This sermon emphasizes the importance of seeking balance in the Christian life, particularly in areas such as faith and works, love for God and others, grace and truth, and the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit. It encourages believers to earnestly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not neglecting them but valuing them as essential for the edification of the church and the effective ministry of individuals.

In our study, the balance of truth, yesterday we considered what it means to be balanced in two areas, first of all, in relation to faith and works in the Christian life. There is a place for faith, there is a place for works and salvation, forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we saw was entirely by faith. You can't do any works to receive those gifts. But after that, the Bible says that God's people must be zealous for good works. And then we also saw that we need to be, you know, just to come back to that, there are people who can be imbalanced here where once they've accepted Christ, they know they're saved, they don't realize the importance of allowing the life of Christ to come forth through them in a life of good works towards other people. The Bible says about Jesus that he went about doing good and delivering people who are oppressed by the devil. That was his earthly life. And if you and I have really received that life, it will make us go around doing good. And delivering people around us who are oppressed by the devil. For myself, that is the test of whether I have received the life of Christ. The life of Christ has not changed. When he was on earth, he went about doing good. And if you receive that life, it'll make you go around doing good. And the world around us is surrounded, we're surrounded by people who are oppressed by the devil in various ways. And if we have the life of Christ, we will go around setting them free. If we don't have the life of Christ, we'll just sit back and say, my sins are all forgiven. I'm on my way to heaven and just deceive ourselves. So there is a place for faith and works. And we also saw that our love for God is tested by our love for our fellow human beings. A person says he loves God and he doesn't love his fellow human being. He doesn't really love God at all. So today we want to look at another area where we need to be balanced. It says in John's gospel chapter one, and that's the area of grace and truth. We read in John chapter one, verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. The glory of God is what he wanted Adam to have. And Adam missed it. And nobody ever could have it on earth till sin was removed. And so the first person that manifested the glory of God in his life was Jesus Christ, in whom there was no sin. And that glory was, there was a balance in that glory of grace and truth. Both were necessary for the glory of God to be seen. And Jesus came and died and has given us the Holy Spirit. Remember the twofold gift with which we are to begin our Christian life, forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian can have that the day he's converted. And without these, he can't really progress. So the purpose of forgiveness of sins is to clean the vessel. And the gift of the Holy Spirit is to fill the vessel with what? With the life of Jesus or the glory of God. And if it is really there, it will be the same life that was seen in Jesus, the same glory that was seen in Jesus with a balance of grace and truth. We won't have it in the fullness that Jesus had, but a little bit, you know, just like a baby. Its legs are not as long as the legs of a grown-up man, but his legs are equal in size. And as that baby gets one year old, its legs become a little bigger, but both legs grow. When it becomes two years old, it's a little taller and both legs are still equal. All, I mean, 99% of the babies you see are not walking sideways in an imbalanced way. They're walking normally. And as they grow taller, both legs grow normally. And that's the way from the time we are born again, grace and truth, we must grow in both these areas as we grow to the maturity there is in Christ. It's not something that we finally attain to. We had to grow. You know, growth is something which the New Testament speaks about. I want to show you a verse in 1 Peter in chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. Many of us think of salvation only in terms of, oh, my sins are forgiven. I'm going to heaven. But have you ever seen this verse, 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 1, where it says we must grow in respect to salvation? How do you grow in respect to salvation? Now, many people, if they heard a word like that, growing in respect to salvation, they think it's a wrong teaching. You'd have to accuse Peter of wrong teaching and the Holy Spirit of wrong teaching. Here it says about growing in respect to salvation. Because salvation is not just salvation from the judgment of God. That's over. We need to experience another salvation right now. And that is salvation from this Adamic nature that we've all inherited. None of us have been saved completely from that. Even after we are born again, we have what the Bible calls the flesh, which is Adam's nature. And growing in salvation means being saved more and more from that Adam's nature is the opposite of grace and truth. Or it is the counterfeit of grace and truth. We had to grow in respect of salvation means that we get more and more free from Adam's nature that has ruled us. And just like a baby growing, both our legs must grow together. So, there must be graciousness in our life, kindness towards other people, gentleness. At the same time, there must be truth. The Bible speaks about speaking the truth in love. If you choose only one of these, it's easy. If you decide, I'm just going to love people, I'm never going to tell them the truth. I think a lot of preachers are like that. They never tell people the truth. They say, oh, we just love them and not offend them. Jesus wasn't like that. And then there are some other preachers who go to the other extreme, who say, hey, fellas, I got to hear the truth. They don't love them at all. They just keep on hammering away at people with some truth. So, when we think of imbalance, my feeling is, I hope I'm wrong, but my feeling is that most of our elders preach truth without much love. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm a fear that I'm right. So, if you recognize where your imbalance is, you need to work on the other side. If one leg is shorter than the other and you're walking sort of lopsided, you know which side, which leg needs to get longer. We shouldn't compromise on the truth, but we must speak it in love. At the same time, there may be a few people, I don't know, who want popularity and so they tickle people's ears. I don't think we have many like that in our midst, preachers like that, but in many churches and other churches, that's what happens. They don't want to lose people's offerings. They don't want the rich people to go away. And usually, the rich people are the most troublesome people in every church. I remember when we started meeting as a church 30 years ago, the first people to get offended and leave were the rich people, because we didn't hold back the truth. We didn't hate them, but they got offended because they were treated like everybody else. And in most churches, rich people are not treated like everybody else. They're treated special. I never believed in teaching treating any rich person special. I couldn't care less who he is or where he's from. In God's eyes, a king and a beggar are the same. And to a servant of God, to a true servant of God, a king and a beggar are the same. They need to hear the truth. And very often when we preach the truth, it's the rich people who get offended and leave first. Well, they're welcome to go. We never stopped any of them. We say, we don't wish you any evil. God bless you. Go where you are. I don't know what happened to them. But the point is this. It's not just in our speaking, but in our life. There must be this balance, you know, like God is light and God is love. There must be purity and there must be love. So, it's a balance that there must be in our life all the time, like two legs growing up. If we are to have to be balanced in the truth. Jesus, to use an illustration, you know, Jesus was so attractive to people, even to sinners, even though he was the holiest man alive that ever walked on earth, with no sin in him. He never compromised on any sin. There was absolutely no sin that he would tolerate, big or small. And yet, some of the greatest sinners in his time, like the thief on the cross and the woman caught in adultery and demon-possessed women, came to him because he was the friend of sinners. Imagine, the holiest person on earth was the friend of sinners. That is the balance. Whereas, it's possible for our church to be so holy that it doesn't attract sinners. And I believe this is an area where we need to judge ourselves. A lot of our churches, not only ours, all churches, need to judge themselves to see whether we are clearly reflecting Christ. And, you know, you can compare Jesus with the Pharisees. The Pharisees also had an outward emphasis on holiness. And like I have said many times before, grace and truth, or truth and grace, truth and grace can be compared to the bones and flesh in our body. I don't mean what the Bible calls flesh, but this physical flesh that covers our bones. Do we need bones in our body? Sure. If we didn't have bones, we'd just collapse. We wouldn't even be able to stand up. Of course, there's some advantage in not having bones because you can squeeze through any opening. Whether the opening is square or circular or diamond-shaped or star-shaped, a person without bones can just squeeze through. And there are Christians like that who can fit anywhere in any group because they don't have any bones. Among worldly people, they are worldly. And amongst religious people, they'll be religious. And in any denomination, they're okay because they don't have any convictions. There are some Christians like that. It's not actually an advantage. It's a disadvantage. They have no value for truth. I remember years ago, I was invited. I was the only speaker to speak at a—they arranged special meetings for me somewhere. And just before I went there, they sent a letter to me one week before the meeting saying, Brother Zach, see this is an interdenominational meeting, so please don't speak on water baptism. Can you imagine telling Peter that on the day of Pentecost, the first gospel message? He preached on water baptism, the very first gospel message. But I'll tell you this, you go to any gospel meeting in the world today, you'll never hear about water baptism. Never. If you hear one, let me know where it is. You can watch all the television programs, you'll never hear about water baptism. It's just silence because it's not popular. Because some people don't like to be baptized in water after they are born again, so all the preachers keep quiet about it. Tell me if you ever heard a message on water baptism. It's rare, maybe one in a million. But Peter preached on water baptism, the very first gospel message. So they told me don't preach on water baptism. I said, well, I think you got the wrong man to be the speaker. I'm sorry, I can't come. I won't come. If you tell me what to speak on, go and find somebody else. So they canceled the meeting. And they got so angry with me, they never invited me again. Of course, I never wanted to go there again. But I've had a number of experiences like that. I say, if you're telling me to speak about, not to speak about the Iraq war or something like that, okay, that I'm willing to keep quiet on because it's not in the Bible. Anybody can have their own views on it. Is it right or wrong? But if you're