Morning. Can I read a few Scriptures before we start today?
In 1 Corinthians 1:9:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
And then 1 John 1:7:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
Let’s pray.
Father, this morning we come to You with thanksgiving, just to celebrate what we were thinking about this morning as our meditation for worship: how our sins have been eradicated, taken away; how we are pure and holy before You because of what Your Son has done. Lord, we just continue to be in awe about that and would just take our place in Your presence now.
Knowing, Lord, that there is, like our brother said, no condemnation for us, we sit before You with thanksgiving and glad hearts because You draw close to us. Lord, that is what we want to ask that You continue to do: that You will draw close to us through Your Word, that You will open Your Word to us and speak to us from it, that our lives might continue to be close, and that we might be built up in the faith and built with one another, and be made into the very thing You want us to be.
Lord, I just admit today that I just do not want to be talking. I want Your Word to come out. So, Lord, I hide in You this day, and thank You, Lord, that You have a Holy Spirit whom You have given to us. We pray that He will open up the Word to us, strengthen us in the inner man, and lead us, Lord, into all things that we need to know, for the name of the Lord Jesus’ sake. Amen.
First of all, I have got to be honest: I got rebuked. All right? I had someone rebuke me last time because they said that—I am not going to tell you who it is, and I am saying this tongue in cheek, okay?—I have a tendency to be self-deprecating.
This person told me that I should not be self-deprecating, and then he encouraged me. He said, “You know, I’d like it if you talked more about the knitting together.”
So I responded to this brother and said, “I can do one of those two things. I cannot stop being self-deprecating because, unfortunately, that is my nature. But I can do the other thing. I can talk about being knit together.”
This morning, that is really what I want to focus on. It is really verses 15 and 16, but let’s go ahead and read from Ephesians 4. We are going to read from verses 11 through 16, if I can find it.
Ephesians 4:11 reads:
And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ;
from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
One of the reasons why I opened with verses about fellowship is because fellowship has to do with sharing—sharing life together. I thought those were appropriate. We have been called into a sharing of life in Jesus Christ.
When He has called us to Himself, He has not just called us as individuals, though He has done that. He has also called us as a people. As a people, we are to be in fellowship with His Son. When we are in fellowship with His Son, that means it is not just an individual thing anymore, although we do have our individual walks. It is also coming together. It is a corporate body that has been made.
We want to walk in that fellowship, and so we have to walk in the light that we have. Right? We cannot walk in light we do not have, but we can walk in light we do have. The more we walk in light, the more light we get. If we have light but refuse to walk in it, our light will not go any further. We will just be where we are until we decide to walk in what we have.
Last time we talked about a few things, and I am just going to review them briefly. We talked about how, in the giving of the gifts—and these happen to be gifts that happen to be people—it came from Christ being ascended. It was not that He just died for our sins, which He has. It was not that He just rose for our sins, which He has. But He has ascended.
That is what Jonathan brought forth. He is seated at the right hand of the Father right now. Being ascended, then, He could give gifts to men. He has given to the church—to us—apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers.
The purpose for Him giving those to us is to equip us for service: for service to Him, for service to Him in the body, and for service to Him outside the body. But it is for service.
We talked a little bit before that the apostles deal with the foundations. The prophets kind of square the house, if I can use the example of building a house. The evangelists put on the additions; they bring in the additions. They also always bring us back to the foundation.
Pastors and teachers are the foremen. They are the ones who supply the workers with what they need, but at the same time they work alongside those workers. It is not that they are above the worker. There is no system like that. They are alongside.
That is what I like about army movies. I have a place in my heart for army movies. One of the things I miss—you know, I was during the Vietnam era, and I missed out on getting drafted, thank the Lord—but when I watch army movies, what I want most of all is that camaraderie among those soldiers. Boy, I covet that.
The guys you like the most are the sergeants, because the sergeants are right in there with the men. They might give them orders here and there, but they are right with the men. Those pastors and teachers, they are with the men. They are in the trenches. They are with them.
Then we talked about the unity of the faith. We looked at the unity of faith—not that we all have the same doctrine, except for what we believe about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be unified in that.
We must be unified that He is the Son of God, God the Son; that He came to earth; that He was virgin-born; that He lived a sinless life; that He offered that sinless life up on the cross for us; that He was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He has ascended on high. We must believe that.
