I’ll read it, and then I’d like you to keep it open, just so you can look at this and have the Lord speak to you, if you would. To know that this is, indeed, His conference that we welcome you to, not our own that we simply invoke His name.
Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth concerning anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.— Matthew 18:19-20
Look at that, if you will: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
That’s one that’s so familiar that we tend to, as Brother Ed says, read that, “La, la, la,” and don’t think about it. But the Lord has said, if we are gathered in His name, that He is here.
And then, of course, not just at this particular event, but at all times that we are gathered in His name. But, you know, not just at all times; at this time also. That means right now. If we are gathered unto His name, then the Lord is there in the midst of us.
And, you know, it is a powerful thing when people are gathered together into the name of the Lord. You know why it’s powerful? Because the Lord is in the midst. That’s what makes it so.
If the Lord were not in the midst, it wouldn’t matter how many we had. You know, we would often say, “What’s a thousand times nothing? And what’s a million times nothing?” It doesn’t get much bigger, no matter how many of them you put together. If you don’t have anything to start with, it doesn’t get too much.
But if the Lord is in the midst with two or three, then that is a different story.
You know, the Lord is, by His promise, in the midst of those that are gathered together unto Him. And that is something to take not just as something we believe in, but something also to look forward to, something to expect.
You know, if we were in the days of the Lord in His flesh, you came and the Lord was in the midst of you. If somebody said, “The Lord is in the meetings there,” then you went there and said, “Yeah, the Lord is in the meetings there. Well, so what?” You wouldn’t take that attitude.
If the Lord is in the midst, we should be very expectant of something to happen. So that’s what we should have: an expectation, because the Lord is in the midst.
This is called a conference. And that’s a word, if you look in your King James concordance, you might have a hard time finding. Let’s see, when did the disciples have a conference?
But the word itself, conference, is the noun of conferred, which literally means to bear together, holding it together. We are gathered together to bear together something at this time.
We are gathered by the Spirit of God, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to bear together.
This is called a Christian Family Conference. Some of you may be new here. We’re always glad to have some new people with us. But this is not called a Christian Family Conference because our focus is on the family. It’s called the Christian Family Conference because it’s a time when the whole family is invited to come before the Lord.
The Lord initiated the family. The Lord instituted the family. The family is something that’s very precious to the Lord.
And as we learn something about God’s household, we find that what speaks of it better to us than government—kings and presidents and congresses, and whatever other form of government we might have? These are not as good pictures as the family.
The family is a much better picture of God’s people than all of these. There’s a place for those, too, but the family is very precious to God. And He has called the whole family together to speak to us.
This year, the theme of the conference is service to the Master—or, as on your handbook, “Serviceable to the Master.”
We have three brothers speaking on this burden to us this week. And we’ll have a brother give us a little introduction to what we expect to hear from them tonight, after I am complete.
But I want us to all think about tonight what we are here for—what each one of us and our families are here for. What’s our place? The brothers who are going to speak came knowing what their burden was. Do we know what our burden is? Do we know that we should have one?
There’s often a lot of talk about the conference and outside the conference, as though the conference is help for out there—always out there. Really, it is to help you for the conference.
Well, I’m thinking of something I heard on the news during this latest military action. With all the interviews with military people, one was saying—I must have heard this many times—“We train the way we fight, and then we fight the way we train.”
Now that’s the idea of a conference. It’s training. But it’s not just training. It’s real maneuvers. It’s real warfare. It’s a real service. But it’s also training.
We get training in actually doing something real. We’re not here just to have classes on what’s real and then go out and look for what’s real. We are to come into knowledge of reality while here and continue on with that. If we train the way we’re going to fight, then we can fight the way we train, by God’s grace.
So we think about the responsibility of servants, with our theme being that we’re training to become more serviceable. What is it that we as servants really need? Do we primarily need knowledge? Do we primarily need to be strong? What things? Many things we can probably say we need. What is the core, the real focus? What can we say distinguishes a good servant from just anyone?
And I think that one thing we can look at and focus upon as we start off the week is that a servant must have an ear to hear. A servant who doesn’t hear is not a useful servant. It can be even a detriment.
We need to be able to hear.
If only a few of the brethren are going to actually do most of the speaking this week, what difference would that make? Our main job is to learn to hear—not necessarily learn how to speak, but to learn to hear, to listen, and to obey.
This is something that we’ll pray that we’ll all come into a knowledge of, a reality of, as we go through the days ahead.
We know there’s a day in the church, in the assembly, among God’s people—however we want to put it—that the Holy Spirit has been given to enable us to function. Do you know that the Holy Spirit is given in order to enable us to hear?
