Knit Together

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, that greeting establishes the fact that this is indeed your good friend, Dr. Cook, and that I’m glad to be back with you to discuss some of the precious truths in the Word of God and try to put a handle on them, so that you can get hold of them for yourself.

We’re in the second chapter of Colossians, and we’ve come now to Verse 19, where you have a beautiful profile of what it takes to have a healthy growing Christian experience and fellowship. He says, “Let no man beguile you of your reward by doing things that make you seem to look holy, voluntary humility.” In other words, if you do things to be seen of others, Jesus says in Matthew 6, you already have your earthly reward. You aren’t gonna get one in Heaven. So he says, don’t lose your reward, your heavenly reward by trying to do things to seem holy, worshipping of angels, don’t get into the occult. Intruding into those things which he hath not seen. Don’t get lost in theorizing, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, don’t get to be the victim of pride.

These are some of the things that rob you of your heavenly reward, Paul says, and not holding the head. This is the most important of those items that would rob you of your reward. When you forget to observe in everything in life, the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ, the head. Then you notice as we began the last time we got together, we laid out some of the truths that are found in Verse 19, concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and our relationship with him and with each other. The head, the body, the nourishment, the ministry, the oneness knit together, the increase, with the increase it says of God.

You wanna talk about that a little further? We talked about the head and the body, and we referred to 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul says quite graphically, if you’re an eye don’t look down on the hand, and if you’re a hand, don’t put down the importance of the eye or the ear, and so on. If everyone had the same gift, he said, what kind of a body would it be? But now he says, “God hath set us in the body as it hath pleased Him, members in particular, but all of us work together for God.”

You belong just the way you are, and what you are and who you are, beloved. Are you listening? Just the way you are, and what you are and who you are, you belong in Christ’s body, and He has given you a very special place to fill today as you live your life or tomorrow, because I know some of you listen late at night. Just ask the Lord Jesus to fulfill in and through you what He had in mind in making you the kind of person you are. Oh, what a blessed experience that’s going to be for you, beloved.

Now, he says, the head, the body, then he says, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered. Nourishment ministered. I said to the doctor, oh, two, three years ago, I said, “Doc, you know, it seems as though my toes are… They get numb. Do you think that I’m starting to have lateral sclerosis or something?” He laughed, he said, “Oh, come on,” he said. He said, “You’re just a victim of a little lack of circulation, you know. After all you’re not a spring chicken anymore.” He joshed me along and that was that. [chuckle] Lack of circulation, numbness? Does that say anything to you, if we brought that figure of speech over into our Christian relationships?

Well, perhaps it may. It says joints and bands having nourishment ministered. Now, remember, I said a moment ago, what you are and where you are, the way you are, and the situation in which you find yourself is part of God’s provision because you are special. You remember that? Now, follow that out to its conclusion and say to yourself, “I have a responsibility to minister to other people so that they will be nourished.” Your relationship with other people in the body of Christ is one not of being a policeman, not of being a disciplinarian and saying, “Here, you’re wrong, I’m gonna straighten you out or lay you out,” [chuckle] as the case may be. Not a disciplinarian, not a reformer, not even a lecturer, but to nourish, to strengthen by providing nourishment.

What nourishes a person’s Christian life? Well, the Word of God, obviously. Reference to the Word of God is always healthful. Every decision, every word, every idea ought to be tested by the Word of God. To the law, and to the testimony, said Isaiah, for if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. Nourishment, of course, the Word of God. What else?

Christian fellowship? Have you ever had the experience of having been with some dear saint of God, and as the time that you spent together ended, you felt refreshed and strengthened? That’s happened to me many a time. My dear friend, Ben Weiss, just slipped along into the presence of the Lord a few weeks ago. He was I think 90 some years old now, and had a good long life. In years past, I used to seek him out whenever I would go out to the West Coast. I would bring a notebook and a pen, and I would soak up all the good things he could tell me. Beyond what he told me, however, and taught me, it was the warmth and the blessing of his own Spirit-filled personality, which oftentimes refreshed my own soul. I felt better after I’d been with him. Same thing is true of others that I can remember in my lifetime. I would often seek out my good friend, Hubert Mitchell, who still ministers effectively on the West Coast of our country with Rachel, his wife. And I would seek him out and I’d say, Hubert, I need to seek the Lord, and he would pray with me. I remember on one particular occasion, we sought a lonely place on a country road somewhere in Indiana, and we parked the car and we got out on this lonesome country road in the early evening hour. There wasn’t a soul stirring.

