Needed, A New Way to Meet #5 – Beyond Traditional Church: Experiencing Christ as Head

You suffered, and you lost everything. My first emotion is that this is too terrifying. There are too many risks; let’s just not do anything. I have another feeling, and I’m going to share it with you. You had something; you lost it. You lost it because of men. They’re powerless over you; that’s true. Behind men is Satan…and behind Satan is God. Ultimately, it was His will. Now, you have something to give of the kingdom of God. Let’s say testimony. Don’t lose your individual responsibility. You see that a lot more clearly than most of us do, even more than others who’ve lost it. The body of Christ needs that. Maybe not now; maybe you’re not ready. You still need more time, but don’t ever forget that behind the cross, the agony, and the pain is purpose. It doesn’t always get fulfilled, but everything has purpose. As far as I’m concerned, you are a jewel of protection for the church. Alright, you’ve suffered; you’ve seen something, something most of us are missing. Will we suffer as a body and continue having this lack? I hope not. I’m aware that your testimony would be valid for a people.

During the Jesus Movement, the young sisters often asked me what their place in the church is. My answer was, ” When you are 40, you will tell me.  You’re going to grow up in church, and when you’re 40, you will tell me what the sister’s place is in the church.” Understand that we’re kind of worthless anyway until we get to be 40; the first 20 years of your Christian life are for growing up. Those of us who are older will tell you we left adolescence at 30 and grew up at 40, and you don’t know that, and you never will. I used to hate old people who talked that way. Get out of my way, and they did; they moved out of the way, and I have no regrets, but I had a lot to learn from Jesus Christ that is spiritual, that was deep and profound, and that cannot be learned in your 20s. It cannot be learned in your 20s. You’re never going to know the cross in your 20s; it can’t be done. The cross doesn’t stick in your 20s. You may need it, but it doesn’t stick in your 20s. It begins to stick a little in your 30s.

I was nice to you, wasn’t I? I have something to say to all of you who are getting older. Are you really still nursing all these pains you got from church life? Why not let it turn to gold, brother? Gold, not hyssop. Nothing’s worse than having some old sourpuss walk into a group of people. We started in Portland, and we had to stop because some people came in. They were so terrified because of their background that they stopped every meeting and corrected everybody, because every time we met, we made errors that would get us in trouble. They would grind every meeting to a halt with corrections. One day, I just stopped, walked out, and left. It was impossible to meet. All of them were older than me. Believe it or not, I still respect people older than me; only five or ten remain. If you can let that then turn to gold, it becomes a wonderful vessel for God.

Alright, if those of you listening to this video and those of you sitting in this room don’t get anything else, having a meeting where you seek to put that meeting under the headship of Jesus Christ has problems, friends. I wish somebody had explained to me how to get commitment to Christ out of the people of God. We will commit ourselves to anything but Jesus Christ. We commit ourselves to a …, to a movement. The only reason you can get hurt is that you have a commitment that’s misplaced. You made a ferocious commitment to the church, and it should be local, but it also has to be universal.

There is no excuse for thousands of people leaving a movement destroyed unless you have been stabbed with hot pokers and physically abused. Now that you’ve got excuses for it. You take five or ten years off from that. I’m reminded of one who has been physically abused, and he hasn’t stopped yet. Nothing stopped that brother. He spent over half of his Christian life in prison; from the day he was saved to this moment, he’s a real reminder. Half of his life has been spent in prison; he’s never stopped. He wouldn’t stop in prison. He didn’t stop anywhere.

I’ll tell you something else about him: he was around when the Christian faith was outlawed; in fact, he was the first Christian who was saved in his nation. He went to prison; they finally quit throwing him in prison, and now he has the right to nurture his own. The missionaries are not allowed in there, and every time he’s sent to prison, Christian missionaries are going after his followers. He comes out with no followers left. If any man on this earth has the right to be bitter, it’s him. He has spent a week in my home, and I consider him the bravest man of this century. You might not have even heard of him, and probably never will.

He spent fifteen or twenty years in prison at the hands of the government, and I’m asking a question I’ve asked myself and other men who had been persecuted for the faith. I said, “Which hurts the most? Being put in prison… he was even put in mental institutions. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in prison in Nepal? Which hurts more: being put in prison, or what Christians have done to you? His eyes flashed, and he said, ” There’s no comparison. It’s what Christians do to you.” When he walked out of prison, all of his Christians, all of his followers, people who were led to the Lord by him, were bought off by Christian missionaries who turned them against him. He grabbed his worn-out tools and started from zero again. Hallelujah. Now there is a man after God’s own heart. I sat and listened to that brother talk, and I cried like a baby. I felt so ashamed. Shoot. I haven’t suffered for my Lord yet. Nobody has mistreated me. I have not been abused, not when I compare my life with his. Why don’t you recognize that these things are from the hand of God? They’re all from God’s hand.

Don’t ask me about commitment; I don’t understand. I don’t know. I’m nervous that most people between the ages of 17 and 24 are not committed to Christ; they are running on youthful enthusiasm, even though they committed their lives to the Lord. For people ages 24 to 28, it is hard to tell, but whatever you did from 17 to 28 is up for evaluation between 28 and 32. It is at that point that we lose most Christians; though they are saved, today they are making money. Materialism excites them more than Christ does. Then once you get up to people 40 or older, they’re bitter and fickle and sad and corrective and all that stuff – what in the world? Where are you, the committed? I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but that’s what I’ve observed. Why can’t you stay long? Why can’t you be enthusiastic and bright-eyed and breathing and not be so glum and fearful?

The little songbook that I’ve got here, I break choruses in…. I’m going to tell a little bit about this songbook. The songbook has some songs in the front called Greetings. They don’t have any numbers in them. It’s to greet people. Then there are the Psalms, and each Psalm is listed by its number. Then we start on page 200, and I think it goes up to about 225; I’m not sure. Page 300 starts with a different kind of hymn. 300 goes up to about 350; I’m not sure, then we start again at page 400. Now, do you know why you do all this? So we can keep sticking different kinds of songs in the place where they belong.

When we get to 500, we have choruses. Actually, starting with page 400, we have Chorus Section One, and then Chorus Section Two. I want you to see this. Chorus Section One: worship and adoration. Chorus Section Two: joy and delight. I am saying we spend almost all our time in Chorus Section Two, not in hymns, not in Psalms, not in worship and adoration, but in joy and delight. We’re going to do that this weekend, without apology. I love this as much as you do. Our last section was about 600. They’re popular Christian tunes. As far as I’m concerned, these are the best songs in the book.

This (artificially pumping up every meeting) is the mistake of the super churches and the glory churches: you can’t be up all the time. In fact, the church ought to stop and suffer sometimes. A church needs dry spells. Do you know that the Christian life needs dry spells? Do you know the Christian life needs the cross? Are you aware that you need to be lost? I don’t mean from salvation, but lost in relation to the Lord’s direction in your life. Do you know that if you don’t have dry spells, you’re in big trouble? It’s not the dry spells; it’s your reaction to them. Jeanne Guyon made a powerful statement: Our reaction to a dry spell or a time of glory should be the same.

Now, those of you who are outward, joyful, optimistic people: God love you; I envy you. Everything is always optimistic to you, and you love sunsets and see God in them. I envy you. You love to sing; David danced before the Lord, and you like to get out here and dance, and you love the tambourine and all that. That’s great. Watching you, you’re not really happy in the meeting until that stuff starts; anything else, you’re just sitting there, waiting for some kind of glory. We all enjoy it, but some of us enjoy it too much. You can’t build the kingdom of God on “up tunes.” There’s a lot nearer to the kingdom of God than a tambourine and an accordion and a piano and castanets and drums and guitars.