This sermon emphasizes the importance of knowing Jesus Christ deeply by following His example of renouncing worldly desires, submitting to authority, and prioritizing God's will over pleasing people. It challenges listeners to consider if they are truly seeking to know the real Jesus as Lord of their lives, above all else.

The reason why the Apostle Paul knew Jesus Christ so well was because, he says in Philippians 3, I considered everything outside of Christ as rubbish. And in the measure in which we are convinced that everything outside of Christ is worthless, in that measure we will know him. You know, as human beings, we have a great desire to get everything at the cheapest possible price. Whether it's buying a house or buying anything, we say, where can I get it for the cheapest price? And if you go too much along that line, what you'll get is a duplicate, a counterfeit of the real thing. You know that in the world, there are so many expensive gadgets which are duplicated, made in China or Taiwan, and they're not the real thing. It's the same in Christianity. If you aim to get to know Jesus by paying the minimum price possible, you're not going to get the real Jesus, I'll tell you that. Because the Bible speaks about another Jesus. And it's not only now, in the first century, let me just show you that verse, 2nd Corinthians 11 and verse 4. He says, if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, and you bear that beautifully, you can receive another spirit and hear another gospel. We're living in a day when another Jesus is being preached. A Jesus who can forgive you, take you to heaven, and all the rest that he does for you is make you rich and healthy on earth, but doesn't free you from the most serious problem you have, which is your sin. That is another Jesus. The real Jesus, the angel Gabriel told Joseph, you must call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. That's how you know whether you're believing in the real Jesus. If your faith is in a Jesus who can not forgive your sins, but save you from your sins, then you've come to the real Jesus. You know, if you're sinning and getting forgiven and sinning and sinning and sinning and getting forgiven, you can say that you really don't know Jesus as Savior, you know him as Forgiver. We've got to be honest. A lot of people who call Jesus Savior, I say, has he saved you from your anger? No. Has he saved you from lusting with your eyes? No. Has he saved you from love of money? Has he saved you from unforgiving spirit? No. What has he saved you from? Well, he forgives me. Then be honest and call him Jesus, my forgiver. Because if you are honest, the Lord will lead us to the next step. But if you call him Savior, when he's not your Savior, it's like calling somebody your husband, who's not your husband, just your friend. So God loves honest people. God loves those who are ruthlessly honest and say, Lord, I only know you as Forgiver. I don't know you as Savior at all. I've been calling you Savior, Savior, Savior, just because I, with empty words, mouth, what other Christians around me are saying. But I want to be real. That's another Jesus who forgives you but doesn't save you. Or it says about receiving a different spirit. And there's a lot of that too. A different spirit in Christendom. I'm not talking about in, among witchcraft circles and heathen circles. In Christendom, there's another spirit. I ask people, let's go through this logically. An unclean spirit makes you unclean, right? An evil spirit makes you evil. What does a Holy Spirit do? Make you play good songs and music? No, it makes you holy. And if you got a spirit that didn't make you holy, how do you know it's a Holy Spirit? I remember one man came to our church once from some Pentecostal background. Some very good Pentecostals, I know, but there are some who don't understand the truth well. Who came and said, after just attending a morning service, he said, hey, you don't have the Holy Spirit here in your church. I said, how do you know? Do you live with me? Do you know how I handle my finances? Do I know how I speak to my wife? How do you know whether I have the Holy Spirit or not? Well, he said, you don't make enough noise in your meeting. I said, oh. I said, your trinity is Father, Son and noisy spirit. My trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's the big difference. So unfortunately, a lot of people assess. That's what I mean by a different spirit. Some people think if the decibel level goes up somewhere, the Holy Spirit is moving. It's a lot of rubbish. If holiness is increasing, you know the Holy Spirit is moving in your life. These are practical things, and so many Christians differ in so many arguments about this doctrine and that doctrine and the other doctrine. But when it comes to holiness, they're all in the same rut, defeated by sin. And I say the important thing is to recognize, am I receiving, am I believing in the real Jesus? Am I believing in the real Holy Spirit and a different gospel? Oh boy, there's such a lot of, an Old Testament gospel, which is still preaching health and wealth. Now, our only solution is, you know, if we read the New Testament with an open mind and say, Lord, I want to see the real Jesus here, in the gospels especially. It'll really change your understanding about many, many things. I want to show you a verse in John chapter 16, where a lot of people are confused concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I talked a little bit about that in the question and answer time yesterday. How people think the Holy Spirit would come, and the main thing is speaking in tongues, etc. But let me show you here what Jesus himself said about the coming of the Holy Spirit. There are a number of things he said, but maybe I should show you John 14 first, then go to John 16. In John 14, he said in verse 15, If you