Baguio City, Blending Hall— A training for
the elders, responsible ones, and serving ones was
held for the per-fecting of the leading brothers
and sisters unto the building up of the Body of
Christ. The eight messages spoken by brothers Lin
Hong, Paul Wu, and Abraham Hsu were on Taking the
Shepherding Way to Preach the Gospel and Revive
the Church. From April 7 to 9, 2006, the Lord revealed
His heart’s desire to 1,302 serving saints
of Regions I-VI to shepherd the flock of God. Today,
there is an urgent need for shepherding. Every believer
needs the cherishing in humanity and nourishing
in divinity. Through this the Body of Christ will
be built up and the Lord’s second coming will
be hastened.
Message 1 entitiled Living a Shepherding Life for
the Building Up of the Church speaks of the commission
given by the Lord to Peter in John 21. This chapter
is the completion and consummation of the Gospel
of John, the book of life, which is also a book
of shepherding. To recognize the Gospel of John
as a book of shepherding is to know it intrinsi-cally.
After the Lord Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into
His disciples in chapter 20, in the following chapter
He com-missioned Peter to feed His lambs, shepherd
His sheep, and feed His sheep. Before we could shepherd
God’s flock, we need to be shepherded first
by Christ, receive the commission, and minister
Christ in love and intimate concern. The degree
to which the Lord has shepherded us also is the
degree to which we can shepherd others.
Christ has shown us the ideal way of shepherding.
He came to be our life by cherishing and nourishing
us. To cher-ish people is to make them happy, pleasant,
and comfortable. To nourish people is to feed them
with the all-inclusive Christ. This is what Christ
did to shepherd Nathanael (John 1:45-51), the immoral
Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well (4:3-14),
and the adulterous woman (8:3-11). He cherishes
and nourishes the seeking, thirsty, and sinful people
and brings them to the experience of the Triune
God.
We as shepherds of God’s flock, should have
no confidence in our natural strength and ability.
Luke 21:33 shows us that Peter was very confident,
saying he will follow the Lord both to prison and
death. But the Lord tested him and showed him that
he was undependable and untrustworthy, as he thrice
denied the Lord. As a result, Peter shepherded the
church in humility, not by his own strength but
by the Lord’s. This shows us that God allows
us to experience fail-ures in order to break our
natural man. By trials in life we would know that
only in Him can we depend and trust.
Message 2 and 3 on Shepherding the Flock of God
show us that God pays more attention to the person
than to what the person can do. He is not after
our work but our person. In the eyes of God our
person is exceedingly important. Paul was greatly
used by God in shepherding His flock because his
person was right. According to Matthew 7:17 a corrupt
tree produces bad fruit, but a good tree produces
good fruit. Thus, our fruit reflects what sort of
person we are. Our person cannot be right if our
heart is wrong. Our heart is right if it is for
God. We need the Lord to touch and turn our heart
to Him.
Shepherding is not organizational. Rather, it is
organic and of life. Through pursuing the Lord and
coming to His word, the believers will be brought
to maturity in life. Paul charged the elders in
Ephesus to watch and take heed to themselves and
to all the flock. Holding to the faithful word and
not swerving from the healthy teachings of the apostles
will guard the flock from the fierce wolves from
without and from perverted teachings of dissenting
ones from within.
Message 4 was entitled The Elders Being Slaves
to the Saints to Take Care of Them in Everything
and in Every Way for the Dis-pensing of Christ into
Them. The church is so valuable to God that He bought
it with His precious blood. Furthermore, the churches
are God’s possession, which He entrusted to
the elders. Hence, the elders should love the church
as God does and serve as slaves just as the Lord
Jesus did. Elders need to have the spirit of a slave,
the love of a slave, the obedience of a slave, the
life of a slave. Just as the high priests in the
Old Testament wore a breastplate for God’s
people inside the Holy of holies where God was,
the elders must also bring the saints to God in
love. This love is not natural, but divine which
issues forth from an enlarged heart after being
fully reconciled to God.
