God gives His grace only to the Humble | Living in Overcoming Life | Zac Poonen

the apostle paul was a very honest man about his personal testimony and when we realized that he was one of the greatest servants of god in the history of the christian church his personal life and also in what he accomplished so there's a lot that we can learn as to why god could use him so much we may not have the same ministry god gives a different ministry to each person and when paul said follow me he told the corinthians follow me he told the philippians follow me what he meant was not be an apostle like me or a preacher like me no we can't follow him there it's just like when jesus said to these disciples follow me what was he telling them he wasn't telling them to raise the dead and walk on water or turn water into wine none of us can do all that always that phrase follow me in the new testament relates to life not ministry jesus told us to follow him in the way he lived not in his ministry now it's a very important principle because there are many people who think that i can follow jesus in this ministry and start healing the sick you know so many of these people who go around claiming to heal the sick they hardly heal anybody at all jesus healed people in the thousands there are instances where jesus would pray for people and every single person was healed that has never happened in the history of christianity not even the apostles could do that so he was not telling us to follow him in his ministry paul was an apostle who wrote scripture we can't follow him there he planted churches we can't follow him there some can but not all so remember the word follow me in the new testament refers to following jesus or paul in their life and that's where paul said follow me as i follow christ and we should be able to say that also you may say well how dare i say follow me as i follow christ well the thing is that every one of us has got somebody younger than us you know even a second grade student has got someone younger than him in the first grade or the kindergarten and he can teach them something which they don't know even the kindergarten student i often say in india that kindergarten six-year-old boy he can teach somebody you know some of those children who live in the slums in india who don't even know how to read or write who don't know abcd that kindergarten student can teach them abcd so every one of us has got someone younger to us to whom if you're a christian you should be able to say follow me as i follow christ see when you think of the christian life it's like a a pathway think of it like climbing a mountain towards perfection something like mount everest now jesus has gone all the way to the top and in the snow you see his footsteps and paul looks at those footsteps of christ i'm using an illustration and plants his feet in those footsteps he hasn't reached 30 000 feet 29 000 feet like the top of mount everest but he's somewhere maybe 5000 feet and then i see paul's footsteps not not in his ministry but the way he lived and i can see his footsteps and i say i can follow them and there are people behind me younger than me to whom i can say hey fellas follow me as i follow paul and follow christ this is what our christian life should be it's not merely preaching jesus said follow me more often than he said believe in me follow me follow me was the word he frequently used so in paul's life there's one one thing that he tells us about his life which revealed how he got the power of god in his life now many people think of being filled with the holy spirit as the answer to everything now that's important i believe that is very important i myself have experienced being filled with the holy spirit but if you're filled with the holy spirit and you don't understand this other truth which i want to emphasize this evening you will never experience the power of god flowing through you you'll only glory in an experience which you can testify to for the next 25 years i had an experience way back there boy it was fantastic that's not what we are supposed to talk about paul hardly ever spoke about his damascus road experience where he met the lord or his experience when he reached damascus and ananias came and laid his hands on him and he was filled with the holy spirit he's mentioned that once or twice but hardly ever but there was something else in his life which he had the apostle paul which i believe was the secret of why god could accomplish so much through him and that is something which we can all follow in as i said we cannot follow jesus in his ministry for example the biggest ministry jesus did was die for the sins of the world who can follow him there and all the other miracles he did so i want to turn you to second corinthians and chapter 12. if you have a bible please turn with me to second corinthians chapter 12. and here he says in verse i'm going to read from verse 7 onwards to verse 10 please follow with me paul had tremendous revelations of god and of god's purposes and he also says in verse 2 of this chapter that he had this fantastic experience of being taken up to the third heaven the immediate presence of god and when he was there it says he calls it also paradise verse 4 and he said he heard some amazing words in heaven that it is not permitted verse 4 for a man to speak remember remember those words when paul was taken up to heaven he heard some amazing words i would like to hear what he heard but he says it's inexpressible one who goes up to heaven is not permitted to speak about them when he comes back to earth now if you go to a google search of people who've gone to heaven and come back there are so many people i don't believe all of them and i'll tell you why i don't believe all of them because they talk about what they saw there and that itself proves to me that it was not heaven that they went to it was their imagination you know there are some people who call have what i call a very fertile imagination they can shut their eyes and dream something and imagine they've gone to heaven and so i'm not saying they told lies but their imagination made them feel they actually ended up in heaven when they didn't they were just lying in a bed and having a dream or something like that and then they write a book about it there's a case of this is a true story of a young boy who had an accident and whether he was in a coma or something and they say that he died and then a little while later i don't know whether it was an hour a few hours or days later he came out of that coma and his father made him write a book about his experience in heaven it was a fantastic story about this little boy going to heaven and one of the major christian publishers in america published it thousands of copies were sold that little boy grew up in a little later about five or ten years later said to everyone the whole thing was a lie my dad made me write it but you know the number of people who bought thousands of christians who bought that book and believed it don't believe all these things there are so many stories that christians so-called christians say to get fame paul never said this to get fame remember this and it will save you from being deceived when a man is taken up to heaven actually the very few people who got up there paul was one of them if he hears something according to second corinthians 12 4 he is not