Which is His Body - Applications, Part 2

Review: The Church as Christ's Body and Its Characteristics

0:03 I would encourage you to turn in your own Bible to Ephesians chapter 1.

0:11 As our studies of this first chapter are drawing to a close, our attention has been focused for several weeks upon the last verse of the chapter, Ephesians 1 and verse 23. However, since we do have a number of visitors, I do want to take a few minutes to give the thread of thought, and I would remind those of you who perhaps are tempted to grow weary occasionally with this matter of reviewing week by week. You see, if ever a preacher is bound by Matthew 7.12, it's in ever a Christian, it's when a preacher stands.

0:49 Matthew 7.12, of course, says, As you would that others do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. And when I attend a service where there's consecutive exposition and the preacher just starts writing with the phrase before him or the verse, or verses, and gives me no sense of the drift of thought, I feel I've been cheated. Well, if I don't want to be cheated, then I should not cheat others.

1:13 And I hope that those of you who do have the review don't turn me off, because I had a very revealing thing told to me a couple of weeks ago that a certain man was in a certain Bible study and asked a group of people who have sat here, some of them for many weeks in Ephesians 1, where the Holy Spirit is revealed, referred to in the Scriptures as the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, and he drew blank looks for too long a time.

1:40 So some of you are not listening to the reviews for the whole thrust of the prayer here in Ephesians 1, beginning with verse 15, is the prayer that God would give to the Ephesian Christians the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Himself, verse 17, to the end that these Ephesian Christians would understand the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation and would understand the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation and would understand three things, the hope of their calling, the riches of their inheritance, and the exceeding greatness of God's power towards them. Having then mentioned this matter of the power of God towards the believer, he gives what we have been calling

2:24 the measure of that power. And he measures that power by the mighty work of God wrought in Jesus Christ when He did four things, four things with reference to Him. Look at the text. When He raised Him from the dead, verse 20, when He sat Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, and I've checked the dictionary, and it is proper to use sat as a transitive verb, though generally it is intransitive, but it can be used when you put someone down in a chair at your right hand, and you are seating, and having seated them, they are now sat at your right hand.

3:08 They have been sat at your right hand. They have been seated. They have been placed. And so you have that mighty work of God in which He raised Him, in which He sat Him at His right hand, and then in which He ranged all things beneath His feet, and then gave Him, verse 22, as head over all things to the church.

3:30 And so the people of God are to view the power which is towards them in the light of that mighty display of power wrought in Jesus Christ. And then anticipating what would be a very natural question. Why should the church have this great gift given to it? An exalted Christ, head over all things given to the church, and Paul says, in essence, because of what the church is.

3:58 And in verse 23, we have, as it were, a sort of parenthesis, a little appendix, appendage to the drift of thought in which he describes the church under two words of description. The church which is His body, secondly, which is His fullness. And for some weeks, we've been opening up the phrase the church as the body of Christ. And we have seen that this is a figure of speech which is pointing towards some substantial spiritual reality.

4:33 In other words, there is a relationship existing between the exalted Christ and His people which is similar in many respects to the relationship between a man's head and the other members of His body. Therefore, the church is called His body. And it speaks, as we have seen in looking at a number of other passages from the pen of the Apostle Paul, that it speaks of a living, an organic relationship. You see, a Christian is not someone who is attached to Jesus Christ merely in his intellect, though he is attached intellectually, merely in his external life, though he is thus attached.

5:15 There is something more than that. There is a life attachment. The very life of the Son of God has become the portion of every true Christian. The Christians then say, the life which I now live is not my life, but Christ liveth in me.

5:33 And then it speaks of a subordinate relationship. We are the members of the body. He is the head. Therefore, a Christian is one who is delightfully submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ.

5:47 And then it is a coordinated relationship. A body is a coordinated organism with each of the members placed in proper relationship to the others. And so also is the body of Christ. And then it is a sympathetic relationship There is feeling that goes throughout the entire body when one member suffers, all suffer, and then it is a functional relationship.

6:13 It is by my body that the will of my head is carried out. So now the will of the head, the Lord Jesus, is carried out through his body. Well, that is the substance of several weeks' study. Now, last week, we said there were some very practical implications derived from this doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ.

6:35 We had time only to touch two. In the light of this teaching of the Church, which is his body, we saw the necessity of a biblically guarded membership. None should be found in the visible, local body of Christ, whatever that Church may be called, who do not give evidence of being vitally joined to Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. And then we saw the necessity of a biblically disciplined membership that no one must be allowed to remain within the visible body who does not evidence a continual attachment to Jesus Christ.

