Here is the full transcript of Zac Poonen’s sermon titled “God’s Ways Are Totally Different From Our Ways.”
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Understanding God’s Ways
Very often, the problem with many of us believers is we don’t understand why God does things in certain ways. For example, there are many promises in Scripture that say, “If you ask, you will receive.” And that God loves us more than earthly fathers love their children. Yet, when we are sick, with a sickness that God can heal in one second, we pray and pray and pray.
And our child is not healed, or some sickness doesn’t go away, and we wonder why. I’m sure many of you have faced that doubt in your mind. Then a lot of condemnation can come from the devil, saying you’re not good enough or something like that. And that makes us more discouraged. We’re already sick, and then we get more discouraged.
And the other thing, we seek for victory over sin. And we are still defeated and defeated and defeated, and it goes on like that for a long time. We wonder why we’re not coming into a life of victory. We pray for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We pray and pray and pray, and nothing seems to happen. And we wonder why.
God’s Thoughts Are Higher Than Ours
Let me show you a verse in Isaiah 55:8-9. It’ll answer many of your questions if you accept it. I’ve learned to accept the truth mentioned in these two verses, and it has brought my heart to rest in every situation. I no longer question God like I used to in my younger days when I did not know.
I wish somebody had pointed out this verse to me when I was a young brother.
And God’s thoughts of how to accomplish something is not the way we think something should be accomplished. For example, if we were in God’s place, we would not have waited 4,000 years after Adam sinned for Jesus to come to the earth. 4,000 years? So many millions of people going to hell.
I used to think that if I were in God’s place, I’d send Jesus the next week after Adam sinned. Why wait 4,000 years? But I’ve understood a little more now. I can understand the reason why God waited 4,000 years.
The Difference Between God’s Thoughts and Ours
I’m not going to talk about that. But here it says in verse 9, the difference between your way of thinking and My way of thinking, God says, is the difference between earth and heaven. How high is the heaven? The furthest star is millions and millions and millions of miles away. And heaven is beyond that.
Can you think of that distance? And God says, your way of thinking and My way of thinking is as much different as heaven is from earth. So we shouldn’t be surprised if something God does in our life, we can’t understand why and some prayers are not immediately answered.
But if we persist, God will give us an answer. You know, when even the apostle Paul, he had a sickness in his body. Why would such a mighty faithful apostle have a sickness in his body? I mean, sickness God should give to sinners, not to such a faithful apostle or backsliding believer is okay, but to a faithful apostle like Peter, like Paul.
God’s Ways in Answering Prayer
And yet he had this and it says he prayed. No answer. This is Paul praying, faithful servant of God, much more faithful than you and me, prays no answer. He prays again, no answer.
He prays a third time. And then God says, “I’m not going to heal you.” Isn’t that amazing? That God says to an apostle who is so faithful for so many years, “I am not going to answer your prayer.” If He says that to some sinner, I can understand, but to a faithful apostle, “I’m not going to heal you.” If God says that to you, will you accept it?
In the olden days, when I was an immature believer, I could not accept it. Today I can accept anything. I can honestly say I can accept anything. There were times when I used to, for many years ago, I used to say this and I even say this now. I say, “Lord, my main aim in life is not even to serve You. It is to be a worshiper.”
The Importance of Worship
Worship is the greatest thing that a human being can do. The Lord told the woman of Samaria in John chapter 4, “The Father eagerly seeks for people to worship Him” (John 4:23-24). And when I saw that, I said, “Heavenly Father, Dad, if You are eagerly seeking for people to worship You, I want to be one of them.”
And I want to tell you something, worship is not singing. Singing is different from worship. Singing is, if you sing in a proper way, not the way they do it in all these charismatic churches, which is more entertainment than worship, where some human being gives all the glory. That’s not worship.
They are worshipping that song leader or the choir. It’s all garbage. It’s not worship. In true worship, no man is exalted. In true worship, it says in heaven, Isaiah saw the angels, the seraphim, with six wings covering themselves completely and worshipping. They don’t want to be seen. That’s how the angels worship. Don’t see my face.
True Worship
Don’t see who I am. Just hear my voice. Singing, “Holy, holy, holy.” That’s worship. But you don’t want to be known. You don’t want to be seen. You don’t want any honor. You want God to be glorified.
