The Enemy of the Self Will

Father, we lift up our brother Sandeep to you today for what only you can do. Take a vessel and fill it with yourself. You can take any of us if we're willing. You can make us speak your words. We pray that today we'll hear from heaven through this vessel, a vessel of clay to be sure, but in your hand, a means of blessing, pouring out blessing on us through what you say through our brother. Oh, Father, fill this man with the Holy Ghost and fire as he shares with us today in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. Privilege for me to be here. I'll just give you a quick introduction to myself. I'm not sure if I know most of you. You may not know me. My name is Sandeep Poonen. I grew up in India. I came here when I was 17 to go to college on the East Coast in Philadelphia, ended up in California because I majored in computer science. So I work in the IT field in one of the companies up in Silicon Valley. I do IT security. So if you leave your phone around, I might hack it. I'm not that smart. I'm supposed to learn how to protect it. That's what my job is, to protect company security. I'm one of the elders. I'm one of three elders of a church. We meet in San Jose. We spread out all over the Bay Area. It's a privilege for me to be able to share God's word in different places. It's a privilege that Greg has asked me to speak here. So thank you so much. Thank you for listening to me. I hope that the Lord will speak to us today through what God has laid on my heart. The thing that I was thinking about the theme, I couldn't find out too much more about the theme, but the theme was, how long, oh Lord? And the question I had was, I believe that's a question that I believe we're asking, how long, oh Lord? And the question is, what's the answer? Has he spoken to you? When my boy comes to me and tells me, how long before we get home? Silence. Days, weeks, months. Dad, when do I get home? So when we ask this question, how long, oh Lord? Dear brothers and sisters, did you expect an answer? Did you get an answer? Are we dealing with a heavenly father who speaks as more kindly than I would speak to my children? I remember a revival preacher in Africa. There was a drought in the country and he gathered everybody to pray. And when they all came, he said, brothers and sisters, if you prayed for rain, where are your umbrellas? If you ask God a question, if he is alive, he will respond. I grew up in India. I grew up with gods all over the place. Millions, not hundreds of millions of gods, just one religion. I saw it on every street corner. Walking home from school, I saw a mound, it's still vivid in my mind, a mound where a snake lived, right on the side of the road. And there were Hindus who were offering because the snake was a god. I grew up with that. I grew up with elephants, gods, monkeys, gods, half monkey, half man, God. Instruments, God, decorating their, I'm going to India next month, I'm probably going to see that again, decorating their trucks as God. God everywhere. I woke up so many times, countless times to the voice of a Muslim singer calling to worship. My neighbor on one side was a Hindu growing up, my neighbor on the other side was Muslim. When the Muslim family moved out, a Buddhist came and lived in there and they were all devout. I saw the Hindu praying every day. Out of my house, I could see it. I mean, you don't have a lot of space in Indian houses, very tight knit together. The Buddhist woman had prayers every day. While I was playing cricket outside in the street, I could hear her praying. They're all praying. They're all asking, how long, oh Lord? Are they asking something? How long, oh Lord, before you make me a millionaire? How long, oh Lord, before you heal my kid sack cancer? How long, oh Lord, before I'll finally be able to retire? We're asking how long, oh Lord. I don't know what is after the how long, oh Lord, but what's the difference between the Buddhist and the Hindu and the Muslim and the Jain, all wonderful people. A lot of, all my neighbors, very sweet people. I have so many friends. What's the difference though? I claim to believe that my God is living. And if he's living, he's going to speak. But if I ask a question to him and I don't get an answer, then the Hindu and the Muslim is going to be like, well, you're no different from me. You worship a God that doesn't even have a face because you don't make a graven image. At least I made a graven image, but both gods don't speak. Back to you. So when we ask a question, we must expect an answer. And I believe that God, that's how the Lord brought me to him. I grew up in a Christian family, but the way the Lord brought me to him is because he spoke to me. And he spoke to me through his word, but he spoke to me in a way that I knew it was him. And I have been sustained in my Christian life, not by my theology, not by the history of family ahead of me or anything, but by the word of God being spoken to me. Man shall not live by bread alone. Man lives by words that proceed. Dear family of God, when was the last time you heard a word that proceeded? Well, at least this weekend we heard how long, oh God. And I want to encourage you to do what I also had to do because I was preparing to speak. I said, Lord, how long, oh Lord? Well, I'm expecting you to answer me. The Lord took me to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 12 and 13. It's talking about Jesus. It's talking about Jesus who created a brand new way. It's called a new covenant, a new agreement in which God deals with man. The old covenant, it says in Hebrews chapter eight, the old agreement given by God to man, to the Israelites through Moses has been torn up. The old agreement has been torn up. God is not dealing with an old agreement anymore. He's dealing with a new agreement, which is for all nations and all people through Jesus Christ. And he describes this