0:01 [Music] I thought of this verse in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 6. I'm sure we have all read it. We've all 0:19 read Paul's letter to the Galatians and uh but I thought of just the last part of that verse. in Christ Jesus. Circumcision, uncircumcision, these external actions and rituals 0:38 like circumcision or we can say today so many other things that we do means nothing but faith working through love. So all of our life 0:57 must be faith working through love. And uh faith speaks of our confidence in our heavenly father being assured that he is really a loving father. 1:16 A lot of people seem to live with every now and then having a doubt about it. I believe with all of you my dear brothers and sisters, you have to come to a place where it's once and for all settled 1:35 that God is a loving father. But otherwise I find so many believers they always sort of sometime in their life they begin to be behave like orphans. They're not too sure is God happy with me? Is he angry with me? Now as long as you have all this 1:55 uncertainty you're you're really not going to make progress in the Christian life. And I find a lot of believers don't make progress because their lives are not firmly established in in faith and the foundation of faith 2:10 that not only Christ died for my sins and Christ has risen from the dead and has ascended but my my father in heaven loves me intensely. Jesus sought all his life to try and impress that upon his disciples. 2:28 You are not orphans. The Holy Spirit has specifically come to remove from us that orphan syndrome or the orphan spirit. But the early disciples had it and that's why even after they saw Jesus after his resurrection, they were still 2:48 locked up in a door inside a room. But when the Holy Spirit came, they were free. And uh we have to see that the most loving think of the most loving father there is on earth and multiply that by a million and you get a brief 3:06 understanding of what God is like as a heavenly father. That is faith. Anything less than that is not the faith that the New Testament speaks about. You know this type of faith was not at all possible in the Old Testament. 3:22 In the Old Testament, they were constantly unsure uh does God love us or not? Uh have we paid our tithes properly? Is it exactly 10%, did I pay only 9%. All these questions in their mind and everything was changed when the Holy Spirit came. 3:41 Jesus said, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will send the Holy Spirit." And uh one of the main functions of the Holy Spirit is to flood our hearts with the love of God. And that initially means to be absolutely assured 4:00 that God loves me. No doubt about it at all. Now you may think this is a very elementary truth, but it's sometimes these elementary things that we need to be more established in. I know in my own personal experiences I've often said and you probably heard 4:17 me say that that from the time I was born again 61 years ago for the first 16 years I wasn't really assured on this I mean if you had asked me are you born again I'd say yes are you a child of God yes I had all the right answers I could explain 4:32 justification by faith I was preaching and preaching many wonderful truths I knew about taking up the cross and all that But this uncertainty of does God really love me intensely? I slipped up here. What does God think of that? Or I did a 4:50 little mistake there. Is God upset with me? Is he angry with me? It's like a And when I examine my life in those days, as I look back now, it's all gone now. It's gone completely. But it took a revelation of God as father. I don't mean an explanation. 5:08 There's a world of difference between a revelation and explanation. Explanation is for the mind and very often you know even you can hear me now and you can get an explanation. God is a father. If you being evil know how to give good things 5:22 to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good things to those who ask him. Yeah. Yeah. We know all that. That's an explanation that it's logic. And that's all that Jesus could do in those days. He used logic. 5:37 If you earthly fathers know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give good things to those who ask him? Yeah, yeah, I understood that. But yet in a moment of testing, the doubt comes in. Is he going 5:53 to let me down here? This prayer was not answered. Does he really love me? Or I slipped up here. Is he so angry with me now because I slipped up. I hurt him. I tell you it's so important and if father and mother are not assured in 6:10 this are not settled in this you find the children also grow up with that type of insecurity in the love of God it's so important that our children grow up assured in God's love it's not a sort of a wishy-washy type of love that allows 6:24 you to do anything you like a loving father will not allow his children to do anything they like the Bible says a loving father disciplines his children I thank God for God's discipline