This week in our morning revival we come to the matter of The Apostolic Ministry in Cooperation with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry, and today in particular we want to see how the Lord commissioned Peter to shepherd His sheep.
The Lord is speaking to us today, and His speaking is His shepherding; on the one hand through His speaking the Lord exposes us, and on the other, he takes care of our condition in the local churches.
He wants us to come back to His central work, which is to work Himself into our being for the building up of the church.
In the one new man Christ is everything – He’s all in all, He is the unique person, and He is the element and essence. Everything else needs to be displaced, and Christ needs to become our unique constituent for the new man.
We need to repent for making a compromise and taking things or activities other than Christ to be our center.
We do need to preach the gospel and gain men, but we cannot use gimmicks or lower our standard so that we may gain people. We need to be brought back to Christ as our person so that He may occupy our whole being and fill it with Himself.
What does Christ’s heavenly ministry in cooperation with the apostolic ministry have to do with taking Christ as our person for the new man? Such a title is very lofty, and it has much to do with the matter of shepherding.
Shepherding is not merely a practice we need to take care of; shepherding should be our living. Shepherding should not just be a church work or service that is necessary; we need to be proper persons who have a life of shepherding.
The Lord in His heavenly ministry is the Chief Shepherd, and He carries out His heavenly ministry through His shepherding; on earth, He needs some who would cooperate with Him and correspond to Him in His heavenly ministry.
For us to live Christ for the church life by taking Him as our person we need to be shepherds, that is, we need to be the duplication of the ascended Christ in His heavenly ministry to do the same work that He is doing.
Shepherding is not a social thing, merely taking care of the saints and helping them with practical things or their problems; the source of our shepherding should be the heavenly Christ in His heavenly ministry. He wants us to be His sent ones, His apostles, to reflect Him in His heavenly ministry.
When we shepherd others, we need to be connected to the heavenly Christ, having His heart, love, and concern duplicated in us for the ones around us. It all comes down to the person – shepherding is not an activity but the living of a person, and for this we need to live Christ.
Preaching the gospel, shepherding the saints, and all other spiritual activities need to come out from our walk according to the spirit and our living Christ. The more we take Christ as our person, He who is the Shepherd will duplicate His heart in us, and we will love men as He does and shepherd them according to Him.
The more we take Christ as our person, the more we love Him, we touch Him, and He as love will duplicate His heart of love in us for others, making us the sent ones (the “apostles”) who reflect Him in His heavenly ministry by shepherding others.
The Gospel of John Consummates by showing how Christ’s Heavenly Ministry and the Apostles’ Ministry on earth Cooperate together to Carry out God’s New Testament Economy
![The entire [Gospel of John] covers the earthly ministry of Christ, beginning with His incarnation as the Word of God to become a man in the flesh (1:1-14) and ending with His resurrection as the last Adam to become the life-giving Spirit (ch. 20); hence, chapter 21 should be an appendix. Although it is correct to say this, it is more intrinsic to say that John 21 is the completion and consummation of the Gospel of John....[This chapter] consummates the entire Gospel of John by showing that Christ’s heavenly ministry and the apostles’ ministry on the earth cooperate together to carry out God’s New Testament economy. Witness Lee, Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John, ch. 13](https://i0.wp.com/agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-entire-Gospel-of-John-covers-the-earthly-ministry-of-Christ2.jpg?resize=450%2C675&ssl=1 "The entire [Gospel of John] covers the earthly ministry of Christ, beginning with His incarnation as the Word of God to become a man in the flesh (1:1-14) and ending with His resurrection as the last Adam to become the life-giving Spirit (ch. 20); hence, chapter 21 should be an appendix. Although it is correct to say this, it is more intrinsic to say that John 21 is the completion and consummation of the Gospel of John....[This chapter] consummates the entire Gospel of John by showing that Christ’s heavenly ministry and the apostles’ ministry on the earth cooperate together to carry out God’s New Testament economy. Witness Lee, Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John, ch. 13")
John chapter 21 is the last chapter and completion of the gospel of John. This gospel is a gospel of life, and in it we see the Son of God coming to be man’s life and meet man’s every need in every case.
In this gospel we see nine cases of how Christ specifically came to be life to meet man’s need. He came to meet the need of Nicodemus in John 3, and all the way to the case of Lazarus, Christ as life met man’s every need.
Besides what He spoke in John 14-17, we don’t see many teachings in the gospel of John, but what we see is case by case in which Christ meets man’s every need.
The Gospel of John has twenty-one chapters, but it actually ends with chapter 20; the entire book covers the earthly ministry of Christ, beginning with His incarnation as the Word of God to become a man in the flesh (1:1, 14) and ending with His resurrection as the last Adam to become the life-giving Spirit (20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45b); hence, John 21 should be an appendix.
Although it is correct to say this, it is more intrinsic to say that John 21 is the completion and consummation of the Gospel of John; chapter 21 consummates the entire Gospel of John by showing that Christ’s heavenly ministry and the apostles’ ministry on the earth cooperate together to carry out God’s New Testament economy.
When we read this we may think that this has nothing to do with us, for we are not the apostles; however, an apostle is a sent one, so whenever we go to visit our friends for the gospel or we meet our unbelieving workmates or relatives, we are sent ones, apostles.
