0:00 Девушки отдыхают 0:30 Девушки отдыхают 1:00 If he only wanted one holy person to represent him then Adam alone would have been enough Let's turn to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26 1:26 I want you to see something very carefully when you read the Bible slowly you discover it In Genesis 1 verse 26 God said let us make man in our image 1:46 According to our likeness And let them rule When we have God's image we will rule When we lose that image we become slaves 2:11 We man has become a slave to sin Because he has lost the image of God And most Christians Almost all of them Are defeated by sin because they don't have a passion 2:33 To regain the likeness of God in their life Most Christians I have met are More interested in evangelism and social work and activity Than in becoming like Jesus Christ They are more interested like Martha to do some work in the kitchen 3:04 Than to sit at Jesus feet and listen to him And so Most Christian workers When they send a prayer letter or a report They only talk about what they have done You read any prayer letter of any organization 3:32 It will be a Martha like letter I made so many chapatis in the kitchen How many curries I made How many people I fed How much work I did for the Lord When Martha came before Jesus in Luke 10.42 3:58 Jesus rebuked her He said you are worried about too many things I am not interested in One thing is needful To sit at my feet and listen to my word So when the Marys write a letter 4:20 They will be writing about what they heard from the Lord You can find out when you read Christian circulars Which is a Mary and which is a Martha There are so many millions of circulars 4:41 Being sent out by churches and organizations these days And you can make out This is a Martha This is a Mary Most of the Martha letters are Disguised letters asking for money I need more money to make chapatis 5:08 Whereas Mary is not interested in money She is interested in sharing with others What she heard from the Lord That is very rare to hear these days 5:29 There are a lot of Bible teachers That very few who hear What the Lord is saying The Bible says there will be a famine of the words of the Lord In the last week And that is because people don't have a passion to become like Christ 5:52 And that is why the mark of all these Marthas Is that they are defeated by sin They lose their temper but they serve God They lust after women but they serve God 6:12 They love money but they serve God Why don't they get rid of these sins Because They don't listen to God's word Jesus said man shall live Not live by bread alone But by every word that proceeds from God's mouth 6:32 So See this that when God said I will make man in our image He said then they can rule I want to say to everyone of you who is defeated by sin You are not ruling over sin because of one reason 6:56 You are more interested in serving God than in becoming like Jesus Christ You are more interested in attending meetings and conferences Than becoming like Jesus Christ in your home And the more conferences you attend 7:22 It doesn't seem to change this attitude So we need to learn that first of all The second thing I want you to see here is First of all when God creates us in his image He will make us rulers That when he created man in his own image 7:55 He did not create one but he created two So the second thing we see is that when God creates us in his image He brings us into fellowship with others That we read right in chapter 1 That to rule over sin and fellowship was fundamental in God's life 8:21 To rule over everything on the earth We are tempted by so many things on this earth We were supposed to rule over them but we have become slaves to them Look at the number of people who are slaves to gold 8:45 They are not in the image of God Look at the people who are slaves to sexual desire in a sinful way They are slaves to sexual desire in a sinful way They are slaves to sexual desire in a sinful way 9:05 And the reason is this They don't have a passion to have the image of Christ in their life So as I was saying last time That all sin originated from pride It is very important to understand that And one mark of pride 9:28 Is that we think we are better than others As long as you think that you are more important than other people You will be defeated by sin Take the matter of anger 9:48 We get angry when somebody we think should give us more respect Is not giving us respect I think I am more important than that person And I get angry that he doesn't give me the respect 10:11 I think I deserve This is the reason why most Christian workers I have met They get angry very quickly They get angry because They expect people to serve them in some way 10:32 And they are not being served Or some people expect some money And they don't get that money They get upset It's always because within ourselves we feel I deserve some respect from these people Think of these beggars who walk on the road 10:58 They don't expect any respect from anybody We can learn something from them What does the Bible say Consider other people as more important than yourself That is a very important principle if you want to build fellowship 11:15 We will come to that later But the bigger problem is that we think we know better than God Now you may say I don't think I know better than God But do you know that when you commit sin 11:39 You are actually saying That I don't have to obey that commandment Because I think I know better than God See, we saw the first sin that came among the angels 12:01 Now you see the first sin that came among human beings When God told Adam and Eve They should not eat from that tree How do they sin? They thought we know better than God 12:21 Or it's not serious if you disobey God God says don't eat But I think it's good if you eat So we disobey God Thinking that we know better 12:42 Now there are It's in those days God only told one