This episode is about what Pastor Joe McIntyre calls The Community of Shared Life, and the resulting blessing. It’s shifting our view of church life from an audience-performer structure to a collaborative, united people who encourage and serve one another.
In Psalm 133, David writes, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity…It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there, the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” In this passage, the Lord is essentially saying, Oh, look at that church love one another, I’m going to command blessing on them. That would mean that we have a part to play in drawing the commanded blessing of God!
The path out of a self-centered existence is to commit yourself to edifying others, gaining a greater vision of faith and love in the process (and – resulting blessing!).
A full transcript and show notes are located at www.empoweringgrace.org/podcast36.
Additional Resources
Transcript
All right, if you have your Bible, if you’ll open it up to Psalm 133, I want to take a little bit of time tonight to, at least open this up in the word. The book of Proverbs says that without a prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. So, if we allow ourselves to think we have it all, then we’re going to just relax. But if we have a vision for pressing into more of God’s grace, more of God’s provision, more of God’s love and more of God’s power, then we’re motivated to move forward. And we seek to understand how to cooperate better with the Lord, and enjoy more deeply the benefits of our salvation.
Probably one of the great mistakes that every generation that I’ve watched in my lifetime do, is think, “Oh, God moved, we have it all.” You know, whether it was the charismatic movement, or the faith movement, or the prophetic movement, or the fivefold ministry movement, or the deliverance movement, it’s kind of like, Oh, we got it there. So we got it all now. And I think the reality is, we don’t got it all to we look like Jesus. Til we act like Jesus. And, you know, we’re predestined, the Bible says, to be conformed to His image. That’s your destiny. And unbelief will put that off to the next stage. Well, when we’re in heaven, we’ll be like Jesus. Well, you know what, I don’t think that was God’s plan. Heaven will be great, and I really would encourage you to do what’s necessary to get there. Like receive Jesus. But having received Jesus, Heaven is guaranteed. Now what you want to do is get Jesus into your life in the present.
So in Psalm 133, David writes, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It’s like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion. For there, the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore.” Now, this series I’m calling the commanded blessing, because I want to stir up your pure minds, to think in terms of being the community of shared life, that as we allow the Spirit of God… see what’s developed in 21st century America, and obviously 20th century America as well, is an audience performer mentality about church. Now, there have been exceptions, really wonderful exceptions to that. A lot of times home meetings are very much more a place where we function as individual believers and contribute. But what I see in the New Testament is, there would be times where they would have teaching and would gather around the teaching ministry, whether it was the apostolic, or the prophetic, or the teaching, or whatever, they would gather around the teaching of the ministry. And that’s certainly legitimate, but they also gathered to contribute to the life of the body. And that can happen in the home meeting atmosphere. But did you notice that a number of people prayed over Kelly, and Bev just shared about what I’m bringing tonight.
We’re wanting to develop the mindset that we all can contribute. Now, not every Sunday, we can’t have everybody share, but we can have a half a dozen or so people share every week, and we’re gonna have some people get words of knowledge. We can have some people prophesy. We can have some people come and testify how God has met their need, or how a word that they’ve heard taught has really caught a hold of their heart, and it has changed them. You see. How many remember when we had the Sunday nights where people were bringing their testimonies, how amazing it was to hear about the life stories of people you’ve gone to church with for months, but don’t know anything about. I found that just amazing. Because there was so much I didn’t know about the people who gave their testimonies that I thought, “My gosh, I didn’t have any idea that all of that happened to them.” And God had so shown Himself faithful.
So what I’m wanting us to think about, meditate about, and consider is coming to church with the mindset, my attendance makes a difference in what happens in the service. See, your faith, your expectation is what creates an atmosphere for God to move. Now, I did my best to be prepared and ready to do that. And I know the worship team does, you know, coming prepared. But see, every believer should come prepared. Now there should be times or I wouldn’t say there should be, but there’s probably times when we drag in needing ministry. That’s okay. Because that’s why the healthy members of the body, if they’re tuned in, they’re sensitive to one another, because their hearts have been knit together. And they want to minister to one another. You see?