Now, we are to be unified on that. If you look through church history, when they decided what grounds they needed to keep themselves safe from false teaching, they made these creeds. If you read the Nicene Creed, and in the Catholic Church the Apostles’ Creed, it was these things that were spoken of about the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be unified on those.
But I think the unity of the faith here being spoken of is more like we talked about with the spies in Numbers. When they went into the land, they came back. The unity of the faith is for us to be unified in the idea that God is able to bring us into the land. He is able to bring us into the place where He has promised us.
We should be unified. We should not be saying, “No, well, I think you need to do that.” No, I think we should be unified that God can do this. God can take us in here, and that is what we need to be unified in.
With faith goes knowledge, but this knowledge is not just what I know. It is experiential knowledge. I have found God to be faithful, and that is why I can trust Him forevermore.
Then it says to be a mature man. A mature man means a man who is complete, who has all his faculties, all his body parts—everything.
When I first gave the message a few weeks ago, the azaleas had just started to bloom for the first time. I am from California, so when we get azaleas, our azaleas do not bloom like they do here in Virginia. In California, you can count the separate buds. Here, it is all color. It is beautiful.
A mature plant—you know, when you get that plant, there are no buds on it. You ever notice that? But you plant it in the ground, and you look at the little picture it gives, like on the seed packet: “This is what it is going to look like.” You plant it in there and go, “I do not know.”
But then you do the things you are supposed to do. You water it, you feed it, and stuff like that. Boom. Because of the life that is in it, all of a sudden you have that flowering. It is just a burst of color. It is glorious. It is pleasing to look at.
That is what a mature man is. A mature man in Christ is all those things. It is everything that God wanted him to be. It is symmetrical. It is not stunted here and big there. Everything is what it is supposed to be: a mature man.
What is this mature man? We could say it is the one in Ephesians 4:15:
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ.
And then:
From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
If we want a picture of the mature man, here it is in verses 15 and 16. It is this body that has the life in itself, that works by the rule of that life. Because it works by the rule of that life, it grows.
Every part, every cell in that body, has that bit of life in it. Every cell grows according as that life moves it. That is what we are. That is what our aim is.
The question asked was about being knit together. I am going to back up a little bit, and I want to say just a couple things about being knit together. This is going to be hard, okay?
I took my daughter Katie for a tetanus shot the other day. None of us like shots. If you do, you are really weird, okay?
I can remember my mom being a nurse, and she would give us our shots. Those were the days when you had to sterilize the needles. You would be wandering through the kitchen and notice a pan on the stove and think, “Oh, they’re cooking something.” Then you would see the needles, and you would run. I am not kidding you. You would run.
I remember my dad chasing me a block and a half and catching me, then having to hold me to get my tetanus shot. I could tell you stories about Katie, but I will not embarrass her.
But the nurse Friday said, “You know, it is going to hurt, and you are going to be sore. But you just continue doing the things you normally do, and it will work itself out.”
That is what I am saying to you. Some of this might hurt. It might make you sore. But it will work its way on, and that is what we need to see.
Well, the thing is, how do we get knit together? The first thing, I believe, in getting knit together is in verse 15:
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him.
Brothers and sisters, we are to grow up. Let me talk about what I think that means. Here it says that we are to grow up into the Head, into the character, into everything that Christ is.
What does it mean to grow up? How can you tell that your child is growing up? I am not talking about physically. You can tell when they are growing physically; they are just getting big. But how can you tell that they are becoming an adult?
Okay, I have one test that I think is a true test: they clean their room.
No, you are laughing, but let me just go on a little bit, okay? There comes a spot. As parents, you say, “Clean your room, for goodness’ sake. Look at this mess in here.” You parents know how many times you have said that.
And how many times have you gotten this: “What is the matter with it? I live in here. I can live okay.” You know?
But there comes a time when the person who is a child just looks at it and goes, “You know, this is a mess.” It is not because someone has told them. They just get to that place and go, “Man, this is a mess.”
What I am saying is this: there is an inward awareness that says, “This is a mess.” We begin growing up in the inner life. That inner man in us—Christ living in us—gets to the point of saying and showing, revealing to us, “It is a mess. I cannot live in this place.”
That is what growing up means. It is when we get to the point where the Lord Jesus living in us can say to us—and we hear Him.
