Antioch, Apostolic Sending and Setting - Part 7

Still esteem, wanting to be called doctor or senior pastor, you've sold the game away. It's lost. Better to be known and unknown. Better to be feared and hated by the powers of darkness than to obtain the esteem of men. That's why we have to be so careful. Touch not the world. For everything that's in the world is of the flesh, the devil, the pride of life, the eyes. We dare not use their methods in order to obtain hope for spiritual ends. Better obscurity, better hiddenness, better weakness. That's why God has chosen to perfect praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings than any other place. In order, it says in Psalm 8, to shut the mouth of the adversary. There is a moral war on. There's a contest between competing wisdoms. And the Lord, therefore, in order to defeat and shut the mouth of the enemy, goes out of his way to employ that which is foolish and weak. For that which is esteemed in the world is abomination in his sight. The question is, is it abomination in your sight? That's why the Spirit of God coming into Antioch at the moment of God's appointment can say, Separate unto me, Paul and Barnabas, for the work whereunto I have called them. Because separate is what the church is all about. How do men become separated from their ethnic, racial, national origins, jealousies, animosities, prides? How do they become separated from their religious ambition to be seen and to be heard of men? To be concerned for their reputation and for their acceptance? If not in the church that is at Antioch, where those things are identified, where those things are dealt with. If you can safely attend church for a number of years and never be found out, never be challenged, never be corrected, you are not in an apostolic setting that can be called upon to send. What is sent is the expression of the reality that has been obtained through suffering. Don't tell me that Paul did not have deep-seated Jewish pride that was not automatically in one's soul eradicated in his conversion. Who knows? The God is discreet. The shades are drawn. We're not privy to the depth of dealings to which Paul had to pass in order to be a candidate to be sent. But you can believe he went through something and went through much. What is the formula for a false prophet who may have initially been true? It is to live in isolation from the body. And go from holiday inn to holiday inn being the darling of people who want to be titillated by personal prophecy about them. And have a paid staff who will in no wise ever confront the man or bring to his own attention defects in his own character because they will not bite the hand that feeds it. For a prophet to remain safe, and who is more susceptible for deception than a prophetic man, he needs to be in an environment in which when he is not functioning in his call, he is with other brothers, another brother. Subject to corruption, to reproof, to the kinds of things that we invariably need because no man can know the truth about himself. Every one of us has a blind spot that requires another to observe and to finger. And you know what that is? That's love. I praise God for a people who will not spare me. So I come back from a trip and I said, Wow, the place was so crowded, the people were hanging from the chandeliers. And someone of a very little mind would say, Is that really true art or are you exaggerating? And don't you know that exaggeration is one step removed from a lie? Nope. Well, they weren't literally hanging. We need a correction of the church. It's very love. Love to give it because what if it's misunderstood? What if you have a secret ambition and you want to exalt yourself by shooting me down before the body? And men like myself are wonderful opportunities for the elevation of the everyday saint who wants to be exalted at the expense of the public man and see in him some defect that no one else had the depth of insight and discernment to identify. Got the idea? So you take a risk to correct, assuming that your motive isn't to be pure because otherwise you will be found out in bringing a supposed correction only for your exaltation and not for the benefit of the man. This is church saints. Am I describing the environment that you're in? And can it be your environment if it's a congregation of 300, 400, 500, 1,000 where you obscure lost in the purest? When do you turn around and face each other? When do you have opportunity to see the disclosures and the defects that need to be attended and corrected? Where do you know one another well enough to perform that? Church has got to be community. There's an intimacy that is needed and a heart willing to bear the humiliation that precedes the glory. You're receiving the benefit this morning. Aren't you glad I'm not false? Or you're not sure yet? It's owed to those people who have struggled, sweated, agonized with me for 25 years or as much as they have been in that community and live in an environment of freedom where they can express such things and take the risk of love. And they also receive what is needed for themselves. That's the church. And until we attain to it, I'm not expecting we're going to hear the Holy Spirit say, separate unto me because we're not separated. We're still sitting there with undisclosed depths of pride, envy, jealousy, ghosts in the closet, personal battles, things like that. We have nothing by which we'll turn the world upside down for we are still in some measure enslaved or under the press of these powers ourselves. So long as there's fear, insecurity, intimidation, threat, we are still under their influence. Only a people who have been freed from their influence can turn the world upside down and free those who are yet captive, not only by what they say but by what they are in themselves. Do you need a break? Huh? Let's take a little break. Let me pray. Lord, take it easy on these people. Come on, Lord. They're sweet, lovely, traditional, and conventional Christians, well-meaning, but also...