Importance of the Assembly — William MacDonald

The Neglected Minor Prophets and the Assembly

Zechariah. I wish with all my heart that those books had never been called the Minor Prophets. That's not what they're supposed to be, Minor Prophets, but it's what too often they are in the lives of the Christians.

I think that they're perhaps the most neglected part of the Bible, don't you think so? The Minor Prophets. Praise God. We find His blessed face wherever we look. Would you turn with me now to Ephesians chapter 3?

The Church as God's Mystery

And what we're going to speak about this afternoon is rather linked chronologically with what we've had before us. Brother Carl has been describing most vividly the rejection of the Lord Jesus by the nation of Israel.

But God wasn't frustrated by that one thing. God had a secret in His mind all the time, the secret concerning the Church, to bring in, consequent upon the rejection of the King by Israel. And that's what I'd like to speak to you about this afternoon, the assembly.

And before we ever read this portion of the Word, I'd like to ask you, for every one of us to answer in our hearts, what place does the assembly have in my life? How important is God's assembly? This is what I'd really like to think about with you this afternoon.

Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 1. For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.

Whereby was made a minister according to the gifts of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power, unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.

To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, God had it in his heart and mind that when Israel did reject the Son of God, God would do something new. He would bring in a new society, and in many ways the most privileged society in all God's dealings with mankind.

He formed a church made up of all believers from Pentecost to the rapture, and he believed that his beloved son, the Lord Jesus, would head up a redeemed universe as his bride sharing his glory forever and ever.

Isn't his love something wonderful? It really is marvelous when you start to think of it, that God would ever take people from the dunghill, as it were, sinners of the dust, and destine them to eternal glory, to share the glory of his Son, a redeemed universe.

No Cinderella story like that one. I suggest to you this afternoon that this mystery, which was unknown in the Old Testament by the human mind apart from divine revelation, that believing Gentiles would share equally with believing Jews.

As we read in verse 6, something that was never known, a Jew would have laughed at you in the Old Testament if you had ever suggested this to him, that believing Gentiles should be fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.

That Christ, that the Messiah, the hope of glory for Gentiles as well as Jews, part of God's wonderful... I'd like to suggest to you that this truth concerning the assembly, the body of Christ, is a tremendously important truth that's being downgraded today.

You'll seldom hear it spoken of in an evangelical Bible conference. It's kind of a taboo subject. It isn't taboo among us, praise God. And we rejoice at the truth. Let me go over with you some of the reasons why we believe this is such a tremendous truth.

The Assembly's Prominence in the New Testament

First of all, the space that's given to it in the New Testament. I believe not only in the inspiration of the Bible, but I believe that there's a balance in the word of God, too. And when I think of the space that's given by God to the truth of the Church, in the New Testament it says to the McDonald, be sure the assembly has a prominent place in your life, too.

You're not building with God, and you're marching to the beat of a different drummer. And you know, that's all too possible. All too possible to do that. For me to make my own sparks and walk in the light of my own fire.

And then God says, he shall have this at my hand, he shall lie down in sorrow. I think of that an awful lot, I think of the balance of scripture and of the tremendous, the important place that is given to the Church in the New Testament.

It says to me, are you going along with the Lord in this? Is this the balance that it has in your life? Then I see, too, that the truth of the assembly took a very prominent place in the lives of the apostles.

The Apostolic Ministry of Gospel and Assembly

They received something else about it. Not only so, but they spoke about it with a great deal of enthusiasm. And I suggest to you today, we've lost that enthusiasm. They were really enthusiastic about the truth.

They weren't bashful about it, they weren't ashamed of it. It was something Paul went to jail for, he tells us, in caution for the truth of the mystery. And it's very significant to me that in this passage we read, Paul says that he has a two-fold ministry.

Did you notice that in verses 8 and 9? Paul said, I have a two-fold ministry. First of all, the gospel. The gospel, that I may preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Period? No period.

Don't put a period there. What else does he say? And to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery. What's it? Ah, the assembly. He didn't stop with the gospel. He went on to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery.

There are two parts to his ministry, the gospel and the assembly. The second that gave permanence to the results of the first. If he had just gone out and evangelized and hadn't led men into the truth of the assembly, there'd be precious little to show for it ten years later.

It's grounding people in the truth of the local fellowship, seeing them going on for God. That's the thing that gives permanence to the world. Paul tells us that the truth of the assembly forms the capstone revelation.

The Assembly as the Capstone of Scriptural Revelation

All these things speak to my heart. They have to. As one who seeks to serve the Lord, I come to this truth and I turn to Colossians chapter 1 and verse 25, and I find that the truth of the New Testament assembly is the capstone of scriptural revelation.

What does it say? Verse 25, I'm breaking in the middle. Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you. The word of God. I've got to go back. I want to go back.

I still have to break in the middle. But verse 24, Who now rejoiced in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.

Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you. Notice, to fulfill the word of God. What does that mean? Well, it certainly doesn't mean that this was the last book to be added to the New Testament, to the inspired canon.

There were other books added later. I believe that Paul is saying here that with the giving of the truth concerning the New Testament assembly, there was a sense in which the word of God was complete.

Other books were written later, but this was the last major basic doctrine to be added that formed the capstone that makes me stop and think. The passage that we had in Revelation, that the church is an object lesson.

The Church as an Object Lesson to Angels

The assembly on earth is an object lesson to angelic beings. Chapter 3 of Ephesians, verse 10. To the intent that now, under the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom.

God saying to the angelic beings as it were, here it is, Exhibit A. And they look down, and in a marvelous way, they read in the assembly the manifold wisdom of God. You say, how do they do that? Well, I don't think any one of us today can answer that question and exhaust it.

But it is a wonderful thing to see God bringing men and women of different backgrounds, cultures, temperaments, and all the rest, bringing them together in Christ, breaking down the middle wall of partition, abolishing the enmity.

I often think of that little assembly in Nazareth, Israel, that I'm sure Brother Carl has visited. Wonderful thing to see, to go there and see those Arab believers, mostly believers from Arab backgrounds, and there's a little handful of Romanian Jews there.

Imagine, Romanian Jews, saved by the grace of God, breaking bread with those Arab believers. Talk about shalom. That's shalom, isn't it? The middle wall of enmity is gone. And one of those brothers was getting quite old a few years ago, and he came to Jamil Hisson, one of the elders of the assembly, and he said, Brother Jamil, I want you brothers to bury me when the Lord takes me home, you know.

It really touched the heart of those dear Arab believers up there. Wonderful when the angelic beings look down and see, see God taking so many people from such unlikely soil and putting them through his school of beauty culture down here in the church, one day to present them to himself without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

The Church's Perpetuity and Christ's Promise

It's really enough to make angels gasp, if angels have the power of gasping. Also, the church is the only unit on earth to which God has promised perpetuity. Did you ever think of that? The church, the assembly, is the only unit on earth to which the Lord has promised perpetuity.

He said, Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I can get a great idea concerning the work of the Lord, and I can go off and build an empire, set up a great Christian organization, and devote the best years of my life to that organization.

To the extent that that organization takes the place of the local assembly in my life, God's best for my life. Because God never promised perpetuity to any organization on earth, but he did to the local, to the fellowship, to the assembly of God.

The Church as the Fullness of Christ

Why is this important? Well, I turn over to Ephesians chapter 1, and I come down, Paul used such long sentences, where shall I ever break in? I'll break in in verse 20, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 20. It says, Which he wrought in Christ, this is the mighty power, the antecedent is the mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

Do you know that's one of the most startling, spectacular statements that you'll find in the word of God? Do you know what that says? It says the church is the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

You say, yes, that's what it says, but what does it mean? It beggars human language to explain what it means. It's so great. Let me ask you, what does the Lord Jesus need to make him complete? Nothing.

He's self-existent. He's self-contained. He could have lived throughout all eternity in perfect bliss without you and me. But in his marvelous grace, he sets forth here the truth that somehow or other, he doesn't consider himself complete without his body, the church.

And he speaks of the church here as the fullness of him that filleth all in all. If I could just use a simple illustration, here's a piece of paper. I'm going to just share that piece of paper in half.

This is Christ, and this is the church. The church is the fullness of him that filleth all in all. We could use the word, the complement, because that's what it means. Tell me that that isn't marvelous grace.

That you and I, saved by his matchless grace and united in him, in the body, should be thought of as the fullness of him that filleth all in all. I tell you, I wouldn't believe these things if I didn't find them in the Bible.

They're just too great for the human mind to take in. Is the assembly important? Well, I read that the assembly is the body of Christ. The body of Christ. Just think of that. What can speak of greater nearness and oneness than that expression, the body?

The Assembly as Christ's Body and Bride

Without my body, I couldn't be here expressing myself to you today. And just think that the Lord looks upon the assembly as his body, the vehicle by which he expresses himself to the world today. And not only the body of Christ, but the bride of Christ as well.

