There may be many ways to achieve this,
but seeking the truth in love may grow
up into many more things than just a
head, even a trunk, from whom a whole
body, quickly joined together in a compact and
connected every time for time, according to the
essential working of the nature of every one,
may make instances of the body up to
eighty-five of its kind.
Everyone.
Now, if we just take this section as
a sample section of what we have in
the left or the right section here, it's
somewhat different to that that follows.
It all has to do with our behavior,
our conduct, or the method or the way
by which we may fulfill the command or
the exhortation given to us in the first
verse of our chapter that we should walk
worthily of the quotations read into the book.
What is given to us in this section
is essential for a proper relationship with the
other members of the body's class.
What follows is that our relationship with others,
those in nature, in the world, and then
in the latter section is due to our
relationship with others in our clothes, husbands, wives,
children, servants, matters.
These are exhorted in various ways to the
same thing, or worthy of that call that
is therefore.
For everything that God has given us in
the law, Jesus Christ, should affect every part
of our life.
God does not speak to us in His
word in order that only certain periods of
our life might happen.
He desires that the whole man should be
thankful not only when we pray in a
church and attend His services and go through
the motions of the book, if that's what
we might be guilty of doing, not at
such times alone, but rather in His home,
in the domestic sphere, and in His business
life.
These are areas where I must learn to
treat Him to walk worthily of that call
that I am called to, thus glorified by
the Lord who has chosen me.
And if I walk worthily of the Lord,
and I meet Him, I don't want to
suggest to you that my life will become
better because it can't possibly.
It won't be because I speak necessarily.
Some of us aren't as gifted at speaking.
Some of us are not able to express
ourselves in the way that others may.
And if I feel, by reason of that,
that we haven't got a lot of work
to do, I want to assure you that
I'm saying this not just as a speech
of praise for saying the simplicity of this
audience, some of whom may not be able
to speak to see that.
I am just saying this in spirit, that
speaking is only a very, very small part
of the system of teaching.
Our system is formed by our everyday, the
very system we live in today, by our
attitudes, by the way we do things, by
the way we conduct ourselves in our lives.
And that's the epitome of the Ephesians, Acts
4, 5, and 6.
It deals with a very clear, wonderful way.
But leave with this section, this first section,
verses 1 to 16.
I want to stress again the outline that
I gave you before, that in the first
six verses, we have the exhortation to speak
to death.
Now, that deals with the unity of the
spirit.
This requires an attitude, and that working of
this spiritual attitude in me as I rule
the lungs of people of God in the
ascended days of church.
For you will notice that it says I'm
to endeavor to teach the unity of the
spirit in all my speech.
There is a responsibility right away that I
must endeavor, I must be diligent to teach
the unity of the spirit.
Now, that unity of the spirit that is
maintained is maintained by love, by love.
Then I want you to notice from verse
10 on through to verse 11 to 9,
we are exhorted not only to teach together,
but we have a project before us, we
have a work to do, we are to
work together.
And we may call that, under that section,
we may speak about the unity of the
body.
You notice, as we begin in verse 4
really, it says there is one body, and
then it shows how various members of that
body are to function and work together.
And to everyone what is said in verse
10 is given grace according to the nature
of the gift of Christ.
So the word theory is that we are
not simply to teach together as a company,
but we are to relate together and to
serve each other, and that's to work together.
And that is a unity not of the
spirit so much as a unity of the
body, which is a unity of life, a
unity of love, and now a unity of
life, because in each member of the body
is the Holy Spirit active, working through us,
enabling us to relate properly to each other,
and thus this unity is given practical expression
in our extended life.
Then we come to the last section, which
says that there is love together, verses 12
to 16.
Well, the whole purpose of the previous section
is that there might be but the faith
being of the saints, verse 12, and in
the case of Jesus the believer, for the
love of the ministry.
The love of the ministry, I might say,
is not applied to platform work or public
speaking in any way, but the love of
the ministry is simply the love of the
work of serving.
And the idea here is that what is
given is that the work of serving is
serving the upper-mind, paraphrasing our homony, and
a happy way to the glory of God.
And it is for the abiding of the
body of Christ.
