The Coming Divine Reset of the Body of Christ: Living in Simplicity and Purity to Christ as God’s Family

By Lloyd Gardner

Have we allowed church life to become so complicated and mingled with the world's ways that we are producing something other than what is the desire of God's heart? This book makes the case that God always intended that his church remain simple and pure in its devotion to Christ. The church is the family of God headed up by the Father, redeemed by the Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and composed of the children of God who love him and one another. God is calling us all to this place of simplicity and purity in which we break free of the world's clutches and live in the freedom and joy of his kingdom expressed in his church. Listen with your spiritual ears and you will hear the call and be blessed to come back to the church Christ died to build.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666777253

Lloyd Gardner

Lloyd Gardner is a former pastor and teacher who walked away from professional ministry years ago to take part in servant ministry in the body of Christ where brothers and sisters serve one another by sharing Christ and growing together in him as members of Christ’s family. Lloyd writes to encourage people to return to an honest exploration of God’s word as led by the Holy Spirit to discover Christ’s eternal purpose and how it is to be realized in our lives.

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Introduction

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and came to Christ the summer of my first year in college. I was so excited about being saved by grace through faith that I started reading about the amazing beginning of the church in the book of Acts. There I saw new believers living a simple life breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart (Acts 2:46, 47). They were simply coming together around a family meal with one another and Christ as the guest of honor.

I couldn’t wait to go to my wife’s traditional church to see some of this amazing life being experienced in our home town. How surprised I was to see the performance-oriented, man-controlled, lifeless ritual of that modern church. I was devastated in my naiveté to see that things were not the same as they were in the beginning days of the church.

From that day forward I began a journey seeking God’s perfect will for His church, believing that the same Holy Spirit who inspired those early days was still alive today and the Bible as written would guide us into His truth. I have continued that journey my entire life always believing that God desires to restore the body of Christ to its original glory. This book arose from that journey.

This summary of the results of my spiritual journey was not written to say that we should abolish the traditional church but to provide a scripture-based alternative for people who seek a form of corporate worship in which they can prosper and grow in Christ.

Jesus promised "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). He assured us who believe that we would experience rivers of living water flowing out of our lives (John 7:38). He spoke of a church against which the gates of Hades would not prevail (Matt. 16:18). My journey seeking this abundant life and the church growing from it, has led me to the truths presented in this book.

Meanwhile, it is apparent that something is happening in our world. Anyone with an ear to the voice of the Holy Spirit can tell that great spiritual upheaval is on the way. Some of the change may be devastating but God will use it to work His good purpose in our lives if we will let Him. The face of what we see as the church is changing before our eyes and more change is on the way affecting every person in one way or another.

This book is intended to prepare you for the changes you may face in the coming days. In such times as these, God steps in to fill the void created by our obstinate traditionalism that keeps us in a place of staleness, weakness, compromise and disorder.

Our God is on the move in the hearts of genuine seekers of His truth. While many are rejecting their faith and Christ Himself, a hungry underground church is quietly growing with a desire to see the promises of Christ fulfilled in tangible ways for all to see. Many are rejecting the unproductive man made religion in its many forms and are seeking a scriptural alternative for His church (Matt. 7:7).

So, this book points you to 2 Corinthians 11:3: "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." Paul was afraid for the Corinthian believers and I am afraid for today’s churches for a similar reason. It is time for a return to simplicity and purity away from the complicated, business-driven version of the church.

I pray you will join me on my journey seeking a reset of the body of Christ that God is preparing.

Definitions of Terms Used:

CHURCH: Throughout this book I will use the word church to stand for the redeemed people of God. The church is the people of God who have been redeemed by the cross of Jesus Christ. I will not use it of the programmed, institutional organization we often refer to as church. Many of God’s people are in that system but believers are the church not the structured system. In the Greek the word is ekklesia which was used by Jesus to refer to the authoritative body of believers who would exercise His will on earth and thus defeat His enemy (Matt. 16:18). It is often referred to as the body of Christ. Paul says that body of Christ is The fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:23). The word church is from an Old English word that usually refers to a religious building or programs connected to it whereas the church, the body of Christ, is His faithful people.

MINISTRY: The Old English word ministry simply meant service. A minister is a servant. Unfortunately, we use the word to refer to elite preachers who have degrees and know theology. We will use the word in its biblical sense of God-ordained service to others. The word teaches that every believer is a minister and possesses a ministry of service to others.

