The Church Is the Light — Zac Poonen

The Church as the Light of the World

We were thinking about the light of the world today, and when Jesus said, you are the light of the world, it's not just individually, but as a church. When you turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 1, you see the church is pictured as a lampstand.

John saw seven lampstands. Revelation 1 .12, he saw seven golden lampstands. In the middle of the lampstands, I saw the seven men. It was not in one believer. It was in the middle of the churches that Jesus was there.

What I see in Christendom today is a lot of emphasis on individual Christianity. You must be a good example for Christ, which is very important. We must be holy. There are a lot of churches preaching holiness.

We must shine as the light of the world, and we must reach out to the lost, etc. But I have seen very little emphasis on building the church. The early apostles, they never thought of saving souls. Try and find that expression, saving souls, in the New Testament.

You'll never find it. It's a modern expression, like a hundred modern expressions in Christianity, which are never found in the New Testament. And when we drift away from the New Testament, we're going to miss God's perfect will.

So, Jesus never came to save souls, let me tell you that. He came to call the righteous, to the sinners, to repentance. But he said, I've come to build the church. And he sent his disciples out, to make disciples, to build the church.

And that's what, you read the Acts of the Apostles, you'll never find any apostle. Try and read through the Acts of the Apostles and see if any apostle went out to win souls. Everywhere they went, if they gathered people and brought them to Christ, they planted a church.

You'll never find a single place where the apostles went and brought souls and said, okay, goodbye, find some place, they planted a church. So, if you went to Paul and asked him, where are these people you brought to Christ?

He'd show you, they're here, here in this church. And that's what you don't find today, unfortunately. Where Jesus was found in the midst of the lampstand and he said, in verse 20, the seven lampstands are the seven churches, in Revelation 1 .20.

So, it is the church that is the lampstand, not just an individual Christian. The individual Christian is a part of the lampstand. The first dwelling place of God in the Bible is the burning bush, a church which is on fire.

Every twig and every bush is on fire. A bush that's on fire is that, if you've got bugs and worms living in your church, you know, you need to set it on fire and it'll be okay. And the second one is the tabernacle, which is also the dwelling place of God and it's also a picture, not only of the individual Christian, but of the church.

That God dwells in the midst of the church and he dwelt in a pillar of fire on top of the most holy place. That was the mark of God's presence. If you read this in chapter 25 onwards, the details of the tabernacle are given so exactly that you can make one like that today.

The Philistines could have made one in their time. It's very easy because all the dimensions are there, the material is all mentioned. But there was one thing they would not be able to duplicate and that was the pillar of fire.

You couldn't duplicate that. That had to come from heaven. I find a lot of Christians around the world trying to make a New Testament church. I spoke about the New Testament pattern. The New Testament pattern was just like the parts of the tabernacle.

You must have elders and not pastors. You must have freedom for everybody to share. And I sat in all these meetings that called themselves New Testament pattern and it was the deadest and most boring of meetings I ever went to.

But it was supposed to be New Testament pattern. And as I studied the scriptures, I discovered the important thing about the tabernacle was that God was there. When the glory of God departed from the tabernacle, the tabernacle was still there according to the pattern.

The temple of Solomon was built according to a pattern. But the glory of God came there. But when that departed, the pattern still remained. That's the condition of many churches. And they glory in the pattern and not in the presence of the Lord.

So through the years I came to see that the one mark of the New Testament church is this light, is the fire of God in the midst of that church. And when the church has lost its fire, lost that burning light, it's no longer a New Testament church.

Even if it's following exactly the New Testament pattern. It's like the tabernacle with the glory gone away. But if you go and look at the tabernacle, the material is the same, the dimensions are the same, the pattern is the same, the glory is missing.

This is exactly the condition of many a church. In 1 Corinthians chapter 14, we read about a New Testament church meeting where it says that somebody comes in and it speaks about the gift of prophecy being exercised in that church, and an ungifted man enters.

I think that refers to a believer who doesn't believe in the gifts of the Spirit. He comes in there. God speaks to his heart. And he falls on his face, verse 25, and says, God is certainly in the midst of you.

And through the years as I have studied the New Testament, I've seen that is the mark of a New Testament church. That you come to a meeting, and when you go away you say, I went to Jesus. He spoke to me.

