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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:10 Hi, everyone. What a joy and privilege for us to gather together in our LifeGroups to study the Word of God together. See, our heart is for the LifeGroups to become0:21 intentional disciple making units, where we pursue the Word of God together, where we build our lives upon the Word of God, and be transformed by it.0:33 Hallelujah! And I want to highlight to you the focus that we have for this season in our LifeGroups. It is on the theme of transforming your inner world.0:45 See, you and I, we need to recognize that we live in 3 worlds. There is a public world that we portray to the world. We stand on platforms. We let the world watch us. There is an image that we0:57 project. That is the public world. There is a private world. Only your family members who are close to you will know. But there is also an inner world. No 1 else1:09 knows, only God and yourself. In other words, you and I, we need to pay attention to this inner world because that inner world is what matters most. So, 1 thing that1:20 we do in this series of studies is to focus on what does it take to transform our inner life so that we are truly transformed. We can be authentic1:32 in our worship, so that we can be broken in our walk, and we can be courageous in our work. Listen to me carefully. This season we will1:44 study on transforming your inner world. I want to also highlight to you 3 things as our focus for this year. What's the focus?1:56 Alignment, back to the basics, and community. I want you to take these 3 things down because this is what I believe in the season God2:08 wants us to focus on. Alignment. That means there should be an alignment back to Him, His purposes, His will, His word, His works, His ways. And alignment with every2:20 age group, alignment among the generations in the Church, among all the groups in the Church. So we come together and we are aligned. So we are working towards an alignment, 1 vision,2:32 1 culture, so we can pursue our 1 king and do his will. Secondly, it's the B, the back to the basics. We want to go back to the basics because we are disciple making church.2:44 And it's as a disciple making church, we want to teach people how to be authentic in their own discipleship to Jesus and also intentionally disciple others. That's why we want to go back to the2:56 basics, because sometimes we think discipleship is for the spiritual hungry people, spiritual elites. Or sometimes we think discipleship is only for people who are new Christians. But can I3:08 humbly say this? In a disciple making church, we make the emphasis that discipleship is for everyone. That's why from the pastor to the new believer to the pre believer, we need to be3:19 discipled. And that's why we come and we study the scriptures together so that we can be discipled. So we go back to the basics of spiritual discipline, cultivating spiritual habits3:31 that will allow us to be transformed. Hallelujah. Thirdly, it is about building community. So ABC, alignment back to basics in community. We want to grow as an authentic biblical community.3:43 So, what does it take to do that? That's what we're going to be studying throughout this season. And I pray that the Lord will knit our hearts together and give us grace to study the Word. And I pray that the Holy Spirit3:54 will do His transforming work in our midst. That as a result, we will be transformed from glory to glory. That we will become more and more like Christ Jesus. Hallelujah. For this4:07 study, transforming your inner life, We are going to study on the 1 fundamental truth that is found in the parable that Jesus said in Matthew4:19 7 20 four-twenty 7. And I am going to title this session Building a Solid Foundation. Let's read Matthew 7 20 four-twenty 7 together:4:30 Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and4:42 the winds blew and beat on that house but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears words of mine and does not4:54 do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great5:06 was the fall of it. Now, why is this parable so important for us to study? To Jesus, the most important thing is the5:17 foundation. I want you to listen to me carefully. What matters most is the foundation of a thing. Whether you're watching, whether you're looking at a building, the foundation5:29 matters. Whether you're building a church, foundation matters. You're building a marriage, foundation matters. You're discipling your children, foundation matters. The foundation is the most important thing5:41 in Jesus' opinion. That's why in his teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, which is almost like a discipleship manifesto, which is almost like a kingdom5:54 manuscript about the Kingdom of God, where he