Are we good to go?
Okay.
So we've done this course, like I said, every year since 2011, and so it's such a privilege
to do it again.
And so it's a story really, guys.
And so I'll go over it like one would tell a story, and then if we have time, we'll go
over notes, and then we can even send out notes once we finish so that you have this
for the rest of your life.
So when God started the universe, started the earth, His idea was, hey, can I build
a kingdom?
Can I build a kingdom?
How do we know that?
In Genesis 1, 27, 28, God actually says, I'm giving you dominion.
The very word dominion comes from the word kingdom, king's dominion.
That's where the word comes from.
And so the idea of God was, I'm going to create the universe, and I'm going to appoint in
that universe someone who'll be a vice regent, as in who governs on my behalf, who's my deputy.
But you can't have just any deputy, so what does he do?
He decides to make someone in his own image, because you can't put someone in charge of
a kingdom that is yours if you don't make someone in your image.
So he creates you in his image, and he plonks you in the universe, and he says, you will
be my vice regent, and he says, I'll give you charge.
Genesis 1, 27, 28.
I give you authority over everything.
You have dominion over everything.
The word dominion started with God.
And so it was a kingdom that he was creating, eh?
This is why it is said of God that he is a king from everlasting to everlasting.
This is why it's said of God, your kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting.
And so that was the idea.
And then what happens?
He starts with the idea of a kingdom, but once he gives this kingdom over to Adam, who
is made in his image, and he's supposed to be a vice regent, as in the one who rules
on the behalf of the king, Adam loses the kingdom.
The kingdom is lost.
How is the kingdom lost?
Through a simple thing called sin, where Adam decides to follow the father of lies instead
of the father of truth, which is what Jesus later on speaks of in the gospel.
He says that I come from the father, and he is the father of truth, but you who say you're
from Abraham, you've been following the father of lies.
And then he says about Satan, that Satan has been a liar since the very beginning.
So some of the things Jesus is referencing in the gospels are things that already happened
thousands of years ago, where Satan, in the form of a serpent, and we'll talk about that,
is able to have Adam, the vice regent, give over the kingdom that he was supposed to reign
over, he loses it and gives regency to another who happened to be, you can call him whatever
you want, you want to call him serpent, you can call him that, you can go on and call
him devil, you can call him that, you can call him the accuser, you can call him Satan,
you can use any word you want for him, but the regency is handed over to another.
In Genesis 323, what happens is the Lord sent him from the garden to till the ground from
where he was taken.
And ever since the fall, man has been trying to restore a kingdom.
Ever since the fall, mankind is interested in restoring the kingdom.
They try to politics, they try through religion, they try through government, they try through
self-effort.
The intent is, can I bring back a kingdom?
Who was the first guy who attempted to set up a kingdom?
It was a guy called Nimrod.
You check it out in Genesis 11, and Nimrod is the first guy who decides, hmm, I'd like
to create a kingdom.
So what does he do?
He goes to a place called Babel, which is in the plains of Iraq even today, in Shinar,
and he decides, okay, let me get people together and I'll create the first kingdom.
So the idea of creating nations, creating kingdoms, has been for thousands and thousands
of years because man lost something he was destined to have, and now that he lost it,
it's a constant attempt to recreate the kingdom.
And it doesn't work because if you don't have God in it, who is the ultimate king, how do
you create a kingdom?
And so man's attempts have been so futile, therefore Christ comes.
And what does Christ say?
Look at what he says, hey, this is a crazy thing throughout the story.
There is no plan B. There is no plan B. God had only one plan.
There has never been a plan B. Plan A and that's it.
And if plan A breaks, he will come and fix it, even if it costs him his life.
And so when Christ comes, what is he announcing?
Is he announcing heaven?
No.
Is he announcing hell?
Not really.
What's he announcing?
What's the core of his message?
That I am a king, I have come to restore, reestablish the kingdom.
And then he makes this crazy statement in John chapter 3.
He says, unless you be born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
What's he doing here?
He's saying, listen, I gave man a kingdom, he lost it.
I have come as a man to restore it.
Crazy, eh?
Every part of the story as you listen to it, you realize how logical God is.
Everything has such brilliant divine logic.
So there's a kingdom that was created and given to Adam.
Adam loses the kingdom.
And so what does Christ do?
He comes as a man to restore the kingdom.
Unless you be born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Any questions on that much?
Any questions on that?
Just on that bit.
Nope.
Yep, go ahead James.
I can't hear you.
Yeah, so let's not call him vice regent.
Let's call him deputy.
Or let him, let's call him the man appointed on behalf of.
So if I were to leave tomorrow, I would appoint someone in the church to take care of the
church.
Why?
Because Adam has to represent me while I'm away.
You see kids, dads doing this when they go on a trip.
The kid is hardly six years old and he says, I'm putting you in charge.
Take care of mom and little sister, okay?
It's just so normal for man to do some of the things that God started doing ages ago.
We appoint people in our charge before we go somewhere.
And so that's what God is doing when he's saying, hey, I made you in my image.
When God made Adam in his image, he was confident of what Adam could become.
Made in his image so that he could perpetuate after God's kind.
Just think of that, eh?
God makes someone in his image and he's so confident of Adam that he says to him, go
forth and reproduce.
Why does he say to Adam, go forth and reproduce?
Because he knows that if I make someone in my image, whatever he reproduces will be after
my kind.
And it's crazy how it's only in Genesis 5 that you read the scripture which says, and
then Adam had a son called Seth and Seth took after the image of Adam, no longer after the
image of God.
It's one of the saddest verses in the scripture where a man who was supposed to be in the
image of God now shifts and he takes on the image of his own physical biological father.
And in that one instant you know that from here on it's going to be different.
You read that in Genesis 5.
If you flip to Genesis 5 for a second, you'll see that.
Genesis 5.
This is the written account of Adam's time.
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
He created the male and female and blessed them.
And when they were created, he called them man.
When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his image, and he
named him Seth.
There's that shift.
Genesis 5 verse 1 to 3.
And so one of God's intents then through Christ was, hey, I gave man a kingdom, he lost the
kingdom, I'm going to come down as man and I'm going to restore the kingdom.
And therefore he begins the process.
And that's when he has this encounter with Nicodemus in the middle of the night where
he says to Nicodemus, unless you're born again, unless you're born again, you cannot enter
the kingdom of God.
So no questions in that, right?
Any questions?
Yep.
Yeah.
So I'm going a little ahead and we can revisit it again.
The reason God left a tree in the garden that he said one could not eat off was simply because
without choice, there is no freedom.
And without freedom, there is no love.
Always remember this, eh?
If choice is taken away, there is no freedom.
And if freedom is taken away, one cannot love.
Because if you take away my freedom and say I am the only choice, then what choice do I have?
I really don't have a choice.
God's intent of placing a tree.
I mean, imagine this, eh?
We think God is prohibitive.
When you actually look at the nature of God, there's nothing prohibitive about him.
He's not a God who puts restrictions.
If you want to see the nature of God, go to the first 11 chapters of the Bible and you
will kind of see his nature.
Go to the first three chapters of the Bible and you'll see his nature.
And what's his nature?
Listen, everything I have created is for your good.
Everything.
You can access anything you want.
And then he says there's this one tree that I don't want you to eat out of.
Not because it was some kind of tree that had some special tasty fruit on it.
Yes, he called it the tree of life.
But it was a name given because he wanted Adam to know, listen, I don't want you to follow me because I made you.
I don't want you to follow me because I'm forcing you.
I don't want you to follow me because I'm your creator.
I want you to follow me because I've given you the most precious thing that I have, and that is free will.
Free moral choice is something that is so precious to the heart of God that he will not violate it.
And when I violate your free will as a pastor or a husband violates his wife's free will or a wife violates her husband's free will
or you violate your children's free will once they get to a place where they can decide,
you are doing something that even God doesn't do.
And so he puts a tree in the garden and he says, listen, do not eat of this.
You know, if we had not sinned, our Bible would be one verse thick.
Right now we've got 66 books.
We'd have just one verse, do not eat of this tree. That's all.
I mean, that would be hard to preach out of, eh?
You wouldn't have pastors, by the way.
One, one, and how much Greek can you do with that one line?
Do not eat of this tree.
And so in giving him a choice, now Adam has freedom.
He can either choose to say yes or choose to say no.
And in giving him freedom, he can choose to love or he can choose not to love.
And he chooses to disobey.
He chooses not to follow God.
He chooses to follow another voice that he knows is not God.
And this voice is a strange voice.
This voice is an alluring voice. It draws you.
But it is a strange voice.
He knows the sound of God. How do we know that?
Because it says in Genesis 1 that Adam would begin to walk with God in the cool of the evening.
How did they even communicate?
Was it words? Was it just knowing?
That he would walk with the God that made him.
Because he could walk with God face to face.
Because he hadn't sinned.
There was nothing that prevented him from conversing with, having face to face communion with the living God.
Why can't we do it?
Because it says God lives in such unapproachable light because of his ridiculous holiness
that we in our decaying sinful condition cannot even see him face to face.
So much so that God had to literally hide Moses so that Moses doesn't see his face.
And yet here is a man who had the thrill of talking to him face to face.
And then he goes after a strange voice.
And here's the crazy thing guys.
He did not even know what evil was so he wasn't being tempted like you and I are being tempted.
We struggle with temptation every day.
We know what evil is.
Evil has a quality to it. It has a lure to it. It entitles you.
Adam did not even know what evil was.
He only knew choice.
And he chooses. And the moment he chooses, he becomes aware of evil.
Till then, he didn't have anything called doubt.
Till then, he didn't succumb to the flux of reason.
Till then, the guy never knew what guilt is.
Till then, neither he nor Eve knew what it was to feel shame.
One of the reasons they walked around naked is they didn't understand lust.
They didn't understand evil. They didn't understand shame.
They had never cried.
We don't know how many days have passed now before the fall happens.
But they haven't even wept.
They do not know what it is to feel sad.
They don't understand it.
Now you can see why Plan B is so brilliant because what does it say in Revelation 22?
A time is coming when there will be no crying, no tears, no sorrow.
What's God doing?
This is what I wanted in Eden.
All God is doing throughout history is he is restoring Eden.
They didn't know what it was to feel sad.
They didn't know all this.
And this man who didn't know what evil was decides to choose.
He and his wife both decided to choose.
And in his choice, he suddenly becomes aware of evil.
That is why God says to him, I cannot let you access this tree anymore.
Because if I let you eat of this tree now, because it's a tree of life, right?
You eat of this tree, you will live forever and there is no redemption for you.
And so he puts an angel in front of the tree so that the tree is guarded from being accessed.
Because let's assume your nose starts running forever.
And a doctor comes and says, eat this and you'll never die.
Imagine living for the rest of your life, it's not coming out of your nose.
Not a fun way to live, right?
And that's literally what's happening here.
Adam's being told, listen, you eat this, you'll live on forever and there is no hope for you.
But I had already told you that if you access this fruit, you will die.
