Elders, You Should Lead Your People Into the New Covenant — Zac Poonen

Understanding the New Covenant Church

Most of us recognize that we are seeking to be New Covenant churches. And there are, I suppose, hundreds of churches in the world that call themselves New Covenant churches. But seeing some of them, I'm not talking about our own churches, but some others who use that title, I wonder whether they've even understood what the New Covenant is all about.

So it's very important that we don't just have a label, but that we recognize all the implications of claiming to be New Covenant church. And that not only we, but that we communicate this to the people in our church and to our families, to our children, that they grow up with the understanding of this, because we have a responsibility to the next generation also, and to everyone in our churches.

So some of these things I want to mention are things we have often spoken about, but I just want to emphasize them for clarity in our own minds. The most important distinction, I would say, between Old Covenant and New Covenant is this expression which says, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It was unthinkable under the Old Covenant that God could dwell within a man. It was always outside, and the emphasis was always on the external. God spoke to Abraham, Samuel, everything on the outside.

But right through the time of Jesus on earth also, Jesus was outside them. And that's why they were really concerned when he went away. And that's why he told them, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send you a helper who will be with you forever, the Holy Spirit.

So that is how the New Covenant Church began on the day of Pentecost. They had a genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit. Nobody coached them, nobody urged them, and they didn't manipulate anything. Nobody trained them to speak in tongues.

Genuine Baptism in the Holy Spirit

This rubbish, I call it absolute rubbish, that goes on in a lot of Pentecostal charismatic churches where people are trained to speak in tongues. What a work the devil has done to make people satisfied with a counterfeit.

Just because they want to also join the club and say, we are also baptized in the Holy Spirit. Who are they seeking to impress? Man. God must give us a witness in our spirit. Just like he gave us a witness once that our sins were forgiven and that Christ came in.

He must give us a witness and we must never get that testimony from men. God must give us a witness that he has made his spirit dwell within us and fill us. It's one of the things that's really helped me.

It took many years for me to be sure of my own conversion and salvation. I think I must have asked the Lord to come to my heart a hundred times perhaps over a period of four or five years till one day I was absolutely sure from John 6, 37.

Now, anybody can read that verse and not get anything, but the day I read it, 62 years ago, it was as if the Lord spoke to my heart, him that cometh to me, I'll never cast out. I was sure he had accepted me.

And it was like dropping an anchor. For 62 years, I've never one single day doubted my salvation despite my ups and downs. And the same thing when I was seeking for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, when I grew up in the early days in a church, originally I was in the Orthodox Church baptized as a baby.

And then I got baptized in the Brethren Assembly. Of course, they never spoke about the baptism in the Holy Spirit at all. But I found a lack of power in my life. And I began to seek God soon after my baptism, which is about a couple of years after I was converted.

And I didn't know anything about it. I'd never been to a Pentecostal church in my life. And that's where I first heard somebody trying to coach people to speak in tongues. And I said, I'm not going to do that.

I got alone in my room and I said, Lord, if it takes me 10 years to have the genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit, I'll wait. I'm not going to live on any counterfeit and satisfy myself. I don't want to testify to anybody in the world.

I don't want anybody in the world to think that I'm baptized in the Holy Spirit. That's not my intention. I want the genuine thing from you. And I'll tell you, finally, it was only about 16 years after I was first converted.

And I was around 35 years old after having been discouraged. And that discouragement led me to backsliding. And I was still preaching. My external testimony was good. Till one day, God himself gave me that assurance.

And that was 46 years ago. And like my assurance of salvation, I've never doubted it. See, I'll tell you something. When God tells you something deep within, nobody can... I don't care if a million people come and tell me, no, it's not true.

I know what happened in my life. I know that. And now I've got 46 years behind me to see what the result of that. And the apostles could also... I mean, they experienced a genuine infilling on the day of Pentecost.

But then, in subsequent years, they could see the result of that. They were not sitting behind closed doors anymore. The doors were thrown open. And the other thing we see is it's not a... There's a difference between a gradual growth in spirituality and Christ-likeness.

