The Apostle: Office Gifts of the Holy Spirit

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You all look amazing today.

I can't see you.

Thank you, Connor.

Now I can see some of you.

All right, so today we're going to go into the apostle, but before we do the apostle, I want to do a little recap.

And I thought, because, I don't know, I just had a thought.

Like maybe it's a good thought, maybe it's a bad thought.

But I had a thought that we were going to use analogy this week to kind of recap all of the gifts of the spirit before we get into apostle today.

And so I grabbed the first thing, there's nothing in it.

So like everybody's like, oh, Kim and Sarah are being bought with a MacBook Air.

There's literally nothing in it.

I just grabbed, it would work.

I grabbed the first thing that I could see in the office back there.

And so there's nothing in it.

Like I would never drop a Mac, maybe a Dell.

At least one person in here knows that joke.

But so I'm just an analogy here.

So Sarah and Kim, I want you to take this from me.

Okay.

I wasn't ready.

Give it back.

Okay.

I want you to take it from me.

You need to take it from me.

Okay.

I'm going to try harder this time.

I need you to take it from me.

All right.

Thank you.

Take it from me.

You can't take something that's freely given.

I freely gave it to them.

So as they went to grab it, I wasn't resisting them taking it from me.

I was freely giving it to them.

The gifts of the spirit are freely given to each and every one of you.

So I don't understand why a lot of times we have these issues where we're trying to take something.

This guitar back here, Connor, hey, can you put a lot of light over here now?

I know you can.

I believe in you.

There's power in the name of Jesus.

And he said, "Let there be light."

This guitar is a really, really pretty guitar.

This was a gift, but it wasn't a gift that was given to me.

It was a gift that was given to somebody else.

But if I take this, it wasn't given to me.

I'm taking it.

It was given to somebody else.

So when we look at the office gifts, whether it's the pastor, the prophet, the apostle, the teacher, the evangelist—yeah, we can go back down to like 80% now.

Thanks, Connor.

When we look at those offices, the Lord, through His Holy Spirit, gives that freely.

But whatever gift He's freely given to you, if at any point in time I think I need to take it, I am then taking it.

It's not being freely given to me.

So if you're given the gift of the office of the evangelist, and your gift is to evangelize to others, and my gift is to be a teacher, which I would not say is my gift, but if that's my gift, and I decide that I want to be the evangelist and I don't want to be the teacher, and so Eric, I come and I try to take your gift of evangelism for myself, that is not freely given to me.

It was freely given to Eric.

Just as if the roles were reversed.

And so being freely given is not something that we can take from God.

It is something He freely gives to you.

And so how we approach the office gifts as we wrap up this week is very important.

Why is that important?

Because it's the same thing with the manifestations of God.

Back to the first part of this series where Brent talked about the different manifestations, they are gifts that are given.

What happens when you go try to take something from God?

It's not good.

We wrap this up with that because next week we're going to start into the series on bearing fruit.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So the gifts are given, the office gifts are given, that we would then walk out and we would bear fruit.

And that's how we know whether the gift and the Spirit is of God or if it's of the adversary, which our flesh also interacts with too.

Our flesh gets to choose between the evil inclination, the Yetzirah, as the rabbis in Judaism would call it, which is the operation of the flesh or the operation of the Holy Spirit.

We have a choice.

Ephesians 2 tells us we should walk in it, which means many of us don't walk in it.

But it says before everyone has been given a gift.

So all of you have a gift, whether or not you're walking in it is not just done.

It's not just done.

It's not just, okay, we were given a gift so now we're walking in the gift, we're walking in the talent, we're walking in it.

It said, "No, we should choose to."

We should do it, which implies that some of us are going to choose not to do that.

Why were they given?

For the edification and the building up of the body.

Does anybody else think that like now more than ever maybe we need the building up of the body of Christ?

Last Saturday when we finished teaching about the teacher, Brent and I played musical pastors, Brent had spent most of the week on the campground of Camp Sooner where we had Covenant Youth Camp, our second year.

And he was the executive director, the camp director this year.

And he was going to be preaching at Northside Christian Church on Sunday morning.

And so that was about an hour and a half, I'm going to say roughly.

It was about an hour and a half of a drive.

And so he said, "Hey, can you please just come out here, spend the night on Saturday night so I can go home so I don't have as long of a drive?"

I said, "Sure, no problem.

We'll do that."

And so as we were playing musical pastors, we witnessed history on Saturday evening.

We witnessed somebody who tried to take the life of another person.

We witnessed evil manifest itself in front of our very eyes.

Nowadays with social media, you can watch it over and over and over again.

It's not like what my daughter told me.

She was like, "Man, when things go wrong, they try to take out the president."

And she was talking about Abraham Lincoln and that.

Like, Twitter wasn't lighting up that day.

Wait, it's X now, right?

Okay.

I'm old, sorry.

It's Twitter.

Okay, awesome.

Awesome.

Thanks, Jacob.

Jacob's very quick to correct me all the time.

It's why he's a great deacon.

And so Twitter lights up.

Then what do we see this week?

We saw the polar opposites of trying to make sense of what took place.

And the truth is that I don't know that we will ever know, but I do know that God knows all things and He knows what happens.

But political violence and violence against anyone is never the acceptable answer.

Right now it would appear, when we look at the office gifts, that it is to build up the body and it appears like this past week somebody, some thing, some force wants to tear apart God's children.

And I don't just say God's children are somehow just Republican or Democrat.

I think that's false.

