In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of being faithful with our words and our money. He highlights Luke 16:11, which states that if we are not faithful with money, we will not receive true riches. The speaker encourages the audience to go beyond studying and preparing messages from external sources, and instead develop a personal relationship with God to discern His will. He also addresses the issue of young people earning large amounts of money and emphasizes the need for faithfulness in handling finances.

In our evening Bible studies, we have been considering, as I said yesterday, our worship, our walk, and our work. God wants us to serve Him. He wants everyone sitting here to serve Him, unlike in the old covenant where there were only certain selected people who could serve Him. He would select somebody to be a king, somebody to be a priest, and you had to be in the tribe of Levi if you wanted to be a priest. You just couldn't be a priest if you happened to be born in one of the other eleven tribes. But thank God we can all be priests today, brothers and sisters. Women didn't have the opportunity in the Old Testament to serve. But now we can all serve. Whether you take the opportunity or not is another thing. And even if you serve, it's likely impossible that you may not serve the way God wants you to serve. So our service for God must come out of our worship of God, we saw yesterday, and not only our worship of God, but our walk with God, our daily walk with God. And that's so important because what we speak must come out of our life, not out of our head. The tragedy in a lot of Christendom today is that people are speaking truth, but it's coming out of the head, it's not coming out of a life. And therefore it will not produce life. Like I said, there are two trees in the Garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, and man reached for knowledge because it's easier to have knowledge than life. And even today most Christians reach for knowledge rather than life, but the Lord told Adam that knowledge will bring death. You can read the Bible to know what is good and what is evil, and the Bible can become to you a tree of knowledge of good and evil, or a tree of life. The same book, you choose whether this book will become a tree of knowledge of good and evil to you, or a tree of life. Because in this book it says in 2 Corinthians 3, the letter kills. That means you take this New Testament and take it according to the letter, and it will bring death to you, and as you speak it to other people, it will bring death to everybody else. You can take a little verse and make a big issue out of it, and a lot of preachers do. Like you say, they've got a bee in their bonnet. You know, they're always talking about one... A bonnet is a little hat that women used to wear, and if you have a bee somehow trapped inside that, imagine if you're wearing a cap and there's a bee inside it, it's always buzzing. And there are certain people, when they speak, there's some particular thing that's always buzzing. They're always wanting to hammer people with some verse or the other. The letter kills. It's the spirit that gives life. So you can take God's word and take it like a letter, and make a tree, this is good, this is evil, and teach and teach and teach other people, teach yourself, and you will die and kill others also. Or you can take this word, and as you read it, you can see the glory of Jesus in it, and hold up that light, which is life. Like you've often heard me say, in the Old Testament, God's word was the light. Psalm 119, verse 105, Thy word is a light unto my path. But in the New Testament, it's not God's word that is primarily the light. John 1, 4, in Jesus was life, L-I-F-E, and that life was the light of men. You can choose the word as the light, or Jesus' life as the light. And in the New Covenant, it is the life of Jesus that becomes the light. The tragedy is that Christendom is full of preachers who have studied the Bible according to the letter. They go to Bible schools and get a lot of degrees, and acquire a lot of knowledge, and kill people with that knowledge, because the letter kills. You don't become spiritual by knowing the Bible. I remember once, meeting a young student, when I was invited to speak at a Bible college at their graduation ceremony. So there was one student there who came first in his class. He got the awards he was passing out that year. And after the whole thing was over, I talked with him, he wanted to talk to me. I said, tell me, you've spent three or four years here, what is your spiritual condition after four years of studying the Bible in this wonderful evangelical Bible college? He said, it's worse than when I came here four years ago. So, he came first in his class, but the knowledge only killed him. He was honest enough to admit it. Many people cover it up and become hypocrites. That can happen in our midst too. The moment your focus goes away from the life of Jesus, on to some doctrine, some particular doctrine that you love to talk about, it could be New Covenant doctrine, take any doctrine you like, and it'll kill. It could be the doctrines we preach in this church, it'll kill you. And you keep on killing yourself and others, at the end of many years of that, you'll be a gloomy individual. You'd never have built the body of Christ. That's why I say our work must flow out of our walk with God. Because as we walk with God, we imbibe more and more of the life of Jesus into us. Let me show you a verse in Romans chapter 6. What should be the fruit of our service for God? When we serve God, what