Waterloo Conference - Part 3 — Colin Anderson

And I can hardly wait to see who, in love, may grow up into this whole thing that is the head, even trunk, from whom the whole body, thickly joined together in a compact, we find that with every ounce of heart, according to the essential working of the nature of every heart, may make increases of the body up to eighty-five, and of its turn, eighty-one.

Walking Worthily in Christian Conduct

Now, let me just make this section as a sample section of what we have in the rest or the rest of the section here is somewhat different to that which follows. It all has to do with our behavior, our conduct, or the method or the way by which we may fulfill the command or the exhortation given to us in the first verse of our chapter that we should walk worthily as opposed to eating bread in the middle of the night.

What is given to us in this section is essential for a strong relationship with the other members of the body's class. What follows is our relationship with others, those in the church, in the world, and then in the latter section is the use of our relationship with others in our clothes.

Christian Conduct in Every Sphere of Life

Husbands, wives, children, servants, matrons, these are exhorted in various ways for the same thing, or worthy of that cause that is their cause. For everything that God has given us in the law, Jesus Christ, should affect and make every part of our life.

God does not seem to us, as we were in all of that overly-deserving period of our lives, mind you now. He desires that the whole man should be thanked for it, not only when we pray in a church and attend his services and go through the motions if that's what we might be guilty of doing, not at that time alone, but rather in his home, in a domestic sphere, and in his business life.

These are areas where I must learn as a Christian to walk worthy of that cause that is their divine cause, and thus glorify the Lord who has chosen me. And if I walk worthy of the Lord and I please him, I don't want to give to you that my life will become very fruitless.

It can't possibly. It wasn't me because I speak, necessarily. Some of us aren't as gifted as we think. Some of us are not able to express ourselves in the way that others may. And do not feel by thinking of that that we have a lot of work to do.

But I want to assure you that I'm saying this not just to please specifically the audience, some of whom may not be able to speak to see that. I am just saying this in fear that speaking is only a very, very small part of the Christian life.

Every day, we are very connected to the world as we know it by our attitudes, by the way we do things about ourselves in our lives, and that's the epitome of the Ephesians chapter 4, verse 5, and 6, deals with the very clear ones away.

The Unity of the Spirit and the Unity of the Body

But in this section, this first section, verses 1 to 16, I want to stress again the outline that I gave you before, that in the first six verses, we have made it our intention to speak to them directly with the unity of the Spirit.

This requires an attitude, a spiritual attitude, indeed, as I rule the lungs of people of God in the assembly, for you will notice that it says I'm to endeavor to speak with the unity of the Spirit. Here you are on the feet.

There is a responsibility, by the way, that I must endeavor. I must be diligent to speak with the unity of the Spirit. The unity of the Spirit, and it's contained on through the verse 11, if you like.

We are exhausted not only to speak together, but we have a project before us. We have a work to do. We are to work together. And we may call that, under that section, we may speak about the unity of the body.

You notice as we begin in verse 4, really, it says there is one body, and then it shows how the various members of that body are to function and work together, and to which one of the seven work terms is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

So, the word there is that we are not simply to speak together as a company, but we are to relate together, and to serve each other, and that's to work together. And that is a unity not of the Spirit so much as a unity of the body, which is a unity of life, a unity of love, and now a unity of life, because in each member of the body is the Holy Spirit active, working through us, enabling us to relate properly to each other, and thus this unity is given practical expression in our extended life.

Then we come to the last section which says that we grow together, verses 12 to 16, for the whole purpose of the previous section is that there might be the perfecting of the saints, verse 12, and it says here that this is the work of the ministry.

I might say it is not applied to platform work or public. The work of the ministry is this is the work of serving, and the idea here that God has given is that the work of serving, serving the other, might carry upon our homies and happy ways with all his God.

And it is for the edifying of the body of Christ, so if we had to eat together in the first section and work together, we had to call it growing together, and that is a unity of the faith. You'll notice that one's called there, till we all come, verse 13, in unity of faith.

Now that will not actually be reached in its fullness and in its purity until the coming of the Lord, but we are to eat together, work together, and to grow together in expression to the unity of the spirit, the unity of the body, until we all come to the unity of the faith.

That is outlined for us here in this section as what is before us. Now let me go back again to those first three chapters. The Apostle has outlined our blessing, and he has lifted us up. He has elevated us.

