Today we continue to study the teaching of the Lord Jesus, but today I will concentrate not so much on one particular passage, but to survey the breadth of the Lord's teaching, or rather the Lord's own life and example. So to put it very simply, to encapsulate what I would speak about—what the Lord has laid on my heart to expound—is that today I'd like to speak to you about spiritual direction. Spiritual direction. That is to say, what is the whole direction of our life? What is the direction of your life, assuming it has some direction? Assuming you are not like a ship that has lost itself in the storm and doesn't know which way to go. Assuming that you are one who has not entirely lost your compass and knows something about which way you are heading.
And as I have pondered this matter before the Lord, I feel burdened about this: that even among many Christians that I speak to, they don't seem to have any clear sense of direction. They don't seem to know where they are going. Now if you don't move at all, you don't have to worry about direction. I mean, if I am standing still, I don't have to worry about direction. But if you begin to move, you have to know where you are moving to. If you start moving at all, you have to have a sense of direction. A sense of what your whole life is heading for. Many people seem to bungle their way through life. They sort of grope around in the darkness, hoping that in the end, by some miracle of chance, or by some piece of good fortune, they might end up in the right direction. That's a very risky way to go anywhere.
Imagine a ship that sets out without even having a clue where it's going. Every ship that sets out carries a compass because it's determined to know it's setting out for this harbor or for that place or for that country. And it follows a chart, a line upon that chart that will get it to the place that it's going to. Yet when you speak to many people, and particularly to Christians—I mean that non-Christians don't know where they are going is not too surprising. They really have nowhere to go. What else is there to do in life but to make some money? And the only philosophy is: make money and that's it. And make yourself a little bit of comfortable existence until you die. And then you are buried and that's it. I mean, there's really nowhere to go. What can a non-Christian do? He has no direction. He knows one thing only for sure: that one of these days he will end up in the grave. Beyond that, nothing. There is no clear direction. And the philosophy that guides most of their lives is: make money, as much as you can. At least your gravestone will be a little bit nicer than the guy next door. And maybe your coffin will have a little bit of bronze on it instead of plain wood. I wonder what kind of a direction that is. What's there to live for?
Now therefore for a non-Christian to have no direction is hardly surprising. His whole goal is simply: you study, and you study, and you study. And you study for what? For what? Basically to get a good job. You get a good job to make more money. You get more money for what? To get a nicer house. And you get a nicer house. And then what? And then, well, then you live there hopefully in reasonable comfort until you die. That is not exactly a very exciting prospect of life. Or else you just tangle into the world. Look for higher positions. Get a little bit of respect from people. Go up in the job. Maybe you become a little bit of a sub-manager. Maybe you become a manager. Who knows? You might even become the general director one day, after all. Not everybody can get to the top of the heap, you know. One or two scramble to the top, stepping on most other people's heads on the way up there. And then what? And you got to the top. So what?
I shared once—I talked to a friend of mine in Hong Kong when I was there last time. We knew each other. Our families knew each other from childhood. And this girl, in fact, she was a very brilliant girl. She went to the United States. She studied there. She got her bachelor's. Got her master's. Got her PhD. And became professor in her subject of crystallography. She didn't know what else to do. She got to be—okay, so you're a professor now. What to do? So she decided that she was pretty bored with this. Nowhere else to go, she told me. So she decided to try business. Try her hand at business. She'd never tried business before. She'd only known science. Now why not try a new field? A new challenge. "I needed a challenge. I needed something new to stimulate my interest in life. And just being a professor was no longer very interesting. Doing bits of research here and there, no more interesting." So she launched out into business. Very enterprising girl. And so she, in a short time, mastered the world of business. Became general manager of this company. And when I was talking to her in Hong Kong, she was at that time already general manager of her company. So I said, "Well now, where do you go from here?" She says, "Well, I'm beginning to lose interest in this business. You know, money I don't really need. I have all I got. And now that I have mastered this area of business, there's nothing more, no more challenging. It becomes routine, you know. And when it becomes routine, every day you do the same thing. And it's the same business. Every day is the same thing." Just like when she was a professor, it was the same thing every day. The first year was quite exciting. The second year was not too bad. The fourth year gets more routine all the time. It's the same thing. Nothing exciting anymore. So try business. And the first year was quite interesting too. And the second year was not too bad. By the third year, she was losing interest as well.
