Let's turn to Ephesians in chapter four.
It speaks here about the necessity of growing
up spiritually.
Ephesians four, verse fourteen, As a result, we
are no longer to be children, tossed here
and there by waves, carried about by every
wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men,
by craftiness and deceitful scheming.
But speaking the truth in love, we are
to grow up in all aspects, into Him
who is the Head, even Christ, from whom
the whole body, being fitted and held together
by that which every joint supplies, according to
the proper working of each individual part, causes
the growth of the body for the building
up of itself in love.
To stop being children and to grow up
involves two things.
Like we were saying the other day, there
is a vertical element to it and a
horizontal.
Both of these are mentioned here that we
grow up to Him who is the Head,
even Christ.
And as we do that, we find that
the Head is connected to all the other
members of the body and the body itself
grows.
It says here in the last part of
verse sixteen, the growth of the body for
the building up of itself in love.
So there are two growths spoken of here.
One is growing up, verse fifteen, into Him
who is the Head, even Christ, and the
other is the growth of the body.
And that teaches me that it's not possible
for me to grow up personally in my
life into the Head, becoming more like Christ,
if I'm not related to and concerned with
the growth of the body in which God
has placed me.
And I believe this is the reason why
many people do not grow personally, because they
are seeking for individual growth.
They are not concerned about the growth of
the body in which God has placed them.
And a lot of believers don't belong to
any body at all.
They attend churches, like people visit restaurants for
having a meal.
You don't belong to that restaurant, you go
there for having a meal.
So a lot of people visit churches exactly
like that, to get a message, to get
some spiritual help.
And then there are others who may imagine
that they are part of a body, just
because they go to a church that talks
about the body of Christ, but there is
no commitment to the growth of the body.
So any imagining that we are growing spiritually,
vertically into the Head, even Christ, without a
horizontal growth in fellowship, the concern for the
growth of the body in which God has
placed me, is a deception.
I cannot grow up to the Head without
growing along with the body.
And that is one of the distinct things
of the New Testament.
Last Sunday I was mentioning that one of
the great distinctives of the New Testament is
to have a hidden life with Christ, where
it's not just external, inward, hidden, where other
people can't see.
Another great distinctive of the New Testament, of
the New Covenant life, is a relationship with
other members in a local body.
And that local body of Christ is so
important, because all believers will admit that they
are members of the worldwide body of Christ.
That doesn't require any commitment.
I mean, I belong to my fellow believers
in many countries in the world, who are
part of the body of Christ, and a
major part of the body of Christ has
already gone to heaven, in death, and I
belong to them too.
But that doesn't affect me in any way.
They don't bother me.
I cannot make them grow.
I never see them.
They never see me.
But the one place where members of the
body of Christ meet one another frequently is
the local church.
And you realize that you meet with other
believers in this church more frequently than you
meet with other believers even in this city,
leave alone in this country or other countries.
So, I cannot grow in the Lord as
God wants me to.
To the fullest extent, without growing along in
my relationship with other people in the body
of Christ in which God has placed me.
Now, this is the truth.
We'll all agree to it.
But it's a question whether we are as
eager to build relationships and fellowship as we
are to grow spiritually in the vertical direction.
I think all of us are interested in
growing in the vertical direction, to be filled
with the Holy Spirit, to have rivers of
living water flowing through us, to have a
very close relationship with Jesus, to hear His
voice, and many things in the vertical direction.
But the reason why those things are on
a hold, on a hold means God's placed
the brakes on that, because He does not
see a corresponding desire in many to build
fellowship and to grow along with other members
in Christ's body.
Now, in the Old Testament it was not
like that.
You know, Elijah didn't need anybody.
John the Baptist didn't need anybody.
They were just out on their own.
And it's possible even today for a person
to advance a lot spiritually on his own.
Definitely.
And he can even be better than a
lot of other believers who are in churches,
even though he's alone.
