Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 16.
We will read 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.
Then verse 24:
Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man would come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it:
and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.
For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world,
and forfeit his life?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels;
and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds.
Please turn also to Ephesians 4. We will read the first sixteen verses.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all.
But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore He saith,
When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.
Now this, He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
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 we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, even Christ.
From Whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, as we gather together in Thy presence, our hearts are full of gratitude. We want to thank Thee for being so faithful to us during the past few days. We thank Thee for bringing us to this last full day of the conference.
Dear Lord, we want to offer this day into Thy hands. We pray that Thy presence will be with us. We pray that Thou wilt remove any veil that may still be upon our hearts. We pray that Thy word will really penetrate into the depths of our being and bring us into Thy eternal purpose.
Dear Lord, we confess that without Thee we can do nothing; but with Thee all things are possible. We confess that we are an impossible people, but we thank Thee because this is what Thou art looking for.
So, Lord, we pray that even in this late hour, Thou wilt bring us into the way of the cross, that it may lead us into Thy eternal purpose. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been fellowshipping together on the theme, The Way to the Eternal Purpose of God, Which Is the Cross.
If we are able to look into the very heart of God, what do you think we will see there? I believe that in the very heart of God there is only one Person, and that is His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus.
The heart of God is centered upon His Son. He loves His Son, and He does everything for His Son.
But if we look into the heart of our Lord Jesus, what do you think you will find there? You will find His church, His body.
According to the word of God, the whole Bible tells us these two things: Christ and His church. This is the eternal purpose of God.
But the only way to know Christ and to know the church is through revelation. God has to reveal His Son in us, and the Son has to reveal the church to us. Without such living revelation, our concept of Christ and our concept of the church are very, very inadequate.
The only way to really know what Christ is and what the church is, is to look to God to give us revelation.
But receiving revelation from above is one thing. To know Christ and to know the church is one thing. But to really live Christ and live in the church, there is the need of the cross.
That is the reason why, this time, our emphasis is on the way to the eternal purpose of God: the cross. The cross gave us Christ, and the cross gave us the church.
Yesterday morning, we began on this matter of the cross and the church: the cross and the foundation of the church.
Our Lord Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, a stone, a small stone. Upon this rock, this massive rock, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
The foundation of the church, the rock, is our Lord Jesus. There is no other foundation that we can lay but Christ Jesus.
As we mentioned yesterday morning, even though our Lord Jesus was sent by the Father, and He was sent with a mission, He would not have been able to fulfill His mission if He had not gone to the cross.
If He had come into this world and become a man, lived His life for thirty-three to thirty-three-and-a-half years—a perfect life, a life that really answered to God’s desire—and if He had simply lived for those years and then ascended to heaven, then, brothers and sisters, He would have failed in His mission.
So far as He Himself was concerned, He was a success. But so far as His mission was concerned, it would have been a failure.
But, brothers and sisters, because of His amazing love for us, He was not thinking of Himself. For Himself, nothing would have been better than if He had ascended from that Mount of Transfiguration. But for our sake, He went to Calvary and died on the cross.
At the end of His crucifixion, He shouted, “It is finished.” The mission was accomplished. Redemption was accomplished. He had fulfilled His mission as the Sent One.
When the soldier thrust the spear into His side, out of His broken heart came blood and water. Out of the cross of our Lord Jesus came the material, the raw material, for the building of the body of Christ—His church.
We remember Genesis 2. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him.”
After God led all the living creatures to Adam, Adam could not find among all these living creatures his counterpart. So God put him to sleep. Then God opened his side and took something out of Adam. With that, He built a woman.
When God led Eve to Adam, Adam immediately recognized her and said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” They were united into one.
But in the case of Adam, his surgery was painless, because that was before sin entered into the world. In the case of our Lord Jesus, when He was crucified on the cross, He went through the utmost sufferings.
Thank God, His blood is for the remission of our sins, and the water is life given to us. With this life, the church is to be built.
Now this morning, we would like to consider together this matter of the cross and the building of the church.
We remember that after the Father revealed the Son to Simon Peter, after the revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord Jesus continued to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, be killed, and on the third day be raised.
In other words, the way for Him to be Christ and to fulfill His mission as Christ was that He must die on the cross. To our Lord Jesus, the cross was a must. He is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You cannot separate Christ from the cross, or the cross from Christ.
It was the cross that gave us Christ, but it was Christ Who gave us the cross.
