Video Transcript: House To House - Chapter 3 God’s Priorities
I mentioned in the last session the importance of writing down the vision, writing down the vision and tablets so you can run and so, as I mentioned before, I was so blessed by so many others who had written things down that I'd been able to learn from. We felt like God was calling us to begin to write things down, not just for us, but for the whole body of Christ. And so I'm very honored that my brother Henry has invited me to serve here with CLI in this course. And using some
things we've written down, let me show you what I'm talking about. And again, you're using this material. It's all part of the course, and I'm much of what I'm teaching now is from this book, house to house it's one of the first books I'd ever written, and which is basically the, you know, all this, these nuts and bolts about, how can we see strong house fellowships, how strong house groups and house churches established that grow and multiply into networks. And also, obviously, a lot of this training can also be used in a conventional church or a community church or mega church, where they have some kind of small group ministry. A lot of the same principles apply, even though the house church is different, because, see, in the house church, you have radical elders in the house who taught you give your tithes to the house church. In a true house church, if it's more of a House Fellowship, small group within a larger church, then the elders are in the larger church, and the leaders of the House fellowships are a bit more like in a deacon role. There are ministers, there are spiritual fathers and others helping. Again, as long as Jesus is glorified, people's lives are changed. Become more like Christlike. Either way is fine, even though the focus of this teaching is helping you develop house churches and house church networks. And then the last part of this training will be this book here, the cry for spiritual fathers and mothers, which is a book that I've written many years ago, and it's really the heart behind all that we talk about. Becoming a spiritual father and spiritual mother. If you're not a spiritual father spiritual mother, it will not work for you to have a house church, because we care about the people we serve to become like spiritual children. So I simply wanted to mention that here in the beginning of the session, now I'd like you to turn in your Bibles. If you have a Bible with you, to Matthew 28. I simply want to read the Scripture that has to do with the Great Commission. Because in this session, we want to talk about God's priorities. There are three priorities that I call foundational to starting a house church. And we'll look at these three priorities, they're all found in the Great Commission. Now in the Great Commission in Matthew 28 but I'm going to begin in verse 16, which is a bit earlier than often were where we teachers will teach this often start in verse, verse 18. Let me start in 16. And this is obviously right before Jesus, when he was, you know, before he went to heaven. The Bible says this. It says then the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain, where Jesus had told them to go, and they told him, I'm gonna meet you here before the ascension. It says when they saw him, this is interesting. They worshiped Him, but some doubted. These were his disciples. There were still
among them, doubters. And I want you to know sometimes you feel like you're still a doubter. You know you should be trusting God and to Mary, but you still feel like a doubter. I want you to know what God says to you if you feel like a doubter, because he spoke the same thing to the worshipers and the doubters, those who loved him and honored him and believed in him and the doubter, he spoke the same word. And what was the word? Verse 18. We call it the Great Commission, he said. Then Jesus came to them, and he said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. So Jesus says, I've been given all authority from the father. And he said, Therefore, because I have all authority. And obviously he had breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit a few days before he had given them authority. So obviously he said this. He says, Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. He said, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them, he says, to obey everything I've commanded you, and surely I'm with you to the very end of the age. Now, in the scriptures that I just read to you, we see three foundations I want to talk to you about. These are what I call three foundation stones that we need to have in place. Understand Here in our hearts, before we plant churches, before we plan a house church, the first foundation is prayer. The second foundation that we see here is evangelism, and the third foundation is making disciples. Now the first Foundation says, verse 17, they came and they worshiped him. Of course, they prayed. He was there in person. They were in fellowship with Him. It all begins in prayer, planning, starting a house church. It all starts in prayer. I mean, most of the revelation I'm talking to you about were times when I was in prayer and God spoke to me. So for example, in. After we started the movement of