>> All right. Good morning. Welcome to Bering Community Church. Again, if you are visiting us for the first time, please see us at our welcome table in the back corner. And if you have any questions or you need any help with anything, our welcome team will be able to help you with that.

Today there is a new members' luncheon that's taking place in the cafe area. So if you happen to be in that area and you're not part of that, we ask you guys to kind of be on the side. But that area is going to be reserved for the new members' luncheon.

So please keep that in mind. I want to highlight a few announcements before we get started. First of all, the family ministry group is having a bi-monthly lunch, community groups that are taking place starting from March. So if you haven't signed up for that, again, this is part of the family ministry.

So if you haven't signed up for that, and all the homes from what I understand is going to be taking place in Irvine area. So please sign up for that and they'll give you assignments of which home to go to starting from March. So if you haven't signed up, please sign up for that.

Let's see. Again, the women's conference coming up. If you haven't signed up, you can do that. VBS for 2019. And I know it's a bit away, July 15th through July 19th. But if you can sign up, if you are willing to help out, please let them know. And our sister Jane is heading there.

So let her know and she'll give you more information for that. All right. If you can turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 1. Peter read all the way to 14, but I'm going to be mainly focused on verse 7, 8, and 9 today. So let me read that passage.

Hebrews chapter 1, verses 7, 8, and 9. "And of the angels," he says, "who makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire? But of the son," he says, "your throne, O God, is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege to be able to call you our Abba Father. We pray that your word would have its effect on our hearts. May it bear fruit, may it convict, may it encourage and strengthen.

I pray that your intent, your very breath, would have its effect, that our church may be strengthened, and to be better worshipers as a result. I pray for your blessing, Lord God, over this time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As we've been talking about in the book of Hebrews, the author begins by saying, "Pay attention to Jesus.

He's better than the prophets." We've been talking about how he's better than the angels, and all of it to conclude in chapter 2, where he says, "Therefore, we must pay very close attention so we do not drift." We've been talking last week that this is part two of this same text in verse 4 to verse 14, how Jesus is superior to the angels, how he is above them.

He's not just slightly above, it says, the first thing that he says, he narrated a much more excellent name than the angels, that's very nature of who he is, is much higher than any other name. And then in verse 6 he says the angels were actually called to worship Jesus.

Today we're going to be looking at third and fourth argument, and next week we're going to be looking at the fifth and sixth argument. But this question of, "Is Jesus better?" is a question that every Christian has to ask repeatedly over and over again in different periods of our life.

I remember when I first decided and was wrestling with the idea of going into ministry, one of the first things that I wrestled with was I had to let go of all the promises that I made to my parents. My dad was a pastor and we moved around a lot, and financially it was always tough.

I can't remember a single year after coming to the United States where it wasn't tough financially. So I remember growing up thinking, "When I get older, I'm going to be a successful businessman," and we would make promises like a lot of young kids do, say, "We're going to buy you a limousine, we're going to buy you a house.

Once we get older, we're going to take care of you," and we would make these promises. And I really meant it in my heart that once I got older and got a job that I was going to provide. So when I decided to go into ministry, that was the first thing that I had to wrestle with.

"Is Jesus better than my parents?" Because I had to let that go. Few years later, back inside, when we were in college ministry, it was the first time in Biola I ever felt like I belonged anywhere as a Christian, and even as a non-Christian, because we moved around somewhere so much.

And so when I had a group of friends that we were doing ministry together in this campus ministry, again, that was the first time I ever felt like I was part of a community. About seven, eight months into it, something happened in the ministry and all of my friends, I mean, I'm talking about every single one of them, all of my peers ended up leaving the ministry.

And that's why even to this day, my former roommates are all 10 plus years older than me, because all of my peers left. And I remember at that time wrestling with the idea that I wanted to go too, because there's nobody my age here. And I was wrestling with that, and said, "If I move because they moved, if I do things because they did it, then I will always be bound to whatever my peers are doing." And I had to ask that question again.

