I want to turn to Ephesians chapter 2
and verse 8, that it's this well-known
verse, Ephesians 2 and verse 8.
That by grace you have been saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not as
a result of works, so that no one
should boast.
And we want to talk about that word
saved, because that's the word found in the
first promise in the New Testament, that you
call his name Jesus, because he will save
his people from their sins.
And generally speaking, most believers, when they ask
somebody, are you saved?
They only mean, are you saved from hell?
And it may interest you to know that
in the whole Bible, there is not a
single verse about being saved from hell.
Not one verse.
You look for it, you won't find it.
Because the Bible doesn't speak about being saved
from hell.
It speaks about being saved from sin.
It speaks about being saved from the judgment
of God.
So, the concept of being saved from hell
is a very selfish concept.
And if your salvation was in order to
be saved from hell and go to heaven,
then I'm not surprised that your spiritual life
is so pathetically poor and shallow and empty.
All people who want to be saved from
hell and go to heaven, I don't believe
they'll ever become spiritual in their whole life,
because they're seeking for salvation the Bible doesn't
speak about.
But, if you are interested in being saved
from sin, boy, there is nothing that will
stop you from growing spiritually.
We can say that among Christians, there are
people who want to be saved from hell
and there are people who want to be
saved from sin.
The people who want to be saved from
hell are millions.
Everybody in the world wants to be saved
from hell.
But the people who want to be saved
from sin are very, very few.
So, this morning, I want to speak to
those who want to be saved from sin.
I do not want to speak to those
who want to be saved from hell.
I really have no message for you, because
the Bible has no message for you.
It's quite likely that the number of people
sitting here are only interested in being saved
from hell.
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't
have a message for you this morning.
I want to speak to those who are
serious about their Christian life.
For many years, in the beginning, when we
started, I used to think, we've got to
build a church where everybody is a disciple
of Jesus Christ.
That's the vision with which we started 28
years ago.
Everybody is going to love Jesus supremely, more
than father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children, job,
their own life, more than money, property, everything.
And a church where every person is fervent
in their devotion to Jesus, wholehearted in their
desire to be free from every sin that
pulls them down, eager with all their heart
to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And people for whom leading others to Christ
and building the church would be the most
important thing of all.
But over the years, as time has gone
on, I have discovered that is impossible.
So I've given up on it, I'll tell
you that.
We start with great ideas.
I mean, it's possible if you limit yourself
to 12 people like Jesus did.
If you go beyond that number, it's almost
impossible.
And I think that's why Jesus limited himself
to 12 people.
In his entire life, he could gather only
11.
And in his last prayer in John chapter
17, even though he spoke to thousands and
many hundreds believed in him, ultimately in John
17, he says, I pray for these 11,
that they might be one.
That's interesting because the Bible says in 1
Corinthians 15, there were 500 believers who saw
Jesus after his resurrection.
And he never prayed for those 500.
I wonder why.
He never prayed for 500 people who believed
in him.
He prayed for 11, that they may be
kept from the world, that they may be
one.
Because he knew that these 500 had many
other ambitions in life as well.
In that 500, there is 11.
And I believe it's like that in a
church also.
You can have a church of 500 believers,
and in the midst of that, there'll be
11.
If you get 11, you're as good as
Jesus.
But it'd be difficult to find 11 sometimes.
But those are the ones through whom God
accomplishes his purposes.
God does not accomplish his purposes with the
500.
He accomplishes his purposes with 11.
In the Old Testament, there was a tabernacle,
which you read in Exodus, how God told
Moses to build this tabernacle.
And the tabernacle had three parts.
One was this huge compound called the outer
court.
And there were hundreds of people there.
We got to see the whole tabernacle as
a picture of the visible church.
And in the visible church, there is an
outer court where people are taken up with
forgiveness of sins.
It's about all they want.
They keep on sinning as believers.
They don't take sin seriously.
And they keep on offering sacrifices on the
altar.
They ask Jesus to forgive them.
And if they are like that for 10,
20 years, they'll probably be like that for
100 years.
They never take sin seriously.
They're always in the outer court.
They're glad to come along to the meetings
and praise the Lord and probably make more
noise than everybody else in the meeting.
But they're not serious about sin.
They're only interested in going to heaven when
they die.
And they keep on sinning and they keep
on asking the Lord to forgive them.
They're in the outer court.
And then there's a smaller compartment there under
the tent called the holy place.
That was a small place, about 15 feet
by 45 feet, 15 by 30.
And there you have fewer people.
Not so many like in the outer court.
These are people who are baptized in the
Holy Spirit and who are eager to serve
the Lord.
Now a lot of people think baptism in
the Holy Spirit is the ultimate in the
Christian experience.
It isn't.
It's the beginning.
They're eager to serve the Lord.
There are the priests over there doing various
things.
And that's another group of Christians who are
very eager to serve and do something.
And they find their satisfaction in more than
escaping hell, but doing some service for the
church.
They are very eager to help at conference
times or any type of practical work.
They're always there.
It's good.
But there's another much smaller part of that
tavern called the most holy place where people
are not taken up with forgiveness of sins
or going to hell or even serving him.
