Matthew-116

 

As a Christian, what is the whole direction of your life?

What the Lord has laid on my heart to expound is to speak to you about “Spiritual Direction.” What is the direction of your life, assuming it has some direction? Assuming that you are one who has not entirely lost your compass and know something about which way you are heading. As I pondered this matter before the Lord, I felt burdened about this, that even among many Christians that I see, they don’t seem to know where they are going. If I am standing still, I don’t have to worry about direction. If you start moving at all, you have to have a sense of direction, a sense of where your whole life is heading for. Many people seem to bungle their way through life. They grope around in the darkness hoping that by some piece of good fortune, they might end up in the right direction. That is a very risky way to go about life. Imagine a ship that sets out without even having a clue where it is going! Every ship that sets out carries a compass because it is determined to know whether it is setting out for this harbor, or for that country. It follows a line upon that chart that will get it to the place that it is going to. Yet, when you speak to particularly the Christians, they really have nowhere to go!

 

A non-Christian has no direction except making as much money as possible

It’s not too surprising if non-Christians don’t know where they are going. What else is there to do in life but to make some money? Their only philosophy is to make money and that’s all. They get themselves a little bit of comfortable existence until one day, they will end up in the grave. Beyond that there is no clear direction. So the philosophy that guides most of their lives is “make as much money as you can.” At least your gravestone will be a little bit nicer, and maybe your coffin will have a little bit of bronze on it instead of plain wood. I wonder what kind of direction that is. What is there to live for? Therefore, a non-Christian has no direction. His whole goal is simply to study. He studies but what does he study for? Basically, you get a good job and make more money for what? You get a nicer house. When you get a nicer house, and then you will hopefully live there in reasonable comfort until you die. That is not exactly a very exciting prospect of life. Or else, you just get entangled with the world and look for higher position, and get a little bit of respect from people. You climb higher the job ladder, and may become an assistant manager, or you even become the manager, or you may even become general director one day. Not everyone can get to the top of the heap. Only a few scramble to the top, stepping on other people’s heads on the way up, and when you get to the top, then what?

I talked to a non-Christian friend of mine in Hong Kong, a very brilliant girl. Our families knew each other from our childhood. She studied in the United States, got her Bachelor’s, Master’s, Ph.D. and became professor in her subject, and she didn’t know what else to do. She told me she was pretty bored with nowhere else to go, so she decided to try her hand at business. She only knows science, now why not try business, a new field, a new challenge to stimulate her interest in life? Just being a professor, doing a bit research here and there, was no longer very interesting, so she launched out into business. Being a very enterprising girl, she mastered the world of business and became general manager of this company in a short time. She was the general manager of her company at the time I was talking to her in Hong Kong.

I asked her, “You’ve tried science and you’ve tried business, where do you go from here?”

She said, “Well, I’m beginning to lose interest in this business. I don’t really need money. I have everything. Now that I have mastered this area of business, there seems to be no more challenge in it. It be­comes routine, just like when I was a professor. I don’t know where I am going. Maybe I’ll try working in the government !”

For her, the first year as professor was quite exciting; the second year was not too bad; but the third and fourth years became routine. There was nothing exciting anymore. So she tried business. The first year was quite interesting; the second year was not too bad, but by the third year she was losing interest as well. She has all the money she needs, so money is not a stimulus anymore. She also has the position, so position is also not exciting anymore. She also begins to realize that it really doesn’t seem to matter all that much whichever road she takes. When she reaches the top of the heap, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to go. This is the lack of direction among non-Christians.

She has success in the world, but her personal life is a complete disaster. That happens so often. Her husband is also a scientist and a professor in the United States, but they have separated, and they have two children. Every time she talks about her personal life, you can see the grief on her face. Human relations have nothing to do with ability. In fact, capable people are often the most difficult people to get on with. They are so individualistic, so selfish, so self-willed. Her marriage has broken up long ago, and her life seems to be empty.

She was very interested in becoming a Christian and asked me about what is involved in this. She began to see that the world had nothing more to offer her. Life had run out of challenge. On top of that, her broken family did not help her emotional well-being in any way. She realized that there must be something more to life than this. When you don’t have money, money is a great goal, isn’t it? But if you get the money, it’s not very interesting anymore.