Then our Lord Jesus continued to say to His disciples, “If anyone desires to follow Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
In other words, the cross was necessary for Christ Himself, and the cross is necessary for us to be built as His church.
The raw material is here, but how can these raw materials be built together into the house of God? It is through the cross. Without the cross, the church cannot be built.
So, brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus said, “You must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
Our Lord Jesus is the foundation of the church, but this foundation is different from the foundations we see when we are building a physical house. Even though the foundation supports the house, the foundation and the house may be of different materials.
But when our Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church,” He was building a spiritual house. He was building His own body. Therefore, the relationship between the foundation and the building is organic.
In other words, the building is the outgrowth of the foundation. It is the extension of Christ. What is in the foundation is to be in the building. That is why we find in Scripture that we must be rooted and built up in Him.
In Isaiah 28:16:
Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,
a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation:
he that believeth shall not be in haste.
God said, “I lay a foundation in Zion,” and that foundation is a stone, a rock. But more than that, it is a tried stone. It has been tested and found perfect. That speaks of the life of our Lord Jesus on this earth.
He was tempted in all things without sin. He is a solid rock. Not only that, He is a precious cornerstone and a sure foundation.
If the foundation is of this manner, then the building must be of the same quality.
Brothers and sisters, you remember the story of Simon Peter in John 1. His brother Andrew led him to Jesus. The Bible tells us that our Lord Jesus looked at him.
The word look there means that He looked him up and down. He looked into his very being. Then the Lord said, “You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas,” which is, by interpretation, Peter.
Simon originally was a very outspoken person. Usually, he would speak before you did. He would even speak before Christ spoke. But strangely, when he was led to our Lord Jesus, he was speechless.
When the Lord looked into his very being, he could not say anything. The Lord said, “You are Simon.” Of course, he knew himself as Simon. He did not need the Lord to tell him that he was Simon, but there was a meaning behind it.
The Lord was saying, “You are Simon naturally. You were born of your earthly parents, and you were given the name Simon. This is what you originally are. But you shall be called Peter.”
In other words, the Lord said, “I will do a work in your life. I will transform you from Simon to Peter.”
Simon was a man of dust, because naturally we are made of dust. But our Lord Jesus said, “You will be a stone.” When we come to the Lord Jesus, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, a new element enters into our life and changes us from dust to stone.
When Simon confessed the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord Jesus said, “You are Peter.” Now you are a stone. You are a living stone.
Peter understood this, because in 1 Peter 2 he said that when we come to the Lord Jesus, we all become living stones, to be built up into a spiritual house.
But Peter was a rough stone. For that stone to be built into the spiritual house, it had to be tested, disciplined, and brought through suffering, in order that it might become a tried stone and a precious stone.
After our Lord Jesus called Peter to be His disciple, during those three years we find that our Lord Jesus worked in the life of Simon Peter. Oftentimes, the Simon in Peter rose up.
Immediately after the Lord said, “You are Peter,” we find this man saying to the Lord Jesus, “You do not go to the cross.” The Lord said, “I will go to the cross,” but Peter said, “No. Be good to Yourself.”
Natural love, natural mind, and natural understanding do not want to suffer. Our Lord Jesus had to turn around and say, “Get behind Me, Satan.” Here you find that Satan still had a foothold in this man, Simon Peter.
Thank God, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are living stones. There is a new life in us, and all the potential is there. But unfortunately, our old life is still there. Our own nature is still there. Ourselves, our flesh, are still there.
Within us there is a treasure, but outside of the treasure there is still an earthen vessel. Oftentimes, what comes out is not Christ in us; it is our old self. These cannot be built into the church.
So we find that during those years when Peter followed the Lord Jesus, he was dealt with by the Lord many, many times. Because he was an impetuous person and very outspoken, among the disciples he was the one dealt with most.
Sometimes I feel sympathy with him. I do not know, Peter, if you only shut your mouth, how good it would be! But, brothers and sisters, that is human wisdom, because he would not have had the opportunity to be tried and purified.
Again and again, the Simon in Peter came out, and our Lord Jesus had to cut him off.
You remember on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter said, “It is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” The Bible says that he did not know what he was saying, but he felt that he had to say something.
His heavenly Father had to cut him off and say, “This is My beloved Son; hear ye Him.”
Again, when the tax collector came to collect the temple tax and asked, “Does your Master pay the temple tax?” Peter, without consulting our Lord, said, “Yes.”
