Recovery of the New Covenant Church Pattern

So I just want to share a few things. First of all, why did we even start a church like NCCF? There are already so many churches in the city and there are so many options people have to go to different churches. Some churches gather on the basis of language, community, all who are of a particular whether Mexican or Indian or Spanish or German or whatever it is.

And then there are others who gather on the basis of what denomination did my parents belong to. I just continue that and then my grandparents, great-grandparents all belong to this denomination and I'm not going to change. So the different ways in which people choose the church they are to be part of or some friends of mine are going to this church so I go there.

But what is the basis on which as a Christian we should choose which church we go to? I believe if you're a wholehearted radical Christian wanting to follow Jesus and you will follow his word. Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from God's mouth. That's in Matthew 4.4, not by some words.

It's a very important, the most important word there is the word every. Man shall not live on bread alone, Matthew 4.4, but by E-V-E-R-Y, every word of God that every word that has come out from the mouth of God. That is how we are to live.

Now if you take only some of those words I suppose you get a little bit of life. I find in a lot of things on the internet nowadays people are very concerned about what is the best food to eat, what is the food that will keep us healthy, what is the food which is harmful and which is unhealthy and they're so particular about that. And I say, boy, when I see a world full of being particular about food and how much exercise they should take and how much they should sleep at night, all these things, the internet is full of answers which are all very good.

I don't find Christians, so many Christians who are so eager to find out what does the Bible say about what a church should be. Isn't that a shame that people are occupied with all these things which I'm not saying they're bad, but it's only for this world. And once you die, all those things are useless.

But what we build in the church is going to be for all eternity. I've often said this, that if I were living in Noah's time, I would not primarily be concerned about what I'm eating and how much exercise I'm doing and how much sleep I'm getting at night. I would be concerned about how can we build the ark.

And because I know that's the only thing that's going to remain when the flood has destroyed the world, if I believe what God had said, I would go up to Noah and say, hey, I want to commit myself to building the ark. Everything I have, my life, my time, primarily is to build the ark. And in my spare time, I'll earn my own living.

That is the type of commitment that I would have had in Noah's time. Only for one reason, because I looked around, I'd say everything I see will be destroyed. This ark will be the only thing that's remaining.

And I'll tell you honestly, that is how God has opened my eyes to see the church of Jesus Christ. It's God's honest truth. And I saw it very early in my life.

When I was just about 24 years old, I saw this is the thing that I must live for. That's 60 years ago. And I've never lost that vision.

It's the only thing I'll live for. I will not live for money. I will not live for good health.

I will not even live for Christian programs. There's a lot of difference between Christian programs and building the church. Some people can be excited about the programs in the church.

We do this, and they like activity. I want to be involved in this activity. That's good.

That's a part of the church. But the main part of building the church is fellowship. Fellowship, if there are no programs, there's fellowship.

That's a church. For example, in a family, what is the most important thing in a family? You all are family people. Is it the programs you arrange that we'll go for a visit over here, and we'll take the children out for a vacation here, and we'll do this type of thing? No.

The most important thing in a family is the fellowship between father, mother, and all the children. If that's not there, what's the use of all the programs? So the church of Jesus Christ, how many programs do you think they had in the first century? They never had programs. They had fellowship.

It says on the first church gathered together in Acts chapter 2, what is mentioned is that they gathered together regularly, and as soon as the first church was formed, they continued day by day in fellowship with each other. The word fellowship was the most important thing for them. They came together, and there was a sense of commitment to one another.

You read that again in Acts chapter 4. We don't read anything about programs in the early church. Activity was not the main thing. Fellowship was the main thing.

I want to say to you, my brother, sister, if activity is the thing that excites you, and you ignore fellowship with different brothers and sisters in the church, you have not seen, capital S-E-E-N, you have not seen the true church of Jesus Christ, even if you've been sitting here for years. How much fellowship have you built, not with your favorite friends, but with different members of the body? As you get opportunity, I mean, even on a Sunday, you seek to fellowship with others, and are you interested in their lives, or are you only interested in what program is the church going to arrange next, family outing, or park outing, or anything else, all the activities, Sunday school programs, all very good. So that's what I want to emphasize.

