So we come to our concluding study on
the better covenant and I trust in the
last five sessions you've seen something of the
reason why God decided to abolish the old
covenant.
The old covenant was meant to show man
his need.
It was a step to the new covenant.
It was not an end in itself.
Like it says in Galatians 3, the law
was our tutor to lead us to Christ.
To a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.
And once we come to Christ, we don't
need that old covenant anymore.
The Bible says that if you are led
by the Spirit, you're not under the law
anymore.
Of course, if you're not being led by
the Spirit, then you need the law.
For the law is made for ungodly men,
as it says in 1 Timothy 1.
So I want to now speak about fellowship
in one body.
A lot of Christianity deals with personal godliness
and almost everything that we have spoken in
our last five sessions, whether it's knowing God
as a Father or coming unto grace or
living by faith or the fullness of the
Spirit or resisting Satan.
You could do all that personally, but Christianity
was never meant to be an individualistic matter.
It's not personal holiness only.
Personal holiness must lead to being built together
with others in one body.
And our holiness is tested in our relationships.
If you can't get along with your brother,
your holiness is pretty shallow.
So God gives you a brother, a sister,
a wife, a husband to show you whether
your holiness is genuine or counterfeit.
Isn't that good?
Sanctification without fellowship is a deception.
Our sanctification is tested through fellowship.
It's no use preaching holiness if you can't
get along with each other.
I'll never forget as a young Christian knowing
a missionary couple, a very elderly missionary couple
who preached holiness, who came to India.
They were there for many years, much older
than me.
But they couldn't get along with each other.
It was so bad they lived in separate
houses.
They crossed the oceans to come to our
country to teach what?
Personal holiness?
What type of personal holiness is this, where
you can't live with another person in the
same house, even as husband and wife?
There are so many theories of holiness.
I have studied almost every one of them
in my pursuit of a godly life.
And I've come to see in the vast
majority of them, they cannot get along with
other people who differ with them.
They can get along with people who agree,
who toe the line.
That's not fellowship.
That's dictatorship, where one man calls himself a
leader and gets a whole lot of subservient
sycophants and people who say, yes sir.
That's not fellowship.
In Christianity, God makes us different.
One compliments the other, so that there can
be a body.
The ultimate purpose of God is not a
bunch of holy individuals.
It's one body.
Jesus Christ has not been given as head
to any one of us.
Did you know that?
The Bible says in Ephesians 1, God has
given him as head to the church.
Not to any individual holy brother or holy
sister.
It's to the church, which is his body.
The fullness of him that fills all in
all.
The last verse of Ephesians 1 says that.
So, holiness must ultimately lead to fellowship in
a body.
Jesus said, all men will know you are
my disciples.
Not when you sing well.
Not when you heal the sick.
Not when you carry a Bible around with
you.
Not when you speak in tongues.
Not when you do miracles.
Not even when you come for deeper life
conventions.
When you love one another.
That is one distinctive mark that Jesus said
would identify his disciples to the world.
All men will know you are my disciples.
Not when they see you live a holy
life.
Not when they see you doing social service,
feeding the poor, educating the unlearned.
No!
These things have an appeal to our senses.
Show your Christianity by compassion for the poor.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But Jesus said, all men will know you
are my disciples when you love one another.
And you can't go beyond that.
All these other methods of showing Christian love
and compassion are subservient to the one mark
that Jesus said was the mark that would
identify people as his disciples.
It's got nothing to do with how they
sing.
It's got nothing to do with the gifts
of the Holy Spirit.
It's got nothing to do with anything other
than love.
And love requires another person.
When you love one another and people have
got to see it.
John says that at the age of 95.
After having walked with God for 65 years.
He says in the last verses of 1
John 4.
If a man says he loves God and
he cannot love his brother.
He is not a believer.
He is a liar.
Those apostles use strong words.
James says you are adulterers.
John says you are liars.
You say you love God and you can't
love your brother.
You are a liar.
For if a man cannot love a brother
whom he sees.
How can he love God whom he cannot
see.
That is the test.
So isn't it easy for all of us
to love the dear brothers and sisters in
South America.
Have you had any problem with loving them.
Or the dear brothers and sisters in Japan.
Or the suffering brothers and sisters in China.
Oh we feel such compassion for them.
Our problem is with the brother whom we
see every week in our local church.