And he can pat himself on the back
and say, well, I'm better than these fellows
who seem to be valuing fellowship.
That may be true.
But he's not better than what he himself
could have been if he had valued fellowship.
That's the difference.
See, it's like a very brilliant student studying
in some third-rate school, getting sixty percent,
coming first in the class and satisfying himself
that he's first in the class, he's better
than all the others who got forty-five,
fifty.
But he has got such ability that he
couldn't get ninety-five or ninety-eight.
But he never attains to that because he's
always comparing himself with other people who are
getting forty and fifty and fifty-five.
Never compare yourself with other people.
Compare yourself with what you yourself could have
been if you had availed of all of
the resources of God's grace.
And that's the thing that should humble us
constantly.
Not where I am in relation to other
people, but where I am in relation to
where I could have been if I had
availed of all of the resources of God's
grace, one part of which is fellowship with
my fellow believers.
It says in the book of Ecclesiastes, in
chapter four, Ecclesiastes chapter four, it says, verse
nine, two are better than one because they
have a good return for their labor.
Or as the Living Bible says, two can
accomplish more than twice as much as one.
In other words, one plus one is not
two.
One plus one can be much more than
two.
And part of the reason is that two
is better than one is because if either
of them falls, verse ten, the one can
lift up his companion, but woe to the
one who falls when there is not another
to lift him up.
See, most of us, you know, we all
have this human nature to, tendency to get
closer to God only when we are in
difficulty or in trouble.
And when things are relatively easy, we tend
to drift.
In the same way, even in the horizontal
direction, we tend to seek the counsel of
the elders only when there is some problem,
not at other times.
In other words, just like we go to
God only when there is a problem, and
the other times we don't go.
A lot of people go to the elders
also for counsel only when there is a
problem, not at other times.
Now that's not God's will.
It's not God's will even in our relationship
with Him.
I mean, I'm not supposed to go to
God only when I have a problem.
I'd like to have fellowship with God when
I have no problems.
If it's only when I have a need,
I mean, if your only interest in your
wife is when she can cook the food
or do something for you, that's not a
good marriage relationship.
And if my interest in my fellow believers
is only when they can do something for
me, that's like a man who got married
because he wanted his wife to cook, or
wash the clothes, or produce children, or something
like that, only what she can do for
him.
Not for who she is as a person.
Such a marriage is not a happy marriage
at all.
And in the same way in the church,
I'm not to seek fellowship with others thinking
of what they can do for me.
No.
It's because they're members of Christ's body.
And I'm related to them.
I want to build a relationship with other
members in the body of Christ.
And I'll tell you something.
The root of all our sin is selfishness.
Selfishness is the opposite of love.
Love is, if God is love, Christ is
love, we can say Adam is selfishness.
All of Adam's children, every sin they commit
in their life, comes from the root of
selfishness.
It's where self is the center.
And if that is not dealt with, we're
not really going to grow like God wants
us to.
And there is no place where selfishness is
manifested in all its ugliness, like when we
try to fellowship with somebody.
I think most people who are married will
admit, if they're honest, that even if they
thought they were very, very unselfish when they
were single, they discovered how selfish they were
when they got married.
And that's why a lot of people, when
they don't have a happy marriage, they always
blame the other person.
It's very easy to see the selfishness in
the other person, not see it in yourself.
It's the same in the church.
When we can't build fellowship with someone, it's
very easy to blame some problem with the
other person.
And a person who is like that will
never build fellowship.
No.
No matter how long he sits in the
CFC, all his growth will be imaginary, like
a bubble.
One day it'll burst, and he'll realize there
was nothing there.
No, even though the balloon was so big,
when it bursts, it's nothing.
Because the principle for fellowship is the same
as the principle of our fellowship with God.
It says in 1 John 1, 7, if
we walk in the light, as God himself
is in the light, we have fellowship with
one another.
And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from
all sin.
See, what does God want from me?
Fellowship.
He doesn't want my service.
