Zac Poonen - Marks Of True Faith

praise the lord we're thankful that god has given us another week in another day we don't take anything for granted the last two sundays we were looking at a very important word in the new testament called grace much misunderstood misunderstood only because of one reason that people don't study the bible carefully they've got some favorite verse and take just that you know like i was saying in that study on grace that like there are seven colors in the rainbow and seven colors in white by the grace is called a manifold or many colored grace of god and if i take just one segment i can be completely wrong just like saying red is white or blue is white even though those are a part of white so that is the mistake we find with a lot of people who have misunderstood grace and this is very important because our salvation is by grace if you don't understand it properly you don't have salvation or you imagine you have salvation but you don't have it where do we read about grace only in the bible there's no other book in the world that can tell us what grace is and so i want to encourage you if you are serious about it listen to those two messages again they they're available on youtube if you go to youtube and um in the search column on top you put zac boone and the true grace of god you'll hear both those messages there the second important word is in the new testament is faith there is not very little about mentioned in faith about faith in the old covenant even though they live by faith as we read in hebrews 11 and there are many important things we can learn from that but in the new testament it's emphasized a lot believe believe believe and just like we saw peter in his first letter says this is the true grace of god in the second letter in ii peter chapter 1 and verse 1 he says simon peter ii peter 1 1 as one servant and apostle of jesus christ to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours think of these two expressions that peter uses one is what we looked at last time 1 peter 5 12 the true grace of god and then he talks about faith as not those who just believe but those who have received a faith which is of the same kind as we have so there is a faith of another kind how do you know whether you got this faith of the same kind as peter had you may imagine the only way to know it is check up with scripture like i've often said if you don't if you've got the bible in your language and you don't study it you deserve to be deceived you deserve to be deceived if you got the bible in your language and you don't study it so and we can't do a comprehensive study of faith because a lot of aspects to it but i want to tell you some of the most important things so that we don't fool ourselves that we believe when we don't really believe one of the first things i want to say is that in most of our preaching and understanding we have imagined that faith is something we have in our mind it means we believe certain things and that's faith that is an intellectual faith which is not spiritual faith it's not the same kind of faith peter was not a very clever person most of us are cleverer than peter faith in the new testament and in the old testament is in the heart which is very different from the mind the mind is a part of our soul the deepest part of us is not our soul it is our spirit and faith is in our heart our spirit god does not dwell in the soul we read in the old testament that god dwelt in the most holy place of the tabernacle not in the holy place or outer court the outer court the holy place most holy place corresponded to man's body soul and spirit and god dwelt in the most holy place that's why a spirit is very important one important aspect of our spirit is our conscience there's a very close connection between conscience and faith let me show you that in 1 timothy and chapter 1 1 timothy and chapter 1. this is paul writing to timothy when paul himself was maybe 65 years old he walked with god for 35 years and he's writing to a man who was his closest co-worker and he tells him in 1 timothy 1 19 um in 18 he's speaking about keeping him fight a good fight in the last part of verse 18 and then 19 he says keep faith and a good conscience and some have rejected a good conscience and suffered shipwreck of their faith now you know what a shipwreck is it was a good ship but it got wrecked on the rocks that means there was nothing left of it so here are people who had faith and then lost it completely like a shipwreck what is the reason they did not care to keep a good conscience these two go together faith and a good conscience and he says among these are hymonaeus and alexander verse 20 whom i've handed over to satan so they'll be taught not to blaspheme here who are hymenaeus and alexander who were good members of the church that paul had planted who had had faith at one time but little by little by little they neglected to keep a good conscience and they suffered such shipwreck of the faith and began to go around from house to house to try and destroy other people's faith just like their own faith was destroyed and you know what paul says i have handed them over to satan imagine handing over one who is a believer who was a believer at least to satan because he's going around confusing other people and leading them in that downward path that he himself is gone you know i'll tell you one thing about people like the apostle paul they took their christianity very seriously they didn't have this idea of a gentle and mild jesus who never hands anybody over to satan do you know that it is a god of love who sends people to hell you know it's a god of love who made hell and who sends millions of people there so let's not have a wrong idea about god or about christianity or a true servant of god a real apostle can actually hand people over to satan even today and god will back him up he doesn't do it carelessly i mean paul didn't just do that to anybody who was upset with him there were people who persecuted and you know troubled paul in any way he didn't