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9869--John Wimber--God with us-Intimacy Worship Fellowship_128k
00:00:00 Speaker: One night. I still don't know to this day, but whether he spoke audibly or not. But I was sound asleep in a hotel room in Detroit, and I heard a voice and it was calling my name. I sat up in bed. There was nobody in the room. I heard the voice again say, I've seen your ministry. And when he said that it was, it spoke volumes like strife, hassle. I've seen all of your efforts. I've seen what you've tried to do. And he said, and now I'm going to show you mine. And of course, I wanted to see his. And so over the last five years, he's been showing me his. He's been showing me how gentle he is, how kind he is, how careful and considerate he is of individuals. Totally unlike me, but interested in every person at the place and the point that they're in that he is a gentle savior. And then on the other hand, he's also the Lion of Judah, and that sometimes he acts like God. And when he acts like God, sometimes it scares me. You know, hanging around with God can be pretty frightening. Moses and his people found out about that, didn't they? At Mount Zion. But over the last five years, he's been teaching us some basics. And before we get into this series on on the specifics of messages that I believe he's giving to the church generally around the world, I wanted to take a few moments today and give you a message that he gave us about six weeks after all this began. It's out of the first Chronicles, the sixteenth chapter, verse eight through eleven, or actually it's through twelve. This is the word of the Lord that came to us one morning in a prayer meeting. It was first prophesied, and then we looked it up and found it in the Scripture. Now, we weren't used to prophesying in those days, and it absolutely blew our minds that somebody without memorizing could prophesy a scripture and then find it in the Bible. But here it was, and it was the Word of God to us. Eight verse, sixteenth chapter, first Chronicles. O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the people. Sing to him, sing praises to him. Speak of all his wonders. Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face continually. Remember his wonderful deeds which he had done, his marvelous judgments from which he from his mouth, his marvels, and the judgments from his mouth. Now that was the the word that the Lord had given us that morning. Now, as a consultant, I had traveled around the country, and every now and then I was asked to consult a charismatic fellowship. And I would come into these fellowships, and every now and then I would see people kneel or stand up and, and and put their hands in the air. And, and the song leader hadn't asked them to do it, and it really bothered me. It seemed to, you know, it seemed out of control. It seemed funny. It didn't seem right. And when I would go to those church, I always try to get there after they worshiped. So. So that I didn't have to watch anybody do that because it seemed, too. You shouldn't do that in public. You know, it didn't seem like the right thing to do. And besides, it really bothered me that God's self-image was so poor that he required people to butter him up all the time. That's why I never did like the Psalms very much. You know, it didn't make sense to me that a man now David was a man, right? Everybody knows that if you read the story of David, you know he was a man. But then a man like David would write all those things, you know, like, oh, give glory to the Lord. Oh blessed be. You know, on and on and on and on. It didn't make sense to me. It bothered me that God required that of his people. And I thought, well, if he gotta give it to God, we ought at least organize it, you know, put it in a song or something, and then nobody will mean it when they sing it. And so whenever I was exposed to the kind of worship that we just had here a few moments ago, I was really put off by it. I didn't like it. I didn't like what was going on. I didn't like it when I looked around and people were crying, why don't they do that at home? Why do they have to do that in public? Don't they know people are looking at them? Of course they didn't. But I was looking at him, you know, and it drove me nuts. And so I can remember when the Lord gave us this text, uh, I was really in a bad state, spiritually and emotionally. And, uh, I remember when he gave us this text, it was not good news to me. It wasn't something I wanted to get involved with, you know? I thought, oh, really? Is that what you want? But I saw other people entering in, and I began noticing that there was a change in them. People that I'd known for years were becoming different kind of people. And when I would ask them how and why, they'd say, because I'm learning to worship God. And I said, well, what does it do for you? And they said, well, it just it builds relationship. Well, at the same time that that was happening, God was speaking to me about my lack of relationship. And he would remind me of times when I was as a young Christian, when I was crazy in love with Jesus. I mean, I'm telling you, I was nuts about Jesus. That's all I could think about or talk about. I told everybody I met about Jesus. I either made him mad or glad one way or the other. I bored everybody with my stories about Jesus. I couldn't talk about anybody else. And he would remind me of those kinds of moments and I and a sadness sort of a a a sad feeling would come over my heart. And I think, boy, I used to really love you a lot more than I do now. Huh? And he'd say, well, why don't why don't we get reacquainted? That's what worship is all about. Why don't you come and talk to me? Well, Lord, I feel funny doing that. He said, well, why don't you just raise your hand this high? And so for several months, you know, every now and then I would get one of these shots or. Never over the keyboard. Right. And I would make sure I wasn't feeling too emotional when I did it. And you've all gone through it. The process of learning to to forget about others and enter into worship with God. Well, as he spoke to me during that period of time, I began seeing that the missing ingredient was intimacy, that somehow I was no longer intimate with my God, my Savior and my Lord, and that I couldn't talk to him in, in, in terms of expressing any kind of intimate language because I didn't know how. Because indeed, our relationship was so hampered that they were we were no longer intimate. And I can remember at a point about two years ago, three years ago, when I finally could get to the point where I could take the Psalms and begin praying them as my own personal prayers and not feel funny about it. And that was an exciting point in my life, when I realized that intimacy had been restored, that it was no longer an issue. I didn't feel self-conscious any longer about expressing in a tender way my my love for Jesus and His care for me. Oh, give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name, and make known his deeds among the peoples. You know the word deed. There can be translated actions. Same word. A little later on and speak of all his wonders. It means his actions, the things he's done. I was trained up in a church, uh, attitude that that pretty much liked to talk about what he had done a long time ago. I heard it expressed this way one time. Many evangelicals act as though God died with the cannon, meaning the canon of Scripture, and that he really isn't active anymore, or even participating much in the affairs of man. And then, except for the virtue of having had the word communicated with you, that no one would be saved, and that there there really isn't a any activity in which God's evolved, you know, involved these days. And I think I really believe that. And and it really bothered me when people would talk about any kind of an immediacy with God. Now, first thing that bothered me was intimacy. The second thing was immediacy. You mean you expect God to show up at your prayer meeting? I told my wife one night and she said, coming every Sunday night. I said, well, it's after nine. He's not busy then. He's all the other churches are closed by then. Try to make a joke of it. But she didn't think it was funny because God was attending this this little group and meeting with the little group, and the group was learning how to express their heart's desires and communicate to Jesus in an intimate and personal way. And he was visiting his people. And so when she told me that I didn't want to hear about those kinds of actions, I didn't want to hear about those kinds of deeds. What do you mean? You expect God to show up at your meetings? She said, well, we do, and he does. And I learned in that that God directly relates his visitations to the expectation of the people, where there is no expectation, God doesn't act, but where there's expectation, He acts and he is immediate. He's close. He's involved. And so we learn to praise God and to thank God and to be intimate with God. And then we learn to make known his deeds among the peoples. God is on the move today. The deeds that that were done in this book are great and and mighty and wonderful. But I believe that deeds, uh, that are even greater are being performed today. I've talked to men who have prayed for the dead and seen them raised. I've seen evidences that prove to me that God is on the move today in a way greater than at any other time. God is on the move and he is doing deeds. And we need to to communicate those deeds. We need to to share those deeds. In the last few weeks, we've had a new visitation from the Lord, and the Lord has been moving among us, and it's been incredible. I had a friend this morning tell me, he said, you know, I've been bringing my friend to Sunday evening church the last three weeks. I said, uh oh. And he said, well, he said he's an agnostic and an intellectual. And I said, oh, that's the right place to bring him on Sunday night. He said, well, we were seated over there last Sunday night. And that man flipped up in the air and landed by us. And he said, what was wrong with that man? I said, well, we'll talk about that another time. And he said, well, uh, he said, uh, he said, I didn't know what to tell my friend. And I said, well, what did you tell him? And he said, well, I what I told him was, um, uh, I don't know about John and Sam, but Bob's alright. We'll go talk to Bob. He he's always on a smooth plane. He'll help us. And so he said we couldn't find Bob. And so somebody took us back in the back room and Bob was laying there on the floor. I said, what did your friend say? And he said, he just went. And then I guess he got an audience with someone