0:07 We sang some wonderful hymns this morning. I hope we didn't miss the words we sang. One of them was Be thou supreme, O Jesus Christ, my 0:25 inmost being fill. To be thy slave and to do thy will is what brings me the greatest joy. I hope you meant that when you sang it. I find I struggle to sing that honestly. 0:43 If I was to be completely honest, I think it was uh Tozer who said that Christians don't lie, they uh tell lies, they just sing them on Sunday mornings. Um and I think about that often, not to point at Christians. I think, Lord, when 1:00 I sang what we just sang, did I really mean it? To be thy slave. Do you really want to be a slave? Like, really? Hundreds of years ago in this country, there was a war 1:20 ultimately to free people from slavery. There have been people who have fought with their lives and died so that slaves could be set free. And praise God for that. There should be no slavery on this earth. But the kingdom of heaven is all about 1:41 slavery to God. Not in the way that we think of slavery, and that's the thing is that the word slavery has been corrupted by the evil of it on this earth. But if you really meant what we sang, to 2:00 be thy slave and to do thy will, is the greatest joy. Felicity was the word we sang. Greatest joy, what will bring you the ultimate fulfillment, is if you can identify yourself as Paul did, the bond slave of Jesus Christ. 2:25 I'd like to speak on that a little bit today. Our memory verse was also in Ephesians chapter 2. I'd like to begin there briefly. So that we see the context in which that memory verse comes. Ephesians chapter 2. As you know, we're a church that 2:47 intentionally doesn't put the Bible verses on the screen because we wanted you to see it not on somewhere else, but in your own Bible. But if you do need a Bible, we have some in the back that you can get. So feel free to 2:59 um use that for today or take it with you if you don't have one. You must see it in your own Bible, not somewhere else. And that's why we only put the reference, not the words themselves. Um Ephesians chapter 2, the verse we memorized was verse 8. By 3:19 grace you have Now, by the way, that word that verse begins with the word because or for. For. That means you're going to have to go back and look at some of the previous verses, but because by grace you have been saved through 3:33 faith, and that not of yourselves. While we are being saved by grace through faith, where are we? I just want to touch on that for a minute or so. When we think about being saved by grace through faith, it's easy for us to think 3:50 about us still in prison or in the pit, and somehow God is in the process of setting me free from sin and from myself. I'm still locked up, but God is slowly unlocking the 4:10 door, and kind of gradually he's going to let me out of prison. Is that what you think when you think about being saved by grace through faith? While this process of sanctification and salvation is going on, where are you, 4:28 brother, sister, child? If you're a child of God who is being saved by grace through faith, and you haven't seen the fulfillment of that salvation yet, you haven't seen the fulfillment of that 4:45 sanctification yet, where are you? Before this, he tells us in verse 4, that God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our 5:03 transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. There he says it again, by grace you have been saved. And now itself, verse 6, raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 5:23 So while you're going through this process of sanctification, while you are still being fully saved from the power of sin in your life, where are you? You're not here still in prison. You're not still in the pit. You're seated in the heavenly places. 5:42 I don't think we could fully understand this with our human intellect and mind. That somehow God has already seated me there in heavenly places, according to this verse. See, we don't have to try to figure it out with our minds. And a lot of 5:57 theologians even fall into the trap of trying to fully understand God's word with their minds. We can attempt it. We must apply our minds so that our minds are renewed, but ultimately, there's a reality in God's word which is 6:13 just simply true. And you can only experience the reality of it by faith, not by understanding, but by faith. And when God says, I've already seated you in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even though I'm here on this earth, 6:29 that's where I am. I'm seated in the heavenly places. So, Lord, I want you to set me free from this impatience that I have and this irritability and bad moods or the love of money or unforgiving attitudes, bitterness, jealousy, lust, anger, 6:48 whatever it might be. Set me free, Lord, but help me never to lose sight of the fact that you've already established my current position in Christ Jesus there in the heavenlies. See, a few lines later in chapter 4, Paul says, I'm 7:04 a prisoner. Therefore, chapter 4, verse 1, I the prisoner. Paul's writing this, I think, I don't remember exactly, but he's I'd certainly when he wrote scripture often he was in prison. How is a prisoner say, I'm seated in the heavenly places? 7:23 You have to see the kingdom of heaven and see that God has placed you there. I wanted to start with that because it's very important, dear brothers and sisters, that no matter what your circumstance on this earth is like, 7:37 even if it is being a prisoner, we must remember our position is there. Outwardly, the world might see us a particular way. You might even see yourself a particular way, a prisoner. You look at Paul and say, what do you 7:53 mean seated in heavenly places? You're seated in a jail cell, Paul. You're seated tied up to a Roman centurion or Roman soldier. What do you mean seated in heavenly places? And Paul would say, you need to have your eyes open to see 8:07 the kingdom of heaven. And so whatever your earthly circumstance is like, even if you feel like you're in a prison in your earthly circumstance, health-wise perhaps, job-wise, relationships-wise, even if it feels like you're in a 8:24 prisoner, you ought to be able to say, Lord, I believe by faith you've seated me in the heavenly places. I've been thinking about the life of Paul because we've been reading about that in our daily Bible reading that we're going through, as you know if 8:38 you're following the same plan. I'd like you to turn with me, please, to Acts chapter 21. And we've been seeing I've been challenged and meditating on the life that Paul lived. And what, if I could visualize, what was 8:56 the graph of his life from the time he was born, let's say. We don't know much about his childhood and the first 20, 30 years or so, we don't really know. I think he was converted in his late 20s, maybe around 30 years old, 9:12 on the road to Damascus. Those first 20, 25 to 30 years, we don't know much about other than that he was trained in the highest Bible school of his day under Gamaliel. Uh he fulfilled the law. He was blameless according to the law. He was raised in a 9:30 God-fearing Jewish home to obey the law, and he obeyed the law. And then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and uh his life changed, and I don't know what the graph of his life looked like before that. I I think it sort of looked like, from 9:47 his eyes, going up in the eyes of the world. At a 12-year-old, he was probably the outstanding student in school with knowing the law. He won all the scripture memory competitions, I imagine. And everybody thought, Paul, man, he's going to be 10:02 amazing one day. He's going to be quite the Pharisee of Pharisees. And sure enough, he says in Philippians 3, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He achieved his goal, whatever that aspiration was. And then he reached met Jesus on the 10:17 road to Damascus. And the graph of his life from an earthly point changed. It started to go down. He started to experience persecution