Good morning again, brothers and sisters. And you'll notice that I was more cautious. I dare not come up those stairs, because if a mighty man will stumble there, then my chances of falling with more serious consequences are greater. So I took the precaution to come up a safer way. Amen.
It's a joy to be with you together this morning to worship the Lord, to ponder His Word. First impressions are very deep impressions, are they not? Whenever we have a first impression, that seems to fix in a certain way the way we think about something. And my first impression of Christianity, for example, made it very difficult for me to become a Christian, because the kind of Christians that I had met gave me a negative impression. And it was very difficult to overcome that in subsequent years. Though thanks to God's kindness and mercy, I did finally come to Him because of His drawing power.
And one of my first impressions, probably the first impression of a Malaysian, was with a roommate of mine, because I happened to share a small apartment with two Malaysian brethren. So my first contact overseas in London was in fact with Malaysian students. And this dear brother gave me an exceedingly good impression of Malaysians, which I carry to this day. First impressions are very important. It was much more than giving me a good impression. Because this dear brother had an outstanding life quality from which I had to learn and desired to learn. And the thing I learned most from him was his remarkable humility. A humility that I could only aspire to, but could not attain. His life was beautiful with that humility of Christ.
Now he was an outstanding student. He was actually a state-sponsored scholar from Malaysia. And he studied at Imperial College in London, where he was doing electrical engineering. An outstanding student. When he graduated, he graduated with first-class honors at the head of seven other first-class honors students of his class, and was awarded, unusually, the Imperial College Medal. He was simply outstanding. And you would think that given his tremendous academic qualifications, he would have reason to be proud rather than humble. When he entered the college, his report card had only A's on it. But when he completed his studies, he went on to higher studies at MIT in the United States, and then also did his doctorate in Montreal.
But you would think, with this kind of qualification, he would have reason to be proud. But amazingly, his humility, as I said, just struck me with a power. One of the things that nearly brought me to tears about his humility was when once we did some outreach work in London, at what was called Malaysia Hall, where students from Malaysia lived. And we had set up a meeting. And in the process of having a new meeting for the students there, he helped with the outreach. And I watched him inviting people to come to the meeting. And the humility, the graciousness with which he did that. He didn't say, "Hey, we have a meeting, you can come along, alright?" He came to them, to each person, almost like begging. Saying, "Would you..." You know, with his beautiful smile, he would say, "Would you like to come to our meeting?" And I noticed how many students just brushed him aside and ignored him, and some in a quite rude manner. But still, he continued. If he was treated rudely, he did not respond with the same rudeness. He continued with his polite, gracious manner, even when just brushed aside.
He didn't know that I was standing somewhere watching him. And I thought, I don't have that kind of humility. I couldn't take it. If people were just so rude. He is too many classes above me when it comes to humility. He was treated like rubbish by many of these students. And I thought to myself, do they know who they are talking to? I mean, none of these students would even be remotely near his class of academic achievement. They wouldn't be within binocular view of where he had already attained. But just because he was in this gracious, humble manner, they treated him as garbage, as scum. And I say this without exaggeration. I watched in disbelief that some of these students could be so rude.
So I wanted to share this with you, that I had this tremendous impression of a Malaysian brother, outstanding quality, and I had learned so much from him. Now I had the privilege of sharing the apartment with him, plus one other Malaysian brother who was too busy with other matters, especially his girlfriend. So he didn't have much time for life in the apartment.
And this dear brother, the first one I mentioned, he asked me, could we have a Bible study in our apartment? Just a short, ten-minute Bible study so that we close the day meditating on His word. Could you lead us in a Bible study every day? I said, alright, I'd be glad to do that. Just a household Bible study. Well, it was supposed to be just for the three of us, that is, when my friend could manage to tear himself away from his girlfriend. And so we started with three people every day spending time. The Bible study was supposed to be ten minutes, but it went on to half an hour and then it went on to one hour, and it seemed that nobody wanted to stop because they wanted to ask more questions about the passage. And next thing I knew, the whole neighborhood, because there were other students living in the neighborhood, when they heard that we had a Bible study, they said, "Hey, can we come in too?" And the next thing we knew, our three-person Bible study became a room full of students, fellow students coming in for Bible study. And often I was then tied up with counseling as well.
