0:00 Yeah. So, we continued thinking of what Christ looks for in the church. How important is what we have been considering so far? Is it an optional thing? 0:21 Okay, that is the best, but I'm happy with the second best. You may be happy, but is God happy with the second best when you can have the best? That's the question. I've been through, you know, 0:43 I started out with what is known as the Syrian Orthodox Church where they baptized infants and pray to Mary, pray for the dead. And church I was born into. But my father was a believer, so he sent me to a good Sunday school where I 0:59 learned about being born again. But as I studied the word, I found that how you know, how are all these different churches come up through the years? People saw that the church they were in was not proclaiming the whole counsel of 1:17 God. And they discovered, "Hey, this thing is missing. Say water baptism, that's missing here. They're preaching child baptism." So, we leave that church and go to another one and take water baptism and become part of another church because we 1:32 want to obey all of God's commandments. You know how careful we are nowadays especially to avoid junk food, to avoid food that we know is not helping our bodies to be healthy. How careful we are. 1:51 People go for these so many type of There are health food stores and people are so careful when it comes to physical health. Why aren't we just as careful when it comes to spiritual health? We're so careful to avoid sickness and 2:10 disease. Why aren't we just as careful to avoid sin? We hate cancer, even a trace of it. Why don't we hate anger, even a trace of it? You know, we're not serious about holiness. 2:30 That's why. Spiritual Our spiritual life is not as important to us as our physical health. And when God sees that, he's not given going to give us more revelation. Why aren't we more careful to study the 2:52 scriptures? Why aren't we eager to find a church where the preacher is not just tickling our ears and comforting us with stories, but where he's challenging us to become like Jesus every single time we go there? 3:10 That's the type of church I want to be in. I want my children to go to a school I wanted my when they were small to go to a school where they'd be challenged to the highest, not where they'd be comforted in their ignorance or given just a little bit 3:27 few drops of education. I'm sure that's how you want your children, too. Would you? If you got the opportunity to send your child to a good school and it doesn't cost any more than that other school, you'd definitely send them there. 3:43 I find that so many people when it comes to a good hospital or a good church, uh sorry, a good hospital or a good school, they'll always look for the best. But when it comes to a church, they sort of stick around with what they've always 3:58 been in. I find that in India, too. They say, "Well, my parents always went to this church and my grandparents, too." I said, "Do you send your child to the same school your grandmother went to?" No. Why is that? Your grandmother, your mother went to 4:16 that school, but you say there are better schools today. Exactly. Do you send your put your wife to the same hospital your grandmother went to in a hospital when she was sick? No, there are better hospitals today. Why are we concerned 4:30 about finding a good hospital and a good school, but not a good church? I said, "I'll tell you why." This is what I tell people in India. Because health is important for you. Education is important for you, but your spiritual life is not. 4:48 God is not as important to you as your health and your education. And God sees that and he leaves you there. But for me, when I got converted, I was so gripped by the fact that Jesus gave 5:06 everything for me when he came from heaven and the amount of sacrifice he made, I couldn't even understand. Then through the years, I've discovered more and more of how much he sacrificed. But I saw a little bit and I said, 5:18 "Lord, how can I respond to you with little bit when you gave everything?" He gave everything for me. I said, "Lord, I want to give everything to you." That's why I'm against this 10% attitude. It's an attitude. 10% belongs to God, 90% belongs to me. 5:36 That was okay in the old covenant. But I say, "Lord, I'm yours completely." And um it doesn't mean I have to put all my money in the offering box, but I recognize that all that I have belongs to God. All that I am belongs to God. My life, 5:52 every day of my life belongs to him. I'm not I wasn't sent this to this earth to live for myself. That's That's how the race of Adam lives. I was sent to this earth to live for Christ. And that's what That's what happened 6:05 when Jesus laid hold of me. When I was 19, I realized that. So, I said I I've lost the right over my life. I think many of us have not understood that you lost the right over your life the day you were converted. We still act as though our life belongs 6:25 to us. And that's because you belong to a church maybe which never taught you that you don't belong to yourself. You have no right to choose what to do or where to go or whom to marry or anything. Your life doesn't belong to 6:39 you. You know, in the old Testament days, there were slaves and they were completely belonged to their masters. The master could treat them just like furniture. You killed a slave in those days, nobody would question you because you belonged 6:54 to the master just like furniture. And you can destroy your furniture, nobody's going to question you. And that's the word Paul uses when he says his relationship to Jesus Christ. He says, "I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ." 7:08 If I was a servant, I could ask for a salary. A slave cannot ask for anything. I belong because I was purchased. Blood was the price my master paid for me, not money. And I'm his. He takes me here, he takes me there, he 7:27 tells me what to do. I just obey. That's all. I love him, too. That's a slave. And I want to ask you whether your relationship with Jesus Christ is like that. Are you a person who has, you know, we say, "Yeah, we are sons of God." But remember, Paul also 7:45 was a son of God, but he called himself a bond slave of Jesus Christ. We have a dual relationship. Like God is our father and I'm his son, but also I'm a bond slave of Jesus Christ because I've been purchased. I don't give myself to him as a sort of 8:02 a you know, a favor that I'm doing him. Let me use an example. If you had a house which is 100% yours and you sold it to somebody and you signed the deed and the the deal is closed. 