in Hebrews chapter eight, nine, and 10, especially the whole book of Hebrews is a wonderful description of the new agreement that Jesus instituted in his blood. But in verse 12 and 13, he says, but he having offered one sacrifice, he is Jesus having one offered one sacrifice for sins for all time. He sat down at the right hand of God. That's where God Jesus is right now, sitting at the right hand of God. And now he's doing something. He's waiting, just sitting there waiting. What is he waiting for? How long will you sit there and wait God? Well, he tells me from that time onward until that's the answer to my question. How long until here it is until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. We just were asked to imagine heaven. You're asked to imagine the throne of God. Did you imagine Jesus sitting on the right hand of the father? Did you see that he was missing a footstool? Did that come into view that Jesus was missing a footstool because he says, I'm waiting until that I won't be seated. I'll come back. I'll get up off my throne and I'll come down. I'm waiting until all my enemies become a footstool. There are many enemies of God. It's the devil. There's the world system that says in we are crucified to the world and the world to us. But there's one enemy of the Lord that God cannot defeat by himself. There's one enemy of God that almighty sovereign God cannot defeat by himself. Not because he cannot because he's not all powerful, but because he has ordained it that way. And that is my selfish will. It's an enemy of God. I don't know if you knew that your selfish will is an enemy of God. That's in Romans chapter eight. Dear brothers and sisters, these are words that these are verses. These are truths that transform my life. I'm 43 years old. I'm a very happy man. I couldn't say that 10 years ago. I couldn't say that 15 years ago. My desire is to, to not only spread the message of a new covenant life, a new agreement life, the life that Jesus brought. I believe that Jesus was, could say he was 33 years old. I'm 30 years old. I'm 15 years old. Whatever age he was at whatever time he would say, my name is Jesus. I'm 18 years old and I'm a very happy man. I wish you could have my joy. Why can't we say that these truths are changing my life to become more and more like Jesus. Romans chapter eight verse seven. I have to understand what is the enemy of God that God cannot defeat on his own. And he says, I want you to crucify it. And it's called a flesh. Now that word is not a physical flesh. The word flesh has different meanings in the Bible, but this word, the way it is expressed, it's talking about the mindset on the flesh. It's in verse seven is hostile towards God and this mind set on the flesh. And I don't have time to go through this in Hebrews chapter 10 and other places. Galatians five, 24 says those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh along with its passions and desires. But that flesh is the will within me that doesn't want to do what God asks it to do. So what is my selfish will? Listen, it's hostile towards God. Please don't forget that the mindset on the flesh is hostile towards God. It's an enemy of God. I believe the King James version says it. It's an enmity with God. Did you know that there's something that I do, that when I do it, I tell God, I am your enemy. What does an enemy say? I hate you. Can I see that inside of me, that when I do certain things, me born again, baptized, whatever it is, when I do certain things that I'm seeing through my actions, God, I hate you. You're my enemy. What is my selfish will? Feeling whatever I want to feel. Selfish will. Thinking whatever I want to think. Allowing thoughts to come in, whatever I want to think. Doing whatever I want to do. Eating whatever I want to eat. Watching whatever I want to watch. My selfish will hates God. And it cannot please God. It's an enmity with God. And I had this picture of Jesus ready to come back and redeem this whole world. And all of you were ready. All of you had finished making the footstools for God. But I hadn't. And he was waiting. He's saying, Sandeep, the only one stopping me from coming back is you. I'm waiting for you to make your selfish will into a footstool. Now you just don't magically cut a tree and here you go, footstool. That's not the footstool. Jesus was a carpenter. Well, we need to become carpenters in a spiritual sense. To carve up our selfish will, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, piece by piece, and lay it on the altar. Let him prune it. Let him shape it. Let him cut it. Let him saw it till it completely finishes the work. And then he says, footstool. All the enemies that were within Sandeep have been made a footstool for Jesus' feet. And then you work on the next one. Or as you're working on your footstool, help others who are working on their footstools. In Leviticus chapter 1, it's a beautiful story of how the burnt offering is done. And the way the burnt offering was done was different from many of the other offerings. You just didn't take the whole bullock and just throw it on the altar. You cut it up piece by piece. And that was a symbol. He says, look in Hebrews chapter 10, if you go back there, he says, burnt offerings I don't have any interest in. I'm not interested in the sacrifice of bull and goats anymore. What I want is this desire that the proclamation of Jesus, which is, I'm here to do your will. So the symbol being done there is body part by body part. Being cut up and put on the altar, hour after hour, day after day. My eyes, hour after hour, like that bullock cut piece by piece and put on the altar. And my tongue, and my ambitions, and my preferences, and my burdens, and my desires for ministry, everything piece by piece, over and over again, laid on the altar. That's what it says about Jesus. It says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 