He's not like a selfish husband who wants
his wife to cook and wash the clothes
and do things like that.
God's not like that.
God says, even if you do nothing, I
want your fellowship.
Very rare to find a husband like that
who'll tell his wife, even if you do
nothing in the home, I want your fellowship.
But that's the ideal marriage.
And that's the marriage God has with us.
He says, well, I'm not interested.
What you do for me, the Lord says,
I want fellowship.
And that fellowship is possible only if we
walk in the light with God.
Let's think of our fellowship with God.
To walk in the light means many things,
but let me just mention two things.
First of all, it means I don't hide
anything.
I'm transparent.
I'm not, there's no guile in me.
I'm not pretending.
If I have God, if I'm trying to
play games with God, for example, if I
pretend that I'm very devoted to the Lord
and really all I'm interested is getting God
to bless me in various ways, God's not
fooled.
And God may bless me because He blesses
all human beings.
But it doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't mean that God's fooled by my
desire for, by my real desire.
He knows that I'm only interested in what
I can get out of Him.
I must be transparent.
And that applies also in our mutual relationships.
Through all these years, now we've been building
the church for 27 years in different parts
of India, and I'll tell you my testimony.
Fellowship, I found it very easy to fellowship
with people who are not artificial, who are
natural, who are not pretending to be spiritual
or trying to talk spiritual language or act
holy.
Natural.
Not worldly.
I'm talking about natural as opposed to artificial.
You know, that means a person is himself.
He doesn't pretend to be something he's not.
And I found it so easy to fellowship
with such people, even if they are new
believers.
And I found it very difficult to fellowship
with some who've been with us for so
many years because there's always something artificial about
them.
They're always trying to act spiritual, talk spiritual
language.
And I just want to wait to get
away from them.
Because it doesn't go anywhere.
There's no transparency.
So I would say to all of you,
my brothers and sisters, seek with all your
heart to be transparent.
I don't mean that you have to let
other people know everything about your private life.
That's not transparency.
That's foolish on earth.
There are a lot of things about your
life which you should not tell other people.
Not even your wife or your husband.
Because total honesty is not very often a
good thing on this earth.
In heaven we can bear it, but on
earth we can't.
So transparency doesn't mean that I want to
know all the stupid things you did in
your life or you want to know all
the stupid things I did in my life.
That won't help you.
It won't help me.
Transparency means just I am not pretending.
That's openness.
I'm not pretending to be something I'm not.
You know, like we read in the book
of Revelation 21 that Jerusalem, the church, is
like a cube.
You know the difference between a cube and
a square?
A square has only got two dimensions.
Cube has got three dimensions.
And the interesting thing about a cube is
that its depth is the same as what
you see in front.
If I were to hold a cube here
in front of you, you can only see
the square.
But if I turned it round to the
side, you'd see the depth is exactly the
same as what you see in front.
Now if I hold this book in front
of you, it looks pretty big.
But when I turn it round, you find
it's not so big.
It's pretty thin.
That's how a lot of believers are.
When you look at them, boy, they're pretty
spiritual.
But you look into their life, it's not
much depth.
Sometimes it's like paper.
No depth.
But Jerusalem is a cube.
You know, it's square here.
You turn it round, it's got the same
depth.
That's the type of person God wants in
heaven.
That's transparency.
It may be a small cube.
You can have a one inch cube.
That's okay.
One inch in the front, you turn it
round, it's one inch.
You know, a young believer, no pretense, and
after some time he may become a two
inch cube.
Little bigger, you turn it round, it's two
inches depth too.
That's how we should grow.
But when we desire the honor of men,
we have this great desire for this front
to become so big, and the depth remains
one inch all the time.
Then we end up like this.
Big in the front and no depth.
And it's very difficult, it's my testimony, to
fellowship with such people.
I mean, I say hello, praise the Lord,
if they come to me for some advice,
I give them advice and, you know, we
go through the curtsy of talking to one
another.
There's no fellowship.
