Matthew-124

Greetings on Independence Day for spiritual independence

So, we have the power and the glory going on just at this precise time! The thunder is the power, and the lightning is the glory. After you see the flashes – the glory, you hear the thunder – the power. They are so very appropriate accompaniment to our meeting today! I do praise God for giving me the opportunity to be with you today! Although I’ve met many of you only for the first time, I do feel a warm feeling in my heart for each one of you. And I hope that we will have the chance to get to know each other better as a result of this meeting.

When I was on the plane from Hong Kong yesterday, the stewardess came around with the newspapers. I looked at them and they were all newspapers from the Philippines, so I didn’t know which one to pick. I asked, “Which one do you recommend?” And she just gave me one. When I opened it, I saw, “Oh, Independence Day!” I arrive in the Philippines of all days on Independence Day! It’s another thing that I didn’t know about. Clearly, with the Lord, there are no accidents. I thought, “Praise the Lord! We’re looking for the true and wonderful spiritual independence of the Philippines!

I also appreciate the kindness of Brother Dick and the co-workers who struggled through the Independence Day ceremonies to get to the airport. I didn’t realize it would give you so much trouble. I’m sorry about that because I really didn’t know it was Independence Day. Actually we tried for a long time to book an earlier flight for yesterday, but everything was full up and we couldn’t figure out the reason. But now I understand; it must have something to do with Independence Day. My flight was the only one I could get, and it came in so late. So Brother Dick, I’m sorry you had to stay up so late last night. It must have been about one o’clock by the time he got to bed.

Discipleship and Sainthood

Today, I would particularly like to speak to the saints. I would be interested to know how many saints we have here. All of you who are saints, would you please raise your hands so that I know who I am speaking to? There are no saints here? Oh dear! In that case, I think I have to close the meeting! I have prepared a message for the saints but there are no saints present. Are you sure there are no saints present? Perhaps you are all too humble to be saints. This is a problem. What am I going to do with my message? There are no saints here. I saw a brother raising his hand hesitantly, but he wasn’t very sure so he put it down again. But the others didn’t even make an attempt.

Today, in the short time we have together, I hope you can become very much clearer about the spiritual implications of two basic matters: discipleship and sainthood. All this has a lot to do with the power and the glory that is going on now. Perhaps the discipleship is the power and the sainthood is the glory! So I get my illustration directly from above, and hope that this message will stay in your minds!

When I first started preaching on discipleship twenty years ago, the word was almost unheard of. You will read the word “disciples” so many, many times from Matthew to Acts. I went through seminary, through the Bible institute, through theological training and no one told me what is a disciple. Isn’t that wonderful! You are all in a seminary, and I would like to go to the corridor and grab one of the students and say, “Tell me what is a disciple from the Bible.” Proba­bly, like most of you, the best he could do is to say, “A disciple is someone who follows Jesus.” That’s a great start. But if that’s all we can say, we are not going to get very far with this. I began to expound on discipleship twenty years ago, and the idea was new. And one of the first things I spoke on was what the Lord Jesus said,

Do you know what most Christians think? In their minds, a disciple is some kind of high-class Christian. They think: “Okay, I can’t be the Lord Jesus’ disciple, but I’m going to simply be a believer. I can’t get into first-class, whatever this discipleship thing is, I’ll go in economy class. As long as I get to heaven, who cares whether you are travelling economy class, or business class, or first class?” When I preached on this a number of times, some people got really offended. They said, “Why are you making it so difficult to be a Christian?” I said, “Wait a minute. Did I say those words? Those words are Jesus’ words, not mine.”

Then, what you will be very familiar with by now, there came the nasty attack: “This guy preaches salvation by works.” If I preach salvation by works, then Jesus preaches salvation by works, because I am merely repeating Jesus’ words. I didn’t invent a single word of this. It is he who said, “Take up the cross,” not me. If taking up the cross and following Jesus is works, then he taught it, not me. My task is simply to teach what he taught. That was twenty years ago.

