God's Gift of Grace

Thank you, Sarah and Noah. It's always beautiful to hear the music from our young people. We've been listening to it all week long. They've been practicing, so it's been a joy to hear that. Also our Ensembla and all the other ABC students who have helped today. It's a joy to see and hear our young people do things in the church speaking.

We certainly enjoyed this morning's service. After young Mr. Jennings gave us a sermon, it's fun when you think about teaching their parents. I used to talk about the kids being with their parents, and I found out I was with their grandparents and taught their parents. Pretty soon I'll be looking at their babies, I guess. But it reminds you how old you are. I never think of myself as old, but my children always tell me I am. Which, I guess, is what they're good for. I know all the faculty, myself, Mr. Myers, Mr. Dunkel, Mr.

McNeely, all the adjunct faculty, module faculty, are passionate to pass on the knowledge that we've gained to the young people at Ambassador Bible College. We want someone who can carry the torch beyond us. It's interesting. I never thought I'd be carrying a torch. I figured Christ would return before I finished college. Now I have to look down and see who those are that will be able to carry the torch. When those of us go, we hope that Christ returns before we go, but you never know. It's interesting.

It's nice to be able to talk about young and talk about 20s rather than 40, 45, 50. It's always fun on the council. We've got another Young Ministries, 54. But to have some that are starting a bit sooner makes me feel good. I certainly appreciate and enjoy that when that happens. Two months ago, Michelle and I were in California.

We were there to see the birth of our granddaughter, our daughter and our son-in-law's first child. God gave grace on Thanksgiving Day. I thought that was appropriate. Truly a gift since it was a national holiday and I was able to be off. I actually bought my ticket more on hope than grace because I wasn't sure that she would have her while I was there. I had to come back to teach, especially since my wife had spent 30 hours in labor with our daughter. And so I knew what that could be like. And I gave Jo some advice that whatever my daughter says, just agree with it and do it.

My wife gave me the Bill Cosby routine that you did this to me. She was sure I was making the doctor hold off on delivering the baby so she could be born on the same day as our son, which she was at 1 o'clock in the morning. But I was not trying to hold off. My advice to him was just, yes, honey, yes, honey, yes, honey, just keep going. And never a time for all you men who have had kids and your wives, you know that's critical time.

So that was my experience with her and I didn't know what Crystal would be doing in giving birth. And you don't know when these things are going to come. It's one of those things you can tell us getting close and you can see things happening. But our wait for the baby wasn't very long when she went into the hospital. We were shoot away by the doctor about noon because she hadn't dilated fully, but she was about 7 on the scale of 10 that they want you to go to. And so the doctor shoot us out and told us to wait in the sitting room.

And of course, Joe's parents and Shel and I were all there and siblings. And it was interesting to the doctor said, well, go to the waiting room and it'll be at least one or two hours at best. And we got to the waiting room.

We sat down for a few minutes and they called back in and said, the baby's here. Three contractions, about 10 minutes. And little Grace came out. The doctor was shocked. She had left and believed her own advice and they yelled for her, get back here now. And so Joe almost got to deliver his own first child. It's interesting when you look at birth and you see a new child coming to life. I wonder at the glory of God, how he gives us family, how he gives us life, the gift of life.

And he attended for our physical lives to be a model to learn some of the things that reflect in our growth toward our spiritual lives. His plan, he allows us to marry. He created Adam and Eve.

He said, be fruitful and multiply. And so we marry. We create a union. Through that union we have children. And truly children are one flesh. They're half from the mother and half from the father and they become one person. And we get to have the experience of giving life. And it's an remarkable experience. And I wonder how God sits there waiting for us to be born in his family. The anticipation, being anxious, the joy that he waits for.

That gift is certainly special. You know, in Genesis 2.7, God says, He made man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a loving soul, it says, although that's the word nafesh, which just stands for a body. The breath of life that came into him. Little Grace took her first breath of life, in 1216, on Thanksgiving Day. And she began her journey of learning about her family, and will learn as she grows of what's expected of her. By her parents, how she grows. It's interesting.

