(Atlanta 2013) 6. a Church That Manifests God's Wisdom — Zac Poonen

We were thinking yesterday about this verse that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. And that truth is mentioned, this is, I am quoting from 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse, the church is the pillar and support of the truth.

Like I said, when Samson pushed the pillars down, the whole building collapsed. So, if the church does not support the specific truth mentioned here, it's going to collapse, it's not going to accomplish what God wants it to accomplish.

Christ as the Mystery of Godliness and Our Wisdom

And that truth is the great mystery of godliness mentioned in the next verse, that Christ came in the flesh and was pure in His spirit. And when you link that, and it's called a great mystery, a secret that can be understood only by revelation, and some of these things may be new to you, there are only two great mysteries mentioned in the New Testament, you never find the word mystery in the Old Covenant.

In the Old Covenant it was understanding, study, in the New Covenant it is revelation. Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. You didn't understand that I was the son of God by study, by comparing this verse with that verse, or studying the Hebrew, it was by revelation from heaven.

And that's the most important thing I find Christians need to recognize, that we not only need Christ to be our righteousness, we also need Christ to be our wisdom. That's what it says in 1 Corinthians 1, that Christ has been made to us righteousness and wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1 .30.

And in the Reformation, when truth was being recovered by people like Martin Luther, there was a great emphasis on the fact that Christ is our righteousness. No matter how righteous we are, we can never make it into God's kingdom.

All our righteousness is like filthy rags. The only way I can enter God's kingdom is if I come, no matter how holy I am, coming into the righteousness of Christ. That puts me on the same level as the filthiest sinner in the world who is also clothed with the righteousness of Christ, that he has repented.

Imputed and Imparted Righteousness

And then years later, as God recovered truth through the years, a couple of centuries later, there was the emphasis on Christ our holiness, Christ himself, you know, communicating to us the righteousness of God.

We are first clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and then that imputed righteousness becomes imparted. That means the righteousness of the law, the perfect righteousness of the law, which the law requires, is fulfilled inside us.

It says in Romans 8 .4, by the Holy Spirit given to us. And that's the purpose of the Holy Spirit, and that's why people under the old covenant could not experience that. So, if you're satisfied with Christ being your righteousness, my sins are forgiven, I'm on my way to heaven.

You're like a baby, and you'll always be a baby throughout your life until you allow Christ to impart that righteousness to you through the Holy Spirit in daily life, where your whole conduct changes, the way you speak changes.

That's why James says, you know, if you can't control your tongue, your Christianity is worth nothing. And there are other passages like that, if you love money, you can't love God. Which most Christians don't take seriously, because they only think of imputed righteousness.

I find everywhere, most people just think of imputed righteousness. I'm righteous in Christ, and it's almost as though it doesn't matter how I live, in spite of so many verses that warn us against it.

The Book of Hebrews and Christ's Humanity

Why do you think the book of Hebrews is perhaps the most unpopular book in the New Testament? It's not a popular book with most Christians. For me, it is one of the most wonderful books in the New Testament.

There's a CD of mine called 70 Hours Through the Bible, and 70 hours through 66 books, I spent four hours on Hebrews. And that shows that it's one of my favorite books, because that's the book that reveals that Jesus was made like me, Hebrews 2 .17.

That Jesus was tempted like me, Hebrews 4 .15. That he prayed with love, crying in tears, Hebrews 5 .7. That he might not sin. And he's given a title in the book of Hebrews called Forerunner. He's not found anywhere else in the whole Bible, Hebrews 6 .20.

One who has gone away ahead of me. That's in Hebrews that I read that I can run the race behind him. That the faith of Jesus is greater than the faith of all the Old Testament saints. That God's provided something better for me.

So many wonderful things I find in the book of Hebrews. I'm not saying it's more inspired than other books, but I'm also... There's a reason, I think, why the author is not even mentioned in Hebrews. Nobody knows who wrote it.

It's the Holy Spirit who wrote it. And it's a great book, and I would encourage you, those of you from whom Hebrews is not a popular book, it'll change your life if you really studied seriously and ask the Holy Spirit to give you revelation.

