Paying more Attention to Life than to Work and Seeing how Paul was a Pattern in Shepherding

The Lord Jesus in His heavenly ministry is the Great Shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls, and in Acts 20 and 1 Thes. 2 we also see that Paul was a pattern of cooperating with Christ’s heavenly ministry to shepherd people for the building up of the Body of Christ.

This week in our morning revival time we want to consider the pattern of the Apostle Paul in cooperating with Christ’s heavenly ministry to shepherd people for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Our Christ is not only in us as the Spirit with our spirit, but He is also in the heavens; the present Christ is in His heavenly ministry taking care of many things, and He desires to gain our cooperation. The Christ above and the Christ within are one.

We pay much attention to the indwelling Christ as the life-giving Spirit within us, and we contact Him, enjoy Him, eat Him, and experience Him as the One who is mingled with us to be one spirit. At the same time, we need to set our mind on the things above (Col. 3:1-2), that is, set our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6), where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

The Christ within is mainly there for the accomplishment of God’s economy within us in the way of carrying out God’s organic salvation from our regeneration to our glorification. The Christ above, in the heavens, is the One who is doing many things as the One enthroned above all, the Heavenly High Priest, the Heavenly Minister, the Intercessor, etc.

Hallelujah, our spirit and the third heavens are joined together by the heavenly ladder, which is Christ, and there’s a constant unceasing traffic between our spirit and the throne! It is in this traffic that God’s great economy is carried out; whatever He does in the heavens is being transmitted to us in our spirit on earth, and we need to cooperate with what He is doing in the heavens.

However, Christ’s heavenly ministry cannot be worked out entirely by itself; it has a need that there would be men on earth – beginning with the apostles and their ministry – echoing it, responding to it, and carrying it out on earth.

While the ascended Christ is praying there, there would be men praying here; while He’s shepherding in heaven, He needs people on earth who cooperate with Him to shepherd others.

The Head of the Body needs a Body on earth to be one with Him; Christ is the Head, carrying out His heavenly ministry, and we are His Body, carrying out His apostolic ministry; by these two ministries echoing one another in coordination, God’s great economy is being carried out.

In the Epistles and in Acts we see a picture, a photograph, an example, a pattern – the apostle Paul. On His side, the Lord is constantly shepherding us: He shepherded us by His incarnation, He is shepherding us today in His heavenly ministry, and for eternity He will still shepherd us in the New Jerusalem.

In His eyes, shepherding is everything; we may think that shepherding is “crisis management” where we need to take care of urgent needs and thus shepherd others, but shepherding is much more.

Shepherding is the all-inclusive care of the all-inclusive Christ rendered directly by Himself and indirectly through us to the members of the Body to cherish them, nourish them, feed them, and perfect them.

If you read 1 Thes. 2 and Acts 20:17-24 you will see a picture of how Paul was a pattern of shepherding both a brand new church (in Thessalonica) and a more established church (in Ephesus) not just by teaching but by his person as a pattern.

Paul was a Pattern of Cooperating with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry to Shepherd People

The Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd Himself, is the original model of shepherding people for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ (see Heb. 13:20; John 10:11, 14-15; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4). He is the prototype, laying out a pattern of how to shepherd others.

In Acts 20:17-20, 28, 31; 26:16-19, and 1 Thes. 2:1-12 we see a reproduction of Christ as the Good Shepherd; Paul was a duplication, a xerox copy, a reproduction of Christ in a man to shepherd people for the building up of the Body of Christ.

By shepherding the saints, the believers, and the churches, Paul was carrying out his apostolic ministry in cooperation with Christ’s heavenly ministry to build up the Body of Christ. There is only one way to build up the church as the Body of Christ, and that is by first letting Christ shepherd us and then cooperating with His heavenly ministry to shepherd others according to God.

We may look at the Apostle Paul and appreciate the more heroic part of his ministry, such as his trips to preach the gospel and raise up churches, escaping persecution or being stoned to death and yet not dying, escaping from the shipwreck and healing people, and other great things, but we may ignore the side of his shepherding people.

In a few portion in his speaking and his letters Paul recommends himself as a pattern to be followed; he was a pattern of the glad tidings he spread (1 Thes. 1:5). Paul was commending himself to the conscience of his listeners, almost demanding a testimony of himself from that; he had the essential reality and living, the ground to say such a thing.

In 1 Thes. 2 he said such things as, you yourselves know our entrance toward you, not with flattering speech even as you know; you remember our labor and travail; you are witnesses, as well as God; just as you know how we were to each one of you.

Furthermore in Acts 20 he also commended himself to the elders in Ephesus, reminding them of how he was with them for the three years he was there, not ceasing to exhort each one and together day and night with tears, ministering to his own needs by making tents with his own hands, in everything showing them by example and not by teaching.

Wow, Paul was a pattern and a living picture of the good news he was proclaiming, whether with brand new ones (as in 1 Thes. 2) or with a more established church (as in Acts 20).

We desperately need patterns in the local churches; we need not only the teachings and instructions but even more credible patterns and examples.

