All believers in Christ have been entrusted by God with a stewardship, which is to minister the riches of Christ into others for the building up of the Body of Christ. When we preach the gospel, we carry out the stewardship of God by contacting sinners where they are and ministering God into them (see Luke 19:1-10).
Our concept concerning preaching the gospel to save sinners needs to be uplifted – we need to preach the gospel not only to win souls for God, but to carry out the stewardship of God for God’s economy by dispensing God into others.
And after we help someone to receive the Lord we don’t stop there – we need to continue to pray for him, feed him, visit him, shepherd him, and minister Christ into him, until he also sees God’s economy and grows in life, is transformed, and is a functioning member of the Body of Christ to build up the church.
The Apostle Paul was a pattern to us in this – he labored as a priest of the gospel, and he dispensed the unsearchable riches of Christ into the believers so that Christ would make His home in their heart, Christ would be formed in them, and Christ would live in them.
Paul was a steward, a waiter, dispensing the riches of Christ to all those in the household of God. He saw the vision of God’s economy, God’s dispensing, and he labored, struggled, and agonized on behalf of the sinners and then of the believers that they would enjoy Christ to the uttermost to become functioning members of the Body.
We need to follow Paul’s pattern to be a faithful minister of the church according to the stewardship of God. In the church life, we all are stewards and waiters – we enjoy and are loaded with the riches of Christ, and then we minister these riches into the members of the household of God.
Our Concept of Preaching the Gospel Needs to be Uplifted
Preaching the gospel is part of the stewardship of God entrusted to us – the Lord Jesus told us, before He was lifted up, to go and disciple all the nations. For us to carry out the stewardship of God we first need to have our concept of preaching the gospel uplifted (see 1 Cor. 9:16-17; Matt. 28:19-20).
God has an ordained way to practice the New Testament economy, and the first aspect of the God-ordained way is to save sinners by contacting them where they are (as the Lord Jesus did, see Luke 19:1-10).
When we preach the gospel though, we don’t focus on getting a large number saved or merely saving souls for God’s kingdom – we preach the gospel by dispensing God into others, so that they would become members of the Body of Christ.
It is crucial to preach the gospel, but we shouldn’t preach the gospel for the sake of preaching the gospel – we preach the gospel to carry out the stewardship of God for the economy of God by dispensing God into man.
After a person is saved, we need to feed them, nourish them, and give them the pure milk of the word, and we need to speak to them about God’s economy. This involves a lot of struggling….preaching the gospel involves a certain amount of laboring and affliction, but to bring a saved person all the way into God’s economy involves at least ten times more struggling and agonizing!
In Christianity in general thousands of sinners are saved, but how many of them are brought on to knowing and being in God’s economy, having the stewardship of God to minister God into man?
It is not that difficult to help someone to be saved, but it is so much more difficult to help this newly saved one to be in the home meetings, enjoy Christ daily, and have an appetite for the high peak truth and the ministry which gives life.
To carry out the stewardship of God, we need to go where people are – to their homes – and when people are available. We need to enjoy Christ and be filled with Christ, and then go to minister Christ to others.
Once someone is saved, we need to continue to be one with the Lord to labor and struggle over them so that they may enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and see God’s economy, His dispensing, to become living and functioning members of the Body of Christ.
We all were entrusted this stewardship, and we all have the responsibility to preach the gospel and shepherd others until they also become functioning and ministering-Christ members of the Body!
How much we need to be uplifted in our concept concerning preaching the gospel, from merely saving souls or helping others to be saved from eternal perdition, to shepherding and perfecting people to become members of the Body of Christ and materials for God’s building!
Following Paul’s Pattern to be a Faithful Minister of the Church According to the Stewardship of God
The Apostle Paul was entrusted by God with the stewardship of God, and he was a faithful minister of the church to dispense the riches of Christ into all the believers. He did this and then he told us to follow him as a pattern, to do what he does.
In Eph. 4 we see that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers need to work to produce the saints to be like them, so that the perfected saints would do the work of an apostle, prophet, evangelist, and shepherd and teacher.
It is one thing to be able to preach the gospel and get people saved, but it is much better to perfect someone else to do the same thing you do. Paul became a patter to us so that we all can follow him and come up to the standard of who he is (see Eph. 3).
He was imprisoned in Christ, he saw the heavenly vision, he experienced Christ and gained Christ, and he was a faithful steward to dispense the riches of Christ to the members of the household of God. He was a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1).
