THE WAY TO BE EQUIPPED FOR THE HOME MEETINGS–TO EXPERIENCE THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST (2)
I would like to impress you that Paul in Ephesians 3:8 says that the “unsearchable riches of Christ” have been shown to him. This verse begins with the phrase to me. When I was young and read this, I would say, “I am not that ‘me.’ That is Paul. He is too great. ‘To him’ is okay but not ‘to me.’” But Paul says, “To me.” This “me” is “less than the least of all saints.” He was the “leastest,” yet this grace was given to him to announce the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.
Actually, you have to realize that to announce…as the gospel in Greek is just one word. This word is not the ordinary word in Greek for announce, or preach. This is the word that means to announce something as the gospel, to announce something as the glad tidings, or as the good news. Therefore, to Paul, his gospel is the all-inclusive Christ. In other words, his gospel is the unsearchable riches of Christ. In this sense the entire book of Ephesians is a gospel because the contents of the gospel announced by Paul are the unsearchable riches of Christ. His gospel is not just about sin. It is not just about going to hell. It is not just about repenting and believing for the forgiveness of sins that you may be reconciled to God, saved from eternal perdition, and have the eternal life. Even if you include eternal life in the contents of the gospel, still that does not compare with what Paul announced. He announced the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.
In Ephesians Paul not only refers to the riches of Christ but also to the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1:23). What are the riches? And what is the fullness? The fullness is the issue of the enjoyment of the riches. The riches of Christ are the items of what He is, of what He has, of what He can do, and of what He is doing. But the fullness of Christ is the church produced by the believers’ enjoyment of the riches of Christ…Today we Christians, spiritually speaking, are so skinny. We do not have the adequate weight. Why are the Christian meetings, whether big or small, mostly very skinny, very poor? Although Christians love the Lord and love to meet together, they have nothing to minister. We are so skinny in the meetings because we do not enjoy the riches of Christ. We do not experience the riches of Christ.
To enjoy, that is, to experience, the riches of Christ, we have to realize who Christ is today and where He is. This is something very practical in our daily life. Second Corinthians 1:21 says, “The One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God.”…Psalm 133:2 says that the ointment upon the head of Aaron flowed down his beard and even to the skirts of his long robe. The high priest, Aaron, was God’s anointed, full of the ointment. If you were to become attached to him, you would likewise become anointed. When we paint a house, we say that there is wet paint. If you attach yourself to the freshly painted wall, you get painted. In the same way God has attached us to the anointed One, so spontaneously God has anointed us. Christ today possesses the ointment, the paint, with which God has painted us.
God has attached us to this anointed Christ who is right now in us. First Corinthians 6:17 is even stronger than this. It says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”…I not only believe; I have been practicing this for years. I must tell you the truth; every time I am going to speak, my prayer is, “Lord, make it so real in the speaking that I am one spirit with You. It should not be just me speaking. Lord, it has to be me as one spirit with You speaking.” (CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “The Home Meetings–the Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church”, pp. 137-139)
The church in Zamboanga 