permitted to tell that to anyone so if a man really goes up to him he'll never be able to tell us what he heard there he's not permitted that's just by the way but he goes on to say because of these fantastic experiences of being taken up to heaven and being used to write scripture and planting churches and the miracles he did you know handkerchiefs that touched his body would be put on someone and demons would be cast out and people would be healed that was fantastic because of all these experiences you know what can happen to a man when he is used by god like that he begins to get puffed up and he become proud and paul is honest about it he says i was in danger of becoming proud my brothers and sisters it's a wonderful thing if you can get light on the fact that you are in danger of becoming proud that the way you speak to other christians is in a very proud way i've heard many christians speak something like the pharisee you know the pharisees said even to god i thank you that i'm not like other people and that thought can be in your mind maybe you had some wonderful experiences maybe god has used you in some way or you had a close walk with god and you can begin to think that you are somebody and the moment pride comes in it's the devil the devil became the devil through pride in my lifetime i've been a christian 60 years i've heard many many people boast to me about what they've accomplished and where they've gone and how they served the lord i'll tell you quite honestly i have zero respect for all of them anyone who boasts to me what they did i have zero respect for them because they are not like jesus christ i'm not impressed by what people do i'm impressed by character don't get impressed by what people do if you want to be saved from deception look for character jesus didn't say see how i turned water into wine fellas come on follow me that's not what he said see how i've denied myself humbled myself came from heaven made myself a servant washing your feet that is where what he told his disciples to follow in the way i washed your feet i've taught you to wash one another's feet now when he say wash one of his feet he was not talking about actually taking off people's shoes and getting a bucket of water and cleaning them you've got to understand this see remember in those days everybody wore sandals and the roads were not paved like the beautiful roads here in singapore they were mud roads we have some mud roads like that in india and very often in the villages i go with sandals and i know what happens when you walk through those roads your feet are dirty and when you walk into a home you it's very refreshing if you can get your food on feet under a tap and wash off that dirt it's very refreshing but those days they didn't have running water or a tap so they they used to have a bucket of water rich homes would have a bucket of water near the door everybody would come in sandals and all their feet would be dirty and they would appoint a slave many of those homes had a slave and the slave's job was all the guests who come in wash their feet so when jesus having the last supper with his twelve disciples he had told the owner of the house please keep a room ready for me with the food and the table and of course the bucket of water but i don't want anybody there so that rich man did not send his slave up there to wash the feet of the disciples who came so everybody's sitting there with a dirty feet and jesus takes off the bucket and says i am the slave here what an example now what did he actually do you need to understand when he said as i washed your feet i must i want you to wash one another's feet what he meant was there was a dirty task that somebody had to do for my friends my disciples nobody was willing to do it i was willing to do it today the dirty task may not be washing people's feet because we wear shoes and socks and we don't walk on dusty roads there's no point that is ridiculous washing people's feet today the dirty task may be in your church building the toilet being dirty the restroom maybe some child used it and has left it dirty to go and clean that that is to follow jesus in doing a dirty job to make life easier for others and like that if we look around we can find lowly tasks that we can do for one another to show our love for christ and for our fellow believers but there are not many people who want to do those things everybody likes to get into the pulpit and uh you know show how well he can preach or anything like that here we read that paul when he talks about following himself he was in danger of becoming proud and he says that in 2nd corinthians 12 7 i was in danger of exalting myself i told you it's a wonderful thing if god gives you light on your pride on your boastfulness how you very subtly boast about yourself or your children or your family members or you boast you ask yourself to god to give you light on it there are people who do that and they don't even have the slightest idea that it stinks it stinks i tell you when i hear that it stinks my spiritual nostrils revolts against that i see this is the smell of hell the smell of heaven is humility the smell of hell is boastfulness and pride and i've seen that in a lot of christians i've seen that in the reports that christians write about the work that they are doing for god stinking i don't know whether you smell hell there well paul was in danger of it himself and god wanted to save paul from getting proud for one reason and that is god is the enemy of the proud and he did not want to be paul's enemy god resists the proud that is written in two verses in scripture james 4 6 and is repeated again three or four pages later in 1 peter 5 verse 5. why is it repeated there in case you read past the first mention of it quickly god repeats it i don't want you to miss this god resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble you know this is such an important message that we need to have it in front of us all the time if you want grace humble yourself never boast the moment you boast god becomes your enemy the moment you try to exalt yourself god becomes your enemy the moment you begin to boast about your children you're going to destroy your children i'll tell you that so many christians haven't understood this paul understood it but he realized that i need god's help to keep me humble i can try to be humble it can be very artificial and artificial humility is something that will make you proud of your humility and that pride is the worst type of pride when you become proud of your humility so god wanted to save paul from pride for one reason because god wanted to keep on giving grace to him and he knew there's a law of god it's like the law of gravity you cannot change the law of gravity anywhere you go the law of gravity operates that the earth pulls down anything you throw it up the earth will pull it down the law of god resisting the proud is exactly the same it doesn't matter who is proud believer unbeliever servant of god preacher the moment he's proud god's law begins to operate god pushes him down even if it's the apostle paul god it's a law for example if paul jumped off the roof of a high building the law of gravity doesn't check up is that a believer or not let me decide whether to pull him down or not it operates equally believer unbeliever spiritual person apostle paul the law of gravity which god has