And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent unto him from Jerusalem priests and Levites to ask him, Who art thou?
And he confessed, and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ.
And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered, No.
They said therefore unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.
Dear Lord, we do bow in Thy presence. Thank Thee for Thy precious Word. We pray that Thy Spirit will open Thy Word to us, that through Thy Word we may see Thee, the living Word.
We thank Thee for all this time that we can be together, waiting upon Thee, looking to Thee to reveal Thy mind to us. We trust Thy Holy Spirit to do the work that He is sent to do, to glorify the Son. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Identity is very important to life. I remember about a month ago, when I was listening to the news, there was a young man—I will not say young man; he was perhaps forty—who did not know who he was. He did not know his name, his family, or where he came from. He was completely lost.
Then I recalled, maybe a year or two ago, a man who was found on the beach in New York. He did not know who he was. He did not even know his name, his family, or where he came from. People talked to him, but he did not do anything. The only thing he knew was that he could play the piano.
Identity is very important to life. Today, if you travel at all, you have to carry your identification card. People want to know who you are and what you are. If you do not have identification, you are not able to travel at all.
What is the greatest problem in adolescence? When young people are growing up, what is their greatest problem? The greatest problem is trying to find their identity. They want to know who they are and what they are. That gives them security, a sense of being.
Without identity, you are confused. There is no meaning to you, and you are completely lost. So you see how important it is to have an identity and to know who you are and what you are.
Even at the time of John the Baptist, the same problem was there. After four hundred years of silence, God was silent to His people. There was no voice from heaven, no vision, no message. But suddenly, a man came out of the wilderness, and he began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
It electrified the Jewish community. Many people flocked to him and received the baptism of repentance. So the authorities in Jerusalem—the priests and Levites, representing the religious organization—sent them to John to ask him, “Now, who are you?”
It was a time when the Jewish nation was waiting for the Messiah to come. Therefore, there was some supposition that perhaps this man was the Messiah to come. They came to John and said, “Now, John, tell us: who are you?”
John knew that in their minds they were thinking that probably he was the Christ, the Messiah. So John emphatically denied it. He said, “I am not the Christ.”
“If you are not the Christ, then are you Elijah,” the greatest prophet Israel ever had? John said, “I am not.”
“If you are not Elijah, then are you the prophet,” prophesied by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15–19, that God would raise up among the brethren a prophet? To that prophet God would give His Word, and whoever did not listen to Him, God would require it of him. “Are you the prophet?” Again John said, “No.” He knew what he was not.
Then they said, “Now, if you are not the Christ, and you are not Elijah, and you are not the prophet, who are you? You have to tell us who you are, that we may report.”
John answered and said, “I am the voice that cries in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 40:3.”
John knew exactly who he was not, and also who he was. The reason was that, even before he was born, God had revealed his calling.
You remember in Luke 1 how the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias, his father, as he was offering incense in the holy temple. The angel said, “Your prayer was answered. You shall have a son, and his name shall be John. He will be great before the Lord. He will ready a people, a prepared people, for the Lord.”
After John was born, God opened the mouth of Zacharias. The Holy Spirit inspired him, and he began to prophesy that his son would walk before the Lord and prepare the way for the Lord.
Even when John was in his mother’s womb, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. We know that because, when Mary came to greet Elizabeth, John was in Elizabeth’s womb, and he leaped within her, welcoming the Messiah.
He was a Nazarite, even from before birth: no wine, no razor, no contact with death. He devoted his life to God, raised in the wilderness and separated from the world. Then God called him: “Come up and preach repentance to the nation.”
Therefore, he knew exactly what he was not. He did not pretend, like many people who are so ambitious and would like to be what they are not. He was honest. He knew what he was not. He was not seeking fame, applause, or welcome from the world. No.
He knew he was but a voice. The voice is not important, but the message is important. The voice will come and go, but the message remains forever.
