Brokenness and Compassion — Zac Poonen

Presenting a True Picture of Jesus

The Father, because the world had a wrong understanding, the Jewish world had a wrong understanding of what God was like. And our ministry in the body of Christ is to present a true and accurate picture of Jesus by the way we live and the way we preach, the way we run our homes, the way we build our church.

In all these things, people must get a clear picture of what Jesus was like. That is our goal, and that's what it means to stand true to God in a day of compromise. But people are taken up with so many other things like social work.

Social Work and the Primary Mission of the Church

I'm not against social work, but Jesus did not spend his life collecting all the blind Bartimaeuses and all the lepers and open a colony for them. That's not what he did. And that's not what Paul did, you know.

He didn't go around opening homes for the lepers and the blind. There are many non-christian organizations doing a great job in that. I live in India where there's such a lot of poor people, such a lot of sickness, and I'll tell you honestly the truth.

What I've seen in 50 years of moving around in India, the people who do social work best are not the Protestants, they're the Roman Catholics. I can trust a Roman Catholic orphanage any day more than the crooked directors of Protestant orphanages in India.

This is true. A lot of people who send money to India, they think they're supporting an orphan. They don't realize that that director is sending the same letter to ten other countries, and you think you're the only one supporting.

Where did the other nine people's money go? Into the director's pocket. And I can see the amount of corruption. Even the government has come to light, and it comes in these papers, the scandals of Christian orphanages, but never of a Roman Catholic one.

So I see that, you know, think of a thing like slavery. Slavery is utterly contrary to God's will, and yet in Paul's time, the great apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit, never tells one single master to set his slave free.

Have you ever thought of that? He just says treat them kindly and take care of them, even to Philemon, whose slave was a believer, Onesimus. He doesn't tell him, share your property with him and let him go free.

No, he says, take him back as a slave. Paul recognized that there are certain social things which society and the world was not ready to rectify. He didn't approve of slavery. If you had asked Paul's opinion, he'd have told you straight.

But he was sensitive to God. Sometimes, you are moved by human compassion, and it's not the compassion of Christ. It's not according to the wisdom of God. And we do things, and they don't necessarily build the church.

Building the True Church Rather Than Babylon

I see very clearly that, just like Noah spent all his energy and all his money and all his time to build the ark, because he knew that was the only thing that would remain when all of the world collapsed around him and was destroyed.

I see in exactly the same way today. There is only one thing that will remain when the world is destroyed, and that is the true Church of Jesus Christ. And that's not something big. It's something holy.

The Bible ends with the story of, not the story, but it speaks about the last chapters of the Bible are dealing with the false church and the true church, Babylon and Jerusalem. And if you read carefully, Babylon is called great, the great city, eleven times.

Babylon is the megachurch, the great Babylon, Babylon the great. Jerusalem is called the holy city. You see the difference? One is quantity, the other is quality. That's the difference between the false church and the true church.

So if you're impressed by quantity, you'll definitely be a part of Babylon. If you try to build a church and you want to increase in numbers, and you don't want to make it holy, you'll end up as Babylon without a shadow of doubt.

So we need to see, reorient our thinking according to Scripture. I don't want to start a crusade against, in India we have a form of slavery still. In many of the villages in India, they don't call it slavery.

They call it bonded labor, where poor people are made to work for very minimal pay, and in the farm and the fields, and they have to keep borrowing from their masters until the debt becomes so huge that the masters say, okay, we'll release you from all that debt, but you give yourself and your family that you'll serve us freely, and we'll provide you a place to live and food.

It's slavery. They don't get any more salary then, they can't go away. It's called bonded labor. The government is 100 against it, has passed laws against it, but you think those laws are implemented in these villages?

No. So what shall we do when we go to these villages? I'm not going to take a crusade against delivering people from slavery. The need in a country like India is so massive that, I mean folks from a country like this, where you don't see that type of need, may not, can be moved by compassion.

When you see children eating out of garbage bins, that happens all over India, and there are preachers who capitalize on that and show all these pictures and get money out of gullible Christians to fill their pockets.

