The Principle of Jesus' Life — Zac Poonen

Brothers and sisters, I'm happy to be here. What was the main lesson that God wanted to teach man by sending Jesus to this earth? For many people, it is only the fact that he came to die for our sins and restore us in fellowship with God.

That's how what I thought also for many years. Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. So the less truth that we know, the less we experience freedom. The more truth we know, the more we experience freedom, and I've discovered through the years that it was not just to die for our sins that Jesus came.

Walking as Jesus Walked

He came to show us how God wants man to live. I want to read a verse in 1 John chapter 2. I would say that most Christians do not take this word seriously because they feel it is impossible to obey. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 6, the one who says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same manner as he walked.

Or the Living Bible says anyone who says he's a Christian must live as Christ lived. I don't know if you take that word seriously. Is it really possible, first of all? The moment I read a word like that, the devil is quick to say that's impossible.

Nobody can live like Jesus lived. If that is the case, then we have to say that God has written something which is not true. There's something in your Bible which is not true. But I don't think any of us would have the boldness to say that.

I must say that after I was born again, for many many years, I never took that word seriously. That's why my life was substandard, defeated. I did not know God as I should. But when I took that word seriously and said, Lord, if you have written that in your word, it must be possible.

And I want to see how I can live as your word says. Now, this does not mean perfection. We need to distinguish the things that differ. To walk as Jesus walked is not the same as becoming completely like him.

These are two distinct things. So in chapter 3 of 1 John, we read in verse 2, when he appears, we will be like him. So we're not going to be like him until he appears a second time. That is in the future.

But we can walk like him now. Do you understand the distinction between these two? It's important to know that. Because most Christians, this is how it was with me, we say, well, I'm only going to be like Jesus when he comes.

So until then, I'm just going to be defeated by sin because I'm not like him. I will not be like him till he comes. And that's all I knew, 1 John 3, 2, that when he comes, I'll be like him. And we're not going to be like him till he comes.

So I'm just going to keep waiting till he comes and then I'll be like him. But there's a lot of difference between being like him and walking as he walked. And this 1 John 2, 6 is for us to obey now. 1 John 3, 2 is in the future.

The difference is walking is a conscious act. We don't walk in our sleep. Walking is not something to do unconsciously. It's a conscious act. Whereas becoming like him refers to our total personality, all our inner unconscious areas of our life, which is a major part of our life.

We'll be completely like him when he comes. So if God's purpose is to be fulfilled through your life, it is not enough that your sins are forgiven. It's not even enough that you're baptized in the Holy Spirit.

The whole purpose of God filling us with the Holy Spirit is to enable us to walk as he walked. So that's what I want to try and explain to you. What does it mean to walk as Jesus walked? Walking is a conscious act.

I take one step and another step and another step. I'm consciously walking. So to look at the way Jesus lived his earthly life, it may surprise us to see how he lived. Let me turn you to John chapter 5.

Since I presume most of you are born again, I don't want to talk about the first step of salvation, which is repentance and receiving Christ as our Savior. We don't even begin the Christian life. That's when we are born again and we become a child of God.

I'm talking about after that. To walk as he walked John's Gospel chapter 5 and verse 19. Now this may be new to most of you, so if you listen carefully, I believe it will help you to learn something that can change your whole life.

John 5 19 Jesus said in the middle of that verse, the son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the father doing. So Jesus was always listening to what the father had to say to him.

He was constantly, it was not a conscious, you know, he did all his other work as a carpenter or he was traveling around, but within there was a ear that was always open to hear what does the father want me to do and we can say that Jesus was in one sense like a little child depending on his father all the time.

You know Jesus said in Matthew chapter 18 that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is a child. Matthew 18 4 whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and we know that Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

If you put the two together you'll find that the way Jesus lived on earth was just like a little child. A little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So in other words when Jesus sought to live on this earth he lived in relation to his father as a little child who was just listening to the father all the time.

