The reason why the Apostle Paul knew Jesus
Christ so well was because, he says in
Philippians 3, I considered everything outside of Christ
as rubbish.
And in the measure in which we are
convinced that everything outside of Christ is worthless,
in that measure we will know him.
You know, as human beings, we have a
great desire to get everything at the cheapest
possible price.
Whether it's buying a house or buying anything,
we say, where can I get it for
the cheapest price?
And if you go too much along that
line, what you'll get is a duplicate, a
counterfeit of the real thing.
You know that in the world, there are
so many expensive gadgets which are duplicated, made
in China or Taiwan, and they're not the
real thing.
It's the same in Christianity.
If you aim to get to know Jesus
by paying the minimum price possible, you're not
going to get the real Jesus, I'll tell
you that.
Because the Bible speaks about another Jesus.
And it's not only now, in the first
century, let me just show you that verse,
2nd Corinthians 11 and verse 4.
He says, if someone comes and preaches another
Jesus, whom we have not preached, and you
bear that beautifully, you can receive another spirit
and hear another gospel.
We're living in a day when another Jesus
is being preached.
A Jesus who can forgive you, take you
to heaven, and all the rest that he
does for you is make you rich and
healthy on earth, but doesn't free you from
the most serious problem you have, which is
your sin.
That is another Jesus.
The real Jesus, the angel Gabriel told Joseph,
you must call his name Jesus, because he
will save his people from their sins.
That's how you know whether you're believing in
the real Jesus.
If your faith is in a Jesus who
can not forgive your sins, but save you
from your sins, then you've come to the
real Jesus.
You know, if you're sinning and getting forgiven
and sinning and sinning and sinning and getting
forgiven, you can say that you really don't
know Jesus as Savior, you know him as
Forgiver.
We've got to be honest.
A lot of people who call Jesus Savior,
I say, has he saved you from your
anger?
No.
Has he saved you from lusting with your
eyes?
No.
Has he saved you from love of money?
Has he saved you from unforgiving spirit?
No.
What has he saved you from?
Well, he forgives me.
Then be honest and call him Jesus, my
forgiver.
Because if you are honest, the Lord will
lead us to the next step.
But if you call him Savior, when he's
not your Savior, it's like calling somebody your
husband, who's not your husband, just your friend.
So God loves honest people.
God loves those who are ruthlessly honest and
say, Lord, I only know you as Forgiver.
I don't know you as Savior at all.
I've been calling you Savior, Savior, Savior, just
because I, with empty words, mouth, what other
Christians around me are saying.
But I want to be real.
That's another Jesus who forgives you but doesn't
save you.
Or it says about receiving a different spirit.
And there's a lot of that too.
A different spirit in Christendom.
I'm not talking about in, among witchcraft circles
and heathen circles.
In Christendom, there's another spirit.
I ask people, let's go through this logically.
An unclean spirit makes you unclean, right?
An evil spirit makes you evil.
What does a Holy Spirit do?
Make you play good songs and music?
No, it makes you holy.
And if you got a spirit that didn't
make you holy, how do you know it's
a Holy Spirit?
I remember one man came to our church
once from some Pentecostal background.
Some very good Pentecostals, I know, but there
are some who don't understand the truth well.
Who came and said, after just attending a
morning service, he said, hey, you don't have
the Holy Spirit here in your church.
I said, how do you know?
Do you live with me?
Do you know how I handle my finances?
Do I know how I speak to my
wife?
How do you know whether I have the
Holy Spirit or not?
Well, he said, you don't make enough noise
in your meeting.
I said, oh.
I said, your trinity is Father, Son and
noisy spirit.
My trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That's the big difference.
So unfortunately, a lot of people assess.
That's what I mean by a different spirit.
Some people think if the decibel level goes
up somewhere, the Holy Spirit is moving.
It's a lot of rubbish.
If holiness is increasing, you know the Holy
Spirit is moving in your life.
These are practical things, and so many Christians
differ in so many arguments about this doctrine
and that doctrine and the other doctrine.
But when it comes to holiness, they're all
in the same rut, defeated by sin.
And I say the important thing is to
recognize, am I receiving, am I believing in
the real Jesus?
Am I believing in the real Holy Spirit
and a different gospel?
Oh boy, there's such a lot of, an
Old Testament gospel, which is still preaching health
and wealth.
Now, our only solution is, you know, if
we read the New Testament with an open
mind and say, Lord, I want to see
the real Jesus here, in the gospels especially.
It'll really change your understanding about many, many
things.
I want to show you a verse in
John chapter 16, where a lot of people
are confused concerning the ministry of the Holy
Spirit.
I talked a little bit about that in
the question and answer time yesterday.
How people think the Holy Spirit would come,
and the main thing is speaking in tongues,
etc.
But let me show you here what Jesus
himself said about the coming of the Holy
Spirit.
There are a number of things he said,
but maybe I should show you John 14
first, then go to John 16.
In John 14, he said in verse 15,
If you love me, keep my commandments.
And you know that his commandments were far
higher than, the standard of his commandments were
far higher than the commandments under the law.