else. Well, you know, it's messy when the living God shows up. He's liable to do something that's untoward. He's liable to do something that's not in the outline. It's not on the menu. It's not in the in the book, so to speak. It's not hasn't been programmed. But a number of years ago when the Lord spoke to us, I said, Lord, I want to be in a church where you show up. I want to be among a group of people that expect you to do mighty things. And he said, John, and he spoke to me this in my heart. He said, John, if you'll tell him what I've been doing, I'll do it among them. And that was nearly five years ago now. And he's been doing it. We've seen the blind see and the lame walk. We've seen people who couldn't, can We've seen babies come where parents couldn't have children. We've seen every conceivable kind of disease and, and, uh, um, every kind of healing imaginable happen. When I look around now, this morning, I can see people that have one that's been healed of cerebral palsy. Another person that's, uh, we've dedicated their baby back a few weeks ago. Months ago, they hadn't been able to have one another person that was healed of arthritis. And if I just went around the roads, I think I could tell you lots of stories about the power of God. And Jesus told us five years ago, he says, make known his deeds among the peoples. And so that's what we've been doing this morning. Sing to him. Sing praises to him. Speak of all his wonders. You know, I was weaned on on the hymns of yesteryear and and, uh, every now and then, in fact, even last week, somebody said, why don't you sing hymns? And I did a little standard joke. I said, Because Carl can't play him, and I always pick on Carl when he's not around. But the but the real truth is, I believe that that God is calling us to a new liturgy. You see, when Martin Luther wrote his hymns, they were in a contemporary idiom. He was using the popular barroom songs of the day and wrote Christian lyrics to them. When Wesley wrote his hymns, he was doing the same thing. Now we're not Luther or Wesley, but we are who we are, and we are a people called out by God today to communicate in a popular idiom, in a way in which the people in the street can relate to it and understand it. And so we sing songs that are intimate. We sing songs to a God that's immediate, and we sing songs that are in the today's idiom so that people can understand and relate and communicate. And we sing to him. You know, I, I think that was the hardest thing for me. I remember going over a list of songs that were popular to me back a few years ago, and out of that list there were only two songs, and all the songs that I sang regularly at the church I attended that were addressed to God. And I can remember that on numerous occasions when we sang those songs, there would be a sense of the presence of God come. Now, there isn't anything wrong with singing about God or what God's done in other times or other places. Unless you don't expect God to come in this time or in this place. But you see, what God has been teaching us to do is to sing to him and to expect him to arrive at the meetings and and relate in today's situation. And so we've been learning to sing and to minister intimately with a sense of immediacy. And in today's idioms, and we speak of all his wonders. And that just means his mighty deeds. And we tell you stories. That's what kinship groups are all about, gathering together with a group of brothers and sisters and finding out what God's been doing. And sometimes the meetings last till twelve o'clock at night, because there's so many things to tell, so many marvelous things that have happened, so many wonderful deeds that have occurred. Did you know such and such got converted? No. That's wonderful. Did you know such and such? Got baptized in the spirit. And that they received their their prayer language? And then somebody else prophesied for the first time the other night, and someone else healed the sick for the first time the other night. And someone else spoke in such a way as that a blind person received their sight. Really, I know them. They're not any more spiritual than I am. Amen. That's the point, people. Because when you begin sharing the mighty deeds of God, you begin recognizing that that the mighty deeds of God and not of men and not of women, and that God uses people like you and I, simple people. People that really haven't a lot to share. You know, I've never been able to fast and pray and and seek God by the days and weeks and months, like some of the heroes of the faith. And if you're like me, I was weaned on a lot of those people. I read their books and I thought, gosh, if that's the way I got to go to heaven, I'll never get there because I can't do it. But, you know, God has used me to heal the sick. I've laid hands on the blind and seen their eyes. See. And I want to tell you something that's exciting. To step back and see a blind person open their eyes. And you're the first person they've ever seen. Heavy. You see, God did that, and God doesn't want to do that just through a few flamboyant showmen that do it up on a stage someplace with the lights on and the orchestra playing, you know, and it's all right for those that do it that way. But God wants to use people like you and me to do it. God wants to use you to do it. God wants to use you to heal the sick, and you to feed the hungry, and you to minister to the lost. He wants you to lead people to Jesus, and he wants you to lay hands on them. You. And that's the message God gave us back five years ago, and we've been sharing that message with you. I can remember the first time I preached on, um, God heals the sick. Everybody in the whole place was mad at me. There were only about one hundred and fifty of us then, and they were all angry at me. They kept slamming their Bibles shut and looking at each other. You don't believe that, do you? And I would say, well, look, I didn't make it up. I'm just reading out of Luke here. It says right here, Luke, that that's what Jesus did. And it says, you know, over here in Mark that we're supposed to do it too. I said, well, that's not a good scripture. Everybody knows that verse is under contest. You know, give me another verse. So I give him another verse and they would gee, that does sound like maybe it's possible. And so we resisted. And at first it was hard to to believe these things. But, you know, it's getting easier because you're sitting next to somebody that happened to ask him about it. And they were just like you. They came here, many of them from other churches and and other backgrounds that didn't believe these things. Oh, they believed the word of God. They believed that it was God's Word. But they believe it happened a long time ago, and they didn't really think much was going to happen here and now. It was in the by and by, not here and now. But Jesus has called us to an immediacy, and Jesus has called us to an Intimacy, and he's called us to work these things out. Now, in this life. Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face continually. Someone said, I sought the Lord until I found him, and I and I would. I encouraged him to continue to seek him even after you found him. Seek him until you've exhausted everything you can about him, and then seek him some more, because there's nothing greater than seeking the living God. There's nothing greater than than urging the living God to do that that he would promise to do. I didn't know for years, as a Christian that if I went to God and implored for things to be done, that he would act and react according to those requests. But I found out along the way that if I would go and beg God to do the things that God had promised to do, God would do them. And what's more, he would get me involved in the process. Now that's what's fun. It's not enough to read that God's working somewhere else. It's not enough to recognize that God did something in another place at another time. How about it now, with you and me? Isn't that what you want? Isn't it people? Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to touch the heart of God now and your neighbor and bless them? That's what I want. And I'm. I have the same problems you have with it. I get afraid that it won't work for me. Or I know it works for Lonnie or Sam or somebody, but I'm often afraid. The other night, Sam was praying for a guy. A gal, I guess it was. And she was deaf in her left ear, and he started praying for her. And pretty soon she could hear. And I was watching that, you know, and it just knocks me out. I said, how'd you do that? You know, and he said, well, I just prayed. I said, I know that, but I've prayed for ears and it didn't happen. He said, well, I just kept praying. So I thought, keep praying. I'm going to remember that. That's where I blew it. Now God has used me to heal ears before, but sometimes he doesn't, you know. And that bothers me. And I want to learn how and and be involved with doing it all the time. Because, you know, it's fun to step back from somebody and have them hear you for the first time. It's fun to watch braces come off of legs. It's fun to watch people walk for the first time. I remember a lady in, in, um, Chorleywood in in London, England, when we were there that walked for the first time. I'm telling you, it was one of the most exciting things I've ever seen in my life. This lady hadn't walked in sixteen years. She had M.S. and she had lost total control of her body. And so she was, uh, in a in a wheelchair. And, uh, in fact, the only thing she could do that was mobile. She could lay on her stomach on the floor and drag her elbows, but she couldn't walk or stand or in any other way get around. And so here she was in the, in the group, and and several people had prayed for her, but nothing had happened. And over a two day period. And I kept looking at her thinking, you know, she's going to get healed. But I was scared to go pray because I didn't want to fail. You know that feeling? Hello. And so I kept watching her. And at the in the evening of the second day, I turned and looked at her. And when I did, the Holy Spirit said to me, now. And I thought, now. But it was not like now. Go ahead if you want to. It was do it. It was a command. And so I started walking towards her. And I don't know he must. The spirit must have said it to her husband at the same moment, because he stepped out from in front of her, and he said, Mary, I think it's time. And he got down in front of her and opened up her wheelchair all the mechanisms, and took a hold of her hands, and up she came. Well, I want to tell you something. Everybody in that church knew Mary. They all knew her, and they all loved her. Well, it