That is a lifetime thing, spiritual growth. We need to distinguish between being born again, which is not a gradual thing, that initial filling with the Holy Spirit, which is not a gradual thing, and growth into Christ-likeness.

That growth into Christ-likeness is a lifetime thing. We purify ourselves as he is pure until the day he comes again. So, my dear brothers, all of you who are leading and have responsibility over New Covenant churches, before you preach to others, make sure before God, not that you convince me or anybody else, that's worthless, that you can stand before God and be absolutely sure that Jesus has anointed you with the Holy Spirit.

That's what John the Baptist said. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. And I tell you, it's really true. It's a baptism of fire. And it's as real as the baptism of water that we are sure about.

I mean, if somebody were to ask you, have you been baptized in water? You know definitely yes or no. And it has to be the same with the baptism of fire. So, that's a burden I have in relation to many people because I feel that here is where the problem lies that many are imagined.

Yeah, I'm baptized in the Holy Spirit. The other thing is the baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a once-for-all event. Yes, there is an initial experience, but it has to be continuous. You read in the Acts of the Apostles many times.

We read about Peter at least three times. He was filled with the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles, and it's continuous. In Ephesians 5 .18, the real translation is be being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I like to say that. Be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Be being filled. So, I mean, if ever you or I sense that something in our life indicates that the anointing is sort of going away or I'm losing it in some way in my life or my ministry, I'm sort of gradually getting defeated in my life or I'm losing that liberty and anointing in my ministry or I don't find that freedom that I once had, boy, I would say you should fast and pray.

See God, and it's very easy once you're established as an elder in one of our churches to sit back and say, ah, now I'm accepted. Rubbish. Accepted by whom? By worthless men. Lord, save us from that. We must live before God's face every day and say, Lord, I want you to approve of me.

You know, that word that the father spoke to Jesus when he anointed him with the Holy Spirit in the river, in the Jordan River. It says he was the spirit of God came down upon him and lighted on him, remained on him.

And the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. We need both. And what is the proof of the other? The spirit of God resting upon us and an inner witness that to the level of our understanding and the level of our spiritual growth, the father is able to say, you are my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

That's very often the cry of my heart. It's a real cry that comes from my heart. Many times I say, father, can you say that about me? What do you say about Jesus? This is my beloved son. That beloved is also very important.

We must. It's very easy to move away from the assurance that God loves me intensely and to begin to think like the servant in that parable of talents where he didn't use the one talent God gave him because of the mean God gave him because he said, I knew you're a hard and austere man.

Do you ever feel God is like that towards you? Hard and austere. That's the devil who brings those thoughts into our life. This is my beloved son. We must have. Why do I say this? Because I've been tempted like that myself.

Sometimes I think God is hard or austere and I say, rubbish. To be tempted like that is okay. We must resist. Temptation is from the devil. We'll be tempted to the end of our lives. We don't, you know, take it lightly and live as we like and say, my father loves me.

That's true of a lot of people in charismatic Christianity. They emphasize the love of God and they live in sin. And that's why so many other leaders fall into adultery and so many other wretched things like that.

That's why so many other leaders divorce and continue in the ministry. So much of lowering of standards and Christendom. And in the midst of all this, God has raised us up to be like a light. Where the brightness of the light never dims.

Training the Next Generation of Disciples

And as all of us grow older little by little, and I'm very conscious of that myself, we need to raise up another generation. That is gripped by these same truths. Yeah, all of us have that responsibility in your church.

There are many people younger than you work with them. You can't work with anybody. Jesus is very selective. He gathered 12. And one of them betrayed himself from the 11. Also, he worked mostly with three.

He I mean, I have often thought about that. I can't handle too many people. Neither can you. We have to work with that's not partiality when we work with a few. Jesus worked with three because they were the most responsive.

And you'll find everyone in the church may look sincere and they may be. But there are some who are really hungry and eager to move on with God. And they are responsive. And we must discern who they are and work with them.

And it doesn't matter if others accuse us of partiality. I'm sure Jesus, they accuse Jesus of partiality. They accuse Jesus, why are you always with these three people? And they would have also said, yeah, I noticed that two of them are your relatives.

