The Cost Of Commitment | John Wimber

[Music] some of you have seen our earlier video when I talked about I'm a fool for Christ and I've got to say I'm just as foolish now as I've ever been I believe the Word of God I'm committed to the service to God and in fact today what we're going to do is go back in the archives and I'm gonna make a presentation based on just the subject of discipleship this is something that has been dear to my heart all along I feel that it's all too often the church has focused on good things things like the character development and things like a good doctrine and good teaching and Bible understanding those are all positive and even practices like prayer and church attendance and and things of that nature but too often we've not equipped the Saints to minister by that I mean praying for the sick and feeding the hungry and casting out Devils and all the things that are involved in personal witnessing and evangelism and it goes on and on I'm scheduled to talk about demons tonight but the Lord told me to talk about disciples instead I think there's a difference as I've been praying through the day and it's been a particularly good day for me I've had a sense of the Lord speaking to me again and again about talking to you more on a less formal basis I think that's one of the reasons he told me to get a chair or a stool and sit down and not so much to lecture to you and to tell you the things that I think although I'm sure that I will tell you some things I think but more to tell you some of the things I feel about you and about what God's doing here and about what God wants to do here a few weeks ago actually it's probably closer to two months now Blaine cook who is teaching one of the workshops and has been a longtime and close friend of mine came to me and was sharing with me out of his heart that the Spirit of God had been speaking to him and that he had been speaking to him out of the text in Matthew 13 concerning the pearl of great price if you know the text it's really only about three sentences long and in a moment I'll turn to it and read it to you and I could tell even as he talked that the Spirit of God was speaking to him in a very moving and deep way and that had meaning to him beyond that that he was able to articulate at the moment sometimes when the Lord begins dealing with you and speaking to you you can't easily bring it to the surface and articulate it to others it he couldn't categorize it I think at that moment although he felt strongly and since God was calling and moving on him he didn't have a clear understanding I think at the moment as to what God was saying but as the Lord was speaking to him and as he was sharing it the Lord spoke to me and I got that deep tugging feeling that I've had a few other times I thought oh no here we go again everything's up for grabs and by that I mean over the last 23 years nearly 24 years now of my Christian walk I've had on at least four occasions major shifts of ministry where the Lord has taken me first from a professional musician rock and roll musician where and who was having some success at that point of his life and I was converted and the Lord took me completely out of the music business instantly said I don't want you to play at all and I didn't know how to I couldn't tie my shoes I didn't know how to do anything but played instruments I mean that's what I'd done all my life and to suddenly be in a place where you've got four children and ability to make a living and not you know not have a clue as to as to what I've never gotten I've never gotten up buy an alarm clock in my life you know I've never been up when it was daylight you know early in the morning except to come home you know and suddenly I'm thrust into the real world with real people you know where they talking in paragraphs and and and about you know real things and so conversion for me was not just acceptance of the truth of Scripture although it was certainly had that as part but conversion for me meant a complete reorientation of life moving away from a world that was very very glittery and glamorous in some senses but although I never felt a great deal of the glamour because I was never on the front line I was always one of the musicians in the back that organized and produced and wrote and and I stayed up late so while the other guys were out late but I was up late working and so it wasn't a glamorous world for me but nevertheless it had that potential and it also had the potential of enormous money in power and I had just at that point in my life come to a point of fruition where everything was coming together for me and we I had a group at that time called the Righteous Brothers and in the United States they were a big hit they've sold a few records over here also but they were a big hit in the United States and and in fact just weeks before after I was converted the Beatles came to the United States and did their first tour and the Righteous Brothers did it with them so they were we didn't like the opening act and that was I didn't go on that tour that was the last thing that I was involved in I was supposed to go on the tour but when I got converted I felt like the Lord said no don't go so the band went on and I stayed home and for about eight or ten weeks I was out of work and then some man came and said would you like to be a welder's helper and I said what's that he said well you get very dirty but they pay you for it and so I went to work at a factory I'd never been in a factory I didn't like factories I didn't like getting up early in the morning I didn't like going to work I didn't like clocking in and clocking out all of it was I thought was very demeaning I didn't realize what people put up with you know and in life but I had lived a life in which up until that point I had always lived on the basis of my talent and now suddenly I was living on the basis of just good hard work well it turned out it was very beneficial for me it was God's provision for me he had clearly in mind the complete humiliation of my character personality one of the heights was at one point about six months into it I found that I wasn't very mechanical you know I was a good musician but I didn't know how to fix anything and as a welders helper every now and then they would say hand me the sets and sets and I wouldn't have a clue as to what they were talking about and so that I ended up doing all the the odd jobs and the dirty jobs you know and so at one point they had me out in the back of the place scrubbing out the bottom of these big oil drums and I was out there and at that time because of work I had done the year before I had two records in