This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking humbly with God, focusing on righteousness, mercy, and obedience to God's will. It highlights the need to seek God's approval rather than seeking honor from men, to rejoice in what God has done for us, and to be aware of subtle pride in our actions and words. The message encourages humility, obedience, and a deep reliance on God's grace to be a blessing to others.

We want to look again at Micah and chapter 6. This is the verse we've been looking at the last two days in our Bible study. Micah chapter 6 and verse 8. It's not sacrifice that the Lord wants. Will God be impressed with thousands of rams and buckets of oil? No. What does he want? He has already told you. To do justly, to do justice, to do righteousness, to love kindness and mercy and to walk humbly with your God. That is what the Lord requires of us and we've considered something of what it means to be righteous when God makes us righteous. And the way God treats us, we have to treat other people. And one of the great crimes in Christendom is that we receive so much goodness from God and we are so stingy in showing that goodness to other people. It's a crime. It's a crime. We receive so much forgiveness from God and we are so reluctant to forgive others. Whatever crime anybody has committed against us, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The greatest crime that was ever committed on this earth was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. There is no greater sin than any human being ever committed. And while hanging on the cross, he said, Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing. What did he mean? He mean people don't know what they are doing when they are killing somebody? Have you thought about that? Can you say that somebody is killing someone and say, Lord he doesn't know what he is doing? What Jesus meant was, they don't know how serious their crime is to kill the Son of God on the cross. I don't think they knew that. And I don't think many of them discovered that until the day of their death. When many of those Pharisees a few years later killed Stephen, they didn't know how serious it was. And Stephen said, Lord please don't lay this into the church. He had the same spirit. But one man there, Paul, Saul of Tarsus, he got convicted. I think he got convicted because he saw that this man Stephen had another spirit. He wasn't cursing and swearing. And I believe that's the reason why the Roman centurion also got converted at the cross and said truly this is the Son of God. Why did he say that? Because that hardened Roman centurion had killed many people on the cross in his lifetime. And he saw them all swearing and spitting at them and cursing and refusing to open their palms to be crucified. And he saw them fighting and kicking. And here he saw somebody stretching out his hands ready to be crucified, putting one leg on top of the other to help them put the nails through. And the kindness and goodness in his face. It was not a sermon that convicted the Roman centurion. It was the kindness and the mercy that he saw in the face of Jesus and in his saying, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And this hardened Roman soldier, his heart was melted. He said, I've never seen anything like this. This must be the Son of God. You know, the world around needs to see that in us. Not only that we are righteous, but that we are kind and merciful, even when they have done wrong to us, that we are quick to forgive, that we don't hold past grudges against anybody. Now, forgiveness, I just want to clarify something. Forgiveness is not the same as fellowship. Jesus forgave those Pharisees, but he had no fellowship with them. We can forgive everybody in the world, but it doesn't mean we have fellowship with all of them. Fellowship is a much higher level. You forgive somebody, you come to the level of friendship. Friendship I can have with the whole world. I don't have any enemies in the world. They're all my friends. I mean, they may consider me an enemy, but I don't consider anybody an enemy. I've got only one enemy, and that's the devil. But fellowship is a much higher level. I'm sorry to say that even in the church, in many of our churches, what people have is friendship. They come to the church like a club. Fellowship is a much deeper thing. For fellowship, there is a condition. In 1 John 1, it says we must walk in the light. Then we can have fellowship. If he walks in the light, and I walk in the light, then we have fellowship. If I only forgive him, we have friendship. He is happy that I forgave him. Or somebody asks me to walk a second mile, and I go the second mile. We have friendship. It's not fellowship. No. There's no need to go the second mile. But we're willing to do it. We're willing to go the third mile, the fourth mile, for friendship. But fellowship, you can't build fellowship by telling people to walk a mile with you or walk two miles with you. No. You may do that for the sake of peace, but fellowship is a much higher thing. And that is why Jesus said this, which looks very contradictory. I don't know whether you've noticed it in Luke 17. In Luke 17, Jesus said, in verse 3, be on your guard. Read carefully. Jesus never made a mistake. Sometimes Christians try to be more spiritual than Jesus. You can't be. We call it super spirituality. Super spirituality is Phariseeism. And many Christians try to be more righteous than Jesus and end up as legalists. What did he say in Luke 17, verse 3? Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins seven times a day, and seven times a day he comes to you and says, I repent. Forgive him. What about if he doesn't repent? This is where we can be more spiritual than Jesus, where we say, Lord, I am more compassionate than you. Lord Jesus, you said when he repents, I should forgive him. I am better than you, Lord. I forgive him even when he doesn't repent. You see the end result of that. You bring confusion into God's work. But you say, how then did those fellows at crucifying Jesus, did they repent? How did he say forgive them? Because they were not his brothers. What does it say here? If your brother, if a stranger sins against you, even if he doesn't repent, forgive him. That's the difference. We need to understand that because this thing relates to daily life. When it comes to a brother, we're thinking of fellowship. You cannot, what Jesus was saying, you cannot have fellowship with that brother if he doesn't repent. But when it comes to a stranger who's not a brother, you don't have to wait for him to repent. Forgive him like Jesus forgave on the cross. None of those people who crucified Jesus were his brothers. We face situations in two areas. One is people who are not brothers in the church or who are not in fellowship with us, do harm to us, forgive them. Be merciful. But when it comes to a brother, we must, what does the Lord require of you? Do justice and be merciful. What is the righteous thing to do when a brother sins? Do you know that that brother, if you forgive him without his repenting, it's like not dealing with the cancer that is inside him. You're not doing him a favor. You're leading him to hell. I don't want to lead him to hell. That's why Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him privately so that you can win him. And if he doesn't listen to you, take two or three others and try and win him again. But not with strangers. People who are not brothers, you don't go to them. You don't say, hey, you've sinned against me. You forgive them whether they repent or not. It's very important to understand this distinction. You know, we must read the Bible carefully and we must not try to be more spiritual than Jesus. Now when I say a brother, there are a lot of people who claim to be believers who don't have a brotherly relationship with you. Then you have to treat them like strangers. You have to just forgive them, but you don't have fellowship. We cannot have fellowship where a person has not repented. Because if a person has not repented of his crime, he is not walking in the light and then there is no fellowship. So remember, mercy is not the greatest thing. What does the Lord require of you? To do justly and to show mercy, to love mercy. So don't ignore justice and try to be merciful. Then you'll be more spiritual than Jesus. It is righteous to forgive people who have no light. You cannot build, it is not righteous for the Lord's sake to forgive someone if you are trying to build a brotherhood. I'll give you an example. When I used to work in the Navy, you know discipline in the military is a very important thing. And the rule was, I was an officer and if any sailor came by you, he had to salute you and you responded. It was a way of showing respect to an officer. And if he passed you ten times a day, he had to salute you ten times. That is military discipline. And if he doesn't salute you, you have to pull him up and ask him, why don't you salute me? I was a Christian and I struggled with this and said, Lord, I couldn't care less whether this guy salutes me or not. I'm not interested. I don't want to pull him up if he didn't salute me. But the Lord said, you have to. You've got two stripes on your shoulder. You're employed by the government to maintain discipline here. So you can't bring in your personal philosophy and all here. They are paying you every month to maintain discipline in the armed forces. You have to maintain discipline. It's like in a factory or anywhere, you're a supervisor, you have to maintain discipline. That's not the place to show mercy. We must do justice and show mercy. So, if he comes up to me and says, I'm sorry, sir, I slipped up, then I can show mercy. I say, okay, forget it. I won't charge you. That's up to me. But I have to pull him up. And I learned something there, that even though I have no personal desire to get him to salute me, I have to do my responsibility as a teacher in a school or certainly in the military. So very often, our problem is we are not balanced. We go overboard on truth or we go overboard on grace. The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ full of truth and grace. There must be, what does God require of you? Justice and mercy. It's like truth and grace. And very often, we tend to get imbalanced this way or that way. It's like I said the other day, you build up one side of your body very muscular and the other side is all skinny. Then we got to work on the other side and make that also equally muscular. And if you look into your life, like I've looked into my life, you find we all tend to go overboard either on the side of truth or on the side of grace. John 1.14 says, we saw the glory of God full of grace and truth. The whole purpose of God in our salvation is not to take us to heaven. It is to make us like Jesus Christ. Please, please remember this all your life. My sins are all forgiven. I'm on my way to heaven. That's a byproduct. My sins are forgiven. I'm on my way to becoming more like Jesus Christ. That's the real truth. And so, the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ full of grace and truth. And we need both. And very often, I've used the illustration of bones and flesh. Truth is like the bones. There are doctors who say there are 200-odd bones in our body. And do you know what would happen if I didn't have bones in my body right now? I wouldn't be able to stand up. I would sink down like a jellyfish. We must have truth. And if there are 214 or 220 bones in my body, I want every single one of them. How many bones would you like to lose in your body? I don't want to lose even one of them. If there are truths in God's word, I want every one of them. I want the whole counsel of God. I don't want to compromise God's counsel and mingle with people and say, Let's forget about these bones and let's work together. I'm sorry, you work that way. I'm going to have all the bones. And if people call me too extreme, let them call me extreme. But I want all the bones in my body. I want the whole truth of God. Truth is not my property that I can just give it away. Truth is God's property. How can you give away somebody else's property? And say, Oh, it doesn't matter. Truth is important. God says, If your brother sins, rebuke him. Yeah, I want to do that in a spirit of love. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he doesn't repent, don't forgive him. I don't want to be more spiritual than Jesus. I want to do exactly what Jesus said. I don't want my human ideas to come and interfere. God says, My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways different from your ways. And I've learned through many years that God's way is superior to mine. I must not have an unforgiving attitude. I must have a longing that that brother will come into fellowship with God. But if he has done wrong to me, and I don't show that to him, he will never come into fellowship with God. Never. Do you know that if you have cheated somebody, you know how many Christians behave. I've seen this. They do something wrong to someone, and then after a few years, they feel bad about it. But they won't go and say, I'm sorry. They just come to you and act as if nothing has happened. Let's have fellowship. I don't believe they can have fellowship because there's something unsettled which is not settled. It's not that I want it. I don't want that fellow to salute me. But there's a discipline in the Navy. There's a greater discipline in the body of Christ. I don't want it. I never wanted those guys to salute me. But the Admiral in the Navy has passed an order that sailors must salute officers. And the head of the church, Jesus Christ has said, if your brother repents, forgive him. I just obey orders from the head. That's all. I'm not like a hand. The hand just obeys orders from the head. The hand doesn't question, why do you tell me to do that? No, I don't question Jesus and say, why do you tell me to forgive him only when he repents? Lord, I don't question. I'm like the Roman centurion who said, I'm a man under authority and when somebody tells me to go, I go. I don't question why you tell me to go. This is a very simple thing. But I have seen multitudes of believers who try to be more spiritual than Jesus and who end up in confusion. My life has been very ordered and at rest because I have acknowledged one thing, that the Bible is the word of God and that God's wisdom is superior to mine. And so I humble myself in one way of humility when it says the third condition, walk humbly with your God. That's what we're thinking of. Walk humbly with your God. And I want to tell you, my dear brothers, many of us are very clever and very smart, to walk humbly with your God that one of the first things you've got to acknowledge is, Lord, I will do what you say. Whether it sounds right to me or not, whether I think I've found a more spiritual way than the Holy Spirit has discovered, no, I will do it your way. Because this has application in many areas. It says about Moses 18 times in Exodus 39 and 40, Moses did exactly as the Lord commanded him, exactly as the Lord commanded him, exactly as the Lord commanded him, he built the tabernacle. And at the end it says, thus Moses finished the work and the glory of God came upon that tabernacle. I've read that. Why in the world does God mention that 18 times in two chapters as the Lord commanded, as the Lord commanded, Moses did. Thus Moses finished his work. To teach us who are building something more important than the tabernacle, the church of Jesus Christ, which that tabernacle was a picture of. I want it to be said about me at the end of my life. Zach Koonin did exactly as the Lord commanded him. In this area, in this area, in this area, he baptized people in the way Jesus said people must be baptized. He taught the little commandments and the big commandments in the New Testament exactly as the Lord commanded. And he did not compromise with other people because the Lord taught him something else. I want to do as the Lord commanded, as the Lord commanded, so that in the final day the Lord can say, well done. You didn't go by your own wisdom. The Bible says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean upon your reason. Do you know the biggest enemy to the word of God is your reason? Your reason says, oh come on, we can forgive that brother even if he doesn't repent. That's your reason. One of the first things that Jesus taught us about righteousness. Do you know the first time, I want to show you the two places in the New Testament where the word righteous and righteousness comes the first time. What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. And I will show you how these things combine together. True righteousness will always make you merciful to others. And will always make you walk humbly with God. You will not sacrifice your humility before God to show mercy. And one aspect of walking humbly with God is acknowledging, Lord, I will do what you say. What is the proof of humility? Very important to understand. What does it mean to walk humbly with God? Many of us try to learn the meaning of humility from the dictionary. Or our own ideas of humility. You know, put your head down and walk like this. That's not humility. Can you picture Jesus walking around like this and saying, I'm just a nobody. I'm a poor dog. That's not the way Jesus