The Lord, the Body, and the Believer

I'd like to read today from Genesis chapter 32 verses 22, 23, and 24. And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over the four javelins. And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over all that he had.

And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. There's been a tremendous emphasis in recent years on what's called the body ministry. The idea that we're not just isolated individuals, but that we fit in, each of us, to the body of Christ as a whole.

And in this body, there are no lone rangers and there are no one-man shows. But each of us fits into that place where God puts him or her with other brothers and sisters and functions. One's an eye, another is a hand, another is an ear, another is a foot.

And this teaching is scriptural, and it's true. And there are doubtless many things that we still need to learn about grasping that vision of the body of Christ and turning it into actuality here in this place. But, this is only half the story.

If we listen carefully to the teachings of Jesus, as he really speaks in a living way to us through his Spirit, Jesus who indeed prays that all may be one, and who indeed commands us to love one another, we find that Jesus always holds us accountable as individuals before him, so that no believer ever becomes lost in the crowd, absorbed, and loses his identity in the body of Christ, or loses her responsibility before God alone in that body. Now, we notice that when Jesus calls us out of the multitude into the kingdom of God as his disciples, he calls us as individuals. If anyone, any man, would come after me, singular, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, and this applies to man or woman, unless a grain of wheat, not a bushel, one grain falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, then it brings forth much fruit.

The door to the kingdom of God is so narrow and so small that we can barely get in alone by ourselves. We have to get rid of all our junk, all our trappings, and our big egos, and all our plans, much less coming in as a gang together. See, and even if 50 of us come into the kingdom all in the same instant, God still deals with us and sees us as individuals.

And after we're in the kingdom, the same thing goes on. Jesus still deals with us as separate individuals before God. I am the vine, you are the branches.

Every branch of mine, singular, that bears no fruit is taken away. And every branch of mine that does bear fruit, he proves that it may bear more fruit. And the Apostle Paul, who has so much to teach us in the Spirit about the nature of the body of Christ and how it functions, and who indeed commands us in the Spirit to submit to one another and to bear one another's burdens, also says in that sixth chapter of Galatians where he tells us to bear each other's burdens, in that same place tells us that each one of us bears his own load before God.

And that when we stand in judgment before God, before the judgment seat of Christ, each receives according to what he or she has done in this body of flesh, whether it be good or bad. Whatever a man or woman sows, that shall he also reap, singular. There is no such thing as becoming lost in the crowd, nor can you ever blame the body of Christ for your individual, personal, spiritual stagnation.

Now if we take this concept and this tremendous emphasis these days on the body ministry by itself without also bringing with it and holding on to this individual, this personal call of Jesus made upon our individual lives, if we don't hold these two things together, if we just go after the body ministry, what then happens is that instead of functioning as responsible members of the body as individuals, we find ourselves, before we realize it, just moving with the mouth. And this is so subtle we don't even know what's going on for a long time. If we don't individually seek the face of God and individually seek the kingdom of God first and individually commune with Jesus and individually abide in the vine, we very soon become lost in the crowd.

And then, instead of contributing something to the body, we find ourselves trying to suck from the body. We're trying to draw our strength from the body of Christ instead of from Jesus himself. Trying to get our strength from brothers and sisters, expecting that somehow they're going to carry us.

And then, when this happens to us, the whole concept of the body of Christ becomes idolatrous. And this becomes an idol, something that separates us from God instead of brings us to God. And when it becomes an idol, then very soon the body becomes a monster.

And my eye is on the fellowship, on the people, on the flesh, instead of on God. Oh, how we, all of us, need to get this very clear in our minds that while Jesus indeed takes us, every one of us, and sets us in the body and calls us to love one another and to submit to one another and to bear one another's burdens, while this is all true, we need to remember that we draw our light not from each other, but from him. And we have our eyes not on each other, but on him.

And we answer for what we do, not to each other, but to him. Now, I'm aware that what happens so often is people take that truth and they twist it for their own ends. So here's somebody who goes off on a way-out tangent, you know, and when you call them on it or say something to her about it, they say, hey, wait a minute, you know, I don't answer to you, I answer to God.

See, but if they were truly answering to God, they would never have gone out on that tangent. But for most of us, the tremendous need right now is the opposite. I believe that what most of us need, under God, is to come back once again and understand really in our hearts what it means to be responsible alone before God.

We need to go back there with Jacob and put everything we have across the river Jabbok, everything, every person, until we're left alone on this side of the river. And we stay there and wrestle there as long as it takes until we come to the place where we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this heart and this mind and this body and this life belongs to God alone. Get across the river and stay there by yourself with God in whatever way that means to you, even while you're going to fellowships and prayer meetings, until you know three things for sure deep in your heart.

Number one, until you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you can't even enter the body of Christ until salvation has come to you personally. Your salvation, forgiveness for your sin, atonement for your guilt, God's claim on your life, God calling you by name. His sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them forth.

How can he do that unless they hear their names? Behold, I stand at the door and knock, says the Lord, if anyone will hear my voice and open to me, anyone. God didn't just go down and scoop up a million souls with you among them, but he reached down into the net, picked you up, called you by name and made you his. And if you ever forget that you were called as a person, and if you ever forget that you are now answering to God as a person, then you become useless to the body.

Stay over on the other side of the river alone with God until you learn number two, that you can't begin to function as a member of the body with anything of value to give to it until you have received and are continuously receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit personally from Jesus. Now granted, the Holy Spirit came to them on Pentecost when they were all together with one accord in one place, but notice what the Spirit did. The flame comes down into the room and then splits, and a tongue of fire comes and sits upon the head of each one.

First Corinthians 12, to every man is given a manifestation of the Spirit, every man, every woman, for the common good. To one is given a word of knowledge, to another the word of wisdom, to another faith by the same Spirit, miracles, gifts of healing, discerning spirits, prophecy, tongues, and so forth. But everybody gets something.

As an individual, the Holy Spirit comes to you as a person, makes your particular body His temple, has specific things that are just for you, and has prepared blessings for you even in this life which are beyond your comprehension. But you seek them from Him, not from the crowd, but from Him. Go into your room and shut the door, go across the river and wait, and finally wait there until you know for sure in your heart that you can't begin to bear any fruit in the body until you are communing with Jesus personally as a branch abiding in the vine.

We often slip over these things and say, well, I'm doing that, I say my prayers every day, and yet in actual truth, how much of what we even call our prayers is something much less than this. And how many times we try to draw our strength from the other branches instead of from the vine. Here's a branch that seems to be fatter than the vine, great big fat branch, that's the one I'm going to get my strength from.

But if you find a branch that looks to you to be fatter than the vine, you can be sure that it is sick, it is diseased. And you try to draw strength from that and you'll get sick too. And for those among us who may be teachers or pastors or whatever, the temptation among such of us is that we would rather surround ourselves with branches and draw our strength from them.

You know, build a crowd around you and tap into these people and draw life from them. Many times what we call churches and fellowships are just the direct opposite, it's not branches abiding in the vine. You know, it's a pseudo-vine, false Christ sucking life out of the branches.

Abide in the vine and let Jesus' words abide in you and get your life directly from him daily. Let your one desire be to know more of him. Determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified, nothing else.

Let your one joy be that you may win Christ and be found in him, that you may know him in the power of his resurrection, in the fellowship of his sufferings, and be made like him in his death, and then you'll bear some fruit. Now what seems to be happening all over the earth right now, and in a sense it's always happened, is that there are all kinds of believers who are stagnating, they're losing their vision, and they're turning sour. And if you talk to any of them, the basic answer that you will hear is almost always the same.

One way or another, they're telling you, my brothers and sisters let me down. And behind that pitiful excuse is the idea that you can draw some kind of strength from your brothers and sisters, that your wife or your husband or your child or your mother is supposed to carry you. And this is just not so.

You don't draw your strength from the fellowship, you draw your strength from Jesus. Don't expect brothers and sisters to give to you what only Jesus can give you. And those of us who know Christ, when we come to the place, and may it be now, that we are faithfully and with all our hearts drawing our strength from Jesus himself, daily, alone, then when we come together in fellowship, whenever this may be, what will take place will be worship.

And it will be truly heaven. Whether it's loud or quiet, whether there's a clapping of hands or utter silence, it will be worship. And those who don't know Christ, who may find their way among us, will know that God is in our midst.

And in the light that shines when we're like that, their sins will be exposed, and as they confess them, they'll be forgiven and washed away in the blood, and we will all go out there. When you were born, you came into this world alone. And at the moment of your death, you're going to go out of this world alone.

And when you stand before the throne of judgment, you're going to stand alone. And right now, before the eye which sees all things and misses nothing, you are, at this moment, alone. And it is alone that you decide whether you're going to walk in the light that was purchased for you by his blood, or whether you're going to pursue the darkness.

You decide alone whether you're going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus or go your own way. And until you are taking care of these matters alone, you are in absolutely no condition to discern the body, or to bear burdens of brothers and sisters, or to function in the body with the love and joy and peace of the Holy Spirit. And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over the four jabba.

And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over everything he had. And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled with him a man until the breaking of the day.

May God show us how that applies to us now. Father, you alone can see into our hearts, and your ear alone can hear all those excuses that we've been ashamed to utter to any man, perhaps, but have been heard by your ear, in which we blamed our husbands, our wives, our parents, our children, our brothers and sisters, and who knows who else, for our own stagnation and for the fact that our lives have become tangled up with thorns of one kind or another. And we ask, Heavenly Father, that today, by your grace, we will be able to see those doors that no hand can open but our own.

And those steps that no feet can take but ours. Grant that we may, by your grace, Lord Jesus, hear clearly the knock again on the door of our own hearts and to quit blaming anybody but ourselves for not opening that door. We ask it for your mercy's sake.

Amen.