EXCERPTS FROM THE MINISTRY

LIFE-STUDY OF SECOND CORINTHIANS

MESSAGE FIFTEEN

A PATTERN OF LIVING CHRIST FOR THE CHURCH

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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:8-9, 12, 17-22

Our God is always going on. For this reason, we should not remain in yesterday or try to live in tomorrow. We should live in today. Proper Christians do not have a yesterday, and they do not yet have tomorrow. We only have today. Therefore, the Bible says, “As long as it is called today” (Heb. 3:13). God is not the God of yesterday or the God of tomorrow; He is the God of today. Every day God is advancing, moving on. Therefore, we need to be open to God’s speaking today. God’s speaking is His going on.

The title of this message is “A Pattern of Living Christ for the Church.” How marvelous it is to live Christ for the church! I do not believe that before 1980 any of us knew this expression “live Christ for the church.” This saying has come forth only recently. However, we are concerned not simply with living Christ for the church, but with seeing a pattern of living Christ for the church. Paul is a pattern of living Christ for the church.

A BOOK ON LIVING CHRIST FOR THE CHURCH

In 1 Corinthians we see the matter of living Christ for the church, but it is only in 2 Corinthians that we have the pattern of living Christ for the church. I would ask you to consider what is revealed in the sixteen chapters of 1 Corinthians. These chapters reveal how to enjoy Christ, how to take Christ as our life, how to live Christ so that we may have the church and that He may have the Body to fulfill God’s eternal purpose. Not many readers of the Bible have seen that 1 Corinthians is a book on living Christ for the church.

In the Life-study of 1 Corinthians I pointed out that 1 Corinthians deals with many problems. These problems are of two categories: the problems in the realm of human life and the problems in the realm of the divine administration. It is very important to have a proper human life. Of course, the divine administration is very crucial. We certainly need to have a proper human life to carry out God’s administration. But how can we have such a human life, and how can we carry out God’s administration? By what kind of life can we have a proper human life, and by what means, by what instrument, can we carry out the divine administration? Christ is the factor for solving the problems in the realm of human life, and the church is the factor for solving the problems related to the divine administration.

THE UNIQUE SOLUTION

Christ is a heavenly, divine antibiotic which kills the negative germs within us. Because of the fall, these germs have come into our family life and also into the church life. First Corinthians reveals that the church at Corinth had been invaded by these negative germs. The result was ruin and corruption. Christ is the only “antibiotic” that can effectively deal with these germs. Thus, in the first ten chapters of 1 Corinthians we see Christ as the factor, the element, the “medicine,” to heal all the problems in human life and to cure the diseases in the church life.

The church at Corinth was indeed sick. The saints suffered spiritually from such illnesses as divisiveness, the claiming of rights, fornication, and the abuse of God-given rights in eating and in marriage. What could cure the believers of these diseases? The only cure was Christ, the divine medicine.

OUR PORTION

Let us review what is covered in chapters one through ten of 1 Corinthians concerning Christ as the antibiotic to cure all the diseases in the church. First, Christ is our unique portion, the One into whose fellowship we have been called by God (1 Cor. 1:2, 9). First Corinthians 1:2 says that Christ is “theirs and ours.” Verse 9 says, “God is faithful, through Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Because God has called us into the fellowship of His Son, the Son is now our portion.