Matthew-117

Last week, we spoke about the spiritual direction that the Lord Jesus would have us go in. He taught us to walk in that very same direction he himself walked, and that direction was to give our lives for the salvation of mankind. We came to recognize what is the general direction that the Lord Jesus calls us to. Every disciple is called to walk in the same steps in which the Lord Jesus walked. We are all called so to live as to have that same goal in life namely, the salvation of mankind. As the apostle Paul says in 2Corinthians 5:15:

What does “for him” mean? For the very same purpose as he walked in, for which he called us namely, the salvation of mankind.

However, this is so wide an area that we have to talk about how this can be translated into everyday life, otherwise you are left looking at a wonderful ideal that seems to be beyond our reach, and we have no idea how we are supposed to attain it. It’s like we point someone to Toronto and simply say to him, “It’s somewhere to the south-west of Montreal. The general direction is right and good, but what should he do? Would he get in his car and turn his compass and follow south-west? However, he discovers none of the streets in Montreal go south-west; they either go west or south. So where does he go? Does he go west or does he go south? Or does he alternate west and south by which means he might probably end up on the banks of the St. Lawrence or some cul-de-sac and wonder how exactly he goes from there? So often, we may have the general direction: this is the way to go, but then we have to come to the specifics. What exactly is the path by which we arrive at that goal? This is what we need to look at today in part two of “Spiritual Direction.”

The path to arrive at this goal: “Love one another as I have loved you”

John 15:9-17 well summarizes the path to which we must direct our attention. Last week, in Matthew 26:2, the Lord Jesus said that after two days, the Son of man is going to be crucified. For him, this was no airy-fairy ideal in the remote distance. He would attain his objective, the redemption of mankind within two days. But for us, we don’t know when and how this objective is to be attained. Therefore we must narrow our sights onto the target and see exactly how we are to follow his footsteps as we share the same ideal.

Let us look at a number of things in John 15:9-15:

“The love I require of you is exactly the same love I am giving to you.”

In verse 12, the Lord Jesus tells us we are to love one another. If the sentence just stops there, of course we have another point altogeth­er. But what is the measure of love with which we are to love one another? The Lord Jesus doesn’t leave us in doubt. We are to love one another “as” that is, “in the same way as I have loved you.” From that, we have 1 John 3:16,

Notice the words in John 15:12, “This is my command.” This is not optional. You either walk his way or we cannot be his disciple. The choice is either not to be a disciple, or to be a disciple and so live according to his command, and not just love one another. We would be happy to get by with so-called “love,” but the Lord Jesus won’t let us get away with this wishy-washy definition of love. He says, “My command is not just that you love one another.” No, at that level we could still get by. We could say, “Well, I do sort of love him.” He says, “The kind of love I require of you is exactly the same kind of love that I am giving to you,” as the next verse says，

Again, we are talking about an ideal and we want to start narrowing down this ideal into practical living.

I would like you to try to capture this vision of what kind of a church would arise when we are all truly obedient to this command, which to date we haven’t obeyed. What kind of church did the Lord Jesus want to build with his redemptive life and with his blood?

Love one another is commitment of husband to wife on the spiritual level

I have failed in this matter many times as I freely confess to you. In my selfishness, many times I have not been willing to give this kind of total love. Perhaps we have failed much too often, therefore we lack the joy. Notice how closely the joy is connected to this com­mand. In John 5:11,

Have you noticed that every time, you begin to live in this full self-giving, you experience a joy that you never knew before? But the moment you become defensive, the moment you suck yourselves in, the joy disappears. This is so easy to find out for yourself. Once you try giving yourself, not being so afraid to be hurt, and you just keep on giving yourself, there comes the depth of joy you didn’t know before.

Try to picture for yourself a church in which each one actually fulfills this command, in which each one does truly love one another to this level. What does this mean? It just means nothing less than this: The Lord Jesus requires of those who commit themselves totally to God that they also commit themselves to one another. So that total com­mitment is not merely to God as we tend to think. Total commitment as the Lord Jesus requires of us, much to our shock and fear, is to one another as well.

