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Scripture Reading: Phil. 2:6-8; John 5:17; Heb. 1:2-4; 8-11, Eph. 3:18
The last time I was in the Philippines was four years ago, in 1985. This time I see many new faces. I am especially overjoyed to see that the majority of you are young people. My burden this time is mainly in three areas. The first concerns Christ, the second concerns the church, and the third concerns the Lord’s present recovery. These are the main points of this conference: Christ, the church, and the Lord’s recovery. These three points are not God’s recovery of yesterday. Rather, they are the Lord’s present recovery.
Christ is the specific and central theme of the Bible. According to the revelation of the Old and New Testaments, Christ is too deep, too high, too wide, and too broad. We can never exhaust speaking about Him, nor can we measure Him. Usually, when we talk about Christ, we make Him too common. We say that Christ is loving, Christ is merciful, Christ is forgiving, and Christ is patient. But all these descriptions are too shallow and common. The terms used by the Bible to describe Christ are all very profound. For this reason man tends to neglect them.
Today we want to see all the riches of Christ. The first item of these riches is the all-inclusiveness and unlimitedness of Christ. His all-inclusiveness speaks of His content, and the unlimitedness speaks of His measure. As far as His content is concerned, He is everything. There is not one thing that He is not. For this reason He has a special title: I AM (Exo. 3:14). If there is a God in the universe, then surely He has to be the one (Rom. 9:5). If there is a man in the universe, surely He is man also (1 Tim. 2:5). He is everything. He is even you and I. He is even every person who is in the churches (Col. 3:11). His content is all-inclusive.
In addition, His measure is unlimited. It is the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the universe (Eph. 3:18). When man landed on the moon, he reached a certain height. But the moon is only a part of the solar system. The universe is billions and billions of times larger than the solar system. Since Christ can be compared to the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the universe, His measure must necessarily be unlimited.
We all know that the person denotes the being of a man. Our person is very insignificant. Only the person of the Lord Jesus is excellent beyond comparison. First, He is God: the Lord Jesus is God. Outside of Him we cannot find God. In addition, He is omnipresent. He is unlimited in what He is. He is power, He is authority, He is light, and He is love. All the positive things in the universe are types of God Himself. Greatness, authority, honor, glory, and nobility are all expressions of what God is. Human language can never describe in full the wonder of what God is. Second, He is also man. The Lord Jesus is not only God; He is also man. This makes His person complete. Before the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, God was merely God; He was not a man. But today this God has become a man. The One whom the prophets in the Old Testament worshipped was only God; He was not a man. But the birth of the Lord Jesus was God taking up humanity to become a God-man.
During the last three and a half years, when the Lord Jesus was fulfilling His ministry in preaching the gospel, those following Him always asked the question, “Who is this One? Is He God, or is He man?” In our natural concept there is a clear distinction between God and man. But here is One who is God mingled with man. He is man, yet in Him is God. In Him God and man are mingled together as one. Hence, He is a God-man.
Mark 4 records one time that the Lord Jesus crossed the sea. Suddenly, a great storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat. But the Lord Jesus was asleep in the stern on a cushion (vv. 35-38). We know that God does not slumber; neither does He need to sleep. But the Lord Jesus slept peacefully in the stern of the boat where the tossing was the most severe. The waves rolled in, one after another. All the disciples were frightened. They woke the Lord and said to Him, “Teacher, does it not matter to You that we are perishing?” (v. 38). When the Lord rose up, He rebuked the wind and the waves, and there was a great calm. At the same time He rebuked the disciples for their fear and lack of faith. The disciples feared greatly and wondered whether the wonderful One before their eyes was God or man.
One day the Lord told Nicodemus that He was the One who descended out of heaven and who is in heaven (John 3:13). He was not in heaven first, then on earth; rather, He is in heaven and on earth simultaneously. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Savior. He is also the One we believe in, the One who is now our life. Today not only is He in heaven and on earth, but He is even in you, in me, and in everyone here who has believed into Him. Ephesians 4:6 tells us that He is over all, through all, and in all. He is omnipresent. Like the air around us, He can be everywhere. These are His all-inclusive, unlimited, excellent, and unsearchable riches.
God’s nature is also rich beyond measure. Holiness and righteousness are God’s nature. If we believe into God, we have holiness and righteousness. The more you say that there is no God, the less holiness and righteousness you have. We can never explain this matter. It is the same with the air. We do not know all about the air, yet daily we are breathing it. If we stop breathing for five minutes, I am afraid that we will be through. Air is very important to us. For our daily life we also need food and water. But to get these two things, we have to pay a price. However, there is no price for breathing the air. Air does not need to go through any special process, and we can enjoy it without exerting any conscious effort. Furthermore, among these three things the most important one is the air; we cannot live without it for a moment. Praise the Lord! The thing that is most necessary is also the thing that is most available. This is the way the Lord Jesus is to us. He is the One whom we need the most, yet He is also the One most available to us. He is so available because He is limitless. We can enjoy His riches because He is everything to us.
We all know that it is not easy to be a human being. Some young people want to commit suicide at the age of eighteen or nineteen because they consider it too difficult to be a human being. All parents love their children, but this love sometimes becomes a bothering to the children. In the same way, although children are precious to the parents, many times they cause their parents to suffer beyond measure. It is not easy to be a parent or a child. It is likewise not easy to be a husband or a wife. It is not easy to be an employer, an employee, a teacher, a student, or to be in any other profession. This is why we all need Jesus. Only Jesus is qualified to be a human being. Without the Lord Jesus, we are not qualified to be a father or a mother. We are not qualified to be any kind of person. We may even want to commit suicide. Only when Jesus comes into us will we not have any thought of committing suicide. Jesus is too rich. When He enters into you, your enjoyment of Him is beyond description. He can satisfy all the needs of our human life.