Dear brother, sister, when you get to that place, you can learn to worship. As long as you want people to recognize you and to know you’re a good brother, a good sister, or you’re a faithful brother, faithful sister, you have not yet learned to worship. Those angels covered themselves. God’s ways are not our ways.
I’ve often pictured in my mind how it will be when I get to heaven. I use my imagination to imagine that many times. You know, all of us should do that.
Imagining Heaven
In our unconverted days, we used our imagination and thought to think all types of useless filthy things and bad thoughts about other people. What all the rubbish we had in our thoughts. Now we have given up all that and we keep our thought life empty. No. Let’s think some good thoughts.
And the best thoughts are to think of heaven. So I often use my mind and imagination to think of what heaven will be like, what the judgment seat of Christ will be like. And I imagine, I know what heaven is like because I see Revelation chapter 4 and many chapters… in 5 and all where they worship Jesus and they say, “Thou alone art worthy, O Lamb.”
So what I picture in my mind is there are millions and millions of people in heaven. And I’m also there in that crowd and as I look out, I see a lot of heads. I can’t see anybody’s face.
Focusing on Jesus
I see many heads, some tall, some short, many, many heads. And I look around. Where’s Paul? I don’t know. He’s somewhere in the crowd. Where’s Peter? I’d like to see him. He’s also somewhere in the crowd. And some of you look for Zac Poonen. He’s not to be seen. Nobody can be seen. Everybody is concentrating on Jesus and saying, “Thou alone art worthy, O Lamb of God.”
I picture that in my imagination many times. And I say, “Lord, I want heaven to begin in my life now.” I don’t want to wait many years. Heaven must begin in my life now. I want to be a worshipper now. And I want to worship like they do in heaven, where it’s only Jesus.
Becoming a Zero
Forget about ourselves. Forget about everybody else. No man is great in heaven. Only Jesus Christ. It’s only here on earth that some people are honored and some are great and some people seek greatness. That’s terrible. One of the greatest things God does in our life is to reduce us to zero. There’s a brief message I once gave in CFC Bangalore on how we are all zeroes. You can go to YouTube and look for that title as being a zero. Watch it, it’s only ten minutes. It will bless you.
And if you are gripped by it, it will change your life. It will make you a truly humble person. Not humble in the eyes of others that people say, “Oh, brother so-and-so is a humble brother” or “Sister so-and-so is a humble sister.” That’s all garbage. That is, again, seeking honor, seeking honor for humility.
True Humility Before God
What I mean is being genuinely humble before God, where we don’t get any honor for our humility here, but we recognize before God that we are zeroes and that only Jesus Christ is a one. And when you put a one in front of a zero, it becomes valuable. You take away that one, it’s a zero again. That’s how we are.
God says His ways of doing things for us is un-understandable. Why does God allow a child to get sick and die? I don’t know. But I do say, “God, Your ways are perfect.”
I cannot improve on God’s ways. Right from the beginning, you know, when Miriam, Moses’ sister, spoke against Moses, she got leprosy. When some young men spoke against Elisha the prophet, after Elijah had gone up to heaven, they criticized Elisha for having a bald head and teased him, saying, “Oh, you also go up.” And you know what happened?
Old Covenant vs. New Covenant
Bears came out of the forest and ate up those young people. How severe the judgment. But when they criticized Jesus and called Him Beelzebub, what punishment did they get? You know what they got? Forgiveness. That is new covenant. In the old covenant is leprosy and bears eating you up if you criticize a servant of God. In the new covenant, you criticize Jesus Christ, you get forgiveness.
That’s what I learned. I thank God He taught that to me long ago. That it doesn’t matter what anybody in the world says about me, I have to forgive them immediately. And not only forgive them immediately, Jesus said in Matthew 12, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, he’s forgiven.”
It’s a lovely verse, Matthew 12:32. Whoever speaks a word, that means Jesus is not saying, because a few minutes ago you read in Matthew 12, the Pharisees have said this Jesus is the devil, Beelzebub. He not only forgave them, when He said whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, Matthew 12:32, He was speaking for the next 2,000 years.
Future Forgiveness
For the next 2,000 years, anybody speaks a word against Me, the Son of Man, you are forgiven right now. There are people speaking against Jesus today, they were forgiven 2,000 years ago. That is called future forgiveness. I never understood that till about a year ago, when God opened my eyes to see it.
