Building the Body of Christ — Zac Poonen

Building the Body of Christ Through the New Covenant

I'd like to turn to a verse in Ephesians and chapter 4. We've been looking so far at the distinctives of the New Covenant and just to review what we have seen, things that people in the Old Covenant could never experience.

They could not experience repentance from the root of sin. They could not get the root removed in the Old Testament. They could not know grace because grace came with Jesus Christ. They could not know God as a Father, but now we do.

They did not know the Holy Spirit as a helper, as we do. They could not overcome Satan, they wrestled with flesh and blood. And then sixthly we saw, they could not build a spirit-filled family, they were lone great men.

And then this morning we saw, they did not have an example. Jesus is our forerunner, they had none. And now lastly, I want to think of something they could not do. They could not build the body of Jesus Christ.

They could not make two people into one. In Ephesians 4 and verse 12 we read, verse 11 and 12, that Jesus, when he ascended up on high, he gave gifts unto men, verse 8, and some of those gifts are, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints or the equipping for service of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying or the building up of the body of Christ.

The whole purpose of Christ's death was not to produce a bunch of holy individuals. Even where holiness is preached in many, many churches today, the ultimate aim is to produce a holy individual. And a lot of Christians think that they have attained to the heights of glory when they have overcome sin, they are no more afraid of Satan, all the things we said so far, they have repented from selfishness, self-centeredness, they know the Holy Spirit's fullness in their life, they know God is their father, they follow Jesus as their forerunner, and they are good fathers and good mothers, bringing up a good family.

That, I'm sorry to say, is not the goal. You can get that far and still have completely missed what Jesus died for on the cross. Because finally, when Jesus Christ is going to present us to the Father, he's not going to present a holy man or a holy woman, a holy brother here and a holy sister there, or even a holy family.

He's going to present one new man, one body. And there's nothing that tests our holiness as much as when we have to mingle, work together and fellowship with and love people who are not in our family, who are different from us.

We need to be built together with them. The difference between the body of Christ and a congregation is the difference between a pile of bricks and a building, there's a lot of difference. In India we build houses with bricks, and you can have ten thousand bricks out there in the road, on the roadside, there's no building.

They may be good bricks, we use the illustration holy bricks, humble bricks, loving bricks, but it's still not a house. Every one of those ten thousand bricks may be good, but it's not a house, till it is built together.

You can have a church with two or ten thousand holy people, humble people, good people, good families and it's not the body of Jesus Christ, till it's built together. So many people talk about somebody coming and stealing a member of our church.

Building the Body Rather Than a Congregation

Now, we've been building the body of Christ in a number of places in India for the last twenty five years. It started, as I said, with two of us coming together with a vision and it's grown to a large number in our own city, maybe a couple of hundred or so, including the children, and then grown from us to thirty, forty other fellowships.

But everywhere our aim has been not to build a congregation. They had a congregation in the Old Testament, they had a huge congregation, bigger than the world's biggest churches. They had twenty, two million people there in the wilderness, six hundred thousand men alone, including women and children, it must have been about two million people.

A huge congregation, but even two of them were not one. Then Jesus came and Jesus gathered eleven people. He worked with eleven for three and a half years, the greatest preacher that ever walked on this earth, the most anointed preacher that ever walked on this earth, the one who taught without a single mistake, with clarity, who sought with all his heart to deliver people from legalism and the law, and taught everything perfectly in such a way that he never had to retract anything he ever said.

And at the end of three and a half years, they were still arguing as to who's going to be the greatest. Two of them were not one. They were deciding who's going to take over the leadership after Jesus died, exactly like it is in so many Christian organizations.

They were not one. But Jesus said, that's because there's a reason. The reason was not a failure of Jesus' ministry. It's because they did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, those eleven disciples.

And so Jesus said in John 14, verse 12, he said, after I go, you folks are going to do a greater work than I did. Have you ever thought of that verse, John 14, verse 12? He who believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also.

What are those works? That's what we considered this morning. Walking as Jesus walked. Let me just say a word about that. The works that Jesus did are not just feeding the five thousand, walking on the water, raising the dead.

