I was listening to Joseph Stoll, who's the pastor of the Moody Church, and he was talking to a violinist about one of these. It's a Stradivarius violin.
Have you heard of that before? And he asked this violinist, he said, is there really a difference between a Stradivarius violin and other violins? Because these things go for millions of dollars. He said, the guy said, actually, there is. You can tell a qualitative difference.
And scientists don't know why it's different. There's one theory, and that's that Stradivarius lived in a poor Italian village, and he couldn't afford to get really nice wood. So what he would do is go into the harbor and scour, like, salvaged wood out of the muck and the mire and dry that out and make his violins out of that. And scientists have done a microscopic study of a Stradivarius violin, and what they found is bacteria has hollowed out little microscopically cells in that wood, and so it's like a big sound chamber. And had that wood not been in the muck and the mire, the bacteria would have never done that.
That's one theory. So in essence, the master pulled the wood out of the muck and the mess and created a masterpiece. And that's the kind of God we serve. God loves to pull people out of the muck and the mess and create masterpieces for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that in Scripture. And nowhere, I think, is that more clearly than the genealogy of Jesus. In the genealogy of Jesus, you see God pulling people out of the muck and preparing the road for the masterpiece, Jesus Christ. I want to share with you today... Now, don't check out on me when I say what I'm about to say. I want to share with you probably one of the most boring passages in Scripture today.
In fact, if your family is big into reading the Christmas story together, and I hope you are, I can almost guarantee you, you've never read this before because it's so boring. It's the genealogy of Jesus, and it's a long genealogy. We won't go through the whole thing, but I want you to understand this. 2 Timothy 3, 16 says, how much of Scripture is inspired by God? Even boring genealogies? All Scripture. And there are messages even in the genealogies.
Let me take a quick detour and give you an example of that. In Genesis 5, we have a genealogy from Adam through several generations. Now, what I'm about to share with you, some scholars say there's something here, other scholars say, we're reading too much into this.
I'll let you decide. But in Genesis 5, this is right after the fall of man, right after God has said, hold tight, a savior is going to come one day and he's going to crush the head of Satan. And then in chapter 5, it's Adam's genealogy.
And I want you to look at this. I mean, you've read this, so Adam got this person, this person got that person, that person got that person. You know, that genealogy in Genesis 5 starts with Adam. Anybody know what the name Adam means?
It means man. He had a son named Seth. Seth, in Hebrew, means appointed. Seth had a son named Enosh, which means mortal. Enosh had a son named Kenan, which means sorrow. Kenan had a son named Mahalalel, which means the blessed God. He had a son named Jerod.
Jerod means to come down. Jerod had a son named Enoch, which means teaching or instruction. Enoch had a son named Methuselah, which means his death shall bring it. Muth-shalak, Muth is death, shalak is to come, his death shall bring it. Lamak means the despairing. And Noah means rest or comfort.
So you see these genealogies. You see one name after another, but you put the meanings together and what you come up with is man is appointed to mortal sorrow, but the blessed God will come down teaching and his death shall bring the despairing, rest, and comfort. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ right there in Genesis 5. Now, there are four biographies of Jesus in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew and Luke both have a genealogy of Jesus.
Now, understand this. Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% man. He wasn't 50-50.
100% God, 100% man. You said, Chad, that equals 200%. Explain it. I can't. Don't worry about it. Accept it.
You go on with it, okay? 100% God and 100% man. And the genealogies of Jesus are Matthew and Luke's way of emphasizing the humanity of Jesus Christ. Matthew, his genealogy traces the lineage back to Abraham because Abraham is considered the father of the Jewish people, okay? Matthew is a Jew writing his gospel to Jews. And so, Matthew wants to emphasize that Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah. Luke is not a Jew.
He's a Gentile. And he writes his gospel for the whole world, not just Jews. And so, Luke traces Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam to emphasize the humanity of Jesus and the fact that he's a savior for all people. Does that make sense? So, I want us to focus on Matthew's genealogy.
And it's kind of interesting, but the scriptures are being inspired. In the Jewish-Hebrew mindset, anybody know what the perfect number is? Seven. You know, for us, it's 10. We say, well, she's a perfect 10. In Jewish thought, she's a perfect seven. Seven is the number of perfection. And scholars who are much more brilliant than I'll ever be have done an intense study of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew in the original Greek and found that if you look at the original words and letters and structure, it's all intricately organized around factors and multiples of seven.