But my point is this: this dear Malaysian brother, having invited me to take care of the daily Bible study, would not allow me to do any cooking. We were supposed to rotate, right? We were supposed to do the housework together. But he absolutely refused to let me do the cooking. I think there was, of course, another reason: my cooking was also not in his class. He seemed to be good at everything, including cooking. And so I did not venture to compete with him in that field. But then he suggested that since I am doing the Bible study, it is his job to do the cooking. I said, "Alright, then you do the cooking, I do the washing up." Oh no, no, no, you can't do the washing up either. I said, "Well, at least I can do the washing up, even if my cooking is not that great." But he said, "No, no, this you leave to us to do, you carry on with the word of God." And we had many a struggle at the sink when I tried to fight my way to the dishes, but was most of the time thoroughly defeated. He was also superior to me in that. I found myself thrown out of the kitchen and eventually, having lost the contest so many times, I more or less surrendered.
But what I wanted to say is his outstanding humility, his graciousness. So I have said to you, I have an excellent impression of Malaysians. Now I think this point is very important because, as I said, first impressions are very, very vital. We evaluate people often by our first impression of the person, whether we like him or not. It's so superficial, it's so external. We look at him and say, I like the way this guy looks, and so you have a good impression. Or you take a look at me and say, "I don't like the way this guy looks. He can't even smile properly." Which in a way you are quite right, since I have a problem with a certain muscle here that gives me trouble and therefore makes it somewhat difficult for me to smile. And you think, "I think this is an unfriendly guy, I don't like to associate with him." I hope you'll discover that that was a mistaken impression.
So let us turn to the word of God in the short time we have. And if you would please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. And you may be somewhat astonished at the title I have been given, or rather the title given from the Lord: Paul, the scum of the world. Now if you look at this in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 4: "We have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now." In other words, he is saying it is still true now. It wasn't just that I was regarded as scum before, but I am still the scum. I am still regarded as that.
Now you will notice that Paul, to emphasize his point, repeats it. In Scripture, when something is repeated, we should take notice. When the Lord says, "Truly, truly, I say to you," the double "truly" indicates something very important. Paul does not just say "I am the scum of the earth," and what is more, he also does not say he alone is the scum. He says "we." He and all his co-workers, whoever they were, are the scum of the earth. And in case we miss that point, he repeats it in another way: "We are the dregs of all things."
You know, this passage is so deep that I don't feel myself really qualified to talk about it, but I must at least attempt to, since the Lord has laid it on my heart. Why I say that I am not qualified is because I have not reached that level where I am myself regarded as the scum of the earth. Now I don't doubt that there are some people through my rather long ministry who do regard me as the scum of the earth, and I would consider it a privilege, but my level of experience in this area is much too shallow. It's like talking about something which is many classes higher than oneself. This is the reason why I find it often difficult to try and talk about the cross, because I haven't actually experienced the cross, the sufferings involved. And in the same way, I don't really know firsthand in any great depth what it is to be treated in this way.
Have you been treated as the scum of the earth? Does anyone regard you as the dregs of all things? Now these two words are very interesting words in the Greek, but I won't have time to expound this in the short time we have available. The word "dregs" comes from a Greek word perikatharma, which "peri" means "around" and "katharma" is that which is cleansed from around. To illustrate this: when you do some cooking and then you dish out the food, and then what happens is that all around the pot you have all your sauces or whatever it was you cooked, and it is all stuck to the sides of the pot, so that you need a metal scrubber or something to get this perikatharma, the thing that is all around that is stuck inside the pot. This is what gives you a headache when you want to wash up, especially if the thing is baked on hard and you have to use a lot of effort to get rid of it. It is simply the off-scouring, as some translations have it. The scum in English at least would be the stuff that you scrape away from the top and throw out. And the dregs, which of course is just a paraphrase, is not what is around the side but what sinks to the bottom, the kind of stuff that when you have taken your coffee and you throw away the thing at the bottom. "We," Paul says, "are regarded by the world as garbage."
What do you have to do to become garbage as far as the world is concerned? Does our life provoke some kind of response? Paul's life provoked the response either life unto life or death unto death. We are a savor of life to one, a savor of death to another. In Galatia, the church in Galatia, there were those who regarded Paul as Jesus himself. "You receive me," Paul said to the Galatians, "as you would have received Christ." They looked at him as the image of Christ, which indeed he was. But if you are regarded like this in the church, the likelihood is that the world will regard you as scum.