Jesus came and raised the standard of the
law.
When he said you're free from the law,
it's because the standard was raised that the
law only dealt with outward sin, but Jesus,
the gospel, deals with sin within.
He came with an axe to the root.
We can say the law was like a
pair of scissors that kept cutting out the
bad fruit every time it came on the
tree.
And the problem was never solved because this
tree keeps on producing bad fruit, you've got
to go around with the scissors all the
time.
That's what the law did.
And the law did, you know, make Israel
a pretty good nation compared to all the
other nations in the world.
In fact, all the laws of all the
nations are really based on the Ten Commandments.
So Israel was the only one who had
the Ten Commandments those days, and therefore their
external standard of life was far superior to
other nations.
But that's because they had this law, the
scissors that cut off, there was murder, adultery
that cut it off, and externally their life
was good.
But from within, all these things kept coming
out.
And if you find that that's all you're
doing in your life, you know, and it
comes out, you cut it off.
You're living under the law, really.
But John the Baptist said, I've got good
news for you.
If you repent and turn towards the kingdom
of heaven, Jesus has come with an axe
that he's going to lay to the root
of the trees.
So Jesus didn't come with a pair of
scissors, he came with an axe.
And that was laid to the root of
the trees to destroy the root, and that
solves the problem.
Or, I sometimes use the illustration, a more
modern illustration would be the difference between, say,
an ointment.
The law was like an ointment.
Every time a sore came up, you'd rub
this wonderful ointment that would get rid of
the sore, but then it'd come up somewhere
else, and you'd rub the ointment there, and
then you'd rub it there, and then it'd
come somewhere else, and you'd keep carrying this
tube of ointment with you all the time,
because these sores are popping up in your
body here and there.
And then one day you hear the good
news that somebody has discovered a thing called
an antibiotic, which you don't have to rub
anywhere, you take it inside, and that deals
with the root of the problem within, and
then the sores stop coming out.
That's the gospel.
The law is like an ointment.
So what have you got?
They had forgiveness of sins in the Old
Testament, but Jesus, the real Jesus, to know
Jesus, not as a forgiver, but as Savior
and Lord.
If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
And my commandments, he already said in the
Sermon on the Mount, was such a high
standard, and let me paraphrase his words, I
know that it's impossible for you to live
up to my standard.
Therefore, verse 16, I will pray to the
Father to give you a helper.
Now in the context, if you know plain
English, read verse 15 and 16 together, and
then you understand what is the Holy Spirit
a helper for.
A helper to keep his commandments.
It's so clear, I mean you've got to
be blind not to see it.
If you love me, you'll keep my commandments,
and I pray that God will give you
a helper.
Because you find it difficult to keep them.
So if you're serious about keeping the commandments,
and you find yourself failing, I tell you,
you will really seek for the Holy Spirit.
A lot of people are seeking for the
Holy Spirit, and I say, what for?
Are you seeking for the power of the
Holy Spirit to keep God's commandments?
Are you seeking because you've read the Sermon
on the Mount, and you say, oh God,
it's impossible to live this life.
I want to live it, because you said,
this is the wise man who obeys these
commandments, built his house on the rock.
I want my house to be on the
rock.
I find it impossible to keep it.
How do I do it?
He says, I'll pray to the Father, he'll
give you a helper, and he'll be with
you forever.
That means forever he'll help you to keep
those commandments.
That's the first verse I wanted to show
you.
And the second is, again about the Holy
Spirit, in John 16.
In John 16 he said, When the Spirit
of Truth has come, verse 13, He will
guide you into all the truth.
And I see that as having two meanings.
First of all, all the truth, there is
in God's revelation and scripture.
The only way to understand all the truth
is not by going to a Bible school,
which will only teach you in your mind,
but revelation, that's the great word in the
New Testament.
Revelation is the thing of the heart, where
God shows you something in your heart that
changes your life.
A lot of people, the way they study
the Bible, is information.
They know the verses, they know the facts,
they know the doctrines.
Doctrine of justification and sanctification and second coming,
and baptism, and baptism in the Spirit.
It's all knowledge.
But revelation is something of the heart that
changes our life.
And the Spirit of Truth will guide you
into all the truth.
The Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures.
And you can't have anyone better than the
author of this book, sitting with you, telling
you what he meant when he wrote it.
And so you must believe that.
The Holy Spirit will guide you into all
the truth.
That's why he's come.
That's why we need to be filled with
the Holy Spirit.
And it says, verse 14, He will glorify
me, He will glorify Christ, because He will
take of mine and disclose it to you.
He will not speak about Himself.
He will glorify Christ.
See, this is one of the wonderful things
about the Trinity that we need to understand.
That each person in the Trinity glorifies another.
The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies
the Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ.
And the person who is of the Trinity,
who is glorifying the other, seeks to keep
himself hidden.
Let me show you this characteristic of God
that really blessed my heart.
Isaiah 45.
In Isaiah 45, we read one of the
characteristics of Almighty God, which we need to
acquire as well.
Because man is so unlike God.
