0:03 We're thankful that God has spread his word outside India to other countries also and planted churches there. We never looked for that. Planting church is God's sovereign work. 0:23 He decides where he does it. But he can do it only where he finds people who are broken and submissive to him. You know Jesus himself had to go through a period of 30 years 0:41 of being tested in two places in his home and in his place of work. That's all he was for 30 years in a small unknown town. A town which was despised 0:59 by everybody called Nazareth. So there is no other way that God can prepare any of us for any ministry except by testing us in secret in two places in our home and in our place of work. And I want to 1:17 say to all of you, we're always being tested in our home and in our place of work, whether we live by the principles of God's word. And it was at the end of that that the father said, "I'm delighted in my son. Now I'm going to send him forth into a 1:36 ministry." That's what we want to proclaim everywhere. That is why I have often preached that in other churches Sunday is the important day. In our churches, Monday is the important day and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and 1:53 Saturday. In other churches, Sunday is the important day. How good was the music? How good was the preaching? And how did the lights and the electricity all function? And to me, it doesn't matter if the music was not so great. So what 2:11 how did you live the six days before you came here on Sunday? That is the important thing before you started praising God here on Sunday morning. How did you live the last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday in your home 2:25 and in your place of work? Did you live in faithfulness? Then even if your words are broken words and you can't sing in tune and we don't have good musical instruments, it's a tremendous offering of praise and thanksgiving to 2:40 God. We never want to forget that these are some of the values that we have stood for in this church different from other churches and we don't criticize them but I believe that these are the values we have learned from the life of Jesus 2:57 and the way he lived on the earth and we're glad that this message is spread that there are people in other countries also who are open to hear the way is narrow and very few find it. So today I've asked Santosh Punan to please come and share. 3:15 He's an elder in a church in Colorado, very good church just like the one in the New Covenant Christian Fellowship in Milpas. So we'll hear it. I'd like us to turn to the verse on 3:50 which the theme is based for the conference. That's in 2 Timothy chapter 2. I think there's a common misconception in Christianity today that God is like a desperate employer 4:09 looking for just anybody who will come and give themsel in service to him. Um and that's I think the impression you can get easily when you hear how invitations are made to come and give yourself to God. It's almost as if God 4:29 is there waiting desperately. Everybody wants to go work for the big IT companies and succeed in the world. But nobody wants to come and work for God. So God being desperate like he is wants you to come and he'll take the dregs of 4:46 society as it were. But now what we see in this verse 2 Timothy 2:2 is that Paul who believed that he wanted to give God the best of his life in fact everything in his life he gave to God 5:03 and he was so convinced about how Jesus Christ was worth everything in life that he was determined that this gospel was only worthy of being passed on to others who had the same mindset. So he tells Timothy verse two, "The things which you 5:21 have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men. Don't just entrust them to anyone. Entrust them to faithful men." Now I don't know what you think of when you think of the word faithful. For me, what 5:39 stands out when I think of the word faithful is full part of faithful. Faithful. Now there is a sense in which faithful means uh diligent and trustworthy. But I think faithful also means full of faith. And I think that's what Paul is 5:57 perhaps also alluding to here that let the men to whom you entrust this gospel be those who are full of faith. And one of the things that I've learned about faith that I like to share in in this message here is that I believe that 6:12 faith comes through brokenness. And that's why I think the quality of God's work, the quality of work in Christendom is so poor, not God's work, the quality of work in Christendom in general is so poor because so few men 6:30 and women who are being used, who think they're being used in Christendom to go as missionaries or to be pastors or to be workers in Christendom are not truly broken. And I'm increasingly finding out the secret in my own life through 6:44 different areas in my life where I have been broken or am being broken now that that's how God extracts faith out of my life. Um so faith comes through brokenness and brokenness is an interesting thing because um you read in 7:01 Isaiah chapter 53 and I'd like us to look at that verse also. I remember a time in my life when I was going through a period of breaking. It was in my early 20s and much of that had to do with my own sin. Uh much of that 7:21 had to do with reaping of consequences of things that I had sown, uh mistakes I'd made, bad choices, those sorts of things. And I was going through a period of reaping. And it was a a time that God was using to break me. Now, the thing 7:36 about brokenness is when you're going through that breaking, when you're going through that brokenness, it doesn't feel like there's any purpose out of it. It doesn't feel like anything good can come out of it. And that's exactly how I felt 7:49 at that time. I remember getting this picture in my head. Now, it was a false picture, but this is the picture I had in my head, and I'll share it with you in case any of you can relate to that. that I was like a rag doll in the hands 8:03 of God and that he was just beating me into the ground head first just beating me into the ground. And I get up the next morning and beating me into the ground. Get up the next morning, beating me into the ground again. And it seemed 8:14 like I was just everything was going against me. And my tendency and my flesh, the response of my flesh was God, why are you doing this to me? Why are you allowing this to happen in my life? Now today I look back from the 8:31 perspective of having come through that and that the Lord brought me out of it. And that's the thing is that God always brings out of every trial those who trust in him. The Lord delivers the righteous out of every situation. That's 8:46 what the scripture is very clear about that. The righteous are the Lord delivers them out of all of them. So I I was delivered from that earthly circumstance. But while I was going through it, I had this impression. I had 8:59 this feeling, this emotional carnal feeling. I can see it now that I was being just uh hit into the ground over and over and over again. And I found this response in my life as well. It I I thought of this verse actually, and 9:16 that's why I wanted to turn to it. In Isaiah 53, it says in verse 10, "But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief." Now, you can read that verse the wrong way and you can think, well, God just somehow gets a sadistic. 9:32 Satic sadistic is a word that just means like an unhealthy, unnatural pleasure out of something bad. And I I had this feeling this was the devil painting this picture of a good loving heavenly father who had my very best in mind all along 9:50 throughout my life from the time I was born. In fact, before I was born, he's had the very best plan for my life and for your lives also, dear brothers and sisters. Before the foundations of the world, it says he chose you in Christ. 