Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew.
From that time Jesus began to show unto His disciples, that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.
And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee.
But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
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 1 Corinthians.
For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, our hearts are full of gratitude, thanking Thee for all that Thou hast done for us. Lord, we do want to exalt Thy name, the name that is above every name, and we gladly bow our knee to Thee, acknowledging Thee as the Lord of our life.
Dear Lord, as we continue in Thy presence, we wait for Thee to speak by Thy Spirit, through Thy Word, to us once again, that we may really hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
We pray that Thy Word will be so implanted within us that it will bring forth fruit unto Thyself. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
I suppose now we all know that this time we are here not talking about something new, but we are just reviewing what the Lord has shown us. Hopefully, by reviewing it, we may catch a fresh vision, and we will enter into a new vocation for the glory of God.
I think that Matthew 16, even though it is so familiar, contains the greatest revelations that you can find in the whole Bible, because they are all there.
You find the revelation of the Father concerning His Son, and there is nothing greater than that. How the Father desires that we know His Son as much as we can.
The Father knows the Son fully, and it is His desire that, as He reveals His Son to us, we may know Him more and more. Knowing Him is not just a matter of mental knowledge. Mental knowledge is just knowing about Him. It is outside of us, and it will not glorify God.
But knowing Him in our spirit will transform us. The more you know Him, the more you are conformed to His image. This is the Heavenly Father’s eternal purpose concerning His Son: that everything will be summed up, headed up, by His Son, and everything will express His Son. In this way, the Father is really glorified.
So, dear brothers and sisters, first and foremost, we need to press on to know Him, and know Him more.
Secondly, you find in the same chapter that, after the Father has revealed the Son to Simon, son of Jonah, our Lord Jesus began to reveal what is upon His heart.
He said, “You are Peter. Now you have changed. You have become a new creation. You have My life in you, and with this life in you, and in many, many more like you, I will build My church.”
He will build His church upon this rock, and that rock is our Lord Jesus Himself. He is the only foundation. He is not only the foundation of the church; He is the cornerstone of the church. He is also the topstone of the church. In other words, our Lord Jesus is everything to His church.
The church is called the Christ. In the church there is no Jew, no Gentile, no bondman or freeman. In the church there is only Christ. We see Christ in each other, and we allow the life of Christ to be expressed toward one another.
And this church that He builds—the gates of Hades are against it, but they cannot prevail against it. Praise the Lord.
These are two of the greatest revelations you find in the Word of God. But then the Bible says that our Lord Jesus began to say to His disciples:
From that time Jesus began to show unto His disciples, that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.
In other words, after the Father has shown the Son to us, and after the Son has revealed the church to us, then He begins to tell the secret—the secret of Christ and the secret of the church.
That secret is the cross.
How can our Lord Jesus be the Christ? We know that He was sent by His Father into this world for a mission: to be the Christ, to fulfil God’s plan. But how is He going to be the Christ?
The secret is the cross. It is the cross that proved His Christhood, His Messiahship.
So you remember that after He died on the cross, was buried, resurrected, and ascended, then God made Him Lord and Christ. In other words, it is proven.
Now we do thank the Lord that our Lord Jesus, He who is God, equal with God, having the form of God, the image of God, and yet emptied Himself. What love is behind it!
He came into this world, taking the form of a bondservant. That is what man, when God created man, was supposed to be: a bondservant to God.
Here our Lord Jesus came, the Man of God’s heart. He took upon Himself the form of a bondservant. Again, we say that the form does not refer to outward appearance. The form here refers to inward quality, inward character.
So you find that our Lord Jesus, while He was on earth as a man, always stood on the ground of a bondservant to God. He said, “I can do nothing of Myself. I do it because My Father does it. I can say nothing out of Myself. I speak because I heard My Father speak. Not My will, but Thy will, be done.”
Throughout His life, there was one principle that governed His life, and that principle was the Father’s will, because He stood on the ground of a bondservant.