8, just a few verses before, sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings, that was not desired. And then he said, this is what Jesus said, behold, I have come to do your will, not my will. And he says, by doing this, he threw out the old covenant and brought in a new agreement. So God doesn't need burnt offerings. God doesn't need Sabbath days. God doesn't need anything in the old covenant. God wants one proclamation with our lives. I am here to do the will of God. John chapter 6, verse 38, a one sentence autobiography of the life of Jesus. I've come from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. The new covenant life, the new agreement life, the Christian life is a fully surrendered way. I had a lot of ambitions for ministry. I had a lot of options and possibilities, but I remember the Lord touching me through a statement by George Mueller. Somebody asked him when he was 92 years old, what is the secret of your service? I think most of you know George Mueller took care of 10 million, 10,000, 10,000 orphans, trade down 6 million pounds without ever asking anybody for a penny. I named my youngest boy after him, Noah Mueller. He's two years old now. But George Mueller was so impactful on my life because I was doing all kinds of ministry. I was preaching publicly in different places, and I was also very active in social justice. And my heroes were people like William Booth and Mother Teresa from India until I stumbled upon George Mueller. And I read that statement by George Mueller when somebody asked him when he was 92 years old, he died I think a few months later, what was the secret of your service? And he said there was a day that George Mueller died because I sought to seek the approval of God alone. And here I was working with AIDS patients, with Mother Teresa's, helping poor children, all kinds of things doing and not finding the secret of success that George Mueller had found. And I gave it all up. And I said, Lord, I want the secret that George Mueller found. And I have found the fountain who is Christ. But I had to lay down everything, piece by piece, word by word, every day. Brothers and sisters, I know how difficult it is. I work in the IT industry in the Bay Area. I get assaulted almost daily by emails that come to me that are constantly trying to provoke this will in me that says, God, I hate you. And every day I have to become more and more like Jesus. I have to choose to do it. And I'm sustained by God speaking to me. I'm sustained by God's love. But this is the new agreement. God's waiting. If the prayer, if the cry within any of us is how long, oh, Lord, let me tell you God's answer to me. I'm waiting for your enemies. The devil, I'll take care of him. In fact, I already did take care of him. The world system, no problem. It's much bigger than you can ever handle. I've got this. You can talk to me about it. No problem. But your flesh, I'm waiting for you. Lay it on the altar. Your selfish will. Yes, Lord, I did it yesterday. Keep going. Not interested in zeal. I'm not interested in zeal. I'm not interested in passion. I'm interested in endurance. Show me young people who are faithful. I'll trade one faithful young person for a thousand zealous young people. I used to be zealous. I know where it ended me up. I've traded one person who is humble, submitted and faithful. Give me one in a million. I searched for a man who could stand in the gap faithfully and listen to me. I couldn't find any. I'd find zealous people who capture the theology of the day and get excited about it and keep needing to come to get pumped up by sermons. No, I want a young man or young woman who has discovered Christ to be the fountain. He says, you don't need to maintain me. I don't need to be maintained by anybody. I have found Christ. I don't thirst anymore. Jesus said that to a woman who had been five times divorced. How much more accessible is it to us? Family of God, let's not lower our standards. David's not our example. David killed Philistines, wrote lots of wonderful Psalms, but he then he committed adultery when he was 50. He's not my example. Elijah's not my example. He called on fire from heaven, but the next time, next chapter, I read him running away from Queen Jezebel, wanting God to take his life. He's not my example. Jesus is my example. Who was tempted in all points, never sinned. In thought, deed, motive, action, what does that mean that Jesus never sinned? How long did Jesus live? 33 years? How many days is that? 10,000 days. How many hours is that? I've done the math already. Trust me, I'm not doing this in the spot. 250,000 hours. Have you gone one hour without sinning? In thought, Jesus is my example. Jesus says, what does he say? Try to do the best you can. No, he says, follow me. Follow me. Not thus saith the Lord. That's old covenant. God could, Jesus could have stood 100 miles above from heaven and said thus saith the Lord. He didn't do that. He came down on earth and lived about around me. As a man tempted in all points, he was fully God at all times, but he was tempted in all points as a man and he never sinned. What excuse do I have today for not laying my tongue on the altar? What excuse do I have for not laying my eye on the altar? I have Jesus apparently with me that heathen person who's getting drunk on weekends. He doesn't have Jesus, but I have the Holy Spirit living in me. What's my excuse? What did Jesus have? He had the word of God. He had the Holy Spirit living in him. Did he have some superpower that I don't have? But I've lowered the standard to lower people than Jesus Christ. And the new covenant message is crystal clear. Jesus is my example. But when I unpack what it means for Jesus to be my example, it applies to my daily life. And I have to be maniacally focused on my thought life. And what I read and what I listen to. Because Jesus was. That's the only reason why. And apparently