10:04 He chose me in Christ. And the devil is in the business of warping, twisting this picture of God in the midst of the circumstances we face to say God is against you. Why would he allow you to go through that? And what I didn't 10:19 realize and I realize now and I want and the reason I'm sharing that is because it's so much better if we can get the that perspective in the midst of our trial rather than later on. See, I think faith is like this. Everybody will at 10:36 the end of their lives look back on their lives and realize God's plan was the and then it's not faith anymore. But what God is looking for is faith which is those who are on this earth in the midst of their trials who through the 10:53 Holy Spirit get that perspective which everybody will have eventually. Now, in the midst of my trial, if I can be absolutely convinced of this fact that God has the best plan for my life, so even though I may not understand 11:09 everything that's going on, even though I can't see why it feels like I'm getting piled into the ground day after day after day, the same trial, maybe it's a sickness, maybe you've been praying for healing, chronic arthritis 11:23 or pain, or maybe it's a relationship, a a marriage relationship, ship or a uh whatever it might be, I don't know what your trials are, but you do. And no matter what it is, if you feel like after you've prayed for it and you get 11:36 up the next morning thinking, God, surely you can answer it. What could possibly be bad about you're answering that prayer, maybe what you're praying for is a good thing. Maybe you're not praying like we just heard for those 11:49 earthly blessings like health and like wealth and health and all those other things, but you're just asking for the ability to make it through one day at a time without that pain and without that suffering gnawing at your life. And day 12:02 goes by and God doesn't seem to answer it. In the midst of that, I want you to know my dear brothers and sisters, as I am learning as well that God still has a plan through that and it pleased the Lord to crush him. Now, this verse 12:17 confused me. I'll be honest, because I thought, well, Lord, do you really get pleasure out of crushing me? I know, I mean, I can understand that it was like that for Jesus, but what could it be that the father would get pleasure out 12:30 of sending his only son to deliver us, to save us, and then look down and see him crushed by circumstance after circumstance after circumstance, and it bring pleasure to him. And what I realized, it's not the crushing that 12:46 gives God pleasure. God is not this evil person that sits up there and enjoys seeing us go through circumstance after circumstance and pain and suffering and sickness and and losing your job and being without a job for months or years 13:01 and being single maybe if you long to get married and that never seems to get answered. God is not this evil person up there getting a big smile on his face over the fact that we are being crushed and persecuted. Do you think that the 13:16 father looked down from heaven in the as he sees his people standing true to him and being persecuted and being tortured and being crucified like it's happening now even it happened in the first century they were beheaded they were 13:30 eaten alive by lions they were crucified some of them upside down like Peter is it that God gets a pleasure out of seeing his children suffer like that but we know what it is that God gets pleasure in that's in Hebrews 11. 13:50 I know now that it's not the crushing itself that gives God pleasure, but Hebrews 11:6 makes it very clear that there's one thing that God is most delighted in. And without that, you cannot please God. And I believe this is 14:07 what is what God is looking for for us who are in this next generation. And I almost feel like I'm that we're looking on to the next generation. The way I speak in our church in Colorado is like this is that I'm handing off the baton 14:21 to other younger younger people in their 20s in their teenagers. Imagine if our teenagers and our young 20some young people could get gripped with this and we could hand it off to them and we could sit in the back. I think that's 14:36 how it would be. And ultimately, if the children are godly enough, they can lead the meeting. That's how it's going to be in heaven, I think, when when things are revealed. And I don't know what that's going to look like, but um so, uh what 14:48 what we see here in Hebrews 11:6 is that without faith, it is impossible to please God. If I could say the converse of that, with faith, you will please God. What God is looking for on this earth ultimately, I believe, is this 15:04 faith. And that's why Paul tells Timothy, we are about to give this message to others. Timothy, make sure you hand it off to those men and are full of faith. Not just people who feel feel sad for God and say, "Oh yeah, it looks like 15:21 nobody wants to answer the altar call and go out in the mission field. So, okay, sure, I'll go." After a while, like Deeus, they will realize, you know what, it wasn't all that it was made out to be. I like the world better. But if 15:34 you get men of faith, Timothy, Paul says, if you get women of faith who are full of this faith that comes through brokenness, that they will entrust themselves to God to take them through circumstance after circumstance after 15:50 circumstance because that's the kind of life Paul had. Paul writes about it. He testifies about the kind of things he had to go through. Beatings, uh, dreading water for a day and a night. He says at one point he's just 16:03 swimming around in the water. What was he doing in the water? He wasn't going for a swim. It wasn't a vacation that something went wrong. He was trying to go to some place maybe that had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. And 16:15 there's his father who's excited about Paul wanting to go give the gospel of Jesus Christ to somebody. And the father, the devil, asks God permission. I want to sink Paul's boat. of all the boats that are floating on the ocean in 16:30 this world, I want to sink that boat. And the father is not disturbed by this. God is up there in heaven allowing the devil to sink the very boat that is carrying the message to this one place that has never heard the gospel of Jesus 16:44 Christ before. And God is saying, "Go ahead, Satan. I trust my mi my servant Paul." I think about how it was for Jesus as well. how the devil tried to kill Jesus. And I don't think the devil fully realized. I think the devil 17:00 thought he could somehow really kill Jesus through Herod or through other circumstances and the father allowed it. The father allowed Jesus to be persecuted when he was 2 years old. Chased to Egypt and chased this here and 17:14 there for his life because he was trying to crush Jesus. He was crushing Paul. And through that brokenness that God was able to accomplish in Jesus, his own son as a son of man on this earth and through Paul and others like that faithful man. 17:33 And we are the ones now through whom the apostles and the prophets and others in the previous generation are handing off this gospel to not just to anyone. And I believe more more and more in these days I' I've come to realize that God will 17:48 for if I answer an altar call to God and say, "Well, Lord, I really have interested in my own agenda. I want to have a name as a preacher or be an elder in a church or I want to have this reputation and I want to become well 18:02 known uh in the church. I want people to distribute my sermons and all that. Sure, I I'll preach the gospel. I won't even preach heresy. I believe God will pass me by. Now, I think I can still get up and preach, and people may even 18:15 appreciate what I'm saying, but the anointing will have been will have been removed. God will pass over everyone who refuses to be broken in the secret hidden areas of our lives. Cuz that's what God is looking for, faithful 18:32 men and women. So, Hebrews 11:6 makes it very clear that without faith, it is impossible to please God. You could have a godly home. You could be in the best church. You could have all the right doctrine. And if you don't have faith, 18:46 God looks at us or you or I sitting in the midst of a CFC church here, sitting in this conference, even perhaps without faith and says, "I know you made a lot of sacrifice to go to the conference, but you don't have faith. And without 18:59 faith, you can't please me." But that's the thing. If you give, if you have faith, all it takes is a mustard seedsiz faith and you can move a mountain. And then he in that this verse six is set in the context of many examples of faith. 