The Foundation and Three Floors of the Church — Zac Poonen

The Attitude of Christ as the Foundation of Christian Life

I want to turn first of all to a verse that I've often quoted to all of you. Philippians in chapter 2 and verse 5. Philippians 2 .5. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. I have said many times that with this one verse, just one verse, you can live your entire Christian life.

Whenever you're facing a situation where you don't know what to do, think of this verse. Have the same attitude that Jesus had towards your parents, towards your family, towards those who work with you, towards other believers, towards the towards Pharisees, towards everyone in the world.

Have this attitude in yourself which is in Christ Jesus. There is no situation you can face in life, no relationship, where you cannot use this verse. So that's why it's a very important verse and that is why it's very important to try and study the life and attitude of Jesus as described in the scriptures.

As we have often looked at 2nd Corinthians 318, the main ministry of the Holy Spirit, listen to this, the main ministry of the Holy Spirit, 2nd Corinthians 318, is to show us the glory of Jesus in the Bible.

Not to give us doctrines. People who concentrate on doctrines end up fighting with others. But to show us the glory of Jesus in the scriptures and to change us into that likeness, because we cannot change ourselves into that likeness.

Some people go to that first step of seeing the glory of Jesus in the scriptures, but they think they can imitate that. There's a very well-known book called The Imitation of Christ. You cannot imitate Christ.

That is, we're living under the law and those who try to imitate Christ may get a reputation before men that they're very humble and very holy and loving and kind and all that, but God has not called us to imitate Christ.

God has called us to partake of his nature. Imitation of Christ can sometimes be like a wolf in sheep's clothing, where on the outside we imitate Christ, whereas if the nature is changed, you don't have to imitate.

You've heard me use the example of trying to train a dog to meow like a cat. You can try to train it, train it and it does it, but in a moment of anger it will still bark like a dog. So imitation of Christ is something like that.

You try to imitate Christ and you succeed for a while, but in a moment of provocation the old Adam comes out. So I want to encourage you, don't think the imitation of Christ is Christianity or spirituality.

It is have the attitude which Christ had, which is an inner thing. Out of the heart proceeds all good and evil, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And whenever you say something or you write something to somebody, remember it came out of your heart and don't try to cover it up, because if you cover it up, you know, so often people do something and they say I'm sorry, or they say something and they say I'm sorry, but that doesn't solve the problem.

If you don't see that it came out of your heart, you will do that again and again and again and again. You get a reputation that you apologize. It's nothing. Concentrate on this verse, it can change your life, believe me.

If you say Lord what I want is not an external imitation of Christ that brings me credit before others and honor of men, but an inner attitude towards everything, towards money. Constantly ask yourself, is my attitude to money the same as Jesus Christ?

I keep asking myself that all the time. Is the way I look at women the same way Jesus looked at women? Keep asking yourself that. Don't give up. Is my attitude to my enemies the same attitude Jesus had?

What is the attitude? Forgive them, love them. And this is the most more difficult one. What is my attitude to Pharisees? We like to be kind to Pharisees. Jesus called them vipers, hypocrites. I'm not asking you to go and call them that.

Jesus had nothing to do with these Pharisees. He avoided them. Whereas you may seek honor by trying to fellowship with them, because you get a reputation as a loving person to fellowship with those whom Jesus would have nothing to do with.

So you lose your reputation if you have the attitude of Jesus. There are people who are willing to be like Jesus up to the point where they don't lose their reputation. When it goes beyond that, and you see Jesus walked all the way where he became unpopular, there they don't want to follow him.

There you can clearly see if your eyes, if you are willing to listen to the Holy Spirit, that you are seeking honor to become like Christ. As you've heard in CFC, that is not the genuine thing. And that's why you have so many defeats in other areas.

You wonder why you're trying to become like Christ here, and you're defeated in other areas, because you're trying to be like Christ on the outside. It doesn't work. So distinguish between imitation of Christ and having the attitude of Christ.

The Bible never tells us to imitate Christ, because you cannot do it. It's like a dog trying to imitate a cat, or a cat or a pig trying to imitate the cleanliness of a cat. It's not possible. God has to give us his spirit within and change our nature.