sort of fruit should we expect? There's a song that we sing. We don't sing it, but it's a song that many Christians sing. How many stars will there be in your crown? Will there be stars in your crown? That means, how many people would you have brought to Christ? The number of people you bring to Christ determines the number of stars in your crown. You know what I think of that? Garbage. Rubbish. Because then the evangelist has got an advantage over the mother of seven children, who's looking after children at home. But God doesn't make it like that, that one person has an advantage over another. Your reward will depend on your faithfulness. Not on the number of people you brought to Christ. There's not a single verse of scripture that teaches that. There are many verses that teach, if you're faithful, well done, good and faithful servant. Not well done, good and successful servant. That's what God will say. It's faithfulness. And it's quite possible that a mother with ten children or some widow in Africa, who was faithful in her life, could be sitting at the right hand of Jesus on the throne. It may not be the Apostle Paul. There may have been some widow, unknown person, who was more faithful than Paul himself. It's faithfulness. Not calling. Not how gifted we are, because that is what God gives to somebody. It's faithfulness in the little that God gives you. How much you humble yourself. Those are the things that determine. The highest place in heaven was given to Jesus, because he says he humbled himself to the uttermost and became obedient. So, in Romans 6 it says, in verse 22, Having become free from sin. That's the first step. Second, you become servants of God. How do you become a servant of God? Today many people in the world say, by being free from your secular job. Or in some Pentecostal groups they say, be free from getting married. Then you can be a servant of God. Is it free from your secular job or free from getting married? Neither. It is being free from sin that makes you a servant of God. Have you ever heard that? There are lots of people who say, give up your job and serve the Lord. Or some groups say, don't get married and serve the Lord. I say, stop sinning and serve the Lord. Those people don't have any foundation for their teaching. I have, Romans 6, 22. Being free from sin, you can become a servant of God. So the first thing you should seek for is to be free from sin in your life. And when you are free from sin, even if you have a secular job, and even if you have a wife and children, you can be a servant of God and a better servant of God than those other people who give up their jobs but are not free from sin. And those other people who don't get married but remain single, but are not free from sin. So concentrate on being free from sin and you can be a servant of God. And when you are a servant of God, it says here, you get your fruit. The benefit you get, the fruit that you get, in the King James Version it's like that, being free from sin, you become servants of God, and you have your fruit. What is your fruit? Sanctification. Holiness. Not souls. Not people. Not a ministry. Your fruit is sanctification. Now the application of that is, that if I'm really serving God, I will become holier every year. More like Christ. If I'm not becoming more and more like Christ, I'm not really serving God, I'm just serving myself, in the name of Jesus. Thousands and thousands of Christian workers are serving themselves, in the name of Jesus. And they don't become holier, they don't become more Christ-like, they don't radiate the glory of Jesus, and smell the aroma of Christ, as they grow older. It's because they're not serving God. They didn't start with being free from sin, and they didn't serve God, they served themselves, or they served some institution, or they served an organization, or they served a church. They didn't serve God. If you serve God, He gives you a reward, and that reward is in this life, it's holiness. You derive your benefit, your fruit, holiness, and at the end of that, you get eternal life. And then it says, the free gift of God is eternal life. Now many, many Christians know Romans 6.23, but do not know Romans 6.22. Christendom is full of people, who take verses out of its context. They know single verses, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. I mean, many of us have been taught that for ages. You can get a wrong doctrine by taking a verse. Let me read you the whole verse. Being free from sin, you become a servant of God, you get your benefit in sanctification, and the end of that is eternal life, and this eternal life is a gift of God. You got it now? That's the correct doctrine. But if you don't take that previous verse, you get a wrong doctrine. Many cults have been built in the world through taking one verse completely out of context. Here is an example of that. It's written there, but we can be so brainwashed with remembering Romans 6.23, that even when we read it a hundred times, we don't see it. I hope you've seen it today. So, I want to begin with this verse concerning this theme of walking with God. That is 1 John 2.6. The verse we had yesterday was Matthew 4.10. Today we want to look at 1 John 2.6. It says here, the one who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same manner as He walked. The one who says he abides in Jesus Christ should walk in the same manner as Jesus walked. Or as the Living Bible says, anyone who says he is a Christian must live as Christ lived. Walk as He walked. So what it's saying is, if I were to paraphrase that word, the one who talks that he is a Christian