Having No Part Dark — Zac Poonen

Knowing God as Our Heavenly Father

So yesterday we were thinking of God as our Father. I was saying how important it is for us to know Him that way because this is, I believe, one of the main things that Jesus came to reveal. For most Christians, the main thing is that Jesus came to die for our sins.

But I believe the reason why so many Christians have a very unsatisfying Christian life is because they haven't really known God as their Father the way Jesus wanted them to know. So many times Jesus would say to His disciples, you folks know how to give good gifts to your children.

How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? God is always comparing human relationships with His relationship with us. He says, If your son asks for bread, He will not give him a stone.

And another time in the Old Testament, He compares Himself to a mother. He says in Isaiah 49, I hope you all know this verse, Isaiah 49 .14, The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. You know, there are Christians who sometimes feel God has forgotten about me.

He hasn't really answered my prayer or He hasn't solved my problem. There's something He hasn't done for me. And it's there in the Old Testament too, Isaiah 49, The Lord has forsaken me. Can a woman forget her nursing child?

No compassion on the son of her womb, even these may forget, but I will not forget you. So there He compares Himself to a mother. The mother's love for a child is even greater than a father's love because a mother sacrifices much more for a child than a father does.

There's a greater attachment of the mother to the child because the mother carries the child in her womb for so long. And she cannot forget, even if the father forgets. And the Lord says, Even such a woman may forget, but I will not forget you.

It's very important for us to be absolutely established in this truth that God is a good God. God is good all the time. He's never anything but other than good and He's always on my side against the devil.

Even when I have failed Him, even if I have let Him down, disappointed Him, He's still on my side against the devil. He's not happy with my sin. He cannot be happy with sickness in her child. No mother, I mean, if you're not happy with sickness in your child, you're not a good mother.

Sin Is Worse Than Sickness

You've got to hate sickness in your child. As much as you love that child, you hate every sickness in it. Even the smallest little cough or cold or fever, you hate it. You want the child to be free from it.

And we have to see the reason why the scripture speaks so much about that we should be free from sin is exactly like a mother wants her child to be free from sickness. When a day comes in our life, I hope it will come soon, I don't know whether it has come yet for you, when you hate sin more than you hate sickness in your life, has it come yet?

When you see clearly that the smallest sin is worse than the greatest sickness. If you got AIDS, which is one of the most terrible, incurable sickness in the world today, that would not be as bad as committing the smallest sin.

To have a bitter thought against someone, to have an unforgiving spirit, to be proud. That's a million times worse than getting AIDS. The day you discover that, you'll get victory over sin. It'll come very quickly.

But that's what the devil keeps us blinded to. He always fools us that sin is not so serious. If you speak a few rude words to your husband or wife, it's not so serious. Really? It's like getting AIDS and leprosy and saying it's not serious.

The devil has fooled Christians left, right and center. He will so glibly say that Jesus died for my sins, but we don't see how serious it was. There's a hymn of a song that I have sung to myself, that's a worship hymn rather, that I sing to myself many, many times.

It goes like this, Lord, ever when I'm tempted, make me see my God alone outstretched and bruised the earth that He made and make me feel it was my sin, as though no other sins were there. And that was to Him who bears the world, a load that He could scarcely bear.

That it was my sin that put Him on the cross. The little, little things that I take so lightly in my life, the words I speak or the thoughts I think, which I say, oh, the blood of Jesus will cleanse me, and treat the blood of Jesus like some tap water that I can always go and wash my hands clean.

I know the days when I took sin like that. I know that I did. It never came. I would hear other people talk about it, but it never came in my life. I had to see the seriousness of sin, which placed my Savior on the cross.

It was my sin. Make me see that it was my sin, as though no other sins were there. That was to Him who bears the world, a load that He could scarcely bear. I want to ask you, my brothers and sisters, to ask God to show you, the Holy Spirit to show you, how serious sin is.

Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit has come, you convict the world of sin. And that's so important. That's why God's love for us is like that of a mother for a child, who hates the sickness of a child. He wants us to be completely free.