Not the singing was good, or the message was good, but Jesus was there. I want to say to all of you who belong to different churches, people who come to your meetings, or the singing was good, or we had good fellowship, show me something in my heart.

Most church meetings I went to in my earlier days were the most boring things I'd ever attended. But you dare not say that because it's all an insult. You know, you insult people when you say, well, young people are turned away from our churches.

I'm not willing to pay the price to form a New Testament church. I tell you, really, you have to pay a price. I've thought of interesting television programs. I don't mean these dirty, filthy programs.

I mean interesting scientific programs like things about the planets, or things about animals. There are so many interesting programs that people make on TV. And there are children who sit and watch that for one hour, or one and a half hours.

And you can't pull them away from it. It's so gripping and interesting. And I've asked myself, who gave that TV producer that intelligence and ability to make a program so interesting that people sit and watch it and they're not bored?

You know who gave that TV producer that ability? My Heavenly Father. And you think my Heavenly Father won't give me the ability to get people gripped in a church? How can that be? You mean He'd give that guy the ability to make a TV program that's interesting and not give us the ability to make a church program that's interesting?

I'm not talking about TV, but there's nothing more wonderful than having the presence of Jesus in a church. That's what we must long for. If you didn't meet Jesus in a church meeting, you'd go away disappointed.

The music may have been good, so many other things may have been good, but I didn't meet with the Lord. That means the light was not there. The pattern was there, but the light was not there. So when Jesus sent you the light of the world, He's talking about that fire.

The only type of light they had in those days was not these electric bulbs, it was fire. And the only way they could produce light for thousands of years, anywhere from caveman's days right up to Jesus' time, was by fire.

And for fire they needed fuel or oil most of the time in the land. It's a picture of the fire of God that comes through the Holy Spirit. So that's the most important thing that should characterize the church.

And we should never be satisfied with the tabernacle where the glory is missing. But a lot of Israelites were happy, the temple is here, but the glory was not there. Are we happy with the church where the glory is missing?

David, Solomon, and the Pattern for Building God's House

I want to show you something from the Old Testament, an example. You know, everything in the Old Testament was a pattern, which was fulfilled in the New Testament. You turn with me to 2nd Chronicles, where David gave him this.

When Moses built the tabernacle, God gave it to Moses and Moses told people how to build it. But when Solomon built the temple, God did not give him the pattern. God gave the pattern, do you know to whom?

To David. In 1 Chronicles, in Chapter 28, Chronicles in Chapter 28. You know, King David had got people together and he got Solomon and told him, you know, God's chosen my son, verse 10, 2nd Chronicles 28, 10.

The Lord has chosen you, Solomon, to build a house for the sanctuary. And then David gave to his son Solomon the plan, verse 11. He did not get it directly from God, he got it from his father. David gave Solomon the plan of the porch, of the buildings, of the storehouses and the mercy seat.

I was very interested to see further down that he even gave the plan for the utensils in verse 14. You know, Solomon was the wisest man on earth. Imagine somebody else telling him what type of spoons to have and the lesson you have to learn there, which I learned.

That Solomon may have been the cleverest man in his mind, but David was a man after God's own heart. And you don't build a church with wisdom, but by being a man after God's own heart. The cleverest man in the world could not build the temple, he did not know the plan.

The plan had to be given to him by a man after God's own heart. The tragedy today is a lot of clever people are trying to build a church. It's like Solomon, you need a man after God's own heart, who is in fellowship with God's heart, who can give the plan that will bring the glory of God.

So having said that, let's turn to 2nd Chronicles 3, verse 1. David also told Solomon where to build the temple, not just the plan and the pattern and everything else. 2nd Chronicles 3, verse 1, it says there's an exact spot where the temple was to be built.

And when you apply this to building the New Testament church, as I said first of all, it's not by cleverness, that would be Solomon, but by a heart in fellowship with God, that's David, that the church is built.

You don't have to be clever, Peter was not the cleverest guy in Israel. He built the church because his heart was right. The clever people missed out on God's plan. So that's very important, don't ever think that your cleverness and your understanding of the Bible, your intellectual knowledge of the Bible and of the pattern will help you to build the church.

