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  TWO LEVELS OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (VIDEO)
  by Zac Poonen
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of being overcomers in
the Christian life, drawing insights from the messages to the seven
churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. It highlights the need for
believers to face trials and tribulations with joy, as these challenges
help develop perseverance, proven character, and lead to becoming
complete and lacking in nothing. The goal is to grow from being
spiritual infants to mature sons of God, who exult in God Himself and
overcome the world through faith.

Duration: 1:02:51 Topics: "Overcoming Trials", "Spiritual Maturity"
Scripture References: Revelation 2:7, Revelation 2:11, Revelation 2:26, Revelation 3:5, Revelation 3:12, Revelation 3:21, Matthew 11:28, Psalm 139:23, Mark 9:24, John 16:33

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of being overcomers in the
Christian life, drawing insights from the messages to the seven churches
in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. It highlights the need for believers to
face trials and tribulations with joy, as these challenges help develop
perseverance, proven character, and lead to becoming complete and
lacking in nothing. The goal is to grow from being spiritual infants to
mature sons of God, who exult in God Himself and overcome the world
through faith.

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CONTENT
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If you turn with me to Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, we're
familiar with the message the Lord gave to the seven churches. The
churches were all believers. Nominal Christians were not found in those
early days.

Nominal Christians came after persecution stopped. Wherever there's
persecution of Christians, there won't be any nominal Christians,
because what do they gain? So these churches had believers, but many of
them were not wholehearted believers. They had accepted the Lord and
they were born again.

And so the Lord says these words to each of the seven churches, first of
all in Revelation 2, verse 7, to him who overcomes. Now, if everybody
was an overcomer there, there's no point the Lord saying that. There's a
special reward he gives to the one who overcomes.

That's in the church in Ephesus, Revelation chapter 2. Now, we go to the
next church, which is the church in Smyrna, chapter 2, verse 8. This is
a good church, and they've gone through a tribulation, and they've been
faithful, and we don't see anything bad or wrong that the Lord corrects
in this church. But even then, he says in verse 11, to him who
overcomes. So even in a good church, everybody was not an overcomer.

And then you find the church in Pergamos, which has also had some
defects in it, verse 17, to him who overcomes. And then the church in
Thyatira, where actually the elder's wife was running the church. If you
read in verse 20, that is in a pretty bad state.

And to them also, verse 26, to him who overcomes. And then we go to the
fifth church, Sardis, chapter 3, verse 1, which is a really bad state.
They had a name that they were alive, the elder, verse 1, but he was
dead.

To them also, verse 5, him who overcomes. And then we go to the church
in Philadelphia, which is probably the best church. You know, the Lord
says some wonderful things about them.

He says, I'll make you a pillar. But who is that? Verse 12, he who
overcomes. So even to a good church, he doesn't say all of you are going
to be pillars.

He says, in your church, those who overcome, I will make them a pillar
in the temple of my God, and I'll write my new name upon him. And then
the last church, which is the worst, Laodicean church, to them also, he
says in verse 21, he who overcomes. So when we read that to the good
churches and the bad churches, the Lord says, you must be an overcomer.

So the great danger of sitting in a good church is that we can think
because we have good fellowship and all the believers are good to us and
we have a good relationship with everyone. There's no conflict or
strife. We can think everything's okay.

But remember, even to the good church, the Lord says, I want to see who
overcomes here because that's an individual thing. He who overcomes
means each individual. It's possible for a husband to overcome and the
wife may not be an overcomer or vice versa.

Then when you come to the end of the book of Revelation, you read in
Revelation 21. See, this was Revelation 21 and verse 7. He who overcomes
will inherit all these things that are mentioned in this book, and I
will be his God and he will be my son. And so we find in the New
Testament, there are two levels at which we can live the Christian life.

And you see that not only in Revelation. In Revelation, there were these
believers who were members of the church, and in the midst, there were
those who were overcomers. So our aim, we're not here to classify in a
church who's an overcomer and who's not.

That's not our business. That's God's business, which he'll take care of
in the final day. But we have to make sure that in our own heart, we
have a real desire to be overcomers, to be in that number that the
Lord's looking for.

And if you turn to the earlier books in the New Testament, you find
Jesus emphasizing this too. It turns, for example, to John's Gospel,
chapter 10. In John 10, Jesus says in verse, John chapter 10 and verse
10, in the middle of that verse, I have come that you might have life
and that you might have abundant life.

So you see the two levels there again? There's life and there's abundant
life. To use an illustration, if you think of a person lying in a
hospital bed, he's not dead. He's got life.

