In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of truly following Jesus and understanding the way he walked. He points out that conflicts in homes between spouses who claim to follow Jesus may arise because both are unwilling to die to themselves. The speaker uses an illustration of neighbors fighting every morning and highlights the significance of inner transformation rather than external rules and regulations. He also warns against the influence of false information from various sources and encourages listeners to seek the truth from God's Word.

means to spread the fragrance of Christ in his humility particularly. The reason why Jesus received grace was because he humbled himself. One of the great truths that we need to be gripped by is that when Jesus became a man, he became 100% like us except for sin. I mean, if you could take sin out of you and me, that's exactly how Jesus was. With all the limitations, possibility of temptation, everything, the weakness, everything. But many Christians have not seen him like that. And when you don't see him like that, you lose out on something. And so I want to encourage all of you, if you have not seen that very clearly, to ask God to reveal this to you. You know, a lot of these things come by revelation. In my own life, I knew theoretically that Jesus Christ became a man for 35 years before it became a revelation to me one day. It hit me, hey, he was just like me. He was tempted, just like me, and he didn't sin. And there's nothing that the Father did for Jesus because he was his son, which he wouldn't do for you and me. That's the thing that really encouraged me to believe that I could reflect the glory of Jesus. Otherwise, it looks like an impossible thing. How can I, in my earthly life, live in the same way Jesus lived? It says in 1 John 2 and verse 6, you know, there are numerous commands in the Bible, which I think a lot of Christians don't even bother to try to obey, leave alone obey it. And this is one of those verses, 1 John 2, 6. The one who says he abides in Christ. Now let's stop. Do you say that you are in Christ? You're a child of God? You're in Jesus Christ? Well, then here's a verse for you. You ought to walk in the same manner as he walked. Do you think God would ask you to do something that's impossible? Would you ask your son to carry a thousand-pound weight on his head? Would a loving father ask me to walk in this difficult earth, with all the pressures and circumstances and evil around me, to walk as Jesus walked, if he knew that is impossible? I don't think there's a single father here who would ask his son or daughter to do something which you know is impossible, or which you can do, but your child is too small. I mean, we're big men, we can carry a 50, 60-pound weight, but your little five-year-old can't carry that. You won't ask him to carry it, because he'd say he can't do it. I can do it, but he can't. He's too small, he's too weak. What about our loving Father in heaven? Does He have that consideration, or is He challenging us, you know, like we challenge our children? Hey, you can do it. Think if you have a child who's afraid to learn to ride the bicycle, or afraid to get into the swimming pool to learn swimming. What would you do? You'd say, all right, it's okay, never mind if you never learn it. You'd encourage him, hey, you can do it. Don't be scared, and you know how those children can stand beside a swimming pool and be scared to go in, because they know they'll be dragged down, and then you encourage them, and encourage them, and one day, they're thrilled, because you encouraged them. They learn to swim, to overcome gravity, and not allow them to be to be pulled down to the bottom of the swimming pool, because you encouraged them. That's the way the Lord is encouraging us. There is a law of gravity that's pulling us down in this world, it's called the law of sin and death, and what we read in Romans 8 verse 2 is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus will set us free from that law of sin and death. You can't overcome that by laws. No, any amount of rules and regulations won't help you to overcome the law of sin and death. That'll just make you look holy on the outside, but not holy on the inside, but when it says you've got to walk in the same manner as Jesus walked, it's talking about an inner value system that Jesus had, by which he took decisions in his life. See, walking is a conscious act. We take one step, and then another, another, another, another. So, think of walking as Jesus walked, as different decisions that you're taking in your life, and each decision is made based on the same value system that Jesus had. That's what it means to walk as Jesus walked. We don't have to be bachelors or carpenters like he was. It's not relating to the external things in his life, or live in Nazareth, or any external thing in his life. It's the inner principles by which he lived his life, and every decision he took was based on a value system that he got from his father, and the world has got a completely different value system, and that's why the Bible says, don't be conformed to this world, but be renewed. Be renewed in your mind, and you'll be transformed and conformed into the likeness of Christ. Romans 12 verse 2. So, we need to allow God, through the Holy Spirit, to change our way of thinking, so that this life of Jesus can come more and more in us. So, to walk as Jesus walked, it begins with what we read in Romans 12 verse 2, 1 and 2. First of all, Romans 12 1, I present my body to God. Say, Lord, I want you to take all of my body from head to foot. I want the Holy Spirit to, I'm presenting my body to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's like, you know, in the world they build a church building, and they have a dedication service where they say, okay, we're dedicating this church building to God. You need to have a dedication service where you take your whole body and say, Lord, this is dedicated now, from now on, for the use of the Holy Spirit. It's the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's the real church, your body. And you're dedicating it to God and saying, Lord, everything, my eyes, my tongue, my hands, it's all for you now. And if I ever slip up in taking it back for myself, to use for myself, I want to repent immediately and come back to you and give it to you. And inside this body, verse 2, we have a mind. And I must allow the Holy Spirit to change my way of thinking, change the values that I have, to make them aligned with the values Jesus had. I want to tell you