Building Your Life On A Solid Foundation — Zac Poonen

Revelation Rather Than Education

I want to turn first of all to a verse in Matthew chapter 11. See, this is because among God's people, there are those who are very highly educated, who can be wholehearted disciples of Christ. And there are some who are very uneducated, who can also be wholehearted disciples of Christ.

In India, we have both extremes of people. We have PhDs in our church, and we have in some of our churches people who have never finished high school, and some who can't even read or write. So, it's been a great privilege for me to speak to both these groups of people, and to see how all of them can be wholehearted followers of Jesus.

People who can't read the Bible, somebody else has got to read it to them. And remember, for 1400 years of Christianity, they never had a Bible like this. Nobody. The first printed Bible was in the late 1400s.

Why did God not allow printing to be discovered before Christ was born? God could have done it. What He did 1400 years later, He could have done it earlier. Wouldn't it have been a tremendous advantage if from the day of Pentecost onwards, everybody had a Bible?

But that's taught me something. That the most important thing in the Christian life, though the Bible is very valuable, is not to have a Bible in our home. That is very valuable, but it is not the most important.

Because if it were the most important, God would have allowed printing to be discovered before Christ was born, so that every Christian from day one would have a Bible in their home. But what the Lord taught through His apostles was that the most important thing that Christians need is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And very often, the more educated we are, the more we think that if we can read the Bible and understand it and explain it, we will be spiritual, and we will please God more. I'm not against studying the Bible.

From the time I was converted, I spent the first seven years studying the Bible thoroughly. And all my knowledge of Scripture is almost based on those first seven years when I went through it thoroughly with every type of help I could get.

But I've discovered through the years that it's the illumination and revelation of the Holy Spirit that makes everything living to us. So, Matthew chapter 11, verse 25. Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

You have hidden these things, that is, the real spiritual values have been hidden from the wise and the intelligent and revealed to babes, not even grown-up, uneducated people, but to babies who have never been to school.

The important word there is revealed. Revealed is a word which is not found in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, you did not need revelation to understand God's will. You just needed a good mind to study the law and you'd know God's will.

But in the New Testament, a good mind and study will not help you to know God's will because God reveals his truth. It's by revelation. Later on, if you turn to Matthew 16, you find that when Jesus asked, who do people say that I am?

In verse 13, Matthew 16, verse 13. Who do people say that I am? And they said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah. Now, there were very, very great scholars in Israel. And Jesus never chose any of them to be his disciples.

And those scholars thought that Jesus was Elijah. Oh, well, that's a good thing. At least they thought he was one of the prophets or Jeremiah. But Peter said, and Jesus asked, who do you say? And Peter said, you are the Messiah.

Christ means Messiah, the son of the living God. And Jesus said, Simon, you're very blessed. Why was Simon blessed? Because he understood what all the clever PhDs of his time did not understand. He was just a fisherman.

He never went to college. Because human understanding, flesh and blood did not reveal. There again you see that word, reveal. He did not reveal this to you. It didn't come to you by understanding, Simon Peter.

Because if it comes by understanding, those other 60-year-old Pharisees would know it much better than you or quicker than you. But my father revealed it to you. Now, Simon Peter was not a baby. He was an expert fisherman.

But when it came to revelation, he was like a baby. And that's why the father revealed to him things which clever people in Israel did not understand. Now, why do I say this? Because most of us here in this church are clever.

Now, if I were speaking in one of the poor villages in India, like I've often done, we don't need to speak about this so much. Because they are uneducated people. They read the scriptures and they can't figure out what the original meaning is in the Greek or the Hebrew.

They don't even know it was written in Greek and Hebrew. They just read the Bible in their own... And they don't have so many translations like we have, Living Bible, Message Bible, and all that. They've got one translation in their language.

And sometimes those translations are not accurately translated either. They are much more dependent on revelation. And we who are educated should not think that we can understand the Bible by looking at the various versions and studying various aspects of these words and root meanings and all that.

Brothers and sisters, we need revelation. That's what will change our life. Revelation is where I may not be able to explain a verse like some intellectual can, but it changes my life. I may not be able to preach a sermon on a particular theme, but it changes my life.