Most of us are quite prepared to commit ourselves totally to God because we trust him. We know that God is trustworthy. He is wise, good, kind, gracious, sometimes severe, but always merciful amidst severity. But we don’t trust people, much less even our brothers and sisters in the church. Therefore, the command to commit ourselves totally to our brother and sister is a little bit more than we can handle because we don’t trust their judgments, their wisdom, and sometimes, we don’t even trust their genuineness. We don’t trust each other’s motives. We are afraid that if we share something with others, they may start talking about it to others and making it a prayer item. Everyone would be praying for us and expose our weakness. We are afraid to be hurt if we open ourselves. So the command to commit ourselves totally to one another seems to be frightening. Most people find it difficult enough to attain to total commitment to God. Yet, many can attain to that. Most Christians will say, “I will trust God. I hope he doesn’t send me to Alaska to preach the gospel, but I’m willing to risk that. Or he might tell me to go to Congo. I don’t like Congo because I don’t like snakes and cockroaches. I’m sure God is going to send me there, but I’ll trust him. Maybe he won’t do that to me. But it scares me to commit myself totally to a brother or sister.”

The relationship between Christian and Christian is so close in the Scripture that it comes very close to the commitment of a husband to a wife. It is total commitment in the marriage relationship, but it is also physical. Whereas among brothers and sisters, the commit­ment to one another is purely spiritual, nonetheless it is total.

Answered prayer depends on obedience to love one another as Christ loved

That is the relationship we find scary. Yet, as you ever experience it, you will know that it is absolutely vital to the spiritual power with which we function. Looking further on in this passage, John 15:16 illustrates what I am trying to say. The Lord Jesus makes answered prayer (power in prayer) dependent upon our obedience to his command to love one another. It’s amazing how people pray to God and expect to get this and that, but God is not going to answer your prayer until you fulfill what he requires:

These words, “that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you,” is an unconditional promise to give you whatever you ask, but you cannot take this verse out of its context of total commit­ment to one another. You need not quote this promise to a person who is not totally committed to God and much less committed to one another. It doesn’t begin to apply to him.

This is the great danger of promise doctrines. You can buy a box of promises at a Christian bookshop to pick from every day, anticipa­ting, “What’s today’s promise?” This is a most dangerous thing because a promise always has a context. You may not touch one of those promises until you fulfill what is required in the context. This kind of promise boxes quotes verses entirely out of the context. You can claim that verse and think God will guarantee his promise to you, but the question is: Are you a person totally committed to him and to your brother and sister? Christ exposes the character of the living God by challenging us: “Live as I have commanded you, then ask what you will, and my Father will answer it.” Now that is a fair challenge. If God is not God, he could not answer your prayer. Christ would also not make this promise to you on behalf of his God and Father.

George Mueller had 50,000 instances of answered prayer

Not only does the Lord Jesus challenge you, but I challenge you as well. You try applying it and you will discover like George Mueller did, not once did the living God fail to answer his prayer, whether he prayed for the orphans, or for financial needs, or for other matters. He always obtained whatever he prayed for. He was a man of German origin, so he recorded everything precisely. I prayed on this day for this and it was answered on this date, at this time. It takes a German to do that, but it’s wonderful! At the end of his life, he was able to say he had 50,000 instances of answered prayer as you know from his biography. In fact, as I have also shared with you before, as he was about to die, someone asked him, “Were any of your prayers ever not answered?” He said, “There are two people I have prayed for that I haven’t got an answer yet.” And he mentioned who these two people were. Then after he died, they went to find out about these two people and they found that his prayer for these two people had both been answered except that he had not lived long enough to learn about this. 50,000 instances of answered prayer! Why? Because George Mueller was a man totally committed to his God and totally committed to God’s people. He could ask for whatever, and God granted his request.

That is the same confidence that the Lord Jesus had as you see in John 11:41-42 he said to the Father, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me.” Walking with God is a wonderful relationship! That is the kind of relationship that God has called us to! So it is vital for our spiritual power that we know what is this true commitment to one another.