put into this earth operates equally for everybody and i want you my dear brothers and sisters to understand this law also god resists the proud operates in exactly the same way whether it's unbeliever believer apostle paul you me or anybody once you understand that you will never want to be proud you'll never want to boast about anything because god will become your enemy that moment he will oppose you he will oppose you he'll oppose you you know i've seen christians and i've observed christians for 60 years now and there are some believers born again believers whom i've known for 30 40 years i've seen them consistently in our churches for 30 40 years and in those 30 40 years they have not grown spiritually at all it's like seeing a 40 year old man sitting in the kindergarten learning to spell cat as cat and b80 is bad what do you feel about that person you feel sorry for the poor man what's he doing 40 years in the kindergarten that's how i've seen some believers and i know why god has kept on opposing them that's why they don't get any fresh revelation from god they don't become more christ-like they still lose their temper and they still get irritated and upset and they love money and they get anxious and worried and they boast about how much they pray and fast and every mark of a carnal person exactly the same as it was 40 years ago they are in the same position today why is that that guy should have been getting a spiritual phd by now but he's in the kindergarten because god was resisting him all the time there's only one reason why christians do not grow spiritually god is resisting them every time they try to go up god pushes them down he pushes them out because he sees some pride in them he sees they are glorying in something in themselves and if you realize that paul was in danger of it how much more you and me so he says here very honestly i was in danger of exalting myself it's absolutely honest so how did god humble him it's very interesting it says here god gave him a thorn in the flesh a messenger of satan in other words god allowed satan to afflict paul in some way now one way in which satan afflicts god's people we read in the book of job that god he satan came to god and asked permission to attack job's body now that's a wonderful lesson we learned there that satan could not touch job's body without first getting god's permission the bible says that there was a wall around job another wall around his family and another wall around his property there were three walls around job and satan himself says that in job chapter 1 i think it's verse 11. satan says to god god you put three walls around job one around him another on his family around his property i can't touch him did you know that that if you're a humble person if it's a big if you're a humble person there are three walls around you around you personally around your family members wife and children and around your bank account and all your assets and your property and the devil cannot touch any of them without god giving him permission in other words god opens up one of those walls fences or walls whatever you call it and tell satan okay you can go in and attack his property wall number three i make a little opening in that for you satan went in and destroyed all of job's property he couldn't do that until god had given him permission i mean satan hated job for years but he couldn't touch him till one day god said okay i'll let you touch him because i'm going to teach job a lesson and satan asks joe what about the second wall around his family members god said okay i'll allow you to go through the second wall as well and job had 10 children and he killed all of them and there was one more person in that second circle that is job's wife and he had permission from god to kill job's wife but satan said well his wife is more useful for me alive than dead because i can use her to nag job and nag job and nag joke every day so i won't kill her i think satan keeps some wives alive just for that purpose to keep on nagging their husband irritate them day and night he could have done it and he didn't do it he knows whom to kill and whom not to kill him and then the third was around job's personal being and uh the devil says can i get through to him and the devil says and god said okay satan you can touch his body but you can't kill him and so satan went and attacked job you read all this in job chapter 1 chapter 2 with what i think was leprosy and why i say it's leprosy is because you see him later on sitting outside the gate and it was the lepers who sat outside the gate and he was scratching himself with a pot shirt because it was all itching all over him yeah so paul calls this thorn in the flesh in verse 7 a messenger of satan satan gave him some sickness now the reason why god allowed paul to have the sickness it says here is very clearly mentioned to keep me from exalting myself so god like this were punctured paul's balloon so they didn't fly up in the air brought him down to earth so that god could keep on giving him grace so when god breaks you your inner strength in some way and humbles you it's one of the best things that he can ever do for you he's trying to bring you down to zero so that he can bless you and make you a blessing to others don't resist god when he does that because that's god's way of blessing people not only in the new testament but in the old testament too and paul goes on to say he didn't understand this in the beginning here was this thorn in the flesh now there's another passage in galatians which indicates that it's probably some type of pus that paul had in his eyes that is constantly dripping and it was a repulsive sight because in galatians 4 paul says you people saw me and you didn't despise me for this sickness i had in fact you loved me so much that you guys were willing would be willing to take out your own eyes and give them to me you read that in galatians 4. that's how we know it was probably some type of eye problem the job paul had which was so repulsive to people that he said lord can't you get rid of this for me why you want me to stand behind people and this thing did would look down on me this great man of god is having eyes that are leaking all the time and god said no i won't do it does god heal every sickness here's the answer no he does heal many times i've experienced that myself but i also know he doesn't heal sometimes and if he doesn't heal there's a very good reason for it here paul prayed three times and he would have prayed 30 times if he did not get an answer paul was the type of person there was no rule saying he should pray three times he would pray until he got an answer he got the answer after three times because he's he was sensitive to god's voice and god said to him i'm not gonna heal you you need this weakness throughout your life to humble you to break you otherwise you'll become proud and i'll become your enemy and paul i don't want to be your enemy i want to give you keep on giving you grace for the rest of your life so that i can use you mightily all over the world everywhere and make you write scripture and do so many wonderful things but i cannot do that if you become proud but with all the tremendous experiences you've had and the wonderful ministry you've had you are in danger of becoming proud so i have to do something for you that's why i've given you this so