spoke. Jesus walked upright, more upright than any military officer you have seen in your life. But he was the humblest man that walked on the earth. Don't think that if a man scoops like this, he's just a sloppy man. Not a humble man. And Jesus was not a sloppy man. He was a humble man. Humility is not before men. That's the first thing we need to learn. Humility is before God. Walk humbly with your God. And the one proof of humility is God gives you grace. If God doesn't give you grace, even if the world thinks you're humble, you're not humble. And the proof of grace is sin will not have dominion over you when you're under grace. It is impossible. If I get angry, or if I lust with my eyes, I have to say, I didn't get grace at that moment. Why didn't I get grace? Because I did not walk humbly with my God at that time. All I have to ask is, Lord, where was the pride in my life which made me fall into sin there? There must have been some pride somewhere that God withdrew his grace. So these things go together. What does the Lord require of you? To do righteously, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Let's turn to the first two references to righteousness in the New Testament. Number one. Matthew chapter one. We read here. Joseph was betrothed, engaged, verse 18, to Mary. And the angel Gabriel had already appeared to Mary and the Holy Spirit had come upon her as a virgin and made her pregnant with the body of Jesus Christ. And Joseph heard about it. Well, he assumed what any man would assume. That she was unfaithful and slept around with somebody and became pregnant. Now listen to this. Verse 19. This is the first mention of righteousness in the New Testament. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. You see how righteousness and mercy are combined together there? His righteousness made him merciful. He said, he was absolutely convinced in his mind that Mary played the fool with some man and became pregnant. What else would any man think? In 4000 years of human history, no virgin ever produced a child. You can't blame Joseph for thinking anything different. But he said, okay, she slipped up. She's just a 19 year old girl. Made a mess of her life. Why should I expose it? Let me not tell anyone. Love covers a multitude of sins. Let me not expose. Let me cover it up as much as possible. Let me just quietly send her away secretly. And if anybody asks you, well, Joseph, why didn't you marry her? Say, well, you know, I thought about it. Maybe I shouldn't marry her. Maybe I should wait a little longer to get married. Don't cover, cover it, cover it. Just like Shem and Japheth covered the nakedness of Noah. Oh, God loves such people. God loves people. In fact, Noah said Shem and Japheth are going to be, God is going to bless them tremendously. And their children. I'll tell you something. Cover the sins of others. God will bless not only you. He will bless your children too. That's how God is. He's a good God. Because that's part of His nature. His nature is to cover sins. Think of this yourself. All of you sitting here. Haven't you done some terrible things in your past life which nobody in this congregation knows about? I think all of us have to say yes. Some really terrible things which nobody knows about. What has God done? He's not only forgiven you. He has hidden it from all the people here. So that people think you're such a godly sister. You're such a godly brother. You know it's not true. But God doesn't expose you. That is God's nature. Many of us say, I want to be like Jesus. I want to be like God. This is God's nature. And yet, how ruthlessly you have sometimes exposed the sins of other people. You have found a delight sometimes in exposing the sins of other people's children or other people that proves you're not a righteous person. Joseph being a righteous, old covenant righteousness man decided, I must be merciful to her. I must cover her sin. Let me tell you some other thing. Supposing he had done the opposite. Supposing he had gone around and said, there's Mary, you know what she did? Became pregnant. I think I'm going to marry such a girl. Advertised it all over Nazareth. And the next night, the angel comes and says to Joseph, hey, that is from the Holy Spirit. How would he have felt when he discovered the truth? Have you ever scandalized somebody and discovered later on that that was not true? How can you pull back all that wrong information you've given to people? You can't. Because that person being a gossip who listened to you, he would have a hundred other people who he's already told that to. You can't pull it back. It's gone. It's gone. It's spread over the world. There's a proverb in the world that says, lies travel around the world while truth is still putting on his shoes. It's true. We don't spread truth so quickly as lies get spread. So it's much better not to spread. Sometimes what you see may not be the truth. You may not know the full story. Many years ago, here in this campsite, when we had a camp, I won't forget that incident. I think it must have been 12-15 years ago or some years ago. One young boy from CFC saw some group of young people sitting here from our conference with a smoking what looked like a cigarette and smoke coming out from there. And he promptly went and told his mother, you know, I saw some people smoking a cigarette. And that mother like many other foolish women, immediately spread it all over. It finally came to my ears. I said, oh, people are smoking here. Let me find out. Who is this? So if you want to find out among the young people, you've got to ask your children. They know more about these things than we do. So I asked one of my boys, what is this? Is there some folks smoking there? He said, no, nobody is smoking. And what is this little red light and smoke going