hand them all over to satan he was not concerned about himself or his name but wherever he saw that people were denying the lord or leading people away from true faith he actually handed them over to satan it's a pretty serious thing so faith in a good conscience and i want to say to you if any of you are not keeping your conscience absolutely clear let me warn you you are in danger of having a faith which is not the same kind of faith that peter had now you may not hear such things in other churches because most preachers don't study the bible carefully but you'll hear it here i always say i've i mentioned this before how there was a brother here who i had to speak some strong things to and who said brother zach is a very hard man and i called him and said brother i love you and whatever you may think about me right now at the judgment seat of christ you'll thank me for telling you this truth straight to your face when so many other people are cursing their pastors at the judgment seat of christ for deceiving them you will turn around and thank me and that's one of the things we seek to do in our church we seek to proclaim the whole council of god without diluting it without watering it down so that all who hear and obey will have great joy at the judgment seat of christ you know in second peter one where he speaks about the same kind of faith as ours he says at the end of it in verse 11 second peter 1 he speaks about having the same kind of faith as ours and he says if you continue with these things verse 11 ii peter 1 11 in this way you will have an abundant entrance into the eternal kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ that will be abundantly supplied to you in the kjv it says you'll have an abundant entrance you'll have a wonderful entrance into god's kingdom if you take seriously this matter of having the true grace of god and the same kind of faith the apostles had which is described so clearly in the new testament and one of those factors in that is a good conscience that is why we speak so much in this church about keeping a good conscience at all times don't judge other people judge yourself because you don't know the standard of conscience of others but you know the standard of your own conscience and if you're really walking with god your conscience will become more and more sensitive as we grow in the lord like i've often said our conscience is like a weighing machine a weighing machine where the needle doesn't even move and when you're unconverted you can put one ton on it instead then we get converted and the holy spirit comes and one of the first things he does is he makes our conscience sensitive and then the needle begins to move maybe when you put 500 pounds on it or 500 kilos but as you walk with the lord the needle begins to move when you put 100 kilos you walk some more with the lord the needle begins to move when you even put one kilo that's amazing a needle that wouldn't even move with one ton is now moving with one kilo the conscience is becoming more and more sensitive and gradually as you walk with the lord the con the needle is moving when you with one gram and one milligram it's moving you're growing then the mark of spiritual growth is your conscience is becoming more and more sensitive to sin to anything that's unchrist-like and that is how you know you're growing in faith as well because faith and a good conscience go together if your conscience is not becoming more and more sensitive and you're falling into the same old things that you're always falling into or you're falling into things that you never did before or you find that now after so many years of being a christian you can do things which you never did when you were first converted for example you can see certain types of movies today which you could never see when you were first converted you know your conscience is going in the other direction and that's because your faith is going in the other direction too these are warning signs you know doctors tell you to look for warning signs of sickness of diabetes or blood pressure or heart problems there are warning signs and people if you neglect them neglect them neglect them the one day suddenly the guy dies or has a stroke and the doctor says well i told him i told him to look for those warning signs but he said it'll never happen to me those are the famous words of many people it'll never happen to me the same thing many people say in the christian life that's why i urge you dear brothers and sisters take god's word seriously keep a good conscience if you want to have genuine faith and make sure that your conscience is becoming more and more sensitive and not less sensitive to what it was before all of you know how your life was when you were first converted forget your unconverted days what happened when you really got converted or you experienced the baptism in the holy spirit that's so important and what happened to your conscience at that time i know what happened to mine became extremely sensitive the needle started flickering with little things that it wouldn't flicker with before and i never want to go back i never want to go back to those days where heavy weights would not move move the needle i want to ask you straight is that happening to you if so i'd say watch the warning signs is it happening in your married life in your relationship with your husband wife is it happening in your relationship with other brothers and sisters are you being influenced by brothers and sisters who are trying to lower your attitude towards sin you're in danger that's all i can say god gives freedom to people even to go to hell and i want to say in this church we give complete freedom to anybody who wants to go to hell but god doesn't let anybody go to hell without a warning and we won't let anybody go to hell without a warning but god doesn't stop anyone neither will we that's your choice and if you have sat here and listened to god's word straight and strong for so many years and you miss the best well you really have nobody to blame