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Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim

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truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Faith is an active word. It's

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always on the go. It's always on the move. It's always producing. Why? Because of the

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object of the faith is Jesus Christ Himself and happily Jesus is on the move

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because Jesus is alive and that's a wonderful truth.

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You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today,

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if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ,

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then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or

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yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word

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has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. The word worthy is Axios and it means this in the negative

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sense. Right here, it is in the negative, not worthy. It means that there's nothing in this

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world that is weighty enough, nothing substantial enough, nothing that you can even detect as it

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were in the radar, not even being in the same league, somebody would say, not deserving of attention

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in comparison. What heaven is for us and we're in route to heaven? This cancer, this diabetes,

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this broken marriage, this injured life, this broken mind is nothing compared to what's going to

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happen to you in heaven. God has got an awesome plan and Christ is the answer on how to get there.

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It's not your works, it's not your efforts, it's all on him. As you turn to him and you cry out to

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him, oh Lord God have mercy on me. He delights in that. He loves it and we need to remember his

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perspective. He imparts that to us by the Holy Spirit. Don't let these things of this world

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bring us down. Come on, let's be honest, the things of this world have a tendency to, you can almost

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hear sometimes the trials of life with a sucking kind of a drain noise. It's like somebody pulled the

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plug in the tub and everything's going down. If you don't get a perspective from the Bible on what's

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happening, you can get sucked up into depression, you can get pulled down into darkness. That's why

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we need to love on one another. This ridiculous world has no authority nor is it qualified to talk

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about the word love. God is love the Bible says and that is a love that is enduring. It's a yielding

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love and it's a defensive love. It's offensive love and it's a protective love. God loves

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us and it's a wonderful thing to see. The worthiness of heaven is something that we can only dream about

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as it were. He gives us those glimpses by the way of an earth that in some tiny bit still bears

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resemblance of his goodness. Here we pick it up, part three of our message. Found at the latter

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end of verse 18 is that time is running out and church, we need to be looking forward to the

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beginning. I love this part. It says in verse 18 that our sufferings now are not worthy to be

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compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Man, you want to talk about pregnant truth

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scripture. It's right here with the glory which shall be revealed in us. The glory talking about

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heaven. This is a test. This is a quiz. Number one, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is where?

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Anybody know? He said in you. Number two, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is near you or around you.

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Interesting conversation, right? Jesus also said the kingdom of heaven is coming.

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Now you think about yourself for a moment. You and I in this world spiritually speaking are

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suspended between heaven and hell. You're in the place of what Tolkien would say middle earth.

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And there's two worlds pulling on you. One, pure love. The Puritans used to say the spirit of

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God is wooing you to God. The other side is pure death. All of the flesh, all of sin, all of the

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darkness, all of hell is pulling. And you're in the middle. You are the great prize in this grand

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scheme of what's taking place. Christ died on the cross for your sins, for mine personally.

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Listen, it wasn't a good man dying on the cross because a good man couldn't take in all of our own

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drama. You understand that? Well, I believe Jesus was a good man. Do you now?

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Then that's an insult to God. He wasn't a good man. He was the God man. He was born in Bethlehem

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just like the prophets foretold. He was God come to earth in human skin. Read Isaiah chapter seven.

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Read Isaiah chapter nine. And Christ was born into this world. God's Messiah, the second person

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of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, the eternal God who was at creation of the physical world.

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And he comes and he takes upon the form of you and I, a human, not angels by the way.

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Jesus did not die for angels. Isn't that amazing? I love that. He died for us.

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And he rose again from the dead to guarantee your salvation. All you need to do is to recognize

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what he says is true. He says that we're sinners. He says that he's the Savior. Repent of your sin

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that means agree with him. Heck, Homo Lageo is to say the same word about sin that God says about

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it. And then you want to meternoya. You want to change your mind. So you don't have to get

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a weird religious about, oh, you know, what do I do? What do I do next? Do I do this? Do I kneel?

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Do I stand? Do I jump? What do I do? Jesus says this is the work that God would have you to do.

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Everybody held their breath. What is it? Because you know, our flesh is saying you got to pick up

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500 pounds. You got to give a million dollars. You got to walk 35,000 miles, right?

