The Happiest Church in the World — Carter Conlon

Praise God. Good morning, Times Square Church. God bless you this morning. I trust that this has already been a wonderful time in the Lord's presence. I want to speak to you about the happiest church in the world.

The Happiest Church and the Promise of Unity

How would you like to be part of that church? The happiest church in the world. What I'm about to share with you this morning, I am a student of this, same as you are this morning. I believe it's somewhere the Lord not only wants to take us, but has to take us.

In this hour that we're living in, when society is becoming increasingly jaded, fragmented, and divided, and bittered, as Jesus warned us it would in Matthew chapter 24, that nation would rise against nation.

The word in the original text is ethnos. It means ethnic culture would rise against ethnic culture. There would be tremendous division. The last days would be highlighted by it. But yet I believe that there will be a love and unity in the body of Christ that is God produced.

You and I can only desire it, but the Holy Spirit has to make it a reality. I've been praying for what I'm about to speak on this morning. I've been praying that God do this in my life. We always assume that in some measure we've arrived at an abeyance or obeying certain truths, but there's always a deeper place that you and I can go.

In the natural, we can't go there, but the Holy Spirit can take us there. John chapter 13, please, if you will. John chapter 13. As you're turning there, let's pray together. Father, I thank you, God, with all my heart for the anointing of your Holy Spirit.

I couldn't speak this without you, Lord. I thank you that all my life you have overridden my frailty, and you have touched me when I'm weary. You've strengthened me when I'm weak, and you've given me an understanding far beyond my own ability to learn.

I thank you, God, for giving me the power to convey this truth today, and for giving us the ability to hear it. And I praise you for it, and I bless you with all my heart in Jesus' name. Now, Pastor William and I have just come back from Vancouver Island in western Canada.

We got back on Friday speaking at the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Ministers Conference there. Tremendous, tremendous hunger for the things of God in the churches today, and it is truly amazing. You have to know when you see these things that we're on the threshold of something phenomenal in the kingdom of God.

It is truly wonderful. It was wonderful to spend time with Pastor William. He's speaking for Pastor Hector Vega this morning. He'll be back again with us this afternoon. John 13, beginning at verse 1.

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God, he riseth from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself.

After that, he poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Now, go to verse 12, please. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

You call me Master and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.

Verily, verily, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. Neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. If you know these things, Jesus said you're happy if you do them.

That's quite a statement. He didn't say self-satisfied. He didn't say fulfilling the law or any kind of a scriptural obligation. He said if you know these things and you do these things, it's going to produce a measure of happiness in us.

Now, everybody wants to be happy. We want a sense of well-being. We want to find the highest and right sense of purpose for each of our lives. And we want to find the deepest sense of personal fulfillment and achievement.

As a people throughout the world, we travel and scour through our cities and our planet. We leave no stone unturned in our collective quest for happiness. And even actually in the constitution of this country, it's actually enshrined.

And that's what made it such an attractive place to many people throughout the world because it was enshrined as a protected right in America to pursue happiness. Amazing when you think about it. Now, many people in their quest for happiness eventually turned to God.

True Life Comes Through Christ

Although in the beginning, we're not completely certain of how to get there, we know that the one who created us has the keys to that which our hearts have always longed for. Now, in John chapter 6, verse 66, the scripture tells us that a time came when many of the disciples of Christ turned back and wouldn't walk with them anymore.

And Jesus said to the twelve, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And Jesus answered them and said, have I not chosen you twelve and one of you as a devil? He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him being one of the twelve. Now, this all began, this whole discourse in John chapter 6 began with a question.

Now, Jesus had done many miracles and he had just fed thousands of people with five barley loaves and two small fishes. There was a group that took to their boats as it is. They followed him to the other side and then they asked him a question in John 6, 28.

They said, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Now, they were focused on the miracles. You have to understand that. How do we lay hands on people and they get healed? How do we take five loaves and a couple of fish and multiply them and feed thousands of people?

