Just two preliminary thoughts this morning. The writer of the book of Hebrews, right at the end of that epistle, says that he had written to them briefly. His was thirteen chapters—twenty-five pages in mine. So, briefly—remember how long briefly is.
The other thought is that, the older I get, the same word-processor font—twelve-point—gets smaller and smaller and smaller. It is going to get to the point where I have to have one word per page and have a missile.
As we get started, let us turn to the book of Ephesians. There are a couple of verses there that I would like to consider to frame our time.
Ephesians 4:3:
Being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Then, from Ephesians 4:13:
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
I would like us to consider those two together: being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
The other verse I would like us to consider is 3 John 1:9:
I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.
That is a very unfortunate verse.
Father, we do come before You this morning. Lord, we thank You for the presence of Your Spirit.
Lord Jesus, we thank You that You have not left us as orphans; that You have come to us; that You have given to us the Spirit of truth to lead us into all truth.
Lord, we thank You for Your word. We plead the blood of Jesus over this time. We pray that You would guard our hearts and minds, that You would shield us from distraction, confusion, misunderstanding, and from the schemes of the enemy.
Lord, may I be able to express this word clearly. I have such a tendency to become vehement and strong in my soul when I am talking about these things. Have mercy on me, Lord. Speak Your words.
Lord, we come before You to hear from You this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Amen.
In John 14, Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He says, “In My Father’s house are many abodes, many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you.”
The fact that there are many abodes in the Father’s house means that He plans to bring many sons to glory. That is also in the book of Hebrews: it is God’s heart to bring many sons to glory.
But at the same time, He is preparing one bride for His Son.
Many sons, one bride.
This is a great mystery: out of this multitude of those whom He has called to Himself, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, it is His heart and His purpose from all eternity to prepare one bride for His Son.
I mention that it is a mystery, but it is not the kind of mystery that is in a museum behind velvet ropes, where you stand back so that you do not break anything. It is a mystery that the Lord wants us to enter into.
It is the Lord’s purpose from eternity past, but we personally will not enter into the fulfilment of this purpose unless we engage. I want to spill the beans right from the beginning: unless we engage.
It is not a spectator sport. It is not something from which you can stand back, watch it all happen, try not to get too dirty, and just let the Lord do it.
God’s purpose in our individual lives, in our family lives, and in our lives together will not be accomplished if we remain passive. This is something that we enter into.
Dana shared during conference that David provided everything Solomon would need to build the temple—to build the house of God. But it was Solomon who took the resources provided for him and completed the process: the thing that God had on His heart, a house in which He might dwell among men.
We are not spectators at a religious exhibit.
If we remain passive, there is no such thing as standing still. If we remain passive and do not enter into what the Lord has for us, we will be carried along by the streams of this world, by the streams of this age, and our lives will be wasted.
We will be an example to future generations of what happens to those who do not give their hearts and their lives completely to the purpose of God.
The burden of what I would like to share this morning is summed up in the phrase: with all the saints.
Each one of us, individually, when we came to the Lord, received an unspeakable inheritance in our personal lives: the presence of the Holy Spirit, redemption, the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin, and the indwelling presence of the Lord—the Comforter.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin. Our Father sent the spotless Lamb of God, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
He has placed us in Him and placed Him in us. We are not following a religious ritual. We are not following some philosophy that some dead man taught a long time ago. He has sealed us in Him by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us, and that is a present-day reality now.
I want to read Ephesians 2:19:
So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone;
in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Here is the turning point. When we first come to the Lord, it is fundamentally a personal experience. There is a transaction between us personally and the Lord. He meets us where we are. He meets us in the personal hell that we have created for ourselves, redeems us, and brings us back to Himself.
But His ultimate purpose is that we be built together into a house—the house of God, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
From this point forward, it is a walk and a being built together.
Saints, many believers never pass this point. It is too costly. It is messy. You do not have your way, and ultimately it costs you everything.
But the end of the book is glorious. Revelation 19 says:
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him:
for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure:
for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Revelation 21 says:
Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high,
and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God:
her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
The bride, the wife of the Lamb, has made herself ready, having the glory of God. Saints, do we want to be there? Do we want to be there?
It is a costly choice that we make.
The bride has made herself ready. You think, “Man, that is a lot of ironing—Clorox everywhere, iron and stuff.”
Where does she make herself ready? Not in a theological powder room. Not locked in a tower in a big library. Not by going to consecutive conferences, back to back to back, until you can say it in your sleep.
It is in our lives together.
There is no greater place to be built into the house of God than in the local assembly. Nowhere.
