Lord, we thank You for being with us this morning. We thank You for Your presence, and we also thank You for being in us: Christ in us, the hope of glory. Lord, we are thankful that You are everything, that You have come to live within us. That is such a great, great mystery, and we thank You for it.
Do have Your way in us today, and just give us something of Yourself as we look at Your Word. In Jesus’ name.
Well, if there was a title to what I want to share this morning, it is “The Life of Christ Expressed in His Church.” The life of Christ expressed as His church—the life of Christ expressed in us.
As you leave today, there is a little handout over on the nine-drawer—it’s a Chippendale chest of drawers, so if anybody wants to make clear, I know the guy that made it. There is a little tract by T. Austin-Sparks, Christ Our Life. And no fair getting it now, because you cannot get the answers ahead of time, Dennis. I saw you looking over there.
But, Christ Our Life. It is a little tract that many of us have seen, a little goldenrod tract, about the color of Bill’s sleeves on his shirt. So I found it online, anyway.
Recently, we have been recipients of the Lord’s burden through four messages given to us by Brother Kong—the Lord speaking a word delivered through our brother. I have been reflecting on those messages, thinking about what the Lord is saying to us and what He wants to recover. I believe the Lord has given me just a little something that I want to share this morning.
I have no intention of expanding, developing, or piling on what Brother Kong has shared. But I feel like, maybe on the basis of those messages, I want to share a testimony of what the Lord has spoken to me.
I guess the best place to begin is to consider some of the things he said in these messages. It will show the thread that spoke to me out of them. Bear with me as we go over them.
The first message was called “The Charge.” These are basically quotes from Brother Kong’s messages:
We received God’s charge about forty years ago to bear the testimony of Jesus.
What He has built is an expression of what He is, and it is the charge.
However, because of two outright assaults on us, we became a mixed multitude with no unifying vision.
Message two was “Vision.” Even though these messages had different titles and were broken into pieces, I think there was a real burden and a theme that ran through them.
God has given us His vision, not many visions.
We need to regain that unifying vision.
Ephesians 1:9-10 speaks about summing up all things in Christ. Without vision, the people cast off restraint. Summing up all things in Christ—that in all things, He might have preeminence.
God’s purpose is to have His Son expressed through His Body, the church. How much is Christ our life? Vision is costly; it will cost us our very life.
The third message was titled “The Testimony of Jesus.”
The testimony of Jesus is entrusted to the church.
The church is the vessel of that testimony.
That is to say, the church is to contain Christ.
Everything about the church is Christ Himself.
Christ is to be so incorporated into the life of God’s people that everything speaks of Christ.
Message four was “Overcoming.” Humanly speaking, this all looks impossible, but with God nothing is impossible. He who promised it, He will fulfill it.
When the mass seems to have failed, God will raise up a few individuals—people who are faithful to the Lord and maintain the testimony of Jesus in their time.
They overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their life unto death.
Now, those are some of the things that I continue to think about from those messages. What is our reaction? What is my reaction? What is your reaction?
When we consider the immensity of our call—how big this thing is—we could really be undone. I am so thankful that even though it is not humanly possible, with God all things are possible.
Jerry said in a message lately, “But God.” So, when we think of the impossibility, we are thankful that it does not depend on us; it depends on God.
Faithful is He who calleth you, who also will do it.
—1 Thessalonians 5:24
And right after that, it says:
Brethren, pray for us.
—1 Thessalonians 5:25
God is faithful. Might we be willing to pray and allow Him to make us faithful to what He has called us to.
God’s purpose is to have His Son expressed through His Body, the church. How much is Christ our life?
As I reflected on these things, I have to say that from the time I was saved, sharing Christ’s life has really been important to me. I have testified to that before—just sharing the life of Christ with one another. I think that is what God is calling us to: the life of Christ expressed through His people.
This expression is first and foremost an inward habitation of God in the spirit in us. That inward work then results in fruit and outward expression. We need to be careful that we do not mix them up and go stick apples on the tree, because that is death.
The Lord is after our hearts turning to Him. If we see and appropriate His immensity, things will be recovered: the life of Christ expressed in His church.
You know, the books in the New Testament—if you often think about it—a lot of the books, particularly the epistles, were written to address situations. Unfortunately, they were written to address problems: declension and decline. But God was faithful not to let things go; He spoke to them.
