Humility - The Mark Of Growth by Zac Poonen

how do we assess whether we have grown spiritually or whether we are growing individually and as a church as I see it mm-hmm even in the Old Covenant they never understood it see the Old Covenant had these prophets who represented God and mostly they were fiery men like Elijah and John the Baptist but in the New Covenant it's so different Jesus was so different from John the Baptist the greatest Old Testament prophet and Jesus manifested his greatness not in a fiery way like he could be fiery sometimes he was when he called the Pharisees you know a generation of vipers or he made a whip chased the money changers out he could do that but that was to me a very small part of his ministry but the main thing I see in Jesus life is humility right from birth to death see even the fact that he I don't know how much ancestral lines are important in the United States but in the part of India where I come from people are very proud of their ancestral lines you know which where we come from who are our ancestors and I think here too a lot of people who boast about our ancestry and it's always it's challenged me that the one person who was born on earth who could choose his ancestry was Jesus Christ none of us chose it we were just born into a family and discovered or ancestors were but Jesus from heaven before he came to her chose a particular line and I never get tired of mentioning this you've probably heard me say it before but I don't mind repeating it but in the very first chapter of Matthew when you read the ancestral line of Jesus and the Jews had the habit of mentioning only men's names from the Jews are a very male-dominated society and if they made a genealogy they would an ancestry they would only put men's names but in this list of men's names in matthew chapter one you read the name of four women and I was once meditating on that and I saw some amazing things so I just want to mention it to you the name of the first woman was mad tomorrow Matthew 1 verse 3 this is the ancestral line of Jesus to Judah was born Paris by Tamar and the interesting thing is that Tamar was Judas daughter-in-law it was incest through which Paris was born I can imagine Jesus saying I want to come through that line would you choose such a line I'm with you and if your biography was being written would you like the very first page the very first paragraph to show that one of your ancestors was born through insist even if it was true you wouldn't want to mention it the things like this I see in the Gospels if you look carefully which shows Jesus whole attitude was so different from ours there's a verse that's been a very important verse for me that's helped me in my life and in my ministry and I want to turn to that briefly before coming back to Matthew 1 if you're not familiar with it it is Matthew 16 and verse 15 in the last part of it says that which is highly esteemed by men is an abomination before God that means God doesn't care for that which man esteems very highly man esteems intelligence well many things like this very highly an ancestry and God doesn't care for it at all and that's one of the things I see right at the beginning of the way Jesus ancestry is described one was Tamar I told you born out of incest the second main mentioned here is the women woman mentioned here is Rahab in Matthew 1:5 Rahab was the most well known prostitute in the town of Jericho he was not even an Israelite and she married one of the Israelis through whom Jesus came that's another thing I mean if in our ancestry there was a prostitute we certainly wouldn't want that to be mentioned right on page one and the third woman mentioned here is Ruth Ruth was from the tribe of Moab and Moab was born out of incest when lot committed incest with his own daughter that's how she Moab was born and from Moab came Ruth and the fourth woman mentioned here is Bathsheba who you know was committed adultery with David and David murdered his her husband and married her so these are the only four women mentioned in this chapter I don't know whether you see it as clearly as I do that you know Jesus wanted to show from the beginning that he did not come for the righteous he came for sinners and I find Christians like to show themselves as righteous and I associate only with righteous people Jesus was known as the friend of sinners and if we are like Jesus we will be the friend of sinners we will not be sinners ourselves no Jesus was the purest person that walked on the earth fellowship with sinners could not defile him even slightly his absolutely pure but he was the friend of the despised and the outcasts of society and he wanted to win them he wanted people to feel that there was nobody so low that they could not be saved and that's why the Holy Spirit has put this ancestry of Christ there and it's really humbling and any of us who glory in our ancestry or how holy our Father was or mother or grandfather or some bigshot in our ancestry you got to read Matthew chapter 1 once again and ask yourself whether you're really following this Jesus or some imaginary Jesus who was a big shot in the world he wasn't and remember this is Almighty God coming to earth is a man and it gives us an understanding of what purity really is purity has got nothing to do with your grandmother being a prostitute or not it's got nothing to do with it or whether your great-grandfather was born out of incest it's got nothing to do with that purity is something personal and if I'm known as having been born in a bad line that shouldn't bother me at all you couldn't choose a worse ancestral line that Jesus chose we need to understand and see the real Jesus hmm and the other thing I see is that he was born in a cowshed I have never in my life heard of anybody born in a cowshed not even the poorest I've got a lot of poor people in India but I've never heard you have any the poorest of the poor being born in a cop with the cows in the donkeys and they'd find some cleaner place in a they're poor and