I want to be like Jesus because I said I want I'm a Christian. And that's what I get when I sign up at the very beginning. But we're not hearing this in churches. I want to read something from Tozer. It is my conviction that much, much, that much, very much prayer for and talk about revival these days is wasted energy. Ignoring the confusion of figures, I might say that it is hunger that appears to have no object. There's no there's no object for the hunger. It is a dreamy wishing that is too weak to produce moral action. The correction of this error is extremely difficult. It strikes at the whole Adam life and requires humility and cross pairing. In short, it requires obedience. And that we will do anything to escape. Because there's somebody inside of me. There's an instinct inside of me called my flesh that hates God. I will do anything. I will. Let me read Tozer. When faced with a sin, a confession or a moral alteration in our life, we find it much easier to pray half a night than to obey God. I know it's true. I know how difficult it is to obey God. When my wife needs my help, when my co worker has sent me a nasty email. I'm not talking about replying with my words. God's thankfully brought me a little bit further than that. I'm not saying replying with a nasty email. God's allowed me so far. I'm talking about even my thought life. And it blows my mind that for 250,000 hours, Jesus never sinned. When his brothers teased him. When his customers who are buying his stables insulted him, not one sinful thought. My focus needs to be on purity and radical obedience. That must be my focus. That is why in my desire of what the work that the Lord has in front of me, I must reject the world's system that says define success by quantity. Quantity of what I can do for God, quantity of the size of my church, quantity of how much money I have, quantity of how much money I give for God, quantity of something. I need to get out of moving from quantity to thinking about purity. But I also want to say that I don't have a very big church. I have a very small church relative to many other churches. I don't have any pride in not having a big church and I don't have any pride in having a small church. Quantity is meaningless. And I'm not trying to keep my church small. I'm not. I'm trying to keep my church pure. This is a true statement. Our elders, our church will tell you this about true. We are actively seeking to roll out the red carpet for people to leave who are not of one accord with us. God adds to the church and God removes from the church. And we are not interested in people coming to our church who are going to be half in. We're constantly calling God, calling for God to make us a pure church. And when we see a rejection of purity, we'll roll out the carpet saying, what do we need to do? Do we need to pay you? Please leave. Please find another church where you can feel more comfortable because we want a pure church. We will not compromise on purity because the only thing serious is sin. I got that from my dad, not cancer, not AIDS, not poverty. Cancer never sent anybody to hell. AIDS never sent anybody to hell. Poverty never sent anybody to hell. The only people who are in hell are people who have unconfessed and unaddressed sin. A lot of people who died of cancer and died of AIDS and died of all kinds of sicknesses who are in heaven. A thief on the cross may have killed people, but he's on the cross. So he's in heaven because he got his sins addressed. The only thing serious is sin. And so I have to ask myself and I ask myself very often, is the devil scared of me? Is the devil scared of my church? Will he be scared of me? When God and the devil have a conversation like they had about Job, will the devil and God who see much more than what humans can see, will God and the devil say, will God tell the devil, have you considered my servant? You put your name. Is the God, is the Lord and the devil having that conversation about me? And what then is the devil's response? Well, God, come on. You see what he's thinking about. Next. Let's go to the next one. Let's go to your next servant. He's a pushover. I'll trip him up like that. No problem. By the deceitfulness of riches or the worries of this world or the desire for other things maybe so that he won't be fruitful. I don't believe that the devil is scared when people get converted. I think we heard some of that earlier today because it can be like the seeds sown on the rocky soil. It can flourish up in a moment and then wither off when affliction comes. Not bear any fruit and be no longer existent. There's joy in heaven when a sinner repents. Absolutely. But the devil is not shaking in his boots when somebody gets converted. He does start to sweat when a convert becomes a disciple. When Jesus goes from becoming a great person and Jesus goes to being more than just the number one person. But when Jesus becomes the only one who matters, then the devil is sweating. He's not the great thing. He's not the main thing. He's the only thing. This is the very first call of discipleship. If you don't hate father, your most loved possessions compared to me, you're not worthy of me. You cannot be my disciple. So I'm a little bit more careful now when I say that I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ. Because it's saying, Lord Jesus, you're not just a great person. You're not the one who died for me. You are the only one who matters. And I know who I'm saying who relative to Jesus is next to me, my wife, my precious children. It's a difficult statement. But it's the statement of Jesus and the requirement of God. Jesus must be the only one whom have I in heaven. But you there is. There are five people I desire on earth. Along with you. Is that what it says? Psalm 7325, there is no one. This is the heart of worship. I don't care if you can can't sing on tune. Music's got nothing to do with