0:02 It doesn't mean that women don't have a place in it. They have a very important place, especially in bringing up children and raising up another generation to serve the Lord. Timothy's mother did more for the church by bringing up 0:22 Timothy as a godly young man. Even though her husband was just a Greek businessman who has no interest in spiritual things, single-handedly, she brought up her son to be wholehearted so that when he was 0:39 just about 19 or 20 years old, the Apostle Paul discerned here was a godly young man who later on became Paul's greatest closest coworker and a tremendous tremendous blessing to the 0:57 church and that was a result of one woman and she did more for the church by raising that one boy than if she had traveled around preaching. She could never have done what Timothy did. So, do mothers have a ministry? 1:16 John Wesley's mother did more for the church worldwide for centuries by raising up John Wesley and Charles Wesley in the 18th century. She she had many children. She 1:35 had I don't know 14 15 children. Many of whom died and she had about eight or nine living. And she would spend one hour every week with each of her children teaching them God's ways. And she did more than if she had 1:54 traveled all over the world by raising up Charles Wesley who wrote what 9,000 hymns, many of them we sing, and John Wesley, who established churches that last until today, and whose writings and example have been a tremendous 2:09 challenge. I mean, I think he was one of the most godly men that lived that blessed me since the Apostle John. And um that was a result of one woman's work. And John Wesley was never married. So when he was teaching his 2:25 Methodist churches how to bring up children, he got his mother to share with them how to bring up your children. So women have a tremendous ministry. If you read 1 Timothy chapter 2 in the place where you know it says women cannot 2:45 teach or have authority over men. What many people that's a negative side but what many people don't see is what they read on further and don't read the positive side. Let me just show you that to encourage all the sisters here. 3:02 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 12. I do not allow a woman to teach men or exercise authority over men. They can teach children. They can teach other sisters. In fact, Titus chapter 2 says older women must teach 3:20 younger sisters. But they do not allow woman to teach. God has not given that ability authority over men. But in that area to be quiet. But see, but but verse 15, 3:38 women can bear children, and if they continue in faith and love and sanctity and self-restraint, they can bring those children to salvation and lead them up to be godly young men and women for the next 3:55 generation. There was an old Jewish rabbi what he said was not exactly accurate but he said it in a very good way. He said because God could not be everywhere he made mothers. If you understand the thought 4:15 behind it I mean God is everywhere in one sense but physically you can't see him. So he made mothers. So there's a great ministry you mothers have. Don't ever despise it. If it says here women cannot teach, it says but they can bring up 4:33 children. And I can say I can put it in a reverse like this. I do not allow men to bear children but but they can lead in the church. It's that you know you're given one ministry and the others are given another ministry. Which do you think is 4:53 greater? So don't ever despise that. So I just mentioned that you know that's why we have men's conference because it's more to leadership and that's why men don't cover their heads because you're supposed to express through that testimony a lot of spoken 5:08 about women whailing their heads. What about men not wailing their heads man must be the leader. I've said in our own home, in our church back home, if you men are not the leaders in your home, leading your children to godliness, instructing them, you should 5:23 wail your heads and sit in the church and say, I'm not a leader in home. I just sit back and do nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself. The very fact that you keep your head on uh uncovered means I'm the leader in my home. I'm 5:36 leading my children. I'm leading my home in godly ways. Okay. So just to um share with you what we covered in the last six sessions I spoke who can build the body of Christ. One who has a burden to build a local church wherever you 5:55 are. One who is empowered by the Holy Spirit. One who is poor in spirit and thus possesses the kingdom. One who loves Christ supremely more than father, mother, possessions, his own life, everything. Who's learned the love of 6:15 Christ, loves Christ supremely. One who values fellowship with God just like Jesus valued fellowship with God so much that he cried in Gethsemane to avoid it if possible. and one who lives a sacrificial life who will say I will never offer to 6:32 God that which costs me nothing. So today I want to share from Galatians chapter 5. Galatians 5, there's a verse here that says in verse six, in Christ Jesus, neither 6:51 circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. You know, in different times in Christendom, there have been different controversies among Christians in theology concerning doctrines. In the 7:09 early days, the controversy was, "Do Christians have to be circumcised?" Because most of the early Christians were Jews and they were all circumcised. They said, "Hey, we got to do this because God said to Abraham, if no, 7:21 somebody's not done this, he's cut off from the covenant." And