How you or just about any believer could start a Bible New Testament disciple-making simple
church, part four.
Hey, welcome to today's Little Lesson, back here on the beach, and talking about how any
of us who are true believers in Jesus and who love him and are trying to obey him could
start and lead or participate in a simple church.
A simple church is a very Biblical church because we find many examples in the New Testament
of churches that meet in people's houses.
Right?
Right.
I've already said this.
There's no example of any church meeting in a big box, a special church building.
We've got to rethink a lot of things in light of the New Testament because what Jesus wants
is he wants disciples.
We've established that pretty clearly, haven't we?
He wants disciples, people who follow and obey his commandments.
That's the goal, and that's what Jesus wants.
If you're not involved in being a disciple and making a disciple, then you have no reason
to call yourself a Christian.
You're in sad, sad, sad shape.
Sadly, there are a lot of people going to church every Sunday.
There's pastors who are leading churches every Sunday who aren't involved in making disciples,
and they're not even disciples themselves.
How can you make a disciple if you're not a disciple, if you're not committed to Jesus
and love him above everything else?
How can you be a part of a New Testament church?
Well, I've talked about this now three times in a row.
If you missed the first three, I'd encourage you to go back because on the last Little
Lesson, we're talking about a format that you can use when you gather.
People say, "What will be the order of our service?"
Well, you're done with services, honey.
There are no services.
This is life.
This is spontaneity with the help of the Holy Spirit and letting human beings actually be
human beings.
The performance days are done, honey.
You don't have to prepare a sermon.
You don't have to prepare a song list.
All you got to know is where you're meeting, what time it starts, and bring a Bible and
bring the Holy Spirit.
You can not help but bring the Holy Spirit if you're a believer in Jesus because he goes
with you everywhere.
He's in you.
Right?
Right.
Now, you're gathered together, and you break up your gathering into three segments.
You can do this with two people.
"Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am right in their midst."
You can do this with three, four, five, six, seven, eight people.
You can't do more than 10 or 12.
It gets pretty crowded at that point in time.
You, first of all, look back.
Then, you look up.
Then, you look forward.
Now, on the last Little Lesson, I talked about that part about looking up, where you study
the scripture together.
Everybody participates and kicks in.
They answer four questions.
What do you like?
What do you find challenging?
What does this teach us about God?
What does this teach us about people?
You've got revelation.
You've got truth going.
Hallelujah.
You didn't have a pastor there.
You didn't watch some guy on a video, some professional guy.
You went right to the source, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Paul, Peter, James, John.
You got some truth.
You say, "Well, what if we don't understand something?"
Well, just say, "I don't understand that."
God doesn't hold you accountable to do what you don't understand, but focus on what you
do understand.
You might read a passage of scripture and half of it's foggy to you.
Say, "Lord, help the fog here, but thanks for what you made clear.
I'm going to apply that."
You've arrived at some understanding.
You've talked about things, what God is saying to us here.
Now it's time to do something.
This is what separates what I'm talking about from happens in most Christian gatherings
because you might hear convicting sermons in churches, but never do we go to this next
step, to the degree at least that we're going to go to the next step.
Now we're going to look forward.
We all talk about how this verse impacted me or this passage and what I'm going to do
because we just spent some time in prayer, looking up and asking God, "What do you want
me to do in response to what we've just read here?
I don't want your word to return to you void, Lord, so what do you want me to do this week?
Not someday, this week, what do you want me to do?"
Everybody listens to the Holy Spirit and to the best of their ability tries to hear the
Holy Spirit speak within them.
Sometimes it's like a no-brainer because, again, if Jesus gave a commandment, you don't
have to pray about, "What do you want me to do, Lord?"
He wants you to do what he said.
Then, you go around the circle one last time.
"What did God say to you?"
"Well, I think God wants me this week to A, B, C." The next person says, "Well, I believe
God's telling me that I need to do..."
So somebody maybe writes it down so you can remember because we're actually serious.
We're actually intentional about obeying Jesus, and we want to hold each other accountable
because we love each other, and we want to admonish each other and encourage one another
and share with one another and help each other grow.
Oh my goodness.
What revolutionary ideas.
You close.
You might pray for one another if anyone has any needs or so forth or whatever.
This is the real deal.
The next time you come back, you start with looking back.
That's the first third of your gathering.
You look back, and you say, "Hey, Amy.
Last time you said that, you know, in response to what we studied, God's word, you said that
you were going to start whatever.
How'd it go?
Because you said you were going to do it.
You said that's what the Holy Spirit said.
How'd it go?"
Amy says, "Well, it actually went pretty well.
I made a step closer to Jesus.
I said I was going to be more devoted in my prayer life or something.
I was going to share the gospel with Aunt Jenny or I was going to volunteer some time
at the homeless shelter," or whatever you said you were going to do as a follower of
Christ.
"How'd it go?"
"It went pretty good.
Okay, now it's your turn, Jim.
You said last time you were going to thus and so.
How'd it go?"
"Well, I got to confess.
I didn't do it.
I was scared."
"Well, that's okay because we love you and you just did what the Bible said, confess
your sins one to another because we love each other and we're all growing in grace.
We all know we're struggling here, so we don't have to put on any airs or facades or be the
phony masked Christian that comes to church on Sunday.
We can be real.
We're in a trusting environment with the few people that we know love us.
We've already committed that we're not going to be gossiping about each other outside of
this.
That's okay, Jim, but do you still believe the Lord wants you to do that?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Okay.
Is there any way we can help you?
Because I went through that about two years ago.
It was a little tough for me too, but I ultimately succeeded.
Maybe I could model it for you.
Maybe we could spend some time together this week and I can show you how I do that," or
whatever it might be.
We're making disciples, and we're discipling just using a simple format of looking back,
looking up, and looking forward.
We're intentional in our growth in Christ.
This is what church is supposed to be.
You say, "Where do pastors, elders fit into all this?"
Well, I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in our next Little Lesson.
You don't want to miss it.
See you then.
Bye, bye.