Keeping the Inner Life Full of Light

Little things, that relationship with Him. In Luke chapter 11, there's a beautiful expression, which I often thought in relation to what we are thinking, of being the light today. It speaks about lighting a lamp, so that other people can see the light.

We know how important light is. Nowadays, we switch on a light, electricity, switch on a bulb in the room. As soon as we enter a dark room, what every one of us does, is put on a light. We don't like to walk into a dark room.

We can stumble, we can fall, we can trip over something, we can hurt ourselves. So, the first thing you do, when you enter into a dark room, is turn on the light. And you don't want any part of that room dark.

In those days, it was a lamp. And the lamp was lit by oil. Throughout the Bible, the oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit, that makes the lamp burn. That's why I say electricity today is a picture of the Holy Spirit.

It's by electricity that we burn our lights and run our gadgets. You can have all the gadgets in the world, but if you don't have the electricity to run it, it's a waste of time. The gadgets are like the different doctrines we have.

I think of Christians who boast about, we've got a better doctrine than that church, better than the Roman Catholics, or better than the Presbyterians, or better than Jehovah's Witnesses. It's like saying you've got more gadgets than these other people.

But if you don't have electricity, whether you have a hundred gadgets, or you've only got one, there's absolutely no difference. And that's what I find. I've been to different churches, and I say, yeah, there are a lot more better, more scriptural doctrines here, than that other church.

But the Holy Spirit is just as missing here, than in the other place. I sit in this meeting of a church, which has got all the right doctrines, and it's such a boring meeting. I say, Jesus is not here.

The Holy Spirit is not here. But they've got the right doctrines. They've got so many gadgets, and they don't seem to be bothered that there's no electricity. They're just polishing the gadgets every Sunday, and glorying that they've got all these things, better than the others.

May God save us from that. A lamp was kept. Luke 11, 33. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a cellar. Puts it on a lamp stand, so that everybody can see the light. And here's a very helpful verse.

The lamp of your body is your eye. Jesus used illustrations. He always used word pictures. Salt, light, and the eye, and trees, and fruit, and a narrow cave. And it's so helpful. The lamp of your body is your eye, and the human eye is a picture.

And he says, if your eye is clear, your whole body is full of light. But when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. If there's a film over your eye, the light doesn't go in properly into your body, and it's dark.

He says, it's like that. When there's something, a film over your conscience, your whole body is full of darkness. Watch out, that the light in you may not become darkness. And that's a warning I give to every believer.

Because I've seen many believers who were more sensitive to sin the day they were converted, than ten years later. Just examine your own life. Go back to the time when you were first converted. How serious you were about putting away certain things in your life.

Maybe you never watched some of those types of movies that you watch today. You were a little more serious in those days. You were a little more careful about the type of things you read, the type of things you spoke.

Preserving Freshness in Fellowship With Christ

Time has gone by, and there's a proverb in English. Familiarity breeds contempt. Meaning, when you're not so familiar with a person, you speak respectfully. But the more familiar you become with that person, you tend to lose respect.

You see that very often in marriage. When a couple first meet, you know, just about considering, Oh, this is the person I want to marry. There's a lot of respect for one another. You see them ten years after they got married, become so familiar with each other that familiarity has produced contempt.

That respect is gone. They speak to each other in such a way that they would never have spoken to each other in the days when they were considering marrying one another. What happened? Familiarity. Familiarity has produced contempt.

So, that happens, you know, even with Jesus. We become so familiar with talking about the blood of Jesus cleanses me. The first time we heard it, it was such an exciting thing. It's one of the prayers that I have prayed for myself, and I say, Lord, I pray that the truth that you shed your blood to forgive my sin, that Christ died for my sins, will never become such a familiar truth to me that I lose the wonder of it, or I don't feel, that I no longer feel like crying when I think of Jesus dying for my sins.

I never want to be like that. I want to be moved by the songs that sing about his blood shed for me, just like I was moved way back in the beginning when I first heard it. That's one of the great ministries of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit keeps our Christian life fresh, and that's how we know that we are in the light, and in the light everything is fresh. It says here that watch out that that light in you does not become darkness.

