Serving in the church is similar to opening a restaurant. Suppose someone sets up a food stand on the side of the road by putting out a table and a few chairs, while someone else opens a very respectable restaurant by spending a large amount of money on furnishings and decoration. The two restaurants are alike in that they will both get customers, but the difference is that they will get different kinds of customers. It is the same with the church. If we are rough in the way we handle the services in the church, then it will be hard to gain people of high quality. Of course, this does not mean that we despise people of low quality, because it is possible for someone who is a “small potato” to be gained by the Lord and to become a “V.I.P.” Nevertheless, we still hope that many capable, promising, and reputable people would be brought into the church. For this reason we should carefully reexamine and reconsider our present way of service.
Even though our work has not produced any obvious results in the past years, we are still holding to the truth clearly and firmly, and the elders and co-workers among us have also been increasingly equipped in life. These two matters are truly the most precious aspects of our inheritance, and you should pay attention to them. However, you may have learned the truth and grown in life, but if the standard of your conduct and work is low and if your character is still loose, then your service in the church will surely be ineffective.
For example, consider a scholar. A scholar may be very knowledgeable, but if while he is teaching, he wears shabby clothes and his character is very sloppy, then he will not produce good students. He must have a proper character in his conduct and work. An ancient Chinese sage once said that in order to govern a nation, one must first be able to manage his own family, and in order to manage one’s own family, one must first be able to cultivate himself. You must first perfect your character, be regular in your living and activities, and maintain a clean and elegant environment. Only then will it be possible for you to succeed in your career. Therefore, we have to treasure the life and the truth in the recovery, but we cannot continue to be loose in our character.
We all need to realize that the age we are in is an age of aggressive competition. There is competition among countries, among people, and among different occupations and businesses. There is competition everywhere. American professors have a motto that says, “Publish or perish.” In other words, if you are a professor and do not produce any articles for publication within a certain amount of time, you will be eliminated. I hope that you would all be stirred up to repent of your loose character and to make a change in your character.
I am not criticizing you for being lazy, but I suspect that you have been affected by tradition. You are proud and contented and not humble or diligent enough. This has caused other Christian groups to surpass us. There is a group in Korea, for example, that started in 1958 with only three couples meeting together. At that time, we already had thousands of saints in Taipei. Yet today that group has a few hundred thousand members in Seoul alone, while we are contented and satisfied with our situation and remain behind our closed doors.
For all of the reasons that I have given above, I feel that the training in the past was a big failure. If I had more time and energy, I would use five or six months to train you day after day as I did thirty years ago. However, this time we have only three months. The truths in the recovery will always remain with us, and life will be a matter that we will always need. For the past sixty years, these two items have been the precious inheritance of those in the Lord’s recovery. Therefore, we must guard them securely. However, we must also remember that in everything we do, we will either keep progressing or fall behind. If we continue to be at ease, content, and loose, then those behind us will catch up to us and leave us far behind.
I hope the fellowship that I am giving you would not go in one ear and out the other. If you do not pay attention to your character from the very beginning, then everything that you learn regarding the full-time service will be worthless. I am here because when I was young, I realized and concluded that serving the Lord full time was the highest and best way to live the human life. For this, I risked and offered up my entire life. Although I have flaws and shortcomings, by the Lord’s mercy, I have been faithful to my consecration and to this day am still striving to be faithful. I rise up every morning at 5:45 and get washed up. Then I start to work. This morning, before you got up, I was already reading manuscripts and writing letters. In my collection of books, I have a great number of dictionaries, which I use frequently. Not only so, when better dictionaries or concordances are published, I buy them immediately, whether they are in Chinese, English, or Greek. I hope that you would learn from me in all these matters and not only be diligent but exceptionally diligent.
Second Timothy mentions three important matters: pursuing the truth, growing in life, and being diligent. You cannot read these things and then quickly disregard them. Paul told Timothy, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman, cutting straight the word of the truth” (2:15). Cutting straight the word of the truth cannot be accomplished by casually reading the Bible. Rather, you need to study the truth in depth. For example, a surgeon needs to develop good surgical skills in order to be a good surgeon. He needs to study the human body in depth and to practice doing surgery many times. In the same way, if you are going to cut straight the word of the truth, you need to spend time and energy to get into the truth. This cannot be accomplished in one or two days.