In that most holy place dwells God himself.
And in the Old Testament, nobody could go
into this most holy place because there was
a thick curtain called the veil.
When Jesus died, that veil was rent, teaching
that we could go into this most holy
place and live there always.
The thing which everybody in the Old Testament
longed for, but could not achieve.
Jesus told his disciples, many prophets and holy
men longed to experience what you can experience
now, but they couldn't.
And here in the most holy place, there's
no activity.
Some Christians would be absolutely bored if there's
no activity.
That's why they never get into the most
holy place.
And some Christians would be absolutely bored if
they don't have other Christians around them.
There are no other people there.
It's only God.
This is the fullness of salvation.
Those who have gone through the veil and
found their all in Jesus Christ.
Now I realize that in every church there
will only be a few.
I want to say to those who are
serious here about their Christianity, long to be
among that few.
That's been my own longing for more than
40 years and I'd say I'm not disappointed
today.
Salvation from hell has never interested me in
all my life.
I never gave my life to Jesus to
be saved from hell.
I gave my life to Jesus because he
gave his life for me.
Not because I wanted to escape hell.
In fact, I told the Lord, Lord, if
you're in hell, I'd be happy to be
in hell also.
I want to be where you are.
I don't care whether it's heaven or hell.
I want to be where you are.
Heaven doesn't interest me.
Jesus interests me.
And even on earth, the many blessings we
get from the gospel don't interest me.
Jesus interests me.
And if you're like that, I believe you
can get the maximum benefit out of your
one earthly life.
And I long that in our church here
there will be raised up a few.
I don't ever expect it will be more
than 10%.
10% itself will be a large number.
I don't expect it will be more than
10%, but I pray that there will be
a 10% in our midst who are
fervently devoted to Jesus Christ, for whom Jesus
is the only passion in life.
And I want to speak to such people.
You know, we think that worship is what
we do here on Sunday morning.
It's not.
What we do here on Sunday morning is
thanksgiving and praise.
Worship is altogether different.
We are thanking God.
We are praising him.
Worship, the highest form of worship is total
silence, where a man is taken up with
God.
Like it says in the Bible, the Lord
is in his holy temple, let all flesh
keep silent before him.
Many Christians just don't know this, because they
are not interested in worship.
They are only interested in noise.
It's good.
I believe in making noise.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Clap your hands.
Holy people, lift up your hands.
And I would certainly be as loud as
anybody else in praising God and thanking him.
But I want to say that there is
something more than that, and that is worship.
People in the outer court can be thankful.
You know, God healed me.
God gave me a job.
God gave me a house.
God blessed me.
God blessed my children.
This is thanksgiving.
People move into the holy place and they
praise.
You move into the most holy place, you
worship, because there is only God there.
You are taken up with Jesus himself.
This is the fullness of salvation.
So when it says, by grace are you
saved through faith, it's not just talking about
being saved from hell.
Salvation has got three tenses, past, present and
future.
I just want to show you these verses
in Romans, which speaks about all three tenses
of salvation.
When we are justified by the blood of
Christ, we are saved from the wrath of
God through him.
When the blood of Christ has not only
cleansed me, but like it says here, declared
me righteous.
To be justified means to be declared righteous.
There is no defect in me.
I am righteous.
The blood of Jesus has not only cleansed
me, but declared me righteous in God's eyes.
Then I am saved from the wrath of
God, from God's severe penalty and punishment on
sin.
One of the things that we learn on
Calvary's cross is that God cannot tolerate sin,
even if it is found on somebody he
loves very much.
Now a lot of us have probably believed
the devil's lie, that if you are a
child of God, God will overlook sin in
your life because you are his child.
I want to say to you, that's a
lie of the devil.
Jesus was the son of God, much better
than you and me.
And yet, when sin was found upon Jesus
on the cross, not his own sin, our
sin, but it was sin, sin was found
on Jesus on the cross, God the Father
turned his face away from him and forsook
him.
Do you think it's going to be any
different with us?
Not at all.
If sin is found in me, I am
not better than Jesus.
I believe God will forsake me.
You may not believe that, and perhaps that's
why you take sin so lightly.
I don't take sin lightly, because I've seen
the seriousness of sin on Calvary's cross.
Many of us haven't, and that's why we
live in the outer court forever and ever
and ever and ever.
Never progress, even after many years.
One of the first things you need to
pray is, Lord, help me to see how
serious sin is.
We rejoice in so many other blessings.
There are many other blessings that come as
a by-product of being saved from sin.
Material blessings.
We say that we don't believe the prosperity
gospel, the health and wealth gospel that is
being preached by many people.
I don't believe it, because I don't believe
that prosperity is the mark of God's blessing.
Yet I know there are people sitting in
this church who believe that their prosperity proves
that God has blessed them.
That's a devil's lie.
If prosperity is the mark of God's blessing,
the businessmen in India are the people whom
God has blessed the most, and the film
stars, not you.
You don't even have one percent of their
wealth.
Prosperity is not the mark of God's blessing.
The richest people in the world are not
believers.
They are godless unbelievers.
