Will you please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 28? We will read from verses 18 through 20.
And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye 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 world.
And in the same book, Matthew 11, we read from verses 28 through 30.
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
May we have a further word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee that we may gather here this morning. We are gathered into Thy name, the name that is above every name; and to that name every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord.
We thank Thee for Thy presence with us this morning. We just look to Thee that Thou wilt open our hearts, so that Thou mayest be able to speak directly and personally to us.
Lord, how we need Thy living word. Without Thy word, we are as people who are dead. But with Thy word, Lord, we will be alive unto Thee. Speak to us.
We give Thee all the praise and glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, dear brothers and sisters, it is really a great joy to be able to see all of you. I do praise the Lord every time when God’s people meet together. It is really a very special occasion.
Because we are living in a most critical time. As the Bible says, God will not only shake the earth, but He will also shake the heaven. There is no question that we find shaking all over the earth.
But are we aware that even heaven is being shaken? We see shaking in physical things, but do we realize that there is shaking in the spiritual area?
And as the Bible says, all that can be shaken will be shaken away, that the eternal kingdom of God alone will remain. And we are now in this time.
So, brothers and sisters, as we are in this critical time, I feel it is very important that we begin to examine our foundation, that our foundation may be firm and strong. So when the wind blows and the waters rise, we will not be destroyed. We may all lift up our heads, knowing that our redemption draws nigh.
I feel that we need to go back to the very beginning. We want to examine our foundation of faith to see if our foundation is firm and secure.
I am not going to give some deep messages. I am not able to do that. But I do want to share my burden with you, dear brothers and sisters. I feel that it is a very serious moment. We have to be very serious in our faith, to see if our foundation is well laid.
So, if God wills, we will spend our time together on a very basic subject. We want to consider before the Lord this matter of discipleship.
Probably from around the eighteenth century onward, there seems to have been a general burden among God’s people. God’s people began to realize the importance of evangelizing the world. From the Moravian movement until even our day, the cry of the church has been, “Evangelize the world.”
And this is really important. People began to speak about the Great Commission. In Matthew 28, the Lord came to His disciples and said, “Go.” But the emphasis has often been, “Go and evangelize all the nations.”
Now, to evangelize the nations means preaching the gospel of grace: to preach repentance and the redemption of the Lord Jesus. Thank God, this is very, very basic.
But if you read very carefully the Great Commission in Matthew 28, what do you hear there? Our Lord Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth hath been given unto Me. Go therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them all things that I have commanded you. And I will be with you until the end of the age.”
So you find what the Great Commission really is. It is more than evangelizing the nations. Of course, that is important, because without evangelizing the nations, you cannot disciple the nations.
But from the viewpoint of God’s eternal purpose, we find that the gospel is more than just saving people out of death and sin. The gospel is to bring us into God’s eternal purpose concerning man.
And God’s purpose concerning man is that we may be conformed to the image of His beloved Son. Just being saved will not fulfill God’s purpose. It may fulfill our desire. It may satisfy our heart. But God’s heart is not satisfied, because He wants to bring us into glory—the glory of His beloved Son—that His Son might be the firstborn among many brethren.
And this can only be accomplished through discipleship. To be saved is just the beginning, but to be discipled to Christ, that is the end.
So we find that the Great Commission God has given to His church is to disciple all nations. Let us remember: when He gave us this commission, He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth hath been given unto Me.”
In other words, for this commission to be fulfilled, it rests upon all the authority that has been given to our Lord Jesus. His power and His authority are behind this Great Commission.
Humanly speaking, this Great Commission cannot be accomplished. But only with the power and authority of Christ is He able to make it work: to disciple all nations, that people will not only believe in the Lord Jesus, but will put themselves under the lordship of our Lord Jesus.
It is very unfortunate, because today we divide believer and disciple into two parts. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you become a believer. That is one thing. Then, after you have believed, if you surrender your life to the Lord Jesus, then you become a disciple.
Strictly speaking, according to the will of God, a believer is a disciple. The call to discipleship is to all believers. It is a general call, and it is a lifelong call.
I do not think that you become a disciple just for a period, and then you graduate from it. People today say, “Well, I am going to disciple you,” because they are not masters; they are teachers. But if you read the Bible, you find there is no such thing.
