Winona Conference Part 1 – Intro to the Spiritual Community

I have the feeling that if we were to graph this thing, the population of Christendom at any given time, and the percentage of people that were experiencing the spiritual community of the believer, that in every century the percentage would be about the same. Can you follow that? Did you follow that? If there are 10 million people, there’s this number of people in that experience. And if there are 100 million, the percentage remains about the same. And in fact, it may be that the percentage right now is about as low as it’s ever been. Certainly, within the Anglo-Saxon world, it is at a very precarious point.

She’s always been there. She’s always been a witness to God, to angels, to principalities, to powers. She is not a movement. She does not tend to be sectarian. She cares more for the other believer than she does for a doctrine. Say, “Praise the Lord.” She cares more for fellowship than she does for differences. She cares more for this divine thing that happens between people than she does for outward rituals. She cares for encounter with the Lord among other people more than she does any kind of outward union. But she has always been rare, and I will say she is almost totally the exclusive territory of those who have a heart to know the Lord and are then driven, are driven to have a heart to know the Lord with others.

Now I’m going to tell you one other thing about this lady. And that is, she’s very fragile. And she’s fragile because she doesn’t have anything in this world holding her up that usually holds up believers today. She is fragile. Now let me explain to you. I call them friends, those whom I’m about to mention now, and they call me a friend. Nonetheless, I’m going to say something here. You do it for me. Name a really fiery, ongoing, interdenominational, non-profit, tax-exempt, interdenominational religious organization today. Give me one. Alright, we have Youth With a Mission. I’ve heard that. Give me another one. We won’t pick on anybody, huh? I’m sorry? Maranatha? Never heard of it. Must be a little one. Let’s take one of the big ones. Yes. Campus Crusade. And Youth for Christ. Youth for Christ is headquartered near here somewhere. No, it’s over in Carol Springs.

Something’s impelling these people. They have an organizational structure, and they have a definable purpose. It’s evangelizing. It’s the campus. It’s the youth. It’s world evangelism. There’s something holding that thing together besides structure; it is a common goal and vision. Baptists are being held together—I speak for Southern Baptists—by the cooperative program, baptism, once saved always saved, and the annuity program of the retirement program of the preachers. That’s what’s holding that thing together. And I will pick on Baptists because I am one.

She’s got nothing holding her up. This is not exactly correct, but let me say it. She has no purpose. She doesn’t get up out of bed one day and say, “The Lord’s coming back tomorrow! We’ve got to work like crazy!” She doesn’t get out of bed one day and say, “The world’s going to hell! We’ve got to save everybody!” She doesn’t get up and say, “Oh, God is great! We’re going to prosper now and show the world that God pours millions of dollars on Christians!” I just threw that one in, in case of… She isn’t driven by the seven ages of dispensation or the seventy weeks of Daniel. She is not driven by premillennial dispensationalism. What else do we find ourselves driven by? Help me here a little bit. Can you? Come on, talk to me. A building program can always hold a church together or a people together. I’m sorry? Healing can hold us together. Alright. Miracles. Signs and wonders. Prayer. Alright, what else? All these things. And now, boy, you know, some of this stuff is very dear to many of our hearts. Unfortunately, we can’t get together on which one is the dearest. You say the second coming, I say evangelism, and you say prayer, and here we go. But she doesn’t have any of these things holding her up.

When I was a young man on my way to Europe for the first time, I was 19 years old, and there was a gentleman on board the ship who gave me a piece of advice. He said, “Gene, if I didn’t have an enemy in the world, I’d go make some.” They drive you. They drive you. They give you drive. Many Christian movements have an enemy. The enemy. Oh, the enemy. Oh, the enemy. What is the enemy? The Democrats are the enemy. Eastern religions are the enemy. If you’re Methodist, Baptists would be the enemy. It’s true. Baptist, Methodist. This used to be a hundred years ago. The enemy for a Baptist was a Methodist. You may not know that, but it is absolutely true. The enemy sometimes is the devil. He’s just around here. Whoa. Enemy.