I’ve read the Bible 65 years, but I’m discovering new things like this now. So I decided to practice it, I had to follow Jesus in future forgiveness. So I said the same thing, I said “Lord, I’m saying this before You, whoever speaks a word against Zac Poonen, for the rest of my life or even after I die, forgiven right now. And whoever does anything against me, is forgiven right now. Whoever cheats me next year or 10 years from now, is forgiven now.”
“Whoever does anything against me or speaks anything against me, for the rest of time, is forgiven right now.” That’s called future forgiveness. It brought my heart at rest. I’m following Jesus, but I got that light only recently.
It’s amazing, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see wonderful things out of His word. And so, if somebody comes and tells me, “Brother Zac, somebody wrote something against you here.” I said, “Oh yeah, I forgave the one last year.” They are surprised, how did you forgive last year for what that chap wrote yesterday?
The Importance of Forgiveness
I said, “I believe in future forgiveness, I’ve forgiven people even what they’re going to do next year.” I don’t know what people are going to say or do, forgiven. There are so many women who have not forgiven their mothers-in-law. So many people who have not forgiven their relatives for cheating them of property and money and so many things. And they call themselves Christians. It’s pathetic, the standard of Christianity in the world today.
That is why God has raised up not only CFC, but a few churches like ours that are preaching God’s highest standard. And there are not many people, Jesus said there are very few who find the way to life. I don’t expect great crowds to come to churches that are preaching God’s standards.
God says “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts as heaven is above the earth.” We want a church that proclaims that, and not many people are interested in that because almost everybody in the world has got a grudge against somebody whom they have not forgiven.
Examining Our Hearts
I mean, don’t go far, let’s look in our own church, all of you sitting here, can you honestly say before God, “I have forgiven everybody who has ever harmed me or my family in my whole life. I have completely forgiven everybody who has spoken against me or done anything against me or my children in my whole life.”
And can you go one step further and say “I’m willing to forgive anybody in future who says anything against me or my children or does anything against me or my children, right now I’m willing to forgive them.” That is to follow Jesus. Then there will not be so much anxiety in your mind, there won’t be discouragement.
I used to be a very discouraged Christian for many years, defeated, and I got so fed up I used to fast and pray to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. I said “Lord, I don’t want this cheap, counterfeit baptism in the Holy Spirit that many Pentecostals preach, I want the real thing, I want the real thing that the Apostles got on the day of Pentecost.” And if I had to wait any number of years, I’m willing to wait, and I prayed and prayed and prayed for many years, I fasted and prayed, nothing happened. And I finally came to a rock bottom, God was waiting till I came to zero, and that took some years.
The Genuine Baptism in the Holy Spirit
But when I came there, all of a sudden, without my even expecting it, suddenly one day God filled me with the Holy Spirit. That was nearly 50 years ago, and my life was changed. Discouragement went away from my life, self-condemnation went away from my life. I didn’t become perfect, but gradually my life that was going down, discouraged, and discouraged, suddenly started going up, and it’s been going up all these 50 years.
It’s amazing, the genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit. I said, “Lord, I’ll never give up until I experience a genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit. I don’t want a counterfeit. I don’t want an experience that I can get up in a meeting and testify, I also was baptized in the Holy Spirit.”
That’s not what I’m waiting for. I don’t want to give a testimony. I want the reality that changes my life, and I’m willing to pay any price for it.
God and Money as Opposites
Lord, I’m willing to, I said this for example, I learned in Scripture that God and money are opposites. You know, we say black and white are opposites, high and low are opposites, east and west are opposites, north and south are opposites. We understand that.
Do you know that God and money are also opposites? We know that God and Satan are opposites, but Jesus said God and money are opposites, and I tell you, many believers have not understood it. Luke chapter 16, verse 13, has become a very, very important verse for me. “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he’ll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Mammon means money or wealth.
So the two masters are not God and Satan. I hope you will always remember that for the rest of your life. You go to any Christian in the world and ask him, what are the two masters in the world? Almost all of them will say God and Satan. But now you folks in CFC Atlanta, you know it’s not God and Satan, it’s God and money. And I hope you’ll remember that all your life. I learned it.
Leaving Everything Behind
I learned a little bit of it when I was in the Navy, when God called me to leave my job where I was getting a very high salary, and I was only 24 years old, 60 years ago. And God said, leave, resign. And I said, yes, Lord.
And when I left, I took all my life savings. I’d worked in the Navy for eight years. I’d saved up all that money and emptied my bank account, and I gave it away for God’s work to some brother who was serving the Lord. And I left my job with zero in my bank account, and I said, “I’m going to trust You, Lord. I will not ask anybody in my life for even one paisa. I will never send a prayer letter in my life to anyone about what I’m doing.” And I haven’t done that in 60 years.
Nobody knows what service I’m doing. People may know a little bit of where I’m going here and there, but they don’t know what all the Lord is doing. I don’t want anybody to know.
Trusting God Completely
And I said, “Lord, if I don’t have a place to sleep, I’ll go to the railway station and sleep on an empty bench.” And I meant it. And I thought, I’m free from the love of money. I’ve given up everything. I don’t want anything. I never ask anybody for anything. But the Lord showed me, you’re not as free as Jesus was. I said, “Lord, show me.”
And through the years, even though I gave up everything 60 years ago, I’ve never asked anybody for money. God showed me, even I still love money. I hadn’t become like Jesus. And I said, “Lord, I want to be like Jesus. That’s my great passion.”
I don’t care if I don’t preach. I don’t want the honor of preaching. Sometimes I used to say, “Lord, even if You paralyze me completely and I have to spend all my life lying in bed, that’s fine with me. I will be a worshiper.”
Being a Worshiper in All Circumstances
Lying in bed, I worship You. Even if I cannot travel, cannot get up, don’t let me be a burden to anybody else. I’ll take care of myself, but I’ll be a worshiper. But I will not complain about anything in my life.
Complaining has gone out of my life completely. If you’re complaining about something, you’re complaining about your husband or your wife or complaining something in the church or some brother or sister, oh, brother, sister, you are a million miles away from being a worshiper. You’re deceiving yourself that you’re a disciple. You’re not a disciple.
You just got a little outward whitewash of Christianity. Be a wholehearted disciple. Your life will be different. And I’ll tell you what has happened in my life is I’ve sought passionately to be free from the love of money. I’ve become a lover of God because I read there, if you love God, you’ll hate money. Luke 16:13. You read it. It’s not my words.
Loving God and Despising Money
And if you hold on to God, you’ll despise money. I said, “Lord, I want to do that. I want to hold on to You. I want to love You.” It doesn’t mean you don’t have it. I have money. I have some savings in my bank account. I don’t love one bit of it. I said, “Lord, You can take it all. I don’t mind losing it. You took care of me for 60 years without depending on any man. You can take care of me for the next 60 years without depending on any man.”
That I’m not worried. I’m not depending on my bank account or any earthly income to support me. I’m like Jesus was, I’m depending on my heavenly Father.
Aiming for the Highest Standard
Now, you may say that’s a high standard. When you send your children to school, you want them to just get pass marks or you want them to get 100 percent? In India, the school pass marks was 40 percent. But I used to tell my children, I say, “I’m not happy you get 40 percent. You’ll get pass and go to the next class. That I’m not interested in that. You must aim for 100 percent. And you must not be happy with 98. Must seek for 100 always.”
That’s how it must be in your Christian life too. Don’t be satisfied with, “Oh, I passed. As soon as I sin, I confess it, the blood of Jesus cleanses me.” That is getting base pass marks and getting to the next class. I don’t want that, but I didn’t want that type of thing for my children. And you don’t want that type of — You don’t want that type of life for your children that they get just 40 percent and go to the next class and always come last in the class and get promoted.
Striving for Excellence in Spiritual Life
You want them to do well. In earthly things, every parent wants their child to do well, to be perfectly healthy, to be well and to do well in their class. Why not spiritually for ourselves? God’s ways are not our ways. He has to reduce us to zero. And so when you find something happening in your life, you can’t understand. Recognize that God is trying to reduce you. The world, people are trying to make themselves big.
Even Christians are trying to make themselves big, become more well-known in their church and show themselves as more gifted preachers and more this and more that. God wants to make you smaller so that Christ can be seen. My youngest days, John the Baptist, was one of my great heroes because that was a man who was fiery. He was not interested in pleasing any man or impressing anybody.
The Example of John the Baptist
He would speak out to the Pharisees. Of course he lost his head because he spoke the truth, but that’s okay. I said I’m ready to lose my head too. But he was a fiery prophet. He was a man who prepared the way for Jesus Christ’s first coming. And Jesus said he was like Elijah. But then Jesus also said, but there’s another Elijah who has to come, preparing the way for the second coming. And you know who that Elijah is?
The church, not one person. The body of Christ, one body, one person, that is the body of Christ, that’s you and me and all in the church in every country, together, we have to be like John the Baptist. Preparing the way for the coming of Jesus Christ.
And what was John the Baptist’s main message? Repent, turn around, all the time, any time you went to hear John the Baptist, he had only one message. Repent, repent, repent.
The Message of Repentance
And you say, “Hey John, I heard you speaking that for so many weeks.” He said “That’s my only message. Turn around from sin, turn towards God, that’s the message the Lord gave me.”
Turn around from sin and that’s what we have preached in CFC for 50 years, nearly 50. Turn around from sin, turn around from the love of sin, turn around from bitterness and from not forgiving others and all the wretched things that so many Christians live in. Turn around from seeking honor from one another.
Constantly judge yourself, walk in humility, stop complaining, stop gossiping against others, stop being a busybody in other people’s matters. Mind your own business, be wholehearted, live for Christ every moment. God needs people like that. God needs a healthy church, not a sick church.
Building a Healthy Church
A healthy, y’all must be a healthy church and that can be true only if every one of you individually seek to judge yourself and cleanse yourself. Never mind, don’t worry if other people are not doing it. You cleanse yourself and judge yourself. Get rid of all gossiping and backbiting and wrong attitudes towards anyone in this church.
Let me ask you a direct question. Dear brother, sister, please answer to yourself right now. Do you have anything in your heart right now against anybody in this church? Are you angry with someone for something they said or did or what they did not do to help you or something like that, some complaints?
If you are a poison in the body of Christ, get rid of that poison. I’m not asking you to leave the church. I’m asking you to get rid of the poison. It’s like if your child is seriously sick, you don’t throw the child out of the house, you seek your best to heal the child.
Getting Rid of Wrong Attitudes
That’s what I desire that you’ll be a blessing in the church. Get rid of wrong attitudes towards anyone. It’s not visible. People who openly gossip and speak, that’s visible sin.
But when you have a wrong attitude in your heart, that’s invisible but just as bad. God wants us to judge ourselves and cleanse ourselves so that this church and Atlanta Church will be like a bright shining light for the Lord. You don’t have to be a big church.
If God sees that all of you sincerely stop judging each other and judge yourselves and live before God’s face, God can make you such a bright shining light that He will draw from different parts of Atlanta and probably different parts of the United States, people who want to meet with Christ and they’ll hear about you and they’ll come to you.
Fulfilling Our Purpose on Earth
That is our desire. Not that you should get any honor, no, we don’t seek honor, only Christ is to be honored. But then we fulfill our purpose on earth. And to begin with, all we have to do to fellowship with God, what is the number one condition for fellowship with God?
Honesty. Even humility takes a long time to become humble. To be free from the love of money can take years. To be totally free from pride can take years. To be free from spiritual pride can take a long, long time. But honesty doesn’t take any time at all. You can be honest right now. Even if a prostitute from Atlanta comes into the church now, I can tell her, you can be honest right now.
The Power of Honesty
You say, “I’m a prostitute,” that’s honesty, that’s walking in the light. That is the first step to fellowship with God and forgiveness of sins, honesty. So God is not asking something very difficult, He’s just saying don’t pretend to be so spiritual, just be honest. You don’t have to confess your sins to people, we are not Roman Catholics who go confessing to priests or one another.
Be honest before God. Even if you can’t be honest before people, be honest before God first, then you’ll be honest before people also. Honest before people does not mean confessing your sins to them. It means not pretending that you’re better than them.
Not pretending that you’re more important than them. The Bible says in 1 John 1:7, “If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God.” Walking in the light means being honest, that’s all. The Christian life is very easy, if you want to do it. It’ll shatter your pride, but it’s very easy. Just be honest. I thank God that I learned that lesson. I always want to be honest before God.
Starting Your Day with God
Every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is talk to the Lord while lying in the bed before I get out of bed. I look up to heaven and talk to Jesus and talk to my Heavenly Father. Develop that habit before you get out of bed. As soon as you wake up, even if you have only one minute, lie in bed and talk to your Father before you get out of bed.
Talk to Him from your heart. Tell Him you want to love Him, worship Him. God is waiting for that, and then you’ll start the whole day in a good way. Then there won’t be bad moods in your house.
