Good evening, brothers and sisters.
I know that many of you are probably tired in your physical body, but I encourage you to let the Holy Spirit rejuvenate and quicken your body, so that it does not become a distraction and prevent you from hearing what the Lord is wanting to say.
I appreciate so very much the opportunity to be here. I know that it is expected for those who share to say such words, but this comes from the depths of my heart. It is a really blessed experience to come and be with you, dear brothers and sisters.
And I want to thank our brother Ben for his labors in finding these wonderful hymns. Thank you, Ben. I tell you what, if all we did was sing out of the depths of our heart that last hymn, brothers and sisters, our God would hear us. So may it not just be a song, some words that we have sung, but something that really comes from the depths of our being.
You know, I find it very challenging to come and share at a time like this, especially when I share the responsibility with my brother Stephen and my brother Dana. They usually take all the good scriptures.
But tonight, there is one they did not get.
I want to try to finish up what we were seeking to share last night about this matter of spiritual fullness in the individual believer. Now, you brothers and sisters, I think could see the struggle I was having—having too much material to try to cover, too many things to try to share.
I am always faced with this. One brother accused me of trying to preach from Genesis to Revelation in fifteen minutes. This has always been a struggle with me.
But in regard to our own personal lives, there is an unbelievable calling on our lives. When we came to know the Lord, however it happened to you, in all probability you had no idea what God was after.
Probably, if some of us had known what He was after, we would not have had such a positive response to His initial wooing of us. But God’s intention—His destiny for us—is beyond our natural ability to understand. Even with some spiritual insight, it is not easy to translate what you see into language that can communicate what you see.
As our dear brother mentioned this morning, the Christian life, following our Lord Jesus, begins with vision, with seeing. We may not know that is what is happening, but the Holy Spirit is working in the darkness of our heart to enable us to see. Thus begins our walk.
Not only in terms of our personal life, but in a few moments we also want to look at His ultimate call. Let us think for a moment about what God is seeking to accomplish in our lives individually.
Now, I make no apologies, brothers and sisters, because this issue has become so entrenched in my life that it is almost impossible for me to speak and not mention it: God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
This is what was in His heart. All we were interested in was getting out of the difficult situation we were in, getting some rest and some peace with the guilt we were experiencing. When we got that relief, many of us felt like that was the end of God’s salvation.
But, brothers and sisters, as marvelous as the beginning is, it is a beginning—a marvelous beginning. Every step along the way, as we enter experientially into that great salvation, is almost an experience that defies words.
But how do you respond tonight when we read in the Scriptures that God has predestined us? Do you hear that language—those strong words? This is an eternal, sovereign decision that He made. When He was calling you to know His Son, it was in His heart to conform you, to make you like Him, so that our Lord Jesus becomes the firstborn among many brethren.
That means that our heavenly Father is so thrilled with His Son that He decided to have a lot more just like Him. But it takes so great a salvation to accomplish that.
Our main focus is on this matter of spiritual fullness, and certainly this has something to do with it. But there are some verses in 2 Corinthians that our brothers did not refer to. I kind of get the feeling they would have liked to, but they did not have time either.
So, 2 Corinthians 4. As our brother Dana and our brother Stephen have been sharing with us about the importance of emptiness, this thought came into my heart and mind as I was sitting here before the meeting.
Suppose you had a well full of water, and the only way you had to get that water out was a bucket—the old-fashioned bucket that you had to reel down, let the water get in, and reel back up. Well, suppose that bucket you want to use to get water is full of sand, and you still drop it down into the well. How much water are you going to get?
It is full, and because it is full, it cannot be filled. A lot of God’s dealings in our life are to get us to the place of emptiness and to remain in that place of being emptied so that He can fill us.
Brother Stephen mentioned the apostle Paul. So many of these wonderful lessons he learned, and the Holy Spirit used his life and experience as a way of helping us understand. How did Paul get to this point? He knows he has not arrived.
No matter how much he has gained or how far he has come, he is not looking back and saying, “Oh, that was wonderful. Now I can somehow retire.” No. He presses on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Regardless of how much we have actually experienced of the Lord Jesus, there is much, much more. What kind of riches do we find in Him? According to Ephesians 3:8, the riches are unfathomable, unsearchable. There is no end to them.
Now, I do not know if you have ever stopped to consider what we are going to be doing in the age to come, when we are liberated from this body and ushered into eternity. It is not easy for us to identify with such an experience. How do you identify with eternity? We are accustomed to hours and minutes and days and months and years.
