Let us first have a word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You that You have granted us this time in the afternoon. Through the meetings, You have already spoken to us through Your servants. We ask that You would continue to speak to us.
Through Your Spirit of wisdom and revelation, help us to understand Your spoken word, and speak Your word into us today.
In the light of Your word, may we find a straight path to follow, so that we may complete what You have already determined in Your eternal will. We commit this time to You. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We thank the Lord that He has given us these few afternoons to share together. The arrangement for the afternoon time is that we will first have a short period of sharing, and then we will ask a brother to share with us some daily lessons from his living.
We hope that the Lord will not only show us something, but that we may hear some words concerning how He works. What is important is that, through the work of the Lord, we may directly see Him.
Just as our brother shared with us this morning, through what the Lord has done, we can show others and manifest to others the invisible God.
The topic for the afternoon is the reign of life. Perhaps this topic is a little unfamiliar to some brothers and sisters. But in fact, its content concerns what we have continued to learn since we were saved by grace.
This afternoon, we are simply returning to the word of God for some systematic sharing. Brothers and sisters, we know that the theme of this year’s conference is conformity to the image of the Son of God.
The topic in this particular afternoon workshop is only an offshoot of the overall theme of the conference. More specifically, we want to see how, in the grace of God’s redemption, He works to conform us to the image of His Son.
This afternoon, we will consider the cause and effect of life reigning within us. Tomorrow afternoon, we will share concerning the practical reality of this life reigning within us. On Saturday afternoon, we will share concerning the results of the lessons of this life reigning within us.
Of course, all these sharings surround the theme that we are to be conformed to the image of the Son of God.
Let us first turn to Romans 5 and read verse 17. This verse brings forth the theme of this afternoon’s topic.
For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ.
Let us also turn to Revelation 5 and read verses 9 and 10.
Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof:
for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth.
Then let us look at Colossians 3:15.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful.
From Romans 5, we can see one thing. In the preceding verses, we are told that through one man’s disobedience all were made sinners, and death reigned.
But then we are told that those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, pay careful attention to this verse. The source of this reigning is the Son of God Himself. He reigns, and through the abundance of His grace He brings His people into the reality that we also reign in life.
When we believed in the Lord and were saved, did we consider that one day we would see the Lord in glory? What will be the final result when all of God’s work upon us is finished?
If I put it simply, the result is this: we shall all reign.
When we consider all the arrangements of God in His salvation, we realize that salvation is not merely for us to receive grace and forgiveness. It is not merely for us to receive life.
The fact is that God’s plan of salvation has been set forth so that we may reign as kings. When we understand this, we realize how great this matter is. How can we receive this? Is it possible for such a result to come forth?
First, I want brothers and sisters to consider the purpose of God’s creation of man. If we do not take notice of God’s purpose in creating man, we will not see the focus of this matter.
I will not go into every detail this afternoon, because we do not have sufficient time. I believe that most brothers and sisters already have some understanding of this, so I will simply point out the main point.
In Genesis 1, God said:
Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
There God proclaimed the purpose of His creation. Man was created according to His image. God’s image is glory; Ezekiel 1 shows us this.
Therefore, to create man according to His image was to give man His glory. God also delegated His authority to man, including authority over the living creatures and the whole earth that He created.
Simply put, the purpose of God’s creation of man was to manifest His glory and to exercise His authority.
This is something we might never have imagined. When the gospel is preached to us, we first realize that we are sinners. If we cannot find the way of salvation, we have no future.
But we thank God that He has prepared salvation. He delivers us from death and brings us into eternity. Yet when we return to God’s original purpose, we see that His arrangement has a far more glorious scope.
The purpose of God’s creation has a direct relation to the conclusion of Revelation. When we see the new heaven and the new earth, we must realize that God’s purpose in creation is being fulfilled.
Let us now consider the fall of man. What was its result? Was it merely that, on the day man ate of the tree, he would surely die?
In our thinking, this is already serious. The wages of sin is death. Because man sinned, he received death as the result.
But when we return to the purpose of God, we see something more clearly: man did not merely receive death. Man also cast away God’s glorious arrangement.
God wanted man to manifest His glory and express His authority. Put together, God wanted man to manifest the reality of reigning as a king.
When man fell before God, he entered into death. But the matter goes deeper: man destroyed the arrangement of God concerning reigning.
Therefore, when we consider how God restores what man destroyed, we must see the work of redemption in its fullness.
What is the work of redemption? It is correct to say that redemption delivers us from sin and death. But if we truly see God’s purpose in creating man, we cannot leave out the matter of reigning as part of God’s restoration.