thing Told Adam not to take part of that Today In the New Testament The Lord has told us many things If even one of them 13:03 We don't seek to obey Then we think we know better than God Let me show you some examples See, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 He said when you come before God to pray 13:25 Or you come to give money to God And there you remember that You have hurt somebody Your brother or sister Or somebody you hurt What should you do? 13:50 You should leave your offering there And go settle that matter with your friend And then come And give your offering to God In other words 14:11 Whenever you come to pray And you remember there You hurt your wife Stop praying Stop praying And Go and settle matters with your wife And then come back and offer to God 14:35 How many of you do that? Or supposing you spoke rudely to your husband And you go to prayer And you are reminded That you spoke rudely to your husband And Do you stop your prayer 14:55 And go to your husband And ask forgiveness? Do you feel that God will not listen to my prayer Because I have not settled matters with somebody? Or It may not be your husband or wife It may be some brother or sister in the church 15:14 Do you really believe That God will not listen to one prayer of yours Till that matter is settled? I don't think most believers believe that They keep on praying 15:34 Their prayers are not answered And they are not even bothered There is so much of prayer in Christendom today And So little Of answered prayer 1% of prayers are answered 15:55 Is that God's will? That 1% of my prayers are to be answered? Did Jesus teach that 99% of our prayers Will not be answered? No There is something wrong It is not God's will 16:15 That he answers only 1% of our prayers And when we don't get the answer We will say Oh maybe that was not God's will What about all the prayers You pray for overcoming sin in your life? And you don't overcome sin Are you saying it is not God's will? 16:40 Maybe your husband or wife are not converted And you keep on praying and nothing is happening You pray that fellowship will be better between your husband and you and your husband or wife But nothing is happening and you don't do anything about it 16:58 And you don't consider that possibly God is not listening to your prayer at all See there is something in us which we got from Adam Which gives us the attitude I can never be wrong But God must be with somebody else 17:24 Or with God That's what Adam said When God asked him did you eat this tree He says it's not my fault My wife gave it And you gave me this wife Do you know that that attitude is in all of us? 17:47 It's tremendous lust To blame somebody else And when we don't get an answer to prayer To blame God Oh that is not God's will It was God's will But he didn't listen to your prayer Because your heart is not right 18:08 But you are not humble enough to acknowledge the blame You put the blame on God But the real reason is he did not accept your offering Because in your heart there is somebody you have hurt You have not settled that matter 18:23 In other words the Lord is interested in fellowship between you and that person before you pray But you are making no effort to build that fellowship Because the blame is always on the other person 18:49 I want to tell you in Jesus name You are deceiving yourself I can't change you But in the day of judgment You will discover That what I said was right And I pray that you will discover it 19:11 Before the day of judgment So it's very very important Our fellowship with others Is fundamental to God listening to our prayer So part of our pride is here 19:32 That we think That we know better than God We think we know how to Settle matters And if something goes wrong It's definitely not my fault Maybe that brother's fault 19:53 Or that sister's fault Or Maybe it's not God's will But of course I am a perfect person As long as you live in that deception I want to tell you brothers and sisters You are fooling yourself God is not happy with you We need to pray that prayer 20:18 Search me Lord Show me what is making you sad in my life We need to pursue after humility You know there's a very lovely verse In the Old Testament Which really blesses my heart In the book of Zephaniah 20:42 Zephaniah chapter 2 Here is an exhortation To those who are humble Zephaniah chapter 2 verse 3 What does it say? 21:02 Seek the Lord All you humble of the earth This is not for everybody All those who are humble Are you one of those? I hope you are one of those If you are one of the humble of the earth 21:23 Listen to this exhortation Seek the Lord What should you seek Him for? Verse 3 middle Seek for more humility Have you ever read that? 21:44 All those who imagine that they are humble Please seek for more humility That's a lovely word We all think we are among the humble of the earth Let me give you an exhortation Seek the Lord for more humility 22:07 And who are the humble of the earth? How do you know whether you are the humble of the earth? It says here Those who are those Those who have carried out His ordinances Or those who have obeyed all His commandments One mark of the humble people 22:29 Are they obey all of God's commandments Because they don't think I know better than God For example I read a verse like this In Matthew chapter 6 22:51 Matthew chapter 6 Matthew chapter 6 Matthew chapter 6 and verse 24 Matthew 6 24 No one can serve two masters No one can serve two masters These are the words of Jesus 23:12 He knows better than anybody else I want you to humble yourself And listen to these words of Jesus No one can serve two masters If you think you can You are mistaken The two masters are God and Mammon 23:37 The last part of that verse Mammon means money Property Anything that is earthly wealth And Jesus calls it Mammon To as it were Give it the name of an idol 23:58 You see The pleasures and the wealth of