A Seat to Be Sent

The church is the kingdom's agency on the earth, and every mountain we are sent to take carries a challenge that was designed to promote us.

There is a sentence I keep returning to, and it has reordered the way I pastor, the way I pray, and the way I do business: the kingdom of God is a government, and the church is its agency on the earth.

Say that slowly, because a great deal depends on it. The kingdom of God existed long before the church did. It stands on its own. The church, however, has no existence apart from the kingdom, because the church draws its whole authority, its whole assignment, and its whole message from the government it represents. We have spent years teaching this at New Life Harvest, and every year it opens wider.

Jesus brought a government to the earth. He restored a ruling class to the position it held in the garden before Adam fell. That is why sonship language matters so much in Scripture. I am in the class of sons, so I am no longer speaking as a servant guessing at his master's wishes. I am speaking as one who has been given the mind of the King and sent out with it.

The agency and the company

Years ago I sold health insurance. I worked for a company, and I represented that company faithfully, and I was very clear about one thing: I was not the company. I could not tell them when to open or when to close. I could not decide the premium on the way to a client's house and announce that I had a better idea. My job was to know the company's mind and carry it accurately into the territory I was assigned.

That is the church. We are the agency, and we operate in the governmental affairs of our King. When people ask whether I work for the government, I tell them yes, and then I tell them which one.

The work is international in the truest sense of the word. Inter means between. My assignment sits between the nations, telling them how my government operates. I go in without my opinion, because my opinion carries no weight in a matter of state. Every bit of the wisdom I bring belongs to heaven.

And the business runs on commission. That is exactly why we call it the Great Commission. If we say it right, we get paid right. If we send witnesses out with a garbled message, we should think carefully about what we expect to collect.

Ecclesia: called out in order to be sent

Jesus said, "upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18, KJV). The word translated church is ecclesia, meaning the called-out ones, and it was in common use long before He borrowed it. Caesar had an ecclesia. We call it his senate. Those men gathered for one reason: to learn the mind of their ruler and then carry that mind out into the territories. If you were in Rome, you did what the Romans did, and Rome had become anywhere Caesar's assembly sent its word.

Jesus looked at that structure and said, in effect, I like that, because that is kingdom. So He claimed the word and made it His own. My ecclesia. Called out, gathered to receive the mind of the King, and then sent.

Which is why I say plainly that you cannot go to church. You are the church. Wherever you are standing this week, that is where the ecclesia is.

We gather here to discern gifts, to pray, and to identify each person's assignment. We gather so that you can leave. I have watched grown believers park themselves in a room the way a full-grown adult would squeeze into a kindergarten chair with his knees against the table, and the reason is almost always the same. They have kept their own will. God is patient with that. He will let a person stay in kindergarten until they are eighty years old. Moses ran from his call for eighty years before he turned and faced it.

So find your seat, and understand what the seat is for. It is a seat to be sent.

Ambassadors who refuse to impute

Paul writes, "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us" (2 Corinthians 5:19–20, KJV).

Look closely at to wit, because it is the root of witness, and Acts 1:8 tells us we shall be witnesses after the Holy Ghost has come upon us. A witness does more than talk. A witness lays hands on the sick, casts out devils, and lets the signs follow. Your ambassadorial credentials are proven by what follows you.

Then look at not imputing their trespasses unto them, because that phrase governs how we treat everyone God sends to our door. It means the church has no category for a person who has sinned too much to be helped. We do not run an aid program with a moral means test. Whoever is sent to us, we are obligated to bless.

That work is harder than it sounds, and here is why: people often assume that if we help them, we have forfeited the right to tell them the truth. We have not. If you come here for a pot of beans, you are going to get the Word with it. You are going to get your greens along with your cake.

Give the blessing along with the bread

There is a difference between giving a person a thing and giving a person the blessing. If I hand you a house, I owe you the knowledge that keeps the house. If I show you how to make money, I owe you the principles that hold the money and glorify God with it.

The church is the one agency on this planet that can put houses, land, and provision into a family's hands and teach them how to steward all of it for the glory of God. Other agencies write the check and leave the household exactly as it was.