must walk first, like Christ. In other words, I must walk my talk. It's in this verse. If I talk that I'm in Christ, I must walk like Christ. My talk, my walk must match my talk. Otherwise I'm a hypocrite. And who knows whether your talk, whether your walk matches your talk. Well, other people can see some of it. But if you are a very clever person, you can hide it from people in such a way that they only see the good side of you. And the other part of your life which other people don't know, for example, how you deal with money, what sort of thoughts you have in your mind when you are by yourself, that you alone know whether you are pure or not, whether you are pure in our private life. See, most of us, we know only about 10% of each other. Even if you meet with somebody every Sunday, you only know about 10% of his life. 90% of his life you don't know. You don't know how he behaves at home. You don't know what his attitude to money is. You don't know how he behaves in his office. What do you know? You know how he behaves on Sunday morning for two hours and on Wednesday evening for another two hours. That's about it. And once in a while. And Sunday morning and Wednesday evening are the times in our life when we are on our best behavior. So, we can't really make out much about ourselves by what we see. But you know yourself whether your walk matches your talk. So, our talk is our service for God. We speak. The tongue is the most important instrument that God is using in this day and age for His service. And that is why the devil is determined to corrupt the tongue. To make our tongue tell lies, to make our tongue get angry, bitter, sour, all types of things. Gossip, backbite. Corrupt this tongue, corrupt this tongue, corrupt this tongue so that when this tongue gets up to speak God's word, God will never anoint it. Be careful, those of you who speak God's word, I want to tell you, if you don't guard your tongue 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, God will not be with your tongue when you stand in the pulpit. And even if you don't stand in the pulpit, if you want to be a servant of God, you young sisters and older sisters, to the people who come to meet you, if you want to be a blessing to them, guard your tongue. Because you can't give your tongue to the devil part of the time and then suddenly expect God to use it in a time of need when some needy person comes across your path. Your tongue has to belong to God all the time. So, and you know when we talk about a woman having a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great value in God's eyes. Many people think that means she should be very quiet with her tongue. It doesn't say a meek and quiet tongue. This is a meek and a quiet spirit. If you want to control your tongue, you got to start with the heart. Because the tongue is only an overflow valve. You know like a jug. You know a coffee jug or a thermos or something. There's a little spout that jug has from which water or coffee flows out. But what's going to flow out? What is inside? And the inside of the jug is your heart. The mouth is only a spout. So what's the use cleaning up the spout? Make sure what's inside the jug is good, good stuff. Living water. So the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart, Jesus said in Matthew 12. So, I got to watch my heart if I want my mouth to be clean and my tongue to be holy. It's not by controlling the tongue itself. Because you can do yoga or practice Buddhism and control your tongue. And that doesn't mean you're holy. Your heart can be filthy. It's just self-control. Jesus wasn't practicing self-control. He didn't come here to teach us yoga. He came to deal with the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. So when we think of walking like Jesus, it's in our heart. So, I want to speak about the attitude Jesus had in three areas. First of all, in his attitude to sin. Hebrews 1.9 says, He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God anointed him, Hebrews 1.9, with the oil of gladness, above all his friends. We are his friends. You are a friend of Jesus if you are born again. I'm a friend of Jesus. Why did God anoint Jesus more than he anointed me and you? Don't we pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit a little while ago, earlier in the morning? Why does God anoint people to different degrees? And secondly, how did Jesus have so much joy in his life? And why did some others have less joy, some others have very little joy at all? It all depends on your attitude to sin. Joy is directly proportional to your hatred of sin and to your love of righteousness, Hebrews 1.9. Even for Jesus, the law was the same. I told you, I asked the Lord once, I asked the Father, I said, Father, will you do for me what you did for Jesus? And the word I got in my heart from God the Father was, if you fulfill the same conditions, yes, if you fulfill the same conditions, I will do for you what I did for Jesus. So when we say that, we sing in that song, what he did for Jesus, he will do for me. Right, but not automatically. It's because Jesus fulfilled certain conditions that God could do certain things for him. Because he humbled himself, God exalted him. What if I just keep on singing, what he did for Jesus, he'll do for me and I don't humble myself. He won't exalt me. Why did God anoint Jesus with the oil of gladness above everybody else? Because he loved righteousness more than everybody else. He hated iniquity more than everybody else. So if I just sing, what God did for Jesus, he will do for me, and he will help me to walk like he walks, provided