I've seen a lot of people who can preach great sermons, but I ask them, have you built a church anywhere? Have you planted a church? No, we just go around preaching sermons, clever sermons on this part of the Bible.

It's easy to preach sermons, you just need to have a clever mind. You can study the Bible like you study chemistry. Get a PhD in chemistry or a PhD in the Bible, all you need is a clever mind. And you can be a wonderful teacher of chemistry or a wonderful teacher of mathematics or a wonderful teacher of the Bible, you just need a good mind.

But to build the church, according to the heavenly plan, there you have to be in fellowship with God's heart. If you are not in fellowship with God's heart, you will not be able to build a church. No matter how clever you are, you will not be able to build a church where the fire of God is there.

You build something which crumbles one day and gets destroyed. There are lots of that in the world today, I never want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of something that remains, built with gold, silver and precious stones that remains for all eternity.

Not just something with a good hand straw that gets burnt up when Christ comes again. A lot of Christian churches are going to be burnt up in the final days, because they were built with human cleverness and wisdom, not by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As I have observed Christianity, in the olden days, in the days of the apostles, they depended on the Holy Spirit completely to build the church. Today, the fire of the Holy Spirit has been replaced by money, music and psychology.

Money, Music, and Psychology Cannot Build the Church

I have observed it all over the world, whether it's in America or India. They try to build a church with music, to draw people with music, attract people with our music. The young people will come. What do they come for?

Do they come to walk in Jesus' footsteps? No. They come because they like the singing. It's one of the things I prayed in Bangalore. I said, Lord, I don't want to draw a single person to our church with our music.

I couldn't care less if our music is not good. We have brothers in our church who can't sing two notes properly, but they make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That's not a great problem. That's scripture, by the way.

It says in scripture, we must make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I'm quoting scripture. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. They certainly do, because it's the heart that God sees, not your musical infinity.

It's very, very important. Then there are others who say, the most important thing required for God's work is money. We can't do God's work without money. Where do you see that in the Acts of the Apostles?

The only place where money is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles is when they had to give to the poor. That's all. You never find a Christian worker saying, I'm not getting enough money, I can't serve the Lord now.

Or we're not getting enough money to send missionaries. Never. Or we're not getting enough money to build a church. This is all modern 20th century deception. They wanted the Holy Spirit. When they wanted to do something, they sought God in prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today, people send circular letters to get money. That's the difference. Money has replaced the Holy Spirit. No wonder we have a third-rate, good-for-nothing Christianity in many parts of the world.

I think of my own country, 99 non-Christian, if you include the Roman Catholics as well. 99%. Why is it this 99 has rejected Christ? I say, they have not rejected Christ. The Hindus have not rejected Christ.

They have rejected the Christ that they have seen among Christians. And I tell the Hindu, I want you to know, I've also rejected that Christ, which you have rejected. Because the Christ that is portrayed by Christians is not the true Christ.

How can a money-loving Christian portray the true Christ? How can a Christian who shouts at his wife or shouts at her husband portray the true Christ? That's not Christ at all. That is a copy of it or a caricature of the real Christ.

And I say, I reject that Christ. How can a church that majors on music portray the real Christ? Jesus Christ didn't come to make musicians. He came to make disciples. So, where music or money become the major thing, we say, this is so important, it's almost as though God's work is suffering because there's not enough money.

We need money everywhere. India is full of people who are always thinking we need more money from some other country to build. That's why when we decided to do our work, we said, we're going to go different from everybody else.

And we decided that not a single one of our elders would ever be paid. If you want to be an elder in our church, you better trust the Lord for your own needs or do some secular work like the Apostle Paul, make tents or something.

But we're not going to pay you. That has eliminated all the mercenaries from our church. Because India is full of mercenary Christians. And the other thing we decided, we'd never send a report of our work anywhere because most reports are just begging for money.

We don't have to advertise our work. It's enough if God sees it. A lot of letters that say, pray for this, is actually, give us money. It's surreal. You read between the lines, it says, give me money.

So, we decided we wouldn't do that. And the other thing we decided is, Jesus said, you must give secretly and you must give cheerfully, very clear. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand does.