8:21 Can you walk into that house after that and act as if it's yours and say, "I want to make some modifications here. I want to paint this or that." No, you wouldn't dream of doing it. Because you say somebody's purchased it. 8:32 I've got no right over that house now. I can't I mean, if he paints the house black, you can't go and object. Because it's not yours. If he breaks it down, you can't object. Do you feel I want to ask you an honest question. 8:47 Do you feel that Christ purchased you in exactly the same way as that guy purchased your house? Or do you feel you see, he's only put in a deposit and he's not paid the full amount. Did Christ only put a deposit on your 9:06 life? Do you know what he paid on the cross? It wasn't a deposit. It was his life. And he purchased you. The meaning of redeemed, the word we use very often is purchased from the slave market. That's what Jesus did. That's what gripped my heart that 9:26 changed my life. I was I realized I wasn't doing a favor when I gave my life to Christ. No, a lot of Christians act like that. All right, Lord, you know, like some preachers preach like that. Jesus is waiting outside there in the rain and he's 9:39 knocking at the door. Won't you let him in? Are you going to let him get wet in the rain? I say, "Rubbish." He's not waiting in any rain. He purchased you long ago. You're a thief if you keep hang on to your life. Go and go and give back to him the life 9:53 you stole from him. I mean, if if you stole somebody's wallet one day and a few years later you repent of it. Are you doing him a favor when you give him back that wallet and the money? Do you expect him to bow down and thank 10:08 you so much or should you go as a repentant thief and say, "I'm sorry I kept your money for so long. I was blind and ignorant." I say that's how I preach the gospel. I say you're a thief. A life that God created to live for his 10:25 glory, you live for sin and the devil. And even after you knew that Christ purchased you on the cross, you still continued on that way. Come back, you thief, and give your life to God. I said that's the gospel I preach. 10:39 And I'll tell you why. Let me show you two verses as to why Christ died. Now, the reason why I say this is because what type of church is Christ looking for? What is Christ looking for in a church? He's looking for churches 10:55 that preach this. And I don't want to belong to any other church. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 3. Here's one reason Christ died which everybody knows. It's one side of the coin. There's something on the other side of 11:14 the coin I'll just show you. 1 Corinthians 15:3, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Now, turn to the other side of the coin in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 11:33 and verse 15. This is not such a well-known verse. And the devil doesn't want people to know this verse. 2 Corinthians 5:15, Christ died for all. Why? So that, let's read slowly. Those who live 11:51 and that's you and me should never again live for themselves. Do you believe Christ died that you might never again live for yourself? Never again? No longer? 12:07 But live 100% for him who gave himself 100% for you. My dear brother, sister when you're gripped with that when you respond to that reason why Christ died, when you 12:26 turn the coin on the other side, you've only been watching this Christ died for my sins, he died for my sins. Turn the other side and see he also died that you might never live for yourself. Then your life will change. That's when 12:41 my life changed. I don't believe, you know, uh people tell me, "Brother Zac, you must have made so many sacrifices for Jesus." I said, "Absolute nonsense. I've never made one sacrifice for Christ." Yeah, we make we make, you know, little 12:57 things we give up here and there and see oh, we think we made some big sacrifice for Christ. Let me give you an illustration. The sacrifices we make are like the little stars we see at night. The stars have a light. I'm talking about what we 13:11 see not the amount of light they actually have. But what you see at night is a little speck of light. Here, there, there, there, little specks of light. Those are the sacrifices you have made. And the sacrifice that Jesus made is 13:30 like the sun shining. Now, tell me, when you look up into the sky, how many stars can you see when the sun is shining bright? Zero. So, if you can see the stars, you must be in the darkness, right? 13:49 So, if you can see the sacrifices you have made for Christ, you are in the darkness, absolutely right. When you come into the light your sacrifices disappear. When you see the sacrifice Jesus made, you say, "Wow, I look around, I can't 14:04 even see one sacrifice I made anywhere." I'll tell you that is the honest truth. I'm not trying to be humble and I'm not trying to act spiritual. It is the absolute truth because I live in the sunlight of seeing the sacrifice Jesus made for me. I live 14:22 in the light of that every single day and I don't feel I can ever in my life think I've made a sacrifice for him. That's why my life is happy. Supremely happy. And I want to be belong to a church that preaches that. 14:42 That's wholehearted Christianity. There is only one type of Christianity in the Bible. It's not this half-hearted. Wholehearted. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all 14:57 thy mind. This is the first commandment. Yeah, that's that's how it must be. And that's why we must find a church that is happy with the type of church Jesus is happy with. 15:16 That's what I sought, you know. So, I journeyed from one church to another to another to another and I've testified about it also and people have told me, "Brother Zac, you're such an unstable person. You leave one church and go to 15:28 another and go to another." I said, "I've been unstable all my life. I left first grade and went to second grade and went from second grade to third and fourth grade. I've been unstable from childhood. I wasn't like these rock-steady people 15:41 who stayed in first grade all their life." What about you? Is there anything wrong when you find there's something more to be learned than something you haven't learned yet and I can't learn it in first grade and you move up to second grade? 