0:19 So I want to turn with you today to uh one Corinthians in chapter 3. We want to speak a little bit about 0:36 some distinctives that make us different not better. We don't compare ourselves with any church but certain areas where we stand out separate from a lot of things that other 0:55 churches stand for and that is the reason why CFC was started and there's a need for a lot of new people who have come to the church who do not understand 1:13 what we stand for different from other churches and why we stand for certain things and what is the need for another church when there are so many churches already in the days of 1:33 Martin Luther. Some of you may not know about him, but he was the man who about 500 years ago began to proclaim in the Roman Catholic Church, he was a monk and said that salvation is not by giving money to the church. That's not how you 1:51 get your sins forgiven. It's by faith in Jesus Christ. Now today we all know that. But in those days there were many simple Roman Catholic people who believed like many of them believe today also that is through the priest that you 2:07 get forgiveness and you have to give money to the church even to get your dead saints to go dead relatives to go up from what they call purgatory to heaven etc. He took a stand and he was all alone. They tried to kill him. But 2:25 whenever a person takes a stand like that, it ends up with a whole lot of people leaving that church and starting another for the sake of truth. So through the years and particularly in the last 500 years, different groups have come out of a 2:42 group that started well but became a dead church and something came out and they stood for the truth. So I want to mention certain things that we have stood for and which mark out as distinct seven things that we stood for and 3:01 it's good for those who are new new churches that have come up to know and to ask yourself whether in your church also you are distinct in these areas from other churches around or are you just gloring in the fact we are 3:16 connected with CFC Bangalore which means is absolutely nothing. So here are some of those distinctives. I want to turn first of all to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul says in verse 10, "According to the grace of God which is given to me as a 3:35 wise master builder, I laid a foundation and another is building. But let each man be careful how he builds on it." Now, we're not talking about the foundation here. In Martin Luther's time, they were even talking about the 3:52 foundation. How is salvation? Is it by grace through faith? But with many Protestant churches today, that is clear. Salvation is by grace through faith. And we need to be born again. But even that is not clear with all Protestant churches. But with many 4:07 churches, it is clear that we are born again by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving Christ as Lord into our life. But then it says, "Let everybody be careful how you build on it." So here he's not talking about the foundation 4:22 because he says verse 11, as far as a foundation goes, no one can lay any other foundation. It's except what is laid. Christ is the only way we can have a foundation laid in our life by which God can accept us. There is absolutely 4:37 no other foundation. All your good works and all that is worthless. But having laid that many people are satisfied with that. You remember Jesus spoke about people who laid a foundation and they don't build anything after that. That is 4:49 another that's one type of stupidity where people think well I'm accepted the Lord now. That's my sins are all forgiven and I'm on my way to heaven. But then there's another type of stupidity which is to be careless in how 5:04 we build. We are building but we're careless in how we build. And that's what he's talking about it. He says that when you build on top of this foundation, you can build with gold, silver, and precious stones. Those are very valuable. 5:21 You have to pay a tremendous price to buy them. Or you can build with something cheap like wood, hay, and straw, which doesn't cost anything. And each man's work will become evident 5:41 one day because the day will show because it says here that every man's work will be tested or revealed with fire. Now please remember this applies to all of us. When it says each man, it means each woman 5:57 our work will be tested by fire. And the fire verse 13 is going to test the quality not quantity. In the world they emphasize quantity. In the church in CFC we emphasize 6:17 quality. Why is that? Because in the final day the test is not going to be about the quantity of your work but the quality of your work. Not how many tracks you gave out, but what was your motive? 6:36 Not how many thousands of people you preach the gospel to, but how many of them became disciples through your effort. I've seen a lot of people who just go around distributing tracks and witnessing, witnessing, witnessing. And 6:49 I ask those people with all your efforts through so many years and thousands of people you witness to how many people have come and join the church through your efforts. Sometimes the answer is zero. I worked so many hours distributing so 7:07 many tracks, witnessing to so many people, not one of them is saved. I should humble myself and say Lord why are you not bearing witness to my work? I mean any earthly company which spent millions of rupees and produced nothing, 7:20 they pack up long ago. But many Christians don't do that because they don't sit and evaluate what is the result of all my work. Am I just wasting my time? What is the quality of each man's work? So remember this, it's not the quantity that's going to be 7:38 tested. It's very clear quality. And you know for example if you got a 100,000 rupees and one man goes out and buys gold for that 100,000 rupees another man goes out and buys straw or hay who will get more quantity it's pretty 7:57 clear the man who goes out to buy hay and straw will get more quantity but the man who goes out and I don't know what the price of gold is like but I presume he'll get a very small little piece of gold for 100,000 rupees 8:11 And the guy who's got such a huge thing can say he despise this fellow. He can buy wood and make painted to look like gold but it's got no worth because you can't fool the fire in the final day when the Lord tests our work 8:26 it's all going to be put in the fire all everything the B Jesus once said that even the words I speak every careless word that I speak I'll have to give an account in the day of judgment. So what does that mean? That means that even the words are going to 8:42 be put into the fire to see what what did I say and why did I say it and how did I say it. Every little thing is going to be tested for quality and if you believe that you will prepare for that day. I think a lot of people work 8:57 so hard to get admission to medical colleges to IAS and to engineering colleges. They sometimes they go for a whole year and spend lacks of rupees just to get selected. I wish all of us Christians would have that much eagerness to be prepared for that final 9:15 examination that we're all going to face. You and I, everybody here, when the quality of our life and our work and if you have a church, the quality of your church