I am trained in what was the best Bible institute in the United Kingdom, and what is one of the best theological faculties in the world, which is Anglican, and very orthodox. I think the people in my congregation noticed a change in my preaching. Before, I was preaching the same thing that everyone was used to hearing. Now I determined to preach what Jesus taught, never mind what anyone had to say – and people had a lot to say. But I saw that the lives of the whole congregation were changing by the Lord Jesus’ teaching on discipleship

Lord Jesus says, “Go, make disciples, baptize, teach everything”

If I were to expound on discipleship, I would have literally hundreds and hundreds of verses in the New Testament from which to preach. Which verse am I going to select? I have to wait for God for instructions, and what I am led to is the last three verses of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 28:18-20, which would make it easier for you to remember.

What did the Lord Jesus command his disciples in Galilee? Make Christians? Make believers? No, make disciples, and make disciples not only in the Philippines, but “of all nations.” Now if you don’t know what disciples are, how are you going to make them? Do you know how to make a disciple? I would like to hear one of the semi­nary students here tell me. I’m very good at cross-examining people. My friends said that I should have been a lawyer and they wouldn’t like to face me in court, because I love to ask people questions as those in training know. How do you make a disciple? What is a disciple? Apart from just saying, “I believe in him,” what does “follow” really mean?

First, we see that the Lord Jesus is in full control of everything. God has given him all power and authority in heaven and on earth because he was obedient unto death on the cross to accomplish God’s plan of eternal salvation for mankind. He died for us to cleanse us from any stain of sin with his blood, to reconcile us to God. Don’t think you have a sin that God cannot forgive if you are truly repen­tant. Never limit the greatness of Jesus’ God-given power to break every bondage to sin, and to save us from being Satan’s captives to do his will. Then we will have God’s power to do his will until the Lord Jesus returns, when we will have eternal life fully.

This thunder and lightning that is going on now is no accident. I think God wants to drive this message deep into your hearts: The power and the glory of the gospel – the discipleship and the sainthood. Neither term may be familiar to you, but both terms are absolutely essential to your eternal salvation which is rooted in Christ. There is nothing that happens in your life that is not in God’s and Christ’s control. You may not know why something happens, but believe me, God can control it. God may not, if you don’t want him to. There are times you would want him to control, but you are not living in the way he wants you to, and you will find it doesn’t work.

God controls everything, from big to small things. I can tell you very big and remarkable things that he controls. For example, we have full-time training going on in Hong Kong right now, which is actually my primary responsibility. We have 47 people in full-time training. How do you find accommodation for 47 people in a place like Hong Kong? Can you imagine how much it will cost to accommodate all these people? God intervened, and everything was worked out. Even up to now—and we are nearly half way through the full-time train­ing—when I look at the accounting figures, I just look to God and say, “You are amazing! You are wonderful!”

We trust in the living God who has given all power and authority to the Lord Jesus, so he can send his disciples to go, make disciples of all nations by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Therefore Jesus says four things in Matthew 28: “First, go because God has given me this power. Second, make disciples. Third, baptize. Fourth, teach.” If you and I belong to him, we have to do four things. This is a command, not a suggestion. If you are a disciple, would you like to mention which four things you have obeyed? Have you gone anywhere? Have you made disciples? I am not asking if you have made converts. That’s something different. You cannot make disciples if you don’t know what they are. Have you baptized, or do you even dare to baptize? And notice what you have to teach: “Teach them to obey all that I have commanded.” Teach them everything, not a little here and a little there.

There are Christians who are saying, “Where is the presence of God?” The end of these verses of the Lord Jesus’ command, “I am with you always” answers the question: “for in him (Christ) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:19).

God gives his Holy Spirit to disciples or saints at baptism, when we die with Christ to sin and the self, and is raised with him as a new person in Christ’s nature. Therefore true Christians have God’s presence in his Holy Spirit by baptism and by transformation.

Although the situation is as described, is the presence of God always very close to you? I know the answer. His presence is not close to you at all. Am I mistaken? I think not. His presence follows after those four things: Go, make disciples, baptize and teach them every­thing Christ has told you. In this case, the presence of God does not depend just on the question of how long you have been doing your quiet time. Sometimes, God is very gracious to us. We are so ignorant and he does come down to our level. He says, “You haven’t yet fulfilled any of the things my Christ has commanded, but I’m going to manifest myself to you a little bit.” And you say, “Wow! This is marvelous experience!” That is to draw you into fulfilling these four things: Go, make disciples, baptize and teach them everything Christ has taught you.