That was only in the ten percent of his life in his ministry. The works that Jesus did included a lot of other things in the thirty years of his life, like carrying a bucket of water from the well for his mother, helping his mother cut vegetables at home, sweeping up the home, working in the carpentry shop and supporting his four brothers and two sisters and his mother after Joseph died.

There are many practical things like this. Those are the works that he did for thirty years. But very often when people think, he who believes in me shall do the works that I did, they immediately think of doing miracles, raising the dead.

Let's not stop there. Let's start where Jesus started, carrying a bucket of water to help his mother cutting vegetables in the kitchen and working in the carpentry shop to support the family. That's where he began.

Those are the works that he did. That was the will of his father for thirty years. Jesus spent ninety percent of his life in two places. Thirty years in two places, in his home and his place of work. He spent ten percent of his life in public ministry.

What about us? We spend ninety percent of our life in two places, in our home and in our place of work. We spend ten percent of our life in ministry. Jesus is the perfect example for us. And he is an example at home, in our place of work.

There was nothing slipshod about his work. Everything was perfect. When he sat on the cross of Calvary, it is finished. That was typical of everything he did in his life. Before he went to the cross, he said in John 17 .3, Father, I have finished the work you gave me to do.

He never did a half job. If his mother sent him to the village well to draw a bucket of water, he never brought half a bucket. He brought a full bucket. It is finished. That was the principle of his life.

If he had to make a table in his carpentry shop, he never did a slipshod job. It was a perfect job. It is finished. That was characteristic of everything in his life. And when we think that ninety percent of his life he lived doing these ordinary, what we would call mundane, earthly tasks, not what people think are spiritual.

We see that these are the works that he did. And he taught us how to bring heaven into cutting vegetables, how to bring heaven into carrying buckets of water, how to bring heaven into making tables and benches and stools, how to help a poor widow by making a chair for her and giving it to her freely, not charging her.

That's how Jesus lived. He never became the richest carpenter in Nazareth. He couldn't because he gave away too many things freely to poor people who couldn't afford them. And he did a perfect job. And he said, he who believes in me can do the works I do.

You can work like me in your place of work. You can work in your home like I did. You can help your mother and your father like I did. You can support your family at home like I did for thirty years. And then to the one who is called to preach and minister the word, he is an example there too.

You can preach like I did. I remember when I started preaching. I said, Lord, I've heard so many preachers. I don't want to preach like any of them. I want to go to the scriptures and see how Jesus preached and learn from there.

I want to recommend to you, whatever your calling in life is, look to Jesus as your example. Look at his attitude to children. If you want to know what your attitude to children should be. Look at his attitude towards religious hypocrites.

If you want to know what your attitude to religious hypocrites should be. He was never neutral to religious hypocrites. Neither should a follower of Jesus be. If you want to know your attitude to your enemy should be.

Look at Jesus. In everything, that is the example. He who believes in me, the works that I do, shall he do also. But more than that, John 14, 12 says, greater works than these shall he do. Because I go to the father, he said.

Because when I go to the father, I'll send the comforter. And when the comforter comes, you folks will be able to do something which even I was not able to do. Now that does not mean that we are greater than Jesus.

I mean, it's obvious. To use an illustration. There was a great scientist who lived many years ago who discovered things in relation to gravity by the falling of an apple. His name was Isaac Newton. And he was a great scientist.

But today, one like me, who probably does not have 1 of Isaac Newton's intelligence, can do calculations quicker on my computer than he could do in his lifetime. That's not because I'm cleverer than him.

It's because I have access to a computer which he did not have. That's what makes the difference. Today, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in people's hearts. And that's why, even though we are not 1 of Jesus, we can do more than what he did.

Because now the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in people's hearts. Now we don't need 11 people sitting together arguing about who is going to be the greatest. And that's what happened after the day of Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit and Unity in the Church

Peter and John were no longer in competition. They worked together. They walked together. The Holy Spirit baptized them into one body. And God has given apostles in the church. Apostles are elders to elders.

We have elders in churches. And when the elders have problems, there were apostles in those days who were elders to the elders. Like Paul and Peter who could guide them and correct them. Who could sort out problems in the churches when they themselves couldn't sort it out.

