It’s Not Too Late to Overcome
Sometimes life takes different turns than we expect. We can start out with good intentions and get distracted along the way. We can end up in a place we never would have gone on our own.
And often, the fact that we didn’t mean to end up in the spot that we’re in can be discouraging. Why didn’t life turn out the way that I thought? Did I miss God’s plan for my life? Have I disappointed God with the choices I’ve made?
If this is you, I’ve got good news: It’s not too late to overcome.
Don’t miss that. The circumstances you are in can still be overcome. You’re not too far gone or too old or too sinful. You’re not doomed to a life of failure in life and before God.
How do I know? Because I’ve been reading the book of Revelation lately. And in the book, Jesus addresses seven churches that existed in the first century. All of them had difficulties. Most of them were a mess. But to each of the churches Jesus had this to say: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes…” and then He makes them a promise about what they will receive if they overcome.
Catch this. Because He makes the promise, not just to the churches who are doing well, but to all of the churches no matter how deep the struggle. He makes the promise to churches that have failed in one or sometimes many areas. To each church, Jesus breaks in and basically says, “It’s not too late to overcome.”
You could have lost your first love. “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.”
You could be enduring life-threatening suffering. “He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.“
You could find yourself holding to false teaching and have been deceived. “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.“
You could have been tolerating immorality in your life or in the lives of people around you. “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.“
You could look alive to everyone else but be dead on the inside. “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
You could be standing before an open door of the Lord’s favor. “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.“
Or…you could be lukewarm, ineffective in your calling and not really doing anything. “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.“
Friends, you could find yourself in any of these situations or disqualify yourself in a thousand other ways. But Jesus has a promise for you. If you are willing to follow Him and and lay down your life in the way that He asks, it’s not too late to overcome. You can do what He asks and die tomorrow and you would stand with Jesus as an overcomer in Heaven.
Our biggest hindrance is how hopeless we feel. But it’s not too late.
You can overcome.
“He who has an ear to hear, listen….”
You Don’t Need an Apostle to Start A House Church
I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who are considering joining or starting house churches. One of the odd realities of the house church movement in the United States is the belief that apostles (sometimes also referred to as “workers”) are needed to start legitimate house churches. I hear this a lot, but I believe it’s harmful.
So I will fairly often get a question that goes something like this: “I live in ___________ City. I don’t have a group believers who want to start a house church and no apostle will come help me. What should I do?”
I understand why people would look at the Scriptures and think that apostles are the only ones who start churches. But it’s a fairly odd belief for a movement that has based much of its identity around the idea that Jesus shows up wherever “two or three are gathered.” If Jesus meant this, and I believe He did, then church begins when two or three legitimate believers gather in his name, not when an apostle shows up to pronounce them a church.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think apostles are incredibly important, essential really, to the building up of the body of Christ. I also think that apostles do plant churches and probably plant more churches than people with other giftings in the body. It’s part of their nature. But to say that an organic church must be started by an apostolic worker is a great way to get less house churches started.
An argument could be made here that more house churches could be started without apostles, but they would be of lesser quality, less focused on the glory of God and more prone to be outside of what the Lord intended. Except the Scripture doesn’t paint that picture. Here a few places where it seems that Scripture shows us hints of non-apostolicly founded churches:
- Acts 2:42-47- This is the Jerusalem church that was birthed after the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 in the upper room. Now I won’t argue that the apostles didn’t help form the house churches described in this passage, obviously they were a vital part of the community. But they were 12 men out of 3000 people. There was no way the apostles could have spent a significant amount of quality time with each house church there, especially not in the way many understand the modern apostle/worker starting a house church.
- Acts 11:19-21- Here is a church or a number of churches (“a large number of people”) that was formed by “those who were scattered because of the persecution.” We know that this doesn’t include the apostles, because Acts 8:3 tells us the only people who stayed in Jerusalem were the apostles. Now, apostles were eventually involved. I think apostolic input into any church is important. But this church started when believers scattered by the persecution started preaching the gospel and people came to the Lord.
- Colossians 1:7- The church in Colossae was started not by Paul, but by Epaphras. Paul had never been to Colossae but wrote his letter to them to encourage them in their walk. I would actually argue Epaphras was an apostolic worker, but if you want to get super technical about it, Paul never calls him that.
- Revelation 2 & 3- Again, we don’t know a lot about most of the churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3 other than the church in Ephesus. What we do know is that Paul started the church in Ephesus, but other unnamed believers started the churches in Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philladelphia, and Laodecia. These were most likely churches that were established as the Gospel went out from Ephesus into all of the region. These were all affirmed as churches by Jesus himself, even though Paul only planted the church in Ephesus.
I say all of this to make the following point: If you can’t find an apostolic worker to help you start a house church, you are not abandoned by God. Quite the contrary, you could be a vessel the Lord uses to lead unbelievers to Christ and see a church formed. This is why I want you to plant a house church.
And given what we see in many of these Scriptures, I think it’s very appropriate for apostles to help with the ongoing maturing and equipping of house churches they didn’t start. Part of their role as a bond-servant of Christ is to serve churches in just such a manner. Paul tells us explicitly in Ephesians 4 that God “gave some as apostles…for…the building up of the body of Christ.” So to say we don’t need apostles would be silly.
But to despair, to give up hope, to stop believing God for the formation of churches without an apostle ready and willing to help is just not what I see in the New Testament. I see a whole people learning to follow Christ and willing to risk even their physical lives to share the gospel with those who have never heard it. And when those souls come to Christ, there should be no wringing of hands because no apostle is present. There is simply a confidence that the God who has led them this far would continue to empower and sustain them.
And in this way, we don’t just gain apostles, but we embody the kind of apostolic Christianity I believe God wants to restore in the Earth. May it be so, even for those who are reading this today.
Photo Credit: &Koeln6b1StAposteln by Olaf Peuss
Doorways
I sat with some new (and in someways old) friends last night talking about how the Lord had led us to start house churches in our city in Iowa. One of the ideas that came up at least a few times throughout the night was this: The doorway into any situation defines very much defines what normal looks like to us.
For me personally, it was when I began to share about my mom being healed of cancer at a church that many of us in the room had used to attend. We all remembered those days and were encouraged by my mom being healed, but for me as someone who wasn’t yet a believer, that healing defined what living for Jesus would look like. Living for Jesus meant seeing the power of God heal people. I don’t always see healings when I pray for people, but my paradigm of the Kingdom will always include God’s power to heal.
We talked as well about how we’ve seen people come to know Jesus in the midst of our house churches, and for those who have, following Jesus has always been about relationships and community. They don’t carry the same kind of preoccupation that some of our other Christian friends have with worship or preaching or leadership. They are part of a family and this is what Christianity looks like for them.
I had a mentor in my life who would regularly preach that those early days, maybe up to the first one to two years of being a new believer were a season where your life was like wet cement. Whatever was impressed into a believer’s life during those early days would harden and set the course for the rest of their life. If there was a mistake, it could be corrrected, but it required a lot more work than writing the right thing in the cement in the first place.
I write all of this to say this: Remember that whenever you have the opportunity to bring a new believer to Jesus, you are bringing them into the Kingdom by a certain doorway. Make sure it’s a good one. Bring them through the door built with the costly stuff: Gold, silver, and precious jewels, something that will stand the test of time and give them a vision for truly being surrendered to Christ and His Kingdom.
You won’t regret that decision.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 