And comparing with someone who's playing in a basketball game or
something, running around, that person's got fullness of life, abundant
life. If you only think of life, both are alive. But there's a lot of
difference between that sick person who can hardly get up, and this
person is so active, running around and playing games.

In the Christian life also, there are these two levels. And throughout
the New Testament, you find this challenge to press on to abundant life,
to be an overcomer, and never to be satisfied with, I've got life.
Because Jesus came, not only to give us life, but abundant life.

Now turn to the Epistles, 1 Corinthians, for example, what Paul writes
to the Corinthians, he says, I see something very similar. In fact, you
see this throughout the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians and chapter 3, 1
Corinthians 3, he's telling the Corinthian Christians, I could not speak
to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal men, infant.

They're not unbelievers. They are infants in Christ. They are babies,
not grown up.

And so he says, you're not spiritual. You're carnal, or soulish, and
you're an infant when you should have grown up. And therefore, I gave
you milk to drink, and not solid food.

You know, a baby can't eat solid food. So a newborn baby just wants
milk. So in God's word also, there's milk, and there's solid food.

There are some people, when you go into a deeper study of God's word,
you know, so well, I'm not interested in all that. I just trust Jesus.
And they think that's a very spiritual attitude to have.

On the contrary, they are indicating that I'm a newborn baby, and I want
to remain a newborn baby all my life. Those are the type of Corinthian
Christians. They had so many problems in their life, because they didn't
think of growing up from babyhood.

And Paul tells them that. And he says, one evidence of this babyhood in
verse 3 is, there's jealousy. See, if you are jealous of somebody else,
another believer, or anyone else, an unbeliever, jealous of anything,
maybe that he's financially better off, or he's got a better house, or a
better car, or a better job, or spiritually, that he's more spiritually
minded, or that he's got more ability to preach God's word, or that he's
more respected in the church.

There are all types of things that can cause jealousy. And jealousy,
love is never jealous. We have numerous examples in the world of parents
who could never afford to go to college.

Who were just working with their hands, poor people. But their children,
they send their children to college, and the children get more qualified
than them. I've never seen a parent jealous of his son or daughter going
to college and getting more qualified than him.

Why is that? Even though that son or daughter knows much more than the
parents, no father or mother is jealous. Why? Because love is never
jealous. No parent is ever jealous if his son or daughter excels in some
area where he himself could not excel.

Love is never jealous. So when you are jealous of someone, not only does
it prove, as it says here, you're still fleshly, 1 Corinthians 3.3,
you're at the low level, you're a baby. But it also proves that you
don't love that person.

As I said, compare your attitude to that person, to the love of a
parent, to the child, where there's real love. So an infant is one who's
still jealous, and not only jealous, it says in verse 3, there's strife.
Whenever there's conflict, it's an indication of babyhood.

You know, our children, small children, the smaller they are, the more
they fight and quarrel for little, little things, for absolutely
unimportant things. They'll fight about it. So fighting with each other
is another mark of babyhood.

If a husband and wife are quarreling, it's a mark of babyhood. I'm not
saying they're not Christians. Paul didn't say you guys are not
Christians.

He says you're Christians, all right, but you don't seem to be a grown
up. You're still, and so I can't share with you some of the wonderful
things in God's Word. Now, some of us, you know, who have been in RLCF
for quite a while, you've heard numerous messages from Scripture, which
are at a very high level, but it's not a question of hearing those
things.

How much do they register within you? If it doesn't register within you,
it's almost as good as not having heard it. See, for example, in
studying math in school, mathematics, if the teacher is explaining
multiplication and you've stood, you sat there and you heard this
wonderful teaching on multiplication and everybody seems to have
understood it, you also seem to have understood it. When the teacher
explained it, it was clear.

Maybe the teacher explained it on a board and you saw it and it was
clear, but then when the teacher gives you a problem to solve, the
mathematics of multiplication told you some, you can't do it. So that
proves you didn't understand it. A lot of listening to messages is like
that.

At the time when you're listening, you think, oh yeah, I got it. Boy,
that was a very challenging message, but when the time comes in the
future days to apply it, doesn't seem to work. That means you didn't
understand it.

So these Corinthians were like that and they were not growing up. And
there were many things that Paul could not tell them. See, for example,
in one Corinthians chapter two, verse six, you know, there are many
people who, chapter two, verse two, first of all, I determined not to
know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Now I've heard some people say, that's the only thing I want to know,
Christ and him crucified. And they think that is a spiritual thing to
say. It isn't.

