then I started traveling for training. And all of a sudden, I wasn't going to the church anymore, and I just started picking up the bottle again. And I started drinking again. In June of 2013, I got my second DUI. I was home on a training trip and I got pulled over at four in the morning because I didn't dim my headlights when I came into town. Something silly and stupid like that. But this is gonna be what eventually is gonna change my life and what's gonna wake me up. This happened in June of 2013. Court became delayed until November because of a tragic accident that happened to the DA. So I went through and I told my bosses they let me stay at Dairy Queen, I hired up this new crew, I trained them and all this. I went to court in November, and as soon as the guilty sentence came down, Dairy Queen decided to let me go. As part of this sentence, I had to do one month in the county jail, I lost my license for five years, and close to $10,000 in fines. I was feeling pretty low about myself. So this happened in November, I had about 10 days before I had to report to the county jail. In those 10 days, I was sitting at home, feeling low, just playing a game on my phone, a game of poker. I just happened to be sat at a final table, and there was this girl named Alicia. And I don't know how we just got to chatting and stuff like this, and she gave me her phone number. And I called her, and we started talking. She lives out in California. And she's like, tell me about yourself. Well, I held nothing back to her. I told her just everything, because I'm like, what do I got to lose, right? I don't know this person from on the ground. I told her everything. And she just sat there, she listened, she was kind, and she's like, you know God loves you. I'm like, what? This is so strange. And she started talking about some of the troubles that she had in her life. But she stayed so positive and upbeat about it. And I'm like, how can you be so positive? She's like, because I'm a daughter of the king of kings. There's nothing that can bring me down no matter what happens. And I thought, man, this girl's crazy. What is she talking about? But we talked every day until I had to go to jail. And she made me make a promise to her. She made me promise that while I was in jail that I was actually that Bible that I'd had for a while. She said, you're going to read that while you're in jail. I said, OK, I'll promise you I'll read that while I'm in jail and when I get out, you know, we'll keep talking and we'll talk about it. So sitting in the jail cell there in Menard County, Illinois, I began reading the Bible. And for several days, this Bible, it didn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I enjoyed the stories. I thought it was cool, you know, reading about Samson and Gideon and all the stories of the Old Testament, reading some of the neat stuff that Jesus did. But it really, it really wasn't sinking into me anything. You know, it didn't make a big life changer. Until one day I got to the book of Romans. And in Romans chapter five, that's where we're gonna start reading. In verse three, it says, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, But God committed his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Man, that verse touched me deeply, immediately. I don't know what it was, but it finally was starting to hit home. I flipped around in my Bible, I kept reading, but it seemed like every three or four chapters I'd read through, I'd have to go back to those verses and I'd have to reread them. Turn a little bit more, I'd go back to those verses. I was not happy. in my tribulations. This is what the conclusion that I came to. I wasn't happy in my tribulations. I was very little patience, right? And I felt completely hopeless in that jail cell, but I wanted it. This book right here, this book said I could have it. I could have hope. This whole life I've been living hopeless. Because what does it say? When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. That was me. You know, I was ungodly. I was weak. I had no strength. Verse 8, God commences his love towards us that we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. That was me. I was a sinner. I was one of the worst. I'd done some horrible things. Christ died for me. It's starting to make sense. This book, it hit me. Realization was sitting in. This book was written exactly for people like me. It wasn't written necessarily for all the people that think they're righteous sitting in the perch. It was for a sinner exactly like me. I got down on my knees right there in the Menard County Jail. I told God everything that I can remember that I had ever done wrong in my life. Every dirty deed, man, I cried. I begged him for forgiveness. I thanked Him for dying on the cross for me, for a lowly sinner like me. I pleaded with God, please come into my life. Give me that hope that you're talking about there, that hope that makes you not ashamed. That's what I want. That is what I need. And I don't know how long I spoke to God for. I don't know how long I was on my knees for. Felt like an eternity, probably 30 