Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good Land - 12

Message Title: Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue

What God has wanted to gain when God created man in His own image and according to His likeness, and giving them the dominion over this earth; that purpose of God can only be fulfilled through our experiences of this all-inclusive Christ. 

our God dwells in the heavens, but really His desire is to dwell on this earth, which is the church, in our spirit, and also on the unique ground of oneness, not up to our choice or preference, but up to the choice of God. 

I. Fist Corinthians takes the history of the children of Israel in the Old Testament as a type of the New Testament believers, but there is no reference to the good land in 1 Corinthians, because, spiritually speaking, the reality of the good land is in 2 Corinthians.

if we look at the history of Israel people, after enjoying the passover and leaving Egypt, they entered into the wilderness, drinking of the spiritual rock following them, and eating of the spiritual food, getting baptised over the sea. in 1 Corinthians, we only see those two parts of the journey of Israel, which is the exodus out of Egpyt and their life in the wilderness, wandering for 40 years. but we cannot see the good land, which is found in 2 Corinthians, though there is no mentioning of "good land" in this book. However, the word "grace" is mentioned multiple times in the book, which grace is Christ as the good land to us today. the reality of the good land in 2 Corinthians is Christ Himself as the divine grace; the grace of the Lord Jesus is the central thought and the subject of 2 Corinthians. 

Grace is surely unmerited favor, which is corrent. Grace is also a free gift from God. but grace is more than that. we must see that grace is not just something God does for us, something that God gives to us, but grace is actually God Himself in the Son as the Spirit coming into us to be our enjoyment, even our full enjoyment, to be what we cannot be but should be, to do what we cannot do but should do, to live for us, to enable us, to stregthen us, to empower us, to do everything for us, to energize us to face all kinds of situations and to meet all kinds of situations. 

in the book of Ephesians, which is a book on the church, grace is closely related to the building of the church. it is grace that enables us to function and to build up the Body of Christ. it is grace that produce the church as the masterpiece of God. Grace is what we need, which is the all-inclusive Christ, who is with our spirit today. 

the way for us to enjoy the good land, to labor on the good land is by grace. 

II. We need to see how to live a life in the eyes of God that will enable us to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ typified by the good land

we need to live a life of laboring upon Christ, a life of enjoying Christ personally so that we may enjoy Him together collectively for the building up of the Body of Christ as the temple, the house, of the living God. there are two aspects in our life of enjoying Christ. first, there is the personal aspect concerning our individual enjoyment and labor. also there is the corporate aspect for us to enjoy Christ collectively, which requires us to come to the specific place ordained by God. God's will is for us to enjoy Christ. we need to seek to enjoy Christ and experience Him in every situation, which has been divinely arranged by God for us to enjoy and gain Christ. 

we must produce enough of Him so that there will be a surplus remaining for the poor and the needy, for the priests and the Levites, and with the best for the Lord Himself. this means we cannot produce just enough for ourselves. we need to produce the surplus, for others in the church life and for the Lord. there will always be some poor and needy ones in the church life, and also there will the ones who serve the Lord. 

III. We must meet with the Lord's children for corporate worship at the place that the Lord has chosen - in our spirit and on the unique ground of oneness

First, God's sanctuary, His habitation, is in our spirit, and second, it is the church. 

there are four characteristics of the place the Lord has chosen:

1. the place chosen by the Lord must not have any name other than the name of Christ.

2. the place chosen by the Lord is full of the exercise of the spirit

3. the place chosen by the Lord is a place of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ

4. the place chosen by the Lord is a place of rejoicing. 

if we have all of these above, we will have the proper meetings.