Union With Christ and the Call to Walk Worthily

The wonderful thing about the gospel is that if I manifest this and meditate upon it, it elevates me without inflicting it, and that's tremendously important. The Word of God has a way of doing that. It elevates me and lifts me up without inflicting it.

It doesn't limit me to my past, because all that I have is what I have in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have it because of my union with him, my relationship with him. I do not have it because of what I am in myself.

I have it because of what he is, and because I am united with him who is raised from the dead, even our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, we come to this this first verse, the fourth chapter, and we're told to walk worthy of this position.

You will notice that immediately it says with all lowliness, who shows me that in order to walk worthy, I have to relate to other people. I have to relate to other people. This is the moment I say, God has lifted me.

He says, now I want you to relate to the other people of the faith. Now in God's program, and I say this kind of way, I do not believe that he has promoted what is called the immersion gap I was talking about.

Not that he has not really been among the things that exist in practice, but what people have thought, those of us who are born here, and those of us who are young, that once we come into the church, we leave behind the context of the world.

The world says, in effect, these be the certain departments of life, certain areas of life, we love people. That's everything. We're going to be over here, and we're going to carry our When we come into the church, there is to be no such thing.

The believers, young and old, are to move together. They are to receive together, and to work together, and to grow together, and there will be no proper growth in any church or any assembly if we simply divide up into sections.

There are to have younger people and older people. There must be plenty of opportunity for the meeting those who relate to one another, to have those opportunities to express themselves intelligently, to praise and to pray, so that we can make a benefit of the other series.

Now, I'm not prudent. I take the necessity from time to time for having special meetings or special groups of people divided according to their age. That may be so, but I'm simply saying that I believe that on the Lord's Day, when the believers gather together, we should, in effect, have plenty of opportunity for the believers to relate to one another with nothing that is to fit the generation gap.

All those who love the Lord Jesus should be together, bringing the message that He has to give to the others. Now, in order to do that, I must first have an attitude toward myself, start with Him, quickly, and then work out from it.

First and foremost, with all of this, of course, there, after having told us that we have to present our bodies to God, He tells us in verse 3 that we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we are to Him, but to think humbly according as God has said to every man in every place.

Now, I come back to that by this time, but I'm just making the point here that in verse 3, the intention for growth and life is low thoughts about myself, high thoughts about Christ, how wonderful He has made this in Him, and how wonderful His people are in Him.

I must then look at myself, and with all the lowness, walk before the people of God. And that is truly what was taught before us at the beginning of this conference, when we had that ministry on John's John chapter 13, where we had the example of the Lord Jesus, what He was designed to do, and telling us that that He had done so they were to do so well enough.

Lowliness, Meekness, and Service

So, there must be a true lowliness. That is, first, I must have low thoughts about myself. I can't come into the assembly and be a breakfast of the assembly if I stick out my chest and say, here I am, folks, look what God has done to my life.

I'm going to be a wonderful person of grace. Now, use me. Give me a place in the assembly. Give me work to do, and I'll show you what kind of Christian I am. If I come in with that kind of attitude, not only will the things presented come back away from me, but the Lord will not put me on the shelf.

I have to come in with a very low humbling and urge, rather than to speak and to tell others. And that is the thing that might hurt you. If you've got these things, you might feel that you have so much to contribute.

I don't say this by coming at you. You might feel that you have so much to contribute to the people of God, and indeed you do, potentially. I'm pleased you're attending me with a lowly spirit, and there are some who talk of an assortment of people.

Then, so it's with all meekness. What we were is, I walk with lowliness. That's my attitude towards myself, and I want us to get in this context of meekness into our truth. We sometimes use this word, and the Christian does too, I believe, this word in relation to our attitude to our brethren.

But I want us to get it in here, that the thought is, my attitude to myself is one of lowliness. My attitude to God and His Word is one of absolute significance, for that is the thought behind me. I understand that this word, meek, was used of a cult once upon a time.

Meekness Illustrated by Taming an Animal

You know when they're going to break an animal in. I don't know a great deal about it, but I understand. They're going to break an animal in. That is a cult. They're going to break it in, or a cult, a colony.

