This is Monday evening, August the 7th, 1972,
in Richmond, Virginia.
Ministry given to Brother Stephen Kahn.
Praise unto the Lord, we pray.
O Lord, as we gather together tonight, the
one desire of our hearts is that we
may see Thee.
Lord, we do pray that we may see
Thy glory, even the glory of the Son
of Man.
We pray that in our spirit we may
see Thee.
We pray that as we behold Thee with
open face, we may be transformed from glory
to glory, according to Thy image by the
Holy Spirit.
Lord, we do desire that Thou should be
highly exalted in our hearts.
And we do desire that we may be
a testimony to Thy name.
We commit this time into Thy hand, trusting
the Divine Spirit to perfect the new creation.
We ask in the name of our Lord
Jesus.
Amen.
We have been fellowshipping together at this time
on the gospel according to Luke.
First of all, we fellowship a little bit
on the life of Luke.
Luke, the beloved physician.
Luke, our fellow workman.
And Luke, the evangelist.
Luke is a physician, but his profession does
not hinder him from serving the Lord.
Quite contrary, we find, serving the Lord as
a physician.
But more than that, he serves the Lord.
By the way, we mentioned how in the
early days of the church in Philippi, most
likely he is the one who is used
of God to help that in church.
And we know what a church it becomes.
And of course, his ministry to Paul is
most valuable.
Even to the very end, Paul says, Luke
alone is with me.
And then, God chooses him to be an
evangelist, to present to us one aspect of
Christ which is unique.
And that is, Luke is used of God
to present to us Christ as a son
of man.
Now, brothers and sisters, God is always interested
in man.
And he has never given up that interest.
In the very beginning, when he created man,
he created man in his own image.
He had a great purpose for man.
He wanted to unite himself with man.
And even though Adam failed, God had not
given up his grand desire.
So we find 3,000 years later, David,
as a prophet, in Psalm number 8, he
wrote, What is man that thou art mindful
of him?
Thou shall a man that thou shalt visit
him.
Thou hast made him a little lower than
an angel, but thou hast given him honor
and glory, and so forth.
After 3,000 years, thou still hast not
given up his interest and his design and
his hope in man.
Then another 1,000 years pass, and we
find that man in Christ.
So in Hebrews chapter 2, we see Jesus
made a little inferior than angels, that he's
crowned with glory and honor.
But this man is a corporate man, not
an individual man, because we find when God
created Adam, God created man.
In his own image, he created male and
female.
So man is a corporate being.
It is a type of Christ and the
Church.
It is not only in Christ God has
found his man, but this man is a
corporate man.
So he includes all those who are the
Lord, patent after Christ.
Now this evening we would like to go
to the third point, and that is God
wants men.
But this man is very special.
In other words, it is not just any
man.
It is a man at God's own heart,
and we would like to know that man.
In other words, we would like to know
what is the personality exhibited by that man
when you read the gospel according to Luke.
Or do you see this?
It is true that in gospel according to
Luke, as Luke said in the very beginning,
even though he is not an eyewitness of
all the things that happened, and yet he
made very careful investigation, and then out of
his careful investigation he put all these things
together in a systematic way and present the
record to Theophilus.
Now we do not know who Theophilus is.
Probably there is such a noble man, Theophilus,
at that time, because it is a custom
of those days when a person wrote a
book.
Usually he dedicated that book to a certain
person.
Now even today we find it is being
practiced.
You write a book and you dedicate it
to a certain person.
So Luke, in writing this gospel, he in
a sense addressed this gospel to Theophilus, probably
a noble man at that time, a believer
in Christ.
Or probably Theophilus is not a person.
It is a pseudonym because Theophilus means lover
of God.
So whoever is a lover of God, now
this gospel is presented to him.
Now that is also possible.
But anyway we find Mark, Luke, collecting all
this information put them in a methodical way
and present it to lovers of God.
