Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 16. We will begin with verse 13 and read through verse 25.
But when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is?
And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.Then charged He the disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ.
From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples, that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.
And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee.
But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.
I believe this is one of the most familiar passages in Scripture. All of us, if I may say, are quite familiar with it. But sometimes, when a passage becomes so familiar, it begins to lose its sharpness.
So I believe it is good, from time to time, that we go back to these familiar passages and review them, looking to the Lord that we may be able to gain, or regain, something that is very precious.
The occasion was that our Lord Jesus retreated to the border of Caesarea Philippi. It was at a time when He was just beginning to be rejected by His own people.
While He was at the border of Caesarea Philippi, He asked a very important question. He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?”
Now, of course, His disciples would not give Him all the bad reports—all the bad things that they had heard people say about their Master. So they gave Him only the good reports that they had heard.
They told our Lord Jesus, “Some say You are John the Baptist, come to life. Some say You are Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Or You are Elijah, the greatest of all prophets. Or You are one of the prophets.”
You find that all these were good reports. In other words, the world considered the Lord Jesus as a prophet, as a man from God, as a man with a message from God—a great man.
But our Lord Jesus was not satisfied. So He asked His disciples, “Who do you say? You who have been with Me all this time—who do you say that I, the Son of man, am?”
And Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Anointed of God, the Son of the living God.”
As soon as Peter made this confession, immediately you find the Lord Jesus said, “You are blessed, Simon, son of Jonah, because this is not something that flesh and blood showed you. It is My Father who is in heaven who has revealed this to you. You are Peter. I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Now, brothers and sisters, here you find two of the greatest revelations in the Bible—two of the greatest revelations in the world. You cannot find any revelation from God, any revelation from above, greater than these two that we have just mentioned.
What are they? Number one: you find the Father reveals the Son. The Father reveals the Son as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
This is a revelation because, humanly speaking, no one will ever be able to know Jesus as Christ, as the Son of the living God. Humanly speaking, all that you can know about Him is that He is a great man.
Flesh and blood can only teach you that Jesus is a great person, a prophet, a great man. That is the limit of what human beings can teach. Flesh and blood can tell you this.
It takes the Father who is in heaven to reveal to you that Jesus is more than a prophet. He is the Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ—One who is sent by God with a special mission to fulfil. And He is the Son, the eternal Son of the eternal God.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He took upon Himself the likeness of a man. Even though He is God, His deity was hidden within the covering of the likeness of a man.
The Bible says, “The Word became flesh, full of grace and truth.” Then, in parentheses, John says, “We have beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.”
Why is that put in parentheses? Because, from the human standpoint, they saw Jesus full of grace and truth. That is all they could see. It takes spiritual eyes to see through this body, this physical form, and see that He is the Son of the living God.
It takes revelation from above to know the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Brothers and sisters, what is revelation? What is the difference between revelation and mental knowledge?
Today, people may have mental knowledge. If you are brought up in a Christian family, or if you are in so-called Christian countries, you are surrounded with the teaching of Christianity. Certainly, you can easily say, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
But that is not revelation. There is only mental knowledge.
What is the difference between revelation and mental knowledge? You may have correct knowledge, accurate knowledge about Jesus, because you have heard.
It is very strange. After Peter confessed the Lord as the Christ, do you know what the Lord said? The Lord told them not to tell anybody that He was the Christ.
We might think that the Lord would say, “Very good. You know Me as Christ. Now go to all the nations and tell them that I am Christ. Spread the news.” But instead, the Lord Jesus said, “Do not tell anybody that I am the Christ.” Now, is that not strange?
It is because people may receive mental knowledge without revelation. Even if people receive mental knowledge about Christ without revelation from above, you find that it may even hinder them from really knowing Him.
The difference between revelation and mental knowledge is this: if your knowledge is merely mental knowledge, information received from outside—something that flesh and blood can instruct—you find there is no transforming power. It cannot translate you anywhere else.