don't ask me again for it you will not be healed but this will keep you humble every time you get up to speak with his eyes leaking you'll be humbled people will say ah this guy can heal the sick look at his own face he can't heal himself that'll keep you humble paul don't worry about what people think about you what people think about you is fit for the trash can forget it what do i think about you i see paul you're a humble man and i've decided to keep you humble so that i can keep on giving you grace i want to ask you my brothers and sisters which would you rather have the appreciation of human beings because you boast to them about what all you have done for the lord or you're taken up to the third heaven or something like that or would you rather have zero approval from men that men human beings despise you but god's grace is upon you every single day and you have wonderful experiences with god and he uses you according to his purpose and nobody knows about it i believe the best way for god to use me is in a way that nobody knows about it why should people know about what god is doing with me i mean my relationship with jesus i'll tell you honestly is like a love relationship between a bridegroom and a bride now why should you know what i as a bride do for my bridegroom you know if someone loves a girl who loves a boy doesn't want to advertise to the whole world what gifts she gives him or what she does for him no that's just between her and him and if you have a love relationship with jesus christ exactly like a a girl who's engaged to a boy has with him if it is exactly like that you will never want other people to know what you do for your bride room if you go around advertising it that proves that you don't have a love relationship with christ as a bride room think about it our conversations husband and wife you don't want other people to hear the loving words you speak to each other no it's entirely private [Music] that's why when i speak in unknown tongues i never do it in public never never never it's a love language between me and my bridegroom and nobody ever hears it just like if i ex express something loving to my wife i don't want you guys to listen to it and when i say something to the lord when it whether in english or in an unknown tongue i don't want you to express you to listen to it this is the type of relationship that jesus wants every one of us to have with him a private secret relationship you know in the song of solomon it says my my beloved is like a private garden that's the word used in song of song a private garden exclusively for me i go into that garden and i take the fruit of that garden the bridegroom says just for me that's the type of relationship the best type of relationship that any christian can have with jesus christ read the song of solomon that's the type of relationship paul had so all these dealings that he had were to humble him so that he and the lord could have such a close intimate relationship like husband and wife like bride and bride room i want to ask you do you have that type of relationship it is god's will that every single one of you who's born again should have that type of relationship but you can't have that if you're proud because god resists the proud and he doesn't want to resist you if you're his bride but he'll have to resist you because that's his law he resists the proud so when paul recognized this he stopped praying he said that's fine lord let my eyes keep leaking i will not pray that i should be healed because it humbles me this sickness humbles me and so the lord said to him in verse 9 my grace is sufficient for you because my power is made perfect in your weakness it's a fantastic statement that you need to understand every one of you god's grace is equal to his power power is another word god's grace is another word for god's power you read that in that verse my grace is enough for you because my power that is my grace is made perfect works perfectly in when you're weak when you're strong it will not work perfectly i have to make you weak before i can accomplish my purpose through you and manifest my power through you and that's a great secret which many christians have not understood i'm very thankful that god revealed that to me when i was a very young christian i was born again when i was 19 and a half way back in 60 years ago and i started studying the scriptures but i found a great lack of power in my life and i used to go to an assembly that never preached about the power of the holy spirit or the baptism of the holy spirit but as i read the scriptures and i read the testimonies of some godly men i found these men had an encounter with god where the mighty power of god came upon them they were filled with the holy spirit and so i began to see god as a young 23 year old young man when i was still working in the navy i said lord i want this power in my life i want this baptism of immersion in the holy spirit the power of god and so as i studied the scripture i was led to the passage where jesus received the holy spirit coming upon him you know that was at the baptism of john when john the baptist immersed jesus in the river jordan as he came up the holy spirit came upon him like a dove and his whole ministry was changed after that you know from that moment up till that moment jesus had never preached a sermon he had never cast out a demon he never healed a sick person but from that moment everything changed he began to cast out demons and he began to heal the sick and he began to preach powerfully the holy spirit came upon him and i saw that even for jesus christ for 30 years what he could not do not could not do god did not allow him to do it came all of a sudden it started when he was anointed with the holy spirit and i said lord that's what i need that's what i need in my life the anointing the supernatural power of the holy spirit so that i can speak god's word prophetically so i can speak god's word almost without effort by the way jesus spoke it comes through the anointing of the holy spirit but then the lord showed me something else there which i never read anywhere else god opened my eyes to see says it where the lord was asking me when did jesus get this power it's when he allowed john the baptist to immerse him in the water bury him completely and lift him up that's when the power of god came upon him and i understood as i meditated on it that jesus symbolically was accepting death to his own self i'm willing to die to my will you know he prayed in gethsemane not my will but thine be done he was willing to die to his will in fact in john 6 38 it says i came from heaven never to do my own will but to do the will of my father so in the river he was symbol symbolically accepting death to his own will allowing other people to push him down allowing other people to humiliate him hurt him kill him put him right down believing that the father would raise him up that's the meaning of baptism and that's why babies baptism does not picture that you sprinkle some water on a head that's not baptism jesus was saying i accept death to myself and the father will raise me up and there from that as i meditated on it the lord showed to me are you seeking for the power of the holy spirit well here's the secret you have to be willing to be pushed down you allow let me allow people to push you down like john the baptist pushed jesus