John did not come to bear witness of himself. He came to testify to God’s Son, Jesus Christ. That was John.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, when you come to this place, you see no sign at the entrance. You may wonder, “Who are they? Is it a private residence?” It does not look like it, because there are many people going in and coming out. What is it? I wonder if it has ever come to your mind.
It is not our practice to speak of ourselves. We are nobody; we are nothing. But the Bible does say, in 1 Peter 3, that we are to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and be always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us concerning the hope that is in us, with meekness and fear.
We do not like to talk about ourselves. We do not want to draw attention to ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But when we are asked, the Bible tells us that we should sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and always be ready to give an answer to those who may ask, “What is the hope that is in you?” But with meekness and fear.
Meekness means without self: no self-pride, no self-consciousness, no self-seeking, no self-confidence. Fear means being afraid that we may not be what we aim to be.
So, dear brothers and sisters, this is what we would like to share this morning: Who are we?
Are we a social fraternity? Are we a religious organization? Are we Catholic, Roman Catholic? We believe in the universality of God’s people, but you see no images or statues here.
Are we Protestant? If you know the origin of the word Protestant, then I would say we are not. In 1529, some German princes protested against the authority of Rome, and because of their protest, the word Protestant came into being. So we are not a political organization in that sense, even though we hold many of the things Protestants hold.
Are we independent? What denomination do we belong to? We belong to no denomination. We are not creating a new denomination. Aside from the name of Christ, we have no other name.
But are we independent? Well, we join ourselves with the church universal, so we cannot be independent. Are we charismatic or non-charismatic? No. But we believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Now, who are you? If you want to know who we are, the only way is to search the Scriptures.
When you read the Gospels, you find that our Lord Jesus came into this world to seek and to save the lost. But to those who believed in Him, He called, “Come and follow Me.”
In other words, He came to disciple His people—not just to save them. That is the beginning. Not just giving His life to them, but He wants to disciple us to Himself, that we may be transformed and conformed to His image. So His call to all believers is very simple: “Come and follow Me.”
Sometimes His disciples followed Him for a while, but they found that it was too hard, and they left. But thank God, there were people willing to pay every cost to follow Him because they knew who He was. He had the word of life, and there was no other place to go.
Disciples simply means those who are under discipline—not under man’s discipline, but under the discipline of the Lord.
Unfortunately today, we separate believers from disciples. But in the mind of God, there is no separation. If you believe in Him, you will follow Him. If you accept Him as your Savior, automatically you receive Him as your Lord. He gave His life to you. You are not your own; you are His.
Even the Great Commission, as we find in Matthew 28, says that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ. “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
In other words, His commission to us is to disciple all nations—more than evangelizing, discipling. To be saved is good for us, but to be discipled is useful to Him. One is self-centered; the other is Christ-centered. That is the difference.
In the early days, even when our Lord was on earth, there were people who were disciples of Christ. The Pharisees and the scribes prided themselves as disciples of Moses. But thank God, there was a people on earth at the time of Christ who were proud to be the humble followers of that humble Son of Man.
Then we come to the Book of Acts. On the day of Pentecost, one hundred and twenty disciples of our Lord Jesus were gathered together in that upper room in Jerusalem.
The Holy Spirit came into this world. In one Spirit they were baptized into one body—no longer one hundred and twenty individual believers and disciples, but a body of Christ with one hundred and twenty members, having Christ as the Head. That is the beginning of the church: the called-out ones gathered together. “Where two or three are gathered together into My name,” the Lord said, “there am I in the midst of them.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ began to spread. The world looked at them and wondered, “Who are they?”
Gradually, the world began to see that on earth there was a people so different from all the peoples of the world. Were they Jews? There were Jews among them, but they lived and acted as more than merely Jews.
So gradually another designation was given to them. In Acts 9:2, Saul, the persecutor of the church, obtained documents from the high priest to go to Damascus and seize those who were of the Way, bringing them to Jerusalem to condemn them.
In other words, gradually there was in this world a people who lived a way totally different from any way that could be seen in the world.
