This message comes from about two weeks ago, when Group E was on. This was the week after the conference. When we gathered on that Saturday morning to determine who was going to open, several themes came up.
The three themes were the oneness of the body, Christ’s love for us, and the need to maintain a first love for Christ. The oneness of the body was the theme we eventually opened with. Dave Whitney was not in that meeting, but we later asked him to give the opening, and he chose verses that reflected the oneness of the body.
Before we go any further, we will go ahead and pray, because I am going to start reading Scriptures. That is really where we will start.
Father God, we just want to commit this time to You, Lord. Above all, we ask for Your anointing, both for me and for those here, that they can really sense what I am trying to say—or what You are trying to say through me, Lord. We commit this to You and ask that You would give me clarity here, Lord. In Your name, we pray. Amen.
I am going to read a lot of Scriptures. This is what we discussed that Saturday morning. As I read the Scriptures, try to keep in mind the three themes: the oneness of the body, Christ’s love for us, and our need to maintain a first love for Christ.
The first Scripture is 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. If you remember, this was actually the opening that Dave Whitney shared a couple of weeks ago.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?
Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread.
These Scriptures obviously reflect our oneness in Christ.
The next Scripture is Lamentations 3:22-23.
It is of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Thy faithfulness.
This obviously speaks of Christ’s love for us.
The next Scriptures are in John 13. This chapter deals with the washing of the disciples’ feet by our Lord Jesus. I am not going to read the whole chapter. I want to read the first verse at the beginning of the chapter and the last two verses at the end of the story.
We all know that story. Short of Christ dying on the cross, this is the greatest example of His coming as a servant King and serving His brothers and sisters. In Roman times, washing feet was something that the lowest of slaves did. People wore sandals, the ground was dusty, and it was a common practice. Yet Jesus took that position among His disciples.
We read in the first verse:
Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
That expression, “unto the end,” gives a fuller meaning. It is not simply to the end of time; it means going through with everything, fully and completely.
Here we see Christ’s love for His disciples. He was about to be betrayed, delivered up to the priests, beaten, brought before Pilate, scourged, and finally crucified on the cross.
Then, in John 13:34-35, after He had washed the disciples’ feet, He said:
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Obviously, here we are talking about Christ’s love. Not only are we directed to love one another, but we see His example for us to follow. We are to serve in love.
For those of you taking notes, the title of this message is “Body Life Requisite: God’s Love.” I simply want to show today how true body-life service can only be done through the love of Christ.
The next Scripture is 1 Corinthians 12:12-14.
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 will go into this more fully later, but this is obviously a picture of how we are one in the body. It is also something that not every believer fully comprehends.
Now skip down to 1 Corinthians 12:25-28.
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues.
Once we see that there is a body and understand that we are part of it, we immediately realize that we should serve. God gives us gifts to serve in that function, but I will come back to that later.
Now I am going to skip down to 1 Corinthians 12:31 and read through 1 Corinthians 14:1. We have read that we are one body, and then that we have gifts to serve in that body and build one another up. But this is the heart of the matter: how we apply those gifts.
But desire earnestly the greater gifts. And moreover a most excellent way show I unto you.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;
But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.
For now we see in a mirror darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.
But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Follow after love; yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts.
I want to make two points here. First, this love is not a fleshly, earthly love. This is not something we have in ourselves, in our natural being. This love is holy and Godlike. It is wholly divine. It is the love of Christ.
When we show that love to one another, we are really showing Christ to one another. We are showing the life of Christ in us to one another. We cannot obtain this love from any other source than Christ.
The second point has three aspects. First, it is through our love of Christ and His people that we seek to serve. Once our eyes are opened and we see this body life, and we have a love for Christ, then our desire is to serve.
Actually, even if we do not have the vision of the church, if we love Christ and love His people, we will seek to serve, even in a tangible church.
The second aspect is that it is through our seeking to serve through love that we discover our spiritual gifts. When we obey God, we are walking in the light and abiding in Christ. As we obey Him, eventually He directs us to do things that are beyond our natural abilities.
In obeying Him in these supernatural things and spiritual endeavors, this is when we find our spiritual gifts. We are not pursuing spiritual gifts in order to serve; we are seeking to serve Christ and His saints, and through that, we discover our gifts.
