0:02 [music] >> Now this session I want to speak about serving the one true master. Luke's gospel Please turn with me to Luke's gospel chapter 0:19 16. If you were to ask the average Christian even many born-again Christians who are the two masters in the world? 90% of them would say probably 99% say God and Satan. 0:38 Choose whom you want to serve. And no Christian will say I want to serve Satan. But do you know when Jesus spoke about two masters, he did not say they were God and Satan. Very important to see it. And I've almost never in my life heard 0:54 anybody preach on that subject. Maybe after they heard me they start some of them start preaching. But here is it, two masters. Luke 16 verse 13. No servant can serve two masters. He will hate the one and love the other. 1:13 Is it God and the devil? Hating the devil and loving God? He'll be devoted to one and despise the other. Is it devoted to God and despising Satan? No. God and money. Wealth or money. Nobody will try to serve God and Satan. 1:31 Nobody is so foolish. But there are multitudes who think they can serve God and money and wealth. Multitudes of born-again Christians. And yet Jesus said no servant 1:50 can serve two masters. You ask yourself. If you are employed in one office and you go there at 9:00 in the morning. And 10:00 you say, "Excuse me, sir. I got another office also where I work." And he'll say, "Goodbye. Stay there." 2:07 That's what any earthly boss will tell you. You can't be working in this office and that office. You have to decide which one you want. So, it's not unreasonable for God to say, "You can't have two masters." >> [clears throat] 2:21 >> You go to work in this office or in that office. Who's your boss? Is it God or is it money? If you ask, "Is it God or Satan?" it's clear. It's God, not Satan. But then when it comes, you say, "Is it God or money?" What is 2:32 your answer? >> [snorts] >> What does it mean to serve God and what does it mean to serve money? Which do you do more wholeheartedly? We need money. Jesus used money. And I believe from the age of 18 to the 2:51 age of 30, when Joseph had died, Jesus was the head of that home. And he had to earn for his widowed mother, for four younger brothers, two younger sisters. You read their names in Mark chapter 6. And he had to support them. 3:10 And he had to work hard. You know, he had to experience everything we have gone through. And that's why the Lord allowed him to grow up in a very poor home, in a poor village, and to work hard like a carpenter. He didn't have any inherited wealth 3:25 that he could live on. He had to work hard, earn his living, and support not himself alone, but his younger brothers and sisters, and his widowed mother. But he didn't serve money. He earned money. I believe he was wise with money. 3:43 He saved money. But he did not live for money. And then when he became a full-time worker, and people would give gifts, He asked Judas Iscariot to be the bank, the treasurer. It was a crooked bank, that's all, but anyway. 4:00 He saved money. It was not that if somebody gave money one day the Lord said, "Let's spend it today and let's trust the Father for tomorrow somebody will give us." No. That bag that Jesus carried that sorry, that bag that Judas carried was like a 4:16 savings account. We would call it a savings account in a bank today. And there was a quite a pile there. It wasn't just one or two pennies. It was such a big pile as I said that when Judas stole stole from it, none of the disciples could discover it. If 4:32 there were only about 10 pennies there, Jesus had if Judas had stolen, they would have discovered, "Hey, how did five of those pennies disappear?" But there was such a big pile of gifts that people gave that when Judas Judas 4:44 take out things, there was still so much nobody thought he was stealing. So Jesus received money. He had a pretty good savings account. There's nothing wrong with that. But he did not live for money. He did not waste money. 4:58 And one of the examples I see is when he went to Jerusalem and at the end of one session in the temple in John chapter 7, I don't have time to show you that. But at the end of John chapter 7, it says nobody invited him to their home to 5:12 stay for the night. I've never had that experience. I've been invited to many places, but always somebody provided a home for me to stay at night. But Jesus was in Jerusalem and preaching that powerful message on if anyone thirst, let him come to me. At 5:28 the end of the day, nobody invited him home. What did he do? He didn't complain about it. He said, "Well, it's not raining. I can go and sleep under the trees in the garden in the Mount of Olives." And he went there and he slept. He could have told Judas, 5:42 "Hey, let's go and stay in a good hotel tonight." He was so careful with money. Just one example. How do I know that? Because I meditate on scripture. How is it you did not see it? Because you read and go to the next chapter. 5:57 You don't meditate. You could You could have seen the same thing that I saw if you had only stopped and meditated on that passage in the end of John chapter 7. I hope that will challenge you next time whenever you read any part of the 6:14 Bible to stop and meditate. Well, there's wealth there you you can learn, especially when I said, "Lord, I want to know more about those things which are not written in the scriptures about Jesus' life." Particularly his attitude towards money. 6:28 That's how I saw that. And do you know the last verse in the four gospels? You must all know the last verse of the four gospels. It really revolutionized me when I read it. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 6:47 John 21, last verse. This is the conclusion of the four gospels. After all that you read about Jesus in four gospels, at the end it says, "There are many other things which Jesus did." Boy, I'd like to know them. 7:06 "But if they were written in detail, even the world will not be able to contain the books that are written." You mean there's such a lot of things Jesus did? I said, "Father, can I know them?" And the Father says, "Yes." 7:21 Turn to John 16. I'm telling you what the answer I got when I came to that verse. Many other things Jesus did? Boy, I want to know them. And the Lord said, "John 16." When the Holy Spirit is come, verse 13, 7:45 when the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the truth. And he, verse 14, he'll glorify me. And listen to this, he will take the things of mine, which are not written in the four Gospels, and he will show them to you. 8:02 Wow, that was the answer to my prayer. You know, the last verse of John's Gospel, and I said, "Lord, I want to see those things which Jesus did which are not written, which the world would not be able to hold number of books." 8:14 And here's the answer. You come to the Holy Spirit, he will take of those things of mine which are not written in English to disclose. Disclose means that which is hidden, he'll open it up and show it to you. He won't show it to everybody. 8:27 Because most people are not interested in finding out. I want to ask all of you sitting here, how many of you can honestly say, "I seriously want to know the things that Jesus did which did which are not written in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." 8:44 Have you ever sought God for that? Earnestly. No wonder you haven't seen it. But if you did, he'd show you things which would change your life, not for curiosity sake, 9:03 and not in order to preach to other But to transform my own life. Are you interested in that? For something that'll transform your own life? And this is, I'll tell you, I said, "Lord, I want you to show me what all 9:21 Jesus did in his when he was young. How did he live at home? How did he relate to his four younger brothers and two younger sisters? What sort of home did he live in? Did he sleep on the floor? Did he have a bed? Did he have a room to himself? I can 9:40 know easily cuz I know how much a poor carpenter in Nazareth will earn. I've seen poor carpenters in India. And I see the type of house they live in. And I know the type of home Jesus lived in. And many many things I discover. 9:57 And >> [clears throat] >> one of the things is his attitude to money. Cuz that's my example. Many people want to follow Jesus in healing the sick. I've never sought to follow Jesus there. That's a gift. God gives it to somebody. He did not give it 10:11 to me. I prayed for sick people and they were not healed. I'll tell you honestly. I don't have the gift of healing. My gift is preaching, teaching, and God has planted a few churches here and there, revealing things in our written in 10:26 scripture. Each person has got a different gift. I might as one gift. I'm only one part of the body of Christ. I've got to fulfill my that gift till the end of my life. And I don't covet a gift God has not given me. >> [clears throat] 10:39 >> For example, the eye does not long that it could hear. I cannot hear a single thing. But it's quite happy just to see. Hearing is another part of the body. Speaking is another part of the body. So, [clears throat] I've seen that God 10:52 has given me a particular gift. I'm happy with that. But when it comes to the love of money, every [clears throat] part of the body must be free from it. Whatever your gift may be, no servant can serve two masters. Every 11:05 part of this body serves the head. The head can command any part of this body to do anything. That is how Christ should control you if you're a member of Christ's body. If you're not listening to what Christ is saying, that's like that person's body. That 11:23 person's body doesn't listen to what this head says. You're not a part of Christ's body if you're not listening to him. Don't fool yourself saying I'm a part of Christ's body and you don't do what he tells you to do. How can that be? Is there any part of 11:36 me? Or maybe you're a paralyzed member. My hand is paralyzed. The head says lift yourself up. Sorry, can't lift myself up. That's how many Christians are. And maybe they are born again. But they are worthless and useless to 11:53 Christ's purpose on earth. What is a paralyzed There's no power in that hand. That is paralysis. They have not sought to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But every part of the body must serve one master, Christ. He's the 12:11 head. And you cannot serve two masters. Think of money as another head. Christ is this head. Which You can't be a part of two bodies. No servant can do serve two masters. And look at the way he describes it in Luke 16:13. 12:31 Hate the one and love the other. Now apply it to God and money. Hate money and love God or love money and you will hate God. Am I interpreting it right? Yeah. 12:50 Devoted to money and despising God or devoted to God and despising money. Which category do you fit into? Let me repeat. Hate money and love God or hate God and love money. Which category are you in? 13:09 Devoted to money and despising God or devoted to God and despising money. I'm just reading what's written here. I've not changed one word. I've taken it seriously. When I read it, I said, "Lord, I don't want to play the 13:24 fool with your word." I believe your words are serious. They are words of eternal life. The words I speak unto you, Jesus said, are words of eternal life. I want eternal life. And because I've taken God's word seriously, everything that Jesus said, 13:37 it has changed my life, it's changed my family life, it's changed my ministry, it's changed everything. And it's helped me to endure all these years. I mean, in full-time Christian work for 60 years, and I preach the same 13:49 truth I preached 60 years ago much more strongly than I did then. And I believe that's how it should be. As we grow in the grace, we should be able to minister the same truth more powerfully and more and more revelation 14:01 that we get from God. Dear brothers, I want to ask you, are you getting revelation from God when you read the scriptures? Or the only revelation is you get is when you come to a meeting like this and you hear something. 14:15 You could have got the same thing from the Bible if you had meditated on it and asked the Holy Spirit to open your mind to it. So, let me explain to you. How can I hate money and love God? See, that's what it means. How can I despise money and be devoted 14:33 to God? Does it mean I've got to throw money in the garbage bin? No, Jesus didn't do it. He was very careful with money. Otherwise, he could not have supported his family of six younger siblings and a widowed mother. Then I tried to understand, what does it 14:51 mean to hate? So, I turned to a previous page, chapter 14, to understand what did Jesus mean by hating money? Cuz that's what he said, hate money and love God. I turned to the previous page to chapter 14 and verse 26. And he said, if you want to be my 15:10 disciple, verse 26, you got to hate ah, the same word. Hate your father. Hate your mother. hate your wife. Wow. And I see another passage of scripture where I got to love my father, and love 15:29 my mother, and love my wife, and love my children, love my brothers and sisters. And yet I'm told here to hate. He cannot be my disciple if you do not do that. So, I try to understand that. And you know, Jesus always spoke with illustrations. 15:48 He spoke about lamps and salt and the prodigal sons and the lost sheep. And those illustrations make things so crystal clear. Nobody used parables and illustrations like Jesus. Which made I mean, is there any more 16:06 wonderful story of God receiving a repentant sinner than the story of the prodigal son? Any amount of preaching is not as powerful as the story of the prodigal son. It shows how God welcomes a repentant sinner. So, I try to think, what does hate mean? 16:23 And to use an illustration, this is the thing that helped me. I thought my love for God, my love for Christ must be like the brightness of the sun. Bright, so bright that I can't even look at it. If I look at it, I'll get blind. 16:38 The love for my love for Christ must be supreme like that. And how must my love for my father and mother and wife and children be? Like the light of the stars. Is there light in the stars? Yes. And if you go near the star, you find it's very 16:56 bright. Every star, science tells us, is very, very bright. My love for my father and mother and wife and children must be very bright. Very bright. No darkness in those stars. But the moment the sun comes up, 17:14 the stars disappear. It's as if my love for my wife and children and father and mother is gone cuz Christ fills my vision. That is the meaning of to love Christ and to hate your father and mother, brother, sister, wife, and children. That's what it means 17:31 to love Christ and hate money. You don't throw away your father and mother and brother sister. You don't throw away money. You value your father and mother and wife and children and you value money, but it is like the light of the stars 17:43 that have disappeared when I've seen Christ. Is it like that? Has Christ so filled your vision that love for money disappears? It's still there. All those stars are there. Your bank account is there. Your stocks and shares are there. Your business is 18:00 there. Everything is there, but Christ fills your vision. And the other is there. You look You take care of it to support yourself. We must take the words of God seriously. And what I have explained to you now, my dear brothers, 18:19 you could have found it out yourself if you had meditated on scripture instead of just reading and going on to the next verse. I'm not rebuking you. Please don't misunderstand me. I love you so much that I don't want you to miss out 18:30 on the riches in God's word, at least in the days to come. Please meditate on God's word. Don't just read it. Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. Whatever he does will prosper. I can tell you that from the time I took 18:48 my Christian life seriously more than 60 years ago, everything I have done has prospered. That's my testimony. And one day when I come to the end of my life, if my whole life is revealed, you'll see that as I've honored God, everything I did 19:04 prospered. I don't mean prospered financially. You is the father of one of the children in our one of the brothers in our church. He's born again and his father was He He told me his father is a nominal Christian, not born again. 19:19 His father sent a a money order to our church once. I said, "Thank you very much, sir. We'd like to return it. We cannot take this from you because you're not a child of God." He'll get hurt, right? Let him get hurt and let that hurt get 19:36 him to be born again, to recognize he's not a child of God. I returned the money to him. I said, "No, we don't want it. We do not take money from someone who's not born again." And that's what the Bible says in um I don't know whether you know that verse 19:54 in in the second letter of John in the Old Testament in the towards the end of the Bible you read in second letter of John. I'm teaching you some principles of money which are not taught in other churches. It says in the 20:09 >> [clears throat] >> third letter of John, sorry. It's only one chapter. Third letter of John chapter 1 verse 7. It speaks about those who are preaching the gospel. In verse 5 and 6, they went out for the sake of the name 20:26 to preach accepting nothing >> [clears throat] >> from non-Christians. Third John chapter 1 verse 7. They accepted zero from unbelievers. Therefore, we ought to support such men because they don't take anything from unbelievers. 20:45 So, that's the first thing we say, "Are you born again? If you're not, please don't put any money here." Second, "Do you have any need in your family?" If you have some need in your family and you're hard up for money, don't put 20:59 money here. Use it for your family. And people say, "No, brother Zach, how do you teach that? Don't you have to put God first?" Yeah, that's one way to argue, but let me tell you this. The God I serve is a loving father. 21:13 Not a tyrant. I've got father I've got children who are who got their own families. And supposing I am a billionaire or a trillionaire, that's what God is. Okay, let me apply to myself. Supposing I'm a billionaire, I've got thousands 21:30 and thousands of millions of dollars in my account. And my son is struggling with his family. And he comes and says, "Dad, I want to give you something to support you." Will I take it? Will you take it? No. I'll say, "Son, I've got plenty. I don't 21:47 want. Please take care of your family. I don't want you to make your children starve because you want to help your dad." That's what I as a evil father would say. Do you think a loving father in heaven would say, "No, put your money in 21:58 the box there." What a wrong idea people have got about God. Never mind if you have a need in your family, give to God. That's not the God I worship. He's a much better father than me. So, that's [clears throat] the second 22:12 thing I say. Have you got a need in your family? Take care of that. God's not upset if you put zero into this box. Are you in debt? Owe no man anything. You remember once when a person uh 22:30 showed they asked, "Should we give tax to Caesar?" What did Jesus say? Show me a penny. Whose picture is that? Caesar. And then, you know what he said after that? Tell me. Sorry? Give? Give to Caesar. That's what I want you 22:49 to see. Not give to God. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God. Now, my point is which came first? Caesar or God? You don't know? Caesar came first. It's Jesus saying it. 23:08 Why did he say that? Because if I owe money to Caesar because I cheated on the taxes and I give to God, I'm not giving my money. I'm giving Caesar's money to God and God says I don't want Caesar's money. It's true. If you have cheated the 23:22 government of the United States of $2,000 in taxes and you put that $2,000 in the offering box, that's not your money. You're making the government money that should have gone to the government, you're putting in the offering box. God 23:36 says I don't want it. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. So, that's the second thing I see. Or you borrowed money from brother X and you give the money in the box. God says you're make taking brother X's money and putting in the box, you're a thief. 23:51 Give him back his money. You borrowed money. God does not want money in the box which you have borrowed from other people. If you've borrowed from other people, clear your debt first. See, the standard we have put there is 24:05 makes it very difficult for people to give. Another thing, have you hurt somebody and you have not asked forgiveness? >> [clears throat] >> Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 23, when you come with your 24:24 offering Is he talking about offerings now? Matthew 5:23. And there you remember, hey, I hurt somebody. My brother's got something against me. I'm about to put the money in the offering box. And suddenly, when you come with your 24:39 offering He's talking about offerings, verse 23. And I remember, oh, I hurt that person. Don't put your offering there. That's what we also teach. Go first. Be reconciled to your brother, verse 24. Then come back and put your offering. We 24:56 write there. If you If you said had a problem with some brother, settle it before you come put your offering. You don't want your offering. And then the next thing we say is 2 Corinthians 9, God loves a 25:16 cheerful giver. It's very important. 2 Corinthians 9:7, God loves a cheerful giver. So, that's the last question out of those five questions. Are you giving cheerfully? 25:35 Or oh, this church is forcing me to give money here. We don't want your money. We don't want one cent. Whatever you drop in that box must be given cheerfully. So, we put this written down and we tell people read that before you put money 25:51 here. We're almost trying to stop people from putting Have you ever seen such statements in top of any offering box? No. Every offering is come on, give. God will bless you and all that type of stuff they say, forcing people to give. 26:04 We're trying to prevent people from giving because God loves only cheerful givers. So, once you go through all these things, you put And somebody asked me once, "Brother, do you get much money in that box at all with all these conditions?" 26:17 I say, "I'll tell you our testimony." We support 50 poor churches in the villages from our church in Bangalore. We help the poor widows there to educate their children. If they are good in their studies, we look at their school marks 26:32 and pay for their college education. We have never borrowed one cent from a bank in 50 years. We have built numerous buildings for churches to meet together in the villages. Why? 26:51 Because when they rent a house from a Hindu man to have a meeting once the Hindu man knows that you're having a Christian meeting, he'll say I can't give you the house. And the Christians are not rich. What to do? There's no place to meet. 27:09 The richer churches have to help them to build a house there, and we've done that in numerous places in India. We planted churches in two villages in India where there was no message preached for 2,000 years from the time of Jesus. 27:28 But we never ask anybody for money. Today we have I don't know the exact number, but it's 100 110 churches in 16 or 17 countries. In not one of those churches do we ever ask anybody to give money. We never passed an offering bag around 27:46 in any of these churches. Have you heard of such churches anywhere? Where they never pass a bag around, never take a collection. And on top of that, we have about 300 or more elders and deacons in our churches. We call them facilitators. 28:04 Not one of them is paid 1 cent, not even me. Everyone supports themselves. I'm trying to tell you what it means to be faithful with money. And I tell you that is why God has blessed our churches remarkably. 28:23 We started with two families 51 years ago. And we said, "God or money, that's the main choice we make. We shall denounce We shall not care for money. We shall wholeheartedly serve God." 28:41 And God has always provided our need. Our offering boxes are overflowing with money. Why? Because we put these conditions there. We are we are stopping stopping stopping people. After stopping with all these five stoppings, they put money there. 29:00 Because God loves a cheerful giver. You know, the result of this has been we are not boasting about this. The result of this has been people have come to our church. They've seen boy, if a church can live with such conditions by honoring God, why can't I 29:16 do that in my own life? And they have begun to have faith for their own family life. That if I honor God like this, God will provide all our need. And people who have been in debt have become free from debt. That's what they learned from our 29:29 example. So, it's not something to boast about. It's something to be an example for the poor people who come to our church who say, "If you honor God in the financial area, God will honor you." That's the thing that delights us. 29:44 And we've seen that. We've seen people in our church 100% free from debt. Everyone. And we are strict about it. Sometimes new people come and they don't realize these rules. I remember once in you know, I had been away from the church for a 30:02 long time. And another [clears throat] elder told me, "Brother, I feel that some people here are getting into debt." So, I got up on Sunday morning and said, "If anybody has borrowed 1,000 rupees 1,000 rupees is $10. If anyone has borrowed 1,000 rupees or 30:21 more from you and has not made any effort to return it within 1 month, please come and see me after this meeting. I want to straighten some things out in this church." You know what happened? Before the evening was out, some people 30:36 repaid the money. Some people, as soon as the meeting went out, they went on their phones and transferred the money on from their bank accounts. Why didn't they do it before? They loved money more than they loved God. You see, you have such people in our 30:52 church? Sure, we invite the visitors to come in. They haven't understood everything right in the beginning. And in a church of 700 people in Bangalore, you don't know we can't check up on everybody whether they're all doing it. We preach the truth. 31:05 But then we I mean, just for them to know that Brother Zac is going to come and question me. They don't fear God, they fear me. Unfortunately, unfortunately I say that. If they feared God, they wouldn't want me to come and check up on them. 31:21 But I'll tell you this. I told people, brothers, I'm strict in this church as the elder because I am I was strict as a father with my own children. If you don't fear God, at least fear me. Second best. Best is you fear God. 31:38 But in this church we will not allow people to take advantage of others in any way. In your private life, what you do is between you and God. But if you take advantage of somebody in this church because people are large-hearted and 31:51 good and you take money from them and you don't return it, I'm going to come after you. What you do outside the church is not my business, but what you do in this church is my business. Because I'm a shepherd. I'm a father. 32:04 I've got four sons. If I see one of my sons taking advantage of the other son, what will I do? Just sit quietly? No. I'll question him. What are you doing with your brother? That's exactly how I treat people in the church. 32:16 And if God has helped us it's because we have been strict. And I'll tell you, my dear brothers, be strict in the area of money in the way you deal with money in your what you earn. Recognize it belongs to God and say, "Lord, I want to be faithful in the use 32:31 of it." You'll find tremendous blessing in your life. I I say that from my own experience. When I was in the navy, I was earning a very huge salary as a naval officer and I was very very faithful. I wouldn't waste any of that money. 32:44 I would never waste it on myself. I never went on holidays just to enjoy myself. Pray [clears throat] about every expense. There's nothing wrong in going on a holiday. Nothing wrong taking a vacation. But pray about it and see if 32:57 God is leading you. Don't just do what everybody in the world does. Lord, what about me? They can do that. Do you want me to do it? Yeah. Maybe God say, "Yeah, you should take a vacation. Take your children out somewhere." 33:09 Fine, do it. But be careful. When we don't have money, we don't spend it. Now, I know the days when we had very little. Most of our life when we were in Bangalore because we I was in full-time Christian work. My wife and I, we had 33:23 very little to live on and we had four children to educate. So, we were we made sure they paid their fees in the school. That was most important. And we could not afford to take our children to a restaurant at any time in all the 20 years that each of our 33:41 children were in our home. We say, "Okay. We'll eat food at home. Why should we go to a restaurant? We eat food at home." End result was in my entire life I never have been in debt for a single day. What's the use 34:01 going on vacations and spending money lavishly and being in debt? I didn't want to be in debt because the Bible says, "Owe no man anything." I must not be in debt even for a single day, for a single cent. And I've tried 34:15 to live like that because then I know Jesus said, "If you're faithful with money, God will entrust to you the true riches." And the riches God has given me in his word, and the riches God has given me in the ministry, and the riches God has 34:29 given me through planting churches is a million times more than any amount of money that I could have got. I'm richer than a trillionaire in terms of spiritual wealth. And I want to say that from my own experience to all of you dear my 34:43 brothers, I wish the same for you. Never be in debt to anybody for one single cent. Be frugal. Cut down your own expenditure so that you pay all your debts, clear your debt and live with zero debt to anybody. And say, "Lord, I want to be faithful 34:59 with that what I have. And I want to be generous towards you." Secretly, between you and God, your life will be changed. But next time you come here for the conference, you'll be a different person. I guarantee that if you just take heed to this one area. 35:14 You cannot serve God and money. And decide you're going to serve God alone. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that the truth of your word will sink deep into every one of our hearts that we may not miss out on the tremendous wealth you want 35:33 everybody here to have spiritually. But which so many are missing out on just because they are not faithful with their earthly wealth. We pray that they will be faithful from today onwards. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. 35:51 >> [music]