We often say that after our Lord Jesus had lived on this earth thirty-some years, after He had spoken and done so many things, one day He took three disciples to the mountain, and there He was transfigured.
We often say that in this transfiguration, glory began to diffuse, as it were, out of that body of flesh. It is the glory of the Son of Man.
In other words, He had lived a life that was pleasing to God in everything. He has shown us what a man that God creates should be. He lived such a perfect life in obedience to the Father, so that moral glory within Him came out from Him.
You remember Moses and Elijah appeared. What did they talk about? They talked about His exodus.
In other words, the Word one day became flesh and entered into this world to be a man, to declare God, and to show us the man that God created in the very beginning—what that man should be. And He is perfect.
But He was to depart from this world. So that was their subject of conversation: how would our Lord Jesus make His departure from the world?
It was a very important time. Why? So far as our Lord Jesus Himself was concerned, He came and proved that He was the perfect One. He had every right to depart from that mountain.
But thank God, He did not depart from that Mount of Transfiguration. If He had, even today and for eternity there would be only one Man in heaven. He is the only One worthy to return.
But our Lord Jesus, because of us, would rather depart from Calvary’s cross. Thank God for that.
Now, brothers and sisters, the word of the cross is foolishness to the world. To those who are unsaved, it is foolishness. But to those who are saved, the cross is the wisdom and the power of God.
If there is no cross, brothers and sisters, there will be no Christ. It is His cross that made Him Christ. It is only on the cross that He fulfils all that God sent Him for.
But the cross itself, so far as the world is concerned, is just foolishness. To the Jews, it is an offence, a stumbling block, because it is said in the Word of God that those who are cursed are to be hanged on a tree. To the Gentiles, it is just foolishness. It is a sign of shame, a sign of defeat.
But, dear brothers and sisters, here we see the wisdom and the power of God, because it is the cross that makes our Lord Jesus the Christ.
Satan, in a sense, knew about it. That is the reason why, from the very beginning of the life of our Lord Jesus, he tried to kill Him.
You remember how Herod tried to kill all the boys two years old and under in Bethlehem, but God took Him to Egypt.
You also remember that after our Lord Jesus was baptized, He was led by the Holy Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. All the way, what the devil tried to tempt Him with was this: “If You are the Son of God, You do not need to go through any suffering. You do not need to go to the cross. You can do everything, and You can have everything, without the cross.”
He even promised our Lord Jesus, “If You worship me, I will give the whole world to You.” No cross.
But thank God, our Lord Jesus was ready to go to the cross rather than avoid it.
Here in Matthew 16, when the Father revealed Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, who was the one who tried to prevent our Lord Jesus from going to the cross?
The Lord was telling us His secret: “How can I be the Christ, the Anointed One? I have to go to Jerusalem. I have to die. But on the third day I will be raised again.”
Immediately Simon Peter, who had just confessed by revelation from above that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, was used by Satan. He took hold of our Lord Jesus—I wonder if he shook our Lord Jesus a little—and he said, “Lord, never. Do not go to the cross. Take good care of Yourself.”
Satan was behind it. Our Lord Jesus turned around and said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan, because you are not mindful of the things of God, but you are mindful of the things of men.”
Brothers and sisters, the enemy tried every means to keep our Lord Jesus from the cross. But strangely, when he found that he could not keep our Lord Jesus from the cross, because our Lord Jesus’ face was toward Jerusalem and He was going to Jerusalem—He was going to Calvary—Satan knew that he could not prevent our Lord Jesus from going to the cross.
Then he changed his tactic and tried to make the cross as ugly as he could: “Now, You want to go to the cross, all right. I will make it so ugly, so foolish, so weak, that people will never believe that by the cross salvation will be accomplished.”
Even when our Lord Jesus was on the cross, you remember the priests came and said, “If You come down from the cross, then we will believe You are the Messiah.” Just the opposite. If our Lord Jesus had come down from the cross, there would be no Messiah.
But our Lord Jesus would rather suffer on Calvary’s cross, and that makes Him Christ.
