Faithfulness With Our Body and Our Money — Zac Poonen

Following Christ Through Our Example

I want to turn this morning to Philippians and chapter 3, one of the verses that we often quote in our church, which is almost never quoted in other churches, is follow me as I follow Christ. Those are the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1.

But it's not only Paul who is an example. Here it says in Philippians 3 verse 17, Brothers and sisters, join in following my example. Every true believer, if he's a really wholehearted Christian, should be able to say to people younger than him, follow my example.

Paul would not tell Peter, follow my example. Peter was older, more mature than him. But he was looking at people who were younger than him, younger in the Lord, and said, follow me as I follow Christ.

And if you're really a wholehearted Christian, there's always somebody younger than you in this church. Sure, age-wise, and in terms of knowing the Lord younger than you, what is your responsibility towards them?

Do you feel you have any responsibility? I mean, do you feel that when you join CFC, you're a member of a family? Not just like in many churches, they sit in a, like sitting in a movie theater, watching a performance or a drama, or listening to a lecture in some auditorium, and then go away.

That's not the type of church we're building. That is Old Testament, and the Old Testament, no Israelite had the responsibility to tell others, follow my example. And every Christian who cannot say that is like the Israelites, he's really under the old covenant.

A new covenant Christian not only seeks to overcome sin in his life, but seeks to look at people younger than him in the Lord, and to say, follow my example. That's where you have to be careful about your example.

It's not just listen to what I say, but don't do as I do. That's how it is with many people. No, do as I do, and listen to what I say, follow my example. So he says here, observe those who are walking according to the same pattern that you have seen in us.

So it's not just Paul. There are many others also in his time, probably not many, at least some others. And Paul tells the Philippian Christians, look around, Paul says, I'm not the only one, look around and see people who are living according to the same pattern of life that you have seen in me.

So there were people whom the Philippians could look around and see, probably very few, there were a few, who were gripped by what they saw in Paul's life. And they didn't just admire Paul's preaching or his life.

See a lot of people today, they admire a preacher, oh, that was a great message, or that really spoke to my heart. But Paul never wanted anybody to admire his message, he wanted people to follow his life.

So that's what we emphasize. We're not here to get people to admire our preaching, but we want people who will follow the example we set. Follow me as I follow Christ, and look around you and see other people like that, who may not be as mature as Paul, but who are more mature than you.

And not all of them are examples, but some of them are. Look at those examples. Because even in his day, Paul says, there are many who walk in a different way, and he's not talking about unbelievers. Unbelievers definitely are walking in a different way, there's no need to even talk about them.

But he says there are many who walk about whom I've often told you, that means Paul warned even in his day, this is written around 60 AD, about 30 years after Christ, 30 years after the day of Pentecost, Paul is warning people, there are Christians at this time who you should not follow.

I warn you, because they are enemies of the cross of Christ, and the amazing compassion that Paul had for them, this is the thing that spoke to my heart. When he says they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, he doesn't say it with anger or rudeness, it says I'm telling you this, and while I'm saying it, I'm weeping.

Imagine Paul writing this letter, the tears flowing from his eyes, as he thinks of people who claim to be Christians. But you know those days there was only one church in a city, there were not so many like today, and they all claimed to be Christians, they were the testimony for the Lord in Philippi, and some of them who sat in that church were not a good testimony.

And that grieved Paul, he says what a bad testimony it is before others, I mean there are some wonderful brothers and sisters here, but there are some, and Paul weeps when he thinks of it. It's like, this is what shows me that Paul was a real father, you know you can probably criticize some young man saying he's wayward, but how do you think his father will talk about him?

His father will talk about him, yes he's wayward, but his father will talk about it weeping. You can criticize some young sister here in a rude way, but her father or mother will talk about her weeping, and that's how Paul was, and that to me is a great verse that teaches me that Paul was a spiritual father to those people who accepted him as an elder, not to every Tom, Dick and Harry, no.

No servant of God is an elder to everybody, he's an elder to those who accept him as an elder. I've said that for years, I said I'm not an elder to everybody who sits in CFC, far from it. I'm an elder only to those who accept me as an elder, that's all, and for such people Paul was a father who took the responsibility of rebuking, correcting, but rebuking and correcting with tears.