16:01 And you go to college? If you have a passion to use your mind to be as educated as possible to use the one life God gives us to recognize why God kept me on this 16:20 earth. Do you know that your life can count for God? And if you realize that, if you recognize that your life can count for God much more than it has been till today if you recognize that you don't belong 16:40 to yourself. You have no right to speak what you like to go where you like to do what you like to spend your money as you like. Anything. I remember as a young man I said, "I can't even marry whom I like. 16:58 I must marry the one God's chosen for me who is got the same passion to live for him as I have." Okay, a lot of people get converted after they're married, never mind. But the rest of our life sometimes we think, "Well, I messed up 17:13 my life so much." Never mind. Paul messed up his life for 30 years as a Jew killing Christians. You've not been that bad. And a person who messed up his life so much for 30 years killing Christians could say at the end of his life, he 17:31 lived up to about 67. So, 30 years he lived for, let's say, in ignorance for the world and for religious bigotry and for the devil and then 37 years he lived for God. And you know what he said at the end of his life? "I have finished my 17:44 course." How can a man who messed up 30 years of his life say he finished his course? Because God makes allowance for the years in which we are ignorant. Praise the Lord. Thank the Lord. Otherwise, we'd all be condemned. 18:01 I've had years in ignorance in my life. But God is merciful. One of my favorite verses is Acts 17 verse 30. Acts 17:30, God overlooks the times of ignorance. But now he tells us to repent. So to be in the type of church that God 18:21 wants us to be in what was the secret of Jesus' life? He knew the Father. He was so secure in the Father. So, we were thinking of the what Christ looks for in a church. And he wants people in a church who 18:42 recognize that I no longer belong to myself. I can't live for myself. Do you choose a church on some other basis? You know, there are today there are churches that gather together on the basis of language. Fine. 19:01 If you don't know English, I suppose you got to go to such a church. If I mean a person knows only Spanish and doesn't know English, how can he go and sit in an English-speaking church? But there are people who know English 19:10 very well who still go to their community church because they say, "I like to be with people in my community." Does that mean more to you than people who love Jesus? That's a club. It's not a church. I know a lot of Indian people 19:28 who belong to churches which are based on language. It's not because they don't know English. They like to be in a club of people who belong to my community. I don't judge them, but I say the church I belong to, there's no Jew, no Gentile 19:45 no barbarian or Greek or slave or free man. This is the type of church that Jesus is building. He's not building a church different churches based on community. He's building churches where every barrier is broken down. 20:01 Where all dividing walls have been broken down. You read that and you read Ephesians and Colossians. That's the That's what Christ is looking for. Christ is looking for churches where people with different temperaments and 20:16 backgrounds and educational levels and economic levels and social levels and different communities can come together and demonstrate what the Holy Spirit has done. He could never do that in the old covenant. The old covenant, everybody sitting in 20:30 the synagogue was a Jew. Everyone. They all spoke the same language. They all belonged to the same community. They all descended from Abraham. That is an old covenant church. When you look around at your church and you find 20:42 everybody's exactly the same language and exactly like you, that's an old covenant church. It's a club. In the new church, you look around and almost everybody's different. Different social level, different economic level, different language, 20:56 different but you come together because you love Jesus. This is the only type of church I want to spend my life building. I don't want to build something which finally in the final day God cannot approve of. I don't want to build a club. What's 21:11 Christ looking for in a church? He came to break down every barrier. He came to set people free from the barriers that Satan has made through the centuries among the human race. To break it all down. You know, the Jews and the Gentiles were 21:30 the greatest opposites in the world. Many Jews would get up in the morning and say, "Lord, I thank you I'm not a Gentile." That's how much they despised Gentiles. It's very difficult. Even Peter, remember Peter, 10 years after the day of Pentecost, 10 21:46 years after being filled with the Holy Spirit, it was so difficult for him to enter the house of Cornelius. You know what he called him? Unclean. And so God had to give him a vision 22:04 of animals, pigs and all, whom the Jews were not supposed to eat. And the Lord said, "Eat." He said, "No, I've never eaten any." He was holier than God, you know. "I've never eaten anything unclean." And then God told him, "What God has 22:20 cleansed, don't ever call unclean." He looked What was he saying? You Jews look at the Gentiles like pigs. That's all. You want to have anything to do with it. This is Peter, 10 years after Pentecost. He needed something to be broken down in 22:38 his mind. Was he born again? Sure. Was he filled with the Spirit? Yes. Was he prejudiced? Unfortunately, yes. Are you born again, filled with the Spirit? Yes. Are you prejudiced? Possibly. I don't condemn you. Jesus God didn't 22:54 condemn Peter. God said, "I want to expand your heart to receive people who are not like you. And they will teach you some things which you can never learn." It's been the tremendous privilege of my life to mingle with people completely 23:11 different from me. Social level, economic level, educational level, language and you know, to become I've become rich through fellowship with them, spiritually. This is what Christ looks for in a church. Where barriers are broken down. 23:31 Where we love one another not because we speak the same language or we like one another, but because Jesus he loves Jesus. It's a wonderful thing to be brought together like that. And the secret was because Jesus came to make his father our 23:51 father. You remember in when he rose up from the dead, he told Mary Magdalene in John 21, sorry, John 20. He said, "Go to my brothers." Verse 17, John 20 verse 17. "Go to my brothers, those are his disciples, 24:10 and tell them I ascend to my father and your father." He combined it. Something happened on the resurrection day. Till then, if you read the gospels, he never used that expression even once. You read through the gospels and see. 24:25 He would always say, "My father, my father, my father." Or sometimes, "Your father, your father, your father." But never once did he say, "My father and your father" together. Never. It was always my father or your father. But on the day he rose 24:40 from the dead, it changed. He said, "My father and your father" in the same breath. Something happened. That day Jesus became my elder brother. His father became my father. It's a wonderful thing. 