There is a time, as young Christians, and just in natural children, when you are used to having everything picked up for you. Your messes, someone else picks up. You fall down, someone else comforts you. Everything has been done for you, and you just get used to it.
It is easy just to fall back on that: “Oh yeah, someone else will pick it up.” In our Christian life, you go, “Well, yeah, I can go ahead and live the way I am living. Oh, the Lord will forgive me.”
Then pretty soon the Lord just goes, “No, I cannot do this anymore.” I am not saying He is going to leave you or anything. He just gets to the point of saying, “You have got to clean it up. You just have to clean it up.”
You can fight that, and He will not force His way on you. But when you respond in a positive way—when the Lord says, “This needs to be cleaned up,” and you respond in a positive way—you are beginning to grow up.
When you start not having to be told from the outside, but hear it from the inside, you are beginning to grow up.
Some of you who were at Willow Run—you have been put in a position now. You have been given some light about things. The question is: where are you in the transition? Still a child, or is this the wake-up call? Is this the part that says, “You know, things have to change”?
Again, it is not from the outside. It is from the inside. Something has to be done. I need to respond. Anytime the Lord starts moving on the inside, He gives the wherewithal to get it done.
The second thing about growing up that has to be changed is our thinking—the way we think. Paul said, “When I was a child, I thought as a child.” Well, how does a child think?
A child thinks always with himself at the center. That is true.
Being a teacher, it is interesting. I think my wife would have a better perspective of this, but I had to teach, I think it was second grade, one year for summer school. That is why I teach secondary education. You are there a whole day with second graders. High schoolers, at least after an hour and a half they are gone. Second graders, they are with you the whole time.
That is why I think God has jobs for us, so that we do not have to be with our children the whole time. You know that saying some animals eat their young? I am afraid we might do that.
Just an example of the “I” center: when you make a seating chart for kids, “I do not want to sit next to her.” That is a good one, isn’t it? “Why do I have to do this?”
Our thinking has to be transformed. When our thinking becomes, or starts to be, transformed, we are starting to grow up. We are getting out of the place of being self-centered and self-serving.
The next thing that happens as we are knit together is that we must be vitally attached to the Head.
In other words, first of all, we have to have a relationship—a vital relationship—with Jesus Christ on a personal level. You have to have that. If you do not have that, you will not be knit together.
I will tell you why in a little bit, but the thing is, being vitally attached to the Head means that if I am not attached, I am dead. That is what vital signs are. They check for a pulse. If you do not have a pulse, your heart is not working. If you are not breathing, there is something wrong with you. You are going to die.
So it has got to be this vital attachment. This is what I mean by vital attachment: some of us—I am telling on myself—can go through a couple days without having quiet time and never miss it.
Never miss it. What does that say? What does that say?
A vital attachment means that you feel the loss of that time. You know it. It grieves you. You know something is missing.
I have a vital relationship with my wife in my marriage. There are times when I travel and she stays home. I feel that. I miss my wife and my kids.
Even though I just said it is hard to get along, I miss them being around because they are really a protection for me. I do things that I do not normally do, and sometimes I do things that I should not normally do, because I am out of that connection.
It is the same thing when we are out of connection with the Lord. Out of a vital connection, we do things that we should not do, and we reap the benefits of those. But we must have this vital connection.
What happens when we have a vital relationship to our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ? I want to read a couple of Scriptures and talk about Nehemiah 3.
Nehemiah talks about the rebuilding of the walls in Jerusalem after the captivity. He encourages the people to do things.
Let us look at Nehemiah 3:1:
Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded the sheep gate; they sanctified it, and set up the doors of it; even unto the tower of Hammeah they sanctified it, unto the tower of Hananel.
Then it says:
And next unto him builded the men of Jericho. And next to them builded Zaccur the son of Imri.
If you continue on through the chapter, you will always see “next to him” or “beside him.” You see that through the rest of the chapter.
What happens when you have a vital relationship? You might not have seen it in this, but notice who started the building. Who started the building? It says it was Eliashib. What else does it say about Eliashib? He was the high priest.
I think that is the most amazing thing, because I would have thought you would have gotten the grunts out there and said, “Come on, you guys, let’s start working, building this thing.” But the first one you see out there is the high priest. He is the leader.
