This sermon emphasizes the importance of being part of the body of Christ and the need for unity among believers to effectively combat the enemy. It highlights the necessity of rejecting worldly ties, including family, culture, and self-identity, in order to embrace a new name associated with God's love and devotion to Jesus. The focus is on developing a deep, personal relationship with Jesus that transcends theological knowledge and leads to a life marked by love and unwavering commitment.

I know that I didn't always, I wasn't always gripped with the beauty of the body of Christ. I thought for many years that I had to just be holy. All I had to do was try and get over all my sins and then God would be happy with me. Certainly in the last couple of years that I've realized that God wants me to be part of a group of people. I can never defeat the devil alone. Cannot. I can resist him. I can stand firm. I can't defeat the gates of hell alone. And if my vision is to do violence to the enemy of Jesus Christ who I claim to love so passionately, if I want to attack the gates of hell, I've got no chance doing it alone. I have to be part of the church. I have to be one. I have to have unity with other believers, not attending some group, but being one. We've heard about the different churches and how we must be part of this narrow way as individuals, but also as a church, that we are doing our part individually and we are rallying around to get other people to go on this narrow way. We're not content to just go on the narrow way ourselves. It's of no use because I know the devil won't be defeated if I just go on it myself. I have a holy desire to unite other people with me so that together we can be of singular devotion to Jesus and then attack the gates of hell. Has that inspired you, brothers and sisters? Is this why you come to church on Sunday and anticipating with eagerness that something is going to be done in the heavenlies because you were faithful all week, but now you're trying to unite with other brothers and sisters who are also faithful? Or did you come to fulfill an obligation that God will be displeased with you if you didn't attend some church, or that you wouldn't get to come for the conference if you didn't come at least 80 percent of the time? Are these the reasons why we are attending a church, or has God renewed our mind, elevated our thinking to where we see, I'm here to defeat the devil. Others may want to go to heaven, but I've got my eyes trained on the devil, and God doesn't want anyone to go to hell. I want to attack the devil and his gates, and I can't do it alone. As faithful even if I did not sin once in my private life all week long, I cannot attack the devil. There's no scripture that I can use, but with other brothers and sisters something happens when we unite together. That's what church was meant to be, and I wanted to just take that one verse from the church to Philadelphia in Revelation chapter 3, and I want to just dig a little deeper into what it says in verse 10. We heard a little bit about it. I just want to add to it. He talks about in verse 8, we heard that the people who have this singular focus, this narrow-minded focus towards Christ, and Christ alone do not deny the name of Jesus, and then in verse 10 it says that, I'm sorry, verse 12, he who overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. He will not go out from it anymore. Here it is, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, and the new Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name. There's something about a name that God is saying about this church, about these people who are set apart, who didn't have deeds, had deeds, but more importantly they had life. This is a new name that is associated with such people, and there's so much in a name. We hear so much about it, and I've thought about this sometimes, and what is so much associated with our name. So many of us are linked somehow by our last name. I think that's very common. A lot of people may know me based on my last name because that connects them with somebody else in my family, and it's just not my dad or my mother. It's going up maybe sometimes many generations. Some cultures have that where we carry our last name. That's how it is in the world, but that's not the call of a Christian. We're supposed to get a new name. You can't get a new name if you're not willing to give up your old name. There's sometimes a name associated with our culture, especially in India. From a last name, you can tell that person's probably from Tamil Nadu. That person is probably from this particular state. There's sometimes a culture associated with our name, but God wants to give us a new name, but God can't give us that new name if we still hold on to the name that's associated with our culture. There's a new name associated with our hometown sometimes. I know you're from Kerala. What's your hometown? What's your allegiance to it? And we make decisions about who we're going to fellowship with. Not externally, but if somebody inspects our life, our fellowship is mostly with people from a particular culture or in making big decisions. Children can be friends with all these, but when it comes to these other big decisions, no, then it should only be this particular hometown, this particular amount of money. It's not the call of a Christian. The call of a Christian says God's giving you a new name. I can't have that new name if I'm not willing to give up that old name that's associated with my hometown, that's associated with my culture. And then there's just my own name. That's nothing to do with my culture. It's nothing to do with my family. It's just my name. And that can define who I am. It's something to do with my own identity that God says, if you're a true Christian, you have to give up that name. A true Christian is not defined by what he used to be or what he's made out his name to be, his accomplishments or his baggage that's associated with your past. Because associated with your past are all these things that come to your mind. And God wants to say, you've got a new name. It could be for better or for worse. God wants to give us the new name that's associated with Christ. And I want to think about those three things. I will write upon him the name of my God. There was the God of Moses. There was the God of Abraham. There was the God of Jacob. There was the God of Isaac. This is not Abraham speaking. This is not Paul speaking. This is Jesus speaking. This is the name of Jesus' God. It's possible that we can read the Bible and we can get the name of so many other gods that that's associated with it, as we heard that we could know so many things about the Prime Minister of India. The Prime Minister may not know us. We may not know the Prime Minister's personal name that's associated with him. In the same way, we may know many names associated with Jesus, but we don't know the name of the God of Jesus. Revelation chapter 14, that Brother Ian was sharing earlier, it says there in verse 1, when he talks about the 144,000, and they have his name, the name of Jesus, and we'll come to that in a bit, but it's also the name of his father, and it's not written in secret. It's not on a form you check off, as we heard. It's on their foreheads. When we go to the conference, it's really helpful to have a name tag, because there are so many people you don't know, but even if you're embarrassed that you don't remember their name, you can subtly glance down at the name tag and maybe say, yeah, that's your name, but that's a helpful hint. What about if it's right there? How much easier would it be if the name of Christ and the name of the Father is written on my forehead? The name of God, Jesus is God. They killed Jesus, not because Jesus talked about God as Yahweh. It says in John 5 18, they killed Jesus because he called God his father. There was a price that Jesus paid, because he came and brought that name that you can call God father, and it's not an intellectual concept. It really isn't. The Catholics have been prescribing, pray 10 Our Fathers since the early days. It's not going to bring you life just reciting the Lord's prayer, just from now on saying, God, I'm going to say Our Father. It doesn't make Jesus God our father, but we all know, because we've talked a lot about this, hopefully, if you've been coming to this church, how God must become a personal father in which we have that dad relationship that we cry out. I like that when Romans 8 15, where he says, we've not been given a spirit of slavery leading to fear, but you've been given a spirit of adoption by which you cry out, Daddy. My child doesn't cry out, Daddy, when she's doing all right, and everything's going all right, and she's playing with the sand or playing with her toys. She doesn't cry out, Daddy. She calls out, Daddy. But there are times when she cries out, Daddy, when she's really in need, when she's pressed, when she's hungry, when she's tired, then it's not a calling out for Daddy. There's a crying out for Daddy or for Mommy. That's the question of us is not so much what you will you pray when you, if you were asked to stand up and pray, you'll say, Oh, our Father who art in heaven. The question is when you are pressed in the moment of temptation, what name will come out? Will the name of the Father that Jesus knew come out? Or will we go back to our pet addiction, our identity, and maybe something else that comes out when we are pressed and squeezed, lonely on a Friday night, discouraged because we got insulted by somebody at work and we go home. What's going to come out when that squeezes out? What's the cry that's going to come out? God says the people who have this church that's singularly focused on God will say, Daddy, at that time, those are the people who have the new name of the Father written on them. But it also comes at a price. It comes at the price of giving up our own Father's name. I'm not meaning that in a literal sense, but so many of us may still be identifying by our family. It could be our friend. It could be our father. It could be our mother. It could be our cousins. It could be our uncles that really define our identity. And we are Christians, but we can't say no to our Father when he tells us to disobey Christ. And I have a burden for the young people. I have a burden for the teenagers. I think a lot about them. I'm in communication with some of them. But let me ask a question very gently and respectfully to the fathers and mothers. Are we, as I myself am a father, now I'm raising my children, are we making a stand that we don't associate with our family, first of all, but that we associate with Christ? That if a family member is going to come and corrupt my children from the morals of Christ, I have a problem with it. It doesn't matter how much money they've given me in the past. I don't care. It doesn't matter how much it is. But do I have that association that it's the name of, I'm now, I have the same name as Jesus' father. He's my father. And we have to have that separation. And we are so quick. I say as one who's grown up in the church, to tell the Hindu who's converted, you can't listen to your Hindu father and how he tells you how you must do things. But what if my father is Barthoma? What if my father is a nominal Christian? Am I still enslaved to the people who are my relatives? It's the first call of discipleship. I cannot be a disciple of Jesus if I don't hate that familial relationship first. Young people, we have to obey our parents, don't get me wrong. I can't hate my father and mother in a sense in which I don't respect them and I obey them. But I know him, I can only speak from my own testimony. It was so critical, especially in my teens and in my twenties, that my parents evidenced Jesus was the only thing that mattered. And they were tested, some of you may know, with family. And I've always seen that my parents put Jesus way and his church way above family. I believe that was not insignificant in my own life and in my brother's life. It was a big reason why we were not disillusioned with my parents' church and what was preached here. It's because I saw my parents say, if it comes between my blood, my closest family who we've known all our lives and Christ, in a second we choose Christ. My children are going to watch that. The young people are watching us. May not be your own family, but they're watching each of us. There goes a man who claims he loves Jesus, but he cannot say no to his brother and his brother's wife and his father and his mother, where they try to dominate the person's life. He says he loves his wife, but he's really controlled by his father and his mother. They are the ones that control his heart. We have to give up our father's name. And for those who've had bad fathers, that's also where you also have to exchange your name. But you've had a father who's abused you physically, verbally, and you carry on that baggage with you in terms of how you look to God as your father. We have to get rid of it. That is not Jesus's father. That may have been your father, but that's not the father of Jesus. I will give you the name of my God. I'll give you the name of my father. The father of Jesus didn't verbally abuse him, calling him good for nothing, useless. Your father may have done it, but you have to exchange that. You have to give that up for the name of the father of Jesus, who knew him so intimately, who said, all things that are yours are mine. That's the father Jesus knew. And Jesus said, I wish that the love that you had for me, you could also have with them. Father, I thank you that you always hear me. That's the father that Jesus had. We should maybe study the relationship between Jesus and his father. See how Jesus interacted with his father. See what an intimacy that was. And God says, this is the new name I want to give you. That close father relationship. Put aside what your father physically may have done to you, verbally may have done to you, how he belittled you, how he said you were no good, or maybe it was your mother. Put that aside. You're now in Christ. If God wants to give you a new name, that's the name of Jesus' father. Call him daddy, but call him daddy and think about and remind yourself and renew your mind to the daddy that Jesus had. That when pressed in the garden of Gethsemane and the whole weight of what was going to happen on the cross when he was going to be separated from the father, he dropped and sank to his knees. And the first word that came out was daddy. He didn't go to wine to try and solve this problem by drinking and getting drunk. He didn't go and get sympathy from his disciples. He said, you pray with me at a distance, but he went separately and sank on his knees and said, daddy, you're the only one who can help me when the whole, everything I've known for all eternity is I have to be separated from that. It's at the moment of temptation that we are being tested. It's in that moment of testing when our family name may be on the line and we have to say, I'm going to stand with Christ. I want my children. I want everybody in my friends to know that I am singularly devoted to Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter who I offend. That's the name of the father. That's the name of God, the name of Jesus is God that he wants to give you. The next thing he says here, he wants the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from out of heaven from my God. I talked about that. Some of us may have affiliations to our town and our town could be our cultural town. It could be our hometown, which is part of our name. It could be our friends, what we call our locality, our environment. I speak, especially to young people, your friends, you have most young people have such a struggle to not make their identity based on their friends and who they hang out with, based on who, what your friends think are cool, what your friends, things are hip and relevant. And what makes me cool is if I can do this, if I can think like this, if I can spot our philosophical ideas, if I can play these kinds of instruments, if I can play these kinds of sports, that's what the world thinks is cool. So that's what's going to become my identity. That's understandable because that's what the world finds important. But the message of Jesus is different. The message of Jesus is saying, I want to give you a new name where you identify with the city of God, where God's people become my people. We've been talking a lot about the church. We've been talking about it, not, we've heard about not, it not becoming a club, not becoming a congregation, but being the church of God itself. That means that I must find my family among the people and the brothers and the sisters of this church. Is it possible that we can come to CFC where there are a lot of different cultures, but we only can have fellowship with people of our own ethnicity? It's possible. I'm not saying if we don't know some other language, that's not what I'm talking about. Let me ask you a question I ask myself a lot of times is what draws me to somebody else, the person of Christ in them, or is it something else, something else that gets in the way? I can tell you honestly, in the three weeks that I have been here, I have fellowshiped and drunk in of other people's spirit from Anglo Indians, Malayalees, Tamilians, Telugu, Kanedigas, Sindhis, I may be missing some. I can think of specific people from all of those cultures who have spoken to my life and revealed Jesus to me in three weeks. This is what makes CFC so unique. Has that been your experience? Now, of course, I may get to talk to more people in three weeks because I'm a visitor. I'm not saying the number of times, but has that been really your experience that the person of Jesus has been revealed to you from all these different cultures, that it means nothing to you what culture they're from, what age they are, whether they're cool or not, whether they dress a certain way, whether they have a certain set of qualifications. I interact with every conversation with a brother and a sister in a church saying, I want to get something about Christ from them. And if he's going to talk about the weather and all kinds of useless things, we'll have to slowly end. And I'll learn next time not to spend 10 minutes, but to spend five minutes with them, because that's not what I came to church for. But I'm looking in every conversation, is there something about the person of Jesus? I don't want to hear doctrine. I don't need to hear theology, but there's something about the person of Jesus that I can drink in from that person. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we have to have spiritual talk. I talk about the Indian cricket team. I'll talk about many sports. I'll talk about many activities, but that's not what I'm really passionate about. I'm interested in those things. I follow it as much as I can. But sooner or later, I want to be somebody who draws any conversation about computers, about cricket, about any music back to Jesus. Is that your heart's desire? That you have packed your bags, moved out of the location you've been in your spirit, moved out of all of your peer pressure and all of your friends and found your home in the church. That word family is a special word because we know what it means now that we are in the culture. We understand family has a special meaning, but we can't use that word lightly if we haven't paid the price. Some of us are trying to have dual families. Do I really see this is the family of God? These are my brothers and sisters. I can see why God hates gossip. God hates backbiting. I as a father would hate it if my 10 year old daughter was making fun of the way my two-year-old, let's say I had a two-year-old child, was speaking. I would not care so much that my two-year-old was stuttering or not saying things properly. I would hate what my 10-year-old was doing. Even though she may have been right about everything she was doing, I would hate what my 10-year-old was doing. When I recognize that I'm part of the family of God, I hate it when I hear other people speaking bad about others. That's my brother and sister. I may hear things that are not nice. I may hear things that are negative, but my heart breaks because that's what happens in the family of God. That's what happens when I talk to a father and mother about things that are bad about their children. You think their father and mother are like, man, I agree with you. That's terrible. Yeah, it's horrible. Their heart's breaking. They may agree with you, but their heart's breaking. That's what a father and mother does. That's what an older, mature brother will do when they hear that their little brother or sister is falling by the wayside. They hurt. We're not here to throw stones at my family. The word family of God must mean something. We're moving into a new city. We're aliens, is what Peter says. We've lost that city, that hometown, that culture we were part of. We've given it up. In order to get the new name, I have to give up the old name. A lot of us are trying to have dual, one leg in Christ and one leg in our culture, one leg in our hometown. Peer pressure, I want to have all of my friends, and you can have all of your friends, but we want to do all the things that our friends do and have Christ. And we're trying to make it work. And we say, all right, 80% of the time, God, I'll think about Christ, but maybe just 20%. Friday nights, I got to hang out with my friends. 10%. Hang out with your friends, but are your friends getting to you where you're loving the city that they are a part of, this world? Or you hang out with them realizing, I'm not a part of this city that you're a part of. I'm not part of this culture that you are. I don't connect with you about all these things because my family are the people of God. And we can call God our father, and we can have an independent relationship with God where the fatherhood of God frees us from worry and insecurity, maybe, but we don't want to make the people of God our family. We don't want to really care for them and be burdened for them. We come to church to consume and to take in, and we won't get indicted from it because most churches are that way. We just attend, and then we leave. We have not seen the new name that God wants to give me, that you moved out of that city and you moved into this. This is your hometown. The family of God is your home. These people are now your neighbors. They need to be built up. This is the city that God wants to build up. I think Paul says, I have no allegiance according to the things of the flesh. Can you say that? I have no allegiance, zero allegiance to anybody who shares my last name. I have zero allegiance to anybody who's from my culture. My allegiance, last name, culture is to the people of God, not to people who call themselves Christians, but people who are sold out for Jesus. That is an attractive life. That's a life of devotion. I share this humbly to all the people. As a young person, I can tell you this, that is a life that me as a young person am attracted to. I've heard so many sermons from so many smart people. I've been around a lot of smart people who've expounded all kinds of great ideas, but I'll tell you something that's really envious is people are people who are passionately, singularly devoted to Jesus Christ, who have made that switch. No matter what happens of any cultural, any pressure from family, culture, they are set. Jesus is what matters. I've thrown in my lot with him. Even if lions come at me, it doesn't matter. I've thrown in my lot with Jesus. That's in my heritage. That's in your heritage 20 centuries ago. That's what makes Jesus and his message unbreakable. That's why we have that message today. I believe that if those Christians had all wilted away and said we'd rather hang out and live life for 20 more years than face the lions, I don't know what would have happened. But the message of Jesus that makes it so unique is because God filled them with the Holy Spirit that they made that shift. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It doesn't matter if the fire takes us or doesn't take us. It doesn't matter if the lions take us or don't take us. We are committed to Jesus Christ. And this becomes my family. Culture doesn't become an issue. Intellectual prowess doesn't become my issue. How fit or not fit they are, whether they can speak in my language or another. I truly desire to drink in of a spirit of somebody who loves Jesus passionately. And we as young people, we won't be able to deny that when we see it in older brothers. I want to encourage our whole family to be that kind of church. Old and young have that mark. There goes a man. There goes a woman who just really loves God. Who's filled up with the love of God. They don't know a lot about theology, but they love God. The third thing is the name of Jesus himself. But it's not the name of Jesus himself. It's his new name, it says in verse 12. It's my new name. You know, we know what's going to happen, some things that are going to happen when we go to heaven. It says in Philippians chapter 2, something that's going to happen. Philippians chapter 2 verse 9. Therefore also God exalted him, highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name. That the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those who are in the heaven and on earth and under the earth. Is that the new name of Jesus? Every knee is going to bow at that. Is that going to be the limit of your spirituality? That you just bow at the name of Jesus and say, Jesus, you are Lord. No, that should be part of it, but it should go deeper. We also sang in some of the songs and we read about that in Revelation chapter 5. That they sang a new song, Lord Jesus, you are worthy to take the book and break the seals. Lord, you are worthy. Salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb. These are all songs that we will sing. Revelation verse 7, it says they cried out with a loud voice, but that's a multitude of people. They're going to be myriads. Revelation 4, 5, 11, it says they were just myriads, numbers and numbers, thousands and thousands. They're going to be able to say worthy is the Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. Even the devil's going to be able to say that, but that's inspiring. What we read in Revelation chapter 14 that we heard from brother Ian in verse 3, Revelation chapter 14, verse 3, and they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures. And this day is talking about the bride of Christ. And no one could even learn the song. Can you imagine being in heaven? You think everything's going to go away, everything's going to be great, all your tears are going to be wiped away, but you know there's something you can't learn. Can you imagine the frustration it must be? We're going to be there with Christ, not a single problem with us except one. We have the inability to learn this new song and we'll be standing there, maybe on the outside, listening to other people sing it, and we won't have the ability to learn that song. Even in heaven, we'll watch as the bride of Christ sings that song. What a tragedy it would be. I understand what it means that we're going to live in eternity with a little bit of regret. Lord, I'm heaven, I'm right there with