was mass hysteria in a matter of a few minutes. People were laying on the floor and standing on the pews and standing on the backs of the pews. Now, that's one thing if you're fifteen, but if you're seventy five, that's really something. And there was a lot of old people in this church, and they were standing on the backs of these pews and whooping at the top of the lungs and watching Mary walk around the whole inside of that church. Well, God spoke to me as I walked towards her and he said, be a cheerleader. So I went, and I just started being a cheerleader, you know, encouraging her on. And every time she'd take a step, I would say something like, praise the Lord or something like that and encourage her. And so I walked along in front of her and backed around, actually, and she moved all the way around. And when she got back, she, she started about right there. And when she got back to about there, she took her husband and put it in the wheelchair and pushed him. And keep in mind that in that whole village, there were probably only about two hundred new people in the last ten years. I met a kid that had been there eight years, and he was a new kid in his block. You know, we don't know anything about that, so we don't know how people know each other in those small villages. Well, in this case, Mary the next day went down to the village green and walked across it. Well, everyone in that village came out to see it. And they said, Mary, how did it happen? And she said, Jesus did it for me. Isn't that great? I like that part. Jesus did it for me. I talked to her pastor Thursday and he said, Mary still taking her daily stroll. It's been she's in the ninth month now and she can walk fairly easy now. At first she didn't walk very well, but it's getting better every day. Let's stand. And now there follows immediately a further message. And this one is entitled worship. So if you'll turn with me to Hebrews, the thirteenth chapter. The Hebrew writer is summarizing the book. And if you've studied the book of Hebrews, you know that it's, uh, it's one of those really important books in the New Testament that gives you a basic understanding of the, uh, Jewish Christian and the and the kinds of problems that they had to go through in relating their Old Testament theology and practice to a New Testament reality. The key word of the book of Hebrews is better that God has provided a better sacrifice, a better high priest, someone better, a better messenger, better than the angels, someone that is, uh, is a better sacrifice, Jesus Christ himself. And it goes on and on, comparing and contrasting the Old Testament practice and theology with a New Testament reality of Jesus Christ. And in the the fifteenth verse of the thirteenth chapter, he begins summarizing, and he begins this way. And he says, through him, speaking of Jesus Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. You know, to experience the newness of God is to become thankful. When you have an experience with God, the natural reaction, the natural reflection of that is to thank wherever we see a people in the New Testament, uh, experiencing God, we see a thankful people. We see people responding at, for instance, in the book of acts in the second chapter, after Pentecost, the experience immediately erupted in praise and thanksgiving as people spoke with languages that they had never learned and the content of which was described in the text as being, uh, thanksgiving and praise and adoration towards God. So the first Pentecost was characterized by thanksgiving, A few pages later, we see the church in difficulty with the leadership, the political entity of the community, attacking them and telling them that they can't preach in Jesus name. After this was after the lame man had been healed at the gate. Beautiful. And uh, as a result, the church was being, uh, charged with, uh, with heresy and teaching the name of Jesus. And, uh, so the the those that got arrested went back, uh, Peter and all went back and told, uh, the, the, the church. And they gathered together and the Scripture says with raise their voices in praise and adoration to God. And they recounted back to God all the things they've done. They said, oh, you've you've, uh, created the heavens and the earth, and you have, uh, have moved mountains and you have established history. And it went on and you get the picture of great adoration just bursting forth out of their heart in time of temptation and tribulation. Now, that's not my natural reaction to temptation and tribulation. Whenever I get tempted or or whenever troubles come my way, my natural reaction is to begin questioning God, not praising him. And I think that there's a direct correlation between the that first reaction and your maturity in Christ. I think you can you can literally mark an individual as well as a church by their ability to praise and worship. And there's a corresponding relationship between the trusting of God in tribulation and the praise of God and the worship of God in our maturity. And so I find in my heart a often that in times of testing, instead of praising, I'll, I'll begin blaming and questioning, and then God will remind me and it'll usually end up in praise and blessing and and with it a release and a relief from the problem or the circumstances that I'm caught in. But the New Testament church wasn't that way. It was characterized by a hearty praise and a and a heart full of thanksgiving. And as they worship God and called on him, and he said, in effect, hey, these guys are giving us a bad time now. You know, tell us what to do. And they petitioned God there in the fourth chapter of acts. They petitioned him. They said, give us boldness to speak your word while you perform signs and wonders, great miracles. So much so that, uh, God responded in such a powerful way that the building was shook and the church was released with new authority and new power as a result of their praise. In the book of Revelation, we see that praise will be the the ceaseless language of heaven. Uh, the fourth chapter. Through the fifth chapter, we get the picture that there's a continuum of praise on all day long, or I don't know if time's involved, uh, in heaven, but, uh, gosh, you can't say it through the hours or through the days. Constantly. Praise is constant before the throne of God. In fact, one of the theories of of worship is that when you and I tune into worship, we tune into worship. That's already going on, that the angels are always worshiping God. The inhabitants of heaven are always lifting their voices in praise. And when you and I come together to worship, all we're doing is locking in to what's already in existence, what's already happening. And so we lift our voices, along with the angels and the other inhabitants of of heaven, and give God glory. Give him praise, give him adoration and tune in to him. God has called us then to a sacrifice of praise. You understand the model of the Old Testament sacrifice. You understand that sacrifice was performed by the picking of of a possession, an animal, and sometimes a bird brought to the temple, uh, prepared in a prescribed way. Uh, the throat slit, the animal or beast would be, uh, then cut into quarters, laid on a fire and reduced to ashes. Then, and only then was it properly prepared for God's reception. In our culture, we give give such great value to talents and abilities. Every now and then we say, gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if such and such was saved? He would make such a great Christian. I've heard it so many times. I've heard it come out of my own mouth. Wouldn't it be wonderful if such and such was saved? You know, with all of his visibility and all of his success and notoriety? Why, if he were saved, what a blessing. You know God would be vindicated. God would finally have somebody worthy on his side. Of course, we don't say that, but that's what we mean. But, you know, if he's to be saved, he'll have to be saved in the prescribed manner. He'll have to be called to be a sacrifice. And, you know, as visible as he is with his throat slit and reduced to ashes, he won't look much like what he now looks like God has called us to be a sacrifice. And it begins with a sacrifice of our lips, but it continues with a sacrifice of our bodies. God wants to consume us upon the fire of offering, and he begins by teaching us how to praise him and worship him. The first mark of the of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it tells us in Galatians four six, is praise. The moment that you open your heart to God in the Holy Spirit comes in, you begin thanking him and blessing him. I don't know that I've ever prayed for someone to be saved, or ever prayed for someone to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that the first thing they didn't say was, thank you, Jesus. It is natural. It's as natural as anything on earth to thank him when he blesses you. And so we come to him and we give ourselves over to him. The first priority of the church was blessing God. That's what they gathered to do. You know, I, like you, have been in the church for a while and and many a time I've talked to either one of my kids or, or a friend or something. They say, well, I went to church and I didn't get anything out of it today. And in years gone by, I would just say, oh, gee, that's too bad. Maybe you ought to take a coloring book or. But then when they got to be thirty five or forty, I thought, well, you know, coloring book, I'd say, oh, that's too bad. But you see, I misunderstood myself. The basic emphasis of what church is all about and what worship is all about. The issue isn't so much whether you get anything, it's whether you give anything, because the first commandment of God is to worship him. And in obedience you've been called to give him praise and worship. So the emphasis is not on what you get, but what you give when you come before him. Wherever the Spirit of God is, manifest Manifests itself in the world. In the last few years, we've seen great, uh, clouds, great liftings up of praise and adoration. So much so that in some of the churches of the world today, people begin gathering on Friday evening and don't quit worshiping until Sunday evening. In many of the less developed countries of the world, in portions of Africa, particularly East Africa and now West Africa, more recently in Korea, in the Philippines, in some of the countries of South and Central America, church services began last Friday night. People immediately upon finishing their field work would begin traveling, carrying much of their belongings, all of their kids and some of their animals. Enough food to last the weekend, and they would many of them walk