4 Ways to Exhibit Genuine Faith

Happy Sabbath, everyone! This is a nice hall. It was nice driving down the road and seeing the sign, United Church of God, and knowing I wasn't lost. I kept driving and driving, and I thought, somehow I've left Cleveland, and this is the Cleveland Church, and maybe I'm lost. And I was so glad that I wasn't lost. Every place we go with the public appearance campaign, of course, people have questions about, you know, today, about the public appearance campaigns. I want to just mention a little bit how the public appearance campaigns formulated. It was an idea that Mr. Cubic had, and he worked real hard to get at exactly what he wanted. We presented all different kinds of ideas and presentations and scripts, and he kept working at it until he got exactly what he wanted. We're just presented with interesting problems in terms of how to reach people. We have more avenues to reach people than we've ever had. But it's actually, in some ways, more difficult to reach people. I'll give you an example. How many of you, of course, were in the Worldwide Church of God? Okay, so you have some experience with how big the media effort was when Herbert Armstrong, and even after his death, with the media effort of that church. There was a very fundamental concept of what they were doing. Herbert Armstrong had a remarkable understanding of how media of his day worked. He also kept adapting, because media constantly changes. But he had the concept, he understood in marketing, that it's like a funnel. So if you take his radio program, or his television program, and it's a huge funnel at the top. And I can remember back in the 1980s, when we, at one point, on the World Tomorrow program, was the biggest religious program in the United States. Then he had the Plain Truth magazine, which, during the 80s, was the biggest religious magazine in the United States. And those were the top of the funnel. Millions and millions of people. Now, the next step was to get the good news, or in booklets. And that funnel got smaller. Then the next step was the correspondence course, and the funnel got smaller. And it went down to what dropped out in the bottom, were requests to visit a minister. I can remember, in the 1980s, in Houston, we had four churches in Houston, the worldwide Church of God, with about 1,500 people or more, probably close to 1,800 in those four churches. Between the four churches, we would get 25 new visit requests a month. Sometimes more. We could get up to 100. Well, that was 25 per one church. A lot of times, we'd get up to 100 for four churches. And you figure 100 new visit requests, we would contact those people. Half those people would say, now I don't want to visit. I really don't want to come to your church. I've done more studying and I don't want to come.

Then there would be people that would say, yes, come visit us. We would go visit them. And you'd go visit some guy, and he had the ankle brace in the lawn because he just got out of jail. And it was like, well, maybe you shouldn't come yet. And we would do multiple visits. But that got smaller and smaller and smaller. Until, and I was talking with someone today this morning about this, and I said, I think if 10% attended church, it was considered good. It was actually less than that, as I was thinking about it. It was less than 10%. I wanted to think it was about 5%. But whatever dripped out then at the bottom. Well, 5% dripped out. They came to church, and then a lot of those people didn't come more than one or two weeks. The difference is the funnel was so great. So it's coming out the bottom. You figure four churches, if we only had one new family per month per church. Each family averaged about four people back then. You're averaging about 16, sometimes up to 20 people, new people per month in four churches. Out of tens of millions at the top of the funnel.

So we had this enormous growth. 150, 200 new people coming to church in a year in Houston. And we could watch a church grow enormously during that period. But the funnel was big. Now, how big is our funnel now? It's a small funnel. Actually, the majority of people come into the funnel, and they're either from the Beyond Today program, or the majority come from the Internet.

We have an interesting problem. Back 30 years ago, when people contacted the church, they were interested in coming to church. What's happened is the Internet has become virtual church. We find more and more people are keeping the Sabbath at home by themselves. They just keep the Sabbath at home. They read some articles. They watch sermons from three or four different Sabbath-keeping groups.

They have a good Sabbath, and they have no desire to actually attend a church. Where, you know, 30 years ago, everybody believed they had to attend a church. In fact, people don't even trust churches today. They had this little funnel. It was dripping out the bottom. So, what Mr. Cubic decided was, we have to make a connection between the people that are interested in us and that there's a church. How in the world do we do that?

