Matthew-026

 

Today, we will study particularly Matthew 11:12, which reads like this:

What exactly does this verse mean? It is regarded by commentators as a difficult verse. Let us look again at these words:

This translation is not very good as you can see, since the translators have put in the margin in the Revised Standard Version: “the kingdom of God has come violently”, or “has been coming violently.”

Without going into the details of exposition, the meaning is clear. The English translation, “has suffered violence” is not very suitable simply because it was a very short time from the days of John the Baptist to the time when the Lord Jesus was preaching, and the kingdom of God was not particularly suffering any violence at the time. Knowing this, the translators put the alternative in the margin. “The kingdom of heaven has been coming violently,” but “violently” is also not a very good translation. In the Greek, it really means “coming with great power.” The kingdom of God has been pressing forward with great power. Jesus is saying, “The kingdom of God has been coming with great power since the days of John the Baptist until now.”

The Chinese translation does not present the same problem. Per­haps the Chinese translator was thinking that the kingdom of God has great power, so it is translated as “One must work very hard to get into the kingdom of heaven.”

 “Now” points to the time when Jesus was preaching, not now in the 20^th century. And the power of the kingdom provokes a very powerful response. The point is that when the kingdom of God was preached by John the Baptist and by the Lord Jesus, no one could just ignore it. It came with a special power. They had to take action and respond.

 

John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus preached with great power

When John the Baptist was preaching, crowds of people came out to listen to that preaching because such a power was there. However, when we just read what he said in print, it doesn’t seem to be particularly exciting. It is precisely the power that we need to talk about. John the Baptist did not do anything of a miraculous nature, so they could not have come to look at the miracles. Yet the Bible tells us that people flocked out to John the Baptist from all over Judea and Jerusalem. There was a peculiar power in this man. And when the Lord Jesus preached, the same thing happened in even greater measure.

However, what do we see today? We see especially a lot of diminish­ing Western churches. For example, in England today, there are a lot of big church buildings which must have been built at great expense in former days, and must have seated hundreds of people, but they have become warehouses! People can push the gospel aside today. They ignore it. But the Lord Jesus said, “From the days of John the Baptist to my time, the kingdom of God was coming with power.” Due to its vigorous nature, it was coming with force like an invading army coming “violently,” you can say. The Lord Jesus so often likes to use picture language. What’s the secret of this? Today, the question is: What has happened to the power? Why can people ignore the church today?

Three characteristics about the kingdom emerge from this verse as the Lord Jesus preached.

 

1. The kingdom is distinctive with the power of God

The kingdom is distinctive with the power of God. People cannot ignore a thing that attracts their attention. It is distinctive from everything else. You don’t pay much attention to something that is lost in the crowd, or that is camouflaged; you pay attention to something that is distinctive, standing out from the rest. And we see that John the Baptist is very distinctive. He stood out from his generation. When you think about John the Baptist, he was always such a different kind of person. What made him different? Was it just that he wore a different kind of clothes? Did he have a different diet? Many people wear different clothes and have different diets, but crowds don’t go out to them. He had a certain power.

When you think about the Lord Jesus, you immediately notice there is something very distinctive about him. He is different from other people. What made him different? Did he have a different hairstyle so that the people went out to look at his hairstyle? By the way, I should tell you that all these long-haired pictures about the Lord Jesus have nothing to do with Scripture at all. It is a fantasy of the artists from the European Middle Ages. All you have to do is to look at the pictures from the Middle Ages of the European history in an encyclopedia, and you will see men wearing much longer hair than today. That is why the artists from that time were drawing pictures of the Lord Jesus with long hair according to the style of men in those days.

From our archaeological findings dating back to the 2^nd Century, we find that the earliest picture of Jesus was painted on a wall. But the picture is not very clear because it is so old. Nevertheless, we can see that Jesus had short hair. In fact, the Jewish men wore their hair short. You would have known that if you read 1 Corinthians 11:4.

