1st July 2026 Wednesday Service - Liberating Power of Knowledge By PBC Northgate Pastor, Samuel Magu

If you can see me, please wave you at me at all, even those who are online.

Greetings in Jesus' name from PBC Northgate.

Uh, and also greetings from our lead pastor, Reverend Washira Moredi.

Wonderful, wonderful.

I like to request that we stand in honor of God's word as we read.

We are reading from the book of Luke, chapter 19, verse 1 to verse 10.

Luke 19:1

Luke chapter 19, verse 1 to verse 10, and again we bring our condolences to the family and friends of uh Reverend Ambrose Mengal on the loss of mom.

Luke 19:1

May God indeed grant you peace, comfort.

May you find solace in his arms.

Luke 19, verse 1 to verse 10.

Luke 19:1

We can read together.

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately.

I must stay at your house today.

So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I'll pay back four times the amount.

Jesus said to him, Today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

May the Lord bless his word, you may have your seats.

Father, we thank you for this word, and we receive it as your counsel for us this evening.

We pray that in the name of Jesus use me as your vessel, Lord.

May our hearts be ready to receive from you the very words that come from your heart this evening.

That in the name of Jesus we will walk here in knowledge of who we are and understanding and walking in revelation of what we ought to be.

We thank you, O Father, for this altar and the many, many years Lord, you've ministered to your people from this altar.

In this year, as we celebrate Jubilee, may this be a moment where we connect to just a bit of the jubilee that you desire for each and every one of our lives.

May it be, Father, that the church is celebrating jubilee and we're not connecting to it, oh Father.

There be a release for the oppressed, a proclamation of freedom for the prisoners.

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dumb will speak because of your greatness and your power.

In these few moments, speak to us.

Holy Spirit will welcome you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Wish your neighbor a happy new month on our behalf.

Happy new month.

So Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

This being the month of liberating power of knowledge, revelation, connected.

We thank God for the various themes.

If you've been following the themes of the year, you'll realize there is a way God is drawing us into Him, drawing us to Himself.

There is a way God wants us to come to a place where we are no longer walking as people who are oppressed or burdened, but people who are walking enlightened, people who are walking in freedom.

Psalm 119 and verse 130 says that the entry of your word brings light and gives understanding to the simple.

In other words, as you sit here and as you take in God's word, there's an understanding that you begin to get.

And then there's a darkness that begins to be expelled from your life.

There's a darkness that begins to be expelled from your life because the word of God is light.

In John chapter 1, I think from verse 4, it says that in him was life, and this life was the light of man.

John 1 · chapter mention

You can't dwell in Jesus or have an income.

You can't dwell with Jesus and walk in darkness.

There is a light, an enlightenment that comes.

That's why the theme for this month is very, very powerful.

Walking in knowledge, knowing who you are, and seeing Jesus Christ helps you walk in revelation.

And that's the same thing we are seeing in the life of Zacchaeus today.

As we read the future, the few verses concerning his life, this man is not mentioned many times in scripture, he's mentioned once.

He has a name that the Bible calls him the tax collector.

But by the time we are getting to verse 10, this guy has received salvation and is no longer known as the tax collector.

He's the son of God.

Today's message, I hope and pray that it speaks to us so that not only we look will we look at others and say that they are the ones who need Jesus, but we will look to our own lives and say, This message was for me.

I've sat in places where I've I've I've had a message and I thought, This message is for someone else.

I wish so and so was here so that they could hear this message, but then I realized in many cases that message that you think is for someone else is for you.

So Zacchaeus leaves his house in the morning, and he lives in a place called Jericho, and Jesus was passing through.

This place, Jericho, was a place that that the Israelites had conquered in their conquest to occupy the land of Canaan, and it seems as it as as if Jesus is coming, and there are walls that are surrounding Zacchaeus, there are walls that he has erected as it were in his own life.

There are walls that need to come down in his life.

This guy has has been collecting taxes, of course, uh, with oppression, and I know most of us can relate to that, even in the current season that we are living in.

Praise the name of the Lord.