throughout the day and night to arrive sometime between Friday evening and Saturday morning to worship God, and the people would gather and worship God throughout the weekend. Um, I've had friends that have been in meetings in, in Kenya and Nairobi and other Central African states or countries that have told me about are hearing people worship for, you know, sixty, seventy hours at a time, forty, fifty thousand people at a time, worshiping in a field, just giving themselves to the abandoned I. I was in one meeting where they sang one song for an hour and forty five minutes. Do you know my Jesus had two lines in it? Do you know my Jesus? That's a good line, isn't it? I do, that was the second line. And they sang it for an hour and forty five minutes, lifting their voices in praise and adoration. Got the message across. I don't know if you knew him before they started, but by the time they finished in an hour and forty five minutes, there wasn't anywhere that anyone there that didn't know him. And so the church is characterized by lifting its voice in music, not only in the New Testament, but in revivals from that time to this. Wherever the Spirit of God has been made manifest in the history of church, it's resulted in new kinds of praise and new kinds of worship. Martin Luther, uh, plummeted the hit parade list in his day, taking all the beer drinking songs of the German people and rewriting them, uh, with lyrics, uh, that praised God. I was told that, uh, Mighty Fortress Is Our God was actually a beer drinking song, the number one song of its day, and Luther rewrote it and put new lyrics to it. Charles Wesley wasn't known so much for writing, uh, using popular songs as he was for writing songs in a popular idiom. In Wesley's day, the songs he wrote were very popular. They went right up on the hit parade with the rest of the songs. In recent times, with the advent of the charismatic movement in the early sixties, and then later the Jesus People movement, of which we have, uh, you know, history and background in, uh, a whole new, uh, liturgy has been written, new songs of praise, and it goes on from week to week as God gives us new songs to worship him that are written in a contemporary idiom and in such a way as to express in a contemporary expression our love for God and our praise for God. And so God has called us to praise him. God has called us to worship, to give our affection and the fruit of our lips to him. He's also called us to the sacrifice of possession. Notice the next verse, the sixteenth verse, and it says, do not neglect doing good and sharing for which such sacrifices God is pleased. Now this area has been so abused by preacher and parishioner alike that it's an area of difficulty. It's an area of temptation for many, many people perceive, uh, church growth, the growth of the church, uh, in the same concept as big business. And you find pastors all over the country, you know, that are they're really more expert in fundraising than they are in, uh, studying and administrating the word of God. And, and it's it's necessitated by a whole culturally derived perception of the church that literally focuses on big business. Building buildings then becomes tantamount to building the church rather than growing the flock of God. When this church started, one of the things that I was the most concerned about was that that we not fall into that trap. First of all, it's because I had been an expert at doing just that, raising money and building churches. And I went before the Lord and I said, Lord, I, you know, do we need another church building? Is it really necessary? Is it really necessary to start another thing like that? And the Lord says, no, why don't you just minister to the people and I'll house them? And so far, he's always given us a place to meet. We've met in Masonic lodges in junior high school auditoriums and high school auditoriums, and now high school gymnasiums. And, you know, I don't know where we'll meet from month to month, except as the Lord provides. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold, sometimes it's noisy, sometimes it's a problem. But there's always been a place, and frankly, the trade off is worth it to me. You know, many of us get down here very early in the morning to roll out the old carpets and put the chairs out and try to make things as comfortable as we possibly can. But it's not done for any other reason than to give praise and adoration to God. We really don't need to equate the growth of the Body of Christ with the building of buildings. It isn't necessary. And with that, we release funds to do all kinds of other things. Last year, we were able to give over one hundred thousand dollars to the poor, ministering to them not only here but in other countries to feed the sick. That not to our, you know, praise or accolades or anything, but to the fact that God has called the church to share its possessions. Now notice this text. It says, O sixteenth verse, and do not neglect doing good and sharing for which such sacrifices God has. For with such sacrifices God is pleased. Now characteristic of the New Testament church is that with the praise of God went a release of possessions. You read the book of acts, and you'll find that those people were selling their property, selling their furniture, selling their things, and giving the money to the Lord and to the Lord's work. Sharing. If someone had two of something, they gave one away and not the bad one, but the good one, giving their very best to God and giving their very best to their neighbor. It was characteristic of the church. It was the nature of things because it's the nature of God. God gave his very best when he gave Jesus to die on the cross, and it was characteristic of Jesus to not own anything but to give it all away. That's what. That's what breaks our heart. Even an atheist is touched by that. The fact that Jesus Christ never bothered to own anything, never bothered to to have anything because he went through this life trusting his father, that each new need would be met and gave away that that that came his way. Self sacrifice or the sacrifice of self still sells even in this life, even in this culture, even this time, many of us have shaken our head over people that would have that would leave position and place and things in order to serve the living God. But you see, that's to be the characteristic of the whole church, not of just a few. God has called us to the sacrifice of possessions. One of my favorite hymns, one of the old ones that I've liked for years, is Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. And one line of that, I think the, the, the writer really catches this. He says, when you turn your eyes on Jesus, the things of this world grow strangely dim. You know when you can see the things of this world all too well, you're probably not seeing him very clearly, but when you're seeing him very clearly, the things of this world grow strangely dim. It's not that it's a sin to possess things. It's a sin to have things possess you. When they own you more than you own them. You're in difficulty. God has called us then, to the sacrifice of praise, but he's also called us to the sacrifice of possessions. And I think that there is a a corresponding. It's like sort of like a dipstick to to find out how the oil is doing in your car. I think there's a corresponding relationship between you giving the praise to God and the possessions that you have and your maturity. Because when your life is based and focused and, and dramatically, uh, you know, and intensely committed to the praise of God. So will your possessions be committed to God. And when you're giving God His rightful place and praising him, and you're giving your possessions their rightful place, which is to be dispensable, there's a joy. There's a joy that you can't know any other way. And that's the joy of being in tune with and walking with the living God. It's not so much that God needs your stuff, it's that you need to God to give away your stuff. When I first started studying, or actually when I first started coming to the group and and they began worshiping, I was really intimidated by some people, you know, some people could just get into it, you know what I mean? It's like they didn't have a bone in their body. They went their hands would be up in the air. They'd be on the floor, they'd be crying, they'd be kneeling, they'd be sitting. They'd be laying prostrate with their face down. You know, it really bugged me. I didn't like it. I wished they would control themselves. I thought they were too emotional. And then one night, the Lord touched me and I forgot all about them. I found myself doing some of the same things. At first I thought it was a personality trait. And if so, it's a it's catching. Because, you see, obedience to God requires the discipline of worship. God has called us to obey him. And and in this text, I want you to notice this. Through him. Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of our lips, and give thanks to his name. And do not neglect doing good among sharing. For with such sacrifices. God is pleased. Obey your leaders and submit to them. Now the underlying concept all the way through this text is obedience. It requires obedience to worship God. It's incumbent upon our relationship with the living God to obey him. Else how can we call him Lord? You see, you can't say. You can't call him Lord unless you're willing to let him be Lord. Because he's not Lord when he's not Lord. And that relates to obedience. And we've been called to obey him in worship. And that requires discipline. And again, that's foreign to our culture. You know, we kind of have a do your own thing kind of culture. And and it's foreign to our culture. It's foreign to me. I've been coming here now for for four and a half years, and lots of times I come unprepared to worship. You know, things don't always go right at home in the morning. Do you notice that when the kids were little, we could never find all their shoes, you know. And then we can't find the car keys. I don't know why they disappear on Saturday nights, but they do. Most of the rest of the time we can find them. And the car is always out of gas on Sunday morning. You know what I'm saying? You know the little things. That's that. That slow you down and and get you distracted and and keep you from, you know, getting prepared. And so a lot of times I come in to church and I'm not ready to worship the Lord, and maybe we'll be halfway through the worship service and all of a sudden it'll connect. Oh, that's why I'm here. I thought it was for the paycheck. No, but to worship God. God has called us to worship him. God has called us to