0:00 [Applause] All right, good afternoon. Nice to see our family. So good to see everyone today. I wanted to share today an encouragement that I heard when I was at the single conference in Colorado a few months ago. And this is from the story 0:16 of George Mueller. And I think many of us have heard of George Mueller. He was someone that was mightily used by God. He took care of many, many thousands of orphans. He had miraculous answers to prayer and in the end of his life he was 0:31 traveling around the world preaching and he was a mighty vessel in God's hands. But the question is how did he get there? Because if you look at the beginning of his life, he didn't start off too well. He was someone who went 0:45 drinking. He was someone who stole money and he even ended up in jail. And it's quite amazing that someone who started off life so badly could end up so well. So what was the secret of his life? Or rather, what was one of the secrets of 1:00 his life? And this is what I heard from the singles conference that encouraged me a lot. So someone asked George Mueller, "What is the secret to your ministry?" And this is what he said. He said, "There was a day when I died. Died 1:15 to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will. died to the world its approval or censure. Died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends. And since then I have studied only to 1:35 show myself approved unto God. So what was the secret of his life? One of the secrets was that that last part especially that he showed himself approved unto God. So, in other words, George Miller was someone who had his 1:48 own will, his own preferences, and his own tastes, and he says, "No, I'm going to die to those things, and I'm going to do what the Lord tells me in this situation." Or maybe there might be his friends or his co-workers that praised 2:00 him or criticized him, and he says, "No, I'm going to die to those things." And what did he do? He says he studied only to show myself approved to God. And I like that word study. It's like you go to school or you get a PhD, you have to 2:13 study a subject really, really well to master it. What was the study? What was the subject that George Mueller was interested in? For him, his subject was how to gain God's approval. And so that's something that really challenged 2:27 me and that's what I want to share on today. Living a life before God. That's what I want to talk about today. Living a life before God. So first of all, let me talk about the opposite of living before God. And the opposite of living before God is to live 2:42 before man. And if we are honest, we can say that the approval of man, seeking the approval of man is something that is so deeply entrenched inside our hearts. And here's a very simple test. In our church, one thing we do is we share 2:59 often. We give brothers and sisters a chance to share during the midweek groups. We give them a chance to share during the church service. So the question is, how do you know your church sharing is good? How do you know that 3:11 what you shared was good? And if you were to ask me the question, the way I would respond is, well, if somebody sends me a WhatsApp afterwards, say, "Hey, thank you for what you shared. Good job." I'll say, "Oh, that's good. I 3:21 feel good about myself." If somebody likes what I shared, maybe it means that God um likes also likes what I shared. Now, it's a very simple example, but for me, I notice in my life, wow, I might say that yes, I want to show myself 3:34 approved to God. But deep down inside that desire to gain a man's approval is something that's so deep inside my heart. And my hope for us as a church is that we would be a church that seeks for God's approval only. That we would only 3:49 live before him. That we wouldn't be a church where we would seek the approval of some brother or sister. We would not seek the approval of some elder or some godly leader. But our desire for everyone in this church is that we would 4:01 seek to live before God only. That is the desire and direction we want to go. And so I want to share a bit about what Jesus talked about this subject. If you could turn with me to Matthew chapter 6 from the sermon on the mount. Uh Matthew 4:15 chapter 6 and verse one. So Matthew chapter 6 and verse one. This is the longest sermon that Jesus spoke. It's about three chapters. And he spends a good chunk of this chapter 6 talking about this topic of living before men. 4:33 And the first thing I want to say is this that if that we will get nothing from God if we live before man. So let's look at Matthew 6 and verse one. Here's what Jesus says. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be 4:48 noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. So, let's look at that first part of the verse. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. So, we are now living 5:02 in the the new covenant. And if we were living in the old covenant, what we could do is we could do some good work for God and God would reward us. It doesn't matter what our motives are. We could be doing it for a selfish motive, 5:14 but God would still reward us for that. But when Jesus came, he raised the bar higher and he says now when you do something, it's not only what you do, but why you did it. That's very important. So that's the first thing. 