0:00 Thank you. I'm very humbled. You surprised me with that. But I would rather be introduced by 0:21 somebody who knows me. I think many of you do know me, but sometimes when I get applause too, I wonder how many times Jesus walked up to the podium with applause. I don't think it was very often, but it's still good to express appreciation. It's a New Testament thing to give thanks to those 0:43 who labor among you, especially those who teach the word. So thank you for the opportunity, Austin CFC and all of you who are here to be with you. I just consider myself part of you. The world, Christendom especially, makes much of this, both the music and being behind the pulpit. 1:06 And I tell you, I don't see it that way at all. It's just like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, that there are different members of the body that God gives different functions to. And some of those members will have greater prominence than others, such as there are portions of your body that you see 1:25 more often, like your eyes, your mouth, and your nose. But when you think of me as the one who's maybe doing more speaking this weekend, do you think of my mouth or my tongue? Because that's the member of my body that is functioning the most, you can say, in preaching. But when you think of me, 1:49 I'm sure you don't think of Santosh's tongue or his mouth. Those members in our body we recognize physically, that's just the member that does the talking. Big deal. Big deal, tongue. Don't think of yourself as such a important member of the body. And I say this too. Big deal, preachers. God has called you to preach. 2:10 Yes, it's a valuable thing and it's a precious thing, but we never exalt ourselves in such a way. And it's sad that that's what goes on in most of Christendom. I find that most churches these days are built around having a powerful orator and a good music leader. And you never see that that's how God, how the 2:33 apostles planted churches in the New Testament, what they were looking for, what God was looking for, was humble, broken men. To this one I will look, God says, to the one who is broken and contrite in heart. And my dear friends, if you're here and looking for the Lord to establish a work in your 2:54 locality, which must be the passion of your life, I hope it is, that a pure testimony for the name of Jesus will be lifted up in every place that's represented here. I tell different ones whom I come in contact with, if there isn't a local church there that is glorifying God according to 3:13 what we read in the New Testament, then you can say one of two prayers. One, Lord, it's not by accident that you allowed me to be living here, wherever that is, wherever you have come from. And I'm going to pray that you will use me or lead me to those who are sincere about building your church according to 3:38 the pattern you have showed us in the New Testament. And if you don't do that, lead me to where I'm willing to move to be a part of that. That's the prayer I prayed many years ago. And I waited to see if the Lord would establish something where I was there in California. And after some time, 3:55 he showed me that he was not. And he led me to Colorado, where I have been a part of River of Life Christian Fellowship since 2008. So I just wanted to say that by way of introduction. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here and just be among you and to fellowship with you. 4:17 Usually Benoy or one of the elders here asks me to share a theme for the conference. He didn't press me this time. He asked me a few weeks ago and I said I'm still praying about it. And I'll tell you honestly, the theme came to me yesterday. So I'm thankful he didn't push me and I didn't feel pressured 4:35 to say something just to say we have a theme. Because I never liked doing things just for the sake of doing them. But the thought that the Lord had impressed on me, had been impressing on me for the last few weeks as I prayed about this conference and confirmed in my heart yesterday was this. 4:52 Is, I don't have a phrase or anything like that so bear with me, but this is essentially the thought. What does it mean to live a perfect Christian life? What does it mean to have and to live a perfect Christian life? Our goal is perfection. And you must know that. And as we explore this a little bit 5:17 in the three sessions that I'll be teaching, we'll see how perfection in God's eyes, how God describes perfection is very different from how the world describes perfection. We're all presented with perfection. And because we're often not that, we pretend. We pretend that my suit is nicely ironed or 5:38 or my face is really clean. And there's a lot of pretense that goes on both in the physical area, in the emotional area, and in the spiritual area. So we'll look at some of that. And I thought I would divide it up into these three sessions just to give you an idea of where I'm going with it. 5:55 You know, there's a phrase in the world called, it goes like, it's the phrase is the three R's of education. Any of you know what that is? The three R's of education? Yeah, okay. So I didn't know if it was just an Indian thing. But yeah, so in this country too, because I grew up in India. 6:15 Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, only one of those words starts with R, but it sounds good. Reading, writing, and arithmetic. I'm going to talk about three R's in the Christian life along this journey of perfection. And it's just a way to remember it. There may be many other things. 