 

“Christians” without clear spiritual direction are like non-Christians

Another friend of mine occupied himself with cameras all the time – a Nikon, a Pentax… he couldn’t get enough of cameras! I thought to myself, “Photography is good, but why get so crazy about capturing a few pictures of everyone?” He was supposed to be studying law but he was spending all his time fooling around with cameras. Very surprisingly later on, he had completely lost interest in cameras! At one time, money fascinated him too, and by the time I saw him again, he was a millionaire, and he was not too interested in money either. He had all the money and he could really afford to spend it on cameras, but he had lost interest in them. He doesn’t like driving, so he’s not interested in cars. He is not interested in anything for that matter, so he doesn’t know what to do with his money.

He asked me, “Do you need some money? What about ¼ million dollars? I’ll buy you a nice church.”

I said, “No, thanks. Just keep it for yourself.”

He thinks he could buy his way into heaven by buying a church building. So he had run out of ideas about what to do. Strange, have you ever seen people who become so bored in life that they can’t find a direction? And this man is supposed to be a Christian. I say “supposed to be” because I have much doubt that he even knows what being a Christian is all about.

But when there are people who seem to really know what it is to be a Christian, who seem to have committed their lives to God, it becomes very distressing to see that they are also without direction. They don’t know what is their goal in life. And it seems that it can all be solved with a statement: “I’m just waiting on God.” Surely you need to wait on God for the details, but have you got a general direction at all? What do you wait on God for if you don’t even know what is the ultimate goal of your life? Have you got that clearly in mind? Many Christians who don’t have a clear spiritual direction end up pursuing the same things that the non-Christians pursue. They make the same mistake, not realizing that the world can never, never satisfy you. So they pursue money, status, materialism. They are no different from the non-Christian. No wonder the world is not impressed with the gospel!

 

The 5 sections of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew show the Law of the New Covenant

We have completed our study of Matthew 25, and we will look at Matthew 26:1-2:

As you may know, there is a special structure and order in Matthew. Even in writing his Gospel, Matthew knew exactly the direction he was going to take and what it is he was going to accomplish by the grace of God. He did not just write it at random. The Gospel of Matthew has a specific structure in which there are five distinct sections of the Lord Jesus’ teaching, and each of these five sections of his teaching ends with this phrase, “When Jesus had finished all these sayings.” So this is the fifth time that Matthew uses this formula. This formula occurs four times previous to this place. The first time is in Matthew 7:28 where it closes the Sermon on the Mount. Then in Matthew 11:1, 13:53, 19:1 and 26:1. These five sections of the Lord Jesus’ teaching show the design in Matthew’s Gospel. Many scholars have compared this intentional design pattern of Matthew to the five books of Moses, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. Matthew wants to show that just as the five books of Moses in the Old Testament was the Law of the Old Covenant, these five sections of the Lord Jesus’ teaching represent the foundation of the New Covenant. So you see that God had given Matthew a design and a goal to write his gospel under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

 

Jesus’ life moved steadily in the direction of the cross - redemption of man

The next thing we notice is the Lord Jesus says,

How do the disciples know? They know because the Lord Jesus has told them twice before that he is going to be crucified, once in Matthew 17:22 and the second time in Matthew 20:18-19. This is the third time he is telling them that he is going to be crucified. But this time he tells them it’s only a few days away. His sight was set upon the cross, and his whole life moved steadily in this direction. He had a clear goal. He did not fumble around in life wondering where he is supposed to go. He knew right from the beginning where he was going. The cross was clearly before him, and what strikes me is that he speaks these words with a certain calm determination. There is no panic that a few days from now he was going to be crucified, that he would die that most terrifying death of having his hands and his feet pierced by nails. He speaks it also with no melodrama but with a dignified calm of a person who knows where his whole life has been heading to. At last, the goal is only 2 days away now. I find this very striking the more I meditate upon it. I see this pattern going right through his life as I look at his teaching and life. He moved forward with a clear sense of direction in a planned sequence.