Fellowship is the main thing, and then we also need to see that a church must be run according to God's standards. What is the standard of holiness the church is preaching? That's very important, because every word that proceeds from God's mouth, a lot of those words in the New Testament concern holiness of life, living in love with one another. If I don't pursue holiness of life, and if I don't pursue seeking to love everyone to the best of my ability, everything else I do, coming to the meetings regularly, and taking part in all the programs, is worthless.

I've ignored the main thing. It's like a person not caring for his health, but just caring that the house is all tidy and neat, and his health is in a pathetic condition. That's not the way our church should be.

All men will know you are my disciples, not by the programs you have, by the fact that you love one another. That's the mark of a healthy church, and through the years, that is what we see in the Acts of the Apostles. Of course, there are doctrines in the church also, which are important, and the church, otherwise a lot of the New Testament would not have been necessary.

The Apostle Paul taught all the churches, this is the way you must have meetings, and these are the doctrines we believe, that God is a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and one God. These are important, that when you get, there's only one way of salvation, and that is through Christ's death on the cross. Christ rose from the dead, descended up to heaven, he's coming back.

Fundamental doctrines, and you have to receive him into your life personally. Born into a Christian family is worthless. You have to receive him into your life.

As many as received him, only to them he gave the authority to be children of God. We must be in a church that proclaims that, and that encourages people to receive it. Not just they are born in a Christian family, it means nothing.

They must receive Christ into their life, and a church that encourages children to receive Christ into their life, so that they become connected to Christ directly. So those are the doctrines we need, and that after you accept Christ, you must be baptized by immersion, according to the New Testament. You must seek for the power of the Holy Spirit, all these things in the New Testament.

So what has happened through the years? The devil, who's the great counterfeiter, has counterfeited so many things in Christianity. You see, you know that in the world, people counterfeit only valuable things. Nobody counterfeits toilet paper.

They counterfeit currency notes, gold, silver. Those are the things that's counterfeited. And in the church, the things that are most valuable, those are that's what counterfeited.

God's not interested in just big buildings. It doesn't matter whether we meet in a little hut or in a big building. What about the doctrines of the church? Even the Trinity itself has been diluted so much.

There are churches that, you know, that there are churches here in America, many of them very big churches that believe that there is no Trinity. They say Jesus himself is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That means sometimes he comes as a father, sometimes he comes as a son, and sometimes he comes the Holy Spirit.

It's, I mean, anyone who uses this common sense would say, how then, who did, to whom was Jesus praying? Father, why have you forsaken me? If he's the same, it's like a man who's off his head talking to himself. Hey, why did you forsake me? It's crazy, and yet there are people who believe it. So I'm just giving you some examples like that.

There are others who believe that Jesus was just a created being, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and many other doctrines. So it's very important that we hold these fundamental doctrines. And through the years, decline has come in.

You know, the devil only pollutes. The early church had a lot of purity, but corruption came in even there. And, you know, by the time, after about 300 AD, the church became very big and popular, and they began to have bishops with crowns and all types of things, completely drifting away from the New Testament pattern.

And that was the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church. And that continued for more than a thousand years. The only church people knew was the Roman Catholic Church.

And there was a, in the late 1400s, there was a Roman Catholic monk called Martin Luther. And he heard one of the priests going around saying, we want to build a new church here in Rome. And if you put money in this box for building that church, your relatives can get out of purgatory and go to heaven.

Purgatory, they said, was this some new thing they invented. When you die, you don't go to hell, you go to some place where you're purged. And if your relatives put enough money in the box, you can be saved.

Can you imagine a church preaching this? And it was going on for centuries, till one man had the boldness to stand against the whole system. And you can imagine the Roman Catholic Church tried their best to kill him. But God protected his life.

You must read a little bit of church history to see how it was and how he stood for the truth and proclaimed what we know today as we are justified by faith in Christ. He was the one who proclaimed the great truth of justification by faith. You're not justified by going giving money to the church or prayers or anything, but by faith in Christ.

And then there began what we call the Protestant movement. That means they protested against the Roman Catholic Church. I'm giving you a little bit of church history to understand why we started meeting here as NCCF.

But then Martin Luther never proclaimed water baptism. He got the doctrine right about salvation by faith, but he never said anything about water baptism or the filling of the Holy Spirit. And so the end result was Martin Luther and all his followers, the Lutherans, they baptized children or sprinkled children, that's the correct word.