telling me not to speak on something written in the New Testament, I say, brother, forget it. That's one of the bones in my body. Are you telling me to take it out? No, I don't want to lose even one bone in my body. Are you being so convicted about truth? Now, I'll tell you something. There are bones in the body you can do without. Supposing you lose a little finger, that doesn't incapacitate you for life. But if God's made a little finger, you might as well have it. So, personally, my attitude to the truth of God's word has been everything written in the New Testament is for me. I don't, okay, Old Testament, a lot of laws which are not for me, like don't eat pork, etc. I don't love pork in any case, but if somebody wants to eat it, he can eat it. But anything written in the New Testament, particularly in the epistles and the teaching of Jesus, these are the two areas which are very important for me, the teaching of Jesus and the epistles. Why are the epistles important? Because Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 16, I've got many more things to say to you. Let me show you that verse. It's important to understand that because John chapter 16, verse 12, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. You cannot bear them now means you were not able to grasp them now. Why are you not able to grasp them now? Because you don't have the Holy Spirit inside. Even if I explain it, you won't be able to understand. Jesus was the world's best preacher. He says you can't understand it if you don't have the Holy Spirit. I can explain it, but you won't be able to grasp it because these things are not by cleverness. These things are by the revelation of the Spirit. But when he, the Holy Spirit of Truth has come on the day of Pentecost, he will guide you into all these wonderful truths which I want to tell you, which I can't tell you now. What are those truths? What you read in the epistles, Paul's epistles, Peter's epistles, James, Jude. Now why do I say that? Because some people say, hey, I only read what Jesus said. Well, the epistles are also what Jesus said. Did you know that? According to this verse, if the apostles had the Holy Spirit, everything that he revealed to them in the epistles, he'd have revealed to them then. The only reason he didn't reveal it to them is because they were not ready to receive it. For example, the wonderful truths in Ephesians. Your names are written in the book of life before the foundation of the world. Did Jesus ever tell his disciples that? They wouldn't have understood it. But is it true or not? Of course it's true. But they understood it only after the day of Pentecost. Or every spiritual blessing is ours in the heavenly places in Christ. Jesus never spoke about that, but he did speak about it in Ephesians. This is part of this verse. I have many more things to say to you. You can partake of the divine nature, 2nd Peter 1.4. Jesus wanted to say it, but they wouldn't have understood it. You go through all the epistles and the next time you read the epistles, remember these are the words of Jesus. Unless you think these people were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, then of course you got a different Bible from mine. But there are Christians who say, well, that was Paul's opinion. Who said that sisters should cover their heads when they pray and prophesy? Jesus. You say, where? 1 Corinthians 11. That wasn't Jesus you say, that was Paul. He didn't like women. The guy was not married, so he said all types of things. No sir or no madam. That was Jesus. That one of those things in John 16.12, which he couldn't tell them then. So I have taken that attitude to all the letters in the epistles to try and follow everything that's written there. That's why, for example, I don't wear any gold as decoration or ornaments, because I believe that that's what it's written in 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2, and God doesn't want it, any of this gold and pearls and all that. I don't judge other people who don't wear it, just like I go to churches where women don't cover their heads, I don't judge them. It's not my business. I am not the judge of anybody, but I want every bone in my body. If someone likes to live without a little finger, that's up to them. But I'd like to obey everything, because some people have asked me, Brother Isaac, have you changed your view on ornaments? Never. I've had the same view on ornaments for the last 47 years, and I've never changed my view. Others may have changed their view, that's up to them. It's not my business. I'm not their judge. God is their judge. But I take God's every word of God exactly. Jesus said, if you disobey the least commandment and teach other people to disobey the least commandment, you will be the least in the kingdom of God. So I'm never going to disobey the least commandment or teach other people to disobey the least commandment. I'm not going to judge them if they don't keep it, but I'm not going to disobey it, and I never teach other people to disobey it. I say take everything in the epistles and obey it. You'll never lose out by obeying it. So you can live with nine or ten bones missing in your body, sure. There are, you know, a lot of people who lost one hand, and I don't know how many bones there are in this hand, minus so many bones, they still live. So if you're only instead interested in survival, you don't need all of God's truth. You don't need all the bones. But if you're interested in being manifesting the whole entire glory of God, you cannot say to Jesus, well you didn't know what you were talking about when you wrote that in scripture. You want you can say that, I'm not going to say it. And I can tell you this, everything that I have found in scripture, just like I told you yesterday, there may be certain things I do which you don't understand why I do it, but I've got a reason for it. In the same way I say there are certain things