that's the only way that you'll ever be able to live the Christian life. That's the only way you'll ever be able to build a Christian home. And that's the only way you'll be able to build your local church as an expression of the body of Christ. There's no other way. So to walk as Jesus walked, I have to, first of all, give my body to Him, which I've used by myself all these years, my tongue, my eyes, my tongue and eyes especially, because I think we sin most with our tongue and our eyes, so more than with other parts of our body. So if I give my tongue and my eyes to God, that I say, I don't want to look or read anything which you wouldn't want me to read. I don't want to speak anything you don't want me to speak. Particularly Lord, I want to be careful with my tongue and my eyes. In the New Testament, we read of two things which are like a flame of fire. On the day of Pentecost, there was a tongue on top of the disciples like a flame of fire. And in Revelation, we read of Jesus having eyes like a flame of fire. There are two parts of your body which need to be set on fire by God. And if you examine your life, you find that a lot of people who say they've accepted Christ as their Savior, the two parts of their body they have never given to God is their tongue and their eyes. Well, then it says, you hear it says, you can't be a worshiper. You know, in the Old Testament, whenever people worship, they fell down on their face before God. That was an act of worship. And what you see today in Christendom of people laying hands on people and making them fall down is the exact opposite of worship. They're showing their feet to God. And anybody in an Eastern culture knows that to show your feet to somebody is almost the greatest insult you can show him. And the devil has a big laugh when he sees all these people being pushed down on the platform and says to God, have a look at these fellows showing their feet to you. And they think that's the Holy Spirit. Well, I'm not fooled by that. The worshipers in the Old Testament did not show their feet to God. They didn't fall backwards, they fell forwards. The only people who fell backwards were the demon-possessed ones. When Jesus cast out a demon, the demon would throw them on the ground. And I've seen that happen. I've seen that happen when demon-possessed people are cast out, they get thrown on the ground or they wiggle like snakes on the ground. And then when the demon is cast out, they get up or the demon throws them down. Gee, the Holy Spirit never throws people down. He always lifts people up. So in the Bible, you read about people falling down and worshiping. And what they're saying is, God, here's my whole body. This is my act of worship. From head to foot, it's yours. That's what he's saying in Romans 12.1. And the NASB is a very beautiful translation, which says here that present your bodies as a living sacrifice. This is your worship in the Spirit. This is your spiritual worship. You remember what Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the Father seeks for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And you wonder, what does it mean to worship in spirit? Well, here it says, this is what worship in the Spirit is. First of all, to present my body and think especially of your tongue and your eyes. And I want to ask you not just to listen to this, but will you right now say, Lord, I have sinned so much with my tongue and my eyes. I have spoken angrily. I have gossiped, backbitten against people and murmured and grumbled. I've not given my body to you. Many of you come from conservative churches where you're very particular about the dress you wear. I'm all for that. I believe that women should be dressed modestly because they should not unnecessarily provoke men to lust. But I say you can be dressed modestly and that body which you're dressing so modestly with clothes, you go home and with that body you argue and grumble with each other at home and speak evil of others behind their back. And with that body you use your eyes to read stuff which Jesus would not want you to read or look at. I say, what's the use of that? You glory in the fact that your external appearance is good. Jesus said to the Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is all dirty. Of course, we must have the outside and inside clean. But if you have a choice, it's the inside that's important. I go, when I go to down to the villages in India and to the really poor people, sometimes they offer me a cup of tea and the cup is pretty dirty. But I only make sure that the inside is clean. It doesn't matter to me if the outside of the cup is not so perfectly clean. The inside is, if the inside is dirty, then I would not drink that because it would be, it could bring me sickness. The inside is more important. We know that. That's the example Jesus was using. You clean the outside of the cup, but you don't clean the inside. So, let me turn you to that verse. It's very important. Matthew 23, verse 25. You hypocrites, Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside it's full of self-indulgence. Self-indulgence means I want to please myself inside. I speak what I like, I read what I like, I look at what I like, but the outside I look very clean and holy. I remember once in our church, I was saying to try and highlight the importance of the inside. I said, I would rather have a sister here who's cut her hair short, never veils her head, wears jeans, but modestly dressed, and wears lipstick and mascara and everything else, but never gossips at home, submits to her husband, never speaks evil of others, helps the poor, and controls her tongue, and doesn't waste her time reading romantic novels, uses her eyes for God, rather than have a sister who's also holily dressed with long hair and veiling, and goes home and doesn't submit to her husband, and gossips and backbites and murmurs and grumbles. Give me a hundred of these other sisters who wear jeans and who are God-fearing than these so-called holy sisters who are dirty on the inside. Any day, I'll build my church with them. That's the meaning of what Jesus is saying here. How many of you have understood it? You clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is full of self-indulgence. You speak what you like, you read what you like, you do what you like, and outside in the church you have such a testimony, and you're so keen that everybody should be modestly dressed. I'm all for it. But what is important? I remember one young girl from a Hindu home who had accepted Christ. She came to me in my home one day and