职事英语学习 > 特会训练听抄 > 2021 ITERO-Fall, msg. 6
Entering into Christ’s Wonderful Shepherding
in His Heavenly Ministry to Shepherd the Church of God
as a Slave of God for the Fulfillment of the Dream of God
Part 1
Well, dear brothers, we come now to message number six, a very very important message. You may say the things in this message are things that we have heard before, even more than once. But the need for such a message proves that we need this word or this kind of speaking and help, repeatedly, again and again and again, There are certain things related to our service in the church life, as elders, as responsible ones, that we have to learn very very much, to study, I would even say, and to develop. And perhaps, there is not one thing that would be greater intrinsically for a leading one than the matter of shepherding. And so this message is again on the shepherding of the church of God, the shepherding of the dear saints in the church life.
So we have this marvelous subject—“entering into Christ’s wonderful shepherding in his heavenly ministry to shepherd the church of God as a slave of God for the fulfillment of the dream of God”.
We all know that Christ came as a Shepherd when He became flesh. But after He died and resurrected and become the life-giving Spirit to indwell us, He became really the pneumatic Shepherd within us, indwelling us as that other Comforter to do a work of shepherding in our spirit, and shepherding our soul, shepherding our entire being. Then when he was raised to the heavens to be on the throne of God. There besides His other roles and statuses and functions, this Christ is still that Shepherd there, caring for His churches and caring for all of His believers, and the father’s children. And this shepherding work of the Lord will actually continue into eternity, as we will see in the outline. So He is that wonderful Shepherd, and He is today wonderfully shepherding us in his heavenly ministry to shepherd the very church of God.
Now the burden of this outline of this message is that we have to endeavor to enter into that shepherding. We’re not here to shepherd the churches, all the saints, apart from his shepherding. We’re here to join Him. We’re here to be one with Him. The need is to enter into His shepherding in His present-day heavenly ministry, which He is carrying out on the earth. The churches, the local churches, the saints, I would say, the sinners, the believers, who are on the earth. And how did He carry out His shepherding still as a Slave Himself? And we those who want to enter into His shepherding all must take the position as slaves, as slaves. And also we will see this marvelously in this outline. All this is for the fulfillment of the dream of God. And this dream of God is simply the dream of God’s eternal purpose. So I will get into this outline right away.
First in roman numeral 1: We need to enter into Christ’s wonderful shepherding in His heavenly ministry by enjoying and ministering Christ to shepherd the church of God as the slave of God for the fulfillment of the dream of God, the eternal purpose of God.
Here it is basically the same as the subject of this message. But I like that there is this word “we enter”. How do we enter into Christ shepherding today by enjoying and ministering Christ? We ourselves must first be a partaker, an enjoyer of His shepherding. If we are not shepherded by Him constantly, if we are not enjoying His fine, detail, living, intrinsic shepherding, as we can see in that one famous psalm, Psalm 23, if we do not enjoy the Lord in this way, there’s actually no way we can minister or we can shepherd others.
In Peter… Peter charges that we should shepherd according to God. Not according to your way, not according to your preference, not according to your will or your interest, but according to God, this incarnate God, this crucified and resurrected and even ascended God. This God who is now what? dwelling within us and even working and operating within us. This God is the One that we should shepherd according to. So that the real shepherding is really the Lord shepherding His church, the Lord shepherding His saints in and through us. We are just His extension. We are just part of Him. We are just mingled with Him. So brothers, I would say, the first thing we need to do is to enjoy His shepherding day by day. And we will also see this in this outline in a moment.
And when we enjoy His shepherding, we shall be able to minister Him, this shepherd, and his shepherding to the saints, to the churches. This is a very very crucial point. I hope that we can get it, but we will say more about this.
A. God’s dream is the dream of His eternal purpose to have the reality of Bethel, the house of God, the mutual dwelling place of God and man; in this universe God is doing only one thing—He is building His eternal habitation for His eternal expression.
Such is the very dream of our God to gain the reality of the house of God, Bethel, the mutual dwelling of God and man. And this is the Body of Christ. This is the church of God, and this is God what God is building today, this mutual dwelling between God and us to be His eternal habitation, and also our place to live, our tabernacle for His eternal expression.
B. Christ as the Slave-Savior did not come to be served
Now we come right away into our service as leading ones, as elders, as responsible ones. We’re here to serve the saints. We’re here to serve the churches. We’re here to serve the flock of God. As Christ the slave savior, He did not come to be served but he came to serve.
As the great Shepherd of the sheep, listen to this, He served us in the past, He still serves us in the present, and He is going to serve us in the future.
Isn’t this wonderful? Dear brothers, you know, even just to read these sentences, something so sweet should be touching our heart, should be touching each one of us. And we have these verses in Mark 10:45 where it says, “The son of man, this slave savior, came not to be served.” “Not to be served.” Brothers, we are here not to be served. We should not even expect to be served. “But to serve and to give His soul life, His life, as a ransom for many”, even sacrificing, laying down His soul life in order to serve us. Such is the one.
And then in Luke 22, He spoke in this way, “For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? It is not the one who reclines at the table. But I am in your midst as the one who serves.” Surely, the Lord did that. He girded himself, and left the table, and washed the feet of the disciples. He took the place of a slave to serve the disciples. And of course, His whole life on the earth, he did that.
Now not only He served when he was on the earth, He serves us… As we look back, dear brothers, in each one of our lives, can we not say, must we not say as Jacob did in Genesis, “He is the God who has shepherded me all my life to this day.” As we look back, even right now as you’re listening to me, have a quick look back on your life, on my life, we can all conclude: God has shepherded us. All our life, all our life, in big things, in small things, in every way, to this day. We would not be here sitting here, listening to this word, we would not be here still in the church life, we would not be here having the privilege to serve Him and His people, if He did not shepherd us all our life until now.
Brothers, He is the good Shepherd. He is the great Shepherd of the sheep. He is the chief Shepherd of all of us. We are little shepherds. He is the chief. He is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, of our being and person. This one, this one, Hallelujah, served us, served us by His shepherding us.
He served us in the past. He is right now shepherding us in the present. I must say, even as I’m speaking right now, He’s shepherding me. I cannot give this message if the Shepherd is not there shepherding me in my words, anointing me, leading me, and guiding me. The same with all of us here. He’s shepherding us in the present.
He is going to serve us in the future even forever. “The Lamb who was in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and guide them to springs of waters of life; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Even here I can see the nourishing and the cherishing. The wiping away of the tears of from our eyes, from all of our dissatisfaction. What cherishing! Guiding us to the springs of waters of life. What nourishing! For eternity the Lamb will still be shepherding us. Dear brothers, this is our shepherd.