We have today many forms of church government. But it's very rare to find in this day the type of church government and pattern that's found in the acts of the apostles. Today we have churches run like a one-man show.

It's one pastor running the whole church. The apostles always appointed elders in a church. As I said yesterday. To balance. One would balance out the other. They never take a decision without both agreeing.

That would protect the church from becoming run by a tyrant and a dictator. And also today we have authoritarian structures where you have, whether you call them a pope or a general superintendent or a chairman or president of an organization or whatever it is.

It's a head. And from that head comes a pyramid of vice presidents and vice chairmen and maybe cardinals and archbishops and bishops and all the way down to lower levels of people. And there's this huge pyramid.

It's an authoritarian structure where you, if you're in it, you have to submit to this authority that goes up to the top of the pyramid. Now there wasn't anything like that in the days of the apostles.

It wasn't like that in the New Testament. You read in Revelation chapter 2 and 3 that there were seven churches in Ephesus, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Tyatira and so on. And if you look at a map, they were only about 30 miles from each other.

And yet there was no bishop over all of them. And they were all independent churches with their own elders. And maybe one of the elders was a senior elder who was like the messenger of the church to whom the letter was written.

But God didn't say to John, send a letter to that bishop and he'll just circulate it among the seven churches. There was no bishop. He had to send an individual letter to each church because each church was independent.

And what was the advantage of that? That if one church backslid, the infection didn't go all around to the other seven, even though they were 30 miles apart. That's the advantage of a local church. Whereas if they were all joined in a denomination, if one is infected, everybody is infected.

And once the person at the top becomes corrupt, the whole thing becomes corrupt. But that doesn't happen when you have local churches. So God's will is local churches. That's one big difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In the Old Testament we read that in the holy place they had a lampstand. And if you have seen the Jewish temple lampstand, you've seen pictures of it perhaps, it's got seven branches, one central stem and three little branches that come out of it.

It's one of the symbols of Israel today. It's seven branches of one lampstand. But when you go to Revelation chapter 1, you don't see seven branches of one lampstand. What do you read? You read seven separate lampstands.

And each lampstand is a separate church. And Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, is in the midst of that church. Now that's the New Testament pattern. Ephesus was not over Smyrna and Philadelphia was not over Thyatira.

No. They were local churches. Corinth was not over the churches in Galatia and Ephesus was not over Philippi. No. They were individual churches. And each church had its own elders. They were self-governing.

They had fellowship. And there was no authoritarian structure to which they had to submit. There was no Pope living somewhere else whom they had to submit to. But what did the church in Corinth do when it had a problem?

There could be 10 ,000 teachers passing through Corinth, teaching them. But none of them could help their problem. But thank God they had a father. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, you can have 10 ,000 teachers but you got one father.

That's me. And so when they had a problem, they wrote to the apostle who founded that church. Obviously, the elders couldn't solve that problem. We read in 1 Corinthians 1 .11, Paul says the family, the household of Chloe has written a letter to me and told me about a lot of problems you fellows are having.

And I can imagine what the contents of that letter was. He must have told them about, Chloe must have written to Paul about this fellow who was living with his stepfather's wife in adultery and talking about the abuse of the gift of tongues that was going on there with the confusion.

And he must have written to them about women making a lot of noise in their meetings. And he must have written to them, he must have written to Paul about people doubting the resurrection. And he must have written to Paul about a lot of confusion concerning the gifts of the Spirit.

And he must have written to Paul about confusion concerning head covering. And Paul replies to all of them. All those points. And he tells them. He says, that man who is living in sin, put him out of the church.

You see, there was an authority these apostles had. He was an elder to the elders there. Now what happens today is, there is no such authority. And so what happens when there is confusion in the church, it just splits or break off into two or three branches.

And then they quarrel with each other and all types of problems. It is very rare to find the type of church government that we see in the Acts of the Apostles. And one reason is, people don't want it.

And people either have this authoritarian structure which very often we see in the Roman Catholic system and in some other cults and in some Protestant denominations where there is a man right at the top in the pyramid.

