GENERAL SUBJECT
THE RECOVERY OF THE CHURCH
Message Five
The Recovery of the Church Life
Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Rev. 22:16; Eph. 2:21-22; 3:16-21; 1 Cor. 1:9
I. Before the Lord Jesus comes back, He will fully recover the proper church life—Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Rev. 1:11; 22:16, 20:
A. Nothing touches the Lord's heart as much as the recovery of the church life.
B. In this present age, before His coming back, the Lord must have the church life to shame His enemy.
C. No matter what Satan does to damage the church, the Lord Jesus will return, and His church will be waiting for Him.
II. The church life is Christ lived out through us in a corporate way—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a; 3:9-10:
A. The church life is a life in which we take Christ as our life and our person— Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:16-17.
B. The Christian life is not a religious life; it is a life that is Christ Himself lived out through us—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a.
C. When we live Christ, He joins us together in oneness, and Christ will be lived out through us in a corporate way—Rom. 12:4-5.
D. Christ Himself is our life, and He is the Spirit within us; the church life is Christ Himself realized as life and as the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us—Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17.
E. The way to practice the church life is to put ourselves and everything on the cross and take Christ as life; then we will be permeated and saturated by Christ and with Christ—Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4.
F. We need to learn to be inward Christians who are being transformed for the practice of the church life—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2-21:
1. The church life is Christ Himself as the Spirit permeating, saturating, and transforming us—1 Cor. 15:45b; Eph. 3:16-17.
2. The church life is a transformed life, not a natural life; it is Christ Himself as the subjective Spirit living within us—Rom. 12:2.
3. The more we are transformed and filled with Christ, the more we will be living, real, and practical members of Christ and realize the genuine church life—Eph. 3:17; 2 Cor. 3:18.
4. If we are transformed, it will be easy for us to be joined, knit, and built up together with others; this is to be built up in the church life—Eph. 2:21-22.
III. The genuine experience of Christ always issues in and requires the church life—1 Cor. 1:2, 9, 30; 2:2, 10; 5:7-8; 10:3-4; 12:12-13, 27:
A. ThemoreweexperienceChrist, themoresomething within requires that we live in the proper church life.
B. When we experience Christ in a genuine and living way, He will require us to get into the church life because the dispensing of Christ into us is for the pro-ducing of the church—Rom. 8:11; 12:2-21.
C. God dispenses Himself into us as everything for the purpose of gaining His corporate expression, which is the church—Eph. 3:16-21.
D. When we take Christ as our life, our person, and our everything, this Christ within us will require the proper church life; in fact, the Christ in us will be-come the church life.
IV. The church life is a life of being headed up under the unique headship of Christ—1:10, 22-23; 4:15-16:
A. God is heading up His chosen ones to be the Body of Christ, with Christ as the Head—1:4, 22-23:
1. The first step in the heading up of all things in Christ is for God to place His sons under the unique headship of Christ—vv. 5, 10.
2. When the church takes the lead to be headed up under the headship of Christ, God has a way to head up all other things—vv. 22-23, 10.
B. In the proper church life we are being headed up in Christ—1 Cor. 11:3:
1. If we do not know what it is to be headed up in Christ, we cannot know the church—Eph. 1:10, 22-23.
2. In thechurch lifeweare taking theleadtobeheadedupinChrist; forthis we need to grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things—4:15-16.
V. Fellowship is the reality of the church life—1 Cor. 1:9; 10:16-17; Acts 2:42; 1John1:3, 7:
A. This fellowship involves not only the oneness between us and the Triune God but also the oneness among all the believers—John 17:21-23; Eph. 4:3.
B. The church is the fellowship, the communion, the co-participation, the mutual enjoyment of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9.
C. Fellowship also implies a mutual f lowing among the believers—1 John 1:3, 7:
1. In the New Testament, fellowship describes the f lowing both between us and the Lord and between us and one another—Phil. 2:1.
2. The flow, the current, that we have in our spiritual fellowship involves both oneness and life; our fellowship is a f low of oneness.
3. This fellowship, this mutual flowing, is the reality of the church life—1 Cor. 1:9, 2.
VI. The church life is the continuation of the divine glorification—the con-tinuation of Christ being glorified by the Father with the divine glory— John 12:23-24; 13:31-32; 17:1, 5, 22; Acts 3:13:
A. Glory is the expression of the divine life and the divine nature—7:2; Eph. 1:17:
1. If we live by the divine life and nature, we will express the divine glory— 4:18; 2 Pet. 1:4.
2. Themorewelivebythe divine lifeand thedivinenature, themoredivine glory there will be in the church—Eph. 3:21.
3. The expression of this glory is the glorification of the Lord Jesus.
B. The divine glorification began with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and it is continuing today—Luke 24:26; Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:21.
C. The church has been produced in this glorification, and it continues to grow in the divine glorification—John 14:2; 15:1, 4-5; 16:21.
D. Whatever the church does in the matter of fruit-bearing is a continuation of the divine glorification—15:8.
VII. The church life is the corporate expression of Christ—Eph. 3:16-21; 4:16; 5:27:
A. The key to the church life as the expression of Christ is the spirit of the mind— 4:23:
1. If we live according to the spirit of the mind, there will be in the church life an expression of the divine character—v. 24; Col. 3:10.
2. We will be a corporate people with the flavor of Christ and the expression of God.
B. In our virtues of lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, and love, there should be the expression of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God—Eph. 4:2-6.
C. The church life must be filled with the aroma and flavor of Christ and with the character of God; such a living is the living of the Triune God through our humanity—Phil. 1:20-21a.
D. For centuries the Lord has been longing for such a church life—Eph. 1:5, 9:
1. We pray that before long this kind of church life will be fully practiced among us in the Lord's recovery—Col. 1:9; 4:12; Matt. 6:10.
2. May the Lord be satisfied by seeing such an expression of Himself through the recovery of the genuine church life throughout the earth.