And so that was the question. How do we do the works of God? So they're really focused on the miracles, but Jesus is trying to answer them and saying, really, it's not about the miracles. It's about the motive behind the miracles.

It's about God coming to the earth. It's about the son of man not coming to serve, not to be served rather, but to serve. And this is the work of God. And then he goes on to tell them, in essence, he said, unless you partake of me, unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, in other words, unless my life becomes yours, you won't be able to do this.

You will even use religion for your own advantage because the core of the sin nature of fallen man is self focus. You remember Satan, according to Ezekiel, was the anointed cherub. He had access to the throne of God as it is.

He had a really prestigious place in heaven, but it wasn't good enough. He was focused on himself, not focused on others, not focused on the kingdom of God or the work of God. And it led him into rebellion.

He came down into the garden of Eden and sowed that seed of self focus into the human race. And so we will even have a tendency to use religion in a sense for ourselves. And that has been, I suppose, a great dilemma in the generation we're living in, where the theological focus of the Christian church really moved largely in that direction of using God and, sad to say, even using people for our own advantage.

Jesus was telling them, you're going to need a strength other than your own even to want to do what I'm telling you or showing you in these passages of scripture. You're going to have to have a strength more than your own to be able to lay aside, in a sense, your identity, your garments.

He took his garment off at the last supper. Technically it's his identity as fully God. And he took on the robe of a servant with a towel, took a basin, began to wash the feet of even his enemy who was going to betray him.

You rarely see a more deeper contrast in the scriptures between the absolute generosity of God and the depravity of man. And then he says, will you walk away from me if it doesn't fit into what you think will make you happy?

Will you also go away? If I tell you you need something more than you are to fulfill this, if I tell you I want to do something in you that's deeper than anything you've ever known, if I tell you that it all really leads to having compassion for other people, if I make it clear to you, Jesus is saying that the power of God is available, but it has a focus.

It's not about you, it's about others. And those who will know the true power and compassion of God, there will be another other focus. We will look away from ourselves. And will you walk away? Now these people were following Jesus.

You have to understand at this point they're following him because they wanted to make bread. Technically that's what they want. They want the power of God to produce bread for themselves. They wanted the power of God for reputation.

They wanted the power of God for all these various reasons. But he was trying to tell them, you have an inherent problem of self-focus and the only way through it is if the life of the Son of God becomes your life.

And it will create a different value system inside your heart that will cause you to leave your agenda. It will cause you to get out of the seat of feasting as it is, personal feasting. As we talked about that Paul was trying to get through to the Corinthian church, it will cause you to care, will cause you to leave the banquet hall and go to the other borders of the temple, to those that have nothing.

It will move you beyond yourself and move you beyond just the study of God's word and move you beyond just casual fellowship at a table and bring you into something of the life of God that only Christ himself can provide.

Now I don't know about everybody here today but that's where I want to go and I sense in my heart I'm not completing this and I'll be the first one to say it to you. But I see it and I want to go there.

I want to be at that place where it's not just a casual word to a hurting person but a deeper action, something farther, something that is birth of the compassion of Christ within me. And I know it has to be Christ because our own nature is too focused on ourselves.

We would not be prone to do what he did at that last supper table. And he said, will you also walk away? And Peter says, you're the Christ. Where are we going to go? I know you're, I'm paraphrasing, but he says, I know yours are the only words that give life and we believe that you're the Christ, the son of the living God.

We believe Jesus that you are the one that's promised in the scriptures. You will be the fulfillment of the desire of every heart. You'll be the one that Isaiah talked about that will open every prison door, give sight to those of us who don't see a way into the future.

You'll be the one who wipes away our tears and takes away our sorrows. You'll be the one who gives us back what we lost through sin. You are the only one that has words that lead to everlasting life and you are the Christ.

