It is a glorious day, and we have a glorious Lord. Y’all don’t seem too cheerful this morning. Praise the Lord, He woke me up at 4:45, and I said, “I need to go back to bed,” but it would not let me. So anyway, I still feel great this morning. I hope y’all do.
Let us come before the Lord in prayer.
Lord, we come to You this morning. Lord, it is on my heart that You will give us ears to hear—Lord Jesus, ears to hear. Lord, it is a quality that we seem to have lost in these days: a hearing ear.
Lord Jesus, may You grant us that this morning because of Your mercy and grace to us. Because, Lord, we do want to hear what You are saying with our hearts, as well as with our minds and spirits.
Lord, we come to You this morning. I pray, Lord, that not only will You give us a hearing ear and an open heart, but Lord, You will give us capacity—capacity to receive what You want to show us: something of the immensity of our Lord Jesus Christ and what we have been brought into in Him.
Lord, it is an unfathomable depth to which we have entered, waters so deep that nothing can reach the bottom; skies so high that even rockets cannot ascend there. Lord, it is beyond the depths of man’s imagination.
Lord, we come unto You this morning. It takes One like You to open our eyes, open our ears, and open our hearts. Do so this morning, Lord. Anoint as I speak, and anoint as we hear. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, I have been sharing on overcomers, and last week I felt that I could only speak a short time as an introduction, because what I had left, I told you, was another thirty minutes. Well, we have another hour of it this morning. Oh, you will not just be here thirty minutes. But we do look to the Lord.
This matter of overcoming is critical. It has always been critical. The first call was made to the churches in Asia at the end of the first century, and it has been going out ever since. It is an ageless call now: the call to overcome.
Brothers and sisters, we find that in the church and in our own personal lives, often we are being overcome instead of overcoming. But overcoming is critical, as we will see this morning, to what God has in His heart for His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is absolutely essential that we overcome in order that God might have what He wants.
This morning, I have been sharing on the call to overcome, and my question is this: Have you heard? Have you heard the call to overcome—not from me, but from the Holy Spirit, from the Lord Himself?
Brothers and sisters, I can talk about overcoming for the next fourteen centuries, and you will never hear unless the Holy Spirit speaks. I do pray that the Holy Spirit has been speaking to some of us and has given us ears to hear. It is as if we hear, but we do not hear.
I told this story once before, but it is very interesting to me. It really illustrates what I am saying here. We had our grandchild over. It was his first time overnight anywhere outside his own home, and he was about two and a half, somewhere along there, going on three.
He loved choo-choo trains. He loved trains. We had him at the house and had put him to bed. We thought he had calmed down. It is very difficult, you know, when they come over, particularly the first time. They are excited, and we are excited, and in that excitement it is difficult to get anybody to bed.
But anyway, we thought he had finally drifted off. Then all of a sudden, we heard from the back room, “Choo-choo train! Choo-choo train!” We went back there, and he was standing up in the bed, hollering, “Choo-choo train!”
Well, we live, as the crow flies, about three-quarters of a mile from the main railroad from Maine to Florida. It has a lot of train traffic, and they blow that whistle at the crossing right down from us. We have been there over forty years. We do not hear that train whistle anymore, but he did.
He had a hearing ear, and it excited him. Of course, I heard the train for a while after that. Hearing ears. Are you affected personally by the challenge, by the call to overcome?
Brothers and sisters, often I think we just feel like we are overcome, and we will never come into that. Overcoming is not something to be attained; it is something that you live.
After the Lord issued the call to overcome, what did He say to every church?
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
Hearing—he that hath an ear. Brothers and sisters, I do not know how you feel, but I think in these days, if somehow you feel like you are just going through life drifting, if you are just going through life and there is no seeming interaction between you and the Lord, and Him working in your life, you need to say, “Lord, please have mercy. Open my ears to hear Your voice.”
Because, you know, often the Lord is speaking; we just do not hear it. The things of life have kind of dulled our hearing.