Is Jesus better than your friends? Is he better than your peers? Different stages in life, we have different questions that we have to answer. You get married, you fall in love, and a lot of people get distracted during that period, and then they were doing fine while they were single, but once they get married, they begin to drift away.

And that's another question I had to ask. Is Jesus better than your wife? After having children, I never was tempted, again, about like, I don't have elaborate taste, I mean, there's not a single name brand on my body, and I don't have any desire for that kind of stuff.

But when I had kids, it was first time I felt tempted, like I wanted some money. And it wasn't to buy a big house, it was just I wanted a car with air conditioning, because I was driving a pickup truck and had no air conditioning, and my first kid, we're in the car and he was sweating bullets driving to LA, and it was the first time I thought to myself, "I wish I had more money, so I can get a better car, so that my baby could be in an air-conditioned car." And I remember wrestling with that, with those thoughts and temptation, asking myself, "Is Jesus better than your kids?" Whatever stage of life that you're in, that's a question that you will have to answer repeatedly.

Is he better than your career? Is he better than the bank account? Is Jesus better than your wife? Is he better than your kids? Is he better than your safety? Whatever it is, if at any point in your life that question comes up, and you answer, "No. No, these are better.

Jesus means a lot to me, but my wife means more to me. Jesus means a lot to me, but my kids mean more to me." At some point, whatever is better than Jesus is gonna cause you to drift. You're gonna first drift in your thinking, and then you're gonna start drifting with your heart, and then eventually you're gonna drift with your feet.

'Cause that's usually how it works. A lot of times, again, if we were living in a persecuted country, if you start drifting, you have no need to come to church. But because we live in Orange County, you can drift and be so far away and still be active in the church.

Maybe become Sunday school teachers. But you know in your heart, Christ hasn't been at the center of your heart for a very long time. That you've drifted. Christ is no longer your pursuit. And you no longer even ask that question, "Is Jesus better?" Because you've compromised that many, many years ago, and you've drifted.

See, this whole letter of Book of Hebrews is written to address that issue. They are drifting. At one point, they were passionate. At one point, they were sacrificial. But eventually, the persecution got to them. By the time the gospel got to the second, third generation, they were beginning to drift back into their old life, which to them happened to be Judaism.

To us, it's just whatever pattern of life that is around us. Is Jesus better? So he's been talking about how he's better than the prophets, so therefore we need to pay close attention. He's better than the angels, and he starts from the very top. The third argument that he will give is Jesus is better than angels because he's the creator.

And the angels are just servants. In other words, it wouldn't make any sense to be tempted to worship angels or to honor them while you're drifting away from Christ. In verse 7, "And of the angels," he says, "who makes his angels' winds and his ministers a flame of fire?" In other words, that means a rhetorical question.

Of course God. God is the one who does this. But it can also be asked as an actual question. Who? Who makes them? The word for "make," if you guys remember last week, there's two separate words for "make." One is "poieo." Another one is "genomai." The word "poieo" basically means to make something out of nothing.

It's to create something. The word "genomai" is to have some form and be transformed to another form. So when you and I become Christians, we weren't made into a Christian. We became Christians. We were not Christians, and we became Christians. That's the word that is used to describe Jesus, who humbled himself but became exalted.

He wasn't created, but he was exalted. The word that is used here of the angels is "poieo," to create. So the natural question is, if they were made, they were created, who created them? And the answer is obvious. In Colossians 1:16 it says, "For by him," speaking of Jesus, "all things were created both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been made, have been created through him and for him." Not only did he create them, he created them for himself. Hebrews chapter 1 10, "And you Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands." Now, the reason why he starts with the angels is because even the angels, even the angels were created by him and for him.

They are ministers for Jesus. They are servants and messengers for Jesus. And whenever we thwart that authority, it is a rebellion against the Creator. Let me give you an example, okay, to help us understand lordship of Christ and what he is trying to say here. Those of you guys who are with us at the other building, not this building but the other building, it was maybe about seven years ago, we were all excited and we were building a new building.