It's called the hepatic structure. It's actually very amazing. In fact, the Russian mathematician Ivan Panin, he was a PhD from Harvard, he began to study the hepatic structure, the structure of sevens in the original, in Matthew's genealogy, and he said this couldn't have just happened. In fact, this brilliant mathematician said that the number of attempts needed, if randomized, would take over 40 million attempts to make this happen. And Panin said that to accomplish this, the author would have had to have been, quote, a mathematician of the highest order. This struck him so much that Ivan Panin left his atheism and got saved and spent the rest of his life studying the structure of Scripture.
He said this couldn't have just happened. And so what you're holding, when you look at the book of Matthew, you're actually holding something that even scientists can't explain. I want you to look at Matthew 1, and let's look at the genealogy of Jesus. Verse 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Look at verse 3.
So it goes through, this person begot that person, that person begot that person. And Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, verse 5. And Solomon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed was the father of Jesse. Look at verse 6. And Jesse was the father of David, the king.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and it goes on and on and on. But I want you to see this. How many of you all have kind of a messy family tree? Raise your hand.
Okay. You're not the only one. You're in good company. Jesus had a messy family tree. In fact, I remember years ago, I was taking a religion class, going to the ministry, and the professor said something that really amazed me. She said, you know, they've had studies, and they found out that 90% of people in pastoral ministry come from dysfunctional families. Now, that amazed me until I realized 90% of the families out there are dysfunctional families, okay?
You're in good company. I want you to see what's in Jesus' family tree. Do you see Abraham, verse 1?
Look, twice Abraham did this. He goes to a foreign country and he says to his wife, sweetheart, you're a knockout. Men drool after you. I know what's going to happen. These pagan kings are going to hear about how beautiful you are. They're going to come and kill me and take you, so do this. Would you pretend to be my sister?
And that's exactly what happened. Twice, pagan kings hear about how beautiful she is. Abraham says, and it's not my wife, it's my sister. And they take Sarah into their harem.
They insult Sarah, they insult Abraham, they insult the God that Abraham says he has faith in. Incidentally, you know how old Sarah was when this happened? She's in her 70s.
That's one fine-looking senior citizen, man. And so, Abraham's a coward. He's a coward. David, you see that in verse 1? You know the story of David. He committed adultery and then to cover his tracks, he had the husband of the wife with whom he had adultery, he has a husband killed.
That's David. Solomon, you see that in verse 6? He had 100 wives and 300 girlfriends. He went off the rails. He started worshipping other gods.
He comes back to the true and living God before he dies, but this guy's a moral train wreck. You know, it's interesting as you look at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, it's this man begot this man and this man begot... He focuses on the men, but then he gives a couple exceptions. There are four ladies that Matthew makes an exception for when he's talking about the line of Jesus. Now, this is interesting. Those four ladies are not the stellar godly women of Jewish history. All four of those ladies have some issues.
I want you to see this. Look at verse 3. Do you see Tamar? That's in verse 3. Here's what Genesis 38 says. Here's what Tamar did.
All right. Tamar dressed like a prostitute, seduced her own father-in-law so she could have a baby. And the people of God said, ew.
Okay. That's Tamar. Look at another woman that Matthew decides to pull out of the Jesus' lineage and focus on. Verse 5, do you see Rahab as King David's great-great-grandmother? Do you know what her vocation was? She's a prostitute. The King James version calls her Rahab the harlot as being nice. She's a whore. And in fact, over and over and over again, this might be the only place in the Bible where it does not call her Rahab the whore. Every other place she's mentioned in the Bible, do you know this? It's Rahab the whore, Rahab the whore, Rahab the whore.
I've kind of wondered, you know, she's in heaven now. I wonder sometimes if Rahab is standing in heaven looking down at us calling her Rahab the whore and say, you know, it's been 3,000 years since I've turned my last trick. Can you just call me Rahab from now on?
That's Rahab. Look at Ruth, verse 5. Ruth is not a Jew.
Did you know that? Anybody know what people group she was from? She is a Moabite.
They have a horrible history. Ma in Hebrew means from. Ab means father, from father.
Why does this group call themselves the one who comes from the father? Well, it's because they started out of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter. You think you got a mess in your family tree, that's Ruth's family tree. And to take it a step further, her people worship this wicked demon god called Himach.
Himach was wicked. Those people, the Moabites, they legalized child murder, they legalized the murder of infants, they legalized the mutilation of children. Imagine, she basically comes from a radical left Democrat family is what she's part of, okay? It's not a good, solid, conservative Christian family. It's a wicked family that she comes from. So am I making my point?
These are not good people. Ruth, look at verse 6, Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah is how Matthew puts it. You know who she is. She's the woman with whom David had the affair. So you've got incest, you've got prostitution, you've got lying, you've got infidelity, you've got all this kind of paganism. And what did all that mess produce?
Verse 16, and Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Christ. God took that mess and brought out a masterpiece named Jesus Christ. And if God did it for them, He can do it for you, church.
I look at the genealogy of Jesus, and three things jump out at me. Number one, jot this down, God uses messed up people like you and me. I've told you this before, after having pastored for years, I have finally come to the realization that there are some truisms in ministry, and one of those truisms is this, we are all messed up people. And when you say, I'm so messed up, God could never use somebody like me. You are saying more about your belief in God than your belief in yourself. God uses messed up people. This genealogy is exhibit A. Noah got drunk, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob lied, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses was a murderer and couldn't talk, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair, Rahab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David was a murderer and an adulterer, Elijah was suicidal, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, John the Baptist ate bugs, Peter denied Christ, Martha was a warrior, Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed, the Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Paul was a murderer, Timothy had an ulcer, Lazarus was dead, and yet God used them all.
If He can use them, He can use you. God loves using messed up people. Now, I got to be careful. I got to be careful because I've seen this happen before. Some of you all are hearing this, oh, God uses messed up people?
He uses perverts? Okay, well, good. I can get born again and saved and then live like hell and God can still use me if I live morally careless lives because God uses messed up people to live however I want to live.
Okay. That's not the way it works, okay? Let me give you an analogy. Let's say that you're a five-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 30 or 40 years. And all of a sudden, you start coughing up blood. You go to the doctor and the doctor examines your lungs and he says, I'm sorry, you have lung cancer. And I know not everybody who has lung cancer smokes.
I get it, but just play along over here. You got lung cancer. You don't have long to live.
You better get your house in order. You got about a month left to live. And you come to cross assembly and we anoint you with oil and we pray over you and God supernaturally heals you. How many believe God can still heal people? God heals you. You go back to the doctor. The doctor examines your lungs and he says, I've never seen anything like this before.
We're going to write you up in a medical journal. You had less than a month to live and now your lungs are in perfect working order. How ridiculous would it be if you said, I'm healed? Praise God.
I get to go back to smoking again. Hey, moron, God healed you of that cancer. Don't go back to the mess again. And here's what I'm saying to you. God can use a mess, but if he saved you and brought you out of the mess, don't go back to the mess because God uses mess. Okay, does that make sense? All right. So, number one, God uses messed up people like you and me.
Second lesson is this. There's forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Mary and Joseph are engaged, probably young teenage couple. Joseph is in love with this lady. And then one day, Mary comes up and says, Joseph, got some news to share with you.
I'm pregnant. And Joseph says, wait a minute, we've not had sex. She says, I'm pregnant, but it's God who made me pregnant. And Joseph says, I'm now going to divorce this lady. I'm going to break off the engagement for two reasons. Number one, she's a psychopath, okay?
And number two, she's pregnant. And so when Joseph decides to break that engagement, he falls asleep that night and he has a dream. And it says in verse 20, when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the one who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
And she will bear a son, and you should call his name Jesus, for he's going to save his people from their sins. The name Jesus means rescuer. What does Jesus rescue us from?
Bad socioeconomic environments, low self-esteem, lack of education. What does Jesus rescue us from? It says right there, he rescues his people from their sins. And when I look at the genealogy of Jesus, he rescued David from his adultery. He rescued Solomon from his perversion. He rescued Rahab from prostitution. He can rescue you from alcoholism. He can rescue you from murdering your baby.
He can rescue you for whatever it is you have done. The same Jesus who rescued then still rescues today. And here's what I'm finding.