 

How can we follow after him when we are not going in the same direction?

How can we be his disciples following after him when we are not even going in the same direction? A disciple by definition is one who follows his master wherever his master goes. Now our master knew where he was going but the problem is, do we know where we are going? When people talk to us, does our life give the clear sense that we have a firm and clear direction that is the way we are moving forward to?

As you read the apostle Paul’s life and writings, he immediately strikes you with the same impression. He knew exactly where he was going. He said, “I press towards the mark.” The strange thing is I hear Christians quoting this verse very often, but if I ask them, “What is the mark?” I wonder which of you can give an answer. Recently, there was a conference with the theme, “Press towards the mark!” but what is the mark? Where are we pressing toward? How can you move forward when you don’t even know what the mark is?

 

Jesus had purpose and direction from his first recorded statement at 12

We already see his sense of purpose and direction right from the first recorded statement that the Lord Jesus made when he was 12. Even at that age, the clarity of his direction was already apparent. His parents had gone up with him to Jerusalem, but on their way home, they couldn’t find Jesus. They looked in all the wrong places and could not find him. Finally, they found him in the temple. Let us look at his first recorded statement to his parents in Luke 2:49:

Now here we have a translation, “In my Father’s house.” That is a piece of interpretation, and it is also too far off the mark. The word “house” is not in the Greek. The plural is also not translated. A very literal translation would be:

One of the things of the Father is his temple, his house. In that sense, it’s not wrong to say “in my Father’s house” but it is narrowing the field too much because what the Lord Jesus is speaking about is his concern with the things of the Father as well as with the temple, the house of God. Immediately, we see that even at that early age of 12, his mind was already occupied with the things of God, God’s busi­ness, God’s work, God’s temple. At 11 or 12, you are not too young to already fix your direction on the things of God, as the Lord Jesus did.

 

His last recorded statement before his crucifixion shows the same goal

In John 19:30, his last recorded statement before his crucifixion shows the same continual, persistent goal. These are the famous words of the Lord Jesus: “It is finished!” It is complete. It has been accomplished. Right to the end, his last statement is about the finish­ing. Many Christians don’t understand what is “it.” “It” is his mission, his task which he has been pursuing steadfastly all his life. As he was about to breathe his last breath, he could say, “It is finished. I have completed it.” Can you capture this steadfastness of purpose of the Lord Jesus, how his eye is fixed on the task? And his last words are “Finally, it is done.” You can say, “Mission accomplished” or “Mission complete.”

You must first begin before you can finish. These very words, “It is finished” are in fact reflected in the words of the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7 as he was about to be executed:

He had run his race and gone to the end of the course. He did not drop out half way. He had finished the task that God had entrusted to him right to the end.

Do you know what task God has entrusted to you? If not, how do you know what to finish? I wonder how many Christians can die with the same quiet assurance of the apostle Paul, “I have fought the fight. I have finished my course.” He knew what his course was, therefore he could finish it.

If you go to university and study, how can you finish this course and the other course if you don’t even know what you are studying? You have got to be engaged in a subject and stick to it to finish the final exam. Then you can say, “I’ve finished my course.” You must have a course to finish. If you fumble through your life, how are you going to say, “I’ve finished my course” when you are on your death bed? You are still scratching your head and saying, “My life is finished but what was my course?” Finishing your life is not the same as finishing your course. What is your mission?

 

Jesus glorified God by finishing his task

This sense of purpose persists through the Lord Jesus’ teaching. In John 17:4, the Lord Jesus is praying his final prayer, his high priestly prayer:

How did he glorify his Father? By finishing the work he entrusted into his hands. By this time, he had finished the task of laying the foundation for his church. He had equipped his disciples, and he goes on in his prayer to say, “I pray for these ones whom you have entrusted to my hands, and I don’t pray only for them but for all who believe in you. I have lost none of them. I have prepared them for the task which is ahead for them. I have finished my work. I have glorified your name.”

What is your work? Can you say that prayer at the end of your life: “I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work that you gave me to do”?

