Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 20.
Here Paul is speaking concerning himself, in verse
24, Acts 20, 24.
But I do not consider my life of
any account as dear to myself, in order
that I may finish my course, and the
ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus,
to testify solemnly of the gospel of the
grace of God.
I will paraphrase of this.
It is put like this, that life is
worth nothing, unless I use it for doing
the task assigned me by the Lord Jesus.
Paul had that concept of life, that life
was worth nothing, unless it was used to
fulfill that specific task which the Lord had
appointed for him.
And I think there are very, very few
believers who have the same concept and attitude
towards life.
And we have three evenings now, I thought
we would consider three different topics that are
essential for one who seeks to serve the
Lord, as God's fellow workers.
First of all, what we can consider today
is fulfilling our appointed task, for which we
need to understand that there is a specific
task that God, in his sovereignty and in
his wisdom, has appointed for each one of
us in the body of Christ.
Now, that's the truth which every one of
us will acknowledge theoretically.
The question is whether we order our life
according to faith in that principle.
That's the point.
Life is worth nothing, unless I finish my
appointed task.
Therefore, I cannot waste my life.
I make mistakes, but that is part of
the means God has appointed for me to
learn.
I must never get discouraged because I make
mistakes.
God has ordained that we acquire wisdom through
making mistakes.
Have you noticed the little ones of animals?
They are able to walk almost as soon
as they are born.
But among human beings only, it takes one
year before the child learns to walk.
It is an amazing wisdom of God.
Do you think God could have made babies
in such a way that they walk from
the first day itself?
It would have been very easy for the
Lord.
But he has ordained that the baby learns
through falling down, getting up, falling down, getting
up and getting strength on his feet.
And it's somewhat the same way that we
come to victory over sin, that we come
to an understanding of God's ways.
And so, none of us need ever get
discouraged because we have made mistakes in our
life.
Provided we have acquired some wisdom through those
mistakes, we can say those mistakes have been
worth it.
There are two ways in which we can
acquire an understanding of God's ways.
One is what we call the hard way
of making blunders and mistakes ourselves and learning
something.
The other is through being taught God's ways
through another person, which is an easier way.
But I'll tell you something, it is what
we have learnt the hard way which is
more deeply imprinted in our minds than what
we have learnt through the easy way by
just sitting in a meeting and hearing another
brother speak about it.
That's really true.
For example, water baptism, baptism in the Holy
Spirit mean a lot to me because I
have had to fight for it and had
to struggle with people.
Christ manifest in the flesh has involved a
terrific conflict for me.
But for my children, there is no conflict
for them in water baptism or baptism in
the Holy Spirit or Christ manifest in the
flesh.
In a sense it is easy but I
say in a sense it can never be
as precious to them as it is to
me because I have acquired it through conflict.
Now it can be if they take it
seriously.
So I just say that to encourage us
that if we have made mistakes in our
life, that need not discourage us.
If we have acquired wisdom through them, through
those mistakes, we have learnt some truths in
a very deep way, deeply imprinted in our
life, we have been convinced about certain things.
But it's not a question of these little
ups and downs in the graph.
If I were to illustrate it by a
graph, these little wavy lines don't make a
difference provided the general direction of the graph
is going in the direction of the will
of God and the purpose of God for
my life.
But along that line of that graph, there
may be ups and downs and ups and
downs and ups and downs.
There will be.
Till the end of our life there will
be.
But the general direction is upwards and towards
the fulfillment of the will of God.
Now that's been a great help for me
to know it and I trust it's a
help to you so that we never get
discouraged by mistakes we make.
When we are young, for example, we are
very zealous but we are not wise.
None of us are wise when we are
young.
And I have done many foolish things due
to my lack of wisdom and due to
a lack of somebody to guide me properly
in my younger days.
And if I were to live my life
again with the wisdom I have today, I
wouldn't do some of those things.
But in the wonderful wisdom of God, when
I was 22 years old, God never gave
me the wisdom that I have today at
44.
That was an amazing wisdom of God that
He did not give it to me.
He allowed me to make mistakes and I
have learned something.
And He will allow you to make mistakes
and you will learn something, you will acquire
wisdom.
But we must have zeal.
Now you see, a young person who is
not zealous, who is sort of diplomatic and
sitting on the fence type, don't offend anybody,
don't be too radical about anything, he is
not likely to do so many stupid things
like a zealous young brother.
And it will be very easy for him
to sit on the sidelines and criticize this
zealous young brother.
But do you know what that reminds me
of?
It reminds me of 20,000 people watching
a football game and have you heard people
say, he shouldn't have kicked it there.
You see the people sitting watching are better
experts at football than these 22 people who
are struggling on the field.
He should have passed it to that person.
It's almost as though these fellows are specialists,
these 20,000 people sitting over here who
know exactly where he should have passed that
ball and what he should have done with
that when he got it.
It's very easy.
But if you put these experts on the
field, they will make a mess, much greater
mess of things.