I asked myself why did Jesus choose to be born like that I mean his ancestral line was like this and he was born in a cowshed again it was so that nobody on earth would feel inferior to him he was the lowest the world is full of people who want to show in some way that we are smarter cleverer and Christian churches holier than others and Jesus was the exact opposite of that the exact opposite so how shall we assess whether we have grown in these five years we have to ask ourselves whether view grown in the humility of Jesus Christ I'm not talking about changing our ancestry we can't do that but is that spirit that you see in Christ which did not want to have anything that the world glories in that he would glory in and that's the thing we can ask ourselves you know many of us are accomplished capable we have achieved things in our life it's okay but if those things have made us feel that were somebody we haven't really grown spiritually you haven't seen Jesus clearly I got converted 57 years ago and one of the things God showed me right from the beginning was that the most important thing in life was to see Jesus more clearly you know there's a place in John's Gospel chapter 12 where it says towards the end of Jesus life and ministry it says in verse 20 that there were some Greeks who were who had come to worship at the feast John 12 verse 20 and they came to Philip and said we want to see Jesus now the Greeks were the great philosophers and highly educated people of that time in fact Greek was Greece was Greek was a common language which even the Romans used that's why the New Testament was written in Greek even the Rome was the great ruler of the world at that time Greek was still the language so the Greeks were very important people and they came to see Jesus and I don't find Jesus how many in great eagerness to go and meet them all the Greeks have come to see me is it nothing of that he didn't bother him one bit didn't didn't interest him and it's very interesting when the Philip came to tell Jesus of the Greeks had come he told him you know you got to fall into the ground and die what a word to give to the Greeks who come to see you John 12 verse 24 if you fall into the ground and die he that be fruit in your life otherwise you won't have any fruit in your life all the things that are big and great in the eyes of the world are just a lot of rubbish in God's eyes the great thing is to fall into the ground and die to all of that and then from that broken seed that's lost its beauty and who will come forth fruit that lasts that's a principle of a Christian life that Jesus was speaking there in John 12:24 and I'm thankful that pretty early in my life I discovered one thing that the greatest thing that I could do for Jesus Christ on earth to show my gratitude to him for dying for me on the cross was not to travel the world and preach the gospel that's you know there's something attractive about that something which we like to do I discovered that the greatest thing I can do for Christ on earth is to fall into the ground and die to myself to my reputation to my name to my own will to my own choice that is the greatest thing I can ever do because that's the way he went he came to this earth and he died and he told us that if you really want fruit that lasts for eternity you have to have another type of vision than what most people in the world have and quite another type of vision from what most Christians have this is a way that many people won't understand that Jesus called it a narrow way that leads to life and he said very few would find it is the way of brokenness and humility going down down down down and we have helplessness see when you read the Gospels like that okay we came to Matthew chapter 1 when you go to the next chapter if you see Herod the king he's a great man at that time hearing that as a baby born in Bethlehem was going to be the king of the Jews and he feels threatened hey who's this is going to take my throne and so he orders the soldiers to go and kill every child that's under a certain age so that Jesus would be eliminated remember now this is this is Almighty God and he hi what's the problem for God to eliminate Herod not at all but that's not the way he chooses to protect Jesus I would have chosen that way finish that king I was trying to kill my son that's not the way God chose you see something of Jesus as a helpless baby at the mercy of authorities in the world who threaten you you know a lot of Christians face we're gonna face that later on in centuries and even now many Christians face authorities in the world who think they have so much power to harm you so what how does God protect Jesus he's a helpless baby and the way God protects him is by telling Joseph and Mary to take him at night and flee to Egypt it's a picture of helplessness here's a merciless ruler coming to kill me and I'm pretty helpless so my dad and mom have to take me off to another country to protect me you see this is how the Gospels begin we need to see the real Jesus the example we have to follow so often we wonder why God doesn't intervene and behalf of Christians who are being persecuted or troubled and I see God's way is so different there's a great verse if you don't know it it's an Isaiah 55 verse 8 and 9 which says God says my ways are not your ways my thoughts are not your thoughts in other words my way of doing things then not at all the way human beings do things in fact the difference is so great he says there it's a difference between heaven and earth and that something is I've grown in the Christian life I've discovered that God's ways are completely different from man's ways the way God assesses things and assesses people they're very different from the way we do and our understanding of even Christian growth is very different from what God would think about it so if you really want to know what God thinks about you you have to allow your mind to be renewed to think like God thinks and that's not something that happens overnight it'll never