We turn once again today to a study
on all that Jesus taught, from his life
and from his words.
And we've been going through the Gospels.
Today we have come to Matthew 16 and
verse 24.
We were just looking at Jesus telling the
disciples for the first time about building the
church.
This is the first time in his life,
and the first time in the Bible, the
word church comes.
They probably didn't even know what it meant.
Jesus did not come to make holy individuals
alone.
He came to build holy individuals into a
fellowship called a church, the family of God,
which is called in other places the body
of Christ.
And the relationship between the members in the
church were to be exactly like the members
in our body.
Many people haven't understood what Jesus meant when
he spoke about the church in Matthew 16,
18.
We need to look at that before we
look at verse 24 because it's all in
the same context.
We looked a little bit at that last
time and saw that, first of all, to
build this church you need revelation from heaven
as to who Christ really is, fully God,
fully man, one whom we are to worship
at the same time, one whom we can
follow in our daily life and in our
family life.
And we also saw that we need spiritual
authority to build this church.
You can't build this church with human wisdom.
Revelation from heaven, first of all, you can't
just build a church because you've studied the
Bible.
The Pharisees studied the Bible.
They couldn't build a church.
Peter got revelation from heaven.
That's the first thing.
On that rock the church is built.
Unfortunately, the church, Christians have moved away from
revelation to study and understanding.
And that's the reason for the drift in
Christianity towards compromise and Babylon.
The second thing is we need authority.
I give you the keys of the kingdom
of heaven.
We cannot build a church without spiritual authority
that God has given us to do His
work.
You can't do it with human authority.
It's not just that somebody appoints you a
director or a pastor or a bishop and
you begin to serve God.
That's a human appointment.
You can't build a church with that.
You need spiritual authority that Christ Himself gives
you from His nail-pierced hands.
If you don't get that, you're not going
to build a church.
Let me repeat again.
What I mean by church is the body
of Christ.
Not individual holy people sitting together in a
building that's a congregation.
Today we think church is a building or
church is a denomination like the Methodist Church
or the Baptist Church.
But the church Jesus spoke about is a
body.
It's not an organization.
It's an organism like the human body.
Different members of the body all functioning together
perfectly because of one reason.
They're all connected to the head.
The only reason these two hands work together
is not because they're always hanging around with
each other.
It's not because they're good friends.
What a lot of people have among Christians
is friendship.
Two hands hanging around with each other.
But fellowship is where these two hands can
work together perfectly like playing a piano because
they're both perfectly connected to the head.
If one hand is paralyzed, this connection with
the head is gone.
It cannot work with the other.
It's always because of a break of connection
with the head that we cannot work together
with someone else.
And so we see here that building the
church, the real body of Christ, I'm not
talking about building an organization called a church,
but the real body of Christ where the
people in a local congregation are fitted together
like members of a body.
Working together can only come if each member
is directly connected to the head.
It's paralysis that prevents one member from working
with the other.
And so to build that type of church,
whether it's 10 people or 11 in Jesus'
case, or 100, to build them together, to
work together, is like building a house.
There's a lot of difference between 20,000
bricks lying on the roadside and those 20
,000 bricks used to build a house because
those bricks are interconnected in the walls and
the concrete and the roof.
It's little stones put together along with steel
rods and then you have a house.
Otherwise it's just stones on the road and
anybody can walk off with those bricks on
the road.
And that's what happens in many churches.
People say, hey, you've stolen one of my
sheep.
Why did you take this person from my
church?
Have you ever tried stealing a brick from
a solidly built house?
How in the world can you steal a
brick from a solidly built house?
It's impossible.
You've got to break and hammer that house
to take a brick out of it because
it's stuck with cement to a lot of
other bricks.
But bricks that are lying loose on the
roadside, anybody can walk off with.
And so when you say, if anybody says
somebody's taken one of my members from my
church, well that's because they were not built
into a body.
They were just loose bricks lying around there.
In the same way in our human body,
that's the other picture of the church.
The church is a house, the church is
a body.
Can somebody detach my hand and take it
off?
Yes, he can if it is an artificial
hand.
They make artificial hands nowadays which look so
similar to human hands.
Exactly the same color and shape and everything.
But that needs nuts and bolts to fit
it together to my body.
It's fitted here with nuts and bolts and
there somebody can unscrew it and take out
the hand.
But a real hand, which is a part
of the body connected to the head, can
never be taken out.
You've got to cut it off, amputate it,
but it can't walk off on its own
and you can't take it out.
And so when people talk about somebody being
taken away from my church, I say that's
not the body of Christ.
And that's the tragedy today.
When Jesus said I'm going to build my
church, he's talking about building his own body,
his spiritual body.
He had a physical body when he was
on earth and he fulfilled God's will on
earth.
And he went up to heaven and he
sent the Holy Spirit to build a spiritual
body, which is the church, the body of
Christ, to continue doing the same thing that
he did when he was on earth.
What did he do when he was on
earth?
He denied his own will, he did not
seek his own interest, but the interest of
God and completed the work.
And that's why he told Peter here that
if your mind is not set, verse 23,
on God's interest, you can never, you'll be
a stumbling block to me.
You will not be a help to me,
you'll be a stumbling block, you'll be an
agent of Satan.
So the important thing for a person to
build a church, we saw first of all
he needs Revelation, verse 17.
We see that he needs authority, verse 19.
And we need people who are not seeking
their own interest.
In other words, people, verse 24, who take
up the cross.
This is the meaning of the cross.
If you want to understand the cross, just
read verse 23 and 24 together.
A person who got Revelation, Peter, in verse
17, who was given authority, verse 19, one
minute later, he's becoming the voice of Satan.
How quickly a person who's got Revelation, and
been given authority by the Lord, can become
the voice of Satan.
How soon?
Because he's seeking his own interest, and not
the interest of God.
This is the tragedy in so much of
Christendom today.
And that's why Jesus said, if you want
to follow me, and certainly if you want
to build my church and be a co
-worker with me, then you must deny yourself,
and take up your cross and follow me.
You cannot follow me without denying yourself.
And denying yourself is saying no to my
own interests.
Now every human being on earth is born
and seeks his own interest right from childhood.
You see how children are always grabbing for
things.
They'll grab toys, and they'll fight, and push
people away, and they'll even take other people's
toys.
That's how children are, and we have this
habit of grabbing and seeking our own interests,
what's good for me.
And when we have a family, we are
married, and we have children, we're always thinking
what's good for my family, and I go
where it's good for my family.
The whole race of Adam is only seeking
their own interests.
And other things they'll fit in where it
is convenient.
Basically their whole life is surrounded in seeking
their own interests, and then of course they
may have a little interest in doing a
few other things, a little social work, giving
a little money to missions, or a little
money for the poor, or the orphanages, and
maybe go Sunday to church service, but basically
the center of their life is seeking their
own interests.
Such people can never build a church.
What they'll build is an organization, a dead
system, and no such person can be a
true servant of God.
A true servant of God is one who
is not seeking his own interest in any
area.
He's given up his own interests.
He's seeking God's interests because he's taken up
the cross.
He's denied himself, and here is where the
failure comes, of so much of church building
nowadays.
Because we're seeking to save our life.
That's what he said in the next verse.
I want to save my life.
My life means not just my physical life,
could be physical, but the soul life of
mine.
That means I want to save my reputation,
my dignity, I don't want anyone to dishonor
me.
Saving my life which has got all these
many interests and ambitions and all that, I
want to save that.
And the Lord says if you're interested in
all that, forget about building the church.
You're going to lose it one day.
But the one who is willing to lose
that self-life, not seeking his own interests,
he will find it.
He'll find it in a better way as
he builds this church which will last forever.
I've often thought about Noah's day, and I've
said, Lord, if I were living in Noah's
day, what would I do?
Well, I'd earn my own living.
I would plow the fields and plant vineyards
or something to take care of my family.
But my main aim in life would be
to build the ark, to go to Noah
and say, hey, Noah, I'd like to cooperate
with you in building the ark.
Because I know that's the only thing that's
going to remain pretty soon when the flood
comes and destroys everything else.
So while I would take care of my
family, my main goal in life would be
to go and build the ark and to
spend as little time as possible for my
own interest to provide for my family's needs,
but to build the ark, to build the
ark, to build the ark.
I would dream about building the ark and
sleep at night thinking of new ways to
help building the ark.
That is how a true Christian would live
today.
He does the minimum necessary to take care
of his family, but his mind will be
set on, how can I build a church?
How can I build fellowship?
Not a church building, but build God's people
into a fellowship related to one another like
the members of a body, like stones, like
bricks taken out from the roadside and built
into a building.
How can I do it better?
This is the person who is seeking God's
interests.
Compare it to a person who is seeking
business interests.
The reason why I compare is because Jesus
said, there are only two masters in the
world.
We've studied that before, God and money, Luke
16, 13.
There are only two masters and the second
master is not the devil.
It is money.
Christians are not at all in danger of
serving the devil.
Christians are in great danger of serving money
and earthly things and material things and most
of them do.
And how do you know which of these
two is your master?
Is God your master or money your master?
Supposing God calls you here and money calls
you there at the same time.
Which one do you listen to?
That's your master.
See, if there is a slave here and
there are two people calling him to two
different directions, it is very easy to find
out who is his master.
The one he listens to is his master.
So if money calls you in one direction
and God calls you in another direction and
you listen to money, you are a slave
of money, whether you know it or not.
And you need to be honest with yourself
and ask yourself, whose call are you responding
to day by day?
Whose call are you responding to when you
look forward to your ambitions on earth?
This is why there are so few really
faithful servants of God on this earth.
Because most of them are servants of mammon,
material things and money.
See what Paul said in his day about
Timothy.
In Philippians in chapter 2, we are talking
about the cross, not seeking our own interests,
denying ourselves, not trying to save our life
but willing to lose it for the sake
of the gospel.
In that connection, if you look at Philippians
in chapter 2, when Paul is thinking of
sending somebody as his representative to Philippi to
encourage them and also to learn himself what
their condition is so that he himself can
be encouraged by hearing about the condition of
the Philippians.
Philippians 2.19, he says, I hope in
the Lord Jesus to send Timothy, Philippians 2
.19, to you shortly so that I may
be encouraged when I learn of your condition.
He says, I want to send somebody to
you, not just to find out how things
are going on there, anybody could go and
find out that, but someone who is spiritual
enough who could come and build them up
and discern what their condition is.
You see, it really requires a spiritual man
to discern the condition of a church.
The ordinary man cannot understand that.
So Paul wants to send somebody to learn
of the condition of the Philippian church, their
real spiritual state.
He says, I've got to send somebody who's
really spiritual.
Only a spiritual man can have discernment.
Other people will say, well, there were 135
people meeting and there were so many children
and this is the program they have for
the children and these are the days of
their meetings and all these external things which
don't really reveal their spiritual condition.
A person with spiritual discernment won't be discovering
whether there were 135 people there or 150
people and what programs they had and what
times they met on Sunday.
These are not the things that he'd be
concerned about.
He'd be concerned about what is the spiritual
state of all these people and of this
church.
What's the spiritual condition of the elders?
And only a spiritual man can discern that.
So he says, I want to send somebody
to find out your condition and I can't
find a single person among all my co
-workers.
He's not looking at the unbelievers.
He's looking not even at the believers.
He's looking at his co-workers and saying,
which of them can I send to find
out the condition of the Philippine church?
He says, only Timothy.
I have no one else of kindred spirit,
means one who's got the same spirit as
me.
One who's got the same spiritual vision and
longing and ambition that I have.
There's nobody.
Here is somebody who will genuinely be concerned
for your welfare.
Now if he had said just concerned for
your welfare, that would have been enough.
But some people pretend to be concerned.
Here was one who was genuinely concerned and
he said, they all seek after their own
interests.
Remember what the Lord told Peter?
You set your mind on your own interests,
not God's.
And here we have the same thing in
Philippians 2.
People seeking their own interests, not God's interest,
not those of Christ Jesus.
The same contrast between two interests that we
saw in Matthew 16, 23.
We find here in Philippians 2 and verse
21.
So there we discover what type of person
can build the church.
One who is not seeking his own interests.
Now the entire race of Adam, everybody seeks
their own interests, as I said.
They're always thinking what is best for me
and my family.
I'll go wherever is best for me and
my family.
I'll do whatever is best for me and
my family, that's fine.
But if you want to be a true
servant of the Lord, you've got to ask
yourself, well, God will take care of the
interests of mine and my family.
Let me seek what is the best for
God's interest on this earth.
There are very few like that.
There are very few like that in the
first century.
There are very few like that in this
century.
Whose whole mind is set on what is
best for God's interests.
How can I be available for God's interest
in my life?
I want to ask you, dear friend, do
you want to be a wholehearted, radical servant
of God and spend your earthly days in
the best possible way?
Then be dedicated completely to God's interest and
put to death every interest of your own
100%.
Yeah, that's the way.
Be genuinely interested in the things of God
and his interests.
And then you may say, who's going to
take care of my interests?
God will take care of your interests.
Do you think God can do a better
job of taking care of your family than
you yourself?
I can testify after I quit my job
in the Navy 46 years ago.
And I got married 44 years ago.
And I have four children and we were
very poor when we started.
But we decided to honor God, my wife
and I, in every single step.
And I can tell you as we have
sought to put God's interest first in our
life for all these many years.
And especially in the last 37 years since
God filled me with the Holy Spirit and
showed me what it was to build his
church, local churches in different places.
I've discovered one thing.
That is, the more I set my mind
on God's interests and I had to sacrifice
a lot of time and money and energy
that I could have had for my family,
I found God to care of my family.
And he did a far better job than
I could have ever done.
I mean, it's like saying, God, I take
care of your interests and you take care
of mine.
Isn't that a good exchange?
You take care of God's interests and he
takes care of your interests.
The other is, you take care of your
interests.
God says, okay, you do that.
So Timothy was interested in the things of
God.
And God's interest was the way he was
always thinking.
And where the clash came, if I put
that first, that's the meaning of seeking God's
kingdom first.
Then I may have to deny myself this
and I can't do this and I can't
do that for my family.
Don't worry.
God will do something better.
That's what it means to live by faith.
So that is such an essential thing to
build a church and there are very few.
In Paul's day, imagine, his own co-workers,
he could not find people with that type
of passion.
There was just one Timothy.
And even today, there are very few whom
God can find like that.
I'd urge you to be one like that
because then you won't have any regret in
eternity.
You'll have lived a wonderful life on earth
and come through to a glorious life at
the end of it all.
And let's turn back to Matthew 16 where
we were.
So if we seek to save our life,
means seek our own interests.
That's what it means to save my life,
my interests, I always want to preserve them.
I'll tell you, you lose it.
But if you're willing to lose it for
the gospel's sake, for Christ's sake, it's a
life of faith that means you trust that
as you give up something for God, he
will never be in debt to you.
Remember Jesus said even a cup of water
that somebody gives will get a reward.
Imagine if you've given up all your interest
to seek God's interest, what your reward will
be here on this earth.
You'll take care of all your needs.
What will a man be profited?
Supposing you said, okay, the Lord says, supposing
you set all your mind on your own
interests and pursue it, pursue it, pursue it,
pursue it, and you ultimately end up gaining
not only wealth here and there but the
whole world and you've lost your soul.
Now we quote that verse to an unbeliever.
I want to quote it to believers.
What does it mean to gain the whole
world?
You spend all your life pursuing earthly things
and you get all that and ultimately you've
wasted your one earthly life.
God gave you one life to live for
him on this earth and you've lost your
soul.
You've wasted the one thing you should live
for.
What can you give in exchange for this
one earthly life that could be lived for
God?
What can you give in exchange for your
soul?
Then he said in verse 27, think of
the final day.
That's what we must always think of.
One day the son of man is going
to come in the glory of his father
with his angels and he'll reward every man
according to his deeds.
Every man will be rewarded according to his
deeds.
What did he live for?
Did he seek his own interest?
In the whole context of this, that's the
debate.
Deeds means what did he live for?
What did he seek his own interest?
Not did he give a little money in
the offering box?
Did he go to church every Sunday?
That's not the point.
The Pharisees went to the synagogue every Saturday.
They gave money.
They tithed.
They prayed.
They fasted.
But they went to hell.
That's not the issue.
The issue is, was your mind set on
the things above, on God's interest?
Did you trust God?
Did you live by faith where you believed
he would take care of your interest?
And then he says, I want to say
to you, there are some of you standing
here who will not taste of death till
they see the son of man coming in
his kingdom.
How is that?
That's referring to the day of Pentecost, when
the kingdom of heaven came to earth, the
Holy Spirit.
And he says, some of you standing here
will be able to experience that.
Jesus called the day of Pentecost the coming
of the kingdom of heaven, the son of
man, Christ, coming in a body through 120
people on earth.
And he says, some of you standing here,
not all of you, some of you may
die, but some of you standing here will
see that.
And dear brothers and sisters, we're living in
that age where we can see the power
of the Holy Spirit operating.
Be open, be filled with the Holy Spirit,
and seek with all your heart, not to
seek your own interests anymore, but to say,
Lord, I want to seek with all my
heart the things of the kingdom of heaven,
and to build your church, the body of
Christ, with the one earthly life I have.
You'll never regret in eternity when the son
of man comes in the glory of his
father and his angels, and sets up his
kingdom, and rewards you publicly for what you
did and lived for him on this earth.
We'll stop there and continue in our next
episode.