The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit end lesson 23, start 24

All right, we are in lesson 23. I believe we got down and we're in question four. So we'll get through these two and then Mike will come up and we'll start on question sheet 24. So hopefully you have that. It's been mailed out so we can pick that up.

Question four, and this is, again, the person work of the Holy Spirit. This is lesson 23, and we've been talking about the body of Christ. That's been the focus of this lesson, about how we're all members of and part of the body of Christ. Question four, what are the three ways of looking at the body of Christ? And page 123 in whatever text that is in the book or the PDF. So what are the three ways? What's one of the ways of looking at the body of Christ according to a write-out or what he lays out?

Members of his body. Members of his body. And we get that from Ephesians 5 30 where it says because we are members of his body Not a lot of whole mystery there. We are members of his body so That's number one number two. What's the second one? Members of one another members of one another again the body concept the body isn't just one part there uh... uh... several members so we we see that in romans twelve five uh... twelve five so we who are many are one body in christ and individually members of another So again, it's body concept. We're all members of his body. Now, there's different individuals, parts of the body. We're all different members of the body. And what's the third one? As individual.

Well, he puts it as we're members in particular, is the way he lays it out. So what does that mean? We're members in particular, as opposed to we said there are different members. Now, what is in particular? He's trying to draw out. That the individual? The individual, expand on that. Well, I mean, particular is very particular. Remember, you can't use the word in the answer. No. Very specific on that.

Well, I, myself, I am a member of his body. I think the point being brought out is that we're all different. It could be all members of the body, but we're all different, and we all have different functions. As we went through, and we'll see it in 1 Corinthians 12. Feet, hands, eyes, ears, nose, we're all part of the body. We're all members of it, but now they're particular. They're different aspects, different features of each and every one of us. We're not, I always like to say, we're not all Charlie Browns. We're not all the same.

And it's like, I think of two when you have elders. Usually, it's never good to have one elder. It's always plural because there's different aspects. The plurality is a feature that is good because we're not all the same. And having multiple elders has always been a benefit because you didn't want to be, as we said, all the same.

You have different ones. And it's like I'm on the board at camp. We're all not the same, and it was very interesting to see how different we all are. But we all bring a different aspect to the board. And some of us really, not me, are into human relations or the aspects of that and doing all sorts of human resources functions where you have all sorts of things. But I'm the engineer. Build it, square, plumb. move on. But they compliment me and my weaknesses, and I keep them focused and moving forward on things. So it's the body. The board is like the body.

We have all different aspects, and they all benefit each other. The weaknesses of one are made up by the strength of another. That's the same body concept, I think, that we have in Christ. that you want stronger and weaker members, ones that bring a different aspect. And then you look into all the gifts that we have. There's helps, there's evangelists, there's all those different things. And all of those benefits, well, I'll get into the question is, what do they benefit?

What? What? The body. The body. That's it, you know, we always think of the gifts. Is it to be magnificent and bring attention to yourself or whatever? The gifts are meant to edify the body or build up the body. It isn't for our own glory or, you know, our aspect of it. Our gifts are meant to edify or build up the body.

So that's why, you know, individually we're all different. And we all have our different aspects in the body. So we see this in 1 Corinthians 12, 27. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. So here we have the three lives of truth, connection with Christ with one another, individual responsibility. So he goes on, this is right up.

Every believer is a member of this body, and we have already seen there's but one church, the body of Christ. What an awful presumption then to hear a person speaking of this or that organization, even if composed of Christian people, as the church. Every saint on earth is a member of the church, and it's nothing but the worst kind of sinful pride to exclude a single one in our thoughts of the church. So it's interesting, and I don't know if you'll be able to hear this, but this is my strange, you know, I'm strange.

There was a song back in like the 90s. It was the acapella vocal band, if you can hear this. It was exactly what they were saying. I'll try and play it loud enough so you can hear this. But it's called You Can't Go to Church. But this is the entry to it. It's called The Conversation. And it's a dad getting his kids ready for church. So if you can hear this, I don't know. We'll try it. This is time to go. Hey, just turn that stuff off. Come on, hurry up. We've got to go.

Dad, where are we going? We're going to church, okay? But Dad, we can't go to church! Why can't we go to church? Because we are the church! So it goes on the whole song about we can't go to church because the church is us. So I thought, well, that was like 20 years ago that song came out. And of course, when I started studying this, that's all I could think of. We can't go to church because we are the church. So when I come to church every morning, I'm like, anyway. But that is, it's kind of funny.

