We know our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus. He is the One with whom we have to do tonight, He by whose blood we come into this place, He who has called us together to His own great name, He who is the Head of the body—oh, and the Savior forever.
Lord, we do claim that anointing by Your Holy Spirit, that we may see Him and hear Him in a way we have not before. Now, Lord, we are tired. We are coming to the end of our time together, but, Lord, we would not be tired.
The subject seems somewhat complicated. But, Lord, would You give us simple, straight, plain words to share with one another that go into the heart? Would You protect us from any false word or misunderstanding? Would You cause that which is from You to pierce through to us and change us, Lord?
Lord, how many times have we asked You this weekend, corporately and individually, to change us? To change us. Oh, Lord, we want to be changed into the likeness of our Lord Jesus. We do love Him, and we do believe tonight, Lord, that that is why we are here.
So we simply ask, believing, saying, “Oh, Lord, help our unbelief, and bring us through.” For the sake of Christ, and in the name of Christ, we ask. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, when I spoke to you—it seems like a hundred years ago now—my head and heart were so full of so many things. It is amazing. We are so different, and yet I believe we all came here to be changed.
I know those of us who stood up here have, above all things, had that in mind: to be changed. Because the time is short. The Lord is near. And we have today.
I spoke about relationship. I spoke about how we regard one another as building material: gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble.
Brothers and sisters, how do you regard your brothers and sisters? It depends. Everything depends on it. The same folks—just what do you see? What do you see when you look at them?
And I spoke of how we treat one another. How we regard one another is one thing, but how we actually treat one another is another. Do we really love one another fervently from the heart, as we are commanded to do?
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you.
Let the love of the brethren continue.
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
I mean, God is love. It does not get any more fundamental than that.
Tonight, I said I would talk about function in the house—how we should behave. Let me put it differently: how the body of Christ works in the house of God.
You see, the work of the body of Christ is to build the house of God. That is very simple. And the work—the vocation—you are called to is to be a minister, a priest, as it were, in the house of God.
Turn with me to 1 Peter 2:5.
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
We have the house. We have the priesthood. And let the record show: you are a holy priesthood.
Verse 9, same chapter:
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
Well, it is magnificent. You are holy priests. You are royal priests.
I want to talk a little bit about the priesthood. There are two priesthoods that we will talk about tonight. We will talk about the Levitical priesthood very briefly, and then we will talk about that mysterious priesthood, that of Melchizedek.
The Levitical priesthood started when Moses went up to the mountain and came back down with a pattern for the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. Moses and Aaron were of the tribe of Levi.
Aaron had made a golden calf, you remember, and the people were doing all sorts of wicked, evil things. Moses came down with the tablets, threw them down, destroyed them, came into the camp, and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
The tribe of Levi rose up, and he said, “Every man kill his friend. Every man kill his brother. Get this out of the camp. You are a holy people, and this is unholy, before I consume you all.”
Later, in Numbers 18:1-7, the Lord said to Aaron:
Thou and thy sons and thy fathers’ house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary; and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.
We have two different things: the sanctuary and the priesthood. Aaron and his sons bore the guilt for both of them.
Bring thou with thee also thy brethren, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, that they may be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee, while thou and thy sons are before the tent of the testimony.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come nigh unto the vessels of the sanctuary and unto the altar, that they die not, neither they, nor ye.
And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the Tent: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you.
We have Aaron, who is the high priest. We have his sons, who are the priesthood. And we have the tribe of Levi—a larger group, obviously, who were in charge of the things of God, the tent of meeting.
Very simply, Aaron and his sons had to do with the priesthood: the things directly involving God. The Levites served the priests and took care of the house.
Their job was to carry, take down, and dismantle the tent of meeting—the boards and the wall around it—and carry it from one place to another. Their job was to cut the wood. The singers were Levites. Those who wrote the psalms were Levites. Those who took care of the finances were Levites. Those who made necessary repairs were Levites.
The sons of Aaron basically had to do with the holy vessels and the service of the sanctuary. They offered sacrifices, burned incense, lit and trimmed the lamps, and brought the offerings of the people to God so that God would be satisfied.