sacrifice. God has called us to a life of sacrifice even as Jesus was sacrificed for us. We are to be sacrificed in him. And it begins with the with the fruit of our lips. Praise. And it continues with the gift and sacrifice of our possessions. And then on to the sacrifice of our bodies, that is to say, the sacrifice of our person. Look with me to Romans, the twelfth chapter. It's the best text I know to teach this basic premise, and that is that we've been called to the sacrifice of our bodies to giving ourselves over to him. Now, keep in mind the term sacrifice, the concept of the throat slit, the body cut and quarters and, and and reduced to ashes. And this is what God has called us to, to do. And this is what God has called us to be. And Paul says here, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. So it begins with the fruit of our lips through praise. It continues with our possessions, and it then it ends with our person. God wants us to give our our personhood over to him. Our total selves, which is which is a natural response in the light of what he's done for us. I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And so I find that, that that I use the the concept of a dipstick or a meter or something. I find that one of the ways I can see where I'm at in my own pilgrimage is, is to measure these three dimensions. Am I praising God? Am I giving my possessions to God, and am I giving my person to God? And when I sense that those three things are correlated and functioning, there's great freedom. But there's a direct relationship between that and my resistance. That is to say, when I find myself not willing to give my person, sometimes I don't know about you, but every now and then I want my day off. I want to be myself. I want to have my own thing. I want to have my own time. I want to be my own person. I don't want the phone to ring. I don't want anyone coming over. And when I'm in that state, I'm not sacrificing myself to God. And every now and then I want that. And when I want it, I want it. And sometimes God has the audacity to send somebody and intrude on my time. Sometimes I'm frustrated by God not allowing me to do the things I want to do. I remember one time walking out of the back of the Wagner house. I can't still can't believe I did this and lived. But I walked out the back of the Wagner house and I looked up at the heaven and I said, who do you think you are? And then I remembered. And I almost fell on my face. In my heart I did, and for a couple of days I went through severe repentance because I realized how, how? By withdrawing my body, by my personhood, I was beginning to withdraw my possessions and and frankly, praise had gone first. I had I had quit praising the Lord, and I'd quit blessing the Lord, and I'd really gotten myself in a far place. And it had only taken a couple days over one issue, a phone call that had come that I didn't want to answer. I didn't want to do it. Somebody made a request to me. I didn't want to answer. And I got hard of heart because for a while I thought I was my own instead of his. Get it? If you're like me, and I suspect some of you are, if not all of you, you need to remember. You need to have dialed up to your remembrance the importance of giving your praise to God, giving your possessions to God, and giving yourselves to God daily. Let's get on with learning how to worship him, shall we? That's the end of this message. Now we go on immediately to a message entitled fellowship. First of all, fellowship in its popular meaning has become so synonymous to eating and and sharing or or socializing. And, uh, we, we think of fellowship when we have lots to eat and a lot of time to, to share. And, uh, it goes on and on and on, depending on the amount of food and the quality of the sharing. But and there is a there is some aspect of that in the Scripture. But the, the New Testament biblical meaning of the word koinonia, that is the most often translated fellowship is slightly altered from that. It means basically, uh, things in common and things shared, things in common and things shared. And it could probably be, uh, derived out of the study of scriptures to mean this in the New Testament, the common sharing of the grace and of the blessings of God, The common sharing of the grace and the blessings of the of God. It calls for a lifestyle of giving and of receiving God's love. So characteristic of the New Testament church was the the giving and sharing of things with one another. And so it was the sharing of one another, but it was also the sharing with one another. The it seems as though the the warmer the heart, the freer the giving. Uh, there seems to be a correlation or relationship between, uh, the heartfelt and and, uh, sincere relationship and the giving of the individual, uh, to one another, fellowships that are earmarked by, uh, revival power and, uh, the presence of God seem to be earmarked also as a giving fellowship, not necessarily just funds, but the giving of things to one another and the giving of self to one another. And as we've thought about the priority that God has placed in our church on fellowship. We've made our first priority worship. It really wasn't so much that we thought this through. Every now and then I get a a pastor that'll visit me and he'll say, well, where did you get that idea? Did you derive that from Scripture? And I said, well, no, not really. Although we once we realized it was what God wanted us to do, we began studying the scripture. So much so that, uh, Carl Tuttle has developed a whole workshop, uh, just on worship, that he holds from time to time for the equipping of the saints to worship. And, uh, from time to time, we've all taught on this subject as we've as God has spoken to us to teach on it, but it came not so much as a reflection of Scripture, uh, although it's there, but it came as a, uh, as something God breathed into us. It, uh, it was just the main part of the mix from the very outset, uh, worshiping the Lord. And as we did that, uh, and as we drew near to God, he drew near to us. And out of that came the secondary priority of the church was was fellowship relating to one another in small common groups in order to uh again to worship, but secondarily to share with one another in meaningful ways. And, and many of us have had, uh, abortive attempts at that. We've, we've gotten into this group of that group, and it didn't work out so well for us. And we've moved on to another. And some of us find it very difficult to relate in small groups. And yet it seems to be the characteristic of the, uh, of the growing person to, to be involved. And so we as pastors continue to exhort and encourage and sometimes even confront to try to get people to get in a group where they can have a meaningful, uh, relationship with one another. As I reflected on teaching on fellowship this week, uh, it became clear to me again that the essence of fellowship begins with relationship with Jesus Christ. And so I'd like to talk for a few moments out of John fourteen six today about the nature of this relationship, and then again out of Ephesians, uh, as we see how it's reflected in church life in John fourteen six, uh, through about the fifteenth verse, we have the, uh, Jesus in exchange with Thomas and, and a couple of the other apostles saying these kinds of things. Jesus said to him, replying to Thomas, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father but through me. One of the most profound and important teachings in all of Scripture. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on, uh, from now on, you know him and have seen him. And Philip said, Lord, Lord, show us the father. It's enough for us. And Jesus said, have I been so long with you? And yet you have not come to know me? Philip. He who has seen me has seen the father. And how do you say, show us the father? Do you not believe that I am in the father, and the father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative. But the father abiding in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me. Otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the father. And whatever you ask in my name that will I do, that the father may be glorified in the son. And if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. And if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And so Jesus is reflecting on the reality that the only way to the father is by him. And as he communicates to the apostles, he's astounded that Thomas has been with him so long and hasn't gotten it yet. He hasn't understood that that he and the father are one, and that he and the father have always been one. And we wonder how long always is. We look in Scripture and try to understand and relate to the concept of, of eternity. And and since God always existed, how far back is always or is that even a an appropriate question. You know, in our Western civilization, civilization, we tend to think in terms of time as a continuum, an expanse, a line. We draw off and draw lines and break it up and say, well, this is this is one decade and this is another decade. And in attempts to illustrate time, we forget the fact that two thirds of the population of the world doesn't see time as a continuum at all, but they see it as something cyclical, something everlasting in its evolution. And so they wouldn't even ask this question in Taiwan or Indonesia. Uh, how long has God the Father known God the Son? It wouldn't even be a question that would come to mind. And so often when we study the Scripture, our culture and our society, our social conditioning actually preempts our understanding of the Scripture, because we begin thinking in terms of, uh, categorizations and or definitions that are extraneous to Scripture. But in any case, Jesus and the father have had a relationship, whether it's been for a long time or not, they've had one. And this this relationship was interrupted to some degree by Jesus coming and being born in the flesh of a woman, uh, via the Holy Spirit in a supernatural way, in order to encounter, uh, Satan and his work in the world and to redeem all of mankind through his death on the cross and his ultimate resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the father. And in his life, uh, particularly the three and some odd years of ministry, he demonstrated a relationship with the father that was so profound and so magnificent that men and women have been thinking about it ever since, because Jesus, on numerous occasions pointed out that he said only the words that the father told him to say. He only did the deeds the father told him to do. He, uh, performed the works that the father was performing. He was moving in authority and responsibility