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Lowell Brueckner

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The Organic Church II

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“You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”   1 Peter 2:5
 
Oh, Supreme Moving Cause

"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?    Job 38:25-27



Synchronized water ballet

Years ago during the Olympic Games, I walked into the room of someone watching a performance of synchronized water ballet on TV. Sitting next to him, he expressed to me that he didn’t like the individual efforts of the various athletes, because they tended to exalt one person, but he enjoyed the perfect unity of the team events, such as water ballet. It didn’t take much discernment to see that he was spiritualizing what he was watching, comparing it to the intentions of believers to carry out the will of God.

I didn’t respond to the comment at the time, but that rather poor example gave me much to think about and I really have meditated over the matter. I would like to share the view that I have of Christians involved in fulfilling God’s purposes on earth. In doing so, I am considering Christ’s Church, which He said that He would build (Mt.16:18) and, according to Paul, Christ would give gifts to men to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and to build His body (Eph.4:8,12). I will make use of the same water ballet analogy.  
 

“I will build My Church”

First we must see what we are dealing with. We are taking into account the Bride, the Body, the Church of Christ, whom He elected and is preparing for heavenly marriage, after which she will reign with Him. It is a body, in which each member has been born from above and has received power from above, in order to function in a heavenly and supernatural way, preparing himself for eternity. No wonder Jesus said, “I will build MY church”, in perfect harmony with the inspired Psalmist, who stated, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Ps.127:1). Men may be very capable of any kind of earthly construction, but for this work… who is sufficient? Jesus removes any doubt about human capability, giving it a mortal blow in John 15:5: “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Before the discovery of electricity or any kind of combustion engines were invented, there were those who knew about motors… the Puritans knew God as the one who empowered and moved lives, and their prayers, such as the following, express this dependency:

O Supreme Moving Cause,
May I always be subordinate to thee,
be dependent upon thee,
be found in the path where thou dost walk,
and where thy Spirit moves,
take heed of estrangement from thee,
of becoming insensible to thy love.

In these days, I have repeated stories that I arranged in the last chapter of the book, God Made the Country, trying to illustrate how members function in the Body of Christ… about a man in Wisconsin, praying for a church in North Dakota, of which he knew nothing… about a American soldier in Germany, who I had just met for the first time, speaking about his home in Wisconsin, in the exact rural area, where this first man I mentioned lived, and where his father had had wonderful fellowship with an uncle of mine, who lived there also, before he died of cancer… about how a man broke through the ice in winter and how his friends, totally unaware of his danger, spent the night in prayer for him… and there were other stories.

Young Spurgeon
Now I add one more: On January 6, 1850, a great snowstorm paralyzed the city of Colchester, England, and a teenager could not go to Sunday worship in the church that he normally attended. Near to his house, he entered a Primitive Methodist Church, where a common layman, not very educated, was substituting for the pastor, giving the Sunday morning message. His text was Isaiah 45:22… “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” For months this young man had been miserable, under a tremendous conviction for his sin. Although he had been raised in church (both his father and grandfather were preachers), he had no assurance of salvation.

The layman, as Peter and John “unlearned and ignorant”, was not a skilled preacher and therefore repeated the text time and again. He said, “A man doesn’t have to go to college to look… anybody can look… a child can look!” Then he gazed directly at this visiting teenager, by himself at one side of the church, and pointed his finger at him, saying, “Young man, you look miserable. Look to Jesus Christ!” The young man did look in faith and that is how the great preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was converted… not in his own church, but among believers that he did not know.

A supernatural, spiritual work

Allow me to insert an allegory: Let’s just suppose that in some part of Europe, God would choose an individual in Christ to serve in His Body… in this “synchronized ballet” that I wrote about earlier. He gives that person His Spirit, who is perfectly united with His purpose, as His personal Coach. This one learns movements never before demonstrated on earth, which are part of the supernatural, supreme “routine” for the glory of the Father. That same Spirit incorporates Himself in the participant to give him the capability to do, what he otherwise could never be able to perform in a human body. Then, the Spirit is sent to South America to begin to train another person in the same way, so that this one can coordinate perfectly with the first person, whom he has never met. By the Spirit, it is not necessary to bring them together to practice (1 Co.5:4).

