0:18 every day of your life. Can you say these words in Psalm 73 verse 25? It's a verse that I started my Christian 0:36 life with 55 years ago and the Lord said this is the way you must live and I tried to live according to it. Psalm 73:25 speaking to the Lord Jesus 0:54 as we do today. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And besides thee, I desire nothing on earth. If you can say that, you're a worshipper. And if you can mean it, 1:12 that means you're saying to Jesus, Lord, from the depth of my heart, I can say to you, I'm not saying this before men. I desire no one on earth but you. If I have you, that's enough. And I desire nothing 1:31 on earth but you. That means I don't desire a house or property or money or health or wealth or anything. If I have you, that's enough. I'll tell you honestly, don't say that too quickly. Think about it. 1:50 If you say it, you have found the secret of worship. Most Christians never worship. They sing. They give praise. They thank God. A lot of our singing is praise and thanks. That's not worship. Worship is here. When you fall before Jesus and say 2:08 to him, every day of your life, Lord, I desire nothing but you. Why do I say, why should we say everything every day of our life? Because it's so easy to say that one day, particularly when we are young and we're not married and we 2:25 are very dedicated and wholehearted and then other things come along. We we we get married and we have children and we have accumulated a little wealth and then we need to say that again because it's very easy to lay your Isaac 2:39 on the altar and um a few years later take him back. What is it that the Lord was testing in Abraham? Am I really more to you than the most precious thing on earth? And I believe the reason why many Christians do not progress in their 2:56 Christian life is because they cannot say this. You don't you don't become spiritual by knowing more of the Bible. It's good to know the Bible. But you become spiritual when you're a worshipper. We must be worshippers more than 3:11 anything else. That is the greatest thing of all. First book of the Bible written was the book of Job. And what we see there is a man who worshiped God. Job chapter 1 is a very important chapter. It's the first chapter that God wrote in the Bible long 3:29 before Genesis. Job lived 500 years before Moses who wrote Genesis. And in the first chapter of the Bible, you read of a worshipper, not a preacher. You read about preachers later on in the book and they were God said, "I don't I hate those preachers." 3:45 But the contrast you see in Job is between three preachers or four preachers and a worshipper. Job was a worshipper. He wasn't just quoting scriptures to others. He was one who when he lost everything, he it says he bowed down and worshiped 4:02 God and said, "I came into this world with nothing naked. I didn't even have a stitch of clothing when I came to this earth. Everything I had on this earth, God gave me." And he has every right to take it all away. And he has taken it 4:17 away. All the wealth I accumulated, all my children, I worship God. That is the first message that God wanted man to hear. That's why he wrote that in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible that God wrote. 4:35 That's important to understand that. And that's the type of person about whom God could boast to Satan. Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever this church may think of you counts for zero. The opinion of this church about you is 4:53 fit for the trash can. Throw it there. But what the devil thinks about you is more important than what everybody in this church thinks about you. And of course, what God thinks about you is most important. But remember this that 5:07 the devil's opinion about you is much more valuable than the opinion of men because most people don't know anything about your private life or a lot of details of your the way you live at home, how you talk to your wife. Your 5:22 devil hears it all the time. So don't be fooled by people thinking you're very spiritual. Throw that in the trash can and ask yourself what the what does the devil think about you who sees you all the time? What did the devil think about 5:35 Job? God could boast about Job to the devil and say, "Have you seen that man? He's not like those preachers, Alifas and Bildad and Zofar and not even like Eli who is a little better than them. Job, there's not a man like him on the 5:49 face of the earth." That is the challenge that comes to us from the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. And that that can be our testimony too. If we can say this every day of our life, Lord, I really desire nothing on earth for you 6:06 more than you. When I get up in the morning, I I seek to worship God all alone. I don't even have to open my mouth. Worship is something from the heart. And all you have to sincerely say to God as you begin every day is, "Lord, 6:20 this day I desire nothing but you." I'll tell you what'll happen in your life. You'll be 100% freed from murmuring and complaining. Do you know why you murmur and complain at home or at place of work or when the traffic is heavy? It's 6:38 because we desire something other than Jesus. You want a comfortable life. You want less traffic on the road. You want the food to be up to the mark or something else. You don't want to be irritated at home. That means you are more important in 6:57 your life than Jesus Christ. If a man says to Jesus, I desire nothing but you. I don't desire a comfortable life at home. I don't desire that I should be free from all tension and free from sickness or free everything must go 7:11 smoothly according to my way. A lot of Christians are like that. They imagine that they love Jesus Christ. I tell you they don't. And because they in keeping on increasing in Bible