0:07 Let's pray and um ask the Lord to speak to us. The only thing that can help us in life is faith. Faith is the only way you'll overcome the world. 0:25 And there's only one source of faith. That is Jesus Christ. Romans 10:17 says, "Faith comes from hearing Jesus speak to you, hearing by the word of Christ." So, as as I pray, uh I hope you won't hear my voice. You will hear my voice with your physical 0:43 ears, but I pray that the eyes of our hearts will be open to hear the voice of your teacher. You have one teacher as the Holy Spirit who reveals Christ to us. The voice of Jesus through which we get faith is speaking through the Holy 0:58 Spirit today. He's been speaking to you these last few days and will speak to us even now we believe. Let's pray and in your heart pray that the Lord will fill you aresh with the Holy Spirit. If you really believe that the only life 1:16 that's worth living is a life that's continually filled filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can abide in the vine because we recognize that apart from God, apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Then we need the Holy Spirit 1:31 even to hear. We need the Holy Spirit even to listen. Heavenly Father, I come to you and ask for a fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit in our midst right now. Thank you for your presence these days. Thank you for how you brought us this far, Lord, 1:48 and all those things that we were fearful of and anxious about. Um you've little by little you've proven that you are the faithful God you always said you were. Forgive us for doubting that ever and save us from ever doubting you even a 2:05 little bit. Every promise in the new covenant, we believe you're going to fulfill, including that last one, that you will conform us fully into the image of Jesus. That you who began the good work in us, you're faithful to complete it. I 2:21 believe that, Lord, I pray that today we will see the faithful God a little bit more clearly, every one of us, Lord, and it'll change our lives. And as we heard even this earlier, this will be a watershed moment. It will be a a a 2:36 moment of crucial decision that we choose a life of faith. We choose life that we might live. Thank you, Father. Free us from ourselves. Above all, self is death. Help us to see that self-preservation is death. Every effort 2:52 to seek our own, our own benefit, our own comfort, our own uh reputation, all of that is just death. That's the way of death. And it's a broad way. Help us to choose the narrow way that leads to life that comes from denying ourselves 3:09 and living by the power of your Holy Spirit, the Christ life within us. This is our hope of glory, Christ in us. Make it so, Lord. We believe you will in Jesus name. Amen. [clears throat] Yeah. I'd like to share some thoughts 3:25 that the Lord's just been speaking to me over just the last couple of days. You can turn off. Yeah, let me grab me my water bottle, which may be in that corner somewhere. Or it might be That's fine. Or just give 3:42 me a glass of water. That's a black. Uh No, that's not it. Yeah. Um we're all born uh by nature self-pleasing. 4:00 Well, thank you. By nature, that's that's just who we are. It's not just um human beings. All of all creatures, dogs, cows, horses, whatever animal you 4:19 are, they're they're born self-pleasing. For the animals, that's okay. If a dog all it wants is uh food and sex, that's okay for the dogs. It's okay for the other animals. I 4:37 want some food. I want to have sex. For human beings, that's not okay because God created us differently from them. We know that. Let's start there. Genesis chapter 1. And there's a blessing on on all of 5:03 creation as they continue that self-seeking life. God looks down at the dogs behaving that way, seeking self-preservation. And you know, dogs are actually very affectionate animals. They are loving to their masters and such. there's an 5:21 aspect of um wanting to please their master that's in them. I don't fully understand all of that. But when God looks down at all the rest of creation living for itself, it's it's what they were made to do. And 5:37 he it says that he blessed them. It says for even the birds in verse 22, God blessed them. and um and he saw in verse 25 he saw that it was good all the other animals. So there's a blessing that's on 5:56 them. And then God said something different when he came to human beings and that was in verse 26. He says let us make man in our image. So because we are built and created in the image of God, 6:13 now it is unnatural for us to be self-seeking because we're built in the image of God. Our purpose in life as it were is to glorify that image, the image of God. The animals, the trees, the mountains, they're not built in the image of God. 6:32 So for them to promote themsel is fine. It's acceptable to God and that will end with their life. Once that animal's life is over, that's it. There's no more existence for that. And so in their case, it's okay that they continue to 6:51 seek their own glory, seek their own pleasure, what's good for me, I don't like this, my convenience. It's okay for them because that life of selfserving, self-seeking, comfort loving will just end and die once they die. You and I 7:10 have been created with a far greater purpose. We have an eternal soul within us and that soul because it's eternal has an is going to live forever from now on. All of us the moment a soul is formed a human being that is going to exist 7:27 permanently. And it's either going to exist as a soul that has finally come to the point where it's glorifying God fully or a soul that never came to the point of glorifying God. And that's essentially heaven and hell. Hell is for 7:42 those who refuse to allow God to get glory out of their lives. And heaven is for those who said, "Lord, I want you to get glory. It's not about me anymore." That's what this passage tells me is that when we're created in the image of 7:55 God, we are built with that powerful identity of a a soul that will now live forever. And my existence, our existence began when we were we were born in our when we were in our created in our mother's womb. Think about it for all other 8:14 animals. Their existence also if they are mammals began when they were in their mother's womb began at that point and then terminates when they die all flesh. Our existence began when we were in our mother's womb at least physically but 8:30 now it it extends forever. And what a privilege that God would choose us of all of creation to say that in you who had a beginning because I've made you in my image and you will exist forever. I'm going to give you this 8:45 eternal life that has no beginning either. That's a powerful thing that of all of creation. He could have said that to the the lions or the elephants to bear his image and to carry his glory of his nature within us. But he chose 9:00 human beings of all. Let us make man in our image. Let us choose man, human beings of all the species that exist on this earth to be the ones in whom we will put our eternal life that has no beginning and has no end. So let's read 9:15 that again. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. It's a beautiful powerful statement. According to our likeness. That means that that nature of God. He says I'm going to make it like that and let them 9:30 rule over the fish of the sea etc. Uh and then skip down to verse 31. At the end of it, God saw all the he had that he had made and behold, it was very good. God wanted so much for a creation, a 9:46 part of creation to bear his image. And when he created man and woman, he said, "Ah, this is great. I've got something in creation that will carry my image." It's human beings. So, but then when we fell, we fell in the Garden of Eden as much as Adam and Eve 10:06 fell because all have sinned and fallen short of this glory that I was just describing, the glory of God. When it says fallen short, that means we were intended to be there. In a sense, that was our beginning point, created in 10:18 God's image, but we sinned and have fallen short of that. Now, at some point, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So we're all therefore selferving. We're seeking for our own convenience. The reason that's on my heart because I know 10:35 that in many of the questions I had when I was your age, many of the questions that you may have, doubts or problems that you face in life, often if you think about it, they come from some self-seeking goal, 10:55 some thing that ultimately I want this for myself. And dear brothers and sisters, I usually say dear children, there's no children here. So dear brothers and sisters, that's what God wants to free us from. If we really come to this place, we will 11:11 go from this day forward and never again have a complaint about anything that happens to us in life. Not, oh, I wish my circumstances were like this or I wish I could get married or I wish I had a better job, my boss like this, or uh 11:26 that illness I have. those complaints will go away because I'm no longer a selfseeking person. I realize that my purpose on earth is no longer for me to get some something that will benefit me any longer because God 11:44 has created me different. And I look at the cows and the dogs and the elephants and horses and and all that and I think, "Yeah, let them do that." and the unregenerated species of human beings as well who don't realize that they are created in 12:02 God's image. And so when you interact with other people in the world, dogs, animals, dogs, cats, horses, cows, human beings who are not part of this regenerated species of those who realize that we've been created in the image of 12:18 God, who have been restored to that place that we have fallen short from. When you see all of the others, you say, "I can't live like that." It's okay for your coworker to pursue their own interests and to treat you that way and 12:34 to step on you to climb up the corporate ladder. It's okay for them because it's okay for a dog to do that. But it's not okay for us who have now seen that we're created in the image of God. The problem with many Christians is that after we're 12:48 born again, we go from being self-seeking worldly people to self-seeking Christians. And there's no such thing. True Christianity means following Jesus. Christian means a follower of Jesus. You read in the book of Acts that in Antioch they were they 13:07 were called disciples. They were called followers of Jesus. And so they had to come up with a name of these people who follow Jesus. They call them Christians. Today it's kind of backwards where Christianity is a religion just like 13:18 other religions in the world. And we almost have to go back to the roots and say, "Well, hold on. We're not just another religion. We're a another category of people who've been restored to living in the likeness of God and 13:32 fulfilling his purpose. We're followers of Jesus Christ. And our only ambition is to bring glory and pleasure to God. That's Christianity. Let's turn to um the book of Revelation chapter 4. So Christianity being a Christian which 14:00 is the same as true Christianity is being a disciple is essentially this that I am back to being somebody that I was intended to be which is I am freed from serving myself to serve God alone. I fell short of it into a selfserving 14:20 lifestyle like all the rest of the animals. And now God is I'm born again. I'm born again into a life of God pleasing. Revelation 4, we read in verse 11, 14:36 "Worthy are you, Lord, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and because of your and for your pleasure they are created." I believe the King James translates that correctly. Some 14:53 other translations have it a little bit different. For your pleasure, we are created. uh we were we exist and are created. Somebody asks you what's your purpose on earth. It's simply this for your pleasure 15:11 I exist. See that that it's going back to somebody who has been created on this earth simply to bring God pleasure. That's my purpose on this earth. And if you turn to second Timothy chapter 3 now you see that in the end times 15:33 this will be the distinction. God doesn't look at this earth and see, okay, oh, these people read the Bible, they say the name of Jesus, there the the words they're using and where they sit on a Sunday morning is where I 15:51 want where in a particular place. So that's those are the people who are going to be saved. God looks down and sees people who are living their lives to bring themselves pleasure and other people who are living their lives to bring God pleasure. And 16:07 that's it. It's only that's the only two difference. The only two categories. Those who are living to bring themselves pleasure and those who are living to bring God pleasure. And perhaps you've never heard this before. Perhaps you never realized that 16:21 that is it essentially. It's not okay. Okay, I came maybe some of you were born into a different faith, a different religion, and you believe something else and now you're a Christian. Okay, that doesn't automatically make you a 16:32 Christian any more than because your parents got converted or something like that. To be born again, to come to Christ, to be regenerated is essentially this. I went from being a selfpleasing person to being a God-pleasing person. 