Matthew 16:18.
“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.”
Thou art Peter, a stone; and upon this rock—a massive rock—our Lord said, “I will build My church.”
Dear Lord, we do praise and thank Thee for gathering us together this morning. We know that we are in Thy presence.
Lord, we will remove our shoes and bow before Thee. What hast Thou to say to us? Speak; Thy servants hear. Surely, Lord, we ask Thee in Thy precious name. Amen.
I do thank the Lord for the privilege of being with you, dear brothers and sisters. Lately, the Lord has put upon my heart just one word, and that word is build.
We know that this word build is a technical word. It is used in construction. It is to form by gathering materials and parts together, and to make a form according to a design.
The word itself tells us that it is not just something without any purpose, without any design, as if it were something that just happened and has no meaning. The very word gives us the impression that it is something that has a purpose. It is not just a casual matter. There is a design and plan for it, and there will be a process, a work being done, in order that this may be something presentable and valuable.
So, to me, I feel this very word gives us at least several important meanings.
First, this word tells us that there is purpose there. In other words, it is not something that just happened. There is a definite purpose behind a building.
Not only is there a purpose, but there is also a pattern. There is a design, a plan. Having had this pattern, you find there is preparation. That is to say, you begin to prepare and get the materials for that building.
After you have all these materials, then there is a process going on to put these materials together according to the design. Finally, after it is built, it is to be presented for a certain use.
So this word in itself includes at least five steps:
This word build is first used in the Bible in Genesis 2:22. You remember, after God created Adam, He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet like him.”
After that, you find that God took the rib which He took out of Adam and built a woman. Then He led this woman to the man and presented her to the man. There you find the first use of the word build in the Bible.
We know that whenever you find a word first used in the Bible, it tells us something of its special meaning. In this very word, we see how all these five steps are taken.
First of all, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet like him.” So God had a purpose there. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” How was He going to solve this problem?
The next step was to find a pattern. You know, God never does anything by chance. He not only has a purpose, but He always plans for it.
After God said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” God led all the animals of the field and the fowls of heaven to Adam. As these animals and fowls went before Adam, he looked at them all and gave names to every one.
But he could not find his like, his counterpart. God had a pattern, but Adam did not know it. So God wanted Adam to understand. That is the reason why God led all the animals and birds before Adam: to enable Adam to see that he could not find any counterpart among them.
Thus Adam would accept God’s pattern. What was the pattern God had in mind for Adam? The woman would be patterned after Adam. The pattern for the woman was neither the animals nor the birds; these were all eliminated. The pattern for the woman was the man. Adam would be the pattern. Only Adam could be the pattern for the woman.
After the pattern was decided, God had to make the preparation. Where could He find the material for the woman? In order that Adam might be the pattern, the material had to come from Adam.
It had to be from Adam, because only that which was out of Adam could be rejoined to Adam as one. You could not have any other foreign material. So God decided that the material should come from Adam.
How could He get the material from Adam? You find that there was a process. He put Adam to sleep, and then God performed an operation. Out of Adam, He took out a rib. In the original language, it says that He took something out of Adam.
After He took that something out of Adam as the material, He began to work and build it into a woman. But that was not the end of it.
After the woman was built, God led the woman to the man. He presented the woman to the man. As soon as Adam looked at her, he said:
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh:
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
And the two were united into one. This is how the word build is used in the first place.
Of course, we know that Adam and Eve are types. They are shadows. Where is the reality? We find it in Ephesians 5. When Paul mentions the relationship between a man and a woman, he says in Ephesians 5:32:
“This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.”
In other words, in the New Testament you find the reality of the relationship between a man and a woman. Christ is the Man, and the church is the woman.
Of course, brothers and sisters, we know that the church is not a physical building. The church may meet in a physical building, but that does not make the physical building the church.
The church, in the original, means the called-out ones gathered together. Out of every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people, God calls them out and gathers them into the name of our Lord Jesus. This is what the church is.
The relationship between Christ and the church is like the relationship between the man and the woman. To put it more accurately, the relationship of man and woman is like the relationship of Christ and the church.
So this is the reality. Brothers and sisters, my burden is that we may see the word build in relation to the church—how all these five steps are being carried out in the building of the church.
This morning, we would like to touch upon two of them: purpose and pattern.
First of all, in this matter of building, you must have a purpose. Why do you want to build a house? Because there is a purpose behind it. You want to live in it. Definitely, there is something behind it.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” Our Lord Himself is the Builder of the church.
The church is not just something that happens. It is not merely putting people together, piling them together, and then getting a church. Behind it, there is a definite purpose.
The church is not the creation of man, and it is not the creation of history. It is God’s creation.
If you read the Bible, you will find this in Ephesians 3. The apostle Paul tells us of the mystery of Christ, which has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets.
