And let's look at another passage, in Luke chapter 14, verse 12. Luke chapter 14 and verse 12. And we will read from verses 12 to 14. It says here: "He said also" — that is, the Lord Jesus said also to the man who had invited him — "when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." Notice these words: "they cannot repay you." "You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."
But what are we getting at? What is the Lord getting at? Can you see the point now? No? What is the point? Be perfect. What is perfection? Look again at the context. Look at this passage, look at the whole block of the teaching that the Lord Jesus gives, and you will see something emerging. What is that something? Give in such a way that it will not be returned to you. Can you see it? When you give, the Lord says, don't invite your rich friends, because you invite them to a $10 dinner and they are going to invite you to a $100 dinner. That's quite a good business deal. I might like to invite my rich friend, you see — my friend the millionaire in Hong Kong — because what I do is I give him an ice cream treat, and what does he do? He takes me to the most expensive restaurant in return and buys me a $150 lunch. Oh, that's a nice deal. I mean, for a few cents you get $150 back. I mean, that's great investment and return on your capital.
And that's the way the world thinks. I mean, how good was the deal? I mean, you don't put something in to get nothing in return. We talk in terms of investment. That is the way we think when we are in the flesh. I mean, that is business psychology. This is business logic. This is the way we work in the world. You give in order to get something back. And that's why we want to make friends who are in a position to give us a good investment and a good return on our capital. We want to make friends in the right places and pull the right strings. Why? So that I can get my way going when I want it.
The Lord's teaching is completely contrary to the logic of the world. When you are going to make an investment, the Lord says, make sure you don't get any return on it. You try preaching that to the businessman's club. Try talking about that in an MBA course. Talk about that in a commercial course. "Now when you want to make an investment," he says, "make sure that the guys cannot return it." Well, what is this? This is getting ridiculous. Ridiculous, eh? No wonder there are so few real Christians around. Well, that's what the Lord said.
Look at it again. "Whoever invites..." When you invite people, what do you do? You invite the bank manager here who is your friend. You invite the airline pilot who has a lot of money to invest. You invite this guy who is vice president of this company and that company — or president, even better, if you can get hold of him. And this millionaire — you invite them to a banquet. And you lavish your kindness upon them, because you know that in due time it will come back to you with interest, right? The Lord says, "Yes, that's right. That's how the non-Christian thinks."
Well, so isn't that reasonable? Of course. On his logic, it's reasonable. What do you do? What you do is this. You're going to invite a feast. And who do you invite? Oh my. Look at that list again. Verse 13: "But when you give not just a humble dinner, but a feast." And who do you invite to the feast? "Invite the poor." You mean you're going to have your nice house filled with people walking around in rags who might bring fleas into your carpet? I mean, these uncultured people, their hands not even properly washed. Your newly painted walls — they're going to mark your walls for you. Do you know how much it's going to cost just to clean those carpets and to wash down those walls? Bring in the poor?
Wait a minute, he hasn't finished yet. What? "The maimed. The lame. The blind." What are you asking me to do, Lord? This bunch of cripples. You want me to collect bees into my house? "And you will be blessed." Blessed. I'll be blessed with a filthy carpet, with dirty walls. And I will have to spray so much deodorant into the place after they leave that I wouldn't be able to breathe for days after that.
You think, being a Christian — you say, "Lord, you can't be serious. You really can't be serious." You think the Lord is joking? You think he is not serious? He is laying down for us a principle here: that the Christian life is marked by a giving out that seeks no return. It's amazing. Have you heard a message being preached on this? Let's not talk about this. We might end up with salvation by works, right? Or is this salvation by grace? Because if it is not by grace, how can anybody do a thing like this? This is ridiculous.
I'm not going to have my house filled with smelly people who, because they have no proper facilities to take a bath — they're going to come to my place. They're going to see my bathtub and dive in. My newly renovated bathroom will be totally ruined by these people. And they're going to grab my clean towels and turn them into charcoal for me. Okay, well in Canada, we don't have to worry too much. I mean, where are the blind and the lame? Okay, we'll hold on to this teaching in Canada. But wait until you go back to the Far East somewhere and you try to put this into practice. Oh Lord, this must be parabolic. I don't know parabolic of what. But never mind, let's just treat it as a parable.
Let me say to dear brothers and sisters, the Lord wants to tell us a principle. And the principle is this: we know whether we are regenerate or not by whether we are concerned to take or to give. Now why do we find this teaching unpalatable? We can't swallow this kind of stuff because here it is — give with no take. It is all going and getting nothing in return. We are brought up in a way that rejects this kind of thinking. It doesn't make any sense to us. It is nonsense, literal nonsense. Too bad. If that is nonsense, then the Christian life is nonsense. And if we don't live this kind of Christian life, then we have made nonsense of our professed Christian life.
You and I all know, brothers and sisters, we have gone to churches, we have looked around in the church, and really we don't see any difference between Christians and non-Christians. Because the Christians think exactly like the non-Christians. They are just as greedy as the non-Christians. They are just as self-centered as the non-Christians. They are just as interested in making friends in high places like the non-Christians. And in the end, you and I cannot tell just where is the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. So why bother to be a Christian? Why bother? Many times people have told me, "I am just as good as those Christians. In fact, I am probably better than they are." And I can't argue with them. They are probably right. They are probably better than the Christians. The non-Christians are probably better than the Christians. Because our churches are full of so-called Christians whom the Lord Jesus wouldn't even know to be Christians on that day.