they couldn't understand this new covenant. Remember those days, they didn't have a Bible. And Paul had not been um had not yet written scripture explaining many things 7:33 of the new covenant. So, they were in a state of transition. in those first 20 30 years after Pentecost. So there were controversies there because they didn't have a New Testament. They didn't have scripture in which they could go. Such 7:47 controversies don't arise today necessarily. But um they had questions like should we ask everybody to keep the Sabbath? Jewish Christians said we've kept the Sabbath all our life. And that's later on um Paul made clear 8:02 that's if you want to keep it, keep it, but don't force others to keep it. And I believe that's the principle. If you want to celebrate Christmas, go ahead and do it. But don't force others. It applies to many things which are not 8:13 forbidden in scripture. Do you have a conviction about something? Keep it to yourself. You feel you should get up at 5:00 every morning to read the Bible. Great. But don't force other people to do it. And don't despise them if they don't do it. 8:26 We need to give freedom in the church. Romans 14 is a great chapter on that. that uh in um in non-essentials we give liberty to one 8:44 another. So he says here that these controversies are not the main thing. The main thing is do you have faith that works through love? Faith that works not a faith that doesn't work. A lot of people have a faith that doesn't work. 9:01 It's just in their head. That's the type of faith the devil has. The Bible says that do you believe James 2 that God is one? The demon demons also believe and they do more than you do. They tremble. So that's not a great thing to 9:15 believe doctrinally. If you go to a through a list of doctrines, God is a trinity. You ask Satan, do you believe that? Yes, he does. Do you believe Jesus son of God? Yes. Do you believe Jesus died for the sins of the world? Satan's 9:27 answering. Yes. You believe Jesus rose from the dead? Yes. You believe Jesus coming again? Yes. Do you believe sin will not have dominion over those who are under grace? Yes. That's more than a lot of Christians believe. But it doesn't 9:41 change his life. That type of faith is a dead faith. He can argue. A lot of Christians are great at argument. And I've seen that the ones who argue the most are the ones whose lives are carnal. They are the ones who argue the 9:58 most. They they don't overcome sin. God never bears witness to them by building a church or building a godly family, but they're loud at arguing because they got a lot of head knowledge. God has hidden his truths from the clever and the intelligent. He 10:18 reveals them to babes. And Jesus once took up a babe and said, "Learn humility from this babe." I want to tell you this, dear brothers and sisters. Like I always say, the three secrets of the Christian life are humility, 10:29 humility, humility. If you don't have that, you'll never be able to build a local church. You can know all the theories in the world. You can understand all the principles. But God gives his grace to the humble. And if you have a little bit of 10:44 pride in your heart about anything, pride about your Bible knowledge, pride about God's using you in some way or pride that you are smart in some way in which somebody else in your church is not, you look down on anyone, you look down on any human 11:01 being because you have something he doesn't have something maybe culture and you're more civilized than him or you're more cultured than him. You're more educated than him. You're more Bible knowledge than him. You're in a good church. 11:15 Anything that makes you look down on another human being. You have a little bit of the devil right in your heart. Do you want that? A little bit of Satan. You have Christ, but you got this little bit of Satan in one corner of 11:32 your heart. Because the essence of Satan is pride. You know, I'm over others. And I've seen brothers I've seen through 50 years brothers who know so much of scripture who understood all about 11:50 um the building of the church and the principles of the new covenant everything else but they lack in humility and they're not honest they're not honest to acknowledge it and that's why even after years in the 12:08 church they're still fighting sitting with their wives at home, looking down on others, thinking they're more spiritual than others. And I say, "Lord, when will they ever learn?" There's a phrase in 2 Timothy that scares me when I think of such 12:28 people. This is the word that comes to my mind. 2 Timothy 3 verse 7. Beware that this doesn't happen to you, my brothers. 2 Timothy 3:7. Always learning. Always 12:45 learning. Every conference, hundreds of YouTube videos, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Not intellectual truth, but the truth 13:04 that Jesus said in John 8:32, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. They never come to that. Always learning. They know so many theories. They can even criticize the 13:22 elders because they think they know so much. As a servant of the Lord, I have faced a lot of opposition. All servants of the Lord face that's not particularly to me. And a lot of criticism. I always listen to it because 13:43 sometimes our enemies speak more truth about ourselves than our friends do. But I don't give heat to it all because a lot of it is a lot of rubbish. People's opinions are fit for the trash can. Like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, 13:59 it's a small thing for me for you fellas to judge me. I live before the