[David Holladay] I want to talk today about how to change a heart. How to change a heart. And this has to do, when we look at how we will rule in the Millennium, the style in which we will work with people. And I want to go through a topic today that we don't talk about that often. Now before I start, before I get into that, one of the things that is... I work in the computer industry myself. And one of the things that's come on the scene in recent years is the development of quantum computing. It's based on quantum mechanics. And quantum mechanics have to do with dealing with things down at the sub-particle or atomic level, when you look at atoms and protons and all types of different things.

And a quantum computer is based on the physics that are around quantum physics. And the idea is that...look, the quantum computer, it's a different type of a computer that we have these days. Basically, when you chill things down to almost absolute zero, which is minus 460 degrees, you can't quite get to minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit, but they get 459.67 degrees which is very close. But when you get down to that cold of a temperature, we find is that the particles behave differently, they actually start to slow down, and you can start to measure and look and see what's taking place.

So a quantum computer is based on this, minus 459 degrees is super cold. The coldest place on earth is about minus 128 degrees Fahrenheit, that's the coldest temperature ever measured on earth. So to create one of these computers, they have to cool things down, and with different chemicals and different processes to get this super chilled level. Now when you get down to this level, then they can start to look at the different atoms and things and how they behave. And they start to see just different physics. The things that you're used to seeing, how they work and how we normally see in the world around us, they start to change down at this level and at that temperature. Which gives us clues that there is so much actually we just don't know about things.

Now one of the things about these types of computers, quantum computers, and we're just at the start of them, we're nowhere near a place where we've got really super powerful quantum computers. In fact, when you look at the idea of the computers we have today, if you understand how they work – you either have an on or off, a zero or one, when you look at that, it's a binary – it's called a bit. In the world of quantum computing, you have these things that are called qubits, or quantum bits, which logically makes sense. But the idea of the quantum bit is totally different than the bits we know today.

The idea at the atomic level is that there's something called superposition. Where we have a zero or a one, in the quantum computer world or quantum physics, you can have… something can be in a state of zero or one simultaneously. Super hard to understand. You can be both zero and both one at the same time. Plus there's a lot of other characteristics as they interact with each other of how that you can get different combinations of things. Superposition, super interesting. Think about, like, if you were to take a penny and spin it on the table, and it's going so fast you can't really tell what it is. You'd see heads and tails go by or heads, tails, heads, tails. It's kind of like that. It's both heads and tails at the same time, until you actually stop and then observe what it is at that point in time.

But superposition is the idea... and it behaves differently than our normal zeros or ones. Now why this is interesting is that we are at the place where we have quantum computers that have roughly 20 qubits, which is nothing. 20 cubits. But the idea is that we're almost doubling those qubits every year. So we're at an infancy of quantum computing, but as it goes on, they think might be about 10 years or so before we start to get a super-powerful quantum computer.

And the idea is that these computers can process things differently. It's almost like you can put a set of questions into it, and it just answers it. Whereas computers that we have today have to go serially, they just go [sound effect] and they work through all the permutations of it. So for example, if you want to crack encryption, so eight-bit encryption, to crack that only takes a few hours for computers today. If you want to crack 256-bit encryption, so that's usually what you have on your login, that's what you have on your bank account and things like that. That would take you with our computers today with brute force attack, which means just put a whole bunch of them at it and let them go compute and try, it would take them millions of years to crack. When we get to quantum computing, you can feed all of that in, it could crack that within three seconds, if you want to think of it like that.

Now as these things get more and more powerful as we go, quantum computing and quantum computers as they double in size, one year you'll have a quantum computer that if you were to take all the computers on earth, and all of the matter of the earth – see, all the physical matter of all the trees, rocks, everything – and make computers out of it, it would still be slower than one quantum computer. Now take it a year or two after that as you double in speed, then take all of the physical things in the entire universe, all of the planets, all of every single piece and particle, and make that many computers that are like the ones we have today out of all of that, and give it all the time in the world through history in the past, all billions of years, it still couldn't solve a problem that a quantum computer could solve in less than one hour.

So it's a different class of computers that are going on, which is super interesting, and it's coming on the scenes right now. So why do I bring this up? Because when we start to look at this, we think the computers that we have and the phones and all the stuff we have are so powerful today, and they are versus years ago. But when you get down to it, what we're finding is even down at the sub-particle level, and if you look at space, space in a lot of places is that cold. And so the behavior of the universe and all the things we just don't understand that well, but what we do know it's super way more powerful than we ever thought. The ability to harness that and to make something like a quantum computer.

Now the reason I bring that up is that our God is the one who created all that. When we start to look at how powerful God is, we always compare to the things we know today, the physics we know today. But the physics that we don't quite understand, that are coming on the scene, are infinitely more powerful, but yet our God is the one who created those things. So our God is actually infinitely more powerful than we see coming like with quantum computing, quantum mechanics, and things like that.

And we're just scratching the surface. It's very interesting to think like, if you could feed and just kind of know an answer like with just in a few seconds versus computing it serially, our God is the one who created that stuff. And our God is the one who is actually infinitely or more powerful than that because He created those things to be like that. We still haven't even tapped in close to what God actually is, but we start to see that there is so much more power there than we've ever known in the universe that God made. Why do I even bring that up? Because with all of that power, with all of that ability that our God is, there is something He can't do, there is something that He cannot do.

