You ought to translate it this way:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Let us bow with a word of prayer.
Father, we are full of thanksgiving and praise unto You. Once again, we come before Your table to receive Your mercy.
We thank and praise You. You love us to the uttermost. You have given Yourself completely to us.
Lord, we do ask that Your love may fill our hearts, that we may be willing, from the depths of our hearts, to satisfy Your heart.
Lord, we entrust this time into Your precious hands.
We ask that Your Spirit may set free Your word, and that You may plant Your word in each and every heart here, so that Your purpose may be fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven.
We pray this way in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We thank the Lord for leading us to this last day of this conference. I do not think I have to remind brothers and sisters of the theme of this conference. If we are not clear about it, it is surely a shame.
Even though our focus this time is upon the church, we are clear of this: the church is a vessel; the content is Christ.
So when we speak about the church, let us dare not forget our Lord. The church is there to be a testimony for our Lord.
My responsibility is to share on body living. But in the past two times, I have not mentioned this matter yet, because if we are not clear about life, then we cannot speak about living. Living is according to life.
What kind of life produces what kind of living? If you follow the leading of that life, then your living will be very natural.
In the first morning, we specially mentioned the revelation of the body, or the vision of the body.
Ephesians 3 shows us that the apostle Paul mentions a mystery. That mystery is the mystery of Christ.
He said that this mystery of Christ had been hidden through the ages. This mystery is what God established in Christ as His purpose before the foundation of the world.
Our God had a purpose in His Son. This purpose is for His Son. This purpose is not only precious, but also glorious.
But this purpose was hidden in God throughout the ages. Even when we read the Old Testament, we see that God, as it were, sprinkled here and there some hints.
Sometimes He used people and things; sometimes He used types; sometimes He used prophecy. Through many methods, it was as if He was giving us hints, but man did not comprehend.
Not until our Lord came to this earth, lived in this world, and accomplished the work of redemption did this mystery begin to be revealed.
Ephesians 3 tells us that it has now been revealed to the apostles and prophets. Paul knew deeply what the mystery of Christ is.
Simply speaking, the mystery of Christ is His body. It is that mysterious body. It is what we speak about today as the church.
Christ is the Head; the church is His body, that which fills all in all.
Dear brothers and sisters, if this is a mystery hidden from before the foundation of the world, and the Holy Spirit is needed to reveal it, then we immediately know how important such a thing is.
The heart of God is for His Son—to give His Son a body.
It is not only the Word becoming flesh. After He resurrected and ascended, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given. In one Spirit, He baptized the one hundred and twenty into one body.
In this body, our Lord continues to speak and to do. You see how precious this body of Christ is.
This body needs to grow up until it is filled with the stature of Christ. This is what Ephesians 4 tells us.
Then, in Ephesians 5, you see how our Lord will take up this body as His bride. This church, this body, is complete—without blemish, without wrinkle, holy, and unblemished—and presented to Himself as a glorious bride.
This is the revelation of God concerning the body.
May each and every brother and sister not merely hear this with our ears or understand it with our heads. We need revelation from the Spirit in our spirits.
In this way, this mystery will be fulfilled in our lives. Otherwise, the mystery is out there and we are here. The purpose of God is that this mystery may be fulfilled in us, that we may enter into that mystery.
This requires revelation. We need to ask the Lord to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may truly know Him—just like Paul on his way to Damascus when he saw that vision.
In the second morning, we spoke about the law of the body. If it is the body, it must have a direct relationship with life.
This life is not the natural Adamic life, because that life cannot produce the body of Christ. It cannot produce the body of Christ; it is actually the greatest enemy of the body of Christ.
Oftentimes, we think that Satan is the greatest enemy of the church. But, strictly speaking, the greatest enemy of the church is ourselves.
The church is the body of Christ, and that body comes from the life of Christ. It is a new creation. All of the old creation has no part with it.
We need to see that the body of Christ is formed through the life of Christ. It is His life that produces this body.
It is His life that allows us to grow up into maturity, to be filled with the full stature of Christ. From beginning to end, it is a matter of the life of God—in other words, the life of Christ.