There is no greater place to come to understand Christ, to touch Him in reality, and to be built together than the local assembly.
They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We often feel, “Man, I am a wreck over here, but if I just went over there, I could get my act together. Then I would come back over here with a briefcase and letters after my name, and everything would be cool.”
It does not work that way.
So, first of all, it is a personal walk with Christ. That cannot be understated; it must be the underpinning of everything. But it finds fulfilment in our walk together.
We are so independently minded that, if we are honest with ourselves, we believe we can make it on our own—and that we would be better for it if all these other miserable people would just leave us alone and let us be spiritual.
“I was perfectly fine and spiritual until they came and knocked on my door and made me come out and live with these people.”
It is amazing how spiritual you can seem when you are by yourself.
There is a transition here. He has many dwelling places and is bringing many sons to glory; He is doing personal things in our lives individually. But there is a transition, because His ultimate heart is a bride for His Son.
God is preparing a bride for His Son. I do not think this is too extreme an illustration: God is making a bride for His Son, not a harem.
We can envision the many dwelling places as a high-rise apartment where people will leave us alone and we can be spiritual with the Lord, each of us in our little capsule. I do not think so.
He is making a bride for His Son. In one of the passages I read from Revelation, it says, “The city coming down from heaven.”
Imagine how complex that is: a city. Think of how intricately woven together all things have to be. I am not an urban planner or an engineer like three-quarters of the people we meet with, but I can tell it is pretty complicated.
It is not the kind of thing where you say, “Oh yeah, on-the-job training. I have never done this before, but here I am at the pearly gates—city, yeah, city. We are going to be a city.”
We are built together here, brothers and sisters, but we have to engage. It is costly. It hurts. It is not fun all the time, but it is the only way. It is the only way to practical deliverance from ourselves.
We hear these deeper-life teachings: crucifixion with Christ, being raised with Him, standing on resurrection ground, and living by His life rather than our own. These things are only meaningful in the context of our lives together.
If we can get away from each other, close four doors, be alone, and read spiritual books, we may learn these facts. But the only place they have application is in our lives together.
The further we walk in this way, the more we know our need of a Saviour. The further we walk in this way, the more we cry out, because we have to know resurrection life. We have to know that we are crucified with Christ, because otherwise we are not going to make it.
Another reason we have to make this transition and engage in this way is that Christ is so immense that no individual can express Him.
For us to think that we can grasp the fullness of Christ and be the expression of all that He means to express through His bride is the height of vanity. It takes more than one of us. It takes more than this room full of us. It takes all of us.
It is only as we are built together that this is manifested here on earth. It also takes all of us together to know the mind of Christ and to reach God’s end.
Each of us has a take. Each of us reckons that we are right: “If these people would finally get their act together and start seeing things my way, we would get things done around here.”
But the bottom line is that it takes more than one of us to know the mind of Christ. What a blessing that is.
Brothers and sisters, do you know what a privilege it is to have that covering? The Lord has placed us in the body so that we cannot just go off and blithely jump off a cliff.
If we will humble ourselves before one another, if we will listen for the voice of the Lord as He speaks through the assembly—oh, what covering. Oh, what pain that can save us. It can save us from personal pain and from hurting brothers and sisters around us, as we let go of insisting on our way and listen for the voice of the Lord through His body.
Frequently, it takes a catastrophe to bring us into the blessings of fellowship. We are so independent. We would do anything to avoid openness and brokenness with one another—to let one another know the real deal.
But, oddly enough, it is only there that we can advance. So many things are resolved simply by coming into the light.
What we discover is that the only way we can make it is to hold fast to Christ and what He has given us, and to hold fast to one another—to not run away, no matter what.
To seek a path in your spiritual life outside of full engagement with your brothers and sisters in life and fellowship is to stand outside the purpose of God.
People speak about being “outside the camp.” It can seem like a very spiritual thought: outside the camp, where we are not around those unspiritual types; we are over here outside the camp.
But if your understanding of outside the camp means not being integrally related to and engaged with your brothers and sisters, you are not seeking to live outside the camp. You are seeking to live outside the church, because that is outside the purpose of God.
Your mind will have a thousand reasons why you should go back home and stay away from those miserable people. But you will never, ever reach God’s end alone. There is no other pathway.
You will waste your life if you insist on being separate. If we insist on being separate from one another, we will waste our lives. We will not attain to God’s purpose.
Busyness, pride, hurt feelings—there I go with my vehemence again. Excuse me; I am going to calm down.