the top ten in the United States and so one of my friends that was still in the museum is in fact a man that had been a partner along with me drove up just then to the facility and we had had a a mutual contract with the company and I was now out of it but I had never signed the papers so he brought the papers down and he drove up and he saw me sort of upside down in this can he didn't recognize me from that angle and he drove up in his big new car and he beeped his little horn and I didn't I was I wasn't I wasn't aware who it was but I just couldn't get out of the can that fast and I was down inside of it and I heard his voice that I thought oh no and his opening line was where is John Wimber 'he's office and I thought I was gonna die you know right there I did not want to come out of that can you know but finally I got enough nerve and I sorta came out of it and I had grease and oil all over my face and hands and and he looked at me and he said what are you doing and I said I'm working for a living and he said why are you here and at the and I could have given him 500 words but I couldn't give him any one sentence that I thought would explain why I was there and I wasn't really sure why I was there and so I just sort of blurted out God did this to me and I saw the look of disgust come on his face and a determination that God was never going to do that to him and so I signed the paper and made grease spots all over it and and he left well over the next few months God began dealing with me in an ever-increasing way and I know now that that it was his Providence that I be put in that particular position first of all I learned to love the people there and I and over a period of a year or so I got several promotions no raises but new titles and new jobs and after about a year's time the Lord let me out of what I came to call purgatory and I I went on and had another job well during that period of time in my life the Lord was teaching me fundamental things someone they asked me one time why such harsh treatment why did the Lord take you from you know $100,000 a year job to a $7,000 a year job and I said well it was just his choice I don't I don't know he didn't he didn't give me any counsel on it he didn't ask my advice he just did that you know and why would why would he put you through that and I said I don't know why he's put it put me through it but I I know the by product the the side benefit and the side benefit was I I was humbled I just became different I think I was a pretty proud little guy you know before pretty mouthy and pretty sure myself and I think I became something different than that over a period of a year or so going back and forth to that plant every week now I'm not I don't think that working in a plant is it's a humble job I think it's a great job for those who are designed to do it but it was for me a humbling experience because I was used to pretty much calling my own shots and God was teaching me one thing that first year I think if I had to write a one-word description of the first year it was obedience and I'm not so sure that that he's ever quit teaching me that lesson it's been 24 years now and I as I look back I think again and again and again he said to refresh me in one basic value obedience I don't know that a disciple is made in you know one year or made in one event or made in one understanding or he maybe even in one lifetime but I know that disciples come as a byproduct of deciding to give their will and their hearts and their decisions in their mind over to the Lord Jesus Christ and so 24 years ago I knelt down in my friend dick the drummer it was in his living room that I knelt down on the floor and I said oh god I want a relationship with you I think that was the last intelligible words I was able to get out and then i blubbered for the next hour or so and tried to pray the sinner's prayer and all I did was blubber the sinner's prayer and I remember in the midst of that process that night trying to to make head or tails of what was going on and I was praying and I was trying to pray and all I could do was sob and my nose was running in my mouth and everything was running it seemed like and and at one point I thought I'm making a complete fool of myself you know this doesn't work you're gonna have to cut your throat because you're making a complete fool of yourself and it right at that moment the Lord reminded me of many years before I was in a a situation where I ended up in a park in downtown Los Angeles and not nearly the size of Hyde Park but a park similar to that a very popular park a visible park that people often go through it's more of a square actually than a park and I walked I remember standing in the drizzling rain and waiting for a friend of mine that sold drugs who had money and I needed money because I was broke and I was waiting for him and as I was standing there a man came walking by in the rain and he had one of those signs you know those board signs on in front of him and on the back of him and on the front of the sign it had scrawled and you know hand printing I'm a fool for Christ and ns he walked by on the back it said whose fool are you and I remember at the time thinking fanatic weirdo you know as the guy went on by but the night that I came to Christ all those years later it must have been 12 13 years after that I'm kneeling on my friend Dick's living room floor and the Lord and I'm praying I'm trying to pray and I can't pray and I'm crying and I'm feeling so sorry for my sins and the Spirit of God reminds me of that fellow back in that Park all those years before and I thought that's it that's it that's the essence of it I'm going to be a fool for Christ and I've been one ever since I've made so many foolish by the world standards decisions you know what none of my friends understood not a single friend I had understood why I would leave the music business and and go to work in that factory but there was only one reason that I went there wasn't any good reasons except one good reason God wanted me to go there and I determined that this this thing was too good a deal to mess up that it was the best thing I'd ever come across and that I wanted him and his approval more than I wanted men in their approval that even in those early moments of my conversion experience a relationship with him was more valuable than anything else I'd ever hope to achieve or experience in Matthew the thirteenth chapter verse 44 through 46 we have these two stories the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl and they're really in Hebrew thought paralleled text that is to say there are two stories told in sequence but they're really told