And why wouldn't he know that these are Christians? Because look at this: they don't want his teaching. And the Lord Jesus said to his disciples, "Why do you say to me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things that I say? Why do you call me Lord, and you don't do what I tell you to do? You take my teaching and do whatever you like with my teaching. You twist it around. You fool around with it. You throw it in the garbage bin. But on that day, you want to be saved. You say you have faith — the faith of Abraham. And I tell Abraham to do something and he does it. I tell you to do it and you don't do it. You say you have saving faith. You have Abrahamic faith."
The principle really is not whether once in a while we invite a few poor people to our homes or not and we think we fulfill the Lord's teaching. The Lord is not as superficial as that. You and I can go tomorrow and say, "Okay, if the Lord says so, I'll call in a few poor people and give them a nice meal. See? I've done it." And after that, I will just clean up the place a bit. In Canada, we have no problem. Where are the poor people? I mean, there are very few. And even in the Far East, we could invite a few beggars in and give them a nice meal and say, "Okay, that's alright. See? I've fulfilled the Lord's teaching." The Lord is not as superficial as that, my friends. We can all do this occasionally and think we have fulfilled. No, no, no. The Lord is much deeper than that.
Remember, I said that the plastic surgeon deals with the externals. God deals with the heart. He is not interested whether you will invite a few poor people into your house. We can all do that from time to time. He wants a change in here, in the heart, that changes our attitude in a permanent sense — not just doing it occasionally just so that we can deceive ourselves, satisfy our superficiality, cover over our carnality with a few spiritual acts. God looks in the heart. And he wants to see if there's a change inside that is willing to give without getting anything back. That is what it's about.
Now, in that context, you can understand what "be perfect" means. That is what perfection means. Be like God. What does he get from you and from me? What does he get from you and from me? He gives us and he gives us and he gives us and he gives some more. What did you give him today? What did you give him yesterday? What can you give him? Do you think that if you put $5 in the offering box that God got $5 today? Or did you put $100 in the offering box — God got $100 up there? And now he can go out and go to McDonald's, or maybe go to Ponterosa? You can see how ridiculous it is. When you give $100 in the offering box, God doesn't use $100. He doesn't need your money, does he?
So who did you give it to? Certainly not directly to God. Maybe you gave it to his people. That's fine. And in an indirect sense, you are giving it to the Lord. But only indirectly. He doesn't need your money, does he? Or if you said, "God, you are so kind to me" — well, is that giving him something? If you praised him with your mouth dry, you would not have begun to thank him enough for his mercies. And do you think one word of thanks has already been sufficient recompense to God? Wesley said, "Oh, if I had a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise" — a thousand tongues wouldn't be able to sing his praises. And you think one tongue can say sufficiently of his praise to reward him? He gives, and he gives to us constantly.
That's what it says in Matthew 5. When you look back at Matthew 5, he causes his rain to come down on the good and the evil alike. Do the evil thank him? No. But he still gives them the rain. He gives the evil life as well. Where did they get their life from? He gives of his kindness and his generosity all the time. He gets nothing in return that's worth talking about. "Be perfect like him." That's what is the context there. "Therefore, be perfect." Now we can see the context there very clearly, is it not?
And therefore, it goes on to chapter 6, verse 1 in Matthew, which says, "When you give alms, when you give to the poor" — don't think, "Ah, I have done such a good deed." You have given nothing but what God has given to you in the first place. If he took away your health, your life, your family, whatever, you wouldn't have anything. You wouldn't have anything to give. And there the Lord Jesus says, "When you give, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing." Forget the whole incident. Give and forget about it. Give and don't expect in return. Now that is the attitude of perfection.
Now let me say this. Nobody can do this. Nobody can live consistently in this way who has not been born again. Do you want to know whether you are born again or not? Just see whether you can give without looking for anything in return. For example, let's get down to practical examples. The Christian life is exceedingly practical — not clouds in the air, right down to the earth. You are roommates. You cook for your roommate. You cook up a nice meal. Your roommate gobbles the food down, never even noticed that you spent one hour doing this stuff, and then walks off. Do you feel resentment? "Huh. This guy is really something. At least you could have given me a few words of praise. A few words of appreciation. I spent one hour. Do you know one hour? What it means to me? One hour? Do you know, at the present rate — I mean with my qualifications — one hour is worth thirty dollars an hour? For thirty dollars an hour I put this effort down here and you don't even know how to say thank you to me?" Resentment. You see? Practical? You give because you expected something in return. At least some little bit. I mean, you don't expect too much. I mean, you're a very reasonable person, right? But a few words of appreciation — I mean, surely he's not asking too much, right? After all, you're a Christian, right? You don't even know how to say thank you?
You see, the point here is this: we want something back for everything we do. If we sent a letter for somebody, we did something, there should be appropriate reward, recompense. No matter how small, there should be some recompense. We simply will not accept that we can give something with nothing in return. It will not do. Right?