of me. But it I never feel that it's out of 6:39 anger. Never, never, never. God is never angry with me. I'm absolutely sure of that. He's sometimes sad. And I hope as I walk with the Lord, he's less and less sad with with my life and more and more happy. That's how it should be with us. 6:58 But I don't know whether any of you have the feeling God is a bit angry with me because I did this or I didn't do the other thing to be very careful. Faith is the solid foundation. It's very very important that we are established in 7:12 this. And I feel that there's no extent to which I wouldn't go to emphasize this. We must be firmly established in it. And it's only the Holy Spirit. I mean beyond what I say, it's only the Holy Spirit can assure you. The Bible says the Holy Spirit 7:28 comes within us and cries out aba father. It's is a awareness. So all I'm giving to you now is knowledge of the love of God. But it won't root you in it because tomorrow, next week or next month, you'll forget all about it. But when the 7:48 Holy Spirit takes these words and makes it revelation to your heart, it'll be very different. My whole life changed when the Holy Spirit made it revelation in my heart. And I wonder whether you brothers and sisters have a great 8:03 longing to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus said if anyone thirsts and lots of believers don't have a desperate thirst to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There's a laidback attitude in their life. Yeah, everything's okay. 8:19 Everything's okay. and belong to a good church and I'm sure of my salvation. I break bread there and we listen to good messages. I attend all the meetings. Not enough, brother. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day of 8:34 your life. You need to be definitely sure that almighty God has filled your heart with the Holy Spirit. That is the ultimate answer to be rooted and grounded in the love of God. Yeah, that that that's our purpose. Then we'll 8:51 be unshakable. It's very very important. It says in Ephesians 3 and 17 that you may be rooted and grounded in love to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge. If you find it difficult to love somebody, 9:10 the reason is always because you are not rooted in the love of God. Something is shaky in the foundation. The fault is not on the third story or the third or fourth floor. The fault is in the foundation. That's why there are 9:23 cracks coming in the wall. The foundation is shaky. So it's very very important to be rooted and grounded. And I would never stop emphasizing that. And I say if you're not like that, please seek God that you'll have a very very 9:37 clear foundation. Everything else we read in Galatians in chapter 5 is worth nothing but faith which works through love. that faith is this foundation I'm talking about and from there we work 9:53 through love. So having stated something about the foundation now let me go to one Corinthians in chapter 3. We started with Galatians in chapter 5 where it says circumcision, uncircumcision or any other commandment that we try to follow is means nothing 10:13 if it doesn't come out of faith working through love. So that's very very important. A work which is not a work of faith has no value before God. A work that is not done in love is not a value before God. Faith as I said means to be convinced 10:33 that God is my loving father. It's very very important. You know how a father who loves his child so much will feel terribly insulted almost if the child has doubt about his love for him. And so faith working through love. Please keep this 10:52 in your mind always. All nothing is of value before God if it is not originating in faith. and working through love. Faith is that foundation through which we serve in love. So now we come to one Corinthians in chapter 3 where again it speaks of 11:11 this foundation and building. I showed you this foundation is faith and on that we build in love for God and love for one another. So here also Paul says I've laid a foundation and someone else is building on it and uh in your life he says you cannot 11:30 have any other foundation than that which is laid with Jesus Christ. So the foundation of our life is based on what Christ has done for me and I just accept what Christ has done. I can do nothing. We all know that I can do 11:43 nothing to have my sins forgiven. I can do nothing to make myself acceptable before God is very very important. Otherwise, we go back under the law trying to please God by our actions. We need to recognize clearly that our 11:59 righteousness is like filthy rags. The best works we have done will not make us acceptable to God. Our foundation is only Christ. Christ and Christ alone is the foundation on which I built my life. I'm accepted because Christ died for me 12:15 and rose again and because he chose me and I'm in him and he is in me. God accepts me and it'll never be on any other basis for all eternity. But on this foundation which the Holy Spirit has laid in our hearts, we have to build because it says 12:34 here, "Let every man be careful how he builds." If a man builds on his uh the last part of verse 10, let everyone be careful how he builds. The foundation is laid. Now, how do you 12:54 build on this foundation? Your life, your daily life, your thoughts, your words, your actions, your attitudes, your motives. This is what you're building. And let every person be careful. 