But what are you going to be doing for eternity? If the riches of our Lord Jesus Christ are unsearchable, how long does it take to find them? What are you going to be doing, brothers and sisters? You are going to be on that continued search.
It starts now, but it never ends, brothers and sisters. It is discovering more and more and more of these unsearchable riches of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our focus right now is: How do we discover more and more of Him in our everyday living?
Let us look at 2 Corinthians 4 and read verse 7, then drop down to verse 10.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves.We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not despairing;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake,
so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death works in us, but life in you.
What is the treasure, brothers and sisters? Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our treasure. It is not a thing; it is a living Person—a living, eternal, divine Person.
I hope you have heard clearly the Lord speak to us about His law of fullness. The law is to be empty. What we discover here is that carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus is the way we stay empty. It is also the way we allow the flow to come out and influence the lives of others and the circumstances around us.
But notice the condition: carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, constantly being delivered over to death. What do you think “constantly” means? It means constantly.
The Holy Spirit will use circumstances in your home, on your job, in school, and with the brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. He uses them all day long, every day. For what reason? To give you an opportunity to carry in your body the dying of Jesus—to die to yourself, to die to all those things that are not of the Lord, and to allow the Holy Spirit to cause the very life of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to flow through you.
This is your calling. When we focus on the conditions for spiritual fullness, I think Paul helps us understand that this is what spiritual fullness is all about.
In 1974, some of us had the opportunity to go to Israel. I remember one day we went up to the northern part of Palestine, to Mount Hermon. We went up and threw snowballs at each other. There was snow on Mount Hermon, and we had fun.
Then our brother Lance led us down to the foot of Mount Hermon. The snow on the top melts, comes down, and gushes out from the foot of Mount Hermon. It creates small streams, and eventually, out of three streams, I believe, it becomes the Jordan River.
The Jordan River flows down into the Sea of Galilee. As you know by reading the Gospel accounts, there are many fish and much life in the Sea of Galilee. But that same water that came from the foot of Mount Hermon flows down through the Sea of Galilee and farther south into what other sea? The Dead Sea.
Why the Dead Sea? What is the difference between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea? No outlet. No way for the water to flow out.
Now, brothers and sisters, I hope this is a picture for us to see the necessity of continually allowing the life of Christ to be emptied out. Find a way. We may fellowship a little more about this later, but you need to find a way. Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in your relationships and in your home.
Do not see these as merely problems created by other people. It may be that they are, but the Holy Spirit sees them in an entirely different way. He sees them as a way of keeping you open for the flow to come in and the flow to go out.
It means brokenness on your part, a dying to yourself, and being more concerned about the other family members than you are about yourself—or about all the other relationships you have.
Let us be encouraged, brothers and sisters. Let us learn to kiss the hand that provides the opportunity to die, because it is through that dying that the resurrection life comes forth. If there is no death, there is no resurrection.
This is God’s way, and it is true for every one of you. It makes no difference how old you are in the Lord. Would that some of you dear young ones would learn it early in your experience, so that there could be a greater spiritual fullness manifested in your life.
Let us read a couple of Scriptures, and then we will ask the Lord to help us with this further section. Let us look first of all in Ephesians 1, because tonight our focus primarily is on the church—the fullness of Him.
Speaking of God the Father, Paul says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
And in Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 7:
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Therefore it says,
“When He ascended on high,
He led captive a host of captives,
and He gave gifts to men.”Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.And He gave some as apostles,
and some as prophets,
and some as evangelists,
and some as pastors and teachers,
for the equipping of the saints for the work of service,
to the building up of the body of Christ;
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.As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Let us ask the Lord for His help.
Lord, thank You that in Your great love for us, You have taught us that without You we can do nothing. Lord, some of these lessons we have to learn by making many mistakes. But we are here tonight to acknowledge that You are the vine and we are the branches.
We are absolutely, totally dependent upon You for anything that will happen that has eternal significance. Lord, we rest in Your choice. We rest in Your mercy that You have gathered us here for this time, and You want to take Your written Word and make it a living word to every one of our hearts.
Lord, You know that some of us are tired and that other things are happening. But we ask You for Your mercy: touch us by Your Spirit, especially in the depths of our being, in our very heart. Give us an ability to hear what You are saying to us as Your people. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, we want to think about spiritual fullness in the biggest possible way. Who am I, little old me, to be talking about the fullness of God in an ultimate way? But I want you to turn with me all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, to Genesis 1.