That freshness that you had when you were first converted, you're no longer so excited about Christianity like you were then. It's all a very familiar truth to you, and you're bored listening to it, and you're bored singing it.

You know, we sing songs sometimes without even thinking. I remember the days in a church where we used song books. Of course, we have it on the screen, but in the days we used song books, this has happened to me a number of times.

We'd be singing a song, and it's such a familiar song, I've probably sung it hundreds of times, and I would sing it without even thinking of the words, because I know it all in my heart. And I like the tune, and I'm singing it, and I go on and finish the whole song, and I haven't really thought about the words that I sang.

Because none of you ever do something like that, right? But I don't. We've all done it. And then the song leader says, let's sing the next song, and we move to the next song. And I suddenly realized that, hey, I didn't even mean what I said.

So I turned back to the old song in the book, and while the others are singing the other song, I'm going through this one, which I sang previously, and I said, Lord, I'm sorry. I want to say this meaningfully to you.

It's so important to be sensitive to these little things. And I say, Lord, that's how I want to keep my relationship with you always fresh. I don't want to become so familiar with you. It says in Revelation chapter 5, how in heaven the elders fall down, and it says in verse 9, they sing, Revelation 5, 9, they sing a new song, saying, thou was slain, verse 9 in the middle, and you purchased us for God with your blood from every tribe and tongue.

How is that a new song? I say, that's a song I've not sung for 50 years. It's not a new song. How is it they're singing it as a new song in heaven? Jesus died for my sins. Is that a new song for you? It says they sang a new song.

You purchased us for God with your blood. You know, that's how it is in heaven. That's what I got from that verse. But when I sing about Christ's death for me in heaven, it's going to be as if I heard it for the very first time.

Boy, I never knew He died for me. It's going to be so fresh in heaven every single time I sing it. And I say, Lord, Spirit of God, You've come on earth to bring heaven down to my soul and to make the things of heaven real to me.

And one of the areas where I want heaven to be more real to me is that the death of Jesus is never a familiar thing for me. I want to be struck with the wonder of it every time I sing it, that He loved a sinner like me, that it was amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.

Yeah, and if you are really sincere about it, if you're seeking God earnestly with all your heart, that the atmosphere of heaven should pervade your life even now on earth and that you begin your heaven now.

I believe that's the real gospel, that we can have two heavens. One is right now and the other is the physical heaven which you go to later. But that we can have that spirit now. I can say honestly, I've begun to taste a little bit of it.

And it's wonderful. It's the whole purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit of God brings the atmosphere of heaven right down into your life. And it's not that you never make mistakes.

We are human and we have a flesh and we will not do everything perfectly. We will make mistakes to the end of our life on this earth. But it won't be deliberate evil. That's the thing. We make mistakes because we are human.

That's not the same as you know, doing something evil, like deliberately not forgiving somebody or saying a hurting word to your husband or wife deliberately you plan to poke him or her with a word. That's evil.

Accidentally we may say things and hurt people without even knowing it sometimes. It doesn't mean they will not hurt us. But the atmosphere of heaven is one where the reality of Christ's death is always fresh.

It's a new song always. He died for me. His blood cleansed me. And I am so thankful for it. And I learned to hate sin. So that freshness and then coming back to Luke chapter 11 it says if your whole body is full of light with no dark part in it it shall be wholly illumined as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.

You know like when a light is shining on a person's face something like that that's why I'm speaking here about the lamp illumining you. This is a phrase that's gripped me with no dark part in it. Do you want that light?

I want it with all my heart. No dark part in it. It means I never want to be discouraged or gloomy any time of the day. I never want to be in a bad mood at any time. If somebody wakes me up at 2 .30 in the morning I want to be in a good mood.

Never. That happens sometimes. I get a phone call from some other country where they don't know the time difference between India and that country and it's 2 .30 in the morning and I say, oh brother, I got to talk to you and he doesn't realize it's 2 .30 in the morning and I've just woken up from my sleep.

And I say, I don't want to be in a bad mood. And that guy's sincere. He wants to grieve me. Forget about the fact that he's not so scientifically minded to know that there's a time difference between India and that country.

