Can we turn to Ephesians chapter 1?
Ephesians chapter 1. We will read verses 15 to 23. I will read it once in Chinese, and I will have my brother read it once in English.
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come:
and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
Let us bow with a word of prayer.
Lord, our hearts are full of thanksgiving and praise unto You. It is Your hand that has led us here. Lord, we gather today in Your name.
Lord, we thank and praise You, because You have promised us, “Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, I will be in their midst.” Lord, we believe that You are here. We are indeed upon holy ground.
Lord, we want to remove our sandals and prostrate before You, and say, “Lord, what do You have for us? Speak, for Thy servant heareth.”
Lord, may You, through Your Spirit, enlighten Your Word, that Your Word may enter each one of our hearts. According to Your promise, may it become spirit and life.
Lord, we give You all the glory. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.
We thank the Lord for gathering us before His presence. I deeply believe that in these last days, God has given us this superabundant grace, that we can still have the privilege to hear His Word and receive His grace.
The theme of this conference is the testimony of Jesus Christ in His church.
There are three speakers. My brother, Lance Lambert, will share with us the revealed pattern from a biblical viewpoint.
My brother, Christian Chen, will share with us the footsteps of the flock, looking at this theme from a historical viewpoint.
My responsibility is to share concerning body life, looking at the theme from a practical viewpoint.
In past conferences, we have repeatedly shared on this matter of the testimony of Jesus Christ, because we deeply feel that the whole Bible reveals our Lord Jesus Christ.
We remember that our Lord Himself spoke to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Through the books of Moses and the prophetic books, He was speaking concerning Himself.
Not only that, that evening He showed Himself to the disciples. Once again, through the law of Moses, the prophetic books, and the Psalms, He shared with His disciples everything concerning Himself.
So we know that the whole Old Testament reveals our Lord Jesus.
We thank the Lord that our Lord was the Word that became flesh and came to this earth. In His life in the flesh, He was a testimony for His Father, our God. God the Father also testified of Him, because the Father and the Son are one.
Our Lord died, was buried, and rose again. Then He ascended into heaven to the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit was given, and through His church, His body, His mystical body, He continues that testimony.
All the epistles speak of this testimony. When you come to the end, to the book of Revelation, we know that in the beginning of Revelation it speaks of the testimony of Jesus.
God continuously testifies of His Son. So we know that the whole revelation of the Bible is the testimony of Jesus. This is God’s eternal purpose.
God wants us to pay attention to His Son. God wants us to know His Son, just as He knows His Son.
Dear brothers and sisters, our understanding and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ are so superficial. Oftentimes, we know Him only in our minds, in our knowledge of Him. But to know Him in our inner life, in the depths, very few of us know Him that way.
But this is the heart of God. The Bible tells us that we have to truly know Him. To truly know Him, we need revelation.
When we come upon spiritual things, if we want to touch eternal things, man is hopeless according to his own intellect or wisdom. We can never completely come to know our God, our Lord.
So you see that Paul had this prayer in Ephesians. He asked that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may truly know Him.
Brothers and sisters, as we gather here, from the depths of our hearts we have a prayer. We admit that by ourselves we will not come to know what is the testimony of Jesus Christ.
We cannot receive this truth and enter into its reality. We must come with a humble spirit before God. We have to look to our Lord that He may give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
What is wisdom? Wisdom is what is in the heart of God Himself. It is what God is thinking about. It is what He wants. This is also the eternal purpose of God.
This wisdom needs God’s revelation to us. We thank and praise the Lord: our God is the God of revelation.
We remember that the book of Galatians tells us that God desires to reveal His Son in us. It pleases God to reveal His Son in us. This is the heart of God.
How can we receive such a revelation? We need to have a longing heart, because the Bible tells us that those who seek will receive.
If we have a longing heart, it pleases God to reveal the testimony of Jesus Christ to us.
Even though the theme of this conference is the testimony of Jesus Christ in the church, the focus is upon this matter of the church. But do not misunderstand: the church is never the centre.
The centre is always our Lord Jesus Christ. If we really see Christ Jesus, if we truly understand what is the testimony of Jesus Christ, then very naturally we will see the church.
But the church is never the centre. We cannot exalt the church above Christ. Christ is forever the purpose of God. In order to complete Christ, there is the church.
