======================================================================== NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY - PART 1 by Zac Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: Zac Poonen emphasizes the importance of learning from biblical examples, the necessity of gratitude, and the true nature of worship in New Testament Christianity. Duration: 1:07:09 Topics: "Surrender To God", "Eternal Values" Scripture References: Romans 12:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God by presenting our bodies and minds as living sacrifices, allowing God to transform our thinking and values. It encourages a shift in perspective to view things from God's viewpoint, focusing on eternal values like humility, generosity, and forgiveness rather than worldly possessions. The message highlights the need to express gratitude to God by aligning our thoughts and actions with His will, seeking to live a life that reflects His character and values. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ So, there are many things we can learn from these Old Testament books, because human nature is the same, from the time of Adam's fall, and the way the Israelites behaved towards God. I find, as I look around at Christians, it's exactly the same, the way Christians also respond to the Lord. So, we can make mistakes ourselves when we learn, or a better way is read the Old Testament and see the mistakes Israel made, and then we avoid making those mistakes. So, a wise man will study the mistakes of other people and say, I don't want to make the same mistakes. So, that is the big advantage of reading the Old Testament, in a way to say, what are the mistakes that these people made? Why do I have to make those mistakes and then learn, or why is it that I learn from their mistakes and not repeat it myself? And so, one of those passages is here in 2 Chronicles 32, is, you know, all of us go through different crises and problems in our life. Every person in the world, whether you're rich or poor, we go through problems in our life, and when we have those problems, we cry to God and ask Him to help us. And I think all of us know, in some way, that God helped us in our time of need, whether it is financially, or physically, or with our children. If we look back, there are many, many things we can remember of what God has done for us. There's nobody sitting here who can say, I can't think of anything God has done for me. I'm not just talking about the forgiveness of our sins. That itself is a big thing, because, you see, if God were to say to any of us, okay, I'll forgive you up to today, but if you do that again, I won't forgive you. Then none of us would be here today. But God has been so merciful that even where we have repeated the sins we have committed, which God forgave us, He still continues to forgive us. So that's a wonderful thing, God's tremendous mercy. And that should make us very merciful to other people. If any of you are not merciful to others, and you're hard on others, I would say there's something wrong with your Christianity. If you can't forgive somebody saying, oh, that guy went and did it again, how can I keep on forgiving? Well, imagine if God said that about you. Look at this son of mine, he's gone and done that again. I can't forgive him this time. You know, He never says that. If you back away in life, all of us have to say there are things we said, Lord, I never want to do that again, and we went and did it again. God's been merciful. And what can we learn from that? I'll tell you. We can learn to be merciful to other people. One of the things I've learned in my life through 57 years of being a believer, it's actually more than that, it's even more than 57, is that God treats me like I treat other people. If I'm hard on others, God is hard on me. But if I'm kind and merciful to others, I find God is very kind and merciful to me. So I would encourage you, if you want God to be good to you, be good to other people. If you want God to be merciful to you, be merciful to others, especially in your own home. Sometimes we are very hard on people in our home. Husbands are hard on their wives, wives are hard on their husbands. You know, say things like, there you did it again. I never in my life want to say to anybody, there you went and did it again. Because God never says that. So, here's an example of a king. A king whose name was Hezekiah. And he faced some real problems in his life. And it says here that the army of the Assyrians came against Hezekiah. Read that in verse 9, 2 Chronicles 32 verse 9. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent his servants to Jerusalem. And he was besieging and lacquishing all his forces against Hezekiah. And Sennacherib, they talked to him and said, you're trusting what you remain. Hezekiah is besieging you, and so on. And we were not there. They prayed to God. Hezekiah prayed and says here, and Hezekiah and Isaiah, verse 20, prayed about this and cried out to heaven because they were very weak against this enemy. And many of us also have faced problems in our life where the problem was too big for us to solve ourselves. Haven't you faced situations like that? And you pray to God, and some of you can look back to situations where you thought there was no hope, there'd be no deliverance. This problem may not be solved. And it was solved. I think we all have experiences like that. So they cried out to God and the Lord sent an angel and destroyed every mighty warrior, commander and