Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
Brothers and sisters, as we gather here at this time, our purpose is that we may be helped in the area of leadership, both in the church and in God’s work.
First of all, I think we acknowledge that none of us is a genius. In other words, if in any other vocation people need to be trained, then in this—the noblest and highest of all vocations—can we say that we do not need any kind of training?
Maybe in the world, in different areas of work, there might be geniuses, but certainly not in the spiritual realm. We all need to be trained. We all need to be helped.
I think probably we remember the two sons of Aaron in Leviticus 10, how they ran into the tabernacle and offered strange fire. They thought they knew how to worship God, how to serve Him. A fire came out from the holy place, and they were burnt.
We can also recall Uzzah, how he stretched out his hand to touch the ark, thinking that he was doing the right thing for God; and he was smitten to death.
Serving God is such a sacred thing that we really need to know God’s way. And more than that, we really need to learn God’s heart. It is not something that we can touch with our natural strength, the strength of the flesh.
We need to be vessels fit for the Master’s use. It is for this reason that we feel very strongly how we all need to be trained, to be helped, so that we can really be used by Him for the work that He appoints us to do.
Now, if you read the New Testament, you find that one of the titles our Lord Jesus had is the title Master.
According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, the English word master in the English Bible is translated from seven different Greek words.
It means a teacher, one who teaches. It means the Lord, a lord, one who has authority. It means a despot—not in the wrong sense, but in the absolute sense of having full authority. It means an owner, a master. It means a guide. It also means a pilot. It means a leader, a chief.
We find that all these meanings are translated into English as master. One of the titles of our Lord Jesus is Master. He is not only our Teacher, our Instructor; He is also our Lord, our Sovereign, who has absolute authority over us. He is not only our Master; He is also our Chief, our Leader, our Guide, our Pilot. He is everything.
So when we call our Lord Jesus Master, actually it means that He is everything over us. We are under Him in an absolute sense.
Matthew 23:10 says:
One is your Master, even the Christ.
We have only one Master, and He is Christ.
Now, it is true that in the so-called Great Commission, we find that the Lord said, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.” Make disciples unto whom? We are discipled to Christ. He alone is our Master. He is the only One qualified to reproduce in us His image. He is the only One able to get things done through us.
Now, it is true that sometimes God uses people to help us in this matter of discipleship, but we must remember that they are only channels. They are only used by God to direct us to Christ, to help us to be discipled to the only Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul said to the Corinthian believers:
Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.
But he would be the first one to tell us, “Now, do not imitate me in any area if I do not imitate Christ.” As a matter of fact, he did say that he did not want to say more than he should, lest people should think of him more highly than they saw in him and heard from him.
So, at the very outset, we want to make it very clear that we do not gather here to be trained by men. We gather here to be trained by the only Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.
He may use men to help us, but these are just channels. Do not look at them, but look through them to Christ.
In the Gospels, we find that our Lord Jesus calls us. He first calls us to come to Him. He says:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Come to Me.
He told the Jews, “Search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me. But ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life.”
So the first calling with which He calls us is to come to Him. But that is just the beginning.
After He has called us to come to Him, He calls us to come after Him and to learn of Him. To come to Him is that we may receive rest, eternal life. It is for our benefit. But to come after Him is to be used by Him, and it is for His benefit.
So it is really not enough just to come to Him. We who have come to Him must come after Him.
You may notice, as you read the Gospels, that even though our Lord Jesus came into this world for the whole of mankind, when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion. He gave Himself to them without reservation. He served them to such an extent that He had no time to eat. Our Lord thus came for the multitudes.
But when the crowd got too big, you find that oftentimes our Lord Jesus dispersed them. If He could not send them away, He would say some hard words.
Do you remember after He fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes? He tried to send them away. He even crossed the sea to the other side, but they came after Him. They would not leave Him.
So the Lord began to say, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves.” After He said these hard words, many began to say, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” The Bible says that many of His disciples left Him.
Our Lord even turned to the twelve and said, “Would ye also go away?” In effect, “If you want to, here is your chance. I will not make you stay.”