5:26 The motive is very key here in the new covenant. And then the second thing it says here is that if we do things before men to be noticed, it says you will have no reward with your father who is in heaven. And the phrase which stood out 5:40 to me is no reward. What does no reward mean? And for myself, I thought of it like this. Um, let's say I have a lawn and I need some of you to come help me mow my lawn. And I say, "Hey, if you come mow my lawn, I'm going to give you 5:54 a reward." But there's only one condition. I have some flowers here in the side of the lawn. Please do not cut those flowers. And so, if you came to mow my lawn, what would you do? You would mow everything. And you'd be so 6:05 careful not to touch those flowers. Why? Because you want to get that reward that I'm going to give you if you mow my lawn. Now, I've noticed that in physical things, I can be very careful. But when it comes to spiritual things, I can say, 6:17 "Lord, I know it says no reward, but maybe what you really mean is that I'll still get some. Maybe I won't get 100% of the reward, but I'll maybe get 90% or I'll get 80%." And the proof I've seen in my life is that I don't take that 6:31 motive of doing things to be noticed that seriously. That for me shows me that in my life I have a much greater tendency to treat the physical things like getting a reward, monetary reward more seriously than getting a heavenly 6:44 reward from from God. Okay. So the key thing I want to point out here is that if we do things before men, we get no reward. No means zero. That's something that stood out to me. And then Jesus gives some examples of what it means to 6:56 to live before men. And he goes to verse two and he says this. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be honored by men. And so you 7:11 can imagine the situation of someone giving money and he's having a trumpet to sound the horn. Now I don't know if it's a real trumpet. It might have been, you know, literal. It might have been figurative because Jesus likes to 7:21 exaggerate. But the point is that this person had something that they used to show off and to exaggerate. And the thing I was thinking about myself is what are the trumpets that I have in my life? Okay, what are the trumpets that I 7:35 have in my life where I might do something but I want a a little sort of showoff for myself and I'll share a few examples. One thing is for example ministry in a church like I've noticed for example I play in the the band here 7:49 and I noticed that for things like music I can play the piano but I could also play the piano in such a way where I can add a little color here another flash there just to say hey look at me playing the piano I'm so good at it I won't say 8:01 that but in my heart in my motives I can see hey that's something that's come up before so I have to be careful in in areas of ministry that when I do things it's not to show off but Lord it should be for you or it might be something a 8:14 bit more subtle. There could be a more subtle trumpet for example like our language like in the the church that we go to. We have certain values and sometimes maybe we say things to say, "Hey, I'm a humble brother and I can say 8:27 things and give the impression that I'm somebody when I'm not." And that's something I believe we as church members should be very careful of because we have certain values here at NCCF that are important, you know, like humility. 8:38 But we shouldn't try to pretend that we're humble. That's not the way to go. Uh many years ago, brother Zach shared something with me that was uh very helpful. And he said this to me. He says, "When to be spiritual is to be 8:50 natural." I really like that phrase. To be spiritual is to be natural. So in other words, I can just come to church and just be myself. I don't need this special religious language, but I can just be myself. And that's the most 9:02 spiritual thing that I can do. And so Jesus goes through many more examples here in this chapter. But the main point I want to mention is that if our motives are wrong, we're not going to get anything from God. So that's the first 9:13 thing I want to to share. The other thing I want to share about living before man is that if we live before man, it's going to stunt our spiritual growth. So please turn with me to John 5 and verse 44. John chapter 5 9:31 and verse 44. So Jesus here is speaking to the Jewish leaders after doing a miracle. And he says this to them, John chapter 5 and verse 44. Okay? He says this, "How can you believe when you receive 9:49 glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?" So he's asking them a question. It's like, "Hey, how can you believe?" Or in other words, how can you have faith if you seek for the approval 10:01 of men? How is it possible for you to believe and have faith in me? It's not possible. Now for those of us in the church, I know that we many