02 Where Hope Begins (Colossians 1:3-12)

Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. What the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the second talk in our series on the book of Colossians. Today we'll be looking at chapter one, verses three through twelve, which is called opening prayer. If you'd like to follow along with the lecture notes, you can find us at wednesdayintheword.com slash Colossians 2. That's wednesdayintheword.com slash Colossians 2. Thanks so much for listening. I want to start this morning by asking a question. You can just shout out an answer. What is it that you hope for? Doesn't, you know, does you don't have to give like the super spiritual answer? You can, but you don't have to. So what do you hope for? What kinds of things? Warm weather. Warm weather, yes. Good health. Good health? Life to be easier. Life to be easier, yeah. That's a good point. Or normal. Or normal. Life to be normal. Yeah. Whatever that is. Well, she said whatever that is. I want it, whatever it is. What else? I did this with a co-ed small group, and there were a lot more answers about UVA basketball. Yeah, well, you know. They did? They won last night? Good. One of the things that uh always gives me hope. I don't know if you if you ever now, like right now, if you drive along 250, like if you're headed out toward the Boarshead Inn, right by the observatory, there's this field of flowers. And they come up every year, like right early February, late January, and they are up right now, and there are thousands of them. I think there's some kind of crocus or snow glory, and they come up and they're there for about a week and then they're gone. And they're beautiful. There are they're just acres and acres. And if you hit it on a sunny day, they're all wide open and they're just gorgeous. So if you have time and you're driving, like you're driving around trying to put the kids to sleep in the car, drive by 250 and look at those flowers. They're just gorgeous. And every time I see them, I think, spring is coming. Winter will not last forever. So we hope for a lot of things. I think hope is a uniquely human experience. It's something God built into us. Like I don't think cat my cats have hope. You know, they don't they get really excited when they hear the can opener, but I don't think they like lay around, you know, yearning for a world with more mice or something. You know, so they they actually have it pretty good. All they have to do is sleep, eat, and be an occasional lap warmer. But, you know, I don't think they sit around wishing for a better world the way humans do. I think that's something uniquely human that God built into us. And it's probably safe to say that we need hope, that without it we would give up on life. So as I mentioned last week in the introduction, Colossians is primarily a letter of hope. We're gonna talk a lot about hope today. We'll be looking at Colossians chapter 1, verses 3 through 12, which is Paul's introduction to the letter, and well, that's the one of the main themes he's gonna hit on is hope. And he has something, I think, pretty remarkable to say about where hope comes from, where it leads. And it's easy to get confused about what hope is, what difference it makes, and get distracted with all the cares of this world and start hoping for the wrong things. So I think what Paul's trying to do today was he starts this letter foundationally is to say, I want you to understand what difference your hope makes. So just to review, this letter was written relatively late in Paul's life, probably around 60 to 62 AD. He's in a Roman prison cell. He's waiting for a trial before Caesar. He's writing to the church at Colossi. He had not visited that church in person and he did not found it. Most likely Epaphras was the one who founded it. And he has traveled to Rome to tell Paul there are problems in this church and ask for Paul's help. And the problem is they're on the verge of believing a false gospel. We don't know exactly what the false gospel was because Paul doesn't spell it out. So if you read in the commentaries, they call it the Colossian heresy. We have clues, and as we go through the letter, we'll talk about what those clues are, but he doesn't go through and say, here's the wrong ideas, like he does in Galatians. So we only have his responses and we have to fill in the gaps. So he's writing this letter to make sure that the church knows the essentials of the gospel so that they don't turn away. And as he often does with his letters, he follows his greeting with a prayer, and that's what we're gonna look at today. It's fairly common for him to start with a prayer, but his prayer often gives you clues as to where he's gonna go in the letter, and that's uh he does that today. So let's look at verses chapter one, verses three through eight. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. So that's pretty common for Paul to start with a prayer, but this isn't just uh routine for him. He's praying for what's on his heart, what this letter is going to be about. And he's gonna start with his concern and his gratitude for what God has done in the church. And right from the beginning, I think he's trying to focus their intention on the important stuff. And the important thing is what has God done for you? That's what he wants you them to cling to as they're on the verge of turning to this heresy. So as the letter develops, he's going to exhort them to remember what God has done, to take that to heart, not to turn away from it. And by turn away, I don't mean abandon in the sense of renounce the faith or go prodigal and return to a pagan lifestyle, but abandon in the sense of start to add in other elements, mix in other philosophies, take a little of this, a little of that, this idea, that idea, and start to build things into the gospel that aren't really there. So he sees them at this turning point. They have a choice. They're being presented with this alternative to the gospel, and they can either remain faithful to it, to the gospel they first heard when they first believed, or they can turn away to a different gospel. And he's going to sound this really urgent note of warning saying, This matters, this direction you seem to be heading, this matters. Don't walk away from it. So his thanksgiving is genuine because he knows God has been at work among them. There are those who are going to heed his warning, but he's not presuming that all is well in Colossi. So let's look at what he's thankful for. And basically it's going to boil down to faith, hope, and love. So watch for that as we go through this. So we always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you. It's interesting that he names God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those titles are often significant in Bible study, and you want to pay attention to them. So, and you know this, this is true. So, like if my husband comes home from work and I say, Do you know what your son did today? He's going to expect one kind of answer. But if he comes home and I say, Do you know what my son did today? He's going to expect a very different kind of answer because I've set him up for it. So when you see the scriptural authors say, the author and the creator of the universe, or the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you want to ask, is this a what are they trying to remind us of? And as we go through the letter, we're going to see Paul put supreme emphasis on who Jesus is and what Jesus did. And he's going to argue that Jesus Christ is at the center of God's redeeming purposes. So the Father sent Jesus into the world to die for our sins and to redeem us. He is the only source of our forgiveness, the only source of our rescue into life. So that is central. And he starts off by saying, remember, we thank the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is where it's all starting. This is what it's all about. Paul's thanksgiving is for what God has done in the world to bring about their salvation, and that salvation came through Jesus Christ. Then he says, praying always for you, or when we pray for you, the idea is whenever that what God is doing for you is on my mind. So whenever I pray for you, these are the kinds of things that I'm going to pray about. Now, Paul's job as an apostle is to proclaim the gospel in the world, so I think he's appropriately concerned about the progress of the gospel. That's his calling. It I mean, it is his job, but it's really his calling. He was given the authority, as we talked about last week, to represent Jesus when Jesus is not around. So as the gospel progresses, it's of primary importance to him how these churches are doing, how they're responding, are they remaining faithful. He can't call them on the phone to check in on them, so he has to wait for letters to arrive, which take months, uh, and someone has to take a long journey to deliver the letters. They may bring good news, they may bring bad news, then he writes back, and it takes months to get the letter back. So these groups are on his mind over that time, and he's very grateful for what God is doing. And when he hears good news, he's very grateful for that. So he's saying, these are the things on my mind when I talk to God about you in my prayers. So then look at verse 4. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, so we've heard of your faith. Um, as I mentioned last week, this suggests Paul didn't found the church. He was not the first person to teach them a paphress, most likely was. But he's saying, We've heard that you responded to the gospel with faith. We've heard of your, and the evidence of that is the love you have for the saints. And that's another common theme he's gonna bring up in his letter. It's actually pretty common in a lot of his letters, this connection between coming to faith and loving other believers. Now, there is of course the virtue of loving your enemies, and that's something we pursue, but that's not what he's talking about here. The idea is that once I embrace the gospel, Jesus means something to me, and I begin to value the things that God values and love the things that God loves, and one of the things God loves is his people. So other people who embrace the gospel become people that I love. They're my people, they're the people I identify with. So when I think about who are my people, who are those like me, they are other people that embrace and share the gospel because we're part of this same spiritual family. So we may have a lot of differences. We may hold no other beliefs in common, but if we share the gospel, we share the most important thing. So once I embrace the gospel that God is out there, that he sent his son to die for us, that that his son was Jesus Christ, his death on