said, Brother Zach, I've accepted Christ, but I don't know whether I can come to your church. I said, Why? You're welcome. She said, Because I wear jeans, and the only clothes I have, I'm from an unconverted home. I've been recently converted. I don't have any clothes except jeans, and my parents will never buy me a new set of clothes for me to go to church. So what do I do? Can I come to your church with jeans? I said, Sure. And if some stupid, immature person questions you about it, tell them that Brother Zach told you to come with jeans, because I want you to hear the Word of God. I don't want you to sit at home and miss the fellowship of God's people just because you don't have proper clothes. You know how we can be so judgmental? You see somebody in a certain dress, and you don't know what is... I mean, if other people had seen that girl in our church, they'd say, Ah, look at that girl. They don't know that that poor girl doesn't have income, and her parents won't give her any money, and her only alternative, if she didn't wear those clothes, was not to come to church at all. That would not occur to our mind, because we've got a judgmental spirit. We look at people with a judgmental spirit, and that's one mark of our pride. A humble person will always put the best construction on something. Maybe there's some reason why that person is like that. That's how it was with Jesus. That's what I mean by changing our value system in our mind. We have grown up in a world which has got a system by which we judge by what we see. That's the one thing Jesus commanded us not to do. He didn't say don't judge at all. That would be unrealistic, because if you don't judge at all, you'll just go to some other non-Christian religion, or you may go to some corrupt version of Christianity, and there are lots of them in the world. But Jesus said in John 7, verse 24, that we must judge. There's one sentence there in John 7, 24, which says don't judge like this, but judge like this. Do not judge according to the outward appearance. That is the way I'm not supposed to judge a person. But I must judge with righteous judgment, and that's part of the humility of Jesus Christ. I'll tell you honestly, in the early days when I was a Christian, I grew up in a very legalistic Christian church, and I was judgmental just like all my other brothers and sisters around me. I absorbed their spirit. I thought I was not worldly, because I wasn't watching television. I was going to meetings and services and studying the Bible. But my judgmental spirit corrupted everything. What was the use of studying the Bible if I had a judgmental spirit? And that's what a lot of Christians have today. They've got a very good, the way they dress, their doctrines are right, and so many good things, but they corrupt the whole thing with a judgmental spirit of other people. It's like making a very tasty bowl of soup and putting a dead lizard inside it. Why in the world did you go and put that dead lizard after you took so much trouble to make such a lovely bowl of soup? That's exactly how it is when you do everything right in your life. You dress godly, you behave godly, you go to the services, and then judge others. That's the dead lizard. Do you know how many Christians, they offer that to God, and God says, I don't want it. Throw it in the trash. He won't accept it. Do not judge according to outward appearance. One of the most disobeyed commands by Christians, and especially by conservative Christians, perhaps the most disobeyed command in the Bible by conservative Christians, do not judge according to outward appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Are we supposed to judge? Yes, we judge with righteous judgment. That requires humility. It requires the humility of Jesus. See what it says about Him in Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah chapter 11, what is the mark of the fear of the Lord? The Holy Spirit, we're talking about the Holy Spirit bringing the life of Jesus in us. One characteristic of the Holy Spirit is, He brings in us a fear of God. I don't know, if I were to ask you, can you give me one or two examples of the fact that you fear God? I mean, you may say some very good things, which are marks of the fear of God. You say, well, I won't tell any lies. I won't cheat anybody, and I won't watch a pornographic movie. Good. All marks of the fear of God. But how many of you would think of this mentioned here as one of the marks of the fear of God? Listen, Isaiah 11, speaking of the Holy Spirit, verse 2, resting upon Jesus, the sevenfold spirit, the spirit of Jehovah, the spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, spirit of counsel, spirit of strength, spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And that one aspect of the Holy Spirit's ministry is expanded in the next verse. And this spirit of the fear of the Lord will make Jesus delight in the fear of the Lord. And when He delights in the fear of the Lord, He will never judge according to the outward appearance. He will never judge anyone by what he saw or by what he heard about that person. He will not judge by what his eyes see. And he will not make a decision by what his ears hear. Does it mean he will not judge at all? He will judge with righteousness. Verse four, with righteousness, he will judge. This is the exact equivalent of what we read in John 7, 24. Do not judge according to the outward appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. And Jesus is the example there. Now, if we look at our own life from childhood, all the information we have got in our mind, we've got through our eyes and our ears, almost all. I mean, we got a little bit by touch and taste and smell also, but that's minimal compared to the information that is in our brain right now, which went through our eyes and our ears. All our education and school and observation in society, eyes and ears, eyes and ears. We're getting information all the time. People are telling us things, we hear things, we read things, eyes and ears, eyes and ears, eyes and ears. And a lot of that information is wrong. A lot of things, I'll tell you whether you know it or not, a lot of things which you read in the newspapers are not absolutely true. There's partial truth in it, but it's written by journalists who are paid by newspaper owners to influence people to think in a certain way. It's the same thing with a lot of internet news and everything. It's not really true. And it's amazing, television news programs and all, we think we're getting the truth. It's influencing us in a certain direction, to vote in a certain direction or to have a certain attitude towards gay marriages or things like that. It's all designed to influence people in a certain direction. And not only in these matters, but in many other areas, our thinking has come from what we have absorbed from childhood, from others around us, from advertisements and so many things. Why is it, for example, people buy so many things which they cannot afford and get into credit card debt? I mean, so many people in this country are just riddled with credit card debt, mainly because I'm not talking about those emergencies where they had to pay a hospital bill, which is unavoidable. I'm talking about a whole lot of purchases which could have been avoided, but they didn't. It's because of the influence of media, which says, you can't live without this. Whenever you hear that, say to yourself, man lived without that for 5,000 years, so I can live without it. I'll buy it when I can afford it, but not when I can't afford it. I tell you, this one simple principle can save you from a lot of problems. I mean, that's a principle my wife and I followed. I'm 71 years old. I've never been in debt for a single day in my life, not because I had plenty, but because we learned to live with very little. And when we couldn't afford it, we didn't get it. If we couldn't afford to buy new clothes, we didn't get it. If we couldn't afford to buy new clothes for our children, we'd say, sorry, it's your birthday, but we don't have money to get you a new set of clothes today, or any gift. When your clothes wear out, we'll get you another one. Oh, Brother Zach, your children will grow up terribly rebellious. They didn't. They all grew up to follow the Lord, every single one of them, and to serve the Lord. Don't let the devil fool you. Live by the principles of Jesus, and in everything, to walk as Jesus walked. I asked myself this question. I'm not telling you what you should do. I'm saying, I realize there are certain situations in business, or in medical emergencies, where maybe you have to, I've never done business, so I don't know, but you have to borrow, and I'm not talking about those things. But what I, what I'm saying is, don't buy what you don't need. And don't think you have to get the latest model of something. The old model will work, but don't buy what you don't need. And don't think you have to get the latest model of something. The old model will work, but don't buy what you don't need. And don't think you have to get the latest model of something. The old model will work, but don't buy what you don't need. And don't think you have to get the latest model of something. The old model will work, but don't buy what you don't need. And don't think you have to get the latest model of something. The old model will work, but himself to be influenced by society around him. He would not judge by what his eyes saw or his ears heard, but he would listen to the Father. There are some amazing examples of that. I see, for example, in John chapter 7. You know, when you look at the glory of Jesus and His humility as a man on earth, how He lived, it's been a tremendous challenge to me. Why do we need to see this? Because that's the place of grace, where the Holy Spirit comes. God gives His grace to the one who is humble, and if I humble myself like Jesus, I can be absolutely sure the Spirit of grace will rest upon me all the time. I want it to rest upon me all the time. I don't hesitate to say that. I want the Spirit of grace. I don't want to have one baptism in the Holy Spirit. I want to be immersed in the Holy Spirit every single moment. There's hardly a day that goes by in my life without my praying to Jesus that He'll fill us with the Holy Spirit. Almost every time when my wife and I get up together in the morning and pray, we pray that God will fill us with the Holy Spirit. To me, it's the most important thing in our life, and it's not a once for all experience. We read in John chapter 7, it speaks of a time when Jesus was in Jerusalem and He preached a long sermon, and a lot of people were blessed. They were so blessed that even the people who came to, they said, this is the son of David, verse 41. Some were saying verse 40, this is the prophet. Verse 41, this is the Christ. There were so many people who listened to His message and said, this is the Messiah. This is the prophet of God. And even the people who came to capture Him, you know, some people were sent to capture Him. They said, boy, verse 46, never man speak like this man. But when the sermon was over, all the people went away to their own house, it says, verse 53. Everyone went to his own house and nobody bothered to ask Jesus, where are you staying tonight? Jesus was not from Jerusalem. His home was in Capernaum. That's a long half-day journey. Imagine that. I've often thought of that, you know. I said, Lord, it's never happened to me that I spend a day preaching and nobody asked me where are you staying tonight. But nobody asked you. And what did you do? It says in verse 1 of the next verse, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. We had no complaints. If my father has not allowed anybody to invite me to their home to stay with them tonight, well, it's not raining, the trees are a lovely place to sleep under, my father's house. And he slept under the trees. And he came back next morning early in the morning to preach again in the temple and nobody asked him, by the way, where were you last night? He never got offended with that. I said, Lord, make me like that. Make me like you where I won't get offended if I've gone somewhere to preach and everybody goes home and I'm left alone there. It's never happened to me. But if it does one day, I pray I will not be offended. I said, Lord, that's an opportunity to walk in your footsteps. Dear brothers and sisters, do you get offended because somebody didn't show you some consideration in some situation? You think you're a great man of God and people should show you consideration? Or you think you're the husband so your wife should show you consideration? Learn from Jesus. You know now why you don't get grace, why you don't get filled with the Holy Spirit. Because you don't have a spirit of humility to recognize I'm nothing. I deserve nothing. If I ask God to give me what I deserve, it's hellfire. The one who recognizes that will never have a complaint or get offended. I see that. Okay. Who said I need a bed? Can I sleep on the floor? Can I sleep on the earth under the trees? That was Jesus' attitude. And no complaint about it. I love another place where