and trouble, difficulty, pain, suffering. Look at some of that, but 10:36 here we read in Acts 21, towards the end of his ministry. He served God faithfully, he's planted churches, and you'd think that his life ought to be one of sort of saying, okay, Paul, I've tested you enough. You can sort of coast on into my 10:53 kingdom now until the end of your life. I want to ask you, dear brother, dear sister, dear child, what do you expect the end of your life to look like? See, in the world, when you start out in your job, you're the runt. You're the one that's doing 11:12 all the hard work. You're everybody's like, oh, something to be done, give it to him, he's the newbie. And give it to her, she's the newbie. So, you start out doing all the hard work, and your goal in life is to get paid more while doing less. 11:29 That's what everybody in the world is I want to get paid more and do less. That's where you become a manager, and you become a director, VP, and CEO. No, I'm probably oversimplifying the reality of it. A lot of CEOs probably have to 11:41 work quite hard, travel, and all that. But the reality is the grunt work. You don't have to do as much anymore because you've been there long enough and say, yep, you know, you're a VP, you shouldn't be sitting there writing code 11:54 anymore. Give it to somebody else. Uh you can if you don't show up for a meeting, it's okay, but her and him, they better come to all the stand-ups. They have every meeting, they need to be there. Nobody questions the VP for not 12:07 showing up, but you, newbie, you better show up. That's how it is in the world, and as you gain reputation in the world, and as you prove your time, as it were, you get to the point where less is expected of you, and you're not being 12:22 confronted anymore, and you kind of get to be an easy life, and then you retire. And that's that's the graph of this world, right? You reach that point, as it were, you have attained retirement, as it were. Is that what you think the Christian 12:36 life is like? When you read the testimonies of godly men and women who were used by God the most, we go through them in our monthly prayer meetings, and you see how God used them. And uh the end of their lives, and you read the apostles, you read Fox's Book 12:55 of Martyrs or Martyrs Mirror, and you see these godly men and women who proved that they were not living for a single thing on this earth. What was the end of their life like? Men like Paul here, what was the end of his life like? What 13:08 did it get to be like when he had God had tested him and tested him and tested him? Did he reach a point where you could say, well, okay, God could say, okay, Paul, I've tested you enough. Now, you're good. Yeah. In Acts 21, you read, for example, in 13:24 verse 11, this is the testimony of um Agabus, who was a prophet. And he could see the future God gave him a revelation of what was the future in Paul's life, and he comes to Paul and says in verse 11, 13:43 coming to us, this Agabus took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, this is what the Holy Spirit says. In this way, the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the 14:00 Gentiles. And when he had heard this, we, as well as the local residents, began begging Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Paul, you're so valuable to the kingdom of heaven, and you ought to have a comfortable life. We'll just stay here 14:17 with us, and we'll bring you a meal, three meals a day, we'll do your laundry, we'll treat you like the CEO ought to be treated, you planter of our church. And sadly, that's going on in Christendom today. The higher you get, 14:33 the more you are waited on hand and foot, as it were. Paul answered, verse 13, what are you doing? In other words, if I could paraphrase what he's saying, have I not done a good enough job of showing you what the kingdom of heaven is like? 14:50 What are you doing? Weeping and breaking my heart. For I'm ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, the will of the 15:08 Lord be done. You see how the will of the Lord and the kingdom of heaven is so different from what we think of here. And I've come to see, then, that the Christian life is not about us reaching a certain point of, Lord, I've passed 15:23 enough tests now that I don't need to be need to be tested anymore. See, I've reached a point where I'm done with school, I think. I I hope never to have to take another test again. Maybe the DMV will want me to do one when my eyes get worse and and 15:37 all that, but school-wise, you know, part of the reason why I chose to be done with school when I was done with school, cuz I wasn't really a big fan of taking tests. And for you children, there's hope coming. You can be freed of test-taking 15:50 at some point in your life. But it's not like that in the Christian life, because God is not interested in us reaching some level of accomplishment where he says, I've tested you enough. But God tests us until he has fully proven 16:06 our complete dependence on him. The point of tests in the Christian life is that God can prove that we are completely dependent on him. And that will only happen at the end of our lives. And God's goal from the time we are born again, from the day we are born 16:24 again, until the time we stand before Jesus, until the end of our life, his goal is to bring us all, to bring Santosh, you can say, I'll make it personal, to the point where there's zero dependence on myself and 100% dependence on God. 16:41 That's why he tests us, and the tests will end when that dependence on God is complete. Um Psalm 105, there's a wonderful little word hidden here about Joseph. Psalm 105. Psalm 105, verse 17, it says, he sent a 17:12 man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters, he himself was laid in irons, until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. 17:30 Let's think about that for a moment. If you remember the story, I don't have time to show it to you. When Joseph was young, he told his brothers and his parents, hey, one day you all are going to bow down to me. And they make they made fun of him. His 17:45 brothers certainly did. He was younger than most of them, except Benjamin. And then even his father said, what do you mean? I'm going to bow down to you? No. It actually happened. All of his brothers bowed down to Joseph, as you 17:57 know, many, many years later. Even Jacob did. But God had spoken a word to Joseph in a dream. God has spoken a specific word, and then what happened after that was a time of testing. For until Joseph was 30, I'm assuming that 18:15 he had the dream when he was 13 or 14 years old. What followed the word of the Lord was 15 or 16 years of testing. Testing where there was absolutely no evidence that that would ever be fulfilled. In fact, from an earthly standpoint, it 18:34 looked he was going in the opposite direction from his brothers and his father and mother bowing down to him. His brothers took advantage of him, they tried to kill him. Then they sold him as a slave. And here is Joseph thinking, 18:45 Lord, I thought you told me this, that you have a calling for my life. I thought you told me that there's a purpose with which you placed me here on this earth. And I'm trusting you, and the word of the Lord tested him. 18:59 And that's the testing that God allows us all to face in our lives when we He said, Santosh, my plan for your life is for you to become like me, Romans 8:29. To be fully conformed into the image of Jesus. That's my destination. He's put 19:14 it as a promise. This hope I have is an anchor, we read in Hebrews 6, an anchor which cannot be shaken, which is fixed at the right hand of the throne of God with Jesus. This hope I have. And I believe that at the end of, as 19:27 I've said here often, on the last page of the book of my life, it's written, Santosh conformed into the image of Jesus. I've seen it. But now what? Is it just sort of a coasting? No, God's going to test the word of the Lord is going