He was created to be in the image
of God, but today we are so unlike
God.
Isaiah 45, it says in verse 15, Isaiah
45, 15, O God, truly, You are a
God who hides Himself.
God is a God who does not display
Himself in an ugly way.
He hides Himself.
And you see that in creation.
See how wonderfully God has hid Himself in
creation.
And the greatest proof that God has hid
Himself is the fact that there are so
many atheists in the world who say there
is no God.
See how wonderfully God has hidden Himself.
There are atheists in the world who say
there is no God.
What a perfect job God has done of
hiding Himself.
I mean, God could have easily, every time
the sun rises, say, hey fellas, I'm here,
I run this universe, there would be no
atheists then in the world.
But He doesn't say that.
He has hidden Himself.
That's a characteristic of God the Father.
And when Jesus came to the earth, He
hid Himself.
For 30 years He was in Nazareth, nobody
even had a clue that this is the
second person of the Trinity walking on the
earth as a man.
They just thought He was an ordinary man.
In fact, they despised Him, saying, oh, He's
the son of Mary, we don't even know
who His father is.
And it was Almighty God in human form.
How He hid Himself.
And even when He moved around in Israel,
and He did a miracle, He was so
unlike today's so-called healers.
I've seen these television programs, I don't waste
my time going to their meetings, but I've
seen them on television.
These healers will, some guy who, well, maybe
they pray for somebody to be healed, he
could hear 50% in his one ear,
and now he can hear 75%, so they
say, come, give a testimony here.
And they display him, in order to show,
you see what I did, I prayed for
this guy, he could hear only 50%, now
he can hear 75%.
You don't have a clue whether anything happened,
really.
But see how it was with Jesus, the
real Jesus.
When He healed people, He said, don't tell
anyone.
Jesus hid Himself, this is a characteristic of
God.
God who hides Himself.
He says, I'm delighted that you got healed.
You were genuinely healed, you were born blind,
and now you can see Jesus, and I'm
so delighted.
That's what thrills my heart.
I don't want you to go around telling
people that I am the one who healed
you.
I'm not interested in myself, I'm interested in
you.
Where do you find healers like that?
Where do you find preachers like that who
can honestly say, I'm not interested in what
you can do for me, I want you,
I want to bless you in some way.
That is how Jesus lived on the earth.
And you know, after His resurrection, as I've
said before, He didn't sort of appear before
Annas and Caiaphas and say, hey fellas, you
couldn't get rid of me, I'm here.
Or before Pilate.
He hid Himself.
Do you know that after the resurrection, Jesus
never appeared to anyone but believers.
He appeared to 500 believers, we read in
1 Corinthians 15, but never to any of
the Pharisees.
Why didn't He do that?
I mean, if He was the displaying type,
like a lot of preachers today, He would
have appeared before the Pharisees and say, here
I am.
You thought you'd get rid of me on
the cross.
You didn't.
You know what a lust there is in
us to vindicate ourselves before people who have
criticized us or spoken evil about us?
There's a tremendous lust in us to prove
that we are right and they were wrong.
And Jesus had no such desire.
He hid Himself.
And the same with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, as He moves, you don't
see Him.
He hides Himself.
Because, as He read here, He's come to
glorify Christ.
He will glorify Me.
He doesn't speak about Himself.
The Holy Spirit doesn't come to talk about
Himself.
He talks about Christ.
And a spirit-filled preacher will draw you
to Christ.
Because He will exalt Christ.
A preacher who draws you to Himself is
not filled with the Holy Spirit.
Not at all.
A preacher who seeks to attach you to
Himself, saying, you've got to be attached to
Me, that's closer to the devil than the
Holy Spirit.
We need to be discerning.
Otherwise, I'll tell you this, we are living
in a day with tremendous deception.
And you can spend all your life deceived
by another spirit and wake up in eternity
when it's too late to discover that you
were completely wrong.
So, recognize these characteristics of God.
God is a God who hides Himself.
The Holy Spirit always glorifies Christ.
And that is what He seeks to do
when we read the scriptures.
He shows us Christ.
When it says He leads us into all
the truth, it's not only the truth in
scripture, but when He glorifies Christ before us,
you know what happens?
When I see the real Jesus, I see
my own need.
I don't have to look inside and dig
into my heart to see where I went
wrong.
If I see Jesus, like Isaiah, when he
saw the glory of God, he immediately was
convicted of his sin.
He didn't get a...
Isaiah wasn't convicted of his sin by listening
to a preacher.
He was convicted because he encountered God.
John the Apostle fell on his face because
he encountered Christ.
And I believe if we lift up Jesus,
that's the thing that will convict people of
sin.
They'll see the glory of Christ and they'll
see their own sin.
And the next thing that happened to Isaiah
was his sin was cleansed away in Isaiah
chapter 6.
So that's how the Holy Spirit does it.
He seeks to glorify Christ before us all
the time.
He says, this is how Jesus is.
And so, if you really want to know
Jesus, you've got to allow the Holy Spirit
to show you the real Jesus from scripture.
So I want to show you because he
wants to transform us into that image.
