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I want to speak to you this morning
on the subject called to be Christlike.
Called to be Christlike.
Lord Jesus, I need your help this morning
in a very special way.
I ask you, Holy Spirit, to speak into
me and through me and into the hearts
of those who've gathered this morning.
Those in the annex and the overflow rooms
and those here in this auditorium, in front
of me and behind me, wherever the voice
may be heard.
And Lord, let us hear what the Spirit
has to say.
Lord, make this message a part of my
life.
Let this be something, Lord, that I live.
Something, Lord, that is not just a preached
sermon.
Not something that is just preached to others,
but that I myself may live it.
That it'll be life to me.
It'll be the way I live and the
way I think and the way I act.
In Jesus' name, amen.
A dear sister in the Lord talked to
me recently.
She said, I'm in a Bible class learning
what my purpose in life is.
She said, we have a whole group and
we're all anxious to find our purpose in
life.
I was listening to the radio the other
day and there was an offer by a
pastor how to find your gifts.
And he offers a questionnaire.
He said, if you write in, I'll give
you a free questionnaire.
It's a large questionnaire.
And he said, on the basis of that,
we will evaluate what your gifts are and
tell you how to find your place in
the body of Christ.
Now, I'm not knocking that.
I'm sure there's a lot of good to
that.
A lot of good things are said and
done on behalf of finding spiritual gifts.
I had a letter this week from the
pastor and his wife.
And she said, we've become so discouraged and
frustrated looking for ways to fulfill the call
and purpose of God in our lives.
We felt like giving up at times.
So many hindrances.
There are so many hindrances to find our
proper purpose and place in life.
Now, may I tell you, I believe in
spiritual gifts.
I believe in special callings.
But I am convinced at this time in
my life that there is only one purpose
in life.
There's one eternal core purpose out of which
all other gifts and purposes spring forth.
There is one purpose that you've been called
to that I've been called to.
And if this is not your core purpose,
all the other goals and ambitions and desires
and gifts are in vain.
That one eternal purpose is that you bear
fruit.
The Scripture brings it out very clearly in
John 15, 16.
You've not chosen me, but I've chosen you.
And I've ordained you that you should go
and bear forth fruit.
I've chosen you.
I've called you.
That's your calling.
That's your choosing.
That you go and bear forth fruit.
Then the question arises, what is that fruit?
If I'm to bear fruit, some think it's
soul winning.
Others have other explanations, but I see only
one in the Scripture.
And that fruit is to be Christlike.
To bear much fruit is to become more
and more like Jesus.
That more fruit is the more likeness of
Christ that is shown forth in our activities,
in our lifestyle, in our relationships to others.
Bearing fruit is bearing the reflection of Jesus
Christ.
If I'm not Christlike, if that is not
being shown in me visibly, noticeably, by those
I live with, by those I associate with,
if I am not exuding more and more
of the likeness and the presence of Jesus
in my life, I have missed, no matter
what I accomplish, no matter what I do,
I have missed my eternal purpose on this
earth.
My purpose as a pastor is to become
more like Christ in my living and in
my preaching.
Become Christlike.
That is your goal.
That is your life.
To become absolutely Christlike.
God's purpose cannot be fulfilled by anything I
do for Christ.
I repeat it.
God's eternal purpose in my life cannot be
measured by anything I do.
I don't care if I cast out devils.
I don't care if I heal the sick.
I don't care what I do in His
name.
It's not what I do, it's what I'm
becoming.
It's what I am becoming in Christ that
is a measure of my fulfilling His eternal
purpose in my life.
The disciples took Jesus to the temple, and
they were so impressed by the buildings, the
multiplicity of the buildings and the crowds and
all the religious activity.
And they said, look, Jesus.
They thought it was such a godly work,
such a wonderful accomplishment.
Look at these magnificent buildings.
They were very impressed.
And Jesus put a cold blanket on it
all, and He turned to them and said,
it's all coming down.
He said, you're looking at the Roman temple.
They were impressed by all the religious activity
just as we are today.
We're impressed with impressive buildings, huge edifices.
We're impressed by the multitudes coming and going
and by the way people worship and the
uniqueness of their worship.
And the Lord is saying, get your eyes
off the buildings.
Get your eyes off the religious activity, the
pomp and the ceremony, because you are the
temple of the Holy Ghost.
You have your eyes on the wrong temple.
Don't you know that you are the temple
of the Holy Ghost?
