When God Is Everything — Zac Poonen

When God Is Everything — Zac Poonen

This morning we were thinking about the humility of Jesus Christ and after the meeting Herman reminded me of a message I had given at the end of December for the New Year in my church. Do you have this?

I'd asked him to print out something. Humility is not just having low thoughts about ourselves, it's recognizing how is Jesus' humility. His humility was found in the fact that he never did his own will all his life.

We read in John chapter 6, let me read this to you in John chapter 6 and verse 38. This by the way is the one sentence biography of Jesus Christ. Autobiography, that means he's telling us how he lived for 33 and a half years on earth.

In one sentence, if you were to describe it, it's here, I came from him in all his life, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So there's his humility. Our pride is seen. We want to do.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, it was a manifestation of their pride. I know better than God what's good for me. God says I shouldn't touch, you shouldn't eat from this tree, but I think I know better.

And when we think we know better, we're actually listening to the devil. That's what we learn in the first sin. Humility is to acknowledge that God knows what's best for me, and when he tells me to do something, and I want to do something else, humility is to put aside my will and to say, Lord, I want to do your will.

So the humility of Jesus right through those 33 years was not just seen in washing people's feet. Any of us can wash people's feet. There are a lot of people who do that for a show of humility. There's a lot of external humility that Christians have which is a deception.

Let me tell you that real humility is in this that throughout his life, he never did his own will. Never once. Not even in Gethsemane, it was so painful to do the Father's will. There you see the greatest depth of his humility that he still did the Father's will when it cost him being forsaken by the Father.

Grace, Humility, and Victory Over Sin

So if we don't seek to know God's will in every situation, and we're not committed to do his will whatever the cost, we shouldn't fool ourselves to think we are humble. That is the main reason why we don't get grace.

Because it says in 1 Peter 5 and verse, sorry, let's look at James 4 first. James 4 and verse 6, God gives greater grace. We thought about grace yesterday, but he doesn't give grace to everybody. He gives grace to the humble.

Important to remember that God gives grace, James 4, 6, only to the humble. And then it says, submit to God, therefore, resist the devil, he will flee. It is God's will that every one of us, the devil flees from us.

Flees, you know, an animal flees. And when it says the devil flees, it doesn't just walk away. A person walks away from us doesn't mean he's scared of us. But when a person flees, like you read in the Old Testament, sometimes the enemy fled or Israel fled from their enemies, they were scared.

And when it says the devil flees from you, to me that picture is a Satan who's scared of us. But I want to say to you in this verse, he's scared only of humble people. If he's not scared of you, he sees something in you of his pride.

God gives grace to the humble, submit therefore to God and the devil will flee from you when you resist him. So the only one whom the devil flees from is the one who decides, I am going to do the will of God.

I will never do my own will. To the best of my knowledge, whenever I know this is God's will, I will choose that. When the Holy Spirit tells me in my conscience to keep my mouth shut in a particular situation, I'm going to, I want to speak something.

The Spirit will say no, I keep my mouth shut. And vice versa, in some other situation where opening my mouth will bring the opposition of people and the Spirit of God says speak up a word for the Lord.

Okay, if it brings opposition well and good, I'm going to speak up for the Lord. I will not do my own will. Those are the situations where our humility is tested. Remember, humility is primarily before God.

Very often we think of humility before men, you know, doing things in a way that gets his reputation for humility, but that's not it. It's before God. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Turn now to 1 Peter 5, where the same thing is repeated.

When God repeats something, it means is that it's important. God is opposed to Peter 5, but he gives grace to the humble. Therefore, since God gives grace to the humble, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt you at the proper time.

Now when you read a word saying he will exalt you at the proper time, how do you understand it? Does it mean he'll make you someone big in the world or perhaps somebody big in the church? No. I want to ask you, what do you want to be exalted over?

Do you want to be exalted over people? Man has a great lust to be a leader. There's a great lust in many people in churches to be elders and leaders and to have honor before people, but that's not what God is seeking.

He wants us to be exalted over sin. He wants us to be exalted over sin and for that he says humble yourself and I'll give you grace and when I get grace, sin will not have dominion over me. So if anytime I fall into sin, it means I didn't get grace at that time.

When I go to God and say why didn't I get grace? You were not humble. So every sin we commit is because of pride because if I were humble, I'd have got grace and grace over me, I wouldn't sin. You must always remember 1 Peter 5 5 with Romans 6 14 proves one thing very clearly.

There's only one reason why we don't get grace and that's pride and if I don't get grace, sin rules over me. So when you put it's like 2 plus 2 equals 4, if I'm really humble, I will get grace and I'll overcome sin.

That's why Jesus never sinned. He remained in that place of humility being nothing before his father. The only one who can do the father's will all the time is the one who says I'm nothing. I want the father to be everything.

Babylon, the Tower of Babel, and Human Glory

Now Christians don't, most Christians don't come to that place. Inwardly we may, outwardly we may humble ourselves because we get a reputation for it. I want to show you a verse in the Old Testament in Daniel.

You know the Bible ends with two churches, the false church called Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18 and the true church called Jerusalem 21. These are symbolic, these names are symbolic of a false corrupt worldly church which is called a harlot, claiming to be the bride of Christ but loving the world and living for the world and the true bride of Christ Jerusalem which keeps itself pure.

That's the church we are supposed to build but I'm convinced that most churches today are Babylon. So I want you to see about one who was a king of Babylon. Babylon began with the Tower of Babel way back in Genesis 11 where a whole lot of people said let us build something to get us a name for ourselves and we'll reach up to the sky.

The spirit of let us build a church to get a name for ourselves. That's the Tower of Babel. That's where Babylon begins. That's what they said. Let us get a name for ourselves. The moment you want to get a name for yourself or anything, for your ability to preach or sing or lead a church or the size of your church and all the terrible things people boast about.

I've traveled to so many countries, brought so many people to Christ. It's all let us get a name for ourselves and I want to say the more I've seen of Christendom, the great so-called so-called great preachers and leaders, I see a tremendous lust to get a name for themselves in competition with others.

It's the spirit of the Tower of Babel. It's Babylon. It'll finally be destroyed. And you read in Revelation 17 and 18 Babylon is also something a commercial enterprise where money becomes a very important factor in a Christian church.

Money, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Service

God uses money. But I want to say to you something. When I look at Christendom today, I find people acting and speaking as though money is the most important thing in Christian work. And money was not the most important thing in the days of the apostles.

And that's the big difference in the Christian church of the apostles. In the days of the apostles, the important thing was the Holy Spirit. They sought for the power of the Holy Spirit. They would pray and fast and seek for the power of the Holy Spirit.

And they knew they knew that is needed for the spread of God's work. But today, the emphasis on we need money for God's work. We need money to send people here and send people there. They never said that once in the Acts of the Apostles.

And yet they did a fantastic work in that known area of the world. At that time, they spread the gospel everywhere. Where did the money factor? Try and read Acts of the Apostles and see if anybody's begging for money.

See if Paul goes around saying, hey, fellas, will you support me? Or any of the apostles. They depended on the Holy Spirit and they knew that what they needed God would provide. Money was below their feet.

Money is a wonderful servant, a master. When money occupies our mind, you know you're not like Jesus. That's the principle by which I've tried to live. Every human being loves money. I've never seen a beggar in India who doesn't love money.

I've never seen a rich man who doesn't love money. Everybody in between loves money. And if you're honest about it, we'll ask the Lord to deliver us from it. And how do I know? How do you know whether a person, a man is sex crazy?

He's always thinking about sex. He may be battling it, but he's always thinking about it. How do you know a person's money crazy? He's always thinking how to make money or how to do this. Money, money, money, money is frequently in his mind.

Such a man can't be a servant of God. He needs to have his mind occupied with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And God will provide all that is needed. Money must be his servant, not his master. And if money is occupying his thinking all the time, money has become his master.

Whether there's gold in heaven? Yes. But do you know where it is? On the streets, under our feet. When you've learned to put money under your feet, you're ready to go to heaven. On earth, they put money on their heads.