Because more than any other book in the New Testament, it reveals that Christ came in the flesh. And if the church is to be the pillar and support of this truth, as it says in 1 Timothy 3, 15 and 16, I want to build a church that is the pillar and support of this truth.

And that is what will bring sanctification in my life and bring fellowship with others also. There's no book in the Bible which speaks about the new and living way that Jesus inaugurated through the veil, through the rent veil, into the most holy place.

The book of Hebrews. You don't find it anywhere else. So, revelation. It says in Ephesians 5, the second great mystery, one is that Christ came in the flesh and lived a pure life, which has always been the question, can man in his flesh live a pure life?

Can we actually walk as Jesus walked? Is it possible? As soon as you hear that, the devil says, impossible. Because, you know, most Christians have never thought of Jesus as a man. I see the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ as two legs on which I stand.

They must be of equal length. And I want to ask you, in your thinking, answer yourself honestly. Is the deity of Christ equal to your understanding of his humanity? I doubt whether it is true in the minds of most Christians.

It was not true in my mind for 16 years of my Christian life after I was born again. I thought the great thing is, you must believe he is God. Then your doctrine is right. John says, if you don't believe he came in the flesh, you've got the spirit of the antichrist.

Today we would say, if you don't believe he is God, you've got the spirit of the antichrist. But read 1 John. He's not emphasizing the deity of Christ there. We believe he is God. That's why we worship him.

Every truth in the Bible, in the New Testament especially, has got a practical application. For example, that he is God, that's why we worship him. That's why we pray to Christ. That's why we honor him.

What is the practical implication for you that Christ became a man? That he died for our sins? This is true in terms of today. How does it affect you today that Jesus Christ is 100 man? Do you know that he's called a man even today?

Have you read 1 Timothy 2 .5? There's one mediator between God and man. We would like to say, the God-man, Christ Jesus. That sounds very spiritual, to call him God-man. But I have learned through the years to humble myself.

And not to use my reason, but to believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. And to use terms that the Bible uses. I never use the term sinful nature. Very common among Christians. I never use it because I never find it in scripture.

Humbling Human Understanding Before God's Wisdom

I humble my wisdom to God's wisdom. As I said, Christ becoming our wisdom has not been emphasized as much. Christ becoming our wisdom means I need revelation from God to understand his truth. It means I humble myself.

I lay my mind down. The Bible says in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, not with your mind, with your heart. And don't lean upon your own understanding. Do you know what is the greatest enemy to faith?

Our understanding. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord, that's faith, with all your heart. And the opposite, don't lean on your own understanding. The more you lean on your own understanding, the less faith you'll have.

That's why you can't receive many things from God. You go by reason. What you need is revelation. I remember in our church once. We have a baptism tank in our church. There was a brother who was baptizing somebody.

He was a tall brother. The one who was being baptized. And he went in and his head didn't go in fully. I said, no, you've got to dip him again. This is the most important part that has to go underwater.

All our trouble comes from this upper part of our head. Put him in again, I said. And they did it again. Of course, it's only symbolic. But baptism is symbolic. It's a picture of burial. And this is the last part that we're willing to be buried underwater.

We think so much of ourselves. Not just our righteousness. I think most of us Christians, perhaps all of us, are glad to acknowledge our righteousness is as filthy rags. Are you willing equally to acknowledge your cleverness is stupidity before God?

You don't believe it? I'll show it to you in Scripture. Be like the Bereans. Question me and everything. If I can't show it to you in Scripture, don't believe it. You know, it says in 1 Corinthians. In chapter 1, verse 20, God has made, the last part, the wisdom of the world foolish.

God has made the wisdom of the world foolish. The greatest clever people in the world, the wisdom of the world is foolishness. And further in chapter 3, sorry, chapter 2, it says about, you know, the natural man.

1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. The normal human being cannot accept the things of the Holy Spirit because they are foolishness to them. Do you know that the things of the Holy Spirit are foolishness to our natural cleverness?

So if you study the Bible with your human cleverness, you can be absolutely sure you're going to go wrong. I believe that's the big mistake of Bible school. I'm not going to want to insult any Bible school, but I'm deeply thankful that I never went to a Bible school.