I was looking to see where in the Bible we might find the first mention, you know, of something like, “What’s the first mention of the Holy Spirit?” And you see, it’s:
And the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light.— Genesis 1:2-3
Or “hovered,” this translation says: “The Spirit of God hovered on the face of the waters.” And God said, “Let there be light.”
And you may read this, “Well, that all happened in an instant—the Spirit of God…” But as I really even think about this, it seems like this could be quite a hovering time.
When birds lay their eggs, they have to sit over them, keep them warm for a period of time before they hatch. We call this brooding, or you can call it hovering. You can say the mother hen, for example, sits and hovers over the eggs until the time.
Now, even with chickens, I think it takes three weeks. So the things of the Lord don’t necessarily come in three minutes, or even in six days. I mean, we’ve got a six-day conference. The Lord can do amazing things in six days, if you know that.
But we don’t really know what the hovering time is. But the Holy Spirit is able to hover over something as long as it takes.
It’s the Holy Spirit within us that can do this. If we think we can come to the conference and say, “Now, I am going to be the good servant, and I shall take my notes, and I shall pay attention and not fall asleep during the ministry, and a few other things,” then it will be a good conference. I’ll have good notes at the end, and I’ll have tapes, and I can listen to them online and tell everybody I went and check it off my list.
Well, if we do it in our own strength, that’s pretty good, if you can give that much. But is that all that’s available? I think there’s much more available to each one of us.
The Holy Spirit is with us all now, and throughout this week, to enable us to do what He has called us to do. And this is going to be listening and hearing—not, I won’t say the exclusive things, but very important parts of what the Lord has for us.
If we will let the Holy Spirit do it, why, He will even keep us awake. I know it’s hard to stay awake tonight. We’ve been on the road a long time. But as we pray, everyone will be rested tomorrow and ready to go.
The Holy Spirit can, in us, hover over the place until the Word of God comes.
You know, after the Holy Spirit had hovered over the darkness, when God said, “Let there be light,” then it happened very rapidly. And there was light.
Our brothers are going to be speaking. We need to be listening and praying, waiting, hovering. In so doing, we are training ourselves; we are being trained to be servants.
And we are also engaged in the work of the Lord speaking. So may the Lord help us, that we will allow His Spirit to be exercised before and as we wait for the Word of God.
Brother?
Well, good evening once again. I’d like to ask you to turn to your handbook, and my job is to focus a little bit more on what the speakers will be sharing with us this week. And then Jerry will come and give the closing announcements. Before he comes, we’ll just take a few moments and pray and commit these thoughts to the Lord, that He may prepare our hearts.
Turn to your handbook. That’s the easiest place. If not, if you don’t have your blue handbook, turn to Revelation 22:3.
You will notice, as our brother said, the theme of the conference is “Serviceable to the Master.” Now, that may not mean much to you at this moment, but we hope before the week’s over, that means a great deal to you.
So tonight, what we’ll do is maybe share just a few thoughts. In this verse, in Revelation 22:3, it says:
And there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall serve Him.
— Revelation 22:3
Now, that’s the phrase in that verse I would like you to pay particular attention to: “And His servants shall serve Him.”
Now, when I read this verse—and this verse came to us early, by the way, in the initial conference planning meeting, when the Lord seemed to give us this theme—but when I read this verse and considered this verse, the context is remarkable.
Because if you look at the context, it’s when there’s the new heaven and the new earth, when the New Jerusalem is coming down, prepared from God, when the glory of God fills the whole of the New Jerusalem, when the beauty and the glory of the foundations and the walls and everything is done.
And then it says in Revelation 22:3, “And His servants shall serve Him.”
Now here’s the dilemma. This is what I want you to think about. Maybe you’re sleepy and you’re having a hard time. I want you to think about this.
Our problem is we think of service as doing. If you understand the context of this verse, it’s after all the doing is done.
Now, I believe the Lord needs to revise our thinking on service. We always think it is doing: “What can I do? What should I do?” But it seems to me, when you read this context, it’s glorious. Everything is done, and yet it says, “And His servants shall serve Him.”
Brothers and sisters, this is the burden the Lord has laid on our heart. Service is an eternal thing. Service is part of God’s eternal purpose. Service is what we’re called to. In all of the ages that are to come, we shall be servants.
I think that’s a glorious thing. If that’s the case, then we need to give some heed to this and pay attention to what this means.
So first of all, we are called to eternal service. And we need to change our thinking. The first thing we think of is, “What can I do? If I’m a servant, what should I do?”
Brothers and sisters, I think He does all the doing. We enter into service. May the Lord help us to revise our thinking.
The second thing that I think of is not only do we need to understand that we’re called to eternal service; we need to be prepared for eternal service. We need to be prepared for this.
In that second verse that’s on this brochure, the front of your handbook, it says:
If therefore one shall have purified himself from these, in separating himself from them, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared unto every good work.
— 2 Timothy 2:21
Now, it seems to me there needs to be some preparation before we can enter into service. We’re too hasty about this matter of service. We see someone with some potential, and we say, “That guy, that lady—boy, they can really serve the Lord. Look at their potential.”
But it seems to me, when you read the second verse that we’ve selected as the theme verse, that there needs to be some preparation that has to be done in our hearts. Else we enter into service with, again, a wrong understanding.
Now, we’ve asked our brothers—by the way, it’s not up to me to clarify this. I hope you understand that. It’s up to our brothers to clarify this. And so we’ve asked our brothers, would they share on this matter?
Ed Miller will be sharing on serving the Lord. That’s the first thing. We’re His servants. How we need a new understanding of what it means to serve the Lord.
We’ve relegated this to a special class of people, and we say, “Those are the ones; they’re serving the Lord.” Well, what are the rest of us doing?
We’re all called, as kings and priests. This is the understanding we need. We are all to enter into service. So we’ve asked Ed if he will share, and he has chosen “Serving the Lord,” and we look forward to that.
We’ve also heard that Dana—we let these brothers select; we didn’t tell them what to share on—Dana will be sharing on serving His house.
How often have you thought of service as an individual thing? You have to admit that. You would think of it as what an individual does. We have no sense of the corporate service. We have no sense of the corporate calling.
And if we’re really to understand service unto the Lord, and to be serviceable to the Master, we need first of all to understand serving His house. It’s a corporate thing. It’s in His family. It’s in His house. This is what we’re called to.
And finally, Verne will share with us on serving one another.
When it comes down to it, we are to bear one another’s burden, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. When it comes down to it, the Lord Jesus, when He left, said, “This one commandment I give to you.” What did He say?
That ye love one another.
— John 13:34
We are to serve one another.
So let us pray for these brothers this week. We’ve asked them to share; it’s a great responsibility. As Frank said, our responsibility is hearing. We need to hear.
Remember that occasion of Samuel. I think everybody knows the story. I’m sure some of the children will hear about it this week. You remember Samuel thought Eli was calling him. All of you know that story in 1 Samuel 3.
And he went and presented himself to Eli because he thought Eli was calling him. And Eli soon discerned that it wasn’t he who was calling him, that God was, in fact, calling the young boy Samuel.
And so Samuel finally was instructed, and finally he said:
Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.
— 1 Samuel 3:9
I believe, brothers and sisters, that should be our one prayer this week. Over and over again, we should say, “Speak, Lord. Thy servant heareth.”
Our brother Stephen will be sharing with us in the afternoons, as well as Lance. Stephen has shared with us his burden from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 about being sanctified—spirit, soul, body.
If you read this verse that we selected as the theme verse, it says that we would be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work.
We need to be prepared. We need to be sanctified. There needs to be a work done in us. Too often we think about going out and doing something. But first of all, if we’re going to enter in to be an effectual vessel of service, there needs to be a work done in us. There needs to be a sanctifying. So our brother Stephen will share in the afternoons.
And finally, our brother Lance—we’ve asked him; he will not be with us until later in the week, and he will share on Thursday and Friday. And we’ve asked him, would he share on sonship?
Brothers and sisters, think about it. There’s an end to everything. God wants to bring us into full maturity, into sonship. He is doing the work to prepare us for the single reason that we may be made into the image of the one Son—matured, full-grown sons. That’s what He’s after.
So we need to pray for Lance as he speaks to us.
The children’s work this year will be sharing on Moses, the servant of the Lord. We need to pray for the children. We need to pray for the young people, that the Lord will speak to them and that the Lord will capture their hearts.
It’s a beautiful phrase throughout the Word. When you look through the Word of God, you see this phrase about Moses. It says, “Moses, My servant,” the Lord speaking. It says in Revelation 15:3:
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God.
— Revelation 15:3
That’s what we need to learn.
And, you know, the end of everything—I think of that verse in Matthew 25:21. I think you know that verse. But it says, when the Lord spoke to those, He said:
Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
— Matthew 25:21
When you think about it, isn’t that the one thing you want to hear in the end? I don’t think you care—I’ll say this; I may get in trouble—I don’t think you care about how many conferences you attended. I don’t think you care about what people noticed.
But I think you will care in the end if the Lord says to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
So let’s take a few moments and let’s pray. When I ask, maybe the Lord will put a prayer on your heart. Let’s commit these men, these teachers of the children, and those that will lead the youth, to the Lord, and ask Him, would He speak?
And let our heart’s response be like young Samuel’s: “Speak, Lord. Thy servant heareth.”
And then Jerry will close with the housekeeping announcements.