All right, let’s come before the Lord in prayer.
Father, we come before You in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank You that we can approach You by that name.
Lord, You said that the unfolding of Your word gives light. Lord, we look to You. Only You, by Your Holy Spirit, can unfold Your word and open Your word to us. Lord, we pray that You would breathe on Your word.
We pray that You would have mercy on speaker and hearer, Lord; that You would grant us the grace to see past my feeble words and receive something from You this morning.
Lord, we just stand in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
What I’d like to do first off is read a series of Scriptures. For the sake of time, I’m going to ask King—I didn’t tell him I was going to do this—if you could just pull these Scriptures up, that way we can read them and get together.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but so to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ;
From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
Well, what I’d like for us to fellowship on for a little while this morning is the building of the body of Christ—the functioning of the members in the building of the body of Christ.
The reason why I had us read those passages together is that I just wanted to emphasize this matter: the body of Christ is not “church truth.” It’s not some higher-level thought. It’s not something hidden away somewhere just in Ephesians, you know?
Look at the range of believers addressed in these passages. Think about this: these passages come from Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians. What a range of brethren, what a range of places in the Lord, and what a range of needs. Some of these guys, we’d be like, “Oh, my goodness.”
We see it mentioned in Ephesians. We see it written in Romans—the letter Paul wrote having never been to Rome, wanting to give them a complete picture of the gospel. Basically, he wanted to give them a full picture. He is writing a letter saying, “Hey, you guys, I wanted to see you, but let me tell you about the gospel of Jesus Christ.” And in the middle of it, he says, “One body, baptized into one body.”
So let’s look at who we are in the light of God’s word. We have such a natural tendency to look at ourselves in the light of our own understanding. We see ourselves as individuals. We see ourselves as, “Here’s my sphere. Here I am at the middle, here’s my family, here are my interests, here are my likes and dislikes, here’s my temperament, and here’s my world I’ve created for myself.”
Because of that, it makes it difficult for us to get back to seeing things the way the Lord sees them. And He is the only One who sees truth. Everything else is an illusion.
So let’s look at who we are in the light of God’s word. Basically, this is calling out six items from what we have just read:
One body—that is who we are. One body is those who have been born again by the blood of Jesus, those who have received His life, those who have within us this common life that we share.
As we can see from that last verse, soon God will crush Satan under the feet not of a superman, not of an individual, not of somebody you see on television a lot—not under the feet of an individual—but under the feet of the body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
When we talk about the fullness of Him who fills all in all, there is no one person and no one group of people. It is all of the blood-bought saints of God.
But this brings us into the heart of a battle.
First off, just to raise the importance of this one more time: the building up of the body of Christ, according to Paul in Ephesians, is the work of the ministry. It is not a part of the work of the ministry. It is not somebody’s particular interest. It is the work of the ministry.
We are involved as individuals and responsible as individuals, as members of the body. But the end is the building up of the body of Christ.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we were all baptized into one body, whether we realize it or not. We are members one of another. Because of that, one part cannot say, “Since you’re not like me, I don’t have any need of you.”
One part cannot say, “I just can’t see things from where you’re coming from. Let me kind of X you out.” We are members one of another. Each of us has received grace to function as members of the body of Christ unto the building up of the body.
Romans 12, the passage that we looked at, begins, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.” That is the beginning of a chapter, but it is actually the summing up of a thought.
The preceding chapters, particularly Romans 1:1-8:39, talk about our justification and our reconciliation—that we who were enemies are now reconciled to God through the blood of Christ.
Here at the beginning of Romans 12, Paul talks about our reasonable service of worship. He says, “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.”
What that means in practical terms is a yielded will. It is a willingness to leave off living for ourselves.
I did not say that it is sinless perfection. I did not say it is, “Thank You that all my T’s are crossed. I’ve got everything together now.” But it is a willingness to be made willing.
I’m reminded of Hinds’ Feet on High Places. I apologize if there are some people who like allegories and some people who do not. Anyway, Much-Afraid was given two helpers to go along with her. She went through particularly difficult times, and she would lean on them, and they would carry her through.
They were called Sorrow and Suffering at the time, but in the end she was shown what their real names were: Grace and Glory.
So our relationship with the Lord is not a matter of trying to get everything together. It is a matter of trusting. It is a matter of putting our hand in His hand.
This issue of offering ourselves as a living sacrifice is not, “Oh God, I’ve done this for You. That’s my sacrifice.” It is, “Lord, here I am.” And remember, this is in the context of the building up of the body of Christ.
We are born into this world naturally individualistic. We are self-justified, justified in the light of our own understanding.
We are sectarian. “My way of thinking about things is right. I want to gather some people around me who think about things the way that I do.” That is toxic—absolutely toxic—to body life.
