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A TIME TO BUILD UP
Read: Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 and John 2:19
For 33 1/2 years God the Son, by whom the worlds were made, walked this earth in a human body, a body that felt pain and hunger and cold and thirst just like yours and mine.
The thing he came to do had to be done in a body.
He had to live the life of perfect trust in the Father as a real man in a real body.
He had to manifest God's fathomless love through a voice just like our voices.... through hands just like ours.
He had to bear our sins in his body on the tree.
But all the time Jesus ministered, there was another body that went with him everywhere he went – and apart from which he did nothing. Somehow this other body was tied in to every miracle, every sermon, every parable. It was as close to him as his shadow.
It was a body of men and women who were committed to him. These people were so close to Jesus,
so much a part of him,
so knit to him with their hearts, that spiritually you could say they were like his betrothed.
They were on their way to becoming flesh-of-his-flesh and bone-of-his-bone.
They were coming into his mind and will. They were learning to share in his work like a wife shares the work of her husband.
Jesus gave to these people his authority to cast out demons, and to heal the sick, and to proclaim the Kingdom. He taught them things about the Kingdom of God that he taught to no one else.
As the months passed, these people became more and more the corporate reflection of everything Jesus Christ was.
When he rejoiced – they rejoiced.
When he was troubled – they were troubled.
They were, in fact, an extension of Jesus so that Jesus could now be, through them, in ten villages at once – physically. And the demons in each village would see the light of Jesus and shudder, and sick bodies would feel the touch of Jesus and rise.
- He who hears you hears me.
- And he who rejects you rejects me.
But all the power and all the wisdom – yea, the very glory of God – that was now blazing in this body of men and women was tied directly to Jesus' physical presence in flesh-and-blood.
Take Jesus away from these people – and their life is gone.
Smite the Shepherd – and the sheep will be scattered.
Destroy Jesus – and you've destroyed them.
And so it was that when Jesus of Nazareth hung on that cross and died, this other body died too. The life that throbbed in them before was now gone. They were no longer a living body of people. Just scattered, bewildered, frightened individuals.
They didn't fully realize what had happened, but they were dead. They died as a people Good Friday afternoon at 3:00 O'clock. Nobody worked the streets that Saturday. The healing and the preaching and the casting out of demons were over. Faith? Man, they didn't have faith in nothin! Their hope was lying in that tomb.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.
And the time had come for them to die.
It's a hard lesson. But we all need to learn it. Some of us are stumbling because we haven't learned it...
That we have absolutely no life in ourselves and all the life we think we have – apart from Jesus – is death.
We have to learn
- that Jesus' death is our death too.
- that all our brilliant thoughts and our great achievements and all our strength, and all our importance, have been slain with Jesus on that cross.
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ...For you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God."
If there is something in yourself which you are still relying on for life,
satisfaction, security,
get rid of it...
- if you have to give away all your money.
- if you have to break every mirror in your house.
Before Jesus can build up the thing of Spirit, the thing of flesh has to die. Before the body of eternal splendor can be brought forth and built up, the body of fading splendor has to be destroyed.
God grant that people reading this who are still dragging the kingdom of the flesh with them may experience even now in their hearts the slaying power of the Cross of Jesus. For only when the old body is dead can the new body come forth.
"For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up."
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jesus who walked out of that tomb on Easter was the same Jesus they had murdered on Good Friday. His hands bore scars, yet there was something very, very different about him. The body in which Jesus rose was as different from the body in which he died as day differs from night. He was killed in weakness, but he was raised in power.
Nobody's going to be driving nails into this new body. Nobody's ever going to whip it, or in any way defile or desecrate it.
This is the body in which he will rule the world in shining glory.
This is the body in which he will destroy the enemies of God with the breath of his mouth.
This is the body before which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
In this body Jesus now stands before the throne at the center of the Universe and intercedes for you and me.
Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
But there was another temple – another body – that Jesus raised up that day never to die again, praise God! These sheep who had been scattered. This little flock which had died the other day – they too came to life with a life they never had before.
On the evening of the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you". When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me even so I send you". And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any they are retained".
And from that day the body of believers began to be built up by the hands of Jesus himself.
"On this Rock I will build my Church (now he begins to build) and the gates of death shall not prevail against it." It penetrates the region of the dead – nothing can stop it – no walls can keep it out.
The time has come to build up – and the building up is done by the resurrected Jesus.
In those early days it went very rapidly. Souls were added to his Body on earth in great numbers,
- fit into their proper place, equipped with the power of Heaven, instructed in all things needful,
- and the Body grew and spread.
In a matter of a few years there wasn't a city in the Empire where Jesus wasn't calling men from death into life, forgiving their sins, healing their diseases through his Body of saints.
Then, as we all know, and for reasons that only God understands, things slowed down,
- tares started growing among the wheat,
- wolves came in among the sheep,
- everything became blurred and confused for centuries and centuries.
Now as the signs of the End which Jesus told us about are appearing; now as the time draws near for the Bride to be united with the Bridegroom, the supernatural hands of the Master are building up this Body more rapidly than at any time since the day it rose with him from the dead.
At the very hour when the organized churches and all the man-made aspects of Christianity are at their lowest ebb spiritually, souls are coming into living union with Jesus Christ in greater numbers and with greater power than ever. They are coming from East and West and North and South and finding Jesus. It's happening in places on this earth where they told us the church was wiped out.
Billy Graham isn't doing it.
The Bishop of your church isn't doing it. The Pope isn't doing it. It is the work of no man on earth.
-Jesus is building up his Body!
There are two messages that Jesus is giving to readers of this leaflet. The first is:
"I want to build you into my Body; but I will not wait.If you are coming, come now."
There are many people reading this who are really not part of the Body of Christ at all. You may be on the rolls of some church,
- but you're not joined to him ... flesh-of-his-flesh and bone-of-his-bone.
- Your sins are not under his blood.
- Your life has not been committed into his hands.
In unspeakable love Jesus invites you,
- "Come to me.
- Come and receive from me the forgiveness of your sins.
- Get under the yoke with me and learn.
But come now."
You know he's calling you. You know he's offering you a new life. You know the door is open.
All you have to do is surrender your life into his hands. God will help you if you'll only come.
The second message from Jesus to readers of these pages is:
"I want to use you in building up my Body on earth. I have a ministry for you to perform. But I will use others and build without you if you insist on doing your own thing."
Jesus doesn't do this building through angels – he does this building through men.
And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers – for the equipment of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ.
There isn't a believer who is not included. There is not a believer who is not given something to do. But we have to give up doing our own thing. Give up subtly seeking our own glory, and turn ourselves over utterly to fitting into his program, doing things his way, seeking only his glory.
There are people who simply are not letting Jesus use them to build up the Body.
- You are still seeking your own glory and dividing the body.
- You are standing up for your own rights and tearing down the body.
When you're finished, what will you have? You may think that you built something but, my Friend, believe me, it will all have to come down – for it was not his building, it was yours .... it was flesh!
And there are people who hear the commands of Jesus but they are too afraid,
or too lazy,
or too distracted by the world.
He will not wait, my friend! The hour is far too late! He will build without you!
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under Heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up.
The Resurrected Jesus, the Son of the living God, is with you to build up. Will you let him build you into his Body – into that Temple which shall stand forever? Will you let him use you in the building of it?
Jesus will go on building, with you or without you, until the day the building is finished---and that day is very soon!
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