Depending on the Father in Daily Life

And once I discovered this secret, I have to tell you my life changed completely. To overcome sin, habits that enslaved me for years became easy and to understand what God wanted me to do, where he wanted me to go became much easier.

So that we accomplish all that God has planned for us in our life. So Jesus, let me use an illustration. It's like a two-year-old child holding the hand of his father and going wherever his father wanted him to go.

This is how Jesus lived. His life was so simple. All he had to do was respond to the promptings of his father. I want to say to you that is how God wants every one of his children to live. When God put two trees in the garden of Eden, what he was trying to tell Adam was you can have a choice now, two ways to live.

One is you get this knowledge of good and evil within yourself and then you don't have to refer to God for everything because you have that knowledge of good and evil yourself and you can choose what to do and what not to do.

This is how most human beings live. And this is how unfortunately most Christians live. The Lord told Adam that if you choose to live by that tree, you'll die. But the other tree, which is called the tree of life, was another way of life and that is where you did not live by your own understanding of what is good and evil.

But you chose to live by the life of God within, prompting you to do what is right. There are two completely different ways of life. One is by our own cleverness and ability, which is the way even most Christians live.

I think I know what to do. I don't need to wait on God. I don't need to hear what he has to say. And that's the way of death. And that is the reason for a lot of confusion and a lot of defeat and discouragement.

Many of the commands in scripture we find we are unable to obey just because of this reason. But if you learn the secret of living like Jesus, depending on the life of God within us, prompting us all the time in every situation, what to do, how to react, it's another way of life.

This is the whole purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit. I feel this whole teaching about being filled with the Spirit has been so pushed into another direction that has confused a lot of Christians.

Because it's been centered around supernatural gifts. I believe in supernatural gifts and we need to experience that if that is our calling. But the primary purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to have the life of God within us which prompts us to do or not to do in different situations.

Listening to the voice of the Spirit all the time. I want to show you a verse in Isaiah 50 verse 4 which is a prophecy about Jesus Christ related to what I'm just saying. Isaiah 50 verse 4, whenever Jesus woke up in the morning, the Father woke Him up in the morning and He woke up His inner ear to listen.

This is the way we are supposed to live. Every time we wake up in the morning, Isaiah 50 verse 4, He says in the middle of that verse, He awakens me morning by morning to listen as a disciple. And it's not just that having a little quiet time in the morning like many people have.

Every time He woke in the morning throughout the day, His ear was open to hear what does the Father want me to do? And when He was not very sure, He'd go and spend a little time in prayer so that He could be sure what the Father wanted Him to do.

And the other result of it was that when He had heard the Father, if He came across anybody during the day who was in need, He always had a word for her. Because it says here, the Lord God, in verse 4, the same verse, has given me a tongue to speak a word to sustain this weary person.

So here He was, always listening, always listening so He'd know what to do and what not to do. And if somebody came along who had a need which Jesus didn't even know, the Father would prompt Him to have a word for that person.

Just imagine if all of us lived like this. The amount of blessing that you could be to other people in the world is unimaginable. And it's possible for every single one of us. I believe the devil has deceived Christians into thinking this is only for some special category of Christians.

It's not true. For every single Christian, I want you to brothers and sisters to believe this, that it is God's will for you to live such a spirit-filled life that you can actually hear God prompting you in your heart.

Telling you what to do. And when you come to a fork in the road, which one to take, that is God's will for you. It's our birthright. And to have a word to sustain every single person who comes to us, whom we encounter during the day, who are in need.

Hearing God’s Voice Under the New Covenant

In fact, that is the message in the first page of the Bible. The message in the first page of the Bible is that God spoke something on the first day. And He spoke something on the second day. And He spoke something on the third day.

Every day He was speaking. That's the message in the first book of the Bible. And that is to teach us one lesson that God speaks every day. Now, you may not hear what God is saying. That's because my ears have become deaf to His voice.