We have the priests dealing primarily with God, and the Levites primarily dealing with the priests. In the house of God, you have two different functions. They are closely interrelated, but they are not exactly the same.
There is the function of ministry to the Lord and ministry to the house. One may think of the priesthood as being broken down into those two parts.
When we talk about the priesthood in the Scriptures, that is what most people are thinking about most of the time. There was another priesthood, though, that was before that.
Turn to Genesis 14:17-20. We are just going to touch on this a little bit, because I do not want to spend a lot of time there. But I do want you to know that this is really in here, okay?
This is after Abram rescued Lot, after they were carried off. There was a battle between four kings and five kings. Lot and Sodom were on the losing side. They were carried off into captivity. Abram heard of it, went with his buddies, rescued them all, and was coming back.
He was coming back to Sodom to bring everything back, and on the way he passed Salem—or Jerusalem, as we have been told. I do think that is correct. It has been argued and debated, but it is not argued or debated in my mind. That was Jerusalem, where Melchizedek was located.
And after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the vale of Shaveh, the same is the King’s Vale.
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth:
And blessed be God Most High, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.
And he gave him a tenth of all.
This is a small thing, a couple or three verses—an isolated thing. You even wonder why it is there. But we have this one, Melchizedek. We do not know much about him from this Scripture, except that he was a priest, he was king of Salem, and he came out to meet Abram after the battle.
He came out with wine and bread to refresh him. What does that sound like to you? You get a picture in your head with that. Tomorrow we will have the cup and the loaf. You understand what I am saying.
Turn to Psalm 110, which is a Messianic psalm. I am going to read just the first four verses.
The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Thy people offer themselves willingly
In the day of Thy power, in holy array:
Out of the womb of the morning
Thou hast the dew of Thy youth.
The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
Maybe four hundred or so years later, we have this, which is also isolated. Then we go through the New Testament until we come to the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews, in a simplistic way, may be thought of as a book written to the Jews explaining why the Levitical priesthood was no longer useful. In other words, all the millions and millions of animals that had been slaughtered in faith and obedience over the centuries were to be done away with because the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, came and offered Himself.
The book of Hebrews explains the end of the Levitical priesthood—including Aaron, his sons, the priests, and the Levites—and the beginning of a different priesthood.
Hebrews 7:1-3:
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
To whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all, being first, by interpretation, King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;
Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually.
Melech means king in Hebrew, and zedek means righteousness. So, first of all, by the translation of His name, He is King of righteousness; then also King of Salem, which is King of peace.
Hebrews 7:15-16 says:
And what we say is yet more abundantly evident, if after the likeness of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest,
Who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
Brothers and sisters, what we have is a laying aside of the one and a bringing in of the other. Melchizedek—this mysterious fellow whom we do not know—has been the subject of speculation for centuries.
The Targum of Jerusalem speculates that he was Shem, the son of Noah, from whom the Semites came. Certainly, if we look at the dates where Shem lived, he was contemporaneous with Abram. Some have claimed that Melchizedek was simply a title: king of righteousness, a righteous king; king of Salem, because Salem was the place he ruled.
I do not know about that. One of the ancient church fathers wrote that it had to be Enoch and made a case for it. Origen said it was an angel. Some said it was a person especially created just for this one purpose, just for this one time. Ambrose said it was a Christophany—an Old Testament appearance of Christ in the flesh.
He would say the same thing about the One who appeared to Joshua and said, “I am captain of the host of the Lord.” Joshua did a very bright thing: he fell down and worshiped.
I do not know. And I think if we were supposed to know, we would be told. We are told that he had no ancestry: without father, without mother, without beginning of days or end of life, a priest perpetually.
Whether it was Christ Himself or one who was a type of Christ, it was somebody, and it was here before the Levitical priesthood. I think that is very important.
When it is mentioned in the psalm, the Levitical priesthood was running wide open. Yet this one, to whom the tithe was given—the tithe being Levitical—was before it all.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we have here something that is very mysterious. It is a priesthood not based on genealogy, which they were very careful about with the Levites. If you read Ezra and Nehemiah, you see all the confusion about getting the genealogy straightened out. If you read rabbinical literature, you see how enormously picky they were.