Partaking of the Divine Nature

The most wonderful promise in the whole scripture is what we read in 2nd Peter in chapter 1. Once our sins are forgiven, it speaks about these magnificent and precious promises. What a way to express God's promises.

2nd Peter 1 .4. God has granted us by his glory and excellence, as he said in verse 3, his precious and magnificent promises. Those are new covenant promises, not the old covenant promises of getting the land of Canaan and getting money and health and many children.

No. Precious and magnificent promises are new covenant promises, and the purpose of all these promises, it says here, is that you might not imitate, but partake of the divine nature. Let me give you a comparison.

From our parents, all of us received a nature, not just our physical looks, but there's something else all of us got from our parents. It's our nature and that nature is exactly the same in you and me, in everybody.

In the terrorist who blows up other people, and the very kind person who helps other people. The inner nature they all got from their parents is the nature of Adam, which is self-centered, which seeks its own, which does not basically fear God.

Whether you believe it or not, that is the nature that you and I got from our parents. And what a wonderful job that nature did in making us thoroughly evil, inwardly, and when we are born again, the purpose of God is in just the same way, to give us another nature which will rule us exactly like the old nature ruled us, if you are willing.

The only thing is, God doesn't force it. Our old nature came to us without a choice. Whether you like it or not, you got Adam's nature from your parents, you and I. But God's nature, there's a choice and the wonderful thing is, you know like, when you get married, once you get married, there's no choice.

You can't give up your wife, if you discover later that she's an evil woman, or you can't give up your husband. But when God gives us his nature, he gives us a choice every day. He says, if you want, you can reject it.

After ten years of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, you can turn around and say, I've had enough of this. I don't want to be, I don't want to be a disciple. And you can go away, and you can lose your salvation, without any doubt.

Because God never forces you at any point, in time or in eternity, to follow him. Remember this, even after we die and go into eternity, God will give you freedom, complete freedom. The angels have complete freedom.

Some of them rebelled some years ago and became the devil and his demons. But the angels that are in heaven today, you think they are robots, who just move about like computerized robots, obeying God?

Not at all. Every one of them have got the same free will that they got when they were created, which Lucifer had, which made him the devil. The angels in heaven today have the same free will. Why is it they serve God for millions of years?

So you say, if I have a free will in heaven for all eternity, is there a possibility that I may suddenly turn away a million years from now and turn away from God and go to hell? No. Because when we get into heaven, we would have been completely transformed into the likeness of Christ.

And Christ had a free will on earth. Christ had a free will in this filthy earth and never sinned. He had a choice, but he never sinned. And when I get that nature, how can I ever sin? Impossible. That's the nature I'll get in heaven.

And if Christ could live that life on earth of perfection, how much easier it will be for us to live that life in heaven. That is why I know that I will never go away from God for all eternity. Not because I don't have a free will.

Not because God will make me like the planets that automatically obey. No, no, no, no. There'll be no automatic obedience in you and I even after we go to heaven. It'll be a voluntary choice, but it'll be a choice that we choose every single moment exactly like Jesus Christ.

So when it says have the same attitude that was in Christ, who is the one who's going to be gripped by it? I'll tell you. If you think the most wonderful thing on in the world is to make a lot of money, you will not want to have the attitude of Christ.

I'll tell you that straight. Most people in the world want to make a lot of money. Now there's nothing wrong in earning money. Let me remind you that the Bible does not say money is the root of all evil.

Never. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. It says those who long to be rich, not those who are rich, but those who long to be rich, whose goal in life is to make a lot of money, they will go astray.

I have no doubt about it. So it's not money, but if that's your goal in life, I might as well tell you now, right now, you can't have the attitude of Christ. Just forget it. Otherwise ask God to change your attitude.

The other thing is, if your aim in life is to become someone great and honorable by this wretched world, you want this wretched world to admire you, you can never have the attitude of Christ. You've got to reject that because Jesus never wanted to be great and honored in this world.

He wanted to please God. So you have to have some basic desires. I mean if your desire is not to please God, you're not going to have this attitude of Christ. It's impossible. It's pointless even asking the Holy Spirit to help you.