It was a place where my father used to say, nobody lives and dogs bark at strangers. There wasn’t anything stirring around at all. We stood there in that lonesome country road, and Hubert Mitchell put his strong right hand on the back of my neck and pressed down quite forcefully, I remember, and prayed earnestly that God the Holy Spirit might endue me with the power I needed to preach that very night to a crowd of young people in Youth for Christ. I felt better after he had prayed with me. I went to preach with the solid consciousness that God was going to help me, which indeed he did. Now, this is part of your business to nourish other people. The Word of God is bred for their souls. The Spirit of God and the impact of your Godly life has the dynamism that is necessary to make a person feel refreshed because you came along, nourishment.

Do you do any of that, beloved? It must be admitted that most of us live pretty much for ourselves. We pray mostly for ourselves and God knows we need his help. But our concern needs to broaden, doesn’t it, for those around us? And we need to be aware of the fact that when we contact their lives, something does happen. And either we rub off some of our own human frailties and faults upon them, like the impact of a sheet of carbon paper smudging another page. Either we do that or else, by the enablement of the Spirit of God and by the force of God’s Word working within us, we are able to encourage and strengthen and nourish them.

Your job, beloved, because you belong to other members of Christ’s body, is not to reform but to nourish and strengthen and encourage other people. By the way, this encouragement is a byproduct. You don’t walk up to somebody and say, “Now, brother, I want to encourage you and help you and strengthen you in the Lord.” No, you’re not going to do that. It’s a by-product, just as happiness is and joy and peace. All of the wonderful experiences which we treasure in Christ turn out to be by-products of His own presence in our lives.

And your beneficial effect upon other people will be a by-product of the kind of person you are, full of the Holy Spirit. Paul said of someone that he was greatly encouraged by the coming. I think it was Timothy, by the coming of Timothy. He was encouraged to by the presence of this young man. Well, just remember, people will grow in grace as a by-product of your being around, if you are full of the Word of God and full of the Spirit of God. It’s quite a truth, isn’t it?

Now he says, having nourishment ministered, ministry is sharing God with people at the point of their need. How do I minister to somebody else? Number one, I have to get with him. Number two, I have to care about him. Number three, I have to establish rapport with him, so he feels safe with me. And number four, I have to find out what’s hurting him, so that I can apply the truth of God and the love of God and the Spirit of God to the point of his need. Sharing God with people at the point of their need is ministry.

Do you ever do that? You know, you can’t approach a person officially about this. You minister to people by, as I said… Remember that little sequence: Get with them, care about them, establish rapport with them, and find out where they’re hurting, and apply the hurt to the Word of God, or vice versa. Don’t make a federal case of it. Don’t be officious about it. Just let the Spirit of God use you as you find out where people are hurting, where they’re burdened, where they’re upset, where they’re fearful, or where they’re guilty and then bring God’s Word and God’s love and God’s Spirit to bear in those areas ministered. And as a result of your ministry, they will be nourished, having nourishment ministered. You see the idea?

Now, look where we have come. The head, the body, the nourishment, the ministry. Alright, then what? And knit together. Oneness in Christ, knit together. Knitting is different from sewing. A garment that is knit has every part of it dependent upon all of it, because it is intertwined. And the strength of the garment depends upon that intertwining. When the intertwining ceases, the garment ceases to be effective.

Knit together means I am dependent upon you and you are dependent upon me, and together we serve the purpose that God has in mind. Now, it must be admitted that people are different, and that they have different capabilities. Some can minister to large crowds and carry large responsibilities. Others are more limited. This is evidently the case, but the truth that God would have us realize right now is that gifted as you may be, beloved, you still depend upon God’s little people in order to get the work done. And limited though you may be, beloved, you are still part of others who are seemingly doing a much greater piece of work. We need each other.

Dear Father, today, help us to minister to others, so they’d be nourished in Christ, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!