Now what has all this got to do with discipleship? Everything. I want to stress, and hope that even if you forget everything I say today, you will remember that discipleship in the New Testament is inseparably joined to scum, to being scum. You know, it says in Scripture, in the last days there will be people who will not want to accept sound teaching but want to have teachers that tickle their fancy, tickle their ears. We read that in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 3. So the characteristic in the last days is that sound teaching will be rejected because it's too hard to swallow. We don't like this kind of teaching. We want to hear something that we like to hear, tickles our fancy.
And so one of the first things I want to say is that the mark of a true disciple is that he is one who will want to listen to the truth no matter how hard it is to swallow. You know, one of the things I do is to look for those passages that I find very hard to swallow. I want to see what I have missed and whether my attitude to the word of God is so selective that I pick out all the nice promises that apply to me, all the things I like to hear, all the things that give me encouragement and refreshing. But I would like to turn to those passages that I frankly can't swallow. And the Lord has really blessed me over the years because I wanted to hear the things that by nature I don't want to hear.
Could I translate this to myself? "Paul, the scum of the earth," and translate this to "Eric, the scum of the earth, the dregs of all things." Now that's very hard to swallow. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be popular. We all like people to like us. We don't want people to regard us as scum, do we? And that is what makes discipleship so difficult. It is because discipleship has to do with becoming scum.
You say, "Alright, prove your point." Well in the short time I have, I must do exactly that. Paul, a few verses down, verse 16, he says, "I exhort you to be imitators of me." Having said that he is the scum, astonishingly he goes on to say, "Well, it's not just me the scum, you must imitate me," right after having said those things. Now he is talking to the Corinthians, who are, as he said in chapter 3 verse 1, of the flesh. Carnal and fleshly people don't want to be scum. They want to be popular. They want to be accepted. "Please accept me. Don't reject me." But scum? What do you do with scum? What do you do with dregs? You throw it away. We don't want to be rejected by the world.
What did Paul say? He said this in Galatians 6:14: "By the cross of Christ I am crucified to the world and the world to me." Now you say that and the world will treat you as scum. Why? Because you have cut your connection to the world. You don't want to be pleasing to the world. You only want to be pleasing to Jesus. He is all that matters. And when I please Him, I can't please the world. And when I please the world, I can't please Him. I have to make a choice. And that is the choice of discipleship.
Paul wanted to follow in the steps of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 11:1 he says, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." Here he is imitating Christ. He is scum because Jesus was treated as scum. Did you realize that? Do you realize, as we ought to realize, that the cross of Jesus is the ultimate symbol, the ultimate expression of rejection? You don't crucify somebody you accept. You crucify somebody you don't want to accept. You want to permanently put him out of the picture of your life. You put him on a cross and make it so bad for him on the cross to express the level of your rejection of him.
In Isaiah 53, which we are very familiar with, it tells us about Jesus as the suffering servant, and what do we read there? "He was despised and rejected by men." Now you see the connection. We know that our calling as a disciple is to take up our cross and follow Him. The cross is the emblem of shame and rejection. We must bear that in mind. Now when it says "take up your cross," what exactly do we take up? I don't see anybody walking around with a piece of wood on their shoulders, some part of a cross. None of the apostles, with the possible exception of Peter, actually encountered the cross. So how did they fulfill the teaching of, for example, Luke 14 verse 26: "If any man does not take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple"?
Now are we His disciples? Then we should be seen carrying a cross. But what is the cross? Then you can see why this passage is so important for the interpreting of the meaning of discipleship. The cross is rejection. To be despised and rejected of men. The Lord Jesus says, "Yes, I am the suffering servant. I have come into this world and I am despised and rejected by men." He came to His own, His own rejected Him, they received Him not. And He said, "You want to be My disciples? The same thing will happen to you. You too will be despised and rejected of men."
You know, we want to function from a position of power. We think that the way to be effective for God is to be in a position of power. That is the common thinking. But to be scum is a position of weakness, and only in that weakness do we experience the reality of what it is to follow Him who was despised and rejected of men. To that extent I feel ashamed of myself, in that I am not in that class with Paul where I can stand here and say, "I am the scum of the earth as far as the world is concerned." Because I am not so regarded, at least not by the majority of those in the world that I know. They tend to respect you. And the church functions from a position of power. After all, we are all reasonably well educated. Why should anybody regard you as scum given all the degrees that we can put behind our names?
I was invited in England once to preach in a church, and the letter of invitation included the statement that I should bring my academic gown and academic hood to the pulpit. I thought to myself, why am I doing this? Frankly, I don't even have a hood and gown because on the day of graduation I rented one. I rented it just for a few hours that afternoon. I don't possess a hood. The idea is you speak from a position of authority. Yes, we should speak with God-given authority, but why should a gown given by some secular institution be a qualification for me to speak God's word? I tell you the fact, of course, I declined to put on the gown and I said, "Well, if you want somebody with a nice gown, invite somebody else. Frankly, I don't even have a gown."
