Let’s just pray a minute and ask the Lord to speak to us.
Lord, we thank You for Your faithfulness to this unfaithful people. Lord, we are unfaithful, but we’re thankful for Your faithfulness, and we just give You praise.
We pray You would speak what You have today. Give us just Your message, Your word of encouragement for today. In Jesus’ name.
Well, obviously, for quite some time we’ve been speaking on this matter: the house of God. And I don’t want to belabor it, at the risk of belaboring it. But during these different messages, there’s been this one simple little word that has come to my mind every time we’ve heard about the house of God.
So, the title, if you want to put a title on this, is “God’s Spiritual House,” or, “God’s House Is Spiritual.”
God’s house is founded, grounded, rooted in the Spirit of God living in His people. And it is built and grows out of that same Spirit: Christ in us, the hope of glory. God’s house is birthed in us when we are born again.
And I think it’s really important to remember that this is a spiritual thing. I don’t know how to explain that other than to give you a couple of thoughts.
We, I believe, this little assembly here, have been given great teaching. We’ve been given teaching that is not common today. And I also believe we have a capacity and a capability to grasp a lot of that teaching.
That’s a good thing, and that’s a bad thing, because if we grasp that teaching only in our minds, we will believe that we have something that we really don’t. The Lord is after the experience, the spiritual reality, or the spiritual experience, of these things.
So, we need to be careful that we don’t just think we have something when we only get it straight in our minds. It’s good to get it straight in our minds. It’s good to have teaching, but we need to apprehend that teaching by the Spirit.
And I think it is also a caution: when we think of this thing being a spiritual thing, it is a costly thing. It causes us to lay down our natural life. If we are going to apprehend this thing in the Spirit, it is going to cost us our natural life.
But I think it is good to remember: this is His will; this is His house, for His purpose, for His glory. He is after having a witness and a testimony—a dwelling of God in the Spirit, a place of rest. It is all in the Spirit: Christ in us, the hope of glory.
And I was just thinking, as I was preparing, how can we better spend our days than to be a joint supply in the house of God? How can we better serve our days than by serving the Lord in His house, among His people, building up the house of God?
You know, it was sobering to hear the announcement that Mac made this morning, on the same age. How am I spending my days? How are you spending your days? What’s valuable?
It’s easy. It’s easy to waste your days. But I think the Lord would have a people spending their lives on Him in His house.
Anyway, as I went through this, I found three different points. And just because I was really competing with Kenny to get alliteration, I got three Ps. It took me a long time to get three Ps. Ken always has three letters in his messages.
The first is perceive: perceive the house of God in the Spirit, by the Spirit.
The second is participate: participate in the house of God by the Spirit, not by the flesh.
The third is persevere: persevere in the house of God by the Spirit.
Perceive, participate, and persevere.
I’ve got several verses that we’re going to read, and since I’m no good at PowerPoint, the text will be available up here. I could learn it. I could do it if I had to, but I didn’t feel like it.
Take a class. Psalm 27:4-5.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.For in the day of trouble He will keep me secretly in His pavilion:
In the covert of His tabernacle will He hide me;
He will lift me up upon a rock.
So we can see from this Scripture that, in long past, God has been after a dwelling. David used three different words for that dwelling, but they’re all spiritual. They’re all spiritual. He is after a spiritual house.
He did not have all these tabernacle-house things merely as outward things. Those were spiritual things. First Peter 1:3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope.
Peter lays the foundation in that first chapter and moves quickly to the second chapter. Based on the fact that we are born again to a living hope, he goes to 1 Peter 2:4-5.
Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
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.
Our being born again, which he talked about there—“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has caused us to be born again”—results in us being living stones. Living stones.
That living life is zoe: the life of God, the life as God has it. Spiritual stones, building a spiritual house. Ephesians 2:20-22.
Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone;
In whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
This dwelling of God is in the Spirit. Hebrews 3:6.
But Christ as a Son, over His house;
Whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end.