And so the same way — husband and wife relationship, right? The wife slaves the whole day in the kitchen cooking up a meal. The husband comes back tired. His face is in the newspaper. He gobbles down the food. He stands up and walks away. And the wife says, "Well now, really, you know, I could have just put some corn hash in there and he wouldn't have known the difference. I could have put pig food there and he wouldn't have known the difference, and he just gobbled the thing down. You know how busy I am? I slave all day, I come back and cook this meal, and this guy doesn't even know how to say thank you. This is the kind of husband I have." Well of course the wife is right. I am not saying the husband shouldn't give thanks. I am only talking about the inward attitude with which we did the thing in the first place. I am in no way justifying the thankless person. He is wrong. He should have said thank you. Certainly he should have. But it wouldn't have hurt us so much if I cooked that meal unto the Lord. I did it seeking nothing in return. Nothing in return. So that the "thank you" would have been an unexpected bonus. If there was no "thank you," I did it to receive reward from the Lord anyway.
In fact, notice the danger of receiving a "thank you." Did you see that in Matthew 5 and Matthew 6, verses 1 to 3? In Matthew 6:1 to 3, it says that if people praise you, you have already got your reward. That means you are not going to get any reward from the Lord. If you already received your reward, you are not going to get a double reward. You already got it. That's the end of the matter. So much so that you hope that if you cook the meal and he is just going to say "thank you" — and he is just going to say it right on the mouth — "Okay, don't say it. I am going to lose my reward. My one hour of labor in the kitchen is going to go down the drain because you already rewarded me. So kindly don't reward me so I can get reward from my Father." You say, "Well, this is getting funny." Well it sure is funny. The Christian seeks his reward from the Lord. So why should we be resentful?
I work in the church, right? Look at the Oasis team. They slave away, they slave away. And somebody spends hours typing there, and then they see somebody take an Oasis thing and put a teacup on top of it. And I am not joking. I am not joking, because somebody did once say to me, "You know, it is just unbearable that, you know, this brother and sister spent hours preparing the Oasis, and you know what I saw that people do in that household? They use the Oasis to put a cup on top so it won't burn their table." And these people were really resentful. I can understand it. I can understand it. That's not a good way to use the Oasis, and I don't suggest you should use the Oasis that way, but the attitude within is the sense of being insulted — that my efforts and my labors are treated with such lightness and lack of appreciation.
You see, now you understand why we need renewal. You may be born again, but now your mind has to change in the way it thinks. Renewal is a new way of thinking. And the Lord Jesus is teaching us to think in a new way. The freedom from being determined by the other person. You see, this way of thinking sets you free. It sets you free from the other person. You are no longer affected by your circumstances. "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." I do this thing for the Lord. I cook this meal for the Lord. You thank me or not doesn't matter to me, because I am free. If you don't thank me, I am going to be grumpy. If you thank me, I am up. Then you control my life. You determine the kind of life I live. You are going to determine whether I am happy today or not happy today.
And most husband and wife relationships are determined by each other, not by the Lord. Have you noticed that? "My husband was not very considerate to me today." Long face. "My whole day is ruined. I had a nice sleep and I was going to have a wonderful day, and you just ruined it because you said something that was not kind to me." Right? Every husband and wife knows that experience. We all know this experience. Our life is determined by other people. We have not the freedom to live the life that God has called us to live. We are not free.
If I live to God, you can do what you like. It doesn't affect me. I live to him. If you praise me, I praise the Lord too. If you don't praise me, I also praise the Lord. I am totally free. Isn't that wonderful? Love your enemy, because then your enemy cannot determine your life either. You are free from your enemy. He slaps you — you are going to be miserable for the next ten years. You are going to wipe your face and polish your face. You cannot get the injury out of you. You are humiliated. You suffer. He has determined the life you are going to live. He is your boss. He is your lord. He can make you feel miserable if he wants to. Not the Christian. He slaps you and you continue loving him. You love him some more. "What am I going to do with this man?" You love him until he comes on his knees before you and says, "I give up." He cannot determine your life. You determine his life. That is the power of Jesus' teaching. That is the power of regeneration.
The freedom from sin. The freedom from self. Because only when you are free from self, nobody can control your life. Nobody can determine your life. They can hit you. In Matthew 10, they can even kill you. But they can't do anything with the kind, the quality of life that you live. You are free to live before your God.
So I say to those being baptized today, here is freedom from sin. Here is freedom from self. This whole block of teaching that the Lord Jesus gives to us teaches us what it means to be perfect. To be perfect means — you see, God is not determined by us. If you blaspheme against God, it's you who are going to suffer, not him. You don't believe him, does it make any difference to him? He doesn't lose anything. You are the one that loses eternal life, not him. As someone once said, if you don't believe something, it doesn't change any facts. It only changes you. It only affects you. If you don't believe there's a moon, the moon doesn't disappear. It's just that you will live in ignorance of the moon. If you don't believe in God, God will not disappear. It only affects the way you live now.