19:16 So you think okay Lord now I know faith is what you're looking for and I I understand that faith comes through these broken breaking experiences that you take me through. So what how do I get faith? And so the writer of Hebrews 19:28 tells us by faith Abel did this. By faith Enoch by faith Noah by faith Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah there women in there too. by faith. Joseph, Moses, these stories after stories after stories of men and women of faith. And 19:45 we get challenged by reading the exploits that they did. How they parted the Red Sea. Here they were in in facing an impossible situation and God did something he'd never done before as far as we know. Made a hole in the sea for 19:59 them to walk through. Here they were standing in front of the walls of Jericho that were the best known walls of those days. I think fortified walls. There's no way a small army like the army of Israel can bring those walls 20:11 down. But God says, "I found faith in Joshua. I found faith in Daniel." In the midst, it says that they shut the mouth of lions. There he was. All the other men that had ever been thrown into that den got eaten alive. And how long comes 20:26 Daniel put into the exact same situation. And all of a sudden, the the lions are not hungry or they want vegetarian food. at night. God is able to do that. And then he says in verse 39 something amazing because we can read 20:43 these stories and be so challenged and think, "Okay, I'm going to have faith to do these great exploits for God. Yes, Lord, send me out as a missionary to Iraq." And sure, I'll be beheaded for your name's sake and let me do this 20:54 great thing for you. But he says in verse 39 something interesting that all of these great men and women of God having gained approval within the context of what God had ordained for them they were approved by God by their 21:10 faith. We we saw earlier that without it's impossible to please God. So these men and women had faith but because of the world that they lived in because they lived under the old covenant. It says even though they gained approval 21:24 through their faith they did not receive what was promised. So here are men and women of faith who were approved by God but didn't receive the promise. Why? Goes on to say in the next verse because God had provided something better for 21:41 us. Now I've been in the habit recently of wherever I see us or you you know when when when the let's say Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus and says you or the church in uh like we we heard earlier today about the church in 21:57 Corinth how he says I've heard about you or you you are like this put your name there if you're a child of God if you're born again you're entitled to this. So it reads like this. All of these men of faith like Abel and Abraham and Moses 22:10 and Elijah and all of them died without having uh received the promise because God had provided something better for Santosh and put your name there. Make it personal. God had provided something better for you and that's why they couldn't obtain 22:26 it. So my question for us this evening is are we getting that? Are or are we living by the same standard of life that they lived who did not receive the promise? Are you receiving the promise? Are you living your faith in such a way 22:42 that you're getting the promise for whom it was ordained? God had provided. My margin says foreseen. Sorry, it was in small print. God had foreseen because God had foreseen something 23:01 better for us. So as he watched Abraham and he watched Moses and he watched uh Josh Joshua and all of that he was foreseeing you and I in 2014 in your trial in the midst of that circumstance where you think there's absolutely no 23:18 hope at all. God was foreseeing and he saw you. He says, "Okay, these guys when they part the Red Sea, did you know that God when he parted the Red Sea was foreseeing you?" Cuz he said, "This is just a picture of the kind of faith that 23:32 my son, my daughter living in India, living in Australia, living in the United States, living wherever you are in Romania, the kind of faith they are going to have. This is just going to be a picture of it. And one day that young 23:45 brother, that young sister will go through a trying breaking circumstance and will get the promise. Put your name there. So God had foreseen something better for us so that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. This is 24:02 how I understand these verses that these examples of faith a were partial examples of faith. Maybe, you know, 50% faith, 25% faith, 75% faith. Some portion of faith was demonstrated by all of these wonderful examples. But do you 24:20 want to know what it means to be faithful, 100% faith, perfect faith, you have to continue reading. If you want to know what you and I are called to, which is this perfect faith, this faithfulness, this 100% faith, he goes on to say in 24:39 chapter 12, therefore, since God had foreseen, in other words, I'm reading, I'm just putting the two sentences together, since God had foreseen that the promise was for you and I living now in this day and age in the new covenant. 24:55 And that's why those people in the old covenant could not attain it. Therefore, what should we do? Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the if I could use the same phrase again, the 25:10 example of perfect faith. All these others, partial faith, maybe 25% faith, 50% faith. Here's our example, perfect faith. fixing our eyes on the one who had perfect faith who did what did Jesus demonstrate perfect faith now you would 25:29 think given the kind of examples that he's given us in chapter 11 that he would say fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and example of perfect faith who didn't even need to part the water he just walked on the water that's what 25:45 Jesus did or who after a man had been days brought him back to life. He didn't have have it wasn't just a few hours death. This was 4 days death and he brought him back to life. That's greater than anything you read in the Old 25:59 Testament. He doesn't hold up as our example of perfect faith all the great things that Jesus did. And I find that one of the greatest tragedies in Christendom today, and I don't say that to point a finger at anyone, but as I 26:13 listen to the teachings in Christendom and as I look at what captivated my own life for many years and led me is that most of Christianom is taken up with the three and a half years of Jesus external ministry. And when they think 26:28 about following Jesus, they think about helping the poor and doing miracles. And for some people, taking up the cross means actually taking a physical