If you are a lover of God, the
gospel according to Luke is presented to you.
But after you have read the gospel according
to Luke, what do you see then?
You see the words and the deep of
our Lord Jesus.
No doubt about that.
Because this gospel records the words spoken by
our Lord Jesus and the deeds that our
Lord Jesus has performed, has done.
He has spoken many words and he has
done many deeds.
But is that all that you have got?
If all you have got after you have
read the gospel according to Luke are the
words and the deeds of our Lord Jesus,
you miss the very purpose of the gospel
according to Luke.
Not that the words and the deeds are
not important.
They are.
But they are not the very purpose of
the gospel.
The very purpose of the gospel is that
after we have read the gospel according to
Luke, after we have heard the words and
we have witnessed the deeds, we are to
see the person.
It is the person that the Holy Spirit
is trying to bring before us.
Not just the words, nor just the deeds,
but the person who speaks these words and
the person who performs these deeds.
In other words, the words and the deeds
are the expression of a personality.
If all you have seen or heard are
only the deeds and the words and yet
you fail to meet that person, you fail
to see that personality, then you fail in
the very purpose of the Holy Spirit in
giving us this gospel.
So we have to go beyond the words
and the deeds to meet that person.
It is not because of that person.
There won't be such words and deeds.
So the Holy Spirit is trying to draw
us through all these words and deeds to
that person.
And that person is the Son of Man.
The Man at the God's own heart.
The new humanity.
The new human.
That is what we have to see as
we read the gospel.
Otherwise, we are just touching the surface and
we fail to really come into the very
source of all things.
So in reading the gospel according to Luke,
it is most important that we catch a
glimpse.
Not only a glimpse, but we may gaze
upon the glory of the Son.
And if we gaze upon the glory of
the Son of Man, then we give the
Holy Spirit an opportunity to transform us into
that humanity.
That we may be conformed to His humanity.
In other words, what Christ is as the
Son of Man, God wants us to be
like Him.
A new mankind, a new human being with
a new personality should be manifested in this
world.
And this is the real purpose behind this
gospel according to Luke.
So this evening, we hope we will share
together something on the characteristics of that personality.
I do not know if I'm correct to
say this.
Personality is the sum total of characters.
In a person, there does not develop certain
characters.
And the sum total of His characters form
His personality.
Now we as believers, God does not want
to wipe away our individuality.
It is not God's purpose that we should
lose our individuality.
We will be different forever.
When God created, He created us all differently.
When He put us in the body of
Christ, we are different members of the body
of Christ.
And our individuality will remain through eternity.
Peter is Peter.
Paul is Paul.
John is John.
Forever.
It is true we must lose our individualism.
That is true.
God has to deal with us that we
may lose our individualism.
But it doesn't mean we should lose our
individuality.
And yet, what is the personality of the
church?
What is the personality of a Christian?
Christ should be the personality of a Christian.
He should be the personality of the church.
In other words, when you see a Christian,
he should manifest Christ.
Because Christ becomes his personality.
He is not to manifest himself.
His former self.
When you see the church, you should see
Christ.
You do not see people, but you see
Christ.
Because Christ becomes the personality.
And that is the reason why character building
is so important to us Christians.
Because unless the Holy Spirit is able to
build Christ in us, the character of Christ
becomes our character.
Then it is impossible for his personality to
be expressed through us.
So in the gospel according to Luke, the
Spirit of God is presenting Christ to us.
He wants us to see Christ.
The Son of Man.
What is his personality?
What kind of a person he is?
What kind of character he has?
Because as we behold him, and as we
see him and his character, then the Holy
Spirit wants to transform us.
To work that character in us, that the
personality of Christ may characterize this new mankind.
Now this is really the purpose behind the
gospel according to Luke.
If you are reading the gospel according to
Luke, dear brothers and sisters, you have to
meet that person.
You have to notice his character.
You have to see a new personality that
is totally different from anybody else in this
world.
