Foundation Stones #5 – Living by a Life Not Your Own | Christ Within You & the True Christian Life

Now, those men were learning three things. They were learning to be Christians. They were learning to be members of the body of Christ, church members. They were learning church life, and those six were learning to be workers. They were learning the Christian life. You cannot tell me they were studying their Bible. They didn’t have a Bible study. You cannot tell me that they were speaking in tongues for the growth of their Christian life. I just don’t believe it. It may be true, and I still don’t believe it. They may have been praying, but I doubt they were praying the way we do.

They were learning an internal Christ, that’s what they were doing. They were learning a Christ within, and they were learning to fellowship with Him, and they were learning to live by His life, and they were learning to fellowship with the Father and hear voices and respond and obey, and that takes a long time. And they were also being crushed. And I want you to know something, they were there for six years at least. And they did not serve the Lord as Christians. They watched 12 men serve the Lord, but they did not serve the Lord.

They had the wonderful privilege of not serving God. Those 12 men were now serving the Lord, but when they had sat under Christ in Galilee, they had not served the Lord. Church members. What do they know about what the church was? To them, first and foremost, the church was watching those 12 apostles get along with one another, have fun with one another.

I have this daydream of the day, one day, three or four thousand people leave Solomon’s porch. They’re all gone, and the 12 are sitting there talking to one another about some of the things of the day, and they get up to leave, and they have a moment of just real joy from all that’s happening. They can’t believe all these thousands of people are listening to them, after all just a just short time before they were a bunch of donuts holes and they can’t believe what God is doing in and through them, and they go to leave the Solomon’s porch and they get arm-in-arm with one another and they start shouting and singing and they skip out of the courtyard.

Now you won’t find that in the Bible, but I have this impression, and the people watch that. You know something, I can almost guarantee you that happened, I can guarantee that to you by something that happened last year in Jerusalem. I want you to listen to this. I said in the book, Revolution, The Early Church, that this happened, but let me tell you what happened last year in the city of Jerusalem.

There was a convention held in Jerusalem last year of Jews – Christian Jews. They held a convention in the city of Jerusalem last year, and do you know the first thing those people did after they got there? They marched through the streets of Jerusalem singing. Jewish Christians did that just in Jerusalem. I knew that 20 years ago, they just would do that with that much abundance and overflow of life. It has to be, and I’ll tell you why, because in the Old Testament, before there was an indwelling Christ, the Jewish people used to march through the cities of Jerusalem singing, praising their God. Do you think the Old Testament believers would do more than a New Covenant believer? Impossible.

There was a lot of joy there. The first thing those people, those 3,000 people, and those six young men knew about the church was watching those 12 men fellowship together. May the Lord raise up a witness to what the church is in the lives of some men. And I hope before we leave this summer, and I’m sorry for all the problems we’re having with the city, but I hope one night before we leave, we’re going to all go into the cemetery. We will probably get arrested. That’s alright. We’re going to go to the cemetery and we’re going to make noise. They won’t let us make noise here. We’re going out there and we’re going to make noise.

While you’re out there in that cemetery making noise, you’re going to learn things about the church, the body of Christ, that you can’t learn anywhere else but out there, and don’t ask me how I can prove that or how I know it, but it’s true. Chuck, we learned things about what the church was at airports that we could never learn anywhere else on earth, what the church is, what the church is. First, they knew from those 12 men’s lives. Secondly, they knew from what was happening in their homes when they got together in the evenings, where they were living in common, that to them was the church. When they came home from those glorious meetings with those apostles and came home and shared with one another their joy, that was the church to them.

You know, we’re going to have to find a place in Portland, Maine, where we can make noise. We’ve got to find a place. Otherwise, we’re going to have to go out and we’re going to have to buy a pasture and build a place where we can make noise, but God’s people have got a right to make noise outside a meeting room and to make all they want inside a meeting room without having to put up soundproof material. We have to do this. We have to find a way to do it.

Well, I’m going to end this tonight by telling you something very unbelievable. I ask you this question: “How thorough was Jesus’ preparation of those 12 men?” And the answer is mindboggling. And here is my illustration. Put this up against a seminary or a Bible school.

Have you ever heard of anybody preparing for a revival 10 years in advance? Well, Jesus Christ did, when He was in Galilee with 12 men. He sent them out into Galilee for one week to preach the gospel. He said, “If the city that you go to receives you, stay there.” That means they’d be in one city for one week, right? Come back, report to Him. If that city doesn’t receive you, go to the next one, keep going till you find one that does receive you, and stay there. So, they were in one city for one week. Let’s say they all hit it lucky and they all were in the city for a week. That’s how many cities in Galilee heard the gospel preached by these men? Six. And then a short time later, He gathered up all His disciples, probably, and He sent out 70. How many cities were there? 35 cities. So 35 and 6 is 41. 41 cities.

Were any churches built? Anything lasting done? Then, will you please tell me why He did that? Why send 12 men? Why send 35 pairs out to 35 towns, spend a week there, and come back? Why? There are two reasons. They came back home and sat down with Jesus, and He talked about it and He filled in blanks and He told them what they did wrong, what they did right, and what this and what that, and He answered all the questions they had, and I hope you have that privilege. You have a right to that. That is a scriptural, organic to God’s nature, divine right of yours, to serve the Lord one week, come home, and ask questions about it. I’ll tell you why. You know what the Lord was doing? You wouldn’t believe what the Lord was doing. This is the other thing.