The Lord prepares our hearts as we worship and sing together. The Lord reigneth; blessed be the Rock of our salvation.
We thank the Lord for gathering us in these days with all those who have a heart to serve the living God. The young and the old have been gathered together from many places.
Since we are servants together, we should fellowship together regarding our experience of the Lord. We are talking about Christ-centered service.
Let us turn once again to John 14 and read verses 6 through 11.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also: from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”
Philip said unto Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
Jesus said unto him, “Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father?
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I say unto you I speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.”—John 14:6-11
Then verses 25 and 26:
“These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you.
But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.”—John 14:25-26
Let us also turn to John 21, at the very end of the Gospel. First, verse 18:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.”
—John 21:18
Then verse 22:
Jesus saith unto him, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.”
—John 21:22
Finally, Hebrews 12:1-2:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.—Hebrews 12:1-2
Let us have a word of prayer.
Our Father, we come to You in the name of Your blessed Son. As servants together, we are learning that He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Dear Father, we want to run all the way to You. We fix our eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. We would set aside every weight that holds us back, and even the sins that beset us.
There is joy set before us as well, that we may dwell in the Father’s house all the days of eternity. As servants, we run by faith. We ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and power along the way.
Even today, we ask for help as we share together the Word of God. Give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We pray in His precious name. Amen.
I am speaking upon Christian service according to Christ, the way.
Last time, we were watching the disciples as they heard Jesus say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” The disciples thought they had come to the end of their way because Jesus was going away from them.
But Jesus was going away in order to bring them to the Father. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way.”
Within a few weeks, the disciples came to understand just what Jesus was saying, because Jesus went to the cross, rose again, ascended into glory, sat down at the right hand of God, and poured the Holy Spirit out upon them.
Then these disciples began to walk as disciples of the way.
As we read in John 14, all the words that Jesus had spoken were now understood as they saw what He had done at Calvary. The disciples, without any blueprint or outward method, began to walk in the living way.
Now we must remember that when John wrote his Gospel, there was a twofold burden in his heart.
First, he testified of who Jesus was in such a way that people would believe that He was the Son of God and, through faith, have eternal life.
But John was also burdened for the church to recover the living way.
We know, by looking at the seven churches in the book of Revelation, that the church was already becoming concentrated on outward things.
When John shared the Gospel and spoke about Jesus being the “I am” on eight different occasions, it was so that believers would move their vision from bread to the Bread of Heaven.
As Christians walked in the way, they were to have the experience of walking with Jesus, Who was the way.
In our lives, we come to moments of crisis just like the disciples, where we do not know the way forward. As His servants, we need to be reconnected with the living way.
We read those verses in Hebrews. The Hebrew Christians were at the end of their way. Jerusalem, the temple, and the sacrifices were all about to be destroyed.
How would they go forward in the way after all those things of Judaism and outward things had disappeared?
The writer of Hebrews says, “Fix your eyes on Jesus.” He is the beginning and the end and the way.
Whenever we have a vision of the great “I am,” we are able to walk in the living, true way.
How do we walk in the way? By faith.
We remember Hebrews 11:8. It speaks of Abraham:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
—Hebrews 11:8
Abraham was a servant of God who walked a living way. By faith, he walked in the sojourn of God. He saw the great “I am,” and so he began to walk the living way.
As he walked, he looked for the city whose builder and maker was God.
But listen to what it says about the way—the last phrase in Hebrews 11:8: “He went out, not knowing whither he went.”
Are you a servant of God? God will say, “I want you to go.” What if you say, “Where?” He does not tell you. He says, “Go. I will be your way.”
Abraham did not know where he was going. If Sarah said to him, “Abraham, Abraham, where are we going?” Abraham would have to say, “I do not know.”
But we are walking in the way. We are walking with Him Who is the way, and we will discover the way.
When we are servants of God, the Lord does not give us a blueprint and say, “I want you to live in Shanghai for six years; then I want you to move to Fuzhou for four years; and then I want you to move to California and retire.”
He says, “I am the way.” Like Abraham, you have to step out by faith. Was not the great “I am” his way? Did not the unseen God lead him to the end?
So, walking in the way is through faith. If you have been a servant of the Lord, you know that often the Lord does not tell you where you are going next.
There is a wonderful verse in the English Bible regarding Eliezer, who was Abraham’s servant. He testified about how he went out to find Rebekah.