I used to have bad moods in the olden days, it’s gone from my life. Bad moods, they disappeared. The more you get rid of these things, your home will be a little taste of heaven on earth. Imagine if a husband and wife, father and mother begin their day like this. What a different home your home will be. Not because you are perfect, but because you are honest. You call black, black. You don’t say grey, it’s not grey, it’s black.
The Power of Honesty
You call sin, sin. You don’t give it some nice sounding name. It’s sin. It’s amazing what will happen in your life, if you just start being honest from today. And you brothers, when you look at a woman and admire her beauty, don’t tell a lie saying “I’m admiring God’s creation.” Say “I lust it, forgive me Lord. I lust after that pretty woman, please forgive me.” You’ll get victory.
But if you cover it up and say “No, no, no, I was just admiring God’s creation” or some rubbish like that, you’ll never get victory, you won’t get victory in a hundred years. The first condition is honesty. Call sin by the worst name you can call it. Pride is pride. Lust is lust. Love of money is love of money. Call it by that and you’ll be freed from it. But if you give decent sounding names like they do in the world, we’ll be defeated all our lives.
Desiring Spiritual Cleanliness
You must have such a passion for victory, for total cleanliness. If your body gets dirty because you were going out and all the dust came into you, isn’t it good to take a shower, take a bath and cleanse yourself? It should be the same desire we have in our spirit. Lord, I don’t want to be dirty in my spirit.
I want to have a shower, a good clean shower that my spirit is always clean. What a church your church has become. Everybody here decides that from today. I’m not going to blame anybody else. I’m not going to blame my wife or my husband from today. I’m only going to judge myself. That’s all. I tell you there’ll be a revival.
Honesty, just honesty. You see these people whom the Lord appreciated. People who were prostitutes like Mary Magdalene, not only prostitutes, she had demons inside her. What would you think of such a woman who was, I believe she was a prostitute.
The Story of Mary Magdalene
I believe she was a woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair and brought that expensive perfume, perfume which she bought, you know how she got that money, from prostitution. The money she earned from prostitution, all her savings, she went and bought the most expensive perfume and poured it at the feet of Jesus and there’s a law in the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy, which says the wages that a prostitute earns, the money that a prostitute earns must never be brought into the house of God, that was the law of Moses.
Jesus knew that law and He was the house of God and here was this prostitute bringing what she earned and pouring it at His feet. Why didn’t He stop her? Why didn’t He say, “No you can’t bring, the law says you can’t bring your earnings with such things, you can’t buy it and pour it at My feet.”
Legalists, the Pharisees questioned that, Simon the Pharisee was sitting there and said, “If this man were a prophet he would have known this is against the law.” But Jesus said “Simon, the problem with you is you have been forgiven very few sins, that’s why you don’t love Me. This woman has been forgiven so much and one who is forgiven much loves much.”
Forgiveness and Love
We have all been forgiven much, the difference is some people are aware that they have been forgiven much, they love much. Others who have been forgiven much are not aware that they have been forgiven much, that’s why they don’t love. I always pray that God will show me how much I have been forgiven. I have been forgiven a lot, God has been merciful to me.
I see that sin is not these ten commandments type of sins as everybody talks about. When you come into the New Testament you see things which are not even written in the ten commandments. All types of things, you say, “Oh Lord, how contrary to your nature this is,” wrong attitudes to people, you see it like adultery, you hate it, gossiping, backbiting, you see it like murdering people.
You hate it and you say, “Oh what a terrible sinner I am, I have murdered somebody with gossip.” Dear brothers who sin, don’t think you are coming closer to God if sin is not becoming exceedingly sinful in your eyes. That’s how you know you are growing spiritually.
True Spirituality
For me there is one test of spiritual growth, it is not knowledge of the Bible. I can never beat Satan in the knowledge of the Bible, he knows the Bible much better than me. He can quote any verse, I can’t quote any verse, I can quote some verses but Satan knows any verse, he even knew the best verse to quote to Jesus in the temptation.
So I can’t defeat Satan in Bible knowledge. That teaches me Bible knowledge is not spirituality. Spirituality is sensitivity to sin and the devil has got zero of that. Spirituality is sensitivity to sin, immediately.