 

Jesus knows who sent him and where he is going

You see this same sense of direction and purpose all the time in the Lord Jesus’ life. To show you that this is not one or two isolated instances, let us look in John 8:14, where the Lord Jesus makes his statement very specific:

How many of you can say I know where I am going even in general terms, not to say in specific terms?

 

Jesus’ life has focused in the direction of dying on the cross to save man

What was the purpose of the Lord Jesus’ life? What had he come to accomplish? What was his mission? Earlier on he had been ponder­ing about losing his life in John 12:23:

If you know John’s Gospel, you will know that “glorified” means to die. That is John’s very special way of saying things. The Lord Jesus is glorified by his death, his sacrifice for God. When the Lord Jesus says he is lifted up in verse 32, he means lifted up on the cross. That is where he is glorified. Jesus’ whole direction of life was to be lifted up on the cross.

Then in verses 24-25 he says,

Notice carefully verse 24 about the grain of wheat, the transitional verse connecting to the Lord Jesus in verse 23, and to us in verse 25. What is true for the Lord Jesus is also true for us. He is the seed, and unless he dies like any seed, it remains alone. But if it dies, it will be bringing forth fruit. Then the Lord Jesus goes on to say, “The same is true for you. If you hang on to your life, you don’t want to lose it, that is precisely the way to lose it. But if you are willing to die, willing to lose it, that is precisely the way you will gain it forever.”

Think carefully of this. The Lord Jesus was that one lonely first seed when he came into the world. He fell into the ground and died. And what came forth? What came forth was a handful of regenerate disciples. When one seed falls into the ground, it will bring forth one ear of wheat. One ear of wheat may have 30, 40, maybe 50 other grains of wheat, so that one grain that fell into the ground now produces maybe 30, 40 or 50 other ones. When you take those 30, 40 and drop them into the ground, you have another 40, 50 or 60 fold coming forth from them. That is the next generation of spiritual disciples. So from one grain, you have one stalk. From one stalk, you have a patch of wheat. From one patch of wheat, you have a whole field of wheat. But in each case, it had to come through the dying of the one, the complete self-giving.

The Lord Jesus goes on in verse 27,

He says, “No, I’m not going to say, ‘Father, save me from being crucified.’ I came into the world to arrive at this hour for this very purpose. My whole life has been in this direction of focusing on the cross. I don’t enjoy being crucified. The thought of it troubles me, but I will not turn away from the goal. I will not say, ‘Father, save me from this hour.’ I will say, ‘If it is your will, O God, I will go on to the crucifixion.’” John 12:(23-) 27 is only in the middle of John’s Gospel. It is nowhere near the end yet, and you see that constant clarity of direction that the Lord Jesus has.

A little further on in verse 35b, as he tells his disciples when he was about to be crucified,

Notice those words: The one who walks in the darkness has no clue where he is going!

Do you know where you are going? Are you in the light or are you in the darkness? Have you any sense of spiritual direction at all? If not, then as the Lord Jesus says, “You may be walking in the darkness.” You still don’t know where you are. You have not yet been freed from the bondage of sin. You have not yet entered into the newness of life. And that can well be said for so many so-called “Christians.” Let me press this question: Do you really know where you are going? Do you have a spiritual direction at all?

 

In the Christian life, there must be a clear plan to build

Everywhere in the Lord Jesus’ teaching, we see his constant clarity of direction not only his example of life. Let us look at his teaching in Luke 14:28-33, which I have already expounded in detail and will not expound again, but simply to show you the same pattern. How does the Lord Jesus describe the Christian life? You will notice Luke 14:27 is almost exactly the same as what we just read in John 12:25,

He is saying, “If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow after me.” He goes on in verses 28-30,

In building a tower or a structure, you have to plan what kind of building you are building. What is the height of the tower? What is its size? What is going to be the equipment inside the tower? How far is it supposed to look? How am I going to build this? How many workmen do I need? What kind of material do I put into it? It is a complex business of planning. You have to have a clear project before you. You cannot say, “Okay, let’s just throw some stones together and behold, we’ll suddenly have a tower!”

