Called Together 1985

For some years, the message of the Spirit of God to this block, and undoubtedly to many, many others too, has been that we are not a spiritual supermarket where individuals come and pick up their goodies, check out with a cashier and then go on their way, but that we are a body. We are members one of another. We are ruled by one shepherd, Jesus, and we are empowered by one Spirit.

Most of us have this down pretty well in our heads. We understand this, and we say amen to this. But we've had a problem trying to turn what we know into genuine, actual living.

I can remember, and some of us here can remember, back in 1975, in the winter of 1975, almost 11 years ago, we were all in congregational meetings and talking, and we got about 50 copies of the book A New Way of Living, a description of the Redeemer community in Houston, trying to figure out, from the Lord, to find His guidance as to exactly how we're to fit in and different forms that maybe this congregation ought to take. And even as we started getting a little too tired, we discovered that many people on the fringe, people who were, by the world's description, marginal, began to drop away, and we felt that that was not what God was showing us to do. And so we've been wrestling and struggling with this whole idea of body life for us, not somebody else, not some homogenous group in some other place, but us.

We've been wrestling with this for a long time. And there's been a lot of fruit, a lot of people finding their way into the kingdom, new congregations started here and there, and older congregations revitalized by people who went out from here to serve God in those places. And for this we give thanks and we praise God, and yet we all are aware of the fact that this body thing still is not where it needs to be.

In recent weeks, and I'm sure many will agree with me on this, there have been some hopeful signs of progress. And this progress, like all progress in the kingdom, begins in the area of vision. All change that's redemptive from God begins by God turning on a light and enabling us to see his hand at work, opening our eyes so that we can see that the battle is not ours, but his.

And that this unity, practiced, lived, which we absolutely must have in order for the redemptive power of the Spirit of God to move freely out from us and impact the city as it should. This unity is the result of God's primary action, and that all we need to do, and that's plenty, is trust him and fit in. Reading from 1 Samuel 22, verse 1, David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.

And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to him, and he became captain over them. And there were with him about 400 men.

And these 400 men and their families held the future of Israel in their hands. They didn't look like very much, hiding really in this huge cave with tunnels going in all directions and being chased all over the wilderness by King Saul's army, but they were the real Israel. And their king, David, was the real king of Israel.

And these people had a freedom, and a joy, and a sense of purpose, and a power that nobody in Saul's bigger army had. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to David, and he became captain over them. And there were about 400 men with him.

And they looked like a real ragtag army of volunteers. Perhaps they thought of themselves as that at first, but pretty soon these people began to see that they were not volunteers, that somehow they had been drawn together around David for a purpose beyond themselves, that they had been called by God. And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab.

And he said to the king of Moab, Pray, let my father and my mother stay with you till I know what God will do for me. And he left them with the king of Moab. And they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.

Then the prophet Gad said to David, Do not remain in the stronghold. Don't hang around in this cave. Depart and go into the land of Judah.

So David departed and went into the forest of Herod. So what's happening here is that the same God who drew these people together is now guiding them, clearly guiding them. And as they follow the guidance that comes to them, and it comes piece by piece, it doesn't come in one great glorious vision, but it comes a step at a time.

As they follow that, they begin to increase in power and strength. And they move toward the day when they will indeed rule Israel. And the important thing to see is that these people were very clear about the fact that they had been called together for a purpose.

A clear purpose. Now when we are as clear in our minds and hearts about the fact that we have been called together for a clear purpose, when we understand and live like we understand what an awesome thing it is to be called into the body of Christ, to be members one of another, anointed with the Spirit of God, chosen and ordained to bear fruit, given the future on a silver platter by God Himself, when we begin to see this and know this and live this way, then the gates of wrath will break and the bars of iron will break and we will not only take the Kingdom of God with violence, we will break the power of Satan. The wrath is free.

We will pull down the strongholds of Satan and deliver these people in great numbers the unity which we must have, practiced unity, not theoretical unity, and the power of the living God that flows out through that practiced unity in any given body, manifestation of a body, that will be ours. When we are clear in our minds and in our living about four things, one, number one, that we didn't stumble into this thing, nor did we volunteer. We were called by the Spirit of the Lord.

Reading from Luke chapter 6 verse 12, In these days Jesus went out into the hills to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God When it was day he called his disciples and chose from them twelve whom he named apostles, saint ones, Simon whom he called Peter, Andrew his brother, James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alpheus and Simon who was called the zealot, the revolutionary, Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a level place from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him for power came forth from him and healed them all.

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you that weep now for you shall laugh.

Blessed are you when men hate you and exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil on account of the son of man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven for so their fathers did to the prophets. This is a parallel passage really to the Old Testament passage of David in the cave of Adullam.

Here we have another motley crew gathered around the real and ultimate David, the son of David, Jesus. These people are gathered around Jesus but they are not volunteers. There's not a volunteer in the crowd.

Every one of these men and women, disciples and apostles, who's a man or woman of God is there because they've been called. Because a call from God has seized their hearts and now they know why they were born and what they're in this world to do. Jumping back into 1 Peter 2, verse 9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You're just going to sit there and enjoy it or are you going to proclaim it or are you going to live it? You've been called. You're a chosen race, chosen out of a thousand back alleys and ash heaps, chosen from palaces and plantations and slave galleys and prison farms, chosen by the Lord. What an awesome thing.

And you are a royal priesthood, royal because it is the King of Kings who called you and a priesthood because that's what you're given, a priesthood. Corporate priesthood. Meaning, that we stand before the world and speak for God with a prophetic message and we turn toward God and we intercede for the people as priests before the throne of glory.

A royal priesthood, a holy nation, holy because we've been called apart, called to be a different people, called to be separate, not somewhere else on top of a mountain but distinctly different, called apart for God's purpose. That's why we're here, only why we're here, to be God's people. You can volunteer out of this thing if you want to, but you can't volunteer in.

You're in because you're called. The power of the Lord will move through the unity of the body when secondly, we know that we have been joined to each other by the sovereign act of God. Reading from 1 Corinthians 1.9, excuse me, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And skipping over in the same book, 1 Corinthians 12.12, for just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews are free, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit.

We're not a Farmer Jack supermarket, spiritual supermarket, where people come in and get what they feel they need or want, check out of the cashier, pay their little bill, and live their personal lives the way they want to. We are a body. We're a unit of the worldwide, eternity-wide body of Christ.

See, but you don't just say, well, I'm part of the body of Christ in a vague sense, you know, and just float around from unit to unit. Every member of the body of Christ fits in and is responsible in some unit of that body. Now, we have people, missionary interns and others here who may be on their way to other places, but sooner or later, every one of us attaches, for as long as we're called to do that, to a particular unit of the body of Christ, and that's where we function.

I no more chose you to be my brothers and sisters than I chose my parents. And you no more chose me than you chose your parents. The same God who gave us our parents and our children and our minds has given us each other, joined us to each other whether we like it or not.

Friend, you're stuck with us. Now, what are you going to do about that? Are we going to function together? The Word of God, the Word of God pulls the dry bones together and they have to fit the bone they're assigned to. And as the bones come together and join bone to its bone, my class bone, so often put together whether they like it or not.

And as they begin to function bone to its bone, life, awesome life. And that means each one of us, Lord, fit me in or Lord, I'll do it. I'm not sure I want to do it.

I'm not sure how this is all going to work, but here I am. Thirdly, the power of God is in the world out there when we're clear, when we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we have been chosen and ordained to bear fruit. We have not been called together merely for our own reassurance and comfort just to be a support group or for our own diversion, a culture club or a fortress in the midst of a battlefield where we hide behind the walls.

We have been called together in order that this city might feel the impact of the kingdom of God, that these sick institutions and these discouraged and desolate streets might feel the life of the kingdom of God flowing out like a living river. John 15, 16. Jesus speaks to the disciples in the upper room, but it applies directly to us as well.

You did not choose me. I chose you and I ordain you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it to you. He speaks these words not to the individual but to the body because the very next words he says are this I command you that you love one another.

When we love one another, fit into one another, let our life shine out into that world together. Very soon, that world out there begins to feel the impact. The light of the kingdom of God strikes it with light and judgment and Detroit itself is shaken by groups like this when they're alive in God and unified in Jesus.

It is shaken and hopeless hearts are stirred blind eyes are opened the sick are healed prisoners are set free and the poor of body and soul are brought into the kingdom in great numbers. You're going to see this in great numbers. Stick around.

Finally, the power of the living God will move through the unity of the body when we know that the future belongs to us. The future does not belong to the United States or Moscow or Wall Street or the Pentagon or the New York Times or the free press or the news. It belongs to us.

And he came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear him and all the crowd sought to touch him for power went forth from him and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said to them Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now for you shall be satisfied.

Blessed are you that weep now you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men shall hate you and exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil on that day and leap for joy for your reward is great in heaven for so their fathers did to the prophets. Jesus is talking about the future here.

He's always talking about the future because he's Lord of the future. Jesus stands with us here in the present but he leads us into the future. We follow him into the future and that's where our goal is.

Oh, wait a minute. I was always taught to live for the present. No, no.

You live in the present but for the future. Oh, but I was taught that you're supposed to get all the gusto you can because you only go around once. The apostate's creed.

You want to be a success in the present. You want to be a rock star. Perhaps you'd like to be a business tycoon.

Okay. If you're really good at what you do and you live for the present and you give it all you've got and you're good at it, you will be great in the present. You'll have what you want but listen to what Jesus says about that in the very next verses.

But woe to you that are rich for you've received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now for you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep.

Woe to you where all men speak well of you. What a wonderful fellow. Isn't she marvelous to hear the false prophets.

The future belongs to us. Here we have no continuing city. This isn't our home.

We're seeking a city up ahead. That's where our home is. That's where our city is.

That's where our goal is and the evidence of it is the spirit's presence among us now who brings the future right down into the present right now. The Holy Spirit brings heaven among us. And as we do, we're eating the food of the future.

Not only does this meal link us with Calvary, it also links us with the marriage supper of the Lamb. One more passage here. Luke 12, 32.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, and also let your loins be girded and your lamps burning and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast so that they may open to him at once when he comments and denies. When we live this way, with our loins girded and our lamps burning and our hands untrammeled by the things of this earth, then the glory of God shines among us and the power of God comes upon us and the Lord of the kingdom of God baptizes us afresh with the Holy Spirit and with fire and our eyes open and we can see that the winnowing fork is in his hand now.

He's getting ready. He's clearing his threshing floor and very soon he will gather his wheat into the granary but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body though many are one body so it is with Christ for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body.

Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and all were made to drink of one spirit. We are one body. We didn't do it he did it.

All we have to do is fit in. We didn't stumble into this thing nor did we volunteer. We were called.

We have been made members of each other by a sovereign act of God. We have been chosen to go and bear fruit much fruit and we are being given a future by the very hand of God. So let's pull together let's fit in with each other let's get on with the work we have been given to do.