And Jesus said, yes, but have I not chosen you 12 and one is a devil. In other words, there's one here who will never agree that the ways of God are right. He will not be brought, he will, he will stay in proximity.

He will be associated with me. Jesus was saying, but he will never agree. He will never be able to care. It's all about himself. It's all about his agenda. I don't know how fully Judas saw his relationship with Jesus Christ, but I do know one thing.

He was using the son of God for his own advantage. He saw Christ as a springboard to something else, an objective that he had in the future. And it was when he saw that his objective was not going to be realized.

It was at that point he decided to betray him, to sell him off. Technically, I trusted you Jesus and supper was ended. The scripture says that Jesus got up and took a towel. I think this was the last straw for Judas.

The discussion at the table has been about yielding to others and not dominating them, of serving people and not ruling over them, of giving to others and not taking from them. And I don't fully understand Judas, but here's how I perceive his thinking.

How did he so deceive me? He said I would be happy and yet he refuses to kill my enemies. He promised to lift me up and now he tells me to bend lower. He told me that I would rule and reign and now he calls me to be a servant.

He says that his ways are higher than mine and they have an unseen and purpose. Why should I believe him? What further advantage is there to me to walk with him any longer? See, that was a grave dilemma in his thinking because it was serving Christ for personal advantage.

And Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6 that there are those who will teach that association with God is usable for personal advantage. Actually, it says in the King James that gain is godliness and he calls it perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and he tells Timothy to get away from them.

In other words, you come to God and it is in the beginning and continues always to be about your own advantage, your own gain. The whole association with Jesus is about yourself. And the scripture tells us that in John chapter 13 and verse 3 it says, Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands.

Christ’s Security Enables Servanthood

Now he was on the pathway, he knew that he was on the pathway of true victory and all authority. All things were in his hands. He was going to the cross, he knew it. He was going to be raised from the dead by his father, he knew that.

He was going to sit at the right hand of all authority, he knew that. You and I were going to sit with him there forever, he knew that. He won. He already had won in his heart and he knew it. All things were given into his hands.

He knew that he had come from God. He knew that his heart and God's heart, his father, were one. He was the exact testimony of who God is to those who live on the earth. Phenomenal picture when he got up from that table, took off his garment, put a towel around his waist and bent down with a bucket of water and washed the feet of his disciples.

He washed the feet of those who were going to flee out of the garden when he needed them. He washed the feet of a bragger called Peter who's not going to be able to live up to the depth of his self-professed devotion.

He washed the feet of Judas who was going to sell him off and cause him immeasurable pain. But he was the direct expression of God. He knew where he was going, all things were in his hands. He knew he had come from God.

He knew this was a phenomenal expression. That's why Paul says to the Corinthian church, when you come to the communion table, remember that the Christ at the Last Supper took the bread and broke it and said, this is my body which is given for you.

Do this. He's not talking about just breaking the bread and remembering that moment. He's talking about an action. Do this as a people. Be broken for others. May I say it that way? Do this in remembrance of me.

And this is the blood, this is the cup of the New Testament. This is the pouring out of my life that you may have life. And as often as you do this, as often as you partake of this table this way, you become a demonstration of God who sent his son into the world to die on a cross for fallen humanity.

And he went back to God, it says in 13 .3. He knew he would rise again from the dead in full triumph. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2 says, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. It's the joy that began when he chose to strengthen us that we too might be able to finish the journey.

It's a joy. There is a joy that is available to us when we choose to help each other, when we choose to speak kind words, when we choose to shake a hand of somebody that looks lonely. There's a joy. The most miserable people in the church of Jesus Christ are self-focused.

And trust me, they're going to get increasingly miserable in the days ahead as everything begins to unravel. And suddenly all the theology about having a great big job and a great big personality really don't matter anymore.

When everything is unraveling and falling apart, there's going to be a lot of miserable people because their whole focus has been on themselves. And trust me, many of those will sell off Christ for whatever they can get when they fail to understand what walking with him has been all about.

