 As so often happens, we receive news that we cannot keep to ourselves. Yesterday we heard from our “Timothy” in Nicaragua that 25 people from 5 different churches signed up for a workshop on how to use God’s Plan for Young Disciples. They are persons who have already completed God’s Plan for His Disciples. This workshop will be held on Saturday, May 28th.
This is part of our goal and philosophy of ministry. We do not tell those we train exactly how to take what they learn and pass it on to others. As we noted in the last three days, we trust the Holy Spirit to work out the details that make discipling effective in their particular culture. This has been true with our Brother in Nicaragua. He has gone “out and preached the gospel everywhere, while the Lord worked with” him (Mark 16:20). Will you join us in praying for this special event Saturday (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.). Ask that our Brother and those he teaches be filled with the Holy Spirit, so this training begins a movement of God among the younger generation. When we hear the results, we will pass them on to you.
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I will wrap up the blogs on Paul’s method of discipling and establishing churches. His success speaks for itself, but he was right when he wrote to Corinth and said, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it” (1 Corinthians 3:10). Let’s look at the last four steps in his method in Acts 14:21-23.
What you do not see in these verses is that this disciple-making and church planting took place over about three to four months, NOT YEARS! “Let each one take care how he builds upon it (the foundation)” (1 Corinthians 3:10). Yesterday I introduced Paul’s method of making disciples. Now we need to look at each step.
1. They preached the gospel in the power of the Spirit. Without this, we have not even started to fulfill Jesus’ command to the Church. 2. Those who received the gospel were immediately made disciples - obedient followers of Jesus. Notice the link with Mt. 28:20, “teaching them to observe (obey) ALL that I commanded you.” That is NOT SELECTIVE TEACHING OR OBEDIENCE! To make a disciple is to make an obedient follower of Jesus. 3.Then they left that place and went to the next city. New believers were entrusted to the Spirit who gave them new birth. Do you think the Holy Spirit is able to follow-up on His own work? I believe we preachers and teachers often hinder the Spirit because we think we must force God to do His work our way. Not Paul! The same Spirit that worked in him, he trusted to work in new converts. So must we! This is part of “making many disciples.” 4.The next major step in this process was that Paul and Barnabas returned to the places where they had made disciples for a specific purpose. Follow-up was crucial to establishing strong disciples. We face a major problem here in the western world. We are too busy for discipling, either making disciples or being discipled! That comes from wrong priorities. Not that I want to end this blog on a negative note, but we need to ask God to get us back to a biblical model. More tomorrow. When the Church began on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), it was composed of Jews converted by the gospel. As time passed, the gospel was heard by Gentiles and the Spirit granted them to receive salvation by grace alone as the Jews did! (The Ethiopian Eunuch - Acts 8, Cornelius - Acts 10, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Cyrene, and Antioch in Pisidia - Acts 11 - 13).
The Holy Spirit and the Antioch church sent out Barnabas and Saul (Paul) in Acts 13:1-3 to proclaim the gospel where it had not been heard. The Spirit led them to places like Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. It was during this mission trip that Paul was led to develop a discipling method that established new converts so they would become strong in the faith, able to stand firm on their own, and then disciple others. Read a few verses from Acts 14 that prove this point. “When they had preached the gospel to that city (Antioch) and had made many disciples, they returnedto Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed themto the Lord in whom they had believed” (14:21–23). I want to dig deeper into these critical steps of discipling tomorrow. Please come back. Many years are spent in formal education. It begins with our infant stage, sitting in our mother’s arms and being under her teaching influence for years (NOTE: I have great compassion on any who did not have a good experience with their mother!). Most of us then spend six or seven years in elementary school, three in middle school, and four in high school (these may vary according to the individual). Many will choose further education in some specific field of endeavor.
There is another type of education that is not limited by age or circumstances. The only cost is being willing to submit to the Teacher in a unique way. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30). The uniqueness of this learning process is that it occurs through an intimate relationship with Jesus. We cannot learn what He wants to teach us unless we are this close to Him. Our pace is His pace. Our direction is His direction. The load is easy only by working alongside Jesus. We only find rest as this intimacy with Jesus is our daily practice. We must take HIS yoke on ourselves. Learning from Jesus should be a life-time pursuit and our desire for it should increase with each step we take with Him. "It is one thing for a minister to be an advocate and supporter of missions: it is another and very different thing for him to understand that missions are the chief end of the Church, and therefore the chief end for which his congregation exists...He must learn how to lead the congregation on to make the extension of Christ's kingdom the highest object of its corporate existence."
Andrew Murray, The Key to the Missionary Problem: A Passionate Call to Obedience in Action “You might think I am crazy in all this, but I think it is worth it to declare Jesus to these people. I believe the measure of success in the kingdom of God is obedience. I want my life to reflect obedience to Christ and to live in obedience to Him. I think that Jesus is worth it. He is worth everything. (John Chau, November 16, 2018).
“Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”” (Matthew 20:28). “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18). Paul said, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). Did John Chau follow Jesus’ and Paul’s model? Will you and I? After writing yesterday’s blog, I began thinking about how the Early Church prayed intently in certain situations and how God answered with unmistakeable clarity. That is what we need today!
The boldness of Peter and John in Acts 3 with the lame man and his healing raised some questions from the temple “priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees” (4:1). “By what power or by what name did you do this?” (4:7). As should be expected, Peter gives credit for this miracle to “the name of Jesus Christ”(10) and then places blame for His death on these leaders. This is followed by warning Peter and John “to speak no more to anyone in this name” (17). Peter, John, the Early Church, and we answer to a much higher authority! But in responding as they did to the temple rulers, that was not the end of the matter or their resources. The church gathered and “lifted their voices together to God and said…grant to your servants to continue to speak your word in all boldness. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (24, 29, 31). WHAT A WONDERFUL ANSWER! There is no question that God answered their prayers directly and with unmistakeable clarity. This answer strengthened the church and it powerfully advanced God’s work, as we see in the verses that follow. Do we want the Spirit to give us this boldness? He will if we really desire it. Was there a deeper meaning to the Lord’s instructions to the disciples in Acts 1:4? “And while staying with them he (Jesus) ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.” We know from the context of Acts 1 and 2 that the “promise” Jesus referred to was the Holy Spirit.
We also know that this “waiting” period was ten days and during that time the disciples did two things; 1) they selected Matthias to fill the position that Judas had, and 2) spend those days in prayer. Looking at Luke’s record in Acts, there was more in His mind than just waiting for Pentecost. In verse 8, Jesus tells them that they “will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon” those waiting disciples. They would be specifically equipped for the role of being His “witnesses.” My question is, are we spending time waiting in prayer, as they did, so we might have the Spirit’s power for more effective witness? As believers in Jesus and His disciples, we have the Spirit. But do we have an attitude of dependent “waiting” to make sure our “witness” is done with the Spirit’s power?  For some months we have been working on the Khmer translation of God’s Plan for His Disciples for Cambodia. We are so thankful to report that it was printed and introduced last week in two different locations in Cambodia. Though I do not have a detailed report yet, these pictures tell a story through the faces of those who received these books and training. Will you join us in praying for these churches, that God the Spirit will establish these believers in the Scriptures so they can disciple others.  |
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