Courage to Show Forth the Fullness of God — Emanuel Esh

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The Church as the Body of Christ

So many things on my heart, I don't know really how it's all going to come out, but I feel blessed, abundantly blessed in the Lord. It's a joy to be here, meeting together with the saints, the Body, the Body of Christ.

Part of the burden of the message that's on my heart is the Body of Christ, the Church. Last Sunday I shared a message on courage to the Church and maybe some of that will come out today, but I felt like the Lord would have me go a little different direction than it did last Sunday, preached over at Living Hope.

So, can we just stand for prayer together? Let's turn our hearts to the Lord with thanksgiving praise. Yes, Lord, we thank You. Thank You, Father, for the ministration of every part of the Body, ministering and edifying itself in love.

That's what You want the Body to do, Lord. Lord, may we see a little more clearly today what You want me to do, what You want us to do, how You want us to walk as a Body, as individuals in this Body. Lord, would You give us vision, would You give us purpose, would You give us sight to see and hearts to walk after You, Lord, and courage to do Your will.

Thank You for Your Word that is before us. We treasure it, Lord. It is sweeter than honey. It is better than thousands of dollars or gold or silver. Thy Word is more better than all of that. So, Lord, would You feed us this morning, guide us, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak, but Thou art mighty. Hold us in Your powerful hand. Bread of Heaven, feed us till we want no more. Feed us today till we are full, Lord. Already we have received so much. Lord, would You just give us a little more.

We are still hungry, we are still thirsty. Guide us, Lord, O Thou great Jehovah, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. In the song that we sang this morning, that tenor mentioned that one line, one line I picked up.

God has willed the truth to triumph through us. And there's many truths in that line, but the one that I want to bring out a little bit is that God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The body.

So many things on my heart. Lord, what should I share first? Let's turn to Colossians for a verse. I'd like to focus in the beginning a little bit on the body of Christ, the church. And I'd like for us to be able to catch a vision of what God wants us to do and to be.

For without purpose, without goals, we just kind of sink, we just kind of stalemate. We're discussing the Young Men's Bible School for January, this past week as a ministry. Realizing that only about half as many were registered as last year.

Three years ago we had 120 and now there's around 60 registered. As we discussed that and contemplated and thought about that, we came to the conclusion that our young men do not feel the need to study.

It might just be to them just another Bible school. But I say something's missing. There's a reason why they don't feel the need to study. There's a reason why they don't have a vision of what God can do.

Or let me say, there's a reason why they don't... Maybe the reason why they don't see the need to study is because they lack a vision of what God would have them to be and to do. I believe it's very important that our young men catch a vision of the body of Christ and the work that God has called her to do.

God has vested in her, God has willed that through her should the work of God be done. Not through the animals, the birds or the fish. No, God has committed himself to the body of Christ, the church. And if we don't have a vision for that, we're going to stalemate.

We're not going to see the need to study. We're not going to see the need to prepare. We're not going to see the need to enter into fasting and prayer and the work of God because we don't have a vision.

And so we came to the conclusion that the young men somehow need to catch a vision of what God wants them to be and to do. For there's really no use going to Bible school to study. Taking off three or four weeks from work just to study.

If that's all there is, then it won't, then there's something missing. But if I could just throw a little bit out for you young men. If you knew that beginning of April or May of this coming year, you were going to be thrust out to preach the gospel five times or ten times a week.

Just imagine with me, think of me with the circuit riders in the 1700s. Early missionaries, Moravians coming over, working among the Indians, young men. John Edwards was mentioned. Young men, these men, many of these men in their early twenties spent their lives riding the circuits of the early settlers in this area and traveling in further west as time went on, working with the Indians and preaching among the settlers daily.

Preaching many sermons a day, riding to the next village, preaching at every place they had opportunity. Young men, single young men, they had a purpose and they had a vision. And I believe that if our young men could catch a vision of what God would have them to do, of what God could do with them, they would very quickly buckle down to study.

Read God's word daily. Get up in the early morning hours and seek the Lord's face. Reading His word daily. I believe the reason not more young men are registered in the Bible school is because they don't have a vision.

The Fullness of God in Christ and the Church

They don't have a need. They don't see that God wants to use them in His kingdom for His work. Oh may God open our eyes. Colossians 2, verse 9. Speaking of Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

In Christ. Christ contained Jesus, the man, contained within Himself. As He walked in the face of the earth, all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The creator of the universe. Our God became flesh. And in that body dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

That's the picture of Christ. I'd like to read a little bit out of a book by Watchman Nee, The Release of the Spirit, about this. I went through this book during the November Bible School with the youth that stayed in our home in our morning devotions.