Or we have this free for all like in most Protestant churches. Like it says in the book of Judges, there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes. That about describes most of Protestant Christianity.

Every man does what is right in his own eyes. But neither of these is scriptural. Authority in the New Testament is never imposed from above. There is authority in the body of Christ. Jesus is the head.

There is only one head. We don't have two heads in the body of Christ. Children born with two heads don't last long. There are some children born like that but they don't live long. Jesus is the only head but under Jesus he is the one who has appointed apostles with authority.

Paul says, God has given me authority as an apostle. There were elders who were appointed with authority. What type of authority is that? It's not the authority of a dictator. It's the authority of a father.

Sacrificial Authority and Spiritual Freedom

The sacrificial, loving, serving authority of a father over his family that seeks the best for the children that denies himself if there is only one loaf of bread he will give it to the children and not eat it himself.

It's rare to find elders like that. But that's the type of elders the ones who will wash the feet of their disciples. Not just go through the ritual of it but have that attitude in everything they do.

And such elders will not impose their authority on people. I have said to the people in my church I said I take my job as an elder very seriously. And one of the things the Bible says to elders is that Hebrews 13, 17 that elders the latter part of that verse watch over the souls of the people under their charge so that they have to because they have to give an account to God for them.

And so I tell them listen I take my job as an elder very seriously. I have to give an account to God for my own children who are in my home and also for the ones over whom I am an elder. I am not interested in lording it over you or running your life.

But I have to give an account to God not for the type of house you build or the shirt you wear but for your spiritual condition. And I am going to take that responsibly very seriously and if you joyfully voluntarily accept me as your elder I am your elder.

Otherwise I am not your elder. I don't want to be. Eldership in the New Testament is not imposed from above like in the Roman Catholic system it's accepted from beneath. That means that brother accepts me as an elder.

I say okay. Then I take responsibility for your soul but I don't have a lust for you to accept me as your elder. But somebody may say well can I come and sit in your church and without accepting authority I say fine.

If you only want to listen to some message and you want to be blessed by hearing the word of God you are welcome to come here every year for the next, till the end of your life. He won't stop you from there and you don't have to give any offerings also.

You can come and hear the word of God and be blessed and go home and we like to bless you and if you are in any need sometime come and meet me. I will help you as much as I can. But I will not take responsibility for your soul.

No. Because you don't accept me as your elder. I will help you in every practical way I can if you are in need I can help you. Those things I do for anybody. Anyone who is a member of the body of Christ they don't have to be under me.

But the ones I take responsibility for, that means if I see you slipping up spiritually, I will come to you and put my arm around you and say, brother, something is happening. What's the matter? You seem to be slipping up.

And I say, I can't stop you from backsliding. I have told the brothers in our church but I will tell you one thing. At least a few months before you fall away I will see signs of it and I will warn you of it.

I can't stop you but I will warn you. But I will give you freedom just like God gave Adam freedom in the Garden of Eden to sin if he wanted. And I will give you freedom I am not going to hold you with reins and ropes and chains to prevent you from doing wrong.

God did not send Adam into the Garden of Eden with ropes and chains and things like that to pull him to prevent him from going here and there. He left him completely free and I believe to be godly is to leave people completely free.

God is like that. He leaves me completely free even after I am born again. He leaves me free even after I am filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a difference between being filled with the Spirit and being possessed by a demon.

It is spirit filling and demon possession. Please understand the tremendous difference between these two. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to have the Spirit energizing us, leading us, guiding us but never controlling us.

The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. He gives us freedom to do what we want to do. Demon possession is not like that. When demons possess a person the chap loses control of himself. If you have seen demon possessed people, it's like that.

They don't have control over themselves. Think of that man who had demons inside him, legion of them. He was cutting himself. He didn't want to do it. He was cutting himself and hurting himself and that type of control is not godly.

That's demonic. Control is possession. Demon possession. There are demons who make people speak in tongues. They can't stop. It just goes on and on and on. There are demons who disturb meetings. But spirit filling, fruit of the Spirit is self-control and so if I'm godly I will not possess a person.

I won't control him to such an extent that the person is not free to do what he wants. Not free to have his own opinions. Not free to disagree with me. I believe true liberty in the church is where a person can turn around to me and say, Brother Zach, I disagree with you there but I respect you and I submit to you as my elder and I will not force him to agree with me.

I will not force him to conform to my understanding in these non-important peripheral areas. If I do I will not be building the church of Jesus Christ. I'll be building a uniformed army perhaps where everybody looks nice but they have to conform to my understanding on everything before they can be in my church.

I don't understand that as a church of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of things like this that we need to understand. The authority that the Lord gives us. I remember the Lord showing me this verse once in John chapter 17 about spiritual authority.

I mention this because we need authority. We need authority from God to be able to do God's work. I would never dream of preaching if God didn't give me authority. I would never dream of being an elder in a church if God didn't give me an authority.

I would never dream of taking responsibility over many churches if God didn't give me authority. And if God didn't back up my authority. But it's authority for this. In John 17 verse 2 Jesus says as thou has given him power and the word there really means authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him.

Authority is for one purpose to give people eternal life. To lead them to eternal life. To lead them and eternal life is another expression for divine nature. Eternal life does not mean endless life. Life that never ends.

Because if that's the meaning of it then people who go to hell have got eternal life too. They've got a life that never ends. But that's not the definition of eternal. Eternal means something which never had a beginning and never has an end.

That's eternal. My life had a beginning so it cannot be eternal. Even if I live forever it's not eternal because it had a beginning at a certain point in my mother's womb. But eternal life, even the angels don't have it.

Eternal life is a life which has no beginning and has no end and is only the life of God. So eternal life is another expression in scripture for divine nature. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

It's not existing forever. It's not quantity of life but quality of life that's emphasized there. Divine life, divine nature. That I can partake of God's nature is the message of the gospel. That I don't become spiritual by the law, striving, striving, striving, striving, striving.

I become divine by my nature being changed. My nature is human. And when God changes my nature just like it was easy for me to tell a lie before it becomes easy for me to tell the truth. Just like it's easy for a pig to be dirty, it's easy for a cat to be clean.

There's no strain for a cat to be clean. There's no strain for a pig to be dirty. It's just natural. It just goes out and becomes dirty. And when that pig has little piglets, they don't have any strain to become dirty.

They just love it. And when this cat has little kittens, they don't have any strain to become clean. They just love it. It's natural. And when I have Adam's nature, it's no strain for me to tell a lie.

Is it? Not at all. It's easy. It's no strain, struggle for me to get angry. Not at all. It's no struggle for me to lust. It's no struggle for me to hate somebody. It's no struggle for me to love money.

It's all natural. Because it's nature. I don't have to teach my child to tell lies. I don't have to teach my child to be evil, selfish. It's nature. And when I get divine nature and that gradually begins to, it comes as a little seed.

And as it grows and begins to possess my being. It's like a, if you think of a black circle. And a little white little circle has come in the middle. You're born again. And gradually that little white circle begins to possess more and more of this black circle.

And the divine nature begins to possess as I walk with the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to control more and more areas of my life. As I take up the cross. It becomes easy to speak the truth. It becomes difficult to tell a lie.

It becomes difficult to hate somebody. It becomes difficult to do wrong. Just like it's difficult for a cat to be dirty. Nature. That's eternal life. And that's the nature into which I have to lead people in the church.

And I say if a man doesn't want to do that, I say forget it. Don't try to be an elder. Don't be a preacher if you don't want to lead people to eternal life. What's the use having authority? If you're not interested in leading people into this life, what's the use getting up and preaching?

Is it just to show you're a great preacher? You want to preach like somebody else? Forget it. That's Babylon. That's the spirit of Babylon. In Jerusalem, the true church of Jesus Christ, we lead people to eternal life.

We lead people to partake of God's nature. And when people have God's nature, as each takes up the cross, what happens is, they gradually become one with each other. Because God's nature is such that hates strife, hates conflict, hates division.

Seeks to be one with others who have God's life. That's how we build the body of Christ. It's like the body growing in the womb of a mother. Starts very, very small. And in the body of Jesus Christ, it's life that makes that body grow in the mother's womb.