love me, keep my commandments. And you know that his commandments were far higher than, the standard of his commandments were far higher than the commandments under the law. Jesus came and raised the standard of the law. When he said you're free from the law, it's because the standard was raised that the law only dealt with outward sin, but Jesus, the gospel, deals with sin within. He came with an axe to the root. We can say the law was like a pair of scissors that kept cutting out the bad fruit every time it came on the tree. And the problem was never solved because this tree keeps on producing bad fruit, you've got to go around with the scissors all the time. That's what the law did. And the law did, you know, make Israel a pretty good nation compared to all the other nations in the world. In fact, all the laws of all the nations are really based on the Ten Commandments. So Israel was the only one who had the Ten Commandments those days, and therefore their external standard of life was far superior to other nations. But that's because they had this law, the scissors that cut off, there was murder, adultery that cut it off, and externally their life was good. But from within, all these things kept coming out. And if you find that that's all you're doing in your life, you know, and it comes out, you cut it off. You're living under the law, really. But John the Baptist said, I've got good news for you. If you repent and turn towards the kingdom of heaven, Jesus has come with an axe that he's going to lay to the root of the trees. So Jesus didn't come with a pair of scissors, he came with an axe. And that was laid to the root of the trees to destroy the root, and that solves the problem. Or, I sometimes use the illustration, a more modern illustration would be the difference between, say, an ointment. The law was like an ointment. Every time a sore came up, you'd rub this wonderful ointment that would get rid of the sore, but then it'd come up somewhere else, and you'd rub the ointment there, and then you'd rub it there, and then it'd come somewhere else, and you'd keep carrying this tube of ointment with you all the time, because these sores are popping up in your body here and there. And then one day you hear the good news that somebody has discovered a thing called an antibiotic, which you don't have to rub anywhere, you take it inside, and that deals with the root of the problem within, and then the sores stop coming out. That's the gospel. The law is like an ointment. So what have you got? They had forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament, but Jesus, the real Jesus, to know Jesus, not as a forgiver, but as Savior and Lord. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And my commandments, he already said in the Sermon on the Mount, was such a high standard, and let me paraphrase his words, I know that it's impossible for you to live up to my standard. Therefore, verse 16, I will pray to the Father to give you a helper. Now in the context, if you know plain English, read verse 15 and 16 together, and then you understand what is the Holy Spirit a helper for. A helper to keep his commandments. It's so clear, I mean you've got to be blind not to see it. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments, and I pray that God will give you a helper. Because you find it difficult to keep them. So if you're serious about keeping the commandments, and you find yourself failing, I tell you, you will really seek for the Holy Spirit. A lot of people are seeking for the Holy Spirit, and I say, what for? Are you seeking for the power of the Holy Spirit to keep God's commandments? Are you seeking because you've read the Sermon on the Mount, and you say, oh God, it's impossible to live this life. I want to live it, because you said, this is the wise man who obeys these commandments, built his house on the rock. I want my house to be on the rock. I find it impossible to keep it. How do I do it? He says, I'll pray to the Father, he'll give you a helper, and he'll be with you forever. That means forever he'll help you to keep those commandments. That's the first verse I wanted to show you. And the second is, again about the Holy Spirit, in John 16. In John 16 he said, When the Spirit of Truth has come, verse 13, He will guide you into all the truth. And I see that as having two meanings. First of all, all the truth, there is in God's revelation and scripture. The only way to understand all the truth is not by going to a Bible school, which will only teach you in your mind, but revelation, that's the great word in the New Testament. Revelation is the thing of the heart, where God shows you something in your heart that changes your life. A lot of people, the way they study the Bible, is information. They know the verses, they know the facts, they know the doctrines. Doctrine of justification and sanctification and second coming, and baptism, and baptism in the Spirit. It's all knowledge. But revelation is something of the heart that changes our life. And the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all the truth. The Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures. And you can't have anyone better than the author of this book, sitting with you, telling you what he meant when he wrote it. And so you must believe that. The Holy Spirit will guide you into all the truth. That's why he's come. That's why we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And it says, verse 14, He will glorify me, He will glorify Christ, because He will take of mine and disclose it to you. He will not speak about Himself. He will glorify Christ. See, this is one of the wonderful things about the Trinity that we need to understand. That each person in the Trinity glorifies another. The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. And the person who is of the Trinity, who is