So, the idea was we would invite everyone that gets the good news... Well, Beyond Today magazine. That's another thing, too. People say, why do we change the good news? I like the good news because I have an emotional attachment to the magazine because... I remember as a little kid reading the good news. But we realized the world today, there's so many different names out there. Plus, we kept being associated with the good news magazine published by the Church of Christ, which openly promotes gay marriage.

We did not want to be connected with that anymore. We were getting letters from people, please cancel my subscription because you people support gay marriage. And it took us the longest time to figure out, what are they talking about? Well, they were getting a different... they were getting both the magazines and writing to us. So the idea is we make this beyond today and the United Church of God. We only have two names that they have to remember.

And we funnel them down. And the reason for the public appearance campaign is to contact the people that are interested. And here's what usually happens. We go into a market with, say, a thousand people to get the good news magazine. We'll invite them. Now, we'll invite other ways, too, to get people, but most of them are going to come from that list.

Two hundred will say, well, show up. A hundred will show up. Five will come to church. Two will stay. And we say, oh, how terrible it is. Now, in the 1980s, when I first came into the ministry, the funnel was millions, tens of millions of people. It's just a small funnel now. It's what God's doing. It's okay. We deal with whatever God gives us. Plus, sometimes we're finding we're planting seeds that come out later.

It's a year later. What we're trying to do is speed up the process. One of the things that shocked me when I first came into the ministry, how many people called me and said, I've been getting the plain truth for 30 years, and I've decided I would like to talk to a minister. And it'd be like 30 years? What took you so long? We don't have 30 years anymore. We've got to make these people speed up the process. So that's why Mr. Cubing has decided to do this.

It's an interesting concept. And it's basically we still see the funnel effect. But when we do see people coming to church, there's been some baptisms. We have others that contact us that are... I just take a little time with this because I thought it was important to do so. We went to... I'm trying to remember what it is. It's Indianapolis. And there was a large amount of African Americans there. And this woman came up and said, You're our heroes. Here they all went to an African American Sabbath-keeping church. They said there was at least four of them in the area.

They had no connection to the worldwide church. I said, How did you start? And he said, We don't know. It's just been around for generations. And they see beyond today as sort of their television program. We're out there preaching it. They did chitist that we were a little loose on our Sabbath-keeping. They were much more strict on their Sabbath-keeping than we are. Which after listening to them, I thought, Well, maybe we should be more strict on our Sabbath-keeping.

Isn't that interesting? Of course they have no need or desire to come join us. But they wanted to be there to show, We support you guys because you're preaching the gospel. You're telling people the message. And it was just encouraging. Mr. Kubik said, Gary, how do you think we can get those people to come? I said, Well, first of all, we've got to change our music because it's really boring. But anyways, that wasn't... I don't think he appreciated that. So, you know, we're having...it is a very interesting experience.

We have, what, 106 people signed up? 106 people? I don't know how many will show up. Statistically, if we get 50 or 60, it'll be a good turnout. Once again, how many people will come? I don't know. Some of them might come up... They might show up three months from now. You don't know. Just pray about it and be prepared for whatever work God's going to do. When we read 1 and 2 Timothy, we have a remarkable insight into sort of the personality of Paul. Here is an older man towards the end of his ministry writing letters to a younger man, telling him how to be a minister. But it's also very personal.

There's a very deep personal relationship between Paul and Timothy. Paul is a mentor to Timothy. Let's go to 2 Timothy chapter 1. Look at a few of these personal comments.

2 Timothy 1.

Verse 3.

Paul says, That's a pretty personal comment to make. I pray about you all the time, Timothy. I pray for you every day, greatly desiring to see you. We forget the personal side of this. I really like to see you, my friend. I miss you.

I remember the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is within you also. He says, What I remember about you, Timothy, what it means so much to me, and what really I miss you all, I want to see is because I remember your genuine faith. Now there's a couple things about that I find interesting.

You just didn't say faith. He said, genuine. And the Greek there means basically what the English means. It means real. It means authentic. Your authentic faith. There's no hypocrisy in Timothy. His faith is real. And he says, I miss that. And your mother was like that and your grandmother was like that. I wondered, what is it in the lifestyle of Timothy that was so obvious that Paul says, that's genuine faith. What is it? I mean, did Timothy just walk around performing miracles all the time?

Now that's not what we see. Did every prayer that Timothy prayed, God answered immediately? Well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? Genuine faith is God answers every one of your prayers. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand. How many of you have had every one of your prayers answered? Well, they're answered in the way you want it to be answered. Okay, that's the thing. Although there are times in my life I thank God for not answering a prayer the way I wanted it later, because I realized that wasn't such a good idea after all. But, you know, what is it that he would have seen in him? But the real question is, what is it that we can exhibit as a genuine faith?

You know, here we are talking about Beyond Today and we're talking about the public appearance campaigns. Those are just ways in which the modern world allows us to reach people, and fairly large numbers of people that, I mean, I couldn't stand on the street corner in Nashville and reach as many people as we do in a program.

But every one of us has a responsibility to exhibit the gospel, to live the gospel. We can't hide it. You're not supposed to hide it. In a way, you preach the gospel every day as you go out into the world.

So as people see us, how do we exhibit a genuine faith? Well, I mean, this is a big subject. I could probably do four sermons on this as I started to think about it and work through it, but I just picked four things. Four things that you and I could do, simple things, to make sure that when we're dealing with people, we're not sort of pretending to have faith.

Now, these are going to be different than what you'd probably list. If I say, well, I want you to list four things that you could say, well, genuine faith. Well, I don't know. I talk about God all the time. No. I explain to everybody why they should keep the Sabbath. No. But if someone met you for the first time, what would it be? What would they walk away saying?

Now, there's a person of faith. There's something genuine about that person. There's something real about them. Well, the first one. In order to exhibit genuine faith, when we're dealing with other people, we have to acknowledge our own difficulties and struggles with our faith. Well, you pray for me. I've had people call me on the telephone and say, well, you pray for me. I'm in a hospital, and I've called five different ministers to pray for me, you know, the Methodists and the Baptists.

No one will pray with me on the phone. Sure, I'll pray with you. I don't know what that person's faith is. I don't know what they believe. Are they in the hospital? They're in trouble? Okay, they ask to go to God. Let's go to God. But it's easy for us, if we're not careful, to hide the fact that we struggle with faith. So we simply tell people in our actions, the way we talk to them, you shouldn't feel that way.

Just trust in God. And yet, every one of us knows there's been times when trusting in God was really hard. And there's been times you and I didn't even trust in Him. We have to be honest with that. So that means we have to have a genuine faith to exhibit that to others, because we're talking about a genuine faith that's exhibited. It's not, let me tell you about my faith, it's, I understand because I struggle with faith at that time. Because God is God, and I'm not.

I'm not God. By the way, once you figure out you're not God, life does get easier. One of my favorite passages on this is in Mark 9. Mark 9.

I think this just sort of sums it up here, this concept.

As I have found, I have prayed this prayer, or said this comment to God many times. I made this comment in a prayer during anointing at times, when I knew people were struggling with faith, and had them afterwards say, thank you.

Talking about Jesus here, verse 14, when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them, and immediately when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him, and He asked, what are you discussing? See, here's a large number of religious leaders, and a large number of people, a whole crowd of people having a discussion. What are they talking about? Well, here's what they're talking about. Then one of the crowd answered and said, teacher, I brought you my son, who is a mute spirit. Whenever it seizes Him, it throws Him down, He phones at the mouth, and then it ashes His teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, and they cast it out, but they couldn't do it. Well, we all gathered around because I was looking for you, and I saw your disciples, and I said, can you cast out the demons? And so they said the words, and it didn't happen, and all the scribes came up and said, well, that's not how you do that.

And they were having, now more and more people came up, and there was all this discussion, probably, an argument going on. And He answers this man, and answers all of them, oh, faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you, bring Him to me? Then He brought Him to him, and when He saw him immediately, the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground, and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. And He said to the Father, how long has this been happening to him? He said, from childhood. He talks about how He throws Himself into the fire. He tries to commit suicide. It's horrible. It's every parent's nightmare. And Jesus says to Him in verse 23, if you can believe, all things are possible to Him who believes. So someone comes to us, maybe they're new in the church, maybe they're not. God's just working with them. Maybe they're out there lost, trying to discover God. And I say, well, I just don't have the faith. I don't know what to do. I'm worried about this health problem, or the direction my children are going in, or this or that or the other. And it's so easy for us to say, we'll just have faith. Just believe. God will take care of it. But I want you to notice this man's answer, because this is how, most of the time, human beings, what's happening inside, that they don't often say. Immediately, verse 24, the father of the child cried out and said with tears, just ripped him apart from the very core of who he is. He said, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Ever felt that way? But the genuine faith, when someone comes and they're struggling with their faith, and you have an opportunity to teach them, to reach them. You have an opportunity. Here's your time, one on one with someone. Because this is where disciples take place. I have to tell you something. Disciples does not happen on television. Disciples happens between people. All television does is get people's attention. That's why there has to be pastors. That's why there has to be congregations. We're all part of this discipling business. Disciples happens in relationships. What happens when someone says, I don't know what to do, this is my worst nightmare, and we just say, have more faith.

I believe. Help my unbelief. All of us have a limit to our faith on our own. God has to carry us. He has to give us what we don't have. We have to admit that, and we have to be willing. If we have a genuine faith, we have to be willing to tell people, I understand where you are. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Take me where I cannot go. That's honest. See, the thing about being genuine, it's being honest. Not pretending to be something else. It's interesting. In Luke 17. Luke 17. But see, we have to be honest with ourselves to begin with. Let's look at the start of verse here. Verse 5 of Luke 17. And the apostle said to Him, Lord, increase our faith. Well, okay, the next few verses Jesus says, Pray more, fast more, and study the Bible more. Now, I mean, we have... that is part of increasing your faith, by the way. But what's amazing is that isn't what Jesus says. In fact, at first, His answer seems to have nothing to do with their request. Help us to have more faith. And the Lord said, If you have the faith as a mustard seed, very tiny, you can say to this mulberry tree, Be pulled up by the roots of the planet and the sea, and it will obey you.

Oh, well that's really encouraging. If I have this tiny little faith, I'll be throwing bushes around, uprooting trees, I'll just drive down the road. Well, that tree looks ugly, and I'll just, you know, just uproot itself. That's not His point. I mean, if that's all He said, He'd be like, wow, increase your faith? Well, if you had just the tiniest bit of faith, you'd have all kinds of miracles in your life. Right? I mean, if that's where He ended, that would be the conclusion of what He was saying. But it's not where He ended. He says, And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him, when he has come in from the field, Come up once and sit down to eat? But will he not rather say to him, Prepare something for my supper, and gird himself and serve me until I've eaten and drunk? And afterwards, he will eat and drink. Does He thank that servant because He did the things that were commanded Him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded, say, We are a profitable servant. We have done what is our duty to do. What in the world does that have to do with faith? The point that Jesus is making here is that, Do not believe that if we keep the Sabbath and we keep the Holy Days, if I keep the Ten Commandments, God is required to give me the answers I want. This has to do with faith. The idea is, we think God owes us something because of what we've done. And Jesus says, Okay, you want more faith, He must have understood something that was wrong in your thinking. What do I do so God then sort of has to answer what I want? He says, No. When you've done everything you can do, you've just done your duty, and God is not required to give you anything. Anything God gives us is because He gives it to us. It's not like, well look God, what I've done here is, I've tithed perfectly for five years. So I expect a husband in the next two months. I paid you, where's the payoff? You see what I mean? Now that doesn't mean you might not go wrestle with God. I want a husband, or I want a wife, or I need health, or anything. We all wrestle with those things, don't we? And sometimes we say, God, what is it more though I have to do? And that's okay, too. But there is a point here, where it says, increase my faith, where the point is, wait a minute, my faith must be in God's goodness. I must trust Him. I must trust Him. And it has to be in His goodness. My faith isn't what I do to get a reward. My faith is in God. Here's another thing, too, as part of this, before I go to number two. Well, we have genuine faith. We recognize our own struggles. We're willing to share our own struggles. But genuine faith always points towards God. The object of the faith is God. I heard a minister say once, if all you people just had more faith, there'd be more healings. I'm not sure I understand that. God heals.

Our faith is in Him. And then our faith is accepting what He's doing. The faith is in God. So, that's our first point. The second one, you want to have, you want to exhibit genuine faith. Then don't pretend to be perfect. One of the things I tell new people when they come to church, well, if you're expecting a perfect church, don't come to this one. You'll be really disappointed. And so many of the times when I hear, is, thank God, a place where maybe I'll fit in. Because I'm not perfect either. When I hear that, I think, ah, you'll probably do just fine.

God's probably working with you. When I hear, we're not perfect, the person says, well, I just want to show up and see if everyone really believes what I believe. And I think, yeah, you probably won't last. Because what happens is, in our attempt to pretend to be perfect, we become a stumbling block to the faith of other people. The people are struggling with their faith, new people. We actually become a stumbling block. I could never be like them.

How many of you, the first time you came to church, thought, oh, no, these people are so perfect. I'll never fit in. Oh, well, yeah. But I didn't believe that because I was a kid.

They're so perfect. And now you're a pastor and you're so disappointed. If we pretend we have this pretense, then people won't see genuine faith. They'll actually, we can become a stumbling block. And that doesn't mean we wear all of our sins on our sleeves. It does mean that we are aware that we're not perfect.

You know, hypocrisy is an interesting thing. I've seen a lot of young people get very disillusioned in the church when they see adults who commit sins, who make bad decisions. They say, well, they're all a bunch of hypocrites. Well, the truth is there are hypocrites in the church. And the truth is, is that even those who aren't hypocrites sin and make bad decisions. Sinning and making a bad decision doesn't make you a hypocrite. It makes you a weak Christian. It makes you, well, welcome to the rest of the human race. It's what we are. Hypocrites are people who pretend that they're better than everybody else.

They pretend they don't have any sins or weaknesses. But they do. So, by the way, you know, when you say, I'm giving up on God because all these people are hypocrites, that is actually a statement of hypocrisy. Think about it. All these people are better than me. I'm better than all these people because they're hypocrites, because they have problems.

I'm glad I don't have any problems. Think about it. Luke 13. So we have to be without hypocrisy. Man, this is hard. I'd like to have you all think that I'm just perfect. That's why I didn't bring my wife. Because you want to go ask her afterwards, is he perfect? You know, we'd be here for three hours. Luke 13. My wife, she hasn't done this for a long time because I think I finally sort of got this kicked.

Every once in a while we'd be discussing something, and I would get real serious, and she'd start to smile. And of course, the more she smiled, the more sort of, you know, like that. I'd say, what are you laughing at before? She says, because you're talking to me in your minister voice.

But I started to analyze it. Yeah, I guess I was. You know, suddenly I'm lecturing instead of talking. Does he have a minister voice? Does he? Okay. I didn't ask him, I asked her. Luke 13, verse 10. Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.

And behold, there was a woman who was the spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called to him and said, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation. So here we have the rabbi in the synagogue who's just furious over this.

And he says, because Jesus healed on the Sabbath, and He said to the crowd, There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. Now the chain of truth, this rabbi probably kept the Sabbath very, very strict. He probably had never broken any of the ten commandments in the letter. He probably never stole, he never committed robbery, he probably never committed adultery. He was the president of the, or what they call the president, he was the rabbi of the synagogue. This man probably had never worshiped an idol. I almost guarantee that one. He kept the Sabbath all his life.

So in the letter of the law, is that maybe for covenant, because no one could know where that was going on in his mind, in the letter of the law, he had basically been a lawkeeper. Not in the spirit the way Jesus would expound, but in the letter. And he's angry because we should be working all throughout the week, but on the seventh day we rest before God, and here's all this work being done. And notice what Christ says, verse 15, Then the Lord answered him and said, Hypocrite! You're just pretending here! This is all pretense! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, lead it away to water it? So not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan is bound, think of it. Just think of it! He looked at me and said, just think of this, man! This woman has been suffered 18 years!

Shouldn't God's love be given to her? Be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath? And when he said all these things, all his adversaries were put to shame. This is all the people rejoiced. They were ashamed of themselves, because they realized it was a pretense. And so, to be willing to show a genuine faith, we have to be willing to admit we're not perfect.

So when people say, well, you just think you're perfect. Nope! But I'm trying. I saw a little kid one time years ago. I've used this sermon many times, because it was just one of those moments that just captures your imagination. Little boy comes walking by, wee little guy, and he had, um, be patient with me, God isn't done with me yet. And then as he walked by on the back and said, God doesn't do bad work.

So that's my answer now. Be patient with me, God isn't done with me yet. But God doesn't do bad work. Oh, good! That's where I want to go. I want to be part of that kind of mindset. But once again, who is the focus? God. The third point. This is very difficult because, in all honesty, you know, there's a... one of the ways in higher education that they turn young people away from the Scripture.

It's very interesting that the overwhelming majority of evangelicals who go to college or to university, a non-Christian university, come out atheist or agnostics. So four years of college takes 18 years of training and erases it. And there's one way... there's a number of ways they do it, but what I found the most interesting is the argument that let's read the Bible.

Let's go through the Bible. Let's see about this God that tells Abraham to murder his own child. Murdering and sacrificing. Let's look at this God that told the Israelites to go into villages and kill old people and women and children.

Let's talk about abortion and this God who kills pregnant women. This is their argument. Let's talk about Jesus who says he loves, and yet according to the Scripture when he comes back, he kills millions of soldiers in a bloody horrible way. Christopher Hitchens, who died a couple years ago of cancer, but he was sort of the premier spokesman for atheism for decades in this country.

And a very brilliant man, very articulate, arguments worked out in great detail. And his argument was if the God of the Bible is real, he's a monster and not worthy to be worshipped anyways. The way he treats human beings is a monster. And now our argument is, no he's not. He's the God of love. Then explain to me why he killed everybody in Sodom.

Well, they were evil. So God hates homosexuals. Why did he kill the babies? This is the way the argument goes. Those babies didn't know anything. Besides, how do you worship a God that hates homosexuals? So to have a genuine faith, we have to be willing to openly discuss the severity of God's judgments and how that fits in with God's love. The severity of God's judgments and how that fits in with His love, because those two things are not opposites. In all honesty, the problem is that many people are not willing to accept that the creator of the universe determines right from wrong and has the right to punish evil.

They don't believe that. So the idea that He is the creator, that there is good and there is evil, and He has the right to punish evil is part of the heart of Christianity. But to struggle with that is normal. It's easy to take someone with these viewpoints. We're going to find more and more people come in contact with us that have these kind of viewpoints, because it's what's been taught in higher education now for four generations. It was clear back to the 1930s. And so what happens is people are coming out with degrees in which this is part of the mindset.

And we just can't say, well, you have a bad attitude. And we're going to exhibit a genuine faith. Well, yes, I have faith in believing it. How can you believe in a God that may let you die of cancer? No loving God! Would you let your child die from cancer? No, you wouldn't. So why would this God do this?

See the argument? And we have to say, oh, I understand. I struggle with that too. We all struggle with it. We're always trying to see God's judgment and God's love and how they balance out. Think of Abraham. I'm going to destroy Sodom. Can I ask a question here? What if there's 50 good people? See what he's debating?

I know it's an evil place, but you can't. And he actually says, God, far be it from you, the judge. You believe in justice and love. Lot's down there. You're going to kill him too? What if there's 50 good people? God says, I won't destroy them if there's 50 good people. Oh. Oh, man, that's a high number. What if there's 45? That's just not 40. Now, you notice God doesn't get angry with him? God doesn't argue with him?

God doesn't say, boy, you have a bad attitude. Shut up. I'll wipe you out too. God continues the conversation. Okay. Good. Good, Abraham. You're trying to figure out my love and my judgment. What if there's 10? I won't destroy it if it's 10. He found one, so what did he do? He took the one out. He wasn't going to destroy the good with the evil if there was only one.

It's just, well, it's not 10, so I'll get him out of here. You'll see Moses struggle with it. You see, all through the Bible, you see people who are really close to God struggle with God. How does love and judgment balance? The answer for us is found in Jesus Christ. See, God did not do away with His law. That would mean God's character changed. Oh, stealing's okay.

It was just a joke. His character didn't change. He didn't do away with His law. But there's a problem with law. All law has a penalty, and the penalty is demanded. Right? His law, His righteousness demands a penalty. Human beings do not want to accept that we're all a mixture of good and evil.

The bottom line is, inside of every one of us is a certain amount of evil. And evil and good cannot exist forever in eternity together. It cannot. We're all condemned already. By the law of God, we're already condemned. God didn't do away with His law. You know, the greatest proof that it is not...what's interesting is, under the great Protestants of all time, John Calvin came up with this argument.

Of course, Calvin had some weird ideas. But this is one way he's right on. He said, you know, the law can't be done away with because there's no need for Jesus Christ. If you do away with the law, you don't need Christ. Well, John got one thing right. That man had no sense of humor at all. If you've ever read John Calvin's writings... Anyways...so John...he's not a pleasant guy. So here's the point is, is that if the law...if justice is real and God is righteous, His law requires this, He requires it.

Understand. He either does away with His own law, or the requirements are there. And the requirement is our death. He will do away with that. He's too just. He's too perfect. But because love is the other part of His personality, of His character, guess what He did? He sent Christ to die for us. I still can't wrap my mind around that. Wrap your mind...I mean, really? Here is a being so perfect. His Son is so perfect. I will never compromise with evil.

But I'll save evil people by dying for them. That's beyond any human comprehension. And there is the Gospel. And there is what we can tell people. When I say, why did God do this? Well, because He's the perfect balance. They think, what is love then? Is love then? You should be able to abuse any child, and it's okay?

As long as you say, well, I love Him. And the jury should say, I love you too. So it's okay. No, there is evil. So our fourth point is that we are genuine when we acknowledge. We don't always understand what God is doing. Now, we get the big picture, and that's what we can share with people. That's the thing about the Holy Days. What do the Holy Days give us? This huge picture of what God is doing. Sharing the Holy Days with people is remarkable experience. Not in, oh, you should keep the days of Unleavened Bread because it's commanded.

Let me tell you what God is teaching about the days of Unleavened Bread. Let me teach you what God is teaching through the Feast of Trumpets. And you know what? You can explain all of the Holy Days in five minutes of what God is doing in the simplest form. Here's what God's doing. In that greater context, we don't always understand what He's doing at the minute, do we? Oh, I have lots of questions to ask God. I've come to the conclusion, in that change, they won't even matter anymore.

Right now, the list just needs to be longer and longer and longer. I have a question. They probably won't matter then. They'll be like, I get it. We'll see the bigger picture. Look what David says in Psalm 139, our last scripture, Psalm 139. See, we're looking at it to be genuine, to be authentic. To be genuine and authentic, just to be honest. That's really what this comes down to. We have four points about being honest. Honest with ourselves, honest with God, and honest with other people. This is who we are. We're going to have to pretend to be anything else. I know, you know, sometimes we want to pretend it, because God has given us so much.

But we stop having to pretend. It opens us up, just to be real. But we're so afraid that if people see us as we are, and I don't mean we expose all of our sins and so forth, but just be genuine. They won't like me. They don't respect me. They won't... To be genuine is, this is who I am. If you don't like me, sorry. But it's who I am. What you'll find is most people actually like people who are genuine. They respect people who are genuine.

Psalm 139 is interesting, because David here says, Oh, Lord, You have searched me and known me. Here's this idea about, we don't always understand God's ways. Remember a person tell me one time, I could never worship a God I don't understand.

What I wanted to say is, I could never worship a God that my little brain could understand.

Because I mean, God's no bigger than me, and that's pretty small. I'm sure hoping God's a whole lot bigger than I am. He says, You know by sitting down, by rising up, You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down. You are equated with all my ways. For there's not a word on my tongue, but behold, oh Lord, You know it all together. You have hedged me behind, and before You have laid Your hand upon me. And then the next statement is, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. David says, you know, I start thinking about God and what He does and how He accomplishes things. It's just too big, I just feel too small. We were talking the other day about when I took my two, our kids to the Grand Canyon, and both of my daughters were, I don't know, probably eight and six, something like that. And I took the two of them out. There's a point at the Grand Canyon. It goes out, there's a little peninsula that goes out, and it drops about 5,000 feet off on all three sides. Of course, my wife stayed back and said, Don't take my babies out there, don't take my babies out. And so I walked out, and I said, Now get down, you know, we're three feet, four feet from the edge. I said, Get down on your belly, we all got our belly. And we crawled over and looked over the edge. And they didn't say a word. And I said, Okay, now everybody just crawled back. So the three of us crawled back, and then they did something I just did not expect. They both stood up, they walked back a little bit, they both just sat down on the ground, and just stared.

They didn't cry, they didn't laugh, there was nothing. It was too much. Their brains could not accept what they just, and it was just too much. They were like in shock. Okay, girls, now we've got to go back. They took my hand. They never said anything. I'm walking back. Wasn't that wonderful? They're just staring. Wasn't that exciting? They're just staring.

David looked at God at times and just sat down and said, This is too much. You and I can't pretend we understand God. And when we tell people we have to say, I don't always understand God. It's too much. Sometimes I just sit, and it's too much.

It's more than my little brain can understand. And I'm thankful for that.

I am thankful for a God that can give me the grandcandy. I am. I'm thankful for that. Because I can't do that for anybody.

And so we don't always understand it's okay.

I've told people in their trials, Why do you think God is doing this? And my answer is, I don't know. I'm not Him. I can only tell you what He says. I can only tell you the encouragement. I can only tell you that He promises certain things to you. And let's talk about those promises. But I can't tell you all the details because, you know, He just doesn't show up and ask my opinion. Ever! I keep waiting for Him to do it. And never once has He showed up and asked my opinion on anything. It doesn't say... Anything I can assume is it must not matter.

You keep hoping.

And that... David got it. But Paul wrote that he witnessed a genuine faith in Timothy and his mother and his grandmother. It doesn't mean that these were people trying to show off their faith all the time. They were just genuine. It's who they were. Four things that we covered today.

To have a genuine faith, share with others your own trials and struggles. Share with them that you struggle with faith to. Like the man who said, I believe, help my unbelief. Don't pretend to be perfect, but admit you're in a growth process. God's with you. He's taking you someplace. You're growing. You're changing. Face the severity of God's judgment towards sin, and realize what his love is and how that's exhibited in Jesus Christ. And admit that you don't always understand God's ways. That's not a lack of faith. That's just real. And it's nice to be able to talk about it.

Because you're talking about God. So we're talking about faith, we talk about ourselves instead of God. The basis of genuine faith is simple. Trust in God, trust in his goodness, trust in his greatness, trust in his mercy, trust in his justice, and trust in his promises of salvation.