You know, Jesus Christ, their parents lost him when he was 12 years old, when they came back from the feast. They couldn't find him. And Christ made a statement after that, when he was 12 years old. They came looking for him, and his answer was, did you not know I had to be about my father's business? They were worried about him. I understand that worry. My son, at age 3, we were at the feast, and I thought he was hanging on my leg. And all of a sudden, he's gone. So we're looking at the doors to try to make sure no one steals him. All of a sudden, the feast coordinator holds up his kid at the lectern and says, does anybody belong to this kid by the piano? My son had taken off with the piano. He thought that was the place that he could have more fun, which probably was true. But it certainly scared his mother and I. But Christ was there because he was about his father's business. When did God become his father? In the sermon I'd like to talk about when he became your father, and my father, and that we should be about our father's business as well. God is the Spirit. God sent his Spirit down to Mary at Christ's birth. He became his father physically and spiritually, right at creation, when he was pregnant to Mary, right at that moment. He was able to understand the things of God because of his spiritual father. The human Spirit could teach him the things of man, but the Spirit of his father could teach him the things of God, which he had fully. Turn to Job 32, verse 8. There's a verse there that tells us about the Spirit that's in man. And again, each of us, even from birth when we breathed in her first breath, she had a spirit in her, as we all do. Job says there's a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives them understanding. We have that human spirit that lets us tune in to the human things, that helps us understand this world, the things of it. And when God's Spirit is imparted, then you can understand the spiritual things of God. Mr. Armstrong wanted to analyze something or wondered often why God did something when it was appropriate. He always looked at Scripture. That was one thing he did. But he also looked at the physical family, the way God created it, and what God expected of it, and what he intended. And he could see a lot of things from that. We have many discussions on when does life begin, at conception or at the breath of life or whatever. It's interesting. Psychology tries to understand family without God, and they get it all screwed up. But God gave the physical for us to understand the spiritual, all the parables, all the analogies, all the things that are there for us to learn. A year ago, our daughter and son-in-law had no children. On a sperm from Crystal's husband, entered her, and she conceived, and it was planted in her uterus, her womb. Life began. That physical life began. The egg had been there for 25 years because girls are born with all the eggs in their ovaries.

It couldn't do anything by itself. But yet, when that sperm reached it and it implanted in the womb, it began to grow. And nine months later, it would take a few days of that gestation period, the birth process that God created began, and Grace took her first breath. She breathed in and became part of their family. They saw her as part of their family the whole time that she was there. Surprisingly, they took a trip over to Europe. Joe got transferred there for about six months, and she has pictures from all the countries she visited while she was pregnant, getting bigger and bigger. And she was in the family with her stomach slowly growing. It was special to them. It was special to us. Many in the world would have you think that just another mammal was born. They don't believe in God. But that's not fully accurate, although we do have physical characteristics in nursing and things like mammals. But mammals don't have the ability to think, to reason. Nothing beyond what God gave them as far as instinct to do that. And Grace joined the human family so that she could understand the things of man. God put a human spirit in each of us at our birth. We didn't have God's spirit at birth like Christ did. But He gave us that because that allows us to have something to combine His spirit with, to learn about Him.

That spirit's not an immortal soul. Satan tried to con people into believing that.

But it's interesting. I gave a sermon recently in Africa, a very foundational sermon on the fallacy of the immortal soul. Because so many people there believe in spiritism. They believe in ancestor worship. They believe in all sorts of things that are strange to us, but that's their culture. And it's so culturally imprinted in them, even when they're called into God's church, they still have some of those superstitions that they do. Which is sad. But I told them it began actually with Satan in the garden when he said, you'll not surely die. And of course Adam and all of them died, but Satan seems to have wanted to continue to spin his lie in the form of an immortal soul. That you have life already. That when you die, you either go to heaven or hell. Or in some religions you are transformed or reincarnated into something else. So he spun that lie for a long time. But we do not have an immortal soul. The soul that we do have, the spirit that we do have, is something God gives for us to understand humanity. Turn to Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5. Because when we're dead, we're dead.

And without God, and without that human spirit he gave us, it's kind of a recording of our life to put back into us. We don't know anything. Ecclesiastes 9, 5 says, It says, It's interesting, a little girl was talking to her mother, and she said, Mommy, isn't it true that we came from dust and we returned the dust and the Bible teach that? And I said, well, yeah, it does. Why are you asking? She said, well, I just looked under the bed and someone's either coming or going.

God gave us a spirit. Job 32.8 tells us again, there's a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives understanding. Without that spirit that He gives us that part of it, we wouldn't understand anything physical as well. The spirit in man allows reason and thought when attached to a human body. It can learn certain things. It can choose how it reacts. It has emotion and displays those emotions, which is what Satan usually uses to try to get at us. Those emotions give us pleasure, give us pain, various things. And it can learn many of the principles of God. Before I was baptized, I understood quite a bit about God. God's spirit can be around us even before it's in us. I memorized a lot of Scriptures, but I didn't truly know God. I knew what I had been taught, and I believed the Bible. And I could see clearly enough what the truth was, but I hadn't internalized it yet. Mankind recognizes there's a void. He tries to fill it with all sorts of things. Everything imaginable with money, with pleasures, like Solomon wrote. Solomon himself tried those things, and the end result, as he said, was vanity.

It fails when you don't fill that void with what God intended for man. We're incomplete when all we have is this temporary, physical, chemical existence with that human spirit.

We know Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death, and we've all sinned, and therefore we die.

Turn to Romans 5, if you would. God gave us a way to become complete through His Son's death. A way to begin to progress toward His family, to be, as Christ was, about our Father's business. A way to true life. Romans 5, verse 1, says, Therefore, being justified by faith, and it is faith, we don't see God, we can't see Christ unless He manifests Himself to us, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In sin we have no peace, but through Christ we can't have that peace, by whom also we have access by faith into His grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And our hope is in the resurrection. Without that resurrection, the faith, and the belief, knowing that Christ was resurrected, there would be no hope. But we have that, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations. That's hard to glory in tribulations, but we have them. We're told we'll have them. Why? Knowing that tribulation works patience. We don't always have a choice in tribulation. You have to endure it. But after you go through it, you realize, yeah, you patiently can wait. And patience gives us experience. We can look back at the trials we've gone through. And realize that experience. My prayer always has been, please God, let this be my test and not my preparation for one. Because they always get worse. They're always from a different angle. But that experience gives us hope. Hope that we can finish, that we can make it. We can be part of God's family. Verse 5, that hope makes us not ashamed. We're not ashamed of who we are and what we believe. Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that He gave to us. That baptism allows us to understand. It doesn't make any difference what the world believes. Verse 8, God commends His love toward us that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. He died knowing there were no other way for us to come to God except through His death. And God had to give up His Son. Which is harder? Sometimes it's harder if you wonder if you look at God the Father giving up His Son or Christ who had to die. It's hard to say. They're both hard. I think one of the worst things I could do is to have to watch my children die before I did. Verse 9, much more than being justified by His blood, shall we be saved from the wrath through Him? He died for you. And of course, He wants to save you. You have to choose that. Verse 10, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. His death lets us forgive our sins through that death. But we're saved by His life. The fact that He was resurrected, the hope of the resurrection, is what we look at.

He set up a situation where we could win.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 2, if you would. Christ died for us. But how do we understand God? We have His Spirit, and He gives us that. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 6, if you turn over there.

He says, Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the princes of this world, that comes to nothing. All the princes, all the people, all the players in the past have died. Many of the leaders of the world that I met as a young man are dead. But what do we speak of in wisdom? Verse 7. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world to our glory. Very old plan that God laid out, which none of the princes of this world knew, for they had known that they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And it is written, Eyes not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. We can't really see it. We get glimpses of it. The feast gives us a shadow of it. A little grace can't see what's ahead for her right now. She'll begin to see it as she goes along. But how do we know the things of God? Verse 10. But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit. But the Spirit searches all things, just the deep things of God. We can see it through His Spirit like a virtual reality. In fact, it is the reality. What we have right now is kind of the virtual because we can die. And He continues, what man knows the things of a man, say the Spirit of man which is in him. Even so, the things of God knows no man but the Spirit of God. Christ had God's Spirit from the beginning. That's why He was able to challenge the teachers at 12 years old.

Verse 14, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. That's why so many people aren't here today, aren't studying and listening and hearing what you're hearing. For they're foolish to them. Yeah, why would you want to waste one day a week? You only got so much time. You better live life. That's foolishness to them. Neither can He know them because they're spiritually discerned. It's a gift God gave you. God gave you His Spirit to help you grow in your understanding of Him and His way of life. Christ had God's Spirit from conception. It entered when Mary was impregnated. He had more. We only begin with the human Spirit. We don't begin with God's Spirit. Although if your parents in the church have God's Spirit and God's Spirit is around your children, as it was with my parents when I was growing up, we learn those earthly things with the human Spirit.