I dare not say that I have fulfilled this requirement to commit myself totally to one another. Perhaps I have in some measure, but not completely. Yet, God in his graciousness has answered my prayer time and again far beyond what I deserve or could even expect or imagine. He still answered in his graciousness in spite of my weak­ness. Truly, God is the wonderful living God!

Commitment to one another is vital in the foundation of our spiritual life

Also quite apart from this, I began to discover this commitment to one another is vital not only in prayer but also in the whole foundation of our spiritual life. God taught me this matter through my mother’s death. When my mother died, I had just come back from a preaching tour in Ontario, as some of you know. I had been preach­ing in various places in Ontario for some time back in 1977. When I came back, I was utterly exhausted. The following morning, I was like a person who had been hit on the chin in a boxing match. I was dazed and exhausted. My wife, Helen came in, stood there holding a telegram, and seemed to be unable to say anything. When I saw her, I thought, “Something’s not in order.” So I said, “What is it?” And she quietly handed me the telegram. The telegram said that my mother had died. I couldn’t take it in! I tried to filter it, but it seemed untrue because my last memory of her was that she was vigorous and happy, and this did not seem to fit in. I had only received a letter from her a few days ago! I was trying to recover from the Ontario tour and another one-month western Canada preaching tour was a week ahead. This was too much of a shock for me to try to pull myself together. The telegram also said, “Please come right away.” I looked at my timetable and I thought, “How am I going to get away?” I only had one week to get to Switzerland and return!

When I walked into my mother’s apartment in this town in Switzerland, it seemed as though my mother had gone out for a walk. It was spotless. Everything was tidy and perfectly clean, as she always was. There was not the slightest disarray in the apartment. I could not grasp her death. It seemed as though she was going to come through the door at any moment. I remember for several nights, I just knelt by the bed before God and said, “Lord, I don’t understand this. What is this all about?” I felt a light had gone out of my life. I felt that a great hole was left in my heart, and this hole remained in my heart for several years. Nothing seemed to be able to fill that hole.

What I could not understand is this. First of all, I had no natural affection for my mother that I could understand. I had very little to do with my mother through my childhood years. I was closer to my father than to my mother. In the war years, my father was in Chungking, the war-time capital, fighting the Japanese, and I was a very young child at the time. My mother went out to work and I was left in the care of my amah, my nanny, who was virtually the one who brought me up. If you are brought up so closely by a nanny, you have no particular affection for your mother anymore because your nanny is virtually your surrogate mother. I thank the Lord that I had a very, very fine nanny who was a bit older than my mother and she was so devoted to me. She loved me like her own son. When I went off to boarding school, she wept. My mother did not weep. When I came home from school, only my dog and my nanny welcomed me at the door. The dog was jumping up and down, and my nanny was so full of joy and always cooked something nice for me to eat. She was so heavy-hearted every time she had to take me back to school. She tried to walk as slowly as possible as we got off the tram and walked to school. She was hardly willing to say good-bye, and she turned away tearfully as she saw me through the door. So I was really brought up by my nanny who was so loving and kind to me. She often told me stories when I could not fall asleep. She sat on my bed until I fell asleep. She bestowed every kindness on me. When I look back, she always had to take my pranks and long face, but she bore with me with all patience and all kindness. Finally, when we had to leave China for a period, she stood there weeping sorrowfully as she said goodbye. I have never seen my mother show that kind of affection for me.

I am telling you this so that you understand why there should not be this emptiness in my affection to my mother on a natural basis. Even in later years, when I came over to Europe to study, she showed very little interest in me particularly because she was disappointed that I had gone to Bible college. She thought that I was wasting my life and my talents by going to study the Bible and become a preacher instead of becoming the great man that she hoped I would become somewhere in the world. Many times, when I went to visit her, she treated me with coldness and made it plain to me that she was not interested in the gospel, and that I should not hang around too long at home during my summer holidays. She wanted to live her own self-life. So you can see how our relationship stood.