Christ grows up in us. Christ is formed in us. Then this body becomes a mature man, and we are worthy to be the bride of Christ.
We often say that we wait for our Lord’s return. You know that in the first century, those who loved the Lord also waited for the Lord.
Even though the Lord did not return in the first century, their heart toward the Lord was correct. When the church was persecuted in the second and third centuries, Christians cried, “Lord, come quickly.” This was their only hope, their only comfort, and what they were waiting for. They were not wrong.
Even though the Lord did not return in the second and third centuries, we have now come to the twenty-first century. If your heart is toward the Lord and your longing is that the Lord may return quickly, this heart is pleasing to God.
But is it we who are waiting for the Lord’s return, or is the Lord waiting for us to be completed?
The heart of the Bridegroom is longing that He may receive for Himself a bride.
From what I can remember, in history there was probably one case in which the bride was waiting for the bridegroom. It concerned the great-grandfather of Hudson Taylor.
When Hudson Taylor’s great-grandfather was young, even though he was a believer, he had no heart for the Lord. On the day he was going to be married, he woke up in the morning and suddenly realized, “This is an important matter. I have to get married. I have to marry a bride.”
Then he went into the field to pray. He prayed and prayed and prayed, forgetting that the time of his wedding ceremony had already arrived.
After he finished praying, all of a sudden he remembered that his bride was waiting for him in the church. Everybody was there waiting for the bridegroom, and they did not know where he had gone. So he ran into the church building.
This is the only time I know of in all wedding ceremonies when the bride was waiting for the bridegroom.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the heart of the Bridegroom. Does not our Lord long to come back? Does not the Lord want to receive the bride to Himself?
But the bride has not grown up. You cannot marry an immature person; then you are not fit for each other.
Strictly speaking, it is not that we wait for the Lord; it is the Lord waiting for us. The Lord has already waited for us for twenty centuries, but His bride has not yet grown up and is not yet filled with the full stature of Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, look at how great our responsibility is. We cannot live our lives loosely. We have to rise up for the Lord’s sake, that we may become mature and that the stature of Christ may grow up in us.
This way, our Lord will return immediately.
The body of Christ needs to grow up. But the growth of this body has its growing law, and that is the law of the Spirit of life.
As this law moves in the body, if we live according to that law, then we will see growth. But if we go against this law, we will see destruction and death.
All of us who love the Lord, if we love the body of Christ, have to know what this law of the Spirit of life is.
The first law is to hold fast to the Head, because the Head has already placed all of His fullness in the body.
The Head, through the nervous system, controls every member. For this body to grow up, we need to hold fast to the Head.
All of us, members of the body of Christ, have a responsibility: we have to submit to the authority of the Head.
God is the only authority in the universe. Man is never the authority. God can delegate His authority to man, but this delegation is according to His life. It is not an external delegation; it is authority from life.
How much of Christ He has placed in you, that life becomes authority. It is not the authority of man; it is God’s own authority.
So we have to submit to God, and we have to submit to one another. We submit to God with complete submission and complete obedience.
When we submit to one another, we can have complete submission, but not complete obedience, because men all have shortcomings.
When the will of man and the will of God are in conflict, just as the apostles said, we have to submit to God. Even though we can submit to men, we cannot obey them when obedience would mean not preaching the word.
The first law of the body of Christ is to hold fast to the Head. The second is that, in Christ, there is one body.
Because there is only one body, we have to diligently preserve the unity of the Spirit. We can have many different viewpoints and many different methods of doing things, but, thanks be to God, in the Godhead we are all one.
We have to maintain fellowship. We cannot have divisions among us. Christ gave up His life for us, so we have to diligently preserve the unity of the Spirit.
Then we can attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
The third law is that all the members are different. This is the glory of God.
But in these differences, the Lord wants us to be joined together and to minister to one another. Not one member is useless. This body needs all the members to be joined together and to minister to one another.
Fourth, this body restrains us, but it also protects us.