So if we had to teach together in
the first section and work together, we have
the thought of growing together, and that is
a unity of the faith.
You'll notice that one's called there.
Till we all come, let's proceed in unity
of the faith.
Now, that will not actually be reached in
its fullness and in its maturity until the
coming of the Lord.
But we are to be together, work together,
and to grow together in expression of unity
of the spirit, the unity of the body,
until we all come to the unity of
the faith.
And that's the purpose that is outlined for
us here in this section.
That's what is before us here.
Now, let me go back again to those
first three chapters.
The Apostle has outlined our blessing, and he
has lifted us up.
He has elevated us.
And the wonderful thing about the truth of
God is that if I meditate upon it,
it elevates me without inflicting it.
And that's tremendously important.
The Word of God has a way of
doing that.
It elevates me and lifts me up without
inflicting it.
It doesn't limit me to myself, because all
that I have is what I have in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have it because of my union with
him, my relationship with him.
I do not have it because of what
I am in myself.
I have it because of what he is,
and because I am united with him who
is raised from the dead, even our Lord
Jesus Christ.
So then, we come to this first verse
of the fourth chapter and the fourth walkworthy
of this quotation.
You will notice that immediately it says we're
all lowly and needy, and on some reason
forbearing one another in love.
Now, the very exhortation that is given to
me in verse two shows me that in
order to walk worthy, I have to relate
to other Christians.
Now, how am I to relate to other
Christians if the Lord is not telling me
to walk in this way?
He says, no, I want you to relate
to the other people of the faith.
Now, in God's program, and I say this
kind of way, there is no generation gap.
And I do not believe that Christians need
to promote what is called the inert generation
gap that I was talking about, because it
will not really be an end among us.
If we find that such a thing does
exist in practice, of course we shall have
to deal with it.
But let me exhort those of us who
are older here, and those of us who
are younger, to realize that the last verse
is that we relate to one another properly.
That once we come into the Church, we
leave behind the context of the world.
That the world says, in effect, these be
the certain departments of life, certain areas of
life, we love people, that's their business.
But we're going to be over here, and
we're going to carry our convicts.
When we come into the Church, there is
to be no such thing.
The believers, young and old, are to move
together.
They are to receive together, and to work
together, and to grow together.
And there will be no proper growth in
any Church, or any assembly, if we simply
divide up into sections.
There are to have younger people and older
people.
There must be plenty of opportunity for the
believers to relate to one another, to have
those opportunities to express themselves, so that we
can get the benefit of the other series.
This is essential to Christian growth.
Now, I'm not prudent.
I take the necessity of time, or having
special meetings, or special groups of people, divided
according to their age.
That may be so.
But I am simply saying that I believe
that on the Lord's Day, when the believers
gather together, we should, in effect, have plenty
of opportunity for the believers to relate to
one another, with nothing that is to fit
the generation gap.
All those who love the Lord Jesus should
be together, bringing the message that He has
to give to the others.
Now, in order to do that, I must
first have an attitude toward myself, so I
believe it would be an important task for
me.
For instance, there's an old letter in it,
and I'd like to suggest to you that
that is self-worth.
That is, it's an attitude that I have
toward myself.
If we go to Romans chapter 12, we
find a similar thing to what we've been
taught there.
After having told us that we have to
present our bodies to God, He tells us,
in verse 3, that we are not to
think of ourselves more highly than we are
to Him, but to think humbly, according as
God has said to every man in every
place.
Now, I'm just making the point here that
the first thing that is essential for growth
in a person's life is low thoughts about
life, high thoughts about life, realizing how wonderful
He has made His people, and how wonderful
His people are in Him.
I must then look at myself and, with
all the love in it, walk before the
people of God.
And that is truly what was taught before
us at the beginning of this conference, when
we had that ministry on the grounds of
John chapter 13, where we had the example
of the Lord Jesus, what He used to
try to teach, and tell us that as
He had done so, they were to do
so well enough.
So, there must be a spirit of low
limits.
That is, first I must have low thoughts
about myself.
I can't come into the assembly and be
a breakfast of the assembly if I stick
out my chest and say, Here I am,
folks.