Says he was a chief tax collector and he was wealthy, he had money, he was the big kahona, as it were.

And tonight, as we look at his life, I want us to look at three things.

Number one, you need to know yourself.

Number two, you need to understand that God knows you, and then number three, for you to walk in revelation, you need to know the Lord.

Know yourself.

The Bible says that this man, his name was Zacchaeus, he was a chief tax collector, he was wealthy.

He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man, he could not because of the crowd.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

This guy understands his shortcomings as we look at knowing yourself.

He knows that I need to see Jesus, but I'm not going to see him where I'm at.

There are obstacles, there are physical obstacles that are surrounding me because these people are taller than I am.

This guy knows that I am short.

I have fallen short.

The Bible says that we have all fallen short of the glory of God.

Each of us has turned to his own way.

Thank you so much.

You may have come into this service, and you know that there are those things in your own life.

What makes you tick, what makes you angry, what makes you happy, what excites you.

For example, um, there are some people who are very excited when they are looking at athletics.

We're in a season of football, and there are some people who are following the World Cup religiously because they love soccer, others follow cricket, others are engineers, and anything to do with engineering, you find that it draws you, they know themselves.

Do you know yourself?

Do I know myself?

What makes me get to that place where I feel I'm most comfortable?

What is that thing that I do with most ease and least effort?

Thank you, Pastor.

What is that thing that I do that makes me happy?

What is that thing that I would want God to use in my life?

What is that thing that I'm pursuing personally?

I don't I'm not even wanting to involve anyone else.

This thing is about me.

I re I I read somewhere that uh the person who is your enemy is not your neighbor, is not even your colleague at work, it is the person that looks back at you in the mirror.

That's the person you have to fight against every day.

Panesu Asifiwe.

Zacchaeus sees that he's a short man.

Zacya has titles, he's a chief tax collector.

In other words, there are others who are collecting tax, but him, he's a chief nikama.

Uh the taxes that were being collected were being brought to his house.

He's overseeing a system.

Praise the name of the living God.

Bones was if you but the Bible says something, he wanted to see Jesus.

He wanted to see Jesus, and the Bible says that he ran ahead.

This has nothing to do with the spirit.

His desire caused him to run ahead and say, others may be in the place where there are blockades.

I may not be able to see Jesus where I am, but no matter what happens, I'm going to see him.

What does that mean for you in prayer ministry?

What does that mean for you in that office, in that business?

It means sometimes you'll have to get up early.

There are some things that you that your colleague is doing very well, better than you, at the office.

You want a promotion, you get you arrive early.

Take some classes.

The Bible says this in Deuteronomy chapter 13 and verse 19 concerning the choice of man, God has given us, each and every one of us, the freedom of choice.

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

The freedom of choice, the power of the self-will.

And what you do with that will determines so much how far you go even in life.

The Bible says this in Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 19.

Deuteronomy 30 · chapter mention

Midia, if we can have it, please.

Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19.

Deuteronomy 30:19

This is Moses speaking to the children of Israel, and he says, This day I call the heavens and the earth as a witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

Then he tells them, Now the ball is in your court.

Now choose life so that you and your children may live.

Verse 20, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him, for the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Bible teaches two important things.

Number one, God's sovereignty, number two, man's responsibility.

We can pray all we want for a job.

But if after you pray for that job, the whole day you're spending on your bed watching TikTok, there is nothing God can do about that.

Praise the name of the living God.

It has to come from a place of wanting change in your life.

Zacchaeus is saying, I know myself, I need to run ahead of the park that I may have an encounter with Jesus.

He says he climbed a sycamore fig tree.

Get out of the comfort zone.

Choose life today.

Instead of eating junk all along, try some brock broccoli at some point.

Boneswasifi greens.

Take some of those things, they build your body.

Rather than unatoka happa, I have nothing against KFC by the way, napendaku kyao.

But unapitiangatu KFC, and then you're like, today is the last day.

Tomorrow, I have gained weight.

I need to lose weight.

Yet, when you leave the office, unapitiya mahali, una buy cookies, mungine anapitiamahali, they must get a pint or two.

