8 Lessons We Can Learn from the Church in China
4th Lesson: Total Obedience to the Bible
Tract by Asia Outreach
Isaiah, in prophesying about the Servant of the Lord, described Jesus as one willing to learn: “He wakens… my ear to listen like one being taught.” (Is. 50:4)
Very often, as far as going to church and listening to sermons is concerned, we have become critics.
“That wasn’t a bad sermon today, dear, was it?”
Where are our learners’ hearts and ears? I remember I once preached to about 70 young people from several house churches in a remote region of northwestern China. To start, I took about three hours and preached on the ‘Lord’s Prayer.’ The young people were squatting and sitting all over the mud floor, or leaning against the wall of that little hut. They were not just listening. They were writing down every word I spoke.
After I finished, the house church leader gave me some tea, saying, “Please have some tea. And then you can preach to us again.” Now that was after three hours of solid preaching! I took my tea and I preached for another four hours. All this time these young people were taking down notes, and echoing, “Amen, amen.” Finally I sat down, totally exhausted.
The house church leader said, “Now let us sing.” So they began to sing. And I was shocked as I listened to them singing. The first few sentences went like this:
“Don’t listen to sermons, don’t listen to sermons. We will not listen to sermons…”
Now after almost seven hours of listening to sermons, they sang, “Don’t listen to sermons!”
Then they gave the answer. Clenching their fists, they sang, “We will live out the sermons!”
Amen! Sermons are not to be listened to, they are to be lived out. Sermons are to be internalized and then externalized. China’s Christians are doing just that.