The Lord Jesus says, “Ye are all brethren.” There is only one Teacher, and that is our Lord Himself. So far as discipleship is concerned, it is a lifelong thing. You begin to be a disciple, and you continue to be a disciple. As long as you are in this world, you are a disciple.
There is no graduation. You learn and learn and learn Christ. This is a lifelong experience.
I remember probably in the seventies of the last century, there was quite a movement in this country. We know that in the sixties there was a charismatic movement, and this movement swept through all the country. It touched not only the Protestants but also the Catholics. Many, many people got saved.
Then, probably in the seventies, there were seven servants of God in Florida. They were very capable persons. They were called the seven apostles, and God really gave them great light. They produced a magazine called New Covenant.
At one time, they began to see this matter of discipleship. Being very capable people, they tried to push this matter of discipleship. The way they did it was to pair people as teacher and disciple, and they tried to let one teach the other.
But they did not only try to teach them spiritual things. Those who were teaching would be in control of the whole person. Everything in your life was under their discipleship.
They had a number of degrees: at the first level, the seven apostles; then the second level and the third level. It was nationwide, across all denominations.
And the result was that it almost split up the charismatic movement, because it was man controlling man. It was not discipling them to Christ, but discipling them to themselves. Finally, the whole thing broke up.
I remember some people one day asked Watchman Nee, “How many disciples do you have?” And he said, “I have none.”
Because we are not discipled to man. We are discipled only to Christ. God may use us to help in this discipleship, but we are not discipling people to ourselves. We are just used by God to bring people to Christ Himself.
Our Lord Jesus said, “You go and disciple all nations”—not disciples to yourself, but disciples to Me.
Now, how do you start this discipleship? It seems very strange, because the Lord said, “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Brothers and sisters, we do not see the importance of baptism. People say, “I believe in the Lord Jesus. Am I saved? Why should I be baptized? Water never cleanses our sins. It is the blood of our Lord Jesus that washes our sins away. So why should I be baptized?”
I remember my own experience. After I was saved, by the grace of God, His love really touched me. So I became very zealous for the Lord. At that time I was in high school, and we organized gospel bands to go to the countryside to preach the gospel.
I was very zealous for the Lord, but as far as I was concerned, I just served God according to what I felt was right. After a while, people began to talk to me about baptism.
I had been baptized as a baby. My father was a pastor, and he sprinkled some water on my head. When people began to talk to me about baptism by immersion, I said, “There is no use for that. I was already baptized.”
I used the argument that I was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so I could not be baptized again. I thought it would be blasphemy. So I resisted for years.
Until one day, as I was reading the Bible, I began to realize what baptism really was: to be baptized is to be dead and buried with Christ Jesus. But I still would not do it.
I remember the last time my friend talked to me about baptism. Even though outwardly I agreed with him, inwardly I was arguing with him. So he gave me up and went to sleep, and I was there alone praying.
I said, “Lord, I know I need to be baptized, but it is not convenient for me, because my father was a Methodist pastor. I love him. I do not want to hurt him.”
So I told the Lord, “Eventually I will be baptized, but not until I graduate and become independent. Then I will be baptized.”
As I was praying in this fashion, suddenly a voice came to me: “He who loves father, or mother, or sister, or children, or self, cannot be My disciple.”
That word was so powerful. I had to submit to it, and immediately, the next day, I was baptized.
Now, I want to tell you what happened to me. During the period from when I was saved until I obeyed the command of the Lord to be baptized, about two or three years, I was zealous for the Lord. I was serving the Lord, but it was all according to my will.
But when I was baptized, it seemed as if heaven was opened. I read the Bible every day, but the Bible had been a closed book to me. Then, with baptism, it seemed as if the Lord began to open the word. I began to see light in God’s word, and He began leading me on.
So far as baptism is concerned, it was a great departure in my life. This was the beginning of a life of obedience.
And this remains with me even to this day. Again and again, I was challenged by the Lord. Again and again, there was a struggle. But this matter of discipleship took hold of me.
I remember one day I was on a bicycle, and somehow this whole thing came to my mind. I told the Lord, “I want to be Your disciple. Whatever happens, I want to be Your disciple.”
Discipleship is a lifelong experience, and to me it began with baptism. Now, your experience may be different from mine, but the principle is the same.
Why? Because to be a disciple is to put yourself completely under His control. To be a disciple is to be dead to yourself and to be alive in Christ Jesus. That opens up the whole area of discipleship.
So, brothers and sisters, let us remember that we cannot live according to our own ideas. We have to live in relation to the eternal purpose of God.
The world is passing away, and it is passing away quickly. But only that which is eternal will remain. Dear brothers and sisters, do not despise discipleship as if it were a very small thing. Do not think that you have graduated from discipleship.
There is so much to learn of Christ. We need to submit ourselves to the Lord and allow Him to work in our lives, that His will may be done in us as it is in heaven.
Brothers and sisters, have you been started on this way of discipleship? Or, we may put it another way: have you been consecrated to the Lord?
You remember Romans 12:1:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service.
We who have received all the mercy of God, can we hold ourselves to live for ourselves and not give our lives to the Lord as a living sacrifice?
A sacrifice is living—day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment—as a sacrifice. Sacrifice simply means that it is yours. When you bring a sacrifice to God, it leaves your own hand, and it is now God’s. He can do anything He wants with it.
Brother and sister, the call to discipleship is an absolute call. He calls us to give ourselves absolutely to Him. He calls us to surrender our rights to Him, that He may do whatever He wants with us.
I remember a story. In the old days, in this country, they had slave markets. One day in a slave market there was a girl who was to be sold. Of course, she was crying. People surrounded her and tried to bid for her. She was wondering, “Who will be my master?”
She tried to open her eyes and see the people who were auctioning for her. As she looked at these people, she was really frightened, because their faces were not good.
Suddenly, another man came in and paid for her. He put in the highest bid, so he got her.
After this man got that slave girl, he asked someone to come and break the chains. Then he said to the girl, “I bought you. You can go wherever you want.” Then he turned and went.
Of course, the girl was frightened. She did not know what he was doing. But suddenly she realized, so she ran after that man and said, “I am willing to serve you for life.”
Brothers and sisters, this is a small illustration of what God has done for us. We were slaves to sin and to death, and our God paid the highest price. He bought us.
He had every right to demand us to serve Him, but He did not. He said, “I set you free. You can do whatever you like.”
Unfortunately, many believers do what they like instead of being constrained by the love of Christ and saying, “Lord, I want to be Yours. You love me. I want to serve You for my whole life.”
And this is the beginning of discipleship. Without giving ourselves totally to Him, if you hold back something, He is not able to perfect you, because He will have resistance.
In the old days, we thought consecration meant consecrating yourself to the Lord to do something for Him. No. Consecration is giving yourself to Him that He may do everything.
Consecration is to be a love slave for life. Consecration is to have your ear pierced, because with a pierced ear, it means that you listen.
To be a disciple is to be a listener. It is to be a learner. The Lord is going to mold and fashion you so that you may be conformed to the image of His beloved Son.
There is nothing more sacred than to be disciples of Christ.
Now, what should a disciple be? You remember our Lord Jesus when He was thirty, and He began to preach, “Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Thank God, there were people who believed in Him.
You remember one day our Lord Jesus was walking by, and John the Baptist saw Him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Two of John the Baptist’s disciples left John and followed Jesus. One of them was Andrew; the other was John.
The Lord said, “What seek ye?” They said, “Where dwellest Thou?” Is that not a strange answer? “Where do You live?” They wanted to know Him. They spent that night with Him.
Then Andrew went and got Peter and brought Peter to our Lord Jesus. Peter, the talkative one, was quiet the whole time. He never said a word. The Lord looked at him and said, “Thou shalt be Peter.”
You also find how the Lord found the other disciples. He said, “Come, follow Me.” So to be a disciple is to come and follow Him.
Today it is quite difficult for us to understand what discipleship is, because in our modern education, you go to school to learn.
Now, in the old days there was no school. If you wanted to learn a trade, you had to find a master and make a contract with him. After the contract was signed, the boy could not stay home anymore. He had to go and stay with his master.
He would become part of the master’s family. During the first year, the master would not teach him any work. He would use him as his servant. He had to take care of the babies, help his master when he was eating, sweep the house, and do all these menial things.
You may say, “What has that to do with my skill?” No. You have to learn to be part of the family. Then, later on, gradually he would teach you a little bit, until after a few years you graduated.