6:34 There are many other things in the Bible and many other things in scripture that talk about what it means to experience the perfection of Christ that we will not have time to cover this weekend. But we'll just look at these three areas. I want you to turn with me, if you would please, to Ephesians chapter one. 6:54 And the first R we look at today is redemption. Redemption. I think it's important and it's good that we start there because redemption actually implies some level of imperfection. Now we're talking about perfection. Living the perfect Christian life. And the moment you 7:18 introduce the word, if you start with the word redemption, it automatically implies that there is imperfection. If it was perfect, and if we're talking about perfection, why is redemption even coming into the picture? And how can you still be perfect? How can you even talk about perfection when you've started 7:40 the conversation with redemption? Ephesians chapter one, you know, in the early verses, he says, well, let's begin reading there in verse three, Ephesians one, verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 8:01 just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Those are words, holy and blameless, that imply perfection. And according to this verse, you must be absolutely assured, dear friend, if you are a child of God, if you're born again, 8:23 and if you're not, let me start by saying you don't even have to wait till I'm done speaking to be born again. If you really believe that Jesus Christ came to this earth to die a perfect life and to die bearing your sin and my sin, your sin specifically on the cross, and that by believing in him after repenting, 8:44 that means turning from your sin and putting your faith in the fact that Jesus has taken all of your sin, that you can never earn acceptance before God and earn righteousness, but that because of Jesus' perfect work, you can be completely forgiven of all of your sin. If you repent and turn to him in faith, 9:04 then you are born again. You pray that prayer to your father in heaven and you will have a new life. The life of Jesus will come and be born in you of a seed and will grow within you as you nurture it. So you don't have to wait even another minute to be born again. If the Lord has been tugging on your 9:21 heart and you're here, I don't know if you are, but if you are, you don't have to wait. It'll be well worth your time if you don't wait any longer. For those of us who are born again, he says that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So God's plan for my perfection in on this earth began before the 9:42 foundations of the world, before this building was there, before this earth was there, before anything that you see that these have been around for thousands of years, a long, long time. Even the the earth as it were has been here, but long before that, and we don't know when that was. I mean they were talking 10:01 an eternity ago. God had you in mind. God had me in mind and he chose me. God through his foreknowledge looked into the future and saw me. He saw this world that he would create and he saw what would happen and all these circumstances that would happen. And there in Bangalore, India, and then on coming 10:22 into the US and California and now in Colorado, he saw me and he chose me and said that boy, that man has got to be perfect. Okay. So he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be perfect, holy and blameless before him. And so in love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through 10:47 Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. And then he goes on to say, verse seven, in him, we have redemption. There's that word redeemed. We sang about it. I think it was of the Lord that we 11:09 sang that song at the very end. There is a fountain in him. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he 11:30 purposed in him. Now I want you to pause for a moment and think, if you were to write the story of your life, if you had the opportunity to write the story of your life, let's say you're a movie director or a book writer, whatever your preference is, and you're telling the story of your life. And this is it. 11:48 You actually get to define your life and you get to draw out the perfect life and the perfect genealogy and the perfect circumstances and all of this. What would you do? Think about it. Think about it for a moment here. You and I are sitting in the circumstances of our sitting here facing consequences, 12:12 perhaps of choices we have made, dealing with circumstances that are beyond our control. And this is the life that you feel you have been dealt. Maybe you feel like, well, these, this, the cards have been dealt. What can I do? I find that there are many Christians who complain and 12:30 grumble at God. God, why are you allowing this to happen to me? God, why did you allow this to happen in my life? Why are you doing this to me, God? I've asked God that question myself at times. And I want to present to you where the root of that question comes from, a deep-seated, 12:53 shaky foundation that hasn't seen God's purpose and God's perfection. What perfection to God looks like? Because we have bought into this Hollywood mentality of perfection. If you were to write a Hollywood love story, if Hollywood writes a love story, it's perfect. You know, it's, everything is nice and 13:15 lovey-dovey. If you were to write the love story of your life, here you are, maybe young people, you're imagining what your courtship and engagement and marriage will be like in your wedding day. How do you envision that? Do you envision it being a beautiful day and everything is just perfect and 13:32 nothing goes wrong and everything just flows through life? Is that the story you would write about your life on this side of it? There's only one man who got to decide his history. You know that? That's Jesus. Let's look at that. In Matthew 1, Jesus is God. He's always been God. And at some point, it says in 13:57 Galatians 4, I think in verse 4, "In the