Now the Galatians, the Corinthians, you will notice here, all work from a position of power. That's how the natural man works. And the church unfortunately tends to function the way the world functions. And here Paul, with biting sarcasm, addresses this problem in this very chapter. Four times within the context of this chapter, he speaks about arrogance. The arrogance of the Corinthian Christians. You will see that the word "arrogance" in verse 6 and 18 and 19, and then chapter 5 verse 2: "You are arrogant." "But I am the scum of the earth." "You boast, and I boast only in the cross."
And then he says, with this biting sarcasm, in verse 8 to the Corinthians: "You are filled. Oh, you are so satisfied with yourself. You have already become rich." Position of power. Riches is power. "You have become kings without us." We are not included in this category of kings. "You are kings." But then with that same biting sarcasm he goes on to say, "Well, you are not really kings, are you? And I would indeed that you had become kings so that we might also reign with you." You are reigning already, at least you think you are, and we would reign with you. Reigning, kingship, filled, all these things: power.
And Paul in a way shames them. But then he wanted to assure them that he did not have the intention of shaming them, but just bringing them to the realization that the Christian life is not lived from a position of power. And that's why he says in verse 14: "I did not write these things to shame you." That was not my intention, but to admonish you as my beloved children. Remember in the message yesterday we were told by the dear brother Dwight prior, that the relationship of rabbi to student, to disciple, was a father and son relationship, which we see here. "I speak to you as my beloved children. You are my disciples, but you are not imitating me." So he goes on to verse 16 and says, "I exhort you to imitate me." Put away the position of power, because God's power, distinct from man's power, is manifest...
# Paul, Scum of the Earth (Side B)
To be the scum of the earth. In other words, scum interprets cross-bearing. And what does scum mean? The willingness to be scum and to be dregs, to be the off-scouring of all things, is the willingness to be absolutely humble.
What did the Lord Jesus say? We were also reminded of this verse yesterday. In Matthew 11 verse 29: "Learn of me." There we have that word "learn," which is the Hebrew concept of a disciple. "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart," or gentle and humble of heart. That's why I said right at the beginning, I spoke about this Malaysian brother, and why he was so important to me, as an example of someone who, though of outstanding academic achievement, was willing to be treated as dregs, as nothing. "Learn of me, because I..." What does He want us to learn? Does He want us to learn how to heal people? He didn't give any lessons, as far as I can see, about how you go around healing people. He didn't even say what they were supposed to do. How do you cast out spirits? He didn't say how this, how that. What He did say is, "Be humble as I am humble. Learn of me." If you want to be my disciple, this is the one thing. It's surprising that of all the things He could have said about learning about Him, He chose only one thing to speak about: humility.
How genuine and how deep is our walk with Jesus is going to be tested on this one point. What is more, you notice this: "I am humble of heart." Sometimes we are humble in our outward expression. I walk around, you see, my back is quite bent. My head is down. And you see, oh, he is a humble man. He walks like this. Actually, I may be extremely proud inside, but all you see is the outward frame that I am looking very humble. "Humble of heart." What is it? The humility of heart is something very hard to learn for people like me at any rate, and it is absolutely necessary for me to learn. How to distinguish between true and false humility. By false here, I mean a human humility. Humility is also regarded as a quality among people in the world.
My father was one who tried to be humble. It was very difficult for him as a non-Christian. But he tried. And again, I looked with admiration at my father. His academic achievements were also outstanding. I remember once somebody asked my father, "Do you speak English?" And he smiled back and said very humbly, "A little." Well, the person didn't know that he had done his graduate studies at Harvard. My father had done his graduate studies at Harvard, and he wrote his doctoral thesis in English. In fact, beautiful English. And he actually held two earned doctorates. And he spoke much more than English. He spoke a good many other languages besides. But when asked whether he could speak English, he merely said, "A little."
Now, I could see that he was trying very hard to be humble. Though he had a high government position, he declined a chauffeur-driven car. And he bought himself a very modest British car, an Austin 10 at the time. And he drove it himself. And one day he was stopped by a police officer on the street who charged him with a traffic violation and demanded to see his papers. My father was reluctant to show his papers, but he demanded in a rather rude tone, as people in power like to behave, "Show me your papers." So my father produced his papers. And when the officer saw my father's name, he promptly stood to attention and stood at the rigid salute position. He became like a pillar of salt, stuck in the salute position, because he had been quite rude, and he had actually, of course, the intention was to demand some payment. Give him some money and he'll let you go. Now, he didn't know that my father was one of the strongest anti-corruption people in the rather corrupt government of the time. And so this poor officer was afraid he was going to lose his job. He handed back my father's papers. My father simply said to him, "It's alright, you're just doing your job." And he drove away. Humility. He could have sacked the man, he could have done all sorts of things, but he was humble.
Now, of course, if he had been in a chauffeur-driven car, the police officer would never have dared to stop him. But because he was driving this small Austin 10, a very modest little car, then the police officer felt that he could kick this man around. But he kicked the wrong person around. So my father tried to be very humble. But of course, I knew my dad. After all, you know your dad too, don't you? And I knew that this was an attempt to be humble, but not the spiritual humility we are talking about. Spiritual humility has more to do with my Malaysian brother, that genuine inner humility.
In closing, then, in this brief talk, I think that the real mark of humility which we are to follow is the mark of the Lord Jesus that Paul points to in Philippians chapter 2. That though He was equal with God, He did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, to be grasped, much less to be seized, depending whatever translation you want to use. But He humbled Himself. And He humbled Himself to what extent? He went down and down and down until He ended up on the cross. And it is this to which He has called us. Paul says, "Let this mind, this mind of Jesus, be in you."
Now, why then did Jesus not tell His disciples more about spiritual power? Why didn't He tell them more about things like even how to pray? You remember the disciples had to ask Him, "Lord, teach us to pray." You would have thought that's one of the first things He did. No. He stressed one thing only. "Learn of me. I am humble of heart." And what happens? All the other things follow. It is not first power, spiritual power even. Spiritual power comes through humility. God does not entrust His power to somebody who is going to misuse it. And little wonder there is so little power among Christians, because God couldn't trust that power to us.
Paul knew a lot about power. And so in this same chapter, in verse 19, it says, "I shall find out when I come, not the words of those who are arrogant, but their power." I want to see what power do they have. Paul functioned in power, and the secret of that power is humility. The more humble you are, the more you will experience His power. But only because we are in fellowship with His sufferings. He was despised and rejected of men. When I follow Him, can I follow Him in glory when He goes forth rejected? No, I must, if I am His disciple. If He is rejected, I also must be rejected. If I am not being rejected, I have to ask, am I following Him who was rejected? And when I learn to enter into that fellowship of His suffering, to be despised and rejected by men, then, only then, God will entrust every manner of power to us. Yes, we will be able to heal the sick. We will be able to cast out demons. We will be able to do many things. But only if we can learn this lesson of humility.
Recently, I was reading the diary of John Sung, probably the greatest evangelist in China of this century. The more I read, the more I was touched. You see, John Sung, God used him so mightily, that it was common occurrence in his meetings when he prayed for people that the blind regained their sight. I looked in his diary and time and again he mentions, today, four people who were blind recovered their sight. God healed them. Today, several people who were deaf were able to hear. The lame walked. This is common occurrence. He just recorded that for the glory of God.
But he himself was constantly sick. And I noticed in his diary too: "Today, I had terrible toothache." "Today, I had terrible stomach ache." And he of course had a terrible case of hemorrhoids, such that he was in constant pain, bleeding, even while he was preaching. In the end, he was not even able to stand up to preach. He had to sit down to preach. In the end, he wrote in his diary about the thorn in his flesh, and he said, "I know I have to learn more and more humility, that God must bring me down lower and lower through this unspeakable pain." He was in agony, in tears, out of the pain. He went through several operations, and people said, "Hey, you heal so many people, but you yourself, what's your problem? Why can't you be healed?" And he said, "When I hear these words, it burns like fire in my heart, but thank God for it. I need to be more humble, that they may know that the healings that occur in so many people was not me, it was God who healed."
The thing he wanted to learn, up to the last moment in his diary, he was still saying, "I thank God for all this unspeakable pain, because God wants to bring me into His likeness, to learn of Him, for I am meek and lowly of heart." That is the secret of his power. If we want to go out and let God use us, then please learn this lesson, that discipleship is bearing the cross after Him, after Jesus, and it is to be willing to be the scum of the earth. That is, by God's grace, be imitators of Paul as he was of Christ, so that God's power may be manifested in us fully.
Let us close in prayer.