And that something is He cannot force you to choose His way. With all of the infinite abilities and all the infinite computing power that God may have, He cannot make you choose. In fact, He doesn't want to make you choose, let me put it that way. Because God wants you to choose, He wants you to be the one who makes a choice to want to follow His way. That is, He is not looking for robots. He's not looking for us to just comply with things, but He actually wants you to choose His way. So He can't do that for you, in all the infinite abilities and powers He cannot do that type of thing for you.

Now when we look at... Did this just change? Okay, is it better? Okay, all right. When we look at the way that the world usually works, we read in Matthew 20:25, how do human beings handle this? “Jesus called to them and He said, ‘You know, that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.’” The idea of the way that human beings work is one of control. Human nature is one that wants to rule over. People want to have the glory, they want to be over things, they want to control others, they want people to comply.

That could be done in a number of ways. It could be done directly as a dictator would do, and it could be done through manipulation, it could be done through a number of ways, but people want to control others. This is the way of human beings. That is the way that it works. But if you look at that compliance, if you look at compliance, compliance doesn't require the person who's being controlled to agree with what you're saying. Like think about this: if you have a dictator over a group of people, you can make them fall in line, you can use fear, you can use, you know, whatever's been used through history, warfare, guns, and things like that to keep people in line. But it doesn't mean that they agree with you – they will comply with you.

Now you take away those external controls, those things that are forced on people in a group, and then the people that are underneath it maybe didn't agree, then they can go, and they go do their own thing. They go off and do something completely different. So just getting a group to comply is not the right answer. You can do that through control or through manipulation, charisma, whatever, but that is not what results in somebody wanting to choose the way.

So compliance is, you know, you think about this with any group, even a church group, you can get people to comply, but it has it actually helped change what they think inside? It hasn't necessarily. Because a changed heart is different. A changed heart means not just, “Hey, I've got, you know, something applied on the outside and all of a sudden, it's gone, and now I go do something different.” But it means that I have internalized. Those things are inside of me. You remove any controls that maybe from the outside, and I still have the same results. Because why? It's inside you, it's inside your heart. That's a different thing, you know.

It's like this when we bring up our kids, you know, we bring up our children. When they're young, there's a time for direct control. If you have a toddler who's one and a half running into the street, you say stop, because it's for their safety, or “Don't stick your finger in the socket,” or whatever it is. So you have a time for direct control. But as they grow up, you want them to be able to take what you're teaching and to believe it themselves. You want it to become part of them. Not just you keeping your fingers on top of it to make sure that they do it, but you want to talk with them as they get older. And it's less about control, and it becomes more about them internalizing. And then they get this independence where it's part of them.

That's what it's like bringing up our children. You go from direct control, teaching, internalizing, and independence, to where they actually get it. Now, you see this, too, with, you know, sometimes people who might just put only external controls and compliance on the outside, and somebody grows up with just that, then they run off to college or something, and none of that's there anymore, and all of a sudden, they go nuts, right? The idea is that as you bring people up, in children, it's the same thing – you want them to be able to learn it, to teach it, to know it, to want it. When they do, they get it. That requires mistakes, that requires things, and learning, and a lot of talking. It's a different way to do things, but you're looking for them to change the heart.

The reason I'm bringing this up is how will you, or how do you think that you will rule in the Kingdom or in the world tomorrow? And you imagine, you know, going to God at as some point and saying, "Hey, God," you come visit Him and say, "Thank you so much for those 10 cities you gave me, really appreciate them. It's good. But you know, I don't really think you understand, like they're just so difficult. You remember like ancient Israel how they were with you?" And God's like, "Okay, so, you know, what happened?" And you're like, "I don't know, but there's like a bunch of burning cities over there right now." [laughter]

You know, the whole idea that we're just going to, if people make mistakes, just rain fire down on them and destroy them is not the way that we're going to rule. You're not going to go asking for God for 10 more cities because you burned down the other ones that you had. You know, it's not going to work like that. So the question of this sermon is how do you change a heart then? How do you work with people so that you can actually help change their... them to want and then to change their heart? How does that even work?

It's an important question because as you bring people up... You know, at the beginning of the Millennium, there will be a time for direct control to say, “Hey, you're not going to kill people. We're going to stop war. We're going to start keeping the Sabbath.” You know, you're going to teach people. There's going to be this initial, like this is what the new world looks like here, but you can't just force people to do that. So how do you work with people over the Millennium over that time period, to where they want to change, they want to choose, they want to go your way?

This is an important question because this is how God works with you, and we have to work with other people the exact same way. So let's go through some of the basics of how this works, and let's talk about one aspect of this. First of all, when we look at this, one of the basic principles that we have in place that God gave to humankind is He gave them a set of laws. He gave them His commandments and laws, He also gave them penalties and rewards for keeping those. And He gave mankind a choice. He gave them a choice to be able to choose to go His way or not.