that God has said in his word, which I may not understand the reason for it, but he's got a very good reason. So I realize that God must have had a very good reason why he wrote certain things in scripture. Because there are a lot of things which are not mentioned in scripture. For example, scripture never tells us how many times we should have a bath, once a year, or twice a day. So we never speak about that because that's not part of God's truth. That's up to you. There are a lot of things like that. The New Testament never tells us how many children you should have, so we never talk about that. It's up to you whether you have two or ten, that's up to you. So, but there are certain other things which are spoken in the New Testament. And if you read carefully, you will find them. And you can skip over those passages because, hey, that's embarrassing, let's go to the next verse. Who's going to be the loser? You. So think about that. Whether you are missing something of the glory of God by ignoring something in scripture. And you can't tell that other person to obey in water baptism. If you disobey in some other area, he may not know the scriptures to point it out to you. That's the thing I felt. The fellow will ask me, is it necessary to be baptized in water to go to heaven? I'll say, no, it's not necessary. So why should I be baptized? Because it's written in God's word. But then he can point out something else written in God's word. Hey, this is also written in God's word. Why don't you obey this? What will you say? If you hadn't seen it in scripture, okay. But if you have seen it and you say, hey, well, I want to be a little bit like the world. Go ahead. But I want to tell you, it's my responsibility as a servant of God to tell you, there's something of the glory of God you'll miss. If there's something you know to be in scripture and you disobey it. If you don't know and you disobey it, that's fine. But if you know it to be in scripture and you disobey it, I can give it to you in writing, you will miss something of the glory of God and you'll have some regret in eternity. That applies to any scripture. And so I want all of God's truth. Jesus, when he went for the baptism, John the Baptist said, Lord, I need to be baptized by you. And he said, no. Did Jesus need to be baptized? No. It was a baptism of repentance. And Jesus stood in the queue, in the line with all the people, one by one, John is baptizing them and Jesus is also coming. I see his tremendous humility standing there in the line with all the sinners, willing to be identified with them, even though there was not a spot of sin in him. And he just comes up to John, just like all the others. He doesn't say, hey, you know who I am? No. But John recognizes, oh Lord, I can't baptize you. He says, do it. Because to fulfill all righteousness, I must do this. Jesus was very exact in any little thing. That is the glory of God. And I'll tell you something, God is tremendously delighted with any child of his who's very exact in obeying everything he finds in scripture. So I want to say to all of you, don't allow other people who have started compromising on scripture to lead you astray. Let the world compromise. Christendom, throughout history, if you read church history, you see churches started with great devotion to obey all of God's word. After about 25 years, they all started compromising. 25 years is about the limit that most churches keep to what they originally held. And after that, they start compromising. And if you read church history, you will discover usually the leaders never compromised. It was the second generation that started compromising. And it's something like the human body. Doctors say that your health, your physical ability reaches a peak at the age of 25 and after that you're going down. Less and less and less. Something like that in a church too. So I see signs of that in different churches of ours. And I want to say to those of you who are wholehearted and who want to please God and your only desire in life is to please Jesus Christ with all your heart, I would say to you, don't compromise. If you don't see something in God's word, then forget it. But if you see something in God's word, never ask yourself, what are the others doing? I couldn't care less what the others are doing. What does the Holy Spirit say? There's a lovely word written about Jesus in Hebrews chapter 10. It says in Hebrews chapter 10 that when Jesus came into the world, Jesus came into the world and he said, verse 5, sacrifice an offering you don't desire. God doesn't want sacrifice an offering, but you gave me a body. And what am I supposed to do in this body? All of you can say that. God gave you a body through your mother's womb. What are you supposed to do in that body? Behold, I have come, verse 7, Hebrews 10, in the scroll of the book, that is the Bible, it is written about me to do your will, O God. So God has given me a body and I go into the book, God's word, and I see in this book what I'm supposed to do with my body, God's will. Here I am, O God, in the scroll of the book, in every verse, it's written about me. I'm not here to judge another soul in the world. I'm not bothered whether they are obeying God's word or not. It is written about me, not us. No, not us. It's written about me. Jesus couldn't care less whether the Pharisees were obeying God's word or not. It's written about me, and I, my father, have come to do your will. And even if everybody around me compromises and disobeys, I am going to obey you. You take that attitude, you will follow Jesus. The glory of God will be seen in your life. Don't follow the other brothers and sisters, follow Jesus. That's why you need to study God's word. And don't use your reason, just do what God's word says. Grace is the other side. Truth, you know, if we had only truth, we'd be a skeleton. And that's the problem with some people. It's all skeleton. There's a lot of churches