you love righteousness and hate iniquity like he did. So we can't think that it'll be automatic, it was not automatic for Jesus. We saw yesterday, Hebrews 5, 7, his prayers were heard not because he was a son of God, because of his godly fear. Philippians 2, 8, he was exalted to the highest place because he humbled himself to the lowest place. Therefore, God exalted him. Therefore I know who's going to sit at the right hand and left hand of Jesus in the final day. Those who have humbled themselves to the maximum next to Jesus. Nobody can humble himself as much as he did, but whoever in the history of the human race humbled themselves to the maximum like Jesus, that those two people will sit at the left hand and right hand of Jesus in the final day. It can be you, why not? If you choose that way, are you eager to sit there? There's one good thing about James and John, that they wanted to sit in the right hand and left hand of Jesus. The way they sought it was wrong. But that desire is good to be close to the Lord in eternity. But the way to get there, Jesus said, can you drink the cup that I drink of? Can you be baptized with the baptism I'm going to be baptized with? Can you humble yourself like I'm going to go down and die? Well, then you can sit there, but I'm not going to determine that. The Father will determine it. So, Jesus attitude to sin was, He hated iniquity, not because. Now, we can hate iniquity for many, many reasons. I can hate iniquity because if I sin, I may get caught. Okay, that's a good reason not to sin, but it's not the best reason. It's like people say, I won't commit adultery because nowadays the danger is of getting AIDS. Good, don't commit adultery, but if the only reason you don't commit adultery is because you're afraid of getting AIDS, it doesn't mean you're holy. We can avoid sin for so many reasons. There's a lot of difference between avoiding sin and hating sin. We can avoid sin because we don't want to get caught, we could get a disease, we could spoil our testimony. So, I avoid doing that because other people may see and I can lose my testimony. Or, a little higher motive, I want to avoid sin because I want God to use me. God will use me only if I'm pure. Doesn't that sound a very good motive? That's not why Jesus avoided iniquity. It sounds like a good motive because that's the level at which you live. If I sin, God may not use me. I want God to use me. Jesus avoided sin because it dishonored God. It was a dishonor to God to sin. And that's the reason why I should avoid too. He hated iniquity because iniquity, what a blot on the Father's name. He kind of hated. And he loved righteousness because that would please his Father. He didn't love righteousness because if you seek His kingdom and His righteousness, first all the other things will be added to you. You know, you can do righteousness for that sake also. Okay, I'll do righteousness because all the other things will be added to me. Or I read somewhere that God doesn't forsake the righteous and His seed. They'll never beg for bread. Okay, then I'll be righteous because then my grandchildren will not beg. My children will not beg. That's not the best reason to be righteous. Those are promises, but Jesus didn't become righteous for those reasons. He loved righteousness. He loved righteousness like you love biryani and ice cream. He loved it. You didn't have to force Him to do it. He just loved it. And He hated iniquity like you hate stinking garbage and what you flush out of the toilet like you hate it. Jesus hated sin. And I need to come to the place, I need to grow, to walk like Jesus to become more and more and more to the place where I look at sin like I look at that stinking garbage which is smelly and I want to throw it out of my house as soon as possible. Like what I flush out of the toilet. Oh God, I don't want that. When we begin to look at lusting with our eyes like that, when we look at internet pornography like that thing you flush out of the toilet and when you look at bitterness and gossip and backbiting like that thing you flush out of the toilet and say, God, I don't want that. Then we're getting somewhere. But just because I avoid it, because I heard a strong exhortation one day to avoid it and I avoid it, it's good. But you're a long way from being anointed with the oil of gladness because he hated iniquity. And I want to encourage you, my brothers and sisters, to ask God to give you a tremendous hatred for iniquity and a tremendous love for righteousness. Only God can do that. God can give it to you and me. And how do I know that I've got it? Here is the proof. Joy will begin to flood my life. And that you know. You know very well whether joy is overflowing in your life or not. Or whether you're gloomy and grumpy and bitter and complaining and all that. See, it's not a question of our feelings. I don't care for feelings. Joy is an inward thing. Jesus was called a man of sorrows, but he had tremendous joy inside. We can have all types of feelings outside. I refuse to live by my feelings. I say deep down in my heart, God gives me joy. And God will give you joy. The kingdom of God is righteousness plus peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament they didn't have the kingdom of God. They only had righteousness. But you know that you have come into the New Covenant when you have righteousness mingled with peace in your heart, mingled with joy. Then you know that's the Holy Spirit's done something in you to bring righteousness. So, that is how Jesus lived. His whole attitude to sin. That's why he resisted sin. You know, it's easy to resist