There's only one thing that's going to remain when Christ comes back, and that's the church. You see in Revelation 21, the church, holy city, Jerusalem. And this church is something, if you want to build on the basis of quality and not quantity, you have to make Christ our example and our goal.

And like Paul says in Colossians, and that's a great word for me in my own ministry, Colossians in chapter 1, he says in verse 28, we proclaim Christ, admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, so that one day we may present every man in my church perfect in Christ.

This is my goal, that if God gives me a responsibility in a church, I want to present every one of them perfect in Christ. If God gives me children, I want to present every one of them as a disciple of Jesus.

Holiness in the Hidden Life

I'm not happy with what other people think. You know, so often parents, I tell you, a lot of Christian parents want to give a good impression before others. Others must think that my children are godly.

I'll tell you honestly, I couldn't care less. When my children were small, I never told them, what will others think if you do this, or what will others think if you dress like this? You ask your children questions like that, you've trained them to be hypocrites.

I never asked it. I would only say, what does God think about it? Even if nobody sees you, what does God think about this type of attitude or this type of conduct or this type of speech? It's very, very important that we hold our children and our church to the highest.

And the main thing is that Jesus emphasized was the hidden life. Everything inward, you know, in the Old Covenant, the emphasis was on the outward. There were 613 commandments in the Old. Ten of them, everybody knows the Ten Commandments.

There were 613 altogether, and every one of them had to do with something external. Sacrifices were external. So many laws concerning external things. That's why you had a whole army of scribes who were there to explain chapter and verse, how to do this and how to do that.

But that which was external in the New Testament, in the Old Testament, Jesus emphasized the inward. You remember in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, murder. You were told in the Old Testament, don't commit murder.

I don't have time to show you all that, but you read it in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. You know those chapters. In the Old Covenant, you were told, don't kill. I'm telling you, deal with the root of it, anger.

And if you don't get the root of it, anger, out of your heart, you can go to hell. In the Old Testament, it was, if you murder, you will be punished. But in the New Testament, it is, whoever is angry against his brother and lets that anger come out of his heart, in his mouth, and again out of his mouth, he will be guilty enough to go to hell.

And then he said, in the Old Testament, the commandment, Matthew 5, that's what I read, was Matthew 5, 22. He said, the Old Testament commandment, Matthew 5, 27, was don't commit adultery. But I say, go to the root of it, the inward, the thing which nobody can see, just like the anger, that lustful look at a woman.

And if you find it like that, pull your eye out of your body. Again, he says, otherwise, your whole body will be thrown into hell. Many people have asked me through the years, Brother Zak, for 40 years, I've heard you speak against anger and sexually impure thinking more than any other sin.

Why do you speak so much against these two? I said, listen to me, I'll tell you. You read Matthew 5, 6, and 7 carefully, and there are many, many sins mentioned there. You know, if you pray to get honor, that's a sin.

If you give to get honor, that's a sin. If you judge others, that's a sin. He says, don't be anxious. If you get anxious, that's a sin. If you love money, that's a sin. But out of all the sins, I mean, if you hate your enemies, that's a sin because you're going to love your enemies.

Many, many things listened in those three chapters, but out of all the sins that Jesus spoke about, there were only two sins that he said will take you to hell. Read it yourself. Anger and sexually lustful thinking.

I say, because it's serious, I speak about it, and because hardly anybody else speaks about it. You try and go to any Christian TV program and see if they ever speak about these two sins. Never. Because the preachers themselves haven't got any victory over it.

They haven't pursued it. And so you have a generation of people sitting in churches who have got totally impure thoughts, who get angry at home all the time and with each other, and they don't even think it is serious.

The two most serious sins that Jesus spoke about, not even mentioned. Do you think today's churches are presenting the real Jesus before people? They say, we must help the poor. They'll take pictures of some skinny child in Somalia or somewhere and say, we should help him.

By all means, help him. But that's not what Jesus spoke about. And there's so much of misquoting of Scripture. You know, there are people who quote Matthew 25. I've heard it myself. Matthew 25. It's all because people don't read Scripture carefully.

Matthew 25, the king will say to those, verse 34, come inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, Matthew 25, 35, and you gave me something to eat. This looks like the social gospel, right?

I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. And I was naked, and you clothed me, Matthew 25, 36. I was sick, and you visited me.

I was in prison, and you came to me. And people take those verses and show you those pictures of someone eating out of a garbage bin in India or some sick skinny child in Central Africa or widows who become prostitutes and all that.

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I'm not against anybody helping all these people, but read carefully. Then the righteous will answer, verse 37, Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink?

When did we see you a stranger? When did we see you sick? And now listen to the answer of Jesus. Very important. All those careless readers of Scripture, please pay attention to this one verse. The king will say to them, and I want to misread it first, to the extent that you did it to one of these human beings, you did it to me.

That's how most Christians misread it. He said to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine. Do you really believe all human beings are brothers of Jesus Christ? Are you such a heretic?

Are you a Christian? Who are the brothers of Jesus? Jesus said those who hear my word and do it. It's the way you treat not human beings. I'm not against your caring for human beings. All I'm saying is that's not what Jesus speaks of here.

Be exact in quoting Scripture. Don't pass on misquoting of Scripture to other people like a lot of preachers do and collect money from them. In as much as you did it to the one of these brothers of mine, the least of them you did it to me.

This is the real Jesus. So shall we do good to all men? Yes. Turn with me to Galatians in chapter 6. You see, I live in a country which has got a thousand times or a million times more poverty than you have ever seen in your life.

I move in them. Some of our villages are extremely poor villages. We have planted churches there. So I'm not speaking from theory. I'm speaking from experience. I live in a country where I'm surrounded by beggars and tramps every day, all around in the streets, on the roads, everywhere.

So I don't see anything like that here. Not at all. All the people you call homeless and tramps here are a hundred times better than the ones we have in India. So I'm speaking from experience. Galatians chapter 6 in verse 10.

While we have opportunity, that means while we are alive, let us do good to all men. I believe that with all my heart. Let's do good to all men, but especially, in other words, concentrate on the household of faith.

That's all I'm saying. And I find, and we do that. We, from our church in India, have given millions of rupees. When I say millions, I mean millions of rupees to poor people in the villages in India. Believers to the household of faith, who are sick, who are hungry, who have their houses washed away by a cyclone.

We go and build those houses. And then we build the houses of the Hindus next door as well, so that we have a good testimony before them, not just the houses of the believers. And those who, so many of them, to educate their children in school.

Basic education, not college education and all that. Basic things. We've done it. The household of faith. And I'll tell you what we have discovered. By the time we have met the need of the household of faith, there's hardly anything left with us to give to the rest of the millions and millions of people in our country.

True Faith and Partiality in the Church

And I don't have a bad conscience about it. I turn to other passages also, which people misread. Let me show you two other passages like this. James chapter 2. True faith. What is the mark of true faith?

James chapter 2. He's speaking about a wrong attitude to poor people. My brethren, don't hold your faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. Is he talking about poor people in the world?

No. He's talking about poor people in the church. If a rich man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes and you pay special attention to this rich man. And I tell you, there's such an evil I have seen in India.

When I was a young Christian, I would see that the board members of almost all the churches, Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, the board members are always the big, big company executives and senior police officers.

I said, what's this? Is this how every church, you mean all the spiritual people are the people with big jobs and big salaries? I was young, 23 years old, and I said, Lord, if I, I never thought I would ever build a church.

But I said, Lord, if you ever give me grace to build a church, I will never follow this. I look for godly people among the poor fishermen and poor people. And those are the type of people we have as elders in many of our churches.

Extremely poor people. Some people can't speak a word of English and who are poor but who are godly. You show favoritism to the rich man. Many Christians have not understood that partiality is one of the biggest sins I have found among elders and pastors in churches.

They don't even recognize it as a sin. It's as bad as adultery and murder in my eyes to show partiality, to show favoritism because a person is rich. And he says, this poor man, you, just to the verse three, you say, go and stand over there or sit down at my footstool.

He's talking about a poor brother in the church compared to rich brother in the church. He's not talking about all the poor people in the world. And thus you have dishonored the poor man. Verse six, isn't it the rich who drag you to court, etc.

And then he goes on and he speaks about faith. What does he use? Verse 14, when you say, brethren, you have faith but no works. Can that such a faith save him? Now listen to this. If a human being, verse 15, is without clothing or need of daily food, no.

Don't misread it. If a brother or a sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled, and you don't give him, then what's the use of that type of faith?

That type of faith is without works. It's dead. Turn to another passage. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word is established. One John, here it speaks about faith with works. And one John brings another aspect of love.

What is the mark of love? One John, chapter 3. One John in chapter 3, verse 17. Whoever has this world's goods and beholds other human beings in need and closes his heart against them. Is that how it is in your Bible?

No. Beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him. How does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with deed, word, or tongue, but in deed, or tongue, but in word and truth.

What am I saying? I'm saying you don't find the emphasis on social work in the New Testament that you find in Christendom today. If people want to do it, go ahead and do it. But don't try and find a support for it in the New Testament.

I'd like somebody to show me that. These are the verses which I quoted that people show to me because they misread it. They don't read it carefully. It's to ease their own conscience that they do these things.

I want to ease my conscience by supporting some poor widow or orphan somewhere in the other country. It doesn't cost me anything to toss a few dollars there and send it there. And I ease my conscience.

Well, you want to do it, you do it. Keep doing it all your life. I'm not telling you to stop it. All I'm saying is, please read the New Testament carefully and obey it exactly. If you believe this is the Word of God, if you believe the Holy Spirit knew what he was talking about, if you believe that the Holy Spirit could have used the word human being instead of brother, and then I ask myself, why didn't he use it?

Didn't he know what the condition of the world would be in the 20th, 21st century? I have a tremendous respect for the Word of God. I'll tell you that. I don't think there's anyone here who can challenge me in respect for God's Word.

And the proof of it is I have studied it for 55 years and I keep studying it today and I read it exactly. We've, in our churches, we have followed it exactly. We followed the pattern exactly. Jesus said, don't be called father or rabbi.

Obeying Scripture in Church Practice

You're all brothers in all of our churches. No, we don't call anybody by any title except brother, even the little small things. The Bible says a woman should wail her head when they pray or prophesy.

In all of our churches, we teach that. You know, a sister, if she wants to pray publicly or prophesy, share a word in the meeting, she must wail her head. We don't insist that she should wail her head if she's sitting in the meeting.

That's up to her. Most of our sisters do, but if someone doesn't have light on it, we don't judge them. We don't treat them like second-class citizens. I say we treat them like people who don't have light on this command, that's all.

But I say if you ever get up to share a word or if you stand in your way, you're standing in your seat, and you share your word, we will not allow you to share your word if you don't wail your head. We are willing to offend you, and you can leave the church and find another church where you're comfortable, but we obey God's Word.

We're not interested in numbers. I've had people come up to me and say, Brother Zak, your standards are too high. I say, show me the one place in Scripture where my standard is higher than what God's Word says.

We believe in sisters dressing modestly, and I don't care who it is, even if it's an elder brother's daughter. You see, you got to dress modestly, and I'll speak to them. I'll speak to the father usually, if it's his wife or daughter not dressed modestly, because the Word of God says that.

The Bible says that we have to obey His Word. A man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So to me, it's a matter of life, and if a church is to have the life of Jesus, then it must obey God's Word in these things.

So I don't go around with tapes measuring the length of people's dresses. That's not my business. I remember once one sister came up to me and said, how shall I dress? I said, I'll tell you. I don't have any lengths to tell you or any such thing.

I said, imagine if Jesus was living in the next street, and He called you up one day and said, I want you to come with me for a walk in the marketplace. How would you dress to go and meet Jesus, to go with Him in the marketplace where He would be proud to walk with you and say, this is my sister.

Dress like that. Not only when you come to church, but when you go to work. And all the time. Don't you want Jesus to be with you all the time? Or you just want to impress people in the church that you dress very modestly?

There's such a lot of hypocrisy, I tell you, among Christians. And there are Christian leaders who are afraid to offend them. Oh, that's a relative of mine. I couldn't care less if it's a relative of mine.

We stand against them. My wife's brothers were part of a church. They all got offended and left. We don't care. We know Second Corinthians 5 .16 is a major verse for me. I know no man according to the flesh.

Second Corinthians 5 .16. I don't know anybody according to the flesh. Nobody's my special friend. If an elder is wrong, he's wrong. The Bible says, rebuke an elder, and I've done that. Some elders have got offended and left us.

God bless you, brother. I don't wish you any evil, but I'll speak the truth to you, because I don't want your blood to be on my hands in the final day. I want to present Christ exactly. I want to obey God's Word exactly.

Humility and Contrition as the Foundation of Church Building

That's the only way I can build the church. Let me turn you to Isaiah chapter 66. Isaiah 66. We read here, and the Lord says, he's talking about building the church in relation to our time. And listen to these words.

Let me paraphrase it in relation to building the church today. Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne. Think of this. Heaven is God's throne. And the earth, this huge planet earth, he says, it's my footstool.

You know what a footstool is? It's a small little thing on the ground where people put their feet on. He says, this whole earth that you think is so big is just a place where I might put my feet. And you're trying to build a church for me over here?

Where then is the church that you will build for me? All those who are seeking to build a church in your localities, listen to this. The earth is a footstool. That city or town of yours which you think has got so many million people, it's a small dot as far as God is concerned.

And you're going to build my church, is it? You think you can build my church over there? You're so spirit-filled and you know so much of the word and you went to conferences and you understood how to build the church and now you've understood the technique and you're going to build the church?

And he says, I'll tell you who's going to build my church. The one I will look at, last part of verse two, is the one who is humble and who contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word. Who reads something in scripture and trembles.

Lord, I haven't obeyed that. I've been careless with my eyes. I've been trying to please people there. I was afraid that some sister would get offended and leave our church or her husband will get offended.

I remember when my other son, Sandeep, started a church, a new church in California, and he began to preach about a simple thing like women must wail the heads. Half the church left because those women didn't wail their heads.

They took their husbands with them, proving that they were the head of the house. It was right that they didn't wail their heads because they were proving that we are the head of the house, so we drag our husbands with us.

They were honest in not wailing their heads, I agree. But I said, we don't want such people and sisters in the church, and I told Sandeep, I'm proud of you. This is the way. Let them all go. Let's have a church with five people, ten people, two or three, Jesus said, where Jesus will be in the midst because we tremble at his word.

Like, you know, I told you some people came to me and said, your standards are too high. Brother Zach, I can't be a part of your church. I said, fine. That's why God has allowed so many other churches to exist so that you go and sit there and don't waste our time here.

I say, you're like a person who says, this hospital is too hygienic. I want to go to one which is a little bit of dirty so that we can, you never think of like that when you go to hospital. Oh, this school's got a very high standard.

I don't want to put my children here. Let me go to some other place which is a little more indisciplined. You never think like that when it comes to a school or a hospital, but you think like that when you come to a church, and I said, I'll tell you why.

Because you value education. You value hygiene, but you couldn't care less for spirituality. You couldn't care less for God's Word. I'll tell you the truth. You can get offended with me if you like, but a lot of people have got offended with me, but in the day of judgment, those who have heard and obeyed will be thankful, because I tell people this also.

If you see a single thing that I'm preaching in my church which is not found in Scripture, point it out to me. I'll stop it, and if you find a single thing taught in the New Testament that we are not trying our best to practice in our church, show it to us.

We'll practice it. I challenge people like that. Can you challenge people like that in your church, whichever church you're trying to build, to tell people, brother, tell me something I'm not preaching which is in the New Testament.

We'll start preaching it from today, and tell me something which we are doing or preaching in this church which is not found in the New Testament, and we'll stop it immediately, but we're not going to be influenced by people who say, oh, this is too high a standard, or somebody will get offended.

Let the whole church get offended and go. I'm not bothered. We have to stand before God. I don't believe that a God for whom the earth is a footstool, that I am such a big person to build a church for him.

No, I'm not. I'm a nobody. I'll always be a nobody, but I want to tremble at his Word, and I want to say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, all the nice things you may hear is all very good, but if you don't tremble at God's Word, and you're not humble and broken and contrite in spirit, if you don't take the lowest place, you cannot build a church.

I'll tell you that, no matter how much of Scripture you may know, and I'll tell you another thing. There's a lot more pride and conceit in us than we can think. You know, the Bible speaks about haughty eyes.

If you read that in, if you don't know where that verse is, it's in Proverbs chapter 6. Proverbs chapter 6, and it says here, Proverbs 6 and verse 16, there are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him, number one, haughty eyes.

Recognizing Pride, Impurity, and Selfishness

You see, I thought pride was in the heart. It is, but it comes out through the eyes. Second Peter chapter 2, he talks about preachers whose eyes are full of adultery. A pure woman, a pure woman will easily detect eyes of adultery in a lustful man, very easily.

If you're the type of person who's secretly lusting, lusting after women, you can cover yourself as much as you like, but you can't hide your eyes. A pure woman will stay away from you, because she will see adultery in your eyes, and a discerning servant of God will also see it in you.

Impurity in your eyes. You cannot hide it. You can hide all that you do in secret, but it's in your eyes. You don't realize it yourself. It's like body odor. Some people have body odor, and they don't even know it's there, but other people can smell it.

Haughty eyes. I've seen it in people. I've seen it in people whose lives are so upright. There's a haughtiness about them which they don't seem to understand. It never seems to go well with them. No matter what they try, they're never able to build a powerful local church.

God doesn't bear witness to them. God doesn't give them grace. They've understood all the truth. They're great preachers, and they know this, and they know that, and they can preach powerfully, but nothing happens.

There's no pure local church built anywhere, because God is opposed to the proud. Imagine a very gifted preacher who's a very upright life, and God is all the time opposing him just because he's proud.

Where will he build the church? He says, I look at the person who's humble and got a contrite spirit, who has seen the humility of Jesus and been gripped by it. That's the first thing we need to see. Tremble at his word, and the trembling comes because I'm humble.

I say, I'm nobody. If God has said something, who in the world am I to change that, even if it's a small little thing in the word? Who in the world do I think I am to change? When Jesus himself said that he will not change one jot or tittle from the law, and he was under the law, Almighty God came in the form of a man and said he will not change one jot or tittle from the law, and here I am thinking that I can modify something and say, oh that was only for the Corinthians and that's not for us today.

Who in the world do I think I am? I'm amazed at people who have such opinions and air them and write books about them. I'm not interested in listening to anything else they have to say. If they don't tremble at God's word, they've got nothing to teach me.

I want to meet people who are humble and broke and contrite in spirit and who tremble at God's word because those are the only ones who can teach me, and I can see it in their eyes. It's very easy for me now because I've been a believer for 55 years.

I worked with so many types of people for 40 years in planning churches, and it's pretty easy for me to see, even in a person's eyes, adultery and pride. It's pretty easy. I don't always tell them because they got to get light on it themselves from God, but if we don't settle this matter, you can come to all the conferences you want, understand all the techniques and all the principles, and be a very gifted preacher.

I'll tell you right now, nothing will happen. You'll just be frustrated year after year after year, and you won't know the reason. Let me turn you to Philippians in chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, it speaks about the two sins that are the greatest sins in us.

Selfishness and pride, from which all come the other things. It says in Philippians 2 verse 3, do nothing. Do nothing. Philippians is a great letter. We already saw, don't murmur, don't complain, don't be anxious, rejoice always, always be content.