glorifying the other, seeks to keep himself hidden. Let me show you this characteristic of God that really blessed my heart. Isaiah 45. In Isaiah 45, we read one of the characteristics of Almighty God, which we need to acquire as well. Because man is so unlike God. He was created to be in the image of God, but today we are so unlike God. Isaiah 45, it says in verse 15, Isaiah 45, 15, O God, truly, You are a God who hides Himself. God is a God who does not display Himself in an ugly way. He hides Himself. And you see that in creation. See how wonderfully God has hid Himself in creation. And the greatest proof that God has hid Himself is the fact that there are so many atheists in the world who say there is no God. See how wonderfully God has hidden Himself. There are atheists in the world who say there is no God. What a perfect job God has done of hiding Himself. I mean, God could have easily, every time the sun rises, say, hey fellas, I'm here, I run this universe, there would be no atheists then in the world. But He doesn't say that. He has hidden Himself. That's a characteristic of God the Father. And when Jesus came to the earth, He hid Himself. For 30 years He was in Nazareth, nobody even had a clue that this is the second person of the Trinity walking on the earth as a man. They just thought He was an ordinary man. In fact, they despised Him, saying, oh, He's the son of Mary, we don't even know who His father is. And it was Almighty God in human form. How He hid Himself. And even when He moved around in Israel, and He did a miracle, He was so unlike today's so-called healers. I've seen these television programs, I don't waste my time going to their meetings, but I've seen them on television. These healers will, some guy who, well, maybe they pray for somebody to be healed, he could hear 50% in his one ear, and now he can hear 75%, so they say, come, give a testimony here. And they display him, in order to show, you see what I did, I prayed for this guy, he could hear only 50%, now he can hear 75%. You don't have a clue whether anything happened, really. But see how it was with Jesus, the real Jesus. When He healed people, He said, don't tell anyone. Jesus hid Himself, this is a characteristic of God. God who hides Himself. He says, I'm delighted that you got healed. You were genuinely healed, you were born blind, and now you can see Jesus, and I'm so delighted. That's what thrills my heart. I don't want you to go around telling people that I am the one who healed you. I'm not interested in myself, I'm interested in you. Where do you find healers like that? Where do you find preachers like that who can honestly say, I'm not interested in what you can do for me, I want you, I want to bless you in some way. That is how Jesus lived on the earth. And you know, after His resurrection, as I've said before, He didn't sort of appear before Annas and Caiaphas and say, hey fellas, you couldn't get rid of me, I'm here. Or before Pilate. He hid Himself. Do you know that after the resurrection, Jesus never appeared to anyone but believers. He appeared to 500 believers, we read in 1 Corinthians 15, but never to any of the Pharisees. Why didn't He do that? I mean, if He was the displaying type, like a lot of preachers today, He would have appeared before the Pharisees and say, here I am. You thought you'd get rid of me on the cross. You didn't. You know what a lust there is in us to vindicate ourselves before people who have criticized us or spoken evil about us? There's a tremendous lust in us to prove that we are right and they were wrong. And Jesus had no such desire. He hid Himself. And the same with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, as He moves, you don't see Him. He hides Himself. Because, as He read here, He's come to glorify Christ. He will glorify Me. He doesn't speak about Himself. The Holy Spirit doesn't come to talk about Himself. He talks about Christ. And a spirit-filled preacher will draw you to Christ. Because He will exalt Christ. A preacher who draws you to Himself is not filled with the Holy Spirit. Not at all. A preacher who seeks to attach you to Himself, saying, you've got to be attached to Me, that's closer to the devil than the Holy Spirit. We need to be discerning. Otherwise, I'll tell you this, we are living in a day with tremendous deception. And you can spend all your life deceived by another spirit and wake up in eternity when it's too late to discover that you were completely wrong. So, recognize these characteristics of God. God is a God who hides Himself. The Holy Spirit always glorifies Christ. And that is what He seeks to do when we read the scriptures. He shows us Christ. When it says He leads us into all the truth, it's not only the truth in scripture, but when He glorifies Christ before us, you know what happens? When I see the real Jesus, I see my own need. I don't have to look inside and dig into my heart to see where I went wrong. If I see Jesus, like Isaiah, when he saw the glory of God, he immediately was convicted of his sin. He didn't get a... Isaiah wasn't convicted of his sin by listening to a preacher. He was convicted because he encountered God. John the Apostle fell on his face because he encountered Christ. And I believe if we lift up Jesus, that's the thing that will convict people of sin. They'll see the glory of Christ and they'll see their own sin. And the next thing that happened to Isaiah was his sin was cleansed away in Isaiah chapter 6. So that's how the Holy Spirit does it. He seeks to glorify Christ before us all the time. He says, this is how Jesus is. And so, if you really want to know Jesus, you've got to allow the Holy Spirit to show you the real Jesus from scripture. So I want to show you because he wants to transform us into that image. So let me show you another verse which I find is perhaps the clearest verse in the entire New Testament about the ministry of the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant. And if you keep this verse in mind, you'll never be confused concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I've never found a verse that expresses the ministry of the Spirit more clearly. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18. So here is how the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. First of all, it says, you know, it's speaking about an unveiled face. And the veil spoken of in that passage is is the law. You know, I can go to the Bible with the spirit of the law and then, like it says in verse 6 of this chapter, the letter will kill you. Do you know that you can get spiritual death from reading the Bible? The Pharisees killed people spiritually by quoting the Bible. They read the Bible and interpreted it in such a way that they condemned people. And any preaching that makes you feel condemned without giving you any hope is legalistic. It's from the devil. There is no condemnation. The Holy Spirit never condemns. He convicts. And we need to understand very clearly the difference between conviction and condemnation. It's one way we can discern whether the voice I'm hearing is the voice of God or the voice of the devil. The devil is called the accuser of the brethren. Condemnation is that which makes you feel miserable. You know, if you feel, well, you're good for nothing. You'll never amount to anything. The way some foolish fathers speak to their children. You're good for nothing. You'll never amount to anything in your life. That's the best way to destroy your child. Keep on telling him negative things. And God is not like that. God's not a bad father. He's a loving father. He never says, when you do something wrong, it's not that he ignores it. That would be a foolish father who ignores the wrong that his son does. But the way the Holy Spirit convicts is, my son, my daughter, that wasn't right. That wasn't the way to speak. Jesus would have spoken like this. So, let me help you to change your way of speaking. That's the way the Holy Spirit convicts. Not, what a good for nothing fellow you are. Again, you went and spoke like that. That's the devil. Now, if you recognize the difference between these two voices, you'll never feel condemned in your whole life. I used to live under condemnation for many years after I was born again because nobody taught me this as a young Christian to distinguish between condemnation and conviction. I'd feel condemned, feel rotten, and I'd go, this is the Holy Spirit hammering me down. And it wasn't. It was the devil. And the more I felt condemned, the more I got defeated by sin. But the Holy Spirit, when I understood that he convicts, it's always a gentle voice. It's a still, small voice. Not like a thunder with lightning and all. It's a gentle voice that says that was wrong. And that's the way we should correct our children too. It's not with anger and condemnation. And the result in my life is there is absolutely no condemnation in my life now. It disappeared from my life long ago. I never feel condemned. I'll tell you honestly. But convicted, every day, every single day, the Lord shows me, I'm not exaggerating, something where I need to be a little more Christ-like. Something, maybe some attitude, some speech, some word, some motive, something. This is called progressive sanctification. Till one day, I'll be like him completely. He who has the hope of Christ coming, it says in 1 John 3, 3, keeps on purifying himself. And Paul says, in the next chapter, chapter 4, verse 16, our inner man, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16, is renewed every single day. That's inspired scripture. That challenges me. That the Apostle Paul reached such a level of spirituality that each day, he was more spiritual than the previous day. Do you believe such a goal is possible? And we think if each year we are a little better than the previous year, that itself is a great thing. But Paul wasn't satisfied with just being a better person after one year. Renewed day by day. I know when it took me many years to be challenged by that and say, Lord, that's what I want. I want to be a little more Christ-like today than I was yesterday. And a little more Christ-like tomorrow than I am today. And that can only be as the Holy Spirit convicts me. And shows me some un-Christ-like lesson in my life that I need to cleanse away. Shows me Jesus, that I know Jesus a little more. This is what he's really like. So here it says, with an unreal face, 2 Corinthians 3, 18, as in a mirror, and the mirror is God's word, we see the glory of the Lord. In the Old Testament, they looked at the law as a mirror. And you know what the law did for them? Just like any mirror will do for you in your bathroom. Shows you the dirt on your face, or your hair is not combed, or something wrong with your face. It shows you. But the mirror in the New Covenant, it's not primarily convicting you like the law did, which made people feel condemned. It says you see the glory of Jesus there. So when I look into God's word, I'm supposed to see the glory of Jesus there. That's what it says here. And like Isaiah, when I see the glory of Jesus, then I feel convicted. Oh, I'm a man of unclean lips. And the more I see the glory of the Lord, the more I'll see un-Christ-likeness in my life. And progressively, if I'm really seeing the glory of the Lord day by day, I'll see more and more un-Christ-likeness in my life day by day, and I'll become more and more Christ-like. I'll be more gracious in my speech, and more pure in my thoughts, and more pure in my motives, and more free from the things that are un-Christ-like in my life. It's a tremendous place to come to. If you seriously say, Lord, I want to experience this, being renewed every single day. But remember what I said at the beginning. Paul