Message 5 was about Being Fully Reconciled to God
to be Enlarged in Our Heart for Shepherding. Reconciliation
is not merely sinners being brought back to God.
It is to be brought absolutely into God. Christ’s
redemption does not only bring us back to God but
also into God. Objectively, the Lord has born all
our sins in His death. However for us to fully enjoy
the complete salvation, we need to apply the subjective
aspect of the death of Christ in our daily life.
To be fully reconciled to God will cause our heart
to be enlarged for shepherding. An enlarged heart
is able to ac-cept all kinds of people. Wisdom comes
from an enlarged heart. Solomon had unsurpassed
wisdom because he had such a heart (1 Kings 4:20,
29). We need to distinguish between the narrow heart
and the large heart. Pride is indicative of the
narrowness of heart. A narrow heart does not forgive
the other party unless and until he repents, cares
only for his own things, for individual spirituality,
for certain believers and churches, for the local
church more than the Body of Christ, and for his
own work. In contrast, an enlarged heart has the
loving and forgiving heart of the Father, cares
for the things of Christ Jesus, for the church,
for all believers and churches, more for the Body
of Christ than the local church, and for building
up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.
Message 6 spoke of The Urgent Need to Deal with
Our Disposition. Every person has a particular and
peculiar makeup by birth called disposition. In
the Bible the word disposition is rendered as the
soul-life, the self, the “I”, the old
man, and naturalness. Our usefulness in the Lord
depends on how much our disposition is dealt with.
Disposition damages our church life the most and
hinders us the most from growing in life. Praise
the Lord for providing a solution to our problem
of disposition— the cross. The cross applied
in our church life, fruit-bearing, and shepherding
kills our natural disposition.
Messages 7 and 8 were on The Elders’ Shepherding
One Another, Loving One Another, and Coordinating
One Another to Be a Model of the Body Life. Elders
must honor the relationship between the Head, and
the Body. They must obey the authority of the Head,
live in the divine fellowship to receive the life
supply to be able to supply life to the Body. Elders
must love one another. Their wives and children
must love one another as well. The Lord Jesus showed
the pattern in John 13, lowering Himself to serve
and wash the disciples’ feet in love. He loved
the disciples to the uttermost and He charged them
to do the same thing. In serving the saints, elders
must lay aside the outer garments and be girded,
that is, to put off the self and be bound and restricted
with humility.
Finally, elders must be the model and example of
coordination in the church. Ezekiel 1 shows a brilliant
picture of the coordination of the four living creatures
for the Lord’s expression, move and administration.
When one creature goes forward, the other three
creatures follow without any need to make a turn.
The other creatures follow by moving backwards or
sideways. The elders must learn to walk backwards
or sideways to coordinate with others. This is to
say AMEN to one another.
Although the recent training was held for elders,
responsible ones, and serving ones, the burden is
still for every saint in the Lord’s recovery.
Hence, the messages released would be echoed to
the provinces and localities through spe-cial conferences.
Every believer must pass three tests: the church
life, begetting newborn babes, and shepherding.
We must ask ourselves the following questions: Are
we one with all the believers? Do we fellowship
with one another in the divine life? Do we love
one another? Do we bear fruit at least once a year?
Do our fruits remain? Do we feed the lambs and shepherd
the sheep? Do we visit new believers? The answers
to these questions would determine how much we’ve
grown in life. These are serious questions on serious
matters requiring serious answers. Perhaps, most
of us, like Peter, have numerous failures. But thank
the Lord that He always gives us a fresh start.
We must forget the failures of the past and say
“Amen, Lord!” The church needs a revival
and for this we must take the way of organic shepherding.
Together with all the saints we declare year 2006
as the Year of Organic Shepherding. Hallelujah!
Hans Uy
Eratosthenes Polito
Church in Iligan City