this earth Is like an idol And that's God And this is the idol You know When Elijah stood on the mountain 24:20 He said You must either serve Jehovah Or Baal And that's Exactly the same thing Jesus is saying God Or earthly wealth Earthly wealth is like Baal The Israelites 24:41 The Israelites thought They could serve both Elijah said no Choose today whom you want to serve And I would say to you the same thing Choose today whom you want to serve Don't postpone it till tomorrow 25:02 Christ Christ Or earthly wealth Even preachers Christ Or earthly wealth You cannot serve both If you are interested in money You cannot serve God Listen to this verse 24 25:27 He will hate one And love the other He will hold on to one And despise the other What does that mean? That means If you love money You hate God You know 25:50 There are a lot of people Today who think You can understand the Bible Only if you study Greek But I tell them Go and study any Greek It will tell you the same thing You don't serve God By studying Greek You serve God 26:12 By hating money There are 101 ways In which the devil Tries to lead people astray And this increasing knowledge Is one way So If you love God If you love money You hate God According to this word Now you try and read that verse slowly 26:39 And see if you get any other interpretation I'm not saying If you earn money You hate God You can earn 100,000 rupees a month And not hate God See many people Read the Bible wrongly 26:59 It doesn't say If you earn money You hate God Many Christians have this idea Someone who has a lot of money Must be hating God Someone who has got very little money Must be loving God Some of you can think like that 27:23 Some of you can think like that I'm a poor person I love God I'll show you somebody According to your theory Who loves God more than you Go to all the beggars In the streets in the streets in India They are all poorer than you 27:41 Do they love God more than you You see the foolishness of thinking That if you have less money You love God No Every beggar I have met in India Loves money You show me one beggar in India 28:04 Who doesn't love money Have you found one like that It's not what you earn It's not whether you have little or much Do you love it How do you know whether a boy loves a girl 28:24 You look into his mind He'll always be thinking about her He may never talk to you about it But he'll always be thinking about it How do you know whether a person loves money He'll always be thinking about it 28:47 Whether he's a beggar or a businessman Or a Christian preacher I can't make out But you know in your mind What you're thinking about it What you're thinking about most of the time You tell me what you are thinking about 29:05 Most of the time I'll tell you what you love You tell me what you think about most of the time That is your God Whether you know it or not Because we think most about what we love the most If you think about the most of the time 29:34 If you think of money most of the time That is your God Whether you know it or not Because we think most about what we love the most If you think about food If you think about food food food all the time That's your God 29:50 So there's a difference between earning money and loving money Jesus earned money as a carpenter For at least about 12-13 years But he never loved it 30:10 People gave him gifts when he was a preacher You read that in John 8 verse 3 He got it and he took it He wouldn't take it himself He'd say give it to Judas Iscariot He's the treasurer But that was for Jesus and his disciples 30:34 He received money But he never loved it He earned money as a carpenter He received money as a preacher But his mind was never on money Never, never, never That proves that he did not love money 30:57 His mind was always on his father What is the father saying? What is the father saying? His money, his mind was not on food He ate food but his mind was not on that It's very important to understand this 31:19 The Bible says in Colossians chapter 3 If you then be risen with Christ Verse 1 and 2 Set your mind on the things that are above Not on the things of earth Verse 2 31:40 That is the mark of someone who is united with Christ So, here is a command of Jesus Matthew 6, 24 I must not love money I can earn it I can earn as much as you like 32:01 But, don't let your mind be on it Your mind must be on God Now, when I listen to that And if I think I know better than God It is impossible to live on this earth 32:22 Without our mind being on money He said, it was alright for Jesus He was not married You have one family to look after Jesus had 12 families to look after 32:44 His disciples He took care of them Don't say he didn't have a family He may not have been married He had to take care of Peter's wife and children back there at the home I don't know how many of the other disciples are already married 33:05 Of course, most of them are around 30 years old Many of them may be married He had to take care of their families You take care of one Jesus had to take care of 12 33:26 But, his mind was not on money And, none of those 12 families starved Because, Jesus demonstrated by his life If you seek the kingdom of God first 33:47 Your heavenly father will take care of all the needs Now, there are very, very few people I have met like this on the face of the earth Very few believers And, even fewer full-time workers 34:08 Who really believe this That, if I put God's interest first in my life All the things I and my family need God will take care of Can you say that you live like that? 34:32 For example, you know All of us are working Supposing you have an opportunity to advance in your profession somewhere And, you get to make more money there But, God wants you somewhere else to build his church And, you say 34:55 I can go there also and build his church Oh, yes, of course you can But, what is your motive in going there? God sees that