16:46 In 2 Timothy 3, Paul tells us through the Holy Spirit that difficult times will come and as the time of Christ's return draws near, this distinction will become more clear to those who have discernment. And that's why he gives us 16:58 this warning that the realize this that in the last days, 2 Timothy 3:1, difficult times will come. He's not talking about persecution. Not talking about that some of you will be shot for your faith, hanged for your faith. I 17:14 don't know what else form of torture that they'll come up with because we are true followers of Jesus. No, he's not talking about that. He's talking about this that men will be lovers of self. That's the mark of the end times that 17:28 more and more this gospel of self-love will become prevalent. Men and women will be lovers of self. I want to skip down a little bit and tell you who are these people. Is he talking about those other people in other religions or worldly people who are 17:44 living a worldly life? No. It says in verse five, they have the form of godliness, but they love themselves. They'll sit in CFC churches. That's a form of godliness for us. They'll sit in whatever denomination they think that's the right 18:01 one. They heard about that. Yeah, this my denomination. Nobody else is pleasing to God. We can be like that, too. And think, well, we've got the right doctrine. I do believe we have the right doctrine. The reason I sit in the church 18:12 that I'm a part of here at RLCF is because to me it's the church in this area of Northern Colorado that most completely seeks to live and teach everything that's in the New Testament. I don't I won't say perfectly, but at least that's 18:27 as far as we know most completely seeking to live and teach what's written in the New New Testament. That's why I'm a part of that church. I encourage you to likewise choose which church you go to for that reason. But it's possible 18:43 even sitting in a church where the teachings are to the best of our knowledge accurate and everything that's in the New Testament we seek to live and teach. Everything we live and teach is from the New Testament. It's possible that in that environment 18:58 and in such a church we have the form of godliness but we love ourselves. We have the right doctrine. We cover our heads. Women, men don't cover their heads. We are modest. We have go, you know, we uh stand against worldly practices. Our 19:14 music is reverential. Our meetings are reverential. We have all of that form of godliness. But deep down we love ourselves. And that's why I have this complaint against God that you haven't done this for me or I you haven't 19:26 answered that prayer because deep down I love myself. So now let's go back and read that. These are people holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. It says what are they like? They are lovers of self. And really that encompasses 19:39 everything. Everything that comes after that is really under this umbrella of lovers of self. Lovers of money. Uh boastful. Arrogant. These are all different characteristics of what self-love looks like. Revilers, disobedient to parents, 19:56 arrogant. Sorry, I did that already. Okay, maybe we need to hear it twice. Ungrateful. Ungrateful. That means somebody did something for you and you didn't even have the thought to go and say thank you. Thank you for what you just did for 20:11 me. Why? Because I love myself. Ungrateful, unholy, unloving. Can't love others because I love myself too much. Irreconcilable. They won't make peace with others. They won't set matters right. Malicious gossips 20:29 without self-control. Brutal. Haters of good. Treacherous. reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness. You know that somebody I believe is exactly what the word of God is telling me that 20:45 somebody could have all of these characteristics and outwardly looks like a wholehearted disciple of Jesus. Looks like it sitting in a CFC church holding to a form of godliness, but they have denied its power on the inside. and 21:00 say, "I still love myself." Dear brothers and sisters, the only way you can have the power of God in your life, you could cry and pray, you could spend all night fasting and praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but the 21:12 only way we can have the power of God in our lives, if we say, Lord, I want your Holy Spirit because I don't want to love myself. I want the power of the Holy Spirit so that I can freed be freed from wanting more for myself, something better for 21:27 me, even a spiritual thing like marriage. I want you Lord to fill me with the Holy Spirit so that you free me from an earthly human desire to be married and then take me and unite me with somebody else who has that same 21:43 ambition. That's marriage in a in a Christian way, in a Christth honoring, Christ loving way. Verse five, holding to the form of godliness although they have denied his power. And he says, "Avoid such men." And he goes on to give a few examples of 21:59 that. Um they enter in households and and verse seven, always learning. That means they'll come to every single's disciplehip gathering. They'll come to every conference. They'll join every meeting whether it's on Zoom or in 22:12 person. They're there regularly and that's and because they're holding to the form, they'll die for the form, but they will deny its form, its power, and they hold on to that form. And so, of course, everybody, the unsuspecting, 22:25 undescerning people in that church think, "This is a really godly brother. I want to marry him. That's a really godly sister. I want to marry her because she's always there. He's always there." Always learning, but never able to come 22:40 to the knowledge of the truth. Verse nine, they will not make further progress for their folly will be evident obvious to all. I mean some can even get to the point of becoming elders and then the foolishness and their form of 22:52 godliness by denying its power and love of self becomes evident then and then it has to be uh rebuked in the presence of all because it's somebody who they thought was a godly person for their folly will be obvious to all 23:07 just as Janice and Jamber's folly was also. That's the self-loving life. And then Paul tells us about the God-pleasing life. What does that look like? Okay. But let me tell you now on the But you, Timothy, you followed my 23:23 teaching. Let me tell you about what the Godleasing life looks like, which is what we're supposed to have. You followed my teaching. Conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions. See, somebody who loves himself can't 23:39 deal with persecution because that that goes against self, persecutions, sufferings, and as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lististra, what persecutions I endured. This is you. This is the other life. 23:58 On the other on the first side, you can love yourself, love money and all that stuff and have the form of godliness, have a good reputation as a good upstanding member of the of the church. And on the other side is sufferings, 24:10 persecution. And he says, "What persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, verse 12, all who want to live a god-pleasing life will be persecuted, will suffer. 24:29 All who want to live a god-pleasing life will suffer. This is my invitation to you all brothers and sisters. This is the way I am choosing to go. I as I got up I thought what song shall we sing? I thought we should sing Jesus I my cross 24:41 have taken all to leave and follow thee. Today Lord I want it to be not just about I was born again so and so a number of years ago. I came in touch with CFC teachings and now I'm good to go. Oh Lord, you're showing me by my 24:57 prayers how self-centered I still am. By the way I treat others, by my thoughts, how self-p preoccupied I am that I am taken up with myself. I love myself. I want to love you, Lord. And you can take me through whatever. And like we heard 25:13 earlier, my only ambition, my only goal is that you will make me like Jesus. That you will finish this work of conforming me into the image of Jesus. Indeed, all who desire to live godly will in Christ Jesus will suffer, will 25:28 experience persecution. But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, saying, "No, no, no, no. That's a hard gospel. Jesus paid it all. And you don't have to do anything else. This whole suffering, he did all the 25:42 suffering for you. Now, it's a free life, man. Don't let anybody bring condemnation upon you and tell you that you're going to suffer and all that stuff." And you will hear gifted preachers and you will see people who seem to have the 25:54 form of godliness. In some senses, I think the form of godliness looks better, looks cleaner than real godliness. Real godliness is such brokenness of spirit. It includes some failure sometimes an acknowledgement of failure 26:11 and and apologizing and and and crying out and saying, "Lord, I need your help." the form of godliness is it's always yeah giving the impression that I don't I don't fall I'm I'm an elder I'm a preacher everything's good with me 26:28 and these deceivers go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived but you Timothy I say you dear young people you however continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them. 26:46 So there's two ways to live our lives. One is this form of godliness without sacrifice, without my ambition being to be pleasing to God. And the other is denying myself so that I can be pleasing to God. What we know what what is pleasing to 27:03 God. I thought I would talk about that a little bit here. How does God get pleasure out of our lives? Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. We read in verse two how the people of 27:28 old gained approval for us now with with what we're thinking about is Lord. How can I gain your approval? How can I live a life that's pleasing to you? you built me. My purpose, my destiny, my shape, if you will, my my the shape of my identity is ultimately 27:46 to be pleasing to you. How can I do that, Lord? I want to learn. I've seen now that my purpose is not to uh be a part of a good church or have a good marriage and have children and all that. That's all self self- serving. It can 28:00 be. My purpose, Lord, is ultimately to bring you pleasure. For your pleasure, I exist and was created. Think about that verse often when you're faced in temptation. When you're faced with a decision to make, should I take 28:15 this job? Should I marry that person? Should I go here? Should I do this? You say, "Lord, I exist to simply bring you pleasure and I'm created for that purpose." That's it. When you go through some trial, when you go through sickness 28:25 or other other trials come your way, Lord, I exist only to bring you pleasure. Are you getting pleasure out of this sickness, Lord? Then let me have it. Are you getting pleasure out of this difficult circumstance I'm in where I'm 28:36 squeezing? Then sure, Lord. Because it's not about how I feel and how comfortable I am and oh I wish my circumstance would change. It is your pleasure. My very existence was for that purpose and I am alive today only for that. Now 28:53 all of us have fallen short of that. Now God has restored us to this place where I realize okay let me get back to living to giving you pleasure alone where God looks down and says ah I'm I'm so delighted in Santosh. I'm so delighted 29:08 in put your name there. This is what will matter in eternity. Heaven will be 100% those whom God had found pleasure in. And it says in verse two that the people of old gained that approval, that pleasure, if you will, by faith. Faith is the 29:28 assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of the conviction of things not seen. By it, by faith, the men and women of old gained that approval. God could look down in Enoch and say, "Aha." Look down on Job and even tell Satan, 29:42 "Have you seen Job? Have you seen Abraham? Have you seen Moses?" And at the end of this chapter, it says, "All of these gained approval up to their level that they could gain approval under the old covenant, but they did not receive what was promised." 29:59 verse 39 because God had provided something better for you and I to gain approval a little bit differently. However, even now, what's why are we told Hebrews 11 in why is Hebrews 11 in the New Testament, not in the Old Testament? Because we're the point he's 30:17 trying to make is that even now the only way we bring pleasure to God is by faith. Even though now we're we're we're saying, "Lord, I want to be live a life that's pleasing to you," don't ever forget. Let's begin by recognizing that 30:32 it's not what I do that brings pleasure to God. It's faith. That's what he says in verse six. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. You could attend every meeting. You could even overcome sin in your own strength in 30:47 some way. But if it didn't come from faith, if it didn't come from a complete utter helpless dependence on God, I says, "I know you didn't lust in that, but that wasn't pleasing to me." I'm going to make a bold statement. I 31:00 want you to think about it. For young you single men, lust is probably a big battle. And you may think, okay, I don't want to be defeated in lust. I want to fight. I want to overcome. And you fight and you fight and you fight and you overcome. 31:14 And you think, aha, God must you must be happy with me. And he says, "No, I wasn't." Isn't that sad? You you you think you denied yourself. You gritted your teeth. You avoided looking at that in that direction or looking at that 31:26 thing on your computer or your phone. And God says, "No, I wasn't happy. I wasn't pleased by that." And somebody else who's crying out to God and saying, "Lord, I need your help. I don't want to fall into this bad habit 31:37 that I just keep falling into. I'm depending on you." And then they happen to fall, but they get up and say, "Lord, will you help me, please? I I want to I'm sorry. I I'm I failed again. and I sinned, but I'm looking to you, Lord. I 31:48 you you're going to come through. I believe it. And God says, you who just sinned two minutes ago are more pleasing to me than that other person who hasn't sinned in two years. Why? Because I see that this person is living 32:01 by faith. They're trusting me. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We must start there. Because I don't know what you were thinking up to this point when I said that God has intended for you to live a life that's pleasing 32:15 to him. Did you think ah okay I'm going to do it from this day forward I shall live a life that's pleasing to you God by hook or by crook. It'll be by crook. It'll be a hypocrisy. And let's start by realizing that the only way we can be pleasing to God is by 32:33 faith. Yes, we're called to be holy. You shall be holy as your heavenly father is holy because you serve a holy God. But he wants you to live by faith. holiness that comes by faith alone. And um that's how we will be pleasing to 32:48 God. And let's now turn to Zephaniah 3. When when we come to this life of faith, which is Lord, I just want to be pleasing to you by faith, faith in Jesus Christ alone. 33:05 When I come to that place of faith, then I'm truly a believer. Now I I had to kind of give that disclaimer at the beginning because now being a believer is sort of become like oh being a Christian you know it says when it says that the 33:21 belie the disciples were first called Christians in the months and even the years immediately after that Christian was kind of like a like man you're one of those radical types that's what it meant I I think likewise when somebody says 33:36 I'm a believer that there was something radical about that I believe in Jesus Christ not in Caesar or anything else. I believe in Jesus Christ. Today believer is like I don't know. I think like every one of the last 10 or 12 presidents has 33:49 said they're a believer. It's just like everybody's a believer. But if we believe if we really see that belief to be a believer is to live my whole life by dependence on God alone. Faith, faith in God, faith in God, faith 34:08 in God. everything whether I'm a a single person, a husband, a father, wife, mother, whatever it might be. I'm living my whole life pleasing to God. I want to live by faith. I want to live my whole life dependent on God, dependent on the 34:24 faith of Jesus Christ who loved me and gave himself for me. That's the life I live now. That's a true believer. And to such who are now, those are the ones who are now children in God's family. Now they're restored into relationship 34:38 with God. He is their spiritual father. He's our heavenly father now and we can call him daddy. The Holy Spirit comes within us and gives us new life. We are his children. And to such God says in Zephaniah 3:14, let's begin in verse 12. We're we're 34:56 speaking about giving God pleasure and seeing God finding pleasure in us. And he says, I will leave among you a humble and lowly people. They will take refuge in the name of the Lord. Zephaniah 3:12. The remnant of Israel will do no wrong 35:10 and tell no lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths, for they will feed and lie down with no one to make them treble. And so shout for joy, oh daughter of Zion. Shout and triumph, O Israel. Rejoice and exalt 35:23 with all your heart, oh daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away his judgments against you. And he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord is in your midst. So now God can say, God can say, "I'm going 35:37 to come down and be in your midst. You put your faith in me completely. I will be in your midst. I will be your father. I will be your God. You will fear disaster no more." In that day, it will be said to Jerusalem, "Do not be afraid, 35:50 O Zion. Do not let your hands fall limp. The Lord your God is in your midst. He is your God. He's your father now because you're a true believer." And then look at how he manifests himself in your midst. It's like God is 36:04 saying, "Okay, you you you want you you want me to change your heart and restore you to this God-pleasing life alone. Okay, then you'll I'll show you what kind of a God I am. A victorious warrior. He will exalt over you with 36:18 joy." Think another translation says with shouts of joy. And if even as I was speaking just now, there was a cry within your heart that said, "Lord, I want to be this." I see now even as I look back on the recent past that yeah I've been a part of this 36:35 church and I I've heard good teaching all that but I see that deep down I love myself and I don't want to Lord I see that that's the root of my problems I want to turn to you and I want to live this life pleasing I hope you saw it God 36:48 jumped out of his chair and said yes jumped out of his throne and said I exalt over you because you want to live a life that's pleasing to me by faith he exalts over you with shouts of joy and then he'll be quiet for a little while 37:03 and says, "Okay, I'm done rejoicing over Santos. Now I'm let me be quiet for a little bit. Let me think, how can I love him? How can I make something really loving in his life? He will be quiet in his love. He will silently plan for you 37:17 in love. And then he'll go back to shouting again and rejoicing over you. And he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy." I love that he's exalting and shouting and I can hear it loud and clear and it feels warm and all that. 37:29 And then he goes silent for a while. But he loves me. He's planning for me in love. So God is bursting with pleasure over you. Yes, you're imperfect, but you're his. In the same way that any father, any mother sees a disobedient child, turn 37:48 and say, "Mom, I'm sorry." You know, one of the times I feel I want to say this carefully. Some of the one some of the times I feel love for my children the most is when they come to dad or mom to Megan or me and say I'm sorry. Oh, that 38:03 just rejoices my heart. I mean sometimes even more than that they obeyed that there's a desire that that that desire to obey somehow shows itself more when they've fallen and they turn and say, "Dad, I I'm sorry. I I really want to do 38:21 better next time." And oh that rejoices my heart. I tear up thinking about it. How much more our heavenly father I I got that from my father in heaven who when he sees that you really want to live this life and you uh and and you 38:37 turn to him like Jesus said there's more joy in heaven over what one repentter one who repented is oh this is a reason to rejoice. So God is bursting with pleasure over you and you're not you're imperfect, but he's rejoicing over you not because of 38:57 what you've done or haven't done because you're his. He's adopted you into his family. You've you've re you're a child of faith. He that gene of faith has been passed on to you. See, what makes my children mine is that my genes my uh DNA is passed on 39:15 to them. And when God sees that his DNA, the DNA of Christ has been passed on to you, which is faith. This is the DNA of heaven, faith. It's been passed on to you. Now he says, "Okay, you're you're born. You're related to me now by 39:27 faith." That's how we're born into that relationship with Jesus. And then we read in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1, 39:57 a wonderful chapter to meditate on when you think about Christ and his preeminence. Uh we read that in verse uh let's just begin in verse 17. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. It's talking about Jesus. He 40:13 is also a head of the body, the church and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead so that he himself will come to have the first place in everything. For it was the father's good pleasure. Here we're talking about what brings God 40:26 pleasure. Here's another aspect of God's pleasure. That's what we exist to be and do, bring God pleasure. It was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness of the Godhead to dwell in Jesus. You can say, well, okay, well, that was 40:43 always the case, right? Jesus existed with the father before time. So all the fullness dwelling in Jesus well yeah that's great but then we realize that Jesus emptied himself not of his identity as God but all those powers as 40:57 God and became like us and suffered even to the point of death on a cross. God cannot die and God Jesus had to empty himself of that right to never die and die even to the point of death on the cross where that's kind of 41:15 like the bottom the worst thing that that could ever happen to God is die because he cannot die it's his nature he's eternal immortal and the worst thing that could ever happen to God was for him to partake of death and Jesus did 41:31 so that what so that he could become the firstborn as we read here the firstborn born from the dead, the firstborn of many brethren. We heard that earlier this day this this morning as well. Romans 8:29. So now when it says that the fullness it 41:45 it was the father's good pleasure for the fullness uh for the fullness of the godhead to dwell in Jesus. Then what is he going on say? Why is it so important to us now through him to reconcile me to him so that I could become a partaker of that? That's the 42:05 father's good pleasure. So what I see he's saying here is that the father's pleasure it rejoices him so much that Santosh and put your name there is willing for me to put my nature in him fully. Now it's no longer about me. Oh I 42:21 get to be a partaker of the divine nature. I will be conformed into the image of Jesus. That's see how that's still self- serving that oh those people they won't be like Jesus but I will. as still self-love. It's just I want to 42:36 partake of the divine nature. But we realize that it's because God will get pleasure out of it. God will get pleasure out of Santosh being conformed into the image of Jesus. And I say, Lord, I want to be so conformed into 42:51 this passion, this desire that I exist only to bring you pleasure. that all of your forgiving of my sins and saving me from hell and all of that is not about me, that you did it because you would get glory out of it. I get the benefit. 43:09 That's the extra. That's the icing on the cake that I don't get to go to hell. The real cake is that God gets glory out of it. You see how this is different from what almost every other church is preaching. Hey, come to Jesus because 43:20 you don't want to go to hell. Okay, maybe it starts there. That's how it started for me. But my dear brothers and sisters, as I've gotten to know God more and I'm seeing his heart and I meditate on his word, I see that it's ultimately 43:31 if I can come to to be for him to change my heart so much that it's all about him getting pleasure out of my life, it will free me from all these things that tend to drag me down into the old life, the old habits, the old up and down life. 43:47 The only upward life is the one that's consistently saying Lord you get pleasure out of my life. You get pleasure out of my life. That's the upward going life. And that's why he said he is attached him to a body. So now this head this is God. It was 44:02 pleasing to the father to put all that fullness in a head who is connected to a body. So if I told you let's use a physical analogy now that this head gets to have perfect health or something really good happened to this head by 44:16 consequence the rest of my body gets to have it too. And that's the beauty of what the Holy Spirit is showing us here is like it's the father's good pleasure for Jesus who in a sense came down to this earth disconnected himself from the 44:29 father on the cross when he suffered on the cross and was forsaken by his father and then having been reconciled with the father now because of that whole process Jesus is now a head connected to a body where I have a place that I too can 44:43 become a partaker of that. Oh, this rejoice in my heart that the father is delighted that he can now give me that divine nature in all its fullness. Never again to have anything but love. When it says God is love, that means 45:02 there's no that that's every part of him is love. I read that to say now Santosh is going to be all love little by little. God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. Santos is one day going to be free from all darkness altogether. 