officer in the camp. And so the enemy went back in shame to their own land. And when this leader went into the temple of his God, some of his own children killed in there. Thus, the Lord saved Hezekiah and guided them on every side. Think of some experience like that in your life too. And then, not only that, it says here many people expressed their appreciation for Hezekiah, verse 23. Many were bringing gifts to the Lord at Jerusalem and many presents to Hezekiah the king, so that he was exalted in the sight of all the nations thereafter. See, that's another thing God has done. He's blessed you with so many gifts and the very fact that all of you got visas to work in this country and earn money, which many people in India don't have. It's a blessing of God. And now it says, another thing happened to Hezekiah. He became ill, verse 24. So many problems came to him. And he prayed to the Lord again. Once it was an external enemy, now it was an internal problem, sickness. And he prayed again. And the Lord gave him a sign and healed him. And you know what the sign was? It says that the sun went back in the sky about 10 degrees. It was an amazing miracle that many people in the world saw it and they sent messengers from Babylon to Israel saying, how did this happen? And Hezekiah became a well-known person. Now here are the sad words which I wanted to read to you. And then you apply to yourself. But Hezekiah, verse 25, did not give any return for the benefit he received because his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came on him and Hezekiah became proud. See, however much God may bless you, however much, however many prayers he has answered, deliverance from the enemy, healing from sickness like Hezekiah, the moment you become proud, God becomes your enemy. You need to understand that. See, here was a man whom God was supporting, supporting, answering his prayers, enemies and healing. And then he did not express his gratitude to God because he was proud. You know, when we are not grateful to God for what He has done for us, it is an indication of pride in our heart. Only a proud man is ungrateful. A humble man will always be grateful to God. It says here, Hezekiah did not give any return to the Lord because his heart was proud. And then God became his enemy. Wrath came upon him. Now how is it that God who was supporting this man for so long, in so many ways, suddenly he turned around and became his enemy? Do you think that can happen to you? Sometimes we think, oh God has blessed me so many ways and He has delivered me from my enemy here and He has healed me of the sickness here and so many people appreciate me and people respect me and so many gifts have come to me. And then all of a sudden I think, oh I am somebody. And then all of a sudden God turns and becomes my enemy. It can happen. It happened to Hezekiah because he was not grateful, he did not show his gratitude for what the Lord has done. So that is the question which I want to ask you to think about. Have you expressed your gratitude to God for what He has done for you? Not just in words. Words are easy, cheap. It is very easy to say, oh thank you Lord. Gratitude is not expressed just in words. It is in a way of life that we express our gratitude. We ask ourselves, what should I give to the Lord for all that He has done for me? Hezekiah never asked that question. I wonder if you have asked that question. Turn to this question that the psalmist asks in Psalm 116 verse 12. Psalm 116. What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to us, toward me? God has done so much for me. What shall I render to the Lord for all those benefits? That is a question that we need to ask ourselves. So I want to point out to you two passages in the New Testament where this question is answered. And let's look at them. In Romans chapter 12. The question is, what should I give to the Lord for all His benefits towards me? The question that Hezekiah and I are asked. He never gave a return to the Lord for all the benefits He got. We must never forget the things the Lord has done for us. Never, never, never. Do you know that for hundreds of years, the Israelites were told to remember, one thousand years ago, God delivered your ancestors from Egypt. Don't forget that, otherwise you'd be slaves in Egypt today. Do you know that the Israelites were taught to keep a Passover? Every year, they were to kill a lamb and eat the Passover. What was the Passover day? There was a law in Israel that at the Passover, the son or the child must ask the father, Daddy, what does this mean? It was a ritual. God taught every home, the child must ask the father, what does this Passover mean? And the father must be able to explain. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors were slaves in Egypt. And we would have been there, we would be there as slaves today, except that God came and delivered us with a mighty hand. God was, generation after generation, every year we celebrated the Passover and we were reminded. Do you know what God did so many years ago? I think that Christians don't think like that. I don't know whether you have some time in your life where you deliberately take time to think of what the Lord has done for you. I even recommend it to people to keep a little notebook, or if you have a computer, it's even easier. Open a folder in your computer where you write down the dates. Some significant miracle the Lord did for you, some significant thing that you didn't expect. Maybe you got a job, which you didn't expect, or you got something beyond what you expected. I'll tell you why the advantage of writing that down with a date, because sometimes when you have a little free time, open that folder and read what the Lord did for you and pastors. It will make a difference in your Christian life. We need to not be like Hezekiah who gave no return for all that the Lord has done for him, completely forgot all that God had done for him. It must not happen like that in any of us. The way I have, you know, I've been in full-time Christian ministry now for 50 years. It was in May 1966 that God told me to leave my job in the day being, and I quit. And my income dropped 85 percent when I quit my job. And my God has done so much for me in these last 50 years, so very much, and I keep remembering. My mind goes back frequently, back 50 years and more, in what God has done for me. That makes my service to the Lord a joy. It's never a burden. For me, serving the Lord is the most exciting thing in the world. It's never a burden. I don't have any complaints in my life. I mean, my life in the early days, even as a Christian, I used to complain about this or that. You know that complaining is gone from my life, 100 percent. Do you complain about something in your life? Do you complain about something that happened in your home, or you're upset with somebody who didn't do what you expected him to do? We murmur and complain. The Bible says in Philippians 4, chapter 2, verse 14 and 15, we put away all murmuring and complaining. I cannot murmur and complain because God has been so good to me. Extremely good. And if you think back over the things that God has done for you, you will never murmur or complain. If you murmur and complain, I want to say to you, please listen, I want to say it respectfully, but it is the truth, you are an ungrateful wretch. If after all that God has done for you, you still murmur and complain. So here is the question in the word to the Lord for all that the Lord has done for me. Romans 12, verse 1. I urge you brethren, in view of the mercies of God, this is the answer. In view of the mercies of God, it means in view of all that God has done for you, the way he's shown mercy to you. And he's talking about the previous chapters. If you read Romans, Romans is a systematic explanation of the gospel. Starting with the first three chapters where he says all have sinned, we're guilty before God, we deserve a lot of hell. And then he explains how God not only forgives us, but declares us righteous by faith, justified. And then goes on to say how grace comes upon our life and sin cannot rule over us, Romans 6, and how we are free from this serving God by the spirit of the law and rules and all these set us free from all that. And Romans 8, he says, give us the Holy Spirit. And then he speaks in chapter 9, 10, and 11, how God sovereignly chose us to serve him. And now, he says, in view of all these mercies of God that he's shown to you, what are you going to do? Just come to one or two meetings a week? Is that what you're going to do? Is that how you're going to show your gratitude to God? Put a few dirhams in the offering box? It costs you nothing to put a few dirhams in the offering box. But most of it you keep for yourself. Most Christians give to God like they give to the beggars on the street. You know, you pass by a beggar on the street, and you say, poor man, he has so little, and I have so much, and you put something in his tin. Now it is in India. It's exactly the same way that a lot of people give to God. And if you don't believe me, ask yourself what you give. As if God isn't a beggar. This is why in our churches, all our churches, many, many churches that God has founded, in every one of those churches, we never take an offering. Because we don't want people to treat God like a beggar. And we don't want to give people the impression that God is a beggar. That's, you know, if I put an offering bag in front of somebody, it's like, I see it like this. It's like, as a representative of God, I'm saying, I'm a beggar. My God is a beggar. He gives something. God loves a cheerful giver. And the person has a dignity about a true servant of God. There's a dignity about a church. So you see, well, there's a box there. If you want to give to God, go and put it yourself. They don't want to come and beg for you to give money, you know. They're not beggars. It's a great honor to give to God. If you want to take part in that honor, there's a box there. You can go and put the money there. That's how we do it in all our churches. That's the way we've done it for 40 years. The reason is to restore the dignity of God who has been degraded so much that I see the way so many Christian evangelists plead on television, give God money, give God money. I'm so ashamed to see it, the way they beg for money. Can you imagine the American ambassador in Qatar going around saying, can you please give some money to America? We are poor. Please help us. Can you imagine the American ambassador appearing on television asking people for money like that? I mean, he'd be ashamed. I mean, he'd be, the government of America would sack him and say, come back, go back home. You're disgracing our country by going around asking like that. But the Christian preachers don't care. Because they think the kingdom of God is much lower than America. Even some ambassador for Congo or some country like that will not do it. I feel so ashamed when I see the kingdom of God being lowered to