So, we call ourselves a New Covenant Christian
Church and I think in all these five
years there's a lot that you have heard
about the New Covenant both in maybe videos
that you watched at home on the internet
and also messages that you've heard from different
ones we've shared here through the years.
So, we considered some of the marks of
spiritual growth which is the spirit of thankfulness,
humility and deeper fellowship among ourselves.
What are some of the dangers as we
seek to pursue this life?
I think one of the dangers which I
have seen because we've been planning churches for
40 years, I've seen one of the dangers
is particularly for clever intelligent people which most
of you are or if not all of
you is the danger of thinking that because
we understand the doctrine and we can explain
it clearly and that we are better than
other churches that don't understand the doctrine or
that don't preach it.
That can be a tremendous deception.
The Bible says in John chapter 1 and
verse 4 that in Christ was life and
that life was the light of men.
Jesus told us where to be to be
the light of the world.
What does that mean?
In the old covenant here we read of
the light as the life of Jesus.
It's very clear in him was life and
that life was the light of men.
So, that's why he said I am the
light of the world in John chapter 8
and verse 12.
I am the light of the world.
But he also said in John chapter 9
in verse 5 that I am the light
of the world only as long as I
am in the world.
Once I leave the world, I mean it's
very clear as long as I am in
the world, I'm the light of the world.
We know that he's not in the world
now.
He said in John 17, Father I'm coming
to you.
I'm no longer in the world.
Then he gave that responsibility to us.
He said in Matthew 5.14, you are
the light of the world.
He looked at his disciples and said you're
the light of the world.
So, if somebody were to ask you who
is the light of the world today, say
we.
We as a church.
Is he not Jesus?
Jesus said he was the light of the
world as long as he was in the
world.
I believe his word in John 9 verse
5.
Then he turned around to us and said
you're the light of the world.
Now that's an awesome responsibility and that's why
we don't like to say it.
We don't like to say we're the light
of the world because we look at the
way we're living and some of us may
be pretty ashamed of the way we live
and say how can I say we're the
light of the world.
That's what should bring us down on our
faces and say why are we living like
that?
Why are we living in a world?
Why are we living in a way that
we're not the light of the world?
Something's seriously wrong.
Okay, if you're newly born again for a
couple of years, that's okay.
It's like little children take about two years
to get steady on their feet and we
read in the Old Testament that when God
brought the Israelites out of Egypt, it took
two years for them to come to the
borders of Canaan.
You read that in Deuteronomy 2.14 that
after two years they came to the borders
of Canaan and God told them to go
in and they didn't go in.
So they wandered for another 38 years.
So what I see from that is Canaan
is a life of victory and triumph picture
of it and God expected them to come
to that in two years.
So I see that as God's plan that
if you're born again, if you're really sincerely
born again, in two years you should come
to life of victory.
If you haven't, I think part of the
reason is there's not been a proper repentance.
That means we are born facing sin with
God on our back.
Repentance means a 180 degree turn where God
is in front of us and sin and
the world are behind us.
Now with many, many Christians, that is not
true.
Sin and the world are not behind them
and that's because they heard an improper gospel.
A gospel that emphasized faith, believe, believe, just
confess your sin and believe and did not
emphasize the most important thing, repentance.
So without repenting or repenting 90 degrees instead
of 180 degrees with one eye on the
world, one eye on God, they try to
believe and confess their sin and imagine, I'm
okay, you're not okay.
The message that John the Baptist brought as
a forerunner to Christ is the message that
is the forerunner of the gospel.
The gospel is salvation through Christ but there's
a message that prepares the way for the
gospel.
That's the message of John the Baptist, repentance.
That is a turning around.
So just like God sent John the Baptist
and he said, I've come here to raise
the valleys and bring down the mountains and
make the crooked places straight and to remove
the rough places and make them smooth.
These are four different pictures he used about
repentance, bringing down all the high thoughts and
lifting up all the depressed valleys and making
the crooked things in our life straight and
making the rough places smooth.
You read that in Luke chapter 3.
He was preaching repentance and that was the
preparation for faith.
Paul said in Acts 20, I preach repentance
and faith everywhere I go.
So that is the reason why and if
that's been true in your case, you can
see perhaps that is the main reason why
people have not grown spiritually or not come
into a life of victory in two years
or can be here for five years and
still be defeated even though you've heard and
heard and heard and heard and still you're
yelling at each other at home and still
lusting and pursuing after money and things like
that and you've got all the right theory.
But the light which is the life of
Jesus is not shining and that's okay.
But the sad thing is, it's not bringing
us down on our faces in weeping and
saying, Lord, why isn't that happening?
I've been here so long and why isn't
that happening in our life?
We're not disturbed by it.
That's a serious thing.
I've often told people that the fact that
you sin is not as serious as the
fact that you don't weep after you sin.
That's more serious.
That shows a lack of sensitivity.
It's like, you know, when we get a
little injury on our hand, we immediately react
to it and want to do something about
it.
If you get a cut, you don't just
leave it.
But if you had leprosy, you wouldn't even
feel that because lepers don't have sensation.
So when I sin and it doesn't make
me weep, it's an indication of our conscience
having lost its sensitivity.
It's a serious condition.
It's spiritual leprosy.
I know a lot of people who have
come to our church in Bangalore and have
said to me after a few years there,
Brother Zach, I don't really believe I was
saved until I came here.
I said, why?
He said, I thought I was born again
and saw the church I attended.
But I was so defeated by sin and
I realized that I never knew what repentance
was until I came here.
I never got a clear understanding of what
sin was until I came here.
So until you understand what sin is, how
can you repent from it?
If you know where south is, then you
can turn around from south and face north.
But if you don't know where the south
is, then how do you turn around and
face north?
So if you don't know what sin is,
you can't repent.
So you don't know what darkness is, you
don't know what the light is.
And that, I believe, is where the devil
has blinded so many people concerning what is
darkness.
The darkness in our life is basically due
to our self-centeredness.
That our life is centered around myself.
We grow up like that, the entire world
lives a self-centered life.
Whether they are politicians or businessmen or academics
or mega church pastors, very often it's self
projecting themselves.