And, maybe you have made choices like that And, that's why you are in a backslidden state today And, you will not be honest to acknowledge that 35:23 Oh, you say No, no, no But, God blessed me over there You know That, God blessed Moses Hitting the rock Disobeying him By feeding two million people with water But, God punished Moses 35:47 And, you will not enter the promised land One of the things God taught me many years ago was this Don't assess Whether I am happy with your life By The blessing there is in your ministry 36:08 That's a deception God is happy with us If our conscience is clear And, if we can say 36:29 I am trying to keep all of God's commandments Humility is to acknowledge God knows better than me See, Matthew chapter 18 Matthew 18 and verse 3 36:52 And, 4 Unless you are converted And, become like children You shall not enter the kingdom of heaven Whoever then humbles himself He is, as a child Is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven We have to become like children 37:18 What does it mean to be like a little child? How does a child listen to his father? A good child You know better than me Therefore, I will do what you say I will do whatever you say 37:43 Even if it doesn't appear right to my understanding When we come to God like that And, read his word Lord, you have told me to go and ask forgiveness Immediately I will not even wait one second 38:05 I will immediately go and ask forgiveness Anybody you tell me to ask If I am in debt I will sell what I have And, clear my debt I remember once talking to a brother who was in debt I said, do you think it's a good testimony for you to be in debt like this? 38:34 He said, no I am trying, it is difficult I said, don't you have some gold in your home? Your wife's ornaments are all there Yeah, well What are you waiting for? You are waiting for the price of gold to increase You think you are a servant of God? 38:57 You think you are a child of God? You don't take seriously the command which says Oh, no man, anything You are waiting for the price of gold to increase Don't fool yourself that you are a child of God You just got some religion like the Pharisees 39:22 It is very, very important to see this The humility of a child is seen in this That child acknowledges the father knows better And you see that in rebellious children They think they know better than their father See, that's what Adam and Eve thought 39:48 And that is the origin of all sin and all breakup fellowship For example See what it says here In Hebrews chapter 12 Hebrews chapter 12 There are two things we are told to pursue after 40:11 Fellowship and holiness And if we can't have fellowship, at least peace Hebrews 12, 14 Pursue peace with all men With all men, peace 40:33 All human beings Pursue peace If your neighbor comes for a fight, don't fight If your brother-in-law, mother-in-law comes for a fight Don't fight They are not believers Or if they claim to be believers, they are not believers if they come for a fight 40:56 Jesus said to Pilate If my kingdom was of this world, then my servants will fight If you are a child of God, you don't fight with anybody Even people who come for a fight 41:18 Pursue peace with all men And with believers More than peace Fellowship Pursue fellowship And if that believer is somebody in your own church Pursue after fellowship Do your best 41:39 And secondly Pursue after holiness Without these two Verse 14 Nobody will see the Lord You think you are going to see the Lord? I will tell you something Heaven and earth will pass away before this word passes away 42:02 I believe that I believe the ones who see the Lord will be those who are pursuing holiness Pursuing peace with all men I am not saying I will have peace with all men From my side there will be peace 42:26 From their side if they want to quarrel, that is up to them Jesus didn't have a quarrel with anybody But many people hated Him And if we serve God We have no quarrel with anyone But many people will hate us Because we stand for the truth of God's word 42:47 Especially the religious leaders hated Jesus And religious leaders will hate us But we pursue peace We pursue fellowship Why? Because we Like little children We believe what God says Lord I believe 43:09 Whatever people may say If I don't pursue peace with all men And I will not see the Lord I want to see the Lord I want to see the Lord I want to see the Lord for all eternity And there it tells me I must pursue peace with all men 43:31 I must pursue holiness That's why these two things are so important And it all depends on humility What am I trying to emphasize? Humility is to acknowledge That God knows better than me 43:52 That what He says must be the best for me See, many of you are parents Don't you think you know better than your little children? Don't you think sometimes those children think they know better than you? 44:17 You feel so sad that they are going to mess up their life Because they don't listen to you Supposing you have a teenage daughter who doesn't listen to you You have some standards that you have maintained in your house 44:38 But your young son or young daughter Changes those standards Brings the world into their life Begins to follow worldly patterns What do you do? 45:03 Don't you feel sad? That's how God feels When His children think they know better than Him I want to tell you brothers and sisters God knows better than all of us Holiness and fellowship are fundamental if we want to see the Lord 45:25 Obedience to His commandments Are fundamental if we want to see the Lord That is a mistake that Adam and Eve made The same thing in our relationship It's because of lack of humility The fellowship is broken 45:46 Because I think I am an important person And he thinks he is an important person Two important people can never have fellowship But if each can obey the command in Philippians 2 See Paul's prayer for the Philippians 46:12 He says