Turn to John 20:30-31. We’ve heard this verse a few times lately. I think Jim has used it as he’s been sharing out of the book of John, and I shared it a while back.
John 20:30-31:
Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing you may have life in His name.
Lord, we just thank You for the opportunity to be together, to remember You—exalted, rightfully exalted. We bless You and pray that we might see You even more as we go on today, in Jesus’ name.
A while back, I did share on the book of John, and my burden was this verse that summarizes the book there at the end: that you might have life; that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life in His name.
We mentioned that the life here is zoe. It’s spirit life. As Vine says, it’s life as a principle—life in the absolute sense, life as God has it. And that’s opposed to physical life, which is bios, and opposed to psuche, which is psychological life.
The verb used here is that we might be having life in His name—be having, experiencing, walking in the fullness of that life. That life isn’t just something we receive as a possession and keep kind of to eternity, but it’s something we live out from and live our life in.
This series of messages we’ve been doing is called “Corporate Life”—corporate life as opposed to corporation life. Our newspapers are full of corporation life. I spent thirty-five years in corporation life, and I’m thankful I’m not a part of corporation life anymore, by the grace of God. But I am part of corporate life—corporate life to eternity.
Maybe we can just turn those two words around: life corporate. This zoe life, this life that we receive as we’re born again and born into—“You must be born again”—is corporate. Life is corporate.
That’s just a simple burden I have today: that we might see that the life we have in Christ, the Christ-life, is in essence a corporate life, a life to be shared.
So much of the gospel today that is shared in this country is personal salvation. I hate to say it, but many of the choruses we sing—the predominant word in a lot of these choruses—is I. I don’t want to belittle that, because personal salvation is the key. It’s very important.
But, as the television advertisers so often say, “But wait, there’s more.” But wait, there’s more—much more. There is much more to what God has called us to than just our personal life.
I think the gospel we hear in this country has much to do with having a better life, feeling good about yourself. And if we are hopeful in this life only, we are most of all to be pitied, as Paul said.
We’re thankful that we have this life. And this life that we have, I believe, is one that longs to be shared with other believers, to be built up with other believers in fellowship.
One of the things that stuck with me last summer at the Longwood Conference was this word: be a remembrancer. Be a remembrancer. I never really thought of that. What is a remembrancer?
We remember things from the past, but we remember them as a foundation in the soul of what we’re doing today. Paul, as he stood before Agrippa, could say, “I’ve not been disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He was a remembrancer. He remembered God’s calling and what He had done in his life.
I think we should be encouraged today to remember Who the Lord is and what He has called us to.
My real burden for today is that we know that we’re saved individually, but we’re called corporately. I feel like if we miss that, we miss just so much of the gospel.
The individual calling is key, but if you think about some of these verses I’m going to share, the corporate calling and the corporate expression of Christ runs right through the Word of God, beginning to end. So we dare not miss it.
What I wanted to do today was share a little bit of a personal testimony about how the Lord, very early on in my walk, revealed this corporateness—this fellowship, this koinonia of the Spirit—to me and to my wife. Then I want to share a few verses out of the New Testament that the Lord has spoken to me through.
One thing I think we could take caution about: we often think of the Christian life and talk about it as personal and corporate. Maybe that’s okay for discussion purposes, but the life that we share is one life.
We’re born again individually, but the life that we’re born into is one that flows into the corporate. If it doesn’t find its full expression, I think we’ve missed the fullness of the gospel.
We were reminded this summer to pursue our possession with a passion. That’s a personal calling. But is the end that we become a lot of pretty Christians, monuments to ourselves, full-grown sons in a vacuum? Or is it that we become living stones for the house of God?
The goal is that we become living stones in the house of God.
Let me start a little bit with my personal testimony. I was raised in a good home.
A lot of teaching and a lot of things we hear today say, “I have a bad life because I had bad parents. My ancestors passed on to me my problems. I don’t want anything to do with them.”
