Will you please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew?
Matthew 9:35. Matthew 10 will not be read in its entirety, so we will select a few verses afterward.
And Jesus went round all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom,
and healing every disease and every bodily weakness.
But when He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and cast away as sheep not having a shepherd.
Then saith He to His disciples, The harvest is great and the workmen are few;
supplicate therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth workmen unto His harvest.
—Matthew 9:35-38
Matthew 10:1:
And having called to Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power.
Matthew 10:8, the second part:
Freely ye have received, freely give.
Matthew 10:16:
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves;
be ye therefore prudent as the serpents, and guileless as the doves.
Matthew 10:22:
And ye shall be hated of all on account of My name;
but he that has endured to the end, he shall be saved.
Matthew 10:24:
The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the bondman above his lord.
Matthew 10:32:
Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father who is in the heavens.
Matthew 10:38:
And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
Matthew 10:40:
He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me.
Let us look to the Lord.
O Father, we do praise and thank Thee for giving Thy only begotten Son to us. We do praise and thank Thee that Thou dost allow us to know Him, and to know Him is eternal life.
We praise and thank Thee that this morning we can gather together to remember Him. We do take Him as our own. We thank Thee for this time that we may read Thy Word.
We ask that Thou breathe upon Thy Word and make it living and operative in our lives, that Thou mayest be glorified. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
Thank God we have been gathering here the last few days. The purpose of our being gathered together is that we may know our Master, and that we may allow our Master to reproduce His own image in us and to get things done through us.
One is your Master, the Christ.
We have such a wonderful Master—so skillful, so able—that even though we are not very good material, yet He has chosen us, and He is able to make us vessels fit for the Master’s use.
He calls us, “Come after Me. I will make you fishers of men.” Come after Me. The first thing is to come to Him. The first thing is to be with Him. The first thing is to allow Him to work His own character into our lives.
Then there is a work to be done: fishers of men. May we say that this is evangelism—bringing people to the Lord, our Master.
After our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, one day in the early morning some of the disciples were fishing, and the Lord appeared on the shore. You remember the story. After the disciples gathered around Him and had breakfast, the Lord began to ask Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, dost thou love Me? Dost thou love Me more than these? Dost thou love Me?”
And Peter answered, “Lord, Thou knowest; Thou knowest that I have affection for Thee.” And the Lord said, “Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep.”
Here you find that the Lord is re-establishing a relationship, so that the relationship of Peter and the Lord might be restored. It is a relationship of love.
Unless we have a right relationship with our Lord, the Lord is not able to commit any work to us. But if our relationship with the Lord is right—that is, if we do love Him, even though we recognize how weak and feeble our love is—then He can entrust His work to us.
Not very long before, Peter had experienced the weakness of his love in denying the Lord. Yet indeed, deep down within him, there was a feeling toward the Lord, an attachment to the Lord. And with that, the Lord said, “Feed My sheep.”
May we say: feed the lambs, tend the sheep, and seek the sick sheep. It is the work of building up the Body of Christ.
In this sense, you find that the work of the Lord has two different areas. One area is to be fishers of men—to draw the net and bring the fish in. The other is that, after they have come to the Lord and become lambs and sheep, the work is to feed them, take care of them, and build up the Body of Christ. That is service.
So, brothers and sisters, we are called to the Lord that a new character may be developed in us—the character of Christ. We are called by the Lord to build up a right relationship with Him, and of course with one another too.
After that character is being developed and our relationship is being adjusted, then you find there is a service that we are called to do.
Every brother and sister who is saved is saved to serve. There is no one who can be idle.
But the thing is, before we can really serve—whether in the Lord’s work or in the church, in your local assembly—we need to have our character developed, our relationships adjusted, and furthermore, we need to be trained by our Master for service.
Now, it is true: the moment you are saved is the very moment that you need to bear witness for the Lord. I do thank the Lord that when I was saved, back in 1930, the one who led me to Christ was a very wise man.