Brothers and sisters, if we have a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we become aware of what He is doing. The other people, after that, take up the work: “Look at him. Look what he is doing. Let’s join him.” We see the Lord moving.
The only way you are going to see the Lord moving is, first of all, by having that relationship and being in the Word. I know a lot of times we have problems looking at the Word, because when we look at the Word, we start thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember Stephen said this in a conference back in 1992. Oh yeah, I remember when Lance preached on this.” We make little markings in our Bible, and we cannot get away from those.
That is why some people get a new Bible every year, which I think is a pretty good idea. But the other thing is, you have got to break away from what you know, in the sense of the old stuff. You have got to break away, and you have got to see the Lord. You have got to see the Lord moving.
He might have said something ten years ago that is not applicable anymore, but you are holding on to that. If you have a vital relationship, you will see what the Lord is doing today, because it is vital. You are attached today. You are not looking back to something else. It is not the good old days.
Is the Lord moving? Is the Lord moving today? Where is the Lord moving today? Then you see people just picking up and going behind Him and doing the same thing.
Isn’t it interesting that the Lord Jesus, when He was on the earth, said, “I do not do anything that I do not see the Father doing”? What did He mean by that? It meant that He had a relationship with the Father just like we are supposed to have a relationship with Him.
It was not a whole thing of, “Well, I am the Son of God; I know everything.” He became a man. As a man, He had that relationship with God, just like we are to have a relationship with God. He put aside His deity, and He lived like a man, just like we are to live. He lived in relationship with God.
The second thing—I want to go back to Nehemiah 3, so hold on to that for a moment—is in Mark 6. We will read beginning with verse 30.
Mark 6:30-44:
And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they had taught.
And He saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart.
And the people saw them going, and many knew them, and they ran together there on foot from all the cities, and outwent them.
And He came forth and saw a great multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and He began to teach them many things.
And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now far spent; send them away, that they may go into the country and villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat.
But He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat.
And they say unto Him, Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings’ worth of bread, and give them to eat?
And He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.
And He commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the green grass.
And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.
And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake the loaves; and He gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided He among them all.
And they all ate, and were filled.
The second thing that happens when we have a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus is that we become aware of His will.
I use this one because I think, as we begin to grow up, we become introduced to the cross. We hear about the cross off and on, but we have to be introduced to it.
If we have a vital relationship with Jesus Christ, we are going to be introduced to the cross. All the cross says is, “Your ideas are not My ideas. I want you to go by what I see.”
When the disciples came and all these people were there, they looked around themselves and said, “Send them home.” Just send them home. That is us.
When we want to be knit together, a lot of times it is fine until there is a little problem or something like that, and then it is, “Send them home.” That is what is good about being a teacher: the bell rings, send them home.
But if we are going to be knit together in a body, there is no sending them home. The idea the Lord says is, “You feed them.”
First of all, this is the cross: it is not doing what we want, but doing what He wants. The second thing is, if we are introduced to the cross, the cross has its benefits.
Even though the cross is a place of death, the benefit of the cross is that we are introduced to His supply. I am not talking about a temporal supply. I am talking about being introduced to the power of His life to be given out and meted out to the need that is there.
It is His ability. It is His ability in the situation, not ours. Look at the apostles: “We only have two fish and five loaves. It would take two hundred days’ wages to get enough for these people. We just do not have it.”
But to give the Lord what you have is a whole different story. To say, “Okay, we will feed them, but I do not see how,” and then come to the Lord, and the Lord says, “Well, give Me what you have”—we are introduced into a supply.
What the cross does is bring us out of the realm of self and into the kingdom of God. It brings us out of the realm of our own abilities and into the kingdom of God, where all power on earth and in heaven has been given to our Lord Jesus. He is able to use that power and wield it in whatsoever way He has asked you to do it. He is able to do that thing.
So the cross and supply go hand in hand. There is no supply without the cross, and you must go to the cross.
The idea of being fitted and knit together is talking about body life. I want to make something real clear: I am not talking about meeting life. There is a difference.
We meet here at least twice a week. On Wednesday for prayer, which goes from seven-thirty to nine, but if you are here a little early, it goes from, say, seven-fifteen to nine-fifteen, because we stay talking. Well, okay, that is two hours.
