Build Thou the Walls of Jerusalem 1975

I'd like to read two brief passages from the New Testament, Ephesians 4, 15 and 16. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth, and abilds itself in love. And the other part I'd like to read that is related in a way that I want to share, from Psalm 51.

We were in 51 last week, and now we're at the end of 51, and one passage that we sing together every Sunday as the offering is brought forward. The sacrifices of God on a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion.

Build thou the wall of Jerusalem. Now, I believe that we are all in agreement, pretty much, at least on this, that the redemptive work which is to be accomplished on the earth at this hour is not going to be done by Christian celebrities, you know, dynamic individuals, one man shows, but that it will rather be accomplished by what is commonly called these days a body ministry. Brothers and sisters who have come to fit in with each other, just as the organs of our bodies fit in, you know, and work in harmony.

Where you have a gathering of saints who are truly growing up together under the headship of Christ, and not some other man, and are truly submitting to each other in the spirit of God, serving each other, and bound together in cords of love, and each esteeming the other better than himself or herself, there you have always the miraculous. And the miraculous from their midst will spill out and touch and bless the world around them. If the city of Detroit is to hear the clear gospel of God in such a way that that gospel is confirmed with science following, and in such a way that the people of the city and its suburbs will then have no excuse, never be able again to say, oh, but all I hear is a distorted gospel.

People who are trying to build their own little kingdoms. If they're going to hear the real gospel, clearly what is needed is not a series of meetings at Cobo Hall. And before I say it, understand me, I am not knocking these men, but what is not, what is needed is not a series of meetings with Billy Graham and Cobo Hall or Pat Boone or Bill Gossard, or you can name no reflection against these men, but that's not what the city needs.

What this city needs, and it's not the only one on earth that needs it, is the emergence of a few gatherings of believers who are in fact learning to function in harmony and are in fact fitting in with each other under the direction of the spirit of God and are in fact growing up into the nature of their head who is Christ. Most of us are very much aware of the need for this fellowship and no doubt for the other fellowships that are represented here this morning. To become a strong, Christ-like, freely functioning, self-giving, love-driven, merciful, forgiving, God-glorifying, ever-worshipping manifestation of the body of Christ.

We know that that's what we need to be. But the question is, how do we get there? How do we become the church that the spirit describes through the writings of Paul in 12 Romans or 1 Corinthians 12 or Ephesians 4 and 5? How does this come about? And this question is being asked everywhere on earth at this hour because all the believers who have any sense of God at all know that apart from that kind of body ministry going for, you know, we're not going to be able to do the job. What we have, you know, is salt without savor.

Now, two roads open before us as we seek to arrive at a valid, you know, a genuine body ministry. And it's most important for us to distinguish carefully between these two roads because one of these roads, which is growing in popularity by the minute and appears to be very successful, is false. I'm speaking of what I consider, what I call, the way of the cult in which we get some idea in our minds of what a body ministry ought to be.

And then, while we use all the spiritual jargon and also go through the motions of prayer, we are in fact trying to bring this about by means of our own flesh, to make it happen by our own ingenuity. Now, there are some extremely successful, numerically at least, very efficient manifestations of an apparent body ministry going on all over the place. But if you have a good look at this, you will find, I believe, what's taking place underneath the surface is just the operation of a modern cult.

And the proof of this will be where you're looking at a body or a community that's tight-knit, I believe, where you find not unity but uniformity, where everybody uses the same language, same facial expressions, same hand motions, same concepts, same ideas, same vocabulary. And if you don't fit in with the pattern, then you just have to be left out. You don't conform.

Notice, we're not talking about conforming to the mind of Christ now. We're talking conforming to a pattern which we set up. You don't conform, out you go, or we'll forget about you.

You're ignored. And so you end up then with a personality type, and everybody in that bunch is pretty much the same. And if you're not of that bent, you don't get in or you don't stay in.

And while it seems to be really something very impressive, watch what happens to it as the years go on, and watch how it relates to the community around it, the people in real need. See what it does with the poor and the maimed and the halted and the blind, if it does anything beyond using them for its own ends. The other road toward a body ministry is what we could call the way of the Spirit, which begins with the acknowledgement that we can no more make ourselves fit together into a body and function harmoniously than we can make our stomach, heart, lungs, and liver become a body.

That this is something which must be done by God. In Alfred's picture, we hear this. On this rock will I build my church.

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain in that building. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem, holding fast to the head, says Paul in Colossians 2. From whom the whole body, nourished and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. It's presumptuous of us to think that we could take a group, for instance, as diverse as we have here right now, and form it into something harmonious.

This is impossible. Only the God who brought us together this far is able to make us one and function together as a really living, working body. And he will do that if we will let him.

And to let God form us into such a body, I'm convinced that there is only one thing that we can offer to God. And there's only one thing which he requires that we offer to him. And if we will offer him this, he'll take care of the rest.

The one thing that we have to bring to God is going to form us into a living, functioning, unified body is a broken spirit. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, that will not despise. Do good and thy good pleasure unto Zion.

Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. God will for sure build us together and make us one and show us what we need to know if we will give to him the sacrifice of a broken spirit. If you as individuals, if you as an individual, see, will give to God the sacrifice of a broken spirit, God will fit you in exactly where he wants you.

And he will give you exactly the gift you need. And he will teach you what you need to know. On the other hand, if you refuse to give to God a broken spirit, then though you distribute all you have to feed the poor and though you give your body to be burned, it profits you nothing and it profits the body nothing.

A broken spirit, same thing that our Lord talks about when he opens the Sermon on the Mount with, blessed are the poor in spirit. When God has that in his hand, he can build the walls of Jerusalem with it. But that he must have.

What does it mean to be poor in spirit? That expression has so many connotations. It's important for us, maybe first of all, to say what it doesn't mean. For instance, to be poor in spirit does not mean to be depressed.

One who is poor in spirit is not necessarily one who is depressed. Many of us are depressed, but we're anything but poor in spirit. In fact, if we were poor in spirit, we probably wouldn't be depressed.

Depression, except for physical causes, which may come from our glands, is almost always the sign of a hurt, disappointed, angry, self-pitying ego. And if you take that depressed spirit and start scraping off the first five layers, underneath you will find a raging volcano of anger. And until that anger is drained off into the cross, the depression will be there.

We don't want to live anymore. Can't face another day. I'm not up to making any decisions.

I don't want to talk to people. Oh, life is so hard. And it will go on like this until my spirit is broken.

A broken spirit is not a gullible spirit. A lot of us are gullible, but we're not broken. You know, we swallow every tall tale and every ridiculous exaggeration that we read in some Christian magazine.

And we submit to every spiritual authority that throws out his chest. And we think this means that we're childlike and humble. But all we are is gullible.

The Corinthians and the Galatians were gullible, but they were not broken. And if they had been broken, they would not have been pushed around by those legalists who crept in and started coming down on them with all these rules and regulations. A broken spirit is not a stagnant spirit.

And many of us equate the two. We think because we're stagnant, that must mean we're broken. We sit down at the bottom of our favorite little spiritual rock and slide and take great pride in the fact that we're not ambitious like those worldly people.

And we're not aggressive like those go-getters over there. And that may all be so, but neither are we broken. And because we're sliding along and we're not applying our minds, we haven't learned a new thing from God in two years.

We read all kinds of books. The only things that we take in are those things that fit in with our already formed arguments, our own opinions. And that will be the way it will go until we're broken.

Well, then what is a broken spirit? What is this thing which God is looking for as he desires to get us and build us into the walls of Jerusalem? The living body of Christ. Number one, a broken spirit is a spirit which has crumbled down from the heights of pride to the lowly way of humility. A broken spirit is a spirit which has broken down from pride to humility, to mercy.

The way of mercy is always the opposite of pride. Down from the heights to the road of mercy. Here's a man or a woman, doesn't make any difference, who for years was very sure of himself, just knew that he had the answers, he had the insights of the scriptures, he could smell a hypocrite a mile away, and he was extremely impatient with all the slobs around him.

Then one day in his mercy, God brings that man or woman down from those heights. The light comes on and he begins to see himself as he really is. And it makes him sick.

But from that day, he has a tender, and a merciful, and a patient attitude to all these bundling souls around him because he knows that he's made of the same stuff and he's going to have the same struggles. And then God can begin to use him. Now, this is what happened with Moses.

Took him 40 years from the age of 40 to the age of 80. This is what happened with the apostle Paul. Maybe it took seconds.

This is even what happened with Job. I have heard of you with a hearing of ear, but now I seize thee and I abhor myself and repent. This is what happened with Jacob.

That night he wrestled with the angel. From that night on, he was no longer the cocksure schemer he was before. He lived through life, but now God produced him.

And this is what has to happen to us. Oh, may God show us how desperately we need to be broken, to come down from those heights of pride to the place where we realize that the one thing above all things that we need, not just before we were saved and not just last year, but right now is God's mercy. And that the only thing we have to offer anybody else.

Secondly, a broken spirit is a spirit that has come to the place where it realizes that only God is right. As long as I'm trying to still convince myself that I may possibly be right as over against my brother over here who's probably wrong. I'm not broken.

I'm not broken until I give up this ridiculous pastime. It's almost this hobby of trying to prove my rightness as over against other people's wrongness. I'm wrong.

They're wrong. We're all wrong. Only God is right.

Really? And that you say, well, that's just a nice little saying, but think about it. Meditate it. Pray about it.

The only one who is right is the God who empties himself of his glory, lays down his life on the cross for our sin. Let God be true, but every man a liar. Finally, a broken spirit is a spirit that listens much and talks little.

And when it talks, it points to the God who, by the way, listens much and talks little. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. You'll find rest for your soul.

I'm broken. I listen to my father and I listen to the cries of those around me. And I speak only when my father gives me something to say.

Now, there are some of us, of course, who don't ever say very much with our mouths, but it's noise constantly in our hearts. And you can walk into the room sometimes and almost feel that noise coming out. Anger, rage, all kinds of, you know, a critical attitude that's never expressed through the lips or almost never, but it's there.

You know, and for us to speak little and listen much, that has to become quiet too. Okay, now, what does it take? Does it take some kind of tragedy to bring us to the place of brokenness? And the answer is, of course, that some of us have had to say, apparently, that's what it took for me. And yet, tragedy in itself isn't going to do it, because there are those among us, perhaps, who have gone through tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and we're still not broken.

And yet, every one of us here, regardless of what our lives have been, can present to God, beginning this hour, a broken spirit, the sacrifice of a broken spirit, if we will do two things. First, if we will begin today to admit the truth about ourselves. Now, this may take the rest of our lives to get really down to it.

We don't even know it ourselves. But if we will be willing to begin to admit the truth about ourselves, which basically is that there is no worthiness in us before God. You know, we secretly in our lives at least take pride in the fact that at least we have some integrity.

Or we're not like those other hypocrites. Or that we keep our commitments. Or we do this, or we do that.

We're one of the few Christians left that really God can see something in that's worthy of his favor. And those are all lies. How can the merciful God manifest his mercy to us, my friends? How can he shower us with his blessings as he wants to give us if we think we're already together? We're in need of nothing.

We don't need that mercy. We're all set. First, we have to come down.

What does our Lord say? He says, when you've done everything that's been commanded of you, say, and he's not telling us to lie, we are unworthy servants and we have only done what is our duty. Our need right now, our need is mercy and nothing else. We deserve nothing.

We merit nothing. There's nothing in us that's any good. You know, I'm not trying to be morbid.

Let's be truthful. The only thing we are able to receive from God is his mercy. And what a difference this makes in our attitude toward each other and toward all men and above all toward God.

When we see that, we are worthy of nothing. We are in utter need of God's grace this hour. The second thing we need to do, if we want to present the goddess, the sacrifice of a broken spirit, is get our eyes on that mercy and off everything else.

Look at the mercy of God that is being showered down upon you this day. And again, this may be something that takes the rest of our lives to really fulfill. But we can begin today by looking at that cross.

You know, how was it that you found your way back out of that darkness that you penetrated so deeply? Who was it who brought you back? But mercy. Who was it who brought us through all these trials that we've been through? But mercy. What do you see when you look at that cross and the lame of God laying down his life? How can we look at that? How can we look at that and not be broken? The men and women and young people whose lives are filled with the vitality of the Holy Spirit at this hour and who are bearing fruit and who are functioning, learning to function in harmony with each other, are those people who inwardly in their hearts God can see have become broken.

They have come down from the high place of pride to the low path of mercy. They are no longer trying to prove that they are right because they know that only God is right. And they listen.

May God help us to begin today to admit the truth about ourselves and to begin today to look at the mercy he shows us through his son that we may present to him the sacrifice of a broken spirit. In order that he might take that sacrifice into his hand and build it into the walls of the new Jerusalem, form it into the emerging body of his son, that we might be of use to him in a way that is going to be pleasing to him in the time that's left for us. Dear God, we pray that the foundation on which our lives together are being built may be absolutely nothing but Jesus Christ.

We ask it in his name. Amen.