Don't worry.
Don't fret about what's happening in that temple.
And because, you see, it had become a
den of thieves.
Jesus said, that does not represent who I
am.
It's a den of thieves.
They're money changing.
There are prophets in there and there are
priests and there are others in there all
out for themselves.
They even abused their parents.
This does not represent who Christ is.
You are the temple through which Christ is
manifested.
Get your own house in order.
Get your house.
Are you going to be a temple out
of which Christ is represented to the whole
world?
Know you not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost?
We are called to judge righteous judgment.
We're called to denounce in the house of
God everything that is unlike Christ.
We're to do it with love and to
do it with tears.
We're to expose that which is false, false
doctrines, false teachers.
I will never give up my God-given
right and anointing to expose what is clearly
of the devil.
We're called to reprove and expose that which
is evil.
And we do it because we're shepherds and
we're to save the sheep.
We're to guard the sheep from that which
is false.
But judgment begins in the house of God.
This is the house of God.
Judgment must begin here.
I must judge myself before I have any
right to judge anything that calls itself the
church.
I have to look into my own heart
and I have to judge this temple because
judgment begins in this house.
Jesus said, Every branch of me that beareth
not fruit he takes away.
If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch and is
withered.
And men gather them and cast them into
the fire.
And what Jesus is saying, Anything that is
not a reflection of me, everything that does
not exalt me, everything that does not produce
in the hearer the likeness of Christ, I'm
going to do away with it.
I'm going to cast it out.
And men are going to see the falseness
of it and burn it.
In other words, they're just not going to
have anything to do with it.
They're just going to gather it up and
cast it aside.
And it's all going to wither and it's
all going to die.
He makes it very, very clear.
You see, if you had been at the
temple in the time of Christ, and if
you'd walked into that church, that synagogue in
Jerusalem, you would have been flabbergasted.
You would have been sorely grieved, as the
Lord calls it.
You'd have been sorely grieved at what you
saw.
You would see money changers in the temple,
and you would see priests pocketing money at
the side, according to the tradition of the
Hebrews at the time.
You would have seen nothing but avarice and
greed.
There was nothing of Christ.
There was nothing truly religious about it.
It was all flesh.
Every man was out for himself.
And Jesus called it a den of thieves.
Can you imagine?
Now, if Jesus calls it a den of
thieves, they were thieves.
And you would have said, how can this
happen to the church?
There's no hope.
Folks, not to worry.
Not to worry, because Jesus came in with
His cord and with His whip, and He
drove it out.
He said, this is my house of prayer,
and He drove it all out.
And in one day, He changed everything.
And we serve the same Christ.
The Lord told me to go to sleep
and quit worrying about His church.
He knows how to take care of it.
Everything that's false, every false prophet, everything that's
unlike Christ, He in His time and His
way is going to drive it out.
It can happen overnight.
It can happen through suddenly something happening.
Folks, when the tsunami hit, I'll tell you
there were a lot of preachers changing their
message, at least temporarily.
They were not preaching their success and money
message.
One preacher I heard interviewed on the radio,
he said, my theme is money comes, money
comes, money comes.
Tsunamis come.
I don't want you to laugh about that,
but God's speaking, and He knows how to
speak clearly.
He knows how to deal with the economy.
He knows how to take away their money.
And everything that's unlike Christ, everything that's false,
we don't have to grieve about it.
We can preach as God anoints us with
love and brokenness.
But, folks, God says to me, He says
to every pastor, He says to all of
us, the church of Jesus Christ, you are
the temple.
Make sure that no avarice or covetousness is
in your heart.
Make sure there's nothing of the world that's
creeping into your own heart.
And we know that all things, Paul said
in Romans 8, 28, we know that all
things work together for good to them that
love God and are called according to His
purpose.
He said everything should be working out for
good to them that love God and who
know and walk according to their purpose.
If your purpose is to be Christlike in
all things, it's Christlike in every crisis.
It's Christlike in everything that happens in our
life.
And he said all things work together for
good.
If that be so, why is there such
distress in the church and especially in the
ministry today?
Same thing happened in Guatemala that I've seen
all over the world.
Our set-up team has just come back
from Australia and New Zealand this past week
in the same report because I asked our
advanced team, asked the pastors what the burden
is, asked them what the needs are, so
we can pray about it.
And everywhere they're sent and everywhere we go,
pastors are quitting the ministry, giving up, saying
they're weary, they're worn.
