Protocol of the Kingdom: Fathers and Sons Dominion Church International Apostle Jerry W. Hester October 10, 2010

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1 Protocol of the Kingdom: Fathers and Sons Dominion Church International Apostle Jerry W. Hester October 10, 2010 The Lord continuously brings a greater clarity to us regarding our identity in the Kingdom of God. First, He has revealed to us that we are not just a local Church; we are a Kingdom Embassy! Also, the embassy is not made up of members, but people who are Kingdom Delegates! In other words, DCI is not a playground for spiritual babies, neither are we a people who are in contest with one another to see who is the most powerful, who can preach, pray and prophesy the best! Neither are we in competition with any other ministry or group of believers. At DCI we do not count our people; we weigh them. Our interest is that each Delegate carries a certain weight of maturity and a certain weight of His glory! Our assignment was further clarified when the Lord told us that we are pioneers of Present Truth to the Now Generation! Because of our identity and assignment, we live in accordance with Kingdom Protocol. There is an order (an acceptable way of doing things) in the Kingdom that we strive to adhere to, so that each Delegate may live in the fulfillment of their destiny. Our commitment as a ministry is to live the culture of the Kingdom! The season of our assignment in the earth is called several things: the Apostolic; the Gospel of the Kingdom; the Third Day and Present Truth (to name a few)! To become and to remain pioneers of these truths we must, as the Delegates of DCI, walk in agreement and unity regarding what the Lord is saying and the direction that He is leading us in. All of us have different backgrounds and experiences from past churches and ministries, and we find that we are unable to fuse much of what was, with what now is! In other words, it s a new day; it s a new way! You may have come from a past where the people gossiped, ate the Pastor for lunch on Sunday, griped and belly ached until you got what you wanted, and were able to stay underground-- hiding out, because there was no structure and true spiritual oversight! You may have come here from wild kingdom nursery, where anything goes! If you poop, Pastor will clean it up! If you throw a fit, they will look the other way and won t discipline you. You can slap Johnny s face and put gum in Susie s hair and sing Oh How I

2 Love Jesus on the way home! Well, I ve got news for you--you ain t there no more (excuse my English)! DCI is not a nursery, it is not an old folks home, it is not a reformatory, it is not a Pentecostal playground; we are a Kingdom Embassy! To every Delegate I want to say: embrace what God is doing in our midst and let s allow Him to reveal His glory in and through His people! For this to happen, we must trust God and trust our leadership! If you are a Delegate today, it is because you believe God has planted you here and it means that the leaders of this House also believe God has planted you here! Now, for this relationship to work, we must be on the same page in several areas. One of the key areas is the fact that this Church is built on Fathers and Sons! In fact, the Kingdom of God itself is built on Fathers and Sons! Malachi 4:5-6 (KJV) Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before 5 the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall 6 turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Even as John the Baptist had the spirit of Elijah upon him to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord, today we have a generation of Apostolic leaders with the spirit of Elijah, who are fathers in the Church, and who are fully authorized to represent the name of Him who sent them (Ephesians 2:19-20; 3:5)! [Dr. Kelley Varner] Malachi 4:6 states that God will work to turn the hearts of fathers toward the sons and the sons toward the fathers. This is the present climate of cutting edge ministries. True leaders in the Body of Christ have a heart to mentor, train and equip the sons. The people of God are broken and need strength and direction. They are crying out, not for a preacher, but for spiritual Fathers! Paul declared, For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers... (1 Cor. 4:15). A man may be a good preacher, but not carry the heart of a Father! [Share my story of wanting a spiritual Father and what God said: I will use you to be to others what no one would be to you!] At DCI, we have a large group of anointed Five-fold men and women who have the heart of this House. Their desire is to father the people of God, giving them the strength, training and equipping to become mature sons of God and to fulfill their assignment in the earth! Each of our leaders is an instructor in Christ, and they also have the

3 heart of a Father, desiring to see us all come into full maturity, transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Our leaders are not perfect, but they would lay down their lives for you! You can trust them as the gifts from the Lord that they are! John 14:9 (KJV) Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Jesus walked as the expression of His Father in the earth! Luke 15:20-24> The parable of the Prodigal Son shows us the heart of a Father towards his son. Galatians 4:6-7 (KJV) 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Our relationship with God is fully realized when we are mature sons who relate to Him as our Father. There is a difference between being a servant of God (a hireling) and being a son of God (an heir)! Becoming a son involves a progression in growth. God works with us, giving us the ability to become His sons (John 1:12-13). Romans 8:14 (KJV) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Ephesians 4:11-15> The Fivefold gifts are given to help the people of God to become a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, no longer children tossed to and fro with all kinds of doctrine! There is a difference between being a child of God and being a mature son of God. Hebrews 13:17 (KJV) Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. This verse summarizes what our attitude should be towards the leaders in our lives! Romans 8:19 (KJV) For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. Our effectiveness in the world is directly linked to our maturity level which is determined by the degree to which we have yielded to Christ within. The world is not looking for another preacher, prophet, singer or theologian! The world is looking for Jesus, who will be made manifest through a Corporate Company who have yielded to His life