like that. Hey, you got to do this, you got to do that, you got to do that. It's like you feel exactly like a skeleton coming to you. I mean, you don't feel exactly excited when you see a skeleton approaching you, even if it's got all the bones. And that's how the Pharisees were. And sometimes we can preach truth like that, in such a way where we scare people. Hey, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? You know, sometimes we've had foolish sisters who, when some newcomer comes to the church, they say, hey, why are you wearing ornaments? Or why are you wearing a puttu? Yeah, they're just come for the first time. Don't drive them away. They haven't heard everything yet. You see that skeleton approach. That's wrong. Jesus never did that. No. On top of this truth, we must have grace. Grace is the flesh. And you know how beautiful we become when flesh is over our bones. And how good looking some of you are, because there's flesh on your bones. And just think of one day when that flesh goes away from you, how ugly you will look to skeleton. That's truth without grace. So we must have truth with grace. We must speak the truth in love. Grace must cover the truth. That's why Jesus was attractive. When the woman of Samaria came, as soon as Jesus saw her, he knew this woman had five husbands. The one he's living with now is not her husband. Did he start with that? He said, hey, you're the woman with five husbands, right? No. He said, give me some water. And like that, he started. And he wanted her to confess her sin and said, go and call your husband. She said, I have no husband. You said, that's right. You've had five husbands. The one who you live with is not your husband. Oh, she got embarrassed. So you know what people do when they're embarrassed? They change the subject. Lord, this business about worship, you know, I had a question about worship. Can you please tell me about worship? Some people say we got to go to Jerusalem. Some people say we can worship here. And Jesus didn't say, hey, hey, don't change the subject. I was talking about your husband. That's how some of our believers today would have done. But not Jesus. There was a woman who was divorced five times. Oh, the way a lot of Christians treat divorced people, holy Christians, the way they treat divorced people is absolutely shameful. It's truth they stand for, but there's no grace in them. But Jesus, when he saw that she was embarrassed, he continued on the subject of worship. I see something beautiful there. He won her. And after winning her, he used that five times divorced woman to win the whole city of Samaria. That's God's way. It's grace covered with truth. And I tell you, if we had more grace covering our truth, we would win a lot more people to our churches. If our elder brothers who get up and preach had grace over their truth instead of hammering away, taking a hammer and hitting this fellow and that fellow on the head, we'd have had a lot more sinners converted. We need grace with truth in our life and in our personal conversation also. When you go into a home, you're not there to set everything right in their home. You're not even there to set everything right in anybody's life. Jesus will set it right. Many, many times. This has been my experience for 30 years. I see brothers. I see even elder brothers. I see many brothers and sisters. I see many things in their life I just don't agree with. And I don't tell them that. It's not my business. I see something good that I can appreciate. Like Jesus, I may ask for a cup of water and fellowship as much as possible. Lead them little by little to a godly life and let them get light themselves. Maybe two years later, I'm willing to wait two years. God's willing to wait two years. I don't even push a person to salvation. I mean, if a man says, well, I'm not ready to give up my sin. I say, oh, you've got to kneel down right now and accept Christ. No, I never say that. God doesn't do it. Think of that rich young ruler who came to Jesus and Jesus said, you know, you're a wonderful man, but there's one thing lacking in your life. Jesus, you know what it says in that verse? Jesus looked at him and loved him. He said, boy, what potential for God's kingdom. But one thing missing. You love money too much. Go, my dear young man, go and sell all that you have. Give it to the poor. You've got a terrible cancer. Get rid of it. He turned and went away. Jesus knew that that man was walking on the way to hell. He never stopped him. Okay. He could have been apostle. He could have been one of the 12 for all you know. But he walked away from that. I don't know where he is today. But if he finally did go to hell, go to him in hell today and ask him, was it worth it? Rejecting that loving call of Jesus that day. And even if he was a compromiser who went to heaven, there are some compromises to reach heaven. You ask him in heaven. Okay. You finally go to heaven. What do you think? Was it worth it? Oh, he said, don't make the mistake I made. I got here. All right. But I've got such regret that my life could have been so powerful and useful for God on earth. But I wasted it because I did not do one thing the Lord told me. Jesus was gracious. That's how we must be. Grace with truth. Let's pursue that all our life. And in order to protect us while we are growing, God gives us other brothers and sisters in the church who balance us out. You know, one may be, that's why the Bible says churches must always have at least two elders, not one. One man show destroys everything. But two means one will balance the other if, if, big capital I F, if one strong elder brother is willing to accept that weaker elder brother as absolutely necessary for him. That is very difficult. I have seen churches even in our midst where there are two elder brothers. According to the letter of the law, they've got two elders, but it's only for namesake. One of the elders is very strong and there's nothing