THE UNIQUE WORK IN GOD’S ECONOMY
Message One
The Unique Work in God’s Economy
Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 3:6-9, 12; 15:58; 16:10; Eph. 4:11-12; Matt. 16:18; Gal. 4:19; 2 Cor. 3:8; Eph. 3:16-21; 4:12, 16
I. God’s economy is centered on one thing—God’s unique work; throughout the ages God has only one work, and that is to work Himself into man for the eternal, corporate expression of Himself—1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10; Gal. 4:19; Rev. 21:10-11:
A. God’s central work, His unique work, is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen people, making Himself one with them for the Body of Christ—Gal. 4:19; Eph. 3:17a; 4:16.
B. God’s desire mainly is not to do something for us but to work Himself into our whole being—Eph. 3:17:
1. God’s purpose is to work Himself into us, making Himself in His Divine Trinity our inward elements; this purpose is the center of the universe, and apart from this purpose the Christian life is meaningless—Rev. 4:11.
2. The principle in God’s work is to gain persons and by gaining them to have a way to go on; the right priority is not for us to work for God but for God to work Himself into us—Eph. 2:10; Phil. 2:13.
3. Therefore, we should not be merely the Lord’s workers but the Lord’s work—Eph. 2:10.
C. God’s eternal economy is to gain a group of people that He may dispense Himself into them to be their life and everything so that they may be joined to Him as one, be filled and occupied with Him, and be one entity with Him on the earth to be the Body of Christ, the church, for His expression—Eph. 1:3-23.
II. The unique work in the Lord’s recovery is a work in the divine stream; the source of the flow is the throne of God and of the Lamb—Gen. 2:8-10; Rev. 22:1:
A. In the Scriptures there is only one flow, only one divine stream; the divine stream, which has been flowing throughout the generations, is uniquely one—Gen. 2:10-14; Rev. 22:1.
B. The divine stream, the unique flow, is a stream of fellowship; the fellowship of the Body of Christ is the stream of the divine life; wherever the stream of life flows, there is the fellowship of the Body of Christ—Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3; 1 Cor. 10:16.
C. The divine stream, the unique flow, is the stream of the Lord’s work; where the stream flows, there is the work of God—1 Cor. 16:10.
D. The book of Acts shows us the divine stream, the unique flow; in the move of the Lord there is only one stream, and we need to keep ourselves in this one stream, the unique flow—Gen. 2:8-12; Rev. 22:1-2; Acts 2:33; cf. 15:35-41.
III. The unique work in the Lord’s recovery is to work out the New Jerusalem—the ultimate goal of God’s economy—Rev. 21:10-11:
A. The degradation of the church is mainly due to the fact that nearly all Christian workers are distracted to take something other than the New Jerusalem as their goal; we should do only one work, which is to make God’s chosen people beings in the New Jerusalem—Rev. 3:12.
B. Today our work for the Lord with its issue should be governed and directed by the vision of the New Jerusalem; what is unveiled in the description of this unique city should be the model of what we are and how we work—Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 9-23.
C. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of the organic building up of the Body of Christ in the local churches; the local churches are the procedure for God to accomplish the building up of the Body of Christ for the building of the New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13; Rev. 21:2.
IV. The intrinsic element of our work is that we minister the building and builded God into others for the building up of the Body of Christ—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 3:17a; 4:4, 12, 16:
A. The goal of our work should be to minister the building and builded God into others; we need to pray that the Lord will teach us to work in the way of ministering the processed and consummated Triune God into others—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:22; 3:17a; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 3:9-10, 12.
B. As we endeavor to carry out the God-ordained way in the four steps of begetting, nourishing, perfecting, and building, our work must be based upon the processed and consummated Triune God, who is building Himself into His redeemed people and building them into Him—Acts 8:4; Eph. 4:12; 1 Cor. 14:1, 3-4, 12, 31.
C. In every aspect of our work—preaching the gospel, feeding the believers, establishing churches, and perfecting the saints—the intrinsic element must be that we minister the building and builded God into others—Matt. 16:18; 24:45; Eph. 3:17a; 4:12.
D. God is building Himself into His redeemed people in order to produce a house—the church, the Body of Christ, the enlargement of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God realized as the Spirit—John 14:2, 10,16-17, 20, 23.
E. When we build the church with the processed and consummated Triune God, it is not actually we who are building; rather, God is building through us, using us as a means to dispense and transmit Himself into others—Acts 9:15; Eph. 3:8-9.
F. We all need to see that God’s desire is to work Himself into us and to reconstitute us of Himself and thereby make us His testimony—2 Cor. 5:17, 21; Rev. 1:12, 20.