What does he mean by that? We'll talk about that.
But any other questions on this?
Can you see how the story develops?
It's so brilliant.
He's telling a story.
And he knows before he creates the world that his son will have to be involved because God knows everything.
And yet he doesn't take away your free will.
Guys, just want to touch on free will before we move on.
God loves your free will so much that he will not violate it to the point that he knows you may reject him.
But he would rather give you the free will to say, get out Jesus.
Don't believe in you, don't trust you, don't want you, out with you.
He'd rather have you choose to reject him and find yourself after you die in a place where God does not exist
than force you or bend your will to receive him.
That's how much he loves free will.
And here's the other part of it.
So that's one side of it.
You may say, but God should not give us that kind of free will.
But here's the crazy thing.
He knew that if he gave you free will, he would also have to send his son to die for you.
Because he knew that if he gave you free will, you might choose evil, you might sin.
And if you sin, there is no way back to God unless God comes down as a man and dies a very cruel, very cruel death.
We'll talk about that later.
How dare I violate your free will then?
You must be given the choice to reject.
There might be consequences to rejection, but you must always be given the choice to reject and walk away.
Part of the reason we allow questions in the middle of teaching here is so that you can ask questions free will.
Yeah, till the child.
The crazy thing with parents and boundaries for children is you are supposed to set boundaries for children till they come to an age where they realize that this is wrong and this is right.
But a time comes when if you haven't taught a child to learn how to make choices inside, that child grows up to be an adult.
That will keep making wrong choices as soon as you remove the blinders or remove restrictions.
If we don't teach our children how to govern themselves from inside as they come into maturity,
the only way to keep man obeying things is by putting restrictions or putting threats or putting consequences.
And that's what the church tries to.
Don't do that.
Otherwise, God, I mean, when you were growing up in Sunday school, what would happen to you if you did wrong?
Either Daniel's line would eat you or Jonah's veil would swallow you or Shadrach, Meshe, Kabeir, Nago would escape, but you would die in the fire.
Or one of those things would happen.
You would be killed.
Or one of those things would happen, right?
I mean, I was sure I would be taking a shower and look around to see if Jonah's veil was around.
And then after you saw the movie Jaws, it got worse.
So have you noticed how Texas has death capital punishment?
They have death sentences for murder, for stuff like that.
But have you also noticed how Texas still has a high murder rate?
Threat, consequence, fear will never cause humans to stop doing what they're doing.
Have you noticed how bright the cigarette packages carry the message saying, cigarette smoking is so injurious to your health?
It didn't work.
Then they started putting what will happen to your lungs on cigarette packets.
Even that doesn't work.
Why is that?
Because man does not respond to fear.
Why?
Because we were not made to respond to fear.
That was not how God made us.
There are still things in us that are so God.
Because after all, we are made in His image.
It's distorted.
But my God, there are parts of us that still have certain ways of functioning that are still God.
So to go back to your question, shouldn't parents put boundaries?
Yes, as a child grows into maturity, boundaries should be put so that the child doesn't err.
But every religion, including unfortunately Christianity, keeps its people walking the straight line by putting restrictions, boundaries that God doesn't put.
Are there any boundaries that are protected?
Yes, just one boundary that God has that protects us, love.
This is a revolutionary part of this religion.
The only boundary that keeps me locked onto God is love.
The only way to walk with God is to increasingly like Him.
Why does a man who lived a life that was promiscuous meet this amazing woman that just messes his life up and suddenly he walks straight?
How come he doesn't go to a nightclub anymore?
How come he doesn't go to a bar?
How come he wears his ring and keeps doing this so everybody knows he's married?
How come he takes his wife everywhere?
What happens to him?
He falls in love.
And what happens then?
Everything else falls by the wayside.
His wife doesn't have to worry about where's he?
Why is he working late?
Where's he gone?
Doesn't worry about it.
Why?
Because she knows that this man has a fidelity to me that is simply because of his allegiance.
When that happens, you don't have to worry.
Until that happens, you have to spy on the person.
Where did you go?
I smelled something on your shirt.
That's how this works.
Now, you can't just go to a nightclub and say, oh, I'm going to go to a bar, but I'm going to do this.
You can't just do this.
That's how this works.
The only restriction that Christ actually imposes on the church is one simple thing.
Can you see now why he's asking Peter the question?
Peter, do you love me?
Feed my sheep.
Peter, do you love me?
Tend my lambs.
Peter, do you love me?
That's all he needs.
If he has that from my heart, sin never goes away unless you love him more than the sin.
We'll get there.
Sin does not go away till you love something more than sin.
No way sin will go otherwise.
Crazy, eh?
This is not how we live our Christianity.
We live our Christianity by having grown-ups swallowed by Jonah the whale.
Okay, so how did God make us?
He gave us a body.
He gave us a soul.
And he gave us a spirit.
We are three-part beings.
Where does it say so in the Bible?
1 Thessalonians 5.23 talks about body, soul and spirit.
There are other places too.
One of the obvious places is 1 Thessalonians 5.23 talks about how man is a three-part being.
Body, soul and spirit.
That's how God made Adam.
That's how you are made too.
That's how Jesus was made too.
So for our definition, the body is our earth suit, this physical body.
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah?
The soul is the realm of thinking and feeling.
The realm of thinking, feeling.
And then there's the spirit.
The spirit is the essence of who you are and carries your unique personality.
That's how we need to look at body, soul and spirit.
Yeah?
Now, animals don't have a spirit.
A dog doesn't get up every morning and say, I've got to make really good moral decisions today.
Neither does a cockroach.
Yeah?
They don't have a spirit.
They have a body.
They have a soul.
And cockroaches don't even have blood.
Like, at least they don't have red blood corpuscles.
Yaya came to me and said, are you a zoologist?
And so I was going to say no.
And then I remembered I did zoology for my undergrad.
Yeah?
So when I say cockroaches don't have red blood corpuscles, it is the truth.
Yeah?
So body, soul, spirit.
The soul is your thinking and feeling.
The spirit is the essence of who you are.
The body is just your physical body.
Yeah?
Animals don't have a spirit.
Humans do.
Which is why reincarnation falls flat on its face.
Man cannot be reincarnated as an animal because the essence of man is the spirit.
I come from India.
I had a life that was steeped in transcendental mediation, drugs, and reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
It's a brilliant book on Buddhism and stuff like that.
But the point is this, that at the end of the day, this idea of karma and reincarnation is not possible
because humans have the distinct difference of possessing spirits, the essence of who we are.
Your body changes, eh?
Your body changes.
You didn't look like this 10 years ago.
Your soul changes.
Your soul changes from morning to evening.
Your thinking and feeling changes.
Your feelings change.
Well, the one thing that maintains your essence is your spirit.
That this is who Pavan is.
This is who Priyanka is.
This is who Janelle is.
When she was small, she was this way.
And when she's big, she's...
The essence of your spirit stays the same.
It's...
Animals don't have that, eh?
And so to be reincarnated as a dog because your karma was bad is just absurd.
It's false.
And so every man is made this way.
So Adam was made this way too.
Adam had a body.
Adam had a soul.
Adam had a spirit.
Adam's body was never supposed to die.
Death was never God's plan.
This is a story.
Death was never God's plan.
No man was supposed to die.
No woman was supposed to die.
Death was never in the equation.
How can death be in the equation when God is a God of life?
Decay was never part of the equation.
And so you got...
When Adam was born, his body was without decay.
It could not get diseases.
There was nothing that...
You couldn't get allergies.
Everything in creation was made for your good.
There was nothing that was negative.
There was nothing that was harmful.
There were no virus, no bacteria.
And if there were, they were meant to help you.
They're not supposed to harm you.
It is a perfect world and that's what we're heading to when Christ recreates Eden.
This is what he's inviting the whole world into.
He's not inviting you into Christianity.
He's inviting you into, hey, this is why I made you.
I just want you to return to this.
There is no pathway besides Christ.
So come through Christ.
He was not...
No man was supposed to die.
You were not supposed to die.
His body would not die.
His soul, like we said earlier, did not know shame, did not know fear, did not know guilt, did not know sorrow.
It only had things that were laughter, that was honor, that was dignity, that was worth, that was security, that was joyful.
There was nothing negative about it.
Can you imagine spending six hours, six hours, eh, without shame, guilt, sadness, negative thoughts?
Six hours is too much.
Can you try two hours?
It's crazy, man, what we lost.
And it's crazy what's being restored.
And it's going to be restored for not 10 years, not 50 years, not a thousand years, not 10,000 years, not 30,000 years.
This blip here on earth is our redemption slot.
This ain't life.
This is when you're between flights at an airport.
Layovers are not always fun.
Try to get the best lounge, and the best lounge is the church and Christianity.
Yeah, everything gets renewed.
New bodies, new soul, new spirit.
And at different times during our history, things get renewed.
It's this amazing story.
His spirit, Adam's spirit, was without a guile.
There was no deception.
It was innocent.
Adam's spirit was innocent.
There was no guile.
There was no deception.
There was no ulterior motives.
It was innocent.
It was pure, and it was innocent.
And so what happens when he sins?
When he sins, look what happens.
His body begins to die.
As soon as he sins, the body begins to decay.
As soon as he sins, for the first time in his life, he feels shame.
He feels guilt.
He feels fear.
He begins to hide.
You can't even imagine what Adam felt once he and Eve ate that apple.
They must have been so freaked out, eh?
Because they've never felt shame.
It's the same feeling that Jesus felt on the cross when he calls out,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Because Jesus has never felt forsaken ever.
And then for that instant he realizes, oh shucks, even my father's not here.
It's the same thing that Adam and Eve are going through.
What is this thing called shame?
What is this thing called guilt?
It is ruining me.
And they go and hide.
The same man who used to bound up to meet God when he would hear him in the garden
now is hiding because he hears God coming.
Fear.
It's terrible, man.
And why am I going into details?
Because as believers, we are supposed to begin to show the world that there's another way to live.
You must try because of Christ in you, which we'll talk about,
to show the world that it is possible not to be afraid.
It is possible not to walk in shame and guilt.
The first thing that Jesus restores to a Christian is you are restored, you are forgiven.
Stop blooming, walking around under so much condemnation and guilt.
Because sometimes we look as sour as the world,
but the great thing is in the world you can sin and be sour.
As a Christian you can't even do that. It's worse, man.
So, he sins and suddenly his spirit, which is innocent and pure, becomes contaminated, polluted, defiled.
He can't communicate with God. He's hiding.
And from that moment on, every human being that is born has a body that dies,
has feelings and thoughts that are negative, has a spirit that is polluted and cannot communicate with God.
How is it that a two-year-old knows how to pull a one-year-old's hair?
How is it that a two-year-old knows how to be jealous?
Do you think the parents sit, Hamari and Remy sat down, Yaya and Judah, and said,
you're two years old now, we want to teach you what it is to be jealous, selfish, we want to teach you how to fight.
Did they do that?
If they didn't do that, how is it that sometimes your kids do that, right?