First time our church, we were nomads wandering and then we finally had a place that's going to have our own. And we were all excited and it took us maybe about eight to nine months for the construction. And at the end of the construction, after all the structural things were done, they were making the stage, but the stage wasn't necessarily drawn out.

So one day I showed up to the building while the contractors were working and he said, "Hey, Pastor Peter, you need to get involved." And I said, "What do I need to get involved in?" He said, "The architect has very specific things that he wants on the stage and we're wondering if you agree with that." And I looked at it and he said, "No, I mean, this is very strange." So he didn't have the actual, like the drawing of the, he has just a structural part of it.

And then I looked at what he wanted to do and he was making a stage into this weird oval shape where it was protruding on one side and then going deep on the other side. It's kind of like the Korean flag. You know what I mean? And I don't know why, he wasn't even Korean, but he was making this half wave.

And even the contractors were thinking like, "This is kind of strange." And he said they were going back and forth and the architect obviously has authority over the contractor and he says, "No, this is what I want." And so I show up and he said, "Hey, you're the contractor here, can you talk to the contractor?" So I found out what was going on and I started talking to the contractor and I said, "You know, this is kind of weird." And I said, "Where would I be preaching on this?" And he said, "You should be preaching in the corner over there on the side." And those of you who know me, I'm very particular about being symmetrical.

Okay? That's something that's weird, but if something is not centered, it bothers me. So some of you guys may notice that if I see the pulpit a little bit crooked, I'll come and fix it before I come up here. Or even this mat, if it's not centered, I'll fix the mat before I start preaching because it bothers me.

So whenever we set up the chairs, I make sure that it's centered. Anyway, it's weird, but that bothers me. But he had me preaching on the side and he never asked me about it and I said, "I can't do that. I need to preach in the middle." And then he was arguing with me and he said, "You're a young church." Young church, that's how the old churches have it.

He said, "Young church needs to be hip and I know your church is young, so young church wants this." And I said, "No. Our church may be young, but we don't want that." And I was telling him, "I need to be in the middle." And I was just going back and forth with him and I could tell he was really being annoyed.

And one thing that I learned through the years just working with architects and kind of artsy people, right? Some of you guys are really artsy. You're very particular about whatever work you did. You don't want anybody to change the color or you don't want anybody to change the design.

This is your thing. This is your creation and you don't want anybody to touch it. I realize architects are engineers who really have a bent toward art. So they're very particular about their design. So I understood that. This is like his imprint on this church. And he was well-meaning.

He wanted to help us, but he insisted that it had to be this way. And then obviously because he was coming out so strong, I said, "No, we're not going to have it this way. I'm not going to stand on the side on the top of the wave every week just being distracted.

That's just not going to happen." So he ended up changing the design, just kicking and screaming pretty much. And then he got annoyed. The leaders know about this. And then everything was done. He redid the design and it was all centered. Some of you guys remember what that building looked like.

But after about two, three months, somebody pointed out to me that the stage was not centered. Some of you guys did not know that. And the stage was skewed maybe about two feet to the left. So every Sunday it bothered me. Every Sunday. Because I know I was centered, but I knew the stage was not.

So the whole room was symmetrical, but I was always standing on the side and always like I knew it in the back of my mind. And I never got to ask him why he did that. In my mind I think maybe he was angry. He was just being spiteful.

Or maybe it was just a mistake. But for whatever the reason, he insisted that it had to be a certain way. Now the reason why I tell you this story is because we're the owners. We hired you. And yes, you have an opinion, but we hired you to make certain things because we're going to be using it.

We paid you to work for us. It doesn't make sense for you to demand your preference on us. What the author here is saying is God is the creator. Jesus is the creator and he made the angels. If he made the angels to serve him, of course he made us to serve him.

And it is no different than the creation basically telling the creator, this is my opinion. This is what I think. I know what you want, but this is what I want. And it is a royal rebellion for us who have been created for the purpose of his glory to say, no, I don't think that's what I want.

And the scripture says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God because we were all in rebellion giving our opinion to the creator. I want this, but I don't want that. And he's saying Jesus is above even the angels. Of course he created us for the same purpose.