will be tested. I take that very seriously. my life, my 9:31 family and uh not the number of children you had but how you brought them up and not the type number of people in your church but what was the quality of the people there. In other words, what were you proclaiming? Were you 9:44 emphasizing numbers or were you emphasizing quality? So it says here that if any man's work remains, he'll receive a reward. We don't work for reward but the Lord will approve it and that's the greatest thing. But if a man's work is burnt up, 10:02 he'll suffer loss. There will be a loss, but he'll be saved as by fire. That means he he'll see the huge thing that he did all his life is all burnt up. Or if you're an elder brother, all that you did in your life, in your church, and 10:18 all the conference is all burnt up. Will you feel sad in that day? Even if you're saved, I think I'll feel terribly sad even if I am in heaven and I'm saved. If I find that my entire life's work is burnt, even though he's saved, I mean, I'm not 10:35 going to just say, "Oh, well, I'm saved in any case." That's a pretty selfish way to look at it. I'll tell you what I'll feel sad about if it is going to happen like that to me that I'll say, "Okay, I'm saved, but imagine 10:48 I wasted my life. God gave me 20, 30, in my case, 55 years and I wasted it building something that would not last even though the Bible warned me about it. I believe that I if that happens to me, I'm speaking for myself, I will have a 11:05 regret that I will never be able to get rid of for all eternity. How can I get my life back? How can I live my life again? There's no way to live my life again. I can be forgiven but how can I do what the Lord wanted me 11:23 to do in the one life that he gave to me on earth. It's very important for us to take that seriously. It's like these children parents who sent children to some boarding uh in some college and they stay in the hostel and they play 11:41 the fool all their three four years they are there and they don't study and they fail and fail and fail. How do such parents feel about such children? Are you happy to have a child like that? Do you think God is happy to 11:53 have a child who's wasted his entire life on earth not taking seriously why God placed him on the earth? Okay, keep keeping that in mind. I want to mention seven things that are determining 12:11 what uh we stand for as a church. First of all, we don't stand for greatness but holiness. There are many churches which are today 12:28 called megaurches. They stand for greatness. Many churches. Mega churches. Mega churches. Very often you finally hear that the pastor fell into adultery or swindled some money or something like that. We don't stand for greatness. And 12:46 I'll tell you why. Because when you come to the end of the Bible in Revelation where it speaks of the time of judgment and the coming of the Lord, you read of two types of churches. One is Babylon called Babylon and the other 12:59 is Jerusalem. And Babylon is called, you turn to Revelation 17 and verse 5. Babylon the great. Babylon is a church system 13:20 that emphasizes greatness, bigness, mega church, numbers. What is the size of your offering? What's the size of your building? was his number of people who come there and there are people who get a happiness when the number of people in that church 13:39 increase. Now if you're one of those who are happy that you belong to a large church you're in danger of moving towards Babylon. And if a pastor for example has built a huge church maybe there are many stories like that around the world. They started with 13:57 a few people and they built a huge church, but it was Babylon. And I'll show you one two examples of Babylon in the Old Testament. You know, Babylon started with the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. And you 14:17 can see something there which is the root of how Babylonian churches are built today. In Genesis 11, it says, "The people said to one another 14:35 verse 4," "Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower will reach up to heaven and let us make for ourselves a name." That is the principle of Babylon. 14:53 Let us make a name for ourselves in this city that we are the biggest church in the city or we are the ones who got the best music or we are the ones who got the best preacher in town. Let us make for 15:13 ourselves a name. That is how Babylon, the Tower of Babel started. and let's build something huge. And the Lord came down verse five to see and to examine. Oh yeah, the Lord certainly comes down even today to 15:31 examine. I'll give you a second example and that is the Tower of Babel finally developed into the big city of Babylon. And it's the same spirit even though it is what nearly 2 3,000 years later. You see Nebuchadnezzar was the king of 15:51 the big great country of city of Babylon. And even today the people talk about the hanging gardens of Babylon and the wonders of the world of those days. And in Daniel chapter 4 you read about Nebuchadnezzar that he was walking Daniel 4 verse 28 16:08 and 29. He was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon and he reflected. There was nobody with him. He was just walking on these huge walls. I believe the walls were so wide that you could drive a chariot with many 16:25 horses on those walls. And this man had built it. Fantastic man. He was like one of these mega church pastors, King Nebuchadnezzar. And he began to think in his mind as he looked at this city and see what he says. Is this not Babylon the Great, 16:43 this mega church which I myself have built? People came here to listen to me, the great preacher. If I were not here, there wouldn't be this church. And I built it by the might of my power. 16:59 I have such fantastic preaching ability that I built this myself. What? For the glory of my majesty. And these pastors make a lot of money. They 17:19 some pastors take all the offerings themselves and decide how much to spend on themselves. They drive very expensive cars from poor people in their congregation, their donations and things like that. They don't have any 17:33 conscience that troubles them about the fact that they're taking these poor people's money and living in such grand style themselves. This is Babylon. There's a lot of it. The doctrine is right. They believe in the new birth and they may even talk 17:51 about speaking in tongues and everything under the sun, but it is Babylon. I have built it by the great great by my power for my glory. And God humbled that man and made him like an animal till he repented. So that is Babylon the great 18:08 and in revelation 11 times Babylon is called the great. But when you go to revelation 21 you read about Jerusalem which is the pure church. It's called a holy city. 18:24 Jerusalem the holy city. So that's the difference between Babylon and Jerusalem. One is great and the other is holy. One is quantity and the other is quality. So that's the first thing you need to ask yourself about the 18:39 church which you belong to. Do you glory in its greatness or in its holiness in the quantity and the number of people there or the quality of fellowship and everything else that there is there which speaks of quality? So that's the first thing we bear in 18:58 mind. Number one, not greatness but holiness. CFC was built because we wanted to build what pleased God. Okay, we go to the next one. The next thing is not the external life first but the internal. It's not that the external life is 19:18 unimportant. External life is very important. Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works. That's your external life. And glorify your father in heaven. But it's not the external life first, but the internal. Why do we say that? 19:37 Because that's what Jesus said in Matthew chap 23. He said in verse 26, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You clean the outside of the 19:54 cup." That is the external life. But the inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence. In other words, the inside of a cup is dirty. The outside is clean. Now, if I had a choice, I would keep the inside clean. If I want to drink from a 20:11 cup, I want to make sure the inside is clean. Of course, we want both to be clean. Inside and outside, but inside is more important. You know that. We know that in the matter of a cup, we know that in the matter of a plate, the 20:22 outside of the plate is not as important as the inside. Everything. But we don't realize that in relation to our life that your inside is far more important than your outside. Even physically, you know, if you got one or two fingers missing, that's not 20:38 serious. But if you got your kidneys missing, you're dead. That's something inside. There a lot of things inside which are much more important than what is on the outside. And the same thing in our spiritual life, not the external first. but the 20:57 internal. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. See, we base what we believe on scripture. Matthew 5, Jesus said verse 20, I say to you, unless your 21:14 righteousness surpasses, surpasses means exceeds is more than the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not even enter the kingdom of heaven. You can sit in an earthly church, but listen to this. If your righteousness 21:33 is not more than the righteousness of the Pharisees, you're not going to enter God's kingdom. Now, when we hear the word more, immediately our mind says quantity. Every company in the world when they make a balance sheet, the balance sheet 21:52 does not tell us the quality of their products. No, the balance sheet only talks about money. How much did we spend? How much did we earn? What is the profit? What about the quality of your product? That's not even mentioned on 22:06 the balance sheet. That is how it is in the world and that is how it is in every church. How much was the offerings this year compared to last year? How many people in your church this year compared to last year? Quantity, quantity, 22:19 quantity. It's Babylon all the way. If that's what in your mind now, the Lord adds to the church. The Bible says that the Lord adds to the church. But if that's what excites you, you've got the spirit of Babylon. We don't want that. I'm never excited 22:37 when the numbers increase. In fact, when the numbers increased here in CFC, I said, "Lord, what's happening? Are we lowering the standards? That's immediately the question that comes to my mind. How in the world did all these 22:49 people land up here? Somebody's brother, somebody's cousin, somebody's sister. They say CFC is a good church to come. And I say, Lord, all these fellas landed up here. And are they really serious about taking up the cross every day and 23:00 following you? No. This is a nice church to belong to. If we are sick, they'll come and visit us in the hospital. And if there if you're in need, they all there to stand by us and pray for us and help us. What is this, a club? 23:13 Is that the is this the church of Jesus Christ? That's the thing that I'll tell you. It honestly concerns me. It never excites me when I see numbers because I have trained my mind to think like God thinks. I know what is gold, silver, and 23:29 precious stones. And I know what is wood, hay, and straw. And I want all of you to know that especially elder brothers. Matthew 5. So when he says your righteousness must be more than the righteousness of the scribes and 23:45 Pharisees, he's talking about quality. That means the quality of your righteousness must be more than the quality of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. In many earthly things, we value quality. 24:02 If you find a a smartphone made by Apple, in America or by quingling or something like that in China. What are you going to which one are you going to buy? 24:21 The this is only costs about 10% of the cost of this you can buy 10 of those or 20 or 100 of those for the cost of this. Why why do you buy the why do you spend so much money? Cuz you know that will last. It's like that when you buy gadgets for 24:38 your home or a computer or anything. We look for quality. Why is it that when it comes to the Christian life, we don't have that sense. Your righteousness must be more than the righteousness of the Pharisees in quality. They prayed three times a day. 24:56 It doesn't mean you should pray five times a day. They fasted twice a week. It doesn't mean you got to fast four times a week. That's not the point. You can fast and pray as long as you like. But Jesus said the quality when it comes 25:08 to fasting and prayer, he said in Matthew 6, the important thing is not how much you pray, but what is the reason? Do you want people to know about it? Then it's worthless. So immediately after saying your righteousness must be 25:21 more than the righteousness of the Pharisees, he said, "Now I'll explain it. The rest of the sermon on the mount, listen, the rest of the sermon on the mount is an explanation of how our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. He says, 25:40 for example, one, the righteousness of the Pharisees kept them away from murder. That is an external sin. Your righteousness, verse 22, must keep you away from anger. Okay. 25:58 So, if you're careful to avoid murder but not careful to avoid anger in your home, say what you like. You are building with wood, hay, and straw. You're valuing the external life. You're so happy that people know that you never murder 26:15 anybody. So what? Your external life is good. See, this is an explanation. I don't know whether you elders are teaching this in your church. If you're not, you're building Babylon. You better face up to it. Your righteousness must be of greater quality 26:35 than the righteousness of Pharisees. And he gives examples. Number one, there it was, you shall not commit murder and external sin. Now I say to you, anger which is within. See, that is in private. I mean, I've never seen much of 26:50 people getting angry in the church on Sunday morning. We're all so well behaved and courteous and all in Sunday morning. The anger all starts after you go home on Sunday afternoon and the rest of the week where people don't see your 27:03 private life between you and your wife and your family members and neighbors and in your office, but nobody there, no believers there to see it. So, it's sort of hidden. Your private life is dirty, but your public life is so good. The 27:18 external is clean. And then the Lord says, I'll give you another example. The righteousness of the Pharisees, verse 27, is don't commit adultery. But I say, don't even do it in your mind. Don't do it in your heart. Don't look at a woman 27:31 and lust after her in your heart. Nobody sees that. Do you repent of that? That is what we emphasize in CFC. Your righteousness must be more than the righteousness of the Pharisees in quality. And you say, why are you emphasizing that? Because Jesus said in 27:47 verse 20, that is how you will enter the kingdom of heaven. Do you want to enter the kingdom of heaven? That's how he said it. But brother Zach, they don't seem to preach that in uh many other churches. Well, you could have told 28:00 Martin Luther, Martin Luther, well, there are thousands of Roman Catholic churches. They don't preach that salvation is to be by faith. And Martin Luther would say, so what? If they don't preach it, they're wrong. You mean 28:12 Martin Luther, that 10,000 Catholic churches are wrong and only you are right? That's right. Today we believe it because it has become more well known that salvation is by faith. But in that day he fought a lone battle. 28:28 And I believe in many areas those who have been gripped by the message of CFC are fighting a lone battle against so many other people even within CFC who are not gripped by these truths. They think we are being fanatics. Well, 28:45 they don't take God's word seriously. The Lord gives another example. You know he says in their their law was the external righteousness that you shall not make a false wow. Verse 33. That means when you put your hand on a 29:02 Bible you must speak the truth. What the man is saying is when he puts his hand a Bible and wows in a court saying most of the time I tell lies but now I'm going to be speaking the truth because my hand is on the Bible. And the 29:15 Lord says not like that. You must always speak the truth. Your yes must be yes and your no must be no. That's inward righteousness. And then he goes on to say their righteousness was you can love your neighbor but hate your enemy. Verse 43. 29:34 But I say that's not that's the okay external righteousness. The world says you got to hate your enemy and love your neighbor. But I say you must love your enemies too. And the same way with prayer. They say you must pray but I say 29:47 pray in secret. Don't let anybody know how much you pray. You know, I read these biographies of people that said he prayed for two hours and four hours and I say, "How did anybody know that he was praying for two hours or four hours? I 29:58 mean his wife will know, but how did everybody else know?" Or he fasted for so many days. How did people know about it? Because Jesus said, "When you fast, don't let anybody know." Verse 16. But I hear so many testimonies. 30:11 And you know when I read these as a young Christian I said wow I'm just discouraged by reading them. So I said let me see in the Bible where does it say how long should we pray 1 hour 2 hours 4 hours? And I discovered something. You know what the Bible says 30:30 Luke 18:1 pray always. And I discovered in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 17, 181 19, pray without ceasing. Then I thought, oh, that's how I'm supposed to pray. Not for 2 hours or 4 hours, but always and without ceasing. And I was thinking, what is it I do in 30:50 my life without seizing? Breathing. Ah, I discovered something. Prayer for me must be like breathing all the time. I'm not conscious of it. I'm sometimes when I do deep breathing exercises, I'm conscious of it. But 31:10 otherwise, I'm just doing it automatically. And prayer, real prayer is to be like that. A constant dependence upon God. But the Pharisees, it was not like that. They said, "We pray three times a day." It's like saying, "I breathe three times a day." 31:25 That's crazy. This is what I mean by external righteousness. You pray for two hours a day or fast for two two days a week. And giving that's the other thing they people boast about how much they've given. Jesus said if you give something 31:45 particularly to the poor don't let anybody know about it. Let it be secret. Let it be hidden and so on many other things. So this is the second thing not the internal first. Now when I say all these things, this is really the sermon on the 32:02 mount. Don't be anxious. It goes on to say in Matthew 6 three times don't be anxious. Don't be anxious. Don't be anxious. Three times between verses 25 and 34. Now that's an inner thing. Is it important? When Jesus said don't be anxious, who 32:18 knows whether I'm anxious or not? It's an inner thing which nobody can see. But Jesus said if you listen to me and obey these words, you'll be like a man who built his house on the rock. If you don't care for my words and you just 32:31 listen to them like many people do and they don't even bother about anxiety being a sin, they're building on sand and many people are building on sand. So please remember this. This is what makes us distinct from other churches. Not 32:44 that everybody in CFC is free from anxiety or everybody in CFC is concerned about the inner life or everybody in CFC is concerned about holiness more than greatness. No. But from the pulpit this is what we preach 33:03 and we can't guarantee that everybody will accept it. Okay. The third one we go to the third point not activity but obedience. Now in the in Babylon the great emphasis 33:22 on activity. Come on do something for God. And they got to go here and give out tracks and visit hospitals and go here and reach out there and reach out there and give this to the poor and activity activity activity and Monday one 33:37 activity, Tuesday another one, Wednesday another one, Thursday another one and Friday and Saturday you know somebody once asked you mean to you say you have only two meetings a week in your church I say yeah we have two meetings a week 33:50 sometimes we go for picnics also on top of that um they can't understand that activity, activity, activity. We don't emphasize activity. We emphasize obedience. Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. I can't imagine Michael 34:09 telling Gabriel in heaven, "Hey, come on. Don't just sit around there. Go and do something for God." And Gabriel tries to run around doing something for. He doesn't do that. The angels wait on God. Say, "God, what do you want me to do?" 34:22 That looks like a lot of inactivity. But when God tells them to do something, they do it. And a little bit done in obedience to God accomplishes a lot more than a lot that is done with human activity. 34:40 There are about maybe one or two people I read and met and heard of in my life. Maybe just two servants of God who with very little work humanly speaking planted a number of churches 34:58 in their lifetime. They're both dead and gone now. So I was wondering what was the secret of that? I said when I was a young man, how did they do that? because that's what I want to do to get maximum result with minimum of one 35:15 person can do only a certain amount and I discovered that they did not just go around with activity but waited on God to listen what does God want me to do like Paul asked on the road to Damascus Lord what will you have me to do he had 35:33 that attitude throughout life and I said Lord I want to do that it's like the picture I got was of a big garden and the master owns this garden full of trees and I've been appointed to collect fruit from all the trees. So without 35:50 consulting the master I go to that tree over there and I sit there waiting for a few years for a few draw apples to fall and I collect it and I take it to the master and then I don't ask him and then I go somewhere else 36:03 because I want to do something for my master. I go somewhere and I sit under a tree and wait for many years to collect a few mangoes and then take it to him. But the better way is I go to the master and say, "Hey Lord, where do you want me 36:18 to go today?" The Lord says, "Go to that tree over there." And I go over there and I discover the fruit is all ripe, ready to fall. And I don't have to wait a few years. In a few days, I've got a basket full of fruit and say, "Here you 36:31 are. Where do you want me go to next?" Then now you go to this tree over here. And I go and wait under that tree and the tree flute is all again ready to fall. Just pick it up and take it to him. And then the Lord I say, "Lord, 36:42 where to go next?" And the Lord says, "Over here." Isn't that a much better way to work in the Lord's vineyard? That he tells you where the fruit is ready and ripe. Obedience, not activity. And you will discover in the final day that it's not 36:59 those who have indulged in a lot of activity, activity, activity, who've accomplished much for God. They got a name before people. They could write. You know, there are preachers who boast. I've traveled to so many countries. I've 37:09 written so many books and I've preached so many sermons and I've done all this and done all this. What did it accomplish? How many people did it lead to godliness? How many churches were built as a body of Christ as a result of that 37:25 in terms of was it wood, hay and straw or gold, silver and precious stones? You will discover my brother sister in your personal life also. Don't be satisfied that you gone to meetings. You have attended every meeting and you've given 37:39 some money to the church and you've done this that and the other. Have you learned to listen? People ask me how can I hear what God is saying? I'll say the first thing is read God's word. If you read God's word, you will hear 37:52 God speaking to you and you'll become familiar with his voice. And as you become familiar with his voice, then one day when you have to find out God's will in some area which is not written in the Bible, whom to marry, where to go, what 38:05 job to take, what to do, you'll be able to sense in your spirit what you should do. I find a great need for this in my own ministry. I'll get a hundred invitations And I'm not exaggerating. 38:23 And I say, "Now, where shall I go, Lord? I I mean, I'm not going to decide where to go. Where do you want me to go?" I'll give you one example. In 1983 January, that's what 32 years ago, I had an 38:42 invitation to Kerala to from a huge Pentecostal denomination to come and preach at their annual convention about 10 20,000 people. I don't know how many people in Kerala and I also got an invitation from a small group meeting in a house. 39:02 It was around the same time and I said, "Lord, where shall I go?" The natural reasoning is if you speak to 20,000 people, you'll naturally be a greater blessing than if you speak to 20. That's right. Humanly speaking, yes, 39:20 it's always better to go and preach to 20,000 than to 20. U but Jesus always didn't follow that. And the Lord said, "Go to that small room." So I wrote to that big Pentecostal church. I'm sorry I cannot come. I've got another invitation at the 39:37 same time. And they have been they have thought I was crazy that the other invitation was from small group meeting in a house. But you know I went there to that small house meeting and in one visit a church was formed in Kotel. 39:56 that church is still there and from there it has spread to many other parts of Kerala. Now if I had missed that and gone to the other place because my mind said that's better to reach more people that mean that have been there would be 40:09 nothing there. I'm just giving you one example. Think if there are things in your life where you don't listen to God you think that you go by your own reasons say this is better that's better. There is a way that seems right unto a 40:26 man. It says in Proverbs 14, but the end is death. It says it again in Proverbs 16. There is a way that seems right to a man. Is better to wait upon the Lord. So the next thing is we've seen these three 40:44 um not greatness but holiness, not external life but internal, not activity but obedience. and not making converts but disciples. That's the other big failure in so many churches. I'm trying to say why we are distinct. What are the things we stand 41:02 for? We don't want to just bring a person to Christ. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples in all nations. Should we preach and bring them to Christ?" Yes. Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel." Matthew 28:19 says, "Go and make 41:21 disciples." In other words, once you've made them converts, make them into disciples. And not only that, Matthew 28:20, teach them to do every single thing I commanded you. But if I don't care about that, I say, well, one person to Christ, the main aim 41:39 is to get as many people out of hell. Uh, let them somehow get to heaven, go here, go there, and say, "Okay, accept Christ. Accept Christ. Accept Christ." And I'll tell you all these people are doing that. I don't despise them. A lot 41:53 of them with a lot of sacrifice and all that. But they don't realize that a person can be saved and be lost after that. And many of these uh fish that they catch. To use an example, Jesus said, "You're fishers of men." They catch the fish, 42:09 but they put them into a net which has got so many holes in it. The holes means they don't preach the whole count whole truth of God that these fish all escape and then another evangelist comes and collects the same fish again another 42:23 puts them into another net full of holes. This is exactly what is happening in a lot of evangelism today and even the people who are here they don't become disciples. So to use a example from the family, the church is a family. I told you, 42:39 would you be interested in just bringing a baby to birth? Say, "Okay, that's it. We had a baby. Now we move on to the next baby and forget about this one and it'll take care of itself. Put it on the road." That's what the animals do. You 42:51 know, dogs and cats and all. Have you seen how long they spend with their little ones? They don't spend 20 years trying to bring up their little kittens and their dogs, puppy dogs. No. in a few days they say you're on your own go I 43:06 got to take care of myself and they have it's like the story I heard of the rabbits you know rabbits can produce I don't know about 100 kids in a year or something it's fantastic the number of kids a rabbit can produce in a year and 43:21 this rabbit was talking to a lion uh lionist rabbit is boasting I had a hundred kids last year and he asked the lionist how many did you have I had only one but it was a lion So that's the difference between converts and disciples. 