0:02 [Music] We also want to welcome those who may be 0:26 viewing this live webcast. We invite you to sing with us. Shall we all stand as we sing? Rejoice. The Lord is King. Your Lord and King adore. Rejoice. Give thanks and sing. Triumph ever more. Lift up your heart. Lift up your voice. 0:40 Rejoice. Let's bless his name. Join with us. Rejoice. The Lord is king. 0:59 Your Lord and King adore. Rejoice. Give thanks and sing and triumph ever. Lord, lift up your heart. 1:19 Lift up your voice. Rejoice again. I say rejoice Jesus the savior reigns. 1:35 The God of truth and love. When he had merged our sins, he took his seat. Lift up your heart. Lift up your heart. 1:55 Lift up your voice. Rejoice again. I say rejoice. His kingom cannot fail. 2:11 He rules over earth and hell. The keys of death and hell are to our Jesus. Lift up your heart. Lift up your heart. 2:30 Lift up your voice. Rejoice. Again I say rejoice. [Music] Rejoice in glorious Lord. 2:47 All the just shall come and take his ser to their lift up your heart. Lift up your heart. 3:07 Lift up your voice. Rejoice again. I say rejoice. Can you be seated please brothers and sisters? Oh thy praise shall never 3:26 never fail throughout eternity. Crown him. We will crown him with many crowns. 3:44 the lamb upon his throne. How the heavenly and the drone my soul and sing 4:08 of him who died for thee. and hail him as thymous king to all eternity. Crown in the Lord in the last verse. 4:32 Crown the Lord of years. Crown in the Lord of years. The potent of time of the rolling spy 4:57 [Music] [Applause] [Music] Thy praise shall never never thy praise. 5:15 Thy praise shall never never thy praise shall never never fail to eternity. 5:30 [Music] Praise awaits you Lord our God in Zion. Praise awaits you, Lord, here in this place. A crown of praise awaits you, Lord in Zion. Let's bless his name together. Let's clap and sing. 5:48 Sing. Praise awaits you, Lord our God in Zion. [Music] To you who hears our prayers, all men will come. When we were overwhelmed by sin, you 6:07 saved us. You filled us with the good things of your house. Praise awaits you, Lord our God in Zion. Praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this 6:29 place. A crown of praise. A crown of praise awaits you, Lord in Zion. The praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this place. You answer us with awesome deeds of 6:52 righteousness. For you are the hope of all the earth. And from this place where morning dawn and evening f you call forth the mighty shouts of joy. 7:15 Praise awaits you. Praise away you Lord our God in Zion. Praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this place. Crown of praise. The cry of praisewaits 7:35 you Lord in Zion. The praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this place. We praise you. We praise you. We praise 7:59 you. We praise you, oh Lord. To the chorus. 8:17 Oh, praise awaits you, Lord our God in Zion. Praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this place. Praise awaits you, Lord Zion. 8:40 Praise awaits you, Lord. You're in this place. [Music] So bless thou the Lord, oh my soul. Praising the Lord. Bless now the Lord, 9:03 oh my soul. Praise ye the Lord. Bless now the Lord, oh my soul. Praising the Lord. Bless the Lord, 9:25 oh my soul, praising the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord. As long as I 9:42 live, I will sing praise to my God while I am myation [Music] of him which shall be sweet. I will be 10:05 glad. I will be glad in the Lord. Blessed are the Lord and adore. We cry worthy 10:27 Lord. You are worthy forever and ever. Forever and ever more. Let's sing that again. Glory, honor, 10:42 power belong to you, Lord. We sing gloryy, honor, power will long to you Lord. Where 11:02 and glowing brass, his voice like mighty waters ro the first, the last. The first, the last, the living 11:18 one. Lay down his life for all the world. Behold, he now lives forever more. 11:34 and holy holy, holy, holy, holy, [Music] Lord God Almighty, [Music] 11:53 holy, holy, we stand in all of you [Music] majesty. Worship his majesty. 12:14 Worship his majesty. Unto Jesus. Unto Jesus be all gloryy, power, and praise. Majesty, 12:42 kingom authority flows from his throne unto his own. His anthem reign. So exalt 13:01 and so exalt we lift up on high the name of Jesus. Magnify, come glorify 13:21 Christ Jesus the King. Majesty. [Music] Worship his majesty. Jesus who died 13:44 now glorified king of all kings. Jesus who died. Jesus who died. Oh now glorified 14:01 king of all kings. And in that same spirit of heaven, let's 14:18 all of us lift up our hearts and lift up our voices and you feel free raise your hands and really exalt the Lord in our midst. Let's all of us give thanks together to the Lord. We bless you, Father, this morning. We praise you, 14:33 Lord Jesus. Glory to your name, Lord. You alone deserve honor and glory and praise. We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, for what you've done for us on the cross of Calvary. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your blood that was shed 14:49 that has cleansed us, Lord. We who were once far, you have brought us near, Lord Jesus, and made us part of your body on this earth. We bless you, be exalted, be glorified in our midst, pour out your spirit upon us. All honor and glory 15:04 belong to you our father through Jesus your son. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name and be exalted among us. Pour out your spirit upon us. Speak to our hearts through your word that word from your mouth from heaven. Anoint your 15:20 servant our brother Zach mightily and richly Lord and speak to us we pray. Build your church Lord that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Thank you that you will do this. We bless you this morning. Thank you once again for 15:35 all your mercies to us. They are new every morning and great indeed has been your faithfulness. Thank you Lord Jesus. Amen. Please be seated. We welcome all those of you watching this live webcast. And we also want to welcome back our 15:53 brothers Zach and Stani who are with us this morning. And it's so good to have them seated up here, not at the back in the old hall. Let's give them a good hand. Welcome back. Yeah. And uh we want to 16:18 present some bouquets to the Lord. Much better than these here. And that's our Sunday school children who will bring us a special song as we give thanks to the Lord together. And after that, 16:37 our brother Zach will bring us the Lord's word. We dedicate ourselves first if we are part of the body of Christ and we dedicate this building for the honor and glory of the Lord today. So, Sunday school children, please come. 17:07 [Music] [Music] 17:40 [Music] [Music] 17:59 Excuse me. [Music] 18:26 [Music] [Music] 18:55 All around the world [Music] so strong. [Music] 19:23 All around the world something [Music] so much love so strong is amazing. 19:41 We all are little different in many different ways. Where we come from, our lives are the same. None of us is perfect. So he forgives our sins. Jesus is our savior. 19:57 His love will never end. All we know. How about Jesus? He loves us so much. Never love so strong. No one as 20:17 you. We all a little different in many different ways and where we come from. God loves us the same. None of us is perfect. So he forgives our sins. Jesus 20:35 is our savior. His love will never end all around the world. Something's holding on. What about Jesus love? It's amazing. He loves us all so much with the love so 20:52 strong. No one has to love us more. It's amazing. Jesus love is one of a kind. He loves us so much. We are always on his mind. 21:07 Jesus love is one of a kind. He loves us so much. We are always on his mind. Jesus love is one of a kind. He loves us so much. We are always on his mind. 21:26 Jesus love is one of a kind. He loves us so much. We're always on his mind. All around the world, something's going on. Jesus love. It's amazing. 21:43 He loves us all so much. With a love so strong. No one else to love us more. It's amazing. No one else to love us more. It's amazing. No one has to love us more. It's amazing. [Music] 22:12 [Applause] [Music] Those 23:00 are the best people in our midst to dedicate this hall to the Lord. Their hearts are purer than ours, humbler than ours. They don't have grudges and sins to battle with. 23:20 Here are children who have never seen pornography and never defiled their mind with sexual sin and who got haven't gotten into fights and quarrels over doctrines and so many things who don't stand up here gloring about how well they can sing. Those are the 23:39 people who are fit to dedicate this hall. The rest of us are inferior to them. Jesus said we have to come to him like little children. So when we come because you know because we are grown up educated and a lot of us have got earned a lot of money 23:57 we've learned to appreciate things that are you know great in the eyes of men and when I think of how we started and where we are today. It's not the building that God looks at. 24:18 Are we purer today than when we first started? Are we more united? God does not dwell in buildings made with hands. Let's always remember that. So, what I want to do now is we want to follow the footsteps of our 24:38 children and dedicate this place to the Lord. First of all, before you hear me, I am a mortal man. Before you hear me, let's dedicate this building to the Lord. Let's all stand up and uh in a spirit of prayer with humility of mind 24:57 and uh confessing every known sin as we come before God with hearts that are cleansed in the blood of Jesus. We cannot approach him if there is one sin unconfessed in our life. 25:14 you're wasting your time. The Lord will not accept your prayer. So let's still our hearts for a moment. My dear brothers and sisters, God is not looking for a building. 25:34 He's not impressed by any building, anything. Even if it was 10 times grander than this, he doesn't impress him one bit. He's impressed by humble, holy 25:48 hearts of people who love one another. So make sure as far as you know that your heart is like that and then we can bow before God. So I'm asking you to be just a few 26:05 moments in absolute silence before the Lord and then we shall praise the Lord and give him the glory. Heavenly Father, 27:07 We come before you with great boldness because you have called us to yourself. You you knew us before the worlds were created and in due time you found us. You 27:30 searched for us and found us and brought us to yourself, cleansed us of our sin and provided us with so many many things that we have to be thankful to you for all eternity. 27:49 Many things we don't even realize that you've done for us. Many dangers you've protected us from which we were unaware of. and you've made us your a family, the body of Jesus Christ. Thank you for bringing us together 28:07 with more convenience to be able to meet together. And we want to dedicate this building to you, Lord, from the very first moment. This is yours just like everything else we have is yours. And we want this place to be used for 28:27 your glory from the very beginning. To be sanctified and kept for yourself. That there'll be no defilement here or in our hearts when we come here. That every time we come here, we shall come here in humility, 28:45 purity, loneliness of mind, and in fervent love for one another. so that you can dwell in our midst. So that you'll be pleased always to be present in every single meeting that we ever have here, Lord. From now 29:04 until the day you return, we offer our bodies first of all to you. Our minds, that's what you want, our hearts. Come and fill us with your spirit. We pray that your presence will be here today and in every meeting that we ever 29:21 have in this place. This is our desire that in everything Jesus Christ will have the preeminence. God will be glorified. This is our desire. Father, we thank you that you are here Lord Jesus. You are the most important person here and we want to be 29:40 conscious of your presence. We say you have done all things well. We glorify your great name. Thank you for bringing us together as a family. We give you the glory now and offer up not only this building, all that we have, 29:55 our lives, our families, and our all to you. That all our days on earth will be lived for your glory. That we shall offer to you a sacrifice, our bodies as a living sacrifice with which you are well pleased. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. 30:13 Please be seated. One of the wonderful things in the word of God is it brings us back 30:31 to reality. We live in a world which is unreal. You must remember that everything we see around us, it's going to pass away. The Bible says the world's going to pass away. 30:49 Jesus looked at one of the greatest buildings in Jerusalem, the temple, in his time, and he said, "Not one stone that is on top of another will remain. It'll all be destroyed." Don't glory in buildings. But we must be ready for his coming. He 31:05 said in Isaiah chapter 66, the Lord says these words. Isaiah 66, heaven is my throne. Verse one, 31:23 and the earth is my foottool. Where is the house that you can build for me? He's what he asked the Israelites when they already had a temple that was built by Solomon about 230 years before 31:42 Isaiah's time. That was a glorious building and they gloried in it even though there was sin in their lives. They gloried in the magnificent temple full of gold and silver and fantastic 32:00 architecture and wood from Lebanon and cedars and all types of things. And in their life there was so much sin that Isaiah said to them in chapter one. God says, "You're like Sodom and 32:16 Gomorrah. I don't want your sacrifices. And then he says to them, "You're gloring in a building. Where is the building you can build for my me? The heaven is my throne and the earth is my foottool. But 32:34 here is the person whom I'm looking for." Verse two. I'm looking for those who are humble. Right now, 32:50 to this one will I look. He's not looking at the building. We look at the building. God looks to see who is humble. God looks to see who is broken and 33:07 contrite in his spirit. You know Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." And the Amplified Bible translates Matthew 5:3 as blessed are those who rate themselves as insignificant. That challenged me. I said Lord all my 33:29 life I want to rate myself as insignificant. Do you rate yourself as insignificant? God will look upon you. I want God to look upon me every single 33:46 day. That's been my longing ever since I was converted 55 years ago. I don't care for buildings. They're only a convenience. I want God to look at me. He will look at you. If you rate yourself as insignificant, 34:04 you look around at others in the church and you say, "Lord, what am I? I'm insignificant." The kingdom of heaven, Matthew 5:3, belongs to such people. What are your earthly buildings compared to the kingdom of heaven? And I will look at one who is humble, 34:27 contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word. That means when I see a word of God which I have not obeyed or which I've taken lightly, I tremble until I obey it. The Lord says, I look at such a person. 34:46 And where two or three such people come together, that is God's house. That is God's house, not any building. Two or three who will come together, who are humble, broken of spirit, and 35:08 who tremble at the word of God. That is why you have heard me say before that in our church Sunday is not the important day. It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And if we have lived in brokenness and humility, 35:26 trembling at God's word the last six days of the week before we came here today, God looks upon us. And imagine if you have a bunch of people sitting here that God can look upon you. 35:46 There'll be a sense of the presence of the Lord here that people will come into this gathering and say not what a wonderful building. I couldn't care less for that but God is here. They will fall on their face and say God 36:05 is here. That's what we want. Jesus himself present in our midst. We gather together here to build the body of Christ. 36:22 And when we do that, we never forget that the first body of Christ was housed in a cow shed in the eating trough of a cow. 36:41 How beautiful was that compared to this building? The body of Christ was found in the eating trough of a cow in a cow shed with cowang and filth and muck. 37:01 Why did God do it like that? Why did God send his son to be born like that? I'll tell you. to show to this world that all that the world considers great 37:17 is an abomination in God's eyes. I never forget that. I keep reminding myself. I say, "Lord, this is the one I'm following. Everything else on earth is a convenience." I'm not saying therefore we should meet 37:36 in cowsheds. All I'm saying is it doesn't matter if it's a cow shed. Doesn't make a difference. If this is a cow shed, for example, with cows and donkeys and all hanging around here, we could have had a just as glorious a 37:50 meeting if that is what God gave us. If God, we accept whatever God gives us. If it's a cow shed, that's fine. And if God takes us from here to an ashed one day, it won't make the slightest difference to my heart because 38:05 I know God's not looking at a building. He's looking for those who are humble, broken, and who tremble at the word. And if that number can increase, then we are building the body of Christ. If it's just crowds who come to hear a 38:22 good sermon or come because it's more convenient here or it's air conditioned or those are not the people God is gathering. But if we can gather pe more people who are humble and broken in spirit and to 38:41 learn to tremble at every word of God and if all the preaching in this pulpit is to lead people to tremble at God's word, lead them to humility and to lead each one to rate themselves more and more insignificant every day, we're going in 38:56 the right direction. And when we are a people like that and we love one another, people will come in here and say they'll fall on their face and say, "God is here." And in the light of the glory of God, they'll be be blinded to all the 39:14 glorious things that men appreciate. So let us remember, turn with me to another verse in Acts chapter 17. Acts of the Apostle chapter 17, 39:32 the Apostle Paul was preaching in verse 24. Acts of the Apostle chapter 17 and verse 24. God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, 39:51 he does not dwell in buildings made with hands. He does not dwell in buildings made with hands. This is not the house of God. This is not the house of God. This is a building. 