happen if you don't read the Bible if you don't value God's Word if you don't study it and meditate on it and allow the Holy Spirit to give you revelation on God's Way of thinking he'll never understand God's Way of thinking and we can live all our earthly life thinking like other human beings think or thinking like other Christians think which is also not very often the way God thinks because most Christians haven't understood God's Way so one of the things which I decided and I'm thankful I decided for the early in life was to study Scriptures so thoroughly and to align my mind in line with the way God thinks so when I read the scriptures I don't read the scriptures to get a sermon no some people do that it's okay there are times when I did it in my younger days what Paul says when I grown up I put away childish things it's a childish thing to read the Bible to prepare a sermon it's okay when you're a child but as you grow up you say that's not God's highest purpose and giving us the scriptures I I want to see the heart of God when I read the scriptures and the more I read it the more I understand God's heart and the way God thinks and I found it's so different from the way we think that's why the Bible says we must allow our mind to be renewed you know so often we want to know God's will in a particular situation as some of us are very sincere about one thing to know God's will whom shall I marry what job shall I take where shall I go where shall I live where shall I settle down and most of the time most people in the world even most Christians have made these choices based on what they feel is right I think this is good for me and I choose it but Romans 12 verse 2 says if I want to know the will of God for my life whether it's an big thing or a small thing I have to allow my mind to be renewed from being conformed to this world that's what it says in Romans 12:2 don't be conformed to this world in your way of thinking but allow God to renew your mind so that you may know his perfect will so I can't really know his will without allowing my mind to be renewed in the Old Testament it was different we need to understand that something fundamentally changed when Christ came to the world and established a new covenant I find most Christians they still think in Old Covenant terms they don't understand fellowship they like to hear someone who's like a big profit getting up and speaking and that's why you have these mega churches where they like to hear one man speaking they don't know what it is to have a body ministry where the church is like a human body where Christ alone is the head and every member is important and every members got something to contribute and no one is greater than the other I mean the very fact that Christians take Christian leaders take titles like Reverend and write Reverend and faster an apostle and Pope or something that shows you not understood God's Way at all these are all titles which you know compete with Jesus who supposed to be the only one who have a title in the body the head of the body but people haven't seen that to be an ordinary brother to the end of our life that's the greatest thing so this is just one example where where our mind is renewed to think the way God thinks take the Ministry of the Holy Spirit for example it's such a lot of confusion in Christendom today concerning the ministry of the holy spirit but all of that will disappear if I see one thing that the the perfect spirit filled man was Jesus Christ he was the most spirit filled man that lived on this earth and if I want to know what fullness of the Spirit is I got to just look at the life of Jesus you don't have to feel inferior because you didn't speak in tongues Jesus never spoken tongues it's a good gift and God gives it to some but you don't have to feel inferior if you don't have it because Jesus didn't have it he never did speak in tongues in his entire life it's people who feel inferior and who want to assert themselves who try to want to show up some gift I have when our mind is renewed and the God has given us his word in the example of Jesus we as we begin to think more like him we understand what true spiritual growth is and we discovered that it's a growth in humility it's a growth in becoming a weaker rather than stronger which is so different from the world's understanding you read about the mighty Apostle Paul there was nobody in the first century when God used more than Paul and when God decided to use a man he was not a man of very impressive personality the Bible doesn't give us details of his physical appearance but there are historical records that tell us that Paul was about four feet 11 inches tall I mean you know the Lord this might quite a bit for all of us standing here and he was bald and he had a hook nose and he wasn't a very impressive personality because God didn't want someone who looked like a film star to be his apostle that's not God's Way we admire preachers who look like film stars we think they add to the dignity of the Christian message a lot of rubbish Paul wouldn't have qualified it just shows how we haven't learned to think like God thinks and not only his appearance when God was so eager to continue to use Paul till the end of his life he never wanted you know so many Christians start out so well and by the end of their life they're falling away or lost their effectiveness as they've grown older in the Lord and being more used they become proud and lose their effectiveness God didn't want that it happened to Paul and it could have happened because when a man is used like the Apostle Paul is used you know he raised people from the dead he'd heal sick I mean even his handkerchiefs if it touched a sick man the sick sick man would be healed and demons would be cast out because Paul's handkerchief was thrown on him that was the power of that man he wrote Scripture he planted churches he traveled tirelessly and he was once caught up to the third heaven into the immediate presence of God and moved around there