So let me show you another verse which
I find is perhaps the clearest verse in
the entire New Testament about the ministry of
the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant.
And if you keep this verse in mind,
you'll never be confused concerning the ministry of
the Holy Spirit.
I've never found a verse that expresses the
ministry of the Spirit more clearly.
2 Corinthians chapter 3.
2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18.
So here is how the Holy Spirit glorifies
Christ.
First of all, it says, you know, it's
speaking about an unveiled face.
And the veil spoken of in that passage
is is the law.
You know, I can go to the Bible
with the spirit of the law and then,
like it says in verse 6 of this
chapter, the letter will kill you.
Do you know that you can get spiritual
death from reading the Bible?
The Pharisees killed people spiritually by quoting the
Bible.
They read the Bible and interpreted it in
such a way that they condemned people.
And any preaching that makes you feel condemned
without giving you any hope is legalistic.
It's from the devil.
There is no condemnation.
The Holy Spirit never condemns.
He convicts.
And we need to understand very clearly the
difference between conviction and condemnation.
It's one way we can discern whether the
voice I'm hearing is the voice of God
or the voice of the devil.
The devil is called the accuser of the
brethren.
Condemnation is that which makes you feel miserable.
You know, if you feel, well, you're good
for nothing.
You'll never amount to anything.
The way some foolish fathers speak to their
children.
You're good for nothing.
You'll never amount to anything in your life.
That's the best way to destroy your child.
Keep on telling him negative things.
And God is not like that.
God's not a bad father.
He's a loving father.
He never says, when you do something wrong,
it's not that he ignores it.
That would be a foolish father who ignores
the wrong that his son does.
But the way the Holy Spirit convicts is,
my son, my daughter, that wasn't right.
That wasn't the way to speak.
Jesus would have spoken like this.
So, let me help you to change your
way of speaking.
That's the way the Holy Spirit convicts.
Not, what a good for nothing fellow you
are.
Again, you went and spoke like that.
That's the devil.
Now, if you recognize the difference between these
two voices, you'll never feel condemned in your
whole life.
I used to live under condemnation for many
years after I was born again because nobody
taught me this as a young Christian to
distinguish between condemnation and conviction.
I'd feel condemned, feel rotten, and I'd go,
this is the Holy Spirit hammering me down.
And it wasn't.
It was the devil.
And the more I felt condemned, the more
I got defeated by sin.
But the Holy Spirit, when I understood that
he convicts, it's always a gentle voice.
It's a still, small voice.
Not like a thunder with lightning and all.
It's a gentle voice that says that was
wrong.
And that's the way we should correct our
children too.
It's not with anger and condemnation.
And the result in my life is there
is absolutely no condemnation in my life now.
It disappeared from my life long ago.
I never feel condemned.
I'll tell you honestly.
But convicted, every day, every single day, the
Lord shows me, I'm not exaggerating, something where
I need to be a little more Christ
-like.
Something, maybe some attitude, some speech, some word,
some motive, something.
This is called progressive sanctification.
Till one day, I'll be like him completely.
He who has the hope of Christ coming,
it says in 1 John 3, 3, keeps
on purifying himself.
And Paul says, in the next chapter, chapter
4, verse 16, our inner man, 2 Corinthians
4, verse 16, is renewed every single day.
That's inspired scripture.
That challenges me.
That the Apostle Paul reached such a level
of spirituality that each day, he was more
spiritual than the previous day.
Do you believe such a goal is possible?
And we think if each year we are
a little better than the previous year, that
itself is a great thing.
But Paul wasn't satisfied with just being a
better person after one year.
Renewed day by day.
I know when it took me many years
to be challenged by that and say, Lord,
that's what I want.
I want to be a little more Christ
-like today than I was yesterday.
And a little more Christ-like tomorrow than
I am today.
And that can only be as the Holy
Spirit convicts me.
And shows me some un-Christ-like lesson
in my life that I need to cleanse
away.
Shows me Jesus, that I know Jesus a
little more.
This is what he's really like.
So here it says, with an unreal face,
2 Corinthians 3, 18, as in a mirror,
and the mirror is God's word, we see
the glory of the Lord.
In the Old Testament, they looked at the
law as a mirror.
And you know what the law did for
them?
Just like any mirror will do for you
in your bathroom.
Shows you the dirt on your face, or
your hair is not combed, or something wrong
with your face.
It shows you.
But the mirror in the New Covenant, it's
not primarily convicting you like the law did,
which made people feel condemned.
It says you see the glory of Jesus
there.
So when I look into God's word, I'm
supposed to see the glory of Jesus there.
That's what it says here.
And like Isaiah, when I see the glory
of Jesus, then I feel convicted.
Oh, I'm a man of unclean lips.
And the more I see the glory of
the Lord, the more I'll see un-Christ
-likeness in my life.
And progressively, if I'm really seeing the glory
of the Lord day by day, I'll see
more and more un-Christ-likeness in my
life day by day, and I'll become more
and more Christ-like.
I'll be more gracious in my speech, and
more pure in my thoughts, and more pure
in my motives, and more free from the
things that are un-Christ-like in my
life.
