Holiness With Fellowship — Zac Poonen

Holiness Must Include Fellowship

Many people, when they think of holiness, they think of it only in relation to their personal life. But they never think of fellowship with others. There are many people in the world who listen to hundreds of our messages on YouTube around the world.

That shows that they have an interest in holiness. That is what we are preaching. But most of them who might meet in different parts of the world, they have no interest in forming a local church. They want to sit at home and listen to these messages and be personally edified.

Some of them are listening every day of the year. But they never think of building fellowship with other people in their locality. So they have holiness without fellowship. So what I want to say is, if you have holiness all by yourself without fellowship with anybody else, you can deceive yourself.

You can deceive yourself that you are becoming spiritual when you are not spiritual. Because you are overcoming certain bad habits. But the root of self-centeredness is never hit. The selfish way of living.

Marriage Reveals Selfishness

See, all those of us who got married, including me, we will acknowledge that we never realized how selfish we were till we got married. We can think we are very holy. And then you get married and you discover you are a very selfish person.

But you acknowledge that you can be cleansed from it. The same thing when you fellowship in a local church with other people, you discover how selfish you are. Because when we are alone, we can live a holy life, what we think is a holy life.

And if someone is too difficult to deal with, you just leave him and we repeat to our room. And you don't have to see that man for one week or something, so it's okay. So you see a person once a week and all, it's no problem.

But when you get married and you retreat into your room, there is somebody else living in that room with you. You cannot escape. And there you discover how selfish you are. Both husband and wife. And it is that selfishness that brings conflict.

See the root of holiness is to say, not my will but God's will. That's how Jesus lived all his life, not my will but God's will. But the root of conflict is when two people say, my will. Think of all the conflicts you had with your husband or wife.

Usually about some earthly things. And it's always because you want your way and the other person wants his way or her way. And you think you are right and she thinks she is right. So there is conflict.

So that means there is something lacking in your holiness. You can be holy when you are living by yourself, that's all. That is not holiness. Holiness is when you can live with others. But you may say, what can I do if other people are difficult people?

God is not asking you to make other people behave. But if you can't live with other people, something is wrong with your holiness. That's what you need to understand. So that is why God places us in little groups.

Marriage and Mutual Honor

Fellowship. And in that fellowship, we discover in fellowship with one another things wrong with ourselves. For example, in marriage. If you got a very weak wife who just does everything you say, saying yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.

You may think it's a very happy marriage. No, it's not a marriage, it's a dictatorship where you are the dictator and you make the other person do whatever you say. A good marriage is like described in 1 Peter 3.

Where it says in the husband's verse 7, you live with your wife recognizing she is a weaker vessel. Even though she is weaker, grant her honor as an equal heir of the grace of life. And if you don't do that, it says your prayers will not be heard.

Do you know, you husbands, if you don't live in an understanding way with your wife, your prayer will not be heard by God. That means you don't recognize she is a weaker vessel. You don't give her honor as an equal heir of the grace of life.

You don't do these two things, your prayer is hindered. There is no fellowship. The same principle applies in a church. It's in fellowship with other people we discover whether our holiness is genuine or a fake.

So, those of you who are living all by yourself and just coming for these occasional conferences, you don't know whether you are holy. Or for namesake you go to some church. You don't take any responsibility there.

You just attend and come away. You also are deceiving yourself about your holiness. It's when you get involved with them in the work, then you discover whether you are holy or not. We've discovered that in the 40 years that we've had conferences in Bangalore.

Fellowship Through Shared Responsibility

Because when we work preparing for the conference, there are so many things we have to do together. And there can be so many different opinions. Concerning ordinary earthly things. The arrangements to be made, how it is to be made, the transport, so many things.

The food arrangements. There are so many things in a conference. And different people have got different responsibilities. If somebody does not fulfill their responsibility, that becomes a burden on another person who has to do double job.

So there, there is a lot of opportunity for conflict and judging others and misunderstanding. But if you take it in a right way, there is a lot of opportunity to judge yourself. And believe the best about the other person.

And make allowance for the fact that he is not as smart as you. So he can't do things as efficiently as you. And you can bear with him. Thus you come to a higher level of holiness. The same way in a marriage.

