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

It is important that you know that, and if there’s anyone out there who has some dream of one day being an apostle or a Christian worker, brother, that better be your concept of what the church is. Brothers, that’s when you go back home, that’s what your concept of the church has got to be. The daily discovery of Christ and sharing the discovery of Christ with one another. Watching Him, discovering Him as you watch Him, listening to Him, and discovering Him as you listen to Him, and then sharing with Him and with your brothers and your sisters what you’ve discovered.

It begins that primitive. It begins that primitive. It begins that simple. It begins that small and that uncomplicated. That’s what they understood the church to be. That is what Jesus Christ understood the church to be before He ever met any of them. He understood that in Nazareth over a bench He was making. This is what He understood the church to be in eternity. In eternity, that was the church to Him. The only difference now is it has been complicated by the fact that a lot of fallen people are getting involved and they are messy, and they are going to mess up everything. They’re going to want something else or better. Someone’s going to want to make sure that 10 people get healed every day. That some new glorious revelation happens every time you meet. That there will be no downs, there will always be ups, that this, you remember what we had back in Galilee with the Lord. I miss it so much now with what’s going on. He’s hanging on a tree over there. He’s dead.

That’s also part of the history of the church. They took Him out of a garden and took Him away from them. That’s also part of the experience of the body of Christ. The people of God. Three days He lies in a tomb, and there is no God in this universe. That’s also an experience of the brothers and sisters. There’s the loss of Lazarus and Mary and Martha’s confusion. That’s also part of the experience. The fact that Jesus is called an illegitimate, a man with a demon. The fact that He was persecuted, that was also part of their experience. Hey, you know something else? Going from one town to another, it rained, and they got soaked to the skin and the wind blew and it got cold and they didn’t have any food that day. That’s also part of the experience of that little group of people.

They got out in the middle of a boat one day and the boat got swamped. You know what a swamp boat means? I know you know what that means. The boat got swamped and it began to sink. That’s also part of their experience. Well, you say yes, but the resurrection was part of their experience, too. Praise the Lord. That’s true. But don’t forget that preceding the resurrection was three days that seemed like forever, and that was part of the experience of those men together, and that is going to be part of your experience, too. So don’t always think it’s going to be 5,000 people miraculously healed or 3,000 people gloriously converted, or every day the Lord’s going to rise from the tomb. I’ll tell you something else that was part of the experience of the first body of believers. Did you know what it was?

Judas. Judas Iscariot was part of the experience of that body of believers. And you really can’t have a church unless you’ve got at least a half a dozen good old first class Judas Iscariots in there. The problem is nobody knows which one Judas is, if we knew that’d be fine, but it’s the opinion as to who Judas is that really causes the problems. Brother Scott, would you come up here, please, just for a moment? I would appreciate it. Now then, I’m going to show you something. Come here real close. You see, I am sure that he is Judas. He is sure that I am Judas, and that’s where the fun comes. You know what? It may be found out that neither one of us are. Oh, maybe brother, but it’s more likely that both of us are, especially if we start calling one another. Okay. Thank you, brother. You’re right, Scott.

Oh, you don’t know how many people have been branded Judas, the devil, an angel of light, an angel of death, and what else, Timothy? What else? There must be a lot of other things that he has a demon, a false prophet. Come on, help me here. A heretic. What? All right. A real troublemaker. Who knows what? These things are also a part of the experience of the body of Christ. Are you hearing me? But that’s not going to happen to you when you get back home, is it? Everything those brothers went through is exactly what you’re going to go through.