But God is speaking every single day. From the time I was born again, God wanted to speak to me every single day. But I'm sorry to say I did not have the patience or the time to listen to Him every day.

And I believe I wasted a lot of my life. But a time came in my life when I really woke up and I said, Lord, this is not the way I'm supposed to live. I can end up finally standing before your judgment seat one day and discover that I wasted a major part of my life.

Because I didn't hear what you had to say. I didn't live by the tree of life. I lived by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I say, I know I'm intelligent. I read the Bible and I know what to do. But that's not the way we're supposed to live.

We're supposed to live by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Now in the Old Testament, that was not possible. The Old Testament, only some prophet or something could hear the voice of God and the others had to go to the prophet to find out what God had to say.

This is one of the big differences that happened on the day of Pentecost when God established a new covenant. My dear brothers and sisters, I hope you will be gripped by this. Because in this new covenant, one of the promises is in Hebrews chapter 8, Hebrews 8 and verse 11.

They shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother saying, know the Lord. All will know me from the least to the greatest of them. In the old covenant, you had to go to somebody to teach you what the Lord's will is for your life.

In the new covenant, it says everyone can know me personally. You don't need somebody to teach you what's God's will for your life. That is the primary ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived by the prompting of the Holy Spirit all the time.

And that's why he would sometimes go alone somewhere to pray. See, many people, their understanding of prayer is that when you go to God, you tell him a lot of things. That's not what Jesus is doing. Jesus did not pray the way most Christians pray today.

The way I prayed changed completely when I understood how Jesus walked. Because before that, when I went to God in prayer, I was just telling him a lot of things. I need this and I need that and I'm praying for this person, that person, the other person.

But I discovered that Jesus, when he went to pray, he was not talking so much. He was listening. More than talking. Like we read here in Isaiah 50, the Lord God has given me a year to listen. So if Jesus spent two hours with the Father somewhere, I think he must have spoken for five minutes.

Have you ever spent two hours with God and spoken only for five minutes? I find that there's the most profitable way for me to pray. It's like, you know, to let you use an illustration. Supposing you're sitting with a very godly man who's got a tremendous experience of God.

You would not want to talk to him much. You'd want to listen. Say, hey brother, tell me more about your experience with God. And I would listen, listen, listen. If I spent one hour with him, I'd probably speak five minutes and listen for 55 minutes because he has so much to say to me.

Now, if I was speaking to a young person, then I'd probably speak for 55 minutes and let him speak for five minutes. But if I'm speaking to a much more godly person, I would listen more, definitely. So imagine if I'm sitting with God Almighty, that's what prayer is.

Should I be listening or talking? If I spend one hour with God, should I be speaking for 55 minutes? No. I should be quiet for 55 minutes. Speak for just five minutes. Because what is there that I can inform God which he doesn't know?

Is there anything that he doesn't know which I can tell him? Is there any burden which I have which he doesn't have? Is there anybody I love more than he loves? Is there anybody I care for more than he cares for?

I really believe that many Christians have not understood how to pray the way Jesus prayed. That's part of walking as he walked. It was listening. Like we read in Isaiah 50, the inner ear was open to listen.

Finishing the Work God Gives Us

And that's why Jesus accomplished so much in 33 and a half years that he could say at the end of his life, I finished the work you gave me to do. I changed my life also completely because then I realized that I could go where the Lord wanted me to go and do the work God wanted me to do and leave a lot of other things untouched.

I don't need to do that because God hasn't called me to do that. You know Jesus never went to Africa or China or Rome or any place. He's most of the time only in Israel. And yet he finished the work the Father gave him to do.

Many of us have the idea that to serve God means I go here, go there. And a lot of preachers boast about the number of countries they've traveled to. That doesn't mean they've accomplished God's will.

You can travel to 70 countries in the world and not accomplish God's will. It's just because you have money and you can travel here and there. Another person who doesn't have the opportunity to travel like that say, Oh, I'm feeling I'm not doing much for the Lord.

It's not quantity. It's a question of listening. What has God wanted you to do? And when you look at Jesus' life, quantity wise, 90 of his life he was a carpenter. He wasn't preaching for 30 years. It looks like a tremendous waste of time.

And he preached only for three and a half years and he never went outside the nation of Israel. What does it mean to learn to walk as Jesus walked? Not doing so many things, traveling so many countries and preaching thousands of sermons.

No, it is doing what the Father wants you to do. And those who do that are the ones who will discover at the end of their life that they can say to the Father, Father, I didn't travel here and there, but I finished the work you gave me to do.

You sent me to earth with a particular task and I finished it. This is the joy I have today. As I get older and older, I know that I'm doing what God wants me to do. I don't have any lust to travel here or travel over there.

I want to finish what God wants me to do. I hope I will be able to get all of you to be gripped by this one thing that before you end your earthly life, you must finish what God sent you on this earth to do.

Otherwise you can do 101 things you can think you're doing for God. I want to tell you, you'll discover when Christ comes again that you wasted your life and I want to save you from that. Let me turn you to Psalm 139.

It's a very interesting verse in Psalm 139. Psalm 139, it tells us here that before you were born in your mother's womb, God planned your life. How many of you believe that? I hope you do. It was wonderful for me to realize that, that way back, I'm nearly 79 now, that way back in my mother's womb in 1939, when I was in my mother's womb, before I came out of my mother's womb, my heavenly father knew that one day I would be born again and he planned every single day of my life from there till whenever my life is supposed to end, which I don't know when it is.

Turn to Psalm 139. It says here in verse 13, you formed my inward parts and you wove me in my mother's womb. And here is the verse I'm thinking of, verse 16. Psalm 139, verse 16, your eyes have seen my unformed substance.

And in your book, that is in God's mind, was written, what was written? All the days that were ordained for me before there was even one of them, before my first day on earth, God had already planned, I'm talking about myself, every day that was ordained for me, what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to go, I don't know whether you believe that, when there was not even one of them, before I'd even started the first day.

It was like that with Jesus. His whole life was planned out before he came to earth, where he was to be born and what he was supposed to do each day of his life. And in God's plan, Jesus was not supposed to go to Rome, he was not supposed to go to Africa, he was not supposed to go to China.

And up to the age of 30, in God's plan, he was to be a carpenter. And because Jesus lived every day, listening, listening, like I read in Isaiah 50, he could do what God wanted him to do. And when he came to the end of his life, see what he said in John 17.

John 17, when Jesus came to the end of his life, the last day when he was sitting with the disciples in the day of the last supper before he went to the cross, in his prayer to the Father, he said these words in John 17.

In verse 4, Father, I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do, to walk as Jesus walked. That's the verse I quoted in the beginning. This is what it means to walk as Jesus walked, to believe that just like God had planned the life of Jesus every day, he's planned your life every day.

And when you come to the end of your life, you should be able to look up to heaven and say, Father, I finished the work you gave me to do. How much money I earned counts for nothing. How many countries I traveled counts for nothing.

Jesus, one country, that's all. How much money did Jesus earn? Very little. How many years was he a full-time worker? Three and a half years, that's all. Very little. Humanly speaking, it's not very impressive that a man spent 30 years as a carpenter.

Three and a half years he preached and traveled here and there and he traveled only one country. I mean, if there was some preacher like that today, you wouldn't be very impressed by a preacher who spent only three and a half years in ministry and traveled only in one country.

But Jesus said, I finished the work you gave me to do. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do each day and he finished it and he says, I've glorified you on earth. Many of us pray, Lord, I want to glorify you on this earth.

If you really mean it, this is the way to do it. You have to develop the habit of listening and I'll tell you, the devil will try every possible means to keep you so busy that you won't have time to listen to God and if he succeeded there, even if you don't commit some grievous sin and you glory in the fact that I don't watch dirty movies and I'm living a fairly clean life and I go regularly to meetings and do all the things that Christians are supposed to do and I give some money for God's work, you can satisfy yourself with all these things.

I want to say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, when you stand before the Lord, you will regret it. One of the greatest things I have prayed for my own life is, Lord, when I stand before you one day, I don't want to have a regret that I did not live the way you wanted me to live.

I don't want to stand before you and my testimony is, I went to church regularly and I did this and I gave money for your work and I did all this activity. No, I want to be able to stand before the Lord when the final day and say, Lord, my father, the work you planned for me to do before my mother's, I was born, I finished it.

Maybe I didn't travel as much as other people, may I be, I didn't do the things other people did, but I finished the work you gave me to do. This is what it means to walk as Jesus walked and I want to say to you, brothers and sisters, that is the greatest thing you can do for the Lord.

It's the greatest thing you can ever do and if you don't think like that, you're going to change your way of thinking and say, Lord, this is what you called me on earth to do and there's no competition here.

It's not a question of being a great preacher. If God has not called you to be a preacher, you can still accomplish God's will for your life and stand before the Lord with great joy because you finished what God has called you to do.

But it will mean you have to change your complete way of thinking because the normal way of thinking for most people is going to do a lot of things for God, do this and do that. It's quantity of work and Christian organizations are always boasting about the number of things they do for God.

If you examine Jesus' life, there was very little in terms of what he accomplished and how many people did he gather together at the end of his life? Eleven wholehearted disciples and even on the day of Pentecost, after three and a half years of ministry, only 120 people met to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But with those 11 people, think of this, Jesus selected 11 people and those 11 people, he changed the course of this world for 2 ,000 years. That's with those 11 people. I was so gripped by that. I said, Lord, in my life, if I can not just gather a big church of hundreds of people, I'm not interested in that.

If I can get 11 people like that who can change the course of history, I want to finish the work you gave me to do. I want to do a work of quality. I want to finish the work you gave me to do. I hope all of you will be gripped by this one passion.

This is what it means to walk as Jesus walked. It's not that I walk in perfection because as I said, none of us will be perfect until Christ comes again. But if you can develop this habit of listening, listening, Lord, what do you want me to do?

Mary, Martha, and the One Necessary Thing

You remember the story of Jesus going to the house of Mary and Martha? It's the same lesson that he taught them there. As soon as he went to the house, quite rightly, Martha was very eager to provide a good meal.

You know, some very honored guest comes to your house, you immediately think of making a good meal for him. And it was a very good thought Martha had going to the kitchen and work hard. And Mary did not help Martha in the kitchen because Jesus was speaking.

His disciples were there and they were all sitting down and Jesus was speaking and Mary was sitting there with those disciples listening. That's what we read in Luke chapter 10. Martha welcomed Jesus into the home, verse 38 and verse 39.

She had a sister, Luke 10, 39, a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to his word. But Martha went into the kitchen and she was always preparing something for the Lord to eat and for his disciples.

Isn't that a good work to do something for the Lord? Prepare something for the Lord and his disciples, a very good work. And she was sitting there and she was so disturbed in her heart by what, the fact that Mary was not coming to help her.

And so she comes to the Lord and complains about Mary saying, Lord, don't you care that this sister of mine has not left me alone, not to do all the serving alone? And she thought that Jesus would tell Mary to get up and go and help Martha.

But that's not what the Lord did. The Lord rebuked Martha and said, Martha, you're worried about so many things. What you're doing is not bad. You're not committing some sin, but that's not what I want you to do.

Mary has chosen that one thing which is necessary. I remember when I was a young Christian and I was seeking to know what God wanted me to do. The Lord spoke this word to my heart, Luke 10, 42. One thing is necessary.