and even ultimately in judgment on the basis of the things the father had told him to do. The father was so pleased with the son's performance that even before Jesus began his ministry at the occasion of his baptism under the ministry of John the Baptist, the father split the heavens and spoke to John and said, hey, this is my kid and I really like him. I really approve of him. And you get the impression that that Jesus had such an intimate relationship with the father, that it was one in which the father was continually proud of him. I suspect that when Jesus finally ascended back to the right hand of God, that that God the Father threw a party. Not you. I think one of the main topics of, uh, of conversation throughout eternity between you and I and the father will be his appreciation and love of the son. So throughout eternity, we'll be reflecting on this relationship and the fact that you and I have been privileged to have been invited into it. You know, it's absolutely astounded the other residents of heaven. Are you aware of that? It just blows their minds that God would invite you and I into that relationship. That's what the Hebrew writer is so astounded over that, that we've been invited into a relationship with the father and the son, and that as such, we've been set above the angels and above all other created beings to share in eternity a position that's so exalted that the angels are just flabbergasted at the idea that God would take, such as you and I, and give us that position in heaven. In heaven. I suspect that that part of it is reflective of the fact that we are literally taking Satan or Lucifer's place. The book of Isaiah. You get the impression that Lucifer, who was an archangel, Held a position so esteemed and exalted in heaven that he actually covered the throne of God, that he was a covering for the throne, and that as such he was the conductor, orchestrator, and leader of worship in heaven. Uh, I wasn't aware until recently that Lucifer was a musician. I should have been aware, listening to the world's music. But, uh, I wasn't aware that he was a musician, that he actually led the worship of heaven. And that you and I have been called to take his place in heaven. No wonder he is so angry with us. No wonder he's so upset. Uh, that we've been called to take the very place of Lucifer in heaven as the worshiping body. And so Jesus has invited us into this relationship. And characteristic of the fellowship of the Body of Christ is that that we are entering into a relationship already developed. We've come into a place already developed by the father and the son. They've been long standing friends, long standing intimates. And they said, hey, come on in. You can be part of us. In dialoguing with Philip and Thomas about this. He reveals some profound truths in that he says that if having seen him, you've seen the father, you want to know what the father is like. You want to know what God is like. Look at Jesus. Because Jesus did the deeds and said the words of the father. Jesus was so in union with the father that he was continually obedient, moment by moment, day by day, in the things that the father had given him to do. And having been invited into the same relationship, we've been invited to do the same things. We're to learn to speak the work, the words, and to do the works of Jesus. So the first, the first aspect of our fellowship is to recognize that we've been entered into a relationship that's long standing and already developed. The second aspect is that we've been called literally to demonstrate the words and the works of God. Now, if you went from church to church in in Southern California here on Sunday morning, you'd find that there are many that are well steeped in the Word of God, many that have become effective, profoundly effective in the study of the word. They they can quote major portions of Scripture. They have a strong doctrinal basis for interpreting and understanding Scripture. They're very effective as students of the word. But you see, the the call of God in fellowship is to more than the study of the word. We've been called to do the word, as James says, and that in doing the word acting and out, we will literally reflect the works of God. Jesus has said that greater works than these will be done, and the only way that could be done is for this body, this portion of the body of Christ, to effectively get involved in doing the works of Jesus. Notice in the twelfth verse, the actually the latter part of the eleventh verse, it says believe on the account of the works themselves, which is the fruit of the word. If the word is having its profit, if its having its fruit, it will result in works. Jesus, learning to say the words of the father, did the works of the father, and you and I have been called to the same dynamic. Having entered into the relationship, we're now to enter into the words and the works. We're to learn to pray the prayers of Jesus. Now those prayers are rather succinct. Jesus reflects, uh uh, actually, the prayer life of Jesus is really interesting because his private prayer life was when he prayed long. You get the impression. And the Scripture specifically says there were occasions where he prayed throughout the night. You ever tried to do that? After about three and a half minutes, I don't have anything else to say. Yeah. And my knees start aching. My head starts aching. I have to sit up for a while. Stand up for a while, walk around. I've done it a few times, but it's been torturous. So much so. No, I won't say it. I start to say the Lord said Jon, quit it. But it has been ineffectual for me. I've not been able. I've stayed up with a group and done it, and it's been fun and helpful, but I've never been able to sustain it by myself. But I tried it a couple of times because I saw it in the word. Now Jesus evidently had more to say, more to reflect on, more understanding, and I found that there is an equation in a relationship in my own life that the longer I walk with the Lord, my prayers have gotten longer, and at this point in my life, I can pray sometimes two and three hours effectively because I've got that much to talk about. But in the old days, you know, and for years, my prayer life was rather short, even in private. But Jesus prayer life was short in public and long in private. And I think that that ought to be the characteristic of the church. I think it sometimes that we reverse the two, and we pray too long in public, and as a result really limit the work of the spirit in our prayer meetings. And we ought to do more of our praying in private, at least our lengthy praying. But here we see Jesus talking about the relationship that he has with the father. And in trying to to communicate to Thomas and to Philip, he's he's attempting to show the nature of the relationship between the word and the works. As he learned to say the words, the works evolved. And I found that in my own Christian growth that as I learned to pray the prayers of Jesus, do the works of, excuse me, say the words of Jesus, that the works of Jesus began manifesting and began happening. I remember three and a half years ago when God spoke to me about the healing ministry. Up until that time, I'd always characterize or or perceive that as something that was really close to Charlatanry. I didn't know that that God even healed people today, and he spoke to me and told me to begin praying for the sick. And at first I prayed everything and anything but the prayers of the New Testament. God, if you're up there, this person is so deserving. You ever prayed one of those prayers? This person is so deserving. You know, it's a young mother that's got children. She's trying to take care of her children. Oh, God. Please, if you've got if you're going to do anything this week, do this for her. You ever prayed a prayer like that? You don't use exactly those words. But that's what you mean in attempting to communicate. And so I used to beg God to do things one time, right in the middle of begging God to heal somebody, he said to me, why don't you do it? And I said, what do you mean? And he began just causing me to reflect on many scriptures. And he healed them, and he healed them, and he healed them. And I didn't know that the power to heal had been given to the church. And then God gave me his text out of Matthew, the twenty eighth chapter that says, all power in heaven and earth has been given unto me. Go, therefore. That's the great Commission. You mean Jesus? We have the power. Then he took me into Matthew, the ninth chapter and showed me that we have the power, that we've been given, the power to heal and that we're we're to get on with it. Now the healing is via him, but it's because we're in union with him, in relationship with him. Having entered into that relationship, we have the power to heal and the power to minister. So as as I begin growing in that, the works became evident. I was thinking, uh, yesterday talking to my wife. And I think in the last about five or six weeks we've had and I'm not sure of this, but I think we've either had five or six eyes that were blind, healed in, in about the same, same amount of weeks. I might be it might be six weeks and five eyes or six eyes and five weeks. I know it's important to you that got your eyes healed, but, uh, and and as I was thinking about that, I mean, that's an astounding thing, isn't it? Just think on that a minute. Isn't that an astounding thing? People that are blind receive their sight. And that's not all that God's done in the last few weeks. I mean, we've had incredible things. New people been converted to Christ, which is the greatest miracle of all. And others being filled with the spirit and and and empowered by the Holy Spirit, others receiving gifts and calls to ministry, many being healed of all kinds of and various disorders. And as I was thinking about that, I was thinking that, gee, just just three and a half years ago, we we didn't see anybody healed. And probably in the first two years we didn't see five blind eyes in total released. And if that's true this last month, what's this time next year going to be like? You know, because the multiplication is here. We now have hundreds of people that can pray with some authority and some understanding for the sick. Just three and a half years ago, we didn't have anyone that was praying with with real authority and with real understanding. So what's it going to be like next year? Then I began thinking about eighty five and eighty six. Then I began thinking, Lord, don't come, don't come. You know. Because it's going to be fun. As the church matures, as it matures in fellowship, fellowship with the person of the father and the son, and