Restoring Hope: We Who Have Come to Zion

Introduction

It’s sad when your visits home come to an end. But real life intrudes, and it’s time to bring this to a close. And so I thought, what better subject could we bring this to a close on than we could talk together about hope. What role does hope play in your daily life, your existence, your walk with your Savior. Now I know we’re going to go to Hebrews 12, but before we go to Hebrews 12, would you open to Romans 5 with me? I want to listen to the words of the apostle, and I want to do this without commentary. I just want these to flow over us, the arguments that he’s making about the security of the hope that we have. Romans 5, beginning in verse 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.

And we rejoice in the hope, in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exalt or rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. For while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, some would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Hope is the great stabilizing influence of our lives. Hope is the reason for our struggle against sin. Hope is the strong affirmation that the race that we run is not in vain. And the scripture spends a great deal of time telling us through the pen of author after author that hope is not a weak promise, but the firm resolve of our God and his son, our Savior, to see their people all the way home. Let’s read together from Hebrews chapter 12 now.

Hebrews chapter 12, beginning in verse 18, the text says, For you not have not come to a mountain that can be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged no further word be spoken to them, for they could not bear the command. If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stone. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and the myriads of angels, to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel. See to it then that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven. And his voice shook the earth then. But now he has promised, saying, Yet once more, and I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. This expression, yet once more, denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken.

What a show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe. How do we respond to God for the hope that He has given to us? How do we respond to this great offering of hope that is that is greater than the mountain that shook when the Israelites refused to any longer hear God’s voice because they were terrified? Even Moses said, I’m terrified at the sight of this, but yes, I’ll go up. How do we respond to a greater mountain, a greater sacrifice, a greater promise, a greater kingdom? How do we respond to these things? We respond to them resolutely with gratitude and with an offer of those things that God deems acceptable. This is how we respond to hope, and I’ve got to tell you, brethren, when we are trying to respond to hope in that way, when everything that we do is a statement of gratitude to our God and to our Savior.

When everything that we do is proving what is the accepted will of God. Our life, though it may be a struggle, is not without promise. In fact, it has great promise because it is with the greatest hope that we will ever find. We use this passage this morning, Romans chapter 12, verse 1. I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. This is how our hope manifests itself. Well, great. We talked about hope.

Hope sounds like a good thing, stand and sing, right.

That might be the case. Except our hope has an enemy. Go back to Hebrews chapter 12. And let’s consider this example from just a little bit earlier in the chapter. Hebrews 12 and 12. After the Hebrew writer, and I’m on the fence here, 50%, you’ll not be able to firmly convince me. I just love saying that for telling his benefit. It either is or isn’t Paul. I’m 100% convinced of that. Tony says it’s not. My wife says it is. I have to write home with one of them.

But after he has recounted the benefits of the chastening of the Lord and the benefits of the common confession that we have that inspires us to faith, he says in 12 and 12, he gives this warning strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight the path for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, and that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

For you know that even afterwards. When he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. When the Hebrew writer speaks of this root of bitterness that grew into immorality and is the defiling aspect that we see there of Esau, well, we are reminded, of course, of the story there of Esau and his brother Jacob and how that all went down in Genesis 25. We’re going to talk about that in just a moment. But how that all occurred. But we know the story well enough to at least reference it right now. Esau comes into the feet from the field. He’s hungry, and he decides that what I am going to do is I’m going to ask my brother Jacob for a bowl of stew.

Actually, what I’m going to do is demand it. And I think the words he used there were red stuff. Give me some of that red stuff. That just sounds appetizing. Give me some of that red stuff. And Jacob says, No, you need to buy this from me. And I want your birthright. And Esau says, Well, what good is that if I’m dead?

So he trades it away, thinking, perhaps, I still got the blessing. See, the birthright carried a couple of different things with it. The birthright meant that Esau was to be the spiritual successor to his father. He was to be the next to lead his family. And it also carried with it the double portion that would be enunciated more clearly under the law. But Esau is thinking, you know what? I’ll give. Perhaps Esau is thinking, I’ll give up the obligation, but I’ll hold on to the thing that I really want, because Dad’s still going to give me the blessing. Well, we all know how that worked out, right? And it’s interesting that the Hebrew writer says he sought to repent from this with tears, but he had so despised the thing that God had given him.

God had allowed it to transpire that it never could be taken back.

In that unwillingness to believe that God would carry that lineage that he had promised from Abraham through Isaac. That he would carry that on in the way that he intended. Unwilling to believe that he is trying to steer his life not according to God’s design, not according to what is acceptable to God, but according to how he feels at that moment. And I think it’s interesting. That the word the word used there is bitterness, the root of bitterness. And the obligate the topic that I had when I first started prepping this sermon was actually to go and speak on negativity. I learned the word negativity is not in the Bible. How do you go to a speaker series and preach on a word that they’ve given you to preach on when it’s not in the Bible?

Well, it’s kind of tough. So I had to do some legwork. I had to do some research, and I began to look at, I went to Webster’s. I went to Webster’s. And you know there are about 20 different synonyms for negativity. You start to see words like hostility, distrust, suspicion, reluctance, uncertainty. The Bible actually speaks a great deal about these things. More than that, in these, there’s a better definition for our purposes than Webster would give us in his dictionary, which describes negativity and bitterness, kind of just as general feelings about life. A negative outlook. When you start seeing words like hostility and distrust and skepticism and reluctance and uncertainty, wow, that’s definitely against hope, isn’t it? Negativity is not just about having bad feelings. Negativity is the anti-faith.

And I would argue that it’s also the anti-hope. You want to talk about the things that rob us of our hope in heaven. It’s these guys right up here. Yes, I used emojis. Because I want you to remember this. Skepticism, frustration, reluctance, hostility. Anybody have problems with those? The problem that I see with those four right off the beginning is that each of them appeals to us to try to be the answer to our own problem. We’re frustrated. Who do we go to for answers? We’re skeptical about the answer the Bible gives. Where do we go? We’re reluctant to talk to our brethren about these things. We’re hostile to the attitude of Scripture. And the words of Jeremiah 17 ring in my ears when I started thinking about that.

Thus says the Lord cursed is the man whose trust is mankind and makes flesh his strength. We talked about this in the revival lesson, didn’t we? The restoration of the heart of the people. And whose heart turns away from the Lord. Or the 146th Psalm in verse 3 that says, Do not trust in princes, in mortal man in whom there is no salvation. Do you know what our culture cries out for almost daily? It cries out for a savior. That’s why we’re so interested in what political causes celebrities are involved in. We’re looking for a savior. Somebody’s going to save the baby whales. I wish somebody just saved the babies. Somebody’s going to save the baby whales, or somebody’s going to save the Ozarks, or somebody’s going to save this or save that thing.

We’re always looking for a savior. And yet we’re always directing our attention to man. And you know what? Those efforts are always ultimately what? Futile. Show of hands. How many of you are on some sort of social media? I mean this for real. How many of you are on some sort of get them up? Facebook, Instagram, dating websites? Every wife just looked at her husband. MySpace? Nobody uses MySpace anymore, right? Maybe Tony, do you still use MySpace? No. Okay. He’s actually one of the more tech social media technologically savvy preachers that I know. Google Plus, Snapchat, we got it. At least one of those on every phone here right now. Every one of you could pull out your phone and you could open an app and you could connect with 666 of your best friends.

Some of you got that joke.

Okay. If anybody’s still got their hands up, you can put it down. Who had it open right then?

Were you afraid I was going to ask that? No hands on this one. But have I asked you, if in the course of your day, your day at work, your weekend with your family, maybe even the Lord’s Day, you’ve ever encountered an article or a post that made you angry? Caused you to contemplate answering in an ungodly way? Frustrated the calm and the peace that you have in the Lord, changed your whole outlook for at least several minutes, maybe even the rest of the day. Would those same hands go back up, or does Tony need to preach online next Sunday? If I were to ask you if you’ve ever carried something off of that media where it started and into the realm of your home life, where it’s damaged the relationship you have with your spouse, or into your into the auditorium here in discussions with your brethren, and it’s caused schism between you and a brother or sister in Christ.

Would those same hands go back up, or do I need to make the same joke again? These things are crushing our hope. These four skepticism, frustration, reluctance, hostility, and you can term those however, you can use whatever synonyms for them you want to. I just happen to like those little guys. Those are the minions of our adversary that he has sent into the world to tear down your hope.

We need to be very careful where we go looking for answers to life’s enormous problems. Problems are always enormous, right? The tyranny of the urgent. I think I’ve called it in the lesson I preached here a long time ago. I still call it that.

And then just thought, this is just not a problem for God. I need to keep this away from the God part of my life. This is precisely why Hebrews uses the example of Esau. The way that Esau looked at life didn’t only cost him the blessing. It fundamentally eroded away the very heart of any relationship that he could have had with God. The Genesis account might make it seem like a series of events loosely connected, and maybe it’s showing us the poor character of Jacob. I think that’s certainly on display. But there’s something more there. I think what we’re actually glimpsing is how Esau felt about the gift that he had from God. Let’s look at Genesis 25 and 27 for a moment.

And Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game. Esau liked, or Isaac liked to eat venison. And that defined his relationship with his father. But Rebecca, it says, loved Jacob, and when Jacob had cooked a stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished. And Esau said to Jacob, please let me have a swallow of that red stuff, therefore I am famished. Therefore, his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, First, sell me your birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I’m about to die.

How long has he been in the field? So of what use then is the birthright to me? And Jacob said, First, swear to me. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And then Jacob gave Esau the bread and the lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went on his way. And then Esau despised, thus Esau despised his birthright. To get where this is really going, we need to understand those things that I said earlier. That Esau in the 27th chapter is going to lose his blessing to Jacob, probably thinking that he was going to get the better part of the inheritance from his father under the blessing. I’ll just ask my father to put the double portion in the blessing, and then Jacob stuck with all the work, and guess what?

I get all the stuff.

Because what’s going on here is not just that Esau was hungry, or that Esau was had a momentary lapse of faith. Esau despised the thing that Jesus is the Christ is born of God gave him. And whoever loves the Father loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Do we ever stop and consider the fact that our birthright, those that are born of God. Our birthright is to overcome the world. Our birthright is to overcome the thing that tears down our faith.

This is what’s guaranteed to us by the blood of Christ. Our faith, the victory that overcomes the world. Look at this again. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And whomever loves the Father loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God, here’s your birthright.

1. Get Out of the Snare

Number one, if we’re going to overcome the negativity and we’re going to embrace the hope, we’re going to have to get out of the snare. What do I mean by that? Let’s turn a little bit earlier in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12 and verse 1. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily, some of your translations will say ensnares us, entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him has endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. It’s interesting that the Hebrew writer at this point in his epistle has just gone through that great, what we tend to call the hall of faith. And the more that I read that, I think that is less directing at the specific or less targeted at the specific faith of the individuals on the list, and more targeted at the commonality of the faith that they had, which expresses the fact that they trusted God at perhaps a time when lesser men would not. It’s not about the specific things that their faith did, but rather they had a common faith in which they knew that God was faithful first.

Would you look at verse 1 of chapter 11? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval, and by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous in God, testifying about his gifts. And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and it was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.

Would you look at that next verse? And without faith. This is the real definition of faith in Hebrew. Hebrews 1 is Hebrews 11 1 is the textbook definition, if you will. Here’s the practical definition of faith. Here’s what faith looks like. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. And I think the King James does well to amplify that by saying, diligently seek him. There’s a way out of the snare. There’s a way out of the trouble. And God has invested a great deal in helping us pursue these things in the full assurance of faith. So much so that in the 10th chapter, the Hebrew writer says in verse 23, comes to this resolve let us hold fast the confession of our hope.