So I am very astonished when people think anyone with hair down to the shoulders, with a moustache and especially, a pointed beard, is Jesus. When did Jesus ever look like that? In fact, they must be dis­appointed because the archaeological find shows him short-haired and clean-shaven. So it is all fantasy about Jesus looking like a long-haired man. Little wonder if Jesus walked down the street today, people would all rush to the wrong person saying, “Hello Jesus!” when Jesus is on the other side!

Anyway, what did the people go out to see? What was attractive about Jesus? Was it because he wore special clothing or hairstyle? It was none of these things. It was a distinctiveness about Jesus. But what made him distinctive? The people noticed a certain power about him.

A servant of God carries a certain power. I always mention to you when I first met Brother Yang in China, it was the first time I learned that lesson. When I spoke to him, I noticed a certain distinctiveness about him and I didn’t know what that was until I realized that it was a certain power resting on him. It is the power of the Spirit of God. This is the most important thing for a Christian, and especially, for a servant of God to know. That is why all these six people in full-time training are going to learn power.

 

2. Power only comes from 100% response to Jesus’ teaching

This is the distinction between this type of training and an ordinary academic training. In an academic training, all you get is knowledge. In other words, when you go to a seminary and you are just given lectures, you are given information and knowledge. Of course, there is a certain importance to have knowledge and information. It’s useful to know in what year the Letter to the Romans was written, or from what city did Paul write Romans and to whom did he write it? All this has a certain amount of value in it. But if the whole training is only going to deal with this kind of information, then that is a different matter altogether. Frankly, you don’t really need to go anywhere to get that kind of information. You just go to your room and read it from a book. The theologians who teach in these colleges write books, so you can either go and listen to them or read their books. Either way, it is the same. But no college will tell you how you receive power because power is not a question of knowledge, it’s a question of life. And life is not communicated just by a lecture. Power is what you need to learn by experience and response.

You don’t have to respond to knowledge. If I tell you that Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans from Corinth, you’d just say “yes.” You simply accept that knowledge, and don’t have anything to respond to. But if there is no response, there is no power. And if there is partial, 80% response, there is also no power. Then you’ll say, “Well, with 98% response, there will be power.” There is still no power. There needs to be 100% response before there is power!

Every man of God needs to understand and to practice 100% response to God to obtain power, and have power communicated to him from God and through his servants. If we can always receive God’s power directly, we would not need the rest of Christ’s body, the church. If my hand can directly receive life from my head, it doesn’t need my arm; it can work independently. We are a body, and life is mediated through the body of Christ. In order to have that life mediated, there must be a definite relationship one to another. Those in training will need to learn all this.

Today, we are speaking about response on a more basic level. Where does the Lord Jesus have this kind of power coming from? That power comes from God, his Father indeed. God has the power but you don’t have the power, so how does it come to you? God has the life, but you don’t have the life, so how do you get the life? God has fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11 says, “At your right hand is fullness of joy,” but you don’t have joy. To receive power is a matter of communi­cation, and communication is a matter of response. Where there is no response, there cannot be communication. If you talk to me and I don’t talk to you, there is no communication. If you say “hello” to me and I look elsewhere, that is the end of your communication. Communication only starts when there is response and a continuing response. The Lord Jesus has spoken to us; the question is whether we have responded.

People are coming to me all the time and saying, “I haven’t got the power. I haven’t got the anointing when I preach.” You don’t have to be around for very long to know the difference between one kind of preaching from the other. One has power, and the other has no power. Where there is power in preaching, there is life.

But where does the power come from? Power comes from response to the words of Jesus. The kingdom of God has been coming with power since the days of John the Baptist, and people were respond­ing either favorably or unfavorably, but they could not be indifferent. When I preach the gospel, I know that some people will respond, but others will reject it. So I expect a vigorous response. The greater the power, the more vigorous is the response either for or against.