He was weeping when he said these are the enemies of the cross of Christ, and enemies of the cross of Christ as we understand it today is not just that they hated Jesus crucified, I don't think people today hate Jesus crucified as if that's a terrible thing, I think it is more unwilling to take the cross in their own life, they don't want the cross in their own life, they are enemies of the message of the cross, they are enemies of the message that says you must be crucified with Christ, they are enemies of the message that says you cannot follow Jesus unless you take up the cross every single day and die to yourself, you cannot follow him, they are enemies of that, and I want to tell you, I don't think I have the tears that Paul has, but I want to tell you it's the truth, that there are many many Christians like that, in fact the vast majority of Christians, they don't believe that we should die to ourselves every single day and seek to walk in brokenness, I don't know if everybody, if all of you sitting here believe that, do you believe my brothers and sisters, tell me honestly, I mean answer yourself, do you believe that you should die to yourself in your relationship with your husband every day, and in relationship to your wife or to other brothers, die to yourself and say Lord I want to live before your face and everything, I don't think so personally, I mean if it were like that we'd have a revival here, if every, imagine if everybody sitting here decided from today onwards I'm going to die to myself, every single day, I'm going to die, there will be a revival, that is the reason why the devil hides that message from so many people, and when you are an enemy of the cross, it says here their end is destruction, that's the sad part, nobody likes to say that the end is destruction for some people, but it is, it is the Bible that says that, as I often say, nobody spoke about hell in the Bible as much as the Lord Jesus, nobody, nobody in the Old Testament, not Paul, not Peter, not a single person spoke about hell as much as Jesus Christ, and there's a reason for that, because he was the only one who really knew what hell was like, coming from heaven, he had seen hell, Paul had never seen hell, Peter had never seen, you and I have never seen hell, so we don't think of the seriousness of it, but Jesus who saw hell, realized the seriousness of it, and he spoke about hell more than anybody else, even in the Sermon on the Mount he spoke about hell, and he told the Pharisees who were very religious people, who paid their tithes, didn't commit adultery and lived upright according to the law, but who were inwardly hypocrites, he told them how will you escape hell?

Imagine Jesus saying that to religious people, how will you escape hell? Because you are living a double life, one life in front of people in the synagogue, another life in private, those are the people to whom he said how will you escape hell, he didn't say that to the murderers and adulterers, they were not living a double life, a murderer is living a single life, he's a murderer everywhere, everybody knows he's a murderer, a prostitute is living a single life, they say yeah I'm a prostitute, that's my job, but it's among Christians usually that you find those who live a double life, they give one impression of being very holy in the church, and quite another life that they live privately, and those are the Pharisees who lived a double life, and to them he said how will you escape the sentence of hell, that's a very serious thing, do you think the Lord would have to say that to some folks sitting here?

I want to warn you, so he says the end is destruction, and then he goes on to say certain things which we don't take very seriously, what are the marks of some people who don't take up the cross in their life, who are enemies of the cross, who don't want the message of the cross, it says here that God is their appetite or their stomach, now you think that Christianity has got nothing to do with eating and drinking, it doesn't matter how much you eat or drink, that's not true, it speaks here about some people whose God is their belly, in the margin it says that God is their stomach, when is a person's God his stomach?

Can a person whose God is his stomach, in other words someone for whom food is his God, is it possible for a Christian to have food as his God, whom he worships? Definitely, and it's one of those things which the Bible speaks about, the New Testament speaks about, the Old Testament didn't speak much about this at all, but the New Testament speaks about it, because one part of taking up the cross is keeping this body under the control of the Holy Spirit and keeping it fit for his use, and it's a well known fact, any doctor will tell you, that if you are indisciplined in your eating habits, you will shorten your life, you will not live the length of life God planned for you, God planned when you were born a certain length of life and you shorten it by making food your God, whose God is their stomach.

Discipline Over Appetite and the Body

What are some of the evidences that we worship food? Well, if the food is not up to the mark one day in your home, you get all upset about it. Now, there's nothing wrong in telling your wife there was a bit too much salt there, or I don't like so much chillies in my food, that's ok, that's just a matter of taste, to have different tastes is ok, some people like less chilli or more, that's not the point, but who get upset about something, I mean here your wife has tried her best to cook something and you get all upset with that.

