Needed, A New Way to Meet #3: The Body of Christ: A New Way to Experience Church Life

This is why the church is called the body of Christ. This is why the ecclesia, the community, is called the body of Christ. It’s because a little of Christ is put in you; I’m sorry, all of Christ is put in you, and a little of His personality and expression and gift in you, and a little in you, and a little in you. None of us can contain all of Christ and His expression: no apostle, no one.

Here is His tenderness and love. Here’s His majesty. Here’s His glory. Here’s His strength. Here’s His authority. Here’s His joy. Here’s His exhortation. There is His encouragement. Over here is His benevolence. Over here is His speaking. And over here is His healing. All of this, in some way or other, is deposited either liberally or profitably, and it would grow together and become one new humanity, one new species, one new man, because you are endowed, unlike the lost man, with certain elements.

So, you all come together. You are not a body. There’s a foot over here, a hand over here, a leg over here, a tongue over here, another tongue over here, another tongue over here, another tongue over here, and another tongue over here. Too many tongues. An eye over here…and the whole room is full of ears: ears, ears, ears, and more ears. Everywhere you look there’s an ear, an ear, an ear, another ear, more ears. All sorts of ears. Too many tongues; too many ears. Way too many ears.

My job is to make you a body, to bring you together. And what happens? This drives me. The nature of the church is that all parts become one whole. All are interdependent on one another. However, this is all New Testament. I’m speaking to you of Scripture. Each part becomes interdependent on the other. The eye can never say to the toe, I don’t need you. I don’t care if I am an ear or a tongue or an eye. I need a toe. I need a kneecap. I need a shoulder. How precious is the body of Christ? How not to be abused is she? Write this down, worker: you will treat the church the way you treat your wife. So, if you’re making life hell on earth for your wife, you’ll make life hell on earth for the body of Christ.

I met a brother who was heading a Christian movement, and he had been married three times. I thought, oh, what miserable people they are. The way he was in my home…I watched the way he treated his wife. You cannot distinguish between the way you treat your wife and the way you treat the church. I thought my wife would stand up and say, ” He treats me and the church the same way.” I can tell you; do you want to hear my faults? I can tell you, God gave me many things, but patience was not one of them. I am an impatient person, and I’m going to stay that way. No need to pray for me; I’m going to be impatient (laughter).

I hope you all have that experience of coming together and becoming a glorious, wonderful whole, each part functioning, each part being dependent on and depending on. It’s just wonderful, and it’s not to be taken lightly, and it’s not to be given up lightly. Don’t think you can find it over every hill and in just any place you happen to land. It’s a very rare commodity everywhere.

Now, the fact that she is His body reflects its importance: it focuses us when we gather. I want to say this again to you so you’ll be very clear. Do you understand that as the body of Christ, you are parts, and when you come together and become a whole, you actually become a visible expression of the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s the most awesome thing I can think of: a group of people coming together and becoming Christ expressed on this earth again.

Now you begin to get to Christ’s heartbeat. I’m sorry if I sound a little less than gracious toward Christian religious organizations, but how can I be when I know my Lord wishes to be expressed physically on the earth again; physically, as He was in Judean Galilee, and as He was after Pentecost in Jerusalem. We gather for the purpose of making Jesus Christ visible. That’s why you gather. That’s why I gather. We gather not lightly; we gather not wondering if this will happen; we gather for it to happen, expecting it to happen, that Christ will be made visible.

Hear this passage of Scripture if you will. If all prophesy…I’m going to change that word. If everybody will do something, if everybody will participate, if everybody will function, then the unbeliever and the new believer will fall in this place and worship God. I believe a fallen race will worship God simply because the church came together and functioned. That is what turned the Roman Empire against the church. This is what was driving the Roman Empire crazy. People would come together, and something incredible would happen among them.

They were so close to one another, and it was said, behold how they love one another. It was seen in the meeting: His servitude, His majesty, His joy, His benevolence, His benediction, His caring, His exaltation, His authority, His power. All were manifested when those parts got together somewhere bound by divinity; bound by mutual experience, bound by an interchange of divine fellowship between one another. By that, bound them together.

Their encounter with Christ and fellowship with Him, and their fellowship with one another, and their fellowship with Him, and their fellowship with one another, and their fellowship with one another with Him, have bound them together. Then they come together and become one whole living organism, and that living organism expresses Christ.