knowledge and in a church like this, you can increase in 7:28 Bible knowledge by leaps and bounds and fool yourself that you're spiritual when you're not. Permit me to speak to you lovingly as a father would to his children. Make this the goal of your life, my brothers and sisters. This is what Jesus 7:46 came for. He didn't come to produce a bunch of people who sing well or increase in knowledge. He came because he loved us and he wanted a people who will love him supremely. Once he told his disciples, if you love even your father or mother or wife or 8:04 children more than me, you're not worthy of me. That's what he said in Matthew 10. Do you know that if you love your job or your money more than Jesus, Jesus says, "You're not even worthy of me." Imagine hearing Jesus say to me, "You're not 8:22 worthy of me. Oh Lord, why use everybody in the church thinking so highly of me? If you turn around and say to me that I'm not worthy of you, does the praise of men mean more to you than the approval of God?" 8:41 Dear brothers and sisters, live before God's face. I urge you, it's very easy to slip back from that. You know, maybe we turned wholeheartedly to God in the day when we were converted and sinners, but things have gone well 8:58 with many of us in the last few years. Maybe you prospered in your business and um you're part of a good church now. You're not part of a dead backsliden type of church. All these things can go to our head and we can be I believe that's one of 9:19 the great dangers of people pursuing holiness that we can begin to think wow like the Pharisee. Lord I thank you I'm not like other men. I thank you that I'm not like other churches. We're not like other churches. We're special. We're different. We hear 9:39 the truth. We preach the truth. We're not ashamed. We're not after money. We are after God and all this type of stuff. I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other men. That's exactly what the devil wants you to think. You can never think like that 9:59 if Jesus is the passion of your heart. If you say to him, Lord, I desire nothing on earth but you. Even ministry is not important for me. I say that I've been 50 years in the ministry. But I say to the Lord 10:16 regularly, Lord, my ministry is not my God. You can take it away. My health is not my God. Money is not my God. I'm prepared to live very simply all the rest of my life. Jesus is everything to me. Those are the 10:35 people who will live the most useful life for God on earth. Even if they're not great Bible teachers or evangelists or church leaders or anything. Many who are last on earth will be first in that day because the Lord is looking for those 10:52 for whom he is most precious. Those of you who are married, husbands, let me ask you, what do you desire from your wife? Do you desire someone who cooks well? or who keeps house well. You ask yourself as a husband, what do 11:08 you desire most of all? If you're a good husband. Now, if you're one of these useless worldly husbands, you'd want someone who cooks well and washes your clothes, keeps the house, and but if you're really Christian husband, what do you 11:19 want from your wife? Most of all, it doesn't matter one bit. If she doesn't know how to cook or keep house, if she loves you with all your all her heart, that's what you want. But that's exactly what Jesus wants, too. It's not your service. It's not 11:35 attendance in church. It's that you that he is more precious to you anything else on earth. That's the secret of a good marriage. And that's the secret of a good relationship with Christ. And that's a way to spiritual growth. And the reason 11:53 we read the Bible is because it's only through the Bible that I get get to see more and more of my bridegroom. I feel sorry for people who don't um read the Bible regularly and study it 12:13 cuz I don't believe they'll get to know Jesus. How can you know Jesus without which book in the world tells me about Jesus? no book except the Bible. And if you're really passionate about knowing Jesus, you got to read the 12:27 Bible. That's what happened to me. I when I was converted and that God gave me that verse right at the beginning 55 years ago, I became passionate to read the scriptures and to study it because I see here's where it tells me about my 12:42 bridegroom. I want to know all about him. And I see something happening in America nowadays in churches that I preach. I find a lot of people don't even bring a Bible. I don't believe that was true in America 12:58 60, 70 years ago. But we become lazy. They don't even bring a Bible to a meeting. Can you imagine children going to school without bringing their school books? This is the tragedy. I remember in our church we had the option of u projecting 13:15 every verse on the screen scripture so that whenever a verse is quoted project on the screen I said I'll never allow that in my church it'll make people lazy they won't bring their Bibles and the end result will be they'll never know 13:28 their Bibles people who don't bring a Bible I can tell you in Jesus name you don't know the Bible you will never know it there's something about even people on the street seeing a man taking a Bible and going to a meeting. It's a witness 13:44 for Christ in a godless world. In our church back home in Bangalore, whenever I uh quote a scripture, I see everybody heads everybody's head is down. Everyone cuz they got a Bible. When I preach in most church in America, they're looking 14:02 up and staring and I guarantee they don't even know what the verse says. They're not interested. is because they don't love Jesus. You cannot be like that if you love Jesus Christ. My desire, my brothers and sisters, is 14:17 not to instruct you. It's to lead you to love my savior, to lead you to know him and love him. Because this is what the devil is leading people astray from. We got to see that. In 2 Corinthians, 14:35 you know, Paul was writing, let me begin with one Corinthians. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter two, he says, "Brethren, I determined verse two to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." 14:55 Now, there are many people who quote that verse and say, "That's all I'm going to preach. Jesus Christ and him crucified. But you know that was spoken to people who were babies. That's milk. He says in chapter 3 verse 2, I gave you 15:13 milk to drink. That's milk. That's for a baby. Jesus Christ died for your sins. Are you Did you sin? Just confess it. The blood of Jesus will cleanse you. That's baby food. So to boast and say, "Oh, I'm a preacher. I only preach Christ and him 15:31 crucified. Well, then you must be preaching to babies all the time. Your church must be full of babies. See what he goes on to say. I determine not to know anything but Christ and him crucified so that your faith should not rest in 15:48 the wisdom. And yet 1 Corinthians 2:6, yet we do speak more than that wisdom among those who are mature. But you guys are not mature. Because you're not mature. I can only tell you Christ died for your sins and your sins can be forgiven. 16:05 Don't worry. God loves you. No matter how much you sin, he'll forgive you. The blood of Jesus is always there. That's because you're babies. But though among those who are mature, I can speak wisdom. It's like you tell a 16:18 kindergarten class, listen, let's learn to say cat is cat and bat is bat and let's learn 2 plus 2 is four. Well, how long are you going to sit learning that? It's like a kindergarten teacher saying, "I'm determined not to 16:32 know anything except among you except, you know, reading simple words and uh adding couple of digits together. But among those who are a little mature, those who want to press on in their education, then we can teach them something more. 16:48 We can teach them physics and geography and history and calculus and mathematics and so many things which you babies are not interested in. That's what Paul is saying. Among those who are mature, we can speak wisdom not the wisdom of this 17:06 world but the wisdom of God which is like a mystery, a hidden wisdom which God predestined for our glory. I don't believe we can partake of the glory of God fully if we don't seek to press on to maturity. We must not be 17:24 satisfied as babies. And when we seek to press on to maturity, it says here, there are things which our human eye cannot see. Verse 9, 1 Corinthians 2:9, which our human ear cannot hear and which our mind cannot understand. 17:43 But God verse 10 reveals them through the Holy Spirit. That's why as um a person who's wanting to press on to maturity, he's got a passion to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit in fire. He's got a passion that the Holy Spirit 17:59 will fill his inner being so that he can show him those things which human eyes can never see. things in the things revealed by God through the spirit. It's the very thoughts of God. It says in verse 11 in the last part, the 18:18 thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. You know, it's an amazing thing that the Holy Spirit has come to reveal to me how God thinks. Like a wife after she's lived with her 18:37 husband a number of years knows how he thinks. I mean the day she gets married she may not know what his favorite food is or what he wants at home or different things or the way he what he values but after she's lived with him a few years 18:53 she knows so many things about his way of thinking and his way of living. And that's one of the wonderful things that we come to know the thoughts of God if we are really walking with the Lord every day. And the more we get to know the thoughts 19:10 of God, we begin to behave like him. It's been a tremendous grief to me to see a real grief to my heart to see people who have heard some of these truths for so many years 19:27 still losing their temper at home, still murmuring and complaining. I say, "What in the world have you been listening to in the church all these years, just accumulating knowledge, just trying to get a reputation before 19:43 other believers? You're a hypocrite." I say, "You're a first class hypocrite. Repent of your hypocrisy. I don't want your blood to be on my hands." And that's why I say that. Get to know the thoughts of God. Humble yourself. Grow in grace 20:02 and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't be satisfied that you're better than others. Press on. This is God's the burden that and later on in second Corinthians he writes to the Corinthian church. 2 20:21 Corinthians chapter 11. He says the reason you know Paul spoke very firmly to these Corinthians why in chapter 4 he said shall I come to you with a rod only a father would speak like that 20:41 shall I come to you with a rod he says and he says in chap 2 Corinthians 11:1 I wish you'd bear with me a little in my foolishness you know they thought this guy speaks so strongly and chapter 10 verse 10. His letters are 21:00 weighty and strong. He speaks so strong this man Paul but his personal presence is very unimpressive. He speaks strong but he's not a very impressive personality. 