What Paul is saying is, I can't tell you anything more than the fact
that Jesus died on the cross. That's about all you know. Christ and him
crucified, that's all you know.

He says, I could not share with you the more mature things. Verse six,
the wisdom which I can share with mature people, I could not share with
you. So it's quite likely there are a lot of things in scripture which
the Lord wants to show us, which affects our life.

It's not just a question of head knowledge. I've seen a lot of people
who, because they hear so many messages and they watch me on YouTube,
they understand so many things. And if their mind is clever, they can
understand it so well that they can even preach it to somebody else.

But it isn't true in their life. You can preach about being free from
anxiety, even though you're not free from anxiety yourself. Now, it's
not only the Corinthians.

I want to show you another example in Hebrews chapter five. You see,
this is pretty universal in the first century that there were people in
churches where the apostles themselves were preaching who didn't seem to
grow to become overcomers. In Hebrews chapter five, he says, the time
has come, verse 12, Hebrews five, verse 12.

The time has come. By now, you should have become teachers. But I find
that you're still at this level where somebody has to teach you even the
simple principles, the elementary principles means the kindergarten
lessons of the word of God.

He's saying, you Christians, and these Hebrew Christians, you've been
Christians for so long, and you should have been teaching others by now.
But you're still in the kindergarten. It's like saying, hey, you've been
going to school for 15 years.

By this time, you could have been a teacher, at least in the
kindergarten class. Because you're 21 years old now, you've been going
to school for 15 years. But sad to say, you're still in the
kindergarten.

You're still trying to figure out how addition works and subtraction and
how to spell simple words. You're in the kindergarten, even though
you're 21 years old. Now, any father or mother would be terribly grieved
if their child is like that.

Even if your child is 12 years old and still in the kindergarten, you'd
be disturbed if your child is sit two years in the kindergarten instead
of one year. Why is it that many Christians don't apply the same rule to
their Christian life? Am I in the same level? I don't mean in
understanding. Understanding we can know so many things.

I'm talking in the level of our life. The level of our life is
determined by whether we overcome sin, whether we overcome the lusts of
the flesh, whether we overcome pride, whether we overcome the temptation
that comes from the sinful pleasures in this world. Are we still drawn
to them? Do you yield to them? To be tempted by them is okay, but do you
yield to them? Then you're not an overcomer.

Well, if you're a newly born again baby, it's okay, understandable. But
if you've been a year, if you've been born again some years ago, there
should be a progress. He says the time has come, Hebrews 5, 12, when you
should have been teachers and you're not able to eat solid food, verse
12.

So you still need milk. And then listen to verse 13. What is the
definition of those who are still drinking milk, spiritually speaking?
Everyone who partakes only of milk, Hebrews 5, 13, is not accustomed.

That means not able to handle the word of righteousness. It's solid
food. You know, you can't put solid food in the mouth of a two week old
baby.

The two week old baby can only drink milk. It'll choke if you put some
solid food into its mouth. So there are two pictures he uses.

One is of children who are in the same level of kindergarten. And the
other is of a baby who's not able to eat solid food. And what is this
solid food? The solid food is described in verse 13 as the word of
righteousness.

The word of partaking of God's own nature of holiness and love and
humility. The life of Christ, the nature of Christ becoming more and
more in us. It's not knowledge.

A person can have so much knowledge in his mind of scripture, and even
teach it, and still be a baby spiritually. I've heard a lot of
preachers, pastors, who've been pastors for years. But look at their
life, they're babies.

They still yell at their wives, and they love money, and those are all
marks of babies. But they preach so much, and Christians who don't have
discernment, listen to these men and say, wow, what a wonderful message.
It hasn't made them grow.

They just admire one sermon after another. You've got to be very
careful, dear brothers and sisters, that you don't become a sermon
taster. You taste different sermons and say, wow, that is a great
message.

You need to evaluate yourself and see how much effect is that sermon
having in your life. Otherwise, you're only accumulating in knowledge.
It's like food, you know, it's good to eat food.

To use another illustration, if the food we eat does not get digested,
and it's not converted into muscle, and blood, and flesh, and bones, you
might as well not eat. If you're going to eat and it's not getting
digested, you throw it up, then it's as good as not eating. So the
person who's accumulated a lot of knowledge, and that knowledge
digestion means that knowledge is not converted into life.

That's the meaning of digestion spiritually. It's like the food you eat
gets digested and becomes blood, flesh, bones, and that's how children
grow. But if it's not digested, not converted into something that makes
you grow, then it's useless.

So this is what is happening to the early Christians. They were not
interested in overcoming life. They had life, but they didn't want
abundant life.

In the Old Testament, there's a picture of this. That's about two
million people, Israelites left Egypt. 600,000 men, many women and
children, a total of two million.

But out of those two million people, only two entered the land of
Canaan. They all came out of Egypt. They put the blood on the door and
came.

That's a picture of being redeemed by the blood. They all went through
the baptism of the Red Sea. That's a picture of water baptism.

The pillar of cloud coming down from above is a picture of the baptism
in the Holy Spirit that led them. They experienced all that. They even
experienced answers to prayer.

Sometimes we think that if we get answers to prayer, we must be
spiritual. No, the people who experienced them, you know, in the Bible,
you read about some people who experienced one miracle. They were lame.

They started to walk. Or they were blind and they could see. Or they
were demon-possessed and the demons were cast out.

Or they were dead and they rose up. One miracle they can testify to. But
do you know what the 600,000 men who came out of Egypt could testify to?
They'd say, if they were giving a testimony in your church, they would
say, you know, brothers and sisters, we got our bread from heaven every
morning.

I mean, if you got bread from heaven, you'd probably be talking about it
for the next 20 years. They've got bread from heaven, not just one day.
Every single day for 40 years.

Isn't that a fantastic miracle? You read in the Psalms, Psalm 105 and
106, that their clothes never wore out for 40 years. Their sandals, with
which they walked in the desert, never wore out for 40 years. If snakes
bit them, they'd be supernaturally healed.

When they were thirsty, water would flow out from a rock. For 40 years,
their entire 40 years was a daily miracle. But they never entered
Canaan.

Were they redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Yes. Were they baptized in
the Red Sea? Yes. But was God happy with them? No.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10. I told you, it's the Corinthian
Christians to whom Paul wrote, some of you are carnal. You're not
overcomers.

You're not becoming spiritual. And I can't speak to you like spiritual
people. And then he not only told them about that jealousy and strife,
which indicated they were babies and they could only drink milk.

He gives them an example from the Old Testament. He said 1 Corinthians
10, verse 1. He says, my dear believers in Corinth, let me tell you
something. I don't want you to be ignorant of this.

That all those Jewish people came from Egypt. Verse 2, they were
baptized into Moses in the sea, a picture of water baptism, in the
cloud, a picture of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They ate the same
spiritual food, which is a picture of going to church and listening to
the same message.

They all drank the same spiritual drink they had received the Holy
Spirit. But, verse 5, with most of them, God was not happy. Why is he
telling the Corinthian Christians this? He says, you also may be
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

And you may be baptized and you may have experienced the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. You may be reading God's word. But, verse 5, may be true of
you that God's not happy with you.

And so they died in the wilderness. It's the minority with whom God was
happy. Two out of 600,000 men, Joshua and Caleb.

These warnings are there given to us to challenge us. Not to discourage
us, but to challenge us and say, don't make the same mistakes. I told
you about the Hebrew Christians who were not growing up.

They're only drinking milk. Look what he tells the Hebrew Christians in
chapter 2. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 3. Hebrews
chapter 2, verse 3. How will we escape if we neglect such a great
salvation? Now, I don't believe you all, any of you have rejected God's
great salvation. But, it's possible that many of you have neglected.

You know the difference between rejecting something and neglecting
something? You can reject a child or neglect a child. Here, they were
not rejecting this great salvation. No, they were neglecting it.

That means they had the opportunity to make use of the salvation and
become overcomers, and they didn't. And so they remained babies. Every
one of us must examine ourselves to see whether you are neglecting this
great salvation.

That was purchased at such tremendous cost for us on the cross. So, we
need to ask ourselves, how can we be overcomers? Let me just show you a
few things. Turn to 1 John in chapter 5. Here also he speaks about
overcoming.

How to overcome the world? And the world is described, before we go to
that chapter 2, you see what the world is described in 1 John chapter 2.
All that is in the world, 1 John 2, 16. The world is described as the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Three
things that describe the world.

The world, not the physical world, but this world system that's run by
Satan. The world system that's run by Satan consists of the lusts of the
flesh, sinful pleasures that cater to our body, sexual pleasure, etc.
Sinful sexual pleasure and sinful many other things that appeal to our
eyes and gluttony.

These are the lusts of the flesh. And the lusts of the eyes is the
temptation to, in a paraphrase, I think, Living Bible, it says, to buy
everything that you see. The temptation to buy something that you see in
somebody's house, not because you need it, but because you covet it.