worship. Worship is saying, whom have I in heaven, there's no one on earth I desire. I'd like to think that Jesus couldn't sing on key. But he said, I have no one in heaven. And there's no one on desire on earth besides you. He was a worshiper. Because when when the devil came to him, with all the kingdoms of his world, the world and its glory, Jesus didn't say, Hold on, let me go play a CD of music. Let me get my singing and praise on. He said, No, I'm a worshiper. I've been a worshiper for 30 years. And you will worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And I've been doing that. Why Jesus, what have you been doing for 30 years? I've been cutting up my selfish will, the will that does wants to do its own will and putting it on the altar faithfully. So the devil sweats when a convert becomes a disciple, and the devil sweats. When two become one. Because when two people become one, when two or three are gathered in my name, that's the church. And the church has a unique power that the individual Christian doesn't have. The church is the only entity that can defeat the gates of hell. The individual Christian cannot. God didn't give us that authority as individuals. But he says, on this rock, I will build my church, the rock that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. And he said, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Against the church. I can't be the church. I have to be a part of the church. It's the body of Christ that will defeat the gates of hell. And so that is why I said purity is paramount to me. Because I need a united set of believers. When I understood that truth, I knew that any kind of personal ministry was over with. I had no desire to speak in a pulpit, in any pulpit across the country or the world. I had a desire to be one. As the father and the son are one, I sought to be one with other brothers and sisters. Now it's easy for me to be one with the brothers and sisters in Armenia, and India, and Russia. Easy. They never bother me. But the people in my local church, that's another matter altogether. But I wanted power. I wanted gates of hell shaking power. And all night prayer meetings wouldn't do that. Singing worship songs wouldn't do that. All the thoughts about revival wouldn't do it. But when two became one, God gave me that power by the authority in God's word. And so those are the things I have sold out for. Dear brothers and sisters, please sell out for two things. One thing, Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ in a personal devotion to Him and to His body, which is the local church that God's calling you to. This is what the Lord has blessed me with, gripped me with. And thankfully the Lord has brought some other believers who I can say I have enjoyed fellowship with them. Fellowship. So that word fellowship, 1 John chapter 1 says, the fellowship that we share with the Father and the Son, this is the fellowship that we want to share with you. That's what John says. The fellowship that I share with the Father and the Son, I want to share with you. That's a high bar of fellowship. But that's the level that God is saying, I want you to be one that way. To have that fellowship that way. This is not community. This is not club because of common interests. So we like the same style of music. We like the same style of theology. We like the same style of preaching. This is way deeper than that. This is the fellowship that we share with the Father and the Son. The new covenant life is accessed by faith. That's the next word I wanted to say, faith. You know, I work in IT. And one of the areas I work with is in cloud security. Cloud, let me tell you what cloud is. Cloud is basically you can access something over from any phone, laptop, anything. Gmail, if you use Gmail, that's accessing it in the cloud. Now, one of the big things that people have in IT about cloud is that it must be always available. Like, for example, my phone, if it's not going to turn on half the time, I'm not going to buy it. Now, the cloud is all on the internet, and it just needs to be available all the time. So when I type in google.com, it comes up. If it doesn't come up half the time, I'm not going to use it. So there's a word called availability or guarantees. And Google, Gmail, all of these guys, they never give you 100% guarantee that Gmail will be always up. I'm pretty sure every time you use Gmail, it was up. But they don't give you 100% guarantee that Gmail will always be up. In the legal language, they'll always say 99.999 or something percentage. And in the industry, we call it the number of nines. So we'll say Gmail gives us a five nines assurance. And some other people will be like, well, don't go with Gmail. Go with us. We'll give you six nines. That means 99.99999. But they'll never get to 100, because they know that means a lawsuit. On the one rare chance where some guy pulled out a plug somewhere in Asia, it goes 100%. I wonder if some of us think of God's word's promises. How many nines do you have on the promises of God's word? Or is it 100%? Faith is the assurance. Faith is the confidence. And I've started to see that. I've seen that one of the things that when much of my Christian life hinged so drastically was when I realized that I had to live with God's word, and I had to apply God's word accurately. And if I did, I had 100% confidence. 