The way you treat God determines your life, not God's life. The way you treat a true Christian does not determine the true Christian. It determines you. The true Christian, like God, is the one who through God's power is free from every circumstance. He is the only truly free man. Do you know this kind of freedom? The freedom of regeneration, the freedom of renewal, the freedom of perfection. If you can live in this way, giving without seeking anything in return, you are truly free. You are truly regenerate. You are truly being renewed. You are on the way to perfection. And God will be glorified in you. His transforming power will work through you to others. May you experience this in your lives. Let us pray.
# Reasons for Sins in the Renewal Process (Part 2)
You want to be old or you want to be new. It's no point trying to get these two to harmonize with each other, to compromise with one another, and say, "Okay, I want to be new because I want to be saved, but I want to be old also because I still have some sins which are my pets." You see, I've lived with those sins so long, they're rather hard to put them off. Most especially the sin of selfishness, which after all is my favorite pet. And so what happens is that you're going to have a terrible battle inside. You're going to have a terrible battle inside. So bad, in fact, that some people have mental breakdowns. I don't see why you want to become a Christian in order to get a mental breakdown. I mean, why don't you settle it once and for all? You can't pay the price for salvation, you want to hang on to the old, and just forget about being a Christian. Go and enjoy your sins as long as there's something left to enjoy. Sins today and tomorrow and the third day you'll die. You'll face the judgment. You'll end up in destruction and hell. Okay, but at least you enjoyed your sins while you still had time to enjoy them. But don't try to mess around with having something new and something old. Because this is really terrible.
It's like mixing two chemicals and then what you have is an explosion on your hands. You don't want to mess around with this. These are two chemicals that just don't go together. You're going to have an explosion on your hands and it's going to tear you apart. You don't want to mess around with these two things. And I don't know why people still do it. I have warned them again and again and they're still going to do this. They still want to have some of the old.
Well, you say, "Well, then in this case I'll have most of the new and only a little bit of the old, and then maybe I'll have a very small explosion on my hands." I mean, you know, in equal proportions you have a gigantic explosion. Maybe we'll just have a tiny explosion. Well, that's not going to make life very pleasant for you, I can assure you. Small or big, I'm not sure what kind of explosion, but an explosion you will have anyway.
Now, the way to living the Christian life as it was meant to be lived, with the peace and the joy that is promised to us in Christ — and indeed it is promised to us in Christ — is to make sure that you put off the old in such a way that it's not going to be... But you'll say to me, "But you just said that there's still some of the old." Indeed. But the question is, how is our attitude towards the old? The point here is this: the old may be present, but you don't condone it. The question is whether you condone the old. That is the important thing. Whether you are still pampering the old, or just letting it die, in that you deny it all the time. Now, the old may be present, but when you deny it, it can't do much to you. The problem arises, and sin arises, is when you cater to the old. Well, that's the important thing to grasp. The old may be present. It won't give you much trouble. You are going to overcome it all the time. It will give you some trouble, but it will not defeat you. In fact, you will get stronger through fighting with the old.
When I wonder why God didn't just remove the old from us right away, I begin to see the wisdom of it. It is through constantly fighting with the old that we become stronger and stronger. Did you see the wisdom of it? If there was no old to fight against, then you would become weak through lack of activity, through lack of battle, through lack of fighting. It is through constant wrestling that we become strong. You know, when I was a kid, I was very strong. You know why? I loved to fight. Oh, fighting all the time. The funniest thing is, I always kept fighting with all my good friends. And the funniest thing is that we always remained good friends after fighting. But I developed a very strong physique because of fighting all the time. Always wrestling, fighting, wrestling. And I think that maybe even kids understood that this fighting was very good for us physically. And you don't long remember the grievances. You know, over a very small thing you fight and then immediately you forgot what it was all about. Couldn't remember what we were fighting about. But anyway, we were good friends again. Funny, you know. I hope I'm not too strange in my childhood. It seems to me that boys are like that. Maybe girls are more sensible. Maybe they fight more with the tongue than with the arms. But I hope I'm not being unkind to the sisters in thinking so. And maybe the boys don't use the tongue so much — straight to the arms, to wrestle with each other. But anyway, I can see God's wisdom in how, in constantly fighting with the old things in us, we become stronger in the new way, in the new way of life. And I find that truly the case in my own experience.
But our time is going quickly, and I want to look at a number of things. We must come now to this question: if victory is assured to us in Christ, though we must fight with the old and the old is still present with us — and of course in the young Christian, the old is still very strong, and the new is still relatively weak — so you must depend ever more fully on the Holy Spirit, which is the case, and which is most wholesome for us all. As time goes on, you find that the battle is easier to win, is it not? The battle that you win many times, you will find ever easier to win. But it doesn't mean that you dare to become complacent. You still need to depend fully on the Holy Spirit.
But now, in the process of renewal, we, as we said earlier, still have a tendency to fail and commit sin. Why? Why do we do this? Well, for one thing, we are spiritually, in the early parts of our Christian life, spiritually young. The new man in Colossians chapter 3:10 can be translated as "the young man." Yeah, the young man. Let's turn to Colossians chapter 3:10 for a moment. Colossians chapter 3, verse 10. Then let's again start from verse 9: "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with its practices." And verse 10: "And have put on the new man, which is being renewed" — notice the word "renewed" — "and being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." Being renewed in the image of Christ and of God.