The Necessity of a Biblically Active Membership

7:17 So much for our review. We come now this morning to three other implications of this biblical doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ. And the third point is this. Having seen the necessity of a biblical doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ, having seen the necessity of a biblical doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ, having seen the necessity of a biblically guarded membership, a biblically disciplined membership, we now see the necessity of a biblically active membership.

7:43 Going back to this figure of the head and the body, you remember that we pointed out it is a functional relationship. When my head makes certain dictates, they tell us they may be electrical impulses, then the muscles that govern my mouth and my tongue frame certain dictates and form certain words and out come the thoughts that the head has thought by means of the function of the tongue. When the signals go out from the head that the hand should act in a certain way to point in a certain direction that the eyes should look up or out or into that piece of machinery on the back wall so the people downstairs know we are aware they are there. While the eyes look in that direction,

8:27 there is this functional relationship between the head and the members of the body. Now, in the light of that principle, we should understand the necessity of any local body of Christ being marked by biblical activity. For you see, Christ the head has yet much more work to be done in two basic areas. In the increase of his body and in the edification of his body.

8:57 Now, you will find those two phrases used in Ephesians chapter 4. Another, of the body imageries in the New Testament. Ephesians 4, Paul speaking of the church as the body, says in verses 15 and 16, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body

9:40 unto the building up of itself in love. Increase building up. Increase or edification. Now, the apostle Paul is a classic example of one who, conscious that he was a member of the body of Christ, was a functional member, and if that body was to be complete, it would be complete through the sanctified, biblically directed labors of the servant of God.

10:15 Look at his testimony in Colossians chapter 1. And this is a very significant passage because again he uses the phrase the body of Christ, the church. Verse 24 of Colossians 1. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.

10:49 You see what he's saying? These are not redemptive sufferings. The apostle Paul of all the writers in the New Testament made abundantly clear that there was nothing to be added to the redemptive sufferings of Christ. The apostle Paul says, Who is he that condemneth?

11:06 It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen from the dead, who is at the right hand of God who makes intercession. When it came to the question of how can I, guilty soul of Tarsus, find forgiveness, Paul's answer was very clear. In the sufferings and mediation of Jesus Christ alone, received by faith alone. And put those two words there.

11:33 Many people will say, Oh yes, I'm saved by Christ. And they leave a blank to fill in something else. Oh yes, I come into possession of that salvation by faith and then they leave a blank for something else. No, no.

11:45 It is Christ alone, faith alone, which is the watchword of true biblical Christianity. And yet he says in this passage, There is some aspect of the afflictions or sufferings of Christ that yet need to be filled up for the sake of his body, which is his church. Now what were those sufferings? They were not redemptive sufferings.

12:13 They were the sufferings of true Christian service. For read on in the passage, Whereof I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you word to fulfill the word of God. Even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations but now hath been made manifest to his saints to whom God was pleased 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. Here are the sufferings whom we proclaim admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present

12:56 every man perfect in Christ where unto I labor also striving, literally agonizing according to his working which worketh in me mightily. You see what the apostle is saying? In the vision of the proclamation of this glorious gospel mystery, Christ in you or among you the hope of glory. Paul says, I so throw myself into this ministry given to me by the word and will of God that my involvement becomes at times an agony.

13:35 I labor, I strive, oh yes, by his power working in me but notice, his power working in Paul did not cancel the reality of Paul's agony and Paul's filling up that which was lacking of the afflictions of Christ. He could say, I bear in my body the marks of Christ. He could say in that 2 Corinthians 12 passage, all of those things that he, Paul, suffered. Why?

14:08 Because he longed to see the body of Christ increased. He says in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 10, I endure all things for whose sake? For the elect's sake that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Here's a man who says, I believe God has a people.

14:31 He calls them the elect and he says, I believe they shall obtain salvation. But he says, if they're to obtain it, the means to their salvation must be employed. And one of those great means is my taking the gospel to the Gentile Roman world and therefore, I'm willing to face earthly potentates. I'm willing to face the lash.

14:55 I'm willing to face shipwreck. I'm willing to face the jailer's scowl and the jailer's whip. I endure all things for whose sake? For the elect's sake that they may obtain salvation.

15:08 In other words, Paul was conscious of the necessity of being biblically active if the body was to be increased. And what is true with reference to its increase was true with reference for its edification. Who more than Paul labored for the edification of the body of Christ? In the midst of all of his concerns, he says, and that, which cometh upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches.

15:39 Isn't it interesting? The very Paul who said, be anxious for nothing, said, I am constantly anxious. It's the same Greek word.

15:48 Anxiety for the churches. And what was his anxiety for the churches? That they would grow up into Christ in all things. And so he writes to the Corinthians.

