The Spiritual Community of the Believer – Grand Prairie DCLC #2

Do you know that there are thoughts you never have? There were thoughts that first-century believers never had. They could not conceive of leaving and going down the street. They did not think in terms of individuality in their pursuit of the Lord. If you became a believer in Corinth, you also belong to the body of believers in Corinth. They were inseparable. That was what a Christian was. It’s like trying to become a Hare Krishna without the robe and the ponytail. You look at Hare Krishna. If you ever think about becoming a Harry Krishna, you don’t say, “Hm, I think I’ll become one of those, but I’ll leave the robe and the ponytail off and the shaved head.” Do you understand what I’m saying? You know, if you’re going to become a Hare Krishna, you’re going to get a robe, you’re going to shave your head with this little knot of hair in the back, and you’re going to beg for money in the airport.

Well, this whole thing was tied up the same way with a Christian. The community and the Christian were inseparable. That is not true today, unfortunately. Let me give you an idea of what I mean by thoughts we’ve never had. I am not worried tonight about where my son is. It’s a thought that has never crossed my mind. Now, can you guess why? I don’t have a son. It’s incredible how little I’ve worried about that boy. I have never once worried about my son, not for a moment. Isn’t that unbelievable? Well, let me give you an example of something that has never crossed your mind. Having two courthouses in one city. Now, that’s never crossed your mind. Is that not true? The policeman stops you. You say, “Forget you—wrong courthouse. You can’t arrest me. I do all my business with the other courthouse.” You never had a thought like that. He stops you; you’re in trouble. We got one courthouse. No choices. Well, that’s the way of the first-century Christian walk. He didn’t have any choices. It was the body or nothing. The attachment to Christ was community. It was corporate. It was multiple. It was not individualistic. Boy, that would be hard on a bunch of Texans, wouldn’t it? Say amen. It would be. Do you know that I’ve read an awful lot of second and third-century Christian literature? I can find no reference to two groups of Christians in a city until the year 290 AD.

If I could say anything to any of you tonight, it would be that in your pursuit of Christ, there is always the hope of, and there’s always the sight of, the spiritual community of the believers. Alright, that’s pretty well what I said last night. You got anything else you want to add here? Anything? Yes, ma’am. Oh, yeah. You like that, huh? I did a lot of confession of sin last night. Would you like to hear it again? You like that? Let one honest man speak here for a moment. Let me speak honestly, whether I’m honest or not. I don’t like to pray. I don’t like to pray. Leave me to myself, and I will not pray. In fact, I’ve given up most of what most of us call prayer pretty well. With rare exception, it has gone by the board. Just because someone tells me that’s prayer doesn’t mean it is. You cannot prove to me that’s what prayer was in the first century. There ought to be an organic expression that comes out of me that is not dull.

Well, I also gave another one: I don’t like going to church either. I really mean that. I’m not kidding one bit. I find…I’m sorry, folks, those of you who really love going to your church. I can barely stand to go to church. You know how bad it is. How bad is it? I’ve been to church twice in the last 25 years. And you know when the second one was? It was about three weeks ago. I went to pay homage to some of the finest Christians who ever lived. They will tie the first-century believers, if not exceed them in devotion and commitment, and, by the way, they were a spiritual community of believers. They were born in Germany. Their story is almost unparalleled in church history.

Are you familiar? Have you ever heard of the Moravians? The Moravians. They came to America and went out into the wilderness. So, I think 60 miles from the nearest settlement, today it’s called Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They started a little town called Bethlehem, and the Indians attacked them, and the British attacked them. They were hated and despised because everybody understood they were not Protestants in the traditional sense. They figured they must be Catholics. So, they were hung with the title of Catholics in a world that would have fled the Catholic Church, our world. Talked about, rumored about, and they just stood there and were an example of depth, dedication, and experience of Christ. I walked through what they call “God’s Acre”. It is one acre of a cemetery where their people are born and are buried. One of the most impressive things is that almost no one lived past 40. I walked around from tombstone to tombstone. I’ve been studying these people since I was a kid, but I’ve never had the privilege of being there. I went all over that cemetery weeping, just weeping, weeping over those beautiful little stones they had commemorating some of the greatest Christians who ever lived, and they lived on our continent. That was in the 1720s…1740s.

And it was 11 a.m., and I went to a Moravian church meeting. It was as bad as a Baptist church. Oh, it was so bad. I sat there and thought about how they used to have meetings that lasted five hours, sometimes six, sometimes seven, sometimes 10. They didn’t want to go home, and when they went home, home was Bethlehem. Every person in that town was a Moravian Christian, and they divided the community into two groups: those who earn money and those who serve the Lord. It was always 50/50, and then they’d swap. 50% would work, and the other 50% would serve the Lord, and then they’d swap again. That’s why they shook the world…and they did. They were the only evangelical Protestant missionaries on earth until about 1800, and they went everywhere. The stories are incredible. Their deaths: they counted it all loss for Christ.