but yourself so i want to turn to the great chapter on faith in hebrews chapter 11 and 12 and see something about you know there's more mentioned about faith in these two chapters continuously than probably any other place in the new testament and so even though it's referring to old testament people because it's mentioned in the new testament i want to take some of these examples and see how even though their faith was not in jesus christ or in receiving the baptism in the holy spirit the reason why it is put in the in the new testament hebrews 11 is to show us that there was something in their faith that we can imitate so the very first thing it says in hebrews 11 1 about true faith the same kind of faith that the apostle peter had is that it is the assurance of things hoped for that means what we don't have yet and the conviction of things which we don't see in other words faith is a deep conviction that the things which i can't see are more real the things when that which i see you know the bible says that we shouldn't sleep spiritually you read that in 1 thessalonians 4 revelation don't be asleep lest the lord come suddenly i've meditated on that what does it mean to be asleep when we are asleep we're dreaming and in our dreams we could be 10 000 miles away from where we are sleeping we're somewhere else and we think it is real it's very real some dreams are very vivid a lot of these people who say they had visions of heaven and talked to different saints they're just got a vivid imagination they've got they call that dreams reality that's all they're not telling lies but they don't differentiate between dreams and reality so when we sleep those uh that that world in which we are living in our dreams appears to be real in the real world around us where we are lying down in our bed is not visible to us so that is what it means to be asleep spiritually when we are asleep spiritually this unreal world around us we think it's real and the real world which is the world of eternity in heaven is very unreal and so when i live and act as though this world is the real eternal thing i'm asleep i'm living in my dreams when i'm awake i see the real world and the real world is eternal the things which are not seen the things which are yet to come and that's what it says the first thing it says about faith is the conviction of things which are not seen that's the mark of a man who's spiritually awake he lives by faith by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of god so that even the things that are visible you know we are so much in contact with visible things but what paul is saying is do you know that all these visible things were originally made from invisible things there was nothing there there was only god and from invisible things he made what was visible so what was invisible was first that's that's real so that's one mark of faith that we see things which others who live aware of the world around them can't see i mean if your faith is in god is only seen in something visible like god gave you a house or he gave you some healing in your body or he gave you some a good marriage partner things which every gentile in the world is seeking after those are the proofs that god gave you something i'll tell you 10 000 hindus and muslims who got better houses than you who made more money than you who are healthier than you and who probably got more good-looking partners than you god what about their faith that's not the mark of faith you're fooling yourself if you think these are the marks of god's blessing and faith whenever you think god has blessed you with something ask yourself is that something an atheist also has without who doesn't even believe in god then that's not the result of god's blessing god's blessing must be something which the non-christian and the atheist cannot get it's not house non-christians get that job marriage money what is it that a non-christian or an atheist cannot get it's been changed into the likeness of christ that is the one mark of god's blessing and that is the proof that we are god real faith that our life is being changed into things which are invisible okay now we come to the example of able by faith abel offered to god a better sacrifice than cain through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous and god testified about his gifts now we got to read this very slowly i want to read it again slowly by faith abel offered to god a better sacrifice than cain through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous god testified about his gifts his gifts he testified about his gifts he said there's something about abel's gifts which i really appreciate god said which he couldn't say about cain therefore he was declared righteous and therefore through faith even though he's dead he still speaks so when you read a verse like that in the new testament if you're a serious bible student you'll go to genesis 4 and say what was it that abel's gifts that god testified to and we don't want to read things into scripture which are not there it's a very favorite habit of people who have a particular theology already made up in their mind and then they wherever they go in scripture they see that it's something like if i wear red colored glasses everything is red if i wear green colored glasses everything is green and i find that with a lot of christians they've got a particular color of theology and everywhere they read in the bible they see just that you've got to take off those colored glasses and read it exactly as it is without adding anything without subtracting anything i want to read something to you and you'll discover something genesis 4 it says here she gave birth to cain and abel four one and two and verse two abel was a keeper of flocks cain was a tiller of the ground kane was a farmer and abel kept flocks of sheep and we read finally in verse three and four they brought brought an offering to the lord and very carefully it was not a sin offering there were many types of offerings that people were commanded to bring in leviticus