In His mercy He is operating within us to cause us to love Him so that He can grow within us. If it were not for His mercy, we would not be here. We are here loving Him. Whether we fail or succeed, He still grows in us. If we lose our temper, His operation causes us to have a full repentance. We may pray, "Lord, forgive me for losing my temper." This is a sign of His operation in us. Many times our growth in our failure is more than in our success.

We can consider David as an example of this. David committed a terrible sin with Bathsheba, but was he more spiritual after that sin or before it? Surely he became more spiritual after his sin, his repentance, and his receiving of God's forgiveness. This does not mean that we should try to commit sin. But we need to realize that the Lord's mercy sustains us all the time. At times God may put His mercy aside to try us, to test us. Regardless of how we are, when God would do this, we cannot help but fail.

Peter was so strong to tell the Lord that even if all the others would be stumbled, he would never be stumbled (Matt. 26:33). He said that he was ready to go with the Lord both to prison and to death (Luke 22:33). Then the Lord said to him, "Peter, a rooster will not crow today until you deny three times that you know Me" (v. 34). The Lord had to put His mercy aside for a time so that Peter's natural strength and self-confidence could be dealt with. After Peter's failure, he surely became more spiritual than before.

This illustrates how God today is moving in us to do a work for His building. His building is to be consummated through the church in the New Jerusalem. He operates in us in our thinking, our willing, and our doing. While He is operating in us, He is growing in us. Then we grow in His growth. This is the work of God's new creation. God works on us as the old creation to produce the new creation.

The building up of the New Jerusalem as the outcome of God's new creation is not a sudden thing. It is altogether a progressive thing. This progression started from Adam. First, God worked on Adam as the first piece of material for His New Jerusalem. Then God worked on another piece of the old creation, Abel. Eventually, Abel came out to be a part of God's new creation. God works throughout all the successive generations to gain the New Jerusalem as the final product of His new creation work. Today as we grow in Him and He grows in our growth, He is arriving at His goal to consummate His new creation work. This work is going on, and this work will have a consummation. This is why the title of this message is "The Move of God in Man in the Consummation of the New Jerusalem."