After he had made that promise, he came to the Lord. The Lord said to him, “Who pays the tax? Do sons pay the tax?” But our Lord Jesus rescued him. He said, “Go and cast a hook, and when the first fish comes up, there will be the money for you and for Me.”
Peter was a fisherman. He could cast the net and get lots of fish, but to catch one fish, I think he would be very impatient. The Lord dealt with him.
Again, Peter came to the Lord and said, “If my brother sins against me seven times, and I forgive him seven times, is that enough?” He was trying to get praise from our Lord. For a man like Peter to endure seven times was a miracle.
And who was that brother? Andrew. What kind of person was Andrew? Andrew was a quiet person, a very careful person. He could notice very small things among thousands of people. He could see a little boy with five loaves and two fishes.
Probably Andrew would rarely offend anyone, because oftentimes the one who thinks he is offended is the one who offends. So our Lord Jesus said, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.”
Brothers and sisters, that is impossible. To Simon, this was impossible. This was death. But that was what the Lord wanted to do with him.
Peter was a person who was so self-confident. He loved the Lord, and he really loved the Lord. So he told the Lord, “Even if all the others forsake You, I am willing to go and die with You.”
Our Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan hath asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.”
He was so sure of his love, but he denied the Lord three times. He came to his end. He wept, and thank God, he was restored by the Lord.
Peter, even though he was a living stone, was such a rough stone, full of his own self. Our Lord Jesus had to deal with him, deal with him in love, deal with him with patience, until Peter became a precious stone.
In the New Jerusalem, there are twelve foundations of twelve precious stones. The first stone is jasper. Probably this refers to Peter. When you see God, He looks like jasper.
This stone has to be tried. This stone has to be changed into a precious stone. Then it can be built into the spiritual house.
All the processes, painful as they may be, are painful so far as the flesh is concerned, but they are all positive toward the purpose of God.
Peter, after he had been dealt with, wrote in 1 Peter 1:6-7:
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials,
that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire,
may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Then again, in 1 Peter 4:12-13:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:
but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice;
that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.
What happened in the life of Peter happens to every one of us, because our Lord wants us to be built into His church. Therefore, He has to do all these works in our lives.
If we refuse, then we will be unfit in the house of God. So, brothers and sisters, the cross is a must to the church.
The reason why the church is not built as it should be is because God’s people try to avoid the cross.
Our Lord Jesus said, “If anyone desires to follow Me,” this is His way; it is the way of the cross. “If anyone desires to follow Me,” the Lord said, “he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
The cross is something that we must take up. The cross is also something that we can avoid. You can take it up, or you can bypass it.
What is a cross? A cross is when God’s will and your will cross each other. If you insist on having your way, you escape the cross, but you lose your soul.
But if, for the sake of Christ and His gospel, you are willing to let yourself die and let the will of God go through you, then you take up your cross.
But how can we take up our cross? The cross is something that seems to be opposite to us, something that is killing us, reducing us, and breaking us. Naturally speaking, we will never be able to take up our cross.
We can be as brave as Peter and say, “I am willing to die for You.” But to say one thing and to do it is another thing. We cannot do it.
Brothers and sisters, the secret is here: the Lord said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.” If we do not deny ourselves, it is impossible to take up the cross.
Our problem is that we fail to deny ourselves. This has something to do with consecration.
I mentioned it last night. Romans 12 says:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.
That is the very basis of our Christian life. After we believe in the Lord Jesus, if we want to follow the Lord, the first thing we must do is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.
The reason why Paul uses the word body is because his emphasis is on our practical daily living. Actually, it includes our whole being. We need to present our whole being as a living sacrifice to our Lord.
When we are doing that, this is denying ourselves. We want to live for ourselves. We want to hold on to our rights. But when you present your body as a living sacrifice, it means that you let go of yourself.
It means that you are willing to give up all your rights. It means that you are willing to let Christ be Lord over your life. You want His will to be done.
That is consecration. Consecration is not trying to do something for God. That will follow. Consecration is giving up yourself to the Lord. It is denying yourself.
I do not know myself anymore. Whenever the old self rises up, I say, “I do not know you, because I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live; it is Christ Who lives in me. He has every right over me. His will be done.”
Brothers and sisters, consecration is not just once for all. It has to have a beginning. One day you have to be moved and constrained by the love of Christ. You are willing to give up yourself to Him and allow Him to work out His purpose.
Then, daily, the burnt offering is repeated morning and evening, and it is added when there are festivals. When you are under testing, when the cross is before you, you have to decide whether you will take it or escape it.
Only by dedicating and giving your life to the Lord are you able to take up the cross and follow Him. Many times there is a struggle, but finally His love overcomes. You are willing to let go of yourself. That is consecration.
Consecration is a way. It goes in the way of the cross.
Dear brothers and sisters, you find that the cross is a must to us. But there is more to it, because it is not just making you a model or making you a monument. This is not God’s purpose.
God’s purpose is not just to make you a spiritual giant, to be admired by people, appearing like a monument standing there. God wants a body. He wants a house.
Therefore, all these living stones have to be built together. There is not only the work that needs to be done to each stone, to turn the raw material into useful material; afterwards, you need to fit them together and build them together according to the design of God.
So there is much more working of the cross needed.
In Old Testament times, God led His people out of Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai, and there He shared His heart. Why did God deliver them? What was the reason behind it? God said, “Because I want to dwell among you. Build Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in your midst.”
When God told the people to build Him a sanctuary, He showed Moses the design. But where were the materials? He called the people to offer.
The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They owned no property. They did not even own their own lives. But when God delivered them out of Egypt, He made them the richest people in the world. They spoiled all the riches of Egypt and carried them out with them.
Then God said, “Give Me an offering out of what I have given you. Give it back to Me out of love.” Legally, it was all God’s, but God wanted His people to give willingly and lovingly.
So they began to give gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, acacia wood, precious stones, oil, and other things. All these things actually came from God, but out of the abundance they gave willingly to God.
That is a figure of consecration. After our Lord Jesus has come, He brings us to the very origin: present your bodies as living sacrifices. The redeemed belong to the Lord.
It is right for us to give, not merely our silver and gold, but ourselves. But after all these materials are given, much work has to be done.
All the wood has to be cut. All the cloth has to be woven. All the gold has to be beaten. Everything has to be worked upon so that it will take form.
The same thing is true with Solomon’s temple. David prepared much material for the house of God. Out of his affliction and out of his affection for the Lord, he gave according to all his power. Then the workmen had to come and work on these things.
Dear brothers and sisters, not only individually does the Lord have to do much work, but in putting us together also.
So far as the eternal purpose of God is concerned, especially in this matter of the church, in the first three chapters of Ephesians we can say that there is a revelation of the church.
The church is the body of Christ. Ephesians 1:22-23 says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
The church is the new man, neither Jew nor Gentile, because God has made the two into one new man. The church is the house of God. The apostles are the foundation, and Christ is the cornerstone. It is the household of God.
In the first three chapters, Ephesians tells us what the church is by revelation. The heading of that letter is, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus.” As an apostle, he passed on the revelation that he had received.
But when it comes to the building of the church, Paul says that he is a prisoner in the Lord. We were once captured by the enemy. We were in captivity. A captive cannot do what he wants to do or go where he wants to go. He has lost his freedom; he is under another.
Brothers and sisters, unless we take that position, there is no way to build the church. Are we willing to take that rightful place?
The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:1:
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called.
Thank God, we have been called. What is our calling? The calling here does not refer to our individual calling. It is an overall calling. All of us are called into this.
What is that calling according to Ephesians? We are called to be the body of Christ. It is a holy calling, a high calling, a heavenly calling. We are not just called to be saved. We are not just called that we may go to heaven.
We are called to be the very body of Christ. All the fullness of the Head dwells in the body. All the riches of Christ dwell in the body, and the glory of Christ is manifested through that body. It is one with Him. As the Head is, so is the body.
Brothers and sisters, we are called to be the body of Christ. Since this is our calling, we should walk worthy of our calling.
How can we walk worthy of our calling? With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.
These are the qualities, the character, of our Lord Jesus. He is meek and lowly in heart. He calls us to yoke with Him and to learn of Him, because He is meek and lowly in heart.
There is no resistance in Him toward His Father. That is meekness. He is lowly in heart, and that lowliness means there is no self.
That is what Christ is, and that is what we should be. It is His life in us; it is His character. With that kind of attitude, we are able to be built together.
The Bible says Moses was the meekest of men. That does not seem to be right, because when artists draw a picture of Moses, he appears so majestic and so strong. Yet the Bible says he was the meekest of men.
Why? Because there was no resistance in him toward God: absolute submission, absolute obedience.
Brothers and sisters, how about us? Is there still resistance in us toward God? Are we ready at all times to obey? Are we lowly in heart, willing to take the lowest place because that is where we are?
Then he says, “With longsuffering.” Longsuffering means suffering long.
Do you expect that to be built into the body of Christ means longsuffering? You remember 1 Corinthians 13. It is the chapter on love, but it is related to the church, the body of Christ. The first quality of love is this: love suffers long.
How God suffers long with us! The church, because it is a place of love, is a place of longsuffering. Are you ready to suffer, and suffer long? If you are not ready, then do not try to be built into the church.
No wonder there are people today who want to keep to themselves. They say, “The Lord and I, and nobody else.” It seems very spiritual, but, brothers and sisters, they are not built into the body of Christ, the eternal purpose of God.
Then it says, “Bearing with one another in love.” All these are the qualities of Christ. Only when we are standing in Christ are we able to begin to be built up together.
The first thing is giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
The body is one. As the Head is one, the body is one. Therefore, we have to keep diligently the unity of the Spirit.
What is the unity of the Spirit? That unity has already been given. It has been given to all of us. What we need is to keep it, diligently keep it, because it is so precious and we can easily lose it.
What is the unity of the Spirit that has already been given to us? It is in the seven ones that follow:
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all.
The first three relate to God the Spirit. In one Spirit, that is, in one Holy Spirit, we have been baptized into one body, and we all drink of one Spirit.
As surely as you believe in the Lord Jesus, immediately you find that there is not only a bond between you and God; you find that there is a bond between you and all the other children of God.
We belong to one another. We are one body, and we drink of one Spirit. The same Holy Spirit dwells in us, teaches us, and brings us to Christ.
What is the hope of our calling? The hope of the body is that the body will be fully matured and become the bride of the Lamb. This is our blessed hope.
Then he says, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” That relates to God the Son. Our Lord Jesus is Lord to every one of us.
The one faith means that we believe He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, because that is the faith that saves us.
One baptism is not a matter of the manner of baptism. It is the meaning of baptism that is important: we have all been baptized into Christ. We belong to Christ—all of us belong to Christ.
Then there is one God and Father of all, Who is over all, through all, and in all. We have the same Father.
Brothers and sisters, where is the unity of the Spirit? The unity of the Spirit is in the Triune God. In the world, we have all kinds of differences and distinctions, but in God we are one. In our Lord Jesus we are one. In the Holy Spirit we are one.
Let us keep diligently that unity. Do not allow anything to come in and break that unity.
Whether it is national distinction, because there is neither Jew nor Gentile; cultural difference, whether civilized or barbarian; or social difference, whether bondman or freeman—in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, and in God the Father, we are one.
Let this oneness surpass all differences. We may have different ideas. We may have different interpretations of the word of God. We may have different experiences of the Son of God. But all these are secondary. The foundation is the unity of the Spirit.
Let us continue to fellowship with one another, not because we have differences and therefore are divided, as though we do not belong to one another and may even become enemies to one another.
Brothers and sisters, the cross must work in each one of us, crossing out anything that will conflict with the unity of the Spirit.
In spite of all the differences, let us be one. Let us continue to fellowship with one another, and through fellowship, one day we will arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
The unity of the faith is different from the one faith mentioned earlier. One faith refers to the basic faith, the faith that saves us. The faith refers to the whole truth, the faith once delivered to us.
Today, we may have different understandings and interpretations of our faith. But if we are willing to continue to fellowship with one another, not isolate from one another, and if we are willing to be humble and open to one another, then the Lord will lead us into the unity of the faith.
The same is true with the knowledge of the Son of God. This refers to the experiential knowledge of the Son of God. We will experience Christ together.
What you experience of Christ will help me, and what I have experienced of Christ will help you. Then we will grow up until we come to the full measure of the stature of Christ, when the Bridegroom will come to take His bride.
So, brothers and sisters, there is much work of the cross in us corporately. Are we willing to humble ourselves, not only before God, but before one another?
As our brother mentioned last night in Philippians, the others are more excellent than we are.
Brothers and sisters, the cross is a must in the building of the church.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee because Thou knowest what we need most. Thou knowest that we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Thee.
Thou knowest that we need to bear one another’s cross. So, Lord, we look to Thee for grace, knowing that Thy grace is sufficient for us.
We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.