40:10 The house of God are you and me. Make sure that building is glorious. That means clean hearts, humble hearts. That's where God dwells. And I never want to lose sight of it. And he's not served by human hands as 40:33 though he needed something. Let's never think that we can do something for God. I will serve God. I will do this that and the other. He is the one who gives us verse 25 and breath and everything. I can only give back to 40:49 him something which he gave me. And why did he he has made from one man every nation of mankind. All of us are equal. That's the other thing we must remember. Some of us are dark, some are fair, some are educated, some are not 41:05 educated. But he made all of us from one Adam that he created. We all descended from that Adam and in every nation and he determined the boundaries of their habitation. 41:21 He decided where you should be born. He decided the boundary of the house he allowed you to rent. Whether it's big or small, he determined it. He determined the boundary 41:39 of the building in which we should meet in 1975, in 1981 and 2014. three different buildings. He decided that boundary. That's not me. 41:56 It's not any of us. He determined the boundary. He decided how big the building should be because he knew how many people would come. We didn't know. And when the people became more, he gave us a bigger boundary. And we became 42:13 still more. He gave us a bigger boundary. But he's the one he determined the time to when they should increase the boundary of their dwelling place. And the purpose, it says in verse 27, is that within this boundary, whether it's 42:29 a small little house or a bigger hall, that we should seek for God. That's why he put us in this building, so that we might grope for him. and find him. Why doesn't he make it 42:47 easy to find him? Why do we have to grope? You know, the word grope is like in the darkness you've lost something expensive and you're looking looking groping around for it. Maybe it's fallen in the grass or in a pit or somewhere. And he 43:04 says we must after God. Why does he do it like that? because he wants to know how much we value him. If you dropped even a 50 pesa coin in the grass somewhere or in the mud, you 43:23 won't grope and look for it for long. But if you dropped an expensive gold or diamond ring there costing many maybe hundreds of thousands of rupees, how long will you grow in the darkness to find that? 43:42 How eagerly we on how much value that item is that we have lost and God does himself easily. He said, "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart." So, he's determined our boundary 44:01 that we might grope for him and find him because he's not far from us. He's not way up in heaven. He's here through the Holy Spirit. So, let's remember these words. God dwells where he dwells and what is 44:22 primary for him and let our desire be to satisfy his heart. I often think of Jesus first body of Christ. Not only was he born in a cow shed, there's a beautiful poem that I read 44:39 sometimes to myself where the poet says the words of Jesus. He says the poet says whenever I find that I don't have a convenient place to live on this earth 44:58 let me remember my savior saying mine were the streets of Nazareth no good roads there mine was a little hut and house in Nazareth that's where I lived 45:16 and a number of verses like that. I I read it to challenge myself to see how my savior lived when he was on this earth. Mine was a house in Nazareth, a little little cottage that saves me from complaining. When I think that one who was a ruler of 45:34 the universe, who could have come and dwelt in a palace decided to come in a little house and live there all his life, I will never complain. Whether I have much or little makes no difference and it doesn't matter if the Lord never 45:52 gave us this place. We could meet in a crowded place like we were meeting you know crowded up in two three floors. That's fine. I was ready to be there till Jesus comes. I've heard that once in the days of communism in Russia where they would not 46:09 allow the Christians to build larger church buildings. Even now it's somewhat like that. It is much more strict those days. The numbers of people were coming to Christ. Do you know what they did? They got rid of all the chairs 46:27 and everybody stood. You know that you can accommodate double the number here if you get rid of all the chairs. What to do? That was the only way they And do you think they had a wonderful time with that close fellowship? I'm 46:41 sure they had. It's not these conveniences. I told Ian that I think we should make chairs that are a little uncomfortable to sit on so people don't sleep. 46:59 In the olden days in the Anglican churches, they had wooden benches. You know why? So that you're not supposed to sleep in the meeting. You're not supposed to be looking around. Is it comfortable? Lean back and all that. No, 47:11 no, no, no. Make it slightly inconvenient so that people are awake and not thinking of how comfortable they are. There are people who complain, oh these chairs are not so comfortable. Brother, there are other churches you 47:24 should go to. This is not the right place for you. Some other place where you can sit comfortably and go to sleep and go to hell at the end also. That's not what we are doing. God is the one who led us 47:45 from place to place. When we when I look back to the time when we started unexpectedly one day we were unceremoniously thrown out of the Baptist church. Only I was thrown out but Ian decided to 48:04 follow me and we started. We didn't know what to do. It was August the 17th, 1975. He said, "Okay, I got a house. We can meet there." And we started meeting there, just a few 48:24 of us. We didn't know what to do after that Sunday evening. I say we'll meet again sometime during the week. And over those we we met there for six years in that house right up to 1981 from August 75 to October 1981. 48:44 And uh every room we used to meet in three four rooms. Every room was getting filled up and it was a wonderful time. We were like a family and we were quite happy. We were quite happy to be there till Jesus comes because 49:02 we read in the acts of the apostles chapter 2 it's the lord who adds to the church the lord church all big factories have a quality control 49:29 department. Almost no church has got a quality control department today. There is no quality control in 99.9% of churches. And yet that is the main thing God has committed us to do. We decided from the beginning. We're not interested in 49:45 numbers. We're interested in quality. And those who heard us speak in 1975 will know we are preaching the same message today or a purer message but not going backwards definitely not 50:05 the quality is increasing as we get greater revelation on God himself and his word and we met there for a number of years and even our meeting there you know it's a miracle of God because that was my house. But I never expected 50:25 to have a house. Let me tell you a one minute history of that. When I left the Navy in 1966 after I had been earning a very good salary for about eight years, I took all my savings and gave it away for God's work. emptied my bank account 50:44 to zero and stepped out to serve the Lord full-time in May 1966. I had no money, no bank account, and certainly no house. My father was a poor pensioner 51:02 from the central government. He couldn't support me. So, we lived together, my wife and I, in Melor. But then a miracle happened. My father had an old house in Kerala that was from 51:21 his father's days that he never lived there for 40 years. And you know that when the communists were ruling Kerala, they decided that if they were always on the side of the tenant, not the owner. So my father could never sell that house. It 51:37 virtually belonged to the tenant and the tenant refused to vacate. But something happened in 1970 or 71. 71 I think the communists lost power. Now all this has got to do with building the church in Bangalore. I'll tell you 51:53 in a moment how it comes. And they lost power and the Congress came to power. So once again the owners could sell the house. So my dad went and sold the house. One year later the communists came back into power. But for 52:08 one year they were out of power. And that was the year my dad went and sold that house and we are three children in the family. He gave me one/3 share and we got this house for 50,000 rupees. House and land 16 Dcasta square. 52:25 No black money. There was a Roman Catholic lady who owned the house. He asked me, "Mr. Punan, what are you doing?" I said, "I'm serving the Lord." And I said, "Before I uh we buy this house, I want to tell you I don't have 52:37 any black money. It's all white." Her relatives heard they're selling the house and told her, "We'll give you 10% more than what Mr. Punan gives gives you." He she said, "No, I'll give it to him." That's how we got that house. 52:57 I never knew in September 72 when we got that house why he gave it to me. I had expected all my life to live in a rented house. I said, "Lord, I'm here to serve you. You'll take care of me." But when the church started, that's when I knew. 53:13 See, because our house was tucked in a corner. You know that 16os in the corner. It was not a disturbance to anybody. In the other side was a huge compound that belonged to some Catholic organization. There's hardly anybody 53:25 there. The back side also there was no house. And the side houses most of the time they were empty. So if we could make noise, we could have all prayer meetings and yell and scream and all that. And nobody was disturbed. We never 53:39 had a complaint in all the six years that we met there. That's why God selected that place and he allowed us to meet there and we became a family. And then the n numbers increased and like they say we were bursting at the 53:54 seams and we needed another place. And I remember one day after Sunday morning, Yian and I and a few others came to Lingraj Puram to see if there was some plots there. And we looked around. 54:12 Even there in 197879 things were very expensive for us. We hardly had anything. We used to have an offering box and sometimes we had two rupees in the offering box. Praise the Lord. We were not rich people. We were poor. 54:28 I was the only one who had a scooter from my Navy days when we started. I was the only one who had a telephone because my wife was a doctor. We could get a phone. Ian used to come on a bicycle. Many of the others used to come by bus. This is how we 54:43 started. God was with us. And we loved one another. Now you must never lose that. All the other things are not the main thing. So many of you are born into having so 55:00 many more things and you glory in that. We could never go to a restaurant to eat a meal. We couldn't afford it. We had to cook at home every single day only at home. We couldn't afford ever to go to a restaurant. This is how God allowed us to begin. 55:17 I'm very thankful and I never lose those values. He taught us in those days not to waste our money. We decided from day one that we would never be dependent. Ian and I were dependent on anybody. We would trust God to provide all our needs. 