Now here we see in verse 10, "and put on the new man." Now there are two different words for "new" in Greek. And that's quite interesting. That's why many people say that Greek is a much richer language than English, because it can bring out subtle shades of meaning that English cannot express in the one word. There are two different words for "new" in Greek. One is the word neos. For those of you who know Greek — neos. Neos anthropos here. Neos means new in terms of time. And there is another Greek word for "new," also translated "new" — kainos. Kainos means new in terms of quality. A thing may be new in terms of time, and a thing may be new in terms of quality. These are two different things.
Now, new in terms of time — a new man — means he is young. New in terms of time. The word in fact is often translated to refer to something that is young. So the new man in Christ means that he has been a Christian for a relatively short time. It refers to newness in terms of time. But in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 15, we have kainos anthropos — a new man in the sense of new quality, different from before. New in quality means that he is different. He is new in the sense of being different. A thing may be new but not new in terms of quality. That means it is simply new in terms of the shortness of its time. It is the same as before, but it is just a short time. The same as another thing, but this one has been a long time, this one has been a short time. So this one is new in terms of the shortness of time. But the other is new in terms of being different from something else. You see? Now these are the subtle shades of meaning that cannot be brought out in English except by all these paraphrases.
And we are new in both senses. We are new in the sense of being young, having been Christians for only a relatively short length of time when we first come to the Lord. Or we are new in the sense of being something quite different from what we were before. We are new man also in that sense. Now, when we are a new man in the sense of being young in Christ — that is, being spiritually young — it means that we are immature. When you first become a Christian, you are immature. And you are like all children.
Now there are four things I would like to bring out about why we sin in the process of renewal. We are all young in the sense that, relative to perfection, we are at various stages of growth. Now the child that is ten months old is a new person in the sense that he's only got ten months. Three years later, you still say he is young, or immature, but he is older than the one that is ten months old. When he is ten years old, you still say that he is young, or immature, but he is still older than the one that is only a few months old, or only two or three years old. When you get to twenty, some people still say you are young and immature. You say, "I am already twenty! I already got a beard, you see!" And they still say you are young. You say, "What do you mean?" It is evidence that I am not so young. "Yeah, but compared to the guy who is thirty, you are still young and immature." And when you get to forty, you say, "Now I am surely quite old." But the man of sixty regards you as a young man, still green. Still green, you see? So you see, young — you are immature. You tend to be fascinated by superficial things. That is one reason why Christians sin. You do not deliberately sin, but because you are immature, you are attracted by superficial things.
Now all children like toys. Have you discovered that? All children love toys. The children of two years old, or ten years old, or fifty years old. And you said fifty? Fifty? You just go into a toy store and you take a look in there. Some have made it a little bit easier for the grown-ups by calling it a "do it yourself" store. A "do it yourself" toy. What kind of toy? Oh, very interesting toy. There is the one that flies with a motor in it, and you radio-control it. Have you seen a ten-year-old playing with that? No. It is more like a twenty-year-old, or a thirty-year-old, or a fifty-year-old who is playing with these things, and is flying around — vroom, vroom — and he is very fascinated. And if you ask him, "Hey, what are you doing?" "This is my son's toy." Really? My son's toy. But of course the son doesn't have a chance to play with it. It is the father who is playing with this thing. Why? Because one of those things may cost a hundred and fifty bucks, and you don't want to have your son smashing it up. So you rather let yourself smash it up. It is better. Yes. So of course, you see, the fifty-year-old also enjoys playing with radio-controlled airplanes. Why not? It is great fun.
Did you see people playing with electric trains? Yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean, the twenty-year-old can't afford electric trains. I mean, you have to be about thirty or forty to afford one of those. It is just too expensive to play around with. Radio-controlled electric trains, you see. You see, the immature love these kinds of things, attracted by the toys of the world. But if you think you are mature, go to the shopping center and watch your eyes, and then you see how immature you are, you see. The world is offering us all kinds of toys, and we are fascinated by the toys of the world. Oh, we are so fascinated. You don't think so? Try it in the shopping center.
The other day I saw an advertisement for a camera that talks to you. A camera that talks to you. Oh, very fascinating. You take a picture and it says, "Too dark." Oh, very interesting. Do you think the ten-year-old plays with that kind of camera? No. He can't afford one of those. It is his father who can afford this camera. And the camera talks to you so you won't be lonely, you see. And you take another picture and it says, "Out of focus." Oh yeah. And then you try to take a picture and it says, "No more film." I am not kidding. That kind of a camera is on the market. It is true. Oh, the world has the most fascinating toys. Really interesting.
And have you looked around lately? There is a TV watch. Oh, you can watch TV by just looking at your watch. So when you are in the bus or in the tram and you are a bit bored, you just turn on your watch, and what can you see? You can see the baseball game going on, or the wrestling, or whatever. And you can have even sound, because you can plug this thing in and put on the earphones, and you can watch the sport in there. Oh, beautiful toys. Of course the watch costs $500. So you can be sure that the twenty-year-old can't afford this kind of thing. It has to be the fifty-year-old kid who can afford a $500 TV watch. Who plays with this kind of toys? You see.
