Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 2:21; Matt. 14:19, 22-23; 24:45-51; John 10:30; 5:19, 30; 7:18; 14:30b
I. God needs a corporate people to be raised up by His grace through the high peak of the divine revelation to live a life according to this revelation:
A. A revival is the practice, the practicality, of the vision we have seen.
B. If we practice living the life of a God-man, which is the reality of the Body of Christ, spontaneously a corporate model will be built up, a model living in the economy of God; this model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church to bring the Lord back.
II. The disciples of Christ (Matt. 5:1; 28:19) were discipled through Christ's human living on the earth, as the model of a God-man, through His living God by denying Himself in humanity (John 5:19, 30); this revolutionized their concept concerning man (Phil. 3:10; 1:21a):
A. Our life should be a copy, a reproduction, of the model of the life of Christ, the first God-man—1 Pet. 2:21; Matt. 11:28-29; Eph. 4:20-21; John 10:30; 5:19, 30; 7:6, 8, 18.
B. The Spirit of life and reality who was breathed into the disciples would guide them into the reality of what they had observed of the Lord when they were with Him for three and a half years—16:13; 20:22:
1. At the commencement of the first God-man's ministry, He was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, recognizing that according to His flesh (His humanity—1:14; Rom. 1:3; 8:3), He was good for nothing but death and burial—Matt. 3:15-17.
2. He trained His disciples to learn from Him (11:29) in the miracle of feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish:
a. His looking up to heaven to bless the five loaves and the two fish (14:19) indicates His realizing that the source of blessing was not Him, the sent One, but the Father, the sending One.
b. He did not remain in the issue of the miracle with the crowds but went away from them to be with the Father on the mountain in prayer—vv. 22-23; Luke 6:12; cf. S. S. 1:1-4.
3. He taught His disciples to pray to execute God's will for His economy, having faith in God without doubting—Matt. 21:21-22; Mark 11:22-24.
4. He lived a life of contacting God (1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; Heb. 7:25), living in the presence of God without ceasing (Acts 10:38c; John 8:29; 16:32), and of contacting people, ministering God into them to bring them into the jubilee of God's New Testament economy (Luke 4:18-19; Heb. 8:2; cf. Gen. 14:18; Acts 6:4).
5. He was a man in whom Satan, the ruler of the world, had nothing (no ground, no chance, no hope, no possibility in anything)—John 14:30b.
C. We are also discipled to live a God-man life by observing the intrinsic pattern of Christ's sent ones, His slaves, who are His duplication; ("I was in the recovery observing how Brother Watchman Nee acted for eighteen years. All that I observed in him became things discipling me"—The Vital Groups, p. 18)—1 Cor. 4:17; Heb. 13:7; Phil. 3:17; 1 Tim. 4:12.
D. The only way to live the life of a God-man according to the Lord's model is to set our entire being on the mingled spirit, walking, living, and having our being according to the mingled spirit—Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 16; 1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 10:12; Eph. 6:17-18; 1 Thes. 5:16-20; 2 Tim. 1:6.
III. Matthew 24:45-51 reveals that to live the life of a God-man we must be faithful to give God as food to the members of His household so that we may win Christ as our reward in the coming kingdom:
A. God has set faithful and prudent slaves over His household as household administrators, stewards, channels of supply, to give His people food at the proper time—1 Tim. 1:4; Matt. 24:45; 1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; 1 Cor. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:10; Phil. 1:25.
B. To give them food refers to ministering the word of God and Christ as the life supply to the believers in the church; Christ as the life-giving Spirit is our food, embodied and realized in the word of life—Matt. 24:45; John 6:57, 63, 68; Acts 5:20:
1. In order to enjoy the Lord as our spiritual food so that we can feed others, we must pray over and muse on His word, tasting and enjoying it through careful considering—Eph. 6:17-18; Psa. 119:15; Ezek. 3:1-4.
2. We must devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word—Acts 6:4; 2 Cor. 3:6, 8; John 7:37-39; cf. Heb. 7:25; 8:2.
C. To say in our heart that our Master delays is to love the present evil age and not to love the Lord's appearing—Matt. 24:48; 2 Tim. 4:8, 10; cf. Acts 26:16:
1. We must beware of covetousness, not storing up treasure for ourselves but being rich toward God—Luke 12:16-20; 2 Cor. 6:10; Eph. 3:8.
2. "Remember Lot's wife" is a solemn warning to the world-loving believers—Luke 17:31-32; cf. Rom. 1:21, 25.
3. We must be watchful and beseeching so that the day of the Lord's coming would not come upon us suddenly as a snare—Luke 21:34-36; cf. Matt. 2:3.
D. To beat our fellow slaves is to mistreat fellow believers—24:49; Acts 9:4:
1. We must not judge and condemn our fellow believers but be kind to them, tenderhearted, forgiving them, even as God in Christ forgave us—Luke 6:37; Eph. 4:31-32.
2. We must not revile or criticize our brothers but consider them more excellent than ourselves—1 Cor. 6:10; Phil. 2:3, 29.
3. We must not lord it over our fellow believers but serve them as slaves to feed them with the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit—1 Pet. 5:3; Matt. 20:25-28; cf. Num. 17:8.
E. To eat and drink with the drunken is to keep company with worldly people, who are drunk with worldly things—Matt. 24:49; cf. Eph. 5:18:
1. Because of their divine nature and holy standing, the believers should not be yoked together with the unbelievers; this should be applied to all intimate relationships between believers and unbelievers, not only to marriage and business—2 Cor. 6:14; 1 Cor. 15:33; cf. Prov. 13:20.
2. In order to live the life of a God-man, we must flee youthful lusts and pursue the all-inclusive Christ with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart—2 Tim. 2:22.
IV. "We should all declare that we want to live the life of a God-man. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem. This will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age"—Life-study of 1 and 2 Chronicles, p. 28.