experienced that because he felt, not he felt, he knew, everything outside of Christ is rubbish. And a lot of Christians have not come there. They want Christ plus a few other things. They say, well, this is not actually rubbish. Some of those things are pretty good. But Paul didn't feel like that. If God gave him, I mean, Paul needed money to live, and he needed work to do, etc. All that, it was all there. But he said, I don't live for those things. He said, I've learned to live with little or much. It's all the same to me. He says in Philippians 4.13, Philippians 4.10 onwards, I've learned to be content with whatever I have. I'm never longing for something God doesn't give me. God gives me plenty, praise the Lord. If he gives me little, it's just the same. To me, it's just the same as whether I wear a blue shirt or a white shirt. It doesn't really make a difference to me, Paul says. I don't have a preference for one color. Paul says, it's the same with me. I don't have a preference for wealth or poverty. If God determines this is best for me at this time, I accept it. And if another time God determines something else is well for me, I accept that. So, it's wonderful to be free from these things because I see everything outside of Christ is rubbish. The main thing in our life is that God's goal in our life can be achieved to make us more and more like him. Finally, that we'll be completely like him. So, the Holy Spirit, the first ministry of the Holy Spirit is to show us the glory of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. And secondly, if it was only if it stopped there, we'd be terribly discouraged. Because the more we see that glory, the more we feel convicted of where we are unlike him. So, there's a second ministry of the Holy Spirit. It to transform us into that same image from one degree of glory to another. Not in a moment. Step by step by step by step. And that's one of the things we see in Genesis chapter 1. Like I said yesterday, the corrupt earth which had been corrupted by the fall of Lucifer in Genesis 1-2. God changed it. He could have changed it overnight like that. Created everything in the second day of the Sabbath. But he didn't do it like that. He did it stage by stage by stage by stage little by little by little by little to teach us a lesson. Right in the very first chapter of the Bible that when our lives are corrupted by the devil, God wants to change us through the Holy Spirit and through God's word. But he's going to do it progressively. Day by day by day by day. Till finally on the sixth day man was made in the perfect image of God and God said very good. So that is a picture of our sanctification where we allow the Holy Spirit to renew us like Paul says day by day by day by day by day till one day we're like Christ. And there was no day in Genesis chapter 1 where it says God did nothing. There was something on the first day, something on the second day, something on the third day, something on the fourth day, something on the fifth day. A progressive improvement in the earth till finally it was perfect. And that's a message for me that in my life there's no day in my life no day where God wants to do nothing. Every single day of this rest of this year. Now I can't do anything about the past. Our past we've been ignorant about all these things and thank God the Bible says a lovely verse in Acts 17 verse 30 I like to quote that verse to a lot of people. Acts 17 verse 30 The times of ignorance God overlooks. God says OK forget it. You're ignorant and I overlook it. You can forget about it. You can't do anything about the past. You can't bring back the past. That's over. But now He says in that verse He commands everybody to turn around and take life seriously. Repent. And say Now how many of you are eager about this? You don't have to answer me but answer the Lord. Do you really want to have a Genesis 1 type of experience in your life? Where no day is wasted. Where it says in the first day God did this. In the second day God did this. Unlike how it was in the past where days on it says God did nothing in our lives. Because we didn't permit Him. See the difference in Genesis 1 was the earth responded. Every time God said something the earth said fine. Go right ahead and do it. You want trees to come up? Sure. Here are the trees. You want something else to come up? Here it is. And the sea said you want fish to come in? OK sure. Fish. And imagine if we responded like that. Then every time the spirit says something you say yes. The spirit says don't look at that picture. Turn your head away. Yes. Sure Lord. Wouldn't that be great? Don't click on that site on the computer. Sure Lord. I won't click there. Imagine if we responded like that. I tell you you will experience being renewed day by day by day by day. When you speak rudely to someone and immediately the Spirit of God says that is not the way my son my daughter Jesus would speak. Correct it immediately. Respond. And say Lord I'm really sorry. Go to that person and say I'm sorry that I spoke like that. I really feel bad. And if it happens ten times a day go ten times a day to that person and maybe your wife and say I'm sorry. And your wife says you just keep doing that all the time. OK. I'm such a bad person but I'm improving. Or your husband says that. Don't get discouraged. God's changing you. Little by little by little. Nobody gets changed overnight like that. Little by little by little by little. And sometimes we fail many times in the same area. That's certainly been true in my life. But you work at it and say Lord I'm determined. I see the goal you have made for me is to make me totally like Jesus Christ one day. And I'm on that road. That's the narrow way that leads to life. And I'm determined to make progress along that. There's a lovely verse in Proverbs 4.18 which says the path of the righteous