It's a lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. He categorizes
world's attractions under these three categories. And he says here, in
verse 15 of 1 John 2, if you love these things, you cannot love God.

You can't love both. The world is described here like another man who's
trying to win you, the bride of Christ, to himself. And if you're
engaged to Christ as your bridegroom, and you are drawn to this person
called the world with his sinful pleasures and attracting you with
everything that can bring you away from God, you're a harlot.

So now we come to 1 John 5. This world, how to overcome it? 1 John 5, in
the middle, it says, This is the victory that has overcome the world,
our faith. Whoever is born of God overcomes the world means has the
capacity to overcome the world. Just like a little child when it's born,
a normal child has the capacity, even though in the beginning it can't
even get up from the cradle, that child has got the built-in capacity
one day to walk, run, climb mountains, grow up, become tall, get a
college degree.

Capacity is all there. Whether he attains all that is another thing. So
whoever is born of God has got the capacity to overcome all these things
which I described as the world.

If we believe. This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.
So we need to understand a little more about what faith is.

You know, there is dead faith and the living faith. James speaks about
faith without works and faith with works. And if it is only in the head,
something I believe factually, two plus two is four, that's one type of
faith.

Or San Francisco is in California. That's an intellectual knowledge.
Believing something a fact.

Jesus Christ is the son of God. It's like believing that San Francisco
is in California. He died for the sins of the world.

He rose up. He ascended to heaven and he's coming back to this earth.
It's just like believing that Loveland is in Colorado.

There's no difference between believing that and believing all these
things I just said about Christ. That's faith without works. James
speaks about that.

But the faith that the Bible speaks of is not just knowledge of certain
facts. Many Christians, even they say they are born again, it's just a
knowledge of certain facts and they repeated certain words. But real
living faith is a dependence upon God, a helpless dependence upon God
like a branch in a tree.

That is faith. And when a branch is in a tree, it's bound to bring forth
fruit because the sap, which is a picture of the Holy Spirit, flows from
the tree to the branch. And in a sense, it's effortless producing fruit.

But when we have never lived that life in the beginning, it's a struggle
to come to that level, life of faith. But once you come to the life of
faith, it's effortless. The Bible speaks about the rest of faith in
Hebrew's form.

It's a struggle to get there, but once you get there, you come to a
place of rest where it's almost spontaneous. So our faith is tested in
the different situations we find ourselves in. It's very interesting
that many people, many Christians think only of justification by faith.

But if you turn with me to Romans, Romans is the great book which speaks
about how God declares us righteous by faith. But that's just laying the
foundation. You believe that Christ died for you and you have received
him.

As your savior, and made him Lord of your life. You're declared
righteous. And here's described in Romans 5, one verse like this.

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the basic kindergarten lesson. I have been accepted
by my father in heaven.

My sins are forgiven. Not only sins are forgiven, justified means I have
been declared to be a righteous person. Just as if I had never sinned in
my life.

And just as if I'd been righteous from day one of my life. That is the
meaning of justified. It's an amazing thing that the blood of Christ
does for us.

Not only forgive our sins, but justify us. And we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. But then, it doesn't stop there.

It says now, we go on to verse three, tribulations. We rejoice in
tribulation. See, first of all, verse two, we rejoice that we have been,
verse two, we've been introduced by faith into this grace in which we
stand.

And we exult in that. We, exult is a word which means we greatly
rejoice. I'm supremely happy.

See, that's something that comes here. It's the elementary stage of the
Christian life. And if you notice here in Romans five, I just want to
show you the three times where that word exult comes.

You see, it's like a growth in the Christian life. The first level is
where we exult or excited and are so taken up with the fact that, verse
two, we are justified, our sins are forgiven, and we stand in God's
presence accepted. We exult in hope the glory of God we'll get one day.

But the second stage, when you go on from there, is verse three, where
we get excited about the trials we are facing. And very few people go
through that who pass in this class. To exult in hope of the glory of
God, yes, everybody would like that.

But verse two, to exult in tribulation. It's not that the tribulation
itself is something exciting, but because the tribulation brings about
perseverance and proven character, and proven character means it makes
me like Christ. That's why I exult in trial.

I first start and exult the fact that God's accepted me. I'm his child
and I've got to hope for the future that I move on to the next class,
which is exulting in the trials God sends into my life. That's how we
overcome.