on? Oh, he said, that was a mosquito coil. We were sitting there with an anti-mosquito thing which gets lit under the red light and the smoke was coming out. How do you think those people felt who spread the news that CFC young people were smoking? That would have spread. You can't pull it back. That's one example. Things don't look, things are not as they appear. But there, if whoever said it wanted to get light, they could have seen what a tremendous lust there is in me to spread something evil about somebody else. Now if that mother's own child was sitting there, she would never have said it. She would have kept quiet about it. But her child was not in that group. I'm talking about people who sit in CFC and listen to messages and think they are holy and read the Bible and pray and all that, but they are pharisees. Dear brothers and sisters, ask yourself, do you have the righteousness of an old covenant man like Joseph? I'm not surprised that Jesus chose Joseph to be the husband of Mary. Would he have chosen you? Would he have chosen you? If you were living at that time? He was a righteous man and he covered the sins of others. What does God require of you? To be righteous and to love mercy. There may be another explanation for what you think. You say, I saw it with my own eyes. I heard it with my own ears. It says about Jesus in Isaiah chapter 11 Isaiah chapter 11 that Jesus would never judge verse 3 by what his eyes saw or his ears heard because it could be deceptive. But he would judge with righteousness. There would be righteousness and mercy. There's a song that we sing in CFC there's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. And it says there it goes on to say, there's no place where all your failings all your failures have such a kind judgment given as in heaven. Men are merciless when they but God is very merciful. There's no place like heaven where mercy is mingled with that judgment is merciful. And I'll tell you the reason why very often we don't receive God's grace and mercy upon our life. It says in James in chapter 2 James chapter 2 it says verse 13 judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy but mercy must triumph over judgment. When you have a tendency to judge and you have the opportunity to be merciful it says mercy must triumph over judgment judgment must be pushed down and mercy must be the victor in your life. Now if that doesn't happen in the final day God will not be merciful to you. That's what this verse says. Judgment in the final day will be merciless from God to those who have not shown mercy to other people. So even if you're a selfish person who wants God to be merciful to you in the final day here is the way. Be merciful to all the people around you who you see today. Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy from God. So righteousness and mercy must go together. Joseph was righteous and he was merciful. Grace and truth you know like the bones and the flesh. We need both. We don't only need all the bones in the body. You know we need flesh to cover. Human beings are attractive because there's flesh covering the bones. We feel like shaking hands and embracing people because there's flesh. There's something beautiful about flesh covering the bones. But if you saw a skeleton walking with all the 214 bones towards you in the middle of the night you don't feel exactly warm towards walking up to him saying hi. You feel like running. That's how the Pharisees were. The Pharisees were like skeletons saying see how many bones I have. I've got all the bones in my body. And people ran. Did Jesus have any less bones in his body than the Pharisees? He had every one and more. Why is it sinners were attracted to Jesus? Because over the bones there was flesh. Grace covered the truth. Mercy was coupled with righteousness. Righteousness and mercy kissed each other in Jesus. And that's very important for us to understand. And if we are to be like Jesus they both must be there and we walk humbly with our God. The second example of righteousness in the New Testament is in Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3 Jesus said when he came for the baptism to John. Matthew chapter 3 verse 13 John tried to prevent him. Verse 14 saying hey how can I baptize you? You need to baptize me. And Jesus said permitted. Baptize me John because it is only thus that we can fulfill all righteousness. That's the second time the word righteousness comes in the New Testament. And what do we learn from there? A couple of things. To walk humbly with God. In the first example we see righteousness coupled with mercy. And here we see righteousness coupled with walking humbly with God. How is that? Because what does baptism symbolize? John the Baptist was not talking about old man and all that. He was saying my baptism is a baptism of repentance. He told the Pharisees I'm not going to baptize you because I don't see any repentance in your life. His baptism was a baptism of repentance. Everybody who comes here is saying I'm a sinner I'm sorry for my sins I want to turn from all my sins and live a new life. Okay John says come I'll baptize you. Did Jesus have any sins in his life? Did he have to repent of anything? No. Why did he need to be baptized? If there was one human being who never needed baptism it was Jesus. And his reason he had a reason he was just like us his reason could have told him listen first of all you don't need baptism. Second if you stand in that queue in that line of people getting baptized and finally they discover who you are then what will the people think? Ah Jesus also committed some secret sins in his life. We may not have seen it but he's repenting here he's standing in the line showing that he's also repenting. Don't let people misunderstand you Jesus don't go for baptism. You