Serving Others as the Path to Happiness

After he washed their feet and taken his garments, chapter 13, verse 12, and he was set down again, he said to them, know you what I've done to you. In other words, do you fully understand? Do you really understand the lesson of this?

Do you really get what this is about? You call me master and Lord and you say, well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and master have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet. May I say it this way, just to be kind one to another, to truly have compassion one on another, to reach out and help each other make the journey in whatever way that is.

For I've given you an example that you should do as I've done to you. Truly or verily, verily I say to you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. In other words, if I've done this, you are not greater than I am.

Neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. In other words, Jesus is saying, I've shown you how to be happy. It's amazing. You know, sometimes it's so, it's so simple, we miss it.

It's so simple, actually becomes profound. When you choose to be kind to a weary brother or sister in Christ, when you and I decide to be a strength for others when they need it, when we don't consider it beneath ourselves to serve, then we will find wellbeing and purpose.

And we will find the deepest sense of personal fulfillment and achievement. In other words, may I say it simply, the happiness that's in the heart of God will become ours. I want you to think for a moment, as this world is dividing and becoming embittered, the church will be going the other way.

The true church of Jesus Christ will be coming together. There will be a fellowship, which is already beginning. There'll be a bond of fellowship that nothing of this world can produce this. There's no program.

There's nothing I can even preach or say, but it will be a people who have truly embraced the life of Christ, who see it in the scriptures and say, God, I see something and I recognize I can't be a partaker of it unless I'm first a partaker of you.

You have to make me want to care. You have to bring me out of this shell of my own life and of all the places in the world to bring together a hundred different nationalities in New York City, where everybody has a three foot bubble around them.

Like, I love you, but just stay outside my bubble. Don't get too close. And when I was in Vancouver this week, I was so surprised that people talk to you in the elevator. I'm just, I'm not used to it.

I'm in a culture shock. You walk in an elevator in New York City and say, hi, how's everybody? And they all stare at the floor and nobody will answer you unless you have a dog. And then they'll all talk about the dog, but they will never talk to you.

The moment you move away from talking, nice dog, nice ears, nice tail, nice paws, nice collar. The moment you move away from the dog, they climb up and nobody will talk to you anymore. Strangest place in the world sometimes, New York City.

And so here God brings together in an impossible place where, where the natural part of so many cultures and so many people crammed into such a small space is to just say, just get, get out, get away from me.

Just, I love you, but I love you over there. Stretch your hand out and everything's going to be fine. And it's so difficult to break down those, those barriers when we come into the church of Jesus Christ.

Yes, it's difficult, but thank God in Christ, it's not impossible. Thank God for, for some of us, it's a mountain for some of us, we've got to just start praying. I say to this mountain that separates me from my brother, that separates me from other people.

I say to this mountain, be moved and be cast into the sea in Jesus name. Sometimes we don't realize the barriers that are around us, the fear of, of reaching out. Now, John, the beloved apostle says that perfect love casts out fear and he fears is not made perfect in love.

It's that simple. The perfected love of God in Christ casts out fear and causes me to, to reach across the aisle, causes me to, to say to a stranger, would you like to go for a coffee? Causes me to see somebody wandering around who, who doesn't know seemingly where they are, or are not too familiar with the church.

It causes us to turn and instead of saying, hey, that's my seat, get out of it. We say, it appears to me you don't have a seat. Would you like mine? That's the difference. That's what it means to get up from the table.

That's what it means to take a towel. That's what it means to wash the, the weary stranger's feet. There are very practical things we can do. It's, it's to, to get away from the focus on ourselves and to begin to be aware that other people are around us and to simply move to human need.

On a very, very practical levels, every, every day, everywhere, especially in the church of Jesus Christ and among those that are also part of the body of Jesus. If we will serve each other, if we will serve each other, if we will technically wash each other's feet in a spiritual sense, Times Square church will be a happy church.

It'd be a happy place to be. It'd be a happy place for our kids to be. There'll be a joy here that is not found anywhere in the world. Jesus said, if you know these things, you're happy. If you do them, if you, if you get up from that table where we could all sit and be satisfied and we could just focus on the food and focus on the, on the fellowship, that's more or less at arm's length.

And we can, we can live there in our Christian experience, but he got up from the table and did something so profound, saw to the box for that moment to move, to humble himself in a sense, to refresh others, because really that's what it symbolized.

When you wash somebody's feet, you were refreshing them on their journey. When people would come to your house, they're generally, because they wore sandals, their feet would be dirty. They would be tired.

And so a sign of the ultimate sign of hospitality is you would wash, you would wash somebody's feet. Now, generally speaking in a, in a household of wealth, most likely there'd be servants that performed that task.

And so it was, it was quite unusual for the master of the house himself, perhaps to do that, to refresh somebody in such a manner. And he said, but you called me master. And I've, I am indeed. And if I have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet.

You ought to care for each other beyond the casual, beyond just what is convenient, beyond just, just what has to be done to say, I was nice today when I went to church, but there's something that comes from the heart, something deeper, something more profound.

Amen. If we choose to serve the churches of New York City, I think it's the highest calling. And if you and I can understand that the Lord Jesus Christ has given us a phenomenal calling at Times Square Church to be a servant to the churches of New York City, to wash the feet of inner city storefront pastors who bear the heat of the day, who minister in the midst of hell.

In some cases, if we will make an effort to get outside of where we are and serve the pastors and members of these churches, this is going to be a happy church. There's going to be something of God here that can only be birthed in the spirit.

You go ahead and clap. Thank God. If you and I will make the choice to bless and refresh the stranger, if we will have eyes to look beyond our own need, if we will be just aware of the stranger that comes into the house of God and may not fully understand what's going on here, it will take a moment to be friendly.

We'll take a moment just to explain things and take a moment to even go beyond all of that. We will be a happy church. If you do these things, Jesus said, if you know to do these things and you do them, you'll be happy.

In other words, you'll be fulfilled. You'll have a sense of well-being. You'll find the highest purpose for our lives and the deepest sense of personal and corporate fulfillment as a church. It's my personal goal as a pastor that the stranger will leave this church and say, my goodness, this has to be the happiest church in the world.

Hallelujah. As I said to you earlier, I'm on this journey as well as you are. It's not been easy for me either. A lot of it is just to do with background. Some of us were not really raised in very touchy-feely homes.

You understand what that's all about. Then we didn't take on touchy-feely jobs. Trust me, a cop is not a touchy-feely job. You get to be in your middle 20s and you've lived a certain way your whole life.

It produces a selfishness in the heart that only partaking of Christ can set us free from it. We become a part of the body of Christ. There's a measure of giving to one another that is, may I just say it's palatable, it's acceptable, but then there's something that Jesus talks about that's so much deeper than that.

It's the highest aspiration for the Christian life. It's the place where we have fully understood that God came to serve. The Son of God came to serve. When we have his life within us, it gives us the power to serve each other, to care about each other, to break the barriers that this world wants to place between us, the barriers of culture, class, status, race, language.

The Lord Jesus gives us the power to break those barriers. On the day of Pentecost, when the 120 came out of that upper room and they had had a living encounter with God through the Holy Spirit, when they came out of that upper room, the visible evidence that God's power had come upon them is that they were enabled to relate to people of other cultures.

Pentecost and the Church’s Cross-Cultural Fellowship

That's really what the day of Pentecost was about. They were given power, and they were told initially, of course, to go throughout all the world preaching the gospel, but they were given the power to speak to people of other cultures, of other nations, of other backgrounds, of other races.

And when the people saw that, when those who had traveled there for this religious feast saw these people and saw this initial evidence, may I call it, they were able to speak in other tongues, but those tongues were known tongues.