And Christ learned the earthly things, but He also knew the heavenly things. We as children mimic our parents. It's always fun. My children, my son, when he'd get his little suit on at 2 and 3 and 4 years old, he'd want to put his suit and tie on, look like me. He thought that was kind of neat. We get pictures every day of our granddaughter. She's probably going to grow up to be a clothes horse because she's got a different outfit every day, if not two or three of them, and they're cute and we love to see them. Either that or she'll be so upset at being dressed all the time because she complains, apparently, that she may not want to change that often. Hard to know. But they mimic us until they begin to be influenced by the world, by others around them. They often distance themselves from the business that we as human fathers want for our children. And that's free choice that God gives. So all of us have that independence to choose God, for not. Christ had God's Spirit from the beginning and was able to astonish those scholars. He could learn God's things. They didn't have God's Spirit. They had the Scriptures, and they'd memorize that, but he had the understanding that astonished them.

As a child, again, I could memorize God's Word. I could learn about those things in a simple way. But the understanding with God's Spirit truly lets you understand the deep things of God. It allows you to be about your father's business, to answer those questions. Questions that you ask yourself and others, or maybe ask, as Jason Leveren talked about in the sermon at. So you can answer those things. Truly, you commit yourself to be about your father's business at baptism, to be able to accept the grace that God gives, the gift of eternal life, which is what the goal is. Little Grace is going to learn the culture of her parents through constant contact with them. We have to learn the culture of our spiritual parent through contact with him and with our older brother.

We have to have that contact through prayer, through meditation, through reading God's Word, through fasting. We must learn to act like God the Father. Jesus Christ acted exactly like His Father. He was the role model on earth. We see that in John 14.9. He was the personage that the prophets of old wrote about in their prophecies. It was going to become the Messiah, the role model of God the Father for the apostles to see and to follow. In John 14.9, Jesus said to them, He's talking to Philip. Philip asked a question. And show us the Father. The disciples, you think they figured it out after three years when they asked the question, be prepared. I'm sure he thought that was really great. I'm going to ask the question for all of us and show the Father. Of course, Christ, I'm sure He was embarrassed. Christ said, Have I been so long a time with you, Philip? I've been here so long. And you ask that question? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Why are you saying, show me the Father? Do we look like our Father in the way we act, the way we are? I'm sure Philip was embarrassed, but not any more embarrassed than Peter and the others that they asked questions to. Thomas doubted him. Different ones. And it's good. It's good they asked questions. They should. But at times, I often wonder how they kind of step back, like a dog with his tail between his legs when Christ answered their questions sometimes, because you should have seen this already. He was the role model God gave them, to learn about Him. And Jesus is the role model for us to read about, to believe, to follow in the same footsteps that He and the disciples walked, to be like God the Father. And it is a big job. A very big job. As the movie line puts it, it's not complicated. It's just difficult. And it's very difficult. It's hard. We know what we're supposed to do. We don't always do it. And in this society, it's even harder. In our nation, which was once called itself a Christian nation, which is rapidly becoming pagan and atheistic, it's very hard. Satan uses the pleasures of this world, the deceit of the world, the deceit of riches, to take people away. But if we want to be like our Father, to have His blessings, to understand Him, to receive His grace and all the different elements of it, we must look to His Word, to Him and to His Son. How did Christ act? Let's look at a few examples of how Christ acted. Obviously, the list could go on and on because He fulfilled all the fruits of the Spirit. Let's look at His first miracle in John 2. It's interesting.

In John 2, verse 1, that was the third day. It says, the marriage of Cain of Galilee and weddings lasted a while back then. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus was called with His disciples to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, they have no wine.

Now, it's interesting what Christ says back to her. Jesus said to her, woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come. Now, I've never called my mom woman. But I've called her mom and all sorts of other sweet things, but I guess it was acceptable then. But Christ, it was interesting because He still knew that she was His mother, and He honored His mother and His father, and so His mother says to the servants, whatever He says to you, do it. She kind of knew. Yeah, not your time, but my son is going to honor me. He'll take care of this. And He did. He took care of it. We read on that they filled six water pots with stone, several firkins each. These are big jugs of water. He tells them to go serve it to the head. Now, if you're the servant, I wonder if it was red wine or white wine because I hope it was red because if I'm carrying this up to the head guy and it turns out to be water, I'd be pretty embarrassed. But it wasn't. What does the head guy say? Verse 10, He says, Every man at the beginning sets forth the good wine, when men are well drunk, then that which is worse, but you kept the good wine till the end. So they'd run out of it. Now, I'd like to have tasted that wine. I've had some good wines, but I don't know what wine made by God tastes like. And it's easy to have friends, obviously, when you can turn water to wine.

It says this was the beginning of the miracles that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, then manifested His glory. And His disciples bleeder on Him. They saw it happen. They knew it was water. They saw it. But He showed respect to His mother and to all those, actually. Do we show that same respect to our parents, to our friends, to everyone? Another thing Christ had going for Him, because He obeyed God, the people, not talking about the leaders, but the people liked Him. Turn to Luke 13, if you would.

He broke the norms of the day. So you heard in the sermon, Ed, and he talked to sinners. So you shouldn't listen to Him, like Jason Lovern said. But, they were not the norms. And He broke them. If it wasn't against God's law, He broke them. And if it was done to glorify God, He broke them. Luke 13, chapter 13, verse 14, says, It says, Oh, how dare you do that! Of course, it's probably jealousy, because none of them could heal anybody, ever, let alone on the Sabbath day. And so that would embarrass them. And said to the people, this is what they said, Not on the Sabbath day. So he's trying to say, you know, he had six days he could heal these people. Why is he doing it today? I guess that's one of those statements that is a fallacy. I heard about. The Lord answered him and said, You hypocrite. I always liked him when he said, hypocrites. Somebody's really hypocritical. You can call him hypocrites. Be careful, though, because he was Christ. He really knew they were hypocrites. So be a little more careful, because you'll be judged by your words. So he says, Does not each of you on the Sabbath day lose his ox, and his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? We heard in the sermon that as well. Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan is bound, lo, these eighteen years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? Sabbath's a day of rest, rejuvenation. Look to God. When he said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. But all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him. People liked him. He was kind. He was compassionate. Turn to Mark 1, verse 41. There's so many places where he showed his compassion on people. I'm going to give three of them in Mark so you don't have to jump back and forth between the Gospels. Mark 1, 41 shows a leper coming to him. Son of David, touch me. Make me clean. Says Jesus, move with compassion. Verse 41. Move with compassion. He put forth his hand and touched him, and said to him, I will be thou clean. He touched the untouchable. A priest wouldn't touch a leper. He wouldn't be able to go to the temple. He wouldn't be able to do all those things he's supposed to do. All the waters, all the things, the service. I can't touch that leper. Christ touched him and healed him. Why? Because he had compassion. Turn over a few chapters, Mark 6, verse 34.

This one, he had all the people there and fed them. Jesus, verse 34, when he came out, saw many people and was moved with compassion. Why? Because they were sheep, it's not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

He wanted to comfort them and teach them. He was willing to feed them, to help them.

I was on a plane once, sitting next to a Catholic, going to Arizona. Her brother had died in an accident.

And she was a Catholic and afraid that her brother was going to hell because he had lived a rather riotous living. And I could tell she was crying, I asked her, what's wrong? And she told me the story. And I said, I said, don't worry about your brother. He's not going to hell. She said, that's not what the Bible teaches. So the Bible teaches the resurrection. It teaches a chance for everyone. I talked to her for about an hour. I got to explain the whole plan of God to her. I don't know what happened with it. She was comforted. I know that felt better than what the Catholic Church offered her, with the lifestyle he had done. Were we able to teach and comfort people with the things that we know? Once we've proven those truths that we heard in the sermon at, do we comfort people with them?

Mark chapter 8 verse 2. Christ said, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. They were hungry. Of course, He performed the miracle to feed them. Do we feed people? Do we help people? Every time I go to Africa, I see people that are hungry, starving. I wish I could heal them. I've seen people that were sick. I've seen lepers. And you wish you could heal them. You wish you had that power just to reach down in the faith that it would take. And God will have those miracles again, I'm sure. But to attract people now would be to attract them just for the health care, not for the reality of what God teaches. But Christ was compassionate. Do we have the same compassion in our hearts for one another? Christ was honest with people as well. Turn to Matthew 22. He was honest with people. He was honest with money. He was honest in everything that He did. Matthew 22, 15, He says, Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him with His talk. Again, they always were trying to question Christ. And they set out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know you are true. Yeah, they knew He was true. We know that you teach the way of God in truth. And we've heard you. It matches Scripture. And we know that you don't care for any man, that you don't regard the person of men. You're not a respecter of persons, which is what the Pentateuch teaches. You can't respect people. You can't respect people over others and show respect of persons. Are we known as that? That we don't respect people? If they're rich or poor or whatever? That we treat each one equally? Christ was honest. Straightforward. And then they asked the question to Him in verse 17, trying to trip Him, of course, because that's what they always tried to do. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Of course, Jesus saw what they were trying to do. He perceived their wickedness and He said, Why do you tempt Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the money. And they brought it. He said, Whose inscription is on it? And He gave them the answer. Caesar's. He said, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, to God the things that are God's.

They couldn't twist that anyway to make it what they wanted. They wanted Him to get touched up. You should worship Caesar. No, not Caesar, but God. You should do this. You should hold back your ties and fight Caesar. They wanted some answer like that, which is what they would have gotten. But they marveled at it because He was able to answer every question that they had with Godly reference.

Christ also had a proper anger when things were bad, when something had to be corrected. You know, love can be very strong. God manifests His love through strength many times. Society's misconception today is that love means tolerance, accepting of all lifestyles or anything. God wouldn't hurt anybody because that's just love. Well, that's not what love is. Love has to be tempered with law and judgment and mercy and faith.

Luke 19.45, the story that we're all familiar with, He went into the temple and cast out the money changers. He was upset. They were in the temple, a place where His Father was to be worshipped. And He was upset at what they were doing, buying and selling. And He said, it's written, my house is the house of prayer. You've made it a den of thieves.

And so with His zeal, He turned them over. Verse 37, He taught daily. The regular people liked hearing Him. He taught regularly in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy Him.

Again, you want to destroy the person. You heard that in the sermonette. Attack the person if you can't win the argument. Verse 48, they could not find what they might do. For all the people were very attentive to Him. They liked what He had to say, listening to Him. The message He had, Christ often had to correct the disciples. I would hate for Christ to tell me to get behind me, Satan. Peter heard that. That probably made Him bristle a little bit. Oh, yeah. And then the other two sons asked to call fire down from heaven because they won't take us in. So let's just consume them. Christ said, no, no, no. I came to save lives. Correction is hard. I've had to give correction at times to different people. It's hard to do. I don't enjoy it. The temporary pain. But you have to look at the long-term benefits. You have to say what the truth is. The change in character to be more like Christ and God the Father toward that ultimate reward of salvation. That's the reason God gives correction, is to put us on that path. You always hope that those receiving it are converted, that they'll take it, that they really want to be right. It's not always the case. It's not always the case. I've been dealt treacherously on several times by men who wanted power and position, who claimed to be brothers, who baited me in an attempt to discredit me or my testimony, which happens. This probably happened to some of you as well. It's happened to me a number of times. Mr. Armstrong, on one occasion, when it happened, called me in, and this is after he fired me and threw me out of the church. Then he wanted to talk to me, so we talked a bit. He said, you made two mistakes. I said, well, what were they? He said, one, you assumed they were your brothers.

And two, there were two of them and one of you.

So you couldn't back up anything you were saying.

But of course, we face those things often. If we're truly begotten children of God, would I do it again? Yeah, probably would. In that case, they used Matthew 18 to talk to me, and I told them I didn't want to talk, but we had made a... finally after they badgered me for several minutes, I agreed, okay, whatever we say stays right here. It doesn't go anywhere else, I'll tell you. And then they wrote up, right after they left my room, they wrote up an eight-page letter to Mr. Armstrong saying all sorts of things I didn't say. But that happens. It doesn't change how I believe. It doesn't change Matthew 18. It can teach you to be a little more wise in its use, perhaps.

But are you willing to be wronged? To obey God?

Christ knew they would not accept Him. He knew that early on, when He was talking with the scribes and the priests when He was 12 years old, He knew what He was talking about. He knew Isaiah 53, if you turn there. We'll be reading that more often in the next few weeks. Christ knew it was Him in Isaiah 53.

He knew in verse 3 that He would be despised and rejected of men.