down and jesus didn't resist it and you don't resist it when people speak evil of you when people accuse you falsely when people push you down in one way or the other just accept it believing the lord says that i will raise you up you know that the bible says that it was the father who raised up jesus from the dead nowhere in the bible does it say jesus raised himself jesus gave himself to go to the cross that he did he told the roman soldiers you come to take me i'm he i'm jesus take me but he never raised himself the father raised him from the dead he allowed john the baptist to put him down john the baptist raised him up so symbolically he was saying i will allow people to humiliate me hurt me kill me i know the father will raise me up there when he submitted himself like that the holy spirit came upon him and what the lord said to me from that passage was if you are willing to go that way of death to your self-life if you're willing to let people humiliate you hurt you accuse you falsely do all types of things and you you accept it without complaint and you keep your mouth shut and let people do all that you believing the lord says that i will raise you up you will have my power all the days of your life but the lord said the day you feel that you have graduated from that way and you don't have to walk that way of yours anymore my power will depart from you i have feared that i said lord i never want your power to depart from me i choose that way and i'll go that way all the days of my life and i can say before god even today i seek to choose that way of death to myself when people tell false stories about me or accuse me i keep my mouth shut they hurt me and the people have taken me to court i forgive them i leave them i do all types of things i've had some amazing experiences of being put to death as it were and i've accepted it and i've seen the result the father always raises me up the father gives me power you know this has been my experience you may or may not believe it when i get into a pulpit to preach today or any other day i say lord i really don't know what to say but there's no shortage of power there's no shortage of words that can bless people in heaven if you will let that flow through me i'm available but i have to die to myself i have to die to seeking my own honor i have to die to the desire to be known as a great preacher i have to die to every single thing that will exalt zach poonen zach poonen must be buried so that christ can be exalted that people are drawn not to zac poonen but drawn to jesus christ and i said lord that's what i want to do all my life and i want to say to you my brothers and sisters i've experienced that for more than 1963 which is what 57 years you can experience that if you are willing to let god bury you and your reputation and your name and your self-life and shut your mouth so that you never boast again about what you have done for god or what you imagine that you've done you know i'll tell you something that i've discovered i've read a lot of reports of christian work and i've learned a lot of reports about christian work in india and i live in india and i don't know what goes on there and i tell you a lot of it is a pack of lies a pack of lies christians telling lies boasting about what they have done and i've heard that so much that i see through all the hoaxes among christians who boast today i'm not fooled i'm not fooled when people tell me their stories out of graciousness i listen to them but i don't believe one single word i know the whole thing is a pack of lies because i don't see humility in that person christ-like people are always humble you never find jesus going around saying hey fellas do you know how many demons i cast out first do you know how many sick people are healed do you ever find jesus talking like that even the apostles didn't humility was the primary mark of christ and the primary mark of every one of god's servants so if you're willing to be buried let your name be unknown and give up your rights and allow other people to push you down i tell you something the father will raise you up you will experience resurrection power in your life and so in my you're not you may not be called to be a preacher i'm called to be a preacher and so in my particular case i need god's power to be enabled me to speak i'm not called to be a healer so i don't ask god for that but i'm called to be a teacher of god's word so i say lord you must give me light so that i can understand your word clearly and you must give me the ability to express that in a very simple way so that your people can understand the truth i can't do it i can't find the illustrations that will make that truth clear and simple to god's people but god has god's got infinite wisdom and if i'm willing to die to myself he'll give it to me provided i don't seek glory for myself and if i ever tend to exalt myself he'll give me a thought in the flesh to humble me because he loves me i know my lord loves me and he will not allow me to exalt myself because he wants to bless me and if you love the lord like that i tell you he may give you a thought in the flesh too to humble you if you are determined that christ alone should be exalted in my life that people should follow christ and not you i remember many years ago i read this lovely passage in luke in john chapter one i was reading it and i said oh boy what a lovely statement it's talking about two of the disciples of john the baptist john chapter 1 they saw jesus coming and john the baptist said there's the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world john 1 29 and again later on he that was 35 and 36 when jesus was standing there and two of john's disciples were watching him and john the baptist said there that's the lamb of god and listen to this this is the worst verse i had in mind it's a beautiful verse a simply fantastic verse john 1 37 they heard him speak they followed jesus they didn't follow john the baptist they heard him speak and they followed jesus and i said lord i want that to be written on my tombstone when i die they heard him speak and they didn't follow him they followed jesus do you want that you want people to follow you or do you want people to hear you speak and follow jesus what's your goal in life so many christians they want people to admire them and that's why they keep boasting i did this and i did that and i went here i went there i met this person and i met that person and i went to this country and i've gone to so many countries that's exalting yourself that's the mark of satan who exalted himself always trying to show off himself jesus never never did that never follow such a man usually such a man's telling a pack of lies don't believe it i can see through i've had enough experience in christian life and ministry to see through the hoaxes the multitudes of hoaxes there are in christendom today can't fool me they may be able to fool you they can't fool me they heard him speak and they followed jesus and that's the way god wants us to be but he has to break us first that's the lesson i learned there that jesus is going through the water now when you look at the old testament there are many examples of this let me just mention a couple of them there was a man called jacob a twin brother of esau they were both born as children of isaac grandchildren of abraham and god said i am going to accomplish my purpose through jacob and he changed his name to israel and the entire nation of israel came through that one man jacob but in order to do that god had to do a work in jacob because jacob was a crook he was a very shrewd person i mean imagine he was a twin and he came out grabbing his brother's leg i've never heard of any twin coming out like that it's almost as though hey he saw get back i want to go first that's what he was and he didn't manage to go first he saw beat him to it but he grabbed his leg and when they if the parents saw jacob coming out like that they named him grabber that's jacob means grabber and all his life he was called grabber grab a grabber later on he grabbed the birthright also from esau by cheating him and later on you read he went to his father-in-law's house and he wanted to grab his pretty daughter but the father-in-law was smarter than him and gave him his elder daughter first and you know have you ever thought of that how in the world he married the elder daughters a very interesting story how leibn succeeded in giving jacob who could see rachel very well she knew what rachel looked like how in the world did he marry leah at the wedding you read it it's a very interesting story levan was a bigger crook than jacob you know sometimes god makes you meet your match with someone who's more crooked than you and that's what happened to jacob because you know the wedding feast is after the wedding but in that particular wedding lebanon said let's have the feast before the wedding because he wanted to get jacob drunk so that he wouldn't know who he's marrying so they had the feast before the wedding he was very shrewd and jacob was completely drunk and levant says give me your hand in his eye and his blind his eyes are closed and he puts his hand he doesn't know into whose hand he puts his hand and it was leah he didn't know that because he was drunk the next morning he wakes up in bed and says hey who's this this is not rachel and he he met his match in his father-in-law god broke him there he wanted rachel you got leah now you he said but i still want rachel oh god you've got to marry you've got to work another seven years and get her and god broke him broke him broke him finally we read in genesis chapter 32. there's a symbolic struggle there god coming down and wrestling with jacob he was trying to teach him you know jacob this is what i've been trying to do all through your life i've been trying to break you but you don't break so now i'm going to do something to you he broke his hip socket he was a young man you know compared to people lived up to 180 years those days so jacob was a young man he was a young man of 60. he broke his hip socket and from that day onwards jacob had to walk with a cane can you imagine a 25 year old young man walking with a cane it's pretty humbling jacob was humbled that day for the rest of his life he walked with a cane and it's a very interesting thing you read in the book of hebrews chapter 11. it's a very very interesting hebrews 11 where it says moses split the red sea abraham got a miraculous child at the age of 100. joshua pulled on the walls of jericho samson shut the mouths of lions daniel shut the mouths of lions and in the midst of all these fantastic miracles it is written jacob leaned upon his staff see what sort of miracle is that that is the greatest miracle of all god succeeded in breaking that proud man and teaching him lean upon me all your life that stuff was a picture of jacob having to lean upon god but that happened only when he was broken he had to be broken for the power of god to come upon his life go to moses the bible says the moses at the age of 40 was a very strong man with one blow he killed an egyptian there are very few people who can kill a person with one blow he was so strong he hit an egyptian who were pretty song strong people themselves one shot and the guy was dead and it also says in acts chapter 7 that moses was very very eloquent he was powerful handsome eloquent going to be the next pharaoh and god said i want to use this man to lead my people but he's not going to lead my people and the way pharaoh leads egypt altogether different way and so this great prince of egypt god takes him for 40 years to live in the wilderness looking after sheep and that's not all he married a girl and he had to live with that girl's father for those 40 years it's pretty humbling to live with your father-in-law even for one year can you imagine living with your father-in-law for 40 years have any of you lived with your father-in-law any of you men well if you haven't you'll tell you it's not a very enjoyable experience but moses 40 years living with the father-in-law this great prince of egypt god humbled him humbled him humbled him so much that one day when at the age of 80 when god came to him in the burning bush and said i want to use you moses said no not me lord i'm useless is this the great prince of egypt he says lord i can't even speak this man was fluent at the age of 40. god had broken him he said moses now i can use you till now you are a big man you're a very important man same lesson paul's thought in the flesh or jacob's hip socket being broken moses being broken so that he lost all his self-confidence self-confidence is a great thing when you're doing some work in the world or you're doing some business in the world or you want to accomplish something in society in the world but it's the last thing you need when you come into god's kingdom he has to shatter that self-confidence so your confidence is only in god thereafter is to reduce you to zero so that he can accomplish his purpose through you and that's what he did with moses and see what happened see the result before he was broken with one blow he killed an egyptian if he had gone on like that how long would he have taken to kill all the egyptians but at the red sea this broken moses all that he did was lift up his rod and the entire egyptian army was killed under the red sea what is the lesson god can accomplish much more through a broken man than a man who shows off how much he can do for god are you one of those people who are trying to show off how much you can do for god you are moses at the age of 40. god will never use you to accomplish his purposes until he's broken you and brought you down to zero i'll tell you that paul he had to get a thorn in the flesh and be brought down to zero that's how it has been with all of god's great men so that all the glory will be his so the man doesn't get the glory the tragedy and christendom today is there are so many preachers and servants of god as they call themselves who you think of this great servant of god and what he what he does it's like i heard the story of a man who went to listen to two preachers and i after listening to one preacher he said boy what a wonderful preacher and he listened to the other preacher and he said what a wonderful savior jesus is who was the better preacher tell me was it the one who got an admiration saying what a wonderful preacher or was it the other person who when you heard him the person who listened forgot about the preacher and said wow what a wonderful savior jesus is what type of preacher do you want to be tell me honestly do you want to preach in some such a way that people admire you or they ignore you and follow jesus christ for that you have to be