 recording started. So we can move on to the last chapter from this session that is fame. We have one more minute. I hope everyone have joined in the class so we can start. So in this chapter we are going to deal with the issue of fame, reputation and popularity. So what is fame? Everyone desires to be famous, isn't it? This is something that, you know, as a human it comes naturally. I need to be popular. I need to, you know, be famous. All these desires come within, you know, human nature and that's why we see everywhere so much of hoarding, so much of advertisement, so much of popularity. Now this is not for the people, you know, in other profession but we are talking about the ministry. Here we are trying to talk about the ministry leaders who want to be famous, who wants to be popular, who tend to make this ministry as a business. So there are some of, again, you know, some of the areas that we can consider how we need to be very careful because the scripture says, can I request one of us to please turn to John chapter 5 verse 44 please. You can read 41 and then 44. John chapter 5 verses 41. I do not accept praise from men verses 45 but do not think I accuse you before the Father. Okay. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God. Amen. Thank you so much. So what it says, I do not receive honor from men. John is writing, I do not receive honor from men. So Jesus, when he lived about what people thought and said about him, Jesus said that I do not receive honor from men. We minister of God, we need to lead our life, lead our ministry without any expectation from men. And then 44 we see that how can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from only God. So what it says here is as a minister of God, let's avoid seeking honor, seeking a plot from people around us but then our honor, our reward should come only from God. We need to seek and strive towards that. That should be our goal. That should be our goal because that avails much than any other reward that we get on this earth. So as a minister of God, we need to be mindful of seeking honor from God and not from men but that's not the fact in these days. In Christodom today, we see that they market the ministry. They try to promote the ministry. They have these public campaigns and cut out of the man of God big like, you know, how the politicians and other celebrities do, they have that way. They put themselves upon the pedestal just like them. These days on the YouTube, if you go, we can see some of the pastors who compete with each other. They compete to be the richest pastor in the world. You know, they want that name, the richest pastor in the world, the pastor that has a private jet. Now, when you pray, you ask, God bless me so that I become the richest pastor in the world. God bless me that I have a private jet to travel all around the world. Lord bless me so that I can be like the king. Now, is this right? Is this right? Are we here to serve the mankind or are we here to be served? What does the scripture says? We need to go back time and again to the scripture. The Lord says, I have come here to serve and not to be served. Now, God, now Jesus being the Son of God, he humbled himself and became a human and he came here. He was born in the manger among the poor and he served among the poor. He lived among the poor. He ate along with them. He never treated himself special. When the apostles wanted to follow Jesus, Jesus saying, the Son of Man do not have a place to lay his head. That means he didn't have anything on this earth. But here as a servant of God, as a minister of God, what are we seeking? Power, position, materialistic things, not just the need. I'm not talking about the need that we all need, a basic house, a vehicle to commute. I'm not talking about that. It's a higher, it's a higher hand, like the politicians, like the celebrities, like the one of the richest man in the world, how he can be treated. Well, the scripture says, I have blessed you for you to be a blessing, for you to be the channel of your blessing. We need to be a blessing. The funds that has been coming into a ministry should not become stagnant, should not be there only to accumulate and live the pastor high to say that he's the richest pastor in the world. But then this medium of receiving funds should be there to flow to people among our own city, among our own state, in our own country. There are so many people dying for food, dying without clothes. We need to be there to bless them. That's why God has raised us a leader, a man of God, and he has given us the funds to be a blessing to our own people, to the poor. But then if we accumulate everything, so what's happening? It's becoming stagnant and very soon, if there is no outflow, it becomes stagnant and it stinks very soon, the minister will be in a very dangerous place to live in because this is not what the Lord is asking us to do. This is not what the scripture teaches us. We need to be very careful. As a ministry, if you see the ministry website will be popularly talking about the man, the newsletter will have big picture of his, the magazines are filled with his pictures, with his family pictures, with what they're doing, where they went, how God is blessed them to celebrate the life that has been given and they're going on a holiday, they give all the details throughout but what is important? How did you minister? When God has blessed you with the funds, with the name, how did you minister? How did you serve God? If you relate ourself to the early church, that is when the apostles were there, what happened to our apostles, our disciples, what did they do? The Jesus apostles and disciples went everywhere sharing the word of God. Yes, they became very famous, very famous in what? They were persecuted, they were beaten up, they were put in the prison. Now, I'm not telling you, you have to go through it. Yes, there are certain ministry leaders who are still going through the persecution and even in that situation, they are sharing the gospel, they're not giving up on the word but