After the Lord saved me, that man told me right away, “You go out, find someone, and tell them how the Lord saved you.”
So our witnessing for the Lord should start immediately after we are saved. Do not wait. The longer you wait, the more difficult it is to open your mouth.
It is true that as soon as we are saved, we should testify to the greatness of His salvation. We should bear witness to our Savior. That is true.
But on the other hand, to be really involved in His work, to really serve Him, we do need some training.
Why? Because God’s work is so different from the work of men. Unless we are trained by Him for service, our service may not be acceptable to Him; it may not be right.
Look at the history of the twelve. You remember how the Lord Jesus came out when He was thirty years old, after He was baptized.
He was walking by, and John the Baptist saw Him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Two of John’s disciples went off to follow the Lord.
The Lord turned and said, “What do you seek?” I always feel that the answer, or the request, was very strange. When the Lord said, “What do you seek?” they said, “Where dwellest Thou?”
They wanted to know where the Lord lived. Now, what does it mean? It means that they wanted to live with Him.
So the Lord said, “Come and see.” These two men went and stayed with the Lord that day, and their lives were transformed.
They began to bring their own brothers to the Lord. According to the record of John 1, we find Andrew, Simon, John, and most likely James. Then the Lord found Philip, and Philip brought Nathanael. In the beginning, you find that a few came to the Lord.
They accompanied the Lord sometimes when He traveled around, especially during the days in Judea. The Lord’s travels in Judea are not recorded in any other Gospel but the Gospel of John.
According to John’s record, you find that the Lord did have some disciples with Him at that time. They were with Him at the feast in Cana. They saw the glory of the Lord for the first time, and they believed in Him.
But their traveling with the Lord was an occasional thing, an on-and-off thing.
Then, six months later, John the Baptist was put in prison. As John the Baptist was put in prison, the Lord commenced His work in Galilee.
At the beginning of His work, He began to call some to be with Him all the time. He passed by the Sea of Galilee and saw Simon and his brother. They were there casting the net.
So He said, “Come after Me. I will make you fishers of men.” They left the net and followed the Lord.
He went over and saw the two sons of Zebedee. They were mending the nets, and the Lord said, “Come after Me.” They left the nets and the boat, their father and the hired servants, and followed the Lord.
Later we find that He saw Matthew at the tax office, and He said, “Come after Me.” Matthew left the tax office and followed Him.
There you find that He gathered around Himself some people who traveled with Him all the time. They spent their time with Him day and night. They were with Him. They saw what He did and heard what He said.
After our Lord had traveled quite extensively in upper and lower Galilee, He began to choose among His disciples twelve to be with Him and to be sent out as His representatives.
He trained them before He sent them out. Even when He sent them out, He sent them out step by step.
First, He said, “Go only to the house of Israel. Do not go to any Gentile cities. Stay with the house of Israel.”
Then, after He was raised from the dead, He said, “Go; disciple all nations. Begin with Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the end of the earth.”
Within thirty years, or thirty-some years, after His resurrection, the world known at that time was conquered by the Gospel. That is the way the work was done.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we are called to service. Whether the service is more local in nature or wider than the local sphere, nevertheless, it is God’s work and God’s service. In order to do that, we need our Master to train us.
I would like to go back a little bit in the training for service. You will find, first of all, the same principle: first of all, you have to be with Him.
Abiding is the first principle of this training, whether it is in the area of character, the area of relationship, or the area of service.
If we really want to serve Him, the foremost thing that we must have is this: we must be with Him. We must abide in Him. We must make our home in Him.
If we do not make our home in Him, if our life with the Lord is merely an occasional thing, brothers and sisters, He will not be able to train us for service.
He needs you to be with Him all the time. Then He will be able to train you for service.
This is again the first principle. Then the second one is still the same: the way He trains you for service is by seeing and hearing.
He does not just send you to a school to study some books and listen to some lectures. He gathers you around Himself as apprentices. He Himself is to be your Master.