All the time. I was being kind.
Sometimes how is it that a two-year-old learns how to fight, learns how to be jealous, learns how to be angry.
Who teaches this child? It's not by watching, because parents in the first few years usually hide all their arguments behind a closed door.
So, it's not through watching. How is it that they learn it?
Because every human being is born with a contaminated spirit and negative thoughts right off the bat.
That's how we grow up.
Go ahead.
Yeah, that's the best way grown-ups can explain it away.
It's a general fallen nature of man.
No. No. No.
The child hasn't even had the time to learn it.
I mean, we can't blame a two-year-old for some generational thing that is happening in the family.
The child hasn't even had time to develop stuff.
Any questions?
Any questions, guys?
So, we are born with the DNA of sin.
Ever since Adam sinned, we are born with the DNA of sin in us.
Which is why in the Hebrews it says, not in Hebrews, in Corinthians it says,
through one man, sin came into the world, and through one man, it has been removed.
So, every person that is born, every child that is born, is born.
This is why David says in Psalm 51, I was conceived in sin.
Like, right off the bat, I was born in sin.
I don't know how to reach out to God.
This is the condition of man.
And now you see why Christ came.
Guys, any questions on that before we go on?
That's why God had to come.
Through one man, mankind is committed.
This is what happens in families, eh?
It's called the representative principle.
You'll see this so many times where one person in the family does something,
and the whole family suffers.
In our case, it was Adam.
And you might say, man, if Adam had behaved himself, we wouldn't be in this condition.
Then perhaps you may have fallen.
God knew this was going to happen at some point.
I mean, I would really like to go up to Adam and I'd see him and say,
boy, you sure ruined it for us.
And he'd say, I did it so that you don't get all the blame.
I'm kidding. It's not Bible. I'm just imagining.
So, here's the thing, guys.
There's, this is critically, there's something called sin being, sorry,
there's something called sin doing, and there's something called sin being.
It's important that we understand the difference between this,
because it is the reason why Christianity is distinct from every other religion in the world.
Sin doing is when someone commits the action of sin.
You do something that is sinful. It's called sin doing.
You do sin. You act out sin.
Every religion in the world has a solution for sin doing.
Hinduism, sacrifices, take a bath in the Ganges, sins can be removed.
Buddhism, go through a process of meditation,
and it is possible to get to a place where you, your good karma outweighs your bad karma,
and you attain nirvana and become one with the atma, parmatma.
Judaism, Yahweh, if he's appeased with sacrifices, may one day forgive you.
Catholicism, come, say a few prayers, say a few penances,
go through certain processes, and your sins will be forgiven you.
Sin actions will be forgiven you.
Jainism is the same.
Islam, follow these different five principles, go to Mecca, perform hajj,
and it is possible that Allah may forgive you.
Pavan was talking about that yesterday.
May forgive you. There's no guarantee.
There is not a religion in the world that does not give you a process
or some solution for removing the sin action.
Well, what do you do when the DNA of a corrupt spirit is written into the very core of your being?
Who will deal with a sin being?
Sin doing can be dealt with. Sin being, what do you do?
There's not a religion in the world that deals with the sin being.
The part of you that your mother gave birth to that just knows how to sin without even being taught, why?
Because you have inherited what Adam passed down.
I often use this ridiculous illustration.
Imagine, who shall we pick on today?
Imagine Pavan, because I've been drumming him up a little, time to level things off.
So imagine Pavan has a problem.
Pavan feels thirsty at night, and he just drinks water.
But regardless of how much water he drinks, he's very thirsty, so they decide to take him to a doctor.
So they go to Dr. Anilay, and Dr., you're a doctor, right?
You have a doctorate, right? Yes.
So they take her to Dr. Anilay, and Dr. Anilay calls her assistant, Tuni, and says, put him on an x-ray machine.
Because Tuni, you don't have a doctorate yet, right?
Okay, so they put him on an x-ray machine.
And when they put him on an x-ray machine, they realize what the problem is.
And so Anilay comes out with that very serious doctor face.
And Pavan looks at her and says, doctor, doctor, there's something wrong with me, right?
And she makes this very profound statement.
She says, Pavan, there's nothing wrong with you, but there's something wrong in you.
And he says, what do you mean?
She says, you've been eating your mattress at night, right?
And Pavan says, yes, my bed has been growing smaller and smaller.
So what has been happening is every night when Pavan feels hungry, he just consumes a portion of his mattress.
And so inside him now is this large piece of sponge.
And every time he drinks water, the sponge absorbs the water and so he's continuously thirsty.
And so he says, so you are saying there's something wrong in me, not something wrong with me.
And she says, yes. And she says, my assistant will take care of it.
And so Pavan is taken, put on a bed.
Tuni comes, rips him apart, pulls out the sponge and sews him back.
And Pavan is suddenly back to normal.
This is how it really is.
Now, just erase that entire image from your mind.
Let's get back.
I don't know which image to get rid of.
Tuni tearing him up and sewing him or the sponge in Pavan's stomach.
But regardless, this is what has happened to us guys.
Even the Old Testament used to take care of sin actions.
How did the Old Testament take care of sin actions?
Moses would prescribe, bring the blood of Bolzan, goats, sacrifice to Yahweh.
And your sin actions will be taken care of.
Sin actions are not what Christianity and Christ deals with.
Christ comes to deal with the sponge inside of you.
Saying you are defaulted to sin.
If I don't remove that engine, you will continue sinning.
And so Christ came to deal with this.
Christ didn't come to deal with this.
Crazy, eh?
Any questions?
Because the blood of Bolzan, goats was enough to deal with sin actions.
You didn't need Christ to come.
My job as a priest would be to get your chickens and goats every Sunday and slaughter them here.
This blue carpet would be bloody red.
Because some of you sin a lot.
I'm just kidding.
So the point being, this would be what it would be.
But he didn't come to deal with sin doing, he came to deal with sin being.
Any questions, guys?
Which is why if you noticed, on Sunday we didn't say this is a prayer to give us clean hands and pure hearts.
We're saying we want to give you clean hands and pure hearts.
That what you have done for us, we want to give that back to you.
We know what you've done.
Give us clean hands and a pure heart is a prayer from the Old Testament.
He wants us to talk to him about it.
He's gotten rid of it.
These are the crazy things about Christianity.
There is, he has already gotten rid of.
How do you get rid of something?
By paying for it and removing it.
He's already paid for it and removed it.
So he's gotten rid of the sin.
I'm always present before him.
What gets in the way of him and me is now, when I continue to do what he has gotten rid of,
and now he and I need to have a conversation about it,
there's nothing before him that I need to go in guilt and condemnation.
Romans chapter 8, verse 1,
Therefore there is no condemnation.
Man, I'm struggling with condemnation every day when Christ continuously says,
Therefore there is no condemnation.
We're so accustomed to it, guys.
We never come to God from a forgiven place.
We always come to God from a condemned place.
Not all of us. I do.
When I mess up, I don't go to him from a forgiven place.
I go to him from a guilty, condemned place.
Whenever you approach anyone with guilt and condemnation,
you've got to do a song and dance before you feel better.
Oh, God, I am such a worm.
Go ahead.
If you think of something similar to the same thing as the name,
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, why is it that...
I love what Jesus does.
He takes the Old Testament and he ups the ante.
The Old Testament says, do not commit adultery.
Jesus said that's in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, it says,
Jesus said that's in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament,
do not even look at a woman with lust in your eyes
for you have already committed adultery.
What's he trying to deal with?
He's trying to say, hey, sin action,
you might have enough strength to not commit adultery,
but do you have what it takes to be free of even lust?
I can do that for you.
And we'll talk about how he did it for us.
Do you know how relieved we Christians will be
and how much more joyful we will be
if we could go to God as forgiven people
who need to talk about sin?
What's our favorite place to go to when we sin?
Psalm 51.
That was David's sin and how he needed to deal with it.
And then you ask for cleansing and then you feel,
did he really cleanse me?
Let's just ask once more and this time purge me.
And then that word is not strong enough.
Oh, God, cleanse me inside and out.
What are we trying desperately to get to a place where we are clean?
Where what if I could approach him with,
I come to you as one forgiven,
who has sinned and needs to talk to you about it?
Can't even imagine talking like that, eh?
Questioner.
What is the example now that you view as unworthy?
Complete, got nothing to do with this.
The First Corinthians 11 thing where it says,
do not approach the table unworthily,
is basically saying, hey, don't come and talk to me about
how wonderfully we are doing
when you haven't settled things with Anna.
Remember the text she sent you where she threatened you and stuff like that.
Deal with that first.
Once you deal with that, then you can.
Yeah, it's true she did, eh?
You thought that was an example?
It is the truth.
I'm the innocent party.
So, now we go to, so what did Jesus do?
What did Jesus do to change this?
One of the things we have to realize,
and we'll talk about this when I go over the notes,
is that Christ is 100% God and 100% man.
It's a hard thing for the human mind to conceive,
but we have to understand that Christ is 100% God,
Christ, Jesus.
The word Jesus means rescue from sin.
It was a common name.
That was his name.
Christ is his title.
Christ means anointed, prince, king, messiah.
So, Jesus, when he came down to the earth,
was 100% God and 100% man.
One of the titles he loved giving himself was not son of God,
he was just the son of man.
He still loved that.
So, what do you mean 100% God and 100% man?
We think that when he walked the earth, he was just God, so it was no big deal.
He didn't have to deal with our problems.
All we think, when he walked the earth, he was 100% man,
so there was nothing God about him.
No, if you want a fancy word that will make people think you know stuff,
this is called the hypostatic union of Christ.
Yeah, you throw that word around, they'll think you have gone to Bible college.
So, it's this ability in one person to have him exist both as divine and as man.
So, on his mother's side, he was 33.
On his father's side, he was the ageless one.
On his mother's side, he was 33.
On his father's side, he was the ageless one.
In his humanness, he was hungry.
He would ask for food, but as God, he was never hungry.
On the cross, Jesus died, but the crucifixion was in the death of God.
Sometimes, he would speak as man.
Neither I know, nor my father knows the time.
Other times, no, sometimes he would speak as man.
Neither I know the time, nor my father.
Neither I know the time, only my father knows the time.
Neither I nor the angels know the time, only my father knows the time.
And then he would speak as God.
I am, I was before Abraham was.
Same man.
He can go from saying, I do not know, to I am and I existed before Abraham did,
and they wanted to stone him.
So this is how he existed.
And it was not God minus some elements.
It was God taking on the former man.
It was not God saying, okay, I'll stop being divine.
It was fully divine, yet taking on all the frailties of man.
He could only be one place at one time.
It is only after resurrection that you find him appearing suddenly in places.
Otherwise, he could only be one place at one time.
He had to be dependent on the spirit of God for all his directions.
Why? Because he had to live a fully human existence like Dhillon, like me,
so that he would be exposed to the same frailties.
He could be tempted.
Jesus was the most tempted human being on earth.