And this personality is to characterize the church.
This personality is to be manifested by all
of us.
By all of us.
We will not read any passage in the
gospel according to Luke.
Because if you read this passage and that
passage, you may get some words and some
deep.
If you want to know a personality, you
will have to take the whole thing in.
So we will not be reading any special
passage.
But remember, the whole gospel according to Luke
is before us.
This evening I would like to fellowship with
you just on a few points.
In other words, a few features.
A few characters that characterize this personality, Christ,
as the Son of Man.
Number one.
I do not know whether, after you have
read the gospel according to Luke, what impression
impresses you first, almost, and most of Christ
after you have finished the gospel according to
Luke.
Whenever you meet a person, you know, you
hear what he says, or you observe what
he does, an impression will be formed as
to that person.
His personality, you know, will impress upon you.
Now after you have read the gospel according
to Luke, what impression of this man does
he leave with you?
The first one.
I believe it will be different with everybody.
You know?
You may be impressed with Christ in certain
character.
Another person may be impressed with Christ with
another character.
So there is no uniformity there.
But if you allow me to share my
impression, I feel that after I have read
the gospel according to Luke, the foremost and
the deepest impression it makes upon me is
what a man, a real man, a true
man, a transparent man Christ is.
Now that's the impression he leaves with me.
Have you ever met a real man in
this world?
Have you ever met a true man in
this world?
Have you ever met a man so transparent
as this man Christ is?
Have you ever met such a person?
Since the fall of man, man is no
longer what he ought to be.
Man is no longer what he should be.
Man is no longer what God means him
to be.
No longer.
After the fall of man, man is under
a man.
There is one verse probably it will strike
you.
You know when I read, when I was
a young Christian, when I read Genesis, God
created man and then Eve came, and then
you'll find in at the end of second
chapter that is after God created man, it
says Adam and Eve were naked and they
were not ashamed of it.
Now I really don't know what that means.
They were naked and they were not ashamed
of it.
Most likely, you know, they must be clothed
with glory.
Because God clothes every animal with something and
he cannot leave man without any clothing probably.
Probably they are clothed with glory.
But anyway, I think the problem is when
God created man, man was naked and they
were not ashamed of it.
In other words, they were very real.
No covering.
No human covering.
God covered them with glory, that's true.
But in a sense they are naked.
They are naked.
When they came out of God's hand, one
thing we may say of them, at least,
and that is they were real.
They were naked.
There was no covering.
And they were not ashamed of that.
That immediately add to man's need.
What happened?
The first thing they did is to try
to cover themselves.
They began to use the thick leaves and
try to make aprons to cover themselves.
Even though it really did not cover them.
They thought they were covered.
You know?
Why?
Because it's very humorous, in the cool of
the day the Lord came.
And when the Lord came, they hurriedly hid
themselves among the woods.
Why?
Because they were naked.
They were covered with aprons and yet when
the Lord came, they hid themselves because they
were naked.
In other words, these aprons made of leaves
could not cover their nakedness.
Especially in the cool of day.
Not only leaves will not give you warmth,
but probably there is some wind there.
It's not covered.
They had to hide themselves among the woods.
And even among the woods they could not
cover themselves.
Not only physically it was so, even morally.
You find Adam was no longer true to
Eve.
And Eve was no longer true to herself.
When God said, What have you done?
Here you find Adam said, Well, it was
Eve.
Not my fault.
Her fault.
He was not true.
He tried to cover himself.
He tried to cover his sins.
But the Bible said, Sin came in by
one man and that was Adam.
Not Eve.
Because Eve was deceived, but Adam committed sins
deliberately.
Deliberately.
Then what's the difference?
But here you'll find Adam tried to cover
himself.
He said, It was that woman.
You gave me that woman and that woman
gave me this forbidden fruit to eat.
And here you'll find Adam was not true
to himself.
He was not true to Eve.
He was not true to God.
And the deception.
The same thing was true with Eve.
When God came to Eve, Eve said, Now
you are perfect.
Dear brothers and sisters, sin is the fault
of man.
The habit of the fallen man is to
cover up.
That's the habit.
We are no longer real.
No longer true.
No longer transparent.
And we dare not.
We dare not.
The wisest and the most prudent of men
is he who can cover himself most skillfully.
A man will be a fool if he
tries to be real.
Now this is what the world is.
This is all mankind.
It is just deceiving ourselves and trying to
deceive one another.
The whole world is under a great deception.
And the Bible says, Lies under a lie.
The whole world lies under a lie.
It's all false.
It's all unreal.
It's all untrue.
It's all opaque.
It's all darkness.
The very character is opposite to God's character.
No wonder when I was a boy, we
read in our English premier saying that one
day a Greek philosopher, he was in the
daytime, in the noontime, he used, he lighted
a lamp and was searching for something.
And when people asked him, What are you
doing?
He said, I'm looking for man.
He couldn't find a man.
A real man.
A true man.
A transparent man.
All mankind is false.
Unreal.
Not true.
Deep darkness.
What with the Lord.
As you read the gospel according to Luke,
the one thing that impresses me most is
here is a man who is so true,
so real, so transparent.
There is no hiding in him.
There is no pretension in him.
There is no falsehood in him.
He is the one real man that you
have met in this.
He is real.
He is true.
He is transparent.
You know, there is a difference between honest
and true.
You may be honest, but it may not
be true.
You know?
Sincerity does not mean reality, mean truth.
No.
You see here a man.
He walks on this earth.
Whether he is alone before God, or he
is with his disciples, his friends, or even
when he is in the midst of his
enemies, you'll find he is the same person.
What are we today?
Behold, mankind is, you ask, as different, differently,
under different situations.
When you are alone, you are one kind
of person.
When you are with your friends, you are
another kind of person.
And when you are with your enemies, you
are still another kind of person.
We are actors.
We are not real.
We are diplomatic.
All because we have to protect ourselves and
we have to take advantage of others.
Our whole human being is based on selfishness.
And because of selfishness, we are under a
great deception.
We cannot afford to be real.
Because if we try to be real, people
will take advantage of us.
But here you'll find our Lord Jesus.
Before man, before God, there is no change,
no contradiction, the same thing.
He is the same.
What he says outwardly is what he thinks
inwardly.
Oftentimes you'll find we may say one thing,
but we may think another thing.
That's sometimes because we want to take advantage.
At other times, we just want to be
diplomatic, that's all.
But here you'll find how often we say
one thing and we think another thing.
But that's not our Lord Jesus.
You'll find everything he says comes out of
his heart.
There is no lip service with the Lord.
It comes out of his heart.
Does it mean to say, because he's so
real, therefore he is foolish?
No.
The Lord said, Be guileless as a dove,
but wise as a serpent.
He is real, but that doesn't mean because
he's real he is foolish.
Not at all.
To put it in another way, only a
real person, only a transparent person, is wise.
You know what I say?
Sometimes you have here a transparent glass.
Now if you have a transparent glass, then
you can look through everything.
If that thing is opaque, you cannot look
through.
That's the reason why you'll find our Lord
Jesus, he can look through everybody.
Because he's so real.
He is so transparent.
Therefore when he comes in contact with people,
he knows what is in your heart.
He knows.
You don't need to tell him.
He knows.
And whenever people come before him, everything is
exposed before you say anything.
That spiritual discernment is the result of being
true and real and transparent.
If we are not real, we are not
able to see people through.
And in the first place, we do not
even see through ourselves.
You know?
We do not even know ourselves.
How can we know other people?
But if we are really true and real
and transparent before God, you'll find whenever people
come before us, they are exposed.
They don't need to say anything.
It's exposed.
And you will look through them.
So it doesn't mean that because you are
real you become foolish.
Not at all.
You become wise.
You have discernment.
And because of that, you are able to
minister to people's needs.
Fellas and sisters, I don't know how you
feel.
I feel very deeply in this world.
We are living under a cloud.
Everyone puts a veil upon himself.
We may be together.
We may have contact.
But after many years, we don't know each
other.
Nobody does.
Everybody puts up a fence.
A wall.
And we all hide behind a wall.
Why?
We are afraid.
We may be hurt.
We cannot afford to be real.
And you know this is the most painful
thing.
Suppose you go out to work in the
office and you find you cannot afford to
be real.
You have to be diplomatic.
You have to deal with people and try
to be nice and diplomatic, you know.
It's a burden, you know.
And if you come home and find you
have to be like that in your home,
my, I don't know how you can live.
At least in your home you can be
real.
Your true self.
Right?
But dear brothers and sisters, even in this
world, you cannot get that.
But where can you get that?
I sometimes tell brothers and sisters, in the
world you cannot afford to be real, but
in the church we must be real.
If we cannot be real and true and
open and transparent to each other, it is
just too much.
It is just too much.
And you know this is what God wants.
Because when you come to the end of
the book, of the Bible, in Revelation chapter
21 and chapter 22, the New Jerusalem, you'll
find even the gold is transparent.
You do not have a transparent gold today.
No matter how fine and refined that gold
may be, it's not transparent.
But in New Jerusalem the gold is transparent.
Everything is transparent.
Real.
No hiding.
Open.
And this is the new mankind.
The new mankind that God is after must,
first of all, have the character of being
real, true, and transparent.
This is quite frightening.
But dear brothers and sisters, how can we
be real?
How can we be transparent?
How?
What is real?
What is true?
What is transparent?
What is it?
First, if we live by
the outward man, we are unreal.
But if we live by the inward man,
we are real.
Even with the Lord Jesus, there is a
oneness, a harmony, between his outward man and
our inward man.
But with us it is not so.
With us, the inward man is Christ in
us.
But the outward man is our own ourself.
That's the outward man, to put it simply.
So you find that in our Christian life
we may live by the outward man or
we may live by the inward man.
And sometimes we live by the inward man
and sometimes we live by the outward man.
Whenever we live by the outward man, we
are not true.
We are not transparent.
It is only when we live by the
inward man, that is the time when we
are really true, real, and transparent.
To put it in another way, if we
live by the flesh, we remain as the
all creation, the all mankind.
That is corrupted, unreal, and true.
But if we live in the spirit, if
we live in the spirit, then we belong
to this new mankind.
And it is recreated.
It is new.
It is true.
It is real.
So the whole thing will come down to
this point.
And that is, how do we live on
this earth?
Do we live on this earth by the
old life?
Then we are unreal.
Or do we live by the new life,
the life of Christ, life in the spirit.
And if we do, brothers and sisters, we
are real.
We are real.
We are true.
We are transparent.
That is why it is so important we
have to walk in the spirit and not
according to the flesh.
Why?
Because there is a difference of the old
mankind and the new mankind.
There is the difference of personalities involved.
One is your name.
The other is Christ's name.
And God's purpose is that Christ may live.
And only when you live in the spirit
then Christ is able to manifest his character.
And you find it's real.
One thing that God hates most, one thing
that our Lord Jesus denounced most strongly, and
that is hypocrisy.
Why?
Because it is not real.
It is not true.
It is form.
It is darkness.
So this new humanity is marked by realness,
truth, transparency.
That is the first point.
Now the second point.
As I read the Gospel according to Luke,
another character of Christ as the Son of
Man impresses me.
And that is his dependency upon God.
His childlike dependency upon God.
You know what characterizes the old man?
Independence.
When God created man, God created man in
his image.
He put man in the garden of Eden
with the tree of life and the tree
of knowledge of good and evil by his
side.
In other words, God's purpose for man is
that man should eat the tree of life
and death depending upon God.
You become a person with no backbone.
You become like a reed that will turn
by the wind.
Not at all.
That's a different thing.
It is not a depending upon people, leaning
upon people with no will of your own,
with no strength in yourself.
Not that kind of dependent life, no.
That is weakness.
And yet you'll find that new mankind is
characterized by a dependence upon God in childlike
manner.
And because there is such a dependence, you
find that life is strong, healthy before
man.
It's not weakness.
It is strength.
How do we know that our Lord Jesus,
as a man, he lives such a dependent
life?
How do we know?
In reading the gospel according to Luke, you'll
find of all the four gospels, Luke is
the one gospel in which you'll find our
Lord Jesus prays most.
Now, not that our Lord Jesus does not
pray in the other gospels.
But in the gospel according to Luke, his
prayer life is most prominent.
It's most prominent.
If you try to read the gospel according
to Luke and try to find out all
the places that is related to the prayer
life of our Lord Jesus, you will be
surprised how many times he prays.
For instance, in chapter 3, while he was
baptized, came out of the water, he walked
freely.
In chapter 6, he spent all night in
a mountain praying before he chose his prophesy.
Before he did anything, he prayed.
Then you'll find before he asked any question,
he prayed.
He prayed to God by himself and then
he asked his disciples, whom do people say
that I am?
Before he asked any question, he prayed first.
And here again you'll find when he took
his disciples, three of them, to the Mount
of Transfiguration, he went there, for he was
praised.
He is praised.
And if you go down still further, you'll
find our Lord Jesus was praised and the
disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray.
And in chapter 18 you'll find the Lord
Jesus teaches a parable that we may pray
persistently and do not faint.
And further on, you'll find of course, our
Lord Jesus was praying for Peter, saying that
I have prayed for you, that your faith
may not fail, even before things happened.
And the God above the famine, of course,
he was praised.
Even out of cross he was praying, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they
are doing.
And before he died, he prayed, Father, I
give my spirit to you.
You'll find the whole life of our Lord
Jesus is characterized by prayer.
Dear brothers and sisters, what is prayer?
We think of prayer more in terms of
we ask something and we repent.
But actually, you see, prayer is an expression
of how much you depend upon God.
If you can depend upon yourself, you don't
need to pray.
Is that so?
If something you can do by yourself, do
you pray?
Well, you just go ahead and do it.
But when you cannot do it, then you
begin to pray.
Why?
You feel you're so dependent on him.
The trouble is, we are so independent.
Therefore, we do not pray much.
But with our Lord Jesus, you'll find his
whole life is characterized by prayer.
He waits upon God before he does anything.
Before even he asks a question.
Big things and small things.
He lives a childlike dependent life before God.
When he is troubled, we turn around and
pray, Father, I thank you because this is
your good pleasure.
Like a child, depending upon the Father.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is one character
of the new mankind.
If we should live on this earth so
independently, if we should live on this earth
doing everything by ourselves, we may be doing
Christian work, but we are living in the
old creation.
This is not the man that God wants.
The man that God is after is one
who is dependent upon the Father in everything.
No wonder you find in the Gospel of
John the Lord says, Ephraim, I cannot do
anything by myself.
I cannot say anything by myself.
I speak because I've heard my Father spoke.
I do this because it is Father who
is doing in me.
In other words, you find it is a
perfect dependent life.
And do you see that life is a
weak life?
Not at all.
It is the strongest of all lives.
The Lord does not give you any impression
that He is weak.
He is a weakling.
Know that, Lord.
Now you'll find He can stand up before
man.
He can go to the cross.
Why?
He knows the Father's will.
He depends upon the Father.
So this is another character of the man
after God's own heart.
Number three.
As I read the Gospel according to Luke,
another thing impressed me about Christ as the
son of man.
Dear brothers and sisters, let me ask you
a question.
Have you met anyone who is really big?
I don't mean big inside.
I mean big inwardly.
A big man.
A really big man.
Have you ever met a big man?
Very rarely.
We are all very small.
Very small.
Why?
Because we are so self-centered.
And our self has, what do I say,
has diminished us.
Makes a breath out of us.
But when you read the Gospel according to
Luke, what do you see?
You see a big man.
A big man.
A man with a heart that embraces everyone.
You do not see just a small person.
It is true.
Christ was born in a manger.
He was reared in a hill.
Nazareth?
And throughout his life, he walked around within
200 miles of boundary.
He never traveled more than 200 miles.
He had never been to school.
We will say now a person with such
a background sure he must be a very
small person.
But you find our Lord Jesus.
He transcends the tradition of his time.
The Jewish people at that time were very
narrow in their concept.
Later they were God chosen people and God's
blessing would not come to anybody else but
to them.
They were very prejudiced, very narrow people.
But our Lord Jesus transcends the tradition of
his time.
He was a universal man.
He was not a small man.
A universal man.
His heart is open not only to the
Jews but to the Gentiles.
He cannot only talk with Nicodemus.
He can talk with a Samaritan woman.
Here you'll find his heart is so big
he encloses everyone.
A big man.
A universal man.
In one particular case you can see it.
He chooses Judah to be one of his
disciples.
Does he know Judah?
Yes.
Before he chose him.
Probably that's one of the reasons why he
prays the whole night.
In the Father's will he has to take
in one who is a traitor.
A betrayal.
And he knows it from the very beginning.
And yet our Lord Jesus took Judah by
his side for over three years.
He knows everything that Judah does.
And yet does the other eleven disciples know
anything about Judah?
The Lord never gives a hint.
He knows him all the time and yet
it never comes out before the other disciples.
He treats Judah the same as the other
disciples for three years.
Isn't that big?
Suppose you know a person who is betraying
you.
You will not have him in the first
place.
Now if you have him within an hour
everybody knows.
But for three years nobody knows.
Even towards the very end when Judah has
determined to betray the Lord Jesus.
When they were eating the Passover the Lord
said one among you is to betray me.
But nobody knows.
Every disciple asks is it me?
Is it me?
And Peter you know he nods to John
who sits by the Lord's side and says
ask the pastor.
So John leaned upon the breast looked up
to the Lord and said who is he?
And the Lord said the one to whom
I dip the bread in the vinegar and
give to that person.
This is the one who betrays me.
Now that is clear.
And the Lord took the bread dipped in
the vinegar and handed it to Judah but
the strange thing is the disciples still do
not know.
You know why?
Because according to the custom of that time
this is a gesture to the most honorable
guest.
The host dips the bread in the vinegar
and hands to the most honorable guest.
So even after the Lord has done it
in such plain words they still couldn't get
it.
Why?
Because the whole concept is the Lord treats
Judah in the most honorable fashion.
The Lord for the last time tries to
restore Judah.
But when Judah refused the Lord said go
ahead and do it.
Nobody knows.
Isn't that great?
What a big man our Lord Jesus is.
There is nothing small here.
I remember our dear brother Washington he sometimes
say to us he says it's very rare
to meet a big man.
Even among Christians we are so small.
We are so self-centered.
And because of that we are small.
But this new mankind is big.
As you read the last two chapters of
Revelation the New Jerusalem you cannot imagine how
big that city is.
It is beyond our imagination.
And it has twelve gates open to the
four directions universal.
And that is what the church is.
That is what we are to be.
Big.
Big man.
This is the new mankind.
But dear brothers and sisters how can we
do this?
In Psalm number 4 he says In pressure
thou hast enlarged us.
Naturally we are small.
But we have that big life of Christ
in us.
Therefore God when he puts pressure upon us
instead of you crush and get him smaller.
You know?
If we do not have Christ in us
when we are crushed we become smaller.
You know anything is pressed becomes smaller.
But because we have Christ in us when
we are crushed we become bigger.
We are crushed but he is not.
Look at David.
The more pressure he is under the bigger.
His bigness is expressed in his way of
seeking Saul.
How big he is.
He is a big man.
Look at Paul.
The Corinthian believers misunderstanding to sit and expect
even questioning his apostleship.
And get Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 6
says My heart is expanded towards you.
If you are in any way strengthened it
is in yourself not in me.
The more you attack me the more expanded
I am.
The more you criticize me the more I
love you.
You know what?
Paul is a big man.
He is a man of the God of
heart.
And after the Lord he is the new
mankind.
Brothers and sisters isn't that the one reason
why the Lord allows pressure to come upon
us?
Isn't that one of the reasons why we
may be surrounded?
We may be beaten and the earth and
the castle may be broken.
But the power of the treasure within us
is manifested.
That is the secret to bigness.
Finally just mention it as the last point.
Of course there are many other points but
I'll just mention one more and that is
this man is characterized by a single mindedness.
Throughout the life of the Lord Jesus as
you read the gospel according to Luke you
are impressed by one thing how single eyed,
single minded he is.
Even when he was twelve years of age
he said should I not be occupied in
my father's business?
With him there is only one thing the
father's business.
He set his faith towards Jerusalem.
He never wavers from it.
He cannot be distracted.
He cannot be threatened.
He is single minded to do the father's
work.
And that characterizes the new man.
That's why the Lord Jesus said if your
eyes are single then your whole body is
full of light.
If your eyes are wicked they're not sighted.
Then your whole life within you is dark.
And when the light that is in you
is darkness, what darkness it must be.
A man cannot serve to master.
He either honors the one or despises the
other.
You either serve God or you serve man.
Where your heart is where your treasure is,
there is your heart.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness and all these things shall be
handed to you.
In other words, a seriousness a single mindedness
in the life of Christ as the son
of man.
That is the reason why in chapter nine
of Luke one man comes to the king
comes to the Lord and says now Lord
I want to follow you.
And the Lord said the fox sits at
home.
The bird hath nested that a son of
man has nowhere to lay his head.
And to another of his disciples he said
come follow me.
And the disciple said let me go home
and bury my father and then I will
come and follow you.
The Lord said let the dead bury the
dead.
And still another disciple said Lord I want
to follow you but I have to say
goodbye to my family and then I'll come.
The Lord said whoever his hand is upon
the plow and the best is not fit
for the kingdom of God.
There is a seriousness there is a single
mindedness that characterizes this new man, this man
Christ.
Brothers and sisters how we need to be
characterized by that.
We need to be occupied with the Father's
business.
Maybe in different capacities but it is God
who we serve.
We seek him his kingdom and his righteousness.
We do not look back but we follow
him to the very end.
And this is the character of the new
man.
The new mankind.
Now when you take these characters together and
many more you can find in the gospel
according to Luke then you see a personality.
It is the personality of Christ the son
of man.
And as the son of man he is
the beginning of a new mankind.
In other words we who are his.
He wants us to be human but divinely
human.
And he wants us to have all these
characters.
These characters should be our characters.
And these characters should form a personality of
the church.
Dear brothers and sisters if we can see
him we can see him.
Then the purpose of the gospel according to
Luke is served.
Otherwise we may read it.
We may touch the surface but if we
do not see him it's vanity.
It doesn't accomplish God's purpose.
So may the Lord have mercy upon us.
Shall we pray?
Our heavenly Father thou dost present thy son
our Lord Jesus Christ to us as the
son of man.
A new mankind.
The man that is at thy heart.
O Lord we pray that we may see
him and in seeing him we may be
transformed by the Holy Spirit from glory to
glory according to his name.
This is the prayer of our hearts.
In the name of our Lord Jesus.
Amen.