2016 Thanksgiving Weekend Conference THE DIRECTION OF THE LORD’S MOVE TODAY

Message One The Intrinsic Building Up of the Organic Body of Christ (1) Governed by a Vision of the Universal Body of Christ as the Goal of God’s Economy

Hymns: E1226, 824

Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 3:19; 4:10, 12, 16; Col. 2:19; 3:15; Rev. 21:10

Outline

I. The direction of the Lord’s move today is to build up the organic Body of Christ as the organism of the processed and dispensing God in His Divine Trinity for His full expression—Eph. 4:12, 16:

A. This organic Body is full of Christ Himself and is built up with Himself as the life-giving Spirit, who is the essence and reality of the Body of Christ— Col. 3:11; Eph. 4:4.

B. Such a Body becomes the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God, who is dispensing Himself in His Divine Trinity to saturate the Body of Christ organically so that it might be His full expression in the universe—John 15:1, 5, 8a; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:19.

II. The Body of Christ is a divine constitution of the Triune God with the believers in Christ—4:4-6:

A. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and man are blended and built together to become the Body of Christ—1:23; 4:12, 16.

B. The building up of the Body is the constitution of the Triune God and the tripartite man in the Spirit of God and the spirit of man—1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 8:16:

1. This constitution is the union, mingling, and incorporation of God and man—John 14:20.

2. Such a constitution is a matter of divinity constituted into humanity to be man’s dwelling place and of humanity built into divinity to be God’s dwelling place—Eph. 3:16-17; 2:21-22; John 14:23; Rev. 21:2-3, 22.

C. The Body of Christ is an organism, both divine and human, to express Christ—John 15:1; Eph. 1:23; 3:19-21.

III. God’s economy is to produce a Body for His Son; this Body fulfills God’s desire for His expression and the destruction of Satan—Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4, 16; Col. 1:18; 2:19; Gen. 1:26-28:

A. The work of the Triune God in us is to produce and build up the Body of Christ—Eph. 3:16-21; Rom. 8:11; 12:4-5.

B. The ministry of the new covenant is for the producing of the Body of Christ; without the new covenant ministry, there is no possibility to bring forth the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:12-27; 2 Cor. 3:6, 8-9; 4:1; 5:18.

C. The Body is the intrinsic significance of the church; without the Body, the church makes no sense and has no meaning—Rom. 12:4-5; 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13, 27.

D. All the problems in the church today are due to ignorance concerning the Body; the biggest problem, the unique problem, is not knowing the Body, not caring for the Body, and not honoring the Body—Eph. 1:17-23; 1 Cor. 12:24-27.

E. To know the Body is the proper recovery of the Lord; the Lord desires to recover the Body of Christ and the oneness of the Body—Eph. 1:23; 4:4.

F. The Lord has an urgent need on earth; He desires that the reality of the Body of Christ will be expressed in the local churches—Rom. 12:4-5; 16:16; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27:

1. What the Lord wants today is not only the churches on the ground of locality—one locality, one church—but also the Body in its fullness—Eph. 1:23; 3:19.

2. Unless there is a substantial expression of the Body, the Lord Jesus will not return—1:23; 4:16; 5:27, 30; Rev. 19:7.

IV. The Body is the governing law of the life and work of the children of God—Eph. 4:4, 16; 1 Cor. 12:4-6, 12-13, 27:

A. The church, the ministry, and the work are all on the ground of the Body—Eph. 1:23; 4:16; Col. 3:15:

1. The churches are the Body expressed locally, the ministry is the Body in function, and the work is the Body seeking increase—Acts 13:1-2; 21:19.

2. The church is the life of the Body in miniature, the ministry is the functioning of the Body in service, and the work is the reaching out of the Body in growth—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27; 16:10; 2 Cor. 3:6.

B. The church, the ministry, and the work derive their existence from, find their place in, and work for the good of the Body—Rom. 12:4-5; Col. 2:19; 3:15:

1. The importance of this principle cannot be overemphasized, for without it everything is man-made, not God-created.

2. If this principle of relatedness to the Body and interrelatedness among its members is not recognized, there can be no church, no ministry, and no work.

V. The Lord’s recovery is based upon the truth that Christ has only one Body—Eph. 1:23; 4:4:

A. The one Body is the one church of God, manifested in many localities as local churches—1 Cor. 10:32b; Rev. 1:4, 11.

B. The Lord’s recovery is for the building up of the Body of Christ; the recovery is for the Body, not for any individual or merely for any individual local church—Eph. 4:16; Col. 2:19.

C. In our consideration the Body should be first, and the local churches should be second—Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Eph. 2:21-22.

D. The Body of Christ is the goal of God’s economy, and the local churches are the procedure God takes to reach the goal of His economy—1 Cor. 12:12-13; 1:2; Rom. 12:4-5; 16:1, 4-5, 16b.

E. All the local churches are the unique Body of Christ in the universe—Eph. 4:4:

1. Every local church is part of the unique, universal Body of Christ, a local expression of the Body—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27.

2. Universally, all the local churches are one Body, and locally, every local church is a local expression of the universal Body—Rom. 12:4-5; 16:1, 16.

3. The universal Christ has part of Himself in every local church; every local church is a part of Christ, and all these parts constitute the Body—Eph. 1:23; 2:21-22.

VI. We need to be universal Christians with a universal view of the universal Body of Christ—1:17-23; 4:16; Rev. 21:10:

A. The Body of Christ is the mystical Body of the universal, all-inclusive, allextensive Christ—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19; Col. 3:11:

1. Christ, the Head, ascended far above all the heavens, and we are the mystical Body, the fullness, of this Christ—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19; 4:10.

2. The Body is the fullness, the expression, of the Christ who fills all things—1:22-23; 4:10:

a. Christ is the Head over all things to the church, the church is the Body of this universal Christ, and the Body of this universal Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all—1:23.

b. Christ Himself is universally vast, universally extensive, and the Body is the fullness of this universally vast and extensive Christ; this means that the Body also is universal—3:18-19; 4:16.

c. Ephesians 4:10 says, “He who descended, He is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things”: (1) All things must surely include the entire universe. (2) The result of Christ’s descending and ascending is that He fills all things, the whole universe.

B. A universal Christian is one who has the universal view presented in Ephesians—1:22-23 and 4:10:

1. Although we may have a view of the Body, our view may be very small compared to a universal view of the Body of Christ—1:23.

2. We need to get out of our small, narrow self and be in an ecstasy, seeing and touching the universal Body of Christ—the fullness, the expression, of the universal, unlimited Christ—3:19.

3. We need to be overwhelmed by the vision of the immensity of the universal Body of Christ—Rev. 21:10:

a. Like John, who was carried away in spirit onto a high mountain to see the New Jerusalem, we need to be carried away in spirit to a “high mountain” to have a universal view of the universal Body of Christ—v. 10; Eph. 1:22-23.

b. In our spirit we need to have a view of the universal Body, which is infinitely greater than anything that has ever entered into our mind concerning the Body of Christ—vv. 17-23; Rev. 21:10.

4. The goal of God’s economy is to build up the universal Body of Christ, and it is such a universal Body that will consummate