I think when we just align our faith in the Kingdom of God to just one political party, I think that that is void of being truthful.

But the reality of where we're at is we are a nation that is divided and the office gifts that were given were to build up a holy nation, a royal priesthood in all nations.

The apostle is one that I have wrestled with a lot.

I actually had wanted to start with this office and this was my intention when I was doing this studying is that the apostle was going to be the first one I was going to go into.

And as I started to study and as I started to read and I started to have other pastor friends of mine recommend other books, I started to realize that my concept of an apostle was incomplete and I didn't understand all the different centuries of arguments on this specific office.

Now there's two main schools of thoughts when it comes to the office gifts.

One is that these office gifts were predominantly first century.

They were given to the first 12 apostles and they were used to further the kingdom and to establish the kingdom of Christ through the church after the death, burial and resurrection.

The other is that these were given to the apostles, but it's also something that manifests and works today in our midst.

I would say that I am in that.

I believe all of the office gifts and the manifestation gifts of the Lord and the fruit gifts of the Lord are all very much operable today in our walk.

But as I went down those rabbit trails and I went down those holes into all these different thoughts and the centuries of debates and all of the different thought processes that have been expounded upon over and over again across all kinds of different denominational lines, I found myself really changing what my original thought process and road was going to be for this sermon.

And so I moved it to the very end to allow myself to have more time to pray, fast, study and counsel before this sermon.

See some people use terminology like discipleship.

The disciples and the apostles lump together.

They're interwoven.

Yet this is void of the New Testament because Jesus had more than 12 disciples.

He discipled more than 12 people.

But there was 12 apostles.

There was 12 main disciples.

There was that inner network of people.

But they weren't just those.

There's many others that are talked about.

There's many others that traveled with him that don't move on into the foundations of the church, the leadership of the church.

It's also somewhat understood and from where we come in the roots of Christianity and that little corner of Christianity, Catholicism kind of gets a bad rap.

And we talk about how all modern Christianity really comes and stems from Catholicism, which again is not entirely true because obviously Martin Luther would have something to say about that if he were here.

The whole Protestant Reformation, which honestly is where most people in the roots of Christianity come from.

Most of them come from the more Protestant.

I haven't met a lot of people who have a Catholic background.

But the Catholic background is one that would say this lineage of apostles still exists today.

Peter was the foundation of the church and we have all the way down through the Pope and this is why we have this apostle that's there.

And then there's all kinds of different various degrees of this.

I played at a Sabbath keeping church in Houston, Texas.

I don't even know, Jude was maybe two, so that would have been probably 11 years ago.

And when we showed up at this place, I kind of was dressed like Thomas.

I kind of had like the higher end button up flannel.

You know, I always called it like my cowboy shirt, like, you know, Matthew Sykes with the pearl buttons.

Everybody made fun of me, but I love the pearl snaps and that's what I would wear and I'd have jeans.

Well, we hadn't even made it through the door of the Sabbath gathering and we were looking through the window and it was very clear that we did not get the memo on the dress code.

And I'm not talking about like, oh, everybody was wearing one way Jesus shirts today, Cam.

That's not my fault.

But we're talking about everybody was in white linen except for my family.

So we're not talking about like everybody was wearing a red flannel and we showed up in a blue flannel.

We're talking about, in fact, I think mine was purple and bluish, I think was the color at the time.

It was my favorite one.

And we show up here and we walk in and everybody is in white linen except for us.

Now, we're a pretty diverse congregation.

We have all kinds of different ages.

We have different races and economic backgrounds and stuff like that.

It's one of the beautiful things I love about this congregation is it's through that diversity that makes us stronger.

There wasn't much diversity in this congregation.

We were the oddballs.

So strike two for not knowing the atmosphere you're in.

The apostle, the apostle was his title, had this beautiful fashion throne right next to the stage.

And then there was a bishop behind them.

And for three and a half hours, man, I sang the heck out of some Chris Tomlin.

And at some point in time I closed my eyes and they didn't have a boom mic and I'm six foot seven.

I'm part Nephilim.

That's a joke.

Don't anybody start like he confessed his sins.

Nephilim are the giants in the Bible for those who don't study that part.

They didn't have a boom mic.

So I'm also playing the heck out of some Chris Tomlin like this.

And so I closed my eyes and I'm just trying to get in.

I was trying to get into the space.

And all of a sudden I hear, and then all of a sudden I hear like, I'm like, ain't nobody was here for soundcheck.

Like who's going?

I look over and people just randomly from the congregation just started joining in.

And it scared the living daylights out of me.

I'd never experienced anything like that before.

But when it was done, the apostle and his wife, the prophetess took me into their office and they had gotten me a cake.

I don't eat cake, but I ate cake that day.

And when we left, I drove to the nearest Applebee's or Chili's.

Didn't allow my kids to talk until I got a beer and it was a tall beer and I process what I had just experienced.

That's my only personal interaction with somebody who called themself an apostle or who had a position of an apostle.

And I've never had another interaction.

And the truth is I don't spend a lot of time on the internet, on Tik Tok and all these things like trying to like, Oh, show me the apostles and show me like, you know, worship fails.

Like I don't spend a lot of time just looking for the failures or the interesting theologies or doctrines that are out there.

So when we got into this, that's the only expectation I had, which by the way, now I got to tell you how you grow over the years.

That was about 11 years ago.

I would love to go back now.

I was a little scared afterwards.

It's like I need to process this.

But now looking back in the growth that I've had in my own walk, like they could worship.

Like sometimes I see us get antsy when we're at 105, especially on table fellowship days.