You are to be with Him, to watch Him, to hear whatever He says, and to observe whatever He does—at any time and in any place. There is no time limit and no space limitation. You find that He is training you day and night, all the time, through seeing and hearing.
In this matter of service, you have to watch Him. If you do not watch Him, if you do not hear Him and see Him doing things, dear brothers and sisters, what will be your service?
You will be doing something that He has never done. You will be saying something that He has never said. In other words, you will be doing a work very different from His.
So in the area of service, brothers and sisters, you have to watch Him. See how He does things. What things did He do? What did He say? How did He say these things? It is through seeing and hearing that we learn in the area of service.
He set examples for us. It is not a modern type of education; it is an old type of education—an apprenticeship.
Of course, as we mentioned before, even though our Lord Jesus is not physically here with us, He is with us as our Master and our Teacher.
The Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, will teach us in all things. He will take the things of Christ and show them to us. He will remind us of all that our Lord Jesus has said.
As we live and walk very closely with the Lord, then we will hear and we will see. This is the way that we learn in the area of service.
In the area of service, the process of learning is again the same: learning and unlearning. As a matter of fact, unlearning is probably more difficult than learning. It may take more time to unlearn than to learn.
Brothers and sisters, as we come to the Lord and are called to serve, we carry with us many old concepts. We do not come with an open mind; we come with a prejudiced mind, a preconceived mind.
We have all our concepts about what service is and what God’s work is. We think we know what to do. We think we know what needs to be done. Because we come with our minds full of concepts, we have to unlearn them.
Look at Moses. It took him forty years to learn all the wisdom of Egypt, and it took him another forty years to unlearn all that he had learned.
What is God’s work? Do we know what God’s work is? What is the nature of God’s work? Does God have many works, or does He do only one work?
Since the time He created man, what is God’s work? Brothers and sisters, how often we work for God instead of doing God’s work.
We are so busily occupied working for God. I remember, even before I was saved, I said, “I will work for God.”
I was so grateful to God because He healed my sickness. I was dying, and He healed me. I did not know Him; only in my traditional teaching, I knew that there must be a God. So I wanted to show my gratitude and pay my debt to Him.
I did not know that His grace is so great that I can never repay it. Yet I tried to repay it, and the way to repay it, I thought, was to work for Him.
How we work for Him! But are we doing His work?
What is the nature of God’s work? Is it earthly or heavenly? Is it physical or spiritual? How do you do God’s work?
Do you do God’s work merely by having a brilliant idea, putting all your natural strength into it, pushing it through, and making it work? Is this the way that God’s work is to be done? Is this the way to serve God?
Brothers and sisters, we have many concepts in our minds, and all these concepts need to be unlearned. It takes time. It is a process.
You remember that even when the disciples were with the Lord Jesus, they had a concept of what the Lord should do.
Their concept was simply the Jewish concept of the Messiah. The disciples were not delivered from that concept, even to the very end.
Why did they quarrel among themselves over who was the greatest? Why was it that when our Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem for the last time, James and John became eager?
Why? Because they thought this was the last chance. The Lord was going to Jerusalem to receive His kingdom, to establish the Messianic kingdom. Now was the time to do something; the time was urgent.
So they got their mother to help them seek to sit on the right hand and on the left. Why? Their whole concept was that the Lord came to establish the Messianic kingdom.
That was the work the Lord should do, according to their understanding. The Jews expected Him to do that work, and when the Lord did not do that, they rejected Him. But even the disciples who were with Him were not delivered from that concept.
Even after the Lord was resurrected and was about to ascend, do you know what they asked? “Is this the time Thou wilt restore the kingdom to Israel?” They thought that should be His work.
But the Lord said, in effect, “The times are in My Father’s hand. Go and witness for Me.”
How many concepts we have in our minds concerning God’s work and His service! Dear brothers and sisters, unless we unlearn all these old concepts and begin to receive new concepts through revelation, we will not be able to be used of God in the area of service.
He must reveal His concept to us: what His work really is, its nature, and how it is to be done. We need to unlearn old concepts and learn new ones.