Then here on Sunday mornings, we start about nine-thirty and end about one o’clock, when everyone leaves. That is it. That is all. That is meeting life.
In meeting life, we can always put on good airs. I even dress up. You know? Wear that happy face, look sanctified, do all those kinds of things. I can even watch my conversation at the table. It can be upbeat and spiritual. That is meeting life.
Body life is not meeting life. Body life is being who you are. It is meeting you outside the meeting. It is being related to you outside the meeting.
I am not telling everybody that they need to call up everybody. I am just making the point that body life is not meeting life, and do not confuse the two. Do not think that we are being built up together when we just come to meetings. That is not true.
One of the ways that we hope to be built together is by having those Friday-night meetings, so that we see each other more often, get to know each other, have our own prayer requests, and know what is happening in other people’s lives, so that we can minister to one another.
Let me tell you something about body life. You do not hear much about body life anymore, but you used to hear a lot about body life in the 1980s and early 1990s. Everybody was talking about body life. It was the buzzword: body life. Got to have body life.
Body life is like new shoes. New shoes look so good. You look at them in the store: “Oh, it is great.” Even tennis shoes—you look and go, “Oh, this is really great.” Then you come home and put them on, and they are so stiff, and they hurt. You have got to take them off after a while because they hurt.
Sometimes people will go, “This hurts too much. I am just putting them in a closet,” and you never see them except at weddings. Unless they are tennis shoes; then you never see them at all.
But if you will endure the pain for about the first month, the shoes get broken in.
Now, do not think I am saying that you will get used to the brothers and sisters. You might get used to them, but they are still going to hurt.
What I am saying is that you will become accustomed to the way the Lord works. That is where you will get the comfort.
A pair of old shoes—people talk about, “Oh, it is like a pair of old shoes.” Old shoes are great. They are hard to give up. How many of you have a pair of shoes that are just raggedy, but you will not throw them away? I have got some. Boy, I love them. You do not want to throw them away because they are so comfortable.
The thing that makes us comfortable is not that we are with the brothers and sisters, because the brothers and sisters are going to rub you. All right?
It is like one of those old cheese graters. You have seen the cheese grater—not the big ones that make those big curly things, but the ones that are just like a rasp file? Brothers and sisters, they are like that. They are cheese graters, and you are the cheese. Okay? That is body life.
My brothers and sisters, the comfort is in the Lord. It is what the Lord has shown you: that you can have faith that the Lord is going to take you through things, that He is going to be with you, that He is going to supply your needs in this, that He is going to help you through these things, that you can rely on Him.
We want to rely on brothers and sisters, and it is good if we can, but we must rely on the Lord. Our trust is to be in the Lord. We are not supposed to just put our trust in men, even if they are good brothers and good sisters. We are to trust in the Lord.
We are to be fitted together. In being fitted together, I just want to let you know that the Lord has no distinctions.
When it says “fitly framed,” it does not mean I will see where I fit in as if it is my choice where I fit in. If I want to fit in with somebody, I am going to find somebody who likes baseball, likes to go golfing once in a while, and likes to read history. I can fit in with those people all right.
But it is not our choice, because we have been called to minister to one another. The people I like may not be the ones that the Lord says, “Your ministry is needed here. What you have of Me is needed here. I do not need you over here.”
That does not mean you cannot be friends with other people, but it means that in being knit together, you are going to be knit. You are going to be joined together where you are needed.
My elbow is put here for a purpose. It is not put here. It is put here because that is where it is best used. My ears—aren’t you glad your ears are on your head? Imagine if your ears were on your back. They are not best needed there. They are best suited where they are.
The Lord puts you where you are best suited. The problem with us is that we do not think it is where we are best suited. That is where the cross comes in again. You just have to go to the cross and look for the Lord’s supply.
In Nehemiah 3, there are just a couple verses I want to read about being fitted together. All through this, you find the words “next to them.”
Now, in Nehemiah 3:7, it says:
And next unto them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite, and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon, and of Mizpah, that pertained to the throne of the governor beyond the River.
I am going to stop there. It seems like there are distinctions there, isn’t it? I just said there are no distinctions, and it says, “Oh, these guys are Gibeonites, and these guys are from Mizpah.” Well, isn’t that a distinction?