Self-Centeredness as the Dark Part

It's okay. Little things, you know, if you look at your life you'll find there are little things that bother you. How can that guy be so inconsiderate? Does that one bother you more than the fact that you can have a few minutes of fellowship with a brother?

I tell you, when we think we are so spiritual because we have so much Bible knowledge, we're just fooling ourselves. Spirituality is being considerate. Jesus was considerate about everything. Always. He wasn't centered in himself.

There was no dark part in him. You know what's the dark part in us? Self-centeredness. Where I'm the center of my life and everything's going to revolve around me. People have always got to be considerate towards me and they've got to treat me properly and with respect and etc, etc, etc.

That's darkness. And Jesus came to deliver us from it. And that's why he said, take up the cross every day. That means put that self which is at the center of the life of Adam to death. You're not the most important person in the universe.

You got to die. And you really be happy. It's the way to life. It's the way that Jesus came and taught. No dark part in it. And you know, I connect that with, it's amazing. Luke 11, 36. No dark part in it.

I want to encourage you brothers. If you've never thought of it before, please think of it today. And say, Lord, I want such a life. I'll tell you something. You'll never get anything from God unless you desire it desperately.

You'll get filled with the spirit when you're desperately desiring more than anything else in the world. When you believe that God is more eager to give that to you than you are to receive it. That's the definition of faith that I came to from Jesus' statement that if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children.

Luke 11, 13. How much more will the Holy God give the Holy, the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. That how much more that expression showed me what faith was. Faith was to believe that my Father in Heaven is more eager to fill me with the Holy Spirit than I'm eager to be filled.

The trouble with a lot of Christians is, they think I'm so eager. God doesn't seem to be so eager to fill me with the Spirit. That is the definition of unbelief. If you want a definition of unbelief by which you'll get nothing from the Lord, here it is.

For you to be so conceited, yes, it is conceit to think, I'm more eager to get God's blessing than God is to bless me. You'll never get anything from the Lord. That's unbelief. Jesus could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

But faith is, God is more eager to bless me than I am to be blessed. My desire to be blessed is so small compared to God's desire to bless me and the proof of that is Calvary. He was more eager to deliver me from my sin than I was.

Think of the number of years we wandered around in sin without any desire to be free from it. How is it that one day God laid hold of us? Because He was desperate. He went after you when you had no interest in Him.

Do you believe at least from there that He's more eager to get you than you are to get Him? I often think of my marriage being converted is like getting married to Jesus Christ. I gave my life to Christ when I was nineteen and a half and the way I picture it is a wedding.

And the bride is late and the bridegroom Jesus is waiting. You know how long he waited at the wedding altar? Nineteen and a half years. Which bridegroom.

Will keep waiting like that for a bride to come? That's how long he waited and I am so stupid to think that I am more eager to be united with Him than He is to be united with me. I got to be crazy and I was crazy for so long and those are the years I never got God's best.

I thought I was very eager to get victory over sin and He was not. That is unbelief. Maybe you discovered today why you never got so many things from God. Because of pride. A pride that makes you feel you are so eager to get something from God but God is not so eager to give it to you.

If you live like that, like in prophesying your entire life you will never experience God's blessing. You can pray and pray for fifty years you won't get it. Because it's not by how much you pray or how much you desire, it's by how much you believe.

So please get this one little definition of faith right. How much more your Heavenly Father will do for you than you do for your children. In other words, your father is more eager you tell me you mothers especially are you more eager to feed your little two-year-old who is not interested in food?

Or is your two-year-old very eager to come and eat the food? Anyone who has got a two-year-old knows two-year-olds are just not interested in food. They are playing the whole day. It's the mother who is going to chase after them and feed them.

I know how many hours my wife used to take to feed the children just one meal. They are not interested. That's how I must see God is interested in doing good to me. That's faith. How much more your Heavenly Father how much more God will do than your father and mother.

So there I got my definition of faith. That God is more eager to fulfill all the promises of scripture in my life than I am eager to receive it. Every single promise, whether it's being filled with the Spirit, whether it's having victory over sin, name it.