You will not be able to be identified with what you know. You will not be able to be joined into one with your knowledge. In other words, knowledge is knowledge, and you are you. There will be no identification, no union, no transforming, and no translating.
What do I mean by that? I mean this: if it is revelation from above, you will find that through that revelation you will be transformed. Not only transformed, but you will be translated.
Transforming is something that goes on within you. Translating is something that goes on without you, outside of you. In other words, if you really have revelation from above, your position will be changed. That is translation.
You will be translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. That is conversion.
You will be transformed. Instead of being a sinner, you will be a saint. That is transformation. Something will go on within you, and something will happen in your environment.
You will be identified with the revelation that you receive. You will be united with that revelation. So, brothers and sisters, it is very easy to distinguish whether it is revelation or whether it is merely knowledge.
In the time of Christ, of course, this mental knowledge had not been spread abroad. Therefore, all that flesh and blood could teach was that Jesus was a great man, a great prophet. It took revelation to know Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Today, because the gospel has been preached, that knowledge is spread around. We are able to have the mental knowledge that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the living God. But remember this: if it is taught by flesh and blood, it will not transform you.
It will not translate you or transfer you from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Even if you have such mental knowledge, you will not be identified with it, and you will not be able to be united with it.
That is why it is so important that we have revelation from the Father to show us in our spirit that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Do you know what happens when the Father reveals Christ to us? The word Christ means “the Anointed.” He is anointed by God, and the Spirit upon Him is without measure. This is Christ, the Anointed.
But after you have received this revelation and have confessed Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, you become Christians. Christians means “the anointed ones.”
Christ is the Anointed, and we who have received the revelation become the anointed ones. Immediately, you find there is identification. We are united with Him.
The Holy Spirit upon His head is without measure, and the Spirit of God comes upon every one of us and dwells within us. We become Christians, the anointed ones.
He is the Son of the living God. When that revelation is given to us and we believe Him as the Son of the living God, something happens: we are born from above. We become sons of God, children of God.
So you find how important revelation is. Without revelation, there will be no transformation, no translation, no identification, and no union. Everything is merely external. Nothing is real.
But with revelation, immediately you find that something happens to you. Something goes on within you. Something happens even outside of you, in your environment. That is revelation.
Thank God, the Father has revealed the Son. Paul said, “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” I believe that we who are here this morning have been given this revelation. It has pleased the Father to reveal the Son in us.
This is the greatest revelation in the whole world: to see Him as the Christ, the Anointed, the Son of the living God.
But after this revelation was given by the Father and received, immediately you find our Lord Jesus began to reveal the second great revelation in the Bible.
To those who had received the first revelation from the Father, the Son began to reveal the second greatest revelation in the whole world. What is that revelation?
The Lord said, “You are Peter. You are a stone.” Because you believe, translation and transformation have come into you. From dust to a stone—you are Peter, a stone.
“I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Dear brothers and sisters, hear our Lord Jesus as the Son. He came to reveal to Peter the second greatest revelation in the whole world. What is that revelation? It is the revelation of the church.
The Lord said, “I will build My church.” This is the first time that our Lord Jesus used that word, church.
You remember Paul said that the church is a mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages in God. Here, for the first time, our Lord Jesus began to reveal it. He said, “I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
This is a revelation.
Today, because the church has existed upon this earth for two thousand years, you have church history, church historians, and people who are forming churches. Therefore, today you find that the church has become common knowledge.
In other words, you do not need revelation to know about the church. But remember, even if you know about the church through flesh and blood, if you do not have a revelation from the Son, that knowledge of the church will do you no good.
It will not identify you. It will not unite you. It will not transform you, and it will not translate you.
That is why you find lots of people know about the church, talk about the church, and even form churches. But what is the church to them? The church to them is an organization. The church to them is a place for power, even power politics.
Why? Because there is no revelation.
Brothers and sisters, if we need revelation concerning Christ, we need revelation concerning the church. If the Son reveals the church to us, then you will find something very different.
The Lord said, “You are Peter, a stone. I will build My church upon this rock.” Now, the Lord is playing with words. You are Petros; I will build My church upon the petra.
In other words, our Lord Jesus is the Rock. The Lord Jesus, revealed by the Father and confessed by man, is the Rock.
Paul said, “I am a master builder. I have laid a foundation, and there is no other foundation but Jesus Christ.” Our Lord Jesus Himself is the foundation.
The revelation of our Lord Jesus and the confession of our Lord Jesus—He is the foundation. Peter, as he confessed the Lord, became a stone. He became building material.
He, with the other believers, would be built by the Lord upon the Lord Himself, to be a habitation of God.
Now, brothers and sisters, Peter fully understood this. In 1 Peter 2:5, he said that the Lord is a living Stone. As we come to the Lord, we all become living stones, being built up together into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Now, that comes from revelation. If you have a revelation from the Son concerning the church, immediately you find that you are deeply involved.
Why? Because you are a stone. You are to be built together with other stones upon the Rock. You are no longer a bystander or a spectator, but you are deeply involved.
You are identified with the church. You are united with the church. You are in the very process of the building of the church. You cannot separate yourself as if you were a bystander. You cannot do that.
Once the Son has revealed the church to you, immediately you find that you get involved. You are involved. You are identified. You are being built together. You have become material for it. There is no way for you to remain an outsider.
That is the difference between revelation and mental knowledge. Once that revelation is given, it transforms you. It translates you. It puts you in a new position. You become identified with it and united with it.
You find that the Lord is actually taking hold of your life and building you with other believers upon Himself so that He may find His home in you. What a great revelation that is.
The greatest revelation is Christ, and second to it is the church. Why? Because Christ is the Head, and the church is His body.
Dear brothers and sisters, if you receive the revelation of Christ and the church, the whole Bible is open to you. As a matter of fact, the whole Bible teaches this one thing: Christ and His church. There is nothing more important than that.
So we really need to look to the Lord that He will give us such revelation. He will give us the revelation of Christ, and He will give us a revelation of the church.
It is true that when we first believe in the Lord Jesus, the Father has revealed Christ to us. But remember, that revelation has to go on and increase. There is no limit to Christ.
“Oh, that I may know Him.” There is no limit to that real knowledge of Christ—the Son of the living God.
When the Father first opened the heavens and revealed the Son to us, that was only the beginning of knowing Him, not the end. Brothers and sisters, we need to receive further revelation.
We need to receive fresh, new, and living knowledge of our Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit. We need to know Him more and more. The more you know Him, the more you are transformed, the more you are united with Him, and the more you are identified with Him.
The same thing is true with the church. Maybe the Lord has begun to show the church to you: to show you that the church is not something men build, but something that the Lord Himself will build. He said, “I will build.”
Do you see that the Lord is building His church, or do you see only men building? We need to see that the Lord said, “I will build.”
What will He build with? He will build His church with you and me. We are simply building materials. How will He build us? He will build us upon the Rock Himself.
In other words, we will be deeply rooted and grounded in Him. In the measure that we are rooted and grounded in Him will be the measure of our being built up.
Brothers and sisters, this revelation has to increase within us. It is not something static; it is something living.
The more you go on with the Lord, the more the Lord will reveal the church to you, and you will see how He loved the church and gave Himself for it. If it is something for which the Lord will give Himself and love, then you know it is something very, very precious.
First of all, we really need to look to the Lord that in these two great revelations we may not only be privileged by His grace to have a beginning revelation, but that we may go on with an increasing understanding through revelation of what Christ and the church are.
But actually, my burden is not in what I have mentioned to you up to this point. My burden is in the second part, the part that begins with verse 21.
I believe that the second part of the passage we read is very much overlooked. We are so caught up with these great revelations that we overlook it.
We all like revelation. Why? Because when we are given revelation, then we know what it is. Before revelation is given, it is a mystery. We do not know.
We all like to know. Therefore, how we want revelation, that we may know what things are. When we really know and begin to see what God sees, it lifts us up to the third heaven.
Revelation gives us a third-heaven experience. We are lifted to the third heaven because we see and we know. Now we see; now we know. Wonderful, marvellous, glorious.
We would like to feel as Peter said, “Lord, it is good to be here. Let us stay here. We will make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. We will sleep under the open air; it does not matter. That revelation is too good. We do not want to go down to the valley.”
So, brothers and sisters, oftentimes when you read Matthew 16, I think you read only until verse 20, and that is it. You do not read on.
Because we do not read on, something is missed. In spite of the great revelations we have received, we do not see these revelations fulfilled in our lives, made real in our lives.
Here you find, from verse 21, “From that time.” Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important. He said, “From that time.”
In other words, before that time, the Lord did not say anything about what He was going to say. Why? He could not say it. It was only from that time, after the revelation was given, that the Lord Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised.
The Father revealed the Son to Peter—that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed, the Lord of all.
Then the Lord began to explain how He was to be the Christ. Revelation shows us what; explanation tells us how.
Indeed, He is the Christ, the Anointed of God. He is the foundation. But how is the foundation laid? How is He to be the Christ?
He is the eternal Son of God. From eternity, He is His Son. In Philippians, we are told that He, being equal with God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, because this is what He is. In eternity, He is one with God. He is the eternal Son of God, the Son of the living God. It never changes.
He began to be the Christ of God when God conceived the thought of creation. He is the Son of God from eternity, without beginning, but He became the Christ of God when God conceived the thought of creation.
Because of creation, there was a need for Christ to come and accomplish the work of redemption in order to fulfil God’s purpose. Even before the world was created, He was Christ. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
When He came into this world, He came as Christ, as the Anointed One of God, to accomplish God’s eternal purpose. He came with a tremendous mission.
But how was He to accomplish the work of Christ? How was He to prove Himself to be indeed the Christ?
He said that He must go to Jerusalem. He would suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes. He would be killed, and on the third day be raised.
You remember our Lord Jesus when He was thirty years old, before He began His public ministry. He went to John the Baptist to be baptised by him.
John the Baptist did not want to do it. Somehow John felt that here was a Man who had no need to repent. Yet the Lord said, “Do it, for the sake of righteousness. This is the way that God has ordained. Let it be done.”
You remember our Lord Jesus went down into the water, and He was baptised. What does it mean?
It means that even though He had nothing of which to repent, yet because He was ordained to be the Christ, He had to take our place. He had to go through baptism, go through death and resurrection.
In other words, He offered Himself to the Father to be the sacrifice. He offered Himself to the Father to do the work of Christ—to die for mankind. He accepted baptism as a token that He was willing to lay down His life for our sake.
Throughout His life, you find the shadow of the cross cast over Him. There was never a day nor a night that the shadow of the cross was not over Him. He walked the way of the cross. All His life, He took up His cross.
Until finally, He was crucified on the cross. Why? Because He cannot be Christ if there is no cross.
He is Christ, but to be Christ—to fulfil the work of Christ—He had to go through the cross. There is no other way. It is by the cross that He proved to the world that He is the Christ.
That is why today the cross has become a symbol, because it is the very proof that He is the Christ. If He had not gone to the cross, even though He was sent into the world to be Christ, He would have failed His mission.
One day, our Lord Jesus took three disciples to the Mount of Transfiguration, and there He was transfigured. In other words, the glory of the Godhead began to shine through His physical body and transformed His physical body.
His face was bright as the sun, and even His clothes—material things—became white. The glory of the Lord began to shine through His body. There was one time in His life on earth when the glory within came forth.
It was so good. There you find Moses and Elijah appearing, and they were talking with Him about His departure—His exodus.
He came into this world through the virgin Mary. That was His entrance. Now they were talking about His exit—His going out of the world. How would the Lord Jesus go out of the world?
So far as the Lord Himself was concerned, He had lived upon the earth for more than thirty years and had lived a perfect life. He had every right to return to the Father. He was a perfect Man, who had lived a perfect life, a life pleasing to the Father.
He could have gone out from the world at the Mount of Transfiguration. He was ready. So far as God was concerned, He was a perfect Man, and He had every right to return to the Father.
But if He had done that, He would have remained the Son of God, but we would have had no Christ on earth. Why? His mission would have failed.
He did not come merely to prove to the world that there was such a perfect Man. He came to prove that a Man, a perfect Man, One who knew no sin, would die for those who are sinners—made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. Now, that is Christ.
Thank God, our Lord Jesus did not exit from the Mount of Transfiguration. He exited from Calvary’s tree to prove that He is the Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, a Christ without the cross is no Christ. Our Christ is a Christ with the cross. Therefore, you find Paul said, “I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” That is the message.
Satan hated the cross. Satan did not like to see our Lord Jesus crucified on the cross. You may think this strange.
You may think it was Satan who wanted Christ to be crucified. In one sense, yes; in another sense, no. Why?
When the Lord began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and be killed—in other words, that He had to go to the cross—immediately Peter, the one who had just made such a great confession, took hold of Christ, shook Him, and rebuked Him.
Think of that. These are strong words. Peter rebuked his Master, as if Peter knew better.
Peter said, “Lord, do not do that. Do not do that. Take care of Yourself. You do not need a cross. You can have the throne.”
Peter said this out of a good heart. He loved his Master so much that he did not want to see his Master suffer in any way. He was full of sympathy, compassion, and love for the Lord. He thought he was doing the right thing, not knowing that he was being used by Satan.
The flesh is always used by the enemy. Wherever there is flesh, there is an instrument in the enemy’s hand. That is how serious it is, whether that flesh is bad flesh or good flesh. Certainly, Peter here exhibited good flesh.
But our Lord had discernment. Immediately, the Lord saw through the whole thing. The Lord turned and said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan, because you are not mindful of the things of God; you are mindful of the things of men.”
“You want to take away the cross from Me, but do you not know that if I do not go to the cross, you will have no Christ? There will be no salvation.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, Satan knew that if Christ went to the cross, his head would be crushed. It is true: in desperation, Satan lost his mind. He wanted Christ to be crucified.
But after Christ was hanging on the cross, again you find Satan using the chief priests and scribes. They came under the cross and said, “If You are Christ, come down. Come down from the cross, and we will believe You.”
That was from Satan again. Christ was already crucified, and Satan said, “Come down. Come down. If You come down, we will all believe You.”
If they believed Him, what would happen? There would be no salvation. Thank God, our Lord Jesus did not come down. He did not come down because He was Christ. If He had come down, He would not have been Christ anymore.
Here, brothers and sisters, do you see the point? The revelation is what: He is Christ. But that revelation can only be realised how? Through the cross.
The cross is the means; Christ is the end.
Now, this principle is not only true with Christ. This principle is also true with the church.
After our Lord Jesus had clarified the situation concerning Himself, in verse 24 He turned to the disciples. After He clarified the first revelation—that there can be no Christ without the cross, that the cross and Christ are inseparable, and that the cross is the means to Christ—He turned to the disciples.
He was no longer talking about Himself, but about them. He was entering into the second revelation: the revelation of the church.
The revelation of the church is a great revelation. But how is the church built? He said, “I will build My church.” But how is He going to build the church? On what principle, along what line, by what means?
Then He said to His disciples:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.
Brothers and sisters, we have received the revelation of the church. The Lord said, “I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
But why is it that in these two thousand years, it seems as if very little of the building work has been done? Why is it that much that has been built has been overcome by the gates of Hades, proving that these are not the work of the Lord?
Why? It is because the church does not understand the principle of the cross.
Without the cross, there can be no church. The revelation of the church is glorious, but without the cross, it will never become a reality.
Therefore the Lord said, “If anyone desires to come after Me.” Do we desire to come after Him? Do we desire to be built up together as a holy habitation of God?
If you have no such desire, then nothing can be said. But if you really desire to come after Him, where does He go? He goes the way of the cross.
In order to be the Christ of God, He went the way of the cross. Therefore, if we desire to go after Him, we have to go the same way—the way of the cross. Then we will be built up together as a holy habitation of God.
Having the revelation of the church but rejecting the cross will leave us as visionaries.
It is only when we receive the revelation of the cross and are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lord that the church will become a reality in our lives.
The Lord said, “Deny yourself.” Why? Because the greatest hindrance to the building of the church is self.
Do not think that it is our environment that hinders us from being built. You may say, “There is persecution. People are not allowed to meet together. Therefore, we cannot be built together.”
But strange to say, in countries where persecution prevails, you find the church is being built more than ever before. God’s people are really being built together.
It is not our environment or our circumstances. The hindrance to the building of the church is not in outward things. The hindrance to the building of the church is you; it is I; it is self. That is the hindrance.
Paul said in Romans that we are like a lump of clay in the hand of the potter. The potter can make us into any kind of vessel He wants, and the clay has nothing to say.
Why? Because the Potter has the right. The clay not only has nothing to say, but the clay does not know how to say anything. It will never say anything. It is in the hand of the potter passively, allowing the potter to mould and fashion it according to his will.
But, brothers and sisters, we are living stones. That is the problem.
The Lord cannot take us up and mould us without any cooperation from us. The Lord cannot do that work passively, because we are living beings. We are living stones.
When He tries to build us together, brothers and sisters, you find that there is self in every one of us that resists the Lord at every turn.
It is so. That is the greatest hindrance to the building of the church. Self wants everything to be built around itself. It never wants to be built together with others.
Therefore, you cannot build self. You can only build Christ in us. The building material is Christ in us.
But because there is self, it resists the work. Therefore, you find how difficult it is for the Lord to build His church.
The Lord said, “Deny yourself.” What does it mean to deny yourself? To deny yourself simply means to say no to yourself.
Oh, brothers and sisters, who does not love himself or herself? Because we love ourselves so much, we will not deny ourselves anything.
We gratify self. We cater to its desires. We give everything to self in order to satisfy self. We always say yes to self.
But the Lord said, “Say no to self. Learn to say no to self.”
Dear brothers and sisters, do you ever say no to yourself—to your self-opinion, your self-ideas, your self-pride, your self-righteousness?
Do you ever say no to yourself? Do you ever deny yourself? Do you ever say to yourself, “I do not know you. Who are you that I must listen to you?”
Do you ever say that to yourself? Or are you always trying to gratify yourself, to say yes to yourself? If anybody says no to you, are you hurt? Are you frustrated? Do you develop self-pity, or do you get angry?
Brothers and sisters, the first lesson we must learn is to deny ourselves.
Denying self is a matter of will. It is not a matter of action; it is a matter of will.
In other words, if you really desire to follow the Lord, if you really desire to be built in the church, the revelation is so glorious. You see it. You want to be built into it.
If you really desire it—if you do not desire it, love yourself—but if you really desire it, then the first thing is that, in your will, you have to will to deny yourself. “I am going to deny myself.”
It is the Spirit of God who works within you the willing. He wants you to will it, but you have to will it yourself. He will not force you to do it. He respects your personality. He always does.
He wants your cooperation. He wants you to will it. Brothers and sisters, the Lord said, “Deny yourself.” You must have the will to deny yourself.
Do not think first about the strength of it or the power of it. You may think, “The will is in me, but the doing is not in me.” That is all right. Begin with the will first, and you will find that He will do it.
But first of all, you have to will to deny yourself.
Brothers and sisters, what do you mean by denying self? Denying self means more than merely denying something.
If you are a good Catholic—I sometimes use this illustration—if you are a practising Catholic, then perhaps on Friday you abstain from meat. You think that you deny yourself meat.
Or during Lent, you may fast sometimes. You may deny yourself some food. You may deny yourself things that you like and give something for the Lord. You may deny yourself some time and give some time to the Lord, or give some place to the Lord.
I believe that, if we are the Lord’s, in our lifetime there will be times when we deny this and deny that for the Lord’s sake. Thank God for all these things. But remember this: when you are denying these things, if self is not denied, what will happen?
The more you deny things, the stronger self will become. Do you believe that?
Look at Paul. How much he had denied, but his self became stronger—self-righteousness so strong that nobody could conquer him. He even wanted to kill people of God and thought he was doing God a service.
That is why you find, in the church, that the so-called spiritual people—those who have given up much for the Lord—are often the hardest people to be built up together.
Self must be denied. How?
The Lord said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.” In other words, denying self is a matter of will; taking up the cross is a matter of action.
If you have the will to deny yourself, then the Holy Spirit will arrange crosses for you today.
Brothers and sisters, you do not need to make crosses. You do not need to create crosses for other people so that their self may die.
What you may create for yourself and for other people are problems, not crosses. Whatever is man-made is a problem, not a cross.
Only that which is arranged by the Holy Spirit can be a cross, if you take it up.
It is something you can choose. You can take it up; you can bypass it.
I think this bypass is a wonderful modern transportation. You can bypass. But in spiritual things, you find that a bypass is no good.
You can bypass the cross, but that bypass will not lead you back. It leads you away.
We have to take up the cross. What is the meaning of the cross? The meaning of the cross is very simple: the cross is where self is crucified. That is what the cross is.
Suffering, yes—but not all suffering is a cross.
Brothers and sisters, if you have the will to deny yourself, do not worry. Do not be anxious. You will have enough crosses to take up.
The Lord will arrange your environment—with your brothers and sisters, with your own family, with certain events, with a particular environment, or whatever it may be.
When these things happen, you will realise, “The Lord wants self to die, to be crucified upon it.”
Not to speak for yourself, not to stand for your rights, but to be willing to let yourself go.
Only when self is being dealt with will you find the Christ-life within you beginning to build with the Christ-life within the other brothers and sisters. That is the way the church is built.
Our problem is that we want to be built up together, but we want self to be built into it.
But the Lord will not build that way. Men may build that way, but God will not. He will only build with the pure life of Christ in us.
Therefore, self has to go to the cross. The Lord said, “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it.” The life there is soul-life. That is self; it is the life of the soul.
If you love your soul-life, you love self, and you will not let it go. You want to have self enjoyed, satisfied, gratified, and full. You may have it today, but you will lose it.
If you are willing to lose your soul-life for the sake of Christ, then you will gain it for eternity.
Brothers and sisters, the cross is not only the place where self is crucified so that Christ-life may grow in you. The cross is also the means by which you and your brothers and sisters are able to be built up together.
There is a personal aspect of the cross, and there is a corporate aspect of the cross.
Personally, the cross will crucify your self-life so that Christ-life may be in ascendancy within you. Corporately, the cross will remove the obstacle to the building of the church, that you may be built up together with your brothers and sisters.
Again I say: without the cross, there can be no church. A church that has no cross is not a church.
That is why we often say: if we preach the cross, we get the church; but if we preach the church, we get the cross.
So may the Lord help us to see. We need revelations, but we must also accept the cross. Otherwise, we have no vocation and no testimony.
Let us pray.
Our heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee because it is Thy good pleasure to reveal Thy Son to us, and it is the delight of the Son to reveal the church to us.
Our Father, we do praise and thank Thee for these great, glorious, eternal revelations. They do uplift us. But, our Father, we do realise that the way to their realisation is the cross.
We see our Lord Jesus set before us as our model, that He did go by the way of the cross to prove Himself as the Christ of God.
Our Father, we do ask Thee that we may not lose sight of the cross; that we may, by Thy grace, be willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Thee; that we may be built by Thee into a holy habitation of God for Thee to dwell.
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.