My brothers and sisters, I believe we have in the very beginning of the Word of God an explanation of God’s motivation for spiritual fullness. I am just going to share with you my understanding. You do not have to receive it. Matter of fact, you do not have to receive anything I say unless you feel that it is the Lord saying it.
Verse 1 is a wonderful declaration:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In my Bible, there is a period. In yours too? It is simply a declaration by Moses. In my estimation, he did not tell us how God did it or how long God took. He just said, “God did it.”
My understanding, because of the revelation we have in our Lord Jesus Christ, is that our God is absolutely perfect. There is nothing in Him of imperfection, and everything He does has to be perfect. He cannot create something imperfect. Would you agree with me?
Our heavenly Father, the holy, righteous God—God Almighty—can do nothing wrong. He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
Now verse 2:
And the earth was formless and void,
and darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
Does that verse give you any problems at all? It gives me a big problem. How can a perfect God create something that is formless and void, with darkness all over it? Will you please help me understand that? I think it is impossible.
So something happened between verse 1 and verse 2. Something transpired that caused the earth to become this way.
Just so we get a perspective here, I was reading an article in Time magazine in Brazil. I was trying to find an article to help a young lady learn to pronounce and read English. I came across an article about the universe.
The article said they had developed a telescope that could see as far as they could see. You know how far they could see with this telescope? Somebody guessed fifteen billion. You are not even close, Joe.
The figure was 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. Miles. Is there any mathematician here who can help us get some idea of how far that is?
Some of these scientists believe that the universe is infinite. I do not know. But so far, they have been able to see a long way—further than Brazil.
When you think for a moment about the massiveness of this universe, suppose you were at the end of that distance and had a telescope to look back toward the earth. How big do you think the earth would be? I do not know if you could see it or not.
But when we read the Word of God, the whole Word is focused on this little clump of dirt soaring through the universe. It is the object of God’s concern. It does not tell us that He was concerned about the rest of the universe, because it seems that in God’s perfect universe He found something imperfect.
What was the problem? It was without form. Secondly, another translation says it was empty. What have we been talking about during our days together? It was empty. God’s presence was not there.
My understanding, dear brothers and sisters, as I meditate on this, is that our God cannot rest with emptiness there. So He began to take action. He began to move by His Spirit. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
What follows Genesis 1:2 is, as I understand it, a description of God’s work to recover this planet so that man could live here. At the end of Genesis 1, God says, “Let Us make man,” and then He gives man the responsibility of taking dominion.
It is my understanding that God, in His great wisdom and great love, created a being called man. Please remember, I do not care what scientists say: at this point there is no man. I know nothing about science—I do not think I can even spell the word scientific—but I am simply going on the basis of what the Word of God says.
God created man as an agent to bring spiritual fullness into this empty, void, dark place. He gave Adam, the first man who was created, the responsibility of having descendants.
I believe He wanted Adam to go to the tree of life and learn how to live a one-hundred-percent dependent life on God, so that spiritual fullness could enter into him and he could be the agent God would use to bring spiritual fullness into this planet called Earth.
Notice, it was not the universe that was empty, formless, void, and dark. It was the earth. God created the heavens and the earth, but it was the earth that was the problem. God set in motion a way whereby to recover this planet.
Now we know the sad story of the failure of the first man. But, oh, my dear brothers and sisters, God did not give up. He did not quit. There is a second man, the last Adam.
He died on that cross. According to John’s Gospel, what was the last word He spoke? “Finished.” I know our English translation says, “It is finished,” but in the original it is just one word: “Finished.” Victory won.
I believe the whole universe was affected by that declaration. Brothers and sisters, what I am trying to say is this: you and I are caught up in something that is vastly bigger than we are.
The marvelous thing about the Lord in His recovery work is that He allows us to experience His recovery work as if it were just for us. For some of God’s dear people, His children, that is where they stay the rest of their life.
But we need to realize that there is a heavenly calling. I believe this calling goes all the way back to Genesis, where God decided that He could not rest until this emptiness was replaced with fullness.
Some of you have noticed these paintings up here. I have been sitting there watching them for a couple of days. If I were asked, I would add some paintings to this.
On one side, I would add a picture of the incarnation, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, became a human being. I would try to depict that before the cross.
Then on this side I would have not only the cross but the resurrection. Then I would have the ascension. And what is over here? Pentecost.
But I would have another picture on the other side: a picture of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband. This is what our God is doing to bring in fullness. It is all focused in His Son.
You remember in the Ephesian letter, Paul’s vision of the church was primarily this: it is the body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. But in Ephesians 5, he compares the church to a bride who has spots and wrinkles and such things.
When we come to Revelation 21, one of the seven angels comes to John and says, “Come with me.” He takes him up onto a high mountain. What did he say he was going to show John? “Come and see the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
John may have expected to see a beautiful woman dressed up and ready to be married. But when he got on top of that mountain, what did he see? He saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband.
I do not know, but it seems to me that this New Jerusalem becomes a headquarters of the government of God, so that this fullness can be extended fully in His universe—though He is primarily concerned about this planet.
Our God is able to do anything, any way, at any time He chooses. That is what it means to be sovereign. But in His infinite wisdom, He has chosen to use human beings like you and me.
Amazing, is it not? Not only human beings—He did not go around and try to find the best. Some of us are the most unlikely candidates to be a part of God fulfilling His purpose. But that does not prevent Him from choosing us, calling us, predestining us, justifying us, and glorifying us.
Do you know what Revelation 22 says we are going to be doing at the end? We are going to reign with the Lord Jesus Christ forever and ever. Think about where you started. You were a rebel. No amens? I will say amen for you. Amen.
We all started out that way. Think about it: God choosing His enemies and doing such a work in them that He can now, with confidence, seat them with His Son on the throne of the universe, so that there can be a full manifestation of His life—of who He is.
To me, this is the greatest definition of the church:
The church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
I have been reading that for quite a few years, brothers and sisters, and I still struggle with what Paul is saying. But I will tell you what I understand now.
My understanding is that the church is something like a staging ground. We have the space capsule up somewhere out there. When I walk in Brazil every morning before daylight, I can see the space capsule. I do not know what they plan to do with it, but it could be a staging ground to go to the moon or to another planet.
This is what I see: the church is His body, the fullness of Him. Who is the “Him”? Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul, writing to the Colossians, says that all the fullness of deity is in Him bodily. Twice he says that in the Colossian letter. Even though you and I can be filled up to all the fullness of God, we still do not have all of God in us. But our Lord Jesus does.
All the fullness of deity dwells in Him bodily. Paul says the church is the body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
What about the end of that statement: “who fills all in all”? You have to let the language be the language. What does it say? All in all. What is all? Everything. The whole universe? I think so, brothers and sisters.
God’s objective, God’s motivation, was to fill this whole universe with the beauty of His Son, the fullness of His Son. All these wonderful revelations about our Lord Jesus Christ are going to be displayed in this universe.
How big is this universe? We do not know for sure, but according to the scientists, it is pretty big. It gives us a beginning point for thinking about the fullness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It seems to me that what Paul is saying is that in our Lord Jesus Christ there is a limitless, unlimited, endless supply of life. It is eternal life.
We throw this language around sometimes and never stop to think what we are saying. When we talk about eternal life, how long has eternal life been in existence? When did it begin? It had no beginning. If it is eternal, when does it end? It has no ending.
Remember what God said to Moses: “I am that I am.” I just am. He had no beginning. It is not easy for us to grasp that, but that does not mean it is not true. It is true.
There is an unlimited supply of eternal life deposited in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Father’s desire that the fullness of Him will be displayed in His universe.
Let us come back to the church. The church, which is His body, the fullness of Him. What is the church for? What is our calling?
Remember Paul’s first prayer for the Ephesian believers. After he prayed for their eyes to be opened, that God would grant them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, what was the first thing he prayed that they would know? The hope of His calling.
What have you been called to? I think there are a couple of dimensions to it. The first calling is an opportunity for God to form the character of His Son in every one of us.
He certainly wants us to experience the other dimensions of His salvation, but He is very much concerned that the character of our Lord Jesus Christ be formed in you, built into you, so that when the eyes of God look upon us, He sees the same character in you that He sees in His Son.
This is part of our calling. Those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified. What do you mean, glorified? It means you have arrived at the place where God is one hundred percent satisfied with what He sees.
That is what it means to be glorified. He is going to be just as pleased with you as He is with His own Son. He spoke of Jesus of Nazareth, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” but one day He is going to speak it of you: “This is My beloved son, and I am well pleased with him and her.”
Can you believe it, brothers and sisters? I have trouble believing it. I know it is true, but it is beyond my mind, especially when I stop and consider the raw material He has to work with in me.
The church is His church. In response to Peter’s answer that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Lord Jesus said:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but My Father which is in heaven.And I say also unto thee,
That thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build My church.
Whose church? Mine. To the best of my understanding, it has always been His. But we take it away from Him. We put all kinds of names on it. We even put human names on it.
I remember being in Birmingham, Alabama, and seeing “Dawson Memorial Baptist Church.” How dare we, brothers and sisters, take a man’s name and put it on the church of our Lord Jesus Christ?
We have taken the church and made it something earthly, something human, and something for us. When we do, we cannot expect it to be a manifestation of the fullness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us not stand judgmental and critical of others. We can be just as guilty, even if we do not have a title, a name, or a denominational tag. In our own hearts and minds, we can take it and make it something for ourselves.
It was never intended for us. It has always been His church, and it will always be His church. He is the only One who can build it. He has never told a human being to build His church.
Oh, He wants co-workers, and He wants raw material, and you are both of those. You are the raw material out of which He is building, and He wants you to be a co-worker in the building process. But He is the One who is actually doing the building.
What does He want to do? He wants to impart the fullness of Himself. He can take His own unlimited life and place it in an assembly of born-again, redeemed human beings, and it can be a manifestation of Him here on the earth—His life being expressed through us.
Let me ask you something. I am going to say the word, and I want you to think about the first word that comes to your mind: church.
For most people, when they hear “church,” whether in the United States or other countries, they think of a building—a building sitting on a corner someplace, usually with a steeple and all those kinds of things. This is our first idea of the church.
The second idea for many of us is the meeting that you have in that building. For many, that meeting is the church. “I am going to church.” That means, “I am going to a meeting in that building down there.”
Well, I am going to the church to go to a meeting of the church. But, brothers and sisters, I think you will search a long, long time in the Word of God before you find anything like that. You will not find the church ever described in that way.
For me, what Paul shares with us in Ephesians about the church is the highest revelation. Peter speaks of us being a spiritual house in 1 Peter 2. We are all living stones. Our Lord Jesus is the living Stone, and coming unto Him as to a living Stone, we are built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.
Paul, in other places, refers to the church as the temple. As we have already mentioned, he sometimes compares it to a bride. In Ephesians 2, he helps us glimpse that it is the one new man—Jew and Gentile, all barriers removed, brought into a new humanity. The Lord Jesus is the living Head of that new humanity. That is the church.
How can it be, today, without merely being idealistic, that as assemblies of the Lord’s people we can somehow fit into this definition that Paul gives us? This is a spiritual reality:
The church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
How can we today be His body in the location—a container of His fullness? Is this just idealism that Paul is talking about, or can there be a genuine manifestation of this?
It is an important question for you to wrestle with. For me, I think it can be. It may be very expensive, but it can be.
Three times in the Ephesian letter, Paul mentions the Lord Jesus as being the Head. In Ephesians 1:22, it says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him as head over all things to the church.
I think Paul is using the revelation of the Lord Jesus as Head and the members as a body. He is using “Head” here in the context of authority. The heavenly Father has placed Him far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named—not only in this age, but in the age to come.
This is the same thing Paul says in Philippians 2: God gave Him the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
The heavenly Father has decided that there is only one worthy One—only one worthy, as we find in the book of Revelation—to be in the position of ruling God’s universe.
I want you to take some time, perhaps not too many days from now, when you stop and, with the Holy Spirit’s help, think about this: presently, and for the last two thousand years, there has been a man seated in the position of supreme authority.
He is a unique man, because He is both God and man, perfectly blended together—Son of God and Son of Man. But it is to our detriment if we forget that He is also man. He is divine, but He is human.
He has now been placed in the position of absolute authority over all things. The Lord has said that He is Head over all things to the church. You know what that means? We are not free to make decisions independently of Him.
You may say, “Ernie, that sounds like a straitjacket to me.” Well, maybe we needed some straitjackets along the way.
Think about the present condition of the church and what it has grown into over the last two thousand years. A couple of years ago, I was fellowshipping with some brothers and sisters in Brazil, and I asked one of them, “How many denominations are there in Brazil?”
How about three thousand? Now, I want to ask you a very simple question: Are those three thousand denominations in Brazil a decision made by the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of His church? Do you think He made the decision to divide His people in this way?
I do not know how many there are in the United States. But what I am trying to say is that we have made the mess by putting our heads in the place of the Lord Jesus and making decisions that have had a tremendous weakening effect on the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord is not like some of us. When things get tough or go wrong, we scrap the program and start all over again. The Lord does not do it that way.