to test me 19:41 and say, do you really believe it? And I'm going to prove it in your life. Prove it until you realize that the only way that you can be conformed into the image of my son Jesus is if you're fully dependent on me. And if you find a little bit of 19:58 self-dependence and self-reliance, I can do this. And in fact, the older we get, the more difficult it is. Because we're we're we're we're fighting an interesting battle where the older we get, the more self-confident we are at what we're good 20:14 at, whether it's your job or your some earthly ability. I mean, remember the first day you drove, right? How nervous you were? And remember how you drive now. You've been driving for 20 years, let's say. Ah, you can even put one hand. Sometimes you can 20:28 let both hands off the wheel and just sit there and you know, and take it at the right time. That's how confident you are cuz that's the direction you're headed, more and more confident in your own ability outwardly. Inwardly, God's trying to do exactly the 20:43 opposite. He's trying to make you less and less confident in your own ability and confident only in his ability. Let me give you a practical example. Some years ago uh somebody asked me for some advice about in a in a Q&A session 21:00 about being a parent. They said, "Santosh, you know you have six kids and what How do you balance, you know, being an elder in a church and ministry and job and being a father and a husband, all that?" And I said, "You have come a few years 21:14 too late. If you had come here if you had asked me that question when I had one or two kids, I would have given you all kinds of advice. But now I have six kids and I have only one word of advice, fall on your face and say, 'Lord, help me.'" 21:27 That's the only advice I can give you. You see how God wants to do that work? One kid, yeah, I can give you this trick and that trick and yeah, you know, the sleep method or whatever, the the different things we tried. After four or 21:38 five I'm not saying you have to have that many kids to learn that lesson. Hopefully, you can learn it before that. But you realize that all these earthly techniques and formulas are useless in the kingdom of God. If you just want to 21:51 raise good kids to be successful in the world, yeah, read some good parenting book and some advice from somebody that's done well. But if you want to raise them for the kingdom of God, if you want the Holy Spirit to come and 22:02 fill their lives, fill their hearts and to do a work in their lives that's beyond your ability to ever do, then you ought to be more and more dependent on God and less confident in your own ability. And so there's this interesting journey 22:17 of opposites, as it were, where yes, in the world, I'm becoming more confident in my ability to do certain things. It's just nature. Without my even trying, the more you drive, the better you'll get at it. The more you kick the soccer ball, 22:30 the better you'll get at it. But inwardly, God wants to work a uh uh a freedom from self-confidence in us that results in a complete confidence and dependence on God alone. This is very important. Let's turn to 22:49 Romans chapter 1. Again, our memory verse for this week was by grace you have been saved through faith. So, it's the grace of God that saves us, but it's through faith. He uses faith to save us. It's the grace of God that 23:09 grace is his power, the power of God through Jesus Christ and victory over sin and all of that. But the method, when it says, "By grace you have been saved through faith," so the grace is the power that God uses to save us, but the means that he uses 23:25 to save us is faith. That's the meaning of that verse, by grace through faith. And this through faith is what I'm speaking about, where the means by which God saves us is through faith. Faith, my definition of faith, which I learned 23:40 from seeing understanding scripture, is a complete dependence on God. That's essentially it. Faith is complete dependence on God. I'll show you scripture that will support that. It's just my phrasing of what I see in God's 23:54 word. Faith is that utter dependence on God. So, by grace, the power of God, he saves us by the means of keeping us completely dependent on him. Which means, if you don't have the grace of God, you're not going to be saved. If 24:10 you only have the grace of God, but he's not able to work this faith, this dependence on him, this complete freedom from dependence on yourself, if that's not there, then he can't save you. That grace is there, but the faith is not 24:23 there. By grace through faith, through that dependence on God and helplessly saying, "Lord, I need you to save me and I need to be more dependent on you and less dependent on myself and less confident in myself." That's how we are saved. 24:41 Romans 1, we read in verse 16. I mentioned this verse a couple weeks ago. I've been meditating on it even more since then. Romans 1 verse 16, "I am not ashamed of this gospel," I hear Paul saying. Compared to, again, the previous 24:56 message that he'd heard, which was the old covenant message, which you could say, I believe he would say, "I'm ashamed of it somewhat because he he goes on to say in Romans 7, 'When I believed in the law, I found all kinds of sin. Wretched man that I 25:10 am. I'm ashamed of who I am under the old covenant. But you bring me into the new covenant because of Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of this.'" Paul's not perfect yet. He's not made fully like Christ. He's got a long way 25:24 to go. There's still sin in his flesh that he's being cleansed from and yet he can say, "Even though I'm not yet made perfect, I have a long way to go before I become like Jesus, I'm not ashamed of this gospel because it is a power." 25:39 The old gospel, which is not really gospel, the old message was letters. The letter The law was a letter. It's called the letter of the law. The letter kills. But this gospel brings life. The spirit brings life, we read. And so it says, 25:56 "This gospel, I'm not ashamed of it because even though I've got a long way to go, there's a power that's working inside of me. Even though I'm not quite the husband I need to be, I'm not quite the father I need to be, I'm not so many 26:07 things. I'm so far from being like Christ, there's a power in me. That's why it's good news." And uh one day I will be made complete. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, who believes, to the law first to the Jew first and also 26:23 to the Greek. For in it, Romans 1 verse 17, in this gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. You see what perfect salvation looks like, what the righteousness of God reveals looks like is revealed how? 26:41 From faith to faith. As it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by his faith." So, the righteousness of God is Why is this gospel something that you don't have to be ashamed of? You too ought to be able to say, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel." 26:55 Why? Because God is now not telling me, "Santosh, you need to do this and you need to do that and you need to do the other thing." He's saying, "You're completely incapable of doing any of it." And the sooner you realize that, the 27:09 more you realize it, the more you will experience the righteousness of God. The more helpless, that's what faith is. The more helpless you are, the more dependent you are on me, the more you grow in that dependence on me, faith to 27:23 faith to faith to faith, less dependence on yourself, less confidence in your ability to be pleasing to me, but more reliant and dependent on my ability to keep you pleasing to me, then you will experience the righteousness of God. That's why it's I 27:40 don't have to be ashamed of it. You can look at me, Santosh, you're still so this or that and I say, "Yes, I know. I repent and I'm I I set it right as soon as I can and I fall on my face and I weep, but I'm not ashamed of it because 27:52 it's no longer me trying to do it anymore. God is doing it in me by my dependence on him, faith to faith. Yesterday, I had more confidence in my ability to please God. Today, I have less confidence in my ability to please God. 28:10 Is it that simple for you? Yesterday, let me say it again. Yesterday, it this ought to be our testimony. Day by day, daily growing in faith practically means, "Yesterday, I had some level of confidence in my ability to please God. Today, I have 28:27 even less." I'm actually more conformed into the image of Jesus, more experiencing his righteousness, according to this verse, "The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." But it is faith to faith means I was this dependent on 28:42 myself and this dependent on God. Today, I'm less dependent on myself and more dependent on God. Less confident in my own ability, more confident in God's ability. This is growth from faith to faith. So, the closer you get to God, 29:01 the more dependent you are on him. That's how you know you're getting closer to God. So, it's become a very simple test. How do I know that I'm closer to God today than I was yesterday? It's not, "Oh, I know more of the Bible or 29:14 this or that. I'm used more." Those are earthly things. I know that I'm closer to God today by this very simple fact that I'm more dependent on him and less dependent on myself because I'm growing in faith. And the opposite of that, actually, you read in 29:31 Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews 3 verse 12. This is the opposite of growing closer to God. As I just said, growing closer to God means 29:51 becoming less confident in my own ability and more confident in God's ability for salvation, for righteousness. The opposite of that you read in Hebrews 3:12, take care brethren that there not be in any of you an evil unfaith 30:09 unbelieving, more self-confident heart which falls away from the living God. You see the opposite now? Going closer to God is less confidence in myself, more confidence in God. Falling away from him is more confidence in myself and less 30:29 confidence in God. That's unbelief. It's not I you know when you say this word unbeliever, unfortunately it's become this sort of black and white thing. Oh, believer or unbeliever. Are you a believer? For most Christians 30:41 sadly that simply means did you say a prayer on such and such a date and sign some sort of card and you know, go forward and ask for prayer. I'm not here to mock any of that. But believer has so much more to it than simply saying I 30:55 made a decision on a particular date. To me believer is very simply this, are you dependent on God? And are you growing in that dependence on God? Otherwise, you're Take care brethren that there be not in any of you an unbeliever heart. 31:12 A heart that's becoming more confident in yourself and less confident in God. Less dependent on God. This is falling away that there's less dependence on God and that's why he says verse 13, we must encourage one another. 31:26 Why is it that we are a church that believes that we should be involved organically in each other's lives? We only have a certain number of planned meetings. But as you know, if you're a visitor here uh you may not know this, 31:39 but for those who are members of this church, you know that we're in each other's lives throughout the week, every day. Somebody might share something, you might call each other, you we know each other, we're praying for each other. 31:49 Somebody might share a a message of encouragement on our group text groups and things like that. This is He- Hebrews 4 verse 13. Hebrews 3:13, sorry. Encourage one another day after day. That means every day there's the 32:08 possibility for you to becoming to be less confident in yourself and more confident in God or more confident in yourself and less confident in God. So, because every day you're moving in one of these two directions, we must 32:22 encourage one another. Encourage one another every day because there's a possibility, dear husband, that your wife in her thoughts, in her ambitions, in her motives, may have somehow started to slip this way, more confident in her own 32:38 ability. There's a possibility, dear wife, that your husband may have slipped back a little bit into confidence in his own ability. So, encourage him. Encourage her. Encourage your brother. Encourage your sister. Encourage your 32:51 children. Your teenage children who are are are being taught in the schools to be more dependent on themselves and more self-confident because they've worked so hard to do this and they can impress everybody with their ability on 33:03 the soccer field or the basketball court or in the classroom. Encourage them lest they become more confident in their own ability. How does that happen? Being hardened by the deceitfulness of 33:22 sin, the end of verse 13. This is the deceitfulness of sin. See, the deceitfulness of sin is not oh okay, you can go commit adultery now or murder somebody. I don't think any of you is planning to do that. What is the deceitfulness of sin? If somebody 33:35 invites you to go out and commit murder, rob a bank, I guarantee everybody of us will be like, "No, thanks. I don't I don't need that." But trust yourself a little bit more. Have a little bit more confidence in your own ability. 33:49 Ah, that's deceitful. You won't see it as sin right away. But it is and your heart will become hardened and you'll fall away from the living God. Who's he writing to, friends? He's writing to believers. Take care, RLCF, 34:05 I would say, that there not be in any of us an evil heart that starts to trust in our own ability and falls away from the living God. It's in God's word. I didn't write it. He did. Hebrews chapter 10. So, the journey of we're on, we're 34:25 seeking to be on is this journey of growing in our dependence in God, growing in faith. Hebrews 10 verse 38. Similar words to what we read in Romans 1:17, "My righteous one shall live by his faith and if he shrinks back, my soul has no 34:45 pleasure in him." If he shrinks back, if he starts to trust in his own ability, "My righteous one," he's talking about his righteous one. The proof that he's righteous is he's living by dependence on God, living by dependence on God and 34:58 God takes such delight. Here's my little child who's just trusting me. He's leaning on me. She's leaning on me. She They're just trusting me. They're trusting me. But if he starts to shrink back, if he starts to trust in his own 35:10 ability because he's been a Christian for 10 years now. He's a preacher. He's a senior member of the church. He's got an established home. His marriage has been pretty good for a number of years. His children are grown up and they're 35:22 doing well. If he starts to trust in his own ability and say as it were, "Soul, take thine ease. You've worked hard to get to this point. Just coast along. Jesus is coming soon." If he shrinks back and starts to trust in his own ability, my soul has no 35:37 delight in him. My soul has no delight in who? This same righteous one who once upon a time was pleasing to God. God says, "I'm sorry. I I can't delight in you anymore. I know you've been my child for 20 years now, but you're starting to move the other 35:50 way. You're becoming more confident in your ability." You know, this is why you hear about people who walked with God for so many years and then fall into all kinds of sin, sexual sin and money-loving sin and and all pride and all that. Why does 36:09 that happen? Because we're on the knife edge as it were, brothers and sisters. I'm not saying this to discourage you because God is on your side to help you. But be watchful. You and I are on a knife edge every You know what a knife 36:22 edge is? Like a narrow ridge where if you're not careful, you could slip off and on either side. We're We're the the the choice of whether you will remain and grow in your dependence on God versus grow in your confidence in 36:37 yourself and your own ability is there and in fact, I'll tell you it's more difficult for you if you've been a Christian for a long time. And it's especially difficult if God uses you in some way in the ministry. I recognize that as a one who preaches 36:52 here often in this church, is called to be an elder in this church. I recognize that perhaps for me of all it's the most dangerous. Because here I am thinking, "Well, Lord, I you know, I I preached the message or I did this or I did that other thing and 37:05 I'm trusting in my own ability." And God could find more pleasure in a little child sitting here than even one of us older men and women. Because he sees the little child that's saying, "Lord, I don't know much. You know, all those adults, they seem to 37:18 know where this verse is and that word. They know how to explain Brother Santosh. He knows how to teach and all that. But I don't know much." And God says, "I'm more delighted in that little child because she's completely dependent on me 37:31 and not in her own ability." Children, you can bring pleasure to God in that. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 18, "Unless you are converted and become like little children, you won't see the kingdom of God." You know that you are seeing the kingdom 37:46 of God. You're getting closer to God because you're becoming more like a child, helplessly dependent on the Father. Then he goes on to say in Hebrews 11 about faith. "My righteous one shall live by faith." And he says in verse 6 first of all, 38:02 let's read this Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith, it is impossible to please him." You could say, "Well, Lord, I've I've I haven't sinned in certain number of days. I haven't fallen You know that old sin I used to fall into all the 38:14 time. Lord, look. It's been 342 days. I've been counting. Aren't you pleased with that?" He says, "No, but you're not doing it out of dependence on me. You're not growing in your dependence on me. If that victory, if that being a 38:27 better husband and being freed from alcoholism or drug addiction or bad moods or whatever it might be, if that's coming out of dependence on God, then he's pleased with it." Let me make a bold statement. God is more pleased with your dependence 38:43 on him even if you fail than with your victory in a particular area if it didn't come from dependence on him. It's a long sentence. Let me break it down. God is more pleased by your dependence on him even if you failed in that particular situation 39:00 than if somehow you overcame, didn't give in to sin in that particular situation, but it wasn't from dependence on him. You see that? How that's the essence of Christianity? And somebody could come to a life where their life looks a lot cleaner than it 39:17 used to 10 years ago. They used to be drunken. They used to watch bad movies. They used to be addicted to this and addicted to that. They used to yell and scream at their spouse at home. But things have cleaned up a little bit. 39:30 And I think, "Ah, you must be pleased with me." God says, "No, I'm pleased with faith." And God could see a husband and wife that fell in a particular area and yelled at each other, but then they fall on their face and say, "Lord, I don't 39:42 want to be like that. WILL YOU HELP ME? I CAN'T DO it on my own. I'm crying out to you." And God says, "I'm pleased with that couple that's crying out to me for help. And this other couple that's glorying in their 50 30 40 years of marriage, but 39:56 they're not doing it out of dependence on him." He says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please me." Hebrews 11:6. Without faith, it's impossible to please me. Now, faith verse 1, Hebrews 11:1. Faith is the assurance or some 40:14 translations say substance of things hoped for, the evidence, the conviction of things not seen for not seen, for by it the men of old gained approval. So, faith, I would describe it this way based on what we just read in Hebrews 40:29 11:1 and Hebrews 11:6 is that um the faith looks like this. What does having more faith from faith to faith to faith to faith? Is that God actually allows me to see less, as it were. 40:48 And while I'm seeing less, because he goes on to I didn't read the whole verse. Let me read verse 6 again, and then we'll come back and talk about what I was just going to say. Hebrews 11:6. Without faith, it is impossible to 40:57 please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. Some translations say with diligently seek him. He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So, what is faith? 41:11 Faith is when I'm growing in faith, it means God can allow me to see less. I don't have to see more of the circumstance or what God is doing. I don't have to understand more. God can cloud more things from me because I'm growing in faith. I'm not 41:30 relying on my eyes. I'm not relying on my ears. I'm not relying on my intellect and my ability to figure out what is God doing in the situation. That is self-confidence. That is trusting my own ability. God's trying to lead me on this path of more dependence 41:45 on him. And so, he can actually hide more from me. Am I preaching something new? I hope not. What do you think, brother sister? As you walk with God more, he starts to explain things to you a little bit more? That's not been my experience. 42:01 The more I walk with God, I find that he hides more from me. And he doesn't explain it. I used to He used to explain things a little bit He used to allow me to see how it's all going to work out more quickly. Like within a I I was like, "Oh, yeah, 42:14 yeah, yeah. Okay, God, I see what you're doing. That's great." I find that that doesn't happen anymore. At first, you might think, "Well, Lord, I don't hear you as clearly anymore. I don't see I don't see the explanation of 42:26 what you're doing as clearly as I used to." He says, "Santosh, you're growing in faith. I don't have to explain it anymore because you're trusting me more." And you're like, "Lord, I don't I don't You don't need to explain it. I'm just 42:37 going to trust you." That's becoming like a child. The teenager says, "Where are we going? How long are we going to be there?" Uh the the 4-year-old says, "I'm just in the car. Dad, you're with me. It's all good. Mom, you're with me. It's all 42:52 good." You see the difference? They don't need an explanation why why not. No. Mom said so. Dad said so. Yes. Okay, that's it. You see how growing in faith looks like? Lord, you don't have to explain to me why you're taking me 43:07 through this trial because I believe I see that you're after something far more than explaining things to me. In fact, you're working against my own confidence in my intellect and my own understanding and my own ability. 43:21 And that's why he increases the test. That's why he could take Paul through all of that trial. And I'll show you some verses where Paul says, "I'm perplexed. I don't know what God's doing." Remember reading somewhere Hudson Taylor saying 43:36 that in one of his writings, he says, "When I was a new believer, I God showed me more of what he was doing. And now, as I've walked with him more, it seems like I'm in a fog more. Am I I'm in darkness earthwise earthly 43:51 wise. I don't understand. Now, he's taken me through a trial that's just like, "What's going on? I don't know." But he's holding my hand. And I've learned to put my confidence in the hand than my own eyes. His hand than my own eyes. Does that 44:05 make sense, brother sisters? Not sense here, but does that speak to your heart in some way? God wants you to have confidence in his hand, not in what he has shown you. And for years, I tried to say, "Lord, why aren't you showing me what are you 44:18 doing? Explain it to me." And he did because I was still immature because I was still a new believer. And now, he's saying, "Santosh, I'm not going to explain it to you anymore. I'm just going to ask you to trust me. That's the proof that you're growing in 44:30 faith." It says in 2 Corinthians 5, but let's turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. But this journey so faith for me, the fact that I'm growing in faith means that I'm seeing less, actually. And in the midst of that seeing less, 44:46 I'm diligently seeking God more. And I have a hope that he's going to finish it. That's Hebrews 11:1 and 6 put together, as it were. The assurance of the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So, I 45:02 hope for it. I don't see it with my eyes. In fact, I saw things a lot more clearly 10 years ago. Now, I'm seeing things less clearly, more dimly, as it were. But my confidence and my hope is in the inside. So, faith, as it were, 45:17 allows you to see what's inside the trial as opposed to the trial itself. Faith allows you to see with eyes with with with a an understanding in your heart what God is doing inside through the trial as opposed to the trial 45:34 itself. Trying to explain the trial. I the picture I like to think of picture language. When I think about, you know, this hurricane was there recently. I've had a few of them in Florida. And I saw a video of what it would make 45:45 and showed it me of what it was like in the eye of the storm. You know what the eye of the storm is? Right in the middle, you look at this visualization of the storm from a satellite image, and it's this spinning thing, and it's chaos chaos chaos. And 45:58 if you're in there, it's tough being blown around, houses being uprooted, roofs being blown off, and all that. But you get to the eye of the storm, and it's calm. It's really amazing. You see that. The eye of the storm, there's rest. 46:13 Faith allows you to be in the eye of the storm while the storm rages around you. And perhaps you've been caught up in the whirlwind and the unrest and the unbelief because you're there in the storm itself. And God says, "Come Come 46:26 into the eye of the storm. Let me Let Let me bring you to a place where you're relying on your eyes less and your understanding of it and my explanation of it less and just simply rest in me and and find your rest in the eye of the 46:40 storm, and you'll find that all is rest." Remember that story where there was a storm all around, and then there was the eye of the storm. Where was that? A pillow in the back of the boat where Jesus was sleeping. That's the eye of the storm. 46:54 Waves raging around, disciples in a panic, and Jesus fast asleep. Uh 2 Corinthians chapter 11. You read a little bit about what Paul's life was like as he 2 Corinthians is one of the last letter letters he wrote towards the end of his 47:11 life, certainly. And look at what he says in 2 Corinthians 11: We can begin reading in verse 23. Here's Paul bragging. Paul bragging, you know. It's okay to brag in certain cases. If you If you do the right type of 47:30 bragging, it's good to brag. It's okay to brag. Here's Paul bragging. He uh 2 Corinthians 11:23. "Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane. I more so. I am more a servant of Christ. And let me explain to you what I mean. 47:47 Far more labors. Far more imprisonments. Um beaten times without number. Often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. 48:03 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. Verse 26. I've been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from 48:21 robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from not my countrymen, that's the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among other Christians who call themselves Christians. 48:38 Verse 27. I've been in labor and hardship, many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern 48:55 for all the churches. Verse 30. If I have to boast, I will boast about these things. See how Paul came to the place? He says, "Listen, let me tell you, the storm around me is this bad. It's like worse. And then it got worse. And then it got 49:12 even worse. But I'm going to boast about it because I found the eye of the storm. I found a place where I'm rest at rest with God. I have come to I've grown in my faith. I'm holding on onto the hand of God alone, not my own eyes." 49:29 Wonderful promise. It goes on to say Let's skip a few verses. Chapter 12:7. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation. Yes, he talks about the revelation of the third heaven, but I believe God Paul got this revelation 49:43 that God gave him, I believe. Which is this, Paul, I'm not interested in explaining everything to you. I'm interested in your growing from faith to faith because it is this is how the salvation how you will be saved. I'm not ashamed of this gospel because 49:58 it is the power of God unto salvation from faith to faith. And God Paul got this revelation that God when he was allowing the circumstances around him to increase and press in on him even more externally and internally in his own 50:12 thoughts, he saw that God was growing his dependence on him. That's why he says, I'm going to boast about that. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, for this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given 50:25 me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. Could you imagine? What would it be like if your honest testimony is that you knew that a circumstance in your life is a direct messenger from Satan? Some sickness perhaps or some person. 50:44 Something in his life is directly a messenger from Satan. What if God told you, "Hey, Santosh, tomorrow I'm going to send you a messenger from Satan." What What would you do? Would you be in a panic? Like hold on, the messenger 50:57 from Satan's coming. You know, like the angel of death with this little hook thing. This is actually what happened to Paul, the closest man to Christ on this earth at that time. The messenger of Satan says, "Knock knock, I'm here. God 51:10 has allowed me to come." And Paul says, "What, Lord? Why are you sending me a Why are you allowing a messenger from Satan?" Paul, I'm after faith. Greater faith in your life where you can have a messenger of Satan in your own 51:22 body and you're leaning on me. Are you facing a messenger from Satan in your life in some way? Now, don't think of that neighbor or that person who cuts you off on the street. That's not the messenger from Satan. Um it's some circumstance. It's probably 51:37 your own pride. Some self-seeking, some selfish ambition you have here on this earth. But if there is a messenger from Satan in your life in some way, it could be sickness. Yeah. Sickness is not from God. He allows it, but he doesn't send sickness. 51:51 But if there is a pressing circumstance, is there something that's squeezing you so horribly that you're completely helpless, trust God, hold on to his hand, don't try to figure out why God's doing it. There's no more of the question why. I 52:06 don't need to know the answer why, God. But simply resting in him and saying, "Yes, Lord. Your hand is with me. You're with me. You're walking with me through this." And he says, concerning this messenger from Satan, "I begged the Lord three 52:23 times, Lord, take this away from me. Why is this messenger of Satan here in my house, in my body?" And he said to me, "Listen, my grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness." And so Paul got this revelation. God, you're doing 52:37 something much greater than explaining the problem to me. You're building faith in me. You're crushing my self-confidence. You're increasing my ability to lean on you. So I will boast. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weakness so 52:54 that the power of Christ may dwell in me. You see what Paul was doing? He's saying, "Listen, this is the worst hurricane I've ever had. I thought the worst one was last year. This hurricane in my life is even worse. And I can brag 53:06 about it because I have found the place of rest where I'm holding the hand of God." Now, we're not sadists. We're not people who look for suffering. We're not ascetics. We're not looking for the most miserable life we can live. 53:23 Let's sleep on a bed of nails. Let's, you know, just um eat a piece of bread every day and all that. We're not looking for that. But when God allows circumstances in our life that are beyond our control, beyond our control, we say, "Lord, I'm not 53:38 going to try to understand the answer why." Think back on your prayers, brother, sister, child. Think back on your prayers. Have they been over the last year, let's say? Have they been prayers of why, Lord, why me? What are you doing? Why How could How 53:54 this How is this all going to work out? Has that been the prayer? Now, don't Please know, nothing you hear in this church is to discourage you. It's to challenge you to grow in faith. To say, "Lord, okay, no more do I want 54:04 to explain or to understand why. I'm simply going to hold onto your hand. Help me to find your hand." And help me to find the joy of simply saying, "To be your slave and to do your will, that is my greatest joy." And Jesus, you know, he was the greatest 54:21 example of this. Paul says in Galatians 2 that the life I now live in the flesh, Galatians 2:20, I live by the faith of Jesus. That means Jesus had a faith. This dependence on God. Jesus himself had it. You read that throughout the book of 54:39 Hebrews. We've been looking in Hebrews even that Jesus came down to this earth to be our forerunner. That's the essence of the new covenant, to be an example to us. That means if he says, "Santosh, you've got to live by faith." 54:51 He says, "I'm not just going to tell you you need to. I'm going to show you." And Jesus himself, as God, he never ceased to be God, fully God, emptied himself of the only one that doesn't need that that is is entitled, you can 55:05 say, to be self-confident is God. The only person who's entitled to be self-confident, doesn't need any dependence on anybody else, is God because he is God, the beginning and the end. He has eternal life. He's eternal. 55:17 So he's the only one that is entitled to be fully self-confident and self-dependent. Everybody else, all everybody else, everything and everybody else must be dependent on him to experience to be pleasing to him. Jesus, in a sense you could say, when it 55:34 says in Philippians 2 that he had emptied himself of that place. He didn't stop being God, but he had emptied himself of that ability to not be dependent on anybody else and came to a life where he was dependent on the Father. 55:50 If you don't believe me, let me show you too because you must see it in God's word, John chapter 5. Jesus was with the Father as the Son of God from before time, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He was the word with the word was with 56:05 God and the word was God. You read in John 1, this is speaking about Jesus. But then when he came down to this earth, he had a mission, not just to take me back to heaven, but to teach me this life of faith and to show me that the greatest privilege, 56:19 the greatest joy in my life would as a human being, as a as God's creation would come from being dependent on God. And he says, "Santosh, I've tried to tell you about it in the old covenant, but now I'm going to show it to you." 56:33 And so he came down to this earth helpless. Picture Jesus, the Son of God, who had no need to be dependent on anybody, lying there in a manger. If Mary hadn't nursed him and taken care of him, he could have died physically. 56:47 But he wasn't even necessarily dependent on human beings. He was dependent on his Father. And when he left his throne above and came down to this earth, he says, "Father, I I'm going to paraphrase that Philippians chapter 2. I imagine this 57:00 conversation. Father, all these years I haven't needed to be dependent on anybody, but I'm going to lower myself because Santosh needs an example of faith. He's the author and perfecter of our faith. I'm going to teach Santosh how to 57:12 live a life of dependent on dependence on you so that he too can come to this life and be with us for all eternity. He can experience that unity and oneness with us that we've had for all eternity. So I'm going to come and I'm just going 57:25 to rely on you to take care of me from beginning to end." And he began as a helpless little babe in a manger in a cowshed. Around all the filth and the smells around him, completely helpless. Can you imagine all the germs that were there in 57:40 that cowshed? You know, here we are today we have incubators and ICUs for children at risk. Is there any child that's more at risk than the Son of God lying in a cowshed around all the the germs around him? Yes, from an earthly perspective, but 57:55 from God's perspective, from the kingdom of heaven, that was the safest child that has ever been born. No harm could come to that child because here was a human being fully dependent on his Father. That's the example for us. And at the 58:09 end of his life, one of his last words is, "Father, I've lived my whole life dependent on you. Into your hands I commend my spirit commit my spirit. I'm just I've been leaving it in your hands my whole life and I'm just leaving 58:21 it into your hands now. This is faith. John 5, Paul Jesus says in verse 19, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the 58:40 Father doing. The Son can do nothing of himself." What? Jesus, Colossians 1 tells us that he created everything. All that we see is created by his hand. In him we move and have our being. The same Jesus says, "I emptied myself of that and put myself 58:58 in a place where I say I can do nothing on my own initiative." Verse 30, he says again, "I can do nothing on my own initiative. Zero." Let me paraphrase. God Jesus is saying, "I am useless, good for nothing." And unless you you learn that secret, 59:15 Santosh, you will never experience my righteousness. Oh, that you will learn the secret of being a zero, being helpless, being good for nothing, and that Christ may fill you and you may be more dependent on him, more and more 59:30 dependent on him. You know, that's why Jesus prayed. We were praying yesterday in our men's prayer meeting that yesterday morning and as the word of the Lord laid on my heart as we came to pray, you know who I read in the Bible prayed the most? 59:44 Jesus. You know, you hear about Elijah's prayer, Jabez's prayer, uh Habakkuk's prayer, different people's prayer. Jesus prayed the most. He would spend night You look at the scriptures, you see there's a time it's recorded 59:57 that he prayed in the morning. There's another time that's recorded he prayed in the evening. There's a time it was recorded he prayed all night. Multiple times and that's just the ones recorded. Sometimes he prayed with loud crying and 1:00:08 tears, you read Hebrews 5:7. Who do you think prayed the most of all human beings? I want to say it was Jesus. And yet he never sinned. See, we pray because we've sinned. Say, "Oh Lord, I've sinned. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." We pray, "I want to be more 1:00:23 like you." Yes, that's good. But we haven't seen what prayer really is if that's the extent to which we've seen prayer. I need to pray because I need more of God's Holy Spirit or I felt I was a I got irritated last week. I 1:00:36 don't want to be like that anymore. Jesus prayed because he saw that the moment he loses this dependence on the Father, he's going the other way. He prayed to remain dependent on his Father until the last day of his life. 1:00:50 That's why he prayed. And on that last night, Luke 22, do you think Jesus You know, I was talking about how God hides things from us as we grow closer to him. Do you think Jesus saw everything clearly when he was here on this earth? 