The kids are like, man, I got to get out there before that, before that Buffalo chicken dip is gone.

These guys went for three and a half hours straight and I'm not talking about, they were just sitting there listening to the apostle.

I'm talking about they were in it to win it for three and a half hours straight.

They prayed for a long time.

I'll never let my daughter, at her wedding, I will tell that story proudly.

One of the most unique prayers I've ever been a part of while she had to poop.

She was a baby.

It'd be a little bit awkward.

She's 15 now.

If it was happening now it would be awkward, but as a baby it was.

And so I also have to confess to you that when I started here, I thought, you know, I'd heard about the fivefold ministry.

We'd studied the fivefold ministry.

It's not, wasn't new, but I thought all of those offices, I considered them to be equal with one another.

I no longer believe that.

I used to believe that they were equality and in every local congregation you needed to have a person who was an apostle and you needed a person who was an evangelist.

And this was the structure you needed.

And while I never operated in that space, this was what I thought the Bible said and that's not where I came out at the end of this.

And in one sermon, I'm not going to be able to go into all the nuances that are there as far as church structures and community structures and how those interact.

But my goal today is to at least give you an overview of what I believe are some crucial things about the role of the apostle, because I absolutely believe that there is an apostolic office that still exists today.

But I also want to make sure we clearly understand that I believe that it is also different than the calling on the first 12.

It's explicit throughout the writings of Paul that the first 12 had to be ones who could speak to with firsthand testimony of the resurrection of Mashiach, Yeshua HaMashiach.

That was a prerequisite in order to be able to be the foundation of the church, the ecclesia, the community.

And so you can't twist the scripture, you can't throw that away and say, "Well, if you believe in an apostolic office today, then somehow we could all be equal to Paul or to Peter or to Luke."

I just don't believe we can.

I believe those men were chosen specifically for that time with that testimony to utterly change the trajectory of the teachings of the greatest Torah teacher that was ever alive and that is Jesus.

As Brent also pointed out, the juxtaposition between the school of thought from the Pharisaical approach, the Sadducees approach, and Yeshua's approach, a yoke that was easy.

In Acts chapter 1, we see that an apostle was someone who walked with a band of brothers in discipleship for a prolonged period of time.

This wasn't somebody who walked through the doors of a church on the first day, immediately became friends with somebody, and then all of a sudden was like, "Hey, I'm an apostle."

"Matt, by default, you've been here for a long time, you've been super faithful to this church, you serve all the—I walked through the door today, we hit it off, we became friends, and now all of a sudden I'm an apostle because you're an apostle."

It doesn't work that way.

They walked with each other through discipleship for a prolonged period of time.

In the roots of Christianity, discipleship is not emphasized.

The teachings of discipleship is something that says, "Here's my category or my catalog of my doctrine or my theology, and once you can regurgitate that to me, then you are my disciple and you can go teach."

Discipleship is more than having an understanding of the knowledge that's taught.

It's the ability to do life with somebody else.

Some of the greatest times in discipleship and mentorship is when you're at Costco arguing over which sauces to buy for the meat that week.

Some of the best discipleship is when you're just having coffee or you work at a co-op space.

Those are some of the best discipleship opportunities because you're doing life with each other.

That's true discipleship.

It's to do life with one another.

The apostles in the first century, the first twelve, were to testify of the resurrection of Jesus and all that comes with Jesus' conquering the grave.

This was a prerequisite for the first twelve.

We saw a lot of differences between them.

This includes Matthew's charge in his writings from Jesus to go into the world and to make disciples of all nations.

This was revolutionary because before, we saw this last week, we talked about, I believe it's Matthew 15, he says that, "I only came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel," but yet in Matthew 28, he's giving the charge to go into all nations.

And through Matthew 15 to Matthew 16, not only did he say, "I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel," but then he turns around because of the faith of the woman who is there asking for things and he still grants her the healing even though she was not a part of the commonwealth of Israel, the house of Israel at that time.

To go into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This is different.

It's just different.

Your apostolic ministry has to be Jesus-centered.

It is not Torah-centered, it is Jesus-centered.

The Torah is a portion of the teachings of Jesus.

So let's not, let's not, you know, try to pit them against each other and say, "Well, if you have Jesus, you don't need to understand the words of Moses, you don't need to understand the historical context."

Of course you do.

This is how we twist the teachings.

This is no different than the Pharisees who decided that they were going to take it upon themselves to take the seat of Moses even though the seat of Moses was not given to them.

Discipleship and doing life with each other includes sleeping in the same places.

Now let's, let's, asterisk here.

We're talking Barry Bonds in the Hall of Fame, asterisk here.

Roger Clemens, asterisk.

Jesus isn't creepy, don't be creepy.

This doesn't mean that you can come up to Eric after a service and you can say, "See, Pastor Chris said I have to move into your guest bedroom tomorrow."

That's not what this means.

This means from time to time you should go to camps together, you should do retreats together, you should go on vacation with each other.

Every once in a while you should have joint spaces.

That doesn't mean that you up, go off grid, move out to Chandler, Oklahoma and you build yourself a complex where everybody lives together.

That's never worked.

It's never worked.

They always turn against each other.

Why?

Because each household does need to have their own household.

Izzy also is very upset that I just crushed his dreams about moving to Chandler and living off the grid.

I'm sorry, Izzy.

Life is waiting for you, Our Lady Peace told me.

Studying, praying, and then here's that word, accountability.

Being accountable to one another.

Part of discipleship is that you build a relationship to where you can be transparent and accountable.