There is such distress.
There is such pressure of all kind.
And you find it in the church of
Jesus Christ.
You find so much.
Go to a bookstore and see where all
the books are talking about now, how to
survive, how to get through your loneliness.
This is written to Christians, not to sinners,
but Christians, and the distress.
And then this comes up against what I
read from the Apostle Paul, all things work
together for good to them that love God
and are called according to His purpose.
Something's missing.
We've got it wrong.
Something's missing in my life and in your
life.
I'm not preaching down at you.
I'm preaching to myself there's something wrong.
It doesn't mean we don't grieve at times.
I preached a message from this pulpit that
tore my guts apart and it was a
call to anguish.
But I also mentioned at the close of
that, after there's a call to anguish, there's
a time when they said, now put away
your anguish and begin to rejoice in the
Lord.
We sorrow and yet there's a gladness.
There has to be this confidence that no
matter what I'm going through, everything is going
to work out for good.
There's good coming out of this.
I don't know what it is, but there's
good that's going to come out of this
and I have to settle and enter into
the rest.
Folks, I will not let any devil in
hell, I'll not let any person on this
earth rob me of my rest in Jesus
Christ.
That rest that God has impregnated in my
soul.
My soul is at rest.
And God wants our soul to be at
rest.
That nothing, not the tsunamis, not the earthquakes,
not the financial disaster that hangs over this
and every nation, but we walk through this
Christian walk with an absolute rest that my
God has everything under control and I'll let
nobody rob me of my peace.
Are you living in the rest?
He said it's for every one of us.
Available to all of us.
We are called to one purpose, one primary
focus, to become fruitful in the likeness of
Christ.
You and I are not called to be
a success.
Some of us are called to be ordinary.
A few amen, honest people.
We have put such pressure on our children
to be doctors and lawyers and princes and
presidents.
We have put such pressure on ourselves to
keep up with the competitive spirit that is
in this world today.
There are so few.
I had a pastor years ago right here
in New York City.
Restaurant was just five or six blocks from
here.
He was 45 or so years of age.
And I was 28, 29 years of age.
He said, Brother David, I'm 45.
And he said, if you don't make it
by the time you're 50.
Now, this is a well-known evangelist.
He said, if you don't make it by
the time you're 50, you'll never make it.
And I've got five years to make it,
and I'm going on national television, and I'm
going to make it.
The truth is, he was never heard of
again.
God put him on a shelf.
There was a man that attended this church.
He no longer attends.
But I was in the car with him,
and I was driving down along the west
side, and he saw a yacht with a
helicopter on it.
And he said, my blood boils when I
see so many and even Christians being so
prospered.
And I have so many financial needs, it
makes me angry, and I am going to
make it no matter what it costs.
He said, it's my turn.
It's in the Bible, and it's my turn.
At last I heard from him the law
was looking for him.
That's the truth.
And everywhere I go, I hear people say,
I've got to make it.
I hear young pastors say, I'm going to
build a mega church.
And I hear Christians with all their dreams
and all of their searching and looking for
gifts so that they can offer God as
if they're trying to win favor from the
Lord by doing some great thing.
I have a message I dug up.
I preached 15 years ago how to be
ordinary, how to be satisfied in Jesus, how
to make him everything in your life so
that you don't need the applause of man.
You don't need to produce something.
You don't have to write something.
You don't have to do something, but you
lean on him, and the greatest thing that
you're getting from God is revelation of who
Christ is.
Romans 8, 29, for whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of his Son.
I believe in predestination in this way.
We are all predestinated to come into our
eternal purpose and to be like Christ, that
he may be the firstborn among many brethren,
that he was so given to his Father,
and that was everything to him.
I do nothing, I say nothing except what
I see and do for my Father, and
that he said that he may be the
firstborn of many brethren, that all of us
who come into Christ would come in the
same pattern, the same direction, all gathered up
in this core interest.
I'm here for my Father.
I'm here for Christ.
Question, do you want to bear much fruit?
I ask the Lord, Lord, how do I
do that?
And here's what the Holy Spirit said to
me so clearly.
It all depends on how you treat people.
It all depends.
He didn't say anything about how you treat
God.
He knows that I'm clear on that.
It all depends.
Do you want to be Christ-like?
It all depends on how you deal with
people.
Has the Father loved me, so I've loved
you, so you continue in my love.
You continue doing what I've been doing.
I say this, and I want you to
listen very closely, this has to begin in
my home.
