08 New Wine in New Wineskins the Congregation, the Club and the Church — Santosh Poonen

As I mentioned at the beginning, we want to move towards giving more and more responsibility and ministry to younger brothers, and so this session we'll hear Santosh Poonen. He is one of two elders in a church in Colorado in the United States.

He's been there an elder for some years, a church that's growing, and both these churches that there are in the U .S., both Santosh's and Sandeep's, they seek to not only follow the life, primarily the life and pattern that they have seen in CFC from childhood, but also have asked me to oversee them and guide them.

That's not a responsibility I take lightly, because it's a serious responsibility. I don't take it just because they happen to be my sons, but because I see that they've understood the truths we have stood for, and they believed it, and they preached it, and I'm encouraged to see the quality of people whom they permit to be members of that church.

They don't allow anybody to be a member of that church. They wait six months to see whether a person really wants to be a disciple. And the other thing I notice there is they encourage all the male members to definitely come for a weekly Bible study that they have together, where they share together, and it's very good.

It builds a fellowship between the brothers. And when there's a fellowship between the brothers in a church, it goes well. So Santosh.

I'm also going to use PowerPoint. I hope that will be a help and not a distraction. It's something I use. I found that the Lord has blessed it, and so that's why I use that. I also want to speak out of something that the Lord has been doing in my own life, and especially over the last three years.

The Cross and the Cost of Building the Church

It's a teaching and a way of life that has become very dear and personal to me because it has involved some sacrifices that I've had to make, and I see that as we've been hearing over the last two days, if we really want to understand the teaching and the life of Christ and doctrine, it's going to bring us to a cross, a cross where we have to give up something, where we have to make a sacrifice in areas of our life, and then it becomes reality, and then we won't go astray.

I'm going to be speaking about the church today, and that's an area that I'm talking about where God has made it very personal and made it a very, very narrow way. See, one of the areas in which we're speaking about new wine in new wineskins, and I've seen that the old wineskin is like a layer or many layers.

You know, we think about layers of onions in the personal life, layers of onions that you peel off, layers of selfishness that God shows you in your life, and I found in my personal experience in trying to be used by the Lord to build a church there in Colorado that the old wineskin is like layers of the old wineskin, that as the Lord shows us those layers, we strip it off, and unfortunately, many, many Christians who are seeking to live the life in the church or to build churches that are living out this reality of new wine in new wineskins stop short at some point.

At some point, they feel they have come to the new wineskin when really there were many more layers of the old wineskin still there. Maybe they stripped off certain levels of human tradition, but they stopped at a certain point, and until the Lord can bring us to the point where we get rid of the old wineskin completely and start afresh with His new wineskin, then we have understood the new wine in the new wineskins.

And so this new wineskin is a narrow way to life, and I'll be honest, and perhaps this is your testimony as well. It's a very, very narrow way. I have sought to, for many years, I'll say this first, for many years, even though I knew the teaching on the new wine in the new wineskins and what it meant to really build a church that was the body of Christ, I knew it up here because I've heard more Zach Pudden sermons than all of you.

You can be sure of that. Not only did I hear it on Sunday, I heard it Monday through Saturday, so try to beat that. But it was here, and it still took many years, and I say that to regret that for many years it took the truth from descending from my head to my heart where I realized this is the only way that I can live.

Like we heard a couple days ago that Jesus is the only way, the only thing, and I believe that building the church of the body of Christ for me is the only way I can build a church, the only way I can be used by God to build a church, taken up with all these other things in the world and having gone to the U .S. and seen Christendom at its best by the world's standards.

I see now this narrow way, and I have seen especially over the last three years. That's what I'd like to share with you this morning. You know, I wonder if you have ever considered why Jesus went to the cross.

Jesus went to the cross. We know it, and it says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, that there was a joy that was set before Him for which He endured the cross. He endured the cross because of that joy set before Him.

I wonder if you have considered what that joy was that was set before Him. Was it you? Was it, you know, there's that song that was made popular some years ago, He took the fall and thought of me like a rose trampled on the ground.

He took the fall and thought of me above all. It's a great verse. It's a great course to think about if you're struggling with sin and you think about how much Jesus did for you. But I think there was something greater than that.

Yes, Jesus loved you and I. Yes, the Father loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son. But there was something greater than that that drove and compelled Jesus to go to the cross. I'd like to show you in John chapter 14 what that was, I believe.

These are from Jesus' own words in John chapter 14. We know that these passages of Scripture are towards the end of Jesus' life and He was sharing these as His parting words to His disciples. And we heard, I think, a few days ago also about how John wrote about this more than anything else.

I love that John took the time over four chapters, five chapters, to express to us the parting words of Jesus as it were to His disciples. And in the midst of these parting words, Jesus says in John chapter 14, John chapter 14 verse 31, look at the last sentence first.

John chapter 14 verse 31, He says, Arise, let us go from here. And I think what Jesus was talking about was let's move on towards my crucifixion. I've got to go somewhere else, maybe somewhere else in the garden of Gethsemane.

But Jesus had this attitude of moving towards the cross. And in that, He tells His disciples, come, let's go. But before that, He says, verse 30, John chapter 14 verse 30, I will not speak much more with you.

It's like He was saying, I've spoken for three and a half years to you. I'm not going to speak much more. For the ruler of the world is coming and He has nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father.

And as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. I love the Father and the Father commanded me to go to the cross. And that's joy to me. Do you see the joy that was set before Jesus? That He said, I love the Father and the Father gave me a commandment.

The Father said, Son, you have to go to the cross. And I believe it was that joy because Jesus had experienced fellowship with the Father through all eternity. That joy of always being in submission to the Father as the Trinity there in heaven.

He understood that joy and He said, here while on earth, the greatest joy I can have is to obey my Father. And so Jesus going to the cross was, first of all, an obedience to His Father's commandment out of love for His Father.

First out of love for the Father and then out of love for us because the Father commanded. So when Jesus went to the cross, and I'm stressing this point because I really believe that this is the only way we can build the church as well.

All building of the church, all Christian work, all Christian ministry must come first from a love for the Father from which we receive His commandment and then a love for people. We've heard about compassion for others that we need in order to build a church.

But before that, compassion must be a love for the Father, a passionate, unadulterated love for the Father which allows us to hear His commandment and then sends us forth in that compassion. Now, this, I believe, can be represented by the two beams in a cross.

You know that a cross has two beams. There's the vertical and the horizontal beam in a cross. If you just take one of those planks, you don't have a cross. If you just have the vertical or just have the horizontal, you don't have a cross.

And I think there's a beautiful picture in the cross of the two-way relationship that defines how we should carry the cross ourselves. The vertical relationship representing the love for the Father, and that must come first.

I think when they were putting a cross, I don't know if this is actually how they did it. But when they built it, I imagine certainly the cross that the Father intended started with a vertical plank. And a vertical plank, if you notice, that's twice the size of the horizontal plank.

In other words, the Father was saying, this is the most important thing. This is the part of the cross on which your body must hang. And then the horizontal. So the cross, the vertical relationship with the Father coming first, and then that horizontal relationship with others.

And we know that that cross on Calvary was only the last of Jesus' crosses. The cross that Jesus carried to Calvary was the last of about 12 ,000 crosses that Jesus carried. And if you ask me where I came up with that number, that's a simple multiplication of 365 days in a year, times 33 and a half years, comes to about a little more than 12 ,000.

And Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross every day. And it was that principle of Jesus living out 12 ,000 times, and actually probably more than that. But 12 ,000 plus days, Jesus said, my life will be determined by my love for the Father first of all, and obedience to his commandment, and then my relationship and my compassion for others.

That's why Jesus could spend 30 years in his home, living in subjection to his parents, his unconverted parents, they hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet, living there at home because he said, this is what must define my life for the first 30 years, because the Father said so.

And that relationship continued to the end of his life. As much as Jesus had to carry his cross, as much as Christ himself, the first body of Christ had to carry that cross for 33 and a half years, today the body of Christ must carry the cross as well.

And the definition of a disciple, we're building churches of disciples, not converts, but the definition of a disciple, you know from Luke chapter 9 verse 23, is one who carries the cross. Luke chapter 9 verse 23, Jesus says, if anyone wishes to come after me, that means be my disciple, the other gospels use that word disciple, if anyone wants to be my disciple, if anyone wants to build a new covenant church, which lives out this principle of new wine in new wineskins, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, her cross daily, and follow me.

