0:00 I think if we're not careful, even as spiritual people, it's easy. You know, dollars are easy to measure because they're quantifiable. And so, we can make the mistake of measuring wealth. But in all of these things, I see this 0:12 the list of things that I just read off is pretty amazing. Things that are better than wealth, victory in our own spirit, having humble companions, obtaining wisdom, having peace in our homes. That's from 17:1. It says, 0:25 "Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife." Um, uh, righteousness in my dealings is better than wealth. Love is better than my wealth. Reverence for God is better than wealth. And so the 0:38 question that all of these verses put to me this week was, do I see each of these things as having more worth than money? Um, when I have money but lack these things, do I consider myself poor? If I have plenty of money but don't have love 0:52 or don't have reverence for God, do I think of myself as poor? And then by the opposite token, if I'm completely broke, but I have reverence for God and I have peace in my home and I have love and I have victory in my own spirit, do I 1:05 consider myself rich? This is something that uh that I want to grow in faith for. I was reminded this week of the blind men who came to see Jesus and he said it's uh Matthew 19, I think. Someone feel free to tell me if that's 1:20 not the right Oh, no. It's Matthew 9 19 is close. Uh, Matthew 9, it says in verse 27, "As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, crying out, have mercy on us, son of David." When he entered the house, the blind men came up to him. 1:37 And Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord." Then he touched their eyes, saying, "It shall be done according to your faith." And the thing that was brought to my um mind this week, brought to my attention 1:51 this week is that he said the same thing. You know, it should be done to you according to your faith. If one of them had said, I think you can heal me of my blindness in one eye, he would have gotten healing in one eye, right? 2:04 But and if one of them said, "I think you can heal me in both eyes," then they would have had a different outcome. But it's because it was according to them uh or it was according to their faith. And the thing that made me think is for for 2:17 all of these things about money, do I believe that victory in my spirit is better than wealth? May it be get done to me according to my faith. Do I believe that love and and peace in my home is better than wealth? May it be 2:28 according to my faith. Do I believe that reverence for God is better than wealth? Then may it be according to my faith. But the point is if I don't have faith for this, if I trust what my eyes see and what the world tells me and what you 2:40 know uh what what the world values, then I won't have faith to believe what God has promised. But if I truly believe what God's promised, then it will be true in my life that love in my home and peace and righteousness and um reverence 2:55 for God, those will be to me greater than uh any wealth that I could have. And um one story that I wanted to share I I I came across in my study of Jeremiah this week is in Jeremiah 44 um in verse basically just to give you a 3:15 little bit of backstory some uh some of some commanders basically came to Jeremiah and said Jeremiah ask the Lord what we should do. We're thinking about going into Egypt because we need to be protected and Egypt seems like a 3:30 good place. asked the Lord if um we should go there. Jeremiah inquired of the Lord and came back and said, "No, no, don't go. Definitely don't go to Egypt. That's not what God wants. He wants you to stay here. If you stay 3:39 here, you'll be blessed." And then the people's response is interesting. It's in 44 verse 16. And it says, "As for the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you, but rather we will 3:52 certainly carry out every word that is preceded from our mouths by burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings, and our princes did in the cities 4:03 of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem." And here's the thing that stood out to me. For then, when we were disobedient, we saw we had plenty of food and we were well off and we saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning 4:16 sacrifices to since we stopped this idolatry, we have lacked everything and we have met our end by the sword and by famine. And the thing that this uh story made me think is that the Israelites made them and we're we're instructed in 4:30 the New Testament to look to the experience of Israel as an example for us. And the example I see here is that Israel mis mistook wealth as the blessing of God. and they saw wealth and they said, "Hey, we're we're burning 4:44 incense these idols. This queen of heaven was a was a foreign god. Um, but we had blessing. Um, and then when we stopped and when we obeyed God, we didn't have any blessing and we didn't have food and we had all this misfortune." And they made the mistake 4:57 of thinking that material blessing or material wealth was God's approval. And um, they ended up being cursed because of it. This ended up being basically once they went into Egypt then Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt and they 5:10 this is what led to the captiv captivity