But then you see, what about the Christian? The Christian is fascinated too. "Oh, TV watch." Look in his pocket. 500 bucks. Wow. 500 bucks. "I'll treat myself today." So you buy a $500 TV watch. And then your conscience bothers you. "How come I paid this kind of money for this kind of a toy?" You see. You realize you did something wrong. There are brothers and sisters who can't even afford to go to school, and you pay $500 for a TV watch. Your conscience now really bothers you. You realize you sinned. You see. How does a Christian commit sin? He gets caught in this kind of way. He gets caught in this kind of way precisely because, as a child, he is attracted by sin. Attracted not by sin in this case, but by the world. Attracted by toys. That's why.
Yes. Oh, electronic games — you name it, the world has got it all. There's a little cigarette lighter that has an electronic game on it. So if you like to light your cigarette and play the game at the same time, I think it's very interesting. You will never be bored. The world can keep you occupied 24 hours a day. You can take out four or five cigarette electronic games and then really, you get bored with this one and you take out the next one, you see. That is what happens in the process of renewal. We are spiritually immature and fascinated by toys. And the world grabs us in this way, because the world has so many toys to offer to us. Every day there are new ones coming out, new things to capture our imagination.
How many Christians have gone back to Hong Kong and gone down because of what? Because of the TV. In my father-in-law's place, in my mother-in-law's place, there are two TVs. You can watch two programs at the same time. You won't miss anything. Yeah. Or you can, you know, two groups — one watch this one, watch that one. If this one gets boring, you shift over the other side, look at this one. You can look at it in color, black and white, giant screen, whatever you like. Oh, the world can keep us busy. Keep us fascinated. And that is why so many young Christians, they fall. They fall because the world caught them with its toys. Captured and snared. And then they have no more time to think about spiritual things. Who wants to read the Bible when you can see Kung Fu there? I mean, compared to Kung Fu, the Bible is very boring. And you have all kinds of Kung Fu — Japanese Kung Fu and Chinese Kung Fu and Korean Kung Fu, and they all name it. And now they even have American Kung Fu. All kinds of Kung Fu. Very fascinating. People walking on the roof and walking underground and walking up the walls. I mean, the Bible has nothing to compare with this. No way you can compete with this. So that's one way the Christian falls. In the process of renewal, there are many hazards.
But secondly — and let's rush on — the second thing is the difficulty. By the way, in the first point, we need to remember 1 John 2, verse 15. The world captures us with its toys and gets us in love with its toys. And the Apostle John says in 1 John 2, verse 15, that if any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. But the world has a fascinating way to capture us. We don't fall in love with the world just like that. Oh no, slowly by slowly, with its little bait, it gets us to walk into its little trap. Bang, the door closes. And suddenly we find ourselves loving the world without even realizing that we have started to love the world. That is where the danger is.
But the second thing is this. When we are in the process of renewal, we often sin because we have trouble distinguishing between good and evil. And the younger you are in the faith, the more difficulty you have in distinguishing between good and evil. So hard to tell what is good, what is evil. You can't tell. And this is one of the great problems that young Christians have. This is the problem that the Corinthians had.
Let us turn to Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14, for a moment. Hebrews 5:14. And we must hurry as we have to close in a few moments. Hebrews 5:14. But I will read from verse 13: "For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled." Every young Christian lives on milk. The Bible here is compared to milk. "But any young Christian who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness." You see, the Bible contains milk and it contains solid food. The young Christian lives on the milk part of the Bible, and the mature Christian lives according to his capacity on the solid food part of the Bible. But those who live on milk are unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. He is a spiritual child.
"But solid food" — verse 14 — "is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." You see, the young Christian, the one being renewed, he cannot distinguish between good and evil. He doesn't know which is good, which is evil. He cannot tell. And that is why I said the infant mortality rate is very high among Christians when they are in the process of being renewed. Because they can't tell.
Now, in Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians, Paul deals with this matter among the Corinthians. You know, the Corinthians could not tell what is good and what is evil. Could you? Are you confident you could tell? In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 4 — I'll read this part to you very quickly. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 4: "For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough." You submit to it readily enough. Somebody comes and preaches another Jesus, another gospel — these people couldn't tell the difference between one gospel and another. They can't tell the difference between one Jesus and another. They can't tell the difference between one apostle and another. "You submit to it readily enough." They cannot distinguish between good and evil, true and false. They can't tell. Isn't that tragic? Now that's the problem with young Christians. They can't discern.
And then Paul goes on to say, the problem with you is this. Somebody comes along and proclaims himself to be some great super apostle, and he puts on airs and attitudes and speaks in a domineering manner and shouts orders around. But because he's very charismatic, you listen to him. You are swayed by his personality. And Paul says, compared to these guys, he says in verse 6 and verse 5, "I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles, these superlative apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge. In every way we have made this plain to you in all things."
As we look at 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, we get a picture of what's happening there. What's happening there is this: there were some slick preachers who came along, selling some other kind of gospel to them, and the Corinthians couldn't tell the difference between one and another because the preachers — oh, they were slick speakers. Compared to them, Paul says, "Maybe compared to them, I am unskilled, compared to these super eloquent preachers that came along and swept you off your feet." These charismatic speakers who really knew how to get their way with you. He says in verse 20: "For you bear it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you" — that is, gets money out of you — "or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face even." In verse 21, he says, sarcastically, "To my shame I must say, we were too weak for that."