Busyness, pride, hurt feelings, and desires for other things will press, pull, and tempt us not to walk in living fellowship with one another.
But next to our personal time with the Lord, the most important thing in our lives is our fellowship with one another. I can say that categorically. No question about it. It is not item three or item four. It is the most important thing.
The life of Christ is expressed through the functioning of each member as they relate to one another. We experience the life of Christ; we experience the manifestation of this supernatural life in our relationships with one another.
What do I mean by fellowship? I mean ongoing commitment under the headship of Christ to real-life sharing with a specific group of believers who know the real you—your gifts and your struggles—and where there is freedom to help one another and to speak into each other’s lives.
Brothers and sisters, I see so many people living lives of silent desperation, with a hundred reasons in their minds why they cannot relate to one another, why they cannot reach out for help, and why they cannot be themselves.
They see others drowning around them, and they have a hundred reasons why they are not the one who can help the brother or sister. I am telling you, it is not you; it is Christ who will help them. It is not them; it is Christ who will help you.
But it is only as we come into that relationship that the Lord has the opportunity to manifest that life. It is through the joints and bands—the connection of the parts to one another.
Love is not manifested in a vacuum. It is not a plaque or a teaching. It is Christ Himself, and He manifests Himself as we are built together.
I am not talking about getting our act together, becoming really spiritual people, and then taking the next step into blissful relationships with one another. As a dear brother in the Lord tells me, “You have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelette.”
It is a messy process, because we all have our hang-ups. We are a mess because we are redeemed sinners. Our souls are in the process of being saved. Why should it surprise us when we see struggles in each other? Goodness gracious.
During the remainder of our time, I would like to touch on a couple of points. I wanted to think of this as “with all the saints” because I did not want them to put this next phrase on the tapes: a field guide for body life.
A field guide is the book you have tucked in your back pocket when you are out in the middle of nowhere. You pull it out, and it tells you things that will save your life. It tells you what the snakes look like that you can come around, and what the snakes look like that will kill you. It tells you how many leaves that stuff has that makes you really itchy.
Let us read Colossians 3:12-17 together.
This joins the two parts together: the personal part—being called, brought to life by the Lord, and receiving His life personally—and being built together.
Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering;
forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any;
even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye:
and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful.
The first point in this field guide is that life together is intensely practical.
This passage gives us exhortations: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You do not have to be patient with the perfect.
There is another passage that speaks of bearing with one another. You do not have to bear with the perfectly spiritual. We are all in process.
It is intensely practical: people knowing you, you knowing them, you touching Christ in them, and them touching Christ in you. There are things that need to be given and things that need to be borne with.
Until we learn to esteem one another as better than ourselves, we will never know the mind of Christ. It takes more than one, as I mentioned earlier, to have the mind of Christ.
If we can only receive from our top five speakers and everybody else needs to hear from us, if we cannot hear from the Lord through the least of the brethren, we will not be able to know the mind of Christ.
One of the ways the Lord trains us in this area—at least with me—is through delegated authority. It is easy when we are at the bottom of the mountain, hearing thunder and seeing lightning. We know that is the real deal.
But when He sends a messenger, we say, “Let me see your papers.” When the messenger sends a messenger, we say, “Let me see his signature.”
It seems that one way the Lord teaches us to hear His voice is by teaching us to receive His word through delegated authority that is further and further removed from what we think is the really spiritual guy way at the top.
We have to be able to recognise the voice of the Lord. Jesus said:
He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
What that basically means is that if we slam the door on the one whom He sends, guess whom we do not hear? Him, or the One who sent Him.
The next point in the field guide is that there have to be ground rules. One is determining to be in the light.
You can have some pretty old furniture, and as long as you keep the lights dim, everything looks okay. You can have some pretty grungy clothes, and as long as you do not come out in the sunlight, it is all right.
The thing we misunderstand is that we somehow feel as though the light made the stain be there, and maybe if we go back inside, it will go away.
It is only as we walk in the light with one another that the Lord is able to deal with things. We are so obsessed with ourselves and deceive ourselves so much that, unless we walk in the light with one another, we will close the door on a problem and go on with the rest of our lives. The construction work of the Lord will cease in that area if we will not remain in the light.
It is amazing: years and years and years of training, development, and personal growth can take place in such a short period of time when we are in relationship with one another.
The Lord can do something in a three-month period of brothers and sisters being real, open, and confessing sin to one another—things that He would not be able to do in ten years at a seminary, or while we are holed up in our rooms reading books until we get our act together so that we can go out and teach other people how to do it.
Philippians 2:2-3 says:
Make full my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;
doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself.