Today I forgot my hearing aids. That is another thing about getting old: you tend to forget things. Anyway, my hearing got dulled over the years from all the noise I had been around. Those skill saws and drills and all those high-pitched sounds really do a lot to your ears. They dull them quite a bit.
It got to where my wife and I found ourselves just yelling at each other in the house. She has the same problem. If somebody came over, they might think we were mad, but we were just trying to communicate, you know? We noticed that the little number on the television volume used to be around twenty-eight, and now we have it up to thirty-six. So, you know, we know something is wrong. Dull hearing—we get dull.
The noise from the cares of life, the noise of the world and its demands on us, even its pleasures—it is noisy. It distracts us from the voice of the Lord. The noise of self-desire and passion seems to dull our hearing. The noise of the enemy attacking us, always telling us, “Of course you will never overcome. Look at you.”
All these noises of life tend to dull our ears to hear the Lord. But brothers and sisters, the Lord also said in every church, “Repent.” Repent of allowing all these noises to control your life and to dull your ears from hearing the voice of the Lord.
I have found that the dullness of hearing the Lord results in one great sin: the sin of unbelief. Because when we lose touch with Him and His voice, we lose faith. Without faith, you cannot live the Christian life. You cannot overcome.
We tend to get into the place, very subtly, where we find ourselves in this state of unbelief and kind of lulled into passivity. So may you, and may we all, ask the Lord that in these days He would give us hearing ears and that we would truly hear what He is saying to us in this matter of overcoming.
Well, I think the answer to our dullness of hearing is looking off unto Jesus: to look at Him, to concentrate your gaze upon the Lord, and to take time to do that. Because in all our busyness, we tend not to do that.
We know He is there. We know He loves us. We know that when we fall, He will forgive us. But we just go on, and somehow we do not hear Him.
May we repent of that today. May we say, “Lord, this is enough. It is time to get back to You, to gaze upon the face of our Lord Jesus.”
What will you see if you look off unto Jesus? I will tell you what you will see: you will see the Overcomer. You will see the One who has triumphed over sin, over self, over the world, and over the enemy.
He has triumphed over death itself, the greatest weapon of the enemy. Brothers and sisters, when you gaze upon the Overcomer, that becomes the secret of the overcoming life. You can overcome because Christ has overcome.
You can. I want you to know that. Go away from here this morning saying, “I can. I can overcome.” Why? Because Christ is the Overcomer.
You and I have shared this the last couple of times: you are in Christ. You are in that Overcomer. When you were born again, God put you in the Overcomer. God put you in Christ.
This is you. Let us say this is Christ. God did it. You did not have to do anything. You do not have to struggle to get into Christ. You do not have to earn the right to get into Christ. You are in Christ because of birth. You are born into Jesus Christ—in Him.
Look through the Scriptures, particularly the Epistles, and see how much they speak of being in Christ. Who studied Colossians this week? All right?
That is the opening salvo to the saints in Colossae: in Christ, in Colossae. He wanted us to know right away, up front. Oh, yes, they were in Colossae—that was their physical location—but their eternal location, where their real spiritual life was, was in Christ.
He opens with that salvo right away, so it is important. As we study Colossians, even as we go on from here, we must realize, brothers and sisters, the great thing that God has done. Not only has He purchased us and acquired us, but He has put us in Christ.
Now, that sounds mystical, but it is something God has done. Let us look at 1 Corinthians 1:30. I want you to see it with your eyes. They say you only retain three percent of what you hear, maybe, so let us look at it.
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
He is your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, and your redemption. You have got it all because you are put in Christ.
Brothers and sisters, it is the foundation of your Christian life. The Word of God says you are in Christ. When Christ died on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” You have been put there. It is done. It is complete. It is not something you attain to; it is something already done. You are in Christ.
Now here is the question: Do you believe that? Amen.
Well, the truth is, you can have a mental assent to it. You can agree with it because you know it is in the Word. But have you experienced that? Have you experienced the reality in that knowing way in your inner life that you are in Christ?