He was a waiter, a steward, someone who acted as a dispensing steward and a household administrator to dispense the divine household supply to its members (“steward” in Greek comes from the same root as the word economy and dispensation in 1 Tim. 1:4 and Eph. 1:10).
We all as believers in Christ and members of the Body of Christ are appointed by the Lord to be stewards, those who dispense God’s mysteries (Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ) and the riches of Christ into the believers.
This involves some afflictions, some persecutions, some sufferings, and some agonizing, since the stewardship of God can be carried out only through suffering (see Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:1, 10; 2 Cor. 6:4; cf. Psa. 91:1-2; 31:20). In the general Christianity it is easy to do a work of preaching the gospel, praise and worship, teaching the truth, and even setting up home group bible studies.
But when you follow the pattern of the Apostle Paul to not only preach the gospel but minister the riches of Christ into others so that they would grow in life, experience Christ in a deeper way, and become functioning members of the Body of Christ to also perfect others to enjoy Him, this will entail persecution from many Christians, suffering, and agonizing.
Paul went through this, and he did his best to fulfill the lack of the sufferings of Christ for the Body of Christ. Now we also need to practice the God-ordained way, the stewardship of God, in whatever capacity we are, and this will attract suffering and persecution.
The Patterns of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee
Brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee were also patterns to us not only in preaching the gospel and speaking the truth according to the revelation they received from God, but also in perfecting others to do what they do. For this, both brother Nee and Lee were persecuted, evil spoken of, and labelled by the people in Christianity as a cult or sect.
However, their ministry has given life and has helped millions of believers to have a deeper experience and knowledge of Christ, and they perfected many saints to do what they do. Brother Nee’s dream and last speaking before he was imprisoned was that all the members of the Body of Christ would rise up and function – and that will bring the Lord back.
Brother Lee was one with brother Nee and, in 1984, he labored on the word and in the church life to bring all the saints into the practice of the God-ordained way in which everyone functions.
According to the way revealed by the Bible, every believer should function in preaching the gospel, shepherding others by visiting them, perfecting others to function, and building up the Body of Christ through prophesying (speaking God and speaking God forth into people).
Before brother Nee was imprisoned and later died, he perfected many co-workers to do the same thing he did, and many of them were faithful to speak God’s word. However, from among the co-workers of brother Nee none has been as faithful to the vision brother Nee has seen (especially his last wish and desire to see all the members of the Body function) as brother Lee was.
Brother Lee, before he went to be with the Lord, has perfected a group of brothers to continue the ministry, and through his speaking recorded and printed we now all can be perfected to function in our measure according to the God-ordained way.
This entailed much persecution for brother Lee from Christian organizations in the USA – even to the extent of being labelled a “cult”. But the Lord has shined His light on this situation and He has brought about a clear understanding in this matter so that the very ones who labelled “the Lord’s recovery” as a cult now admitted, “we were wrong, they are members of the Body just like us and their teaching and practice is even closer to what the Bible teaches than most Christians teach”.
We praise the Lord for such faithful ministers of His word, and we want to follow in their steps by practicing the God-ordained way to live, serve, and be in the church life. Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, we love You! Shine on us and unveil us concerning Your ordained way. Lord, uplift our concept and view of preaching the gospel. We want to be perfected by the gifted members so that we may also function as they do for the building up of the Body of Christ. Lord, we want to take Your way to minister Christ into others for their growth in life, transformation, and proper functioning in the Body. Thank You for making us stewards of the riches of Christ and the mysteries of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’ speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians (msg. 28), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose, week 9 / msg 9, Arriving at a Full-grown Man (3) Carrying Out the Stewardship of God to Present Every Man Full-grown in Christ and Practicing the Church Life in the Consciousness of the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
# All the preaching of the Gospel, / All the teaching ministry, / Every other kind of service / For the church alone should be.
# An uplifted gospel have we, / One we’re not ashamed to proclaim. / Our gospel’s the highest of all, / For it is God’s goal and God’s aim. / No longer so lowly and poor, / We’ve found that we’re God’s holy sons. / No more will we preach as before; / Now each man on earth can be won.
# It is by the life convincing / That the people may believe; / It is by the life imparting / That the souls may life receive. / May our living be the preaching, / Making Christ to others known; / Not the word of doctrine-preaching, / But the seed of life be sown.
# Go to collect materials for the House, / Go to convince dear souls and bring them in; / Bring in the very souls whom God has made, / Bring in the souls usurped by every sin.
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