Today, to us who believe in the Lord Jesus, the cross is God’s wisdom and God’s power. We glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus.
Do we know how much our Lord Jesus has accomplished on Calvary’s cross?
We know that on that cross He bore our sins in His body. Because He has borne our sins in His own body, God can forgive us.
He took our sins away. The One who knew no sin became sin for us. Think of that. He never knew what sin was, because His whole life pleased the Father.
But on the cross, He was made sin itself—not just some sins that you have committed or I have committed. No, the whole sin itself. Our Lord Jesus bore it in His body. He was made sin in the sight of God. He became our substitute. He was crushed by God, who is just.
He took our sins away. He cleanses us with His blood. He forgave us and even forgets our sins. Brothers and sisters, what a salvation! But that is only the beginning.
Oh, what the cross of our Lord Jesus has done for us! Because on the cross He has done so much more. He has not only borne our sins, the acts of sins, in His body; the Bible tells us that when He was crucified, He took the old man with Him.
He was the last Adam. All the Adamic race, as it were, was in Him. When He died, that Adamic race was terminated. He was the second Man and the last Adam. When He rose from the dead, He became the beginning of a new mankind, a new creation.
Brothers and sisters, because on the cross He has taken the whole Adamic race with Him, therefore, when we believe in Him, we are delivered from the power of sin. Not only have all the sins we committed been forgiven, but He has even given us the power to overcome sin, because we have been crucified and died in Him. When we are raised, we live in newness of life. This is what He did.
Whatever He did on Calvary’s cross, it is finished. In other words, there is nothing to be added. You do not need to do anything more. All we need to do is believe and receive it. That is all. If you try to do something, you spoil it.
So, when you think of the objective work of the cross—that is, the cross at Calvary, what Christ has done on the cross—it is all finished. Nothing more is to be added. All we need to do is believe and receive it.
But this is not all. We find that when our Lord Jesus died on the cross, it was much more than that. When you read Galatians 6:14, it says that the cross delivers us from the world. So far as the world is concerned, we are crucified; and so far as we are concerned, the world is crucified. The cross stands between us and the world.
Our Lord Jesus on the cross delivered us from the world. So all who believe in Him are delivered, called out of the world, and called to Him as His body.
Can we go back to the world? If we try, you will see the cross standing there—a separator. The cross delivers us from the world.
But if you read Colossians, you will find that when Christ died on the cross, He cast out the god of this world. He has taken all the powers of darkness and made a show of them. In other words, on the cross there is complete victory.
He has broken the serpent’s head. He has made a show of all the evil forces in this world. He has overcome, and by His overcoming, brothers and sisters, we overcome.
You will find that on the cross the Lord Jesus not only redeemed us, rescued us, and restored us, but even the whole world is being reconciled.
In Colossians, you find that by the blood of His cross, He has reconciled all things to Himself. The foundation, the basis, for the restoration of the whole creation is laid on the cross of our Lord Jesus.
So the cross of our Lord Jesus is all-inclusive. The more we understand what He has done on the cross, the more it strengthens our faith. All we need to do, brothers and sisters, is receive it with faith. Do not try to add anything to it. If you do, you spoil it.
So far as the objective work of the cross of our Lord Jesus is concerned, it is all done. Nothing is left.
It is the cross that makes our Lord Jesus the Christ. How unfortunate that we find today in Christianity that they are preaching a Christ without a cross.
When you teach Christ without the cross, you only preach Christian ethics, as it were. It only condemns; it never justifies.
Unfortunately, even in Christian circles, we find people who believe in the cross of our Lord Jesus, but they think that because the objective work of Christ on the cross is so complete, the cross has nothing to do with us now.
In other words, we find people preaching a crossless church, a crossless Christian life. “Our Lord Jesus has suffered everything for us. There is nothing left for us to suffer. So now we can live prosperously.” That is the prosperity gospel: no cross, no suffering, because Christ has done it all. Nothing is left for us.