But that's the one who tests our love.
Not the suffering saints in China or Albania
or Cuba.
Or somebody in prison for the gospel.
It's very easy to shed tears of compassion
for these people who never trouble us or
irritate us.
It's this brother whom we see.
The brother whom you see sisters in your
home every day.
Your husband.
The sisters whom you see every day in
your home.
Dear brothers.
Your wives.
They are the first ones.
If I cannot love their I am not
manifesting the primary mark of being a disciple
of Jesus Christ.
And that's why it's important that this worldwide
body of Christ finds expression in a locality.
As a local body of believers who love
one another.
That must be the distinctive mark.
You know when I travel around different places
people want to know what type of church
ours is.
They ask different questions like do you have
pastors?
Do you break bread every Sunday?
Do you speak in tongues?
Do you do this?
Do you do that?
Nobody has ever asked me do you folks
love one another?
It's all these other things.
The other things which Jesus never mentioned.
What is the distinctive mark of the local
church?
All men will know you are my disciples
by what?
There are many other things needed.
But the one thing Jesus said is the
one thing that the devil turns us away
from.
Because that is the most difficult.
You can speak with the tongues of men
and angels.
You can understand all the mysteries.
You can have faith to move mountains and
have all knowledge.
Tremendous Bible knowledge.
But if you don't have love in your
church in God's eyes you get zero.
Zero.
All of that is useless.
How many churches?
Theoretically we will all say yes to that.
But how many actually believe that?
How many husbands and wives believe that?
That with all their zeal for God and
their devotion and their singing and their praying
and their spiritual gifts and everything if they
don't love one another at home God gives
them zero.
Fellowship is fundamental.
In the Old Testament fellowship is not even
mentioned.
The word doesn't even occur.
Whereas when John writes his letter it was
the last letter written.
Some say even after the book of Revelation
one John.
He says these things have been written that
you might have fellowship with us.
And our fellowship is with the Father.
This is God's ultimate goal.
Do you know what John writes about in
his letter?
The two things that existed from eternity.
If you go back in time before creation,
before heaven and earth were created, before there
were any created beings when only God existed.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There were no doctrines there.
There were no supernatural gifts there.
There were two things.
Life and fellowship between the three persons of
the Trinity.
And this is what John says is the
primary thing.
Life and fellowship.
And that was the goal towards which God
was working.
The law was only a temporary stage.
The old covenant was only a first step.
The ultimate goal of God was.
Let me turn to this verse in Ephesians.
In chapter 1 verse 22 and 23.
He has put all things in subjection under
Jesus feet.
And given him as head over all things
to the church which is his body.
God's ultimate goal was the church.
Ephesians speaks about the worldwide church.
Which includes a lot of people who have
gone to heaven in the last 2000 years.
Not all of God's church is here on
earth.
A lot of people who are still not
saved, who are being saved today in different
lands.
And a lot of those who are already
saved in every nation.
That's the worldwide church.
But then 1 Corinthians also speaks about the
local church.
Paul writes to the Corinthians and says you
are the body of Christ.
The people in Corinth had to see Christians
loving one another.
That's what they said in those early days
of Christianity.
Behold how these Christians love one another.
And we must get back to that.
To function together as a body.
I am not saying that everybody in one
city should congregate in one place and become
one huge massive organization called a church.
It would be unwieldy.
I personally thank God that in large cities
there are many many many different churches.
I think our witness is far more effective
when we are little little scattered all over
the city than if everybody were meeting in
one building.
But each little church must be an expression
of Christ's body.
There may be differences in doctrine and peripheral
things but it doesn't matter.
This little church here must be an expression
of Christ's body.
And that other little church in another area
of the same city must be an expression
of Christ's body.
People who see that must see these are
the disciples of Christ because they love one
another.
And so God brings together people who are
different.
In the Old Testament as I said there
was no body.
Israel was called the bride of Jehovah.
The people of God.
Many titles like that but one title that
was never given to Israel was the body.
That's a distinctively New Testament word.
And we understand what a body is.
The body's got one head or one brain
that controls the whole body.
That's Christ.
But in this body there are members that
are so different from one another.
We're not supposed to be the same.
We are supposed to be as diverse in
the body of Christ as the eye is
from the ear and the fingers are from
the liver and the kidneys and many many
different parts of the body.