So I hope that brothers and sisters will not misunderstand. This time we want to look at the testimony of Jesus Christ in the church because the church is the vessel for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
God has entrusted the testimony of Jesus Christ into the hands of the church. The church is the fullness of Christ and the expression of Christ. This is what we hope brothers and sisters can see at this conference.
My responsibility is on this matter of body life. Because I have three times to share, today I would like to share on the vision of the body.
Tomorrow we would like to share on the law of the body. On the last day, we will share on body living.
We have already spoken of the fact that the church is the body of Christ. In Ephesians 1:23, it says that the church is His body, “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”
So the Bible shows us that the church is the body of Christ. It ought to be the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
In other words, He wants to express Himself through His body. Through this body, He wants to testify of Himself.
Strictly speaking, you cannot separate Christ and the church, just as the head and the body cannot be separated. When the head and the body are separated, that is death.
You can also say that the body is an outgrowth of the head. All the fullness of the head is encompassed in the body, and then through this body it is expressed and lived out.
The church is the body of Christ. In the Bible, God often first shows us the facts, and then He gives us revelation, because God’s revelation is always based on facts.
When we speak about the church being the body of Christ, we have to start from the fact.
John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us,” full of grace and truth.
God’s Son, our Lord Jesus, is the Word. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word.” Our Lord Jesus is that Word. He is the Word of God; He is the expression of God.
One day, this Word became flesh. He came into this world, and like a tabernacle, He tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth.
When our Lord came upon this earth, He took upon Himself flesh. Through His flesh, He spoke and did things. In His flesh, He expressed the Father outwardly.
Because no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
When the Lord was upon this earth, He expressed God through His body, telling us what kind of God our God is. He is not merely a theory; in His flesh, He expressed God in reality.
So the Lord said, “When you see Me, you have seen the Father,” because His body fully expresses the Father.
When He was on the earth, He spoke many words and did many things. His words are truth; what He did was grace. So you see that there was not only truth, but also grace.
Remember when the Lord Jesus was with His disciples for the last time. His disciple Philip asked Him, “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
This saddened our Lord greatly. He said, “Philip, I have been with you all these years, and you are still saying, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not know that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father? When you see Me, you see the Father.”
Brothers and sisters, in the body of our Lord Jesus, He completely expressed the Father. When you see Him, you understand who God is without any deduction. In His body, He completely expressed the testimony of the Father.
As He testified of who the Father is, He also testified of Himself, because He and the Father are one in nature.
We thank and praise the Lord that, in order to complete this work of redemption, He went to the cross for us. He is the Lamb of God. He came to bear our sins because He shed His blood on the cross.
His blood before God washed away all our sins. On the cross, He broke His body for us. Through His death and resurrection, He imparted the life of God.
Forty days later, He ascended into heaven. This speaks forth how, in the flesh, our Lord Jesus expressed the Father and expressed Himself.
On the day of Pentecost, one hundred and twenty saints gathered in the upper room of Mark’s house. There they prayed together for ten days.
On the day of Pentecost, all of a sudden there was a sound from heaven, like the sound of someone breathing deeply. God was there breathing.
Then the Holy Spirit descended upon these one hundred and twenty. These one hundred and twenty were baptized into one body.
This is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12:13. They were baptized in one Spirit into one body, and they also drank of the same one Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, what happened on the day of Pentecost? Many people pay attention to the sound and commotion of Pentecost.
People pay attention to the great wind that filled the room and made a great sound. The Holy Spirit came upon the one hundred and twenty like fire, and they spoke in tongues and spoke of the mighty works of God.
People may say that Pentecost was nothing but a bunch of noise and fire. But these are only external things.
What is the true meaning of Pentecost? What did God do on the day of Pentecost? The explanation is found in the epistles.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, it says that in one Spirit they were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, and they all drank of the same Spirit.
What is Pentecost? Pentecost is the ascended Lord Jesus making for Himself a spiritual body composed of one hundred and twenty members.
From Mary’s womb, He took upon Himself flesh. In His own flesh, He lived thirty-three and a half years. Then He died, was buried, rose again, and ascended.
Now He has sent the Holy Spirit upon this earth, and He has taken for Himself another body. He has become the Head of the church.
He took these one hundred and twenty and baptized them into one body. This is the beginning of the church. The church is the body of Christ.