In Genesis 24, he says:
“I being in the way, the Lord led me.”
—Genesis 24:27
By faith, he had to go out on the road, and then the Lord led him to Rebekah. Is that not wonderful?
But he did not know where to go. He did not know who the bride was. He had to trust Abraham’s God, and so he walked this living way.
From this, we see a principle of the way that is very clear: without vision, we cannot walk in the living way.
How can you know the way unless you have met Him Who is the way?
It is when we see a vision of the great “I am,” our Lord Jesus, that the living way opens before us.
We especially think of the apostle Paul. You remember his vision of the glorious Christ on the road to Damascus.
This vision he saw of Jesus became the blueprint for his ministry for the rest of his life. He preached Christ. He preached by the enabling of Christ. He preached for the glory of Christ.
He said, “For me to live is Christ.” His beginning and his end was the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was no longer interested in merely teaching doctrine. He wanted to write Christ on every heart. He was walking in the living way based on the vision that he saw.
Vision is necessary for us to walk in the way. Yet the proof of our vision is that we do walk upon this earth in a purposeful way.
You remember I told you that I was a pastor for several years in a denomination. I was serving God according to the Word of God and according to the traditions of our denomination.
But if somebody had said to me, “What is God’s purpose?” I did not know. I would have said, “God’s purpose is to save souls.”
But I knew so little about God’s purpose in making His Son pre-eminent over all things. Many servants are like that. They are serving God, but they do not know Him Who is the beginning and the end.
But when we meet the living God in Jesus Christ, when we realize that now we have seen Him, we have seen the Father, then we begin to walk in a living way.
Jesus said, “It is enough for the servant that he be like his master.” Those who know the Lord Jesus will walk like Him.
As we walk together in the way of church life, it is necessary for the church to walk in a way that is measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Our individual walk is measured by the character of Christ, and our church life is according to the image and fullness of Christ.
Do we have such a vision? It is very common today to talk about vision.
I remember several years ago, on one of my many trips to India, I was with very precious brothers and sisters. I went to one place and spoke several times. Then the servants of God got together with me, and we had a meal together.
As we were eating, one brother said to me, “Do you have the vision?”
I said, “Well, what do you mean?” Actually, I knew what he meant.
He said, “Do you have Brother Bak Singh’s vision?” By this, what he meant was, “Do we meet according to the method that he met? Do we pray on our knees like he prayed? Do we break bread every Sunday like they do?” And so on and so forth.
They had many definitions of what Brother Bak Singh’s vision was.
Here is how I answered our brother. I said, “I cannot say that I have Brother Bak Singh’s vision, because I know that he had a vision of Christ, and out of that vision he built the church.”
“I cannot say I have his vision. But I can say, by the mercy of God, that I have also seen this Christ.”
You see, a vision is not a series of definitions. We may do everything according to the pattern established years ago by some worker, yet still not have a vision of the Lord Jesus, the great “I am.”
But when we see such vision, it opens the way before us.
How do we fulfill this way? The disciples were told, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” They began to walk by faith, and the new and living way opened before them.
But Jesus told them, at the same time, how they would be able to walk. Jesus did not just say to His disciples, “Just start to walk. Good luck. I hope everything works out. I hope you figure it out.”
No, no. Do not forget: Jesus spoke to them regarding the way in John 14, 15, 16, and 17. We cannot limit this walking in the way to just one verse in John 14.
How would these disciples, who had natural wisdom, develop spiritual wisdom? How would these disciples, who always looked at things outwardly, begin to evaluate things inwardly? How would these disciples, who were so used to living by their natural strength, begin to live by spiritual strength?
This transformation is impossible unless God provides all that is necessary for such a walk.
We cannot go into a full teaching on John 14, 15, 16, and 17. But, in summary, they teach us that there are four spiritual resources that enable us to walk in the living way.
First, in John 14, we find Jesus speaking to His disciples about the indwelling life of God. Let us look at John 14:18-20:
“I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.
Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me: because I live, ye shall live also.
In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.”—John 14:18-20
What is He talking about? We find it back in John 14:17. Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit, Who had been with them but would be in them.
When we think about the disciples and ask what the greatest revelation was that they ever had, usually we immediately think of Caesarea Philippi, where Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Indeed, this was tremendous revelation. But what do you think the disciples understood on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and suddenly there was a life inside?