Because Satan knew there was something about him that if we could get him to sin,
if we could get him to sin once, all of mankind is condemned.
Once. He could be tempted.
How do we know this?
The scripture says that.
What does it say?
And Satan tempted him, Luke chapter 4.
And then he said, left him for a while and tempted him again later.
Jesus was tempted.
There's no man on earth who has been tempted as much as Jesus was tempted.
He was fully God and all-knowing, yet as he is growing up,
in Luke chapter 1, verse 52 it says,
and Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and man.
What does that mean?
That there was a process of increase.
There was a process of growing up.
Just like Judah.
He'll have to grow up.
Jesus had to grow up.
Why do you think Jesus needed parents?
Because he needed someone to teach him.
Fire, hot.
Ice, cold.
Stone, not to eat.
Bread, to eat.
He didn't come like a happy baby who doesn't cry
and who asks for milk and bread at the right time
and goes to sleep throughout the night.
Mary must have had a problem with him too.
So feel encouraged, Aaron and Reni.
Joseph must have had problems like you.
Take the garbage out, clean the bottle, feed the cat.
No, no cats.
Yeah, yeah.
No cats then.
Yeah.
This is the beauty of who Christ is.
There's scripture after scripture which in the Old Testament
clearly indicates that Christ is God.
But you need to understand that he was tempted just like you
and he could have fallen for sin just like you.
He would be tempted with lust.
He would be tempted with anger.
He would be tempted with pride.
He would be tempted with doing things because he knew he had the power.
I love it.
I mean, take Luke 4.
It's such a brilliant reversal of what happened with Israel in Egypt.
Why does Jesus in Luke chapter 4 only quote scriptures to the devil
from Deuteronomy, Exodus and Numbers?
Because the very things that Israel, my son, failed at,
Jesus, my son, will be successful at.
You can take these three chapters and join them together.
Genesis chapter 3 where Satan tempts Adam and Eve.
Deuteronomy where Satan tempts Israel.
And Luke chapter 4 where Satan tempts Jesus.
All the temptations are the same.
Adam who in Luke chapter 3 verse 38 is called the Son of God.
Crazy, eh?
Adam was called the Son of God.
Adam failed.
In Deuteronomy it's called Israel, my firstborn son.
Israel failed.
And then along comes Jesus.
Same set of temptations.
And he succeeds.
And in doing that, at once he reverses Israel's situation
and he reverses Adam's situation.
40 years in the desert, 40 days in the wilderness.
Everything is set up so beautifully.
I mean when you see the math that is at work in the mind of God,
as you work through the 66 books,
you'll be blown away at the brilliance of God.
He's very logical.
So he existed both as God and as man.
So one of the reasons he was born of a virgin
was because he could not carry the Adamic bloodline.
He could not carry the Adamic bloodline.
So he was conceived of a virgin and not of sexual union.
Part of the reason was so that the Adamic bloodline
would not be something that he would possess.
And yet he would be fully man.
And so let's look at Jesus' body and soul and spirit.
He had his body, soul and spirit.
Jesus' body, would it die or would it not die?
How many would not?
How many would?
The reason Jesus' body would not die is because it was not born in sin.
It was not conceived in sin.
So his body could have lived on forever.
He puts it this way in the book of John.
Nobody can take my life from me.
I can lay it down.
So his body could have lived on forever
because there's only two reasons why the body dies, guys.
There's only two reasons why the body dies.
One, because you are born in sin or two, because you sin.
So Jesus' body could have only died for two reasons.
One, because he was conceived in sin and he was,
and he was born of a virgin, born by the spirit.
The only other way that Jesus' body could have died is if he sinned.
And therefore Satan would tempt him continuously to see if Jesus could sin once in, once.
And we'll talk about why he didn't sin.
So Jesus' body could have lived on forever.
What about Jesus' thinking and feeling, his soul?
Any negative thoughts, sadness?
Yeah. Yeah. Why?
Because he was exposed to his dad dying when he was young.
He was exposed to being called illegitimate.
He was exposed to hate.
He went through feelings of pain and hurt and stuff like that.
It was real.
But what he didn't do was he didn't have guilt.
He didn't have shame.
He didn't have evil thoughts.
He didn't have evil feelings.
Because if he had, like you were saying, if he had an evil thought or an evil feeling,
he would have already sinned.
And we'll talk about how come a man can live like that.
But he didn't have that.
What about his spirit?
How do we know he had a spirit?
Remember on the cross he says, until you I submit or give my spirit.
What about his spirit?
His spirit was innocent.
His spirit was pure.
So who is Christ then?
Christ is the last Adam.
The first Adam was born like this.
The last Adam was born like this.
Christ came so that a new generation could begin with him.
Any questions?
Sorry, not the last Adam.
Christ is the second Adam.
Sorry, not the last Adam.
Christ is the second Adam.
Okay, let's call Pawan out again.
Pawan, can you come out?
Let's call Dilna out.
Dilna, you're okay.
I pick on you always.
Pawan, no, you stand.
You have to be shorter than me.
So let's assume I am Jesus and Pawan is Pawan.
The advantage that I as Jesus have over Pawan, who's a believer,
is that my body will not die because I wasn't conceived in sin
and Jesus did not sin, so he lived.
Is there any other advantage that Jesus had over Pawan?
But his spirit is innocent now.
He's a new believer.
Yeah.
Yeah, Jesus could have had them too.
Jesus chose not to.
He has the indwelling Holy Spirit now.
Jesus had the indwelling Spirit.
Yeah, we'll get there.
I just want you to remember this before I show you something.
The only advantage that Jesus has over a believer today,
if Jesus was standing here and you were standing here,
the only advantage Jesus has is that Jesus' body would not die
because he wasn't conceived in sin.
That's the only advantage Jesus had.
So let's see how that advantage worked out.
Thanks Pawan, I'll call you up in a little while.
So Jesus had a body.
Jesus had a soul.
Jesus had a spirit.
You have a body.
You have a soul.
You have a spirit.
Jesus' body would not die.
Jesus' soul was exposed to many things,
but he did not know negative feelings.
He did not know negativity.
And his spirit was innocent and pure.
Your soul has negative feelings.
Your spirit is contaminated, polluted, has the DNA of sin written into it.
Yeah?
Okay, so now Jesus Christ comes down to the earth
and he says that, listen, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to take on not so much your sin actions,
but your sin being.
And when you receive me, here's what happens.
Pawan, come up again.
So when Christ was crucified,
when Christ was crucified,
you can put your arms down if it hurts,
but try to keep it up till it hurts.
Yeah.
When Christ was crucified,
here's what he's saying,
that in my crucifixion,
I am taking on the sin of every person who lives on the face of the earth.
So I'm taking on Matt's sin.
I'm taking on Jacob's sin.
I'm taking on Hamari's sin.
He's taking on himself the sin of everybody.
When he dies, it's literally like he dying for you.
Why does he need to die?
Just stay there.
Why does he need to die?
Why should a person die because of sin?
Because in Romans 3 it says,
the wages of sin is death.
You sin, you will be paid not in dollars, but in death.
The currency of sin is death.
So if you sin, you must be paid the wages of sin.
You must be paid a salary for your sin.
And the salary for your sin is death.
And so Christ is saying,
Hey Jacob, hey Chris Dodd, hey Jeremy Koo,
why don't I pay the wages of your sin?
And so in his dying, he is paying the wages of your sin.
But only a man who does not have to pay his own wages can do this.
I can't pay it for you.
Why? Because I got my own sin to pay for.
She can't pay it for you because she's got her own sin to pay for.
Someone has to live the way I live.
Someone has to live in the world that I live in.
Someone has to live through my experiences.
Someone has to live through temptation.
Someone has to live through it.
And only after living through it can he say,
I have lived what you have lived and I have not sinned.
Therefore I can pay the price for your sin.
Jesus had to come down and go through the experiences that you and I went through.
This is why if you understand this and you reject Christ, you are rejecting life.
This is not about Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Baptist, whatever.
It's not about Hinduism.
It's not about Buddhism.
It's not about Atheism.
It's not about your reasoning.
It's one simple thing.
Someone came, lived your life, went through your experiences,
worse than your experiences,
did not die because he could not be paid the wages of sin which is death.
You may say, I don't believe that.
Well then, try jumping off a building because you don't believe in gravity.
See what happens.
There are some universal principles that it doesn't matter whether one believes it or not.
If I say I don't believe in gravity and jump off a building,
I'll suddenly about halfway through realize that gravity works.
It's the same way with sin.
Sin will be paid for and the wages of sin is death.
Don't go try jumping off a building.
This should not be tried.
No, it should not be tried at all.
I was going to say without parental concern.
No, do not try this.
This is not for experts.
This is not for anybody.
So he dies for me, but he can only die for me because he lives through my experiences and does not sin.
Do you know why Jesus rose from the dead?
Why did Jesus rise from the dead?
You can't pay him death because he did not sin.
How can you hold a man down when he has not sinned?
Is this scriptural?
Yes.
Acts chapter 2, verse 32 to 36.
It was not possible for Jesus to be held down by death because you cannot pay someone who did not sin the wages of death.
He did not sin.
How can death hold him?
Why will you rise up after you die?
Why will you instantly rise up and be with God?
Simply because you cannot be paid the wages of sin anymore.
Why?
Because Christ paid yours too.
This is how we live, guys.
Why is it that I still struggle with condemnation and guilt and the whole thing of sin when someone actually has paid for it?
Do you know how pathetic it is?
We are carrying corpses on our back.
I'm guilty of it.
He paid for mine too.
And therefore, just as he rose from the dead, I will rise from the dead.
Yeah, this is Jesus, by the way.
This is the highest role he'll ever get in his life.
You can stay here, but you can put your arms around him.
You can stay here, but you can put your arms down.
So, here's what happens then.
You have a spirit that is contaminated, polluted, that cannot work with God.
This is what Jesus puts to death on the cross.
Here's a scripture.
Let me write it out for you.
It's a great scripture.
Memorize it.
Galatians 2.20.
I, put in your name there, have been crucified with Christ.
I no longer live.
The life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and died for me.
Beautiful, eh?
Galatians 2.20.
I have been crucified with Christ.
Anybody here who has received Jesus Christ, this is your true condition.
I have been crucified with Christ.
If you have been crucified with Christ, the person that your mum gave birth to no longer lives.
Hear me again.
The person that your mum gave birth to, you, who was born with a degenerate spirit, with a contaminated, polluted spirit, no longer lives.
I no longer lives.
What happened to you?
The day you received Christ, you were crucified with him.
So in Christ being crucified, Jacob was crucified.
Jacob, or Pawan, let's go with Jacob.
Jacob no longer lives.
He no longer lives.
This Jacob that his mum gave birth to no longer lives.
Where will you find him?
You will find him at Golgotha.
If you went digging at Golgotha, you will find me.
Somewhere there you will find me.
Why?
Because the day I received Christ, I was crucified with Christ.
I no longer live.
You want to find your old self?
Go to Jerusalem and start digging.
