Will you please turn to the letter to the Ephesians? Ephesians 4. We will read the first sixteen verses.
I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love;
using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.There is one body, and one Spirit, as ye have been also called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in us all.But to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.
Wherefore He says, Having ascended up on high, He has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men.But as He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same Who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
And He has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers,
for the perfecting of the saints, with a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ;
until we all arrive at the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, and at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ;
in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of teaching, which is in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning, with a view to systematized error;
but holding the truth in love, we may grow up to Him in all things, Who is the Head, the Christ;
from Whom the whole body, fitted together and connected by every joint of supply, according to the working in a measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to itself building up in love.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee again for gathering us together unto Thyself this morning. Lord, Thou hast been good to us. We praise and thank Thee that Thou art the One Whose delight is to reveal Thyself to Thy people.
Dear Lord, we pray that even at this time Thou wilt continue to speak to us. Open our understanding. Fill our hearts with warmth, with love, knowing how much Thou hast done for us.
Dear Lord, we just commit this time into Thy hands and ask, Lord, that Thou wilt complete the work which Thou hast begun. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Thank God He has brought us to the last full day of this conference.
The theme of this conference is the eternal purpose of God. It is an old theme, and I think there is probably no theme older than this theme, because it begins from eternity. And yet it is forever new. It continues throughout the ages, and it will reach to the eternity to come.
This morning, I am thinking this is the oldest theme we can ever talk about. But does it get a little bit old to you? Are you tired of hearing this theme again? Are you saying, “Well, you have heard it so many times. Why is there not something new?”
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the oldest theme, but it is forever new. If it begins for you to feel that it is getting old, you had better go back to the Lord. Humble yourself before the Lord and ask the Lord, “Why is it that this theme becomes old to me? Why is it that it does not have that sharpness, that freshness, that livingness that I ought to sense?”
Why is it that the theme does not stir your hearts up? Think of the great love of God in giving His beloved Son to you, and with Him all things. To think that He can love you so much as He is willing to die for you, to bring you into that union with Him, to experience His fullness.
To think that you, a sinner, He is going to bring into glory, to sonship. Dear brothers and sisters, this theme should forever stir our hearts.
This thing is so intimate, so dear, so close. It is something that governs not only the whole universe, but it governs your life. It means everything to you.
So I do cry to the Lord that, even though we are almost toward the end of this conference, this theme should never end. It should be ringing in our hearts day and night.
And especially, dear brothers and sisters, when we are coming to the close of the age, how much more important that we are literally, daily, living in that theme, as our daily food.
So, brothers and sisters, my prayer is that we will go away with a fresh, living, anointed sense of the eternal purpose of God.
My responsibility is the eternal purpose of God as seen in the church. This morning, we are going to fellowship together on this matter of church life.
The church is not just a theory. It is not just a topic in theology. The church is very real.
You know, in the beginning, when you look into the book of Acts, the name Christian was not given yet. And yet, you find when the Spirit of God tries to describe the church, those who are in the church, He uses the word Way.
That name, that term Way, was given by the Spirit of God to the people of God, even before this name Christian was invented.
The name Christian actually was given by the world. The world looked at these people. They did not know how to label them, so finally they said, “Well, they are Christians,” because they are Christ-men and women.
They are intoxicated with Christ. When they open their mouths, they speak of Christ. When they gather together, they talk of Christ. When they sing, they sing unto Christ. When they talk, they talk about Christ. So people say, “Well, these are Christians.”
But before this term was given, the Holy Spirit gave these people a name, and the name is: people of the Way.
In Acts 9:2, you will find that Saul persecuted those who were of the Way. He would seize men and women in Jerusalem and bring them to the court to be judged and sentenced—people of the Way.
Again, you find in Acts 19:9, when Paul was in Ephesus, he was reasoning with the people in the synagogue for three months. Then some people began to speak evil of the Way, so he began to separate those people of the Way from the people of the world.
And while he was in Ephesus, you find again in Acts 19:23 that because of the Way there was a great turmoil in the city.
When you come to Acts 22, you will find Paul, when he was seized by the Roman soldiers and was about to be brought into the tower, asking permission to speak to his fellow citizens. He told them how, in his early days, he persecuted the Way.