And I began to think, how can you put an offering bag in front of somebody and his left hand not know what his right hand is doing? Everybody around him knows he's putting something in the bag. We decided we'd never pass a bag around.

Or a plate. A plate is even cleverer because everybody knows how much you're putting in there. So, we won't do any of this. We'll just give a box of a bag. Those who want to give, give. Those who don't want to give, don't give.

And if you can't give cheerfully, don't give at all. And we had rules put on top of the offering box saying, if you've got a grudge against your brother or sister, don't put money in here. Because Jesus said, first, second, and then third.

In other words, somebody wants to put a hundred rupees into that box and he sees this and says, no, I'd better not put money in because there's something wrong between me and my brother. Praise the Lord.

I say, God doesn't want your money. It's very, very important. We decided to do that. I think we're the only church in India that doesn't. No offerings. No paid workers. No reports of our work. And we have never lacked.

We build a building, no bank mortgage. When we have the money, we build. Because the Bible says, gold, no bank, anything. We decided to follow it. Where Christendom has drifted away from the main path, we follow the principle.

He's not going to come there when you don't go according to his word. So, it's a costly thing to build a church. Psychology, that's the third thing. Money, music and psychology. A lot of preaching today is psychological manipulation of people.

You know, people want, teachers that people want security. So, let's give a message that people will feel secure. And they want a sense of importance. So, let's make them feel, give them a sense of value.

And you're very precious in God's eyes. And even if you sin, it doesn't matter. These are the type of things that psychology teaches people that give them a sense of accomplishment. All these techniques, which the apostles never learned, they had the power of the Holy Spirit.

They didn't care about all this psychology to try and influence people. And of course, the greatest tricks in psychology is how to get the fellow to take out his wallet and put some money in the offer.

You know, all the psychological techniques to get people to give money. This is what's happened in Christendom today. The sad thing is, there's hardly anybody who raises a voice against it. There's hardly anybody who knows the Bible to compare all this to the Bible and say, is this the way how they built the church in the New Testament?

And there are people, and I say, I don't blame the preachers. I blame all the people who sit there and support these preachers by their presence and their money. I say, when you support somebody who's doing something against God's word, you're equally guilty.

If you finance a murderer, even if you don't do the murder yourself, you're guilty of the murder. If you finance a thief, you're guilty of stealing. And if you finance a crooked pastor, who is promoting money, music and psychology, you're guilty before God.

Don't say, I didn't do it. You financed a guy who was doing it. This is the trouble in Christendom. There's hardly anybody who speaks against it. So let's see. Solomon began to build the house of the Lord, 2 Chronicles 3, in a particular place.

The Cost of Sacrifice in Building God's House

And it's good to see which that place was. It says it's Mount Moriah. You know, Mount Moriah is the place where Abraham offered up his son. Many years earlier, I mean, Abraham offered up his son more than a thousand years before this temple was built.

The temple was built around 1000 B .C. and Abraham lived in 2000 B .C. But when Abraham offered up his son, God marked that spot. That's where my temple is going to be built. And on Mount Moriah, a particular spot, which is described here, as where the Lord appeared to David in the threshing floor of Ornon the Jebusite.

Now that's a very interesting story there. To know that, you've got to turn back to 2 Samuel 24. What happened in the threshing floor of Ornon the Jebusite, which is not as well known among believers as Abraham offering up Isaac on Mount Moriah.

If you're not familiar with it, let me teach you a little bit of Bible history. 2 Samuel 24. This is a time when David had sinned. The sin of Bathsheba, that's another time. This was a sin where he depended on human ability.

You know, when I talk about money, music and psychology, it is human ability. All these three are human ability. Money, music, psychology. Human ability. So David's sin was, seeing the number of people, he told Joab, go and count, verse 2, the number of my people.

And Joab had some sense. He knew that this is wrong. Why do you want to take a census of the people to see how strong you are and how big your nation is and how strong your army is? Joab said to King, please, may the Lord add to the people even a hundred times as you have.

But why does my Lord, verse 3, want to do this, King? It's wrong. Because it's an indication that you're depending on the strength of man and not the strength of God. The same instance in 1 Chronicles.

