Amen. Amen. Welcome. Thank you for coming. I feel like I have to make a disclaimer every spring after easter for a few weeks when these trees are budding, there’s a lot of tree pollen and then I’m just dying. So I had my chemical concoction, perfect for first service. Um but now it’s fading so you’re gonna hear? Miked up man, struggling the clearest throat as we work here, we’ll see what happens. So just a disclaimer. Um uh I feel we have to do that right now in this culture that we’re in. Um just another announcement in light of what’s happening of our rates and vaccination availability, what’s going on in our country and our county specifically, we’re just gonna kinda officially make the announcement. This service is the mask optional service. Um We won’t shine you if you have a mask on. But the first services the mass required service, I think most of us have known that but we thought we should just officially say that. So hopefully God willing things will keep trending in the right direction and we’ll keep moving into this direction as a people. So just a random awkward announcement. I have allergies and this is a mask optional service. So, um, All right. So that’s the smoothest intro I’ve ever done as a pastor. So let’s transition now to the message. Uh, so welcome. Thank you for coming. Let me, let me read a little excerpt of a, an article that ran the new york times. It says in five minutes. He lets the blind see he has restored eyesight to more than 100,000 people. Perhaps more than any doctor in history. His patients stagger and grope their way to him along mountain trails from a remote village, is hoping to go under the scalpel. One day after he operates here moves the cat from them, ruining the cataracts. He pulls the bandages off and they can see clearly at first tentatively, then jubilantly they gaze about and for a few hours later they walk home, radiant flowing of joy dr Sandy Hook Ruit a nepali orthodontist has pioneered a simple cataract microscopic surgery That costs only $25 per patient and is virtually always successful. His technique is matching Western machines which have a 98 success rate with this simple cataract surgery. You see, we as people are our hope oriented creatures. We hear articles like that. We feel good about ourselves. We’re excited numbers and going down and Covid in our county. We’re excited about the progress we’re making. We’re excited about vaccines. Maybe. You know, there’s things we hear that make us hope swell in our hearts. We are hope oriented people. Your belief about the future, your future radically changes how you experience, your present, your present life. Our title for this sermon today is hopelessly hopeful. We as americans, we as people are hopelessly hopeful people, that’s who we are. It’s hard wired into our psyche. I’m a recovering optimist. I’m actually a painfully positive person and it’s hard for Shane and Benaco Pastor for painfully positive pastor because I just, there’s reality. Then there’s my hopeful reality. And Shane. A Ben Give me grace as we work together here. Every culture has a culture of hope. Every city, every public has a has a view of how to have hope as a people. They answer the questions what is the purpose of life? There’s a hopeful answer to that question. What is the, what is the answer? The question why life is not pointless. They answer the question, What should you be living for? There’s hope that we have as hopelessly hopeful americans. So what does hope? We needed to find our terms? Like any conversation we’re gonna have together, we needed to explain what we’re saying. The greek word for hope definitely defined as a strong expectation. The hebrew word for hope means there’s real anticipation. Something better is coming along. Something that …