Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (1) - 2

Message Title: Christ as the One with the Heavenly-ruled Deeds, Our Shepherd, Our Rest, and the Sower

all these four points are all taken from the book of Matthew, which are wonderful and revealing. we can use four words to describe the sweetness of these four points:

1. healing: belive + touch

2. shepherding: experience + enjoy

3. resting: come + take

4. growing: condition + supply

I. Christ is revealed as the One with the heavenly-ruled deeds -  the fringe of His garment

Matthew 9:20 And behold, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years approached from behind and touched the fringe of His garment,

Matthew 9:21 For she said within herself, If only I touch His garment, I will be healed.

Mathew 9:22 And Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, Take courage, daughter; your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that hour.

it is quite meaningful that during that time, a lot of people were surrounding the Lord, but the Lord only felt this one touch of this woman. from this story, we can see that in the Lord's human virtue, there was healing power. why in His human virtue? because the woman's problem was in the humanity, in the fallen humanity. because of the fall of Adam, all of us fell in our humanity. in our fallen humanity, there are full of problems and sicknesses. therefore, our huamanity needs to be restored and saved. we need the humanity of Jesus. as soon as the woman touched the fringe of the Lord's garment, the power of healing went out from the Lord to that woman. the Lord's healing power was already and always ready to be touched by us, the sinners, so that His healing power and be transfused into us, which becomes our healing. so we should be like the woman, we believe and we touch! we just need to exercise our little faith. like that woman, we can pray: " Lord, I believe. I believe i just need to touch the fringe of Your garment, and I will be healed. Lord I open to You and touch You."

Christ's garment signifies His righteous deeds, and the fringe signifies the heavenly ruling. as children of God, our conduct and behavior should be under the ruling, governing and binding of the heavenly government, limitation, and regulation. and this is the most beautiful and the best conduct, which is acknowledged and enjoyed by God.

II. the Lord Jesus is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep

in order to understand Psalm 23, we need to read the three psalms, 22, 23, and 24 as a group. Psalm 23 shows us the five stages of the shepherding of the resurrected Christ:

1. He shepherds us in the initial stage of the enjoyment of Christ as the green pastures and of the Spirit as the waters of rest

2. He shepherds us in the second stage of the revival and transformation on the paths of righteousness

3. He shepherds us in the third stage of the experience of the presence of the resurrected pneumatic Christ while walking through the valle of the shadow of death. such experiences are necessary for us to experience deeper, dearer, and sweeter presence of the Lord. through such experiences, we are pressed to only the Lord Himself, finding nowhere else we can go, but only go to the Lord to seek Him. 

4. He shepherds us in the fourth stage of the deeper and higher enjoyment of the resurrected Christ, in fighting against the adversary. the shepherding is to shepherd us in the warfare, in the battle, against the enemy

5. He shepherds us in the fifth stage of the lifelong enjoyment of the divine goodness and lovingkindness in the house of Jehovah. goodness refers to the grace of Christ, lovingkindness refers to the love of the Father, and follow implies the fellowship of the Spirit; thus, the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit are with us. 

Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked from Jehovah; / That do I seek: / To dwell in the house of Jehovah / All the days of my life, / To behold the beauty of Jehovah, / And to inquire in His temple.

Psalm 27:5 For He will conceal me in His shelter / In the day of trouble; / He will hide me in the hiding place of His tent; / He will raise me up upon a rock.

Psalm 27:6 And now my head is lifted up / Above my enemies who surround me. / And I will offer in His tent / Sacrifices of shouts of joy: / I will sing and psalm to Jehovah.

we need to seek to dwell in the house of God all the days of our life to :

1. behold the beauty of God

2. inquire of God, checking with Him about everything in our daily life

3. be concealed in God's shelter and to hide ourselves in the hiding place of God

4. be raised up and have our head lifted up by God

5. offer sacrifices of shouts of joy

III. the Lord Jesus is our rest

Matthew 11:28 Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

all of the people on the earth are toiling and are burdeded, even are enslaved with no rest. the Lord Jesus is our rest, and He is calling us to find rest in Him. so our job is to come to the Lord and to take the Lord as our rest. 

to take the Lord's yoke is to take the will of the Father; it is not to be regulated or controlled by any work, but to be constrained by the will of the Father. to learn from Him is not to imitate Him outwardly but to copy the Lord in our spirit by taking His yoke - God's will; God's will has to yoke us, and we have to put our neck into this yoke to become His duplication. 

IV. the Sower is the wonderful person of the Lord Jesus, and the seed sown is also the Lord Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God

we need to see the vision of Christ, the Sower, sowing Himself as the seed of life into human beings; this is related to the desire of the Lord's heart. His desire is to come into us, His chosen people, to be our life in the way of mingling in order to make Himself our element and to make us His expression. we, the believers are the farm of God, where God is growing the seed of life sown into us to produce the precious materials for God's building. 

Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

the process for Christ to make His home in our hearts, is also the process for the seed of life which has been sown into us by Christ to grow within our heart, which is the building of God. the soil for the seed to grow is our heart, where we can afford opportunities for the seed to grow, by conditioning our heart to be good soil, the good place for the seed to grow. if we pay attention to our spirit and exercise our spirit, we will supply something to Christ for Him to make home in our hearts. if we are going to have the Lord as the seed of life grow within us to be our full enjoyment, we have to open to the Lord absolutely and cooperate with Him to deal thoroughly with our heart.