Oftentimes, we think that as individuals we can do whatever we want to do. But if you have many brothers and sisters, you may feel restrained. Yet this restraining is good for us. Then we can walk in the will of God.
Thank God that the body is a protection for us. If we are alone, we will be easily deceived.
I have seen some brothers and sisters who live an individual life. Even though they loved the Lord before, because they refused to have fellowship with brothers and sisters, they said, “I just need my relationship with the Lord. I do not need fellowship with the other saints.”
But what was the result? They either became dogmatic or they were lost. So we have to remember that we cannot leave the body. We need the protection of the body.
This last morning, we want to speak about body living.
I do not know whether brothers and sisters are prepared to share on body living. You know, there is a very wondrous thing: body consciousness.
We call it body consciousness. When you believe in the Lord, two things happen. One thing is that you become conscious of God; another thing is that you become conscious of the children of God.
I remember that I used to have a co-worker. He once said that after he got married, the first time he returned to the home of his wife and saw his father-in-law, according to Chinese tradition he had to call him “Dad.”
But he said that when he spoke the word “Dad,” it was so difficult and so unnatural.
Many people grow up in Christian families. I am one of them. When I prayed, I said, “Our Father who art in heaven,” as if I were calling Him my father-in-law. It was so unnatural because there was no relationship of life.
But thank God, praise God, the day that I was saved, all of a sudden it changed. When I was praying to the Lord, “Abba, Father,” it was so close and so intimate, as if there were a relationship of life.
I think all of us who have been saved by grace have this story. When you pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” as though you are merely reciting from a book, it is like calling Him your father-in-law. It is unnatural.
But all of us who have been saved by grace, naturally and immediately have a life relationship with God. When you pray, it is so intimate. God is indeed your Father.
But thank God, other than this consciousness, every believer who has been saved by grace also has another consciousness, and that is body consciousness.
Why? Because after you have been saved by grace, if you meet somebody and discover that he is also a believer, what do you feel inside?
Do you not feel, “Oh, this is just like my brother or my sister”? Yet this relationship is even closer than the relationship of flesh and blood.
If you are not in the body, how can you have this sense? If you are not in the body, how can you feel the Head? If you are not in the body, how can you feel the other members?
Before, Saul and Ananias were enemies. Saul took letters to capture the saints in Damascus, and Ananias was one of the believers there. They could not meet each other. If they met, either Saul would die or Ananias would die.
When God sent Ananias to meet Paul, Ananias said, “I have heard about this man. He is very famous. He comes to capture ones like me. How can I just give myself to him?”
But the Lord said, “You go. He is My vessel.”
When Ananias came to Paul, he placed his hand upon Paul and said, “Brother Saul.”
Brother and sisters, body consciousness is so natural, because this is life. If you have life, you have this consciousness.
If you do not have this consciousness, then we wonder whether there is an issue with your salvation. Even though the Lord saves us individually, after He has saved us, He puts us together. This is the Lord’s amazing doing.
If you follow the body consciousness and live accordingly, naturally you live out the life of the body. If you do not follow this body consciousness, then you do not have body life.
Many children of God today ought to have a body life. According to God’s salvation, it is very natural. But many children of God have lost this body consciousness. What is the reason?
I think there are many reasons. Some have been restricted by tradition.
When we meet somebody, the first question we ask is, “Are you a believer?” He says, “I am,” and immediately we are connected.
But then tradition comes: “What kind of meeting do you go to?” Once you speak about this, you divide. You did not follow that body consciousness; you were directed by tradition. That is why you become divided.
Some people, after they believe, really feel that the church is their own, so they put themselves completely into it. Of course, you ought to do this.
But when they put themselves into it, they may be hurt by someone or pushed by someone, and then they become discouraged. They say, “Is it better for me to have my own devotion? I do not need brothers and sisters.”
Some people were hurt in the church. When you come to the church, you think you come to heaven. Of course, the church is paradise, but when you come into the church and feel that the difficulties are greater than those in the world, then you retreat.
