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Fellowship With an Indwelling God • Jul 23rd 2025

Foundation Stones (Part 4) Called or Sent – God’s Pattern for Christian Ministry and Church Life

Acts Fellowship First Century New Testament Organic Church

Many Christian workers are called, but far fewer are ever truly sent. In this foundational message, Gene Edwards unfolds the New Testament distinction between being called by God and being sent by God — a difference that reshapes how we understand ministry, preparation, and the purpose of the church.

Beginning with the life of Jesus Christ, this teaching shows that even the sinless Son of God was not sent into public ministry until after eternity and thirty years of preparation. Though filled with the life of God from birth, Jesus was clothed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism — not inwardly changed, but outwardly equipped for service. Only then did His public work begin.

This same divine pattern continues with the apostles. Though called years earlier in Galilee, they were not sent until the day of Pentecost. And when they were sent, their commission did not carry them across the world — it sent them down the stairs into Jerusalem. From there, church life unfolded slowly, deliberately, and organically over decades, not months.

This message challenges modern assumptions about ministry speed, Bible schools, mission boards, and self-appointed service. God does not send people He has not prepared. He prepares people to do one thing: raise up and nurture the church — the bride of Christ. Not organizations. Not movements. Not programs. Not religious systems.

Gene Edwards traces the geography and timing of the early church, showing how God values depth over scale, fellowship over spectacle, and shared life over performance. From Nazareth to Galilee, from Jerusalem to Judea, and finally to the nations, the expansion of the church followed God’s pace — not man’s urgency.

At the heart of this teaching is a recovery of Christ Himself. The apostles did not teach techniques, doctrines, or religious behavior. They declared what they had seen and heard, inviting others into fellowship with the Father and the Son. Church life was lived in homes, in shared meals, in mutual participation — not ritual or hierarchy.

If you are wrestling with questions about calling, ministry, church life, or spiritual preparation, this message provides a clear, Scripture-rooted perspective that cuts through modern confusion and brings us back to God’s original design.

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All three of these groups are represented in that 3,000. Here are 12 men who are human. You can’t be human until you’re truly divine. Until you’ve touched Christ’s divine humanity, you will just be a fallen human or a religious human. You’ll not be a human.

Being with this carpenter, being with a carpenter, changed their life, and they had become spiritual without being religious, and that’s quite a trick. That is quite a trick. I’ve told this story before. I’m going to tell it again. The meeting’s breaking up, and some young brother notices that the Apostle John is sitting over there by himself. He’s sitting on one of the foundations of one of the pillars of the temple.

This young brother has been listening to this man, and he just almost worships him, and today, for the first time in his life, he’s going to go talk to him. and he staggers over to this foundational pillar, foundation on which the pillar is resting, and there’s John sitting there, and this kid’s holding his heart and he’s just about to pass out. His heart’s going boom, boom, boom.

Finally, the young man gets up there and he says, “Mr. Apostle, I don’t want to bother you, but could I ask you a question? And John looks at him and says, “You’re scared, aren’t you?” And the kid almost dies. Yeah, I’m scared. He said, “You know, I understand that. I used to be afraid of the Lord. Come on up here. Let’s sit down and talk.” And the Apostle John leans back against the temple pillar, and he raises one leg up kind of like this and says, “What you got on your mind?” And the kid thinks to himself, “That’s the way my daddy used to talk to me. This man is just like my daddy. Why? He’s normal.” And he sits down, and he talks to a man about the Lord, but as he does, he senses a human he can identify with.

Do you think that happens very often? That is a very rare commodity. Why had it happened to John? Because he had moved into the inner fellowship of the circle, the inner circle of the fellowship of Christ, to the point he could fall asleep on his chest. There’s something about getting that close to the Lord that makes you human. It doesn’t make you religious. I am certain that my Lord was not religious.

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