in Babylon was this mistaking worldly wealth for God's blessing and so as it relates to all of these passage all of these verses in proverbs we must be so careful and I want to grow in my 5:25 faith for trusting what God says about what is true wealth and it's not the wealth of this world reverence for God victory in my own spirit having humb humble companions, obtaining wisdom, having peace in my home, being righteous 5:38 in my dealings. These things are what true wealth is. And I need to be careful not to follow the example of Israel and see whether and and determine let my bank account determine whether God is blessing my life, but rather say, do I 5:55 have peace in my home? Then I'm wealthy. Do I have righteousness? Do I have victory in my spirit? Then I'm wealthy. And it and and be at peace even if my bank account's empty. But if these things are true, then I can know that 6:06 I'm blessed of God. Okay. Hey guys, good morning. Um, so I'd 6:27 just like to share a quick thought about the the memory verse that we've been going through in in Philippians. And I just want to share about the verse where Paul says forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to to what lies 6:39 ahead. And when I think of that verse, I think the one word that I would use to describe Paul is is he's hungry. Hungry in a sense that he's hungry for for spiritual things. And that it's amazing that you think about the life of Paul. 6:53 Think of all the things that he's done um in his life and all the things that God did through him, all the miracles that he did, all the tough times that God brought him through. Yet at the end of all of this, when he's writing this 7:02 in Philippians, he's still hungry for more. He's like, I still want to know God more. I'm still reaching out for that that prize, so to speak. And I just think it's just a wonderful example that Paul gives us that the older he got, the 7:14 more hungry he got to know the Lord. He didn't kind of just become complacent and just taper off. And the thing I was thinking about is, well, why why is that the case? How is Paul able to stay hungry, so to speak, and become even 7:28 more hungry even after he's done all of these things? And the thing that I think there's many reasons, but the thing that stuck to me was that Paul never compared himself. He didn't compare himself to other people. He always compared himself 7:41 to Christ. And that was the lesson um learned for me this week about why he was able to stay so hungry. Because if you think about Paul, he easily could have just looked at the other Christians um in his time and say, "Look guys, I'm 7:51 I'm doing a lot better than these other guys. I've I've I've done more things than them. I've written more scripture than these guys ever will. Um I can kind of just kick back and and relax. I mean, if I were Paul, I I would think that 8:02 way. Um but Paul clearly didn't think that way. And an illustration I I was thinking about this week was think of it like a race. We know the Christian life is like a race, but when you see all the runners on the Olympic uh TV shows, none 8:17 of them run, everyone runs like looking forward. No one ever runs like looking to the side, right? Um because what happens when you run looking to the side, you slow down and you'll never get to your your goal. So in the same way, 8:27 it's kind of like that when we're comparing ourselves to to other people, especially in the sense that if we think that we're we're we're better because by comparison, we lose track of our our focus on on Christ and hence we we slow 8:38 down. So that was the lesson that was learned for me today because I think it would be wonderful if like 20 40 years from now if I'm if I'm still alive to be even more hungry in my faith than I am today. Um, and I think one way to to do 8:52 that is to always compare myself to Christ and not to um other people. That's all. Hello family. I don't know how many people were how 9:11 many of us are challenged and blessed by last week's message by brother Zach about Paul's life. I was truly challenged. uh uh the thing that you know the theme of that message was Paul considered all things rubbish all things 9:27 rubbish that he may win Christ as uh we read in Philippians 3:8 I was thinking about this term rubbish and about this words about the life of Paul and brother Zach was sharing how much God accomplished through the life of Paul uh one man like you and me and 9:46 the attitude of Paul towards worldly things and he explains all of that uh his achievements and his background and all that he did before he knew Christ he consider all things actually in KJV King James version it says dung not rubbish 10:04 by dung so I was thinking about I mean that's why Paul could do so much for the lord Paul's life was a blessing to many people because he considered everything but rubbish I was thinking about my life how how I am treating 10:19 uh the material uh wealth or the blessings and uh what is my focus? So I was challenged with the life of Paul. So I I was looking into my life and so when few years ago I was thinking like I had some stock options from my previous long 10:36 time back 9 years ago. So after I quit the company there was still some stock left and I had to sell it. So everyday morning after I I pray and all that and go and have a cup of coffee see the stock price and say ah if it goes up I 10:51 feel happy if it goes down I feel sad and even now like we look at our properties and all that oh the properties are raising and then you feel something something is happening in you because I I I felt I mean that was a 11:05 test am I considering all these things rubbish one day I'm not going to take anything out uh I naked I came in naked I'm going to go go back to god that's what The word of God says um is how is my attitude? Do I consider them as 11:17 rubbish? He say yeah I need some I need money I need things to take care of my family but what is my internal attitude towards all of that. God clear Jesus clearly said you can either love God or money right you cannot do both. 11:29 Sometimes I try to put my feet in both sides and you know do nothing for both. So uh um I mean my effectiveness for as a Christian will come down if I start loving the whole I said if uh one expression brother Zach uses is Paul's 11:46 marriage to Christ was total uh that uh expression remain in my mind how is my marriage to Christ is it total or am I still loving and getting excited about things of this world what happens if my uh the house value goes down am I going 12:01 to my emotions also go down it's become I'm sad and if it goes up I am I becoming more and more excited. So that really challenged me and I want to press on to that and check my attitude. How am I considering that uh all these things 12:16 rubbish and Paul truly demonstrated that in his life you know and uh he did not not only consider all these things material things as rubbish but he did not even consider his own life as dear to himself. Let's read acts chapter 20 12:29 verse 23 23 and 24. um he was uh he's at Ephesus and uh the Holy Spirit tells him to go to Jerusalem. I mean basically he's holy spirit witnesses to him that there are bonds and afflictions waiting for him and so he's talking to Ephesian uh elders at 12:47 Ephesus as a favors as a part I mean uh uh he says that I will not see you anymore after this and he's moving towards Jerusalem even though the spirit of God him that the bonds and the afflictions are waiting for him and 13:02 verse 24 he says but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of 13:18 God. He's going there to testify to Jews, his own brethren. And God has given him the ministry and now he knows that he's going to be maybe probably maybe killed. He he doesn't know but certainly there are a lot of things 13:30 waiting for him some afflictions but he's not even considering his life dear unto himself uh forget about all the other things but uh his life I mean we love our life so much but he's like that and amazing thing is after that holy 13:44 spirit in verse uh chapter 21 twice actually through different people he confirms the same thing that uh you're going to go uh you're going to go have a lot of afflictions there in we see that in chapter 21 and verse um verse 4 and 14:01 finding disciples we tried there seven days who said to Paul through the spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem that's one thing and again we see that in the same chapter verse 10 and then certain prophet named Agabus who comes 14:15 to Paul and then he binds Paul and then he says thus said the Holy Ghost in verse 11 so that sure so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind a man that wanted this girl and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles Even after three confirmations that he's 14:30 going to go through this process, uh he still went there and he and then he was u even about to be killed and he is rescued by the Roman soldiers and then then he is given an opportunity then he testifies the gospel how Jesus met him 14:45 and then how he changed how he changed his life. So uh what an amazing life uh Paul led and he he did not even consider his life dear to himself. All his goal was to to share the gospel to others to win people for Christ and he became Jew 15:01 for the Jew, gentile for the gentile uh but he's accomplished so much because uh because of his zeal uh and uh we read so much today uh about I mean in the memory verses too uh that he forget forgetting the things behind and reaching forth 15:16 unto those things which are before. He has done so much of damage to the church. He persecuted the church but that's not going to stop him. God has given him a new life and he turned his uh direction of his life and then he 15:30 consider everything rubbish. Uh may may this uh challenge all of us that uh then our lives I'm sure will become more fruitful for God. May God bless these words. Good morning third family. 15:53 I I picked a book last Sunday from here that is I know your enemy. Um by reading that book I got a lot of um enlightenment about God and Satan. 