The ONLY WAY To Move Forward In Christ

Does anybody want to make a comment?  Turn to Ephesians 1, please. Everybody. Okay. You’ve heard me last night say things that sound exclusive and elitist. That’s not in my soul or my spirit; I don’t even get in the flesh over that. My problem is just very simple, and that is: what is the definition of church? I have made no effort to define that. Still, I would say that most Christian groups in America and in the world find their engine… can you follow that so far…find their engine either in a doctrine or in telling their people that they are such and such. You’re the last work of God on this earth, and we’re here, and God has called us to bring the Lord back from heaven, and that’s who we are. We’re the overcomers. In some ways, that is a very devastating thing for God’s people and always seems to end in great tragedy.

I am impressed with the fact that Jesus Christ did not care to be known for His works on this earth, for miracles, and so forth. Now, you will bear me witness, as I said earlier, that when the Lord healed someone, he almost always said, “Don’t go tell anybody.” And in the last year of his life, it was spent mostly, almost exclusively, but at least mostly, with his handful of disciples. I’m saying to you that there is a certain modesty in Jesus Christ. I would like to believe that if we have an engine, that engine is genuinely our love for and our experience of and our knowledge of Jesus Christ and our love for one another, with the given that you and I need someone, who is a steward of grace, to come back and encourage us every once and a while from the outside, but also that within the church there will be great wisdom, great wisdom, and brothers and sisters carrying the church forward in all of these things that are so rich and unbelievable.

I find the greater weakness in my own ministry as I watch the church and how forgetful you are. Was it you, brother, in Denver? I don’t remember that we talked about some book in the New Testament. I don’t remember what it was, but the church in Chicago was going through the Psalms. I came down there and preached at a conference until I was walking on six inches of my trousers’ legs, and you all heard that brothers and sisters in Chicago were in Psalms, and you dropped everything discussed at that conference and started going through Psalms. Was that Denver? That was not Denver. Then that was probably Atlanta. Sounds just like them. Sounds like Denver, too.

As we go on down the road, more and more of the stewardship of the mystery on brothers and sisters locally, and I’m not speaking of any particular brother or any particular sister, but brothers and sisters must take it upon themselves to remind us of holy things and not only to speak to us about them, but to give us some way to again make them a reality. I’d like to believe that I have never preached on anything to any of you at any time without leaving you with the tools to make it real. That includes Ephesians 1:3: For the Lord has given you all the spiritual blessings that are in heavenly places in Christ. That is not a message or teaching or something wonderful to hear about; that is a reality, and it is yours as a body of believers. Now, you’re going to have to grow stronger in giving as a body of believers, in giving daily, weekly, and monthly direction to the church, and in having more and more ministry in the church. Brother Randy, who ministers in the church in Denver? Nobody, absolutely nobody. I think I knew that. Everybody does something. We’re going to spend some more time together because— and I’m not talking about trying to grow up a local pastor among you, but the last worry I have on this earth is that Denver will get a leader. If the power is that thick, that’s the one I’ve got on the bottom right there. Denver shoots in the kneecaps everybody who tries to lead out, but they do it in a really sweet way. They just insult you day and night, night and day, and poke fun at you.

There has nonetheless emerged corporate leadership, and there’s going to have to be corporate ministry. Amen, they really are. Brother, I have some news for you: the sisters are always ahead of us. That’s because they’ve already gotten to where we’re going; they are already a girl. We’re going to become one someday, so they have the full advantage over us. With that said, I have to now say to you that there must be a great deal of wisdom and a great deal of insight, a great deal of paying attention to the Holy Spirit, yet exercising your place on this earth.

Now, let me make this really clear in case you missed it. Jesus Christ has been given rule and been placed above all dominion, all principalities, all powers, on earth, in the heavens, in this age, in the age to come, and he has turned around and given that rule, that dominion, that authority to the church of Jesus Christ. It is hers. The Father has given this to Christ and then given Christ…given Christ to the church. As surely as he has given you salvation without works, he has given the deeds and accomplishments of Jesus Christ to the church. I want to make that really, really clear.

You remember yesterday when I said I don’t believe very much in a universal church. You get a universal church, and now I remember what that little boy said to him. The little boy said to that leader, “Do you go to church?” And he said, “Let’s pray.” And then he said, “See, we’ve been to church.” By the way, that brother doesn’t go to church, or if he does, he’s started since I’ve known him. I don’t blame him for not going to church, and he has such a weak view of the church, and the church is so pitiful, as most of us know; I wouldn’t go either. In fact, I don’t go. I’ve been to church maybe five times in the last 30 years, and it has really been a life-threatening experience.

So that’s the universal church, and under the universal church, you’ve got everything. You’ve got kangaroos. You’ve got zebras. You’ve got more than anything else; you’ve got platypus all over the place running around under the universal church. Jesus Christ has not given his authority, and his accomplishment on the cross and the power that raised him from the dead…is not operating in a universal church. It operates within a local body of believers, which makes you incredibly—must make you incredibly—careful stewards.

I do not often ask the Lord for anything personally, and if I did, I could tell you right now, John Wesley said he never prayed a prayer, but what God answered. Well, dilly, dilly, dilly. I have closets full of prayers God didn’t answer, and don’t tell me that, yeah, he answered with a no. Lord doesn’t answer my prayers. Not when they’re gimme, gimme, gimme. But I have to tell you, one day when he did…man, I’m off the subject here, but I have to tell you…I had this terrible congestion in my lungs, and it was painful, and I was sick, and I was running a fever, and it was in Amsterdam, Holland, I think. I was waiting for an airplane for hours and hours and hours, or maybe it was a train; I don’t really remember, I was so sick. It was Sunday, and I had nothing, and I needed some relief from pain. I was hurting badly, but I often am. That day, I said, “You know what, Lord, I just almost never bother you. I am telling you, this whole town is closed, and I’m hurting, and I want some relief. Would you please be kind to me today and give me some relief from this?”

Well, just about the time I prayed that, I walked past, and I just wandered all over downtown. I walked past the pharmacy, and it was open. I walked in on Sunday morning in Holland. There’s no such thing as a pharmacy open in Holland, if you know anything about it. They were having a party in the pharmacy, and I walked in. The man looked at me and said, Sorry, sir, we’re closed. We’re having a party. And I said, I don’t care. I want— and I don’t even remember what I asked for. He reached under the counter, brought it up, and handed it to me. I started to pay him, and he said, “No, just take it.”

He doesn’t do that often to me. I don’t use illustrations like that to prove the power of prayer. I’m not going to corrupt you with that kind of stuff. I’ve had that all my life, and I’ve been a Pentecostal…I haven’t been a Pentecostal; I run around with Pentecostals. And oh, the stories they tell. I was sitting in Thailand, listening to a Pentecostal. We were sitting there eating dinner together, and he said, Let me come to America, Gene. I have all sorts of stories. I don’t care about your stories. I really don’t care about your great stories. I have more stories than you’ve ever heard of, and I just told one just now, and that is so rare for me. I don’t use anecdotes to prove my point. All of my rambling around here, I’m going to get to my point here in just a second.