talks about the grand reversal of the Kingdom from Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7. He brings us to a grand crescendo in chapter 7, and he ends with6:06 this parable because this is the most important thing you need to hear. And that's why he ends with this parable. Now, Jesus is a Jewish rabbi. And like any6:18 Jewish rabbi, he teaches with contrast. This is a key for people who are serious Bible students. Take the lens of contrast and study the scripture because6:30 many times the lens of contrast will unpack, will help you to dig deeper. Here in this parable, it's a parable of contrast. But I want you to highlight6:42 what highlights the contrast is the when you look at the similarities. It will even heighten the contrast. So, look at the similarities in what Jesus said. Jesus says in this parable,6:54 there were 2 similar men. 2 similar men. Why? I want you to listen to me. He did not say 1 was an old man and 1 was a young7:05 man. He actually said it's 2 men. 1 was wise and 1 was fool. Right. That's what the Bible says. But I want you to see the contrast he's saying. It's 27:17 similar men. Why? Because it's not about an old man or a young man. It's not about their age. It was not a contrast about their age. Neither was it about their desire. The desires also7:29 were similar. It's not that 1 had a desire to build and the other 1 didn't have a desire. He only built because his wife nagged him. No. I want you to listen to me. It was not because 1 guy was highly7:41 competent in building and the other guy was not competent. It was not even, it was similar competency. It was not that 1 guy was highly competent and the other 1 not competent. That's why he was7:53 called fool. No. No. No. I want you to listen to me. Fool here is not because he's stupid. Fool here is because of consequence. It is not because of competence.8:05 It is because of consequence. He failed to do something, isn't it? The other 1 is it he it's not a story of 2 men with different resources. See, even the resources were8:17 similar. In other words, 1 had the means to build. The other also had the means to build. It's not like 1 had everything, good resources. The other 1 had poor resources.8:29 So 2 similar men who are building 2 similar houses. What are 2 similar houses? Meaning, from the ground level up, the designs were similar. It's not like 1 was building a palace and the other 1 was building a hut.8:41 Was also they also had similar materials. It's not like 1 guy built it with the beautiful, marble stones and the other 1 was building with just,8:53 hay and wood and straw. You know, the story of the 3 piglets. 1 built a house with wood, the other 1 with straw, and the other 1 with brick. It's not9:05 a story like that. But I want you to think about it. It's not even a story of about the workmanship. It's 2 houses that was built similarly, but the only difference was9:17 somewhere where eyes could not see. So, look at the other similarities. They both went through similar circumstance. It's not that 1 went through a tsunami, and that's9:29 why his house fell, And the other 1 just had a drizzle. No. No. No. Both went through similar circumstances. But then the Bible9:41 says, but there were 2 totally different results. This is what you and I need to pay attention to. It is a radically different result. 1 stood9:52 tall, and the other 1 fell. Now ask yourself this key question. Why do 2 similar men building 2 similar houses have 2 totally different10:04 results? The answer is foundation. It is found in the foundation. That's why you and I, we need to build the foundation. See, in a disciple making church,10:16 we focus on building the foundations, foundations on God's word. We want people to have theological understanding. We want people to have10:28 biblical literacy. That's why we take time to study the word of God regularly in our services. That's why we take a book and we go through it systematically. The reason is because we want10:40 to build foundations of knowledge about God, theology, and biblical literacy among our people. But at the same time in a disciple making church, we also want to have spiritual10:52 formation. What do I mean by spiritual formation? Spiritual formation is that Paul prayed to the prayed to the Lord and says and he writes to Galatians, I pray for you until Christ is formed in11:03 you. Listen to that. Spiritual formation. And spiritual formation happens when you take charge of your life and start to build some spiritual disciplines. Listen to11:15 me carefully. You and I have to go through the process of renewing our mind at the same time, renewing also our routines. See, before we are11:27 saved, your habits could have been just watching, binge watching TV, doing things, and not focused on the things of God. But once you're saved and you want to