Everybody’s called to full time ministry. Some people just do it for their livelihood. But everybody’s called to full time ministry. You’re a minister. My job is to equip you to minister. So I’m calling you up. I know many of you do bless people, help people, encourage people. But what I’m always saying for myself is, you know, we developed a saying some years ago, Lord, we want it all. You know, so I’m saying, let’s stir ourselves up. Paul even wrote to Timothy said, he said stir up your pure minds. You know? Want more of God. Don’t become complacent, be hungry.
Now, my experience is if you’ve read my book, Throne Life, God makes you hungry by giving you vision, and then he satisfies the hunger by the power of the Spirit. But the spirit can’t satisfy you with anything you don’t have a vision for. So, vision is where things begin. If you have a vision in your heart for more of God, you won’t be satisfied with what you’ve seen in the past. You’ll want to see more in the future. Well, in this interesting passage, if you were here last Sunday, when I finished the series on One Spirit and being anointed and enthroned with Christ, Christ sat down as our King priest as the fulfillment of Aaron’s high priestly ministry. And he received a fresh anointing. So we might say, when he sat down, the anointing came on the head of or Aaron. And then, in the Old Covenant, when the oil went down upon Aaron, Aaron, as the high priest wore a breastplate with 12 stones on it. They represented the 12 tribes, or the people of God. Well, the anointing came on the head, so it could come on the body. You see? So what we want to do is realize that, Jesus… think about this now, before he became a man, he was already God. There ain’t no up from there. Right? But as a man, he won the victory for us, so that he could receive the anointing as a man and share it with his brothers and sisters, whom He called in to the same glory that he is partaking of now as a man. You see?
So it says, there the Lord (when brethren dwell together in unity), there the Lord commands the blessing. Now I got to thinking about that and I’m thinking, so the eyes of the Lord flow to and fro throughout the whole earth, seeking the hearts that are right with him, right? I wonder if he’s saying, “Oh, look at that church love one another, I’m going to Command blessing on them.” And so that would mean that we have a part to play in drawing the commanded blessing of God, and it’s learning to dwell together in unity. It’s learning to walk in love.
Now, when I was a younger believer and was learning about faith, and who I was in Christ, you know, I was so needy, that I thought, “Well, if I can just get myself together, I can walk with God.” But at a certain point in my journey, I realized something, that there’s a shortcut to wholeness. And that shortcut is being other minded instead of self conscious. One of the ways you move out of your self centered existence is you make a commitment to others. In fact, it’s been well said that if you have no greater vision than your own personal needs, the devil will beat you up. But if, on the other hand, you have a need, or if you have a vision for encouraging and building up others, then as you give, Jesus said, it’s given to you. So, here’s the way you do that. I’m feeling really bad, so I call somebody up I know who’s been struggling. And I say, “Hey, can I pray for you?” Or I asked the Lord to give me a word for them. Now, what am I doing? I am aggressively defeating my temptation to be self focused on my own problems by ministering outward. Have you ever noticed when you do that, all of a sudden lights go on for you about your own situation? You see? In other words, Paul writes to the Galatians, he says circumcision, or uncircumcision, is of no avail. And aren’t you glad? But he says, but faith that works by love.
I’ve been on a quest for strong faith for many years. But what I’m starting to see more clearly than ever, is faith that continues to grow has to move into love. And I want strong faith. But, you see, Jesus walked as an example of absolute trust of his father and perfect faith in the scriptures. But he was motivated by love. His motivation was to lay down his life so that others could be blessed. Now, that’s the kingdom heart. You see? Now, if you’re like me, and I know you probably are, and you’re probably worse, actually. I’m just Just kidding. I’m just kidding. Well, what I was saying, and the reason I was making a joke is because all of us love, imperfectly. But you see, God looks on the heart. And if you, in your heart, are endeavoring to move forward in God, because you want to be conformed to God’s image, the image of Christ, then God overlooks your struggles, your failures, your imperfect attempts to serve Him in love, and he affirms every step you take forward.