When we came, the Apostle Paul says, we behaved in a courteous, gentle, humble manner. We didn't give orders to people. We didn't boss anyone around. We didn't bark out commands to various people. We behaved in a humble and gentle way. So what happened? You despised us. But these super apostles came along and said, "You come here, you come there," and they gave orders and they spoke in some grandiose manner and put on airs. And what did the Corinthians do? "Oh, yes sir. Yes sir. Oh yes." Strange. You see, there are people who can put on airs and people really respect them. Look at Hitler. I mean, he comes along screaming and shouting at everybody and the whole German people are bowing down to him and saying, "Heil, Heil." Yes. He abuses his generals, he steps on their toes, he shouts in their face, and they're all standing to attention. "Yes sir."
And that's what Paul is saying. "If somebody makes slaves out of you, you bear it well enough. But we come along and behave politely and you despise us." You see, they cannot tell good and evil. They can't tell what is true and false. They have no discernment. They are swept away by what is worldly behavior. There is a second reason why Christians in the process of renewal fall: because they can't tell true from false. They are immature. They have no means of discernment. And that's what happened to these Corinthians.
And you know, there is another thing, strangely enough. These super apostles, as we read in this chapter, actually came and got a lot of money out of the Corinthians. It says here, verse 7 onwards in chapter 11. And Paul says, "Did I commit a sin in abasing myself, in humbling myself, for being polite and being good so that you might be exalted? Because I preached God's gospel without cost to you." And he goes on this whole passage. "We never took advantage of you. We preached the gospel but we refused to accept money from you. Yes, we accepted money from the Macedonians, but we accepted nothing from you. We refused to take advantage of you. But these people came along and passed the collection plate around a few times and you put your money in and you're very happy to get rid of your money. But we were too stupid to do that, you see. And the result is you despised us because we didn't take advantage of you." You see, the worldly mentality is very strange. And the carnal man still thinks in a worldly way, and therefore they are taken advantage of.
Let's move on quickly to the third thing. The third point has to do with old habits of mind. Christians sin because of old habits of mind. These old habits of mind remain with us. Habits are hard to change. You see, when you first become a Christian, you've been a non-Christian all your life, right? And you've been a non-Christian for so long that you think in non-Christian ways. Now it takes time in the process of renewal to change those old habits of thinking. That's why in Colossians chapter 3 we read that you "have put off the old man." But in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 22, it says "put off the old man." Well, if we have put off the old man, why do we still have to put it off? The reason is quite simple. You have indeed put off the old man, but you have to put off the old habits of thinking. In that sense you still have to put off the old man. The old habits are still there. We have to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. That is why we just saw just now: "Don't lie to one another." Why? Because all your non-Christian life you've been lying, right? You tell little white lies, of course. I mean, you don't always tell very big lies, but lying is part of the habit of life in the world. That's the way it is done. That's the way it has to be done in business to survive, we are told.
I was told the other day by a relative on Helen's side, and he said that if he stopped lying, he would be out of business. Lying is a way of life in Hong Kong. If you stopped lying, you would simply be driven out of business. You couldn't survive in that society. And therefore, when they become Christians, this long habit of lying is still with them. And almost inadvertently, without thinking, they are lying, you see. And then that's why Paul says, "Don't lie to one another." I know that's your habit of mind, but you have to change. You've got to put these kinds of habits away.
Habits are very strange things. Habits are hard to change because they so stick to us. But if we do not overcome these habits, it will destroy us. 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 22, says this: "The pig, the sow, has returned to the mire." He says that's what happens to Christians. You see, the pig is in the habit of wallowing in the mud. But when it becomes a Christian — if we can say the pig becomes a Christian — then it still has the habit of wallowing in the mud, right? Because all its life it's been wallowing in the mud. A pig has to have its nature changed. But if its nature, its habit of mind, is not changed, then even when it becomes a Christian, it's going to go back in the mud. That's what 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 22, is warning about. That's why some Christians fall away in the process of renewal.
Yes. The story is told of a certain pig that went to a beautiful house, a very glorious mansion with beautiful and expensive paintings on the wall and with sparkling crystal all around. And so the pig went into this beautiful house and trampled over its beautiful carpets — the Afghan carpets and Persian carpets and Chinese carpets worth thousands of dollars. Of course, the pig was not interested in all these expensive carpets. What it was interested in, of course, was the kitchen. But not in the kitchen as such, and the fridge and all these frozen foods. No, it wanted to go out through the back door to look for the garbage bin. And so, having found the garbage bin, of course, it was so delighted at the beautiful garbage bin in this house that it fed itself, stuffed itself with garbage. And when it went home, the owner of the pig said, "What did you see in that stately mansion that you went to?" I mean, those beautiful paintings and the crystals. And the pig said, "What paintings? Crystals? What carpet? No, no, no, no. There's only one thing that's good in a beautiful house, and that is the garbage." You see, the habit of mind is what matters.