15:58 He says, all right, the more I love you, the less I'm loved. I'm sorry. I'll continue to love you. I'll continue to rebuke you.

16:05 I'll continue to exhort you because I long to present you as a chaste virgin unto Christ. That man labored not only for the increase of the body, but for the edification of the body. But notice, I've said the necessity of a biblically active membership. Everything Paul did in laboring for the increase and the edification of the body, he did by the nerve impulses that came from the head, the Lord Jesus.

Sources of Nerve Impulses: Christ Alone, Not Human Wisdom, Tradition, or Pressure

16:40 He didn't get his directions from carnal wisdom, nor from opinion polls, nor even from his fellow apostles. He said, no, if I should yet please men, I should not be the servant of Jesus Christ. Paul, as a member of the body of Christ, received the nerve impulses for all of his activity from the head of that body, the Lord Jesus, Christ himself. You see, this is true in the physical body.

17:11 Right now, your head may be sending out impulses. Why is the world that preacher doesn't talk? Why doesn't he talk more softly? Why is he going to holler so?

17:18 I wish he'd talk a little more quiet. But you see, the volume of my voice is not controlled by the impulses that go out of your head, but the impulses that go out of mine. You can sit there and think all you want. I wish he'd be more quiet.

17:30 I wish he'd tone down. But you see, the impulses are coming from my head, not yours.

17:36 You see, even under his head, hypnosis, this is true. When a man is hypnotized, the hypnotist must put the notions into that man's brain. He cannot control him apart from putting the notions into that man's central nervous system.

17:52 What is true of the human body is to be true of the spiritual body of Christ. When we are joined to Jesus Christ, we are joined to him in such a way that the only nerve impulses that are to move us are the nerve impulses of the Word of Christ, not something of objective impulses. For Jesus said, Make disciples, baptize them, declare that they've been incorporated into me, they've died with me, they've risen with me. Now teach them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.

18:26 That's both inclusive and exclusive. Teach them to observe whatever I've commanded you. We're to leave no nerve impulses undeclared to God's people. The whole, the whole counsel of God is to be proclaimed.

18:43 But it's exclusive. Teaching them to observe whatsoever I and no one else has commanded.

18:54 What a responsibility then is upon any given body of Christ to have a heart that cries out to be acquainted with the whole spectrum of Christian duty. What a rare thing it is to see an individual Christian and rarer yet to see a group of Christians who function as a visible body of Christ. A body of Christ who have a balanced perspective on Christian duty. You'll get one congregation that's all taken up with the biblical directives toward what we might call the internal responsibilities of the body to each other.

19:33 And they're very concerned about knowing one another's needs and praying one for another and caring one for another. But you watch their activity with reference to the outside world and it's as though they didn't have an ounce of concern for the increase of the body. They let the world go to hell and never peep. And then on the other hand you get people you watch them and there's a feverish almost feverish activity of evangelism.

19:59 Little evangelistic groups in homes and literature and tracts and all the rest and house to house visitation. But they know nothing of what it is to labor for the edifying of the body. And so they bring in babies into a body made up of babies.

20:18 And Jesus Christ is dishonored. And oh how rare it is to see an assembly where there is that balanced perspective on Christian duty.

20:30 And the problem is it's because we've not recognized this principle. If we are the body of Christ there is this necessity of a biblically active membership. That is, we must seek to know all his mind concerning the full spectrum of our duties. We need to take seriously the words of Mary spoken at the wedding feast.

20:53 Whatsoever he saith unto you do it.

20:58 Whatsoever he saith unto you do it. Notice again the expansiveness whatsoever he saith unto you. But then the exclusiveness whatsoever he saith unto you and then the practicality do it. Don't sit around and meditate on it.

21:16 Don't sit around and analyze it. Get up! And do it! When the nerve impulses come from the word do it!

21:24 David could say I made haste and I delayed not to keep thy commandments.

21:34 Then not only must we seek to know all of his mind with a view to doing it but we must learn to refuse all the nerve impulses that come from another source. Refuse the nerve impulses that come from human wisdom.

21:50 Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 10 4 and 5 2 Corinthians 10 5 and 6 what man seeketh shall cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And you'll never do the latter until you do the former. Cast down imaginations. Remember it was human wisdom that crucified Jesus.

22:15 After that in the wisdom of this world the world by its wisdom knew not God.

