Our mission: Paul, Paul, Paul

Paul is almost a type of Solomon; there’s a fascinating parallel to when "God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much," said Alex Kurz in today's study. What did the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ progressively entrust the Apostle Paul with?

Ephesians 1:8: [8] Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;

Solomon was given wisdom exceedingly, but to the Apostle Paul was given the highest realm of divine wisdom.

I Kings 4:29: [29] And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.

The capacity to use that realm of information, that realm of knowledge, that body of wisdom—that capacity to appropriate it, to properly apply it. That’s what the Apostle Paul’s ministry is all about. It’s taking that ALL wisdom, that divine package of information and Paul exercises his apostolic ministry wisely.

Paul says to the Corinthians, “Our heart is enlarged.” There’s more going on in I Kings than Solomon having the emotional fuzzies for the nation of Israel. There’s more going on than, “Oh, I want to possess a level of sensitivity, care, concern and love.”

Now, Solomon did have a sensitivity towards the nation of Israel. But in what way did Solomon have a sensitivity? Paul has a sensitivity toward the Corinthians, not just devotionally: “I love you.”

God gives Solomon this largeness of heart “even as the sand that is on the seashore.” That’s just a beautiful expression. King Solomon is going to possess this boundless, vast knowledge and wisdom and understanding, both divine and human. Why did God give Solomon a large heart?

I Kings 3:9: [9] Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?

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When you think about home, remember the minister of grace. You and I have a special person in the Bible. God used him to write 13 books especially for you and me today, says Richard Jordan.

Out of the 27 books in the New Testament, almost half of them—nobody ever wrote that many books in the Bible of all the individuals, and they are ours.

Romans 11: [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
[14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.

Remember the mission of grace. When I think about Paul being the apostle of the Gentiles and he’s our minister today, we get our doctrine from him, who did Paul preach to?

Romans 15: [20] Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation:
[21] But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand.

What Paul in essence is saying is, “I worked my way out of a job. There’s no place where you are that I need to preach, so I’m going to go to the regions beyond.”

Paul wasn’t a navel-gazer. There’s a danger in ministry to forget your mission, because the mission isn’t just to preach to one another. There’s a lost world out there.

You know, much of the world’s never heard of Him. One of the great dangers you and I face is thinking all the world is like us. You can find people in your acquaintance today that couldn’t tell you the gospel if you offered them a million dollars and threatened them with a pistol.

Where I lived Down South, people knew the gospel. Down there they get gospel-hardened they hear it so much and they think they got to live it and it’s, “I know I need to get saved but I just can’t live it, preacher.”

They heard the gospel, but they didn’t hear that part, “Just believe, not work.” Because your Old Man doesn’t hear that.

I remember the first time I met somebody who didn’t even know who Jesus Christ was. He was sitting on the Wilson Avenue steps going up into the old North Shore Church building in Chicago.

I’m talking to him, saying, “You got any idea what we do in this building?” He said, “No. You feed people now and then.” He had no consciousness who Jesus Christ was and I’m thinking, “Wow, right here on the steps of our church is a guy who doesn’t even know . . . “ Then I got to looking around and I said to myself, “You know, there’s more people than that.”

Our mission, folks, is to take what we get and learn it and get it out to the world around us. Otherwise He’d just take us home. So, when you remember Shorewood, remember that, would you? Listen, you don’t just have it for yourself; you have it for a mission.

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I Timothy, the first of the pastoral epistles, begins, [1] Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

I Timothy is going to give you the ideal picture of what the ministry, a local church, ought to be like. In II Timothy, the last book Paul writes, you see the catastrophe the local church, the Body of Christ, has become by the time Paul dies.

Somebody once said, "I Timothy is the church in rule and II Timothy is the church in ruin," and that's really an apt description. In each one of the epistles, the first couple of verses kind of set the tone for what the book's going to be about.

This first verse and the shift in thinking in it--when Paul says, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope," that's not the way he usually introduces himself.

In Ephesians 1, it says "Paul apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." That's the way he usually says it: "I'm an apostle; it was God's will that I be one."

Romans 1, his first doctrinal book, starts, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God."

When he comes to Timothy, he ratchets it up a little bit and says, "I'm an apostle by the commandment of God." When you think of commandments, who do you think about? Moses.

In other words, Paul's saying, "This isn't just God's will, this isn't just something God's chosen me to do--this is God's commandment," and immediately you realize Paul's pulling the authority card, if you will.

He's pulling out the fact that, "I'm going to talk to you about some things and when I'm going to give them to you, I'm going to put you under orders. I'm going to be like a commanding officer giving you the commands that you as the troop are to keep."

I Timothy 1:18: [18] This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;

When he says "a charge," that's not like, "Get your credit card out and let's go shop." A charge is like, "I'm going to give you orders. I'm going to command you to do this," and Paul's going to do that all through these epistles.

I Timothy 2:7: [7] Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

You see that little parenthesis? When I read that I say, "Why would he put that in there?" Well, obviously somebody's saying Paul's not an apostle. Somebody's saying, "No, no, no. He's not who he says he is." Somebody is contradicting; somebody's trying to deny Paul's authority and that's why he starts out so stoutly asserting it: "I'm ordained. God set this up, a preacher, a teacher and an apostle."

Paul starts I Timothy 4:11, "These things command and teach." You see, he's telling Timothy what to do and he's not leaving any kind of ambiguity. You can go all through and see Paul saying things like, "Charge them that are rich in this world," meaning, "Put them under orders, Tim."

"Well, how come, Paul, you can boss him around like that?" You need to be the boss, so when he says, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God," He's asserting his apostolic authority because it's being contradicted.

Now, if a local church is going to function properly, the first thing it has to do is know where it gets it's authority from; where it gets its information from.

Come to Titus 1:1-2: [1] Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

[2] In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

That's the issue of how there was a message God had kept secret; He didn't reveal it until He came to the Apostle Paul, and the reason He made Paul an apostle was to make that known, but notice the rest in verse 3: [3] But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;

See, Paul's apostleship didn't come about because he thought about it, or somebody else thought it would be a good idea, or, "We got an ordination committee up and said we thought we ought to call you to the ministry."

This is literally the commandment of Almighty God. Just as much as when God gave a commandment to Moses to give the nation Israel, He gave that kind of authority and commandment to the Apostle Paul.

Romans 11:13: [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

Paul said, "I've got this office and the thing that's important to me is the commission that Christ's given me to do these things." Paul's the apostle of the Gentiles and that's an important thing to understand.

In Galatians, his apostleship is again being challenged. In fact, Paul spends the first two chapters in Galatians defending his apostleship.

Galatians 1: [11] But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

[12] For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He's saying, "I didn't become an apostle by man's appointment or by man's authority. I got it directly from Jesus Christ based upon the will of God the Father."

Notice, it doesn't say the revelation FROM Jesus Christ. It isn't just information Christ gave him, but it's the revelation OF Christ.

You go back and look at the ministry of Moses in Exodus and Numbers and God stood face to face with Moses. He said, "I'm going to deal with Moses like nobody else; I'm going to stand face to face with him and give him directly the information that I want the people to know."

Paul had a face to face. He came to visions and revelations OF the Lord. Christ appeared to him personally.