24:58 Theoretically, we may know that. Do you know it actually? Jesus What does he look for in a church? He looks for people who have known him, who have known his father the way he knew the father. I want you to know that, brothers, that the way Jesus knew 25:17 his father, he wants you to know the father like that. And I I want to be in a church that leads me in that direction. That helps me to know my father in heaven. For years I sat in a church where I sat in churches where they never showed me 25:33 the father in heaven like that. I was always a little bit afraid of God. I never realized that the father loved me as much as he loved Jesus. And lot of our problems, you know, are because of this insecurity in our life. 25:52 Do you remember when Jesus was talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit? He said in John 14 in verse 16, uh let me read these verses together and you'll understand something. I'm going to ask the Father, John 14:16, 26:10 to give you another helper. The Holy Spirit is a helper. And he'll be with you forever. And this is the spirit of truth. And the last part of verse 17, "Until now, he's only been with you on the outside. On the day of Pentecost, he'll be inside 26:28 you." That's what happened on the day of Pentecost, which never happened in Old Testament times. The spirit would come upon people, upon people, upon people. He would use them, but not inside. And now he was going to be inside you 26:46 forever. And then he says, "Then what will happen?" Verse 18. "You won't be orphans anymore." That means when you have the Holy Spirit outside of you, you're an orphan. And you act like an orphan. The number one characteristic of orphans 27:03 is insecurity. They've not had a father or mother to hug them as little babies. You go to these orphanages. I've seen in India people who've grown up in orphanages. They were either thrown away by parents because they were parents were too poor 27:22 or sometimes left in some temple. Somebody goes and picks them up. Orphans, from childhood they've never known their own father and mother and they've grown up and they're 50 years old now, they're insecure. Always feeling threatened. 27:40 There's so many things about orphans. If two people are talking together, they must be talking about me. This is insecurity. And if someone who's my friend becomes friends with somebody else, I get very angry. He can't be friends with that 27:53 person. He's got to be friends with me. Insecurity. Always critical, critical about everything. Are you like that? You're an orphan. You don't have to be an orphan. The Holy Spirit has come to give you a father, my father and your father. 28:12 That was the secret of Jesus' life. He was never afraid of whatever may happen. Because his father was with him. Let me show you one example of that. John chapter 16. Uh before that, let me begin with John 6. 28:31 In John 6, we read of a great multitude that was following Jesus. It says in verse two, "A great multitude." There must have been at least 10,000 people because it says later on there were 5,000 men alone. This is the feeding of the 5,000. 28:47 Plus um verse 10, there were men alone were 5,000 women and children. So, there were 10,000 there. And then by the end of the chapter, there were only about 12. Because many of his disciples left him, verse 66. It says they were offended. 29:05 In verse um 60, they said, "This is a difficult statement." And they left him. And verse 66, many left him. This is a great chapter where a great number of people, 10,000 people, suddenly got reduced to 12. But those 12 were disciples. 29:22 That's what Just like Gideon in Gideon's time, God said, "Reduce the number." I found that again and again and again in churches that if you preach the whole counsel of God, 10,000 will get reduced to 12. But then you'll build a church. 29:38 Otherwise, you'll have a club. And I'd rather have a church of 12 people than a club of 10,000 any day. Cuz God is not building clubs. Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against that church. The gates of hell will 29:53 prevail against all the Christian clubs in the world, but it will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ." And that's the only thing that's going to remain. I'll tell you that all the clubs will be demolished one day. All 30:03 the mega clubs, which are called mega churches today, will be demolished. The church of Jesus Christ If I were living in Noah's time, I would have spent all my time building the ark. I wouldn't waste my time with other buildings and all because they're 30:16 all going to collapse. If you have wisdom today, you will build the church of Jesus Christ, the type of church Jesus wants. And then he says, "Didn't I choose you 12?" No, first of all, verse 67, even though so many people left him and there were 30:32 only 12 left, he didn't say, "Oh, oh, I hope you won't leave me." He didn't say that. "Do you guys want to go, too?" "I'm okay." He was never disturbed by people leaving. You know why? Because of one verse that's helped me all these years as I've 30:50 been as I've been in this ministry of planting churches. And that verse is in verse 37. John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." He was absolutely sure of that. "All that the Father gives me 31:11 will come to me. The others will fall away." It's like when you get wheat and chaff and you knock out all the chaff, you're left with the wheat. That's what you want. So, Jesus was sure that someone whom the Father gave him 31:26 would never drop out. They'd be with him. And I've seen that through the years as we have tried to build churches in different places, new covenant churches, we have found that some people stay for a while and then drop away. 31:40 Okay. Well, we don't wish them any evil. We say, "God bless you. Please go wherever you like." Maybe they don't appreciate our high standard. Some people Some one person actually came up to me and told me, "Brother Zac, your standard in your 31:53 church is too high. We can't follow that." It's okay. Go to some other church. It's like going to a hospital and saying, "It's too hygienic here. I'd like to go to a little little little dirtier hospital because this is 32:06 too clean for me." It's okay. There are dirty hospitals around. You can go to any of them if you like, but we're not going to lower our standards to please you. Yeah, we have a certain standard. There's no doubt about it. We believe in 32:18 obedience to the entire word of God. When the Bible says in Ephesians 4:31, "Put away all anger." We're going to preach, "Put away all anger." Every every week till we put away all anger. It's like somebody asked D.L. Moody 32:35 once, the great evangelist, "Why do you always preach about being born again?" He said, "Because you must be born again." That's why. And people ask me, "Why do you always preach against anger?" Because you got to get rid of anger. When you get rid of 32:46 it, we can stop preaching on it. "Why do you keep preaching about lusting with your eyes?" Because you're lusting with your eyes. When you stop it, we'll stop preaching on it. Otherwise, we have to do it. Don't you have to take a medicine until you're 32:56 cured of that disease? Or do you want to stop halfway through and let the disease come back? We're so careful when it comes to physical health. Yeah. So, Jesus was not disturbed these people went away because he knew that those 33:12 whom the Father gives me will stick with me. Those are the only ones I want. And if the Father has given me only 11, I say, "Thank you, Father. 