I want to look today at three different places where the Lord spoke to His church that was in need of recovery—recovery from decline. I want to look at Paul’s method in Colossians, something the Lord Jesus Himself said in Revelation, and then some things that the apostle John brings out in the Gospel of John.
I personally am very encouraged by what we have already done with Colossians. We started on Friday night, and because we have been reading it and thinking about it, you hear verses from Colossians shared many times when we are together—praying, worshiping, and opening. So I feel like the Lord really has something for us as a company, to speak to us together about Colossians.
When Paul wrote Colossians, he was addressing them because of outright error—maybe more than decline. It was a palpable error. We know that the error was characterized by two things: Gnosticism and ceremonial formalism.
Gnosticism was a Greek word for special knowledge. Ceremonial formalism was religious form and self-centered trying to please the Lord. So it was really off.
But how did Paul address it? What is the temptation when we see something that is really wrong? We want to get into it: “Herb, you are off. You need to do so-and-so. Bill, you need to do so-and-so. This is the issue.”
Paul never said that. What did he do? A brother shared on Friday night: he painted a picture of Christ. Paul painted a picture of Christ. That was his fundamental answer to error.
Gaining Christ—a full apprehension of Christ—is the antidote to any error.
As we have been considering the book, I want to read two verses that have stood out. The first is Colossians 1:27:
To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ in you. Praise God, Christ is in us, brothers and sisters. That is God’s mystery revealed to us. Christ has been revealed to us.
The Lord is after fulfilling His charge—to have His Son expressed in us. He can do that because Christ, the Spirit of the living God in Jesus Christ, is our life and has come to live in our spirits.
Colossians 3:4:
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
After Paul develops the first two chapters, he starts chapter three by again calling our attention to the living God in Christ. He says, “When Christ, who is our life.” Christ is our life.
Our challenge is: how much have we died to ourselves and appropriated His life within us? It is His life that builds the church—His life.
The second thing we were going to look at was what was said in the Book of Revelation. The Lord Jesus walked among the seven churches. He pointed out issues in each assembly.
But if we focus on the issues and concentrate on the issues, I am sure of one thing. I am sixty-five; I have been doing this for forty years. Do not get discouraged, but the issues will never end. There is always going to be something.
This testimony of Jesus is way too valuable for the enemy to leave alone. There is always going to be an issue. If we focus on issues, they will never end.
But I believe that in light of the issues, in light of our weakness, we turn to the Lord and earnestly seek Him. If we come to the end of ourselves, give up, and present our bodies for His service, the overflow of His life will ultimately displace the issues.
We do not ignore them, but the answer is Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
After all these issues, the last verse in addressing the churches is Revelation 3:20:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
The answer in Revelation was not, “Dismantle the thing.” Open the door. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” I believe the Lord wants each of us to open the door and turn into communion with Him.
If we do not find Him as our life, and His life as the answer, we will die on the road; we will wear out. How much is Christ our life?
In these letters to the Colossians and in Revelation, we see that the answer to error and declension is a fuller and clearer apprehension of Christ. To see the immensity of Christ is the answer to everything.
We are so tempted to get into situations and problems and try to fix them and work them out. I personally do not believe that is God’s way. We do not ignore the problems, but we do not try to get into them and fix them. We lay hold of Christ in a new way.
We turn to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
If you allow me, when we started, many of us were younger. Jerry and Kenny were a lot younger—not as much younger as I am younger. But, you know, in a way we had a youthful enthusiasm because some of us were just saved.
We knew Christ is our life. We were excited. Sometimes that is tested—sorely tested. Do not listen to it. Christ is still our life. It is still exciting.
Jesus Christ risen from the dead—hallelujah! That is still our life. Do not give up. Do not throw in the towel.
I think there is an issue in which the Lord could grant us grace to turn and repent. It might be this: Christ is our life, but how well do we know Him? I believe that is an issue for me.
I believe it was an issue for Paul. In Philippians 3, Paul said he had given it all up that he might gain Christ—“that I might gain Christ.”
What we go through in the dealings is meant to bring us to the end of ourselves. If we only look at the emptiness of the end of ourselves, it is awful. But we look to Christ: “That I might gain Christ.”
I do not want to get him upset, but Kenny may have a burden on something like that in some weeks ahead out of Philippians 3. I am sort of putting him on the spot.
The next thing I want to look at is the Gospel of John. I believe the Gospel of John is another book addressed to the recovery of God’s purpose in His people.
John was written at the end of the first century, and Revelation was written at the end of the first century. I tried to figure out which one was written first—blah, blah, blah. I do not have a very good library. I found all kinds of different opinions.
But I think it is pretty consistent that John wrote both of them, and that he wrote them at the end of the first century. If that is true, what were the conditions? What was the environment he was facing?
No matter which one he wrote first, or where or when, I believe the conditions he was facing are found in Revelation 2 and 3. It was a time of declension in the churches.
We understand that John was a mender of nets. He always had a burden for restoration. I just want to put forth something here: I wonder if the word he expressed in the Gospel of John is not an answer to the conditions the Lord pointed out in Revelation.
That is a little different than what we hear sometimes. When I was first saved, they gave us the Gospel of John. “You need to get your Bibles, read your Bibles, but if you do nothing else, read this book.”
That book is certainly written to unbelievers and new believers. But it is also a book, I believe, written to those who have been going on for some years and have been saved. The Lord uses it to call us back to that walk.
I want to read something that Brother Sparks says. This is one of the few places I have heard this, and it expresses something that I have felt over the years.
The Lord is seeking to get His own people the knowledge of Who He is and what He is. And He is bringing into fellowship with Him, into union with Him, a company who know Him in that sense.
The effort of John is in that direction: to get a company who know Him, to be the continuous instrument, vessel of a manifestation of Who the Lord Jesus is. John is not dealing specifically with sinners. He is dealing in principle with religious people.
Sparks uses big words sometimes—fancy construction. So, I feel John is not dealing specifically with sinners. He is dealing in principle with religious people.
You have not got repentance in John. The word does not occur. You have not got that realm at all. This is all in keeping with the thought: this Gospel is to bring the church into a place of union with the Lord in order to be for Him the instrument of His manifestation.
And he says in Revelation, the testimony of Jesus is John’s theme. What is the testimony of Jesus? What does John say the testimony of Jesus is? Jesus Himself. He is the testimony.
I am convinced that God’s answer to all of our personal and corporate lack and weakness is a fuller apprehension, in each one of us, of the immense Christ. Brother Kong talked about the immense Christ. Might we gain Christ?
If this is the theme—Christ our life, being the testimony—let us look at the Gospel of John. I have four things I want to look at:
As we start with number one, seeing that we have that life, let us look at a familiar passage. I know this is a passage I have shared before, but I feel like we need to go back to it: John 20:30-31.
Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
but these have been written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
John, the apostle John, knowing the condition of the situations around him at the end of his life, at the end of the first century, likely said, “I want to tell you these things so that you might believe, and believing you may have life in His name.”
That is really a two-step deal: believe and have life. It is also two steps because it is believing, but this having life is a continual having life, not just a one-time thing.
What is the life? What kind of life? What is the word for life that John uses? It is zoe—life referring to the principle of life in the spirit and soul, distinguished from bios, physical life or livelihood.
Zoe is the nobler word, expressing all of the highest and best which Christ is and which He gives to the saints: the highest blessedness of the creature, spirit life, life as Christ has and what Christ is.
That is the life John wants us to get hold of, but he also wants us to have life. “Having life” is present subjunctive—a continual or repeated action: having life. It is John’s burden that this be a way of life for us, to presently possess His life and live from it.
John 10:10 states the Lord’s purpose in coming:
The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy:
I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
The verb tense here is the same story as in John’s passage: zoe life, the present, continuous experience of the saints.
John says in another verse—I do not have it down, but I think it is John 7—“Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” That is what God is after: the life of Christ, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, poured out in us. God have mercy. Might He find expression.
John 3:3 and 6:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Truly, truly, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
God is after Himself expressed in spirit. No sticking apples on trees. He is after the expression of Himself.
We need to remember that we are born again. Do you remember that? Do we know we are born again? Young people—are there any young people left? Do you know you are born again? More than getting saved, you got born again. God is after finding Himself in you.
He said:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Upon this rock I will build My church.
The Lord builds His church out of the Christ life in us.
That was number one: we need to know that we have that life. Number two: we need to feed and nourish that life. This immense life of Christ is our possession, and it is God’s purpose that it come to fullness and maturity in each one of us.
Let us read another passage, John 6:53 and onward. This is one of those passages where He was preaching to the masses. I think it is so interesting: He preaches to the masses, but He is also speaking to the disciples at the same time. They are standing there watching this, and the verb tenses mean a lot.
Jesus therefore said unto them, Truly, truly, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves.
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me.
This is the bread which came down out of heaven: not as the fathers ate, and died; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever.
Come to know the Lord, but also live our lives by feeding on Him. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” This is the ongoing, experiential knowledge of feeding on Christ.
Some of the other verses speak of coming initially to Him, and this one says, “Feed on Me.”
Some of the people following Him got totally offended by this and were gone. But the few stayed. We have stayed, right? We are here. We have stayed. Are we feeding on Christ?
He has called those who stayed to feed on Him. We need to feed on Christ, to be strengthened in the inner man, to be filled up with His life in the spirit.
Brother Kong had a series of messages entitled Spiritual Exercise a couple years ago. It is so important to exercise our spirits and to be strengthened in the Lord.
Remember when David was in severe trial? He did not start flailing in the battle. He strengthened himself in the Lord. When it is too much, when it is overwhelming, David strengthened himself in the Lord by feeding on the Lord.
Let us look at John 4:10. Physical food and drink:
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.
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.
I always think of that as an artesian well. Who knows what an artesian well is? Somebody want to tell me?
You do not have to pump the water out of it. David said it flows. A lot of wells—you have to drop a pump down in there, and there is just a pool of water. You have to work and pump it out.
An artesian well overflows. You hit that thing, and there is so much fullness and so much pressure down in the ground that the water flows.
Very deep. I do not know that about it, but thank you. It is under pressure. We have another message going on here. The water is under pressure, and it is very deep.
Rivers of living water.
The next thing we wanted to talk about was abiding—the third point out of John. John 15, right? You knew where “abide” was, right? Everybody knows abiding is John 15.
A book written to unbelievers? My goodness, this is written to believers. John 15:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches:
He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit:
for apart from Me ye can do nothing.
The expression that the Lord is looking for among His people in the church is vine life. It is vine life.
Fruit is the end, but fruit is not what we focus on. We focus on the vine life. If we abide and rest in Jesus Christ, give up, and allow Him to be our life—if we take Him as our life—it is going to find expression and bear fruit.
If we try to make fruit, I do not know what we are going to make. You ever try to make an apple? I mean, you cannot make an apple. An apple is borne out.
This word “abide”—I have always loved Wuest’s translation:
Maintain a living communion with Me, and I with you.
Maintain a living communion with Me, and I with you. Fruit is an expression of the immense life of Christ.
That life is meant to issue in an overflow and an expression of Christ in His church.
The last thing we wanted to talk about in the Gospel of John was the battle for this life.
I think it is very, very good that we know and understand there is a battle for this life. If we do not understand there is a battle for it, we will be tempted to go under. We will give in and listen to all the lies of the enemy.
He started very early in our Bibles. The enemy said, “Hath God said?” Oh my goodness. If God said it, yes, He said it. Anyway, there is much, much, and it is subtle.
I believe that the enemy wields a lot of what we go through as resistance and outright onslaught against this testimony of Jesus in our midst. Brother Kong mentioned that over the years there have been two assaults on the testimony.
As we reflect, when you are in the middle of it, sometimes you really cannot see it. It is such a mess and so deceptive. Looking back, we feel like the enemy has really tried to destroy the testimony. So we need to be aware.
I do not think we need to look for demons on doorknobs, but we certainly need not be naive about what is going on.
We know from the very beginning of our Bible that the enemy did not want man to live by the tree of life. He wanted him to live by the knowledge of good and evil—the best good, the best knowledge of good and evil—not the Christ life. It puffs up man.
Basically, what the enemy was after, and is still after today, is that he does not want us to gain Christ.
He does not want us to gain Christ. Whatever it is—our temperament, what keeps us busy and ignoring the Lord, jobs that eat us alive, our personalities and how we get depressed—all these natural things lead to us not gaining Christ.
So, do not look for demons on doorknobs, but do not be naive about how you are spending your days and what is happening. The enemy is out to destroy us, the Lord’s testimony, and His testimony in us.
Not only are there external issues and an external battle for this life, but, again, as I have been around a few miles, I think the internal battle is every bit as great as the external battle.
I think there is a huge battle internally. The natural life is a real hindrance to Christ finding His full expression in each one of us—an expression that leads to His expression in the assembly.
Now, this is another little different take. Let us look at John 11, verse 25. A very familiar passage, a great section:
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:
he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.
Believest thou this?
“I am the resurrection and the life.” Do we believe it?
Let us look for a minute at the context of this verse. We know this was in Bethany. This was a place where the Lord went to rest. I think it might have been His favorite place.
He had been ministering, and He always found rest in Bethany. It was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. I think, humanly speaking, maybe these were the ones He was closest to—Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
But I just wonder, because they were so close—give me some license—did He have a particular word for them, His closest friends? That word was, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
But what extreme, extreme measures He had to go to to make that point. He had to allow Lazarus to go through death to make this picture and this point.
He got word, and then He stayed away a couple more days. When He came, they said, “Where have You been? Lazarus has been in the grave for four days. It is hopeless. Jesus, what happened? We are so upset.”
You know what He said in verse 14?
Lazarus is dead.
Lazarus is dead. Humanly speaking, how awful. But I believe He used that for a purpose, because in the face of his death, his resurrection was all the more spectacular and meaningful.
I wonder if the Lord was not trying to show that in our natural life there is no hope. We have no hope if we are trying to be the testimony of Jesus, if we are trying to be good believers, if we are trying to just make it through in our natural strength.
I believe His staying away from those closest to Him was purposeful. But what a great thing: when the natural life is gone, is done away with, the way is open for an expression of the Christ life in us.
Taking up the cross, denying ourselves, and reckoning ourselves dead is a real important thing. This message of the cross—the co-death with Christ—is so unpopular.
I do not know if you know, but there have been people who said, “That is such a mean-spirited gospel. Why do you guys say that?” It is the gospel. It is a great thing. Being delivered from ourselves is a great thing.
God have mercy. Deliver me from myself.
When we come to the end of ourselves and our self-life, Christ’s life is all we have. Hallelujah.
In the Book of Romans, Paul had something to say about this. Romans 7:24. We know that Paul himself came to the end of himself. He struggled all through there: “The things I want to do that are good, I cannot do. I am just having a terrible time. What is wrong?”
Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
Wretched man that I am. Have we come to that point yet—to realize that we are the problem? Paul came to that point. He said, “Wretched man that I am.”
Brother Tozer said we need to come to the death—our own co-death with Christ. Go to the point of the cross and deny ourselves. We do not spend our life there, but we have got to come to that self, reckon ourselves dead, and come to the end of ourselves.
This has been misused—grossly misused, terribly misused. But then Romans 8:2 says:
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. Praise God. Praise the Lord.
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.
—Galatians 2:20
“Wretched man that I am, You have set me free from the body of this death.” I thought I was in real trouble. But the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free.
Reckon ourselves dead, but alive to God in Christ. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the resurrection and the life.
Our challenge is this: are we willing to take up the cross, deny ourselves, and reckon ourselves dead so that He might find expression in us and through us? This might be the biggest detriment to the expression of the testimony of Jesus.
These are just some of the things the Lord has said to me, things He has been speaking to me about for my whole life—bringing us back to memory, bringing us back in principle to who we are and what we are about.
Let us summarize. We have been challenged recently by our brother to consider where we are as an assembly in the charge given to us to bear the testimony of Jesus. We have been found lacking.
Our lack does not negate God’s purpose.
Will we serve the purpose of God in our generation in light of trouble and trials? Our lack does not negate God’s purpose.
I will build My church.
Faithful is He that calleth us, Who also will do it.
God’s purpose is to have His Son expressed through His Body, the church. This expression is based on Christ in you.
God is after maturity and a full expression of that life in His people. This is fundamentally an inward work in us that overflows into an outward expression and bears fruit.
Are we willing to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Him? Are we willing to present ourselves as a living sacrifice for the Lord to gain His expression in us?
Back to the Book of John for one last verse. When we were first saved, we were in Campus Crusade. Campus Crusade had a real strong emphasis on sharing the gospel; they were an outreach. As soon as somebody got saved, you were supposed to go and give your testimony.
If we talk about being nervous, go give your testimony. I want to tell you what my verse was a hundred years ago, whenever that was: John 14:6.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
When we consider the challenges before us, that is the same testimony. His testimony is the same: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Jesus Christ is the way. He is the truth, and He is our life. Might He find His will among us, and find an expression of His very Self, His very character, in us and through us in this evil day.
Let us pray. Lord, we thank You for not letting us go, for not letting us dissipate and disappear in a sea of dissipation. We thank You for calling us back to Yourself.
We want to respond to You and say, “Have Your way. Find expression. Do what it takes in us to find Your resurrection life, find it all-sufficient, and would You find that expression in a people?”
Deliver us from ourselves. Deliver us from the enemy. Fill us afresh with resurrection life unto overflowing. In Jesus’ name.