to give you one understanding I'm reading out of the NIV and I'd like to read it to you says the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field and when a man found it he hid it again and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field now so that you wouldn't misunderstand what was Matt then he immediately tells another story he said again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls and he when he found one of great value he went away and sold everything he had and bought it now the theme of almost all of our teaching the thing that is prompted nearly everything that we're involved in is the understanding of the kingdom of God the kingdom of heaven there they're one in the same the kingdom of God in the kingdom of heaven here on earth today we've shared with you in other places and other materials that we've published that the word kingdom in the New Testament it's basilia the word is translated mal coot in the agree and the Hebrew in the Old Testament but the concepts are the same it means the right of God's rule on earth we're not talking about the church we're not talking about the king himself we're not talking about heaven in the future we're talking about God sovereign right to rule on earth and so when Jesus strike has the image when he's communicating what the listeners were hearing was the kingdom of heaven that is to say the right of God's rule is like a treasure found in the field a pearl of great price and this treasure found in the field is was was so valued by the first person that found it that they hid it back in the field and then went and liquidated all their assets and came back and bought the field so that they could have the treasure understand bought the whole field so that they can have the treasure you see the way I understand it is Adam was given a commission of responsibilities and basically he blew it and as a result of that Jesus Christ was sent by the father to correct Adams mistake Adam the first representative man made the mistake of sinning and Jesus the second representative man came and rectified it by living a righteous life as a result of Adam's sin and fall the enemy gained access to the people of the world and as a result of that death as by the sin of one man you know sitting in in two world and as a result of that death and so Jesus Christ came and lived as a man a perfect life and in his righteousness reestablished the the right of God's kingdom on earth today and so what Adam couldn't change and the law couldn't alter Jesus altered by living a perfect and righteous life and came and made made the circumstance all new again and from that point on we have a potential having been born in the first Adam we have a an opportunity to be twice born in the second Adam we're born in the inheritance of the first Adam but we have an opportunity in this lifetime to be twice born and receive the inheritance of the second Adam or the last Adam is the appropriate biblical term so Jesus Christ came and paid for the sin of the whole world so that he could have those that who serve her willed would come to him the elect but in order to get the elect he bought the sin of everyone that had ever lived all time he was exactly like the men that bought the field he bought the field to get the treasure Jesus paid for all sin for all time for all people so that he could get your sin for this time you're the treasure you're the treasure you're his treasure you're his pleasure it's you he's after he paid it all to have a relationship with you now the second part of this of the parable the pearl of great price deals with a with a commercial kind of perspective first of all you need to note that the pearl is of such value sets exquisite dimensions that it's worth all the assets not of an individual not of a layman not of a of a purchaser but of a person who is a pearl merchant and I understand there's a difference between a pearl merchant buying a pearl and you and I buying a pearl first of all pearl merchants are always looking at pearls they're constantly looking at pearls they have an eye for pearls that they see things in pearls that we can't see even when they educate us look at the gray look at this look at that look at the shape look at this they can see things that we can't see so they're used to examining pearls daily second of all their whole life is based on the quest for pearls their pearl merchants everything that everything they do or every day is disciplined around finding pearls and this merchant found a pearl of such great value that's perfect proportions that it was willing to sell everything he had in order to acquire guess who the pearl is you again the object of the story is you the kingdom of God is like the field and the pearl merchant Jesus came and found such beauty that's perfection in you that he gave it all when I was a young Christian I was sitting in a breakfast meeting one morning and a man that was talking with said that said this and I I still even when I recount the story I I'm always shocked by it but then one man turned at another manner about five or six of us around a table and one man said you know I think the Lord is about to to really increase my wealth I I'm in a business deal right now I think I'm gonna make some money I think he can finally trust me with some and everybody sitting at the table with mmm and I was shocked I was just shocked and and being knew I'd only been convert a couple of weeks I didn't say anything I I kept my mouth shut but as soon as we we left the restaurant at the man that invited me I turned to and I said what did he mean is it all well he said you know some people can't be trusted with money in the Lord and it waits until they're mature and then he gets some money and I said wait a minute why would he hold that money he's already given Jesus after the father's given you Jesus why would he hold back money I mean the father's already given the most valuable thing he has he liquidated all of his assets to get us he sold everything he had to get us when he gave Jesus you see the the father and the son's name is already on the line they've they've already put it all down when he's dead so when they when they agreed to send Jesus and why he would hold back money or wealth or healing or blessing or or anything after he's already given Jesus he's just preposterous I know now I mean at the moment I was dissuaded that the man thought tried to talk me out of it and I sort of went along with his wisdom but I know now I was right I know now that even in my youth in that moment I saw things clearer perspective than he did he'd been programmed to something that was a false value you see