house churches and in the small group churches throughout the world called Dove International, we only work with those who we were sending out to plant churches that we get phone calls and people contact us and say, we have the same heart you have. We have the same spiritual DNA you have. But you know, could we work with you. We said, No, we only plant churches with people who are part of Dove International. That's all we do. But one day I'm in prayer, and when I'm in prayer, the Holy Spirit speaks to me. And here's what he said. He said, I have many orphans in my body, he said, and some of those orphans are orphan churches, and they have the same values, scriptural values I've given to you, and they're alone. They need a spirit led connection. They need to be connected to a larger group. He said, I want you to find a way that you can get others connected in to that which I am doing in your life and through you and through the devil, natural family. So we had to figure out a way to do that, but see it came through prayer. So we set up what we called an engagement process where, you know, somebody has said, we have the same heart you have. We're all alone. And God's built some tremendous relationships in the nations into our lives, because God had prepared many people to join with us, and what we were doing, we didn't even know it. He had
prepared them. So we go through a one year engagement period, and we walk through it together, make sure that this is from the Lord and their side and our side. You see, it all happened in prayer. Now for I'd love to take hours and speak on prayer, but let me share this with you very, very briefly. A few years ago, I was really struggling in my prayer life, and I just love Jesus, probably just struggling in my prayer life. And I went to Uzbekistan, and I was ministering to leaders, house church leaders, underground church leaders in Uzbekistan. And I remember a little lady was leading an underground church movement who said to me, she said, Tell me about your prayer life. And I was honestly a bit embarrassed, because I love Jesus, I would pray every day, but my prayer life wasn't what I knew God would want it to be. So I came back to Pennsylvania, USA, and said, Lord, teach me to pray again. Just teach me to pray. And God took me through a process of learning to pray in a way I never prayed before. In fact, I've written it in this book called you're building your personal house of prayer. And here's the essence of it. I don't have time again to it much, but here's the essence of what I learned. I learned that Jesus' disciples also had a hard time learning to pray. And I learned that Jesus' disciples came to Jesus, and they said to him, they said, Lord, teach us to pray in the book of Luke, just as John taught his disciples. And then he said, Well, when you pray, here's how you pray. Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be your name. May Your kingdom come. I grew up on the Lord's prayer. We called it. I was very familiar with that, but I found out there's something that I was missing. And I said, Lord, is there something I'm missing here? And I think pray. And I studied it, I realized that Jesus was teaching, as rabbis teach, he was giving them an outline to pray, to help them with their prayer life. Because we all pray differently. We have different different modes of prayer. We have different preferences in prayer. And Jesus was actually giving in the Lord's Prayer, he was giving 12 different aspects of prayer. And then again, I see in pictures, and all at once became clear to me that the houses in Jesus day, you walk through a door, you went into the courtyard, and then you went into the rooms in the house. Many houses were like that. I've seen house like that in parts of the world when I traveled today. And then I realized that when he talked about, he says, when he when he said to his disciples, he said, My house should be called a house of prayer for all nations. Quoting Isaiah 56:7, I realized that we're called to be house of prayer. Who is the house of God? You're the house of God. I'm the house of God. It's not a building. We are. We are the temples of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple of God not made with hands. He's called me to be house of prayer. So all who wants the Lord begin to show me again. I look time to get into it here. But I simply want to mention this. It really helped revolutionize my prayer life. And would you want to take the 12 rooms in the house of prayer? I'm going to tell you what they are. And the 12 rooms now, the brand again, that's what it looks like. House of Prayer is, I see it looks like that. And the 12 rooms in the house of