 

3. Where there is power, people may respond antagonistically

It is important to notice that where there is power, it doesn’t mean people will respond for you; they may respond against you. When people listened to Jesus, there were some who responded and yielded their lives, and others hated him. People just cannot remain neutral when you preach the words of the Lord Jesus. His words are going to draw or confront them. That is important to realize.

The preacher experiences it too. There are those who love him very much, and there are those who hate him. Now there are some people who hate me very much, and I praise God for that. It is bad when everyone loves you. The Lord Jesus said, “Woe be to you when everyone speaks well of you.” (Lk. 6:26) Listen to what they said of the Lord Jesus: “He is mad! He is possessed of a demon!” These were the kinds of things they said about Jesus. What do we expect? In the previous chapter, that is, in Matthew 10:24-5, the Lord Jesus said, “The disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. If they treat the master like that they will treat you likewise.”

There is a woman in Liverpool who hates me very much because her son, a medical doctor listened to the preaching of the Word of God, and he wanted to respond, to give up medicine to serve God. So his mother blames it all on me saying, “My son’s a doctor, and now because this fellow Eric Chang preaches, he wants to give up medicine and give up everything to serve the Lord.” It is all my fault. But she had to accept that she could not control her son from being drawn by the Word of God that I was preaching. She tried to slander me everywhere she went. Then, she thought the best thing to do was to take the bull by the horns and invite me for supper. I am sure that if she had the chance, she would put something in my supper, and perhaps it was why she wanted to invite me. I know that whatever she says, she hates me in her heart. And her son confirms it with me.

It is an interesting thing to be a preacher. Some people love you so much they will lay down their lives for you, but others will hate you enough to poison you. The whole point is that they cannot be indifferent to you. I thank God for that. They are forced to make a definite response towards you, because they have to respond to the words of Jesus.

 

Two things you must do to become a disciple

1. You must respond 100% to die with Christ

What words of Jesus must you respond to? If we want to understand this verse, we have to understand the previous passage of the Lord Jesus’ teaching. The central theme of that passage is in Matthew 10:38,

The people who hate you are the people who hate you for preaching a message like this. But the people who love you also love you for preaching this Word. The people who loved Jesus loved him because he said these words. But those who hated him also hated him because he preached a message like this.

“If you don’t take up your cross and follow him, you are not worthy of him.” This is what I meant by the 100% response. This is the kind of words that you cannot respond to partially. It’s either 100% or nothing. You cannot partially take up the cross, or partially not take up the cross. It’s either all or nothing. You are either prepared to die with him, or you are not. There is no middle ground between living for yourself and dying with Christ.

Now this is the secret of power. I remind you again that power comes through response. How do you respond to these words of Jesus? Are you trying to push them aside? And if you are not worthy of Jesus, can you be saved? It’s a question of salvation. So it is not only a question of power, but also a question of salvation. If you prove to be unworthy of Jesus, how are you going to be saved?

In the parallel passage in Luke 14:27, we read these vital words of the Lord Jesus:

He is saying, “Unless you take your cross, you cannot be my disciple.” In other words, he will not accept you. If he doesn’t accept you, how are you going to be saved? How can you have life? There is no hope whatsoever for you! There are people who would like to say, “I just believe in Jesus. That’s good enough for me.” But I have to warn you that is not what Jesus said. There is no way you are going to be saved like this. That is why you must notice in the first point: What is your response to the words of Jesus?

Recently, I have been reading a book on the crucifixion. It’s written by a German scholar, a professor of theology in Germany. This is a piece of pure historical research, and it brought to me again, vividly, what it means to be crucified. He points out that it is the cruelest form of execution that man has ever been able to think of. People were not just crucified in one position, but in different ones. It was apparently up to the executioner’s ingenuity, that is, his own invention of ways of hanging in different positions to prolong the suffering for the person who was crucified. So it revealed to me that the meaning of the cross was: Accept the hatred of other people for the sake of righteousness, for the sake of preaching the truth.

The cross also meant losing everything you have. To take up the cross meant the end of your earthly life.

In Roman law, crucifixion was the worst form of punishment that could be given. It was also a punishment often reserved for people of the lower classes, especially slaves. That is why to crucify anyone who was not a slave was to humiliate him, to bring him to the level of a slave.

Do you see what the Lord Jesus meant when he said, “Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple”? Are you willing to accept these things?

 

2. Follow Jesus

There are two things to becoming a disciple. First, take up the cross, and you would have thought that is more than enough. But no, secondly, the Lord said, “Follow me.” You must follow him to be a disciple.

We are used to listening to this saying that all you need to do to be saved is to believe that Jesus took up the cross, and he died on Calvary. And we say, “Hallelujah! I believe with all my heart. Now I’m saved!” What does Jesus say? He said, “No, you follow me.” I didn’t say that, Jesus did. “If any man come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me” (cf. Mt. 16:24; Mk. 8:34). These words are addressed to anyone, not just a hand-picked group of people.

 

The Israelites followed Moses, we follow Jesus

Supposing when Israel was to come out of Egypt, and Moses came to the Israelites and said, “God is going to do a great thing to take us to the Promised Land, to a new life.” Supposing all the Israelites had said, “Oh, we believe you, Moses” and then they just got on with doing whatever they were doing. So Moses went forth across the Red Sea to the Promised Land, and the Israelites were saved by believing that somehow, God was one day going to lift them up and transport them to the Promised Land, because they had believed that Moses had truly gone to the Promised Land. I ask you, what difference is that from what most Christians are saying today? “Jesus went on to heaven and we want to go to heaven too. So all we have to say is, ‘Hallelujah! Jesus has gone to heaven!’” If the Israelites wanted to get to the Promised Land, if they truly believed that God would take them through Moses, they didn’t just say, “Oh yes, Moses, we believe. It’s wonderful news, but wait until we finish what we’re doing here.” What did Moses say to the Israelites? “Follow me. I’m going and you’re coming with me. That’s the only way you are going to go there. God is walking in front of me, I follow God, you follow me and we’ll get there.”

The Lord Jesus also said to us, “Follow me.” How are we going to be where he is unless we follow him? It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Listen to the words of the Lord Jesus in John 12:26. The Lord Jesus is addressing these words to anyone, not to some special elite. “If anyone serves me”—anyone who acknowledges me as king in his life—he must follow me. And where I am, there shall my servant be also.” Those are the words of Jesus. If you want to be where Jesus is, you must follow him. There is no other way. That is the Scriptural understanding of what salvation is about.

Jesus has gone on before. It’s useless to stand here clapping your hands and saying, “Oh good! Carry on Jesus! You’re doing well! I’ll sing you some hymns in the church, and you go on by yourself. One day, somehow, because I believe all this, you’re going to get me there.” This is standard teaching today, isn’t it? It’s so strange!

People say to me, “Why do you always preach a message that upsets everyone? Every time I was feeling comfortable in my salvation, you come along to preach a message to get me all upset again. Don’t you know I’ve been baptized? I put my money in the offering? Don’t ask how much, but I do put some money in the offering. My name is also on the church roll. And now you come and tell me I can’t get to heaven unless I follow in the footsteps of Jesus. You make me feel so uncomfortable. No wonder some people hate you.”

Please remember, and have a little mercy on me. I didn’t say these things. It is Jesus who said, “If any man serves me, he must follow me.” And the only way you can follow him is you take up your cross. It is the end of your self, the end of your whole old way of life.

 

Believe in Jesus is: Entrust your life to him

When you say, “I believe,” it doesn’t mean you just believe it’s true that Jesus died on the cross, and it isn’t just to say, “I believe Jesus rose from the dead.”

The other day at a conference, someone in a group asked me this question, “What does it mean to believe? Isn’t it true that when we believe we are saved?”