Look what God has done to my life.
I'm going to be a wonderful person of
grace.
Now, use me.
Give me a place in the assembly.
Give me work to do.
And I'll show you what kind of Christian
I am by coming with that kind of
attitude, not only will the things presented come
back away from me, but the Lord will
not put me on the shelf.
I have to come in with a very
low, humble way, and be willing to learn
rather than to teach and to tell others.
And that is the thing that might hurt
you.
If you've just been changed, you might feel
that you have so much to contribute.
I don't say this by common sense.
You might feel that you have so much
to contribute to the people of God, and
indeed you do, potentially.
But you won't be able to do it
unless you come into the assembly with a
low spirit and walk humbly before God and
before His people.
Then, so it is, with all means.
Walk with low limits.
I walk with low limits.
That's my attitude towards myself, and I want
to get in this context of meekness into
offering.
It's offering.
So, we sometimes use this word, and this
is our tool, I believe, this word in
relation to our actions, to our business.
But I want to suggest to you here
that the thought is my attitude to myself
is one of low limits.
My attitude to God and His Word is
one of absolute meekness, for that is the
thought behind me.
I understand that this word, meek, was used
as a cult.
One should go to meekness.
You know when they're going to break a
hand in and I don't know a great
deal about it, but I understand they're going
to break an animal in, that is a
cult, they're going to break it in, or
a cult, a pony, they're going to break
it in, they're going to have them all
meek.
And they let the animal go around in
a circle in plainer, all comfortably, and the
animal just simply goes around as far away
as possible from the one who is controlling
it, and goes around and around in a
circle.
And then gradually, day by day, the owner
brings the animal in closer to himself, so
that plants begin used to being near to
him, that is, the animal becomes used to
being near to its owner.
And it becomes, gradually, a little more responsive
to the call of the rose, or the
rose.
And then, eventually, of course, the purpose is
that the animal should be so close to
the owner that he'll be able to look
at it on the back and get up
onto it and control it.
And when the owner has got to the
place where he can ride the animal on
his back, and can control it, which happens
to fall on the back of the animal,
or fall there, when he can do that,
there's an element of peace.
Because it has now, so to speak, no
will of its own.
It's not come to do its own will.
It's come to the place where it's doing
the will of another.
And this will all be retrieved back to
that.
So you have to notice, I am told
not to do my own will, but the
will of the individual.
I am me, and only I can't learn
to be me.
He is out of sense.
So if I'm going to relate to others
in the assembly, number one, I must have
no thoughts about myself.
I must be submissive to the will of
another.
Now, that will of another is expressed to
me through God's word.
It isn't that I become submissive necessarily to
the will of other people in the assembly,
though it may be in that order.
For becoming submissive to God's word, I may
learn that what I am being told is
according to the word of God, and we
do not, those of us who are older,
expect young people to submit to things.
We should be able to genuinely find out,
or with authority, find out from the word
of God that this and that is found
in Scripture, and we should be patient, and
be ourselves, willing to instruct those who are
not yet instructed in the things of God.
But we must use the Scripture in order
to do it, otherwise we cannot expect that
a person will submit to this because we
haven't known, or because we have accepted that
particular tradition.
We must be able to point to the
word of God and to show them that
it is there, and young people today have
rightly so, want to know what authority we
have for claiming this or that thing, and
my personal experience has been, I don't know
about yours, that in almost every case where
I have been able to show a young
person, a young believer from the word of
God, that this is in the Bible, and
that this is what the Bible says, there's
been no problem.
But won't decide anybody who decides to tell
a young person that this is what we
do in our extensive religious life.
We ought to be able to give a
letter to the Lord.
It takes a lot of patience, and that's
what we come to mean.
For it says, with all patience of God,
not suff'ing the word of God, forbearing
one another in life.
Because along with the low thoughts that I
had about myself, and the submissiveness of God's
word to me then, there must be an
attitude of patience or long-suffering in dealing
with those with whom I come in contact.
Whether I'm speaking to Jesus, whether I'm speaking
to her, there's a need for long-suffering
and for care.
Oh, how we need these things in our
lives, and in our hearts.
How practical these things are.