there was a sin offering which always had to have blood in it and then there was an offering for thanksgiving for example typing was an offering when people brought ten percent of what they um reaped in their fields it was a thanksgiving offering there was no blood in it they brought grain and wheat and maybe potatoes or whatever that was an offering acceptable to god so cain and abel were bringing a thanksgiving offering to god out of gratitude for god blessing their farm for their flocks and naturally if you brought 10 percent of what you're working with if you're if you got flocks you bring 10 of the sheep if your farm you bring 10 of the grain there's nothing wrong in that it's not a sin offering so abel brought it says here uh first of all cain verse 3 brought an offering to the lord from the fruit of the ground because that's where he was working and abel and his part brought up the first links of the flock under their fat portions and then it says the lord had regard for abel and for his offering for the man and for his offering but for cain and for his offering he had no regard and when you come to hebrews 11 it says abel had faith so we can learn something about faith from this now the traditional christian interpretation of those who read with colored glasses is that abel brought blood and cain did not bring blood now the reason why that theology has become very popular is because it's this one saved always saved you know and also once you brought the blood of jesus it doesn't matter how you live so long as you bring the blood of jesus it's all god sees he doesn't look at your life he doesn't bother about anything else well you can believe that if you like but i can guarantee you'll go to hell if you believe that i don't devalue the blood of jesus but there are multitudes of people who believe in the blood of jesus all the one billion christians in the world believe in the blood of jesus but they are not all going into god's kingdom i might as well tell you that didn't you believe in the blood of jesus before you were born again i did i never doubted it if you'd asked me when i was 10 years 10 years old and i was not converted oh your sins forgiven i just said blood of jesus without a doubt but my life was not surrendered to the lord and you know that too it's a very dangerous theology what was it that made a difference between cain's offering and abel's offering they were not bringing us in offering they were bringing a thanksgiving offering the difference was this i want you to see this kane brought an offering am an offering abel brought the best there's a difference between bringing and offering and the very best of what you have great deal of difference one is to ease your conscience that you gave something to god the creator and the other is because you're devoted to someone you know there's a difference between a gift that you would give to a beggar and a gift that you would give to your wife or husband i hope there's a difference in your life you may be a kind person who gives gifts to beggars but how much will you give but if you want to buy a gift for your wife or husband whom you love so much what would you do then even if you go for a wedding to somebody you love someone you love very much and you take a gift how much would you spend on that gift compared to how much you would spend on a gift that you want to get for your wife or husband there's a lot of difference why is that because you value your partner much more than those other people not that you don't value them of course you love that person whose wedding you're going to and you may love that beggar but not as much for example your children if your father has sacrificed for years and years in poverty to help you to get a good education and to get a good job how would you you know take a gift to him you wouldn't get something cheap but people would build a whole house for their parents but an expression of their love you wouldn't build a house for a beggar you wouldn't give a house as a gift in a wedding but you would do that out of gratitude to your parents or you may build one for your wife that it all depends on our attitude to the person we're giving the gift the type of gift we gave and so an offering it's okay you gave a wedding gift but there's a difference between giving the very best that's what when it says god testified about abel's offerings that's where his faith was shown his faith was shown in a deep intense love for god who had blessed him tremendous sense of gratitude that made him look over his sheep and say i've got to take the very best to god not something cheap now that's genesis now when you come to malachi which is the last book in the old testament you see how the religion of israel had degenerated so much that the lord has a complaint against israel on this very matter he says you ask you say to me this is the last part of verse 6 malachi 1 6 o priests who despise my name now is there anybody here who's despising the name of the lord jesus despising the name of the lord jesus and you ask this question in verse 6 how have we despised your name and the lord says i'll tell you how you have despised my name you've given me old food defiled food you have brought the verse eight the blind as a sacrifice you brought the lame in other words he's telling them when you brought a sheep to me it was one of those blind ones which is a bit of a nuisance to you in any case when you brought a bullock to my offering you brought that lame bullock which is a problem to you in any case you offered it of course you gave an offering a n offering like cain [Music] but not the best like abel god could not testify of their gifts and he calls it despising my name what do you learn from that my brother sister that when you give an offering to the king of kings you're despising his name you may think that your reverence the name of jesus so much you sing so wonderfully about it in the meeting but the test is not how well we sing about jesus what offering do you bring him that's the first mention of faith in