Message Nine

The Lord Being with our Spirit
to Be Our Empowering Grace

Scripture Reading: 2 Tim. 4:22; 1:6-7; 2:1

1. The Lord is with our spirit that we may enjoy Him as our empowering grace to stand against the downward current of the church’s decline and carry out God’s economy through His indwelling Spirit and equipping word for the building up of the church as the corporate expression of God—1 Tim. 4:6-7; 2 Tim. 1:6-7; 2:1; 1:14; 3:16-17:
   1. Second Timothy begins with our God-given spirit fanned into flame and ends with the Lord being with our spirit to be our empowering grace as the unsearchably rich capital of our Christian life and church life—1:6-7; 4:22; Eph. 2:7; 3:8.
   2. Second Timothy begins with the wonderful Christ as our saving grace, continues with Him as our empowering grace, and ends with Him as our ever-present grace—1:9-10; 2:1; 4:22.
2. “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45), “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17), “the Lord be with your spirit” (2 Tim. 4:22), and “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17):
   1. The Lord as the Spirit with our spirit, the two spirits mingled together as one spirit, is the key of the spiritual fellowship of the regenerated tripartite believers with the consummated Triune God—Rom. 8:16; John 4:24; Rom. 1:9.
   2. The Lord as the Spirit with our spirit, the two spirits working together as one spirit, is the skillfulness, the secret, of all the aspects of God’s organic salvation—8:16; John 3:6; Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; 2 Cor. 3:17-18.
3. Grace is the circulating Triune God working, flowing, communicating, transporting, transmitting, and dispensing all that He is into us for our enjoyment; the entire church life depends on grace as the circulation of the Divine Trinity within us—13:14; 1 Pet. 5:10; cf. Heb. 12:28a:
   1. The first case in the New Testament of grace is the case of God’s incarnation—John 1:14, 16-17:
      1. Mary was graced by God and found grace with God because He came to visit her, and He entered into her and stayed in her to be the very essence of her conceiving a wonderful person, who would be both God and man, a God-man—Luke 1:28, 30, 35; Matt. 1:18, 20.
      2. In this principle, grace is God’s visitation to stay in us, to be born in us, to be one with us, and even to become us—Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19; Phil. 1:21a.
   2. Grace is the wonderful Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God in three aspects: what He is, what He gives, and what He does on our behalf for our enjoyment; He can be everything to us as grace because He has been processed and consummated to be the life-giving Spirit indwelling our spirit—Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; Philem. 25:
      1. Grace is the wonderful Christ in what He is—John 1:14, 17; 8:58; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:10; cf. Gal. 2:20.
      2. Grace is the wonderful Christ given to us, dispensed into us, superabounding with faith and love in Christ—1 Tim. 1:14:
         1. If we are short of something, this shortage is our opportunity to be supplied with more of Christ as grace to meet our timely need for our growth in Him—Heb. 4:16; Rom. 5:17; 2 Cor. 12:7-9; 1 Pet. 5:5.
         2. When we cannot do anything, when we are not able to move, and when we have no strength, that is the time to trust in and enjoy the supply of God as grace—S. S. 8:5-6; Heb. 11:21; Gen. 47:29, 31.
      3. Grace is the wonderful Christ doing everything in us on our behalf:
         1. Grace is Christ as our burden-bearer—1 Cor. 15:10, 58; 2 Cor. 12:9; Phil. 4:6-7; Isa. 9:6.
         2. Those who wait on the eternal God (who stop themselves with their living, doing, and activity and receive God in Christ as their life, person, and replacement) will experience the resurrection power of Christ as grace to support, sustain, strengthen, cover, and protect them—2 Cor. 12:9; Isa. 40:31; Ezek. 1:8; Psa. 17:8; 57:1; 63:7; 91:4.
         3. We need to be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 2:1) to be good stewards of the varied grace of God (1 Pet. 4:10; Eph. 3:2; 4:29) as teachers (2 Tim. 2:2), soldiers (vv. 3-4), athletes (v. 5), farmers (v. 6), workmen (v. 15), and vessels unto honor (v. 21).
   3. We need to realize the following basic things and put them into practice so that we may be daily and continually empowered in the grace of Christ—v. 1:
      1. We need to be lovers of God to counteract the grievous days of the church’s decline with the outward form of godliness and to bring in a day of glory in the church’s victory—3:1-5; 1 Tim. 3:15-16a.
      2. We need to fan our God-given spirit into flame—a spirit of power, love, and sobermindedness—to stand against the downward current in the declining churches—2 Tim. 1:6-8.
      3. We need to care for the testimony of our conscience by conducting ourselves in the grace of God—2 Cor. 1:12; Acts 24:16; 1 Tim. 1:19; 2 Tim. 1:3.
      4. We need to guard the deposit of the healthy words of God’s economy, which the Lord has stored in us, through the Spirit who is indwelling us—vv. 12-14; 1 Tim. 6:20.
      5. We need to inhale the God-breathed Scripture by means of all prayer so that we can be men of God with the breath of God who exhale God into others—2 Tim. 3:14-17.
      6. We need to continue in and be immersed in the healthy teaching of God’s economy for God’s pleasure and stand against the degrading tide of those who heap up to themselves teachers, having itching ears that seek pleasant speaking for their own pleasure—1 Tim. 4:6-16; 2 Tim. 4:2-5.
      7. We need to flee youthful lusts and pursue Christ as righteousness, faith, love, and peace, calling on His name out of a pure heart in our prayer and praise to Him “with those” in the practice of the normal church life—2:22.
      8. We need to continually exercise our spirit to enjoy the riches of Christ as the sufficient grace so that we may live Him as our godliness for the building up of the church as His testimony, bearing all the divine realities (truths) according to God’s economy—4:22; 2:1; 1 Tim. 4:7; 3:15-16.
   4. The grace of the Lord Jesus must be with each one of us in every aspect of our daily life because we are saints; this grace consummates in the New Jerusalem as the consummation of God’s good pleasure in joining and mingling Himself with man for His glorious enlargement and eternal expression—Rev. 22:21.