I said, “Yes, but what do you understand by “believe”?

The group replied, “Believe that Jesus died on the cross, believe Jesus rose from the dead, believe Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father. We believe it all!”

Do you think the devil believes that Jesus died for our sins?”

They said, “Yes, I think so.”

And I said, “Do you think that the devil believes with all his heart that Jesus rose from the dead?”

They said, “I guess he knows it’s true. Yes, he does believe it.”

And so I asked them, “Does the devil believe too that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father?

They said, “Yes, the devil believes that too.”

So I said, “Do you want to tell me the devil is saved too?”

And they said, “Oh, no!”

I said, “You mean the devil is not saved? What’s wrong? He also believes, and you tell me he’s not saved. What do you want to tell me? Are you saved or not by believing?”

So after having scratched their heads for some time they said, “Well, you have to be good.”

So I said, “How can you be good? Are you telling me you are saved by works?”

They said, “Oh no! We’re not saved by works.”

I said, “But just now you said you have to be good. You have to do good things.”

And they said, “You have to be good, and yet you are not saved by being good. And Satan believes yet he is not saved. Oh, it’s so confusing! It’s very hard to get out of this.”

It’s actually so simple when you know the teaching of Jesus. You don’t have to tie yourself up in knots. You leave that to the Indian yoga specialists who can tie their legs around their necks. What Scripture says simply is this: “Follow me.” The devil is not going to follow Jesus, especially not taking up his cross and following him. To follow Jesus means to live the kind of life that he lived, to do the things he did, to say the things he said. That means you become Christ-like. If the devil followed Jesus, he would not be the devil anymore. What does the Bible mean by “believe and be saved”? If you believe him, you follow him.

If I say to you, “I’m going on a journey across this dangerous land. Do you believe that I can get across?”

And you say, “Yes.”

Then I say, “Come with me.”

And you say, “No.”

So I ask, “Do you believe me or not?”

And you say, “Oh, I believe you can do it.”

That kind of “believe” does not save you. If you believe me, you will come with me. This believing means to entrust your life to that person. Are you not hypocritical when you say you believe Jesus but you will not trust your life to him? You are afraid that you might become like him, always doing God’s will, and so God might even change you to become a preacher! And you think, “Dear me! That’s the worst thing that can happen to me!” So we dare not trust Jesus. But remember, Jesus has said that no one will prove to be worthy of him on the Day of Judgment except those who follow him.

 

Apostle Paul also teach us to follow Jesus: Pursue

When I read the rest of the Scriptures, they say exactly the same thing. What does the apostle Paul say? As soon as you understand the meaning of discipleship, you understand that the apostle Paul is saying the same thing at a new depth. For example, in Philippians 3:8 Paul says,

I was looking for the word “follow” in the letters of Paul, and I could not find it anywhere! So I thought, “Perhaps I made a mistake here,” until I realized that Paul used an even more powerful word than “follow,” which in the Authorized Version is sometimes translated as “follow.” Paul never uses the word “follow,” but he always uses the intense word “pursue.” Do you know what is to pursue? To pursue is when you are hunting an animal that is running away from you, and you are running after it to get it. It is so characteristic of Paul in the intensity of his character. So instead of using the word “follow,” he uses the word “pursue.” And do you know how many times he uses that word in the Greek? He uses it 21 times! That shows the intensity of his person. Paul doesn’t just follow, he pursues, running with all his might.

“Follow” means you sort of walk along at a leisurely pace, like window-shopping, with a person walking in front; it’s a nice even pace. But Paul was not taking any easy pace. He only knows one word: pursue – full speed ahead. In Philippians 3:12, the word “pursue” is there, and the Revised Standard Version has translated it with “press on.”

Paul said, “I have lost everything. I count it all as loss that I may suffer with him.” You might say, “Oh Paul, what’s the matter? Do you like suffering?” Or you might say, “That’s all right for Paul. He pursues after Jesus. He wants to gain Christ. But that’s not necessarily for everyone.” If that’s what you think, then you’d best read more of Paul. Paul says nothing of the kind. He says, “This is not just for me.”