What happened? If he was a master carpenter, then you became a carpenter also. But more than that, you walked like him, talked like him, and thought like him. Your whole life was transformed.
That was the old-time apprenticeship, and discipleship is exactly the same way. The Lord said, “Come and follow Me.” The disciples left everything and followed Him.
They lived with Him. They watched Him. They heard Him. They learned from Him. They were taught by Him. They were disciplined by Him. He was responsible for them in everything, and they were there just to be learners.
I remember another story. When Brother Watchman was in England, there was a medical doctor who had just graduated. He had quite a bright future, but he felt called to be a missionary. He wanted to go to India to join a wonderful work of God there.
He asked Brother Nee, “I am going to India to be a missionary. Is there any advice you want to give me?”
Brother Nee said, “Yes. You have to wear before you a red letter L.”
In England at that time, when you learned to drive, you had to put a red letter L on your car. Brother Nee said, “You go there wearing that letter.”
Missionaries used to feel that they went there as teachers. But Brother Nee said, “You go as learners. Do you have that L upon your life?”
Or do you think you have already graduated? Do you think you are now a teacher and can disciple people to yourself? What a mess you will make of others and of yourselves.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the first thing is: follow Him. Do not follow man. No matter how good a man is, no man is perfect. He has his faults. If you follow man, one day you will suffer for it.
There is only one Man who is worthy to be followed: our Lord Jesus Christ. You will have no regret. The more you follow Him, the dearer He is to you. He is worthy. He is the only worthy One.
It is true: to follow the Lord is not easy. It is not easy. You cannot do what you want. You have to give up your rights. You have to deny yourself.
The Lord said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross.” That is the only way to follow, because He has walked the way of the cross. As you follow Him, you learn of Him.
You find in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That is the way we come to the Lord. We have labored in sin and are heavy laden. We come to the Lord Jesus. We do nothing; we only come, and He gives us rest.
And what a rest it is. But the Lord further says, “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. For My yoke is easy.”
In the old days, in farming, they did not have tractors. They used animals to plow. An animal was put under a yoke, a wooden thing with a curve placed on the neck of the animal, connected with the plow.
But the animal has its own ideas, so it has to be broken. When you wanted to train a new animal, you put a trained animal on one side of the yoke and a new animal on the other side.
Then you began to plow. When the new animal saw something interesting, it would turn aside. But the trained animal knew the mind of the master, and it was strong, so it pulled the new animal back. That was the way the new animal learned.
If the animal was really stubborn, the farmer would use a goad to touch it. The master did not want to hurt the animal, only to remind the animal that it had a master. But the animal did not understand, so it kicked back, and that hurt.
These are the two ways to train an animal. One is to have another stronger, tame animal to help you. The other is to have a few painful kickbacks. Then you are going to learn.
Our Lord Jesus is perfectly trained. He learned to obey His Father even unto death. And the Lord says, “You be with Me, and learn of Me. I am meek and lowly in heart. I have no resistance to the Father. I am completely surrendered to the Father’s will.”
There is no question. He has learned; He has done it. Now you learn of Him.
Brothers and sisters, it is more than just an outward experience. It is an inward exercise. When you are experiencing various things in your life, if you do not learn within yourself, your experiences are in vain. You only suffer from them.
But if you exercise within and learn of Christ, then all these things are beneficial. All the suffering and all the experiences will perfect you as He is perfect.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we thank the Lord that He has called us. What if He had just saved us and left us alone?
Sometimes we have the idea, “Lord, since You love me, why do You not take me to Yourself immediately after I am saved? Saved and raptured—nothing better than that.”
But the Lord has better ideas, because if that were the case, heaven would be filled with babies.
Thank God, whatever He does is best. And He wants us to learn.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I just want to encourage all of you: do not be self-contented, and do not relax. There is very little time before us.
The Lord’s expectation for every one of us is fullness. He does not want us to remain as babes. He wants every one of us to be conformed to His own image, and that is glory.
So may the Lord help us.
Dear Lord, deliver us from self-satisfaction. Touch our hearts, that we may give ourselves wholly, totally, to Thee today, allowing Thee to work out Thy full salvation to the praise of Thy glory.
Encourage us that we may press on, that we may really lift up our heads, knowing that our redemption draws nigh.
Praise the Lord. In that precious name, Amen.