So it is with these diplomatic, non-zealous,
lukewarm people who criticize the zealous young people
just because those zealous young people make mistakes.
I am never disturbed when I see a
zealous young brother make a few mistakes, provided
he is willing to submit to authority and
over a period of time, those mistakes will
get sorted out and wisdom will come.
But this other fellow who is not zealous
at all, even when he is 60, he
will have no wisdom because when he was
young, he was not zealous.
So the only person who never makes a
mistake is the man who never does anything.
So we don't want to be in that
category.
We want to be people who really want
to do something for God, we make a
mistake, but we will still complete our appointed
task.
We need never, never be afraid of that.
In seeking to build a church, we may
do some stupid things.
I have done stupid things, many stupid things.
If I make a list of all the
stupid things which I have done in my
life, every one of you will go from
here tremendously encouraged.
There is hope for everyone here.
That is the truth.
So never allow the devil to discourage you
by saying, what a foolish blunder you did
there.
You say, yes Lord, that was foolish, but
I am learning something.
It is going to be better next time.
I have learned to do it better.
Maybe I spoke to somebody too harshly in
trying to exercise discipline in the church.
Okay.
God doesn't take it as seriously as some
human beings take it.
He understands.
It was done with a good motive, not
with wisdom, but the motive was good for
the glory of God, but we haven't done
it wisely.
So never be discouraged by that.
Let's turn to Colossians chapter 4.
Colossians chapter 4, we read there, Paul says
to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which
you have received in the Lord, that you
may fulfil it.
There is a particular ministry in the Lord
that Archippus had received, and he was to
take heed that he fulfilled that particular ministry.
Not Paul's ministry.
When Paul said, follow me, he did not
mean be an apostle, he did not mean
be a bachelor, he did not mean be
a tent maker.
He was saying, follow me in relation to
his life.
When Jesus Christ said, follow me, and if
any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, take up the cross and follow
me, he did not mean that we should
be bachelors, or carpenters, or live in Nazareth,
or be full-time workers as he was
for three and a half years.
He did not mean any of these things.
He meant follow him in his life.
He did not mean raise the dead, or
walk on the water, or any such thing.
Follow me relates to life.
We are to follow Jesus, not in his
ministry.
It's impossible to do that.
But we can follow him in his life.
We are to follow Paul, not in his
ministry, but in his life.
And we are to follow godly men, not
in their ministry, but in their life.
Very clearly, let's distinguish between life and ministry,
because this is the confusion that people get
into.
People say, oh you say, we can walk
like Jesus walked.
Can you raise the dead?
You see, the man doesn't have any revelation
on what it means to follow Jesus.
He is confusing life and ministry.
We are not talking about raising the dead
or walking on the water.
We are talking about following him in his
life.
We are to walk as Jesus walked.
That is life.
So, there is a specific ministry which we
have received in the Lord, which is distinct
from the ministry God has given to someone
else.
There is a specific ministry that Jesus received,
he fulfilled that.
There is a specific ministry that Paul received,
he fulfilled that.
There is a specific ministry God has planned
for every one of us, and we have
to fulfill that.
And that includes many things in your life.
It includes the one you get married to,
it includes where you are to live, and
what you are to do in the body
of Christ, the gift that you are to
fulfill.
Everything is already planned.
We read in Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter
2 and verse 10.
We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God prepared beforehand that
we should walk in them.
Read that carefully.
We have been created in Christ Jesus, that
is speaking about our new birth when we
are born again, for good works.
What good works?
That which God prepared beforehand that we should
walk in them.
So, in other words, beforehand itself, God has
prepared a certain pattern of life and ministry
for us, certain works.
When do you think he prepared that plan?
I believe he prepared that plan for all
eternity, because in chapter 1 of Ephesians, it
says in verse 4, he chose us in
Christ before the foundation of the world.
Now, supposing we think of that individually in
relation to each one of us, that God
chose you by name, even though you are
living in the second half of the 20th
century.
God knew about you and me before the
foundation of the world, and I don't know
how many thousands of years ago that was.
To me, it brings a tremendous security to
know that in God's eyes, I am not
human being number 11,004,637,436 ticked
off.
No, I am not a digit and a
number before God.
I am a child and no father knows
his children by numbers and so.
It is by name that a father knows
his children and by name my father knows
me and he has known me from before
the worlds were created, almost as though I
was the only person existing.
You see, that's the only way my small
mind can conceive it.
It cannot conceive how God takes care of
all his family, but I can think of
it like this, that if I am the
only one existing here and God specially watches
over me and has got a plan for
my life, that's the way he planned it
before the world was created.
And I wandered around in my sinful life
for so many years that one day in
God's time and God's will, he made hold
of me and I got converted.
And then even after I got converted, maybe
I was a bit lukewarm and half-hearted
and all that for some time, but God
had his hand on me.
I am referring to you also now and
I am applying it to me just to
make it personal, but it applies to each
one of us.