They hang it on their necks and ears and on their heads. We got to put it down beneath our feet. Then we are ready to go to heaven. Walk on it and say, you're not my master. It's very easy to find out if money or God is our master.

Jesus said, you cannot serve God in money. If there's a man here who's a servant, A and B stands here and says, Zach is my servant. It's very easy to find out. You want to find out? You say, tell them both to call me.

And the one I respond to, I'm his servant. If A calls me and B calls me, and I go to A. So in a situation, I find God telling me to do something and money telling me to do something. You know whose servant you are?

The voice you respond to. If the call of money pulls you and you neglect the call of God, you are a servant of money. Even if you are born again, you claim to be filled with the Spirit or speak in tongues or know the Bible and preach whatever you may say, you are a servant of money.

The pastor responds to an invitation because he knows he'll get more money there. Or a pastor says, if I go to that church, I'll get more money. He's not a servant of God. He's a servant of money. And Christian world is full of them.

Money has replaced the Holy Spirit. And that's why Christians, most Christians live such shallow lives. They're not being taught by anointed men. You cannot be an anointed man if you love money, if you haven't put it under your feet.

Music, Psychology, and External Religion

Music is another thing. There's music in heaven. The music glorifies God. When music glorifies individuals, that's not the worship of God. When the music in a church focuses on the musicians and the music and not God, I always tell the people who play music in our church, I say, if you draw attention to yourself, that's the spirit of Lucifer, who wanted to draw people.

He wasn't happy with people worshiping God. He wanted people to worship him. I've seen people, especially those who play drums, banging away in such a way that everybody's attention is drawn to him. I say, that guy's getting people to worship him, not worship God.

It's very easy. It's very difficult to be a musician who worships God. I'll tell you that. Because it's such a tremendous temptation to show off. And that's why you see in so many Christian churches, music has taken such an important place.

And they say, we are drawing young people to God, to the church through music. To what type of Christianity are they drawing them? Music is the second thing that's replaced the Holy Spirit. How much music did they have on the day of Pentecost to get 3 ,000 people converted?

How much do you read about music and instruments in the New Testament? Zero. They sang. They sang in their hearts melody to the Lord. They were so poor, running in the caves, escaping from persecution, they didn't have time to carry musical instruments around, but they had the power of the Holy Spirit.

Money is number one thing that's replaced the Holy Spirit's power. Music is the other. And the third is psychology. Very few Christians can discern when a man is trying to manipulate their thinking through psychology, through stirring up their mind and their emotions, instead of reaching their spirit.

That's why there's so little preaching today that brings Christians in. I mean, the type of things I speak about now, most preachers will never talk about it because it'll make them unpopular. Many places, they'll never get invited again.

I remember once when I went to a very large convention where they invited me to speak in Australia. It was about 42 years ago. It's one of the largest conventions in Melbourne. And the first day, I was praying in my room on my knees, and the Lord asked me a question.

Do you want to be invited back here again? I said, no, I couldn't care less. And the Lord said, go and tell them the truth. And I did, and I never got invited back again. I said, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in their honor or their invitation or their money.

I'm a servant of God, and I know that every word I speak and every sermon I speak, I shall give an account for it in the day of judgment. I don't know whether you realize that even if you're not a preacher, everything we do, we're going to give an account in the day of judgment.

We must live in the light of that. I very often picture in my imagination my standing before Christ in the day of judgment and His evaluating every sermon I preached. I remember hearing a story of a God-fearing cobbler.

He was repairing shoes. He was not a cobbler, really. He was one shoe repairer. And he was a very God-fearing man, and he would do a good job of it. And he hired an assistant one day, and the assistant told him, he said, Master, why do you repair shoes so well?

I mean, if you use inferior leather, they'll come back quicker for repair, and we can repair it again and make more money. Because John would do a good job, so he would use the best type of leather, etc., for repairing it.

And he said, Son, I'm not repairing these shoes to make money. God gives me enough to earn my living. I'm doing it in the sight of God. I believe that he was a simple man, and this is what he said, I believe one day I'll stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and as I stand before Him, there'll be a pile of all the shoes I repaired.