From the foundation of the world, God knew it was going to be this way. From before He created the earth, He knew He had to give man a choice, the ability to choose. And He made him physical, so that if he chose forever to not want to and to completely reject the way, then they would be mercifully put out of their misery, or they would die forever. And this is the argument that was in the Garden of Eden, where God told them that, "You shall surely die." And Satan said, "You're not going to die," using double-speak, that yeah, you can eat this, you're still going to live physically. But He's talking about on a path to death, eternal death.

And so God gave these laws, penalties, and rewards, and a choice. And this is kind of where ancient Israel was, that they were given this, and they failed miserably at it. They chose to continually complain, they chose the wrong way to go. But everything He has set up in this earth, and on this world, in the whole solar system, in all things you see, is for you to have an environment to be able to understand His ways and to make a choice. But that's not where we stop though. We have to add to that.

Because God in the New Testament, on Pentecost, gave His Holy Spirit, a Spirit that would understand His laws, the intent, and the meaning, and would be something that would give the strength to that person to be able to choose. Now that's not automatic, God's Spirit is not an automatic thing. Once you get it, you never, you know, stop choosing. You always choose, but it's something that wants and loves His laws and is in the heart. But that's not where it stops, too, because the final layer is that God wants to build a relationship with you.

This is the thing that He is doing, is building a relationship. It's not just laws. We talk about law all the time, that's a part of it. Not just penalties, not just choice, not just God's Spirit, but God is looking to build a relationship with you. This is His goal, is He wants to build a one-on-one relationship just with you, something that is very personal, something that is in-built on certain things, in a certain way. And we see this written throughout the Bible in different types of scriptures, in different words. Here's one, John 14:23, says, "Jesus answered and said to them, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and We will make Our home with him.'"

Make Our home, that's a very personal statement. It's not a "Hey, if you do My bidding, you can be My robot." It's "You keep My laws, you do these things, We want you to be the family, We want to be a home, We want to be together, We want to come dwell with." And He says in other places, you know, "I'll be your God, you'll be My people." There's all these intimate statements throughout the Bible where God is looking to build a relationship with you. This is what He is doing. It's not just looking for compliance. He's not looking for the robot, He's not just looking for, you know, "Hey, you stepped out of line, I'm going to zap you."

He is looking that, yes, we love those things, we keep those things, but He's looking to build that relationship with you and I. That relationship is the thing that He is doing, and we see this in the Bible. Now there's a lot of ways He builds a relationship. There are different pieces and elements to it. I want to cover one of the main ways that He does that, and that is the fundamental, underlying way, thought, actions, of how He builds that relationship with you. How does He do that? The way that I want to talk about today is the idea of grace and mercy, how He builds a relationship with you based on grace and mercy.

Now, grace is this word that we don't talk about at all, hardly ever. It's gotten a bad rep because of how it's been used previously in church and churches in the world. That grace is seen as something that's very weak, it's very anti-law, it's very, you know, not obeying God. It's a whole squishy, mushy kind of stuff. But it's super important to discuss this because this is a fundamental way that He interacts with you and I. If you don't talk about grace or understand it, you're going to be missing out on how He's building a relationship with you. And that's why it's important for us to talk about this.

So let's go through the idea of what grace is in context to building a relationship with you and I. Starting with Romans 3, verse 23. Romans 3, verse 23, we find out what the definition of grace really is all about, or part of the definition, let me say. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." So grace has to do with when we sin, or we fall short of what God expects in His way, in His life, in His laws, then we can go and ask for forgiveness, and we can be justified freely with that.

It is forgiveness that we get for free. As in when I say free, you're not earning it, it is from the... as it says here, from Christ's death. There was a big price for it that was paid, and that is the death of Christ. But He freely will forgive us as we repent, so it is a freely-given thing, and it has to do with when we sin. So the first part of this is the idea of grace is by definition... this is one of the places, I won't read a bunch, but you can read them in different places. It's just being freely forgiven. You are justified in being freely forgiven of your sins.

Now, when we look at grace, Romans 6, verse 15 adds more to this, because there is an outcome that grace should produce in us. There is something that it should do with us. And this is what Romans 6:15 says, this says, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not! (verse 22) But now having been set free from sin, have become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life."

So what we see is that grace is given, not just for us to keep on sinning. Shall we keep sinning just because we can go ask for it? It says, no, you're set free from all of that, but you have fruit now. It's supposed to produce something in us. So God gives us something freely without cost to us, not without cost to Christ and the death of Him, but gives it to us so that we may bear fruit, that we bear good fruit that's in holiness, and then eventually, eternal life because we have repented. So when we look at grace, grace gives us victory, gives us victory over something. Grace gives us victory over something. What is that something?

If we look at what the world says, and this is why it has a bad rep, the world would tell you that grace triumphs or gives victory over the law. Now, the law has done away with, so therefore grace we're under now, we're not under the law. And that's not what the Scripture says by the way, but if we look at that, this is a very fallacious argument. Grace does not triumph over the law. Now, if you think about this, it doesn't even make sense. You cannot have grace unless you have the law.