When I first came to this country, I met with a group of brothers and sisters, mainly Americans and a few Chinese. When I served together with them, oftentimes, as we talked together, some would say, “This is not the American way.”
I objected. I said, “We are not here to stand for the American way or the Chinese way. We are people of the Way. There is a way of life.”
Brothers and sisters, those who believe in the Lord Jesus are not merely theoretical theologians with theories. They have a way of life.
This way of life is totally different from any way you can find in the whole world. It is neither American nor British, neither Jewish nor Chinese, nor German nor Spanish. You do not see this way in this world. It is a heavenly way, a spiritual way, a living way. The Lord said, “I am the way.”
If you follow the Lord Jesus, sooner or later you will live differently. Your manner of life will be changed. You cannot afford to live as the people of the earth.
The Christian way of life is heavenly, spiritual, real, living, and powerful.
In the early church, many were attracted by that way, but many were repulsed by that way. The Bible says, “None of the rest dared join himself to them.” It was terrible—powerful.
Saul wanted to wipe out the people of the Way. The world would not allow such a way, such a manner of life so different from the world, to exist. Just as they wanted to get rid of Christ, so they wanted to get rid of His followers.
In the Book of Acts, six times this designation is mentioned: the Way, people of the Way, people who live the way of Christ. That is how they were known in the early days.
Then gradually, we find in Acts 11:26 another designation. In the beginning, the gospel was preached only to the Jews. When our Lord Jesus came to earth, He was sent to the Jewish nation. So the early disciples were all Jews or proselytes to Judaism.
But when persecution came because of Stephen, the disciples began to disperse. Those with a Jewish background shared the gospel of Jesus Christ only with Jews as they went along. But there were people from the Gentile nations who began to share with Gentiles.
In Antioch, many Gentiles came to Christ. They were converted from idolatry into faith in Jesus Christ and in God. The church in Jerusalem heard about it.
Thank God, instead of sending Peter and John, they sent Barnabas there. Barnabas was a Jew, but he had lived in a Gentile country. He was not a Hebrew Jew, but a Hellenistic Jew. So they sent him to Antioch to visit the brethren there.
While he was there, he encouraged them to be steadfast in the Lord—not merely believing in the Lord, but being steadfast in the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus to seek Saul, who had been converted, to come and help. They met with the brothers and sisters for over a year, teaching them, instructing them, and helping them.
It was at that time that the world looked at these people again and wondered, “Who are you?”
In the beginning, the world considered believers in Jesus Christ merely a sect of Judaism. Even the Roman Empire at that time considered Christianity a sect of Judaism; therefore, it was given the freedom given to Judaism.
But now the situation was different. There were more Gentiles than Jews in that gathering. It was in a Gentile city. Most were Gentiles; some were Jews. Yet they were together—neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bondman nor freeman, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.
“Who are you?” The world always wants to identify you, because if they cannot identify you, they cannot lay hold of you.
Finally, they gave these people a nickname: “They are Christians”—Christ-men. Why? Because, gathered together in the name of Christ, they sang songs to Christ, prayed to Christ, lived for Christ, and proclaimed Christ. Everything was Christ, Christ, Christ.
Not Jews, not Gentiles, not bondmen, not freemen; not social status, not nationalities, not the ways of man, not even themselves. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. Well, Christ-men: Christians. That nickname has stuck.
To be a Christian is not that easy. To earn that name, Christian, was not easy in those days. Today, everybody seems to call himself or herself a Christian. It has become a name of honor. But what price have you paid to earn that nickname?
It was a name ridiculed by the world. The second mention of the word Christian is in Acts 26. Paul was testifying before King Agrippa concerning the Lord Jesus, and Agrippa said mockingly, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.”
Christian was a name despised by the world: “You are no good. You are nobody. You are Christ-men.”
In 1 Peter 4, Peter said, “If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you.” It was a name despised and persecuted. You had to suffer.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how much suffering have you experienced by being a Christian? Christians today are looking for blessing, not for suffering anymore. Are we worthy even of that name?