We gather around one thing, one Person, and that is Christ Himself—not my understanding of this line of teaching or that line of doctrine, but Christ Himself.
The bride is enthralled with one thing, and that is the Bridegroom.
As we continue in Romans, Paul says, “Through the grace given to me,” and then he speaks concerning the different giftings and graces. So this is all a matter of grace.
Paul was not the super-apostle who said, “I’ve got it all together, but you guys have got to depend on grace.” He said, “Hey, we’re in the same boat. By the grace given unto me, I say to you.”
One of the things he says is, “Think so as to have sound judgment.” At first reading, you can think that means, “You dummy, you don’t really have anything.” But that is not what it means at all.
From what I understand in the Greek, it is actually a play on words. What he is saying is, “Think neither above nor below the grace you received.” In other words, there is a gifting; there is a place the Lord has for you within the body of Christ.
Do not get inflated in your own understanding, but do not count yourself out either. The body needs the life of Christ in you.
So what are our marching orders? Sometimes we are in a society where, when there is a difficulty, we send an army off somewhere over there. Very few of us are accustomed to this matter of battle.
I think because of that, we lose sight of the seriousness of the situation we are in. I am reminded of the writings of Nehemiah. At one point, he talked about them building the wall with a trowel in one hand and a weapon in the other.
It is a battle. There is a battle for the building up of the body of Christ, and the enemy is diametrically opposed to that. He wants us to live in ourselves, even our religious selves, even our theological selves.
Because he knows that once the Lord builds us together into this one body, once this body reaches full stature, that is it. The end comes. The Lord comes back for His bride.
So we are born into this battle. It is not the kind of thing that you can sign up for the sofa crew. We are born into this battle.
So what are our marching orders? One is growing in our relationship with Christ, and the other is supplying life to the body. The two are integrally related.
First off—and I cannot emphasize this enough—is the vocation of fellowship. God does not save us unto deeds. He saves us unto a vocation of fellowship with Himself. Everything else springs from that. Everything else is an outgrowth of that.
As a brother mentioned previously, the personal without the corporate is incomplete, but the corporate without the personal is impossible.
We can have a religious form. We can show up for meetings. We can learn theological terms. But the essence of it, the foundation of our fruitfulness as members of the body of Christ, is communion with Him.
The uniqueness of His relationship with each one of us constitutes each of us as a unique member of the body. We can say that God loves us, but that is anything but a generic term.
He loves each of us in a unique way. He shares Himself with us in a unique way. That is why it is such a blessing when we come together and hear testimony, because we hear the sharing of the Lord’s little love letters to other brothers and sisters.
We say, “Oh man, I’ve never seen the Lord like that before. I’ve never seen the Lord from that angle.”
Okay, who is involved in this? This is one of the main things that I had on my heart.
This is the responsibility of the youngest believer. One of the problems we run into is that we are in kind of a cushy age. It is trying to expand childhood as long as possible and expand retirement. Of course, now the government is trying to shorten retirement down, but you know what I mean.
We are all responsible. The body of Christ suffers lack when any member of the body of Christ ceases to pursue communion with the Lord. Where else does the life come from, brothers and sisters, if it does not come through the members of the body?
We are responsible.
There is no special inside group or select ones that have more of a responsibility to receive the supply of life.
What do I mean by the supply of life? I mean that when we come together, when you meet brothers and sisters who are in distress, when you meet brothers and sisters you can tell are having a hard time, you have the word of life. The Lord wants to minister Himself through the members of His body.
I also mean that as we come together for our corporate prayer times, each of us is responsible. Our relationship corporately is an overflow of our relationship with the Lord individually.
A phrase that I use sometimes is, if all of us come with empty baskets, we are going to have a pretty quiet meeting. But there is no reason for that, because the richness of Christ is available to everyone. The richness of Christ is available to all of us.
But I do not want to sound sentimental about it, because the life also brings light. He shines the light of who He is into our hearts.
You remember I mentioned the individualistic part, the egocentric part, and all of these things. The Lord frees us from ourselves by the light of the Holy Spirit.
The first thing He shines on us is, “For God so loved the world. For God so loved you.” But if it stays generic, that is not it. God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son to save you.
But then He continues to shine His light and show us things that are different from what He created us to be.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
—1 John 1:7
There are two meanings there. One is that if we confess our sins, we are washed and come into fellowship. But it is walking in the light that He has given us. That is how we increase in spiritual growth.
But it is not so that we can become individual spiritual trophies. It is unto the building of the body of Christ.
We need to regularly come back to the question: “Am I still willing to be made willing? Am I still walking in the light?”
We slip back to walking in the light of our own understanding so easily. We slip back into living for ourselves, our kin, and our things so easily.
We need to ask ourselves, “Is my hand still in the hand of the Master? Is my will still yielded to Him?”
Our Greek heritage, our Hellenistic culture, and the way that has affected our culture does us a great disservice here. We feel that because we know the words, we have the life, and that is not the case.
Life is not a doctrine or a teaching. It is not something you can read in a book and, once you know the words, you have it.
It is a reality that comes through the light and the discipline of the Holy Spirit. He shines light. He encourages and corrects, encourages and corrects, encourages and corrects. It is extremely personal.
It starts in our personal prayer time, but it does not end there. It is amazing when you think about it: why in the world would the Lord take such pains in meeting us in the middle of our day and saying, “You know what your heart motive was in what you just said?”
That He would care about us that much—it is amazing.
The matter of growing in life: the life we see manifested in the testimony of others who have known this fellowship is a signpost for us.
But they are not the light. They are a voice telling us what that life is like. That life is appropriated in our communion with the Lord, in our fellowship with the Lord, in our pressing into Him.
We do not like the ideas of exertion, of pressing in, of work, of pushing, of pressing. But the Lord will meet us there. He is faithful—faithful to unfold His word.
Some pitfalls: the risk of confusing recognizing truth with experiencing it, of recognizing life with experiencing it.
Let me explain that a little bit further. We can read the word of God and read the truth. We can read the writings of brothers and sisters who have had deep dealings with the Lord and are able to share the truth.
But recognizing the truth in the things we read and having the Lord work those things into our lives are two entirely different things.
It is the things worked into our lives through the dealings of the Holy Spirit—through the Lord opening His word to us and ministering Himself to us—so that that verse, that truth, that reality, that facet of who the Lord is, that facet of what He tells us about the nature of our relationship with Him, only then belongs to us.
The things that do not belong to us—the things we have recognized, the things our spirits have testified are true, but the things that have not been worked into our lives—are not a benefit to us in the day of battle.
I think we can all look back over times when we read through a book about the consolations of the Lord, or some glorious truth about the Lord. But then, in the day of battle, things get real dark, and the only thing we have to hold on to is what the Lord has spoken to us personally—the things the Lord has worked and made a part of us.
We are not talking about something sentimental—“Oh, me and the Lord, we’re just boyfriend and girlfriend, and we’re just infatuated with each other.” We are in a generation where everything is so sentimental.
Because of that, we can interpret the lack of feelings to mean that we are doing it wrong. That is not the case at all.
When we are in the word, when we are pressing into the Lord, it is not primarily for the satisfaction of our feelings. It is not primarily to help us pack our intellect. It is so that we can have supply, so that the Lord can minister His life to us and minister His word to us, so that we can receive life in our spirits through His word.
We are so used to living as though we are bipolar—we bounce back and forth between feelings and intellect, feelings and intellect, feelings and intellect. But spiritual life is gained in the spirit.
In the same way that the body depends on the members, the members receive life from the Head through one another. This is spelled out in 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 and 1 Corinthians 14:1-40, where ministries and gifts are described.
We touch Christ through the members of the body. This touches both sides of the equation: pressing into the Lord for life and sharing that life among the members. It leads to the building up of the body, the increase of spiritual life in the body.
Notice that the apostle Paul, toward the end of those passages, said he would rather speak five words of prophecy than speak in other ways, because it would edify the body. His heart was edifying the body.
This is not a secondary thing. It is not my personal spirituality, and then the edifying of the body is some nebulous thing. The Lord is after the building up of the body.
Do not take vacations from the body. Do not take days off from the body. We cannot afford it.
We have shared about receiving life, growing in life, and growing in our knowledge of the Lord. It is this knowledge of the Lord—this unique knowledge of the Lord—that defines the member of the body that we function as, or the ways that we help the body build itself up in love.
Basically, this is the ongoing ministry of Christ through His body. Christ is exalted to the right hand of the Father and has poured out the Holy Spirit, as He promised.
By the Holy Spirit, we have been baptized into one body. Through this body, He continues to do and to teach. He continues to minister Himself.
Through the Lord’s working in our lives, He produces a sensitivity and a service to the body through the life of Christ.
What I mean by that is that He produces a sensitivity to His heart when we are in fellowship with one another. He produces a sensitivity to the things that are on His heart.
Through the knowledge we have of Him and through the life we have of Him, we are able to minister to the need. He makes us aware of the need, and He is able to use us as vessels to minister to that need.
The expression of this is the manifold wisdom of God. Each member is unique. Your experience of the Lord is unique.
Because of that, when we gather together, if you are not here, there is something lacking. There is an expression of the Lord that is lacking. There is a unique expression of the life of Jesus that is lacking.