43:38 And the trouble with most churches is they accept Christ that's it now we go to the next person accept Christ the next person and by the time you reach some some of these others these first fellers have already lost their 43:49 salvation. We believe just like in a family when a child is born we have to nurture it bring it up for 18 20 years 25 years set it on its own feet so that it can take care of itself and then we have done our 44:06 task not just oh we had a baby that's the difference between converts and disciples what a lot of time you think a father and mother is crazy if they just have babies and don't take care of But this is exactly what's happening in 44:22 in church. What all we teach our children, we teach them to brush their teeth, to go to the toilet on their own, to shower, to wear their clothes, and teach them how to do their homework on their own. How many years we spend? 44:37 This is how a true church and a shepherd and a father in a church seeks to bring up people to maturity. That's the only type of church I want to build. And that's the only type of church I want to belong to. And if you have a common 44:52 sense, that's the only type of church you'll belong to. Not converts, but disciples. And a disciple is a learner and a follower. That means one who is learning from Jesus through the Holy Spirit through the scriptures. We teach them the 45:11 scriptures just like you teach your children. Always think of converts and disciples as babies and grown-up children who are on their own. And exactly what you do in your home is what we must do in our church. I mentioned 45:25 earlier that Jesus sat and taught because he was teaching a family. He was not like a school teacher standing in the class and teaching people. He was sitting down and teaching the family. This is the way we must do things. 45:40 So the church is a family. Okay, the next thing that we go on to after that please remember these things the things that we stand for as a church and where we are to be distinct from all the other churches. Um 45:59 number five not giving money first but our body and mind. In the Old Testament, the main thing they were supposed to give to God was what is called the tithe. 46:16 The tithe means 10% of whatever you were working with. It was not money because they were not working in offices and factories and earning a salary. They were all farmers and herdsmen. So that tithe was sheep or bulocks or 46:35 grain always in some kind which they had to go and gave to the Levites who did all the work in the temple. They were not supposed to have any property the Levites. So that that was the arrangement God made for the tribes of 46:49 Israel. In the new covenant there is not even a single word about tithe. There is not a single word that Jesus spoke saying you must give money to my disciples. He never said that. 47:08 If the apostles were called by God, they got to trust God to provide their need. Then God will move people to meet their need without their having to ask for it. The emphasis in the New Testament giving was always giving to the poor. 47:24 Throughout the New Testament, I could show you numerous verses on that. The emphasis was not on money. It was on giving your body to the Lord. See Romans in chapter 12. This is the New Testament 47:43 standard. Romans 12. I urge you therefore, brethren, in view of the mercies of God, in view of the fact that God has done so much for you, what shall you give to God in return? If you ask an Old Testament Israelite, he say, "Well, 10% of my grain." And I make 48:01 sure it's exactly 10%. I weigh it in a balance and say, "Here's 10% of the little seeds and everything that grew in their garden." But in the New Testament, it says, "What shall I give to God in response to his tremendous blessing upon 48:17 me?" And the Lord, the word of God says, "Your your body, your body as a living sacrifice which is acceptable to God." This is the way you worship God. It says, "So what does it mean to give my body?" 48:35 It means to you know I'll tell you in the Old Testament uh there was a burn offering called a burnt offering which is not a sin offering. Sin offering was to confess your sins. Burnt offering is a offering of gratitude to God and you take a 48:51 bulock and you couldn't just put the whole bulock there on the altar. You had to cut it into pieces and then put it. Now there's such a lot of labor. You're going to burn it finally. So why in the world you want to cut it into pieces? 49:02 Why not just burn the bulock like that? Kill it and burn it. But there was a principle there. Cut the bulock into pieces and then burn it as an offering. In other words, take the parts of your body one by one and say, "Lord, I give it to you." It's 49:17 very easy to say, "Lord, I give my body to you." Hang on. Hang on. Let's cut it into pieces. Lord, here are my eyes. I place them on the altar. For years and years and years, I have looked at whatever I felt like looking. 49:34 But now, it's on the altar. I cannot look anymore. It's yours. Your my eyes are yours, and I'll only look at what you tell me to look at. I've been reading whatever I like with my eyes, but I put my eyes on the altar. I'll 49:46 only read what you want me to read. If anything is dirty or polluting me, I will not read it. I will not look at it. So much of information goes into our mind through our eyes. And you'll never get victory over dirty thoughts until 49:59 you control your eyes. If you want victory over dirty thoughts, first begin with your eyes. The problem with all the thoughts in your mind is because of what you read and saw with your eyes. And the Lord says, "Give that as a sacrifice." 50:11 Okay. Now, Lord, I give my tongue. I'm cutting up my body now. My tongue. What a lot of things we say with our tongue. There's a verse in the Psalms which says, we read that yesterday. We say, "My tongue is my own. I do what I like 50:25 with it. Well, most even many Christians are like that. I'll say whatever I like. Well, then your tongue is your own. You haven't given it as a sacrifice to God. You can give 10% or whatever you like. Now, supposing I were to offer you this 50:40 option that you go to Christians and you offer this option. Listen, you have two options. Okay? one, calculate 10% of your income and give it to God's work in the church. Option number one. Option number two, every day 51:00 you're never to look at or read anything that God doesn't want you to look at or read. Every day you must not speak a single word that God doesn't want you to speak, your tongue. And you must never let your feet take you to some place God 51:13 doesn't want you to go. You must not allow your mind to think about something God doesn't want you to think. You'll say, "Hey, hey, here's your 10%. Just let me have my body to myself." It's much easier to give 10%. So, you go to a church where they're 51:28 always emphasizing giving your money, you immediately know that's an old covenant church. In the new covenant, it's replaced by give your body, your eyes, your tongue, your hands that 51:47 if you sin with your hands, you stop doing sin with your hands. You give it to God, your body. And it's a living sacrifice means it's something not just once you lay it and it's finished. No, I have to offer it every day to God. 52:01 This is what we emphasize in our church. And you compare it with what is being emphasized in other churches. And if you don't have time to go to other churches nowadays, just go to the internet and see all the sermons that are 52:13 preached by different preachers and then compare it with the sermons that are preached from CFC's pulpit and you will see everything that I'm telling you now, the distinction of what we stand for. We're not saying everybody in 52:28 CFC churches like this. No, that's up to them. Jesus had a hypocrite in his church of 12 people. We have hypocrites in our churches. But what we proclaim in the church, but those hypocrites will never get power in our church. Never. 