I would have missed out so much. The men who have, the greatest men of God who have blessed me in my life, have all been people who have never been to a Bible school. The natural man, there's so much of the exaltation of the human cleverness in Bible schools.

What is needed is revelation. In the Old Testament, the word was meditation. Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. Why? Because that's the only thing you could do. You didn't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, so you had to meditate, meditate.

And there were the great scribes and scholars who meditated and expanded the Scripture. Now when I listen to a lot of preaching today, and I've heard so many preachers in the last 54 years that I've been a believer, and I find that what comes out of the pulpit, what comes on internet messages and all is human cleverness.

Three nice points. They've studied how to prepare sermons, how to communicate, how to stir people's emotions, how to convince people. They've studied logic. You know what I call it? Garbage. What we need is a revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because your cleverness did not reveal to me. There are cleverer people than you in Israel, Simon. They think I'm Beelzebul, Prince of Devils, but you've seen that I'm the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

That's what Jesus said. Think of that. People who studied and studied and studied and studied the Scriptures. From Genesis to Malachi, it speaks about Jesus. Have you read that passage when Jesus was walking to Emmaus with the two disciples?

And it's a three-hour journey. It says about seven miles there to walk. And three hours, we read in Luke 24, He took the law and the prophets, the whole Old Testament, and showed how every book showed Jesus as the Messiah.

Right from the seed of the woman, Passover lamb, serpent lifted up in the wilderness, Isaiah 53, and all the way to the Son of Righteousness in Malachi. It was all about Jesus. And the people who studied Him in the synagogues, they couldn't see that.

They thought He was Beelzebul. I remember years ago witnessing a Jewish person in India, and trying sitting with him, and I was showing him. I said, what do you think Isaiah 53 speaks about? He said, it speaks about the nation of Israel.

Suffering, suffering, suffering, being treated by others. I was amazed. What's so clear to me, He was so kind to me. Then I realized that something that I can see so clearly in Scripture, another person just doesn't see.

Revelation, Tongue Control, and Building the Church

Like I said yesterday, even though I said it, many of you heard it. How many of you really believe James 1 .26? That if you cannot control your tongue, your entire Christianity is worth zero. Let me tell you the truth.

90 of believers don't believe it. They say, I can't control my tongue, I just confess it and ask Jesus to forgive me. And they live like that for the next 50 years, unable to control their tongue, because the blood of Jesus is there.

Is that verse in Scripture or not? Do you think your human understanding is going to be more right than Scripture, the day you stand before the Lord? This is why we cannot build a church. We want to build a church.

And I said yesterday that God's plan is not a bunch of holy individuals running around the world as individual witnesses for Christ. He didn't say, I came to make people holy. He said, I came to build the church.

I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He said, with two or three gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. What about if only one person gathers? There is no midst.

Do you know that there is a power when two believers are agreed and united, which is not there when a person is alone, however holy he may be. There is an authority to bind the powers of darkness. I don't mean casting out a demon.

Casting out a demon, any individual believer can do all by himself. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where Satan has entrenched himself in a situation, whether in a home or in a church, it requires a minimum of two people.

And a minimum of two people, it says in Matthew 18 verse 19, who are agreed. If you're not familiar with that passage, let me show you that. There are only two places that Jesus spoke about the church.

The word church, you look up a concordance. It occurs only twice in the Gospels. One in Matthew 16 where he spoke about the worldwide church. I will build my church and the gates of hell will never prevail against it.

And the other is the local church in Matthew 18 verse 17 where he spoke about the local church. The only two times Jesus ever spoke about the church. Where it says about telling it to the church where a person has to be disciplined.

And in that, and it's very interesting, the only time Jesus ever spoke about the local church, he spoke about discipline. A brother who wouldn't submit to authority. Do you know that authority is so important in a local church?

Many people don't recognize that. You can't build a home if you don't have a father and mother. We don't understand that. You'll have an orphanage, not a home. And I'll tell you this, many churches are orphanages.

They're not homes because nobody there submits to any authority. Everybody's alone to themselves. That's an orphanage, that's not a family. There's no father and mother. And this is a problem with many Christians, they don't like to submit to authority because they're not broken.

They don't understand the value of brokenness. God could never use Moses. Even though he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And even though he was mighty and strong and with one blow he could kill an Egyptian.

Have you ever thought of that, how strong Moses was? I don't know that there are many people who can with one blow kill a man. I mean, they may knock him down, but Moses killed a man. One blow and the guy was dead.

And it says in Acts 7 that Moses thought that seeing that, all the Israelites would recognize that God was going to use him to deliver them. How? By killing the Egyptians one by one with his hands. How long would that take?

God said, that's not my problem. And he took him to the wilderness and kept him living with his father-in-law for 40 years. That's enough to humble anybody. I mean, even one year with the father-in-law would be enough.

40 years, not only to live with your father-in-law, but to work for him. Boy, the great prince of Egypt was humbled. That was another university. God's universities are not for the head, for the heart.

And God did such a work in Moses that finally at the end of 40 years, he says, Lord, I'm not the man. This man who at the age of 40 thought, I am the man. He said, I'm not the man. I work with about 70 fellow elders in India.

And we have frequent elders meetings for them. And the thing I keep on telling them, and I never get tired of telling them, is the greatest qualification for an elder is that he has no desire to be an elder.

And he feels he's totally unfit to be an elder. I stand before God and I say that. I have no desire for leadership. I feel I'm totally unfit myself. If you feel like that, not in artificial humility, there's a lot of that.

Well, I'm not worthy, but if you insist that I should be, I'll take that place. I don't mean that type of trash. I mean where you're deeply convinced in your mind that you're not the man. Moses was not being artificially humble.

He said, I'm not the man. God said, you are. He said, no, I'm not. God, you're making a mistake. To the point it says God became angry with him. He said, I can't speak, and all that type of stuff. The man was mighty in words.

He says in Acts 7, he was mighty in words. He was a great eloquent man at the age of 40. And at the age of 80, he says, God, I can't speak. Do you know the most important qualification to minister God's word?

To minister God's word is to say, Lord, I can't really. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to communicate your word. And even if you've been doing it for 30, 40 years, to say, Lord, I don't know.

I tell you before God, you may not know it, but I stand in the pulpit always feeling I don't know what to say. And I don't know how to say it. Because I'm dealing with eternal things. I'm not just like a professor of chemistry or biology giving a lecture.

A person who's taught chemistry or biology for 40 years can easily stand up and, yeah, I can speak. I've taught this subject for so many years. And a lot of Christian preachers preach like that. I say, God, save me from ever, ever, ever being like that.

Help me to recognize that this is not like human ministries, like a lecturer in a college. The pictures God's given me is that I'm like a heart surgeon when I stand in a pulpit. I'm dealing with something far more important than heart surgery.

When I think of a heart surgeon, I mean, I've been preaching for nearly 50 years. And God gifted me with the ability to prophesy when I was 23 years old when I sought God for the power of His Holy Spirit.

And I think of a heart surgeon who's dealing with cutting off a person's heart, dealing with a blockage or something serious there. Even if he's had 50 years' experience, a good heart surgeon will go with tremendous care to see that his hands have been scrubbed.

They have a minimum amount of time that they have to scrub their hands in the hospitals. They've got to make sure that every glove is sterilized, every tool he uses is perfectly sterilized. If one drops on the floor, he won't pick it up.

I mean, we'd pick up a spoon or a fork that's fallen on the ground, right, and still use it, but not a surgeon. He says, sorry. What a standard of purity. I tell you, they've put to shame most preachers who stand in the pulpit, who can come into the pulpit so casually, with things not set right in their life between them and their wife or between them and some other brother, or certain areas in their life where they are aware they are not being sterilized.

And that's what God shall mean. You're like a heart surgeon, and no matter how many years you've been preaching, you're dealing with people's eternal destinies. I mean, that heart surgeon, the maximum he can do is kill that man by carelessness.

But the man may be a believer, he can go to heaven. But a preacher who stands in the pulpit is dealing with eternal realities, people's eternal destinies. And if he is impure, then the words flowing through an impure channel can pollute more than germs from a surgeon's hand can bring harm to a person.

This is how I feel every time I speak. And I say, Lord, please save me from ever taking that lightly. It says here in Matthew 18 and 19, if two of you agree on earth, and the word there is the Greek word symphony, or from which we get the English word symphony of music.

Isn't it so wonderful when you see two or three instruments playing so in perfect symphony like these great orchestras, so many violins and other instruments. It's so beautiful to hear that sound. People spend so much money just to go and listen to that.

And that is the type of sound God wants to hear from a church. When you build a church, that's the sound God wants to hear, like an orchestra in perfect symphony, whether it's two or two hundred. And if there's one player there in that orchestra who's an amateur, who doesn't know how to play, an orchestra choir director is not interested in getting a large number of people in his orchestra, no.

He's interested in gathering people who know how to play their instruments. I mean if it's only five, he'd say, I'd rather have only five people than having a hundred people where ninety-five of them don't know how to play their instruments.

What's the use? They'll corrupt the whole thing. Orchestra choir directors know that. Christian leaders don't know that. They think if I can build a mega church with huge numbers of people, that'll impress God.

It doesn't. He's looking for those who've got symphony. If it's two, that's enough. Two. Completely in agreement in spirit. They can ask their Father for anything. Do you know the reason why so many of my prayers go never answered from heaven?

Christians have become so used to prayers not being answered, that they say, well that's a normal thing. Just like Christians accept defeat in their life as a normal thing. Well, most believers are defeated, so I suppose I'm okay.

Well, most people around me, their prayers are never answered. They just accept it as normal. And that's how it is. But that's not meant to be like that. It was an abnormal thing for prayers not to be answered.

When Jesus said, Jesus, his prayers were always answered. He said, Father, I know that you always hear me. There was never a question of the Father not answering prayers. Why is it we have got so used to accepting unanswered prayers as normal?

We accept defeat as normal. We accept a husband and wife quarreling now and then as normal. We say it's only now and then. Now and then? Is that God's perfect will for you? For your husband to become wife?

I remember, I started out my married life thoroughly defeated. I knew nothing about victory over sin. I used to get angry and everything else. But I saw a life described in the New Testament which was way about what I was experiencing, way about almost everybody I knew was experiencing.

But I saw in Scripture there was a life of victory that was possible where I would never once raise my voice at my wife or be angry ever. 365 days of the year and 366 days in the leap year. I said, I want that life.

And if it takes me 10, 20, 30 years to get there, I'm going to get there. And I was determined. It was like Jacob who said, Lord, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And the Lord sometimes says like he said to Jacob, let me go.

I haven't blessed you yet, but let me go. Have you read that in Genesis 32?

He hadn't blessed him. But he said, let me go. And he would say to you, let me go. And you say, all right, Lord, see you later.

Well, that's how you missed the blessing. But now Jacob, he says, I'm not going to let you go. That's exactly what God wanted to hear. He was testing him. And that's why he's testing you. And he wants to hear those words from you.

I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he changed his name to Israel. And he broke his hip. If you ask God to bless you, he's going to break you as well. He's going to break you, ruin your reputation, and change you from a weakling, from a Jacob who's a grabber and a deceiver, to an Israel who's a prince of God, who has power with God and man.

But you've got to have that attitude. I will not let you go except you bless me. And I said, Lord, I want that. I want power in my life. I don't want ever in my life to get up and speak in a boring way.

I don't want to preach interesting sermons 99 of the time, but 100 of the time. Was Jesus ever boring? I don't believe that. And I have no right to stand up and represent Jesus Christ if I'm not seeking with all my heart to be the best possible preacher that Christ can have.

I said, I don't compare myself with others. I never do that. It's none of my business. I want to be the best that I can be. Not better than others. I have no interest in that. But all that God can accomplish through me, I said, Lord, I want to do that.

I want to accomplish that all in one life. I'm asking you whether you have that same passion. You know, like the businessman, I see a lot of businessmen in Bangalore who have such a passion to expand their business, to start a little small store.