cross. I've heard of people doing that like on Good Friday. They carry a physical cross 26:42 and they think I'm taking up my cross like Jesus did. And we know that that's not what Jesus meant. It's the same thing with the with the third person of the trinity. Most people are taken up with the external manifestations of the 26:55 Holy Spirit where what we've been hearing over and over again. And I what I believe God is trying to proclaim through the messages that we're hearing in CMC is this that what God is interested in is the secret life, the secret inner area of your life. 27:12 Which means that if you have that quality of faith in your life, it doesn't matter what you do on the outside. It doesn't matter if you never raise a dead person to life. It doesn't matter if you never once turn water into 27:25 wine. It doesn't matter if for you to get from one side of the lake to the other side, you have to take the boat and it's a lot of work. And it doesn't matter if God doesn't do a supernatural miracle for you in the midst of your 27:38 trial. But do you have faith? then you're following Jesus because it says the author and perfector of our faith who did this and this I believe is the greatest example of faith Jesus took up his cross as I've been meditating on this. It has 27:55 exalted the life that we are called to. It's exalted the life that Jesus lived of taking up his cross. I remember once somebody asked me after he'd heard me speak somewhere and said um it was some years ago. He said, "Hey, why why do you 28:13 think the gospel has why do you make the gospel so morbid, so gross and gruesome? Just you talk about cross and crucifixion and the flesh and and putting to death and it's just death." And perhaps that's how the gospel is 28:29 presented sometimes. But if we see that God is interested in faith and he knows that the only way that we can really get faith is through the breaking experiences through our taking up our cross like Jesus did following that 28:43 example of perfect faith and I know this without a doubt that we can never have that perfect 100% faith unless we take up our cross and that's the reason that all these otheram examples in Hebrews 11 never receive the promise the promise 29:00 was this 100% faith and you will be part of Christ's body 100% faith and you will be attached made one made conformed into the same image of the one who had 100% faith Abraham can never have that Moses 29:19 could never have that all these wonderful examples in spite of all the great things that they did and I think that these godly men it's it said they longed to look Even angels, even angels as pure as they are long to be in our 29:35 shoes today facing trying circumstances, facing temptations. I think they they look down on us in our struggles and our temptation, even our failures and say, "You know what? You know how lucky you guys are? You get to have the promise 29:49 fulfilled in you. You will be part of Christ's body." I mean, this is so amazing. You will partake of God's divine nature. He will put his faith in you. You will have faith. He will put his nature in you and you will be made 30:04 one with Jesus the head. And when we see the cross as our means to be pleasing to God, as the means by which he extracts faith out of our life, it becomes glorious to us. So by faith, Jesus endured the cross, despised the shame, 30:23 and has sat down at the right hand of the father. One of the best uh phrases that I think describes faith um I've recently been meditating on this also and that's in Luke chapter 23. I think personally I think this is one 30:41 of the best statements of faith that I found. Luke chapter 23 and these are words that Jesus said on the cross. Now we know that the physical cross that Jesus took up was just the last of many of a cross that he had to 31:01 take up every day. That was just the physical cross. But throughout his day there throughout his life for 33 and 1/2 years every day he took up his cross. Took up his cross took up his cross in secret. Nobody saw it. Even in the 3 and 31:15 1/2 years of his public ministry in secret when he was misjudged by the uh by the religious leaders of his day when he was misjudged by the people of Israel who had been looking for the Messiah and looked at him and thought there's no way 31:28 this ugly person this nobody could be the Messiah and inside that was a cross he had to took up take up and when he was even deserted by the very people who he invested his life in for three and a half years and when the moment came when 31:43 When everything else went to haywire, they ran away and he was left alone. And then it got worse. He hung on the cross and his own father, I don't think we can fathom what that was like. His own father deserted him, forsook him, and he 31:59 stood there and that was the cross that he had to take up. That was far greater than any physical cross that anybody has ever hung on. Now, I've heard crucifixion is a pretty gruesome, painful, torturous way to die, but 32:12 that's nothing compared to the inner secret breaking and crushing. And I think of the father, you know, it says that uh in that hymn we sing, how great the pain of searing loss, the father turns his face away. The father turned his face away from his 32:30 own son that was hanging there as my sin on the cross. But even in the midst of that, it brought the father pleasure. I believe it pleased the Lord to crush him because of the promise that God had ordained. Because of the foresight that 32:45 the father had seen, your name written there, my name written there. It brought him pleasure despite the fact that it was his own son that he was forsaking on the cross. And it wasn't this situation. And that gives me hope because I know 32:59 that God is not delighting in my cross. And God doesn't get a secret pleasure in allowing me to go through the feeling of thinking that he has forsaken me. Now, God never forsakes us while we're here on this earth. The reason for that is 33:12 because he forsook his son. And because he forsook his son on that cross for 3 and 1/2 hours, I will never have to be forsaken because I put my faith in him. And God will never forsake me. But it can feel like that. It can feel like God 33:25 is hitting you into the ground day after day after day after day. But we can take comfort in that that God is not pleased in that circumstance. God is not pleased when the de God was not pleased when the devil stole all of Job's property and 33:39 then stole all of his children and then allowed Job to have these boils and this wretched disease on him. It's not that God looked down and says, "Oh yeah, Job's got boils." Yes, that's great. That's not how God is. But I know, 33:51 brothers and sisters, it can feel like that in the midst of our circumstance. It can feel like that. So um here this verse Luke 22 verse46 Luke 23:46 and Jesus crying out 34:10 with a loud voice said father into thy hands I commend my spirit. Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. And this I believe is the greatest statement of faith that I have found to this day. This I think is what it meant when it says that Jesus had 34:28 perfect faith. He said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." This is what faith is in our day as well. This is what it means to take up our cross. This is what it means to be a faithful man or woman who is now responsible for 34:43 taking the gospel wherever God takes you. It doesn't have to be to China or Africa or to Brazil. Into your workplace, into your home situation, into your raising up of your children, mothers, father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. And I think earlier in 34:58 chapter 22 of how Jesus saw the father bringing a cup in front of him. It says in Luke 22:42, Jesus saw this cup coming in front of him, this breaking circumstance, and uh the father brought it in front of him and Jesus said, "Father, if you are 35:18 willing, this is in Gethsemane. Father, if you are willing, please," and this is prayer you pray, don't you? "Father, if you are willing, please heal my child. Father, if you are willing, please give me that job. Father, if you 35:33 are willing, please take me out of this situ. Father, if you are willing, please. Jesus prayed that prayer as well. And the he heard the father say, "Yes, I want you to drink it. I'm not going to take that cup away from you. You have to 35:50 drink it, my son." And Jesus did because he was placed in the hand of his father. Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And it's okay after you've committed your spirit into the father's hands to say, "Well, father, can you 36:04 take me out of this situation? Can you please heal me from this? Yet not my will but thine. Because I'm committed my spirit into your hand. And however you choose to deal with me in my circumstance, I know you know best, 36:17 Father. Into your hands, I have committed my spirit." This is faith. And this is the kind of faith God is looking for today as well. And I think about what it means to submit yourself under the mighty hand of God. And I think of 36:32 this is a picture I got as as I was meditating on these verses. Like a grape placed in the hand and then another hand comes and just crushes that grape. You know the life of Christ is described like the new wine. The life of the new 36:47 covenant is described like new wine. And the picture there you cannot get wine. The thing about wine is it comes through grapes being crushed. And it's not just like that. It's a crushing. It's a squeezing. It takes time. And it takes 37:01 more time. It takes more time. It takes more all of that wine out. And I think of Jesus seeing his life like a grape in the hand of his father and saying, "Father, into your hands, I've committed my spirit. If it is your will, please 37:15 don't let me drink this cup, but if it is your will, I'll drink it. If it is your will for me to drink it." And the father crushes him. Throughout his life, he did. And on that cross he did as well. Now it says later on in Hebrews 12 37:28 he goes on to say you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. I used to think that was the blood on Calvary but I think perhaps he means the blood in Gethsemane where Jesus sweat drops of blood. That's how much the crushing cost 37:41 Jesus. I think of Abraham and how the father was delighted. It says after he was called to sacrifice Isaac, the very son that God had given him in promise and Abraham's about to thrust the knife through him and the angel holds the 37:58 knife back and says, God says, "Now I know that you fear me because you're willing to give me even your son." God knew when to draw the line. And then I as I thought about that, I thought thought about how that was a picture of Jesus hanging there on the 38:13 cross when the father himself would put his son on the altar. And there was no angel to stop the father from thrusting his knife into his own son. It had to be done. Jesus had to be pierced to the point of shedding blood. And you and I 38:28 will never have to face that kind of piercing. Thank God for that. But in the midst of the our trials now where it feels like we're going through circumstances and I feel like nobody else around me relates to what I'm going 38:39 through, know this. If you've committed your spirit into the hands of your father, he will know how much you can handle. And he will never allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able to bear. But he will squeeze you just to 38:51 the right point where the life of Christ comes out like the new wine of the new covenant. Jesus said in Luke 18, you can look at it sometime. When the son of man comes, I think of it like this, you know, it says we will be 39:05 caught up in the air. First the dead will rise and then those of us that remain, I hope to be one of those that's still here on this earth when Jesus comes. But you know what is it that's going to draw us up to Jesus? It says we 39:17 will be caught up in the clouds. I think of it like a magnet. A magnet that's drawing something up from this earth. What is it? Is it a new covenant church with the right pattern? Is it a godly home? Is it this? Is it that? Is it 39:30 modest dress? Is it head covering? Is it some other tenant that we have, a doctrine that we hold on to? Is it the fact that we have CFC written on our board in front of the church? Or is it faith? When the son of man comes, will 39:44 he find faith on the earth? You know the context in which he says it like a widow, oppressed, oppressed, oppressed. But she goes back and says, "Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit." That's what the widow did to the judge. Into 39:59 your hands, judge, I commit my spirit. And even if God seems like an unrighteous judge, which he is not, even if God seems like a judge who fears neither God nor man, if you commit your spirit into his hands, that's what 40:14 pleases God. This is what Jesus is looking for. This is the bride that he's calling out. Not a congregation of people, whether we sit in a CFC church or sit somewhere else. He's looking for men and women who are full of faith. 40:27 When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? May it be so. I believe it will. Amen. Throughout the scriptures, 40:52 we find that God's greatest servants have been taken through very difficult parts. I mentioned earlier about David. If David had had an easy life 41:13 like Saul and Solomon, I think he'd have turned out like them bad. But he God took him through very rough times for 10 years. It seems to me that in this sin-cursed earth, 41:33 it's difficult to be a man of faith without going through suffering and brokenness and trial. It's not possible to live a comfortable, luxurious life without any problems and be a man of faith. Just doesn't work like that. 41:50 Think of the great example of not just David but Moses. Moses was grew up in the palace for 40 years or at least 35 35 years and then when he was to deliver God's people be a leader 42:09 God had to break him through 40 years. It was not a short process. 40 years of being broken, you know, all that pride of being ruler in Egypt and all 42:26 that wisdom and education all got thrashed out of his system. When I think of so many people on today who are trying to build the church, we have tried to follow the principles 42:44 of scripture exactly the New Testament right from the beginning and seeking to follow principles of building the church. In fact, we have even told people that if you find something in scripture that we are not following in 42:59 the New Testament, please tell us where we are not following it and we will seek to follow it. And we see that in the new uh that God 43:15 had to take out of Moses mind the cleverness of Egypt because until that was taken out he could not lead God's people in God's way. Even the tabernacle remember the man I don't know whether you've seen picture 43:34 of tabernacle. The tabernacle is one of the simplest little sheds that you can ever think of. First of all, it had to be transported frequently. So, it had to be just a few poles in a tent. And God said, "That's 43:52 where I'm going to live." And remember, the man who built it was a man who knew how to build pyramids, which even today engineers and all wonder how did they build this? And Moses knew it. He lived in a time when pyramids were 44:08 being built. And if God had not broken him, he would have tried to build a grand thing that could be appreciated by men. God didn't want that. It