We've just come out of the heavens.
We've just been blessed with all the fruit
of that which we've got, which now brings
us out of the diminished life through which
things depend on the spiritual path.
And we've been blessed with both dreams of
unity, of spirit, and of all the things.
Now, I want to suggest to you that
the way you do that is simply outlying
for us the word truth.
I cannot dwell on that anymore.
Now, it's said very decimately that there is
one body, one spirit, even as you call
in one hope of your voice.
There is one body.
Now, what does the apostle exactly mean by
that?
Well, if we come back to this very
image, very simple, I should say, in chapter
2, you will notice in verse 12 that
the apostle sees of this one body.
Chapter 2, verse 12, it reads, that at
that time, that is, before you were saved,
you were outside.
Now, particularly here in this passage, let me
say, and this is where it's so important
to relate the text to the context, the
apostle is speaking to those who attend us.
It is true that all men in the
faith before they ascended to hell were outside.
But in the sense in which it uses
it here in verse 12, it was not
true of the Jews.
They did have an aside.
Well, that's what aside means.
They did have an aside.
They were not enemies of the commonwealth of
Israel, or members of the commonwealth of Israel.
They were not strangers to the covenant of
prophethood, but rather to the master there.
They were not without hope, because the hope
of the Messiah coming and setting up his
kingdom would come through that which handed it
among those people who were known as the
people of God in old Testament times.
And they were not without God in the
sense that God was their God, thankfully.
But this is particularly true about Gentiles.
Now, even without God.
We were angels in the covenant of prophethood.
We were not strangers to the covenant of
prophethood, having no hope of a life in
the world but now.
In Christ Jesus, being the son of man,
we're a part of Amen, and I, by
the blood of Christ, who were far off.
The Gentiles were far off.
The Jews were not far off in the
context that we have here.
There is nothing of being here.
Now, of course, spiritually, I'm not saying that
the Jews may have been as far off
as the Gentiles were.
But point is that the Jews were not
as far off as the Coptics, nor as
far off as the Protestants, but they were
very near.
So then, we now, in some way, be
seen here as Gentiles.
Now, as Christ Jesus, we who sometimes were
far off are made nigh by the blood
of Christ, for he is our King, who
has made both, both Jew and Gentile, one.
Now, how has he done that?
He has broken down the middle wall of
partition into three parts, having abolished in his
place, eternally, even the law of the land,
and claiming to be more than it is,
for to making itself up to one new
man, so let him be.
And has denied heaven's trial, both by the
blood of God, and by the blood of
God, and by the cross, having claimed, by
the cross, having claimed the end, hence the
above account.
I would like to suggest to you here,
then, as we move a few closer, that
he is telling that the Gentiles were far
off, the Jews near.
And there is a reason for this, and
it was a divinely ordained reason.
It wasn't something that had just grown up
in the Coptics' mind.
There is a reason why Jews and Gentiles
were divided.
It was a biblical reason.
There was a law of the land contained
in Ordnance Biblical, which said that the Gentiles
were not near, but the Jews were far
off.
And indeed, there was a claim for the
Gentiles in all sections of time, because the
Jews, the Angels, the Precious, associated themselves with
the Jews among the Copticites, and still was
an authority over the Jews.
Now he says that there is completely doubtless
God, now in his pride, has abolished the
Gentiles.
This difference is a logical difference between Jew
and Gentile, because we are so close to
one.
This tells me that when the Spirit of
God speaks about there being one body, speaking
of the Church, that there should be no
division recognized now along racial lines.
The only divinely ordained and committed division has
been abolished.
There was a division between Jew and Gentile.
Racially, this was the thing to be carried
out.
Now there must be no division in the
Church, practically, because of racial divisions, because of
the color of the landscape, because it comes
from a different part of the world.
These things do not go together.
And I was in St. Paul, and I
was tempted to say that among those Jews
there, there were all sorts of divisions that
existed.
And one of them, most unfortunate, I thought,
and I can say that it was the
British, there was a division between the British
people and the American people.
And it really happened.
There are not more than that.
And I'm speaking about Christian people.