And then one day God began to stir
me on and put desires in my heart
for something higher, something better, something more that
I saw in the Christendom around me and
I thought I was getting spiritual.
It was God working in me by his
Spirit.
I can't take any credit for it.
It is God who works in us to
will and to do his good pleasure and
he has drawn me to the place, given
me revelations almost more than the vast majority
of Christians have.
And I say, Lord, is this my cleverness?
Far from it.
Is it my plan that I should run
into certain brothers who could lead me on
along this way, along this and give me
light on the new and living way?
Was that an accident?
Was it I who planned meeting with them?
No.
It was Almighty God who was working out
his plan, a loving Father working out his
plan for your life and my life without
even our knowing it.
And in a wonderful way he leads us
to the place where he can fulfill that
plan in our life.
So the very fact that God has led
each of us as far as he has
led us now is a clear indication that
there is something wonderful that lies ahead for
every one of us.
Therefore we should never get discouraged.
And the devil knows that even if you
don't know it, brother, and he is going
to make sure, not make sure, he is
going to try his best to discourage you
by something or the other so that you
don't fulfill that plan.
I have come to see that discouragement is
almost Satan's number one weapon before women and
money and everything else.
Discouragement.
You made a mess of things there.
Yeah, if I did make a mess of
things, I have no problem agreeing with Satan.
That's right, I made a mess of things,
but God has forgiven me and I have
got some wisdom over there.
He is not going to discourage me, Satan.
I am going to press on.
God's got a plan.
Don't let it be frustrated.
Mark 13 verse 34.
Here we read, Jesus
said, It's like a man, speaking about the
return of Christ, away on a journey, but
when he went on his journey, this is
Christ going on his journey, leaving his house.
That is the church.
And putting his servants in charge in the
church.
And listen to this phrase.
Assigning to each one his task.
And in order to fulfill that task, in
the margin, it says in verse 34, what
it means is giving authority to his servants.
That if I have to fulfill a certain
task, I have the authority to fulfill it
also.
God gives me that authority by the Holy
Spirit and he will give it to you.
But this phrase, he has assigned to each
one his task.
Now the thing is, do you believe it?
I am convinced that the vast majority of
believers will not fulfill that task in their
life, not because God had no plan for
their life, but because they did not believe
it.
They did not believe it and therefore God
cannot fulfill it in their life.
Because one thing is true, whatever God may
have planned for our life, it can never
be fulfilled apart from the cooperation that I
extend to him, which cooperation is basically faith.
If I do not exercise faith to believe
what God has said, almighty God himself cannot
do for me what he wants to do
for me.
My dear brothers, it is absolutely essential that
we are convinced on this.
That God himself cannot do for you what
he wants to do for you if you
don't believe what he has said.
Now I am not asking you to believe
something which is not promised or said in
the word.
I use this illustration for example, that I
am not struggling to believe that I will
get a head of hair back before the
resurrection.
In the resurrection I will get it, but
there is no promise that I will get
my hair back before that.
And I am not struggling to believe or
struggling to believe to take off my glasses
so that I can see without.
God can do that, I am sure he
can.
And in the resurrection I know I won't
wear glasses, but I am not particularly struggling
for these things.
If there were some word in the scripture
like that, I would.
But I am trying to believe those things
which are specifically written.
Now there are whole lot of believers today
who are trying to believe God to get
a car or get a new house or
get another job, all types of things.
And they may be good things, useful things,
but I feel that Satan is getting them
to expend all their energy in something which
is so secondary, so earthly, so temporal, so
that they don't concentrate on believing God for
that which is specifically written in his word.
Why not believe God for this?
Lord, you have got a task for me.
In your church, somewhere in the world, a
specific task, I want to fulfill it.
That task is as clearly marked out as
the plan for Jesus' life was marked out.
Do you think there is anything in Jesus'
life which is an accident?
Do you think, for example, that God planned
him to live for fifty years, but somehow
he got knocked off when he was thirty
-three and a half?
Do any of you believe that?
God, he had planned for Jesus' life and
Jesus did not live one day less than
what the Father had planned for him.
A man.
I want to tell you, Peter the Apostle
was not afraid or ashamed to refer to
Jesus as a man.
A man, attested to you by God with
miracles, wonders and signs which God performed.
This man, verse twenty-three, delivered up by
the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.
You nailed to a cross.
He said, you fellows did it, but it
was all according to the predetermined plan of
God.
Now, if we believe that wonderful truth of
John seventeen twenty-three, that God loves us
as he loved Jesus, we must believe that
there must be a predetermined plan for us
as well.
A predetermined plan that God has for every
one of us.
According to his foreknowledge, he knows the future
and he has planned a specific plan for
every one of us.
And that is to run a certain number
of years.
And what I am to do in those
years?
It was the will of God that Jesus
should be a carpenter.
And God arranged circumstances that he would be
born into a carpenter's family and grow up
to be a carpenter for thirty years.
And then, after that, he was to be
a full-time worker.