Our Lord is never after the masses. He is always looking for the few, because the way He works is to reach the masses through the few.
If He can apprehend a few, He will be able to reach the many. This is the way that our Lord always works.
In going through the Gospels, you will find that at the very beginning, after our Lord Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, a few were drawn to Him.
Then, after John the Baptist was imprisoned, He began His work in Galilee. You find many people beginning to flock to Him. He ministered to them, preached to them, and made many disciples.
Then, when the crowds grew too large, He began to choose among them twelve to be with Him, and later to send them out in order to reach more people.
In the beginning of the ministry of our Lord Jesus, you find that His ministry was mainly with the crowds. But as time went on, you begin to find that He gradually shifted His attention. Instead of spending more time with the crowds, He began to spend more time with a few.
This is noticeable especially toward the closing days of His ministry. He spent almost all His time with the few. That is the way our Lord always works.
If this is the way that He worked two thousand years ago while He was on earth, then this will be the way that He works even today. He is never working directly and exclusively with the crowds.
He never rejects the crowds in one sense. He sends them away, but He never rejects them. His ultimate end is to reach them, but the way He reaches them is always through the few.
And that is where leadership comes in. He will raise up leaders. He will train leaders. Through these leaders, He will reach the rest.
When you go into the choosing of the twelve apostles, you will notice that out of all the people, the multitudes that always crowded Him, and out of the many disciples He made in the early stage of His ministry, He chose only twelve.
He chose them to be with Him, to be trained in a special way, and to be His representatives to carry on His work.
If you notice these twelve men, you will find that none of them was wise, powerful, or noble.
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, God called you people, but you were not wise; you were the foolish. You were not powerful; you were the weak. You were not noble; you were the common, the ignoble. You were not people with many talents or many possessions. You were nothing.
God chooses the weak, the foolish, the ignoble, the things that are nothing. Why? Lest anything should boast.
So in the choosing of the twelve, you find that none of them was noble, powerful, or wise. Probably the wisest among the twelve was Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot—people say that Kerioth was a place in Judea—was the only one who came from Judea. All the rest came from Galilee. Probably Judas was the cleverest one, the wisest one, among the twelve, because he was shrewd. He became a thief. He sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
Beware of being wise and clever in yourself.
Here you find Peter and Andrew. They were fishermen. They were not rich. They were not educated. The Jewish council said, “These people are unlearned.” In other words, they had never gone to rabbinical school. They were uneducated in the sight of the Pharisees and the priests.
Peter was of a rough character—outspoken, outgoing, but rough, unstable, and impulsive.
His brother Andrew was quiet, very much a person of details. He noticed very small things. Out of five thousand men, he could notice a little boy with five loaves and two fishes. I think he had a marvelous appetite for details.
Then you find the two sons of Zebedee, John and James. Probably they were richer than Peter and Andrew because their family could afford to employ some hired servants to help in the fishing business. They knew the family of the high priest and had some connections.
But still, they were unlearned people. Not only unlearned, but the Lord gave them a nickname, calling them the sons of thunder. I think people are afraid of thunder. These were James and John.
James must have been a very aggressive person. How do we know? Because he was the first one martyred. John was a very introspective, meditative, quiet type of person—very intense.
Then you have Philip. What kind of person was he? He came from the same city as Peter, Bethsaida. He must have been a very earnest inquirer, but with a very practical mind.
You remember on that night before our Lord Jesus was betrayed, Philip asked a question: “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
The Lord said, “Philip, have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know Me? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Here you find that this man was a very practical person. To see the Lord was not enough; he wanted to see the Father.
Then there was Nathanael, Bartholomew—the true Israelite, an honest, good kind of person.
There was Matthew, Levi, the tax collector, one who was out for money, serving foreigners against his own people. That kind of person—the publican—was despised by the Jews.
And there with him was Thomas, doubting Thomas. He seemed to doubt everything. He wanted proof. He wanted to see it.