Why was this hole in my heart when she died? Her frosty attitude towards me went on for many years, but gradually, a change began to occur in her. Gradually, the message of the gospel began to get through to her, not through anything I preached because she did not want to listen to any preaching. She was entirely “non-religious” and “anti-church.” But she began to see the power of God in what he was constantly doing for me, when she never helped me financially in all my years of study, because she didn’t have much money. She also observed something in my life. She wondered why I loved her when she did not seem to show any love for me. I dare not say she did not love me, but at least she did not seem to show it. She married very early and I was born early in her life. Many young mothers regard their children as a nuisance and a burden because they seem to cramp you; they cry in the middle of the night. Perhaps I was not all that ideal, I was screaming in the middle of the night. Many parents get irritable when they cannot get any sleep, so they wonder, “Why did we bring this nuisance into the world?” So I grew up virtually entirely neglected, apart from the devotion of my amah. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened to me.

Gradually, loving my mother and yet not being loved in return determined what is called “a stubborn love.” I would love her with the love of God as Christ lived out and commanded it, although I had no natural liking for her, I would love her stubbornly and deter­minedly anyway. Somehow, gradually, the love of God reached into her stony heart and began to do something there. Over a period of years, I did not say anything. I just demonstrated this love through a number of incidents that began to open her eyes.

One day, I had the joy of her kneeling beside me, and she received Yahweh God into her life, through repentance of sin and cleansing by the Lord Jesus’ blood. To have my mother kneeling beside me, giving herself totally to God to follow Christ, was one of the most wonderful moments of my life! I always remember the words she said to me, “I gave you physical life but you gave me spiritual life.” I found it truly wonderful to have been the channel of his life to her.

What was more wonderful was, there was such a transformation in her life that I began to see someone who became totally committed to God, and also totally committed to me in that process. Her whole attitude towards God and to me changed completely thereafter. She was never a warm person before, but she became a person that I had not known before in her warmth. She had a warmth, a goodness, a kindness, a humility, all these Christ-like qualities that I had never seen in her life before! She became an entirely new person, trans­formed before my eyes! Whereas I was treated with impatience when I went home, now she became so devoted, so loving. She had only one desire when I came home: she would want me to relax completely and enjoy myself. She would prepare every nice thing she could get her hands on. It was amazing how God changes a person!

For some strange reason, I could never sleep as well anywhere as when I went home to see my mother. I could just sleep like a log! It was so relaxing, so joyful! We would go out together, walk and talk together. We could not even understand each other’s language before and now we are communicating so well with one another! It was such a marvel! We gave ourselves totally to one another as a result of our mutual commitment to God, as Christ lived and commanded it.

Strangely enough, when my father died, I did not feel that loss. Certainly, I wept, but I got over it in a very short time. I had much more dealings and closeness with him than with my mother, yet I did not feel that this loss had left a great hole in my heart. It’s strange, isn’t it? But when my mother passed away, the hole could not be filled even though I had no foundation of human affection with her. I walked around as a person in a daze. I think some of you who were here at the time could recognize what inner sense of constant loss I bore within me. I tried to analyze this but I couldn’t figure it out because it did not make sense. I had no human reason to have felt this loss. Then gradually, it became clear to me the reason I felt this loss was because I had lost someone who was living out this very Scriptural principle of being totally committed to me after her commitment to God.

I still recall with what joy she proved her commitment. She used to say to me, “Eric, if you have any material need, if you are short of money, please, please let me know. I really would like to let you have some money.” This was because I never once asked her for a penny, and when she wanted to give it to me, I did not want to accept it. She almost begged me, “Some time, please let me help you in some way.” Finally, her opportunity came and I felt in the wisdom of God, I could ask her if she would like to help me.

When I came to Montreal, the choice was to rent or to buy a home. And everyone advised me that if I was going to pay so many years of rent, I might as well buy a cheaper house and the mortgage would be equivalent to the rent. It would be better to buy, otherwise I would only be enriching the landlord. Then someone arranged for a housing agent to take me out to look at houses. I knew absolutely nothing about a house. I have never wanted to own a house in my life. Here I was with this housing agent, an English lady about my mother’s age. She was driving me around and I felt so embarrassed and thought, “How am I going to tell her first of all, I have no money to buy a house?” I didn’t know why this someone arranged for her to take me around looking at houses. I knew absolutely nothing about houses, and certainly, I’m not someone who is interested in houses. When the lady housing agent said, “Shall we go now?” what could I say but get into the car? I was thinking that I could keep witnessing to her about the Lord and maybe she would not have wasted her day entirely.