Go to all nations

The first point is: Go. I could spend a whole message just expounding the word “go.” The Christian life is dynamic; it is movement. You are not going to meet God if you intend to stay put in one place without budging. Christianity is not for those who are merely seeking stabili­ty in a localized way. They don’t want to move out of bondage to sin, and they don’t want to move into service. They don’t want them­selves or their environment to be changed. They don’t want anything to move inside of them. They just want to stay put and say, “Fill me, God, but I’m not going anywhere.” What is your mentality? Discipleship makes people uncomfortable. There is a “Christianity” that says you don’t have to do anything because that has to do with works. I didn’t say, “Go.” Jesus said, “Go.” You can call it “works” or whatever you like. The teaching of Jesus is very offensive. It offended me at first, and I had to get over the offense. Then when I start preaching it, it offends everyone else. But when they got over the offense, they got transformed. That’s truly incredible, isn’t it?! I could go on expounding “go” but if you refuse to move out from the stale spiritual life you are in now, and start with doing something very small, you don’t get on with the next step.

Make disciples

Secondly, make disciples. By now, we understand that being a disciple has to do with taking up one’s cross and following Jesus. What is the cross that we have to take up? The cross is an instrument of death. Are you willing to put your self—selfishness, self-centeredness—to death? There’s no way to make anyone a disciple unless you become a disciple first.

In fact, a disciple is a saint. I was hoping that there would be a lot of saints here, but no one raised their hands. So my problem is who am I talking to after all? I thought I had a message for the saints. All of you may be very puzzled about this precisely because it’s common today that no one seems to know what the Bible teaches. It’s funny that we walk around with our beautiful Bibles, some of them with gold edges, but we are not at all clear about what the Bible teaches. No Christian is saved just to go to heaven! The Bible only knows of active Christians who are saved to make disciples of others. If you didn’t understand that, you still don’t understand the Lord Jesus’ teaching on salvation. Remember that I did not say these words about the four steps.

Baptize

Thirdly, we have to baptize others. We have to help them through the transition from the old life in sin into the new life in Christ, which is a transformed new life in the mercy and power of God to follow Christ, and then conduct their baptisms. But it is foolish to talk about doing these works because we don’t have the power to do any works unless the Holy Spirit takes control of our lives.

We go to serve in some places that have very dangerous circum­stances at various times, and have to conduct baptisms there. And I have seen miracles happen just to fulfill the Lord Jesus’ command: “Baptize them.” We do it, but the situations are so dangerous. It is under those circumstances the presence of God is there. We don’t have to be afraid to obey Christ’s teaching, because when we are doing God’s will, God will cover you with his hand. And how we have experienced that!

Many people don’t experience God because they are not walking in the center of his will. The Christian life is in motion all the time. The Lord Jesus says, “Go” and you keep going. If you follow closely, you will experience his presence. I know from my long experience of walking with God. But as soon as you fall behind, not following closely, you will soon be asking, “Where is God? I don’t experience him.” This is not some kind of a trick by which you could bring his presence into your life. When you follow Christ’s teaching to do God’s will, God gives his Holy Spirit (his presence) to those who obey him (Acts 5:32).

Teach everything

Finally, the last of these four points says, “Teach them.” Which of you will be able to teach anyone “everything that I have commanded you,” not one or two verses from the Bible? That is something tough. Can you stand up and tell us everything that Jesus taught through all the four Gospels? That takes training. That is why in our church, we do something that virtually no church ever does. We provide training for the brothers and sisters because you cannot fulfill this command unless you are taught.

Discipleship needs: Biblical church structure and teaching

Although I went through a lot of training myself, some three years of Bible college training, and then another three or more years of theo­logical training, I discovered to my horror that I did not know what Jesus taught! I knew New Testament Greek, I knew the philosophy of religion, I knew church history, but when I stopped to think: “What exactly did Jesus teach?” I had a shock that I really didn’t know! Ask the average theological student and see if he knows. He can mumble a few things from the Sermon on the Mount and he will remember the Parable of the Sower and some other parables. But does he know the depth of the spiritual meaning of what Christ Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount? “Go and teach them all that I have commanded you” are Jesus’ words. Look at the words carefully. I decided then that I would really have to start from the beginning. I knelt down before God and said, “God, forgive me that after all these years of training, I don’t really know what Christ taught. But I promise you one thing: I’m going to start from the beginning of what he taught and I’m going to expound every verse, every word to my congregation from beginning through to the end.” I went through five years expounding it and I couldn’t quite finish before I left England. That is how much there is to know. And during that time, the people in my congregation were being changed.

But what is the Church like today? There is no church that can fulfill this command today—“Go and make disciples of all nations”—because there is not even the structure of the church or the teaching to be able to do it. A disciples’ church has a special kind of structure in order to produce disciples. A church that is not patterned on the discipleship pattern of the New Testament cannot make disciples even if they knew how. Let us assume that I were pastoring a conventional church of three hundred people, I would not be able to make disciples in this structure. Discipleship is one to a small group. The Lord Jesus chose and trained twelve men, then the twelve trained others, because that’s the basic pattern of discipleship. I cannot have a group of three hundred people. I would have to split them up into many, many groups, and I would have to train each group separately, but I won’t have enough time to spend with each group. The ratio of leaders to people should be very high. It is easy to build large numbers, but it is very hard to build quality. Never worry about how many people are in the church. The numbers don’t matter. The quality is everything. When you have the quality, the people will come for the quality. Those are the disciples that God is drawing. Our church gets bigger and bigger and spreading around the world because God is drawing the people who are truly com­mitted to him, to take up the cross, to die to the self to follow Christ, and then make other disciples.

Ultimately, disciple-making doesn’t depend on the leaders alone. It depends on every one of you, if you yourself are a disciple. The lead­ers have to train disciples who make other disciples. Discipleship is not one man preaching to three hundred, or to three thousand, or to three million. I can do that on radio and television, but you can never make a disciple like that. Discipleship is a one-to-one, and one-to-a-small-group impartation. I pass my life to you, and you pass your life to the little group of disciples you train, and they will pass their lives on to others. That is the discipleship pattern.

There is no such pattern in the churches today. In other words, this teaching of the Lord Jesus cannot be fulfilled in our churches today because first of all, there is not the teaching, and secondly, there is not the structure. Do you understand the seriousness of the problem? If you were a church leader sitting here today, you would fully understand what I am saying. It’s a very serious problem. The church cannot fulfill the Lord Jesus’ teaching because today, the structure is no longer the Biblical structure. It’s enough to make one cry! It doesn’t matter if your church is big or small, the pastor is supposed to be your discipleship pattern. But how do you follow a man you don’t even know? If you are coming from a large conven­tional church, how many of you know your pastor? You don’t know your pastor unless you are a deacon or hold some church office.

In London, I used to go to the Chinese church in the afternoon but it had no teaching to give, and people were spiritually starved to death. So to get some spiritual food, I attended one of the best churches in London, which is also famous throughout the world. The pastor was Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and you may have already read about him or know his name. He is said to be the finest preacher in England in this century. But no one in that church ever really knew Martyn Lloyd-Jones, except for a small handful of deacons. There were near­ly eight, nine hundred people for the Sunday service. Discipleship training can never be possible in that structure. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a fine expositor of the Word of God, but he did not really understand—and none of us are perfect—the structure of the New Testament church. The result was that you could go to that church for three or five years, and you never even once shook the hand of Martyn Lloyd-Jones!

I met Martyn Lloyd-Jones once face to face, and do you know where that was? It was not at his church, but at the door of a Christian library. I went to that church for so many years and never even saw him once face to face because his hand would be in a sling for the rest of the week after being shaken by eight to nine hundred people! So he disappeared after the service, and you never see him again until the following Sunday at the pulpit.

Now I am in no way wanting to blame anyone. The fact of the matter is our churches today are not structured to function in a discipleship pattern. When Martyn Lloyd-Jones goes from the scene, that church collapses because everyone came to listen to him and when he is gone, there is no point going to church anymore! They had to try very hard to get another eloquent preacher who could more or less step into his place, but it’s very difficult to fill the shoes of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Eventually, they got someone who could get about half the people back to the church. That’s very tragic! All our churches don’t have a discipleship pattern anymore. Our churches are called “Disciples’ Church”, not because we think we are better than anyone else. I think there are many better people in other churches. The only thing we desire to do is to follow the Lord Jesus’ life, his teaching, and all that is taught in Scripture.

The New Testament word for a Christian is “disciple”

Now you should understand that in the Bible, a Christian is not called a Christian. There are only three instances in the New Testament where the word “Christian” is used. The disciples of Jesus were initially called “Christians” by non-Christians in Acts 11:26, and the second time is in Acts 26:28. “Christian” is a word initially coined by non-Christians. The third time “Christian” is used is in 1 Peter 4:16, where the apostle Peter applied it to disciples. The New Testament word for the Christian is “disciple,” but when I used the word “disciple” twenty years ago, no one even knew what it exactly meant.

Strangely enough, since that time, the word “disciple” has become very popular in North America. There are lots of books on discipleship. But when I looked at them, I discovered that once again, they use the word but don’t understand the meaning. Discipleship training in North America means leadership training. That’s not the Biblical meaning of the word at all. Why do we, Christians use Biblical words and keep changing its meaning? The power of the Christian life comes from God’s Holy Spirit poured out upon us provided that we are following Jesus. You will never have power in the Christian life unless you follow him as a disciple.

“Disciple” and “saint” mean believer, a Christian

But after the book of Acts, the word “disciple” disappears from the New Testament, and a new word appears to describe the “Christian,” and it is “saint.” “Saint” in the New Testament is not someone with a halo on top of his head, who walks in a very stiff way with two hands together, and does not smile because apparently, it’s not very holy to smile. His eyes are mostly looking up to heaven because he is closer to heaven than to earth. And we are all familiar with this picture. I was brought up in a Roman Catholic school, so I know all about saints from that point of view.

The Bible has a very different concept of saints. Let us look at the first verse of Ephesians, and that will be enough. I took the last few verses of Matthew, and now I take the first verse of Ephesians chapter 1 to make it very easy to remember. Who is Paul writing to?

He wrote to the saints, to the disciples at Ephesus. “Saints” simply means believers. That is why I said I’m giving a message to the saints today. Paul also begins his letter to the Philippian believers addres­sing them as “saints.” In his letters of First and Second Corinthians too, and in other letters, he speaks of Christians as saints.

Are you a saint? You should be. As far as the New Testament is concerned, if you are not a saint, you are not a believer. That’s quite a shock to our conventional system. It’s not a question of being humble. It’s a question of what we are in Christ. In all my life as a Christian, I have never heard anyone preach about saints and yet the whole New Testament is addressed to saints.

Do you know why up to Acts, the word for Christian is “disciple” and then, from Romans onwards, the word for Christian is changed to “saint”? It’s simply because the books from Matthew to Acts are historical books. When you write about the history of the church, you say, “they did this” or “he did that.” You write in the third person singular or plural. So when Christians are being spoken of historically, you say “disciple.” But from Romans onwards, we have letters being addressed to Christians. And when you write a letter addressing someone in the New Testament Church, you address them as “saints.” “The saints in Ephesus,” “the saints in Philippi,” “the saints in Corinth.” You are either a saint, a disciple, or you are not a Christian.

“Saint” means a true Christian who is holy, totally committed to God

What is a saint? In the Old Testament, the Greek word “saint” is used for the word “holy” because the words “holy” and “saint” are the same word in Greek. Every true Christian is holy. This word “holy” makes people scared nowadays. You are holy or else you are not a Christian. It’s as simple as that. Does the word “holy” frighten you? But in the Old Testament, angels were called holy – holy angels. Prophets were called holy – the holy prophets of God. The priests and kings were also called holy. Why? Because these people were totally committed to God, completely set apart for God.

That is why we often speak about “total commitment” which is the old Biblical idea of “holiness” in more modern terminology. We use a new term because we know that the word “holy” frightens people. But “holy” and “total commitment” are basically the same thing. When a priest is holy, he is holy because he is completely committed to the service of God – set apart for God’s service. A prophet is totally committed to live for God and to speak his Word and only his Word to his people. A holy angel is—as Hebrews says, “a ministering spirit”—one completely set apart to live for God, to serve God. A Christian is holy because he has been bought by the blood of Christ; he has been ransomed. His life doesn’t belong to him anymore, therefore he lives wholly for God.

Does your life show the power and glory of the Christian life?

As I close, I want to ask, “What sort of Christian are you?” Does the power and the glory of the Christian life show itself in your life? Do you experience Christian life as something powerful and glorious? Above all, are you a new person who is continuously united with Christ in his life, so that you always experience the presence of God?

I always have a lot to share about God’s ways in my life. He always does amazing things in great ways, small ways, sometimes in humorous ways. It is truly remarkable! I would like to share about God being in control.

Not so long ago, I was flying back to Canada and I was very, very tired. I always only travel economy class, so I’m different from my father, who only travels first class. Just before boarding the plane, the stewardess at the counter asked for my boarding ticket, so I handed it to her. She took a look at it and threw it in the garbage bin. I thought, “What is this? What’s wrong with to my boarding ticket?” Then she pulled out another boarding ticket under the counter and said, “Have a good trip!” After saying, “thank you,” I walked towards the economy class corridor and the stewardess said, “No, not this way. That way.” So I went that way and I ended up in the first class compartment! There I was given this big seat to lounge in, and I thought, “God, that’s very humorous! How come I end up in first class?” All across the Pacific, I had a very restful time; I was able to sleep. When you walk in God’s way, you constantly experience his kindness.

Another time, I was driving from Toronto going back to Montreal quite late at night. I was quite tired so I checked into an economical motel. I was given the room key and I went to this room. When I opened the door, I couldn’t believe my eyes! The room was so big that I could do my jogging in it from one end to the other. It had two double beds, not one. It was so spacious, and had a huge color TV too! And I thought, “Funny, why are the rooms so big in this motel? This motel is really cheap for such a big room! I can’t believe it!” So next morning, after I had a good rest, I returned the key at the reception, and I said, “Thank you, your motel is wonderful!”

She looked at my key and said, “Oh! You got the honeymoon suite!”

I said, “The honeymoon suite?”

She said, “It was a mistake. You got put into the honeymoon suite. But that’s all right. I hope you enjoyed it.”

I said, “Oh, I did!”

As I said, God is often very humorous in the way he does things. And I experience him all through the years, week by week, sometimes month by month. At times, I also share about the really astonishing, earth-shaking miracles, but the power and the glory of God can frighten us. So there are times I would rather talk about these more humorous instances to show how, like a father, he sees his tired son and thinks, “You’re tired. I’ll talk to the head stewardess and put you in first class.” At that time, there were only a man who had a heart attack and his personal doctor. Although the doctor was sitting in the chair next to me, he was quite far away because there is a lot of space and leg room. There are very few first class seats right in the nose of the plane. The stewardess also comes around to serve you with food and drink every few minutes, so you wonder how you can walk off the plane at the end of this eating! I had a good chat with the doctor from time to time, but my good Physician above took better care of me. I paid economy fare to get to first class, whereas the man with heart trouble paid a high price. However, don’t expect to enjoy the benefits of God’s kindness if you don’t walk in his way. Many people want to make use of him and yet wonder, “Why do other people experience God?” It’s because you are not walking in his way.

We aim to function on a discipleship pattern and serve

I want to close with the other side of the story. I think the Church today has a dreadful responsibility before God to the world. I say dreadful because I remind you again of these two points. First, the doctrine of the church leaves no place for discipleship. Secondly, it doesn’t even have the structure to implement discipleship.

There is an American pastor and seminary teacher in Hong Kong, who has been coming to our church, and he came to one of our camps. He was so filled with joy and thanksgiving that he said to me, “Brother, this is the only church I know in all my ministry, that has a New Testament pattern. I would like to send some of my people to your church.”

I said, “No, please don’t do that.”

He looked at me a bit puzzled and said, “Why not?”

I said, “Look, we are brothers in Christ and I want to retain your friendship. I am going to speak frankly to you. The people you send to our church are not likely to go back to your church. (This had happened many times before so it is not something new.) “Please don’t do that.”

And he said, “How can we get the discipleship pattern in our church if I don’t send them to your church to learn the pattern?”

I said, “Brother, I know you are experienced in the ministry, and you also teach in the seminary. I would suggest that if you don’t mind humbling yourself to be taught by some of our people who are younger than you, and have less experience in the ministry than you, why don’t you come? You get the training and return to your church to train the people.”

His eyes opened wide and he said, “Will you really accept me?!” He thought it is as though we have something we have to jealously guard to ourselves and never give our trade secrets away.

I said, “Why not? Look, we don’t work like this. You are welcome if we can serve you for the benefit of the church!”

As a result, he went through our trainings in the most gracious and humble way. It has truly been an inspiration to us. He took the Basic Training and the Intermediate Training, and he has gone back to the United States. He is implementing the discipleship pattern into his own church, and he’s actually coming to our church camp in Canada. If God wills that I go back to Canada in August, I’ll be meeting up with him again. He realizes that there is neither the doctrine—people don’t know how to present the teaching of the New Testament on discipleship—nor the church structure.

Why are we having a work here? Is it because we want to compete with other churches? Believe me, no. The truth of the matter is we cannot spare the manpower. Right now, there is new work, but we don’t have co-workers for that. We are not interested in starting more new work. You heard me say we have 47 people in training and by next year, we will have a lot of manpower. We know from past experience that as soon as they have completed their training, they are absorbed into all the existing work. Our work is expanding so fast, so we don’t have the least interest in competing with any church. I never regard a church as a competitor.

When I was pastoring in Montreal, in Canada, one of the sons of a lady started a new job that was in the afternoon, and since our service was in the afternoon, she said, “My son cannot attend the church in the afternoon. What arrangements can be made?”

I said to her, “You’re very welcome to go to another church.”

She said, “You won’t be offended?”

I said, “I have never been offended. If they need to go to another church, go with my blessing.”

You must understand that we don’t work on this competitive basis. The church of God is not as a chain of supermarkets, where I cut my price and say, “My goods are better than his.” This is a disgrace to the name of God.

We are giving out a message to our brothers and sisters that we are here to serve, because the churches today cannot function and don’t know how to function on a discipleship pattern.

Are you living your Christian life as a disciple and a saint?

Therefore, I would like to close and with this story. This is from a newspaper that I cut out from a Hong Kong newspaper called The Standard and this is what the headline says: “Boy Follows Mother in Death Leap.” I have often thought about this and tried to learn the spiritual lesson from it. I’ll read some part of this to you:

The teacher took her own life because the student had been playing cards, and she had presumably hit him with a ruler or some stick and slightly injured his wrist. As a result, the boy’s family strongly pro­tested. This teacher-mother was obviously a very sensitive and very caring person. So she wrote in her suicide note: “I apologize to Lee’s parents with my life.” She jumped out of the seventh floor window and killed herself.

The tragedy of slightly injuring the wrist of another boy not only claimed her own life but also that of her seventeen-year-old son! If she knew that her action would have resulted in such a loss, what would she have done? It is clear it never crossed her mind that her action could result in her son’s very tragic suicide.

Romans 14:7-8 says that we, as Christians, don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves.

Does it ever cross your mind that whether you live your Christian life victoriously or in defeat, is going to affect someone else’s life? Perhaps your own children, your husband, your wife, or your broth­ers and sisters would be affected. What if your Christianity is not the Biblical one, and someone refused to become a Christian because of you? What if someone lost their eternal life because of you? What if someone followed the way you are going because they thought this is Christianity? It’s very important for you and me to let the Word of God search our lives to make sure that we are living as disciples and saints.

If you still feel uncomfortable with the word “saint,” and you still don’t understand the New Testament teaching, then it is time to return to the Word of God and ask, “What does “saint” mean? What is the quality of a saint?” A saint is someone who is holy. How is a person holy? It’s only possible when the Holy Spirit of God indwells you, so that you bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, the qualities of God in your life, as we see in Galatians 5:22-23 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. A saint is a disciple, a true Christian, who is filled by the Holy Spirit, and shows forth God’s beauty – his power and his glory.

Let us close in prayer.

Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you from the depth of our hearts that you have given us this short time together to meditate in your Word. We earnestly pray for our beloved brothers and sisters in every church who are very dear to us, and certainly very dear to you because you gave your Son for us and for them. Forgive us that the Church today has wandered away from your Word and no longer knows what discipleship is, no longer under­stands what the teaching of your Son is about, and no longer understands what it is to be a saint.

Have mercy upon your church, and revive it again. Let your Holy Spirit come down again with power, and cause the church to shine again in these last days with your power and your glory, to draw in multitudes for salvation. We ask with thanksgiving, amen.