How you or just about any believer can start a disciple making church, part three.
Welcome to today's little lesson.
I'm so blessed to be here with you and blessed to be here at sunrise at this beautiful beach
in Florida, where there's two miles and there's not a single house.
Not a hotel, an apartment, a condo.
Nothing.
Just straight, pristine beach like the Lord originally made it, and they preserve this
for sea turtles who come here and lay their eggs, and then these little baby turtles come
out and head back to the ocean.
One more sign that God is amazing.
Okay, so enough about beaches and turtles.
We're talking about how you or just about any Christian could start a New Testament
church.
Again, I'm not talking about the Church Universal, I'm not talking about, the Bible talks about
the church in emphasis, I'm not talking about starting a church in a city that it's the
whole church that affects the whole city.
No, no, no.
I'm talking about what we would see over and over again in the New Testament, a church
that meets in a house.
Or it can meet in a restaurant, it can meet at the beach on a log, it can meet under a
tree, and quite frankly, there are more Christians meeting in non-church buildings around the
world today than there are Christians who meet in church buildings.
No doubt about that because of the explosion of the church around the world.
And if you're not aware of that, you're missing out on perhaps the greatest revival that's
ever occurred in the history of humanity and could be the last revival of human history.
I encourage you to get involved in it.
One way you can get involved in it is to live it out yourself and follow Jesus and actually
have real Christian fellowship, not just be a Christian, a Sunday Christian.
I remember there was a song when I was a young Christian, and I forget the lady's name who
wrote the song.
It was Ain't It Grand to be a Christian?
Ain't It Grand to be a Christian?
And it was, "Ain't it grand to be a Christian?
Ain't it grand?
Ain't it grand to be a Christian?
Ain't it grand?
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and all day Sunday.
Grand to be a Christian, ain't it grand?"
I'm glad that that song included Monday through Saturday Christianity, but it was kind of
funny about all day Sunday.
We can be Christians all day, every day.
Praise God.
And follow Jesus and obey him every day, and we can meet with other Christians that have
true Koinonia fellowship, where we're teaching an admonishment or that we're growing spiritually
as a result.
But you, if you're a spiritual Christian, you probably have experienced this phenomena
that I'm talking about right now, where you've gotten together with other believers, maybe
just a handful, and maybe it was at a restaurant, maybe you were just eating pie, or sitting
on someone's back porch, and you were discussing how God is working in your life or what God's
been teaching you, or you were listening to someone else tell you about that, and you
maybe ended up in prayer for one another, and you said to yourself, "My goodness.
This was more like what I think church ought to be than what I experience on Sunday morning
when I'm sitting there looking at the back of somebody's head and listening to a sermon
that I'm not sure how it has anything to do with my life."
Okay.
Now, you think, "You're just down on those big box churches."
No, I'm not down on those big box churches, but there's no big box churches in the New
Testament, so get ready to stand before Jesus and talk about that, especially if you haven't
really been making disciples.
Again, the church model that some of us, most of us, are so familiar with is not Biblical.
It's mostly Pagan in its origins.
It's still coming out of the dark ages when we have this clergy, lady divine.
What's the point of the so-called clergy of which that word is not mentioned in the New
Testament?
The reason that God has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers is for
what?
According to Paul and the book of Ephesians, for the equipping of the saints for the work
of ministry.
So pastor or teacher, if you're not doing that, what are you going to say when you stand
before Jesus?
"I gave sermons.
People loved me.
A lot of people came every Sunday."
Oh great.
Did you equip the saints for the work of the ministry?
"Well, yes I did.
I gave sermons and told them what to do."
Did they do it?
No.
They didn't.
Oh okay, well I guess you didn't succeed.
Now, let me tell you about a format that you can use if you want to start a disciple making,
simple church in your house, or on the beach, or wherever you are, when you get two or three
where Jesus is in your mix.
And this is a format that could work in any church setting, but it can't work in a big
church because it's so relational.
It can only be in a small group.
You break your gathering into three sections.
Looking back, looking up, and looking forward.
I'm going to start with the looking up, because then you can understand the looking forward
and the looking back part.
When we look up, we look at the scripture, and we've chosen a passage to read, so many
verses where it's one section of sorts.
You're not going to read an entire book in the Bible.
You might not even read a whole chapter.
But you're reading something that's relevant.
Probably it's in the New Testament, right?
Old Testament is just as inspired, but if you're going to start anywhere, better to
start with the New Testament.
Maybe start with what Jesus said.
How can you go wrong there?
And you read it, and then you go around your circle of two, three, four, five, six, seven
people, whatever, and you stop and say, "What do you like about that?"
Then you ask the question, "What do you find challenging about that?"
It might be, "I don't understand this sentence."
Okay, great.
Guess what?
Nobody fully understands everything in the Bible, and those that pretend to, they're
self-deceiving, or they're deceiving you.
Then, "What does this passage teach us about God?"
Because that's who we want to get to know.
"What does this passage teach us about people?"
Because we're the people and we want to understand us and our relationship with God and what
he expects of us.
Go around the circle and you discuss those four questions for however long you need to,
however much time you have.
20 minutes, 15 minutes, half hour.
Who knows?
It doesn't make any difference.
And you're probably going to get some truth without having a pastor present.
Oh my goodness.
Perish the thought that we could actually learn something without somebody lecturing
us because we have Jesus.
Guess what?
Your pastor gets his sermons from that Bible, hopefully, so can't you get some truth out
of that Bible?
Do you ever read it yourself?
Might it be possible that one of the people in your group has insight that you don't have?
Possibly.
But you're going to get something out of that.
You've looked up.
Now, you're going to keep looking up by going to the Lord in prayer because we all know
the Lord answers prayers, especially prayers that are like, "Lord, show me what you want
me to do."
When does God never answer that prayer?
And we have the Holy Spirit in us to lead us and guide us, so we're in pretty good shape
here to be hearing something from God that agrees with his word.
So now, "Lord, we've read your word, speak to us what you would like us to do."
And it might be so plain because when you read a commandment from Christ, you don't
have to wonder what he wants you to do, it's what he said to do.
Do what he said to do.
But how you're going to specifically apply it in your life.
So whatever you studied that day in your little gathering, then you say, "Lord, how do you
want me to apply this in my life starting immediately?"
And everybody prays.
Maybe you spend five, 10 minutes just praying quietly or silently, and then you look forward,
and I'm going to talk about that in the next little lesson when we've gathered again, we
talk the next time.
We look forward because we're going to now look at how we're going to apply what we just
learned.
You don't find that often happening in too many churches.
Okay.
Thanks for joining me.
See you next time.