The third aspect is that it is the application of these gifts through love that makes our service of any value. We can serve in the flesh or in a wrongful manner, but it only results in wood, hay, and stubble. It does not have lasting value.
It is only when we serve through the love of Christ, under the direction of Christ, that our service is gold and precious stones.
Having a vision, or spiritual comprehension, of the body of Christ is not automatic when one is saved. Those without this revelation do not fully understand the spiritual aspect of the church, the body of Christ, and must rely on outward, tangible structure.
This is how we come to see church as a building. This is how service can come to mean joining an organization. I am using these examples, but I do not want to be critical. If you do not have that inner vision of the church and yet seek to serve, you have to have some outward structure.
In the tangible structure, where most of Christendom lies, many of the ideas are physical. Church becomes a building, and serving God becomes joining an organization, whether for outreach or something else.
Leaders are not always chosen by the Spirit, as in Acts 6:1-6. Let us read that quickly.
Now in these days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
And the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables.
Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
But we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the word.
And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus a proselyte of Antioch;
Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them.
What I want to show here is that these seven were chosen because the whole assembly looked among themselves and found seven disciples in whom the Spirit was recognized. It was an inner thing. The whole exercise was spiritual in nature.
The Holy Spirit witnessed to the multitude concerning these seven. The multitude recognized that these men had the ability to minister and to serve the tables. Then the apostles appointed, or confirmed, them.
That is the difference I am trying to show between the inner church and the outward, tangible church. In the tangible church, leaders are often chosen by committees or boards, by degrees after their names, or titles before their names.
I want to use Billy Graham as an example. When we hear Billy Graham’s name, we might consider four Christian qualities: he was a reverend, he had a title, he had a degree in theology, he had a denomination, and he also had a gift of evangelism.
Those who are born again and see the true church of God recognize the invisible, spiritual gift of evangelism. We see the thing that mattered in the invisible church of God.
For much of the rest of the world, Billy Graham was seen as a Baptist preacher with theological training. But his gift was exercised simply because God gave him that gift—not because he went to theology school, not because he had a title, and not because of anything else.
No matter what denomination he was in, and no matter what schooling or lack thereof he had, he could have graduated from middle school and still had that gift of evangelism. His title, degree, and denomination were irrelevant to the fact that God had given him a gift of evangelism.
Unfortunately, he had to have those three tangible things in order to function in the tangible church.
In the tangible church, you can have those who serve because they love Christ, and many do. Billy Graham is a good example. But you can also have those who serve for personal gain or in a wrongful manner.
Because the tangible church must have a tangible head, fallen man can become the head of a church rather than Christ Himself. Then you can have those who serve wrongly, or misuse gifts, simply because spiritual discernment is not present.
If you are serving in a wrongful manner, then you need to be sustained long-term by tangible things: the praise of men, the compensation of men, and the recognition of men. These are things that feed the flesh and enable service from the flesh.
What I hope to show here is that when you are serving the true church in the Spirit, you can only do it through the love of God. God’s love is the only thing necessary.
In the tangible church, because many people do not have a full understanding of the body of Christ—the invisible church—they become what you might call the laity. The laity must be catered to and served by the few people who wish to serve in the tangible church.
But once you see the spiritual aspect of the church, and see the body functioning as an organism rather than an organization, you see that every cell has a specific job and calling. Every cell must function in that way to maintain a healthy body.
When you do not have that vision, especially if you have not yet laid your life down to follow Christ, and you do not have the love of Christ compelling you to serve, then you must be catered to in the tangible church.
That is why many outward church meetings today focus on social events or worship times that are extremely sensual or emotional. It is designed to cater to the flesh and to draw Christians who are still seeking fleshly desires or fleshly satisfaction.
God’s love is not required to serve in a tangible physical structure. There are many who serve out of God’s love, but it is not necessary. You can do it for a job, or through your own natural abilities. Usually, when you are using your natural abilities, you are doing it under the direction of your own will, and so it is completely natural.
This has been my personal experience. When I decided to follow Christ, like everybody does, I started serving in the flesh and through natural abilities. This is part of my testimony.
As we serve in our natural abilities, eventually there comes a point where the more we do, the more is given to us to do. Then there comes a point where the flesh needs recognition, acknowledgment, or some form of payment in return to feed the flesh in that service.
When it does not get that—and it will not get that in true spiritual service—you come to a point where you have to say, “I am no longer serving because this is what I am supposed to do. I am serving because I choose to love God, I choose to follow God, and that is it.”
Somewhere down that line, when you lay your life down and continue simply because you are going to follow Christ and submit to Christ, denying the flesh, you cross over into spiritual service. That is the way I experienced it.
When we are born again and decide to serve, none of us has the ability to serve completely in the Spirit because we are too young as believers. Natural abilities are where we begin. We see a need, we have a desire to function, and we desire to serve and follow God.
Somewhere along the way, we realize that there has to be a taking up of the cross and a laying down of the flesh in order to continue in that service.
Since most of us have some understanding of this concept of an invisible church, I am going to try to get to the point of the message. When we begin to function because of our spiritual comprehension of the body of Christ, we soon learn two things.
First, our functioning can only be sustained through God’s love. Second, our service is only divine when applied to God’s will.
Why is this? Why is it that, if we are serving in the Spirit in a true spiritual fashion, we can only serve in the flesh for a short time before it is rejected?
When you have a group of saints—an assembly, a core group—who seek Christ together and have this understanding, they recognize the body of Christ as an organism. These are individuals who have chosen to lay down their whole lives to follow Christ, and who come together not only to follow Christ but to serve one another and function as the body of Christ.
When you have a core of people doing that corporately, they will soon recognize anyone who is trying to eclipse Christ. Their whole group is seeking to serve and follow Christ together, to see Christ together.
When someone comes in through a misuse of gifts, natural talent, or even a spirit of Nicolaitanism, that person can begin to eclipse Christ. In such an assembly, that will soon be corrected.
That is why, especially when you are serving in the true church, you can only serve in the flesh for so long before you are corrected. I believe these are saints who are doing this, because we are all sinners, and when we begin to serve, we all serve in the flesh to some degree. We all must be corrected in order to learn how to serve in the Spirit.
What happens to saints who are corrected? In my experience, there are three things that can happen. I have seen all three, and I have done two of them to one degree or another.
The first and ideal thing is to humble yourself through the love of Christ and submit to the Father. Submit to the leadership that the Father has established. If need be, even lay down your gift, service, or ability until you can take it up again under the direction of Christ and His established leadership.
The second thing is that you can leave and go to another assembly where your talent and natural abilities will be appreciated. They may be appreciated because there are not many people willing to serve anyway.
The third thing is that you can begin to remove yourself from the core, from the center, and drift toward the edges.
Numbers speaks about those who remained around the edge of the camp. I want to read Proverbs 18:1. The Lord has really used this verse in my life and shown me some things.
He that separateth himself seeketh his own desire,
And rageth against all sound wisdom.
We know that wisdom is the Holy Spirit. In my own life, whenever sin or anything else causes me not to feel comfortable around God, I begin to distance myself. You find a place where you are comfortable, a place where you can still function to some degree and do things that do not offend the flesh.
But you are no longer seeking to go all the way into the center of the camp, as it were. The Lord has used that to show me that whenever I do not feel comfortable around certain saints, activities, or meetings, there is usually something in my life. I have started to separate myself from God, and that shows itself as separation from the body of Christ.
In a true assembly, in the true church of God, there cannot be mixture for a prolonged period of time. There cannot be mixed service—part flesh and part spirit. Eventually, service must be according to the Spirit and under the direction of the Spirit.
Otherwise, we begin to eclipse Christ. A desire for authority, a desire for glory, or a misuse of spiritual gifts is essentially for personal glory. Any of these things begins to take authority or glory away from Christ.
The saints who have that spiritual understanding of the body and see Christ as Head will recognize it and begin to take a stand against it.
Those who serve wholly or partly through soul power, rather than spiritual submission, will eventually rebel against authority to one degree or another. They may move themselves to another setting where their fleshly service is appreciated.
