Life of Christ #5 – The Secret of the Christian Life: Living in Fellowship With God

Now, my dear brother, I land this now. I am telling you, young man, what you ought to do to prepare yourself to be a Christian worker. You ought to see the same Father He saw, and you ought to see Him seeing the Father. You ought to listen to Him fellowship. And you ought to get into the church; that’s the second thing you ought to do. You ought to get in the church where other people are listening, watching, and hearing, and what they’ve listened, watched, and heard, and are living by a life not human every once in a while, and sharing moments together when you get assembled. That’s what you ought to do.

You ought to be clear. You ought to get into the church, in a body of believers who are watching, hearing, living by, and sharing what they live by. You ought to do like the apostles; you ought to spend your life in your twenties watching the Godhead in fellowship with the Godhead in the church. That’s what preparation for the Christian ministry is.

Now then, you say to me, Gene, will the pattern hold? Will the pattern hold, or does it stop with the twelve? This is, I’m telling you…you better believe me. I wouldn’t be standing here. I’m going to show you the pattern from the day the Lord started ministering until the last worker in the New Testament was raised up. The pattern never changed. It remained unbroken: what the Christian life was, what the church was, and the way workers were prepared, and then after they got prepared, what they went out and did is unbroken, all the way from the Godhead to the last knowledge we have of workers being raised up.

I would say to you, brothers and sisters, that you and I need to return to the fellowship. We’re going to have to learn how to do that outside of time and outside of space, just like the Lord did, and then maybe we can bring a little of it into time and into space. Gene, you’re either crazy or you’re mad, which is it? No, it is possible to restore that fellowship. That’s all I can say to you, old folks. I can’t help you with the church. For one thing, I don’t live in Ontario. I was about to say I’m not a Canadian, but that’s not true. I don’t live in Ontario. I don’t live where you live, but I can tell you this. I can tell you what kind of worker you need if you ever have the church there. I can tell you what the church is. It’s the fellowship of a group of people around the fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Oh, it’s a lot of other things too, because we’re fallen. We have no visible Christ with us. But that’s where the church begins, there, and works out.

The only thing I’d say to you about workers is, if you see any young men who’ve been called to the Lord, tell them what I just told you, would you? They need to find somebody who can show them that fellowship, and that Christian life, and that church experience, and that preparation.

Now, this is one of the most important messages that I can bring on this earth. But I’m not through. I am going to impress you, re-impress you, and double-impress you. And because this room is sealed off, I have the feeling it’s 10 p.m., don’t you? But it’s afternoon, is that right?

You…out there. I’m not picking on the Bible, but I know more about the Bible than you…Unless you are one rare bird. I know the Bible has been sold as the secret to the Christian life, and it works for a few people. I know that prayer has been sold as the secret to the Christian life; it works for a few people. I know that witnessing is sold as the secret to the Christian life; it works for a few people. I know that tongues have been sold as a secret to the Christian life, and it works for a few people. But some of us, by disposition, are not interested in the Bible. Some of us, by disposition, are really not turned on by tongues. And some of us, by disposition, are not turned on by prayer. And some of us, by disposition, literally cannot witness.

It is not the eternal pattern. If we are to have what we’re supposed to have, we have to start looking further back. We find something very divine going on long before earth was created, and we see it again on the earth before any of us are involved. We see it again being exhibited, not any more than that, just demonstrated to a group of people, a small group of people who are standing there with their mouths open.

Then we see this eternal pattern, this divine, organic way, passed on, finally, to fallen men and women like you and like me. I’m not even guaranteeing you that it is the summum bonum, nor is it the victorious life. I’m only telling you the fact that this was the original wellspring. This was the original fountainhead. This was the original foundation of your faith. Whatever else is added, this has got to be the foundation upon which your life as a Christian, your life as a body of people, and your life as a worker must be built.

We will begin here, or we begin in the wrong place.