hebrews 11 by faith abel brought a better offering than cain why is that mentioned this mark of genuine faith and the lord says here would you offer this to your governor verse 8 i mean even just to forget god even if the governor of your state came to your house would you give him something cheap would you offer some cheap thing to him i want to show you a verse in the old testament and ii chronicles see the things in the old testament are pictures from which we can learn if we want to learn the old testament temple that solomon built was a picture of the church of jesus christ which we're building today today it's not a temple it's a church and by church i mean people our life we're building up when we live before god we are building a small part of the church in our own life and along with others the cfc is not the whole church even all our cfc churches are not the whole church if you count all the cfc churches we have it's still a teeny weeny part of the whole church of jesus christ which comprises of people in many denominations and in many parts of the world where we don't even know people who love the lord perhaps a lot more than we do so but this small part that we are a part of we have to make sure it's of the right material so in 2nd chronicles 3 we read about they couldn't build the temple anywhere they like you know that god had told them it must be in jerusalem and not just in jerusalem the exact spot in jerusalem where the temple had to be built was pointed out by god not just don't just find any convenient place and build your temple there no no no no there's a specific spot i have chosen and there is this is a message to us there's a particular place where you can build a church and when i say place i mean spiritually there it was physically in the old covenant today what i'm talking about is a spiritual place where we can build the church if you're not in that spiritual place you can't really be a part of that living church so this had to be in jerusalem and the lord said this has to be here is the particular spot in jerusalem ii chronicles 3 1 identified as mount moriah and in the exact spot in mount moriah is the place where the lord appeared to david where david had prepared in the threshing floor of ornan the jebusite that's where he began to build now when you read that if you're a student of scripture and not a lazy person who does not care to understand the mind of god if you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow god told adam and i've told people who study the bible you will never get bread from the bible without the sweat of your brow you've got to work hard you've got to study you've got to compare scripture with scripture when you read mount moriah you have to say mount moriah what was significant about modern mariah when you read about the threshing floor of ornan the jebusite you say what was significant about that that's the way to study the bible slowly and it doesn't matter if you don't go past that one verse for one week but you learn something but if you don't really just read through you can live 20 years without even knowing the significance of that one important verse well mount moriah first of all you read in genesis 22 is the place where god told abraham to go and offer his only son he had already sent away ishmael his first son now we had only one son isaac and that was god's gift to him god said take him and kill him as a sacrifice for me on mount moriah genesis chapter 22 and verse two take your son your only son whom you love isaac and go to the land of moriah and offer him on one of the mountains which i tell you and abraham rose early in the morning he didn't even discuss it with sarah can you imagine what he would have happened if abraham had told sarah i'm just going to kill my son i'm going to mariah to kill my son you'd never have got there there are some sacrifices you have to make without telling your wife or your husband maybe they're not spiritual enough to understand that's what i learned from there sometimes we have to walk secretly before god's face if your wife is spiritually minded that's wonderful but i think abraham sensed and you got a sense whether your husband and wife can accept something and abraham sensed sarah can't accept it because she hasn't heard god directly like i've heard so he took immediately in the morning he got up and he said he's going and he took some servants with him and then it says they walked together and finally we read here abraham told his young men in verse 5. this is very important to read this he told the young men you stay here with the donkey i and the lad will go up there over the mountain and we will worship what did he say not i'm going there to kill my son i'm going there to worship you know that is the first place in the bible that the word worship comes and there's such a thing as the law of first mention in bible study and that law is look for the first time a word appears in the new testament is very significant the first time fear of god is mentioned in the bible is in relation to sexual sin in genesis 20. look it up sometime where does god test our fear in the sexual area in our thought life if you're careless there you don't fear god that's it it's the first time the word fear of god comes in relation to sexual sexual sin the first time the word believe comes is when abraham said amen when god said you're going to have children like the stars of the sky something impossible he believed he believed because god had said it even though it looked impossible humanly speaking the first time the word worship comes you know we use the word praise and worship praise and worship praise and worship i never get tired of telling people 99.9 of christians don't know what worship is even believers they use so many words without understanding what it means worship is one of them and if you don't believe me the lord told woman in samaria the time has now come hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship god in spirit not like old covenant worshipers not like they did in the psalms i don't go to the psalms to worship i'll tell you honestly i don't object to other people doing it because they are living under the old covenant i say fine if you want to live under the old covenant go ahead but i've given up with the old covenant not the old testament of the bible but the old covenant way of worship the old covenant way of living the old covenant way of sacrifices i read the whole bible but the old covenant way of worship is finished with me because jesus said the hour has now come when there's a new way of worshiping in the spirit have you ever asked god what does it mean to worship in the spirit it's that's another message you could look up sometime in the bible phrase thanksgiving praise and worship on youtube i mean thanksgiving praise and worship thanksgiving is thanking god for what he's done for me praising his praising god for who he is that's most of what most churches do on sunday morning very good we need it i believe in thanksgiving i believe in praise what i'm saying is that is not worship and all these songwriters who use worship worship worship they don't have a clue what worship is i'll tell you why because they haven't read their bible and if you don't believe me take a concordance and look up the word worship in the new testament it will change your complete understanding of worship if you're willing to sweat a little and get a little bread from the bible the first mention of worship is when abraham went to the mountain not to sing a few songs to god and clap his hands and raise his hands like we do he went up to the mountain to give the very best that he had to god not an offering but the best like abel he was following in the footsteps of abel he could have given ten thousand sheep on that mountain it would have been an offering but when he gave isaac isaac was more precious to him than even sarah when he gave isaac he gave the best he gave everything he would rather have given himself and god was testing him do you worship [Music] me then kill your son and you know that he didn't really god didn't want him to kill his son he just was testing him and as abraham lifted up the knife to kill him the angel of the lord stopped him and said in verse 12 don't stretch your hand on your sin don't do to him because now i know that you fear god you know that is the first time in the bible that god himself gives a certificate to a person you fear me the first time fear of god is mentioned is in relation to sexual sin in genesis 20 but the first time god gives a certificate to a man saying now i know that you fear me was when a man gave not an offering but the very best that he had i want to ask all of you sitting here can god give you that certificate remember this is linked to faith by faith abel offered his best and god testified to his offerings god testified to abraham's offering here has god testified to your offering then you know whether your faith is genuine or not see all these things are done in secret jesus spoke much about that in matthew 6 he said you pray in secret your father will reward you openly you fast in secret your father will reward you openly you give money in secret god your father will reward you openly that's why in this church we have always encouraged people to pray in secret don't make a big noise about it fast and secret and give in secret that's why we don't pass a bag around because we want people to obey god's word which is give secretly give cheerfully but the reward will be open the reward will not be secret it's not god i give to god in secret and god rewards me secretly no matthew 6 is very clear three times he says there you do this in secret your father will reward you openly in other words when people look at your life they will be amazed your life will be such a tremendous blessing to others now that a lot of people who imagine that their life is a blessing i think a lot of hindus and muslims and atheists and a lot of i think the prime minister of india and different political parties in election time they put big advertisements in the paper saying how they have been a blessing to so many people very easy for christians also to deceive themselves by imagining just because some people appreciate them i need a certificate from god first of all that he is happy with my worship and ways for me to check up in my own life in secret have i offered the best let's go to the second mention of the place of the temple was built the threshing floor of iran or the jebusite that is in second samuel 24. we're trying to understand what faith really means what does it mean to give the best offering what does it mean to have a faith where god testifies to our offering second samuel 24 we read of a time when god told david through a prophet in verse 24 18. second samuel 24 18 go and erect an altar to the lord in the threshing floor of round of the genocide and david did that he went up to that place and around us saw the king coming in verse 20. and he said why are you coming and king said i want to buy verse 21 this threshing floor from you because i have to build an altar here david did not know that god had in mind this is the place where the temple is going to be built and around i said oh you don't have to buy anything from me he said take it whatever you want please take all the oxen free and all the threshing sludges and the yolks is the wood take it all free and offer your offering o king you're my king and may the lord accept you and look at these beautiful words that david said no now you know brothers and sisters how we all like to get something free right if there are books that are free even if we don't want them we'll pick them up and books that are more useful to us if they cost 20 rupees we may not buy them that's how we are we like to get something free and that's why there's a big rush for people accepting forgiveness of sins because it's free we like to go to a church where they don't don't take offerings it's free we get so much blessing free wow what a church to belong to you know who's the loser you david