Not only do our concepts need to be changed, but so do our attitudes. When we come to the Lord and are very zealous to get into work, what is our attitude? We bring our own attitude with us.
For instance, people began to bring little children to the Lord. Look at the attitude of the disciples. They forbade them. They said, in effect, “Take these children away. Our Master has no time for children. Take them away. These are too insignificant.”
But our Lord Jesus rebuked them and said:
Suffer the little children to come unto Me;
for of such is the kingdom of the heavens.
Attitude. Brothers and sisters, what is our attitude toward service?
Is our attitude this: “Well, this is a great work. I am doing something really important. That is really great.” But if it is merely a matter of helping a few children, we think, “That is below my dignity. That is something I cannot do. What is that compared with great work?”
It may seem strange, but at the last Passover feast, our Lord Jesus sent disciples to prepare the place for their last Passover together. The room was ready. Everything was ready. The food was ready.
There was a basin, a towel, and water—everything—but no servant.
Usually, when people came to a house, because they wore sandals and walked on dirt roads, the first thing to do was to have a servant at the door wash their feet before they reclined to eat. If your feet were dirty, you would not feel comfortable and would not enjoy the feast. So the first thing to do was to have your feet washed.
But, strange to say, that night when the disciples entered the room, everything was ready, but there was no slave girl waiting at the door to wash the feet of the disciples.
I believe everybody was wondering, as they were uncomfortable, “Why is it? Why is there no one to wash our feet?”
But nobody thought of doing it. It was below their dignity. That was not a work they were prepared to do.
So, very reluctantly and unhappily, they all began to take their seats and recline.
Then suddenly the Lord rose, took off His outer garment, girded Himself with a towel, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
What an attitude!
Our attitude toward God’s work and service needs to be unlearned, and we need to learn a new attitude.
Not only attitudes, but methods and ways. When we come to the Lord to serve Him, we have many ways and many methods.
In one sense, you know, we are very ingenious. We really can invent things in the service of God. But His ways are different from our ways.
You remember that occasion when so many people were gathered together and had nothing to eat. The disciples came to the Lord and said, “We are in a desert place. Why do You not send them away into the villages to buy food, so that they can get something to eat?”
That was their way: sending people away. But the Lord said, “No. Feed them. Feed them.”
But they said, “How can we feed them?” Are you doing things in a natural way, or do you discover the supernatural way?
His way is different from our way. We need to unlearn all our old ways and learn His ways.
So you find that in the area of service, you have to go through training: to unlearn what you already have and to learn what He is going to teach you. Unless we are open to that, there is no way to serve the Lord.
I think we can learn something from the way our Lord trained His own disciples, as we find in the Gospels. We can see principles regarding service.
I would like to use Matthew 10, and perhaps you can add Luke 10 to it. In Matthew 10, you find that our Lord Jesus called the twelve to Him and then sent them out to work, to service. He gave them certain principles to guide them.
In Luke 10, you find the Lord sending out seventy afterward. When the Lord realized that His time was approaching, that He would not have much time to work anymore and that there was much more work to do, He called seventy and sent them out two by two to cover the villages and places where He Himself would go.
In these two chapters, the Lord sent out workmen and gave them guidelines and principles concerning service. Let us learn something from them.
First of all, you find this in Matthew 9. We must remember that when the Bible was written, it did not have chapter divisions. Sometimes, when you divide it into chapters, you lose the continuity of thought.
Actually, we should begin with Matthew 9:36:
But when He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them,
because they were harassed and cast away as sheep not having a shepherd.
Then saith He to His disciples, The harvest is great and the workmen are few;
supplicate therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth workmen unto His harvest.
So far as God’s work is concerned—whether it is local or extra-local, whether it is serving in the local assembly or serving in the field of ministry—you find, first of all, that all God’s work must be initiated by the Lord.
The Lord initiates His work. If we initiate anything, this is our work.
How do we know whether we are doing God’s work or our work? Whether we are serving God with our work, or doing God’s own work? First of all, it is decided by who initiated it.