13:13 And there are two types of material with which you can build. It says in verse 12, you can build with gold, silver, and precious stones which will last forever or wood, hay, and straw which will perish. But whichever you build with, 13:30 one day your work will be tested by fire. Verse 13. Now, it's not the foundation that's being tested. It's your work. Every man's work. That means his entire life. 13:50 And to me that means from the time I'm born again, all the thoughts I had and all the words I spoke and all the things I did and my attitudes to people and the motives with which 14:08 I did things. All of that is going to be tested. And there is a I I'll just come to it in a moment what exactly is going to be tested. But it's going to be a test of fire. 14:26 And when you compare that with verse 12, you know that if we have built with a spiritual equivalent of wood, hay, and straw, it'll all be burnt up. So there's a possibility that our work will remain verse 14 or it'll be burnt 14:45 up. Now if a man's work remains and remains means is he did not build with wood, hay and straw. He built with gold, silver and precious stones and his work remains. He will receive a reward. 15:03 Forgiveness of sins is not a reward. No, that's in the foundation. No, that's clear in verse 11. Let's not mix up foundation with superructure. God wants us to build a skyscraper. But 15:21 many people Jesus himself said in Luke 14, let me just read that verse and come back to 1 Corinthians 3 later. Luke 14, Jesus said about people who lay a foundation. 15:38 And then verse 29, you say, "Hey, I don't have enough money to build the super the skyscraper." Jesus those days said they were building a tower. Verse 28, today we'd say a skyscraper 100 stories. That's what we are to build because we 15:53 got a whole life. But here's a person who laid a foundation and then he calculated the cost and he says no I can't build this skyscraper forget it and he doesn't do anything but the foundation and he leaves it and men begin to ridicule him 16:09 and saying verse 30 this man began to build and is not able to finish. I think there are lots and lots of Christians like that and in it's spoken there in the context of being a disciple because people don't want to be disciples and 16:22 they never build anything on it. They just want to go to heaven when they die. I'll tell you something. Those whose only goal in life, this is my conviction. Those whose only goal in life is to go to heaven when they die, 16:40 my conviction is they'll probably not go to heaven because God's not going to have a bunch of selfish people who live for themselves and live for everything this world has to offer and just want to go to heaven when they die, 16:59 whose aim in life is self all the time. I want the best here on earth and I want the best in eternity. You're going to be deceived. So our foundation is Christ. Now it's possible that a man's entire life life's 17:18 work that means everything you did from the day you were born again till the day Christ came or the day you died 1 Corinthians 3. We come back to 1 Corinthians 3:15. The entire life is burnt up. and he will suffer loss but 17:37 because his foundation was okay he was saved but through through fire now the question that comes up for many people is is heaven a place where we'll have any regret I know many people disagree with me 17:54 my conviction is if you have not lived for the lord even if you born again and you get to heaven, you can have regret not for one or two days but for all eternity. You don't have to agree with me but that is my conviction and I base it here. 18:13 I'll tell you let me take my own case so that I'm not trying to judge any of you. Supposing I'm absolutely convinced Christ has saved me. I don't have any other foundation than Christ. I don't trust in my own righteousness. I come as 18:30 a sinner to the cross and he saved me by his grace. I'll never forget it. And he forgave all my sins. He accepted me. He came and dwelt in me and made me a child of God. Foundation is clear. And then in my life, I did not build with gold, silver, and 18:48 precious stones. I did not build with material that would last go through the fire of God of God's testing. I'll explain to that here in a moment what that means. But supposing I lived like that and I can't go through my 19:06 entire life and I finally stand before the Lord and the Lord tests my life. The video of my entire life is played there on the screen and everything is tested and my entire life's work is burnt up. But I'm in heaven. 