This priesthood is not based on heredity. The writer of Hebrews makes the point: Christ is of the tribe of Judah. Nowhere does it mention a priesthood from the tribe of Judah. He is making the point to the Jews that this is different, that He is different.
Every priest had to offer not only for the people but for himself, because every priest was a sinner. So the priesthood could not be perfect, and the priests all died—every one of them. It was an imperfect priesthood.
Then the writer points to the Lord Jesus and says, “He is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
There are several things that are important, mainly three of them. First, this priesthood includes the functions of the Levitical priesthood: ministry to the house and to the priests, and ministry to God.
Second, the connection is different. It is an eternal priesthood, based on the power of an indestructible life—not based on laws and ordinances, not based on, “Man, you have got to do it just like this or you are all going to die.”
We have a holy Priest. And, my goodness gracious, you have been called to a holy priesthood and a royal priesthood.
The king of Salem is king of peace. Melchizedek is king of righteousness. He is royal, and He is holy. That is the priesthood to which you are called.
In the house of God, sacrifices are offered up. There is function. The house of God is the meeting place between God and man. It is the place where Christ is expressed.
There is one other thing I want to make about the priesthood of Melchizedek: Melchizedek—our Lord Jesus—had no need for Himself. Not a thing. He did not have to die, as every man had to die because of sin, because He was absolutely sinless.
So He did not offer up sacrifices for Himself. It was other-oriented. It had absolutely to do with everybody else, but not with Him.
Your priesthood has to do with others. God’s intention is that you get everything you need from Christ by being properly related to Him.
One could go through—and I have, in a small way, and I love to do it—looking at all the sacrifices, pulling them into the New Testament, and applying them. There is so much there. Looking at the garments, the festivals, the seasons, and even some of the minutiae: the tabernacle, the temple, the rebuilt temple, the temple in Ezekiel.
There is so much to be gained by that. But if you are going to understand your priesthood, that for which you have been called, there is only one way that I know you can do it: understand the body of Christ.
You see, brothers and sisters, you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
I am not going to spend a lot of time proving that there is a body of Christ, that it is real, that you are part of it, or that you are a member of it. What is really on my heart is to talk about how the body of Christ functions to express Christ in His house. And that has everything to do with relationships.
Please write these references down:
You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
One of the things given to us in this place by revelation is that Christ is the Head of the body, and each of the members is individually connected to Him.
My fingers are all connected to my head in life, directly, with nothing in between. When I move my fingers, the impulse from my nervous system goes straight from my head to my fingers.
I am speaking of the body when it works correctly, okay? What I am saying to you, brothers and sisters, is that you are individually, personally, and directly related to the Head.
One of the things about the mystery of Melchizedek—and it is a great mystery—is that he had a life with God hidden from us. When was he made priest? How did he get this priesthood? How did he become king? Scripture is deliberately silent on that.
He had a hidden life with God. When my finger does that, you do not see the impulse coming from my brain. To you, it is hidden. In fact, it was hidden to all for centuries until somebody finally figured out that this was actually coming from the brain and not some other part of the body.
Let me ask you: do you have a hidden life with the Lord? Do you have a life that is just you and Him?
It is not disconnected from the rest of the body, but it is yours. You are unique. If there were another you, He would not have made you. You are absolutely unique.
You can express the Lord in an absolutely unique way, but you have to be connected to Him in a living way, in a hidden way.
How many of you got saved when you were kids? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord for that. But let me say this to you: you need an adult faith. You need a faith that you decide upon when you become an adult.
The Lord loves little children. He said, “Let them come unto Me.” He loves that. But you need an adult faith because you are adults. You need to think this thing out. You need to decide: “I have decided to follow Jesus”—not the God of my father, not the God of the fellowship. My God. My God.
You have to have your own thing here. You have to have a hidden life, a sacred life with the Lord. Not secret in a wrong sense, you know what I am saying.
There are things between a man and his wife, and a wife and her husband, that they simply do not talk about with anybody else. They have a little smile, and it means something. They have a wink at a time, and it means something. They say a word, and it communicates volumes.