They're going to break it in. They have them wrongly, and they let the animal go around in the circle. The trainer holds onto the animal, just as he goes around, as far away as possible from the one who is controlling it, and goes around and around in the circle.

And then gradually, day by day, the owner brings the animal in closer to himself, so it's gradually getting used to being near to him. That is, the animal has become used to being near to its owner, and it's become gradually a little more responsive to the call of the road, or the rain.

Because the purpose is that the animal should be so close to the owner that he's able to look back upon that, and to get up onto it and control it. And when the owner has got to the place where he can ride the animal, and can control it, which has to look for one around him, or all around him, when he can do that, there's a melee under his feet.

Because it has now, over its feet, no will of its own. It's not come to do its own will. It's come to the place where it's doing the will of another. And this will all be reduced back to that. When we do have to do something, we must do my own will.

But the will is in that I am me, and only I can learn to see without a sense. So, if I'm going to relate to others in the assembly, now that I understand a little more about myself, I must be submissive to the will of another.

Now, that will of another is expressed to me through God's Word. It isn't that I become submissive necessarily to the will of other people in the assembly, though it may be in that order. For becoming submissive to God's Word, I may learn that what I am being told is according to the Word of God, and we do not, those of us who are older, expect young people to submit to things simply because they're traditional enough.

We should be able to genuinely find out, or with authority find out from the Word of God that this and that is found in Scripture, and we should be patient and be ourselves willing to instruct those who are not yet instructed in the things of God.

But we must use the Scripture in order to do it. Otherwise, we cannot expect that a person will submit to the old, or because we have accepted that particular tradition. We must be able to point to the Word of God, and to show them that it is there.

And young people today, frankly so, want to know what authority we have to claim this or that thing. And my personal experience has been, I don't know about yours, that in almost every opinion where I have been able to show a young person, a young believer from the Word of God, that this is in the Bible, and that this is what the Bible says, there's been no problem.

But what if I had anybody who was trying to tell a young person that this is what we do in our extensive religious life. He ought to be able to hear it, say that, that's the Lord's. It needs a lot of patience, and that's what we come to mean.

For it says, with all patience, of, not suffixing the word, yet, forbearing one another in love. Because, along with the low thoughts that I had about myself, and the submissiveness, the submissiveness of God's Word, He said, there must be an attitude of patience or long-suffering continually with those with whom I come in contact.

Whether I'm speaking to Jesus, whether I'm speaking to her, there's a need for long-suffering and for care. Oh how we need these things in our life, and in our heart. How tangible these things are. We have just got out of the heavens.

We've just been blessed with all the spiritual blessings of God, which now brings us out of the universal oven, through which brings us into the spiritual fire. And we've been blessed with these first three, the unity of the Spirit, and the bond of peace, and I want to suggest to you that the way we do that is simply our blind follow-up of the Word of Truth.

I cannot dwell on that anymore. Now it states very gently that there is one God, one Spirit, even if you're in one boat on your boat. There is one God. Now what does the Apostle exactly mean by that? Well, if you turn back to this very, in this very simple, I should say, in chapter two, you will notice in verse 12 that the Apostle sees of this one God.

Jew and Gentile Reconciled in One Body

Chapter two, verse 12, that is, we're on a site, and this is where it's so important to relate the text to the context, to those who attend us. It is true that all men and saints before they ascended fell without sight, but in the sense in which it is in here, uses it here in verse 12, it was not true of the Jews.

They did have no sight. Well, that's what sight means. They did have no sight. They were not aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. They were members of the commonwealth of Israel. They were not strangers to the covenants and prophets.

Those covenants were part of the covenant. They were not without hope, because the hope of the Messiah coming and setting up his kingdom would come through that which handed down from father to son and father among those people who were known as the people of God in all sections of time.

And they were not without God of their own in the sense that God was their God, thank you Lord. But this is particularly true about the empire, that ego is outside. We were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of the covenant, having no hope of a God in the world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, the ego sometimes were a part of God of Christ. Who were far off? The Gentiles were far off. The Jews were not far off in the context that we have here. There is nothing of being here.

Now, of course, spiritually, my heart is that the Jews may have been as far off as the Gentiles were. But point is, there was even as far off as the covenants and the prophets of the covenant, but they were very near.

Did you hear of Gentiles? Now, in Christ Jesus, the Jews sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for He is our King, who has made both, both Jew and Gentile, one. How has He done that?