If you look down on your partner, that person is not as efficient as you are in some area. Because you were brought up in one way and that person was brought up in another way. And now you come together and you have to learn to adjust with each other.

Little little things can irritate you. If you share the same toothpaste tube in the bathroom. One person has been brought up to roll it up carefully from the bottom in a neat way. Keep it like that. The other one says press anywhere and just take the toothpaste.

Imagine two people like this living together. They have tremendous opportunity to become holy. Or tremendous opportunity to sin a lot. I don't think they will fight with each other and yell at each other.

They may not even say, you must do it like this. It's just the thought. My husband is like this. My wife is like this. That is enough to bring a separation. For example. Some person is always keeping time.

And the other brother is very careless. You work together, you will really get irritated with each other or you will become more holy. The weakness of that other person becomes an opportunity for you to become holy.

Otherwise you can live by yourself. Don't meet with any of these people and think you are holy. You are deceiving yourself. You think you are holy but you are not. And you will discover when Christ comes that huge areas of your life were never cleansed.

Bearing With One Another in Love

Because you never sought fellowship. You tried to get close in fellowship somewhere and there was a little difficulty so you pulled out. And in marriage of course you can't pull out so you just stick it out with tension in your heart.

But that's not fellowship. The Bible says bearing with one another. Ephesians 4. Verse 2. With all humility and gentleness. With patience showing forbearance to one another in love. And in the living Bible it says.

Making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. And thus you will be diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit. Verse 3. In the bond of peace. That is only if you are willing to make allowance for each other's faults because of your love.

Because of your love. So it begins at home. That's why the home comes before the church. We must build fellowship at home. Fellowship with our wife, husband. And fellowship with our children. Not just like a ruler ruling their life.

But fellowship with them. And then we move on to the church where we fellowship with people who are completely different from us. And it's even greater when people are a completely different culture. You know people who are in a very low level of culture.

They have a lot of habits which are not hygienic or clean. And such a brother comes into a church where others are very cultured and educated. But both are believers. Both love Jesus. But one did not have the culture to be clean in their way of life.

I found many many Indian brothers who have grown up in the villages. They never know how to say thank you and they never know how to say sorry. You give them a gift. They say, ah, put it in their pocket and go.

But then I say, their ah means thank you. So I say, thank you. That is, they are speaking in tongues. I understand the language now. I have to interpret it. And same way if they do something wrong. And they realize it.

Then they will do something else. That is their way of saying, I am sorry for doing it that way. Because it is very difficult for a person to say, I am sorry. So if these things disturb you, you will never be able to build fellowship.

Then you will have to go and live in America or something. America or somewhere. Very, the unconverted people also say thank you, sorry and everything. They don't mean it. It is just a culture. I am just giving you an example how God is put together in the church.

Learning Not to Judge Cultural Differences

People who are so different. You usually judge others in the areas where you are strong. For example, if you are a person who is always very clean. Somebody comes to the conference and he is very unclean.

You will really learn fellowship. We discover that in the conferences in Bangalore. People come from the villages. They don't have toilets in the villages. Where do these children go for the toilet? On the road side.

So one sister made a child sit outside CFC gate and it was going there. We had to pull them up and take them inside. So we said to that sister, there is a toilet there. My child is not used to sitting on a toilet.

So what to do? In the bedroom, in the room where everybody is staying, in one corner, we put a paper. We are trying to bear with the person. So she says, my son is not used to sitting on paper. You have to remove the paper.

This actually happened. We became holy. I did not despise her. I said if I grew up in that village, I would be like that. But that doesn't mean we allow people to do wrong things. We teach them better ways.

Until they learn, we have to bear with them. If your husband or wife or children got some bad ways, like unhygienic ways in the house, or not going on time for an appointment, then we have to slowly bear with them and teach them.

And if you do that, you will become holier. But you will never discover all that. If you are not seeking to build fellowship with others. Those of you who have not sought fellowship, I can tell you, there are huge areas in your life where you are totally unholy and you don't even know it.