Some of us have a sacred life. Some of us have a hidden life. But in this room there are, I fear, brothers and sisters who labor with a secret life of sin—who have things in their lives that ought not to be there, who are caught up in something wrong and wicked, and hate it and hate it, but cannot be free.
Oh, brothers and sisters, let me tell you something: you do not have to live with that.
You can, tonight, get one of your brothers—one of the brothers who are here—and share it with them. You are not going to shock any of the brothers who are here. Are you going to be shocked? Are you going to be shocked? Nothing is going to shock you, is it, Stephen?
We are all works in progress. We have an enemy. We are at war. Do not bear this thing yourself. That is not the right kind of secret life.
When you get home, wherever you are going—down the street or across the world—you can find someone there to share it with. But I tell you, it would be good while you are here, while the light of His presence is among us, to make confession and be done with it.
You can do it privately. This is not about public exposure. It is about being done with stuff so you can get on with your life. You were not created for bondage. It was for freedom that Christ set you free.
The other kind of hidden life—now this is the good stuff, okay?—is a life with God alone, connected to Him directly. Absolutely through the High Priest.
You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. He is our great High Priest. In that sense, there is only one Priest: our great High Priest. All we have to be is correctly related to Him. And if you are not, nothing else matters.
If the nerve to my arm gets cut, damaged, or sick—the nerve to my thumb—it is ornamental, but it is not much use. When that connection is severed, when it is not functioning right, nothing is functioning right.
You cannot be what you have been called to be. Brothers and sisters, you have been called to be royal and holy priests. You have been called to express your great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, on the earth. The Head is in heaven; the feet are on the earth. You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
The Head is in heaven. The body is on the earth. The body should be covered; the Head should be lifted up.
It is the right and privilege of my body to lift my head. It is your right and privilege, as a member of the body of Christ with your brothers and sisters, to lift the Lord Jesus up.
But you have to be covered. It would be most peculiar if we were uncovered. When you look at me and I look at you, you look at my head. My hands may give some expression to what I am saying, but it is my head you are paying attention to, and that is right.
The church should not draw attention to herself. She should lift up Christ. She should be covered. The body should be covered; the Head should be lifted up. Simple, straight-up sort of deal.
Where is your heart? It is in your body. Okay, it is a trick question. I always hate it when guys ask you something when they know the answer and want you to give a particular answer.
Brothers and sisters, the body of Christ is not a corpse. The body of Christ is not disconnected from the Head. It is connected in life.
The body of Christ includes the body and the Head. Certainly that is true. But the Head is in heaven, and the body is on the earth. The heart of the body of Christ—the heart of Christ—is in the body.
The heart of our Lord Jesus Christ is in His body. So what? So it is everything. You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Have you ever wondered what is on the Lord’s heart? It is given to you to know, to get to know His sacred heart.
David was a man after God’s own heart. Turn with me to 1 Chronicles 28:11.
Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch of the temple, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper rooms thereof, and of the inner chambers thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat;
And the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, for the courts of the house of the Lord, and for all the chambers round about, for the treasuries of the house of God, and for the treasuries of the dedicated things;
Also for the courses of the priests and the Levites, and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord.
Verse 19 says:
All this, said David, have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of the Lord, even all the works of this pattern.
That was on the Lord’s heart, and He gave it to His servant David because David was a man after His own heart.
Do you want the heart of the Lord Jesus? It is real simple: look for it in the body of Christ, with your brothers and sisters. He will show it to you. He will give it to you.
This is important to remember when you are praying. Sometimes you pray, “Lord, we do not really know how to pray. What is on Your heart?” Then you realize, “Wait a minute. Hold on. It is our right to know.”
“Lord, we are the body of Christ. We come to You as the body of Christ. Show us what is in Your heart. Reveal it to us. It belongs to us.”
When you are worshiping Him, do you know it is your right to say, “Lord, we will lift You up”? It is all right for the body of Christ to elevate You, that all men may see You, fall in love with You, and be drawn to You. Then it is also your right to claim to be one of those all men, so that you may be drawn to Him and fall in love with Him.
Now, we were talking about relationships. The heart does something very important: it pumps the blood.
My hand has a relationship with my wrist, which has a relationship with my arm and my elbow, my forearm, my shoulder, and the knee bone connected to the hip bone, or whatever. You understand what I am saying? There are connections that are real in my body. There are connections that are real in the body of Christ.
Now, brothers and sisters, hear me out on this. This is real important. The blood—I am a doctor. I do not play one on television, but I am a doctor, and I know these things.
The life of all flesh is in the blood. You know that too. One of the great things that comes to the members from the heart of the Lord Jesus is the life of the Lord Jesus.
But, brothers and sisters, it does not come directly like the brain moving the fingers, Him directing each member as He absolutely wills. The blood comes through the members.
The blood goes through the aorta, the innominate artery, the brachial artery, right on down to the radial and ulnar arteries, and into the digital arteries in the fingers. And if I am wrong, most of you do not know that. But I am not wrong.
What does this mean? It is the most practical thing in the world, and it has everything to do with your priesthood. What are we called to do? We are called to give life to one another. Give life to one another.
You do not have life in yourself. But you have the life of the Lord Jesus, and you know something? You can withhold it when it passes through you, or you can give it freely.
Something else the blood does: it brings warmth. It is a cold world out there. My fingers get cold when it is cold outside. They are weak little members, but they are very expressive. I like them. I will keep them.
They have great need of the blood. They have great need of the body to provide them with warmth because they are more exposed. My arm is a very big, fat thing. It has lots of muscle wrapped around it. Fingers are little tiny things. There is no muscle in the fingers—tendons and stuff and skin—but they do not like to be cold.
Something else that the blood does: the blood cleanses. It takes away waste products. Those of you who are athletes and exercise know what happens when that does not happen. You get cramps. You get lactic acidosis building up. It is not pleasant, is it, Robert?
Brothers and sisters, we fall into sin. What should we be doing at such times, as members of the body connected in a living way to one another? We should be taking that blood to one another.
The blood answers for your guilt. The blood will cleanse you. The blood will wash you whiter than snow.
Oh, brothers and sisters, this is priestly function. Do you do that to your brothers and sisters? Sometimes we are hard and cold and withdraw from them. Sometimes we put a big tourniquet around here, particularly when someone does something to themselves.
Anybody ever get up in the middle of the night and stub your toe? Did it hurt? And immediately, was your first response to say, “Oh, you stupid toe. It serves you right. You ought to hurt. You should have been watching where you were going. Why did you do such a dumb thing? Who needs you?”
It sounds ridiculous when I say it, but what about a member who stumbles? What about a brother or sister who falls? What about when he is injured?
Are we as quick to care for that member as we are to care for our own when it is hurt? I remember once at a brothers’ weekend, I asked a young man, a fine young man, if he believed the Lord felt his pain when he hurt. He honestly said, “You know, I would like to, but I do not.”
I said, “Well, do me a favor. Come on up here.” We had a coffee table, and I asked him to put his foot on it, take his shoe off, and I had a hammer.
He looked at me kind of funny. I knelt down and raised it back, and he said, “What are you doing?”
I said, “Well, I am going to smash your little toe. You should pay me for this, you know, because forever we are going to settle this matter: whether the Head feels the pain of the least member of the body. You will never question this again. Now move your hand and let me get on with what I am doing.”
Aren’t we like that, brothers and sisters? Do you think that you suffer alone? When you have done something stupid, when you have pain, do you think, “Oh, I cannot go to the Lord now”?
You have an enemy who tells you that. Do not believe him. It is a lie. You are the body of Christ. You are connected in the living life of Christ. You cannot have pain without the Head feeling it.
I believe that is why leprosy was such a terrible thing in the Bible. A leper has no feeling. Some of us were at a conference in a leper colony in Korea just this summer.
One of the things a leper does all day long is visual checks on himself, because if a member gets injured, he has to know it. If he does not know it, he will not take care of it. It will get infected, die, and fall off. That is why lepers, after years and years, lose their fingers, arms, legs, ears, and noses: they do not take care of the member that is injured.
Now, there has got to be a parallel here. The body of Christ, brothers and sisters, is not a leper.
Do you feel the pain of your brother or sister? Sometimes we do, and sometimes we do not. When we do not, we have to realize that we are wrong. We are not properly related.
We get judgmental. We get hypocritical. I will say it. When it is me, I kind of like you guys to take care of me. But when we get sophisticated in a certain way, from a Christian point of view, we simply ignore it.
That is leprosy. That is leprosy—an unclean thing. Brothers and sisters, do not you dare do it. If you are doing it, confess it as sin and quit, by the Lord’s grace.
You are members of the body of Christ. You are the body of Christ and individually members. You are related to one another in life.
The body is fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies. Have you ever thought about that? It sounds like a peculiar verse to me. “Fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies.” I would think tendons held us together.
Let me explain to you what I think that means.
My arms work pretty well—not as well as some people’s—but I have a couple of different sets of muscles. We have a couple of physical therapists here who could explain it better than me, but we have agonist and antagonist muscles.
For me to function, both of them have to work. If all my agonists function and I have agonist hyperfunction, I have spasm. That does not express me very well, although some might say, “Never mind.”
I have to have proper function between the agonist and antagonist. What in the world does that mean? We often are antagonistic to one another. We often see things differently.
You see the grace of God. I see bringing all things into the obedience of Christ. You see that salvation is a free gift, and I say, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” I think all four of those positions are exactly correct.
So how does it work? You have to have the joints that allow motion. There are those in the body of Christ who are joints. There are those who allow brothers with strong feelings to work together.
You do not want your muscles to be weaker so they do not oppose one another. You want them to be coordinated and rightly related to the Head.
We do not always have to be expressing what we have here. Sometimes we have to relax, brothers and sisters. Sometimes you are kind of intense, and you have to relax a little bit.
It is important that you see things. It is important that you have strong opinions. It is even important that we disagree. If all we did was this, we could only do it once.
The Lord is great. He is greatly to be praised. And to express Him, brothers and sisters, that which you have been given needs to work, but it needs to work in a coordinated fashion.
There are those who help us, sometimes, keep us from killing and eating one another. They allow the motion to take place. Fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies.
Now, brothers and sisters, we need one another. At another brothers’ meeting, I asked, “Is there anybody here who feels that he is really not necessary to the body of Christ?”
A brother said, “You know, I would like to, but no, I do not.”
So I asked him to come up to the table, and I asked Matt to get me an axe. Matt got me a large axe. I asked the brother to take his shoe off and put his foot on the table, and I approached him with this axe.
He really did take his foot off the table and ask me what in the world was going on. I told him I was going to remove his small toe.
I am a doctor. I can do that with one blow. I will take only the little one. I will only take part of it. We will see how you get along. You should pay me for this.
Forever, you will know how important you are to the body of Christ. The toe is the least member. It is on the bottom. How much time do you spend admiring your little toe? But it is necessary for your expression.
Brothers and sisters, we need one another. I know all this sounds kind of silly, but we have to see each other differently. We have to see the necessity of one another.
We have to see that we really are related in life, that we really can express our great High Priest only when we are properly related to one another and properly connected to Him.
Our brother John used to say, “You have to hold fast to the Head and cling to one another.” And that is the truth.
We have to love one another, because if we do not, we do not see anything. How are men going to know that we are His disciples if we do not express Him? What is the purpose of us having a corporate life if not to express Him?
He is in heaven, but He is still on the earth. He never left the earth. When He went back to the throne, it is true, He is in heaven. And of course He has a body, but there is this body of Christ—this miraculous, wonderful, glorious, expressive body.
You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
You are connected to one another. You need to give life to one another. You need to give healing to one another. You need to protect one another. You need to help one another express what they see, their understanding.
And you need not always be trying to express what you see, even if it is right.
Oh, brothers and sisters, this matter of the body of Christ is a great reality. It is not a metaphor. It is not an idea. He was not just trying to think up something. It is the truth. It is the eternal truth.
When we approach these things, I am reminded of how small I am.
I told you, I think, that David amassed somewhere in the range of 256 billion—a lot of gold. He said to Solomon, “Out of all my affliction, I have gathered this because of my great affection, my passion for the house of God.”
