Sermon

Heaven Rules Anyway (God sees in secret)

Acts Church

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  1. You're listening to a message to go from acts church.

  2. We hope this message will light up your day.

  3. Jesus says, you who practiced lawlessness.

  4. But before he even said that, he said twice, you

  5. who call me Lord Lord, You who call me Lord

  6. Lord me. And he's talking to Christians. I know we

  7. hear a lot of messages on grace, and sometimes we

  8. forget that he's actually law. When he came, he didn't

  9. come to break the law. He came to fulfill the law.

  10. I think it's a good check this morning, even for myself,

  11. because but eight days ago, when I got this, I repented.

  12. He said, Lord, please forgive me if I've been lawless.

  13. Matthew seven, would you turn with me to your bibles?

  14. I don't think I put the scripture up, and that's okay.

  15. Sometimes it's good for us as leaders to turn to

  16. about our Bibles. And so Matthew seven, twenty one to

  17. twenty three, let's do that first, sir, Matthew.

  18. Chapter seven says twenty one to twenty three.

  19. I'll read Jesus said, not everyone who says to me

  20. Lord Lord shall enter the King of Heaven, but he

  21. who does the will of my Father in heaven.

  22. Many will say to.

  23. Me in that day, Lord Lord, is the second time

  24. Jesus using not just Lord, but Lord Lord, very passionate.

  25. Have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons

  26. in your name, and done many wonders in your name?

  27. In your name? Okay, there's a question mark there and

  28. the verse.

  29. Twenty three, and then I would declare to them very

  30. strong words that I will declare to them. I never

  31. knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

  32. Heaven rules means Jesus sees.

  33. In Cantonese, sometimes we say ten yangaan means Heaven has eyes.

  34. Sometimes we think it doesn't have eyes. Sometimes, you know

  35. people who are going into areas that they shouldn't go

  36. into corruption, bribery.

  37. God sees, you know, God sees.

  38. Whether he takes a short time to rebuke a long

  39. time to rebuild, he still sees. And I think maybe

  40. it was in Psalm seventy three or seventy eight. I

  41. think seventy three. Uh that you know where the Psalmi is.

  42. Remember he said, I'm looking enviously as all these wicked

  43. men who are prospering, and I'm thinking to myself, I've

  44. washed my hands in vain, you know, because it looks

  45. like God doesn't see, and the wicked actually says no,

  46. no one sees, is he?

  47. So seven?

  48. Three?

  49. Yeah? Saying three?

  50. So so the Psalmist, of course goes on to say,

  51. until I went into your sanctuary and then I knew

  52. their end. You put them in slippery places. Blah blah blah,

  53. I ason use blah blah blah blah of God. But

  54. et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe souths better. But

  55. you know that scripture also shows us that there can

  56. be attempting to think that God doesn't see, but he

  57. sees everything. He sees everything is this is important for

  58. us to understand. H. So let's go into the next

  59. slide that there's two thoughts I want to give you

  60. this morning therefore, actually but too short a time to

  61. do for so because Heaven sees, that's not in doubt.

  62. What's in question or in doubt is whose side are

  63. you on them?

  64. Mm hmm who side are you on?

  65. Because whether you are righteous or not righteous, he sees,

  66. so you rather be righteous?

  67. Uh?

  68. And this is very important. So let's look at the

  69. next slide. Let me explain some more so uh, I

  70. draw out two quick thoughts from what we just read.

  71. A Jesus says, you who practice lawlessness.

  72. But before he even said that, he said twice you

  73. who call me lord lord, you who call me lord

  74. lord me. And he's talking to Christians, and that means

  75. that Christians practice lawlessness. Matthew five seventeen to eighteen. Do

  76. not think that I came to destroy the law or

  77. the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

  78. For surely, I say to you, till heaven and earth

  79. passed away one jot or one tital, we don't use

  80. loscut words anymore. Jot and titeal will by no means

  81. passed from the law until all is fulfilled. So I

  82. just want to remind us all that God is a

  83. law abiding God. I know we hear a lot of

  84. messages on grace, and sometimes we forget that He is

  85. actually law.

  86. When he came, he didn't come to break the law.

  87. He came to fulfill the law.

  88. Now I can remind you here this morning that if

  89. God was in law abiding, he didn't have to send Jesus,

  90. because he who created the law that life for a

  91. life right, and all who have sin has fallen short.

  92. The glory of God and the wages of sin is death.

  93. He who said that and required life for life and

  94. life or death rather for sin, he said it could

  95. also have changed it if he were some of our politicians,

  96. if God was like some of our politicians or some

  97. of a corporate bosses who said one thing today and

  98. then say another thing the next day. Oh I said

  99. the five years ago, but I don't mean it today.