We do not know much about James the Less or the other Judas. We do not know much about them. But we do know Simon the Canaanean, and in other versions he is called Simon the Zealot. He belonged to that group called Zealots—very politically minded, very nationalistic at that time.
Then it ended with Judas Iscariot. So you find that all the twelve people our Lord Jesus chose from among all these people to be His apostles, none of them was noble, wise, or powerful. They all came from the lower class, uneducated, nothing, despised by the world. Yet the Lord chose these men.
Now why? If the Lord were to choose people with natural talents, natural ability, influence, power, position, and so forth, then certainly these would be the people He would choose, because He could start with something already there.
But that is not the way God does things. He does not choose those who have; He chooses those who have not.
Here, brothers and sisters, the Lord does not choose anyone because of his natural ability, because of what he has in him. If He does, He runs a risk, because those who have may think that they are helping Him. They may want to share His glory.
So in His wisdom, He chooses those who are nothing. If ever, brothers and sisters, you are chosen, remember: it is because you are nothing, not because you are something.
Why does He call some and choose some? The call actually is universal. It is as universal as those who have come to Him.
Of course, the first call, “Come unto Me,” is universal for the whole world. But after we have come to Him, the second call, “Come after Me,” is universal in the limited sense that it is to all those who have come to Him.
If you have not come to Him, of course this call is not for you. You remember a scribe came to the Lord and said, “Master, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.”
The Lord said:
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.
You know what the Lord was saying: “You have not come to Me yet, so you cannot come after Me.”
But there was another disciple who had already come to Him. He said, “Lord, I want to follow Thee, but let me first go and bury my father.” The Lord said, “Follow Me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
So the call to come after Him—that is, to put ourselves under His training—is a call to all believers.
But many are called; few are chosen. Who are those who are chosen? Not those who are wise, powerful, and noble. No, He does not choose on such a basis.
Whom will He choose? Those who fully commit themselves to Him. These are the ones He chooses.
Our Master requires only one condition, and that is a full commitment to Him. If we are not fully committed to Him, we are not His disciples.
In these twelve, Judas excepted, you find that these men were nothing in themselves. As a matter of fact, from the human standpoint they had lots of problems. But the Lord chose them nevertheless. Why?
In spite of everything to the contrary, you find one thing in them: they were people who were fully committed to the Master.
When the Lord called Peter and Andrew, they left everything and followed Him. When the Lord called the two sons of Zebedee, they left everything and followed Him. When the Lord called Matthew, he left the customs office and followed Him. In other words, these men responded to the call of the Master with a total commitment.
When the Lord turned to them and said, “Would ye also go away?”—in effect, “You can go if you want to; I am not holding you”—Simon Peter said:
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
And we have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.
Where can we go? We are stuck with You. We are fully committed to You, for life and for death.
Now, even Thomas, when the Lord said, “Let us go, because our friend Lazarus sleepeth,” and the disciples did not understand, the Lord said, “Lazarus is dead.” You remember Thomas saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” Going back to Judea was dangerous at that time.
In spite of all his doubts, you find Thomas was fully committed to the Lord. It is true that when the Lord was seized, they all scattered. That is true; that is weakness. But still, you find they were people who were fully committed to the Master.
Here, brothers and sisters, our Master is such a skillful Master that He does not look for good material. He can turn the worst material into the best vessels.
He is able to make us what God ordains us to be. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, it really gives us hope.
But the only thing is, you have to be fully committed.
Our Master is skillful, but He will not—and He cannot—work with you if you are not fully yielded to Him. It is because He respects our personality. If you do not want Him to touch you, He will not.
He wants to have your consent, your full consent, for Him to do something—to reproduce in you His image and to get things done through you. But He requires that you give Him your full consent. That is what He requires.
It does not really matter who you are and what you are. He is able to make you fully what He intends you to be.
When you go through the Gospels, how does our Lord train His own? Our Lord is a Master Trainer. How does He train?
Tonight, we would like to mention a few things for our consideration. Number one: when He chose the twelve, in Mark 3, it says that He chose them to be with Him.