Where Stephen Drews can pick up the phone and he can say, "Chris, I saw something or I heard something.

Can we talk about that?"

And my response is, "That's not the Lord's anointed."

That's not discipleship and that's not biblical approach.

It's absolutely, let's talk.

Share with me your thoughts.

It's where Chris can pick up the phone and Chris can call and he can say, "Hey, I need some counsel from you.

I'm not sure I handled this situation well."

Rather than saying, "Everything we do, we do right because we're men and we don't screw up."

Discipleship allows and affords for accountability.

If you have no accountability, then you are your own god.

If a church doesn't have a structure of accountability, and we're going to talk a little bit about our church structure and why I believe the Lord had us do this and why in going through these studies over the last couple of weeks, I believe that the Lord confirmed finally for me in the scripture why we did what we did.

A church must have accountability and it must have layers of accountability and then a church is comprised of lots of homes.

There's the Stropes home, there's the Hartmans, the Castellanos, the Wallaces, the Hendricks.

There's all kinds of families.

There's all kinds of homes that make up this home.

Those homes need to develop a relationship with each other that they do life with each other, not just on Saturdays, and that they hold each other accountable.

And that means that in order for me to pick up the phone and hold you accountable, I must also be picking up the phone to say, "Hi, I love you," or "It's good to see you.

How was your week?"

Nobody just wants daddy or the principal to call and say, "You did something wrong."

They want to also know when things are going right and they want to do life.

And this is something my wife and I have tried very, very hard to instill in our deacons and in our other pastors of this church over the last year and a half, almost two years, is that the most important thing we can do is to love the people that God brings through the door.

Whereas most of the movements and organizations we've been a part of, they're more worried in how they bring people through the door.

Our belief is that the Lord brings whoever He wants through the door into the community.

It is our job to shepherd them and love them the best way we can possibly do.

Biblical discipleship is being molded to the image of Christ on this earth to be an image bearer of Christ on this earth.

And in doing so, you help advance the teachings, the character, and the reputation of Jesus on this earth.

This is why I get a little bit angry and I get a little bit fired up because I'm passionate.

When you impugn the reputation of Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, Emmanuel, God with us, when you impugn that reputation by saying, "Well, He's just an ambassador," or "He's a created being," or "He's not equal with Yahweh or Adonai or El Elyon or El Gabor, all the names of God."

When you impugn the reputation of God, I get a little fired up because we're to be the image bearers and Jesus Himself said, "I am the reflection of my Father."

So we're actually saying that not only do we not believe what Jesus has said, but we don't believe the reflection He showed us of the Father is correct as well.

Somehow we got it right.

I am not Yahweh and I am not Jesus.

I am not as smart as them.

I am not as holy as them.

I am not as wise as them and I never will be.

I am to be the image bearer of them, of Christ, not Chris.

This is why the company and the relationships you have is so important.

A lot of people will say, "Well, I'm witnessing to them and I'm over there on the porch with the cigar having a counseling session with them and I was like, 'It looks more like they're witnessing to you.'"

Because it looks more like their behavior is influencing who you are versus the light in the image of Christ in you reflecting onto them.

We have to be mindful of those things because we absolutely should go into places where the gospel needs to be preached and we absolutely should be Christ to them.

But if we're not being Christ to them because their influence is influencing us more than we're influencing them, something's wrong.

Turn around.

Just like we talked about last week, you can walk in multiple office gifts.

Yet in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul tells us that God gave us first apostles.

Now in our corner of Christianity, we talked about last week how one of the most common terminologies I've heard over 17 years is teacher.

You need a Torah teacher.

I am a Torah teacher.

I am a Sabbath teacher.

I am a teacher of the law.

I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us that first given to the church was the apostles.

I can promise you I've never met an apostle in the roots of Christianity.

Nobody's ever come up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Apostle Tom Smith."

I've never, nobody in the thousands of people I've met all over the world, country, over the last 17 years from the roots of Christianity has ever introduced themselves as apostle.

Everybody wants to be the teacher.

Everybody utilizes the title of teacher.

Yet it says in Paul that first he gave to the church apostles.

So if first he gave to the church apostles, but all we have is teachers, which comes a little bit lower on the list, a tiny bit.

Do we not need to make an adjustment?

Because God's word isn't wrong.

So if what we're seeing doesn't align with God's word, there's only one, I mean, I'm a simple man here.

There's only one of two options.

Either God needs to adjust or we need to adjust.

Is there anybody in this room who is narcissistic enough to think that God needs to adjust to you?

Okay, it was a test.

You all passed.

No, we need to adjust to God, not God to us.

The emphasis from Paul and the apostles' position inside the New Testament writing is that there's an emphasis on a builder mentorship relationship that also comes with an accountability structure.

Then you have the prophets.

And predominantly the prophets were to foretell and confirm the calling of the Lord already on your life and also sometimes to remind you of the covenant and to turn backwards when your walk or your thoughts or your life somehow has gotten out of line of the covenant.

The prophet is kind of like the accountant.

He's like, "Hey, look, your finances are a little out of line.

You need to get back into line.

Hey, look, your thought process is a little out of line.

You need to get back in line."

The apostle was first given, more of a builder.

This is why a lot of times if you read a lot of Christian doctrine and a lot of Christian thought processes, a modern-day apostle is likened to a missionary or a church planter.

That's what commonly would be used if you look that up and said, "Well, what are modern-day apostles?"

A lot of times they would say, "Well, a church planter is a modern-day apostle," which absolutely possibly could be because ultimately what was one of the main missions of the first twelve apostles that were given the power of the Holy Spirit to go forward, that was to create the foundation of Christ's church.

Now I've got to ask you, again, because the majority, not all in this room, the majority of this room has walked with me for many, many years, we come from a corner of Christianity, from a movement that tells us that we need to pull away from church, that we need to go backwards and turn away from the apostles' writing and spend more time on Moses, that we can do that by watching exclusively on the internet and so we don't need, we can disengage from church communities and the fellowship and these things.

That's void of apostleship.

That's void of discipleship.

That's void of the writings of the New Testament and the establishment of the church.

If you're hearing people who have a gift or operate in an office or a function as a teacher who are telling you to pull away from community and to distance yourself from these people and to turn back to Moses and turn away from the apostles, I'm sorry, this is an LED light wall bigger than this one that's got red flags saying, "Turn!

Wrong!

Run!

Please don't do this!"

And they still do.

It breaks my stinking heart.

It's right in front of you.

The road is closed.

Slow down.

No through traffic.

And they speed up.

And every once in a while when they come back and they're limping and they're damaged and they're bruised and they're all bandaged up and they're like, "I had no idea."

And it's like, we're shouting it from the rooftops.

Even the Torah was given to a community of people to do life together with accountability structures and with hierarchies and with practices and with grace that was afforded to them because again, they did the same things we did.

God said, "Don't go outside and gather food."

And they were like, "Oh man, that guy's got three pizzas.

I want to grab four pizzas today."

And they hoarded for themselves.

This isn't new.

There's nothing new under the sun.

I'm never going to be able to teach you something that's new because there is nothing new under the sun.

God created all things and through him are all things.

And so all we're doing in life is trying to grow closer to the wisdom and the knowledge of what the Lord has given to us.

And I can't even do that because it says the Holy Spirit is the one who leads you to do that.

And so my job is just to stand here and say, "This is what the word says and this is how I'm trying to do it."

Does that make me an apostle?

No.

It just means I see some of the traits that God outlined of the apostles and I want to implement them in my life because of the fruit I saw in their life.

The emphasis of the calling, the relationships and the accountability came with great responsibility.

There's a great weight with that.

Anybody who is a father or a mother in this room, the excitement of having children was overwhelming.

It was one of the greatest joys you ever had until they become teenagers.

But early on, she got me a camp too.

But it comes with a great weight and a great responsibility, right?

And when your child, the first time they go play in the backyard by themselves, there's a worry or a weight that you have to make sure they're protected or they're okay.

And it grows and it grows and it grows.

And then when they get to the age where they get their license and it grows.

And then when it comes to the age that they might get married and it grows.

And you never stop caring and you never stop feeling that weight.

So if we can experience that as parents, think about the spiritual parents that Jesus empowered to be the spiritual parents of the church to establish the church.

When Paul was writing some snarky puppy letters to them, like he genuinely cared.

This is why when he opens a letter and said, "It is my greatest desire," I don't think he was blowing smoke.

I think he genuinely cared about them.

He loved them.

He saw these things.

It's a great responsibility that comes with the office that's there.

If you're walking, excuse me, whether it's the Hebrew word shalak or it's the Greek term for apostles, this terminology uses a sent one.

A sent one who becomes bearing an authority.

Interesting.

What was one of the testimonies when Jesus taught the scripture?

They said it was him who had a different type of authority.

It was odd for them.

Here's this man from Nazareth who has a different authority when he speaks.

He comes bearing the responsibility and the authority of the one who sent him.

We see this in modern day politics.

If you send a delegation to another country, it doesn't mean the president goes or the vice president goes.

A representative from them comes with the authority of the country.

And with that authority comes rights and things.

Jesus comes and he says, "I come with the authority of Yahweh."

An apostle who is walking in a more modern apostolic ministry must come with the authority as the one who sent him.

If he comes with the authority of me, then he's not given the office gift of the apostle because I don't have the right to give gifts.

Only the Holy Spirit can give that.

All the way back to the first analogy on the Macbook Air.

I can help send a delegation.

I can help acknowledge somebody is walking in the calling of the Lord, but I don't get to give the gift.

That's not my right.

The Holy Spirit gives that gift.

Just like I don't get to give the responsibility, the weight of the authority and the accountability and the responsibility is the Lord's alone.

And that should cause us to pause and to think.

A lot of people are scared.

A lot of people have a lot of fear.

What's going to happen in the election?

What's going to happen in the election?

What's going to happen in the election?

What's going to happen with inflation?

I went to Costco the other day and I used to be able to buy 18 eggs for like $4 and now they're $17.95.

Thank God Bitcoin went up 60% this week.

Like all of these fears.

But I don't hear a lot of people talking about the fear of trying to take something from the Lord.

I'm far less worried with who's going to be the president of the United States than I am if I took something that was not mine to take from Yahweh.

That scares me a lot more.

It scares me a lot more because of the responsibility of being a pastor and a shepherd of this congregation to say, "My job is to lead in a way that aligns with the scripture power by the Holy Spirit."

And so when all these people are out of whack on Twitter.

You should be far more scared about being in right standing with the Lord and having a fear of the Lord than who's going to win the White House.

If you're walking in the office, give them an apostle and you come with your own authority.

You're not walking in the office gift of the apostle.

I would tend to believe that it might be more of the office gift of the narcissist.

And rather than building and setting the foundation of the kingdom of God, you're setting and building the kingdom of yourself.

You have to not only be called, but you have to be sent as an apostle.

You have to be sent.

An apostle was sent out.

Shalach, the Hebrew term.

Even the rabbis understand this and the rabbis actually applied this term to the priesthood.

They had the authority and were sent to do the duties of the Lord as a representative of the Lord.

And some prophets of the prophets, and I actually believe the writer of Hebrews knew this is what was being referenced in Hebrews chapter three.

This is why it's dangerous when you see memes flying around about what it meant for blood to be put on the right ear and for people to be sanctified in the Levitical priesthood and then all of a sudden we apply that to bullets flying or other things.

The authority, the calling and the sending is Yahweh's.

We don't get to apply that and we don't get to twist it to try to meet our Christian nationalist approach to the political system.

There is one King, there is one God from the moment that the earth was created to the moment that it's done and it says He raises up leaders and He tears down leaders.

In the words of John Lennon, let it be.

Do your job, do the responsibility you have and then put it in the hands of the Lord.

And from that point on, we will never lose.

The twelve apostles of Jesus hold a special place within the bride of Christ on this earth.

In Revelation chapter 21, it describes the new Jerusalem that was fashioned in the heavens and brought down to the earth as the wife of the Lamb.

In this description it states that there will be no temple, that Yeshua will be in the place of the temple, there will be no sun and there will be no moon and that the light of Yeshua will radiate and be so bright that there isn't a need for the sun and the moon.

There isn't a need because the light of Yeshua illuminates all.

This is Revelation chapter 21 and it says that there will be twelve gates.

We love this one.

Twelve gates after the twelve tribes.

Woo!

See?

Nobody can come into Israel unless you're part of the twelve tribes.

This means that we're all part of the twelve tribes.

False.

Hate to burst your bubble.

We're not even going to go into that today.

Of the twelve tribes.

But then we stop there.

But what if we kept reading?

There will be twelve gates and there will be twelve angels at the gates.

I like angels.

When I read the Bible and an angel shows up, it normally means that there's some good things that are happening.

The Lord is there.

He's present.

And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel will be inscribed on those gates and the foundation of the wall of the new Jerusalem will have twelve foundations.

Okay.

Do I have any carpenters in the house?

Anybody who's done any construction or knows a little bit about construction?

Just raise your hand for a second.

Okay.

Some hands.

Ian, I've seen you paint.

You do work in concrete.

Okay.

Actually, you know, you're the perfect guy to talk about since we're talking about the bride of Christ.

How strong is a gate if it doesn't have a foundation?

Not strong.

Okay.

In order to keep a gate upright, wouldn't it need some sort of foundation?

I would say that.

I appreciate that because I have only poured fence post foundations.

And when I've not used concrete, you're in the concrete business.

He's also a mob boss, as you can tell.

All people in concrete are involved in the mob.

He actually knows where Hoffa's buried.

No, he doesn't.

That's a lie.

I'm sorry.

I repent.

It was supposed to be a joke.

But I put fence posts into the ground without concrete.

And after a period of time, whether it's wind or anything, it doesn't hold.

And anything that's attached to it ends up falling over.

And it destroys all of those things.

So the foundation of something is very important, right?

In Oklahoma, right now, if you've had a house for a period of time, the earthquakes and everything that's happening, I'd say we've got to check our foundation, right?

Okay.

So there's a wall around the New Jerusalem.

The New Jerusalem is being described by an angel to John as in this revelation that this is the bride of Christ.

The bride of Christ is the New Jerusalem that is coming down, that's there.

And we love the fact that the gates all the way around the wall, there's 12 gates.

And we love the fact that there's 12 gates that are there.

But it says the foundation of the wall of the New Jerusalem will have 12 foundations.

Was it the tribe of Dan?

No.

Was it the tribe of Benjamin?

No.

Was it the tribe of Judah?

No.

Oh, it's Isaacar.

No, it wasn't Isaacar.

Naphtali?

Wrong again.

Oh, the 12 apostles of Jesus will be the 12 foundations.

The foundation of the wall that will also have the 12 gates of the tribe.

So this is why we have to understand you can't just start throwing out the tribes of Israel and the chosen people of Israel.

You can't just throw out Israel and walk in replacement theology that somehow the church is taken over and Israel is just gone.

But it also puts an interesting emphasis on the bride of Christ in the New Jerusalem where it talks about the apostles, the original ones who were charged to go into all nations baptizing in the names of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to establish the kingdom of God on this earth to revolutionize what is there.

They will be the foundations of the wall that has the gates.

Seems pretty important to me.

It also says in Scripture that they will be part of the judgment of the 12 tribes.

Why aren't the 12 tribes judging the apostles?

Sometimes in the roots of Christianity we come from that approach where it's more like, well, the Hebrew side is holier than the Greek or the New Testament.

And so, well, how come it doesn't say that Moses and Jethro and that group of leadership gets to judge the apostles?

How come it says that the apostles will sit in that position with Yeshua and they will be able to judge?

These are things I ponder while I go through the Scriptures because I don't believe that the Word of God is void and I don't believe that He was done with anything other than intentionality.

They could have chosen any words to use and they chose those words.

I'm talking the original language, not the passion version.

They chose those words.

I don't believe it was for air.

I believe it was intentional.

I believe there's things for the rest of our life that the Lord wants to continue to reveal in understanding and wisdom so that we can walk as leaders in the communities and in our home.

The apostles were charged with setting up the foundation not only of the kingdom of Christ post-resurrection, but also they will be seen as the pillars of the foundation of the New Jerusalem.