I read to them out of this book each morning and shared with them the vision that I have or the burden that I have or what I see needs to happen or what I see God can do in the hearts of each individual as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And it has to do with this fact that you and I hinder God's work by not being able to release the Spirit of God that dwells within us and let it flow out of us. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Is there a time when you feel the Spirit of God burning within you and you want to do something but there's no way to release that Spirit to flow freely out of you? That's what we're looking at. And I shared with the youth at Bible School and went through that and they loved it, they delighted in it.

It ministered so to my soul. We are a three-part being. We are a spirit, a soul and a physical body. The spirit is called the inward man, the soul is called the outward man and then that all resides in this physical body with the flesh which you see.

When a person is born of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God comes and dwells in the very heart of our being which is our spirit and unites with our spirit and they become one. And there the Spirit of God lives and dwells and moves and He wants to use each one as an individual vessel for the Kingdom of God.

But if our soul, if our old man is not broken, is not a yielded vessel, then the Spirit of God that dwells within is hindered from flowing freely out of it. Are you with me? And that's why He calls the release of the Spirit, this book by Watchman Neath.

The picture there is the woman with the alabaster box, she came to Jesus, she broke that box and the fragrance that was in that box filled the room. But unless that box were broken, it would not release the fragrance.

And likewise, unless you and I are broken, humble, yielded vessels in the hand of God, we will not be able to release the fragrance of the sweet Spirit of God dwelling within us freely. And we hinder the work of God as individuals.

We're not able to freely flow. Reading from Watchman Neath, If we really understand the nature of God's work, we shall readily admit that the outward man, which is our soul, is truly a formidable hindrance.

Surely God is considerably restricted by man. When the people of God acknowledge this, they will be ready to know the ultimate purpose of the church and its correlation with God's power and God's work.

There came a time when God committed Himself to human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Before the Word became flesh, God's fullness knew no bounds. Once the incarnation became a reality, God's work and God's power were limited to the channel of His flesh.

The question then was, Will this man, Jesus Christ, restrict or hinder God? Will he hinder the manifestation of God? Because God had committed Himself to that one man. We are shown from the Bible that far from limiting God, He has incredibly manifested God's fullness.

Jesus did not restrict or hinder the fullness of God dwelling within Him. But it freely flowed out. The rich fullness of God was channeled without restriction through His flesh. However, in our day, God has committed Himself to the church, His body.

Currently, His power and His work flows in and through the church. Just as in the Gospels when we find all of God's work given to the Son, so today God has entrusted all His work to the church and will not act separate or apart from it.

Think of the church's tremendous responsibility. God's commitment to the church is like His previous commitment, without reservation or restriction to the one man Christ. However, now we are the local body, we are the body of Christ.

Jesus of Nazareth was God Himself. His whole being from within and without revealed God. His emotions reflected God's emotions. His thoughts reflected God's thoughts. He said, not I, not that I do my will, but the will of Him that sent me.

Jesus said, just before He was crucified, He said, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground, it abideth alone. And in a sense, He was speaking of Himself, saying that except I die, there will be not this fruit coming forth out of my life.

The basic teaching of the Gospels portrays that the presence of God portrays the presence of God in one man, Christ Jesus. While in the epistles, they declare that God, they declare God through the members in the church.

May our eyes be opened to this glorious fact, that God dwelt in the man Christ Jesus, but now He dwells in the church, the vehicle of His purpose for this earth. And that's why what Tanner pulled out this morning, God has willed the truth to triumph through us.

Not through the sinners, not through the animals, but He has willed His truth to triumph through the body of Christ. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And then if we look at Ephesians chapter 1, the end of the chapter speaking of Christ, how He was raised from the dead, set up His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, power, might and dominion in every name, but His name not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, that has put all things under His feet, gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.

Very clearly saying that in Colossians there, the fullness dwelt in Christ bodily. And now in this verse, we very clearly see that the fullness is given to the church. If the church hinders or restricts God, how shall God be made manifest?

Is that not a responsibility? I thought of Tanner's going to Tulaway. And verses came to me like this. Scriptures that says, as I looked at them going there, realizing that they are going to go there manifesting God.

Those people. They are going to be the manifestation of God to those people. Most of those people have never seen any true manifestation of God. And this verse came to me and says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

And you're going to be manifesting God to those people. What a responsibility. Is it not important that we give a clear sound on the trumpet? Is it not important that we give a clear demonstration of who God really is?