There's no bonding.
Now I have to say that's true of
many people as far as I'm concerned, even
in CFC.
I don't have fellowship.
I have friendship.
I love all of them, but fellowship, I
really have with very, very few.
One of the main requirements is transparency.
Be yourself.
Don't try to act spiritual.
It's very difficult to fellowship with such people.
Be yourself, recognize the limitations God has given
you.
If you've got only one talent, don't pretend
to have two.
Okay, you've got one talent.
It's fine.
What's wrong in that?
God only gave you one.
Why do you have to pretend that you
have five or ten or get high thoughts
about yourself?
Be satisfied.
Say, God gave me only one.
I'm going to use that one.
That's transparency, honesty, recognizing our boundaries.
We express it in various ways.
That's part of walking in the light.
It says that's how we have fellowship with
God.
And I believe that's how we have fellowship
with one another because in 1 John it
says earlier on that the whole purpose of
John writing this, he says in 1 John
1 is that we may have fellowship, you
may have fellowship with us, verse 3, and
our fellowship is with the Father.
So he speaks in verse 3 about two
dimensions of fellowship, vertical and horizontal.
And the principle of fellowship is the same,
walking in the light.
So I want to encourage all of you,
brothers and sisters, seek with all of your
heart to be natural.
Get rid of all this artificiality, spiritual language,
you know, trying to impress people with religious
language and finish with that.
Just be yourself.
Be transparent.
Be guileless.
The people who stand with the lamp on
Mount Zion are those who have no guile
in them at all.
And I'll tell you that's not easy to
reach there because we live in a world
where in the office, in the school, everywhere
there's guile.
Everyone's pretending.
You go to school and the teacher's pretending
to be very smart even when he or
she doesn't know the answer to something.
And the children pick up that from childhood.
We're just surrounded with people who are always
pretending that they know everything when they don't.
It's very rare to find someone like that.
A college student once said about a professor
in his college.
He asked the professor a question.
Some tough question.
The professor said, I can answer that in
three words.
I don't know.
And the student said, My esteem for that
professor went up so much that day because
he was honest enough to say what he
didn't know, he didn't know.
And that gave me a tremendous confidence that
what he did speak, he spoke from knowledge.
It's wonderful to be like that.
To say, I don't know.
You notice in your own, if you're honest
with yourself, you notice how you like to
give your opinions to, particularly to people who
are younger than you.
Just ask yourself how you talk and behave
to people who are younger than you.
Do you try to give them the impression
that you know everything, you've got the answer
to everything?
That's part of Adam's nature.
It's deception.
It's guile.
It's pretending to be something you're not.
And you cannot build fellowship with that type
of...
I believe that we should be so transparent
that we can even build fellowship with a
little child.
Why not?
Jesus could fellowship with little children.
It's transparency.
Complete lack of pretense.
No desire to impress people with my knowledge,
or my gift, or ability, or...
And no guile.
The second thing about light is that when
we come into God's light, just as we
walk in the light as He is in
the light, the one unmistakable proof of it
is that we are floored.
Floored.
We get full on our face with a
sense of our own need.
That's what happened to Abraham when he fell
on his face.
That's what happened to Isaiah when he came
to the light.
That's what happened to Job.
That's what happened to Jacob.
That's what happened to David.
That's what happened to Paul.
That's what happened to John in the book
of Revelation.
Every single person, when they actually came into
the presence of God, they had such a
sense of their own shortcoming, a need, when
they fell on their face.
John says, like a dead man.
I mean, he was 95 years old, and
one can imagine that he must have been
an extremely spiritual man by then.
Way beyond all of us.
Imagine a man who has walked with God
for 65 years.
But when he saw Jesus, he just saw
his own need, the most spiritual man on
earth, and he fell down aware of his
own need.
That's another mark of a man who is
walking in the light.
He is tremendously aware of his own need,
and that's what builds his fellowship with the
Lord.
You know, this is the thing that will
build your fellowship with the Lord.
Be transparent.
And the second question I would ask you
is, are you seeing your own need?
If you are not, you are not in
the light.
See, in the darkness, you can't see your
own need.
No.
If I have a spot on my shirt,
I won't see it in the darkness.
I can only see it in the light.
So, the same principle applies in the horizontal
relationship of fellowship.
What is the greatest requirement for fellowship?
One I said is transparency, the other is
a sense of my own need, not the
other person's.
Do you get it?
See, the Pharisees could not fellowship with anybody,
because they were always aware of somebody else's
need.
Or the problem is somebody else's life.
They couldn't build fellowship with anyone.
It's because they themselves were not in the
light.
There was no revelation of their own need.
They could only see the problems that were
in other people.
And of course there were problems in the
other people.
The woman caught in adultery was caught in
adultery.
There's no doubt about it.
But what the Pharisees did not see is
their own need.
And when you see a problem in somebody
else, that problem may be right.
You may be absolutely 100% right that
there is a problem with that person, but
it doesn't solve your problem because you don't
see your own need.
See, when the devil accuses us to God,
and what he says is absolutely right.
If you're carnal and he says you're carnal,
it may be right what he says.
But he's still the devil, because he doesn't
see his own need.
And that's why the Pharisees were very close
to the devil.
They didn't realize it.
They thought they were close to God.
But they were close to the devil because
they had the spirit of finding the sin
in somebody else and not knowing it in
themselves.
This is the reason why fellowship is not
built, because when we walk in the light,
we see our own need.
Do you think two people who say, I'm
going to pursue love, I'm going to pursue
love, can fellowship with each other?
No.
Because one person says, I'm pursuing love, but
the other fellow is not.
Okay, let's say two people are pursuing humility.
Can they fellowship with each other?
One person says, I'm humble.
The problem is the other fellow.
He's not humble.
You take holiness.
One says, I'm holy.
The other fellow is not holy.
That's our problem.
But when it comes to being poor in
spirit, that is acknowledging our own need, you
can't say that.
You can't say, I'm poor in spirit, but
he's not poor in spirit.
Because the moment you say that, you yourself
are not poor in spirit.
You understood?
You can say, I'm humble and he's not
humble, I'm loving and he's not loving, I'm
holy and he's not holy.
But you can never say, I'm poor in
spirit, but he's not poor in spirit.
Because the moment you say that, you're not
poor in spirit yourself.
Because being poor in spirit means, I don't
look at that other person's need.
I see my own need.
This is the fundamental problem with Christians.
They are so aware like the Pharisees of
the needs of people around them, not aware
of their own.
And the reason for this is, they are
not in God's light.
And that's why the Bible says, I beseech
you brethren, not to think of yourself more
highly than you ought to think.
You know there are exhortations like this in
the New Testament.
If anyone thinks he's a somebody, when he's
a nobody, he deceives himself.
Galatians 6 or Romans 12.
Don't think of yourself more highly than you
ought to think.
Why are there such exhortations given to Christians
in the New Testament?
Because the Holy Spirit recognizes that all Christians
have a tendency to think of themselves more
highly than they ought to think.
And all Christians have a tendency after a
while, to begin to think that they are
somebody when they are nobody.
I mean, it's not the day they are
converted.
The day we are converted, we all are
nobodies.
But after a few years, to varying degrees,
we begin to think that we are somebody.
Then the problems start.
And that's why it's really true that many
believers, some of the happiest days of their
life were the days when they were first
converted.
After that is mostly miserable.
Because, you know why?
Because in those early days, they were nobodies.
Nobodies are very happy.
Nobody can offend them because they are nobodies.
But after some time, they become somebodies.
Then they get offended.
They get hurt.
They want to be consulted.
They want to give advice to people.
It's all because they become somebodies.
And then there are endless problems in their
own life and they cause endless problems for
other people also.
But when you walk in the light, you'll
always be a nobody.