Actually, I'm finding this one more. All right, the lost world out there, when it comes to the Bible, they'll debate you on the Bible. And I hate to say this, until they get saved, many of them won't even believe the Bible, okay? So they'll debate you on the Bible. They'll debate you on your logic.
But here's what's happening to the lost and dying world. They can't debate when they see people who've been transformed by Jesus Christ. It's hard to debate that. In fact, the New York Times, a couple of years ago, ran a story.
Now, let me do a quick time-out. Y'all do know the New York Times is not a right-wing conservative evangelical Pentecostal publication. You do understand that, okay? So the New York Times ran an interesting story about a terrorist from Syria named Bashir Mohammed. The article in the New York Times called him, quote, the jihadi who turned to Jesus. He and his cousin were part of Al-Qaeda. They were neck deep in Al-Qaeda.
They would attend jihadi lectures together all the time. And they loved to torture people, literally. They loved to torture and kill people. One of their favorite methods of torturing people was just to line up a bunch of innocent people on the ground, take a bulldozer, and run over them with a bulldozer, and just kill them all at once.
These are wicked people. But Bashir Mohammed's cousin got saved, gave his life to Jesus. And Mohammed was furious. He had decided, y'all, never speak to my cousin again.
However, a short time later, Bashir Mohammed's wife came down with a terminal illness. And as a last resort, he calls his cousin, who's now a Christian, tells what's going on, my wife's in bed, it's terminal, she's not going to make it. And Bashir Mohammed's cousin said, take the phone, and put it up to her ear.
He said, why? He said, because I want her to hear me and my prayer team praying for her. He put the phone up to her ear, the cousin and his prayer warriors began to pray, and she was supernaturally healed at that moment. A few days later, according to this story, Jesus himself appeared to Bashir Mohammed in a dream. And as a result of his wife getting supernaturally healed and Jesus appearing to him, Bashir Mohammed got saved, and he is now a new person. And the New York Times, okay, this is not Charisma Magazine, New York Times said, quote, he is now a calm man who leads Bible studies and helps others even though he now lives under constant threat of being killed for converting to Christianity.
Let me ask you something. You think Jesus Christ can even forgive a jihadist terrorist who used to bulldoze people to their death, can Jesus forgive him as well? Yes, that's the good news of Jesus Christ.
And the genealogy of Jesus makes it very clear to me, God uses messed up people. Number two, there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. And then number three, God's forgiveness transforms us. It changes us. Look, you tell me you've met Jesus and you're the same person you were before you met Jesus, you ain't met Jesus. Because when you meet Jesus, you're going to change. There's going to be something different about you.
Jesus Christ changes people. And look at this genealogy. I mean, look, the people in this genealogy like Abraham, David, Rahab, these messed up people, you go to Hebrews 11, however, read the Hebrews... Jot this and read it this week, Hebrews 11. You ever read Hebrews 11 before?
Anybody know what we call that? It's called the Hall of Faith. These are all the prominent people of faith for centuries. Do you know who's in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11? The same perverts we see in Matthew 1.
Why? Because God can take the vilest offender and transform them and turn them into heroes of the faith. That's the kind of God we serve.
Jesus' forgiveness transforms people. In fact, Ruth, let me remind you, she has incest in her family tree. She's part of the worship of a pagan god named Chemosh.
It's quite possible she was part of these pagan rituals to slaughter babies. She is now transformed to the point that we even have a book in the Bible named after this woman. Don't tell me God can't change people.
God does. I heard a story years ago about Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, one of the early church leaders, thinkers, Augustine of Hippo. Before he got saved, he was a wicked man. You talk about a pervert, the guy was a pervert.
He was a wicked, vile man. Augustine got radically saved and he moved back home. And so he's back home one day upstairs in his bedroom looking out the window when an ex-girlfriend comes to his house. He knocks on the door, housekeeper opens the door, and she said, I want to see Augustine. The housekeeper says, Augustine don't want to see you.
She didn't know he had gotten saved. Augustine don't want to see you. I want to see Augustine, I'm his girlfriend.
No, he doesn't want to see you. And they go back and forth. She doesn't let the ex-girlfriend in the house. And so the girlfriend ran to the other side of the house, went up under Augustine's window, and she shouted out, Augustine, it's me. And Augustine looked out the window and said, oh, but it's not me.