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Jesus says believe on him whom God has sent. That was the answer. Trust in him. Put your faith in him.

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Lean upon him whom God has said that's the work of God. But religion will muddy all that up

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and make it impossible. Don't do that. Now the fact of the matter is for us as believers,

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we look forward to the beginning. And it's quite awesome because to experience the glory

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and to experience what we're seeing here as the word revealed, then we've got to embrace a word

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that we kind of relate to. It's a little bit of a different use of the word here. But you like

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the book of Revelation. I love it. It's my favorite book. The book of Revelation is the book

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of apocalyptic or apocalypse, the unveiling. So let's read that again. With the glory which shall

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be unveiled or revealed or made known in us. The kingdom that is around us is the kingdom that

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is within us. And if the kingdom to which we're going to, and it's basically this,

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it's God's governance over our lives. Nobody can control that.

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I talked to a family after first service. I'm not going to tell you what country they're from

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because they'll just, it's not helped me to say what country. I'm going to be there soon. So I

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don't want them to not let me in through customs. But they live in a country where the

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government controls the sermons. The government controls the church. The government says what it

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can and cannot do. And the government says where they can and cannot go. And that's quite shocking

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to hear in the 21st century, isn't it? But it is what it is. No, for the believer, hallelujah,

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everybody, this world is not the consummation of our faith. This world is not the end of our

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journey. Our beginning actually really happens when you and I enter into glory. There's a glory

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that we're going to go to. We talked about that last time together. We're in route. We talked

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about the word terminus. We're in route to the termination of our journey. And for the believer,

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the termination of our journey is simply the end of our opportunities as believers to be faithful to

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God. When that's done, it's home. It's the presence of God. And that is such a joyous thing.

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The word glories, that word docks up, to the praise of, to the honor of. So think about all the

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suffering. It's nothing in comparison to the glory that shall be revealed. Why is that? The praise,

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the honor, to the glory of, to the brightness and the beauty of God's glory and majesty.

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Be all glory, we would say, to the eternal pleasure and joy, here it is, of being in His presence.

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Look, that is both true in the future. But to exercise faith today, it's true for us right here

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right now. How do you live today? You know, we have to be careful that as believers, we don't say,

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oh, you know, the days to come, you know, when that time comes, when that happens, you know,

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we long for that moment. Yes, we long for that moment. But as believers, we live this life around

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us in the here and now, from that position, that is our inheritance. But we represent the kingdom

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now, which is why the Bible calls us ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? So very, very important.

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So listen, I want to repeat two verses from a few weeks ago. Titus chapter 2 verse 11,

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Titus 2 11 says, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Past tense,

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it's Jesus. Teaching us that denying and godliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly,

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righteousnessly and godly in this present age. That's impossible without the Holy Spirit controlling

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your life. Verse 13, one of my favorite verses of the entire Bible. Looking for, you have to

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circle the word looking because it means expecting, longing, yearning for the blessed hope and the

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glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, who is it? Jesus Christ, verse 14, who gave

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Himself for us that we might, that He might redeem us. What a God. What a God. Listen,

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then Judaism, you don't have this. You just have rules and regulations. And Mormonism,

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Jehovah Witness, Islam, all of its performance. Somebody's wrong.

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I'll submit to you this argument. The biblical argument is the most humbling. It is the most

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difficult to accept because it causes you and I to take the backseat and trust God that He'll

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take care of it all. The other one, oh yeah, yeah, we believe in Jesus, but we're going to add this.

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You just fall from grace. The Bible says, in the book of Galatians, it says, you're not a real

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believer, you're not true. You have fallen from grace. The moment you put works out in front.

