Foundation Stones #4 – What the 3000 Received

Twelve men are walking down a street together. They go up a rather primitive staircase, go to a second-floor room. They’re going to hold a prayer meeting. It’s going to be a very memorable day in the lives of these 12 men. I’ve said to you there is a pattern that begins in the Godhead and moves forward and does not change. I want to look at that again on this Sunday morning. I want to introduce to you two words: called and sent. I do not know if the Lord Jesus Christ was ever called, but I can tell you about the day He was sent, when He was incarnated into His mother’s womb, and He was 100% man from His mother and He was 100% God from His Father God. He lived with the life of God in Him and the life of man in Him, but all this was taking place inside Him. God was in Him, but on the day He was baptized, the Holy Spirit clothed Him.

Do not think of the Holy Spirit coming inside Him at that time. You often hear people say that on that day, the Lord Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit; that is not true. On the day the Lord Jesus was baptized, there was no water poured inside Him. That cup is filled with water. It’s filled with water, but it is not immersed in the water. If you immerse it with water, then it is clothed with water. He was already filled with the life of God. He had been for 30 years, but this day, He was clothed, immersed in the Holy Spirit, outwardly clothed, not inwardly changed, outwardly clothed for service, and on that day, He began to serve the Lord.

Now, I wish every worker on earth would hear that it took Almighty and the living God, the Almighty and the living God, eternity and 30 years to prepare the sinless Son of God to be a Christian worker. It doesn’t take that long anymore. You can get saved on Monday and go out as a missionary Tuesday. How we’ve sped things up these days. That’s right. Eternity and 30 years, and finally sent, but not for us. Get saved. Go through Bible school, who knows what Bible school, what magic it’s supposed to perform, it doesn’t, and then we’re headed out for parts unknown. We’re headed out in 10 different directions to save the world. We can do faster and better than God can do. And consequently, something has happened. We have a large number of men today who have been called to the work, but we do not have a large number of men who have been sent.

There is a mighty difference between called to be a Christian worker and being sent out to serve the Lord, an enormous difference, and I believe of the tens of thousands of Christian young men who have been called, and this is a guess, and I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I think this – virtually none have ever truly been sent in the proper New Testament way in the living way of God. They have not been sent out by the Lord himself. Why? Because if the Lord is going to send you, then the Lord reserves the right to prepare you. If the Lord is going to send you, He reserves the right not only to prepare you, but prepare you properly. And furthermore, He won’t send you unless you’ve been prepared by Him, and prepared properly by Him, and knowing that you’re going to go out to do what He wants you to do. And there is only one thing He wants you to do. If He cannot prepare you, prepare you properly and send you out to do that which He wishes to do, He won’t send you. He will only call you. He’ll let the Baptist send you out. He’ll let the mission board send you out. He’ll let some youth organization send you out.

That day, there was introduced upon this earth, a sending, only after there had been an eternity and 30 years of preparation. Now I think I understand why there haven’t been so many people sent. They go too soon, prepared the wrong way, and go out to do the wrong thing. What did this apostle, the first apostle, get sent out to do? Tell me he was sent out to save the world. No, he was sent out to do something that reached from eternity to eternity. Salvation only reaches from the third chapter of Genesis to the 18th and 19th, the 20th to the 20th chapter of Revelation.

The fall begins in Genesis 3 and ends in Revelation 20. Yes, He did save us, but he saved us to stretch us out beyond Revelation 20 and out before Genesis 3. You know, this apostle was sent by God to raise up the church, the bride of Christ. That is what He was sent out for, and there’s never been anybody sent out by God to do anything else but to raise up and nurture the church of God. Not a mission for lepers. Not Bibles to China. Not a youth organization to evangelize the world. Not a little…club that sits around, studies the Bible for 40 years, and not a prayer group that’s going to pray down God out of heaven and get people healed and saved and bring in a great revival. None of that.  He will send only for the raising up of the church, and that’s what He did with Jesus Christ. The first thing the Lord Jesus did was get a group of men around Him and begin showing them church life in their little experience together.

All right, we now have 12 men starting a prayer meeting on in the second-story room, and they’re praying, and some others walk in. It’s daybreak. There are now 120 of them, and this is a Sunday in which there is celebrated a great Jewish holiday that has to do with baking two loaves of bread. This morning, these 12 men get sent. They were called four years ago in Galilee. Now they’re sitting in Jerusalem, and they are about to be sent, not to the lost house of Israel, not to lepers, not to this, not to that. They are going, well, let’s just watch and see where they get sent. You know where they get sent? You won’t believe where they get sent. Does anybody want to guess where they actually physically geographically get sent?

They get sent downstairs. That’s right. Think about it. They got sent all the way downstairs. That’s how far their great commission went, downstairs. They have been filled with His life for 50 days. It’s been 50 days since the resurrection. They are like this water filled with the life of God. But now there is a door that opens in the heavenlies, and a rushing something, like a rushing mighty wind, fills the room, and they’re in the room, so they get immersed, they get called upon for service, and they are sent out. They have been properly trained. Now listen to this.

God the Father sent Jesus Christ. God the Son sent the 12. This thing is just about this big, and it’s physically visible in Jerusalem. It’s so small we can hardly make out the outlines of it, but the pattern is still holding. Somebody in the Trinity has sent some men who’ve been properly prepared, and they were first filled with the Spirit at the time of their salvation. He came in, transformation has taken place within them, and now they’re being called on to serve Him. How long have they been prepared? They have been prepared by the living God for four years. For four years, they have been prepared. Of course, they’re going to go take the world. No, they’re going to go take the staircase downstairs. They’re going to walk about half a block. They’re going to stand out in the middle of the temple courtyard, and they’re going to explain to all these people who heard them yelling hard and want to know what’s going on. They’re going to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ, and a lot of those people get convicted and get saved, and those men now want to crusade to save the world. No, this is Sunday.

Sometimes in that great thing that happened that day, by the way, I would just like for you to be clear. It is said in Acts that the apostles spoke in tongues and the 120 spoke in tongues and they spoke in tongues and preached in the languages of other people. There is no record that those 3,000 spoke in tongues. We get the impression that all those people spoke in tongues and all of them got…At most 120 people spoke in tongues that night. Well, sometime that day they said to those 3,000 people, “Report back here tomorrow morning right over there under that shed. It’s called Solomon’s Porch and let’s get together.” Now, I am fascinated here by geography. I wish everybody who’s a Christian could hear what I’ve got to say right now.

The geography of this thing is incredible. First, geography. The Christian and church life are confined to a space no larger than God. Hello, eternally. Now, Jesus Christ is incarnated, and how far does the Christian faith and body life, church life, Christian fellowship, increase? It is now confined to one town. What’s the name of the town? Nazareth. All of it taking place inside one human being. Are you following me? And that’s where it stays. Again, look at the time span. 30 years. Now watch the geography and watch the time span. At the end of 30 years, there is an enormous cataclysmic increase in size.