Many people live the Christian life precisely like this. They fumble around and imagine that by fumbling around, eventually by some astonishing miracle, there will happen to be a tower at the end of their lives. They can say, “I have finished my course. I have accomplished the task.” Maybe they have gathered a heap of stones by then but they have no tower because there is no clear plan and pattern in their life!

 

The Christian life is like a general carrying out his battle plans precisely

In the second part, the Lord Jesus goes on to speak about the Christian life as compared to a warfare in verse 31:

Notice the Lord Jesus deliberately tilts it so that the odds are heavily against you, so you have to plan your campaign very carefully. You may be able to take some chances if your army is three times the size of your enemy. But if your army is smaller than that of your enemy, you have to plan your strategy very clearly. You must know exactly what you are going to do. You cannot afford to lose your men because you are already outnumbered.

That is the fact with the spiritual life. In this world, we are outnum­bered by the fact of the enemy within and the enemy without. With­in, we have the weakness of our flesh, the temptations that the world constantly tries to offer us. And outside, we have all the pressures of life brought upon us maybe by our friends, our families, even by our loved ones. These pressures put the odds very much against the Christian life. Therefore, you must have a clear plan of campaign, and you need to count the cost.

The Christian life has to be executed with the precision of a general carrying out his battle plans. There is no fumbling around. No general will win any battle if he just says, “Here’s the enemy! Come on, rush at them! Let’s have bravery! Bash them in!” If you fight a war like that, you will be wiped out before you’ve got very far. No one can go into battle like this and hope to survive. And that is what terrifies me. So many Christians enter into the Christian life just fumbling around and they hope to come out victorious. No wonder they are left with their crests fallen and heads hanging. They are defeated every day in their Christian life. They have no plan of campaign. They have no discipline in their lives. Have you seen an army in a battle without discipline? And yet I see Christian lives that are undisciplined, uncontrolled, and passions are raging wild. That is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I give myself black eyes. I put myself under discipline” like a soldier, because you cannot win any battles with an unruly mob.

And the same goes for the church. Today, every time you speak about discipline, the people in the church complain, “It’s too harsh!” How can the church win any spiritual battles if we are all foolish and sentimental? Every officer, every general who is worth his salt loves his men. Every one of them is dear to him. But there comes a time when he has to order the execution of one of his men and it breaks his heart! I have seen that happen. A general gives the order to fire at his soldier, and turns and weeps because he knows that it’s not just the one individual that counts, the army would fall apart, and there is a battle to fight. Any of you who have read Chinese history will know how many times great generals have had to do the most unpleasant things because it was the welfare of the whole that was at stake.

The point here is this: The church as it is today, is often totally with­out discipline, no wonder it cannot fight any battle and win. Basical­ly, it’s a mess! It’s a bunch of individuals who have come together for social gathering. We are not an army under God’s supreme com­mand. We are simply an unruly mob that has come out to shout some slogans. We cannot accomplish anything like this. Therefore, neither the church nor the individual Christian has a sense of direction. Of course, if the individual Christian has no sense of direction, how is the church going to have a sense of direction? Where is the church going? It doesn’t know what it’s supposed to do.

The average pastor has no clue what is the goal of the church in this world besides trying to expand the numbers of his church, organi­zing this and that activity. He doesn’t know what mission the church is supposed to accomplish as long as he reports back to his head­quarters to say, “This year, my congregation has increased by 15%, my offerings have increased by 20%.” He should be congratulated that he is a very good salesman! Maybe he should also report his salary has increased by 20% with the increase of the church offer­ings. So he is considered to be a very successful pastor! In future, the church will appoint him as the moderator for the whole assembly since you are so good at raising money and building new buildings.

What is the church supposed to accomplish spiritually in this world? I guess we evangelize. And what is meant by evangelism? Well, evan­gelism means you believe in God through Jesus, and you raise your hand. Then you get baptized and join the congregation, and we will forget about you after that. That is no way to raise a church! What is its mission? Does the person who got baptized know what he is supposed to do? He got baptized and he has no idea where he is supposed to go from there, so he starts going downhill. If you don’t know where you are supposed to go, too often, you will go in the wrong direction.