Jesus called those apostles to go make disciples of themselves.

So you can't say by default, if Thomas, you're an electrician, if I am being discipled by you in your craft, by default in the future, unless I suck at life, I should become some element of an electrician, correct?

Or at least have the skill set to do so if I choose not to walk in that profession.

Because ultimately that's what He does and that's what He's teaching me to do.

So while I believe that the calling on the first 12 apostles is a different calling than if one of you is called into an apostolic office today, the truth is, is by default they were to make disciples of the teaching that they were discipled into by Jesus the Christ, the greatest Torah teacher, which means by default they were making mini apostles in practice.

They lived with them.

Sometimes they got sideways.

Paul and Barnabas, they had to, they had, he had to enter into the transfer portal.

Barnabas had to go his own way.

He had to go to Texas.

He had to start playing for the Longhorns.

Paul stayed true to the Sooner.

They had to go their separate way.

But they did life the same way Yeshua showed them to do life with each other.

This is why I strongly encourage people when I meet them in our church to say, they're like, "Oh, well you just want us to start coming to church and plug into church because we're going to tithe or we're going to do this."

As you notice, I've talked a lot today and not once have we had a time of tithe.

Not once have we talked about our membership class.

Not once have we talked about any of those things.

And while that's not necessarily wrong, I believe there's a scriptural precedent for all of them.

We're far more interested in you getting involved in the community so that you can do life with each other because that's where discipleship comes.

That's where you're healthy.

That's where you don't get picked off by all of the ministries online who say that you can go out in the wilderness by yourself and all you need is me.

Yet they're somehow living in some sort of fancy thing.

Interesting, some of the prepper people who talk about being prepped with go bags and that were buying houses and subdivisions in the early 2000s.

Interesting to me that you're telling everybody else to get ready and go bags and everything and yet you're building brand new houses.

Pot kettle, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, hypocrisy?

I think so.

How do you know that that stuff is either hypocrisy or it's truthful?

You are in the community doing life with each other.

How do you know the heart of the apostle or the pastor?

You do life with each other.

How do you know the heart of the worship pastor is in that?

You do life with each other.

How do you know when something goes sideways?

Oh, because you've done life with each other.

How do you know when Pastor Chris is in a bad mood?

Because you've done life with each other.

I got telltale signs too.

You learn them because you do life with each other and when you do life with each other you understand and you go in your grace and mercy for one another because you know we all have good days and we all have bad days because we're all human.

Worship team, you can come back.

We're all being discipled into something yet the question is, is are you being discipled into something that looks like the apostles in the 12 tribes and the calling?

Or are you being discipled into something that doesn't look like what God told the disciples and the apostles to go into the world to do?

It was to establish Jesus community churches and to change the foundations of the cities.

These were fishermen.

I can't, God can't use me.

I think he probably can.

Also an interesting point.

The fishermen that God called early on, not all of them were fishermen.

Matthew was a tax collector.

There was other offices.

But the fishermen started to listen to Jesus who had no background in being a fisherman.

But when he says, "Hey, cast your net to the other side of the boat."

How many of you would say, "I know that you're an accountant.

You never hunted.

But you're going to take hunting advice from somebody who's never done it."

These fishermen allowed Yeshua to give them counsel on something.

They were more experts than him but they did it anyways and what was, there was an abundance there, right?

They threw their nets to the other side after they caught nothing on the other side of the boat.

So there's that part of the mentor-discipleship relationship that you grow from not just being friends or not just being followers.

You grow to being a family on mission because the Bible says that in the end we're all part of the family of God.

You guys are sons and daughters of the most high.

And yes, I don't know, I can't say daughters without having a little bit of a Boston accent.

I've never been to Boston.

What's that song, "I'm No Longer a Slave"?

That guy's like, "Sons and the daughters."

It's like I just can't do it.

Something's not right.

It's just like, it's programmed.

So what are the qualifications of an apostle?

One, the apostle must have the character of an elder.

We find this in First Peter 5, in First Timothy 3, and in Titus 1.

An elder doesn't automatically make you an apostle but an apostle must have the qualifications of an elder.

Number two, the apostle has to have a servant's spirit.

Touch not the Lord's anointed.

That's not a servant's spirit.

You want them to serve you rather than you serving them.

All of the kingdom of God is about servanthood.

You are bond servants to the most high.

We find this in Titus 1, Philippians 1, and Romans 1.

Number three, the apostle will have the spiritual authority.

This is not dictatorship and this is not for you to go start your own cult.

They have the spiritual authority to establish kingdoms of God in line with the Word of God.

If it doesn't align with the Word of God, then their spiritual authority is something they've taken upon themselves.

It is not something God has given them.

We find this in Luke chapter 22, First Corinthians 4, and First Thessalonians 2.

Number four, the apostle will be a spiritual father.

Most of us have had bad relationships with our father and so we don't think of the Lord as being a loving father.

An apostle should be a loving father in the physical.

We find this in Matthew 23, First John 2, and Ephesians 6.

Number five, the apostle will have sound doctrine.

We find this in Paul's writings in Romans 16, Luke's writings in Acts chapter 2, and in Galatians 1.

Number six, the apostle will be clothed in humility.

Touch not the Lord's anointed.

That's not humble.

It's not humble.

So you're not operating in the gift of the calling of an apostle.

You must walk in humility.

We see this in Second Corinthians 10 and Acts 20.

Number seven, the apostle will have patience.

Second Corinthians 12.

Number eight, he will always lead people towards Christ.