And if my life is self-centered, I'm
really following the way that Adam went.
Even if I've added a little religion to
it.
Because, you know, the way Jesus is being
preached by many preachers today is, He will
bless you.
Well, who in the world doesn't want to
be blessed?
There's not a single human being in the
world who doesn't want to be blessed.
Come and Jesus will bless you and He'll
forgive all your sins.
He will take you to heaven and He
will even bless you materially.
And He'll make you healthy.
But every human being in the world wants
to be healthy.
Every human being in the world wants to
be wealthy.
Every human being in the world wants to
be blessed.
And every human being in the world wants
to go to heaven.
So the entire world should respond to such
a gospel.
And most people do.
But Jesus said the way to life is
narrow and very few find it.
So that must be another gospel altogether.
And that's the deception that's going on in
Christendom today.
So that's the thing we have to stand
against and proclaim as error by the light
of our lives.
In the Old Covenant, if you read Psalm
119, we read there Psalm 119 and verse
105.
Psalm 119, verse 105.
Lord, your word is a lamp to my
feet and a light to my path.
You see there in the Old Testament, the
light was the written word, the law, and
the messages of the prophets.
Thy word is my light.
What is the light in the New Covenant?
The life of Jesus.
In him was life and the life was
the light of men.
So in what way was Israel supposed to
be a light in the Old Covenant?
By going, by keeping the law and keeping
everything written in the word as long as
they kept those commandments, God was happy with
them.
You are my witnesses.
But in the New Covenant, it's not by
keeping certain commandments that we manifest the light.
So remember this very clearly in your mind.
In the Old Covenant, the word was the
light.
In the New Covenant, it's the life of
Jesus that is the light.
And I believe these two are symbolized in
the two trees in the Garden of Eden.
There's a tree of knowledge of good and
evil.
And there's a tree of life.
To me, in one sense, that is a
picture of Old Covenant and New Covenant.
Because knowledge of good and evil is not
wrong in itself.
Don't we want our children to know what
is good and what is evil?
To do evil is wrong.
But to know what is good and evil,
why did God tell Adam, if you eat
of that, you will die?
Why does the knowledge of good and evil
bring death?
We need to understand that.
You see, you could have spent five years
here recognizing more and more what is good
and what is evil.
It's evil to shout at my wife.
It's good to speak kindly to her.
Knowledge of good and evil, many, many things.
And through the years, the more you hear,
the more you hear, you understand what is
good and evil.
And you may be sitting around the tree
of knowledge of good and evil the whole
time.
Because this book can be the tree of
knowledge of good and evil to you, or
the tree of life.
It all depends on how you approach it.
I show you that from the New Testament.
This is the big difference between the Pharisees
and Jesus.
The Pharisees knew the scriptures.
Jesus knew the scriptures.
The Pharisees prayed.
Jesus prayed.
The Pharisees fasted.
Jesus fasted.
Do you know the Pharisees even did evangelism?
They crossed land and sea to make proselytes,
we read in Matthew 23.
Jesus did evangelism, traveling around.
The Pharisees gave their money to God, and
Jesus gave also.
So what was the difference?
There's a lot of similarity.
And yet one was all religious, and the
other was spiritual.
Living under the old covenant makes a man
religious.
Living under the new covenant makes a person
spiritual.
There's a world of difference between the two.
And it's very, very easy to sit in
a new covenant church, and to take the
letter of the law, and just be a
Pharisee.
Say, I thank you that I'm not like
other men.
I thank you that we're not like other
churches.
And yeah, the Pharisees had a pretty good
life.
Jesus himself gave a certificate to the Pharisees.
Do you know that?
He gave two certificates to the Pharisees.
Good certificates.
They weren't all evil.
There were a lot of things wrong with
the Pharisees.
There were two good things he said in
Matthew 23.
One is Matthew 23 and verse 25.
He said, you clean the outside of the
cup.
Isn't that a good testimony that our external
life is clean?
Isn't it good not to be a drunkard,
or a gambler, or sexual molester, or you
know, very gracious and good externally?
You keep your external life clean.
The Pharisees were like that.
Jesus gave that certificate.
If Jesus gives you a certificate that your
external life is clean, that's great.
There's one more certificate he gave to them,
and that was in verse 2 and 3.
He told his disciples, everything that the Pharisees
sit in the seat of Moses, the other
people who proclaim the law, everything they tell
you to do, do.
Isn't that a good certificate?
Jesus wouldn't say everything that the Jehovah's Witnesses
tell you to do, do, or everything that
the Roman Catholics tell you to do, do.
About whom would Jesus say every single thing
that they tell you to do, do?
I would say in a New Covenant Church.
Everything they tell you to do, do.
Whatever they teach from the pulpit is absolutely
spot on, right.
And yet they were Pharisees.
Is that possible?
So what are the two things Pharisees had
which are good?
Absolutely right doctrine and a very good external
life.
Do you have absolutely right doctrine and a
good external life?
You could be a Pharisee.
Jesus also had absolutely right doctrine and a
good external life, but he had something more.
He had an inner life that was pure.
He had a private life where nobody could
see that was pure and full of love.
That is what makes the difference.
So all of us sitting here, we may
have the right doctrine and a good external
life.
Everybody sees it and admires you, thinks you're
a wonderful Christian because they can only see
your external life.
You know, all of us, we know, I
mean, apart from members of your own family,
all the others you meet here, you actually
know only about less than 10% of
their life.
90% of their life you never see.
Even a wife does not see that major
area of her husband's thought life.
She sees zero in there, even if they've
been married 50 years.
He could be absolutely impure there and his
wife may be thinking she's such, he's such
a pure man because externally he's pure.
That is the great area of deception.
And that's a great danger that new covenant
churches can face.
And the only way we can overcome that,
is if you refuse to live before the
face of man and say, Lord, it's only
your opinion about me that matters.
I refuse to live before my wife or
my husband or what they think of me.
It's good.
It's good to have a good testimony before
men.
Let your light shine before men that they
may see your good works and glorify your
Father in heaven.
So I'm not devaluing a good external testimony.
It's very, very important.