19:28 Tell me, do you think I'll have regret? The regret will be when I see not that God's going to punish me. No, no, no, no. Oh, God's angry with me. I'll tell you where the regret will come from. And I don't think we realize it sufficiently 19:45 on earth. One of the things I believe one of the main things is going to amaze us when we see Jesus Christ when he comes is the extent to which he loved us. I don't believe any of us any Christian has an 20:03 understanding of the extent of Christ's love. the extent of his sacrifice, how much he suffered, how much he loved and how much he was willing to uh give up and sacrifice just to have us. And when I see that, 20:20 I'll be in the clear light of heaven. I'll be so overwhelmed by the fact that I live for myself, that I that I refuse to deny myself in situations where he asked me to, that the glory of God was not my 20:39 passion, that I used my money just to enjoy myself. that I used my time just for myself. I'll have such tremendous regret 20:57 that I polluted my mind with dirty pictures whether you watch it on a television or anywhere else that you pollute your mind. You okay? You may say Christ's blood cleanses me. It's all this easy belieism. Christ's blood cleanses me. 21:15 can say all that. I believe the blood of Christ cleanses us. But the regret you'll have when you see Jesus face to face and see his tremendous love where he longed that purity was not for his sake but for our sake that he asked us 21:30 to keep ourselves pure. We'll have such tremendous regret. When is it going to go and say Lord I don't have another chance to live this life. I believe that lots of people are going to feel like that. I wish I could go and live my life again 21:48 on earth. I'll tell you, I don't want to have that regret. I don't want to stand in heaven and say, "I wish I had done it little otherwise over here. I wish I'd loved money a little less over here. I wish I had done this other 22:07 thing a little more the way God wanted. I wish I had denied myself a little more here. I wish I had overcome my anger, taken anger more seriously. I wish I had taken dirty thoughts more seriously. I wish id really sought to forgive 22:21 everyone who hurt me. I wish I had loved the people who hated me. I wish I'd done it. Lord, I took these things so lightly because the surrounding atmosphere and Christians around me was so shallow and cheap. I'll have tremendous regret. And how 22:39 will that regret go away? is working after a thousand years in heaven and I enjoyed all the goodness of God in heaven. Is it going to reduce that regret? But the more I see of God's goodness, the more I'll have regret. Lord, I didn't 22:56 realize you loved me so much. You did so much for me. Every command of yours was for my good. You told me to deny myself every day and to follow you and I took it so lightly. How will I get over it? I don't I don't think I'll ever be able 23:13 to get over it. I know Jesus will wipe away the tears of my eyes. And uh I'm not saying I'll look miserable in heaven. No. But I don't believe I can get rid of that regret. I wish Lord I had lived for you. And I don't have another chance 23:29 to live my life. That's for myself. It has gripped me so much. That's why I take overcoming every sin seriously. I I want to never get offended with people. I never want to hate anyone. I never want to have anything but love in 23:45 my heart towards every human being. I disagree with a lot of people on many things. And then as you know, I'm very strict when it comes to God's standards. And because of that, a lot of people get offended and even some people in CFC get 23:56 hurt when I speak strongly. That's fine. I don't mind all that. But I don't seek my own. And I say, Lord, I really want to live every day for you, at least the rest of my life. Please take that attitude, dear brothers. Remember, this day will come 24:14 and every single thought of yours will be tested by fire. Every word of yours will be tested by fire. Every action of yours will be tested by fire. If you took any sin in your life lightly, oh, it doesn't 24:30 matter. I won't forgive that person. Oh boy. I'm not threatening you with hell. I'm wondering how how will you feel in heaven when you get there and you had this attitude towards someone. I I wonder 24:50 even so whether some such people will ever get there because Jesus said if you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you. Now I don't want to forgive others just to go to heaven. No, that's a very selfish reason. Lot of things, you know, with 25:05 selfish reasons people obey the Lord. I want to forgive people because Jesus forgave me a million times more. You know the story of the king who forgave somebody 10,000 talents and that guy went and grabbed somebody's throat who 25:20 owed him few denary or something and the king said you I forgave you so much and you couldn't forgive that person. I believe unforgiving and unforgiving attitude is an absolute evil. It's the it's an evil from hell when you realize how much God's forgiven 25:40 you. So we