at the same period, at the same time when we are living, we are able to see two different extremes of people, one, one minister of God dying for the sake of gospel, another minister of God trying to exalt himself to the highest power to showcase his wealth that he has accumulated in this ministry, the name that he has built for himself. So, we need to see, is that from God? Is God asking us to be like that? Everything is about God. Our ministry should talk about God, the anointing, the fame, everything, whatever it is, it should be all glory, honor and praise should be given to God and not taken to ourselves. So, what we learn here, we need to be mindful to give honor to God because in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5, we see that for we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your born servant for Jesus sake. So, if this is in our mind, we know who we are, we are the servant of God, we need to have the servant attitude in us, not a boss mentality. Yes, a good name is important but not fame. Going behind, doing things for the sake of becoming famous is not needed. Yes, we need to help people but how are we helping people with the genuine need of helping? See, there are two ways when we tend to help people. One, we are raising fund and then we are helping through our ministry. Now, because of that, because we are accountable to the people who have given the funds, we try to take pictures, record it in our video and send it to them because we are accountable. People gave in, they should know that this money was used for certain purpose, it is blessed for some, you know, any kind of relief or any kind of flood relief or covid relief or it can be any good cause in the ministry that we have raised a fund and it has been used towards it. You take a photo, you record it and you send it to the organization or the people who ever blessed it. Now, that should not become a picture saying that our ministry, we have blessed this many number of people. So what is that, what's happening here? Are we trying to put our name in front and become more famous that I help this many number of people? What does the scripture say? The scripture clearly says, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing. The scripture says in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 1, a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth. And in Proverbs 20 to 1 says, a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold. So it is very important to have a good name. A good name comes because of the life that we lived, how we live speaks and the fame comes by gaining through sleep marketing, social media and other techniques. So what as a man of God, what we need to desire and be mindful and watch over is a good name and that should be through our character and that should be consistent. A good name is given to us by others. Fame is what we pursue by ourself. And remember, fame does not last long, it disappears, but a good name stays even after a man's death, his name lives. Proverbs 10, 7 says, the memory of the righteous is blessed. The memory of the righteous man is blessed. So our focus must be to pursue Christ's likeness and simply to live life Jesus will. It is very easy said than done. It takes a lot of sacrifice because, you know, this fame is something there naturally in us, in human. But then, as a child of God, as a servant of God, as a minister of God, we need to undo this. We need to undo this by intentionally building ourselves, intentionally see to it that we will not take any honor, intentionally see to it that we will not put in our own effort to increase fame. But see to it that we get that good name, work towards it, live a life, you know, keeping a fear of Lord in our mind. Initial of my days, you know, when I encountered the Lord, I was part of a youth ministry and through the youth ministry, they were many, many meetings they were conducting. So we used to volunteer there, okay, in the city of Bangalore is to volunteer. And as we volunteer and serve under these leaders, the youth leaders, you know, I learned many things God gave me this opportunity to serve among these good leaders. So what I noticed in them is whenever these leaders were recognized for their hard work, night and day, they would have labored without being tired. They said, God had done this, I need to be there for God, you know, extremely work hard, labored day and night. They will not focus on how they are dressed, how well they speak, or what they're doing, they're going to get a reward. They serve God all their heart, their mind is set on God. Now, as they serve, you know, at the end of the meeting or the end of the day, they will be recognized for their hard work and you know, one of the leaders will come up and you know, they will reward him or applaud that person or talk about that person. And I saw the leader with under whom I served, you know, he was very different. It was very new for me. When I looked at me said, that's okay, I don't need any reward, I will, he refused to go on the stage. He stayed back. And he also refused to receive a reward what they were giving, you know, a kind of shield. He refused, he said, what I'm more concerned is to receive the reward from God and not from, you know, anyone on this earth. It was something new. You know, most of us, you know, normally, when I was like working from a professional background, I've come and, you know, we all strive, you know, for that recognition, for that fame, for that name, that we could get, you know, we all work for that. And suddenly you're, I'm saying something very different. Man was refusing. And he's feeling very, I don't know, he was very embarrassed because they recognized him and they called out his name, he said, as much as possible, please don't call my name. That was something new. That was something new. And I've seen many leaders under whom God put me in, you know, they just serve at the end when everything is over, they will not even be there to receive that thank. Let all the glory go to God, praise