  100. Oh God, something like that. He's the same yesterday, today, forever.

  101. He who said the law had to pay the price

  102. for the law because he knew that we couldn't pay,

  103. so he settled his own law. He paid his own bill.

  104. He set the price so high, and he had to

  105. be the one to pay because no one else could.

  106. But he pays it. He doesn't change the law. The

  107. most law abiding God you'll ever know is our God.

  108. And yet he's a God of praise too, So I

  109. want you to understand he's not lawless, and he doesn't

  110. like lawless people. But Christians can practice lawlessness with our mouth,

  111. our backbiting, our gossiping, the things that we do, the bribing.

  112. You know, I'm so thankful by the grace of God.

  113. I can stand here in my fifties and tell you

  114. I've never bribed a policeman ever in my life.

  115. So the key is to know God that we not

  116. know God here.

  117. So we had to go into a dialogue for two

  118. and a half hours because he says, no, everyone does it.

  119. I said, but who are you? Who are you.

  120. Pleasing everyone or him? You mean he's going to look

  121. down and you bribing a policeman. I say, well done,

  122. my good and faithful serving Is he going to do that?

  123. And so after two and a half hours he repented

  124. right there at my dining table in the same house

  125. I'm staying at.

  126. He says, I think you're right. I said, I am right.

  127. I am right because I'm going by the word.

  128. Christians do practice lawlessness, and we have to be very

  129. careful because he's giving you are now the ultimate. Have

  130. we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons your name,

  131. and done miracles in your name? But he's giving you

  132. the ultimate. That means that now you can almost add

  133. all the feeling the blanks. Have we not planted to

  134. any churches in your name? Have we not gone to

  135. London in your name?

  136. Gon to? So what.

  137. If you're going to live a lawless life. And you

  138. know where we usually live a lawless life, in the

  139. secret place, not always at the front, because at the

  140. front we all know how to act Christian HM.

  141. We know, we know the jargons, we know the hand movements,

  142. we know the smiles.

  143. We can be arguing with our wife and the car

  144. come out only at church and say hi, hore you brother,

  145. God bless you. You know we've got all this we

  146. put on, but this real life. I understand it, I

  147. understand it. But the fact is that we just know

  148. what to do.

  149. Uh.

  150. And I'm going to show you a few more things

  151. later to just can't get us to a place whereby

  152. we get our lives right with God. Uh and and

  153. and and know that the Lord sees things very differently

  154. from we do. I think it's a good check this morning,

  155. even for myself, because but eight days ago, when I

  156. got this, I repented. I said, Lord, please forgive me

  157. if I've been lawless. So let's let's look at the

  158. second point here. So two points from that scripture, Lord Lord,

  159. Lord Lord, he says, I never knew you depart, So

  160. I never knew you means I was never close to you.

  161. You know, this, This knowing is intimacy. This knowing is close.

  162. And sometimes you can be in a church for a

  163. long time and you know a person, but you're never close.

  164. You can never really talk to that person. And sometimes

  165. it's said. It's said also if I say you have children,

  166. and children will say, yeah, my dad has been with

  167. me my mom as will be with me for the

  168. last twenty five years of my life. But I'm not

  169. close to him. Have you ever heard that before. I'm

  170. not close to my grandfather. I'm closer to my grandmother,

  171. not closely, as you can't talk. When does that that

  172. mean that go and speak to your neighbor. I'm not

  173. really close. My father is closer to my neighbor. What

  174. do you mean by that? When you say not close

  175. means you're not You don't have a relationship, You don't

  176. even dare talk to the person. And I was never

  177. close to you because maybe we were never close to him.

  178. We will never close, So James for eight. Of course

  179. some of you memorize it ready. It says draw near

  180. to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse

  181. your hands, you see us, purify your hearts. You double minded?

  182. Right?

  183. So uh sorry, b Okay, So James for eight right,

  184. means that to say that God draws near to them,

  185. that draws near to him, it is really our choice

  186. first to want to know him, and then he knows

  187. us draw near to him, that he draws near to us,

  188. draw closer to him, that he draws close to us.

  189. So when he says I never knew you, it probably

  190. means that because you never took time to know him.

  191. So by calling him lord, lord is a name, it's

  192. a religion, it's a practice. It's like, okay, hey, you know,

  193. but he's not looking at these things. So let's be

  194. reminded this morning, he's not looking at external things. We

  195. are reminded that prophet Samuel radio was about to choose

  196. the next king, saw the first son of Jesse, you

  197. know that he had all you know, externally together, and

  198. said he said, no, as a prophet, surely this is

  199. the one.

  200. Okay, he said, I'm not the one. I don't call

  201. me surely, no, No, I'm just kid that.