He has broken down, having abolished in Himself His agency, even the law of the land, and changed the order of things, for to make Himself of two, one new man, so they can see Him. And as I have described, both are the God and one God, and by the cross, having slain, by the cross, having slain the enemy, He is our God.

Now, I would like you to just use your energy on the two purposes, that you are telling that the Gentiles were far off, the Jews near. And there is a reason for this, and it was a divine way for them to use reason.

It wasn't something that had just grown up in the prophet's time. There is a reason why Jews and Gentiles were divided explicitly. There was a law of the land contained in Old Testament, which said that a Gentile was not mean, that he wanted to be devoured.

In relation to a Gentile, in one section of time, he wanted to be hanged on the ground, but the Jews, he hanged on the flesh, and associated himself with the Jews, becoming a prophet, and still wanting to fulfill his duty.

No Racial or Social Division in the Church

Doubtless, God, now in Christ, has abolished within him, the distance is no longer the distance between Jew and Gentile, because he has made both one. Meaning that when the Spirit of God speaks about the there being one body, speaking of the church, that there should be no division recognized now along racial lines.

Only ordination has been abolished. This was the thing to be carried out. Now there must be no division in the church. Practically, because of racial distinction, because of the color of the landscape, because it comes from a different part of the world.

These things do not go together. When I was in San Juan, I was tempted to say that among the Jewish people there, there are all sorts of divisions that exist, and one of them, most unfortunate, I thought, was that there was a division between the British people and the American people, and I thought not to have been there.

People with a certain ideological line, that is, that their association with a certain denomination, at one time in the old country, would jump over this denominational barrier because it happened to be conducted by somebody who was American or a Britisher, and they were the opposite.

And so they would go to a church with which they did not agree, with such division, they'd all get along for what they had about in the countries in which they'd come, and they'd associate with the believers there, simply because of the difference that existed between them.

Now, that was all to get through, but it was a very low-impact experience. But at one time, it was a division that allowed a lot of racial lines, or it wasn't publicized. Nobody said, well, this is an American church, and Britishers don't come here.

Nobody said, this is a British church, and Americans don't come here. So it was very low-key, but this is what was happening. These men recognized that there was one God, and he was allowed to have a division among racial lines.

Practically, it wasn't announced. It wasn't publicized. I don't obey it. And this can happen because of color versus skin. It has happened because of the country in which they've come. And this must not be allowed to develop in a church, and so easily it will, because the place dwells on our origins.

The place dwells on our spiritual standing. The place dwells on recognizing heritage from my parents, and makes a difference between me and my brother. The place dwells as well. I can know that even where the God is not where I come from, but I know him as a God.

I don't call it a division. I think it's a word, you know. Well, sometimes folks will get my name, and if they follow me, they'll say, oh, this person here, the old-time gangster. Personally, I try to take it off, but I can't.

Not because I'm ashamed of it, but because I'm here in Canada or the USA, and it's likely to, uh, because South African accents will be more used than in the church. And, uh, I know what you're saying, and I've got a statement for it.

I think the old man has to prove it. He doesn't explain to the old boss. That's the only way I try. But sometimes shaking hands with the interfaith, as a whole, or a community place, folks will tell us, you hear the old country accent again.

And they'll start talking like, that's the old country accent. You know, just like that, and it's what my parents used to do before. I don't try to make too much of it. You know, that really doesn't matter where we come from, doesn't matter where he comes from, where he goes.

And that's really true. It doesn't matter where you come from. The land of origin is not what's lost to you. It's the land you live in. You have one hope that you've got, and there's one body, and we ought to dedicate the unity of the spirit to the bond of peace.

The One Body and the Gifts of Grace

And I've done the first print in Chapter 12. First print in Chapter 12. And I'm just re-beginning with the subject of the one body. There isn't time to go into the other seven. We need to take it. We'll take it, don't we?

The body of Christ. In that section in Chapter 4, it'll be. First read in Chapter 12. We'll read from verse 23 to 25. Speaking about the body, there's a little bit of an interest. There's a little bit of a body that really seems to be late on the law.

That is, we're speaking about our own human body. It's so unique in a sense. Those members of the body that we think is late on the law probably would be so more abundant common. And our abundant common had more abundant common for our abundant common had no need.