Oh, it's so important. Jesus did not hinder the flow of the Spirit through him. But for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. I thought of some examples of Jesus. He manifested God-likeness.

He manifested the likeness of God to all around him. In many, many ways. When he saw the sick, he had compassion on them. And he ministered to them. And if you look at it this way, you can see the heart of God, our Father, reaching out to that sick person and longing for that person to be healed of his sickness.

God, who has created us in his own image, we, at our own choice, took part in the sin, have become partakers of the nature of Adam, not by our choice, but by choice. But that is our nature. And we, by our own choices, partook in sin.

And have become a wretched, debilitated people without God, without Christ. But in Christ, we can be washed and be saved. And God looks upon humanity as a beautiful specimen that he has made. And he longs to see us walking in the beauty of holiness.

Not living in the filth and the sins and the flesh. And so forth. But when God came on this earth in the form of a man in Christ Jesus, when he saw the sick, and we see how Jesus ministered to them, we can see the glory of God.

We can see the heart of God. We can see that God loved that person. And he reached down and he wanted that person to be whole. And Jesus would lay his hands on him and touch him. And the man would rise up and walk and be made whole.

I think of the lepers. Jesus was not afraid to go and touch the lepers. But when he saw the leper, you could see his heart going out at that person. Can we see God our Father? Can we see the heart of God in Jesus?

In everything he did. We know so little of suffering. I was reading an account this week of a leper colony and I don't even know where it was. But there was this huge area of quite a number of acres that had a wall around it.

And inside this wall was a leper colony. And everybody that went through that one single gate to go into that leper colony would not come back out. But they would go in there because they had leprosy.

Because they had to be separated from the rest of the people. Leprosy was a very easily spread disease. And if you were found to have leprosy, you had to go into that colony separated from the rest of the people and you lived there until you died.

Suffered. Two young men. The account reads of how a man could go up on a little hill outside of that leper colony. And there he could look in across the wall and he could see what was going on inside there.

And the people in this leper colony, they were all in the same shoes, all in the same boat. They all had leprosy. And they all knew they were going to die. But they cared one for another. They loved each other.

And the account goes and says that this man on this hill could look in this leper colony and there he could see what they were doing. There was one man who had no feet. His feet had rotted off and fallen off.

And there was another man who had no hands. His hands had rotted off. That's when the disease had eaten him. And he could see the man that had feet. He carried the man who had arms, who had hands in his arms like this.

And they were farming together and they were planting corn together. And he would carry this man and that man who had hands would drop the seed, would make a hole with one hand and drop the seed in. And the man with feet would step on that and close the hole up.

And they were planting corn that way. And the challenge came to God's people. Who will take the gospel to these people? And two young men decided, they said, we'll do it. And they knew that when they walked through that leper gate, they would never come back out again.

But they loved. And they took the gospel in there and ministered life to them. That's the heart of God. That's manifesting God. And when Jesus would see the leper, He would manifest the heart of His Father and reach down and touch them and heal them.

And you can see the manifestation of God Himself. I don't know what God will ask you to do, Lieutenant, but it doesn't really matter. You're going to be manifesting the presence of God every day. And they're going to watch you.

I think of the heart of God and how He must have been grieved about the sins of humanity. And He sent His Son to rescue us when Jesus was there in the house and the man who was born of four came to Him, was brought to Him, left down to the roof.

I see the heart of God yearning. Not only that the man would be healed physically, but that the people around him would understand that God has the power to forgive sins. And Jesus broke the ice or He kind of like broke out there in that situation and said, By sins be forgiven thee.

And there we see the heart of God again. God is yearning for sinners to have their sins forgiven. And He's manifesting His yearning heart for sinners to be delivered and set free by His Son Jesus Christ in whom dwells the fullness of God.

And there I can just see Jesus, His ministry may just have been beginning. I'm not sure how far in His ministry it was, but people didn't understand what it was all about. They didn't know what it was all about.

And here this sick man lies in front of Him and the yearning heart of God wasn't just that this man would be made well, walked and be able to walk. No, but he was yearning and saying, By sins be forgiven thee.

What a powerful Word of God! And the people around there said, Who can forgive sins but God? And we see God is being manifested in Jesus Christ. We see that. I think of when the woman who was caught in adultery came to Jesus.

Again, how His heart must have yearned for a woman who was caught in the snare of adultery. Maybe she was a harlot. Maybe she had been mistreated and abused by the girl and this was the only way she could find fulfillment.