He said there was gold and silver and bronze and iron without limit. Then he said to Solomon, “Arise and work, and the Lord will help you.” But he said another thing that is absolutely, utterly amazing, and I love it. I just love it.
He said, “And you can add to it. You can add to it.”
Think about that. You can add to it. You have one little life. You do not have much. You only have to be faithful in love until you die, and that will not be very long.
You do not have to give much—just all that you have, all that you hope, all that you want. Your whole future. It is an infinitesimally small price.
Do you remember when the Lord was standing at the treasury? He was watching them. They had these seven big boxes that people were putting money into, and many wealthy people were putting in lots of money.
This little woman came in and dropped in a couple of mites. I recently got a mite. It is tiny, and it is cheap. But He said of her, “She has given more than all of them, because they gave out of their abundance. She gave her whole living, her whole life.”
That is all it is. That is all it takes. Whatever you have, whatever is left from here on out—that is the price.
I am not going to try to talk you into paying that price. If you do not see it, you cannot pay it anyway. But I tell you, and I say on very good authority, the price is cheap. The price is cheap.
Yesterday, a couple of my friends were here. Adrian and Taylor have three young sons: Benjamin, Joel David, and Silas. I do not know Silas very well; we have only known each other for a little while. He is eleven months old.
But I was talking yesterday with Benjamin and Joel David, right back here. I was asking them about what they were doing, and Ben told me he had a hammer. I have this thing about hammers.
I asked him about it, and I asked his brother. He said, “I have a hammer too.” Someone standing there asked, “What did you do with your hammer?”
He said—and this is the truth—“I built my mother a laundry room.”
Well, that is what everybody did. But Taylor said he had put him on his shoulder, started a nail, and Joel David had whacked it in. That is essentially the story.
He did not correct him. He did not say, “You did not do that. All you did was give it a couple of whacks.”
Listen to me, brothers and sisters. If you put those two small coins in the treasury, you get credit for the whole thing.
The Lord Jesus has done it all. He is greater than David. But He leaves this little tiny bit—not having to do with salvation, not having to do with salvation, but having to do with knowing Him and His sufferings, becoming like Him, growing up into all the fullness of Him.
He gave all that He had, and it was glorious. You can give all you have, which is not much, and it is counted as if you did the whole thing.
He receives glory for that. Taylor was not disappointed in the glory of his son. It did bring glory to him. He did build that laundry room for his mama. He spoke truly.
So here is the deal: you have a few years, maybe. Maybe not. What are you going to do with it? What is worth what is left of your life?
I am not going to tell you that if you commit your way to the Lord and trust in Him, He will do it, He will give you the desires of your heart, He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. That is true, but that is not the point here.
The point is: He is worthy. He is worthy, and He is faithful.
He who paid such a price for your and my salvation—I tell you, it is a great adventure.
Do not be stuck between opinions. Do not have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom. Do not do it. Do not do it.
Would that you were hot or cold. If you are lukewarm, you know—do not do it.
But you can do this, brothers and sisters. The Lord never points something out to us and then does not give us grace to do it.
Will it be difficult? I promise you it will. Are you going to have a lot of trouble? Certainly you will. Is it going to be painful and hard? Yes, it will.
So what?
The end is the glory of Christ. You can add to it. You can add to it. You can now express Him on the earth, and you can add to His glory in eternity.
Brothers and sisters, thank you for your patience. Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming.
But let us seriously consider this weekend, with what is left of it. And when you go home, think on these things.
Let us pray.
Oh, Lord, we are little children, but we are Your children. We are just sheep, Lord, but we are Your sheep.
Lord, we were lost, but You found us. Lord, You are not ashamed to call us brothers. And You are not unable to have us grow up into the full stature of Yourself.
Lord, will You give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to respond? Lord, will You keep the enemy from stealing from us our birthright, which we have begun to see a little bit more of this weekend?
Would You protect it from any false idea or any wrong thing that was said? But, Lord, will You bring us into the fullness of all that You have on Your heart for us?
Thank You, Lord. Bless us, we ask, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.