Brother, I want to tell you honestly, your God is your stomach, you are worshipping your God and that particular day, the food didn't satisfy you and you are upset, because that is your God. Take that seriously.

Enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their stomach and glory in their shame. How important is this? Let me show you, you probably never heard me speak about eating, but you know Jesus began his ministry with 40 days of fasting.

I have never recommended people to fast 40 days, because you are not going into a ministry like Jesus Christ, none of us are and I have never done that. But I believe a certain amount of fasting, particularly in your younger days, is good for you to overcome this worship of food.

All of us are born with certain unique characteristics, like children. All children fight and all children love good food. It's all natural, it just comes to us and as we grow up, some of these things have to be controlled and fighting must be controlled and they love to eat everything that, as we grow up, we discover certain things are not good for our body and we just keep on eating it.

I mean we think about the people who drink too much, oh those guys are on drugs, drugs harm the body or those guys drink alcohol, that harms the body, but you know there are a lot of other things that harm the body too.

Not just alcohol and drugs, a lot of sicknesses that we get, like diabetes and blood pressure and some of these things that can shorten your life or give you a heart attack or a stroke, are partly due to hereditary, what we inherit from our parents, but also due to what we eat.

So if I don't control what I eat, I'm gonna shorten my life and I'm concerned about that. I don't want to live one day less than what God planned for me when I was born. Not one day less, not because I love this world, I detest this world, I'd rather be with the Lord, but I know that God's got a plan for my life and he's got a plan for your life too.

Whether you're fulfilling it or not, I don't know, but I have had a tremendous passion from my younger days to fulfill God's plan for my life because I know that's the only worthwhile life to live on this earth.

Now I want to tell you that if you don't know that yet, that's the only worthwhile life living on this earth if you fulfill God's plan for your life and for that you have to do a number of things. One of the main things you have to overcome is sin and this critical attitude of other people is one thing that will help you.

If you give up this critical attitude of other people, God will give you more light on yourself. I've seen that. Let me show you a verse before I move on. You know I was reading James chapter 3 verse 1.

Rejecting a Critical and Accusing Spirit

I'm giving you some really helpful advice if you're serious about it. If you're serious about completing the length of life God planned for you. I'll come to the matter of eating in a moment, but here is a verse which says James 3 1.

Let not many of you become teachers. There is a tremendous lust in man, particularly Christians, to be able to give advice to others. Do you find a lust to give advice to others? I can say before God I have zero lust to give advice to others.

Zero. If people come to me for advice, I give them, but I don't have a great lust to go around telling people this is what you should do. We had some older sisters in CFC like that. I think some of them are still here.

As soon as they see somebody, they want to give that young sister some advice this and the other and those young sisters feel like running away from those older sisters. There are people like that. They have a great lust.

They think they are experts and they are very holy and they want to tell these young sisters that and the other. Wait till they come to you sister. You're not such a holy person. They are, they detest you when you try to go and give them advice.

Wait till they come to you. Humble yourself. Don't become many teachers. Don't have this lust to go around telling people what they should do, what they shouldn't do. When you have no responsibility for them, you're not an elder.

Maybe you're an elder's wife and you think you're somebody. I feel sorry for that. There have been people like that in some of our CFC churches. Don't be teachers and the Amplified Bible, there's an expansion of that verse which says self-appointed censors of other people's actions and words.

A censor is one C-E-N-S-O-R, one who evaluates something. Don't be a self-appointed evaluator or examiner. Let's put it like that. There's a more easier word to understand. A self-appointed examiner of other people's actions and words.

Don't be that. Don't become that. God has appointed some, very few prophets and teachers. Let them do that job. Otherwise you'll be like these quack doctors who never studied medicine, who go around in the villages fooling everybody and telling this is wrong, this is wrong, just to make money.

So they do it to get a reputation as doctors and they're not. They are quacks. You can be like that also, a spiritual quack who's just trying to go around imagining that you're a spiritual doctor, telling people this and that, this is wrong with you, that's wrong with you, the other thing's wrong with you.