Health is also not the mark of God's
blessing, though some people think it is.
The healthiest people in the world are not
believers.
The longest living people in the world are
not believers.
You look in the Guinness Book of Records,
they are not believers who are the longest,
oldest man and oldest woman.
They are heathen.
How is it that we can imagine that
prosperity is the mark of God's blessing?
There are people who have come into our
church and have been blessed, become prosperous and
fallen away and have left the church.
They would never have left the church if
they had been poor.
Forget those who have left.
Let's think of those who are still here.
Maybe God has blessed you and prospered you
in your life, and you think that is
God's blessing.
Consider, what has it done to your children?
It has brought television, your wealth.
You could not afford these things when you
were poor.
Now that you are rich, you can have
television, VCRs, you can go to the video
shops, you got plenty of money to hire
videotapes.
Has it made your children more spiritual?
Has it made them love Jesus more?
No.
They are watching movies today.
What has your prosperity brought to you?
A distance from God.
Your family has gone further away from God
because of your prosperity.
Is that a blessing?
Far from it.
It is a curse.
Recognize it.
Because you say, God has blessed me.
You have been deceived.
He hasn't blessed you.
If your children became more Christ-like, that
would have been a blessing.
Not if they become rich.
One of the things he prayed was, in
the Old Testament, this is the only thing
you could pray.
Middle of verse 8.
Lord, don't give me poverty and don't give
me riches.
Just give me what is enough for me.
Just enough to satisfy my needs.
Because if I grow rich, I will become
content without God.
If I am too poor, I may steal
and thus insult God's holy name.
In the Old Testament, they did not have
the power of the Holy Spirit.
They did not have Christ dwelling within.
Jesus Christ never needed to pray a prayer
like this.
Jesus Christ never needed to pray, Father, don't
make me too rich because then I may
forget you.
Or don't make me too poor because I
may steal.
I can't imagine Jesus stealing when he is
poor or forgetting the Father when he is
rich.
No.
That is an old covenant prayer.
A new covenant, Paul says in Philippians 4.
Philippians 4, he says, verse 12.
I know how to get along in poverty.
I also know how to live in prosperity.
He says, it makes no difference to me
whether I am poor or rich.
They are unimportant.
His spirituality, Paul's spirituality did not depend on
whether he is poor or rich.
It is like whether he wore a white
shirt or a blue shirt.
You know that whether you wear a white
shirt or a blue shirt does not make
a difference to your spirituality.
Exactly like that.
Poverty and riches did not make any difference
to Paul because it did not matter whether
it was a white shirt or a blue
shirt.
Because he says, in every circumstance I have
learnt how to be filled, how to go
hungry, to have an abundance and suffer need.
But before you jump into that verse, let
me tell you this.
I think more than 95% of Christians
in the world live in the old covenant.
So you better go back to Proverbs chapter
30.
Don't jump to this prayer.
95% of Christians live in the old
covenant proved by the fact that they are
defeated by sin.
When you are defeated by sin, that is
the clearest proof you are under the old
covenant, you are under law.
Because Romans 6.14 says, sin shall not
rule over you when you are under grace.
When you are freed from law and come
under grace, sin will not rule over you.
Sin rules over you because you are under
the old covenant.
And when you are in the old covenant,
that means sin is ruling your life, you
must pray the prayer of Proverbs 30.
Lord, don't make me too rich and don't
make me too poor.
Just give me enough for my needs.
Otherwise, I and my children will forget all
about you.
We won't have time to read the Bible.
We'll be watching television.
And we won't think about serving you.
We'll be thinking of making more money.
Then you must pray, Lord, make me poor.
It's easier to be closer to the Lord
when you are poor than when you are
rich.
There are very, very few people like the
Apostle Paul that I have met in my
life who know how to handle riches.
Some people don't get corrupt by riches.
They become proud.
Riches have the tendency to make people very
independent.
They don't need others.
It's very difficult to fellowship with such people.
I found that, even believers.
Because they are so independent, because they got
so much money, they don't need anybody.
They don't need anybody's help.
They earn so much.
They can live without you.
And the Bible says, even the head, 1
Corinthians 12, Jesus does not say to the
feet, I don't need you.
But many rich believers act as though they
don't need anybody.
I'm okay, I'm independent.
I'm not financially dependent on anyone.
I feel sorry for such people.
They got a cancer.
And what to do?
You don't get angry with people who got
cancer.
You feel sorry for them.
So I only feel sorry for such people.
And it's very difficult to fellowship with such
people.
They must pray, Lord, make me poor.
Because my riches have made me drift away
from you.
How many rich people are there who drifted
away from God because of their riches?
Whose children have drifted away from God because
of their riches?
Who will have the boldness to pray, Lord,
make us poor once again?
Because I remember, Lord, how it was in
our home in those days when we were
poor and we loved you.
And we had more time for you.
We talked about you because we didn't have
videotapes to watch.
Your word was more important those days.
But those days are gone, Lord, make us
poor once again.
I want to tell you, don't let the
devil deceive you.
This whole world is under the control of
one person, Satan.
The entire entertainment world is governed by Satan.