21:19 He says, "Okay, 11:1, you can bear a little, bear with me in my foolishness, whatever you may think of me. The reason I speak like that," he says, "is I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy." You know, that's the heart of a true 21:34 shepherd. A true shepherd is not one bit bothered what his sheep think about him. He's bothered the sheep will get good pasture and be healthy. free from sickness 21:51 and grow. And that's how Paul was. I'm jealous for you, he says, with a godly jealousy because I'm like a person who is preparing a bride for Jesus Christ. a bride for Jesus Christ that I might 22:12 present you as a pure virgin to him. The Lord is looking for a pure virgin and a true shepherd will long to make 22:30 the church he's responsible for to present it as a pure virgin to Christ one day. I believe all of us should have that heart. I mean, if you have parents, you need to have such a heart for your children. And you got to start very early when 22:48 they're one year old. Start preparing them to be a pure virgin for Jesus Christ one day. If you work on it from the time they're one, you will achieve it. The Bible says, "Train up a child when he's young, when he's old, he will not depart from it." 23:05 and you've determined that in your heart more than anything else, you're going to prepare your children to be a pure virgin for Jesus Christ, protected from the influence of the world, living in the midst of the world, but not of the world. You're not making 23:21 your children monks and nuns who have no contact with the world. They live in the midst of the world, but they're unaffected by it. Think of Moses' mother who trained her son just for a few years so well that when he grew up in the 23:33 midst of Pharaoh's palace, the most wicked place on the face of the earth, he came out pure at the end of that time saying, "I don't want the wealth of the world. I don't want the honor of Egypt. I want the reproach of Christ. I want to 23:47 be with God's people." I mean, if an Old Testament mother like Joabed, the mother of Moses, could do that, why can't we do it today with the power of the Holy Spirit? Why can't we train up our children so when they grow up, they're going to 24:01 refuse the wealth of the world and refuse the honor of men and refuse the pleasures of sin and decide to live for Jesus Christ? Every one of them. If you have 10 children, all 10. That must be the passion of our heart. a 24:17 godly jealousy because we believe this is the most important thing in life. Yes, we must train our children to have some earthly profession. Important, very important. I believe that that I must train all my children to earn their own living 24:36 because I didn't want them to become a parasite on the church or a parasite on society or beggars and tramps and homeless. No, we don't want our children to be like that. But that's not the main thing. The main thing is that they must 24:50 have a passionate love for Jesus Christ. And the same with we have a responsibility for one another. Don't say that's the responsibility of the elders. We got some elders in the church. They'll do that. Don't say like Kane, am I my brother's keeper? You are 25:05 your brother's keeper. Don't say am I my sister's keeper. You are your sister's keeper. If you're older than other sisters here, you have a responsibility for them. If you're older than other brothers here, you have a responsibility for them. It's like in 25:18 a home, you know, it's not dad and mom who takes care of everything. Think of a home with 10 or 12 children. Don't you see the older children taking responsibility, the older boys and girls doing things around so that I mean dad 25:32 and mom very little very little to do when the older children take responsibility. Think of a church like that where the elders can sit back because there are others who have grown up to maturity and who are taking responsibility to encourage and shepherd 25:48 and um maybe call up the other brothers and find out how they are. That's what it means to be your brother's keeper, to be your sister's keeper. Not just to see if see if they're sick, but you know to fellowship with them once in a while to see how 26:04 they're going spiritually. That's a responsibility we have. I I remember once in my own church in a bit of a humorous vein, I said uh a lot of you like to be elders, right? Okay. I'm here by appointing all of you as elders 26:21 to everybody younger than you right now. Now, take responsibility for them and shepherd them, bless them, encourage them, find out how they're growing spiritually. There your elders now. What more do you want? What does it mean? You want a title? You 26:39 want to stand up in front? Oh, no. Be mature. Let's take responsibility. Just like what would you think of a home with our 10 or 12 children? Here's the the 20-year-old boy sitting lazily around and the 19year-old girl just 26:55 lazing around and making mom and dad work hard in the kitchen and mow the grass and do everything in the house and the children are all lazing around. What type of home would that be? But I tell you, many churches are like 27:07 that where they leave the elders to do everything and they take no responsibility. Now that's okay if you were born again yesterday and I say if you're born again within the last two years permitted. But if you've been a believer for more 27:23 than 2 years, it's about time you began to help the little babies and the ones younger than you and not just sit back lazily and think only of yourself and have your whole life centered around yourself. Where am I growing spiritually? Everything's okay 27:41 with my family. No, that's not the way. That's the that's the thought life of a baby. A mature person always thinks how can I help somebody else? How can I bless somebody else? I don't want any title or position in the church but I want to be 27:58 mature and I want to have a godly jealousy that that person should be a pure virgin for Christ. And he says I'm afraid 2 Corinthians 11:3 that like the serpent deceived Eve 28:15 by his craftiness. any of you are I mean it's good to be smart and clever that's okay but if any of you are proud that you're smart and clever I tell you you're no match for the devil he's 28:32 smarter than you he's cleverer than you craftier than you and he'll make a complete fool of you if you're proud of your smartness and your cleverness the only person whom the devil cannot tackle is a person who's humble. He's 28:50 scared of humble people. The only person the devil's afraid of is a humble man or a humble woman. He can tackle all the other Christians. He can tackle the people who are proud of their knowledge and their ability and their 29:04 spirituality. And every one of them, he's scared of the humble. He was scared of Jesus because Jesus was the humblest man that walked on this earth. He was scared of him. He was scared of Moses in the Old Testament because Moses was a humble 29:20 man. It's true. So if you really want to overcome the devil, pursue humility. He He'll run away from you. He's scared of people like that. You such a man resist the you know that verse 2 Corinthians 4, sorry, James 4:7. 