If we leave that out, then God’s original purpose has not been restored at all. In the grace of God’s redemption, He not only delivers us from the power of sin and death, but He brings us back to His original purpose.
He brings us to be the manifestation of His glory and to express His authority. In this way, His eternal will is accomplished. This is the accurate meaning of God’s redemption.
This morning our brother mentioned something that we must hold firmly and solemnly: God has already given us His glory and His authority. But how can we manifest an accurate representation of this? It is not simply a matter of outward likeness or external manifestation. We must have the inward reality.
That inward reality is the life of God. If we are to manifest God’s glory, we must first have the inward qualification and condition. That condition is the life of God.
God created man with spirit, soul, and body. Current theology may confuse these matters, but we must see what God says.
God used the dust of the earth to form the body of man. Then God breathed into man, and man became a living soul.
Thus, man is spirit, soul, and body. When the Scriptures say, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” we must understand that the consequences of death affected man’s entire being.
God’s salvation deals with all of man’s fall—with spirit, soul, and body. When man’s spirit died, fellowship with God was lost. Salvation restores that fellowship.
When the Lord returns, we shall be raised from the dead and enter into glory. We shall receive immortal bodies and be with the Lord in glory. This is the redemption of the body.
The redemption of our spirit and the redemption of our body are both extremely important. In one sense, both are accomplished in a moment: our spirit is quickened when we receive the Lord, and our body will be changed when the Lord returns.
But what about the soul? In the order of man’s constitution, there is spirit, soul, and body. Between the quickening of our spirit and the redemption of our body lies the salvation of our soul.
Why do we need to speak about the salvation of the soul? Brothers and sisters, this is the area in which God’s work upon us is most extensive. In another sense, this is where we give God the greatest difficulty in His redemption.
The salvation of the soul requires much time and much work. We experience much difficulty in our thoughts, our minds, and our feelings. Why? Because the soul is the faculty by which we live and act.
The spirit, when dead, cannot fellowship with God. The body returns to dust. But the soul is the very faculty through which our daily living proceeds. In man’s fall, this area became extremely complex.
Remember how Satan came to tempt man. He encouraged man to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Ye shall not surely die:
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
The deception was this: “You do not need to depend on God. You can depend on yourself. You can determine what you want, and everything can be according to yourself rather than according to God.”
Satan wanted to deceive man so that man would come forth as one ruling over all things, even against God. More plainly, he wanted man to push God out and exalt man.
Throughout human history and the history of civilization, we can see this phenomenon. Man desires to push God out and exalt himself. This is the result of the fall of the soul.
When we read the New Testament, we find that much of its teaching concerns the salvation of the soul. James speaks of the salvation of the soul. First Peter also speaks of the salvation of the soul.
Even where the specific term “salvation of the soul” is not used, many passages in the Epistles address this same area. For example, the contrast between being minded toward the flesh and being minded toward the Spirit concerns the details of the salvation of the soul.
Thus, much teaching concerning how we walk and live is actually concerned with the salvation of our souls.
Complete salvation is not merely that we remain in the grace of God’s forgiveness. Neither is it merely that we enjoy blessings from God.
Perfect salvation brings us back to God’s eternal plan. Only when we are brought back to God’s eternal will, and that will is realized in us, is the work of complete salvation accomplished.
One day, all of us shall reign with the Lord. We dare not even think of such a thing, though we have heard that we shall be in glory with Him.
When the Lord is manifested as Lord above all, reigning over all, how shall we be brought into that reality? Is it possible that we also shall reign? The revelation of God’s salvation tells us that this is exactly what He intends to do.
God does not save us merely as isolated individuals. After we are saved, we must grow. We must grow toward the full measure of the stature of Christ.
This is not merely individual; it is corporate. A full, complete, and perfect church is the end result. God continues to work toward this end.
After we are saved, that is indeed a great matter. Yet God shows us something even greater. He brings fallen man back to His original purpose, back into glory and richness.
How are we brought to this point? Romans 5:17 tells us that through the one, Jesus Christ, and through receiving the abundance of grace, we shall reign in life.
Brothers and sisters, do not focus merely on the word reign. We may hear that we are kings and begin to think that no one should dare touch us. But that is not the point.
We must focus on how we are to reign. The verse says that we reign in life. In other words, we allow the life of Christ to reign, and this brings us into the reality of kingship.
This is the cause and effect of our topic: the life reigning within. One day, when the Lord is manifested in glory, we shall be manifested with Him in glory. But how does the Lord reign?