100% confidence. And I discovered through the teachings of the new covenant, through the teachings that I heard from my dad and things like that, that this Bible could be understood. The promises couldn't be randomly applied, just arbitrarily applied, but could be applied when taught and understood the right way to where you could have the 100% guarantee. I don't know. I don't know, dear brothers and sisters, if you believe that about God's word. But that just doesn't mean you apply it arbitrarily. Let me give you an example. There are many verses that God says that God will give you, make you rich. How do you apply that verse? Do you think the prosperity preachers are just pulling verses out of nowhere? No, they are not applying it correctly. They're not teaching it correctly. What is the right way I must read those verses that tell me that God will bless me and make me rich spiritually, not physically. My kingdom is not of this world. Jesus was establishing a spiritual life. That is why now I can understand that God says he has blessed me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Every faith is mine. Patience is mine. Kindness is mine in Christ. In Christ, it's available to me. So now I understand how I can walk around in life saying I'm a very rich man. Most people will say, show me your bank account. I'll say you're not you're not thinking right. You use a different dictionary than I do. I use this dictionary. This tells me what riches is and the new agreement. It's not the whole Bible because there are a lot of verses in here that were for the old agreement that were supposed to be applied only in the old agreement. Doesn't make it mean it's not God's word. It's the old testament. But we have to be careful to understand that we're not applying old covenant promises to us. It doesn't apply. God tore it up. I used to work for a different company. I can't go and say, hey, you still owe me money. No, we tore it up. You stop working for me. I'm not working for a different company. Now that company gives me the agreements. We are working under the new agreement. That's why we call our church new covenant. Another word for covenant is agreement. Because we were so touched and it just blew our hearts open when we understood the new agreement. I've never been to Bible school. None of our fellow elders have been to Bible school. But we have a clear way in which we understand scripture because we've understood that it's the new agreement. And as we've been taught the new agreement, we're able to explain it so simply. It's not complicated. My gospel is not complicated. I rarely have to study the Greek and the Hebrew. In English, it's clear enough. You got to die. I don't need the Greek and the Hebrew to tell me what die looks like. I know what it means when I get that email. What about physical health? Does God guarantee physical health? Can God heal? Of course he can heal. Will God heal? I have to leave because one of the members in our church passed away of cancer. Can God heal? You better believe it. I prayed till the day she died. I was there two hours before she died. We were praying for her healing. I told her I'll see you in three months and we play music together. She died that night. There's no bone in my body that wanted her to die. She died. God can heal but that doesn't mean that God guarantees physical healing or physical health. What does God guarantee? Spiritual health. Which is what? You don't have to sin. Sin shall not master you because you are not under law but under grace. I've given you spiritual health. Second Chronicles 7.14, right? We know that verse. If we call on his name, what is the, if my people, we've heard about that, my people, what does that last line say? That he will heal their land. Whose land? The Christian's land. Which is the Christian's land? Have you thought about that? Whose is the Christian's land? My street address but not the neighbor next door? Is that what we're referring to here when he says I will heal your land? It's a spiritual land. What is the spiritual land of the new covenant? The land which is holy, which is the holy land. Where does God dwell today? In Jerusalem? No. In my body. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is the holy land. That's the holy land. That's the holy land. That's the holy land. I refuse to call Jerusalem the holy land because it's not the holy land. Holiness is not a thing. It's a person. Where is the spirit of Christ? He's in me. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He will heal this temple of the Holy Spirit and make it spiritually clean. Sure he did that when he justified me. And he can help to sanctify me. Of course that promise is mine guaranteed 100%. And not only is it my spiritual body, not only my own individual being, but the church. The church is also God's body, God's temple, God's household. That's the other thing that is God's temple, the holy land. So I can go to God with a guarantee and say, God, I want my life to be holy like you are holy. And you'll give me the Holy Spirit to make me holy as you are holy. And Lord, I want a pure church. And where I see sin, I will root it out. And I will not care what people think about me. I don't care what people think about me. I want a pure church. And I've got a guarantee that God will make it pure. God will keep it holy. God can bring revival anywhere he wants. He can bring it in Armenia, America, India, anywhere. But I don't see any verse in scripture that guarantees it. And I want to tell my young people, I want to tell the people in India, when I go to, I spend a lot of time with international folks. I want to tell them, look, this book is guaranteed. It's not guaranteed for physical health. It's not guaranteed for physical riches. It's not guaranteed for physical revivals. It's guaranteed for personal holiness. And that you can find a church that is holy and seeking God alone. I couldn't say that for many years. I was part of many churches that I couldn't say that. Now I can. I can say, come to our church. Come visit us and you'll see a church that is seeking to offer a pure offering. And wherever I go from east to the west, we'd love for your offerings to be offered everywhere. That is my desire. I don't, I reject speaking opportunities where I find that they don't are interested in hearing, wanting to have a pure offering. I say, I won't come back again. I'm not interested. Not interested in