Balanced Christianity 4. Loving Jesus and Being Broken — Zac Poonen

The Beauty and Goal of a Balanced Christian Life

So, in continuing thinking about the beauty of a balanced Christian life, I remember yesterday we started with this verse, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us from Psalm 90 and that prayer that we pray, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wondrous compassion and purity and the Holy Spirit has come primarily to transform us into the likeness of Christ.

One of the things that I've been stressing very much in these days in all our churches I have responsibility for is to have a clear sense of direction, where exactly are we heading. And we never do anything without a goal.

When you send your children to school, you have a goal. When you get into the car and start driving, you have a goal. When you get in to buy a ticket to take a flight, you have a goal. You've always got, in everything in life we have a goal, even if you start a business, you have a goal.

And what would you say is the goal of your Christian life? For many people it is somehow to endure on this earth and go to heaven when we die or maybe to be of some help to others. But if we have a goal which is not the goal God has for us, we're going to have problems along the way and we'll have so many questions.

A lot of people have questions when God doesn't seem to answer their prayers. So I want to turn you to one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, Romans 8, 28. Many people know this verse, many Christians, that God makes all things work together for good to those who love him.

Not for everybody, those who love him and were called according to his purpose. So if you can say that, to the best of your knowledge, you love Jesus more than anything and anyone on earth and you have nothing that means more to you than Jesus and wanting to please him and you want to fulfill his purpose for your life more than anything else, you can be certain of one thing, that every single thing that happens in your life will work for your good.

I have lived by that verse for many years, it's in the last 57 years, I can give you my testimony that every single thing that's happened to me has worked for my good. Every thing that other people have done, people have tried to harm me, you know when you serve the Lord, a lot of people, you're going to be the enemy of the devil and people are going to try to harm you.

It's worked for my good. Everything, there's never a man or a human being who's been able to harm me till today. They've tried to, they didn't succeed because by the time it reached me, it went through God's filter of Romans 8, 28 and it turned out for my good.

The Cross Turns Evil Into Good

And the greatest proof of that is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The greatest evil that ever took place on this earth was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You cannot think of a greater sin or a greater evil that anybody ever did than killing the Son of God on the cross.

And then if I were to ask you what is the best thing that ever happened on this earth, it was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Can you think of anything better than that that happened on this earth? Where would we be if Christ had not died?

So what is God trying to teach us? Many people look at the cross and learn one lesson, Christ died for my sins, but there's a lot more than that, a lot more. Here's another lesson, my old man was crucified with him so that I never become a slave to sin anymore.

That's on the cross. Paul experienced it, he said, I'm crucified with Christ and I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me. Another thing, the devil was defeated on the cross. That also took place on the cross.

And here's another thing that God shows us on the cross that the greatest evil that anybody can do to you, I can turn into the greatest good. That's a lesson we learn from the cross. Now the way to find out whether you believe it or not is, now listen carefully.

Do you ever complain against somebody that he did something to harm you? Then you don't believe it. Do you murmur about your circumstances? Then you don't believe it. You see, we can say, I believe in Romans 8 .28, but in actual life we don't.

If you really believe in Romans 8 .28, of course, you can believe it only if you love God and your aim is to fulfill His purpose in your life and not your own private ambitions, then of course it doesn't apply to you.

But if your one aim in life is to fulfill God's plan for your life, you have no other ambition. That's the best life you can ever live. And if that's your goal, then you can be absolutely certain that every single thing that people do or don't do, somebody promises to do something for you and does not do it, even that will work for your good.

Joseph and the Timing of God

And there are many examples in scripture of that. I'll give you just one. I don't know whether you know the story of Joseph. I just want to show you one incident in Joseph's life or maybe two. In Genesis in chapter 37, we read that Joseph's brothers were very jealous of him and wanted to get rid of him and they wanted to kill him.

And just at that moment when they planned to kill him, one of the brothers said, let's not kill him. Let's just throw him here. And at that very moment, we read in Genesis 37 and verse 28, some Midianite traders happened to pass by on their camels over there.

And so the idea came to these brothers, let's not kill Joseph, let's sell him to this Midianite traders and he'll take them out of this country. But that was an evil desire. First of all, to kill him was an evil desire and they said, well, let's get rid of him.