55:37 So we didn't have enough money even for a small little plot in Lingrajam. And then there was this plot which now we know as 40 Dosta square which my sister had bought with her money for my father to live and uh he 55:57 had he hadn't paid the full amount he had just paid 20%. Then my father was developing asthma and he said I can't live in Bangalore and there was so many people who wanted to buy that from him because it is on the main road 56:12 and my dad said I'm going to give it to you to the church cuz you're looking for a place but we didn't have the rest of the money. We didn't have even the 80% to pay and there was a deadline by which we had to pay it in 198 1979. 56:31 And just a I don't remember it was a few days or before the deadline for registration came, we got a check for more than 50% of the cost of that land. We we didn't even have 50% of the cost of that land. 56:51 And we got a check for more than 50% which exactly covered the cost of the land. and the registration charges. That's how we knew God wanted us to have that place. We lived by faith. We don't boast about these things. 57:11 To me, living by faith is living in victory over sin, not getting money. Those are the crumbs that fall from the table. That's why we don't talk about so much of those things. But I say it now for your encouragement. So that you know 57:24 so that a new generation growing up knows how we trusted God for money and he provided it very often at the last moment and we bought it and we couldn't build because all our money was exhausted. We just had the land there. It took us two years after 57:42 that to build on that land. Little by little you know our policy from day one our policy was we will never tell anybody about our needs. We will never send a report of our work anywhere. We will never send a circler anywhere 57:57 saying, "Hey, we are building a building for the glory of God or any of this. And we would never take a collection in the meetings." Never. We've never done it in 39 years. He said, "If God wants us to build a building, he's the owner of heaven and 58:14 earth. He owns all the silver and gold in the in the earth. Is it difficult for him to give us something? If we are building something for his glory, if it is not for his glory, we don't want it. We shall meet in our house crowded out 58:30 or we'll meet in that open field, whatever it is, but God gave us little by little. We'll never asked anyone. Different people gave and many poor people contributed. You know that's why I value the buildings we build because it has come from the little 58:47 contributions of somebody puts a 100 rupees in somebody puts 200 rupees in it's very little those days people would put 10 rupees I told you once it was two rupees that's why I've learned to value the money given by God's people is the most 59:00 sacred money on the face of the earth that's why we are very careful when we handle it and touch it from the beginning we have been extremely careful And little by little people gave. And then there was another problem we 59:16 had. Then the government controlled cement that was not freely available in the market now like it is now. There's only limited amount of cement in the country and you had to go and get a permit from the government. And I would go to the 59:33 government office, file my paper request for 50 bags of cement at a time. I'd go and see the clerk in the office and he'd say, "Come next week." So I'd go next week. He'd say, "Come next week." I'd go again, he'd say, "Come 59:50 next week." Somebody told me, "Brother Zach, you don't understand what he's saying. What he's saying is, give me some money." He says, "The language I couldn't understand." No, he's he was saying come next week which being interpreted means 1:00:04 give me some money. He was speaking in tongues. So so this guy who was wiser to the ways of government offices told me this. I said well he's not going to get any money from me. 1:00:23 And I said, "Okay, Lord." You know, we used to build little by little as we got cement, we'd build, we'd build a pillar, another pillar, and then it would be like that for a number of days. And I said, "Lord, if you never get past these 1:00:35 two pillars because we didn't give a bribe, these two pillars will be a monument to righteousness on Beer Road for the next few years." People go up and down and they ask, "Why did these people build only two pillars?" because they would 1:00:51 not give a bribe. Now you know our country is so corrupt that very often we can hardly get anything done here without 1:01:10 giving somebody something. And I say you have to seek the leading of God in all these things. I don't make a law where the Bible doesn't make a law. So please understand me in the Bible it always says never take a bribe 1:01:30 repeatedly says God will not hear you if you take bribes but never once does it say don't give a bribe so I will not say it. It's like having children. The Bible doesn't say how many children you should have. Should you practice family 1:01:49 planning or not family planning? There's certain things like this the Bible never says. So I don't say anything but in a particular case the Lord may lead you saying no don't do anything there. That's how the Lord led me there. It is 1:01:59 not because of a verse in scripture. I said the Lord led me that I'm not going to give him anything here. So what happened? All of a sudden the government derolled cement. Cement became an abundance. What all God does for us I tell you. And we didn't have to 1:02:16 go back to the government. we'd get plenty and we could build a hall just the ground floor that one floor and we started meeting there in October 1981 and we could seat 150 chairs there and we were about 65 or so we said this is 1:02:30 great I don't believe that till Jesus comes we'll ever have more than 150 people seeking to walk along the way of the cross and we preach such a message that who will want to come here so we thought we'd is a plenty of place in that 150 1:02:49 seat hall but it didn't remain like that. people saw there were needy people around and there was