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.