It has to do with how I treat
my wife.
Wife, how you treat your husband.
I'm going to tell you that this is
something that comes to the very heart of
our Christian walk.
Now, I'll get to the singles.
In Malachi 2, chapter 13, you've covered the
altar of the Lord with tears and with
weeping and crying because he no longer regards
your offering.
He no longer accepts it with favor from
your hand.
God says, I don't accept anything you do
on my behalf anymore.
Now, there's no way to get around that.
You have to face it if you're going
to be Christ-like.
God says, how you deal with those closest
to you has to do with your bearing
fruit in the matter of becoming Christ-like.
How I deal with my wife.
The Lord says, I no longer accept your
ministry.
Teacher, choir member, pastor, whoever it is.
The Lord says, there's a controversy.
I can't accept anything.
I can't accept your praise.
I can't accept your worship.
There's absolutely nothing on the face of the
earth you can do on my behalf or
in my name that I can receive anymore.
And it says in verse 4, and for
what reason?
Why is this?
Because the Lord has witnessed what you have
done.
You have dealt treacherously with your wife.
Take heed.
Now, listen closely.
I have pastored in this church for 17
years and given the privilege to be a
founder.
And it's become a mega church with the
blessing of God known and heard around the
world, especially now with the pastor's message that's
going all over the world.
And I thank God for that.
I've had the joy of helping to establish
a Bible school.
I've had the joy and the privilege of
being part of raising up a teen child's
ministry of drug addicts, alcoholics with 500 centers
around the world.
Now I've written some 20 books.
Now I've had honors heaped on me all
over the world.
But let me tell you, if my wife
can't stand before you and say that David
is a loving husband and I see Jesus
in him, if my wife can't say to
you and the world, to heaven and hell,
that this man is what he preaches, if
she has to go around with a secret
hurt in her, that she can't even voice
that there's something wrong with this man, he's
not what he preaches, he's a phony, if
she can't look me and look you and
everyone in the face of the earth and
say, this man is becoming more tender to
me, this man cares for every hurt, this
man, and I'm not boasting.
This has to do with your Christian walk
and my Christian walk.
We can witness all we want to.
We can go out on the streets and
pass out tracks.
We can boast and sing and shout and
talk in tongues and dance around the aisles.
But what does your husband, what does your
wife have to say about you?
What kind of life have you been living
in your home?
And if my wife can't say that, and
I say that before my wife, if she
can't say that, then everything I've told you
about having the joy of helping establish this
church, Teen Challenge, every book I've written, all
the honors that were heaped upon me, all
of that is in vain.
It means nothing.
I've become a sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal.
It's how you are treating and dealing with
those in your home.
I had a husband and wife come to
me weeping.
They were middle aged or past middle age.
And he was saying, Brother Dave, I have
committed adultery against my wife.
And this man was so broken he could
hardly stand up.
His wife had her arm around him.
And he wept so bad.
And he said, I have mistreated my wife,
and I have dealt treacherously with my wife,
and I don't even know how to say
I'm sorry.
I'm so grief stricken.
It was a one time thing, and I
am so stricken.
And that man was so repentant.
And I remember the words of that wife.
She said, Brother David, that's the kind of
man he is.
He's a man of God, and I know
his repentance is genuine, and God forgives.
And she said, our marriage is going to
be stronger through this.
Do you see where there's true repentance?
There may have been failure in your life,
and it's not just adultery or fornication.
It can be that bitterness.
It can be that lack of compassion and
building of walls.
Anything that's unlike Christ is treacherous.
Anything that is not right about the nature
of Christ is treachery.
And you see, the Lord said, I'll restore
to you all the crank or worm has
eaten.
I'll restore that to you if there's true
repentance.
But let me tell you, folks, let me
tell you what the summit of all testing
is.
This is the summit of human will.
This is the summit of understanding the covenant
relationship we have with Christ.
It all comes down to this thing.
This is the real summit.
If you get it wrong here, you get
it wrong all through your life.
This is the summit.
How are you becoming in your home?
What's it like now in your relationship?
Is it more and more like Jesus?
Or are you allowing the bitterness to grow?
Are you allowing the little things?
Folks, I learned a secret.
I've said it from this pulpit.
It may not mean much to you, but
it changed my life years ago when one
day in a disagreement, and I said, I'm
not going to give in on this.
The Lord said, David, from now on, you
give up all your rights to be right.
