Good evening, brothers and sisters. I would really like to welcome all of you to this conference this year. I am Charlie, and I am from New Jersey. Many of you I know; some are here for the first time, and I have yet to meet you.
We would really just like to extend a welcome to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We praise our Lord that we can have this time here together, and we trust that He has prepared this time for us. He has brought us from many different places and many different situations.
But our one desire is to meet together in His name, to gather unto Him, to turn our hearts to Him, and to honor Him: to recognize His presence here among us by the Spirit, and to recognize that He is Head over all things to the church.
We are here to submit to one another in love, to submit to our Lord Jesus, and to trust that He will open our hearts so that we can hear what He has to say.
Really, there is no mystery when it comes to a conference title. You could call it anything. What it boils down to is this: God’s testimony is Jesus Christ, and God’s way is Jesus Christ.
Different brothers will be sharing over this weekend. We will gather in fellowship groups and consider together the Word of the Lord. There will be many voices saying different things, but in our hearts, we are listening for one voice.
We are listening for the voice of our Lord Jesus.
This is a wonderful hymn that we sang—the first words:
Master, speak; Thy servant heareth.
I just want to underline, from the beginning, what is burdened in my own heart: Jesus is the Master who speaks, and Jesus is the Servant who hears. Unless Jesus is speaking, we are lost. Unless Jesus is our life and He is doing the hearing within, we are just as lost.
So, by the grace of God, we will consider some verses. You will forgive me if I patch together verses from different places, but we will trust that in the process, we will fellowship together in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us read first from Matthew 18.
Matthew 18:2-5
Then Jesus called a little child to Him,
and set him in the midst of them,
and said, “Assuredly I say to you,
unless you are converted and become as little children,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”
Matthew 18:10-11
Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones;
for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see
the face of My Father who is in heaven.
For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
Matthew 18:14
Even so, it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven
that one of these little ones should perish.
Then the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2.
Luke 2:11-20
For there is born to you this day in the city of David
a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be the sign to you:
You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,
lying in a manger.