Jesus wanted you long before you wanted him before you ever thought of him before you were ever thought of he died for you he's always wanted you well in those early years of my conversion experience it seems to me as I look back over them that again and again and again I was being taught fundamental obedience God took me through several steps career changes and various kinds of things and I was always ended up sort of as the as the junior new person that sort of got all the bad jobs and and they didn't obviously see the great value in me but I saw in myself and in every every job that I received over the first few years I always had to kind of work my way up as it were but eventually I was doing fairly well after a few years I had a good income again I became a Salesman and I found out that I was good at talking to people and dad no clue at that time that I would ever be in the ministry I was just trying to earn a living for my wife and four kids and try to stay out of trouble and keep enough free time so that I could spend time with with people and win him to Christ because that was really my passion in those early years in those early years were characterized by great moments great great things that happened I mean God was so good to us my wife and I got a little house in a little kind of village area actually at that time I think there were 12,000 people that lived there in our in our area that's a village folks we have 4 million people to live in the county now and 13 million that live in the immediate area so it was little it was quiet in those days and so we moved out there and we had a wonderful time God was so good he gave us big fields for the kids to play in they collected snakes and had a wonderful time it was great we didn't own any of it but we got to play in all of it and God gave us people he brought a filled our house full of people just week after week after week I would started out I taught a Bible study for a year with three people wasn't the same three people it would change almost every week and I quit every week I did Ivan it wasn't worth it I think and God would God would work on me again and I'd do it again and I mean I went for a year and that group didn't grow and I was good I thought but I didn't know anything I I knew the third chapter of John I memorized John 3:16 in Revelation what was it 3:20 I still don't know I used to get him mixed up and I still do and so no matter what we taught on and what we talked about I only thought about or talked about the same things every week and if I if people would ask a question in the Bible I didn't know the answer I just made up something after a couple years people used to bring Bible aids and concordances and things that's how I learned the Bible by people correcting me it became rather I've always been a little bit insensitive to things and and I learned the Bible by people correcting me talking to me and reading it every day Holly I went off to Bible school that just about destroyed me but Seminary well see the scars but those early days were good days there were great days because our dependence was on God our refreshing came from him daily we didn't have any money we didn't have many things but we had him we had a relationship with him and again and again and again he taught us obedience obedience obedience obedience that he valued obedience above all things and he wanted relationship with us and wanted our dependence upon him we'd try to you know launch out and do this or that and that would have made us a little bit more independent and he would knock it out from under our feet again and again bringing us back to him now I didn't know in those days that he was making a disciple out of me I didn't know that frustration and failure characterized disciple work I wished I'd have heard Tommy's lecture this morning you know in those old days I would have known something but I didn't know it all I knew is that I couldn't quit and I couldn't go on and so I I quit every day and I went on every day I couldn't let go I couldn't get ahead I couldn't make God mind me you ever tried to make him mind you I couldn't do it but God kept speaking and God kept drawing and God kept blessing and finally he filled our house up with people I remember the one at the last night that we met in our house after about three years of it we had 22 babies alone in the bed at over a hundred people in this little house down the hallways in the kitchens and the bathrooms and you know shouting loud trying to teach it was great hot I was so hot in that house people didn't care because Jesus was with us and he was changing us he was making us into his image molding us because we had we had seen the pearl we were the pearl on the one hand and he's the pearl on the other hand see our response to him was to sell everything we had once we realized he sold everything he had it only seemed appropriate for us to sell everything we had and join up one of the interesting aspects about the gospel is that in the early chapters of all of the all four accounts we see Jesus recruiting people if you ever noticed how simple his recruiting speeches are follow me obviously it was not his oratorical ability or persuasion 'el ability that produces effect there was something going on beyond his speech as the accounts are really very meager and when you think in terms of men and women being ripped right up out of their lives walking away from their tools in one case Matthew walked away from his bank just evidently just left the the safe open walked away before the Apostles walked away from their jobs as fishermen just left the boats and the equipment and everything lying there now something pretty profound has to happen for people to just walk away from their identity and from their livelihood and from their resources I mean you just don't do that unless something really profound has happened well I what I think happened was that he saw the pearl and they saw the pearl he saw the treasure and they saw the treasure he saw the treasure in them and they saw the treasure in him and they heard it when he came by and he had they just had to become part of it so one of the interesting aspects about the first phase of discipleship is that it begins with a recruitment of some some level that seems to be more subliminal than then you know overt someone likened it to a Pied Piper coming through town and people hear the melody or a drummer that comes through and and and we end up marching to a different beat I suppose those images are valid but my perspective is that they just saw something saw something that was greater than they were greater than the hopes they had greater than the