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

Where these people were retelling what was the glorious things that were happening while they had been with Jesus Christ. Not the healing, not the multitudes being fed, but their fellowship together with the Lord after it was over. Sitting in a place with a thousand people and the Lord telling a parable no one understood. The people all go home. Two or three healings take place. A lot of who knows what else. Everybody goes home. The Lord’s very tired. He gets back to the living room. He sits down. It’s been a wonderful day, everybody’s just in the afterglow of seeing things they never dreamed would be seen, astonished that an entire town emptied out to hear Him. The rejoicing and the praising of people who were healed or people who were enlightened or people who had hope, seeing even Gentiles appear coming to hear Him speak. No, they sat down in a room. They’re crowded around.

Mary Magdalene comes out with some water and some fruit, and they all sit down and they drink the water and eat the fruit and they’re telling one another stories and the Lord says, “Did any of you understand that story I told out there?” And they all kind of drop their heads to say no, and one guesses and another one guesses and one of them gets something right and someone else gets a little of it right and they try to put it together and finally they look at the Lord and say you tell us about it. What did you really mean? And He says now I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what I meant.

The kingdom of the heavenlies, it’s like this. What’s it like? It’s like this and He tells it, where we’ve read the stories so we’re no longer astonished but they hadn’t read these stories. So they’re really astonished and then they talk, and they share and one of them tells the Lord, “Lord, you said something today, is this what you meant?” And when He gets through speaking and sharing it, everybody in the room goes, “Wow” and they know that He got it. And the Lord says, “Yes.” And another one says, “You, you mean, Thomas? Do you mean?” And he shares it, and everybody else says, “Wow” again, and this brother really knows he’s clear, and then Thomas is clear, and then three or four more say something. They share. They ask some questions. The Lord explains a little bit more and they say, “Wow” again.

They don’t have a foggiest idea what the church is, but they know what that is. It’s the thing they live for every day. To sit down and fellowship with Jesus Christ. Sing a little, share a little, all a little, rejoice a little, get confused a little, be dumb a lot, but just being there, just being there with Him and with fellas you started out liking, then got to hating, and then started forgiving, and then began to tolerate, and finally began to understand a little bit, and then started liking again and lo and behold, now you’re even loving the guy again. You’ve gone full cycle and you’re really beginning to appreciate this brother.

The only difference is now you know a lot of weaknesses about him that you didn’t know six months ago when you all started out, but this you know, you may not know the church but you know what it’s like to sit in a living room with Jesus Christ and talk to Him and share with one another the excitement and the profound awe of discovering things. He said, He meant, but most of all, learning more about Him from what He said and what He did. Say, “Praise the Lord.” Say it again. These people said it. Why don’t you say it?

I heard it all the way, out of that tape, and back this way. I heard someone back there say. Brothers, that was the church. That was the church. It wasn’t the fullness of the church, but it was the embryo, the forerunner, the microcosm, the prototype, the foundation, the embryonic beginnings of the church.