I mean, if your life is bad before
men itself, then it's hopeless.
At least we should come that that is
a minimum standard that our light shines before
they see our good works and glorify our
Father in heaven.
What I'm saying is that's not enough.
Jesus wasn't living before men.
He lived before his Father.
In Isaiah 53, the well known chapter about
Jesus and his crucifixion and his death on
the cross.
We read these words at the beginning.
Isaiah 53.
I don't know whether you noticed it.
Sometimes a little phrase you can miss.
What is the first thing mentioned in Isaiah
53?
It's not about the cross.
It's not about us bearing our sins and
carrying our griefs and being afflicted by God
and smitten.
All that comes later.
The first thing mentioned about Jesus in Isaiah
53, verse 2, is he grew up before
his Father like a tender shoot, like a
root out of a parched ground.
And before men, the rest of that verse
says he has no form or majesty and
nor appearance that people should be attracted to
him.
And he was despised and rejected, verse 3.
That's okay.
But he grew up before his Father.
This is where we are to follow Jesus.
So, the tree of knowledge of good and
evil is something that tells us what's right
and wrong.
And external life, we can set it right
according to that, and yet not enjoy eternal
life, which is the nature of God within
us.
A person who is partaking more and more
of eternal life, which is the life of
God, will find that his inner life becomes
purer and purer.
It's not just his external testimony before men.
That is new covenant Christianity.
That's what Jesus said is the new wine.
The old wine is what the Pharisees had,
a good external testimony, but a pretty corrupt
inner life.
And I fear, I fear that many who
understand new covenant truths could be living like
that.
And we don't want to get a rude
shock when Christ comes again and discover that
you were no better than somebody sitting in
an old covenant church, except that your external
life was better, or your knowledge and understanding
of good and evil was better.
That's the great danger.
So, we read in John chapter 5 about
this difference in, you know, Jesus spoke to
the Pharisees.
And he says in John 5 and verse
39, you search the scriptures.
Well, that's a very good thing.
We do it too.
A lot of people today don't search the
scriptures, I'm sorry to say.
We have a generation of Christians growing up
today who know more about television than God's
Word.
A lot of Christians, they consider themselves Christians.
I don't know how they call themselves Christians
if they spend more time before television than
the Word of God.
What sort of Christianity is that?
I can't imagine Jesus living on earth, even
if you're living today, watching television more than
reading God's Word, or knowing God's Word.
There's something fundamentally wrong with that type of
Christianity, where they can spend hours watching sport
in just a few minutes in God's Word.
And you could be a new covenant Christian
with that attitude.
It means that this is a ritual I
have to go through, because I'm a Christian,
I have to sort of go through the
ritual of reading the Bible every day.
But my real interest is not sin, not
sinful things, but a lot of other things.
You know, the Bible says all things are
profitable, all things are lawful, but not all
things are profitable.
And the difference between a carnal, soulish Christian
and a spiritual Christian is this.
Both may stick to doing only lawful things,
but the spiritual man is from the 100
lawful things that he can do, he selects
10 profitable things and does that.
And there are very few Christians who do
that type of selection of the way they
use their time, or spend their money, or
the way they live their life.
And if God sees that, I ease my
conscience by saying, I'm not doing anything unlawful.
Well, you keep a good testimony and you
may get to heaven.
I hope so.
But you can get there with a lot
of regret about the way you lived on
earth.
I don't know whether you're familiar with that
verse.
If you're not, let me show it to
you.
1 Corinthians 6 and verse 12.
All things are lawful for me.
He didn't mean by that sinful things, Paul
had already come to give up sin.
He was saying, among the things that I've
given up sinful things, but among all the
other things that I can do now, which
are not sinful, they're all lawful.
But among them, maybe only 10% is
profitable.
And I select what is profitable and spend
my life doing that.
Yeah, I have a little time for other
things, but those are not the main things
in my life.
And so, all things are lawful but I
won't be mastered by anything.
He refused to be mastered by anything on
this earth.
You shall know the truth and the truth
will set you free.
If there's anything on earth that masters me,
I'm a slave to that.
It may not be a sinful thing, maybe
a good thing, maybe eating, maybe a sport,
maybe my profession, maybe a job, and that
masters me.
It's the most important thing for me in
my life.
I want to say to you, my dear
brother, sister, you're not a new covenant Christian
at all.
You're an old covenant Christian with a little
bit of new covenant whitewash, which fools people.
But you know in your life what masters
you.
A new covenant Christian is mastered by God.
The law, Jesus explained the law once when
people asked him.
He said, it is to love God with
all your heart, soul, and strength, and mind.
That the Pharisees missed.
So, coming back to John 5, I was
pointing out that verse, he was speaking to
the Pharisees and he said to them in
John 5 39, you search the scriptures, which
is a very good thing, but your mistake
is you think that eternal life is there,
that eternal life is in these pages in
ink.
This is only paper and ink.
There's no eternal life in paper and ink.
It can give you knowledge, it can give
you information, correct knowledge, correct information.
It's like reading a good chemistry book.
You get correct information on chemistry.
So, you can get correct information about God
and about Jesus by reading the scriptures.
But you think eternal life is there, it's
not there.
That was the mistake of the Pharisees.
They thought eternal life is in a book.
You read it, you know the scriptures, you
know the verses, you know all the teachings
of the new covenant, and I got it
on life.
No, it is these that bear witness of
me, Jesus said.
So, the scriptures bear witness of Jesus.
And if we don't see Jesus in the
scriptures, then we missed it completely.
And he says, you're unwilling to come to
me, that you may have this eternal life.
So, you see the contrast there between the
tree of life and the tree of knowledge
of good and evil.
Let me read to you like this.
You go to the verse 39, you search
the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
because you think eternal life is there.
But it's not there.
But you won't come to the tree of
life, that you may have eternal life.
So, I believe that is one of the
dangers we face, was that being satisfied with
our external testimony, being satisfied that our knowledge
of doctrine is all accurate, very accurate, that
we can explain the new covenant so clearly
that other people can understand it.
Understand it what?
Intellectually.
It just makes you a good soulish Christian,
not a spiritual one.