When Paul wanted to summarize the Christian life, he said, you know, love is the greatest. There abides these three, faith, hope, and love and the greatest of these is love. But you see, you need faith. How many have ever figured out there’s some people you need to love them by faith? I mean, you’ve got to have some faith to love some people. But God expects us to have faith that sees beyond. There’s an old song that we used to sing in the early days, I think it was Andre Crouch, he looked beyond my fault, and saw my need. What if we look beyond the faults of others, and we realized that what we were coming up against was their brokenness, their need, and that Christ is the full answer for their need? And if we can anyway, avoid reacting to their brokenness, and Minister life and grace to them, they may be drawn to the Lord. We have that opportunity. And I think God is saying something to us about this. I think this is the word of the Lord to us as a people. As Bev said, it may be to the church in America.
When I was first saved, I got into a church that got into a very highly authoritarian, the way you knew you are becoming holy, is you did everything the leader told you to do. And everybody had a leader over them, telling them what to do. Now, that was really unhealthy. And I left there, and was glad I did, and I missed some of the worst stuff they eventually got into. But I’ll tell you something interesting that happened. Somewhere down the road, I realized that my former pastor, and his associate who I had even more trouble with, were leaders in the community, in the church in the Seattle area. And I thought to myself, “You know, I don’t want to have any broken relationships with anybody.” So I made a lunch appointment with my former pastor. And I said… now think about this, I saw what he did as abusive, and I needed to get out from under it. I actually needed to get some ministry to rise above it after I left. But I sat down with him and had lunch, and asked his forgiveness, if in any way my leaving the church was not done in an honorable way. And he said, “You’re forgiven. Bless you. He invited me to be a part of his movement again, and God said, “Don’t you dare.” But you see, the relationship was healed.
So then I was in a meeting in Seattle, and the associate pastor who’d gone on to pastor a church himself, I ran into him in a meeting. And I thought, “You know, I’ve never cleared things with him.” And so I went to him, and I said, “Brother, I really want to ask you if there was any way that I dishonored you or inappropriately acted in our relationship in the past, I want you to forgive me.” And he said, “Oh, okay.” And we went our separate ways. The end of the meeting, he comes up, he says, “Well, Joe, if there’s anything I did, please forgive me.” Reconciliation happened. Now, I don’t go to either of their churches. I don’t really see those guys that often. But there isn’t an unresolved conflict between me and those leaders, even though I disagree with some of the things they taught. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was we were members of the same body.
Now, I’m not saying you have to chase down everybody that you’ve ever been angry with. That could take a week or two. But what I am saying is, it might be a health producing thing to ask the Lord if there’s anybody you need to make it right with. And it doesn’t have to be a really elaborate thing. It can just be a phone call or a cup of coffee or, you know, there are some situations where people just plain will not reconcile. But if you’ve made the effort, you’ve done the part you need to do. See, when this brother came back to me and and said, “Will you forgive me?” That was beyond what I expected.
Now I’ll tell you something that’s funny. I remember one situation when I was just, I wasn’t in the ministry and I was just, you know, young, zealous, charismatic. And some guy really was obnoxious and offended me. And I went to him and I said, “You know, I’ve been really offended at you, and I just wanted to ask you to forgive me.” Now, my expectation was, he would do like that other minister did and say, “Well, you’re right. If I offended you, please forgive me.” But he said, “You’re right, you really were a jerk.” No mention of anything he did wrong. But see, forgiveness isn’t a manipulation to get the other person to do anything. You’re doing that for yourself. You’re seeking reconciliation, so you have no issue that can affect your walk with God.
So this is the kind of thing that we’re talking about. Brethren dwelling together in unity. And it’s more it’s more important in the local expression that you’re involved with, that you you get things processed. If there’s been any offenses that…. you see, we’re looking for God to move mightily by his spirit and if Kenyons right, walking in love is a big factor. We’ve learned over the years, to bless people, no matter what they do. And sometimes that’s been hard, and it’s taken a while. Because sometimes people you know, the church would be perfect if it wasn’t for the humans. You know, it’s just amazing. If we can’t learn to love one another, how are we going to love the world? If we can’t love one another, who are committed to the same Lord and trying to grow in Christ, trying to be honorable people, how are we going to love the world? See, the church is a place where you learn love, so you can give it away outside the church.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus said, the Sower says the word. Satan comes immediately to steal the word that sown. So you hear about loving your brothers and sisters in the Lord, and then the next week, one of them does something totally outrageous, stupid and mean. Now you have two choices. Choice number one: “Boy, devil, you’re really dumb. I’m gonna go work this out.” Or choice number two: “Those stupid people. I just don’t know what’s wrong with them. Who can I tell about this?”