is like the shining light that shines more and more into the perfect day. And 2 Corinthians 3.18 is the New Testament interpretation of Proverbs 4.18 Like the sun rising getting brighter brighter brighter. So our life gets more and more like Christ. And the Holy Spirit has come to do that. So when the Holy Spirit shows us the glory of Jesus What do we see first of all? Let's start at the beginning like I said. We got to start at the kindergarten. We don't start we don't send a school and send a child to school and he doesn't start in grade 8. He starts in the kindergarten. A lot of people when they are when they say I want to be like Jesus immediately they jump to what he was at age 30. I want to heal the sick and raise the dead and multiply food and perhaps walk on water I don't know what else. But I say don't jump to age 30. You don't send your when your child goes to school he doesn't go straight to grade 10. Imagine putting a 5 year old child in grade 10 who hasn't learned ABC yet. He'll sit there like a dumb kid not understanding a single thing. So if you really want to be more and more like Jesus don't start at age 30. Start at zero. That's kindergarten. So what's the first thing we can learn? Not healing the sick and raising the dead. That's not where we begin. That may come years later. But where we begin is in Philippians 2 that's where we all need to begin. Jesus, what's the first thing he did? Before he even came to earth. Before he came to earth what made him come to this earth? It says he Philippians 2.5 Have this attitude in yourself which is in Christ Jesus. Although Philippians 2.6 he existed in the form of God from all eternity. As the second person of the Trinity he did not regard that equality with God is something that he's got to hold on to. No. He renounced it. He gave it up. He gave up position privilege honor rights reputation name it. All that God has. Respect. He gave it all up to become a man. So if I want to if the Holy Spirit is going to show me the glory of Christ there and make me like him he says I'm going to free you. Listen carefully. I'm going to free you from the desire for honor position respect dignity and a whole lot of other things that men and women in the world are fighting for. You will renounce it. You don't have to. Jesus didn't have to. You voluntarily give it up. Can you imagine how peaceful our churches would be if nobody was fighting for position? Or honor? Or titles? That's amazing how in Christendom people are so crazy to get titles. Jesus didn't want any title. When they wanted once they wanted to make him a king he says he ran away. In John chapter 6. This is the first thing. He came to earth and it says here he emptied himself of all that and he took the form of a servant I want you to understand this verse 7 properly. He took the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men if I were to expand it what it means is he became a servant because he was made in the likeness of men. That means being made in the likeness of men the only thing proper for him to do was to be a servant. So I learned something there. That God created man to rule over sin but to be a servant externally to everybody else. This is the paradox of the Christian life. Inwardly a king ruling over sin, my lusts and ruling over the devil and triumphing over circumstances etc. but externally a servant to everybody. This is how Jesus lived. Inwardly triumphant externally a servant. Unfortunately it's exactly the opposite with a lot of Christians. Inwardly defeated by their lusts and defeated in their speech and defeated in every other area but externally trying to show that they are great people impress others. Why for example did Jesus say don't be called rabbi? Why did he say that? Because I mean it's alright to have titles in the world maybe you are a doctor or whatever it is in the world they are president etc. etc. But in the church he is talking about the church you shouldn't have a title. Because we are supposed to be servants. What title does your servant in your home have? That's why Jesus refused to take a title. And he said you should not also allow anybody to call you rabbi or father. It's a very small thing. But if you understand the reason behind it you'll see how serious it is. Because the moment you take a title you are elevating yourself above other believers saying I'm not at your level I'm a little higher than you I'm not just an ordinary brother I'm a reverend. Or when there are too many reverends then they become right reverend they always want to go a little higher you know. Or right reverend doctor something like that. Why not be just a brother? Why not be just a servant? This is the first thing we need to learn. The only person I want to honor me is God. Let him honor me. But I don't want any honor from men. I don't want any respect from men. Now I want to tell you this may look very simple brothers you may not be looking for such titles in your life but without titles as well you can look for honor. Now I'm not talking out in the world in the world you need titles so that people know who you are because that's out in the secular world. But in the world but in the church you got to leave all that outside. When you come to the church you're an ordinary brother or a sister. Even if you came at the first hour you're equal to the folks who come at the eleventh hour. He's a brother and you're a brother too. You're a sister and she's a sister. That is how it is in the church. And if you're not willing to accept that I'll tell you this right now you're going to have problems all your Christian life. Because this is the very first thing Jesus did. He could have taken that position as God when he came to earth but he didn't. He renounced it. And that's the first thing we need to do. Then when he and as it says here he knew that if I'm a man I've got to be a