wrong in that, provided he's willing to accept that he's imbalanced, that he needs the balance that comes from the other brother until he himself grows up in that area. There are very few elder brothers like that. Thank God there are some, but the very few, most of them feel, Hey, I'm all right. I'm balanced. I'm okay. And this fellow, well, because brother Zach says we got to have two elders. Okay. I keep two elders, but he's just there to put his rubber stamp and I take all the decisions. Well, that's why your church is in such a pathetic state. That's why your church is in such a pathetic state. And that's why you have so many problems in your church, because you're not willing to recognize that you are imbalanced. You may be full of grace and that brother is the one God sent to you to bring a little more truth into your church, or you may be the one with all the bones, but not much flesh, and God brings him along to balance you out, but you won't accept him because you're the senior one. That's the tragedy in so many of our churches. You know, God brings two people together. I've seen it happen again and again. God brings two people together. They are so opposite, perfectly matched to build a church and one man dominates the other and destroys the church. It can happen in a marriage. God, why do we need a husband and wife in a marriage? Why do we need a father and mother? Because children must see grace and truth. It'd be terrible if both parents are strict, both parents are kind. It's good that one is strict and one is grace and one is truth. That's how it should be. Romans 11 22 says, look at the kindness and the severity of God. God is so kind and he's so strict and he's a father. A good father will be kind and he'll be strict. He will rebuke and he will encourage. So, that is the balance we need in a church and that's the balance we need in our life and that's the balance we need in our home. But when we start out, we're not like that. When we start out, when we are young, we're full of zeal and we are all imbalanced and so we are given, you know, most of us get married by the time we're around 30 or so. We're thoroughly imbalanced. So, God gives us a partner. The balance is enough. You're not a foolish husband just forcing your wife to be like yourself. There'll be a balance in your home. But if you are a foolish husband, just forcing your wife saying, ah, your opinion is not worth anything, you'll destroy your home and your children. But if you'll value your wife and say, well, God's given her to me to balance this imbalanced wretch. God has given her to me to balance me out. Your children will be blessed. Yeah. So, I want you to recognize that the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ. He was the only perfectly balanced man that walked on the earth. I'm sorry to say, my dear brother, you're not perfectly balanced. You better recognize that. Neither am I. We become more balanced as we grow up but none of us are perfect yet in that area. Okay. Now, we want to go to a fourth area and that is the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here again, there's a lot of imbalance in Christendom. There are some people who say, the main thing is character. If I speak in tongues and I don't have love, I'm zero. If I prophesy and I don't have love, I'm zero. Correct. That is 1 Corinthians 13. But if you read 1 Corinthians 13, shall I show you a great mystery? It is between chapter 12 and chapter 14. Got it? The number 13 comes between 12 and 14. That's the mystery. And chapter 12 is about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and chapter 14 is about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And in between comes chapter 13 and he says in end of chapter 12, actually, I'm telling you, I'll show you a more excellent way to exercise these gifts. And then he says chapter 13. So, you can't take chapter 13 all by itself. Ah, love is the greatest. No. It is a more excellent way to exercise the gifts mentioned in chapter 12 and chapter 14. So, we can look at it like this. Love is the life of the body and the gifts are the different functions in the body. 1 Corinthians 12, it says the head cannot say to the foot, I don't need you. The eye cannot say to the ear, I don't need you, etc. We all need one another. So, he talks about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and he says, it's like the functions in your body. Vision, hearing, speech, touch, taste, smell, walking, handling, so many things we have in our body. Then what is love? Love is the breath and life. It's no use having eyes, ears, hands and no life. So, which is more important? Now, you tell me, which would you rather have? Life or hands and feet and legs and eyes and all that? You don't need to think much about that. We, I want both. Right? What's the use of life without hands, legs, what's the use, for example, you can be that, you know. Have you seen these unfortunate people who had some head injury or something, they are like a vegetable, lying in the bed in a coma. You count his fingers, he's got 10. You count his toes, he's got 10. No life. And then we meet certain other people whose hands are chopped off or legs are chopped off or become blind, but they got life. But no vision or they are deaf. Do you want to be in either state? No. We want all the parts of functions of our body and we want life. Exactly. We want love, which is the life and we want the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But if you despise the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you won't get it. It's true. Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, here's the Bible has got such a beautiful balance. Pursue after love, which is the greatest, but yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. So if it's like saying you need life, brother, but you need all the things God has put in the body. Is it enough if you just have vision and no hearing? Why did God give hearing? God has put many things in the body, eyes, ears, tongue, taste, smell, hands, legs, so many things, liver, kidney, heart, all have got a function. And we can say God has given many gifts of the Holy Spirit to the church. And we have two groups in Christendom. Those who say, well, character is the main thing. And then they have got other people who say, brother, what's the use of all this? You don't have any gifts. And the answer, of course, is Jesus, the perfect spirit filled man. What did he have? Did he have fruit or did he have gifts? He had both. For a church to be without the gifts of the Holy Spirit is like a human body that's got life, but is blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, but he's got life, plenty of life, breathing properly, no sickness, nothing. You want to be like that? I don't want to be like that. Remember this. 1 Corinthians 12 says very clearly, the gifts are like the parts of the body. What could Jesus have done on earth if he was blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, lying in Nazareth, living a holy life and his thought life and everything? Is that enough? Thank God he was not blind. Thank God he was not deaf. Thank God he could move, he could walk, he could touch. What about the body of Christ today? The body of Christ, the church, very often in many places, many gifts are lacking. Why are they lacking? Because they have not earnestly desired these spiritual gifts. There are small gifts in the body. I often compare the gift of tongues, which is always mentioned last in every list, to the little finger. You know the mistake that a lot of people have made with the gift of tongues like the little finger? Some people have made this little finger about 20 feet long. Now just imagine if I had a little finger, just picture that in your mind if you can, long 20 feet stretching up to over there and I walk around with this little finger. I'm just going to knock everybody wherever I go. I'll be a perpetual nuisance. If I get into a bus everybody will get fed up with me because I'm hitting everybody with my little finger and wherever I go it's the little finger that's prominent. I'm only 5 foot 8 but my little finger is 20 feet and I'm a nuisance wherever I go and that is how some people are. Brother have you spoken in tongues? They meet somebody, have you spoken in tongues? It's this long 20 foot little finger with which they are a nuisance everywhere they go and some people get fed up with this, the brethren and people especially, they say cut it off we don't want any of this little finger and so they go around with four fingers. Can you live with four fingers? Oh sure you don't go to hell but I'd like to have a finger if God says I needed it and so I don't make it 20 feet long. I keep it the two inches that God made it. It's not the most important part of my body but don't devalue or disregard the smaller gifts. Ah that's not important. Cut it off. I don't want anything cut off. In the church not everybody has all the gifts because we are not the body of Christ. Jesus had all the gifts because he was the body of Christ but today the body of Christ is all of us. So I'm very happy to have somebody else have a gift which I don't have. I think there are a lot of brothers in CFC who have gifts I don't have and I have some gifts which they don't have but that's great. That's why we function together as a body and some gifts may be more prominent some gifts are not so prominent. You know we always speak with our tongue. We don't speak with our hands or ears. I mean the hands and ears are useful but when it comes to speaking there's only one organ that you all use that's the tongue. So God may give only very few people the gift of public speaking like the tongue but that doesn't mean that's the only important part of the body. What about the heart? Do you know what will happen if my heart stops pumping right now? I'll stop speaking and you won't have to wonder why. I got a heart attack and I have seen that when people don't pray for me it's difficult to speak. It is. I've been in places like that where I sense hey the heart's not pumping too well now and it's a struggle and then other places I find it so easy because the heart's doing a great job. So do you think the heart is important or not? Very important. It keeps the tongue speaking and these are the people who pray when you never see them. Will they get a reward? Of course they'll get it. I believe with all my heart that in the day when I stand before Jesus Christ to receive a reward for what I've done there'll be a whole lot of people with me and I won't be surprised when the Lord says you share the reward. You know it's like winning a lottery with one million rupees and you get about two rupees out of that because there are so many people who won the lottery. Yeah I won the lottery one million but there were about 500,000 people who won with me so I get my two rupees and say thank you very much. It's going to be something like that. If you don't believe it wait till Jesus comes and you'll see that. All the people who prayed for me supported me in various ways and prayer especially they're going to be there with me and I'll get my little share it's divided among all of us. I believe that that's what keeps me humble to realize that it's the heart that keeps the tongue speaking. So I'm just using an example. We must earnestly seek for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and don't seek for that which will give you the maximum prominence. Do you know that there's a gift in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 called the gift of helps. It's mentioned here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 28. God has appointed in the church first apostles, prophets, second, third teachers. These are the most important gifts then miracle workers then gifts of healings and then helps. Helps is one of the gifts like apostles