I don't know. But the heart of God yearned after that woman in her situation. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. I think of how He fed the 5 ,000. I think of how He patiently discipled His followers who were continually concerned about position, pomp and power.

Amen? I think of how He sorrowed over Judas when he betrayed Him. I think of the loneliness they must have sensed when they all ran and fled in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think of the love that He had for little children.

This is the heart of God being manifested in Jesus Christ. Let the children come to Me! And He picked them up. And He held them. That's the heart of God. I think of when He met the funeral possession there in the city of Nain.

It says that it was the widow and it was her only son. It's a very specific thing there. She's a widow with only one son and her son has died. And this widow has no means of life, of food or anything after that.

And there the heart of God reached out and ministered to that widow woman and raised her son from the dead because she needed Him. I think of the stories of the Good Shepherd. Jesus is describing the heart of God.

Of the shepherd going out after that one lost sheep. I think of how when He described in the story of the prodigal son we see the Father's heart there. We can once again just as we study the life of Christ we can see the heart of God just coming out of Him.

God was not restricted. But the fullness of God was in Christ Jesus and manifested for you and I to see who God really is. I also thought of, also was thinking of Jesus standing before Pilate. All power in His hand.

But He humbled Himself to death. He knew what His calling was. He had a clear call, clear purpose, clear vision to die for the people. He allowed them to mock Him, spit on Him, pluck His beard, His hair out and dress Him like a king and bow down before Him in mockery.

Such mockery. He allowed it all to come. And they took Him and they bound Him to that whipping post and gave Him 39 stripes and lashes which many men died from. And there, again, I thought about that.

I thought He bore it all. I thought of Jesus when they laid the cross upon Him. After that, He carried the cross out of Jerusalem and up that hill and there He couldn't go anymore and they had someone else carry the cross and they carried the cross out there and they nailed Him to the cross and hung Him up to die.

I believe that it was not put on. Jesus didn't just put on a good front. I guess I'm kind of thinking that He probably put on a pretty good front. He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they're doing.

But I believe that there was love shining out of His eyes for every one of His persecutors. I believe that as He took His hands and He drilled nails through there, there was deep love in His heart for every human being including those soldiers.

And there was a yearning love for them. I believe that it wasn't put on. He actually loved them. He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. That's the manifestation of who God really is.

And then as He looked down upon His mother, He took care of her. He assigned someone to take care of her. John, behold your mother. Mother, behold your son. The heart of God manifesting itself. And all the people who walked by and saw those things, they didn't understand, but they were viewing and seeing who God really is.

That is the manifestation of God. And God was in His fullness in Christ. And Christ did not hinder the fullness of God from being demonstrated and worked out through His own heart and His own life. He didn't hinder it.

But now, this same fullness has been given to the church. The same power. The same responsibility has been given to you and me. As individuals, each one of us carries a great responsibility to manifest the presence of God.

To manifest. To be like God. Each one of us. And when you get a body together of individual members coming together as a body. That's the church. Then that church is to demonstrate the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If we lose a vision of that, may God help us. Do I see the importance of a godly life every moment of the day? Do I see the importance of how I respond and react to every situation? It is to be a manifestation of God Himself.

Why? He's dwelling in here. And if I am allowing, if I am a broken, humble vessel, then the Spirit of God within me will respond through my spirit in a godly manner whatever comes or goes in my life. Amen?

And when we have many brothers and sisters together that will be a glorious thing. I picked up this paper out of Denny's office and I'm going to read it to you. It's something by Tozer on Separatism from the World.

The Church's Distinctiveness from the World

I don't know if Brother Denny preached it here or shared it yet, but I'm going to share it anyhow. I think it fits. The church's mightiest influence is felt when she is different from the world in which she lives.

Her power lies in being different. This power rises with the degrees in which she differs and sinks as the difference diminishes. This is so fully inferred upon the Scriptures and so well illustrated in church history that it is hard to see how we could miss it.

But miss it we do. For we hear constantly that the church must try to be as much like the world as possible. Except, of course, where the world is too sinful. The goal of the church is not to become like the world.

But one of the goals is to be different. Let me read the first part again. The church's mightiest influence is felt when she is different from the world in which she lives. Her power lies in being different.

And this power rises with the degree in which we differ and sink as the difference diminishes. Let us plant ourselves on the hill of Zion and invite the world to come over to us. But never under any circumstance will we go over to them or join them.