Revelation always changes your life. Study of the Bible does not change a person's life. It sometimes puffs him up with the knowledge of the Bible. He can preach, he can get honor, he can make money, but it doesn't change his life.

It doesn't make him love his wife like Christ loved the church. It doesn't make him a servant of others wanting to wash people's feet. It exalts him to be a leader. Look at all the great preachers in the world.

They're not people who wash people's feet. They make money through their preaching and their ability. They don't emphasize revelation. There are many ways in which CFC in our churches is different from many other churches.

We don't claim to be better than anybody. We've got hypocrites in our churches just like every church has. But there are certain things we emphasize which are not emphasized in many churches. One is revelation.

Revelation as the Foundation of the Church

Jesus spoke so much about it. And when Jesus said this to Simon, he also said, verse 18, it's Matthew 16 and 18, on this rock, and this is where the Roman Catholics have got it wrong. They think Peter is the rock.

He's not the rock. Jesus said, you're Peter. But on this revelation that you got just now, on this rock of revelation, I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So I see from that verse that revelation is needed to build the church.

All of us need to see the revealed Christ, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Not just what we read in the Bible. What you read in the Bible is that Jesus healed the sick. He loved lepers and poor people.

We can see all that and try to follow it. And a lot of people who try to follow that, very often live in a lot of sin. And they continue to go to church and imagine that they're very spiritual because they know a lot of the Bible.

But revelation will humble a man. He will realize that the most important thing in the Christian life is not to know the Bible. The most important thing in the Christian life is to love Jesus with all our hearts, even if we don't know the Bible.

When we started CFC first, 47 years ago, the Lord led us to study two passages of Scripture, particularly right at the beginning. Because we found that those were the two passages of Scripture that were not sufficiently emphasized in the rest of Christendom.

And even today I see those two passages are not sufficiently emphasized in much of Christendom. And yet they are fundamental passages for building the church and for living a godly life. The first was Luke chapter 14.

The Conditions of Discipleship

And that is the conditions of discipleship. There were two great commissions that Jesus gave. One was going to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, Mark 16. And the other was in Matthew 28 where he said, go and make disciples.

Preaching the gospel is one thing, making disciples is another thing. Preaching the gospel is, relatively speaking, much easier. You preach and say, OK, I've covered this area, everybody's heard the gospel.

We go to another area, preach, everybody's heard the gospel. Like that, we can say we cover different parts of the world. They've all heard the gospel. Now it's up to them. If they don't accept Christ, they go to hell.

But making disciples is a much more difficult task because you tell them that Christ died for their sins and then you have to make them followers of Jesus Christ. That's a disciple. So the Matthew 28 commission is a step higher than the Mark 16 commission.

So we realized that and we realized that most of Christendom was interested in evangelism. We are all for that. People have sometimes accused us in CFC saying, you guys are not interested in evangelism.

I say, really? How did we get 7 ,000, 8 ,000 believers in our churches if we didn't believe in evangelism? How did we get 2 ,000, 3 ,000 from non-Christian backgrounds if we didn't believe in evangelism?

How did we end up planting churches in two villages where for 2 ,000 years there was no church? We believed in evangelism, but we didn't stop there. We believed in making those believers into disciples.

So I believe we must preach the gospel. Even today, I seek to say, Lord, give me an opportunity to be a witness wherever I am. If I'm traveling somewhere or living somewhere, make me a witness. Maybe there's somebody who's needy.

I want to be a witness. You know, sitting in a plane sometimes, we don't want to just start preaching the gospel to somebody to see first of all whether he's interested or not. So one of the things you can do, which I do, open a Bible on that table in front of you in the plane.

And if that guy is interested, he may start a conversation. I want to just make it known that I'm a Christian and I'm available. So I was sitting the other day in a plane, and I had my phone in front of me and the Bible on the phone, and we sit close to each other in the plane.

He can read what I'm reading on the phone. And I was reading the Bible on that phone for quite a while. And this guy sitting next to me found himself a bit uncomfortable, and he got up and exchanged seats with his wife in front, and his wife came and sat back there.