You say, “It is better for me to have my own devotion.” You see, for many reasons, the children of God cannot have the body life.
But when we come to the word of God and to the book of Acts, we see that once body life began, they lived out that life.
When our Lord ascended into heaven, He said to His disciples, “You have to return to Jerusalem. There you have to wait until you receive the Holy Spirit of promise. Then you have to be a testimony to Me to the end of the earth.”
There were one hundred and twenty believers. They obeyed the word of God, returned to Jerusalem, went into the upper room of Mark’s home, and were together for ten days.
They were diligently, with one accord, praying together. We already said that this is a tremendous thing: one hundred and twenty people praying with one heart for ten days. It is very difficult.
At that time, Acts 1:15 says that Peter stood up. The Scripture had to be fulfilled concerning Judas, because he had lost his responsibility.
Among those who followed the Lord, beginning from John the Baptist until our Lord ascended into heaven, they had to choose one to fulfill the place of Judas. So they chose two people and asked the Lord to choose one.
This happened before Pentecost. Peter stood up individually, alone. He was there fulfilling the word.
But when we come to Acts 2, as those one hundred and twenty were waiting, Pentecost came. All of a sudden there was a roaring wind. God was breathing, and it filled the room.
There were tongues of fire upon their heads, and they began to speak in tongues. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke forth the mighty works of God.
This happened in the upper room of Mark’s home, but the news went out and many people came. Of course, they could not all be in the upper room. If they all went upstairs, the floor would collapse.
Very possibly they went to Solomon’s portico. Many people came and asked, “What is this thing? They are speaking languages we understand.”
Then people began laughing and said, “These people are drunk.”
At that time, Acts 2:14 says, “Peter, taking his stand with the eleven.”
It was not Peter alone. Very naturally, the twelve apostles stood together, because this is the life of the body. The body was already there; now the body needed to live.
The twelve rose up together. Of course, we know the one who spoke was Peter, but when Peter spoke, the other eleven were also speaking, because this is a body.
Immediately, you see body living coming forth. Three thousand were saved that day.
Three thousand were saved. Then what do you do with them? How do you organize them? How do you teach them? How do you live? It is amazing.
When you come to Acts 2:42, there is a phrase there:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Very naturally, it is a body. This life will naturally live out, and it will follow the law of the Spirit of life.
Teaching comes later. First there is living; then there is doctrine. If it is an organization, you must have doctrine or law first, and then you have living. This is the difference.
The believers at that time were baptized into one body. Naturally, they lived forth the life of the body. No one taught them, “You cannot be selfish. If you see a brother lacking, you ought to provide for him.” You did not have to teach them; they knew it.
At that time Jews came from all over the world. Now they had been saved, and they did not go home. They stayed in Jerusalem. They had no place to live and nothing to eat. What did they do?
Very naturally, those who lived in Jerusalem opened up their homes and invited brothers and sisters to stay with them. No one said, “This is for myself.” They recognized, “This is the body of Christ.”
They loved one another, and not one had a lack. If you wanted to accomplish this through teaching, you would not be able to do it so well. This is the manifestation of life; then the living comes forth very naturally.
If you read Acts 2 and Acts 4, you see that they were of one heart. They loved one another and were concerned for one another. No one had any lack. Is that not amazing?
They broke bread in each of the homes. Every time they ate, they would break bread to remember the Lord. This was very natural, because the love of the Lord was in them.
Dear brothers and sisters, body living is natural. It is spiritually natural; it is natural according to life. If you live in that life, you will naturally have that result.
Teaching can help, but living comes before doctrine. I think this is very clear.
Remember Paul. He was leading brothers and sisters. He went through Galatia to preach, and many were saved. He went to Corinth to preach, and many were saved.
He was in Corinth for a year and six months and spoke many words to them. But there were many words he did not speak, especially concerning how to meet.
Believers have to meet together, because the church is nothing but the called-out ones gathering together. But what do you gather together for? You gather together because you have life.
I do not think Paul taught them how to meet. It was not until he wrote the epistles to the Corinthians that he showed them how to meet. This proves that living immediately comes out of life.
Today we call ourselves Christians, but in the beginning the name Christian did not exist. What did they call those who believed in the Lord Jesus? They called them disciples of Jesus, and those who belonged to the Way.
In the original language, the expression is not merely “those who believe this teaching,” but those who walk in this Way. It is a way; it is a road. They were those who walked on this Way.
When I went to the United States and met with some saints there, we discussed certain things. Those precious brothers and sisters often said to me, “This is not the American way of life. Our American way of life is special. We have a way of doing things.”
I am from China. They said, “You cannot bring your methods from China here to the United States.”
Then I told them, “It is not the American way of life or the Chinese way of life. It is Christ’s way of life.”
The term Christian did not yet exist, but people of the world already recognized that these people had a certain way of living. It was different from any nation in this world.
The Jews had their way of life. The Gentiles had their way of life. The Chinese had the Chinese way of life. Every nation has its own unique way of life.
But now came this people. Were they Jews? Yes, they were Jews. Were they Gentiles? Yes, they were Gentiles. But their way of living was neither the Jewish way nor the Gentile way.
The way they lived was something never seen in this world. How can you place Jews and Gentiles together? The Jews despised the Gentiles, and the Gentiles were jealous of the Jews. They could not live together.
When I was in India many years ago, the caste system was very strong. People were separated into different classes very prominently.
It was very difficult to preach the gospel. If you preached the gospel and someone from one caste was saved, those from other castes would not come.
Even the driver of the car would not wash clothes, because there was a caste of people who washed clothes. Everything was very clearly delineated.
If you gained one caste, you lost another caste. They could not intermarry; they could not even eat together. Everything was separate.
But now it is amazing: the free and the bondservants are all together. Some are free and some are slaves, yet when you come to the church, there is no free man and no slave.
I remember our dear brother Watchman Nee. There was a brother who helped serve him, whom we called Master Wong. He loved Brother Nee very much.
Brother Nee could not say, “This dish is very good,” otherwise he would eat that dish every day. Master Wong loved Brother Nee.
But in the breaking of bread, when he entered the meeting, he looked around and asked, “Where is Brother Nee sitting?” He would go and sit in the back.
Brother Nee, when he saw him, told him to come and sit next to him.
In the body of Christ, there is no free man and no slave. We are all brethren. This living is completely different.
In your home, you may feel that someone is your servant, but in the church he is your brother. This is an amazing thing that has happened.
No matter where the gospel went, people in each locality had different ways of living. But after they believed, it was completely different. You did not need to teach them. Naturally, everyone gathered together and became members of one another.
When people of this world saw these people, they called them those who walked in this Way.
In Acts, this is mentioned many times. In Acts 9:2, Paul asked for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them to Jerusalem.
In Acts 19:9, when Paul was in Ephesus, people spoke evil of the Way. They spoke against this kind of living.
In Acts 19:23, there was a great disturbance concerning the Way. It was not merely because of teaching, but because those who believed in the Lord lived in a way completely opposite to the way of the world.
Just as our Lord Jesus said, you have to walk the narrow way. Many walk the broad way, but it leads to death. Those who walk the narrow way are few, but it leads to eternal life.
Dear brothers and sisters, this Way became apparent. This life became apparent. These people were different; you would never find such a people in the world.
In Acts 22:4, Paul said, “I persecuted this Way to the death.” In Acts 24:14, he said, “I serve the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets,” according to what others called a sect.
Felix also knew the Way very well. Even before the term Christian became common, when the world saw this special group of people, they said, “These people are those on that Way.”
What is the Way? The Way is no longer doctrine. If it is only doctrine, then it is not the Way. You have to walk in the Way. It is a living.
No matter where the gospel went, you did not need to teach the believers how to walk. Of course, there were different conditions in different localities.
If it were merely teaching, everything would be uniform and identical. But that is dead; it is a rule or regulation. If it is life, there may be minute differences, but in principle it is the same. It is all to manifest Christ.
Then the name Christian appeared.
Unbelievers like to know what you are about. Even today it is this way. If someone meets you, he wants to know your secret. What are you about? If he does not know, he does not have a handle on you.
When unbelievers saw those who walked in the Way, they did not understand them. If they had been merely a sect of Judaism, people could have understood. There were Pharisees, Sadducees, and those who followed Jesus—but these people were not merely another sect.
Many Gentiles believed in the Lord Jesus. Who were these people? They met in the name of the Lord Jesus. They prayed to the Lord Jesus. They sang and praised the Lord Jesus. They used the Lord as the theme of their fellowship.
Whatever they said, here and there, they always spoke about Jesus. They went out with Jesus and came back with Jesus. Everything was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Who are these? Jesus people—Christ men. So the term Christian began.
Today we call ourselves Christians and think it is glorious. But at that time, the name Christian was a term of contempt. “You Christians, you are crazy. You have something wrong in your head.”
Just like Paul when he testified, he said, “I wish that you were all like me.” The king replied, “Are you trying to convince me to be a Christian?”
The term Christian was something despised. But thank and praise God: to be shamed because of the name Christian is our glory.
The church is the body of Christ. Because it is a body, it has a certain living. This living is according to life, and the flowing of life is the living.
There is no pretense. You do not need law or rules to produce it. Rules and regulations may come later to help, but in the beginning it is simply a manifestation of life.
Brothers and sisters, this is body living.
Body living does not mean that everyone follows one order. You may go to Taipei and see how brothers and sisters meet there. If you come to Kaohsiung, you may see how Christians meet there.
If everybody follows one system, it becomes an organization. But thank God, even though we may be different, there is something very similar, because we all have Christ as our center and we all express Christ.
When we speak about body living, we cannot simply say, “Do this,” or, “Do that,” and then call that body living.
Through the twenty-one centuries until now, in each locality in this world, the same living is yet different. This is life.
If you want to use one phrase to describe it, it is Acts 2:42:
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everybody continually upheld this. It was not merely an emotional excitement for one moment. They continually and diligently devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
In English, the word apostles is plural. There were at least twelve apostles. But the word teaching is singular.
Even though there were many apostles, their teaching was one.
When we study the Bible, we may say, “This is Paul’s teaching. This is John’s teaching. This is Peter’s teaching. This is James’s teaching.” Then people say that James’s teaching is in conflict with Paul’s teaching because Paul speaks about justification by faith while James speaks about justification by works.
Brothers and sisters, no. If they are true apostles, where does their teaching come from? What I received, I have given you. I did not invent it.
Every apostle had a special feature, because every vessel is different. If you put water in a long vessel, the water appears long. If you put it in a round vessel, it appears round. But the water is still water.
Paul had his special emphasis. Peter had his special focus. John had his special focus. But thank God, none of it belonged to themselves. All was received from the Lord.
What is the apostles’ teaching? It is the teaching of the Lord. Today we have the Lord’s teaching through the apostles.
That is why 1 John 1 says that the apostles had fellowship with the Father and the Son. The things they had seen with their eyes, the things they had handled and experienced, they gave to us so that we might have fellowship with them.
The teaching of the apostles is the teaching of the Lord. If we want to have body living, we have to preserve the apostles’ teaching.
It is a shame today that people have forgotten the apostles’ teaching. Some say, “The Bible we do not understand. Who has the authority to interpret the Bible?”
They say that only bishops, or the fathers of the early centuries, have the right to interpret the Bible. So if you want to understand the Bible, you have to listen to their teaching.
But we know that many heresies came from these church fathers. The Holy Spirit is the One who interprets the Bible.
The Bible is the word of God. It is the word of our Lord Jesus, and through the apostles it has been given to us.
We have to return to the beginning, to the word of the Lord. We cannot listen merely to the words of men. We cannot listen to church fathers or to so-called spiritual giants.
If what they say is from the Bible, we can accept it. If it is not according to the Bible, we will not follow it. This will lead us into body living.
Not only do you have the apostles’ teaching; you also have the fellowship of the apostles.