Because that's where you will find your old self.
It no longer lives.
God is saying this.
It no longer lives.
The life that you have is different now.
Thanks.
Here's what happens.
This part of you, the essence of who you are, no longer lives.
It dies.
So let's give it a burial.
So we bury it.
This is what happens in baptism.
We go underwater and in going underwater, we are saying that my old self is now dead and buried.
And so we bury it.
It no longer lives.
It's buried.
This is what is symbolized in baptism.
So there it is.
But now we got a problem.
We got a body and we got a soul.
And now God does something marvelous.
He says, I'll give you a brand new spirit.
That one's dead and buried.
I'll give you a brand new spirit.
2 Corinthians 5 17.
I am a new creation.
Unless a man be born again.
Nicodemus says, but how can a man be born again?
Jesus said he'll be born again by spirit and water, meaning spirit and the word.
When you receive Christ, you receive a brand new spirit.
And so God gives you a brand new spirit.
What kind of spirit is this?
This is the same spirit that he gave Adam when he made Adam.
It's guidelines.
It is innocent.
It is pure.
We don't realize the ridiculous transformation that takes place the moment someone receives Christ.
Nobody can see it.
It's not visible.
But the moment someone says, yes, I received Jesus, and they don't even know the length and breadth of Jesus instantly.
Nothing happens to the body.
The bodies don't change.
They may cry a little.
Nothing happens to their feelings.
They may cry.
They may laugh.
But what happens is instantly.
There's one part of you that if you go to Golgotha, you will find broken.
That dies.
I have been crucified with Christ.
I no longer live.
And instantly what happens?
You get a brand new spirit.
What has just transpired?
You have been restored to how Adam used to be.
The DNA is still on.
True story, which I love telling a hundred times.
Valley View Cemetery.
Sorry.
We're burying a pastor's wife.
I'm standing next to another pastor from a church.
And as we're burying the pastor's wife, he nudges me and says, look down, look down.
And there are thousands and thousands of graves at Valley View.
And I'm standing over a grave.
And it says, here lies Jacob John.
My name.
What are the odds that you are standing over a grave with your name on it and it says, here lies Jacob John?
And I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, maybe my number has come up and I'm going to keel and fall over into this lady's grave.
Because what are the odds that you'll find a grave with your name on it?
And it freaked me out for a second.
And then I remembered what Oswald Chambers had written long ago.
And here's what he wrote.
Have you been to your funeral yet?
Because if something doesn't die, how can something new be born?
Have you been to your funeral yet?
Have you been to this place where something died?
Where's the thing that died?
Oh, there it is.
Where something died.
This is true being born again.
You can go to a church every day of your life and still not know God or not have this transformation take place.
Don't fool yourself.
One of the scriptures that kind of scares me a little is Galatians 6.6.
God is not mocked.
Do not deceive yourself.
God is not mocked.
This thing dies and is buried.
It no longer lives.
Have you been to your funeral yet?
And if that hasn't happened to you, then I want to say to you that you are not born again.
And then God gives you a brand new spirit.
He now restores you to where Adam was.
And then he says, this spirit is pure.
The spirit is innocent.
The spirit is without guile.
But Adam sinned, right?
Adam sinned.
So you could sin again.
So something has to be done to prevent that.
Otherwise, this will have to keep happening again and again and again.
So God does something amazing.
He says, here's what I'll do.
I've given you a brand new spirit.
I will now put my Holy Spirit in your brand new spirit.
I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
So not only do you have a brand new spirit, you've been restored to where Adam was.
But that ain't good enough.
God says, I'll do you one better than Adam.
I'll make you like my own son by taking the spirit of my son and putting it in your spirit.
I'll saturate your spirit with my spirit.
If I want to be like Dilna, I can read a book about him.
If I want to be like Dilna, I can follow him.
If I want to be like Dilna, I can go to his friends and ask him, how's Dilna?
I want to be like him.
But what if Dilna's spirit comes into me?
The moment Dilna's spirit comes into me, I'll start combing my hair like Dilna.
I'll start driving like Dilna.
I'll start singing like Dilna.
I'll do everything like Dilna.
That's why, because the spirit just came into me.
That is what Christ did.
Christ said, hey Fuyo, so I have now restored you to who Adam was.
You're innocent. You're pure. You're without guile.
But I want to do you one better. I'll make you perfect.
But Fuyo says, how Jesus can you make me perfect?
This is a great deal in itself.
And God says, nope, I'm going to saturate you with my spirit.
Does anyone have any coffee here?
No? Nobody drinking coffee or tea?
You have some? How dare you drink it inside the sanctuary?
The crazy thing is, if this is you and this is the Holy Spirit,
then God is not coming and dwelling in you like a little piece inside another piece.
He's actually saturating you.
Where now, there's no difference between what is in this and what is in this.
It's become one.
You try separating this and giving it to me,
James, it's impossible.
Even a barista like him can't do that.
Now try separating this.
This is what happens with us when God begins to work on us.
God literally says, listen, I'm not just inside you making noise.
You and I have become one.
There's no separation, guys.
There's no separation.
There's no separation, guys.
There's no separation.
If you had the jaws of life or whatever those firemen use,
where they open a car up and...
And if you did that to me, if you opened me up,
you would not find a Jacob and a Jesus.
You would only find Christ.
That is why it says, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Sorry, I missed out on a line.
I have been crucified with Christ.
I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
If you opened me up, you would not find two different people.
You would find one person.
My spirit, Romans chapter 6, sorry, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 17 or 18,
the spirit of Christ and my spirit have become one.
You cannot separate me from Christ ever.
Do you know why I'm going to heaven if I die tonight?
It's not because I'm a Christian, not because I'm a pastor.
It's simply because I'm perfect.
Really, Jacob, you're perfect? Yeah. How?
Because my spirit and his spirit have become one and he is perfect.
The reason anybody goes to heaven is not because they're a Christian,
not because they say a prayer, but because Christ lives in them.
And the moment Christ lives in you, you have become perfect
because Christ is perfect.
There is no other way into the presence of God except through this.
Here, James.
Well, actually, not yet.
Pardon?
Yeah, I'll try not to spill it, otherwise we will blame you.
This is what's happened to us, guys.
It's crazy what God has done.
He's literally done an operation where something that was sinful in you has died and it's buried.
And when you come out of the water during baptism,
this is why baptism is such a critical part of the Christian equation.
To be baptized is to show the world that you actually believe this.
Baptized not...
Yeah, we'll talk about baptism later.
Who lives in me?
The Spirit of Christ.
This is what makes me perfect.
So why do we still sin?
Pawan is going to become a different person now.
Come, Pawan.
So now Pawan is no longer a Christian.
So now Pawan is no longer Jesus.
Pawan is my slave.
That's a fall, huh?
Pawan is my slave.
So every morning, because he is my slave, I expect him to get up before I get up.
I expect him to give me a shave, massage my feet, massage my shoulders.
A little better, man.
And I expect him to bring me breakfast.
I expect him to clean the place.
I expect him to do everything that a slave does.
I wake up this morning and Pawan is not there.
Because he's been serving me for long, I give him two minutes.
He's still not there. Five minutes.
He's not there. I'm getting angry now.
So I go get a whip that I usually whip slaves with.
This is in the Bible.
The Bible talks about this.
I'm not coming up with this example myself.
I take a whip and I find him sleeping in his slave room.
And I am so enraged that I take the whip and I start whipping him saying,
Get up and serve me.
You're my slave.
You will do what I tell you.
Get up and serve me.
And he doesn't move.
And so I throw the whip away and I grab his neck.
And when I grab his neck, that's when I suddenly realize that there is a slave in his slave room.
And when I grab his neck, that's when I suddenly realize that there is no pulse.
Because last night my slave died.
And I am so enraged because now that the slave has died, I have no mastery over him.
It doesn't matter how much I whip him.
It doesn't matter how much I kick him.
It doesn't matter how much I strangle him.
He is not responding because he has escaped my mastery.
In death, my slave has been freed.
In death, he has escaped my mastery.
In death, I have absolutely no control over him.
This is what Christ did.
In death, he's saying, Jacob, when that scripture happened, I have been crucified with Christ.
This is an actual thing that happened.
Don't think this is theology.
Don't think this is some fancy spin.
This is what actually happens unless you be born again.
But how can something be born again unless something dies?
Have you been to your funeral yet?
I have been crucified with Christ.
I no longer live.
If he died, he's escaped my mastery.
If he died, I cannot make him sin anymore.
If he died, I cannot control him.
In his death, he escaped my mastery.
He's no longer my slave.
Now do you understand why Romans said,
You used to be a slave to sin, but Christ, in dying with Christ, you have escaped the slavery of sin?
Because the part of me, the sin being that loved sinning, that was controlled by the devil, that was controlled by sin, no longer lives.
It's dead.
And in death, a slave escapes.
I have no control over him.
But now I have someone who lives in me called Christ.
It is not my default to sin.
The world is behaving exactly if you are not born again, if you haven't received Christ.
And please don't for a second think, because you went to church, you're a Christian.
I went to church all my life.
Because you went to Sunday school, you're a Christian.
I went to Sunday school all my life.
Because you had catechism and a bit of bread, you became a Christian.
You're not a Christian.
Not according to Christ.
And he should have a say in who's a Christian, right?
You are not.
But if you have received Christ,
then he lives in me.
And the old has died.
The new has come.
Now Christ lives in me.
You open me up, you'll find him there.
This is why, if I die tonight, I will see him instantly.
Because only that which is perfect can enter into perfection.
I am perfect.
Really, Jacob? Yeah.
How? The perfect one lives in me.
When that which is perfect lives in you, you become perfect.
That is why, if tonight you die, you instantly are in the presence of God.
And if that is not your experience, you will not see the face of God.
The one who created you.
The one who loves you.
But how can one who loves you reject you?
He didn't.
He paid a price to get you back.
But you can reject him.
I'm tired of the crock that people come up with saying,
if God is loving, then why does he let people go to hell?
He did not create hell for man.
There is nobody in hell right now.
Hell is empty.
It's only at the end of times that death and Hades
and those that choose not to receive Christ
can choose to go where they want.
Christ paid a price to buy you back with love.
So I'm tired of the crock when people say,
oh, why does a loving God reject people?
A loving God put down his own life so that you could have a way back to him.
And you're the one rejecting him, not me.
You're the one rejecting him, not he rejecting you.
Please, just follow the sequence and the logic of what we've been talking about,
and it'll be obvious.
But people don't have the time to sit through this logic, right?
They want instant answers.
Any questions?
Sorry, that was just a...
Yeah.
So all that people didn't know about the game that they had.
We'll talk about that.
The ones before lived by the law,
and the Bible says anyone who lives by the law will also be judged by the law.
And if you break one law, it's like having broken everything else.
So all they could do was offer the sacrifice of bulls and goats to take care of the sins.
Every year there would be a thing called the Feast of Atonement.
The Jews celebrated even today, the Day of Atonement.
Atonement meaning what?
