26.1 Each by Name

© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
He calls his own sheep by name (John 10:3). – To him who overcomes I will give… a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it (Revelation 2:17).

Biblical Oneness. collectivismisacurse; [Individualism]   |   [is]   |   [a]   |   [curse].

Honor the Individual (Father) – Love one Another (Jesus) – Enjoy the Family (Spirit).

Jesus and Paul give us the specific definition of what a Godly and Biblical “oneness” means. For as the Body is ONE and has MANY members, so also is Christ. – You in Me and I in them, that they may be one in Us. Many together as one, yet each a member in particular. Person inside of Person inside of many persons. One in union, two in communion, one in expression. Individuality always begins and ends with Father. Father is a Person with a Heart, a Person who desires and cares.

Honoring Father. To the extent that Father is honored, to that same extent, you and I as individuals are honored. To the extent that Father is left out in the cold, to that same extent, you and I as persons are left out in the cold. There is only one thing more lonely than being all by yourself, and that is being all by yourself in a crowd.

To honor Jesus is to love one another. I don’t care how much people shout, “Christ, Christ, Christ.” I know well that a Christ without Jesus means an un-looked-for knife in the darkness. Splitting apart spirit and body is called death, the full marriage of spirit and body is called life. Church without Spirit is death; Church filled with Spirit is life forevermore.

Distinction and Honor. Honor the individual – Love one another – Enjoy the family.

This session is the pattern of home called “composing with materials.” Or, we could say, “writing with words.” As an English teacher, I reduce grammar and spelling down to their place in the final edit. But teaching vocabulary is something I maintain. Look at the words in this sentence. Look at the distinction and honor given to each individual word. Each word contains its own distinct and varied meaning. Some words, especially the little ones, carry vast shades of meaning. Yet words all by themselves cannot actually impart their true meaning. “Love” by itself has no application. “Love one another” is filled with purpose and understanding.

Meaning Together. Yet try to say something, anything at all, without using any words. And a mime or a facial expression carries the same definition as a “word,” that is, an embodiment of meaning. So exclude body language in your attempt to speak without words. – How lonely you are.

Father is thoughts, infinite numbers of infinite numbers of thoughts. Jesus is those thoughts that are Father entering into the knowledge of creation as spoken Word. You and I are the visible form of Father’s thoughts, the outward expressions of Father’s personality. But you and I by ourselves are as lonely as words by themselves. Only together do we impart meaning and purpose.

The Richness of Words. Yet I can take any word in English and spend much time conveying to you the wonder that is that word. Every English word possesses a rich history of individuals and villages, of war and invasion, of study and theater, of varying usage through the centuries of human life. Each word has a story. Yet we never use any word by itself; but we put them together in endless combinations to create speech and drama, story and science, conversation and laughter. The passage of meaning from one heart to the other.

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Man is the expression of every nuance of Father’s meaning.

Father Singing. You and I, each one of us, are an intricate and varied, beautiful and valuable, expressive and personal, joyous and compassionate expression of all the Heart of our Father. But when you put us together as family, Father is singing.

Writing is a celebration of each individual word. Writing is a placing of words together to form meaning and thought. Writing is a conveyance of meaning into the hearts of many. As I said, this session is “composing with materials.” Regardless of whatever form the lines on the house plans take, ALL of the other patterns of home, when they become visible to the eye and touched by the hand as part of the house, are made up of specific and individual components.

Composing with Materials.
When we wrote A Pattern Language in 1977, we were struck by the empty feeling created by the materials of many modern buildings. Several of these materials—for example, …stucco and …plywood …plastic laminate… and asphalt paving—began to deteriorate soon after installation. Attributing this to the materials themselves, we proposed the pattern Good Materials, which stated that more natural materials would ensure a more satisfying building…

We have since somewhat modified our attitude toward building materials and try not to see the materials themselves as either good or bad. Instead, it’s important to look more closely at how they are used in the design, how they relate together, and especially how they are allowed to display their innate qualities and characteristics. There are no good or bad materials—everything depends on how you use them.

Working with the Pattern.
Putting materials together in a way that promotes their longevity and visibility is the art of Composing with Materials. The key is to expose and clarify the materials of construction, letting each express its purpose and inner nature.

• Emphasize the properties of materials by placing them next to materials of contrasting texture or color. For example, contrast rough beams with creamy smooth walls, periodically insert contrasting tiles or dividing strips into the grid of concrete, and alternate bands of rough and smooth masonry.
• Use different colors and textures for different components of the building. Contrast roof and wall materials with trim and sash.
• Emphasize the beginnings and endings of individual parts. The exposed end of a piece of wood, for example, demands special attention. The individual logs in a rustic cabin might show an end finished with an ax…
• Clarify the connections between the parts of the building. The visible connectors of the different building elements—such as screws, metal plates, bolts, washers, flashings—should be emphasized to explain the transfer of forces or change in materials.
• Contrast the beauty of raw, naturally occurring wood and rocks with the qualities of worked and refined materials… Each has aesthetic potential when used directly and combined carefully.
• When a material has the potential to achieve an attractive patina of age, don’t obscure the process, even with a protective coating. Wood shingles, for example, burnish… and have a beauty of their own… It is the quality of the material that should be celebrated in the building. While paint… might protect… it covers up their innate beauty…
• Where you choose a material or finish that ages quickly, like painted wood or canvas awning, commit to a program of periodic maintenance. The occasional renewal will produce a sparkling fresh feeling to the building.
• Materials used in a new way can heighten our appreciation of them. Examples are exterior materials used inside (wood shingles… brick) or interior materials used outside (furniture on a covered porch, fabric awnings).