So if there are things like that which you're pursuing or if the pleasures of sin, to be tempted is okay because Jesus was tempted. To be tempted with the filthiest things, that's okay. I believe Jesus was tempted with the filthiest things.

You and I are tempted with. Otherwise you cannot say that he was tempted exactly like us. Think of the filthiest thing you ever were tempted in your life. Jesus was tempted with that. Temptation is not evil.

It's when you yield to that temptation that sin comes. It's important to know that. In the early days of my Christian life I couldn't distinguish it in temptation and sin and I'd condemn myself because I'm tempted with something.

But I've discovered that God allows us to be tempted and God allowed Jesus to be tempted and that's what comforted me. This filthy thought that came to my mind, it came to Jesus mind, he rejected it, I'm gonna reject it too and I'm pure.

So I see that if you're not desirous, if you're so-called you're born again and you have no desire to turn away from sin, then I would first of all say your born-again experience is not genuine. That's the first problem with many many people.

There are many brothers and sisters who come to this church in past years who have told me, brother Zach, I never knew what it was to be born again till I joined CFC. Because in other places they never talked about sin.

So how can I turn away from sin if I don't know what sin is? I turned away from drinking and smoking and gambling and I thought that was sin. That's not sin. There are hundreds of people in the world who don't smoke or drink or gamble.

Are they all Christians? No. Don't you yourself know some upright non-christians who don't smoke or drink or gamble? But many people think these external things are repentance and it's many have told me this that they've really understood what sin is only after coming here and it's only then that they saw what turning away from sin and only then could be really born again.

You cannot be born again if you don't repent. Repentance means turn away from sin. So if you don't know where sin is, how do you turn away? Supposing you're in some place where you don't know which direction is north or which direction is south and you want to go north, how will you go north if you don't have any sense of direction?

You don't know which is north, south, east, west. So in the same way if you don't know where sin is, how will you turn away from it? So it's very important to understand this that that's why we speak so much about sin because that's how we can turn away from it to God.

That's how we can have the same attitude that Christ had and God's will is that I said that we partake of his nature, not imitate his nature but partake of his nature. That is what the Bible calls eternal life.

Eternal life does not mean living forever because the people who go to hell also live forever. They don't die, they don't cease to exist. If that's eternal life, people in hell have got eternal life but it's not true.

There's only one person who had eternal life, that was God because eternal life does not mean that which has no end but that which had no beginning and has no end. Who has got that? Not even the angels, only God.

So when God gives us eternal life, it's his life. Do you know that the angels don't have eternal life? The angels will live forever but they don't have eternal life. Those who go to hell live forever but they don't have eternal life.

Eternal life, we can change it to call the life of God, the nature of God, that is eternal life. So when Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, lay hold of eternal life, he's not saying try to live forever.

Timothy will live forever even if he's unconverted but he's saying lay hold of the life of God. Wherever you read eternal life, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have the life of God.

But have the life of God. I hope you'll never forget this. It is not living forever. It is having the life of God which begins right now if you allow the Holy Spirit to take possession of your life. So when we think of having the same attitude that Jesus had, I've often said that the church is like a three-story building.

The Foundation: Assurance of God's Perfect Love

You've heard me say that also. So I want to explain that again very clearly for the benefit of many here who may not have understood what that means. The church is like a three-story building that we build with our life and every building's got a foundation.

Think of a building that's got a foundation. This building has only got two floors but think if you had a third floor that's how a church is built. The foundation is our perfect assurance that God loves me perfectly.

The love of God is the only foundation on which I can build a building that will never shake. If you look at your life, the reason when you've got discouraged, at that moment you don't really know whether God loves you or whether you committed some sin and you think God's forsaken you.

You're not founded on God's love. You remember when Peter was going to deny the Lord. The Lord told him, I prayed for you. You read that in Luke 22. I'm not praying that you should not deny me. Now you know with my wisdom, if I was there I would say Lord please don't let Peter deny you that's a terrible sin because you said that if you deny me before men I'll deny you before my father.