So how many of you have ever driven before? All right, I'm just trying to see if you're awake. All right. When you're driving down the road you have a stop sign, right, a speed... sorry, not a stop sign, a speed limit sign. That speed limit sign is a basic law, right? Think of this... that would be like the law of God. God gives you a set of parameters to say, “Hey, you know, don't go this fast. Don't go this slow.” So speed limit sign is like the law.

Now grace would be, if you break that law and a police officer comes up to you, you know, roll down your window, and says, "Hey, do you know you were speeding?" And you say, "Yes, I saw the sign, I take responsibility. I was daydreaming, and sorry, I went 75." He goes, "Okay, please slow down and I will let you off this time." That's what grace is. Now you can't have grace, you can't have that forgiveness, unless you have a law to start with to break. You have to have a law that's in place for there to be somebody to go, "Hey, you violated something, but I can freely forgive you."

The world says that that law was done away with. So this would be like driving down the road, you get pulled over, there's no speed limit signs. You get pulled over, and the policeman comes up and he says, "Hey, you know, I just kind of feel like you were driving not great." And you're like, “Sorry,” and you kind of have an attitude, and, “Well, I'm going to give you a ticket.” And you go, you know, you were driving some amount of miles an hour, it's a nebulous mess. You can't have somebody give forgiveness unless you have something that you can break.

And so the law is very much like the speed limit, it's like that speed limit sign that you have. Grace is violating it, admitting you violated it, and you get forgiveness for that freely, a police officer let you off. Therefore, you have to have law and grace. You can't have grace without having a law. So it's a fallacious argument that the world puts out there that the law is done away with. Logically, it doesn't even make sense. So why are we given grace? What's the purpose of God showing grace to us? What is the purpose of it? It's found here in Romans 5, verse 20.

Romans 5:20, it says, "Moreover, the law entered that offenses may abound," just saying it defines offenses. When the law came in, it defined what was wrong. "But where sin abounded,” where there was sin, “grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is the purpose of grace. God wants to give us a tool, something that is more powerful than the sin that can bind and trap and keep us. He wants to give us something that can help us come out of sin. Not to stay in it, but He wants to give us, like it says, "Where sin abounded, grace is even more powerful." It's a more powerful tool than sin.

The reason for this is that sin can trap people. It can keep them, it can grab them, it can grip them, it can keep them in a place, or somebody might repeat over and over and over. And God is saying, “I'm going to give you a tool that's more powerful than that sin that might grip you,” so that you can what? Come out of it, not stay in it as we read before, but that you can overcome that. It may take you time, it may take you a lot of work, it may take you making mistakes. But God says that “I want to give you a tool that's more powerful than the sin that can grip you, that can keep you.” Just as sin is going to make you reign to death, grace is meant to help us get to a place where we come out of sin so that we can live.

It's a tool that God gives us so that we can live. So if we answer the question we asked before, what does grace triumph over? Grace triumphs over sin. Grace is given to us and to you, so that we may have and win the battle with sin in our lifetimes, that we may come out of sin. That's what it's given for, that forgiveness and those things. Now this is a very interesting scripture in Romans 2 and verse 4. Do you realize that God is leading you to repentance where you see it, where you understand it, and you see the negative effects, you see all it is in your life. And that He wants to lead you to the place that you would want to put that away?

Romans 2:4 says this. It says, "Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance." The goodness of God is the thing that produces a change in us, to where we desire, we see it, we understand it, we feel it, and we know, “Man, I don't want that, I want this.” That's what God does and how He works with us. That's how He gets us to repent, not just “you did something wrong,” smash, “you did something wrong,” smash, “did something wrong,” smash.

It's saying He's bearing long with you, long-suffering, because after a certain period of time, you should recognize that goodness. You should feel that from God, going, “You know what? I don't deserve any of this. I don't deserve this, but God is very patient with me. God has given me so many chances, and, man, you know what? I see that and I want to respond to that.” That's what grace is there for. Grace is not there for someone who wants to just keep doing the same things, living whatever life they want to live, or someone wants to be free of God's law.

Grace is given so that we can come out of sin, or a bad background, or you feel trapped, or you have a lot of harshness in your life. Do you not know what it's like or have experienced love in a certain way? A lot of people don't, a lot of people come from very bad backgrounds. You know, grace is given so that we may start to feel, not to destroy ourselves, but start to feel what God does that is good, so that you can know that love. You can feel and experience that love. You can know it from in a real sense that, “Okay, I made a mistake. Okay, I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to go. I made a mistake, I'm going to get up and go.” And you start to feel that God is for you. This is what it is.

God is saying, “I'm for you.” He's not excusing your sin and saying you don't need sin, you don’t need law. He's saying, “Look, I want you to succeed. I want you to be there. I'm going to help you. I'm going to give you every chance I can so that you can be there.” That's what grace is for. And so we read Romans 6, verse 1. Romans 6:1 says, "What shall I say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Certainly not!” It's not given to just continue in sin, “but how long, or how shall we who die to sin live any longer in it? Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it and its lust. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law but under grace."

Again, when you see this mentioned, the context of grace in the Bible, never... and we'll come back to this in a second. It's never about is there a law or not a law, just grace. It's about dealing with sin. God has given this to us so that we can deal with sin, so it doesn't have dominion over you. What's dominion? Dominion is you're a slave, you're dominated, you're controlled by. That's what dominion over you is. When it says sin has dominion over, that's like an addiction. That's like being trapped. That's like repeating. That's like, “Man, God must, you know, since I keep doing this, must hate me,” and then you self-destruct, and then you go away.