And I was wondering what happened. He said he was probably offended that the one sitting next to me was a Christian who was reading the Bible. Well, then I knew he was not interested. I left it, but I prayed for him.

Whenever something like that happened, we pray for that person that somehow he will come to know the Lord. He's a lost soul. He needs salvation. So we started with Luke 14, and it's very important because at the end of this passage from Luke 14, 25 to 33, the three conditions of discipleship, very rarely emphasized.

Most people don't understand. It's fundamental, foundational. And everyone here must understand the three conditions. If you don't fulfill them, you're not a disciple. You're not a follower of Christ.

And you can't be integrated into the church that Jesus is building. An intellectual faith. I believe that Christ died for my sins. And to mouth with our words, Lord Jesus come into my heart. You never know whether something has happened or not.

But if you're a disciple, you know for certain. So at the end of this passage on the three conditions of discipleship, it mentions verses 25 to 33. He then compares it to salt, verse 34. Always read a verse in its context.

Where did he speak about salt? He spoke about salt after speaking about discipleship. Verse 25 to 33 is discipleship conditions. And then he said, that is how your salt will be good. And we all know that there can be salt which is tasteless.

Which looks like salt. But it's lost its taste. And then of course it's useless. You know how very little salt is enough to add taste to the food. You don't need a whole spoonful. Very little salt and you can immediately make out there's salt here.

And Jesus said it must be like that with us. Wherever we are. I felt like that in the years when I was in the Navy. Every person who worked with me must know that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And sometimes it would offend some of those non-Christian people or senior officers.

And sometimes they would try to put me into difficult situations or give me a bad report. Because they hated Christianity. That's fine. But those are the instances in my life. I was only 23, 24 years old.

That made me a strong Christian. But it's very important. Wherever you are my brother and sister. You must be like salt that has not lost its taste. People may not be converted. But they must know. Once in my life, I came across a man who was a true Christian.

It was not just namesake. There was something about him which was different. They must say that about you. All the people you work with. The people who know you well. Your relatives whom you know very well.

They must know this man, this woman is different. He's not that average run-of-the-mill type of Christian. He was different. We must be like salt which has got a taste about it. When people come in touch with us, hear us, talk to us, get to know us.

They say, this guy is different from the average Christian I have met. I hope that will be true of every person in this church. Salt is good. But if it is tasteless, what does he say it is? What type of Christian is that?

Verse 35. Useless. Imagine Jesus using a word like that. You are a good for nothing, useless Christian. If you have lost your taste. It's a strong word Jesus used in verse 35. Useless. Useless, fit to be thrown out into the rubbish pile.

Imagine Jesus saying that about a person who calls himself a Christian. You are good for nothing. You should not call yourself a Christian. Because you have lost the taste. People around you don't seem to see anything different about you.

You crack the same dirty jokes they crack. And you laugh at the dirty jokes they talk about. Maybe you are unrighteous like they are or some other way. Your interest is in the same worldly things that they are interested in.

Jesus says you are useless. Where is the salt? Jesus used two pictures. The light for example. That's another picture. You are the light of the world. Light is something you can be immediately aware of.

When you come into a room, you know whether there is light there or not. You walk into a dark room and you know there is no light here. It's like salt. Salt, you taste food, you immediately know whether there is salt.

That was the challenge that came to me. Particularly when I was surrounded by a whole lot of unbelievers. In the place where I work. I said people must know over a period of time. They may not know the first day.

But after having lived with me for a few weeks or so. They must know this guy is different. We met many Christians but this guy is different. They must say that about you my brothers and sisters. Because the world has met many types of Christians.

But they must see that you are different. There is a taste about you. There is a light that comes when you come to the room. They stop cracking those dirty jokes when you come into that crowd. That's how it must be.

So that's what it means to be salt. So what are the conditions he said? There are three things basically. Number one, verse 25. To love Jesus more than father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters.

And even your own life. The number one condition of getting salt in your life. Is to love Jesus supremely. He is more valuable to you. You love him more than you love your father, love your mother. You are willing to offend your father and mother.

If necessary. To please the Lord. Now remember this is the same Jesus who taught us to honor our father and mother. We must honor our father and mother. Sure always speak respectfully to them. But when it comes to what Jesus stands for.