He chose them to be apostles. Now, the word apostle means “sent ones.” He chose them in order to send them out. But He did not send them out right away. He chose them that they might be with Him.
So the first thing He did with those whom He chose was that they were to be with Him.
You know, in the very beginning, when He gathered around Him a few who believed in Him, in John 1 you find the two disciples of John the Baptist following the Lord. They came to the Lord—Andrew and, most likely, John—and they brought their brothers to the Lord. Then came Philip and Nathanael.
Evidently, in those early days, while our Lord Jesus was traveling in Judea, these people followed Him off and on. Most likely they were with Him when our Lord attended the wedding feast at Cana. They were there, but they did not travel with Him all the time—just occasionally.
It was after John the Baptist was in prison, and our Lord Jesus began His public work in Galilee, that He began to call some disciples to follow Him. In other words, not just to be His traveling companions off and on, but to be with Him all the time.
So they started to be with Him all the time. Out of those people, He chose twelve to be with Him day and night—to be with Him.
This is the principle of abiding, dear brothers and sisters. If we want our Master to train us, to make us vessels fit for the Master’s use, the first thing we must do is to be with Him.
Pardon me to say something here. The teaching of discipleship is quite popular these days, but I notice one danger. The danger is that instead of being with Him, Christ, it seems to me that people are being with men.
But the first principle of discipleship is to be with Christ—with Him. If people would take you away from Him to be with them, something is basically wrong.
If they want to help you, they should help you to be with Him, with Christ.
That is the reason why, when people come to you for help, you should direct them to the Lord instead of doing it yourself. They come to you; they do not come to Him.
If you do not abide in Him, make your home in Him, stay with Him—not off and on, but constantly—He is not able to work with you and in you.
That is the reason why you find lots of times we fail, because our walk with Him is off and on, not steady, not constant. We do not abide in Him.
Abiding is the first principle of discipleship. If we stay with Him, then He is able to teach us, to instruct us, and to do His work in us.
This is an absolute requirement for discipleship. So, brothers and sisters, do we really abide in Him in our daily life?
Not only do we spend time with Him, reading the Word and praying, but even in our daily walk, do we always live in His presence? Do we always make our home in Him? Are we always with Him, so that at any time and at any place He is able to teach us, instruct us, and do something in us?
Abiding is the first principle with which He works.
Now, it is true that abiding in Him, making your home in Him, is in one sense a glorious experience. But in another sense, it is a terrible experience.
Just think of making your home in Christ, and you will discover how unlike Christ you are. You will find your environment so strange to your flesh. At times, you will find His presence unbearable. Even if He does not say anything, you feel it.
That is the reason why, after Peter had walked with the Lord for a time, answering His call, when the Lord came to Peter’s own town, Capernaum, Peter went fishing through the night and caught nothing.
When the Lord did a miracle the next morning, filling his boat with fishes, Peter prostrated himself before the Lord and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. I am not worthy. This is too much for me. I do not think I can make it.”
But the Lord said, “Fear not. From henceforth thou shalt catch men.” In effect, “You cannot, but I will. I am able to. I have chosen you; just stick with Me. That is all you need to do.”
Dear brothers and sisters, this is abiding.
The second thing: the way the Lord taught His disciples was through seeing and hearing.
These twelve people were like little children. They were called to be with the Lord, with that most marvelous Person—a Person you have never seen in this world, nor even dreamed could live. But these men were called to be with this Person day and night.
They were to learn of this Man by seeing Him and by hearing Him. They used their eyes and their ears like little children.
When a child is born into this marvelous world, you find that everything is strange and everything is exciting. The child uses his eyes, trying to see everything he can see, and tries to hear everything he can hear in order to get all these things into him.
Now, that is what was happening when these twelve were with the Lord. Through their eyes and their ears, as they were with the Lord, they saw the Lord do many things. They heard the Lord say many things.
Not only did they see what the Lord did and hear what the Lord said, but they watched Him. They looked at Him. They modeled after Him. They began to learn from Him by seeing and hearing.