I am not talking about a miraculous experience. I am just talking about within you, within your spirit. Somehow you say, “Yeah, I am in Christ.” Brothers and sisters, because you are in Christ, all that is of Christ is yours.
That is why the Word of God says you have been crucified with Him and raised with Him. The reason is because God put you in Christ. When you accepted Christ, He put you in there. Because His work is eternal, time is not an issue.
So whatever our Lord Jesus experienced in that overcoming life and in overcoming at the cross, brothers and sisters, you died with Him and arose with Him in newness of life. You are a new creation.
We spend so much of our lives trying to reform this old creation when we have not yet discovered that we are a new creation in Christ—a whole new creation started from Calvary’s work, of which you are a part.
You were created through your mother and father from the lineage of Adam. But that old creation God has condemned and said is never, never capable of entering the kingdom of heaven. It is not capable of new life.
What He has done is put a brand-new creation in you. His very own life has come into you, and He has also given you the Holy Spirit, that that new life might grow in you and be manifested in you. You are a new creation.
That is what we need to be concerned about as far as our life is going on. Often we are so concerned about this old thing and trying to make it better, fix it up, patch it up, and get it going and doing what it is supposed to do. Eventually, it just will not do it, because it does not have the life to live the Christian life.
It is because you are in Christ. Do you believe it?
We will not look all these up, but in Colossians 2:10, it says you are complete in Christ. You are perfect in Christ. You are already what He is looking for in Christ. You are a part of the finished work of Christ. It has been done at Calvary.
God lives in the eternal realm. I have spoken of this before: with Him, everything is present. There is no past; there is no future. It is all present. So you are there before Him, complete in Christ. It is the realm of the I AM: “I AM there.”
But we have both realms available to us. We live in this temporal realm, and in the temporal realm we are becoming. Now, what are we becoming? Y’all tell me. Somebody tell me. What are we becoming?
We are becoming what we already are in Christ. That is what is happening now in this world, in this temporal life.
In 1 Peter 5:10, it says that the God of grace, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself perfect you. You are being perfected. He who has begun a good work in you will complete it.
But I say, “I am already complete.” Well, you are in Christ. You are already complete, but in this temporal realm, He has put that life in you, and that life will come into fullness and completion. A lot of His work now is to get rid of our dependence on this self-life in the flesh.
I am becoming what I already am in Christ. How is this transforming work done? It is done by faith—by believing. Do you really believe what God has done? It is in His Word that you are in Christ. Do you believe that? Do you believe you are complete in Christ?
What an amazing transformation in your spirit when you see that in Christ you are complete. Therefore, you can be completed now.
All of that, frankly, is beyond human reasoning, but that is the Word of God. His ways are higher than man’s. Man’s way is, “I keep working at it till I attain.” God’s way is that He has obtained it in Christ, and now He is going to bring you into the good of what He has obtained in His Son, Jesus Christ.
That is why this whole Book is Christ. That is why your whole life is Christ. That is why He is the center, the focus of all God’s doing and work, because everything is done in Him. All that God desires and pleases is in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the great Overcomer.
Now, this is the truth: you are in Christ. That is true. But truth will just remain truth in your life without faith. It is faith that takes that truth and allows you to experience what you already are in Christ.
Our problem is that we always want to look inside for the proof, do we not? I did it for forty or fifty years, always saying, “Okay, Lord, I think I have got it now.” Then I would look inside: “No, I ain’t got it yet. There must be something wrong.” Struggle, struggle, struggle.
Finally, the Lord said, “You are in Christ. I did it. You just have to believe it, Jerry. You are always looking in here. Look at My Son. Look in Him. See yourself in Christ, and then you will see the difference.”
It does take faith. Well, you might ask, “How do I attain this faith? Where does this faith come from?” Once again, we want to look inside and work that faith up and say, “I believe, I believe, I believe.” The more we say, “I believe,” the more we get discouraged, the more we disbelieve.
You cannot build up faith within yourself. It does come from God. You do not believe me? Galatians 2:20. This is Paul:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
“The life that I now live in this flesh, I live by my faith.” No, it does not say that. It says, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” It is His faith. His faith is in you.