The cross is the symbol of Christianity and the cross speaks of death and separation but never of compromise. The cross never speaks of compromise. No one ever compromised with a cross. The cross separates between the living and the dead.

The timid and the fearful, they'll cry, Extreme! And they're right. The cross is the essence of all that is extreme and final. The message of Christ is a call across a gulf from death to life, from sin to righteousness and from Satan to God.

By Tozer. What would God have us to do? Some of you might just be hearing another message. Some of you might go home and say it was good. Others may begin to do something about it. I'd like to talk a little bit about courage.

Courage for the Church's Mission

So far, this has just been the introduction. To stir our hearts, to recognize the call of God upon the body, the church. To recognize the work that is ahead of us. To recognize how much it's needful for us to manifest Christ to the world, to everyone around us.

Without a burden, without a call, without a purpose, we will die. And if you're sitting here today and you don't have a purpose in your Christian life, I beg you, sit up and listen carefully. God has work for you to do.

Turn with me to Joshua. I'm going to go through this briefly because the clock seems to be going extra fast. The last part of the message here has to do with courage for the church and how she should walk.

Joshua chapter 1. So many things that we could take from this. And as I read these first nine verses, I'd like for you to just ponder with me. Joshua is at a time when there's a transition from the wilderness to the land of Canaan.

The land of Canaan is the promised land. In this land there are lots of giants, there's walled cities, and there's work to do. But in this land there is a promise to be fruitful and many good things and many blessings have been promised for many generations to the children of Israel.

First to Abraham, where he was promised he would be given all the land there. After Abraham parted with Lot, God brought Abraham up into the mountain there somewhere and He said, Look around you, all this land I'm going to give to you.

He promised the same to Isaac and Jacob and so on down. And the promise is also to Israel in the book, to Moses there. But Moses was not able to enter into that land, the promised land. But I believe that this is a picture of the Christian life many times.

God has a place for us which is, we see in the book of Ephesians which is, goes side by side with the book of Joshua. Joshua was promised this land and he would take the people in there and they would take the land.

The land was already given to them. They were already promised victory. They were already promised they couldn't lose. They were already promised that God would be with them. And it's the same picture that you and I have today in the church.

God wants us to go in and take this promised land of all the beauty and blessing that God has, the gifts that God has given to the church, His body. And there's deeper things for us as Christians to enter into.

More than just the nominal, yes I'm saved, praise God. No, there's work to be done and God has work for us to do. Some of the children of Israel, they were satisfied to stay on the other side of Jordan.

They were settling down. It was nice. They liked it there. And many Christians part there. They never cross over that river Jordan and go after the deeper things of God, the deeper things of Christ, the power that God has vested in the church.

It says, she's the fullness of Him. Are we exemplifying the fullness of Christ as a body? We're called to it. It's there. It's before us. Let's read in Joshua. Listen carefully. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead.

Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan. Thou and all these people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot should tread upon, that have I given to you as I said unto Moses.

From the wilderness in this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage for unto this people shalt thou divide for inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them.

Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thine mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise.

I thought of how we are entering in as a nation. There's a new president destined to be ordained to lead this country. I don't know what kind of changes that he's going to bring. I don't need to be afraid of that.

But I can look forward to changes. Here were the people in the wilderness traveling for 40 years. A whole generation had grown up. They were used to this wilderness life. This was all they knew. Many of them.

Hundreds of thousands of them. This is all they knew. Was the wilderness daily food from heaven? Living there, the cloud to o 'ershadow them by day keep them out of the sun, and the cloud by night to give them light.

This is all they knew. There was a change coming. Maybe there were some who didn't want to do it. I don't know. But there was a change coming. How would you and I face changes? We don't like changes, do we?

We kind of like it the way it was. There's a change coming. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise. Go over this Jordan. Thou and all these people to the land which I do give to them, even the children of Israel.

Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given to you as I said to Moses. I want to talk about courage in the last part of the message. And there's four pillars that hold up this courage that you and I so desperately need in our Christian life.

Courage Rests on God's Assignment

We need courage to do that which God has called us to do. The first pillar, which courage rests on, is the assignment. And this is why I gave the introduction the way I did, because I wanted you to see that the church today has an assignment.

Amen? If we don't have an assignment, there's no need for courage. There's no use trying to raise courage up. There's no use putting air in the tire if you're not going to use it. And so just trying to raise up courage is not the issue.

But if God has spoken, if God has given a mandate, if God has given direction, if God has called me to a specific work, then that's the first pillar that I need to rise up to be able to do. Courage rests on that pillar number one is the assignment from God.