For Building up the Body of Christ

It's really a good thing that it's the Sunday when everybody's together because what I have to share really should be for all of us together. It has to do with just that, and I'd like to begin by reading from Ephesians 4, just a few verses, verse 7 through 12. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore, it is said, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and gave gifts to men. And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. And really, you could understand this verse by reading right over again and saying, His gifts were for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

In order for us to experience the life of God, so that we can truly function on this earth consistently as sons and daughters of heaven, there are three points of contact which we have to maintain all the time. First, we have to stay in union with Jesus. I'm the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that brings forth much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. The essential need of our life, more essential than any other, the basic need of our life, is to stay in union with Jesus.

Because we draw our life from him. Now he, by his own mercy and goodness, established that union. We didn't do it, he did it.

By an act of fabulous love, dying on that cross and rising from the grave, he joined us to himself. He brought us to the place where we became part of him. But now that that union is established, it's up to us to keep that thing alive.

To keep it clear. To make sure that his word lives in us by hearing it and doing it afresh all the time. Second, we need to be in a living contact union with each other as fellow members of the body of Christ.

And so he says that we are to love one another in the same way he has loved us. We are to serve each other. We are to get down and wash one another's feet.

The greatest among us is not the greatest by virtue of their authority or their power or their gifts. The greatest among us is great in service. By serving.

The one who's most effective and often the least noticed at washing feet. Now without this union with each other, of submitting to each other and serving each other, loving each other, being thoughtful of one another, without this, we can't possibly remain in any kind of living union with Jesus. When we begin to drift away from one another, either physically or with our minds and spirits, we also begin to drift away from Jesus and there's nothing that we can do to prevent it.

If we don't stay in touch with each other as members of his body. Thirdly, we have to stay in living union with a needy, broken, troubled, sick, dying world. And so he says, go make disciples of all nations.

Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creatures. As the Father has sent me, so send I you to do the same thing, see, that I did. And without this going forth with the living word and with healing grace for the world, again, we see, become, we become ingrown and we dry up.

Two thousand years of history in the body of Christ on earth makes this clear, that whenever believers fail to touch that world out there with light, with redeeming light, very quickly they begin to lose touch with each other and they begin to lose touch with Jesus. And if they survive at all, they survive as cults or as snob clubs, but not as the body of Christ. Living touch with Jesus divine, continuous living contact with him first.

Second, living touch with each other. Union with the body of Christ. And third, living touch with the broken, needy world.

Coming forth with a life-giving, hope-giving, healing, saving message that really does something for people and manifests the love of Christ. Now these three points of contact also become the target of satanic attack all the time. These are the three things Satan and his kingdom aim at.

The priority target, the first priority target, obviously, is to somehow destroy our union with Jesus. Either by luring us away from a prayer life, for instance, or by causing us to compromise the word that he speaks to us. So that we just shove that aside, oh, that's a sermon on the mount, that doesn't count, or that's too extreme.

And we cut down on what he's really saying in our hearts and we lose our contact with him. The secondary target Satan uses is to divide us from each other. And he uses a thousand and one ways to make us thoughtless of each other, or create attitudes, help us to have attitudes toward each other.

Any way he can split us off from the body, from each other, so that we're not grounded anywhere. And the third object of his attack is to somehow isolate us from the world and its needs, so that we no longer have any genuine contact, genuine touch with the real world and its real needs. Now, in this fellowship, over the years, in the teaching, whoever's been doing the teaching, whoever of us has been teaching or sharing, our emphasis has been very strong on points number one and three.

You know, we have a lot to say, and we need to have a lot to say about the need for union with Jesus, the person of Jesus. And we have a lot to say about the need to stay in touch with a broken world, so that we don't become just a club for nice people. But, while we've been emphasizing number one and number three, we have been neglecting number two.

You know, the importance of being in touch with each other. It's almost true to say here that while we've been stressing the importance of staying in union with Jesus and reaching out to the needy world, we have allowed point number two, communion with each other, to kind of take care of itself. For instance, our concept or conception of the open church comes to mean in many of our minds, the door is open, come on in, have a seat, and from there on, you're on your own.

You know, figure out how to fit in with the body. You know, that may sound extreme, but it gets to be something like that. So that our view, our working understanding of what the body of Christ is becomes more like a kind of a spiritual Farmer Jack's.

Where we all come in, fill up our basket, go through the cashier's line, and off we go. And never genuinely experience the kind of unity with each other, fellowship with each other, that we all desperately need. And so the Spirit of the Lord, over the last number of months, I believe has been stressing this in a lot of ways to us.

Has been saying to us that if our union with Jesus is to be what it was meant to be, and if our effectiveness in the world is to have the impact it was meant to have, we're going to have to do some work on our union with each other. Now there are two places where we have to learn how to function together as fellow members in the body of Christ. Our first, the larger assembly, like this, where we come together to worship the Father, and to commune with the Son in the breaking of bread.

The second place where we need to learn to do this is in the smaller groups that the Spirit has been drawing us into, and will be drawing us into, smaller numbers of people that we can begin to function together with and learn to interact with. But whether it's in the larger assembly or in the smaller group, the principles are the same. Reading from the first six verses of Ephesians 4, Paul says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

And notice, when we read that, we think, my life, my calling. But it's always a calling in relationship with the other saints. He says, going on, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. And what a difference it makes when we begin to see our coming together as a manifestation of that one body, and that one Lord and that one hope and that one call, and that each member of the body, each one of us, either contributes to the experience of that unity or tears the unity down.

Reading on, but grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it is said, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

His gifts were for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. So that each of us is given a gift, some gift, some gift of the Spirit, some measure of grace from the Lord. And the purpose is that this gift should be brought to the body in order to build up the other saints for their ministry, to build up the body and to help maintain unity.

But in our thinking, we rarely really see that as the basic thing. For instance, the matter of coming to church, as we say. Much of the time we come to church for our own good.

And we frankly say, I come because I need to come. And then sometimes we walk away disappointed or even angry. I didn't get anything out of it today.

And sure we should get something out of it. No question about that. Of course we should be receiving something from coming together to praise God and feed on the Word and commune with Jesus in the breaking of bread.

But we don't see nearly as clearly as we need to that far, far, far more important than getting something out of it for ourselves is the need for us to see that we are brought together like this and we come together for the others. Not for ourselves, but for the others. That our presence in the body is so that the others can get something out of it.

So they can be edified. If this is the assembly where the Lord has placed me, then I am going to have an effect on what happens in this assembly. And this is true for each one of us.

Much more true than we'd like to think. What happens in the assembly is affected by every one of us. Reading from 1 Corinthians 12, verse 21.

The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And those parts of the body which we think less honorable, we invest with a greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. So, if God has placed me in this assembly, He has placed me in this assembly, not just so that I can get something out of it, but because I have a function to fulfill.

He put me here to put something into it. You know, and how important for me to see this. You know, that this whole assembly is going to be affected by me.

And this is true for each one of us. That if I'm going to fulfill my function in the body, then I gotta be present, and I have to be functioning. Otherwise, the whole body suffers.

Example. Most of us don't give much attention to our teeth. If we have our teeth yet.

We, you know, we go on chewing and talking, and chewing and talking and taking it for granted. And then one day, an abscess develops at the root of one of our molars. And now, suddenly, we forget all about our hands and our feet, and our elbows and our ears, and the only thing we can think of is this tooth.

My head's coming off! If one member suffers, all suffer together. So now we go to get a repair job on this tooth. What a relief! It doesn't hurt anymore.

If one is honored, all rejoice together. Now, this is exactly how it works in the body, much more than we want to admit to ourselves. Each one of us is affected, has an effect on the body to some extent.

In the same ways the tooth has an effect on the body. If I come into the assembly with an attitude, my personal, individual attitude is the beginning of a toothache for the whole body. And if I have five and six attitudes going at once, that has an effect.

If I'm careless, undisciplined, in such a simple manner as being together with my brothers and sisters, with my mind on it, then I become for the body like a loose tooth. Did you ever try to eat a Big Mac with a loose tooth? If I come into the assembly ill-prepared, in my heart, then it's like the body's trying to walk on a foot that's fallen asleep. On the other hand, if I bring to the body an earnest desire to edify and help and strengthen, then the Spirit of the Lord will use me to do that.

If, for instance, I faithfully pray for my brothers and sisters in the body, that does wonderful things for the body. If I come to the assembly yearning to just help, what a blessing this is for the whole body. If I honor my brothers and sisters in private conversations for the week, so I'm not running everybody down all the time.

Even the ones that I feel like running down, I get a check from the Spirit and I stop it. This has an effect on the body. If I come with a yearning to go out of my way to just be a blessing in the name of Jesus, then I'm used to edify and build up and strengthen the body.

But to each is given a measure of grace, a gift according to the measure of Christ's gift. A measure of grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. What we need to see is that this gift of grace that each one of us, with no exceptions, each one of us brings to the body has to be used to build it up, to encourage, to unify, to strengthen.

This gift that each of us has will manifest itself undoubtedly in some form of action or speech. But the basic thing about this gift is the attitude of my heart. Before I speak or do anything, it first of all has to do with where my heart is.

Is my heart set on helping, edifying, strengthening, blessing, in some way bringing unity and healing and peace? I have to ask myself, am I coming to the assembly? Am I coming to my brothers and sisters with a genuine desire for their grace? But do I join myself to my brothers and sisters, treating them with honor, better than myself? Do I come to serve? Am I willing to lay aside the garments of pride, get down on my knees and start washing feet? In recent months, the message of the Spirit has been and is that if we are to have the kind of union with Jesus we need to have, and if we are to have the kind of impact on the world beyond us, we need to have, the place we especially have to work right now is on our unity with each other. Not to make the other ones become this or that, but to come with that gift that we were given and really put it to work. But grace was given to each according to the measure of Christ's gift.

And each of us has to ask, what am I doing with that gift? Is that gift being used to unify, to edify, to strengthen, to help? And if we should see that there are needs for changes in our attitudes, in the way we do things, in our habits, in our general routine, if we find that there are areas that are really taking unity and life away from the body, then the time to begin changing is now. For the same Lord who calls us to come to Himself and abide in Him, and the same Lord who sends us into the world to preach His gospel, is calling for a kind of love and faithfulness to each other that we have yet to learn. And the time to learn it and the place to learn it is here and now.

Let's just wait on God, let's just bow before God and cry out to Him for help in these areas. Lord God, we confess to you how in each of our lives there has been a sense in which for each of us we have kind of let the body go on its way and that we have stood apart and sometimes wished it well and sometimes perhaps even wished it ill. But have, Lord God, not been aware of how important our gift is for that body and how responsible we are for what goes on there.

And we just ask, Lord God, that you would by the Spirit help us to see and put into practice exactly the way in which you'd have us function as fellow members together in this wonderful thing that you're doing so that we can really take our place as an assembly, as a congregation in the wonderful thing you're doing in the body of Christ worldwide. Lord God, if we can't practice that kind of holy unity on the level of a congregation, how can it be seen anywhere else? And we're praying, Lord God, that even today such things will begin to happen in our relationships with each other, in our attitudes toward each other. Such grace, such forgiveness, such mercy, such love that there will be wonderful healing, wonderful quickening, even this day.

We're asking it in Jesus' name.