Now we read from Ephesians 3:9-11:
“And to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things;
To the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God,
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Brothers and sisters, in the building of the church there is a definite purpose behind it. The church is such a marvelous work of God that, even before the foundation of the world, before the ages, God had already purposed His purpose in Christ.
Think of that. The church is not merely a matter in time. The purpose is a product of eternity. Even before the foundation of the world, before God created anything, God had already laid a purpose in His heart. He purposed that purpose in Christ Jesus.
In other words, He purposed that purpose for His beloved Son. He purposed that this purpose would be fulfilled through His Son; and, when it is fulfilled, it is for His Son.
God created all things for His beloved Son. But above all things, He wants to give to His Son a most precious gift, to satisfy His Son’s heart. He knows that creation could not satisfy the loving heart of His beloved Son.
His Son longs for something more—something that will answer to His heart, something that is like Him, something with which He can be united. So, in order to satisfy His Son’s heart, God purposed to build the church.
Brothers and sisters, the church is not a small thing. It is not insignificant. It is not something cheap. As a matter of fact, the building of the church is a greater work than creation.
I am afraid that sometimes we look at the church as something additional. We think that the church is something you can have or leave aside. In our seeking and pursuing of the Lord Jesus, we think all we need to do is build up our personal relationship with the Lord.
Whether we have a church life or not, we consider that insignificant. But if we understand the heart of God, we shall see that, in the heart of God, the church is of such importance to Him.
It is His most precious gift to His beloved Son, and it requires Him to do much more work than in creating the universe. It is a marvel of God.
Therefore, when the apostle Paul mentions this in Ephesians 3, he says that through the church the principalities and authorities may know the manifold wisdom of God.
All the unsearchable riches of Christ are to be made known through the church. Through the church, the unsearchable riches of Christ are to be known even to the principalities and authorities.
The principalities and authorities here refer to the angelic host. The angelic host has superior intelligence. Their intelligence is much higher than ours as human beings.
But even to them, God says that through the church He is teaching these principalities and authorities the wisdom of God: what God can do with man, turning them into the church, the body of Christ.
They can be united to Christ in one, receive all the riches of Christ, exhibit the glory of Christ, and teach the angelic host valuable lessons—something they have never seen and something they have never thought of.
Now, in the church, they see the manifold wisdom of God. Brothers and sisters, you can see that this purpose of God is so glorious, and this purpose concerns the church.
If this is the case, do you think that we as believers should neglect this matter of the church? Do you see that it is our responsibility to know the will of God and then pursue after His will? This is something that we must do.
First of all, in the building of the church there is a tremendous purpose.
Before we come to the second point, let me add something. In the Old Testament, you have many types. The Old Testament is the shadow, but the shadow leads us to the substance, the reality, which is the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, God used all kinds of pictures to describe spiritual things because He wants us to learn the word through pictures.
When we were children, that was the way we learned words. In Chinese, you do not have an alphabet, and every single word stands by itself. How do we learn these words? The way to teach us is through pictures. You draw a picture of an ox, and underneath there is the word ox. Through the picture, we learn the word.
That is the way God teaches us. The Old Testament gives us all kinds of pictures, and then the New Testament tells us what the words are. In the Old Testament, you find pictures and types.
You remember God’s dealings with the children of Israel. He led the children of Israel out of Egypt and brought them to Himself at Mount Sinai. It was at Mount Sinai that He gave them the Ten Commandments, the law.
By keeping this law, they would truly be God’s people. “If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own possession from among all peoples.” What distinguished the children of Israel from the rest of the nations was based upon the law of God. That was God’s covenant with them.
But, brothers and sisters, that was not all. After God gave them the law, He followed it with something very important. When you come to Exodus 25, God says, “You are now My people. This is something I want you to do.”
In Exodus 25:8, God commanded Moses:
“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”
God made the children of Israel His people by giving them the law. Then God said, “Having become My people, I want you to do something. I want you to build Me a sanctuary.” Why? Because He wanted to dwell among them.
Actually, you find in the book of Exodus that more chapters are devoted to the sanctuary and its building than to the giving of the law, because this is the purpose behind the law.
I remember when I was seeking to be saved, I attended a conference. In the morning, there was a brother from North China who spoke on the tabernacle.
When he spoke about the tabernacle, I could not understand anything, because at that time I was not saved yet. I did not know the purpose of God. All I cared for was that I wanted to be saved. That was most important to me. What was important to God was not important to me.
So I went to that meeting every morning, and I could not understand anything. I am afraid, brothers and sisters, that even many of us today are still like that. We are afraid to hear about the tabernacle, and when we read the Bible, we skip over it. “What has that to do with me?”
But after I was saved and the years went by, gradually I found that it was so precious. There I see the picture—a picture of something with which I will be involved.