22:22 And it's human wisdom that crucifies him again in the very very house of his friends. When the church seeks to carry out her task as the body of Christ, not getting her nerve impulses from the head, but may I say it reverently, plugging into the nerve impulses of human wisdom. Let me illustrate. If you're going to increase the body of Christ, if you're going to evangelize, if you're going to win the world, be like it. That's human wisdom. That's human wisdom. You've got to hook into the world in order

23:00 to win it. That's human wisdom. The impulses that come from the head say, the more you are unlike it, the more effective you'll be in winning it. That's why when Jesus prayed in John 17, he said, I don't pray you take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil. And much of that evil comes from the world's wisdom.

23:27 We must be kept also from the nerve impulses of human tradition. Remember what happened to the visible church in the New Testament? Decadent, national Israel. It was in that sense the visible church, the visible congregation of God's people. Jesus said in Mark 7, you

23:49 people cancel out the word of God by your rotten human tradition. The nerve impulses are pulsing from the head. Jehovah God. Who is the God of Israel? Who is your husband? Who is your master? Yet instead you're plugged

24:07 into your rotten, corrupt human traditions. And oh, how much even the best of our evangelical and reformed churches are bound by the curse of human tradition. Nerve impulses can come from the head. And our duty is clear when we say, ah, if we do that, what will people think? That's not done. Who cares if it's not done?

24:32 If we're certain that the impulses come from the head whatsoever, you say up unto you, do it. If we've got to trample under a human tradition every step we take in the path of obedience to the nerve impulses from the head, then hallelujah, trample them underfoot. Now that doesn't mean we become wild-eyed fanatics and forget that there are certain things that are part of human culture that are neither evil nor virtuous. And God doesn't ask us to be coots.

25:04 And by the way, I'm not saying that we should be coots. I'm saying that we should not be coots. I came into the pulpit this morning with a striped t-shirt. I'm sure you couldn't find a chapter and verse to prove it was wrong, but it would be kookish. It would be kookish.

25:18 It would be an unnecessary diversion of your mind from the purpose for which I'm here in the pulpit. And that just makes good horse sense. I'm not talking now. You see, you get some young Christian to take that straight human tradition and then just go out and be a nut. I'm not, I'm not encouraging nut-ism this morning. Ah, but what I am saying, dear

25:40 friends, is this. As a body of Christ, as we pray together, and as your elders wait before God and seek to know his mind for this convocation, when anything new is proposed, the one concern should be, is it a proposition that comes from the nerve impulses emanating from the head through his word? And once that's established, then if we don't have any precedent for it whatsoever. And if we're convinced it's rooted in the Word, then we proceed to do it by the grace of God. That's what I mean by a biblically active membership. Seeking to know all of

26:22 his mind with a reference to doing it. But rejecting the impulses of human wisdom, the impulses of human tradition, and the third impulse that cripples many a church in our day. Human pressure to conform, we're all so made that the impulses of what others expect of us and what others are doing. coming at us. Nobody likes to be different. And I tell you, dear ones, it's hard to be

26:48 different as a church. Why everybody is doing this or that. Why it's just expected that we do thus and so. Why you can't reach young people without Christian movies. Why you can't

27:02 reach young people without, quote, Christian rock music. Why you just can't reach such and such a class without this. And you just can't this without that. And this without the other. Oh, my friend, the question is this. Does the head send out signals saying

27:20 to his body, this is what you're to do? If not, we don't take our signals, even from other members of the body. This finger doesn't take its signals from that one. It takes it from here. And when that says wiggle, it wiggles. And that figure, if it could say anything,

27:42 says don't wiggle, what goes here overrides it and wiggles.

27:48 We don't take our signals. Take our impulses for the path of obedience from other bodies or other members of the body. That's human pressure. And when I say that this biblical doctrine of the church is the body of Christ shows the necessity of a biblically active membership, this is precisely what I mean.

Resisting Laziness, Discouragement, and Crippling Introspection

28:07 And if we understand it, we will then positively seek to know all of his mind with reference to doing it. Negatively, we'll refuse all human wisdom, tradition, and pressure. And thirdly, we will resist all tendency to laziness, to discouragement, and to crippling introspection.

28:34 Jesus said of the church at Ephesus, I know thy labors and thy toil. He commended them. When's the last time your concern for the increase or the edifying of the body bordered on labor?

28:56 Bordered on labor. And the word used in the Greek is a strong word. It means labor unto hardship.

29:06 It's what you see when the kind of days we've been having, and I know what it's like because I did that for several summers to earn my own keep and put myself through college. When you're out in the boiling sun with a pick and a shovel, or worse yet, when you're having to rake concrete in the boiling sun, and the water is literally pouring off you, and the mouth is parched and dry and every muscle aches, and lo and behold, it's only one o'clock in the afternoon and you know you've got three and a half more hours to go, and you just grit your teeth and hang in there.

