After we beget them and baptize them, they become our little children. Now we must be like mothers to nourish and cherish them. To nourish is to feed, and to cherish is to nurture with tender love and foster with tender care. The most effective way for a mother to cherish her babe is for her to hold him in her bosom. When the mother does this, the little one is warmly cherished and comforted. Many times when a little one cries, he is “praying” to his mother, asking her to cherish him. When she picks him up and puts him in her bosom, he will soon stop crying because he has been fostered with tender care. When we go to the home meetings to take care of the newly baptized ones, we need to have the realization that we are going to nourish and cherish them. This way of taking care of the home meetings is very effective. The new ones will feel cherished, comforted, and warmed up. They will lose any feeling of loneliness.
Paul told the Thessalonians, “We were gentle in your midst, as a nurse would cherish her own children” (1 Thes. 2:7). Paul likened himself to a nursing mother in his care for the new believers. We need to preach the gospel and take care of the newly baptized ones in the organic way, not in the old way. The organic way is the prevailing way. I hope that we can study these matters in small groups. This will revolutionize our way of preaching the gospel. We must preach the gospel in the organic way to beget sinners as children of God, making them the regenerated members of the Body of Christ. Following this we must exercise to cherish the new ones in their homes week by week. Within the first month after they are baptized, it is good to visit them ten times. After one month of this cherishing, the new ones will become settled and established. In the past we were short in caring for the new ones after we baptized them. As a result, many of the new ones disappeared after a few months. This was not Paul’s way. Paul cherished the people whom he had begotten through the gospel. In addition to being like a nursing mother, Paul was also like an exhorting father to the new believers (1 Thes. 2:11).
In the Full Time Training in Taipei, we baptized thirty-eight thousand people in about eighteen months. We then realized that we had baptized too many because we did not have the manpower to take care of them. We should not beget more children in the gospel than we are able to care for. We need to cherish, nourish, feed, and raise up the new ones. After six months of this care, we can go out to beget a few more. If each of us bears two remaining fruit yearly, this will be wonderful. With so many people around us and related to us, we can surely bear two remaining fruit a year. If we have a will to do this, there will be a way.
We should not trust in our fluctuating feelings in our labor in the gospel. We should just do our duty. Regardless of how they feel, mothers nourish and cherish their children day by day. Whether a mother feels well or not, she still does her duty to bring up her children. We have to consider that it is our daily duty to preach the gospel to make sinners the members of Christ and to raise them up by cherishing and nourishing them. One day we all will have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give Him an account (2 Cor. 5:10). Can we tell the Lord in that day that we did not feel like preaching the gospel or taking care of new ones? If we say this, the Lord will call us an evil and slothful slave, and we will be cast into outer darkness (Matt. 25:26, 30). As the branches of Christ, our duty is to bear remaining fruit.
To cherish and nourish the newly baptized ones is to feed the lambs (John 21:15-17). In the Gospel of John, we are charged to do two things: to bear fruit and to feed the lambs. To bear fruit is our daily duty. Abiding in the Lord is the condition for us to bear fruit. If we do not abide in the Lord, we cannot bear fruit. To feed the lambs, we need to love the Lord. To bear fruit is a matter of abiding, and to feed the lambs is a matter of loving. In John 21:15-17, the Lord asked Peter three times if he loved Him. When Peter told the Lord that he did love Him, the Lord told Peter to feed His lambs, shepherd His sheep, and feed His sheep. We have to abide in the Lord that we may bear fruit, and we have to love the Lord that we may have a heart to take care of His flock. The shepherd of a flock does not labor according to whether or not he feels like it. He does his duty to shepherd the flock and to feed the lambs day by day.
The Lord has shown us His biblical way to serve Him for the organic building up of the church. We have to gain more members for the Body of Christ by preaching the gospel, and we have to cherish and nourish the newly baptized ones to raise them up. This is our duty. If we fulfill this duty, I believe the church can be doubled every year. As we endeavor to cooperate with the Lord, we will increase in number and grow in life. We all have to endeavor to do our daily duty to produce the living members of Christ’s organic Body and to feed the young ones in Christ, to raise them up. In the next chapter, we will see that we need to go further to perfect them to do what we are doing to serve the Lord. Then they will do what we are doing, and they will perfect others. This will be repeated again and again from generation to generation, and we will see the increase of the Body and the growth in life of each member of the Body.
In Acts 20 we can see that after Paul established the church in Ephesus and appointed the elders there, he did not leave that church alone. At one time he stayed with them for three years. During those three years he taught them publicly (in big meetings) and from house to house (in home meetings), admonishing each one of the saints with tears day and night (vv. 20, 31). This indicates that he made himself available to the saints according to the times that were convenient for them, whether it was day or night. Paul said that he did not shrink from declaring to the saints all the counsel of God (v. 27). In those three years he perfected the Ephesian saints with all the knowledge concerning the things of God. We have to do the same kind of perfecting work that Paul did. Through this perfecting, everyone is enabled to do the work of an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, and a shepherd-teacher.
The Lord charged us to go forth to bear fruit and that our fruit should remain (John 15:16). To preach the gospel so that sinners can be regenerated to be the members of Christ is to bear fruit. To nourish the newly baptized ones in the home meetings is so that this fruit will remain. We also need to take care of the spiritual need of the new ones and their need in practical affairs, sicknesses, and other afflictions. In other words, we need to take care of them in any way and in all ways. We also have to pray for them. If we do these things, each of us will bear two remaining fruit every year.
When some hear this fellowship, they may think that there is too much demand upon them and that all they want to do is to enjoy Christ. We need to enjoy Christ, but we have to be balanced. We have to enjoy physical food every day, but if we eat and do not exercise, we will not be healthy. We need the working, the acting, and the exercising to balance our enjoyment. The Lord’s word in John 15 is clear. He says that if we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit. To bear fruit is to exercise. We need to be charged and burdened to exercise.
We have seen in chapter one that the good pleasure of God’s will is to gain a Body for Christ so that God can be expressed in Christ (Eph. 1:9-11, 22-23; 3:9-11). Furthermore, God’s will was for Christ to come and replace all the Old Testament sacrifices and offerings with Himself so that He could be everything to us for our enjoyment (Heb. 10:5-10). John 15 goes on to show that our enjoyment of Christ issues in fruit bearing. The Lord said that every branch in Him that did not bear fruit would be taken away (vv. 2, 6). This is serious. The Lord will cut off branches that do not bear fruit. This cutting off is not eternal perdition but the loss of the enjoyment of Christ. We may think that we are enjoying Christ and be self-deceived. Our enjoyment of Christ may not be genuine or normal. If it is genuine and normal, we will have the issue of fruit bearing. A healthy branch of a vine bears fruit.
Our enjoyment of Christ issues not only in fruit bearing but also in lamb feeding. We have to bear fruit to produce life, and we have to take care of the lambs by feeding and nourishing them for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. Fruit bearing and the feeding of the lambs must balance the enjoyment of Christ. Without such a balance, we are off in some aspects of our experience of Christ. We are not normal. Our physical exercise should balance our physical eating. Otherwise, we will not be healthy. If I exercise by walking every day, this helps my digestion and maintains my health. We should not be deceived into thinking we can enjoy Christ and do nothing. Our enjoyment must have some result. The enjoyment of Christ issues in fruit bearing and lamb feeding. We all have to do these two things for today’s living and for tomorrow’s judgment seat. At the judgment seat we will have to give the Lord an account concerning these two things. For the building up of the organic Body of Christ, we need to enjoy Christ to bear fruit and feed His lambs.