All the service of God is initiated by the Lord Himself. The Lord saw the multitudes. His compassion was toward them. He saw that these people were like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and cast away.
Therefore, He told the disciples, “The harvest is great, and the workmen are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth workmen into His harvest.”
In other words, the Lord had a burden, and He shared that burden with His disciples. He said, “The harvest is great.”
Brothers and sisters, to begin with, we need vision in the service of God. We need to see what our Lord sees. That is vision.
Vision is seeing what the Lord sees. The Lord shares what He sees with us, and that becomes a vision to us.
We cannot serve God without vision. Why? Because it is not merely doing something. It is not even merely getting work done.
We need to see what the Lord sees. What is He burdened with? What does the Lord want to do? That is something we must see.
Dear brothers and sisters, in the area of service, the greatest lack is vision. Many people are active. We are involved in many activities. We may be doing them very zealously and with all our strength. We really put ourselves into them.
But, dear brothers and sisters, we do not have vision. We do not see what He sees. We do not really know what it is that the Lord really wants.
Even before the foundation of the world, before God created anything, God had a purpose. He had a work to do. It was according to the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus that He created.
It was according to that eternal purpose that He sent His Son into this world to finish the work of redemption.
The Lord Jesus said, “My Father worketh until now, and I work.” The Father has been working, the Son has been working, and the Holy Spirit is working. The Triune God is working one work.
They are doing one work, not many works. There are many different aspects and many different areas, that is true, but there is only one work. He is doing one work.
He is doing one work: to give His Son a Body, a Bride, to share with His Son all things that He has given to His Son. That is the work.
We need vision. We need to see what God really wants. Unless we have that vision, we cannot rightly see the need.
With vision comes the need: “The harvest is great, and the workmen are few.”
Brothers and sisters, our problem is that we are governed by need, not by vision. We see a need and try to supply the need.
We are like little children. Their attention and concentration are so short-lived. They cannot concentrate for long. They are attracted by one thing for a minute, and the next minute they are attracted by another thing.
In God’s service, we are like children. We are governed by need. We see a need here, and we jump in to meet it. Even before that need is met, we see another need there, and off we go to that other need. That is the way we serve.
Now, in the service of God, first of all we need vision. What is it that God really wants to do? Then you can break it down: what is it that the Lord wants you to do in His overall work?
Then, secondly, when you see, the need is evident. The harvest is great. First of all, the Lord has a harvest. It is His harvest. He wants the harvest gathered in for His purpose.
The workmen are few. The need is tremendous, but the need is in relation to the harvest and to the vision, not as an independent or isolated thing. It is related to that vision.
Now you see the need. What do you do? Do you rush in and try to supply the need? No.
The Lord said, “The harvest is great, and the workmen are few.” What do you do? Supplicate the Lord of the harvest.
Do not simply go and do something. Pray. Pray. You supplicate the Lord of the harvest. Ask the Lord to do something about it. Ask the Lord to raise up workmen and send out workmen.
In other words, He has shared His vision with you. He has shared His burden with you.
Not that you are able to discharge His burden—far from it. That is our problem. We think we are able to discharge God’s burden. We want to help God out of His burden.
He does not expect us to do that. He knows we cannot do it. All He asks us to do is this: if we are burdened with His burden, and begin to see what He really wants, pray.
Supplicate the Lord of the harvest. “Lord, You will have to do something Yourself. If this is what You want, and there is such a tremendous need here, You have to do something about it.”
This is the mercy of God. God can do things by Himself, but He will not. He wants your cooperation.
All that you can do in that cooperation is this: when He shares His burden with you, you discharge that burden by prayer, not by doing something.
Dear brothers and sisters, is this the way that we enter into service? How many works are done because we see the need, do not pray, and simply go and do them?
Let us give ourselves to prayer. Supplicate the Lord of the harvest to send workmen for His harvest.
Strangely enough, those who supplicate will most likely be those whom He sends. He called His disciples to Him, and then in Matthew 10 He sent them out.
So the first principle in the service of God is that it has to be initiated by the Lord, because it is His service, His work, and His harvest. It has to come through prayer. He has to send you out. You do not simply go out yourself. He has to send you.
Second:
And having called to Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power.
In other words, He empowered them. He not only initiated the work, but He empowered them.
Brothers and sisters, what is the power of service? With what do we serve?
We often hear people say—and this is commonly done—that after a person is saved, he is immediately exhorted to serve God. How do you serve God? “Serve God with your talents. Serve God with your experience. Serve God with whatever you already have.”
“Consecrate your talents to Him, consecrate your experience to Him, and use them in the service of God.” So we encourage big executives of corporations to become elders. “If you can govern a corporation, to govern a church with a few hundred people is nothing.”
How we serve God with our natural ability and power!
Brothers and sisters, Moses is a good example. He was mighty in words and in deeds—so mighty that he could beat an Egyptian to death, and so mighty in words that he could try to reconcile two Hebrews who were fighting.
God has no need of your natural abilities in His work. No need.
At His ascension, the Lord told His disciples, “Go back to Jerusalem. Wait until you receive power from on high, and then you go—from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the end of the earth.”
When the disciples began to be engaged in the service of God, they did it in the power that came from on high, not in themselves.
They would never have been able to conquer the world within thirty years, in a generation, as twelve unknown people depending on natural energy and strength.
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
Dear brothers and sisters, in the service of God, we should be afraid—fearful—of anything that is our own. We should be afraid of our own ideas, our own concepts, our own opinions, our own talents, our own powers, and our own experience.
We should be fearful of these things because they will interfere with the service of God—not helping, but destroying.
Unfortunately, that is not the way we think. How many works are done in the name of the Lord, but by man’s own power! It is as though we will make it work. We do it for Him.
But one day they will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in Thy name? Did we not preach the Gospel? Did we not do this and do that?” These things may have been done successfully.
But the Lord will say:
I never knew you; depart from Me, workers of iniquity.
Power must be given by the Lord.
Now, I do not mean that your natural talents or your past experience are entirely useless. In one sense, they are. If you depend upon these things to serve God, you will be rejected completely.
But if you allow these things to go through death and resurrection, the Lord can use them. But not you using them—the Lord using them. That is the difference.
Freely ye have received, freely give.
In the service of God, the whole principle is the principle of grace.
We receive freely. He gives us freely. Therefore, let us give freely.
There is no sense that we deserve anything, no sense that anything is ours. Remember, when we are in the service of God, when we are serving Him in whatever capacity it may be, we have freely received; let us freely give.
There is nothing that is not received. That is the reason there is nothing to boast of.
If the Lord is able to use us in any capacity, whether it is in the area of the ministry of the Word, it is given to us freely. We did not pay anything for it. It is of the Lord.
Because it is freely given to you, give it freely to others.
There is absolutely no merit in you and nothing to boast of. If He does not give, you have nothing to receive and you have nothing to give.
If He has given you, freely give it out. Do not keep it within you. It is not for your own sake; it is for the sake of the Body of Christ.
So the principle in service is: freely received, freely give. Of course, if you have not received anything, then you are not able to give anything.
We need to learn to receive. Be open to the Lord—so open that He is able to pour out into you. As He pours into you, give it out freely.
Look at the Apostle Paul. He gave out freely. He told the Ephesian believers that he did not keep back anything that was profitable for them, but gave them the whole counsel of God as it had been revealed to him.
So, brothers and sisters, the principle of service is freely received, freely given.
Ministry and service are never for sale, because they are not yours. You receive it freely, so you have to give it freely.
But people will ask, “If that is the case, where does the support come from?”
The Lord sent the disciples out and said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” Do not charge. Do not charge an entrance fee. Do not charge an admission fee to a lecture.
Freely receive; freely give. Then what about support?
Well, if He sends you, He supplies. You are employed by Him, not by men. So go to your Employer and look for your support.