be a disciple, the habits need to be cultivated. Spiritual11:38 habits, habits of silence and solitude, habits of reflecting and journaling, habits of study of scripture, habits of having that quiet time with the Lord and and walk with God. This is important, isn't11:50 it? And that's why in in our church, we take time to cultivate this. And I pray as a group that you will make a covenant together to build and focus on strengthening our foundations.12:02 What is the foundation? To build theological foundations, at the same time to form that spiritual formation, cultivate that spiritual formation within ourselves. So, in this passage12:14 that we just read, there are 3 profound lessons for us to learn. What are the 3 profound lessons? 1, there is12:26 a great difference between hearing and doing God's word. I want you to highlight this. There is a big difference between hearing God's word and doing God's word.12:38 What's the difference? See, many times we fail to recognize the significance of this parable. Many times when we superficially think about it, we think that the wise12:50 man heard and the foolish men did not hear. Many times that's what we think, but that's not what the Bible says here. The Bible says, The wise men heard, the foolish men also13:02 heard. So, it was not a story of 1 heard and the other 1 didn't hear. Both heard. So, there's 1 who heard and applied,13:14 but the other heard and did not do anything about it. See, you and I, we need to pay attention to this. Many times people always say, Pastor, I'm listening to a lot of preachers.13:27 And I was talking to a young man the other day, and he said, Pastor, in my podcast, I listen to 20 preachers. I have 20 different preachers I'm listening to throughout the week. I admire that kind of a13:38 zeal that you want to hear the word of God because faith comes by hearing the word of God. But can I humbly say this? Much more than hearing the word, we need to act on the word. See, we have a philosophy13:50 in the IDMC church. What is the philosophy? It comes from a mentor, Reverend Edmond Chan. He said this, isn't it? Truth doesn't change lives, but truth applied changes14:02 lives. Listen to that carefully. It is not just that you learn the truth. It is not just you grow in understanding the truth. You can even, you can even appreciate the truth. You14:14 can articulate the truth. You can you can even accumulate all the truth. Truth. If you don't apply the truth, it will not benefit you. You know, I love satay. Whenever I'm in14:25 Malaysia and whichever pastor is hosting me, they always bring me to a satay store, I go crazy. Now imagine this. If I'm taking that satay, you know what? It's a14:37 meat on skewer with a you dip it into a peanut sauce. Beautiful. I'm salivating as I'm talking about this. But imagine if I eat it in front of my host, and they are so14:49 happy. They buy, like, 5100 pieces in front of me and say, Try this, try this, try this. And I'm taking everything, and I'm eating it, chewing on it, and then I spit it out. Chew on it, and then spit it out. Imagine what15:00 will happen. It's not just about the taste. It's about swallowing it in. It's about allowing the nutrition to happen in our body, isn't it? You and I, we need to understand.15:13 You can't just look at you buy an expensive exercise machine. Just because you bought it and you keep looking at it every day doesn't mean you're going to lose weight. You have to stand on it and start doing the15:23 exercise, isn't it? You and I, we recognize there's a big difference between hearing and doing. The difference is as much as bleeding and blood transfusion. You and I, we15:35 need to recognize that we need to apply the truth. But sometimes people say, Pastor, you know, my pastor, he preaches. It is so boring. See, the15:47 key is not this is not about a boring preacher or a fantastic Bible teacher. See, the story is not contrasted between a boring preacher and fantastic Bible teacher. Both15:59 of them heard from the source. The source is Jesus Christ. So even if Jesus was the preacher, it is up to the person, the individual, to take the truth and to apply16:10 the truth. That is why this is so important for us. Now, when I was saying this story comes to mind. A church member was saying, Oh, my16:21 pastor's sermons remind me of the peace of God. Why? Someone asked. Because it passes all my understanding.16:33 Another 1 said, Oh, my pastor's sermon is like, it reminds me of the mercy of God. Why? Because the mercy of God endures forever. I want you to listen to me. Doesn't matter what the16:45 preacher is preaching on how long or how short or how deep or doesn't matter. As long as you have just heard it and not applied it, it will not benefit you. That's why building16:57 the foundation is about applying the Scriptures. That's why in an