 

Follow Jesus’ goal in life: live and die for the redemption of mankind

The Lord Jesus concludes this passage with these words in Luke 14:33,

The Lord Jesus demands nothing short of what we have called “total commitment.” Why can’t we be his disciple if we don’t renounce everything?” We just talked about warfare. What good soldier says, “I’m going to fight but I’m not going to die”? You can say to him, “You’re in the wrong place. Soldiers are committed to die. If you don’t want to die, don’t be in the war. Find yourself somewhere else to go.” You cannot finish the tower because you are not totally committed to putting all that you have into finishing this task. He began with this statement in verse 27:

And he finishes with the statement in verse 33:

Many pastors tell me, “No, don’t preach on that in the church! The price tag of discipleship is so expensive that nobody wants to buy it.” If you want to sell the gospel, slash the price and give a 50% sale discount.” The Lord Jesus said, ‘Renounce all,’ but many pastors say, “I tell you something better: You don’t have to renounce anything; you have a free gift! It’s a nice way of life!”

No wonder we don’t have a sense of direction! These words, “Take up your cross and follow after me” show us the direction that we are to go. If you cut out these words, you have no more direction. Do you see that is the direction? In other words, the Lord Jesus is saying, “My direction is your direction. Follow me.” We have already seen that the Lord’s direction in life, from the beginning to the end was to lay down his life for the redemption, the salvation of mankind. And we must be blind if we don’t see that he is saying, “That is my direc­tion in life and that must be your direction in life if you are going to be my disciple.”

It’s a very different kind of Christianity from what I hear today. Today’s Christianity is, “Come and get a free gift.” It is like you don’t have to bring anything, and the Sunday School teachers are so wonderful to prepare such beautiful Christmas presents for the children! The children brought nothing and they come home with a present. My daughter came home with this beautiful jumper and she was wearing it so proudly yesterday. She did not have to bring anything and she got a present. It’s so nice! Some people think Christian life is like that: I just come here and get a free gift. And the pastors and the preachers are always telling us, “All you do is stretch out your hand and you’ve got a free gift.” I don’t have anything against free gifts. I also like free gifts. Who doesn’t? The point is that if you preach it in this way, you are not preaching it the way the Lord Jesus did.

You have no sense of direction because the direction is precisely in those words: My goal in life is to live and die for the redemption of mankind. That, my friend, has to be your goal in life. The Lord Jesus is saying that and as well, “If you don’t have that goal in your life, you cannot be my disciple.” We sing about to be Christ-like, we talk about being Christ-like. Let me ask you, how can you or I be Christ-like, if I don’t even share his goal? How can I be like him? The only way I can be like him is to think like him. The only way I can think like him is to go the same way he is going, to have the same sense of value.

Putting it very simply is this: You and I are called not only to be saved for ourselves but to this task, that we henceforth live for the salvation of others. That has to be your goal. That is not optional. The Lord Jesus’ teaching tells us there is no optional aspect in this. You are simply not a Christian in the Lord’s definition, until the direction of your life is that you live for the salvation of mankind. When you do that, then you have taken up your cross and followed after the Lord Jesus. From now on, you don’t live for yourself anymore. You live for the salvation of your brother or your sister, or this or that person. Your whole life is living for others.

 

Forget about being a Christian if you don’t like to follow Jesus to live and die for the salvation of mankind

If you don’t like this way of living, then forget about being a Christian. It seems that I am talking to you plainly and bluntly, but that is what the Lord Jesus is saying, not what I am saying. The Lord Jesus said, “Unless you take up your cross and renounce all that you have for the sake of others, you cannot be my disciple. Don’t call yourself a Christian.”

I have expounded all this repeatedly, and have shown you the Scriptural evidence. In the Bible, a disciple is a Christian because “Christian” is just another name for a disciple. They are not two different stages. Some people mistakenly suppose that there is a lower stage of being a Christian which graduates into a higher stage of being a disciple. You can invent your own doctrines but that is not the Bible. Acts 11:26 tells us that “Christian” is just another name for a disciple. You cannot be a disciple unless you share the same goal in life as the Lord Jesus. Forget about being a Christian if you don’t like and don’t want to share the Lord Jesus’ goal in life. You don’t know what being a Christian means.