And there was not sufficient emphasis on holiness also. And that was in the 1500s. Then a couple of hundred years later, the work of Martin Luther had gone all over into other countries also.

But there was a lot of love of money in the system. Just like in the Roman Catholic Church, priests and all that, there's corruption through money. And there was an atheist who lived in France in those days who looked at all these churches and he said, all these churches have different doctrines, but when it comes to money, they all have the same doctrine.

They all run after it. What a sad testimony. This is in the 1700s after observing different denominations.

They had come out of one group and joined another, but they all still love money. And you find that same pattern today. So many different doctrines and different churches, but you find that the leaders love money.

Now, is that important? I'll tell you why it's important. There's one statement. The Lord showed me that many years ago and kept on showing it to me.

If you want to build a pure church, let me show you this verse in Luke chapter 16 and verse 13. It's a very important verse. You almost never hear it preached in most churches.

Luke 16, 13. No servant can serve two masters. You know that.

Those of you who are working in an office, you can't work in another office at the same time. You have to choose. Do you want to work in that office or this office? Who's going to be your master? Two masters, you cannot serve two masters.

That's a very simple statement. Now, who are the two masters? Now, if it was just God and the devil, problem easily solved. None of us want to serve the devil.

But Jesus said the two masters are not God and the devil. He said the two masters are God and money, the latter part of that verse. Money or all that money can bring.

It's called mammon in some languages. And listen to this. Now think of these two, God and money, two masters.

So I've often looked at it like this. How do I know which I'm serving? Here's the test. Supposing here's somebody A and B sitting here and both saying that Zach is my servant.

I say, please ask them to call me. Let A call me and B call me. And whoever I go to, I'm their servant.

It's simple, easy to find out. So here's God and money. Both are calling me.

To whom will I go? Who's my first choice? Whether I know it or not, I am that person's servant. That's the way I ask myself. Supposing I have a situation where God says to do this and money says to do this, which do I choose? At least for myself, I know whose servant I am.

Not here to convince other people, but I must know myself and you must know yourself. Is God primary in your life? It's not a question of how much you have. You know, one of the most godly men in the Old Testament is Abraham.

And he was also one of the richest people. Another extremely godly man in the Old Testament is Job. And he was the richest man in the whole world.

Can you be the richest man in the whole world? And also the most godly, so godly that God could call Satan and say, look at that Job. See how he seeks to follow me? So it's not that you had become poor in order to follow the Lord. No, it's not a question of money.

It's a question of the love of money. There's a lot of difference between having money and loving money. Many people who don't have money, you think those poor, the homeless people who stand on the street who got no money, you think they don't love money.

They love money just as much as the millionaires who also have money. So it's not a question of having. It's a question of loving.

People who have nothing can love money. People who have plenty can love money. And people who have very little, like Jesus, for example, he had hardly any, even when somebody asked him, whom should we give, should we pay tribute to Caesar? He didn't take a coin from his pocket.

He didn't have one. He said, somebody lend me a coin. And I see there how Jesus lived.

He was probably the poorest man in Israel, but he loved God. But at the same time, there were people like Philemon, who was so rich that he had slaves. And Paul writes Philemon, one of the books is written to him.

So I see that there were rich people who loved God and rich people who did not love God and poor people who loved God and poor people who did not love God. So it's not a question of having. I want to clarify that.

It's a question of loving. There is something, whether somebody has money or not, it's very easy to find out after some time. I mean, you've been in this church long enough, you probably know who all are wealthy and who all are not.

But you'll never be able to know who all love money and who all don't. That you'll know about yourself. Even your wife will not know it.

But you know yourself whether you love money or not. I know myself. None of you can know that.

So this is very important. So this man said, all these churches preach different things, but they all love money. Then a couple of hundred years later in England, a man, God raised up another man called John Wesley.

He began to preach something more than Martin Luther. He began to preach holiness. So people left Martin Luther's church and joined John Wesley's little group meeting in a house.

And because they were more methodical in the way they did things, they were called Methodists. So another couple of hundred years later, John Wesley's died and the Methodist movement has grown. John Wesley cared for the poor.

And then there was another man called William Booth who came up towards the end of the 19th century. He was a Methodist. He brought some prostitutes and, you know, godless people into the church so that they can hear the gospel and get converted.

And by the time the Methodists had become respectable. So they said, please don't bring such people to our church. So what could William Booth do? He went out and started another church called Salvation Army.

So he could save all the prostitutes and the poor people and the little children who were being exploited. I'm just giving you a little history how then came the Brethren movement and the Pentecostal movement emphasizing different things which are not mentioned in the Bible. So that's how you see all these so many churches.

Now, I've said this before. I say it again for the benefit so that it's very clearly in your mind. This is how all these churches have come up.

So I remember when I looked around in Bangalore where I lived and I saw all the churches around town. There are many, many good ones. There are many believers in all of them.

But some are preaching this, some are preaching that. And I remember I was in one church and I was just preaching there on Sundays. And when I preached the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they didn't want to hear that.

So they checked me out and I and another brother left. And we said, what to do? Let's meet together in my house, just two of us, two families. That's how we started.

And different people came and went and came and went and came and went. And that's how the first CFC churches started almost exactly 49 years ago in August 1975. We didn't claim to be better than anybody else.

We just said we want to obey God's Word completely. We want to be saved, teach salvation by faith. We believe in Jesus' Father, that God is a trinity and salvation is by repentance and faith.

Water baptism is by immersion. And then we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then we must gather together.

And there's no such thing as you know, appointing somebody as a priest or calling people reverend or right reverend. No, Jesus said, don't be called rabbi. He said very clearly in Matthew 23, don't be called rabbi.

That was the biggest title in those days. You know, rabbi, to be called a rabbi, people wanted that honor. And Jesus told his disciples very clearly in Matthew chapter 23 and verse 8, don't be called rabbi.

No, today he would say, don't be called reverend. Don't be called with a title, pastor so and so, reverend so and so. You say that's a small thing.

I know. That's what people say about baptism. Baptism was a small thing.

The main thing is conversion by faith to go to heaven. You know, there are people who don't baptize the Salvation Army. They didn't baptize people because that's a small thing.

I know people who don't baptize people who are never baptized, but trust in the Lord will be in heaven with me. But I believe they got there having disobeyed the command of God's baptism. So I take a simple command like this.

But in those days, he said, don't be called rabbi. Today, don't be called. Don't call yourself reverend so and so or with any title.

No. And don't let anyone call you father. The Roman Catholic Church is full of people who go up to them, father so and so, father so and so.

It's direct disobedience to God's word. So what do you do? Will you sit in such a church? I will not sit in such a church. I will not sit in such a church for even one day.

If they're disobeying scripture directly, that is how we pull out of churches. Some people say, oh, it's a small thing. Okay.

When your child has a small sickness or a small infection, say, ignore it. It's only a small infection. Do you treat your child like that? No.

We are so concerned about health. But when it comes to obedience to God's word, I find I don't find that same seriousness among believers. I decided, I said, I'm not here to judge anybody else, but I want to obey.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Either you say every word in the Bible is not the word of God. Fine.

Then I respect you. But to hold this Bible and to say every word here is the word of God and you're not obeying it, I'd say you're a liar. You don't believe this is God's word.

Say that. First of all, I find so many Christians will say, this is the only book in the world which is the word of God, but they haven't read it till now. And they've been believers for 20 years and they haven't read through what they say is the only book in the world which is written by God.

I say they're liars. I don't want to say that to their face, but you should say that to yourself. If you say that something is the only book in the world written by God and you don't read it, aren't you telling a lie? Then be honest.

Like some people are honest. They say, I don't believe everything here is God's word. Some of it is, for example, the gospels.

I like to read that. They are at least honest. I believe this whole Bible is God's word.

And it has helped me, protected me, saved me from all types of situations in the 65 years that I've known Jesus as my savior. And I know it's God's word. So when I read something like that, I take it seriously.

I would never allow anybody to call me by any title. And even pastor is a title. So that's why we come about and say, oh, you're being so sticky about these things.

You go to a surgery. Why do you think the doctors wash their hands for 10 minutes? We wash our hands in half a minute and go and eat. They wash their hands for 10 minutes.

And on top of that, they put on gloves. And if their instrument drops to the floor, they won't use that again in the surgery. You say, it's not so dirty.

Just pick it up. No. That is the care that surgeons have in an operating theater that not a slightest infection should go into this person's womb.

That's why they wear masks and so careful. Boy, I wish Christians would learn a lesson from that. They are so careful that some infection should not go into that body.

Do you think the church is the body of Christ? That is a human body lying on the operating theater. And they're so careful to protect that body from infection. Where do we have leaders who are interested in protecting this body from getting infected? Very, very few I have found in my whole life.

But I thank God there are some. And here and there I found them. And that's how we've planted churches through the years.

We had certain principles. For example, nowhere in the Bible do I find people taking a collection. When Jesus had a huge crowd being healed, he didn't say, let's take the offering back out.

No. Never once did he do that. He never sent out prayer letters asking for money.

But Christian world is full of people who are saying, I'm doing this for God in this country. Will you support me? I'm not here to judge them. Some of them are doing a great work in those countries.

God bless them. What am I saying? I'm not criticizing them. I'm not judging them.

I'm saying Jesus never did it. I'm saying Paul never did it. And I see the apostle Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1, follow me as I follow Christ.

For me that was the guideline. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1. Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. So I say I have two examples before me.

Christ was way ahead and Paul was following him. And the Holy Spirit is telling me through Paul to follow that example. And I look at Paul's example, I find he was very radical when it came to money.

He wouldn't take any. If there was a collection, he would say somebody has to travel with me. This collection is for those poor people in Jerusalem.

The only offerings that you read off in the New Testament was never to support a pastor, only to help poor people. Search the scriptures and see where in the Bible do you read of a collection taken in a Christian church to pay a pastor? Absolutely unheard of. Where did it come from? The same tradition that baptized babies.

Same tradition, no different. I say if you can pay a pastor, you can baptize a baby. What's the difference? Why do you stop the sprinkling of babies? Why should we pick one? This is not so important.

That is important. I say you believe that man should live by every word of God. Many people who say that, they don't believe it.

I have told people through the challenge me and show me some scripture which I'm not obeying. I'd like to obey it. Maybe I missed out on something.

I'd be very happy if you can help me to find it because I want to stand before the Jesus one day and I don't want him to say you did not read my word carefully enough. You were influenced more by the traditions of your relatives and your parents and the church you went to and you did not follow my word. I don't want him to say that to me.

I'd rather sit in a church with three or four people all my life and at least I try to obey your word completely, Lord. God will never ask me, why didn't you build a church of a thousand people? I say I couldn't, Lord, because most people didn't want to obey you. But if I sat in a small church and I didn't obey God's word, the Lord can ask me, don't you read my word? Didn't you take it seriously? You were telling other people to obey and you yourself claim to be a very wholehearted Christian, but here's something you didn't take seriously.

I don't want him to say that to me in the final day. So I see that money was a very big factor and I see in the New Testament that they took money only to help the poor. So I said, okay, we'll do that.

So right from day one when we started, we decided we will have an offering box. We would never pass a bag around because I don't see that in the New Testament. I see Jesus sitting near an offering box where a widow came and dropped some money.

So I say, okay, offering box is all right. Jesus sits by the offering box even today. And people can put secretly silently, nobody knows who's putting everything and no bag is stuck in front of them, compelling them to put something, no.

So we decided right from the we would never pass a bag around. We keep a box there in some corner and those who feel like can go and put whatever they want. Nobody knows who put what.

And that is how we have supported not people, but in many places we have to rent a building for all the people to come together in the church and we had to pay the rent. So we keep a box there even though we don't ask anybody. It's there.

God's always provided. We've seen through the years. And we've also been careful that anyone who wants to join us does not come expecting that he will be supported or helped in any way.

We made a rule that we won't help anybody financially until he's been at least two years with us and he's proved that he wants discipleship and not financial help. In a country like India, a lot of people join a church just because they want some financial help. They know a lot of generous people there.

So we made it a rule. You prove to us for two years you've come to be a disciple, then we will help you in any way. If you are in need, we help one another, but not with any offerings.

And so we said we will never appoint a person as an elder if he's not clear in this area. So now we have elders. Not one of them has ever received one cent as an offering from the church.

They have supported themselves either with a job or some private family resources. That's including me all these 50 years. And we've never ever, all these brothers have never told anyone their need.

When we had little, I know, when my wife and I had very little, we lived with little. I could never afford to take my children out to a restaurant even once. I could never take my children out for a vacation anywhere even once.

So what did we lose? I'm not against those who can afford it. If you can afford something, do it. For example, you rent a house according to what you can afford.

You buy a car according to what you can afford. And you don't despise the other person who can't afford that. But I say radical faithfulness in money was more important to me than what I could do for my children.

If I couldn't buy fancy clothes for them, I couldn't do it. That's all. But I was very concerned about one thing, that all my children should become disciples of Jesus Christ.

That's what we worked on. They must know the Word of God before they leave home and go to college. They must be baptized and become disciples.

And I would encourage all of you, start early. Train your children to be disciples of Jesus Christ and to value the church. I taught them to value the local CFC church.

Every one of my children from the earliest age, I told them to value the church. When we had conferences, they would be the first ones going there to sweep the floor, arrange the chairs. And every little thing, I taught them to value the church.

And I thank God that they value the church till today. So I want to say one more thing. And that is, some people have asked me about the gifts of the spirit, not the gifts of, there are different like gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, but there's gifts of people to the church.

God gifts certain people to the church. That's mentioned in Ephesians 4 and verse 10 and 11. It says here, one of the gifts he's given to the church, verse 11, is apostles.

Next, he's given prophets, evangelists, and pastors or shepherds. This is not a title. We're not supposed to go around calling ourselves prophets so-and-so or apostles so-and-so or pastors so-and-so.

No, this is a function. A function. I don't go around with a bad saying at home, dad or father.

No, it's a function. So it says here, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Now, the question comes, are these the 12 apostles? No, those are the 12 apostles Jesus appointed on earth.

But here, read carefully. Always read scripture in its context. Jesus, verse 10, who descended, is also ascended far above all the heavens, and having ascended, he gave apostles.

Those are not the 12. Those were given when he was on earth. So after ascending up on high, he appointed some people as apostles and some people as prophets and some as evangelists, pastors, shepherds, and teachers.

So what do these functions mean? Well, evangelists means it's easy to understand. One who preaches the gospel and brings people to Christ. Evangel means gospel.

Pastors or shepherds, the correct translation is shepherds. I don't know why they've translated as pastors. Just a dignified way of calling shepherds.

Shepherds are the one who care for the sheep. People in the church are called sheep, and the shepherds, elders, are shepherds who care for the sheep. It's not a title, it's a function.

And just like dad and mom are not titles, they are a function. And then we read about teachers. Those are people who have knowledge of God's Word to be able to expound it.

A lot of us have studied mathematics, but you can't become a mathematics teacher unless you have some ability. In the same way, we all read the Bible, but God gives some people the ability to teach. I know mathematics, but I may not be qualified to be a maths teacher.

You may know English, but you may not be qualified to be an English teacher. You may know the Bible, but you may not be qualified to be a Bible teacher. That's a special gift that God gives, just like shepherds, evangelists, teachers, and prophets.

That's a more difficult gift to explain, but I think the Bible speaks about prophecy as one who, in 1 Corinthians 14, those who can speak in an encouraging, challenging way. And so that's a special gift God gives some people, the ability to not teach, but to proclaim God's Word that challenges your heart and challenges you to be devoted to Christ. And then the last one or the first one mentioned here is apostles.

So there again, we have to find out from the New Testament, what are these apostles? And we know Paul is one of them. And what did Paul do? God planted churches. No man plants a church.

The Lord says, I will build my church. So every church, when I spoke about 200 CFC churches, every one of them is planted by the Lord, not by any man. We serve in that church in different functions.

So Paul had a responsibility for some churches, but not for others. And the churches he had responsibility for, he took very seriously. If you read the scriptures carefully, read Romans, Paul was not a church of which Paul had a responsibility.

So you never find rebuke, correction, no, because he recognizes that it's like, you know, you don't go correcting children in other people's homes, but he can exhort them, teach them, or Colossians, that's not a church Paul planted. So you don't find rebuke and correction there. But Corinth, that was a church Paul planted.

And there you can learn what an apostle's function is in a church which God planted through Paul. There you find so many words of rebuke and correction. You take time, he says, you guys, when you come to break bread together, you're only thinking about yourselves and how strong words he uses.

He never uses words like that to the Romans. To the Romans, he says, when I come, you will bless me and I will bless you, and so on, because he recognizes I have no authority there. And then in Corinth, we read, there were some problems in the church in Corinth, and there was a sister called Chloe, 1 Corinthians 1.11, who wrote to Paul.

Some people say you should not write to an apostle, you must write to your local elders. Well, you read the scriptures more carefully, you'll find that an apostle had a right to listen to people in the church complaining about something which was going wrong in that church, which the elders could not handle. So it says in 1 Corinthians 1.11, Chloe has written to me, Sister Chloe, can a sister write to an apostle bypassing the elders? Sure.

And the Lord has endorsed it. What is the result? The result is the letter of the Corinthians, first letter to the Corinthians. One day when you get to heaven, you meet Sister Chloe and say, thank you, Sister.

Because of you, we've got the letter to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 13, the great chapter in love, would not have been there if it were not for Sister Chloe complaining to the Apostle Paul, there are certain things going wrong in this church. Brother Paul, please do something about it.

And the wonderful thing about the elders in Corinth, they did not get upset with Chloe for going directly to the, bypassing them and going to the Apostle Paul. They respected Paul so much. They said, fine, he's got more wisdom.

He can handle this situation. It's insecure people who are afraid that somebody, even among elders, why did you go to that elder? That's an insecure person. An insecure person should never have any responsibility in any church.

We must be secure in Christ. If somebody wants to go to that brother, let him go. If he can help me more than I can, I'm very happy about it.

And then Paul writes, not only that, he disciplined somebody in that church. We would think it's only the elders who must discipline. But the Apostle Paul directly, he said, that guy who committed adultery with his stepmother, I denounce him and I hand him over to Satan right now.

And later on, in the next letter, he says, okay, the guy has repented. He can come back. And he rebukes another thing.

He says, you guys are all going to court against each other. Is that the way it should be in a church? Imagine elders reading this and a conceited elder will think, who in the world is Paul to come and try and tell this church I'm in charge of this church. I'll tell you.

I'll tell you what Paul was. And that's why he spoke like that. 1 Corinthians 4, he says in verse 15, 4, 15, it's a very important verse.

You can have countless teachers, but you don't have many fathers. I'm your father. The elders were not fathers.

They were elder brothers in the church. An elder brother, if you have an elder brother who's much older than you, a 20-year-old elder brother can help his five-year-old younger brother, but he's not a father. So the elders were elder brothers in the church.

Paul says, as an apostle, I was your father. And I don't come there to teach. You may have many teachers, but you don't have many fathers.

That's what he says. So his rebuke was like the rebuke of a father. And that's why when you come to 2 Corinthians, you find the result of that.

Some good thing came out of that because Paul prayed for them and rebuked them. And there are many things like that you see to the churches that he dealt with, to think how he speaks to Galatians. That's another church he was involved with directly.

So he writes to them in Galatians 3, you foolish Galatians. That's not the way a language an elder can use. A father can use it.

You foolish Galatians, 1 Corinthians 3. Who has bewitched you? Bewitched is a strong word. It's like demonic. Who bewitched you? Jesus Christ, I proclaim Jesus Christ clearly before you.

And now you've gone astray to all these things. He used very strong language. When he writes to the Thessalonians, that is another church he planted.

He says, you know, I hear that a lot of people, a lot of you are just not doing any work. You're not earning your own living. You're just waiting for handouts from other people.

We've seen that in some churches and I've had to rebuke it. People waiting for somebody to give them a handout. And they're not taking work seriously.

If you don't work and earn your own money, it says he who doesn't, there's a word here. If a man, 1 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians 3.10, if a man is not willing to work, he should not eat. Great law.

In case you want to know where it is, 2 Thessalonians 3.10. If a man is not willing to earn his own living, he should not eat. He and his family should starve. You know, it's inspired scripture.

Therefore, he says, because I hear that some of you are lazy, leading an indisciplined life, not doing any work, just going around busy bodies and other people's life, only a father can speak like that. The elders could not handle that situation. So I just mentioned this to show you that these are the functions of evangelists, teachers, shepherds, prophets, and apostles who are like fathers.

And we thank God that God has given us all those gifts in our churches so that we can build his body for the glory of God. Amen.