He is going to continue. Remember what He said in Matthew 16:18?
I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The gates of hell will not prevent it from happening. They may postpone it. They may do many things to hinder the work from being accomplished, but our Lord Jesus is going to prevail.
We need to learn how to hear from Him. How do we know the headship of our Lord Jesus Christ in experience? Remember what He said in Revelation:
He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
The Holy Spirit was sent here by our Lord Jesus Christ for this period of time—from His ascension to His second coming. His whole focus, I think, is singular: His focus is to build His church.
The Holy Spirit is here to give revelation, strength, wisdom, and everything that is needed. He is here to impart the life that causes this body to grow, to be alive, and to manifest the reality of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit puts us in contact and union with our living Head. We need to learn how to listen to Him.
Not only do you individually need to know how to hear the voice of our Lord, but every assembly of the Lord’s people needs to cry out that God would do something in their corporate life to give them an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying.
If we had such an ear to hear, I guarantee it would reduce the bad problems—the problems that undermine and prevent the life from being fully manifested. We are always going to have problems, but I think we have bad problems and good problems.
I am convinced that the present condition of the church for at least nineteen hundred years is a result of not listening to the Holy Spirit. But let us not get discouraged. The same Holy Spirit can enable us to hear and direct us in what we are supposed to do under the present situation.
He can give every assembly an ear to hear what they are supposed to do. How does the Lord work in the midst of all the situation as we have it? What would you do? How would you try to resolve the problem of all these different groups?
You can be sure that if you go to brothers and sisters in all these different groups and ask them, “Is Jesus the Head of your assembly?” they will say yes. But may I ask: Is it right to say, “Prove it”? Where is the evidence?
There should be evidence for us to see and evidence for the world to see. Did not the Lord Jesus say that this is the way the world will know? If you have love one for another.
We have failed again and again and again to fulfill that. We have not obeyed. We have not loved one another the way He has loved us. I confess that I am the main culprit.
But I want to change. If I have in any way offended you and not loved you, please come to me so we can resolve this issue and the Lord can impart a greater fullness to His body.
In Ephesians 4:15–16, Paul writes:
But speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together,
by that which every joint supplies,
according to the proper working of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Here Paul uses the Head to help us understand once again that our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the only source. Please forgive me, but the body of Christ only has one Head.
First, He is Head in terms of authority; but He is also Head in terms of the resources the body needs in order for there to be a manifestation of spiritual fullness. There is no place else to go, brothers and sisters.
The same thing is true about us individually. You can go to all these other wells, but you will not get what you need.
The problem in the Colossian church was that they were being tempted to go somewhere else—to find their resource in philosophy, in some form of Judaism, or in elementary principles of the world—rather than in Christ.
Remember what Paul says in Colossians 2:19: “Not holding fast to the Head.” Let us turn that around and make it positive. Let us talk about holding fast to the Head, knowing Him, and living under Him as the Head.
Out of Him will flow everything that is needed, because all the fullness is in Him. All the fullness He wants in the church is in Him, and the only way we can have it is to be in union with Him by the Holy Spirit.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit is the same as being filled with our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings the light, wisdom, and knowledge. Paul says in Colossians that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are located in Him.
If we would only learn that! In Him, He is prepared to tell us what to do under any situation. There is no situation we can face in which our Lord Jesus does not have the wisdom and the know-how to face it, go through it, and end up imparting a greater measure of Himself to the church.
We talk about building the church. The word Paul uses is edify. Notice in Ephesians 4:16: “building itself up in love.”
What do we mean by building the church? Increasing people? Having a nice building? Organizing all the different activities? You can have all of that and still not be edifying—still not be building up.
It is a simple process and principle: an increase of our Lord Jesus Christ, a fuller measure of Him. The more of Him that is incorporated into and imparted unto the body, to that degree you have a building of the church.
It is not simply by increasing the number of people. If someone comes to know the Lord and becomes a part of you, then there is an increase and a building up. But the Lord has different ways of doing this work.
He says the body builds itself up by loving one another. Out of the unlimited resource of our Lord Jesus as its Head, we need to stay in union with Him so that He can cause His life to flow into the members of the body.
The last place Paul uses the word Head is in Ephesians 5:23:
For the husband is the head of the wife,
as Christ also is the head of the church,
He Himself being the Savior of the body.
Here Paul uses it in connection with Christ being the Savior of the body. Why does the church need to be saved? I thought they were already saved people. Why does the church need a Savior?
The idea of Savior here is a protector, a guardian, someone to care for the body—the same way that a husband is to care for his wife, protect her from the things that bring harm, and love her tenderly. The Lord Jesus as Head also does this.
This is the first thing, and to me it is the most important. Without this, brothers and sisters, there cannot be a church. If there is not a living relationship between a group of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him as the Head, you do not have the church.
No matter what you call it, in reality you do not have the church. Our number-one concern ought to be: How do we get under the reality of His headship?
We have learned, brothers and sisters, to go on and do our so-called church things, but many times we do them outside the realm of His headship—especially in terms of authority and in terms of Him being the source.
When I read the book of Acts, what I see is not merely the acts of the apostles or the acts of the Holy Spirit, though neither description is wrong. Behind the whole thing, who is acting? Our Lord Jesus Christ, from His exalted position, by the Holy Spirit, through the believers, manifesting the fullness of Himself.
In those first thirty-three years of church history, it seems to me that these brothers and sisters had no idea what they were doing. They were thrown into a place of total dependence.
They had what the Lord had said to them, but they were thrust into the midst of all of this, and all they could do was trust the Holy Spirit. But our problem is that we have learned to do it without Him. We have built something and called it the church.
But the question is: Is it really the church?
For the sake of spiritual fullness in the body of Christ, I plead with you: find a way for our Lord Jesus to be the living Head. There are ways to prove that it is true. We see the evidence. We see Him moving and manifesting Himself in the lives of the Lord’s people.
We sense His presence. We see Him at work when we gather together. But I want to suggest that we need to adjust the way we think regarding the church.
Most of us here do not think of the church as a building, but many of us think of the church as a meeting. Therefore, we only focus our attention on this whole matter when we are in meetings. What about the times we are not in meetings?
I am convinced that we cannot really have a building of the church if the only time we get together is when we have meetings. There has to be something going on in our life together outside the meetings.
If you read the book of Acts, I do not know at what point meetings developed, but they had a life together. They considered that nothing they had was their own, and there was nobody who had need among them.
How could three thousand people be so selfless as not to consider that anything they had was their own? There is only one explanation: somehow the life of the Lord Jesus Christ got inside of them and influenced them so that they found themselves doing things that were so unnatural.
That is what our Lord still wants to happen. But we have to find a way to have a life together outside the meetings.
Paul says in Romans 12 that we are not only members of the body of Christ, but we are members one of another.
Every member of the body needs to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus as Head. The Scriptures speak of Him being Lord in our individual life, but predominantly of Him being Head in terms of the corporate life.
Every one of us as individual members needs to have a living relationship with our Lord Jesus as the Head. Notice in your physical body: what is the member that is furthest away from your head? Maybe your little toe.
But your little toe has a direct relationship to the head. That little toe cannot do anything unless the head directs. This is to be true in the life of every member.
That means you have a responsibility. I cannot do that for you, and you cannot do that for me. You have to find a way to be diligent to maintain your own living relationship with Him.
Do what you have to do. Get some help if you need it. But find a way to be in living relationship with Him. When the Holy Spirit produces that relationship with Him, then the life of the Lord Jesus in you will begin to be manifested in various ways.
Paul calls them “the spirituals” in 1 Corinthians 12. There will be some manifestation that the Holy Spirit wants to manifest through you as a way of building up the church. You have a responsibility.
Let me ask you another question. What percentage of the members of the body of Christ do you think are functioning members? What is your estimation of the believers you know? What percentage of them are living, functioning members, united to the Head and living their life out of His life?
Dennis said four percent. I do not know what the percentage is, but would anybody say it is more than thirty percent? I do not think so.
What if only thirty percent of the members of your physical body were functioning members? What would your situation be? Someone would have had to carry you to the meeting tonight. Somebody would have had to feed you or do many things for you.
You would be greatly handicapped. There would be a tremendous limit on how you could manifest your life. Do you see what I am saying, brothers and sisters? This is the position we put our Lord in. We tremendously handicap Him.
There is no limit to His life. It does not mean there is not fullness available today. But how does the fullness that is in Him get practically manifested here? By every member being a functioning member.
Some of you have developed the wrong attitude about this, and you need to change the way you think. You need to repent. It is wrong, and it has a negative impact on the spiritual fullness in the group of which you are a part.
I am appealing to you. Ask the Lord to forgive you and change. Find a way. Go to the brothers in leadership and say, “I want to be a functioning member. I will do anything you want me to do so I can discover my place of functioning.”
We are to be members one of another. Oh, this is a very difficult lesson for some of us to learn. We feel like we can get along just fine without the other brothers and sisters. “I am a Lone Ranger Christian, and I am proud of it.”
Well, you may be, but I will tell you what: you are paying the price for it. You are missing out on the fullness of Christ that is in your brothers and sisters.
There is a measure of our Lord Jesus that you will never experience if you do not learn to relate to and be members of other brothers and sisters. They have something of our Lord Jesus in them that you need, and you need to learn to be in the position of receiving from them.
We did not get where we thought we were going to go tonight, but I hope somehow the Holy Spirit has been able to write on our hearts how necessary it is for us to look at this matter.
One of the saddest things that could happen from this weekend would be that we go away and return next year with the same level of spiritual fullness we had before we came this weekend, and that our assemblies would have the same measure of our Lord Jesus Christ that they have now.
It would be so sad. It does not need to be that way, brothers and sisters. We can find our Lord. It is not easy for us to do, but if we want Him to be the living Head, I believe He will do everything to help us.
But if we are satisfied doing it our own way without Him being Head, He will let us go on. Do not misunderstand, brothers and sisters: just because He blesses you does not mean He is pleased with what is happening.
If the only time God blessed you was when you were totally pleasing to Him, you would not have many blessings, brothers and sisters. Do not interpret the blessings of God as His approval. It is His loving-kindness that brings us to repentance.
Hopefully, He pours out grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy until finally our hearts are broken and we see that we are doing the wrong thing.
Let us find a way in the Lord to let Him be the living Head—to be what the Father has made Him and what He has the right to be. This is a position He has the right to have. It has been given by the heavenly Father.
We are not going to know spiritual fullness in our assemblies if we do not find a way for this to be real and practical.
The other thing is this: let us learn to thank and praise the Lord for our dear brothers and sisters. Let us look beyond the outward things.
Do not tell anybody, but the Lord has saved some very funny people. If He had asked you whether He should save them, you probably would have cast the no vote. But He has saved them—and not only has He saved them, He put them next to you.
What did He say? “Try to avoid them”? No. Love them. Love them—not with your own love. You will probably start by selecting the easy ones to love, the ones that are like you. Those are easy to love.
But that love will wear thin. What the Lord wants is to fill our hearts with His love, so that we love our brothers and sisters, appreciate them, receive from them, and submit to them.
Can you believe that Paul says in Ephesians 5, “submitting yourselves one to another”? I cannot believe he cannot mean that. Yes, brothers and sisters, because through our submitting to one another, we receive a richer supply of our Lord Jesus—for us and for the assembly.
I took too much time again. What is new?
Brothers and sisters, I want to say to you tonight: no one has ever honored you as greatly as our Lord Jesus has honored you by calling you to be a part of this great work of recovering this planet in which we live.
Do you know what it says in Numbers 14:21? The Lord is speaking:
But as truly as I live,
all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
We are caught up in this. It is not just something for you personally, not just for your family, and not just for the local assembly. It is a universal issue.
God can take the darkness described in Genesis 1:2 and transform it into a place where the whole earth is filled with His glory. Everything in the earth is going to somehow display some marvelous beauty about our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are a part of that. He is going to do it in us, but He wants to do a work through us. He has honored you by calling you and causing you to be a member of His body, giving you the Holy Spirit, and imparting to you all that you need to be faithful and to be a functioning member.
Together, we can discover how for Him to be the living Head. I have been trying to gain some understanding in my own heart: if we have not been experiencing the reality of our Lord Jesus being Head, what do we need to do to get back to that?
If you have some thoughts, if the Lord gives you something, somehow get it to me. I want to encourage as many people and as many assemblies as possible to find a way.
If He is able and free to manifest His wonderful life, and spiritual fullness is the outcome, there is no telling what will happen in communities. There will be light, lives transformed, and people brought to know our Lord Jesus Christ. There will be a light shining and a love being manifested.
What do you think, brothers and sisters? Do you think I am too idealistic? I hope not. But we have a part to play. We have a responsibility in the Lord being able to bring in spiritual fullness.
It is all in Him. It is by His grace, but we have to learn how to take the grace and be good stewards of that grace.
Let us pray.
Rather than me praying, would some of you brothers and sisters pray?