Lord. Like Elijah said, as the Lord God lives before whom I stand. A lot of people don't know that. But I've noticed one thing about the folks who, you know, in 14:15 India, a lot of people like that, Christians and in some other countries too. The ones who criticize me are the ones who have never planted one single church. That I've noticed and that's 14:34 interesting. So what are these people criticizing? God has never borne witness to them in their entire life by planting one church, but their mouth is wide in criticism. Don't ever be like that. You'll destroy yourself. I'm just 14:50 warning you that reminds me of a bachelor criticizing a married person saying he's not bringing up his children properly. He looks at this married person, his children are not brought up properly. That person's children are not 15:06 brought up. What do I say to that married person? Why don't you get married and bring up some children properly and show them how to bring up children instead of sitting and opening your big mouth and criticizing everybody 15:16 else? Why don't you plant a church and show people how to the church should be instead of criticizing others who are laboring doing it? Beware of criticizing. Beware of criticizing your elders. They're not doing a good job. Why don't you plant a 15:32 church and be an elder and show how it should be done? It's easy to criticize. Any idiot can do that. I repeat that. Any idiot can criticize. But it requires a godly man to bring up a godly family and to build a godly 15:50 church. So if you've been doing a lot of criticism, my brothers and sisters, I give you a little bit of an advice. Keep your big mouth shut and do a little more work. faith that works by love and ask God to back you 16:09 up and manifest through [Music] you the type of family others should have the type of church others should build. Then people will come to you and say, "Brother, how did you do it?" You won't have to open your mouth and 16:28 criticize. It says in Galatians, Galatians chapter 6. Verse three, and this is a word particularly for those who are very loud 16:45 in criticism and in finding fault. Galatians 6:3. If anyone thinks he is somebody, he's actually a nobody and he's deceiving himself. I met lots of born again 17:03 believers like that who think they are somebody. They find fault with this and they find fault with that. They're nobody. I look at their life and say, "What is God born witness to?" If I see God bearing witness to your life with a godly family, you 17:20 brought up five or six children in a godly way, I'll respect you. Or you planted a church where people are overcoming sin and loving one another, I'll respect you. But otherwise, brother, you're just a nobody. Just recognize that, sister. 17:37 You're just a nobody. Humble yourself, find your place in the church, and walk in humility. And maybe one day, maybe maybe one day if you continue in that way, God will do something through you. And then a advice to such people in 17:57 verse four, examine your own work. What type of family have you brought up? What type of church have you planted? Then you can have reason to boast in regard to what you did. Instead of criticizing other people, 18:18 what a wonderful exhaltation. Examine your own work in your hometown. Look at your family. Look at the type of children you've brought up. 18:36 Examine it. Have you been such an example that they want to follow after you? Every one of them. What type of church have you planted? These are the important things. What type of life are you 18:55 living? Are you overcoming sin in your life? Have you overcome anger at home? Have you overcome dirty sexual thoughts? Have you overcome bitterness? If not, why waste your time 19:12 finding fault with others? Work on your life. Work on your home. Work on building the church. The church is a three-story building. The foundation is holy 19:27 one. God loves me as he loved Jesus. never get out of that foundation. He loves me as he loved Jesus. I'll never feel condemned. Faith in that. Faith that works by love. Faith that's delivers me from all condemnation. My 19:46 sins have not only been forgiven. My past life, God says, I will not remember anymore. And I'm not going to let the devil condemn me about anything in my past life which I've confessed. God loves me as he loved 20:06 Jesus. And he loves me so much. And he loves you so much that he wants to give you grace so that you can walk as Jesus walked. In 1 John 2:6 it says, "The one who abides in Christ must walk as Jesus walked." Do you have 20:20 faith that works by love that you can walk as Jesus walked? And it's not in the great mighty things. When I look at the life of Jesus, the faith that works by love in his life, which I want to imitate because that's what the body of Christ 20:38 is supposed to do. The first body of Christ was Jesus Christ. We are supposed to do carry on what he did. I see a sensitivity in Jesus. I mentioned this the other day of how he felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to go through Samaria where people 20:57 wouldn't usually walk, the Jews wouldn't walk through there because he had to help one five times divorced Samaritan woman. How many people go right out of their way to help one five times divorced Samaritan uh person of another person 21:14 who despised race? The Jews were those days the Jews looked down on the Samaritans. We today we'd call it racism but that's what it was. They wouldn't even go through their town. But Jesus walked through there. He didn't care 21:26 what people said. It says when the disciples came, you read in