The shape of that little embryo or fetus in the mother's womb may not look exactly like a human being in the beginning. And the church that is just forming may not look like the body of Christ in the beginning.

I don't know whether you have seen pictures of these little embryos and fetuses inside a mother's womb sometimes when they have a miscarriage and lose it. You see pictures of it. I have seen pictures of it.

And they look more like tadpoles than human beings. They got a huge head and something like a little tail. Doesn't look like a human being at all. But that's how it starts. And as time goes on, it grows and becomes a beautifully shaped body.

And so it is in the building of the body of Christ. You don't have all the structure and everything right at the beginning. It starts and doesn't have much of a shape in the beginning and there may be sometimes one brother who is probably taking most of the responsibility for everything because the others are all new.

It's like those little embryos with a big head and little tail. But just give it time and if this person doesn't end up as a dictator, gradually everything will fill out. And it will come out as a beautiful baby.

And that's how the body of Christ is built. It is life. So life is the most important thing, not shape. When you look inside that mother's womb and you take a scan of that little embryo, it doesn't look like a human being at all.

Shape is unimportant. All that the doctor wants to see is their life. So when I see a new church beginning in some village or somewhere, I'm not worried about the structure first. A lot of people are interested in structure.

It must be like this. Everybody must be like this. This is what they must do in the meeting and this is how they must dress and this is what they must do. I say, you're going to kill the baby. You take that little embryo and say, Hey, this hand is a bit too short.

We must pull it a bit here. And this leg is a bit too short. We must pull it a bit here. You're going to kill that baby. Just leave it alone. Just make sure it's got life. And that's what I say. That's how the body of Christ is built.

I go into these churches and I say, Yeah, this looks like a tadpole. Okay, fine. Never mind. Is it got life? The life of Jesus? Are they eager? Are they pursuing it? And I come back year after year and I say, Hey, it's becoming more and more like a body.

And a few years later, it's a body. We got to be patient. You got to be patient to have a baby come out of mother's womb. You can't hurry that job. And neither can you when building the body of Christ.

Life, Structure, and the Decline of Christian Movements

But always the emphasis is on life. Now, it's much easier to have the emphasis on form and structure rather than life. And that's how all these great movements that God raised up in history ended up in such a state of spiritual death.

Look at all the great movements that God has raised up with any great leader since the beginning of the Reformation. And there have been so many. Mostly from Europe. There were great movements and in other countries, people, God raised up a man to start a work.

Particularly in the last four or five hundred years. And the men who started the movement were fed up with Babylon and wanted to come out and start building Jerusalem and the true church and come out of this dead church.

And they were godly men. And they did not come out because the structure was wrong. They came out because the life was wrong. And they came out and led people to a life and naturally when a church comes together it has to have a structure.

I mean, a life inside the mother's womb has got to form. Sure it's got to form. We need a body. But, and so they formed a structure for the church. But after they died, the next generation, they didn't know God like their leader.

And so they were left with the structure. And so the next generation onwards, they began to emphasize doctrine, authority, the position of the elders and the leaders and the bishops and that became far more important than eternal life.

And they completely forgot about John 17 too, that Jesus was given authority to lead people to eternal life. And that's what the Lord showed me. That the only authority I have over anyone is to lead him to partake of God's nature.

Not to run his life. Not to make him serve me and do all types of things for me as an elder brother. I don't want him to do anything for me. The Son of Man did not come to be served. He came to serve.

And I'm not here to get these people to do jobs for me because I'm an elder brother. I'm here to do jobs for them. Sure. That's our calling. To serve them. That is a true elder brother. Who's here to clean the other brother's car.

Not to get the other brother to clean his car. There's a lot of difference. There are very few like that. I'll tell you that. And that's why there are very few expressions of the body of Christ. Because that spirit of being a servant that Jesus had, who did not come to be served, but to serve is so rarely found.

Even among people who wash the feet as a ritual. They don't know what it is to serve. The ritual is easy to practice. But the reality is quite another thing. Even when they break bread, there's one bread.