with the Angels and came back boy if that isn't enough to puff a man up and the interesting thing is you know he never told anybody about what he saw there or he heard there if you go to a Google search on the people who say they've gone to heaven it's quite a huge number of people who claim the I don't believe one of them have gone but the thousands was claimed to have gone I mean they've got a fertile imagination I'm not telling you they gotta tell lies I don't want to say that but I got a very fertile imagination they imagine that their dreams were real you know sometimes we've also had dreams where we really thought we were somewhere else they thought they were in heaven it's a lot of rubbish she's the mark of a man who's really gone to heaven and come back as he doesn't talk about it I see that in the Apostle Paul he wouldn't he says 14 years he never even mentioned that he went there you read that in 2nd Corinthians 12 and he says I was not permitted to speak in what I heard there 2nd Corinthians 12 for a man is not permitted to speak what he saw in heaven that's the mark of a man you enter that by that one sentence you can disqualify all these people in Christendom today will say they went up there and they come and report what they saw just a lot of rubbish if you read the scriptures he won't be deceived by all these people I'm just trying to protect you from deception so when a man had this type of experience it's so important it he's so easily get puffed up and there's a law of God that doesn't change whether it's Paul or anybody else that God opposes proud people God always supports the humble but he opposes the proud and that means God gets behind the humble man and keeps on pushing him forward endlessly endlessly that spiritual growth when God gets behind you and keeps pushing you forward and the Bible says God gives us grace to the humble but he opposes the proud that means the moment a person get becomes proud of anything it could be his looks it could be his intelligence it could be his spirituality it could be his Bible knowledge it could be his experience it could be his ministry it could be anything under the Sun the moment he gets a little puffed up about it God comes in front of him and pushes him back I mean the devil is always already pushing us back and many other things pushing us back in Magon of Almighty God also joined them and started pushing us like is that learning no hope for us that's the reason why many Christians don't grow I've seen Christians who have sat even in our own churches for many many years who have heard the same truths from me that many others have heard and I don't see them growing at all I see them I mean they increased in knowledge they can explain things because they've heard so many great truths in our church but I can see they haven't grown they have not grown which means God's been pushing them back see God's either pushing us forward or pushing us back if you're a Christian there are only two possibilities either is God's pushing you forward consistently or is pushing you back there's no such thing as standing still in the Christian life I've discovered that from these 57 years there is no such thing and standing still in the Christian life she right there going forward or going back so you're not moving forward whether you know it or not you're moving back and there's only one reason why God turns around and pushes a man back and that's right and so God never wanted to do that to fall and the only way he found to keep Paul humble was by giving him a sickness which father would like to give sickness to his child I don't think any father in the world would ever want to give his Chuck a child sickness God would give his children father would give his children healing jesus said if earthly fathers know how to give good things to that children how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him what I learned from that verse is that the best father in the world is evil compared to God the best father in the world is evil compared to God he may be very good compared to other earthly fathers but compared to God's goodness he's evil it's like saying the brightest star at night disappears when the Sun comes I mean it's still there but you don't see it the brightest star because the sun's brightness just blots it out so that's what I see that the goodness of God is so great then the best father on earth disappears as evil and such a good God gave a sickness to his greatest servant the Apostle Paul Paul called it a thorn in his flesh it's in the same chapter 2nd Corinthians 12 and he says the reason as well he says to keep me from exalting myself God gave me a thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan to buff at me it wasn't a good thing humanly speaking I mean if something is a messenger of Satan we would assume that oh definitely in the name of Jesus we just rebuke it and cast it out and God would remove it if something came into your life from Satan wouldn't you be absolutely certain that God would remove it well here is a messenger of Satan that Harris Baal and God didn't remove it you got to understand God's ways you see we can have a a fixed teaching anything of Satan God will remove it wait I didn't remove it here which teaches us that we haven't understood God's ways God allows Satan to exist because he's fulfilling a purpose through him he certainly fulfilled a purpose in Paul's life through Satan a messenger of Satan to buff at him again twice in that sentence he says this phrase to keep me from exalting myself to keep me from exalting myself 2nd Corinthians 12:7 have you understood the importance of God doing something in your life to keep you from exalting yourself if you have you understood something of God's face because that is God's Way of being able to support you continuously keep pushing you forward and never getting the other side and pushing you back because that's a law of God it's like the law of gravity you know and the law of gravity just keeps pulling you down