Or even if you don't say it, to have that critical attitude in your mind, you just tell your wife or your husband at home, what do you gain by it? Don't become a self-appointed examiner of others. Self-appointed.

God never appointed you. God has appointed some people to take responsibility of others and he'll do that. That's this critical attitude because I'll tell you the real danger there is, that is very close to the accusing spirit of the devil.

You know the devil is called the accuser of the brothers in Revelation 12. In other words, when the devil sees something wrong in someone, he's got a great lust to go and accuse him. This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong in you.

And it's a little bit of that spirit that comes into a person who wants to go and tell somebody, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. Not like a father. A father, like Paul said, does it weeping.

But examiners don't do it with weeping. Examiners do it with a hard attitude. You're like this and you're like this. You see, I'm sorry to say we've had some sad examples in some CFC churches of some elders like that, who preach like that, who hit here there and call people all types of names.

And it's very sad, very sad. I mean whenever I've heard of it, I've rebuked them. I said that's not what you're called to be an elder for. We are to minister the word strongly, but with compassion. A doctor doesn't just stab, a surgeon doesn't stab here and there.

He's very careful. Do you know how careful a heart surgeon is when he's doing heart surgery? He wants to make sure that even one small blood vessel doesn't break. The patient can die. But we can be so careless with our words, where we just fling it here and there.

The way you speak to your so-called loved ones and father to husband and wife and children and all. Imagine if a heart surgeon did heart surgery like that. All his patients would die. You need to be very careful.

The subject in James chapter 3 is about the tongue. He says if you can control your tongue, you're a perfect person. So this critical attitude and that's part of the body. The stomach, the emphasis on eating and on the tongue.

There's no emphasis on the tongue in the Old Testament. In fact the body, the importance of the body and holiness was not there in the Old Testament. Old Testament is just you give some sacrifices and go to the temple three times, Jerusalem three times a year and do certain rituals and that's okay.

But in the New Testament the emphasis is so much on our body. Who do not control their tongue. Coming back to what I mentioned about food. It says in 1 Corinthians in chapter 6. 1 Corinthians 6 he says, he talks about people with different types of sins.

In 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals and all that. And then he goes on to say some of you verse 11 were like that. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 11. You were like that some of you but now you are sanctified, justified in the name of our Lord and in the Holy Spirit.

Choosing What Is Profitable

Now how shall I live? Look what Paul says. All things are lawful for me. Can't I eat what I like? Okay. But all things are not profitable. That is the difference between a carnal Christian and a spiritual one.

A carnal Christians question is always what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. I can do that. What's wrong with watching that movie and what's wrong with watching the other movie and the other movie?

I'll tell you people who ask like that spend so much time watching movies that they don't have time to read the Bible. I'm talking about CFC people. This is lawful. It's not pornography. All things are lawful for me.

Good. You'll be a carnal Christian all your life. A spiritual Christian is one who asks another question about that. Not is it lawful but is it profitable? You can send your children to the corporation school.

They will learn ABC there. They learn 2 plus 2 is 4. But why don't you send your children to the corporation school? Why is it even some of you who are poor do not send your children to the corporation school?

Don't they get an education? Sure. See we are so careful when it comes to education for our children. You're so careful when you want treatment for somebody in your family, medical treatment. You don't mind spending money.

You don't just pick up any old hospital down the street and say okay I'll put my wife or children there for treatment. No. We want not only what is good but what is the best. Now my question is this. Why don't we have that same attitude in spiritual things?

It's lawful. Now that school is a good school. It's a corporation school. It's maybe not as high standard as that one. That hospital is a good one but not as clean and efficient as the other one. See how careful we are in these things.

We are very careful when it comes to education for our children and health for our family members. Why are we not equally zealous in spiritual matters? And I'll tell you why. Because God is not as important for us as health and education.

That's the plain simple truth. Yeah. If you keep on asking yourself is that lawful? Is that lawful? Is that lawful? You'll end up as a carnal Christian and waste your life and probably lose your salvation and go to hell.

It's my duty to tell you that. The serious Christian recognizes that Christ gave everything for me. Christ came in a body and lived 100 for God and for me. So I want to live like that and he chooses what is profitable for his body.