Oh God, as we offer these bulls and goats,
I hope it atones for our sin.
And that's what all religions keep doing.
We are atoning for our sins.
While Christ comes and says, I am the ultimate sacrifice.
Until he came, the law could not get anyone into the presence of God.
Because if you break one law, the curse of breaking one law is death.
Because to break one law is to sin.
And the wages of sin is death.
The only way to avoid this whole thing is to pretend that the wages of sin is not death.
That's the only escape out of this.
That's also like saying there's no gravity.
Doesn't help, right?
At least let us acknowledge that the reasons so many religions exist
is because man is struggling to deal with sin.
At least let's acknowledge that.
Unless you are one of those intellectuals that is brighter than every other human being
that has existed thus far and doesn't think that sin is real.
But let's give some credence to the fact that so many religions exist
and every religion tries only one thing.
Take away the guilt of sin.
Question from the audience.
Yeah, so I would question the premise of your question.
I'm not suppressing nothing.
If you live with humility, it is because you are deeply in love with someone who is humble.
And you do it freely.
If you want to lay aside ambition, you're doing it because you follow someone
who lays down his life for others and you're so in love with him.
Your ambition doesn't matter.
Everything you do has such zest, space, light, life, that you love it.
Nothing is a sacrifice.
Nothing in Christianity is a sacrifice.
We sacrifice for each other.
But for a one you love, how can you ever sacrifice?
You do it because you love.
I have never heard my dad or mom say,
I'm sacrificing this egg for you because you love eggs.
No, they don't.
Dads will wait till the children have eaten and then eat the scraps that are left.
So we need to understand a Christianity that is full of zest, life, love and space.
It's exhilarating.
It is because you're in love with the one who is humble,
who is someone who doesn't think of ambition.
So when others look at you, they scratch their head thinking,
how is this guy enjoying life like this?
And worse, you are behaving like Christ and beginning to do better.
You're not doing worse.
It's crazy.
I am no longer suppressing anything.
If sin is being overcome by suppressing sin,
I'm not saying that I'm doing that or that.
I'm just saying, if sin is overcome by suppressing sin,
we are like any other religion in the world.
Put blinders on.
Don't look left or right.
There are girls sitting all around.
Walk straight.
No, no blinders.
And you can walk in Bangkok and Las Vegas without blinders.
Why? Because somehow you've gotten to a point where you like him so much
that to not be like him bothers you.
Because no longer do you have the default of sin.
This is not your normal tendency.
To sin is not your normal tendency.
We'll talk about that.
How can, once you remove the sponge from his stomach,
there's nothing there.
He drinks normal water.
It's crazy what God has done, man.
One of the things we should attempt to understand here is who we have become.
There is nothing inside of me that has a desire to sin.
I am not suppressing anything.
Adam had no desire to sin.
He chose to disobey.
He did not desire to sin.
He chose to disobey.
I can still choose to disobey.
But within me, and this is the true condition of every person who lives
and is a believer in Christ,
there is nothing in me that desires to sin.
You know what I used to preach before?
That there is a good wolf and a bad wolf inside you.
And depending on which wolf you feed, that's the one you get.
That is not how Christianity works.
The bad wolf was crucified with Christ.
It no longer lives, but Christ lives in me.
There's only a good wolf now.
So I am suppressing the bad wolf.
There's no tug of war happening inside me.
Paul speaks of this in Romans chapter 7, and he's speaking as a Jew.
He says in Romans chapter 7, oh, look at my wretched condition.
When I want to do good, evil is there.
I try doing good, I end up doing bad.
And he's talking as a Jew who was practicing Jewish law.
And then in Romans 8, he opens with this crescendo.
But thank God for Christ, and because I am in Christ,
therefore now there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ,
for the spirit of life of Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death.
That's exactly what we're talking about.
Something died. I'm set free from that.
He is no longer my slave because he escaped last night because he died.
Do you actually believe that something in you died?
If you don't believe that, this is very hard to comprehend.
That the only thing remaining in you now is something that is absolutely new
and has only Christ in you.
This, if I don't really believe this, I'll struggle.
It's like having money in your bank and not knowing that you have it.
There's nothing in me that wants to sin.
Yeah, so let's go there next.
You're back to being Jesus.
There might be a movie career for you out of this.
This is Jesus and I'm a born-again person.
Yeah, let's compare again.
Does Jesus have a body?
Do I have a body? Yes, very obvious.
Did Jesus have thinking and feeling?
Do I have thinking and feeling?
Was Jesus exposed to temptation?
Am I exposed to temptation?
Did Jesus have a pure spirit?
Do I have a pure spirit?
Absolutely, I'm born again.
Was Jesus full of the Holy Spirit?
Am I full of the Holy Spirit?
What in the world is the difference?
There's only one difference.
He could have lived on forever.
I will die.
I will die because I was born in sin.
Yeah, and Jesus could have lived on forever because there was no...
He wasn't conceived in sin.
I will die.
That is the only difference between someone who's born again and Jesus.
It's crazy the advantage that we have
because the Holy Spirit is a person.
He's not a quantity.
He's not a little bit of,
oh hallelujah, I have become born again.
And when you become born again,
a deposit of the Holy Spirit enters you.
And then as you get holier and you attend church and you lead worship,
more Holy Spirit comes into you.
This is a common theology.
And then if you speak in tongues,
that means a lot of Holy Spirit is in the room.
This is theology.
It's practiced in many churches.
I taught it.
I practiced it.
It is not true.
The Holy Spirit is a person.
If I went to Pawan's house,
I can't stand with one foot outside and one foot inside saying,
I'm in, I'm out.
I can't do that.
I'm either in his house or I'm outside his house.
But once I enter Pawan's house,
it's up to Pawan whether he takes me into the living room,
the bedroom, the kitchen, and shows me around the house.
So here's the thing.
This is where James' coffee gets completely destroyed.
And after this, I will return it to you.
This is a believer.
He is full of the Holy Spirit.
But to the extent that he yields to the Holy Spirit,
to that extent, he begins to look like Jesus.
All of us have the same Holy Spirit, same degree, same person,
nothing less, same amount of Holy Spirit as Jesus did.
But the more I yield to him, the more I look like Jesus.
You want it in the coffee or out?
Let us return the coffee to James.
Thank you, James.
There's always someone in every session who brings coffee.
I don't know why.
It's just paper, yeah.
I mean, I don't understand what the problem is.
You pour coffee in a paper cup.
Here you put paper into a coffee cup.
So now let's talk about why are things a struggle
if I don't have a problem with a default to sin?
Why do I still struggle?
Let's talk about that.
Guys, everything moves down this pathway.
Everything is a choice.
The choice becomes a...
No, everything begins as a struggle.
The struggle becomes a choice.
The choice becomes a preference.
The preference becomes a default.
This is a movement of our Christian life.
Initially, because we've gotten used to a certain way of functioning,
it's a struggle.
But we move from struggle to choice, choice to preference,
preference to default in everything in our lives.
What causes this movement?
So I want to tell you, I've known Kezia from Bahrain,
and I've known Dawn for a few years.
There are certain things about the marriage that you don't know
that I want to share with you.
Please, I'm already saying please.
So Dawn was a guy who loved movies where there's a lot of dishoom-dishoom,
like fighting.
And Kezia was someone who loved movies where you cry a lot.
And Dawn didn't know this when he first got engaged to her.
And then one day he's sitting with her,
and he realizes she likes watching these chick flicks where you cry like crazy.
He likes movies where you fight.
And he thinks, oh my God, this is going to be a problem for the next few years.
But then as he begins to spend time with her, he begins to really begin to like her.
And it's Friday, and she says, we need to go pick up a movie.
So they drive to Blockbusters, which used to be a movie shop long ago,
and they go and rent a DVD, and they come home.
And the first time they go there, Dawn doesn't even pay for the movie.
Kezia has to pay out of her own pocket.
And they come and they sit, and they begin to watch this movie.
And within seconds, Kezia is like, oh, and Dawn doesn't know what to do.
So he puts his arm around and taps it a couple of times and says, it's okay, it's okay.
And then he falls off to sleep.
But now as the days go, you guys don't know this story, right?
Okay, so now as the days go by,
and if you notice, they're not denying it either.
So now as the days go by, he begins to really like her more.
Like he thinks, my God, this woman is actually sent from God.
I really like her.
So it's Friday again.
And so she says, we need to watch a movie today.
And he says, yes, yes, I'll come with you.
He goes to Blockbuster, and this time he pulls out his wallet and pays for the movie.
And they come home and they sit.
She starts bawling.
And he puts his arm around her like for four minutes.
Yeah, and just comforts her while she cries and then promptly falls off to sleep.
Three months into the marriage, he's like head over heels over her.
Like he tells everybody about her.
She's the most beautiful thing that has happened to me.
My God, my heart is stained.
It goes thump, thump, thump every time I see her and stuff like that.
And so it's Friday.
And he tells her it's Friday.
We need to go pick up a movie.
And then he goes there.
And while she's going looking for a movie, he pulls out her list, says,
these are the 10 saddest movies in the world.
And he gives it to her.
And he says, let's pick this one.
And he picks it.
And they go.
And they watch.
And now he's got a towel on his shoulder so that she can sob on it.
Yeah.
And they watch it together.
And it's like 15 minutes into the movie.
She's sobbing and he's comforting her.
Eventually, at the 20th minute, he falls out of sleep.
Six months into the wedding, he's head over heels over her.
He's like clay in her hands.
She makes him do whatever she wants to.
Yeah?
Throwing garbage out, petting the cat is not a problem at all.
And so now it's a Friday night.
And here's what happens.
She's working.
And she finishes work.
And he picks her up.
And she says, we've got to go pick up a movie.
He says, don't worry.
I've taken care of it.
She says, what?
Did you pick up a movie that will do a lot of fighting?
He says, no, I don't like fighting movies.
And he picks this really sad tear-jerker.
And she comes home.
And he opens the door for her.
And there are tear-shaped petals on the ground.
And she's fascinated as he takes her, seats her.
And then she notices popcorn.
And she says, saltless or salted?
He says, we will salt it with our tears.
And so you've got tear-shaped petals.
You've got saltless popcorn.
And they sit together.
And 15 minutes into the movie, she looks at him.
And he's crying.
And they sit and watch the entire movie together.
And it is a moment that is so magical that Don and Kezia can never forget it in their lives.
What happened?
How did someone go from struggle to choice to preference to default?
How did Don end up having movies that make you cry as his default
when he actually used to begin with Jean-Claude Van Damme?
If you haven't watched his movies, don't.
It's worse than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Yeah?
So how come it happened?
What changed?
What is it that makes you change from struggle to choice to preference to default?
It's just one thing.
As you begin to like someone, you begin to move from your taste, your likes, your dislikes
to that person's taste, likes, dislikes.
Haven't you noticed Derek's dressing?
Is there any doubt that this works?
Derek used to be the most uncoordinated dresser in the church.
Today?
It's crazy.
Yeah.