There it is mentioned like this. 1 Chronicles 21, verse 1. Satan. 1 Chronicles 21, verse 1. It's one of the only places in the Bible, other than the book of Joab, in the Old Testament, where Satan is mentioned.

Look up a concordant. You find Satan mentioned in the book of Joab. But other than that, you never find the word Satan in the Old Testament at all. He was a hidden figure behind the scenes. But here it's mentioned specifically.

Satan moved to number Israel. There you see how serious it was. It was a confidence in my own ability. That was a sin in God's eyes. In God's eyes, that was a worse sin than committing adultery. See, sometimes we don't have the opinion of sin that God has.

Most Christians, when you ask them, what is David's greatest sin? They say it was committing sin with Bathsheba. But it doesn't say that Satan incited David to sin with Bathsheba. It does say that Satan incited David to number Israel.

Okay. So what happened? When he did that, God was so angry. It says in verse 15, God sent a pestilence. Sorry, we're back to 2 Samuel 24. 2 Samuel 24, verse 15. The Lord sent such a plague for three days.

70 ,000 people died when David committed Bathsheba. When David sinned with Bathsheba, God didn't kill even one person. But when he numbered Israel, he killed 70 ,000 people. You see, you're trying to number people to see if you're strong enough or almighty king you are.

Okay, I'll knock out 70 ,000 of them. How much does the census count people now? And it says here, verse 16, the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it. These are pretty serious. Then you would think, why in the world is God so numbering people?

That's because we don't know God's ways. God's ways are not our ways. And if you don't know God, you won't understand why he judges something severely. Then it says, the Lord relented and said, it is enough.

And David began to weep. And he says to the angel, verse 79, there were 70 ,000 widows in Israel that day. Then the prophet came to David and said, okay, there's a way you can set it all right. On the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, verse 18, 2 Samuel 24, 18.

This is what we read in 2 Chronicles 3, where the church is built, the temple. There's something interesting here. So David went, repenting of his sins, and he went to Araunah. Araunah said, oh Lord, you don't have to buy it for me.

Please take the ground. Take my oxen for sacrifice. Take the yoke for the wood they have sent. Now you know how human nature is. We love to get anything free, right? Even if we don't need it, we grab it.

I'll tell you that. You put some things out on a table and say, this is free. You'll find yourself grabbing a lot of things, which you may never look at again. But if they cost one dollar, you won't take it.

We love to take things free. If I take it free from you and I give it to God, it will cost me nothing. Look at these wonderful words. 2 Samuel 24, 24. One of the most beautiful words or verses in the Old Testament.

Just think of that expression. I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing. That's what Abraham said in the same spot. It was Mount Moriah, remember? When God asked him to offer up Isaac, he would have offered up 10 ,000 sheep.

He would have offered any number of sheep and oxen and goats. Lord, not Isaac. God said, no Isaac. You've got to give up that which is most precious in your life. Abraham said, yes. He went up to Mount Moriah and said, I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing.

He gave his very best and God marked that spot. And on Mount Moriah is where David also said, a thousand years later, that which costs me nothing. And when two of God's greatest servants in the Old Testament, Abraham and David, had that attitude of sacrifice, of giving up to God that which is the most precious thing.

I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing. The Lord said, that's the place where I'm going to build my house. Now I want to say my brothers and sisters, that's the place where he builds his house even today.

In the place where he can find those among his children who are really serious about building the church, not just saving souls, but building the church. Who will have this attitude, I will never offer to God that which costs me nothing.

Most Christians that I have met, serve God when it's convenient. When it's not convenient, they say, well it's not convenient to do that. But there are a few rare gems among God's people, whose attitude is, I will never offer to my God that which costs me nothing.

If they preach a sermon, there's a lot of sacrifice behind that sermon. Not just intellectual study. There's a lot of sacrifice behind all of their ministry. And they don't talk about it. Like Jesus said, you shouldn't let anybody know about your sacrifices.

But it is only such people that God can use even today, to build his church. Preaching sermons, anybody can do. But building, saving souls, even that's easy. But when it comes to building the house of God, it's got to be in this spot, that which costs me nothing, the spirit of sacrifice.