Don't have to be ashamed of that.
Jesus was one for three and a half
years.
For thirty years he supported himself.
For three and a half years he was
supported by the gifts and offerings of other
people.
That was the Father's plan.
And Jesus submitted at each step to the
Father's plan.
If it was this thing now, fine.
If it was that thing tomorrow, fine.
Because he knew there was a particular plan
for his life.
Now, we need to know that there is
a particular plan for our life.
Now, Jesus did not try to imitate John
the Baptist.
John the Baptist was the greatest man of
God that the world had seen up until
Jesus.
How do we know?
Jesus himself said in Matthew 11, there is
no one born of women who is greater
than John the Baptist.
And if ever there was a man to
be imitated, surely it was John the Baptist.
Because he was the greatest man of God
born on earth till that time.
And he had a fantastic revival ministry.
And he was Jesus' own relative, according to
the flesh.
And he must have seen John the Baptist's
ministry for some time.
And if he was tempted in all points
as we are, we can be pretty sure
he was tempted to imitate someone else's ministry.
Don't you think so?
Yes.
So, he must have been tempted to imitate
John the Baptist's ministry.
But he did not.
He did not start wearing John the Baptist's
funny type of clothes.
He did not start eating locusts and honey
out in the desert.
He did not try to have that type
of ministry which John the Baptist had.
John the Baptist had his ministry.
Jesus had his.
There is an example for us to follow
there.
That even if you are happening to live
alongside the greatest man of God that has
ever lived on the face of the earth
in the history of Christianity, don't imitate his
ministry.
Follow his life, but don't imitate his ministry.
That's one very important thing to learn.
Don't copy him in the way he speaks
or the way he does things.
Why?
Then we cannot fulfill our appointed task.
Take heed to the ministry which you have
received in the Lord that you fulfill that.
Fulfill your ministry.
Paul was always very keen on emphasizing that.
He writes to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 4
and the last part of verse 5, he
says, fulfill your ministry, the task assigned to
you.
There must be no imitation.
Because when we imitate a man's ministry, we
become hypocrites.
We are unreal.
We are not ourselves.
We are trying to be somebody else and
that is always a hindrance to the work
of God in the body of Christ.
Now take for example the written scriptures.
Have you noticed the difference in the way
Paul uses certain expressions in scripture?
Peter uses certain expressions in scripture and John
uses certain expressions in scripture.
We know that they are all inspired by
the Holy Spirit.
They are all the word of God and
yet, if I were to ask you, who
uses the expression crucified with him?
What's the answer?
Well, you'll never find that in the writings
of Peter or John.
Now Paul wrote first and now after 20
-30 years when John was writing his letter,
he could have been tempted.
Ah, Paul's writing is scripture.
So we must use that type of language
if my writing is also to be scriptural.
So let me imitate him and let me
speak about being crucified with him.
But John never writes that.
He speaks about being born of God.
But Paul never uses that phrase.
Peter speaks about suffering in the flesh.
Neither Paul nor John ever thought of that
phrase.
What is this teaching us?
They are all inspired scripture but each is
expressed through the personality of the individual.
It is like light.
You know in the New Jerusalem, it says
it's got many colored stones.
The same light which is the life of
Jesus shining through a red precious stone and
a green precious stone and a blue precious
stone giving out red light, green light, blue
light, but the light is the same behind
it.
The life of Jesus manifested through your personality,
through your ability, through your gift and through
my personality and my gift.
This is the diversity that there is to
be in the body of Christ.
But it can be there only if each
of us see God has a specific task
for me and I thank God that I
am not like somebody else.
You know in Christianity there are many people
who are sorry that they are not like
somebody else.
There are multitudes of people who say I
wish I were like so and so, I
wish I had the ministry of so and
so.
Very important for us to see that whereas
other people are feeling sorry that they are
not like somebody else or having somebody else's
ministry, we are thankful that we don't have
somebody else's ministry.
Lord, I thank you that you have got
a specific ministry for me and therefore you
have not given me the abilities or the
gifts that you have given to that brother.
Right?
The training that another brother had.
Training means I am talking about earthly education
or the natural abilities.
That is for the particular task that God
has given to that person.
Some people for example have a very good
memory and other people don't have a good
memory.
Now there is nothing spiritual about that.
You know there are worldly people, heathen people
who have got good memories and some very
spiritual people who have got bad memories.
That is a human characteristic.
But God has a particular task for that
person with a good memory for which a
good memory is required.
And the other person whom God has not
given such a good memory, the task which
God has for him, a good memory is
not an essential qualification for that task.
So it is wonderful to see in the
body of Christ.
As we look back we can thank God
for our parents, for our upbringing, for the
struggles we have faced in life, the difficulties
our particular upbringing gave us.
All these things have trained us for a
particular task.
We read that Paul studied at the feet
of Gamaliel.
He was a scholar.
He had studied many deep things in the
Hebrew law.
He was a Roman citizen.
None of these so-called privileges, earthly privileges,
Peter had.
But Peter would have been an absolute fool
if he thought, I wish I were a
Roman citizen like Paul or I wish I
had the training that Paul had.
If I were born in Tarsus, if my
father was rich, he could have gone to
Tarsus as a businessman, then I could have
been like Paul.
No!
There is a ministry that Peter can fulfill
which Paul can never fulfill.
Peter probably could speak to fishermen far better
than Paul could.
But Paul could speak to the scholars better
than Peter could.
So we need to see that everything that
has happened in our past life is to
train us for a particular task which another
brother cannot do.
That's very important for us to see it.
And then when we see that, we don't
have any feelings of inferiority.
I have a theory.
I haven't done research on this.
But I have a theory that every human
being has got an inferiority complex, basically.
Because all human beings have the tendency from
school days itself to compare themselves with others.
How many marks did he get?
How many marks did I get?
It starts from kindergarten itself.
And all the way it works out.
And everybody is always inferior to somebody else.
And therefore he has this feeling of inferiority.
And sometimes that feeling of inferiority is manifested
by an outward air of superiority, as though
I am so important and so big.
Actually the man is just trying to cover
up his feeling of inferiority within.
And when we are believers, we have this
problem too.
We are converted and we don't get rid
of it.
But I feel that other brothers probably don't
have this type of problem that I have.
You know, it's one of the tricks of
the devil to make us feel that we
are especially useless creatures.
And let's say, for example, he will tell
you, brother, oh, the problem you have with
sexual thoughts, dear me, no other human being
in the world has ever had such.
You are really a filthy person.
And the idiot of a believer who believes
the devil there is really going to have
a tough time getting victory there because he
is convinced that the way he is battling
dirty thoughts, no other human being in the
world is ever battling like that.
That's enough to discourage you before you start.
And your defeat is guaranteed to any such
person.
But if you just believe the word of
God which says in 1 Corinthians 10.13,
no temptation has come to you which is
not common to all human beings, you say,
well, that means other human beings, they may
not get up and testify about it in
public, but they are facing these troubles just
like me.
Sure, that's written for our encouragement.
Did you know that?
The things written in the scriptures are written
for our encouragement, that we might have hope,
that we might not get discouraged.
Yes.
So, we have these feelings of inferiority due
to various things, that we cannot express something
from the word of God as beautifully and
wonderfully as somebody else.
Well, maybe God hasn't called you for that
ministry, brother.
That's all.
That's the answer to that.
That takes care of that problem.
Let's move on to the next one.
Why keep on harping on that one particular
point?
Let me see.
Alright, I can't do it like that, brother,
but there's something else I can do.
And in that, I can do it much
better than someone else.
So, to see that there is no need
for me to feel inferior when I see
that God has got a specific task for
me in the body of Christ, a task
for which he prepared me from my mother's
womb.
The Lord told Jeremiah, from your mother's womb
I have ordained you to be a prophet.
Now, if you have the faith to take
it, let me tell you, that if God
chose me from before the foundation of the
world, I believe he certainly must have had
his eye on me by the time I
got into my mother's womb.
Is that difficult to believe?
Your faith can rise up to that.
According to your faith, be it unto you.
Then from that time onwards, even though you
did not know him for, say, the next
twenty years, God was sovereignly arranging your path.
I believe that.
When I joined the military academy in the
navy, I might as well tell you honestly,
I never prayed about it.
I never sought God's will.
I was not really converted.
I just wanted to go for that and
I went.
I got selected and I went.
But now when I look back, I cannot
think of a better place in the whole
wide world where I could have gone to
be freed from the opinions of men and
various other benefits that came to me, studying
the scriptures, etc.
And I say, Lord, that proves one thing
to me that you ordained my path, even
though I never sought your will.
It's a wonderful thing that God orders our
path.
It's not our willing or our choosing, but
God showing mercy.
And it is of his mercy that he
has given us revelations that we have today
and that he gives us a ministry in
the body also.
Never forget, it is his mercy that he
gives us any job at all to do.
If we ask God to give us what
we deserve, you know what we'll get?
Hellfire.
But he's given us salvation and he's given
us the privilege of being fellow workers with
him.
Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, all the way from
beginning to end.
Let's never forget that.
So, there's no need of feeling inferior.
My father loves me just as much as
he loves that brother to whom he has
given all these fantastic abilities and gifts.
Maybe he's put him in better financial circumstances
than he's put me.
I'm not jealous of him.
I'm not covetous of what he has.
I believe that if I became like him
financially, I would never be able to fulfill
the ministry that I can fulfill now.
Thank God that I'm not like him financially.
Thank God that I'm not like him intellectually.
Then I would never be able to fulfill
my specific task.
It's very important that we see this clearly
so that we never compare ourselves with others.
Then we have no feeling of inferiority.
We are secure.
Now let's turn to 1 Timothy 1.12.
Paul says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord
who has strengthened me because he considered me
faithful, putting me into the ministry.
Now that's a very important phrase, that Jesus
Christ is the one who puts a man
into the ministry.
Jesus Christ is the one who has put
me into the ministry, Paul said.
In other words, your getting a ministry in
the church does not depend, listen carefully, it
does not depend on your being the favorite
blue-eyed boy of the elder brother in
the church.
It's got nothing to do with that.
That the elder brother has got a particular
fancy for you and therefore you have opportunities
that other young brothers don't have.
That's a lot of garbage.
It's Jesus Christ who puts a man into
the ministry and you can be the blue
-eyed boy of 10,000 elders if Jesus
Christ doesn't consider you faithful.
He can never put you into the ministry
he has planned for you, whatever position any
elder brother may push you into.
Very important to see that.
And if you feel that you are not
one of those favorite blue-eyed boys of
some elder brother and therefore you don't have
the opportunities which you think you should be
getting to minister or whatever it is, therefore
you can't have a ministry, that's a lot
of nonsense.
It's Jesus Christ who sees your private life
and gives you a ministry.
I remember when I was a young brother
in a brethren assembly and I was just
23 years old and I was beginning to
share the word and it was pretty obvious
to me after some time that one of
the elders there was jealous.
And one manifestation of his jealousy was that
he wouldn't give me much opportunity to speak
in the meeting, on the Sunday meetings.
I said, fine, I'm not going to get
into competition with him over that.
The streets are always available to go and
preach in.
So I used to go twice a week
to the streets.
Nobody was interested in coming there, there was
no competition there.
That was a free place we could go,
stand in the streets and I went down
the streets of Arunachalam twice a week in
sun and rain here and there, standing in
the street corners and preaching.
And that's where the Lord taught me to
preach and that's where the Lord taught me
to be free from the opinions of men.
It wasn't in any refined meeting hall.
It was out in the streets.
And then I would go to some poor,
say, Telugu speaking brother who couldn't speak English
properly.
His family and all couldn't come to the
meetings because the meetings were in English.
So I would go to his home and
say, well, can we get some Telugu speaking
people together, we'll have a meeting here, you
translate brother into Telugu and then all these
sisters who can't understand English can learn something.
And we'd have four or five people there
in the meeting and that's not a very
attractive type of thing for elder brothers to
go and minister at.
So the other brother could carry on speaking
every week to these three, four people.
And if one day one family didn't come,
you were left with two people.
Fine.
That's how I carried on for many years.
I said, fine.
Who can rob me of opportunities to minister
when all these things are open?
If you are only thinking of that convention
platform or that Sunday morning ministry and all,
then of course somebody can stop you.
But if you are thinking of serving the
Lord, what a lot of opportunities.
There are men in the world who can
say there are not enough opportunities to serve
the Lord.
There are.
But when we are young, God will test
us to see whether we are seeking for
great things or whether we are quite happy
to serve Him in a humble way in
some small corner.
And if He sees that you are faithful
there, He can lead you to something more
in due course.
But be faithful.
Nobody can rob you of a ministry God
has intended for you.
Be sure of that, brother.
Nobody.
And don't get into fights.
It is now nearly more than twenty years
since this event which I spoke of happened
in the brethren assembly.
But I have a good relationship with that
particular elder brother even today.
I never had a fight with him in
all these twenty years.
I praise God for that.
If he is jealous, that's between him and
God.
It's got nothing to do with me.
He cannot stop me from having a ministry
God has for me.
And he has never been able to.
We are not in competition.
We are secure because we say God loves
us.
And He can open doors for us no
matter who is jealous of us and who
is against us.
And we found that, for example, when we
started out as a small fellowship of five
brothers and five sisters about nine years ago.
Oh, it was almost as if the whole
world was against us, including the whole of
hell.
But what did it accomplish?
They tried everything.
They wrote tracts.
They did this.
They warned.
They criticized, abused, slandered.
What has it accomplished?
It has not accomplished a single thing except
furthered God's purposes.
Who can stop us from fulfilling what God
wants us to do if we live before
God's face?
It has got nothing to do with human
beings.
Every one of us must be established in
that conviction.
It's not a question of a man giving
us openings.
We don't want any openings.
The Lord says, I have set before you
an open door and who can shut that?
So, never be afraid of men closing doors
because when we preach the whole truth, men
will shut doors.
And that can be a test.
God is testing you at that point to
see are you interested in more open doors
or are you interested in faithfulness to what
I have told you to preach.
Very, very important.
Another thing I want to show you is
2 Corinthians 1 verse 4.
It says here that God comforts us and
whenever I read the word comfort in the
New Testament, I think of the comforter, the
Holy Spirit.
So, it's a ministry of the Holy Spirit
that I receive in our affliction.
This is a wonderful verse.
This is a Bible school verse, by the
way.
That means, well, it also means that no
Bible school student understands it.
But what I mean is, this is the
Bible school God takes us through.
That in our affliction, we get a certain
revelation of Scripture, a certain experience of the
Holy Spirit, a certain experience of God's love
and power and wisdom, so that we can
minister what?
Not some dead garbage we accumulated in the
Bible school, but which we got in the
midst of affliction and trial.
We can now minister that to other people
who are going through the same problems we
went through and we can give them, it
says here, the same comfort and ministry which
we got from God when we went through
it.
So, how do you have a ministry then,
according to this verse?
We've got to go through it, through afflictions.
Then we have a ministry to other people.
Now, it is to bypass this education that
people go into Bible schools and accumulate knowledge
instead.
But with knowledge, you can't minister life.
Here is a question of a ministry of
life.
He is speaking in 2nd Corinthians 3 about
how to be a minister of the new
covenant, as we read in chapter 3, verse
6, to be a servant of the new
covenant.
That is not a question of dispensing knowledge.
It is a question of life.
And there is only one way to be
a minister of the new covenant and that
is to go through affliction.
How did Jesus become a minister of the
new covenant to us?
By getting an education through temptation.
He learnt obedience, it says, through the things
which he suffered.
Now, we are to learn obedience through suffering,
then we have a ministry to other people.
Otherwise, we don't have a ministry to other
people.
So, when you go through suffering of any
sort, physical suffering, financial hardship, opposition, slander, persecution,
difficulty, perplexity, uncertainty about the future, various types
of sufferings, that's a Bible school.
Do you want to graduate or not?
Or do you want to be a loafer?
There are lots of spiritual loafers who don't
take their studies seriously.
Or do you want to take your studies
seriously?
Say, Lord, it's an education for me.
And to look at everything we go through
in the daily life.
Ah, this is part of my Bible school
syllabus.
Something new in the syllabus today, which I
never thought was included in the syllabus.
Wonderful.
Some new thing God is trying to teach
me there.
Because he has a specific task for me.
Don't be an idiot there and ask, Lord,
why is that brother not going through it?
He's got a different task, brother.
He's got a different task.
You don't teach anatomy to the person who's
going to become an engineer.
That's a waste of time there.
Engineers study anatomy.
If you're going to be a surgeon, study
anatomy.
But if you're an engineer, why study anatomy?
So, don't ask, why is he not going
through that?
Because his calling is different.
Very simple.
That's the answer.
That's the end of it.
Why is that brother in the assembly not
going through some of the things I'm going
through?
Ministry is different.
Your ministry is different.
God's got a specific task for you and
me.
And then we never become those spiritual idiots
who compare ourselves with others, like it says
in 2 Corinthians 10.
We live before God.
Lord, you've got a specific task for me
and I thank you that you are training
me through these things and equipping me.
That is life.
And that is the life that I can
offer to others.
That is very, very important.
There's no other way, except the 2 Corinthians
1 verse 4 way, that we can have
a ministry of life to other brothers.
And that's why it's very important that every
one of us take seriously all the difficulties
and afflictions and sufferings and trials that come
across your way.
If you have a difficult neighbor, yeah, think
of that as part of your syllabus.
Or a difficult person at work.
If you're married, even if you have a
difficult wife, yes, even a difficult wife can
be part of that syllabus.
In God's wonderful program of education.
So, let's keep this in mind.
God wants to give us an education.
And in that education, He has planned out
a syllabus.
And at the right time, He will lead
us into each particular thing.
And we must be ready to take it
and not play the fool when God leads
us into that education.
Now, I want to say something about gift.
We need life.
And I spoke about how we get life,
2 Corinthians 1 verse 4.
We also need gift to be able to
fulfill our tasks.
1 Corinthians 12 speaks about the various gifts
in the body.
And again, these are distributed, 1 Corinthians 12,
11, according to the will of the Holy
Spirit.
But there is something for you.
Maybe not some of the things listed in
verses 8, 9 and 10.
Maybe something else.
But something.
Now, the temptation for all of us is
to desire the spectacular gift.
Because this lust for the honor of men
does not go easily from us.
That is why we spontaneously opt for the
spectacular gift.
But if I could only put to death
the lust for the honor of men, then
I will not opt for the spectacular gift.
I will say, Lord, give me that gift
by which I can fulfill the task which
you have called me for in the body.
Spectacular, not spectacular, I am not bothered.
I am interested in fulfilling my task.
And give me the gift for that.
And therefore I seek God for the anointing
of the Holy Spirit to fulfill my task.
Jesus prayed for the anointing of the Holy
Spirit.
And we need to pray and pray.
And it is possible to be anointed and
to lose the anointing.
Then I need to pray again that the
anointing will come back upon me.
Because it is impossible to fulfill the task
God has for you if you are not
anointed with the Holy Spirit, even Jesus could
not.
Now I want to say this.
I spoke about life earlier.
You can live a holy life without the
anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Proof, Jesus in the first thirty years of
his earthly life.
He was not anointed.
He had the fullness of the Holy Spirit
and he lived a godly life in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
But he did not have the anointing and
the gifts which he got only when he
was baptized in Jordan.
And when he was anointed, he did not
live a more holy life in his thirty
-first year than in his twenty-ninth year.
But he could heal the sick.
He could preach with power.
Something happened.
So the anointing is for fulfilling our ministry.
And we must seek God for the anointing
not to live a holy life but to
fulfill our ministry.
And how can I know what my ministry
and my gift is?
By experimenting.
I seek to serve the Lord.
As I serve the Lord, I find fruitfulness
in one area.
See, I remember once after meeting one brother
came up to me and said, Brother, I
feel that God is calling me to the
ministry of healing.
I said, Wonderful.
That's a wonderful ministry to have.
But how to know whether you got a
gift of healing?
Well, you pray for about three hundred people
and nobody is healed.
You know pretty well whether you got the
gift or not.
I mean, if you are honest, if you
love the truth, you will get the answer
pretty quickly whether you got the gift or
not.
By experimenting, we find out.
The teaching, for example, you open the word
and begin to teach and you find that
people are getting light.
Oh, you know that maybe God is calling
you along that direction.
Or as an evangelist, you have got a
burden for lost souls.
You are going out after them, going after
them and God is blessing your work.
People are getting converted, even people.
You know that God is giving you a
gift along that line.
It's by serving that we find out.
It's not by sitting in my easy chair
saying, Lord, show me what my gift is.
I'll never find out.
I go out to serve and as I
serve, I discover what my calling is.
We see this, we see that, we see
the other thing.
Finally, over a period of time, over a
period of years, it's like something, the best
illustration I can use is a picture which
is being projected onto a screen.
And you say, hey, it's hazy.
I think that's a human being, but I'm
not too sure.
And then the person turns the lens and
focuses it.
Gradually, it becomes clear.
It's something like that in our life.
Over a period of time, things get focused
and it becomes clear what our ministry is.
So don't compare yourself with someone who's been
walking with the Lord for 20 years and
saying, he seems to be clear about his
ministry, but I'm not clear of mine.
Well, he wasn't clear of his ministry either
20 years ago.
Don't forget that.
So it's a matter of time.
As we go on, as we are faithful,
it becomes more and more clear.
But be faithful.
What your hand finds to do, you know
the verse, whatever your hand finds to do,
do with all your might.
And you'll discover pretty soon what your ministry
is.
God will open up the right ministry for
you.
Now, if we don't go into the ministry
God has planned for us, we'll find the
yoke is heavy, the burden is heavy.
Jesus said, come unto me all you that
labor and are heavy laden.
And I like to apply that to people
who are trying to fulfill a ministry God
never called them to.
They are weary and heavy laden, trying to
do something which God never called them to
do.
The Lord says, come to me, I'll give
you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, the ministry I
gave to you.
Then you'll find rest.
The reason you are not finding rest is
you are trying to imitate some other person.
You are full of unrest and the Lord
is so heavy because you are trying to
be somebody else.
Come to me, take my yoke, my ministry,
and you will find rest.
And one mark that we are in the
place and in the ministry that God has
for us is that there is a rest
and a peace in our heart because His
yoke is easy and His burden is light.
If I found a particular ministry which I'm
doing such a burden and I'm complaining other
people are not coming to help me in
this and this, that and the other, I
say, brother, give it up.
Come to Jesus and give up this self
-made ministry of yours.
Because if it is a God-given ministry,
you won't have a complaint that other people
are not helping you and it will flow
from your life.
There will be rest, there will be peace.
That's a wonderful test of the ministry which
God has given and appointed for us.
You know that verse in Jude 6?
It says about the angels who did not
keep their proper abode.
They tried to move into an area God
did not want them to move into.
That was the sin of Satan, Lucifer.
He tried to move into a ministry God
had not called him to.
Do you know that's the origin of sin,
trying to move into a ministry that God
has not called you to?
Be in the place God has called you.
Be sure.
Say, Lord, I want to fulfill the ministry
you've called me to.
You've got a specific task for me, specific
plan for my life.
Over a period of time it will become
clear to me I want to be faithful
in that which my hand finds to do,
humble myself and over a period of time
it will become clear to me what you've
planned for me and that is what I
want.
That's what I want to live for.
That's what I want to fulfill in my
life.
And I believe that my life is worth
nothing unless I fulfill that which the Lord
has assigned for me.
It won't be anything compared with yours, but
it is what the Lord has assigned for
me.
If each of us can take that place,
there will be no more jealousy, no more
competition, sincere rejoicing in the ministry of the
others because we are finding joy in our
own ministry.
You know when we talk about, are you
willing to let a younger brother move ahead
of you even into leadership in the assembly?
That is no problem for a man who
has found security in doing his assigned task
because he's not in competition with anybody else.
Oh Lord, by all means, let another brother
move ahead and take over what I'm doing
now because I'm not interested in doing a
particular job.
I'm interested in finishing the work which the
Lord has assigned for me to do.