Because you see, if all you want is money, she had all the money she needs. I mean, this was not a stimulus anymore. If you want a position, she has a position. It's also not exciting anymore. So I said, "Well, now you've tried science and you've tried business. Where do you go from here?" She said, "I don't know where I'm going. Maybe I'll try government next time." But she begins also to realize that whichever road, it really doesn't seem to matter all that much. When you get to the top of the heap, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go. And what is then direction? This lack of direction among non-Christians. Now she is not a Christian. Her personal life is a tragedy. Success in the world, tragedy in the personal life—that so often happens. Her husband, also a scientist, is also teaching as a professor in the United States. They have separated. They have two children. They don't see each other anymore. Her personal life is a complete disaster. And every time she talked about it, you could see the grief in her face. Because no matter how capable you are, human relations has nothing to do with ability. In fact, capable people are often the most difficult people to get on with. They are so individualistic. They are so selfish. They are so self-willed. And the result is their relationships fall apart. The marriage had broken up long ago. And the whole life seemed to be empty. And she was asking me about becoming a Christian. What is involved in this? And she was very interested. Her life, she began to see that the world had nothing more to offer to her. The things that so fascinated her in her student days were not interesting anymore. They were now routine, ordinary things. There were no more challenges that interested her anymore. Life had run out of challenge. And on top of that, a broken family didn't help her emotional well-being in any way. She realized that there must be some other direction. There must be something more to life than this. When you don't have money, money is a great goal, isn't it? When you get to the money, you don't know what's the goal. It's not very interesting anymore.
I remember a friend of mine who did the same thing. He occupied himself with cameras at the time. Oh, there's a Nikon. There's an Asahi Pentax and so on. One camera here, another one here, another there. He couldn't get enough of cameras. And I thought to myself, okay, photography is something. It's all right. But what gets so crazy about capturing a few pictures? And there he was, you know, he was supposed to be studying law, you see, and he was spending the whole time fooling around with cameras. Yet the next time I saw him, surprise, surprise, he didn't even want to talk about cameras. This little toy, this business that fascinated him, he had completely lost interest in it by that time. This was gone. And at one time money fascinated him too. But by the time I met him again, he was a millionaire. So he wasn't too much interested anymore in money either. And having all that money and no need to spend money on cameras—which he now could really afford—he had lost interest in. And he doesn't like driving, so he can't interest himself in a nice car. He's not interested in cars. He's not interested in anything for that matter. So he doesn't know what to do with his money. He told me, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my money." He said, "Do you need some money? Can I buy you a church?" Yeah, he'd buy you a church building. I said, "No thanks." He said, "No, what about a quarter of a million dollars? I'll buy you a nice church." I said, "No thanks. Keep your money." I didn't want him to think he could buy his way into heaven by buying a church building. No, no, no. I don't want any of this. Just keep it to yourself.
So he had run out of ideas what to do. Strange. Have you ever seen people who become so bored in life that they can't find a direction? And this fellow is supposed to be a Christian. I say "supposed to be" because I have much doubt that he really knows what being a Christian is all about. But when there are people who seem to really be Christians, who seem to really know what it is to be a Christian, who seem to have committed their life to the Lord, it becomes very distressing to see that they too are without direction. I ask them, "What are you going to do?" "Don't know." "What's your goal in life?" "Don't know." And it seems that it can all be fobbed off with the statements, "I'm just waiting on the Lord." Sure, we need to wait on the Lord for the details. But have you got a general direction at all? I mean, wait on the Lord for what? If you don't even know what's the general direction you're going in. What is the ultimate goal of your life? Have you got that clearly in mind?
And for that reason too, many Christians, not having a clear spiritual direction, end up pursuing the same things that the non-Christians pursue. Making the same mistakes. Not realizing that the world can never, never satisfy you. So they pursue money. So they pursue status. So they pursue materialism. Same thing. No difference from the non-Christian. No wonder the world is not impressed with the Gospel.
So today, let's look for a moment at Matthew 26. We have completed our study so far of Matthew 25. And we come to Matthew 26, and the first two verses only that we will look at here. Matthew 26, verses 1 and 2: "When Jesus had finished all these things, He said to His disciples, 'You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.'" "When Jesus had finished all these things"—that is a standard formula in Matthew, at which He closes a main section of the Lord's teaching. In Matthew, as you may know, there is a special structure and order. Even in writing his Gospel, Matthew knew exactly the direction he was going to take and what it was he was going to accomplish by the grace of God. He didn't just write it at random. Matthew has this specific structure in which there are five distinct sections of the Lord's teaching. And each of these five sections of the Lord's teaching ends with this phrase, "When Jesus had finished all these things." So this is the fifth time that Matthew uses this formula. This formula occurred four times then previous to this place. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 28, is the first time, where it closes the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 11, verse 1; Matthew 13, verse 53; and then Matthew 19, verse 1; and then we come to Matthew 26, verse 1. These five places which show His design in the Gospel, the five sections of the Lord's teaching. And many scholars have compared this to the intentional design of its being patterned—Matthew is patterned on the five books of Moses, that is, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That is, Matthew wants to show that this is the law of the new covenant. Just as the five books of Moses in the Old Testament was the law of the old covenant, these five books, as it were, these five sections of the Lord's teaching represent the foundations of the new covenant. So you see that even in writing the Gospel under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, Matthew already had a plan and a design and a goal given to him from the Lord.