In a family the children learn not merely by the parents teaching them, but they watch the parents, they pick up gestures, accents, attitudes, and words as they observe the pattern of their parents and thus they become a reproduction of their pattern.

We need to learn from the pattern of the apostle Paul to shepherd the flock of God by looking at the picture he presents to us and cooperating with Christ’s heavenly ministry to shepherd others according to God.

Lord Jesus, thank You for being our Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and the Shepherd of our souls. Thank You for being our pattern, and thank You for the apostle Paul as a pattern of cooperating with Your heavenly ministry to shepherd people for the building up of the Body of Christ. Lord, work Yourself into us as we read Your word and see the pattern of Paul. Make us patterns in the church life. Make us those who cooperate with Your heavenly ministry to shepherd people for the building up of Your Body!

Paying more Attention to Life than to Work, for our Person is the Lord’s Work

In the church life our service depends very much not merely on what we know and how we can teach but on our person. Our serving the Lord and the saints depends not on a method or a way but on the person.

There’s nowhere in the New Testament that we are shown a method or a way to serve God, but we have many patterns of persons who served God. The emphasis is the person himself; the person is the way, and the person is the Lord’s work.

The Apostle Paul served by his person, and his person was his work. If God gains only people who want to cooperate with Him outwardly by “taking His way” and “doing things according to His method”, He cannot use such ones; what God wants is persons who pay more attention to life than to work.

We may desire to serve God, but if our person is wrong, we cannot be useful to Him. It is meaningless for things to be done properly and in the right way in the church life if the persons doing them are not right.

God pays attention more to what we are than to what we do. He doesn’t want us to get things done – He wants to gain proper persons who are one with Him to cooperate with Him in His heavenly ministry. The Apostle Paul was such a one, and brother Watchman Nee was also such a one.

Watchman Nee…always took pains to restrict himself in the function of his gifts and the use of his knowledge in order to insure that his work was fully in life, of life, with life, and was life itself. As long as he had the assurance that his ministry was the outflow of life, he was satisfied. After he had been in his ministry for over six years, the number of saints in the Lord’s recovery at that time was still so small. However, he was not disappointed; rather, he was strongly encouraged because he realized that small number was the issue of his ministry. Praise the Lord! Because Watchman Nee was not interested in the outward work, the life-issue of his ministry has flowed throughout the whole earth. That part of his ministry which has flooded today’s Christianity through his books was not his work but rather the very life that issued from his work. To him work did not mean much; life meant everything. In my whole life, he is the only person I have known who paid more attention to life than to work. (Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, pp. 85, 87, by Witness Lee)

In the church the most important thing is the person; the person is the way and the person is the Lord’s work, for what we are is what we do (see John 5:19; 6:57; Phil. 1:19-26; Acts 20:18-35; Matt. 7:17-18; 12:33-37). A good tree bears good fruit automatically; what kind of person we are produces a certain kind of result.

We need to follow the pattern of the apostles to pay more attention to life than to work (John 12:24; 2 Cor. 4:12). Others may preach the gospel and get a lot of following, but we want to pay attention to life more than to work.

Shepherding is a matter of quality and not quantity; how many of those whom we bring to the Lord are also shepherded with great labor and struggle until they are presentable to Christ, full-grown and mature?

We do want numbers, we want to have the increase of the Lord’s testimony, and we do preach the gospel; however, what controls us is the principle of paying attention more to life than to work.

There has to be a desperate commitment to the believers to see them all the way until they are full-grown and mature; Paul lived for this, fought for this, and tired himself for this.

We need to come to the Lord to be dealt with by Him in our temper, the way we dress, the way we live, and our entire being, so that we may also be able to be a pattern to others and help them in these respects.

Again and again we need to come before the Lord and pay attention to life more than to work, realizing that our person is actually our work.

Lord Jesus, we want to follow the pattern of the apostles to pay more attention to life than to work. Save us from merely doing a work for You yet without paying attention to our being, our person, and our life before You. Lord, may we realize that what we are is what we do, and our person is Your work. Keep us coming to You, Lord, to be dealt with by You in many aspects of our being and living, so that we may be a pattern to others in the Lord. Grant us to be the right kind of person so that we may be able to cooperate with You in Your heavenly ministry to shepherd others.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru C. for this week, and portions from, Messages Given during the Resumption of Watchman Nee’s Ministry, vol. 1, chs. 10, 3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 3 (week 3), The Pattern of the Apostle Paul in Cooperating with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry to Shepherd People for the Building Up of the Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The overflow of life is work, / The work should be our living! / What we experience e’er should be / The message we are giving. / When living and the work are one, / The work will be effectual; / When message and the life are one, / The word will be successful. (Hymns #910)
  # Am I a person of life? / Do I experience life? / Does my living bear the issues of life? / Good trees bear good fruit; / Healthy plant, healthy root; / Oh Lord! The ground in my heart! (Song on being a person of life)
  # Enjoy the grace of Christ each day, / Each moment live the God-man way; / For the right timing, watch and pray, / And be good patterns every day. (Song on being a pattern)