something which you hate. It's easy to pursue after something that you love. When I love righteousness more than any boy loves a girl on the earth, I've really got somewhere. And if I can pursue righteousness more than any boy pursues after a girl, I've really got somewhere. But there are Christians who fall in love with someone and would pursue that girl ten times more than they would pursue righteousness. You think they're walking like Jesus? It's when Jesus becomes uppermost in your life. When you say, Lord, my walk must correspond with my talk. And I take it seriously. We don't have to be perfect. That takes time. We read in 1 John chapter 3, you know many people, when they hear us say we are to walk as Jesus walked, they call us heretics. I suppose they would have called John a heretic too in his day. Because he's the one who said it first, not me. When people say, you're a heretic, I say, listen, I'm only saying what John said. You better call him a heretic first. You better call your Bible a heretic, a book. Because 1 John 2, 6 says, if you say you're a Christian, you must walk as he walked. But, that doesn't mean you've become like him. 1 John chapter 3, let's understand the truth accurately. 1 John chapter 3 verse 2, it's only when he appears again that we will be like him. Notice the difference. 1 John 2, 6, walk like him now. 1 John 3, 2, be like him only when he comes. Do you see the difference between walking like him and being like him? The Christian life is like a race. The race begins at the starting line when you're born again. The race is, the finishing line of the race is when Christ comes again, when you will be like him. Between the time you're born again, the starting line, and the finishing line, when Christ comes again and you'll be like him, there's a long race of many years. What are you supposed to do in this long race? Walk as he walked. That's not the same as being like him. Being refers to our total personality. Walking refers to what we do consciously. Being we are what we are even when we are asleep. But walking, we don't walk in our sleep, at least normal people don't walk in their sleep. So, walking is a conscious act. So when it says walk as Jesus walked, it's speaking about that conscious area of our life where I choose according to the principles that Jesus lived by, I also seek to live. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. I'm pressing on to perfection. I will be like Jesus completely only when he comes again. Therefore, I'm not perfect. I'm not sinlessly perfect. There are certain Christians who preach a doctrine of sinless perfection. They are completely wrong because there is no sinlessly perfect person on the face of the earth. The only one who walked sinlessly perfect was Jesus. There is no experience that can make you sinlessly perfect. There are people who talk about entire sanctification. You know, we can talk about experiences and theories and all that. The important thing is do people see Christ in your life or do they only hear a doctrine? People must see the graciousness, the uprightness, the humility, the brokenness, the anointing, the joy, the peace of Christ in your life. Then they themselves will come to you and ask you the secret. It's not by standing up and propounding a doctrine. We walk as he walked and progressively become more and more sanctified until one day when Christ comes again, we will be entirely sanctified. That means we will be totally sanctified. That's what the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23, where it says may the God of peace sanctify you entirely. May your spirit, soul and body be preserved complete without blame. When? At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the time we are going to be sanctified entirely. It's very clear in scripture. So we don't preach that we are going to be sanctified entirely, completely free from sin in our total being until Christ comes again. We need to understand the truth accurately. We must not take one verse and exclude another. It is written the devil said, Jesus said, it is also written. Truth has got two wings. If I fly with one of them, I just keep going around in circles. So we walk like him on earth and we be like him when he comes again. And increasingly from glory to glory we are transformed into his likeness as we have the same attitude to temptation that he had. That's what we need to examine ourselves in. Do I have the same attitude to temptation that Jesus had? What was his attitude? I don't want to do my own will. I don't want to seek my own. I don't want to please myself. I want to please my heavenly father in everything. Jesus found perfect security in his father. His relationship with his father was so close and that's why he could sense what displeased his father. And that is why it is so important that we develop a relationship. That's how we know what displeases the father. You know, in the daily walk of life, if you live in that sensitivity, when somebody is rude to you and you are tempted to speak back, the spirit of God will say to you, that will displease your father. And then you hold your tongue. You walk into a home and they are watching something on television. Well, you can't control what other people are watching on their television screens and you can't tell them to turn it off. But you sense that's not something you want to see. Because that's not something that Jesus would see. That's not something that would please the father. So, you excuse yourself and say, no, I'm sorry, I'll come back later and see you some other time. And if they get offended, they get offended. If