You give up every right to be right.
You take it to Jesus Christ.
And folks, 95% of the things that
husbands and wives have disagreements about and even
end up in divorce are not worth talking
about.
They're simple, stupid things.
My wife is in the same condition.
She's given up her right to be right.
She doesn't have to be right anymore.
That terrible lie, love is never having to
say I'm sorry, is a lie from the
pits of hell.
Learning how to say I'm sorry and giving
up your rights is the secret of understanding
the walk of Christ.
I want to tell you it's not easy.
Paul, the apostle, said it's not a sin
to marry, but if you marry, there's going
to be trouble.
That is in your Bible, 1 Corinthians.
I didn't make that up, believe me.
There's no other test important in this life,
no other test so strong, because it's a
school you never graduate from.
And just when you think you have it
all right, the enemy will come in like
a flood.
But you have this deep core principle in
you, my purpose here is to be like
Christ to my wife, to my family, to
my neighbors, and on the job, my calling
is to be Christlike.
I don't have to be successful, I don't
have to be successful, I don't have to
be somebody.
Otherwise, everything is aborted, everything is invalid.
Secondly, this Christlikeness also has to do with
how I treat others outside my family.
To be Christlike is to acknowledge Jesus in
others.
To be Christlike is to acknowledge Jesus in
others.
Everywhere I go, and this is the truth,
and those who work with me know it's
the truth, every time I meet a man
who I know is with Christ, so given
to the heart of Christ, I go to
that person, and it's not flattery, but it's
a witness of the Holy Spirit.
And I'll put my hand on his shoulder
and point a finger right on his chest
and say, Brother, I see Jesus in you.
When's the last time you've done that?
You don't do that to everybody, but when
you see a man or woman of God,
just a matter of putting a hand on
their shoulder or taking it by the hand,
and folks, I can still, today, their faces
run across my vision right now.
Every one of those I remember, men of
Christ, seeing Christ in others, seeing Christ in
your wife, seeing Christ in your husband, and
reminding of that.
The greatest thing you can say to anybody
that walks with God is, I see Jesus
in you.
I would rather hear that than say you're
a good preacher.
I would rather hear that than hear anything
in my life, I see Jesus in you.
There's so much I want to say on
this, but I'm going to have to move
on now.
I've been told that I have to love
my enemies.
I've been told I have to love those
who abuse me, despise me.
I've been told I'm to love those who
can't love me back, but especially to love
my enemies and to do good to them.
I'm not only to love them, but I'm
to increase in my love for them.
How do I love the Muslim who spit
on my face two blocks from here?
Spit on my face and cursed.
How do I love the gays marching on
Fifth Avenue with the signs saying, Jesus is
gay?
How do I love those folks?
I don't even know how to love the
body of Christ.
Because I'm telling you now, it's absolutely, humanly
impossible to love in human flesh.
You cannot love the love of Christ and
be like Christ by any human ability.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
No other way can I love.
And God has ways.
He said, you know the Holy Ghost.
You know Him.
And when He comes, He will lead you
into all truth.
He will lead you into the way Jesus
loved.
You see, the Christ in me is neither
blind or deaf.
He can see and He can hear.
And He knows how.
And if I can get the Holy Ghost
by asking, He's given to everyone who asks,
then I can ask the Holy Ghost, where
is the Holy Ghost?
He's not out in the universe.
He's right here in His temple.
And I get up every morning and I
say, Holy Ghost, You are right here in
my temple.
Now teach me how to love.
Teach me how to be Christ-like.
And I'll tell you, there'll be whisper after
whisper of the Holy Spirit.
Can I give you just two simple practical
things that He's told me just this past
week?
He reminded me to write a letter to
a member of my family that I haven't
contacted probably in five years.
And just say, I'm thinking about you and
is there anything I can do to help
you?
And I was encouraged to write a thank
you letter to all my grandchildren for serving
Jesus.
And folks, it's not complicated things.
He'll come to you with the little things.
He'll come to you with the small things.
And you learn to love through those little
things until finally when somebody slaps you or
spit on your face, you'll say, God bless
you, God love you.
Now this is just plain meat and potatoes.
But that the love wherewith you have loved
me, Jesus said, be in them and I
in them.
Lastly, it's been un-Christ-like that's caused
the division in the church of Jesus Christ.
It's un-Christ-likeness that has robbed the
church of its power and influence in every
nation on earth.
There was a church in apostolic time that
shook nations and caused leaders to tremble.
But now the church has lost its influence
and its power in the world and it's
mocked, it's ridiculed, and it's really left in
the eyes of the Lord nothing but a
weak institution without authority.
And now as we travel from nation to
nation, everywhere we go, every nation, there's division.
Denominationally, there's division, racial discrimination.
I get weary of being informed when I
get into a nation or come to a
city for a conference, Brother Dave, make sure
you don't allow the gypsies.
And there are 10,000 Christian gypsies in
one.
They have great camp meetings and they steal
things and they fill my mind with things
about the gypsies.
And then every country, well, they're such and
such, they're such and such.
And there's such disrespect.
Now all of these denominations, thank God something's
happening everywhere we go.
Denominations are all coming together to help support
our meetings there.
And they're all 15, 20, sometimes 30 different
groups and denominations and God's breaking down that.
But you see, for years it's been all
of these denominations, everyone claiming to be of
Christ, everyone claiming to be preaching a pure
doctrine, and yet they can't sit down together
at a table.
There is absolute lack of Christ-likeness and
Christian compassion everywhere we go.
And there's another division now that's creeping up,
and I'm going to handle this very, very
quickly.
My time is almost up.
Zechariah 4.10, Who hath despised the day
of small things?
There's a division between the big and the
small, the big churches, the mega churches.
A man is unusually blessed somehow and his
numbers grow and he suddenly ends up with
this huge mega church and then their conferences
are held and books are written telling how.
And then pastors gather at conferences and people
gather, congregations gather, and they're being told in
essence this is what is being implied.
If you read my book, if you do
church like I do church, you will be
as successful as I am.
I'm not putting down mega churches.
I'm not putting down anybody's book or anybody's
way.
There are many godly men among these.
But I see such discouragement, and it's in
this church, it's in every church where people
say, I'm not doing anything significant for God.
I'm not being used by God.
I feel such sorrow for so many pastors
that have pastored 15, 20 years with small
congregations.
And they're in situations where there's atheism all
around them and no desire for God, and
they're in a very hard situation.
I would like to attend a conference, honestly,
I would like to attend a conference for
two or three days where nobody speaks but
pastors of small churches.
And I don't want to hear how they
were able to build some great edifice.
I don't want to hear about the budgets.
I want to hear what God's saying to
them.
I want to hear what's on their heart.
I want to hear what God is speaking
about Jesus and the revelation of Christ in
their lives.
And I say that to this congregation before
I close.
I don't want to stand before people and
tell them how much I know, how many
times we witness to one another or we
talk down to one another in the church
of Jesus Christ and we let everybody know
what we know.
And most of it we don't know, we're
just talking the talk.
You see, if I'm going to have Christ
-likeness, then I'm going to have eyes to
see and ears to hear.
I don't think you can be like Christ
unless you have his eyes, unless he looks
through your eyes and he hears through your
ears, because he is not blind, he is
not deaf.
And if I'm to be Christ-like, I
may not, I honestly, I'm at the place,
I don't care if anyone ever hears my
name again.
I don't care if I ever speak to
another conference.
I've made up my mind with God if
the rest of my life were spent nursing
Gwen, I would enjoy and rejoice in the
Lord.
If that were my calling, that's what I
would do.
I've said that publicly around the world, and
Gwen knows it.
But if I'm going to be Christ-like,
I've got to have eyes to see the
needs of others.
And I have to have ears to hear
those around me that have burdens and needs.
And I've got to come to the house
of God praying, show me.
If I'm going to be a man of
Christ, then I've got to hear the cry
of the child in the ghetto who has
no father.
I've got to look around and ask God
to give me a special love for widows
and the fatherless.
I've got to hear the cry of the
homosex.
I can't mock him anymore, I can't say
anything about him to his face, I can
hate his sin.
But God, if I'm going to be Christ
-like, let me hear him cry in the
middle of the night when he's drunk, trying
to kill his pain with alcohol.
Let me hear his cry.
Lord, take away our pomposity.
Take away our pride.
Take away that thing that happened to Elijah
up on Mount Horeb.
God said, what are you doing here?
Oh God, I'm the only one who got
it right.
Oh, but God told him of a hundred
others that were hidden in a cave.
He knew it.
He had 7,000 more that never bowed
their knee to bow to Baal.
But here's a man so down because he
figures he has it right.
And according to Paul in Romans, he indicted,
the Scripture says, he interceded against Israel because
he said they have defamed the name of
the Lord.
They've torn down his temple.
And here's a man, God bless his heart,
thinking he's got it right.
God, don't ever let time curse say we
have it right.
Everybody else has it wrong.
No, we're just one part of the body
of Jesus Christ.
Would to God that Elijah would have sent
his servant to find those 7,000 and
march with him again to Jezreel against Jezebel.
And found out the fellowship and the love
of 7,000 men who were broken in
spirit and godly men that he knew nothing
about.
You may think that you're one of those
nobodies.
But in God's eyes, the somebodies in his
sight are those who are set in with
him.
Their only cry is, oh God, on my
job, wherever I'm at, please make me look
more like Christ.
I want to be like Jesus.
Will you stand?
There's a song we sing, to be like
Jesus, to be all I ask to be
like him.
It's so wonderful to have all the stress
lifted from you.
Listen closely.
You can leave here without having any stress
whatsoever left on your body and your mind
and soul and spirit.
You can strip everything that bothers you away
from your life.
You can walk out of here absolutely free
with the gladness of God in your heart.
When you say, I only have one purpose,
just to be like Jesus.
You don't have to prove anything anymore or
do anything.
And they're not re-preaching my sermon.
But that's the end of strife and stress.
And that's when you enter in the rest
that God has for his people.
Now some of you are standing here saying,
President Dave, it's my desire, but lately there
have been some things happening in my life,
in my home, in my job.
I have not shown that Christlikeness.
If you need repentance.
Now if you're here this morning, up in
the balcony, here in the Manitore, and if
you're in the annex and you feel the
Holy Spirit tugging at your heart, you'd like
to step out for prayer.
Would you just move ahead between the screens
so you're not blocking the view?
And here in the Manitore, I'm opening the
front of this church we call altar area.
And if there's something in this message this
morning that just shook you to the core
of your soul, say, Pastor David, I don't
measure up to that.
That's not been my one core purpose and
I want it to be.
If you've been running from God, if you're
not really serving the Lord, if you don't
know Christ, you come with these that are
coming.
Those that have come forward, we're going to
pray with you now and believe the Lord.
Will you please not leave this church trying
to make promises and say, boy, I'm going
to live like Jesus.
You won't last an hour.
But will you pray with me that the
Holy Spirit, that still small voice, to show
you the ways of God, the ways of
Christ, and that He who knows the will
of God, He who has come to sanctify
us, He who has come to teach us
the ways of Christ.
I was praying like this the other day
and the Holy Spirit said something that blessed
me.
He said, David, the greatest, this is the
Holy Spirit speaking, the greatest thrill I get
is showing Jesus to you.
I said, well, if you're thrilled by that,
let's do it.
I want to thrill you real good.
I'm hungry, show me like Jesus.
Lord Jesus, we hunger and thirst not to
just talk about our intimacy with you, but
to show it, that it works its way
practically into our life in the very smallest
things, the little things, the things that people
see and take notice of.
Lord, I know that's the desire of the
leadership of this church.
God, may Times Square Church be a humble
church.
May we in honor prefer other churches and
other pastors, ministers, and people.
Help us, Lord, to take the low place,
the humble place, and only you can do
that, Holy Spirit.
Forgive us, Lord, of trying to please you
in our own strength.
And forgive us of trying to read so
many chapters and think that our fasting, our
praying merits something, Lord.
You do reward these things.
These things bring heaven down to earth.
But, oh God, they don't merit your favor.
Lord, our favor, your favor to us is
through our faith.
Faith in your word.
You've promised now that you will send the
Holy Ghost.
You will fill us, this temple, and you
will lead us and you will guide us.
Pray this prayer with me.
Lord Jesus, thank you for the Holy Spirit
who abides in me.
Thank you that you made me the temple
of God.
Now fill this temple.
Holy Spirit, I ask you to come now,
guide me, lead me, and show me how
to live Christ.
Let me pray, Lord.
Make this real to the whole congregation, to
everyone who hears me in the annex, wherever
it's at.
And we can start now, as soon as
we dismiss this service, in our handshake, in
our greetings.
Lord, there would not be some hurried thing,
I've got to get out of here.
It can't be something hurried, but that whispered
prayer, God, perhaps today you'll let me see
a need.
Let me hear a need.
God, give us eyes to see and ears
to hear in the body of Christ, in
Jesus' name.
Amen.
This is the conclusion of the message.