You can't be an overcomer if you don't have anything to overcome. And
that's why once we come to the level of justified by faith, which is
described in verse one, the next step is to exult in tribulation. And
finally, it says in verse 11, we exult in God himself.

That is the highest level of the Christian life where I'm not even
rejoicing in my own spiritual growth and my overcoming sin and my
pressing onto perfection. No, even that becomes a stage to the highest
level where I glory in God himself. I'm taken up with God himself like
the bride is taken up with the bridegroom in the song of Solomon.

That Jesus himself is what satisfies me. Not the fact that I've got
victory. See, for example, if you get victory over sin, for example,
you're defeated by anger and a day comes in your life where you're
finished with anger or it's exciting or you're defeated by anxiety.

And the day comes in your life, you're finished with anxiety or you were
always complaining or murmuring about something and you're finished with
it and you come to the place where you can give thanks and everything.
Good. You rejoice in that.

But there's a still higher level where you don't rejoice in your
victories. You rejoice in God himself. The person of God.

See, even victory is a gift God gives you. But now we go beyond the gift
to the giver himself in Romans 5.11. So this is what spiritual growth
is. This is what it means to be an overcomer.

And tribulation and trial is a very important part of it. The same thing
we read in James in chapter one. In James chapter one, we read, first of
all, he says, to these believers, they are born again believers.

James chapter one, verse two. Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you
encounter various trials. It's amazing how a mature Christian is excited
when he comes into a trial.

Just like a worldly person is excited when there's a hike in his monthly
salary. He goes to work one day and the boss says, I've decided to
double your salary. He's excited.

The spiritually minded Christian is excited when he encounters various
trials. He says, wow, this is going to increase my perfection. For him,
salary is perfection.

This thing is going to increase my perfection. He's excited about it. He
doesn't say, oh no, what is this trial that's come into my life? We need
to look at trials from God's viewpoint.

In our Indian school system, the final examination that comes at the end
of the school year is very, very important. Because your promotion to
the next class is not dependent on all the tests you did during the one
year. That may be the system in some schools.

In the Indian schools, it was the final examination so people had to
really work hard to pass in the final examination and they looked
forward to it because the final examination is a tough examination,
different subjects. Why do they look forward to it? Why does a parent
tell his child, well, even if you got a fever, my son, go and write that
examination. Nevermind if you've got a stomachache or a headache, go and
do that examination.

Sending a sick child to school because the child will not get promoted
to the next class if he doesn't pass that examination. So that's what it
says here. Consider it a great joy that you're facing this examination
now because this trial, verse two, will test your faith, verse three.

This trial will test your faith like the examination tests a student's
knowledge and that will produce endurance which will finally make you,
verse four, perfect, lacking in nothing. That's an overcomer. If you
want a definition of an overcomer, here it is.

One who endures in trials, verse four, James 1.4, allows the trials to
have a perfect result in his inner man so that it makes him complete and
perfect, lacking in nothing. He gets 100% because he's faced these
trials in the power of the Holy Spirit in faith and he's an overcomer.
You know, you remember, you looked at 1 John 5. This is the victory that
overcomes all the temptations of the world, our faith.

My faith, when I face a trial, that is for my good. I mean, many
children say, no, no, mom, I don't want to go to the, today's a tough
examination. I don't want to go for it.

But the parents would say, you've got to go for it. Otherwise, you'll
sit in the same class next year. So a sensible student, even if he's
sick, he'll go and do that examination because he says his promotion
depends on that to the next class, to the next level.

So it's the same with trial. The Bible speaks about trials as the means
by which we become overcomers. So if your aim in life is to avoid
trials, you'll never be an overcomer.

That's the reason why God allows many trials in the lives of his
children. You know, what is the last sentence that Jesus said to his
disciples at the end of the Last Supper before they went to get seminium
to the cross? Jesus gave them a long sermon. There are two long sermons
of Jesus in the Gospels.

One is the Sermon on the Mount, three chapters. Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And
the other long sermon of Jesus is at the Last Supper. John 13, 14, 15,
16.

And what is the last sentence? You remember, this is the last sermon
before he went to the cross. Chapter 17 is a prayer that is addressed to
the Father. For the last sentence of John 16, which is the last word he
spoke to his disciples was, I have said these things to you.

Verse 33, John 16, 33. That in me, you'll have peace. In the world, you
will have tribulation.

Imagine, that's the last thing that Jesus told his disciples. You'd
think that he'd give them some word of comfort. You know, we come to the
church always expecting a word to comfort us and to encourage us and to
say everything is okay.