RELIGION: We usually think of religion in a positive sense but I will generally use the word to refer to man’s attempts to please God by human effort apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Religion is what man makes of God. Christianity is what God makes of man.

ORGANIZED CHURCH: Sometimes I will use words like organized, traditional, institutional or programmed to refer to the massive human constructed organizations that assume the name of church.

Many genuine believers are in these organizations but the church remains the people of God not the system in which they participate.

CHAPTER 1

What Is on God’s Heart?

He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

—Eph 1:9, 10

Before praying for their daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prayed for His Father’s name to be holy, His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as in heaven (Matt 6:11). Jesus cared for what His Father wanted. We too need to be seeking to say and do what is in the Father’s heart. We need to continually ask, What does God want?

It is very obvious that our modern understanding of God’s will often misses the mark on this question. Perhaps this is so because we are so influenced by the world that we cannot spiritually understand what God desires. Paul says it this way, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2).

Paul is saying that we cannot prove what the will of God is unless we are undergoing transformation by the renewing of our minds. The word Paul used for prove here means to test something so it can either be accepted or rejected. God wants us to seek His will through His word, guided by the Holy Spirit, until we see His will fully and embrace it with joy. Verse one in this passage tells us the context in which this happens:

"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."

Our reason for being here, our spiritual service of worship is to give ourselves fully to Him as a living sacrifice that God receives.

The whole of Romans 12 is about life in the body of Christ. This transformation that enables us to know the will or purpose of God happens in the context of genuine fellowship with other believers with Christ in our midst. There, growing with other believers, we begin to see and live by what God wants. The Christian life is not only an individual experience but a corporate life lived in union with other believers.

The Father wants His Son’s purpose to be fulfilled. In the amazing summary of Ephesians chapter one, we see how our destiny aligns with the purpose of God. Read the chapter and you will see what God wants. He begins by reminding us of all the many blessings of redemption in Christ that He has lavished on us. Then he shows us how all of these blessings fit into God’s purpose:

He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth (Eph

1

:

9

,

10

).

That passage should stir us to the core of our being. The apostle is telling us that the mystery of God’s will has been revealed. It can be known by those who seek it. That mystery involves a divine program (administration) especially culminating at the fullness of the times. When this fullness is complete He will have summed up all things in Christ. The words summing up mean to add up all the events of history past and future, draw a line at the bottom of the events and the total will be Christ.

What God wants is for His Son, the Christ, the one anointed from eternity past, to accomplish what He was chosen to do. Christ filling all things and being fulfilled is what the Father wants. Some say this time will be completed at the end of the Millennium. Regardless, the process started with the coming of the Christ.

In doing so God has lifted us who are in Christ out of time and into eternity. This is the meaning of Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27). This is the meaning of the saying that the Father ". . . raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6). The apostle assures us that . . . it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him (Col 1:19) and we are already, as His saints, part of that fullness. That’s why the body of Christ is called the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph 1:23).

This has been fully accomplished in heaven but now God turns His attention to earth. He has granted those who believe in Him an inheritance and sealed us with the promise of the Holy Spirit as a pledge for the time when He will gain the redemption of the possession for which He was anointed (Eph 1:14). That possession is us, His church, His ekklesia, His promised bride. He died to redeem us, was raised from the dead, and seated at the right hand of the Father above all power, authority and dominion (vv. 20, 21).

But that was not the end of the story. After His glorification, He was given as Head over all things to the church (v. 22). After all that blessing, Christ was given to the church. He was given to us to fulfill that last part of God’s eternal purpose. For this reason, as I have said, we are referred to as His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (v. 23). In His love, the Father has chosen to complete the last age of earth by pouring Himself into His people, those who love Him and follow Him and are His fullness.

This is what God wants—a people who are the fullness, the completion, those who fill up His purpose—He desires to be in His people as the hope of glory (Col 1:27). If you are in Christ, you are part of this eternal triumph. If you are outside of Christ, you are excluded from this eternal culmination of the ages.

From the tragedy of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve forfeited their position in God; to the reversal of that disaster through the cross of Christ; to the pouring out of His Spirit upon a receptive people; to the coming redemption of His purpose at the end of this