of us here, we do believe in Jesus. But there's a principle here. And the principle I see 10:13 here is that if we seek for man's approval, it's going to impact our faith. It's going to impact the way we can grow spiritually. And like I said earlier, their lust for approval is is quite deep in us even in the church 10:27 because many of us, we might say, hey, we don't want the recognition in the world. We might not seek for a big job. We might not see for a big honor in the world. Fine. But then we come to the church and we can bring that same desire 10:39 into the church. And that's something we can be we must be very careful for. And this can show up in things like I've noticed especially in uh in men maybe in younger brothers where say hey I want a ministry. I want a ministry in a church. 10:51 I want to get up to the pulpit and I want to speak. I want to be an elder. I want to lead some ministry. And if we're not careful and crushing that it's can be very very dangerous for us in our Christian life. And I've seen that it 11:04 doesn't go well with people who have a desire for for ministry like that. If we want to do a ministry for the Lord, you know, what should it be? And I I will share a story that brother Zach shared. I think when he was in his early 30s and 11:16 I think he was talking about he's trying to do a work for God in India and somebody said to him something like this. He said, "The greatest work you can do for God is to fall into the ground and die." Okay, let me repeat 11:29 that. The greatest work you can do for God is to fall into the ground and die. And now I see that quote is very similar to what George Mueller himself said. What did he do? He died. He died to himself. Died to the approval of of 11:43 others. Live to God. That is the greatest work that we can do. And that's for me is a challenge. And if we go down that way, then our spiritual growth won't be stunted. Now the second part of this verse talks about seeking the glory 11:56 that is from the one and only God. And I want to share an example of someone who who did that. And this is Jesus. So tech team, if you don't mind, could you pull up that that picture? This is from the baptism of Jesus. So if you turn with me 12:08 to Matthew chapter 3, verse 13. The tech team is pulling it up. Okay. All right. So this is a picture of Jesus getting baptized. Matthew chapter 3 to uh to 17. And so when you look at this picture, 12:29 one thing I want to ask is what do you think were the thoughts that might have gone through Jesus's head when he felt the father saying, "Hey, go here and get baptized by John the Baptist. What do you think were some of the thoughts that 12:43 might have gone inside Jesus's his head?" And for me, I if I were Jesus, I would I could think of a few things. Okay. So, first of all, the question is, well, father, why why should I come here and get baptized? Because if you look 12:57 earlier in this verse, let's say uh verse 6, Matthew 3:6, when people were being baptized, they were confessing their sins. So, the point of baptism here was for sinners. And Jesus could say, "Well, I didn't sin, father. Why 13:11 should I come here?" That's one. Or um the the other thing is if you look in this picture, there's other people that are around him. So there's crowds and the crowds were looking at Jesus and they might think, "Hey, this is Jesus 13:24 the carpenter. What sin did he do?" So Jesus could also say, "Hey, not only did I not sin, but even for my own reputation, father, I don't want to come here and get baptized. Why should I? People will think I'm a sinner. I'll 13:36 lose my reputation." That's another tempting thought that might have gone in his head. Or another thought is that John the Baptist you could say was inferior to to Jesus. And so for example, let's say if you were want to 13:48 get baptized, you wouldn't get baptized today, who would you pick to to baptize you? Think about it for a second. If you want to get baptized today, who would you pick to baptize today? And I'm sure for myself, I would pick the most godly 14:01 person that I could pick to get baptized. I would not pick a a new believer to to baptize me, right? I would want the most godly person. And what did Jesus do? Jesus here is the the son of God. And he's getting being baptized by a godly man, John the 14:16 Baptist. But nevertheless, he's lower. He's inferior to Jesus. And yet Jesus was willing to humble himself to submit to John's baptism. So for all of those reasons, I could say, "Well, Lord, I I don't think I need to get baptized." But 14:32 what did Jesus do? He died to all those thoughts. And he says, "I'm going to live for the approval of God alone." And he got baptized. And what was the reward for what he did? Here's the reward. Verse 17. And behold, a voice out of heaven said, 14:49 "This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased." He got that certificate from God saying, "You are someone that I'm well pleased with." And if you think about it, dear brothers and sisters, what are the things that we could get 15:02 from God? If I were to give you three choices, let's say God, pick one. Here's three choices. Pick one. Let's say God could give you a really big home. Or maybe God too, God could give you a really great job at a big company. Or 15:16 three, God could say, "This is my son or daughter with whom I'm well pleased. Which of these would you pick if you could only pick one?" And as I thought about it for myself, I can say, 'Lord, that approval of yours to say you're 15:30 well pleased with me is infinitely more valuable than any earthly blessing that that you could give me. And so Jesus was someone who got that. And the reason he got that was through this example. You can see how he died to himself and he 15:41 lived alone for the approval of God. And so that's something that's challenged me and something I'm I'm still learning uh in my life. And so I want to share also a few encouragements to live before God. We've talked about being careful not to 15:55 live before man, but I also want to share about living before God and some encouragements to do that. So, first of all, if you could turn with me to John chapter 5 and verse 20. John chapter 5 and verse 20. 16:14 I've used the phrase to live before God. But if you looked at what Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, he didn't say God. He used the word father. So the more appropriate way to say this would be to live before our father who was in 16:27 heaven. And so I want to read this John 5. Let's go 19 to 20. And Jesus answered and said to them, truly truly I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, these things 16:45 the son also does in like manner. For the father loves the son and shows him all the things that he himself is doing. And the picture I get from here is it's like a father showing a son or a child what to do. And one of the great joys I 17:02 have being a father is I get to teach my my children things. And so those of you who know me, you know that when high likes to play ping pong. So I enjoy playing ping pong with my my kids and I enjoy showing them how to hit the ball. 17:15 And when they can hit the ball across the net, I'm like, "Oh, this is great. I get super excited." Why do I get excited? Because one, I taught them something and they learned it. But then secondly, ping pong is also something 17:26 that I really like. So I also get excited about that as well. And so when I see this verse, what I see here is that Jesus first of all says, "The son can do nothing of himself." So he says, "Father, I don't know what to do in this 17:38 situation. I don't know what to do." And then he says here in verse 20, but the father loves the son and shows him all the things that he himself is doing. So I think about myself as an earthly father. How excited I am to teach my 17:55 kids some earthly support. Can you imagine how much more excited our heavenly father would be to teach me the ways of holiness, the way of the living a godly life? He must be excited, even more excited than that. And so for me, 18:09 the first encouragement is that if we live before God, we are really living before a father. We're living before a father who's eager and interested to show his children how to live this life. And practically, uh, here's one example. 18:23 Recently, I was thinking about how do I spend my time? I have work I have to do. I have kids I have to take care of. I've got church things to do. How do I balance my time? What do I do? And I remember asking a brother and he said to 18:35 me, "Hey, WHI, just just ask the Lord. Ask the Lord what is the thing I should do in this moment and the Lord will show you." And that for me was something that was really helpful. I didn't think of it like that. Say, "Hey, I don't know what 18:47 to do, but I can ask my father. My father's like a coach and he's eager to show me how to live this life." And so that's the first encouragement that God is a father. If we live before him, he'll show us what he wants us to do. 18:58 And then the second encouragement I want to share is that if we do things before God, I want to see it as a privilege. I want to see it as a privilege to be able to do things before God. So please turn with me to Deuteronomy. 19:11 Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter uh 33 in the Old Testament. And this is the story of Moses blessing the the sons of Israel. So Deuteronomy chapter 33. And if you look at this chapter, you'll see that there's different tribes and Moses 19:27 gives different blessings to each of the tribes. And I just want to compare two blessings. The first blessing you can look at is starting from verse 13. This is the blessing that Joseph got. Okay? And see the blessings that Moses gave to to 19:41 Joseph. Okay? You start with uh verse 14. Joseph got the choice yield of the sun and the choice produce of the months and with the best things of the ancient mountains and with the choice things of the everlasting hills. Verse 16, with 19:58 the choice things of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the bush. So, Joseph's lineage was blessed with many, many choice things, but you could say of this world. He got the best of everything that this world 20:11 could offer. But I want to compare that to someone uh before. If you look at verse 8, this is Levi and look what the Levites got in verse 8. So in verse 8, Moses speaking to Levi. And look at verse 10. This is the blessing that Levi 20:27 got. They shall teach your ordinance to Jacob and your law to Israel. And here's the part. They shall put incense before you. Now notice that phrase we talked about before God. here says they put incense before you and the whole burnt 20:42 offerings on your altar. And so Levites didn't get any land, but they got this wonderful privilege to offer things before the Lord. And so if you were to look at those two, which one would you pick? Which do you think got the bigger 20:55 blessing? Was it Joseph who got the choice things of all the hills and the mountains or would it be the Levites who got a chance to put incense before the Lord? And for me as I looked at this, I believe that the Levites were the one 21:07 that really got the best um blessing. And the question is, do we have a heart like that as well? Something I want to ask myself. For example, you can imagine when the Israelites crossed over to the promised land and they're with Joshua, 21:20 they crossed, they conquered all the the giants and now they're about to divide up the land. And can you imagine a conversation that people might have been thinking, okay? And Joshua says to these people, "You get these hills, you get 21:29 these pastures, you get these mountains." And Aaron's like, "Yay, great." And then he goes to the Levites and he says, "Hey, by the way, guys, you're not going to get any land. You're going to get God." And what would you 21:40 say? Would you say, "I get God. That's it." Or would you say, "I got God. This is it. This is what I want." And the answer to that question is a good reflection of what our our hearts are really like. And and for me, this is a 21:56 challenge. Say, "Lord, I hope I can be someone like that." To say, "If I got you, this is what I really want. This is what I really want. And for a chance to live in the new covenant, to be your children, to do something for you, to do 22:09 something before you, it's a privilege. It's not a burden. And I want to see it like that. I want to share one final encouragement on this topic. Um, when we hear messages like this in in the church, some of us might say, "Okay, the 22:23 next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to leave the church. I'm going to start living for God." And one thing I've discovered is that um you will fail and I will fail. Okay? And the reason I say that is we can't live these things on 22:34 our own strength. We need to ask God for help. We need to ask the Lord to give us the power of his holy spirit. That's I believe is the right response to hearing something like this. Um because in the Old Testament you could say that people 22:46 were asked to run let's say 5 miles an hour. Okay, they can walk 5 miles an hour by themselves. Fine. But in the New Covenant it's like asking someone hey now you need to run 60 m hour. And we can look at that standard and say this 22:58 is impossible. But the difference is that in the New Testament, it's almost like someone gives us a car. And now with a car, we can go 60 miles, no problem. So the key thing is we need to ask the Lord for that car. We need to 23:09 ask the Lord for that power of his Holy Spirit. That's how we can live out this life. And I just want to share one quick encouragement that encouraged me when it comes to asking God for the power of his holy spirit. Because for years, I I 23:22 always struggled. I was like, hey, if I ask God for the Holy Spirit, will he give it to me? And that seed of doubt was always in my mind. I can pray. I can ask. But will he really give it to me? Yes or no? And this verse in Luke 11. 23:37 Luke 11:1. These verses were a tremendous encouragement to me. And I hope it can be an encouragement to you. It says this. Luke 11. It says, "Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by a son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, 23:55 will he? Or if he's asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? And so, it's a very simple example of a kid, hey dad, I'm hungry. I need an egg. Will the father give it to him? Well, for me as a dad, I certainly would give 24:08 an egg to my kid. Now, if I am willing to give an egg to my kid when he's hungry, then how much more so God? Look at verse 13. God says that if you then being evil, so no matter how good of a father I might think I am, compared to 24:21 God, I am evil. And if I'm that willing to give my kid what he needs, even if it's an egg, then how much more so God will give to his children who is asking for the power of his Holy Spirit to live a godly life, to live a life where we 24:34 set God before us. He definitely will. And that's something that had really encouraged me and strengthened my faith. And so that's what I wanted to share today. And may we as as members of NCCF live before God and may we ask God for 24:48 his Holy Spirit. He'll give us the strength to do it. Uh thank you for giving me a chance to share.