Does the Lord reign by issuing harsh commands, suppressing others, and displaying outward authority? That is how men in this world often reign. But when we see our Lord reigning in life, we see a completely different picture.
When God created man and placed him in the garden, He gave man the responsibility to dress and keep it. Man was to use the glory and authority delegated by God to rule over and provide for the earth.
We should not interpret the garden through the fallen concepts of today. After man fell, he was told that he would eat bread by the sweat of his brow. But in the garden before the fall, we do not see a picture of toil, oppression, or anxious striving.
Adam and Eve were not portrayed as frantic workers struggling to provide for everything. They were in God’s arrangement, enjoying His provision and exercising delegated authority.
The life in the garden was not a picture of sweating and hardship. When God placed man in the garden, man’s ruling was according to God’s delegation.
In Revelation, the overcomers who accomplish God’s will receive a reward: they reign with Christ. What does it mean to reign with Christ?
The Scriptural term is that they will shepherd the nations. Some translations render this as “rule,” but shepherding is the clearer thought.
When God manifests His reign, it is shepherding. He provides for His people. Before the Lord came to earth, the angels proclaimed that He would save His people from their sins.
When God’s salvation plan is fully accomplished, He will use the riches of His glory to provide for all nations.
If reigning merely meant that people came to us every day with their needs—asking for food, help, or provision—we would soon be exhausted. Even the wealthiest person would quickly become bankrupt.
We do not reign by using our own limited resources to supply others. What we have in ourselves is very limited—indeed, it is nothing.
Why, then, in God’s redemption, does He first place us in Christ to receive His life? It is so that the life of Christ within us may expand to the point that His life completely reigns over us.
This is the basic lesson of life. Colossians 3:15 says that the peace of Christ is to rule in our hearts—to act as king in our hearts. This is to reign in life.
Today, we allow the life of Christ to reign within us. Then, in that day, we shall reign in glory with Christ.
God wants us to learn the lessons of reigning in life so that, when that glorious day comes, we may appear with Him in glory.
How shall we appear with the Lord in glory? It is because we have been conformed to Him. Using the theme of this afternoon’s workshop, we may say that the life reigning within has become mature.
This afternoon, we have considered the cause and effect of the life reigning within us. Tomorrow we will consider the daily, practical lessons through which God gives us spiritual training.
Our brother Joshua will now share with us some of the daily lessons he has learned in his spiritual pursuit. Brother Eric will translate into Mandarin.
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters.
One day, a woman came to Jesus and said, “Please save my daughter, who is demon-possessed.” Jesus replied that the children should first be filled, and that it was not fitting to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.
She answered Him, “Yes, Lord; even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”
I feel that today’s testimony is like those children’s crumbs. The lessons I have learned are not something I have achieved; they are lessons that I am still learning today.
I am a teacher by profession, and I teach in a middle school. Why did I want to become a teacher? My motivation was to try to help others. I wanted to change people’s lives, and I hoped that I could be a good testimony as a Christian.
But when I was handed the key to my classroom, I had no experience as a teacher and no formal training. There I was, placed in a classroom environment, and I was in for a surprise.
Middle-school students are going through many changes. Those of you who have children in middle school know this. They experience physical changes as well as psychological changes.
On the one hand, they want to assert their independence. On the other hand, they desperately want to be accepted by their friends and family.
The students I have taught over the years have had particular challenges. Some did not come from stable backgrounds. Some came from divorced families, some from single-parent homes, and some had parents who were incarcerated.
These social difficulties compounded the challenges of growing up as adolescents. Many had little time or concern for schoolwork.
I saw many students come to class without uniforms, pencils, paper, or notebooks. They would simply walk in. I thought, “All right, this is a challenge I am ready to take on.”
I read books, sought help from other teachers, observed classrooms, and did everything I could. I expected that eventually I would be able to help these students and succeed.
But as time went on, I found that the administrators were not very supportive. They were overwhelmed with disciplinary problems and expected teachers to handle all classroom-management issues themselves.
When I called the parents, they were often busy and unwilling to help. Sometimes, when I asked colleagues for help, they openly rebuked me and said that I did not know how to teach.
I felt very depressed, very sad, and sometimes very angry. I often felt as though the words of the Lord applied to my situation:
We piped unto you, and ye did not dance;
we wailed, and ye did not mourn.
I felt that there was no response from the students as I tried to help them. In fact, things became worse. Some students became resentful. They began writing graffiti on my books, then openly challenging me in the classroom, and eventually writing graffiti on my door.