And not all the visible parts of the
body, the ones who stand up in the
pulpit frequently, are necessarily the most important members.
Do you think the visible members of your
body are the most important?
No.
The heart, the liver, the kidneys which you've
never seen, these are far more important than
fingers and eyes and ears.
You can live without your eyes and your
fingers but you can't live without your heart.
Some of those invisible members in the body
of Christ who have a ministry of prayer
are far more important than we think.
I've often recognized that in my ministry, public
ministry, that I can speak because behind me
there's a heart that's pumping blood.
The mouth could not speak if the heart
did not pump blood.
And those are the prayer warriors who you
will never see stand in any pulpit.
They don't have the gift of speaking.
Like the heart doesn't have a gift of
speaking.
It's the tongue that does the speaking.
The heart doesn't get any credit.
Nobody ever pats it on the back or
anything.
It just keeps on pumping the blood.
But you'll know when it stops.
Praise God for those hidden members in the
body of Christ who do a secret ministry,
who will never get recognition perhaps till Jesus
comes again.
Your ministry is important.
There's diversity in the body.
The first body of Christ was of course
Jesus himself.
And the Bible says in John's Gospel chapter
1 and verse 14.
The word became flesh.
And that was the first body of Christ.
It was the physical body of Jesus Christ
which was the first body of Christ.
And we beheld the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father in that body
full of grace and truth.
Why is the church called the body of
Christ?
Because it's supposed to carry on the same
function and ministry that that first body of
Christ fulfilled for 33 and a half years
in the land of Palestine.
2000 years ago.
On the day of Pentecost when the Holy
Spirit baptized those 120 people.
He baptized them into one body and Jesus
got another body.
This time a spiritual one.
He still has his physical one up in
heaven at the right hand of the Father.
But now he got another one.
He is still the head of that physical
body which he has in heaven.
But he's also the head of the spiritual
body that was formed on the day of
Pentecost.
What was that body supposed to do?
Exactly the same thing that the first body
of Christ did for 33 years in Palestine.
What was that?
Manifest the glory of God to a world
that did not know what God was like.
Jesus came to show the glory of the
Father full of grace and truth.
None of us, beloved, none of us, no
matter how spiritual we are, can manifest that
glory fully.
We can only manifest a small portion of
it.
We need our brothers and sisters to manifest
it fully.
That's why the body is needed.
And the body, there's a balance in the
body.
It was full of grace and truth.
The Bible says in Romans 11, Behold the
kindness and the severity of God.
God is kind and God is strict.
Jesus, the glory of God, is full of
grace and full of truth.
None of us can present that balance perfectly.
Take this one area of grace and truth
alone.
The best among us, no matter how much
we strive, are a little imbalanced one way
or the other.
You see that in a home.
Sometimes the father is over kind, lenient, and
the mother is strict.
Or the father is strict and the mother
is kind.
That's beautiful balance.
It's terrible if both are not straight or
both are straight.
A balance of grace and truth is the
same in a church.
God does not want one man leadership of
any church.
That is old covenant.
I want to point this out to you.
In the old covenant, there was an Abraham,
a Noah, there was a Moses, a Joshua.
You never read of them having fellowship or
joint leadership with anybody.
It was an Elijah.
If you read the Old Testament carefully, there
were prophets in Israel, prophesying in the time
of some of these other prophets.
But they never worked together.
They all worked individually.
Isaiah.
Even if there were other prophets in Israel,
they never worked with Isaiah.
Isaiah minded his own business and the others
minded their business.
They were individuals, great men.
John the Baptist.
But he was the last.
As soon as you come to the pages
of the New Testament, you find Jesus starting
something new.
He sent his disciples out two by two.
Not one by one.
This was a new covenant.
It was not one single man now.
It was two people going together here and
two people going together there.
Because when two people are together, they demonstrate
the principle of the body.
Fellowship.
Which is a distinctively new covenant message.
And it was perfected after the day of
Pentecost.
Two becoming one.
Two people becoming one was something that even
Jesus could not accomplish in his earthly lifetime.
Because the Spirit was not yet given.
Notice the greatest preacher that ever walked on
this earth, the Lord Jesus Christ, worked three
and a half years with eleven people.
And yet he could not even make two
of them one.
He longed for it.
He prayed, Father I will that they will
be one as you and I are one.