Evangelism Versus Building a Committed Church

See, saving souls is like cutting the stones from the quarry, the mountainside, and bringing it to the building site. That's saving souls. But building it into a house is very different. In India, our houses are not built with wood, because we have too many termites.

That's why we don't have houses catching fire in India. Because they're not made of wood. They're made of bricks. And so the way a house is trucked, we'll come and offload 10 ,000 bricks or 20 ,000 bricks.

And they'll be piled up on the road. And then with those bricks, a house is built. Nobody can live in that. But it's built into a house. To drop 20 ,000 bricks there is easy. That's evangelism. Bringing individual bricks.

But to build them up is quite another thing. To put one brick on top of another to make sure the plumb line is straight, cement them together and make it into a house. That is the difference between evangelism and church building.

It's very easy just to bring the pile of stones and drop it there. A lot of people say, somebody came and stole members from our church. Bricks can be stolen on the roadside. If you keep a pile of bricks on the roadside in India, over a period of a few weeks, the number will become less and less and less.

And after a few months, there will be nothing left. Somebody else is building his house. So, it actually happens. Believe it or not. So, when a pastor says, somebody stole a member from my church, I say, it must have been a pile of bricks and not a house.

Can you imagine a house being built and somebody coming and digging out one brick from that. It doesn't happen. People pick up the pile of loose bricks. All these so-called mega churches with 30 ,000 people and all that, those are just pile of bricks.

They are not related to one another. They don't even know the guy sitting next to them. Maybe a small house, but one brick is on top of another, on the side of another, underneath another. Of course, you lose a bit of your independence when you get built, right?

Like that. If you have a pile of loose bricks, you can get up and walk off wherever you like and come back whenever you like. But when you are built with some brother on top of you and someone underneath you, someone this side and that side, your independence goes.

You may lose your independence, but you are safe. No devil can come and steal you from there. That's what I spent the first nine years, a few years after I was born again, doing evangelism. Bringing people to Christ, pile of bricks, most of them disappeared.

For the last 38 years, I want to build the house of God. I'm willing to pay any price for it. I've had such a tremendous house of God built in different places. Educated or uneducated, it doesn't make a difference.

It's the heart that matters. It's not the Solomon's, it's the David's, with whom, who understand the pattern of God's house. I have never once had to say, somebody stole a brick from my house. Not once.

Somebody stole a member of mine. How can that be? If somebody stole a member of mine, that's the one I didn't build into the house. I left it lying on the roadside. We don't do that. We have visitors coming to our church, but those are the ones who don't want to be built.

And the other ones will drift away as well after a while. And look at a lot of Christians today. They are never committed to a church. Many, many Christians, they like to attend the church and listen to good sermons.

But nowadays it's much easier. You don't even have to go to a church. You just turn on the internet and you can listen to good sermons. And people think they are becoming spiritual just by listening to good sermons.

It's not true. Are you a part of a church? Jesus said, I will build my church. And that's not a denomination. It's a group of people brought together by the Holy Spirit and built. And that is the light of the world today.

Not an individual. And if you are not a part of that, you are like a visitor. Wherever you are. There is no commitment to be built together with others. With others who have that same spirit which says, I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing.

You cannot build a church with people who serve God when it's convenient. Or who got their personal preferences when it comes to serving the Lord. It has to be in God's way. It has to be with a willingness to sacrifice.

Christ's Self-Giving Love and the Unity of the Church

Let me show you Ephesians 5. The verse I always share with my fellow elders in India. As to how to build a church. Ephesians 5 and verse 25. It's referring to husbands and wives. But I'm thinking of the latter part of that verse.

The second half of Ephesians 5 .25 says, Christ loved the church. He didn't give money. He didn't give servants. He gave himself for it. You can't build a church by giving money or giving servants. That's easy.

It costs you nothing. To build a church, you have to give yourself. This self-life. That's the thing we are most reluctant to give. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And I tell my fellow elders in India.

You want to build a church, you got to give yourself. Not your money, not your time, not your servants, not your intellect. But yourself. If you are willing to give yourself, like Christ gave, you can build a church.

Otherwise you will build an organization. You will build a human setup. Which looks like the tabernacle of the fire of God. So if you want to build a church where Christ is present. And where people have a sense of belonging and a family.