You know like the most sensitive part of our body is our eyes, that’s the most sensitive part. You don’t need a needle to hurt the eye, just your finger, your finger touches the inside of your eye and it pains. There is no other part of your body that you touch and it will pain.
Sensitivity to Sin
Other parts you need a needle or something to hurt it, a thorn to pain it but for the eye you don’t need any needle or thorn, just your finger touches it and it pains. It is the most sensitive part of our body. And I say that’s how I want to be sensitive to sin. Like a small little thing, just a touch and it hurts, it pains.
Ask God to give you that type of sensitivity to any sin, anything that this piece has got in. It doesn’t happen overnight. You are not going to suddenly become spiritual tomorrow, maybe you are entering the kindergarten but little by little by little by little you can get a PhD one day, if you keep on working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
My dear brothers and sisters, let me tell you something that God has got a tremendous wonderful plan for your life, for every one of you. You may be the most unimportant, insignificant person sitting here, even a child. God has got a plan for you, a plan that was made before you were born and He wants that to be fulfilled.
God’s Plan for Your Life
Turn to Psalm 139, one of my favorite verses, Psalm 139. Here David says in verse 17, “How precious are Your thoughts towards me O God, how vast is the sum of them. I cannot even count the wonderful thoughts God has towards me are more than the sands in all the earth.” Can you imagine the amount of sand there is even in one seashore? All the sand in the earth, God’s good thoughts towards you and me are more than that. I believe that.
I believe God’s word. And he says in verse 16, “Before I was born You planned all my days, or the days that were planned for me.” Every day of my life was planned from the time I was born. The tragedy is that we have not fulfilled that plan.
Many of us have gone after other things, we have allowed sin in our life, even after coming to CFC and hearing so much against sin, we have retained bad thoughts, we have not been wholehearted, we have not sought to be free from the love of money, we have kept grudges, we have been impure in our thinking, taken it all lightly, oh if I confess it the Lord forgives me. Yeah, it’s true, he forgives you. But when are we going to finish with it?
Glorifying God by Finishing His Work
Jesus could say at the end of His life, John 17 verse 4. “I have glorified You on earth,” here’s a verse you can keep before you, John 17 verse 4. “I glorified You on earth by finishing the work You gave Me to do.” That’s my prayer. I’m 84 and a half years old, I’ve been born again 65 years ago.
I say “Lord, You planned my life, every day of my life before I was born. Have I finished that plan?” I don’t know when it will finish. But I don’t want to leave this earth before I finish all that You planned for me like this. Jesus said, “I have finished the work You gave Me to do.” That way I have glorified You. We all say we want to glorify God. According to this verse, there is only one way you can glorify God, that’s by finishing the work You gave me to do.
I see a lot of old people who say, “Oh, I’m just waiting to go to heaven.” I’ll tell you, I’m not waiting to go to heaven. I’m waiting to finish God’s plan for my life before I go to heaven. So my passion is not to go to heaven, my passion is to finish the work God has given me to do.
Using Every Day to Fulfill God’s Plan
And I say, “Lord, I don’t know when it will be finished, but I want to use every day of my life to finish the work You gave me to do.” I don’t want to waste one day. I don’t want to waste my life daydreaming and wasting my time. I say, “Lord, I want to finish Your plan for my life.”
Then you can glorify God. I think all of you do want to glorify God. Well, I’ll tell you how you can glorify God, according to John 17, verse 4, by finishing the work God plans for you. You remember what the Father in heaven said when Jesus was being baptized.
“This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.” Jesus was 30 years old. Why was the Father pleased with Him? He had never healed anybody at that time, never cast out a demon, never preached a sermon.
Pleasing God in Ordinary Life
No. 30 years, never preached a sermon, never healed anybody, never cast out a demon, never gone around preaching, never done any of those things which we call Christian work. But the Father said, “I’m pleased with You.” Why?
Absolutely faithful for 30 years in His thought life, in the way He spoke to His brothers, sisters, and His mother at home. He was at home for 30 years and in the carpentry shop. That’s where all of you are, at home and in your place of work, in your office or factory, wherever you work, and in your home, that’s all.
And Jesus was also only in those places for 30 years, at home and in His place of work. At home, place of work, for 30 years. And the Father looked at Him and said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I’m very, very happy.”
You know that God can be very, very happy with you, even if you never preach a sermon, even if you never pray for anybody, and you never do any miracles, and you never do any of those things. He can be very happy with you if you are faithful like Jesus was in His home and in His place of work.