So we went to one house after another, and she said, “How about this one?”

I asked, “What’s the price?”

“$40,000.”

Oh! If she had said $400, I would have had trouble, let alone $40,000! And then at the next house I asked, “How much is this one?”

“$45,000.”

“Oh dear! Find me a cheaper house.” It went on like this until finally, I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous!” We kept going on from place to place. I didn’t know how to tell her to discontinue this tour. So I said, “How about you show me some places I can rent?” But she would not show me a place to rent.

She said, “You’re going to be here for a few years. Why do you want to rent? Rent costs as much as the mortgage.”

Finally, I said, “Look, I’ll be absolutely honest with you. Madam, I don’t have money to pay the deposit on a house. What’s the point of continuing to look?”

So she said, “That is a big problem.”

I said, “You’re right, that’s a problem.” The deposit on one house would be about $8,000 and frankly, if I scrounged around everything I had, I could not pull together $1,000, never mind $8,000. After preaching the gospel for 5 years, I could not get together $1,000. So what’s the use of talking anymore about buying a house?

But somewhere earlier in the conversation, I was sharing with her about my mother and somehow the conversation turned, perhaps I had mentioned about my mother wanting to help me. And she said, “Ah! Why don’t you ask your mother?”

I said, “Oh no! I’ve never asked my mother for a cent!”

And she said to me, “May I give you a suggestion? I am also a mother. I think I understand your mother’s heart. Give your mother a chance to show her love for you.”

I pondered about it and I thought, “Indeed, she has a point. Maybe it was my pride in my refusing to accept anything. Why not have her as the owner of the house as well? In this case, that would be fair enough.” Finally, when I asked my mother, she was so delighted about it! She immediately cabled the $8,000. That touched me so deeply.

When I talked with her over the phone, I could hear the joy in her voice, and I thought, “How wonderful is the transformation of my mother! How great is God’s work in her life!” I could sense over the phone this profound commitment. This commitment between us was not built on a natural basis because nothing had changed between her and me. The only change that took place was spiritual. Our whole relationship was built on a new and spiritual foundation so that when she passed away, I began to realize how indescribably precious it is if someone loved us not merely on a physical level which passes away, but with this incomparably wonderful, spiritual commitment. She was absolutely committed to me.

I remember she protested before she became a Christian, what would happen to her in her old age if I would become a preacher and earn next to nothing? I told her my commitment to her: “Mom, let me tell you something. I confess to you it’s true that in the path that I walk in preaching the gospel, I will probably never have much money. But I commit myself to you. So long as I have something to eat, you will have something to eat. So long as I have somewhere to live, you will have somewhere to live. That is my unconditional promise to you.” I have committed myself totally to her and I have showed it. Now, she has committed herself totally to me.

Catch the vision of a church: Every person is totally committed to the other

Try to think of a church in which every person is totally committed to the other; can you catch a vision of such a church? What is more, I knew there were others who loved in this way too. But another lesson dawned on me. Each person who has this commitment is indescribably precious. He is not just one more number. I thought to myself, “I don’t doubt that there would be others who would love me as much as my mother, but that did not make my mother dispensable or insignificant. I realize that each commitment has a value of its own. You cannot say, “There are 15 or 20 others who are equally com­mitted to you, so this one is dispensable.” It left that gaping hole in my heart that just could not be filled. It’s remarkable indeed! In the community of God’s people, the individual not only does not lose his quality, but his quality becomes almost irreplaceable! You don’t just become one face in the crowd. Your contribution to the life of another brother and sister simply cannot be replaced. The loss will be felt as intensely whether there were 50 other people equally com­mitted to you. That is an amazing lesson I discovered in this painful experience. God used my mother’s death to teach me the vital impor­tance of fulfilling Christ’s teaching in his church. If we live in this way, the strength that comes from the assurance that you are loved with a total love is something you would not begin to understand until you lose it.