the cross redeems me, then all the other people that believe that same thing become my people. They're my brothers and sisters. So when he says we've heard of your faith and the love you have for the saints, I think he's saying one of the ways we have seen evidence of your faith is that you now love the other believers. You see them as your people. So four and five, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. So the logic here is you have this because you have faith, you have hope, and because and because you have faith, you love the brethren. So faith in Jesus leads to hope, which leads to loving the things of God, which includes God's people. So that's basically kind of the logic he's putting in those verses. So I embrace the gospel, I believe that that's where I'm gonna find life and fulfillment, and I believe in the promises of God, and as a result, I have hope. I have hope that I will be saved, hope that I will find grace, hope that the problem of my sin will be solved, that there's a purpose for all this suffering, that God has a plan, he's taking me somewhere I really want to go. That's all wrapped up in his hope light up for you in heaven. And then as a result of that, as I become more and more like God and what he values and what he wants, then I begin to love those who are on that same journey with me. They are my people. So we have all kinds of relationships. We have family relationships, friends, we have neighbors. We may make friends with the parents of the other kids at our school, or friends with the people who share our hobby, or maybe we inhabit the same geographical space, or we're fans of the same sports team, and we have all these connections where we find common ground, but all of those connections are gonna break down eventually. Family ties break down, unfortunately. Hobbies, sports fans, neighbors, they fade and they they come and go as people move and grow and move away. But one tie is gonna remain and survive all that, and that is those who share the same eternal destiny. So those who are pursuing Jesus, that tie is gonna last everything, and I ought to be grateful for that and loving those people who are on this journey with me. So Paul says, I'm grateful for your faith in Jesus, which results in your loving other believers, which has come about because of your hope. That's what's transformed your thinking and who you identify with. Then where did they hear all this? Verse 6. Which has come to you as indeed in the whole world, it is bearing fruit and growing as it does also among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God and truth. He's basically reminding them this is a true message, this message you heard about Jesus. It's not one of a series of attractive options, and you just happen to pick it, you know, like the Harry Potter sorting hat you got sorted into this group or this club. So this is truth. This is life-saving truth. It's changed you just like it changes at people all over the world whenever they embrace the gospel. So it changed you when you first heard about it, and it's changing others when they hear about it. And he's reminding of that, remember, because they're in danger of turning away to something else. So he's saying we have this hope because of what Jesus did on the cross. We would be lost without him. The message about heaven is real, and it's more, the gospel is more than heaven is real, and one day you'll get in. It is that God reached out to you in the midst of your sin to offer you forgiveness you didn't earn and grace you don't deserve. And that all comes about through the through the cross. So it's not just, you know, we get a lot of gospels. God loves you, God gives good gifts, God has a plan for your life, and those are all true, but the gospel is more than that. It is that God loves you in spite of your sins. That God has a plan for you, and that involves your redemption through the cross of Christ. And he gives good gifts to people who don't deserve them because of grace and mercy. That's what makes it all possible. So, seven and eight, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. Now, wouldn't you love to have that written about you in Scripture no less? I always think, well, wow, he's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. So, as we talked about last week, Epaphras seems to be the one who initially founded the church in Colossi, who brought the gospel there. He has now journeyed to Rome, and he's with Paul at the time of writing this letter. He's concerned about what he sees going on in the church. He's reported to Paul, and then he's getting this letter as a response. Let me stop there for a minute and look at what he's talked about so far. Their faith, their love of the brethren, and their hope in the gospel. He sees that is what God is doing among them, and he's grateful for it. And that that raises the question to me how could Paul be so grateful for what God is doing in a church he's never visited filled with people he's never met? I mean, I find it hard to be grateful for what God's doing in my life sometimes, let alone what he's doing in the lives of people I've never met and lives thousands of miles away, and I'll probably never even go there. How can Paul be so grateful for this? So I got to thinking about that, and I think there's a profound lesson in that, in that he understands this big picture that the gospel