One thing is necessary. And that's what Mary has chosen. The Lord spoke to my heart, this is the most important thing you need in your life, to listen to my word and do that. And Martha was doing service for the Lord.

I learned that day that serving the Lord and doing so many things for him is not as important as sitting at his feet and listening to his word. And I discovered now through the years, I've been serving the Lord for more than 50 years.

And like everyone else, I want to know at the end of my life that I have done something useful for God's kingdom before I leave this earth. But it won't be if I did what I wanted to do, like Martha. Go here, go there, do whatever I wanted to do.

And there are a lot of people like that. You know, they've planned so many things. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. I'm going to do this for the Lord. When they have a vacation, they say, when I take a vacation, I'll go to India and I'll go here and there and do so many things for God.

That may not be what God wants you to do. The most important thing about a servant is that he does exactly what his master tells him to. Not just goes around doing whatever he wants. We have a completely wrong idea of what it means to serve the Lord.

I'm sorry to say that, but that is true. Many, many, probably many of you sitting here, you think to serve the Lord means you go and do something or the other for the Lord. That is not what God wants you to do.

Do you remember the Lord's prayer? What did he teach us to pray? Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come and then thy will be done as it is in heaven. Very important statement.

Lord, I want to do your will as it is done in heaven. So then I begin to stop for a moment and think, how is God's will done in heaven? The angels don't go running around here and there doing something or the other for the Lord and Michael and Gabriel are not chasing the other angels.

Come on, go and do something for God. Don't just hang around doing nothing. That's not what they do. You know what the angels in heaven do? They wait before the father and the father tells them, do this, do that.

He tells Gabriel, I want you to go down to Nazareth and speak to that girl, Mary. I want you to go down and speak to that priest, Zachariah. He goes, finishes that, comes back and waits before the father.

What next father? They don't run around doing something or the other for God. No, they wait on God. And when God tells him something, we go and do that and come back and wait on him. That is how God's will is done in heaven.

And Jesus taught us to pray every day, thy will be done in my life as it is done in heaven. But I'm sorry to say, I never discovered that for many, many years in my Christian life. When God filled me with the Holy Spirit, this is one of the things I learned.

Not to run around and do this and that and the other for God and discover at the end of my life that I wasted my life. I mean, I may have been free from sin, but I didn't finish God's work. There's a particular task that God planned for me before I was born.

And if I don't do that and I come to the end of my life and I've not finished that work, even if I've done 101 other good things, I will stand before the Lord and say, Lord, I'm sorry I didn't do the work you appointed for me.

Is that possible for some of you? Seek God seriously. We've all made mistakes in our life and God overlooks that. It's a wonderful thing. I used to think, what if I've made a mess up so many years of my life and now only I'm discovering this wonderful truth that I have to listen, fulfill God's plan for my life.

What about all these years I wasted? Then I see the example of the Apostle Paul who wasted 30 years of his life doing all the wrong things. What wrong things? He was killing Christians and persecuting them.

You think that such a person can never fulfill God's plan for his life because he lived up to the age of 67 and 30 years of those 67 years he just persecuted Christians and did everything outside the will of God.

Supposing a man's lived half his life outside the will of God doing whatever he felt like. Now he repents and comes to the Lord. Is it possible for him still to fulfill God's plan for his life? Yes. That's the message of hope that came to me because so many years I didn't think seriously about what God's plan for my life was.

I was just trying to do something or the other for God. Paul's life encouraged me. Some of you who may be hearing for the first time today that God's got a particular plan for your life that he wants to fulfill.

And you say, well, Lord, I never thought that all these years. I did so many other things. And the Lord says, don't worry. If you take it seriously, even today, you can fulfill my plan for your life. Because when Paul came to the end of his life, do you know what he said in 2 Timothy 4?

In 2 Timothy, in chapter 4, he said, 2 Timothy 4, 7. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. And I've kept the faith. That's the same word Jesus said. Father, I've glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.