CATCH THE WIND OF THE SPIRIT

1. CATCH THE WIND OF THE SPIRIT TEACHING: the radical forming current

2. THE RADICAL FORMING CURRENT • MATTHEW 28:18-20 • 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  • 19 GO THEREFORE AND MAKE DISCIPLES of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  • 20 TEACHING THEM to observe ALL that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

3. Discipleship and formation • A “disciple” is literally being the student of a teacher. • The goal: To make mature followers of Christ who become like Him.

4. Paul said in the letter to the galatians (4:19): • “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you….”

5. Dallas Willard said, “Christian spiritual formation is simply indispensable. The lack of an understanding and the implementation of it is why there is in general so little real difference between professing Christian and non-Christian today. Where can one find today any real group of Christians with an actual plan to teach the people of their group to do everything Jesus said?” • Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Redeeming Jesus’ Essential Teaching on Discipleship (New York: Harper Collins e-books, 2014),114.

6. THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE TRINITY IN TEACHING

7. The father is involved • Psalm 32: 8 --- “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.” • The Father is in the teaching business. Throughout scripture we find people saying that they want to meet with God the Father so that He might teach them His ways. • He told Moses that He would teach him what he was to do (Ex. 4:15). • Job 36:22 states: “God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him?”

8. Jesus was often called “teacher” and rabbi ---The Hebrew word for teacher or master of the torah • Matt. 7:28-29 reveals that the people were amazed at His teaching because He taught as one having authority. • The Father had given this to Him, and He spent time in His Father’s presence learning what He was to say and do. • John 7:16--- “My teaching is not my own, its comes from Him who sent me.” Jesus didn’t teach what men said, but rather what God said. • The difference between these two cannot be underestimated. He taught well because He listened well.

9. John 14: 23-26 • “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

10. The holy spirit teaches us • The Holy Spirit knows God and shares with us what He thinks. • “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2: 10b-11).

11. The spirit is also The counselor who guides us into all truth • He reveals the Father’s mind to us. • John 16: 13 states this: “But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

12. SAVED AND THEN WHAT?

13. When people make a decision for Christ, what should happen next? • Are they taught to realize what they have just done? If Satan has bound them in certain areas, are they prayed for and taught what it means to be set free? What about their past? Are their deepest hurts touched, and are they brought to the Savior for healing?

14. If their lives have been taken up in wrong thinking, how is this all made right? • Where do their minds need to be transformed and how can this be accomplished? • How do they learn to forgive and love? • How can their bad attitudes be changed?

15. What moral shifts need to be made in their lives? How can this be accomplished? When all of their friends think it is perfectly acceptable and even desirable to live together before marriage, how can a shift be made here? • This sort of question can be asked of many situations, of course, since God’s Word and society’s perspectives don’t match up in a great many areas.

16. How do we get people into the Bible? • How do we teach them to pray? • What about the development of other spiritual disciplines including spending time in God’s presence, silence, solitude, meditating on God’s Word, keeping the Sabbath, tithing, worship, fasting, and service in the church?

17. What exactly does it entail for them to deny themselves and to live for Him? How do people learn to give up their sins and follow Him? • How do we help them to recognize His voice? How do they come to understand His will? • What does God expect regarding their finances, church attendance and service, their family, and their other relationships? • What about baptism? What about the baptism in the Holy Spirit?

18. What is the person’s role in the body of believers? • What is the church and how can they love others in it? • How can they grow in the fruit of the Spirit? How can they be used in the gifts of the Spirit? • What does it mean to be a witness? • How can they grow into Christian roles of responsibility and follow Jesus closely every day? How do they really come to know Him as He is?

19. Are we concerned enough about making disciples?

20. *in the New Testament alone, teaching is mentioned 74 times, teach 45 times, teacher 52, and Rabbi 16 times. • *Disciple is listed a staggering 269 times! • *This is contrasted to preaching 31 times, and preach and preacher twice each. • *Do we care enough about the teaching aspects of our churches?

21. We’re not here to form wimps and apathetic pew sitters! • If the church is not effective in the world, perhaps that is what we’ve done.

22. radical • The current of learning, growth, maturation, followership and discipleship is what we need to counteract perpetual childhood, apathy, or whining. • God conceives of this current as radical. • The term has generally come to mean somebody a little crazy, out there on the edge, or extreme. • Actual origin of this word: From the Latin word radix which means “root.” • The strong forming current should be designed to keep the Christian faith rooted in the truth---in God Himself! It should lead people to follow Him all the way!

23. Conversion must be linked to discipleship • Biblical maturation does not leave room for the idea of being converted but not choosing to be a disciple. • They go together irretrievably. • We can’t really be a Christian without also being a disciple and making some progress in becoming more like Jesus.

24. Ongoing discipleship means that the person decides…not just to commit to an ideological thought or ticket to a good life…but rather to the person Himself. • We are expected to abandon all else in order to follow along with Jesus in relationship, just as His disciples did. • Jesus said to Peter and Andrew, “Come, follow me…and I will make you fishers of men.” Scripture tells us that “at once they left their nets and followed Him” (Matt. 4: 19-20). Becoming a disciple meant dropping everything and following Jesus wherever He went.

25. For the radical forming current to flourish and flow as God intends for it to do, the church is needing many more people who can model what it is like to live sold-out to Jesus as a full-fledged disciple who holds back nothing at all for himself. • We need wholly committed people willing to take up their crosses every day and die to themselves. • This is what it truly means to be a follower, and it is the ultimate goal of this current.

26. TEACHERs must themselves be formed

27. Local Teachers 1) a counselor, either a licensed, professional counselor or pastoral counseling, 2) a guide or mentor, 3) being a life coach, 4) facilitating specialized groups such as Marriage Encounters or Bible study groups, 5) having lunch with someone to help them work out a problem they are having, 6) training workers of special needs groups, 7) teaching a new converts class or membership course, 8) facilitating an Alpha group…

28. Local Teachers Continued… • …9) writing or blogging devotionals, 10) teaching workshops at retreats, 11) being leaders in boys’ and girls’ clubs and youth programs, 12) Sunday School teaching, 13) facilitating a small home group, 14) working with Bible quiz, 15) leading a mothers’ gathering or a women’s meeting or a men’s group, 16) preparing and writing curriculum, and 17) teaching a Bible course at a Christian college or seminary.

29. THE RADICAL FORMING CURRENT: The new believers become disciples and followers of Jesus who learn to hear and obey His voice, growing and maturing into being more like Him. They produce the fruit of the Spirit and build a close relationship with each member of the Trinity. Those working in this current are strong spiritual models for those they are forming. They are able to communicate and apply the Scriptures accurately and to lead people in the spiritual disciplines.

30. Question: are we doing the job of spiritual formation like we should be?