And the Lord will pick them up one by one and say, John, why did you repair the shoes like this? Why did you do a third-rate job on this? I'm more interested in what I'll say to him then, than how much money I make now.

How many people do their work like that? This is true Christianity. The rest is all Babylon. So turn with me to Daniel chapter 4, where we read about this, another place where Babylonian Christianity is manifested.

Nebuchadnezzar, God’s Sovereignty, and the Mighty Hand

Nebuchadnezzar the king, verse 28, he was the founder of the modern city of that day's city of Babylon. He was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, Daniel 4 29, and the king reflected. There was nobody there.

He was all alone walking on those massive walls of Babylon, the hanging gardens that he had made, and he said to himself, is not Babylon the great which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power for the glory of my majesty?

The principle of human work, I have built it by my cleverness, by my power, my glory. The essence of Babylon is my will, by my power, and for my glory. The essence of Jerusalem is by God's will and plan, by God's power of the Holy Spirit, and for God's glory.

Remember this very simple rule. What is wood, hay, and straw? My will, my power, my glory. What is gold, silver, and precious stones? God's will, God's power, God's glory. That's why we need to seek God's will, we need to seek God's power, and we must do everything for God's glory.

And people who live like that, the Bible says when the fire tests their work in the final day, 1 Corinthians 3, it won't be burnt up, it'll all be gold, silver, and precious stones. And as soon as he said this, God judged him.

That is a mercy that God judged him. Sometimes when God gives us a severe punishment, that's his mercy. And he was driven away from mankind and he began to eat grass, verse 32, like the cattle. Imagine this big king becoming so insane that he was eating grass on the fields, and it says here that his body was drenched with the dew because he lived outside and his hair grew like eagles' feathers, verse 33, and his nails like birds' claws.

And he was in that period for a long time, and he was told that seven periods of time, verse 32, will pass over you. Now I don't know what that means, a period of time, is it a year? Then he was like that for seven years.

But then, at the end of verse 34, and this is the part I want you to see, I raised my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me. And he praised the Lord for humbling him. When God takes you through poverty or difficult circumstances or sicknesses, it's God's punishment.

You know when that verse says in 1 Peter 5, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Do you know what the mighty hand of God is? It's not some great supernatural gift. It's the circumstances that God places you in.

In Nebuchadnezzar's case, it was a man's humanity because a man was so proud. There are many ways in which God seeks to humble us. It could be by giving you a difficult wife or a difficult husband. It could be by giving you difficult children.

It could be by financial struggle. It could be by a lot of people opposing you. It could be by people taking court cases against you. People have taken court cases against me, religious people. It took me to court for 10 years, all the way to the federal Supreme Court.

I saw it as the mighty hand of God so that he could give me grace. And I received abundance of grace after that. So don't complain about these things. Don't look at people. What did Jesus say? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

You know what that means? That if your heart is really pure, you love God with all your heart, you will see God everywhere. In your circumstances, in the evil that people do to you, you'll see God. That's the meaning.

When you don't see God, but you see people, your heart is not pure. You remember when Judas Iscariot came with the Roman soldiers to capture Jesus. Peter's heart was not pure. He saw Judas and he took out his sword and he was a swordsman.

He was a fisherman. He wanted to cut off Judas' head. He missed and he hit a soldier's ear and chopped that off. And the Lord said, put your sword back. What did Jesus say? The cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it?

He saw the father there. Judas Iscariot was only the mailman bringing the cup. But he saw beyond the mailman to the one who sent it. It was his father allowing him to be caught, to be crucified. But Peter could only see human beings.

Isn't it wonderful when people tell you that you see God and you don't see Judas Iscariot? That's why Jesus could look at Judas' betrayer and say, friend, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? He had no bitterness against him.

He could call him a friend. Wonderful to be like that. That's why when he stood before Pilate and Pilate threatened him in John 19 and said, don't you know I have power to crucify you? And Jesus said, come.

And said to Pilate, you have no power over me except what my heavenly father gives you. I've seen people in our churches. I say, I don't know when persecution will increase in India. But when it happens, remember to look at your persecutors.

You have no power over me except what my father in heaven gives you. If he permits you to kill me, so be it. But don't you think you have any power over me? I live under the hand of Almighty God. This is how the great prophets lived.

And I want to say to all of you, dear brothers and sisters, this is the way you can live. Your boss in your office, he has no power over you except your father gives him that power. If you live in the will of God, if you seek God's power, if you're living for God's glory.

Paul’s Nothingness and Christ’s Sufficiency

So Nebuchadnezzar blessed the most high and praised and honored him, verse 34. And he said his dominion is an everlasting dominion. And I want you to read verse Daniel 435. This is one of the most powerful statements of the sovereignty of God that I have found in the entire Bible.

And it came from the mouth of one who was a heathen king, Nebuchadnezzar, who I believe got converted. It's quite likely that we shall see Nebuchadnezzar in heaven because the guy really got converted.

Look what he says. All the inhabitants of the earth are as zero. Listen carefully. All the inhabitants of the earth, the big kings or beggars or any human being, is a zero before God. And God does according to his will in the host of heaven.

And among all the inhabitants of the earth. And no one can stop his hand or say to him, what have you done? Or what are you doing? Can you say that? Can you look around and say, including me, all the inhabitants of the earth are zero.

God Almighty is the only one, is one. And no one can stop his hand. No one can ward off his hand or say, what are you doing? Absolute statements of God's sovereignty. Something like Jesus said to Pilate, you have no power over me.

You can do nothing to me. In the New Testament too, when we read about what Paul says in Galatians, in chapter six, Galatians six, he says three, if anyone thinks he's somebody when he's a zero, he deceives himself.

Do you think you're a little more than a zero? You're deceiving yourself. Anyone who thinks he is somebody compared to maybe some of the others here, you think are not so spiritual or a bit dumb and not so well read in the Bible and maybe notes not so steeped in good doctrine as you are.

Anything that makes you look down on others, which makes you think you're a little above the other. You and you, when you're nothing, you're a zero. You deceive yourself. And the Christian world is full of people who are deceiving.

But even they're nobody. Let me show you another passage. One Corinthians in chapter three. It's amazing what we discover when we read scripture slowly and we see things that we never saw before and I hope in every one of these sessions that we've had this weekend, you have seen something in scripture that you never saw before.

And yet you had that Bible for so many years that shows God's love for you. He's giving you revelation on his word. What about the great apostle Paul? What was his opinion about himself? He was a man who planted churches, handkerchiefs that touched his body would cast out demons and heal the sick.

He raised the dead. He wrote scripture. What a mighty man of God. What's his opinion about himself? He says in one Corinthians three, verse six, I planted first of all, what is Paul? Just servants through whom you believe as the Lord gave us opportunity to serve you.

I planted a Paulist water, but God caused the growth. Now what is, what does he say? The one who plants, that's me. And the one who waters God is everything. So Paul, what do you think of yourself? He says, I'm a zero.

That was the secret of his life. So straight this, I did a little demonstration in my church at the end of last year so that it'd be very vivid in the eyes of even children. Herman, could you come up in a minute here?

I want two other, any two, would you come forward? I'm not going to ask you to say anything or do anything. If you can just stand here, you can come this side. Who are the two bold brothers who will come forward?

Oh, two young people. Fine. Thank you. One more. Okay. We have three. Just stand here. Here Herman's so much taller than all these others, but they are humble brothers. I believe acknowledge that they are zeros.

That's what they are. There may be tremendous differences in their financial standing or education or musical ability or whatever it is in God's eyes. Zero. That's what Paul was. Okay. What is it that can make any one of them more valuable than the other?

Can you come a little closer to me, Herman? The other stay there. The other stay right. Okay. Jesus. When Jesus is added, you see what his value becomes. Take Jesus away. He's back to zero. When Jesus is there, that's the only thing that gives him value.

And if he is humble enough to seek fellowship with one more brother, can you move forward? One of you see what the value becomes. It's not 11. It's a hundred and they are both humble enough to seek fellowship with one more brother.

You see what happens? This is how we build the church. We need a bunch of zeros. Think of all of you become zero. Can you imagine the value of this church? What do you take Jesus away? That's the end of it.

I will in the gates of hell will not prevail against it because they are humble brothers. Thank you very much. We are clapping for the Lord who taught us these things. So, you know, children in our church, you'll never forget it in all their lives.

And more important than that, to recognize it forever and ever, Lord, I'll have value in your kingdom. Only if I recognize I am like Paul, I am nothing. I'm a zero, but I'll always have you there with me to give me value.

And I will have fellowship with as many zeros as possible. We'll be the body of Christ. This is humility. And this is the position that Jesus took the place of nothingness before his father, so that God might be everything.

Decreasing So Christ May Increase

You know, John the Baptist paved the way for that by when somebody told John, you know, Jesus, they didn't know, they didn't recognize Jesus as much as John the Baptist did. And they came to John the Baptist and said, see him master, he's baptizing more people.

And John the Baptist said, I must decrease and he must increase. Many of us want that John three verse 30, he must increase and I must decrease. Many of us want Christ to increase in our life. How will we do that?

By your decreasing, the less there is of you, the more there will be of Christ in your life. The more you're willing to go down and become nothing, the more there will be of Christ in your life. And God sometimes arranges circumstances such, for example, Jesus said, when you do something for God, do it secretly.

Whether it's giving money or praying or fasting, principle extends to everything. As far as possible, don't let anybody know that you did something for God. We have a weekly email with God's word that we send out every week to those who will subscribe for it.

And the subscription is free. You just got to send your email ID to our cfcindia .com. The address is cfc at cfcindia .com. You can get a free email every week, which I write expounding something challenge you.

And that goes out to 10 ,000 people around the world. And in all these years, 15 or 20 years that we have sent it out, never once, never have we anything about our work. We want to be zeros in the eyes of others.

If you go to our CFC website, you will never read anything about our work. You will never read anything about what we are doing in other parts of the country. You'll never read about how many people were converted or any such thing.

That's not what we talk about. Everything in that website is to glorify. Talk about Jesus. We want to decrease and he can increase. That's the only way. And the picture the Lord gave me early on, when we started our ministry was this, he said, Lord, the Lord said, keep everything that you do, keep it hidden.

Don't let people know what you're doing. Don't let people know how many churches are being planted or people are being converted. Nobody needs to know all that. You need to be patient on finances very clear because Paul was very clear on that so that he could say, I'm not like these other workers, but it's very important.

And the picture the Lord gave me at that time was this, you know, in the olden days, we used to have these cameras today. It's all digital cameras where you can immediately see the picture you took. But in the olden days, for those of you who remember, we had little rolls, camera film rolls, and you had to put the film roll in and wind it in and take one picture at a time.

And that would come on that roll. And then when it's all over 36 pictures in a roll and you wind it all back. Do you want it all back? And it's a tough, falls tight in that role. You've got to be very careful not to expose it to the light.

Because if you pull that out and expose it to the light, everything gets wiped out. That role had to be developed in a dark room. And they'd make a negative first, and then it would be printed. Some of you remember that who had those type of cameras.

And the Lord said, it's like that with my work. All that you do for me, to others, it gets wiped out. And in the day of judgment and reward, the Lord says, let me pull out this reel. And what's that? What did you did?

Hey, nothing. You did nothing for me. I said, Lord, I did such a lot for you. You exposed it all. That's why it all got wiped out. So the Lord said, conceal it, keep it in dark room. When the day comes, I will open it out and show everybody.

And that's the picture the Lord gave me. And we decided to follow that. And we decided in all our work, whether it is printing books or publishing DVDs, we said, we'll make zero profit, no profit for anybody, no royalty for any author or any publisher of DVD.

And everything on our website will be free. Because we want to go down to zero. It's very, very important. And that's one reason why I believe God's blessed our ministry through the years and especially through the internet.

It's good for you to examine yourself in your own life and to see whether you have taken that position so that we can give more to the Lord. One of the words which the Lord spoke to me many, many years ago and was from second Samuel and chapter 24.