such a low level by preachers. I've fought against it all my life. I'll continue to as long as I live. That's not what God is looking for. I'll tell you something. God's not a beggar. He owns the whole universe. He doesn't want your little few grams of a box. You keep it. Do what you like with it. There's something else that he looks for. Hezekiah did not give a return for all the benefits that he got. Instead of Hezekiah's name, put your name there. Your name. And ask yourself whether in the record books of heaven it is written your name. You did not give a return to God for all the benefits you got. You prayed so much and you got as many answers, but you did not give a return. You put some terms in the box. That's not what he wants. In view of the mercies of God, what can you give to God? Okay, here it is. Romans 12, 1. Present your body. In the Old Testament they said present your tithe. Ten percent. You know that giving the tithe in the Old Testament was an expression of gratitude. Do you know that? It was like income tax. God was not a father. He was a master in the Old Testament. He was a ruler, not a father. And rulers expect income tax. In most countries, unlike here, they have income tax to pay the workers. So that God imposed a law saying ten percent. Everybody must give ten percent to pay the Levites who do all the work in the temple. It is just like income tax. Why is there no tithing in the New Testament? Because God is not a master. He is my father. Which father collects income tax from his children? It is completely wrong. So when people say you must give ten percent to God, you are making God a father and making him a master again. He is not my master. He is my father. When I was a millennial, I used to give him twenty percent of my income. I am not saying everybody should do that, but what I say is I never in my life treated God like a master. He was my father. He was my dad. And I was not going to relate to him in some cheap way, treated like a beggar. What does God want from you? I am going to say to you, it is not your money, it is your body. If you want to show your gratitude to God, and you say, I think all of you sitting here would say, I am really grateful for what God has done for me. Dear brother, sister, show that gratitude in actions, not in words. To speak flowery language and say, Oh Lord, I am so grateful to you and you have been so wonderful to me, or even to speak in tongues and express your gratitude to God, that is cheap. Show it in actions. Give your body and say, Lord, that is what it says here. How do you show? In view of these mercies of God, what should I do? What should I render to the Lord for all his benefits or to me? Present your body as a living sacrifice acceptable to God, because this is the way you, this is a beautiful translation, this is your spiritual worship. Today the word worship has been completely misunderstood. And people sing a few songs on Sunday morning and call it praise and worship. It has become a tradition. These words, these praises that we start in America, in Christian churches, all over the world people imitate the Americans. They call it praise and worship, we call it praise and worship. I don't follow the Americans, I follow the New Testament. And any one of you who seriously, I am talking about seriously, many of us are not serious Bible students, unfortunately. We are very lazy. But if you are a serious Bible student, I can give you a little homework and it won't take more than five minutes. If you have a concordance, if you are a serious Bible student, you must have a concordance. I got one when I was 23 years old. I bought it. It was an expensive thing for me to buy at that time. It cost me about 20% of my monthly salary to buy it. I bought it. And I became a serious Bible student. So if you have a concordance, you otherwise you can even look it up on a smart phone or nowadays you can only get a concordance on a smart phone or even on the internet. Find out, look for the word worship in the New Testament. There are not many places where it occurs. Look at all the places where worship comes in the New Testament. It's a homework I am giving you. And then ask yourself, is this what today people call praise and worship? Or has that become a tradition of man? See man has put so many traditions into the Bible. And one of the things I have done in my life, in my ministry, the last 40 years particularly, is destroy the traditions of man. Why do I do that? Because Jesus destroyed the traditions of the Pharisees. The reason they got angry with Jesus was he was destroying all their traditions which are not in the Word of God. So whenever I find something which is not in the New Testament, I am determined to destroy it. That's why I destroy this teaching on tithing and I destroy this so-called worship which people talk about which is not worship at all. Here is what worship is. To worship God, it says in this verse, is to present your body to him. Not to sing some songs. That's easy. Presenting your body is called here a holy sacrifice. Sacrifice means something that costs you something. If it didn't cost you anything, it's not a sacrifice. You can give a gift to somebody. For example, you give a gift to somebody at his wedding. It's not a sacrifice. Nobody gives such expensive gifts at a wedding that they have to sacrifice some more. No, it's a little extra money you have. You buy a wedding gift for somebody. But sacrifice means it's cost me something. And it says when you give your