BEING A VESSEL UNTO HONOR, A FULLY EQUIPPED MAN OF GOD, BY BEING EMPOWERED IN THE GRACE WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS TO FULLY ACCOMPLISH OUR MINISTRY IN THE UNIQUE MINISTRY OF GOD'S ECONOMY
Message Seven
The Lord Being with Our Spirit to Be Our Empowering Grace, Enabling Us to Minister the Healthy Teaching of God's Eternal Economy, Speaking with Healthy Words of the Grace of Life for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ
Scripture Reading: 2 Tim. 1:13-14; 2:1; 4:22; 1 Tim. 1:10; 6:3; 2 Cor. 1:12; 12:9; Rev. 22:21
I. The Lord is with our spirit that we may enjoy Him as our empowering grace, which enables us to minister the healthy teaching of God's eternal economy, speaking with healthy words of the grace of life for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ—2 Tim. 1:13-14; 2:1; 4:22; 1 Tim. 1:3-4, 10; 6:3; 2 Cor. 1:12; 12:9; Eph. 4:16; Rev. 22:21:
A. Second Timothy begins with our God-given spirit fanned into flame and ends with the Lord being with our spirit to be our empowering grace as the unsearchably rich capital of our Christian life and church life—1:6-7; 4:22; Eph. 2:7; 3:8.
B. Second Timothy begins with the wonderful Christ as our saving grace, continues with Him as our empowering grace, and ends with Him as our ever-present grace—1:9-10; 2:1; 4:22.
II. "The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45), "the Lord is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17), "the Lord be with your spirit" (2 Tim. 4:22), and "he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17):
A. The Lord as the Spirit with our spirit, the two spirits mingled together as one spirit, is the key to the spiritual fellowship of the regenerated tripartite believers with the consummated Triune God—Rom. 8:16; John 4:24; Rom. 1:9.
B. The Lord as the Spirit with our spirit, the two spirits working together as one spirit, is the skillfulness, the secret, of all the aspects of God's organic salvation—8:16; John 3:6; Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; 2 Cor. 3:17-18.
III. Grace is the circulating Triune God working, flowing, communicating, transporting, transmitting, and dispensing all that He is into us for our enjoyment; the entire church life depends on grace as the circulation of the Divine Trinity within us—13:14; 1 Pet. 5:10; cf. Heb. 12:28a:
A. The first case of grace in the New Testament is the case of God's incarnation— John 1:14, 16-17:
1. Mary was graced by God and found grace with God because He came to visit her, and He entered into her and stayed in her to be the very essence of her conceiving a wonderful person, who would be both God and man, a Godman—Luke 1:28, 30, 35; Matt. 1:18, 20.
2. In this principle, grace is God's visitation to stay in us, to be born in us, to be one with us, and even to become us—Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19; Phil. 1:21a.
B. Grace is the wonderful Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God in three aspects: what He is, what He gives, and what He does on our behalf for our enjoyment; Christ can be everything to us as grace because He has been processed and consummated to be the life-giving Spirit indwelling our spirit—Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; Philem. 25:
1. Grace is the wonderful Christ in what He is—John 1:14, 17; 8:58; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:10; cf. Gal. 2:20.
2. Grace is the wonderful Christ given to us, dispensed into us, super abounding with faith and love in Christ Jesus—1 Tim. 1:14:
a. If we are short of something, this shortage is our opportunity to be supplied with more of Christ as grace to meet our timely need for our growth in Him—Heb. 4:16; Rom. 5:17; 2 Cor. 12:7-9; 1 Pet. 5:5.
b. When we cannot do anything, when we are notable to move, and when we have no strength,that is the time to trust in and enjoy the supply of God as grace—S. S. 8:5-6; Heb. 11:21; Gen. 47:29, 31.
3. Grace is the wonderful Christ doing everything in us on our behalf:
a. Grace is Christ as our burden-bearer—1 Cor. 15:10, 58; 2 Cor. 12:9; Phil. 4:6-7; Isa. 9:6.
b. Those who wait on the eternal God (who stop themselves with their living, doing, and activity, and receive God in Christ as their life, person, and replacement) will experience the resurrection power of Christ as grace to support, sustain, strengthen, cover, and protect them—2 Cor. 12:9; Isa. 40:31; Ezek. 1:8; Psa. 17:8; 57:1; 63:7; 91:4.
c. We need to be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 2:1) to be good stewards of the varied grace of God (1 Pet. 4:10; Eph. 3:2; 4:29) as teachers (2 Tim. 2:2), soldiers (vv. 3-4), contenders (v. 5), farmers (v. 6), workmen (v. 15), and vessels unto honor (v. 21).
IV. In order to be preserved in the Lord's recovery, we must guard the good deposit of the Lord's healthy words through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us:
A. Second Timothy 1:13-14 reveals that the deposit must refer to the deposit of the healthy words of God's economy, including the riches of life in the Lord's words, which He has stored in us; we have to deposit the Lord's healthy words into our being, like we deposit money in a bank—1 Tim. 6:20; Col. 3:16; Psa. 119:72.
B. To hold a pattern of the healthy words means to live by the healthy words, being nourished with the words of the full gospel concerning God's New Testament economy and the sweet words that contain and convey the riches of Christ—2 Tim. 1:13; 1 Tim. 4:6.
C. If we are persons acting, behaving, and having our life in the Spirit through the exercise of our spirit, all that has been deposited in our being will be guarded through the Spirit who is indwelling us—2 Tim. 1:12, 14; Acts 5:20.
V. In order to minister the healthy teaching of God's eternal economy, we must speak with healthy words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 6:3), which are words of life (John 6:63; Acts 5:20), words of the grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7):
A. The grace of life is God as life and life supply to us in His Trinity—the Father as the source of life, the Son as the course of life, and the Spirit as the flow of life, who flows within us, with the Son and the Father, as grace to us—v. 7; 1 John 5:11-12; John 7:38-39; Rev. 22:1.
B. "All bore witness to Him and marveled at the words of grace proceeding out of His mouth"—Luke 4:22.
C. "My heart overflows with a good matter; / I speak what I have composed concerning the King. / My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. / You are fairer than the sons of men; / Grace is poured upon Your lips; / Therefore God has blessed You forever"—Psa. 45:1-2.
D. "The stewardship of the grace of God…was given to me for you"—Eph. 3:2.
E. "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear"— 4:29.
F. "Each one, as he has received a gift, ministering it among yourselves as good stewards of the varied grace of God"—1 Pet. 4:10.
G. We need to treasure up God's words of grace in our heart (Psa. 119:11), for out of the abundance of the good treasure of our heart, our mouth speaks the good things of God's eternal economy (Matt. 12:34b-35).
VI. "Our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you"—2 Cor. 1:12:
A. To conduct ourselves in the singleness of God, the simplicity of God, means that we do not base our confidence on ourselves or on our natural human ability to workout a solution to our difficult situation; to conduct ourselves in the sincerity of God is to be in the grace of God.
B. Grace is God for our enjoyment, and we need to continually receive this grace, even grace upon grace, for our experience of resurrection in our sufferings—John 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9; Rom. 5:17.
VII. The grace of the Lord Jesus must be with each one of us in every aspect of our daily life because we are saints; this grace consummates in the New Jerusalem as the consummation of God's good pleasure in joining and mingling Himself with man for His glorious enlargement and eternal expression—Rev. 22:21.