Again, you find before the council that Paul said, “The Way that you consider as a sect, this is the Way that I am serving the Lord.” Even before Felix, he testified how he persecuted the Way before, and Felix knew all about that Way.
So, brothers and sisters, the other name of the church is the Way. Why the Way? Because it is a way of life. The church is not a teaching. The church is a way. It is a way of life.
You know, when I first came to this country, I often heard people telling me, “This is our American way.” Every nation has a special way of living, and we are proud of our way. The Jewish people have their way of living.
But suddenly you discover there are people who are Jews, and they are not living the Jewish way of life anymore. They live a strange way of life. And strangers like that—the Gentiles, people of the nations—they begin to quit their Gentile way of life and begin to adopt a new way of life. They live differently.
And strangest of all, all the Jews and the Gentiles live the same strange way of life. It is a way of life that is not lived by any nation on the earth, a way of life that has never been seen.
And yet, without consultation, without negotiation, you find people who believe in the Lord Jesus—whoever they are, wherever they are, at whatever time they may live—strangely, they begin to live the same way.
It is so different from the world. The world has never seen such a way of life. It is a heavenly way upon the earth, and they live it.
So, brothers and sisters, it is very evident that the church is not a doctrine. The church is not a teaching. The church is a way of life. We not only believe in the church; we live the church.
So what is before us is this: you have heard about the church. You may think that you know what the church is—that it is not that brick building at the corner of the square. You think you know all about the church. But the problem is: are you living it? Do you know what church life is? Are you today living that life?
When you read the letter to the Ephesians, we usually say that the letter to the Ephesians can very clearly be divided into two parts. The first three chapters are on the teaching, as it were, of the truth of the church. Then the next three chapters are on the life, the living, of the church.
In the first three chapters—now, as a matter of fact, the third chapter, except the first verse, is all in parenthesis, because in a sense it belongs to the first part—you find Paul trying to share with the brothers and sisters, to describe what the church is like, in order that they may understand the church.
He teaches them as an apostle. He says, “I, Apostle Paul, as the one who has been given revelation, one who is sent by God to help people know what the church is.”
But when you come to the second part, you find that Paul says, “I, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you.”
In other words, when you come to the practical living, the only way you can live the church life is to be a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Unless you are a prisoner in the Lord, you are not able to enter into this church life.
Church life is not for free men and free women. If you want to be free, you will discover that you are never able to enjoy church life. You will be afraid of it, scared of it. You want to get out of it.
But if you are a prisoner of Christ Jesus, if you are imprisoned by Christ, if you have lost your freedom—your own freedom—if you have given up your right and are a prisoner in the Lord, captured by the Lord, then, brothers and sisters, church life is for you.
And you will be able not only to live that life, but even to enjoy it. I know many brothers and sisters who try to live the church life, and they do not enjoy it. They hate it. If it is possible, they want to get out of it. It is too much for them.
Why? Not because church life is not beautiful, glorious, wonderful, but because we are too independent. We are too much of “I, me, mine.” We have not surrendered our lives to the Lord. We have not accepted Him as the Head.
But if we do, there is nothing more precious than church life.
In the second part of the letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us what church life is like.
To me, I feel that in these last three chapters we can look at church life from three directions. You know, church life is three-dimensional. There is one dimension that is looking within: you look at church life within. The other dimension is that you look at church life without. And there is another one: you look at church life beyond.
Ephesians 4 is looking at church life within: how do we live church life as members one of another?
Ephesians 5 through Ephesians 6:9 is church life without: how do we live this church life as a testimony to the world?
And Ephesians 6:10 to the end is beyond: how is church life to live in that unseen world?
Now, first of all, we will consider together this morning—and probably we will spend most of our time on it—how do we live church life together as members one of another?
Now, first of all, of course, to live church life, you need to have a certain attitude. Before you begin to live church life, you need to have a certain mental attitude, or spiritual attitude, and that comes from being a prisoner in the Lord.
Now, if you are a prisoner in the Lord, then you will find He will create within you a certain character that is essential to living in church life.