In one sense, it does not come from you, but in another sense it does. It is His life expressed through you. It is the intricacy of His kindness, His love, and His character worked into you. He is able to express His life through you.
Each believer has a unique knowledge of the Lord that defines their ministry in the body. The ear learns how to hear. The ear knows how to hear and provide that service. The eye knows how to see and give sight to the body.
That is why we need one another.
One of the greatest challenges we have is that, while Scripture says we are members one of another, another passage talks about bearing with one another. The reason for that is that we need one another.
There is a terrible tendency for a particular part of the body to define the rest of the body based on their part. Because the ear, for example, can really relate to hearing, it is easy to start thinking, “That brother is not very spiritual because he does not hear. You have to be able to hear what is coming.”
But the eyes are just as essential. The feet are just as essential.
Just using simple illustrations: stop, look, listen. When you come to an intersection, consider the interaction and interdependence between the eyes, the ears, and the feet.
You are walking along, and there is a wall ahead of you. The eyes say, “There’s a wall, there’s a wall, there’s a wall,” and the feet are like, “I’m on vacation.”
You are heading for a catastrophe. The Lord has built us together. We need to listen to the Lord in one another.
As a dear brother said, the church is built of the Christ in you, minus you.
I am not talking about anything deep. I am not talking about depersonalization, loss of personality, loss of identity, or anything like that. Some of this can get misunderstood.
But it is the life of Christ in you, minus the you. It is the life of Christ in me, minus me. I think each of us knows the part of us that means—the part that is definitely not the Lord.
But to each of us grace is given to function as members of the body. This involves a personal responsibility of pressing into the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, I hope that we do not think certain brothers and sisters have the responsibility to, I guess you would call it, carry the meeting.
We see a need. We see a brother or sister in need, and we think, “Man, there is a need over there. There is somebody over there who has a need. I hope they do something about it—whoever they is.”
Because we are members of the body of Christ, we are members one of another. We have responsibility.
I hope I have been able to avoid the use of the word function, because I kind of wanted to sneak up on you with this. Sometimes we say, “Function, function. We need more brothers and sisters to function.” It can sound like a sterile, mechanical word.
But what I am talking about is what functioning is. It is pressing into the Lord. It is letting the Lord change our hearts. It is coming to know Him and, through that knowledge of Him, having supply for the brothers and sisters.
There are brothers and sisters who will come in on a Wednesday night surprised that they have lived through the day.
As we are willing to press into the Lord, to have the Lord wash our feet in our time with Him, we are able to come together in our times together and wash one another’s feet.
Brothers and sisters, it affects the effectiveness of our times together. It affects the effectiveness of our times of corporate prayer.
If we come with empty baskets, we are going to spend the first part of our time together saying, “Oh Lord, forgive me. Oh Lord, help us. Oh Lord, raise us up. We’re a mess and we’re hurting.”
All those things are true, but Calvary covered it all. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
It is the same as we gather on Sunday mornings. It is not the responsibility of a few to carry our time together.
What I mean by that is, as we spend time before the Lord and He shows us facets of Himself, we have supply to share.
We have expressions of the Lord, ways the Lord has shared Himself with us, that, as we share, cause scales to be lifted from us. They cause brothers and sisters who have felt very distant from the Lord to be brought near again.
And it is the Lord. It is not anything in the vessels. It is the Lord.
But when we spend time with the Lord and allow Him to fill the vessel, then He can use that life to build the body. It is a simple thought today.
Father, we thank You for Your great mercy toward us. Lord, we thank You for this mystery of the body of Christ.
Lord, the body of Christ is a reality. You are building us together. Lord, we are so in ourselves. We think about ourselves. We think about things from the perspective of ourselves.
Lord, we pray that You would help us. Lord, we pray that You would deliver us from the idea that it is somebody else’s responsibility.
Lord, deliver us from being the ones on the end of getting our feet washed, instead of coming bubbling over with You, Lord, to wash our brothers’ and sisters’ feet.
Lord, we pray that You would help us. Lord, rescue us from being spectators.
Lord, rescue us from being fruit inspectors. Oh Lord, far be it from us.
Lord, far be it from us to analyze one another’s prayers, to analyze one another’s sharing, and to size up our brothers and sisters.
Lord, You are not like that. Lord, You humbled Yourself to the lowly. Lord, minister Your life.
Lord, we pray that You would open our eyes to see. Lord, that we would lay aside getting on each other, and that we would get back to the work.
Lord, we are in this battle. We do not want to fail You. We do not want the enemy to be able to play stall ball with us, getting us looking at each other, getting us off track, and all these things.
Lord, we want to be useful to You in these few years that we have. Lord, we want there to be an increase of You in our midst.
Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.