fellowship with the word and with the works. And as I started to say a little while ago, many people are well steeped in the word, but not steeped in the works. And what God has called us to as a church is to acting out the word, to begin doing the deeds and saying the things of the New Testament. And in so doing, he's called us to the fellowship that Jesus had with the father. You see, Jesus was a risk taker. The father would speak to him and tell him to go do something, and he would go do it in obedience. Now, do you think Jesus ever had to exercise any faith. Do you think it took any risk taking on Jesus part to go do the things that he did? Remember the occasion in front of Lazarus tomb? That was a biggie. You know, calling people from the dead. And I like the prayer that Jesus prayed. He says, father, I'm speaking this so that the people hear, I know you always hear me. And how did he know that? Because he had tested it over and over and over again. Before you get to the point where you can raise the dead, you gotta be able to heal a cold. Get it? These things grow. And Jesus had already been ministering a year and a half, and he knew the dynamic of the father's voice. He knew how to hear from the father and how to how to act on it. And so he was growing in faith. He was growing in understanding. And the works were growing also. Get it? Act like you get it, even if you don't. Will you? Thank you. That'll help me. And so our fellowship is with the father and the son, and with the word and the works. And I don't want you to notice the fifteenth verse. And it says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now Jesus loved the father, and he did what? He kept the commandments of the father. He did what the father told him to do. Jesus, in every way was obedient. One of the things that you see illustrated over and over again in the New Testament epistles is the obedience of Jesus. The apostles declared it everywhere. He was obedient under the cross. He was obedient unto death. He was obedient in every way. The father welcomed him because he was an obedient son. And Jesus has called us to be obedient. And so the earmarks of our fellowship and the foundation of our fellowship are relationship with the father and son. You want to know if you've got relationship with the father and son, how are you doing with the word and the works? Are the works beginning to evidence in your life? Are you growing in the word? Then you have fellowship with the father and the son. Because the fruit of the fellowship with the father and the son will be the growth that you have in the word and the works. And furthermore, the growth in obedience, learning to do the things that God has called us to do as he's expressed his commandments. The greatest commandment that Jesus gave us was to love God and to love your brothers and sisters. And so God is not only called us to fellowship with him, but he's also called us to fellowship with one another. Now, if you've been here any length of time, you've you've heard me talk about this over and over and over again. That commitment to Christ is commitment to Christ's body. That one without the other is incomplete. We have literally multiplied millions of people in America and around the Earth, which I think is a result of misplaced emphasis on evangelism, in which that people have prayed the prayer. They prayed the prayer of the repentant sinner, which is a good thing to pray. But on the end of that prayer, they ought to tag a couple lines. God, thank you for forgiving my sins, and now I commit myself to your body in the world today. Because, Jesus, it's not enough to committed yourself to Jesus. You must commit yourself to his body that you may grow. Now, for years as a Christian, I, like many of you, thought of of my of my personal pilgrimage with God as the essence of it all. I used to evaluate myself over and over. Am I growing? Lord. And I can remember when I was memorizing scripture and I got up, got up to about a thousand verses that I'd memorized and I thought, boy, I must really be big. I must really be growing. Because look at all these verses I've got memorized. And because that's the way this Bible memory course was put, you know, you want to grow in Christ, memorize his word, which was a valid and vital thing to do. But I wasn't growing at all. I was still biting my wife's head off and yelling at my kids and and doing a thousand things that showed in my social relationships that I hadn't grown a bit. I had lots of verses memorized, but I hadn't gotten very many verses worked out in my life. Get it? Now you get it, don't you? I can see some of you are getting it. And so God has called us to working the word through to such an extent that it begins evidencing in works. And so we we must make a commitment not only to Christ, but to his purpose in the world, which is to grow a body. A healthy body. Now, in that process, God has shown me that I have sinned many times against the body of Christ. Over the last few years, I have found again and again a besetting area in which I become judgmental of the of the larger body of Christ. And I've had to repent publicly, and I've had to repent privately of that. Now thank the Lord. In the last year or so I haven't had that problem. At least it hasn't evidence to where I was aware of it, or to where the Lord made me aware of it. So maybe I'm getting through that phase. But God has spoken to me more recently about learning to love the things that he loves, and he loves his church. He loves the whole church. He loves the Protestant church, and he loves the Catholic Church. He loves the Orthodox and he loves the not so Orthodox. He loves the whole church, the body of Christ, the people that he has called out to be his very own. Now, I'm not saying by that that he loves all religious profession or exercise. I'm saying he loves the body of Christ. Those people that have been born again of the Spirit of God and have come into relationship via and become the ecclesia, the called out ones of Jesus. He loves his church and he doesn't. I frankly, I think he takes blessing and pleasure in all kinds of forms of of ritual and the lack thereof in worship. I think he likes the whole panorama of the church, and you and I have been called to love the things that he loves. And so we must learn to love the whole church, even that part of it that we don't understand or relate to very well, because that's his will in this day, because he's called us to unity, he's called us to oneness, and that oneness and that unity is expressed in love. Now, certainly there'll be doctoral divisions, and I think for, for many years we've, uh, made too much of an emphasis on doctrine. And as a result, every jot and tittle has become a either a barrier or a bridge to fellowship. For some, we're drawn closer together because we agree with every point. For others, we're pushed aside because we don't agree with every point. You see, I don't think it's so important that we have every peripheral area of Scripture work through and that we're in agreement. I think it's much more important that we learn how to love one another in Christ. And I think that's what the Bible is reflecting and trying to say in this day. So we've been called to fellowship and we've been called to a fellowship of obedience in Christ. Turn with me to Ephesians the fourth chapter. And I want to talk a little bit about the fact that we've also been called to community, just as we've been called to, uh, to Uh, to Jesus and to the relationship he had with the father and ultimately to the works and and to the words of Jesus and to obedience. We've been called also to be a community and to be the body of Christ. Now, this is best expressed in small groups. It's very difficult to love someone you don't know that you don't have relationship with. And, uh, there are many of you that I know by face only, uh, I don't know how many people we have in this church, uh, in this, you know, in this church, but I know it's upwards of three or four thousand that that come here, uh, through the month. And there are hundreds and hundreds of you that I know, uh, because you sit in a certain place and and, uh, I know your faces, but I've never even had a chance to meet you. Or if I have met you, I've long since forgotten the name already, because it's just too hard for me to store all those names. Others of you I know quite well because I've had opportunity to be with you. But the point is not so much that I know you, but that you, that someone knows you, that you have relationship with some people in this fellowship that is very intimate and very satisfactory to you. God has called us to small groups, and he's called us to these small groups so that we can get on with the business of maturing and growing in Christ. You see, if you commit to Christ, you must also commit to his body. And in the commitment to his body is your potential for growth. John, in the uh, first John letter, uh, deals continually with relationships like this. He says, if you say that you love God and you hate your brother, then you don't love God at all. If you say you love your brother, then you will love God. It'll be evidenced and, uh, in, in the, in the love for, for the brethren. And so we must know one one another in order to love one another. And so hence small groups. First of all, it's been the characteristic of the New Testament church. They met in small groups, house groups of all kinds. Second of all, it's it's the basis of church life in the world today. Wherever the church is growing, wherever the church is expanding, its expanding because there are small groups, people meeting in homes and relating to one another. Some of the most rapidly growing portions of the Body of Christ are are found in countries today where you can't meet like this any longer. Some of the communist ruled and dominated countries are at a point where they're no longer allowing the church to meet. And so people literally risk life and limb in order to meet together in small house groups. And in those countries, the church is growing faster than in any other place in the world today, because the church has always done well under peril and persecution. Its prosperity that kills the church, its prosperity that kills the church. The church always grows in times of difficulty and in times of duress. And so God is growing his church in the world today. God is growing his church in the world today. And it could be possibly that even in this country, in the next few years, we will not be able to assemble any longer in large meetings like this. And we'll need to grow, and we'll need to sustain ourselves by identifying with small groups in in house churches all over Southern California. So my encouragement to you is you get on with it, that you become effectually evolved, involved in the dynamics of of a small group of some sort. Now in Ephesians four one through sixteen, it's a long text, and I'm not going to try to teach every aspect of it, but let's just refer to some aspects. First of all, the first six verses is dealing with the whole business of being, of the expression of unity that comes out of being one in Christ. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love. You see, the highest calling of the Christian is love. It's relating to one another in love. The ability to forgive, the ability to endure, the ability to overlook. The ability to continue to function. Learning to love people that you wouldn't normally even like, people that you wouldn't normally even spend time with, you'd overlook, you'd bypass. But because you are committed to a small group together, you learn to love the difficult to love. Now, that's not so bad unless you're the difficult to love. And most of us take turns in that position in the group from time to time, as we go through difficulties and duress and problems in our lives, we often are difficult to love, and the rest of the group must show that forbearance and that endurance and that love to us in a time of our need. So Paul is saying that we must become effectively involved in the avocation or the the job that we've been called to. Every Christian, he's not speaking now to just individuals in the sense of those that are in the past or relationship or in some sort of official place in the church. He's talking to the whole church when he says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you, meaning? Implying you all, all of you, everyone that's reading this letter to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you've been called to, which is the calling of being a lover of Christ and a lover in Christ, learning how to effectively love the body with all humility and gentleness and with patience. Now, the reason that's there is because that's got to be there, because that's what you're going to have to do if you're going to learn to love me. It's going to be a process in which you're going to have to be humble and gentle and patient. I've been working on me for forty some years, and I don't love me yet. And so if you're going to try to to love me, you're going to find you're going to have to work at it. Isn't that the way it is with you? It's the way it is with all of us. And so loving one another is more than just a good idea. It's the commandment of Jesus. It's the call of God that we become effectively involved in learning how to forbear and to forgive, and to be kind and to be affectionate and to be considerate of one another. And you can't do that from a distance. It only works up close. In the third verse, he goes on to say, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Now the unity of the spirit is the union in the spirit. It's the oneness in him. It is that isn't a doctrinal issue. That isn't a teaching issue. That's a realization issue. That's an experiential issue. To be one in him, I am one because I've had an experience with Jesus. I've. I've been born again. And so I can relate to any other born again person, regardless of where they are in their doctrinal and or in their practice of church life, as long as they're born again. So we're talking here about the community of the body of Christ, learning how to love, learning how learning, how to effectively involve ourselves in one another. And he goes on to clarify it by saying this that there is one body. Now, the body isn't one. The body is many, but it's one in unity. That's what he's trying to say. The body is many. It takes many parts, you know, if, if, uh, if, uh, if my previous concept of growing singularly as an individual were the issue, then we would have a body with, uh, one toe that was six feet long. How funny that body would look. We'd have an ear that was that was sagging down, you know, to your hip, because the ear had grown, but the rest of the body hadn't. You see, it would be funny if one portion of the body had disproportionately outgrown the rest of the body. And so God has to grow the whole body. We're never any more mature than the whole group is. Than the whole body is. And so we must get on with the business of helping our brethren grow. And we do that by loving them, not by exhorting them or criticizing them. It's in the it's in the lap of love that you grow the best. It's in the atmosphere of of acceptance and of care that you're willing to take the risk that it takes to grow. That's that's the vitality of the Christian body. It's the union that comes in just helping one another along the way as we grow together. So it's the unity of the spirit expressed in one body and one spirit. The Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit is is functionally the grower of the body. He's the tutor. He teaches, he leads. He caused us to be united in the first place. Uh, the Holy Spirit is the essence of God among us. And so he is God, but he's the essence. He's he's he's the thing we know that's God. When we know Jesus, we know the Holy Spirit because he's the one that's revealing Jesus to us. It's him that we know. He's that part of God that we know. Knowing him, we know Jesus knowing him and Jesus we know the father. It works that way. So we have one body and one spirit. And just as also we were called in one hope. Now again, the hope is not one. It's it's it's a unity of hope. It's many hopes. It's many aspects of hope. The ultimate hope of being with God forever. The hope of the soon coming of Jesus Christ, the hope of salvation that was offered to us. The hope of victorious living. There's many hopes that are based on the the promises which are yea and Amen of God. And so we grow in our hope. We grow in every dimension of hope because it's all one. It's all unitized. It's all of one essence come from the father, through the son, by the Holy Spirit according to the word. So we have one body, one spirit, one hope, and one Lord Jesus Christ. One faith, which is really again, many parts of our faith. We have to write big, long books to express our faith, don't we? Uh, group after group does so as they attempt to articulate their faith. So faith has many parts to it. And one baptism. And again, there's at least three parts to the baptism. There's the baptism, the engrafting into the body of Christ. That's a supernatural baptism that causes us to be born again. Then there's the baptism in water, which is a memorial of the spiritual baptism. And you go to water in order to memorialize, uh, the the nature of the baptism. You are you are, in a sense, making a testimony. You're saying, uh, by, uh, going through this water ritual, I am demonstrating to the world and saying and signifying that I have become a member of the body of Christ. And so that's why we're baptized by water, and then we're baptized in the Holy Spirit, which is yet a third baptism, having received the spirit when we were born again. Now the the spirit receives us. We are now saturated in him. And this is where the unity and the identification with Jesus becomes complete. Because now you walk in the spirit, you take your life and your being in the spirit. And as you're led by the spirit, you do the deeds of the spirit. You begin reflecting the things that the spirit does in the world. And you you're unionized. You're you're one with God in the world and one with your brother. So there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, he is ascended on high. He led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. So the first aspect of our expression, of our call to community is that we've been called to unity. Or the second aspect is we've been called to spiritual gifts. We've been called to the expressing of them. Now, many people in the body of Christ today have received spiritual gifts and they've inappropriately responded to them. Some of them made toys out of them. When you hear me speaking tongues, you know they they've made toys out of it and they haven't reflected their proper use. Other people have made trophies out of them. I got mine, you got yours, yet you don't. Prophesy or any other number of gifts. And it's a great injustice and a great tragedy in the body of Christ, when someone, via their own immaturity, begins utilizing their gifts in this inappropriate way. So don't make toys out of them, and don't make trophies out of them because you didn't earn them by your merit. And they're not yours anyway. They're the gifts of God to be given to the body of Christ. That's what first Peter four ten is all about, that any occasion where two members of the body of Christ come together is an opportunity for the expression of gifts and the giving of gifts. And they're not of yourself. They're the gifts of God to be given to the body freely. You didn't earn them. You don't own them. So don't try to keep them. Give them away. Amen. They're not toys. They're not trophies. They're tools. They're tools for the building up of the body. And so we need spiritual gifts. They're essential to the growth of the body. Don't let the misuse of them put you off in receiving them. Move into it, because it's God's will for the church. This in this day. And the Holy Spirit is speaking this message to the church throughout the world. So in the notice in the tenth verse, eleventh verse, and he gave some, now this is the gift of Jesus to the church, which are the offices of the church. He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some evangelists, and some as pastors, and some as teachers. Now in our society, because of our culture, we always relate that to Avocational positions, but that isn't valid. There are many people with any number of these gifts and calls of God that will never draw a paycheck from any given portion of the body of Christ, and yet they've been called to evangelize. They've been called to prophesy. They've been called to start churches. They've been called to minister in the body of Christ. So don't confuse avocational change with the call of God on your life. Many young people come to me over and over again and say, I feel called to the ministry. And I say, well, who called you? And he said, well, my mother or my dad. They tell me that I ought to know what I'm going to do by now. How old are you? Sixteen. Seventeen. You know, I've got to declare my major. And my counselor told me that I would make a good preacher because I talk a lot. I said, well, that is one of the characteristics, but it's probably not a qualifier. Now, for the remainder of this message, please move on to the next tape in the catalog.