says in Exodus, and I think this is a 44:27 very important principle in building the church. I want to share this for those you know when we think of the next generation. I hope all of you brothers who in the future are going to go out to different parts of India and the world I 44:42 hope and build the church of Jesus Christ. I hope you will remember this little principle that you read in Exodus. The building of the tabernacle was a picture of how we are to build the church. And there were some very exact details 44:58 given uh in Exodus 25 onwards. I want to read a verse there. The Lord said in Exodus 25:8, "Let them construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them." The 45:16 purpose of building the church is that God can dwell in the midst of his people. That's the church. The church is the dwelling place of God. When it says in John 1:14, the word became flesh and dwelt in our 45:35 midst. In the margin of my Bible, it reads, "The word that is Jesus became flesh and tabernacled in our midst." So from that I conclude that that Old Testament tabernacle was a picture of Jesus 45:52 body where God could dwell and therefore a picture of the church the body of Christ where God wants to dwell and he says you build a church for me in your locality 46:08 in which I can dwell. Do you take that challenge? And then he tells him how to do it. Verse nine, according to all that I'm going to show you, the pattern of the tabernacle, the pattern of everything, you must 46:27 construct it like that. I'm going to show you the pattern and you must construct it exactly like that. And here's all those details given in those remaining chapters. And then you come to the end and you see this which I love to point 46:43 out to people. Exodus 39 and 40 times I think I'm right in the number of times you find one expression Moses did that exactly as the Lord 47:02 commanded. First of all, in Exodus 39:1, the last part, just as the Lord commanded Moses, end of verse 5, just as the Lord commanded Moses. Just as the Lord commanded. 47:19 And further down at chapter verse 21, just as the Lord command, at the end of that verse, the end of verse 26, just as the Lord commanded and 29 and 31 and 32 47:36 and 42 and chapter 40 again, just as the Lord commanded all the way, many, many times. And finally it says in verse 40:32 the last part just as the Lord commanded Moses and then in verse 33 it says thus 47:55 Moses finished the and the result is the glory of God filled the tabernacle. verse 34. I read that and I said, "Lord, can we experience that today? If you can enable me 48:15 to build a church just as you commanded in the New Testament, not the way I see other people doing it, exactly like you commanded. Will that same glory come into our midst?" I believe it will. And uh that means all those principles I 48:36 seeament where the way I think is best. We have enough examples in the Old Testament of people who tried to do God's work in a human way. And I'll give you one example and that is 48:55 you know there was a time when u David was carrying the ark of the covenant from one place to another and it was a long distance of many miles and he said why should we ask these sons 49:13 of Levi to carry it on their shoulders like God commanded. I remember he says how the Philistines once sent the ark on a bullet cart that was in the first book of Samuel the early part when the Philistines once 49:32 captured the ark and they were punished by God they sent it back to Israel but they sent it on a bulock cart and it came back safely so Moses so David said hey let's put it on a bullet cart and he put it on a bullet cart and that 49:49 was calamity. The oxen began to stumble and there was a man called Usuza who tried to steady the ark and God killed him on the spot. There was death and Moses and David was disturbed and he realized I can't change God's way. There 50:08 is a lesson there of trying to copy the methods of the world to do God's work. This is the way the Philistines did it. It seems to be more efficient. Definitely it's more efficient to carry it on a bulock cart than carry it on 50:22 your shoulder for so many miles. The result is death. So they kept the ark for some time there and once again did it God's way. Now what does this apply? How does this apply to our building our church in our day? [Music] 50:39 One of the big areas is what I mentioned yesterday and I never get tired of repeating it. Jesus said, "There are only two masters." Luke 16 50:58 verse 15. It's not God and the devil. I want you to never forget my brothers and sisters, there are only two masters in this world. God and Mammon. Mammon means material 51:17 wealth, money and everything that money can buy. He described it as a god mammon, money and material wealth, everything that money can buy and the true god. These are the only two masters 51:35 and they both of them seek to direct your life. Both of them seek to guide you how you're going to build the church because money is something we all have to handle 51:51 every single day of our life. We buy food, we pay rent, we buy clothes. We had to pay for our children's education. If there's one thing you handle every single day, it's money in one way or the other and cash or credit card or check or something. 52:11 We're always handling it. and the church. In building the church, you have to decide whether you're going to do it God's way or where money is going to have a factor in your work. 52:30 In other words, is it going to be the bulockart way of the Philistines or is it the way that God has ordained in his commandment exactly as God commanded it? And if all of Christian work that's going on in the world today, most of it 52:47 anyway, and compare it with the New Testament and see if it is following God's pattern in this one area of money, you'll find it is not. No wonder the glory of God is not being seen. We change and modify God's pattern. 53:06 The world has done it. And expect the glory of God to come there. In other words, if Moses had said to God, "Lord, this is not good enough. I'll make a better I'll just modify a few things here and there, not just as the Lord 53:18 commanded, just as the Lord commanded 18 times, but if it was written, well, generally speaking, mostly as the Lord commanded, the glory of God would not have been seen." Money is the biggest factor in Christian work in the world today. 53:36 It has replaced the Holy Spirit. In the first century church, it was the Holy Spirit. They sought for the power of the Holy Spirit. It was they said, "If you have that, we don't need anything else." You never read about in 53:51 the Acts of the Apostles, anybody going around saying, "Hey, we don't have enough money to do God's work." But that's exactly what's happening today. Everywhere I go, it's the same thing I see in every single. It doesn't matter 54:04 what your doctrine is. Whether it's Roman, Catholic, Protestant or Pentecostal, when it comes to money, it is the same. The same attitude. It's a Roman Catholic priest that is paid to do God's work. A Protestant 54:23 pastor is paid to do God's work. And a Pentecostal pastor is paid to do God's work. In the New Testament, not a single person was paid to do God's work. So there's no difference in these different groups. We can say our 54:36 doctrine is all different. But when it comes to money, it's the same doctrine. And begging and pleading for money. The Roman Catholics will ask people to give money. The Protestants say, "Come on, you got to give money." And the 54:50 Pentecost will say, "Come on, you got to give money." But in the New Testament, you'll never find anybody. You never find Jesus or the apostles saying, "Come on, give money for God's work." Never. Not even once. They always said, "Give