Thus far, we have seen the first God-man’s living in His infancy, in His youth, and in His silence between the age of twelve and the age of thirty. We have also seen His living in the commencement of His ministry and in His temptations. In this message we want to see the first God-man’s living for His ministry. We need to consider our living for our ministry. Many people today are living on this earth with no purpose. I came to the United States to live a life for my ministry. If it were not for the ministry, I would not have come to this country. We are living for the Lord’s ministry.
When He commenced His ministry, before He did anything, He came to John to be baptized. Water baptism signifies that a man in the flesh in the eyes of God is good for nothing but death and burial. Christ’s living for His ministry was based upon this significance of water baptism. We need to have the same base in our living.
Based upon this significance, Christ denied His self and His natural man. We should not forget what our water baptism means to us. It means that we were buried. We should not deal with our spouse the way that we did in the past. Based upon our having been buried, we should deny our self and our natural man. We should not do anything by our natural life, because it has been buried.
The Lord put His self on the cross and lived under the shadow of the cross all the time. He said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). We followers of Christ should apply the cross to our self all the time. We should continuously live under the shadow of the cross. Throughout my entire Christian life, I have been learning the lessons of putting my self on the cross and of living under the shadow of the cross. From the very beginning of my following the Lord, I was taught to follow Him by bearing the cross. It does not matter whether our natural man is good or bad. We should reject and deny our natural man, even if it is good. We should not think that we should live by our natural life because it is meek, gentle, and good to people. We have to remember that that meek, gentle life was buried when we were baptized. Our life today is Christ as the Spirit, the divine life.
Christ also lived a humble life by humbling Himself (Phil. 2:8). This shows that we should not be proud of anything. We have nothing that is worth being proud about. Paul was given a thorn in the flesh because God was concerned that he would be proud because of the revelations he had seen. God allowed a thorn to be placed upon him to subdue him from being proud.
In His earthly ministry the Lord also lived under the yoke of God, being meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:28-29). For our ministry’s sake, we should be living such a life under the yoke. An animal under the yoke must labor to plow the land under the master’s direction. When we are under the yoke of God, we have no freedom, no choice, no preference.
Matthew 12:16 says that the Lord charged people not to make Him known. This means that He did not want to be renowned. All the co-workers are facing such a temptation. Some like to be renowned, to be known by everybody, but the Lord Jesus was contrary to this. To be popular is a temptation. When we want to be popular, we are finished. Some Christian workers dare not say anything bad about people, because they want to be popular. They will not say certain things out of fear that they will not be invited the next time. In 1964 I was invited to speak to a group of believers in Dallas. I was welcomed by them because I ministered Christ to them. Eventually, at the end of my time with them, I spoke about the church being the Body of Christ. I was rejected because of this. We must be faithful to speak the truths of the divine revelation. One former co-worker dared not say that Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, because he said this would offend others. This is contrary to the living of the first God-man. He was not seeking to be accepted by everyone to make a name for Himself.