  202. He's sure surely, surely, surely he's the one. And then

  203. God had to say to him, don't say that because

  204. man looks at the out appearance. But I look at

  205. the heart. So I'm here to remind us all, including myself,

  206. God sees things very differently. Heaven rules, and he sees

  207. things very differently. And if only more of our politicians

  208. know God and know what He really sees, their allies

  209. will change immediately because he sees very differently.

  210. Okay, So let me go on to the next point.

  211. There's always a higher law and a better way for

  212. doing anything and everything. Okay, we talked about the Exodus

  213. a few times that we did yesterday again, A please me,

  214. let me let you know so that you know my heart.

  215. I can you imagine a church plunter against church planting,

  216. So you gotta understand that I'm for church planting.

  217. I'm only not for the ways that.

  218. I'm for dialogue, but not those secret meetings that talk

  219. down on leadership.

  220. You with me, It's okay to discuss talk.

  221. You know. Meanwhile, when you're talking so that you are

  222. talking to help rather than to talk to hurt. God

  223. sees things very differently. There's always a higher law and

  224. a better way. I try to live like that. I try,

  225. you know, I try to live like that. And you

  226. know who else lives like that. Let's go and look

  227. at it. It's like, first Samuel twenty four forty seven. Okay,

  228. we can turn to that. You know by now it's David.

  229. But I think it's good to read this because it's

  230. really really solid what David did. We refer to it

  231. many times, but sometimes we don't read it. So first Samuel,

  232. twenty four, let's read. Let's read it. This is so good,

  233. twenty four forty seven. Let's be refreshed by what David did.

  234. And don't forget David was considered a man after God's

  235. own heart. He was after God's heart. He wasn't after religion,

  236. he wasn't after just anything. He was after his heart. Okay,

  237. and so twenty four four to seven, let's read it.

  238. It says here, then the men of David said to him,

  239. this is the day.

  240. Of which the Lord said to you.

  241. Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, that

  242. you may do to him as it seems good to you.

  243. And David arose and secretly cut off a corner of

  244. Saul's rope. I want you the words secretly, because I'm

  245. going to tell you in a while. God sees in secret.

  246. And David did this secretly, and many of us do

  247. very different things in our secret places and the talks

  248. that we have around the table. Secretly, David cut off

  249. a corner of Saul's rope. Now it happened afterwards that

  250. David's heart troubled him because he had cut Saul's rope.

  251. Didn't kill Saul, just cut his rope, and are really

  252. not comfortable. And he said to his men, the Lord

  253. forbid that I should do this thing to my master,

  254. still calling Saul his master, the Lord's anointed the man

  255. who wants to kill him, to stretch out my hand

  256. against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed of the Lord.

  257. So I want us to read this because can you

  258. see this. It starts by saying, the men of David

  259. told him the Lord has delivered.

  260. Your enemy to your hand.

  261. And this is what we are surrounded with as CPC's

  262. We're surrounded by men who sometimes think they know what

  263. the Lord is doing, and they're trying to convince their

  264. leader that the Lord.

  265. The Lord.

  266. And actually it sounds very reasonable. If there was no

  267. other verses of that, I think all of us would accepted.

  268. This was a man who's a crazy king, man who

  269. threw the spear against his servant who was ministering to

  270. him on the half while ministering, so you can strow spear. No,

  271. while we are ministering, you can strow spear. Okay, mad men? Right,

  272. And David was almost convinced. And so he's secretly and

  273. this is where we need to understand that what do

  274. we do in secret?

  275. He's secretly cut off part of the rope.

  276. And then immediately almost the scripture says that he was troubled.

  277. It doesn't matter about the people around you saying whatever

  278. they think. The Lord is saying. You must know in

  279. your heart what's right and what's wrong, and you must

  280. get up in the morning do your quiet time. Go hey,

  281. why am I trouble? He was trouble, not of things

  282. done in the open. He was trouble or things done

  283. in the secret. A lot of people like to complain

  284. by my Facebook, but not my favorite was not secret.

  285. Do you understand I'm speaking to the open compared to

  286. people who are speaking the secret. I would be judged

  287. for what I'm doing openly. A lot of people have

  288. judged me already by branning before the Lord. But a

  289. lot of people who are going around unaccountable for things

  290. they are saying in a secret and watch out, guys.

  291. If there's any sin in this room like that, you

  292. better repent.

  293. But you also disciple the people to think like that,

  294. because they are in trouble if they don't.

  295. You understand.

  296. And I love our people enough to say it, whether

  297. you like me or not, I'm going to say, because

  298. there's a discipleship, and it's for your good, it's for

  299. my good.

  300. And so he.

  301. Says, he turns now to the very men in his

  302. group in his Mama session and.

