Being Built Up Together: Living Stones in God’s House

The best way I can describe this is to say: here is a stone, and under the stone is another stone, over the stone is another stone, and beside the stone is another stone, and beside the stone is a stone. There’s one above, two beside, and one underneath. Alright? Every one of us has got to find…you come to the Lord about it…and find you a stone, brother, to be built with. A stone here and a stone here. You’re going to give up your old life and be built together with the brothers and sisters. You’ll need to find a stone here and here. If there’s a stone there, get under a stone. If there’s one that comes to you, fine, but most of all, you’ve got to have a stone.

Brother, there have to be two legs of the board, firmly planted, and that leg and that leg have to be joined to another board and another board, practically, practically, just like a wheelbarrow is practical. God is practical in his church. It may kill some of your collegiate ways, it may kill all of us in our doings in religion, but the Lord says that we have to be a living temple built up together, built up together as one.

Well, what do we mean by this in a practical way? Brother, I will only say to you, come to the Lord and sense something within, and the Lord will show you. A brother to be built up with. Sisters, a sister to be built up with. Someone to really be built up with. Who? Oh, someone’s looking across the room and saying, oh boy. Well, okay, here I am. What kind of person am I? Well, let’s say that I am the quiet kind of brother. Easy going. Don’t say much. Have very little to say. So, I found a brother like me. Today, all day long, we never said a word to one another. We are really built! I don’t snore, and he doesn’t snore. I don’t ask him for anything. He never asks me for anything. We go from day to day. We’re really built up. We tend to seek those of our own disposition…it hurts less. I’m a really quiet brother, and I am really, really sweet. I never have anything to say. I’m always just very quiet, very patient. Here is the brother I’ve got to get built up with. Right here. Brother Jeff: he is so loud and so noisy. He is so impatient, and praise the Lord, we’re going to get built up together.

What’s going to happen when it’s through? Praise the Lord. I’m going to be a little bit more alert, alive, and impatient, just like the Lord wants me to be, and Brother Jeff is going to be a little quieter and a little more subdued. You know, I don’t have to tell you. What is this? This is the hewing part of the building. This is the fitting together of different-shaped stones. This is the “being built.” Alright, Brother Jeff, you know who to look for now.

Brothers and sisters, you have to find someone. It’d be best if you find two people. I would even say it’s better if it were someone you do not live with, if at all possible, but sometimes it has to be that way. Don’t sweat it, brothers. I am going to speak as much as possible in principle. Someone to turn to, to pray with, someone to fellowship with. Find somebody you don’t like very much. Now, I’m not going to say around here that the two enemies should definitely get together, but don’t go get your friend. Don’t go get your friend, but someone the Lord will draw you to. It’ll just be sort of a natural thing. But brother, don’t be independent.

What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? There’ll be the hewing, but little by little, there’ll be the building together. When two or three are built together and come together to offer up the Lord Jesus to the Father, the whole body will be built up more and more. Those boards get linked. You have to get linked with someone practically. Practically. And you have to be so absolutely practical. Really practical.

Now, I’m going to present to you the way it should be, but not the way it’s going to be. Okay? The way it should be, but if it turns out this way, I will come back to you, and I will say, “Brothers, something is wrong.”  If it works out this way, there is something wrong. Now, did you hear that? You’ll need to quote this to one another later, maybe.

This dear brother and I…we are going to pray together, and we are going to fellowship together, and we’re going to be built together—a couple of boards. We’ve got two feet. Well planted. We’re balanced. We’re not going to be easily turned, but my brother has a problem. Maybe he’s even got some gossip. If he has gossip, it goes to the cross…that is, it goes nowhere. It doesn’t even come to me. It might go back to the person there and say, Brother, may I have a word with you? But it doesn’t go anywhere, brother. It doesn’t go anywhere, but you come, and you have a burden, and we begin to pray. And you say, Brother Gene, what should I do about this? And then I say to you, Brother, you’ve got to go to so and so. Now then, brother… If I’m to really be built with you, I shouldn’t do that, should I? I should fellowship with you and pray with you before the Lord, and, if I’m really clear, give you a little impression, but I’m not here as a counselor. It’s not for me to do that, but what if I do you that? And what should you do?

No, let’s forget the gossip. You have a problem within your own life. You want to go fishing on Sunday, and you come and talk to me. And I say to you, now listen, you went fishing last Sunday and the Sunday before that. You just ought not to go fishing anymore. Alright, what are you going to do? What are you going to do right now? Go along. Let’s say “go along”, not “follow”, because this isn’t a following, because tomorrow, brother, I got my problems. Tomorrow. I want to go fishing, but I want to go fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s going to take three weeks. I want to go fishing so bad. And he prays with me. And he fellowships with me, and he doesn’t say a thing. He says, Brother, I’m standing with you. And he goes. And he goes. Then he leaves, and I know good and well what he’s thinking. He thinks I ought not go fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. I tell you, I don’t know why in the world I got stuck with him. I think this whole church is full of a bunch of hypocrites and legalists. I’m not going to go to the meeting tomorrow either. If I do go, I’m not going to sing.

Okay, two brothers come together, and they have some fellowship. They’re being built together, and one brother has a real sense that he should go along with another brother, and so he does…praise the Lord. Or the brother doesn’t go along with him, and the other brother has a real sense that this is what the Lord is saying, but this brother is rebellious.

Now, oh brothers, I want to stop and nail this down and nail it down good. The proper thing for you to do with the one or the two with whom you’re being built is to go along with them. Go along with them, but if you can’t, you just absolutely come down to it; if you cannot do it, then you just cannot. Then go out and be in the flesh. Go ahead and be rebellious. Just go on and do it. Don’t be afraid of God, and don’t be afraid of your brothers…