So the Apostle Paul says, “I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called.”
Now, in the first part of Ephesians, you find a calling. We are called to be the body of Christ. We are called to be the new man. We are called to be fellow citizens of the kingdom of God’s Son of love. We are called to be the household of God.
We are called to be the house of God. We are called to be the bride, the wife, of the Bridegroom, our Lord Jesus. And we are called to be the spiritual warrior. So you find that, so far as the church is concerned, there is a calling there.
We are called out from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every people. He called us out of all these and gathered us together unto Himself. That is the church.
But when you come to the second part, you find the walk. We have been called. Now let us walk worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called.
Brothers and sisters, do you know your calling? Sometimes when we think of calling, we are always thinking in terms of the individual: “I feel called by the Lord to do this or to be that.”
We forget that there is a calling upon every one of the redeemed of the Lord. We are called together into one calling. We are called to be the body of Christ. We are called to be members of that new man. We are called to be fellow citizens, members of the house of God.
We are living stones, built up together into a spiritual house, a habitation of God in the Spirit. And we are called together to be the glorious church that will be presented to our Lord Jesus as His bride.
And we are all called into this spiritual warfare, not as individuals, but as one warrior. We are all called.
Brothers and sisters, do we walk worthy of our calling? Is our walk agreed with our calling? Does our walk express our calling? I think there is much that we need to think about and meditate upon before the Lord.
And in order to have this walk, this living of church life, a certain attitude, a spiritual character, is needed. So the Apostle Paul says, “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.” That is to start with.
Brothers and sisters, are you ready to live the church life? Has the Lord worked His life, His character, in your life?
Our Lord is lowly in heart, meek and lowly. He said:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
This character of meekness is selfless—not considering yourself all the time, thinking of yourself all the time, grasping for yourself. No. Meekness: denying yourself, not knowing yourself, giving up yourself.
In a spirit of lowliness, of meekness, willing to take the lowest place—this is the character of our Lord Jesus.
Longsuffering. You know, when I read 1 Corinthians 13, I always wonder why love, when it is described, begins with “love suffers long.” To me, I think it is too negative.
Then one day I realized it is because this chapter on love has something to do with the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12, you find the body of Christ: many members with different gifts, but one body.
In 1 Corinthians 14, you find the body functioning: one with a song, one with a prayer, one with a revelation, one with a prophecy, one with a tongue. You find how the body functions.
Here you have the body, and the body is to function. But for the body to function properly, healthily, you need a more excellent way, and the way is love. And love begins with longsuffering. Love suffers long.
Have you discovered that already? When you are all by yourself, fine. But when you are with your brothers and sisters, and in close quarters, ah, you begin to suffer.
How long can you suffer? If you want to pack up and leave, are you able to suffer long, as long as you live?
Longsuffering. Think of our God, our Lord Jesus—how He suffered long. He suffered even to the last minute on the cross.
They would not let Him go. They ridiculed Him. Even the robbers on His right and left, in the beginning, they also ridiculed Him. And He suffered. “Come from the cross”—He suffered. He would not come down, for your sake, for my sake.
Bearing with one another. Have you come to a place where you said, “Well, I cannot bear that brother any longer. It is too much”? Not knowing that the same is true of your brother toward you.
A certain character of Christ is necessary for us to live church life. Church life is not cheap at all.
You can live very easily a congregational life, because you only meet one hour a week. You put on your Sunday best. Nobody can touch you. You slip away.
But try to live church life, body life, and you know the difference.
Thank God, we have the life of Christ in us. But the character of Christ has to be gradually cultivated, and it is usually built up through suffering. So, dear brothers and sisters, be ready for it.
The first thing when you enter into church life is using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. That is the first thing.
The first thing is the unity of the body of Christ. And unfortunately, when you look around, when you look into church history, that is the one thing that is so prominent: it is not there.
The body has been broken up. God’s people are not together. God’s people are not one. They are at odds with each other.
“Keep” means something has been given. You cannot keep what you do not have. But what has been given to you, if that thing is very, very precious, then you want to keep it. And if it is so precious to you, you want to keep it diligently.
