In this sermon titled "Our God is an Awesome God," the speaker addresses the doubts and struggles that people face when they encounter difficulties beyond their understanding. The speaker emphasizes that God is not waiting to harm or destroy us, but rather, He is a good shepherd who gives abundant life. The sermon encourages listeners to strive to be like Jesus and to forgive others freely, as this reflects the nature and character of God. The speaker also highlights the unchanging nature of God, who is not affected by external circumstances or human mockery.

Today we got this beautiful theme. This theme is titled, Our God is an Awesome God. Our God is an Awesome God. Sometimes when we go through struggles and difficulties and things that beyond our human comprehension, understanding, we begin to doubt God. We begin to doubt our leaders. We begin to doubt about people around us, co-workers, even parents, teachers. And we ask in dismay, Oh, God, what is it all about? If we look and read through the history of our church fathers and those Christians who lived for the Lord in the first 500 years, we are facing nothing. Our troubles, our oppositions, our difficulties are nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But yet we come to a place in dismay thinking, Oh, Lord, when is it all going to be over? I've been praying for so many days, the prayers not answered. I thought to give it up, but then I thought it's better I continue, so I kept continuing. Some of us, we stopped praying, we stopped loving somebody. We want to be forgiving and forgiving and forgiving, but we say, Oh, Lord, look around, I am very kind, I am forgiving and forgiving, I am trying to be good, but no one shows me kindness and it seems no one forgives me. Simple things. And then we say, Oh, no, I got a terrible backache and I did massaging and all this kind of stuff. I did English medicine treatment, Ayurvedic medical treatment, and I did my own treatment, but nothing is happening, that pain is still there, it's persisting, and I keep struggling in my body, and it looks like the Lord is not interested. You see, we are people who go through struggles and difficulties, all kinds of it. And all of us have different, varied abilities to go through that. Our passions are tested often, and we lose our temper, we lose our calmness, our composition of mind and heart, and at times we begin to be just like any other human on planet earth, that don't have any control over anything of his or her own faculty. And we come to a place of losing our trust and our faith in God. We may remain Christian, we go to church, we read the Bible, and we sing songs, and we do all those kinds of things, but we find a deep emptiness within. So then what is the answer to all those things? How do we face those situations? And then we say, God is awesome, and his name is above every other name, and he is great and mighty, and he loves me, all those kind of wonderful things to qualify our faith in God himself. And so this song says, my son, my daughter, you don't worry. When you are waiting, I am sanctifying you. When you are waiting, I am doing something that you are not seeing. When you are working and waiting, I am preparing something that you don't know about. And you know all the time. Even before we begin to understand, God knows everything, far beyond and above, into the future. That is why we say, he is, he is now, and he will be, shall be ever, the God who is unchanging, and not affected by weather and climatic conditions and situations around, or even currency notes ban or nothing. Our God is not affected like that. He don't change. And so if he can bring something from nothing, and can make things beautiful, and if he can make something so beautiful, even when people sinned, and come short of the glory of God, and left God away, and did things of their own, and find his own ways, and means then to bring them back to him and say, in my righteousness I award you my righteousness, and make you my own. Can't God do things for you, when you and I, in our own little human, pruning mind begin to comprehend God, and our situations, and trying to find answers. If we think God is great and awesome, and his name is above all other names, and all those things, my dear precious brothers and sisters, it is something that God want us to keep reminded, that your struggle and your life, situations and difficulties, nothing for me. I am doing something great, than you can begin to understand. I am beyond your struggle. I am beyond your problem. I am beyond your situation. I am beyond even the mightiest wisdom, that you think you have. I am above your knowledge. Sometimes we think we know everything. We know nothing. The more we come to think, how great God is, and flow our lives, in love with him, we will begin to say, Oh, even the thing I think I knew, I don't know. My understanding of life, my understanding of others, my understanding of the scripture, my understanding of my own faith, my understanding of future, my understanding of why these situations, for all and all and everything, that you and I can add onto that list, the almighty God says, you know nothing. But I know, even before those things begin to surface. And I have a plan. I have a beautiful plan. I have a plan that you don't know. You are not able to understand. And so in that process, if we are able to submit ourselves to the unfathomable understanding and greatness and knowledge of God, we will only come to a place of humbling ourselves. Coming before God, leaving aside our pride, our resentments, our self, our ego, and the way we try to project ourselves as though we are somebody. Then trying to be someone among all others, we will come to a place to humble ourselves. Because we say, I don't know. And I say, you know. God, you know. That is the God you and I find all through the Bible. Sometimes this is why I do not like so-called scholastic studies and theologians, although I have studied. There are people who try to understand God with their pruning mind, thinking they are bigger than God. And they try to write scholastic, academic kind of thing, drifting people away from God. And trying to excel and glorify their reasoning, their intelligence, rather than humbling themselves before God and fall prostrate and say, I don't know because I am just a human. His creature I am. I