Serving the Church of the Living God as the Organic Body of Christ (3)


	Serving the Church of the Living God as the Organic Body of Christ (3) As the Manifestations of the Body of Christ, The Churches Must Do More than Merely Exist: They Must Also Be Filled With Life I. The Local Churches Must Exist If The Body is To Be Physically Manifested When we talk about the church being the organic Body, we need to realize three aspects of the church being this Body. First, we must be impressed that the Body has the physical aspect, found in the local churches. I cannot impress you enough about how crucial the local churches are. For some reason, however, it is easy for many to put the churches aside rather than seeking their establishment and growth. We take care of our physical body because we realize that when it is gone, our physical existence is gone. When we lose our body we will have no more opportunity to grow, be perfected, or to function here. We should have the same feeling about the local church, for without the local church we have no way to be perfected, to function, or to grow in the spiritual life in this age. Apart from the local church, the Christian life becomes an enigma. Giving Conferences Can Damage You and Take You Away From the Real Service There is a brother whom I know who flies to various localities giving conferences quite frequently. About ten years ago I cautioned him against such travel, but he did not understand why. I warned him that one day he would find himself in the airplane with no place to land! His feeling was that all the traveling was good, and that all the conferences he gave were glorious. In a sense, I was jealous, because I am here "imprisoned" in Cleveland, but for some reason I enjoy my imprisonment, for I am in something that keeps me in reality. Those who continually travel giving conferences are tempted to feel they are much greater than they are, for they are often lifted up by the appreciation of others and by the feeling that they are a particular gift to the Body. After a conference, everyone is tempted to compare himself with Paul. Conferences may be a blessing to those who come, but they can also be a corrupting influence to those who give them. There is a hymn that has the line, "Whenever my heart is lifted up, how very near I am to fall, I dare not think, I dare not do, I trust Thyself in great and small." Since this is true, should you be so happy when you receive an invitation to give a conference? I do not deny that we need conferences. Realize, however, that the speakers sacrifice themselves for our enjoyment. And if the speaker does not understand that he is sacrificing himself, he is in even greater danger. Therefore I sometimes check with some of you after you give a conference, "Do you still remember your last name?" Sometimes those who are invited to give conferences find that they no longer know what to do with themselves if they are not flying in an airplane somewhere. When they arrive back home, they look at their calendars, longing to be invited somewhere. The desire to be out giving conferences can become a kind of lust. I also travel, but I simply have no choice. Quite honestly, I hate it. But what can I do? If you are asked, and if the Lord tells you to go, you have to go. But beware of the danger. Those overcome by the lust to travel no longer properly take care of the local saints, because their mind is always on "bigger" things. Brothers, we have to have eyes for our own locality. David wrote in Psalm 131, "O Jehovah, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; nor do I go about in things too great or too wondrous for me." What might be one of the "wondrous" things? The "hurrah" of the saints after the conference. A conference is a butchering ground for those who share, and the saints are often unaware, or else perhaps instead of simply sitting there passively they might participate more to bear some of the burden to speak during the meetings! Are you ready for conferences? Some of you will share, and the Lord will anoint you and give you utterance, for He must do so for the church's sake. You could be a donkey, and He could still anoint you to speak for Him, am I right? As long as you stand before the saints for the sake of His ministry, the Lord has to bless you. So don't be so happy and uplifted, assuming that you were the essential factor in a good conference. The Lord gave you His presence and buoyed you up, but realize it was for the Body, not so much for you. Also, realize that when you begin to travel, you may lose the physical aspect of the organic Body, in which case you will end up in the air, without a place to which you can practically come down to earth. We Should Not View The Local Churches as Stepping Stones to "Greater" Service The organic Body must have its manifestation. If your service dissociates you from your local church, then you know something is wrong. Keep this principle in mind: the local churches are the most crucial aspect regulating our service. But the local churches, sorry to say, have become merely a stepping stone for some. Such brothers are waiting for the day when they will be manifested; they are not caring for their local church for the local church's sake. They labor to make their local situation prevailing so that one day they can get that phone call inviting them to another place to help them. When the invitation comes they may say that they will pray about it, but that prayer is a falsehood. In fact, they may immediately get out their schedule book and simply fill in the available time without any prayer or consideration before the Lord at all. Brothers, do not fall into this kind of endeavoring. It is too easy for us to use the local church merely as a means to become someone in the Lord's recovery. Therefore we must realize that the organic Body is actually the local churches. To us, perhaps, our local church is simply a headache, and its elders are hopeless. It is too easy to gossip and to criticize rather than to truly labor. It is much easier to proclaim that we love the Lord's recovery and the ministry and the "flow" than