money to the 55:03 poor. Don't give it to me. Give it to the poor." What did Jesus tell the rich young ruler? Rich man comes. What What do most pastors say when a rich man comes to the church? Do they tell what Jesus said? Go and give it to the poor and come without 55:20 your money. I want you. I don't want your money. I've never seen a pastor say that. I've told it to people. I've said to people who were not members of our church, but who were members of some other church, Roman Catholics, not converted 55:37 really. And uh and I invited them to come to our meeting. I said, I want to tell you something. I don't want you to put one cent into our offering box. Please go and put your money in the Roman Catholic Church, which you're a 55:50 member. Keep your membership there. Give your money there. Please come and hear the word of God freely. That's all I want you to come for. I don't want your money. I've said that to so many people. We're not building a church to collect 56:09 people's money. We're not building a church that's dependent on money. We decided that we will do with whatever money God gives we will build just like you know the proverb cut your coat according to your cloth and you decide 56:27 when you get a certain income wherever you are if you want to build a church that will glorify God where the glory of God will be descend upon it depend on the Holy Spirit nothing else and that is the reason why God allows us 56:43 to be broken Brokenness is to teach us dependence and it's not something we just learn once. We have to learn it continuously. Let me show you the life of the apostle Paul if you want to know the how he accomplished so much in his life. We 57:01 read in one Corinthians sorry 2 Corinthians in chapter 11. This is how the apostle Paul was trained to do the most fantastic work 57:19 that any apostle did in those days. Today we send people to Bible school and train them and all that. That's another thing which we have never believed in. We do not believe in telling anybody to go to a Bible school. All the false prophets in the Old 57:38 Testament came out of Bible schools. Not a single true prophet or apostle ever came out of a Bible school. You know in the days of Samuel we read that there was no open vision and a word from the Lord was very rare and God 57:55 raised up Samuel and he heard the word of the Lord and he spoke and uh there were a couple of mistakes that Samuel made. one we read I don't have time to show that to you but you read in 1 Samuel chapter 8 that he appointed his two sons 58:15 as judges but his sons were not following the Lord if his sons were following the Lord that was okay but his sons were taking bribes and doing all types of wrong things just like Eli's sons Samuel's sons did the same what he warned Eli about happened in his 58:33 own family And so little after Samuel's time, you read about Bible schools. They're called the sons of the prophets, which is a Old Testament expression to say Bible school students. That's how we 58:52 would say it today. You read in Elisha and Elijah's time, Bible school students, sons of the prophets. And we don't know exactly when it started, but it's possible that it started in Samuel's time or sometime then where 59:05 somebody felt, well, they're not enough prophets, so let's start a Bible school and get some prophets. So, they started these Bible schools. That's the first time you read about Bible schools in the Old Testament. And these people came out with their Bible 59:20 school diplomas and degrees. And they became the prophets in the king's court. And they would only tell preach what the king liked to hear. And every one of them persecuted the true prophets of God. And the true prophets never came out of 59:37 a Bible school. They lived before God. And that's what we encourage in our churches. We don't want you to go to a Bible school. We want you to live before God. Learn from God. And God will teach you through brokenness. Like Moses was 59:51 broken in the wilderness through 40 years. He will give you his word. So Paul, we read here 2 Corinthians 11 verse 23. Are they servants of Christ? He's talking about how to be a servant of Christ. I am more than them. I am 1:00:08 more and I'll tell you how. More labors, more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was 1:00:26 shipwrecked. A night and a day I spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from countrymen, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers 1:00:43 in the sea, and dangers among false brothers. I've been in labor and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst. Hunger means nothing to eat. Often without food, sometimes it was deliberate fasting. Sometimes it is not enough money to buy 1:01:01 food in cold without a blanket exposure. And then the biggest problems of all, the biggest problem of all, the daily pressure of concern for all the churches, the problems in Corenth, the problems in 1:01:20 Ephesus, the problems in the Galatian churches, the problems in the Philippian churches. He was carrying that burden all the time. This is how God broke and crushed Paul and he became the mighty servant of God. That was his Bible school. Being stoned, 1:01:38 beaten, misunderstood, rejected. God's ways are not our ways. Many of people want to be a mighty apostle like Paul. If God does have that in plan for you, 1:01:56 he'll take you through very a very hard road. The purpose is to be broken because I've discovered that God can never commit authority in the hands of an unbroken man. I have seen this even in some you know CFC elders. We have sometimes had to 1:02:16 remove some CFC elders. Some have become very authoritarian. I don't know whether there are some still around like that. We read about in the third epistle of John, Paul 1:02:33 writes about a man called Datrophies. These are warnings for the next generation of leaders in our churches. He says in third epistle of John verse 9, I 1:02:52 wrote something to the church but datrophies the elder. He loves to be the first among them. There were a number of elders but he wanted to be the first. I'm the chief elder and he won't even accept what the 1:03:10 apostle John says. So even in the first century elders appointed by the apostles they were not all perfect. Some of them wanted to be first. We we've seen that in our midst. 1:03:29 And he says, "For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds." He says, "I'm going to expose him." John was not afraid of exposing the arrogance of some elders cuz the Bible says that elders who are like that 1:03:47 must be exposed before the whole congregation. He accuses us. Imagine in those days this man, this carnal elder had the audacity to accuse an anointed apostle like John who was probably double his age. 1:04:07 It's amazing. And he won't receive anybody whom John sends there. He won't receive the brethren and tells others not to receive them. Puts them out of the church if they receive the messengers John sends. And Paul says and John says when I come 1:04:27 there I will call attention to these deeds and he warns them beloved don't imitate what's evil. So that type of danger was there even in the first century. They were unbroken people who were elders and they were exercising authority 1:04:44 and God never supported it. When God commits authority to a person, he has to break him. A broken man is the only man fit to exercise spiritual authority. That's why God takes him through brokenness. And that's why even the apostle Peter had 1:05:03 first to be broken by failure. So I want to say to you my brothers, if God has allowed you to go through failure in your life, God can use that. I found in many many including my own that was it was through failure that God 1:05:21 broke