servant. That's the meaning of that verse. And then when he came to earth we read in Luke chapter 2 the second thing about him that we read is that he continued, Luke 2.51 he was subject to human authority. And in his case the human authority was the ones whom almighty God the Father had appointed as his earthly guardians or parents. Joseph and Mary. And he had to submit to them for 30 years. Do you want to know the real Jesus? This is the real Jesus. And to follow him to be like him I need to learn this. He subjected himself to imperfect parents. Now for an imperfect person to submit to imperfect authority is easy. I mean if you've got a boss in your place of work who's imperfect but you're more imperfect than him that's okay. But can you imagine if you know your job so well and your boss doesn't. Can you try submitting to such a boss who doesn't have a clue about the job but he tells you to do all types of things. Can you imagine the irritation? Well Jesus faced something like that but he never sinned. Here he was, the perfect child with imperfect parents. I hope you know that Joseph and Mary were imperfect unless you're a Roman Catholic or something. Joseph and Mary were imperfect. They were children of Adam and they were sinners. Mary said God my savior. She needed God as a savior. And they were imperfect and they were under the old covenant means more imperfect than new covenant believers. And you've seen how imperfect new covenant parents are. Can you imagine how old covenant parents were? And it was to such parents that almighty God told Jesus to be subject for 30 years. Now why in the world does he need that? He knew the Bible when he was 12. Isn't Bible knowledge enough to go out and preach? That's what a lot of people think. If I know the Bible I can go out and preach. God said no. It's not enough. If I have gifts I can go out and preach. No. You need to learn submission to authority. And I've seen a lot of young people who have got such an itch and urge to serve the Lord to plant churches and be elders over others who never in their life been subject to anybody's authority. And I've seen people like that who when they try to serve God they make a mess of their life and a mess of their ministry because God doesn't back them up. God never backs up a person with his spiritual authority who has not himself first learned to be subject to some authority somewhere. And that is the reason why God doesn't commit his authority to many many people because they are not willing to submit to any authority. Now I want to ask you have you ever in your life submitted to some authority over you? Or you always try to conveniently escape? Well I can tell you, I can prophesy God will never commit authority to you in your whole life. In your whole life. Spiritual authority impossible. You can make yourself an authority a lot of people try and do that in Christendom but God will never do that. God will never never submit give spiritual authority to a man who is not himself submissive to authority who has not been broken by submission to authority. Because such a man will use authority in a very rough way. And I have seen people like that. A broken man is the only person who is fit to wield spiritual authority. And Jesus had to submit like that and be broken. Dear brothers this is the pathway that God takes all his servants through. Even in the Old Testament you remember it's when Jacob was broken that he became Israel. When he became lame. It's when Moses the mighty Moses at the age of 40 was unfit to lead God's people. God took him into the wilderness for another 40 years and said I'll teach you something that all the academies of Egypt couldn't teach you. And what was that? Brokenness. He was so broken that at the age of 80 he says Lord I'm not fit. At the age of 40 he felt he was. At the age of 80 he was so sure that he wasn't the person. I mentioned yesterday how God took me through that path of failure and failure and failure till I said Lord I'll never in my life ever try to plant a church. That's not my calling. I'll go do something else. And it's when you come to that place where you feel you're totally unfit to do something that's when God says I think you're ready now. This is God's way. His ways are not our ways. And the only way we can learn that is by submission. That's why Jesus had to learn to submit. His will had to be broken. He had to yield his own will and he had to be tested. Even Jesus had to be tested. Why did God allow the devil to tempt Jesus? He had to be an example for us. And as he submitted to his mother and Mary it says in Luke 2.52 you see the connection between verse 51 and 52 in Luke chapter 2 he kept increasing in wisdom. He already had knowledge at the age of 12. But wisdom he kept increasing. Wisdom is very different from knowledge. Wisdom is practical application of the truths you learn from God. And a lot of people increase in knowledge they don't increase in wisdom. The real Jesus he increased in wisdom and then at the age of 30 God said okay you can leave Nazareth now leave your carpenter shop let me anoint you. And in three and a half years he did the greatest ministry that any man ever did. That's a tremendous challenge to me. This is the real Jesus. This is the Jesus we need to know. And to when I say I want to know Jesus as my Lord it means that I want to go the same pathway that he went. First of renouncing all desire for position honor, reputation, dignity everything and then being willing to submit to whatever God ordained as the place he has planned for me to be broken. Now I'm not talking about submitting to people who lead you away from God's word. For example if you're in a church system that is contrary to the word of God that means you've seen things in scripture and you see that the church you belong to is not following scripture there. There's only one thing