it says in Matthew chapter 12. You know, these are the little glimpses I get as I read the scriptures. The Holy Spirit shows me the glory of Jesus. Many people just read it as history. I read the scriptures to see the glory of Jesus because I know the Holy Spirit wants to make me like that. And once I see it, I say, Lord, I want to be like that. It's great to have an example. I thank God I'm not living in Old Testament times where I just get commands, commands, commands, commands. I get worn out with commands. But I have an example. This is not an exhortation. This is an example. And I see in Matthew chapter 12 where, again, a lot of people were very excited because Jesus cast out a demon in verse 22. A demon who has made a man blind and dumb. And, I mean, you'd think that everybody should be excited if a blind and dumb person suddenly could see. And most people were. The multitudes were amazed. Verse 23, Matthew 12, 23. They said, this must be the Son of God, Son of David. But the Pharisees were jealous. It's amazing what jealousy can do to you. When you're jealous of someone, it can make you completely blind. Even if he's the greatest servant of God on earth, you will think he's the devil. That's what happened. He was the greatest servant of God on earth. And the Pharisees, when they heard it, they said, no. This must be the ruler of demons. He's the devil himself. Beelzebul, another name for Satan. Now, how did Jesus react? How do you react if somebody called you the devil? Or you heard that a whole lot of people called you the devil. I mean, we've faced lesser insults than that and we got offended. Imagine someone calling the Son of God a devil. And all Jesus says is, verse 32, have you spoken against me? You're forgiven. Just make sure you don't speak against the Holy Spirit. He who is equal to the Holy Spirit says, it's okay if you speak against me. I'm now here as a man. And he called himself the Son of Man and my translation of that is an ordinary man. That's whenever I read Son of Man, I say an ordinary man. And I see Jesus, the Son of God saying, verse 32, have you spoken a word against an ordinary man like me? That's okay. You're forgiven. Just make sure you don't destroy yourself by speaking against the Holy Spirit. You see the glory of his humility there? That's how we're supposed to walk. Who said we can't walk like him? We can if we just get rid of our pride, that's all. We say, oh, it's so difficult. It's difficult because we are proud. We think too much of ourselves. We think we are superior to others. We think, how dare anybody call me like that? That's why we can't walk as he walked. It's only because of pride. And I see another thing here as I read carefully in Matthew 12, 32. He didn't just forgive them. Here is a blanket forgiveness for anybody who speaks against Jesus for 2,000 years. Do you see that? Whoever, anytime in history, speaks a word against me, an ordinary man, is forgiven. So I say, Lord, what about all these guys who make movies about you saying you were homosexual or you married Mary Magdalene and you had children, all these people today? Boy, I forgave them 2,000 years ago. No Christian has to go and burn down those theaters or things like that like some people of other religions do. No. Our Savior can handle insult. He can handle people calling him the devil. He forgave them 2,000 years ago. What about you? Are you a proper, accurate representative of this Savior? I want to be. I want to be that. I want to live a life where I'm never, never offended by anything that anybody says or does to me or does not do or say to me like they didn't take Jesus' homes when he was to give him a bed. What they didn't do or what they did do. We saw both examples here. He was not offended. We can walk as he walked if we are willing to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and say, well, God permitted that and I want to bow down before God and accept it. You know, there's a great example in the Old Testament of the man after God's own heart who one day when his own son, David, his own son chased him out of the throne, Absalom, and David had to run for his life, 2 Samuel chapter 16. Here's old King David. I don't know how old he was, maybe 50 or 60, somewhere around that age. He was, we know that he was 52 when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and this was after that. Maybe around 60 years old and he is running for his life and on the way he meets a relative, the old King Saul, who was so angry that his influence in the palace had gone because Saul had died and David had replaced him and he was waiting for a chance to get rid of David and now was his chance, 2 Samuel 16. It says in verse 5, when David came to Bahurim, there was a man from the family of Saul's house who was so delighted that at last this guy is suffering because his son had thrown him out. You know, this is the mark of a lot of people in the world are very happy when they see their enemy suffer and Shimei comes and it says here, he cursed him, verse 5, continually. Verse 6, he threw stones at David. This is the king, remember, God appointed king. He threw stones at him and he said, get out, get out, verse 7, you man of bloodshed, worthless fellow. The Lord has brought upon you a revenge for all that you did for him. There are a lot of Christians who speak like this. I've heard them, who are quick to pass judgment on why some poor believer is suffering and one of David's generals, verse 9, said, why should this dead dog curse my Lord the King? Let me go and cut off his head right now and the king said, nothing doing and listen to this amazing word, verse 10, if the Lord has permitted him to curse me, who am I to lift my hand against God and say, how dare you let him curse me? You see, he didn't see Shimei, he saw God. Who do you see? Do you see people or do you see God? This is the problem with Peter. He saw Judas Iscariot and the Roman soldiers and so he took out his sword and cut off one fellow's ear and Jesus said, put it back. This is not Judas Iscariot. This is my father who sent this cup. Judas Iscariot is only the postman who is bringing the cup. The cup is sent by my father. I'm going to take it. That's what David said here. Have you seen that? Have you seen that your God is so sovereign that without his permission, that chap cannot curse me? Yeah, in this matter, I'm a Calvinist. Sovereignty of God. Nobody can speak a word against me without God's permission. I mean in certain limited areas like this, I am a Calvinist. It helps me to see God was in it. In sovereign, in allowing that