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Oh, if I could just get accepted by God. You want to get accepted by God? You've got to be

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in Christ. Imagine being inserted as it were inside the righteousness of God, because that's

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exactly what it means. You are hidden by the blood of Jesus. But that is such an awesome supernatural

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reality that your life on the inside is transformed. You're made new. Colossians 3 verse 4,

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when Christ who is our life appears, is he your life? Then we also will appear with Him in

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glory. That's a great verse. When He comes to pick us up, which is whom we're living for,

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we will be glorified. Lord, now please. Number 2 in our argument is verses 19 to 21, and that is

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what are we waiting for when hope is increasing? It's true. Hope is increasing. Right now in this

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world, 21st century, right here right now. This month, this week, today, hope is increasing if you

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understand the Scriptures. If you're waiting for God to do something next in your life, hope's

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increasing. If you're waiting for some Scriptures, some event, you're looking to the horizon as it

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were for God, then God, what's the next move? Hope is increasing. Look, here you are today,

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not sure if you know this or not, most of you do, but today is Sunday. And Sunday is the first day

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of the week. What do people don't know that? Monday is the second day of the week.

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Sunday has always been the first day of the week. The disciples, for example, 2000 years ago,

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on the first day of the week, they met together. It was Sunday. Even in Judaism, the Sabbath is Saturday,

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the next new day that starts the week, their Monday, so to speak, is Sunday. Right? You got that?

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Jews go to work on Sunday. To them, it's like our Monday. Our first day in this nation,

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and in the Judeo-Christian Western world, for the last 2000 years, the first day of the week was

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dedicated to God, because everything's dedicated to God. We're following the pattern of the early

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believers. First day of the week is Sunday. Second day of the week, we give that to the world.

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Are you hearing me? So what's very, very cool about this is the church worships the first day of

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the week. Look, I grew up in a land far, far away in a distant galaxy. When I was young, I grew up

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in a country that you had to do everything on Friday and Saturday, because on Sundays,

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everything was closed in honor of God. Did you know that? It wasn't until how many, maybe the

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last 40 years, 50 years. Everything was closed on Sundays in America. Everything.

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It was the first day of the week. That was our Judeo-Christian founding of our nation. It was

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always like that. And can you imagine today, if I were to imagine being a congressman in

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Washington DC, and you say, I like to propose a bill that we shut down everything on Sundays.

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Everything is shut down. By order of the government, we shut down everything on Sundays,

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and people can either play basketball, go fishing, hang out with their kids, go to church,

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not whatever, but we're going to dedicate this day. Can you imagine that? There'd be riots.

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There'd be riots. Imagine if I just said this, there'd still be riots. We're just going to take

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a day off as a nation and strengthen our families. Dads are going to play baseball with their kids,

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and they're going to go to the beach together, fly a kite, just unplug from the world one day

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away. Can you imagine? People would get upset over that. What are you talking about family? Who

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needs a family? They'll be... It's like some people get in a fight with an aunt. They just got

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to argue about everything. But could you imagine? I grew up in a world like that. That's the time

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where I come from. But I got to tell you, when you're focusing your heart and your life on God,

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there's a hope that starts to increase in your life. It's just the way that it is. In verse 19,

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we see this in nature. Nature is waiting. Look at verse 19. It says, for the earnest expectation

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of the creation, not the evolution, the creation. There's evidence of creation. There's no evidence

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of evolution. And I love to say that because it upsets people. So let me say it again. There's evidence

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of creation. There's no evidence of evolution. You need to know that. Do I never heard that before?

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What about the fossils? You want to talk fossils? We'll have to talk about it some other time.

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But the fossils actually proves the opposite of what you're thinking about. The fossils scream

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creation. But that's for another day. But I hope it comes soon. That's a great conversation. Maybe

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next time. But the creation, the Bible says, is in a state of expectancy. It's eagerly waiting

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for the revealing of the sons of God. What does that mean? It means that nature itself is under

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the grip of sins effect. And it's waiting. The word in Greek means this is pretty awesome.

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It means that it's up on the tips of its toes. And we're supposed to be like that too.

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To look over it. It means with expectation to be on the tips of your toes to be looking

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like over a crowd. You're done that. You're like, why can't you see anything?

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That's how the believer's supposed to be. And I know we have to walk around normal in life.

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Hey, how you doing? Nice to see you. This is how, hey, God, you're here.

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But inside we should be going, yeah, probably you're here. Is it any signs of Jesus coming?

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Is God moving? You know, a truck, huh? Is that it? Are we going up? No, it's just a truck horn.

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It's okay. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, there's this hope spiritually where

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to be living like that. Not silly, but expected.

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