See, scripture says clearly that the angels were created and even the word angel means a messenger. The word gospel in itself basically means good message. The same word, root word for angel, angelos, is the end word for evangelion, good message. Ultimately all for the purpose of serving our creator.

Not only were we created for that, he says he himself in verse 8, he's the king who sits on the throne where all of us are under his throne, his subjects. Look with me in verse 8 what he says. Remember I told you chapter 1 of the book of Hebrews is the chapter that caused me to open my eyes toward the trinity?

Well in the chapter, verse 8 is the key verse. Verse 8 it says, "But of the son he says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever and the righteous scepter, the scepter of his kingdom.'" Who is speaking here? Look at that verse. Who's speaking? When he says, "But of the son he says," who's the he?

Some of your Bibles already kind of highlighted it for you, right? Who's the he? Yes, God the Father. God the Father is the one who's speaking because the previous verse and the of the angels he says, he's talking about again God the Father because God the Father is saying, made you, but he says of the son.

So God the Father is speaking of the son and what does he say? "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." God the Father is speaking about his son and he addresses him as God who's on the throne forever. And I remember reading this for the first time, like how can anybody read this and think that Jesus is anything but equal to God?

This is the verse that I usually turn to when I talk to Jehovah's Witnesses because if you open up their New Kingdom translation, this is what it says in the New World Translation. I think I have it over here in the bottom. But about the son he says, "God is your throne forever and ever and the scepter of your kingdom is the scepter of uprightness." It was deliberately mistranslated so that it doesn't say the same thing that our translation says.

So whether you have the NASB, NIV, ESV, or King James, whatever translations you have, it will all say, "God the Father speaking of his son, your throne, O God, is forever and ever." But in the New World Translation it says, "Of the son he says, God is your throne." So the subject is no longer God speaking to God, but God speaking to someone lesser and saying, "God is your throne." Now I've had so many conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses about this.

I've been on campus talking to them, opening up the scriptures and saying, "You know what?" Because they claim that they translated their Bible out of the same Greek manuscript as the NIV. So I said, "How can this be the same translation?" So either you got it wrong or we got it wrong.

And I would usually have the conversation, "So if we can prove an independent Greek scholar come and says that your translation is wrong, will you admit that your Bible is unreliable?" Because it was deliberately translated wrong. I've never had anybody say to me, "Yes." Because they know what that means.

It means that everything that they're basing their faith on is unreliable. And I said, "I'm willing. If you can prove that my translation was deliberately butchered, I will admit that everything I confess to you because it's coming out of this book is suspect. Are you willing to admit that?

And if we admit that, let's go do some research." I've never had anybody say, "Yes." Because it's not the truth that is founded upon. The group mentality is so powerful. And you don't want to question the group because it means there's consequences that comes from questioning the group. And so if we're not careful, what ends up happening is we pursue the community and we work hard to belong.

But at some point, we stop pursuing truth. Scripture clearly says, "Christ is God." Jesus himself said this in John 10.30, "I and the Father are one." John 10.33, "The Jews answered him, 'For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy. And because you being a man, make yourself out to be God.'" It was clearly stated by Christ.

It's clearly stated in the Hebrews. It's clearly stated in the Gospels. And even the Jews heard clearly that Jesus was not simply saying, "I am like God." "You being a mere man are claiming to be God himself." So why would you drift toward anything else? And as fundamental as that question is, that is the question that we wrestle with in different stages in life.

Is Jesus better? Is Jesus better than your career? Is Jesus better than your bride? Is Jesus better than your wife? Is Jesus better than your future? Is Jesus better than your retirement? Whatever it is that we hang our comfort in, is Jesus better? And obviously, the answer is, of course not.

Jesus is God. Fourthly, he said, "Jesus is greater than the angels because Jesus was anointed above the angels, because he loved righteousness and hated lawlessness." I mean, he's talking about Jesus' humanity. When he was humbled, God exalted him to the highest place because he says he loved righteousness and he hated lawlessness.