plans they had greater than anything that ever experienced before or that when those men saw Jesus and Jesus saw those men they were so enamored of him so in love with him so intensely responsive to him that they could do nothing less then turn away from all their other preoccupations and just move towards him so the very first stage of discipleship is seeing Jesus and being seen by Jesus before anything happens you have to see Jesus and be seen by Jesus and that's exactly what happened to the Apostles they were recruited in the relationship with him now immediately after they were recruited in a relationship whether they were suddenly initiated into ministry because to be what Jesus was to be in ministry I I don't think he handed him a pamphlet or a brochure or said now here are the benefits and here are the side you know I you know this is the pay scale my perspective is he said follow me and he meant literally that and they followed him and they followed him right into ministry because to be what Jesus was to be in the presence of ministry I don't think they had a clue as to what they were going to see my perspective is that they they really didn't have anything in their history or background to prepare him for what they were about to see I mean where would they go learn about the Jesus stuff they certainly didn't see it in the rabbi's or in the synagogue they had to see it for the first time in Jesus and when you read the early accounts and it's really helpful to go through the Gospels and look at it when you read the early accounts they were as overwhelmed as the people were they were just blown apart of the things they were seeing what kind of man is this he speaks to wind and waves and they obey him he speaks to demons and they obey him he teaches with authority he speaks to limbs and they straight now and he speaks to eyes and they open what kind of man is this so after the the early recruitment of seeing Jesus and being seen by Jesus then in the very next stage is to be suddenly just immersed in ministry disciples that are made that way and I at first my perspective is that they were immersed in his ministry by that I mean he was the only one ministry and III noticed I've read the accounts rather carefully looking for these things and I've noticed that after a short period of time they were involved on the periphery they they were sort of in in crowd control you notice that he uses them to to organize this and organize that and and then you see him operating his sort of in secretarial work organize his appointment list they became very protective of him right away remember they weren't gonna let this person in or that person enter and they would come to him and say you know Jesus such as that's wants to see you but but of course you don't want to see them there's some children out here that want to see you but you don't want to see them right one of my favorite is when they when they tried to stop bartemaeus from seeing her you know but Oh Bart he would have none of it me he just pressed right on it and got his appointment didn't he and his blessing but but the apostles began working along with Jesus I mean it only took a few weeks before they were they were just you know I'm helping and picking up things I would imagine that daily there were things that I mean one one man was a Judas was given the the control of the purse and I suppose he bought food daily and took care of their needs that whenever they stayed anyplace or went anyplace and and he probably made the hotel bookings and things like but daily they were overwhelmed by the ministry so the the first stage the second part of the first stage of discipleship is seeing the ministry first you see Jesus and then you see the ministry now it seems to me that there's one more facet of this of this first stage and that's where you are enlisted into the ministry you began doing it - no I would have expected in those early first days basically all they were doing was sort of holding his cloak or gathering the the baskets of food up afterwards or organizing the crowd or or talking to people or you know any number of things it they weren't in the in the direct line of ministry they weren't at that point laying hands on the sick and casting out demons and all that type of thing but as I look at that discipleship it seems to me that it starts was seeing Jesus and being seen by Jesus say it continues by seeing the Ministry of Jesus and third it continues with getting involved being enlisted into it you you just start helping along now I've watched this over the years and it seems to happen again and again even today in the early years of our ministry we taught Bible studies and as I said earlier I didn't really know much Bible so basically they were just excuse Angela sztyc exercises I just told them about Jesus every week I mean it didn't really matter what book of the Bible read and we talked about Jesus and and in fact it really didn't matter what page of what book we're in because all we did was the third chapter of John that's all I knew and people laugh but I want you to know hundreds and hundreds of people came to Christ that way we won hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that way just week after week after week just doing it I remember at the height that I was teaching eleven times a week meaning in the mornings Noons and the mid afternoons and in the evenings at various parts of the county just sometimes with five people two people three people sometimes with fifty or hundred just telling him about Jesus I never got tired of it it was so exciting to see the look on her face the light come and all of a sudden they would see Jesus they would see him he would come off the pages and off of us out of us and into them I don't notice I still don't know how people get converted I just know what happens you talked enough about Jesus and you share enough and the next thing you know you got Jesus people they just they just come that way and then the next thing you know the same people that have become converted are in the in the they that are talking about the Ministry of all they love this this teaching the Bible this sharing this counseling this ministering is staying up lighten that late at night with people this sharing our lives sharing our food giving sharing clothing sharing things that we have just giving ourselves over passionately to caring for people and the next thing you know they're saying we want to do this too and they're showing up early there and they're organizing the chairs and they're helping you clean and you know put the kids to bed and all those kinds of things you do when when you have your