1:01:08 You know, at one point he says, "No one knows when the son of Paul Jesus is saying, 'No one knows when I'm going to return, not even me. Only the Father knows.'" Cuz he had put himself in this place as a man where he didn't need to know. 1:01:23 I mean, you you don't you don't think Jesus could have said, "Father, can you tell me when I'm going to come back? What's the date? Just tell me at least. I don't have to tell anybody." Father says, "No, you're a man. I need to teach you dependence on me 1:01:35 where I can hide things from you, keep you in the dark, and you'll still trust me." "Yes, Lord." Jesus says. And the the greatest example of that is in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22. Where in verse 39, Jesus is wrestling. 1:01:49 Now, this isn't just about, "Okay, it'd be nice to know the date." This is life or death eternally. This is Jesus saying, "Father, you're going to forsake me for 3 hours on the cross, which is going to feel like an eternity, because I'm going to 1:02:03 experience being forsaken by you for the sake of Santosh's sin." And is there any way that I Can you show me, Lord, my is if it's possible. Let's look at this, Luke 22:39. He came out and proceeded as was his custom to the Mount of Olives, and the 1:02:19 disciples also followed him. When he arrived at the place, he said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and he began to pray. I mean, he's he's got hours left to 1:02:33 live. He says, "I need to pray." There are Christians who think, "Ah, I don't need to pray. I'm not eating anything right now, so nothing to pray for, right?" Look at Jesus praying. What's the temptation he's facing? It's 1:02:47 much deeper than we realize. "Father, I never want to come to a place where I'm independent of you. I want to be dependent on you until the end and I'm I'm almost on the the last few hours of my life and I know the devil is trying 1:03:01 to bring me to away from that. Cuz this is what caused the devil to fall and become the devil, independence of God. This was the first temptation, Genesis chapter 3, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as opposed to the tree of 1:03:15 life, dependence on him. And he says, "I need to pray." And he says, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done." You see, he's not sure. "Father, I'm in the dark. I don't know. 1:03:31 Is it your will? I don't know." You see the uncertainty that that God allowed his own son, the Father allowed his own son to experience. You think that for Jesus on the last few hours of his life living a perfect life, never having sinned, everything would be 1:03:47 clear. Father says, "Son, I can't hold that to you cuz I need an author and a finisher for Santosh's faith. Somebody who trusted me from the beginning until the very end, and I'm going to hide this most important of questions that has ever been asked." 1:04:06 And then when he's on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Perhaps the greatest question that has never been answered. "Why have you forsaken me, God?" He can't even call him Father cuz he became sin who knew no sin that 1:04:20 we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus' question goes unanswered. Are there unanswered questions in your life, brother, sister? Jesus is your example. He's reaching out his hand and saying, "Listen, trust me. I'm going to do a 1:04:36 work of salvation. I'm interested in your faith growing, not in you figuring out what's going on, not in me going easy on you because you think it's getting a little too tight or a little too uncomfortable. Listen, the comfort 1:04:49 and the discomfort and all that stuff, I can take it. I'll take care of you." The Father says, "I'm not going to let go of you. The eternal God is my refuge and underneath that are the everlasting arms." He says, "I've got you in my 1:05:00 hand. Will you just trust me? Don't give up on me just because I haven't explained to you what's going on. Don't give up on me because I haven't explained to you what's going on. This is God calling us up from faith to faith. 1:05:17 And let me close with this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5, we read 1:05:41 What have I tried to do here? I think of this verse often when I get when I sit down to speak. 2 Corinthians 5:11, "Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men." I'm appealing to you as I believe the Holy Spirit's been appealing to my own 1:05:58 heart because I know the fear of the Lord. What is he talking about? Verse 6, "Therefore, in the midst of whatever hurricane you're going through, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body, 1:06:11 we are absent from the Lord, because we walk by faith, not by sight." Or I would paraphrase as I've been saying today, we walk by holding on to Christ's hand, not by him explaining what he's doing. We walk by faith, not by sight. And 1:06:29 tomorrow, he's going to explain less to me and ask me to trust him more. And next week, he's going to explain even less to me and ask me to trust him more. This is walking by faith to faith to faith. And on the last day of my life, he could 1:06:44 hide everything from me and leave me completely dumbfounded, completely like I have no idea what God is doing, but I'm holding on to him in faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. Because he says verse 8, "We are of good 1:06:59 courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him. For we must all again appear before the 1:07:13 judgment seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad." This is righteousness. What deeds? "Oh Lord, I was good for so many years and bad for so many years and 1:07:27 it outweighs." Is that what you read when you read verse 10? No. "Lord, I trusted you fully until the very end." Those are the deeds of righteousness. Abraham believed God, it says, and it was counted to him as righteousness. 1:07:40 What is the deeds that you will be recompensed for? It will be the deeds that came as a result of leaning on God and trusting him and being dependent on him. And the more you walk by faith and less by sight, HE SAYS, "I SAW THAT, SANTOSH. 1:07:53 Nobody else saw it. I saw it, and I was pleased by it." I've recently come to a new definition of heaven. What will heaven be like? Heaven for me will be that God finally has all of me unhindered. That's heaven. 1:08:12 You know, there was a song I heard about years ago. It was like, "Heaven is a wonderful place you can play football and some all kinds of things." It was fun. Mansions and stuff. And sure, when you're when you're a child, when you 1:08:23 have a little bit of faith, when you're new in the faith, you think, "Ah, it's great. Heaven's going to be wonderful. No more pain, no more suffering, no more tears." That's good, but when you grow in faith, it's no longer about he will 1:08:33 wipe away every tear, which he will. There will be no more pain, Revelation 21, read it. But heaven is not about those things for me anymore. It is finally God has all of me unhindered. Right now, he doesn't. Right now, he has some of me. 1:08:48 As much as I'm aware of, I've given to him. And the rest I want to give to him fully. And finally, heaven will be this. God has all of me unhindered. Is that what you want, brother, sister? You see, that's why Jesus says, "Unless you 1:09:02 take up your cross and deny yourself, you cannot be my disciple." You see, that's why we preach about death to self because it's life to eternal where God has all of me. Self is completely done away with. This is our hope. Let's pray. Father, I 1:09:20 thank you for the wonderful hope you've given us, the calling in Jesus Christ. Thank you, you Jesus, for the example you set us. Beginning and ending your life in faith. I want that life Lord Jesus depending on you. Forgive me for how I've tried to figure 1:09:35 out things and ask and demand an explanation of you for what you're doing in my life. I repent of that Lord. I want faith. I want to depend on you more today than I did yesterday and more tomorrow than I did today. So I say Lord in faith that 1:09:49 you can entrusting you that you can take me through something where you explain even less to me and I want to trust you. Help us and may we be such a church. May it be that when you come down to this earth you will find faith 1:10:01 in us. In Jesus name. Amen.