body to God, it will be a sacrifice and that is spiritual worship. So, I never even open my mouth. When all the others are singing and thinking they are worshipping God, here am I not singing but saying, Lord, here is my body. I am worshipping God. And what do I mean by here is my body? See, in the Old Testament, if you read the book of Leviticus, there were five offerings God taught. There was sin offering, two offerings, there was sin offering, trespass offering, this was for sin. There was an offering called a grain offering, peace offering to show, to get to peace with God. But there was one offering, which is the number one offering there in Leviticus 1 called the burnt offering. And the burnt offering was an expression of gratitude to God for all that he has done for our sin. The presenting of everything. So, they take a bullet. It was not for sin. Sin offering is separate. When you come to sin, you offer a goat or something. But the burnt offering was not for sin. The burnt offering was an expression of gratitude to God. And a guy had to bring a bullock or a goat or something and cut it into pieces and put it on the altar and then it would be burnt up. So, we can ask this question, why take the labor of cutting it into pieces if you are going to burn it up? Why does he put the whole bullock on the altar and burn it up? Why did God say he must cut it all into pieces, the legs and the head and the internal parts and put it all on the altar? Other offerings, the priest would take a little bit for himself. The burnt offering, the priest could not touch it. The whole thing has to be given to God. So, you learned something about the burnt offering today, I am sure, which you did not know about. What was the meaning of it? Everything in the Old Testament had a meaning for the New Testament. The meaning is, what we read in Romans 12, give your body to the Lord. If you put it like that, you know, like put the whole bullock on the altar, you say, yeah Lord, here is my body. Hang on, hang on. Cut it out. Say, Lord, now you understand why it is a sacrifice. Lord, here are my eyes. My eyes have looked at many things in the past years which I have discussed. I have looked at many pictures, many movies, many things on television. Jesus would not look at it. You say you are in fellowship with Jesus and you look at things he would not look at? How can you be in fellowship with Jesus? Lord, my eyes have read many things. Today, I give my eyes to you. This is cutting off the bullock, presenting my body. Lord, from today onwards, how many of you really say this to the Lord? I never want to look at any picture or any person that will make me sin. I never want to look at something which will displease you. I don't want to look at a person in a way that will displease you, Lord. That is not why you gave me eyes. And, on the other hand, I want to read the things with my eyes that you want me to read, like the Bible. Do you know the number of Christians who stop reading the Bible regularly? It is amazing. Probably a lot of people sitting here. Once upon a time, you read the Bible every day. Right? Our life has become so busy that it is a casual reading. You are off to work, to make money, things like that. The Bible reading is in the corner. No wonder God has also put you in a corner in your life. Your life could have been so much more effective and useful for God. I want my life to be effective and useful, Lord. I have served you, I have been serving you, Lord, 50 years. Full-time, 57 years as a Christian. But, I said, Lord, I want to do more. I am not in a hurry to die. I am 76 years old. I keep praying, Lord, I want to live to 100. Why not? I want to live for God. Not because I love to live. I don't love this rotten old earth. I don't want anything on this earth. But I want to do something for the Lord. Because I see so many other Christians that are so half-hearted. I say, Lord, I want to raise up a whole lot of people who are whole-hearted. And if you give me a few more years to raise up some whole-hearted people like that, I am ready to serve you. Anywhere. I will go anywhere. 75% of our work is in the villages in India. That's where we go. And, I want to give my body. So that's your eyes. And then you say, Lord, I want to cut another part of my body, which you call my tongue. See, I am not saying cutting it up. You just say body, you think you have given everything. But when you cut it up, you suddenly realize you haven't really given everything. Now I say, Lord, here's my tongue. I have spoken so many things with my tongue, Lord, which have dishonored you. I don't want to do it again. I want to give you my tongue so that I will never again speak with it, anything that dishonors me. Lord, I have gossiped about other people with this tongue, told stories about them, spoken evil about other people. Sometimes I have reported something even without knowing the full information. Because I hated somebody, I wanted to, and he did a story I heard without verifying. I went and reported it. He did this, he did this, and afterwards you may discover he never did it. But in your anger, you went and spread that story. How can you put it back now? What shall you render to the Lord for all the goodness He's done to you? Give your tongue. This is not the type of message that most preachers preach. They say give 10% of your money. I'll tell you this. It's much easier to give 10% of your money than to give your tongue to God for the rest of your life. Yeah, sure. And that's why if I were to give you a choice, okay, I'll give you a choice. Once I give you your eyes and your tongue to God, then I say give 10%. You say, give me that 10%. I'll give that. I'll use my eyes and my tongue as I like. That's what we have done. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say, in view of the mercies of God, give some money to God. Never. That is the message of preachers and pastors. It's not in the New Testament. In the New Testament it says, in view of the mercies of God, give your body. Not just give it, give it as a sacrifice. That means, sacrifice means you're going to cut out something that you love to do. You love to say things with your tongue. Cut it out. And say, I'm not going to say those things anymore, which you've done in the past. I hope today we change your life. I believe God has brought some of you here with a purpose. To change the direction of your life in such a radical way that you become a whole-hearted Christian and you'll be able to make something useful out of the rest of your life for the kingdom of God. So that one day when you stand before Jesus, you will say, Lord, I'm so thankful I went for that meeting that day in Doha. It changed the direction of my life. So today I stand before Jesus. I don't have any regret about it. I'm sorry I'm not watching you. I believe that. Present your body. Take your hands. I'm not going to go through all the parts of the body. I'm only talking about three parts. Your eyes, your tongue, your hands, and maybe your ears. The hands, think of all the things we've done with our hands which not pleased the Lord, displeased the Lord. Can you think of the way you've used your hands? The way that displeased the Lord, dishonored God. What you wrote with your hands, what you did with your hands, false statements, dishonored the Lord. Present your body. Say, Lord, here's my hands. Okay, I'm sorry that in my ignorance I did so many things. Now I give my hands to you. I want to make sure that from now on, my body is a sacrifice. It's for you. That is the way I can get out of the ingratitude attitude which Hezekiah had. He did not give a return to the Lord in the light of all that God did for him. He wanted to be written about you at the end of your life, but Hezekiah, you did not give a return to the Lord in the light of all that He did for you. I never wanted to be said like that about me. You see, I had a road accident in India about, say, maybe 20, more than, about 23 years ago. I was riding my moped across the railway gate, and it was a hand-operated gate. The guy was a new guy, and he lowered the bar before I crossed it, and I hit it, and I fell down unconscious on the railway line. Unfortunately, somebody picked me up before the train came. And when I got up, and I came to my senses, I said, what? I could have died. But the Lord saved my life. And I said, Lord, I have not finished saying thank you to you for dying for me on the Calvary. I already, by that time, served the Lord for quite a number of years, 27 years. But I said, Lord, I'm not finished saying thank you to you for dying for me on the cross. Give me some more years to say thank you to you. My service is a form of saying thank you to Jesus. He's given me another 20 years. So I've completed 50 years this year now. I'm very thankful. But I still feel I haven't said thank you enough. Do you feel like that? Do you really feel that you've said thank you sufficiently for what Jesus died for on the cross and saved me from death? Our whole life must be an expression of gratitude to Jesus for what he did for us. And there are years I spoke about the eyes, tongue, hands, and ears. So many things we listen to. I got a bit of a cough 2-4 years ago, excuse me. So many things we listen to which we should not be listening to. You love to listen to gossip, tales about other people. You love to hear good things about other people or bad things about other people. If there's somebody you don't like too much, you find that you're always eager to hear one more bad story about that person. And to the extent where you feel there's nothing good in that person. I've come to see that there's something good in everybody. And when people speak evil, you can see if you say something good about that person, they get upset. Because they don't want you to say anything good. They want you to say one more evil thing about that person. Are your ears like that? There's such a lot of corruption in our heart which we got from Adam. We have to judge ourselves and cleanse ourselves. That song he sang just now, I wrote that song about, I think about 35 years ago. I wrote it judging my own heart, if I have not forsaken all. If I have cared for man's flaws and take money as a whole, I mean, Lord give me light that I might see. It's a good prayer to pray. Lord give me light that I might see. Things I can't see in myself. I think I have presented my body to God, but I haven't. I'm not trying to condemn anybody. It's not my job. Condemnation is the ministry of the law. And I'm not a minister of the law. I'm a minister of grace. But I'm more like a doctor giving you a scan report about your inner condition to help you to see what you can't see. You know, why do we take a scan? Because the doctor examines you on the outside and says, you know, you got to take a scan because there may be something inside I can't see. And prophetic message is very often like that. It's a scan. The doctor shows you a scan about your inner condition of your internal organs. By