I told you about how people make their stomach their God. A true Christian, his stomach is not his God. He eats food in order to live. He doesn't live to eat but eats to live. So he says another thing here.

Yeah it's all lawful for me 1 Corinthians 6 12 but I'm not going to be mastered by something. I want to ask you a question which you need to ask yourself. Is there anything on this earth that masters you?

That you cannot live without? I cannot live without this. When I eat my food I must have this, I must have that. You're enslaved. You don't realize it but you're enslaved. You're mastered by something, by a particular type of food.

Oh you have to watch that movie or you have to do this thing. Something earthly which is and I say if you keep it in a proper place and use it once in a while or eat it once in a while that's fine. But when you're mastered by it, I can't live without it and make life miserable for your wife if she doesn't make it every day.

You know that you're going in the wrong direction and what is he what's he talking about when he says I don't want to be mastered by anything. What's he talking about? Next verse, food. That's not my idea, it's his.

It's the Holy Spirit. He says I don't want to be mastered by anything. He says food. That's the subject. Verse 13. He says food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food but one day God is going to destroy both the stomach and the food.

So he says be very careful that you don't worship your stomach. Again the same old thing. You never find verses like this in the old covenant. So when we talk so much about being new covenant Christians and we are part of the new covenant, this is a very important part of the new covenant.

Why is food so important? Because I want to live the entire length of life that God planned for me when I was born. Do you believe that? That when you were born God planned a certain length of days for you?

If you don't know that verse, I've often quoted it. Turn with me to Psalm 139. Those of you who have never seen it, please see it today and remember it all your life. To me it's a very comforting thought.

Psalm 139 it says in verse 13, you wove me in my mother's womb. The second part of verse 13. Inside my mother's womb God you made me and while you were making me inside my mother's womb when I was such a teeny weeny little thing.

Verse 16, your eyes saw my substance and in your book that is in your mind all the days ordained for me were written down when even the first day had not started. The first day starts after I come out of my mother's womb but before that inside the mother's womb God had planned.

I believe it for myself. David believed it for himself and it's for you. This is the number of days this person must live and this guy has not even been born. This is the length of days he must live and I'm absolutely convinced that the vast majority of Christians do not live there.

I mean if they are martyred for Christ, like Jesus died at 33 and a half, that was exactly number of days God planned for him. He was born on the exact day he was supposed to be born, died on the exact day he was supposed to die.

But if I remember years ago reading in a challenging article on discipline, we made copies of that and gave it out to a number of our young people here on how to be a disciplined person and one of the things I read in that article was if my life is shortened because I'm martyred for Christ, I proclaimed Christ and because of that somebody hated me and killed me.

I can stand before God with great joy that my life was shortened because I proclaimed Christ. But he said in that book, if your life is shortened because you ate too much or you ate the wrong type of things because of your lust for food, because food was your God and your life was shortened and one day you stand before God and you have to answer to God for how you lived, what are you going to say?

I thought about that then and I keep thinking about that now and then. I say Lord, I don't want to have to because I won't be able to do anything about it at the judgment seat of Christ. It's over. Life is over.

I can't get another chance to live that life. Now is the time and some of you are so blessed to be able to hear these truths which you'll almost not hear in most churches that we have to give an account of our life every day, every day of our life to Christ.

Not only every day, you know you often heard me quote Matthew 12 37 that every word we speak we have to give an account, every careless word that we speak. So that's the verse which says the days that ordained for you were written down by God and right now God knows exactly how long you're supposed to live and because we live in a sin cursed earth, there are sicknesses going around and some serious ones nowadays.

But even where those serious germs are floating around, can they shorten my life? Is God so helpless that a coronavirus can knock down his child and God can do nothing about it? I don't believe in such a helpless God.

I believe in a God who's almighty. I'll tell you where he cannot help you. He cannot help you if you go and swallow the coronavirus yourself or you go and make food your God and eat all types of other bad things which shorten your life.

I mean nobody would be so foolish to go and swallow a coronavirus germ but we are foolish when it comes to eating a lot of things that shorten our life in a similar way because food becomes our God. So here it says God is one day going to do away with all this.

So don't become a slave to these things. I will not be a slave of anything except the Lord. I want to ask all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, can you say Jesus Christ alone is my Lord? I'm not a slave of food and I'm not a slave of money.

The Body Belongs to the Lord

These are the two things the New Testament emphasizes a lot. See when we preserve our body like this and really seek to keep our body for the Lord, here's a promise. It's an amazing promise that I have claimed from the Lord many many many times in my life.

I'll tell you through the years I've claimed this promise. It's right here. We were just reading 1 Corinthians 6 13. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. Don't worship food. God is going to destroy them and the same way immorality.

That's the other thing that you can do with your body. Two dangers, overeating and sexual sin. Imagine that he puts them both together in the same verse. Overeating and sexual sin. Sexual sin of course we know it's wrong.

What about overeating? And sexual sin destroys your body. You've got to be careful. Now here it says, here's the verse that I've claimed. The last part of verse 13. The body is not for immorality or for food primarily but for the Lord.

So let me paraphrase verse 13. There are two things he mentions in verse 13 concerning the body. Food and sexual impurity. There are a lot of sexual sins that you can commit without going to a woman on your own.

So he's talking about food and sexual sin in relation to the body. Be careful and keep your body for the Lord. Two sins you've got to be aware of. Overeating and sexual carelessness. And if you keep your body from those things and keep it for the Lord, it is a promise.

Amazing promise. The Lord is for your body. That is what I have claimed for years. I say Lord, I'm not saying that I should never have a fever or never have a cold or a cough. I'm not saying that. And I have no desire to live one single day longer than what God wants me to live.

But at the same time, I don't want to live one day less than what God wants me to live. If God wants me to have a thorn in the flesh, I will bow my head and say, Lord, thank you. Your grace is sufficient for me.

But otherwise, I believe that God wants me to be healthy, to live for him. And so why do I say that? Because my body, when my body is for the Lord, what is the promise? The Lord is for my body. So where am I finally driving at?

Why am I telling you to not make food your God? Why am I telling you to be sexually pure with all the movies you watch and all the other things? Because ultimately, the Lord will be for your body. Isn't that wonderful?

To be able to look up to the Lord and say, Father, my body is only for you. I will not worship my body. I will not lust with my eyes. I will not be critical with my tongue. These are part of my body. This is what I mean by body is for the Lord.

I'm talking about eyes and tongue with which we commit most of our sins. Lord, I will not lust with my eyes. I will keep my tongue under control. I may have so many opinions about people, but I don't have to express them.

I don't have to go around telling people what's wrong with them. I'm not a prophet. I'm not a self-appointed examiner of others. Lord, I want to restrain myself. I don't want to have opinions of all types of people and destroy myself.

I'll tell people when you tell me to tell somebody something. But otherwise, I want to mind my own business. It's a great verse in the Bible. Don't be a busybody in other people's matters. Mind your own business.

Mind your own business. I wish I could write that in front of every believer's face. Mind your own business, brother. You'll progress a lot more spiritually if you stop worrying about other people's business.

Allow your body to be for the Lord. And here is a wonderful promise. The Lord is for your body. And I've claimed that, claimed that, claimed that for years. The Lord is for my body. So that's the first thing.

And then I also say in verse 19, it's all in the same subject. My body is also a temple of the Holy Spirit. And just like we take care of this building, this is not the house of God. House of God is a people.

But this is a building which is very important for us to keep in good shape so that it doesn't collapse or doesn't decay and all that because we want it to be a good clean tidy place for God's people to meet.

And our body is a million times more important than this building. What would you think of the caretakers of this building if the paint was all peeling off and the crack in the roof and cracks in the wall and the rain coming through and rain coming from the roof and all that and everything happening?

You'd say, what type of caretaker have you appointed to look after this building? What type of caretaker are you of the temple of the Holy Spirit? Not this building, your body. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

And if you'd be upset, if some caretaker left this building in a ramshackle, rotten, useless way, what do you think God thinks of you as a caretaker of the temple of the Holy Spirit? Are you taking care of it?

Repentance From Ignorance and Worldly Vanity

Okay, there's a great verse which says the times of ignorance God overlooks. It's one of my favorite verses. Acts 17 verse 30. The times of ignorance God overlooks. Okay, let us assume you don't know that verse.