ministry basically in your home and they're staying late afterwards and and helping you watch things put things away and and they're asking you can they pray too and can they go along with you see it's the same stuff they see Jesus and they're seen by him baby they see the ministry and then they just start and helping they just get enlisted into it and I think that's the first phase of discipleship the second phase is where suddenly they're embarking in the ministry by that I mean there's a there's a sort of a jarring thing where suddenly the teacher or in this case Jesus is saying you guys go do it remember in the tenth chapter of Matthew Jesus has just had that incredible revelatory moment where he's looked at the crowds and the compassion has come on him and he saw the crowds as as helpless and hopeless and hapless and broken-down and any any and he says pray that the harvest master send out workers into the harvest because the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few well if you just turn to page all of a sudden he sends him out and he's very explicit he gives him all kinds of instruction and one of the key things that he that he teaches them is how to handle failure and he talks about this is what you do if you go to the village or the city or so or whatever and they turn you down this is what you do and if they don't turn you down this is what you do you give him your piece and if they do turn you down you just take your piece back and leave shake the dust off your feet be on your way so he gave them explicit strict instructions about how to handle money and what to do and all that type of thing in the early stages but he told him also what he wanted him to do he want him to preach the gospel heal the sick cast out demons and raised the dead I'll say it again preach the gospel heal the sick cast out demons and raise the dead that's what he told him he was very clear very articulate I'm sure they all grabbed their notebooks raised the dead it's in there read it carefully and so off they went and you notice that he gives them instruction he says now I don't want you to go over here over there I want you to go to your people that's what he did he send him back to Galilee because every one of them except Judas was a Galilean so he sent him right back to their own people now that's one of the characteristics of the second phase of discipleship is at first you're sent out to do the ministry you've seen it now you've seen Jesus do it you've helped him do it now it's time for you to go do it the second characteristic of discipleship second phase is that now you begin ministering to your own people hmm that's hard because see the one group of people you don't want to fail in front of is who your immediate friends the people you work with your boss you ever gone and confronted your boss about Christ hello have you ever gone and confronted your boss about Christ that separates the boy disciples from the men disciples but sometimes you have to do that I remember in the early days of my work career after I become a convert I I was hired by this agency to work for them and then I hadn't been there more than a week or so and I found that they wanted me to do some things that were just as far as I was concerned entirely unethical and so I went to my boss and I said I I don't mean to be impolite and I don't want to cause undue problems here but I really can't is this what you want me to do and I outlined and he said yes I said well I can't do that and he said well then go get your check and I said will you let me try to do it without doing that and he kind of looked at I mean he said I don't think it's possible to do it without doing that and I said well if you let it have you ever let anyone try and he said no and I said well wanted to let me try for two weeks and if it if it doesn't work you can I'll leave and you don't have to pay me now I had a wife and four kids at home but I felt that that if God were with me and I felt that he'd given me that job that and if I honored God by talking to my boss in the manner that I did and went out and did the job that God would meet my need well that carried me for a couple of days but about the third or fourth day I thought I was going to die because it wasn't working everything they said it was turning out to be true every place I went the doors were being slammed in my face I was going to to talk to professional people about certain matters and and I as I would go again and again and again the very things that the Dossett said were true were demonstratable and so I would talk to the people and they didn't want to do business this new way so I went through the first week and not I didn't I wasn't able to get a single account I went into the second week and I didn't get a single account on the first day or the second day or the third day or the fourth day now it was the last day I've been working equivalent of two weeks zero hour was approaching he ever worked with God doesn't it bother you that he works with zero hours that's what bothers me too quitting time was five o'clock Friday afternoon at 3:30 Friday afternoon I got my first account and it happened to be a very sizable one that more than offset two weeks of work furthermore it was one of the most profitable accounts that we got during those days and so the boss let me continue to work in this odd new way ethically and I worked there until it was time to move on but I wanted you to know that again the issue is obedience obedience obedience to God doing what he says not what men say taking the counsel of God not the counsel of men and again again I've had to lay it on the line I don't know how many times you have to buy this Perl but my suspicion is you have to pay the payments the rest of your life after all is a pearl of great price worth everything you have few years went by and God began speaking to me again by now I've grown comfortable I've become a very successful salesman I could work about 15 hours a week and make a good living I spent all the rest of my time teaching Bible studies this was the during a period of time I was teaching 11 a week God came to me said I've got a new charge for you new direction I don't mean that he appeared to me I mean he just spoke to me in my reverie or my understanding and said I want you to go full-time in the ministry I thought I was full-time in the ministry he said I want you to be ordained and so I said alright he said there's one catch it'll cost you everything you have I said well I thought I already did that he said you're gonna do it again here's the pearl do you want it now the pearl in this case was him again in this case it was his