Now the next thing here we notice: the Lord says, "You know that after two days I am going to be crucified. I'll be delivered up to be crucified." How do they know? Well, they know because the Lord Jesus has told them twice already that He is going to be crucified. Twice before. Once in Matthew chapter 17, verse 22, and the second time in Matthew 20, verses 18 and 19. So this is the third time He is telling them that He is going to be crucified. But this time He tells them it's only two days away. Now what I am struck with is all the time He has the clear goal and direction before Him. The cross was set before Him. And He moved steadily towards that cross. His whole life had a clear direction. The direction was towards the cross and towards the redemption of mankind, the redemption of you and the redemption of me. His sights were set upon the cross. And His whole life moved steadily towards this direction. You see, He had a clear goal. He didn't fumble around in life wondering where He was supposed to go. He knew right from the beginning where He was going. The cross was there, clear before Him.
And what strikes me is this. He speaks these words with a certain calm decision and determination. There is no panic that two days from now He is going to be crucified in that terrible death of having His hands and His feet pierced by the nails. That He would die that most terrifying of deaths. He speaks it also with no melodrama. There is no dramatization. He speaks with a quiet, calm—the calm of a person who knows where His whole life has been heading to. And now at last He is beginning to reach His goal. The goal is in sight, only two days away now. I find this as I meditate upon it very striking. And as I look at the Lord's teaching and the Lord's life I see this pattern going right through His life. He moved with a clear sense of direction. He knew exactly where He was going. And He moved forward, as it were, in a planned sequence of His life in that direction.
Now that is immediately a point that comes to our mind. If we are His disciples, if we are following after Him, how can we be His disciples when we are not even going in the same direction? A disciple by definition is one who follows his master where his master goes. Our Master knew where He was going. The problem is: do we know where we are going? Does our life give the clear sense, when people talk to us, that we have a firm and clear direction? We know where we are going. That is the way we are moving forward to.
The Apostle Paul, of course, as you read his life and his writings, immediately strikes you with the same impression. He knew exactly where He was going. He says, "I press towards the mark." The strange thing is I hear Christians quoting this verse very often. But if I ask them, "What is the mark?" I wonder which of you could give an answer. What is the mark? I mean, to press towards the mark sounds good. I saw recently a conference with a theme "Press Towards the Mark." What is the mark? Where are you pressing towards? How can you move forward when you don't even know where you are going? You don't even know what the mark is.
Now right from the first statement that the Lord made, the first recorded statement, we see already His sense of purpose and direction. The first statement of the Lord Jesus was when He was 12 years old. Even at that age the clarity of His direction was already apparent. Let us look at His first recorded statement in Luke chapter 2, verse 49. Luke 2:49 reads like this. You remember His parents had gone up with Him to Jerusalem and then they were going home and they couldn't find Jesus. And they searched around the place, looking in all the wrong places, couldn't find Him. And then finally they found Him where? In the temple. And He said to them, to His parents, "How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about the things of My Father?" Now here we have a translation "in My Father's house." That is a piece of interpretation, of course, not too far off the mark, but there is no word for "house" in the Greek here. And we have the plural, which is also not translated. And better is to see: "Did you not know that I must be engaged in the things of My Father?" That would be a very literal translation. One of the things of the Father, of course, is His temple, is His house. And in that sense this is not wrong. But it is narrowing the field too much, because what the Lord is speaking about is His concern with the things of the Father as well as with the temple, the house of God.
Now here immediately we see that even at the age of 12 He was already preoccupied with God's things, God's business, God's work, God's temple. The things of God were the things that preoccupied His mind at that early age. Well, if you are 11 or 12, you are not too young to already fix your direction upon the things of God, as the Lord Jesus did. His mind was occupied with the things of God.
His last recorded statement shows the same continuing, persistent goal right up to the end. His last recorded statement before His death, His crucifixion, is in John 19, verse 30. And these are the famous words of the Lord Jesus: "It is finished." It is finished. You see that it is complete. It has been accomplished. You see there, right to the end, His last statement is about the finishing. And many Christians reading this don't understand what it means. "It is"—what? What is it? It is His mission, His task, which He has been pursuing steadfastly all His life, and now He could say, as He was about to breathe His last breath, "It is finished. I have completed it. It is done." You see, can you capture this steadfastness of purpose of the Lord Jesus? How His eye is fixed on the task, and His last word finally: "It is done. Mission accomplished." We can say complete. But you see, you've got to have something to finish. You've got to first begin before you've got to finish.
These very words, in fact, are reflected in the words of the Apostle Paul as he himself was about to be executed. Remember the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 7: "I have fought the fight. I have finished my course. I have finished my course." He had run his race. He had gone to the end of the course and he had completed his task. "I have finished it." He didn't drop out halfway. Right to the end, the task that God had entrusted to him, he had finished. Do you know what task God has entrusted to you? If not, how do you know what to finish? I wonder how many Christians can die with the same quiet assurance of the Apostle Paul: "I have fought the fight. I have finished my course." You see, he knew what was his course. That is why he could finish it. I mean, if you go to university and you study a course—I mean, you study this one and you study that one, you study the other thing—how can you finish? You don't even know what it is you're studying. You've got to be engaged in a subject and you know, "I'm going to stick to this and I'm going to finish this." The final exam. "I finished my course." But you've got to have a course to finish. If you fumble through your life and to the end you're on your deathbed, how are you going to say, "I finished my course"? There you're still scratching your head and say, "What was my course anyway? I'm about to finish now. Yes, my life is finished, but what about my course?" I mean, finishing your life is not the same as finishing your course, your task, your mission. What is it?
And this sense of purpose persists through the Lord's teaching. John chapter 17, verse 4, already there the Lord is praying His final prayer, His high priestly prayer. In John 17, verse 4, He says this: "I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work You gave Me to do." How did I glorify You? By finishing the work You have entrusted to My hand. By this time He had finished the task of laying the foundation for His church. He had equipped His disciples. And He goes on in His prayer to say, "I pray for these, and I don't pray only for them but for all who will believe in You. But these ones whom You have entrusted to My hand, I have lost none of them. I have prepared them for the task which is ahead for them. I have finished My work. I have glorified Your name." What is your work? Can you say that prayer at the end of your life? "I have glorified You on earth. I have finished My work, the work that You gave Me to do." You see the same sense of direction and purpose all the time in the Lord's life.
And to show you that this is not one or two isolated instances, let's look, for example, in John chapter 8, where the Lord makes this statement very specific. John chapter 8, verse 14. And this is what the Lord Jesus says here: "Jesus answered, 'Even if I do bear witness to Myself, My testimony is true, for I know whence I have come and whither I am going. I know where I have come and I know where I am going. You don't know where I have come and you don't know where I am going to. But I know where I am going.'" How many of you could say, "I know where I am going," even to say in the general term, not to say in specific terms?
And the Lord goes on to say in John chapter 12 these words. What was the purpose of His life? What did He come to accomplish? What was His mission? John chapter 12, verse 27. Early on He had been pondering about losing the life. In verse 23 of chapter 12, verse 23: "And Jesus answered them, 'The hour has come. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.'" Now if you know John's Gospel, you know that "glorified" means to die. We are glorified in our death, the death for Christ, the sacrifice for Christ. That is John's very special way of saying things. When he speaks of the Son being lifted up, He means glorified. But lifted up where? On the cross. That's where He is glorified. That's where He is lifted up to. And today's sharing of our brother Don, you can see, coincides very much with what I am saying. He also was pointing to this matter of direction. And His whole direction was to be lifted up on the cross.
And then verse 24, He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." And then He goes on, verse 25: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it forever, for eternal life." Notice carefully this, that this verse 24 about the grain of wheat connects to the Lord Jesus in verse 23, connects to us in verse 25. There is a transitional verse. What is true for the Lord Jesus is also true for us. He is the seed that unless He dies, like any seed it abides alone. But if it dies, then it will be bringing forth fruit. And then the Lord Jesus goes on to say, the same is true for you. If you hang on to your life, you don't want to lose it, that's precisely the way to lose it. But if you are willing to die, willing to lose it, that's precisely the way you will gain it unto eternal life.
Now think carefully of this. The Lord Jesus was that first seed. One seed. One lonely seed. When He came into the world, He fell into the ground and died. And what came forth? What came forth was a handful of regenerate disciples. A small group. I mean, one seed falling to the ground will bring forth one ear of wheat. One ear of wheat may have thirty, forty, maybe fifty other grains of wheat. So that one grain that fell into the ground now produces maybe thirty, forty, or fifty other ones. Now when you take those thirty, forty, and you drop them into the ground, you have another forty, fifty, or sixtyfold coming forth from those. That's the next generation of spiritual disciples. And so from one grain you have one stalk. From one stalk you have a patch of wheat. From one patch of wheat you have a whole field of wheat. But in each case it had to come through the dying of the one, the complete self-giving.
And so the Lord Jesus goes on in these two verses to verse 27: "Now is My soul troubled. Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? No, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say, 'Father, save Me from this hour.' I'm not going to say, 'Father, save Me from being crucified.' For this purpose—for this very purpose—did I come to this hour. For this very purpose I came into the world, to arrive at this hour. My whole life has been in this direction, focused on the cross. I don't enjoy dying. I don't enjoy being crucified. The thought of it troubles me. But I shall not turn away from the goal. I shall not say, 'Father, save Me from this hour.' I will say, if it is Your will, O Lord, I will go on to the crucifixion." You see here His goal is constantly before Him. And here we are simply in the middle of John. We are nowhere near the end yet. And we see that constant clarity of direction that the Lord Jesus has. And He says here to His disciples a little bit further on, in verse 35 of the same chapter.
# The Spiritual Direction of Life (Part 2) — Matthew 26:1-2
"Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you." Notice these words: "He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes." He who walks in the darkness has no sense of direction. He who walks in darkness has no clue where he's going. Do you know where you're going? Are you in the light or are you in the darkness? Have you any sense of direction at all, any spiritual direction? If not, and as the Lord Jesus says, it may be you're walking in the darkness. You still don't know where you are. You have not yet been freed from the bondage of sin. You have not yet entered into the newness of life. And that can well be said for so many so-called Christians. Let me press this question. Do you know where you're going? Do you really know? Do you have a spiritual direction at all?
So everywhere in the Lord's teaching we see this very thing. Not only by the example of His life. But let's look at His teaching. Luke chapter 14, verse 28. Which I have expounded elsewhere in detail and will not expand again. But simply to show you the same pattern. How does the Lord Jesus view the Christian life? How does He describe it to us? Luke chapter 14, verse 28. Verse 27 you'll notice is almost exactly the same as what we just read in John 12: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." If you want to be My disciple, take up your cross and follow after Me. And then He goes on in verse 28: "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he is able to complete it?" And then verse 29: "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish"—notice the word "finish"—"all who see it begin to mock." Verse 30 says the same thing: "This man began to build and was not able to finish."
You see, in building a tower, in building a structure, you have to do several things. You need to count the cost. But in order to count the cost, you've got to plan what kind of a building you're building. What's the height of the tower? What's the size of it? What's going to be the equipment inside the tower? How far is it supposed to look? How am I going to build this thing? How many workmen do I need? What kind of material do I put into it? It is a complex business of planning. You have to have a clear project before you. You cannot say, "Okay, we'll just throw some stones together and, lo and behold, we suddenly have a tower." And many people live the Christian life precisely like this. They fumble around, and they imagine that by fumbling around eventually by some astonishing miracle there happens to become a tower at the end of their life. They can say, "I have finished my course. I have finished the task You have accomplished." Maybe they have gathered a heap of stones by then. But we have no tower. Because there is no clear plan and pattern in their life.
The second part He goes on to speak. The Lord Jesus speaks about the Christian life as compared to a warfare. In verse 31: "Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with his ten thousand men to meet the enemy with twenty thousand men?" With those kinds of odds you have to plan your campaign very carefully. You may be able to take some chances if your army is three times the size of your enemy. But if your army is smaller than that of your enemy—notice the Lord Jesus deliberately tilts it in this way—you have got to plan your attack very carefully. You have got to work out your strategy very clearly. You have got to know exactly what you are going to do. You cannot afford to lose your men, because you are already outnumbered.
That is the fact of the spiritual life. In this world we are outnumbered. We are outnumbered by the fact of the enemy within and the enemy without. Within we have the weakness of our flesh, the temptations that the world constantly tries to offer to us. And outside we have all the pressures of life brought upon us, maybe by our friends, by our family, by our loved ones. Even these pressures that put the odds very much against the Christian life. And therefore you have got to have a clear plan of campaign. The Christian life has to be executed with the precision of a general carrying out his battle plan. No fumbling around. No general will win any battle who just says, "Okay, here is the enemy. Where are you guys? Come on, let's rush at them. Let's throw—come on, let's have bravery. Bash them in." You go and fight a war like that, you'll be wiped out before you got very far. No one can go into battle like this and hope to survive. And that is what terrifies me: so many Christians enter into the Christian life just fumbling around. And they hope to come out victorious. No wonder they are beaten up every day. No wonder they are left with their heads swollen and their heads hanging, defeated every day in their Christian life. They have no plan of campaign. They have no discipline in their life. No order.
Have you seen an army that can win a battle without discipline? And yet I see Christian life undisciplined. Uncontrolled. Passions raging wild. No order. That's why Paul says, "I keep myself under control." In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, the last part: "I give myself black eyes. I put myself under discipline." Because like a soldier, you can't win any battles with an unruly mob. And the same goes for the church. Today the church—every time they speak about discipline, they complain. "Too harsh. The church. We are called Christians here." He says, how can a king go forth to battle? How can the church win any spiritual battles if we are all foolish and sentimental? Every officer, every general who is worth his salt, every good general loves his men. Every one of them are dear to him. There comes a time when he has to order the execution of one of his men. And I tell you, it breaks his heart. I have seen that happen. Where a general turns, gives the order to fire, and turns and weeps. Because he knows that it is not just the one individual that counts. We have a battle to fight. The whole army would fall apart. And any of you who have read in Chinese history will know how many times great generals have to do the most unpleasant things because it was the welfare of the whole that was at stake.
Now the point here is this. When the church, as it is today, often is totally without discipline, without order—no wonder the church can fight no battles and win. People say it's a mess. It's a bunch of individuals who have come together for a social gathering. We are not an army under the Lord's supreme command. We are simply an unruly mob who have come out to shout some slogans. We can't accomplish anything like this. Therefore, neither the church has a sense of direction, nor the individual Christian. And of course, if the individual Christian has no sense of direction, where is the church going to have a sense of direction? Where is the church going? It doesn't know either. It doesn't know what it's supposed to do.
The average pastor, let me tell you honestly, has no clue. Besides trying to expand the numbers of his church, organizing this activity and that activity, what is the goal of the church in this world? What is it supposed to accomplish? What is the task? He doesn't know. So long as he can report back to his headquarters to say, "Today, this year, my congregation has increased by 15%. My offerings have increased by 20%." Oh, clap, clap. Very good salesman. His money has increased by 20%. Maybe he should report his salary also increased by 20% with the increase of the offerings. Very successful pastor. Good man. Next time we appoint you the moderator for the whole assembly since you are so good at raising money and building new buildings. Very nice. What is the general direction? What is the church in this world supposed to accomplish spiritually? "Oh, spiritually, I guess, well, we evangelize. We evangelize." And what is meant by evangelism? "Well, evangelism means you raise your hand, you believe in Jesus, and that's fine. Good. Good boy. Now you get baptized into the congregation. We forget about you after that." That's no way to raise a church. What is the mission? Does he know this fellow who got baptized? Does he know what he's supposed to do? Does he know what he's supposed to do? He has no idea. He got baptized, and he doesn't know where he's supposed to go from there. And so he starts going downhill. Because if you don't know where you're supposed to go, you go in the wrong direction. That is too often. Happens again and again.
And then the Lord Jesus concludes this section in Luke chapter 14 with these words: "So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." The Lord Jesus demands nothing short of what we have called total commitment. "He that does not renounce everything that he has cannot be my disciple." Why? We just talked about a warfare. And what soldier—who is going to be a good soldier who says, "No, no, no. Okay, I'm going to fight, but I'm not going to die"? You say to him, "You're in the wrong place, my friend. Soldiers are committed to die. If you don't want to die, don't be in the war. Go and find yourself somewhere else to go."
You cannot finish the tower because you are not totally committed to this task of finishing it, of putting all your resources, all that you have into it. He began with a statement. He finished with a statement. He began with a statement, you remember, in verse 27: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple." He finishes with a statement: "Whoever does not renounce all that he has." I mean, people say to me—the pastors tell me—"You can't preach on that. No, no, no. You don't preach on that in the church. I mean, the price of discipleship is so high that if you put a price like that—I mean, the price tag is so expensive, nobody wants to buy it. I mean, if you want to sell the Gospel, you cut the cost. Slash the price. Say 50% sale." The Lord Jesus said, "Renounce all." And I say to you, "Even better, you don't even need to renounce all. Maybe not even half. In fact, you don't have to renounce anything. Free gift." In fact, He says, "Renounce all." I say, "You have it free." That's a nice way of life. No wonder we have no sense of direction. Because you see, these words, my beloved brothers and sisters, is the direction that we are to go for. If you cut out these words, you have no more direction. That is the direction. Do you see it? What is the direction? He just said so. "Take up your cross and follow Me." You see, I am going this way, and you follow after Me. My direction, in other words, is your direction.
Now, we have already seen what is the Lord's direction. His direction in life, right from the beginning to the end, was to lay down His life for the redemption, the salvation of mankind. And we must be blind if we don't understand, don't see here what He is saying. He is saying, "That is My direction in life. And that must be your direction in life, if you are going to be My disciple." It's a very different sort of Christianity from what I hear today. Today's Christianity is: "Come and get a free gift." You know, a Christmas present. Like Sunday school. You know, they come, they don't have to bring anything. And these Sunday school teachers are so wonderful. Oh! I mean, they prepare such beautiful presents for the children. The children brought nothing. And they come home. Oh! Eileen comes home with this beautiful, you know, jumper, this thing. And she was wearing it so proudly yesterday. And she doesn't have to bring anything. And she got a present. You know, so nice. This Christian life is like that, you know. Some people think, you know, I just come here and there's free gifts. And the pastors and preachers are always telling us, "All you do is stretch out your hand, you got a free gift." Oh, fine, fine, fine. Okay. I don't have anything against free gifts. I also like free gifts. Who doesn't like free gifts? The point is—the point is—that if you preach it in this way, you are not preaching it the way the Lord did. You have no sense of direction, because the direction is precisely in those words. "My goal in life is to live and to die for the redemption of mankind." That, my friend, has to be your goal in life. That's what the Lord is saying. Now, if you don't have that goal in your life, you are not My disciple. You cannot be My disciple.
Oh, we've been singing about how to be Christ-like. We talk about being Christ-like. Let me ask you: how can you be Christ-like? How can I be Christ-like? If I don't even share His same goal, how can I be like Him? The only way I can be like Him is to think like Him. And the only way I can think like Him is to go the same way He is going. To have the same sense of value. Putting it in another way, brothers and sisters, putting it very simply, is this. You and I are called to this mission and to this task. Not only to be saved for ourselves, but that we ourselves henceforth live for the salvation of others. That has to be your goal. That is not optional. I'm sorry. The Lord's teaching tells us there is no optional aspect of it. You are simply not a disciple. You are simply not a Christian, in the Lord's definition, until the direction of your life is this: and henceforth, you live for the salvation of others. You live for the salvation of mankind. When you do that, then you have taken up your cross and followed after the Lord Jesus. From now on, you don't live for yourself anymore. You live for the salvation of your brother, of your sister, of that person, of that person. Your whole life is living for others.
If you don't like that, if you don't like this way of living, then forget about being a Christian. I'm telling you as plainly and bluntly as the Lord Jesus is saying. Because that's what the Lord said. That's not what I'm saying. That's what Jesus said. "Unless you take up your cross. Unless you renounce all that you have, for the sake of others, you cannot be My disciple." Don't call yourself a Christian. And I don't need to go into all this again, because as I've expounded before, again and again, and shown you the scriptural evidence: in the Bible, a disciple and a Christian is the same thing. There are no two different things. The disciple is a Christian. And a Christian is just another name for disciple, as you see in the Bible. Not two stages, as some people mistakenly suppose. And you have a lower stage as being a Christian, and then you graduate to a higher stage being a disciple. Well, you can invent your own doctrine. But that is not the Bible. The Bible tells us that the Christian is just another name for a disciple. And you cannot be a disciple unless you share the same goal in life as the Lord Jesus. And if you don't like that goal in life, then forget about being a Christian. Because you don't know what being a Christian means. You're not prepared to share the same direction. And if you call yourself a Christian, all that's going to happen is you're going to walk in the darkness, not knowing where you are going, banging your head on this spiritual wall and that spiritual wall, and becoming totally discouraged, and saying, "Why, God never listens to me? Why when I pray, He doesn't listen to me?" Of course He's not going to listen to you, because you have not fulfilled His requirement as a disciple. The only thing you can ask of Him is to change the direction of your life, that you become a disciple. Then you can pray.
Notice the confidence of the Lord's words in John. In John chapter 11, He says, "Father, I know that You always listen to Me," when He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that His Father always listens to Him. Have you got that confidence? Sometimes I feel almost ashamed of my confidence, if I dare to put it like this. I have complete confidence that the Lord will hear. The Lord will hear. I have no doubt that when I ask something of the Lord, He will grant it. Amazing. And this confidence is not in myself. It is in Him. Because by His grace, I share the same direction as that of the Lord Jesus. Not by nature. Not by nature. By nature, I am a very selfish person. Self-centered, like everybody else. Maybe even worse than anybody else. But somehow the Lord Jesus changed the direction of my life. And is still changing it. Because I am far from perfect. Like the Apostle Paul, He says, "Not that I am already perfect. But I press towards the mark." And that mark is to lay down one's life for the other.
I wonder, beloved brothers and sisters, whether this matter is very, very clear to your mind. That if you call yourself a Christian, you may only do so on condition that you share the same direction of life that the Lord Jesus did. Just as the Apostle Paul did. He says, "Timothy, I suffer everything for the sake of the elect. I live for the elect. I die for the elect." And just in the words that Don quoted there. He is willing to be, at the communion, He is willing to be poured out as a sacrifice for the others. Following in the steps of the Lord Jesus. As He says, "I imitate Christ." And he says, "You imitate me, as I imitate Christ." We all go in the same direction. We all carry our cross. We are all going to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
You see, the Christian life already begins with the laying down of your life. What did you do at baptism? At baptism, you die. That is, if you know what's happening to you at baptism. If your pastor never told you what happened to you at baptism, so may God have mercy upon him, because he will have a lot to answer for. At baptism, you die. You die. You renounced your old way of life. Or you should have done. You did exactly what the Lord says here in Luke chapter 14, verse 33. You have renounced your old way of life. You have renounced your sins. You have renounced your selfish ambitions. You have renounced your love for materialism and wealth. That's why you were baptized. You signified that you are finished with the old way of life. Now you share the same direction of life as that of the Lord Jesus.
Every true Christian, every true Christian, has this one clear goal, one clear direction in his mind: the upbuilding of the church of Christ. To build up the church as the means by which God will save mankind. You see, the church is God's ordained means of saving mankind. Therefore, if I am going to live and to die for the salvation of mankind, I have to begin where God begins: with His church. The church is the instrument, the means, the tower, the temple, into which people run into it and are saved. Into which they find how to worship God, where they come into fellowship with God. We are to build the temple of God. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 10 onward, Paul speaks of himself as a master builder. And then he goes on to say, every one of you are also engaged in the task of building. Building what? Building the temple of God. In the previous verse, in verse 9, He speaks about God's building. In verse 16, 17 onwards, He speaks about the temple of God. And that section about building is sandwiched into these two statements about the building of the temple. And He will say, "I am building God's temple, and you, each one, must build. Some build with straw, some build with stubble, some build with precious stones. But you have to build. You have to be building God's temple."
Now strangely enough, most commentators are so individualistically inclined that they think of the building as building oneself up in some kind of a spiritual sense. Maybe building yourself up to become a nicer person, more spiritual in some way or other. I tell you this: there is no way you are going to become more spiritual. There is no way you are going to become more Christ-like until you share His own thinking. Namely, to live and to die for others. No way. There is no use going into a monastery and spending twenty hours in prayer, building yourself up, getting more holy, reading the Bible until your glasses get thicker and thicker. I mean, this is no use, so long as the direction of your life is not right. What's the use of that? What's the use of that? Hey, go to the seminary and get yourself a degree there, and get yourself some more degrees, and your glasses getting thick. Okay, that's right. It's no use. Because unless the direction of your life is in the same direction as that of the Lord Jesus, none of this is of any avail. This building yourself up gets you nowhere. Can you see the point?
Until we share—and yet so many commentators think of this passage exactly in the way they think. They don't think of others. They're still thinking of themselves, that we are building ourselves up all the time. What is the goal? What is the mark? The mark is to get yourself more spiritual. Let me tell you, there's no way. No way you'll get yourself more spiritual. No way you'll lock yourself in the monastery for the next ten years and wear your trousers out on your knees praying there, praying there. What's the use? The Lord says, "Get up." You see that people perishing out there. You see the church and the condition of the church. Get out there and do something. And when you have that direction in life, you come and talk to me about the specific problems, and I will answer those prayers beyond what you can ask or think.
There is a so-called Christianity which is pure selfishness. Pure selfishness. Building oneself up. Getting more knowledge. Without sharing that goal that Christ has. Let us truly let the Lord search our hearts. What is the mark? For Paul, the mark ultimately was to gain Christ. Yes. But how? Through the fellowship of His sufferings, He says. How can you have fellowship in His sufferings when you don't even share the same direction of His—what? You can only share the fellowship of His sufferings if you are trying to accomplish the same thing as He is accomplishing. That is the point we must grasp very, very clearly.
So that every Christian knows—and I would have it before God that every person here knows absolutely plainly—what it must be, the direction of your life, if you are a Christian. That you understand perfectly clearly that there is not to be any more a living for self. Your job has no priority if you are a Christian. Your profession has no priority if you are a Christian. Nothing has priority except God and His righteousness and His kingdom. Only for Him you live. Everything else is secondary. Your whole direction and goal is the salvation of mankind, just as it was for the Lord Jesus. And in order to do this, you'll build up God's people. You'll build up His temple, His church, as the means which God has ordained for the salvation of mankind. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.