Because you still may be satisfied doing lawful
things and not selecting the profitable out of
the lawful.
But yet, your testimony is very good.
You know, if you examine your life and
see whether you constantly, I want to ask
you, do you constantly compare your life with
Jesus' life or not?
I seek to do that every day.
And for many years now.
I think I've understood new covenant doctrine for
a number of years now.
But I've discovered through the years that that's
not enough.
I'm not purifying my doctrine, because there's very
little left to be purified.
I've studied it pretty thoroughly and my doctrine
is pretty accurate.
But I'm purifying my life.
You search the scriptures and you think eternal
life is there.
It's not there.
And through the scriptures, you're supposed to come
to me.
Turn to 1 John and chapter 3.
See, we've all got this doctrine right, because
we've heard it many times, Romans 8-29,
that we are predestined to be conformed to
the image of God's Son, Jesus Christ, that
he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
So we've got it right.
I mean, if you have a questionnaire on
new covenant, I think most of us would
get probably 100 percent, which only proves you've
got a good knowledge.
You've got a good understanding.
Our intellect is wonderful.
And the cleverer you are, the more you
get marks for that questionnaire on new covenant
theology.
But it doesn't mean that necessarily that your
life is like that.
So we've understood our goal is to become
like Jesus Christ.
That's a destination I have to go to.
And like you've heard me say, if your
ticket says San Francisco to New York and
you get into, how do you know you
got into the right plane?
Well, every hour you should be getting closer
to New York.
If you're not, you're in the wrong plane.
You're in the wrong flight.
How do I know that I'm going in
the right direction?
Predestined, my destination is becoming like Christ.
Every year, I should be becoming a little
more like Christ.
And the best person to tell you whether
that's right or wrong is your marriage partner.
They can tell you, darling, you're becoming more
Christ-like.
Something has changed in you in the last
one year.
Not your knowledge is better, or you preach
better, or you share better, or you pray
better.
Pharisees could do all that.
So 1 John 3 says, we know here's
the destination.
In the middle of verse 2, right now,
beloved, we are the children of God.
Verse 2, we are born again.
But it has not yet appeared what we
shall be, our destination.
When he comes, we shall be like him.
We would have reached our destination, becoming Christ
-like.
But how do you know whether you're going
in the right direction?
That it says in the next verse.
If you have this hope, or if you're
going the right direction, you will be purifying
yourself constantly.
To what extent?
As he is pure.
In other words, you will not stop purifying
yourself until you become like Christ, which is
only when he comes again.
So how do I purify myself?
There is a cleansing of my life, like
I've said many times, which is the guilt
of my sin.
I can do nothing about it.
I cannot purify my sin, cleanse it away.
It's only the blood of Jesus and his
death on the cross that can take care
of my past.
But in this future of my life, I
have to purify myself with God's help.
The past, God takes care of.
The future, I have to take care of.
To me, it's the picture of Egyptians God
killed in the Red Sea.
He buried them all.
The Israelites didn't have to lift a finger.
But the Canaanites, the Israelites had to kill
themselves.
God didn't say, okay, I'll kill the Canaanites
for you.
You see the difference between the two?
One is the old man that's crucified with
Christ.
The other is the flesh, which I have
to crucify.
Galatians 5.24 says, those who are Christ's
crucify the flesh.
But Roman 6 says, the old man is
crucified by God.
The Egyptians were buried by God.
The Canaanites, I have to kill myself.
The Old Testament picture is exact.
That's why it's good to study the Old
Testament.
And the Egyptians are all buried in a
moment.
One moment, the old man is finished.
It's not a gradual process.
It's like baptism.
Baptism symbolizes your old man is buried and
you're up again.
It's in a moment, it's over.
But the flesh is a lifelong thing.
It's like the Israelites went into the land
of Canaan.
And each of those giants represent different lusts
in our flesh, desires and passions.
And they had to kill them one by
one by one by one.
And the New Testament speaks about conscious sin
and unconscious sin.
And we need to know the distinction.
I have to finish with conscious sin constantly.
And as I finish with conscious sin, God
shows me a little more of what I
was unconscious of, on Christ like areas that
I didn't know about.
And I can deal with that and move
on.
That is the mark of Christian progress.
This is the way that I know I'm
in the New Covenant.
That someone asked me this, Brother Zag, what
is the proof that God is blessing you?
And I said, first of all, let me
tell you, it's got nothing to do with
my ministry.
A lot of people who cast out demons
and prophesy and heal the sick, who will
stand before Jesus and say, boast about all
that and the Lord say, I didn't even
know you.
Can you imagine that?
Anybody who glories in a ministry doesn't have
a clue how it's going to be in
the day of judgment.
Jesus said that in Matthew 7, 22 to
23.
Many will come to me.
Many means hundreds of thousands of people, preachers,
who will stand before Jesus and say, Lord,
Lord, we did miracles in your name.
We cast out demons in your name.
We prophesy.
That means we preach great sermons in your
name.
And Jesus doesn't say you're telling lies.
You never did that.
No.
That's because if they were bluffing, they wouldn't
dare to bluff Jesus.
Even if they were trying, he would have
told them, hey, that's all a lie.
You never did any of that.
And you never did it in my name.
No, he accepts it.
In Jesus' name, you preached, you cast out
demons, and he did many miracles, not one
or two.
You read Matthew 7, 23.
Many miracles.
But I will say to them, depart from
me, you who lived in sin.
So that shows me one very important thing
about the day of judgment, that the important
thing in the day of judgment will not
be how much ministry you had, but what
your attitude to sin was.
Because when it comes to ministry, you can
feel so inferior to someone who's so gifted.
And I've seen that in the church, that
some are extremely gifted.
They got 10 talents.
You got only one.
But God's not going to evaluate us on
the basis of how many talents you had.
You don't have to feel discouraged that you
can't preach like somebody else or do miracles
like somebody else or cast out demons like
somebody else, because that's not going to be
the important thing in the day of judgment.
The important thing in the day of judgment
is going to be, was there sin in
your life?
Did you deal with sin in your life?
And that puts us all on the same
level.
