Category Archives: Discipleship and witness

The world will know that we are Jesus’s disciples by our love; but Jesus didn’t tell us that this is how we make disciples. The New Testament model for making disciples is to glorify the Father by doing His works in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to show the world the Triune God in action.

Discipleship and witness

Feeding the flames

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Following the message I preached recently on letting our light shine before men, one of our elders (Graham, if you are from Wildwood) sent me the following, quoting from what I said about discipleship towards the end.

“ And it’s not a quick fix: little flames need to be shielded and fed with stuff that burns, or else they are likely to go out.

Last week on holiday we decided to light the fire one evening. The fire had been laid with paper and kindling which lit well, flaring up quickly. But the wood was too spread out and, although it burned, it didn’t become established. After a while my mother in law said, “It’s failed; it’s going out.” But I felt I should gather what remained, blow on it, and wait. I didn’t use another match. Five minutes later the kindling, now gathered, was roaring. I put some large logs on the kindling and shortly a healthy blaze was filling the whole house – and it did not go out.”

I’ve looked at this a few times now, and I think that there is quite a lot of detail that we can draw out of it prophetically:

Jesus has laid a fire in His church, and has struck the match. We are seeing, and will see, flames going up in different places as individuals and church groups catch the fire of the Holy Spirit. These flames will at first sight seem short-lived, just as there have been past “revivals” and “moves of God” that have flared up locally for a season, then faded away.

However the Lord is changing things in His church. He is taking away walls, and He is moving people around. Some of us can expect to be moved as He gathers the kindling that is alight in order to create the blaze that He has planned. We can expect to be put alongside different people in different places, just as that scattered kindling is drawn together and piled up. If we don’t allow ourselves to be “gathered together” like this our flames are at risk of spluttering out.

After the gathering comes the blowing. Among those already on fire there will be a strong sense of the breath of God stirring people to greater faith, greater love, more earnest prayer, more worship, more time in His presence. The cry of “More of You, Lord,” from the Welsh revival, from Toronto, will be heard again. We will learn to wait in faith for God to move. As has happened in the past, some onlookers will reject what they see; others will be drawn to it.

The large logs that go onto the kindling will be those “greater works” that Jesus promised us. A few will go on at first as individuals grow in their faith; then more, as the blaze takes hold. I think this will happen more of less simultaneously in different places as the blaze fills the “whole house” – all of His church – with the glory of God. I think that is when we will see a mighty harvest.

Discipleship and witness

Let Your Light Shine Before Men

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(Transcript of sermon Bob preached at Wildwood church 2 august 2020)

To watch the video CLICK HERE. It’s about 15 minutes.

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5: 14-16)

The Light of the World

John’s gospel begins like this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The life of men is the light of Jesus, nothing else.

Darkness is what is outside of God’s light. Jesus talks about “the Outer Darkness” three times – it’s the place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” because you are regretting forever what you know you could have been enjoying. There aren’t degrees of darkness: you’re either in the light or out in the darkness. Forever.

Jesus is the light that God gave to the world because He loved it so much. God doesn’t want anyone in the outer darkness. He gave us His Son to live a perfect life in the form of a man full of light, full of the Spirit of God, to achieve perfection on behalf of the Human Race and then give His life willingly to pay the price for all of our darkness. God gave light for darkness, life for death. No-one can say He isn’t just.

His life is The light of Men

This isn’t mortal life that comes to an end; this is eternal life. What Jesus had in Him was eternal life, and He wants to give it away. When He was praying to the Father just before his crucifixion, He said this of Himself:

“You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)

Do you want eternal life? Here it is. You will never find a better free gift.

Romans 1:4 says that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.“ The light that’s in us is the power of God to everlasting life. And that’s not all: when we put our faith in Jesus we get to know Him and the Father, because the same Holy Spirit that raised him from the dead comes and lives in us. Because He lives in us we get to know God; not just know about Him. It’s a relationship. And what’s more, there’s no divorce; just grace. Do you know Him?