We are willing to offend our parents even. And say sorry dad I can't do that. I'm a Christian. Sorry mom. I can't do that. I'm a Christian. You know particularly when you're grown up. I'm willing. That's the meaning of hate.

Hate is a strong word. And when I first read it I couldn't understand it properly. It's a word relative to love for Christ. You know Jesus used pictures and I like to read the Bible with pictures in my mind.

And the picture that came to mind me. In verse 26 was. My love for my parents. And for my wife. And children. You see that's another thing including wife and children. I'm not supposed to love my wife or my children more than I love Christ.

And I looked at it like this. The light of the stars is very bright. We don't see it so brightly because it's so far away. But it's very very bright. Some stars are brighter than the sun. And my love for my wife and children and father and mother must be like the light of those stars.

It must never be dark. No. There must be no darkness in my life. My love for my parents and my children and my wife must be a light like the light of the stars. But. In the daytime. When the sun comes up.

You look in the sky and you can't even see the stars. They haven't. Been eradicated. They're still in the sky. But the light of the sun is so bright. That. It says looks as if the stars don't exist. That's the picture I get from this verse.

As I said my love for my parents wife fathers like the wife and children I like. The light of the stars but when I. When I. When compared with my love for Christ. It's like the brightness of the sun. That it looks as if.

I don't even love my. Relatives. In other words Christ is so important in my life. That I'm willing to offend every one of my relatives. In order to please the Lord. That's the only type of person who can be a disciple.

He doesn't deliberately offend. But if it's a choice between Christ and one of his relatives. He says no doubt in his mind what he stands for. I hope that is true in every one of your cases. The second condition of discipleship is.

Verse 27. To carry your own cross to say no to myself. Cross is a place of death. Inside our heart. There's a throne where self sits there. Self. Gets hurt. That's why we get angry. Self gets offended.

That's we have a bitterness against somebody. Somebody offended me in some way and I keep that bitterness forever. Because self is on the throne. That's why we get hurt. That's why we get angry. That's why we keep an offense.

Jesus says you've got to kill that self and get it off the throne. And let Christ rule there. That in simple words. Is the meaning of taking up the cross. Every day. Because you can. Put Christ on your throne one day and tomorrow you may put yourself again.

You can be so challenged in a Sunday meeting. Yes I want to put Christ on my throne. But it may last only for one day. And the next day you find. Self is back on the throne again. So Jesus said you got to take up your cross every day.

And I found that in the years since I understood. What it means to take up the cross that. I have to make that choice every day in different situations. In this situation. Am I going to get offended? No.

Self is going to die. I will not get offended. Am I going to hate this man who hates me? No. I'm going to love him. Am I going to wish evil for this man who did evil to me? No. I'm going to wish good for him.

Am I going to fight with this man who's come for a quarrel with me? No. I shall pursue peace with him. Because self is not on the throne. I refuse to get offended. I refuse to feel hurt. I refuse to have a bitterness against anyone.

I refuse to keep an offense against somebody. I refuse to have an unforgiving spirit against someone. Because self has been put to death. I make that choice every day. And you can make that choice for many days.

And then one day you forget about it. And back comes all that old bitterness against somebody. This is what brings dishonor to the name of Christ. This is what makes the devil. We read in Revelation 12 that the devil accuses God's people to God.

I'm very aware of that. I've said, Lord, my Father in heaven, I don't want the devil ever to accuse me to you saying, I have violated your law. If the devil turns around and tells God, See, Zach over there, he's got a bitterness against somebody.

Can't you see it, God, in his heart? See how he's offended with that person? See how he wishes evil for that person who did evil to him? I don't want such an accusation. I say, Father, let that never happen a single day in my life that the devil can accuse me to you saying I don't love somebody.

Saying I've got a bitterness against someone. Or I wish evil for someone. Just because he did evil to me. Let that never, never happen. We can live that life if we decide every day. Self is not going to be on my throne.

Right from the morning. Self will not be on my throne. Christ will be there. That's the meaning of taking up the cross. And the third condition is, Verse 33, you can't be my disciple unless you give up all your possessions.