As you continue to search the Word, you come to the last book, Revelation, which speaks of the last days. There you find another designation that seems to come upon those who follow the Lord, who go the way of Christ, who are Christians.
They are those who have the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. The Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
They suffer for it. They stand on it. They testify to it. And they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes.
These are the people who gather unto the Lord, and these are the people who prepare the way of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, who are we? Thank God, we do not find our identity in ourselves. If our identity is in ourselves, we are merely a group of grace-sinners, rebels, without hope.
But, dear brothers and sisters, we thank God that by His grace we find our identity in Christ.
If we want to speak of ourselves, we have nothing to say but shame. But if we speak of Christ, we have everything to say. For all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and we are complete in Him.
Brothers and sisters, we do not gather together as a mixed multitude. Yes, outwardly you can see Americans, Indians, Chinese, Jewish people; but we are not a mixed multitude.
When God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt to bring them into Canaan, a mixed multitude followed them. They sought fortune and blessing. They had no objective and no vision. So whenever any difficulty came, they were the first to complain, murmur, and rebel. Why? They had no identity. They did not know who they were.
We are neither denominational nor interdenominational. We do not belong to any denomination, nor are we independent.
About forty years ago, God began to give some of us a glimpse of His heart. If you want to say it this way, the heavenly vision that God gave to the apostle Paul began to shed its light upon some of us.
We began to see Christ, the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all.
That vision caught us. We had no quarrel with the denominations to which we belonged before—not because we were unhappy with them and tried to organize something ourselves. No, God forbid.
We are not an organization, but we want to be an organism. We felt led of the Lord to put ourselves under the headship of Christ.
We do not want anyone to be our head. We are willing to be beheaded, as it were, in order that Christ may be our Head. Our head is not in any association; our head is not in any man. But we acknowledge the headship and authority of Christ, our Head.
We are not a democracy, with everybody free to do what he or she thinks. It is just as you find in the Book of Judges: there was no king, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
No. We have a Head. We bow ourselves to the absolute authority of Christ.
One of the strange designations of God is despot—absolute monarchy. We gladly submit ourselves to Him.
We believe in the oneness of the body of Christ. We do not want to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters. We want to stand in the body of Christ as members of that one body.
We welcome all who are the Lord’s. We do not question people’s background. We do not even ask what dogma or doctrine you hold. If it is in the Word of God, we accept it. We have no creed; the Word of God is our faith.
All whom the Lord receives, we receive. No membership. If you are born of God, you are born into the body of Christ. There is no other way you can enter into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, but to be born into it.
But that does not mean that there is no order or authority. Yes, we are all equal before God, but there is order. As the body has order, there is headship. Christ is our Head.
That is how we began.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we hope that in a very small way you can understand who we are. Again, I say, we are nothing. We are nobody. We are not trying to do anything great. We are not even a ministry.
There are many ministries blessed by God, but we are not. We are just a local expression of what we believe is the body of Christ. That is all.
Brothers and sisters, we confess that what the Lord has shown us is where we are heading. We do not profess that we have arrived—far from it.
We are still a people full of weaknesses. We have not yet come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, as you find in Ephesians 4. But this is the way we are going.
If we are willing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, may God enable us to be open to one another. If it is from the Lord, we accept it. If it is not from the Lord, we cannot accept it.
We have to follow the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, if the Lord has given you something that is from the Lord and is according to the Word of God, we gladly accept it.
But on the other hand, we are warned by the Word of God that we have to be watchful. Take heed, because we are living in the last days. Our faithfulness is unto the Lord.
We oftentimes feel ashamed because we are not what we profess—far from it. But we believe that if we humble ourselves before Him, He is able, because He has promised. He who has called us is faithful, and He will accomplish it.
So we want to give ourselves totally, absolutely, without reservation. We want to give ourselves to Him. Pray that He will be able to work out all that He has purposed for His people before His return.
That is our prayer. We are but a voice. Hopefully, that voice will prepare the way of the Lord, that the Lord may come.
Amen.