John chapter 4, and they saw him talking to this woman, they were surprised that he's talking to this Samaritan woman. He was he was so concerned about lost 21:42 humanity. He had a compassion for those who were despised by others. That woman used came at noon time, lunchtime to draw water. I know in the villages in India where there's no running water, everybody has to draw water from the well. Nobody 21:59 comes at lunchtime. They all come at early morning, 5 or 6:00 because they need water right from the morning. They come with their buckets and pick up water from early in the morning and go home. Why did this woman come at 22:13 noon? Because she was so harassed and ridiculed and mocked by all the other women when she came in the morning. and she decided I'll go when there's nobody else there otherwise when the time when the women come the well is 22:26 crowded and she said noon time there'll be nobody there I can go and nobody will be there to ridicule me that's the type of person Jesus went for those who are despised and mocked and ridiculed look for such people who are 22:44 needy and the Lord says when the poor and needy cry for I'll open rivers in the desert for them. Those are the people we need to look for. I think of another time where I mean if you got a map at the back of your Bible, you can see 22:59 this. Once he was in Galilee and it's about the only time he went outside Israel. Jesus ministry was always in Israel, but once just like he went through Samaria once, he went outside Israel once. You read to the land of 23:16 Cyrofenicia and Ty. It's outside Israel. He walked all those 50 miles. How long does it take to walk 50 miles? He didn't have a chariot or 50 miles. I think it must have taken him a whole day. 23:34 Walked reached there with his disciples. And when he was there, a woman came to him. not an Israelite, a Canaanite woman saying, "Lord, please cast out the demon from my daughter at 23:52 home." And he said, "I can't give the children's bread to the dogs." He was testing her. She said, "Give me the crumbs that fall from the table. It's enough." Said,"Woman, great is your faith." Jesus had a way of 24:11 praising people. It's a lesson we must learn to appreciate where we see something good. If you haven't learned that, start learning it now. It's a very useful thing. I don't mean flattering. I don't mean telling lies. No, that Jesus would never do 24:30 that. But where you see genuinely something good in your children, we correct our children so much. How much do you express appreciation to them? Is there a balance or are you imbalanced on the side of correction? Very little 24:45 appreciation. Do you ever turn around to your children and say that was so good the way you helped your little brother or sister? That's so good the way you helped mommy there. Appreciation. And to brothers and very often Jesus would praise unconverted 25:02 people. This Roman military man, great is your faith. This Syrphenician woman great is your faith woman according to your faith it's done to you unconverted Nathaniel there's a man in whom there's no guile even though he 25:17 despised Jesus saying what good thing can come out of Nazareth you really become like Jesus if you can appreciate someone who despises you that's amazing did you notice that in John chapter one Nathaniel comes in and says what good thing can come out of 25:33 Nazareth and the very next thing Jesus says there's man in whom there's no guile. He speaks the truth. He believes nothing can come good can come or nothing. He says it and that man became an apostle. I like that. It's a lesson I've 25:46 tried to learn from Jesus to express appreciation to honor those. The Bible says honor all men. Appreciate all men. It says, "Give double honor to the elders who labor in preaching and 26:05 teaching." Do you give double honor to your elders? Or do you feel, "Oh, that's going to puff them up. We're not going to say anything like that." You know, Jesus wasn't like that. He didn't feel, oh, the Roman centurion will get all 26:18 puffed up if I say, "Great is your faith." Or publicly appreciate it. Maybe I should go and whisper in his ear, "Your faith is great." He never did that. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Let let him ever hear it. My 26:30 father has revealed something to you which other people haven't known. He was always like that. Even a backsliden church like Ephesus, which had lost their first love, he says, "I know your works, your perseverance, your patience, how you are 26:46 standing against evil men and exposing false apostles." Boy, that's really something to learn to see something good. I heard of a brother who would always find something good in others. He almost had ne never had anything negative to 27:03 say about anybody. Um I'm not saying we should follow that example uh because Jesus had a lot of negative things to say about the Pharisees and sometimes we need to say that. But for those of us who are so negative in everything, always finding fault with 27:20 our wives or somebody else and the other and the other, here is a good example, you know, just to give us a little correction, a strong turn of the wheel to the other direction because we've gone so so much off track. Somebody tried to test him one 27:34 day and say, "Brother, what do you think of Satan?" And he's a he said, "Satan's a really hard worker. That's one thing we can learn from him. He does his job. He's a full-time worker who works 24 hours a day at his job of 27:51 accusing people and finding fault with them. We don't have to do his job, but we can learn to work