11 are enough for me." Imagine the Son of God, the greatest man that walked on this earth, the greatest 33:28 preacher that walked on the earth, was happy with a small church. And I found some comfort from that. And that is Jesus had 12 people in his church. And one of them was a crook. 33:51 And if you work that out mathematically, that's 8%. One out of 12. So, if you got a church of 100 people and eight of them are crooks, you're okay. Your your church is as good as Jesus' church. You're never going to have a perfect one 34:09 on this earth. Even Jesus didn't have a perfect one. He had 8% of his church were not serious. So, when some people say, "Oh, Brother Zac, I met somebody from your church. He is a half-hearted person." I say, "Yeah, I agree." 34:25 You could have gone to Jesus' church and said that to him, too. You're not going to get a perfect church on this earth. There are going to be some crooks. If you get the you get up to 8%, you got a top-class church. We're not as wholehearted I mean, our 34:39 churches may have 15% or 20% crooks, but they won't feel comfortable there. I always say my preaching is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. So, that's prophetic ministry. Disturb the comfortable and comfort the 34:54 disturbed. Both must be there. You know, somebody sitting there comfortable in his sin, he's got to be disturbed and disturbed and disturbed till he gets offended and leaves or gets converted, which we hope will happen when he 35:05 repents. So, Jesus was not disturbed when he dis- reduced to 11. Now, turn to John 16 and we see there he says, "The hour is coming." He says in John 16:32, uh "And it has already come." 35:25 Now, he's telling the 11. These 11 who left with him, he says, "An hour is coming and it's already come." This is just before he went to Gethsemane. "Each of you, you'll be scattered and each of you will run to your own home and you will leave 35:41 me alone. Now, listen to this. But I'm not alone because the Father is with me." There was zero insecurity in Jesus' life. He didn't care if everybody left him. He says, "The Father is with me. I just want to make sure that 35:58 I'm with the Father." My brother, sister, let me ask you, do you know your Father like that? Jesus said, "My Father is your Father." Do you know God like that? I remember about 38 36:17 or so years ago when God began to open my eyes to truths that I'd never heard anywhere else about the new covenant and truths about an overcoming life and a new covenant church. I mean, no one in India was preaching it. 36:35 And I began to see these things and it was new for me, anyway. Maybe there were a few people, I'm sure there were some mean people here and there who had come to this light, but then there was nobody publicly proclaiming it. If I had I mean, I had 36:50 heard all the great preachers in India and read their books and all. I never heard anyone preaching it. So, it was new as far as I'm concerned. I felt there were hardly anybody preaching it and the Lord said to me, "If everybody leaves you when you preach 37:03 this message, will you still stand for it?" I knew my wife wouldn't leave me because she's always stuck with me. But all the all the others, I said, "Lord, sure." Because it's no longer a theory. If it's a theory, I could have said, 37:23 "Maybe I understood it wrong." It wasn't a theory. It had changed my life. It had changed my family life. How could I give up something that's changed my life? Impossible. I said, "I'm quite prepared to stand for it even if I'm all alone." 37:38 Uh Noah is one of my great heroes, how he stood alone for God with his family. Do you know for how long? 120 years. Imagine standing alone. You ask him, "Noah, how many people in your church?" He says, "Just my family." 37:58 You ask him 50 years later, "How many people in your church?" "No, just my family." 100 years later, "How many in your church?" "Just my family." He's called in 2 Peter a preacher of righteousness. I pray that we will have that title. 38:15 Noah, a preacher of righteousness. He If he had lowered the standard of righteousness, there would have been more than eight people in his church, probably 800. If he had lowered it some more, it would have been 8,000. But because he preached the standard of 38:33 righteousness of God, there was only eight people. Now, I'm not saying there's a virtue in a small number, but I believe that we must really preach the whole counsel of God and the only persons who want to be with us must be 38:48 those who want to hear and follow the whole counsel of God to the best of their understanding. I'm not saying that everybody will be mature. We have babies coming into our church, just like babies are born in a family and they'll grow up. We don't 39:01 expect a newborn baby to be mature and we don't expect a newly converted person in our church to suddenly be mature. It takes time. I'm not talking about maturity, but don't you want a newborn baby to be healthy? Yes or no? 39:15 Do you know the difference between being healthy and being mature? To be wholehearted is not maturity. It's health. Maturity takes years. It's growing in wisdom. But health doesn't take years. Even a newborn baby should be healthy. 39:32 So, I believe a newly converted Christian should be wholehearted. "Lord, all of my life is yours. I I I'm purchased. I hand over the whole house to you. I'm not just going to keep one room locked up there and say, "That's 39:42 mine." If he purchased the whole house, the whole house is his, right? I can't keep a house room locked up in a house that I've sold or somebody's purchased. That's unrighteous. There's a lot of unrighteousness among Christians 39:56 because they don't recognize that Christ purchased them completely. Because he's such a gracious owner, he's allowed you to keep so many rooms locked up for yourself. You're a thief. It belongs to him. The day you recognize it, your life will 40:13 be changed. I'm thankful that I recognized it very early in my life. And then once a security comes in, his father becomes my father. You know why we don't know God in the same way as Jesus knew him? I'll tell you. Listen 40:31 to this. There was no reservation in Jesus' life. He opened up his whole being to his father. Listen to this verse. This has been a great verse that's helped me tremendously in John 17 and verse 10. Jesus said, "All things that are mine," he's talking 40:50 to the father in prayer, "are thine. And thine are mine." Jesus' attitude to the father was, "Father, I'm not going to hold back anything from you. You can have me completely. Do what you like with me." And the father said, "Oh, then you can 41:14 have me completely, too. All things that are mine are thine. All things that are thine are mine." Now, if somebody goes to God and says, "Lord, 10% of what I have is yours." God says, "Fine. 10% of what I have is yours, too." 41:32 Isn't that righteous? It's absolutely righteous. Absolutely righteous. Father, 10% of what I have is yours, and 10% of what you have is mine. This is the reason for poverty-stricken, defeated Christians all over the world. 