If you insist on calling yourself a “Christian,” all that is going to happen is you will walk in darkness not knowing where you are going. You will be banging your head on this spiritual wall and that spiritual wall, becoming totally discouraged and saying, “Why does God never listen to me when I pray?” Of course he is not going to listen to you because you have not fulfilled his requirement as a disciple. The only thing you can ask of him is to change the direction of your life, to let you become a disciple. Then you can pray.

Notice the confidence of the Lord Jesus’ words in John 11:42 when he said, “Father, I know that you always listen to me” when he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that his Father always listens to him. Have you got that confidence? Sometimes, I feel almost ashamed of my complete confidence that God will hear me, if I dare to put it like this. I have no doubt that if I ask something of God that he will grant it. It’s amazing! This confidence is not in myself, it is in him because by his grace, I share the same direction as the Lord Jesus, not by nature. By nature, I am a very selfish person, self-centered like everyone else, maybe even worse than anyone else. But somehow, God changed that direction of my life and he is still changing it because I am far from perfect. The apostle Paul said, “It’s not that I am already perfect but I press towards the mark,” and that mark is to lay down one’s life for the others.

I wonder whether this matter is very, very clear to your minds. If you call yourself a Christian, you may only do so on condition that you share the same direction of life of the Lord Jesus, just as the apostle Paul did. He says in 2Timothy 2:10, “I suffer everything for the sake of the elect. I live for the elect, and I die for the elect.” He is willing to be poured out as a sacrifice for the others following in the steps of the Lord Jesus, as he says, “I imitate Christ.” He also says, “You imitate me as I imitate Christ.” We are all going in the same direction. We are all carrying our cross. We are all going to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

 

Christian life begins with laying down your life at baptism

The Christian life already begins with the laying down of your life. What did you have to do at baptism? The old “you” died at baptism. If your pastor never told you what happened to you at baptism, may God have mercy upon him because he will have a lot to answer for. At your baptism, you died because you renounced your old way of life, or you should have done so. You did exactly what the Lord says here in Luke 14:33. You have renounced your old way of life. You have renounced your sins, your selfish ambitions, your love for materialism and the world. That is why you were baptized. You signified that you are finished with the old way of life.

 

The true Christian’s one clear goal: Build God’s church to save mankind

This is how you share the same direction of life as the Lord Jesus. Every true Christian has this one clear goal and direction: Build up the church as God’s ordained means of saving mankind. Therefore, if I am going to live and die for the salvation of mankind, I have to begin where God begins – with his church. The church is the instrument, the means, the temple where people come into fellow­ship with God. And we are to build the temple of God.

In 1 Corinthians 3:10ff, Paul speaks of himself as a master builder. And then he goes on to say, “Every one of you is also engaged in the task of building the temple of God. In verse 9, he speaks about God’s building, and in verse 16-17ff, he speaks of the temple of God. That section about building is sandwiched into these two statements about the building of the temple. And he is saying, “I am building God’s temple and each one of you must also build. Some build with straw, some build with stubble, some build with precious stones. You have to be building God’s temple.”

Now strangely enough, most commentators are so individualisti­cally inclined that they think of the building as building oneself up in some kind of a spiritual sense, maybe building yourself up to become a nicer person, more spiritual in some way. I tell you this: there is no way you are going to become more spiritual, more Christ-like, until you share his own thinking namely, to live and to die for others! What is the use of going to the seminary to get yourself a degree and more degrees, and your glasses get thicker; building yourself up to be holier by reading the Bible and spending hours in prayer? That is fine, but this building yourself up gets you nowhere unless the direction of your life is in the same direction as the Lord Jesus’. Can you see the point?

And yet, so many commentators don’t think of others but of them­selves when they think of this passage. We are building ourselves up all the time but what is the mark? The mark is to get yourself to be more spiritual. What’s the use if you locked yourself in the monastery for the next ten years and wore your trousers out praying on your knees? There is no way you will get yourself to become more spiritual.