Who here can say that somebody else has
got an advantage in dealing with sin?
We've all got the same flesh.
We've all got the same access to the
Holy Spirit's power, if we want to.
We all have the same opportunity to humble
ourselves.
God gives grace to the humble.
Who's preventing you from humbling yourself and getting
God's grace?
Nobody.
Only you yourself.
And if you get grace, the Bible says,
sin will not rule over you when you're
under grace.
I mean, this is a verse that I've
often, I never get tired of repeating it.
Romans 6.14 says, I can never sin
as long as grace is over me.
If I'm under grace, during the moments I'm
under grace, sin cannot rule over me.
The moment I move away from that covering
of grace, sin gets power over me.
And when is it I move under the,
from the covering of grace?
When I become proud.
God gives grace to the humble, 1 Peter
5.5, but he resists the proud.
And I sin because at that moment, God
has not given me grace.
I made this a law, a rule in
my life that anytime I slip up, even
if I slip up in a word that
was unchrist-like, one word that was unchrist
-like, that's a sin.
I say, Lord, I slipped up there, and
I know why I slipped up.
I didn't get grace from you.
That's why I spoke like that.
Oh, that's why I did that thing.
And I didn't get grace from you because
you saw something area of pride in me,
which I still haven't seen.
Please show it to me.
That's what I always do.
And if you do that, I guarantee you
will walk on this path of self-purification
by the power of the Holy Spirit, that
you will not be the same person next
year that you are right now.
You'll be more christ-like.
You'd have progressed towards your destination.
You're on the right flight then, moving in
the right direction.
I just want to save all of you
from self-deception.
The Bible speaks about deceiving ourselves, and it's
one thing for the devil to deceive us.
It's okay, but the Bible often speaks about
deceiving ourselves, and that's what I'm trying to
save you from.
See, for example, Galatians 6 and verse 3.
If anyone thinks he's a somebody when he's
a nobody, he deceives himself.
Do you recognize that you're a nobody?
Maybe you recognize that when you got first
converted, that you are a nobody.
But I've seen very often people, after they've
been a few years in a church, they
no longer feel that they are nobodies.
They are now senior believers.
They're sort of somebodies in the church.
That's why they don't grow.
They're deceiving themselves.
If anyone thinks he's a somebody when he's
a nobody, he deceives himself.
Do you know that you're supposed to be
a nobody till the end of your life?
Because that's the only way we can give
Jesus the right place.
I don't know, some of you may have
seen that video of mine, of a message
I gave in CFC Bangalore, where I got
seven or eight brothers to come up one
by one and hold a zero in front
of them.
I said, one by one, I gave them
different titles.
Okay, here's the most handsome man in the
world.
Zero.
Here's another, the cleverest, the most highest IQ
man in the world.
Zero.
Here's the one who won a number of
gold medals in the Olympics.
Zero.
Here's the great scientist who discovered great things.
Zero.
Here's the mega church pastor who preaches well.
Zero.
And like that, a whole lot of zeros.
I should put them all together.
What are they?
Zero.
You know, that's actually from a verse that
Nebuchadnezzar, can you imagine getting light from Nebuchadnezzar?
Yeah.
Nebuchadnezzar once made an amazing statement in Daniel
chapter four in verse 35.
If you haven't seen it, you've got to
see it.
Get some light from Nebuchadnezzar the king after
he repented.
He says in Daniel 4.35, all the
inhabitants of the earth are accounted as zero.
It's amazing.
All the inhabitants of the earth are zero.
Paul said that in 1 Corinthians chapter three,
just so that you know that I'm scriptural
when I teach it.
1 Corinthians chapter three, verse six.
He's talking about the church in Corinth, how
it grew.
I planted that church.
Apollos came along later.
He was a great teacher.
Watered that church.
But God was the one who caused the
growth.
It's like a little baby.
You can take care of it, but God's
the one who brought it to birth, and
God's the one who caused it to grow.
So then, the one who plants is nothing,
the one who waters is nothing.
God who causes the growth is everything.
Paul says the same thing as Nebuchadnezzar.
I may be a great apostle planting churches.
I'm zero, Paul says.
Apollos is a very eloquent teacher.
He's also a zero.
It's only God that's everything.
So in that message, I finally took another
big one, and I put it in front
of them.
I said, let me call just one of
them.
I said, just one.
You see how his value suddenly increases from
zero to 10, and that one represents Christ.
When a person has Christ, if he doesn't
have Christ, he's a zero.
10 of them all together are still zeros,
but one of them gets Christ.
One in front of him, he gets value.
And now I said, I want to show
you what fellowship does.
I said, one more brother, please come in
here.
It doesn't become 11, it becomes 100.
One more brother joining in fellowship becomes 1
,000, and all the way it becomes the
millions.
So we need to recognize till the end
of our life, Lord, I want to be
a zero.
I want to be a nothing before God.
I believe that God does so many things
to reduce us, the high thoughts we have
as descendants of Adam, because we give value
to the wrong things.
Why do people get proud?
They get proud because they've accomplished something.
People have accomplished something, even if they act
humble in their mind, they think we're pretty
important.
And if you're one of those who's accomplished
things in life, may God have mercy on
you.
It's good you've accomplished it, but don't let
it make you think that you're somebody.
Nothing.
You're a zero.
Maybe you're very good looking.
Every time you look at the mirror, you
feel so nice that you, God made you
so handsome or so pretty.
You're another zero.
You compare yourself with other human beings who
are not so, don't happen to be so
good looking as you are.
If you've studied chemistry, you know what molecules
are?
Molecules are, all matter is made up of
molecules.
And a good face is just a different
arrangement of molecules.
If those molecules in your face were arranged
slightly differently, you'd be very ugly.
So what we are admiring is the arrangement
of molecules.
It's worth nothing, intelligence and accomplishments.
What all stupid things human beings boasted.
We're all nobodies.
The only thing that has value is Jesus
Christ.
And how much of his life you have.
If you don't discover it now, I guarantee
you'll discover it when you stand before Jesus
in the day of judgment.
I don't have the slightest doubt you'll discover
in that day when Christ comes again, and
you stand before him, that accomplishment in any
field on earth, intellectual, professional, sport, good looks,
everything was zero.
