Living in the Invisibles (Part 3) – Living in the Spirit vs the Law: The Corporate Life of Faith

You know, brother, I just plain flat shot right past that. Sorry, I’ve been living in the wrong community. I’d rather have the indwelling Spirit living in me than speak in tongues. I’d rather have the Holy Spirit indwelling me…see, that’s not the baptism of the Holy Spirit: indwelling and baptism, totally different things. I would rather have an indwelling spirit dwelling in me than to have power. If you don’t follow me, what I mean by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, take a bottle and stick it in water. That’s baptized. But the inside’s still empty. Now take the bottle and fill it up. Put under the faucet, and the inside is, and that’s not baptism, that’s indwelling. Now, if you’ll take that bottle that’s completely filled and stick it in the water, you can look at that and say, “That’s me.” And it’s more than me. It is also the church because, brothers and sisters, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the property of the church. It was not an individual who received the Holy Spirit in power or the Holy Spirit indwelling that day. It was a body of 120 Christians who were plunged into and enclothed by the Holy Spirit all together at one time.  The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not for individuals. It belongs to, is the property of, and is under the ownership of the church and the church alone.

That’s true, saints. And if a man doesn’t know that, he doesn’t know anything about Scripture. The day of Pentecost was fulfilled. That day was a corporate day, not an individual day. It had always been looked upon as a corporate day. I think I’d better stop.

Did you suffer so much, and it’s all in vain? We have had enough. I have given this to you verbally, and you have received the word. Have you or have you not? You have received the word. Do you know that you will never be able to get away from what you heard tonight? That’s true. When you have heard the word of God, it will haunt you the rest of your life.

Now, what I want you to do is not to turn this into something intellectual. I want you brothers to get together on some of these things. I want you sisters to get together on some of these things. Now, tomorrow, or the next day, Bernice is going to hand out some other verses that my wife and I found. By the way, we looked them up in the concordance. This all started when I said, “Honey, would you look in the concordance for the statement ‘among you’? And then I said, “Would you look for…what was the other one I asked you after ‘among you’? You all, I guess, something like that. All of you. And you know, it just got ridiculous. Then we just decided to go through the concordance and see what we could find. And now I’m telling you that you can hardly read this thing without seeing the corporate nature of it. I want you sisters to figure out a way, in groups of one and groups of two, to bring these things to the Lord. I want to hear you tell one another on the streets and in the sisters’ meetings. You brothers, I want to ask you to get alone.

Galatians is a good place to start. You can start in Galatians 3, right where I left off. But don’t forget what’s already been covered. You have received the Holy Spirit. You’re now…you’re in the now. What else have we covered here tonight? Somebody look at your notes. What have we discovered about the corporateness of the Christian life? Perhaps not much. Oh, listen. It gets worse.

Okay. That was…I was thinking about corporateness. There had to be some. Well, we’re not just foolish, but we can have a personality that can be wise, foolish, and many other things. A church has a personality, wisdom, and a lack of wisdom. There were some other things. Okay. You also had some things there that are visible and invisible, did you not? If at any time, as you read and look at these things, keep asking yourself: when did that happen? Was it seen? That you live in the now is not seen. That you were crucified with Jesus Christ is not seen, and encourage one another with these things and figure out a way, sisters, when you get together, to find, to share, but more than that, don’t forget as you move forward into a new thing…don’t forget the past ones, would you not? Have we got anybody in here who would be a good exhorter? Have we got an exhorter among us there?

Let’s hope and pray that the Lord will give us a Fran Rigoli who will remind us not only of things we learned this week but also of things we learned last February 1996. And that we go back to those things when we pass them and come back to them fresh. It may be about six or eight months from now, somebody will need to say, “I’m blameless.” And be reminded that I am crucified and I don’t exist and I died and that is forever. Now that follows you around. That death that you died on the cross is the presence of the past that is present with you now. Now, would you please become adventurers, watch one another, see how you do these things, and instead of… discover some things and teach me? I am a very wise man because the church of Jesus Christ has taught me so much.

Now I come and sit at your feet, asking you to teach me these things and tell me about them…and exhort one another. Do you have anything you want to talk about? We have questions here. Would you cut the tape completely off? This will be my last time being with the brothers and sisters this weekend. This is 1996. I would like to be here in the year 2006 and see how you folks are doing. I would really, really enjoy that.

I want to comment on this morning’s meeting. It’s amazing what a tiny little bit can make such an incredible difference. I think, generally, at least up until today, you have been praying in the meeting, and I don’t like that word because I think it scares us off. So, I’m going to say you’re speaking to the Lord…would be in fewer sentences and not on any particular tack. Would that be? What was the word you said, Jeff?  Flow. Good word. Flow. Direction. Today. Your prayers were a little longer. Your talking to the Lord was a little longer, and it was all in the same direction, and it came in bunches. Three, four, five of you prayed. You spoke to the Lord. And that little bit can make an incredible difference. I want to remind you that this is your church. The ownership is co-ownership: Jesus Christ and you; I am a visitor… until you do something wrong. Then I am not a visitor. I am the sole lord and dictator. (laughter) And that would start today, not in the past. I don’t know what I was in the past. That is, if you are a person who comes into a meeting and never opens your mouth…I don’t want to say anything negative here, but if you are a person whose biggest contribution is singing, if you’re one who does not speak to the Lord, or if you do, it’s only…we don’t know what you said, or if we did, we didn’t understand what you said. Or even if we understood what you said, it was some pitiful little thing that didn’t amount to anything. Even though we probably amen’d you, we were lying when we did it.

That just this much more functioning to offer something that is in you to the Lord, to speak those things that you have heard. I’m going to repeat that. To speak what you have heard. Well, Gene, why should I speak it when someone else has said it, or you’ve talked about it? What contribution is there? Well, because it came from you, and it will always come out a little differently. And interestingly enough, if you will open your mouth, who knows what might come out. There’s one thing for sure. Nothing of the Lord will come out of you if you do not open your mouth. You are, in fact, and I guess I will be negative, a parasite on the meeting. You are only taking and not giving.

And brother, there’s a certain stoppage of your own spirit. I don’t know why this is true, but your spirit needs to let things out in order for your spirit to be healthy, and whatever else goes with health, growth, or whatever. It is just true that you have to do that. Today, a lot of you just spoke to the Lord, and it was wonderful. I want to encourage you to continue doing that. You walk through that door. Remember that the church belongs to you, and you have a place to function in the church. Silence is not a function. And by the way, there was silence today, but that silence was worship. Usually, in the meeting, when there is silence, it’s because there’s just a plain stoppage. Nobody knows what to do next. It’s a privilege to be able to be quiet before the Lord when you know that’s part of what’s going on. And that is really rare. That is really rare, unless it’s a mature church, and that takes years.

I really encourage you to do what you did and do some more of it, and then some more. Anything that is learned here, touched here, found here, revealed here, apprehended here, and laid hold of here will be lost if you don’t speak it. Those who speak will contain more. Now, I’m not picking on those of you who are silent, quiet, reserved people. I don’t want to get you depressed. But on the other hand, a church that can get into the habit of just kind of mumbling a little something to the Lord and the rest of it singing. You don’t want to get stuck in that. Release the body to function. It doesn’t have to be prayer. If you can’t do anything else, open that songbook and read a song to us. And I didn’t think that up; I got that out of the New Testament, believe it or not. If you can do nothing else, open your songbook and read a song to us. And that will be a lot. It will mean a lot.