How many times he expressed that in John
17.
But he knew it could never take place
till the Holy Spirit came into those eleven
disciples.
His exhorting them, his demonstrating the godly life
before them.
None of these things could help.
At the last supper they were still discussing
who is going to take over the directorship
of this mission once Jesus dies.
The same old discussion that goes on in
many mission fields today.
It was not the will of God.
But once the Spirit came they no longer
wanted to be the leaders.
They wanted to be servants.
Peter and John so diverse in their personality.
Such opposites, fiery, tempestuous Peter and the more
meditative type of John could work together.
We read in Acts chapter 3.
They go together.
When the Holy Spirit wanted to start the
first missionary program from the church in Antioch
as they fasted and worshipped the Lord.
The Holy Spirit said through the elders, separate
me not one person.
No, that day was over.
This is the new covenant.
Separate to me Saul and Barnabas for the
work to which I have called them.
Why Saul and Barnabas?
Because they were opposites.
Saul was the fiery, tempestuous man and Barnabas
was the gentle, gracious son of consolation.
Ideal combination.
That's how God unites people in leadership in
a church.
Two people completely different from each other.
Do you think these two hands are exactly
alike?
They are not.
They are exact opposites.
In this hand my little thumb is on
the left, in this hand the thumb is
on the right.
In this hand my little finger is on
the right, in this hand my little finger
is on the left.
They are exact opposites.
How terrible it would have been if they
were similar.
How could I put it together?
How could I ever put it together?
Thank God they are exact opposites.
Isn't that beautiful?
Let me pray it looks so beautiful.
Perfect.
It would be terrible trying fitting this in
like this.
Has God given you a wife who is
exactly the opposite of what you are?
Praise the Lord.
That must have been God's choice.
Without a doubt.
Has God given you a co-worker who
is exactly the opposite of you?
Different temperament, different personality, different vision, different
outlook, but a common love for Jesus.
That's the brother you need.
That's the sister you need.
Separate me Saul and Barnabas because grace and
truth have to be manifested.
I've seen the tremendous difference it's made in
my married life.
God gave me a wife united with me
in a common devotion to Christ but exactly
the opposite of mine in personality, temperament.
I make all the enemies and she makes
the friends.
But I've learned things from her.
I make more friends now.
But you know how it is when we
are young and zealous and we want to
serve the Lord and we do all types
of stupid things.
Thank God there is someone who can manifest
grace when we are standing for the truth.
God gave me co-workers in my church
who were gracious when I was standing for
the truth.
I praise God for them.
I've learned to appreciate them at home and
in the church.
I would have been a very poor man
if I had to do it all myself
at home or in the church.
Learn to appreciate the partners God gives you.
Learn to appreciate that co-worker who is
totally different from you.
He is the very man or the very
woman you need.
It's a body God is building.
Forget these two hands.
Just draw a central line through this body.
Isn't it an exact opposite?
This side to this side.
That's why the body looks beautiful and both
are needed to grow together.
Don't suppress your co-worker.
He needs to develop not in the way
you are, in his own way.
Have you ever seen a body builder who
has built up one side of his body
muscular, the other side thin like a skeleton?
I've seen a lot of Christian workers like
that.
Where one man suppressed the other fellow's personality.
The poor fellow has never been able to
develop in that church or the organization.
It's one man.
It's one side of the body developed like
anything.
Maybe it's truth.
Over-emphasis on truth and there's no grace.
Or it could be an over-emphasis on
grace.
As if God were a grandfather who just
let grandchildren do what they like.
No, God's a father.
There's kindness and strictness in him.
It's just like the human body.
I think of truth like the bones in
our body.
That's what makes me stand erect.
If I didn't have bones I would be
like jellyfish.
I wouldn't be able to stand here.
You know, jellyfish have certain advantages.
They can fit through any opening, whatever shape
it is.
I can't, because I've got bones.
Because of my convictions.
I can't fit into any type of theological
opening.
Some things I can't go through.
Sorry, I don't agree with that.
I've got bones.
But it's not just bones.
The Pharisees had bones.
Jesus had more bones than them.
He had all the truth.
But why were sinners attracted to Jesus who
had more truth than the Pharisees?
Because those bones were covered over with flesh.
When you see people who bang away on
truth, it's something like seeing a skeleton approach
you on a dark night.
Every bone is there.