The music world is governed by Satan.
The medical world is governed by Satan.
Everything, the education system is governed by Satan.
And we live in this world because Jesus
prayed that we should not be taken out
of this world.
In this world we are to stand as
a light.
But if the light becomes darkness, like the
world around it, then what use is that
claiming to be a light?
And that's why we need to be saved,
not only from the wrath of God, like
we read in Romans 5.
Let's turn back there.
Romans chapter 5, it says, we are saved,
first of all, this is past tense, from
the wrath of God, verse 9, through Christ.
I'm not saved from hell.
I'm saved from the judgment that should have
come upon me because of my sin, because
of the millions of sins I did in
my life, for which God has to punish
me by forsaking me for all eternity.
He has saved me from that, not by
any works that I did.
I could never do any works to earn
that salvation.
That's why once in John chapter 6, when
the people asked Jesus, what shall we do
that we might do the works of God?
Jesus said, this is the work of God,
that you believe in Him whom He has
sent.
Do you know, how many of you know
this, that the greatest work you can ever
do for God is to believe in Jesus
Christ?
That humbles all the proud people.
Proud people like to do so many things
for God.
But Jesus said, the greatest work you can
do for God is to believe in Jesus
Christ.
Believe in Him.
That equalizes us.
Now I want to say to you, begin
there.
Begin by saying, the greatest work I can
ever do is to believe in Jesus Christ.
That will humble us.
And then we read about salvation in the
present tense.
This is salvation in the past, verse 9.
Verse 10, again we find the word saved.
But this time the word saved is not
referring to our past life.
It's talking about our present life.
If while we were enemies, that is past,
we were reconciled to God through the death
of His son, now much more, much more
than that salvation from wrath, having been reconciled,
that means now we are children of God,
we shall be saved, not by His death,
but by His life.
We were saved by His death when He
died on the cross.
That is from the wrath of God, from
the punishment of sin.
Now we have to be saved from the
power of sin.
Past tense salvation is from the punishment for
sin.
We are saved by His death.
Present tense salvation is from the power of
sin.
How shall we be saved?
Very important verse.
We are not saved by obeying His commandments.
We are not saved by trying to keep
the exhortations in the church.
Last Sunday we spoke about being merciful and
long-suffering to others.
Are you going to be saved by being
long-suffering to others?
No.
It says here we will be saved by
His life.
There is only one way to be saved
permanently, and that is when the life of
Jesus comes within me through the Holy Spirit,
lifting me up and freeing me from the
law of sin that keeps on pulling me
down.
You can grit your teeth and say, I
will never look at pornography again.
I will never lust after a woman again.
I am never going to run after money
again.
It will last only a few days.
Many of you who don't have any fellowship
with other believers in CFC, you can grit
your teeth and say, from now on I
am going to have fellowship.
It won't work.
In a hundred years it won't work.
It's by His life.
Salvation from the present power of sin by
His life.
That is what He communicates to me.
When the Bible says in the New Covenant,
I will put my law in your mind
and write them in your heart, what He
means is, in simple words, that He will
give me the life of Jesus.
I am not supposed to live by the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, but
by the tree of life.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil
will always bring death.
And very often we can sit in a
Sunday morning meeting and what we hear, we
can hear it as a knowledge of good
and evil.
Let's take last Sunday for example.
What did you hear last Sunday?
If you remember, God is very long-suffering
with us.
So we must be long-suffering with other
people.
You got a law, right?
Knowledge of good.
What is the knowledge of good you got
last Sunday?
Since God is long-suffering with us, we
must be long-suffering with other people.
Go ahead, try it.
I can tell you now itself, guaranteed failure.
You can listen to God's word and receive
it as a law, as a knowledge of
good and evil.
This is bad, this is good.
Okay, maybe you heard something this morning.
Knowledge of evil.
Watching all these filthy movies is evil.
You got another law.
Please stop doing it.
Are you going to be spiritual?
No.
I know unconverted people who have thrown the
television out of their homes who are not
spiritual.
No, we are not saved by any law.
We are not saved by avoiding evil and
doing good.
It will just make you a religious Pharisee.
And such so-called good people, let me
give you my testimony, such good people in
CFC are the most difficult people I have
found to fellowship with in all these 28
years.
They are arrogant Pharisees and they don't even
know it.
But it's been very easy to fellowship with
those who have taken up with the life
of Jesus.
Romans 8.2 says, the law of the
spirit.
There was a law of Moses in the
Old Testament, which is the law of commandments.
Thou shalt, thou shalt not, thou shalt, thou
shalt not.
Jesus replaced all of that with what is
called in Romans 8.2, the law of
the Holy Spirit.
Do you know what the law of the
Holy Spirit is?
It says in the same verse, Romans 8
.2, the law of the spirit, which is
life in Christ Jesus.
It's a life, not a law.
Like I have used the illustration before, you
can train a pig to be clean with
laws, with whips and chains, but you don't
have to train a cat to be clean,
because it's got a life, which loves cleanliness.
You see the difference between training a pig
and holding it back with chains and whips,
keeping it clean, and a cat, which has
got a life.