don't forgive in order to go to heaven. We forgive because God's forgiven us so much. That's what I mean. The motive is so important. So coming back to how shall I distinguish between gold, silver and precious stones and 25:55 wood, hay and straw. So many years ago, God gave me this revelation. It was probably 40 or the early days of CFC. I got this revelation. is some of the one of the 26:15 amazing things God revealed to me after he filled me with the Holy Spirit and the B the Bible became a new book because the one who wrote this book, the Holy Spirit filled me and showed me things I had not seen before. So this is 26:30 how it came to me that I still remember that day when God gave me this revelation and interestingly he gave it to me while I was speaking in a meeting on this subject and I was going to speak and suddenly God gave me the revelation 26:49 what wood hay and straw are and what gold, silver and precious stones are. I wrote about it in my book called Living as Jesus Lived. If you want to read more about it, it is there. But this is a verse that came to me. Romans 11 and 27:03 verse 36. From God and through God and to God are all things. All things from God, 27:23 through God, and to God. everything and that can be instead of from God through God to God, it can be from man, from me, 27:39 through my power and to for my glory. From man through man to man means initiated by my own bright ideas done through my power and for my own 27:55 honor or some credit for myself that is wood hay and straw wood straw from my bright ideas through my power I don't seek the power of god and for my glory 28:13 and gold, silver and precious stones will be like written here from God where I've sought to know what God wants me to do and do that and through his power but means I constantly seek for the power of the Holy Spirit 28:29 and it's done for God's glory. Now, as I studied the scriptures, I found this thing way back in the beginning of scripture. You know, when man rebelled against God 28:46 in Genesis 11, it says there that, you know, the Tower of Babel, you've all heard about the Tower of Babel where God scattered people because they tried to build this tower to reach heaven. I mean, God scattered them as an act of mercy. They 29:03 were so crazy that they thought they could build a tower to reach heaven. Well, how far would they reach? They would all die after building a few feet and God didn't want them to waste their time because they didn't know how far heaven 29:16 was. And uh so God mercifully confused their language so they don't waste their time trying to do some impossible thing. But I want you to see in Genesis 11 how they did this. And you'll see from man, through man, and to 29:35 man. They said, "Come." They got a bright idea. Come, let us make bricks and burn them and then make a tower. Who gave them that idea? It's from their own own mind. And how are they going to do it? We've got tower. We've got mortar and we've 29:54 got the power to do it. We've got the material and we can do it. their own resources. Genesis 11:3 and 4. And what is it being built for? Verse 11, chapter 11:4. To make a name for ourselves. 30:12 A bright idea comes into my mind to do something maybe to do something for God. You know the number of missionaries who gone out into mission fields when God never sent them there. It is a bright idea. Some preacher challenge them. What are you sitting 30:30 down here working somewhere when there are people out there dying uh who haven't heard the gospel and they hear that challenge and they go, did God call them? No. Some preacher called them. It did not originate in God. And I've 30:46 seen numerous missionaries like that in India and seen the mess they've made of God's work in India. And I've often thought, why in the world did these people cross an ocean and come here to mess up God's work? God's work. He would 31:00 have been far better if some of them had not come. Not all. There's some wonderful men and women of God who came to India. Few like Amy Kichel and folks like that who did a tremendous job. They were led by God and they lived sacrificially. 31:17 But a lot of Christian work is from man through man. And it's through man because that's why they had to constantly write light write letters asking for money. We're doing this. Give us money. Give us money. Give us money. 