Before we move on about this, it's like, "Yeah, I see he loved righteousness." But I want to take a few minutes to talk about what this means. Because righteousness sounds very different to different people and different culture and different times. What seemed righteous in the previous generation seems unrighteous in this generation.

What seems righteous in one culture seems unrighteous in another culture. So we have to be careful that our understanding of righteousness is biblical, not because of where we grew up. Let me give you an example of that. Obviously, I'm bicultural. I was born in Korea, I came when I was young, and so I'm kind of between two cultures like I know many of you are.

But when I was serving in the Korean... By culture, by nature, I'm more Westernized because I spent the majority of my life in the West. But I understand the Korean culture, the Asian culture. But I didn't realize how Westernized I was until I was serving in the Korean church.

And I had a youth... I was the EM pastor and one of our youth pastors were giving a message to our youth group students. And one of the older deacons of the church, and he must have been probably maybe in his 70s, he walked in right in the middle of the service and he grabbed the music stand that the youth pastor was preaching off of and he started walking out of the room.

And so obviously I said, "What is he doing?" And so I grabbed the pulpit, I put it back and I told him, "Hey, just keep going, I'll deal with this." And I took him outside and I started scolding him. And I said, "Deacon so-and-so, you can't do this. This is a worship just because they're kids.

It's not less of a worship. And if you come in here and you take a pulpit, on a pulpit that the pastor is preaching out of, what message do you think that gives the kids? That they're not valuable, their worship isn't as good as the older people just because they're young." And I was just scolding him, I was upset and I said, "You shouldn't be doing this and no wonder why Korean American kids are leaving church because you don't respect them and you're ruining the worship." And this whole thing is like, "Because I'm righteous.

I'm speaking on God's behalf. He needs to be rebuked." And as I was scolding him, and he didn't fight back, he knew what he did was wrong. And as I was scolding him, I was trying to calm myself down. And then the adult service just finished. And they didn't know the context, they didn't know what happened.

All they saw was this young punk, hot-headed EM pastor scolding this old man. And so they go, "What is going on?" So they pulled me aside, "Pastor Peter, what happened?" And I explained to them the situation. And the response that they gave me was, "Yeah, you know, he shouldn't have done that.

That's not right. But what you did was worse." And I go, "What are you talking about? I'm speaking for God. This is worship. I'm protecting our kids." But I realized that in the Korean culture, that's a greater sin to dishonor the older people. And so whatever mistake that he made, they acknowledged that, but he said, "What you did was far worse because you embarrassed him in front of the church." It took me a long time to digest that.

It took me a long time to digest that. Like, why would... Because my mindset is Western. And so in the Western culture, we have a tendency to rely on contracts, right? And what is right and what is wrong. And when somebody breaks that, that's unrighteous and we need to deal with that.

And that's why we go on the streets, we protest, we shame people who break laws and we do all of this stuff. But in the Eastern culture, it is a greater sin. And universally, they will look at that as a greater sin. That's why in the Asian culture, they don't consider you mature when you become independent.

They consider you mature when you become mature enough to acknowledge your elders. You know what I'm talking about? If you don't, it's because you're Western. And I realized that in these two separate cultures, what offends one culture is honored in another culture, and what is honored in one culture is offended in another culture.

So we have to be very careful that we don't project what you and I think of righteousness, and that we are careful that what we consider to be righteous is based upon scripture. Jesus himself rebukes the Pharisees. Matthew 23, 23 says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

For you tithe mint and dill cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the other, you blind guys, straining out the gnat and swallowing a camel." It's not one or the other. He says you need to obey the law without neglecting the what?

The weightier matter. And what was the weightier matter? See, compassion, faithfulness, mercy, justice, these are not tangible things. These are intangible things of our heart. And he says, you think you're righteous because you are tithing these, even the smallest of these things, but when it comes to weightier things, you are blind.

When we think of righteousness, majority of Christians automatically feel burdened. We respect it from a distance, but because when we think of righteousness, we automatically in the Western world think of what we should do and what we shouldn't do. What did Jesus do and what he did not do?

Because that's our frame of mind. And so automatically, when we think of righteousness, like what do I have to do? What do I have to sacrifice? Or here's some things that I really like to do, but I can't do that. I shouldn't do that. But the Bible describes righteousness in a far broader picture.

In 1 Timothy 6, 5-6, it says, "In constant friction between men and depraved mind and deprived of truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment." In other words, he said he's rebuking that generation and saying, "You know, some of these people are practicing righteousness because if they practice, if they do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing, that God's going to reward them." What Paul is saying is godliness in and of itself is the reward.

If you understand what godliness is, if you understand what righteousness is, righteousness in and of itself is the reward because that's what we lost at the fall. His glory was lost at the fall. He's trying to restore us to be righteous. But in the Western world, if we're not careful, we practice righteousness so that we can get a reward.

We practice righteousness because we think it's a means of gain. But Paul is saying, "No. When you understand what righteousness is with contentment, it is great gain." 1 John 5, 2-3, "By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome." His commandments are not burdensome. Is this true? Is that what you actually think? Again, if we think of righteousness as simply as something we do and certain things that we don't do, of course it's burdensome.

Because you naturally want to do certain things and God's law prevents you. There are certain things that you don't want to do and God commands you to do it. Of course it's burdensome. But what does he mean? If you love God, you obey his commands and his commands are not burdensome.

Let me give you another example. Are people easy to love or hard to love? Don't answer that. I don't want you getting in trouble with your neighbors. Okay? Are people easy to love or hard to love? It's hard to answer that question because it's too broad. I have to ask the question in more detail.

Maybe if I gave you a specific name. Is this person hard to love or easy to love? You say, "He's easy to love." Why is he easy to love? Because he's always looking out for me, he's always encouraging me, he's always doing things for me. You can list all these things.

When I think of that person, it's easy to love. And then there's, "What about her?" I say, "Well, she's hard to love because whenever I'm around her, she makes me feel guilty and she's always ripping on me and saying all of these things and so I have to love her." So it's burdensome to love her.

When he says to love God means to obey his commandments, it is not burdensome, not because the commandment in itself is not burdensome, but because of who is giving the command. I can honestly tell you, for me, in my life, the person that's easiest to love is my wife.

It doesn't require a lot of work, to be honest. And the reason why is because nobody has my back like my wife. Nobody supports me and encourages me and takes care of me. And of course, when I was younger, my mom played that role, but as a grown man, it's my wife.

So it's not hard to love my wife. It's not hard to sacrifice for her. It's not. It's just because of who she is to me. When he says his commandment is not burdensome, he's not saying the commandment in itself is not burdensome, it's not burdensome because of the one who's giving the command.

Righteousness is being right with God. Righteousness is loving God himself. And because it is God who gives the command, it is no longer burdensome. When you don't know God, when you don't have this affection for God, when God is just this figurehead in heaven, everything he commands is going to be burdensome.

But when you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, all of a sudden, you desire it. And you know, every single one of us knows exactly how that feels. You can drive to L.A. for work and it is two hours of trudging through the traffic.

But all of a sudden, you have some girl that you fell in love with and she happens to be living in L.A. And your friends are telling you, can you stop going to L.A.? Can you just stay in Irvine for a period? You can't help yourself. And that drive is not burdensome.

It's the reason why you're driving that makes that drive burdensome. Righteousness isn't simply doing what's right and avoiding what is wrong. That's why he says if you love me, obey my commands. Obeying me is loving me. But at the core of it is Christ. At the core of it, it's Christ who is exalted.

So if Christ is not the center, if Christ is not our pursuit, if Christ is not our goal, if Christ is not our love, it just becomes things to do. You missed the whole point. That's why he keeps saying that the end conclusion of all of this is chapter 12.

Fix your eyes upon Jesus. And that's what he's doing. We're at the beginning of it. We're going to spend 11 chapters where he says, listen to Jesus. Look at Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Look at Jesus. Because everything that we do hinges upon this. He loved righteousness, but he also hated lawlessness.