they say, oh, you are a holier than thou person, they can call me whatever name they like. My aim is to please my father. And the proof of it will be that he will anoint me with joy above these other Christians who are trying to please human beings. When you lose your joy, my brother, sister, know that you are not hating iniquity. You are not loving righteousness. You say, brother, it's my circumstances why I can't rejoice. No, don't blame your circumstances. Blame yourself. There's only one reason why we are not full of joy. We don't love righteousness and we don't hate iniquity. We're not seeking to make Jesus our example. See what it says in Matthew chapter 12. In Matthew chapter 12 we read this wonderful verse. Matthew chapter 12 and verse 18. Behold my servant whom I have chosen. My beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I put my spirit on him. When it says behold, like it says in the message of the Bible, it says, look carefully at this one whom I have chosen. That's Jesus. Observe his life carefully. I love him so much. I take such delight in him that I place my spirit on him. I want God's spirit on me. I want God to love me much. I want God to take delight in me. And if I want that, you know what I need to do? I need to look carefully at the earthly life of Jesus. For many, many years I've made the earthly life of Jesus my study. I want to study that more than I study the Bible. I study the Bible in order to discover the earthly life of Jesus. Because there, the Holy Spirit, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, he'll show me that life and make me like him. So, if you make the study of Jesus' earthly life your passion, the Holy Spirit will show you. Jesus said that in John 16. He will take of the things of mine and show it to you. He will show you things that other Christians don't see. You know, there are two types of Christians. One is those who concentrate on the outward life and the other those who concentrate on the inner life. And all of us sitting here, there are some for whom the inner life is more important and for some the outer life, our testimony before men. And I've discovered one thing. In my early Christian life where I was not taught correctly by my leaders and elders, I concentrated on my outward life. On the things outside which would spoil my testimony. I... And the result was that I could only see Jesus' outer life. Because I was interested only in my outer life. I could only see Jesus' outer life. What is that? He healed the sick. He fed the multitude. He raised the dead. He died on the cross. He rose again. I knew nothing about his inner life. Because I myself was only interested in an outward life. The vast majority of Christians only see Jesus' outward life. That is the proof that they themselves are outer life Christians. But when I began to see that my inner life was more important and that took about 16 years after I was born again. And I realized that my inner life is more important than my outer life. That Jesus said clean the inside of the cup and I began to concentrate on the inside of the cup. Then the Holy Spirit began to show me the inner life of Jesus. Then I saw how he resisted sin. That's not written in the Gospels. Then I saw how he must have submitted to Mary. How he must have done his work as a carpenter. What his attitude to money was. So many things I began to see which I did not see before because I was only taken up with the outer life. You remember Jesus told his disciples in John 16. There are many more things I want to tell you. But you can't bear them now. Because they didn't have the Holy Spirit. They could not understand anything about Jesus' inner life. Do you think Jesus ever told his disciples do you know fellas I'm being tempted exactly the same way as you are. He never told them that. They couldn't understand it. But he said I've got many more things to say to you but when the Holy Spirit has come he will lead you into all the truth. And when the Holy Spirit came he led them into the truth. You read in Hebrews 4 15 that he was tempted in all points as we are. His inner life became exposed after the Holy Spirit came. He couldn't tell them anything about his inner life. He couldn't tell them anything about his struggles for 30 years in Nazareth. They wouldn't have understood it. And that's why the Gospels say nothing about Jesus' inner life. It's only his outer life. And outer life Christians are only interested in the outer life of Jesus. Inner life Christians are interested in the inner life of Jesus. So when you talk about walking like Jesus you're not talking about the outer life. You go to the average Christian and say you've got to walk like Jesus. What is he thinking of? I've got to raise the dead. I've got to heal the sick. Or anything to do with his external life. Some people even try to dress like Jesus. You know, long hair and beard and white clothes. They're all outer life Christians. No, it's not that. It's inner life. To walk with him. And Jesus' attitude was one of knowing that anything that the father told him was the very best for him. If you can be convinced about that. You know how our children when parents tell them to do something they're not convinced that that is the best for them. And so they say well, I don't think that's best for me and that's why they don't obey. Don't all children like won't they do what is good for themselves? We all will do what is good for ourselves. There's not a single person sitting here who will not be willing to do what is good if that's good for you and for your benefit. And if you were convinced as I'm