hard. You know, there's something you can appreciate. I in our church in Bangalore now, we have faith which works by love. I believe is this type of love 28:09 that we express in appreciation that can build the church. It's not just faith in our head. I want you wives to appreciate your husbands and express your appreciation. Say thank you to your husbands. Say thank you to your 28:24 wives. Um I remember reading a poem where a man says when his wife died, "I never knew until she went away." How much a wife helps her 28:40 husband. How many sorrows and pains she hid from me so that she would not burden me. How many little things she did to smooth my path. Alas, I never 28:58 knew. Don't say that after your wife is dead. Appreciate her now. Don't put flowers on her grave. go and give her some useful gift now and words of appreciation are very useful gifts and to your husband. Faith which 29:17 works by love that's what we need towards one another in our church in Bangalore we have in our Wednesday meetings now it's something which I encourage the elders to do two three years ago I said Sunday morning we have our teaching sessions and it's the 29:36 elders who always speak but I said we want to encourage younger people and not in a new church you can't do it but we've been 38 years, 35 years, 37 years. When we started this, we said we want another generation to come up. We want the 29:53 elders are in their 60s and 70s. We need others growing up in their 50s and their 40s and their 30s so that we continue to have generation after generation of godly leadership in the church. So we we have meetings where in a Wednesday 30:06 meetings we have young people get up and share you know they usually have a subject in advance and then one brother leads and speaks for maybe 10 15 minutes and a number of 15 20 young brothers and sisters speak 2 three minutes each 30:20 encouraging you know like it says in 1 Corinthians 14 you must all prophesy and then they're not prophesying in the beginning they start with testifying that's the first step to prophesying and then you can graduate to prophesying which is sharing words that 30:34 will encourage and comfort and bless others. But I go to those meetings and I sit at the back and I listen and it always blesses me. Little things that people say, little things that if you listen with attentive ears, you can be 30:54 blessed. If you're humble enough to acknowledge that Almighty God has made you one member in the body of Christ, you're not everything. Even if you're the most gifted speaker in your church, you are not everything. You are still just one 31:11 member of that body. And as much as you need to bless them, they need to bless you. And I sit there and I get blessed Wednesday after Wednesday. It's to me it's as precious a meeting as Sunday morning. I go to the villages down in India among 31:31 poor people who don't know English and um listen to them. They bless me. I was sitting here listening to the testimonies yesterday. They blessed me. One word that brother John 31:50 said, "Love never fails." He said, I don't know whether you remember it. I don't think I'll ever forget what he said. How he blessed his family members who were against him and gradually won them over. Neighbors, family members, 32:06 love never fails. He decided to prove whether it works or not. Isn't that great to see a verse in the Bible and see whether it works or not? Does it really work? Love never fails. Try it. I heard him. I was challenged. I 32:22 said, I want to try that. Some of those difficult situations you find nothing is working. Try love. It never fails. You find that particularly with relatives and 32:40 difficult people. Love never fails. I'm not saying it'll always succeed um because even Jesus couldn't bring everybody to God's kingdom. So, it won't succeed with everyone. But it will bless some. The kindness of God. Sometimes we 33:00 think strong preaching leads people to repentance. But the Bible says in Romans 2:4, "The kindness of God leads us to repentance." Have you ever thought of kindness leading people to repentance? You must never forget that verse. Romans 33:17 chapter 2:4. The kindness of God leads people to repentance. I say, Lord, let me learn to preach strong messages and lead people to repentance. And let me also balance that by showing kindness and leading people to repentance. That is God's way. Faith 33:37 that works by love. So Jesus, you see, he walked this 50 mi just to help one woman. And it says the next day got up and came back. 100 miles of walking to help one person. Is that worth 33:54 it? In these days of mega churches and huge crowds and what they call crusades and all that, who would walk a 100 miles to help one person? I read that and I said, "Lord, make me like you. I want to be like that." I 34:16 remember in one distant country outside India, there was a brother who had come to Bangalore and been gripped by the truth and he went back and after a few years he said he could never be a part of any other church after he had seen 34:31 what he had seen in CFC and he started sharing it and he got after some years two people and he wrote to me and said, "Brother Zack, there are three of us meeting here. Will you come to see us? I said sure. And I took that long was about 34:54 10hour flight 10 or 12 hours and went there and little by little through many many years we've seen churches planted in that country. I remember another time in one state in 35:13 India where I was invited by a huge Pentecostal they had their annual conference of 12,000 people or something and they invited me to be the