person to curse me or speak evil of me or cheat me. Anything that anybody does. Humility means, I say, God, if you have permitted it, if I fight against it, I'm fighting against you. Have you ever seen it like that? That when you fight against a person who is harming you, you're fighting against God? Yeah, a humble person will see that. That's how Jesus saw everything in his life. Have you called an ordinary man, prince of devils? You're forgiven. Anybody ever call, say something against me, you're forgiven right now. I'm giving advance forgiveness for all people who ever speak evil against me. Can we follow in Jesus' footsteps here? Why not? We can easily do it. Let's turn to Romans and we see here in, we were looking at Romans 8, the law of the spirit of life. Verse 2 has set me free from the law of sin and death. I want you to see Romans 2 and verse 11. There is no partiality with God. What do you get out of that verse? You know, it's like a well. If you meditate on a verse like that, you can get so much out of it. I mean, I read that for years, till one day I got this amazing truth out of it that helped me tremendously in my life. It's helped me all these years. Just one single sentence. There is no partiality with God. I coupled that with Romans 8, 29, which says that Jesus is to be the elder brother of ours. That means we are younger brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. So when I coupled that truth that when we are children of God, we are younger brothers and sisters of Jesus and he's the elder brother, coupled it with the truth that there's no partiality with God, and you know how Jesus used to compare God with earthly fathers. I compared God with myself as a father. I have four sons and I say, Lord, I've treated all of them equally. I never did anything for my older son, which I would not do for my younger sons. I tried my best to be absolutely impartial in my dealing with all my four boys. I had no favorites. They were all the same. Now a lot of parents have favorites. They're not like God. If you want to be like God, you must have no partiality towards your children. I tried my best through all the years till today not to have any partiality. But according to God's standard, I'm a very poor father. Jesus said, if you being evil can be like this, how much more your heavenly father. So I see that God's standard of impartiality is a million times more than mine. It's totally impartial. And if that be the case, like it says in Romans 2, 11, then God will not deny me anything. He'll do everything for me that he did for the eldest son. That's Jesus. I remember years ago when this truth hit me that what God did for Jesus, he will do for me. Because there's no partiality with him. Just that one verse. If he refuses to do for me what he did for Jesus, that would be like my telling one of my sons, I can't do that for you. I did it for your elder brother. Sorry, I can't do it for you. He's my favorite. But I didn't do that even as a human father. I said, this is amazing. That God will do for me all that he did for Jesus. That he will care for me as he cared for Jesus. He loved me as he loved Jesus. He will help me as he helped Jesus. He will stand by me as he stood by Jesus. Name it. I said, Lord, this is amazing. I'm going to live by this truth. But it's because Jesus fulfilled certain conditions. It's not automatic. That's what we need to understand. God has got no partiality. I want to say to all of you who are God's children. If Jesus is your elder brother, he'll do everything for you that he did for Jesus. But there's things that God did for Jesus because he fulfilled certain conditions. And if you fulfill those conditions, he'll do the same for you. So I decided, okay, I want to find out what those conditions are. I looked at Philippians chapter 2. You know, if you're serious about living the Christian life, wanting to walk as Jesus walked, and you know you can't do it without the power of the Holy Spirit, then you say, Lord, why is it that Jesus could live that life on this earth? And why is it I find it so difficult? For so many years, I said, ah, it's because he was God. I'm human. That's an easy way to get out of it. But that's not what the New Testament says. The New Testament says there's no partiality with God. Why should I have a bad mood even for one day in my life when Jesus never had a bad mood for 33 and a half years? Won't God do for me what he did for Jesus? Yes, but he fulfilled certain conditions. And I'm absolutely convinced that's the reason why so many believers are in a bad mood. Jesus never got angry once when it concerned himself. You know, there's a thing called righteous anger. I believe there is such a thing because there's a command in the Bible which says, be angry. Ephesians 4, 26. But don't sin. Five verses later, Ephesians 4, 31, it says, put away all anger. How do you reconcile these two in the same chapter? Be angry, but don't sin. It's a command to be angry, but not sinful anger. So whenever I find a command like that in the Bible, I say, and I can't understand it, I turn to the dictionary. And my dictionary is Jesus Christ. I said, let me look at Jesus. That's my dictionary to understand the meaning of be angry, but don't sin. And I look at his life. And I saw he was really angry when people were making money in the name of religion in the temple. So angry that he made a whip and chased out the sheep and doves and turned the tables of the money changers. He wasn't gentle there. He didn't say, will you gentlemen please remove your money from our tables for me. He just turned it. He was really angry. And he was angry when he saw the Pharisees unwilling to see a man with a withered hand healed on the Sabbath day, when people were being oppressed by religious leaders. He was angry. And I learned something. Lord, when I see Christian preachers making money in the name of Jesus Christ, exploiting poor people, if I'm not angry at that, I'm not like Jesus Christ. If I can watch these television preachers and sit back and say, oh, well, they're like that. I'm not like Christ. I got to be furious at that. And I got to express my fury wherever I can. And if I see religious leaders exploiting poor people with their rules and preventing them from coming to deliverance, if I'm not angry at those religious leaders, I'm not like Jesus Christ. Command is be angry. But when it came to anything personal, he was never angry. You could spit on him. You could call him the devil. You could slap him. You could do whatever you like to him. Never angry. So I learned, where should I be angry and where should I not be angry? You know, when you go to the dictionary, Jesus Christ, you get the answer so clearly. I said, Lord, I understand now. Anything that concerns me personally, somebody said something against me or my family or my wife or my children. I must not be angry. I must say what Jesus said. You're forgiven. Have you spoken a word against me, ordinary man, the family? Forgiven. Have you done some harm to me? You did not invite me to your home to sleep at night. I had to sleep out in the streets. Forgiven. But if you're going to exploit poor people in the name of religion, if you're going to swindle poor people of their money, saying the Lord's called you to collect their tithes, I'm going to be angry. And if you're going to prevent people from being delivered from their sin because of your wretched traditions, I'm going to be angry. But what do I see among Christians? Most Christians that I've met, they're angry when somebody hurts them. When somebody speaks evil about them or their children or their family or somebody gets so angry, they may not express it. They just won't talk to that person or something like that. But when the name of Jesus is dishonored, they can sit back and say, oh, that's sad. It's like that. They're not angry. You know, there is a word in the Bible for being the opposite of Christ. It's called anti-Christ. And whether you know it or not, if you're like that, you got the spirit of the anti-Christ. You're angry where Jesus was never angry. And you're not angry where Jesus is angry. What is that? That's anti-Christ. You never thought that you had the spirit of the anti-Christ, right? Well, you know it today. Ask the Holy Spirit to make you angry where Jesus was angry and to help you never to be angry where Jesus was never angry. Why was it? Why was he like that? Because he always humbled himself. See what it says in Philippians 2. Have this attitude in yourself which was in Christ Jesus. I've often said you can take that one verse and close your Bible and live the rest of your life with that one verse. That's all you need. Have this attitude in yourself towards money, towards women, towards family, towards heresies, towards worldly people, towards your job, towards your property, anything. Have this attitude in yourself which was in Christ Jesus. You got the answer for everything there. If you have studied the life of Jesus from the Scriptures, that is a command. I am to have this attitude in me that was in Christ Jesus. And if I have it and I mingle with other people who have it and gather together a fellowship of people who I instruct to have this, you know what will be the result? The result will be the perfect unity described in verse 2. Verse 2 of Philippians 2 is the most complete statement of unity I find anywhere in the New Testament of the body of Christ. Listen to this. Paul says if you want to really make me happy, Philippians 2 to be of the same mind, maintain the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Four things he says there. It's total unity. One mind, one love, one spirit, one purpose. That's the only thing he says that will make me happy. Not that you are having great meetings and so called revival meetings and all that. Is there unity there? Is there one mind, one purpose? Are you becoming one body? I'm not impressed with all that emotionalism. And if you want to be like that, gather together people who want to have the same attitude that Jesus had. What was that? Though he was God, verse 6, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. He was equal with the Father from all eternity. He could have come here with that dignity, but he came here being a nobody. Emptied himself of all the privileges he had as God and took the form of a servant. Now the real translation here is like this. Let me read it to you. He became a servant because he was made in the likeness of men. In other words, he was made in the likeness of men. In other words, any person who is a human being, the only right he has on this sin-cursed earth is to be a servant. Nothing other than a servant. That's what Jesus understood and that's what most Christians have not understood. That in this sin-cursed earth, if you want to be a servant of God, you have to be a servant of all men. Not a slave of all men. Don't misunderstand. Jesus was not a slave going around doing what other people told him to do, but he had this attitude of being a servant to all human beings. Why? Because he became a human being. In a sin-cursed earth, the only proper position for any human being to take is that of a servant of other people. I'm thankful that I understood this when the Lord called me to serve Him full time when I was 24 years old. And the Lord spoke to me and said, if you want to serve me for the rest of your life, you'll have to be the servant of all men for the rest of your life. You will not have the right to ask for anything. If people give you something, take it. If not, I'm not just talking about money, anything. But you've got to be a servant. You've got to have the attitude of a servant always, no matter what gift you have, what position you have. If you're a human being on the sin-cursed earth, you've got to be a servant. That's what Jesus understood. He became a servant because he became a man. Get that in your mind. He became a servant because he became a man. And I say, Lord, I was born as a man or a woman. I've got to be a servant. That's the only proper position to take. That's why when they wanted to make him a king in John chapter 6, he ran away. They couldn't understand that. It's right to be an elder in a church. I've been an elder for 35 years or more. But I say a true elder is one who's a servant. If you're not a servant, you're not fit to be an elder. If you're not willing to serve, you're always thinking of your convenience and etc., etc. And a true elder brother is one who's always seeking to serve, always seeking to help, always seeking to serve, no matter... I remember once I was very busy writing an article, a Christian article for a magazine. And I heard the doorbell ring. And I went and opened the door. And that was a total stranger. He said, Brother Zach, I read one of your books and I'd like to talk to you. And I said, OK, come in. And he was sitting and telling me his story. And I was just waiting for him to get up and go because I had to finish my article, trying to hide the fact that I'm waiting for him to go. And finally, I discovered as he came, he was a needy person. And I don't know, I spent a couple of hours with him and I could help him. Forget about the article. That can wait. And when he went away, the Lord spoke to me. He said, I told you to go into all the world and make disciples. And here I sent somebody to your door. You don't have to go to the whole world. He comes right there and you can make him a disciple and you're waiting for him to go. I said, Lord, forgive me. You can interrupt any program of mine for the rest of my life. I want to be a servant. There's no limit to how much God will anoint you, my brother, sister, even a woman, a mother. If you decide to have the same attitude that Jesus had, he will do for you what he did for Jesus, the Father. He'll anoint you like he anointed Jesus. The anointing will become greater and greater and greater upon your life if you fulfill the same conditions. But if you're arrogant, you won't experience that because God resists the proud. And why was Jesus exalted? It says here, Philippians 2,8, being found as a man, he humbled himself. If you're found as a man or a woman, you must humble yourself. To what extent did he humble himself? To the point of death, the death on a cross. And that's what I learned. That this business of taking up the cross every day and following Jesus is entirely dependent on humility. If you're really humble, God will show you what it means to take up the cross every day in relation to your wife, your husband, the brothers in the church or any situation. He'll teach you what it is to die to yourself. Death to self is the ultimate proof of your humility. Let me repeat that. Death to yourself, total death to yourself is the final and ultimate proof of your humility. If you don't have that, you're not really humble. You can act humble and say humble things about yourself, it's all nonsense. The proof of humility is before God, that you choose the way of death, total death to self, when you're insulted, when you're ignored, when people don't care for you or don't do what you think they should do or do things which they should not do. You just humble yourself and say, Lord, I'm supposed to die. Now listen to this, verse 9. Therefore, and like it has been said, whenever you see a therefore in scripture, you must see what it is there for. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. If you were to ask me why is Jesus at the right hand of the Father, I think immature Christians who don't know the Bible would say because he's the son of God. I say no. That's because you don't know the Bible. The Bible says he's there because he humbled himself the most and was willing to die. Who will sit at the right hand and left hand of Jesus? I'll tell you, whoever it is that God saw in 2,000 years of Christian history, who humbled themselves the most and took up the cross every day. It need not be the Apostle Paul, it could be some poor widow from Africa, for all you know, will be sitting at the right hand of Jesus, who was not an apostle or any such thing, whose name we don't even know. Whoever humbled themselves the most in their earthly life, God alone knows that. That person, two such people will be at the right hand and left hand of Jesus, because that's a principle. He humbled himself more than everybody else, so he got the highest position. Who's going to be next to him? Two and three. Those who humbled themselves to the closest possible to him. Nobody has humbled themselves as much as him. But whoever has gone as far down in humility and dying to self every day faithfully, boy, will they rejoice in heaven. And God says, well done. Dear brothers and sisters, have you seen the glory of Jesus? This is the way he walked all through his earthly life. How glibly we sing, follow, follow, I will follow, yes, I will follow, follow, follow Jesus every day. We sing so many times, but you don't really mean. We haven't even understood the way he walked. Why would there be conflict in your home, if both husband and wife are seeking to follow Jesus in this way? Isn't it because both are unwilling to die to themselves? There's a conflict. It's like I use this illustration. Supposing you were living next door to a neighbor. In India houses are so close, you can find out what your neighbors are talking about. The next house is just three feet away. And every day you hear at 6.30 in the morning, the husband and the wife fighting with each other. It's a regular feature. It's like the alarm clock going off at 6.30 in the morning. They start fighting with each other. And one day after years of hearing this at 6.30 every morning, you hear peace. You say, what happened? Nobody's fighting today at 6.30. You go there and you find the husband died. Ah. So, what happens is that that's why there's no fighting. You understood the secret? If one person dies, there'll be no fight. It's because both are unwilling to die that there's conflict and fight and argument. It doesn't matter which it is. Either the husband or the wife. It's like clapping hands, you know. I say, you've got to have two hands to make a noise. If one hand refuses to fight, there's no noise. And if both refuse to fight, it's fellowship. That's even better. If one refuses to fight, there's at least peace. But fellowship is better than peace. But for that both must be willing to die to self. Both must be willing to go the way Jesus went. The Holy Spirit comes to bring this life of Jesus into us. I'll tell you, you don't need laws when you come into this life of Jesus. Do you have to go to a cemetery and make laws for all those people sleeping there in the graves? Laws are for people who haven't died. Let me conclude. Galatians chapter 5. It says about those who have the fruit of the Holy Spirit in verse 22. Those ninefold fruit of the Spirit mentioned in verse 22 and 23. Have you noticed this sentence at the end of verse 23? Against such people there is no law. Why? Because they are dead. Verse 24, they crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. They don't need any laws. People in cemeteries don't need laws. If you choose to die, you don't need any laws. This is how the Holy Spirit brings the life of Jesus into us. What shall we say in conclusion? He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, I pray you'll help us to see the glory of this way. The devil's painted the way of the cross as a miserable, gloomy affair. And yet we know that there was nobody on earth who walked with such joy and triumph as you did. And you walked the way of the cross, Lord Jesus, every day. Help us to walk in that way. Also, to demonstrate to an unbelieving Christendom that this is the way of glory. In your name we pray. Amen.