When Jesus talks about John the Baptist, He says “he was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.“ (John 5: 35). The Greek word He uses here is the same as the one for “light” in our opening scripture. Our light is the burning flame of God’s love for you and me, it’s the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus tells us that WE are the light of the world, because we have Christ’s eternal life within us, which is the light of men. Church: are we burning and shining lamps? Are we on fire? Do people rejoice in our light? Do they even see it? Or is it under a basket?

Good works are the Father’s works

Jesus gave us a reason for not hiding our light: it is so that people would “see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” We need to understand that these good works are not our good deeds. Our good deeds don’t glorify the Father: it’s His own works that glorify Him. Jesus spent his entire ministry demonstrating that He was the Son of God because the Father was in Him and doing His works. Jesus said “if you don’t want to believe that God sent me because I say so, believe it because of the works that He’s doing through me!” He says this twice in slightly different ways, once in John 10: 38, and again in John 14:11; so it’s important that we grasp the point: good works are God’s works. They are demonstrations that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

 Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit so that the Father could do His works through Him, and he sent us the Holy Spirit so that the Father can carry on doing His works through us, because He doesn’t have another body on Earth – we’re it. We are the light of the world. The torch has been passed to us.

Paul tells us in Romans 14: 17 that “the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” We cry out to see these things in our communities; we know that they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit and that they only come from God, but we can’t expect our communities to turn to God unless we show them who He is in all His majesty. They can’t pick the fruit unless we plant the tree.

And if you’re still not sure about what I’m saying consider this: Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.“ (Luke 18:19) Good works have to be the Father’s works because nothing is good outside of Him. Acts 10: 38 says:           “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”

We are His disciples. That should mean that we are cast in His mould, not following from a distance out of instructions in a book. The Bible says that Jesus “revealed His glory” when He did the first of His signs, which was turning water into wine. Romans 8: 18-19 tells us:

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.”

Among other things, glory means radiant light. Creation is waiting. We can give it water, or we can give it wine. If we want to show the world good works, we need the Holy Spirit and power no less than Jesus did. God is with us too, but we keep hiding Him under a basket.

Two basket cases: fear and pride

So what are the baskets that we can use to stop this life from spreading? What makes us basket cases?

I’ll look at three. Two are old chestnuts and one might be a surprise. The first old chestnut is fear. We are scared to spread the light because of what people might think. We are scared to pray for healing in case God is not listening. We are scared to prophesy in case we get it wrong. If this is you, God says, and hear Him: “I’m with you! Yes, you will mess up sometimes, and end up on your backside. But I’m still with you! And the more you walk, the less you’ll fall.” And if you’re not a Christian and you’re scared of what bits of your life might get burnt, you need to know this: it’s the burning flame or nothing. You can jump into it, preferably now, or you can regret it in the outer darkness for eternity.

The second old chestnut is pride. It’s wonderful to be involved in seeing other people come into the light of God, but the minute I start congratulating myself or seeking praise from others, or seeking to advance my position and status in my church, I may as well just tip a bucket of water onto the flames, because they won’t last. It’s God who must get the glory because He won’t give it to anyone else. This isn’t because he is selfish or egotistical, but because the world needs to know that the only good works are His works. We all need to know the meaning of good.

The third basket case: what we have done to church

So fear and pride are baskets of flesh. They need to go onto the fire, because that is all they are good for. And what is the third basket? It’s church! Not the church of Jesus that He talked about, that the gates of hell won’t prevail against; but the Sunday slot that we’ve invented to suit our Western lifestyle. The apostle Paul does say that we mustn’t stop from meeting together, but the point of meetings is to equip us to take the light out into the darkness. We seem to have turned it on its head, and now we ask people to come into the light in order to go to meetings. But guess what: God has allowed the baskets to be taken away…

The model Jesus gave us is to be living Spirit-filled lives and discipling others to do the same. And it’s not a quick fix: little flames need to be shielded and fed with stuff that burns, or else they are likely to go out. Jesus said that the Father is always working. Not just in our meetings. When the church began, the light of the gospel spread in public places wherever and whenever ordinary people burning with the flame of the Holy Spirit went out into the darkness and set it alight. Whoever we are, now is the time to seek that living light like never before, and take it out with us into the darkness in the name of Jesus, so that the Father can do His good works through us and the world can see how much He loves it.

God’s bonfire

Right now, in the Church of Jesus all around the world, the match has been struck. There was a Cindy Jacobs post a couple of weeks ago saying “Baptisms in New York City! The revival has begun!” However it’s not going to keep burning at our convenience. Isaiah 60: 1-3 says this:

“Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the LORD will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you

The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.”

That is for us, now. God is lighting a bonfire: if you’re not on fire yet let Jesus come: he is holding his match to your heart. And leaders – if we want to get with the programme we don’t waste time handing out sparklers. There was a song in the nineteen eighties to the tune of Chariots of Fire. It never made it into Songs of Fellowship, but it went like this. If you’ve been touched by what I said, say it as a prayer:

“I rise up to worship, I stand to proclaim.

The Lord of all glory, Christ Jesus His name.

Come ride on my life, Lord Jesus Christ, My Lord and my Master;

Come ride on my life, and I will be a chariot of fire.”

And if Jesus is not your Lord and Master, he died on the cross for you so that you could receive his spirit, and enter life, to know Him and the Father right now. Say those last two lines again, to Him, from your heart. He will show you what to do.

Discipleship and witness

Two Trees in the Garden

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God put two trees in the garden of Eden: the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life.

Jesus spent His ministry demonstrating and preaching on the Kingdom of God, and He founded His Church to begin the work of establishing it on Earth, under His authority and by the power of His Spirit. Where there is Kingdom rule, the law of sin and death is nailed to the cross; healing overcomes sickness; the truth of God’s word directs our lives, and love prevails in our relationships.

Our first glimpse of the Kingdom of God is right back in the Garden of Eden, where two trees grow. One is the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. God didn’t put it there for Adam and Eve to be caught out; He put it there because its existence is central to the Garden where He wants us to walk with Him. Knowledge of good and evil was always designed to be part of our relationship with God: It grows in the garden of His presence, and it is His to give. Adam’s sin was to eat of it and make it his own. Because Man has eaten of that fruit, he has taken ownership of it, saying “The difference between right and wrong is now mine to decide.” Cast out of God’s presence, Man still takes knowledge of good and evil with him, but now he makes up his own mind about where the lines are drawn.

On the other tree grows the fruit of life. Figuratively, this is the tree of the Spirit: John 6:63 tells us “It’s the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” We don’t read about any fruit on the Tree of Life in Genesis, but we do read about it in Galatians 5 22-23, where Paul lists the different attributes of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. All of this abounds in the kingdom of God, which Romans 14: 17 tells us is “Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” This fruit grows on the Tree of Life, not on the Tree of knowledge. God’s fruit only grows on God’s tree. Anything that passes as the fruit of the Spirit but is grown from the flesh is counterfeit and profits nothing.

As Jesus longs to builds His church, the Father longs to restore His garden in the lives of the generation of the second Adam, so He can walk with us again there. For our part, we long to see the beauty and the fruit of the Kingdom of God in our communities. But what I felt the Lord showed me, and the reason I’m writing this post, is this: so often we preach the gospel of salvation and tell people about the Tree of Life, but what we give them is our version of the Tree of Knowledge. Without the Tree of Life, they can’t pick its fruit, and all they are left with is a sense that they are coming under the judgement of our knowledge of good and evil. This is why, I believe, so many people say that they feel judged by Christians: not that we are intentionally judging them, but we are only showing them one tree in the garden, and it’s the tree that tells them that they are wrong.

If we want people to know the fruit of the Tree of Life we need to make sure it is growing in our churches, and we need to make sure that it is planted securely in their own lives so that they can pick from it themselves. Otherwise all we are doing is giving them information. Worse than that, what we are telling them about is something that they cannot have.

Discipleship and witness, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Search and Rescue

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Who do you know who has left the church, or doesn’t seem to have been around lately?

There have been two prophetic words recently from different people about helicopters rescuing people from a battlefield. We are in a time of spiritual battle. This isn’t limited to this present time, because it has been true ever since Satan was cast out of Heaven; but it seems to be intensifying now. Jesus won the war at the cross, but there are still battles to fight and sometimes the Holy Spirit gives us specific strategies for victory, just as He did in the Old Testament with Joshua, David and others.

He is giving us a strategy now: we know this because two people (Jake, and John Groves who is a prophet in the New Frontiers church at Winchester) have had basically the same word. The strategy is Search and Rescue. Who do you know who seems to have disappeared from church? Not specifically gone from our church to a different one, but gone from church altogether. Maybe technology for online meetings is a problem, or maybe there have been other issues. Search for them in your mind, and in prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of people who need rescuing. And when you have found them, pray that they are restored; and pray that whatever problems or temptations have caused them to fall away are dealt with.

The enemy comes to rob, kill and destroy; Jesus comes to bring life, and that in abundance (John 10:10). Search and rescue. Let’s do it.

Discipleship and witness, Walking in the Spirit

The Works of the Father

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The heart of the Son was, and still is, always to reveal the Father. His expressed desire throughout His ministry was for the world to know that the Father sent Him, and was in Him, doing His Works, bringing Heaven to Earth. He tells the Jews “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe  that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” (John 10:38) He says the same thing to the disciples: “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:11)

Jesus is clear; He is also emphatic. He says that the works He does by the power and in the authority of the Father who is in Him demonstrate the truth of the words He speaks.  There are not many instances where He repeats Himself in one gospel account, and nowhere else does He say the same, privately, to His disciples as He does openly to the Jews. So this is not just a footnote to the New Testament that we can choose to skip over or ignore; it is a headline statement that defines our understanding of our call to make disciples of all nations.

It is often repeated: we are not just called to preach the Gospel; we are called to make disciples. Jesus made disciples; His disciples made disciples, and disciples have kept making disciples for 2000 years. As cells of natural life multiply, so too do cells of eternal life. God’s principles work on every level, on Earth as in Heaven. Each cell reproduces its own DNA for life to continue. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3) When the Holy Spirit fell, the DNA of Jesus was passed on to His disciples so that they could continue to reveal the Father through His works (John 14:12). As disciples make disciples it continues in all who are born again into the Kingdom of God, “of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5).

To teach that Christians should not expect to reproduce the works of the Father not only denies the importance of the various scriptures that refer to signs and wonders following the preaching of the Word; it ignores the fact that Jesus Christ Himself validated the message of the Kingdom through them. If Jesus needed miracles for people to be convinced that He was the Son of God, how much more do we? The works of the Father are not an option; they are a necessity. They are in our DNA.  Ministries that deny the gifts of the Holy Spirit through which these works are accomplished “have a form of godliness but deny its power,” and Paul’s instruction is specific: we must “stay away from them.” (2 Tim 3:5) Their incomplete gospel is missing a gene and breeds a sick church.

I believe that the Bible is clear: we, as the brothers of Jesus (Romans 8:29), born of the same Father and filled with the same Spirit, are made of the same spiritual DNA; and one of our genes is the one that reproduces the works of the Father as proof that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Without that gene we are incomplete. So let’s ask, seek, and knock; let’s wait on the Lord to renew our strength; let’s pray fervently; let’s repent of the unbelief that tells us that the miraculous would be nice, but isn’t really what we are looking for right now: whatever it is, let’s just get on our knees like Paul on the Damascus Road and say, “Lord, what would you have me do?”

Because if we want to convince the world that God loves it so much that He gave Jesus for its salvation, we need to see the works of the Father in our churches.