Now they heard the voice of Jesus speaking inside them, telling them what to do. Inside, not only was the Holy Spirit revealed, but the Father was revealed and the Son was revealed. They were walking with the living God inside of them.
What a tremendous revelation. How can we, as servants of God, ever become spiritual men and women? It is by the strength of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
He is with us night and day. He is working upon us. He is giving us new vision. What a resource this is.
In John 15, He speaks about abiding in the life of Jesus as the vine. How can we walk the living way? We abide in the vine.
We sense His life going through us, and He prunes us. This keeps us in the living way. It is all about life.
I need not say anything more because our brother Stephen will share more on this.
Then, in John 16, He speaks more about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, Who brings us into truth and teaches us. Let us read John 16:13-14:
“Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.”—John 16:13-14
Now, as we gather for these sessions of teaching, someone may say, “Oh yes, our teacher.” Am I your teacher? I am just a fellow servant of yours. But the Holy Spirit is our Teacher.
What a wonderful Teacher. He will bring us into all truth—not just truth, but living in the reality of the truth. By this, we can walk the new and living way.
Even in John 17, where Jesus is praying for His disciples, He prays, “Father, keep them in My name.” Keep them in that oneness which You have with Me and I have with them.
Here is our spiritual resource. How are we going to walk this living way? We have no road signs to tell us to go here and there, but we have an indwelling Holy Spirit.
We have the life of Christ abiding in us. We have the Spirit leading us continually into truth. We have the Father keeping us in the Lord Jesus. Upon these bases, we can walk this living way.
When we begin to walk this way, we discover two characteristics of the living way. We want to spend the remainder of the two sessions I have—today and tomorrow—talking about these two characteristics.
When we walk in the living way, first of all, it is a narrowing way. At the same time, it is an expanding way.
As we walk with the Lord, He narrows the way before us until our way is reduced to Jesus only.
At the same time, the Lord spiritually expands our way, broader and wider, as we discover that Christ is all and in all.
As we walk in this living way, we discover both this narrowing experience in our life and the expansion of His life. We decrease; He increases. It happens as we go on this way.
This afternoon, we want to touch on this matter of the narrow way. In order for us to find the way, we have to be narrowed down.
We think of this Gospel truth:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
—John 14:6
The world says there are many ways to God. But the truth is that there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ.
Peter stood up before the council and said that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
This is a narrow way. We have to come through Jesus if we would be saved. This is our Gospel. It is exclusive. It is narrow, and it is true.
When we preach this Gospel and the sinner hears it, the Holy Spirit begins to narrow their way.
When you are an atheist, your way is very broad. You can do anything because life is meaningless. But then the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
As you think of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit begins to work on your mind.
I was saved when I was twenty years old. I was a college student, and I remember very well how the Holy Spirit was haunting my mind.
Now, I was a sinner. I committed many sins. But the Holy Spirit convinced me that my greatest sin was not believing in Jesus.
When I heard that, I said, “I am going to wait before I get saved.” But the Holy Spirit narrowed my way. He said, “Today is the day of your salvation.”
He narrowed my time. Finally, I had to get saved. I got down on my knees and asked Jesus to save me.
The Holy Spirit did that to me because I heard the Gospel: Jesus is the only way to God.
Something deep in my heart, since I was a child, always wanted to know God. I never could find Him. I praise God: when I went the narrow way, I found Jesus, and I found God.
Or actually, by the Holy Spirit, He found me. Oh, what a wonderful salvation. This is how God does it: by narrowing our way.
But then we find, as Christians, that we think, “Now I am a Christian. Now I am saved. Now I can do anything I want.” So we start to walk.
But life is like a big funnel that gets narrower and narrower in the way. We all know the passage in Matthew 7:13-14:
“Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby.
For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.”—Matthew 7:13-14
Many think this is talking about the way of salvation. Jesus is talking about walking as a servant in the kingdom. If we are to be servants in the kingdom of God, we have to walk a narrow way.
You remember Jesus said that many will say to Him, “Did we not cast out demons in Your name?” And He will say, “I never knew you.” Just because you say, “Lord, Lord,” does not mean you are walking in this narrow way.
As servants of the Lord, we consecrate our lives to the Lord. Often, as we begin to serve Him, we have to deny ourselves.
Sometimes there is a choice we have to make in our life. We have to follow the Lord, and we have to put aside some desire, some dream, some hope we had in this world.
We begin to walk in a narrow way. It is a way of decrease. It is a way in which our flesh must be dealt with and our natural strength must be weakened.