 A third person is chosen in North America and that one must go through the same process and training. In the Far East of Asia, a fourth person enters the school of the Holy Spirit to carry out divine purposes, and by the thousands from all parts of the planet, the participants are chosen and trained. Some are in solitary confinement in prisons, some are in exile on islands; other are among multitudes, but no one understands them or knows why they are going through so many rigorous trials.

Once the Spirit-led training and practices have been completed, the day comes for the performance. God takes His place on the throne and the participants arrive from all parts of the world, uniting and synchronizing for His glory in one great event. Beings, who are more worthy than human beings, observe those who “have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we… might be to the praise of his glory… so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph.1:11,12; 3:10-11).

God does as He pleases

The Lord has eternal plans and all of His works corroborate in order to carry out those purposes and no other. He does it all through the instruction and power of His Spirit, above any training or programs that men might try to enforce, joining together in human effort. In this work of grace, no one may consider himself to be the teacher or the father; no one is anything more than a brother. One is the Teacher, Christ, and One is the Father, the heavenly Father (Mt.23:8-9).   

Ants begin to build their nest
The brothers, who He places in His positions, have observed the ant, have learned her ways and have acquired her wisdom. “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest” (Pro.6:6-8). God unites, where there is no captain to order. He takes the individual efforts, done in the Holy Spirit, without man being aware of it, and unites them. The result is the same as in the case of the three Hebrew boys: “The king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom” (Dn.1:19-20).

I want to point out that we know well both the Hebrew and the Babylonian names of these young men. We also know the names of almost all the Psalmists and those who form part of this great plan of God in the Bible, from the Old Testament, as well as the New. The one, who surrenders everything to Christ, also gives his name over to Him, so that God can use it, or not use it, as He sees fit. A proud person can remain anonymous, but he continues to be proud; a humble person can have his name publicized and yet he remains humble, just as Jesus, meek and lowly, though He had a name, which is above every name. It all depends on the condition of the heart. (please read the note below the article)

God does all for His own pleasure and receives glory from beings, who are much worthier than men. He does not need praise or worship, nor does he need the people who offer it. However, He does receive it all, because He is worthy. There is no celebration, in which men and angels are involved, that gives created beings more joy and satisfaction, as there is in giving God that, for which He is worthy. The Lord rejoices in the pleasure that we receive in giving it.

We see an example in the woman… the apostle John reveals that it is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Jn.12:3)… who benefitted by giving her all to Christ. She poured out her expensive perfume and asked nothing in return. She only worshipped, while her joyful tears fell, and considered it a privilege to give to Jesus the honor and glory that He deserved. As in the case of Rahab in the Old Testament, she was given universal, eternal fame: “Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her" (Mt.26:13).

God is God and He does whatsoever He pleases. “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’”  (Dn.4:35). What He has done in love for mankind is revealed in sublime beauty in the gospel, yet it goes far beyond what human tongues can express. God does unspeakable wonders for men and also, as He showed to Job, he does wonders unseen by men, working in uninhabited places, where no one can observe Him. What I am trying to say is that God in no way subjects himself to the wisdom and knowledge of human beings. He takes pleasure in all His creation, in plants and animals. The growth of the lowliest grass is important to Him and He supplies its needs. No one can limit God in any of His works; no one can corral Him inside the confines of the ideas and understanding of men.

NOTATION: I want to clarify a certain theme, about which there might be confusion in the minds of some. I think that it is not correct to conclude that all Christians should consider themselves “eunuchs”, of which Jesus spoke in Matthew 19. If you read from verse one to twelve, you will see that the context has to do with matrimony. The disciples have just commented, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." It is at this point that Christ spoke of a special calling and limited it: "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given” (v.10-11). He is speaking of becoming a eunuch in the literal sense of remaining unmarried. Paul, for example, had this calling, but as we know, Peter did not. Perhaps we all know some people, who did have the same calling as Paul, but this is not a rule for all Christians to follow. Every one of the commentators that I have are in agreement over this issue.  



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