If there is anybody who was last in line at knowing how to consider others more important than himself, it is me. I am so convinced that I am right.
Every time I go in that direction, I jump the rails.
Oh, the bliss of just jumping in and letting go—letting the life run, letting the Lord run the thing.
Each one of us is to share his or her facet of the Lord, because the Lord Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, lives in us. There is an expression of the Lord—a unique expression of the Lord—within each one of us that may or may not be what the Lord is saying right now for this moment.
As we come together, share what the Lord has placed on our hearts, and then get out of the way and trust the Lord, He is the Head of the church. He is the Head of the body.
We are so privileged here, brothers and sisters, to have opportunities to gather as the body and seek to hear the mind of the Lord, rather than someone saying, “Look, people, this is the way it is going to be. Shut up. We are turning left; we are turning right at the next stoplight.”
We are able to gather together and seek to hear the mind of the Shepherd.
The Lord has made it so that we cannot make it without one another. We cannot reach this end apart from one another.
These matters concerning the cross and being crucified with Christ change from theological concepts in Watchman Nee books into things that we have to cling to because they are the only way we are going to make it.
In order to walk in this life together, you have to be willing sometimes to be the least of the brethren. We have to be willing to be the counsel that is cast aside.
It is only about the life of the Lord. One of my favourite passages says that our Lord made Himself of no reputation.
Having the name on the door, being the premier act, and all that kind of stuff—He was not heading in that direction. He was heading in the direction of, “How much more can I humble Myself? Is there any way that I can humble Myself more? Because I will.”
That is the nature of His life.
The opposite is the passage we read from 3 John 1:9: Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.
Close the door, and all of a sudden the work of God in this poor brother’s heart comes to an end. He is now the head, and everybody else can shut up. It is no longer about interchange and life being shared among the brethren.
The alabaster vial can remain unbroken, but it remains alone and outside the purpose of God. We like to get our theology straight, everything buffed up on the outside, and keep it in the velvet box so that nothing happens to it.
But it is only in its being broken that its value is expressed.
Another ground rule—and this is so important—is that we have to determine right from the start not to be offended.
If we are going to be built together, you have to decide before the thing starts, before you walk through the door into this engagement, that you are not going to be offended. There are going to be ten thousand things that rub your flesh the wrong way. As I said, it is a messy process.
It is very similar to a marriage relationship. You set ground rules at the beginning. The “D-word” is not going to be a possibility. You are not running away. You are not going to leave.
You cannot be built together without that.
We all have different facets of the life of the Lord. The Lord, by His mercy, entrusts different ones of us with burdens that He has on His heart—for us to pray and to stand for His will in a particular area.
He does not do that for us to use it to judge our brethren or to become offended with one another because they do not see what we see in a certain area.
It is a privilege that He shares His heart with us, but it may be something that is not expressed until long after we are in glory.
I am sure there were saints through the ages whose hearts the Lord impressed with the need for the Scriptures to be available in people’s mother tongue. They prayed and cried out for this thing, but it did not happen until long after they were in glory.
Does that mean the burden was not from the Lord because it was not fulfilled in their lifetime? No. It simply means that the purpose of God spanned more than their little time on this earth.
Do you consider yourself better than your brothers and sisters because of the things about which you are burdened?
Offence arises from expectations. If you did not expect something, you would not be offended when you did not find it.
Expectation comes from not understanding our own condition. If we see what is in our own hearts, there are no expectations of other brothers and sisters any longer, because we are a mess. Each one of us is our own personal impossible situation for the Lord to deal with.
Not understanding our condition arises from not putting ourselves in positions where our warts are exposed. In other words, it is a vicious cycle.
We do not put ourselves in positions where people can know us for who we really are. Because of that, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are really spiritual.
We come into gatherings with high expectations for one another. But the carpet is the wrong colour, the curtains do not match, the piano is out of tune, and those people cannot all clap at the same time.
So what do we do? We put it in reverse, back out, and say, “See? Told you I should not have been in fellowship. Told you. They cannot get their act together.”
Then we become further and further exalted in our own estimation. We become more and more offended with one another, and we back out.
I am telling you, the sands are running out. We do not have forever to play that game. We are here for a very short period of time, and we do not have time to be behind slammed doors, away from one another.
The only way we will enter into God’s purpose is to be engaged with one another, and that requires a commitment: no matter what, I am not leaving.
If I am wrong and these people show me that I am a complete mess, unworthy to be listened to at any time, then I will say, “You are right. Listen to the Lord, because He speaks to His body.”
It is not about me. It is not about you. It is about us.
We also have to determine to deal with things in the light.
A major scheme of the enemy is to say, “That is too prickly an issue. Let us not really deal with that one.” It is like the elephant in the room: “Let us not deal with that. Put it under the carpet.”
The thing is, stuff festers under the carpet.
When matters are dealt with in the light, they are dealt with before the Lord. It is amazing how things resolve themselves simply by bringing them into the light.
I had things that I struggled with for my entire life because I would not bring them into the light.
Then, through the Lord bringing catastrophe, as I was willing to share with brothers and sisters—things I had wrestled with and fought for my whole life, things that seemed like giants—all of a sudden they became a non-issue.
It comes from the light. It comes from the life of the Lord manifested when we are together.
Along this same line, we need to determine not to have emotional divorces from difficult people.
We can think, “They are a problem child. I think I will let them get their act together a little bit more before I fellowship with them.” It does not work that way.
We are all in the soup together. We are all impossible.
The Lord speaks through those He sends to us. If we will not receive our brethren, we will miss the word of the Lord.
The last matter is the attacks of the enemy. We are confronted not only with our natural selves, which desire to exalt themselves, be happy, be thought well of, be esteemed, have a high reputation, and be people to whom others come for counsel and advice.
We also have an enemy who is absolutely determined that we not be built together in this way, because he knows that when this happens, his end has come.
I pray that the Lord would really cover this. You thought I was going to pray and be done. We are not.
I pray that the Lord will give me words to express this, because I feel this is something the enemy really likes to use. I call them phantoms.
What is a phantom? A phantom is a problem that is very emotionally explosive. It has fingerprints—certain characteristics. It makes your ears tingle, and it is emotionally explosive.
You have generally heard about it from a second- or third-hand source who may not have been there, but who knows someone who talked to someone who was there. They cannot name the source because they are not sure exactly who it was, but they can assure you that such-and-such a thing happened.
Phantoms are generally unverifiable issues that are emotionally explosive, issues about which there is nothing you can do. They make you want to dive into the middle of a whole bunch of brothers and sisters with a hacksaw.
The issue never gets resolved. You never find out exactly what happened. You leave lots of blood behind you, and the issue does not get resolved because it was a phantom.
It appealed to our vanity. It appealed to our wanting to be thought highly of. So, if something comes against that, we think we need to find out what it was and get it all fixed.
It is a phantom, brothers and sisters.
These things cause you to want to back out of fellowship because they are prickly. We deceive ourselves and think, “Maybe if we stay behind these doors, these prickly issues will not come.”
Maybe they will not come, but you are living in isolation. You are outside the purpose of God.
The solution is to humble ourselves, not to be offended with one another, not to be surprised at anything we might see in one another, and not to be surprised at anything we might hear about one another.
There is nothing that any brother or sister in this room has ever done that I have not either done or thought about doing. We are all on equal ground there. Nothing should surprise us.
You may think, “There is this giant, massive number of people. How can we do this? That was for when there were just twelve. They were tight; they were in fellowship. But this is too many people.”
Acts 2:42 says:
They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Do not let the enemy convince you that we are too big, that there are just too many of us, or that you are just a face in the crowd.
They devoted themselves to fellowship. They saw this one, and they saw that one. They did not let their jobs or any of that kind of thing get in the way and crowd fellowship out.
They let the Lord bring together handfuls for fellowship—to share with one another and to share the Lord with one another. When the Lord brought another one, they did not say, “Oh no, you are not part of the holy club. You cannot come in here.”
They fellowshipped with one another. They were open to one another.
One more thing on phantoms: we have to determine to be neither the victim nor the source of such things.
All of us are works in progress. All of us are redeemed ones. All of us have weaknesses and struggles. Some can simply be hidden better than others.
It is utterly unfair to be critical of someone simply because his or her struggle is more manifest than that of another.
The Lord has called us together to be built together into the one bride for His Son. His life will do it, but we have to make ourselves available. We have to be in real relationship with one another, listening for the Lord to speak through one another.
Oh, the bliss. Oh, the bliss of being delivered from being guided by our own little understanding of things, as we go around ruining our lives and hurting the brothers and sisters around us.
Lord, we come to You in the name of Jesus. Father, I thank You so much for this opportunity to fellowship on these matters.
Lord, I pray that where my words brought heaviness or something other than the call You have given us—to the bliss of fellowship and to the freedom of not having anything to hide—You would correct that.
Lord, may our feet be pointed toward Zion, toward Your purpose, that You would have a bride for Your Son.
Thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen.