God's Word Tonight, please, and open to 1 Peter tonight. Look in 1 Peter, and I want you to look at the very first chapter of 1 Peter tonight, and I want to talk tonight about how to rejoice in trials. How to rejoice in trials, 1 Peter chapter 1. Would you look down at verse number 3? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, have you ever been going through a difficult time and perhaps maybe a Christian who is very bubbly and filled with joy kind of walked in and just shouted, praise the Lord? Maybe wrong time for you because you were kind of going through a difficult time. Don't you kind of hate when that happens? I mean, be honest about it, you know. It's kind of like that verse in Proverbs. It says, he that blesses his friend rising early in the morning, shall be counted a curse unto him. Now, I've often said that Solomon, when he wrote that verse, he was not a mourning person, obviously. How many of you are, don't raise your hand, but how many of you are mourning people? I mean, the rest of us that can't stand mourning people, those of us who are not mourning people, especially when you pop out of bed and all sunshine, and you're all filled with joy, and the rest of us, we're not even awake yet. We don't wake up until noon. We might be out of bed, but we're not awake. Right? And what's the principle of that verse? Well, the verse is basically saying, you know, we match the mood of the people that we're speaking to. If someone's going through a difficult time, it's not the right time to be, you know, joyful around them if they're going through a difficult time. We rejoice with those that rejoice, and we weep with those that weep. That's why I find verse 3 of 1 Peter kind of interesting. You know why? Because Peter is writing to believers that are going through an incredibly difficult time of suffering. There was a lot of believers that he was writing to that were weeping. They had gone through horrible trials. And yet the Holy Spirit of God inspired Peter to write to these suffering Christians. And the greeting, the opening thing that he says is here in verse number three, "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" You might say, how insensitive of Peter, how could he do such a thing, you know, commanding the people to bless God and to praise God in the midst of all of their suffering and all of their trials? How could he do such a thing like that? Well, let me put it to you this way. What if you're going through some trial and I burst into the room and I said, praise God, you have just inherited $100 million. Would that change your mood a little bit? Would that cause you to think about things just a little bit differently? You know, having $100 million as your inheritance doesn't solve all of your problems, but it does open up some interesting new options for you. At least you could take that money and go away. on a long vacation and think about all over some of the things that you're going through. But, you know, and really just thinking about that prospect. Some of you are thinking about it right now. Come back to me, all right? You haven't inherited $100 million, all right? It's not real. But let me just say this. You have inherited something far better. Something far better than that. Peter is saying, basically, in this verse, essentially, blessed be God, because He has given us something far more valuable than $100 million. Why? Because He's caused us to be born again unto a living hope. Again, look at verse 3, which, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively, or we could say living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And then he goes on in verse number four to talk about the inheritance that we do have in heaven that God has reserved for every one of those who name the name of Christ. You have an inheritance that is in heaven. And he has saved us for that inheritance because we're saved unto eternity. Now, you might be thinking, now, wait a minute, you know, that's all great there, but I'm having problems right here and right now. I mean, it's okay to know that one day in the future, I'll have all of that, but I'm facing some things, and I need help right now. I'm being unfairly treated at work. Maybe some people here that could say that, or I've been fired because of my Christian testimony, or I can't find work, and I'm facing a severe financial crisis. I have a mate who's not a Christian who makes life miserable for me, or I have a good friend who turned against me without cause, and he runs me down behind my back. Since I begin to follow Christ Things have not been easy. In fact things have gotten much harder and I'm overwhelmed or you could be saying, you know, I'm facing death itself Now I just described people that Peter was writing to Those are the kind of people that Peter was dealing with when he wrote this letter. There were Christians who were being treated unfairly, Christians who were suffering all kinds of persecution. Many believers lost their friends. Some were being threatened. Some were facing martyrdom. And so they were facing all kinds of difficult trials. And Peter knew all about this. He knew all about their trials when he wrote verse number three, blessed be the God who has caused us to be born again unto a living hope. Now, if the idea of your future inheritance in heaven doesn't affect you as you face the problems, these present problems right now, There may be one or two reasons why it doesn't affect you or why it doesn't help you. Number one, it could be that maybe you're not truly saved. Or perhaps you are saved, but you may, to some degree, be buying into that errant form of Christianity that puts the emphasis on the here and now rather than on eternity. where we're living for everything here and now. There was a man out by the name of Reverend Ike many years ago, and he used to say something like this. Crassly, he would say, I don't want my pie in the sky when I die. I want cash in the stash right here and now. Now, a lot of people, most of us aren't that blatant to say something like that, but I find that there are many who are into Christianity for what it can give them right now, for what it can do for them right here in this life. You know, heaven is a nice extra. It's good to know that we're going there, but they want the good life now. And if Christ isn't going to be able to furnish all the good things that they want, well, then they're willing to go try something else to get the things that they want. They're willing to shop elsewhere. They came to Christ because they heard that God had a wonderful plan for their lives. And what they didn't understand was that the wonderful plan often means the riches that we have in Jesus Christ. those spiritual riches in the midst of sometimes suffering and difficult and heartache that we go through now. We need to stop and think about what salvation means, because sometimes it's easy to forget. And salvation means that we who justly deserve the wrath, eternal wrath of God, have been delivered from that wrath because of what Jesus Christ did on our behalf. And if we're not saved, we're lost, we're under the condemnation of God. That's terrible. Hopefully, everyone here knows the Lord Jesus Christ and that you're not under that condemnation. One of our problems today is that we're trying to get people saved who have no concept of how terrible it is to be lost. They have no understanding of the danger that they're in. And we're trying to coach people who have forgotten what it's like to be eternally lost and to enduring, living through hardship or living through trials in the Christian life. And they don't appreciate what God has done in saving them. They have seemed to forgotten. The joy of knowing that you're going to be in heaven. You're never going to face eternal wrath. What does that mean to you? That's the question. We have forgotten that. And put it to you like this, suppose you were standing in a long line in the bank. And I came running in and I grabbed you out of that line, jerked you out, dragged you outside, and you probably would be a bit upset with me. You'd say, what do you think you're doing? Why'd you do that? I've been in that line, you pulled me out, you hurt my arm. But what if some terrorist then went into the bank and took hostages and demanded some things, demanded some things, and if they didn't get them, he was gonna kill a hostage every hour until he got it. and you realize finally that I had delivered you, I'd rescued you from that terrible situation. Well, you probably won't be so angry at me when you understand that. In fact, you'll be grateful because I delivered you from that terrible, terrible situation. As Christians, I fear that we have forgotten what God has delivered us from. And we complain about our trials and run after whatever we think will make us happy in this life because we have forgotten the terrors of hell from which God has delivered us. And so what Peter does here for these believers that are going through terrible trials is he reminds them all that they have in Christ. He reminds them of the blessings that they have in salvation. And so this shows in this passage here three reasons we can rejoice and praise God no matter what our sorrows, no matter what our problems may be, we can still rejoice in the midst of those trials and we can still give praise to God. Let me give you the three reasons. Here's number one. We can rejoice in trials remembering the past reasons for our salvation. Again, look at verse 3. Notice how it starts out. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter's prayer is really a praise, and it sounds really a lot like the Hebrew prayer called the 18 blessings. And they would recite in this prayer 18 blessings. And the prayer was recited three times each day in the synagogue. Each one ended with the words, blessed be thou, O God. Blessed be thou, O God. And Peter is basically saying in verse three, praise the Lord, blessed be you, O God. because of our salvation, because of the blessings that we have in Christ. They are innumerable. We have innumerable blessings in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter is very careful to emphasize that our salvation comes from the Father through the work of Jesus Christ to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We see the work of the Trinity in our salvation. You can actually see that in verse number two, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. God the Father thought it, God the Son bought it, and God the Holy Spirit wrought it. As far as the father's concern, I was saved when he chose me back before the foundations of the earth. As far as the son is concerned, I was saved when he died for me on the cross. As far as the spirit is concerned, I was saved when I heard the gospel and I trusted Jesus as my savior. But all those three things are involved. All the Trinity was involved in our salvation. Where would we be without it? Where would we be without God's great salvation? Now, notice he emphasizes here because of God's great mercy. Notice where it says, which according to his abundant mercy, our salvation is not based on any merits of our own. It doesn't come because we're worthy of it. It's all the mercy of God. Just like I was talking about this morning, the man who went to the temple and he pleaded for the mercy of God, not his own merit, but just mercy. And he received mercy from God. And mercy and grace go hand in hand. Grace is God giving us something that we don't deserve. Mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. And we get mercy and grace from God. And how wonderful is that? And notice Peter uses the word abundant there, according to his abundant mercy. And the word here, polis, great in quantity. It's like a storehouse that never runs out, something that never is in short supply. I heard about a woman long ago, a poor woman from the slums of London that was invited with a group of people to go take a holiday at the ocean. She had never been to the ocean before, never had seen the ocean. And when she saw it, she burst into tears. And her friend said, you know, don't spend your holiday, your vacation in tears. Why are you crying? She said, well, because this is the only thing I've ever seen that there was enough of. And I want to tell you something, dear friend. God has oceans of mercy. His mercy endures forever. There's enough of it to go around for all of God's people, but also because of God's life-giving power. Look in verse number three, again, where it says, "...and hath begotten us again unto a lively hope," or we could say living hope. The word begotten, anogeneo, to be born again, to be born anew. We could say to be given new life. God has given us brand new life in the Lord Jesus Christ, just as we have been born physically and given physical life. Now in Christ, we have been born spiritually, and we have been given spiritual life. There are people today that are physically dead, but they're, excuse me, physically alive. Let me get that right, all right? If you see anybody physically dead, walking around, run from them, all right? Just kidding. There are people who are physically alive, but they're spiritually dead. Get that right? And they don't have any spiritual life. And they are really, spiritually speaking, walking around spiritual zombies. God is the one who regenerates us and gives us spiritual life. We are born again because of God's love. He has given us power that we might have spiritual life. That's called regeneration into a living hope. That is, into the realm of, into the sphere of this hope. Hope is a certainty. It's not a wish. It is a certainty of the things that God has laid up for us in heaven. And why does he call it a living hope? Again, I think it's because it's growing. This hope that we have of eternal life, Carolyn just sang about it, going to heaven, you know, that's very real. We're going to spend eternity in heaven. And I don't know about you, but as each day passes by, that hope becomes more and more real because we're all one step or one day closer to that hope. As each day goes by, we're one day closer to that time when we're going to go be with the Lord Jesus Christ. I've always believed about heaven, but it's more real to me now than it ever has been before. And I believe it more today than I ever did before. And each day I seem to see it just a little more clearly. than I saw it before. And a lot of that is because, you know, I think all of us here, we've all experienced seeing our loved ones go on there. And that's people that know the Lord Jesus Christ. They're all there on that side waiting for us. And every time we lose a loved one, every time a loved one goes there, a little bit more of our heart goes there with them. And that living hope is more real. It grows day by day. Each time, one of our loved ones goes to heaven. When I was in seminary, I pastored a small country church. And during that time, I once visited a man in the hospital. And he was in his late 90s, I remember, and he was a godly man. And I really enjoyed talking with him. And before I left, I basically said to him, I said, you know, I'm gonna pray for God to heal you and make you well. And he said, oh, please don't do that. I said, please don't do that. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, he said, I want you to pray that God will just take me on to heaven. He said, you know, all of my loved ones are there. He said, I've outlived all of my family. My wife is there. My brothers are there. Sisters are there. All of my children are there. All of my friends are there. He said, I know more people there than I know here. And I'm longing for heaven. I want to go there. Please don't pray that I get well. Please pray that God just takes me on to heaven. I'll never forget that visit. His living hope was so very real to him. Our great salvation is because of God's great mercy. It's because of God's life-giving power. But also here's the next thing, because of Christ's resurrection, look again in verse 3 where it says, And we know how important the resurrection of Christ is. If God the Father left Jesus in the grave, our salvation would not be complete. His death on the cross bore our sins. but He was raised again for our justification. The fact that God the Father raised Him from the dead means that He accepted the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, and that sin was truly paid for. Now, Peter was an eyewitness of Jesus Christ's resurrection. At first, he did not believe the reports that Jesus was raised, but after Christ's many appearances, especially the one where he appeared on the shores of Galilee and he restored Peter, that all made Peter completely confident in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this living hope is based upon that fact of the resurrection of Christ. Now, here's the second thing I want you to see. We can rejoice in trials remembering the past reasons for our salvation. But here's number two, write this down. We can rejoice in trials knowing the present riches of our salvation. Now look at verse number four. To an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. Do you know what? Salvation made you rich. Did you know that you're rich? You're not going to be rich. You are rich. All right. There's a difference. You are rich in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Peter goes on to describe our salvation as an inheritance, and it's locked up in the bank vault of heaven, guarded against any intruder that may try to take it from us. And we are assured that God's power is guarding that inheritance for us, and it's guarding us for it. You heard about a man who was sitting on the corner crying and a stranger came by and said, why are you crying? He said, haven't you heard? He said, Rockefeller died. He said, well, you're not related to him. Why are you crying? He said, that's why I'm crying. He wanted some of that inheritance. But I want to tell you, you and I are related to Jesus, our King. And you know what? We have an inheritance from him. Write down Romans 8, 17, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. And so our salvation includes an inheritance in heaven that God keeps for us. Again, look at verse 4, reserved in heaven for you. Peter tells us that part of our salvation is that we have an inheritance right now in heaven waiting for us. All right? It's already there. And one day when we get there, we're going to receive that. And so you're richer than you can ever imagine. Please don't think that all you have is in this life right now or that, you know, this is the good part of salvation. This is not. There's a certain preacher that wrote a book called Your Best Life Now. And some of you might know his name. Last time I mentioned his name, someone got mad and walked out. I'll go ahead and mention him, Joel Osteen. And you can go ahead and walk out if you get mad. But please don't buy the book. Please save your money. His title of the book, Our Best Life Now, or Your Best Life Now. Now, if that's true, if this is your best life right now, you know what that means? That you're not a believer. The only way this can be your best life now is if you're not going to heaven. Because your best life is not here. Your best life is when you go and see the Lord Jesus Christ. That's when the greatest life begins. And so, your inheritance is waiting for you. Now, sometimes people will ask, what is this inheritance? Well, Peter doesn't exactly tell us what it is, but he does give us some hints about what it's going to be like. I'm kind of giving away my age here. Did you ever watch a program on TV called Let's Make a Deal? Anybody here remember that? Some of you young people, you don't remember that. But I remember Monty Hall was the host for that show. And contestants can win prizes and so on. But they would win a prize and he would give them something in their hand. But then he would give them an option. He would give them an ultimatum. Well, you can keep what you have. Maybe he'd give them a few dollars, maybe a few hundred dollars. And then he'd say, you can keep what you have or you can take what's behind door number one. And they would say, well, what's behind door number one? Well, he wouldn't tell them. And he wouldn't give them any hints about what was behind door number one. So they had to make a choice to keep what they had that they could see in their hands or choose something that they could not see, hoping that, you know, what's behind the door is worth more than what's in their hand. And of course, some people would sometimes choose what's behind the door and maybe, you know, the door would open up and it would be some, you know, some kind of really bad gift, you know, like a rusty bucket or something like that, you know. And that was kind of the way the game was played. But let me just try, let me just tell you this, that when God tells us that we have an inheritance in heaven, He doesn't exactly tell us what's behind the door. He however does give us some hints. And one thing he makes clear is that what's behind that door is so much more valuable than anything you have in your hand. That he makes clear to us. And what is it this like? What are the hints that Peter gives us about this inheritance that we have in heaven? Well, first of all, it's imperishable in verse number four, into an inheritance incorruptible. It means something that will never perish. Everything in fallen creation is stained or polluted by sin. It has been touched by corruption. But what God has laid up for us in heaven is imperishable, but also it's undefiled in verse 4. It's a word that means unstained. It has no flaws. It's unstained by sin, and also it will not pass away. This is a word that's described in secular Greek to describe a flower that did not wither or die. Our inheritance is like this. It has no expiration date. It is unlike earthly wealth. Earthly wealth will pass away. It's good to have wealth if God has entrusted it to you, but it's only temporary and it will pass away. Remember what James wrote to the rich men in James 5, your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered. you know, back in that day, they didn't have banknotes to measure wealth. Their wealth was basically measured in grain or in gold or in garments. And so James said, look, your wealth is rotted, your grain's rotting, your garments are maltheaten, your gold and silver is cankered, it's rusted. That is to say that this temporal wealth that we have here, it's perishable, it's going away. But the inheritance that God has laid out for us will not. It will not go away. It's preserved in heaven. And by the way, Not too many years after James wrote that epistle, the Romans came in and took all of the wealth of the Jewish people that lived around that area because Rome had invaded Judea because of their rebellion against the Roman Empire. That was 70 A.D. and they lost all of their wealth. It was all taken away. But you know what? Our inheritance in heaven is being guarded. God says it's guarded. Verse four, reserved in heaven for you. God is guarding it. It's already there. He's guarding it. And again, some people say, well, I just wonder what this is. I think it's included on a lot of different things. I think that we can kind of go through the Bible and just kind of maybe point out some things. Well, that's all part of our inheritance. I believe part of our inheritance will be the fact that we will see Jesus Christ and be in the presence of Christ, just like Carolyn sang about. We'll see the Lord Jesus. There'll be other saints there that we'll be able to fellowship with. I believe our loved ones waiting there, that's all part of the inheritance that we'll have, that we'll have wonderful communion and fellowship with our loved ones that are already there in heaven. I've heard certain theologians try to say that, you know, in heaven, we're going to have a new identity. And that's one of the more ridiculous things that I've ever heard taught. We're all going to be the same person there in heaven. We'll have a new glorified body, but we're going to be the same people. And we'll know our loved ones there. We'll know them better there than we knew here, knew them here. And the love that we'll share there in heaven will be a perfect love. Some of you have loved ones that are already laid up there in heaven. I look forward to going there and spending time there. Some of you know that we have a little granddaughter there, Matilda Grace. I think about her almost every day and wonder what she looks like. I think that she's this beautiful little red-headed girl in heaven. And I think we'll all have red hair in heaven, to be honest with you. because we'll all be perfect then. And no, I'm just kidding, as you know. But I think that's part of the inheritance. The Bible says, eyes have not seen, neither ears have heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has for those that love him. R.G. Lee was a great, great preacher, one of the most eloquent preachers to ever preach. If you ever heard him preach a sermon, you know what I mean. But he was on his deathbed, a very elderly man. And he was kind of in and out. He was kind of fade out. And then he would come back around. He would rouse. And beside his bed of R.G. Lee was Adrian Rogers, a great preacher, and Billy Graham. They were both there at his bedside when he was dying. And he was he went out of consciousness. And after a while, he came back. He woke up. And when he woke up, he said, Billy, are you there? Adrian, you there? And they said, yes, we're here. And he said, well, he said, I just want you to know I saw heaven. And he said, no sermon I've ever preached did it justice. And not long after that, he went to heaven. The most eloquent preacher, probably to ever live, couldn't do it justice. It's more beautiful beyond our comprehension. That's all part of our inheritance. But here's the next thing. Our salvation includes an inheritance in heaven that God keeps for us. And then also our salvation includes an inheritance in heaven that God keeps us for. God is keeping us for it. Look at verse number five, where it says, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Kept again, it's a different Greek word for being guarded. It's a military term. And again, but it's God guarding us. This is why I know that I can't lose my salvation and you can't lose your salvation. You know why? Because God is the one keeping us. I'm not keeping myself. If I were keeping myself, I would lose it. I wouldn't trust the best five minutes of my life to keep me saved. But it is God who's keeping us. He's keeping the inheritance for us. He's keeping us for it. And he is guarding, watching over us. That's why I can rejoice even in trials, knowing that God has that inheritance laid up and he is guarding over me to make sure that I will be there one day to receive all the blessings that God has laid up. Now, let me give you the third and final thing. We can rejoice in trials, remembering the past reasons for our salvation. We can rejoice in trials knowing the present riches. But then here's the third thing. We can rejoice in trials anticipating the future revelation of our salvation. Look what he says in the latter part of verse 5, ready to be revealed in the last time. Peter says that our salvation is ready to be revealed. He means that we may now enjoy a small part of what God has laid up, but it's going to be fully revealed then. Completely revealed. And as you know, our salvation is in stages, justification, sanctification, glorification. And we enjoy blessings right now. God saves us from the punishment of sin. Through His Holy Spirit, He's saving us from the power of sin, and we're learning to live and be more like the Lord Jesus. But one day, He's going to save us from the presence of sin, and He'll take us to heaven, and then our salvation will be fully revealed, completely revealed. Can you imagine? How wonderful that's going to be. Notice again the readiness of it. Ready to be revealed. It's waiting for us. It's like dinner, it's already on the table, it's ready for you. God's gonna ring that dinner bell one day and say, come home. The revealing of it, revealed, apocalyptic. The idea of unveiling like a statue is unveiled. God will unveil all the blessings that he has for us there in heaven. And then, so we can rejoice in anticipating the future revelation of our salvation. And that's why even in the midst of the trials that we have now, if we keep our mind focused on what God has for us, that'll get us through these trials that we have right now. I read about a man by the name of Robert Laurie. He was 38. He ministered in New York. He ministered in a time when there was a plague that was sweeping through the city and multitudes of people were dying. Many people in his own congregation were dying. And it was such a sad time. And he was constantly visiting sick members and doing funerals, one after another. And one day in July, he was near collapse himself through exhaustion. sat down and tried to rest some in his home and he reached for a piece of paper and he began to write a poem. And then he began to put music to that, that the words that he wrote down, thinking about all the people that he had lost, all the people around them that he loved and lost, and they were gone. And his church, his friends, his family. And he wrote these words down. Shall we gather at the river where bright angels feet have trod? with its crystal tide forever flowing by the throne of God. Yes, we will gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river, gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God. And friend, that's what's going to happen one day. I don't know about you. It's hard for me to see people go. I know, you know, I've kind of been a part of this church for a long time, off and on, getting saved here. And many of you have been a part of this church for a long time, too. And in the years that we've been here, we've seen some wonderful godly people pass on to heaven. And I'll be honest with you, it's not easy at times to watch people go on. And, you know, however, what really excites me is what that reunion is going to be like one day when we get to heaven. We will gather at the river with all the saints of God. What a wonderful time that's going to be. That's why make sure you know Jesus, friend. Don't miss out on the blessings of being there in heaven and all the inheritance that God has laid up for us. Many years ago, a team of mountain climbers began the dangerous descent from the Swiss Alps, from the peaks of the Swiss Alps. Sometimes descending from the climb is more dangerous than climbing. And the first man in the line lost his foothold and slipped over the edge. And as you know, they have a line together where they kind of hold each other up. The next two men were dragged after him, but the experienced climbers above, they braced themselves to stand firm because they knew there was going to be a jerk and they were going to have to hold these guys up. But when the rope ran its length, rather than bearing the weight of these men, it snapped like a string. Horrified, the climbers saw their friends fall to their deaths, thousands of feet below on a glacier. Well, it took them a while to get back their composure, probably a half hour before they had enough nerve to continue to descend down from the Swiss Alps. Finally, they got to the bottom, and after an investigation, they found, when the climbers examined the ropes, they found out why the one rope had snapped. You see, the true Alpine Club rope has a red strand that runs through it. But the rope that they were using did not have that red strand. It was a weak substitute. It wasn't a real thing. And so it was unable to hold the weight, and those men died. Let me tell you something, friend. When it comes to your salvation, your soul is secure, and your inheritance is safe. You know why? You don't have to ever fear falling or falling away. You know why? Because there is a red strand that runs through your salvation, and it's called the blood of Jesus Christ. And that blood has secured you, and you are safe and secure. for your inheritance and God is saving that inheritance for you. The precious blood of Jesus Christ is our hope. It is our hope. And that is the reason why even through trials and difficulties, we can still we can still rejoice. You know what? It's far better than inheriting one hundred million dollars. It's so much more valuable to have that. Let's bow for prayer together. Father, thank you for the comforting words of scripture, for the inheritance that we do have laid out for us. And it seems like each day that goes by, Lord, that living hope becomes more real. And the inheritance that we have. becomes more blessed to our heart to know that it's there. And you're guarding over that inheritance and you're guarding over us so that we're sure one day to enter into heaven's gates and receive all the things that you have there for us, imperishable, incorruptible, undefiled, that stays not away, kept for us. These blessings, we don't know specifically, but we we have an idea of a lot of what it is. And already it's more wonderful than we can we can comprehend So father, thank you for this inheritance Thank you for these future blessings. Thank you for the salvation that we have now And I pray lord that when we go through trials That we will focus more on what you have laid up for us That it will encourage us and comfort us And I pray father all this in jesus wonderful name