Video Transcript: The Cry For Spiritual Fathers and Mothers: Chapter 9 Collect Your Inheritance!
Sometimes, first to really understand healthy house church ministry, we have to understand what is unhealthy house church ministry. There's been a lot of house church ministry over the last 20, 30, years in the nations of the world. I mean, especially in my nation that I personally feel has been unhealthy house church ministry. Let me explain to you what I'm talking about. Somebody's in a local church, a Community Church, a mega church. They get angry at the pastor, and somehow they cause division, and they cause problems, and they leave the church, and they take that spirit with them, a wise man of God. So many years ago, the seed is in the first meeting of something new, first meeting of a new church, or whatever it is that that if there's a seed of unrest, of division, that seed will eventually sprout that will destroy that new work. I've seen that happen again and again. So in other words, people reacting against somebody else, or somebody else's vision, or maybe they try to change their pastor. You know, he should be doing a certain thing. He's not doing so we'll start our own church. It's division. There's no place for division in the kingdom of God. There's a lot of room for multiplication in the kingdom of God, but that that's one, one area. Let me. Let me give you some other examples, or an example, too, of unhealthy house church ministry. That is when we say house church is the only way. This is what God's doing, whatever is going and whatever people are doing with our Community Church, their mega church, and that's all that's so God might bless it but it's just secondary. That's just ridiculous. We need to do what God's call us to do God's call you house church. You do house church with all your heart. You honor what God is doing with the rest of the body of Christ. You honor what God is doing in ministries. You know what God is doing in churches of many different kinds and many different flavors. So I'm simply saying there have been unhealthy house churches. Another type of unhealthy house church has been when it's been led by leaders who were autocratic, dictatorial. They're, you know, they were just controlling people rather than releasing people. They may have called themselves fathers and Lord. They were dictatorial fathers in the Lord. They were not servant leaders the way Jesus is called, call us to lead. So there's a few examples. I just want to clarify that, because many people say, Well, I don't want to get involved in house church, because I know people in involved in house church where it was unhealthy, and so have I, and I say that was improper, it was wrong. It may have been sinful. Way was handled, away, was process. But God, even though that's happened, God wants to read up something fresh and something new with the right heart and with the right with the right spirit. Now, as we've been talking about me spiritual followers and spiritual mothers and planting house churches and all that entails, I want to talk about the inheritance that God has for us, this is what gets me up in the morning is my love for Jesus, my love for my family and the inheritance I believe God is giving us. And I want to explain that to you. I want you to see that from Scripture. It just a few sessions ago, we looked at Abraham for a bit. I like to look at Abram
again. And in Genesis, chapter 15, Genesis chapter 17, because Abram is a father of many nations, and Abraham is the father of faith. Abraham believed God any place on his account for righteousness. The Bible said he accounted it for righteousness. This is faith. Abraham is a father of faith in so many ways. And in Genesis 15:5-6 is when God took Abraham out signs that, look at the stars. He said, Look at the stars. He said, your children, your offspring, grandchildren, great grandchildren will be like the stars of the sky. Another time, he took him out and said, your offspring, we like the sand of the sea, and that's what's going to happen. And so God was giving these promises to a man who was just alone with Sarah, his wife, and they couldn't have children. Here he is, you know, 99-100 years of age, an old man, and now having children. And then God promises them a child. And Sarah first laughs. How could that ever be? We're so old, and yet God did it. He performed a miracle. But Abraham believed the Lord, and we see that again in Genesis 15:5-6, he says, Abraham believed the Lord. He believed the Lord. For what for children? He believed in they didn't have children. He would see children. He might say, how does that apply to me? Well, maybe you kind of start a house church, and you have any your heart. You say, could I ever be part of a house church network? Well, you might plant a house there's never but maybe you will not plant a house here. Maybe just be an obedient father or mother in the Lord, and then your spiritual children will do the same thing again, and their spiritual children will do the same thing again. And you have a great inheritance. I love the scripture from the New Testament, referring back to the old from Galatians 3:29 listen closely, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abram's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now listen again. Says, If you belong to Christ, how many people to Christ? I do you? Do we belong to Jesus? Then you're Abram seed. We're part of Abram seed. We're part of this seed of faith. He says, where heirs according to the promise. What is the promise? Well, you see, of course, the promise of Jesus, our Messiah, who keep came through Abraham lineage, of course. But there's something else here in