James and John, by the way, were his first cousins. His mother, Mary's sister's sons. And they could have accused him of that. You're choosing your relatives to be in your inner circle. He was not bothered by any accusation.

If they were the most responsive, he would choose them. And if the other nine disciples were disturbed by that, so be it. They could also be wholehearted. So we really have to think about all these things because we are not to think only of ourselves.

Love does not seek its own. We do not seek our own. We seek the things of Christ. And that means leading others also into this life that we've experienced. So I want to say, brothers, that you yourself must be having such a satisfying experience of your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Personal, intimate relationship with Christ that you long, really long, that others will experience it too. This should be your great desire. Oh, I wish that everybody could have this type of wonderful relationship with Christ where he frees my mind from anxiety and bitterness, where it makes it impossible for me to hate anyone.

That sounds like an amazing statement. Impossible to hate anyone. But I believe that is what the Lord brings us to. He wants all of us to come to that place where we may not come there overnight because we have grown up with hatred and prejudices and all types of things and wrong attitudes.

But it is God's will that we come to that place where it is impossible for us to hate anyone. Our love has to grow, sure. But hatred is a negative thing and we must come to the place quickly where we say the Holy Spirit has done a work in me that I cannot hate anyone.

No matter who that person is, no matter what they have done to me or my family, it is impossible for me to hate anyone. And so we must really seek to work towards that in our life and never give up. And in seeking to lead others to this, remember the people whom Jesus called, who were the leaders of the next generation that he was training, were people who had put Christ supreme in their lives.

I mean, these were people who were earning their living fishing or like Matthew, earning his living as a tax collector and making a lot of money. And just in a moment, they quit that because the Lord called them to leave.

Now, we're not all called to full-time Christian work, but we're all called to total detachment from other things taking priority in our lives. We must do our work faithfully. God expects us to do that in our earthly job because that's how he wants us to earn our living.

And Jesus, the first 30 years of his life, is a great example for us. And I'm so thankful that the Lord, that the Father allowed Jesus to live 30 years to show us that spirituality is not all preaching and healing the sick and casting out demons.

No. Spirituality for Jesus began in working hard in a carpenter shop, earning his living and supporting four brothers and two sisters and a widowed mother. Yeah, supporting eight-member family. Not many people have an eight-member family.

Jesus had an eight-member family and he worked hard to support them. And I'm sure it was just as difficult to earn one's living those days in a poor town like Nazareth to find people who wanted to buy what he had to sell as a carpenter.

And all types of situations that he would have faced in earning his living and being a spiritual person. That's our example. So they were disciples. And that's why Jesus said when he saw this big crowd in Luke 14, it's what I always emphasize and you've heard me many times say that.

Large crowds, Luke 14, 25, were going along with him. What a lust today's preachers have. An excitement, carnal excitement. Carnal, worldly excitement when they see a huge crowd listening to them. And lots of people come to your church to find a carnal, worldly excitement.

It means nothing if they are not disciples. Please be honest, brothers. Ask yourself, are you excited when the numbers increase in your church? Jesus was not. I'm here to follow him. He looked at this huge crowd and he said, if you don't hate your father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, you just cannot be my disciple.

There was no such thing in the old covenant. Absolutely not. This is unique. And it didn't matter if a lot of people went away. So many times we read in the gospels that people just left Jesus. That was another time we read in John 6 where a lot of people followed him after he had multiplied the loaves and the fish.

And I learned something there in John 6 about how Jesus built that first fellowship of 12 people. In John 6, he spoke some very strong words, which people couldn't understand. He said that unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, John 6, verse 54 onwards, you don't have eternal life.

Now, today we understand that. But remember that in those days, they did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Do you think they could have understood that? If we didn't have the Holy Spirit, we wouldn't have understood it either.

And today we live post-Calvary. We know that Jesus died for us. But they haven't come there yet. And he tells them, my flesh, verse 55, is true food and my blood is true drink. It's almost like inviting them to cannibalism.

And you eat my flesh and drink my blood. You abide in me and I in him. And when many of his disciples, John 6, verse 60, heard this, he said, difficult statement. This is cannibalism. What in the world is he saying?

And Jesus was aware, verse 61, that they were disturbed. And he said, does this cause you to stumble? And the interesting thing I see here is he never explained it to them. He never said, hey, what I mean is that spiritually, I'm not talking about you guys having to physically eat my flesh and blood.

But he never explained it. That's something that amazes me. You know, if people misunderstand us, we have a great desire, hey, listen, that's not what I meant. And we try to explain to them because we don't want to lose them.

We don't want to lose them from our church. He was not disturbed. This is where he was so sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Where, you know, Jesus lived like us as a man. And I believe the Holy Spirit said to him, don't explain it.

Forget it. And then he goes on to say, no one can come to me, verse 65, unless the father grants him. See the result of this. Verse 66, many of his disciples withdrew and did not walk with him anymore.

And there were only 12 left from that huge crowd dwindled down to 12. Today we have preachers who talk about how their little church of 12 grew into a great multitude, mega church. How many people have this ministry of making a mega church into 12?

That's what Jesus did. But he had 12 people who turned the world upside down and started a ministry that's lasted 2000 years. All these mega church people don't accomplish anything like that. It's quality, quality, quality.

You see that Jesus valued. And that's what we must value in our church. And when he had 12 with them, he didn't turn around and say, oh, I hope you fellas also don't leave me. No. See what he said. Do you guys also want to go away?

Verse 67, because he knew what he had said earlier. That all those whom the father gave him would definitely stick with him. And no one can come to him unless it's been granted from the father. I believe that.

I believe that all whom the father has given me will come to me. John 6, 37. You must believe that if you're a wholehearted, anointed disciple of Jesus seeking to lead a church, my brothers, please believe the first part of John 6, 37.

The last part of John 6, 37 was what gave me assurance 62 years ago that I was a child of God and I never doubted it. And the first part of John 6, 37 is what has given me assurance when we started CFC churches.

That we don't have to worry about who comes and who goes. The second part related to my personal life. The first part I found related to my ministry. I know. No matter what people try to do. No matter what lies people say about me or my ministry.

And no matter what people misunderstand what I said. Every single person without exception, whom the father has given to me to shepherd, will definitely come to me. I don't have to go grabbing them. I don't have to go pulling them out of any church.

They will come to me. That's the dignity of a servant of God. And if you are an anointed servant of God, that's the dignity, my brothers, with which you must live. We don't go pleasing people or buttering them to get any favors.

We're not trying to build numbers. We want to present to the Lord, the father, a church of good quality that he can accept. And so when Simon Peter said to Jesus in John 6, 68, Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life. There will be some who are really longing for eternal life, which is the life of God. This is so different in quality from the life of religious Christianity. You know, when people go to the market to buy something, if they don't care for quality, they're easily taken in by somebody who offers something cheap.

But those who are determined to have quality, I want something of real good quality, whether it's a washing machine or a computer. I don't want something that's made by some third-rate company that will back up after a couple of years.

I want something that will last me perhaps a whole lifetime. They don't make gadgets like that nowadays because it's bad for their business. But that's the type of quality the Lord looks for. Lord, we want people who are going to stick with you for a lifetime.

We're not trying you out. We're not trying out our church and saying, is there a good church that I can join? But we never lower the standard of what we preach in the church of discipleship, wholehearted discipleship.

There's nothing less than that, that we will ever preach. And if people get offended like this, many, if it's written about our church one day, John 6, 66, as a result of the preaching of this elder brother, many withdrew and did not come to this church anymore.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. We will turn to the others who are still sitting there and say, do you also want to go away? We're not going to lower the standard of what we preach. Sorry. We're not here to please anyone or impress anyone.

We're not a club. We're not just a bunch of people who will help one another and care for one another and do things for one another, which is like a club. We're not that. We're trying to make disciples for Christ in a world that detests them.

And when you see around you the things that are happening in so-called Christendom and the things that are happening in this country, a country which had so many wonderful Christians a couple of hundred years ago that has drifted away so much into all types of ungodliness and things contrary to the word of God in the midst of such a generation, God calls us to be a light for him that will not lower God's standards in a single area.

In any area where we will not compromise.

The New Covenant Standard of Righteousness

In Matthew 5, verse 19.

I've often thought about this verse. See, as I look at it, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 are the New Testament equivalent of Exodus 20, which is the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 is a great chapter in the Old Testament where the Ten Commandments are listed there.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And when that old covenant is abolished and a new covenant is established, here it is, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is what replaces Exodus 20. Because the reason I say that is because in Matthew 5, Jesus is mentioning those Ten Commandments, not all of them, but some of the important ones in the Ten Commandments.

He's taking them. And for example, murder, one of the most serious violations of God's law mentioned in the Ten Commandments. You shall not murder. You shall not kill. And Jesus takes that, first of all, in Matthew 5, 21.

That's why I say Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is a replacement of Exodus 20. It's an enhancement of Exodus 20. It is a new covenant equivalent of that old covenant Ten Commandments. And we must never forget that.

We must continue to preach this. You heard it said in the Ten Commandments, Matthew 5, 21, you shall not murder. I say to you, let me paraphrase it, anger is equal to murder. That's why I had spoken so much against it.

I was defeated by it for years after I was born again. For 16 years. And I said, Lord, what am I? Am I an old covenant Christian preaching new covenant stuff? Then I'm a first-class hypocrite. Let me take anger seriously, first of all.

The other day when I was speaking at the Global Zoom on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, last Saturday, I mentioned that here's where I disagree with the Pentecostals, I said. They say that the first thing that happened to those apostles when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they spake in other tongues.

I said, no. That was the second thing. What is the first thing? The first thing was there were tongues of fire on top of their head. That's Acts 2, verse 3. Acts 2, verse 4, they spoke in unknown tongues.

So I said, let's begin with the tongue of fire on top of our head. I said, that is your mother tongue being controlled by the Holy Spirit. That fire of the Holy Spirit controlling your mother tongue and the way you speak to your wife, the way you speak to other people who irritate you or trouble you, the way you speak to people in the church, the way you speak to people whom you have to discipline, a tongue under the fire of the Holy Spirit.

It's almost as though the Lord is saying, this tongue, the primary part of your body that I'm going to use in this new covenant age is your tongue. And that tongue must be under the fire of the Holy Spirit 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 24 -7.

That's the first thing he says here in opposition to murder. He says, the old covenant was you shall not murder. And you can satisfy yourself, I've not killed anybody. He said, no, you must not get angry because Matthew 5, 22, anger will lead you to hell.

I preached that for 45 years, that anger can lead you to hell. I got it from Matthew 5, 22. And then he goes on to say, you know, the other big commandment in Exodus 20, you shall not commit adultery, verse 27, Matthew 5, 27.

But I'm enhancing that by saying, if you lust in your thoughts after a woman, that can be in your imagination, when you think of a woman, or when you actually see a woman on the street, or when you see a woman's picture on a billboard, or on some news program in the middle of it, some advertisement comes with a immodestly dressed woman.

And there are plenty of plenty of opportunities to lust after women without seeing an actual woman or these skimpily dressed women there are today that even sit in Christian churches. Well, the devil's going to flood the world with such, remember, if you lust in your heart, you have committed adultery.

Don't glory that I did not commit adultery physically. That's if you're a Jew living under Moses, living under the new covenant, that's not good enough. You shall not lust in your heart, in your mind.

And I know as a young man, like all young men, that's what I battled within my mind. It was almost impossible to overcome my thoughts, even though we keep ourselves from physical sin. In the thoughts is such a battle.

And I said, Lord, I am going to fight it every time I slip up, I'm going to confess to you and weep. Oh, the nights when I used to weep on my pillow at night, Lord, I failed you today in my thoughts. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for this righteousness.

The promise is they will be satisfied. That's how Jesus introduced this section in Matthew 5 or 6. Those who hunger and thirst for this standard of righteousness, they will, there's a promise, they will be satisfied.

And my brothers, any of us who are still defeated in these two areas, let's ask ourselves, why are we not satisfied by God? When he says they will be satisfied, their request will be granted, that's the meaning.

