Governmental Unity

10/22/11

Greetings,

                This week we are going to take a look at the role of church government in establishing unity. Once proper church government is in place and unity has been established, the Spirit of God will operate in ways that boggle the imagination. This is modeled for us in the book of Acts.

                Before we jump in, I need to establish an important fact. Everything in the Bible has significance. This not only extends to the stories and wisdom it relays, but into every color and number that it employs. For some people, it is too difficult to accept that one book could be so perfectly accurate. Yet when the evidence is considered, the fact that the Bible uses the same meanings for numbers from beginning to end cannot be denied, even by the greatest skeptic. The importance of their meaning as established by Scripture is carried even into realms such as dream interpretation.

                Having said this I am going to give a few examples of what I mean. The number one means unity and the beginning of something. God is three and yet one. When people act as one they are operating in unity. God is also the beginning and the end. The book of Genesis, being book number one of the Bible, discusses the beginning of creation. The number three stands for whatever is solid, real, substantial or complete. We live in a three-dimensional world with length, width, and height. As Christians, we believe in the triune God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. The list goes on.

                For a thorough discussion of the importance of number in Scripture I recommend a book by E.W. Bullinger called Number in Scripture: Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance (Kregel Publications, 1967). With this said, I want to focus in on the numbers of importance for this letter. These are the numbers eleven and twelve.

The number twelve is the number of perfect government. This is established by the fact that Jesus appointed twelve apostles. There are twelve tribes of Israel. There are also twelve gates to New Jerusalem according to the book of Revelation. Eleven, being one short of twelve becomes representative of imperfect government, disorder, disorganization, and imperfection. When Jacob lost Joseph (leaving him with 11 sons), he was miserable and mourned His loss. While Jacob was the Father of Israel, his brother Esau became the father of the Edomites. It is recorded that God said, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” There were twelve tribes of Israel but according to Genesis 36:40-43 there were eleven Dukes of Edom. In addition, consider that Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years before Nebuchadnezzar conquered him and ended Israeli control of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:11, Jeremiah 39:2).

                What does this have to do with our topic? We are going to pick up our discussion at the ascension of Jesus.  At that time only eleven apostles were alive because the twelfth—Judas—had committed suicide after betraying Jesus (Acts 1:16-19). This represented imperfect government, something that God would not allow his church to be built upon. When Jesus ascended to heaven, eleven apostles watched, and then returned to Jerusalem to wait in the upper room for the promise of the Holy Spirit. This was in obedience to what Jesus told them.

“And being assembled together with them, He [Jesus] commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4-5 NKJV)

When they got there they were in one accord in prayer and supplication, yet the promise of the Spirit did not come.

“And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: [1] Peter, [2] James, [3] John, and [4] Andrew; [5] Philip and [6] Thomas; [7] Bartholomew and [8] Matthew; [9] James the son of Alphaeus and [10] Simon the Zealot; and [11] Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” (Acts 1:13-14 NKJV)

They were in one accord. They had unity, but it was based on imperfect government. At one point Peter had a revelation and stood up to speak. He realized that Psalms 109:8 prophesied exactly what would have to happen. Judas had betrayed Jesus and another man would have to take his office. Peter said:

“For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate, And let no one live in it’; and, ‘Let another take his office.’” (Acts 1:20)

When everyone else realized that he was right they selected two men, prayed and cast lots. The lot fell on Matthias and he became the twelfth apostle, taking the office of Judas. After his selection, they went back to prayer and supplication. Perfect government and unity was in place. Only at this time did the promise of the Spirit manifest on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit showed up with signs, wonders, and did things that were certainly beyond the disciples imaginations. He showed up as tongues of fire and baptized everyone in the upper room.

“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.” (Acts 2:1-3)

As we work towards unity and all of the possibility that it will open up for us, we must keep in mind that it must be established along with proper government. We are part of a kingdom. A kingdom is a government. This is why Ephesians 4:11 lists the offices of God’s government over his church. All must be in place and fully functional for unity to have its intended impact.

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Discussion

1.       Are numbers in the Bible significant?

2.       What is the significance of the number 12?

3.       What is the significance of the number 11?

4.       What is the significance of the number 1?

5.       What happens when you take the difference of 11 and 12? [12-11=___]

The Test of Unity

7/2/11

Greetings,

                One of the most difficult things in life is the reality of failure. Sometimes we fail. Even more painful are the times when others fail us. The frustration of failure can be even more intense when a large degree of expectation is attached to success. Unfortunately, it is usually impossible to attain success if we don’t expect it. Furthermore, as Christians we are supposed to expect to have success. Isn’t that why we have the victory in Christ Jesus?

“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)

                 I have a mission. Part of it is to promote unity in the body of Christ. Needless to say, by all human standards of analysis I am setting myself up for failure. The only standard that is in my favor is the Word of God, which prophesies a coming day of unprecedented unity and maturity in the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-15). Although I know that my goal cannot fail because the Word of God cannot fail, it doesn’t mean that I won’t experience failures along the way. How do I process this fact in light of the Word of God?

                It is actually a Biblical fact that although God gives us the victory in Christ, He will take us through valleys of failure anyway. Have you ever been through a valley of failure? Have you ever looked around on every side and watched everything you set your hand to crumble? If you are human, your answers are undoubtedly yes. So what is God doing during these times that may seem to contradict His promises of victory?

                Fear is the enemy of faith. It is impossible for us to walk into the fullness of God’s plan and purpose regarding any realm of activity touching our lives if we have fear. The Bible says faith works by love (Galatians 5:6) and also that perfect love casts out all fear.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)

We’re going to illustrate this with what I call our Faith Mobile. In this vehicle, love is our engine, faith is our car, and fear is the gamut of potential mechanical failures. We have to fix the problem of fear in order for our love to work right. Some breakdowns are worse than others. Sometimes we just need a fuse or two replaced. Other situations require an overhaul of the entire engine (like a busted head gasket). Some problems affect our driving, but other problems can render the car useless! It is in the latter situations that we wind up taking a cab or bus. This represents counterfeit transportation. Fear will cause our faith to fail and force us to find other (counterfeit) means of transportation in life.

Our fear must be removed. Since fear represents the gamut of potential mechanical failures, this means that God has to work on our love engine. Once our love engine is working right, our Faith Mobile can get us somewhere. When our love engine is “fine-tuned,” our faith begins to move mountains (Matthew 17:20). If we think we can have mountain moving faith while entertaining fear we kid ourselves. It’s like setting out to drive across the country with a broken head gasket, no oil in the engine, and a cracked steering column. I promise you that you won’t get very far.

Again, God fixes the love engine in our faith mobile by removing the fear. However, the most effective way for God to do this is to make us face our fears and when our worst fears have come upon us, show us the victory He has given us. Often, this involves letting us experience a degree of failure. Let’s look at two examples.

I recently read an article about how people that do the trapeze acts in the circus are trained. What can convince a person to leap from a swinging bar hundreds of feet in the air? The answer is confidence. Their training begins by removing the fear of falling. In order to do this they are trained to fall. The safety net is set up, they are made to swing, and once they swing out they let go and…fall. That’s it. Once they get used to falling, they don’t have to be afraid of it. Once the worst case scenario no longer holds power over them, they have the confidence necessary to do eye boggling stunts in midair.

Our second example of overcoming fear comes from the book of Judges. A man who was a Levite had a concubine that basically cheated on him and then ran away to her father’s house (Judges 19). After some time had passed, the Levite missed her and traveled with a servant to her father’s house to retrieve her. He spent nearly a week with the father because the concubine’s father kept insisting that he stay. Finally, against the father’s best efforts the man left with his concubine. The problem was that they still wound up leaving late.

When it got dark they went into a city of the tribe of Benjamin named Gibeah. An old man saw them sitting in the street and took them into his house. Not too long later, men of the city made violent requests to have the Levite given to them so that they could fulfill their sexual perversions on him. Instead of trying to fight them off or cooperating, they gave the mob the Levite’s concubine. They took her and abused her that night until she was so battered that when they let her go she walked to the old man’s house, collapsed at the door, and died (Judges 19:26-27).

When news spread around Israel regarding what had been done, the Israelites united as one and asked the Benjamites to hand over the culprits of this horrible act. The Benjamites refused and all of the united tribes prepared for war against the tribe of Benjamin in order to bring justice to the situation (Judges 20:1). How exciting! This was the first time in many years that the tribes of Israel had united for a single purpose. Even better, it was for the purpose of executing justice. Isn’t that what God is in agreement with… the execution of justice?

Although God desires justice, He also saw this as an opportunity to build their faith and remove their fear. How did he do it? He let them fail. The story goes on to explain that on two separate accounts the unified tribes asked the Lord for His permission to attack (Judges 20:18, Judges 20:23) and after the Lord gave them the order to attack they failed to attain victory and suffered terrible defeat (Judges 20:21, Judges 20:25). Did they miss God? Not according to the Bible. God personally told them to attack and they failed to gain the victory anyway. What was God doing? He was getting the fear out of their lives by taking them through the worst case scenario.

After two back-to-back losses they again asked God what to do and God told them to attack a third time. Then God said that He was actually going to give those who had committed injustice into their hands. The unified tribes followed through and secured a great victory against injustice. Almost the entire tribe of Benjamin was left dead.

This letter is two-fold in purpose. The first purpose is to explain that sometimes God will let you experience failure in order to get the fear out of your life so He can walk you into your purpose. The second is that God will test our unity after He brings us together. After the tribes unified in the book of Judges, God tested their resolution. Looking forward, we need to expect testing as the body of Christ begins to experience unification. Unity isn’t an end in and of itself. It’s the works that are accomplished as a result of unity that God is waiting for.

Discussion

1.       Have you ever doubted a word from God because of failure?

2.       Have you ever been forced to experience what you would conclude was a worst case scenario while you were actively serving God?

3.       Did you allow God to remove the fear from you during this circumstance or did you abort His purpose out of impatience and rebellion?

4.       When considering the parable of the faith mobile, would you say your engine needs just a few tweaks or a major overhaul? Why?

5.       Will God test unity once it manifests?