James chapter 4, 4, he said, you adulterous, do you not know that the friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. There is no in between. Because the world is in rebellion against God, you cannot be friends with the enemy of the one that we love.

He says he hates lawlessness. John 15, 19, if you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this world, because of this the world hates you. The more you love something, the more you end up loving what they love.

The more you love someone, the more you begin to hate the things that they hate. He loved righteousness, hated lawlessness. Therefore it says, Jesus was anointed with all of Godness above his companions. Now I want to conclude today's message with this. His throne and his anointing is described as anointing of oil of gladness, of joy.

This is at the center. This is at the center of what Christ has given us. Because the Bible says that he came to give life and to give us life abundantly. He didn't give us, he didn't say I came to give you directions. He didn't say I came to point you to the right direction.

He didn't say I came so that I can just deliver you from hell. All of these are benefits. All of these are byproducts. But he said I came to restore what? Life. Because life was what was lost because of sin. So life is what is restored because of his righteousness.

But this life is Zoe. It's another way of describing joy. And Jesus says I have come to restore this life, this joy. And that's why over and over again the Bible describes the fruit of our salvation as joy. Romans 4, 14, 17. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5, 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness. You know how we can tell if somebody's going to persevere in their faith? You know, now that I've been a Christian for 35 plus years, I've seen so many Christians who were on fire for God at one point and just kind of walking away in their faith.

Now I've seen people saying that they're going to become full-time missionaries and are no longer even going to church today. You know, made their confession, was active at church, and after five years, ten years, they disappeared. And there's one thing that I noticed that is consistent with people who endure.

They do what they do because they're happy. The gospel did not come to us through 2,000 years of suffering and persecution because men and women were determined to do the right thing. You know the difference between hardworking people who are determined and resolved? They'll give up their weekend. They'll give up some of their money.

They'll help when they can, when they have abundance. But they will never give up their life. It is not hard work and determination that brought the gospel through 2,000 years of chaos. It's men and women who have been affected by the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they found joy in serving and dying for Christ more than anything else in this world.

That's what brought the gospel here. And it is joy and life that is infectious to the world. It is not our hard work and righteousness and good deeds that the world looks at and says, "I want some of that." It is worship that they are not able to do.

It is worship that has been squashed because of their unrighteousness. So are there moral people outside the church? Yes. Are there good, honest people outside the church? Yes. That is not unique to us. What is unique to us is the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect, that covers us, that causes us to worship him in spirit and in truth.

That's what the world does not have. And so if the fruit of our life isn't joy, eventually your mind, your heart, and your feet will eventually take you to whatever brings you joy. If you find joy in making money, that's where eventually your body is going to take you.

Whatever pleasure, wherever you find comfort, wherever you find life, eventually that's where it will take you. But those who are under the dominion of the Son, the fruit is gladness. Because he was anointed with gladness, that is what we get. Colossians 1:11, "Be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the attaining of all the steadfastness and patience joyously." 1 Peter 1.8, "And though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory." Finally John 10, 10 and 11, "The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd." The good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep. Let's fix our eyes upon Christ. The temptation in this world is just too great. The distractions, all the little trinkets, all the little things, all the anxieties and fears of, "If I don't do this, what if tomorrow?" All of that.

You can't combat that by determination. Only when you see the beauty of Christ, then all these other things will become rubbish. Let's take some time to pray as we ask our worship team to come lead us. This morning, as we pray, and I know this is a broken record, but I'm going to keep saying it as long as I'm in the pulpit.

There is nothing better than Christ. I told you how easy it is to love my wife. She makes it easy. But even my wife does not compare to the love of Christ, because she's human. She's incomplete. She's a sinner like me. There's only one perfect being who's all-powerful, all-knowing, who's capable of providing for all our needs, loves us as perfectly as Jesus does.

Why would we be tempted to go anywhere else? Let's take some time to pray and work hard to answer this rest. Let's pray.