29:42 I know thy labor.

29:45 Let us never take the doctrine of divine sovereignty and the certainty of the issue of the church as a subtle excuse for resting on our oars and leaning on the shovel, as we call it, in the construction work.

30:02 No, no. Paul says, I agonize according to his working which worketh in me mightily. God's mighty work in him didn't cancel that agonizing labor in his own personality. It was the spring of it.

30:21 It was the driving force of it. But it didn't cancel out the reality of it. May I say this has a great word of application for the work of preaching. This idea that...

30:32 That if you're just expounding the word and dependent on the spirit, you stand up there kind of passively and just give out the word of God and the sovereign God will bless it. That's rubbish.

30:42 When the Holy Ghost is energizing a man, he'll take up that whole man and that whole man will be conscious that he's laboring in the word and in doctrine. And yet wonder of wonders when he's done, he'll say, I did it according to his working which worked in me.

31:00 Resist all laziness. Quit ye like men. Be strong. Strong is the word of God.

31:07 We must resist discouragement. Be steadfast, unmovable. Why? You know your labor's not in vain in the Lord.

31:15 We're not on a fool's errand. Thank God we're not on a fool's errand. And so we labor in the confidence that our labor shall meet us on the other side. And beware of crippling introspection.

31:29 There's a proper sense of biblical self-examination and that'll always lead back to the fountain open for sin and unbelief. And a new sight of Christ and a new sight of Christ will always cause you to roll up your sleeves and get back to work.

31:44 Crippling introspection is marked by something just the opposite. The more you're looking in, the more you look in, and the more you look in, the less you do but keep looking in. That's crippling introspection.

31:59 Biblical self-examination will cause you to look in and what you see will so disgust you that you'll look out unto Christ and what you see there, will so fill you with glory and wonder that you'll roll up your sleeves and go to work for Him. See the difference? Am I talking to some who are crippled with introspection? My friend, listen.

32:22 You're a defective member in the body of Christ, if that's so. You should be up and doing according to the will of the head. Well, you see, these implications can be carried out in many directions. I'll leave that point there and move to the fourth.

The Necessity of a Biblically Supplied Membership: Heavenly Resources

32:37 In the light of this doctrine of the church as the body of Christ, I trust we see the necessity of a biblically supplied membership.

32:52 Biblically guarded, biblically disciplined, biblically active, but also a biblically supplied membership. And here the figure of the human body as a picture of the body of Christ breaks down. And thank God for that blessed breakdown.

33:12 We touched on this just a moment last week. I want to enlarge on it and turn to several of the other topics that we've discussed. I'll use the Bible Scriptures to illustrate what I'm talking about.

33:20 In this physical organism, in your physical organism there is not only the life in the head, but there is life also in the various members of the body, and there is inherent strength in that sense in the muscles of the finger and of the arms and of the legs. Now, their activity, granted, must be governed by the impulses from the head. And if there's a breakdown in the nerve impulses, there is either the tragic case of the spiritual state, spactic or the paralytic. But with the body of Christ, there's an element that is totally different. Not only does all the nerve impulse come from the head, but all the energizing

34:00 power also comes from the head as well. Notice two passages of the Word of God, three passages. Colossians chapter 1. And now we're in another passage dealing with the concept of the church as the body of Christ. We're not letting imagination and figures of speech govern our propositions.

34:22 They are forced upon us by the Word. Colossians 1 verse 17. And he, Jesus Christ, is before all things, and in him all things adhere or consist or hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.

34:45 For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him, who is he? Christ, who is the head of the body. Remember now, he's not lost that imagery. The pronoun refers back to Christ conceived of as the head of the body. It was the good pleasure of the Father that in him

35:03 should all fullness dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. And now he goes on developing this. You have been reconciled, verse 22, yet now. Now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him, if so be that you continue in the faith.

35:25 Now notice the verse clearly states that Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer of his people, is to be thought of as the head of his people, who are thought of as his body. Now, keeping that in mind, move over to chapter 2 of Colossians, verses 19 and 20. Colossians 2, verses 19 and 10. For in him, that is the Lord Jesus, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in union with him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power. Now

36:00 down to verse 19.