How do you feel?
That's exactly how a lot of people felt
when the Pharisees came near them.
You feel like turning around and running.
And a lot of Christians like that.
Their entire emphasis is, brother, we need the
truth.
I'm not going to compromise on the truth.
They think they're standing for the truth.
They're just driving people away.
They're skeletons.
Do we need all those bones?
Sure.
I don't want even one of these 200
odd bones in my body to be missing.
I want the whole truth.
But I don't want to be a skeleton.
I want truth to be covered over with
grace.
That's what makes us attractive.
Yes.
Let's learn this.
And sometimes we cannot do it on our
own.
That's why God gives us a partner at
home and in our work.
I've used a couple of illustrations when I
counsel young couples who are going to be
married or just married.
And one of the diagrams I draw for
them is a broken eggshell.
I say, here's a whole egg when it's
broken.
Do you see the two halves full of
jagged edges?
Very ugly.
They poke you.
I say, that's how each of you are.
But when put together, wherever there's a projection
here, there's a depression there.
And wherever there's a depression here, there's a
projection there.
A perfect fit.
Wherever there's a projection here, there's a depression
in the lower one.
It's a complement.
Where one has a strong point, that's a
projection.
The other has a weak point, a depression
and vice versa.
This is what marriage was meant to be.
This is what leadership was meant to be
in the church.
A number of brothers, maybe two or more,
together manifesting the unity of the body of
Christ.
Just like the human body.
I use another illustration for young couples.
I say, don't ever try to make your
husband or your wife like yourself.
You'll be the biggest fool if you ever
did that.
Because your wife's view may be completely the
opposite of yours.
But think of it like this.
That you are taking a photograph of a
building from the northern side.
And your wife is at the southern side,
exact opposite.
And she's taking a view of the same
building from the southern side.
You put both pictures together, they look so
dissimilar.
But you get a total picture.
Now if you were a dictator at home
and determined to browbeat your wife and make
her come around to the north side, to
have the same viewpoint as you, you get
two identical photographs.
You see how you've lost the full picture?
Isn't it good that two different viewpoints can
put their photographs together and guide their children
in the right path?
Isn't it a good thing if leaders with
different visions, but with a common devotion to
Christ, recognizing there is room for these different
ministries in the body, come together and put
their photographs on the table and we get
an all round picture.
One from the west, one from the east,
one from the southeast, one from the northwest,
one from the north, one from the south.
You put it all together, what a beautiful
picture of the whole building.
Of the project, of the plan, of the
program.
That is the body of Christ.
And the people you need the most in
your church, in your organization, are the people
who are totally different from you.
The ones who don't have the strengths that
you have, but who can complement your weaknesses.
This is the meaning of the body, to
fulfill the same ministry that the first body
of Christ fulfilled on earth.
To manifest the glory of God, full of
grace and truth.
This is not for your glory or my
glory, it's for the glory of Jesus Christ.
When I was a young Christian and I
knew that God was calling me to leave
my job in the military and to serve
Him, my first desire was to be an
evangelist.
I wanted to go to north India to
some place the gospel had never been preached
and to go there for the rest of
my life.
And in preparation for that, I sought to
do the work of an evangelist.
While I was in the Navy, in the
town I lived in, twice a week, I
spent two or three hours in fasting and
prayer and go out twice every week into
the streets of that city, sun or rain,
and preach the gospel.
And I think I covered every single street
corner in that whole city during the two
or three years I was there.
But I never saw a soul saved.
I learned how to preach.
I got boldness.
I learned to preach on the streets.
I was too young to be asked to
preach in the church I was going to.
But I learned to preach on the streets.
The first place anybody called me a devil
was out on the streets.
And I learned to face that too and
to love people who disagreed with me.
But I never saw a soul saved.
But then I would meet in homes with
little groups of people in the naval base
I worked in.
And as I began to teach, I found
people were getting light on things they never
understood in scripture.
And I found even at that young age,
God gave me an ability to expound scripture
in a very, very simple way.
And I realized, God doesn't put square pegs
into round holes.
He knows exactly what He needs in His
body at a particular time.
And though I wanted to be an evangelist,
He showed me by my failure in evangelism
that that was not my calling.
And He showed me by, it was a
trial and error method, that's how I discovered
my calling.