She is simple. And it’s not the second coming. And it’s not evangelizing the world. It’s not a worldwide movement. It’s not “We are it.” She’s got very little holding her up. Brothers and sisters, very few times in church history have men and women dared to simply make Jesus Christ their real center. Now you’re going to have to all understand me. Please understand me, but she is really fragile because she doesn’t even make Scripture her center. She makes Jesus Christ her center. I know it’s very dangerous to say that to Christians because they’ll say immediately, “Yeah, but how are you going to know the Lord outside of Scripture?” And you can do that. You can do that. Thank you, sister. Say that a little louder. Amen. Yes, you can, because He lives within you. He really lives within you, and you can know Him personally. You’re driven by nothing but the Lord, and therefore, you are fragile, and for that reason, this spiritual community, by the way, pops up everywhere frequently. She just doesn’t live very long because someone either interposes those things, or she simply doesn’t know the Lord well enough to know Him for a long time.

So, the knowledge of Christ within this community—and now I’m coming to those of you who are taking notes—all that was introductory. Here’s the main point: Jesus Christ has got to be her center in reality and experience. Now say, “Praise the Lord.” Say it in front of me. He has to be her center, and this cannot be doctrine or talk, brothers and sisters. It cannot be praise. It cannot be worship; praise of Him and worship of him. I have had people tell me throughout many, many years that tongues meant a great deal to them, and then it wore out. And then they started bluffing. Now, there are many of you who have never bluffed…but some Pentecostals bluff. Some Charismatics bluff. But I’ve heard a new one recently. There has been, in the last 10 years, a great deal of emphasis placed on worship. And boy, it’s beautiful. It’s really beautiful. But I am beginning to hear Christians say, “I got where I was bluffing.” Do you understand what I’m saying? But they didn’t mean it. It was getting rocked.

Listen, I have known that Christ was the center of my life, the center of my fellowship, and the center of this union, or oneness, or whatever you choose to call it—this koinonia —but sometimes you overlook something.

And just recently, Tim and Tony… and where’s the other one? And Roy, there you are. I overlooked you. Excuse me. Yeah, I saw the teeth and then I recognized you (laughter)… praise the Lord. I learned something recently, brothers. When you get in the mess we’re in Portland, say amen, and you have to just drop everything, and you got down—we got down—out of necessity – to just the Lord, and then I had an experience I’d never had before. And that was: worship and singing and praising does not bring me to Christ.

Christ. The knowledge, the experience, the encounter with Him causes me to praise and to worship and rejoice. And believe it or not, I’m confessing here to you: that was a fine line I overlooked. I think in my unconscious mind, I’ve always seen worship and praise as bringing me to Christ. And I discovered in those simple, simple, simple, simple little meetings we are having—which are just turning our lives inside out (say amen, Tim)—that it is Christ who leads us to all things. How can I impress it upon you? That it is your Lord, and when that well of knowing Him runs dry, the clock starts ticking. It’s a matter of time. Things are going to fall apart one way or the other. And we don’t know that. And when it does fall apart, someone is always there to analyze it and say, “Well, if old Joe Schnucks hadn’t joined us, this wouldn’t have happened. We had something really glorious going there.” Or, “If we hadn’t gotten off on the prosperity gospel.” Or, “If we hadn’t gotten off on authority and shepherding.” Help me here.  Help me. Where have you been shot in the foot? Or the head? What got you, brother? What sank your ship?

Can somebody help me with some more here? Let’s make a list. Discipleship, huh?
Someone left? Okay. You got anything else? What are some of the biggies that sink her?
Or the authority of what?  Name it and claim it. Okay. Intercession. Okay. Which sounds so wonderful. I mean, who could fault intercession? And you know, this business of the church is amateur hour. It really is. It’s amateur hour. I watch people chasing some of the dumbest stuff, really. And some young kid—or some old man—he gets one little…we have a saying down in Texas: “He gets something stuck in his craw.” Now, if you don’t raise chickens, you don’t know what I’m talking about, but a chicken has a craw, right here, and he gets something stuck in it—and you have to get that thing out. Usually a rock. He gets something stuck in his craw, and he sees something, and he goes to seed on it. And again, forgive all my analogies here, but he overemphasizes it.