But little did they realize they were fulfilling God's plan because these Midianite traders were going to Egypt and that's where God wanted to take Joseph. Now, to me, the wonderful thing is how God timed the movement of these camels who walk very slowly to land at that spot at the exact time, the exact time when the brothers of Joseph were planning to get rid of him.

You see, it's not coincidence. A lot of things that happen in the life of a godly man are not coincidence. There's a timing of God where at this particular time, God does that other thing. And camels can walk whatever speed they like, but God times it such they land at that exact spot at the right time.

That's the first thing I want you to see. And then God takes him to Egypt and there a woman accuses him falsely of committing adultery, which he never did, and gets him put in prison. But in prison, he gets a contact with Pharaoh's cupbearer and gets an introduction to Pharaoh.

That's where God wants to take him. He would never have met Pharaoh's cupbearer if he had not been falsely accused and imprisoned. Do you believe that when somebody falsely accuses you and imprisons you, that can work for your good?

Okay, the next thing. He explained a dream to Pharaoh's cupbearer. And it happened. Three days later, Pharaoh's cupbearer was restored to the palace and Joseph said to him, please remember me when you go before Pharaoh.

Will you please tell him? You read that in Genesis chapter 40. And verse 19, he said Pharaoh will, I'm sorry, in verse 21, he restored the chief cupbearer to the office. And Joseph had said, please tell Pharaoh that I'm a young man here.

I've been falsely accused. Will you please release me and send me back to my parents in Canaan? And it says here in verse 23, yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph. I mean, Joseph had just told him that the previous day.

And the next day he was there in Pharaoh's and he completely forgot this tremendous explanation of his dream that this young man had given. And he completely forgot. Two years later, chapter 41, verse 1, when Pharaoh has a dream, that's the time the cupbearer says in verse 9, oh, Pharaoh, I remember now, I completely forgot for two years.

There was a man in prison who explained a dream to me and he could probably explain your dream to you. At that time, Joseph was 30 years old. Two years earlier, like it says in verse, the previous chapter, Joseph was 28.

And can you, I mean, you're all intelligent people, supposing the cupbearer had remembered and the very next day told Pharaoh, there's a young man there, Pharaoh would have released Joseph and where would he have gone?

Back to Canaan. That was not God's will. But because God made Pharaoh's cupbearer forget, do you know that God can make you remember things and he can make you forget things? I'm very thankful that he reminds me of certain things and I'm also very thankful that sometimes he makes me forget something.

Here it was definitely God who made Pharaoh's cupbearer forget what Joseph asked him the previous day. Because God said, I don't want him to go back to Canaan. If Pharaoh releases him now, he'll go to Canaan.

He's not yet ready. By the time he's 30 years old, he'll be fully equipped spiritually to be the ruler in Egypt. And so God gives a dream to Pharaoh and then he makes the cupbearer remember. And then Joseph comes and that's the right time and Joseph is promoted to be the second ruler in Egypt.

These are amazing things. You've got to see these things in the Old Testament. God's timing. So what I'm trying to tell you is, everything will work together for your good. Even when people forget to do something they promised to do, give thanks.

If you're a man or woman of faith, you will give thanks. When people do evil to you like the crucifixion of Christ, give thanks. It'll work out to be the very best. So Romans 8, 28 is a wonderful promise.

And it's a great thing if 50 years from now, you can give a testimony like me, that for 50 years, nobody's ever been able to harm me. Everything has worked for my good. The good that people did, the evil that people did, didn't make a difference.

Predestination and Becoming Like Christ

It's like these water filters where you put in dirty water and clean water comes out. Romans 8, 28 is like that. Everything works for good. But the next question is for us, for people in the Old Testament, the good was health and wealth.

But for us, the good is not health and wealth. It's not that if some, the good that God's going to working for us is going to make us richer or more comfortable earthly. That's a very human way of looking at it.

God has got a much higher good for all of us and we need to understand what that good is. And that's why you must never read Romans 8, 28 without verse 29, the next verse. Romans 8, 28 is very well known.