41:48 Find me a Christian who comes to God and says, "All that I have is yours." There you'll find a person to whom God says, "Son, all that I have is yours, too." And you wonder, "How does that person come to a life such a He seems to have such a glorious 42:06 life. He testifies to it. No, he must be telling lies. He can't possibly be living like that. Nobody can live like that." Because you're a 10% Christian, you think that nobody can live like that. Well, 10% Christians can't live like 42:16 that. I fully agree. But you try being a 100% Christian, and you'll see you enter into that life, too. There is a life in God that most Christians have not experienced because they go to churches that don't preach it. They listen to messages that don't 42:34 challenge them to the highest. What does God look for in What does Christ look for in a church? A church that calls people to God's highest. Say, "Give your all to God so that God can give his all to you so that he can be your father, 42:53 and you you find security in him." All the competition will be eliminated from your life when you find security in your father. See, we want to build a church which is like a body. I want to tell you this. Christ is looking What is he looking for? He's 43:10 looking for a church that functions like a body. You say that's impossible. What you think of this human body. There's no competition between one hand and the other hand. Even though the right hand may s- sign checks and 43:30 sign important documents, the left hand is never jealous of that. The left hand's never competing with the right hand saying, "Hey, I also want to sign a check once in a while." The bank won't accept it. Can't recognize a signature. 43:47 Isn't it good that the left hand accepts a lowly place and cooperates? Isn't it wonderful if you have a church like that where you're not jealous of somebody who has an outstanding gift which you just don't have, and you support him 100% 44:05 because he says, "Part of my body." It's like um You know, in uh in India, we don't play American football. We play soccer. That's what we call football in India. And there they have 11 people in the team, and the goals are always scored by the 44:23 forwards. There are five people in the forward line, and they're the ones who always score the goals, and they're the ones who have break records. I scored 35 goals, or I scored 135 in my life. And there's a guy called a goalkeeper who watches the 44:38 goal. He never scores a goal in his whole life. He's just watching the goal to make sure the enemy the opponent, rather, the other team doesn't score goals. And you ask him, "How many goals have you scored in your life? You've played 44:48 50 games?" No, zero goals. But our team won almost every game. But somebody else scored the goal, and he's rejoicing in it. Imagine they can rejoice in a football team when somebody else scored a goal. You see these um uh football games on TV sometimes where 45:08 people go and HUG THE GUY WHO went and scored a goal, and they didn't score it themselves. But they're so delighted. Isn't it wonderful if you have a b- church like that where one is honored, and all rejoice with him, and one suffers, and all 45:23 grieve with him. That is what Christ looks for in a church. A church that functions like a body. That's the only type of church I want to be a part of. I don't want to be a church where people are competing with each other, and one 45:36 trying to show that I can preach better than the other person, and or I can pray better than the other person, or sing better than the other person. All this rubbish. That's all for American Idol competitions, not for the 45:46 church of Jesus Christ. Not for the church of Jesus Christ, not at all. But yet that spirit comes into the church. That's not the church, and the reason is I see the failure is with the preachers. They're not preaching the whole counsel 46:00 of God. I mean, if in a class everybody's failing in the subject, the problem must be with the teacher. Can't be that all of them are dumb sitting there. So, if a church is a pathetic state, I see the problem is with the preacher 46:11 very often. They haven't preached the whole counsel of God. They haven't taught them how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They haven't taught them how to take up the cross. They haven't taught them the deep things of God's word. 46:23 Challenge them to know God as a father. Left them in their ignorance. So, they live substandard Christian lives. Why should you allow that in your life? And if you don't have a good teacher, go and read the Bible yourself. I'll tell 46:41 you honestly, I thank God for whatever um the teachers were in the different churches that taught me different things. But there are many things they didn't teach me. I had to go to the scriptures myself and find it. And I'm 46:52 glad I did. I'm glad I didn't depend on some preacher to preach the whole truth of me. I I'd have been lost. But thank God that I could read English, and I could have a Bible. And if you can read English, and you have a Bible, you have absolutely no 47:07 excuse. Absolutely no excuse for living at the highest level God wants you to live at. You got the Bible at home. Remember that. You don't Supposing an angel from heaven came to you one day in the in your room and said, 47:26 "Do you know that if you give yourself completely to God today, you'll live the most wonderful life you can ever live. That the Bible contains the whole counsel of God. Read it." Would you start reading the Bible a 47:44 little more, then? You know, once You know the story of the rich man and Lazarus? It's in Luke chapter 16. The rich The rich man went to hell, and he told Lazarus He uh sorry, he told 48:03 Abraham in paradise, "Please send Lazarus to go down and tell my five brothers to repent. Otherwise, they'll also come here." He knew that the people who go to hell are the ones who don't repent. Luke 16:30. 