One of the greatest needs of the church and the world today is a powerful new movement of the Holy Spirit. Next week on Pentecost Sunday we will focus on the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is recorded in Acts 2. But today we conclude our teachings from Acts 1 that shows that the coming of the Holy Spirit did not take place in a vacuum. It followed a process of preparation. Part of that preparation, as we heard last week, was that the disciples united to pray earnestly for the fire of God to come (Acts 1:14).
But there was a further important part of preparation, which is so often overlooked or quickly skated over. In fact, the whole of the rest of Acts chapter 1 is given over to this. And it concerns the restoration of the team of 12 disciples, after they had been reduced to 11 by the betrayal of Judas. The apostle Peter was quite clear that they needed to find a replacement for Judas (Acts 1:20-26).
Now why did Peter say it was 'necessary' to complete the team of 12? Surely the Holy Spirit can come on a single individual or a smaller or larger group of any size? And that’s quite true. That’s happened many times. So why all this focus and indeed insistence on completing the team of 12 before the great wave of the Holy Spirit broke on the Day of Pentecost?
1. A team of 12 is necessary for the government of God (Ephesians 6:12; Ephesians 4; Luke 10:1; Genesis 35; Genesis 49; 1 Kings 4:7; Ezra 8:24)
2. A team of 12 is necessary for genuine disciples to come into leadership (Acts 1:21-22; Acts 1:16-17; Luke 19:17)
3. A team of 12 is necessary for the growth of the church (Acts 2:14)
Apply
Have you understood the importance of the team of 12 in the Bible? The coming of the Holy Spirit is not only to empower individual Christians but to help establish and extend the kingdom of God. Without government there is anarchy and trouble as in the days of Israel when ‘everyone did what was right in their own eyes.’ Equally a church must have godly spiritual government. If we want to understand why there is so much trouble in the world and sometimes in the church, it is because there is an evil kingdom of darkness that operates with different levels of demonic authority (Ephesians 6:12). Similarly, God’s kingdom requires different levels of spiritual rule. For sure we each need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to know God’s authority. But whole churches, like the church at Ephesus, need to put on the whole armour of God to stand against Satan’s schemes. We also need to recognise the ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who are given by God to build up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4). And not least spiritual government is established through godly teams in the church of Christ, locally and globally.
Jesus had different types of teams (Luke 10:1) but his core prototype team was a team of 12. And this is more significant in the Bible than we may imagine (e.g. references to 12 with both Moses and Elijah; 12 is mentioned in 187 places in the Bible incl. 22 times in Revelation). In the Old Testament God raised up a nation when the 12 sons of Jacob became the 12 tribes of Israel (Genesis 35, 49). The wise King Solomon ruled through 12 governors (1 Kings 4:7). Ezra led a great movement of spiritual restoration by setting apart 12 of the leading priests (Ezra 8:24). In the New Testament the 12 disciples became the 12 apostles to establish Christ’s church. That’s why so much of the ministry of Jesus was focussed on recruiting and training the 12. Now let’s apply this today: One leader, one pastor, one man or woman minister, however gifted or hard working, is not enough to govern the church. A team of 12 is far better and much more in line with Jesus' model.
Can you remain faithful to God and others (e.g. your marriage partner, family, the church) when you are going through a tough time of pressure? Can you remain faithful in good times, when your success could tempt you to become proud and independent? Can you remain faithful when others around you are unfaithful? Can you remain faithful when you may receive direction or correction that you don’t think is right? Peter considered it necessary to find another faithful team member because a former team member had become so unfaithful (Acts 1:21-22). Judas had been part of the team of 12 that Jesus originally called. He was entrusted with a lot of responsibility, but he became critical and focussed on money and so he betrayed Jesus, ultimately taking his own life (Acts 1:16-17). Judas not only had arguments against Jesus but because of his hard heart he became a key figure in guiding those who wanted to attack and destroy Jesus. Peter called out this ‘wickedness’ but refused to be discouraged by the treachery of someone who had been such a close part of their team and their lives. Neither did he accept that their team had been depleted and should just stay at 11. Peter’s response was that the church needed to find a proven faithful person to replace someone who had proved to be an unfaithful person. So Matthias was chosen to join the group of 12. We too always need to choose people who are proven faithful to God and His Word, to spiritual leaders and to the core vision and values of the Bible and the church. We need people who we know to be trustworthy. Faithfulness is core to choosing people. Go for character before charisma every time. God can supply the charisma. Moses went for faithful people. Paul entrusted leadership to faithful people. Finding faithful disciples who can become faithful leaders is one of the great secrets to blessing in any church. We need to find people who have been faithful serving at a basic level before they can be entrusted to move to a higher level (Luke 19:17). God will permit many things to test how faithful your heart is. You can be sure that in some way at some time, God will test the faithfulness of everyone’s heart. But if you remain faithful like Matthias you can move to a new level of blessing and authority.
Are you committed to building the church through being part of a team of 12 and building a team of 12? All the disciples had failed but 11 had been restored. They were still a strong group but still not strong enough for what was to come. It was not just a matter of adding one more person. It was the extra authority that the full 12 would have. The future would see many changes and challenges and they needed a big team to handle it. So they were convinced that it was necessary to complete the team. When all heaven broke loose on the Day of Pentecost there was a strong team in place to minister to the multitudes. Peter was the bold spokesman on the day of Pentecost, but he had a great team supporting him (Acts 2:14). As Pastor Cesar Castellanos says: ‘wherever you have a team you have a conquest.’ Teams of 12 not only provide a foundation to handle growth but also they are key to multiplying growth. If one faithful team of 12 reproduces another 12 disciples that’s 144 and if that continues through each generation of discipleship you can keep multiplying through 1,728, 20,000, 2 million, 35 million and billions. The G12 vision has been modelled in our times through Pastor Cesar Castellanos in Colombia multiplying not just converts but disciples of quality and quantity who have been built into teams of 12 who have continued the same process. Today great churches in Bogota and elsewhere have shown that there is a clear link between recruiting and training 12 committed and true disciples and the wider release of the Holy Spirit. New wine and new wineskins are both necessary. And so, as Acts 1 ends, the team of 12 disciples was restored. Now they were ready and positioned for the great new wave of the Spirit that was about to break. Today, like Peter, let’s understand the necessity of teams of 12. Let’s become faithful members of teams of 12 and let’s multiply teams of 12 as the Holy Spirit moves in great power.