God that he has, you know, given me this opportunity to serve God. You know, I've seen that. And also right now, as God has put me and the pastor, we learn how to lead our life, a daily life, how conscious we need to be in leading our life, how we need to have this fear of God within us every day, because this is something very common. When we have a boss or a manager about us who's watching over us, how we serve because somebody is watching, we try to do the work. Just imagine if no one are watching, are we working in the same way like how we work friend of somebody who's watching over us? This is in the normal world. But as a minister of God, we need to serve in the same way as though we have been watched. We need to labor much more than what we use to labor in the other profession. Scripture says we need to be excellent, especially when we are serving under a man of God. With all fear, we need to work God because we are laboring unto God, not unto man. We are laboring unto God. Can we hide ourselves? God is watching. We need to have this fear of God within us. The scripture says where the fear of the Lord is, this beginning of wisdom, this beginning of knowledge. And where the fear of the Lord is, we can avoid many sin of it. If we have this, we can avoid many things. So every day in our life, in the initial days, it is very easy. It is very easy to lead a life like Christ's likeness. But as the ministry grows, as you've been recognized for the gifting and calling that flows within you, are you able to conduct yourself the same manner that you conducted initially? We need to have a watch. Intentionally, try not to be things. Some things that we see we do at our churches. See, we all do maybe because our leaders do that. We set some example. Faster sex, more example. Intentionally, we see to it that we do not talk about him or any of our work. We allow, give all the glory to God. We need to be thankful to God for giving us the opportunity and see to it how effectively we can serve the Lord and the ministry with whatever the benefit, with whatever the gift that God has given us in all the area. Every opportunity, this is something what I personally learnt is take every opportunity that comes your way to serve God, to minister Him. Even if it is one or a benefit as many people, serve God with all your heart because God has given this time to you to minister and you do give your best to God. Do not compromise on it. The next is do not be a man pleaser. Galatians 1-10 says, for I do not persuade men or God or do I seek people, please men. For if I still please men, then I would not be a born servant of Christ. So one thing we have to settle within ourselves is to give our best to God. And we should not be a man pleaser. We don't do anything to please men, but to please God. Give your best to God. Even if no one are praising you, even if you do not receive any applause or any kind of appreciation, do not stop from what you are doing. That is what those scriptures say, do not stop doing good to others because in due time you will receive your reward. It is very important. So at the same time, if people praise you for the work, give all the glory to God and keep, don't take it to your head. Keep moving. If people criticize you in the ministry, again, see if they criticize is right. Take their feedback and check yourself. If there is something that we need to change, we need to correct ourselves, please apply those changes. Thank them for the feedback. Thank them for the correction and apply it. Change yourself. But if you know they are just criticizing you for, you know, just like that or due to jealousy or envy, we don't know why. But if they criticize you, and if you see that it is just a critic, do not take it to your heart and get yourself hurt and stop serving. Just allow it to God and you keep moving. Set your mind on God. Let our focus be on God and keep moving. This is very important. Do not engage in self promotion. Let God give the increase. As you start your ministry, focus on word, focus on ministering to people and serving them. Let's not get engage ourselves in self promotion that, you know, this many people came to our crusade. Let's say exact number. If you arrange a crusade and if through some system, you have kept to count the people and you knew it was about 10,000 people who have come to the crusade, you will say the exact number. There are 10,000 people, but you will not say, lacks together people came to our crusade. Tell the exact number. If you arrange a prayer meeting in your church and there are about 100 people or 150 or even if you say 49, one less than 50 have attended, say exactly, there were about 49 people who attended the church yesterday or attended the prayer meeting yesterday and share the testimony. If there were 10 healed, if there were five delivered, tell the exact number. There were about 10 people who were delivered. 10 people were healed, whichever number exactly give them the exact number. We should not be saying they were many healed and many delivered or, you know, they were blessed. Yes, all are blessed by the word of God because it is the word of God. It's not our word. It's the word of God. So definitely they will be the manifestation of power. Okay. And we should not get into the self promotion, self exaggeration. Let's not exaggerate anything much beyond what it is. Popularity is no indication of fruitlessness. Very important. Let's not focus on becoming popular. Let's look at what work they're doing. Isn't bearing fruit? Seek God, seek His word. Share the word. Let the fruitful, let the fruit talk for us. Not we bring our own popularity. Give all the glory to God when that comes to you. When the popularity comes to you, give glory to God. Do not take it to yourself. Separate yourself from what people think about you. Very, very important. Second Corinthians 6, 4, 8, 9 says, but in all things we comment ourselves as minister of God in much patience, in tribulations, in need, in distress. By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet vain. So