This is what it means to build the body of Christ. This is what it means to build a church. This is what it means to have the new wine in new wineskins, and be a church of believers of disciples that are living that out, is that we are all taking up the cross in the same way that Jesus himself did.

With that vertical relationship with the Father established first of all, that vertical relationship, our devotion to God as the most, the only thing in fact, like we have already heard. And the consequence of that, once that vertical beam, that vertical plank is established, then the horizontal beam has a place in which to hang.

If you were to try to hang a horizontal beam in the air, it would just fall. But the moment you establish this vertical plank, now the horizontal beam has a place to stand and a place to hang, and it becomes a cross.

Without that vertical, it's not possible. And so the church must be, the churches that we build, the new covenant church that is living out this life of the new wine in the new wineskins must be built from those whose testimony is this, whose motto in life is this, I do not want to do what I want to do.

I only want to do what the Father wants me to do. I never do what I want to do, I only do what the Father wants to do. And sadly, the majority of churches don't have this, the majority of people in the majority of churches, this is not true about their life.

I'll tell you honestly, I know that because that's what it was like for my own life, sitting in CFC, growing up in CFC, coming back when I came back for holidays, the reality in my own life was I still wanted to do what I wanted to do.

I wanted to build the church or be a part of a church that fit my idea of a church. I wanted to build fellowship with others the way I had a great idea about building fellowship. I liked to hang out with people and spend time with people whom I enjoyed spending time with, and the people who rubbed me the wrong way, let them have fellowship with others.

That's not a cross, and you can never build the true body of Christ as long as we hold on to that mentality of this works for me, I like this group of people that I'm around and fellowshipping with, this is a great church.

And it's possible for us to sit under such good teaching as we receive in these churches in CFC for many years, and our affiliation is to CFC because we like the people who also attend CFC. And God forbid, I say this in fear, God forbid if we should ever be willing to tolerate the teaching as good as it is because we're comfortable in a human way with the people whom we spend time with.

And so also for us building the church, that vertical relationship is most important. And you know, we see this truth in the New Testament that that vertical relationship is 100 in secret. The devil fools many Christians into thinking that their devotion to God is somehow apparent to others around you.

When you think of a godly man who is devoted to God, do you base that assessment on what you see about him? When you think of a godly woman, is it based on what you see him or her do? That's an outward manifestation of the devotion.

But you know that your devotion to God, my devotion to God, is 100 secret, 100 hidden. That's the new covenant. That's why you see in Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount that the difference between the old wineskin and the new wineskin was, in the old wineskin, it was about how it looked.

Did you give and how much you gave? Did you pray? How much did you pray? Et cetera. Did you fast? How much did you fast? And then when Jesus was showing us the new wineskin, the new covenant, he said, when you fast, go in secret.

And we haven't understood the new covenant or the new wineskin if we haven't understood this principle of our devotion, of hiding our devotion to Christ. And that's something that the Lord has been speaking to me more and more in these days, that my devotion to him must be hidden.

What you'll hear in the old wineskin and in the churches in the world is, let the people see your devotion to God. Let them see how much you fast, post it on Facebook, put it on your webpage that I'm going through this 40-day fast.

That's the world. That's the old wineskin. And the new wineskin says, I'm going to fast and I'm going to put on, wash my face, like Jesus said, nobody knows that I haven't eaten in 10 days. That's the spirit of the new covenant, and that's the spirit in which Jesus is building his church today, where that devotion to him, that vertical plank is hidden away.

Your life is hid with Christ in God. And it's the most beautiful place to be. I'm experiencing it a little more day by day. That's my honest testimony, that the more I hide the true nature of Christ within me, the more it's hidden, the more I can hide my devotion to Christ and it become about him and me alone, the more I experience the secrets of the Lord, because I fear him.

And we have those times of intimacy where the doors are closed and it's me and my bridegroom in secret and nobody knows the things we share. That's the best marriage. The best marriage is one where the husband and wife have learned the joy of each other's company without anybody else in the world around them, without anybody else being aware that they are spending time together.

This is the beauty of the new wine in the new wineskin. And this is the kind of church that Jesus is building. You know, for many years, I thought that the proof that we were disciples was that we loved one another.

Because there's that verse in John chapter 13. In John 13, verse 35, Jesus said, By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

So I understood that to mean, here's how I prove that I'm a disciple. I love my brother. I love my sister. I love the church I'm going to. I love CFC. I must be a disciple. But look carefully, like we've heard so often, reading the Bible slowly.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciple, if you have love for one another. So that's the horizontal plank. That's the horizontal part of the cross. By this, they will know that you are my disciple, because they see that this is not just a vertical plank.

Here's the horizontal aspect of it. But before that, like we've already seen, Jesus said, The test of a disciple is Luke 9, verse 23. Luke 9, verse 23 comes first. Jesus said, if you want to be a disciple, this is the condition.

You must take up your cross. You must deny your will. You must deny yourself. After you become a disciple, and God knows that you're a disciple. He knows, first of all, that in your heart of hearts, you are a disciple.

In those areas where nobody sees you, he sees that you denied yourself. And he saw that. And he attests, you're a Luke 9, verse 23 Christian. The only kind of Christian that there really is. After that, Jesus said, the evidence to the world around you will be that you love others who are also like-minded disciples.

But you see the vertical plank coming first. That God being able to attest about our lives, this is a disciple of mine. And I hope that you won't be fooled anymore, like I was for many years too, into thinking that I'm a disciple simply because I love going to CFC.

I love the people in CFC. Oh, the youth, they're such fiery youth. Oh, those brothers, and we have godly older brothers. There can be that human love that can deceive us into thinking we are disciples.

And that's why Sunday is the best day of the week, because I'm with other disciples, I think. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it's boring. Thursday, Friday, oh, it's heavy. I can't wait for Sunday because I'm with other people whom I love.

And I fool myself into thinking I'm a disciple. The true disciple, it doesn't matter if it's Sunday. It doesn't matter if the whole church leaves and they're the only one left, or maybe one or two others, because God knows they are disciples.

And so a true disciple enjoys Tuesday when they're away from the church, just as much as Sunday when they're with the church. They enjoy it because who are they about? They are about their bridegroom.

They enjoy that personal relationship. And so it doesn't matter who comes and goes, really, it doesn't really matter, because I have God and I have Jesus, my bridegroom, and God will build. When we have such a mentality, God will build around us and allow us to be a part of a work that builds such a church of disciples who have put Jesus as the only thing in their life, He is their bridegroom, and their affiliation is to Him and to Him alone, and then He will build a church around them.

The Congregation: Vertical Beams Without Fellowship

A beam by itself is no cross. Take any one of those beams and isolate it. And unfortunately, most churches are falling into one of these two categories where they have this beam or that beam. And I want to talk about that for the rest of the time that I'll be speaking on three categories of churches that I've observed and seen.

The first is a congregation. The second is the club, and the third is the true church, the only church that is living out this life of new wine in new wineskins. See, first of all, the congregation. The congregation, you think about it like this, is a gathering of vertical beams.

And many, the majority of churches today that at least I have been to, are congregations, congregations where there's many people who are taking their personal walk with God at least somewhat seriously.

They're interested in a deeper personal walk with Jesus. They have good Bible times, and they know the Scriptures, and their doctrine is good, but they're individual beams. They can never build fellowship with others, and especially with others who rub them the wrong way.

And I was a congregation member for many years. Having heard these truths for many years, I was satisfied that somehow my personal walk with God was okay. But like John says, how can you claim to love God when you don't love the brother whom you see?

And that's a verse that the congregations will never teach on. In other words, John is saying that you may think that you have a cross because you have this vertical beam, and you seem to be hanging on this vertical beam, and you're proud of it, and everybody can see that you're taking up your cross, and you're a holy brother or sister.

But there is no fellowship. We're not spending time building one another up in love in the church, and I'm an isolated brother, and nobody can have fellowship with me. And nobody, even my wife can't have fellowship with me because I'm so super spiritual.

And when she's sick, when she's taking care of the sick children, here I am busy reading God's Word and spending time in meditation. That's a congregation person. I don't even know if I should call them a Christian, but it's such a person who thinks that somehow my reading my Bible, and my prayer, and my giving to the church, and all this is somehow a representation of the fact that I'm on the cross.

It's heresy. It's deception. The devil has fooled most Christians, like he fooled me for many years into thinking that I was okay. This is Old Covenant. See, the word congregation is an Old Covenant word.

You'll hear even in the Old Testament when Moses gave the law to the Israelites, he talked about the congregation. And you read Exodus chapter 40, you'll see how God gave detailed commands on how they should worship when they gather together.

But it was a bunch of individuals, a bunch of individuals whom God was saying, come live a holy life. That's why you had solo prophets like Elijah and solo leaders like Moses. But you never see two working together in the Old Testament, two prophets hand-in-hand building fellowship and together doing the work of God.

That is completely a new covenant, a new wine in new wineskins principle. The Old Covenant was, you take care of your holy life and your family. You take care of your holy life and your family. You take care of your holy life and your family.

And the different groups can never have fellowship together because they're holy individuals, lone rangers who love to do things for God. And God puts them in situations where they should be submitting to authority around them or submitting to brothers and sisters around them.

And he can't do that because they're Old Covenant Christians, trying to put the new wine into old wineskins. And the sad result of that, like Jesus said in that parable, is that it bursts, that implosion, that it just bursts because you're trying to fit the life of Christ, which was intended for a new wineskin, into this old wineskin, into thinking that somehow I can keep this life of Christ and just keep it to myself, and I don't really have to build fellowship with another brother or sister.

And this is the warning I see Jesus saying, that if you have the life of Christ and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, and he pours the wine into you or I, and we refuse to build fellowship with others as a result of it, there will be this bursting and this great fall.

Like he says, the house, you know, in Matthew chapter 7, the fall was great. That's what I think of, trying to control the life of Christ into my personal life where I keep it to myself and I refuse to build fellowship.

Catastrophe, disaster, a bursting. And thank God there's hope for us then because he had hope, there was hope for me. God had mercy on me when I was a congregation type of Christian, and things burst in my life and everything fell apart.

God said, now will you let me build a new wineskin around your new wine? See, the good thing about bursting is it gets rid of the old wineskin pretty quickly. You know, I talked about layers, and we spent years taking these layers, and sometimes it's good that God allows this wine to just burst where I realize I put my faith in that which was on the earth.

I put my faith in an old wineskin, the traditions of men, or some fantastic idea I had about building the church, and God just burst it forward and said, let me give you the new wineskin, and you build a church that way.

Devotion to God is external. People can see what a godly man you are, how much you pray, what a godly sister you are, how well you cover your head and sit in the church. It's all these external things, and I think I must be spiritual.

I must be building the new wine, living the new wine in the new wineskin. The language is religious. They love to talk religious language. Can't talk to them about football or cricket because they're talking about scripture.

Lots of verses, their mouths just spew forth verses. Not that that's a bad thing, but there's a false religion around that where I can't relate to the everyday people in life. You know, I'm always intrigued by the fact that when Jesus spoke to his disciples and to the people around him, he didn't just always spit forth Old Testament verses.

He did when the time needed it, when he spoke to the devil and he quoted to his disciples, but most of the time he spoke, if he was in Tamil Nadu, he would speak Tamil. If he was here in Bangalore, he would speak Kannada or whatever the language is.

He spoke the language of the everyday people, and he wasn't so super spiritual. This is the most spiritual man himself. The man who showed us how to have new wine and new wineskins, and until I have learned that this religious language can give me a false impression that somehow I am building the church around these other people who also speak this religious language.

They know how to quote this verse, and everybody knows that verse. How come you don't know that verse, brother? Haven't you read your Bible? There can be this false super spirituality. It's a congregation of people who are pretending or imagining that God is pleased with their devotion.

The result is also that worship is soulish. That's why these mega churches, which are congregations, and that's another feature of congregations, they're usually very large, 4 ,000, 10 ,000, 20, 25 ,000.

Can't build fellowship with even two, but you can gather 25 ,000 people listening to a bunch of soulish music and listening to powerful soulish preaching and gather the numbers and fool ourselves into thinking that that's the church.