But God had kept with the body together, having given more abundant common to that part which lacked. That meant there'd be no difference in the body. The men would one for another. Now, I want you to notice Chapter 11.

God has tempered the body together. It should help, like I mean, I'm just part of the dictionary, because that's a word that has already had its moment of, I guess, underlying importance there. I understand to help such a death, but there could be a choice of two big words here, or the idea of a suggestive verse in verse 24.

There is a word that's been used in Scripture, and it means to mix things up, you know, mix things together very much. Now, that's what I was going to use here in verse 24, because that's what I was going to mix.

You could have said for a hundred and a half, seven hundred years, that God has mixed the very same together, but he uses a couple of words. He uses the word temperance. Now, those make a difference. Let me suggest that, uh, you're a farmer.

I better be careful here, because I might lose the other direction on it. Now, let's suggest you're a farmer, and you've got the cracks of grain, and you've got, you know, barns and stacks together. And there might come a moment when I can tickle a hole in the stack.

As a result of this, there's a wave of rain on top, and so on. There's a little bit of wind in there, and there's a movement in the barn. As a result of this, much of the grain in the stack comes out, and it tingles there.

So, it's very, very hard to keep with this one. And it tingles between two types of grain, and they should be very careful. And you get down and you can't even see it. Well, how do you have patience? And if it's your desire to do so, you can just sit down in the corner of your barn and say, in many hours, you take each piece of grain and separate each piece, because they've only been mixed together.

They haven't been tinged. They were still in separate pieces of grain, although they were mixed together, so that on a coaster of grass, you could not see that there were two kinds of grain there. They were mixed together.

Now, that's not how we are in the city of God. We're not just a lot of people that are mixed together. We're tainted together in the body of God. What does that really mean? Well, if you take some wine, and you mix it up, now, separate it again, and you can't really see it.

It's joined together in such a way that the train has to go in one piece. The wine and the water are blended together. And that's the word used here. And that's how we are as God's people in the body of God.

We're not simply separate members, all related to one another, but both of us can become unrelated again, at will, or at face. We are members, centered together, in the body of Christ. It tells us, as Michael was saying, that in our human body, we can show more abundant form and honor on our humble parts, so that they might have more abundant comprehension.

I think we understand that. That's a very natural process. We try to accentuate those parts that are more common. We try to give more abundant honor in the sense of covering it, of providing for it, and caring for that part that is more common.

This is what is done in the human body. This is a very natural process. God says in his word that that is how we are to do the body of God. That we are not, that we are not to despise one another, because one's behavior is to be somewhat unhungry towards us, or a unhungry type of person.

What I'm saying is this, that if there hasn't been a division, tells us that there's no need to be no division along racial grounds, because God has destroyed that lonely area that ever existed on racial grounds.

If there's to be no division on those grounds, he then tells us that there should be no division on the ground of inferiority, socially, or even intellectually. And I am for those who debate for every other reason, regardless of his intellectual ability, or his educational status, or what have you.

There should be no division on those grounds. Now, I'm going to lead you to Romans chapter 12, and this is the last one, but I don't want to leave it out. It's about to be released. Romans chapter 12, and these are the verses four and five.

For as we have many members in one body and all members are not the same of us, so we in many are one body in Christ, but every one member is one of another, but according to the grace that is given to us, and they are according to the grace that is given to us, each man is to wait upon his own ministry in his work with Jesus.

Each man is to do his own work by faith, and there is a division allowed within the church of God because of what we count as the most important thing. I'm not going to show off to them that we count the fact of work the most important thing.

We say, well, we must have a man who does the work, and of course, if God has given such a man in the assembly, there's a tendency to arise over them and try to find a solution. If you'd like to give him a gift from the assembly for certain persons, there was an apostle who was helpless, and they put him over against the apostle Paul, who was a man whose appearance was not very impressive, whose bodily presence was weak, though he learned the way in and out, and they called upon him.

People, it's time for things to develop in the church of God. There were a group of Christians that are suffering for us today who a number of years ago encouraged among themselves the gifts of the Bible, the gifts of the Gospel.

So much so that the Anglicans were actually weaned out of their fellowship. They're letting go on. Their companies are growing in form because there are divisions between the new Christians and the old Christians.