am but dust formed into a being like this. But He is the Creator. He knows. Prophet Jeremiah gave that kind of a reminder or reminders to the people of Israel. That's what we read in that passage from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 23. They were in exile. They were in dismay. They were in trouble. They were far away from God. They tried to say, we are good. And they rebelled against God and therefore God has to deal with them sometimes in a very, very harsh way. But then He was still kind, full of mercy and compassion. And so He sends this prophet with this wonderful promise of saying, even when you are in exile, even when you are going through that pain and agony, my children, you are mine. I have not rejected you. I have not cast you away. I am there in the mist. I am preparing something for you that you don't see now. So Jeremiah gave them that great hope and then also he said, I am going to raise up a righteous branch. Righteous branch. And you see that in the gospel of Luke, chapter 1, when the angel appeared to Mary and Elizabeth, in those passages you find the same verse is quoted and connected. The history and tradition and what God is and was trying to do is connected there. So he says, I am going to bring a remnant. So what is Advent? Advent is the same thing. When you are going through difficulties, God says, I am working something new. I am going to send my son. Or Jesus himself says, I am going to come down to your situation and renew your hope. Give you new hope. And I am going to remake something out of a few that will keep wondering at what this God is all about. Jesus, God, he came down, became a human, just like you and me. Had no address, had no identity, had nothing in this world. But he healed the sick. He visited homes of people who were sorrowful and helped them, consoled them. He raised the dead. He multiplied bread and gave to thousands of people. And he walked on the villages of Judea and proclaimed the kingdom of God. He only did good. He did not do anything bad. But you see what people did. They mocked at him. Abused him. Nicknamed him. Put a big title on the forehead saying, mocking at him saying, you are the king of the Jews. Gave him a bottle of vinegar and said, you drink. If you are Christ, come down, save yourself and save us also. Those are all sarcastic mockery of those who don't understand God. But in the midst of all those oppositions and difficulties, what did Jesus do? We often repeat and quote that statement, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. That is enacting the authority and power of this awesome God who is now to be hanged on the cross by the creatures of this almighty who think of themselves to be high-minded and great and big and powerful. But even to them, your Lord and mine says, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they do. He enacted the authority and power even in that worst condition that you and I can imagine. We still try to be exercising our human authority. We are not easily able to forgive and forgo and give up and give away. We still hold our pride. But Jesus said, No, no, my son, my daughter, you become more like me. Take that divinity, that divine nature of me into you, deeper and deeper and get yourself clothed with my nature. Not to be resentful and arrogant and proud and holding forgiveness from others. No. Easily forgive. Forgive instantly. Take my nature on you because I forgive you. Freely, freely you have received. Freely, freely give. And so what did Jesus say? You will be with me in paradise today. That is son of God. That is the awesomeness of our God. He is not waiting there with a spear to kill you, destroy you, put you down and bring more difficulty upon you. No. He is a good shepherd that gives life and life abundantly. And Jesus wants that nature to be ours too during this Advent season. So when we enter into the season, this is what we need to say. I want to be like my Jesus, getting his nature into me, his character into me. I want to be more assimilated with him and become like him. But we must be surprised if we are not able to forgive. Having been born again, having been a Christian for long, serving Jesus, coming to the church and giving to the Lord, all these things we practice, if we are not able to freely forgive, give up and humble ourselves to be like Jesus, then we must be surprised about our own nature, not about what others say. And when we do that, they also will enter into paradise. We will also be able to take them into paradise. Is your God wholesome and great for you? Don't try to put God with your rationale in your box and try to be finding solution for yourself. No. The very reason God put that verse in the scripture is for us to understand our thoughts are nothing compared to the thoughts of God for you and for me and for all of us, even for the world. He always thinks good and good and good for everybody. And He wants everyone to come to know Him and worship Him. No one should perish. So during the Advent season we must pray, Lord, as you came down to save the entire humanity, we, your children, want to have the same passion, same love, same instinct, same desire, same ambition for the entire humanity, brothers and sisters around us, around me. So we have to pray, Lord, take me deeper into that kind of a love that you have by which you came down and became nothing. That must be Advent season for us. Thoughts of God is higher for everybody, even for you, even for me. Let us not put all our thoughts and try to measure God. Let us try to understand God beyond our ability as it is said, higher and just simply trust Him and believe Him and walk into this season and ahead saying, my God has higher thoughts about me and for all of us. For my child, for my job, for my wife, for my husband, for my church, for my institution, and even the situations of opposition and difficulty I go through, my God has higher thoughts because He is higher than everything. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above. And there are a lot of us who say, what a song. What a song. And that is all about Advent. God wants to take you and me deep into this love and believe that He is far above every other name. He is far above my ability to reach and comprehend. And He has a higher plan for me and for everybody. And His thoughts always higher and good.