getting angry with the doctors, it doesn't help solve the problem. No, that's foolish. You should be thankful that somebody took a free scan and gave it to you and said, hey listen, there's some problem in your inner life you're not aware of. I believe that that's how every meeting at a church must be. Turn to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. He's talking about a meeting, verse 24 and 25. In a meeting where the spirit of prophecy is there. By prophecy, most of us are understanding prophecy means predicting the future. That is Old Testament. New Testament prophecy is not predicting the future at all. New Testament prophecy is described in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 3 as speaking to people to build them up, to challenge them, to comfort them. That is New Testament prophecy. So I hope you learned something today about the New Testament meaning of prophecy. Old Testament was predicting the future. This will happen to Israel. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. New Testament prophecy is not that. And you must do this. The prophets were telling the king, you must do this, you must do that. In the New Testament, Hebrews 8, 12 says, Hebrews 8, 11 says, they shall not teach every man his neighbor saying, do this, do that, or know the Lord. All shall know him personally. You see, in the Old Testament, they didn't have the Holy Spirit. Only the prophet had the Holy Spirit. So if you wanted to know what God was saying, you had to go to the prophet. But today, every one of us can receive the Holy Spirit. You don't have to go to a prophet. The Holy Spirit will himself tell you what you are to do. Every Christian must be filled with the Holy Spirit. But prophecy in the New Testament is not to tell you what to do in terms of the future. It is words to encourage and challenge and convict and build up. So in a meeting, it says in 1 Corinthians 14, 24, different people get up and prophesy. And someone enters, and he sits there, and he's convicted by what he hears. And the secrets of his heart are revealed. What's the meaning of that? Not in a public way. God does not publicly say, hey, you, give me your name. These are the secret sins in your life. No. God doesn't do that. And any preacher who does that is not a man of God. You know how God reveals his sins to you? So secretly, in a meeting, that the person sitting next to you does not hear what God is saying to you. Isn't that what is happening right now? God is showing you something in your life. You have been convicted about things in your inner life, in your private life. The person sitting next to you does not know what God is saying to you right now. That is how God reveals our sins to us. Secretly. It's as if he's whispering, hey, let me tell you a secret. This is your condition. The person sitting next to you doesn't even know what God is saying to you. Because God respects your dignity. He doesn't want to humiliate us. Human beings humiliate one another. God never humiliates us. He respects us. And he will never humiliate you. He will show you what's wrong with you privately. Secretly. That's what he does in a meeting. So the secrets of his heart are disclosed to him. And he says, wow. I never expected that to happen to me when I came to this meeting. That's what this guy says. When I came to this meeting and I'm discovering things in my heart which I never even knew were there. Hidden sins. It's something like if somebody came to your house and did an examination and said, hey, there's a snake hidden under your cupboard here. Now would you be thankful to him or not? That's exactly what should happen in a meeting. There's a snake hidden underneath somewhere there, which you didn't know, lurking in your heart. Get rid of it. And he falls on his face. This man is grateful. God is here. God is certainly here. Because he's shown me the condition of my heart. I've often said, Lord, that is the type of meeting that I want every meeting in my church to be. And I want you to anoint me with the Holy Spirit. So that every meeting in the church will be like that. Where people can say, God was there. I met with Jesus. He showed me something in my life. Not in a condemnatory way, no. In a way saying, my son, my daughter, let me set you free from that. Let me make you more like Jesus. Delivering you from that wretched thing which is destroying you. You don't even know it's destroying you. I want to make you a purer person. So, that is the way we express our gratitude to God for all that he has done for us. What should I render to the Lord for all that he has done for me? In view of all the mercies of God, present your body as a living sacrifice. The second thing, it's in Romans 12. In view of the mercies of God, first of all, present your body. That's where we begin, as a sacrifice. I told you a little bit about what that means. Secondly, he says, present your mind. We have committed so many sins with our mind. The things we think about. With our external hands and eyes and ears and all we do something, but mind. With our thoughts and our attitudes towards people. There are sins of action and there are sins of attitude. And sins of attitude are worse than sins of action. Action is, you slap a person, you cheat somebody, tell a lie. It's all one thing. One thing you did. It's very easy to get rid of. Attitude, when you are jealous of somebody, or proud, or a complaining attitude about everything, it's a finding fault attitude. Those are very difficult