It is not your faith, but Christ’s faith. You can become an overcomer because you are an overcomer in Christ. You can have faith because the faith of God is in you.
There is another great discovery that Christians make: Christ is in them. Therefore, you can have this faith that believes what you already are in Christ.
When you were born again, Christ came to dwell within your spirit and your life. The Holy Spirit came and dwelt there. The Holy Spirit’s work is to manifest Christ in your life, to bring that life out, and for that life to grow.
That is why you go through all your trials, difficulties, and experiences. Brothers and sisters, the people in this world who go through the most difficult experiences, I think, the deepest trials, are Christians, because God is working to get at their life.
If you do not believe me, read the life of Job. God went through all of that with Job, that in the end Job had those tremendous words:
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth Thee.
What a difference in Job’s life. Well, brothers and sisters, you can overcome because not only are you in Christ, but Christ is in you.
Now, all of this has been a call. The call goes out, and the call has to be received individually. The call goes out to all, but it must be received individually. Each individual must hear that call.
Now, in the first century, when the call first went out, what was the context of that call? Christ was standing and walking in the midst of what? He did not say, “In the midst of the Christians.” He said He was standing and walking in the midst of the church.
That is the context of this call to overcome. He is examining His church. Those local churches, frankly, represent the entire universal church, and He is looking. He is looking.
Where is that overcoming life? Where is that something that speaks to Me?
You know, that is why Adam got so excited, I am sure, when he saw Eve in the garden. The Lord brought him Eve. He had looked at every animal and named them. When he got the dog, he probably said, “Well, you know, that is pretty suitable for a pet,” but certainly not for a helpmeet.
Then the Lord put him to sleep, took something out of Adam, and brought precious Eve to him. Right away, his eyes lit up, and he said:
This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh.
He recognized that she was out from him. That is what the Lord is looking for in His church: something out from Him, out from Himself.
Well, she was found lacking—much lacking. There were many problems. Evil was in the church. Man’s ways were coming into the church. First love was lost.
Did the Lord abandon the church when He saw her in such poor condition? He did not abandon her.
He called, and He said, “Overcome. I am putting out the call to all members of the body of Christ, all the church: overcome, overcome.”
The call goes out to the individual, brothers and sisters. As I said in the beginning, are we hearing this call? But overcoming is not just for your sake, not just for your spiritual growth. Overcoming is for the sake of the church, for the body of Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, you are not only called as an individual to overcome, but you are called to be a part of the body of Jesus Christ: a living, organic member, not an official member.
You are born into the church. You do not become a member; you are born into it. It is organic. It automatically happens when you accept Christ. You are put into the body of Christ.
But what you experience individually, brothers and sisters, is for the entire body. When we are overcoming, it strengthens the body. When we overcome temptation, trials, tribulation, and all the various things in our everyday life, it strengthens His body. It strengthens all the members.
But when we are overcome, we actually weaken each other. We weaken the body. You are part of the body. Whatever God may bring into your experience is not meant just for you. It is meant to strengthen the body of Jesus Christ.
Your experience of Him is your testimony. When you experience Him in a real and living way, it not only strengthens you spiritually; it strengthens the entire body spiritually. We have a great effect on one another. Our personal lives, though unknown to most others, greatly affect the strength of the body of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, we are called individually, but God never intended to make a Christian a statue to put into a museum where everybody could admire how spiritual they are.
We all should want to be a spiritual brother or sister in Christ, but brothers and sisters, it is not just for you. God is not building a museum.
I can just see the museum where He says, “Ah, here, look. Here is Abraham, and here is Jacob. Here is Moses, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. Look at those brothers. Wow. Oh, yeah, here is Jerry over here. I put him in the closet.”
God is not doing that. He is not building a museum. It is a body. It is His body. It is not just for you. You share the life of Christ, and when you share in the life of Christ, all that life flows to the members. That is how united we are.
God is looking for a full manifestation of His Son. He wants the glory of His Son to be shown forth in this earth. No one individual is capable of that.