I would ask Moravians before and after the meeting what’s so-and-so. They didn’t know anything about their heritage. The meeting… I’ll tell you how bad it was. The next day, I sat down with one of the great Moravians, and I mean great in his position today. He didn’t know me. I didn’t know him. He had pastored that church for 20 or 30 years. He was now retired. He taught in the Moravian Seminary. We sat there and discussed the past. I asked why the meetings didn’t last 10 hours and five hours. He doesn’t know. He has spent most of his life raising Moravian churches. That really meant a lot to me. Those are rare people even in the denomination. That’s a hard job.

He leaned across his desk and said to me…now, he was not in the meeting I was just in…he leaned across the desk and said to me, “What did you think of our Sunday morning church service?” And I felt the hole that I was about to fall into. Well, mama didn’t raise no idiots. Maybe some morons, but no idiots. I said to him, “Well, I will speak generally, not of Moravians, but I consider following the same ritual for 500 years and never changing it stupid.” Then I said, “I do not understand why anybody would sit through a church service.” And he said, “I agree with you 100%.” He said, ‘You know, he said, “I’m not surprised so few people go to church. I am absolutely amazed that so many do.” I got somebody on my side. Now, that’s a minister, an ordained minister. He’s spent nearly 50 years in the ministry, and that’s his view of present-day Moravians. So, I said to you last night, the church of Jesus Christ is not a place you meet on Sunday morning. She is, in fact, a way of life that consumes you day and night. She is from a community. She is not a place you report to one hour per week. She is your consuming life.

Now I want to go a little further this evening and, if I may, drive home to you what this spiritual community of the believer really is. I hope this will come across to you. By the way, this is a new point. This is not in last night’s point. Someone with great insight called the ekklesia…listen to this term…a colony from heaven. A colony from heaven. Imagine the earth more or less in the hands of the enemy, the world, organization, civilization, whatever, and imagine another realm, and if you please, another species. Don’t think of heaven so much; think of another sphere. You can’t get there in a rocket ship. No matter how far you go, you have to go through a door between two realms. And imagine that this glorious place is filled with all sorts of things, including God in Christ. Imagine that a small group of them comes to this planet and establishes a little colony meant to reflect the spirit and nature of the other realm. Are you following me? That is the church.

If that vision could obsess us, I tell you frankly, every church building on this earth would be forever vacant starting next Sunday. I wish to drive that point home if I may. You know what the word “colony” means? Do you know what the British still refer to us as? Do you know what they do with great derision? Well, now let us hear from the colonies. President Reagan will come speak to us, the colonies. Well, listen, listen. The British came over here after a few of the pilgrims had cleared the way, and they would build a town with architecture like that in England and set up stores that looked like those in England. Then they would fill it with English products, and the ship would arrive, and the women would be able to put on the latest British fashions. And a newcomer would step off the ship, step into the town of Philadelphia, and he would look around, and he would see something that reminded him of a town in Great Britain. Are you following me? In fact, a town like Philadelphia was built as a replica, a tiny miniature replica of Great Britain, so that you could feel at home there if you were British.

The Romans did exactly the same thing. Take Galatia, one of the most forsaken parts of the Roman Empire. They moved into a town called Pisidian Antioch, and they leveled downtown. They came in there with their soldiers and their slaves and their architects. They built a downtown that was a tiny replica of the Roman Forum, the main marketplace, the center of the city of Rome, filled it with its merchandise, brought in its coins, brought in its people, brought in its language, brought in its clothing, brought in its schools, brought in its literature, brought in its amp theaters, brought in its plays, and brought in its culture. When a Roman left Rome and came there, he felt like he was going to some forsaken place, but he could step into Pisidian Antioch and say, “Well, in this wretched hole, at least I can feel the atmosphere and the sense of Rome.”

The church of Jesus Christ is not native to this planet. Someone has said she is “shot through with eternity.” She is not native to this planet. You know where she really came from? She didn’t start at Pentecost. The church of Jesus Christ really represents… ultimately… tracing her back to her roots. She reflects the fellowship of the Godhead. The fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. That is a divine fellowship. The church of Jesus Christ begins in the same place. When you got saved, you became a partaker of… Will you finish that with me? A partaker of the divine nature. Say it again. A partaker of the divine nature. That was written by Simon Peter, if you please, the brother who started the church in Jerusalem. We become partakers of the divine nature and begin in a fellowship with Him, and then enlarge that fellowship with one another. That is the spiritual community of the believer. Our roots are in another realm; if you please, our origins are in another species. If you can understand that God is not a human, He is a different species. He took on the form of human flesh upon this earth, but within Him was God, and He continued His fellowship with the Father. He was a “miniature” of heaven. Heaven, the realm of God, the kingdom, the place, the sphere of God was in Him, and the fellowship was there, and all the ekklesia was an extension of that divine fellowship.