It's a tremendous place to come to.
If you seriously say, Lord, I want to
experience this, being renewed every single day.
But remember what I said at the beginning.
Paul experienced that because he felt, not he
felt, he knew, everything outside of Christ is
rubbish.
And a lot of Christians have not come
there.
They want Christ plus a few other things.
They say, well, this is not actually rubbish.
Some of those things are pretty good.
But Paul didn't feel like that.
If God gave him, I mean, Paul needed
money to live, and he needed work to
do, etc.
All that, it was all there.
But he said, I don't live for those
things.
He said, I've learned to live with little
or much.
It's all the same to me.
He says in Philippians 4.13, Philippians 4
.10 onwards, I've learned to be content with
whatever I have.
I'm never longing for something God doesn't give
me.
God gives me plenty, praise the Lord.
If he gives me little, it's just the
same.
To me, it's just the same as whether
I wear a blue shirt or a white
shirt.
It doesn't really make a difference to me,
Paul says.
I don't have a preference for one color.
Paul says, it's the same with me.
I don't have a preference for wealth or
poverty.
If God determines this is best for me
at this time, I accept it.
And if another time God determines something else
is well for me, I accept that.
So, it's wonderful to be free from these
things because I see everything outside of Christ
is rubbish.
The main thing in our life is that
God's goal in our life can be achieved
to make us more and more like him.
Finally, that we'll be completely like him.
So, the Holy Spirit, the first ministry of
the Holy Spirit is to show us the
glory of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures.
And secondly, if it was only if it
stopped there, we'd be terribly discouraged.
Because the more we see that glory, the
more we feel convicted of where we are
unlike him.
So, there's a second ministry of the Holy
Spirit.
It to transform us into that same image
from one degree of glory to another.
Not in a moment.
Step by step by step by step.
And that's one of the things we see
in Genesis chapter 1.
Like I said yesterday, the corrupt earth which
had been corrupted by the fall of Lucifer
in Genesis 1-2.
God changed it.
He could have changed it overnight like that.
Created everything in the second day of the
Sabbath.
But he didn't do it like that.
He did it stage by stage by stage
by stage little by little by little by
little to teach us a lesson.
Right in the very first chapter of the
Bible that when our lives are corrupted by
the devil, God wants to change us through
the Holy Spirit and through God's word.
But he's going to do it progressively.
Day by day by day by day.
Till finally on the sixth day man was
made in the perfect image of God and
God said very good.
So that is a picture of our sanctification
where we allow the Holy Spirit to renew
us like Paul says day by day by
day by day by day till one day
we're like Christ.
And there was no day in Genesis chapter
1 where it says God did nothing.
There was something on the first day, something
on the second day, something on the third
day, something on the fourth day, something on
the fifth day.
A progressive improvement in the earth till finally
it was perfect.
And that's a message for me that in
my life there's no day in my life
no day where God wants to do nothing.
Every single day of this rest of this
year.
Now I can't do anything about the past.
Our past we've been ignorant about all these
things and thank God the Bible says a
lovely verse in Acts 17 verse 30 I
like to quote that verse to a lot
of people.
Acts 17 verse 30 The times of ignorance
God overlooks.
God says OK forget it.
You're ignorant and I overlook it.
You can forget about it.
You can't do anything about the past.
You can't bring back the past.
That's over.
But now He says in that verse He
commands everybody to turn around and take life
seriously.
Repent.
And say Now how many of you are
eager about this?
You don't have to answer me but answer
the Lord.
Do you really want to have a Genesis
1 type of experience in your life?
Where no day is wasted.
Where it says in the first day God
did this.
In the second day God did this.
Unlike how it was in the past where
days on it says God did nothing in
our lives.
Because we didn't permit Him.
See the difference in Genesis 1 was the
earth responded.
Every time God said something the earth said
fine.
Go right ahead and do it.
You want trees to come up?
Sure.
Here are the trees.
You want something else to come up?
Here it is.
And the sea said you want fish to
come in?
OK sure.
Fish.
And imagine if we responded like that.
Then every time the spirit says something you
say yes.
The spirit says don't look at that picture.
Turn your head away.
Yes.
Sure Lord.
Wouldn't that be great?
Don't click on that site on the computer.
Sure Lord.
I won't click there.
Imagine if we responded like that.
I tell you you will experience being renewed
day by day by day by day.
When you speak rudely to someone and immediately
the Spirit of God says that is not
the way my son my daughter Jesus would
speak.
Correct it immediately.
Respond.
And say Lord I'm really sorry.
Go to that person and say I'm sorry
that I spoke like that.
I really feel bad.
And if it happens ten times a day
go ten times a day to that person
and maybe your wife and say I'm sorry.
And your wife says you just keep doing
that all the time.
OK.
I'm such a bad person but I'm improving.
Or your husband says that.
Don't get discouraged.
God's changing you.
Little by little by little.
Nobody gets changed overnight like that.
Little by little by little by little.
And sometimes we fail many times in the
same area.
That's certainly been true in my life.