At least in this occasion, we are apostles. We may not have the same capacity or mission like the apostle Paul, John, or Peter, but as we touch the Lord, we are burdened to talk to certain ones, and in that particular instance we are an apostle, a sent one.
The apostolic ministry refers not just to the ministry of the apostles Peter, John, and Paul, but also to all the saints, for we are all sent by the Lord to correspond to His heavenly ministry and shepherd His flock. The Lord Jesus needs us all to be His little apostles to shepherd others.
In John 10:10, 11, and 16, the Lord unveiled to the disciples that He was the good Shepherd who came that the sheep might have life abundantly, and that He had other sheep (referring to the Gentiles) that He must lead to join them (referring to the Jewish believers) to be one flock (one church) under one Shepherd.
He came as the good Shepherd to give life to His sheep and give them life abundantly, and He laid down His own life for the sheep; He flocks His sheep together – the Gentiles and the Jews – to be one flock, the church, under Himself as the Shepherd.
First, the Lord’s shepherding was in His earthly ministry (see Matt. 9:36; 10:1-6); when He was on earth, He healed people, cast out demons, preached, taught, and did all this to shepherd His sheep, for they were like sheep without a Shepherd.
Then, in the Lord’s heavenly ministry He takes care of the church by shepherding the church (1 Pet. 5:4). He is the chief Shepherd, and we can cooperate with Him today!
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as the good Shepherd to find us and bring us into Your flock, the church. Thank You for being the life that meets our every need. Thank You for Your all-inclusive tender care for us. We want to cooperate with Your heavenly ministry by shepherding others just as You are shepherding us. We want to walk according to the spirit and live Christ so that in our daily living we would reflect Your heavenly ministry to shepherd Your sheep. Amen, Lord, make us fully one with You in Your heavenly ministry!
Christ Commissioned us to Shepherd His Sheep in Cooperation with His Heavenly Ministry
In this “appendix” to the Gospel of John, that is, in John 21, when the Lord stayed with His disciples after His resurrection and before His ascension, in one of His appearings, He commissioned Peter to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep in His absence, while He is in the heavens (see John 21:15-17).
The Lord already became a life-giving Spirit (1 John 15:45) and came to them to breathe into them the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), but then He disappeared.
So one day Peter told the disciples that he’s going fishing, and some of them said that they will also go with him. They forsook the Lord’s calling (which is to make them fishers of men) because they were concerned for their livelihood.
But after a whole night of trying to catch fish, they caught none; so the Lord from the shore told them, Do you have any fish to eat? He knew they went fishing because they had no food, so He told them to throw the net on the other side…and they caught a lot of fish.
Peter recognized the Lord, and because he was naked, he put a garment on himself and jumped into the water to go to Him. Peter was caught red-handed by the Lord: he went back to fishing, and he took the brothers with him also.
When they arrived on the seashore, the Lord already had breakfast prepared for them. Peter must have been shameful before the Lord, but the Lord didn’t accuse him or expose him; rather, in his lowest state, the Lord came to commission him to shepherd His sheep.
The Lord commissioned Peter by asking him three times, Peter, do you love Me? He didn’t tell him, Peter, you must love Me! – He didn’t command peter, but He asked him if he loved the Lord. This must have had an impact on Peter, for he loved the Lord and at the same time he was in a low condition and backslidden.
As the apostles were deserting the Lord and going back fishing, He met them and rekindled their love for Him, and He commissioned them to cooperate with His heavenly ministry by shepherding His sheep. Shepherding is a commission out of love; because we love the Lord, we shepherd His sheep.
We may hear the command to shepherd others, we may have fellowship about it, but if we don’t love the Lord and if we don’t do it out of love for Him, this will wane and fizzle out.
The Lord is not here to commission the qualified ones but the failures, the backslidden, the deserters; we all fit right in here, for we are not qualified. If we think we are qualified, we are the wrong person to be commissioned by the Lord.
The Lord comes to us to rekindle our love for Him, and He wants to incorporate the apostolic ministry with His heavenly ministry to take care of God’s flock, which is the church that issues in the Body of Christ.
The Apostle Paul also confirms this when he says, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among Whom the Holy Spirit has placed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which He obtained through His own blood” (Acts 20:28)
Furthermore, he said that, “Fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (v. 29), and “God…brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of an eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20).
Lord Jesus, we admit that we are not qualified to shepherd Your sheep, for we are not in a good condition, we are backslidden, and we are failures – but Lord, we love You! We just love You, Lord, and even though we fail You so many times, we want to love You more! Thank You for coming to us in our lowest condition to rekindle our love for You and commission us to shepherd Your sheep. Lord, we want to cooperate with Your heavenly ministry by shepherding Your sheep, the saints in the church as Your flock, out of love for You!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John, ch. 13 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 6, The Apostolic Ministry in Cooperation with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Shepherd the flock with tender, loving care. / Shepherd by life and one another bear. / Christ shepherds us by searching for His sheep / And brings us to Himself, our pasture sweet. (Song on, Shepherd the Flock)
# I love my Shepherd’s voice: / His watchful eye shall keep / My wand’ring soul among / The thousands of His sheep: / He feeds His flock, He calls their names, / His bosom bears the tender lambs. (Hymns #80)
# We give ourselves the flock’s steps to follow / Knowing the Shepherd’s care. / Now in the churches Jesus is leading / And He is speaking there. (Hymns #1246)