There are many things that have to happen in our lives. Thank God for the Holy Spirit. We discover that the living way is the way of the cross.
As we walk with the Lord, we are reduced and He is increased. The Holy Spirit applies the work of the cross to our lives.
We cannot learn these things by ourselves. We do not naturally like the way of the cross, but the way of the servant must know this cross.
The Holy Spirit dwells in us. He is always working in us. He is dealing with us. He is sanctifying us. He is preparing us. He is convicting us. He is transforming us. Thank God for this life with the Holy Spirit.
We do not have time to go into so much of this matter. But, of course, the servant has to come to the place where they realize that their old man has been crucified.
The servant of God must come to the place where they see that they have been delivered from the principle of sin in their life.
The servant of God must come to the place where they begin to live by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
For all our days, He is always dealing with us regarding our sins and regarding our flesh. These are basic lessons of our Christian life.
But we want to talk about the way of service, and we want to look at this as servants who are on the living way.
When we begin to serve the Lord as His children, especially if we are young, it seems as though the whole world is before us.
“Oh, I can choose how I want to serve. There are many vocational choices. Our brother Stephen spoke this morning about the gifts of the Spirit. I can choose: What gifts do I want? I can choose which way I want to serve God.”
We may say, “I want to serve God, but I also want to make a lot of money. I am looking to serve God, but I want to find a good opportunity.”
We all start out like this. We have a little Bible knowledge. We have some natural gifts. We have some outward wisdom. We have lots of energy, and we are self-confident.
“I can do anything.” Maybe everybody is not so self-confident. But when you are a giant like me, you are very confident. I can do anything.
We start out to serve the Lord thinking, “Oh, the Lord is so happy that I am serving Him.” We head out to serve the Lord.
If we are consecrated and truly love the Lord, He is so patient with us. But, of course, you know what begins to happen.
I must tell you, brothers and sisters, some of my best sermons that I ever spoke did no good at all. They were natural sermons.
I found illustrations on Wikipedia. My source of wisdom was Google. Even though I was so proud of my sermon, I saw everybody falling asleep. Something was wrong.
Now I thought, “I must redouble my self-effort.” I remember when I was a young pastor, there was a famous preacher in England named F. B. Meyer.
I read his sermon, “Back to Bethel,” about Jacob going back to Bethel. I memorized the sermon word for word. I even tried to use a little English accent when I spoke.
I preached to the congregation. The sermon comes to a climax where God says to Jacob, “Go back to Bethel.”
When I came to that place, I yelled, “Go back to Bethel!”
One of the deacons was asleep. I yelled so loudly that it woke him up. He knocked his head back on the back of the chair, and everybody turned around.
But that was all the good that sermon did. I woke up one deacon.
The Lord has to narrow my way. I began to sense something: when I was speaking, sometimes I sensed the life of the indwelling anointing, and sometimes I sensed death.
Sometimes when I was speaking, I could feel that I was off the track because suddenly something would go dead inside.
Thank God for the indwelling life of God. It must teach us as servants of God.
I was a foolish young man, though I truly wanted to serve the Lord. When I felt these things, I would get on my knees and cry to God, “God, what am I doing? What am I doing?”
There was so much flesh. Where does God start? According to the gospel I had learned, there was no cross. There was only greater and greater success.
But the more I tried, the more it seemed that the cross would disappoint me. Because I did not know the way of the cross, I was always confused.
“Why are others so successful? Why am I not so successful?” But the Lord has to strip us away.
He is trying to transform us from outward to inward, to serve by the Spirit and not merely by the outward man. The Lord must prune us in order that we may one day bear more fruit.
If you are merely an outward servant of God, your pathway to success is very quick. But if you are a servant of God walking in the living way, your pathway of development is very painful and slow.
Almost everything that we give to the Lord to serve Him in natural strength and natural gift, through the circumstances of our service, He brings to the cross in order that we may learn how to serve by the life of the Spirit.
I remember that when I used to serve, I did not really pray too much, except just before I ministered. Then I would pray a lot: “Lord, bless me. Bless us as I minister.”
But the Lord does not just want us praying selfish prayers. He wants to use us in prayer.
He has to teach the servant of God how to hold and pray with His burden.
I remember I used to serve the Lord and always pray, “Lord, what can I speak to these people when I go there to speak?”