You know, sometimes I say, when you are walking on the street—especially when you are walking on the street in New York, in the early days, in Flushing—and in your pocket you have a hundred-dollar bill, how do you walk? Your hand is there in your pocket. You keep it diligently.
Now suppose you have only a few pennies in your pocket. How do you walk? You walk freely. If somebody will steal your few pennies, let him have them.
Brothers and sisters, do we keep diligently the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace?
That unity of the Spirit has been given to us, and it is described in the following seven ones.
There is one body, one Spirit, and one hope of your calling.
We know there is one body. It is the body of Christ. This body is composed of many members, and yet one body. So also is the Christ.
Every believer, every redeemed child of God, is born into that body to be a member.
This body is so precious because you cannot join this body by any other means. There is only one way to join this body, and that is by being born into it—to be born of the Spirit, to be born of God.
And that is the only way to be a member, a living member of that body. And this body is the body of Christ.
This body does not belong just to anybody, even to some great man. This body belongs to Christ. He is the Head of the body. He is to fill the body with Himself. He is to express Himself through this body.
So it is such a precious body—one body. Our Lord Jesus does not have two bodies, or more bodies. He has only one body.
That is the reason why, when the Corinthian believers were going to have that party spirit—“I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” “I am of Christ in a special way, a superior way”—Paul said, “Is Christ divided?”
Brothers and sisters, we do not take it seriously on this matter of divisions. But that is dismemberment of the body. That brings a living body into death. Serious. Christ has only one body.
And how does this body come about? One Spirit. In one Spirit you were baptized into one body.
You know, on the day of Pentecost, you had one hundred and twenty believers. But they were one hundred and twenty individual believers. They were the best you could find in this world, the most faithful, and yet it was just a congregation, an outward gathering together.
But on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down, in one Spirit they were baptized into one body. No longer one hundred and twenty members of a congregation, but one hundred and twenty members of a living life, joined together in one.
As soon as you believe in the Lord Jesus, you were baptized by the same Spirit into that body. You know, the Holy Spirit did many things to us on the day when you believed in the Lord Jesus.
He begot you. He came and dwelt in your new spirit. And He did this: you were baptized in Him into the body of Christ. One body, one Spirit.
And what a hope of our calling. What is our calling? Our calling is to be the body of Christ. What is the hope of our calling? The hope is when the body is fully matured, beautiful; then it will become the bride of the Lamb.
That is our hope: to be joined to Christ forever. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit. He has made us one body. He is the one Spirit Who dwells in each one of us.
And He has not only given us that hope, but He is bringing that hope into reality in our lives. These three are already there.
Then: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. These three refer to God the Son.
We have only one Lord. The Apostle Paul says, in the world people have many lords, many gods, but we have only one Lord: our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is Lord to us.
One faith. It is that faith that Peter confessed before the Lord:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Because without that faith, you cannot be saved. You cannot be born into the body of Christ. One faith.
One baptism. It does not refer to the forms of baptism; it refers to the reality of baptism. What is baptism? Baptism is to be baptized into Christ.
Formerly we belonged to the world. Formerly we were under Satan. But now that we are baptized into Christ, we belong to Christ. He is our King.
One baptism. These three refer to God the Son: what He has done for us and what He is to us. And these three are already given. Jesus is your Lord. You have that one faith in Him, and you have been baptized unto Him.
Then you find one God and Father of all. God is not only God to us; God is God for everybody. He is the God of the universe, the Creator of all.
But He is not the Father of everybody. But He is your Father, my Father. We cry out, “Abba, Father.” We have one Father. It is God. He is over all, through all, and in us all. Thank God for that—God the Father.
So you will find in the seven ones the work of the Trinity: the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, and the work of God the Father. Here you will find, in God, in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, we are one.
That is where oneness comes from. That is the unity of the Spirit. And that unity has been given to us to be kept.
Brothers and sisters, have we kept it? Do we diligently keep it, or have we already lost it, wasted it? It is so precious.
And we need to keep this in the uniting bond of peace—peace with one another.
