DRAWING NEAR TO THE BODY
The Spirit of God moves with power among believers when they are
in unity with each other, unity that is maintained, not with rules
and disciplines imposed from outside, but by a commitment of each
heart to the Lord himself.
Unity in the Body is simply unity around Jesus. Where this
unity exists, the atmosphere of the Body is always open, never
closed and ingrown. There is a freedom and an ease which
enables each member to minister with joy.
This does not mean that the church becomes a “free-for-all.”
If the connection between the members becomes too loose, you have
the picture of a human body walking down the street, when suddenly
the right eyeball, attracted to a beautiful Christmas tree, flies
out of its socket and goes bouncing across the snow to have a
closer look. The left hand notices some dollar bills blowing
in the wind, breaks loose from its arm and starts crawling toward
the money, until it gets run over by a truck. And so with
the feet, the ears the mouth, until the members, separated from
each other, die.
When our fellowships truly function as the Body of Christ, the
process is reversed. The same Spirit who guides us to
function as an open church also draws us together and enables us
to function in harmony. The eye,
the hand,
the mouth,
the foot,
are linked together in the mind of
Christ.
Consider
Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a Jew in exile.
He
had grown up in Susa the capital of
the Persian Empire
and had risen to a place of power.
Nehemiah was chief
security man for the king of Persia. He
made sure no
one poisoned the king's wine. And
Nehemiah never
forgot that he was a Jew. He loved God ... he loved
his homeland
which he had never seen. He prayed
every
day facing west, toward Jerusalem which was now a
devastated city. He figured that that
was about all
he could do.
Then one day
Nehemiah was awakened with a concern for
Jerusalem that he didn't know was in him.
The words
of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah.
”Now it happened in the month of Chislev,
in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa
the capital, that Hanani, one of my brethren,
came with certain men out of Judah; and I
asked them concerning the Jews that survived,
who had escaped exile, and concerning Jerusalem.
And they
said to me, "The survivors here in the
province who escaped exile are in great trouble
and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down,
and its gates are destroyed by fire."
Nehemiah 1:1-3
Now you might
expect that Nehemiah would feel bad about
this, shed a few tears perhaps, and then say,
"Well, there's really nothing I can do",
and
go on with his job of being the chief security man.
But this news
about Jerusalem's broken walls stirred
something in Nehemiah which turned him into a new man.
(We're talking about the gathering of the Body. We're
talking
about
the Spirit drawing as we see Nehemiah being drawn....)
When I
heard these words I sat down and wept, and
mourned for days; and I continued fasting and praying
before the
God of heaven. And I said, "0 Lord God
of
heaven, the great and terrible God who keeps covenant
and steadfast love with those who love him and keep
his commandments; let thy ear be attentive, and thy
eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant which I
now pray before thee day and night for the people of
Israel thy
servants, confessing the sins of the people
of Israel,
which we have sinned against thee. Yea,
I
and my
father's house have sinned. We have
acted
very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the
commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which
thou didst
command thy servant Moses. Remember the
word which thou didst command thy servant Moses, saying,
'If you are
unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples;
but if you return to me and keep my commandments and
do them, though your dispersed be under the farthest skies,
I will
gather them thence and bring them to the place which
I have
chosen, to make my name dwell there.'
They are thy
servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy
great power and by thy strong hand. 0 Lord, let thy ear be
attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy
servants who delight to fear thy name.”
Nehemiah 1:4-11a
Nehemiah was
hundreds of miles from Jerusalem. He
had never seen
Jerusalem, but
he knew he was part of it and responsible for it ... he
begins
to feel drawn to it.
Notice that
Nehemiah does not pray,
"They have sinned and that's why they're in this shape."
He says,
"I and my
father's house have sinned. We
have acted very corruptly against thee and
have not kept thy commandments."
If we are part
of the Body like Nehemiah was part of
Jerusalem ... when we see problems we see the problems
as our problems, we see ourselves as part of this
thing.
-
our weeping,
-
our prayers, are never for their
sin,
their blindness,
their hypocrisy,
but
our sin. We begin to repent and to pray for
help.
God bring us to the point where we recognize
what it means to be part of the Body, so that
we fast and pray for it,
weep for it,
repent for it,
love it.
But Nehemiah
did more. After he drew near to the Lord
God, it became
obvious to him that he was going to have
to leave his niche as chief security officer and go to that
messy place he'd been praying for.
“...and
give success to thy servant today, and grant him
mercy in
the sight of this man." Now I was
cupbearer
to the king.