But you work at it and say Lord
I'm determined.
I see the goal you have made for
me is to make me totally like Jesus
Christ one day.
And I'm on that road.
That's the narrow way that leads to life.
And I'm determined to make progress along that.
There's a lovely verse in Proverbs 4.18
which says the path of the righteous is
like the shining light that shines more and
more into the perfect day.
And 2 Corinthians 3.18 is the New
Testament interpretation of Proverbs 4.18 Like the
sun rising getting brighter brighter brighter.
So our life gets more and more like
Christ.
And the Holy Spirit has come to do
that.
So when the Holy Spirit shows us the
glory of Jesus What do we see first
of all?
Let's start at the beginning like I said.
We got to start at the kindergarten.
We don't start we don't send a school
and send a child to school and he
doesn't start in grade 8.
He starts in the kindergarten.
A lot of people when they are when
they say I want to be like Jesus
immediately they jump to what he was at
age 30.
I want to heal the sick and raise
the dead and multiply food and perhaps walk
on water I don't know what else.
But I say don't jump to age 30.
You don't send your when your child goes
to school he doesn't go straight to grade
10.
Imagine putting a 5 year old child in
grade 10 who hasn't learned ABC yet.
He'll sit there like a dumb kid not
understanding a single thing.
So if you really want to be more
and more like Jesus don't start at age
30.
Start at zero.
That's kindergarten.
So what's the first thing we can learn?
Not healing the sick and raising the dead.
That's not where we begin.
That may come years later.
But where we begin is in Philippians 2
that's where we all need to begin.
Jesus, what's the first thing he did?
Before he even came to earth.
Before he came to earth what made him
come to this earth?
It says he Philippians 2.5 Have this
attitude in yourself which is in Christ Jesus.
Although Philippians 2.6 he existed in the
form of God from all eternity.
As the second person of the Trinity he
did not regard that equality with God is
something that he's got to hold on to.
No.
He renounced it.
He gave it up.
He gave up position privilege honor rights reputation
name it.
All that God has.
Respect.
He gave it all up to become a
man.
So if I want to if the Holy
Spirit is going to show me the glory
of Christ there and make me like him
he says I'm going to free you.
Listen carefully.
I'm going to free you from the desire
for honor position respect dignity and a whole
lot of other things that men and women
in the world are fighting for.
You will renounce it.
You don't have to.
Jesus didn't have to.
You voluntarily give it up.
Can you imagine how peaceful our churches would
be if nobody was fighting for position?
Or honor?
Or titles?
That's amazing how in Christendom people are so
crazy to get titles.
Jesus didn't want any title.
When they wanted once they wanted to make
him a king he says he ran away.
In John chapter 6.
This is the first thing.
He came to earth and it says here
he emptied himself of all that and he
took the form of a servant I want
you to understand this verse 7 properly.
He took the form of a servant being
made in the likeness of men if I
were to expand it what it means is
he became a servant because he was made
in the likeness of men.
That means being made in the likeness of
men the only thing proper for him to
do was to be a servant.
So I learned something there.
That God created man to rule over sin
but to be a servant externally to everybody
else.
This is the paradox of the Christian life.
Inwardly a king ruling over sin, my lusts
and ruling over the devil and triumphing over
circumstances etc.
but externally a servant to everybody.
This is how Jesus lived.
Inwardly triumphant externally a servant.
Unfortunately it's exactly the opposite with a lot
of Christians.
Inwardly defeated by their lusts and defeated in
their speech and defeated in every other area
but externally trying to show that they are
great people impress others.
Why for example did Jesus say don't be
called rabbi?
Why did he say that?
Because I mean it's alright to have titles
in the world maybe you are a doctor
or whatever it is in the world they
are president etc.
etc.
But in the church he is talking about
the church you shouldn't have a title.
Because we are supposed to be servants.
What title does your servant in your home
have?
That's why Jesus refused to take a title.
And he said you should not also allow
anybody to call you rabbi or father.
It's a very small thing.
But if you understand the reason behind it
you'll see how serious it is.
Because the moment you take a title you
are elevating yourself above other believers saying I'm
not at your level I'm a little higher
than you I'm not just an ordinary brother
I'm a reverend.
Or when there are too many reverends then
they become right reverend they always want to
go a little higher you know.
Or right reverend doctor something like that.
Why not be just a brother?
Why not be just a servant?
This is the first thing we need to
learn.
The only person I want to honor me
is God.
Let him honor me.
But I don't want any honor from men.
I don't want any respect from men.
Now I want to tell you this may
look very simple brothers you may not be
looking for such titles in your life but
without titles as well you can look for
honor.
Now I'm not talking out in the world
in the world you need titles so that
people know who you are because that's out
in the secular world.
But in the world but in the church
you got to leave all that outside.
When you come to the church you're an
ordinary brother or a sister.
Even if you came at the first hour
you're equal to the folks who come at
the eleventh hour.
He's a brother and you're a brother too.
You're a sister and she's a sister.
That is how it is in the church.
And if you're not willing to accept that
I'll tell you this right now you're going
to have problems all your Christian life.
Because this is the very first thing Jesus
did.
He could have taken that position as God
when he came to earth but he didn't.
He renounced it.
And that's the first thing we need to
do.
Then when he and as it says here
he knew that if I'm a man I've
got to be a servant.
That's the meaning of that verse.
And then when he came to earth we
read in Luke chapter 2 the second thing
about him that we read is that he
continued, Luke 2.51 he was subject to
human authority.
And in his case the human authority was
the ones whom almighty God the Father had
appointed as his earthly guardians or parents.
Joseph and Mary.
And he had to submit to them for
30 years.
Do you want to know the real Jesus?
This is the real Jesus.
And to follow him to be like him
I need to learn this.
He subjected himself to imperfect parents.
Now for an imperfect person to submit to
imperfect authority is easy.
I mean if you've got a boss in
your place of work who's imperfect but you're
more imperfect than him that's okay.
But can you imagine if you know your
job so well and your boss doesn't.
Can you try submitting to such a boss
who doesn't have a clue about the job
but he tells you to do all types
of things.
Can you imagine the irritation?
Well Jesus faced something like that but he
never sinned.
Here he was, the perfect child with imperfect
parents.
I hope you know that Joseph and Mary
were imperfect unless you're a Roman Catholic or
something.
Joseph and Mary were imperfect.
They were children of Adam and they were
sinners.
Mary said God my savior.
She needed God as a savior.
And they were imperfect and they were under
the old covenant means more imperfect than new
covenant believers.
And you've seen how imperfect new covenant parents
are.
Can you imagine how old covenant parents were?
And it was to such parents that almighty
God told Jesus to be subject for 30
years.
Now why in the world does he need
that?
He knew the Bible when he was 12.
Isn't Bible knowledge enough to go out and
preach?
That's what a lot of people think.
If I know the Bible I can go
out and preach.
God said no.
It's not enough.
If I have gifts I can go out
and preach.
No.
You need to learn submission to authority.
And I've seen a lot of young people
who have got such an itch and urge
to serve the Lord to plant churches and
be elders over others who never in their
life been subject to anybody's authority.
And I've seen people like that who when
they try to serve God they make a
mess of their life and a mess of
their ministry because God doesn't back them up.
God never backs up a person with his
spiritual authority who has not himself first learned
to be subject to some authority somewhere.
And that is the reason why God doesn't
commit his authority to many many people because
they are not willing to submit to any
authority.
Now I want to ask you have you
ever in your life submitted to some authority
over you?
Or you always try to conveniently escape?
Well I can tell you, I can prophesy
God will never commit authority to you in
your whole life.
In your whole life.
Spiritual authority impossible.
You can make yourself an authority a lot
of people try and do that in Christendom
but God will never do that.
God will never never submit give spiritual authority
to a man who is not himself submissive
to authority who has not been broken by
submission to authority.
Because such a man will use authority in
a very rough way.
And I have seen people like that.
A broken man is the only person who
is fit to wield spiritual authority.
And Jesus had to submit like that and
be broken.
Dear brothers this is the pathway that God
takes all his servants through.
Even in the Old Testament you remember it's
when Jacob was broken that he became Israel.
When he became lame.
It's when Moses the mighty Moses at the
age of 40 was unfit to lead God's
people.
God took him into the wilderness for another
40 years and said I'll teach you something
that all the academies of Egypt couldn't teach
you.
And what was that?
Brokenness.
He was so broken that at the age
of 80 he says Lord I'm not fit.
At the age of 40 he felt he
was.
At the age of 80 he was so
sure that he wasn't the person.
I mentioned yesterday how God took me through
that path of failure and failure and failure
till I said Lord I'll never in my
life ever try to plant a church.
That's not my calling.
I'll go do something else.
And it's when you come to that place
where you feel you're totally unfit to do
something that's when God says I think you're
ready now.
This is God's way.
His ways are not our ways.
And the only way we can learn that
is by submission.
That's why Jesus had to learn to submit.
His will had to be broken.
He had to yield his own will and
he had to be tested.
Even Jesus had to be tested.
Why did God allow the devil to tempt
Jesus?
He had to be an example for us.
And as he submitted to his mother and
Mary it says in Luke 2.52 you
see the connection between verse 51 and 52
in Luke chapter 2 he kept increasing in
wisdom.
He already had knowledge at the age of
12.
But wisdom he kept increasing.
Wisdom is very different from knowledge.
Wisdom is practical application of the truths you
learn from God.
And a lot of people increase in knowledge
they don't increase in wisdom.
The real Jesus he increased in wisdom and
then at the age of 30 God said
okay you can leave Nazareth now leave your
carpenter shop let me anoint you.
And in three and a half years he
did the greatest ministry that any man ever
did.
That's a tremendous challenge to me.
This is the real Jesus.
This is the Jesus we need to know.
And to when I say I want to
know Jesus as my Lord it means that
I want to go the same pathway that
he went.
First of renouncing all desire for position honor,
reputation, dignity everything and then being willing to
submit to whatever God ordained as the place
he has planned for me to be broken.