prayer, our Father in heaven. That's the family room. When I come, he is my daddy. He loves me because he loves me. If you don't know you're loved by the Heavenly Father, you have a hard time having a solid prayer life. We're loved by the Heaven, our heavenly Father. And then the adoration room, hallowed be your name, just adoring him and worshiping Him and loving him. And then your kingdom come. Making declarations. I love the declaration room, where we make declarations. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That's a declaration. And then the surrender room, Lord here will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then the provision room, Give us today our daily bread. And then the forgiveness room, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Is all about the cross. Then. The freedom room, as we have forgiven our debtors. See if we don't forgive others, here's the reality, we don't forgive others. God cannot forgive us. So we find freedom by saying, Lord, I forgive them. They didn't know what they were doing. And then the protection room. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, the warfare room. And again, you're going to find an affinity, maybe one or two or three of these rooms, God wants to have a full, balanced life of prayer. And then the kingdom room for yours is the kingdom and the power room, the Holy Spirit room, yours is the power. And then the exaltation room and the glory forever. You know, we walk into our house of prayer by thanksgiving and praise in the Bible. Bible is clear. I Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, from Psalms 100 you know, I find that if I live a thankful life, God can do amazing things through my life. So we're the stars. Yeah, I'm called to start a house church. That's awesome. But God's called, calling us to have intimacy with Him. Our prayer life is love him with all of our hearts. Number one's prayer, first foundation, the second foundation is evangelism. It's reaching the lost. And we'll talk more about this in this course. But the main reason for House Fellowship is not to be a hospital for hurting people, even though that's part of it. The main reason is people need to know Jesus, and they need to know Him. And it's really focusing people who need to come into the kingdom of God. And again, we'll take a lot more on that later as we walk through this, through this session and through this whole course together. But see Jesus came to do what the reason the Son of Man appeared was to destroy the devil's work. And the Bible says it clearly in I John 3:8. And so the heart cry, the reason we start house fellowships, yes, is to help believers grow in God, but grow the place where they're sharing their faith and they're seeing other people coming into the kingdom of God. And we've often House fellow says, well, there's, well, an extra chair or two, and well, nobody on that chair said, we're going to pray that God fills those chairs. And then we we talk about who are some people that God's placed in our lives, that we can share our faith with, and we can believe together. Start praying together. So our focus is not just inward, but our focus is outward. I do this all over the world. I'll meet with people and they want training on House fellowships, on cell groups on you
know, starting house churches, I'll say, what do you get a group of people up here and join hands? Let's see what happens. Every culture I go to, they come up, they say eight people. They'll join hands. They'll face inward. They never face outward. They face inward. Why? That's our natural tendency to face inward. You see, house fellowships and house churches, our calling to be. Who are people who need to come into the kingdom of God? It's awesome. You know a house I'm involved in a house church right now, house church. I was just our house church leader just yesterday, before I got in the airplane and came to do all this videotaping I'm doing here. And you know what's amazing that house church is all the people in our house church who came out of darkness into light. When one young man was strung out on drugs, his life was horrible. His marriage was horrible. Today. He loves Jesus. He's becoming a leader. He's now an elder in this house church. It's amazing. Just happened in a few short years, what God done in his life? Make sure you're person after person whose lives were changed. Some are still in process. See The beautiful thing about about house church, do many people in the house church aren't even believers yet, but they can sense the love of Jesus. They just says, Ida friend who's leading up, who's leaning House Fellowship. And he would, he told me. He said, every week when I buy gasoline, I have to pay the lady behind the counter. He said, and I had a heart for her. I thought she's someone I should give a, maybe a Christian book or something to he said, I couldn't wait to. He said, He just struck up a little conversation with her that couldn't wait to next week to go. And he I got there, and here she was gone. Her name was Michelle. He said, I asked, where's Michelle? Oh, she got another job. He said, Well, okay, I was just disappointed. I thought I must have missed God on that one. He said, But here's what happened. He said, we as a house church. We every week, we pray God fill these chairs with new people who need to know Jesus. He said, so. He said, one of the other girls in the house church said, you know, she said, let's pray for this gal named Michelle. She works with me, and she needs Jesus. So he said, We prayed for her one night. That girl came to our houses meeting. He said it was the same Michelle, it was the same girl. I was blown away. He says she sat down, here's what they did. They went around and they all rather than doing what they would usually do normally. We'll talk. We more later about we do house church meetings. But he says what we did, we just gave our testimony of how we came to Christ. He said, after four or five people. Michelle said, I need to give my life to Christ. I need to do it. Know what you guys know? I need to know him. He gave her life to Christ. I saw Michelle just a few months ago. Michelle has been a missionary now to Iraq. Michelle has come back. He's serving Jesus. Amazing. But see it happened because they were focusing in that house fellowship. On evangelism, seeing people come into the kingdom of God. CT Studd was a famous missionary. Here's what he said. CT Studd says, said some people like to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell. He
said, I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. And I your house church is to be a rescue shop within the yard of hell. And I know there that some house churches have, you know, is a bit more of a hospital. But I would challenge you,
you know, we're called to be the army of God. Armies do have hospitals. They have medical units to get people fixed up and get them healed up and get them back in the game, so to speak, back back in full service. So yes, we pray for people. Yes, we see healing. But let's never forget our purposes. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Now the third thing, the third foundation for house church planting is discipleship. It's making disciples. We'll talk a lot more about that. How to be a spiritual father, spiritual mother, how Timothy made disciples there. He had this Timothy was we made disciples because he was discipled by Paul. Of course, Paul had Timothy and Titus and Epaphras and on and on, Priscilla and Aquila and all these disciples that he had and Jesus had 12. And I want to clarify one thing, and I'll probably say it again and again. You have to understand, there are levels of discipleship. There are levels of relationship. You cannot be everyone's close friend. Jesus. Closest friend was John. And then he had Peter, James and John, and then he had the other nine, all those 12 together. And then he had the 70 or 72 depending on which translation of the Bible you use. And then he had 120 and then he had the multitudes. Christ wants you to know that the least you need to pray and say, God, who are those? I'm called to spend time with, extra time with maybe once a week, maybe, maybe you do it through social media, somehow, to somebody in your town, you do it one on one, and we'll talk more about how to do that later on in this course. So the foundations of prayer, evangelism and discipleship, that's the foundation. But see that will lead the church planting and house church planting, I believe, is God's way in one of his many ways, but an important way in our generation, to reach those who will not fit in to an organized church as we know it today, not as we say with they have a problem, not necessarily This makes sure we have the wine skins available for them. And this isn't all generation. I get into house churches led by older folks who been in the church for many years. They said we just needed something new, and works for them. But I find many of a younger generation because they value relationship, and in a house church, you have that sense of relationship together to obey God and do what he's called to do. So these three pillars, these three foundations of prayer, intimacy with God, evangelism, having a heart to reach lost I don't claim to be an evangelist at all, but I know one thing is important. I constantly say, Lord, is there someone that I can talk to? So what I can talk to, who? What you can walk in a fresh faith in Jesus Christ, and come to know Jesus Christ. And I give you many, many stories in my life, of many come to Christ in that way. And then number three, I know we're called to make disciples. I mean, of all, Jesus, did you know the most important thing was next to going to the cross for ourselves? Well, he says it to His Father in John 17, chapter 17:4,
he says, Lord, I fulfilled. I finished the work you've given me to do. And what was that work? Say, well, the finished work of the Cross. No, he hadn't gone to the cross yet. Now the face look at the cross is extremely important, and he gave his life as a sacrifice for my sins, your sins, extremely important. However, he hadn't gone to the cross, yet He said, Father, I finished the work you give me to do. And he spends the rest of the chapter, John 17, talking about his disciples and the disciples that the Father gave Him, and He was given them back to back to the Father. We're called to make disciples. And if we understand those three things, then we have a foundation to start a House Fellowship, or start a house church that will be healthy and will grow and will multiply, and out of that will come many house churches, and even a movement and movements of house churches that would not just affect your nation, but affect the nations of the world. You know, I find common what I love about House fellowships and house churches. God uses common ordinary people. I'm a common, ordinary guy. I'm nothing special, and I've seen God use me in many ways. I have many friends. God used in much greater ways. And I'll give you many the stories throughout our 36 sessions together.