  303. Says, the Lord forbid, I tell you what the Lord says.

  304. Okay, you don't have to tell me what the Lord says,

  305. because I know in my heart what the Lord said.

  306. The Lord forbid, because at the end of the day,

  307. he is the Lord's anointed.

  308. You cannot deny the fact that that the Lord anoint

  309. us all called him chosen. You can't deny the fact.

  310. You can't say he's crazy. But you can never say

  311. he didn't.

  312. Know he was not called by God. You cannot because

  313. that's truth.

  314. So I said, Wow, you know, at the end of

  315. the day, you cannot go before God and say, oh,

  316. but the men told me you got to go before

  317. But said God, you told me this and I obeyed

  318. it no matter what these Christians, and I tell you

  319. it can be me with other pastors, right and the

  320. other pastors you will you will think that they have

  321. a stand. But I have to go away, you know,

  322. knowing what's right and what's wrong. So let's move on.

  323. It's not really about but look their fruitfulness in ministry

  324. because living prophesy in your name, living castle demans your name.

  325. Didn't we no, no, no.

  326. When you're looking at things right and you're looking at

  327. Facebook and you look at Instagram, but please don't just

  328. look at fruitfulness on the outside, because God is not

  329. so interested. He is more interested than have we done

  330. what's right? Have we spoken what's right? Have we fellowship

  331. and converse and discuss what's right? In his side? You know,

  332. just have a sense. It's called the fear of God. Love,

  333. Just you know what the fear of God is? I

  334. told you before this is my definition. Every time I

  335. think about something, whether I should do it, not do it,

  336. think it, not say it? Whatever I think, what does

  337. God think? What does God think about this? What does

  338. God think about this? What does God think about That's

  339. the fear of God? And I tell you what I

  340. can very easy. Like God is not thinking very good

  341. about this. God is not happy with this. If you

  342. know your father God, that's what the world no, I

  343. never knew you do you know him? If you know him,

  344. you know what he likes, what he doesn't like. That's

  345. why David was after God's own heart. You know, when

  346. I'm after your own heart, I say I'm after my

  347. wife's heart, not just after my wife, really after her heart.

  348. I won't just buy her a present on Christmas. I

  349. buy her what she really likes. And if I to

  350. buy what she really likes, that we've got to go

  351. shopping and I've got to see what she sees, yah,

  352. because if I'm blind like that, right, and then just

  353. look at my own thing, I want to see. And

  354. then when she looks at something, but she said, oh

  355. the price so high, and I went by, but I

  356. saw it right, I saw it got like okay, I said,

  357. a nice way.

  358. That's why are you also expensive? And then are you

  359. going to to go out there to buy what's on

  360. her heart?

  361. See a lot of times that we buy Father's gay,

  362. they give it's either tie socks underway, I don't know,

  363. you know, it's the same old thing.

  364. Father's Day after Father's Day.

  365. So because you know why, you want to satisfy just

  366. the traditional requirement. But when you're really after a person's heart,

  367. you go after even the color.

  368. That they like.

  369. So Davy was not just another guy or let's give

  370. him a thirty minutes worship. No, he was really after

  371. God's owner. What's really on your heart, Goud? And what

  372. was really on God's heart was that even if my

  373. servant soul it's like this, don't And so he ends

  374. up saying, God forbid that I do this, you know.

  375. So sometimes it's conflicting.

  376. Lord said, No, this guy said, Lord said, I say,

  377. Lord said, And in your heart, you know you're going

  378. to just know what the Lord has said to you.

  379. Is this important? Very very good?

  380. Okay, let me draw towards the last lap. Mother's the

  381. reason I said, I wasn't caught to be successful. I

  382. was caught to be faithful. So it's not just about

  383. success in ministry. And I know a lot of us

  384. have come up and I you know, we clapped and

  385. we rejoice with you about how our ministry's growing souls

  386. are being saved.

  387. All this wonderful stuff. But back up a little bit.

  388. This morning and go like, it's not just that it's us,

  389. because I don't think we're going to be judged for

  390. or just the fruits. We're going to be judge for

  391. our hearts. And we learn at thought that even every

  392. word has to be accounted for. Do you think those

  393. words accounted for? Are just the public words that everybody

  394. here or the secret words that nobody hears. I think usually,

  395. if not mostly, it's going to be the words that

  396. nobody else. But you know, when everybody heard earlier, then

  397. it's an account for. Already there's the words that nobody heard.

  398. There's no accountability there. He's going to ask you. So

  399. I just want to be fitful on I just want

  400. to be faithful.

  401. We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

  402. information on our church, please visit as church dot org.

  403. We are also active on Facebook and Instagram. We're believing

  404. that this week is going to be a good week

  405. ahead for you. God bless

  406. M