16:12 Um I was really afraid of Satan. I I I even after um becoming a born again Christian I had the fear about the devil but by reading that book and also together with that listening to brother 16:30 Sai's message I was really um encouraged and all my fear about Satan is gone. I can tell you all my fear because uh you can see in James 4:7 we like I know you all 16:48 know these um uh fries and the verses but I just want to um um strengthen you or encourage you again that we may be rooted in that we may be rooted in these verses. Um James 4 4:7 says, "Submit 17:07 yourselves then to God. Resist to the devil and he will flee from you." So if we have a clean life and if we submit to God and resist to the devil, he will flee from us. He will not walk away from us. 17:27 That's I I remember the message of brother Sai. He will not walk away from us but he will flee from us. He will not stand near to us and he will flee from us. We don't need to be afraid of him. Um how Satan became Satan? He was called 17:44 the morning star. He was leading the angels in heaven. There was only one person above him that was God. Almighty God. But this person, this angel Lucifer wanted to go high 18:03 above God. And um because of his pride in his heart, he was thrown down from heaven and he became heaven. Sorry, became uh Satan. Um so in our life too if we have a pride in our life about 18:22 anything about our accomplishments or about our uh beauty or about our wealth or about our education or anything if we have a pride in our heart then we become 18:37 like Satan. We become we come to the level of Satan. That is what is actually happening. Even though we don't know about that when we have a pride only um when we look um to that it's um may not 18:57 be a great thing a big thing but only a pride came into Satan's heart and that pride came into this angel's heart's heart and that made him Satan also um when I became a born again 19:15 Christian. I had this desire in my heart uh to bring more and more people to the Lord uh to talk to the people uh as much as I can and bring more more and more people to salvation. That was still I have that desire in my heart. In the 19:33 same I you all have that desire in your heart to bring more and more people to the Lord. In the same way, Satan also has the same desire in his heart that he has fallen from um away from God and he 19:48 has been um damned to destruction and he fell from God's presence and what his desire is also to bring more and more people away from God. That is Satan's reserve to bring more people lead more 20:07 people estra more people away from God and to be in his company. That is his desire that he works always um that he started with in the garden of Eden um with aid Adam and Eve. He um with his 20:25 tactics with with his coming way he deceived Eve and Adam and he keeps that uh even today he keeps that his tactics is a deceptive tactics even today and he always tries to uh lead people astray from God. That is his 20:44 tactics and we have to as the word of God says we are not ignorant of the tactics of devil. So we have to be very careful and we have to be knowledgeable about the tactics of devil. Then 21:01 Satan brings the fear of death in uh Hebrews 2:14. Uh let us uh look that too. Hebrews uh Hebrews 2:14 and 15 says Hebrews 2:14-15 since the children have flesh and blood 21:20 he too shared in their humanity. So I'm reading from the from the NIV Bible. Uh since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death. That is the 21:39 devil. and free those who all um their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. So the Satan had a power on death and the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection that we have to be very 21:59 knowledgeable about that we have to know about that Satan had the power he had the power um of death uh under Calvary. that uh when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, he lost. Satan lost 22:17 his power of death. He has no more hold on death. And Jesus Christ in Revelation 1 verse 18, I think. Revelation 22:32 1 and uh verse um 18. Yeah. Revelation 1:18, he says, Jesus says, "I am the living one. I was dead and behold, I am alive 22:49 forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." So, Satan do not have the power of death. He was defeated on the cross. He has no no more power um on us. He has no more power. He's already 23:07 defeated. He He may bring um difficulties and hard times and he may tempt us, but he is defeated on the cross and he has um no more victory. Our Lord Jesus Christ has um um 23:24 got victory on on the cross and he is our victorious king and our lord. So, Satan lost his power and Jesus says here in Revelation 11:18, I hold the keys of death and Hades. So, if only Jesus Christ opens 23:43 um the door of the death, door of death with his key, we can go through that. only if Jesus Christ opens the um door to the door to the death with his key and he because he has he holds the key 24:01 of death and Hades so we don't need to be afraid of death anymore because um only if Jesus Christ opens the door to death we can go through that and so we can be sure about that if we uh live 24:21 a holy life if we live according to his purpose. If we live according to God's plan and purpose and keep the word of God and if we submit ourselves to um his uh will we that is I'm quoting from brothers we 24:41 cannot die until we finish uh the days god has planned for us. We cannot die and no accidents or no um no death can happen without the without Jesus Christ knowing it because he um he 24:58 has control over us or he is keeping us safe and sound and his angels protect us and keep us. So um if if we are willing to go his way, if we are willing to submit ourselves to um his 25:16 plan and purpose, we our life will be safe on this earth and we can have an eternal life with our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you.