paints. So his understanding of the gospel shapes what's really important in life, and what really matters, and what matters is faith, hope, and love. Ultimately, it's more important now that I embrace the gospel than that I'm healthy. It is more important that I learn the truth about Jesus than that I have a great job or have lots of money or the perfect marriage or the perfect family or all those other things that we wish for. Ultimately, what's truly important is that I see the truth of my sin and where the solution is to be found in the cross. So it's easy, I think, to read through this player prayer and see it as kind of all these platitudes and Christian jargon, and it just you can read through it quickly, and it just sounds like the words just wash over you without thinking about it. And I think we want to stop and say, what's happening among the church is a big deal. This evidence of faith, this hope and love that's growing in them, that's a life and death matter. That has eternal consequences. Whether you embrace or reject the gospel, it is the biggest decision you ever make. It's the most important decision of your early life. And Paul's saying, that's what matters. That's what I want to focus on. And he's grateful for the understanding of the gospel they've been given, and he's about to pray that that understanding will grow into full maturity, that they will deeply understand it. So I think the answer to how can he be grateful for what God's doing right now is because his values are right. He understands the priorities, he understands what difference the gospel makes. Now, think about what we hope for. That ought to have a major impact on our lives right now. So, for example, imagine that I told you that right now there is something wonderful waiting for you at home. Maybe it's a profound visit from like a wonderful friend that you haven't seen in many years, or it's a lottery ticket worth a million dollars, or that vial of medicine that's going to solve all your health problems, or the best birthday present ever, or maybe it's the job offer you've been waiting for and studying for, and it's there right now. All you have to do is drive home and you get it. Now, if that was true, all of a sudden your experience right now would be changed. Life would suddenly look a whole lot better, wouldn't it? Your spirits would be lifted, maybe a number of notches, your outlook would change, uh, all those pesky annoyances and frustrations that happen, they just wouldn't seem that important because this profound, wonderful thing is waiting for you at home right now. It's there, it's guaranteed, it's in your living room, you don't see it yet, but you know it's there, you believe it, all you have to do is drive home and it's yours, guaranteed. That hope would change you from this moment forward. You'd react to things differently. You'd you'd under, you know, all those little frustrations, maybe getting stopped at a red light or somebody cutting you off and driving home. It just wouldn't matter because you have this great, wonderful thing, and you believe it. And Paul's saying, this is what the gospel should do. That hope of the gospel ought to change us, the same way a lottery ticket in our living room would change us. Because now we understand this big, great, wonderful thing, this inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, that's ours. Guaranteed. It is coming. It ought to change everything. It ought to change the way we view our daily lives. And Paul says, that's what I see in the Colossian Church. All those who embrace the gospel, you've seen I've seen this hope, I've seen it result in your love for the for believers, and I am grateful and profoundly grateful for that change. So understanding our hope, I think, is key. It changes how we see each other, it changes how we view hardships, it changes how we view our daily lives. Only it's exponentially better than a lottery ticket. It's exponentially better than a long-lost friend, a visit from a long lost friend. And that's, I think, what Paul's driving at. Remember that. That's key. Don't turn away from that hope. As we talked about last fall in 1 Peter, it's this incredible inheritance that's undefiled, unfading, guarded in heaven for us. It won't spoil, it won't devalue, it won't get ruined in any way, it's reserved in heaven for you. It's yours. When you leave this life, you will get it. It's there right now. And if I'm really a citizen of the kingdom of God and I know that's my hope, if I'm a believer, that's mine. I can claim those promises. It ought to impact me. That God has promised something which I believe to be true, and so now I live differently in light of that hope. Just as I would live differently if you told me the winning lottery ticket was in my living room. Okay, so look at nine and ten. And so from this day, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit. In every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. So Paul's saying, we've not ceased to pray for you that you would get it. Like you would have this knowledge of his will and spiritual wisdom and understanding. I don't think he's praying that you would know which job to take or you would know how to make a specific decision. It's not that kind of knowledge of God's will. It's that you would understand what difference your hope makes, what difference this gospel makes. I mean, there's