It's a terrible sin. It's almost the worst sin because Jesus never said if you commit murder I'll deny you before my father but if you deny me before men I will deny you before my father. So which is the worst sin and Peter's gonna do that once, twice, thrice.

Lord please don't let him do it. Jesus never prayed that. He never prayed that Peter would not commit that sin and sometimes God does not stop us from sinning and I'll tell you why. Because every other method to humble Peter had not worked and when God tries various means to humble you and it doesn't work, he will allow you to sin.

That which he hates because that's the only way he'll humble you and some of you have experienced that. I think we have all experienced that where God tried to humble us in various ways and we still remain proud and God allowed us to fall into some terrible sin and that humbled us and then we realized oh Lord I'm nothing.

So that's why God allowed Peter to fail, to humble him because there was no other way. So if you respond to God's pleadings then God won't have to adopt that last method of trying to humble you. But that was why Jesus did not pray because if he had prayed don't let him fall, Peter would never have been humbled but because Peter fell he got so humbled that he was prepared to receive God's grace.

God's ultimate goal was to give Peter grace and I want to say that's true for all of you and me. Whatever God does, his aim is to give you grace and that's why he takes you through different different circumstances.

That's why when Paul had a terrible sickness which he called a thorn in the flesh and if you read Galatians 4 sometime I believe that it was a sickness with his eyes, probably his eyes were always of with pus and couldn't be cured and that's one reason he stopped in Galatia and had to, could not move on and as a result a church was planted there and he tells the Galatians in chapter 4, you accepted me even though my physical appearance was repulsive to you.

You know if you see a man sitting up here and preaching with his eyes dripping with pus, it's a bit repulsive, he's got to keep wiping it off and the Galatians accepted Paul even though they saw him with it.

He said in fact you loved me so much that you were willing to take out your eyes and give them to me. That's what indicates to us that his problem was with his eyes and he prayed, Lord please get rid of this, this is such a repulsive thing, I mean I'm to preach the gospel and these people always see me like this, will you heal me, will you heal me for your glory, heal me, I don't want it just for my convenience.

Jesus said no. Imagine Jesus saying no to his greatest apostle when he has this thing dripping out of his eyes all the time in front of people and he's a preacher and imagine if he were on television like this, he can really see how he'd pray that he'd be healed and the Lord says no.

Paul you've had such amazing experiences, you've gone up to the third heaven, you planted churches, you raised the dead, you've written scripture, you are in tremendous danger of becoming proud and so I have to give you something like this permanently so that you will always remain humble.

That's the reason God allows some things in our lives, some failures and disappointments which you thought God would answer. No, he says no, he says no because God wants to humble you and break you and bring you down because he says my grace is enough for you.

So Paul even though people may despise you for the way your eyes are dripping, they will see the mighty anointing and grace upon your life and they'll be drawn to the Lord, forget about what they think about you but they'll be drawn to me.

Are you happy with that? Paul said oh sure, then he said I'll glory in my infirmities so that the power of Christ may rest upon me that other people may be drawn to the Lord. If that's your goal, God will work amazingly with you.

He won't answer all your prayers, some sicknesses he will not heal, some prayers he will not grant but his anointing will be so powerful upon you and his grace will be upon you so much that he'll make you a tremendous blessing to others and build the church through you.

So that's just in passing. I say that because when it says here about have this attitude which is to be in Christ, it goes on to speak about his humility. You've often heard me say the three secrets of the Christian life are humility, humility, humility and that's what we see in Philippians 2, 5 to 8.

From God he became man, man he became a slave and as a slave he finally died as a criminal all the way down. Humility, humility, humility. That's what it says have this attitude in you which is in Christ Jesus.

So if there's one attitude that we need more than anything else from the life of Christ it is humility and it is the most difficult thing for human beings to have and I found through the years is the most difficult thing for Christians to have, is the most difficult thing for CFC believers to have genuine humility and that is because they don't meditate enough on the life of Jesus.

You walk with a humble man you will become humble and you walk with the humblest man that walked on the earth you'll automatically become humble. The humblest man who walked on the earth was Jesus Christ.

So if you're not getting grace in your life it's because you're not humble. If there's one sin that's defeating you, whatever it is, go before God and tell him the truth and say Lord I am NOT getting grace in my life because if I am under grace sin cannot rule over me but this particular sin is ruling over me.

I don't seem to get victory over it. Don't just cry about it, just be honest and say I am NOT getting grace. You know it's like the rain is falling and you're wet that means you're not under this building, you're outside, maybe your hand is outside, it gets wet.

If you're under grace sin cannot rule over you. It's like saying if you're inside this building not a drop of rain can come on you. As clear as that, when you're under grace sin cannot touch you. Why does it have power over you?

You're not under grace, you're outside, maybe part of it is outside. Then go to God and say Lord I know why I'm not getting grace because you give grace only to the humble. Please show me where I lack in humility.

So I would say the connection between falling into sin is directly related to pride. It's the proud who fall into sin because the proud never receive grace, God is resisting them and that's why humility is so important.

So when we look at the life of Jesus, the foundation of his life was his perfect assurance in his life that his father loved him. His relationship with his father was most important and he knew that the father loved him and that's why God told Peter, the Lord told Peter I'm not gonna pray that you will not fall but I'm praying that your faith will not fail.

That's in Luke 22. You could take some time to read it. Your faith will not fail. Faith means what? That means Peter when you hit rock bottom, you've denied me three times, you've committed the most terrible sin not once but three times.

Don't feel when you hit the bottom that your father in heaven will forsake you. No. When you hit rock bottom and I say this to anybody who is here like that, when you hit rock bottom and you're fed up with yourself and you feel there's no hope for yourself and you feel you've been defeated by that sin so many times that you'll never get victory, at that point your faith does not fail means you look up to God and say God one thing I know you still love me.

If you can say that at that point your faith has not failed. To look up to God and say I know you love me when everything's going well in your life or you got a promotion or you got a healing or you got answered a prayer, that's easy.

But when you hit rock bottom and everything's failing around you and your sickness is not healed, your prayers are not answered and so many things going wrong, you can still look up to heaven, God I know you love me.

That's clear. Even though I fail so miserably, I know you love me. That is what Jesus prayed for Peter and that's what encourages me that he prays the same prayer for me, that I will never lose faith in one thing, that whatever may happen, God still loves me and I can come back to him.

You see that's what made the prodigal son come back to his father's house. He had made a mess of his life, he had wasted the father's money, probably millions and millions of rupees worth of money because his father was a very rich man.

He had wasted it all but he knew that when he went back the father would accept him, at least as a servant. But he was so amazed that the father's love was far greater than what he thought. That's what Jesus is trying to tell us in that story.

You see if he had heard in that far country that his father had died and the elder brother was now running the house, he would never have come back. It's like that, some elder brothers are like that, nobody wants to go near them because they're not like the father.

But he heard the father was there and it's wonderful when we can be like that as elders that say, hey it doesn't matter if you've been with the pigs for 50 years, you're welcome to come back if you really turn, not if you want to bring the pigs with you.

No, no, no, we don't want the pigs in the father's house. If you're willing to leave those pigs and turn around, you're welcome, no matter how long, how many years you wasted. That is the love of the father which Jesus wanted Peter to be founded in and that's the love of the father God wants every one of us to always be founded in.

Now you can take advantage of it, you know some people take advantage, oh God is so good then I can take advantage, it doesn't matter. Well if you have that attitude you'll ruin yourself. It's like the prodigal son saying, oh my father is so good I can go back to the pigs again.

I think I'll take a visit to the pigs again. That's exactly what some people do. Oh God is so good, he's forgiven me, so it doesn't matter if I go and commit that sin again, it doesn't matter if I take this particular sin lightly again, doesn't matter if I take adultery lightly or it doesn't matter if I take anger lightly or it doesn't matter if I keep a little bitterness in my heart and take it, don't take it seriously.

My father loves me. That's like going back to the pigs after experiencing the feast at the father's table to say, I think let me just visit the pigs for a little while. Can you imagine how crazy that son would be to do that?

Do you know the number of believers who are doing that, who've tasted at the father's table in CFC many times and then once in a while want to visit the pigs? That's exactly what it is, to go back to a sin which you know Jesus will forgive you because he says, oh I know if I come back the tenth time to my father's house and say father I've sinned, he'll accept me.

What sort of a son are you? If you're like that, keep visiting the pigs and come back, oh my father, I know the father is good but you'll ruin your life and I'll tell you another thing, that if a person continues like that, taking advantage of God's goodness, there's a time can come in his life when he'll never want to leave the pigs at all.

He'll be with the pigs forever, for all eternity. So we must be founded in God's love, that's very very important, that God loves us immensely and that everything he does for us is in love, even though you don't understand it.

You know just like a little two-year-old cannot understand why his mother takes away the sharp knife from his hand, he cries because he thinks that shiny knife is so wonderful to me, my mother doesn't love me and takes away the knife from his hand.

We are so stupid, when God takes away something from us, we think he doesn't love us. We're just like that two-year-old or the sixteen-year-old girl, whom the mother says you shouldn't dress like that when you go out and she thinks why can't I dress like and be fashionable like the other girls in my college or like others in the world and the father says no, you're not going to leave this house dressed like that.

Very few mothers and fathers are so strict unfortunately today. Nowadays everybody just yields to the girl, we don't want to offend her, don't want to offend her, let her live like that, let her be worldly, let her go to hell finally, it doesn't matter.

What an evil father and mother that is. But think of a strict father and mother who says no, in this house we make the rules, we're not going to let you dress like that in that evil way as if you're going to some striptease or something like that.

No, we're going to dress properly. So that's a love which that teenager doesn't understand. She'll probably understand 20 years later when she's got her own children or 30 years later then she'll understand it but right now she doesn't.

That's how it is with many of our children. They don't understand the strictness of the parents until they become parents themselves. Then they appreciate the strictness of the parents. There are many people sitting here who don't understand the strictness of an elder until one day you go into, one day you make a mess of your life and then you wish you had listened to the strict advice of the elders or one day you go to some other church and you wish you were in a church where the elders were a little more strict.

So many people don't understand that but God's love is like that. God's love is one which wants our eternal good, not our present good. Just like you parents, if one day your child says no daddy I don't want to go to school today.

I want to just play here. See all those children in the slums they play the whole day in the mud. Why don't you let me be like that? Why do you force your child to go to school? Why do you take your child to school even if it's crying?

You won't even let that child avoid school just because one day say oh dad I'm not feeling too well today. You say no go to school. Why are you so strict? Why do you force that child? Why is it the child doesn't understand?

Why don't you yield to the child's whims and fancies? Now you can understand what God's love is like. He desires your good that even when you say no I don't want to go, he lets something happen to you.

Because he wants your eternal good. It's exactly the same way you force your child to go to school. So we need to have a balanced understanding of God's love and we see if we are founded in God's love.

God's love is very very kind and very very strict. The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ full of grace and truth. There's you know there's a song we sing, there's no place where all your failures have such a kind forgiveness given as in heaven.

Heaven is the place where they look upon your failures in the kindest possible way. But heaven is also the place where you have the strictest person in the universe, Almighty God. Your parents allow you to do a lot of things, let me tell you that you children and you teenagers.

Your parents allow you to do a lot of things, Almighty God would never allow you. I'm telling you the truth because your parents are too kind. God is kinder, that's why he is stricter. Your parents are not so kind and that's why they allow you to grow up with all these worldly habits which ultimately will hinder your spiritual growth, will prevent you from being a useful vessel for God in the days to come.

Because your parents are so kind and so gracious as you think, they let you do this and they let you do that. They don't really love you, they're not wise. Your father in heaven is wise and that's why he's very very strict and our salvation is to have that type of love and if you fathers and mothers want to be like God towards your children, you got to be, you got to have the strictness of God and a love that is strict.

So when we think of our foundation being the love of God, don't think it's a sentimental type of wishy-washy type of love that gives you everything you want. You want ice cream, you have ice cream, you want chocolate and no, God does not like that.

God's very strict, he allows us to go through all types of trials and difficulties because he wants to make a man out of you. He wants to make you strong, he wants to make you a son of God, a daughter of God.