And many people come to church, and what they see — they only see the garbage. They never saw the beauty of Christ. "What beauty of Christ? I never saw the beauty of Christ. What is the love of Christ? I never saw." All I saw was the garbage. These are the garbage-mongers in the church — the gossipers, the slanderers — these are the kind of people. You see, they have not yet had the habit of mind changed yet. It's so important to have the habit of mind changed.
And let me say, one small habit that is not changed can destroy your Christian life. Only one small habit. There was an Arab philosopher — to illustrate this point — who tested this point. The Arab philosopher by the name of Guha sold his house on one condition. He gave a good price for his house; he sold it off. But he said, "I have one condition. I want to retain possession of one nail in this house. One nail upstairs. And this nail will always belong to me. On this condition I will sell the house. And I must be able to see this nail whenever I want to. And I want to inspect this nail, polish this nail. This nail will always be mine." And so they thought, well, the price is good; they bought the house. But you see, because he had possession of this nail, he had access to the house at all times. That was part of the understanding of the sale of the house, which means that he could go in and out of the house whenever he wanted, and he had completely free access to that house. Which means that though he sold the house, in reality he still possessed it, because he had access to it whenever he wanted to.
And by this the philosopher wanted to prove one point: that if you retain one habit, one sinful habit in your life, that one sinful habit will mean that sin will always have possession of your life. Always have possession of your life. There is the problem. That is what you have to be most careful of.
Let's come quickly to our last point. And it has to do with this question of ignorance. Why do we commit sin? The fourth point is because of ignorance. As a young Christian, we are ignorant of many things. We don't know what the Bible teaches about this and that. And therefore we don't know what is the will of God about this or that. And Paul says time and again, "I do not want you to be ignorant." Or he would say, "Do you not know?" Very interesting that again the Corinthians — the most immature of all the churches that Paul had to deal with — it's to them that he addresses this phrase "Do you not know?" Ten times he addresses this phrase to them. "Do you not know? Do you not know?" he says ten times to them. This phrase occurs outside of 1 Corinthians only once, in fact, in Romans chapter 6, verse 16. But ten times to the Corinthians. They were so ignorant of spiritual things. They didn't understand the will of God, and therefore they were sinning — doing all kinds of things, having a partisan spirit, partaking of the communion in the wrong attitude and wrong spirit, becoming guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. They were so ignorant. And when you are a young Christian, you are very ignorant of many things. And there you have to be very, very careful.
So let us close. And let me say this to you straight away. That is why now we see four main reasons why, in the process of renewal, especially as a young Christian, you commit sin. You may indeed have been regenerated, but you will still sin. But let me say to you at once: whenever you sin, repent speedily of it. Repent speedily of it. Discontinue it straight away. But if you don't repent, you know what you have to do if you don't repent of a sin? You have to hide it. You have to hide your sin. And you know what happens when you hide your sin? It will grow, because you have to protect it. And it will grow. And you know what happens when it grows? It will destroy you. Literally destroy you.
There was a preacher — and with this true-to-life account I close — to drive home the seriousness of what we are talking about. Some 40 years ago, in the United States, there was a preacher, a pastor of a church, a well-respected pastor of the church. And he began to develop a fancy — the married man developed a fancy for the girl who was in charge of the choir in his church. And gradually he built up a relationship with her. And at first it seemed to be quite innocent, but the relationship grew deeper and deeper, until he was having an affair with this girl. And the thing began to get so deeply involved in their relationship that one day it dawned on him how serious the situation had become. Namely, that it was threatening to expose his life. How would he be able to face the world as a preacher and as a pastor, having an affair with someone in his choir? How would he be able to look his wife in the face and his children in the face, when they find out that he's been having an affair with a girl in his choir for several years? But worse than that — when she became pregnant, how was he going to hide this matter? How was this thing going to develop? His whole career, his family relationship, his whole person now was on the line.
And he had a further thing to say. What will the non-Christians think when they find out that a pastor has been doing a thing like that? I mean, the consequences are incalculable. Incalculable. What would he do? You see, it started with a little thing — the little nail in the house, remember? And it grew bigger because he had to hide it. The more he had to hide it, the bigger it grew as he tried to protect it. Instead of confessing the thing straight away, instead of dealing with it straight away, he allowed the thing to grow and to grow and to grow until it got out of hand. You know what he did? From a small sin it became a disaster. You know what he did? He murdered the girl. Mind-boggling, isn't it? A preacher who commits murder, because he found that this might be the only way to finish off all the consequences. To secretly kill her, let her disappear, close the case forever.
But the Bible says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." There's no way that God will allow you to hide your sin. No way that he will not have this thing exposed. It was in all the papers some 40 years ago that this thing happened. That's why I say I close with this account. Be sure that you speedily repent of any sin, because if you hide it, it will get bigger. And the bigger it gets, the more difficult to handle, the more difficult to repent, the more difficult to stop it, until it gets out of hand and it destroys you. There will be many preachers in hell. Many pastors will be in hell. May the Lord have pity upon us, because to whom much is given, much is required. And any Christian, especially any preacher, any full-time worker who behaves in this kind of way — be sure God will not allow you to escape.
Let's be quiet before God in prayer.