Let our hope keep speaking. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Not I’m faithful. God is faithful to the hope that He’s given me. The Hebrew writer invests a great deal in this. But can I give you a practical example of where we see this? This is Jesus in John 14. As he’s speaking to the disciples on the night that he is to go to the garden and be apprehended. And he has just told them that they are going to deny him and he is going to be killed. And this is faith-breaking news for them. This is really messing with their hope and their calm. And Jesus is the one that’s about to die. And what does he say to them?

Do not let your heart be troubled. Absolutely, brother speaking spell over here. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going. And Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way? And Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes to the Father except through me.

And there are many other encouragements he gives to them there to hold on and get out of the snare that the devil has laid for them. And he is about to die. He is giving encouragement to these guys in their darkest hour, saying, Hold on. And I cannot think of a more fitting message to leave you with tonight. Hold on in your darkest hour, in your season of discontent, in your despair, in your trouble, in your frustration, in the time when you are tempted to sin, in the time when you are tempted toward iniquity, in the time when you are tempted to give up your hope, hold on. Because my God gave the blood of his son so that you could have that birthright. When Jude was beginning to wrap up his epistle, he said in verse 17, Beloved, you ought to remember, or beloved ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Find Joy in the Race

That they were saying to you, in the last time, there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lust, and there will also cause division and worldly minded, devoid of the spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for a little while. Brothers and sisters, the end of our story has already been written, and I want to tell you with no fear of contradiction, your king wins. There is no reason for us to get entangled in the snare, no reason for us to lose our hope, so much so that we ought to be the people who find joy in the race. Yes, joy in the middle of tribulation, joy in the middle of difficulty.

We ought to be the people who find joy in the race. Looking at the remarks there that are made in verses 2 and 3 of Hebrews 12, fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. There’s joy in the race. Yes, there’s difficulty, yes, there’s struggle, yes, there’s frustration, but there’s joy in the race. Jesus found joy on the other side of the cross, and he looked at the cross. Despising the shame is not saying, I don’t want to go to the cross.

Despising the shame is him looking at the cross and saying, I’ll go through you to get to the joy. And brothers and sisters, we go through what we go through to get to the joy that’s promised to us. That’s what this is about. There’s joy in overcoming skepticism and frustration and reluctance and hostility. There’s joy in these things. So much so that he would go on to tell them, do not regard lightly the chastening of the Lord. Why? Because the discipline of a father is a good thing. The discipline of the Father is meant to bring about joy. So much so that the Apostle Paul, when he was writing to the church in Philippi, even if he didn’t write to the Hebrews, says in Philippians 4, rejoice, verse 4, in the Lord always.

And again I say, rejoice. Can I ask you what circumstances left out when you say always? I tell my wife, I love you always. That does not mean except on the fifth Tuesday of the month when you kind of annoy me. I’m not kidding about that. I annoy her on the fifth Tuesday. Rejoice in the Lord always. Paul would say in that same chapter in verse 12, I know how to get along in the humble means and also know how to live in prosperity. And in any circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. That’s real joy.

Faith strengthening. Adversity weathering, snare escaping, peace giving joy. The third time the apostle would use that word in that epistle, joy. Commending them to rejoice in the Lord. This is a joy that the world doesn’t understand. They don’t understand it. They want us mired in politics. They want us mired in arguments about strife in our culture. They want us mired in all of those things. And I want to tell you, get out of it. Get out of it. You’re not being served. I know because I got out of it by listening to talk radio on the way home from work. It’s just making you mad, and you come in and you kick your dog, and your wife says, What’s wrong? And you say, Nothing. I’m fine.

She says, the vein in the front of your forehead does not look fine. Eight years ago I left it behind. I’ve never picked it up again. Do you know why? Because I found joy. I realized what that was robbing me of because it was also robbing me of my ability to give my courage to others. The word encourage is an important word. But it is our role in helping others overcome their difficulty. I have so enjoyed our time with Lee and Alyssa and Ronan and Slave. I feel when I go to their, when I go home and we’re at their house like I’m the best preacher that ever lived. I know it’s not true, but it’s wonderful. We’ve enjoyed our time with them. They are our dear friends.