There are Canaanites who are ruling massive areas of your life, you don't even know it. I have discovered those Canaanites as I have fellowshiped with others. So, that's why we say genuine holiness always involves building fellowship in a body.

Serving Instead of Judging

See, I grew up in the military. I mean, not grew up, but I spent 11 years in the military. So, I was forced to be on time. 6 .30 in the morning is parade. You can't come there at 6 .31. If you come there at 6 .31, they will teach you such a lesson for the rest of your life, you will never come late.

What they did was this, the parade is for one hour. You come at 6 .31, that Havildar will say, pick up this rifle. Keep it over your head. And keep running around this whole parade ground till this parade is over.

In 15 minutes, you are exhausted. You can't stop. For the rest of your life, you will never be late for a parade. This is how they taught us. So, that was drilled into my system for 11 years. So, you cannot be late.

But when we started CFC, announced meeting at 9 .30, people will come at 10 o 'clock, 10 .15. And I used to get really irritated. I said, we are coming into the presence of God and you just take your own cool time to come.

Whatever I told them, it didn't work. If the meeting was at 9 .30, I would say, next Sunday the meeting is at 9 o 'clock. It's actually at 9 .30, but I would say 9 o 'clock. For all those who are not coming on time.

But those who are coming on time, 9 .30 is okay. It didn't work. They would still come at 10 o 'clock. So, finally the Lord told me, you are not a king. You are not a dictator. You are a servant. You are my servant means, you are a servant of all men.

You have to serve them. Treat them like kings and queens. And you are a servant. And in the palace, the king says, breakfast at 9 .30. So, I am a servant. I am dressed up. Breakfast is on the table at 9 .30.

And the king and queen come at 10, 10 .15. I can't say, why are you late? They can come whenever they like. The Lord said, your church has got a lot of kings and queens. Very few servants. Bear with them.

One day, some of them will become spiritual and become servants. Then they will come on time. After that, my heart was at rest. Let the servants come on time. Let the kings and queens walk in whenever they like.

Then something happened in our CFC building. It became very crowded. And if you came late, you had to go to the second floor. Then everybody came on time. Because they didn't want to climb to the second floor.

So, I have seen that there are little, little things in a church that help you to become holy. You take the attitude of a servant and don't judge the other person. In the early days, when we just moved into our new building in 1981, at that time, that was the new building.

Now it is the old one. And then, we had very few people. So, each person was given a responsibility on a cleaning day. So, one person was supposed to clean the toilet, never turned up. And we waited, waited, he didn't come.

So, I thought, what an irresponsible person he is. The Lord said something to me that day, I have never forgotten it. The Lord said, My house is your house. This is your house. If you can clean your house, you can clean the toilet here.

Don't wait for him. You go and do it. So, I went and did it. I am ready to do that today also. Because I am a servant. But, I learnt something through that to deny myself and love that brother. To think something good.

Maybe his child was sick or something, he couldn't come. And, those days, there was no cell phones, no way to intimate us. But, I discovered my immediate tendency was to judge. But, I learnt not to judge.

Bearing With Imperfect Brothers

So, I would not have learnt that if I had not sought fellowship. If you fellowship, you are always very responsible and you know, upright brothers, you will never get holy. You fellowship with people who love the Lord, who make mistakes.

They love the Lord. But, they make mistakes. You got to bear with them. Once, I made an appointment with the brother to meet him at a certain time. He didn't come. That had happened before also, two, three times.

Late, always late. So, in my mind, I thought, this is a very indisciplined brother. So, I said, okay, I got to bear with him. I will not judge him, I will bear with him. And, I thought, I was being a saint.

But, the Lord told me at that time. Because, you are in the military, you are very strict about time. He is not in the military, so, he doesn't have that. So, you have to bear with him. But, he doesn't realize that there is a mistake in him.

And then, the Lord said, in the same way, you must be having some mistakes in your life, which you don't see. Which he sees, and he has to bear with, in you. And, just like you don't tell him about his weakness, he doesn't tell you about your weakness.

I realized that whenever I have to bear with somebody in some weakness in them, they must be having to bear with me in some weakness which they see in me, which I don't see myself. So, I must forgive them, just like they forgive me.

And, I must not judge them. Because, then our fellowship will be separated if I judge them. Imagine how your relationship with your wife will be, if you bear with one another like this. She was brought up in a different way in our home.

So, she has a certain way. As different from your way, because you were brought up in a different way in your home. But, in God's great wisdom, he brought you together. To make both of you holy. Two imperfect people fellowshipping together and both becoming holy.

Because, each is willing to bear with the other and overlook the faults because of love. Marriage is a little easier. In marriage, it is a little easier. Because, most of us marry at our same economic, social level.

So, it's a little easy. But, when you fellowship in the church, there are a lot of people there who are completely uncultured. Then, you become holier by fellowshipping with people who are at a completely different level.

Because, they are uncultured. One brother from a Tamil Nadu village once came to my house. He had some work in Bangalore. He came early morning. I said, come. So, he wanted to wash his face. He walked straight into my bedroom.

Without finding out if my wife is there or anybody is there. No knocking, nothing. Because, in their house there are no doors or anything. You just walk in and out of wherever you are. So, I said, hey brother, just hold on.

Let me check if my wife is there. But, I didn't judge him. I didn't judge him. That is the way he lives. I say, you are welcome to my home anytime. Another brother brought his little two-year-old child with him.

I said, you are welcome to my home anytime. The wonderful thing about little children in the villages is they don't wear diapers, they don't wear underwear, nothing. They are poor. It's all expensive to have diapers.

So, they urinate anywhere, they wipe it off and carry on. Life is like that. So, what do you do when such a brother comes to your house? And climbs on top of the table and urinates there. Wonderful. It's a test for me whether I worship my table or whether I worship Jesus Christ.

It actually happened. I said, I worship Jesus Christ. But that doesn't mean I don't correct him. I said, brother, if you take your child like that, once in a while you must take him to the bathroom. Otherwise, he will mess up the house and the city and all.

You got to be careful. I have a wife who is always ready to come and clean up and tidy up the place. Because she also wanted to serve the poor. We both had that desire. I tell you, I have learned to become more holy through fellowship in the church with very poor brothers.

My holiness has been tested in many, many areas. I have learned to judge myself and not the other person. Many people steer clear of difficult brothers because they want to be holy. You are fooling yourself.

That is not holiness. In Bangalore, they are all cultured people, educated people. Most of them drive cars. It is very easy to fellowship with such people. If I spent all my life there, I would have deceived myself.

Fellowship With the Poor and Uncultured

So, half the time I am in the villages in Tamil Nadu. One conference here, one conference there, one conference there. It is a completely different atmosphere. You sit on the floor with the others and in the early days sleep on the floor.

And in the early days sleep on the floor. In some of those villages in the early days no toilet, just the bushes. Build a church. Today we have wonderful churches in those villages. Fellowship with them made me holy.

They love me a lot but they don't realize they made me holy. I want to say to you all especially those of you who are very cultured and educated and sophisticated seek fellowship with ordinary poor brothers and sisters.

These disciples were fishermen. If you want to know what fishermen are like go to Alapura. I have been there and been to some of the homes of the fishermen there. I have been to Tuticorin and seen some of the fishermen there on the coast.

And I look at some of them and say Peter was one like this. James and John were like this. They were not sophisticated graduates whom Jesus selected. Paul, highly educated Paul could fellowship with them.

Even submit to senior Peter, the fisherman as a senior apostle. See there is no such thing like this in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there was no such thing like this. Old Testament was a big congregation and one leader Moses.

He doesn't have any fellowship with anybody. He was a leader. He is like these one man pastors in many churches. And he had an assistant pastor called Joshua. That's all. The rest just listen and obey.

From Old Covenant Leadership to New Covenant Fellowship

No fellowship. Every week one preacher Moses they could never become holy. They could not build fellowship. They could have individual holiness. Moses was individually holy but he couldn't fellowship with his wife.

There was conflict at home. Elijah was individually holy. Elijah was individually holy. Throughout the Old Testament you never see two prophets working together. Even though they were living at the same time they were living at the same time.

Israel is not a very big country. It's probably smaller than Kerala. In that small nation it wasn't very difficult to travel from Galilee to Jerusalem. Jesus did it many times. There was a prophet called Jeremiah and at the same time there were some other prophets.

Zephaniah Habakkuk Huldah the prophetess Huldah but you never see them working together. Each in their corner they would prophesy. If they were put together what would have happened? They would have fought with each other.

You say you mean prophets would fight with each other? Look at the twelve disciples who lived with Jesus for three and a half years. On the last day they are fighting with each other who is going to be the leader when Jesus dies?

They could not have fellowship before the Holy Spirit came. Every Old Testament prophet was a lonely prophet. No two prophets could work together. Even if they prophesied at the same time they prophesied in different places.

Even the last prophet John the Baptist all alone. But as soon as Jesus came he changed it. He sent his disciples two by two. That never happened in the history of humanity. From the time of Enoch it was one man.

Enoch Noah Abraham Moses Joshua all the prophets Elijah Elisha Zachariah Malachi John the Baptist one one one zero fellowship. But Jesus said we are changing it now. No more of this one man ministry. Now we are building fellowship.

We read in Luke chapter 10 he sent them out two by two. And after the day of Pentecost you read in Acts chapter 3 Peter and John go together. Together they heal the lame man. Later on the Lord says separate me Barnabas and Saul not one person alone.

Wherever Paul went he always appointed minimum two elders in every church. This is new covenant. This one man pastor is an old covenant pattern. The title pastor is like the old testament prophet. People would go to the prophet now they go to the pastor.

To find God's will. His old covenant and he gets up every Sunday and preaches. It's not new covenant church. New covenant church minimum two elders in every church. If we start with one we work as soon as possible to make it two.

Every Believer Has a Ministry

And we encourage everyone in the church to become one with each other. The Bible says the Holy Spirit baptizes us into one body where every brother and sister has a ministry. They may not all stand in the pulpit and preach but they can help one another encourage one another and we value every brother and sister in the church.

This is how the whole body is built together in the new covenant. And in the process we discover a lot of things about ourselves. As we cleanse ourselves we become holier. See Proverbs 27 Verse 17 Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

If you are a strong person like a sharp iron knife and you are fortunate enough to have another brother in your church who is equally strong as a sharp knife you don't stab each other you sharpen each other.

With one knife alone you can't do it. Or if the other knife is made of wood you can't sharpen it. I've seen some churches where there is a very strong brother. He's never allowed other people to develop.

Then for namesake he appoints one elder who just says yes sir, yes sir, yes sir. And he's like a sharp knife and the other one is like a wooden wooden spoon wooden spoon. He never becomes sharp. I'm always delighted when I see two strong brothers becoming elders.

Each in their own way. Not one strong and one weak. The reason is none of us can reflect the glory of Jesus Christ perfectly by ourselves. I can show one aspect of it. Another brother can show another aspect.

Another one. It's the same life of Jesus. But manifesting itself in different ways. Like the life in my body controlled by the head. Manifests itself eyes, tongue, hands, legs, even nails. Nails are very small part of the body.

I've sometimes said if you're a very small part of the body don't despise you. Don't say I'm useless. When you feel scratchy which part of the body will help? Eyes? Tongue? I mean cows and all lick themselves with the tongue to scratch but we can't do that.

We have a part to help even the small nails of our hands. Not ordinary brothers who are not very gifted. We can speak a word of encouragement plus others. We can speak a word of encouragement plus others.

Encouragement as a Ministry

Why am I saying that? I'm saying that to show that there's not a single person sitting here who can say I don't have a ministry. Can you scratch somebody's back? By that I mean can you give him a word of encouragement?

When you speak to that person on a cell phone or an email or when you meet the person one sentence just to encourage that person because the world is full of people who go around discouraging others. I'm sorry to say even in the church there are some people who just go around discouraging others but you can be like the little nails scratching and encouraging people.

So every member of the body is important. So if you don't fulfill your function in this body or in your local church in that body you are failing the Lord. Letting him down. Don't make your church into a Pentecostal church with a one man pastor.

You do your part and encourage others and thus the body can be built. Ephesians chapter four says verse 15 Speaking the truth in love we grow up to him who is the head even Christ. This is the verse I want all of you to remember.

Verse 16 From whom the whole body is fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies and this part is for you according to the proper working of each individual part thus the whole body grows up in love.

Yielding and Supporting One Another

It speaks about the joint here in verse 16. You know why our body functions so well? Because there are so many joints. You take this hand one here joint another joint here too three in the thumb four, five in the finger six, seven, eight in this finger nine, ten, eleven these are all joints 12, 13, 14 15, 16, 17 17 joints you don't even realize they are all working together.

We take these things for granted. This is a picture of fellowship where we yield and support one another. For example when this elbow is bending the muscle on top is saying I want to pull and the other muscle on the other side is saying sure, pull I will yield.

Another time this muscle says I want to pull this muscle says sure, I will yield. Supposing one of these muscles is stubborn like some believers like some believers this muscle is deciding I am not going to yield.

I am not going to yield. You will be going around like this all the time you don't even realize how much there is yielding supporting in the one hand alone. What does this joint symbolize? What does the joint symbolize?

Fellowship. When a husband and wife one is pulling the other must yield. When the other is pulling the other must yield without any noise. When there is noise it means arthritis. In some homes there is a lot of arthritis.

But see how no sound. Can you build a church like this build a home like this without complaint without murmuring without grumbling yielding gladly you will become holy. I have discovered this over more than 40 years.

Unity Without Uniformity

I first began to discover it when I got married. What a selfish person I was thinking of myself. I am still learning how not to be selfish at home. It's a lifetime learning. We husbands are very selfish.

We make our wives do so many things and don't even appreciate it sometimes. And then in the church I learned people who are different from me and elder brothers in Bangalore they stand up to me and say Brother Zak I don't agree with you.

I say praise the lord then we won't do that thing. It never broke fellowship. I and my fellow elders in Bangalore have disagreed on many things but never broken fellowship for one day. So our rule was if either of us don't agree we won't do that.

And if there are four of us then four of us must agree that thing can wait we won't do it but our unity is important. Same thing at home when my wife and I had to decide about something with the children in the school whether to permit them to take part in something or not drama or something like that.

And we have a disagreement. Okay we won't do it. We won't permit them to go. But we will not break fellowship as husband and wife. So let me tell you to build fellowship does not mean you have to agree on everything.

Agreement is like a dictatorship. It's not fellowship. Fellowship is you know where like Saddam Hussein used to run Iraq nobody dare question everything whatever he says you have to do. And that's how many husbands are.

But in the Christian church we are not like that. We give freedom to one another to disagree. And when we don't agree we don't do that. But we will never break fellowship. And thus you can build a heavenly home and a heavenly church.

Holiness Without Fellowship Is Deception

So I hope in this study of genuine holiness I hope you will never forget this most important part of building fellowship in the body of Christ. Holiness without fellowship is a deception. It's not the real thing.

It's a counterfeit. And if you are like one of those people who likes to hear brother Zack's messages on YouTube and you are excited to hear and hear and hear and hear. And you think you are growing in holiness.

And you don't build fellowship with people in your local church. You just visit them once in a while on Sunday and you never see them again and ease your conscience that you have gone on a Sunday. I want to tell you in Jesus name however much you may listen to my messages you have not understood holiness because holiness without building fellowship with others is a deception.

Notice what I said not holiness without attending church. I am talking about not attending church meetings but building fellowship with people. A lot of people go to meetings. They don't build fellowship.

Building the Body of Christ

Let's be different in the churches in Kerala and demonstrate to our land genuine holiness. God will help us because the Holy Spirit has come to baptize us into one body. We are not saying we are the only believers in India.

God has got many many servants and many many believers in India and many of them are better than us. God bless them. But we have a calling to demonstrate building this body and we want to fulfill that in every place from the north to the south of Kerala in every place from the north to the south of Kerala let's pray let's bow our heads in prayer and ask the Lord to show you where you need to get some light on this area help us Lord.

We pray never to deceive ourselves but really to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can build the body of Christ in this time we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.