you, but I can't sing the song. They're all singing it. How I wish I could sing this song. Nobody could sing it except 144,000. That new song that was that special name through which only the bride could sing it to the bridegroom because there was such a level of personal intimacy with Jesus. It was a name beyond where I rejected my family and my father and my mother and their house. It was a name beyond where I rejected my culture. I rejected the city that I was a part of and I came to Christ, but it didn't end with that and where I made the church of God my family, but it was a personal relationship which the church of Ephesus had lost. They'd lost their first love, but these are the group of people who made that intimate relationship with Jesus. The thing that was the one metric by which they assessed their Christian life. What is the one metric you use, dear brothers and sisters, to ask yourself how you're doing spiritually? I spoke about this from the conference from 2 Corinthians 11 3. If we've lost our simple and pure devotion to Jesus, we are deceived. We say the prosperity preacher is deceived. We say the people following all these wrong doctrines are deceived. How about me? Am I deceived? If I've lost my simple, pure devotion to Jesus, God says you're deceived just as badly as he was deceived. If I make that the metric on how I'm doing spiritually, I will learn this new song, this personal song that is between Jesus and his bride, and I will yearn for that interaction with Jesus. The command to say pray without seizing wouldn't be difficult because it will be calling up love. When you call God on the phone, are you interacting with infinite love? That's not his name. That's who he is. He is love. Why is it that we are so afraid to spend time with God? Because we don't know love. We don't think we're interacting with infinite love. That's why. Now, I'm not saying that means we spend 10 hours on our knees. Absolutely not. But throughout the day in my free moments, and the times when I have some free time in my mind, the best place I can hang out with is with love. With the person who tells me you're so completely and absolutely loved. Can you tell me a better place to be than that? That's what God says. Why would you not talk to me more often? Why would you let some trivial sins, some passing pleasures of this world, get in the way of talking of infinite love? So many young people who have so many doubts and so many thoughts about this. What about this worldview? What about this theology? What about this thing? What about this thing? I have only one question to you. What about love? Have you hung out with infinite love? Debate that with me. Let's talk about love. The love of God that is shed abroad in our lives. That's what the Christian life was supposed to be. Now, you may hang out with brothers and sisters who may not evidence that, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is hang out with love. We need to know that special name beyond. It's not a rejection of father into an emptiness. It's not the rejection of our family into an emptiness. It's not a rejection of culture into an emptiness. It's not a rejection of ourself and all that we hold dear into an emptiness. It's a rejection of all of that into the fullness of love, into the fullness of that special name that the bridegroom only shares with the bride. That new name that goes from, he says he'll write it, says in Revelation 3, he'll write it, and he'll write it on my heart, first of all, but then it wants to seep out. That love wants to seep out onto our very foreheads, not physically, but people see there goes a man that God loves. There's a man who's really embraced the love of God. Yes, he hates sin. Yes, he's getting victory over sin. That must be the attributes of people who love God, but much more than all of that, they're not making a big deal of their victory over sin. They're making a big deal about how much God loves them. That becomes enjoyable to hang out with. That becomes inspiring to hang out with. That becomes something that all of us as young people and growing old are something we can grab a hold of. Father, I don't want to be known by my name anymore. I don't want to be, there is no me in my name anymore. That means there's no Poonen in my name. There's no Sandeep in my name. There's no hometown in my name. That's all gone. I want to bury it, good or bad. We heard in the conference how we can seek the approval of godly man. Poonen can become something that's a good thing for me. God, I want to bury it. Poonen's not part of my name. Sandeep's not part of my name. There's no me in my name anymore. Now it's the name of the father of Jesus who's becoming my father too. And this, the people of God is going to be the city in which I hang out with. This becomes my hometown. I'm not pitching a particular church. I'm talking about the family of God where people love Jesus and I believe this church is one of them. And way beyond all of that in secret because you just spend time with the people of God once or twice a week. But all week long it's the name of Jesus himself. That special name that Jesus and you are interacting with that is warming your heart. That you get excited a little bit more to talk to this special Jesus who is love. It's gone beyond the theology. It's gone beyond a set of beliefs into a personal relationship that even lions roaring at you won't shake you from this love relationship with Jesus. May God help us.