Eight Action Points. As I read these words, I am reading an expression of how we treat each individual person in the Community with honor, yet, at the same time, how each becomes more beautiful when arrayed together with others. Christ as me MEANS Christ is also as you. But the fullness of Christ is us together (Ephesians 1).

Let’s reduce these eight points to action. 1. Emphasize the property of materials by contrast. 2. Use different colors and textures (no sameness). 3. Emphasize the beginnings and endings of individual parts. 4. Clarify the connections between parts. 5. Contrast raw beauty with refined. 6. Celebrate aging. 7. Renew the tired until it is sparkling. 8. Use materials in new and interesting ways.

The Tenth Most Important Verse. Simply replace the word “materials” with “individual people” through those eight points and see the beauty of God’s House. In just the same way that the nine other patterns of home have no meaning apart from the placement of materials, so the other nine most important verses have no meaning apart from me in Jesus and Jesus in me.

Let’s bring in the tenth most important verse. In that day you shall know [He calls his own sheep by name] that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. – Abide in Me and I in you [Put on the Lord Jesus Christ]. – And this is age-unfolding life, that they may know You [Father], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 14:20 {with John 10:3} & 15:4a {with Romans 13:14} & 17:3).

Eight Points. Let’s see if we can match eight points with eight.

1. Today is always the day that we know. Today we hear and believe; today we live as the fulfillment of all that God speaks.

2. Each one of us is called into the Lord Jesus, personally and by name.

3. In exactly the same way that Jesus is inside of the Father, so all that I am is inside of Him.

4. All that Jesus is fills every part of me. I am an expression of Jesus who fills and energeoes all that I am.

5. I remain utterly inside of Jesus by putting the Lord Jesus Christ upon everything that I am, spirit, soul, and body, entirely by faith.

6. We possess the life that unfolds the ages; that is, all of Father’s specific thoughts concerning each one of us is free now to flow out into expression, being seen and known through the seasons of our lives.

7. We possess the ability to know God as Father through knowing Jesus Sent. This capacity is an innate quality of our being, of Christ our only life.

8. As we know the Father, His unfolding through the ages, through Jesus Sent into us, so the Father Himself is known by us to all generations forever.

So many things are coming together. God is giving us such a wondrous understanding of Himself.

Consciousness. One of the most important ways by which God made us like Himself is our human consciousness. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul places our human consciousness next to God’s consciousness of Himself as being the same.

Consciousness is the words of a personal story existing inside a spirit awareness. God is a Spirit awareness, that is, God knows Himself as Himself. And inside that Spirit awareness that is God, God thinks endless numbers of specific and detailed thoughts. It is inside this knowing of God, then, that we understand what Jesus meant when He said that “He calls his own sheep by name.”

Has Spoken Us. Father is words as thought. Jesus is those words, now spoken into being, that is, Jesus speaks those thoughts of Father concerning me, and I become. So many expressions of the New Testament that were once isolated from each other in our understanding are coming together for us now as one undergirding reality.

God, in these [present] final days, has spoken us inside His Son, whom He set forth [placed as the pattern] heir of all, and through whom He made [formed] {the Greek word from which we get the English word “to write a poem} the ages, who being the radiance [expression or revelation] of His glory and the character or exact expression [image] of His substance, carrying [upholding or sustaining] all, moreover, by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:2-3 – JSV).

Defining “the Ages.” God’s thoughts of Himself inside His own Spirit awareness are the substance. You and I are, like Jesus, the expression, the outward appearance of God’s own Story of self unfolding through the ages in our experience. Jesus is the spoken Word that actively makes Father’s thoughts to be the unfolding of our lives.

The ages, then, do not mean “forever and ever,” though they do continue; rather, the New Testament term “the ages,” hidden from our sight by Jerome, means, very simply, the unfolding of God’s thoughts regarding each one of us through the seasons of time. Jesus CALLS each one of us inside Himself by our own personal name, the unfolding of Father as us.

Specific and Detailed. God has an infinite number of thoughts concerning me inside His own Story of self. Yet, though infinite in number, each one of those thoughts is specific and detailed. And, incredibly, God’s thoughts concerning me are completely separate from His thoughts concerning you, another infinite number of specific and detailed thoughts.

God speaks each one of us, then, inside of Jesus, the One who carries all by His Word of power into the full and visible expression of Father made known. Yet I cannot know Father’s thoughts regarding you except by knowing you. And you cannot know Father’s thoughts regarding me except by knowing me.

Know the Father. And so for Father to be known requires many knowing one another, that is, one Body, the Church, the fullness of Jesus as the speaking forth of all that is God.

Here are our action points. 1. Know all that is God today. 2. Hear Jesus call your name inside Himself. 3. Know that you are inside of Jesus inside of Father. 4. Know that Jesus is inside of all that you are. 5. Continually put Jesus upon all that you are. 6. Know the meaning of the unfolding of God. 7. Exercise your capacity to know God. 8. Be the revelation of Father through Jesus through you towards all.

Know the Father through Jesus Sent into and as you; know the Father by knowing one another, each one by name.

Next Lesson: 26.2 Place and Display