We find this in Second Corinthians 11 and Second Corinthians chapter 6.

And number nine, the apostle should always manifest the love of Christ through the love of others.

We find this in First Corinthians 12 and Second Corinthians 12.

These are qualifications help us to discern between who is operating as a false apostolic calling and as a sent apostolic calling.

And it's for the edification of the body of Christ.

So if an apostle comes in and he's ripping things apart and he's tearing things down and he's doing all of these, then that's not for the edification of the body of Christ.

Sometimes you need to sure up your foundation.

Sometimes you need to fix a two by four in the wall.

But an apostle doesn't come in and spend the entire time running around lighting fires in rooms of the house so you can chase around and put them out.

That's not an apostolic calling of the Lord.

At HFF we have local teachers, pastors, but I think the structure of the church is a little bit more robust than I first understood.

It's common in a lot of different denominations of Christianity that we know that congregations are elder run.

And there's two real common thoughts on this.

One, the elders all have unanimous influence over the church or they're just a council.

Those are the two most common.

And there's differences in there.

However, explain to me if the apostles are called to go establish congregations, to plant and to build, which is for you to have a place to go to and be raised up.

But the apostles then leave.

But the apostles are allowed to then write.

It became very popular a couple years ago when Francis Chan wrote his letters to the churches and he reminded us of some of the way by which Paul spoke to these churches.

If you don't have a relationship and Paul has no spiritual authority or Peter has no spiritual authority or Luke has no spiritual authority, these apostles who aren't just planted in one church, an elder of just one church, if they don't have the spiritual oversight or authority, then why were they able to write letters that were received the way they were received?

Eric, if I write a letter to your house and I say, "Dude, you need to shape up.

You need to get right.

You're out of line."

The only way you're going to receive that is if I already have a relationship, there's a respect that we have for each other, with each other, and that you believe I can speak into your life.

So there's some authority you've granted to me as a brother to speak into your life.

How many of you would like if you just got a Dear John letter from the pastor of any church that said, "Hey, by the way, do better."

I think the Wi-Fi password of the church here is "don't suck."

Like a just simple, just, "Hi, good morning, don't suck."

Which is kind of Paul's letters a lot of times wrapped up in just a real short phrase like, "Do better."

How many of you would feel that you would take that in a positive, a positive responsive way that you would implement in your church or in your home?

Most of us wouldn't.

So when we see the New Testament and the writings to the Ephesus and we see to the Corinthians and we see the Colossians and we see all the Galatians and we see all these letters where it's saying, "Hey, do better."

The expectation in writing that letter was not just, "I wrote a social media post 40 times and deleted it so I feel better."

No, it was actually sent.

It was signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours.

It was out.

The intention and the expectation was that they would receive that and they would implement some changed behavior.

And so this is why at HFF we not only have a local eldership, we not only have that structure locally, but we also have a board that includes people locally and not locally who have different callings and different gifts to oversee.

Because guess what happens?

I know this is going to be a shocker.

This has never happened before in the history of all time.

Sometimes elders get sideways with each other.

Don't read the book of Judges because it'll confirm it.

Like sometimes the judges of a local city get sideways with each other and you need to have judges from other cities to come in to help establish that.

So when we see the apostolic calling, the apostolic calling was not only to plant and solidify foundations of communities and churches in the Jesus movement, to start a whole Jesus freak revolution.

It was also to continue to be the foundation for those people as they continue to do life.

This is why Paul doesn't walk away from the plants of the churches.

So as much as Paul is traveling in the raising of Timothy and Titus and all these other people who are being raised up through discipleship, they're also doing the same thing to communities.

And the goal is about empowerment for the edification of the kingdom.

It's not about control.

It's not about, "Hey, you all need to come here and sign my white board."

It's about the edification and the empowerment of the gifts of the Spirit that God has put inside each and every one of you.

So I want to make sure that there's a clear distinction.

I do believe that the apostolic ministry still exists today.

I believe it still functions.

But I also believe that there is a clear separation between the original calling and the power and the might that was given to the twelve and what we see today.

So I know we have some builders in this church.

I know we have some people who want to build communities and build things and build up and send out type of people.

I know we have those types of people in the church.

We want to be a church that operates that way too.

It's not like, "Well, you can't build up and send out because somehow that's not going to make me—we're not going to have enough people in the seats."

What if we filled more seats in more places?

What if we reached more towns?

What would it be like if we were able to all gather together a couple of times a year and we had a campus in Yukon and we had a campus in North Oklahoma City and we had a campus in Edmond and we had a campus in Ardmore and we had a campus in Purcell?

I mean, that's interesting.

Purcell's different.

But like, Purcell.

Like, what if we had campuses all over the place?

What if we were preaching the gospel and talking to people about this Hebrew passionate understanding of life through the lens of Jesus on a regular basis?

But sometimes it takes us to go where He says we need to go.

Sometimes it takes us to stop saying what we're saying and say what He says.

Jesus was an apostle.

How do I know Jesus was an apostle as well as many other things?

Because He said, "I was sent by my Father and I only do what my Father has sent me to do."

That's some pretty apostolic language right there.

I come on behalf of Yahweh.

I come on behalf of El Elyon.

At some point in time we need to understand that we also are called to go on behalf and be sent.

A lot of times people don't want to be sent.

Sometimes people don't want to be sent but they go anyways.

That's apostolic ministry in modern life.

Where you go, I'll go.

What you say, I'll say, God.

Call me, send me, and I will do.

Stand with me as we respond. (gentle music)