29:39 A lot of people know only the second part of that verse. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. You know what the first part of that verse is? Submit yourself to God. Humble yourself before God. Then resist the devil. He'll flee 29:53 from you because God gives grace to the humble. Turn back there. Turn to that verse for a moment. James chapter 4. It's important to know these great verses. James 4, it first says in verse 6, God gives grace to the humble. 30:11 That's the introduction. James 4:6 the last part God gives greater grace and that grace verse six is given to the humble and since God's greater grace is given to the humble you guys should humble yourself submit to God verse 7 30:27 and then resist the devil and the devil will flee from you the devil does not flee from most believers I'll tell you that he does not flee from most believers homes thevil ruling in many homes. He rules over many 30:45 husbands and homes. And we need to be reminded of that. I remember once preaching in a conference back in India that when you get angry, you know the devil's sitting on top of your head. 31:02 And I remember one sister telling me that once she lost her temper at home and her little seven-year-old girl said to her, "Mommy, you remember what brother Zach said that when you lose your temper, the devil's sitting on top 31:17 of your head?" And she said, "That really spoke to me." My seven-year-old daughter told me that. She heard what you said in the meeting. Yeah. resist the devil and he'll flee from you. 31:34 But otherwise, if you're not humble and you're not seeking to go down and humble yourself, you're not getting grace. And one mark of not getting grace is you're not able to overcome sin because it says sin shall not rule over 31:50 you. Romans 6:14, when you're under grace, that's the clearest proof of a man receiving grace from God, that sin cannot rule over him. When sin rules over me, I have to fall before God and say, "Lord, I have not got grace from 32:06 you. And I have not got grace from you because whatever other people may think of me, you see that I'm not a humble man or a humble woman. Forgive me. I don't want to fool myself and live on this earth. I want to take my Christian 32:22 life more seriously." Dear brothers and sisters, please take the word of the Lord today. Forget the past. Acts 17:30, God overlooks your times of ignorance, but he commands everyone to repent today and take it seriously. 32:40 Resist the devil. It's not God's will that we should be running away from the devil. I'll tell you what God's will for us is that the devil should be running away from us. That's from James 4:7. But that's only before humble people. 32:54 Take James 4:6 and 7 seriously and go before God and meditate on it and say, "Lord, why isn't the devil running away from me? Why isn't the devil running away from my home? Why isn't the devil running away? Why isn't he scared when he sees that I'm 33:09 coming somewhere?" It should be like that. That's because the devil says, "Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, and so and so I know, and so and so I know, but who are you? I know all about your life. I know all your pride. You're trying to 33:27 resist me. What a shame. It shouldn't be like that. So Paul says in second back to 2 Corinthians 11:3, he says, "I'm afraid lest like the serpent, the devil deceived Eve by his craftiness. 33:46 Your minds should be led astray from the simple pure devotion to Jesus Christ. That's why I started the message with Psalm 73:25. I'm afraid 34:04 that the devil who deceived Eve by his craftiness, who told Eve, "Ah, it's not serious. A small sin is not serious." Do you think God's worried about you're eating a little fruit from this tree? Surely. Don't you know God is a God of 34:22 love? Don't you know that he overlooks mistakes? It's okay. It's not a sin is not a serious thing and uh look how good it is. And just once matter once deceived him, deceived her. 34:40 And you know I for many years I used to think okay the tree of knowledge of good and evil I can understand that means to know what is good and what is evil. In other words uh a life where I know what is good and evil. I don't 34:55 have to consult God about it. Then that's what the devil was trying to get Eve to partake of. You know if you get this knowledge of good and evil in you won't have to keep going referring to God every time. Shall I do this? Shall I 35:09 not do this? Shall I do this? Shall I not do this? You won't have to. You'll be a little more independent of God. You won't be an evil person. Look at all I mean, look around at the world at the atheists and non-Christians. There are a 35:23 lot of very decent people in the world. I've known atheists who won't tell lies, won't cheat, are faithful to their wives, don't murder anybody, who more or less keep the ten commandments, don't worship idols. 35:42 You know, they're good people. They have a knowledge of good and evil, but their knowledge is they they don't need God. They've got the knowledge resident within themselves. They say, "Why do I need God? I'm not like these 35:56 murderers and thieves and adulterers. I'm living an upright life. That's exactly what Adam got and Eve got when they parttook of that tree. And that's what the devil wants because that doesn't look like evil, right? You look 36:07 at these these lot of decent people and say, "What's wrong with them?" A lot of Christians even say, "Well, they'll go to heaven, right? What happened to Adam and Eve when they got the knowledge of good and evil?" They were turned out of God's kingdom. 36:22 That's what the devil wanted. We need to understand this. And then I used to think what is the tree of life now? I never understood it fully till I read this verse. 2 Corinthians 11. The devil led Eve 36:40 astray from the tree of life. What was the tree of life? Simple, pure devotion to Jesus Christ, to God. to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. A verse that we can 36:59 quote very glibly. But what does it mean? It means to say to Jesus and today for us, this is the tree of life. To me, this is the tree of life. The devil led Eve astray. We can say from the tree of life. And that tree of life is defined 37:17 here as devotion to Jesus Christ. Simple pure devotion to Christ. It is to turn to Jesus and say, "Lord, I desire nothing on this earth but you. And when I get to heaven, I desire no one but you. 37:35 I'm not looking for the golden streets or the pearly gates or mansions. What'll I do with a 10-bedroom mansion in heaven? Is that what you're looking forward to?" You know, we sing in that song, I'm satisfied with a little cottage below, 37:55 but I've got a mansion in the over the hilltop. Is that what you're looking forward to? I'll tell you honestly, I'm not interested in a 10-bedroom mansion in heaven. You can have it if you want, even if God gives it to me. That's not 38:07 what I'm interested in. What are you looking for? Crowns? Going around with crowns in heaven? How many crowns? Four, five, one on top of each other. Is that what you're looking forward to? Or some others say, "Well, well, I'll be 38:23 finished with all this sickness and the problems I have here." I'll tell you honestly, my relationship with Christ has come to this place where I say, "Lord, I'm willing to be sick for all eternity if I can be with you. 38:42 I desire nothing in heaven but you. I don't even desire health." I once said to the Lord, "Lord, I'm ready to go to hell. If you're there, that'll be heaven for me. I desire nothing in heaven but you." 39:01 I don't know who this guy as as who wrote that, you know, Psalm 73. It wasn't David, but he must have known the Lord in an amazing way to write a verse like that. 39:18 I I've tried to find a better verse than that that defines worship. I haven't been able to find it. Where I desire nothing on earth and nothing in heaven but Jesus Christ and God. 39:34 That's all. There is a beautiful hymn which you probably sung here. God. My God, how wonderful thou art. Thy majesty, how bright. It's a hym of worship. And in the last verse of it, it says, "Father of Jesus, 39:54 loves reward. What rapture it'll be. Prostrate before thy throne to lie and gaze and gaze on thee." People say, "Won't that be boring just 40:12 to gaze upon God?" Have you seen true lovers how they keep looking at each other into each other's eyes? You ask them, "Isn't it boring constantly looking at your wife like that?" Well, those who are fed up with their 40:31 wives, I suppose it is boring. Those are fed up with their husbands, it is boring, I suppose. But when you really love Jesus, it's not going to be boring. I don't think so. I'm looking forward to the day when I see him face to face and I can 40:48 I don't think I'll have eyes for anybody else. Like we sing in that song. Uh I want to see my savior first of all when I get to heaven. I shall know him. I shall know him by the print of the nails in his hands. I shall know him. 41:07 So he says the devil led Eve astray from that simple pure devotion to Christ. That was Paul's prescription to the Corinthian Christians to mature. See if you want to become mature, you 41:25 better develop a simple pure devotion to Christ. Everything else will flow out from that. When you read scriptures, don't study the scripture to get knowledge. Don't study the scripture to preach sermons, but look into the 41:39 scriptures and let the Holy Spirit show you the beauty of Jesus there. God has given us his word to show us the beauty of Jesus Christ. And as you see the beauty of Jesus there, you'll be drawn to him. You'll love him. We need a stimulus for our love for to 41:57 be fervent in our devotion to Christ. And the first stimulus for that love for Christ is what's mentioned in 1 John 4 and verse 19. We love because he first loved us. So 42:15 1 John 4:19, we love him because he first loved us. So if you don't love the Lord more, the reason must be that you haven't understood how much he loved you. We all know the verse God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son 42:34 when yeah we'll all say Jesus loves us and all that and God loves us but maybe you don't know how much he did how much that love is perhaps we have not meditated enough on the cross 42:50 we must go beyond the little baby knowledge of Jesus where you think of his suffering his nails and his whipping and weep because we think of that and to go a deeper understanding of the cross where we see that that was not the worst 43:07 part of his suffering. The worst part of his suffering was when for 3 hours on the cross the father forsook him for my sake. That's the love we need to see. That he forsook him and then for three hours on the cross Jesus experience the hell that 43:26 I should experience for eternity. That's the worst part of the cross. When I was a Paul said when I was a child I thought like a child. When I grew up I put away childish things. Uh so when I was a child I understood Jesus 43:41 the physical suffering of it. That's what really moved my heart to tears and all that. But I found something that even after I was moved to tears thinking about the, you know, crowd of Jesus being crucified, I'd still go back and 43:55 live the next week the same old way I lived before. Didn't make much of a difference in my life until I began to see that the cross was more than physical suffering. It was, you see, the punishment for my sin is not physical suffering. The punishment 44:14 for my sin is not physical death. And if that is all that Jesus went through on the cross, then he did not take my punishment. The punishment for my sin is nothing less than eternal hell. And if Jesus did not take that on the 44:31 cross, then he has not taken my punishment. But he did take it. The horrors of an eternal hell were concentrated into three hours on the cross. And he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That was an agony which we will never 44:49 experience and we'll never know even a little bit of what it meant till we get to heaven and see him face to face. But you know, the Holy Spirit reveals to us. I was a Christian for nearly 16 17 years 45:06 before I began to see it. What it meant for Jesus to be on the cross. Now I want to distinguish this from what a lot of charismatics are preaching today that Jesus went to hell for 3 days after he died on the cross and then came 45:24 back. That's a lie. We know where Jesus went on the three days after he died on the cross. He told the thief very clearly, "I'll be in paradise with you today." He was in paradise as soon as he died with the thief on the cross. He didn't 45:37 go to hell. The word hades used in Acts chapter 2 and all is referring to the place of the dead, the grave, but he didn't go to hell. But he did experience hell means being forsaken by God for 3 hours on the cross. And we know that the punishment 45:55 is over by the end of the three hours because he said it's finished. And we know he was facing punishment during those three hours because he never called him father at that time. He called him God. Do you know that in the 46:11 in all eternity the only time that Jesus called his father God was those three hours on the cross. He was always calling him father father except when he was taking my punishment. He says my god my god. That relationship 46:30 was now not father and son but the judge of the universe. Almighty god the judge of the universe the father punishing someone for my sin. Make it personal. And I say, "Lord, I'll never understand 46:49 what you went through. What are you expecting me?" And the Lord says, "The love of your heart. I don't want anything else." I say, "Lord, I'll give it to you. Nobody else will share it. My wife will always be second in my 47:06 affections." It was like that when we got married. It's like that today. And no one, no brother is ever going to be more important to me than Jesus Christ. No, no money, no property, nothing. When I think of what he went 47:22 through on the cross, we love him because he first loved us. And as soon as the three hours were over, once again, it was father. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. I don't know whether you notice that switch from father to God for 3 47:37 hours and then father again the punishment is over. It's all there in scripture, but it's it's like it says it's hidden. And God reveals it to those who really want to see it. Most people don't want to see it. They're quite happy to just 47:53 go to heaven when they die. And they're quite happy to just go to church and have a good testimony. They don't want to see more of Jesus. Let me encourage you, those who are really serious about your Christian life, read the scriptures to see more of 48:06 Jesus Christ. That's the most important thing. That's the way to grow spiritually. Uh, eternal life is to know Jesus Christ, to know God and Jesus. That's the definition of eternal life. And the more I get to know God and 48:24 Jesus, the more I have of eternal life in my And the more I have of eternal life, I'll tell you, it'll be very easy to overcome sin. Be very easy. The more you have of eternal life. The reason why 48:42 fighting with sin is such a struggle is because you don't have the power to overcome it. You're just using the resources that ordinary people have. Willpower, determination, new year's decision uh decisions. And these things don't help. We need the 49:02 mighty power of the Holy Spirit communicating eternal life to us. And eternal life comes through knowing Jesus Christ, knowing God. And if you come to the scriptures in order to know God, to know Jesus, you'll have eternal life. 49:14 That makes overcoming anger so much easier. Overcoming dirty thoughts so much easier to walk away from internet pornography easily and to overcome bitterness against somebody. to it'll be easy to forgive people 49:32 and it'll be easy to be free from the love of money and the love of honor and fellowship with Jesus will become precious and that's what the devil led Eve astray from. So that's the tree of life, passionate devotion to Jesus, that's 49:52 eternal life and that's what the devil turned Eve away from. And that's what he's turning Christians away from. And that's why Paul had this tremendous burden of a passion. He says a godly jealousy that made him use strong words 50:09 not only to the Corinthians even to the Galatians. He says you foolish Galatians who has beitched you that you've turned away from love for Jesus. We don't hear such preachers today. And I'll tell you why. Because we don't have preachers who 50:26 passionately desire with that same godly jealousy that their congregations should have a fervent devotion to Christ. You have people who tickle people's ears and they don't don't want to offend anybody, don't want to hurt anybody. 50:45 Paul wasn't like that. He loved people too much. He loved people too much. That's why he's willing to hurt them. And it's like a doctor who loves a patient so much that he cuts open his stomach. No matter what the pain is, no 50:58 matter how much he screams, says, "I'm going to get rid of get that cancer out of your system." Paul told Timothy, "Be a preacher like that." We need to hear more of that. The second thing that helps us to love Jesus more 51:15 is the knowledge of how much he's already forgiven us. Luke chapter 7 and verse 47. The one who's forgiven little loves little. The one who's forgiven much 51:34 loves much. It's a law. Luke 7:47. The one who's forgiven little loves little. You know the Lord said there was a creditor who a certain money lender had owned. He gave 500 denery to one person and 50 to 51:53 another. He forgave both of them. Who who will love him more? And the Pharisees said definitely the one who was forgiven more. He said that's right. And he says in that connection the one who is forgiven more loves more. 52:08 I mean, if somebody forgave you a debt of $10 million and somebody forgave you a debt of $2, there's a bit of a difference there. Sure. And that's that's the picture here. The one who's he's forgiven me so much. The one who's forgiven more, Jesus said, 52:27 will automatically love more. Now, let me ask you something. Do you really believe you've been forgiven little? I mean, God kept me from so many sins in 52:47 my life, but the closer I've come to God, I'm amazed at how much he forgave me because I see little little things which I never even realized were sin before. And I can see how Paul towards the end 53:04 of his life said, "I am the chief of sinners." I mean, if he said, "I was once upon a time the chief of sinners," we can understand that. But how does he say at the age of 65 in 1 Timothy 1:15, "I am the chief of all the sinners." 53:24 That was not a grammatical mistake. It's absolutely true. And I never understood it fully till the closer I've come to the Lord, I've come to see that there's a thing called unconscious sin. See, most of us are aware of conscious sin. 53:39 Bitterness, complaining, grumbling, murmuring, anger, telling lies, lusting with our eyes, and cheating, and all that other stuff. That's 10% of sin. There's another 90% within us called 53:56 unconscious sin, you know, selfishness and little bits of pride and seeking our own and lot of things which we don't even take so seriously. And then there are what we call the sins of omission. The things that we did not do which we 54:13 don't even call a sin. When was the last time you confessed a sin of omission? I'm pretty sure that it was probably many years ago. committing sin, we confess readily, "Oh, I'm sorry. I did that. I didn't do that." But when was the last time you 54:28 confessed a sin, saying, "I didn't do that." You know the story of the good Samaritan? There was this man beaten up on the road and a priest and a Levite went by. What was their sin? Did they kick him? Did they spit on him? 54:45 No. Their sin was they did nothing. Can can you commit a sin by doing nothing? That was exactly the sin of the priest and the Levite. They walked by that man, they did nothing. That's what I mean by sins of omission. 55:05 So when we get closer to God, we see a massive huge list of sins of omission. For example, uh the Bible says, "Encourage one another daily." One of the biggest sins of omission. Do you encourage your wife? Do you 55:22 encourage your husband? I know you didn't slap him or slap her. That's okay. But did you encourage him? One is a sin of commission. The other is a sin of omission. Perhaps you do a uh ask forgiveness from God if you got upset and yelled at your 55:40 husband or wife. But what if you didn't encourage her? Encourage him. We don't even dream of that as a sin. But it is encourage one another daily. Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12 and 13. So I see that the closer we come to God, 55:54 I'm not trying to put anybody on a guilt trip here. Don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying that the closer we come to God, we see a whole lot of things which we who thought we were so spiritual, we suddenly discover not so spiritual as we 56:07 thought we were because we've been comparing ourselves with others. We are better than them. We're like the Pharisee. Yeah, I thank God I'm not like that publican there or the people in those church there or some of these 56:17 other half-hearted people who come to church. I'm not like them. Lord, I thank you. I'm a little better till we come close to God. We come closer to the Lord and say, "Oh Lord, I'm the chief of all the sinners." And then we realize how much we've been 56:33 forgiven. We never compare ourselves with anybody else thereafter. We say how much I have been forgiven and what's the result of that? The one who's forgiven more loves more. 56:48 So let's just bow our heads before God. By and by when I look on his face, I wish I had given him more. 57:09 By and by, when he holds out his hands, nail pierced hands, I wish I had given him more. We don't want regret in that day. We want to respond today. And I want to invite you to respond to 57:29 the Lord in your heart to whatever he has spoken to you. Heavenly Father, we pray that your spirit will work freely in our hearts, in the areas where you have spoken to 57:48 us, that we can, be brought closer to you, know you better, partake more of your nature, and be those whom you can boast about to Satan 58:05 as your worshippers on earth. Make us all like that, Lord. We pray. Father in heaven, for you long for people who will worship in spirit and in truth, and we want to satisfy the longing of your heart in Jesus name. Amen.