I just wrote something on a Facebook post about how the body of Christ you know, whenever the Spirit of God moves forward, and people are embracing new things, it usually brings controversy. One of the keys is to not get reactionary. And what I mean by that is, you see something that’s really helpful for you, you share it with somebody and they get mad at you and tell you why that’s wrong. And they’re brothers and sisters in the Lord. You have to make a choice that I’m not going to fight with a brother or sister in the Lord. And, you know, there was a big conference in Southern California by a major evangelical leader on why charismatic stuff is all totally of the devil and completely wrong. Now, I disagree. You probably suspected that. But we’re all going to go to heaven. We’re all going to be there. And Jesus loves us all the same. Does he think they are right to reject the charismatic gifts? I doubt that he does. But they think they’re walking in the light.
Do you know you can be wrong with the right heart. You can be wrong about doctrine, but have a right heart towards God. But it’s hard for one Christian, to be right about doctrine and another wrong and for them to get along. But I think if Jesus is really coming for a glorious church without spot, wrinkle or blemish, that’s been washed in the water of the word, and we’re being equipped until we come to the full knowledge of God, the unity of the faith, and unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, I wonder if changing our attitudes is going to move us toward that goal. Yeah, yeah.
So as I’m teaching this series, I’m not prophesying this, but I suspect that stuff will happen to you from other Christians. Why? Because the devil doesn’t want us walkin’ love. He can’t dominate us if we walk in love. So all the resentment, bitterness, and self focus stuff that we can react to, the things others do, we want, we need to guard our hearts. Why? Well, you know, it isn’t like wanting people’s acceptance so much that you compromise. It’s more like, you look for ways not to have conflict. I mean, have you ever had somebody just kind of get in your face? And you thought I could get in their face really good right now. But instead, you said, you know, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” Or you see, we all need to learn tools to handle conflict. Because if we don’t, then all the devil has to do is stir up conflict. And he’s got us all upset and out of the Spirit. I this making sense?
Well, now I’ll start my message. I’ll probably just continue next week. But I had a bunch of the passages in the book of Acts where it says that they were all in one accord, and God moved mightily. I don’t think there’s major areas of strife between us. But what I want us to do is to conscientiously look to be encouragers, and strengtheners, and edifiers of one another, and to come to church with the mindset that says, I’m going to come, I’m either going to give myself in worship, or I’m gonna seek to give a brief word of testimony or something, but come with a mindset that I want to contribute to what God is doing in our midst. Because it really struck me while we were singing that song, because for years, intercessors have been praying, send down the spirit. But the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is in every believer. What we really ought to be saying is “Lord release the spirit out of us, show us how to cooperate.” Because there’s no lack of spiritual power in the church. There’s just a lack of minds that know how to cooperate.
So you have a treasure in your earthen vessel. My job is to encourage you that you have something worth contributing to others, that there’s no ungifted members in the body. But what we want to do is learn how to use our gift to encourage, bless and edify others, so that we all will be looking at some of the passages where Paul just talks about how God intends to knit us together into unity with one another, and under the headship of our Savior. There’s a goal. See, the goal isn’t to get us to heaven. I know that’s a shock for many Christians. The goal isn’t to get us to heaven. The goal is to get heaven to earth to demonstrate to the lost what heavens gonna look like through a people who are experiencing heavenly realities.
You have something? This is what exactly what I’m talking about.