You know what? My parents weren’t perfect, but I was raised in a good home. They loved me, took care of me, and nurtured me. We had problems. We had issues. But I was so fortunate to grow up in a good home, honestly.
My family was Methodist. My mother and father went to the Methodist church. I believe they were Christians. But when I grew up, religion was a personal thing. You really didn’t talk about it too much. You went to church and let the professionals take care of your religious life.
But we went every week. We went to Sunday school and went to church. There were a lot of godly men and women there, and I believe the gospel was preached there. It was shared. I look back and I know it was shared, but you know what? I missed it. I missed it.
I just want to give a little word to you parents who are frustrated with your spiritually unresponsive children: don’t get upset. Continue to live your life in the Lord before those kids and share the Lord with them. That’s all you can do.
When I went away to college, I started looking for things. I started looking for answers. I was frustrated. I didn’t go out looking for transcendental meditation or Hare Krishna—this was the Beatles period. I went looking for the Bible. I went looking for the answers in God, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
If I had not grown up in that home, I don’t think I would have been so inclined to do that. So, parents, don’t despise the day of small things. Be faithful to your children, even though you’re totally frustrated. God is faithful.
Well, in the spring of 1969—just a few years ago; well, it is—I was finishing my junior year in college, and I was coming to the conclusion of the American dream.
I grew up in a suburban Chicago high school, a big high school, and the all-American dream was to work hard, get an athletic scholarship, go to college, get a degree, and get a good job.
By the spring of my junior year, I had done it. I’d gotten an athletic scholarship, and I’d finished those three years. I realized at that time that I was going to finish my course, finish my degree in accounting, and get a job with a CPA firm. I had made it.
And that was the biggest—I have to tell you—the biggest letdown of my sixty years on this earth: to realize that that was what I had worked so hard for. I’d received it, and that was it. Vanity of vanities.
Young people, don’t set your heart on things of this world. It’s real vanity. I honestly was totally upset. I was unglued, because I saw there was nothing there—my whole life down the tubes, a black hole.
If you’re tempted to spend your life working for corporate America, or getting ahead and getting more, stop and think about it. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It is really vanity of vanities.
During that period, Kenny Johnson, quarterback of my high school football team, whom I’d gone to college with and who had been my roommate for a number of years, invited me to go to a Campus Crusade meeting in our fraternity house.
I thought, “You know, I know all that stuff, Kenny. But I’ll go,” because, as much as anything, I wanted him to stop asking me.
So I went to this meeting, and based on a contact at that meeting, a man named Dennis Paynter asked me to meet him for lunch at the YMCA cafeteria there on campus. And that I did.
Right in the middle of that big cafeteria, Dennis Paynter shared with me the Four Spiritual Laws. Who knows what the Four Spiritual Laws are? Not too many. Try again. Who knows what the Four Spiritual Laws are?
Anyway, the Four Spiritual Laws is Campus Crusade’s tract that Bill Bright wrote years ago. It’s a pretty good tract. It’s pretty direct. It makes the clear point that you don’t get born again, or saved, without receiving the Lord, without saying that sinner’s prayer.
Dennis Paynter said, “Would you like to pray that prayer?” Like that, right here, in the middle of the YMCA cafeteria? I don’t think so, Dennis. Let me get out of here.
So I didn’t pray that prayer. But you know what I did? I walked up the street toward the university library. It’s up the hill—not really a hill if you think about hills around here, but it was a little uphill—and I prayed that prayer walking up that hill.
I trusted in the Lord, and my feet were about that high off the ground. I had been born again, and I knew it, and I knew it. That was a great, great salvation.
During that period, the verse that was my verse was, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In this uncertain future, in this foolishness of the world: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
As far as remembrance, that was forty years ago. But as far as spiritual reality, that’s today. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
That was 1969. Dana mentioned the 1960s and the 1970s. There was a move of the Spirit, and I believe I got caught in it.
That same spring, right after that, I tried to share some of what I learned with my friend Sharon Doward. She was a good Catholic girl, and she felt like she didn’t need that. She knew that. So I realized it was kind of a brick wall.