And He showed me by the tremendous freedom
and liberty and anointing and blessing that came
through teaching that that was my calling.
And so as I grew up and I
finally left my job, I went into a
teaching ministry.
Now as I look back with greater maturity
and I look over the work all around
in India, I see there are many evangelists,
hundreds, we've got hundreds of missionaries doing evangelism.
But I saw the great dearth of teachers,
of prophetic anointed teachers of the word that
could build up these converts into disciples and
build them together as a body of Christ.
And I realized God didn't make a mistake.
I thought it was the second best, it
was my second choice, but it was God's
best.
Sometimes God does not allow you to go
where you want to go or be what
you want to be.
But if you seek His glory and His
will, He will guide you sovereignly in such
a wonderful way to fulfill that particular ministry
that He designed you for from childhood.
And has prepared you for through many, many
trials and circumstances because that will be your
unique contribution to the body of Christ.
You've got to be yourself.
I want to say to all of you
young people especially, don't let anybody try to
make you like himself.
God doesn't want a duplicate, a clone in
His body.
He wants unique members.
He wants only one Zach Poonen.
Thank God, that's enough.
He doesn't want one more.
He wants you to be uniquely yourself.
You know how when people admire someone, they
have a tendency to imitate him.
And I've had to face this danger in
the flocks that God has given me grace
to nurture and bring up in India.
And I've had to warn the young people
in our churches, don't any of you try
to preach like me.
You'll make a mess of your life.
Don't try to imitate my calling.
Don't try to preach like me.
Be yourself.
God wants you to be yourself.
Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ.
Not follow me and become an apostle or
follow me and become a healer.
We need to distinguish where to follow a
man in the Christ likeness that we see
in him.
If you see humility in a brother, by
all means follow that.
If you see love, goodness, graciousness, uprightness, follow
that.
Don't try to imitate his ministry because each
person has got a unique ministry in the
body of Christ.
The eye is different from the hand.
Each needs the other.
There's no question of one being superior or
other being inferior.
There's no superior and inferior members in the
body.
Every part of the body has been designed
by God with a particular function.
Some may have a more important function or
a more visible function, but all are equally
important.
The important thing is cooperation.
The race of Adam can be identified by
many characteristics, but one of the primary characteristics
of the race of Adam is this, all
men seek their own.
We read that in Philippians 2 concerning even
some of Paul's co-workers.
Paul says concerning his co-workers when he
was wanting to send somebody to Philippi, he
said, I don't have anybody except Timothy to
send to you because Philippians 2 verse 20
and 21, they all seek after their own
interests, not the interests of Christ.
We can use that expression to say that
this is characteristic of the entire human race.
They all seek after their own interests.
Now when we come to Christ, we're supposed
to be like Timothy, where we no longer
seek our own interests.
That's the law of the body of Christ.
If there's one law for the body of
Christ, it's the law for this human body.
You don't seek your own interest.
Do you think this left hand of mine
is seeking its own interest?
Not at all.
It's seeking the interest of the head.
What about my eye, my ear, my leg,
the liver, the kidneys, every part of my
body?
One thing can be said about every part
of my body.
None of them seek their own interests.
Not one of them.
Do you want to be an effective member
in the body of Christ?
Start here.
Lord, let me die to self-interest.
Let the interests of Christ be primary in
my life.
When I was a young Christian, I read
that verse in Colossians chapter 1 where it
says that in all things he might have
the preeminence.
Colossians 1.18. That God was working that
in all things Christ might have the preeminence.
And I remember the Lord spoke to my
heart and said, if you also desire to
give preeminence to Christ in everything in your
life, you'll have my power backing you always.
But if ever a time comes in your
life when you want to be preeminent, my
power will withdraw.
This is what's happened to many ministries.
It's what's happened to many people in the
body of Christ.
Do you want to be a useful member
in the body of Christ?
Decide from today that your only goal is
that in all things Christ might have the
preeminence, that you'll never seek your own interests.
That you'll seek the interests of Christ, not
the interests of your family.
Many years ago I made a little exchange
with God.
I said, Lord, I'll look after your family,
you look after mine.
And I'll tell you, he's done a better
job than I have.
He always does.
You think your family will suffer?
My wife and I have gone through times
of tremendous poverty, particularly in our early days.
We lived in a little ten foot by
ten foot room.
We never had a home of our own.
That's how we started.