His person, nature, experience, work, accomplishments, and attainments are all excellent beyond comparison. He is such a One. He is all-inclusive; hence, He is excellent beyond comparison. The water that we drink is precious because, on the one hand, it is rich in its constituents, and on the other hand, these constituents are what the human body needs. Whether or not we understand it, as long as we drink in the water, it will function within us and will meet our need to satisfy our thirst. This is the way with our human life. As soon as Jesus comes in, we feel wonderful. We cannot explain it. Without Jesus we are just a mess. This is something beyond human explanation. Hence, everyone needs Jesus. Only God can meet and solve all the needs within man. In our human life we all need this all-inclusive and limitless Christ. In Him are unspeakable human riches and divine riches as well. He can save us to the uttermost.
For example, a young person has believed in the Lord and is saved. Before his salvation he was very unreasonable and unruly. No one could deal with him. Whether it was the school, the police, the court, or his parents, no one could lay their hands on him. One day this young man believed in Jesus in a wonderful way. In three to five days his whole person had a wonderful change. The Jesus whom he had received began to exercise a regulating function in him, and all his peculiar conduct was changed.
After a while he discovers that he still has some peculiarities in his disposition and temperament. He still hates others and envies others. He feels that since he has become a Christian, he should not be like this any longer. He tries his best to improve himself, but the result is that his temper becomes worse. The more he tries to improve, the more he envies others. The reason for this is that he is striving by himself, and it is difficult for him to see any improvement. This is often our experience. The more we pursue the Lord, the more we feel that we are not right. For this reason, when we love the Lord and pursue after Him, we have to remember to drop our self and give up our self. No matter how peculiar, quick-tempered, or proud we are, we have to forget about these things to touch the Lord. When we contact the Lord with our spirit, we should not ask the Lord to do so many things for us; rather, we should touch the Lord Himself. This is like connecting the electricity to our homes; we do not need to pray for electricity to give light and heat. All we do is link up with the electric source and allow the electric current to flow. Electricity will then be transmitted to us, and every electric appliance will be able to operate and to function. Hence, we must continually touch the Lord in our spirit. He will kill our temper and pride, and He will swallow up our envying. In the end we will be saved.
Finally, the riches in the Lord’s divinity and the power in His humanity will become our humanity. In this way the limitless Christ will be in us to meet all our needs and to enable us to do all things. This is like what Paul says: “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me” (Phil. 4:13). In the book of 1 Corinthians he tells us that he was made an uncommon person, not because of himself but because of the grace of God that was with him (15:10). Paul was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insulting, destructive person (1 Tim. 1:13). After he touched Christ, Christ was in him, and he became an uncommon person.
Furthermore, Paul says that the riches of Christ that he enjoyed are unsearchable. In the end he speaks of the “excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). The riches of Christ are unsearchable; He is both high and deep, and His measure is the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the universe (Eph. 3:8). We need to spend all the days of our life to experience His riches.
Many of you young ones here today have known Christ. You have also known His matchless riches. We have to learn to touch Him and to see Him. Furthermore, some brothers and sisters have the desire to be full time and to join the training. I want you to know that to join the training is to be exposed. It shows us that we are nothing and can do nothing. We are corrupt to the uttermost, and we are absolutely useless. Hence, we must touch Christ. It is not enough merely to trust in Him. We have to allow Him to be in us and allow ourselves to get into Him. We must be joined to Him daily, and we must breathe Him in all the time. We have to see that we can never overcome our own temper. We cannot improve ourselves or advance by ourselves. But there is a way today. It is to receive this Jesus Christ. He is our temperament, and He is also our advancement and our improvement. He is everything to us on the positive side.
Today this Lord is the Spirit. Within us we also have a spirit. Our spirit is linked and mingled as one with God the Spirit. This is the goal of our training. Our training is not a seminary. It is not a monastery. This training is to lead the brothers and sisters to know themselves, to realize their own uselessness, and to contact Christ so that the riches of Christ can become their riches.
Some of you brothers and sisters may think that the training will make you an experienced person. But I must tell you that a person’s experience, whether that of the older ones or that of the young, is worth nothing. Many times the more experienced we are, the less we are useful. Although I am so old, I do not trust in my experience at all. On the contrary, my experience many times becomes a hindrance to me. Hence, we have to realize that whether we are old or young, good or evil, we are all useless. Everyone needs Jesus. Only Jesus is useful. If all of you trainees, one hundred or more, would take in these words, your training will be a success, and the churches in the Philippines will double their number very soon.
The problem of those serving the Lord is that they think that they are useful. They fail to apply the Lord Jesus, and as a result they cannot enjoy Him. We have to realize that the riches of Christ are unsearchable. As long as we are willing to drop our self and to admit our uselessness, the riches of Christ will become our experience. These unsearchable riches are the gospel that we preach today. When these riches are preached as the gospel to others, the result is the church for the accomplishment of God’s eternal and mysterious economy. Formerly, our gospel only told people to repent and confess their sins and to be delivered from perdition and receive eternal life. That is not adequate for the producing of the church. The proper and high gospel is one that causes people to see their uselessness and to experience the unsearchable riches of Christ. The result is that the church is produced for the accomplishing of God’s eternal and mysterious economy.