all the time if you go up to the roof and jump down the log gravity doesn't first check up is this a wholehearted Christian or not it makes no difference whether you're the most part of the person on earth or a whole lot of Christian the law of gravity operates in the same way so law of God is like that I'm opposed to the proud and God doesn't have to check up is this a wholehearted Christian who is getting proud or an unbeliever getting proud doesn't make a difference it's like the law of gravity he does not have to check up whether the person jumping off the roof is a whole rounded Christian or unbeliever it pulls down everything and God is opposed to the proud it does matter who he is doesn't matter if he's the most useful servant of God on earth where are you and I then you think God won't oppose you I tell you he will and it doesn't matter which church you belong to and it doesn't matter how much God's used you in the past if the Apostle Paul I mean when I see the way that guy lived I feel like a pygmy compared to him and that man was in danger of exalting himself that was a grace to recognize that most of us don't even recognize it so we were talking about spiritual growth how do we know what they give grown spiritually as a church as individuals if you've got light that God does things to keep us from exalting ourselves and in this case it was a sickness and he prayed for naturally you know he says God's a loving father something which looks evil to me from a human standpoint I said Lord remove it that's we always do that every time you're sick I believe we should pray for healing absolutely right any sickness I've always prayed for anything whenever I'm sick and fall prayed for healing but he didn't get it he prayed again prayed again and finally got a word from God I'm not gonna heal you because I want to give you my grace and God gives us grace only to the humble so he says I want to give you my grace and I that'll be more than enough for you but in order for you to get my grace I have to keep you humble and this sickness will keep you humble and then he says my power is perfected 2nd Corinthians 12 in weakness so the there are very few Christians who understand the importance of being weak weakness is not something that most Christians would glory in most Christians glory in accomplishment and power and manifestations of power the fall is so different he had understood God's ways and in chapter 13 he says Christ verse 4 Christ was crucified because of weakness who wasn't it weakness that Almighty God could not protect his son from Roman soldiers capturing him nailing him and it's like a helpless criminal Jesus is crucified and Almighty God appear apparently couldn't do anything all these men getting in Jesus and killing him what it says here he was crucified because of weakness you know he what he said in the Garden of Gethsemane when Peter his loyal disciple took out the sword to fight for Christ to protect him from the Roman soldiers coming to capture him and swiped and I think he was aiming for Judas Iscariot's head he was a fisherman it he missed any chopped off somebody's year and and Jesus immediately picked up that here and healed that soldier who came to capture him just by the way I have a feeling that soldier got converted I mean I cannot imagine the soldiers year being cut off when you come to capture Jesus and Jesus picking up that year and putting it back and that man not being transformed I mean if I I put myself in that place Nisan boy who is this guy I've come to capture and kill and he heals me this thing must be genuine and and you know so I believe I'll see that Roman soldier in heaven and I think in heaven you know will he had to thank Peter thank you for swiping and cutting my ear I got saved man because of that it's amazing how God's ways are these little little things excite me when I read the scriptures you know the Holy Spirit shows us what's written between the lines do you ever read what's written between the lines and Scripture little things the Holy Spirit shows you that the wonderful way God works which is so different from our human ways you can watch the soul soldier by Peters mistake etc but what I see there is a helplessness and Jesus turn around and tell Peter you don't know how to do that Peter one word from me 10,000 angels will come nor whatever number six agents 72 thousand angels could come and protect me right now I'm not gonna call them and weak he made himself weak he would not call 72,000 angels to come and defend him because humility in a man here to fulfill God's will and he was he was crucified because of weakness yet he lives because of the power of God God raised him from the dead and Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 13 for we also are weak in him but we shall live by the power of God this is one of the great mysteries of the Christian life that God can manifest his power through us only in the measure in which we recognize our utter weakness through many years of preaching now I've been preaching for 53 years I first started preaching when I was 23 years old it wasn't my ability I was a very shy type of young man but God supernaturally anointed me gave me the gift of preaching and I was 23 and I've been preaching ever since but the in this 53 years experience doesn't give me any boldness when I get another pulpit I'll tell you honestly I feel very weak because it's not like in human situations where you're if you're very eloquent and you're already well-versed in a subject you can get up anywhere and talk on it so here in serving God we're not trying to explain a doctrine or explain a teaching we're trying to meet people's needs and how in the world can I meet the needs of so many people are so diverse needs if I think I'm clever and I'm capable I mean I can impress them with my Bible knowledge but there isn't solve that problem my aim is not to impress people with Bible knowledge my aim is to help them spiritually so they become more christ-like and I'm more drawn closer