I want you to Verse 2 Maintain the same love United in spirit Intent on one purpose Philippians 2 verse 2 See how many words he uses to talk about unity 46:35 I don't think there is any verse in the whole Bible Which speaks about unity as much as this verse Same mind Same love United in spirit One purpose And if you want that He says 46:57 Verse 3 Consider the other person as more important than yourself When that person thinks he is important You are more important I don't want to try and be more important than you 47:18 See only two people who have that attitude can have fellowship I have no desire to show I am more important than you And you have no desire to show you are more important than me You can have wonderful fellowship for any length of time 47:42 Think of all the lack of fellowship there is In the churches among believers It's always the reason is this The lack of fellowship between husband and wife You can say the reason is this 48:04 That the other is the reason The real reason is I think I am important And the other person thinks He or she is important And that is the reason for all the problems So I believe the Lord has shown us the way As Lucifer tried to exalt himself 48:27 Jesus humbled himself And that is what he has told us in verse 5 Have the same attitude in you Which was in Christ Jesus You know we have spoken about this for so many years in the church Some of you may think 48:48 What is the need to hear about it again There are two reasons One There are many new people who have come to our church who have never heard it There are children Who have grown up in the last 25 years Who have not heard it properly 49:08 And the third reason Is that many of us who think we have understood it have not understood it What is the word Let this attitude be in you Which was in Jesus Christ Who though he was equal with God 49:31 Did not hold on to that But humbled himself Considered others Not as more spiritual than himself But as more important than himself Don't misunderstand this verse 49:53 Don't imagine Oh other people are most spiritual than me Jesus never had that attitude He didn't think Peter, Judas Iscariot are all most spiritual than me Paul did not think Oh the Corinthian Christians are most spiritual than me 50:14 Some people misread that verse like that And then they have a big struggle Because they can't honestly acknowledge that Other people are most spiritual than me Because the fact is Other people are not most spiritual than you perhaps 50:33 But Jesus considered others as more important than him That's what it says in verse 3 That's why he washed all their feet at the last supper Did he wash Judas Iscariot's feet? 50:56 Yeah, you read in John 13 He did it before Judas Iscariot left the table Imagine, he considered Judas Iscariot as more important than himself He washed his feet also But he never considered anybody more spiritual than himself 51:21 See, you may be the most spiritual person on earth And honestly, you cannot consider anybody more spiritual than you Because they're also carnal 51:44 But if you're really spiritual You will consider every one of them as more important than yourself That's what the Bible says And a little child will say Daddy, you know better than me 52:05 I won't think that I know better than you If you have told me to consider everybody more important than myself From this day onwards I am determined to consider everybody as more important than myself 52:25 I will never again be insulted If somebody does not give me the respect I think I deserve You'll never get angry then Most of the anger comes because 52:45 We think we didn't get the respect we deserve Or my wife didn't serve me the way I should be served Or my husband is not as considerate towards me as he should be Or that brother didn't treat me with respect 53:10 Or I'm an elder and look at the way he talks to me Have they called you Beelzebub yet? Anybody in your church call you Beelzebub? No Then you've got a long way to go 53:30 And Jesus is miles ahead of you What all little things we get upset with I told him to come at a certain time and he didn't come Oh oh what an important person you are I remember once Not once I in the early days 53:51 In our church when everybody came late for the Sunday morning I used to get very disturbed Because I was in the military for 11 years and I knew everything must be done on time And the Lord finally told me 54:17 Don't get disturbed This is not a military parade This is my church And in my church there are kings and there are servants The servants must always be there on time The Maharajas and Maharani's can walk in whenever they like 54:42 You are not a Maharaja You are a servant So 9.30 means you must be there at 9.30 And all those who are servants will be there at 9.30 The Maharajas will walk in at 10 o'clock or 10.30 55:05 Let them come Maybe one day those Maharajas will also become servants Be patient Then my heart came at rest I said Lord I am a servant Till the end of my life 55:26 I will be a servant It's not my job to decide when the Maharaja comes Supposing you are a servant in the factory You are there on time at 8 o'clock in the morning And then the manager comes only at 9 o'clock 55:48 Will you ask him why you came late? There are some elders who talk to people like that When you hear that You know the elder is a Maharaja He is asking the servants 56:08 Why you came late? I was also a Maharaja once Till God made me a servant I want to encourage all of you to be servants Let's pray Heavenly Father Help us to honor you 56:31 In everything in our life May your name be glorified Through us and our churches In Jesus name Amen Amen 57:14 Jesus is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life Jesus is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life 57:28 He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life He is a Maharaja once in the morning of your life