And this is something which I've explained like this. Possessions are some things we hold on to tight. Does that mean I have to be like these hermits and monks who give up everything in the world and go and live in a monastery?

No. No. True Christians don't have to live in a monastery. I've never lived in a monastery. So I've tried to understand this verse and I've discovered that possession is what I hold on to. This is my possession.

I possess it. Maybe a house or a car or something valuable. Maybe money or bank account or shares that you hold in a company. Possessions. And the Lord says you must not possess it. You can have it. Which means you open your palm.

It's there. The house is in your name. The car is in your name. That money is in your name at the bank account. You haven't taken it all out and given it to the poor. It's there. But you don't possess it.

You don't say it's mine. Lord, I have it. It's in my name. I say I acknowledge that it all belongs to the Lord. I remember the first time in my life when I owned a house. I never expected I would. But my dad bought one for me way back more than 50 years ago.

And I say okay. And I was so scared. 1972. I honestly say I was so scared that this would become an idol in my life. I said Lord, I don't want this house to be an idol in my life. And if you ever see this is going to be an idol in my life, burn it up.

Burn it up. I'm willing to see it burnt to flames if it has become an idol. No. I want Christ to be Lord in my life. And I sought to keep that attitude towards my bank account. Towards any possession I had.

Even to, I used to ride a scooter. And I said Lord, I don't want the scooter to be an idol. Dear brothers and sisters, make sure that even if you have 101 things you don't possess. Tightly, even one of them.

Say Lord, they're all yours. If you have that attitude, you will not grieve if you lose something. I've lost money. I've lost different things in my life. I've had things that I own which are spoiled and wrecked.

But I don't lose sleep over that. I said it's okay, I had them. The Lord gave and the Lord taken away, that's fine. So that's the meaning of not possessing things. It's not becoming a monk or emptying your bank account.

I must not hold on to it. Now if I keep these three conditions, I'm a disciple. And this is what we taught right from day one. And we took many, many weeks to emphasize this because it was all new to people.

Some of you, if you're honest, you will admit that in all the Christianity that you have been around so far, you never had it explained so clearly to you. And yet it's in your Bible. And some of you have been reading the Bible for years.

Have you seen it so clearly as you see it today? Never forget it. We emphasized it because I saw through many years. God allowed me before we started CFC to be in many, many Christian groups for 16 years.

And I saw what was missing. And what the Lord told me was, you've seen what is being taught in many, many Christian churches. You read the Bible now and find out what they don't teach. And teach those things.

So I said, okay. The things which others are teaching, I don't have to emphasize that. But I want to teach the things which they are not teaching. And this is one of those things. The other thing we emphasized when CFC started was from Matthew 5.

Building on the Sermon on the Mount

There we saw, in Luke 14, we saw about salt. In Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is the other passage of Scripture we emphasized in the early days. And this is the Sermon on the Mount. The most important message that Jesus preached to his disciples.

Again, very little preached. Very little emphasized in much of Christendom. But why is this important? Because at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, I want you to see this very, very, very important parable that Jesus spoke at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7.

Please turn to Matthew 7 in verse 24. Where Jesus said, He's particularly referring to these three chapters. The three chapters, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. He's saying, whoever hears these words of mine, which are these words, chapter 5, 6, and 7.

And then he talks about two types of people. Both here, listen, this is not somebody who doesn't go to church, who doesn't read the Bible, who has no interest in the things of God. No. These are two people.

Both of them go to church. Both of them read the Bible. Both of them have an interest in the things of God. But the big difference between the two is this. One hears, but he goes out and does not obey it.

The other hears and obeys. One person goes to church every Sunday, reads the Bible every day, doesn't obey. The other person, even if he doesn't read the Bible every day, obeys what he does read. What is more important?

Reading the Bible every day? Very good habit. I've sought to have that habit for more than 60 years. But more important than that, is obeying what the Bible says. That's what Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

He says, you've heard all these things. Now, don't think just because you've heard it and understood it, or today we can say somebody explained it, that you got it. You haven't got it. And is the difference between the man who hears and the man who obeys a very slight difference, sort of a one degree off?

No. It's a tremendous difference. Okay. The man who hears, verse 24 to 25, but does not obey, is like a man, sorry, the man who hears but does not obey, verse 26 and 27, is like a man who built his house on sand.

He said, it's too much of a headache to lay a foundation here. What a lot of money. What a lot of effort. Let me make a good superstructure. Nice big building that everybody will appreciate. He was not worried about what was underground.

You know, every building has got two parts. This building has got two parts. The house in which you live has got two parts. One is hidden. Invisible. One is visible. And your Christian life is like that.

There's an invisible part which nobody can see. Even your husband or wife cannot see it. And there's a visible part which everybody can see. The visible part is important. We must have a good testimony before men.

You are the light of the world. But, you know that every building, the invisible part, the foundation, is what determines whether this building will stand or not. And the more important the building, like a skyscraper, the deeper the foundation must be.

And that's what Jesus was saying here. The important thing is not the impression you make with your outward Christian life on people. Is there a hidden foundation in the hidden area of your life? But the foundation, remember, is hidden.

Is there a strong foundation? How do we know that? Here's the difference. If you're listening to the truths in the church, like today or any other day, and you don't take it seriously in your daily life, discipleship or anything else, you're like a person who just wants to create a good impression before people.

Your private life before God, your secret thoughts, you're not bothered about. Let me tell you this in plain words. If you're more concerned about your external testimony, what other people think of your Christianity, more than what Almighty God thinks about your thought life, what Almighty God thinks about your attitudes towards people, I'll tell you what Jesus calls you.

A hypocrite. One who's trying to give a good impression before people, but is not pure inwardly. More interested in the opinion of men than the opinion of God. That is the foolish man who builds on sand.

He's not worried about the foundation. He says, nobody sees the foundation. Why should I be bothered about it? That's the Christian who says, nobody sees my thought life. Why should I be pure there? Nobody sees my attitude to people.

Why should I be careful about that? I must be concerned that I make a good impression, that I love people, that I talk in a nice way that I'm a very kind person, I'm a very gentle person, I'm a very generous person.

It's easy to build up a reputation. The building. But Jesus said, if it doesn't have a foundation of obedience in the secret place where nobody sees you. Obedience when you're all by yourself. In other words, how you talk to your wife at home, or to your husband.

Not how you talk to your friends. Not as important. Everybody sees that. How do you talk to your wife at home? How do you talk to your children at home? Not how well you control your temper when you're in church.

Everybody says about you, oh, there's a brother or sister. I never see them losing their temper. I like to see how they are at home. That's the underground part, the foundation part. That is more important than this outward building which everybody sees.

That's the point of this parable. The hidden part. You know the Bible speaks, you know that in a tree, the most important part is the roots. Why do you find in a storm, some trees get uprooted and some trees don't get uprooted.

Why is that? Has it got to do with the number of branches or leaves or fruit? No. It's got nothing to do with all that. It's hidden underground. The strength of a building is in that which is hidden underground.

The roots. That tree did not get uprooted in the storm because it had strong roots. All these things are clear. And the Bible, Jesus also spoke about trees and having roots and all that. In all these things, the important thing that comes through is your hidden life is much more important than your visible life.

Purity in Thoughts, Attitudes, and Motives

What God thinks of your thoughts, and your motives. Think of three areas. Your thoughts, nobody can see them. Your attitudes to people, nobody can see that. And the motive with which you do things. There are people who preach God's word.

Their motive is to make money. Their motive is to get honor. We don't know that. We may think they are wonderful people, wonderful preachers, but God sees the motive. So those three things, the visible things are our words and our actions.

We are very careful with our words and our actions, particularly in the midst of people whose opinion we value. Let me tell you, my brother, sister, if you fear God, you will be more interested in your thoughts which go through your mind throughout the day, which nobody can see.

Your attitudes towards people, particularly your attitude towards somebody who detests you or hates you or speaks evil about you. Do you have an attitude of love and compassion? Forgiveness. And your motive with which you do good things.

That is the mark of a person who's got a good foundation. When the storm comes, that tree will not be uprooted. Why is it when some storm comes in your life, suddenly you behave in a peculiar way in an unchristian way.