People with convictions, the prostitutes have convictions, are
on a certainly polytheistic line, but that is
that their association with a certain denomination at
one time in the old country would jump
over this denominational barrier because it happened to
be conducted by somebody who was American or
a Britisher, and they were the opposite.
And so they would go to a church,
which literally did not agree with such a
division, but altogether fine with what they had
in stock, and they would associate with me
that there simply was part of the difference
that existed between the British and the Americans.
Now, that also goes to the very lower
level of the Church.
But it was not the Jews.
It doesn't make sense.
It was allowed a long way from home,
or it was often publicized.
Nobody said, well, this is an American church,
and Britishers don't come here.
Nobody said, this is a British church, and
Americans don't come here.
So it was very open.
But this is what was happening.
Now, it's only going to be the limited
experience of being a volunteer.
You can't recognize him as any kind of
God.
You can only surmise what it means to
him on a racial line, practically.
It wasn't announced.
It wasn't publicized.
It was there.
And this can happen because of color, because
of skin.
It can happen because of the cultures in
which they come.
And this must not be allowed to develop
in the Church, and so easily will, because
the flesh dwells on our origins.
The flesh dwells on our personal family.
The flesh dwells on that which I inherited
from my parents, and that's the difference between
me and my brother.
The flesh loves the world, doesn't it?
But you know that even though God is
not where I come from, it's where I'm
going as a result.
Sometimes I'm supposed to, and I wouldn't call
it a privilege if I understand what you
mean.
I'm not making this up.
I think it's a word, you know.
Sometimes I'm supposed to lift my hand if
they're supposed to meet me and say, oh,
it's good to hear you all the time
again.
Personally, I try to shake it off, but
I can't.
Not because I'm ashamed of it, but because
I'm here in Canada or the USA, and
it's likely to, because South African accents will
be more used than British.
And I'm always thinking I'm getting paid for
it.
I think it's all right.
You just think you all talk.
That's the only way I talk.
Sometimes shaking hands is the answer, but as
a whole it's easy place for us to
say, oh, it's good to hear the old
country accent again.
And that's also the way I got the
old country accent.
In everything I say, and in what I
say, it's the Jesus way I got it.
It really doesn't matter where we come from,
does it?
It matters where we come from, where we
go.
And that's Jesus.
It doesn't matter where we come from.
The land of origin is not the source
of it.
It's the land of existence.
In fact, all we have is one hope
that we've got, and there's one body.
And we ought to generate the unity of
the spirit in the bond of truth.
Now, remember 1 Corinthians chapter 12, please.
1 Corinthians chapter 12.
Now, just as we begin with the subject
of the one body, there is a time
to go into the other.
Then we need to say, well, maybe that's
the body of life in that section in
chapter 4, doesn't it?
1 Corinthians chapter 12, and I want you
to read from verse 23 to 25.
Again, it's speaking about the body, but a
little bit differently.
Those members of the body make two things
to be made common, of course.
That is, it's speaking about our own human
body, the unity of the spirit.
Those members of the body make two things
to be made common, of course.
One is to be shown more abundant common.
And our abundant common has more abundant common,
for our abundant common has no need.
Our common has taken the body together, having
given more abundant common to that part which
lacks.
That has to be denoted within the body.
But of the members who have the same
share, one is called another.
Now, I want you to notice that word,
that's rather temporary, but rather together.
That's a very important word.
I understand that, again, I'm dedicated to help,
like I'm designed as part of the dictionary,
because that's the word that has already had
its momentum.
I guess I'm the line I'm supposed to
take.
But I understand to help such a way
that there could be a choice of two
big words here, or the idea that there's
a second word for verse 24.
There is a word that's been used in
Scripture, and it means to mix things up,
mix things together very much.
And that word could have been used here
in verse 24, if that's what Moses said
it means.
You could have bet for a hundred and
a half that no need, that God hath
mixed the very things together with His proper
word.
He uses the word temporary.
Now, let us make a difference.
Let me suggest that Jerusalem, and I've got
to be careful here, I've rubbed up the
other direction on it.
Let's suggest you're a farmer, and you've got
the types of grain, and you've got, you
know, barns, foodstacks, you know.