I remember once a leader in the charismatic movement. If I mentioned his name, you would know it, but I will not.
I believe the charismatic movement in the 1960s was a move of God. Christianity at that time was so formal, so dead, that the Lord raised up this charismatic movement, and it swept through the world. Not only among Protestants but also among Catholics, many, many people were saved.
But unfortunately, we find that after all that God had done in the beginning, gradually lots of confusion began to come. Lots of mixtures began to come.
One day I was talking to one of the most well-known among the charismatics. This old brother told me, “What is wrong with the charismatic movement? Because we do not preach the cross.”
It does not mean that they do not preach the cross at Calvary. In other words, they do preach the objective work of the cross. But they do not preach on the subjective work of the cross.
The cross is not mentioned anymore. After you believe in the Lord Jesus, who died on the cross of Calvary, that is it. There is no need for any believer to suffer. We can enjoy prosperity.
And what has this teaching done to the church?
When you read Matthew 16, what did our Lord Jesus say? He said, “I must go to Jerusalem. I will be killed. I will be raised on the third day.”
But after He said that, you find in verse 24:
Then Jesus said unto His disciples, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
In other words, brothers and sisters, it is the cross that made Jesus the Christ, but it is also the cross that builds the church.
The Lord said, “I will build My church.” But how does He build it? He builds it not only on the cross of Calvary, but He builds it by implanting that cross into us. That is the way He builds the church.
If there is no cross, there is no church.
I think this is very, very clear. Why is it that today we find what we consider to be the church in such confusion, with so many problems, all the controversies, all the fighting against each other? Why?
It is because we only know the church and the cross in an objective way. We have not allowed that cross to be implanted within us.
So our Lord Jesus tells us that the cross is necessary for Him and for all who will follow Him. You have to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Him.
It is true that there is a part of the suffering of Christ that He bore alone. When we come to this matter of atonement, the vicarious death of our Lord Jesus, He died for the sins of the world. We know that He trod that winepress alone. Nobody can share in that work of atonement. He did it all. He drank fully that cup that the Father had given Him. We have no share in that suffering.
But the Bible tells us that we too have fellowship with His sufferings: to know Him, and the power of His resurrection, that we may be given the power to share in His sufferings.
What are these sufferings? These sufferings that our Lord Jesus suffered are non-vicarious sufferings. In other words, they have nothing to do with atonement.
Our Lord Jesus suffered because of righteousness, and we have to share in that suffering. We who follow the Lord have to suffer for righteousness’ sake.
Our Lord Jesus suffered because of His sympathy with the world, and we have to have the same spirit.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
We have to suffer because of His name. This is something that we have to go through.
So, brothers and sisters, as we read the Word of God, you find that the cross is not just for our Lord Jesus. The cross is also necessary for us. It is the cross that builds the church.
The cross of our Lord Jesus laid that foundation. You remember that after our Lord Jesus had died on the cross, the soldiers came. They wanted to make sure that He was dead.
The two robbers who were hanging beside Him were still living, so the soldiers broke their legs to hasten their death. But when they came to the Lord Jesus, they saw that He was already dead. To make sure, one soldier thrust his spear into the side of our Lord Jesus.
The Bible says that out of His side came blood and water.
Strangely, you find John, His beloved disciple, was there witnessing it. If you read the Gospel of John, you will find that he makes it very emphatic. He said, “I saw it, and bear witness to it, and my witness is true.” It is important. Why?
Because out of His side came blood and water. Blood to atone for our sins; water speaks of life. He not only atoned for our sins, but out of His death comes His life. By that blood and water, He built the church.
Just as in the beginning, when God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet, his like,” how did God do it? He put Adam to sleep, and out of his side took something. In the original, you do not have the word rib there. It is just something taken out of Adam, and God made Eve.
Then, of course, Adam woke up, and God brought Eve to Adam. Adam said, “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” They were united into one.
But Adam’s surgical operation was painless. Our Lord Jesus’ was very painful. A large drop of blood had to be drawn out. Why? Because of sin. When sin entered this world, there would be hurt.