You say, “How can I have peace with my brother and sister? Because we are so different. Our understanding of the Bible is different. Our experience of the Lord is different. We have different ideas. We have different opinions, even on spiritual things. How can we be bonded together in peace?”
I have to tell that story. Many, many years ago, I was in Peru, South America. I went there to visit a couple of missionaries, the Elliots.
You remember one Elliott brother was martyred in Ecuador, and this is his brother, Bert. He and his wife were still there serving the Lord. They went to Peru to work among the natives. I visited them.
I had to fly into that city because there was no road. Then we spent a week on a little boat sailing through the Amazon River, visiting different villages.
Then we spent another week in a truck, climbing the higher mountains in Peru, visiting villages here and there on the mountains. I really enjoyed that.
Then before I left, there was a conference in that city, and the natives began to come from different villages to that conference. They walked through the jungles and came together. I was leaving the next day.
I was staying with this couple, and another missionary came from the neighboring village. He came in the afternoon. So when he saw that I was in the home of that missionary, he began to talk to me.
But the way he talked, you know, he was examining me. He wanted to know what I believed, where I was, and so forth. But he did it in a very subtle way. He began from the circumference, began to question me, and the questions began to get closer and closer.
I knew what he was aiming at because I knew his background. He came from an Exclusive Brethren background. So he began to question me, and of course he discovered that I am a believer in the Lord.
Then finally, the question that I was afraid he would ask came up, just before supper. He said, “Brother, how about rapture?”
I tried to avoid that question, so I said, “All believers will be raptured.”
“Oh,” he said, “when? How? How many times?”
I knew the Exclusive Brethren believed that all believers would be raptured before the great tribulation. But unfortunately—or fortunately—my understanding was a little different. But I had to be honest with him.
“Oh,” I said, “the whole church will be raptured.”
He was not satisfied. So finally, I had to tell him, “Well, brother, I know I have a different interpretation from yours.”
And you know what he said? “You do not believe the Bible?”
I said, “Brother, I believe the Bible just as you do. The only difference is that our interpretation, our understanding, is not the same.”
“No, you do not believe the Bible.”
And after supper, we were walking to the meeting. Because I was going to leave the next morning, the brothers asked me to speak that evening.
And as we walked to the meeting place, he walked by me and said, “If you speak, I will not speak. If you speak, I will not speak.”
What should I do? He is from my neighboring village. He will be there; I will not be there. Should I deprive him of his speaking? Certainly not.
So I told the brother, my host, “I am not going to speak.”
And the next morning, before I left, all these native brothers came together and demanded to know why. I did not explain. I left.
Brothers and sisters, do you see my point? Keep diligently the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
Why does he say, “In the uniting bond of peace”? Because God knows that even with the seven ones, the basis of our fellowship, the unity of the Spirit, we have many differences.
We are still different. We have not arrived yet at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
You know, in Ephesians 4, you have unity mentioned twice: Ephesians 4:3, the unity of the Spirit; and then Ephesians 4:13, the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Not two unities, but the two ends of one unity. This unity begins with the unity of the Spirit, and we will arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, we have not arrived yet. It is evident we have not arrived at the unity of the faith.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism—that one faith refers to the basic faith in the Lord Jesus: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is one faith. We all have that one faith. If you do not have it, you are not in the Lord.
But “the faith” is what Jude says in the book of Jude. You remember Jude? He says, “When I was trying to share with you on the common salvation, I felt that I must contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.”
In other words, the faith includes all the truth that you find in the Word of God. The faith has been delivered once to the saints.
All the truth you can find in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, concerning our Lord Jesus—of course, it all centers upon our Lord Jesus—that is the faith.
We have not arrived at the faith yet, because we have different understanding, different degrees of understanding, different interpretations. But that does not affect our one faith.
The knowledge of the Son of God is the full knowledge of the Son of God. In other words, it is that experiential knowledge of the Son of God. Our experience of our Lord Jesus is so different.
Some people only experience the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. Other people may experience the Lord as their Sanctifier. Other people may have the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, our experience of our Lord Jesus is so different. He is so big. He is so full. No one can experience Him in fullness all by himself.
You experience something of Him. I experience something of Him. And together, we experience Him all. This is something we are to arrive at.