Under this Master, it is not just like going to a school, a rabbinical school, to be trained. Then you graduate from a rabbinical school, know the law according to tradition, and think you know.
That is not the kind of training school you enter when you put yourself under the Master. You are like an apprentice of old times. You leave everything and stay with Him day and night—not just trying to learn His skill, but trying to learn Him: the way He taught, the way He did things.
That is the way we learn. That is the way He trains us: by seeing and hearing.
But, dear brothers and sisters, probably you would say, “With the twelve, the Lord was there with them, so they could see and hear. But He is no longer with us today. He has gone; He is absent. Where do we see? How can we hear?”
Our brothers and sisters, you know better: by the indwelling Holy Spirit. If you abide in Him, He cannot help but make us see and hear. If you do not see and hear, it simply proves you do not abide in Him.
How sad it is. Christianity today is so external. Everything turns external. You hear and see men, but you do not hear and see Him—Christ.
You receive advice from men. When you have a problem, you go to man: “Master, what can I do? What should I do?” Even if you have no problem, he will create a problem for you, and then tell you, “Do this.”
But do you hear Him? Do you see Him? Many things you do by the command of men may be right, but you do not see Him and you do not hear Him. Brothers and sisters, it is dead work. There is no spiritual value in it. It will not last for eternity.
You have to see Him. You have to hear Him.
If we abide in Him, then the Holy Spirit will bring Him to our sight and to our hearing. Is this not what the Holy Spirit comes to do? Is this not His work in us? Why should He be in us, abiding with us, never leaving us nor forsaking us?
If you read John 14–16, whenever the Lord Jesus mentioned the Spirit of truth, the other Comforter, the One who is coming, He said, “He will be in you. He will reveal to you. He will take of Mine and bring it to your remembrance. He will glorify Me.”
In other words, He will bear witness of Me. He will let you see and hear Me. Brothers and sisters, this is the way that He will train you. You will hear Him. You will see Him.
Now, of course, today it is not with our naked eyes. We have a far better eye—the eye of the spirit. It is not with our physical ears, but we have a better pair of ears.
This is the reason why you find there are two things that are very basic. One is revelation; the other is rhema.
We need revelation, and revelation is seeing. We need rhema, and rhema is hearing Him.
The Spirit of God today is the Spirit of revelation. In other words, He will reveal Christ to us. In our spirit, we are able to see Him. We are able to see His works.
We all have had these experiences. When we first came to Christ, that is how we came. “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” You see Him, and because of that, you are saved.
Brothers and sisters, we need revelation, and the Holy Spirit who indwells us gives this revelation.
You may be reading the Word of God, reading what the Lord has done. For instance, Romans 6:6: “Our old man was crucified with Him.” You may read this a hundred times, but if you do not see it, you do not change. There is no transformation.
But once the Holy Spirit opens your inner eyes and you begin to see, revelation has come to you. Thank God, you do not need to put yourself to death, because you were there two thousand years ago in Him. When you see it, His work becomes living. You see?
The same thing is true with hearing. Do you hear Him? It is true that we have the logos here. This is the truth, nothing but the truth, all truth. But you need rhema.
God has spoken; it is written. But you need Him to speak to you personally, inwardly, livingly, freshly. When you hear Him, He says, “My words are spirit, and are life.”
That is the way He will train us. Again, dear brothers and sisters, God may raise up some people to help you, and thank God for them. But they can only help you to get near to the Lord, so that you may hear Him and see Him.
They are not supposed to take you away from the Lord to hear them and see them.
Thank God, today we can hear Him and we can see Him. Revelation and rhema are present with us today. Why? Because the Spirit of truth is in us.
Thirdly, there is one thing on our part that is required. The Lord said:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.
Here you find the word, “learn of Me.” Learning means to be trained, to be discipled, to be transformed, to be like Him.
We will not be able to learn of Him unless we take His yoke upon us.
What is a yoke? A yoke is a wooden bar that is put upon the neck of a beast—an ox, a horse, or a mule—so that the farmer can plow his land. The yoke is put on the neck of the beast and connected to a plow. The farmer puts one hand on the plow to guide it, and in the other hand he has something to keep the animal straight.