Genesis. We need to understand Genesis 15 and 17 and Genesis 17, when he said, here's my covenant with you. You'll be a father many nations. Where was he promising him who is promising him family, promising him offspring, promising him children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great, great, great grandchildren. And the same thing is true spiritually for you, God wants you to realize that when you stand before the Lord someday, you don't want to stand there alone. You want to stand with your natural Of course, and spiritual children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, as far as the eye can see, that is God's call that is on. Your life is love Jesus with a passion, and then love your spiritual sons and daughters. Of course, our natural sons and daughters, our natural names, but also our spiritual sons and daughters. And again, if you don't have any natural sons and daughters, God's going to give you spiritual sons and daughters, if you've struggled in some relationships to your family,
God still is a Redeemer. He wants to bless you. He wants to take those burn stones and get you healed and get you set free. If you don't like you've been dropped and you've messed up or you dropped somebody else. God is a redeemer. You can trust him. He takes he takes that which was not in it. He caused it to become something powerful for him, because all things still work together for good to those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose, and you are called according to the purpose of God. Now, do you see this promise in Galatians, 3:29, this promise airs according to the promise. If you love the Christ, then you're Abraham. See, so I may from sea. This is a promise for me too, dad, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, both naturally and spiritually. Now I'm going to show you from Scripture how this all plays out. So most of wonderful scripture, you find this in I Thessalonians 2. Now in I Thessalonians 2:7, Paul says we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for little children. So he said, we're like a mama. We have a mama's heart for you. Then he says we loved you so much. In other words, he said, you want a project to us. Some people, they look at spiritual fathering, mothering, starting house churches as a project, not a project. It's simply building a family. Here's what he said, we loved you so much. It was a lot of love. Here he said that we were delighted to share with you, not only the gospel of God, but we share with you our lives as well, because you become so dear to us. Did you see his heart? We're not talking about dictatorial leadership. We're talking about, some reason, how can a mother's nurturing heart? El Shaddai, as we talk about spiritual mother in another class? He says this. He says, you become so dear to us. It means so much to us. Then he said, for you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children. So he says, Look. He says, I'm like a father. First, I'm a mother. Now, he said, I'm like a father too. He said, I dealt with you as a father. Deals with his own children. This is all about being a spiritual mama and spiritual Papa, spiritual mother, being a spiritual father, and that's the call of God that's on your life. Then he says, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. He says, Look, he says, I'm just I want you. I'm not a daddy to you, a father. I'm just encouraging you you live a life that's worthy of God. So you can also be a spiritual father. You can also be a spiritual mother. And God's given the same call to you, and He's calling you into his kingdom to bring glory to Him. So this is for every generation. Then you go to the end of the chapter. Here he says, clearly, I'm a spiritual mother to you. I'm a spiritual father you. You go to the end of the chapter, and what does he say? He says that was in verse 11 and 12, then 19 and 20. What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which will glory in the presence of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus when He comes. Let's just stop there. He says, What is our hope, our joy, our crown, in which will glory in the presence of Jesus when He comes? In other words, when the Lord comes back, what is the Olympic gold medal? What is the joy, the crown, the group? What
are we looking forward to? Now, of course, is to be with Jesus. We know that, but he says something different here that's added on to the importance of just loving our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, in the last verse, he says in verse 20, is it not you? Who's you? He has been a spiritual father to you, a spiritual mother to you. He said, It's you, my spiritual children. He says, The glory, the joy is going to be I don't stand there alone. I stand with my spiritual children. He said this. He said, You are our glory and joy. He said, It's you, my spiritual children. Someday, when you and I are going to stand before the Lord, are we going to stand there alone? Are we going to stand with our spiritual children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, remember the promise to Abraham, as far as the eye can see, as the sand is in the sea, as the stars in the sky, so your offspring will be that is a promise for you. People say, what's the call of God my life? Am I called to be in business? Am I called to be a pastor? Am I called to be a five fold minister? Should I be a missionary? Should I apply the house church. Those things are secondary. What's most important is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself, and being a spiritual father, being a spiritual mother to this next generation. For someday, we're going to all stand before the Lord. We don't want to stand there alone. We want to stand with our spiritual posterity. You know, I was a young, Pastor, young speaker. And I travel. Sometimes I meet people. They say, Oh, I'm a grandpa, I'm a grandma. And they pull out their pictures. They show me their grandkids. And I was always nice. That's wonderful. I remember thinking, I'm not going to do that. Well, guess what? I do that. I do that today. Pictures on my phone and my wallet, because this is my posterity. It's my natural grandchildren, my posterity does give you a spiritual posterity, and that's the crown when we stand before the Lord. That's the Olympic gold medal. So brothers and sisters do not stand alone someday. Today's a prepare the way for spiritual children. I'll tell you one final story in this session, and that is when I was a young leader. I was in my 20s, and I remember how to Bible study, just a spiritual father to some young men and young women. One of the young men, his name was Billy. He'd come to the house, and we'd talk and we'd pray, and he was just a wonderful guy. Went into a ministry called Youth With A Mission and God began to use him. It is wonderful wife there, and ended up going to the Caribbean, and today gives leadership to the youth of the mission in the Caribbean. And I remember, well, we come to my house and we pray that, you know, you know this relationship and girlfriends and all kinds of things. This was just a joy, just to serve him. He had a tremendous heart for God. And this time, we were seeing some youth revival in our county, and we were just all part of this together. This was wonderful. I didn't think much of it. I started having a Bible study, just just hanging out with my with my friend Bill. What many years later, when I wrote one of my first books, house to house, somebody from an island of Barbados in the Caribbean, and some I got to the manuscript and read the story, and they
said, We're experiencing the same thing that I had experienced years ago, where they see, saw people come to Christ, and they started a new fellowship, and Say it was almost identical what we had seen before. They call you the phone, my friend, now today, my friend Robert and said, Would you come to Barbados? Will you teach us and train us? How do you do these house fellowships? And we call them small groups and cell groups in those days. How do you do that in spiritual fathering, all these kinds of things? So I ended up being on the island having this seminar. Is training weekend for leaders that came from different different denominations in churches. And then I remember my friend Bill was there, and Bill was busy that weekend. He had sent me. They got a note. He said, I can't be there because I have another meeting, but I'd love to see you. Could you stop on my house and meet my family before you fly back to USA? So after, at the end of the end of the time there, went to his house and sat with his family, had a wonderful time, and he began to tell me what God was doing in that part of the world. And he talked about how that people who come years and years ago, many generations ago, from Western Africa, the Gambia were sent as slaves. Horrible, horrible slavery that happened. They brought them there to the island of Barbados. But how was today? There many generations later, many of even though they came from Muslim backgrounds, they now were these people on the island who had been born there, posterior or their parents, their great grandparents, whoever came from Africa, they were coming to Christ. And then he said, we're training them to send them back to Gambia to share Christ with people that could be their relatives. And that's the most amazing thing. God is so redemptive. It's amazing how God could do that. Then he said something that I can never forget to this day, his Larry. I want you to know that what's happening in West Africa is a part of your inheritance. I said, What do you mean? He said, because when I was a young man, I was a teenager, he says, You were father to me. I didn't really think about that much. But he said, Yeah, you were father to me, and this is some of your inheritance. And I'm in an airplane coming back, I'm thinking, Jesus, I had no idea. You know, I'm tearing up and saying, God, I actually have some inheritance of the Lord in Western Africa. I didn't even know about because I was just trying to obey Jesus as a young man and be a spiritual father. A few young men in my community who were going much further in God than perhaps I could ever go and realize now I have some inheritance in Western Africa, but I want you to know something, that when I played that role in his life, I was not a pastor. I never even wanted to be a pastor these days, honestly, I was a chicken farmer. I was a chicken farmer who had a heart for young people and to be a spiritual father. And to be a discipler. I call it a Paul Timothy relationship, where I can help others, those who are younger than me, fulfill God's purpose in their lives. And that's the call of God that's in your life. So regardless of your occupation, regardless if you're in a house church, in a Community Church, in a mega
church, whether you plant a house church or not, the call of God in your life is to be spiritual mother and spiritual father, because someday you too, we're standing before the Lord, and when we stand before the Lord, we don't want to stand alone. We want to stand with our spiritual children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, as far as the eye can see, because that was the promises given to Abraham according to Galatians 3:29 that's also for us today that we can claim the same inheritance, and that inheritance is for you