All of those things are sin having dominion over you, and God gives us a tool to say like, “Look, I'm going to be there for you, so that this does not have a grip on you. That you can come out of this, that you can overcome this.” So grace is given for us to be able to come out of that. It's given to us so that God is on your side, that God is for you, that He wants to see you succeed.

So the first part of the definition of grace is undeserved forgiveness. We don't deserve it. We've heard this definition before, undeserved forgiveness, that we're freely given it if we repent of it. So that's the definition of grace, but that's only half of the definition of grace. There's more to it as well.

When we look at Luke 1, verse 29, we find grace used in a different context too. Luke 1:29, this is talking about Mary, says, "But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel says to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'"

We look at the word favor, it's the same word charis. A lot of times it's translated “grace,” translated “thanks,” or “thank,” or other ways. But it's also translated “favor” in a lot of different times in the Bible. Favor, what kind of favor? We look at this, the way she talks. She says, Mary said, in verse 46, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant, for behold henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and His mercy," in verse 50, "is on those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He sent away empty."

This is a description of grace, too. Grace is also, not just God forgiving, but grace is also God giving favor, giving you good things, giving you mercy, giving you things you don't like... If you read the way that she describes this, this is how we should think about it, too. She's always talking about how God's doing good things for her. That she is in a lowly state, but God is giving her many, many blessings, many good things and exalting those, giving mercy, giving a lot of other things, too.

And this is something that could be sometimes hard to see, or maybe we should start to think about and start to notice it, is that God also not only just gives us forgiveness, but God gives us favor, things we don't deserve. Have you ever done something wrong and God gives you a blessing? You know why? Because God's just that way. That's how He works. It's not just all the time, the things you do and don't do. There are many times that God gives you a promotion, a job, a blessing, or things like that that you don't necessarily deserve. Not just because you did something, but it's because God is just giving you favor.

And so we find the other half of the definition of grace is undeserved favor. Not only undeserved forgiveness – that's one half of the coin – but there's undeserved favor. And I say “undeserved” on purpose, because it's super important for us to understand this. A lot of times when we think about the things that we have in life, we always equate them for the things that we do. “Hey, you know, I probably did really good this week. I was praying, and I did this, and I did these other things. You know, God's probably giving me a reward for those type of things.” But you know what, God just does good things for us many times, and He does this on purpose. He gives us things that we don't deserve.

And it's important for us to start to recognize that, to look at God and what He is doing for you, not just what you and you think you're earning, or you think you're getting because of what you do. It's not always how it is. This is how God is. Luke 6:35, He tells us, for us to “love our enemies, to do good, to lend hoping for nothing, and your reward will be great. You will be the sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil."

Why is He kind to the unthankful and evil? You know why? Because that's just the way God is. God is someone who is kind. Of course, He deals with sin and sinners in a period of time, but you know what? God is just a kind God, and this is how He works with humans. He wants to be kind. He wants to show the kindness to people, so that why? He can reach them. They can see what type of a God He is. It says, "Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." We have to be just like that. If somebody despises you or spites you, it's not just retaliating, right? It's be kind, be merciful, be forgiving. This is the way that God works with us.

God is just this way. It's more important for us to recognize how God is than for us to point ourselves and go, “Man, you know, probably, you know, I deserved it. I probably did something good.” This scripture in Jonah is great. I love this. Jonah 4, verse 1. Jonah is mad at God. Jonah has an attitude. He's very upset with God. Why? Why is he upset with God? Because the society in Nineveh back then was really evil. They were bad. God sent him to preach to them, and then what happened was is they relented, or they repented and turned, and God was merciful.

And then Jonah 4:1 is where we break into this. It says, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. And so he prayed to the Lord and he said, ‘O Lord, was it not this, what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish for I know that you are...’" Here's why he's mad at God. "God, I knew it, I knew it. I know You're a gracious and a merciful God. You're slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live."

This is hilarious. Jonah is mad at God for being merciful. He's like, "Kill me now,” you know? “I knew You're slow to anger, I know You're merciful, and You relented from doing harm, and You're loving." This is why Jonah is mad at God. So Jonah was a little bent out of shape. He needed a nap and all the other things, right? But it's funny, this is what Jonah recognized – this is how God works. Nineveh, man, even the slightest inkling of “let's change”? He says, “Look, I'm going to give them a chance.” Of an evil society! That was an evil society.

That's how God works. He wants people to change. So when you think about us, and you, how much more... Not how much more, that's just how God is and how He works with you. He wants you to change. He wants to see that. He wants to give you every chance He can give. That's the way He operates with you. So if we ignore the topic of grace, we ignore the fundamental way that God is interacting with you and I.