In the invisible church, the living organic body of Christ, sacrificial service is totally submissive to the will of God. It is the only service acknowledged by the Holy Spirit. Yet we do not need the acknowledgment of men, because our eyes are on Christ. Because we love Christ and have the love of Christ in us, that is all we need to continue in service.
Other people in the assembly recognize the acknowledgment of the Holy Spirit, and therefore someone may be given a position of authority or responsibility. It is not that saint claiming it. That saint only sees Christ. It is the other saints who recognize it because the Holy Spirit acknowledges it through them.
Again, it is God’s love in our service. There are three aspects:
These are all concepts of true spiritual service. We begin to serve out of love because, in order to be in that abiding place with Christ and in the love of Christ, we must be obedient to Him.
As we obey Him, even though we may be serving in a natural sphere, eventually He will put us in situations beyond our natural abilities. We will have to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to continue in that service.
It happens in small things. You come into situations where you do not know what to do. It may be something that should be simple, but you do not know what to do in the flesh, and you need God’s direction and guidance. When you start reaching out in that way, you continue in service by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The point I want to make is that in order to truly serve in the invisible church—to serve in the spiritual sense—we have to respond to His constraining love. Christ loves all of us. All His saints receive His constraining love.
But only a few of us, and only at certain times in our lives, respond to that constraining love. Often we fail to maintain a first love or to be transparent.
Anything in our lives that begins to draw our eyes away from Christ—no matter what it is—Christ will show it to us as we walk in the Spirit. He will point it out to us. If we refuse to take action, then we have a shadow between us and Jesus.
When we have a shadow between us and Jesus, the love of Christ shining through us is darkened toward the saints and toward the world. It is no longer as vibrant or as light. As John says, if we have fellowship with the Father, we walk in the light.
That is essentially what I wanted to share this morning. In our service, we must make a commitment to fully submit to Christ. We can all do this regardless of whether we have a vision of the true spiritual body of Christ.
We can all commit to fully submit to Christ and to lay down our everything. It is not necessarily that there is a drastic change in what you do or how you live that very day. It is a drastic change in attitude: are we willing to lay down everything for Christ?
Every saint here can see faults in others. We all see faults in each other. But we do not know what God has shown that person. God may have pointed it out. He may be in the middle of working something out in that individual. Or He may not have even pointed that area out to the individual yet.
The point is that if we have made a commitment to submit ourselves completely to Christ, then when God draws our attention to areas in our lives that need to be dealt with, we are willing to lay them down and move on.
It is really a desire to seek our contentment, satisfaction, and existence in Christ, and not in status in the world.
In order to serve in the Spirit, we must make that commitment to fully submit ourselves to Christ. Otherwise, all of our service, to one degree or another, will be driven by the flesh. We choose to do some things and choose not to do others.
If we are not fully submitting to the authority that Christ has set up, or to Christ Himself, there is only so far we can go before the flesh begins to be offended and react.
The second aspect is this: do we maintain a first love? Do we keep freshness in our relationship with Christ?
This is something the Lord is showing me now. Anything in my life that draws my eyes from Christ in such a way that my attention is more focused on that thing than on Christ is something I need to cut off.
It may be something that the Lord will later allow me to take back up when I can keep it in its proper place. But at that time, I have to cut it off and not dwell on it, because it begins to separate me from my desire to be with Christ.
This ties into the question: do we fervently maintain an openness in our relationship with Jesus that allows us to be transparent both with Jesus and with our brothers and sisters in the church?
If we have anything in our life that Jesus, God, or the Holy Spirit begins to touch and point out to us, and we do not lay it down, again we have that shadow between us and Christ.
That shadow comes over the love of Christ in us that is shown toward our brothers and sisters. We are still walking, but when we get to that point, we are not growing. We kind of flatline in our relationship with Christ.
Our service can only go so far because we are not wholly submitting to the will of God. We can continue doing the things we have always done, but until we fully submit every area of our lives to Christ, we are not allowing God to further our service in the body or expand our gift.
I hope I have made myself clear. That pretty much wraps it up.
Father God, I just want to thank You, Lord, for all the things You have opened my eyes to. I pray that You can use what I have said, that it would be understandable, Lord. Enable all of us to really seek after You and to serve You in the Spirit in every way. I ask that in Your name. Amen.