to get rid of. Those are much more serious. So the Lord says, I want you to present your mind now to me. In view of your body. Verse 2, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So that's the second thing I have to give to God. Conformed to the world means the world is trying to shape your mind in a particular way. You know like children play with this thing called play-doh or plasticine. And they make shapes with it. And your mind is like that, that play-doh, which you can shape in a certain way. And the world is trying to shape your mind in a certain way. So don't let the world shape it. Let the Holy Spirit shape it. Your way of thinking, let it be Christ-like. That's the meaning of it. Don't let your mind be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing, so that you can know what God's Word is. So how can that happen? There is only one book among all the billions of books in the world. There is only one book that clearly reveals the mind of God. Only one. And that's the Bible. And if a person is seriously interested in knowing the mind of God, he studies the Bible. And any Christian who does not study the Bible seriously, I would say he's not serious about knowing the mind of God. It seems that many people read the Bible to ease their conscience. Oh, I've read the Bible today. Okay. Some are physician and board work. A lot of other board work just flew today. But to ease my conscience, I read the Bible in the morning. You know, children who got examinations, examination day, they definitely read with a little Bible. Because they want God to help them that day. Even if they forget on other days. It's a, we think we can please God by grinding a little bit. I'm going for an interview, Lord. I've read my Bible today. Please help me to succeed. You think you can grind down like that? The Bible was not given for that purpose. The Bible was given so that we can understand the mind of God. That's what it says here. So that my mind can be renewed. Renewed means changed to think like God thinks. I like that. To think like God thinks. To look at everything from God's viewpoint. It will completely change your life if you allow the Holy Spirit to change your mind. You know, supposing you were to actually go to heaven right now and look down upon a certain heaven. Many things that look very valuable to you right now will not look valuable. You know that? When you get to heaven, you'll discover that money doesn't have any value there. The honor and approval of men doesn't have any value. The criticism of men also is not important. A lot of other things that have value in heaven. So, renewal of my mind means I want to think of things, I want to look at things the way God looks at it. If there's a problem, how does God look at that problem? Then it won't produce so much anxiety in me. Anxiety is produced because I'm looking at a problem the way man looks at it. What's going to happen now? Some calamity. But if I were to look at it from God's viewpoint, anxiety may not be there. Okay, God has allowed this to try me, test me, make me a stronger person. Thank you, Lord, for this trial that's come into my life. You look at everything in a different way. I mean, if you take, for example, you know, on earth people value all these expensive cars and they like to have nice houses that they build and it's okay. There's nothing wrong in having a good car or a good house. But if it means so much to you and you're proud of it, something is wrong. So how to get rid of that? You've got a brand new car, something that means so much to you, maybe a Mercedes Benz or you built a nice house back in India and you're so proud of it. I'll tell you how to be free from it. I mean, just hop into an airplane and look at that car. And that house. And you like these toy cars which children play with. Whatever name it is, there won't be much difference between the Mercedes Benz and whatever is the cheapest car a little man wants. And that brand house and that small little tiny house, there's not much difference when you're 30,000 feet up in the air and looking at it. And imagine if you go further up to heaven and look at it. You know, a little dot. That's what happens when you learn to look at things from God's viewpoint. And certain other things, which we don't think are so important, become very important. For example, values like humility. You see God values it very highly. Generosity, goodness, forgiveness, forgiving people who did wrong. God values these things so much more than your little toy cars and toy houses that you're building. That's what happens when my mind is removed. Things that we are so attached to. You know, I don't hold on to it so tightly now. See, I remember once when I was, I went out for some ministry somewhere and because of that, the little business I was doing, I lost about 80,000 rupees. 80,000 rupees is a lot of money at least for me. And I said, Lord, why did you allow that to happen? You could have prevented it. The Lord said, a few days ago you prayed, Lord, free me from the love of money. Oh, the answer to that prayer is excellent. Praise the Lord. See, my whole view of that changed completely. You know, anybody in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people in India, I don't know how many people ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/cck3hQHI-Mw.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/new-testament-christianity-part-1/ ========================================================================