36:03 And not holding fast the head, from whom all the body being supplied, and knit together through the joints and bands. Increaseth with the increase of God. Where does the increase come from? It is supplied from the head. Not holding fast the head, from whom all the body being supplied. Hence

36:35 our point, the necessity of a biblically supplied membership. And in the parallel passage in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 14. You have essentially the same concept, that the fullness of Christ is conveyed to his body, and only as the body is thus supplied with his fullness, does it function to his glory and accomplish his purposes. Well then, to reduce this to a very simple question, consider with me this thought. What are the resources of the church? More particularly,

37:15 what are the resources? The resources of this particular church, functioning as a body of Christ. The answer given by many in our day, and I'm talking about people who claim to believe the Bible, is that the answer is organizational. And so I get literature constantly. To go to special seminars conducted

37:34 for pastors, and they say, is your ministry crippled, inefficient? What you need to do is come to this seminar on how to organize your time, and how to get the most out of your personnel, and then the church will take off like a rocket. And then you have others that say, the answer is perfect. And then you have others that say, the answer is perfect.

37:48 And so I get literature constantly. What are the resources of the church? More particularly, what are the resources of the church? And when I say, the answer is perfect, what you need to do is come to this seminar on how to organize your time, and how to get the most out of your personnel, and how to get the most out of your personnel, and the answer is perfect. And then the church will take off like a rocket. This is promotional. The reason

37:53 the community is not taking notice of your church is they don't know you exist. And how are they going to know you exist? Well, you come to us, and you get our promotional outfits, and we guarantee in six months' time, every person in your community will know that you're in business. The answer is promotional. Others say the answer is natural, or carnal, and others

38:08 have a mixture. No, no, no, no. This whole biblical concept, the church as his body, underscores that the resources of the church are heavenly. They are supernatural. They

38:22 are spiritual. That's why Paul prays for the Ephesians, that God would give them the spirit to understand the exceeding greatness of his power towards them. Because by nature we don't understand spiritual resources. We understand carnal resources by nature, and we know how to implement them by nature. But we don't understand spiritual resources

38:47 by nature, nor do we know how to implement them. Therefore it is essential for every church to pray, O God, give us the spirit that we may know the exceeding greatness of your power to us. That we may penetrate what it means that in Christ we may know the Christ dwells all, the fullness of the Godhead, and we are complete in him. It is holding fast to the head that we are supplied. Our resources are not organizational primarily,

Prayerfulness and Carefulness Not to Grieve the Spirit

39:17 though any church under the headship of Christ will have organization. But that's not the source of our grace and strength and power. The mark then of a true body of Christ who recognizes this principle is that prayerfulness is its outset. Now, the bitter Perfection is especially correct for any church that pursues practical

39:43 faith. But every prayer that is Cantora's vision to be etched in the church record is indeed a Function following that of the Him all the supplies of grace came. Because every time you turn your back, they're holed up somewhere praying.

40:24 Praying and preaching. That was it. Not doing much promoting. Just praying and preaching.

40:32 And they turned the world upside down.

40:35 Praying and preaching. And I look back upon those early days of my own Christian experience, and I very seldom refer to personal things of this nature. You know that. But I look back sometimes now, and I have to laugh that we didn't know any better than to do those two things.

40:51 I mean, literally. The first time someone even suggested that a group of us go out for a hamburger, we were shocked. We'd get together three or four times a week, and we'd pray, and then we'd go out in the street and preach, and then come back in and pray some more. And go off to school, and do necessary things around the home, and then get together and pray for a few more hours, and then go out and preach, and then come in from preaching and pray.

41:12 Pray and preach.

41:15 Oh, very simplistic, yes.

41:18 The fruits of those days are evident to this very hour in many lives.

41:23 And the other churches that said, oh, you bunch of young people are fanatics. You're too simplistic. We've got to promote. We've got to entertain and all the rest.

41:32 You can look up and down the land for some fruits of that ministry, and you don't find it.

41:38 Some of you have read the glowing reports of the recent big juggernaut that came down to Jamaica. 7,000 decisions for Christ. I wrote to Oscar. I said, you've been down to Jamaica.

41:48 Tell me what you saw up close. I got a letter yesterday with all the power and thousands and thousands of dollars in promotion with all the intricate computerized organization.

42:02 Oscar got involved in that campaign. He went to meetings and all the rest. An old gentleman in his own assembly, Clive Affleck, received 80 cards, followed up every single one and didn't find one who gave evidence of being a Christian.

42:21 Another man, 130 cards. 30 of them showed up for church a couple of times. Five of them stayed long enough to make a profession of faith and be baptized.

42:34 And yet we're supposed to believe that this is the work of God? No, no, dear ones. Now, I don't say that to be smart, but I say it to underscore this principle. When we return to the simplicity of the biblical methods, waiting upon God, pleading with God to send His Spirit, pleading with God to come with convicting power, pleading with God to reveal His Son, pleading with God to humble sinners, then in that attitude of dependence, God is often pleased to send copious measures of the life and strength of His beloved Son through the humble, sometimes often crude witness of His people.