It is true that He will use His people to support you. But if His people do not, He will send ravens to you.
Fourth:
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves;
be ye therefore prudent as the serpents, and guileless as the doves.
When He sends us into His service, brothers and sisters, remember one thing: you will have a difficult time.
Our idea is that if you work in any service in the world, you will have problems and difficulties. But if you are engaged in the work of God, then you should have no difficulty and no problem. People like to work for God because they think they will have an easier life.
Well, do not be deceived. The Lord said, “I send you out as sheep among wolves.”
You will have many difficulties. It is not an easy thing. The service of God is never easy.
Brothers and sisters, in the church we think that, of course, there are many problems in the world. But in the church, surely it should be like paradise.
Well, if you have been with your brothers and sisters in the real sense of church life, what do you find?
Perhaps in your office you find misunderstandings and many difficulties. Now you are serving the church, serving your brothers and sisters, and you may find that they are more difficult than the people in the world.
You will be misunderstood. You will be despised. You will be asked to do things that others have no right to demand. They will step upon you. They may not appreciate you. Sometimes they may even persecute you.
Be ready for this. In the service of God, this is something for which we have to be prepared.
If you do not want to have such problems, do not serve. Better to be served than to serve. When you are being served, you can criticize; when you serve, you will be criticized.
How many brothers and sisters are so clever that they would rather be served than serve!
As you enter into the service of the Lord, be prepared to be misunderstood. Be prepared to be unjustly treated. Be prepared to be stepped on. Unless we are ready for that, it is better not to serve.
He who endures to the end shall be saved.
Fifth: there is one thing we need to avoid, and that is the fear of man.
Matthew 10:28 says:
Be not afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
but fear rather Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
I know there are different interpretations. My own understanding is that the One whom we really need to fear is the Lord Himself.
We are serving Him. Because we are serving Him, He is the One whom we fear. Apart from Him, we should not fear anything or anybody.
The fear of man is a great temptation in the service of God. Paul said, “Am I seeking to please men, or God? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be Christ’s bondman.”
Oftentimes in service there is a tremendous temptation to please men. When you want to please men, you have to compromise.
You have to do things that you know should not be done. Or you may fail to do things that should be done. You may say things that should not be said, or fail to say things that should be said, because you are trying to please men. That is the fear of man.
In the service of the Lord, we want only to please our Lord and to fear Him. We know that He will take care of us.
Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion?
And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father.
But of you even the hairs of the head are all numbered.
Fear not therefore.
In other words, be faithful. Do not be afraid. The Lord will take care of you.
Then in Matthew 10:38:
He who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
Sometimes we think that it is only in the area of life that we need the operation of the cross. But here we are told that it is also in the area of service.
In the area of service, we need the working of the cross in our lives. Unless we are willing to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow the Lord, there is no way to serve.
I am sorry, I am over time. The time is already over. Let me conclude.
Finally, the Lord said:
He that receives you receives Me,
and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me.
Brothers and sisters, if you are sent out by the Lord to serve—whether in your local assembly or in the wider work—it is true that you will meet many problems, hardships, and difficulties. You have to take up your cross to follow the Lord in the area of service.
Yet there is one comfort: you are His representatives.
Whoever receives you receives the Lord, and whoever receives the Lord receives the Father who sent Him.
We are ambassadors of Christ.
Whatever service we are involved in, remember that we represent Christ. We do not represent ourselves; we represent Christ.
Because we represent Christ, whoever receives us receives Christ. Those who receive Christ receive the Father.
May the Lord show us that in this matter of service, how we need our Master to train us. Thank God, we have a wonderful Master.
O Father, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou hast given Christ Thy Son to us as our Master. All we need to do is commit ourselves to Him, and He will make us what Thou dost want us to be and enable us to do what Thou dost want us to do.
So, Lord, take us in Thy hand and do all the work that is necessary, that we may be able to serve Thee, to serve our brothers and sisters, and even the world. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.