Those things are not coming to help you.

Praise the name of the living God.

We have to get to a point like Zacchaeus where we are making right choices for our lives.

And God will never interfere with your choices.

Do you guys know that?

If you decide to follow the Lord, God will honor that.

If you decide not to follow him, God will still honor that.

The Bible says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

But you read earlier on and you realize that Pharaoh had decided in his heart that he was not going to honor the Lord.

And so God honored him and said, if you want to harden your heart, then I'm going to harden it.

So much so that it did not matter what miracle Pharaoh saw, his heart was hardened and doomed to destruction.

Praise the name of the living God.

The children of Eli, they're a classic example of what sometimes we push God to do.

The Bible says that they would commit obscenities in the temple, and they were confronted about their sin.

And the Bible says that when their father spoke to them in 1 Samuel chapter 2, that when their father spoke to them, he told them something powerful.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

He said that when men sin against another man, God may intervene.

But when you sin against God, who may intervene?

Of course, they did not know about Jesus Christ.

But what the Bible records next is what shocks me.

It says, nevertheless, they did not heed to their father's discipline because it was the Lord's will to destroy them.

Praise the name of the living God.

Your personal choices will determine whether you have access into this knowledge of Jesus Christ that we are talking about.

Whether you walk in revelation or walk not in the darkness of the world, because if you're not walking with Jesus, you're only walking in darkness.

So you need to know yourself.

Take those self-tests, aptitude tests, self-help programs.

But then, number two, God knows you.

Even though you know yourself, God knows you.

The Bible says when Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately.

I must stay at your house today.

So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

Jesus is walking on the streets of Jericho, and he leaves everyone else.

He leaves everyone else because the Bible says there were other people.

And he says, I see your heart.

I see your heart, Zacchaeus.

Calm down.

Who told Jesus?

Zacchaeus says name.

In this service, God knows your name.

God knows all you've done, all that you're planning to do in this service as we speak.

He's here right now.

And he's not condemning you and I.

Jesus understands that this guy, he says, hallelujah.

I give half of my possessions to the poor.

And if I have cheated, this guy has cheated people.

But Jesus doesn't come to him and say to him, Zacchaeus, you know you're a cheater, you're a liar and an extortionist.

You may not be those things, but tonight you're in this service, you're malicious, you gossip, there is hatred in your heart, there is unforgiveness, bitterness, the things that are hidden that Pastor Sam cannot see because outwardly you look gentle, you look refined, you look cultured, you're in good standing with the community.

But inwardly, where Jesus wants to dwell, he's here today and he's not condemning you.

That's why you are in this service.

Praise the name of the living God.

For the Bible says, John chapter 3, for the Son of Man did not condemn, did not come to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved.

John 3 · chapter mention

That's the good news.

You're in this service.

God knows you.

The Bible says in Psalm 139.

Allow me to read it, please.

Psalm 139.

Psalm 139.

The Bible says this uh concerning David, oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit, you know when I rise.

You perceive my thoughts from afar, you know, you discern my going out.

And my lying down.

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I flee from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you're there.

If I make my bed in the depths, you're there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me.

For you created my inmost being, you need me together in my mother's womb.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God, and how vast is the sum of them.

If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of the sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked.

Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty.

They speak of you with evil intent.

Your adversaries, your adversaries misuse your name.

I have nothing but hatred for them.

I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Praise the name of the Lord.

That's God's perfect knowledge of man.

He knows you even before you were formed in your mother's womb.

He knows the name you carry.

Praise the name of the Lord.

And that's a scripture, even for those who are pro-abortionists.

You keep asking, when do we call a baby alive and living?

That's your scripture.

He knew me even before I was formed in my mother's womb.

God knows you.

All the failures, all the shortcomings of your life, He knows them.

We were speaking today with my friend, and we were saying, We don't need a reformation, we need a transformation from the inside as Christians, really.

A transformation, not changing the hardware, but changing the software.

Praise the name of the Lord.

The software of my life, really, before I met Christ, was something else.

