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

Now you know something you got to do? You got to figure out how to have that back in your hometown, and you got to figure out how to keep it. Get it and keep it, but you’re going to have to go through some of the embarrassing experiences those brothers did. You’re also going to have to learn how to fellowship with your Lord. And you’re going to have to learn how to share your fellowship with your Lord with others, and your brothers and sisters are going to need to learn how to fellowship with the Lord and share their fellowship with Him and with you. And then there’s kind of an explosion that happens when you share what you share and he shares what he shares, and then he gets a little from your sharing that you didn’t get from your sharing, and you get a little from his sharing that even he didn’t get from his sharing. He shares with you what he got from you that you didn’t even get. You share with him what you got from him that even he didn’t get. And it’s the church, and it’s caring, and it’s disliking, and it’s getting hurt, and it’s getting deeply hurt, and it’s forgiving, and it’s being forgiven, and it’s getting caught, getting caught really big, and it’s repenting, and it’s forgiving. I’d almost say it’s sinning, but it also includes the fact that we are actively presently engaged in being sinners and discovering that about one another. It’s enormous weaknesses.

I don’t think it’s a lot of meanness, ugliness. I don’t think it’s constant correction. I don’t think it’s the church is this, this, and this, and you got to have this, this, and this. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get those fingernails? Charles, do you have any idea how hard I labored to get those fingernails? Do you know how hard I worked to get the toenails on the end of my feet? You cannot imagine how difficult it was for me to produce this nose. Do you know how much I had to learn and study and strive and work and strain to get two eyeballs and get them to open and close and work and see? Do you have any idea how hard I worked at that? How hard did I work at that? I would say I didn’t have anything to do with it. I would say that it is the nature of my body to produce a fingernail, and an ear, and a nose, and two eyes.

And the 10 administrations and the 12 duties of an apostle, and the 15 duties of a deacon, and 20 things an elder ought to know and do, and the qualifications of an elder and the difference between an elder and a bishop. There ain’t no difference. Two people get together in a graveyard. We’re going to have a human being. Let’s get an eyeball out of that grave and a foot out of that grave. Let’s get a neck out of that grave. Let’s get some hair out of that one over there. Let’s get a stomach over there, and you get it all put together and you sew it together and there it lays.

One hideous monstrosity made up of 150 concepts from 150 different dead places. And there it lays, and you stand up straight and you look real proud and you say, “Ah, now there is a human being.” That’s not the way you get a human being. The best way you get a human being is to start with a little bitty baby and let it grow. Feed it and let it grow. If by any chance that thing that you made there in the graveyard were to come alive, you know what it’d be? A monster. They got a name for that already. That’s right. His name’s Frank. Frank Stein. And yet, all over this country and all over the world, people get together and put their noses in a book, and they write it down. We got to have an elder. What does he have to do? He has to do this, this, and this. We got to have deacons. Yeah. And how many? Seven. What do they do? This, this, and this. And we’re going to have elders. and they sew it all together and bless it and say that’s the church.

Take a little baby and feed it. Let it grow and eventually it’ll have an eyeball and a neck and an arm and a leg and fingernails and hair just by being what it is. You’ll take a group of people and show them how to live by a life not their own and let them share with one another, and sing with one another, and care for one another, and hate one another, forgive one another and talk with one another, and go back and repent. That’s very divine. That is really divine when a man can repent. You know what’s even more divine, is to forgive. And what’s really divine is to be forgiven. Praise the Lord. And if you can hold together, what you need is you need somebody who spent four years in Galilee to be there to help you. And what is needed so desperately is workers who were not workers but who were brothers in the church. We need some saints who lived in Galilee. Do you follow me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Then you might have the church.

We keep wanting to start off with Jerusalem. The Lord started with Galilee. Then He got Jerusalem. There were 12 men there to keep it together. I’m really sad to tell you this but getting a group of people together and showing them how to live by the Lord’s life and fellowshipping with Him, there’s something needed. You need a worker, but not some guy who stood up and said, “I’m a worker,” but some guy who came from Galilee who’s already been through this before you did. We desperately need someone who’s been there and been through what you’ve not been through yet, and the only reason we don’t have it, is we don’t have enough humble workers who go back to Galilee first. Do you understand what I’m saying? Everybody wants to start off being a worker and kind of learn how to be one on the job. He doesn’t want to be a pre-worker. He doesn’t want to sit down and go through Galilee. He wants to start leading at Jerusalem with no past experience in church life. That is the big mess of the church of God today.