speaker and at the same time there was a small small little church where there was a brother who had 35:32 been gripped by the truth we were preaching and he asked me can you come here it was it was around the same time and the Lord said don't go to that big conference go to this small little group so I went there the small 35:49 group we had a number of meetings and within one week we had a church planted there small church that grew and grew and grew and that has grown to many churches in that state now with hundreds of believers we don't disp ies the day of 36:08 small beginnings. Jesus was like that. So don't value don't devalue that one person who is hungry for the truth. We had so many emails from some lonely 36:25 individuals from broken homes and divorced homes and I said, "Lord, I don't know which of these are a starting ground perhaps for a church." So I and my fellow elders reply to every single email we get. We get hundreds of 36:44 them because I don't know which one which one of those needy people is the one God's picking on. And we don't send a standard reply like some preachers do. We a personal individualized reply according to their need. We will not offer to God a service 37:04 that costs us nothing. I can't do it all myself. I'm one human being. But God's over a period of time given me wonderful co-workers to be sensitive to people's needs. I think of uh Jesus seeing all the apostles feet dirty 37:23 at the last supper and there was nobody there to wash it. He immediately goes and picks up the bucket of water and the towel and says that's for me to do that job. These are the people who build the church. I've said that in 37:41 Bangalore. You open the door of a toilet and you find it dirty perhaps. You don't close it and go to the next door. No, you'll never build a church. You get in there, flush it out, clean it, and use it, and flush it out. That's the person 37:58 who will build a church. One who sees a need and says, "That's not for somebody else to do. That's for me to do. I've done it. I've cleaned the toilets in my church, and I'd be glad to do it even today." There was no job that was too lowly for 38:14 my savior. And there'll never be job that'll be too lowly for me to do anywhere anytime. Even if I'm a 100 years old, even if I'm the senior most elder in the church. Who will build a church? Those 38:30 who have faith that works by love. Not just a faith in the head. That's always love is considerate. thinking thinking of some need there how can I help there being 38:48 sensitive to a person's need or embarrassment or some shy visitor comes to your church that's the one you got to go for not the loud exuberant person who's 39:07 happy golucky and happy to talk to everyone leave him alone He'll get enough friends. Go for the one who is shy and withdrawn and doesn't talk to anyone. That's probably the one God will use, not this loud, exuberant one to build his church. 39:27 We've seen some amazing situations like that to be to have faith that even when things appear to go wrong or people treat you badly, God will use that to work for good. I remember once I went to a 39:46 Pentecostal conference in India many years ago. So it was over 30 years ago and um there were about 12,000 people there and I said the Lord has given me a word not for you people but for the pastors here they had invited me for three days 40:04 and I spoke for two days on righteousness in money matters and the and those pastors got offended so early the third morning Sunday morning it was Friday Saturday They they sent a message to me saying we don't want to hear you today. I said 40:22 fine you can sit on the platform but you can't speak. I said great. So I sat there the whole day and they didn't even have the curts me curtsy to take me in the car to drop me at where I had to go. So I had to carry my bag and catch 40:41 the bus, go to the bus stop and wait for the bus and take the bus and go. But I say, "Praise the Lord. God is on the throne. I'd learned by that time to give thanks for everything." Thankfully, I wasn't grumbling. I said, 40:55 "I don't know, Lord, why this is, but I want to praise you." And I got into the bus and after about 5 minutes, I discovered it was the wrong bus because I didn't know my way around there. And we have conductors in the bus 41:07 who give the tickets. And he said, "This is the wrong bus." He said, "How do I get to where I want to go?" He said, "You got to get down to this place and take another bus." I said, "Okay, praise the Lord. God's on the throne. The 41:18 devil's been defeated, so we're okay." So, I got down at that bus stop and got into another bus and you know the buses in India are so crowded. You don't have to move as the people come in. You just get pushed along. We're 41:38 standing. So, here I was standing next to this young person. We were there just together for 10 minutes. And he said, "Brother Zach, I was at this conference you were and I heard you for these two days and I know they didn't let you speak the third day, 41:56 but I've been gripped and I want to keep in touch with you." God used that brother to later on begin a church. And it was wonderful how I if I had been grumbling and complaining at that time, I would have been in no me no mood to 42:15 speak to him for 10 minutes. Remember this that that time when you're in a bad mood, somebody may come across your path who may be the very person God wants to use to do some work for him. Make sure you're in a good mood all 42:33 the time. He can do it. God can do it. Faith that God can keep me in a good mood all the time, 24 hours. Faith. Faith