Being an apostolic people - Part 1

Being an Apostolic people Part 1

In August, Regions Beyond which is Steve Oliver's Apostolic Sphere (which is a part of Newfrontiers ) held a Conference in the UK .

 At the conference Steve O and others shared on what the the apostolic, what is Regions Beyond and how do we relate as different apostolic spheres that share a common history, vision and values. 

This series of blogs is very useful to helping us understand who we are, what vision shapes us and what the future holds for us.

You can find the mp3 audio recording the sermons that we will be summarizing here by  City Church Gloucester website. This is PART 1 and  of Steve Oliver's second message

There is a newness bout us and yet we are already One New Man .

18 years ago god have us a promise or a commission to go to the daisies of Africa and so we sought God. He said  I will  do something here and  it will flow like rivers to the nations of the world.”

At that time was leading a small group and was an Elder in training. Now to see it all unfold…

Because with  God’s promises that which seems unreal become possible.

God has such a great work for us. He wants us to take some ground and we will progress from there.

You go to big conferences where the atmosphere is charged and is so different from back home. That’s when you remind yourself of all the promises of God. We need to hold onto them and believe in what God has called us to.

God is looking for an apostolic people group and not just Apostles. This people groups have the ability to give of themselves whole heartedly to their local church and at the same time give themselves to the nations. God wants us to be that people group.

We began by taking a look at Paul’s letter to Philemon. When you read Colossians you see why Paul writes “there is no Greek, no Jew...” Barbarians were the uneducated among them. Scythian – was a person everyone joked about. Every culture has a Scythian who is the butt of all the jokes.

This letter goes out because Paul has come into contact with a young runway slave who has now got born again and in the course of spending time with Paul gets caught up in the Apostolic vision and is now a champion of the gospel. And in the sovereignty of God Onesimus’ owner is Philemon, a co worker of Pauls.

1 Cor 3:10 -10 by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

As we return to our churches I want us to look at something i.e. building well. If we are to fulfill all that god wants of us it’s going to depend on what we do at home- our marriages, our family, our friends, our home churches. Then we can go to the nations.

Paul is grappling with this with the church that he has never been to and the whole runaway slave issue. What about the other slaves in the church? He can’t go there in person because he is in prison and so he sends a team of two delegates on his behalf carrying two letters.

Paul is laying a foundation. The act of setting the slave boy free will propel the church to greatness.

In 1995 we moved to Clarence in to this big farm house. As I worked on it I found I had a lot of cracks to deal with. When the rains came all the cracks worked upon reappeared and I realized that the house had poor foundations. I realized that I need to correct the foundations of the house will fall on our heads. We began doffing under the foundations and putting in new slabs and now there are no more cracks.

Paul realizes that if this new One Man has to work the foundations have to be right. He had to contend with slave owners and slave issues. This book is an important manual. Every apostolic issue is found in this small book.

Martin Lloyd Jones says you cannot talk about building without checking the foundations first.

Architects will tell you don’t think about building up until we know what is going on underneath.

We need to what are the foundations so that we disciple people as followers of Jesus, embrace the poor, be a generous people and all the other things we have to make sure the foundations are in place or else we reach out to the nations we will find the foundations begin to crumble.

Simon Petit said “we are not just involved in a blessing ministry but a building ministry “Therefore we need to understand God’s architectural plan.

Leaders look at the foundations of your church. Get apostolic gifts to come to your church and assess the foundations. Ask your people what does the church look like?

Ray Lowe was doing an apostolic work for us as he pointed out keys for us – that’s foundations.

I want to give you some points and I will stress on only two today.Part 2 will be in a another blog post.

   Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again),  Spirit filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that have people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. To know more about us please log ontowww.wordofgracechurch.org.

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