Actually, in the revelation given to Moses, more chapters are devoted to the building of the tabernacle than to the law. Why? Because that is God’s purpose for His people. It is very important to God, and, of course, it is important to the children of Israel.
Later on, you find the same thing in the building of the temple. God chose David out of all the people. Why did God choose David?
Actually, David was neglected by his father and despised by his brothers. He was sent to the field to shepherd the sheep. He was nobody in the eyes of men. But God chose him.
In the New Testament, God tells us the reason why. He said:
“I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who shall do all My will.”
David was a man after God’s heart. He knew God’s heart. When you read 2 Samuel 7, David told Nathan, “I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.”
David could not bear that. He wanted to give God the best. He wanted to build God a house. Even though he was not allowed to do it, God’s heart was touched by David, because that is the very heart of God. He wants to dwell among His people. He wants to make His people His home.
I often feel that God was homeless. You remember in Isaiah, God said:
“Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.”
What does that mean? It means that heaven and earth are His office. But where is His home? He dwells with those who are of a contrite heart.
David knew God’s heart, and he wanted to build a house for God. Brothers and sisters, here we are: do we know God’s heart? Do we really know what God wants?
I also feel that we are so need-oriented. Everything is, “I need this. I need that. Give me this; give me that, to satisfy me.” To be need-oriented is to remain a baby in Christ.
When you grow up, you will find that you become purpose-oriented. That is the difference between the mature and the baby.
Do we really desire to fulfill God’s heart? Do we see what His purpose really is? Do we take His purpose as our purpose? This is something that we really need.
First of all, let us pray to the Lord that He will give us the spirit of wisdom and understanding, that we may know His purpose, know His heart, and know what He really wants.
By the grace of God, may we offer ourselves to Him for that purpose. That is the first step in the building of the church: we need to see God’s purpose.
Secondly, after God has purposed His purpose, you find that He sets up a pattern.
An architect, when asked to make a building, will first be told the purpose of the building. Is it for a private residence, or is it for public meetings? What kind of meetings will be held there? Then the architect will draw a blueprint. He designs the building according to the purpose.
The building he builds is an expression of the architect. When he plans it, he draws a blueprint, and there is a certain pattern there. Everything is there.
I came from a family involved in construction. For three generations, we were engaged in construction, though I know nothing about construction. Sometimes I went to the construction site where my elder brother was involved.
On his desk, you would find all the blueprints. When I looked at them, they meant nothing to me—just lines and circles and all that. But when my brother looked at them, he saw the house. There was a pattern there, and everything was to be built according to it.
Now, brothers and sisters, the question is this: in the building of the church, is there a pattern?
Many people think the church is just a product of history. They believe that when God’s people come together, they gradually find out the best way to organize the church.
Therefore, many churches are organized according to organizations in the world. As people build great corporations, today they build churches into large corporations. If you are the chief executive officer of a large corporation, they think you can be an elder of the church because you know how to manage.
Is it that the church has no pattern? Did God, who purposed the church, give us no pattern at all and leave it to man’s imagination? Throughout history, you find all kinds of so-called churches being built, and you do not really know which is the right one.
They all have their good points, and they all cater to whatever your desire is. Is that the case with the church?
Thank God, there are some who try to find the pattern of the church in the Bible. They say, “You cannot find the pattern of the church in the world. You have to find the pattern of the church in the Bible.”
So they go to the Old Testament. They find priests, and so they say, “We need priests. We need pastors. That is the pattern of the church.”
Then they go to the Old Testament and find a choir. The Levites, some of them, were separated to sing. So they say, “Let us have a choir.” They go to the Old Testament and take all kinds of things from there and transport them into the church. They say that this is the pattern of the church.
In the Old Testament, the priests were clothed with beautiful garments. So now in the churches you find all these garments for the clergy.
Brothers and sisters, you try to find a pattern in the Old Testament, and you say it is according to the Bible. But it is the shadow; it is not the reality.
The children of Israel were God’s earthly people, so whatever God dealt with them was physical. But the church is spiritual. We are heavenly people, so God deals with us in heavenly and spiritual things.
We cannot make the shadow substitute for the reality. I often feel that, as we approach the end, Christianity is going back and back and back to the Old Testament. That is a pity, because we are playing with shadows, and the shadows will pass away.
There are some people who are wiser. They say, “We will find the pattern in the New Testament.” They believe that God must give a pattern, so they go to the New Testament, especially the book of Acts.
They find apostles, elders, and deacons. So they say, “Let us have apostles. Let us have elders. Let us have deacons. If you have all these, you have the church.”
Brothers and sisters, that is a physical imitation. But where is the spiritual reality? It is not in these technical things. It is not in physical arrangements.
I know that years ago, when this wind of New Testament churches was blowing through Christianity, everybody wanted to build New Testament churches.