In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year
of King Artaxerxes, when wine was
before him, I took
up the wine
and gave it to the king. Now I had not
been
sad in his
presence. And the king said to me, "Why
is
your face
sad, seeing you are not sick? This is
nothing
else but sadness of the heart." Then I
was very much afraid.
I said to
the king, "Let the king live for ever!
Why should
not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers'
sepulchers, lies waste, and its gates have been destroyed
by fire?"
Then the king said to me, "For what do you make
request?" So I prayed to the God of
heaven. And I said to the
king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found
favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the
city of my fathers' sepulchers, that I may rebuild it."
Nehemiah 1:11b-2:5
....hundreds
and hundreds of miles away Nehemiah knew
that he was part of the body of Israel.
Its wounds were his
wounds,
and now he had to go there and rebuild.
We are like
Nehemiah in Susa.
Somehow there is a distance
between
us and Jerusalem.
- A distance
of heart.
- A
distance of spirit.
"Yes, I know
there are problems in the Body,
but what can I do?"
Now God begins
to open our eyes as he opened Nehemiah's
eyes. There comes a new kind of prayer,
a new urgency,
a new repentance. Those walls of
Jerusalem are in ruins because of sin ... our sin... my sin.
Now
we
begin to draw near to the body with our hearts and make
ourselves
responsible. And as we draw near Jerusalem with
our
hearts we begin to realize that the time has come to leave
Susa
and go to Jerusalem and rebuild those fallen walls
.... to
begin serving our fellow servants with all their hang ups and
problems
in a way we've never done before.
So how do we
leave Susa, the capital of this world,
and go to
Jerusalem, the
City of God? What does it mean for us
to draw
near to the
Body of Christ and rebuild? Jesus
builds his church,
but
he does it through us.
But grace
was given to each of us, according to the
measure of
Christ's gift ..... And his gifts were
that
some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the
work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that
we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by
their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the
truth
in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the
head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit
together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each
part is working properly, makes for bodily growth and
upbuilds
itself in love.
Ephesians 4:7-16
- Each of us is given grace.
- Each of us is given a measure of Christ's
gift to bring
to the Body for its upbuilding.
1. For the upbuilding
of the Body, the Lord is calling us to draw near
with our hearts.
"But grace
was given to each of us according
to the measure of Christ's gift."
Now we bring
that grace near. We offer it up to the
Lord for
the
edification of the Body.
- We begin to care with our hearts.
- We begin to take hold of the burden with our hearts.
"If this is
the place you've put me to serve,
Lord, then I will put my heart into the needs
of the saints .... those broken walls
of Jerusalem
... I will come in your name to help,
to encourage,
to strengthen."
It’s a thing of attitude.
And now my
vision of the Body of Christ increases when
I see that God has included me in his plan for the Body.
He has tied its upholding to saints like us.
2. For the
upbuilding of the Body, the Lord is
calling
us to draw near with our prayers.
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They
shall prosper that love thee."
"...making supplication for all the saints."
What an
awesome privilege God has given us ... that he
pours life into the Body as we pray!
If the church
is going to have more of the Holy Spirit,
this will happen as people begin praying for it.
"How much
more shall the heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him...."
-
individually,
- corporately.
If it needs
more laborers, this too is tied to our prayers.
"Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest."
We need more joy,
more praise,
more mercy,
more compassion... so we pray for it!
3.
For the upbuilding
of the Body, the Lord is calling
us to
draw near with simple commitment to serve our
fellow
servants.
Nehemiah
didn't head for Jerusalem to start a new
career; his career was in Suza.
Nehemiah went to Jeru-
salem to serve the servants of God who
were there.
And Jesus
called them to him and said to
them, "You know that those who are supposed
to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their
great men exercise authority
over them. But it shall not be so among
you; but whoever would be great among you
must be your servant, and whoever would
be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of man also came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life
as a ransom for many."
Mark 10:42-45
When he had washed their feet, and taken
his garments, and resumed his place, he
said to them, "Do you know what I have
done to you? You call me Teacher and
Lord;
and you are right, for so I am. If I then,
your Lord and Teacher, have washed your
feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet. For I have given you an
example,
that you also should do as I have done to you."
John 13:12-15
The Spirit
builds up the Body through us as we commit
ourselves to serving the servants,
serving each other.
Our gospel for
the world can only have a clear ring
when we're serving each other,
"By this
all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another."
So into the
Open Church comes the call of Nehemiah...
the call of a man who drew near Jerusalem with his
heart .... loved it,
wept for it,
repented for it,
prayed for it,
served it ... and made himself
responsible
before God to rebuild those broken walls.
God help us to
follow in his steps.