fullness of time, the Father and the Son decided this was the right time for Jesus to come." But the plan of salvation had already begun long before that. The plan of redemption began not long before even the mistake. Let me say that again. The plan of 14:19 redemption and perfection, now make it personal. The plan of redemption and perfection for you, and you, and you, and you, and me, began long before the foundations of the world like we just saw. And then later on in time came the world. And then later on in time came Adam and Eve making that big 14:39 mistake in the Garden of Eden. And then later on in time came all those other consequences. And later on in time came your grandfather and grandmother on both sides. And then later on in time came your parents. And then later on in time came you. And then later on in time came all those wrong things 14:55 that you did, and all those other things that happened to you, all those circumstances that you're ashamed of, and those embarrassing things. And then one day your eyes were opened to see who Jesus was. See, all of that came much, much later. And long before that, he had already planned your story, 15:14 a perfect story, my dear brother, dear sister. And that's why Jesus is such a perfect example for us. Look at the perfect story of Jesus. We know that Jesus was perfect. And very often we think Jesus was perfect because he was God and because he never sinned. Yes. But you know that the circumstances of 15:33 Jesus' life were about as imperfect as you can ever imagine. And let's look at it. Matthew chapter 1. Jesus here. This is, you know, the New Testament is the hinge. A new thing is beginning. Galatians 5 says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. Behold, all things have become new." And you and I maybe are 15:57 dealing with newness of life in Christ Jesus, and we have that. And yet we have consequences of our past. We have circumstances. We deal with a flesh that is still drawn by sin. And we wonder how it is that I can be a new 16:11 creature when I've got a bunch of this oldness still that tends to still tag along, such as circumstances for my past, things that I did wrong I have to set right, people who still treat me badly, my flesh that still draws me away from God, like we sing in that song, prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. As a believer, 16:35 I feel that proneness to wonder. Is this the perfect life that Jesus lived? Is this the perfect life that God, before the foundations of the world, planned for me to have? Dear brother, dear sister, if you've been born again for a few years, is the life you are living today, now, the perfect life that you see 16:58 God had planned for you before the foundations of the world? I'm not talking about when you were in sin. Yeah, that was your fault. That was my fault when I was in sin. But having come into Christ and becoming a new creature, do I see that I'm entitled to a level and a degree of perfection today? 17:21 I'm not waiting to be perfect. Yes, I will be perfect, completely like Him when I see Him. 1 John 3 says that. But what about today? Can I come to God and expect, in faith, Lord, today must be perfect because you planned it before the foundations of the world. I'm in you. I'm in you, Lord Jesus. And can I come to you 17:44 in faith and say that you will make today perfect according to your estimation? And that's why I said it begins with blowing out of the water this perception of perfection that we as Christians have sadly bought into, which is taken from the world's idea of perfection. So Jesus' story of perfection begins 18:06 like this with Abraham. Abraham was a pretty messed up guy. Abraham was a guy who prayed for a long time and experienced frustration and waiting and waiting and waiting and God giving him a promise and him seeing absolutely no physical evidence of that promise for decades. I don't know when it, how old he was when he 18:31 received the promise that he would be the father of a multitude, but it was decades later before he actually saw even one offspring come from him. And you know what that was like. First, he tries what God tells him, you're going to be the father of a multitude. And so he changes his name even. 18:47 He says, okay, Lord, I believe it. I'm going to be the father of a multitude. And so he goes from being called Abram to Abraham, which literally means father of a multitude. And then he walks around and says, hey, what's your name? Father of a multitude. Oh, really? Let me see your house. Where's this multitude? 19:03 Oh, no, not yet. Okay. Well, it's coming soon. And I bet Abraham thought one of these days, any day now, Sarah will come to me with the little pregnancy tests and saying, yes, double line, pregnant. And then a day went by and a week went by and a month went by and a year went by. He says, okay. 19:23 Okay, Lord, somebody else visits him. Hey, what's your name? Abraham. He didn't change his name back to Abraham. You see that? He's still Abraham. Abraham, where's your multitude, father? Oh, it's coming. It's coming one of these days. Abraham, Abraham, two years. See, we read in the book of 19:45 Genesis and it takes us a few minutes perhaps to skim through the story, but sometime put yourself in Abraham's shoes so that you can see how God writes his perfect story. Do you really want God to write your story, whether it's your love story or the story of your courtship, the story of your marriage, 20:04 the story of your church? When you really allow God to write your story, you'll be surprised what that looks like. I'm disappointed sometimes when I see Christian books and Christian movies present God's love story as this ideal where nothing ever goes wrong and it was perfect. And it was this girl 20:23 that I met when I was a teenager and then we did it perfectly. That's wonderful if that's how it is. But I want you to know if that's not your testimony today, if there is a brokenness and a failure, if there's been mistakes in the past, if there's been, or even today, and if there's a helplessness 20:42 and a feeling of utter failure and despair, I want you to know that God has a perfect plan for your life that includes the despair you're feeling even now and the sense of hopelessness and the sense of, I thought I would be married when I was 21 and here I am 29, 31. 21:03 See, this is the God of the Bible whose story I want to write. This is the true story of love that God writes. So Abraham thinks, okay, God somehow forgot about this promise. So he decides to help God in his promise. You know the stories, you know the story, so I'll just skim through it. 21:22 So he decides to marry another woman. In those days it was permitted. And so he marries his slave, Sarah. His wife helps him in that. And they think, okay, we got to figure out God promised it and we're not going to go back on God's promise. So we're going to find a way to help God achieve his promise. 21:39 You ever tried to do that? I have. And it's come to nothing. So they come up with Ishmael and God allows Hagar to get pregnant. I mean, for years and years, Abraham and Sarah were trying. And so they think, well, the problem must be with Sarah. And so they, he marries Hagar and they have a son and think God, 21:58 finally, Abraham says, this is it. I'm the father of a multitude. Ishmael is going to be the answer. And then God says, no, you're not thinking big enough. You came up with a solution and this is not what I had in mind. Is this mic working? Yep. Okay. 22:17 So God tells him, no, Ishmael is not it. And Abraham is thinking, Lord, well, okay. And God still makes him wait a little bit longer. And it was, I think Ishmael was probably a teenager, maybe 12 or 13 years before Abraham finally had Isaac and God allowed Sarah to conceive. 22:39 This is a wonderful story, but I just mentioned that in passing because that's where it begins. A story of failure, a story of hope against hope. It's called, let's look at that in Hebrews, well, Hebrews chapter 11 for your verse. 23:00 And all through this, you know what God was thinking in heaven? This is the lineage. This is the perfect story I'm trying to write. This is the path of perfection that I'm going to choose and align myself with so that I can be a perfect example for many who will come afterwards. 23:19 Hebrews 11, it says in 11 verse 11, by faith, even Sarah. Oh, see, that's a word that we just skip over. By faith, even Sarah, because you have to understand the history behind that, that it was Abraham for years thinking it would be Sarah and then giving up hope on it, thinking, 23:39 Sarah, you're a failure. It's not going to be through you. And imagine what Sarah felt through that when Abraham married Hagar and Hagar got pregnant. Sisters, think about what Sarah went through in that moment and the rejection she must have felt when the woman whom she, the man whom she loved, 23:59 and she realized that that this was the only way that God, according to her, that God was going to fulfill that promise. And so she gave this maid to her and perhaps she was hoping it wouldn't work so that it wouldn't seem like the fault was with her, but it worked. Hagar got pregnant. What do you 24:15 think Sarah felt? Isolation, abandonment. She wondered, how am I going to be seen in my husband's eyes? See, this is real life. These are the emotions and the depth that we miss when we just read even Sarah. But as we read it slowly and as that word faith jumps out, I see even Sarah in the midst of her 24:41 abandonment and despair and seeing that slave boy, Ishmael, and seeing the promise being fulfilled through another line. It seems like to her thinking, God, you're done with me. There's no hope for me yet. There's hope for Abraham. Yes. And for this other woman, Hagar, but I'm out of the picture somehow. 25:03 God says, no, by faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life. Since she considered him faithful who had promised. And this is where we see what Sarah was praying in secret, 25:22 even though the devil was attacking her like he attacks you and I, with thoughts of hopelessness, of thoughts of, no, this marriage can never come to anything. Or this relationship with my children is never going to be restored. And the devil will attack you with thoughts of that and thoughts of that. 25:38 And in secret, what will you say, dear sister? If you're saying, Lord, I know this situation looks imperfect, looks hopeless, but you have a perfect plan for my life. In a sense, maybe she didn't understand it this way completely, but in a sense, I believe that's what Sarah was praying in her bedroom. 25:59 Maybe as Abraham is with Hagar and Sarah's by herself, you know what Sarah's praying? She considered him faithful who had promised. He said, God, you're faithful. I'm going to hold on. You know, she had emotions. Remember the time when they gave that promise to her and she laughed 26:18 and she regretted it later and she tried to hide herself and deny. So she was a woman just like all you women are. She had a human flesh, human tendencies like we all have. But deep down was a faith. Sometimes perhaps she was shaken by that unbelief. Sometimes her soul was drawn this way or that. 26:37 But deep down we see here in Hebrews 11 verse 11, she considered him faithful who had promised. I hope that will be the testimony of your life. Consider him faithful who has promised that when you see Jesus, you will be like him and you will be perfect like him. And you will see 26:56 that that story of perfection included all those things that you're dealing with now. Therefore also, verse 12, there was born of one man and him as good as dead. I mean, imagine if you were described that. Here's this man, Abraham, you know, he's just had a son. He's 27:15 he's as good as dead. I don't ever want to be described that way. But this is the lineage that Jesus begins his story with. A man as good as dead. What circumstance, my dear friend, are you dealing with that the world labels as good as dead? This is where just wants to begin his story in your life. 27:36 A man as good as dead, as many descendants. I mean, God had to wait till Abraham's uh reputation and thoughts about himself and all the things that you could say about Abraham 27:57 descended to the point where he says, yup, that's good as dead. Just bury him. He's done. You can't get anything more out of that. God says, ah, now I can come in. Now I can bring as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. 28:18 Turn back with me to Romans chapter 4. Talks about Abraham. We actually learn more about Abraham and his faith in the New Testament. Don't you think? Then we read in Genesis because we see the facts. And that's why the New Covenant is a 28:34 wonderful thing. Because when you start to read the New Testament and you look back on the Old Testament and you look back on the circumstances and the facts of what happened in the New Testament, we are given God's perspective of it. And we're told beginning in the New Testament, hey, God's story 28:53 started with Abraham. So remember when Abraham was going through that? And remember when he lied, when he told Sarah to lie? And remember when he did that other thing? And remember all those mistakes and failures in Abraham's? Remember that? And how Abraham thought at the age of 99 and whatever, you know, 29:11 the day before Sarah got pregnant, what do you think was going on in Abraham's mind? Ah, how much longer, Lord? The world around me thinks I'm as good as dead. My wife probably thinks I'm as good as dead. I've got this son Ishmael. You told me it's not him. So what do I do? Just end my life, Lord. This 29:30 must not, I must have misheard your promise. I know those are the thoughts that Abraham was at least tempted with. Because these are the thoughts I'm tempted with, my dear brothers, in circumstances of my life where I look back and I see how I am a sinner. I can't yet say I am the chief of sinners. 29:48 I hope to get there one day like Paul. As I draw closer to Jesus and in the brightness of his purity and holiness, I look back on those sins that I think, ah, that was nothing. That was just a bad attitude. That was just a little bit of unforgiveness. That was just a casual word that I spoke to my wife. 30:05 And I see it in the holiness and the perfection of God and say, Lord, I'm so sorry. And Paul, like we heard already during the praise time, had that perspective. Romans 4, read in verse 18, in hope against hope. I'm trying to understand this phrase. I don't think I'm there 30:27 yet, but maybe the Lord will reveal it to you as you go back and say, Lord, what does this mean? Where hope, you've hoped for so long that now you've got a hope that's working against the hope. You're hoping that this somehow doesn't come through because you're afraid of the consequences. 30:43 Maybe it's something like that. I don't know. But certainly I know that it represents an element of despair that's hard to even describe in English words. Hope against hope. Almost like you're hoping it doesn't come to pass the promise of God because it's too late. Just end my 31:02 life, Lord. That's my hope. We live in a world that, even a Christendom that wrestles with it. I wonder sometimes when I read the stories of young people, especially who take their own lives, and this is the world we live in. You know that. And I wonder if these are, you know, some of them are 31:20 young people who grew up in Christian homes, had pastors and fathers, godly men and women exemplifying Christ or trying to exemplify Christ to them. And here, these young boys, young girls, teenagers nowadays, end their own life. And for me, that speaks to a hope against hope, where the hopes 31:41 that they have carried and been presented in the church and in their home, perhaps, have lead them to think, you know what, it's so far gone for me that I just hope my life ends before what you told me would happen happens. Because it's just, it doesn't seem like it would ever work out for me. 31:58 But maybe it's not that far yet. If it is, please seek help and turn to Jesus. He's been waiting for you to turn to him. But even if it's not there yet, you don't have to wait till it gets that desperate. If you feel that there's a circumstance in your life that's headed towards desperation, 32:15 now is the time to hope against hope against to God in the hope against hope. He believed in order that he might become a father of many nations, according which had been spoken. So shall your descendants be. And without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body. And then he himself 32:41 says, as good as dead. You know, that's what I see here in verse 19, that Abraham looked at his body and thought, you know, he looked, you may, he looked in the mirror, it's kind of how I look at it, looked at his body and thought, ah, how could this guy ever be a father of a multitude? 32:55 Here I am almost a hundred years old. I mean, don't even have gray hairs beyond that. My body's all shriveled. I mean, imagine a hundred year old man. There's none of us here that's even close to that age. A hundred year old man just there, look in the mirror, think, ah, 33:11 contemplated his own body. Now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old and the deadness of his Sarah's womb. And then on the other side of the vanity mirror, he sees his wife and think, well, she's about as shriveled as I am too. And you, now we tried this a few 33:27 years ago and I thought I could produce something. And there was that beautiful girl, Hagar, who had the capability to produce the, the answer that we, I thought you wanted me to have. And we did. And you said, no. And now you tell me that this, this shriveled, this broken thing is going to be the promise 33:52 and the deadness of Sarah's womb. Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able to perform. Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness. 34:13 You know what I see in this verse? God from heaven who delights in righteousness, seeing Abraham with all his mistakes and Sarah with her laughter that he had to rebuke her for and all of that. And Abraham seeing, hearing like a trumpet in the thoughts of Abraham's mind about his own 34:33 body and about Sarah's womb, but that it didn't end there. That after that he said, yep, I see her body. I see my body. No hope. But I remember your word. Oh God, my friend. I remember that you said it. And I'm going to hold on to that and imagine the delight that God felt in heaven. If you can use 35:02 earthly emotions to describe it. I bet God wanted to just jump out of his throne. This is my friend. This is the one that I'm not ashamed to be called his God, because he's going through the most difficult circumstance. I could possibly put somebody through the longest. I've made somebody wait after I've 35:22 given them and given them a promise that they would be a father and he is still holding on in hope. The father of those who would believe Abraham is called. See, this is where the story begins back in Matthew 1. To Abraham was born Isaac, to Isaac Jacob. You know, I used to read these verses in Matthew 1 35:44 thinking, man, let's get to the story. You know, let the fun begin. Jesus' birth and all that stuff. You know, I find a lot more here now in these verses where it's just the genealogy. I used to fall asleep reading it. Now I get wide awake because I'm trying to ask the Lord to show me in that word Abraham alone, 36:07 where I see that Jesus' genealogy, when he decided to inaugurate the new covenant, he didn't say, fine, forget you guys who made such a mess of things. I'm going to start a new line. Yes, in the beginning God, but in Matthew, that's Genesis 1 verse 1. That's where all things begin. 36:23 But you know how Matthew 1 verse 1 begins? In the beginning Abraham. Yes, in the beginning God, but then Matthew 1 verse 1 says, let me start with this story of failure and need of redemption. The in the beginning Abraham, if you will. It's not really in the beginning because God was before 36:41 that. But the story begins with Abraham. You see the difference? What God is trying to show us through the new covenant is, I am not limited by your circumstances. I'm not limited by your mistakes and your failures and how long you feel like you've had to wait for God to answer that promise that 37:00 you've been holding out for him. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. You know the word Jacob means deceiver. His name was changed to Israel, but it's recorded here in Matthew 1 verse 2 by his old name. I think it's intentional because I don't think there's any mistake in what God records in scripture. There is no 37:19 mistake. And when he chose to write Jacob in Matthew 1 verse 2, he meant to write Jacob, the man whose name was changed. Yes. So that we would remember the deception and the guile and the hypocrisy that I once was. God says, yes, bring that along. What is the baggage you're afraid to bring when 37:39 Jesus writes your love story? Lord, include this. When you, when Jesus writes the biography of your life, when the Holy Spirit writes the biography of your life, which parts of your life do you wish that, oh Lord, do you really want to write about that? I read some of the biographies and the ones that 37:55 challenge me the most, I'll tell you, are the ones that include the details, not the morbid details, and that, that satisfy my curiosity. I'm not interested in that, but the ones that show me where there was failure, where there were circumstances that were so broken and hopeless 38:11 and how God was able to lead that man or that woman into a life of perfection, beginning with Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And here's where this story includes Jacob. Oh, it gets worse because then we go on to Judah who slept with his daughter-in-law and he had many other children. 38:34 And here's Jesus before the foundations of the world, planning his own birth and life. And you're later on, you and I are later on in Christ. You know, our genealogy is now associated with Jesus, not physically, but spiritually. This is our genealogy now. Your genealogy is recorded here in Matthew 1, 38:52 spiritually. Here's Jesus and you and I, and you trace it back. There's Abraham. Okay, well, Abraham, you know, most of his mistakes were beyond his control. Most of his circumstances were beyond his control. Isaac, a pretty good guy. Yeah, at least he turned his life around. Then there's Judah. 39:11 And of all the children that Judah had, the one that Jesus says, no, I must pick this one, the one that he had with his daughter-in-law, the one that the children in school ask him, well, who's your daddy? Oh, he's my grandfather too. That one. Whoa. Stigmatized. 39:31 Say, yeah, it's a weird family. Yeah. Jesus says, I want that. Let that be in my genealogy. Read about it. And I think it's Genesis 38, Judah and Tamar. He says, Judah were born Perez and Zerah by Tamar. The first woman mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus is not even Sarah. It's Tamar. 