Why is it not being granted? Perhaps you're not hungering and thirsting enough. One of the scary things I find for myself, and it can be for all of you, is the fact that over a period of time, we build up a good testimony before people.

And a lot of people respect us in the church. I tell you, that should scare us more than anything else. We have a reputation in our church. Oh, we have a godly elder. What does that matter if I'm slipping up in these areas?

It counts for zero that people esteem me highly. Lord, help me to take this seriously. And speaking the truth, your yes must be yes, and your no must be no. But particularly these two, you know, murder and adultery, being replaced by anger and lusting in the heart.

Those are the only two places in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said you can go to hell. The word hell is mentioned twice, only twice, in the Sermon on the Mount. And it's in relation to anger and lusting after women.

Yeah, and including in lusting after women, Matthew 5, verse 30, is masturbation. That's mentioned there too. Sexual sin. Cut off your right hand, it says. It's amazing how Jesus took these sins so seriously.

And we have to take them seriously too. And these are some of the biggest temptations that come to us. Anger and sexual lust. So we have to really proclaim what the Bible says in the New Testament, the very first promise in the New Testament.

He will save his people from their sins. So when we hear this, we're not now going to say, oh, I'm going to grit my teeth and overcome this. You'll never be able to overcome it. I found I could not overcome it.

I could not overcome my anger or my dirty thoughts. But I praise God for the first promise in the New Testament that Jesus, his name is Jesus, Matthew 1, 21, because he will save me from what I cannot save myself from.

So I have to go to God and say, Lord, I'm sorry. After so many years, I'm still unable to overcome my anger. I'm still lusting after women. I'm fighting it, but I'm defeated so often. Is it going to be like this, Lord, all my life?

Don't let me be a hypocrite. Now, the solution is not to resign your eldership and say, okay, I'm not going to be an elder. That's an easy way out. That's the way for a coward. It's like a father who's finding it difficult to bring up his children and say, okay, I'm walking out.

I'm leaving this home and going. You wouldn't do that to your children. Even if you're struggling as a father, you'd never give up because you've taken your responsibility as a father seriously. It must be like that with our church.

Lord, there's no question of my walking out of this. I'll die doing my best to shepherd this church till you come again. And if I'm struggling in defeat, I'll keep on struggling to be an overcomer. And I believe you'll help me because you said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

They will be satisfied. I want you to satisfy me, Lord. I want you to bring me to that place where I'm happy with the victory you've given me in these areas. That I can speak with authority when I tell people that you shall call his name Jesus because he will.

He will. W-I-L-L, Matthew 121, save his people who cannot save themselves. He will save his people from their sinful, defeated life. And the other thing I want to emphasize is that in this new covenant, we are going to battle with Satan.

Spiritual Warfare and Resisting Satan

No human being, and I've said this many, many times in the Old Covenant, no human being ever battled with Satan one-on-one. You read about Satan in Genesis chapter three. That's the only time you read of Satan and a man and a human being encountering each other in the Old Testament.

Only Genesis chapter three, nowhere else. After that, he works behind the scenes. You read in one place that he instigated David to number the people behind the scenes, just like he's doing today. And you in one vision, you read about Joshua standing, Zechariah seeing that as a vision of Satan opposing Joshua in the heavenlies, the high priest.

But other than that, even Job, Job never encountered Satan. The battle was all in the heavenlies. The devil was talking to God and God told Satan to do, but you never read that Job encountered Satan. Nobody in the Old Testament could do it because they would have all been crushed.

The first person who encountered Satan directly was Jesus Christ, Matthew chapter four. And then once Satan was defeated on the cross, then we could encounter him too. But till then, until he was defeated on the cross, we read that Satan even tripped up Peter, the wholehearted apostle of Jesus, the man to whom Jesus said, Simon Peter, on this rock of your confession, that Christ is the son of the living God on that rock, I will build my church and I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, etc.

Matthew 16, 18 and 19. And 30 seconds, 30 seconds after that, or one minute after that, to the same Peter, Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. This man to whom Jesus had said those fantastic words, in one minute later, he calls him the devil.