God loves you. He has accepted you. That's the mark of a spiritual baby
who every day comes to get a chocolate.

Mom, give me a chocolate. Give me an ice cream. There's a pretty foolish
mother or father who keeps on giving chocolates and ice creams every day
to their children as if that's their only food.

You know how parents tell their children to eat the vegetables and
things which are not so tasty, but it's good for their body. So Jesus
knows what's good for us. And the last word he speaks is, in the world,
you will have tribulation.

There again, trials. You're going to have trials. But don't get worried.

Be bold. I have overcome the world. I also faced trials for the 33 and a
half years that I was on earth.

Jesus says, I faced many trials in the 30 years in Nazareth and the
three and a half years of my ministry. And now I'm going to the cross. I
have overcome the world.

And I want you to share my victory. What is the world? The lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all the temptations that
come to us from the devil. He overcame all of them.

It's a great statement we read in John chapter 14. Also in the last
message that Jesus spoke of the last supper. He says in John 14 and
verse 30, in the middle of that verse, the prince of the world is
coming.

That's the devil. But he finds nothing in me. You remember he was, Jesus
spent 40 days in the wilderness right at the beginning of his ministry,
being tempted by Satan for 40 days.

And at the end of it, we read those three final temptations, but he was
tempted for 40 days. Not only 40 days, he was tempted for 33 and a half
years every day, but he never yielded. Even in Gethsemane, a thought was
put into his mind.

Don't go to the cross, but he overcame it and went. The prince of the
ruler of this world comes, but he has found nothing in me. He tried at
every single point to penetrate me, couldn't get in.

He was an overcomer, the prince of this world. And that's what he's
saying in John 16, 33. I have overcome the world and I want you to
overcome the world as well.

That's what we read in 1 John 5, 4. This is the victory that overcomes
the world. My faith, which is my helpless dependence upon the tree,
Jesus, he, I cannot bring forth fruit. I cannot be an overcomer.

But if I helplessly depend upon the tree, upon Jesus and say, Lord, I
want your sap, the sap of the tree, the Holy Spirit to keep on filling
me every day. I don't want just one experience of being filled with the
Holy Spirit. I thank God for every experience of the Holy Spirit, but I
want to be continuously filled because I want to be an overcomer every
single day.

I want to overcome the way I speak. That my speech will always be with
grace. You know what it means to overcome in your speech? Let me show
you.

Colossians and chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4. Colossians 4, verse 6.
Let your speech always be with grace. Seasoned with salt so that people
who listen to you get a taste of it. You know, if you put one spoon of
any food into your mouth, you immediately know whether it's got salt or
not.

It should be like that with our speech. That people who listen to us,
immediately they say there's grace in this person's speech. I don't mean
when you preach.

I mean in our ordinary conversation, especially at home with your
husband, your wife, with your children, even when you're firmly
disciplining your children. There must be the discipline of grace, not a
discipline of anger. We all start with anger.

At least that's how I started as a father. And I knew that was not, I
was a babe, but I wanted to grow. I wanted to be an overcomer.

So every time I disciplined with anger, I would get alone with God
immediately and actually weep before God alone and say, Lord, I'm sorry.
The discipline of my child was right. The anger was wrong.

Help me to eliminate the anger from my discipline, to do it the way you,
God disciplines us, but he never does it with anger. He does it in love.
I want to do it like that, Lord.

Let your speech always be with grace. Make it a goal in your life. Dear
brother, sister, if you haven't reached there as yet, don't get
discouraged.

Say, Lord, I'm going to get there. It took me, I'll tell you honestly,
number of years to get there. It was not overnight.

As a result of many years of weeping, praying, fasting, crying out to
God, repenting, and little by little by little by little, I became an
overcomer. I remember, I'll give you one example. You know, I knew that
getting irritated was a sin.

And when you have small children at home, it's very easy to get
irritated because they do something or the other to get on your nerves.
Every child is like that. And I remember once that I battled that.

I said, Lord, I want to overcome this getting irritated with my children
when they're small. I don't want to get irritated. I want to overcome
it.

So I got to some level. And then one day I had a severe headache. Well,
I believe Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good.

What's the good out of this headache now? Lord, tell me, did you ever
have a headache when you were on earth? Well, why this headache? And
this is what the Lord said to me in my heart. You have overcome
irritation from your children with your children when you didn't have a
headache. Now I'm promoting you to a higher class where you overcome
getting irritated when you have a headache.

And that is a higher class. It's a little more difficult. So God is
always leading us higher.

