Welcome to the Power of 5 Podcasts with McLint like me. Join us for revelatory teaching as well as riveting discussions and guest interviews on all things 5-fold ministry. Using guests that are going to be joining me in an ensuing episode, so please subscribe, make sure that you rate and leave a review of the podcast. We really appreciate that. Today in episode two, we're going to be dealing with the topic of how the 5-fold ministry was actually intended to work together in synergy and in collaboration. It's not enough just to identify the 5-fold, just to say, "Well, we believe in apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers," and then we just see everybody off doing their own thing operating autonomously. God wants us to get to the place where the 5-fold is actually working together. There is a sharing and a symbiotic relationship that is taking place, and of course, we have to ask the question, "Well, why?" Because, as I said earlier, in our trailer, that the 5-fold is actually the full manifestation of Christ Himself. When Jesus was on the earth, He was clearly recognized as an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, and a teacher. We're going to be looking at that in greater depth in ensuing episodes, but suffice to say right now, Jesus actually embodied the entire 5-fold ministry. When Jesus ascended on high, He gave gifts to the church, the 5-fold ministry, some to be apostles, some to be prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. In other words, the full expression of Christ will be embodied in the 5-fold ministry and not just in the 5-fold ministry operating, but in the 5-fold ministry making their contribution, serving and functioning according to the purpose of Christ. And I love Ephesians chapter 1, verse 23. This is the Amplify Bible. It says this in the classic edition, "The church is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all, for in that body lives the full measure of Him who makes everything complete and who fills everything, everywhere with Himself." So in the body of Christ lives the full measure of Him who makes everything complete and who fills everything, everywhere with Himself. It's so important that we understand that the 5-fold ministry was never intended just to operate autonomously. Today we've come to the place where we identify in many circles at least the existence and the contemporary relevance of apostles and prophets and evangelists, pastors and teachers, but it's not enough. We have to come to the place where we move beyond just identification to a place of activation and a place of collaboration where the 5-fold ministry is working together because each one of us carries a specific grace. But together we become the fullness of Him, the full measure lives in the body of Christ and the 5-fold ministry according to Ephesians chapter 4 is to build up the body of Christ, to equip the saints, to see the church come into maturity, the unity of the faith, as each part does its own special work. So it's not enough just to identify or to recognize the 5-fold ministry, especially prophets and apostles today. Well, I want to turn our attention to an interesting passage of scripture. It's Ezekiel chapter 37, and some of you might be saying, "What does that chapter have to do with 5-fold ministry?" Well, I'm going to unpack some things here, and I just want to read a few verses. Ezekiel chapter 37 starting at verse number 1. It says that the hand of the Lord came upon Ezekiel and brought him out in the spirit of the Lord and set him down in the midst of the valley. It was full of bones. Then he caused me to pass by them all around and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and indeed they were very dry, and he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord God, you know!" Again, he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, thus says the Lord God to these bones, surely I will cause my breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you, and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord." So the prophet prophesied as he was commanded. There was a noise, suddenly a rattling, the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as he looked, the sinews in the flesh came upon them, and skin covered them over. But there was no breath in them. So the Lord spoke to him again, prophesied to the breath, prophesied son of man, say to the breath, "Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied, as he commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great army." We're going to be addressing in this passage the necessity of the resurrection of the body of Christ. Just as when Jesus died, he rose again, and his physical body was resurrected from the ground. So this church in the Spirit, so to speak, is to be resurrected. We're to come out of that place where we actually move beyond just individuals doing good things, knowing our gifts, knowing God has called us to do, and we actually become a body. That's what it's all about. And of course, Ezekiel 37 is all about this great and mighty army that is raised up. I just want to point out some interesting features or elements here that maybe you've never thought about this before. You know, when Ezekiel is called to prophesy to the dry bones, they were very many. They were very dry, and they were strewn across the floor of the valley. He was actually called to do something that in the natural was impossible. And in some senses, it's the same today, to see the entire body of Christ come together, to work together. Are we not like those bones that are strewn across the floor of the valley? We do our own thing. We're separated. There's so many today that our body parts, but they're not part of the body. God wants to bring us together so that we recognize and realize that on our own, we are just one piece of the anatomy. We may be gifted. We may be anointed, but we are not called to do everything. And we certainly, as individuals, are not the body of Christ. We need to come together into that body. So what's it going to look like? Well, I've identified at least five elements that I believe that need to be put in place in order for us to see the resurrection of the body of Christ on the earth again today. Just as Ephesians chapter four talks about when the fivefold is being activated and functioning, we will see the body of Christ raised up, if there will be unity of the faith, we will be conformed to the fullness of the Statue of Christ, and we'll be equipped doing works of service and see the body of Christ built up. And what an incredible thing that will be. So let's look at Ezekiel chapter 37. The first thing the Lord tells him to do is to prophesy to the bones. Think about this. Before these bones can just come together, there has to be a work of reparation. Now these bones would have been brittle, they certainly would not have been strong enough to support a body. And so there is in a sense a healing work that has to take place. The bones need healing, the bones need strengthened. There is a work of healing or reparation that has to occur. And we are living in a time where God wants us to be healed. He wants us to move beyond what we've experienced in life, the good, the bad, the ugly, and step into that place where we become like Jesus Christ. Where we are healed, where we are made whole. We'll be looking at this in greater detail in upcoming episodes. But there is a work of healing guys. Let God heal you. Let God do a deep work in your life so that you can be made whole. This first Thessalonians 523 speaks about that the entire body of Christ, each one of us, our spirit, our soul and our body individually, but the entire body of Christ collectively, that we would be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ so that our entire spirit soul and body would be made whole or wholly sanctified. God wants to bring that healing work. And so the gospel of the kingdom brings salvation, Romans 1 16, salvation is so teria. And so teria literally means freedom from the harassment of an enemy, but it's translated sozo in the New Testament and it's used at least four different ways. For example, Jesus was called Yeshua because he would save his people from their sins, Matthew 121. So there's a work of saving or delivering people from their sins. So teria. Secondly, the word is used of healing the sick in James chapter 5 verse 16, where the prayer of faith will save or sozo those who are sick. So it speaks of physical healing. Thirdly, Luke chapter eight, I believe it's first number 36. The demonized man is completely delivered and set free by Jesus. He is made whole. He's sozo. So it speaks of deliverance from demonic oppression and activity in our lives so that we are completely made whole. And then the last reference is in James chapter 1 verse 21, where he speaks of receiving the implanted or engrafted word of God and allowing it to do such a deep work in us that it literally saves us, that it does a work in our soul. And the word soul comes from the Greek term Sukkai, which we get our English words psyche. So in other words, there's a work that God wants to do in our soul realm and our mind and our emotions with our affections, our desires, bringing that under the lordship of Jesus Christ so that we are completely whole. Guys, reparation is so important. In other words, there's a work that God wants to do in our soul realm and our mind and our emotions with our affections, our desires, bringing that under the lordship of Jesus Christ so that we are completely whole. Guys, reparation is so important. The power of five podcasts will be right back after this short break. Jesus told us to go into all the world, preach the gospel and make disciples of the nations. In this digital age, we can now reach millions easily through streaming television, position yourself before the nations. By airing your content on the Kingdom Community TV Network, we're available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, LG TV, Samsung TV, Apple and Android mobile devices, and the website kingdomcommunity.tv. It's easy and affordable to air your program on KCTV. For details on how to get started, visit our website or email at support@kingdomcommunity.tv. Now, back to the power of five podcasts! [gunshot] But before we're going to see revival, before we're going to see an incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is sustained until Jesus returns, there has to be a restoration of the preaching, of the power of the gospel that brings salvation. So to reassozo and brings healing. Secondly, after the bones are healed, there is a work of reconciliation. In other words, the bones begin to connect. Bones are attached to bones. There is a work of coming together. Well, I don't need to say a lot about this, but let's understand that we are called to come together. We are called to be a body. There is a synergy that must take place. We are to not forsake the assembling together of ourselves. We are to operate as a body, and so we need one another. In the New Testament, there is over 40 times where the writers speak of one another, loving one another, teaching one another, encouraging one another. You know what? We cannot do that optimally just by being on Zoom meetings and social media. There still is a place for the body of Christ to come together. We need authentic relationships. We need the work of one another to take place so that we become strengthened and stronger. There needs to be a reconciliation. There needs to be forgiveness. There needs to be restoring relationships that have been breached as a result of offense, of sin, of doing wrong to one another. So this has to take place. And so thirdly, let's talk about reformation or reformation or let's put it this way. Reformation. What is reformation? Well, before the breath of life enters the body, there actually has to be a reforming of the body. We've already alluded to reparation and reconciliation, but ultimately after the sinews and the muscle and the skin are put on the body, only then is this body ready for the breath of life to enter it. And guys, I want to say to us that the Lord wants us to experience sustainable revival. I want to say it again, sustainable revival. Revival is not to ebb and flow. No, there's an interesting verse in Revelation chapter 3. The Church of Laodicea, which there was a church that was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. And Jesus commanded that church to repent. One of the things he said was to be zealous and repent, I believe it's verse number 19. And interestingly, the word zealous is in the present tense in Greek, which means continuous action. Repent is in the heiress tense, which means you do it once and it's a done deal. So the idea here is that we're called to walk in a place of repentance where we do it, we repent, but then we burn with zeal. We are on fire. We are revived. The word zeal means to glow with white, hot passion. And so this calling is for the church to just be a blaze. You know, the reality of revival is this revival is the restoration of the life of Christ to his church. Years ago, Charles Finney said a revival presupposes a declension. In other words, if something needs revived, what it needs resuscitated. And so revival is to be normal Christianity, where we go from glory to glory and we grow hotter and hotter in our pursuit of God and our love for him. That's what it's all about. And so this revival that God wants to bring to the church will literally not take place until we become a body, because he wants to raise up a body in this hour. I've already referred to Ephesians chapter 1, which speaks so eloquently about how the church is his body, but there's also a sense in which the church is to manifest the fullness of his glory in that body. And before that revival will take place, the amazing miracles that God wants to do. His glory and his presence coming and settling and abiding. There needs to be something called oneness take place. In the New Testament and the Old Testament, unity is actually not a good translation. But the idea is oneness. There's a oneness that takes place. And Jesus said in John 17, "He prayed for us that we would become one in Him and one with the Father." We're one together, absolutely, but the oneness is first and foremost in Him. In that place of the unity of the Spirit, in that place where we are coming together and loving one another, and it's predicated and based upon our fellowship with Him and who we are in Him in the Spirit, then we begin to become this body. We become this tabernacle, this temple, there are different metaphors that are employed throughout the Scripture, but ultimately He wants to come and dwell in our midst. Not just individually, guys. When you read the New Testament, it does say in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the word that is used there is singular. But then in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, He says, "Do you not know that you yourselves?" And that's plural in Greek. In other words, He's saying, "You yourselves, the church collectively, y'all," in other words, "are the temple." You guys are the temple of the living God collectively, and we see that, right? In Ephesians chapter 2, we're being built together to become a habitation of God by the Spirit. First Peter, we're living stones, and we are put together to become that habitation of God. And so this is what it's all about, guys. There has to be a reforming of the body of Christ. There has to be a coming together, recognizing who we are, deferring to one another, valuing one another, honoring one another, recognizing that we need one another. This must take place. Guys, we, at our very best, just have an individual contribution to make. That's who we are, no matter how seasoned we are, no matter how anointed you may be, you have an individual contribution, and you alone are not the body of Christ. God needs His body to come together. And I really believe the season that we live in right now, that we are about to see a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord wants to do something incredible. It's going to look very different than what it has in seasons gone by. God is not just looking for a man. In the Old Testament, He sought for a man in the New Testament. He seeks for a body to be raised up, the body of Christ. He wants the body of Christ to be positioned before the world. And that brings us to the whole aspect of revival and seeing the glory of God manifested on the earth when the breath of God is poured in, you know, breath, which is Numa or Ruach and both Hebrew and Greek, the idea is breath, wind and spirit. And God wants to pour to spirit His breath in us to raise up an incredible manifestation of who He is so that lastly the fifth element is this, representation. Our calling is to be His body and to represent Jesus Himself, to represent Him, but to represent Him to the nations of the earth so that when people look at the church, they see Jesus Christ. When they look at us not just individually, but collectively, they see the body of Christ. How good is that? This is what the Lord is wanting to do. We are called to cooperate and to collaborate. We are called to bring our individual personal lives into complete surrender and alignment with Christ and His intention. We are to recognize that God wants us to come to a place where we are not a fragmented expression of the church, lopsided, asymmetrical. But the restoration of the fivefold will bring full grace, mega grace, the complete grace of God so that we experience that which the early church did in Acts 4, 33. Great grace, mega grace was upon them all. The number of grace is five. Jesus wants to restore the fivefold ministry. He wants to see the fivefold ministry function in bringing the body of Christ together so that we experience edification, equilibrium and extension. Many churches today, many ministries today are asymmetrical. Churches, for example, that emphasize evangelism, but they don't teach and disciple others in the deeper things of God. Then we have prophetic ministries and the prophets get together with the prophets and the apostles with the apostles and the evangelists with the evangelists and we just all hang out together, guys, but we've got to get past this. The Lord wants us to come together the fivefold. What would happen if we actually came together and we worked together? We would see the full manifestation of Christ on the earth. God bless you guys. Thank you for tuning in to episode number two of the power of five. My name is Glenn Blakeney. And as next time, bless you guys, have an amazing day, Jesus loves you. Thanks for listening to the power of five podcasts. Be sure to visit kingdomcommunity.global to join the conversation, access the show notes and discover our awesome bonus content. See you next time on the power of five. [MUSIC]