a sense in which he could pray this for any believer, but he's writing to a group with problems. He's writing to a group that's starting to listen to the wrong teaching and embrace ideas counter to the gospel. So he's praying that those seeds of truth that were planted in them would begin to grow into full maturity and blossom, and that they would come to a complete understanding so that they'd be filled with the knowledge of God's will, not as in guidance or advice about who to marry or what job to take, but that you would understand this hope that transforms your life, that you would so get it, the gospel that, and the hope that we've just talked about, that it would change you every moment of every day, the same way a lottery ticket in my living room would change my outlook. So he's praying they would know who God is, what he values, what he's promised, what those promises mean to me, and understand so clearly that it changes their life. They walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work. The idea is walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. To walk in Paul's usage usually means to live my life in such a way that it's clear what governs you. So to live your life in such a way that it's obvious who you follow, who your spiritual father is, what your guiding principles are. So live your life in a way that makes it clear who your father is. I'm a follower of Jesus. I am following the gospel. And the idea of worthy is that what you how you live would match what you say you believe. So it's not worthy in the sense of we want to earn God's favor, but it's that you would see a marriage between those two ideas. So I say I believe this, and it's evident in my life that I believe that. It changes me. In the same way, if I said, you know, if somebody came to me and said, here's, you know, we're lost in the jungle, and I'm the best guide in the jungle, and you need to go north, and I say, Great, I believe you, and then I head south. You would say, wait, didn't you just say you believed him? If you believed him, you'd follow his advice. So it's that kind of a marriage that if I say I believe in the gospel, that my life then matches that belief. The things I value, the way I speak, the things I choose, the things I avoid, all those are uh fit with what I say I believe. That's the idea between walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. And then bearing fruit, it's the idea that this seed of knowledge and truth that that has planted, been planted in us will bloom and bear fruit. So it's good works, not in the sense of, you know, giving money to the poor or caring for a widow or visiting the sick, the way we think of good works. I mean, it does include that, but I think he's he's more looking at it the way we just talked about hope changing you. So believing in the gospel is something I do internally, but it has evidence in the way I live my life on the outside. It changes what I think and how I act and what I say. So I might be caring for the poor and the sick and the widows, but it's also the way I speak to my husband, how I respect my parents, how I discipline my children, how I might honor a cranky college professor or talk to my boss, how I spend my money, how I think about my time and my values, all that is wrapped up in it. So my works in that sense are the things that I do that express my faith. They are actions that express what I believe, and ultimately they're the fruit of faith. So Paul's praying, remember what God has done. It's given you this great profound hope that ought to change every moment of every day. And I'm praying that you would so fully understand that hope that it would create this profound change in the way you live your life and the way you think and the way you act, and that as you increase in that knowledge and maturity of God, it would change you so that your life bears fruit, that you would look that your life would match what you claim to believe. And I think that gives us a pretty insightful picture of the way life works. If you've been a believer long enough, you've probably seen this. You know, I I wrestle with a little bit of understanding and I embrace it and it changes me, and then maybe I see some area of sin that I never knew was sin before because it just seems so perfectly reasonable to me, but now I see it was selfish and I never understood it was selfish. Or maybe I knew it was wrong in theory, but I didn't see it in me. And then you see it and you think, oh, glad that's over, you know. Seen that, and then what happens? You see more. You know, you you get a little more understanding, and then you wrestle with even more sin and even more wrongdoing. Um, and now I'm giving you the negative, but can also be the positive, that I recognize, hey, I didn't get angry, and five years ago I would have gotten angry there, or I didn't respond with frustration, whereas five years ago I might have responded with frustration, or every now and then you catch yourself doing something, you think, is that that me? I'm did I do that? How did that happen? God must have changed me. And that's an that's evidence of your faith bearing fruit and growing, and it's evidence to be grateful for. And it's those tangible moments that yes, I am in fact a believer because now I see and understand. And I've seen my life change. And my life is falling more and more in line with that understanding. Of course, I don't have young children anymore, so that helps. It's a lot easier to be patient and tolerant without them or without toddlers around. Just saying. So I hope it's change of the gospel, but it might be my life has changed in other ways. Okay, look going on. 11 and 12. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of life. So, just as this kind of is what I just talked about, may you be strengthened with all power. He's praying for God to make this change happen in their lives. I think that's implied. It's strengthened with the power of God. Why? Because left to ourselves, we cannot do this to ourselves. We can't bring about these changes, we can't uh erase the sin from our hearts. Left to ourselves, we're ignorant, we'd reject the truth. But God in his mercy has given up the spirit to make these changes in us, to open our eyes. So we need God's power to change us. So that's good news. If you're thinking, oh no, I have to go home and transform my thinking, all you have to do is ask God to do it. And he delights in doing it. He will, he has promised to do it. So he's praying that God would strengthen them with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. So, endurance and patience. That is the lot of this life. There's a very real sense in which we are waiting for the promises to be fulfilled. We have to endure the hardships, the trials, the daily frustrations of life, and so on. He's saying, I'm praying that God would strengthen your faith such that you can endure and be patient and remain steadfast to your faith with joy, that we'd have that measure of gratitude, of that life-changing hope, like we talked about with the lottery ticket. So even in the midst of the hard times, there's this measure of joy. And then giving thanks to the Father who's qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of life. So because we understand our faith and our the hope before us, we wait patiently with a measure of joy and excitement, grateful to the Father for what he's done because he's the one who made this all possible. He's the one who qualified us to share in the inheritance, to have this hope of heaven. Without him sending his son to die on our behalf, we would not have that. So I'd like to suggest to you that that's what we ought to hope for. What Paul wants for the Colossians is what we ought to want for ourselves, because that is more important than anything. That God strengthen our faith, give us understanding, teach us what's truly important, and give us the strength to persevere in life, to understand and be grateful for what he's doing now, and joyously look forward to the hope before them. That's the goal of this life. That's what we all ought to want. And remember, they're in danger of turning away from that. They're in danger of turning to a false gospel. And Paul's saying, remember what happened, remember what changed you. It's this hope that changed you. It's this faith in Jesus that changed you. Focus on this fundamental right now. There's hope out there, and it's hope because of what Jesus did. So God has made promises about where life is to be found in His mercy. He provided a way of grace and forgiveness of our sins, and that is through the cross. And the most important thing we can do in this life is to become people who embrace that and let that hope change us. We ought to want to become people who put our weight on those promises and lean into them and let them change our lives. Now, this is where I'm going to get really radical. It's more important, I'm going to claim, that you see and embrace the gospel than that you achieve racial reconciliation, eliminate poverty, or cure cancer, or any of those things. Those are great and wonderful things, but ultimately life is to be found in the gospel, and that's what we ought to want. If we don't have hope in the gospel, and we are so generous that we eliminate poverty in our state, or we cure cancer, or we end racial bigotry, or we solve the national debt, or write a bestseller, or create the next big dot com, or find a cure for Ebola, whatever that is, if you haven't found the gospel, you have wasted your life. If you don't know the power of God for salvation and don't embrace the hope of the kingdom, you have missed the big deal. Now, I'm not saying those other things aren't important in things, they could be your calling, but they're your calling because first you've embraced the gospel. And I think what Paul would suggest is the gospel is really that important. It's really that foundational. That's where it is. If you lose that, you have lost everything. If you gain that, you have everything. All right, let me stop there and pray for us, and then I'll give you a chance to ask some questions. Father, we thank thank you, and we pray along with Paul that you, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, did all this for us who don't deserve it. And I just pray that as we study this book and this prayer and the words on these pages, that they wouldn't just be words or philosophical ideas, but they would be life-changing truth, and that you would strengthen us the way Paul prayed, that we would understand the hope of the gospel, and that hope would be transformative and life-changing, such that every moment of every day we can have confidence in you and joy in what you're doing, no matter how hard it gets and be sustained.