to God how in the world can I draw all if you closer to God by my impressing you with my eloquence that's stupidity and yet that's what many preachers try to do I hear many Christian preachers good preachers all you can get from them is wow what an eloquent man it doesn't help a lot of people to come closer to God so in order to speak and I want to say that to all of you who share God's Word even if it's for five minutes if you really want to speak effectively ask God to make you weak and give you a sense of your ignorance and your helplessness even if you have 53 years of experience like me then you cannot meet people's needs by your experience and your ability in your knowledge it's my weakness see that's man can't understand that it's my stumbling broken speech that God does his work not by great eloquence because if it is with great eloquence the man will get the credit and a true servant of God tries his best to hide himself so that Jesus Christ gets all the credit and so that people are not drawn to him but drawn to Christ see the best preacher is like a signpost who says that direction Christ is there so they're drawn to him so Paul had to be made weak and that's why God gave my sickness and if you can understand these things what is spiritual growth spiritual growth is becoming a little weaker becoming a little smaller in the eyes of others becoming a little more despised because people discover that in your hands history that was insistent prostitutes and great do you ever feel disturbed that something happened that made people think less of you did you get excited when you heard that wow they were they think less of me now or did it disturb you oh no because of that thing they now think less of me brother sister is the best possible thing that could have happened to you if you can understand it God's ways are not our ways she says my ways are higher than the heaven in the earth I mean if your aim in block is in life is to glorify Christ if your aim is to exalt yourself oh then you let me go the way of the world but the church is not meant to be a place where we exalt ourselves it's a place where we glorify Jesus Christ our life and our home is also meant to glorify Christ so that's why God allows many things in our life which we can't understand when we look at Jesus life in Philippians and chapter 2 it says in verse 5 have this attitude in yourself which is in Christ Jesus so I'm often said that with that one verse you can live your whole Christian life one verse you don't need another verse in the Bible if you lose your Bible and you remember this one works have the same attitude in you that Jesus had towards people look at women the way Jesus looked at women with total purity look at money and material things the way Jesus looked at it not in the grabbing possessive way when God gives us money and material things to bless others not for us to just hoard and take care of ourselves to bless others and to look at our enemies the way God Jesus looked to them people to be loved and it had the same attitude in everything that Jesus had towards opposition to what we call disappointments things that didn't work out the way we expected have the same attitude that Jesus had that's a great verse have this attitude in you which is in Christ Jesus and I believe we should be constantly examining ourselves in the light of that verse do I have the same attitude that Jesus had in this situation that situation you know when there's road rage when traffic is held up great words to remember you have this attitude knew that Jesus had and it goes on to say three steps he was God and he didn't hold on to that what became a man I mean that itself is a tremendous step of humility for God to become a man even if he became an emperor on earth the Jesus had come as an emperor on earth that would in a tremendous step of humility but when he became a man it says second step was he became a slave that was the second step further down in humanity where he always took the position of a slave I seemed at the beginning of his ministry in the marriage in Cana and there was no wine and where was Jesus have you noticed that he was found among the servants that's what Mary found him and said they don't have any wine so he was among the servants who were serving there and he told him going filled these water pots with water and turned into wine okay that's how he began this man see what do you see him at the end of his life at the end of his life you see him at the Last Supper you know in the Jewish homes they always had slaves the rich people had slaves who would wash your feet as soon as you come through the door because you know they didn't wear shoes those days there were sandals and I wear I wear sandals in India all the time and I know how walking in the dusty roads in all your feet get really dirty it's because of the heat that we don't wear shoes so much we wear sandals and so it's so refreshing to have to wash to put your feet under a tap or something and wash off all that dirt and they didn't have taps those days so they had this slave who would have a bucket of water and all the guests when they come and he take off their sandals and refreshed them by cleaning up their feet so here at the Last Supper Jesus had told the owner of that house I don't want anybody there because it's a private party I'm having with my disciples but the bucket of water was there and all these disciples come with their dusty feet they see the bucket of water and walk past it and go to the table everybody's important man you know Matthew is the Chartered Accountant Peter is the leader and John is the relative of the high priest they're not gonna do that lowly task so as they look around Jesus says I seem to be the only one here who's a nobody he picked up the bucket of water and go around goes around to each person's and washes their feet so I seen in the beginning of his ministry with the servants in Cana at the end of his life doing the job of the slave that's a tremendous challenge that Jesus finished his ministry at the feet of his disciples washing away the dirt from their feet and if anyone wants to progress in the Christian life that's the way the way up is down go down down down down to be a slate he came as a man and then he took the second step being a slave not just an ordinary man that is how we assess spiritual growth have you begun to think of ourselves like that then you're going in the right direction then you're growing then you're growing as an individual you're growing as a church and so many people when they come to the end of their earthly life and Christian ministry they are you know directors or chairmen and the end of many years of Christian ministry they've gone right up to the top of the ladder but for Jesus it was so different at the end of his life he was washing the disciples feet and a true disciple of Jesus will say that Lord help me to end my days as you did at the feet of yours children washing their feet that's what I want to be found at the end of my life serving others doing the lowly tasks never feeling that I'm somebody that other people should respect me or any such thing but doing something lowly I see my even my Ministry of preaching as washing people's feet that's how I look at it there's a lot of dirt among God's children and I want to wash it off and if I can wash it off with God's Word I can do it it says that in Ephesians 5 Nords 26 it's a great verse that Jesus sanctifies the church he loved the church verse 25 and gave himself up for her visions for 25 and verse 26 says he sanctifies or makes the church holy cleansing the church by the washing of water with the word of God I think that's the picture of Jesus taking water to wash the disciples feet and here it says it's a picture of our using God's Word to cleanse people so all preaching ministry must go by this rule I'm not here to present a great sermon to impress people no that's the way of the world I'm here to follow Jesus who takes the word and uses it like water to wash the disciples feet that's real spiritual ministry so whether you speak for three minutes or one hour wash people's feet with the Word of God and that's not a very impressive thing to see a servant to sleep just watching people's feet so this whole business of preaching and on Bible colleges they teach people how to preach and how to change your voice all this rubbish I mean is there a technique to wash people's feet you know to humble yourself that's all and anybody can do it does anybody who says I can't wash people's feet and if you've got a heart for the Lord and you love Jesus God will always give you something to share you know it's two minutes so you can wash people with the word and I don't mean just in the in the church you know some people have a lust to get up in the church and share something from the pulpit this is such people are proud I'm not saying it's wrong but if the same person doesn't have a great desire to share a word with somebody who comes visiting him in his home or sharing a word when he writes an email or sharing a word when he's speaking on the cell phone you don't get much honor when you share a word over the cell phone or an email like you get if you preached in a church I'd be just as happy to share the word at home or oh when I'm speaking on the phone or the email because it's a question of getting the dirt off people's feet that's Jesus ministry or washing of water by the word I'm just trying to show you this is the attitude of Jesus and the more you have his attitude the more you know you're grown spiritually otherwise we have not grown so he first came from God to man that's humility and then from man he became a slave that's humility and then the third step pidgins Philippians 2 verse 8 it says he went down he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross in other words what's lower than a slave the criminal a wretched criminal who would deserve was lower than a slave the Romans didn't crucify their slaves they crucified criminals I see these photos are not fit to live ordinary criminals were put in jail for a few years but the really bad ones were crucified and I've heard that you know the various ways in which people killed criminals through the years the crucifixion was one of the worst and the Romans discovered that and someone said Jesus waited till men discovered the worst possible way of killing someone and came at that time because he wanted to be lower than everybody else he waited until the Romans discovered crucifixion to be the most humiliating the worst way to kill somebody then Jesus now it's time for me to go down to earth because I can now be under everybody see the electric chair and all is a very dignified way of dying even hanging but crucifixion is terrible he took the place of a criminal so I see Jesus became a man and then a slave and like a criminal so that's why I say the three secrets of the Christian life are humility humility humility close the three secrets of the Christian life if you understood it you understood Christianity if you haven't seen it whatever else you may know of Christianity you haven't understood the truth that's the way of growth God became man he became a slave he became like a criminal went underneath everybody born in a cowshed lower than everybody else crucified in a way more humiliating than anybody else he's always trying to go underneath people not above them this is all we know that we're growing spiritually so God is working in our life we're becoming more christ-like everybody wants to be christ-like but they don't understand what it means I think christ-like is going and serving the poor and giving money for missionary work and all that you can do all that and be arrogant as anything humility humility humility and that's how Jesus lived on earth and that's how you know if you read through the Gospels you find so many example of this is how the way Jesus lived you know where it is always thinking of how he could be for example unknown for example he'd heal the sick