broken there are very very few preachers like that in the world and i've heard a lot of them on the internet and i've heard a lot of them in the 60 years of my life some of the greatest men of god are the people who have god has broken them in some way brought them down to zero and christ is exalted in their life they have to be broken you know there's in do you know the last miracle that jesus did do you remember it the last miracle that jesus did it's after his resurrection it was the catch of fish that peter and his friends had and that was the greatest lesson that jesus wanted to teach them always the lesson in all the miracles was this you have to come to zero then i will do my work the first miracle was the wedding in cana when did jesus turn the water into wine until if there was only one glass of wine left he said no not yet there's still one glass of wine left i'm not going to do anything when the last glass of wine was over and they had come to zero the lord says now i can act and he gave them more wine than they ever had before and better wine than they ever had before what's the lesson there come down to zero have you read the story of uh mary and martha and john levin sent a message to jesus saying lazarus the one whom you love is sick what do you do when you hear somebody you love is sick you drop everything and run you know what it says in john 11 jesus heard that lazarus was sick and he stayed there for a few more days in the same place he was waiting for lazarus to die and when lazarus died he went and raised him up what is the lesson there as long as lazarus is still struggling to live he can still lift his hand at least lift a little finger i won't go let him come down to zero then i will do a work i'll raise him up that's the lesson there what about the feeding of the five thousand lord there is no bread okay then i'll do a miracle if everybody had brought their lunch packets that day there'd be no miracle every uh miracle that jesus did was a parable in a sense when you come to zero i'll do my work there's a lee leader of the synagogue called jairus his daughter is sick and he goes to jesus saying my daughter is sick and jesus i think walks a little more slowly so that by the time he reaches jairus's home the daughter is dead oh he says now i can now i can do something because now that now it's come to zero as long as he was sick the daughter was not at zero so the same thing in the miracle of the feeding of the of the filling of the boat with fish they went out at six o'clock in the evening to catch fish all the disciples and jesus knew right then to the resurrected christ he knew they would get nothing that night why didn't he go and tell them because they had not come to an end of themselves let me repeat that they had not come to an end of themselves like many of you have not come to an end of yourselves you still think you're pretty smart you still think you can accomplish something for god you still think and you can do this that and the other for god let me tell you god will never use you you can do things to impress people who don't know the lord but you can never impress a man of god he sees through all that they had not come to an end of themselves so seven o'clock eight o'clock nine o'clock no fish and peter the great expert fisherman's wondering why the fish are not coming into my net [Music] it's almost as though god commanded the fish don't ever go into peter's net go to all the other nets and peter's net is empty nine o'clock ten o'clock eleven o'clock twelve o'clock one o'clock two o'clock three o'clock four o'clock no fish and maybe peter said okay one last time still no fish okay fellas i give up i'm going home then the lord comes when does he come when will he come in your life when they had come to an end of themselves when they had come to the end of all their mighty efforts to catch fish he did not come earlier he did not come to moses when he was still a little strong he came to moses when moses came to a zero he did not come to jacob and turn him into an israel when jacob was still strong capable of grabbing he comes when you come to an end of yourself and when they had come to an end of yourself jesus comes on the shore who said jesus did not have a sense of humor he asked the fellas hey fellas have you caught some fish by the way he knows the answer okay you come to zero now cast your net on the right side and it says they caught so much fish that they could not even their boat was about to sink it's amazing what god can do when he has succeeded in reducing you to zero confidence in your own ability to catch fish or to serve the lord or to do anything it's the same old story throughout scripture paul is in danger of exalting himself i have to bring him down to zero some time ago i illustrated this in my home church and i'll tell you what i did i called seven or eight young men said i want you to come here one by one and i said okay let me introduce you to the cleverest man in the world this person and i told him to hold a big zero in front of him you know what he is in god's eyes zero cleverest man in the world okay next now this is a great athlete the one who wins the decathlon and every other competition the triathlon and everything else he stands with a zero excellent in sports and i said here's a good looking fellow the most handsome person in the world zero and here's the great famous preacher or politician zero everyone zero zero zero zero i said do you know that all these people have no value before god all your earthly abilities have no value before god i said now i'll show you something jesus is a one so i called one one of those persons to a corner and said what's he now is zero and i put this one in front of him what's he now 10 he's got value now the only thing that's given him value is that christ has come first in his life you take away that he's a zero again and if he can have fellowship with another brother i said to the other brother you come there now it didn't become eleven what did it become one hundred one plus two zeros i said another you want to fellowship with another brother get another brother who's a zero there one thousand i said this is the way god works when you come to a zero and let jesus be the one in your life your value increases amazingly and if you can get a few more zeros in your church or willing to be nothing you'll have a fantastic church with christ alone exalted and none of the others exalted the tragedy in christendom today is very difficult to find christians who don't want to be exalted they want to be reported about they want to be known they want themselves to be advertised they want everybody to know and god says you're all zeros and you'll remain zeroes to the end of your life god is very jealous for his son he's very jealous for his son jesus christ he will not let anybody touch that glory that belongs to jesus christ and many many christians are touching the glory that should belong only to christ they're taking the credit to themselves they're trying to exalt themselves and god says i push you down i push you down you may impress undiscerning christians but you won't impress a discerning christian will see through your hollowness i've seen many like that not one i've seen many people in many countries who try to impress me i see through them like i see through glass empty hollow good for nothing in god's