I remember Stephen Kaung, in his message, sharing how he had been with Brother Nee and traveled and worked, going around and getting people saved and baptized. He spoke of trying to get all the sisters to wear a head covering, and he ran and did that for years. Then all of a sudden, he said everything seemed to be futile.
Then he began to come into acquaintance with Brother Sparks. If you read Brother Sparks’ messages, you see that he had great insight into the heavenly nature and character of God. He said, “When I began to see the immensity of Christ, my whole life changed. It changed my life. It changed my ministry. It changed my vocation.”
Just a glimpse of the immensity of Christ. I am so thankful that at this point in history, in this fellowship, we have come to this book of Colossians, because that is exactly what Paul does. He shows us the immensity of Christ in the book of Colossians.
As you read it, as you study it, please be aware that God is trying to show you the immensity of Who He is in His Son, Jesus Christ.
If we just get a glimpse of the immensity of Christ, we begin to see why no one individual can ever represent the full fullness of Christ.
If you just get a glimpse of the immensity of Christ, you begin to see why God determined that His Son needed a body to manifest the fullness of what was in Christ the Head.
It was the desire of the Son. Let us look at Luke 12:50. Matthew, Mark, Luke—Luke 12:50. This is Christ speaking:
But I have a baptism to be baptized with;
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
How I am straitened until this baptism is accomplished. Why did He say such a thing? You know what the word straitened means? It means hindered, impeded, compressed, cramped.
Brothers and sisters, we have not gotten to it yet, but in Colossians 2:9 it says:
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
All the fullness of God was in that one little human body. It was a constraint on Him. How limited He was! He was limited in space, limited in time, limited in expression, and limited in being able to express the glory of God. It was a limiting body.
We get a glimpse of what was in that body on the Mount of Transfiguration, when all of a sudden He began to light up. All that light—that body was like a lampshade containing it, and it was beginning to come out.
Our Lord was so constrained. That human body He had while He walked this earth was, frankly, like a straitjacket, brothers and sisters.
His baptism He was talking about was Calvary. At Calvary, He knew He would be released.
It is very much like the caterpillar. If you could talk to a caterpillar—which I cannot—my little grandson loves caterpillars. He gets them all the time. “Papa, look at this caterpillar. Look at him, look at him.” He lets them crawl up and down his arms, so excited over caterpillars.
But the caterpillar has a life in him that is not being expressed when he first comes out. He is crawling on the ground, just inching along, so limited, almost unnoticeable—except to my grandson. He is walking around trying to get over a blade of grass.
But one day, he goes into a cocoon. He builds that cocoon, and he enters into a state similar to death. Then he comes out. He comes out in newness of life, and he is a butterfly.
The butterfly life was there all along. It is so beautiful, so unconstrained. He can fly anywhere—almost anywhere. He is free finally. But that was a picture to me of our Lord Jesus while He walked this earth.
Well, brothers and sisters, at Calvary the Lord put off His human body, and He took on the resurrected body. He was still able to be recognized. He still had wounds in His side. Remember, He asked the unbelieving—who was it? Thomas, doubting Tom, poor fellow. He was going to have that name.
But He said, “Put your hand here in My side and know that it is Me.” He had a resurrected body. Oh, brothers and sisters, so much of the limitation had come off.
But, you know, that is not the body God had designed to express the fullness of His Son. It was His heavenly body, and we will have one too.
But brothers and sisters, God, in all His wisdom and great desire, created man that out of man He could have a vessel through which He could express the fullness of His Son. He was still looking for that body of humanity which could express the fullness of His Son on this earth.
On the cross, brothers and sisters, He did redeem us. We are His purchased possession. But at Calvary’s cross, He did not yet have that body that He so desired. He had gained the materials for it, but He did not yet have it.
But there is more to Calvary than our Lord’s death on the cross. Now, I say that very carefully; I do not want to be misunderstood. What could be greater than what has come out of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ?
But something did happen that the Apostle John, who was the only apostle watching Him at Calvary, saw. When the soldier put the spear into the side of our Lord Jesus, John said that blood and water came out. John is so emphatic as you read the Scriptures: “I saw it. Blood and water came out.”
Brothers and sisters, that blood was our redemption, and the water was the life of the Lord Jesus Christ being poured out—poured out to all who would receive it, poured out to all who would receive His life, shed abroad to many.
But brothers and sisters, He still did not have the body He was looking for. He had many redeemed ones, purchased ones, but they were still individual Christians. A further work was needed.
Fifty days later, after Calvary had happened—let us see, Acts 2:36. This is Peter’s summation of what had just happened at Pentecost, with the pouring out, the tongues of fire, and the sound of a rushing mighty wind. He said:
Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly,
that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom ye crucified.
When our Lord Jesus went back to the throne—remember, after He left, He told them to wait and pray. They did for ten days, and then Pentecost happened. Our Lord Jesus had returned to the throne.
He was anointed by God as King of kings and Lord of lords. He was Son of God before He ever came, but now He was King of kings and Lord of lords over all creation because He had paid the price at Calvary’s cross. The anointing oil was poured. The Holy Spirit poured down on our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is referred to as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I think it has been greatly misused, but anyway, it was poured out. The Lord Jesus was anointed.
Peter recognized it. He said the Lord had been made King of kings and Lord of lords, and God had poured forth this that we might know assuredly that He is on the throne. He is Lord of lords and King of kings.
Now, our Lord Jesus was baptized with the Holy Spirit also when He was before John the Baptist, at His water baptism. The Holy Spirit came down and anointed Him. He anointed Him to do the work of redemption, to carry out the work of the cross.
But anointing occurs to establish the King on the throne, and the anointing flows down from the head of the King onto His body.
In Jerusalem, those one hundred twenty believers were brought into oneness—one body in Christ. Now the Head, the Lord Jesus, had His body.
How do we know this? In Ephesians 1:22-23, it says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
Not only is it His body, but His body has a function: the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The body is intended to be the fullness of Christ, carrying out and expressing the Head. This is Pentecost.
God gave us a hint and a preview of Pentecost. Let us look at Psalm 133.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious oil upon the head,
That ran down upon the beard,
Even Aaron’s beard;
That came down upon the skirt of his garments;
Like the dew of Hermon,
That cometh down upon the mountains of Zion:
For there the Lord commanded the blessing,
Even life for evermore.
It was poured out on the head of Aaron, and it ran down to the skirts of his garment. Brothers and sisters, when Aaron was anointed and that oil was so profuse that it ran down the skirts of his garment, the skirts of his garment represented the whole nation of Israel coming into oneness and unity because of the anointing that was on the head.
That is why we have unity. It is because of the anointing that is upon our Lord Jesus Christ, and it brings His body into oneness—one body.
The purpose of Pentecost was not the power and the gifts that we see. They are provisions. The gifts given out at Pentecost were provision, but the purpose was for the Head to have a body.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, it makes it very clear:
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.
By one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. The anointing oil poured out on our Lord Jesus at Pentecost flowed down to the skirts of His garment—to His body, to the church, to those one hundred twenty believers—and they became one in Christ. He had His body.
Let us read 1 Corinthians 12:12. I am sorry, that is what I want to read.
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.
If you really read that and think about it, when you get to the end—where it talks about the body being one, having many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body—you would think it would say, “So also is the church,” because it appears to be a description of the church.
But it does not say that. It says, “So also is Christ.” It is not really trying to give us a description of the church. It is giving us a description of Christ.
Christ is not just a Head. He is the entire body—Head and body. When you look at my body, you do not see the head separated. Maybe you do; I do not know. Sometimes I feel like I am headless, I will tell you that.
But anyway, when you see someone, or when you first met your lovely wife, you did not say, “What a lovely head coming my way.” You looked at the entire person. As you began to share with her and talk with her, you realized she was the kind of person you enjoyed, wanted to be with, and wanted to share your life with.
Because you began to know her. But you always think of her as a person, a whole being. That is what this Scripture is trying to say here. It does not discount the Head at all. It just says the Head has finally expanded and finally has the body He has so looked for.
As I start speaking, you hear my mouth. But is it just the words that you hear? You can hear things on tape, and that is good because the Holy Spirit can really speak to you; do not get me wrong.
But when you see a person speaking, you do not just hear what they are saying; you look at their whole body. In other words, there is what we call body language. Do not my eyes speak as much as my mouth when I am talking and sharing? Can you not tell almost as much by looking in my eyes? It really reflects what is inside. Indeed, our eyes are the way into our souls.
I even use hand gestures. I do not know what good they are, but I just have to do it. I cannot hold them still. Some people can hold onto both of them. Anyway, our whole body is important when we try to fellowship with one another and when we are trying to share particularly what is in here, in our hearts.
It takes the whole body. That is the point I am making: to really get the import of what is being shared.
Brothers and sisters, in this new body that our Lord has, as far as I can tell, there still remains one limitation: the self-life.
That is why so much is done by the Holy Spirit to get us to see that self-life and get us to lay it aside, to put it off, and to agree with God that it has no value. But He is working on it.
Let me say it this way. In the heavenly realm, in the eternal, God has His church in Christ. It is complete. It is without spot or wrinkle or blemish. He has it in Christ. When He looks at His Son, He sees the New Jerusalem.
But we live in the temporal realm, and we are becoming what we already are in Christ. In other words, the church on earth is becoming what it already is in Christ.
Do you see the immensity of Christ? Do you see how connected this matter of the church is to God’s purpose, God’s plan, and God’s heart?
Brothers and sisters, to us the New Jerusalem is future, but to God, He has got it. All He has to do is look at His Son, and He sees all the glory of it. But we are becoming. We are in the temporal. The church is living on earth in the temporal realm, and we are becoming.
So we are called to overcome as individuals, but the benefit is for the body of Christ. To express the immensity of Christ requires the entire body.
Let us look at Ephesians 4:1.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord,
beseech you to walk worthily of the calling
wherewith ye were called.
Brothers and sisters, is not our vocation to express the fullness of Christ? That is why we are in the church: to express the fullness of Christ. It requires a body to express His fullness, not just individuals.
Now look at the previous verse, Ephesians 3:21:
Unto Him be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus. Glory in the church—that is our vocation. That is how connected we are, brothers and sisters. We love the Lord, and we are connected to our Head, but we are connected in the body. When it speaks of the body, it says, “So also is Christ.”
We are called individually, but we are called to be a joint in the body of Christ.
When we accept our Lord Jesus Christ, we do come into that universal church. It is automatic. The baptism has been done. Now, I will say this so I do not confuse anybody: one baptism, many fillings. Someday you might look into that. Many fillings are in the temporal realm.
In the eternal realm, we have this universal church—brothers and sisters in China, India, South America, and all over—that we have no fellowship with or contact with. But we are joined in one with them. What affects us affects them. When we are strengthened, they are strengthened. When they are weakened, we are weakened. There is no doubt about it. There is a universal connection.
But in order for the fullness to be manifested, brothers and sisters, there has to be the local assembly. There has to be, on earth, because we are becoming. We are yet to obtain, but we are becoming what we are in Christ in the heavenlies. Therefore, we need one another. There is the local assembly.
In Ephesians 4:13, it says:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a fullgrown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Wow, that is our calling: unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Are you a part of that? Are you a part of that? Brothers and sisters, that is the goal. That is where we are headed.
So, how do we become that perfect man? Ephesians 4:15-16:
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.
How is it done? Brothers and sisters, by every joint supplying, making increase within itself. The body increases within itself.
Now, the Lord has made provision for this growth. I kind of look at it in two ways. One is more the outward provision, and the other is more the inward provision.
The outward provision is the gifts and talents that each one of us has. The Lord has admonished us: you have a gift, and you are responsible to use it. But brothers and sisters, these gifts are to be administered in the power of the Holy Spirit, under the direction of the Lord, and in the life of the Lord Jesus.
You cannot just go out wielding these instruments that the Lord has given us, because they are precious and they have to be used by those who are spiritual. In the beginning, we may not be too spiritual, but we have the gift. As we increase in the life of Christ, the gift becomes more and more usable in the hands of God.
Then we have these outward provisions. In Ephesians 4:11-12, it talks about apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and shepherds. They are given to us to help us to become real joints of supply. They help us, show us Christ and His Word, and encourage us. They give us a meal if we need it. These are the kinds of provisions in Christ—hospitality.
We have not only gifts of apostles and pastors; it says each member has a gift. It goes on to speak of gifts of governments, administration, faith, healing, helps, and hospitality. These are kind of the outside forces working on administering life to the joints—to the joints of supply.
I thought about this because Sister Saunders, Kenny’s dear sister, just had one hip replaced and a knee worked on. Boy, these joints sure can get into bad condition, cannot they?
We have some joints that are young, some that are weak, some that are injured, some that are arthritic, some that are painful, some that are nonfunctioning, and even paralyzed.
That is what these gifts are for: to help encourage these ones and help restore them. I kind of think of it—this is pretty simplistic—but it is like they are the BenGay. You know, if you have ever had arthritis or a lot of muscle pain, my mom used to cover me with BenGay. She would put a T-shirt on me, put BenGay all over me, and, you know, it would work. So that is what these are.
But in Ephesians 4:16 it says every joint supplies. Brothers and sisters, we do need to be strengthened. God uses these gifts to strengthen us and help us. But what He wants us to do is become a joint of supply. That is His purpose.
His whole body—it talks about effectual working. What is this effectual working? It is gaining Christ in your personal life. It is experiencing Christ through your issues, your trials, and your tribulations. It is overcoming in all these things.
When you do, it supplies life to the whole body. Brothers and sisters, that is the way the body is built from the inside. It is through the working of Calvary in your life: getting rid of that old self and bringing out the life of Christ—that overcoming life.
It flows. It supplies life. It is resurrection life. Whatever can go through death and come out is resurrection. We have done that at times in our lives. It is the overcoming life, and this life grows and causes growth to the entire body.
Let us read 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, and I will try to wrap it up.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves;
we are pressed on every side, yet not straitened;
perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken;
smitten down, yet not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,
that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed—you ever been that way?—but not in despair. We are persecuted, but not forsaken. We are cast down, but not destroyed. This is the overcoming life, brothers and sisters.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ—that death working in you—that the life also of Christ might be made manifest in our body. We who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
Here is the closing salvo: death works in us, but life in you. Death working in the joints creates life that flows through the whole body. That is the principle of body life.
Kenny shared a couple of Wednesday nights ago—or maybe it was last Wednesday—Philippians 3:10: “That I may know Him.” Is that not what this is all about? That we might know Him as the body of Christ, that we might know His fullness?
And it goes on to say what?
That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
becoming conformed unto His death.
You will never know Him without that resurrected life and the fellowship of His sufferings. Now, these are not sufferings for our sins that we have committed, but sufferings for the sake of the body, for the sake of Christ—things that we just have to say no to ourselves and yes to the Lord, not just for our sake, but for the Lord’s sake, for the body’s sake.
Being made conformable to His death, taking up the cross, following Him daily. Overcomers supply life to the body.
We are called as individuals, but we are also called as joints of supply in the body of Jesus Christ. Overcoming is critical to God’s plan, and overcoming is something that is possible because you are in Christ and Christ is in you.
Brothers and sisters, we feed the universal body, but for us to become what we already are in Christ, we need the experience of the local assembly, where the Lord’s body is manifested on this earth. The Lord, it says, gave His life for the church.
Lord, we come to You this morning. What an immense Christ we have—so immense, Lord, that even while You were on earth, You had no full means of expression. But now You do, Lord.
Lord, may we become that true body of Jesus Christ. Lord, we want to see something of Your immensity, and we want to be able to express it. Now, Lord, have Your way in all of our hearts. Lord, give us ears to hear in this day. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.