To make me triumphant in all situations. God is more eager than I am. And when I began to believe that, I began to experience it. Having no doubt. Unbelief is the darkest sin of all. I don't know whether you realize it.

Unbelief as the Root of Sin

Let me show you two verses. First of all, John 16. John 16 it says, when the Holy Spirit has come he is going to convict the world of sin. If I were to ask you to make a list of the three most terrible sins that you could commit.

Make a list in your mind right now of the three most terrible sins that you could commit. If I were to ask an unbeliever who knows nothing about Christ, who doesn't care for Christ, a non-Christian. Will you make a list of the three most terrible sins that you can commit?

I'm pretty certain that your list will be the same as his. Most Christians will have the same list. What are the three most terrible sins you can commit? Murder, adultery, stealing, something like that.

But when the Bible speaks about sin, it speaks about unbelief. Hardly any Christian puts that as number one. You got to have revelation from God to put that as number one. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.

It says that in John 16 and verse 8. When he comes he will convict the world concerning sin. And that sin is, verse 9, they don't believe in me. You see that as the greatest sin? Unbelief. Turn with me to Hebrews in chapter 3.

Hebrews 3 and verse 12. Take care, brethren. Who are these brethren? Verse 1. Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling whose high priest is Jesus. Brethren, verse 12. Please take care that in your heart you might have an evil heart of unbelief.

An evil heart of unbelief. Have you ever thought that that's what makes your heart evil? Unbelief. And that that can lead you to fall away from the living God. It's a lack of faith that makes us fall away from the living God.

We miss God's blessings because we think we are eager, but God is not. We love our children when they are sick and pray for them. God doesn't seem to love them so much. He doesn't seem to heal them as soon as we want it.

Yeah, well, no wonder we get so little from God. I've decided to change my way of thinking to the way Jesus taught. How much more your Heavenly Father will do to believe. I don't want to glory in the number of gadgets I have.

True Spirituality Beyond Doctrinal Labels

I want to have electricity working those gadgets. I don't want to glory that my doctrines are better than the doctrines of other churches. You know, I tell you honestly, when I compare all the different churches, I find most of them, the only difference is doctrine.

Somebody believes water baptism. Some believe child baptism. Somebody believes in baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some people don't believe in that. Some people believe in a New Testament pattern of meeting.

Some people don't believe in that. But when it comes to unbelief, they're all God full of unbelief. They're all anxious. They're all worried. They all love money, whatever doctrine they believe. Those things don't seem to change.

It's like there was a French atheist in the 18th century called Voltaire. And those are the days when the Protestant Reformation had come up and there were many, many churches other than the Roman Catholic Church.

There were the Lutherans and the Anglicans and Anabaptists and different, different churches. There were many churches. And Voltaire was an absolute atheist. And he examined all these churches closely and all the people in all these churches.

And he said, they've all got different doctrines but when it comes to money, they've got the same religion. They all love it. This is the testimony of an atheist who didn't have a prejudice. He just looked at everybody impartially and he said, when it comes to money, they've all got the same religion.

They just talk about this baptism and that baptism and this thing and that thing and this and the other. And the real important thing is they really seek their own. They seek their own. An evil heart of unbelief.

No part dark. There's no unbelief. That's my goal. I don't want to have any area in my life dark. I don't want to read any promise in scripture in the New Testament and think that it won't work in my life.

Every promise in the New Testament, I want to believe that it will work in my life. I want to believe that God is more eager in fulfilling that in my life than I am eager. Jesus said, I'm going to build a church against which the gates of hell will never prevail.

I say, Lord, I want to cooperate with you. In any locality where you and I build a church, I'm going to make sure the devil will never overcome that church. Impossible. I tell you, God requires only one man.

God Uses Wholehearted People

In your town, he requires one man. He can't do without at least one. In the days of Noah, he found one man. And if it were not for that one man, the whole world would have been wiped out and none of us would be sitting here.

Do you know that? Do you know that we are all children of Noah? Not just children of Adam. It's one of the people, when I go to heaven, I want to go and shake hands with Noah and say, boy, brother, thank you for being faithful.

