Marks of a Truly Christian Church

One of the things that I have done for many, many years ago, and I continue to do, is to study church history, mainly to find out why do we have so many denominations? Why do we have so many churches? You know, if you read the book of Revelation, the Lord told the elder in Ephesus, you have left your first love. That means you don't love me or love one another like you did in the beginning. And that was a church false start in Ephesus.

So Revelation chapter 2 is the second letter to the Ephesians. First letter to Ephesus. This is the second letter.

And the Lord said, if you don't repent, I'll take away the lampstand. That means I'll take away the weakness from you. That means Jesus himself would leave that to me.

Because they left their love for him and love for one another. But what do you think would have happened? Now picture this in your mind way back. That was written 95 AD, when John wrote that to the elder in Ephesus.

And supposing the elder in Ephesus did not repent. And he said, no, we are okay. Who's this John to come and tell us? There were people like that, you know, they wouldn't even respect the apostles.

There was another guy called Dieter Rufis, you read in third letter of John who said, who's this John? We are okay. And the Lord said, John says, I'll go there and teach him a lesson. Wait till I go there.

So despising the apostles was there, even in the first century, even the very apostles who had walked with Jesus, they would despise. But God spares nobody. If you despise his servants, God deals with you.

So what happened? That elder in Ephesus backslid and then some people would see the presence of the Lord is no longer there. The Lord has taken away the lampstand. Those are the ones who at the end of that letter, it says, he who overcomes, few people overcome.

So supposing there were in that church of 500 people in Ephesus, 10 people who overcame and said, hey, we sense that the Lord's not here anymore. Like in the days when Paul was here, and Paul warned the elders that time will come and wolves will come in Acts 20. So these 10 people get together and say, we can't stay here anymore.

The Lord's not here. In a wedding, when the bridegroom goes away, what does the bride do? Does she still hang around there? No. She goes, my bridegroom is gone.

I better go. So that's what those 10 people in Ephesus would have done. Jesus, our bridegroom is not here.

He's gone. We can't stay here anymore. And they would leave.

10 people. 490 people would remain in that church. 10 people would meet in somebody's house, small little house.

And the leaders in Ephesus would say, that rebel group that has left us, don't any of you join them? They're a bunch of proud people who think they are so spiritual and they've gone. Keep away from them. And these 490 people would sing praises and clap their hands.

But Jesus is not there. He left them long ago. So in Ephesus, where is Jesus now? He's with those 10 people.

And those who have eyes to see will go to the only two churches those days, the big one and the small one, and go here and go there. And those who have a hunger will say, hey, we sense the Lord's presence there. So we are going to go there.

So one couple will go there. So that 10 becomes 12. And this 500 people are still warned, don't go anywhere near there.

But the Lord is there. And that church, the presence of the Lord is there. People become spiritually minded.

They grow in this church. Everybody's backslidden and go into all types of bad habits, divorce and brokenness and division. Just like you see in churches today, divorce, which God condemned, is practiced in many churches today.

Even pastors are divorced. How did that happen? Even though Jesus spoke so clearly about it in Matthew chapter 5, because church lowers the standards. Oh, what can we do? We must forgive them.

We must be good to them. So that's what's happened through the years. That church gradually, little by little, it grows.

Give it 30, 40 years, the new church has also become about 500 people. And they don't follow what the early people who started that church taught and stood for, because maybe those early leaders died. And now they have come to the same condition as the first church in Ephesus.

So there's the first church in Ephesus, there's a second church in Ephesus. They would have taken different names, you know, spiritual names like Bethesda or some big, big names. But in that new church, which is now backslidden, another group of maybe 10 people would say, hey, this is 50 years ago, this was a good church, but now it's all backslidden.

We can't go to the first one. That's thoroughly dead. This is also dying.

Another 10 people would pull out and there'll be a third church in Ephesus. That is how all these churches started. Thank God that in every time there were people who said, we can't stay in a dead church, even though only two or three of us will come out.

Every good church through the years has always started with a few people who were more interested in the Lord's truth, the whole counsel of God, than in a number. Let me show you Acts of the Apostles in chapter 20. Paul said, I did not shrink.

Acts 20 verse 27. He's speaking to the elders in Ephesus. I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

Think of a circle with seven colors of the rainbow. That's the whole, all the colors that make white. If one of those colors is not there, it's not pure white.