I introduced her to Tony Rose, a Campus Crusade staff person. Tony was a dear sister. We were all kind of hippies—probably not as much as you were—but it was that period. Tony was a real hippie.
She shared the gospel with Sharon, and through several meetings, the Lord was able to break through her Catholic background and call her to Himself.
This was a busy period. It was my senior year, studying for the CPA exam. The next year was a busy period too. Sharon was in graduate school, learning to teach English as a second language.
It was a very full time, and we were busy. But toward the end of that year, I realized that I would have to go in the Navy or go in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, and I decided I would much rather go in the Navy.
By the end of that year, I had taken the CPA exam, Sharon had taken her graduate school comprehensive exams, and we were going to get married.
We got married on June 6, the day after she took her comprehensive exams, so that we could meet the schedule to get out to Arrowhead Springs, California, and go to Campus Crusade’s Institute for Biblical Studies. Our honeymoon was six weeks of Bible study, and it was awesome.
Talk about remembrance. Let me give you a remembrance about our wedding. Our wedding was on a Tuesday afternoon at Twin City Bible Church.
You can take this or leave it, but I don’t understand the grandiosity of weddings that go on today. We had a small wedding because we weren’t big people, but we also didn’t have any time. We didn’t have a nickel.
Young people, when we get married, we need to keep the main thing the main thing. If we get so caught up with all these items, affairs, and foolishness, how can the Lord get glory out of that? We don’t have any time for it.
We got married Tuesday afternoon. Sharon wore a dress that she and her sister bought at a Chicago department store, and I had an old olive-green suit that was really ugly.
Her sister stood up with her. My brother stood up with me. We called people a couple of weeks before and said, “You know what? Mom, Dad, brother, sister—we’re getting married on Tuesday if you want to come.” No invitations.
But you know, it stuck. It has stuck for thirty-eight years now.
At the end of that day, we really weren’t on anybody’s registry. We didn’t get many gifts. We didn’t get our china pattern or our linen pattern. We got a few things, but we had a 1964 Volkswagen camper.
And 1964 was a good year, because they changed from the thirty-six-horsepower engine to the forty-horsepower engine. So it was pretty powerful.
We took all our earthly belongings, stuffed them in that camper, and had a car-top carrier that I built out of wood. What wouldn’t fit inside, we stuffed up top. We headed toward California about four o’clock that afternoon.
The thing was about that far off the ground. It’s supposed to be that far, and it went forty miles an hour flat out. I have no idea how long it takes to get from Champaign, Illinois, to California at forty miles an hour, but it was going to take a long time.
The second day out, we took the car-top carrier off, broke it in pieces, threw it in the dumpster, and jettisoned some of the cargo, as Paul did. We learned that we could draft semis. If we could catch a semi out on the prairies, we could get up to sixty-five miles an hour. That’s the only way we made it to California: we drafted semis.
But it was simple. Things were simple, not complicated. How much complication do we bring on ourselves, and does this world bring on us? I’m so thankful.
By the end of that summer, I had to go in the Navy. I was in the Navy several years—three years—and as we settled down into our marriage, we had a daily altar. We tried to read the Word together and pray.
Very early on, as part of our new birth, I believe the Lord put in our hearts the corporateness of His God and His Christ. We longed to be with other saints. We longed to be together, opening the Bible and fellowshipping.
I would tell you that from square one, we longed for Bible fellowship, as we’ve talked about on Friday nights. You guys don’t know this, but over the years, we’ve ebbed and flowed with the Friday-night times. I think the Friday-night times and fellowship times are right in the center of what the Lord is after.
We were at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, and I only got one night off a week. It was not easy, but that night some of the young officers had a Bible study, a Bible fellowship time, in their homes. We got there, and we got fed and nourished.
Then we went to Navy Supply Corps School and learned how to be a Navy controller for six months. The chaplain at that little unit down in Georgia was a Southern Baptist preacher, but we were able to set up Bible study and Bible fellowship times with all the students every Friday night. It was great. It was glorious.
At several Navy duty stations, we were able to get in fellowship with people and start Bible studies in our homes, opening the Word of God and sharing Christ.
Graduate school was a dry time. We didn’t have as much fellowship. It was hard. People were very busy. We did have some, but it really made us realize just how key and important fellowship was, and what the Lord had done in putting fellowship in our hearts.
We came to Richmond. We met Mac and Stella. Mac and I worked for the same company, and they invited us for dinner. Beside the chair in their den, I saw this stack of books and Bibles. They still have a stack of books and Bibles in their den.
So the remembrances didn’t change. We were able to share the Lord, and we went to a Baptist church here together for a while. Shortly before that, the Spirit was really showing us not to be involved in organization, but to be involved in organism—the living body of Christ.
There were a group of us that came out of that church and started meeting together. That wasn’t with the group whose history flows through here. It was another group sharing very much the same thing.
Often we think, “Well, that’s you guys teaching. You’re just following this.” Well, no, no, no, no. We’re following what the Lord is after in His church in all eternity.
After a while, the group we were meeting with—it was fellowship. It was real. It had some weird things going on, but it was real.
One morning, the men used to meet once a week in a brother’s home. He had a travel trailer, so we’d meet and pray for the assembly. We didn’t know all the words, but we prayed for one another.
One man stood up and said, “Well, guys, I just want to tell you something. The Lord has shown me I’m supposed to be the chief shepherd.”
We said, “Okay, last one out, turn the lights off.” That was it. That was done. That was part of the shepherding movement. It came out, you know, in the history. To this day, I don’t believe he’s gotten back in fellowship, to my knowledge. It’s very sad.
But we knew some of the folks here, and we began assembling with you in that same stream of corporate life—life characterized by that corporate nature. God has called us to that very clearly.
I really believe that if we don’t see that, if we don’t respond to it, if we don’t participate in it, we have totally cut ourselves short of the salvation that God has called us to. And we’ve called Him short of what He saved us for. So we need to respond to that.
I don’t say these things to puff myself up. It’s not a personal thing. It’s just a testimony that the Lord is after a corporate expression, and it’s very much in His heart.
I couldn’t explain this, guys. This isn’t natural affection. Unfortunately, I think I have the reputation of not being a warm, fuzzy person. That predates my association with you all.
When I was in college, I had a lot of nicknames, which I won’t repeat, because I was very task-oriented. I needed to get the job done. “Watch out. I’ve got to go to track practice. I’ve got to get good grades so I can get my job. Don’t mess with me.”
So I didn’t have a very warm and fuzzy personality. But when I was born again, I couldn’t wait to be with other Christians. Koinonia, communion, fellowship, sharing in common.
What do we share? The life of Christ—the life of Christ we share with one another. What a glorious, glorious thing.
I just want to tell you all: we are privileged to have the capacity, the ability, the place, and the time to share the Christ-life together. Don’t despise it. Don’t despise it. It’s a very rich thing.
Let me share a few verses now. What does the Lord have to say about what my experience was, what our experience was? Does He have something to say about it? Is there an explanation of this thing in the Word—this corporate expression, this body of Christ, this bride of Christ?
These aren’t things we do. This is something we are. We live out the life that we have and who we are in spirit. This is a spiritual truth, not something we do.
When I read these verses, they had to do with someone describing and expressing what was going on. They weren’t verses to be copied.
How often have you heard people say, “We need a New Testament church. Let’s see, how are we going to get a New Testament church? Well, we’ll get some elders, get some deacons, get this, and we’ve got a New Testament church.”
What these verses are describing is what was seen in spirit. Let’s go through a few verses. Many of them you’re familiar with, but these are my testimony.
Matthew 16:13-18:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.
And I also say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.”
The Catholics have built a whole doctrine on Peter being a rock. Peter was no rock. He was a little pebble, but he saw Christ. He saw the Lord. And from that seeing, he saw what He was after.
The Lord said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Not a teaching, but a spiritual reality. The eyes of our hearts should be opened.
Let’s read in John’s Gospel a little bit. John 11:54. The movement in John’s Gospel is from wide open—He’s out in the crowds, He’s sharing, He’s moving around all over the place, and there’s a lot of action.
There is a transition here in John 11:54:
Jesus therefore no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there He stayed with the disciples.
There is a concentration from broad outreach to the disciples—a personal building up and encouraging of these twelve.
Let’s look at John 13. It is called the Lord’s Supper. Here is this interaction, this spiritual building up with this small group.
John 13:14:
If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
There is relationship with one another, encouraging each other, washing our feet. Oh, what a great thing washing our feet is.
You know, I always thought washing feet was forgiving, humbling ourselves before one another. But not too long ago, we worked on a little book for the publishers, and Brother Nee talks there about washing your feet: being together, being with brothers and sisters, sharing Christ together, washes our feet.
We get defiled. We get out with the world, and when we’re together in fellowship, we wash our feet. We’re restored. We’re not meant to be alone, saints.
John 13:34-35:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you; that you also love one another.
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
Love one another. Express Christ. Share Christ with each other. What is our testimony when someone sees the saints loving one another?
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
Expressing Christ together is part of our testimony.
John 17 is the thing we’ve shared about before. This is the high priestly prayer before He went to the cross.
John 17:1-2:
These things Jesus spoke; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee,
even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life.”
There is glory for the Son in the saints, in those to whom He gives eternal life. There is glory for the Son.
John 17:20-23:
I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.
And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one;
I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.
This isn’t as direct as, “I will build My church,” in Matthew, but I believe these passages exhibit the building up of the church in truth and in spirit. We need to be loving one another and related to each other in Christ.
Let’s look at Peter. If you notice, we’re moving through the books in order here. We’re moving to Acts.
Acts 2:14. When you think of Peter, what’s the first thing you think of? I think of a cock crowing three times. Peter, the one that denied the Lord—that’s what I think of.
But at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, Peter was a changed man, full of the Holy Spirit in power.
Acts 2:14 says:
But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words.”
Peter was not taking his stand by himself, being a powerful preacher. Peter was taking his stand with the eleven. There was a corporateness, very early on, captured by the Holy Spirit. He was willing to take a humble place and be in union and unity with those others.
We talk about plurality of leadership, plurality of burden. There was plurality. Peter took his stand with the eleven, not by himself.
Then we see the fruit of Peter’s powerful message. Acts 2:37-38:
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Quickly after that, we get to Acts 2:42:
And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
This is another remembrance. This can just be a verse—a verse we think about copying. “Well, here’s what we need to do. We need to do what the early church did.”
But the early church didn’t think one minute about what they should do. This came right on the heels of Peter preaching that message, and this exhibits who they were. We do these things together because that’s who we are.
They were devoting themselves to teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Fellowship and the apostles’ teaching. The fruit of the Spirit, very early on in Peter’s ministry, showed forth the assembly, the church, the corporateness.
Now, 1 Peter 2. Here is the one who had been promised, “I will build My church,” and here is Peter preaching about being built up.
1 Peter 2:4-5:
And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
And 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
for once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Peter saw it. He was told, “On this rock I will build My church,” and he saw it. He was about building the church and sharing that truth.
Let’s talk for a minute about Paul. The first thing you notice is: who are Paul’s letters written to? Churches—local assemblies.
Paul’s letters were written to local assemblies. The local assembly is right in God’s heart.
We hear often these days, “Well, we’re just the body of Christ,” kind of loosey-goosey, kind of however it happens. Wherever we are, we meet some Christians for coffee—that’s the body of Christ.
That’s not the body of Christ. Paul was writing to local assemblies in local places. They had clear character. They had clear issues. He was really working with them to stay on track. I believe there is such a thing in the Word of God as the local assembly.
Paul said he had not been disobedient to the heavenly vision. He remembered. There was a remembrance. He remembered that heavenly vision at the end of his days, and he had not been disobedient to it. He had stayed in the race.
He saw the Lord lifted up, held on to the Lord, and persevered in all that the Lord was after.
Let’s look at Romans 12. Paul often writes the theory section, then he gets into the principle section of his books, and then he gets into practice.
The principles of Romans are in the first eight chapters: justified, sanctified, glorified. Then he gets into Romans 12.
Romans 12:1-2:
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Following right along with that, Romans 12:3-5 says:
For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function,
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
This is a specific group in a specific place in Rome. The purpose of what the Lord had shown Paul for individuals was that we might be many members, all the members being one body, that we might be a local testimony. That’s what Paul is telling the Romans.
After all the adjustments and so forth that Paul had to make with the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 12 says:
For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
He talks about close relationships. He doesn’t talk about nebulous, by-and-by relationships. He talks about feet, ears, and eyes—everybody coming into the function they have, their building up, particularly sharing Christ locally.
Ephesians is considered the high-water mark of Scripture. Paul was so much in the heavenlies when he was writing Ephesians 1 and 2. I think Ephesians 1 is one big run-on sentence. He was so caught up with Himself.
Ephesians 1:7-10:
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace
which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him,
with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth.
We have redemption in verse 7, but there is a goal of that redemption: the summing up of all things in Christ. We haven’t been saved to enjoy ourselves. He has a high calling for us.
Ephesians 1:22-23:
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.
That’s unbelievable. We are called to be the fullness of Him Who fills all in all, and to enter into that heavenly calling.
Then we bring it right back down to earth: principles and practice, principles and practice. Let’s go to Ephesians 4. He talks about walk. Given our high calling, we are called to walk.
Ephesians 4:1-6:
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,
being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were also called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all Who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:14-16:
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.
High calling, practical outwork. Practical outworking here today: the building up of itself in love; the functioning of each individual part here; expressing Christ here. We’ve got a high calling. It’s really important.
The thing that begins in life—life corporate—has a practical expression. It is a great thing. It is a blessing to be in fellowship. It is a pure blessing to be in fellowship and share Christ.
Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We don’t have a series of meetings. We have a series of times God has privileged us to be able to come together under His headship and seek His face.
We dare not despise our assembling together. It’s a calling. It’s a church called out—the called-out ones assembled together: ekklesia.
So what have we said? We have been recipients of a new birth, new life, zoe life. We have this life.
If you don’t know you have this life, if you aren’t sure about it, make sure about it. If you’re a young person and you haven’t been with us before, if you haven’t been born again, get that clear today.
If you have been born again, I believe the character of that life is this: we love the Lord, we’re drawn to Him, but I think that life longs for fellowship, longs to be built up, longs to be together, built up in spirit—building up the body of Christ, living stones in the house of God.
My experience has been that this is just part of my new birth: corporateness, life corporate.
As we go on, we see how that corporate life expresses Christ. The Christ on earth today is the body of Christ, functioning under His headship, displaying and declaring His life, His body, His authority, His kingship, and His headship until He returns.
We are to be that bride who has made herself ready and draws Him home, draws Him to take us home.
The last thing I want to say is this: let’s be cautious about saying “personal and corporate.” We definitely have personal lives in the Lord, but those lives, enriched, bring forth a corporate expression.
If you’re having trouble and you’re not in fellowship, if you’re not with the brothers and sisters—either personally, in one-on-one times, which I think are key—but more importantly, are you together, functioning in the house of God?
It’s very important that we do that. And that’s my testimony.
Lord, we thank You for what You’ve given us. We thank You that our lives are not our own, that we’ve been born again, that You’ve called us out from this world, this corporation world, this cosmos, this world system, and You’ve called us into life corporate.
You’ve called us to be Your expression, Your body, on this earth in a place and time. Lord, we thank You that You have granted us grace to be built up with other brothers and sisters and to share Christ’s life together.
Lord, have mercy on us that we would be the expression, the people of God for Your own possession, that You’ve called us out to be. We pray in Jesus’ name.