convinced that everything that God says is for my good. I will gladly do it. Okay. Particularly in the area of sex. We're living in a day when the tremendous temptations in this area. And I want to say to all of you. If you're not going to be faithful in the area of sex. You are doomed. I don't care who you are. You may be an elder brother. Your judgment will be ten times more than other people. If you are unfaithful in the sexual area, I would say to you if you're unfaithful in the sexual area please consider resigning your eldership. If you're battling, it's okay. I'm not talking about perfect victory. But if you're not battling, if you're not fighting, you're not fighting, fighting, fighting, you sort of given up and say, oh well, I'll never get victory here. I'll just nobody knows what I'm thinking about. I'll enjoy the lusts. Dear brother, you're in a very serious condition and let me say to you you're in danger of losing your salvation. It's a very serious area. Jesus said that. Pluck out your eye. Don't go with two eyes to hell. It's an area where you got to be extremely careful. You got to be extremely careful with the opposite sex. People are thrown together nowadays in their place of work. In the call centers and places they work now, there are loose-minded young girls who throw themselves at young men. If you want to preserve your purity, fear God. Live in reverence for God and keep a distance from those type of men and women. Take a Bible with you and let them see you reading it. They'll keep a distance from you automatically. This is a holy guy. We don't want anyone with anything to do with him. There are many ways of making it clear to others that I'm different from you. And if they come and say I want to show you something in this Bible in this verse. Have you read this verse? You know what God says here? But keep your body pure. They will not trouble you again. Why don't you do that? Why don't you do it at least from now on? Carry a little pocket New Testament and mark some verses about purity and read it out to those people who try to get too friendly with you. They won't disturb you. Don't you want to be protected, you young sisters and young brothers from all these people who want to fool around with you? So, it's an area where we've got to be tremendously faithful. The second area where I want to say is Jesus' attitude towards money. That's another area where we've really got to be tremendously faithful in our day. Because what is happening now in many parts of the cities of India young people are earning so much money four, five times what their parents earned when they retired. It's amazing what young people are earning nowadays. And you think that you are blessed. When I look around at a lot of young people who earn so much money, who don't know what to do with it it's as if the devil has changed his tactics and says, I couldn't destroy them with poverty, I'll destroy them with wealth. And I tell you he's succeeding. So many people are ruining themselves with money. Because they don't know how to use it. And if God gives you more money if God allows you to get rather He tests you to see what you're going to do with it. The Bible says that all seek their own interests. Nobody thinks well, I've got a little more money, maybe I can use it for God a little more. You know why God used John Wesley so mightily? Many reasons, but one of the reasons was this. He was working in a university and he got a certain salary and he lived at a certain level, certain level of standard of living. His salary became double, he still lived at the same level. His salary became triple, he still lived at the same level. I'm not surprised that God used that man. There is a price that people pay in order to serve God. Many years ago, I said Lord, how can you make me your mouthpiece? I want to be your mouthpiece wherever I go, not just in the pulpit. Even when I sit down and talk to somebody, personally in five minutes of conversation, he must hear God. I want to be your mouthpiece. And the Lord told me very clearly many years ago, be careful with your mouth and be careful with your money and you can be my mouthpiece. And that was from scripture. In Jeremiah 15 and verse 19, the Bible says, Jeremiah 15 and verse 19, the Lord told Jeremiah, if you take away the precious, if you extract the precious from the worthless, then you will be my mouthpiece, then you will be my spokesman. What does that mean? That means in all the bunch of words that come into my mind, I must take out the precious words and speak only them. You know how so many words and thoughts come into my mind when I want to say something. And I must take out the precious and throw away the other things. I don't want to say all that. When you write a letter, take out all the worthless words and put the precious words in. Be careful when you write letters. Be careful when you speak. That's the first area and you will be my spokesman. The laws are the same for everybody. Father, will you do for me what you did for Jesus? Yes, if you fulfill the conditions. The second verse is Luke chapter 16, where it says in verse 11, if you are not faithful with money, who will give you the true riches? So that's the second area. I have to be faithful with my mouth and then I have to be faithful with money means when God gives me money, more than I need, God is seeing what am I going to do with it. And that will determine whether I will be, whether He will give me the true riches. These riches are not true riches. This is only a test to see whether He can give me the true riches which are the anointing of the Holy