A lot of Christian, a lot of the
holiness that many Christians have, it's like the
training of a dog.
You know, you get a new pup, it
messes up your house, does all types of
stupid things, climbs on your sofa.
But you watch that pup after five years
of a good training, it is such an
obedient dog.
It never messes up the room inside, it
will not eat what it's told not to
eat, it will eat what it's told to
eat.
You think its life has changed?
No.
It's been trained.
It's been trained by being given bones and
meat when it obeys, by being given a
whack when it disobeys.
And it's trained and it knows, if I
disobey, I'll get something which will pain me.
If I obey, I'll get something which I
like.
And that is so drilled into its system.
If I obey, I'll get something good.
If I disobey, I'll get a whack.
So I better obey.
Do you know that 90% of Christians,
their holiness is based on that.
It's the training of a dog.
It's not the life of Jesus.
It's not like the cat, which is pure
and clean, because it's life.
It's got nothing to do with getting rewards
or any such thing.
Now I want to ask you, my brothers
and sisters, do you feel that you are
better than Christians and other groups because of
certain good things in your life?
You ask yourself, is it like the training
of the dog?
And to me the test is this, how
passionate is your devotion to Jesus Christ, to
the person of Jesus Christ?
Very important question.
Second question, how interested are you in the
testimony of other believers in CFC?
The more interested you are in the testimony
of other believers in CFC, the more you
will live under the old covenant.
Definite.
We have to be free from men.
We love one another, we care for one
another, but we don't live before man's face.
All those who live seeking the approval of
men are doomed to live all their life
under the old covenant.
Jesus' life, we are saved by his life.
And this is a free gift.
We are saved by faith.
Lord, I want your life within me.
I don't want to just keep laws and
be trained like a dog that I never
do anything wrong and I get a good
testimony as a dog who is now obedient.
And you can get a good testimony in
the church as a believer who is very
obedient and all that, saying the right things,
doing the right things.
What does it matter?
If one day when Jesus comes you discover
that you never got anything of his life,
but you just did all the right things
and got a good testimony in the church,
you will be terribly disappointed.
You will be terribly disappointed.
So I want to encourage you to seek
for the life of Jesus, to be conformed
to his likeness more and more.
And that is why through the years I
have said, there is only one mark of
God's blessing and that is that he gives
you light on yourself where you are unlike
Christ day by day and where you repent
and where the Holy Spirit is able to
make you more Christ-like in your life.
That is what I have found through the
years and so my life has been one
of repentance almost every day of my life.
Because I find something un-Christ-like.
I am not worried about good and evil
and what is right and what is wrong.
I am thinking of the life of Jesus.
That is the only thing we must be
taken up with, the life of Jesus.
That life was the light of all men.
The Bible says that in John 1.4,
in him was life and that life was
the light of men.
And when I am taken up with that
life I get light on myself where I
am unlike him.
I see the things in my life that
he would never do.
I see the words that he would never
say.
I see the attitudes that he would never
have.
And I repent in dust and ashes and
ask the Holy Spirit to make me like
him because I cannot make myself like him.
I can make a good imitation of him.
But how many of you are so foolish
to think that you can manufacture the life
of Jesus Christ.
You think you can do that?
I mean you can manufacture a good life.
Can you manufacture the life of Jesus Christ?
Impossible.
Even Mary didn't do that.
The angel said the Holy Spirit will come
upon you and produce that in you.
That is what the angel has to say
to us also.
The Holy Spirit has to come upon us
and produce in us the life of Jesus.
That is how we are saved from the
power of sin.
Notice what it says.
We are saved from the power of sin
by his life.
In the past we were saved from wrath.
Now we are saved by his life.
And what are we saved from?
Let's get an understanding of sin.
I am not talking about being saved from
the things listed in the Ten Commandments.
You don't need the life of Jesus to
be saved from those things.
There are many upright people in the world
who are not Christians who keep most of
the Ten Commandments, at least nine of them.
They don't commit adultery, they don't kill, they
don't steal, they don't do things which are
listed, they don't worship idols.
I am not talking about those things.
I am talking about being saved from sin
at its root.
Jesus came to save us from sin.
When it says we are saved by his
life, I am not saved from adultery by
the life of Jesus.
I am saved from adultery by the law.
The law of Moses was good enough for
that.
But Jesus' life saves me from a whole
lot of things the law could not save
me from.
If your life is keeping the Ten Commandments,
you are still an old covenant Christian.
Because a lot of people in the Old
Testament kept those Ten Commandments.
But the life of Jesus saves me from
the root of sin which is selfishness.
You know what the root of sin is?
Selfishness.
Where you think of yourself and that is
what determines your decisions.
A man whose decisions are determined by self
is a selfish man.
And he may call himself a Christian, he
may call himself a speaker in tongues or
whatever he likes, but he is a selfish
person.
He hasn't been saved by the life of
Jesus.
When you look at the life of Jesus,
there was no selfishness in him at all.
He was never thinking of himself.
He was always thinking of his father.
How will this affect my father?
How will this affect my father's glory?
As the father told me to do it.
He would never do anything till the father
told him to do it.
He was so totally free from this self
-centered, selfish life.
That is the life of Jesus.
Jesus came to save us from this Adamic
selfishness and self-centeredness.
So if you evaluate your life by things
like, how nice do I feel on Sunday
morning when I praise the Lord and worship
the Lord along with all the others.
I tick mark.
I feel very fine.
Have I stopped seeing filthy movies?
Yes, ticked.
Have I stopped losing my temper at home?
Yes, ticked.
That's okay.
And number of things like this we can
say, well, I am upright in my work.
I don't cheat anybody.
I am free from debt.
I have returned everything I have wrongfully taken.
I have apologized to those whom I have
hurt.
You can do all these things and yet
be the most selfish person sitting here.
But the root is still there.
You have chopped off these little fruits, so
you have got to give testimony before people
that you are a godly person.
You are just deceiving people because deep down
selfishness motivates your life.
Your decisions are based not on the glory
of God, but your own selfish desires.
And you can fool everybody sitting in the
church meeting that you are a very holy
person.
You are not.
That's why Jesus said, if you want to
be my disciple, first of all cut off
this human attachment you have towards your father,
mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters.
And through 28 years I have discovered that
we always got to come back to that
first commandment.
That's why we spoke about it in the
conference also recently, to that first condition of
discipleship.
I have seen that very often when there
is no spiritual progress in a person, failures
in that first condition of discipleship, there are
very few who radically obey that condition.
And those who have taken it seriously, it
goes very well with them.
I would encourage all of you to obey
that condition of discipleship, to hate your father,
mother, brothers, sisters, wife, children and your own
life.
It means you have hit at the root
of selfishness.
Selfishness makes me care for me and my
own.
I always want to protect me and my
own.
I say leave it to God to protect
them.
You seek the kingdom of God and His
righteousness.
Otherwise you will destroy your family like many
others have destroyed their family when they have
selfishly tried to protect them, preserve them, enrich
them, etc.
Leave that to God.
Seek His kingdom first.
Salvation is to be saved by His life
in our present tense, is to be saved
from a life where selfishness determines my decisions,
to where God's glory determines my decisions.
You know we make many decisions during the
week.
How to spend our money, where to go
for a holiday, what to do in a
particular situation.
Something happens in our place of work and
we have to take a decision.
And the children of Adam, entire race of
Adam takes their decisions based on how will
this benefit me or how will this benefit
my family, how will this help me, how
will it promote my cause.
Okay.
Now just because we put a Christian whitewash
on this selfish life and talk about Jesus
and being filled with the spirit and clapping
hands and praising the Lord and all that,
it doesn't make that selfish life any better.
It's just got a Christian whitewash on it.
Some other person has got a Hindu whitewash
on it.
Some other person has got a Muslim whitewash
on it.
We are different.
We have got a Christian whitewash on.
On what?
On the same old selfish self-seeking life
that that man has in another religion and
that man has in another religion.
And I can fool myself to think I
am more spiritual than these people because the
colour of my whitewash is little different from
theirs.
Colour of the whitewash.
Is that all there is in our Christianity?
My brothers and sisters, as I told you,
I am not talking to everybody.
I am only talking to 10% this
morning.
The rest of you, I don't know what
you are interested in but those who are
serious about making something with their Christian life
who feel that I have wasted so many
years of my life but I want to
do something with the years that are left
and those of you who are young are
really fortunate because you have got your whole
life ahead of you.
Determine from the beginning that you will allow
the life of Jesus to save you from
this selfish self-centred way where you promote
yourself and talk about yourself.
There are some people like that.
You spend half an hour talking to them,
they are only talking about themselves.
And they never change.
They are not evil people.
They don't go around committing adultery and sinning
and all that.
But they are always the same.
You see them 5 years later and they
are the same.
The same good selfish people.
25 years later they are the same good
selfish people.
We can say that they have not tasted
one bit of the life of Jesus.
They have taken up with this deception in
the Christian world of prosperity and activity and
this that and the other and never learnt
to worship God.
And never come into the most holy place
where self is dethroned.
See you can have self in the centre
of your life, in the throne of your
life and still be in the outer court,
in the holy place.
But when you come to the most holy
place, there is only one throne and only
God sits there.
That's what Jesus meant when he said we
got to take up the cross everyday.
Self must be dethroned.
But today's Christianity has got another cross, this
golden type you hang on your neck.
That's easy.
Not the ugly cross on which Jesus was
crucified, where self is slain.
So to be saved by his life is
only for those who are sick and tired
of their old life and want to get
rid of it.
When do you throw away your scooter?
When you repaired it and repaired it and
repaired it and repaired it and repaired it
and repaired it and you say it's about
time I get rid of this, I need
another one.
When do you get rid of your old
life?
Adamic life.
When you are sick and tired of it.
Gone.
No matter how many exhortations I get, I
am still back to the same old thing.
Something is wrong.
It has to be thrown out.
I have to get a brand new life.
Like getting a brand new scooter.
It's not a question of patching it up
here and fixing the engine there and doing
something with the bore here.
No, it's not that.
It's throwing the whole thing away.
Saved by his life.
Lord, I want your life.
I want to say one more thing in
connection with that.
Holiness has been one of the things counterfeited
the most in the history of the human
race.
More than dollars and rupees being counterfeited, holiness
has been counterfeited.
I will just tell you that.
Holiness has been counterfeited maximum in this world.
Particularly among Christians.
And particularly among those Christians who preach holiness.
A holiness that does not deliver us from
selfishness is not holiness.
It's a deception.
Whatever victory you may have over anger and
being upright with money matters and all that.
You can even support missionary work and not
be holy.
Because holiness is deliverance from selfishness.
Selfishness and spiritual pride are the two things
that will remain clinging to us till the
end of our life.
And if you are honest, you will admit
it.
You know how easy it is for us
to do one little thing for God and
become proud of it.
That's how weak we are.
Somebody says a good thing to you, it's
puffed you up immediately.
These are two things.
And pride comes out of this selfish life.
My self is on the throne and I
like to hear people saying good things about
me.
It's part of selfishness, spiritual pride.
And I get offended when somebody corrects me
or does something which I don't like to
me.
These are all marks that self is on
the throne.
Do you get offended when you are corrected?
Do you get elated when somebody flatters you?
Oh brother, self is on the throne in
your life.
Don't have any doubt about it.
You don't have to go for a second
opinion or a second check-up or anything.
No, no, no, no.
First check-up itself has solved it.
If you are elated by people praising you
and you are offended when people correct you,
self is on the throne.
Take as many scans as you like, you
will find self is on the throne.
Let Jesus come in.
That is why your life has been so
shallow for so many years.
I am speaking to the 10%.
We want to be serious about following Jesus.
And the other mark of a false holiness.
Please listen to this.
It's very difficult for people to fellowship with
you.
I am not telling you how you think
you like to fellowship with everybody.
That's a deception.
If people find it difficult to fellowship with
you, something is wrong with your brand of
holiness.
It is a counterfeit.
I will tell you that.
In the Old Testament, they didn't have this
holiness that we are talking about.
It was alright for Elijah to be all
alone.
He was a lonely man.
There was nobody he could fellowship with.
John the Baptist, the greatest man born of
women, up to Jesus' time, he was a
lonely man.
He couldn't fellowship with anybody.
But let nobody here imagine that you are
another Elijah or John the Baptist.
Don't have such conceited opinions about yourself.
That was Old Covenant.
As soon as you come to the pages
of the New Covenant, you see Jesus never
sent out his disciples one by one, but
always two by two.
Fellowship, which is impossible under the Old Covenant,
is now possible.
And the life of Jesus always brings fellowship
with another person who has got the life
of Jesus.
Where you can't have fellowship, you can be
pretty sure that whatever else you've got is
a lot of garbage.
If you cannot fellowship with a godly person,
whatever you've got is garbage.
It is garbage.
The sooner you acknowledge it, the better.
If you can't fellowship with a third-rate,
carnal, worldly person, that's okay.
Jesus couldn't fellowship with such people also.
Jesus didn't have much fellowship with Judas Iscariot.
Probably zero.
He was a clever man.
He understood all the doctrines.
He could probably explain it better than anybody
else.
But his fellowship with Jesus was zero.
Imagine that you can be like that.
That you can understand all the doctrines and
explain it better than anybody else.
And your fellowship with Jesus and people who
are like Jesus is zero.
God has provided that to save us from
deceiving ourselves.
If you fellowship more with carnal people, for
example, you find it very easy to mingle
with unconverted relatives.
You are probably not even converted.
Where is your longing?
Test your spiritual growth by how much you
can fellowship with really godly people.
Jesus also, the degree of fellowship with everybody
is not equal.
He fellowshiped with Peter, James and John more
than he did with others.
So fellowship is another test of counterfeit holiness.
A holiness which does not bring increasing fellowship
with others is not holiness.
Now I am not talking about friendship.
Friendship is a lower level.
Friendship I can have with everybody.
I don't have any enemies.
But fellowship is a much higher thing.
Jesus was a friend of sinners.
He had friendship with sinners.
But fellowship?
Very few.
A lot of things that Christians call fellowship
is actually only friendship.
You know like in a club they come
together and have a wonderful time together, talking
together and doing a lot of things together.
It is friendship.
It is not fellowship.
Fellowship is a deep thing that is centered
around the life of Jesus Christ.
Where we come together to talk about the
life of Jesus, to be drawn together through
our common devotion to Jesus Christ.
How much do you have of that with
other people in CFC?
How much do you have of that with
the elders in CFC?
Little?
Let that be your scan report this morning.
Lastly, Romans 13.
We read about salvation in the future tense.
Romans 13.
We have seen about salvation in the past
tense, from the punishment of sin.
In the present tense, from the power of
sin.
And finally, in the future tense, Romans 13
.11, from the very presence of sin.
From the punishment, the power and the presence
of sin.
Romans 13.11, knowing the time, it is
already the hour for you to awaken from
sleep.
Because our salvation is nearer to us now
than when we first believed.
This is speaking about a salvation that is
future.
That is, it has come nearer now, much
nearer now than when we first believed.