These are quite a few verses. I’ll refer back to them, but anyway, I thought there was a lot to be had in those verses. They really show this principle that God is after a dwelling in the Spirit.
So, number one: we perceive it in the Spirit. Our perceiving it, laying hold of it—the house of God—is in the Spirit.
And that’s really my message. I’m not going to sit down now, but that’s my message: it is a spiritual thing. It is not a greater religious education. It is not a greater religious education.
It is a people of God serving Him in the Spirit. First of all, we need to be born again, and to know that we’re born again. We need to be born again and know that we’re born again.
So, I’ve got a few thoughts. You know, the last time I spoke, I shared a gospel message, and we shared out of John 3:3.
John 3:3. Catch your fast fingers on today, Ken. Good.
The Lord said to Nicodemus—Nicodemus came to the Lord at night, a ruler of the Jews, a great Pharisee of Pharisees. And he knew there was something here, so he came at night and said:
Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God;
For no one can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with him.
Here was Nicodemus, a great religious teacher in that day, coming to the Lord at night. And actually, by the way he said this, he was separating the nature of God and the Spirit from Christ. He was saying, “You’re a great teacher. This must be something separate. You have great teaching.”
And immediately, the Lord said—He didn’t answer that—He said:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus, this isn’t religious teaching. This is about Spirit-life and being born into that Spirit.
So I want to say that comprehending, apprehending, entering into the spiritual house of God, is based on being born again. Is that so simple? Is it too simple? You know, are we born again?
I believe if we’re born again, the house of God is alive in us.
Further on down in this little section, John 3:6, the Lord says again to Nicodemus:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The house of God is spiritual, not religious education. And we need to come to the Lord, the Living Stone—Christ, the Living Stone—and by His living-stone life, He has given us that living-stone life. We would express His life in the local assembly.
First Peter 2:4: “Coming to Him as to a living stone.” Coming to Him as a living stone. We come to Him, and He is that rock that Peter testified to there in Matthew: coming to Him.
You know, Paul, at the end of his days, his cry was, “That I might know Him.” He was really at the end there, in prison, and of all the things that he could say—“I long for this,” or “I long for that”—he said, “That I might know Him.”
And it is that knowing Him, expressing Him, that we express the body of Christ, the house of God.
I want to share something with you that may be a little personal, I don’t know. But lately, in preparation for the coming conference, Shirley Harrison has been transcribing some messages, and they’re from longer ago than I thought. Did she say 1987 yesterday? I think that’s it.
There was a conference where it was “epoch-making vessels”—epoch, E-P-O-C-H, not “epic”—a change of period, a change of period. And, you know, that’s what we’re talking about: those that would bring in the change of the period.
Brother Kong brought those messages at the University of Richmond. I remember them because I took my parents there, because he was speaking on John Wesley.
Anyway, this whole thing of epoch-making vessels. So, in this message on John Wesley that came from that conference, there was a period—anybody familiar with Wesley’s life knows that he really was doing religious things and teaching the Word before he was saved.
But deep down in his heart, he knew he wasn’t, but he was searching for it. There was a period when John Wesley was challenged to go to Georgia, our state of Georgia, which at that time was an English colony.
The Lord met him—but let me tell you how. On the way over, he was in a ship that got into a terrible, terrible storm. He thought they were gone. You know, he was panicked. He wasn’t saved, so he was really panicked.
And he heard this sound. He said, “What is it above the waves?” He heard singing. So he worked his way down into the lower parts of the ship—I guess it was a ship; I don’t know how big it was—and he peeked into this room down there.
It was the Moravians worshiping the Lord. So that touched him. He said, “How can they be worshiping the Lord when they’re about to die?”
And whoever he spoke to there said, “We’re at peace. We’re okay. You know, we trust in the Lord.” So that really touched him. If I did say it, is it halfway accurate? You’re nodding your head like you know—history guy. It’s pretty good. Okay.
So, he got to the colony—which wasn’t the United States—of Georgia and entered his work. There were some Moravians there ahead of him, and this thing was really getting him. One of those in charge of the Moravians was a leader named Spangenberg.