For, dear brothers and sisters, what is unfortunate is that we reverse the order. When we meet our brothers and sisters, we start with the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
When you meet a believer, the first thing is to discover whether he is a believer. But are you satisfied then? You are not. Your curiosity will drive you to ask more questions.
“Which denomination do you belong to?” Oh, if you belong to, say, the Methodist church, and I am a Baptist, you believe in free will; I believe in divine election. Nothing to do with each other. We are different.
How our action grieves the Lord. When He looks upon us, what does He see? We are all divided—nothing to do with each other, even becoming enemies.
And the enemy among God’s people is religious fanaticism. You cannot believe it.
Begin with the beginning. Diligently keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
In spite of all the differences you have with your brothers and sisters—different temperament, different background, different culture, different upbringing, different teaching, different experience—in spite of that, we are members one of another. Keep that unity.
And as long as you keep that unity, you are able to fellowship with one another. And as long as you keep on fellowshipping, there will be the opportunity of arriving at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Otherwise, there is no hope.
Thank God, I have known people who are very different in their understanding of the Word, and yet they are the Lord’s. They love the Lord.
And because of that, we do not reject each other. We receive those whom the Lord has received. Eventually, we arrive at oneness. I have seen this. But if we break fellowship, there is no hope.
So first of all, how do we live this church life? Do we have a church life? Do we diligently keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace? Do we continue to fellowship with one another in spite of all the differences?
And when you are fellowshipping, you do not insist. You should share what the Lord means to you, what He has given to you, your understanding of the Word, your understanding of the Son of God.
You should love your brothers and sisters who differ with you and try to share with them what the Lord has given to you. But do not insist that he must believe what you believe; he must be what you are. Do not do that.
On the other hand, be open to your brothers and sisters. When they share with you that which is different, be open. Go to the Lord and ask the Lord whether it is of Him. Then receive it.
Now, if we can fellowship in that nature, how glorious a fellowship it is.
And then, of course, you will find the Bible tells us that when our Lord Jesus ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and He gave gifts to men.
You know, in Psalm 68:18, where it is quoted, it is a little bit different:
Thou hast ascended on high,
Thou hast led captivity captive;
Thou hast received gifts among men,
yea, among the rebellious also,
that the Lord God might dwell with them.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus, when He ascended up, He led captivity captive. Who are the captivity captive?
Sometimes we say, “Well, He led all the principalities and authorities in the air, the fallen angels; He led captivity captive.” Yes, on the cross, He led them captive and displayed them.
But to me, I feel that the captivity captive is you and me. We were in captivity, but He captured us. He received us as the gift of God to Him.
We who were rebellious, but He made us His house. He gave gifts to us, and by these gifts, the body is built up.
So, brothers and sisters, how do you live that church life? You live that church life not only in the spirit of unity—fellowshipping, sharing, loving one another—but you live this church life by functioning as a member of the body of Christ.
Every member has been given a gift. The gifts are different, but the purpose is the same. We need to function, exercise the gift that God has given to us, together, for the work of the ministry.
It is the body ministry. And only when this body ministry is being exercised, then the body will build itself up in love.
The problem today is that we are looking to a few to build up the body. We are looking to the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. Thank God for these men, the ministers of the Word of God.
But, brothers and sisters, their work is to perfect the saints. Their work is to mature the saints. Their work is to equip the saints. And it is the saints, through their exercising of the gift and grace that God has given to each, that the body is built up.
That is the reason why you find the body still has not been matured. Our Lord is still waiting for that day. It is because we let a few do the work. It cannot be done. It never will be done.
Every brother and sister who is living that church life, you have a responsibility—not what you do not have, but what you have been given: grace, gift, that the Head has given to you. Exercise together.
Submit one to another in the fear of Christ. And when we are doing that, the body is built up in love.
And, oh, brothers and sisters, when we arrive at the full-grown man, at the measure of the fullness of Christ, we will no longer be as waves, tossed by every wind of doctrine. But we will be built up.
And the Lord will say, “My bride is ready for Me.” He will not delay. He will come to receive the bride to Himself.
Shall we pray?