it is to labor to supply life. Too often I see gifted ones using their church as a stepping stone for their personal advancement, or the less gifted ones using their church to fulfill their lust for gossip. In Order to Serve the Lord, We Must Value the Churches As He Does Do we see the local church as God sees it? He sees it as part of His physical Body, as His expression. It is where He has His operation and His living. Therefore, your living before the Lord must be for your local church. Over my forty-some years in the Lord's recovery I have seen few who are able to pass this test the local church presents. Everyone says they love the Lord, because there is no responsibility involved. Everyone says they love the Body, and thus they feel they are very free. But many just cannot bury themselves in their local church to labor among the saints where they are, for they do not realize that it is the local church that grants them the opportunity to truly grow. II. The Local Churches Must be Full of Life to Express the Church as the Body of Christ We Can Know What is of Life by its Signs and Principles Besides the physical aspect of the organic Body there is also the aspect of life, which is very mysterious. I even asked Brother Lee during the Spirit and the Body training in Cleveland (in 1977?), "Brother Lee, what is life?" He replied, "Oh, it is very hard to say. I will share on this in the meeting." Eventually in the meeting he said, "It is hard to say what life is. You can, however, know that life is present by the signs of life." Life has its signs. For instance, I was unable to "amen," the brother who shared in the situation I mentioned in the previous message, even though his sharing was doctrinally sound. That "amen" is a sign of life. If you want to pay attention to life, you cannot violate the principles of life. For instance, if you cannot properly help the saints to live in the Lord's presence, how can there be life in your local church? Likewise, if you cannot help the saints to deal with immorality or enjoy the Word, how can there be life among you? Life doesn't come from shouting, "Life!" Life comes by exercising according to certain principles. For instance, when I wake up in the morning, if I eat a good breakfast and drink some coffee, my body will begin somewhat to function. I cannot just say to myself, "Wake up! Wake up!" It simply doesn't work. Therefore, if you desire that your local church become a manifestation of the organic Body, you have to be very desperate to labor with your local saints according to these principles. If you go back to your locality and call a few brothers and begin to study a book of the Bible with them, using the footnotes and Life-studies, and exercise to obtain life, your local church will experience more vitality of life. You have to be desperate for this, for without such vitality, quite honestly, the saints in your locality have no real church life. Don't wait for a conference, for a conference will not work. Enjoy the conferences, but you cannot rely upon them to raise the life level in your church. The influence of conferences quickly fades. What is needed is a daily labor with a few others in your locality to generate life. Then the organic Body will be seen in your locality in vitality. III. The Local Churches Must Possess Christ As Their Person and Personality With the organic Body, the third aspect, and the most crucial and inmost aspect, is the aspect of the person of the Body. Christ, that is, His person with His personality, must be with you in your church life. The Biggest Frustration to The Lord's Personality in the Church Life is Our Personality When you talk about Christ as a person, you have to realize that as a person, He has a personality. If we do not see this, we may easily frustrate Christ when we exercise to serve in the church life. We all have a good heart. In fact, it is our desire to see the Lord gain what He is after. For some reason, however, we frustrate the Lord in the church life with our own personality. When you look at a brother or sister, you should feel that each one possesses a lot of potential for the church life, and that they are the hope of the Lord's expression in your locality. Yet, on the other hand, when you look at each brother or sister, you probably realize that there is also something that greatly frustrates the Lord from having the church as His expression in your locality. That very thing is their personality. Something in our person - our personality - doesn't quite match what God desires. Because of our personality, Christ's personality cannot be fully expressed among us. Our personality is the primary reason it is hard for the church as the organic Body to be fully enjoyed by us and fully expressed through us. Each Member of the Body Brings Along A Personality Other Than Christ's We are members of Christ's Body, but we have discovered that when we were transplanted into the Body, we brought our personality along with us. We are not simply impersonal organs. Our personality, however, needs to be subdued and superceded by Christ's personality. Christ must prevail among us. A Testimony of How Christ Can Outgrow Our Personality When I was a young boy, I was somewhat careless and lazy. That was my personality. Once, when a young child in China, I escaped school and just wandered about until I ended up right in a wolf's liar! There weren't any wolves in it at the time, but I still could have been easily killed had not an adult alerted me. That event was due to my aimless personality. Until I was saved, I never applied myself to anything. I never studied. Even though I flipped through the pages of many books, I never really read one. That was my personality. Then one day I became a member of this organic Body. Eventually I realized that I needed to be in a local church, and I also came to realize the need to have the vitality of life. But most of all I realize that I needed the personality of Christ to outgrow my personality. I had been a very relaxed and careless person, but after I came to love the Lord, another kind of personality came in. I realized that I could not go on living according to my own personality anymore. My studying became different. The way I walked and dressed, my deportment, my view of things - everything became different, for another Person's personality had come in. It wasn't simply that I felt happier after I got saved, or that I became excited. Someone Else's personality began to grow in me. I was a third child, which meant I had nothing to struggle for in Chinese society. Yet I became a person who struggled for something. When we are regenerated we receive not only another life, but also another Person. When Christ begins to operate in us, he seeks to replace our self-life with His personality. That is why we become different after we receive Christ. The Person and Personality of Christ Must Become Preeminent in Our Church Life This "becoming different" is most needed for our local church's expression of the organic Body of Christ. Regardless how good or virtuous your personality is, Christ must become preeminent. It is more difficult for those who possess admirable qualities to allow Christ to outgrow their personality. Eventually, however, we all must be able to say, "It is no longer I, but Christ." This statement has nothing to do with sensation; it has altogether to do with person. Without Christ as your person, brothers, you will not be able to handle the church in your locality in a way that produces the organic Body. If We Are Willing, Christ's Person and Personality Break Through In Us Through the Things He Arranges For Us I know you brothers respect me. That is why I can be so frank with you when I work with you. Once a younger sister went to an older sister to open herself to the older one for her help. The older sister replied, "To help others requires that a high price be paid." In other words, to help people you have to pay a price. It is even more so than with raising up your own children, for a parent can rebuke a child, and yet the child will not harbor it in her heart. To try to help a saint in a certain way, however, is a risky matter, for if that saint cannot break through, he or she might become bitter towards the one trying to help or towards the church in general. However brothers, I'd like to say this - I have been with you this many years, and by the Lord's mercy in a certain way you honor me. As I work with you, my biggest concern is regarding your person. Can Christ's personality break through your personality? We Must Have Christ as a Living Lord If Christ cannot break through in you, how can Christ be the person of the church you serve? You might respond to every event among the churches or partake of every opportunity without going to Christ at all. I could even give you an order to carry something out, and perhaps you would follow it simply in the name of oneness! Christ, however, must lead. Christ's must be given His place in the church over every other personality. The church must express Christ as its person. Christ's personality must characterize the church and become the content of the church, and Christ's person must lead the church. If we lack Christ's person and personality, then, honestly speaking, we are just an institution taking part in a movement. We must be responsible to Christ as our living Lord, not to anything or anyone else. In His Person, Christ is Divine, Human and in Resurrection Seven Things that Evaluate Whether We Have the Person of Christ How can we have the person of Christ among us? First of all, when you touch Christ in His Person, you must realize He is the Spirit, He is divine. Second, in His Person, He is human. Third, you see the Person of Christ in His resurrection. Fourth, you have the Person of Christ when you have His operation. Fifth, Christ is in His economy. Sixth, He is in His eternal plan. Finally, Christ today is in His lordship (that is, His administration). The first three have to do with Christ's Person directly, while the last four have to do with Christ's Person in the principles of His operation. The Person of Christ in His divinity is Spirit These are the seven things that must be used to evaluate whether we have the Person of Christ in our church life or not. First and foremost, we must know that we have the Spirit. If the Spirit is absent, then everything becomes doctrinal. Christ must be among us as Spirit in His divinity. If something in the church life is not according to Christ's divinity and does not eventually produce Christ's divinity, then it is not of the Body of Christ. The Person of Christ is also Human The same must be true for Christ's humanity. If something is not according to Christ's humanity and does not eventually produce Christ's humanity, it is not of the Body. Sometimes we are either too divine and not human, or we are too human and no longer divine. This is why we need all of these points to help us know Christ. If a brother ceases to fellowship with us, we should neither be so "divine" as to not care about his absence, nor should be so human as to naturally get involved with his situation. Only Christ's personality can render you such balance. If you have Christ as your Person, you will be able to still love him as your brother, and yet remain so clear and firm about the Lord's testimony and the Lord's recovery. The Person of Christ is in Resurrection We also have to know Christ as the One who is in resurrection. Many of us come late to the Lord's Day meetings. This indicates that we do not have Christ as our Person, for Christ is in resurrection. He is not someone who sleeps in. Christ's Person involves His humanity, divinity, resurrection, His operation in His economy, His operation in His plan, and in His lordship. This is the Body. Do not shout, "We are for the Body," in a shallow way. To be for the Body means that we are for the physical realization and spread of the churches, for the life vitality of the churches, and for the churches to be headed up by Christ as their person. In this Person there is divinity, humanity, resurrection, operation, economy, eternal purpose, and lordship. May the Lord have mercy that we all may know Christ in the local churches in such a way.