So let me read what came out of this transcript:
Soon after arrival in Georgia, John sought out the Moravian leader, Spangenberg, who had already commenced work in the colony, and he asked for advice with regard to his own situation.
Now, Spangenberg’s first question rocked him back on his mental heels. “My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?”
Wesley was taken aback by such directness, and he scarcely knew what to say. So again the Moravian continued, “Do you know Jesus Christ?”
Wesley paused and said, “I know He is the Saviour of the world.”
“True,” replied he, “but do you know Him? Has He saved you?”
“And I answered, I hope He has died to save me.”
“But do you know yourself?”
And to this Wesley unconsciously said, “I do.” But in his journal, he honestly added, “But I fear these were vain words.”
So the question we want to know and ask ourselves today is this: Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?
That’s it. That’s really the message. That’s how we perceive it. That’s how we go on. Do we know? Do we have that witness?
So, we said before that Christ said:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Has your spirit been born again? It is the only way we can receive—perceive. It is the only way we can perceive the Spirit within. It is all based upon an inward life in the Spirit.
This life, this inward life, is what gives the external or visible manifestation in the assembly. That’s what we show forth as Christians. That’s what shows the house of God.
You know, in the early church, we see a picture of the house of God. We see the body of Christ manifested in these early believers. It was that spontaneous life of Christ, overflowing, outflowing, that gave forth that testimony in the early church.
We often think, “Well, let’s see what they did in the early church. Let’s see Acts. They did this, they did that, they did this. Let’s do all those things, and then we’ll have the early church. We’ll have the body of Christ.”
They didn’t have this Word. They didn’t have these messages. They didn’t have the Scriptures. What they had was the life of Christ born in them and living out. That’s why they continued daily in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers—not because they were copying something, but because the Spirit of God was overflowing in them.
So the same is true for us. What we perceive in our lives together should be an outflow, an overflow, of that which is born in us by the Spirit. Are you born again? Do you have the life of Christ in you? Then there should be that overflow.
We also need the Lord to meet us. Paul said in Ephesians 1:18—his prayer that you’ve heard me pray:
That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.
I pray that the eyes of your heart, our spiritual eyes, need to be enlightened to see this thing: this house of God, the spiritual house of God.
Okay, the second point: participate.
We can see that we’re called into something spiritual, and we’re born into it. It is our birthright that we are born into this family, this house of God.
And, you know, even though we have the privilege and the honor to be born into it, we have a choice. God has given us a free will, and we have a choice whether we participate or not.
I just got a few verses as I thought about that. We go back to 1 Peter 2:4-5.
And coming to Him as unto a living stone.
We have a choice whether we come to the Lord. We have a choice whether we’re growing in Christ. We have a choice whether we’re coming to Him for His end, coming to Him as a living stone.
So, we have a choice whether we participate in His life among the stones. We don’t have to come to Him, however we interpret it. This seems to be a conditional statement.
And then verse 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.
Our being built up—who has the New American Standard open? I know. There is a little added thing in the New American Standard.
First Peter: “And coming to Him as to a living stone.” You also, verse 5, “as living stones, are being built up.” It has number one on that, and it says, “You”—an alternate translation—“allow yourselves to be built up,” or “build yourselves up.”
I’m going to verify that. Am I right? So there is a choice. We have a choice to be part of God’s house. We allow ourselves to be built up. You, as living stones, allow yourselves to be built up.
I hope I’m not stretching it too much here, but, you know, there really is a choice we have continually to make once we see the house of God.
Hebrews 3:6 says that Christ is a Son over whose house—whose house we are—if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. If we hold fast.
Likewise, think about the prodigal son. Read that in Luke 15:13.
And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country;
And there he wasted his substance with riotous living.
What’s his estate? His inheritance, his birthright. That estate was his by birth. To participate in the house of God is ours by birth. Is that too much of a stretch?
That was what he received at birth. It was rightly his, but he squandered it. He squandered it. So I trust that we don’t need to go too far to make the application. He had a great inheritance. We have a great inheritance. God help us that we not squander it.
And lastly, under number two, let’s look at Genesis 25:27-34. It’s a little bit of reading.
And the boys grew: and Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents.
Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: and Rebekah loved Jacob.
And Jacob boiled pottage: and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint.
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
And Jacob said, Sell me first thy birthright.
And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall the birthright do to me?
And Jacob said, Swear to me first: and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
So we need to ask ourselves: do we despise our birthright? Do we despise the family we were born into?
And it doesn’t have to be a big thing. It can be just the way we live.
We can despise a birthright by choosing not to participate in God’s spiritual house and be built up with the saints.
Okay, number three: persevere. Persevere.
Having gone through the first two steps, and knowing that perhaps we have seen something—Jim said we can see it—maybe we’ve seen it in days past; maybe we need to see it anew; we just need it fresh. We’ve chosen to participate in it. But we also need to persevere.
Paul, at the end of his days, what did he say?
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith.
Are we willing to take God’s grace, that new birth, that new life in us, and persevere and run the race?
You know, young people can’t probably believe it, but when I was a few years younger, I ran. I was a runner.
When we think about race here, I ran short races. Back then it was the 440 and the 880—400 meters and 800 meters. So you could really train for those, and you could get within yourself and your capability. It’s pretty long to some people.
You could even train for a mile. A mile is a much longer race, but that’s within yourself. But this is a marathon.
This race that we’re called about—to finish the race—is a marathon, and I think that’s pretty much beyond anyone, naturally speaking. We need a supernatural life. We need the grace of God and the Spirit of God living in us to finish this race and not give up.
Not too long ago, I was talking to an older brother in Christ. Some of you might know him. And I said, “You know, things are just so frustrating. I’m just going to quit. I’m just going to give up.”
He looked at me and said, “You can’t quit.” That was the end of the discussion. You can’t quit.
I was looking for some explanation, or some help and some encouragement, and what I got was, “You can’t quit.”
So, Galatians 3:3: “How do we not quit?”
Having begun by the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh?
You must be born again.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The Spirit of God doesn’t give up. He can run the race. He will run the race in us if we admit our need and fall on our faces. The Spirit of God has every bit of capability for us to run the race.
You know, there is another term that came from the running days, and that’s: we need to run through the finish line.
What that means is there was such a tendency to get close, see the finish line, and coast. And you know what happened when that happened? Everybody else came by.
And I can’t even believe it—my granddaughter, for some reason, is a swimmer, and she loves swimming. She’s just eight years old. But when she started, she would—she’s really mild-mannered, but she gets in the water and it’s like she’s just after that race.
I got a grandchild story, Jerry. Got one on you.
But she would just attack the water. She’s pulling, and then she sees that thing and she just goes like that. She doesn’t touch the wall. A number of times when she started, she didn’t touch the wall. And she won the race, and didn’t finish. Unbelievable.
Touch the wall, y’all. Touch the wall.
Let me regroup here a minute. Stirred up over that one.
Okay, here’s the last thought: there is supply. There is great supply.
You know, I talked about being born again in John 3:3, how important that is. Well, not only being born, but I believe the Lord is after feeding, nourishing, growing that spirit within us.
So let’s look at a few passages in the Gospel of John. We need to appropriate the life of Christ that we’ve been given. John 4:10 and 14.
This is the Samaritan woman:
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.
Living water. We are to draw on the Lord and be filled with that living water. Look at verse 14 right there also.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst;
But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life.
That’s how we’re to live today. That’s how we’re to run the race and run through the finish line. John 7:37-38.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. I’m really convicted personally of this: we need to live a surrendered life, that we might be full of the Holy Spirit.
John 6, the feeding of the five thousand. John 6:35.
I am the bread of life.
Not only does He intend to be that water, the Spirit, but He intends to be the bread of life. Christ died and saved us that He might be our life, and we need to come to Him and eat of Him.
You know, this passage here drove many away. He said, “You need to eat of Me.” It might have been a little graphic for them, but whatever reason, they left. Many left who were following Him and didn’t come to Him. He would have us eat of Him and be nourished by Him.
And John 15. John 15:5 says:
He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit:
For apart from Me ye can do nothing.
So we need to abide. We need to abide, rest, maintain a living communion—I think that’s one of the translations—with the Lord. Take Him as our life. That’s how we persevere.
In us, there isn’t a capacity. We take Him as our water, our drink, our food. He gives us the strength to go on, and He also gives us the strength to go on in His house.
We build up the house of God by being a supply of Christ, by supplying Christ—not ourselves—but we supply the life of Christ to one another.
How many people are tired?
Jim said life gets in the way. You know, these are days of pressure, terrific pressure upon the Lord’s people. This world—we started that way today. Mort was sensing it. Days of terrific pressure upon the Lord’s people. We’re tempted to be worn out and give up.
Is the enemy badgering you, beating you up to the point of giving up, giving in? Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You can’t quit.
But by the grace of God, there is that great provision to continue on and go on. We continue by the same Spirit that was born in us at new birth; that same Spirit that granted us grace to see something of God’s house; that Spirit that allowed us to choose to participate.
And that same Spirit will allow us to persevere. Second Corinthians 4:7. Paul says:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
That the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.
Stones have this treasure in earthen vessels. It is good to give up. It is good to give up and admit that we can’t, because when we do that, He can. And He would have us persevere.
Second Corinthians 4:10:
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus,
That the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
The reason we come to the end of ourselves is going to be the beginning of Christ. And that’s the stone life. That’s the house of God.
So let me just summarize real quick: perceive, participate, and persevere.
This house of God that we’ve been talking about is a spiritual house. We are born into this house by new birth. It is normal, it is natural, to want to be the house of God and to enjoy the expression of Christ with one another, in one another.
But we have a choice to participate in it and be built in this house, and this building up. Might we together not despise the birthright that we have?
And if we’re to persevere, that very same strength, that Spirit-life that gave us new birth, is abundant. It is eternal life, everlasting life, unlimited life. So we might lay hold of Him and His life to perfect what He is after and calling us to.
I’d like to finish by just reading a quote by Brother Sparks, out of a book called God’s Spiritual House. I didn’t read that book for this today, but Max will tell you there’s none of those out there if you’re looking for them. I don’t even know if it’s still available.
Here is what he said:
What the Church Is
What, then, is this spiritual house? What is this church? Let us not have an objective mentality about this, thinking of it as something somewhere outside of and apart from ourselves. What is it?
The answer is a very simple one. The spiritual house of God is Christ Himself. Yes, but not Christ personally alone, but Christ in you and me, the hope of glory.
Oh, it is just here that all the mistakes have been made about the church, with such disastrous results. The church, the house of God, is simply Christ Himself in undivided oneness found in all those in whom He really dwells. That’s it. That is the church.
Seek to root out of your mentality any and every other idea of the church. Christ is not divided into a thousand or a million fragments among so many believers. It is still one Christ.
You and I are not the church. It is Christ in you and in me that is the church. We still remain what we are outside of the church, still on our natural ground. But it is the measure of Christ in us that constitutes the church: a spiritual church, a spiritual house.
The one Christ by one Spirit in all those in whom He dwells—that is the church. God is never seen in that church, in that temple, as anything but His Son. He is the temple of God, and you and I can never belong to the church save as Christ is in us.
I know that is a simple thing to say, but if we would just fasten on that and see what that means, it is one of the great factors of unspeakably great power against the enemy, if only we live on that basis, if only we would abide there.
The church, the house of God, is simply Christ Himself.
Lord, we thank You today for Your saving grace that has fallen on us. We thank You for saving us from hell.
But we also want to thank You for saving us from the world, and saving us from ourselves. Lord, really saving us from ourselves.
And we just do have a longing for You to have a habitation of Yourself in the Spirit. We pray that You would have a habitation of God in the Spirit in our midst.
We pray You grant grace to see it, to choose to participate in it, and to persevere in it. Have mercy on us, we pray, in Jesus’ name.