But our Lord Jesus gave Himself to build this church with the life that He has poured out for us.
This is how the church began. How is the church to be built? It continues on: those who believe in Him must follow Him.
How do we follow Him? We have to take up our cross and follow Him, because this is the way that Christ goes, and this is the way that we must go.
So, brothers and sisters, if the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be My disciple,” that is the way you have to go. You have to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Me.
The cross is the only way that will make you really deny yourself. In other words, we must first have the will to deny ourselves, and then God will put the cross upon us to make that will of denying self real to us. This is the only way to follow Him.
Brothers and sisters, this is the subjective work of the cross. As one writer says, it is only with the power of the cross of Calvary that we are able to bear our cross daily.
Thank God, He has given us new life. But unfortunately, our old life is still there.
We often say that when you believe in the Lord Jesus, you have two lives within you. In your spirit, there is the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life. The Holy Spirit is in your spirit, seeing to it that this life will grow into maturity and be conformed to the image of Christ.
But in our soul, who dwells there? Self. That fallen Adamic life is expressed in our flesh.
So you really have two lives there. Which life is going to be in control?
It is the cross that makes the life of Christ in the spirit be in control. It is the cross that puts the self-life, the Adamic life, the natural life, the fallen life, the flesh, into death.
That is the reason why, brothers and sisters, in order to build the church, it has to be built purely with the life of Christ. You cannot build the church with two lives. There are foreign elements, and they will not be accepted; they will be rejected.
That is the reason why the cross on Calvary must be transplanted into our lives. Brothers and sisters, do you see the need of bearing the cross in your life?
If you see the need, are you willing to deny yourself so that the cross may have a chance to work in you, to get rid of your self-life and replace it, filling you with Christ’s life? Are you willing to do that?
That is the reason why we sometimes say that after you are saved, you have to consecrate your life to Christ.
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.
Why is it so? Because if we present our bodies as a living sacrifice—and the bodies here do not just mean our physical body; they represent our whole being—because we are talking about daily life. You live by your body, but actually you live by your soul or by your spirit.
So we have to give ourselves totally to the Lord and say, “Lord, here I am. Do anything You like with me.”
You know, consecration is not doing something for God. Consecration is letting God do everything for you, and you cooperate, submit, and obey. That is consecration.
If you do that, you remember in Romans 12, when you come to verses 4 and 5, another body comes out—not in the plural number, but in the singular number. After we all present our bodies, then the body of Christ begins to appear. That is the only way to build the church, and the process is: take up your cross and follow Him.
This is something we have to do individually.
Our Lord Jesus in Matthew 10 tells us that if you love your father and mother more than Him, you cannot be His disciple. If you love your husband, wife, or children more than Him, you cannot be His disciple. If you want to save your soul-life, you lose it. If you are willing, for His sake, to lose your soul-life, you shall gain it.
In other words, our emotional life needs to be purified.
It is not that the Lord does not want us to love our father and mother, because the fifth commandment says, with promise, that if you honour your father and mother, you will have long life. God wants us to honour our father and mother.
But sometimes, when our father and mother’s will is against the will of our Lord, then you have to choose. In choosing, you will lose your natural love in order to gain that agape love.
Only after your emotional life is purified are you able to love as Christ loves, because it is He who loves out of you and not you yourself.
Oftentimes, we find people, even among God’s people, saying, “Oh, I love you, I love you.” But how do you love? Do you love out of your natural love? If that is the case, it will not last. You will turn to hatred.
Sometimes the one who loves you most will hate you most, because that is natural love. But the love of Christ is different. His love is everlasting. He loves not because you are lovely, nor because He expects a return. He loves because it is the love of God.
Brothers and sisters, have you experienced in your life when the cross works upon your emotional life and purifies it?
Then in Matthew 16, you find that our mind needs to be purified. Peter’s mind, from the world’s standpoint, was a good mind, because he did not want his Master to suffer. It should be commended.
