When we come to the meetings, we all have to learn to take care of others. We must learn to take care not only of unbelievers but also of the believers, the younger ones. There are at least certain ones younger than we are. We should try our best to help them. This is the best way to open ourselves. Many times it is not easy for us to be open with others. Recently, for example, we had a large attendance in the Lord’s table meeting. There were a good number of new ones, so I exercised myself to watch the situation. Regrettably, not many brothers and sisters took care of them. Each person went to be with someone familiar, but no one took care of the new ones. There is something wrong with this. If some new ones attend a meeting, immediately after the meeting our responsibility is to take care of them. We all have to learn this. We must not think that this is the responsibility of the leading ones. In this sense everyone among us is a leading brother or leading sister; we all have to take the lead. In this way we will be exercised to be enlarged. We will be open to others, and our capacity will be enlarged.
In Song of Songs 1:7 the seeking one asks the Lord, “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, / Where do you pasture your flock? / Where do you make it lie down at noon? / For why should I be like one who is veiled / Beside the flocks of your companions?” The Lord answers, “If you yourself do not know, / You fairest among women, / Go forth on the footsteps of the flock, / And pasture your young goats / By the shepherds’ tents” (v. 8). The seeker is telling the Lord that she needs His feeding and rest, and she wants to know where she can find it. The Lord answers that she must follow the steps of the flock, the church. However, this is not the whole answer. She must also pasture her young goats by the shepherds’ tents. The seeking one is taking care of herself, but the Lord’s answer is to remind her to take care of her young ones.
At the start of the Lord’s ministry, the Lord called two pairs of disciples (Matt. 4:18-22). The first pair was Peter and Andrew his brother, and the second pair was James and John his brother. These were the first four disciples called by the Lord. When Peter and Andrew were called, they were casting a net into the sea to catch fish, so the Lord told them, “I will make you fishers of men.” When the Lord called the second pair, John and James, they were mending their nets. Casting a net and mending the nets are the two main aspects of the Lord’s ministry. In the service of contacting people the first aspect is to cast the net, and the second aspect is to mend the net. What does it mean to cast the net? This is to be the fishers of men, to bring people in. What then is it to mend the net? This is to bring people back to the beginning. The apostle John was the last of the writers of the books of the New Testament, and his writings always brought people back to the beginning. When the church drifted away, John tried his best to bring the church back. This was the real mending.
In the church there is the need of the ministry in the first aspect, to cast the net, to bring people in. Then after people are brought in, they need to be kept and protected, so there is the need of the mending. It is very interesting that at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry He called these two kinds of disciples to follow Him. We have to follow the Lord and serve Him as disciples casting the net and mending the net, that is, bringing others in and always keeping people in. On the one hand, we need to deal with the unbelievers as fishers casting the net, and on the other hand, we need to deal with the younger believers as the “young goats” (S. S. 1:8).
We often pray, “Lord, bring the seeking ones together.” We are not only the seeking ones; we are the seeking ones seeking for the seeking ones. However, we should ask ourselves who we are related to, how many unbelievers we are bringing to the Lord, and how many “young goats,” younger believers, we have. If we check in this way, we will be exposed as to where we are and what we are. It is not right for a group of believers to have meeting after meeting, but after one or two years their number still remains the same. There is something wrong with this, and there is no excuse for this. We should not say that in America it is different from Taiwan. Rather, we must learn how to serve the Lord to carry out both kinds of outreach after we are related to others: caring for the unbelievers and caring for the younger believers. If we do, then every younger one in the church will have some brothers or sisters to take care of him or her. This will help the church life, and many problems will be solved by this care. I beg you to bring these matters to the Lord. This is not a mere teaching; rather, we need to put all these things into practice.
We must learn to be related with others; then we will have strength, power, and even authority. Then we must start to take care of the unbelievers. There are many people in Los Angeles, for example; perhaps over a million people here are not saved. It is a sea full of different kinds of fish. How can we not touch any fish in such a big sea? We have to learn how to bring people to the Lord. Then we must learn how to take care of at least one or two younger ones in the church as our spiritual “young goats.” In this way these “young goats” will be our nourishment. The more we take care of them, the more we will be nourished, and the more we will grow.
I do look to the Lord that we all may be brought to the realization that, by the mercy of the Lord, we must be related with others, begin to reach the unbelievers to bring them to the Lord, and reach the younger Christians to take care of them. Although these practical matters are often not practiced in today’s Christianity, I beg you to put them into practice. Then you will see that the Lord will honor you and the Holy Spirit will go along with you. You will have the position, the ground, the standing, to claim the riches of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.