You could resist this much pressure, so many pounds per square inch. And
now I'm going to increase the pressure a few more pounds per square inch
because I want to make you a strong overcomer. It's like these people
who go to the gym, you know, they are working every muscle and there are
so many different machines there in the gym to develop your hands and
shoulders and legs and stomach, belly and your back and neck and
everything.

And all these things, and these guys who go to the gym, they are
determined to be strong. They have these pictures outside the gym of
these people with muscles bulging all over their body and say, I want to
be like that. And they work at it.

They work at it. It's not the fellow who goes once in a month to a gym
who's going to get that type of body. He goes at it every day and works
at it and works at it and works at it.

And that's how the Christian life is. And do you think it's enjoyable
there? It's a strain. Every muscle develops when it's subject to a
strain.

Essentially what is happening in a gym is they are subjecting certain
muscles to a strain. You subject that particular muscle on your hand to
a strain, it becomes strong. You subject the muscle in your leg or thigh
or back to a strain, it becomes strong.

And they do it more and more and more and more. Every muscle becomes
strong and the body becomes muscular. Now there's a lot of difference
between an obese, fat man and a muscular man.

Obesity in the Christian life is like knowledge. Somebody who's got such
a lot of knowledge but it hasn't become muscle, they're not overcomers.
And so that's the meaning of trial.

God allows trial so that just like that in the gym, they subject their
muscles to resistance, we resist and we overcome. I remember once one of
my grandchildren when he's only about seven years old asked me, Grandpa,
why doesn't God kill the devil? Well, when a seven-year-old asks that
question, I say, hey, he wants taking the Christian life seriously,
whatever he's heard. I said, okay, I'll tell you.

And I told him how we develop our muscles when you stretch a spring, you
can have muscles and the handle gets strong when you walk or run, you're
subjecting the muscles in your leg to some resistance. So it's by
resistance that we develop muscles. So I said, God has allowed the devil
to exist so that he'll resist you.

And if you resist him so that he will tempt you rather and if you resist
him, just like in the gym, your muscle becomes strong. For example, I
said to him, the devil will one day say to you, don't obey your dad or
mom. Your dad and mom tell you to do something, don't do it.

What are you going to do? Resist him. Say, no, I'm going to listen to my
dad and mom. Or when the devil tells you sometime you did something
wrong, but hide it, tell a lie.

Resist him, say, no, I'm going to tell my dad and mom the truth. I say,
you know, that's how you'll become strong. Now you see your good friends
will never come and resist you like that.

But God's allowed the devil to exist to tempt you so that you can become
strong. Yeah, and I want to say that not only to little children, but to
grown up people as well. James says, we rejoice in trials.

Count it only joy when we encounter trials. The actual translation of
James 1.2 is when you face a trial, count it only as joy because that is
going to make you perfect, verse four, and complete, lacking in nothing.
That's an overcomer.

If you want a definition of an overcomer, there it is in James 1.4.
Perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. That's like the man who's gone
to the gym and developed every muscle in his hands, his neck, his
shoulder, his belly, his thighs, his legs, everywhere lacking in
nothing. God wants to do that spiritually for us, make us completely
wise.

So let me go back to this last verse in Revelation chapter 21. We'll
conclude with this, Revelation 21 and verse seven. This is what God
says, He who overcomes will inherit everything that God has for man.

And I will be his God and he won't be a little baby in heaven. He will
be my grown-up son. That's, my dear brothers and sisters, that's what
God wants every one of us to be, grown-up, mature sons.

And we all know in our homes the difference between an immature little
child and a grown-up, responsible son. That's what God wants us to be.
And the more we face those things, the more God can use us to fulfill
his purpose here on earth, to use you to bless others.

There is a particular task that God has for every one of you, brothers
and sisters. He planned it when you were in your mother's womb. And
that's why on a particular day in your life, he allowed you to hear the
gospel and come to Christ.

You made a lot of blunders in your life. And God's blotted all that out
in the blood of Christ. And now he's brought you to the place where he
says, I want to fulfill something in your life.

Even if you're wasting many years of your life, don't get discouraged.
You can still make it. Take your life seriously, at least from today and
say, Lord, I want to be an overcomer.

And I believe God will help you. Let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father,
thank you for this time.

I pray that you'll help us not to forget all that we have heard and help
us to experience it in our daily life. Remember what we've heard today.
Spirit of God will remind us, help us to overcome in our home, in our
place of work, at all times.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/8sBEFwN_Wz4.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/two-levels-of-faith-in-the-christian-life-video/
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