43:17 And He brings sinners humbled to the feet of Jesus.

43:24 Prayerfulness is the mark that we've understood this principle. The necessity for a biblically supplied membership, those spiritual energies are tapped. Not organizationally and promotionally and naturally and carnally, but in an attitude of prayerfulness and dependence upon God. And also in a context of carefulness not to grieve the Spirit.

43:50 You see, an organization can run and function smoothly without any necessity for considering that element that cannot be seen and fed into the computer. That element of the presence of the Spirit, of God, who, when He's grieved, withdraws. The figure of the Spirit in the Gospels was that He did not come as an eagle to rest upon our Lord. He came in the form of a dove.

44:20 An eagle takes its prey and sinks its talons into the prey and the more it struggles, the deeper its talons sink into its flesh. A dove alights and the slightest ruffling and he flies away. The Spirit came in the form of a dove. And oh, to have the dove of God resting upon a body of Christ,

44:46 granting freshness to its worship, granting reality to its prayers, granting energy to its witness. But the Word of God is then grieved, not the Holy Spirit of God. And when He's grieved, may I say it reverently, He just flutters away and you're left to go on grinding out your songs and the emptiness of your own words come in your own ears and mock you. You're left to grind out your prayers and the hollowness of the prayers bounce off the walls and into your ears and they mock you and the preacher stands and he's left with the emptiness of his notes and his words and his pious phrases.

45:31 Oh, that we as a body of Christ may learn and increasingly learn the necessity of a biblically supplied membership that the Holy Ghost leads us. We've had it. Now, I'm fully aware of the truth of chapter one. I sought to expound it that we're sealed unto the day of redemption as individual believers.

45:51 I know that. We're not talking now in this crass individualism of our day. We're talking about our corporate life, beloved. And it's one thing for individual Christians here to be sealed to the day of redemption.

46:05 It's one thing for us as a body to have the dove of God upon us and in our midst.

46:13 And God has been so gracious to us. Anyone in whom the Spirit dwells couldn't be here Wednesday night and not know that God was here. That the dove of His presence rested upon us. But oh, how quickly He can be grieved.

46:31 It's why it's so essential that we cultivate that sensitivity to the Word of God and to its demands lest we grieve and quench the Spirit.

46:43 And that's why we will also be very, very careful when any evidence that He's supplying us with grace unto increase and edification that all the praise will go away. And that will go to Him because He says, My name is Jehovah. I will not give my glory to another neither my praise to graven images.

47:05 And that's why many of us felt our hearts run out with the heart of Brother Clark as he prayed this morning. As God's begun to give some measure of increase and edification. Oh, if from our hearts we do not lay every feet of Jesus, the Holy Ghost is jealous for the honor of Christ. Never forget and when He senses that crowns are being laid at anyone else's feet,

47:34 He will be grieved and quenched and we will not see His mighty work or the necessity of having a biblically supplied membership.

The Necessity of a High Regard for the Biblical Doctrine of the Church

47:51 If the church is His body,

47:54 then we are utterly dependent for all that we are and have upon Him who is His head.

48:05 And then I must close with a prayer. I will end with this last thought and we'll touch upon it just briefly. If we have rightly expounded the various passages dealing with this concept the church is the body of Christ, we should not only see the necessity of a biblically guarded membership, a biblically disciplined membership, a biblically active membership, a biblically supplied membership, but implicit in all of this has been that we should see the necessity of having a high regard for Christ for the biblical doctrine of the church.

48:42 Any man who regards himself a Christian in the biblical sense of the word will say that he has a serious regard for the biblical doctrine of the person and work of Christ. No man is a Christian who doesn't have that. We are the true circumcision, Paul says, who worship God in the Spirit, who glory in Christ Jesus. If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

49:08 This is the gospel we preach unto you. I'm quoting from 1 Corinthians 15 now. By which ye are saved, Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. No man's a Christian who doesn't have a serious regard for the person and work of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scripture.

49:28 However, there are many who claim to have this high regard for the person and work of Christ objectively and historically revealed who have little regard for the visible church. But my friend, listen, the church is His body. You can't love me without loving my body. Me as a whole person.

49:49 I love you as anybody apart from that person as he or she is attached to his body. For God has constituted the person a psychosomatic entity.

50:05 And so if we love Jesus Christ, He takes seriously His body. He says, inasmuch as you've done it not unto the least of these, my little one, you've done it not to me. He said, you people thought you could have a regard for me and be indifferent to the members of my body. You've fooled yourselves.

50:23 It's impossible.

50:26 And I say then to you sitting here this morning who perhaps have had a very careless or an indifferent attitude toward the doctrine of the church, listen to me. If you love Jesus Christ, you must love His body. For the church is His body. The fullness, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.

50:48 Jesus Christ as Savior nourishes and cherishes His body. And if you love Him, you'll love what He loves. Ah, but someone says, Pastor Martin, don't you know that that's speaking of the church universal? Ah, listen, my friend.

51:03 How can you assure yourself you have any love for the church universal general which you can't see, which is never gathered in one place, to which you cannot give your life's blood and your prayers and your energies? How can you claim to have any true regard for the church universal if you don't love its specific manifestation?

51:30 There's a man who says, Oh, I love, I love the kingdom of the birds. I just love the kingdom of the birds. And I see him out in the backyard with a BB gun shooting sparrows and shooting robins. And I say, Hey, buddy, wait a minute.

51:43 You tell me, Oh, yeah, I'm a bird lover in the abstract. I say, then you're no bird lover. How he treats the little sparrow that lands on his air conditioner and goes out there in a little puddle in the backyard to take his bath. That tells me how genuine his professed love to birddom is.

52:04 And you say to me, Oh, I love the church universal. I just don't have much to do with the church visible and local. My friend, you're deceiving yourself.

52:14 For each particular local church is called the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12, 27. Ye are a body of Christ and your regard for the church visible and local is a reflection of your true regard for the church universal. Not two churches.

52:34 It's just different manifestations of the one church.

52:39 Now, that may upset some of you, but if it upsets you enough to go to your Bible and get honest with God and with yourself, then thank God you've been upset.

52:48 Because I know the terrible teaching that's been abroad for the past 75 years that has downgraded the doctrine of the church. And I was once so foolish and besot in the church even with my own ignorance that I thought I didn't even need to be a member of a visible church. And I say to my shame for five whole years I was a member of no visible church and even dared to minister without the direction and oversight of some facet of the visible church.

53:19 And so I don't scold you if it's ignorance, but my friend, if it's willful ignorance, that's something for which you're going to give an account to God. Oh, may God help some who sit here this morning indifferent to the visible church indifferent to membership in the visible church to see this cannot be. If you love Christ you'll love his body and you'll love that manifestation of the body where he has providentially put you. And then to those of you who do have a basic love for and regard for the visible church let me exhort you to pray that that love may increase and deepen so that you'll be able to say in the words of the hymn for her my tears shall fall for her

Call to Believe the Gospel and Be Baptized

54:03 my energy shall be expended it is the church which is the pillar and the ground of the truth it is the church which is the vehicle of the manifestation of the glory of Christ not only to our own generation but to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places Ephesians 3 and verse 10 it is the church which is the apple of God's eye the darling of his heart the church which is his body I close with the question that I asked two weeks ago are you part of the body of Christ universal there's only one way to get into that body that's if the spirit places you there no preacher can put you there you can attend

54:48 fourteen hundred and twenty five and a half membership classes of the best visible church in the world be interviewed for thirteen hours by the elders and be baptized twenty seven times but my friend no amount of human activity can ever get you in the body of Christ only the Holy Ghost can place you there by one spirit we are baptized into the one body you say how can I have the spirit baptized well I can't pay money for it I cannot earn it that work of the spirit is always done in conjunction with two things the preaching of the gospel and the belief of the gospel read Ephesians 1 13 and 14 in whom

55:32 having heard the word of the truth ye believed ye believed ye were sealed with the spirit and so I call upon you today to believe the gospel look away from yourself and look unto Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the operations of the spirit are always in conjunction with the message of Christ you don't have dealings with the spirit by seeking the spirit you have dealings with the spirit in seeking the savior and so when you read to the book of the acts of the spirit the spirit fell when did he fall they were just giving the truths about Jesus a man of God

56:16 approved among you by signs and wonders crucified buried risen the Holy Ghost falls all the beauty and the simplicity of it oh would God this morning take the simple message Christ died Christ rose Christ lives believe upon him and if right now you say yes I do believe I see no hope in myself God has shown me from the word and the spirit that all my hope is in Christ believe me my friend you're baptized into the body of Christ and if he has done that work then he commands you to make a declaration of it and submit to that ordinance which declares pictorially and visibly

57:01 what he has done inwardly and powerfully and by means of that ordinance then you pass into a visible local particular body of Christ see now how baptism is not just some silly to do about water it is God's ordained way of displaying visibly and tangibly with the eyes and the senses what he has wrought inwardly and powerfully by the spirit and then it becomes the badge of identification that you are part of a visible community of his own people and so I say in the words of the apostle repent believe be baptized may God make that

57:45 message effectual to some heart today let us close in prayer