31:28 It's 100% through through man's abilities. They don't seek for the power of the Holy Spirit as much as they write prayer letters asking for money. And very often it's for their own glory. The prayer letters are all this. We've 31:42 done this and we've done that. And so many people are converted. So in contrast to this from man through man to man which is all wood, hair and straw. You see another building in the next book of the Bible. This is the Tower of 31:55 Babel. And this by the way is the beginning of Babylon. You come to Revelation 17, you read about Babylon. Babylon is basically a Christianity that is built from man through man and to man. And when you come to the next book of 32:11 the Bible, Exodus, you find another building and that's described in Exodus 25 onwards till 25 to 40. It's a tabernacle and this was built not according to didn't Moses didn't have a bright idea one day and say okay let's build 32:30 something a tent to worship God in. No, he had no such idea. He didn't even have thought about it. They were just traveling in the wilderness who but he was listening to God every day. I believe Moses listened to God every day 32:42 of those 40 years in the wilderness. And as he listened, one day God told him. Exodus 25:8, construct a sanctuary for me. Whose idea was it? God's. And how should you do it? according to 32:59 all that I'm going to show you as the pattern of the tabernacle and its furniture and everything. Do everything exactly like this. You know when God gave told Noah to build an ark, he gave him exact dimensions and everything. He even told 33:17 him that he must put pitch between the pieces of wood and you know tar to sort of seal so it doesn't leak in the water and every detail God gave him. And here also if you read the details that God gave to Moses for the tabernacle. 33:32 Remember Moses was the prince of Egypt. It says he was in Acts chapter 7. He says he was taught in all the wisdom of Egypt. Such a clever guy. And God tells him all little little things. Remember Moses is grew up in a country that built pyramids. Even today 33:51 engineers wonder how these pyramids were built. That's the place where Moses came from. Yet he knew engineering. And if God had told him, "Build a tabernacle," he'd have built a fantastic structure. The only thing, the glory of 34:03 God would never come on it because it was built through man's plan. But Moses did not do change God's plan one bit. And God had broken him through 40 years in the wilderness. 34:21 And that's why he was willing to give up his own plans. At the age of 40, if God had asked him to make a tabernacle, he said, "Just leave it to me, Lord. I'll make it much better than this simple design you have made." Yeah. He would have made a 34:35 fantastic structure. The only thing, the glory of God would not arrested on it. There so many Christians today have got bright ideas how they should do God's work. That's not God's way. Man shall not live by these bright ideas. But by 34:48 every word that proceeds from God's mouth, God tells you what you should do. I felt that if I were living in Noah's time, I would have joined Noah and invested everything in building the ark and I would have joined Noah and not 35:07 altered one single thing from God's instructions. If I were living here in Moses time, I would have completely devoted myself to build this tabernacle and I would have checked every little detail. Uh what what length should be those should the 35:21 rods be and what should this be? where should be the gold and where should be the silver. I would have followed it exactly whether it's building the ark or building the tabernacle. When it comes to building the church is the same 35:32 thing. I say Lord I don't want to have my bright ideas how to do your work. I want to do it exactly like you have commanded. I don't want to change it. But I find a lot of Christians don't seem to follow exactly what God has planned for 35:49 the building of the church. and so many changes people make and modify it and say God is merciful and he forgives etc. And because it was built um exactly according to God's plan from God and we know that it was done through 36:08 God because we read here the the first time you read in scripture that people were filled with the spirit of God is here in the building of the tabernacle when God the Holy Spirit says that those whom God called to build the 36:27 tabernacle Michael in Exodus and uh let me get to that chapter one minute. It says God filled the the builders of 36:55 the tabernacle with the Holy Spirit and that is how they built it. Chapter 31 and verse 2 and 3. 37:13 The Lord says this is the first time you read in scripture that God says I filled someone with the spirit of God. The spirit of God came upon them in wisdom and understanding so that they can make all these things. two people, 37:29 Bezal and the son of Huri, the son of Kor and I filled them with the Holy Spirit and a holy art. Verse six, these two people were filled with the spirit of God. So we saw first of all it was built 37:47 according to God's plan and with God's power. Now I'm sure these people had some skill and understanding otherwise they wouldn't have been chosen. But that was not good enough. They had to be filled with the spirit of God with wisdom, understanding, 38:01 knowledge, all kinds of craftsmanship. And I say, Lord, to build a tabernacle, which someone with a little human understanding could do, you had to fill them with the spirit of God. I got to be crazy to think that I can build God's 38:19 church without being filled with the Holy Spirit for every little detail. I got to seek God for every little detail. That's why