39:53 We don't know much about Tamar except that she is part of Jesus's genealogy. And to Perez was born Hezron, etc. Ram was born Aminadab and to Aminadab Nashon and to Nashon Salmon. I wish we knew more about these because I bet there's a lot more richness in the stories that 40:12 they represent. One day we'll find out in heaven. God will show us. And to Salmon was born Boaz by Rahab. I think from what I've read, I did a little bit of study on it, not very thorough, but it seems to be the same Rahab who was a harlot, a prostitute, who, it says by faith in Hebrews 11, trusted God. 40:36 And so she hung that red scarlet cord out her window in the city of Jericho. You can read about it when Joshua and the Israelites came. And she helped. She hid these spies because she knew they represented a God who was all powerful. And she put her faith in a God that she didn't even know. How 40:53 could she have known about this God? She put her faith in him and says, Lord, I'm going to trust you. I don't know who you are. You ever feel like that? I've met some people who have reached out to a God they didn't even know his name. And he revealed himself to them. Read the story of Sadhu Sundar Singh sometime, 41:10 one of the godliest men who lived in India. How God revealed himself moments before he was going to go commit suicide. Growing up in northern India, unaware of even this man Jesus, who he really was, had torn the Bible, didn't know Jesus for who he really was, and was prepared to end his life after 41:29 his mother died. And God says, I am Jesus. Paul, you know the story of Paul. Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Rahab held on in faith to a God she didn't even know. And God saved her and said, you know, what was God looking for when the spies picked Rahab's house of all? I think part of the reason 41:53 they picked her house was because she it was a house that was easily accessible. She was a sinful woman. And God said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all of that. I know what what's going on. I let let the city gossip about why these two men are going into this woman's house. That doesn't matter to me. I've got a story. 42:09 I've got to write a perfect story. So you two men go into this house and she'll hide you up there. And then she let them down. They escaped and Rahab was preserved. Rahab and to this is the second woman. I mean, if you had to pick 42:28 women mentioned in your genealogy, maybe you would throw in one of those just to say, yeah, there was a bunch of good people. And yeah, some bad people, too, are welcome, but mostly good people. No. Of the four women mentioned all four, which is first Tamar and then Rahab. Then we get to Ruth. 42:49 Ruth was a Moabitess. She's not even an Israelite. Back in that day, she wasn't entitled to the promise. And the Moabites were born out of incest, too, through Lot. There's Ruth. Then we get to Obed, Jesse. Jesse was born David. You think, okay, finally, we're done with all the bad stuff. 43:09 Well, then David goes and messes it up, too, in verse 6. David, you know, David had a lot of children. He had a lot of wives, a lot of concubines, a lot of children. I mean, couldn't it have been one of the other ones? To David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. 43:29 This is Jesus writing his perfect story, the perfect life, the perfect genealogy. Look at my pedigree, Jesus says when he writes this. This is what I see. Jesus writing these words, written scripture, the inspired scripture written by Jesus himself from heaven, inspiring Matthew to say, 43:48 look at my pedigree. It includes Tamar, includes Rahab, and includes Ruth, and includes Bathsheba, who was the wife of somebody else. And to David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah, and to Solomon was born Rehobo, etc. And then you get to verse 16. Jacob, a different Jacob, 44:14 was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. He's not even there, the father, the physical father of Jesus. Jesus could have said, you know what, Joseph's not even my earthly father. He's my earthly father, 44:32 but he's not even my biological father. Do I really need to include that in the story? I mean, you know, my line is really through Mary and the Holy Spirit. But no, I want the world to know that this is the line I chose to come from. A broken, a broken line. And then you get Mary. 44:53 I remember seeing a movie depiction of the life of Mary, especially around the time when she finds out that she's pregnant. And it was beautiful. I don't remember which movie it was, but it's well done. And you see the budding love between Joseph and Mary, when they're engaged, and how he's excited 45:16 about her and the future they're going to have. And then come to find out she's pregnant. And then it walks a little bit through, you know, creative imagination with the, with the, uh, the directors, I think did there. And they walked through that. And you get to see a little bit of what Joseph felt 45:37 when he found out, really, this is, I thought, Lord, I, I thought you had a perfect life planned out for me. And this, and the angel comes and speaks to him, you know, the story and tells him, no, this is of the Lord. This is a perfect story. And Joseph buys into it. That's why God was able to use him. Mary bought 46:00 into it. She knew. And what I mean by bought into it is she believed. She said, here I am. I'm your maidservant. Do with me as you will. If this is the life you've allotted for me, where I will walk around bearing the, the rumors and the gossip that I will hear all the way around me, perhaps even from my own 46:18 parents about how dare I do this and tarnish our reputation. And only I will know the pain. And you will ask me to keep it secret because I can't reveal it yet. And in silence, I will walk around hearing all of everybody else around me whisper about who