that God can keep me. Rejoicing always because the most important things are okay. God's on the throne. The 42:51 devil's been defeated. My sins have sins have been forgiven. Christ is coming back. Jesus Christ got all authority in heaven and earth. What more do you want? A few wrong things here and there. a little headache or some sickness 43:02 [Music] or maybe a child died. Okay, fine. God is still on the throne. I'll see that child one day. Christ is coming back soon. Never. I mean, we have sorrow. That's okay. As long as in the world, Jesus was a man of s sorrows. But he 43:20 also had such tremendous joy inside. It's that that builds the church. Joy is a tremendous power. You know in the Old Testament that verse in Nehemiah 8:10 which says the joy of the Lord is your 43:38 strength. There's a tremendous strength in joy. And that's why I prayed very early in my life. I said Lord I want to come to a life where I rejoice in the Lord always 24/7. I don't want to lower that command to say most of the time or sometimes. When 43:57 it says always, it means 247. And a person who rejoices in the Lord always, Philippians 4:4, will be in a good mood always. Get up in the morning, you're in a good mood, and a lot of things go wrong in the day, you're still in a good 44:12 mood because God is still on the throne. The devil's still been defeated. My sins have all been forgiven. Christ is still coming back. And he's still got all authority in heaven and earth. the most important things are okay. Why are we 44:23 grumbling and complaining about some little thing that went wrong? And if you that's faith that works by love. And I want to say this that if you go this way, God may take you through a lot of difficulties. You you'll find 44:40 it's a very lonely path. There not many people want to go this way. A lot of people like to come and hear messages. I hear hundreds of people who say, "Brother Jack, we're so blessed by read listening to your um YouTube messages. 44:54 Every day we listen to them." I say, "What's coming of it? I hope you're having a a better home." You know, when I say, "I hope you're becoming a better husband after listening to those 100 messages from YouTube. I hope you're 45:07 becoming a better wife. I hope you're being useful to the Lord to build his church." Don't look at others. If God has called you, you're a wholehearted disciple of his, I want to tell you, God will watch over you with a 45:22 sort of a jealous love. You know what a jealous love is? It's a special care. I I I I feel that many times in my life. Sometimes I've been disciplined by the Lord. Are you surprised? It's just a 45:42 proof that I'm his son. I'm not a illegitimate son. Like it says in Hebrews 12, illegitimate children are never disciplined. I have never in my life disciplined other people's children. I've disciplined my own. And Hebrews 12 45:58 says, if you are without discipline, you're not a legitimate child. And I've been disciplined at times by the Lord and I lie down in bed with a fever perhaps or something like that. And um I say, "Lord, what's the reason for this?" I always ask the 46:16 Lord. And the Lord points out to me something that happened in the last one week. Maybe some rude word I spoke to someone. Just one teeny tiny weeny teeny weeny things like that. And I say, "Lord, I'm sorry. I 46:34 want to set it right." maybe apologize to whom I hurt. But you know, at the end of it, I wept with joy. I said, 'Lord, I see believers doing terribly wrong things and they're not disciplined and you discipline me for 46:53 one slip up, one rude word. I love you, Lord. I hug him and I say, "Please treat me like that always. watch over me with this jealous love which will not allow even a small slip up 47:12 discipline. Thank you. Let me read you something that I read nearly 40 years ago which has blessed me. I think of it many 47:31 many times. It's an article some of you may have read. The title is others may but you cannot. If God has called you to be really like 47:50 Jesus, he will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put upon you such demands of obedience that you will not be able to follow other people or measure yourself by other 48:09 Christians. And in many ways he will seem to let other people do things which he will not let you do. Other Christians they seem to be able to do that and get away with it and he won't let you do it because if you do 48:28 it discipline the other Christian does it nothing happens cuz he's not wholehearted. God knows that. Let him go. Other Christians and ministers and preachers may who seem to be very religious and very useful may push themselves forward and try to promote 48:47 themselves in various ways and pull wires and strings and work schemes with all types of methods Jesus would not use to carry out their plans. But he will not allow you to do it. And if you ever attempt it, you will meet with such failure and such rebuke 49:06 from the Lord as to make you really repentant that you ever tried those methods that other preachers try. Others may boast about themselves of their work and their ministry and send reports and of their successes and of their writings and um what all the 49:24 Holy Spirit's doing through them. But the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. He will never allow you to report your work. And if you begin it, he will lead you into sub such deep mortification that'll make you despise 49:42 yourself and all your good works. Others may be allowed to succeed in making money and a lot of it or may have a rich legacy left to them by some rich uncle. But it is likely that God will keep you poor because he wants you to have 50:00 something far better than gold. That is a helpless dependence upon him who owns the heaven and the earth and who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and to whom belongs all the silver and the gold in the world. a helpless 50:17 dependence on him so that he, your father, has the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury. The Lord may let other people be 50:33 honored and put forward and keep you hidden in obscurity in the darkness because he wants to produce, listen to this, some choice fragrant fruit through your life 50:51 for his coming glory which can only be produced in the shade and not in the sunlight. You like that? He may let others become great in the in Christryendom but keep you 51:08 small. He may let others do a work for him and get the credit for it with Christendom acclaiming it. But he'll make you work and toil on without knowing how much you're doing or what results are coming from your 51:27 work. You know, like you sew a seed and you witness to people and the guy may get converted somewhere else. Well, you never know it. You never know the results of your work, the results of all the labor you're doing and witnessing to 51:38 others. And he won't let you know how to do it. And you won't know what is being accomplished through your work. And when something is accomplished to make your work, listen to this, still more precious, he will let somebody else get 51:53 the credit for the work that you did. Isn't that great of the Lord that somebody else in the church got the credit for what you did secretly? Boy, you must you must be precious in God's eyes. You want to be like that. And thus when someone else gets 52:17 the credit for what you have done, your reward will be 10 times greater when Jesus returns. Do you want that or do you want that credit right now? The Holy Spirit will put such a strict watch over you with a jealous 52:36 love. He'll rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time when other Christians are not feeling bothered that they waste so much of their time which other Christians never feel distressed about. So make up your mind that God is an 52:55 infinitely sovereign being and has a right to do as he pleases with those who will give themselves so completely to him that they say Lord do with me as you please. Don't treat me like you treat half-hearted Christians. 53:14 He may not explain to you a thousand things which happen in your life which puzzle your reason. Why did God allow that in his dealings with you? But listen, if you absolutely sell 53:32 yourself to be his love slave, he will wrap you up in his jealous love and bestow upon you many blessings and give you many revelations on his word and his 53:49 ways which come only to those who are in his inner circle. So settle it forever in your mind that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit. You're a special child of 54:09 God. And he is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, telling you to keep quiet in different situations, or chaining your hand or closing your eyes when he tells you to do it in 54:28 ways that he does not seem to deal with other people. And now when you are so gripped and possessed with the living God that you are in your secret heart pleased and delighted with this way of 54:47 of life over this peculiar personal private jealous guardianship that God has over you and the management that the Holy Spirit has over your life, Then you will have found heaven on 55:07 earth. You can find it if you say, "Lord, I'm willing to pay any price. I want to be available to you. Thank you for listening to me patiently, brothers, all these 55:27 days. God bless you all. It's been a tremendous privilege and honor to serve you. Let's pray. I want you to respond. My brothers, 55:45 sisters, each of you are precious in God's eyes. Even your little children, you're precious in God's eyes. God's preparing you from childhood for a lifetime of service in the body of Christ. Be faithful when you're a little 55:59 child in little things. Don't be like other naughty, selfish children. You're special in God's eyes. If you belong to this church, you're special. There are not many new covenant churches in the world. You belong to one of them. Be 56:15 thankful. Be thankful that your parents belong to this church, that you're here. Always say, "Thank you, Lord, for where you have placed me. Be thankful wives that your husbands decided to come to this church and you 56:33 join them. Be a supporter of your husband. Don't ever be a drag on him. Let him serve God freely and be a blessing in this church. And you brothers who are going away to 56:52 different places, have faith that despite all your past failures, God overlooks your failure and will even use your failure to take you one step higher in the Christian life. He invites you to come up 57:10 higher. He says, "Come up to my heavenly viewpoint. I want you to see things from my heavenly viewpoint in future. God can do a work through the weakest and the smallest person here. 57:29 Through the most stupid and even through the most carnal person who's here now, if you decide today to turn and be wholehearted, there is no end to what God can do. This is the good news. is what God can do. What he did for 57:47 Jesus, he will do for you cuz he loves us as he loved Jesus. Heavenly Father, we want to respond in faith to what you have said and believe that you will do that in the lives of 58:04 everyone here and the glory will all be yours. We promise you in Jesus name. Amen.