from the beginning in CFC churches when we started 45 years ago, we said we're going to do it 38:31 exactly like God has said. We're not going to alter one little thing big or small. That's what Bessel and a Holy They didn't change one little thing. Everything that God told them, they did it exactly. They did it with God's 38:47 power. And what was the result? The result we read in is we read finally in the last chapter of Exodus. Exodus chapter 40 we read that the glory of God came and filled the tabernacle. Exodus 40:34. You see that from God 39:06 through God's power for God's glory. The exact opposite of the Tower of Babel which is from man through man to man. And this tabernacle was the pattern for later on for the temple and which is finally a picture of the church 39:26 and which is called Jerusalem in the book of revelation. So Babylon and Jerusalem the false church and the true church. The basic difference between the two is this. Babylon is built like the Tara Babel. Man's ideas through man's cleverness and 39:43 ability and raising money and all these techniques and all types of methods of singing and lighting and all that to excite people and all types of things to man's ability. You don't need the Holy Spirit. Just need some good musicians 40:01 and some a lot of instruments and raise enough money through many techniques. Where do you need God in all this? You you put in God's name just to make it sound spiritual. And then ultimately, who gets the glory for all this? Some 40:14 preacher, some man. It's all going to be burnt up. I'll tell you this. You don't believe it? Well, too bad because you're going to get a big surprise when Christ comes. It'll all be burnt, reduced to ashes because it came 40:32 from man's ideas, built with man's abilities and ultimately for man's glory. And that's why it's very very important in our life that we seek to find the will of God in our life. You know, I've often said that the one-s sentence 40:52 autobiography of Jesus life is what we read in John 6:38. If you were to ask me, give me a one-s sentence description of Jesus life, what he did on earth. One sentence. John 6:38. He never did his own will, 41:11 but he did the will of his father. That's why he prayed so much. He'd go and say, "What shall I do?" He sought the father's will. Everything in his life, he wanted it to be from God. And he prayed so that it would be through the power of the Holy Spirit. 41:30 Imagine the perfect man. But because he came in our flesh, he needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day. He needed to be anointed to serve. He did not dare. He did not dare to go out into the 41:47 ministry without being anointed in the river Jordan. He was already filled with the spirit from the time he was born. 30 years he had lived a spiritfilled life. But now he was going out to serve the father and he prayed. You know that he prayed. You 42:05 know that he he was anointed to the Holy Spirit because he prayed. Have you seen that in Luke chapter 3? In Luke chapter 3, it says in verse 21 that Jesus in his baptism, while he was being baptized, he was praying. But John 42:21 was dipping him into the water. He was praying. He was not concerned about whether the water would go into his nose. He was praying as he went down into the water. And I know what he was praying for because Jesus prays were always answered 42:37 immediately. As soon as he came up, the Holy Spirit descended on him. That's what he was praying for. as he was being dipped in the water, "Father, anoint me now. I've got a ministry to do and the voice from heaven said, I'm pleased 42:55 with your 30 years of your life." He wanted that assurance to you. I want to be sure you pleased you, Father. Yes, I watched you for 30 years. I'm thoroughly happy with you. Here, I'm anointing you with the Holy Spirit. 43:09 Jesus didn't dare to go out into the ministry. It had to be through God. Not only from God, through God. And of course, everything in his life was for the glory of God. He came to to glorify his father. He said that towards the end 43:25 of his life in John 17 said, "Father, I have glorified you on earth." John 17:4. How do we glorify God on earth? How do we do it? Jesus is our example. Verse four, by finishing the work you gave me 43:42 to do. I often said this to the Lord after understanding this. Lord, I don't want to do any work you did not give me to do because if I spend my time doing that, I will not be able to finish the work you gave me to do. I've often thought, would 43:59 there be anything wrong in Jesus taking a uh taking a holiday and going to Rome? Yeah, I heard Rome is a nice place. let me go there. I've been working, working, working, working. Let me take a oneweek holiday and go to Rome. There would have 44:14 been no sin there. But it was not in God's will. So, he wouldn't even go there. In fact, he he hardly ever went out of the borders of Israel. Just once or twice, just across the border he went. Otherwise, he never went. He was 44:26 quite satisfied to