and prophets. How many people seek for it? Oh God make me one of the helps in the church. I don't think there are a lot of people fasting and praying for that. There may be a lot of people fasting and praying to give the miracle, all miracles God give that to me. But that can be for honor. If God wants to give it to you, he'll give it to you. What I'm saying is there are gifts like administrations, people who can organize things. For example in a conference, I tell you you cannot run a conference without the gift of administration. It's one of the gifts or speaking in tongues, interpretation. In Romans chapter 12, I'll show you another gift which a lot of people don't seek. Romans chapter 12 it says we have got gifts like prophecy, verse 6, service, teaching is another gift. Yeah we like that. Exhorting, that's another gift. Another gift is the gift of giving money for God's work. You don't find many people fasting and praying God give me the gift of giving money, plenty of money for your work. I don't think people are seeking for that, yet it's one of the gifts of the spirit mentioned here. And I tell you I have seen certain people like that in my life, who have got an unusual gift to give for God's work from the abundance they have. And God blesses them, rewards them. So there are many gifts and you have to leave it to God to decide which one he wants to give you. I don't know which one he wants to give you. I didn't know in the beginning which one he was going to give me, but I said Lord I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Others say I can't serve you. I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I want to seek you. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I want to be filled with love, but I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I want to encourage you to do that my brother, sister. Ask God not for any particular gift. I mean prophecy he says all of you can seek. Definitely I have sought for that because the Bible encourages us to seek for it. But all of you should seek for the gift of prophecy. And I don't mean standing in the pulpit as a prophet, but to prophesy. That means you bless people who come to meet you and whom you talk to with two minutes of God's word instead of gossip and storytelling. Prophecy. Seek for that. Seek for that. In addition to that ask God to give you some supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit because you love the church. See we are imbalanced here. We can speak so much about holiness and holiness and holiness and holiness and I agree we need to speak that till Jesus comes, but that's not the only thing that's needed. We need the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit otherwise we'll be like a holy person who is deaf and dumb and blind and paralyzed. Holy. And I fear that some of us are like that because we're not earnestly seeking. God gives his gifts to those who value them. Why does it say earnestly desire? Because God will not give something to someone who doesn't value them. Will you give a 500 rupee note to a one-year-old child? You tell me. Why won't you give a 500 rupee note to a one-year-old child? Even if it's your own child. One reason he does not know the value of it. That same child when he's 20 years old you'll give it to him because then he's realized the value of it. Why doesn't God give his gifts to many people? I'll tell you why. Because they don't value it. They don't earnestly seek for it. They say oh I can get along without it. And the Lord says you can get along without it? Okay then go ahead. Even Jesus it says when he was baptized he prayed as he was going into the water. Father give me the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He had the Holy Spirit from birth. That's how he lived a holy life. But he prayed and he was anointed and from that day something happened in his ministry. He began to preach. He began to cast out demons. He began to heal the sick. He began to do all types of things which he never did for 30 years. It came through prayer. If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit not to every Tom Dick and Harry but to those who ask him. And you read that parable in Luke chapter 11. It's asking, knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking. You know God I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. And from inside that neighbor said no I'm asleep. I can't give it to you. No I want it. I want it. I want it. And it says there the neighbor will get up and give him as much as he wants. Then Jesus said how much more your Heavenly Father will give you the Holy Spirit. If you ask like this. If you knock like this. I want to encourage all of you my brothers and sisters just like in other areas I say don't follow the compromisers. In this area also don't follow the example of the half-hearted who are satisfied with nothing. You say God I was in a brethren assembly where they never taught anything about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They didn't believe in it. I read the word and I used to sit in my room and seek God. I went to a Pentecostal assembly. I was so disappointed with all the noise I saw there. And I said I don't want that Lord. I want what the Apostles got on the day of Pentecost. And I got in my room and I knelt down. I said God I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I pray that even today. I'm not satisfied with what I got. I'll tell you honestly after 45 years of experiencing something of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I'm not satisfied with what I've got. I want more. I always want more. I hope you want it too. Let's be balanced. Let's pray. Let's bow our heads before God. Heavenly Father we pray for that which is lacking in our life. That you will help us to have what we need so much but which we lack. Give us what we do not have so that we can serve you better. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.