And the only thing that will matter in
that day is in the one life God
gave you on earth.
How much did you partake of the life
of Jesus Christ in your inner life?
Whatever men may have thought of you, it's
absolutely no difference.
Men thought of the world of Annas and
Caiaphas, the high priests who crucified Jesus.
What did God think of them?
Annas and Caiaphas were the mega church pastors
of those days.
What did God think of them?
He thought more of that humble fisherman Peter,
who was not recognized.
Why?
Because he was gripped by the life of
Jesus Christ.
And if you happen to be a very
clever, respected person like Paul, you've got to
give all that up.
He says, I counted it all rubbish that
I might gain Christ.
There's a way to gain Christ.
It's not easy, but it's possible.
Turn to Philippians in chapter 3.
He speaks of all his, the things he
could glory in.
Philippians 3.
Verse 4, the last part, if anyone else
thinks he's got a mind to put confidence,
so he can glory in the flesh, I
can glory more than all of you.
He says, I'm first of all, part of
the nation of Israel, God's chosen nation.
Verse 5, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, that
means both my parents were Hebrews, not just
one of them.
And I was a Pharisee, the highest level
of people who obeyed the law.
And as to zeal, I persecuted the church
because I was convinced that Jesus was a
false prophet.
And the Old Testament said we got to
get rid of false prophets and their followers.
So I did that.
He was completely wrong, but he was sincere.
And as far as the righteousness, which is
in the law, he was blameless.
He once stood before a high priest and
told him, all my life, I have lived
with a good conscience.
How many people can say that?
I can't say that.
I can't say that from my childhood.
I always honored my parents.
I never told a lie.
I can't say that.
But Paul could, right from childhood.
He was just like that rich young ruler
who told Jesus, all these commandments I've kept
from my youth.
There are a few people who brought up
in extremely God-fearing families.
Paul was one of them.
He could say, all my life, I have
lived with a good conscience, but he was
completely wrong.
Keeping a good conscience doesn't mean you're necessarily
right.
He was totally wrong, going in the opposite
direction, but he had a good conscience.
Is it possible for you?
Because it shows how insensitive our conscience is.
Conscience is something which depends on what we
have understood of the truth, and if you
understood very little of the truth, that's your
level of conscience, and you could be completely
wrong.
That's why we need the light of the
Holy Spirit to show us what we're really
like in the light of Christ.
So he says here, I was blameless, but
all of that I count as loss for
the sake of Christ.
When I saw Jesus and realized what these
other things were, zero.
And he says, I count all things, verse
8, to be loss, to be zero, in
view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus.
And when he says about knowing Jesus, he's
talking about life.
You know, Jesus said in John 17, 3,
this is eternal life, that they might know
God and Jesus Christ from their sin.
He's talking about an intimate knowledge, not just
the head knowledge.
And for him, I've suffered the loss of
everything.
I'm willing to get rid of all these
zeros I've gloried in in my life.
I want to ask you, my brothers, sisters,
all of us have accomplished something in life,
right?
Maybe you did well in school or college
or in your profession or in the Bible
knowledge, or maybe you're respected in this church
as a spiritual brother or a spiritual sister.
You have accomplished something.
Are you willing to count it all rubbish?
Lord, the opinions of all the brothers and
sisters in my church, the elders think highly
of me.
Rubbish.
That I may know Christ.
And you know that word in the Greek
I'm told is, I don't know Greek, but
I've only been told it.
The word rubbish, it refers to human dung,
human dung.
All the honor of men, do you really
consider all the honor of your fellow believers
in this church and of the elders in
this church as human dung?
Then you'll come to know Christ.
We value that so much and we inwardly
glory in it.
And those are like brakes that hinder our
vehicle from moving forward.
You can have your foot on the accelerator
and do so many right things, but if
you've got your foot on the brakes as
well, you're not going to go very far.
That's exactly what happens.
I have to deliberately say that's all rubbish.
It's all human dung.
I'm not going to go after human dung.
What do I care about that person's opinion
about me?
Why does that mean so much to me?
Why do I sit back and meditate on
what somebody else thought about me or what
somebody thought about my prayer or my sermon?
It's amazing what all things we can glory
in.
I'm just trying to tell you that some
of the dangers of people in New Covenant
churches concentrate on the life of Jesus inwardly.
That I may gain Christ, and he says
this, he's writing this when he's nearly 65
years old.
He says, I still haven't attained, verse 12,
I haven't become fully like Christ and therefore
I'm pressing on.
He says, there's only one thing I do,
verse 13, forgetting what lies behind verse 13.
Now when we look at that verse, we
often like to use that verse to say,
I like to forget all the mess I
made in my life so far.
But when Paul says, forgetting the things behind,
he says, I'm forgetting how Christ like I've
already become.
And he was probably more Christ-like than
anybody on earth at that time.
And he says, I forget all that.
All the churches I planted and all the
ministries I fulfilled, all the people I raised
from the dead and all that.
He says, I forget all that.
I'm pressing on to become more like Christ,
to lay hold of, to the upward call
of God, verse 12, last part, to lay
hold of that for which Christ laid hold
of me.
He knows that Christ laid hold of him
to make him like Christ.
He wrote Romans 8, 29, by the way.
So he knows what he was laid hold
of.
He says, I'm wanting to lay hold of
that for which Christ laid hold of me.
That's the only thing in my life.
And what about all your ministry, Paul?
It's just an overflow of my life.
I'm not concentrating on my ministry.
I'm concentrating on becoming like Jesus, and there's
an overflow from that which results in ministry
and preaching and healing the sick and blessing
people and planting churches.
That's just an overflow.
I don't get occupied with that.
There's only one thing I do, to lay
hold of that for which Christ laid hold
of me.
Make that your goal.
In other words, get to the tree of
life.
Don't be satisfied with all the fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
I know so much more of what is
right and what is wrong.
And the more I listen to the internet
sermons and more I listen to the messages
here, I get to know more of what
is right and wrong.
And I'm avoiding certain wrong things and doing
what's right things.
