14.4 Placing Love
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Our purpose in this session is to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the gathering together of the Church. It is in the gathering together of Church that the gifts and ministries of the Spirit operate and where the fruit of the Spirit is made visible to all.
Jesus is not coming into union with a bunch of isolated and solitary individuals. Jesus lives in union through koinonia, through many together as one. And Jesus does not live in union with the Naomi’s and the Vashti’s of this world, those who go out full, but return empty, or those who boast in themselves before God. He carries them, yes, but they cannot yet know that.
Union with Self. Now, most seem to take Paul’s love chapter as Paul saying that “love is ‘more important’ than the Spirit among us as the Church.” And thus they take to themselves “love” separate from Church.
I heard a “union-with-Christ” teacher say that he does NOT need the expressions of the Spirit in the Church, because Jesus lives as him and there is nothing beyond that. And thus “union with Christ” becomes little more than union with self – especially since many take the word “one” as meaning, “no one but me,” and thus do not practice fellowship with Jesus dwelling in them. They have never considered a Body for God, a living organism made up of many members bound together by an energeoing Spirit flowing among us.
Love Is a Miracle. Now, don’t get me wrong. I said earlier that it is the natural tendency to despise “all those fleshy and deceived Christians out there.” I am no different. If I chose to go with “what I feel,” I would not be writing any of this. I choose rather to go with what God says AGAINST my own human judgment and inclination.
For that reason, regardless of how I might sound out from any expressions of my own human judgment, I, by willful choice, place ALL believers, regardless, into my view as that precious Bride of Christ with whom I would fall in love. Love is a miracle; we do believe in miracles.
Showmanship. Then we have the other side of things, the all-too-frequent “gift, gift, I’ve got the gift.” I ran into that a few years ago, a brother who, since he moved in a spiritual gift, assumed that his gift placed him above. In many the gifts and operations of the Spirit in the church become acts of showmanship on the one hand or elements of divisiveness on the other.
And the thing is, Paul was dealing with every one of these difficulties in his first letter to the Corinthians. At the center of his many attempts to impart the understanding of his heart, Paul placed the communion of the Lord’s supper and this question – what about the Lord’s body?
Normal and Everyday. God favored me in my own experience inside of Christian community, for in that fellowship the gifts and operations of the Holy Spirit moved freely and constantly among us, not just in the gathering of the church services, but through our daily life together. The operations of the Spirit among us were just a normal part of everyday church life – as God intends.
And thus I have a strong experiential picture of how the Holy Spirit, through His operations among us, causes us to be the body, the voice, the very expression of God made visible. I use the term “operations” to include the energeia of the Spirit working among, but in specific demonstrations of power.
Electrical Frequency. The next five sessions include many differing aspects of the functions of the Holy Spirit coming reciprocally through various members of the Body, as the life force of that body.
Picture the human body. What keeps it together? What prevents all your parts from just wandering off on their own? And if the members, cells, and atoms of your body are “forced” to stay together, what makes them something more than a rotting corpse? This concept is a field of science hardly in its infancy and mostly ignored – the electrical frequencies of life.
Yet those operations of electrical frequency in the human body are but an illustration of the mighty role of the Spirit in causing us together to be filled with God as His Body.
Spirit Connections. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… and have all been made to drink one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).
How does a Person, God the Father, inhabit and reveal Himself to others through a living and dynamic Body, many together as one? Let me tell you how. It is by the practical experience of Christ as me extended to the practical experience of Christ as us together. And that extension is the function of Christ as a Spirit of power, the demonstration of Spirit connections.
Symmorphy Becomes Koinonia. And thus symmorphy becomes koinonia. Yet my own symmorphy with Jesus, sharing the same form with Him as the revelation of Father, is never diminished by extending that same reality out to include you in “us together.” In complete contrast, my being connected to you through a Holy Spirit of power INCREASES my knowing of Jesus living as me – and vice versa.
Here is where we place that verse that contains the whole gospel in itself. – The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5). The life force that causes our koinonia together inside Christian community to be God in Person seen and known is the Spirit of outpoured LOVE.
The Romance of Love. Romance, it’s all about romance, falling in love with the Church.
Thus through all of our discussion of the operations of the Holy Spirit among us in the gathering together, we place these love stories of the Old Testament as our lens by which we understand the Church. Let’s find five points, then, from the love stories we included that enable us to use them as our focus.
1. From the stories of Gomer and Rahab we begin with the realization that one another’s mess doesn’t mean a thing. You see, “there, but for the grace of God go I” is little better than Jesus’ mimicry of the Pharisees, “I thank you, God, that I’m not like that sinner.” – Ah, yes, you are, but worse.
Learning to Love. The stories of Gomer and Rahab remove from us any thought of our own superiority, thus allowing us to say, with sincerity of heart, “I was wrong, please forgive me.”
2. The story of Rebekah teaches us, then, that our learning to walk together in love has nothing to do with penance. We do not bring Jesus back to “deal with sin” over and over. So-called “love” that never says, “I’m sorry,” is the recipe for divorce. In contrast, we know that learning to love one another, to give one another place, makes us the most beautiful dwelling place God could desire. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her.
Being Made Beautiful. 3. The story of Esther teaches us that these gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit flowing among us are what makes us beautiful to our Father. And the reason the dynamic operations of the Spirit among us make us beautiful to our Father is that He now possesses what everything is for, His own visible entrance into being seen and known inside His creation.
4. The story of Ruth shows us that when we place ourselves under the covering of the Lord Jesus, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, then He takes full responsibility for us in all things. Yet koinonia expands from each member being carried by Jesus to our life together being carried by Jesus.
Jesus Is Responsible. Our part is willingness of heart, willing to be bound as one body together. Jesus’ part is to make it all real. The symmorphy of koinonia is nothing more than an expansion of our own personal symmorphy with Jesus.
Because Jesus includes me in Himself, and because Jesus includes you in Himself, therefore it is our joy to reach out and include one another in ourselves. And at no point do we place “the responsibility for making it happen” on ourselves or on one another. Rather, we walk together in the same confidence of faith by which we walk with Jesus. Jesus IS our life together; Jesus is already making life together to be God among us.
A Garden of Life. 5. Finally, from the story of the Shulamite, we obtain this wondrous picture of life together as communities of Christ, that we are living in a garden of life and goodness. My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies.
Think of the joy and wealth of gathering lilies in a garden of spices. Think of that same joy and wealth of gathering the good things of Christ from one another in the garden of our life together. ENJOY one another. Reap the good things of Christ from one to the other in full reciprocity. It is okay to dance inside of love. These are the workings of the Holy Spirit among us.
Actions of Love. Let’s reduce these five things down to five action points of love out from which we see life together as the Church.
- Carry one another’s mess as Jesus carries ours.
- Give place to one another, not for penance, but for the beauty of love.
- See the Father revealing Himself through the flow of the Spirit among us.
- Extend every element of our knowing of personal symmorphy with Jesus to our koinonia together; as we put Jesus upon ourselves, so we put Him upon life together.
- Value with all value the giving and supply of each member, one to the other, as the Lord Jesus Himself.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. – No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us (1 John 4:7 & 12).
Inside of Love. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (1 John 4:13).
John is talking about us together, not just us as individuals. It is in us together that God dwells and through our reciprocity is made visible to all. And we KNOW that Jesus lives inside our koinonia together BECAUSE of the demonstration of the Spirit among us through all our interaction together.
Windows of the Spirit – the entrance of Light. A garden of spices, a love seat in a garden bower – “the play of light and shadow that gives shape to forms and brings life to our surroundings.” – Life together inside of love.