But when the software changed, even the outside changed.

Hallelujah.

Praise the name of the Lord.

I remember at one time I had dreadlocks.

Would you believe?

Hallelujah.

I had that evil love.

Let me tell you, I may have a bald head right now.

But the Bible says, He told the rich Abraham told the rich man, You had your good things on earth.

Now Lazarus has his good things.

You have your hair right now.

But when we get to heaven, I'll be there with Abraham and I'll tell you, You had your good things on earth.

When I have long flowing hair, hallelujah! And it is gold.

That's just on a light note, it's not theologically sound.

But I'm saying this God knows you perfectly, and He has decided that even with your shortcomings, despite of your background, I still love you.

I still want to show you my goodness and my kindness.

Did you know that your state, your, your condition does not change God's heart?

God has no issue about the sin that is in your life.

The issue that he has is what is your reaction when you're convicted about your sin.

That's the same thing that we see in the life of Saul and David.

When Saul, in our eyes, he did a small sin.

All he did was bring back King Agag, the sheep, the cattle.

And the God says, I have rejected Saul.

And David slept with Bathsheba, conspired to kill her husband, and in our eyes, that is a more grievous sin.

But then God said, I have rejected Saul and I have accepted David.

What's the difference?

The response when they are convicted of their sin because Saul says, Samuel, when we go before the Lord, please continue to honor me before the people.

In other words, protect my reputation.

Protect my reputation.

I don't want these people to know that I'm a broken man inside that have sinned against the Lord.

But when David is confronted concerning Bathsheba, concerning yes, Bathsheba and Uriah, he says, Father, forgive me.

I have sinned against the Lord.

And he writes Psalm 51 for all of us to know that even though he was an anointed man, he still fell.

Praise the name of the living God.

But God restored him.

God is not out to kill you.

Praise the Lord.

God is not out to finish you.

He's not waiting for you at the door there tell you you sin, you you're going to hell.

No.

The Bible says in the book, I think it's somewhere in Jeremiah, that all day long I have stretched out my arms to a people with an unyielding heart.

The Father longs to show goodness to you just the same way Jesus wants to show goodness to Zacchaeus, despite and in spite of his background.

Even as we look at knowing God knowing you, he says, brothers, verse 26, brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.

It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God.

And what is that?

Our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption.

Do you see anywhere there where it talks about your qualifications?

Do you see where he talks about your background?

That if you come from the right background, God will honor you.

If you've lived a sinless life, God will exalt you.

There is nothing like that in the word of God.

Tonight, God knows you, and He still has chosen to love you because God demonstrated His own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans chapter 5 and verse 8.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

The third point is you need to know the Lord.

Praise the name of the Lord.

The Bible says, But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, verse 8 of Luke chapter 19, Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Jesus said to him, Today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.

The third point is that you need to know the Lord for you to walk in the revelation that we are talking about, for you to walk in victory, for you to walk in the sustenance, the preservation of God.

In these times, you need to know the Lord.

And how do you know the Lord?

By giving your life to Jesus Christ.

Something interesting is happening here.

The Bible says, Um, he wanted to see Jesus in verse 3, he wanted to see who Jesus was.

But right now, we've just read Bazacchia's verse 8 stood up and said, Look, Lord, praise the name of the Lord.

You might have come into this service and you're saying, I want to meet with the Lord, I want to see Jesus, but the Lord will always go a step further and reveal himself to you.

Praise the name of the Lord.

Zacchaeus was looking for a man, but through revelation, through understanding that the one who was seated in his house is the Lord of lords.

Praise the name of the Lord.

He says to him, Now look, Lord, praise the Lord.

Are you guys understanding this?

That there is need there needs to come to a point in your life when you're no longer seeing Jesus as just a prophet or just a man who does miracles, but seeing him as Lord over your life, so that everything that you had ever done, you surrender it into his arms, and he gives you a new life, a life in the spirit, a life of peace, a life of purpose, a life of meaning, so that everything in your life becomes about him.

Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

Hallelujah.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Verse 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteous