Weblog Entry - 12/19/2005: Volume 85 - The Apostle aka The Sent One - Part II by Chris Pridham

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12/19/2005: Volume 85 - The Apostle aka The Sent One - Part II by Chris Pridham"

The Apostle aka The Sent One - Part II

The Authority of the Sent One
Matt 7:28-29 "When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes." NASU
Authority does not simply come with age or with learning. True authority comes with experiencing that which you bring or share. How many forty year old men want to take advice on how to be a good husband or Father from a trained twenty-two year old Christian counselor? I am not saying that a twenty two year old could not give good advice but I know that the advice given would at best be theory to that counselor. The advice given would not come from the authority of his own experience but from the authority of the school that trained him. There is a calling and preparation the Lord takes us through. What Moses experienced in the wilderness for forty years was his preparation. He was then sent by God to Egypt to bring the children of Israel into their own wilderness. He led those people into an experience he knew. He knew what it was to want to go back to Egypt. He knew what it was to want meat. As an individual, the Lord had led him to a burning bush, and as a people, the Lord led them to a burning mountain. He knew what it was to leave Egypt. He had lived in the wilderness for forty years.
This was God's preparation for the man to lead His people.
Jesus was called and set aside before the foundation of the earth. As a man, He was prepared for thirty years by His Father to be one who listened to His Father's voice, and who was about His Father's business. For three and a half years, He walked with His disciples and did nothing of His own initiative but did only what He heard and saw His Father do (Jn.5:30). He knew what it was like to still His mind to be able to hear His Fathers small voice. He also knew what it was like to work by the sweat of His brow and still find time to fellowship with His indwelling Father. This was the experience the God-man Jesus came to possess. This was the authority He spoke with.
Does the Lord still set aside ones to 'Apostle' today?
Now we come to the church of 2005. In the early Church, we know Jesus sent the twelve Apostles; Paul and Barnabas were sent by the church in Antioch, and that Timothy was sent. Paul writes to Timothy- 2 Tim 4:12 But Tychicus I have apostello (sent) to Ephesus. NASU
In 2005, do the Church and Jesus Christ still (apostello) send men? In this I can only speak from my experience and say 'yes.' And what do these modern day 'sent ones' do?
Eph 2:18-22 "for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. ЕЕЕ and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, ЕЕin whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." NASU
Eph 4:11-12 "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ"; NASU
This man I once knew had an experience when was he still a young man of eighteen years. This experience changed his life and in the future, mine. The experience lasted only four months and he described it in these words: "What happened that night cannot be told or explained in human words. The Lord's presence was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. It was an out and out visitation of God, unlike anything any of us had ever known-before or since. And I doubt that many people have ever known such a night as that. For the next four months we could not have told you this. We experienced spontaneous church life. That spontaneous expression of the divine life of the church was to forever wreck my life - for the Lord, and for an expression of the church not too dissimilar from what we experienced during those few months."
When I met this man it had been almost fifty years since he had experienced that night and I don't think that there was one day that had passed that he had not thought about that night. It would be almost twenty years from that night that he would be sent out with that experience to share. It was my privilege to watch this man fifty years from that night build from that experience. He had a relationship with the Lord that had consumed him. He would speak of Christ and Him alone as all the church would ever need. He had been trained in the seminary but instead of using that training he sought out others who met in the freedom that he had experienced and gained from their experience as well.
It is these combined experiences that this man gave the people real, practical ways to find and fellowship with the man Jesus Christ, knowing that if they went to Him, Divine life would be full and overflowing in the church. He was right. He had learned from the experience of fifty years how a people could be like young kids again, fall in love with the Lord and waste our life on Jesus Christ. This man gave what he had been given, an experience with the Lord, he gave it to all who wanted it. My experience in church life lasted a lot longer than his ever did. But without his four glorious months, I would have never been able to experience my years of church-life. This is part of my heritage and I treasure it.
This man is just a man with all the flaws of any other man but this man did something different; he gave what he had been given by the Lord. When he was called and later trained by the seminary teachers it could have been that learning that he gave, but I thank the Lord that this man never turned his back on what he had been given miraculously by the Lord; a four month experience in freedom with Jesus, and that is what he shared with me and the other brothers and sisters that met. The foundation that was laid and the equipping that went on will be with me till the day I die. He is the first man that I ever met that was able to simply give me his experience and not his doctrine. He shared with us what had been life to him and the experience that had been life to him was able to help us, a local church, have our own experience of divine life. The experience was different than this man's but the same life in both. How awesome the Lord is in His ways.
After thirty years on this earth with his Father Jesus gave to the disciples what was life to Him and they in turn after three and a half years with Jesus gave to the church in Jerusalem what was life to them and from then till now you will find those that have continued on being set aside by the Lord and sent from a church with the experience of the life of that people, this is the way of the 'sent ones.'
Luke 6:39-40; 4:18 Here are some of the story-illustrations Jesus used in his sermons: "What good is it for one blind man to lead another? He will fall into a ditch and pull the other down with him. How can a student know more than his teacher? But if he works hard, he may learn as muchЕ.. he has (apostello) sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that captives shall be released and the blind shall see"Е.TLB
Lord, may we continue in your way of following those who follow you.
Written by Chris Pridham