And if the body speaks of nearness and intimacy, certainly the expression, the bride, speaks of the deepest affection. The deepest affection. Christ also loved the church and gave himself. I'll tell you, no bride was ever more unworthy, and no bride was ever purchased at such a cost.

I try to go over these things in my mind to realize what the assembly means to the heart of God and what it means to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that brings me to say this, and I really believe it with all my heart, that the weakest assembly of God's people here on earth means more to him than the greatest empire in the world.

Do you believe that? I believe that. You say, oh brother, our assembly is a poor, weak, struggling thing. Yeah, I believe that too. But I believe it means more to the heart of God than the greatest empire in the world today.

You say, you've got scripture for that? Well, I go back to Isaiah chapter 40, and I read there that the nations to him are a drop in the bucket of the fine dust of the balance. That's not much. He doesn't tremble before the nations of the world.

A drop in the bucket. I mean, I've just dipped my bucket into the well, and it comes up and there's a drop on the side of it. So what? Don't lose any sleep over it. The drop on the side of the bucket.

No, no. Or the fine dust of the balance. It's not going to affect the weight. It doesn't carry any weight, the fine dust of the balance, to speak of. I tell you, God never says of the assembly, a drop in the bucket, the fine dust of the balance.

In fact, it really humbles my heart when I turn to 1 Corinthians 12 and find the word Christ, the word Christ used not only of the head in heaven, but of the head in heaven, plus we the members on earth.

The only place in the Bible, I think, where this is true. But turn to 1 Corinthians 12, and I think if any of you have Darby's translation, which is probably not too likely now, but I think there's a slight change here.

Verse 12 says, For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. The Christ. The word Christ in that verse isn't just referring to the Lord Jesus, the risen, exalted head in heaven.

It's speaking of the head plus the members. Isn't that wonderful grace? Wonderful grace of Jesus, that he would ever identify us so closely with himself, as to use language like this. Remember that. If you ever get discouraged about the local fellowship, you're ready to throw in the sponge.

Eldership and the Local Assembly's Mission

For the weakest representation of the body of Christ on earth today means more to him than the greatest empire. I'd like to suggest something else to you this afternoon. That the elder, any particular elder in that assembly you're thinking about, more important to God than the Prime Minister of Canada or the President of the United States.

I read my New Testament right. The work of eldership is very, very important. I don't find very much instruction in the New Testament how to be a good king, queen, prime minister, or president. Do you?

I don't find a lot of instruction about the work of elders. What does it tell me? It tells me that it's tremendously important to God. And really, it's time we recaptured that in our own thinking. Honestly, you know very well, just as I know, that a career in the business world or the educational world or the political world has far more glamour to it in the minds of most Christians today than the work of an elder in the local assembly.

But I'd like to tell you something. It doesn't have it to God. It doesn't have more glamour to God. And it's just about time that we started thinking God's thoughts after Him. We've been so brainwashed by the world and by its way of thinking that we've just come to think that, oh, well, an elder, you know, you can take him or leave him alone.

But I'll tell you those rewards promised to the elder in the New Testament that aren't promised to others. I'd like to suggest to you that the local fellows, that the assembly is the unit on earth that God has chosen to propagate the faith.

Now, it's taken me years to come to this, and I have fought this truth in my own life. As I stand before you today, that the local fellowship, the assembly of God on earth, is the unit He has chosen to propagate the faith.

Lang says in his book, The Churches of God, in our service for God, we found missions and organizations. The apostles founded nothing but local testimonies. Boy, that's something to think about, isn't it?

And this is what we have in the world today. We have a proliferation. And I'm not here to knock Christian organizations, because I thank God for them, and I know He's using them. But we have a proliferation of organizational Christianity and empire building of various sorts.

I want to tell you, we want to get back to the local church. We want to get back to the local assembly and build on God's foundation. There's nothing that will take the place of it. We live in a tremendous day.

The New Testament Pattern and Household Churches

We live in a day when people oppressed by ritualism and formalism and all the rest are literally groping after the truth of the simple New Testament pattern. And the books are coming off the press, as you probably very well know, books on church renewal practically one a week.

And it's most interesting to read these books and see these men, and God is giving them light on this subject. And what are they groping after? They're groping after simplicity. They want to get back to just shake off all of the traditions, all the crusts that have come down through the centuries and just get back to the simplicity of the New Testament assembly.

And I know this is true because I'm in touch with some of them. They want to get back to the priesthood of all believers. They want a de-emphasis on church buildings. We went to Stockton, California the other day and met with a group of young people.

We said, would you be interested to see a New Testament assembly planted? They said, frankly, we don't want to have anything to do with buildings. Buildings are so much a part of the church to them that they couldn't think of anything else.

They said, we're sick to death of these terrific sun drives. We said, what would you like? Would you like a household church? Well, they said, that sounds scriptural. See? These people had never heard anything about such a thing before.

They said, yeah, that sounds scriptural. We'd be interested in something like that. They said, we don't want to spend a lot of money on church buildings. We'd rather see it go to the mission field. Movement toward the household church today.

And it's really interesting to see how this has been developing. First of all, it developed in architecture. They said, look, we want a circular church. And then they started building circular churches.

What were they groping at? They were groping back to the simplicity of the New Testament pattern. They want informal services. They want services where there's liberty to share. The very thing that some of us have held down through the years.

I say it's a day of great opportunity and great challenge. For those who have been indoctrinated in the truth of the New Testament assembly and who've lost the vision. But I think that's the truth today.

Changing Methods Without Changing the Gospel

But I'd like to suggest just a few things to you as we close. Things that we ought to wake up to nowadays. And one of them is this, that we must as Christians be willing to change our methods, but not our message.

Generally speaking, I feel we've been one generation behind as far as methods. When people about us are disillusioned with expensive buildings that give a totally wrong view of Christ to the world, then we go into the building business.

They want to go back to the simplicity of gathering. I say we want to be willing to change methods, but not the message. You perhaps read the story of the big cereal company that their sales were declining.

They weren't doing so well. And so they put these men in a sink tank and they said, look, here's the product we're selling. Tell us how to improve the product. And so the men went to work and they analyzed the product and they analyzed everything connected with it and they said, we can't improve the product.

They said, we suggest you improve the package. And they did and the sales began to boom. Well, that's just exactly where we are today. We can't improve the message, but we can improve the methods. And we can get in step with the Lord.

We can go back to what the New Testament teaches and build on that foundation. I believe that we should get away from this terrible tendency to spend money on bricks and mortar. In that sense, very rarely I pay a tribute to Jehovah's Witnesses, but in that sense Jehovah's Witnesses are right.

They've got the wrong message, but they've got the right method. They don't spend money. They don't spend money on expensive buildings. No, no, no. But they have a printing plant in Brooklyn, New York that's belching out tons of their literature every day in the languages of the world.

Their method is right. Their message suggests that what we need is a new love and loyalty and faithfulness to the local assembly. I hear everybody talking today about what they're doing at the local assembly.

Shared Responsibility in the Local Assembly

That misses the point. It's not what they're doing. It's what we're doing. We're getting our pronouns juxtaposed. Stop the Zoomers talking about they, they, they at the local assembly. It's we, we, we.

And I'd like to suggest this to you, and I say it in love, but really believe it with all my heart, that if we really ran our businesses the way we conduct things at the local assembly, we'd go bankrupt.

On the other hand, when we come to put the same effort, the same energy and the same devotedness into the work of the Lord at that local assembly, we're going to see things move. We really are. Why aren't things moving in the local assembly?

Because we're too busy with business. That's why. The purpose of the business is to put bread and butter on the table. The purpose of life is to serve the Lord. And serving the Lord in the context of the local...

Aspiring to Spiritual Leadership

God's looking for men today to aspire to leadership of the local church. He's looking for shepherds who will shep. The deacons who will deke. Terrible English, but good theology. He's looking for priests who will minister today.

And I suggest that to you young fellows here today. You want your life to count for God? Aspire to strong spiritual leadership in the local assembly. You'll have your heart broken. You'll have to be willing to be inconvenienced at any time of the day or night.

Your life will be a life of service, as Brother Nelson was talking to us about yesterday. A life of humility. But I'll tell you, there'll be a crown of life waiting at the other end of the journey for you.

And as you think of what to do with your life, remember the man who aspires for leadership in the church. For the godly work of shepherding the sheep of God. God's going to reward that man. I think this is a challenge before us today.

Building With God in the Local Fellowship

The assembly is terribly important in the mind of God. It's terribly important to the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask myself, what does it mean in your life? I ask myself, are you building with God, really? Or are you going your own way?

But dear friends, I want to build with God. And with what few short years I may have remaining, I want to be built in the context of that local fellowship. Thank you.