The point being this.
As you begin to like someone, you move from struggle to choice to preference to default.
Sin goes away only like this.
No sin goes away because you pray.
No sin goes away because you fast.
No sin goes away because you've been delivered.
It goes away but it comes back.
No sin goes away because people pray for you.
It'll go away for a while, three days, four days.
The only time sin goes away is when you like something else more than sin.
Let's assume fighting movies are sin and tearful movies are godly.
The only way it changes is when you begin to like someone more than the sin.
There are situations where god will instantly deliver you from things.
But most other things follow this process.
You can follow me in a mall.
You can follow me in Las Vegas.
You can follow me in Bangkok.
You will not find me looking at every woman that passes by.
And it is not because I'm a pastor.
It's not because I'm a Christian.
It's not because I've got to preach.
It's not because of any other reason.
But I have begun to like someone who is pure and holy to the point now where I enjoy behaving a way that pleases him.
Was it a struggle? Yes.
But is it a default now? Yes. Why?
Because within me, there is nothing compelling me to sin because he escaped my mastery.
Now it's only a question of working on this.
Guys, Christianity is crazy.
Your body is the same.
When you die, you'll be given a brand new body.
So that's waiting to happen.
Your spirit is brand new and Christ lives in you.
That work is already done.
The only work that has to happen while we are living on earth is thinking and feeling.
How do we change that?
The Bible is very clear.
Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How?
By the spirit, by the body.
That's all.
That is our only struggle.
And as you do this, you'll find yourself constantly changing.
How come I don't use filthy words?
I used to use F words like it was punctuation.
How come I don't?
How come even when someone cuts me off in traffic, it doesn't come up?
How come I'm not trying to suppress bad words?
At least I should come to here and go down because I'm a pastor.
But how come it isn't there?
How come porn is not something that I have to struggle to fight to stay away from?
Why is it that I'm changing in every area in my life?
Because I've got more of the spirit than you?
Absolutely not.
It's because as you begin to like someone more, you start to like them more.
Absolutely not.
It's because as you begin to like someone more, your struggle becomes a choice,
becomes a preference, becomes a default.
Because in the soul, in your thinking and feeling, you're changing, you're changing.
And there is nobody here who's a believer who hasn't changed.
And if you didn't change because the spirit of God entered you and transformed you,
you changed because you cooperated with the spirit of God and you like God.
Which brings us to another question.
How do you like God more?
Usual answers.
Pray. Read Bible. Worship. Spend time.
Attend. Sunday. Pursuit. Quest. Revive. Wally. And Toonie.
How do you like God more? You like God by doing all these things.
Wally and Toonie sound like two people in the church.
How do you like God more?
Usually the answer is, if we do this, it shows that we like God more.
And it's so not true.
How do you like God more?
You cannot like God more till you begin to kind of recognize how much God likes you
and then begin to respond to it.
You cannot like God more.
How much will you pray?
Ten minutes? What if he goes to pray 15 minutes?
How much will you read? Four chapters?
What if Echo goes to read six chapters?
This is measures. You can never do this.
When, who shall we pick on?
Amari and Remy.
When Amari was born, Remy came.
By now, Amari had counted Yahya's fingers and toes and nose and all that stuff and found that Yahya was fine.
And so Remy comes in like a big dad and he picks up Yahya and Yahya looks at him strangely and thinks to herself,
who is this fellow? His face doesn't look as soft as my mom.
His hands are rough.
And she's making these strange sounds because Remy is going, and she's not understanding why.
And so Remy does that for two minutes and then he takes the child and gives it back to Amari.
Next day, around the same time, Remy comes again.
Again, he makes those silly sounds and this time Yahya decides she's going to like drool over her.
So she opens her mouth and a whole lot of saliva comes on Remy's face, but he still makes these Google noises.
And then he touches her and she says, rough face again, gives it back to Amari.
Third day it happens again, fourth day it happens again, fifth day it happens again, sixth day she knows this man is coming in,
that man with the rough face and rough hands that has a strange smell that is not like her mom's.
And she picks him up again and looks at her, makes noise, puts it on.
Seventh day he comes and something strange happens.
As he goes to pick her up, Yahya takes a little hand and she grabs Remy's little finger and won't let go.
And Remy starts weeping.
Because it's the most amazing moment in his life.
And she won't let go. He can easily pull his hand, but he won't.
He spent the last six days lifting her up, showing her how much he loves.
The child would look at him strangely.
Five days, six days, seven days, and then suddenly the child responds and grabs his hand and won't let go.
And it changes his life forever.
So the question is, who loved whom first?
Did Yahya love Remy first or did Remy love Yahya first?
Yahya is not in a position to respond to Remy and love him more,
till she experiences again and again and again and again and again
The love of the father towards the daughter and then one day the daughter just responds spontaneously,
naturally, without thinking and grabs his finger and Remy will do nothing to remove it for the rest of his life.
Who loved whom first?
The father loves the child first.
And at some point after receiving love for a period of time, the child begins to respond.
Which is why in 1 John it says,
It is not possible to like God more unless I spend time being loved by God.
It is the secret, it is the key, it is the doorway into successful Christianity.
If I cannot find time to experience, taste, savor what it looks like to be loved by an invisible yet absolutely present father,
I will not be able to respond.
All I will do is pray more, read the Bible more, worship more and it will become a chore, it will become a duty, it will become an obligation.
It will be like husbands coming home with flowers every day for 40 years saying, I love you and give the flowers.
It doesn't mean anything.
This is the secret to Christianity.
And so you might say, but how will I experience God?
It's so hard to experience God.
He's invisible.
I can't see Him.
Thank God that doesn't happen.
You think He's invisible, He isn't present, He's far away.
But I want to say to you that He is closer than your own spirit.
It is absolutely possible for someone who has received Christ to experience the love of Christ.
It is a lie if you believe that it is not possible.
You're believing an absolute lie.
It would be like me telling you that the sun is not going to rise tomorrow because I heard it from Trump.
If you believe that, that's absurd.
Very clearly God says, very clearly God says, listen, I'm praying for you.
Ephesians 1.18, that you may know the breadth, the depth, the height, the width of my love.
Why would he pray for something that you cannot experience?
It is absolutely possible to experience it.
And it's not yours.
It is not Yahya's to say, where is that man with a rough face?
He hasn't come yet.
Come quickly and love me.
No, no, no, no.
It's not yours to make God love you.
It is God's to make sure that He loves you.
Yours is not the responsibility.
It is not the responsibility of the child to have the parents love the child.
It is the responsibility of the parent to love the child.
And this parent will.
Here's the other thing.
Some of us have had terrible experiences with our dads.
And so we can't even imagine a God who can love.
Because the very idea of God as father frightens you because of what has happened in your life with your mother or with your father.
But just because the copy is distorted doesn't mean the original is faulty.
You can take an original, put it in a photocopying machine, and as you press the button, the copy gets caught up in the rollers and it comes out and it's mangled.
It's black.
It's gray.
It's completely distorted.
And you look at the copy and you think, my God, I don't want to touch this again.
But as you open the photocopier to pull out the original, you look at the original and it's still as perfect as it's supposed to be.
One of the ways we end up thinking God is a grotesque monster is because of the grotesque monsters that humans have been in our lives which distorts the face of God.
We superimpose our experience on the face of God and it prevents us from approaching him.
But guess what?
Give him a chance and he will show you what it is to be loved because he made you.
Who knows you better?
So what happened to all the people who lived before Christ?
What happened to all the people who lived before Christ?
Let's say his name was Lazarus and let's say his name was Lazarus.
Yeah? Lazarus and Lazarus.
And Lazarus was a righteous man because he lived by the law.
He tried to obey the law that Moses had given.
And Lazarus was a messy man and he was unrighteous.
They both die.
When they both die, according to scriptures, Luke 16 and other places, they would go to a place called Hades.
Hades was divided into two.
One part was called Paradise or another word that the Jews used for it was Abraham's bosom.
And the rest of it was called Hades.
The righteous dead, because they lived by the law, would go to Paradise.
The unrighteous dead would go to Hades.
This was how it was till Christ came.
When Christ came and he died on the cross, what are the words he uses?
When the thief asks him what he says, he says, today you will be with me in Paradise.
He goes to where the righteous dead go.
And the thief goes there too.
Then in Ephesians 4, we hear how when Christ ascended,
having made those righteous by the law, now righteous by his blood.
He now relocates the righteous dead in Paradise to Heaven.
While Hades, where the unrighteous dead are, is a temporary place where people are till the great white throne judgment, which is at the end of time.
This is why in Revelation it says, and death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
There's nobody in Hell right now.
Hell is unoccupied till the great white throne judgment.
And then death and Hades, and the devil and demons.
And anybody who decided to reject Christ after having known what he has done.
What about those that haven't heard of Christ?
A God who is fair, good, righteous, and knows the heart of man will take care of them.
You don't need to worry about it.
He's much fairer than you.
You're outraged for a little while.
He's outraged with sin and with what has happened to the people he's created forever, which is why he sent his son.
So don't worry about unfair judgment.
You'll be fascinated.
Every time God will make a judgment and you will be there, you will fall down and worship because God knows why someone stole an apple.
Someone steals an apple from you and you want the cops to put him in prison for five days because he stole your apple.
God knows which man stole an apple because he is a kleptomaniac who has a problem with stealing.
God knows who stole an apple because he was hungry.
And God also knows who stole an apple because he wanted you to be robbed and hurt.
And when he judges, he will judge based on the intents and the motives of the heart that are so invisible that you and I will be fascinated by the way he judges.
And you'll fall down on the ground and worship saying, Oh God, your justice is like nothing I have heard or seen because you know the heart.
Those three thieves who stole that one apple will not be judged the same way.
We are the ones who have justice that deals with all three the same way.
One has a problem with thieving because it's become a habit.
Another one does it because he wants to harm you.
Another one does it because he hasn't eaten for four days.
You'll be fascinated as a justice of God.
You'll be fascinated as a people that you thought shouldn't be there who will be there.
And you'll be fascinated as a people who you were sure would be there who won't be there.
His justice is the fairest, most equitable, most kind justice you will see.
And you will worship him because he is just.
The Bible talks about it.
I bow before you because you are so just.
These bodies, and we'll end with this, these bodies are not evil.
One last.
These bodies are not evil.
We think Christianity and many other religions think this body is evil and that it should be punished.
That's why you have Christian monks and Hindu gurus and Buddhist meditative masters go and sit on,
sit in the Himalayas or sit in Jerusalem or sit on a bed of nails, choose your poison.
And they go and they punish the body.
They whip the body.
This body is not evil.
This body is good.
This body can either become an instrument of good or an instrument of bad.
It's up to me.
So I can either use it as an instrument of wickedness where I hit him or I can use it as an instrument of good where I take the hurt away.
It's up to me.
You will be raised in these bodies.
They will be perfect.
Your body will be the same as the body Christ had when he rose from the dead.
You will eat.
You will be able to travel through time and space in a way that Jesus did.