Now you can see that I am an old man with gray hair. When I am invited somewhere, I say, “Lord, what do You want to say?”
I have already spoken enough times—thousands of times. I have run out of things to say. I am at the end of my way. “Lord, what do You want to say?”
How we need to learn these lessons.
I remember at one point in my ministry—please forgive me for giving these personal references—I went through a stage where I was prevented from ministering the Word of God in the assembly.
I thought this was the most important part of my life, and I was angry. “I cannot speak the Word. It is burning in my bones.”
Actually, I still wanted to show off. I wanted to talk and have everybody listen. But the Lord said, “No.” I complained and complained.
I remember one day I was so angry that I closed my Bible, walked out into the woods, and yelled at God in the woods: “Why cannot I speak? This is my calling. What are You doing?”
Like most servants of God, I can get very dramatic, you know.
The Lord spoke to me there in the woods. He said, “Now, what do you want?”
I said, “I think that really, Lord, You want Your people to repent. I want to speak a word of repentance.”
He said, “That is what I want. But you do not have to preach. You can pray. Pray for their repentance.”
And so I began to pray. I could not preach. I would much rather have preached, but I had to pray.
In the course of time, our dear brother Stephen came to this group. He was speaking for the weekend, and he opened his Bible and spoke on this:
“Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
—Matthew 3:2
We entered into a season of repentance. The Lord was trying to deepen this servant’s understanding that He can bring things into being through intercession and prayer.
As a matter of fact, even as I speak to you today, I know that these words that I say can do little to change you. You will forget the words. They are weak words at best.
Unless the Holy Spirit touches our hearts, then all is vain.
We rely upon ourselves, but the Lord reduces us down to Jesus only.
By many failures, we learn not to trust in ourselves, but Jesus only.
In all these ways, the cross begins to work on the servant’s life, reducing them to Jesus only. The servant walks a narrow way until he makes the choice that the Lord uses him, and not that he uses the Lord.
We remember that verse at the end of John’s Gospel. Jesus said to Peter, “In your young days, you will go wherever you want to go.”
But the Lord will narrow the way until people take you places where you cannot go yourself. As servants, we used to chart our own destiny and our own course, but no more.
As Paul says, as the Lord narrows the way, it seems that death is always working in us. We sense our weakness. We sense our failures. We sense our own doubts.
We are weakened through trials, but the Lord carries us by grace. As we find weakness, His strength is perfected.
We experience this reduction, this decrease, but others experience life appearing in us. Even as we go this narrow way, the Lord is glorified.
We are reduced to one thing. To me, some of Paul’s most precious words are, “For me to live is Christ.”
When the shadow of the cross has come over you, it is no longer a matter of you, your rights, or your strength. When that cross is upon you, others see the Lord Jesus.
I would like us to read one more Scripture as we close, in 1 Corinthians 1:30:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
—1 Corinthians 1:30
God is doing that in our lives, making Christ our wisdom, our sanctification, our redemption, and our righteousness.
But how does He do it? Before we trust the Lord’s wisdom, He must confound our wisdom.
Before the Lord’s righteousness can be known in us, we must exhaust our attempts at self-righteousness.
Before the Lord becomes our sanctification, we are always striving to be more holy.
In order for the Lord to become our redemption, He must deliver us time and time again from bondage.
Jesus only.
Is that your hope? Is that your heart?
Probably some servants here are going through very difficult times. If you are reduced to Jesus only, then you have been reduced to a great place, where you can rely on the Lord.
You are His, and He is yours. If you have forsaken your own strength and your own plan, and as you learn to yield to His plans and His way, then you find that you are walking in a living way.
At the same time that this reducing is going on in us, we find in this living way that the Lord is expanding His life in this world. This we will look at next time.
Let us pray.
Lord, in our natural strength, we provide little true spiritual service unto You. But You have given us Your Spirit within.
You have brought us to the place where we are crucified with Christ, where we live by the life of Christ. Without Him, we can do nothing.
To be led into all truth by the Holy Spirit—indeed, this is a great and glorious way. We lay hold of the Lord Jesus as our way. Without You, we can do nothing.
We fix our eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Finisher, the beginning and the end. Even when we walk through a deep valley, He abides with us.
Oh Lord, we thank You that You have called us into service. As we learn the way of the cross, we are also learning the way of resurrection life.
Teach us how to walk in this living way. We are Your servants. Show us Thy way, that we may please Thee.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.