4 and are allowing Him to do His will through them! The world is not waiting to see us; the world is waiting to see Jesus IN and THROUGH us! Someone once said, Find out what God is doing in your generation and throw yourself into it! As we walk this Kingdom journey and seek to fulfill our assignment in the earth, we must always stay current with what God is doing; we must always stay in Present Truth! To do this, we must realize that God is doing things that He has never done before. Just as He spoke to Joshua, so is He speaking to us today: ye have not passed this way heretofore (Joshua 3:4b KJV); You ve never been on this road before (MESSAGE); you ve never traveled this way before (NLT)! We are in a new day and a new season! To keep moving forward, we must trust the Lord and believe that we are in His boat, even when the journey causes us discomfort and takes us places that we don t understand! In Exodus 19:10-11, God tells Moses to sanctify the people and that in three days He would come down in the sight of all the people! In Verse 11, God tells them to be ready against the third day! Verse 16 tells us that on the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and an exceeding loud trumpet! (see Joel 2:1,15) This scared the people and they withdrew from the Lord (Exodus 20:18-21). This is indeed a picture of the Church today! There are those who recoil at the Third Day. It is new territory and they are not sure they want a part of it! However, God is raising up a Moses Company who draw near unto the thick darkness where God is (Exodus 20:21)! There is a price to be paid when we recoil and draw back from what God is doing. Only two men (Joshua and Caleb) lived to go into the Promised Land! When a people withdraw from the Lord, destruction is their only destiny. Jesus affirms this when addressing the city of Jerusalem in Luke 19: He spoke of terrible things coming upon them because they did not know the time of their visitation! In Matthew 23:37, Jesus is pouring out His heart over Jerusalem: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Then Jesus says in verse 38 that their house is left unto them desolate! Let there be no mistake about it--there is a high price for resisting the will, the plan, and the purpose of God for our generation!

5 How To Be Ready Against the Third Day 1. We must repent (change our minds) and sanctify ourselves. We make a genuine effort to turn to God and to expect Him to do what only He can do (Joshua 3:5). 2. We must embrace what God is doing. We must press in and draw near to what He is doing and not withdraw from Him (Exodus 19:21; Hebrews 10:19-22; 2 Kings 2:2,4,6; Isaiah 53:6; James 1:17). 3. We must follow with no strings attached--serving Him on His terms, not ours! He knows what he is doing and He is taking us where we have never been before (Luke 9:61-62; Psalm 63:8; Matthew 16:24; 26:39; 7:21; John 10:27; James 4:13-15; Joshua 3:4). Closing Thoughts Kairos seasons and events shape and mold who you are and how you live out your relationships. Relatedness is essential to connectedness. It is important that you understand the nature of your significant relationships, because they either cause you to advance with confidence in the direction of destiny and purpose, or retreat in fear and cause you to be hindered from living in the freedom for which you are intended. Dr. Mark Chironna We are always looking for Kairos Portals or openings that will cause Heaven to be manifested in the earth realm. But, there are also Kairos People! The Father desires to mature us into Kairos people; everywhere we go, Jesus manifests and Heaven manifests! This kind of reality is found in the Third realm of grace! And it comes by right relationship vertically (with the Lord) and right relationship horizontally (with the elders in our lives)! That s the way the Father has designed His Kingdom. This is part of the protocol (the acceptable way of doing things) in the Kingdom of God. To all the Delegates of this House: God has planted you here! So, that means that the fulfillment of your purpose is knitted to where you are planted. If DCI is where He wants you to be, you will not fulfill His purpose for your life if you withdraw or recoil from what He is doing here. We all must be healed of our past hurts and abuses in other churches and from other spiritual leaders, and we must trust God that He has given us elders and spiritual overseers who are for us and not

6 against us, and who will love us and equip us to grow up into the image of Christ Jesus! We must also change our mind about our behavior and lifestyle, and we must put away our childish things and our childish ways. We must embrace sonship by embracing our spiritual fathers! We must choose to live within the protocol of the Kingdom!