favor and it was his provision for the next phase of my life now I had paid the price for the first phase and now it's time to pay a new price and he was bringing it to bear and so I prayed the price and a whole new world opened up to me and for the next few years I again started at the bottom and again God gave me favor and blessing much like Joseph and Egypt God just kept giving me opportunity and favor and pretty soon we had one of the largest churches in our denomination and we had much visibility and notoriety and it was a very very nice place to be except then God came again said we've got a new deal the next pearl is coming up it's time to lay it all down again I said what's the price he says how about everything you've got you beginning to see the pattern what I've discovered so far is that to follow God is to periodically lay down everything you have and everything you would obtained in any given phase and risk it in order to follow him again I would guess that or in the last 23 years the bottom line for me has been obedience obedience obedience obedience I could have written that down and over every year of my Christian life as I look at the phases of discipleship I've said that the first phase is seeing Jesus and being seen by him furthermore it's seeing his ministry and second of all or and third of all in that first phase it's entering into the ministry then the second phase is where you actually go out and begin doing the minister yourself and that is characterized by risk-taking and I said that that's that it's characterized particularly by the fact you have to do it in front of the people you know the best and that is the most frightening of all and I think there are basically two phases to becoming a disciple but there's yet a third phase that's called a disciple maker you see Jesus was a disciple sent from heaven but he had to make disciples and as I understand the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18 19 and 20 we've been called to make disciples I remember when Blaine came to me one time and Blaine's always been a man after God's heart I've known him since he was a boy I don't know when it happened but I think early on in his life he wanted God and most of his adult life he's been very single I DS he's been after God I don't mean he doesn't have his faults and failures he does but not one of them is not flagging with God he wants God he wants God's will and so when this fellowship that we're now part of has started he was one of the first ones in the door hotdogs I want to be part of this and we've had many precious and beautiful moments together and and in many respects I feel like I've poured my life into him and I can remember the him getting baptized in the spirit and you know and and he was seen as having difficulty speaking in tongues and and the Lord had already given him some syllables and I walked up to him and I said the Lord has already given you some words and then the Lord gave me the very words that he had received and I said him when I said him it was enough for him to receive it and he began speaking in tongues regularly then and that point forward so we've had many precious and intimate moments and one of the moments that I remember very much is when he had become a disciple he'd paid the price in this particular case he had become very effective in leading a kinship group and it was his passion he loved that kinship group he took it an ordinate pleasure in it you know he looked forward to it all week he and his wife Becky would just you know pray for those people and care for those people to look after those beeper he was one of the best little house tending kinship group leaders we ever had he just loved those people and so he came to me and he said I feel like there's more I feel like there's there's more than what I'm doing I love what I'm doing I'm and and you could tie him he would just tell story after story after story about what was happening to the people he loved the people it was his passion it was his life he said but yet I I feel like there's more and just just when he said that the Lord said tell him he has to give it up now he didn't tell me to tell him about the pearl at that time but in effect that's what exactly what he told me and I said well Blane the next step now is you have to give it up he said why I said now that you love it now that it's your life you've got to lay it down he said I do he said why I said that's the only way you can make disciples he said what do you mean I said you got to give it away he said what are you talking about I said the only way that you can make disciples is you've got to give all these people that you've poured your life into away he said what are you talking about I said you've got to take these people and point him out of your house and tell him to go out and start other groups divide your group up into several groups so why would I want to do that I said because you want the next step and he's not hard-headed in fact he's very bright but he struggled with that for a few minutes and then his heart ruled and he said all right that's what I'll do and that's exactly what he did and what was a lovely group that had grown I think something like 80 or 90 people meeting in his house he could imagine what was a lovely group suddenly became several lovely groups and we saw one of the multiplying principles of the kingdom except a corn of wheat be put in the ground and die you can't have many courts you can have many kernels there's the premise that's what the kingdom of God is like you see the kingdom is room the kingdom is being confronted with one purl after another and for me the Pearl is always Jesus and his will and he brings us up and he teaches us new things and we learn to be obedient in him and we walk in him when we're diligent in him and we prosper in him and all of a sudden he says give them to me I want to give them to somebody else you want a lot I want to give them to somebody else well whose do you think they are mine oh that's right I forgot that part you see becoming a disciple is not a static thing it's not something that you that you buy up the acquisition of a little learning and having a few positive experiences and somebody laying hands on you you you then get to a status a place where you no longer have to be a learner you no longer have to be a beginner you no longer have to be vulnerable you no longer have to risk losing face and and becoming you know well making making a fool of yourself becoming a disciple is committing yourself to being uncomfortable the rest of your life becoming a disciple is committing yourself to being a learner the rest of your life becoming a disciple is that it's committing yourself to risk taking the rest of life just always having to take chances last night was fascinating for me watching some of you squirm not because I'm you know have some sort of a fiendish attitude about squirming people but I knew that out of love for me you didn't like me being caught in a situation that apparently wouldn't make me uncomfortable and I felt so sorry for you because I wasn't uncomfortable at all I've been living in that state for 23 years and I had to I had to let it evolve I had to let it develop I had to find out what God was trying to do now my perspective is that one of our young prophets prophesy to miss last night I don't think you guys are idolatry Singh but it was not it wouldn't have been appropriate to correct it right then I mean he was trying to help me he's one of my dearest and closest friends and he was prophesying and and there was some portions of what he said I thought were beneficial and helpful but I don't think you're idealizing I'm that's not my perspective of where you are my perspective is that you're sincere people after God's heart and many of you are very mature in the Lord I feel very comfortable with you I I feel a collegiate relationship with you my perspective is that God wouldn't send us halfway around the world to minister to a bunch of idolaters my perspective is the year right on with God in fact I've never met a more teachable group that I'm experiencing here this week so that's where I meant you said well what about last night well it's fascinating what happened last night well it is but you've got to got to put it in context in continuity first of all I've been ministering on this kind of thing now for a number of years and I would say probably an average of one time in every meeting I have someone not respond an average of once but invariably in the aftermath though they'll come and respond to someone else later and I'll find out that it was a valid word I haven't counted carefully what I gave last night but I think I gave a total of nine words one of which was just partial the the name of Brooklyn there or whatever was and they and then any impression I got was wrong about a pain in the neck and shoulders but of the remaining words all but one or two now all but two have have come forward and have been prayed for so though they didn't come forward here some of them came forward in the other Hall and others came forward after the meetings and said well you know it was just too embarrassing to come during the meeting for because of other kinds of problems that were involved in their lives so as far as prophesying or in my case having a word go awry or amiss I feel largely vindicated but I'm not bothered if I'm not vindicated and I'm really not trying to impress or improve I'm not trying to prove myself to you I'm trying to prove myself to him he's the what I'm serving and if if he you know if he caused me to just say it wrong every time I we would just get somebody else so would come up and say it right I don't covet being up here I just want to be with you and with him and it really doesn't matter to me who leads as long as he leads and it doesn't matter to me who's right as long as he's right and it doesn't matter to me who wins as long as he wins those the essence and though and they've come is about as a byproduct of laying on a line year after year after year you see I've been embarrassed lots of times I've made a fool of myself so many times but I've done it for Christ's sake see I'd rather reach out and miss it did not reach out at all you know a disciple phase one is someone that's seen Jesus seen the Ministry of Jesus and has entered into it that is to say they're participants a disciple phase two is someone that it's been pushed out into the ministry they're now doing it themselves second of all in phase two they are ministering to their own people see it's one thing to go out into the streets and witness it's another thing to talk to your boss about Jesus right talk to your father about Jesus talk to your mother about Jesus right so hold everything isn't it a little lumps come into throat when you even think about it right huh so hold everything so phase two is where you enter into the ministry phase 3 is disciple-making and that's where you have to start all over again and be a beginner the only way to make disciples is to be like the Good Shepherd you have to lay your life down for the Sheep in the early days when I used to bring team members with me some of the team members really didn't know what they were doing or what they were talking about and I would have them come up and speak and the people would come and complain to me they said we don't want to hear them they don't know what they're talking about I'd say that's right and we want to hear you and I said well the reason I haven't charged you is so that you wouldn't have any right to make that decision so we came here for several years and never charged anything because you see I had to have some place to build disciples I had to have some place to start so I decided to use you and I did it at home also and the only way to make a disciple is to push him out on the stage and give him the microphone or push him up to the blind person say now speak to the blind eyes what do you want me to do speak to the blind eyes what do you want me to say to them tell him to open up I can do that yes you can there's no other way to make a disciple hello there's no other way to do it you just got to push him up there and then stand behind him to love them when they failed if if they fail and rejoice with him if they don't you see faith is spelled RI s --k k the exercise of faith begins and ends with your willingness to be a fool for Jesus I hope you enjoyed the presentation on discipleship it's Jeffrey every bit as important today as it has been at any time in the past and I hope that it's a great value too one of the things that is very very important to me is that you understand discipleship is not only what you believe but it's what you do you know in the rabbinic tradition what they were trying to do is not only inform but form people and when Jesus taught the disciples that is exactly what he did he not only taught them but he taught them by what he did and then coached them the doing of it I believe if we're to be equipped today at the end of the century we must be equipped in both word and deed in fact discipleship is spelt wor D a and D D EE D

Channel: KCFonline

Views: 19,660

Rating: 4.9133129 out of 5

Keywords: John Wimber

Id: tELD7kvcLug

Length: 67min 40sec (4060 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 25 2018