We refer to the church. We're going to church. How many times do we say that? We're going to the church. That's really wrong. We can't go to church because the church is us. But we can go to, I'm quoting Song. You can go to a building, you can go to this, but you can't go to church because the church is us. And so we actually, not a big deal, but I think Rideout's kind of saying how we misrepresent that when we say we're going to church. Because that diminishes the thought of we are the church.

And that, you know, when you go anywhere with believers, that's the church. That's the body. And so it kind of brings out the point that when you say we go to church, well, yeah, that's a building. But really, anywhere you go with a Christian, that's the body. That's the church. So anyway, my strange mind, that song came to me immediately. It was, we are the church. So anyway, any other thoughts on that? Could you hear that in virtual land?

Okay, it's just yeah, my strangeness though. It's acapella acapella vocal man a baby and Probably 1990s or something All right question five Why does first Corinthians 12 reflect the unity of the body and not individual gifts? That's kind of what I touched on Why why is that? Why does it talk about the body as a whole rather than the individual gifts?

I already discussed that. Well, the references he gives are 1 Corinthians 12 or 13, I believe, and 25 and 27. Yeah, and basically, we'll go through it. In questions, I went through this in questions two and four. I read from 1 Corinthians 12, and I read the whole section there.

What we saw is the body of Christ is made up of many individual members that form the whole body. No one member can function as it should without all the members functioning. The gifts of individuals are used in the building up of the whole body of Christ, the church. The gifts are not meant to build up the individual. And that's the key. It's not to build us up, but it's to build up the body. That's why he gave gifts. Not to build me up, but to build the body up. To use whatever gift I have to build the body up.

So, Rite Out states, the entire chapter, the 12th of 1 Corinthians, should be read as showing the relation of the body to the, or the relation of the spirit to the body. Next to its unity is the diversity of its members and their mutual dependence, the one upon another. Each, and I like this last paragraph that he has, each member has its own function, and how clear it is that each individual is here contemplated. None is so insignificant as to be omitted, and each has his place in the body according to the sovereign will of the Spirit of God. The more uncomely parts are more essential, and upon them greater care has to be bestowed.

A man protects his lungs carefully while his face is exposed to air. Sickness in one member means sickness of the body. I do not say if my lungs or my heart are affected that this is or that special organ is sick, but I am sick. So if one member suffers, all members suffer with it.

And this last one, the body is the vehicle, we might almost say, for the spirit. So the church is the body of Christ, is a vehicle, may we not say, for the activities of Christ. He uses the church through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to perform his work in the world, to represent it. I think that last sentence was probably the best. You know, he uses the spirit, the indwelling spirit, to perform his work in the world and to represent him.

The ambassador, I say we're the ambassadors of Christ. We're to say what he says, you know, the ambassador says only what country he comes from. Where's our citizenship? in heaven. Where are we representing? We're representing that citizenship. So, again, and we are the ones that represent Christ. I said last time, when we all are individual members of the body, we are greater things that he talked about. Because Christ was singular here when he was on earth. Now, Christ is represented by all of us worldwide. And we're the representation, we're the ambassador for them. So that's what the Holy Spirit is using us for now, is to bring forth Christ.

So, any other questions or thoughts on that one? Don't you think it's like your family? You're one family, but everybody has their own place and their own functions. Yeah. I don't know if you heard that. I don't know if your mic was on or not, but, uh, she said, Oh, she did get it. Okay. Yeah. And it's like a family.

Um, although I think of that, it's like, you know, the jokes of, Oh, uncle Fred is coming. He's the weird, you know, I don't think we have some weird members in the family that, you know, you don't, you know, he's the black sheep of the family over here or something like that. So the analogy is a little bit weird in my mind that a family could have some bad members where in the body of Christ, there are no bad members. Well, excluding Uncle Fred, I was just thinking of the nuclear family. I have an Uncle Fred, so that was funny. Was I talking over someone there?

Yeah. Miles, what did you say? I said I have an Uncle Fred, so that's funny, but I was going to say, No, there was a number of years ago, we were working on the farm and we had a guy working for us who happened to be an engineer and when he looked at the grain bin, he talked, you know, we were installing a grain chute on this one bin and he's talking about, well, this member here, it would be helpful if we could remove that, but we can't remove that member because it's, you know, necessary to the structure. I'm like, I don't talk about members of a grain bin, but it's engineering, maybe you can relate to that, you know, this is the member of the crop, you know? Oh yeah, yeah.

We get members of all sorts of things. That's always stuck in my mind is the individual members of the entire structure are necessary to the structure, right? Well, we get that too. We see that. Actually, Miles, that's great because who's the cornerstone of the building? Who's the foundation? Yeah, it's Christ in the foundation of the Apostles and that and then we are we are the building the members of that that that structure So that is that is a great analogy.

So I Was gonna say I don't have an uncle friend, but there are the friends in your family So you can't pretend like they can be believers. Yeah, they could be strangers have a certain perspective from the scripture that gives you insight into how Uncle Fred's fit.

And they're still family. They're still family. So the NNN just worked. It just, you know, you think of, I don't think of huge, gifted, you know, but there are people within the body, too. I mean, there are. And Miles, I'm sorry for the reference to your Uncle Fred. I tried to pick a name, you know, Uncle Zeke or something. I should have. No, it's okay. It was actually pretty appropriate. We all love Uncle Fred.

I think it plays into what these verses are talking about with regards to the weakness of another. There's an opportunity for us to come alongside that weakness. So it does talk about the weaker members of the body, and that does translate to family in some instances. In some instances it does not. If they're not believers, we don't have the same experience. There is, yeah. The uncle Fred that may be a little weak or a little off, yeah. You know, you come beside him and help. And again, as one member, we help any other member of the body. And strengthen them or encourage them or help them in their growth or their path. What happens when they don't want to be helped?

Yeah. Michael, maybe take that one here. So yeah, I mean that yeah, I mean that is a real question so any other and otherwise I'll let the mic take over on 24 all good What's what's interesting what was just talked about is pretty much? How the church is designed and now we're going to see if it functions that way I Does it or doesn't? And so the first question is what's on lesson 24? And if you're looking in your book, it's page 53, 54 to 56, this lesson, or 123 on this PDF.

What's the difference between the unity of the body and the unity of the spirit? Is there a difference? I'll say it again. What's the difference between the unity of the body, which we've just spent some time talking about, and the unity of the Spirit? Well, one, is there a difference?

The answer, yes. So the baptism of the Spirit, he takes us and he puts us in the body of Christ. So we are positioned in him, and we are united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he gives us, as Courtney said, an individual place in the one body, and we have individual responsibilities.

But in Ephesians 4.3, a very interesting verse says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Well, if it was all positional, And once we got baptized into the body of Christ, that was it. We could just keep cruising. Then there wouldn't be a need to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. The unity of the Spirit.

He's not talking about the unity of the body, but he's talking about the unity of the Spirit. We can say, it's by the Spirit that the reality of divine things is brought home to us, according to Rite Out. You understand what he says there? It is by the Holy Spirit that the reality of divine things is brought home to us. The Spirit is the teacher. He's the one that informs us, in this particular case, he informs us about individual things or the things of the Spirit. We wouldn't know anything without him.

Then, without him, all the precious facts as to the church, the body of Christ, with its various members and their functions would be meaningless and inoperative. I was on the phone yesterday with a guy, and we were talking a little bit about the body of Christ. Most of what I said was meaningless to him, because he did not understand how the body of Christ functions. He doesn't understand it.

And I dare say, a lot of us haven't got a real good handle on it either. But the unity of the spirit is different than the fact of the unity of the body. Courtney did a good job of explaining the unity of the body, but without the unity of the spirit, it would have no power in our lives, and there would be no testimony to its truth. So who's the key? to manifest the unity of the body of Christ in every believer. I gave away the question. Who is the key?

It's the Holy Spirit. So where does that leave us in our relationship to the Holy Spirit? We're totally dependent on Him. Totally we are. To understand not only how the body was put together, but how it functions, and what each individual role is, what each member, I don't want to use the word gifts, but what each believer's position is. What does it mean to be in the body of Christ? I'm there. Well, I went to class and they told me that I'm united to all the rest of you.

I couldn't help but think about the uncommonly member, the guy that I love the most is Tom. Tom Mallinson, what a dear brother he is. And you just come, we come beside him. He's such a, have you ever had Tom just break out and sing a hymn to you on the phone?

It's wonderful. I mean, in the world system it would be the nerdiest thing ever, but in the body of Christ it's really cool. That's what the Spirit does. He shows us how it works. And he not only does that, he creates within us the love of Christ, the affections needed to function the way we're supposed to. You see that? And he brings the life. He brings a life.

He brings the understanding of we've been crucified, buried, and resurrected, and placed in Christ, and that that means that Christ is on the earth manifesting himself in his life, more so now than he ever was when he was here by himself, because there's a whole bunch of us now, and it's the life of Christ, okay? All right, so we're gonna talk about practical unity. Question two says, What is the practical unity produced by the Spirit in the people of God?

Practical. What is it? How does it apply to us? In other words, let's say that, I'll pick on somebody, pick on Phil. Go wakes up in the morning, he said, boy, I really wish the body of Christ would just function practically, like it's supposed to. How does it function that way?

We talked about the fact that the spirit produces it, produces the life that's in the, but how about me personally in the body of Christ? What am I, I'm dependent on the Holy Spirit. What am I dependent on him to do? when it comes to the body of Christ.

Number one, he impresses on us the truth of the one body. He shows us in the word what it is, and he persuades us about that. And then the second thing that we're dependent on him is that he's the one that leads us in accordance with divine principles. So, I'm a guy who loves principles. I'm not an engineer, thank the Lord, for small favors. But I've been surrounded by them ever since I've been in this church. Everybody in authority seems to be an engineer. They're weird people, I'll tell you. But I'm the diversity.

But I love principles because whenever you enter into a discussion about law and grace, the law people want to know, how do you function under grace? How do you function under grace? What are the parameters? What are the things that make us or inform us as to how this ought to go? And it's not law. What's the answer? By principles. What is a principle? Engineers ought to know what principles are. They live by them. What is a principle? How do you define it? I've only defined it about 100 times. How do you define a principle?

Or give me an example of one. A physical principle. Gravity. Gravity. Works the same way every time, right? Doesn't it? If I drop this pen a thousand times, is one time in a thousand is going to go this way? I don't think so. It's always going to go this way. So within the body of Christ and within the framework of grace and gifts are principles. And the principles and spiritual principles work the same way every time. So what do we need to do as believers? We need to learn the principles. Who's the one that teaches the principles to us? It's the Spirit of God. He teaches them. He tells us what they are and how he's going to implement them.

What's our job? That's it. Our job is to believe him. Not only the doctrine, but the principles too. This is how he's going to do it. And this is what he's going to do. When we say that God works all things together for good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose, what's the purpose? To conform us to the image of Christ.

Is that a principle? Yeah, it is. He's working everything to accomplish that principle. Is that a law? No, it's a principle. Do you see the difference? A law is a statute that says, if you obey me, I will bless you. If you don't obey me, I'm going to curse you. So here's a list of the do's and don'ts. Those aren't principles, those are statutes. How would you define a principle? This is the fifth question I've asked and nobody's answering, so I'm going to shut up. How would you define a principle?

It's how something operates or works. Yeah. Does the body of Christ function and operate a certain way? Sure does. And the principles are in His word. Now, the manifestation of those principles is why people say, well, I see what your Bible says about being in the body and et cetera, et cetera, but boy, I don't see it in operation. Could you say that a law focuses on you, your performance? Yes, you can. Or a principle would focus you on another object, like Christ or the Lord? That in and of itself is a principle. The work of the Holy Spirit is to do what? It focuses on Christ, right? Through His Word. Principle or law? No, it's a principle.

When we're focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, guess what happens? Things begin to function like they should. I can't focus on me vis-a-vis the principles and try to implement them out of my own strength. I can't do that because it'll be a law and I'll be focused on me. I mean, the simplest graphic I know of is the marriage triangle. triangle like this, husband here, wife here, the Lord here. If they're looking this way, they're not moving this way. If you're looking this way, then it's working. See that? I think, Mike, which does the flesh gravitate to? The flesh always goes to works and self. If I do this, I get this. If I do this, that's what the flesh always focuses on.

Doesn't focus at all on the principle of focusing or working towards conforming to Christ. That's why the flesh is always trying to draw us back into law and do something, take us totally out of grace, the unmerited part. That's why it's totally contrary in the flesh. Always. If we're struggling, if we're working, if you know, it's in trying to do the spiritual pushups, as you say, or go, you know, get a gallon of, you know, spiritual. you know, fuel, it's the flesh that's trying to do all that. Yeah.

And the flesh doesn't like the principle. No. And that's why they're always in conflict, because the flesh always wants the law to get this, do this, if I do this, if I work, if I do, then I receive something. Principles don't work that way. They don't work that way. No, they don't.

Let me give you a good example. We talked about this a few weeks ago in 2 Corinthians 4. The last two verses, for the momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory. Principle. A momentary light affliction, oh, a light affliction produces a real heavy weight of glory. Principle.

And then he says, beyond any comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, the flesh looks at things only that are seen, We, but at the things which are not seen. If they're not seen, how do I get them? The Holy Spirit is the one who shows you. But the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal. It means they're decaying. Look in the mirror someday. But the things which are not seen, are eternal. The body of Christ is eternal.

So the dependency that we have on the Spirit of God to produce the practical unity in the body of Christ, we are totally dependent on Him to do that. We're totally dependent on Him for our own personal spiritual growth, aren't we? Some of you guys, I know you do spiritual push-ups and nobody's watching. But it's the same way with the body of Christ. We look at Christ to build the body.

We look at him to do that. Because that's what he says he's going to do, principle. So, why is there failure then, for the most part, to keep the unity of the spirit today, according to Rideau? And would you agree with the premise? Is there a failure to keep the unity of the Spirit in the body of Christ today?

Yes. Yeah, I think there is. Would you say it's because they're not of one mind and, like Donna said, their focus is in the wrong place? Right. So I think we have to accept the premise that the unity of the Spirit, for the most part, is a failure. Practically. Anybody not agree with that? It's not that I don't agree.

It's striking me because you keep using the word practical, and I just think about how often have I prayed for unity in the Spirit with someone that's ultimately the need, but yet I'm looking at physical things. about here where it's from the perspective of, in the Spirit, when we're established on those truths, like Radha talks about, our focus is on God's Word and there is unity there. And so if there's hope for some relationship that's been estranged or, you know, has some difficulty, that I've not practically been aware of. In certain instances, I might think of it in those ways, but it's not something that I've seen so clearly until I looked at this verse. I think that's a great point, because write-up tags onto that point. I'm quoting the Old Testament verse that says, every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes.

That's not the unity of the Spirit. If I sit here and Brian and Courtney and everybody's got a different idea of what the unity of the Spirit is, and so we act that way, and we didn't open up God's Word, what have we got? We've got a room full of do-gooders, all going in their own direction.

Opinions. Opinions, yeah. So one of the real huge reasons why we teach the way we teach around here is that reason, so that we have a unity of understanding of God's Word. Because from that comes the behavior pattern. Dependence on the Spirit comes to be, you know. If you can't back it up in God's Word, no matter how intense that experience was, and how emotional you were about it, if you can't back it up in God's Word, you better let it go.

So it's interesting that we see it everywhere. I mean, all those reformers that live down the street, those Catholics over here, whether they're in the body of Christ or not, I don't know, but, and then, you know, all those charismatics, or there's, you know, well, they just don't, I mean, we talk about in our country diversity, what we really mean is separation. The unity of the body of Christ doesn't mean we all say the same thing, but we all believe in the same Savior, and we all have a dependence on the Spirit of God to do what He's going to do, and we're all Bible students. We are. We study God's Word, and we rightly divide it. We look for answers to situations in God's Word.

We don't just rely on how we feel about the Word. I laugh every time I say that because I can remember early on as a Christian, before Donna and I were even married, we were in a Bible study with a bunch of single people, right? And we were going back and forth, and I really didn't. I still was willing to run my mouth in front of everybody, but I didn't know what I was talking about.

And so a guy says to me... Thank you. That was a softball, wasn't it? It was right down the middle. So I get on a difference of opinion with a guy, and we debate a little bit. And then he says to me, well, you have a right to believe what you believe, and I have a right to believe what I believe. And I said, no, we don't. No, we don't. We have a right to believe what God's word says, and we don't have the right to individually interpret it. It says what it says, and that's the truth.

But the spirit, one of the cool things the write-out says, in terms of why the church is failing to demonstrate. He says, they, or we, seem never to have realized that Christ has a church on the earth. It's his church, and it's here on the earth, established upon principles of his truth and ordered according to his will revealed in his word. Miles Draeger just said his cell service dropped out for the last part, so his phone must have gone dead.

As a result, they are incapable of entering into the unity of the spirit, as in the days of the judges everyone does that which is right in his own eyes. Is it not a fact that ecclesiastical Disobedience is lightly thought of. It is. It is. I mean, a disregard for the truths of God's word as to his church. I totally agree with him about that.

You know, we get calls every once in a while about people that want to use our building. And most of them, when we say, no, we don't want you to, we're not going to let you use the building. I mean, we have a bunch of practical reasons, and one of them is Bill's electronic setup. We don't want anybody touching that.

But the other thing is the difference in doctrine. We are not unified with... The latest one was from the Episcopal Church. What do we have in common with the Episcopal Church? Zero. We can't let them use the building. This is the Lord's building. All right. Boy, I'm racing through this. This is great. What time is it? Oh, I'm over. Got to quit.

Okay, let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you. We thank you for the grace, and we really thank you in particular for your spirit that has been sent to us as members of the body of Christ to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus and the unity that's inside of this body so that Christ can be manifested in unity to the whole world. Thank you Father, we pray in your son's precious name. Amen. Thank you guys.