It doesn't mean you're becoming spiritual.
It's life.
There's a difference between imitating Christ.
You know, there's a very well-known book
called The Imitation of Christ.
I don't agree with it.
Because imitation doesn't mean that you're the real
thing.
I often use the example of training a
dog to imitate a cat.
I mean, there are people who train dogs
to do all types of things now.
Supposing a good trainer could teach a dog
to say meow, meow, meow.
And it does it perfectly until it meets
another dog that comes to fight with it.
And the old nature comes out again.
Does that sound a sort of familiar in
your experience?
Where you've struggled so long to behave Christ
-like and then all of a sudden you
encounter somebody who really works you up and
then you discover, hey, the old man's not
really dead.
No, we have to partake more and more
of the life of Jesus.
A cat can never say bow-wow and
bark at another dog.
It's impossible because of nature.
It's not been taught to say meow, meow.
It's nature.
We must not rest until nature has taken
over.
And I often think of this.
Why can't the Holy Spirit do that in
you and me?
If Adam could do such a wonderful job
of communicating his filthy nature to me so
well from my childhood that I could fight
readily, get angry readily, and scream and yell
and steal and tell lies easily, what a
job Adam did.
Don't you think the Holy Spirit could do
at least an equally good job to give
me the life of Christ?
Or do you think Adam could do a
better job giving me his life than the
Holy Spirit can?
We must not be satisfied with external behavior.
It's good.
It is second best.
Definitely.
It's always good to be with a well
-behaved person who never gets angry and never
gets upset and always very kind.
That's second best.
But the best is to have the life
of Jesus where it comes from within.
That is not an act that's put on
because if it's only put on, you never
know when it'll change all of a sudden.
A little bit of road rage and suddenly
this disappears.
Nature, don't be satisfied till the Holy Spirit's
filled you.
That's why I say the most important thing
in the New Covenant is not the doctrine.
It is a life that comes through the
Holy Spirit.
That's why being filled with the Holy Spirit
is the most important thing in the New
Covenant.
Do you know that most of us can
probably explain the New Covenant better than Peter?
I don't think Peter could explain the New
Covenant better than most of you who have
sat here for so many years.
But he was Spirit-filled.
Spirit-filled.
That is the important thing.
In Genesis chapter 2, we read of these
two trees, knowledge of good and evil and
life, and Adam could have easily accessed either
of them.
But by the time Adam is thrown out
of the Garden of Eden, something has changed.
Notice that in Genesis 3.
It says here, now God put a flaming
sword in front of the Tree of Life.
And there were a number of cherubs.
Cherubim means cherubs, plural.
A number of angels that were guarding this
Tree of Life and a sword that turned
in every direction.
Now that was not there before Adam sinned.
Before Adam sinned, he could just walk up
to the Tree of Life and take it,
but now there's a sword.
You know what that symbolizes?
It symbolizes death to self.
That's the only way to get to the
Tree of Life now.
If I want to get to the Tree
of Life, the sword has to fall on
my self-life.
Around the Tree of Knowledge, there is no
sword.
Going around and around.
That's why a lot of people prefer to
go to the Tree of Knowledge and satisfy
ourselves and have so much understanding now of
New Covenant.
We can share things and sing New Covenant
songs and so many things.
There's no sword there.
So what I say to you, there is
no cross in your life.
No cross on which you are being crucified.
You're in the wrong tree.
That's the best way to find out.
If in your daily life there is no
cross on which you have to die in
your home life, going down the roads, in
your office life, in your thought life, when
you're just lying down in bed before going
to sleep, or when you wake up in
the morning.
If there is no cross on which you're
being crucified, on which you die, you are
at the wrong tree.
Keep that as a principle by which you
can discover which tree you're coming down.
You know, it's Tree of Knowledge of good
and evil has got a lot of fruit
in it.
A lot of knowledge you can acquire about
true Christianity, New Covenant Christianity, and all the
rest of it.
Amazing truths which most of Christendom doesn't even
know or talk about.
You go to the internet and listen to
all the sermons there and some of the
things you know, there's nobody preaching there.
I mean, you may hear it in CFC's
messages, but nowhere else.
And therefore you can think that I really
got something.
If there's a cross in your life, you
have really got something.
Turn with me to Matthew Chapter 16.
You know, this is why in many places,
a New Covenant church is not built.
Because a New Covenant church can only be
built with New Covenant people.
So the New Covenant church is built around
the Tree of Life, not around the Tree
of Knowledge of good and evil.
You cannot build a New Covenant church with
New Covenant doctrine.
A bunch of people who have got New
Covenant doctrine, you can't build a New Covenant
church.
They could be around the Tree of Knowledge
of good and evil.
But a bunch of people have taken up
the cross every day, or bearing the dying
of Jesus in their daily life, and thereby
have the life of Jesus.
See Matthew 16.
This is the first time that Jesus spoke
about building his church.
He never spoke about it before.
The first time, I will build my church,
verse 18, the middle.
And what is the mark of Jesus' church?
The gates of Hades, or the powers of
spiritual death.
I will not be able to overpower it.
The gates of Hades, you know, Hades is
the Greek word for where people go when
they die.
So we could paraphrase it as the powers
of spiritual death will not be able to
overcome this church, because these are people who
have already died.
You heard that story I mentioned before of
this missionary in the 19th century.
I think his name was James Calvert, who
went from England in the days when the
Fiji Islands were occupied by cannibals.
He was a young man, 25, 25 years
old or something, had a burden to go
as a missionary to preach the gospel to
these cannibals in the Fiji Islands.
And he got into one of those steamships
of those days, or sailing ships, I don't
know.
They went all the way around to Fiji.
Fiji.
And just before he went ashore there, the
captain of the ship asked him, are you
going to go and live here?
These cannibals?
You'll die.
He and his wife.
And James Calvert said, we died before we
got onto the ship.
I've never forgotten that.
We died before we boarded the ship.
So we're not going to die now, we
already died.
These are the men who knew the Lord.
Maybe James Calvert couldn't explain the New Covenant
doctrine like we can, but he understood what
it is to die to himself and his
own ambitions and desires.