One day I came into the classroom and joked that I thought I was celebrating Passover, because there were marks all over my door. Eventually, some students even made false accusations against me.
I asked, “Why is all this happening? Why does it seem that the harder I try, the worse it becomes?”
As I reflected, I thought of the story of the man born blind. The disciples asked the Lord:
Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered:
Neither did this man sin, nor his parents:
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
One day, I was very frustrated, and I shared that frustration with my wife. I had told her about these matters many times. Eventually, she said to me, “Do not try to save your students. It is God who is trying to save you.”
A tear came down from my eyes. For all those years, I had been trying to save my students.
Then I discovered that the reason I had tried to save them was selfish. I was looking for respect. I was looking for their success to make me happy. But that was not what the Lord wanted me to learn.
A famous president once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
My wife said something similar to me: “Do not ask the Lord what you can do for Him. Ask the Lord what He wants to do in you.”
The theme of this conference is to be conformed to the image of the Son. The preceding verse tells us that all things work together for good. Sometimes those good things are unexpected.
I will leave it there.
We thank the Lord. From the sharing of our brother, we can see one thing: the lessons of learning how to reign are great lessons. Yet this is how God works in our lives.
God works through the daily issues of our living, whether they appear to be minor matters or not. If God did not work in our daily living, we would not realize where our shortcomings are.
Forgive me for putting it this way, but this is especially true for those who are more educated. The more spiritual books we read and the more spiritual doctrine we can preach, the more easily we may think that we have advanced. But the maturity of life is not merely a matter of doctrine.
Maturity is a very practical matter of a person being willing to be dealt with in the presence of God.
Remember that the fall of man was due to man’s desire to exalt himself. The desire to exalt oneself is strong.
No matter how the self-exaltation of man is manifested, it is contrary to conformity to Christ. In this present generation, if you do not affirm yourself, others may ask whether you are living in the twenty-first century.
But regardless of the century in which we live, we who know God must recognize that all God’s work upon us is intended to bring forth the fruit of life within us.
What God has given us in salvation is not only grace for pardon; even more, He has given us the grace of life. This grace of life begins at the moment we are saved.
Then God begins His work in every surrounding area of our daily living. This includes many things. As our brother shared, he had good ambitions and good goals as a teacher, but God showed him that his way was wrong.
He was not performing his work according to the life of God, but according to what he had in himself. This is the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This is the condition in which we want to do things ourselves, so that we may be like God. But we thank the Lord that He governs over all our daily circumstances.
Regardless of the people, events, and matters with which we come into contact, God is over all of them to point out the lessons that He desires us to learn.
In this way, we may be delivered from our desire to reign as kings ourselves. Gradually, the life of God—the life of the Son of God—may manifest its government in our lives.
In familiar spiritual terms, this means that we learn to accept the Lord’s authority. In other words, we learn to accept the government of our Lord.
Whether through the Lord’s authority or through His practically manifested sovereignty, we grow bit by bit in our daily living.
When we say that life grows, we mean that the portion of Christ gradually increases within us and that we decrease.
By nature, this is something we do not want to encounter in our lives. But remember John the Baptist.
John’s disciples came to him and said that the One of whom John had testified was now baptizing, and that everyone was going to Him. Their concern was that John would lose his position, respect, and honor.
But John replied that the bridegroom is the One who receives the bride, while he was only the friend of the bridegroom. He rejoiced to see the bridegroom with His bride.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Brothers and sisters, that is the lesson of life. The reign of life is under this requirement.
God has not only delivered us from the power of sin and death; He has also placed us in the classroom of life. Every day, we are going through this training and learning these lessons.
We must continue daily to learn to allow the life of Christ to reign in our hearts.
Lord, we thank You. In Your glorious arrangement, You have allowed us to see that what awaits us is a glorious reality. You have not only saved us, but You have also restored us to Your original purpose.
What seems impossible to man, You have proclaimed that the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform it. We bow our heads and worship You, because we know that what You say, You will bring about.
Even though in our daily living we often cannot follow Your desire, we are willing to place ourselves in Your hands. Lead us gradually forward, step by step, in whatever way You require, that we may fulfill and satisfy Your heart.
May Your life within us practically manifest the reign of life. Use us to manifest that Your life reigns within us.
We thank You for this time this afternoon. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, lead us deeper into Your heart’s desire.
You have not forsaken us. In this world full of rebellion, You are still seeking and waiting for us. Bring us into the reality of life reigning within.
We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.