In Philippians 3:15, he goes on to say, “let those who are mature (perfect) have the same kind of mentality as I have.” The Chinese translation is very more superior: “he that is perfect, let him have this mind.” The English has tried to water it down with a word like “mature.” “Mature” means that you grow up to that stage, and that is not what the Greek word says at all. This has nothing to do with growing to that stage. It has to do with an attitude towards God no matter what your age is, or how long you have been a Christian.

 

Jesus commands us to “be perfect” in commitment to obey

It is the same word in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is not perfect in the sense of sinless, but perfect in our absolute obedience to God; it is perfection of commitment. It means “As your Father is perfect in his commitment to you, you must also be perfect in your commitment to him.” Notice that Jesus is not asking for your promise that you will be perfect. It’s a command: Be perfect!

Again, in Matthew 19:21, the same word is used where the Lord says to the rich, young ruler. “If you would be perfect, sell what you have and follow me.” In other words, “If you want to be perfect in your commitment to God, follow me.”

Paul is very careful to say this is not a perfection of sinlessness. He says that in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I am already perfect” in the sense of being sinless, but perfect in my commitment. In case you haven’t understood what he meant, he is careful to repeat himself in verse 17. “Brethren, join in imitating me.” He is speaking to all the Philippians, not just some of them.

In verse 15b he says that if anyone does not have this same mind as he has in following Christ, then God will reveal it to him. God will show you that you are wrong if you are not following Jesus. What is your response to this word? Does it make you uncomfortable?

When we turn to the apostle Peter, we find he says exactly the same about following Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:21, he says, “You have been called to follow in his steps.”

Again, when we come to the apostle John, we find he also says the same. We read these words in Revelation 14:4, “they follow the Lamb wherever he goes,” which is the definition of a servant of God

 

Our goal is: To become a disciples’ church

Today, we have too much believing and too little action in the church. There is too much talk and too little doing. There is a lot of doctrine and very little discipleship. It’s my goal that our church should be a disciples’ church, a church of committed people. What is the use of having a church full of people when they don’t follow Jesus? I don’t want to be a pastor of that kind of church. I aim to serve God in a church of disciples that God’s Christ has bought with his blood, that acknowledges his lordship by following him. Then, just as God was well-pleased with Jesus, God is well-pleased with a church whose disciples follow Jesus.

A church that follows Jesus will be distinctive in the world, because it has the power of God working in it. And it has the power of God working in it because there is the obedience to Jesus’ call and demand. No one can remain indifferent to this kind of church, to this kind of message. They may love it, or they may hate it, but they cannot be indifferent.

On that Day when we all stand before the Lord Jesus, I don’t want him to come to me and say, “Why didn’t you tell them about follow­ing me? They came to your church on Sunday but you didn’t tell them about following me. And now they are lost because they are not mine. They cannot be where I am because they never followed me.” Your blood would be on my hands on that Day.

I preach to you the words of the Lord Jesus. I ask you to judge whether or not these things are true because your eternal salvation depends on it. Ask yourself, “Am I honestly following Jesus?” Don’t deceive yourself.

If you can say, “Yes,” you will notice that immediately your life becomes distinctive. Wherever you go, your life will be different. People will notice, “This man is different. He carries the power of God.” You will find people coming to God just by coming into contact with you. That power is so remarkable. People just come to God without you having to preach at them, to grind and hammer at them because of God’s power. You have God’s power because your life is Christ-like. Then you also have God’s peace and joy. You begin to live the abundant life. Do you know that kind of life?

The kingdom of God came with great power, and people responded vigorously, some favorably, others antagonistically. Do they react to your life or do they just ignore you? They ignore you because you don’t have God’s life in you. We see how precious are these words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 11:12.