52:42 Judas's Scariot may look after the finances, but he will not determine the direction in which those disciples are going to move. So we we may have hypocrites and they'll that'll be there in every church. They'll be exposed one 52:56 day. But what we proclaim from the church, these are our distinctives. So that's number five. Now we go to the next one which is number six. Not using our power. Oh, number five. One more thing. We not only give our body, we give our mind as well. Because 53:14 in Romans 12:2 it says we allow our mind to be renewed by reading God's word and by allowing my mind to think like God thinks as I read God's word. In the Old Testament, just give the money and you're done. In the 53:32 New Testament, I give my body and then I give my mind. Reading scriptures so that I learn to think like God thinks. Okay. Then number six, not using our power but God's power. I believe this is the difference between law and grace. In 53:49 very simple language, law is man struggling to obey God and failing. If you're struggling to obey God and failing, you're under law. sin rules over you. Grace is the man who's discovered how to get God's power to 54:08 keep those same commands which I couldn't keep earlier. And so that's why we emphasize being filled with the Holy Spirit, but not the way most Pentecostals do where they say you get filled with the Holy Spirit and you speak in tongues. 54:24 No, that may be one of the gifts God gives to somebody else. He gives the gift of preaching. Somebody else he gives the gift of helps. Somebody else he gives the gift of administrations. Somebody else he makes an apostle. Somebody else 54:37 he makes a prophet and a teacher. Are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. 1 Corinthians 12 is very clear. Are all do all speak in tongues? 1 Corinthians 12:30. No. Then how in the world do people say that 54:55 all are speaking in tonesues? It is such a clear verse in 1 Corinthians 12 29 and 30. But is the gift there? Sure. So our position on the gift of tongues is do all speak in tonesues? No. But do not forbid 1 Corinthians 14:39 to speak 55:15 in tonesues. And like Paul says, I speak in tonesues more than all of you. Verse 148. But in the church, I'd rather speak five words in a known language than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue. Now, those of you who are good at 55:33 mathematics from 1 Corinthians 14:19, I would rather speak five words in English than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue. Tell me, how much better than speaking in tongues is speaking in English? 55:50 2,000 times better in the church. If that confuses you, go home and use a calculator and divide those two numbers and see where I got that figure. I would rather speak five words in a known language than 10,000 words in an unknown 56:06 tongue. But in private, oh, I speak in tonesues more than all of you. That is the balance we teach in scripture along with do all speak in tonesues? No, but do not forbid to speak in tonesues. Okay. So it not our power but God's 56:21 power. So the Holy Spirit, people ask me what is the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. I said exactly what Jesus said. Jesus said in Acts 1:8, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you shall receive power to be my 56:37 witnesses. I see that's the evidence which Jesus himself said in Acts 18. They may have got tongues. They may got healing. They may got miracle power. They may have got ability to prophesy. Okay. But what is the one which thing 56:51 which everybody got? Power. Power for what? Power to be a witness for Jesus Christ. Being a witness is different from bearing a witness. Bearing means speaking with my mouth. You stand in a court like a witness and say your honor the judge. I saw this and 57:10 I heard this. Bearing witness. That's not what Jesus said. He said being being is different from bearing. Being means by my life I'm a witness. Like the light that shines. There's a life that is a witness for Christ. And 57:28 that's what we emphasize. Not by our power but the power of God. We keep on emphasizing pray always and seek for the power of God. Seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. One reason we don't have too many meetings in public to be filled with the 57:44 Holy Spirit. It's okay to have such prayer meetings to pray. But what happens very often is you'll sometimes have a few fanatical emotional people who just start screaming and yelling. I've been in meetings like that and they 57:58 disturb the whole atmosphere. They think that noise and emotion that is the mark of the Holy Spirit. It's a deception. You heard me tell the story of the man who came to our CFC church in the other building once. Uh he was a newcomer from some Pentecostal 58:18 church. And he said, "Hey, brother Zach, you don't have the Holy Spirit here." I said, "How do you know? Do you know how I live with my wife or how I talk to my wife? How do you know whether I have the Holy I'm filled with the Holy Spirit 58:31 or not? Do you know how I handle my finances? If you don't know that, how do you know whether I'm filled with the Holy Spirit?" He says, "No, you don't have enough noise and shouting in this church." Oho. I said, "Okay." I said, 58:43 "Your trinity is father, son, and noisy spirit. My trinity is father, son, and holy spirit." I said, "That's the big difference." And you can keep your trinity with you. But if an unclean evil spirit possesses 59:00 a man, he makes him unclean and evil. You ask a child, so if the Holy Spirit possess a person, what will he be? First of all, holy, little by little by little by little. It says in Genesis 1:1, on a corrupt earth 59:20 that had lost its shape, that was dark, the Holy Spirit brooded over that earth and made it beautiful. Not in one day. Little by little by little by little till finally it was perfect. That is teaching us in the first chapter of the 59:36 scripture that over a corrupt life like ours which has lost the life of God which is in darkness if you allow the Holy Spirit to brood upon you and fill you not in one day but little by little by little by little by little God will 59:51 one day look at you and say very good because of what the Holy Spirit did on it. read Genesis chapter 1. That's a nutshell the message of sanctification. So not by our power. That's why we emphasize praying to God. I pray every 1:00:07 day to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I cannot I never dare to get into a a platform to preach God's word without praying. Lord, give me the gift of prophecy. Give me words that'll reach exactly the need of people. I don't want 1:00:23 to impress people with my Bible knowledge and this verse and that verse and the other verse and this story and that story. I don't want to impress people. I want to reach people's hearts and make them holy. I don't care what 1:00:35 they think of me. Give me the word and if you have a passion and seek for the power of God, he will never say no. How can he say no when he wants you to be his witness? I want to urge all of you. It says in Acts chapter 1:00:53 2 in the last when they were all filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the people asked Peter, "What is this?" And he said, "This is what the prophet Joel said. Acts 2:16, in the last days, I'll pour out my spirit on 1:01:08 all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy." Do you know that the daughters of God can prophesy today? and even the uh men and women. It says in verse 18, I'll pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. Twice it is 1:01:26 mentioned that brothers and sisters can prophesy. That that means share God's word in a way that edifies, encourages, builds up. And don't think that's only in the meeting. You can prophesy when you're doing speaking on a cell phone. 1:01:41 You can prophesy when you're writing an email. Why does it always have to be in a pulpit in a meeting? I'm not saying that sisters have to get up in the pulpit and preach. You can prophesy when some sister comes and visits you at home 1:01:51 instead of gossiping about the latest scandal. Why don't you prophesy and share something that will exhort and encourage and bless that person at least from now ask the Holy Spirit to fill you to give you power to prophesy because you say 1:02:06 Lord your word said that even the daughters will prophesy from today onwards I want to prophesy share with people the words that have encouraged me and blessed me when I speak to them when I meet them when I write to them when I 1:02:20 speak to them on the phone when they visit my home I want to share Not like some prophetus. No, there are no prophetesses in the New Testament. Not even one except Jezebel, the false prophetess. God has not called women to 1:02:34 be prophets. That's a male function. But to prophesy means to encourage and exhort and challenge and lift them higher, which all of us can do to one another. But you need to seek for the power of the Holy Spirit to do that. 1:02:49 Then the seventh thing, okay, number seven, not building a congregation but Christ's body. A congregation means a huge crowd of people. A body is that which functions together where we work together 1:03:08 and you're a part of the body in your local church if you're working together with them. If you're just a meeting attender, Sunday morning, you go and sit there and you go away, come back next Sunday, you're not part of that body. 1:03:23 See, I can hold something in my hand, but that's not part of my body. If I hold that once a week in my hand, it's not part of my body. But these part these fingers are part of my body. They're always with me. They're always 1:03:36 working together. And that's the only type of church we want to build where everybody learns to work with one another. Otherwise, it's a congregation like a cinema theater. Everybody goes and sits there and watches the performance up in front and goes home. 1:03:51 And I tell you something, many, many churches today are like movie theaters. There's a wonderful performance up in front, usually by one man who's a very gifted preacher. And all the people come together, like in the movie theater, you 1:04:05 got to buy your ticket. Here you pay your tithes, the same thing. And then you watch this performance by this wonderful performance up in front and then they go home. Next Sunday, the next movie, they come there, sit together in 1:04:19 the movie theater, which they call a church. That's not the body of Christ. There's no connection with each other. When you go to a movie theater, I mean, I hope you don't go there, but you remember you remember the old days when some of 1:04:32 you went, I I've been in my unconverted days. You never knew the person sitting this side or that side. You didn't care. You just come there and watch the performance and go home. A lot of churches are like that. That's not the body of Christ. If you 1:04:47 belong to a church, you must know one another. Particularly if it's a small church, you really get to know one another. As it grows, you you build fellowships with different ones in the body. I mean, this arm may be related to 1:05:00 certain things here and this arm and this arm is connected with these things. They're all the the times when they work together, but sometimes this left arm is working on its own. Sometimes the right arm is working on its own. Writing a 1:05:11 letter, for example, this left arm is doing nothing. But a lot of things in this arm are doing something. When I lift something with this hand, so sometimes we work together with a few people together in our church. There's a 1:05:22 fellowship there. We related to all the others, but sometimes may not be working with all of the others. Sometimes God brings us closer to certain people in a church and that's how the body grows and this is the type of church we must 1:05:35 build and this is the type of church we've stood for in CFC for 40 years and these are the things that stand out. So how shall we do it? Let's look at it again. Seven things that we stand for. Not greatness but holiness. 1:05:55 Not external life first but internal. Not activity but obedience to God's word. Not making converts but disciples. Not giving money first. We give money but that's not first but our body and 1:06:13 our mind. Not using our power but God's power. Not building a congregation but Christ's body. In other words, not wood, hay, and straw, but gold, silver, and precious stones. 1:06:31 My brothers and sisters, my greatest longing in connection with this is that every one of you in the day when you're tested by fire, at least because of what you heard today, you will have some gold, silver, and precious stones that will go through 1:06:49 the fire because you decided to live according to these principles. Stick to it. It's not easy because the rest of Christendom is going towards Babylon. We want to be part of Jerusalem, that holy city that is going to be the bride of Jesus Christ one day. 1:07:08 We don't compare ourselves with others. We don't criticize others. We don't say we are better than others, but we say we are distinct from others. If we are not distinct, then we might as well join that church. We need not even have 1:07:21 started CFC. I was in a Baptist church. I could have stayed there for the rest of my life. I'd have lost myself. I'd have lost my children and a lot of other people as well. But I thank God God brought us out of that. We're not better, but we are 1:07:36 distinct. You need to soh see that difference. We're not boasting that we are better than anybody. But we believe we are trying to follow what the New Testament teaches. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. The 1:07:50 important thing is not whether you remember all the seven points. The important thing is whether you have absorbed the spirit of what we tried to communicate. Heavenly Father, help everyone here to build wisely on the foundation they've laid of receiving 1:08:08 Jesus Christ as their Lord and to lead others into such a life. We humbly ask in Jesus name. Amen.