They were known languages. And they were speaking the wondrousness of God to these people. And when they were given that power to break these barriers of language and culture and geography, the people looked at them and said, whoever the God of these people is, he is the real God.

It was exactly the same as the day of Elijah. And there should be something in this church. There should be something in the church of New York City. And I'm believing that God is going to bring us together in an unprecedented way.

There should be something as the world begins to fragment, the body of Christ is going to have to come together. And we're going to have to learn to serve each other. We're going to have to break the barriers and go deeper and farther than we've ever gone before.

And yes, there's going to be a sorrow in the world, and there's going to be sadness in the world, and there's going to be difficulty and even tragedy. But in the midst of all of that, there will be a sense of joy in the house of God because we made the choice to do it God's way.

We found a love and a fellowship that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Before David Wilkerson died, I remember he told me one time, he said, Carter, it's going to be hard. In this society, beyond anything you can even imagine.

But he said, I'm telling you, there's going to be a fellowship in the church. It's going to be sweet. It's going to be incredible. It's going to be otherworldly. There's going to be a drawing together.

There's going to be a care and a compassion one for another that is born of God. It doesn't come from anything else. It couldn't possibly originate anywhere else. And I don't know about anybody here today, but by God's grace, I want to get up from the table and wash people's feet.

I want to be a servant to the body of Jesus Christ. And I don't fully understand it, but I'm willing to enroll in the school of learning it. How to take a towel, how to take a basin, how to do it properly, how to do it with the right heart.

And I can't do that if I don't partake of Christ. I have to literally, I have to eat this word of God. And I have to technically come to that blood every day and say, Lord, you bought for me, you bought for me that which is going to glorify you in the earth, not just to satisfy my own heart, but to bring glory to you and to bring to unity in your body.

That's not been known in this generation. So Lord, you've got to take me beyond the borders and barriers of my own heart and my own life. You've got to take me there, Jesus, because I don't know how to go there.

If you don't take me there, but I'm willing, Lord, I'm willing to, I'm willing to partake of you. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. I believe with all my heart that the church, I'm talking about the church in New York city is going to be a testimony in these last days, that God is going to send an awakening.

The Church as One Body

And the basis of an awakening is we finally begin to realize that, Hey, we're all related to each other. We are part of a body called the church of Jesus Christ. And in Christ, there are no rich, there are no poor, there are no talented, there are no untalented there.

There are no divisions. We are one body in Christ. We are one church. We are one people. Yes, we have our distinctions and yes, we don't agree on every little point of doctrine, but I'll tell you one thing.

We have a bloodline. And once we have crossed that bloodline, we are in fellowship one with another that cannot be broken. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. My altar call this morning is very simple.

A Call to Compassionate Service

God helped me to get out of my box. Help me, Lord Jesus, to talk to people in elevators. Help me when I see a crying stranger on the street, not to pass by. Help me, Jesus, to be aware when I come into the church that there might be sorrow in somebody's heart and maybe my kind word can make a difference or just stopping to listen.

Maybe you don't have to say anything, but just listen. That can be washing somebody's feet or pray with somebody for their family situation, their children that are astray or sickness or an illness in their home and to believe God with somebody and to take the time maybe to call once or twice a week and say, how's it going?

Can we pray together? To be able to do more, but only in the compassion of Christ. I remember saying to my wife, Teresa, when I got saved, if this is true, I want the whole thing. I don't want just part of it.

I want the whole thing. And the longer I go in Christ, the more I'm starting to see the whole thing is a whole lot more than I've ever known. It's ultimately the complete pouring out of oneself for other people.

Only God can do that in us because we naturally won't do it. None of us will, but Christ in us will. If you'd like just to be a person of compassion, a person who's willing to serve others, starting in your own home, if that's in your heart today, I want to invite you to, as we stand in a moment, just to come to the front of this sanctuary or between the screens in the annex or Roxbury.