Rekindling the Flame #4 – Making Christ Pre-Eminent in the Church

This is Ephesians 5:19. This is Colossians 3:16. This is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19. Those are the main passages we have in the New Testament, except for 1 Corinthians 14. That pretty well does it, and I think it would be wise for all of us to read that section in 1 Corinthians 14.

These are things you and I are supposed to do to make them possible. To rejoice, to sing, to give thanks, to not quench the spirit, to release the spirit, to bring a song, bring a psalm, bring a hymn, and to talk to one another with songs, and with one another with psalms, and to admonish, and to edify or build up, and help me here, Josh; what are the rest of the words here? You don’t have to look this up. We talked about it. Comfort. We’ve got one more. Exhort. Thank you very much. I knew I was overlooking something.

Alright, and that’s in every meeting. It’s not just singing and a few pitiful little one-sentence prayers based on the song you just sang. Real prayers. If necessary, I warn you, Atlanta, I will ask you to go write out a prayer that means something to you and pray it in the meeting without writing it down, so that we can have something longer than “Lord, you’re our mountain. Hallelujah.” That’s the lowest common denominator of spiritual expression. You went into the meeting spiritually unprepared, someone sang a song, and you threw a grenade. That is also insipid.

Saints, we must come together every year to renew these things. We live by revelation. Someday I’m going to be gone, and I’m expecting some brothers in this room to stand here and give you Jesus Christ till your teeth ache. And show you things about Him you never knew or dreamed of.

I don’t know what the first-century Christians had, but I’m going to tell you what the 21st-century Christians have. They’re going to have a songbook that is thick. 1,255 songs. We will use this to talk to one another. We need this. You know why we need this? Because God chose our spirits and our lives to be strengthened by them. These are the elements given to us to make Jesus Christ preeminent in our lives and in the church.

Now, if you don’t agree with this, I ask you: what else in the New Testament don’t you like? Saints, I’m saying this to every person in this room, without exception. Deal with this, will you? Deal with it. Jacksonville, go back home, take what we’ve already learned, and do it again; we’ll just be bigger. Make Christ preeminent in your life, and make Christ preeminent in mine. I must tell you something: if you open your mouth and do these things, you’ll gain ground in life.

I talked to you this morning about my own private life, and if I shut down in those areas, I’d be way, way, way behind. These are what keep me a Christian in my private life and because I’m in the church. You sometimes make a mistake by thinking that we are here ministering and blessing you when we speak Christ. We are so strengthened. It is Christ who strengthens us. Sometimes we are speaking, and you’re getting a revelation; I will tell you, so are we.

Not everything we prepare is what comes out. Sometimes there’s just this beautiful explosion of light, and you suddenly realize what the Lord’s been saying to all of us. So, I’m going to end this part by saying, please do not neglect the reading of Scripture, but I beg you, don’t leave it there. If something is in your heart, and you read this and it means something to you, please put it in a wheelbarrow, bring it to the meeting, and tell the rest of us. I promise you, as a member of Christ’s own body, that if it has helped you, it will help us.

We need you. I need you. We need one another. The body builds herself up by her sharing. I cannot help you. If you say the church is really going through a dry spell, well, I grant you it’s a spell. It looks like this. It’s a self-induced spell. Saints, brothers here in Atlanta, you got to come back and say, “Look, we’re not doing what God tells us to.” It was not Gene, but this is…what are you going to do with…what are you going to do with these passages? They were written to a Greek church, and they were written to a church in East Asia. It’s an area we know virtually nothing about.

They were also written to another Greek church. Shall we not build our spiritual life on it? Do you know of any group of people in this world who come together and admonish and exhort and comfort and edify one another in the meeting with something that is living? I do not know such people. Yet that’s exactly who they were, and we call them first-century Christians.