minutes, hour. I have no idea. But when I was all cried out, when I was all pleaded, when my tears were all dry, I crawled into that thin little mat in that jail cell, sitting on top of that little concrete slab with my one little blanket and my rock-hard pillow. And how I felt at that moment in time is almost indescribable. I was very nervous, but I was calm. I was worried, scared to death, but I was at peace. I was going to get out of jail in 10 days. I had no idea what I was going to do. Had no money. Had no job. Lost a lot of respect from people that I knew. No driver's license. No clue how I was going to survive. But I knew I was going to be OK. And I didn't know how. Hard to believe that was 10 years ago. And now I'm standing up in a pulpit preaching. Since then, since that day, I worked two years at a nursing home when I got out. Well, I got my associate's degree from a community college. Spent three years at Illinois State University getting a master's of professional accountancy degree. I taught one year in Illinois before the school closed and I moved to Arkansas in 2020. These have all been wonderful things and I'm not up here to glory in myself for these things because there's no way I could not have done them without the power of Jesus Christ. in my life and those words that came from this amazing book that one day in a jail cell. It hasn't been easy though, right? It's not like I thought at first when I first thought I came to Christ and it was false, false profession of faith there that I thought once you became a Christian, everything was easy and everything was gonna be rosy. No, it hasn't been. It's been far from easy. Too many times to count, I've had to return to these verses and I've had to remind myself exactly what they say. These verses that changed my life, that brought me salvation, they're good for life after salvation too. And that's what I entitled the message tonight, Life After Salvation, because I constantly need the reminders that come from these verses. And it's what I call in my book, the four C's that I need for Christian living. And the first thing I notice is conflict, right? We can expect it in our lives. We can expect hard times to come our way. Wouldn't it be great if it just all went away? As soon as you're like, oh God, come into my life, save me, then all of a sudden everything was rosy. Everything was great. Man, that would absolutely be amazing. But that's just not the way the world works. It is not. Jesus says in John 16, 33, in the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Notice what he says there? Not that you might have tribulation. Not that you may have tribulation, it could happen. No, you will have tribulation. You're going to have troubles. You're gonna have some conflict in life. And this conflict that comes in our life, it takes many, many forms, right? Sometimes it's the way people speak to us, or think about us. And sometimes that's straight out lies, and that can be hard when they're doing that. Sometimes something we've done, they take it out of context, you know, and make it twisted, and you don't understand why they're doing that to you. Other times, they're being ill towards you and they're speaking ill of you because you deserve it. I know some of the hardest conflict I've ever had in my life is people holding things against me that I did before I came to Christ. And you know what? I deserve some of that, right? Because I've done what they said I've done. Other times, It's people's actions toward us that can create conflict, not just their words. People can be mean. They can be hurtful. They can do it intentionally, unintentionally, but you know it's there. That conflict is going to come. And other times it doesn't have to deal with people at all. It can be an act of nature. A storm damages your house. Brother Aaron, if you're watching, a deer jumps into your car, right? You get conflict in your life. And it's no fault of anybody's. It's just an accident. It just comes. But what matters is not how that conflict comes into our life. What matters is how we react to that conflict. We can have a negative attitude when stuff like this happens, right? Negative attitude. Poor me. Why is this happening to me? Let's throw ourselves a little pity party and get down on ourselves and be like, God, if you love me, this wouldn't happen, right? When people treat us wrong, we start to hold grudges when we have a negative attitude. We start to think, you know, if you really cared for me, you wouldn't treat me like this. I'm going to wait. About six months from now, I'm going to remember this, and I'm going to get you back for that, right? We get anger in our lives. We start to become bitter against people, against God. We start to seek relief in ungodly things. You know, that's what I used to do. Whenever time I had conflict, I'd turn to the drugs, turn to alcohol, promiscuity, you know, other people, trying to find something to cover up that pain, right? We learn nothing that way, and we become bitter. But what does it say here in our verse here in Romans 5.3? It says God wants us to glory in our tribulations. Glory, rejoice, be happy. How crazy is that? Who wants to be happy when they're having conflict, when they're having pain, when they're having suffering? You know, I sure don't want to sometimes. But that doesn't mean, get this straight though, it doesn't mean we don't mourn, right? There's a season for everything. That's what Ecclesiastes tells us. And even Jesus mourned and Jesus wept for the death of Lazarus. But what it does mean is it means, it does mean that after the morning's over, we move on. We forgive. We forgive people that have done us wrong. We don't hold grudges. to people or God. We trust through our conflict, and our suffering, and our tribulations, that we're going to come out better on the other end of it. In the book of 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 10 tells us, but the God of all grace hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. That is what we need. It may hurt us now, some of this conflict, some of this tribulation we're going through, but it's going to make us better in the long run. It's kind of like, Connor, some of us have been going to the gym. I'm really afraid to work out with you because I know you're going to put a hurting on me once I do it, once I finally get to that point. But I was there with Brother Joey the other day, and he's there encouraging me, telling me, do those sit-ups. I'm like, it hurts. I can't. I can't. And as soon as we got done, he's like, hey, this is what you got to tell yourself, right? It's going to hurt. It's going to be hard. Your muscles don't want to do it. Your muscles are in conflict with your brain right now. But you know why you do it now? It's so you feel better tomorrow. It's for the long run. It's for a year from now, six months from now. That's the attitude we need in our lives. The attitude of someone that's going, we work out our bodies, we need to work out our spiritual lives, just the same. We're going to hurt. We're going to suffer. But in life, because we are hurting, because we are suffering, we are also learning. We're also becoming better Christians and better people. And one of the most important things we learned is my second C here, right? So our first C, we're gonna have conflict. The second C, we're gonna have calmness in our life, right? So we glory in our tribulations knowing that tribulations worketh patient. When we are patient, we are calm. We don't get those knee jerk reactions. We don't make impulse decisions. Impulse decisions only lead to pain and hurt. You know, when I was out in New Mexico, when I lost my job there for a time being, I started a job where I sold these little toys. And they were just little nonsensical toys. But the whole idea was, is I'm going to catch you off guard. I had one that You put your hand in his little duck, and he'll quack, quack, quack, quack whenever you hit it. So I'd walk into a business, and I'd be like, hey, check this out. Quack, quack, quack, quack. And they'd go on. I'm like, you need this, right? Tell you what, I've got to get out of here in two minutes. But if you want to buy it now, they're $10 a piece normally, but I'll give them two of you for $10, right? But you've got to take it right now, because if you don't take it right now, I'm out the door, and you're never going to see me again, right? I'm getting those people to act on their impulse. That's how marketing works, right? You watch TV commercials. They say, buy it now, limited time offer. Get it now before it goes. They want you to act on impulses. And impulse reactions can often make you do things you don't want to do. Those people I was trying to sell those ducks to, they didn't need it. It was just a worthless piece of cloth. But you wouldn't believe how many people you can get them on impulse to make poor decisions. That can happen in our personal lives too, right? We can see the way we get into conflict with someone, and immediately we get that impulse decision, and we want to do something. But two wrongs definitely do not make a right. On Wednesday night, pastor spoke about King David. He was telling the story about how King David was fleeing from his son, Absalom. And in the story, he was going past a man named Shimei. And Shimei was throwing rocks at him and cursing him. Does anybody remember what what David's servant Abishai said. He said, let me go over, pray thee, and take off his head. I was sitting back there in the sound booth, and I kinda, Aaron was sitting back there, and I just kinda tapped him on the shoulder, and I said, I think I woulda let him. Right? I don't have the patience that King David had in that situation, but as I become a better Christian, that's what I'm trying to learn. That's what we're developing. That's why I turn back to these verses to remind me in situations like that. When someone's cursing me, when someone's throwing rocks at me, I need to have that patience of David. I need to stay calm, have a trusting attitude, and know that God can use that affliction that other people are putting on me. He can use that for good in my life someday. I may not see it right now, but I know someday it's going to work out all right. But not only do we need to be patient with those that have done us wrong, we also need to be patient and calm when we don't get what we want or what we think we deserve. I think we've all probably been in a situation where we didn't get something that we thought we deserved or something that we wanted and thought we had worked hard for. It can be hard to deal with in those situations. You put your blood, sweat, and tears into something, thinking you're going to get some kind of reward. Maybe you think, man, I'm the best candidate for this job. I have so much experience. I got all the schooling. Or maybe I'm dead set on getting that promotion because I'm staying here late every night. Or maybe I've sold so much this period that I'm definitely in for that sales bonus. Something along those lines. Maybe not exactly, but we've all been there where we thought, hey, I'm going to get this. I deserve this. Only to be overlooked or told, no, it's not going to you. I've been there. It can be tempting to tell those people that overlooked us exactly what we think, so-called give them a piece of our mind, right? I want to tell you exactly what I think about that decision. We know better, though, as Christians, right? Romans 8, 28 tells us that we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose. I've seen that play out in my own life. When I was in Illinois graduating school, And I had this professional accountancy degree. I wanted to be a great tax accountant. That was my goal. I got hired by one company. They did a background check and said, oh, oh, oh, a couple DUIs, we can't have you. Got hired by another company, exact same thing. All right? But all that led to me getting a job doing what I'm passionate about. It led me to get a job teaching. I taught one year at a school in Illinois. Thought, this is great. Then all of a sudden, the school's closed it down. Oh, no, what am I going to do now? Right? Led me to Arkansas. And it couldn't be anything couldn't have worked out any better for me. I didn't understand what was going on at the time. I didn't know what God was planning for me. But I love God. I trusted God at this point in time. And I went with what he said and said, God, I'm just going to trust you. And in here I am today. Things have a way of working ourselves out when we stay calm in conflict and we put our trust into God. Being calm in conflicts leads to better decision making. And that's gonna lead us to our third C here, character, right? For tribulation, work with patience, and patience, experience. Experiences are what develop our character. Wealthy businessman was asked, he said, what's the key to success? He said, good decisions. All right, well, how do you learn to make good decisions? He said, experience. I'll get you, I got you, right? Well, how do you get experience? He said, bad decisions, right? And that's how life works to us, right? We can be calm, we can be patient in our decision-making, but we're not perfect. Not all decisions are good ones. However, we learn from our mistakes, we improve. The more good decisions we make, the more blessings we see from God, and we better develop our character that way. And I'm defining character as doing what is right or at least trying to do what is right at all times. And I see there at all times. Too many times we seem to get character confused with reputation. Having a good reputation means doing what is right in front of men. Having good character means doing right in front of God. A man with a good reputation and a bad character is going to shame those people that steal, but yet when the cashier screws up and gives him the wrong amount of change, he's going to put it right in his pocket. A man with a good reputation and a bad character is going to be faithful to his wife and make it look good in public, but in private, he's going to be watching pornography videos and lusting after other women. A man with a good reputation and bad character is gonna show up at church every Sunday and say all the right things and say, I'm gonna pray for you, and then go home and not pray, right? A man with good character is gonna do the exact opposite. of all those things, right? And they're not gonna do it to please people. They're gonna do it to please God. As Colossians 3, 23 through 25 reads, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ, but he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done. And there is no respect of persons. So whenever you're having good character, do it for God. Don't do what we do to please men. Make good experiences. So, when we understand that conflict will come, and we respond repeatedly with calmness, we start to develop our character, then we start to come in line with what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments, right? Love thy God with all thy heart, and love your neighbor as yourselves. We are then proving our love for Jesus, because Jesus said in John 14, verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. And when we show and we're proving that we love Jesus, it brings us to the final C from this