one church in Bangalore where or in India where they knew nobody had asked them for their money and where they could hear the word of 1:03:10 God and that's how it came through the years there is 81 and you know then became more crowded we had to build another floor on top of that and another floor on top of that and you all know the rest of the and Yian and I now then began to look 1:03:27 for another place and the other elders and then we faced a problem. Everybody said you had to give about maybe 50% of the money in black. Black means in cash with 1:03:45 no record of the transaction. uh that means on the on the paper and the sale deed we put only 50% of the price and cheat the government and cheat stamp duty and everything and we said sorry we can't do that every rupee we 1:04:01 get is recorded audited sent to the income tax sent to the foreign office in Delhi we we don't have one rupee to give without it being accounted so then people are not willing to sell to us. 1:04:20 Okay, this is another type of problem. Sometimes it is cement, sometimes it is black money. There's always there's some problem. You know, God allows us to live in a world which is surrounded with problems to teach us that he can handle 1:04:32 anything. And then there was a second problem. Even if um you do find some rare one in a million person who's willing to sell for white, I'll tell you why people don't want to sell it all in white. because they have to pay more tax also 1:04:47 to the government for capital gain. Then there was another problem that strictly speaking if a church is being built in a residential area 1:05:03 then the corporation wants the neighbors to give a certificate saying we are happy to have this church in our area. Who will give that when they know the number of cars and uh 1:05:21 scooters and all will pile up in front of their houses and all the noise and the singing and everything that'll disturb them and the children running around say no thank you find some other place. So these were the two problems we faced. 1:05:39 Now we looked here, we looked there, we looked, we never found a place some something would come almost to a decision and one of these things would break it up. And then it was 2 and a half years ago, we found this place. 1:05:59 No neighbors. Wonderful. We don't had to get permission from anybody. Great. And the other problem was the man who sold it was a Christian by name. He had read my book and he knew something about me and he said I'll give you the whole 1:06:19 thing in white not one rupee in black. I praise God for him. And um that's how we got this plot. And when we bought it, we paid an initial deposit. We didn't even have enough money to buy this land. Lando was very expensive. 1:06:38 I don't even want to mention the figure here as to how much this land cost. We paid him about half of it and said, "Please give us one year to slowly pay you the rest." He agreed to it. I think 11 months or 1:06:57 something. But we never told anyone. I mean the few of us who were in the board of CFC knew the needs but and some who were in CFC but we never advertised it. We never told anybody that we were buying a land. Our family knew, 1:07:13 you know, just like if you're a father and mother with five or six children and you plan to buy a land, you will tell your children, you won't tell everybody else. So we told our children and so those who were in the family nobody 1:07:28 outside knew anything about it and we didn't have to wait we didn't have to wait 11 months within about four or five months we had enough to finish the sale deed and the land became ours but again now we had no money to build 1:07:44 the hall again we trusted the Lord and it's really amazing how people gave, many gave sacrificially, people who had been blessed by the ministry, people who were in CFC and who have gone 1:08:03 out sacrificially gave and that's how today we have a hall with all this gadgetry. We don't owe anybody even one rupee. That's been our policy from the 1:08:22 beginning. Zero debt. There are very few church buildings around the world built like this. It's because we have a father in heaven. These are the crumbs. I'm telling you about the crumbs that 1:08:40 fell from the table. The bread is an overcoming life, becoming like Jesus. These are the crumbs. Don't get taken up with the crumbs. The Lord led us to this place. And I think of this verse in the book of 1:08:59 Numbers in chapter 10. In Numbers chapter 10. It's a very interesting story here. The children of Israel had left Egypt 1:09:16 and they were in a wilderness and they needed a place to stay regularly you know like we moved we didn't move as frequently as them though it's been nearly 40 years but it is not wilderness for us and we didn't move as frequently as them but they moved 1:09:35 and there's a beautiful verse here which says numbers 10 verse 33 they set out from the mount of the Lord 1:09:53 3 days journey and the ark of the covenant of the Lord which was a symbol of God's presence with them journeyied in front of them three days in front of them to seek out a resting place for them who sought out a place for them to A 1:10:12 resting place means a place to stay. Let me paraphrase it. The Lord went three days ahead of them to find a place for them to stay and to settle and to build the tabernacle till they moved to the next place. 1:10:29 That's what he did for us in 75 when you were to meet three years before that. That's what he did for us in 79. And when we moved into that building in 81, that's what he did for us here two years ago and we could move into this 1:10:44 place. The same God who led the Israelites and went ahead of them a place where they could stay and where they could gather together to worship him. The same God is alive today. But I want you to see a little mistake that Moses made before that. It says 1:11:04 here Moses had a father-in-law who lived in that wilderness area. He was not an Israelite. His name was Ru or Hob. His name is sorry Jethro or Hobab. He's called your Hobab. His other name was Jethro. It says in Numbers 10:29, Moses said to 1:11:24 Hobab, he was a Midionite, his father-in-law, his wife's father. He said to his father-in-law in verse 29, "We are setting out to the place the Lord has said,"I'll give to you and we will do you good." So he said to his father-in-law, verse 1:11:44 31, this unconverted father-in-law who knew nothing about God, Moses is telling him, "Please don't leave us because you know where we should settle down and make a dwelling place and camp because you know this place better for 1:12:02 us. You will be like eyes for us." And the Lord said, "No, Moses. He's not going to be eyes for you. I will be eyes for you. I will search out a resting place for you." Verse 33. 1:12:21 Cursed is he who depends upon man. To find a dwelling place for them or to find money to pay for it. Blessed is the one who trusts in the 1:12:38 Lord and who leans upon the Lord and says, "Lord, we will not trust in Hobab's eyes to find a resting place for us. We will trust in you, the living God." I remember a brother telling me in the 1:12:56 early days of our meeting as a church 39 years ago. He said, "Brother Zach, when I see how we have trusted the Lord and the Lord has provided our needs in our church, it has encouraged me to have faith for my own needs in my own home 1:13:15 that God can meet my needs in my own home also." That is exactly our aim. When people are looking for a house to rent, are you going to look to Hobab or to the Lord? God uses men, but we don't depend on men. 1:13:35 Moses was depending on Hobab, his father-in-law. The Lord said, "No, I will go three days ahead of you and find a resting place for you." He is the same God today. The God that lived in Moses time, buying an expensive 1:13:52 perfume with it and pouring it out at the feet of Jesus and it's gone. Your one year salary has disappeared like that. And Judas's scariot, the cool, calculating man. There are many believers like that. Cool, calculating 1:14:10 people. How much shall I give to the Lord and how much shall I not give? They're in the footsteps of Judas. Mary was not like that. Judas calculated and said, "This could have been given to the poor." Because he was a thief. He was taking 1:14:26 what is in the money box. Verse 8, 6. And Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She has anointed me for the day of my burial." And because she did it, then 1:14:44 she was the only one who could anoint the body of Jesus for his burial. The people who came on Sunday morning to the tomb with the anointing spices found they couldn't do it because he had risen. 1:15:02 What do you learn from that? If you don't give to the Lord when you have opportunity, a time will come when you want to give, you won't have the opportunity. If you don't serve the Lord, anoint him when you have the opportunity in a 1:15:16 building or anything else. Dear brothers and sisters, you remember what Jesus said. When you make a sacrifice, don't let anybody know about it. But your father who sees in secret 1:15:38 repay you openly. So the father who sees what sacrifice you made in secret which nobody knows. When the aroma of Christ comes forth from your words and your life, he will repay you openly. That's what I mean. 1:16:02 That's the payment we want. That is the aroma of Christ should come forth from us and bless others. Imagine if all of us come to meetings like this in the coming years till Jesus comes. Can you imagine how every meeting of 1:16:21 ours here will be with people coming in, strangers coming in and saying, "Boy, God is in the midst of these people. I went there Solomon 1,000 years ago. I chose a place. 1:16:40 You must build the temple there. 2 Chronicles 3:1. Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah. 1,000 year in Genesis 20. He came out and said, "Oh king, what do you want? What do you want? Why have you 1:17:00 come to my house?" He says, "I want to sacrifice. The Lord has told me to make a sacrifice here in this threshing floor. So, I want to buy this from you. Arana said, "No, you don't have to buy anything from me. I'll give it to you 1:17:14 free, and I'll give you the wood for the offering free, and I'll go here are my ox and kill them. You won't have to pay anything, David. You are my king." And David said, 2 Samuel 24 verse 24, beautiful word said, "No, you know how we all like to get 1:17:32 things free. Isn't it true? human beings like to get things free. And what a opportunity to for David to get something free. He said, "No, I will pay for it because if I don't pay for it and I offer a God a sacrifice, the 1:17:51 sacrifice will cost me nothing. But if I pay for it and I pay for the wood and I pay for the oxen, then it will cost me something." And he said, "I will never offer to God an offering that costs me nothing." I'll never forget when God spoke those 1:18:08 words to me about 53 or 52 53 years ago that verse to me. You must never offer to me that which costs you nothing. 1:18:27 I said, 'Lord, I give you my word. I will never offer to you that which cost me nothing. I serve you. It must be cost must be it must cost me money. It must cost me sacrifice. It may cost me my health. It may cost me 1:18:47 pain, inconvenience. Uh, it doesn't matter because I made a vow to the Lord that I will never cough for him that which costs me nothing. You do that and the Lord will say, 1:19:06 I'll build my house through you. This is the place where my servant Abraham offered up the best. where David said these words, I will not offer that which costs me nothing. That is the place where the house of God was built in Solomon's 1:19:22 time. And that's where the place where the house of God is built today. And I want to encourage all of you sitting here. If you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, give it now. If you're a half-hearted person just giving your 1:19:37 life to Christ to go to heaven, forget it. Give your life to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Repent