You know that?
In fact, that's one of the tests of
whether you are walking in the light.
Let me ask you a straight question.
You answer that to yourself.
Do you really feel that you are a
nobody?
You answer that to God and you'll know
whether you walk in the light or not.
Let's look at what the Apostle Paul thought
about himself in 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
1 Corinthians 4.
Sorry, 1 Corinthians 3.
You know, Paul was concerned here in verse
4 about some people saying I like Paul
and I like Apollos.
I belong to Paul and I belong to
Apollos.
He was trying to show these Corinthians that
in the end of the previous verse you're
walking like mere men.
He said you're all babies.
That means I like to fellowship with Paul.
But Apollos, I can't fellowship with him.
It's difficult.
Somebody else says I like to fellowship with
Apollos but Paul, difficult to fellowship with Paul.
He says if you're like that, that's one
of the clearest proof that you're a baby.
You're walking like all human beings.
Human beings also say I like the BJP
or I like the Congress or I like
the BSP or I like somebody else like
that.
He says you're also like that.
You're walking like mere men.
I like Paul.
God has put Apollos also in the body
of Christ but I can't get along with
him.
How's that?
Did God make a mistake?
God can get along with him.
How is it you can't?
Are you more spiritual than God?
You got to ask yourself.
And somebody says I like Apollos but I
don't like Paul.
Do you feel like that?
Do you find yourself You know, Paul and
Apollos were elders.
Do you find yourself gravitating towards one elder
and not to another?
That doesn't tell you anything about the elders.
It tells you something about yourself.
It tells you that you're a baby.
You're walking like all human beings in the
world.
Then Paul says What is Apollos?
What is Paul?
It's a service.
Verse 6 I planted Apollos watered but God
caused the growth.
Now listen to this.
So then the one who plants, that's Paul
and the one who waters, that's Apollos are
both zeros, nobodies.
So what did Paul call himself?
What did Paul think of himself?
He said, I'm a nobody.
This mighty man who raised the dead, who
wrote scripture, who established churches if you got
inside his heart and tried to see what
he thought about himself there it is.
He thought he was a nobody.
And that's the reason why God could use
him so mightily.
So mightily till the end of his life
because till the end of his life he
considered himself a nobody.
He said, OK, I planted, I'm a zero.
Apollos planted, he's another zero.
God He's the only thing that matters.
And it's because He's there that He gives
value to me.
Otherwise I'm nothing.
It's like that old illustration.
You probably heard it.
OK, supposing I put ten zeros here.
How much is it worth?
How much?
There's no catch here, don't worry.
It's zero.
Whether you put one zero or ten zeros,
it's zero.
But if you put a one in front
of it, boy, that makes a difference, doesn't
it?
Suddenly, His value is shot up.
That's God.
And He's collected this bunch of zeros and
He wants to give us value.
But you remove that one and you who
thought you were ten million or something like
that, you suddenly discover you're not ten million,
you're only a zero.
That's exactly what Paul is saying here.
What is Paul?
What's Apollos?
By themselves, zeros.
But God comes in there and puts a
one and then we've got some worth.
But God goes away and we're back to
zeros again.
It's wonderful, my brothers and sisters, to live
in that awareness till the end of our
earthly days that we are nobodies.
No matter how long we've been in the
church.
You know, I've seen this with different elders
in some of our churches.
You give them a little extra responsibility and
all of a sudden, they begin to think
they're somebody.
And it's just a matter of time before
they fall.
What, you've heard me ask this question before,
what is the most difficult thing for God
to do?
It's not to create the universe.
It's to bless a man and keep him
humble.
I'm convinced that is the most difficult thing
for God to do.
To bless a man, that's easy.
To keep him humble is also easy.
Don't bless him, let him suffer, suffer, suffer,
suffer.
He'll be humble, don't worry.
But to bless him and keep him humble,
oh, that's really difficult.
Difficult for God, I'll tell you.
He who created the universe finds it so
difficult to bless somebody and keep him humble
at the end of having been blessed.
For a man to be used by God
and to remain humble, that's a very difficult
thing for God to do.
You know that.
God uses you a little bit, goes to
your head, and then you go down.
And that's the reason why, you know, many
people say, what to do brother, my experience
is up and down and up and down
and up and down and up and down.
Why is it like that?
Is that God's will?
It's not God's will.
God's will is steady upwards.
But it's up and down because you're humble,
God gives you grace.
And then as God gives you grace, you
get blessed and you become proud and God
resists you, you go down.
And when you go down, you're in all
types of problems, and again you humble yourself,
God gives you grace.
And you come up and God blesses you
with His grace and again you become proud
and you go down again because God resists
you.
And some people spend their whole life like
this.
You understand?
The most difficult thing for God to do
is to bless a man and keep him
humble.
Because he doesn't walk in the light.
He doesn't come into God's light and see
his need in his relationship with other people.
He does not esteem the other person as
more important than himself.
Do you know there's a command like that?
In Philippians in chapter 2 it says, Philippians
chapter 2 verse 3.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceits, but
with humility of mind let each of you
regard one another as more important than himself.
What a word!
Then it says, that's the attitude Jesus had,
verse 5.
In other words, have the same attitude as
Jesus had.
Now notice, he's not saying you must pretend
that everybody is more spiritual than you are.
That would be impossible.
Jesus did not imagine that Judas Iscariot was
more spiritual than him or Peter was more
spiritual than him.
That's not the word.
Paul didn't imagine, oh these Corinthians are more
spiritual than me.
That's a lie.
God doesn't ask us to believe a lie.
If you are more spiritual than somebody else,
you are more spiritual.
Paul could tell the Corinthians, you're carnal.
That doesn't mean Paul wasn't humble.
The command is, consider other people as more
important.
Important is a worldly word.
It's a word of the world.
Who is more important?
And you know there's a lot of competition
as to who is more important.
You can have a competition in a choir
as to who is more important.
Whose voice is more important.
You can have a competition in a church.
Who is more important?
Consider the others as more important than yourself.
This is true Christianity.
But a person who walks in the light
has no problem with that.
Absolutely not.
Jesus had no problem when that's why he
was born in a stable.
He had nothing to glory in.
Do you know the number of things we
glory in?
You could have abilities that human abilities that
exalt you, that you glory in.
There's nothing wrong in having those abilities.
Supposing you are more intelligent than somebody else,
what can you do about it?
But if you're proud of it, if it
makes you look down on someone, then you're
like these people in the graduates fellowship.
They can only fellowship with graduates.
It's not the body of Christ.
In the body of Christ there are Greeks
and barbarians.
And I believe the salvation of many very
very clever intelligent people is in fellowshipping with
a few barbarians whom God has chosen.
That will be their salvation.
It's been my salvation.
I happen to be among those who are
little intelligent and I found my salvation is
in fellowshipping with those who are not so
intelligent.
I happen to be among those who are
little civilized and cultured and I find my
salvation is in fellowshiping with people who are
totally uncultured and barbarians and valuing them, esteeming
them as more important than myself, not more
civilized than me.
I'm not fooling myself.
I am more civilized than them but esteeming
them as more important.
Can you do that?
I want to tell you I really believe
that's a problem we face in CFC Bangalore.
We live in a very sophisticated city, sophisticated
atmosphere in the colleges and schools and in
the homes.
We always want the best in everything because
the world around us is like that and
that's why we don't become spiritual.
That's why I say for myself anyway God
has given me fellowship in many villages in
India with downright poor people and there are
a lot of things I learn.
I go to their homes and when I
see their mud floors and thatched huts I
realize that a lot of stupid things I
glory in in my house are not important
at all.
You can have them but if you begin
to glory in them you're going to lose
out spiritually.
There's nothing wrong in having anything.
The problem comes when you begin to think
that that's got some value.
It doesn't.
Esteem others is more important than yourself.
Many things which in the city of Bangalore,
in the atmosphere in which we move, which
we think are so important are not so
important.
You know how our children go to schools
which are posh and westernized and there are
other children who go to more Indian schools
and there is a difference.
There's a difference in their language and their
accents and we can imagine that when we
come to CFC we must have a certain
accent and we must speak in a certain
way and that's the only way that's acceptable.
It's a lot of garbage.
Just be yourself.
And in us striving, particularly young people, in
us striving to be like somebody else we
destroy ourselves.
I think this is a problem more among
some of our younger sisters where they want
to come up to a certain standard they
destroy themselves and they can even face problems
later on in the sense that they'll never
find anybody to marry.
There's nobody like them because they've become so
posh and so up there that there's nobody
like them.
We've got to be a little more ordinary.
We've got to humble ourselves and recognize that
a lot of things which we value God
doesn't value at all.
Consider others as more important.
We think we have financial needs.
You know why?
Because we live only in Bangalore.
If you go down and mingle with our
own brothers who come to the conference from
other parts of India you'll discover you're pretty
rich.
You don't have financial problems.
Those are the people who have financial problems.
See, this is how we can live in
a world of deception after some time.
And we don't realize, you know, we're living
in a cocoon thinking that we're very spiritual
and we're not.
Walk in the light.
Esteem others as more important than yourself.
Be rooted in low thoughts about yourself.
Don't think you're a somebody when you're a
nobody.
Have a sober estimate of yourself.
Have a sober estimate of how interesting you
are when you get up to speak.
I found that through the years in many
parts of this country.
Many people don't have a sober estimate of
how much content they have to be able
to give to God's people.
Very few people I've found in my life,
even in our churches, even though I've preached
about it so much.
Everybody has a feeling we've got a lot
more to give than we actually have.
And everybody has a feeling that they're a
lot more interesting than they actually are.
And if only they could get the opinions
of others.
You know, sometimes I wish in all of
our churches, all those who preach God's word,
we could get a secret ballot from everybody.
It has to be secret, otherwise it won't
be honest.
Please say how interesting so-and-so is
or how boring so-and-so is.
How long do you think such and such
a brother should speak, or how long?
Even in the conferences in all our churches.
I tell you, it would really sober up
a lot of even the elders in many
churches.
Oh, is that what everybody thinks of me?
At last when they were given the opportunity
for a secret ballot, I found out the
truth.
So, it's not just ordinary brothers and sisters.
A lot of elders have that problem too.
You know, I'm just using an example.
It's not elders.
I mean, if elders have that problem, can
you imagine how much more many of you
have it?
This feeling that I have, I am somebody
which hinders fellowship.
What's the solution?
Come into the light.
Recognize that in God's presence, we're nothing.
We are nothing.
We were nothing.
We are nothing.
We'll always be nothing.
But because God is that big one in
front of us, He got some value.
That's the only thing that'll have value.
Take Him away, and we're back to zero
again.
Always keep that before your mind.
Never forget it.
You're not as important as you think you
are.
You're not as spiritual as you think you
are.
It's good to have a sober estimate of
ourselves, and that's no problem at all if
we walk in the light.
And with such people, it is so easy
to fellowship.
Such people never get offended.
No matter what happens, they don't get offended.
You know who gets offended?
Those who feel that they are somebody.
I'm somebody.
They get offended.
You get offended when your children are corrected
because you think your children are somebody.
It's all rooted in a fantastically high opinion
we have about ourselves and our children and
our families.
And when the balloon is pricked, we get
offended.
Think how blessed it is to be with
our face in the dust and say, well,
I'm nobody.
My children are nobody too.
I'm not offended.
Yeah, brothers and sisters, let's pursue that way.
It's the way of glory and fellowship.
That's the way.
All those who walk this way, the body
of Christ will be built among them.
www.cfcindia.com and at punan.org forward
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