person tell dr. anybody that I did that so different from the people who claim to have the gift of healing today so completely different and I'm amazed that Christians can't see that you can't see the hoax of today's healings I mean is that the type is that the way jesus healed the sick where you get the videographer to come and make sure he's reviewing this whole event where what is the healing somebody who could had lost 80% hearing now it's 60 percent that's the type of healing they talk about today and they want the guy to testify to that in front of the mic what surprises me is not the deception of these healers but the stupidity of the millions who sit there and watch it with their mouths open and send money to this man it amazes me they haven't seen Jesus at all this is not Jesus it's got nothing to do with the Ministry of Jesus Christ even though a lot of people claim we're doing the things that Jesus did so what is spiritual growth in a world where people have not seen the real Jesus we need to manifest Christ in our life and like I always say it begins at home if your wife can't see that spirit in you of loneliness and never wanting to lord it over others then you're a failure just to show it in the churches play-acting to show others in the church at all I've got a spirit of service it's acting at home we don't act at home we are ourselves and that's the place where you you know whether you are want to have the attitude of Christ of loneliness of being willing to be considered weak and Jesus was the greatest authority that ever walked on the earth but he says he was crucified in weakness Isaiah 53 says he was despised and rejected by men and that's the way for us to walk and through that the mighty power of God was manifested it's always interested me that the Bible says Satan was defeated not when Jesus cast out demons Jesus probably cast out hundreds of demons but Satan was not defeated you know you can cast out a demon shake is not defeated there are people who cast out demons who finally the Lord will say I never even knew you go to hell go and join those demons in Hell whom you cast out imagine that Jesus defeated Satan not when he cast out demons it says in Hebrews 2 and verse 14 through death he made powerless Satan read the part that Hebrews 2 14 and we read in Philippians 2 that that death on the cross was the ultimate proof of his humility he fell into the ground and died and he called us to go the same way so that's something that really impressed my heart that you don't defeat Satan by casting out a demon if you defeat Satan when you die with Christ when you can say I'm crucified with Christ that's where Satan was defeated on the cross and that's why it's the message of the Cross in the believers life that's most hated by Satan and which Satan has succeeded in eliminating almost completely from Christendom today if you go to youtube try and find out how many messages preached the cross how many serve preachers preach the cross go to churches and see how many preachers preach the cross not even 1% Satan has done a fantastic work in eliminating the message of the cross from christened the message of death to self I am crucified with Christ reckon yourself dead to sin because then he's defeated he's not defeated by sermons Jesus did not defeat Satan by preaching great sermons he didn't defeat Satan at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that's probably the greatest sermon ever preached and Satan was not defeated you think a great sermon will defeat Satan not at all He healed thousands of people Satan was not defeated he raised the dead Satan was not defeated he casts out demons Satan was not a fit but when he died it says he made him powerless Hebrews 2:14 that is where he defeated Satan that's where Satan's power was taken away and he's shown the way for us to overcome Satan as well if I'm crucified with Christ sitting up will have no power over me Satan's not afraid of people who shout and yell and scream and cast out demons and heal the sick but boys a humble man because a humble man has something with Satan doesn't have Satan's saturated pride that's how he became the devil from head to foot and the only person he fears is a genuinely humble man or woman and if you're a genuinely humble man or woman in God's eyes Satan will be scared of you I'll tell you that and you love Authority or him and I believe God wants us to live on earth in such a way that the devil's afraid of you because it says in 1 John 4:17 as Jesus is so are we in this world and Jesus wherever Jesus went Satan was scared of him I've taken that as a goal in my life I don't know about you 1 John 4:17 such a blessed words to me be made a big plaque and put it up in our church building as Jesus is sore we in this world that means the way Jesus walked around on this earth that's the way we're supposed to walk around if the devil scared of us wherever we go but the only person he is scared of is a genuinely humble man who has totally died to himself where's no ambition on earth who's died to people's opinions and died to his own choices he's got nothing to live for except the will of God Satan's mortally scared of such a man and I tell you if you're a man or woman like that boy say don't be scared of you but he may he'll do everything possible to prevent you from becoming a man or woman like that he'll do everything possible to make you think that Christianity is certain a lot of other things being zealous for this that me other doing social work or something like that he doesn't mind any amount of social work so long as his power or Menace continues so how shall we evaluate our spiritual growth how much have you followed Jesus in his humility that is the test so I hope these words of mine would have some permanent effect in our lives god bless you all

Channel: NCCF Church

Views: 15,073

Rating: 4.7596564 out of 5

Keywords: ZAC POONEN, NCCF, CHRISTIAN

Id: OJmYAD-ORR0

Length: 68min 49sec (4129 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2016