But our Lord Jesus said it came from Satan, because it was the mind of man, not the mind of God. In other words, even our mind needs to be purified, and the only way to purify it is by taking up the cross and following the Lord.
True, when you take the cross, there is suffering, and the suffering is within your soul, because you are losing yourself. But the more you are losing yourself, the more Christ is gaining ground in your life.
Then when you turn to Matthew 26, you find our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Even though His human will was perfect—not like our human will, which is imperfect—yet in the Garden of Gethsemane even His human will was yielded to God’s will.
He is the perfect One, without sin. When God wanted Him to become sin for this world, He could hardly bear it.
If you are a very clean person, and it happens that the one who shares the room with you is the most undisciplined person, throwing things everywhere, can you bear it?
Oh, the Lord Jesus was so clean, so pure, so perfect. Even a tiny tinge of sin was dreadful to Him. But think: He was to be made sin for the whole world, since time began.
He shrank back, as it were, in His human will. So He said, “Father, if it be possible, let it pass from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will, be done.”
He struggled. He prayed. Sweat came out as great drops of blood. But He said, “Thy will be done.”
Brothers and sisters, has our will been broken by the Lord? Do we insist on having everything according to what we want? Are we willing to surrender our will? That is the most difficult part.
Always remember the prayer of F. B. Meyer. F. B. Meyer had a famous friend, because God was demanding something out of his life. He gave everything to the Lord. He said it was as if he had a bundle of keys to every room in his life, and he gave them to the Lord. But he kept a small key behind, to a small room in his life.
He said the Lord refused to receive that bundle of keys, because the Lord said, “If I am not Lord of all, I am not Lord at all.”
The Lord again turned away. In desperation, F. B. Meyer cried out, “Make me willing to be willing.”
The Lord came back and took the whole bunch, including the small key. F. B. Meyer said the Lord spent some time clearing every room. No wonder God used him mightily.
Brothers and sisters, has our will known the cross?
Thank God, He is using that cross to purify us. On the one hand, the soul-life will be purified and saved; on the other hand, the spirit-life will grow and increase. With that spirit-life, the church is built.
This is not only personal and individual. We find that it works in a corporate way.
God puts us together—a strange group of people. We all have our different personalities, temperaments, likes and dislikes, ideas and opinions, love and hate, plans, everything. God puts us together, and He says, “Live together in unity.” How can that be done?
If we are far apart, we can live peacefully. But when we live too close, we rub against each other. Not only just on Sunday for an hour. If we come together on Sunday for an hour, we can greet each other and love each other, and after an hour say goodbye. That is enough.
But that is not the will of God. That is not the body of Christ. The body of Christ is that all the members are stuck together. No matter whether you like it or not, you have to suffer.
Suffering perfects us. Not your will, not my will, but His will be done. Not your idea, not my opinion, but His Word, His way, is to be done. Not quite your likes or dislikes; it is what He wants.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord has to chisel us, smooth us, take off something, add something, take and give. When you read the Bible, I mean, it is amazing.
In Romans 12, it says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.” You must see your brothers and sisters even higher than yourself. Then you are able to be members one of another.
If you read 1 Corinthians, you find that it says, “Have the same mind. Speak the same thing.” Now how can you do that?
If you read Colossians or Philippians, it says that we have to forgive one another. We have to be united together. We have to keep the unity. How can we do that?
The only way is the cross.
Brothers and sisters, the cross is the only way to build the church. Unless we all are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him, the church cannot be built.
So may the Lord help us. We do thank the Lord, because we are not able, but He is able.
That is why you find in Matthew 11:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Brothers and sisters, are you willing to take His yoke upon you? He is under the yoke of the Father’s will. Are you willing to put your neck into that double yoke?
It is true: we are like wild animals, untrained and unbroken, unable to be really used by God. But whenever we try to go our own way, He is stronger. He will pull us back.
Gradually, we learn His meekness and His lowliness of heart. When you learn it, you have rest in your soul.
So may the Lord have mercy upon us.