Remember what happened after the fish and the loaves. The crowd was fed, and most of them went home. The ones who came back came back hungry for another meal rather than for the kingdom. People will like you for what you have. They will respect you for what you believe, and respect is the thing that outlasts the meal.

I want to say something to the church about the work we have handed off. Feeding the hungry belongs to us. Housing the homeless belongs to us. Caring for children in foster care belongs to us, and some of those children have been placed in situations that leave them more wounded than when they entered. We released those responsibilities to other organizations, and a great deal of the money that follows that work now pays staff somewhere else. The work and the money travel together. When we release the work, we release the millions with it. We are pursuing grants at New Life Harvest for exactly this reason, and the first question serious money asks is whether you can count.

Every mountain carries a challenge

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” (Isaiah 2:2, KJV)

Believers serve as ambassadors in every sphere of life and culture. Government. Family. Religion. Education. Economy. Entertainment. Media. There is no mountain where we are excluded, and taking a mountain means faithful influence through truth.

Each mountain has its own resident challenge, and you should expect to meet it the moment you say yes to God.

On the media mountain, the challenge is bad news, and behind it sits a spirit of terror. Its chief weapon is fear, false evidence appearing real, and notice the verb the industry itself uses. The enemy has to cast. He has to stream it toward you until you turn and go the other direction.

On the family mountain, the challenge is rejection and a broken sense of belonging, the persistent sense that you were never supposed to be here. God is the potter and we are the clay, and the potter's entire interest is in putting you back together. I came into this thing broken. He assembled me, and now my assignment is to tell people on that mountain that He will do for them what He did for me.

The instruction for all of it is the same. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7, KJV). And "If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14, KJV). Humble yourself, pray, seek His face, turn. That verse tells you four times to turn around. Repentance is a hundred and eighty degrees.

The challenge came to promote you

Here is the word I want to leave with you, and it is the heart of my new book, The Rise of Joseph: The Power of the Second Seat.

Every challenge Joseph met promoted him. He met the challenge and ran Potiphar's house. He met the challenge and ran out of his coat. He met the challenge and went to prison, where he ran the prison. And then a call came, because no one else in the kingdom could meet the challenge in front of Pharaoh, and God handed him a position that fed a nation.

The challenge in front of you carries the same design. It came to promote you spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, and financially. So face it. Whatever has been coming against you, come against it in the name of Jesus.

One more thing about the seat you are sitting in this week. A paycheck reflects someone else's valuation of your time, and an employer exists to develop you, not to enrich you. I learned this a long time ago: if your name is absent from the side of the building, you are building another person's dream. Some of you are psychologically unemployable, and that is a calling rather than a flaw. Get the blueprints. Get the profile together. Get the deck built.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33, KJV). Right positioning is the whole matter. Kings execute the will of the King. Priests keep right relationship with Him. Everything else is added.

A challenge for this week

Take the Psalm 37 challenge with us. "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart" (Psalm 37:4, KJV). Whatever rises against you this week, give thanks instead of a complaint, because thanksgiving is the will of God concerning you.

Meet the challenge. Take the mountain. And remember what you came for. You came to receive your assignment, and you came to be sent.

Apostle Archbishop Leon Benjamin is a native of Richmond, Virginia, who accepted his call to ministry in 1993 and has preached across denominational lines, inside prisons, and on street corners. He and his wife, Pastora Maria D. Benjamin, founded the congregation now known as New Life Harvest Church, Inc., where he was ordained as pastor by Bishop T. D. Jakes in 2004 and later consecrated Chief Apostle and Presiding Prelate of New Life Harvest Churches, Inc. He serves as founder and chancellor of Harvest Bible College and leads Kingdompreneur Now!, a mentoring program that develops believers into entrepreneurs who honor the King and advance His kingdom. He and Pastor Maria have three children.

Apostle Archbishop Leon Benjamin is the author of The Rise of Joseph: The Power of the Second Seat (Revival House Publishing, coming soon).