IDMC church, what we celebrate is not just accumulation of knowledge or articulation of knowledge, appreciation of knowledge, but application of17:09 knowledge. So, we need to apply the Scriptures. C. S. Lewis once said this: When we hear the truth and we do not apply, we lose the17:20 capacity to apply the truth altogether. Think about it. When you keep hearing about something over and over again, you get inoculated by it until you don't feel it anymore.17:33 Imagine, a missionary comes from overseas, and he shares excitedly about what the mission work is all about. And he shows pictures of, children that are hungry and people that are living in17:45 poverty and how he's helping them. There is something about you when you see that for the first time, you are moved in your senses. Your emotions are stirred. But if you don't do anything17:56 about it, the next time you hear it, the next time you see those pictures, nothing happens. Why? Because you become inoculated. The same thing. The Bible says if you keep hearing but you18:08 don't apply, you will become so seared that it doesn't matter anymore. So, listen to me carefully. You and I, we need to focus on building18:20 the foundation of our lives. The second thing, the second lesson we can learn from this is your foundation is often unseen, but is evident in times of crisis.18:34 Only when a crisis happens, your foundation, the fault lines in the foundation will begin to see. See, that's why you've got to take time to build your marriage upon the word of God. You've got to build the18:45 foundation of your marriage. That's why in this house, we provide premarital counseling for any couple that is getting ready for marriage. Why? Because they need to build upon a solid foundation. Otherwise, if you18:57 just get into their relationship and just kind of cruise along and some young people are like, they have this naivety, you know, they say, Oh, we never fight. Wait till19:09 you get married and sleep next to each other. Wait till the first day when you open your eyes as married couple. The world is a different place. I always say this jokingly. Before marriage, you got to keep both19:21 eyes open. But after marriage, you got to close 1 eye because you can't do anything about it. Listen, that's why you prepare yourself ahead of time and build the foundation. You take time to build foundation. After 2019:33 years of marriage, I still work on building a strong foundation for my marriage. Why? Because I wanna be affair proof. If I'm gonna have an affair, I wanna have it with my wife. I want you to listen to me. I19:44 love my wife so much. And the reason why we love each other so much and we we love each other really genuinely is because we have such strong foundation, and the foundation19:56 matters. Because if you don't have this foundation, when crisis happens, it begins to show the cracks. That's why you and I, we need to strengthen the foundation. And when crisis happens,20:08 usually people always complain, why God? Why did you allow this? I want to humbly say this. When you're going through a crisis, people often question the goodness of God rather than20:20 trusting in the godness of God. I want you to pay attention to this. Sometimes when you're going through crisis, you always question God, why? You know, you're questioning the goodness of God rather than trusting in the20:29 goodness of God. But can I humbly say this? How do you trust in the goodness of God even during good times? Keep working on your foundation. Keep strengthening that foundation. Keep20:41 building upon it. Hallelujah. In this house, we always talk about there are 3 structures that we need to pay attention to. So let me highlight them for you so that you can take it down. 1, there is a20:53 superstructure. Now, what is a superstructure? It's built on competencies. It is about why you are celebrated in the world. You know, the people who are, who appear on Time magazine in the front cover,21:05 They're usually people who have great, appearance. In other words, their looks are good, or they have great acquisitions. They bought something. They bought,21:18 you know, they bought something they have acquired. And or they are people who have good associations. They know people. Or they have people who have great accomplishments. They have achieved something. Or21:30 they have great abilities. These are the people who appear on Time Magazine cover, isn't it? But I want you to listen to me. This is what the world celebrates, the superstructures of life, which is built on competencies.21:41 And usually, those things, it's all about the remarkable accomplishments. Now, in my travels, I've been in people's homes, and there are so many there are some21:53 beautiful homes I've been in where the artifacts, the art, and each of them is so exquisite, beautiful. And it's22:05 a display. The house you own, the car you drive, the dress you wear sometimes is used as a symbol of portraying to the world subtly your22:16 accomplishments, because that's what the world notices, isn't it? I want you to listen to me. That's only 1 structure. It's a superstructure of life. But then there are structures of life. It is22:28 built on the conduct. In other words, it's built on your regular behavior. It's built on routine. It's built on what you do regularly. So structures to your life, meaning22:40 how do you spend your family time? Do you date your wife? You know, I dated my wife to get married to her. Now I date my wife to keep staying married to her. That's true. I want you to listen to me.22:52 What do you do? These are structures. How do you manage your money? It's not just 1 thing. It's 1 thing to make money, another thing to manage money, to know where your money is going, and to know how to multiply the23:02 money. This is important. These are structures. Financial health is a structure problem, isn't it? You and I, we need to recognize that these things matter, the structures, and it's built on repeated23:13 actions. But the most important thing, it's not just a superstructure or the structure. The most important thing that God values is the substructure. It is the inner world that we talked about.23:25 It is built on character. It is not only built on character. It's all about the real authenticity. It is all about you becoming real with God, with others. 1 of the23:37 core things in a disciple making church is that we want to focus on building the substructures. You know, don't get just carried away by accumulating in this world because the Bible says23:49 the world, along with all its desires, will pass away. But they that do the will of the Father will abide forever. That's why 1 of the things we have to tutor ourselves is to go and build upon the solid24:01 foundation of the word of God, to build on a biblical theology of life, biblical theology of work, biblical theology of wealth. And in this series, you're gonna study these things, and I want you to recognize this24:12 because that is what matters. The wise man builds upon a solid rock, and that rock is he heard the word of God, and he built his life on the24:24 word of God. He applied the word of God into his life. Let me talk about the third thing. The third profound lesson is: A life built on the Word will ultimately stand.24:36 The life built on the Word. What is your relationship with the Word like? Can I ask you, do you have a regular reading of the Word of God? Do you take time to read24:48 the Word of God? See, 1 thing to read the Word of God. Another thing for the Word of God to read you. It's 1 thing for you to enroll in a course and to master the Word of God.25:00 You know, in my mentoring, I have the privilege of walking with people who have, far more degrees than I ever do. And these are people who have Ph. D. In New Testament theology and25:12 people who have Ph. D. In this and that and the other. But the reality is this. It's not whether you have mastered the word, but the key question is whether you're mastered by the word.25:24 So let me give you some key things for you to focus on. Maybe this year, embrace some of these things. And as I am going through this list, put a check next to it. Write it down and put a check next to it if you already25:36 do this regularly. Hearing the word, reading the word, studying the word, memorizing the word, meditating25:48 the word, confessing the word, and applying the word. Look at that. How is your relationship with the Word of God? Which 1 do you do regularly? Do you hear the Word of God? Do you actively26:00 listen to the Word of God being preached and explained? Active listening is by taking notes. You know, a pastor was a26:12 boring preacher, and his people were falling asleep during his preaching. So 1 day he told the church, I don't want you to fall asleep. I want you to take down notes, because if you take down notes,26:23 then you will be actively listening. So the following week, he saw this 1 guy sitting in the front row and taking, actively listening and writing down notes, and he was taking pages and pages of notes. And then the guy26:35 who was sitting next to him was so curious because he didn't get anything out of that sermon. But this guy was getting so much pages of pages, so he leaned in and looked over and said, Hey, what is this guy writing? And26:47 he's writing there, Do not fall asleep. Do not fall asleep. Do not fall asleep. I want you to actively listen because listening to the word of God matters. Not only listening to the word of God, reading those26:58 scriptures together. You know, this, this season in our church life, we are
Paul Jeyachandran
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