this sinful woman is who seemed so 46:39 devout. And I will carry my cross and bear the reproach of Christ secret. Even if nobody else around me supports me, he supports me. This is the story that Jesus, we sang that Jesus identified. We sang air since by faith. I saw the stream. I wrote it down. Thy flowing wound supply. Ever since by faith, I saw the stream, 47:06 thy flowing wound supply. This has become my theme. Redeeming love has been my theme. What song will you sing in heaven, dear brother, dear sister? Are you saying, Lord, you did it. I'm here. I made it. Look at me. I'm just like you. Or will you fall on your face and say, redeeming love. Will it cause you to go back 47:32 and remember? And remember the hurt and the pain and the sin? Will for me, anyone who has seen the stream. I love that song, that hymn. It's really one of my favorites because it describes the blood of Jesus as a fountain. And I remember once when that hymn really hit home to me. It was one of my children 47:56 was in a hospital and as a baby, as a young infant. And they were trying to find a vein to draw blood from her. It talks about drawing blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. That's the phrase that came to my mind. And here we are. We were trying to draw blood from my baby's veins. They wrestled with it and they 48:18 poked and prodded and I cringed and I winced every time they couldn't find one. They dug in there and she was just wrestling about. And at one time they had to go in their head. Apparently that's a good place to go for a vein. But I mean, and immediately this song came to my mind. There is a fountain 48:35 filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. It, and it wasn't just a drip, you know, when they, when they take blood, they take a few drops, they draw it up and see the blood flowing. And as I watched that blood 48:56 through that tube, I imagined the fountain that came out of Jesus because of the enormity of my sin. When I first came, I thought, yeah, I need a little bit of blood, Jesus. I've done some wrong things. Please forgive me. I want to go to heaven. Today, I see how much blood, not in a physical way, but in a 49:14 spiritual way. What it took for Jesus to be able to offer me the opportunity to come to him and say, I'm sorry, Lord, will you forgive me? And I can say that in 10 seconds and it cost him eternity that he suffered on the cross. Redeeming love has been my theme and will be till I die. And I know this is 49:36 the song I will sing in heaven. And I hope I can sing it more clearly with each day of my life. The more I, it doesn't mean that I continue in sin and say, well, you know, Paul says in Romans 6, what shall we say then? Shall we sin that grace may abound? Shall I sin even more so that I can get a 49:52 greater revelation of how much God loved me? No, may it never be. How shall we, if we have seen what it cost Jesus, continue in sin and treat our, and speak to our wives so carelessly and have those bad and gossip and lust and be angry and all these things that Christians continue to take lightly. How shall we, 50:12 who have seen the stream that Jesus shed for my, on my behalf, treat sin so lightly? I want to read a poem here that I has really blessed me. Bear with me. We'll end with that. I think the words are by Gordon Jensen. I don't know who he is, but, uh, beautiful words. Listen, angels never knew the joy that is mine 50:39 for the blood has never washed their sins away. Although they sing in heaven, the angels sing in heaven, you know, there will come a time when silently they listen to me sing amazing grace. For it is a song angels cannot sing. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. It's a song holy angels cannot 51:03 sing. It's lost, but now I'm found. Holy is the Lord, the angels sing, the throne of God continually. For me to join that choir would be a natural thing because I see him as holy as well. But they just won't know the words, love lifted me. This is a song angels long, it says, they longed to look. 51:31 Angels have never sinned. They've never done a single wrong thing in their life. They're pure. They're, they're uncontaminated by sin. They're uncontaminated by people who treat them wrong and uncontaminated by all these things. They cannot even be contaminated. 51:46 And yet God says, no, those aren't the, the ones that I delight in. Those aren't the creatures in which I will pour my divine nature. Those aren't the creatures for which I have written a perfect story. The angels will never have a perfect story, even though they have never done a single wrong thing 52:04 in their life. The ones who are entitled to the perfect story, my dear friends, are you and I. Sinful wretches, worms. Like we sing in that other song at the cross. A worm as I, God says, you worm, come and see how I will write a perfect story for your life. 52:26 And angels will long that they could have had that story written about them. And God hasn't entrusted the gospel to angels. God hasn't entrusted, you know, angels proclaim the coming of Jesus. But the redemption story of Jesus, angels cannot speak and cannot tell off and cannot even sing because they don't know it. 52:47 They haven't experienced it. But you and I, God has entrusted this ministry of reconciliation to us. I'll end with that verse, 2 Corinthians 5. Probably a verse you know well. I started with that. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. 53:09 Verse 18. Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So he started by reconciling us to him through Christ. And then he says, now I'm giving you the ministry of reconciliation. 53:26 Namely, verse 19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So we are here as ambassadors saying, you, you, you be reconciled to God. 53:46 Amen.