Who would go into the midst of cannibals
to tell about Jesus?
He's going to make money?
What's he going to get?
In those days, there was not even publicity
to get fame.
There was no media reporting, hey, there's a
great missionary sacrificing himself.
You'd get nothing, except the joy of having
brought somebody to Christ.
These people, you know, I remember as a
young Christian, stories like this that challenged me.
It wasn't doctrine that challenged me as a
young Christian.
It was stories of lives of men who
really did something for the Lord before they
left this earth.
I don't think James Calvert was probably a
great preacher.
I think many of us can preach better
than him.
But the man lived a life and these
are great examples.
So I will build my church, Jesus said,
and the powers of death will not be
able to destroy it because these people have
already died.
Like James Calvert said, I've already died.
I'm not afraid of powers of spiritual death
now coming to attack me.
Impossible.
He overcome the gates of hell.
The Bible speaks about Satan having the power
of death.
Hebrews 2.14, he who had the power
of death.
Jesus overcame him who had the power of
death.
But he can't have power over me because
I've already died.
Like James Calvert says, I've already died.
How can you kill me?
I've already died.
I'm not looking for reputation, honor, position, fame,
money, nothing.
It's a dead man's not looking for these
things.
A dead man can't be offended.
A dead man is not expecting respect.
It's a wonderful thing to die with Christ.
So this is the first time that he
spoke about the cross and in connection with
this, notice this, verse 21.
See the connection.
From that time, from which time?
From the time that Jesus began to speak
about the church and how it would overcome
the gates of spiritual death.
Jesus Christ told them how he himself must
suffer many things and be killed and be
raised up the third day.
That's the first time he spoke about the
cross.
The first time he spoke about the church,
he spoke about the but he was going
to die.
And immediately Peter says, no, Lord.
Look at the love Peter has for his
master.
I will never let anybody catch you like
that and kill you.
God forbid it.
And to this loving action of words of
Peter, see how Jesus replies, get behind me,
Satan.
Only twice Jesus ever said that.
Once was to Satan himself when Satan offered
him all the glory of the world.
He said, get behind me, Satan.
The second time was to Peter.
Would you say like that to someone who's
trying to save your life?
That's all that Peter was trying to do,
save Jesus' life from being killed.
Just get behind me, Satan.
You see, God's way is not our way.
We wouldn't think of praising a Roman military
man like Jesus did, a centurion saying, oh,
I've never seen faith like this in all
of Israel.
We'd say, no, no, no.
I'd like to be a little sober in
what I say about him because he may
get buffed up.
Jesus is so different from us, you know.
When we get to his way of thinking,
we'll find it very different.
And then he turns around to Peter and
says, get behind me, Satan.
And to Judas Iscariot who comes to betray
him in the Garden of Gethsemane, he puts
his arm around and says, friend, have you
come to betray the Son of Man?
Jesus was so different.
And when we become like Christ, I tell
you, we'll say, get behind me, Satan, to
Peter, and we'll say, friend, to Judas Iscariot.
That's what Jesus said.
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you Jesus.
God says, my ways are not your ways.
My way of thinking is completely different from
your way of thinking.
You're just becoming a refined human being.
What we need is to become God-like,
Christ-like, partake of his nature.
And human beings may not understand us sometimes.
They didn't understand him when he whipped people
out of the temple, turned the tables of
money.
He didn't say, gentlemen, will you please remove
these coins from here?
He never spoke like that.
That would be more Christ-like, right?
Imagine going up to Jesus Christ and saying,
you should be more Christ-like.
That's how crazy a lot of Christians are.
Because their understanding of Christ-like is formed
in their own imagination, not from the Scriptures.
There's only one book in the world that
tells me how Jesus was like.
That's the Bible.
And why does he turn to Peter like
that?
Because he says, your mind, verse 23, is
set on man's interests, not God's interests.
You're trying to avoid the cross.
From that time, verse 24, Jesus said, it's
not only me who's got to go to
the cross.
If you want to follow me, you got
to go to the cross as well.
Then I will build a church through which
the gates of hell will not prevail.
So see that whole verse 18 in the
context of verse 21 to 24.
And you see the close connection between building
the church and going the way of death
to self.
And how man's interest, what the Lord told
Peter, it's man's interest to avoid the cross.
God's interest is to go the way of
the cross.
And the voice that tells you to avoid
the way of the cross is the voice
of Satan, even if it comes through your
best friend, Peter, or if it comes from
the greatest preacher in the world.
Get behind me, Satan.
I listen to now and then to messages
here and there by different preachers.
And I have to say that, that's not
for me.
That is man's interests.
Jesus will make you rich.
Jesus will make you healthy.
I say, get behind me, Satan.
Your mind is set on man's interests, not
on God's interests.
How many of you are able to recognize
a preacher who's getting you to have your
mind set on man's interests, your own interests,
not God's interests, as the voice of Satan?
You don't have to go up to him
and say, get away, Satan.
But inwardly, you have to reject it.
When I hear a preacher teaching me to
seek my own interests and not God's, I
inwardly say, get behind me, Satan.
I don't want to listen to that.
I hope he will say that at least
from now.
This is the way of life.
He who has ears to hear, let him
hear what the Spirit says to all the
churches.
There's a lot that God has planned for
you in bringing you to this church, I
want to tell you.
Don't miss it.
And if you take it seriously, allow the
Holy Spirit to speak to you and fill
you I guarantee, at least from now on,
you'll have no regret about the way you
live the rest of your life.
I mean, we may have a lot of
regret about the past, but at least from
now, we'll have no regret about how we
live the rest of our days, because we've
seen the way of the cross.
Let's bow before God.
Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, we
pray that you alone who can show us
what is light and what is darkness, you
who way back in the beginning separated the
light from the darkness.
I pray in Jesus' name that you will
separate the light from the darkness in our
mind and in our hearts and in our
lives, so that we understand what it is
to walk in the light and what it
is to walk in darkness and that we
will not walk along a path which is
a mixture of light and darkness, but that
there will be a clear separation in our
life between the two, a light which is
the life of Jesus and everything else which
is darkness.
Help us, we pray.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.