Well, it is a distinction because the Lord is saying they are from there. But the thing is, because they are working side by side, there is no distinction between them. “Oh, you are a Gibeonite? I cannot work by you. I will go over here.” No, there are no distinctions.
Remember what Paul said earlier? “There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female: for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.” There is no distinction.
That was one of the things we read in Acts 10, when Peter goes to Cornelius’s house. “Do not make any distinctions.” That is what the Lord told Peter. “Do not make distinctions. What I have cleansed, do not call common.”
First of all, there are no distinctions. Notice the men of Gibeon. Well, Gibeon is not in Jerusalem. Gibeon is miles away.
When we talk about being built up together, it is not a question of proximity. I do not have to just be built up with the people in Group F. I can be built up with the people in Group A or the people in Group B, depending on what the Lord sees, depending on what the Lord shows me.
If I am following the Lord’s lead, as the high priest takes the lead, He can put me where He wants because He is leading. It is the leading of the Spirit that puts us into the place where we are joined together.
Again, it is not our picking out and choosing what we want. It is the leading of the Holy Spirit. We will never be led by the Holy Spirit if we do not grow up, if we do not get out of the selfish mode.
There are no distinctions, and also we do not go according to what is needed. If we went according to need, we would never stop. We would be like hummingbirds flitting from one place to another.
We go by the leading of the Holy Spirit and the opportunity that He places before us, not according to the need that we will always see. We have to wait on the Lord, wait for His leading, and look for His opportunity in serving and being fitted together.
The idea of being knit together—incidentally, another thing about being fitted together—is a medical term. It is like taking a joint that has been dislocated and putting it back into place.
I do not know how many of you have had a shoulder separation. Not very nice. But the thing is, it puts it back into the place where it is of service. That is what counts. It puts the body into service. It makes the body able to do what it is supposed to do.
Knit together. My mom knitted. I used to like to watch her knit because she would hold needles and go real fast: knit one, purl two; knit one, purl two.
You know what you do when you knit? You interweave things. Lives become interwoven. That is being knit together. The Lord starts weaving your lives together.
This is not a social thing, all right? It is a ministry thing. It is where I am needed that I get woven in there—into the fabric of one another’s lives.
Does that mean that we are always over at their house? No. Does it mean that we are always calling you up? No. It means there is just a sense of need. You have that sense from the Holy Spirit.
Are you the person who is able to say, “I know you will not talk to anyone else. What is going on?” Because you know them, because you have developed that trusting relationship through previous service.
It does not start all at once. We are not all open with one another. Come on. Some of us start out transparent? We have got so much to hide. Why do you think we wear so many clothes? Look how much of me is exposed right now: my hands and my head. There is so much unexposed. So with all of us.
But the ministry the Lord wants will allow us to become transparent slowly but surely to those who minister to us. Because if we are not allowed that, there is no ministry.
We are knit together. We are interwoven, not by your choosing, but by God’s choosing. Again, this is beyond the realm of meeting, and it is beyond the realm of just being social.
The next thing it says is, “Each individual part.” Each individual part working in due measure. In other words, giving what you have.
One of the things we like to do is count ourselves out by saying, “I have nothing to give.” Oh, brothers and sisters, isn’t Christ in you? If Christ is in you, you have something to give.
Even the smallest part. We read that story from Mark, but if you went to John 6, even the disciples said, “We do not have anything.” Andrew said, “There is a kid over there who has five loaves and a couple of fish.”
Those loaves were about the size of ham biscuits. He was saying, “He has five biscuits and enough ham for two.” Okay? What did the kid do? He gave them to Him.
Give what you have, because you are not worried about what people are saying of you. The thing they come away with is, “I have touched Christ. I have touched the Lord Jesus in what that person did.”
It could be, “Well, gee whiz, I can only rake leaves,” or do something like that. But the timing of it, the doing of it out of the leading of the Spirit, just saying, “Hey, someone needs this. I will go and do it”—I touched Christ. I have been built up.
Sometimes we think that to minister you have to have some big old sermon or something like that. I just want to let you know: we are talking about each individual part working.
Last year I was in the Bay Area. The Ecklins invited me to stay after the Chinese conference over there in San Francisco. Talk about each individual part—I was built up.
You know how I was built up? John Ecklin is an interesting guy, and those of you who know him know that. One of the things about the brothers and sisters in the Bay Area is they pray. They pray about everything.