eyes but they think they're very important because most christians are not discerning and so they can fool them my dear brothers and sisters let me ask you in conclusion one simple question do you want to impress men or do you want to impress god very simple question do you want to come to the end of your life with a big record of things that you could accomplish and you impressed these people and that people the other people or do you want to hear jesus in the final day call you forth and say people despised you on earth they didn't think much of you you hid all your activities from men come here let me reward you well done good and faithful servant that's what i want to hear i remember when i started my ministry and in those days you know we used to have these old cameras you remember the old cameras where you put a reel inside and you buy a reel and put it inside and wind it and take picture after picture and then those were called negatives where all those pictures came into that it's not like these modern cameras not digital and then when you come to the end of the reel you wind the whole thing back and make sure it doesn't get exposed to the light those of you remember the old cameras you remember that and then you take it out and give it to they develop in a dark room and they print the pictures in the negative this is how print photos were printed um your children never knew about all that that's how we did pictures in those days now it's also easy anyway what the lord said to me was you know what happens to that negative before it is taken into the dark room and developed into printed photos if you take it out and expose it the whole thing disappears the negatives become blank then when you print it there's nothing in it it's true i'm not telling your story absolute truth so we had to be very careful that these negatives never got exposed to light and what the lord told me from that was all the work that you do for me if you expose it to other people it will become blank immediately like those negatives and in the final day when i unroll the negatives it'll be shown that you did zero so hide it put it in the dark keep it hidden one day i will develop it and show the whole world what i did through you not what you did but what i did through you and that's not because i'm a full-time worker every one of you my brothers and sisters if you're born again and christ is lord in your life you may be a secular secular work that's fine god wants to do a work through you that will last forever you don't have to be a preacher you don't don't need not to be a man you can be a woman god wants to do a work through you that will last forever for all eternity but you have to make sure that you don't do it for the honor of men that you don't expose your work today you allow god to humble you and break you take away your human strength so that he can manifest the supernatural power of his holy spirit through you and accomplish a work that will last for all eternity that's how he did it with paul that's how he did it with moses that's how he did it with jacob and that's the last miracle that's what he taught peter the expert fisherman your expert fisherman work is no use for me i have to teach you to that you cannot even fish depend on me without me you can do zero that is the greatest lesson you know in our church building in bangalore we have two verses behind the pulpit on one side it says without christ i can do nothing that's john 15 5. the other side we have philippians 4 13 with christ i can do everything that's the secret of the christian life without christ i can do nothing with christ i can do everything as i told you when i get into a pulpit to preach i say lord i don't know what to say i don't know the needs of all these people most of them i don't even know how in the world can i meet their need i can't do it but i'm willing to be like the branch that stays in the tree and the sap flows into the branch and the fruit keeps coming out and you ask the branch how in the world did you produce these lovely mangoes or apples the branches i did nothing by myself i can't even produce one apple or mango i just stayed in the tree i got rid of all the blockages that prevent the sap the power of the holy spirit from flowing into me and lo and behold fruit came out i don't know how go and ask the lord how he did it it's not me that is true christian ministry and service and that is what god let me let me repeat this that's what god can do through every one of you not just full-time workers maybe you messed up your past life it doesn't matter god jesus came for messed up people he used a samaritan woman who was divorced five times read that in john 4 and was now sleeping with a man who's not even her husband would you ever think of using such a woman to do god's work jesus used her five times divorced sleeping with a man who's not her husband and jesus said go and tell people about me and she became an evangelist in samaria all the people in the town listened to this woman and came to hear jesus it's amazing the type of people whom the lord uses to do his work isn't it she had messed up her life there was nothing she could boast about i'm sure everybody in samaria despised her but that's the one god uses let's learn some lessons from these stories in the gospels it's bow our heads in prayer dear brothers and sisters don't let this be just a message that stirred you temporarily and you go home and you forget about it i pray that you will learn a lesson a permanent lesson for the rest of your life from what you heard tonight say lord i want to disappear so that christ will be exalted in my life i don't want anyone to know what i do [Music] i want it all to be hidden i want christ alone to be exalted i'm sorry that all these years lord i've touched your glory i committed that terrible sin of taking glory to myself what a sin it is i touched your glory forgive me lord please forgive me i never want to touch your glory again i never want to boast about what i have done i want to die that let christ alone be exalted in my life and let me be forgotten let me be unknown let christ be exalted that's what i want lord i may never be a great preacher lord but i want to serve you in my own little way maybe you're a sister with mother with children say lord i've got responsibilities at home i've got children can you use me and the lord say yes i can use you if you humble yourself and be willing to be a zero i can use even you if i could use a five times divorced samaritan woman why can't i use you trust him trust him ask him to humble you to hide you behind the cross so that only christ is seen and not you it'll be you'll be amazed to see at the end of your life how much god was able to accomplish through you never touch the glory of god never seek glory for yourself heavenly father i pray for all these dear brothers and sisters who are here i pray that they will learn something today that will change the whole direction of their life please lord help them to know what it means to to die and be buried so that christ can be exalted the power of his resurrection will be manifest in their life we pray that it will be true for every one of us we humbly ask in the name of jesus christ our lord amen

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Length: 74min 5sec (4445 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021