verse, confidence, right? Tribulation, work with patience, patience, experience, and experience hope. Hope. It's a nice word. It's wanting something. Wanting something with an expectation that you're going to get it. Notice it's not a wish. It's a lot different than a wish. A wish could happen, but wishes are unlikely. Hopes are confidence that we're going to get what we want. You know, unbelievers say they have hope for things. They don't. I thought when I was an unbeliever, I had no hope. I had wishes. I had things that I wanted. But you know, fingers crossed. Let's hope they come. Right? But they don't have confidence. But we do. Where does our hope and confidence come from? It comes from this book right here. This Holy Bible. The Word of God. We put our confidence in the Word. Why? Because it's been proven time and time and time again. Psalm 78 reads, Are you saying, hey, the work of God? Tell them to your children. Have them tell them to their children's children. Why? That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God. God has proven time and time again throughout the Old Testament that when he makes promises to his children, they're going to be fulfilled. The Old Testament is full proof that we can trust God's word. Heck, in the Old Testament, there's only 300 prophecies, way over 300 prophecies of Jesus, that Jesus fulfilled in His lifetime. Because of that, we can trust that He is the Son of God. He is our Savior. He is our Lord. We have confidence in what this book says. We have confidence that when He says He is the truth, what He says is the truth. We believe that when He says we can have joy on this earth and everlasting life with Him one day in heaven, it's not a wish. It's the truth. We can hope for that. We have confidence in that. It's a promise to us that we know is going to be fulfilled. We see it in His Word, and we can see it in our lives. We can see it when God changes lives. I can tell it in my life, the way God changed my life around. I'm sure there's many of you out there, too, that have some kind of salvation story. You can say, man, God has done great things for me. God has done this in my life. If not, you can see it in how God answers prayers, not only for you, but for the other people around you. When you're praying for your friends, you're praying for your family, you see God work in their lives. You can see it in how he provides for his saints, for those that he's loved. As the psalmist says, I've never seen the righteous go hungry or begging bread. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly. And anyone that's in Christ, to this day, if you're sitting in here and Jesus Christ is your Savior, you know that statement is true, that your life is greater, your life is more abundant with God in it. He makes sure we have everything we need. It's because of Jesus we have joy, we have laughter, and we have peace in this evil world. And because of this, we have no reason at all to doubt when he says he will go prepare a place for us in heaven because of what he's done in the past. We have confidence. that there is not all there is to life. This is not our final destination. We are just passing through to something much greater, where our current physical bodies are gonna die someday. They're gonna pass away. Our spirit's not going anywhere. Our spirit's going straight up to heaven. In one great day, we're gonna have new bodies. We're gonna live and reign with the Lord forever. And what a glorious day that's going to be. And I could not think of anything better to put my confidence in, to put my hope in, in that glorious day. Just kind of in conclusion here, I hope what I said maybe reached out and touched someone today. I hope you can take those four C's. Put them to work in your life when you start to have the hard times. When that conflict comes in your life, try to be calm. Right? Calm is going to make you a better decision. And make those decisions over and over and over again. Develop that character. Show that you love God by your actions and your behaviors. And then have confidence that God is going to take care of you. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for letting us gather here today to hear your word preached. We're so thankful that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us. You know that we can live in a world that's evil, where so much is going wrong, but we can have confidence and hope and trust in your word. And know that through your son, Jesus Christ, we have everlasting life. We don't have to worry about rotting in hell, Lord. I pray that there's anyone in here that has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, Lord, that they make that decision for you today. Don't put it off another day. We never know what's gonna happen tomorrow, Lord, and nobody knows what tomorrow brings but you. And we don't wanna see anyone suffer for eternity. So Lord, please, if there's anyone in here that doesn't know Christ, please work on their heart today, Lord, that you may reach out and touch them. We ask all this in Jesus' name. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, like to take a