It's not me. I'm a new creation in Jesus Christ. I'm a changed man. Anybody in this place been changed by the Lord Jesus Christ, raise your hand and praise God for that. Jesus Christ still changes people to this day. God uses messed up people. Now, I want you to understand this. Romans 8, 1 says, there is now how much condemnation for those of us who are in Jesus Christ, no condemnation.
I am convinced of this. The root of most of our problems go back to condemnation. In fact, I shared with you a quote from Billy Graham a few weeks ago. He said, a prominent psychiatrist told him, Billy, I could release half of my patients if I could release them from a sense of guilt.
Look at this picture. You know, we get focused on, I'm struggling with bitterness. I'm struggling with stress. I'm struggling with anger and fear. And we're trying to manage those things.
But I wonder if maybe our problem is we need to get to the root. We're still living in condemnation. We don't know who we are and whose we are in Jesus Christ. Like, for bitterness, I'm resting with bitterness. You know, once you realize how messed up you are, how wicked you are, and that God has forgiven you, it's hard to stay bitter at somebody else. Well, I'm dealing with fear.
Okay, I get that. But my Bible says in 1 John 4, 18, I don't know what your Bible says, my Bible says, perfect love casts out fear. When I realize I'm not living in condemnation, I'm a child of God. God loves me. He's adopted me. He's my Abba.
He's my Father. When I understand that love, how can I be afraid? You know, perfect love, you understand what I'm saying? The root of your problem is condemnation. And so when Jesus Christ deals with that condemnation, that guilt, you're transformed.
It's going to a guy in our church. When he was 17 years old, they got a girl pregnant, and they went and got an abortion. And he said, I thought it was just a transactional thing.
She's pregnant, we go to the clinic, we abort the child, done with. He said, after that, I had all kinds of problems in my life. I could not hold a job down, had major problems with my relationships. I was wandering, lethargic, no purpose. I couldn't understand what's wrong with me. People would ask me, what's wrong with you?
I don't know. And he said, the realization came one day. I had been suppressing for years the fact that I killed my baby, and I coerced a woman to partner with me in that. And when that sin surfaced, and I found God's grace, and I discovered that God had forgiven me in Jesus Christ, that that sin was covered in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's nothing else I could do to pay for that because that man paid for it 2,000 years ago. When I understood God's unmerited favor, his grace, when condemnation was dealt with, everything changed in my life. I had a purpose for life. I went back to school. He's now serving in full-time ministry.
Why? He dealt with the root, condemnation. I'm going to tell you this again. David was no longer the adulterer. Solomon was no longer the pervert. The truth was no longer a pagan whatever. All these people were transformed by Jesus Christ.
You with me on that? God uses messed up people. There's forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
And God's forgiveness transforms us. Let me wrap this thing down. You know, maybe you're like, I remember this little kid before you had like, you know, you could... What do you call the thing where you can record something on TV and watch it later on? The TV by demand.
What do you call it? You understand? When I was a kid at school, everybody was excited because tonight is the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. And you better get home, and you better get supper, and you better get in front of the TV because if you miss the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, you're not going to be able to see it until next year.
And we had watched that. Anybody seen that Charlie Brown Christmas thing? And you see the very end where they're talking about presents and trees and this and that. Remember how Charlie just screams out and says, can anybody tell me what the real meaning of Christmas is?
Do you remember that? With all the materialism and all the traffic and all the get-togethers and all the stuff this season. If you find yourself screaming the same thing, can anybody tell me what the real meaning of Christmas is? It's in verse 21.
This is it. Verse 21 is the real meaning of Christmas. After this sordid genealogy, the angel says to Joseph, and she will bear a son. You should call his name Jesus because he's going to rescue his people from their sins.
That's it right there. A virgin conceived and bore a child, and his name was Jesus. And he grew up, and 30-something years later, he died for your sins and my sins to rescue me from a devil's hell. I ain't never going to hell. I'm serious. You're just kind of cocky. You're a little bit self-confident. No, I'm not self-confident. I'm Christ-confident. That man rescued me from hell.