Being Faithful in Small Things
He was faithful in the carpentry shop. He never sold any furniture to anybody by cheating them. He was faithful in what He sold at home, His carpentry shop. He was faithful in the work He did in His carpentry shop.
He was faithful in His home to help His mother, Mary, and to be kind and good to His brothers and sisters who were always teasing Him and troubling Him. That’s what the Father saw and said, “I’m happy.” And that’s what you and I face in our homes and in our place of work, difficult people all around us. Be faithful.
Seeking God’s Approval
Even if you never preach a sermon, your Heavenly Father can say about you, “I’m pleased with you.” Many times, you know, I thought about that, and I said, “Dad,” I say to my father, I call him Dad, “Dad, please tell me those words, ‘This is My beloved son in whom I’m well pleased.’ I want that more than anything else. I don’t want to be known as a great preacher.”
I don’t want to travel the world. I don’t want anything else. I want You to look at me and say, “This is My beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” And I said, “Dad, I’ll do anything if that can be said in my life.”
My dear brothers and sisters, seek for that approval of God in your life. That is the best life you can live. Even if you never in your life preach a sermon, never travel outside Atlanta, and never go even to a conference, and you’re always in Atlanta in this church, your life, and you never go outside your home, perhaps, God can look at you and say, “This is My daughter in whom I’m well pleased.” Let that be the passion of your life.
The Importance of Honesty and Humility
Just be honest and be humble. Esteem everybody in this church as more important than you. That’s how Jesus was. Do you know that Jesus esteemed everybody as more important than Him? Not more spiritual than Him. He did not think others were more spiritual. He was the most spiritual. But it says in Philippians 2 and verse 5, “Have this attitude in you which was in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 2 verse 5, “Have this attitude in you which was in Christ Jesus.” What is that? Many things, but one thing is, the last part of verse 3, “Regard each other, one another as more important than yourself.” Not more spiritual than yourself.
Regarding Others as More Important
I cannot regard other people as more spiritual than myself, it’s not possible. Jesus did not do that, but I can regard others as more important than myself. Even Judas Iscariot. Do you know that Jesus washed the feet of Judas Iscariot? Will you wash the feet of Judas Iscariot? Jesus did it. Lord, make me like You. Being willing to consider others who are not spiritual or carnal, like Judas Iscariot, more important than me.
Not more spiritual, no, more important. Willing to wash their feet, willing to do lowly jobs, willing to serve in a hidden way, do things silently without people knowing the good that we do, serving the church in hidden ways. Dear brothers and sisters, long for that. That is the type of church that Jesus wants to see in Atlanta.
Being a Light for God
To be like a bright, shining light for God. And you have a part in it, a very important part in it. Humble yourself. Be honest. It’s possible. Earnestly pray that God will fill you with the Holy Spirit every day. I pray every day God fills me with the Holy Spirit. What I experienced 50 years ago, I pray every day.
I want this more than anything else. I don’t want more money, or honor, or even gifts of the Spirit. I say, “Lord, that’s up to You. I want to be filled with the Spirit to please You in everything.”
Closing Prayer
So, let’s bow our heads and pray. Whatever God has spoken to you, please respond to Him and say, “Lord, I want to respond to You, what You have spoken to me today, and I never want to forget.”
Heavenly Father, I’ve not shared anything new with these people. Everything I’ve shared today is what they’ve heard from me many, many, many times. And yet, You have prompted me to repeat it. Because somebody here needs to hear it again. I pray that we will walk in humility and lowliness of mind and be true worshipers, bringing delight to Your heart.
Bless every brother and sister here, especially some brother or sister here who’s feeling very inferior and good for nothing. Lord, I pray especially for such a brother or such a sister who feels, “I’m the most useless person in this church.” Lord, please bless that person, whoever that is, who feels, “I’m the most useless person in this church.” You’re not, brother or sister, you’re not the most useless person, you’re precious in God’s eyes.
Lord, encourage such a person today, lift up their spirit, and help them to know that You love them, and You want them also in your kingdom to be a useful person in this church, even if they are not well-known or respected or have no gift.
Thank You, Father, that You love every member of the body of Christ, not because we have gifts, but because we are Your children. Make this church a bright, shining light for You in Atlanta. Thank You, Heavenly Father, for every brother and sister here, in Jesus’ name, Amen.