traveling the world. No interest. If you show me you have no desire to accept the message, to have a pure offering as a local set of believers, I'm not coming. And I'm not interested because I'm laser focused on purity in my inner life. Look, I mean, you look at my life, you'll know that I'm far from perfect, but I want to keep maintaining that. And every day I wake up, I'm trying my best to tell myself, Lord Jesus, I can live like you. You who never sinned even once, what's my excuse? And I want that to be the habit, the normal Christian life is that we wake up every day and say, Lord Jesus, I don't want to sin even once. You know, I said that, you know, I said that statement and I meant it with all of my heart. When I got baptized, that's what we tell every single person who gets baptized in our church. You must be able to say, you don't want to sin even once. That's what baptism means. We're not saying you won't sin even once. We're not, you're not saying, we're not telling you to be a prophet and say you'll never sin again, but you must be able to accept the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and say, Lord, I don't want to sin even once. That's from Romans chapter six, verse one and 14 or 15, whatever that verse is. What shall we say then? Shall we sin even once? So that grace may abound, may it never be. So we tell everybody who comes to get baptized in our church. You have to be willing to say and stand up in front of the people and God said, I don't want to sin even once. And if you fall a million times, you get up and say, I don't want to sin anymore. To the woman who's caught in adultery, what do we say? Neither do we condemn you. Go and sin, not even once. We don't lower the standard from what Jesus, the most merciful person ever gave. And I think that God's guaranteed me much, something much better than revival. He's guaranteed me resurrection. And I want to live with the daily perpetual resurrection power of the Holy Spirit. Dying people need to be revived, but with Christ, he's guaranteed me resurrection. Brothers and sisters, you know, Luke chapter 11, where it says, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more? And what does he say before that? If your child came to you for bread, will you give him stone? And if he came and asked for fish, will you give him a scorpion? And if your parents, would you even come to your thought process? When my child comes and asks me for bread, I say, well, let's see if there's some stones around. Is that even in my thinking? And God says, exactly. How much more will I give you the Holy Spirit to help you to overcome sin and live like Jesus now? I don't need a 10-hour prayer meeting. Five seconds, two seconds, walk in the light. He cleanses me from all sin. Father, Holy Spirit. I want the Holy Spirit. Why? To heal the sick? No. To live like you. To be pure like you are pure. I'm hungry for you, Lord Jesus. I thirst for you. I thirst for your resurrection life. You have it. There you go. Filled up as much as you want. As much as you can handle. He's a helper. Not a problem solver. Not a possessor. He's a helper. He'll help you. So if you, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body, then you will live. He's there to help you. He's been given to you. And I have at my access everything that Jesus had while he was here on earth to overcome sin. This is the new covenant. This is the new agreement I have with the Holy Spirit given to me when I walk in Christ. When I accept the full finished work of Jesus Christ and ask God to give me the Holy Spirit. He gives him to me and I have everything in my power to live pure like Jesus is pure. Not to walk on water. Not to turn water into wine. That's ministry. But purity, he gives it to me. That's why he says follow me. Not in all the acts that I do but in the character that I live. I'm not lowering the bar. I do not want to lower the bar. The last point I want to say is humility. The new covenant is fueled by humility. It is accessed by faith and it's fueled by humility. Let me give you a thought, dear brothers and sisters, because this is something that has influenced me a lot. Humility is not a response to my brokenness because of sin. That is a very pathetic second grade humility. The humility that God is desiring is the humility of Jesus. Jesus says take my yoke and learn from me for I am humble at heart. How many sins did Jesus commit? The humility I am after is after the humility of Jesus that has nothing to do with sin. It is a completely different ball game altogether and I'm not saying that we are not humbled when we sin and God help us we better be humble at least when we sin. But that's scratching at the surface. That's the first step just to get your introduction into. Let me whet your appetite to what this thing humility is because God wants to open up a world of humility that has nothing to do with sin and that is the life of Jesus who said learn humility from me. I who never sinned, who was tempted in all points and never sinned, I'm humble and I'm contrite in spirit. I'm a I'm very contrite in spirit. How did Jesus do that? I used to think that the only way I'm humble is because I think about all my past sins. No the humility of Jesus is completely separate from sin. Who is the greatest worshiper? Jesus. Who's the greatest preacher? Jesus. Who is the humblest person on this earth? Jesus. I must study the life of Jesus. I must make Jesus my hero. So where is humility of Jesus? Where did the humility of Jesus come from? Because he saw himself and he saw the father and it says in John chapter 5 verse 18 and he says in many different places I can do nothing on my own initiative except if I see my father doing it. That was the humility of Jesus. That wasn't the humility of Jesus because he'd blown it 50 million times and finally said okay God I guess you better have your way. No that's not the humility