He has saved me from hell. Let me close with this. I got to say this to all you right-wingers out there. I'm not justifying what Joe Biden did. The pardon was messed up. There's something weird going on.
He's covering up a crime. I get all that. So I'm with you, okay?
I don't want my brake line cut when driving home today. I'm with you, right-wingers. Something weird's going on. But for those of you who don't know, last week, the President of the United States said, that's my son, and you got a messed up past. So here's what I'm going to decree.
I'm going to exercise my power. And for the last 10 years, I don't care what he's done. He can't be prosecuted for that. You'll never judge him for that because I am now signing a presidential pardon. I don't care what my son did. You can't prosecute him.
I got aggravated at that until I realized my daddy did the same thing for me. The moment I got saved, God said, you see all that mess in his past? Nobody can ever prosecute him from that. He will never go to hell. He will never experience divine judgment. There may be some consequences. There may be some whatever, but he will never spend time in a devil's hell.
He will never go to prison. I am now the father issuing the father's pardon for any and all sins that young man may have committed. You say, that's not fair. No, it's not. It's grace. Because 2,000 years ago, all those sins that I should have paid for, that man Jesus died on the cross for. And salvation is God's... Listen to me.
You make this so complicated. Salvation is the eternal God of the universe declaring a presidential pardon over your life. You will never be judged by God the moment you give your life to Jesus Christ. I don't know what God's doing in your life, and so I don't want to project what he's doing in my life onto you.
I'm going to respect you too much to do that. But can I just tell you what he's doing in my life? I realize at times I've been living with a little bit of discontent.
And have you noticed that discontent always kind of manifests itself around Christmastime? I'd like to have this, and I'd like to have that, and what kind of house would it be like to live in that house and drive that kind of a... Here's what God's doing to me. You don't know how much I've blessed you. You don't know where you were headed until my son came and saved your life. I have forgiven you.
I have washed you. You're a new child. You're a new creation. You're no longer a sinner. You're now a saint. So here's some of y'all's problem.
I'm not one to belabor this point in a round of time, but here's your problem. You're in church today and you're born again, but you say, I ain't nothing but a low-down, no-good sinner. I just hope God gives me a shack on the backside of glory one day. It's good Nashville theology to make a great country music song. Unfortunately, that's not scripture. You're not some old rundown sinner on the backside of glory. The moment you got saved, you're a son of God, a daughter of God, a child of God, a saint of God. God's been good to us, church.
Would you say amen? So would you stand with me right now and don't ask him for anything. Don't ask for healing. Don't ask for your cousin to get saved at the Christmas Eve service.
None of that. Lift up your hands right now and just start thanking God for being so good to you. Father, thank you so much. Oh God, thank you for saving our soul. God, thank you for scattering our wickedness as far as the east is from the west. Thank you for proclaiming us not guilty because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that died for us. Father, if we never ask you for anything else, we'll be doing good, God. All we can say now is thank you, Father. Thank you for your goodness. Throw up your hands. Church, lift up your voice right now and just start thanking God.
Would you do this? Hallelujah. Oh, come on my soul. Oh, don't you get shy of me. Lift up your soul.
You've got a lion inside of those mountains. Get up and praise the Lord. So I throw up my hands and praise you again. Because all that I have is a hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much, and I know nothing else stands for the King except for a heart that sings hallelujah. Hallelujah. Man, the gospel, the gospel really is good news, isn't it? And it's all over the Bible. Look in the Old Testament. I was thinking about this blessing of Aaron that I'd like to pray over you.
It's an old Hebrew blessing, but I see the gospel in there. The Lord bless you and keep you, all right? Keep you. Hey, when I get to heaven, going to heaven is not my responsibility. It's my response to his ability. I'm going to heaven not because I'm holding on to God, but because he's holding on to me. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face shine on you.
Does that mean, you know what that means? Make his face shine on you. When God thinks about you, he smiles. He doesn't frown and scowl.
And that's that lady that messed up. No, he turns his face upon you. He loves you. His back is not turned to you. His face is turned to you. You have no idea how much the Father loves you.
You don't understand. And yet God says every now and then, my people get together. I want you to give them a glimpse of just how much I love them. And so God says to us, The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord turn his countenance to you and give you shalom. Peace, wholeness, mind, body, soul, and spirit. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change the world for Jesus Christ.