45:16 God is all those attributes of God. The fullness of the Godhead is put in Jesus who has been attached to a body where you and I have a place. It's a wonderful wonderful wonderful privilege that all the fullness of the divine nature is in the head, the divine 45:30 nature and by consequence in the body. This brings God pleasure. Let's turn to Song of Solomon chapter 4. We heard from there briefly already. I want to look at a couple of verses there. We're told about I just described that 45:49 head and body relationship. Another picture we're given in scripture is bridegroom and bride. And truly, you know, bridegroom and bride are as one script spiritually as a head and a body. When you think of me, you don't think of Santos the head and 46:05 Santos the body as two different things. And when you get married, I hope that you will increasingly ask that God will give you a marriage where they don't think of you and your wife as or you and your husband as two different people. 46:17 That you're becoming one. Oh, they're one. Head and body. Jesus and his church are one. Bridegroom and bride. Head and body. And marriage is like that. We're told in Ephesians 5 that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. And so 46:31 a husband and wife ought to be becoming as one in identity. He had made the two one. It says as Jesus and the church. So another picture we're given is of this true spiritual marriage where the bridegroom and the bride are one. And 46:43 what a mystery. What a unfathomable thing that Jesus would say I want to be one with you Santos. You who fell short of my glory. You who lived such a self-serving self-seeking life. All I know what all you've done but I want you to come back and be one 47:00 with me and you to be a partaker of all of this fullness of the divine nature as well. Oh, I rejoice in my heart. But look at how when when we come into this relationship of bride with bridegroom and the bride and this this is a a 47:14 living chapter for me. Solomon Solomon chapter 4 is as real to me today as it will be in heaven when I get to see Jesus face to face and hear him actually say this to me. But this dear as we heard already 47:31 uh earlier this morning from my dad this must you must come to the reality the place where this is a reality for you as well today where you hear for example I'll just pick a couple of verses verse seven I mean he he starts the the the 47:44 chapter is he goes into great detail like describing his her eyes and her hair and her teeth and all of these things her lips is just one by one I'll be honest you when I was a teenager I I stayed away from Song of Solomon. It 48:00 almost kind of stirred me emotionally in ways I didn't want to be stirred. I'm like, this is going into such detail, but I'm glad we are hearing twice today on the book of Song of Solomon. Um, I'll share with you the a link to that book 48:14 uh Hudson Taylor's book that my dad referenced um so you can read it sometime um on on the Song of Solomon. But then he goes on to describe it and here's one. He says, listen, verse seven, you are all together. Okay, I went I described this this part. I went 48:28 through your whole body, described all of it. Why? I like that about you. I like that about you. And these are all things that, as all of you women will probably testify, when somebody starts picking apart your body and starts 48:40 saying, "Oh, your eyes are like this and your ears are like that and your and immediately you think about all the ways in which you don't think you're attractive." You think, "No, no, no, don't talk about my ears. I, you know," and then I wonder 48:51 what the bride is thinking when he's going through detail by deal my lips. No. And immediately she's trying to cover her up and you're immediately aware of all the ways in which you think you're unattractive to him. HE SAYS, 49:00 "NO, BUT THAT'S WHAT I LOVE ABOUT YOU, my child, my my darling, my bride. And in all those ways in which you think you are unpleasing to God, not I'm not talking about sin, but those quirks and and and even those failures perhaps that 49:15 he'll change." He says, "Oh, I I love that. I love the faith that's there in that area." those lips that maybe were he says I love those lips why but Lord I just said that and I I didn't have control over it but there's faith there 49:32 when I look at those lips I see faith those eyes that have been used to in an ungodly way and going through that I'm going to say Santosh I love your eyes young brother he loves your eyes why because even though you use them in a in 49:44 a way that dishonored him in filth you're coming back to him and saying Lord these eyes I give you in faith that they will be yours he says I love your is have you heard your young brothers God tell you that he loves your eyes. If 49:58 if you given that to him in faith, he's saying that to you today. Faith is what's pleasing to him. So he says, I you're altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you. And you say, hold on, Lord, you're just lying. And he says, 50:12 no, he would never lie. I know you see the blemish. I know you see all the ways in which you fall short, but I see faith behind those eyes. I see a willingness to trust me aresh today and say, Lord, I'm going to trust you aresh today and 50:27 I'm going to keep trusting you until you come through. Verse nine, you have made my heartbeat faster. One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible, I'll tell you that Jesus, the King of heaven, who has all the angels adoring him, he says, "Hold on, angels. 50:46 I know you guys tell me all this, how wonderful, majestic, worthy, all the saints there, the elders are bowing down, they're putting their crowns on, but he says, I looked over there in Loveland and I saw Santos with my 50:56 heartbeat faster. You have made my heartbeat faster, my sister, my bride. You have made my heartbeat faster with a single glance of your eyes. There it is again. And you go back and say, "What? Those eyes? Really? You like my eyes? 51:14 You like pick pick the area of your spiritual being that you're most embarrassed about, that you're most grieving about, that you've used perhaps in the most sinful ways possible." And the Lord says, "Those eyes looked at me 51:28 in faith and my heart beat faster. Wonderful. So this what is pleasing to the Lord is his bride. And if you're a part of his bride, if you've committed your life to him in faith, if you've chosen, if you said, "Lord, I I really want to live this life 51:45 of being pleasure to you alone." He says, "You're pleasing to me." Psalm 149. Another area in which the Lord takes pleasure. 