be where God put him. For so many years, he was in Nazareth. Never went out of Nazareth. And then when he came to the ministry, he didn't have a longing to go to India or China or Europe or any such thing or Rome. No, 44:42 the place where the fathers put me. You know, Christians have such a lust to go here and go there and go the other thing. They never seek the will of God. I'm not saying they go to hell. I'm just saying that some part of God's plan for 44:56 their life may not be fulfilled. Does God reveal his will? He certainly does. If you're desperate wanting to do his will, I'm not saying by voice from heaven but he will unconsciously guide your life that you don't miss his will. 45:11 I I have a tremendous fear in my life of that I don't want to miss God's will. I want to be able to come to the end of my life and say I finished my work, finished the work you gave me to do. But you know we can compare ourselves with 45:23 Jesus and say but he messed up so much of our life. Jesus never messed up a single day. But I say when I look back over my life I say Lord so many years have messed up. I told you 16 years I was wandering here and there spiritually 45:37 and what about all those years that I wasted? Well, I find great comfort in the example of the apostle Paul. Paul said at the end of his life, similar words to what Jesus said. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4 45:53 verse 7, I have finished the course. Just like Jesus said in John 17:4, "Father, I finish the work you gave me to do." Paul says at the end of his life, I finished the work you gave me to do. But I say, "Hey, Paul, you messed up 46:08 the first 30 years of your life, man. You didn't do God's will at all. You went against God's will for 30 years." And in God, how can God's plan for your life be fulfilled when you messed up 30 years of it? And the answer is God knew 46:22 that. God knew from the beginning that this person would mess up the first 30 years of his life and go the wrong direction even persecute Christians. God made allowance for that and say that's okay. I'll begin to fulfill this my plan in 46:37 his life from a certain point to such a in such a way that by the time he comes to the end of his life Paul can say I finished my course. That's been a great encouragement to me and I hope it's an encouragement to you because we have all 46:48 messed up different parts of our life and so what about those years Lord I messed up. said don't worry take an example from Paul I didn't mess up 30 years of my life he he me I he was against Christians I was never against Christians I never 47:07 killed Christians look how he messed up his life and yet he could say at the end of his life I finished my course that's a great encouragement to me I don't have to look back in discouragement and I want to encourage you my brothers 47:19 don't look back in discouragement start today and forgetting the things that are behind and pressing to the things that are before. Say, Lord, I want to lay hold of that for which you laid hold of me. Those are the words of Paul. Philippians 47:36 3, I want to lay hold of that for which he laid hold of me. You see in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 12, I lay hold of that for which 47:55 Christ laid hold of me. Beautiful words. Christ laid hold of me for a purpose. I want to lay hold of that. But Paul, what about the mistakes you made in the past? Never mind. Forgetting verse 13, Philippians 3:13. Forgetting what lies 48:09 behind. I press toward the mark for the future. I can't do anything about the past and I'm not going to, you know, shed my tears over spilled milk. Okay, I spilled a lot of milk, wasted a lot of my life, but I'm going to forget the 48:24 things that are behind. I'm going to press forward to the things that are before and yet I believe I can fulfill in some wonderful way. I'm going to finish my course. I want to say that to every one of you if you will take my 48:34 word seriously from today and say, "Lord, I want to seek your will for my life. I want to seek the power of your Holy Spirit my life that I'll seek to do your will in my life through the power of the Holy Spirit that not a day will 48:46 go by in my life without my seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when you've done it, I want to give you all the glory. I don't want to take a single bit of the credit for myself. I will not receive honor for myself. I want to be 48:58 debt to the world and its applause and to all its customs and fashions and laws. And I I want to not at all be interested. I'm not looking for the approval of men. I want to please you, Lord. I want to please you in Christ Jesus. 49:15 Nothing is of value except faith which works through love. Let every man be careful how he builds on this foundation that I believe laid in Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, please help us to be gripped by the things that you're 49:35 speaking to us. Help us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. [Music]
