THE QUALIFICATIONS OF APOSTOLIC LEADERSHIP

     Today we have people in our culture that'll call themselves bishops or priests or sometimes apostles. That should not be confused with what the Bible calls apostles because in the Bible primarily these 12,  (Judas will betray, Matthias will be added, and later Jesus will choose Saul who is called Paul) They make up that apostolic foundation. 

What were the characteristics? There are 5 things that really jump out from scripture.

1 THEY WERE WITH JESUS FROM THE BEGINNING

     That's very important. These weren't just people that came along late in life and wanted a position. JESUS CHOSE THEM at this early point in His ministry to be apostles, those sent out personally by Jesus to go and to carry the gospel. 

2 THEY WOULD BE WITH HIM AND BE WITNESSES OF HIS RESURRECTION

     So they were at the beginning of His ministry, they were with Him, and then they were part of seeing Him raised from the dead. So today many people will say, "Oh, yeah, I want that title of apostolic." If you're just saying "I'm one that's sent by Jesus," that's probably okay, but don't confuse it with what the Bible says because then the Bible goes on to say

3 THESE APOSTLES FORM THE DOCTRINAL FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH

     So not only were they with Him from the beginning and there at the end when He was raised from the dead, these apostles form the doctrinal foundation of the church. So they are taught by Him. That's why He spent these years with them, every day teaching them. He would preach to the crowd, He would turn water into wine, bread into food. He would do these miracles and then He would take them aside and teach them all about what it meant. So they form the doctrinal foundation. And that is so important, 

WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS IMPORTANT

because we live in a day, and the Bible says in the last days they will not endure sound doctrine. That means in our culture today people will not endure what God says about what a man is and what a man's responsibility is, what a woman is and what a woman's responsibility, and they are not the same in scripture. So don't buy into our culture and Satan's lies, go to the scripture where these apostles and those that they poured the story into have written the foundation. The Bible tells us doctrinally what is marriage, what is church, how to be saved, what is right and what is wrong. They laid that foundation, but

4 THEY ALSO FORMED THE STRUCTURAL FOUNDATION

     In other words, these were the first who were sent out in order that they would go out and share Jesus and that would be passed on. And in the passage where Peter comes to Caesarea Philippi and he says, "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." And Jesus said, "You're right. And upon this rock I will build my church." What rock? That Peter had just told the truth. He's the Messiah, He's the Son of the living God. He's the rock, the cornerstone rejected. "Upon that I'll build my church, and Peter I'm giving to you the keys of the kingdom." Why? "So that you will go out and open the hearts of people so that they'll come into heaven. And when people reject you in the gospel, you will close the door because they cannot get to heaven any other way but Jesus." And guess what? They've been passing that on, passing that on for 2,000 years until someone told you about Jesus and that key opened the door of your heart and now we've been given that responsibility to go share the Gospel of Jesus with everybody we know so that their hearts can be unlocked from Satan's bondage and they can be set free. 

5 ABLE TO DO MIRACLES

The last thing that we see not only from the beginning and the end, not only the doctrinal foundation, the structural foundation, but they were able to do miracles. Did you read what he said in verse 1? 

Matthew 10:1

Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, 

to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

He said Jesus summoned His 12 and He gave them authority. They went from being ordinary disciples sharing Jesus, serving Jesus to apostles who were able to cast out demons and to heal every disease and sickness. That's what I always want to ask somebody if they say, "Man, I'm an apostle today." I'm like, "Oh, great. Would you go with me to the hospital?" Let's go see because, do you know that there would be people that they would line up in the street when Peter passed by and his shadow touched them, they were healed. That's the power of Jesus where people were healed.