48:21 And you know what Abraham said? Luke 16:31. "I am not going to send anybody from heaven. They've got the Bible. Let them read it." That's a paraphrase. "Read it." That's what he said in verse 31. "Why do they need somebody to go 48:38 from heaven? They've got the Bible there. They can read it." That's exactly what we hear from heaven today. "Why do they need some angel from heaven to go down and tell them anything?" It's true. Read the Bible. It's there. 48:54 Dear brothers and sisters, let's take the God's word seriously. We're to know God as our father, and be secure in that. And when you find that the Holy Spirit has come to reveal to you God as your father, please value this, and pursue it till you know him as 49:14 your father. I'll tell you honestly, it changed my life. It delivered me from all insecurity. Now, you may not believe it, but I'll tell you the truth as I stand before God today. I am not jealous of any ministry in the world. 49:32 It's the honest truth. I'm not in competition with any preacher, or any church or any ministry in the whole world. Just like this left hand is not in competition with the right hand. I can sincerely rejoice when I see some other ministry I don't 49:49 agree with prospering and being blessed by God. God bless him. He's on the same team. He kicked a goal. Praise the Lord. I'm happy. I'm not in competition. And here's another thing. I used to be a person who was frequently 50:06 discouraged. I'll tell you before God, I'm never never discouraged now for many years. You know why? Cuz I got a father. I'm like a little child. I have a father in heaven that takes care of my problems. 50:25 I'm not saying I don't have any problems. That's But I have a father. That's the difference. Believe it or not, this is the answer to everything in your life. All the insecurity and the wishing that I could have been this or I could have done 50:38 that. It'll all disappear. When you know God is your father. I sometimes, you know, I often think in pictures and that helps me. Think of a poor family. We see that sometimes in India. A poor family that couldn't pay the rent 50:57 on their house. And the landlord has got a order from the court to get them thrown out and sometimes we see them furniture and everything thrown out. The police have come and taken everything out of the house. So think of a family like that that have 51:12 got a court order that by tomorrow morning you've got to vacate the house and they don't have a another place to go to. They don't have the money. And you find a little 2-year-old child in that home sleeping peacefully. 51:27 Not one bit disturbed. Father and mother are tense and anxious, but you wake up that 2-year-old and say, "Hey, don't you know you're going to be thrown out of the house tomorrow?" He'll say, "Go and tell my dad. Let me sleep." 51:46 That is the security. It's not that she doesn't have a problem, but he's got a father to deal with it. Do you have a better father in heaven than that? I'm not trying to tell you things that are not true, my brothers. 52:03 The Bible says in Acts 1:1, Jesus did and then he taught. It's a great verse. He did and then he taught. And I made a decision more than 35 years ago that I would never teach what I've not done. Cuz that's what I was doing previously. 52:19 In my backslidden days as a believer, sometimes I'd preach what I'd never done, like most preachers. But God changed that around when he filled me with the Holy Spirit. And I said, "If I have not overcome discouragement, 52:31 I will not preach on it." I knew how discouraged I was and I knew what happened to it when I came to know God as my father. Where Christ becomes your head. You know, when Christ is the head of the body and his father is our father, 52:50 jealously goes away, discouragement goes away, insecurity goes away. We learn to love one another. That's the type of fellowship God wants. What is Christ looking for in a church? This type of secure relationship where we are not 53:10 in competition, we're not jealous. We can sincerely rejoice, we sincerely with those who are honored and sincerely grieve when someone suffers. As I said, it's not a child does not reach that maturity overnight. But if I'm It's like you send a child to 53:29 a school, he hasn't learned anything yet, but if it's a good school, by the time he finishes high school, he'll be a top-class student. That's the type of church you should be in. That's That's what Christ is looking for 53:44 in a church. Let me turn to John 17:3. We talked about eternal life. John 17:3 says, "This is eternal life, that they might know thee, 54:02 the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent." So what is Jesus' definition of eternal life? To know God. To know God as father. As a father in heaven. That's why when his disciples asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray." 54:20 You know what he said? Let me paraphrase again, Luke 11. "Don't pray like you heard for the last 30 years in the synagogue, all the Pharisees praying. Don't even read the Old Testament and pray like Moses prayed 54:40 or like Jeremiah prayed or like Isaiah prayed. This is a new age, my dear disciples. When you pray, say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.' Don't say like those great prophets, 'Oh 54:57 almighty God.' I've heard New Testament I've heard Christians pray, 'God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' I see that's not my God. My God is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Show me one place in the New Testament 55:15 after the Acts of the Apostles where anybody calls him the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. No. You know how ignorant people are about God as father? They don't know God. Look at the songs we sing to Jehovah. 55:36 Who is Jehovah? My God is my father. I don't call him Jehovah. Do you call him Jehovah? There's a lot of songs. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. I never sing a song which I cannot mean. 55:57 I say there's no God like my father. You may say it doesn't really matter. If my son came to me and said, "Mr. Punan, I'd like to talk to you." I'd say, "Hey, what What's the matter? Are you angry with me or what?" "Isn't that your name?" Yeah, it's my 56:15 name. That's not what you're supposed to call me. Let me ask you, do you call God Jehovah? "Guide me, oh thou great Jehovah." Don't think all these song writers have got their theology right. Show me one verse in the New Testament 56:33 after the Acts of the Apostles where anybody calls God Jehovah. You may say you're nitpicking. I'm not nitpicking. I'm trying to get you to know God as your father. That's all. Because I know what it happened to me. It changed my life. 56:48 I don't call him Jehovah. I call him Daddy. And it brought security into my life. It delivered me from discouragement. I want to be in a church where we know God as Daddy, where I'm encouraged to know him that way. What What is Christ looking for in a 57:07 church? A church where people know his father as their father. That's what he's looking for. We say we must love one another. You'll never love one another till you know God is your father. I'll tell you that. That's the 57:23 root. Get there. All the husband-wife quarrels, if you want them to disappear, get to know God as your father. It's the answer to many many problems. Because all the fighting and quarreling and jealousy is because we are orphans. 