Romans 8, 29 is not so well known. But you don't understand what the good is unless you read verse 29. Verse 29 says that those whom God foreknew, he knew us before the worlds were created and he predestined us.

Now that's a very big word. It's led to a lot of argument among Christians as to what is predestination. Does God predestine people to hell or to heaven? Never. He never predestines anybody to go to heaven or to hell.

He doesn't just pick out names and say, okay, this guy's going to go to heaven. Now some people think like that. It's not true. God chooses us according to foreknowledge. So let me explain that first.

Predestination, it is in the Bible. But God's election of us is according to his foreknowledge. One Peter 1, there's a great argument among two groups of theologians in Christendom called Calvinists and Armenians.

Calvinists emphasize the free, the choice, sovereign choice of God and the Armenians emphasize the free will of man. But in all the arguments of the Calvinists, I've never heard one Calvinist till today explain one Peter chapter one verse one and two.

That's the worst they avoid because it destroys their theology. It says God chose us according to his foreknowledge. It wasn't arbitrary choice. Okay, so and so goes to heaven, so and so goes to hell.

God would have to be very evil to send a man to hell for no reason at all, and then it's completely unjust. Man say, I hadn't, it didn't have a choice. You just predestined me to go to hell. It's ridiculous.

He doesn't do that. God chooses us according to foreknowledge. That means he knows in advance like we can see a video of something that happened yesterday or last year, God can see a video of what's going to happen a thousand years from now.

If you can look at it like that, that's foreknowledge. What's going to happen a thousand years from all eternity, everything that every human being ever did before Adam was created, God could see a video of the whole thing and he could see you accepting Christ, surrendering your life to him.

When did he know that? Before Genesis 1 verse 1, because he could see the video of you in some place responding to Christ's call. And so he chose you and put your name in the book of life. It's because of his foreknowledge, it says in verse chapter 1, verse 1 and 2.

It's very clear. So did God elect me? Yes, he certainly did. But he elected me according to his foreknowledge. He knew that for some particular time, I would surrender my life to him. Same with you. But the predestination spoken of in Romans 8, 29 is something more than that.

Those whom he foreknew, and if he knew ahead of time, as he looked at that future video that you would respond to Christ and give your life to him, then he chose you to be, he foreknew you. He predestined you for what?

He predestined you not to go to heaven or hell, but to become like Jesus Christ. So predestination has got nothing to do with heaven or hell. It has got to do with becoming like Jesus Christ. I hope that excites you more than being predestined to go to heaven.

Closeness to Jesus as the Christian Hope

To tell you honestly, once I understood that in the early part of my Christian life, I believe what all Christians believe. I'm looking forward to going to heaven. To tell you absolutely honestly, I am not looking forward to going to heaven.

I'm looking forward to going to be with Jesus and to be like him. And I don't care where it is. I once told the Lord, I'd be happy to be in hell if you're there, because hell will become heaven for me.

I have already begun to experience heaven through the presence of Jesus Christ now. It's only a foretaste. So dear brothers and sisters, let me change your focus. You know, a lot of people say, I'm sick and tired of living on this earth, I'm waiting to go to heaven.

There are people who sing, I'm satisfied with a little cottage below, but there's a mansion waiting up for me in the hilltop, a mansion waiting for me in heaven. I'll tell you honestly, I'm not looking for any mansion in heaven.

I'm not looking for any crown. What will I do with five or ten crowns on my head? Is that what you're looking forward to? Are you looking for a 14 bedroom mansion in heaven? I say you can have it. I don't want it.

I want to be with Jesus all the time. I don't want to be in any mansion, and if I have any crown, I'll throw it at the feet of Jesus. So, all these things are pictures the Lord uses because mansions and crowns are very valuable on earth.

God uses those pictures to give us a picture of a reward that God will give to people who were faithful on this earth. And you know, on earth, the reward may be a mansion or a crown. And that's because these things are valuable.

Houses are valuable on earth. Crowns, golden crowns are very valuable. So, if that is a picture of something that's valuable in heaven, I ask myself this question. What is the thing which I will value most when I get to heaven?

Can you answer that question? Have you ever thought of it? What would you value most in heaven? Would it be a mansion, a house, or the golden street in front of your house? Or a crown on your head? Nothing.

These things are all material and have no value for me in heaven. As I've seen it, the only thing that will have value for me in heaven is closeness to Jesus Christ. Closeness of fellowship with Christ and with my Father.

And if that is the reward for faithfulness on earth, I just got to face it. The Bible says that everybody will be rewarded according to his works. So which means not every believer is going to get the same reward.

Very clear. When we stand at the judgment seat of Christ, the millions and millions of believers, they are going to be rewarded according to their faithfulness on earth. Otherwise God would be unjust, otherwise he'd be telling a lie when he's promised rewards on earth.

We don't work for reward, definitely not. If you work for reward, you won't get it. That's another thing. If any of you are working in order to get a reward, I want to tell you the truth, you'll probably be lost in the lie.

We don't work for reward, but God will give a reward. And if that reward is closeness to Jesus, then all believers are not going to get an equal reward because we know very well that all believers are not equally faithful.

Do you think every believer is equally faithful with money? You know it's not true. Do you think every believer is equally faithful with his time? Or in battling sin and seeking to be pure in his life, you think every believer is equally faithful?

No. Many believers are more faithful than others. Do you think every believer is faithful in serving God and serving God's people? There are some who have sacrificed more. And if God were to just equalize everybody in heaven, it would be like a teacher giving marks in an examination.

And here's a student who studied really hard and got every problem right and deserves 100%. And here's another lazy student who just took it easy and got half the problems wrong. And the teacher says, well, I'm very gracious, I'll give 100 to all of you.

Do you think that is righteous? No. God is not unrighteous. I want to tell you very frankly, honestly, scripture teaches very clearly. Even in the last page of scripture, I want you to turn to this verse in Revelation 22.

It's the last page of scripture. The last page of scripture. One of the last promises in the Bible, if not the last. What is it? Revelation 22, verse 12. Here is a promise. I am coming quickly. The word quickly actually means suddenly.

I'm coming suddenly, translated like that. And my reward is with me to give to every person according to what he has done. Salvation is not according to our works, forgiveness of sins. We saw that yesterday.

Salvation as Foundation and Faithfulness as Superstructure

In the foundation, there are no doors and windows. In the superstructure or skyscraper, hundreds of doors and windows. So in the foundation of our Christian life, no works, you cannot be saved by works.

Your forgiveness of sins is absolutely free. It's a free gift. You come with empty hands and say, thank you, Lord, for dying for me. Thank you for forgiving me. But the rest of your life, it says God has preordained works that we should walk in.

And some have sacrificed and denied themselves to walk in those works that God prepared for them. And others have just said, well, I'm going to heaven so I can just take it easy. The reward is going to be different.

It's very clear here, according to what he has done. I'll show you another verse, 2nd Corinthians in chapter 5. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 10. He's talking about believers. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone will be rewarded for his deeds which he did in the body, according to what he has done, good or bad.

Now, that's not talking about salvation, forgiveness of sins or heaven or hell, because we're not going to heaven on the basis of our good works. So when it says good or bad, it's not this heathen idea that God's got a weighing balance and he puts all your good deeds on one side and your bad deeds on the other side and then decides whether you go to heaven or hell.

That's not Christianity. That's false religion. Christianity says we go to Christ when you come with empty hands and go to heaven when you come with empty hands and say, I have nothing to commend myself.

Jesus died for me. I've turned from my sins and I receive him. That's the only basis we go into God's kingdom. But the good or bad is for reward for believers. And you may say, what does it matter if I don't get a reward so long as I'm in heaven?

Well, I want to use an illustration from the earth, which will show you how you'll be like in heaven. Think of a homeless person here on this earth. Think of a homeless person, really homeless person with nobody to help him.

Shivering on the streets in the cold, getting wet in the rain, hunting for food in the garbage bins. That's how it is in India. Hunting for food in the garbage bins, struggling to survive day after day, every day is a pain, living year after year after year.

Imagine a homeless man who lives like that for a hundred years and compare him with a rich king in a palace who's living on the same earth, comfortably enjoying himself. That's going to be a picture. Both are on the earth, right?

Nobody's in hell. Both are on the earth. But one's a homeless man and one's a king. Is there a difference between them? That's a picture of how it will be in heaven. Yeah, they're both in heaven, sure.

But there will be a difference. And I don't think we realize it fully right now. If we did, we would be radical and wholehearted in our Christian life. Because our entire life on earth, even if you live a hundred years, is going to be like one day compared to eternity.

Millions and millions of years. Are you going to think of that? Is it important? And if the reward in heaven is closeness to Jesus and to think that some believers are going to be close to Jesus and some are not going to be so close to him for all eternity.

Wow! And that depends on how I live on this earth. Lord, I want to take it seriously. You say, why didn't anybody tell me this earlier? Well, you had a Bible. Like Abraham said, they've got a Bible. They could have read it.

I didn't discover this by some revelation from heaven. No angel came and told me this. It's written in the same Bible that you have. I just read it a little more carefully, that's all. Because I see that my eternal destiny depends on what's written in this book.

Now, you may not believe it, but I believe it with all my heart. You say you believe it, but I don't know whether you do. Do you really believe that we'll stand at the judgment seat and be rewarded exactly according to what we have done in our body?

How much have you battled sin? How much have you fought against sin in secret? We're talking about a balanced Christian life, foundation and superstructure. Okay, we are clear as far as justification, declared righteous, accepted by God.

That's fine. What about the other side? Turn with me to Ephesians in chapter 2. Once again, we looked at that verse yesterday. Ephesians 2 in verse 8, by grace you're saved through faith. It's talking about initial step of forgiveness, salvation from the penalty of sin.

Not of yourselves is a gift of God, not as a result of works. That's one side of truth, no works in forgiveness of sins. In salvation from the penalty of sin, but now we come to the superstructure. You remember that passage where Jesus said about some people, Luke 14.

Some people who laid a foundation and everybody laughed at them and say, what did you just build a foundation for? If you're not planning to build a house, would you ever go and build a foundation somewhere and forget about it for 50 years?

They'd ask you, why in the world did you build a foundation there? Why did you waste all that money on a foundation? If you were not planning to build a house, nobody lays a foundation. Only a foolish person lays a foundation and doesn't build a house.

But do you know there are lots of Christians like that. They've laid a good foundation. I'm saved by the death of Christ and not by any good works of mine. Wonderful, the perfect foundation. What have you built on it?

Have you lived for yourself? Played the fool with sin? And not sought to find out what's God's will for your life? Then you haven't built anything. So what we, the superstructure is in verse ten. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, or made anew in Christ Jesus, or born again, we can say, for what purpose?

For good works, plenty of good works, which not any type of good works. You know, some people say, I'm going to do some good for God. You know, like people say, what are you just sitting around doing nothing?

Go and do something for God, man. Do you think the angels tell each other that? What are you sitting around, Gabriel, doing nothing? Go and run around, do something for the Lord. And Gabriel doesn't get all worked up to do something for God.

No, you know how the angels do? You know, we are taught to pray, thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. The angels wait on God, God, what do you want me to do? Every day, God may say, go down to Nazareth and tell that young woman that she's going to give birth to Jesus.

Or go to that temple and tell Zacharias that he's going to have a son. They're sent, and then they go, do that? They come back and say, we've done it, Lord, what next? Thy will be done on earth in my life, as it is done in heaven.

In other words, it's not any bright idea that I have. Angels don't get bright ideas. In heaven, they don't do their own will, even if it is good. There's a proverb that even is used in the world, saying the good is the enemy of the best.

And what you choose may be good, but that one may not be God's will for your life, which is the best. So it's works which God, see Ephesians 2 .10, in which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

In other words, God's already made a plan. That's what you're supposed to fulfill. And it's a wonderful thing if you can be gripped by that when you're young. I was gripped with it when I was 21 years old, more than 50 years ago, 55 years ago.

I was baptized and I realized God has got a plan for my life. Now, my plan was very different. I had already made a plan for my life. I was in the Indian Navy and I wanted to go up to the top. Then I realized that God's got a plan for my life, and that may not be exactly according to my plan.

And I said, Lord, when I come to the end of my life, I don't want to look back over my life and say I accomplished something on this earth. I became famous or I did something. That's what a lot of people live for.

They made a lot of money or made a name for themselves. I want to come to the end of my life and say what Jesus said. I have finished the work, Father, you gave me to do. What Paul said, I fought a good fight and I finished my course.

Surrendering to God's Plan

I want to say to all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, I wish you'd be gripped by this. And don't worry if you're not young, even if it's a year older, at least from now. Can you say, Lord, of the years that are left to me, I give them to your hand.

Take me, break me, mold me into the pattern you have planned. I remember as a young man, way back when I was 21, reading a poem which said, when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and he shows me his plan for me, the plan for my life as it might have been had he had his way with me.

And I see how I blocked him here, and I checked him there, and I would not yield my will, as I see the video of my past life. The plan he had for me, which he shows me in the background, and the way I lived, because I checked him here, and I blocked him there, and I sought something else, and I would not yield my will.

Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes? Grief, though he loves me still. And I look with regret over my past life, and I don't have a chance to live it again. And the last verse of that poem says, Lord, of the years that are left to me, I give them to thy hand, take me, break me, mold me to the pattern that you have planned.

We can't do anything about the years gone by, but we can do a lot about today and tomorrow. Repentance means a regret over the way I have lived outside the will of God. So if there's a good verse that God has planned beforehand, we don't have to sort of get into a frantic worry about this.

God guides in sometimes in a very unconscious way, and he overrules. We don't have to consciously say, Lord, what do I have to do now? What shirt shall I wear today? Is it this one or that one? That's crazy.

If generally speaking, generally speaking, your life is submitted, say, Lord, I don't want my will in my life. If you have said that to the Lord, I want your will. Consciously and unconsciously, I want you to guide me in my will.

Joseph was not consciously seeking God's will, but God made it work for him because he saw the young boy's heart was sincere. It wasn't Joseph who planned for the Midianite traders to land up there at the right time.

It wasn't Joseph who planned for Potiphar's wife to accuse him and put him in prison. It was God who planned it. So if God sees that you're a sincere person who's really wanting to do his will, he will work everything out.

The responsibility is his, not ours. I praise God for that. So I don't have to consciously live in a tension saying, what do I do next? If basically my desire is not to do my own will, but the will of God in my life, I want, and I'm willing to sacrifice anything to do his will, I can tell you that God will fulfill his plan for your life.

Turn with me to Psalm 139. Psalm 139, it says here in Psalm 139 that talking about the time when I was in my mother's womb, you were in your mother's womb. While I was in my mother's womb, verse 13, you formed my inward parts and wove me in my mother's womb.

And there in verse 16, your eyes saw my unformed substance. You know, it's a wonderful thing when we look at our children, the children God gives us, and see that when they were in their mother's womb, God saw their unformed substance.

And in God's book were written all the days that were planned for you and for me. When was that? When I was in my mother's womb, God had a, when you say a book, what it means is in God's mind. God doesn't have physical books like this.

In God's mind, in one part of God's mind was Zach Poonen. And he had a plan for me. He knew that I would wander around here and there and not seek him. But at the age of 19, I would give my life to him.

At the age of 21, I'd get baptized. And at the age of 26, I'd leave my job. And he also knew that after that, I would still not be 100 faithful. I'd still backslide a bit here and there. But then he knew that at one point in my life, I'd begin to take my life seriously.

Really seriously, to fulfill God's will for my life. I was around 35 when that happened. And God said, okay, now I've got a plan for his life. So it doesn't matter if you, you know, we all wander around and backslide and do a lot of foolish things in the early years of our life.

You can still fulfill God's plan for your life. Think of the Apostle Paul. He says, when Apostle Paul was in his mother's womb, think of this. Paul was in his mother's womb and God had a plan for him.

The number of days that were, what he is to fulfill, and certainly it was not God's will in that plan that Paul should, when he's 25 years old, be a zealous persecutor of Christians. He should go around locking them up in jail.

No, he did that. That was foolish. How does that work out with God's plan? God knows that this guy is going to do a lot of stupid things, like all of us. I did a lot of stupid things. And many of you, if you look back in your life, you're honest, you've acknowledged you've done a lot of foolish things.