He knew that He'd be a mount of sorrows acquainted with grief. He knew that we would hide from Him. And His own disciples ran off and left Him. After Peter said, we'll never desert you. And it says they all agreed with Peter. And they all did. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. He was born our griefs. He knew He'd have to bear those. He knew He'd carry our sorrows. He knew He'd be smitten and afflicted. Verse 5, He knew He'd be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. He knew He'd be crucified. And I'm sure during His lifetime there were probably other crucifixions that He saw. And knew what He would have to go through.

But He knew, verse 5, He'd be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was on Him. And with His stripes we're healed. He knew through that we'd be healed. Not only be able to have physical healing, but spiritual healing, be part of His family.

He knew those things. He knew He would have to suffer.

Are we willing to suffer? Verse 10 says it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Why? Because God sees the end results, the greater good.

He knew what would happen to Him. It shows the sacrifice that God made and that Jesus made as well, that His Son would give His life so we could have life.

Can you take the hurts? Many people can't. I've seen people act real spiritual and when the first trial or something comes along or the first time someone offends them, oh, this can't be God's church. I'm out of here. I worked for this position. Power, money, various things I've seen over my lifetime. You have to be able to take those hurts, whatever level they're at. We learn about God through the gift of death and through the hope of the resurrection to eternal life and His family. As human, God gives a husband and wife the ability to have children, to start a physical life. And we rejoice in that. But it's only physical life that we can give. But it does give us a type, in some ways, of the life that God's going to give us. What He sees is our gestation period physically. He watches us. He sees our growth. And when our spiritual development is complete, He's going to send His Son back to earth and we'll be born into His family.

Jesus knew all that. Indeed, God was Jesus' Father in the very conception physically, until when the Spirit came and He became the Son of God. And He grew until He was killed, dead in the grave for three days and three nights. And then, He was born back into God's family, His rebirth into the God family, because He had been there before. When we make a covenant with God of baptism, we say we want to be about our Father's business. If we truly repent, we accept Christ's sacrifice and have hands laid on us, we do receive God's Spirit. We've begotten to start our growth toward spiritual maturity. And hopefully, to the meat of God's Word, not just the milk, as Paul corrected Psalm, who weren't growing, the same Spirit that begot His Son, He sends it to us, gives it to us, so that we can grow in grace and knowledge. It's a journey, in many ways, not unlike little Grace's growth, to maturity, to where she could be born. Maturity is a baby, ready to be delivered. They had constant concern over her as she grew, and God looks at us through His Son, He tests us and tries us. He's concerned for us. Of course, analogies break down because little Grace didn't have any choice of what happened to her. God gives us choice, so all analogies break. But growth is needed. Growth for her to come out and growth for us. We realize with that begettle that we have to be about our Father's business, to begin our development, our internship, if you'd say, the work preparing to be in God's family, that birth. That birth will be instantaneous for us. I mean, crystals are pretty good for ten minutes, but hers was painful. This won't be painful. This will just happen in the moment of the twinkling of an eye, to be born into God's family.

Justice in Grace's birth, waiting, not knowing exactly when, me hoping it would come before I left. We don't know exactly when Christ is going to return. Only God the Father knows that. Little Grace developed properly with a family surrounding her, cheering her, loving her. Sadly, so many babies today aren't wanted. And through abortion, their life is stopped. That's Satan's Society of Choice. To try to stop life, to stop the chance for another human being to be part of God's family and understand God's plan. Sadly, Hebrews 6 shows that analogy can hold true for those who reject God. You can't abort. Hebrews 6, verse 4.

It shows people who were once enlightened, it says, It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the power of the world to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance. Seeing they crucified to themselves the Son of God anew and put Him to an open shame. There will be those, hopefully few, who do reject God, who choose to abort themselves. It's a choice that each of us has to make to stay and be like God our Father and not reject it.

I always pray for those who have left over the decades. I pray more for the ones who become bitter. I read on the Internet a lot of bitter stories. The Bible talks about the root of bitterness, and I'm afraid if you reject God's Spirit, that bitterness sets in. There are others who just kind of went through the church and went through a revolving door, came out, and they still act nice and friendly. My assumption and my hope is that they never had God's Spirit, that they'll come up in the second resurrection, and they'll have a chance at that time. Thankfully, God knows all things, and He and His Son are the ones that make the decision, not us, whether we're going to become a new creation in Christ or not. His choice. Turn to Ephesians 4.