said i will not take it free that's where the church is built where a man says i will not take it free i will surely pay for it and this wonderful expression i will never offer to god that which costs me nothing he told around if i take it free from you and i give it to god what does it cost me zero i want to give you a testimony i was converted i was baptized about 1961 52 years ago and there was a verse the lord gave me is this verse i will never offer to god that which costs me nothing and the lord said to me that's how you must live never give me an offering that cost you nothing it's good to give offerings to god but let it cost you something otherwise it'll be like cain's offering and i decided that day and to the best of my knowledge i have kept that 52 years i have never given an offering to god whether it's money those days i used to give 50 of my income for god's word every month i'd give because it cost me something i would never buy new clothes for myself and if something got torn i would stitch it and wear it even though i was a naval officer i said lord i will not offer to you that which cost me nothing i would spend hours and hours and hours after my work studying the bible cutting down on my sleep because i would not offer to god that which cost me nothing i would be i forsook promotion if it meant that my witness for christ would hamper my promotion fine i'll be a witness for christ i will not offer to god that which cost me nothing and i could i don't want to talk about it happened so long ago that i can talk about it now and then as i came out into full-time christian work 47 years ago i said lord i will not offer to god that which cost me nothing i will not preach for money i will not use the gift god's given me to make benefit for myself do you know where i got that from by the way from the first temptation which came to jesus in the wilderness where the lord satan told the lord you're anointed now right 40 days ago you were anointed at jordan you got power use that power to satisfy your need jesus said no later on he used that power to make bread for 5000 but never for himself and the lord spoke to me from that i have given you an anointing never use it to make money for yourself use it to bless other people i said sure god help me to be faithful to that till the end of my life it's a sin most preachers don't understand it if god gives me something it is not something for me to get benefit from myself it's for me to bless other people with and i said lord i'll follow that i will not offer to you that which cost me nothing if i serve you it must cause me inconvenience it must my body may ache but i must serve you i i can't think of a single wednesday meeting that i've missed here unless there was something else that i had to travel somewhere or come back from somewhere but i remember days when i was having fever and it was time for 6 30 for the meeting and i knew that if i go to the meeting they'll ask me to speak i'd get up from my sick bed come to the meeting and go back and my fever would be gone i want to ask you i'm not just i'm only saying that as an example sometimes paul spoke about what all he did is an example and a challenge to others but i want to say to you my brothers and sisters if you anybody here and there's no respect to persons with god if you decide in your life even today forget the past that from now on you're never going to give to god that which cost you nothing he will use you to build the church not just to have little meetings that you think are blessing people a lot of people have little home meetings in their house here and there it never builds the church it's just a little club for people who study the bible i've come across a lot of them like that in the world there's no sacrifice in their life i've in the last 47 years of christian work i have seen a lot of christian workers in india multitudes of them i'll tell you honestly the very very few among them i respect and that's because most of them 95 of them that i've met have not made a sacrifice they never had a good job that they gave up to serve the lord at a lower income i want to meet people like that christian workers who had a good job gave it up came down my own income dropped 85 when i decided to serve the lord i made very few people like that most of the christian workers i meet went straight out of school they had no job they decided to go to bible school and become pastors and they're earning sometimes 10 times what they would have got if they're in a secular job is that a sacrifice when jesus came to earth to build the church he sacrificed he gave up something just like abraham like david like abel i want to say that that is the basis of faith there's a lot more to it but if we really want the faith of the same kind that jesus had it says in hebrews 12 that we look unto jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith the author of our faith means if i take up a book here and say i wrote this book i am the author that means i wrote every page in it that's the meaning of author so when it says in hebrews 12 2 we look unto jesus the author of our faith i want to ask you did he write every word or the faith that you have in your heart or is it a faith that you yourself wrote what you think is faith i want jesus to be the author of my faith every thing that i call faith in my heart must be written by jesus and that means i look at his life and i see his entire life as a life of sacrifice he never made demands on others he didn't just sing songs on the sabbath day in the synagogue like we come let me ask you i believe you do give an offering to the lord i mean uh offering of time when you come and spend two hours here on sunday morning you could have spent that watching television but are you offering to god that which costs you something i believe many of you give money for god's work and particularly in a church like this where we have no paid workers every cent that you give goes 100 for the work of god not 99 100 how much do you give you get a lot of benefit of