It's because of you I'm in heaven today. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have been born. Because you, one man, you are faithful to God. Therefore, God didn't wipe out the whole human race. He kept one family alive.

And I see that throughout scripture. One man. Think if you remove Paul out of Christianity, how much of the New Testament would he have left? It's one man that God very often lays a hold on who's radical, wholehearted and determined to believe that when God says something, it's true.

I want to say to you, my brother, sister, you can be that one woman, one man. I think of how God looked around for a mother, for Jesus. He couldn't just pick on any Jewish girl. It had to be a really godly girl.

Even though God sovereignly determined the time when Jesus was to be born on the earth. I feel there was a human factor in it also. It's never entirely God. Everything is God plus man. And I think the timing was dependent on God finding a girl who would be wholehearted and holy.

When he looked into time all through Jewish history and he finally found a girl, he's worthy. That's the time I'm going to send my son. Because it had to be a girl, and remember Mary was probably about 19 years old when Jesus was born.

She wasn't an old 60 year old saint. She was around 19 years old. Can a 19 year old girl be godly enough to be the mother.

Of the son of God? Imagine.

Don't let the devil fool you that you've got to be 50 years old before you become spiritual or that you've got to be a man. You can be a woman. You can be a young girl, 19 years old. Ask yourself, you sisters, if you were living in Nazareth, in Israel, in the first century, would God have chosen you?

Would he have chosen you when you were 19 years old to be the mother of Jesus? He didn't just pick on anybody. It had to be a girl. When they finally arrive in Bethlehem, there's no place for them to stay.

And they end up in a cow shed. Does not yell at her husband, say, I told you we should have started it two days earlier. Because you didn't start when I told you to start. We landed up here. You had all these relatives here.

Couldn't you have asked one of them to arrange a room for me here to give birth in a cow shed? Can you imagine the son of God being born to a complaining woman like that? No. Most girls would have been like that.

God said, I can't choose a girl like that. I can't choose a girl who's always complaining at her husband for something as if she's so perfect and he's the one who's imperfect and everything. No, he had to choose someone who would say, that's fine.

Who would give thanks and say, okay, if I have to deliver in a cow shed, I'll deliver in a cow shed. And if we are so poor that we've got to just keep our little baby in the trough where the animals eat, okay, I'll feed them.

That's the type of girl God was looking for. And it took him many hundreds of years before he found her. And I believe that's one reason why Jesus took so long to come. It's my theory anyway. But I believe it's true when it comes to building the church.

Samuel and the Search for a Listening Servant

It says in the book of Samuel, 1 Samuel, chapter 3, that in those days 1 Samuel 3, verse 1, word from the Lord was very rare. Why was that? Is it because God did not want to speak to men? God's always wanted to speak to men.

Right from the beginning. First chapter of the Bible says what? God said, God said, God said, God said, God said, God said everyday. That's the first chapter of the Bible for all the people who think that God doesn't speak.

He speaks everyday. You may not hear it, but that's another thing. And here it says word from the Lord was very rare. Visions were infrequent. Because God couldn't find a man who would have the patience to listen to him.

God couldn't find a man who was free from seeking the honor of men. God couldn't find a man who would be interested only to please him. Then he found Samuel. And when he found Samuel, how delighted God was.

God could speak so many things to him which he couldn't speak to the old priests and all in those days. He found a little boy who was willing to listen to him and he made him a prophet. And so one man who restored Israel and prepared the way for David to establish his kingdom.

One man, Samuel. It's been like that throughout history. God's always looking for one man, one woman. And I want to say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, in your town God's looking for one person who would be totally committed, who does not care for the honor of men.

Who's not seeking a single thing for himself. No dark part. Zero. I'm not seeking my own in anything. I want only Jesus Christ to be glorified. I want his purpose to be fulfilled on earth. And I'm willing to pay any price for it.

Like Tozer said, Lord, send me the bill. I'll pay it. Whatever it is. I want to be the man you want me to be. Compare that phrase, no dark part in it with 1 John and chapter 1. Listen to this phrase. The phrase I just quoted.