57:39 Orphans will No matter how much instruction you give, you should not fight, you should not be jealous, they'll still fight and be jealous. You can go to churches where you hear about don't love the world, don't love the 57:49 world. You'll still love the world if you don't have the love of the father. Do you love the father? The love of the world disappears. It's the root uh reason or the cause from which holiness springs. That's why Jesus came 58:07 to reveal God as a father to us. When you pray, pray. Don't pray Jehovah. Pray, "Our Father." If you call him God, say God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You may say there's not much in terminology. 58:27 There is a lot because it affects the way you think of him. Think Try and call God Daddy and see the difference it makes in your life. If you really believe he's your dad, I mean, if you're not sure of that, you better make sure of that first. 58:43 If you receive Christ as your savior, God's your father, my father and your father. This is so important. This is the foundation. And know him as our father in heaven, one who is sovereign, not just father, but one who is sovereign. 59:01 I like another paraphrase of this verse in 1 Timothy 6. In 1 Timothy 6, we read of 15. 59:20 It speaks about what Christ will bring about at the proper time. God will bring about at the proper time. And God is called here in verse 15, the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords. 1 Timothy 6:15. 59:39 And again, J.B. Phillips paraphrase reads it as the blessed controller of all things. Isn't it good to have as your dad the blessed controller of all things that happen in your life? 59:57 The blessed controller of your boss. The blessed controller of your difficult neighbor. The blessed controller of the guy who hates you. The blessed controller of circumstances, the controller of the devil. 1:00:17 The blessed controller of all things. This is my dad. Think of the security it can bring into your life. I want to be in a church that preaches a God who is the blessed controller of all things, who's almighty. Not a weak, impotent God who cannot 1:00:36 control certain events that happen in my life. Why does the Bible say we can give thanks for all things? Because God makes all things work together for our good. Cuz he's the blessed controller of all things. I want And you know, because if we need 1:00:51 We know we don't understand something until we hear it and hear it and hear it and hear it. There was a great evangelist in the 19th century called Charles Finney. Mightily used by God and he once said that I've discovered, he said, that 1:01:02 people don't understand something until you preach it to them 10 times. It's true. How many of you have you accepted Christ the very first time you heard the gospel? Not me. Didn't we have to hear it a number of times before we finally we yielded? 1:01:19 So, it's not just that okay, now you heard today that God is a blessed controller of all things, you never need to hear it again. Brother, you need to hear it again. Till you're absolutely convinced. That's why we need to be in a church 1:01:31 where we are told about God is our father and he's the blessed controller of all things till everybody in the church has come to that assurance. Paul said like this in Colossians. He's talking about his responsibility in 1:01:47 a church and he said in Colossians 1, listen to this. This is the passion of a true servant of God. This is my passion. I believe I'm a servant of the Lord. He called me 48 years ago for that. 50 years ago, really. 50 years ago. And 1:02:03 this is what he What is my passion like? It's Colossians chapter 1, verse 28. Beautiful verse for everyone. This is the type of elder that should be in every church. This is the type of servant of God that should be in every church. And this is 1:02:18 what should This is the type of church I want to be in where we proclaim Christ. 1 Colossians 1:28. Admonishing every man. That means correcting people who are wrong. I want to be in a church where I'm corrected if I'm wrong. I 1:02:33 don't want to have a teacher who never corrects me when I get a problem wrong. No, he must correct me. That's a good teacher. Admonishing every man and teaching. A teacher who corrects and teaches with all wisdom. And the ultimate goal is this. I like 1:02:52 that. That we may present everyone in that church perfect in Christ. Brother, sister, you're lucky if you've got a preacher like that in your church. Not one who tickles your ears and comforts you and says everything will be all right and 1:03:10 everything will be all right and you live in your sin, defeated year after year, fighting and quarreling with your wife every day. And the endless pursuit of money that frustrates you. That's not the type of message we need 1:03:24 to hear. We What is Christ looking for? He's looking for servants and preachers who will proclaim him without fear, admonishing people, not looking for popularity. You can't look for popularity if you're going to go around admonishing and 1:03:40 correcting people. Paul was not interested in being a popular preacher. He was interested in the good of the souls under his charge, not in his own popularity. Most preachers I have met and heard are interested in their own 1:03:54 popularity. It's like a doctor who wants to be popular, who's not interested in your health. I would never want to go to such a doctor. I'd never want to listen to such a preacher. But one who admonishes and corrects with 1:04:07 this goal to present me perfect in Christ. That's what God's looking for. That's what Christ is looking for a church where people will be encouraged to grow up to perfection. And he's looking for servants who will proclaim that truth in a 1:04:26 church. Let's pray. Let us bow our heads before God. And let's ask him to keep these truths in our minds so that we don't forget. Heavenly Father, 1:04:46 please help us that we shall be gripped. That our lives will be changed. That we This is not be just information that we've got, but truth that can set us free. We humbly ask in Jesus' name. Amen. 1:05:06 Amen.