The Lord God says to every disciple of Christ, “Do you see people perishing out there? Do you see the condition of the church? Get out there and do something! And when you have that direction in life, come and talk to me about the specific problems, and I will answer those prayers beyond what you can ask or think.” There is a so-called “Christianity” which is pure selfishness – building oneself up, getting more knowledge without sharing that goal that Christ has. Let us truly let God search our hearts.

What is the mark? For Paul, the mark ultimately was to gain Christ. But how? It is through the fellowship of his sufferings. How can you have fellowship in his sufferings when you don’t even share the same direction of his life? You can only share the fellowship of his sufferings if you are trying to accomplish the same thing as he accom­plished – build the church for the salvation of mankind. Every Christian must grasp this point very, very clearly. I implore God that every person here knows absolutely plainly what must be the direction of your life

Understand perfectly clearly that there is no more living for yourself. Your profession, desires, ambitions, possessions have no priority if you are a Christian. Nothing has priority but God and his righteousness and his kingdom. You live only for him. Everything else is secondary. Your whole direction of life and goal is the salvation of mankind, just as it was for the Lord Jesus. In order to do this, you build up God’s people, his church, as the means which God has ordained for the salvation of mankind.

 

You cannot be happy without living and dying for others

You may say, “Isn’t this very depressing that our whole life is geared to this business of living for others and dying for others? It’s a very depressing thought for the natural man, isn’t it? And yet, amazingly, this is the only path of joy. You will never know unspeakable joy until you live in this direction.

Lately, I have been reading an article concerning a survey of recent psychology and psychiatry. And the findings of psychiatrists and psychologists can be summarized by this: You can only achieve perfection and fullness of joy when you live altruistically, that is, live for others. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Even the psychologist discovers that the person who lives a self-centered life will never have joy.

This is why those who walk close to God in this self-giving way are people with inexpressible joy. Have you ever given a few cents to a beggar in your childhood? Do you remember how good it made you feel? It’s unbelievable that you suddenly felt so wonderful! Because for that moment, you were a little bit unselfish. And in that moment, you tasted the sweetness of real joy. That gives you an idea what the psychologists mean.

The well-known psychologist, Hans Selye, who used to be in the University of Montreal, realizes that there is no way to joy in human life except through this self-giving. That is why he coined the formula called “altruistic egoism.” What does it mean? It means live for others (altruism) for the sake of your own joy, because there’s no other way you can have joy. Now that’s a strange way. Psychologists have recognized that unless and until you live for others, you will never know joy.

 

Rockefeller found true joy in helping the poor and needy

Rockefeller was one of the richest men in North America and by the age of 40, he was already a multi-millionaire. By that time his hair was falling out, he was turning grey, he was quite a sick man and was very, very miserable. He was so miserable that he contemplated a lot about taking his own life although by this time he was the head of a multi-million-dollar empire. He had no joy in life at all, like my childhood friend who got to the top in whatever she was doing.

One day, he gave a few dollars to a poor man and he felt such unbelievable joy in his heart for the first time. He realized the reason for his misery was his selfishness. Up to that point, he would not part with two dollars although he had millions. So he decided to start the charitable foundation to help the poor and the needy, and that changed his whole outlook in life. He began to experience joy when he started to give his money away.

Therefore don’t think that when the Lord Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me,” he is calling us to a life of misery. It’s exactly the opposite. We will know true spiritual joy for the first time when we are engaged in building God’s church, the New Jerusalem, the center of joy, the means of salvation for mankind.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.

 

Closing prayer

Precious Lord God, we earnestly pray that you will help us to see the truth that you would have us to understand. And we ask your forgiveness that so often our hearts are so rebellious, so self-cen­tered, and so selfish that even in hearing we do not hear, and indeed, we do not want to hear. And in seeing we do not see because we do not want to see. O God, have pity upon us. And we pray that you will help us to realize that we cannot fool you in any way. We cannot hope to get this eternal salvation without first being conformed to Christ’s image, without first being changed in the direction of our lives, without first becoming a true disciple following after your Christ, Jesus. Speak to our hearts and grant us by your grace, the will­ingness, the joyfulness to walk with you, and in return experience unspeakable joy. Hear our prayer and thank you for your goodness to us. Amen.