You will be recognized.
I will see you and say, oh, Don, same face again.
But it will be a brand new body.
It will be the Bible says, Jesus says to Thomas, go ahead, touch, see the scars, see the holes in my hand.
Recognizable bodies.
So don't despise this body.
Treat it well, eh?
Because these are the very bodies that you're going to be raised in.
It will be brand new.
It will be imperishable.
It can see Christ face to face.
It will be like Adam's body.
It can come into an unapproachable light.
It can converse with God.
But it will be recognizable.
We'll have an extreme makeover.
You'll all look like me.
And so we will be able to talk with God.
We'll be able to eat with him.
He did that.
Please understand that Jesus had two bodies, one which he walked in after resurrection and one that they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration, where for a second he showed them his divinity.
But we are talking about resurrected bodies.
We are already two realm beings, guys.
Where is Christ?
He lives in heaven.
Where is Christ?
He lives in me.
So where are you?
Seated at his right hand.
Where are you?
Right now in FCC at 5855 Imperial.
This is the most amazing human story ever.
Star Trek doesn't hold a candle to it.
And so here's what is happening continuously.
Just hold this.
That's your body.
That's Pawan's body.
You're back to being Pawan.
Just hold it out a little to me.
Yeah, that's Pawan's body.
That's Pawan's soul.
That's Pawan's spirit with the Holy Spirit dwelling in it.
Every day, Pawan will have choices.
And depending on who is in control, Pawan will either make a right choice or a wrong choice.
When someone says something nasty to Pawan, Pawan's thinking and feeling, which is still not perfect, will say, fight back, do something.
Pawan's spirit with Christ living in it will say, be like me, turn the other cheek.
And depending on who is leading, Pawan will either turn the cheek or he'll fight back.
And as Pawan matures as a Christian, you will find that the one in the driving seat is his spirit.
And if Pawan stays immature, it will be his soul.
Retraining the soul is basically being led by the spirit.
The difference between a carnal Pawan and a spiritual Pawan is simply this.
A spiritual Pawan operates by the spirit saturated with Christ.
The carnal Pawan is a Pawan that lives by his unrenewed but in the process soul.
There is no good angel and bad angel sitting on your shoulder.
There is just who's in command.
Why are you more forgiving now?
Because your spirit with Christ living in it has become more like Christ and forgives.
Why are you sometimes still pretty nasty when you are treated badly?
Because your soul reacts.
I remember a man coming to me after I spoke on Good Friday in another church
and coming and telling me that that was the worst message he had ever heard,
that he wished he had not come to church.
And I had just two months left in that church because I had already told him I was leaving
and I was going to start Acts 29.
And I thought, this man has tormented me for seven years.
You've got only two months left.
Rip him.
So he's telling me what a lousy speaker I am that he regretted coming to church,
that he should have not come.
And I'm thinking to myself, tell him what a pain he's been and all this stuff.
And I can hear the same thing happening.
Tell him what a pain he's been.
Finally take your revenge. Seven years he's tormented you.
And then Christ in me saying, who do you want to be?
Who do you want to be?
He didn't even tell me what I should say.
All I could hear in my head is, who do you want to be?
I remember grabbing his face with both my hands, taking his name and saying, I love you.
I thank you for what you said.
I'll go and check what I've spoken and I'll do whatever it takes to improve.
I love you.
God bless you.
Have a really good evening.
I love you.
God bless you.
Have a really good Easter.
And he says, go bless somebody else.
And he walks off in a huff.
It was literally like that scripture that says, when you bless somebody, you put coals on his head.
That evening he calls me and he calls me and he says, he's crying.
He's a man at least 30 years older than me.
He's crying and he's saying, I am so sorry for the way I've treated you.
And he's going back the years, I'm so sorry for the way I've treated you.
I have not treated you well.
I'm sorry for what I came and said to you today.
Will you please forgive me?
Whoever rules, if your new spirit with the Spirit of Christ inside you rules, you behave like Christ.
If the soul rules, you behave like an ordinary man who's still struggling.
One day when you die and you enter heaven, you enter the presence of God, instantly, just instantly, your spirit is new.
No need, no change there.
Instantly you get a new body and instantly your soul is made perfect.
Eden is restored.
Any questions? I'm done.
Any questions?
Every time I see this, trust me guys, I must have taught this to you.
I've taught this a hundred times.
I revel at this because it is crazy what we have been invited into.
If you could just think what qualifies you to know this?
What qualifies me to know this?
What is so special about us that we know the inner workings of the mind of God and what he has done?
Can we take this truth and tomorrow start living like this?
How perfect are you? As perfect as Christ himself.
Do you need to sin tomorrow?
No, there is nothing inside me that has a proclivity or a desire to sin.
I am not like that.
You saw that with Pawan.
I've escaped that.
Do I have Christ living in me?
24-7.
Can anyone else live there besides Christ?
No.
I cannot be possessed.
I cannot be overtaken by any devil ever again.
I can be oppressed.
I can have a ball and chain effect on my leg.
But I cannot be possessed.
The world can be possessed by demons.
I cannot be possessed by demons.
Because in my spirit dwells Christ.
When I go to sleep, Christ in me, Christ above me, Christ around me, Christ within me.
Am I forgiven?
Always.
Why? Because I'm perfect.
I'm the target of his reckless love.
And the focus of his laughter-filled favour.
I'm the target of his reckless love.
24-7.
We don't believe those guys.
And the focus of his laughter-filled favour.
Any questions?
This normally takes six hours.
You can applaud after I'm done and say, well done Jacob.
You finished it in two and a half.
Yeah.
Any questions?
Yep.
Yeah.
So if I'm right, your question is, on one hand, can you rephrase the question in a simple question form?
Simple question form.
Yeah, when you're just talking to the Father.
When you're just talking to the Father.
And you're just here to see your sins.
Let's say your sins, right?
And there was a way you were talking about it, right?
From so many books.
Yeah.
Which was made to work.
Yeah.
But then where is the balance of that and me and understanding it?
Where I'm making all the things that are wrong?
Yeah.
Different scenarios.
If Don really hurts her, then Don can just apologize and hope things get better tomorrow.
Or Don can really, if he loves her, grieve in his heart for the hurt he's caused her.
As one begins to like God.
The fact that I have violated a relationship and that I have grieved him begins to bother me so much that I'm less concerned about the sin, but more concerned about fixing things between me and him.
When a Christian begins to walk there, sin becomes difficult.
But as long as forgiveness is about getting your slate clean.
We are just like any other religion where you want your sins removed from against you.
The crazy thing is those sins have already been removed.
The Bible says in Colossians that the list of handwritten rules against you has been removed.
My thing now is do I care enough for her where just the fact that what I have done has caused her harm is so difficult for me to bear.
That I will do everything in my power to take that hurt away.
And that will include admitting to her that I wronged you.
And after I see that she's okay, only then will I go buy her chocolates, jewelry and sing her a song with my guitar.
And then the other thing I'll do if I'm genuine about it is I'll try hard not to do it again.
I may mess up again, but I will do everything in my power not to mess up again.
This relationship is entirely about one liking another.
I've made it almost a principle in my life that I will not do anything holy, anything Christian, except because I like him.
Because any other reason for doing anything for God is religious.
Religion banishes two things, love, joy.
What is religion? Something that banishes two things, love, joy.
And I refuse to do anything that isn't coming from a place of I will do this because I like you.
When I get, and when you get to a place where that is how you live, sin will become difficult.
Why? Because the grief of sin causes you more pain than the person.
Because you want to do everything to take the pain away.
Until we get there, it is only a question of I have done wrong.
Oh God, please remove the sin because I'm going for an exam.
If the sin is there, I might do the exam wrong, bad.
Oh God, please forgive me and cleanse me.
I'm going for a job interview.
Oh God, please cleanse me and forgive me because I have just bought a lottery ticket, which is to begin with wrong.
So the point being we want a clean slate.
And God is saying I'm not interested in a clean slate, I'm interested in a relationship.
So when I sin, one of the first things I go and say to God is,
Father, I can ask you to forgive me for this sin.
I really want to.
Or more than anything else, could you once again remind me of how much you love me so that my heart can start running after you?
Because right now, when I'm in a relationship, I'm not interested in a clean slate.
I want to love you.
And the moment he does something like that, you know what happens to me?
I start feeling so bad about the sin because now I have grieved and violated him.
This is what I shared with you about in church some Sundays ago.
I had done something wrong.
I had done it deliberately.
I was feeling terrible.
I'm sitting in some kind of a mess.
I had done something wrong.
I had done it deliberately.
I was feeling terrible.
I'm sitting in Central Park writing to God on my phone saying, I'm really sorry, but I want you to know that I did it deliberately.
I don't even know how to say sorry when you do things deliberately.
And so can you just make me new again?
Can you just help me?
Can you show me how much you love me?
And along comes this guy with a little green bag on which there's just one word, which in Hindi means new.
It said, Naya.
And he comes and sits next to me and puts a bag down there.
And I look at it and I think to myself, how in the world do you pull all these off?
I just told you to make me new and you bring a guy who sits next to me with a bag that says new.
I start weeping.
And now what am I weeping for?
I'm weeping because I felt bad that I had grieved him with my sin.
It's not normal for me to sin.
Honestly, guys, this I tell you.
I do not expect tomorrow to be a day when I'm struggling with sin.
That much I've arrived at.
My problem is when I sin, why is it that I still feel condemned and guilty?
Why is it that I can't walk as one that is forgiven, that now goes and needs to talk with God and say to God,
I know I'm forgiven, but I messed up.
Can you and I talk about this?
No, I'm not saying God is female.
There was nothing there.
I just walked there because Hamari was sitting there.
Yeah.
You have to be so careful nowadays.
Does that?
Yeah.
He first loved me.
But Jacob, I don't know how to do this.
Start somewhere.
My sister asked me today morning, how is it that you are like this in a certain area?
I said I've been practicing it for 25 years.
You practice something for 25 years?
It'll become natural.
We've got to practice it for the next 25 years.
For Dilna's 75th birthday, we should all be perfect.
Yeah.
It's the best gift we can give Dilna.
Wouldn't you like that gift?
See, I knew that.
All good?
Any other questions?
Anyone regretted coming today?
Okay.
John, would you stand?
Happy birthday to you.
Vignesh, could you stand too?
Vignesh's birthday is tomorrow?
And Don's is also tomorrow, right?
Don, sit.
No, no, both of you stand.
Is it Emily's tomorrow?
Okay.
Okay, let's just sing.
You got saltless popcorn or anything?
You don't look for saltless popcorn yet, huh?
Come, Pawan, let's sing.
Since you were Jesus, since you were all this, you can come and sing with me.
Do you have a mic?
Oh my God, you've got to be careful.
Okay.
One, two, three, four.
Happy birthday to you.
You count till four?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, one more time.
One, two, three, four.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, Don and Vignesh.
Happy birthday to you.
Thanks for coming, guys.
I'll see you when I see you.