3. Give Our Courage to Our Brethren

But part of that friendship is reciprocal encouragement. The idea of encouraging is an interesting one. It means encouraging is an interesting one. It means to take from one who has courage and to give it to one who does not. And it’s very much the idea that we see in Hebrews chapter 10. Where it says in verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate, stir up one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but here’s our word encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. We need to be experts in taking from our strength and giving it to the weakness of our brethren.

That’s the beauty of a body. That’s the beauty of family. And that kind of encouragement is not easy to find. And when this passage in Hebrews 10 just gets relegated down to attendance, Chris Emerson has a great analogy about that. He says he wrote out to the side of that attendance, duh. That is that is the most inconsequential application of that verse. It’s about so much more. That ought to be, that ought to be a concern of ours that doesn’t even resonate. Should I get up and go to the go to church? Are the people of God assembling? Well, then, yes, I should be there with them. But I do it because I want to be this jar on this side. And I want to pour out some of my courage into them because at the bottom of some of my brethren is dust.

Because they’re worn out, their courage has been tapped, their vitality is gone, but the remnants of godliness are still there. And as I pour into them what is mine, so it becomes theirs. It stirs up. That’s the idea of agitating. Stirs up the dirt at the bottom. And what comes out of that is an effusive cloud of godliness and love and good works and righteousness, and it brings the dead thing back to life. That’s what encouragement does. You know, I want to be the pitcher on the left, but some days I’m the one on the right. Yeah, did that right. Some days I’m the one that’s being filled up. Because that’s how this is supposed to work. And there are things that will tear that down.

Things like gossip, things like division, things like disharmony and discord and evil speaking. Things like unconfessed sin between brethren, things like strife and difficulty, those things hamper our ability to encourage one another. They have no place within the people of God. Because our desire is to stir up love and good works. Did you see what he said in Hebrews 12 and 12? Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make paths for your feet. So that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Do you see what he just said there? Strengthen one another, give courage to one another, give strength to one another, make each other’s path easier to walk.

4. Take Strength in Where We're Standing

Because when we do that, we help our brethren with their hope. And their struggle with hope and their struggle with discouragement. And lastly, I would say to you that we need to realize where we stand. We don’t stand far off from the place where we’re going. The Hebrew writer says confidently, we are part of the general assembly of the firstborn, and we are standing at Mount Zion. 12 and 18 says, For you have not come to the mountain that cannot be touched, and to a blaze into a blazing fire, into the darkness and gloom and whirlwind and the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command.

If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling. But you have come to Mount Zion. This is the source of our hope. We’ve come before the throne of Jehovah God. We’ve come to Mount Zion. Not to a weak hope, not too hope the way the world defines it, not to a shaken hope. We come to a kingdom that does not shake with the voice of its Lord and God, because it was made to stand in his presence. That’s your birthright. That’s your birthright. So how do we respond? Well, we get out of the snare. Find joy in the race. We give our courage to our brethren. We take strength in where we’re standing, and I’m going to throw one more in real quickly.

5. Press On in Faith

We press on in faith. And I could read all of chapter 13, but let’s just look at chapter 13 and 12. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. I want to end on this note. Whatever you think the end of your faith is, it’s better than that. Whatever you think the birthright is of those who persevere in faith, it’s better than that. Whatever you think the value of overcoming the snare is, it’s better than that. Whatever you think the joy is of the end of the race, it’s bigger than that.

Conclusion

Whatever you think the notice that God gives to those who are giving their courage to others, it’s better than that. Because you are standing before the throne of God. So let us go to His Son, bear the reproach, and do it willingly, because we too look through our cross and say, My God is on the other side, and I will not be kept from that eternity. If you have some obligation to God this evening, your soul is not right. We’d ask you to come forward at this time, confessing no sins as we stand this year.