Foundation Stones (Part 3) – Jesus w/the 12 – The Forgotten Foundation of Christian Life

I’m going to meet one of these apostles four years from now. I’m going to be a brand-new Christian, and I will have no idea what they have been through these last three and a half, four years. They will know. I will not, but I will respect them, whatever they give me is what I’m going to believe. So I really need to know what they know. At this point, I really need to know what these men have been through. If the church of God is to go on, I need to know what they’ve been through. And I’ve already told you what they’ve been through. They’ve been through exactly what the Lord’s been through in Nazareth and in eternity past.

They don’t have the foggiest idea what the church is. If you were to go out to the Bedouins in Saudi Arabia and pick some Saudi Arabian up off of a camel who had never heard of a Christian in his life and ask him what a church was, he would know about as well as these disciples do right now. What do they know? Do they know they’re going to found the church? They don’t know that. What do they know? Is it important that they know, or for them to know? You bet your life it is important that they know because they are the foundation and pillar of the church, but they don’t know. That’s frightening.

They could come up with the idea that the church was a vase full of oil, that it was a gold box, that it was a camel-haired suit, that it was a package full of locust leaves, wings. I don’t know what they might think the church is, and it’s very important that you know what they know, or you are going to be messed up on what the church is. Kevin, I’m not sure you know what the church is. Rich, I’m not sure you know what the church is. I’m not sure you know what you’re going to do when you take a little experience you’ve had here back. Scott, what is the church? Timothy, what is the church? Don’t quote the epistles to me. Don’t tell me the book of Revelation. Don’t go to the book of Acts with me. Go back there to Galilee with those 12 men and ask me there, “What do those men understand the church to be?” That’s where it came from. Do you understand? Oh, I can read the epistles and say, “This is the church.” I can read Revelation and say, “Revelation 1, 2, and 3, show me what the church is.” The book of Acts opens and reveals the church to me. Don’t tell me that the church was built on 12 men. What did they understand the church to be?

They are the headwaters. Well, they understood it to be. What they saw inside their Lord. What was the church to 12 picky, undisciplined men who were about to live with the Lord for four years? What? Scott, what was it for them? They didn’t know. But what was it? And 12 men. Let’s look at it.

What is the church? What ought the church to be? What was the first church life ever experienced by a fallen man? It was a hot dusty road, where about 20 people all gathered around the Lord, walking from one town to another, singing along the road, a psalm along the road, stopping and eating lunch together, maybe really rejoicing and telling one another over and over about this story about this child that rose from the dead and just being euphoric over the fact that they had lived to see someone raised from the dead. Cooking the meal together in the joy and glory of the wonderful hour after they had fed 5,000. And now the magic of food is gone, and they’re having to sit there and eat food. Look, it doesn’t divide anymore. I would have declared it kept that up forever, but it’s not. One of them telling what they heard one person say on this side of the hill when they fed 5,000 people, what some old lady said over here on the other side of the hill when she sat down and ate the food. What someone thought about the taste of the fish, and these 10 or 12 or 15, 20 people retelling to one another the story of what they saw Jesus do.

Have you ever been in something really exciting as a Christian? Have you ever had something exciting happen? Where was it? It doesn’t matter where it was, but when you went home, do you remember retelling it to one another? You’ve surely had that experience, have you not, Scott? You’ve had that experience. Roy, do you know why I’m talking now? Well, did you ever see a bunch of fireworks go off somewhere and you got home and retold one another how beautiful it was? Did you ever go to a circus and come home and retell one another what you saw?