And there might come a time when you're
able to haul in some sacks.
Now, as a result of this, with the
way he's laying them across and so on,
there's a little bit of greenery there, and
there's a little bit in the barn, and
as a result of it, much of the
grain is in sacks sometimes, and there's many
little grains.
So it's very, very hard to see where
this was.
And things, trees, and types of grain, they
should be very careful.
And you get down here, you can't even
see it.
Well, how do you have things?
And if it's your desire to do so,
you could sit down in the corner of
your barn and spend many hours, you take
each piece and separate each piece, because they've
only been mixed together.
They haven't been mixed.
They were still in separate pieces of grain,
although they were mixed together so that on
the surface of the ground, you do not
see that there were two types of grain
there.
They were only mixed together.
Now, that's not how we are in the
Christian God.
We're not just a lot of people that
are mixed together.
We're a case of togetherness in the body
of God.
Now, what does that really mean?
Well, if you take some wine, and you
add some water to it, and you mix
it up, now, separate it again, you can't
do it again.
Why?
Because it's temporary.
It's mixed in such a way that you
can't do it again.
It's joined together in such a way that
the drink has to come in one piece,
the wine and the water, and that's the
way it's used.
And that's how we are as God's people,
in the body of Christ.
We're not simply separate members, all related to
one another, but rather both can become unrelated
again, at will, or at grace.
We are members, tenfold together, in the body
of Christ.
Now, in this context, it tells us that,
by illustration, that in our human bodies, we
show more abundant form and honor on our
common parts, so that they might have more
abundant communion.
I think we understand that.
That's a very natural thing to do.
We cover up those parts with less communion,
and we guide, essentially, those parts that are
more common.
We try to give more abundant honor in
the sense of covering it, of providing for
it, and caring for that part that is
not common.
This is what is done in the human
body.
This is a very natural thing to do.
Now, God says in His Word that that
is how we are to do the body
of Christ, that we are one.
But we are not to despise one another,
because one should be revered for being somewhat
uncumbered towards us, or an uncumbered type of
person.
What I'm trying to say is that if
the passage in Ephesians tells us that there's
to be no division along racial grounds, because
God has destroyed the lowly barrier that ever
existed on racial grounds, if there is to
be no division on those grounds, here it
tells us that there should be no division
on the ground of inferiority, socially, or even
just intellectually.
And I am prepared to debate with every
other believer regardless of his intellectual ability, or
his educational status, or what have you.
There is to be no division on those
grounds.
Now, I'm going to take you to Romans
chapter 12, and this is the last, because
I don't want to speed it up without
any news.
Romans chapter 12, and these are the verses
four and five.
For as we have many members in one
body, and all members are not the same
of us, so we in many are one
body in Christ, and everyone members one of
another.
But we have gifts according to the grace
that is given to us, and there are
gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us.
Each man is to wait upon his own
ministry in his work of Jesus.
Each man is to do his own work
by faith and humility, and allow him to
exert his heart because of the gifts of
a man.
There is such a thing as, generally, a
man who is able to do what we
tell him to do because of Christ.
I'm not going to tell you often that
we tell him that that's his work, the
most important thing.
We say, well, we must have a man
who is to see work.
And, of course, as long as there's such
a man in the assembly, there's a tendency
for a division to arise over them, and
perhaps we find the Communities doing that very
thing.
They would be liking him to get from
the assembly to a certain person if there
was a policy that would help them.
And we put him over against the Apostle
Paul, who was a man whose appearance was
not very impressive, whose bodily presence was weak,
though his words were weighing him out.
And there's always a tendency for people to
participate in development and go to God.
There were a group of Christians that are
hunting for us today who, a number of
years ago, encouraged among themselves the gifts of
Father Jesus to neglect the gifts of the
Daniels.
So much so that the Daniels would actually
weaned out of their fellowship, and they had
comfort for it in this.
They had become too low.
Their women fell out.
Their companies were very small, because there are
divisions, as we've seen, over the matter of
the three gifts.
Now we will all help out each one
in our own way, in our own perspective,
to attempt to use these gifts in the
wrong ways, and we shall all grow in
that hope.
Let us use this hope.