Jesus said, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone because that vertical beam has refused to take up the cross. That grain of wheat didn't refuse to fall into the ground and die.

It loved to be in a showcase. You know, the problem with most churches is their grains of wheat lined up in the pews, in the benches. Grains of wheat sitting right next to each other. Another grain of wheat, grains of wheat, grains of wheat, 25 ,000 grains of wheat, and I sit there and I'm hungry and look at those grains of wheat and think, if only two of those grains of wheat or one had been willing to die, God could have made bread out of it that feeds the hungry.

And no wonder there's a hungry, lost, thirsty world out there because we've got churches that are 25 and even bigger than that thousand large of grains of wheat sitting nicely in the chairs next to each other.

And may God save us from ever gathering numbers in that spirit where we have grains of wheat sitting next to each other. All it takes is one willing to go in the ground and die, and God will bring another one willing to go in the ground and die, and bring forth fruit out of that, and He'll blend and knit and knead, that word knead, you know, they say about dough, when you take this grain of wheat and you make flour out of it and you knead it, work it, work it, work it, work it, work it.

That's how the church is built. That's the bread of life that can feed the world, the hungry world. Instead, these grains of wheat will just tease Christendom. It'll just tease the hungry, desperate, lonely people in the world.

You can be bread, and we pretend that we're bread because we're grains of wheat. But if the grain of wheat is willing to fall into the ground and die, it will bear much fruit, Jesus said. How does much fruit come from one grain of wheat?

If you want to take this one small grain of wheat, if I was to hold a grain of wheat right here, you wouldn't even be able to see it. It's that small. And perhaps we feel like we're a small group of believers meeting someplace, persecuted by others around us, despised by others.

The other megachurches have the big preachers. They have the big churches, and they have the elders and the pastors, and those churches drive the fancy cars, and they go to the U .S. and to the U .K. and all that.

And we look at ourselves as grains of wheat, and the one command God gives us is, you go into the ground and die, and see, the Lord says, if I will not bring forth fruit out of that. That's his promise.

If a grain of wheat goes into the ground and die, takes up the cross, God will bring forth much fruit from that. That's the secret to building the church. I want to talk about the club now. See, the club is the opposite of that.

The Club: Fellowship Without Devotion to God

We saw that the congregation was these vertical beams, stacked nicely next to each other, and different sizes. You know, some have more devotion, others have less devotion. You saw that too. But the club is made up of people, and I'll tell you honestly, my dear brothers and sisters, I think, as I consider myself still a part of CFC, even though I live away from CFC in the U .S., I consider myself a part of that, and I think this is perhaps a greater danger for us.

Because it's easy for us to hear this doctrine, and to hear good teaching about personal life, and then say, okay, we're all going to be exactly the same. You talk to one CFC brother and another CFC brother, and they look the same, and they talk the same.

One CFC sister, another CFC sister. It's easy for us to think that we are spiritual, because we all look the same. We all cover our head, we all wear modest clothes, we all understand these teachings, we all believe, at least we think we believe, that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, and all these special doctrines we have, and so we become cookie cutter.

You know what cookie cutter is? You cut them all to the same size. In wood shops, you can measure, they have these measuring instruments that will cut a piece of wood into exactly the size that you want.

And the greatest danger for us, having understood these truths, is that we become a club, where we all, we try to get everybody to join our church by going through this cookie cutter process, and we insist, if you want to come to our church, it must be like this, and you must speak like this, and you must talk like this, and we become a club of people who are all exactly the same.

Our relationship with each other is based on the fact that we all speak the same language. We heard about that yesterday. That I get along with these people and I gather around me, even if they're of different skin color and maybe different language, they're all people that I like to spend time with.

And this other brother who's not so educated, and not so well versed in doctrine, not so well versed in the things of this world, he's kind of like, he comes along and we don't really get along with him, so we keep him on the outside and eventually he falls out and leaves, because he doesn't fit into this mold that I have.

See the new wineskin of such a club is that there's no covenant at all. We saw that the congregation is based on the old covenant. It's a devotion to God, yes, but it's not building fellowship. And some people who say, well that's old covenant, we want to leave the old covenant, come out of the old covenant into no covenant at all.