know what Jesus did? He did not rely upon his reason he walked humbly with God his father. His father said be baptized don't question it and Jesus said father I'll do that I will not lean upon my reason because thus I will fulfill all righteousness. Learn from Jesus that your reason can sometimes hinder you from doing what God wants you to do. God tells you to do something and you bring your reason into that and you won't do it you will not fulfill all righteousness. So here we see righteousness is coupled with walking humbly with God. So where was Jesus' humility seen? Let's turn to Philippians in chapter 2 where we are told about the humility of Jesus Christ and the humility of Jesus Christ is not seen in his washing the disciples feet. Now if I were to ask you brothers give me a few examples of the humility of Jesus Christ what will you tell me? He washed the disciples feet he never took a title like pastor or bishop or anything like that he refused to take the crown and he was willing to be born in a manger and to be crucified on the cross all these external things is what I think all of you will say examples of the humility of Jesus Christ but look what the bible says is the proof of Jesus' humility and let's reorient our thinking about humility from what the bible teaches because Jesus said learn humility from me not from the dictionary Matthew 11 29 he said come to me take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am humble and I have learnt sought to learn humility from Jesus was he humble when he took the whip and chased out the money changers who were making money in the name of religion oh yes he was humble all the time and I have learnt humility from Jesus and learn more and more and more as I study the life of Jesus I learn humility I don't want to learn it from others who got false ideas of humility I don't want to learn it from people who just say oh I'm such a wretch I'm such a wretch I'm such a wretch I'm a useless man many people who say that are not pretty humble where is humility Philippians chapter 2 it says here have this attitude verse 5 in you which was in Christ Jesus who let me go quickly verse 8 found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to God what is the mark of true humility obedience to God that is the mark of humility it's not what people think about you are you obedient to God in your private life you're a humble person when the Holy Spirit says don't go to that dirty internet site are you obedient you're a humble person if you're not all this pious acting around in church is all rubbish hypocrisy humility is before God what does God require of you do righteously, love mercy and walk humbly before your God walk humbly with your God Jesus' humility was not to impress people I often think of that place where it says I don't have time to show you all these verses in John chapter 2 it says when Jesus saw these people in the temple it says he sat there and he told his disciples get me some string what do you want string for they brought string and he twisted it can you picture this in your mind I wish somebody would draw a painting of this Jesus taking string and twisting it into a rope making a rope I've never seen anybody draw a painting of Jesus making a rope it says there he made a rope what in the world is he making a rope for and then he's made it real stiff and he takes it and he chases all the cattle and turns the tables of the money changers and says get out of here all of you was that humility how would you do it you'd say gentlemen this is not the place to do all these things would you please move your tables out I give you three days please remove all this stuff that is humble right because we got our definition of humility from the dictionary but Jesus he chased them out this is a house of prayer you dare not do these things get out all of you he was the humblest man that walked on the earth his humility was before God and I'm sure some of those disciples old covenant people didn't have light on it they thought ahh this chap lost his temper he thought he doesn't lose his temper but he did how blind they were the father from heaven said this is my beloved son I approve of him he's never sinned when a man is angry for the glory of God that's humility his humility was before God and I want to say to all of you seek to be humble before God that's what God requires of you far too many of us are trying to get a reputation before men to be humble forget it you'll never build a pure church if you seek for a reputation before men to be a gentle person to be a nice person I fear that some elders I know some elders like that they are far more concerned about their reputation before men people must see I'm a gentle person I'm a nice person I'm a humble person I prophesy you will not build a church in 500 years even if you live that long you gotta be humble before God and what God tells you to say you gotta say what God tells you to do you gotta do whether people understand it or not whether your reason tells you something else or not if it's in the word I don't mean some bright idea that hits your head like some people get some bright idea and say God said to me this that and the other those people are fit to join some pentecostal charismatic church I'm talking about people who read God's word God says something in the word and they begin to think what will people say if I do this it doesn't matter what people say what will my mommy say or daddy say I don't care what daddy and mommy say what will the other brothers in our church say I don't care what the others say that's what I learned from Jesus sitting there whipping these people and if you had done that I think at least at the end of it you would have called the disciples and said hey fellas I want to tell you I didn't lose my temper I want you to know that no, not a word from Jesus no explanation trying to prove you know actually I didn't lose my temper the Lord told me to do that and all these explanations that we give to people whenever you have to give explanations to people you know you're wrong it's like when people have something expensive in their house they say when somebody comes to their house they say you know actually I didn't pay for this somebody gave me a gift you know and things like that why all this explanation why all this explanation whose honor are you seeking you want to prove to that person that you're a very frugal humble no you say I bought it I didn't take your money I used my own money to buy it why all this honor seeking honor seeking I'm telling you this is serious this is why God's grace doesn't come upon you because you don't you seek honor from men Jesus said how can you believe who seek honor from one another how can you ever believe you know faith and being free from seeking honor is very closely linked together how can you believe you seek honor from one another walk humbly before your God and if people misunderstand you let them misunderstand you don't go around explaining why you took the whip and why you spoke like that and why you did that and why you bought that expensive thing for your house or why you bought that expensive car you don't have to give an explanation to any Tom, Dick and Harry in the world walk humbly with your God that's all God requires of you I'll tell you this it's serious because I've fought these battles myself I've been in many situations where I've felt people would misunderstand me and the Lord said forget it let them misunderstand you if they want to judge you let them judge you you know when we built our meeting hall 1981 we had a lot of enemies in Christian circles who lived around that area who hated me because you know they were all denominational Christians and we were standing up for the council of God and they spread the rumor around there oh Zach Poonen he must be sending reports to America and getting a lot of money from there that's why he's built this inexpensive area to build a church and ours is the only church in Da Costa Square so I told my wife let's forget it let's keep quiet let them get a surprise in the day of judgment when they see that we never sent a report anywhere we never asked anybody for money and many brothers gave freely of their gifts why should I go around explaining to them no we walk before God we walk humbly before God we don't have to explain anything to anyone in the world I remember when my first son got a scholarship to go and study in the United States in 1987 he wasn't sure whether I would send him there because he had already got admission in IIT in India which is a pretty good college and so I said son you decide where you want to go you want to go to IIT here or you want to go you got admission in both places he said dad I'd like to go there because there I'll get the subjects I want I can I said ok you can go and he said will you let me go what are people saying Zach Poonen sent his son to America I said that makes not the slightest difference to me it doesn't make any difference to me it'll just test to see whether I'm dead to their opinion or not I'm not taking their money I haven't taken anybody's money to send my son you to America that's just one example I'm telling you I fought these battles I said Lord I'm not going to live before the face of man I'm not going to try to impress people with my humility or my holiness or my freedom from the world or any of these things because the moment I live before man's face the bible says in Galatians 1 10 you cannot be the servant of Christ and I had a desperate passion to be a servant of Christ see walking humbly with God is very important I want to tell all of you in Jesus name God wants you to be his servants everyone I don't mean full time workers I don't mean preachers but servants of Christ what does a servant do a servant does exactly what his master tells him to do that's all he's told me to preach, I preach he's not told me to heal the sick so I don't heal the sick if Jesus told me to heal the sick every sick person I prayed for would be healed I have no doubt about it but he hasn't told me to do it I pray for them but he hasn't given me that gift God will give you the gift he wants you to have because he wants all of you sitting here to be his servants but the condition is this Galatians 1 10 if I seek to please men I cannot be the servant of Christ and this is the main reason why many people are disqualified from being servants of Christ and this is the main reason why some elders are third rate useless elders because they're trying to please this person they're trying to impress that person they're trying to show the other person there that I'm a great preacher or they're trying to impress this person or that person God says forget it you're not going to be my servant or it could be the other way where somebody as a self-appointed prophet begins to shout and yell to show people that he's a prophet God says forget it, you're not going to be my servant either it's just two extremes some fellow shouts and yells to show himself as a prophet some people try to act gentle and nice to think they're Christ-like both are disqualified so don't swing to one extreme and think that you're a servant of Christ there's no servant of Christ walk humbly with your God do not lean upon your own reason when God says something, do it it says here he humbled himself and became obedient to God to the death of the cross when his closest co-worker Peter said no Lord, don't go to the cross he said get away Satan don't hinder me from walking humbly with my God will you say that? to your closest co-worker and you risk offending him that he'll stop being your co-worker sure, let him go we don't want such co-workers who get offended when tried to turn you away from the way of the cross he became obedient unto death and like I was saying the other day when I was a child I spoke like a child it says in 1 Corinthians 13 when I became a man, I put away childish things you know the way little babies speak their grammar is wrong but it's that's the way they speak when we grow up, we speak in a more mature way spiritually also, there must be a maturity in us as we grow up like I said the other day it's one thing to say I got victory over sin that's true but it's a childish way of saying it when we grow up, we say Jesus kept me from falling it's the same thing but there the credit goes to Jesus he kept me from falling because he did not allow me to be tempted beyond my ability and even when the temptation came it was so massive that if the Lord had not been there and surrounded me and protected me and manipulated my circumstances I would have fallen oh thank God, he kept me isn't that true be a little more humble and say he kept me from falling or you know there could be even a pride in saying I love Jesus I'm passionately in love with him when we grow up we say he loves me you know what John the disciple said about himself when he was 95 years old you read in the gospel of John he refers to himself as the disciple whom? whom Jesus loved why didn't he say it the other way the disciple who loved Jesus that would have been pride you know I'm not like you fellas I'm one of those who love Jesus not like you fellas but he put himself at the level of all people by saying I'm one of those disciples whom Jesus loved that puts him down because they are also disciples whom Jesus loved aren't you a disciple whom Jesus loved can't you all say whom Jesus loved see when we grow up even our language changes when we walk humbly with our God our language changes we give up childish ways of saying I love Jesus say I'm a person whom Jesus loved I mean these are the things I tell you God's been showing me I'm not just saying that you repeat it you can make a child repeat something that the older people say you've got to grow up to that maturity when you just repeat it it's like a child putting on his father's shirt and pants and tripping all over all I'm saying is grow up it's about time you started wearing better clothes I mean bigger clothes because you should be growing up or let me give you another example don't glory in what you did for Jesus but glory in what Jesus has done for you when we are children we speak more about what we did for Jesus when we become men we speak more about what Jesus did for us see that is what Jesus was telling his disciples in Luke chapter 10 they came back after a trip and they said hey Lord this is great all the demons are subject to us Luke chapter 10 and verse 17 Lord even the demons they just used the name of Jesus and they fled what I did for Jesus I cast out demons in Jesus name I'm not saying we shouldn't testify but make sure it's in the spirit of humility and he said don't rejoice in this verse 20 don't rejoice that you decrossed our demons that you did something for God rejoice in what God did for you he wrote your name in heaven what credit can you say for that suppose you go around saying God wrote my name in heaven you don't get any glory for that right but if you say I cast out 10 demons aha boy see there is a little honor there I cast out 10 demons another fellow says I cast out 15 somebody gets up in the meeting and says I saw an angel another fellow says I saw 2 angels these are the type of testimonies floating around Christendom today but what about if somebody says God wrote my name in the book of life he's not a child, he's grown up the message bible says your agenda for rejoicing should be your agenda for rejoicing should be same verse not what you do for God but what God does for you couple of years ago I asked the Lord November 5th 2006 my birthday I said Lord can you give me a word and this is what I got Luke 10 verse 19 and 20 I wrote it down in the front of my bible no one can put a hand on you all the same the great victory or triumph is not in your authority over evil but in God's authority over your life and his presence with you rejoice in that and your agenda for rejoicing should not be what you do for God but what God does for you I praise the Lord for that when we walk humbly with God God shows us more and more of the corrupt pride which we didn't even discover in us I mean some of the things I shared with you right now did you see the pride in you in the way you speak you thought you were very humble when you said you had victory over sin or that you loved Jesus passionately or that you did this for God but you see there's a subtle pride in it brothers and sisters I have seen through the years the mark of God's blessing is he gives us light on ourselves he gives us light on our pride on our unchristlikeness and he shows us how we can walk humbly with him and his grace will overflow in us and flow through us to a needy world and to needy churches many times when I have to minister God's word and I say Lord the demands are so great how do I do it the Lord reminds me the river of God is full of water the river of God is full of water if you allow me to flow it through you you'll never run dry you'll always have a word anytime dear brothers and sisters the grace of God is abundant walk humbly with God and your life can be a blessing to millions Lord thank you for helping us to see Jesus more clearly the wonderful lowly way in which he walked on this earth only seeking your approval steering clear of the cliff on the left and the cliff on the right give us grace to walk in those footsteps we humbly ask in Jesus name