52:07 This is a hard one. I'll be I'll give you a heads up. Be ready. Train's going a little faster now. So, keep up. Verse four. The Lord takes pleasure in his people. It's a wonderful thing. The Lord takes pleasure in his people. But what is the characteristic 52:23 of his people? You read in the last part of his verse, they are the afflicted ones. The people of God, the true people of God are the afflicted ones. Is that what you want to sign up for? I've described how his heart will beat 52:38 faster. How he will be in your midst exalting over you with shouts of joy. He'll rise up out of his throne because he's so excited. But then he'll show you that this life of being bringing him pleasure is a cross. It's you will be known as an afflicted 52:53 one. Are you ready for that? Is that the life you want? If I told you brothers, sisters, the life that's awaiting ahead of you is an afflicted life. It's going to be loss. It's going to be disappointment. It's going to be 53:08 suffering. It's going to be pain. It's going to be perplexing. It's going to be disappointment. It's going to be I don't know what else. But you're his. It'll be afflicted, but it says he will beautify the afflicted ones with 53:28 salvation. You'll go through that affliction, but through that affliction will bring will bring the beauty of his salvation. He will beautify the afflicted with salvation. So whatever affliction you're going through, brother, sister, whatever 53:42 it is might be, whatever doubt, whatever trial you're going through, whatever burden you're carrying, God is going to bring beauty out of it. He brings beauty out of ashes. He's going to beautify you by saving you. Saving you to what? What 53:56 am I being saved for? From being saved to a life of pleasing him alone. That's that's salvation. Any salvation that is not that doesn't result in God getting pleasure from my life is not salvation at all because I'm still stuck with 54:10 myself. The biggest problem as somebody has said in my life is staring right at me in the mirror. The biggest enemy I have is staring right at me in the mirror. And the moment I realized that this person whose 54:27 comfort and whose convenience and whose whatever else I'm constantly trying to preserve is somebody that died with Christ. And it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And so now and the life I now live in the flesh. I 54:42 live by the faith of him who loved me and gave himself and died for me. Now everything is about this Christ and his pleasure and his glory and his honor. Let's turn to Isaiah 53 in the same vein. When we think about this and we realize 55:06 that in order for us to come to this life, Jesus had to come down to this earth and be one of us. And even though he never sinned, he never once fell short of the glory of God because he always was pleasing to the father. Even though he was here on 55:24 this earth, even though he had the potential, the see the test for Jesus here on this earth was please yourself or please the father. You read you see that in Gethsemane exemplified the most powerfully. But throughout of his life 55:36 that was temptation. Temptation is essentially this. Please yourself or please the father. Please yourself or please God. Please yourself or please God. And Jesus who was never subject to that because pleasing himself was 55:49 pleasing God because he was God and he had to empty himself of that right to be pleased as God to come to this earth where now it became two different things. Pleasing himself was different from pleasing God and he took up his 56:04 cross and said not my pleasing not my will but yours father not pleasing myself. uh Romans 15:3 Jesus never pleased himself. Please the father, please the father, please the father. And he had to come to that place. That was the only way that 56:23 you and I could then be attached to a head to have a bridegroom whom we could also experience the fullness of the godhead with. Never pleased himself. So he came down and lived on this earth and experienced affliction. Jesus became an 56:38 afflicted one so that we afflicted ones could be partakers of his divine nature. Then you read in Isaiah 53 that the father the Lord was pleased to crush him. What it's a it's a I don't know that I'll on this earth fully understand what 56:56 that verse really means. God is not a sadist masochist who enjoys people's suffering. Have you ever felt like that? Lord, do you see me suffering? Are you just getting Do you love just making allowing bad things to happen to me? Do you love just seeing me 57:12 squirm it? The Lord was pleased to crush him and putting him to grief. This is Jesus showing us how we who have fallen short of the glory of God can become partakers of his divine nature. 57:31 So he came down and made his way and he he was became crushed and was put to grief and it pleased the father to crush him and to put him to grief. And now when you and I go through that crushing and putting to grief, 57:48 you see that Jesus in order to be that bridegroom with a bride made one, a head with a body made one, he had to go that same way and to experience crushing and being put to grief by his father. Rejoice my heart. So the suffering that 58:06 you're going through, brothers and sisters, is one that Jesus has gone ahead of for you as well. It's a wonderful, wonderful life. I'll close with this final verse. Colossians 1. We went back there. I just want to show you one verse 58:19 further down in that chapter. We read about how he has given him all the fullness. Verse 19, it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to 58:38 himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross. through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And then skip down to verse 27. To us whom God will to make known what is the riches of the glory of this 58:51 mystery among the gener Gentiles, which is Christ, this person in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells in me, in you, the hope of glory. that the Christ that lives in you who if you really invite him to be there and be 59:07 the Lord of your life whose pleasure alone you seek is the one who has been in whom the father has put all the fullness of his godhead that Christ in you has all the fullness of the divine nature in him let it be manifest in you 59:23 so much more I could say on that but we'll end there for now let's pray heavenly father I pray that what I've in my feeble words sought to encourage and exhort us all through will go away into the dust bin and your words that you wanted to speak through 59:38 this message will be planted in our hearts and that we will be changed by faith through the Holy Spirit. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. [music]