Again, apostles is plural, but fellowship is one. Paul did not have his own fellowship.
The Corinthian church wanted to make Paul into a special fellowship: “We are of Paul.” Paul said, “Did Paul give up his life for you?” No such thing.
The apostles have only one fellowship. First Corinthians 1:9 says:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
God calls all those who believe to enter into one fellowship. What is this fellowship called? It is the fellowship of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
What is the fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ? It is that fellowship which He had with the Father in eternity past.
The Father and the Son had fellowship in life. There was no hiding; they were completely open. All that the Father had, He fellowshiped to the Son. What the Son had, He fellowshiped to the Father.
All this fellowship was in the Holy Spirit. This is the most complete fellowship.
This was also the most exclusive fellowship, because it was according to the life of God. No one could participate in that fellowship; no one had a part in that fellowship.
But thank God, because God loves us, He has opened this fellowship. He asks us to enter into the fellowship of His Son.
In other words, He calls us to enjoy the fullness of the riches of Christ. In that fellowship, there is no reservation. It is completely open and completely sharing. There is no selfishness, and it is most abundant.
Thank God, praise God. This fellowship became the fellowship of the apostles, because the apostles first had fellowship with the Son and the Father, and then they opened up this fellowship to us.
So we are also in this fellowship. Oh, brothers and sisters, this fellowship is so abundant.
All that belongs to God in Christ now belongs to us. The enjoyment we have in this fellowship is tremendous.
Just like the Bible says, all the riches of the Godhead dwell in the Lord bodily, and you are complete in Him. This is fellowship.
Dear brothers and sisters, fellowship is only one. The fellowship of the saints is the fellowship of the apostles. The fellowship of the apostles is the fellowship of the Son of God.
We are all called into this fellowship, and in that fellowship we live the body life.
There are two visible things that make the teaching and fellowship more apparent: the breaking of bread and prayer.
Why is the breaking of bread so important? Because the breaking of bread causes us to remember the One who loved us—our Lord.
The Lord knows that we are forgetful people. He loves us to such an extent that He left for us the breaking of bread, so that we can remember Him.
Every time we come to break bread, we remember our Lord—how He shed His blood for us and how He gave up His body for us. We offer up our praises and thanks to Him, that we may not forget Him.
If you love a person to such an extent, you do not want that person to forget you. You remind him, “Remember me.” This is the pinnacle of love.
Not only do we remember Him; as we remember Him, we become a testimony. We exhibit His death to the world. This is the only salvation, and we wait for His return.
Dear brothers and sisters, the breaking of bread is so important. It is not only a matter of teaching; breaking bread is also fellowship.
First Corinthians 10 says that this table is a fellowship. As we remember Him, we do not merely remember the past. Even now, in our spirits, we have fellowship with our Lord.
Once again, we receive the grace of His salvation from Him. Once again, we receive His life. Through His provision, we can walk the way forward.
This displays the teaching and fellowship of the apostles. Throughout the ages, those who truly live the body life have always cherished the breaking of bread. But it is a shame that today, in Christianity, many despise such a thing.
Prayer is not merely personal prayer. Of course, individually we need to have a prayer life, but this prayer is corporate prayer. It is the prayer of the church.
It is not that I merely have my individual prayer. We need the church to rise up together and pray together.
Christendom today despises prayer. Many come to listen to messages on the Lord’s Day, but those who pray during the weekdays are only a few.
We comfort ourselves and say, “I pray at home.” But the purpose of God is so tremendous that our individual prayers alone cannot fulfill it.
Our Lord teaches His church to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Dear brothers and sisters, prayer is the true ministry of the church. The Lord has entrusted this prayer to His people.
For His righteousness’ sake and for His kingdom’s sake, we pray with one heart. Especially in these last days, we have to press on in our prayer, because the day of His coming is soon.
In reality, this demonstrates body life. How much body living do you have? Just look at the prayer meeting of the locality.
If the prayer meeting is weak, then body life is also weak. But if prayer is strong and powerful before God, then body living is also strong.
May the Lord remember us.