The Lord said, “My yoke.” In one sense, our Lord Jesus was never under any yoke. He was a red heifer. You remember that a red heifer was presented that had never been under a yoke of any kind. It speaks of our Lord. He was never under any yoke of sin. He was never under bondage.
But in another sense, He was always under a yoke. Why? Because when He emptied Himself, He took upon Himself the form of a servant.
What was His yoke? His yoke was the will of the Father. The will of the Father was like a yoke placed upon Him.
He willingly, voluntarily, humbly, meekly, and lowly took this yoke upon Him and let this yoke govern Him.
Not My will, but Thine, be done.
“I can do nothing of Myself. If I do anything, it is because I saw My Father doing it. I cannot say anything by Myself; I say it because I have heard Him say it.”
In other words, whether it was His time—“My time is not yet come”—He could not go anywhere, anytime, do anything, or say anything on His own. “I am under the yoke of the will of the Father.”
How meek and lowly He was. No resistance, no struggling, no protest, no murmuring—absolute obedience, even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
The Lord said, “If you want to learn of Me, take My yoke upon you.” Here is a yoke with two curves. On one side, the neck of our Lord is put under it; on the other side, an unbroken animal is put under the same yoke.
As they begin to plow, you find this unbroken beast has his own will and wants to do his own thing. He rebels. He struggles. He is not happy with it. He tries to go off at a tangent, seeking his own interest.
But while he is trying to do that, he finds that there is another power beside him that keeps him in line. The One who has been broken is stronger.
After he has been doing that for some time and has suffered enough, then he is broken. God is able to use that animal to plow His field and to do His work.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are all unbroken people. We need to be broken. The only way to be broken is to take the yoke of Christ upon us.
This is not natural to us, but this is the way to learn of Him.
When God brings us under that yoke, we will fight. We will kick against the goads. But remember Him. Look at Him.
Whenever you begin to struggle, complain, murmur, and rebel, turn your eyes upon Him. How meek and lowly He is. That will break us.
You will go through some hardship, no doubt. But thank God, it is through such a process that you will be broken. He is always on the other side of the yoke.
You are not yoked by yourself. It is not your yoke; it is His yoke. You are yoked with Him, under His yoke. Very soon, you will be gentled, and you will find rest in your soul.
Dear brothers and sisters, are we willing to put ourselves under the yoke of Christ, to be yoked together with Him?
This will bring us into the experience of denying ourselves, taking our cross, and following Him. It is His yoke, our cross.
This is the way that we learn of Him. This is the way that we will unlearn ourselves and learn Christ. This is the way transformation will happen.
So, brothers and sisters, we gather here at this time with one purpose: to put ourselves completely under our Master.
We want to learn of Him. We believe that He is as anxious to train us as He was with the twelve. We believe that it is not us, in ourselves, who are able, but that He is well able to make us what He originally, eternally ordained us to be.
It is true that we are all different, and He will not make us the same. Yet every vessel will be brought to its fullest purpose.
This is what our Master can do. So let us just look to Him and prepare ourselves, open ourselves, during these few days when we are together.
Remember all the time: it is not men who are training you. You are too sacred to be touched by men in that way. The Holy Spirit reserves that right for Himself.
But men may be used by Him to help you, to point you to Him, to help you allow Him to work in you. That is all men can do. But the work is done by Him.
Shall we pray?
Oh, heavenly Father, as we gather here this evening, Thou knowest our hearts. We acknowledge that we are here because Thou hast chosen us. We have not chosen Thee, Lord; Thou hast chosen us.
Thou hast chosen us not because of what we have, but because we have nothing.
Oh, we do praise and thank Thee. Thou art that Master who is able to do exceedingly above that which we may even think or dream of. Thou wilt make us vessels fit for Thy use. Thou art well able to do that.
Oh, teach us. Show us how Thou wilt train us, equip us, and make us what Thou wouldst have us to be, that we may serve Thy purpose in our generation.
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.