This is also called salvation.
And that is salvation from the very presence
of sin.
Not salvation from hell.
The thing I hate should be sin.
And when I think of the coming of
Jesus, the thing that should excite me the
most, I say, Lord, what a day that
will be!
That I will be free from these wretched
sins that I battled and battled and battled.
I will be finished with them.
Is that what you are looking forward to
in the coming of Christ?
Or are you looking forward to heaven and
it will wipe away your tears and maybe
you will take vengeance on your enemies and
teach those fellows a lesson on your behalf
or something like that?
Are these the stupid things you are waiting
for?
Or are you waiting for the fact that,
Lord, these wretched sins that I battled, battled,
battled.
Oh, I praise you, I will be free
from them forever.
I will be like you.
I will be saved from the presence of
sin itself.
It is a salvation.
Those are the people for whom heaven will
be a wonderful place.
Who are looking forward to the day when
Christ will come back.
And, Lord, I will be like you.
I don't care whether the streets of heaven
are gold or made of tar.
It makes no difference to me.
I would be quite happy if I go
to heaven and find its mud roads there.
No problem.
If I am saved from sin, that is
enough.
And if the gates are not gates of
pearl but made of rotten old wood or
something, it makes no difference to me.
Because I won't have time to look at
them.
I won't have time to look at them.
We will be looking at Jesus.
There is a song, which I haven't sung
for a long time, called The Sands of
Time are Sinking.
I want you to turn to that moment,
number 559.
The Sands of Time are Sinking.
It is talking about the coming of the
Lord.
It was written by a great saint of
God in Scotland called Samuel Rutherford, a man
who was deeply in love with Jesus.
He talks about heaven as Emmanuel's land.
He talks about, in verse 3, how God
guided him with mercy and with judgment in
his life.
And then, listen to verse 5.
The bride does not look at her garment
but at her dear bridegroom's face.
I mean, if she is in love with
her bridegroom, but if it is an arranged
marriage, she may be wondering whether the folds
of her dress are all in order.
But in a love marriage, I am talking
about a love marriage.
My marriage to Jesus Christ was not an
arranged marriage.
It was a love marriage, just by the
way.
I hope yours is also.
The bride does not look at her garment.
It doesn't make a difference whether it is
all falling down straight or not.
She is looking at her bridegroom.
At last, I am married to him.
I will not gaze at glory that God
puts upon me, but on my King of
Grace.
I will not look at the crown he
gives, but I look at the hand that
gives it.
The land is all the glory of Emmanuel's
land.
This song, anybody can sing it, but for
a man to write it, he must have
been a disciple.
And for a person to sing it in
that same spirit as the man who wrote
it, he got to be a disciple.
Let's sing this.
Do you know this?
Ok, I will lead it then.
The days are sinking, the dawn of heaven
breaks.
The summer morn I've sighed for, the fair
sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but day's
spring is at hand, and glory, glory dwelleth
in Emmanuel's land.
O Christ, he is the fountain, the deep
sweet well of love.
The streams on earth I've tasted, more deep
I'll drink above.
There to an ocean's fullness his mercy doth
expand, and glory, glory dwelleth in
Emmanuel's land.
With mercy and with judgment my web of
time he wove, and I the dews of
sorrow were lusted by his love.
I'll bless the hand that guided, I'll bless
the heart that planned, when thrown where glory
dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.
O I am my Beloved's, and my
Beloved's mine.
He brings up all my sinner into his
house of wine.
I stand upon his merit, I know no
other stand, not in where glory dwelleth
in Emmanuel's land.
The bride I's not her garment, her dear
bridegroom stays.
I will not gaze at glory, but on
my King of grace.
Not at the crown he gave it, but
on his pierced hand.
The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's
land.
I've wrestled on towards heaven in storm and
wind and tide, now like a weary traveler
that leaneth on his guide.
Amid the shades of evening, while saints life's
lingering sand, I'll hail the glory dawning in
Emmanuel's land.
And we shall be in that land for
all eternity.
And we shall look back in that day
on the life we lived on earth, and
evaluate what we lived it for, how we
lived it, whether we responded to the many
exhortations God gave us, to seek his kingdom
first, and to seek for his life, and
to be free from a life of legalism,
and living under the law, and self-righteousness,
and selfishness, and spiritual pride, and arrogance, and
to humble oneself, acknowledge one's need, and seek
for fellowship.
That our life can count for God before
we leave this earth.
We can do something for him who did
so much for us.
Think of it, my brother, sister, all that
Jesus did for you, and he says to
you, this have I done for you, what
have you done for me?
What are you doing for me?
I pray that at least in 10%
of people here, there will be such a
radical change this morning.
Heaven will be delighted if it sees even
10% of those bowed before God this
morning, deciding to take their life seriously, to
live for God, be saved from sin.
Heavenly Father, you know all hearts, nothing is
hidden before you, everything is naked and open
to you.
Help us, Lord, to get light on ourselves,
and to be saved.
Give us grace, each one, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
www
.cfcindia.com
www
.cfcindia
.com www
.cfclit
.net
www.cfcindia.com