Two, three years it was like that.
But God never let us down.
We learned lessons there.
We could never have learned in a large
palatial building.
God designs our education perfectly.
But my children have never starved.
Those who seek the kingdom of God, first
is righteousness.
The other things are added to them.
God doesn't make us millionaires, but he takes
care of us.
He never lets us down.
Seek his interests.
That is the law of the body.
Nothing in this body seeks its own.
You are an effective member of Christ's body
if you live by that law.
That in nothing you seek your own.
You want to give your unique contribution to
the body of Christ.
I remember when I started preaching, I said,
Lord, I don't want to imitate these American
preachers.
Because a lot of Indians were imitating them.
You know, they have different ways.
I've got nothing against them.
They are Americans.
I'm Indian.
So, I said, I'm Indian.
And I want to study the scriptures and
see how Jesus preached.
And that's the way I want to preach.
And if I could picture Jesus running up
and down the platform preaching, I would do
it.
But I don't get that picture from the
Bible.
And that's why I don't do it.
I've got nothing against it.
I couldn't get that picture when Jesus was
preaching to his disciples that he was always
running up and down.
So, he seemed to be standing in one
place.
And I don't get the impression that Jesus
was screaming and yelling at people.
I think he spoke very gently, but he
spoke very powerfully.
I said, Lord, that's the way I want
to preach.
I don't want to imitate anybody.
I want to be uniquely myself.
I'm not criticizing anybody.
God bless all those people who feel they
should do it another way.
But I want you to see how...
Can you get a better example than Jesus?
Tell me.
No.
He was the greatest healer, the greatest preacher,
the greatest evangelist, the greatest apostle, the greatest
man.
You can follow him in every area.
Make him your example.
Be uniquely yourself in that particular contribution God
wants you to make in the body of
Christ.
You're valuable.
Your contribution is valuable.
Very important.
I remember when I studied something about the
human body many years ago.
I saw how there were glands and different
organs, I don't even know their names, that
would determine right from childhood, right from the
time you're a little baby, how much iodine
or potassium, different chemicals should be in your
blood stream.
And it had to be some small fraction
of a gram.
If it became too much or too little,
you'd be an idiot.
Do you know that it's just a small
fraction of a gram difference, that balance that
allowed us all to be normal human beings?
Amazing, the functioning of this human body.
Do you think those little, little things which
were controlling this were not important?
What an important function they fulfill.
We don't value them.
Every brother and sister is valuable.
I remember once I was speaking in a
meeting in the United States where I saw
in the congregation a number of children with
Down syndrome, retarded as some would call them.
And I asked the congregation, see these young
men with Down syndrome, they can't intelligently accept
Christ, but I believe they're going to heaven.
Redeemed by the blood of Jesus, the righteousness
of Christ is imputed to them.
But, therefore, I consider them as members of
Christ's body.
And if you're a member of Christ's body,
you have a very useful function in the
body.
I said, can you tell me what function
these young men with Down syndrome are contributing
to the body of Christ?
How are they blessing the body of Christ?
I said, I'll tell you how they've blessed
me.
Every time I see some little child with
Down syndrome, I feel a little compassion.
I'm a hard man by nature, but that
boy makes me a little compassionate, a little
bit like Jesus.
He's ministered to me without His even knowing
it.
He's blessed me without knowing it.
Has He contributed to the body of Christ?
He certainly has to me.
Think of that.
There is no one who is unimportant in
the body of Christ.
We need to see our worth.
Don't ever demean yourself.
Don't ever have a low estimate of yourself.
Say, oh, I'm useless.
I'm good for nothing.
You're not good for nothing.
That's the devil's lie.
You're redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Something more precious than gold and silver.
Be yourself.
Do the little you can.
You don't have to do great things for
God.
You know, James and John once wanted to
sit at the right hand, left hand of
Jesus.
And Jesus said, I can't give you those
places.
Those places have been reserved for those whom
the Father has determined.
Who's going to sit at the right hand
or the left hand of Jesus?
I don't know.
But you know, it may not be the
Apostle Paul.
Maybe, it may be him on one side.
Even if he's on one side, who's going
to sit on the other side?
It could be some unknown widow in some
remote unknown third world country.
Who loved Jesus and did her little bit.
Nobody ever heard her name.
Nobody wrote her biography.
But who faithfully did her part in the
body of Christ.
I will not at all be surprised if
she sits at the right hand of Jesus
in the final day.
Because God looks for faithfulness.
Not gifts.
Not ability.
Men are impressed by ability.
Such widows never get thanks publicly here and
nobody knows their names.
She doesn't write books that are on the
bookstalls.
But she may be at the right hand
of Jesus in the final day.
So don't think your contribution is unimportant.
I want to say, as I said, in
this body no part seeks its own.
Let me give you one illustration.
My right hand signs all the checks.
Does all the important work.
Supposing one day my right hand is injured
badly in an accident.
It's in a sling.
What does my left hand say?
Ah!
Now is my chance to show how important
I am.
And it decides to start signing checks.
The bank won't accept it.
It says it doesn't look like your signature.
It's crazy if the left hand thinks like
that.
It doesn't.
It does everything possible to restore this right
hand to its function as soon as possible.
Are you like that?
When you see another brother injured.
I heard a statement the other day.
It's an old statement.
You probably heard it.
The Lord's army is the only army that
shoots its own wounded.
Sad, isn't it?
No army shoots its own wounded soldiers.
But in the Lord's army, one battalion will
shoot the soldiers in another battalion who are
wounded.
Because they don't belong to our battalion.
How sad.
The name of God is blasphemed among the
heathen.
Because of this critical judgmental attitude that Christians
have towards one another.
Where instead of cooperation there is competition and
jealousy.
What shall we say?
Whose fault is it?
Not theirs.
Ours.
We have sinned.
Have mercy on us Lord.
Help me to value the members of the
body of Christ who are different from me.
One man esteems a day.
Another man doesn't.
One man eats vegetables.
Another man eats meat.
Let each esteem the other.
That is the body of Christ.
Otherwise we'll be building cults.
Where everybody has to be exactly the same.
Dress the same way.
God's not looking for uniformity.
Unity.
Unity in diversity.
When God plants ten trees down a street,
all ten are different.
Even if the original seed was the same.
Different number of leaves, different number of branches,
different height.
But if a man builds ten blocks of
apartments down that road, they'll be exactly the
same down to the last nut and bolt.
That's the difference between man's work and God's
work.
In God's work there's diversity.
In man's work there's uniformity.
You build a church where everybody prays alike,
talks alike, does things alike.
I say that's man's work.
I'm not interested in it.
I want to see a church where people
are different.
Where they pray differently.
They all love the Lord.
But they are different.
And the leaders are wise enough to allow
them to be different.
Such a church can manifest the glory of
Christ.
Such an organization can manifest the glory of
Christ far better than this uniform bunch of
people who've been programmed to act and behave
in a certain way.
One last thing.
There's tremendous power when a church is united.
Two brothers together, Jesus said, if two of
you agree concerning anything, it shall be granted.
Because where two are gathered together like that,
I am in the midst of them.
What about when one person is alone?
Yeah, one person alone can do a lot
of things.
But when two people are together, Jesus is
in the midst.
Because there's an expression of the body.
There's a lot more to be said on
that.
But let's learn to value the body of
Christ.
It's the body of Christ that's going to
triumph over Satan.
Not just one individual.
Let's pursue that unity in the days to
come in practical ways in the town in
which you live.
Amen.
Let's pray.
There are many things that we have heard
this weekend.
You don't have to remember all of them.
The Holy Spirit will bring them to your
remembrance at the appropriate time.
When you need to be reminded, you can
trust Him to do that.
All I say is, be open to hear
the voice of the Spirit.
And when He does speak, respond.
When you hear His voice, do not harden
your heart.
Let Him break down the prejudices that you
have built up through many years.
Let Him destroy those man-made traditions in
your life that have hindered the building of
the body of Christ in your town, in
your locality.
Say, Lord, I don't want to promote my
own interests or the interests of my church
or the interests of my organization anymore.
Send revival to the city.
Send it through another church.
Let it not be through my church.
It doesn't matter.
But let the heathen know that Jesus Christ
is Lord.
Help me to do my part.
Heavenly Father, help us each one.
Thank you for the freedom of the Spirit
in these days.
For the open heavens that you have granted
us in answer to prayer.
And I pray that the effect of these
words that you have given us from heaven
will be seen in the days to come.
They will be fruit that lasts for all
eternity.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you very much.