Spirit, revelation on God's word, transformation into the likeness of Christ and an anointed ministry. If I want that, I must be faithful with money and you can have that too. Father, will you do for me what you did for Jesus? Yes, if you fulfill the conditions. The third thing I want to say is that we have to have the same attitude that Jesus had towards trials. In the new covenant, we can't have a ministry except by going through trial. The same attitude to sin, the same attitude to money, the same attitude to trials. In the old covenant, you could go and listen to God and come out and preach it. You know, Moses would go up to the mountain, spend 40 days there, listen to God and come out and say, hey fellas, this is what God told me. Today people say, you know how a lot of people prepare sermons today? They sit down with their notebooks and their CDs and commentaries and concordance and it's good. All that is good, but all I'm saying is you can't prepare a message just from that. That's only the outward form. It's like the vessel. You need a vessel. So do all that study, but what is inside the vessel? That can't come out of the concordance. That can't come out of listening to somebody else's CD. No. In the Old Testament, they heard, studied and spoke. In the New Testament, in the new covenant, we go through trials and in those trials, we experience God and God crushes us and breaks us and you know like you press a toothpaste tube and the toothpaste comes out of it. God squeezes us and a message comes out of us. That's how God produces message in the New Covenant. Where he takes us through trials and so every trial and every experience that you've gone through from the day you were born was God's preparation and plan to produce a message through your life. If you take it in the right way, but instead of that, if you complain and say, Lord why have you allowed all this in my life? Why have you done this and done that and done the other thing? Then you won't have a ministry. Even some people in the Old Testament when God wanted to give a ministry to Hosea, he allowed him to marry a woman who was unfaithful to him and there Hosea got a message. Ezekiel, one day the Lord told Ezekiel in Ezekiel 24, I'm going to take away your wife your wife's going to die and Ezekiel got a message out of that. So these Old Testament prophets went through a lot of pain and trial and suffering before a message came out of them and much more in the New Covenant. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 1 verse 4 we go through trials and God strengthens us in those trials so that we can pass on that strength to other people. There's only one way to be a New Covenant servant and to have New Covenant ministry and that is when you go through trial to submit there and to allow God to crush you to break you, to humble you and to bring a resurrection out of that situation. What is the attitude Jesus had in trial? Let me read to you John's Gospel chapter 12. John's Gospel chapter 12 Jesus said, He was very honest when He was approaching the cross He said in verse 27, My soul has become troubled in the Message Bible it says, I'm storm tossed in my soul my soul is troubled Have you ever admitted to somebody that your soul is troubled? Jesus never sins when your soul is troubled it doesn't mean you're sinning He said, My soul is troubled because I'm human now, the pressure of the situations and the trials coming upon me what shall I say when my soul is troubled? Oh Father, save me from this hour! No, I will never say that I will say Father, whatever happens to me, glorify your name that is the attitude Jesus had. Shall I say, Father save me from this hour? No, Father glorify thy name. So when the Lord takes me through a trial and our temptation is to say, God get me out of this as soon as possible, instead of that next time say Father, glorify your name take me out of it, whenever you want to take me out of it. After 10 years? Ok, fine. There are many trials that God takes us through, sometimes we pray in the name of Jesus Lord let it happen tomorrow, let it happen next week. I've prayed like that and nothing happened for years. Leave alone next week, nothing happened for years and I've learned to say, Father the times and the seasons are in God's hand He decides when to release me from a particular trial what shall I pray? Father glorify your name I will not pray save me from this hour, but glorify your name. And as I pray that God takes me through and produces a ministry How many opportunities you and I have had and we have missed what God wanted to produce in us because our reaction was God get me out of this out of this situation will you pray from today? Father I will not say save me from this hour I will say Father glorify thy name and you will see God doing something wonderful in your life through the crushing process of trial you will experience a resurrection and the power of God that will give you a ministry to other people who are going through similar trials let's pray I hope you have seen a little bit today of how Jesus walked on this earth in his attitude to temptation his attitude to money his attitude to trial will you say Lord I want to have the same attitude that Jesus had I want to live a simple lifestyle I want to say Father glorify your name in trial I want to hate iniquity and love righteousness Heavenly Father we believe that you want to bring forth fruit from every one of our lives give us grace to see the earthly life of Jesus to be gripped by it Lord and to seek with all of our heart to walk in the footsteps of our Savior we pray in Jesus name Amen