Disciple Making Power
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We believe Holy Spirit power is the means to living out the life of a follower of Jesus. Disciples cannot be made through fleshly efforts. Jesus, in His humanity, fully acknowledged his dependence on the Spirit. Disciple making is not just a good strategy to build the church . . . it is a way of life to grow the Kingdom, accomplished through the fruit of the Holy Spirit living through a person’s yielded and holy life (2 Cor. 3:16–17). If Jesus fully depended on the Holy Spirit’s power, how can we do any less? The Holy Spirit will lead us to be obedient people who live holy lives to God’s glory.
So we’ve been talking about this idea of Discipleship that seems to be everywhere in the New Testament.
Just before Jesus left the planet for his place beside the father, he gave his disciples some words to move forward with...
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The information is the incredible news that Jesus is beginning the process of recreating everything. What the world and all of creation has been waiting for is now beginning. The Kingdom is coming. Sin no longer has the hold that it did. Satan has been and will be defeated completelly.
New life has begun to be given out through the work of the Holy Spirit....and not only that…but God’s Holy Spirit now living with people.
That’s the news…and Jesus says…take that news everywhere.
The news we make reference to is the Gospel…Jesus calls us to be changed and to carry this info with us…tangibly with us in our new life…the new life we’re living is a life that is more and more looking like His life.
So its not just us living a new life…its us living to look more and more like Him.
He’s the one we want to follow…and following means obeying His words…and with the Spirit of God with us…God’s glory in us…we have a helper a counselor a director of sorts…to live more and more like he would…living like Jesus....carrying His image with us....actually becoming the image of God. Like it was in the beginning.
The spirit with us…God’s glory with us…not quite like it was in the beginning but as close as it can get on this side of things.
Jesus said go and make disciples. Lead people to become Jesus followers. Born again believers....
These words…we often say things like…this is the big command. Help people know who I am. And this is a big deal no doubt…but it is more like the finishing touches …the little bit of icing on the top of a 7 tier cake that has taken a lot of time to build....
7 tiers of cake that Jesus has been building and molding and making....and then he says....now go…share this news....share your new lives.
This is what we have…it’s not just marching orders....he is giving us the delivery system…You’re the ones who will take the glory of God…to the whole earth.
All through the Holy Spirit. You won’t do this on your own…Jesus famously said…look I’m with you always. My spirit in you.
WE get to carry the cake....and eat it too! Amen!?
The thing is that we know we didn’t build or make this cake…it was all Jesus. And so if we put any of our sinful self into this cake....it will change drastically. So what do we need? Who is the power all in and through this delivery system? The Holy Spirit…is there for us and for others who we will encounter.
We are dependent on the Holy Spirit for this right? It isn’t about us…it is about the glory of God living in us.
Now…today we’re going to take a different angle on this “Holy Spirit living in us” idea. I think we need to broaden our idea…me included…ok....on what and how God’s Holy spirit works in us. For what reasons and why....
Paul gives us an incredible passage in his second letter to the church in Corinth. And to look at this…we’re going to take some time remembering a story out of the Old Testament…because this is what Paul is using as a reference for a point that he is making.
This story comes from the book of Exodus. It is in the timeline of the Israelites coming out of Egypt and moving towards the promised land. They are camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai…and Moses has just gone back up the mountain to receive the 10…commandment. However this is the second set. The first set was destroyed when Moses threw them down when he was coming from the mountain top and noticed that the Israelites were worshiping a golden calf…Aaron, Moses’ brother had them make this calf as a god that had brought them from Egypt and that would lead them to the promised land.
This doesn’t sit well with Moses and God…and through some great mercy…God grants that He will still lead them to the promised land.
Invites Moses back up on the mountain for the second set. When done…Moses brings them down to the people…but something has changed with Moses. He’s glowing…He was with God, and God’s glory rubbed off onto Moses. Moses was now carrying the glory of God…after being with Him for so long.
This was kind of scary to the leaders first of all....this glory of God was the Glory that was angry with them weeks before because they had broken commandments ....So Moses veiled up....put a veil on His face…and Paul talks about two things here…the Glory was a reminder of their sin and brokenness…and the glory was a fading glory.
Paul uses this…and the reality that he is now living, to show us the true change of a disciple.
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,
8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!
10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.
11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!
12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.
13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.
14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Paul continues in chapter 4 to say that ....this is crazy awesome because God is doing this in Jars of Clay....
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
Paul isn’t just saying…yeah you’ll be a better person…a bit more moral…
No Paul is saying the power of the Holy spirit will become more and more and more evident…unveiled…as you live…revealed in your body.
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Now what prevents this?
Us......
That’s what it was in the Garden....Adam and Eve chose their own way of life over the life that God had given them. Free will choice to be sure. They chose to love themselves more than God and to love themselves more than each other.
They did what was “best” for them rather than what God had designed for them.
God’s spirit could not inhabit that life. And for sure there was a spiritual being…The Satan (the adversary) Who wanted to break God’s heart by helping us break our own hearts.
So what do we do now…we live for glory don’t we? Now you might consider yourself a fairly humble person. That’s ok…that’s even a good thing. But the Bible says that we have all sinned…sinned meaning…we’ve tried to gain our own glory verses receiving glory from God (His glory in us).
And when we do that…guess what happens....You know it from what Paul wrote…His glory in us fades more and more.
The only way that his glory lives brighter and brighter is through us giving up ourselves.
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Paul…and I’m going to go backwards here…Paul just previously wrote about how he feels about this process that is happening in him.
Paul, in chapters 2 and 3 of second Corinthians, talks about this idea that he is being led, as a captive of Christ. This is a parade …a processional of a conquering king…and the captives are being led in this procession…and he is one of them. Christ has captured him.
I think this is really a picture of Paul on the road to damascus…when he was heading there to torture and imprison disciples of Jesus. Jesus gets ahold of Paul and says…why are you persecuting me? And then leads and changes Pauls heart to become an incredible diciple maker for Him.
Paul said…I had to give up everything I was. I was this and I was that…a scholar…famous…I was even very righteous according to the 10 commandments…but with an unchanged heart…veil was still there. And I had to become a captive of Christ…the conquering King who is bringing the Kingdom. I had to die to myself so that I could live with and for Him.
I had to give up anything that brought me any type of pride…because that was the only way to receive His glory and hold it. My pride had to go so I could have full pride in Him…in Jesus…for what He did for me.
When J. Wilbur Chapman was in London, he had an opportunity to meet General Booth (Salvation Army), who at that time was past eighty years of age. Dr. Chapman listened reverently as the old general spoke of the trials and the conflicts and the victories. Then the American evangelist asked the general if he would disclose his secret for success.
“He hesitated a second,” Dr. Chapman said, “and I saw the tears come into his eyes and steal down his cheeks, and then he said, ‘I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities; but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do with the poor of London, I made up my mind that God would have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army today, it is because God has all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life.’”
Dr. Chapman said he went away from that meeting with General Booth knowing that, “the greatness of a man’s power is the measure of surrender.”
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
31 I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord.
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
The stuff we’ve been talking about…this is the context of everything we do as a church family. Absolutely everything. It is the context for each and everyone of our lives.
Its a big cake....but its a good cake! And Jesus asked us to go and help others taste this cake.