Testimony from Sheree:
This is just what God loves to do. You know, he is so waiting for us to just let him ooze out in love. I mean, I just say God, I want to be like a sieve, and just let your love ooze out. So where I live yesterday, the gentleman who owns the house, he’s like a brother to me, his mom, I, she was my sidekick for 30 years. So he senses that I’m going to be moving on also. Because I’ve told him, I’m too squeezed there. I need to be able to do art and all the things. But he gave a great big dinner party, prime rib and everything. And he invited people from the Shea’s Bar and Grill where he goes for karaoke, because he’s a wounded and out of the body experience. You know, he’s not wanting to be in the body. But he’s loving Jesus. So he invited people from the karaoke place to Shea’s bar. And they came and I said, Well, it was any sort of wanting to honor me, I said, Well, if it’s a party, and I’m a guest, special guests, I want to invite people to. So I invited Pilar and she came, and I invited my friend Katie, another believer, and she came.
And it was just a beautiful thing, what God did. Here, you know, here’s all of these people and, you know, kind of rough cut but dear, and we’re sitting at this long dinner table, because we put tables together and made it like a very special evening. And some of the people had left the table. And this one gentleman there. He says, Well, I’m going to have to leave the table soon, because I’ve got a problem. And my food doesn’t go down. And he said, My dad had this, my brother had this, and he says, I’ll have to get up and go take care of it. And I just thought, well, here we are believers, you know, two of us, three of us. And God says, Wherever three or more are gathered in his name. And I just said to him, I said, you know, that doesn’t sound like a blessing. That sounds like a curse to me. And I just gave him a little information, that there are spirits that follow down family lines. I mean, here, he said, The Father had it, the brother.
And I said, that is a curse upon you. And God can take that off of you. And I said, these two ladies, they’re believers. And God says, if we walk in unity, and aren’t fighting with each other, he will hear our prayers and answer. I said, So God’s gonna answer. Can we pray? He said, Sure. So no, I just made it simple. I just said, Father, in Jesus name you made Richard and you know how to fix him. And you know, we just bind that obstruction that is upon him, this curse, that is come upon him, and we just loose him from it and Jesus name. And he just looked so brightened. And after a little bit, he said, Well, I have to get up from the table because he was still expecting he was stuck. Went over to Brad, whose house it is talking to Brad and he said, all of a sudden, he just felt it was gone. And he was so happy. And you know, he was just like, This has never happened before.
So God through the unity of the believers, and reaching out to the souls that are wounded and out there, he did his miracle to glorify His name. And then kind of by 10 o’clock, everybody had gone and all the ones the karaoke singers and the Brad where I live, and they all went down to Shea’s because it was their night to sing. So everybody left and I said I’m gonna go down there, Lord. So I said, Do they think their getting away from me? But you know, not really with that attitude, but I just felt God’s saying go there. And also a woman, this Richards lady friend, she’s got issues, whatever she’s been through, and the Lord just had me put my, that gorgeous coat. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s God’s coat it’s not mine is just a tool. The Lord had me put it on her over my bedroom. And I know he’s had me buy beautiful little rings that were, you know, a buck each. And we put a ring on her finger, we put the coat on her, I had a tiara in my bedroom. I said, you know, the Lord loves you. He wants you to be his bride. He wants to wrap you in his in his garments. And she said, she has accepted the Lord in the past. So next, we’re going to have a tea party and get the demons off.
Down into one last little quick part. So I went down to Shea’s and it’s kind of a dark and seedy place, you know, it’s not the best looking place. So I went in there and I said well, and everybody’s oh, Sheree, you came down here and blah, blah, you know. Because it was all the same people had been at the dinner party. And I told the bartender I said, Well, I’ll have a glass of champagne. And he said, Cory, the girl with the coat. He said, she came in here. And she says, he says, You’re Sheree. She told what happened to her. You know, it’s like the woman at the well. She goes and tells everybody. So now everybody’s getting their expectations up. These treasures of darkness are, we’re gonna pluck them out of Shea’s, and they’re gonna come sing to the Lord over here. So, and I did get to sing Amazing Grace. It’s a karaoke place, you know? And so they said, Okay, it’s your turn. And I said, Okay, Lord, what can I sing? Let’s see, you know, and so amazing grace, and they had it on their disk, and another lady who seems there regularly who’s a preacher’s daughter, sitting in this dark hole. You know? I asked her, please sing with me. So we had a duet with low voices and Amen. So pray for Shea’s.
End of Testimony
Pastor Joe:
Yeah, that’s exactly what we want to see. You know, taking the light into the darkness. Praise God!