I must make my unconditional commitment to love you as Christ commands

I began to realize that I must make my commitment not only to my mother but to every single person who is my brother and my sister in Christ. As the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 12:50,

There is a proviso here. To say I commit myself to every brother and sister in the world is too airy-fairy. I cannot very well commit myself to my brothers and sisters who I don’t know. I don’t know their names or anything about them. But what I must do is I must commit myself to every brother and sister whom I know does the will of the Father. Someone who does the will of the Father is the definition of a brother and a sister, and we must absolutely commit to one who is absolutely committed.

So today, I will make my commitment to you as well because I don’t want to end up with airy-fairy objectives that we can talk about but cannot be applied. I want to say to each one of you, my brothers and sisters in this church, who strive to do the Father’s will, the very same thing that I said to my mother, that so long as I have something to eat, you will have something to eat. So long as I have somewhere to live, you will have somewhere to live. My commitment to you is unconditional and total as God requires of me, because I must fulfill his command.

Let us together as a church, have this fullness of commitment to one another. This fullness of commitment is what the Lord Jesus died for, that we will be like him, walk in his way, so that God may raise a community like him. The wheat that falls to the ground and dies brings forth other wheat exactly like itself. The Lord Jesus did not bring forth something else. Unless we become exactly like him, what did he die for? We will know that we are his disciples when we think and behave exactly like he does; when we commit ourselves to one another in the same way; when the world can look at the church and say, “I see the love of God that is in the life of Christ in the Christians here. I see a total commitment that I haven’t seen anywhere else.”

That is why I must make my commitment to everyone who I know does the will of the Father. No matter where you are, whether in Malaysia or in Hong Kong in the future, you can be certain of this commitment. I shall stand with you and help you in whatever your needs to the limit of my capacity. I must make this commitment. I will not go back on it. Perhaps you will have occasion to test my commitment, to prove whether it can stand the test, and I trust by the grace of my Father, I will not fail. Now my own capacities might be limited, but my Father’s capacities are unlimited. And remember those words that when you are totally committed to him as I am, you will be able to proclaim these words that “you shall ask what you will and it will be done for you” (Jo. 15:16). This is exactly what we shall prove. There is no difficulty too great for our Father to meet. We will aim to build a church that shows forth the total commitment to God and the total commitment to each other.

The nature of this mutual commitment

As we close, I would like to define ever more specifically the nature of this commitment to one another.

1. Deep mutual respect

In John 15:10, the Lord Jesus says,

Couple this with the fact that on the one hand he commands us, but on the other hand he serves us, as he says in Mark 10:45,

We learn from this mutual commitment a deep mutual respect. In John 13, he washed his disciples’ feet to emphasize this very point.

Some of us are entrusted with the responsibility of leadership. Some lead, some follow. Let me stress one thing however, that in the church of God, leadership is not a status, it is a function. This is some­thing you must understand. In the world, the leader has a status symbol of being a leader. But in the church, a leader is a function. That is to say, in the church of God, a leader is not one grade higher than you. He is your equal. He simply has a different function, maybe an administrative function, maybe a teaching function. He is not a superior in status. This means that the leader respects the led, and those who are led respect the one who leads. There is a mutual res­pect. This is something that is very important to understand in this mutual commitment. I hope that you don’t look at the leadership as someone with a higher status. If you think in this way, you are think­ing in worldly terms. And we must be free of these ideas in the church. I am your fellow servant and my function is to serve. In the very act of leading, I serve.

Anyone who does not understand that the leader must respect those who are led, he has no right to lead in the church of God. Therefore I would like you to understand that I profoundly respect every one of you as my brother and my sister, as my fellow servant in Christ. I wish no one to think of me as higher in status than any of you. If anything, you can think of me as lower than you, as your servant for Christ’s sake. We don’t want to have a “class” sense, a “higher” class, and a “lower” class within the church. This is the concept of the world. We don’t want this kind of concept in the church at all.

2. Mutual enjoyment

The second thing I would like to say about this mutual commitment is when this commitment comes to us, there is a true joy: “My joy in you, that your joy may be full” (Jo. 15:11). Joy means enjoyment. A Christian must never be ashamed of enjoyment, and particularly the enjoyment of one’s brothers and sisters.

When you are together with your brothers and sisters, if you don’t really enjoy being with them, you can immediately understand that your commitment is in trouble. How often our relationship is a “chained-door” relationship. We have a chain on the door. When someone rings the bell, we open the door with a chain on. We peek out and say, “Yes? What do you want?” and we conduct this conver­sation behind this chain. Why? Because we are afraid of being hurt. Therefore, this chain remains on all the time. And how many of our relationships are chained-door relationships! We look through the peep-hole. We see if this guy is dangerous-looking, and if he seems to be carrying a gun. If you don’t think he is too dangerous, you open the door with the chain on. We feel more secure in this way. Even if we take the chain off, we are still very guarded, always in the kung fu position, ready for attack; always on the defensive. Therefore, we cannot relax with one another. We are afraid maybe someone will criticize us, or he may say something nasty to hurt you, or he may even rebuke you. When you commit yourself to a person, you trust that person, you are not afraid of what that person has to say.

In fact, I beg of you to tell me my faults. I say “beg” of you. You don’t even have to put it in nice words. Just tell me my faults. I mean it very sincerely. If you are committed to me, do me the kindness of telling me my fault because that fault may prove fatal to my spiritual sur­vival. Therefore, why be so defensive? Tell me if there is something bad in my life. If there’s nothing bad in my life, what do I have to defend? What is there to be afraid of? I don’t have to put the chain on. You can come in and I have nothing to hide.

Look at this place. If you find something useful, help yourself. It’s like a notice to the burglar on the house of a door in England which said, “If you have come into this house to look for money, please ring the bell and call me at any time in the night so that I can get up and help you to find the money that might be in the house.” What’s there to hide? If you find something useful, help yourself. If you find something no good, tell me about it so that I can straighten it out. I don’t have to be defensive.

So let us learn this relaxedness with one another. Let us learn that this is my brother and sister. What can he or she do to hurt me? If he says something about my fault that I don’t really have, that is all right too. I don’t have it and God knows I don’t have it. After all, he is the Judge. Why be so touchy about faults? We are very scared to be criticized unfairly. “I don’t have that fault and yet they said so of me.” What does it matter? Do we stand before men? It doesn’t make any difference to me.

3. Mutual trust: Friendship

The third and last thing is more positively, this friendship: “You are my friends. I do not call you servants,” the Lord Jesus says, “The servant doesn’t know what the master does.” If the Master hides nothing from us, why do we hide something from one another? Friendship is that trust. You say, “What do you want to know? Do you want to know something? I’m here to tell you. If you find something doubtful about my life, just ask me. I have nothing to hide.” If you don’t live in darkness, if you don’t live in sin, what is there to hide? Just tell me what you want to know, and I will let you know. Friendship is the most profound relationship that any two people can have. When friendship goes out of a marriage, what is left of the marriage? What’s in a marriage without friendship? It should be friendship at its highest level that makes marriage a marriage. Or why did you get married to this person unless you regard this person as your best friend? But when the friendship is gone, there is nothing left of the marriage. It simply becomes a legal union. Who wants a legal union with someone you are no longer a friend with? You are stuck with a guy you can’t live with. Friendship is the deepest of human relationship built on mutual trust, and that is what we have to gain with one another. It is this sense of enjoying one another, trusting one another. “All that the Father has told me, I have told you. I’ll let you know anything you want to know. I hide nothing from you. That is the very essence of friendship. That is what we have to build.

Friendship has to be in every human relationship, even between parents and children. What is left of a relationship of parents and children when friendship has gone out of it? There is nothing left in that relationship. Then comes the so-called “generation gap”, and every problem comes between them. But if you are friends, age makes no difference. There will never be a generation gap because friendship is what holds parents and children together.

As we are going in the same spiritual direction as the Lord Jesus Christ—to live for God and to die for the salvation of mankind—let us be a church in which there is mutual respect, mutual enjoyment, mutual openness and trust. Let us build our total commitment to one another very specifically, so that the power of God will be revealed in our midst because when we pray, “Your will be done,” it will be done, and we will see glorious things!

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.