So to complete the definition, more accurately, is these two things together: grace is really undeserved forgiveness and undeserved favor. Both of those things together, undeserved forgiveness and undeserved favor. The favor part is a little bit hard I think sometimes for us to get or to understand. And this is a parable that speaks to this. Luke 18, verse 9. Luke 18, verse 9. Luke 18:9 says, “He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and they despised others.” That's the setup and the context here. Because they believed in themselves, they believed. And the idea when we ever see the word grace mentioned in the Bible, it's always contrasted with, or mentioned with the topic of justification.

A little bit hard to understand sometimes, we think, but justification is – think of it simply like this. I'm going to oversimplify it just for the sake of this conversation, is how do you justify yourself to stand before God? If you were to appear before God, how would you justify you should be there? How would you give Him a reason why you should be there, right? Justification, that's your justifying to be in front of God a certain way. There's two ways you can do it.

They're described here, verse 10. “Two men went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The first, he stood and prayed thus with himself: ‘God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, like extortioners, the unjust, adulterers, even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tithe of all that I possess.’" How is this person justifying why they should be in front of God? It was based on all the things that they did, right? They trusted in their own righteousness. Even though these are good things, this is not the righteousness of God. This is their own righteousness. And they're saying, “I did this. I deserved to be here. I'm not like that sinner over there.”

And you'll notice, those who don't understand grace or don't live by it will condemn other people very quickly because they don't get why they're standing in front of God. They think it's because of how great they are. It's not. You can never stand in front of God because of how great you are. Ever. You can't. And so the other contrasting thing is here, verse 13. “The tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’" Why could he stand before God? He knew he was a sinner. He relied on the sacrifice of Christ, and the forgiveness there is the only reason. The only reason he can stand before God is because of the sacrifice of Christ, forgiving his sins, and he recognized he was a sinner.

When we pray, when we think about it, this is two contrasting mentalities that are here. And verse 14 says, "I tell you that man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he that humbles himself will be exalted." That's always the topic with grace is justification. How do you stand before God? You never say, “It's what I did.” So when we look at undeserved forgiveness, I think we can get that. Undeserved favor, though? That one's a little bit harder. A lot of times we want to hang our hat and talk about the person who, “Hey, I fasted twice a week, and I gave tithes. I did this; therefore I'm getting these things.”

Undeserved favor – we need to focus more on what God is giving you and how He's interacting with you and giving you these good things, and thank Him for it. We should always say, “I'm a sinner. I know who I am: I'm a sinner. I sin, and I am thankful to You that You give me favor despite that. Thank You for all these good things.” The more you start to recognize that, the more your relationship will change. Not, “Hey, I fasted twice a week. I tithed this week. I did so good,” you know, “and therefore God has given me all these things.” God gives us favor. He gave Nineveh favor. He gave them forgiveness. They were an evil society. But God does this even much more with us, so the attitude is super important.

Now, another important thing here to talk about is Christ as our High Priest and how He interacts with us, and you. So we have God the Father who builds a relationship based on grace and mercy with us. Christ as our High Priest acts a certain way for us, or to us. Hebrews 2, Hebrews 2:17 talks about how He's our High Priest. "He makes propitiation for the sins of the people." In verse 25, it says, "Therefore He's also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

Christ as the High Priest does something for you, that is to make intercession. The idea is that He is there pleading for you, on your behalf, so that you can make it. He wants to intervene, make intercession, you know, “Hey, let's give this guy a chance, let's do this, let's...” et cetera, and Somebody who's on your side. Now, this hit home to me once. I was in court, just observing from the back. You know, sometimes you go to court just go... I like to show up and see how... Okay, I got a speeding ticket, all right? [laughter] I got a speeding ticket a while ago and I wanted to go to court and see if I can get it off my record.

So I went to court, and it was a fascinating experience for me though because there was this judge there that was super interesting and helped me understand that scripture we just read. Because this judge would talk to people, each person would get up. I think I went last, and there was, you know, 15 people ahead of me. And I got to hear every single one of them, what they said and didn't say. It was great because, you know, sometimes people would get up there and they would go, hey, you know... Judge would go, "Hey, do you know you were, you know, speeding or violated this?" They go, "Yes, I totally do, I'm sorry. You know, I own it, I was over, I'll try not to do it again." They go, okay, and the judge would go something like... He would be more lenient.

He would say, "Okay, well, you know what? Don't let it happen again, but maybe if you just do this one thing,” go do this class or one thing, “I will remove it off your record." And the person would go, "Thank you so much," and they would go away. He heard what the person was saying, and he worked with that person, and he responded accordingly.

Then other people would get up there. You know, they would come up on this attitude like, “Man, a man sticking it to me, and the police officer…” He would rain down on them. You know why? Because they didn't get it. They weren't owning it. And so as I went through this entire day, it was fascinating to see that those he could see where they are, he would work with them and say, "Yeah, no, all right, we got it. I know you're getting it and I will let you off." Other people... So when I got up there, of course, I knew what to say right. Well, I got up there, I said, "Yeah, the police officer, they're down..." I was in jail for two days after that. [laugher] I didn't do that. [laughter]

He's very merciful. But the thing it taught me, though, is this interesting way that he worked with people. And it gave me more insight to understand, “Oh, we have a High Priest who's interceding for you.” It's the same type of thing. Somebody working with how you are and where you are with the attitude. So the more we understand this concept, the more we talk to God about, “Hey, I understand You're working with me like this. I very much appreciate it, and I'm trying, and I'm working on this, I'm going this way,” the more He's interceding for you. It's to help you get to the place. The judge wasn't like, “Hey, yeah, everybody free reign. Just go speed.” He worked with where you're at, knowing you violated the law, and where your attitude was to make you succeed. He wanted to see them do well.

It was a fascinating day to go through that and to see that happen. So how does this result? All of this result in a changed heart. Because we're discussing this because this actually gets to the root of changing and helping somebody's heart change from the inside out. Luke 7:36, this is a parable... Not a parable, this is a story when Christ went to eat with one of the Pharisees. He asked them in verse 36 to eat with them, "And He went to the Pharisee's house, and He sat down to eat. And behold a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil. And she stood at his feet behind Him weeping, and she began to wash his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. And she kissed his feet and she anointed them with the fragrant oil."

And verse 39, "Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself. He said, ‘This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who's touching Him, for she's a sinner.’" And Jesus picked up on this. So why did he respond like that? How was he justifying himself? Remember, it goes back to the justifying. How do you justify yourself to stand before God? Do you say all the things that you do righteously, or is it “I'm a sinner?” Which one did he say?

He didn't say it out loud, but you know the religious leaders of the day were all about the show and justifying themselves and how righteous they were. And guess what, that scripture that we read before says, "They will look down on other people." It's exactly what he's doing. There is a one-to-one correlation with how quick we are to jump on somebody and judge them with how righteous we think we are. I'm not saying we don't keep the law, I'm saying how righteous we think we are versus how much God is doing for you. And that's what happened here. He said, “Look, this woman is a sinner. I can't believe He'd even touch her. She should be over there.”

Christ was like, “Look, I know she's a sinner, and they need a doctor. They need help. They need to come out of the sin.” There's a totally different way that Christ treated people than the religious leaders, who were righteous in themselves, treated people, totally different way. Christ went on to say to him, "’There was a certain creditor," in verse 41, "who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me which of them will love him more?’ Simon said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ And He said, ‘You've judged rightly,’ and He turned to the woman. He said,” you know, “’see this woman. I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she's washed my feet in her tears and wiped them with the head of her hair. You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet,’" you know, et cetera, et cetera.

In verse 47 He says, "Therefore I say to you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." Is that saying, hey, you know, if you have a big sin, that's the only people that can love God, right? No, it's actually saying that the other dude didn't recognize that he needed forgiveness, even though it might seem like a small sin. One person knew they were a sinner and admitted it. The other person, even though it was this big, didn't even consider that they were a sinner. He says there is a creditor who had two debtors – they both owed. They had nothing to repay, neither of them. The one guy didn't even recognize that he could do nothing and rely on the grace of God, didn't even recognize it. He thought it was his own.

So that's what it's saying here. If you start to recognize this, this is how it works. God shows you grace. It's like a turn of the crank. God shows you grace, you don't see it, you don't think about it, you don't recognize it. Then you, in turn, go find fault outwardly in everybody else, in anything else, and you're very hard on other people. If God shows you grace and you recognize it, then what do you do? You end up going, “Man, I didn't deserve that. This person just violated me. I'm going to forgive them.” You show it to others. This is actually how God starts to work on us and change our heart.

You see that woman's heart was changed. She recognized she didn't deserve that. She got grace given by God, undeserved favor. You'll notice that in every single case Christ dealt with, He dealt with the sin – never excused the sin, never said there is no sin, never said there is no law. He always dealt with the sin. But the way He worked with the people, and based on how they responded to Him, was with graciousness, with grace and kindness and mercy. With the Pharisees who wouldn't see it, He came down hard on them, right? It's a super interesting thing to see where Christ came down hard, and it was those who did not understand.

So why are we given this? Quite frankly, He wants you just to succeed. You know, think about this. God is on your side, wants you to be there. He wants to give you every chance – He's not excusing your sins – He wants to give you every chance to succeed. He wants to be the judge who intercedes for you. He wants to be the person, He wants to give you every chance to feel what it is to be loved, forgiven, to get favor, to get things you don't deserve. And not for us to sit there and go like, “Man, I'm such a great person,” but to go like, “Wow, I don't deserve any of that.” As soon as you realize you don't deserve the forgiveness and you don't deserve the favor, you start to realize what God is doing with you. It's the relationship He's building and that's how He builds it with us, with the fundamentals of being gracious to us.

How do trials fit in here? Let me cover this just for a couple minutes as we're going to wrap this up. Trials don't make sense in this context sometimes when we think about this. “Oh, God is,” you know, “very good to me, et cetera. But wait, I just have this really, really hard trial in my life, or this hard time, or man, this is really difficult.” How do we rectify those things together?

Romans 5, I'll only read this one scripture. Because grace and trials are mentioned together. “Therefore having been justified by,” what? “faith,” again justification, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that but we also glory in tribulations.” What? “Knowing that tribulations produce perseverance,” and other things. We glory in tribulations. This is where grace and tribulations are actually mentioned right in the same context. At first, it doesn't seem like they go together. But you know what? The tribulations, and that push, and that trials that we have in life are the things that help us to grow.

If you had never had any hardship in your life, you wouldn't end up growing. It's through those hardships in those times that we grow. It's through those things that we are forced to see. You know, if you're only in a comfort zone your whole life, you never go anywhere. And a trial is something we should glory in, it says here. If you ever read the book of Job, we always read it in a certain context, but I would challenge you to look at it in a different way all of a sudden. Because the book of Job is one that shows God's grace, start to finish. Think about all the things that we've talked about. We always think about it as, hey, Job is self-righteous, blah, blah, blah.

It's not even true because God said, nope, he was a righteous man. But you see the pattern of grace through the book of Job, right? Great favor. Did Job have great favor? He had flocks and land and family. He had a hedge set about him. That's describing how God worked with this man. And he had a big trial. This was a spiritual gift that brought him to a place where he said, "Look, I heard of you by the hearing in the ear, but now I see you." He had forgiveness in there.

Also grace – Job had to show grace to other people, didn't he? Remember his friends sinned against him. God didn't give him everything back until he showed grace. He forgave and prayed for his friends, and God restored everything back to him. And then He gave him even more favor than before. Can you see how that works? The book of Job is actually a really interesting book about grace and how God works with us, and how a trial fits into that. It's not just about how somebody did something wrong. Favor. Forgiveness. Bringing somebody to a different place spiritually and helping them grow. Job extending it to other people. God restoring everything to him. He saw the pattern there, and this is how God worked with Job. What changed with Job? His heart, yes? His heart. He's like, “I've been doing these things but, man, now I really... I see you. I can see you now.” You can see how God worked with somebody to actually bring them and change their heart.

You know, one other way to think about a trial, Higgs boson part... Who’s heard of Higgs boson particles? A few people. Also known as the God Particle. You know, a Higgs boson particle is something that we didn't even know existed. And the reason we didn’t know it existed is, well, we thought it did. Why? Because if you do a mathematical equation, there was something missing, this plus this plus this does not equal this.

Here's a number, or something that's missing here. So we have to guess that it would be this number to equal this. This whole equation was incomplete. So scientists looked at it and then go like, "Ah, we're missing." So they theorized this is what it might be, there might be a particle there. So the way that they tested this is they do the Large Hadron Collider which sends atoms around in a big circle, collides them together. And as they collide, this would be like a visual representation of them colliding and things shooting off.

So these big particle accelerators do that, and what they did is they kept colliding these protons over and over and over until it spat this out. Now what came out of it is they did find in theory – what they theorized should come out finally came out. So that's how they discovered the God Particle. It's kind of like black box testing. Why I'm bringing this up is it's like you don't know what's in there. You think there's something in there, so you shoot things in and you, “Oh, look what came out the other side. It might be this inside.”

You know, a trial, in the way that God works with us, is very much that same way, that He's looking to see what's in your heart, right? He thinks He knows. He says, “I think this person is there.” And sometimes we get a trial, He'll shoot us through a trial, and see what comes out the other end. It's like that black box. It's like shooting the particles together and seeing what pops out. “Oh, well, we found it.” Same with us. In your life, “Hey, I think this is what they're going to respond like. I think this is what's in the person's heart,” and He'll test us.

There's a difference between trying to make somebody trip up and trying to test somebody to see what really is in there. God does that test to see what's in there. That's what He does. He doesn't do it to trip us up or to punish us. He wants to see what's inside your heart. It's like that black box – shoots something in, what's coming out the other side? Oh, guess what? And He refines us that way. So it's like the particle accelerators. It’s like guessing what's inside there. It's like thinking there's a God Particle, and then testing it over and over and over until you see it. It's exactly what God does for us when we go through these trials and things, and then He finally eventually sees it.

So coming back full circle to finish this up: how will you rule? How will you rule in the world tomorrow? You know, the world is going to have gone through some devastating things. It's going to need a lot of healing. Yes, no more wars; yes, don't beat up person up; yes, stop all those types of behaviors. That's going to be there. But how are you going to work with people to heal them, to bring them to a place where they want to choose? You're not going to do it differently than God does it with you. You're going to do the same thing that He's done with you your whole life. And this is what we have to recognize.

You know, when we get to the Millennium, people are going to say things like this. Micah 4:2 says, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. He shall teach us." You know what, that's a statement of, “Man, I want to go there! I want to be there. I want that. Go! Let's go.” That is not, “Hey, I’ve got to go there again and get beaten over the head.” You know, it's very much like, “I'm going to be taught, and this is a way of life that's refreshing. I love it. I want to know it.” That's because it's based on a relationship of something where it changes a person's heart. It gives them something they want, they love, they feel, they know, they want to move towards. That's why. So people will say this willingly, “Let's go up to the house of the Lord.”

So how will you rule? How will you rule? Final scripture, Psalm 145:8-9. You will rule just like God rules and will rule, just like He does in your life today. This is how our God is. "Our God is gracious, He's full of compassion, He's slow to anger, He's great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all of his works. The Lord upholds all who fall. He raises up all who are bowed down. You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all His ways. He's gracious in all His works." That's how our God is. That's how He works with you to build a relationship. In the world tomorrow, you will also work with people to build the same type of a relationship.