All seven colors must be there to make it pure white. But when a church backslides, one or two go away, and it's no longer pure, just to use an illustration. And some people pull out and they start a church where they got all the seven colors.

That means the whole counsel of God, like it says here, the whole purpose of God. But after a while, people say, no, why should we be so strict against divorce? People get a bit unhappy, let them divorce and marry again. God forgave Jesus, forgave the woman caught in adultery.

And the Samaritan woman was divorced four times and sleeping with somebody, but Jesus was good to her. Okay. But they forget what Jesus said.

He who marries a divorcee commits adultery. And what Paul said much later in Romans 7, if a married woman marries somebody else when her first husband is living, she shall be called an adulteress. Pretty strong words.

The thing is, very few Christians stand by the whole counsel of God. They try to be more compassionate than almighty God himself. It's happened through the centuries.

It's happening all over America. And it's not popular at all to stand for the truth. People will say you're hard and you're unmerciful.

Nobody can be a prophet who's afraid of such criticisms. And unfortunately, there are very few prophets. They're afraid of being criticized.

But thank God for those through the centuries who said Martin Luther was one like that. You know, the Roman Catholic Church wanted to kill him. They tried their best to kill him.

But God had a purpose for that man. And he was a man who pulled people out of the Catholic Church. But give that Lutheran Church another 200 years.

And it backslid. And in England, it was called the Anglican Church. And into that Anglican Church came a man called John Wesley, young man, and began to preach.

They said you can't preach here. John Wesley was kicked out of the church that Luther started. It's the old story I told you.

And so John Wesley had to preach and he's outside and he gathered a few people together. And they were the ones, the early Methodists, because they stood for the whole counsel of God. And different, different places in England, there were Methodist churches.

Okay, give it another 200 years. John Wesley is dead. Into that Methodist church, there was a young man called William Booth, who about 120 years after John Wesley died, into a Methodist church, he brought some prostitutes to make them hear the gospel.

And those Methodists who were a little more dignified now, they would move away and say, don't bring, please don't bring such people here, go somewhere else. And they kicked out William Booth. So he said, where shall I take these people, bring them to Christ, these prostitutes and these poor children who are being exploited? He started what is called the Salvation Army.

This has been the history of Christianity for 2000 years. Yeah. And I can tell you numerous stories like that.

That's how the Brethren Assembly started. And that's how the early Pentecostals started. When the Pentecostals backslid, then the Lord started the charismatic movement.

And it's always been like that. And that's what happened to us 50 years ago in Bangalore. We were going to, two of us brothers were going to a Baptist church and they were not preaching the whole counsel of God.

They were against the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they told me to leave. I said, okay.

So I had no plan to leave. I was preaching. I was not a pastor.

I said, I'll say I won't take a salary and I won't take a title. I'll preach here every Sunday. So that brother Ian Robson and I, they asked us to leave because they didn't want to hear the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And so we were kicked out. We had no desire to start a church, zero desire. So I told Ian, what shall we do now? This evening, come to our house.

We'll meet. We prayed. What should we do next Sunday? We are kicked out of there.

Come here, we can meet again. And that is how CFC started. So when people say, brother Zach, did you start CFC church? Not at all.

That Baptist church that kicked us out, they're the ones who started it. Please go and thank them. If you want to know who started it, it was a Baptist church that started CFC by kicking two of us out.

We had no intention to start it. And like that, it's been throughout history. And when we come together, brothers, if you want to remain, you have to be absolutely uncompromising.

And that is the responsibility of everybody here, not just the elders. And I'll tell you from my experience, there are very few brothers and sisters who love Christ so much that they don't care for their reputation. They don't care if they're called hard, unmerciful, ruthless, any title, but they say we will not compromise God's standards.

I believe God wants many people like that here. Then God can use you. And that is the basis on which we come together.

We don't compromise on God's standards. Zero. The other thing I want to say, we don't condemn anybody.

Prostitutes and thieves and drunkards and gamblers can be converted and come and be a member of this church. They are forgiven. But we cannot give them leadership when they have that type of testimony.

We have to restrict it and see they prove themselves that there's a change and we have to follow God's standards. The other thing is churches began to split. Now, I told you, churches began to split when they backslid.

The other thing is, and you've seen that much in this country 200 years ago, they would split on the basis of race. So way back, 150 years ago in the south of the United States, there would be the black people would meet in one church and the whites would meet in another church. They would never allow them to come here because each is afraid that maybe my son will be interested in one of those girls and then it'll become mixed and we don't want that.

Okay, whatever the reason, I'm not here to judge anybody. I don't believe in judging. God is the judge.

But that's happening today. I've been here in the Bay Area. I've been to church where almost everybody's black.

99% is black. You go to another church, it's all white. So even though there is no racial segregation, in many people's minds when they come to church, they say we want the same type of people.

There are Indians who only speak the Telugu language. Everybody in that church will be the Telugu language person. I'm not against it.

All I'm saying is that's not the Church of Jesus Christ. It's a good fellowship. Don't call it the Church of Jesus Christ.

Here is the Church of Jesus Christ. Colossians chapter 3 verse 9. You have put off the old man. Don't lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his practices.

There's an old, that is the spirit of Adam, which is the thinking of Adam. That's called the old man. Put that away.

And you have put on the new man. What is the new man? The spirit of Christ, which means my heart is open to everyone whose Christ has opened his heart to. I'm not going to reject a man because he's not educated.

That's another thing I found in some groups in India. This group is only for graduates. And this group is only for people who come to a certain level of society.

Fine. I'm not against it. All I say is don't call it the Church of Jesus Christ.

Call it a graduates group or Telugu group or any group you like, but don't call it the Church of Jesus Christ. It is not the Church of Jesus Christ. Because there is in the new man, there is no distinction.

Look at this verse 11. You are renewed in a way in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew and circumcised, uncircumcised and barbarian and sitting. You know what barbarians are? They are thoroughly uncultured people.

They won't be dressed like you. They probably come with a vest or a sheet around their lower part of their body. They probably sit next to you and pick their nose.

They're not cultured. Are you going to have such people in your church? Uncultured, dirty people. They don't use toilet paper in their homes.

But they're born again. You don't need to be cultured to go to heaven. That's a barbarian.

And I'll tell you, you know, the Scythian is, you read the word Scythian? The Scythian is the one whom barbarian thinks he's a barbarian. I'm not so bad, but this Scythian, look at that fellow. These are the people who are in the church and then slaves and freemen.

The slave is sitting there and his master is sitting in the next chair. That was unheard of in Roman society. This is the church of Jesus Christ.

Slaves and freemen, there's only one thing that matters. Christ is everything. Brothers and sisters, there are very few believers for whom Christ is everything.

You ask yourself, is Christ everything to you? Do you glory in the fact that you're educated and you're cultured and you like to be with cultured people? Then Christ is not everything to you. I'm not speaking what I've not practiced. My father gave me a very good education and I grew up in a very cultured background.

Then I was in the military, in the Navy for many years, very high level of culture, particularly among the officers. I saw in India that all the great evangelists would come and have their meetings only in the cities, big, big cities that have what they call crusades and all. What about the poor people in the villages? The hundreds and thousands of non-Christians, don't they need the gospel? Nobody goes there.

So I prayed. I said, Lord, if you call me out of the Navy, I'll go and preach to the poor. Because I read, I'll tell you why.

The first sermon that Jesus preached in Nazareth, do you know the first sermon Jesus preached in Nazareth? Luke chapter four. He came to Nazareth, Luke 4.16. Look up this. And he entered the Sabbath and they gave him the book of the prophet Isaiah and he opened to chapter 61.

And he said, the Holy Spirit has anointed me. Listen to this. Have you read this? To preach the gospel to the poor people.

I said, Lord, you were anointed to preach the gospel to the poor. I find everybody likes to go and preach to the rich. I said, send me to the poor.

And then the time came and I had to get married. And I heard of a doctor who studied in the top medical college in India, who was going to work among lepers in a hospital where not a single lady doctor had ever gone there because people said, nobody will marry you if you go and work in a leprosy hospital, because you get infected easily. So when I heard that, I said, that's the girl I want to marry.

Because she has a care for the poor. She didn't go for money. Most of the other, her classmates went to America as doctors.

She went to the lepers. I said, that's the person I want to marry. And that's Annie.

That's how we got married. But we had this common desire to help the poor. And that's what we did now in India for 25 years.

She would conduct medical clinics, free medical clinics for all the poor in the villages and villages where there's not even a pharmacy. Those are the best years of our life, 40 years, every single year. Take a bus or a train and go all the way down and have a conference down there in different villages.

I was so excited. I love them so much. They love both of us so much.

And I praise God that our labor was not in vain. We've raised up many, many leaders to carry on the work. We have about 200 elders and deacons.

We call them facilitators. So that I don't have to be involved now. They are preaching the same message I preached.

They are appointing elders themselves because they become mature. They worked with me for 30 years. They know our ways.

They're preaching the truth. Paul produced a Timothy and a Titus. And so when Paul died and went, there was a work to carry on.

This is how the true Church of Christ has kept on, you know, holding up the same standards. And in this matter of preaching to the poor, I'll show you one more verse. In Matthew chapter 11, when John the Baptist sent some people to see John, you know, John the Baptist in prison and he was wondering, why doesn't Jesus, the Messiah, why doesn't he deliver me from prison? Here I am locked up in prison.

So he sent some people in Matthew 11 to Jesus saying, verse 3, Are you really the Messiah? Or should we wait for him? This man saw the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus and heard a voice from heaven. This is my beloved son. And he's having doubt now.

John the Baptist was having a doubt because he did not have the Holy Spirit inside him. That's why. You know how Jesus said, the least believer was 11.

The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. Are you greater than John the Baptist? In one way, yes. You have the Holy Spirit in you.

He didn't have the Holy Spirit in him. That's why he doubted, even though he saw all this. He said, Are you really the Messiah? So then Jesus said, He told those people, Go and report to John, Matthew 11, 4, what you have seen.

What are the things you have seen? Blind, receive sight, etc. What's the last part of verse 5? The poor people have the gospel preached to them. Again, Jesus says, it is the poor people to whom we preach the gospel.

So the other day, Sir Sunil also mentioned this in a meeting, and I tried to count in this church, how many different communities are there? When you say Indians, that's not one. If you come to India, you will discover there's such a division between Indians. They will not mix with people in another language.

You take some time and go through the list of people here. You'll be surprised to see how many different communities are sitting here in a small group like this. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, where there's no distinction between white or brown, between Indian or Asian or American or black.

We have all of them in the different parts of India. That's one reason I'm happy to be here. Eritrea, thank God, we have people from different lands.

I would not want to be in a church which is not representative of the gospel. So when we come to break bread, we are proclaiming that unity. One bread broken into pieces and each was taking apart.

One jar of wine poured into little cups, we are taking apart, saying, I am one with all of these people in the same body. They are different from me. I'm different from them.

But I need them. They need me. Some people think we need gifted brothers like Brother Zach who can get up and proclaim.

Hang on. Please read 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Which are the members of the body that you need the most? I'll tell you, not the visible members.

It says here in 1 Corinthians 12, no member can say verse 21 to the other, I don't need you or I don't need you. On the contrary, verse 22, it is much more true that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are more necessary. The weaker members, do you need sisters in the church? They are called the weaker, the weaker sex, we need them.

And the members, which verse 23, which are less honorable, on those we bestow more abundant honor. There are presentable members in our body. And there are other members of our body we will never let anybody see because they are not presentable.

That's what it says here in verse 23. We know that. We cover up certain parts of our body because they're not presentable.

It says in the church also, there are some uncultured, people are not presentable, but you need them, you value them much more than some of those presentable parts. You know that. The greatest need in the church is to follow Jesus who said, learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart.

Matthew 11.29. Write it somewhere in front of your table or somewhere and always see it, learn from me for I'm gentle and humble in my heart. That's how we fellowship with one another. That's why we don't have a bigger slice of bread for some people and a smaller size of bread for some people.

It's all the same size, same quantity of the wine in everybody's cup. You know, the greatest need in every church is humility, gentleness. Let's learn from Jesus and let us value one another and respect the authority in the church.

There are reasons why they take some decisions. You may not understand those reasons. Don't be so conceited as to think, well, I know better.

Maybe you think you do, brother, but you don't. The very fact that God is not giving you grace in different situations shows that you're not humble. God always gives grace to the humble.

So let us come to the Lord's table, the spirit of self-judgment. I'm not here to judge anybody else. You know, when I go to a shower, I scrub the dirt from myself, not from somebody else's body.

When we cleanse ourselves, when we judge ourselves, scrub the dirt from your own heart. Don't worry about the others. And I believe we can be a wonderful church manifesting the spirit of Christ.

I never want the Lord to say to this church, I'm going to take away the lamp from here because you guys don't love one another. Some of you got high thoughts and you think less of some of the others and you never take an opportunity to meet any of the others. You're always hanging around with your special friends every single Sunday.

I hope God won't have to say that to us. May God have mercy on us. Amen.