Little Grace is a new creation by her parents. We're a new creation as well. Not yet spirit, but growing in grace and knowledge. Verse 22, he tells us to put off the old man, the former things, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts. Yeah, life in this world is full of those deceits. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Starch in your mind. All sin starts in your mind. Then it carries out. And you put on the new man, which is after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. We're to become perfect, like our Father is perfect. Tell us to put away lying. Verse 25, don't be angry. Verse 26, sin not. You can't be angry without sin. Make sure that's the case. Verse 27, don't give place to the devil. He wants to pry in. If you leave a crack, he'll pry it open.

Verse 28, don't steal. Labor. Righteously.

Verse 29, let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth. Sadly, there's way too much gossip and bad talk, especially in the world. I'm glad the election season over. All you heard was alternate news, which really was alternate lies by everybody most of the time.

But we don't want to do that. We want to be like God. Verse 31, let all bitterness, all wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you. All mouths, get rid of it. Take it out. What should you do? Verse 32, be kind to one another. Tender-hearted, like Christ was. Forgiving, as He forgives us.

Life is a gift. It's the greatest gift of all. And He desires that for us, that blessing. I love a God who gives us life and gives us that pattern so we can have children. We can experience those joys and learn about ourselves through that and recognize the joy He's going to have when we're born into His family. We can understand those blessings through our children. We can understand what His Spirit lets us see through a glass darkly, vaguely at times, through shadows. But each generation can teach the next one and make that a little more real, a little more easy to follow God in His way. We're each on that spiritual journey to be successfully placed in God's family. We value what God has called us to do. We must take each day to act like our older brother, to be about our Father's business. It's a daily chore every day. I've often asked myself, how often, God? The answer is every time, always. When He gave you His Spirit, you became His. You pledged in a covenant with Him to give up your desires and to take on His way of life and the godly things that He offers. Your desire must be to mimic God, to mimic our older brother, Jesus Christ. Like Christ said, not my will, but your will be done, right as He knew He was going to die. We don't like the pain and suffering, but it's for a greater cause. And you agreed to accept any sacrifice, any ridicule this world may offer. To be His child. Anything the world would give, you would still stand for God. Very few have done that. We have the good example, Shabbat Meshach and Abednego, Joseph, Daniel, others. So few, considering how many billions of people have lived. You have that chance to stand for God on a daily basis. In John 15, 20, Christ said, if they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. So you can expect that. Only God can give a spiritual life. He gave us the next best thing to understanding that through family, through us being able to give life to our children. To have a personal family and to grow that into a spiritual family, into our church here and beyond these borders. To other nations, even. Those who know and understand God. When you go to the feast, you see a common spirit. And it's special. It's a privilege to work with the ABC students, to pass on them the wisdom of God, to read it with them, to study it. I thank them for their commitment and effort. And the fact that they will carry it on beyond us, if time goes on that far. I don't think it will. I thank God setting up the dominoes right now for His son's return. I thank He set up President Obama to put us in debt and Donald Trump to give us a pride in our country, but without repentance. Which is scaring the whole world. I think those things are leading because they both were elected under very unusual circumstances. It's something you'd never, ever expect. God does things that way. But how long it is, we don't know. But it's closer. We need to get our spiritual lives in order to make that commitment. While the world is trying to destroy family, we have the opportunity to learn God's way by words and example. It's an uphill battle, yes, in this world. But the effort is immeasurable in value. But it says we can't really even imagine what God has in store for us. But men and women were created to understand God and the joy that He wants for us with, through the ability to give life, among other things. God's whole plan for us shows the totality of His grace. Everything He does for us is part of His grace, in a sense. We will either be perfect members of His family forever, or we'll be as if we never existed.

I know that if I were to turn on God, I wouldn't want a million or a billion years of happiness and then be the rest of eternity in misery. It's actually grace, but someone who will not accept that perfect peace to be able to die and be forgotten. That's another aspect of grace. Yes, Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death. We've all earned that. But it says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. When you are changed, in that moment of twinkling of eye, when you become a spirit being, shed these physical bodies that we have, you will know that God has tested you, that He has found you worthy of eternal life.

Truly, God gives grace in many different ways.