When Jesus Christ Is Fully Received | The Meaning of Bethany (Part 1)

They said to Paul, come, come into our home; you are received. And on that, the church, the first church ever built in Europe, was built. The churches of Europe sprang up from a receiving of the Lord, taking Him totally.

Then in Corinth, chapter 18, Paul is there. He doesn’t know what to do. Is he passing through, or has he stopped? He has been beaten and thrown in jail. Is this just a place to spend the night, or shall we go on? And the Lord says to Paul in a vision, “Stay, I have many people here.” And on this, “Stay, I have many people here,” the Lord built the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth is built by the Lord Jesus Christ, having been totally received.

Brothers and sisters, for the church to begin, blossom, and grow, there must be a receiving of Jesus Christ. Well, you say, we have all received the Lord. We have all been saved, and we have all received the Lord. We have a tendency to receive the Lord plus or a little less than the Lord, or all of the Lord, and limit Him. No, I mean when Jesus Christ is fully received into the assembly. Upon this, the church is baptized.

I can’t go on without saying…my heart says, the witness within me says, you have fully received the Lord. You have opened yourselves here to fully have the Lord Jesus Christ; to have His utter fullness. And the problem, our problems, have come out of receiving Him, but it is here that real danger lies. For some cannot go on in the utter receiving of the Lord. They must…they cannot endure just the pillar and the cloud. They must have something else. And Paul says to Corinth, I thank God – you received the precepts, and he tells what they are, and you have stuck with them. Then, in the last part of the chapter, he says, “But this I cannot abide,” and then he began to deal with the matter.

Jesus Christ wishes to be fully received by his people. Why? So that they might constitute on this earth what He constituted when He was on this earth. That they might be…that they might constitute on this earth what He constituted when He was on this earth. That they might show forth and be on this earth what he showed forth and was on this earth. Jesus pictured something on this earth, but more than that, He literally was something on this earth. He was something to the Father, and we must be the same to him.

I praise the Lord that in these epistles and in Acts, we have the facts, but I also praise the Lord that in the gospel we have a picture. In the gospels we see Jesus Christ and what He wants in the church, but hallelujah, there is a picture of the church in the gospels. I think that this can best picture for us what we will see in the Corinthians.

The Lord wants something here in this world. What is it? He wants, in every city, a group of people who show forth something. He wants a group of people that represent something and that do something. That have utterly, totally, and completely received Him in every city…a group of people within that city.

Now, when Jesus Christ came to this earth, was He received? Was He received? Okay, that’s right, more or less. When He came, He was not received. He wants a place where He is received. But brothers and sisters, there is a picture in the gospel of Jesus Christ being received. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. Even in talking of His own kin, He had to say in Matthew… He told the parables. The father heard about a vineyard, and he sent this son; he sent a servant to the vineyard to talk to them, the prophet. They would not listen, so finally, he sent the master’s own son, the one who owned the land. He sent his son over.

Did they receive him? He said, no, they conspired with one another. Here is the master’s own son; let us kill him, and then the land will be ours. That was a picture of Himself coming to this earth, coming to the cities of this earth, and not being received.

There was one place in the gospel where Jesus Christ could picture, could picture the church. There was a place where He was received. Praise the Lord for that, because it tells us so much. He says here in Luke 10:38, And it came to pass as they went that He entered into a certain village. Now, because we know what people lived there, we know what village it is. And a certain woman named Martha…did what? She received Him into her home. She had a sister, Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ seat and heard him. There was a family in a city, a little village, nonetheless a town. Here is a representation of a town that represents a city that represents the very earth, and in this little village town, Jesus Christ was received.

What purpose is this? It is this. That Christ wants a place in every city on earth where He Himself is utterly, totally received. Now, let me give you a picture of this that is so clear in the Old Testament. I think it will become very clear to you.

Do you remember the stories around David? David’s youth; David taking over the kingdom. Are you familiar with the story of when David’s kingdom rose up against him while he was king of the city of Jerusalem? There was a man, Absalom, his son, who pushed him out of that city, and he left. Here is the king, the rightful king, who has to leave his city because man has pushed him out. Because he has been pushed out, he covers his head and bears his feet. This is a shame. He has lost a place in that city.