Some would say, “If we have ten people, we must have some elders. The Bible says elders are plural, so at least we should choose two to be elders. Then we must have deacons. Choose three to be deacons, and the rest become laymen. Then we can meet, and we are a church.”
Technically, they are correct. But is this a church? Is this the pattern given to us in the New Testament?
Brothers and sisters, I strongly and firmly believe that God does give us a pattern, because God never leaves anything to man’s mind—especially the church, which is so tremendously important and glorious.
Can He leave it without giving us any blueprints? It is impossible. Some people say there is no pattern, but I disagree. I feel there is a definite pattern for the church. But what is that pattern?
When you open the New Testament, what do you find? You find the four Gospels, and after the four Gospels you have the book of Acts. I believe there is significance there.
The four Gospels give us the story of Christ. They give us our Lord Jesus Himself. Then the book of Acts follows as a continuation.
In other words, the church in the book of Acts is patterned after the Christ in the four Gospels. Christ is the pattern.
Just as, when God wanted to build Eve, who was the pattern for Eve? It was not the animals or the birds. It was Adam. That was the pattern, and only the pattern worked. If you tried any other pattern, you would find a misfit.
So, brothers and sisters, what is the pattern of the church? In one word, Christ Himself is the pattern. The church is built according to Christ.
This Christ is not technical or physical. It is very true that we need to know Him. That is the reason you find the apostle Paul’s whole passion was to know Christ:
“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.”
Brothers and sisters, Christ Himself is the living pattern. The pattern is not a dead one. It is not a technical one. You may be correct in every technical sense, but that is not it.
It is knowing Christ in a living way—knowing Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is a personal knowledge of the living Christ.
Brothers and sisters, this is the pattern. Remember: the church does have a pattern. The Lord said, “I will build My church upon this rock.”
The rock is Christ Himself. We are not only built on Christ as the foundation; we are actually built out of Christ and into Christ. The church is an extension of Christ.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12:
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.”
We might say, “So also is the church,” because the church is one body with many members, and many members are one body, and Christ is the Head. But the Holy Spirit says, “So also is Christ,” because the church is Christ. It is patterned according to Christ.
The more you know Christ in the Spirit, the more the building goes on. The measure of Christ is the testimony of the church.
You find this in Ephesians 4:
“Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
That is the church. We ought to grow in the full knowledge of Christ. We are to grow in the faith until we become full-grown. What is being full-grown? It is coming to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
When Christ is fully grown among us, when He is able to fill us, and when He is able to manifest Himself fully through us, that is the glorious church to be presented to Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, we have the pattern. But unfortunately, we do not follow that pattern because we are always involved in technical and physical things.
No matter how well you are organized, if there is a lack of knowing Christ, the church is not built. It is a spiritual building.
When you look in the Old Testament, you find that this principle is already there. When God revealed His purpose to the children of Israel—to build Him a sanctuary—immediately following, God mentioned the pattern on the mount: the blueprint, the detailed plan.
Nothing was left for Moses to change. Moses was warned again and again:
“See that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount.”
Moses was a marvelous architect because he was reared in Egypt, and at that time Egypt was noted for its architectural achievements. You look at the pyramids—they are architectural marvels. Moses had learned all the learning of Egypt.
To us, it may seem ridiculous that God had to tell every detail about the tabernacle to Moses. Moses could have made a palace. But this was a type of the future reality; therefore every detail had to conform to the pattern.
The Bible says in Hebrews 3 that Moses was faithful in all God’s house. In what way? He followed everything according to the pattern.
When it was done, the glory of God descended.
The same thing is true in the building of the temple. Solomon was the wisest of all men. If David had merely wanted to build a temple for God, he could have told Solomon, and Solomon would have designed a beautiful temple such as the world had never seen before.
But God gave the pattern to David. If you read Chronicles, you find how God showed David the blueprint of the temple.
David understood it, and everything was built according to that design. Then the glory of God descended.
Brothers and sisters, why does the glory of God not descend upon the church? It is because it is not built according to the pattern.
We change it. We invent. We think that our way is best for God. But there is no glory. The presence of the Lord is not there.
You may have a magnificent temple, but if there is no glory and no presence of God, it is empty. It is vanity.
Dear brothers and sisters, how we need to seek to know the Lord. This is our spiritual pursuit: we pursue Christ Himself, not merely mental knowledge about Christ, but an experiential knowledge of Christ in our daily life.
This is the pattern for the church. May the Lord help us.
If the Lord permits, tomorrow we will continue. We will speak of the preparation, the process, and the presentation.
Dear Lord, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou dost make known to us Thy purpose. Who are we that Thou shouldst share Thy purpose with us? We pray that we may seek to do Thy will.
We want to thank Thee also that Thou dost show us the pattern. We pray that, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, we may increasingly know Thee in a living way, and that all the building may be according to Christ.
Unto Thee be all the glory. In the name of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.