All at His Feet

In the church here in Indianapolis, Indiana, you'll find people from every conceivable denomination together with others who have never been inside a church building in their lives to this day. We don't really represent any particular denomination or any particular way of thinking. Various eschatologies and views of God's sovereignty--and all those other issues--have all been woven into our life together as contributors to it. Doctrines like that have not been a test of fellowship. The entrance exam has never been, "Do you believe like we believe?" The issue is basically, "Will you sacrifice everything for the sake of Jesus? Will you forsake all to be Jesus' disciple?"

We probably should clear up this point. There's a misconception in the Christian world that it's possible to be a Christian without being a disciple. Some teach that to become a Christian today you accept Him as Savior and then retain an option to make Him Lord later on and become His disciple. One quick look at the scriptures should dispel that thought. In Acts 13 Luke says that "the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." So for ten years of biblical history involving tens of thousands of believers, followers of Jesus had simply been called His disciples. These Christians in Antioch had been disciples all along. A Christian is a disciple.

We want you to understand that for you own life, too. Jesus' concept of "disciple" is imperative for our lives. He told us, "Unless you forsake all, you cannot be My disciple." Well, according to Acts 13, that is exactly the same thing as saying, "Unless you forsake all, you cannot be a Christian." That doesn't mean that when we're saved all our problems and temptations instantly go away. But we start from a place of saying, "Jesus, you have anything you want." I have to work that decision out in my life day by day, and I need help doing it. But it's not a new decision each time. "Will I give up this? Will I obey that command? Will I do things the way God wants me to? Will I make this decision about my relationship with the church, or my relationship with an unsaved relative, or with a whole group of unbelieving friends? How will I respond at work to a situation?" Those are not new, unrelated decisions. Once I've given my life to Jesus and put my life on the altar and become a living sacrifice and forsaken all--the rest of my walk is not a matter of making new decisions but instead is simply the working out of my life decision with as much help as I can get.

One of the essential issues about the church really being the church is that most people have never had the help they've needed to overcome sin. A big percentage of the membership in most churches desire to do God's will, but are never able to get there, because they don't have the help. Why don't they? Because we're not "members of one another," we're not "bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ."

If we really were members of one another, then "growing up into the Head," "being compacted together," and "growing into the full measure of the stature of Christ" would be part of the process. We wouldn't even need Bible classes to do it! We wouldn't need discipleship partners or any form or organization or systematic teaching. You don't need any of those things, provided that people are truly devoted one to another and that the gifts and callings in Christ's body are invested in people who are all members of one another. If that's really the way we live, then God works out the part of our growing into maturity in Christ.

Back to the original question: The entrance exam here is, "Do you want to follow Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?" There's no way you could biblically make a case for a person being a Christian who answers, "Well, I don't know" to that question. So of course, a non-Christian is not going to be part of the church here! So the key issue isn't a person's eschatology, previous church background, or lack of church background. The question is whether he truly calls on the name of the Lord and chooses to give his life to Him, to live for and love and serve Him, and whether he's lost his life to take hold of Jesus' life and salvation. If so, then we're all going to be able to work together, and everyone's going to contribute to our understanding of life in Christ.

It really doesn't matter what background we come from. We have found a unity in Christ and consecration to Him. The only foreign object in a true church of Jesus would be someone who doesn't really want to live for Jesus.

"So, how are you treating your children?"

"Well, none of your business."

"How are things in your workplace? Are you sure that's an ethical sort of job to hold or a way to treat your employees?"

"Well, that's what I learned at a leadership conference. That's just the way I do it."

If that's the way a person lives, then he or she is a foreign object! The house of God is for those who have a revelation of Jesus being "high and lifted up." You can't be part of the church that Jesus is building, that the gates of hell can't prevail against, unless you have a revelation of Jesus that flesh and blood haven't given you. Jesus told Peter that the whole church was contingent upon the revelation of Jesus. The ekklesia that Jesus is building is totally dependent on seeing Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of Man, as the King of all the kings whom the Father Himself has revealed. That revelation isn't something we learned growing up in bible class with a flannel graph and lullabies, but something we've seen from heaven and therefore have responded to from the heart. Jesus can take living stones who have seen Him and possess a revelation of the Son of God, and He can build them into a house that the gates of hell cannot prevail against.

So that's what we're looking for. And that's the history. We've been living this way in Indianapolis for twenty years, but really I don't even think that's significant. I don't think it matters if we've been here five minutes or fifty years. The real issue is being on a foundation that Jesus can work with--and that's true where you are as well as where we are.

Indianapolis, Indiana USA

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