one of the strengths that we must develop as ministers of God is to not let people say the good or the bad to affect us. As I said, if they say good, give glory to God and move ahead. It's a dishonor. That's okay. Keep doing what you're doing. Let not the good work stop. Allow the Lord to recognize you and sometimes we don't even have to defend ourselves. Ask God to be your defender. Let the Lord bring light into their heart and mind. Okay, prayerfully explain what happened. We don't have to defend. Explain if they take it good, if they do not love it that way. Just leave it. Lord in time will clarify to them. Your stature before God is more important than your stature before men. So when we are before God, it is more important than who we are before man. Our stature before God is very important than men. So it is so much better to be regarded of a man, dearly beloved of the Lord than to endure by million of people. So what is important is to be right in the eyes of God. How we can do that by having the fear of God in our heart and in our mind. And when we have this, we will not allow people to make us an idol. We will not allow people to promote us. We see this is what the apostles and disciples did when they said, okay, they saw Paul and Peter serving God in different areas. I'm talking about two different situations from the Bible. When they ministered, the people recognize them as a servant of God and they wanted to build them the altar or make an idol out of them. They looked at them like God. So Paul says, why do you look at me like God? I'm not God. We are just doing it by the power of God. God used this path through us. We are just a normal human like is like, like everyone. And the other place Peter, you know, rent is closed for people idealizing them. So this should be in our mind. Make sure that we do not take the place of God. Whatever is happening in our ministry, somebody is getting healed or delivered. It is not by the power of us. We cannot do anything by our own power, by our own and we do not have that power. Whatever is happening through us is by the spirit of the Lord, by the spirit of the Lord. He moves in and through us. He brings and healing. He delivers people. It is the Lord. So whom should this glory and an honor go to? It should go to the Lord and not to us. So we as a servant of God should be mindful not to take anything to us, but then give it to God. And at the same time, consider ourselves on the same level ground with others. Do not consider ourselves somebody who is big or need to be elevated, need to set aside everything separately, need to have for security around us as we to be escorted to the stage, to the pulpit or four people carrying stuff which we already studied. No, we don't have to do all that as much as possible. God has given others, given us the strength. Let's carry our own stuff. Let's eat among the people, especially we tell this to our students saying that as a leader, see to it that you eat with the people. And also do not elevate your side. Yes, people in the meeting may try to give you a separate room, separate desk for you to eat. But I tell you, it is always good for us to be in level with the other people, be with them, eat with them. And as a ministry leader, we also see to it that we eat last. Okay, we eat last, see to it our congregation is where all everyone I've taken, everyone are eating and then we serve for ourselves. And we also see to it that we do everything what needs to be done and we will not be, we will not allow others to serve us as much as possible. Okay, so in this way we can see intentionally we are holding on to the level ground. We are holding on to be common among the people. We don't elevate ourselves higher than others. The more I have been given, the more accountable I must be. Yes, now two ways. One, spiritual accountability. More God has given us the more number of souls, more number of gifts, we need to use it for the kingdom of God. We need to minister to people in all the area. We need to be there to serve them from the need of a child to the elder. See to it that you have different ministries to cater to each one and they need and meet their need. Because God has given those people to us and we are accountable to them and also the gifts. See there to minister to people to serve them despite the time. Okay, and next financially. Now, God has given us financially. We need to be there to bless others financially, meet their need. This is not our money. This God's money. God has given us to be a blessing. So there are two ways spiritually and financially. We need to be accountable and clear. The higher he takes us, the lower I must step down. I said intentionally, we need to honor people and stay on the heaven ground. The lesser I am is better it is. The lesser we are, it is better. Even if you fall, you don't fall much higher, much lower. But if you're higher, if you do any mistake, the fall is greater. So intentionally, we need to see to it are we don't elevate ourselves from a greater position, but then lesser is better. The wear of God complex very, very important. So as we evolve and grow as a man and a woman of God, we need to rise and stature as a servant of God. So as we see to it mindfully, we need to consider this. So when we preach, when we teach, we need to do it in the standard as God has set for us people and not feel that, you know, whatever I preach and preach is not for me, but it is for others. So I can do what I wanted to do. Initial of the days, I had face difficulties and I don't have to be there. So whatever I preach and preach is only applies to others and not for me. No, the core of honor is for everyone to each of our life at all the stage at all the time. So we need to consider each and every word that God has given in the world is for us every one. So with this, we conclude our session, the call of God and the Christian ministry is not a small matter. We have to walk with Godly wisdom and we need to carry out what God is called each one of us to do. So as said, as been, you know, taught