you can do. You say Lord get me out of here as soon as possible. It's like some of these websites if you've got a good browser and you go to a website which is got some malware and spyware and all types of ware over there you'll get a notice saying do you want to go here or do you one box says get me out of here as soon as possible. And you click on that and say I don't want any virus in my system. So if you're in a system, a church where which is not obeying God's word there's a little box saying get me out of here as soon as possible. Click that. And ask the Holy Spirit to take you out of there. Because that's not obeying scripture. How long are you going to continue disobeying scripture? I mean you've disobeyed it enough. You want to continue in that way? To please man? That's a great verse in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10. Which the Lord spoke to my heart many years ago. He said if you want to be my servant you've got to decide that you never in your life try to please any human being. If you seek to please man you cannot be the servant of Christ. Paul said that. I cannot be the servant of Christ if I seek to please man. And so if I have the slightest desire to please man I'm immediately disqualified from being a servant of Christ. Because I'm a servant of that man then. So I need to ask myself always why am I doing this? Is it to please somebody or is it to please God? There's always this choice comes before me. This is temptation. The temptation that a lot of Christians face is are you going to please men here or please God? Are you going to please your relatives or are you going to please God? That's why Jesus said the first condition of discipleship. Remember he told us go into all the world and make disciples of every nation. And having worked for 37 years in India in a heathen nation seeking to make disciples mostly from non-Christian backgrounds I've learned one thing that what Jesus said was absolutely right. The first condition of discipleship is you got to love Jesus more than your father mother, brother, sister, wife, children and your own life. If you don't fulfill that forget about being a disciple. Go and do something else. And this is what we have taught. We've taught Christians and non-Christians you want to follow Jesus you got to put him above father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children your job, yourself, everything. If you don't do that you'll never be a disciple. You'll be one of these third-rate Christians sitting around in churches and thinking you're pleasing God. You're not pleasing God at all. You're trying to please some relative you're not trying to please some pastor you're trying to please some human being and that's a tremendous insult to God. And God stands there and this human being stands there and God says who are you going to please now me or him? And you say Lord it'll be a lot of trouble if I don't please him so I don't mind offending you because you'll forgive me but this guy won't. You'll never be a disciple. I want to tell you the truth. I don't want to stand up here and please men when I speak. It's the truth brother, sister and I've seen it year after year after year in all these years in India. I've seen people who obey it who become radical disciples who become useful in God's hands and I've seen other people who compromise in this area they are wishy-washy all through their life. So it's so important and you see that in the example of Jesus. This Jesus who obeyed Mary for 30 years perfectly. The moment he left home and went into the ministry. Do you know one of his first recorded words to Mary in Cana? Woman, what have I got to do with you? I can imagine Mary getting a shock. Is this Jesus? Is this the same Jesus who said mommy, yes mommy for 30 years? Yeah, it's the same Jesus. He was not going into the ministry. He was not going to let his mother interfere in his life. I mean a lot of people could have come to him and say Oh Jesus, think about how much your mother suffered because she lived under the scandal of being an unwed mother for so many years for your sake and all these sob stories about how much she suffered for you. Are you going to treat him like that? He is not going to be moved. His father was supreme. Sometimes we do have to hurt our parents. Sometimes we have to hurt human beings. Not because we want to but because we are going to stand for God. This is the real Jesus. If you want to make Jesus Lord of your life to know him as Lord everything outside of Christ is rubbish. Pleasing people, rubbish. I'll please them if it's a result of pleasing God, sure. But if it's a choice I made my choice. I made mine long ago and I've never regretted it all these years and I recommend that to all of you. Think about it seriously. Is there an area in your life, my brother, sister where the devil is holding you back with human compassion when you should be devoted to Christ? I want to encourage you to make a decision today because I'll tell you this if you don't do it today this voice that you hear right now loud and clear like a trumpet will be a little softer tomorrow. You won't hear it so clear. And by the time a week is gone you won't hear it anymore. So now is the time. Take a decision before God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father I pray that you will apply these truths to our lives and help us to live in the light of the word that you've spoken to us so that we can know you, Jesus the real Jesus know you more and more as Lord of our lives with no competitor but you will be Lord. Help us to know you really, Lord and we've sort of talked about knowing you in a superficial way but we really want to know you. We thank you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. There's a little card out there for any of you who want it. Our website address is also there. Thank you.