REVIVAL TRAINING
Mark : Chapter 2
18) Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” 19) Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20) But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. 21) “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22) And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
Book of the Month
Sammy Tippit told his fiancée, “I can’t promise we’ll be rich, but life won’t be boring.”
Sammy had no idea what an understatement that would become. Beginning in the bars of Baton Rouge and the nightclubs of Chicago, Tippit has shared the news of life-changing faith in Christ all over the world – including in the middle of a revolution in Romania, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and war in Burundi and the Congo.
Sammy’s lifelong adventure has come at a great price. He’s been cursed, threatened, arrested, deported, and blacklisted. He’s also been personally broken, ravaged with illness, and devastated by grief.
Yet he continues to preach to in stadiums, in open fields, and via satellite technology to hundreds of thousands around the globe. For all other books…
The Evangelist Makes Disciples: Multiplying Fruit
Now, today I want to talk to you about the role of discipleship in revival .. discipleship in evangelism. I’m convinced that this is one of the greatest reasons that we don’t have revival. A lot of people ask me, “Well Sammy, now I’ve been praying for revival, I want to see God send revival. Why doesn’t it happen? We .. we long for it.”
Let me ask you a question. Why would God pour out His Spirit if there was nothing to hold it” You see Jesus once talked about this whole issue. He said you can’t pour new wine in an old wineskin, because the old wineskin would burst and you would lose it all.
So when God pours out the wine of His Spirit there must be a wineskin that can hold it. In other words, if people are going to come to Christ, and we’re going to see this great harvest, then there must be a container for that great harvest.
And what is the container? The container is discipleship.
I preached in Egypt – many people are very surprised to hear this but the largest meeting I’ve ever preached was in Egypt. I preached to 150,000 people per night. Now, we used technology to do it and there were 650 or so locations where people would go to those locations and listen to me preach by video. And we had literally thousands of people come to Christ in this country that is predominantly Muslim and God moved in a mighty way.
But one of the things that happened and one of the reasons that God worked in such a mighty way was the Egyptians had small discipleship groups set up whereby within 72 hours every person who came to Christ was introduced to a small group Bible study that helped them to grow in their faith in Jesus Christ. And God worked mightily and the reason God worked mightily was He could trust those people with this wineskin – and discipleship is that wineskin.
I remember whenever I went to Germany and I was pastor – my ministry has primarily been in evangelism but I pastored for 10 years – and I went to Germany to pastor a small Baptist church called Hahn Baptist Church. It was an American military community and .. ahh .. the word „Hahn‟ means ‘rooster’ so I became the pastor of the Rooster Baptist church in Rooster Germany – big time stuff you know. And I was there with this primarily military people and ministering to them.
And while I was there I discovered that people would come in and out of the church and would reach people for Christ but the back door was so wide open that as they would come in that many people would go out the back door. And so I said, what’s wrong here? And I heard a man talk about discipleship and so one morning I got up and I said if there are any men who would like to learn to walk with God I’ll teach you what I know.
And if there are any ladies who would like to learn to walk with God, my wife will and we set a meeting and I started meeting on Thursday mornings with about 20 men – my wife met with about 20 women. And we started sharing with them and teaching them how to have a quiet time, how to walk
with God – how to read the Bible – study the Bible .. Just some basic Christian things.
Those men began to grow – and those women began to grow and when that happened our evangelism plan was simply as people grew in Christ, they naturally .. maybe I should say it this way – they supernaturally naturally shared their faith in Christ with others. So as they grew in the Lord and they began to walk with God, it was the natural thing for them to share their faith in Jesus with others.
So I want to encourage you to become first of all a disciple – to begin to grow in your walk with God. As you grow – to get some other people around you and especially new believers and teach them how to walk with God. Because as you do that, that’s what the Bible calls a multiplying ministry.
In fact, you see, in the book of Acts there was added onto the church .. the Bible uses that kind of terminology. But it comes to a place where it says .. and the word was multiplied. And as we build this wineskin of discipleship, the word will be multiplied. And our church grew phenomenally because we began to see the word of God multiplied in people’s lives.
That’s discipleship .. you growing into the image of Christ and helping others to grow into the image of Christ. Would you do that?
About Sammy Tippit Ministries
STM has been providing inspiration and help around the world for nearly 50 years. Sammy Tippit, founder and president, is a world renowned counselor, teacher and evangelist with experience serving and helping people in over 80 countries. Sammy provides materials that help people tackle a broad array of social, societal, psychological and spiritual issues. He is particularly passionate about making materials accessible to other countries around the world. Sammy is married to Debara “Tex” Tippit, and they have two children and five grandchildren.
Sammy Tippit Ministries is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization.
Contact: info@sammytippit.org
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