me and there's God broken other people so that we don't lift up our head from the dust we keep our head in the dust all the time not because we have any sense of inferiority we keep our head in the dust before Jesus 1:05:40 but we don't assert ourselves And that's the reason why God breaks us. Every single servant of God whom God has used. He has to break and humble. Then only he commits authority to them. And if you have not gone through that 1:05:58 process, I can tell you in Jesus name, he you will never be useful in God's hands to build his church. I can tell you that if you resist that brokenness, if you don't allow God to break you through your circumstances, many times we resist it, then of course 1:06:19 God can't do his work. So I say that for your encouragement. If any of you are going through such circumstances, God has got a purpose. Submit to it. In God's time, he will bring you forth. It's like gold being purified in the 1:06:33 fire. Let me show you this verse in closing. Psalm 66. In Psalm 66, David says how he came to a place of abundance. Psalm 66:10, 1:06:56 God, you have tried us. You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into a net. That means you surrounded us in a way that we cannot escape. You know, like fish in a net. 1:07:15 Do some of you find yourself in circumstances where you want to move out, but you can't move out? You feel trapped in certain circumstances? You're brought into a net. You laid an oppressive burden upon our loins. Maybe a sickness that you are not 1:07:33 healed. Maybe a thorn in the flesh that you prayed and prayed and prayed and never got healed from. Some physical ailment or problem, a burden uh or burden upon your loins. You allowed men to ride over our heads. The picture is of you lying on the 1:07:50 ground and men walking on top of your head. I mean some people who work in different offices that feel like that. this boss of mine is always walking over my head. Or you can experience that in a marriage. You can experience that with relatives 1:08:06 who take advantage of you, a mother-in-law or anybody. God can use all types of circumstances to break you. And then experiences where you are put into the fire and then taken out of that and to put into icy cold water and then 1:08:24 taken out of the icy cold water and put into the fire extremes from one extreme to the other and finally look at God's result. Yet you finally brought us into a place of abundance. And that phrase place of abundance is the same word that you find in Psalm 1:08:43 23:6. cups that run over. Thou anointed my head with oil with cups that run over. And I remember the first time I saw that, how do I come to the place where my cups will be running over? I must accept God allowing so many things 1:08:57 to come into my life. And I just bow my head and I don't complain against anybody. I say God has allowed it. There's an Old Testament example of David when somebody cursed him and threw stones at him and called him all types of names and 1:09:16 one of David's soldiers said, "Let me go and kill this man. How dare he speak against you like that." And David said to him, if some of you don't know this passage, it's good for you to know it. In 2 Samuel 16 and verse 10, the king said, "No, don't 1:09:36 kill him." God has permitted him to curse me. How can I say to God, why have you done it? Imagine if you had that faith. Covenant had that faith. 1:09:53 God permitted that chap who I feel is inferior to me in social status to yell at me. Okay? God permitted him to do it. God will not 1:10:11 allow anything to happen to you without his permission. God allowed him to do it to break you, to humble you. And he will not allow anything to come to you without his permission. He wants to show you his 1:10:30 power. I had an interesting experience recently when I was in Canada where I was traveling with my son and it was an interesting experience of God's provision. 1:10:48 He was driving the car and we had pulled up at a restaurant to eat food and he'd parked the car and I was on the passenger seat side and I opened the car to get out and my car door just slight 1:11:06 the driving mirror of the next car just touched it. But inside that car was sitting a very angry man. He was just about to pull out. That's why he was there. 1:11:26 And maybe because he was white and he saw me as dark-kinned. He began to yell and call me the, believe it or not, the filthiest names I've ever heard in 75 years. I've never heard such names. 1:11:45 All types of health and you know my son's family was the car. Little small children, grandchildren were all there. Well, I say I'm sorry, but nothing has happened. There's not even a scratch. No, he said you got to pay. There's been 1:12:01 a scratch here. And he came out and looked. Of course, there was no scratch anywhere. He tried to open the car door and he found it didn't even touch it. He said, "How could that be a scratch?" Anyway, I stood there for some time and he was 1:12:13 yelling at me, yelling at me. I never said anything. And the more I kept quiet, he yelled. And just as I was standing, there was some there was a construction worker who was coming for his lunch also. These construction workers wear helmets and 1:12:30 special white man with jackets. He saw this fellow yelling at me and he came up to him and said, "What are you doing yelling at this person? I don't even know who this guy is." You know, God's angels have strange dresses sometimes and they 1:12:52 come in all types of clothing. And uh that man told this construction worker, "You want to get involved in this?" He said, "Yes, I want to get involved in this." And he told me to quietly go. I walked off while this discussion went on between these people. 1:13:08 And when that saw that I was no longer there and this guy was taking up for me, he just pulled out and went away. And I said, "Lord, I have seen the fulfillment of that verse. The eyes of the Lord move to and fro 1:13:25 throughout the whole earth to see how he can support someone whose heart is completely his. My heart was completely the Lord's. Proved by the fact that I was not going to yell back at him. I was not going to be angry with him. 1:13:42 U so God sends his angel along and to strongly support me. And it was very interesting. Of course, I I prayed for that man who yelled at me. I said, "Maybe it is the opportunity to pray that he'll get saved and he'll 1:14:00 repent and find Christ." So my wife was concerned about, "Hey, it's my all these grandchildren hearing this filthy language. It's terrible. But I hope I said I hope those grandchildren will also see how I responded 1:14:18 to all that filthy yelling at me. And if that memory stays in their mind, that'll also be good. What I want to say is my brothers, God allows us to live in a world where people are anti- good. They will treat you badly. This is 1:14:36 nothing. This is like a mosquito bite. But what I'm saying is even in little things you can see the hand of God showing you you are to be a nobody. Now if I thought I was a very important person over there I'd yell back at him. 1:14:51 I say how dare you yell at me. Do you know who I am? But I'm a nobody. I want to ask you, have you become a nobody? Life is very blessed when you're a nobody. Anybody can do anything to you. 1:15:10 That's how Paul was. They imprisoned him. They beat him. They hammered him. And said, "That's fine. Who am I?" And he was the greatest servant of God on earth. God picks up nobodyies and makes them his greatest servants. 1:15:26 Let's go that way. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, help us to honor you. Help grant that our hearts will always be completely yours that we can glorify you in everything 1:15:45 in Jesus name. Amen. Okay.