course and you've been blessed but you don't get the higher blessing but jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive and i believe many people have missed out on that i've always sought the higher blessings i say lord i've got a lot of blessing through receiving but i want to give i want to give my time sacrifice do you ever serve the lord when it's inconvenient do you ever try to serve the lord when your body is full of pain and aches and say no i've got to do and go out and do something for the lord or you serve when it's convenient and when it's when your body is not aching if i serve the god when my body was not aching i would have finished serving the lord ages ago dear brothers and sisters god will not allow you to suffer loss if you put god first and seek his kingdom first to seek his kingdom means to make him king over your life and say lord all that i have is yours the faith that jesus writes in my heart as the author i want to just show you one verse in closing and we can look a little more at it on another sunday in john 17 we look at this verse in closing john 17 we read here about jesus speaking to the father at the end of his life and he says i have verse four i have glorified you on earth finishing the work you gave me to do now i have often said to people my dear brothers and sisters when you come to the end of your life don't tell me how much money you made don't tell me what a big house you built don't tell me how much you accomplished in terms of worldly things but can you say i have finished the work my father sent me on earth to do do you know when you were born god sent you on earth to do a particular task not just to go to meetings and share a few words with you but something specific and if you want to do that you have to give to god that which costs you something it may cost you your reputation jesus is called a man of no reputation how much are you willing to lose your reputation with your relatives and your friends because they call you a fool for christ's sake are you willing to look like a fool for jesus christ say to lose your reputation that's something more precious than money for some people many people their christianity they won't sacrifice their money they won't sacrifice their reputation like cain they'll give the minimum offering to god i always say cain was the minimum type what is the minimum i have to do to go to heaven what is the minimum i have to give in cfc what is the minimum i have to do and abel was the exact opposite god's done so much for me what is the maximum i can do for god what's the maximum i can give for him i believe if god were to come here and divide this church he divided like that there's a minimum group and a maximum group i don't know who they are but you know whether which group you belong to i finished the work you gave me to do and how did he do it we read here in john 17 and verse 10 the faith that jesus had he said to his father everything that is mine is yours and therefore everything that is yours is mine you know this is the wonderful exchange that takes place in our life when we come to god and give everything like abraham god says everything that's mine is yours you give 10 to god you get 10 from god that's why your life is so pathetic spiritually that's why you never get victory over sin because you're the minimum type that's why your children go astray because you're so careful and calculating in the way you give to god you say this beggar has come i have to give him something let me calculate shall i give him five rupees or oh ten rupees a bit too much i think i'll give him five rupees so we come to god and we calculate how much shall i give for god's word how much shall i put in the offering box i calculated this this is i think i'll give this one exactly like a beggar and you expect to have a rich spiritual life not in a hundred years you think you're building the church no you're just probably going to bible study meetings maybe taking bible study meetings and you think you're serving god witnessing to a few people and some people came to the same third grade type of salvation that you have yourself and you think they're born again i wonder whether you'll meet them in god's kingdom you'll certainly meet people in god's kingdom if you teach them to give what cost them something to give like abel and not like cain by faith abel gave and god testified to his gifts by faith abraham gave god testified to his gifts and it should be written about us by faith we gave our life to the lord god testified about it not that we sang songs on sunday morning and other people testified about it i pray that we shall have what peter says the faith of the same kind as ours that led peter to sacrifice everything even his job is fishing and finally i tradition says that when they were finally going to kill him they said we'll crucify you like we crucify like your savior was crucified and peter said i don't deserve to be crucified like my savior please put the cross upside down so they crucified him upside down because he didn't feel that he deserved to be crucified in an upright cross boy they offered to god that which cost them something let's follow in their footsteps that's real faith you will definitely have an abundant entrance into god's kingdom if you have that type of faith if it's not that type of faith then i don't know all the best but i don't know let's pray heavenly father we know that you look at the heart man looks on the outward appearance we all look very holy but you know those who have determined in their heart never to give you that which cost them nothing you've given us so much many of us foolishly assume that we deserve it or that is a result of our hard work but a few of us acknowledge it is all your gift and therefore you deserve the best from us help us to be in that number all our days never to backslide from that we pray in jesus name amen

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Id: Z4bkQMeGplU

Length: 62min 49sec (3769 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021