Now I'm not talking about submitting to people
who lead you away from God's word.
For example if you're in a church system
that is contrary to the word of God
that means you've seen things in scripture and
you see that the church you belong to
is not following scripture there.
There's only one thing you can do.
You say Lord get me out of here
as soon as possible.
It's like some of these websites if you've
got a good browser and you go to
a website which is got some malware and
spyware and all types of ware over there
you'll get a notice saying do you want
to go here or do you one box
says get me out of here as soon
as possible.
And you click on that and say I
don't want any virus in my system.
So if you're in a system, a church
where which is not obeying God's word there's
a little box saying get me out of
here as soon as possible.
Click that.
And ask the Holy Spirit to take you
out of there.
Because that's not obeying scripture.
How long are you going to continue disobeying
scripture?
I mean you've disobeyed it enough.
You want to continue in that way?
To please man?
That's a great verse in Galatians chapter 1
verse 10.
Which the Lord spoke to my heart many
years ago.
He said if you want to be my
servant you've got to decide that you never
in your life try to please any human
being.
If you seek to please man you cannot
be the servant of Christ.
Paul said that.
I cannot be the servant of Christ if
I seek to please man.
And so if I have the slightest desire
to please man I'm immediately disqualified from being
a servant of Christ.
Because I'm a servant of that man then.
So I need to ask myself always why
am I doing this?
Is it to please somebody or is it
to please God?
There's always this choice comes before me.
This is temptation.
The temptation that a lot of Christians face
is are you going to please men here
or please God?
Are you going to please your relatives or
are you going to please God?
That's why Jesus said the first condition of
discipleship.
Remember he told us go into all the
world and make disciples of every nation.
And having worked for 37 years in India
in a heathen nation seeking to make disciples
mostly from non-Christian backgrounds I've learned one
thing that what Jesus said was absolutely right.
The first condition of discipleship is you got
to love Jesus more than your father mother,
brother, sister, wife, children and your own life.
If you don't fulfill that forget about being
a disciple.
Go and do something else.
And this is what we have taught.
We've taught Christians and non-Christians you want
to follow Jesus you got to put him
above father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children your
job, yourself, everything.
If you don't do that you'll never be
a disciple.
You'll be one of these third-rate Christians
sitting around in churches and thinking you're pleasing
God.
You're not pleasing God at all.
You're trying to please some relative you're not
trying to please some pastor you're trying to
please some human being and that's a tremendous
insult to God.
And God stands there and this human being
stands there and God says who are you
going to please now me or him?
And you say Lord it'll be a lot
of trouble if I don't please him so
I don't mind offending you because you'll forgive
me but this guy won't.
You'll never be a disciple.
I want to tell you the truth.
I don't want to stand up here and
please men when I speak.
It's the truth brother, sister and I've seen
it year after year after year in all
these years in India.
I've seen people who obey it who become
radical disciples who become useful in God's hands
and I've seen other people who compromise in
this area they are wishy-washy all through
their life.
So it's so important and you see that
in the example of Jesus.
This Jesus who obeyed Mary for 30 years
perfectly.
The moment he left home and went into
the ministry.
Do you know one of his first recorded
words to Mary in Cana?
Woman, what have I got to do with
you?
I can imagine Mary getting a shock.
Is this Jesus?
Is this the same Jesus who said mommy,
yes mommy for 30 years?
Yeah, it's the same Jesus.
He was not going into the ministry.
He was not going to let his mother
interfere in his life.
I mean a lot of people could have
come to him and say Oh Jesus, think
about how much your mother suffered because she
lived under the scandal of being an unwed
mother for so many years for your sake
and all these sob stories about how much
she suffered for you.
Are you going to treat him like that?
He is not going to be moved.
His father was supreme.
Sometimes we do have to hurt our parents.
Sometimes we have to hurt human beings.
Not because we want to but because we
are going to stand for God.
This is the real Jesus.
If you want to make Jesus Lord of
your life to know him as Lord everything
outside of Christ is rubbish.
Pleasing people, rubbish.
I'll please them if it's a result of
pleasing God, sure.
But if it's a choice I made my
choice.
I made mine long ago and I've never
regretted it all these years and I recommend
that to all of you.
Think about it seriously.
Is there an area in your life, my
brother, sister where the devil is holding you
back with human compassion when you should be
devoted to Christ?
I want to encourage you to make a
decision today because I'll tell you this if
you don't do it today this voice that
you hear right now loud and clear like
a trumpet will be a little softer tomorrow.
You won't hear it so clear.
And by the time a week is gone
you won't hear it anymore.
So now is the time.
Take a decision before God.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father I pray that you will apply
these truths to our lives and help us
to live in the light of the word
that you've spoken to us so that we
can know you, Jesus the real Jesus know
you more and more as Lord of our
lives with no competitor but you will be
Lord.
Help us to know you really, Lord and
we've sort of talked about knowing you in
a superficial way but we really want to
know you.
We thank you.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
There's a little card out there for any
of you who want it.
Our website address is also there.
Thank you.