in this class, the core of honor, it is that with much more reverence, we all need to walk. None of us are perfect. The one who teaches or the one who's hearing, we all are the weaker being. But then we are strengthened by his grace. We need to lead our life. Okay, with the with having a fear of God within us, see to it that we walk alive with integrity, with a good character, with a good attitude, seeking God in our life. We need to please God in all the area. We need to have a check. That's this please God. Am I doing what is right? Am I promoting myself? If there's anything in my ministry or in in any area that I'm trying to promote myself, stop, do not do anything. But if it is bringing glory to God and God is asking you to do it, you can proceed it. But if there's any area that, you know, the intention is not right, intention is not right, then you stop it, hold till your intention comes right. And then you move ahead. So these are certain ways that we could pause, plan, prevent us from any kind of fall, which the enemy would have laid a trap for each of us as we serve God. But then God buys grace, is a God of grace, God of second chance, he will always lead us and guide us. Many times God will warn us, many times God will make sure that we don't fall into any kind of. Okay, so with this, I conclude this book on code of honor. And we complete this, the subject of ministers foundation as well. If you have any questions, please ask, but then there is no time. So this is our last session and we have completed with this, with this, I will also put the final assignment on our Google Classroom. So what is the assignment as your as you wrote your personal for a personal learning from fulfilling God's purpose and receiving God's guidance for your mid assessment. So your final assessment will be on the book of code of honor. So in the book of code of honor, each and every chapter, what was your personal learning, you can write that and post it in WordDoc or through a PowerPoint presentation, I will create it on the classroom. So you all can upload your assignment on the Google Classroom, that would be your final assignment. So is that clear? Do you have any questions? Is that clear? Yes. Okay, okay. So maybe we can also post it on the WhatsApp. If anyone I've missed the class, they could receive the message and please pass it on. So next Wednesday onwards, we will not be having the code of honor section because we have completed. And yes, for the e-learning, the assignments will be different. I will give it to you on the platform. The online students, I guess it's very clear, the final assignment, what I said. Okay, so the cutoff date will be on November 30th. Okay. For all for your mid assessment and your final assessment, the cutoff date is November 30th, after which the Google Classroom will not accept the assignment if you try to upload it. So before that, please finish. We have enough of time as when you can take the class hours to do assignments. Is that okay? Okay, we'll end this class with the word of prayer. And thank you so much for joining. For me personally, it was a lot of learning and thank you so much. When I've learned many things from the class, from each of you all. And thank you. And let me end this class with the word of prayer. Dear God, we thank you. We praise you. We love you. We honor you. We glorify your name, Lord. Thank you for your grace and for your mercy and for your strength of Father, that you have led each of us into the journey of studying this minister's foundation, the three books. Thank you, Lord. There was a lot of unlearning in our life. Thank you, Lord, that you have imparted your spiritual nature into us. Thank you for giving us the grace, the strength to lead our life in fear of fear. With giving you all the glory, giving you all the reference. Thank you, Father, that you are enabling us to worship you about everything. And thank you, Lord, for teaching us how we can be dependent on you in all heart and mind. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. Thank you that you are mindful of us. Thank you that you have blessed each one of us with a ministry. Thank you for giving us that grace and gift to minister and serve your people of Father. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' mighty name, I pray. Amen. Thank you for being a blessing. God bless you. God bless you, Rich. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. My assignment. May I ask a question, ma'am? Can I ask? Yes, yes, please. Okay. The assignment, I am doing an assignment on the, on, I typed it, I even emailed it to you, but I don't know whether it came or is not because I'm not, I don't understand the, the the submission, you see, on the word. So I don't know. Can you just put me through? Okay. I will check on that and get back to you enough. You can also reach me on my email. I'll give you my email ID. If there's any difficulty. You gave me your email, you gave me your email ID, but I didn't save it that day. You will give me a game today. Okay. Thank you. I will save it. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you. All right. That is all for me. Thank you. Okay. I'll give you a Bible calling. Okay. Any of these email ID, it works. Both are mine. You can reach out on any of these ID's. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. God bless. So I'll put your final assignment on the classwork. You can directly upload it. You have any difficulty. Ask one of your friends on the WhatsApp group if you're on the WhatsApp group. Okay. It will help you all. I will. I will. And I can be there to help. I will check. Okay. Thank you. God bless. Thank you everybody. I'm happy. Thank you everybody. I'm happy. Thank you. Thank you. God bless everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you brother Paul. Thank you brother Abubakar. Thank you. God bless brother Lubeida. Thank you Zellie, Rosalind, Nikki. Thank you. Good bless. Thank you pastor too and we've enjoyed. It can be some. May God bless you. Thank you brother. God bless. Thank you Lubeida.