I am not joking when I say about everything. They pray about everything. You would say, “Oh, I just take that for granted,” but they pray upon it.
That struck me. When I came away from there, I thought, “My goodness, the Lord is interested in everything.” I was ministered to, and I was touched by the Lord because I think the Lord was the same way. I do not think the Lord let anything go by.
They did not do anything special. They just lived life. They had me over for dinner, let me sleep in their bed, and once in a while would pray at the meals. Or we would talk to one another, something would come up, and it would end in prayer: “Hey, let’s pray for this.” That was it. That was so neat.
Sometimes I think we think that we are just too spiritual to pray for little things. But I think one of the kids said last time about praying for specific things. That is what they got out of Willow Run, right?
It is not just adding to the mix. It is your measure, and it is in due measure. It is what is supposed to be. That life is always given to you.
Finally, it says, “For the building up of itself in love.” The word here for love is agape. This is not phileo, which is brotherly love.
All I am going to say about this is that it is beyond brotherly affection, and it is a love that is not provoked.
Love—and I think I mentioned this in the Bible study—is an act of the will. Love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. “Oh, when I am near you, I feel so warm and fuzzy. I think I love you.” No. Love is an act of the will.
How many of you, as parents, when your kid is throwing up in the middle of the night, just sit there in bed and let them throw up? No. You go into the bathroom with them, put your arm around them, and comfort them until they are finished.
That is an act of the will. There is nothing warm and fuzzy about that. “Oh, I am so glad you are doing this. It is so good to be here with you.” No. You are there because you need to be there, and you do it.
You are compelled, not by what you are going to get out of it, but because you love that person. That is the only reason. Our love does that for us. It makes us move.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church.” We love our bodies. Look at the way we treat our bodies. We feed them, clothe them, make sure they get enough rest, bathe them, and do all those things.
What about the body of Christ? We are supposed to love as we love our own body. We are our own body, aren’t we? So let us love them that way.
Then John says, “Love not in word only, but in deed and in truth.” So it is not enough to say, “Be warmed, be filled.” Love moves to action. Love always moves to action.
There is no love without action. You show me love without action; I would like to see it. Love always moves, always moves.
We can look at this and say, “This is how we are knit together.” We are knit by having a relationship with the Lord, and that relationship with the Lord brings us into a relationship with each other.
You can kick against the goads. You can say, “I have nothing of it.” That is your prerogative. Or you can say, “Lord, I want to be knit together. I want to be built together.” That is also your prerogative.
But it is the cross, and it hurts. It takes away from your freedom of being who you want to be yourself.
We can look at ourselves now and go, “Oh, gee whiz, Lord, we are just nothing but Your man.” We might even say, “Well, I do not think I will ever be the mature man.” So what is the Lord trying to say to us?
I think He is just saying this: “I want you to grow.” That is it. “I just want you to grow. Let Me live in you.” That is all I want. Let Me live in you.
You can look at the theology of this and try to do gymnastics about it, and do this and that, and all the Lord is saying is, “These are wonderful things. These are wonderful words to say. They are wonderful things to teach.” But the bottom line is this: “I want to live in you.”
That is all. Let Me live in you. Let Me have My place in you. Let Me tell you, “We have got to move on. I cannot stand this room anymore. You have got to clean it up.” Let’s start doing that.
That is all He wants us to do. Let’s grow. If we begin to grow and follow that life that is in us, we will be knit together.
In other words, this is not something that you necessarily go and try to do. I think we become aware, because the Lord is living in us, of what is around us. We become aware of what He sees. We become aware of what He wants.
Then He says, “Will you go? Will you do?” I think that is what He wants. Let’s pray.
Lord, it is so easy for us to just fall back on theology and do these other things. But Lord, I know in my own heart, I want You to live in me. Man, I want You to live with me. I know these brothers and sisters want the same thing.
That is what I am asking, Lord: that You would be able to live in us. In living in us, You will just do what You want to do.
Lord, do not let us just hang You up. Thank You that You are going to be patient with us. Thank You, Lord, that You are going to long-suffer with us.
But Lord, I pray that in the end You will have Your way, that You will be able to live in us. Because of that, You will have that azalea that blooms, the glory of that full man—everything it is meant to be because You are able to live in us. Yes, in Jesus’ name.