Think of these stores like Wal-Mart and all. It started as a little store and expanded all over the world. It's what a passion they have to make money. And I know that there are only two masters, God and money.

And I said, Lord, in the final day, let it never be true that some businessman on earth served his God mammon more wholeheartedly than I served the true God. Let it never be true. I want it such that no businessman on earth, not Wal-Mart or any other mart, is going to put me to shame by serving their God mammon more wholeheartedly than I serve the true and living God.

What about you, my brother, sister? Can you say you're serving God, Jesus Christ who laid down His life for you, more passionately, more devotedly, more wholeheartedly than any businessman on earth serves money?

We should hang our head in shame. The tragedy is so many Christians, born-again Christians, are more interested in comfort and pleasure and money than they are in serving Christ. And they wonder why they don't come to a better life.

You'll never come to a better life, not in a hundred years. The Lord says, you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I often use this example. Supposing you were walking in the grass one day at night and you dropped a five-cent coin in the grass.

Okay, five cents. You look around. How long will you spend searching for that five cents in the grass in the dark? Anybody so poor? I think even a tramp wouldn't search for more than five cents. But if you accidentally misplaced a wad of $100 ,000 somewhere when you were moving around, how long would you search for that?

You'd take leave from work that day. I misplaced it somewhere. I've got to find it. I don't know where. I was carrying around with me a wad of $100 ,000 bills. And I asked you, how do you seek for God?

Like a five-cent coin, I seek Him. I come once in a while for a conference. And I say, oh God, I want to seek You. Didn't get all that I wanted. Didn't get through to the Holy Spirit. Never mind. It's not the most important thing in life.

When it's convenient, I will seek Him a little more. Maybe another day when I'm passing by that grassy field, I'll look again and see if my five-cent coin is there. If I don't find it, it doesn't matter.

I tell you honestly, that's the way most people seek for God. Even people who say they are born again. No wonder they don't find Him. No wonder their life is not useful for Him. No wonder they don't accomplish more in their life.

No wonder they never, never build a local church that pleases God. They say people are not interested. Or is it because you're not holy? I remember when we started, I said, Lord, if there's anybody in this area where I'm living in Bangalore who's seeking a godly life, I have three requests.

One, you bring him in touch with us. Bring him right to our church. Miraculously. Or bring me in touch with him. Maybe I'll meet him in a store or an airport or a bank or somewhere. And if you don't do both of these, as a man seeking for a godly life here, tell us what's wrong with us.

And we'll set it right. And I'll tell you, most of the time it was number three. Where the Lord was telling us what was wrong with us. And we set it right. And little by little, one by one, God brought us in touch with people who were seeking a godly life.

First of all, like it says in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the outermost parts of the earth. First of all, in our own locality. And gradually, through many years, God built a local church. And then he brought us in touch with others in other parts around India.

And then in other parts of the world. But if you don't have that passion to gather together people. The Lord wants it so much. Not numbers, but two or three or four who are agreed. It starts in a home.

Because that's the atmosphere of heaven. I was speaking about the importance of Revelation and all these things. It's a great mystery, it says in Ephesians 5. The church is a great mystery. I quoted that yesterday.

Ephesians 5. This is a great mystery. That Christ and the church are one flesh. The Old Testament used the one flesh as the physical union between a man and his wife. And in Ephesians 5 .31 it says that two shall become one flesh.

Paul, are you speaking about a man and woman? He says, no. I'm not speaking about a husband and wife. I'm quoting from Genesis 2. But when God said those words in Genesis 2, it was prophetically speaking about Ephesians 5 .32.

A great mystery. Christ and the church. Have you seen it? The head and the body. And it's not one member. It's many people. Functioning together. Each willing to yield to the other. I've used this example about muscles.

When you move your elbow, there's no sound. How effortless it is. How we move our fingers. How effortless it is. No sound, no noise. We've come to accept it as normal. But you know what happens whenever you move your fingers?

There are muscles here. You can't do anything on this. You can't do anything on this body. I'm not a doctor. I think I know a little bit. My wife's a doctor. If I'm wrong, she'll correct me. There are muscles that pull and yield.