Our Lord took for Himself a corporate body of one hundred and twenty. In that body, He continues to speak and continues to do.
So we see in the book of Acts. In Acts 1:1, Luke said, “The former treatise I made,” referring, of course, to the Gospel of Luke, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.
Now Luke was going to write a second book, and that is the book of Acts. What is the book of Acts?
The book of Acts is nothing but our ascended Lord taking this corporate body to continue to do, to speak, and to teach.
So we see that the testimony of Jesus Christ is now in the church, in His corporate body.
Brothers and sisters, we all know that in the Old Testament, God entrusted His testimony to the people of Israel.
The rest of the world was worshiping idols. So the glorious God appeared to Abram and called him to leave his relatives and country, and to go to a place that God prepared for him.
Through faith, Abraham submitted to God. From Abram descended the people of Israel.
God brought the people of Israel out from Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai. He gave them the law, because the law also speaks concerning Himself.
The law shows us that our God is a righteous and just God. So He entrusted His testimony to the people of Israel, desiring them to be His testimony throughout the earth.
When we come to the New Testament, we see that after our Lord Jesus Christ ascended, He entrusted His testimony to the church, which is His body.
But this entrusting is different from the entrusting in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God gave the law to the people of Israel.
If the people of Israel obeyed God’s commandments, then they were a testimony for God on earth. If they did not obey the commandments of God, then they lost the testimony of God. This was an external relationship.
You remember that in Hebrews 8 there is a phrase concerning how God led the people of Israel forward with His hand, just like a mother leading a child.
But the child looked back and forth. He saw something that was fun, let go of the mother’s hand, and ran away. In the Old Testament, it was such a thing.
God led the people of Israel forth, but they let go of God’s hand.
But thank God: in the New Testament, when our Lord entrusted His testimony to the church, it was no longer an external entrusting.
It was not a matter of giving commandments to the church—if the church obeyed, there would be testimony; if the church did not obey, there would be no testimony. It is not such a thing.
In the New Testament, it is always internal. It is always something of life.
When our Lord Jesus entrusts His testimony to the church, it is not merely to give the church a commandment, some truth, or some methods.
He has given to the church His own life. This entrusting is an entrustment of life. This giving is something happening within; it is something spiritual.
It is no longer something outward, but something within, because the church is not an organization. The church is an organism; it is a body.
This body receives the life of the Head and receives the fullness of the Head completely.
The book of Colossians tells us that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in our Lord bodily, and in Him we are made complete.
Dear brothers and sisters, we thank and praise God. The testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the church, but this is not something outward. This is a union in life.
In life, we can come to know our Lord much more. Then, on earth, we can be a more complete testimony for Him.
But if our knowledge of Him in life is limited, then our testimony will be incomplete.
Dear brothers and sisters, may we remember: the testimony of Jesus Christ in the church is a matter of life. In life, we have to know our Lord much more deeply.
What is the heart of God? The heart of God is that we may know our Lord just as our Father knows Him.
We all have to know our Lord Jesus Christ—to know who He is and to know all His works.
If we know our Lord deeply, not merely in our heads or in our knowledge, but can express Him in our daily living, then this is the testimony of Jesus Christ in the church.
This truth shows us that even though Christ has ascended into heaven and become Head over all things, it is for the church. On earth, there is His body.
This body is full of Himself and expresses Himself to the world.
You remember that our Lord had a prayer before He died, recorded in John 17: “The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father. You are in Me, and I am in You.”
In this way, the world will know that the Father has sent Me. How can the world know the Lord Jesus Christ? How can the world see our Lord Jesus Christ?
It needs to see Him in the church, because the Lord is in us, and we are in the Lord. When people see us, they see the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the testimony of the church.
Strictly speaking, the church does not have a testimony of her own. The testimony of the church is Christ.
Did not Paul say, “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord”? Today the church has no words of her own; the words of the church are the words of Christ.
The church does not testify of herself. The church only testifies of our Lord.
It is a shame when we see the condition of Christianity. It is as though we see only the church and Christianity, but we do not see Christ. This is how the church has lost the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Thank God and praise God: today the testimony of Jesus Christ is in the church, in the body of Christ.
This is such a glorious entrustment. Think about it: God is willing to entrust the testimony of His own Son to us. It is such a glorious thing, but it is also a great responsibility.
If we want to enter into our responsibility, it is not that outwardly we have many activities. Rather, in our inner life, we must know our Lord more.
This way, we have a testimony.
Thank God and praise God. In the book of Acts, we see how the church, the body, was on earth.
We see how this corporate body continued speaking, and how the Lord continually worked, starting from Jerusalem and going to the ends of the earth.
In thirty-odd years, the gospel was preached all the way to Rome. Rome at that time was the end of the earth.
In that short period of time, we see how the testimony of Jesus Christ spread forth. Many people, Jews and Gentiles alike, came to the Lord and stood up to be a testimony for our Lord Jesus.
This was indeed a glorious testimony. The testimony was already there.
Now we want to look at this revelation. We have already seen the reality of the body. God already did the work. On earth, He has already received for Himself a body and placed Himself in this body.
This body began the work of testimony. As it testified, it encountered many difficulties, just as our Lord encountered difficulties when He was on this earth.
When our Lord came from heaven to earth, He was a testimony for God, but the world did not receive Him. He was completely different from this world. The world rejected Him and crucified Him.
They did not know that He came to this earth to save the world. In the same way, we see the body of Christ on earth testifying for our Lord Jesus and encountering much opposition from the world.
Among those who persecuted the church, the most famous was Saul.
He was a great man. He received the best education of the whole world. According to his birth, he belonged to one of the tribes of Israel. He was a chosen person of God.
After he grew up, he learned at the feet of Gamaliel. He became a Pharisee. The Pharisees were those who studied the law and obeyed the law. He received the best religious education.
Many Gentiles took part in Judaism because they felt that the teaching of Judaism was so pure. Paul had the greatest religious instruction.
Not only that, he was born in Tarsus. Tarsus was a Gentile city, one of the centres of Greek culture. He received and absorbed Greek culture.
Not only that, he was born a Roman citizen. He experienced the greatest rights under Roman rulership. This young man was a great man.
If many young men had such a great environment, they would probably go into the world seeking a high position. But this young man pursued spiritual things. He left the world aside because he knew that the world was temporary. He was looking for something eternal.
But the shame was this: because he did not have revelation, he had the best heritage and the best tradition, yet he felt that our Lord Jesus was a rebel.
So he felt that he had a responsibility to persecute those who followed the Lord Jesus, to destroy everything related to faith in Jesus. He thought that in this way he would be serving God.
Brothers and sisters, you see that he was a zealous man and a powerful man. He believed that by doing this he was serving God, but he was completely in darkness.
How many people live under tradition. Even believers today live under tradition. We lack spiritual understanding.
But thank God. God examined his heart and knew that his heart was pure. So God remembered him.
When he went to Damascus to persecute the church, all of a sudden there was a light that shone, brighter than the sun. He was struck down by this light.
He heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why art thou persecuting Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.”
Brothers and sisters, Saul did not know Jesus. He misunderstood Jesus. He felt that he should destroy the Lord Jesus, but our Lord knew him.
The Lord said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” This was not a reprimanding voice; it was a voice of compassion.
“Why are you persecuting Me? Do you not know what you are doing? You are kicking against the goads.”
In the olden days, if you were tilling the field, you would use an ox or a horse and put a yoke upon it. Then you would move the animal forward to till the land.
But the ox or horse had its own thoughts. When it saw something good to eat on the side, it would try to take a detour. Then the furrow would be crooked.
The farmer would take a goad in his other hand—a long stick with a sharp edge—and prick the leg of the ox or horse. He did not want to hurt it, but to warn it and remind it: “You have an owner. You are working for somebody. You cannot do only what you think you want to do.”
But the horse or ox had its own thoughts and would kick against the goad. When it kicked, it would be hurt. After a few times, it would learn.
This is what the Lord said to Saul: “Do not forget that you have a Lord.”
All of us created beings have a Lord, for we were created for God, not for ourselves. But we have forgotten. The Lord was reminding us that we have a Master. We have to obey Him. We have to do His things. We cannot disobey Him.
If we rebel against Him or fight against Him, we suffer. That is why the Lord said to Saul, “It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.”
When Stephen was stoned to death, he saw the heavens opened. He saw the Lord Jesus there welcoming him. When he died, he prayed, “Father, do not lay this sin to their charge.”
Do you not think that Saul’s conscience was bothering him? God was using a goad to prick his conscience, but he was going against his conscience again and again.
He went to capture Christians, men and women, and condemned them, making them blaspheme. He was an honourable man, a Pharisee, a moral person. In doing such things, would not his conscience bother him? Of course.
But he went against his conscience and persecuted the Christians even more, trying to suppress that voice in his conscience. But God loved him.
The Lord said, “It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.”
Then Saul said, “Lord, who art Thou?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”
Dear brothers and sisters, on the way to Damascus, Saul saw a vision. What was that vision?
First, he saw the Lord. The Bible tells us, “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.”
He did not merely see the Lord physically. The light struck him blind, but his inner eyes were opened. He saw the Lord Jesus.
He did not see merely Jesus of Nazareth, whom he had regarded as a rebel. He saw that Jesus is Lord. He is God above all. He is the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, he saw the Lord. He saw how God sees His Son. God sees His Son as the One of honour, as the Lord of all, as the King of kings and Lord of lords. Everything is under subjection to His feet.
When Saul saw this, he gave up all. He said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
My brothers and sisters, he not only saw the Head, Christ; he also saw the body.
Why? Because the Lord Jesus said, “Why persecutest thou Me?”
Saul was a Pharisee, and Pharisees were best when it came to logic. According to logic, Saul could have responded to the Lord, “You are in heaven; I am on earth. How can I persecute You? I did not persecute You.”
But Saul did not say this. Why? It was spiritual. He saw that when you touch any member of the body, you touch the Head.
He was trying to capture and kill Christians, persecuting them. Now the Head was speaking: “Why persecutest thou Me?”
Dear brothers and sisters, on the way to Damascus, he saw the body of Christ. He not only saw Christ; he saw the body of Christ.
From that time onward, there was a great change in his life. Before, he was one who liked to be in the high place. His name was famous from Jerusalem all the way to Damascus.
But God used a person named Ananias, an unknown person, to lay his hands upon Saul’s head and say, “Brother Saul, God has opened your eyes, and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
You see that a great man was now having hands laid upon him by a small member of the body. He learned to be a member of the body.
If we see the vision of the body, that vision will reduce us. We will see that we are but one member in the body.
We need our brother to lay his hand upon us, to be united with our brothers. Then we can become the body of Christ.
Ever since he received that vision, it not only changed his work for the rest of his life; it also changed his living for the rest of his life.
Even though he was a great apostle, even as he wrote the epistles, he would bring Timothy or Silas to write with him. He did not say, “I, Paul, do not need the others.”
In his work, he always worked together with others. He was not going solo.
In his living as well, he always sought fellowship. In Damascus, he went in and out with the saints.
When he came to Jerusalem, he wanted fellowship with the saints there. But everybody was afraid of him because they knew of his past. They dared not approach him.
But thank God. Through Barnabas, God brought him among the apostles.
The Bible says that Paul went in and out with the people of the church in Jerusalem. No matter where he went, he sought fellowship, because he was living in the body.
Dear brothers and sisters, what we need today is the vision of the body.
We have to remember that the vision of the body, together with the vision of Christ, is one vision. You cannot separate the Head and the body.
If you truly see Christ, you must see the church. If you see the Head, you will see the body, because it is one revelation.
If we truly see this revelation, there will be a great change in our living, in our work, and in our service.
Dear brothers and sisters, our need today is to ask the Lord that we may truly receive a spirit of wisdom and revelation, to know Christ and to know the church.
Christ is the Head. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him. You cannot find anything outside of Christ. Everything is in Christ.
At the same time, if we want to have a testimony for our Lord Jesus Christ, we must have that testimony in the body. We cannot do it alone.
All our work is not our work; it is the work of building up the body. This is according to the heart of God.
May the Lord have mercy on us. Let us have another word of prayer.
Our Lord, we thank and praise You. You are willing to entrust Yourself to the church. You are willing to entrust Your testimony to Your body.
We admit that we fall short in many ways. Lord, we want to repent before You.
Lord, we look to You to reveal more of Yourself to us, that there may be a more complete testimony for You on earth.
We think about how Your coming is so soon, yet Your testimony is not complete.
May You raise up many of Your children to enter into Your testimony and to be a testimony for You in these last days.
We pray in Jesus’ precious name.