of Jesus. The humility of Jesus was from the beginning of time when he was living on this earth. He said I will do nothing of my own initiative. The words I speak are not my own. If I really believe that the words I speak are not my own when I'm speaking here there will be no chance of me getting proud. If you knew that I was just reading a text that my dad had given me two hours ago, I wouldn't be proud. You'd be like dude you're not getting any credit for this. Your dad wrote the whole sermon. I wouldn't know. Nothing to be proud about. If Christ wrote the sermon and gave it to me then there's no chance of me being proud. Jesus was so convinced that the words I speak are not my own. I do nothing of my own initiative. I'm here to do the will of the father. Jesus must be my example. Jesus must be the one I look to when I look in to study his life and I say Lord how were you so humble? One of my fellow elders was speaking on church on Sunday and he said I think Jesus must have been spanked when he was a child. He was dead serious and I believe him. He said because Jesus was perfect but his parents were not. And his parents must have thought Jesus did something wrong when he didn't and must have spanked him. Can you imagine this picture of Jesus sitting in his room crying out of the physical pain and not sinning even once. Daddy mommy got it wrong. When you think about the humility of Jesus and the fact that he never sinned it'll blow your mind. There are so many different things that we can think about Jesus in his life and we must be laser focused dear brothers and sisters in making it about Jesus and Jesus alone. Sadhu Sudarsingh was one of the greatest saints who lived in India in the 20th century. He told a story about when he was walking in the forest one day and he saw a bird that was squawking wildly in a tree and the crowd was gathering. He saw that this tree was on fire and this mother bird was squawking because its little children were there in the nest and the fire was creeping up the tree and the bird was frantic didn't know what to do and was trying to appeal to these children. Baby birds were too small to fly to get out but didn't know what to do. It didn't have the strength to pull them out and as the fire kept creeping the squawking and the cries of the bird grew louder but nothing could happen. Just as the fire was creeping up over the nest Sadhu Sudarsingh says he saw the one that what the bird the mother bird finally did is the mother bird in one final act of desperation just dropped itself and covered up all the children. That's the best the mother could do and they all got burnt up. Mother and children but Sadhu Sudarsingh was saying what a beautiful description of love. That's what Jesus did for us. He saw the fire of hell coming to burn us up and he threw himself into it. That is love. There's one difference in the story though. He got burnt up. He escaped. He got out but he paid the price. This is the fuel that says I want to be like you Jesus. Ever when tempted this is Frederick Faber one of my favorite. I named one of my other sons after him. Ever when tempted make me see beneath the olive's moon pure shade my God alone outstretched and bruised and bleeding on the earth he made. Can you picture that in Gethsemane? When tempted let me see Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and make me feel this is it family. Make me feel it was my sin as though no other sins there were that was to him who bears the world a load that he could scarcely bear. He shed drops of blood. For what? He buckled in garden of Gethsemane. For what? Make me feel as if it was my sin as if no other sins there were that made Jesus buckle the one who created the earth. This revelation of Jesus will make the resurrection life of Jesus very present very accessible to us. We will love because he first loved us. Family of God I want to be a footstool for Jesus. This Jesus who threw himself down on me and I got escaped. Who couldn't bear the weight of my sins on him but still took it. I want to be a footstool for him so it's not some great big act of chivalry. What shall I do in response? Love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my love, my all, my ambitions, my pleasures, my family. Please hear me right. I'm not I'm not trying to be controversial but please hear me right. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not interested even in the revival. I'm interested in the resurrected life of Jesus because of what he did for me. I want him to be so close to me. Let me end with this song that I heard about a month ago that has really touched me. I won't say the whole song just the last verse. The bride eyes not her garments you may know this but at the bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory but at my king of grace. Not at the crown he give it but at his nail pierced hands. The lamb is all the glory and my eternal sand. Family of God I genuinely I'm here to say today I want to live the rest of my life being a footstool for Jesus. If you ever see me in San Francisco look me up and ask me Sandeep how are you doing being a footstool for Jesus. Let's pray. Father I pray that the words of my mouth may be shown to be a true reflection of my heart. Lord it's all about you Jesus. We want to be footstools for you. We want to give to you after you've given us everything. You've loved us with such a deep love. Lord Jesus please help us to offer everything we have. I am not looking at garments. I want to look at your face. I don't want to look at the crowns Lord Jesus. If it is there Lord but I want to look at your nail pierced hands. That is what I will focus on. Lord grip me with this life. Grip these dear brothers and sisters in this room and on the internet with this life. May you make a generation of people who will be gripped with Jesus. In Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen.