Faith That Works - Tim Horman
Most of us live two lives that rarely meet. There is the version of us that turns up on a Sunday: singing, praying, hands open, genuinely wanting more of God. And then there is the version that gets up on Monday, drops the kids at school, drives to work, answers the emails, sits through the meetings. We tend to assume the first life is the spiritual one and the second is just, well, real life.
But what if those two lives were never meant to be separate? What if the place where you spend most of your waking hours is exactly where Jesus most wants to meet you?
This Sunday at One Church, Tim Horman continued our Together Togather Mission Month with the second part of a message on the work of disciple-making. Preaching from Jesus' final words in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, Tim turned our attention to something he says is rarely talked about in the local church, and that he believes is something of a tragedy: how our ordinary daily lives, and our work in particular, become the very place where we learn to follow Jesus. He admitted from the outset that this was a bit of an experiment, a sermon unlike any he had preached before. What he gave us was both an encouragement and a challenge.
You can watch the full message in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
Two promises that change everything
Tim began where the series has kept returning, to the words of Jesus in Matthew 28. There are two promises tucked into the Great Commission that change everything about how we approach this calling. The first is that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Through his death, resurrection and ascension, he is now King of kings. The second is that he promises to be with us always, to the very end of the age.
Put those two promises together and the pressure lifts. We are not being sent out to figure this out on our own. As Tim put it, we have not been left as orphans. The same Jesus who holds all authority is at work in us and through us. None of us is competent for this on our own strength. Even the apostle Paul admitted as much. It is Christ in us who supplies the power.
And that power, Tim reminded us, is exactly what was poured out at Pentecost. When Jesus said in Acts 1:8, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you," he was sharing his own authority with ordinary people like us. The gift of Pentecost is that Jesus does not keep all that power to himself. He shares it, so that we can do what he did and continue what he is still doing in the world.
What a disciple actually is
If we are going to help others become disciples, we first have to be clear about what a disciple actually is. Tim returned to a definition from Dallas Willard that he says is simply the best he has come across:
Discipleship is being with another person under appropriate conditions in order to become capable of doing what that person does, or to become like who and what that person is.
A disciple, in other words, is an apprentice of Jesus. We are learning from him how to live our lives the way he would live them if he were us. Tim was quick to clear up a common misunderstanding. Becoming more like Christ does not mean trying to transport ourselves back into a first-century world. The opposite is true. The question is not how Jesus lived two thousand years ago, but how Jesus wants to live through you, here and now.
The question is, how does Jesus want to live through you? How will you live your life so that it expresses his life in all that you do?
That changes where discipleship happens. It moves out of the church building and into our homes, our workplaces, our friendships, our sports clubs, our schools. It draws on everything we are and everything we have: our gifts, our experience, our education, our resources. The shape of it will look different for every one of us, because we are each unique. But the invitation is the same.
A church that is a school of life
For people to actually grow like this, Tim suggested two things need to be alive in a local church, and the order matters.
The first is the empowering presence of God. Baptising in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is about far more than getting people wet. It is about living into the dynamic life of the Trinity. The second is being a community that is intentionally training people in the way of Jesus. Dallas Willard called this being a school of life, and it involves both teaching and modelling, so people can actually see what it looks like to live as Jesus would.
You need both, and you need them in that order. Without the empowering presence of the Spirit, all the training in the world falls flat. But presence without teaching is just as risky. Tim pointed to the Corinthian church as a warning, a community full of spiritual power but desperately short on wisdom, doing real damage to one another. And most of us have also seen the opposite: churches rich in knowledge and Bible teaching, but with almost no idea how to translate any of it into daily life. We need both. Power grounded in wisdom, and knowledge turned into a life actually lived for the glory of God.
The element we keep neglecting
Here Tim got to the heart of his concern. There are three things a church needs to be doing if people are going to be equipped: being with Jesus through the Spirit, studying Scripture to learn about Jesus, and learning to do what Jesus did through observation and practice.
Most churches, he said, are pretty good at the first two. We gather, we worship, we pray, we teach the Bible. But the third one is almost always neglected, and that is a tragedy. We rarely help people learn, by watching and doing, how to actually live like Jesus out in the world.
To make the point, Tim shared some research drawn from a number of churches around Australia. The findings were confronting. While roughly eight in ten people see faith as important to their work, only a small fraction feel their church actually understands or supports their working life. The vast majority of people have never had a pastor visit them in their workplace, and yet most said they would welcome it if it were offered. The disconnect between Sunday and the rest of the week is real, and the church has some wrestling to do.
Why does it matter so much? Because, Tim suggested, growth happens when we put what we are learning into practice. He used the picture of lifting weights at the gym. Stretching a muscle tears it a little, and that is precisely how new growth occurs. Our faith works the same way.
When we stretch our faith into areas that might feel risky and difficult, that stretching causes new growth to happen.
People can attend courses and worship services and small groups for years, Tim observed, and still not experience the growth they are longing for, until they start connecting what they are learning to their actual lives. And the wonderful thing is that we are never doing this alone. If Jesus has all authority and is with us, then he is already at work in the very places he is sending us. We are simply joining in.
Your job is a place of discipleship
This is where the sermon got wonderfully specific. Tim leaned on another challenge from Dallas Willard, this time about the ordinary work we do to make a living:
To be a disciple of Jesus is crucially to be learning from Jesus how to do your job as Jesus himself would do it. Not to find your job to be a primary place of discipleship is automatically to exclude a major part, if not most, of your waking hours from life with him.
Read that slowly. If our work is not a place of apprenticeship to Jesus, we are effectively handing over the largest chunk of our waking lives to be run on our own, or under everyone's direction but his.
So what does it look like to make your job a place of discipleship? Tim was careful to say what it does not mean. It does not mean becoming, in Willard's words, the resident Christian nag, the rigorous upholder of propriety and the critic of everyone else's behaviour. Instead, he offered three simple starting points. First, do your work to the highest level of excellence and integrity you can, as an act of worship, because your work has value to God in itself, not just as a way of paying the bills. Second, seek to be a presence of love and compassion to your colleagues and to those you serve. And third, keep praying for opportunities to share your faith, watching for the people of peace, those who might be open to a conversation about Jesus.
The main point, though, was about the church. If our spiritual practices, our prayer and Bible study, stay disconnected from our actual working lives, they will eventually fail us, because that is where we spend so many of our hours. The church has to become a place where we talk about this and equip one another for it.
Three generations, walking together
How does this kind of equipping happen? Largely through people. Tim pointed to Paul's words to Timothy: "The things you have heard me say, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." Three generations of Christians in a single verse. Older, more mature believers walking alongside younger ones, showing them how to take the next few steps. As Paul put it elsewhere, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ."
That, Tim said, is surely what church is meant to look like. He pointed to One Church's Leadership Institute as one example of trying to do exactly this: a group of young adults gathered for a year, eating, worshipping and learning together, but crucially, each one connected to a mentor who helps them put what they are learning into practice in their own workplace and calling. Dozens of mentors from within the church are now walking with younger believers in this multi-generational way. The longing Tim named was to find ways to make that kind of intentional, hands-on discipleship available not just to a select few, but right across the whole church.
We are not doing this perfectly, he was honest to say. There are real gaps, especially around evangelism training and around connecting faith to vocation. But it is the conversation the staff, elders and ministry leaders keep returning to. Because in the end, Jesus only commanded the church to do one thing: to make disciples. Everything else, the wonderful sermons, the rich worship, the caring community, serves that one calling.
One way to live it out this week
Tim left us with a challenge worth taking up. For the next month, pray one simple prayer every single morning when you get up: "Lord, teach me today how to live my life as you would lead it if you were me." Then keep an eye out, and write down what God begins to do. Notice the conversations, the nudges, the small openings in your ordinary day. Tim is convinced that if you pray that prayer daily and stay attentive, you will be genuinely amazed at how God starts showing up in the everyday places you had never expected him. Let's do it together over the next month, and share the stories of what happens.
A short prayer
Lord Jesus,
thank you that you hold all authority, and that you have promised to be with us always.
We confess how easily we keep you to our Sundays.
Teach us to live our whole lives as you would live them, in our homes, our workplaces, our friendships, wherever you have sent us.
Fill us afresh with your Spirit, and give us the courage to take some risks.
Make us a community that not only gathers, but goes.
We pray this in your precious and powerful name.
Amen.
Personal Reflection
Where do you most feel the gap between the faith you experience on a Sunday and the life you live Monday to Friday? What would it look like to invite Jesus into that gap?
Tim suggested our work can be a primary place of discipleship. How would your attitude to your daily work change if you genuinely saw it as a place of apprenticeship to Jesus?
Who has walked alongside you and shown you how to follow Jesus? And who might God be inviting you to walk alongside now?
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 28:18-20 together. Which words or phrases stand out to you, and why?
Tim drew out two promises from this passage: that Jesus has all authority, and that he is with us always. How does holding those two promises together change the way you think about your part in God's mission?
Dallas Willard described a disciple as an apprentice of Jesus, learning to live as he would live if he were you. How is that different from how you have usually thought about being a Christian?
Tim said churches are often good at being with Jesus and studying Scripture, but neglect learning to do what Jesus did through observation and practice. Have you found that to be true in your own experience? What might be the reasons?
The research Tim shared suggested most people feel their church does not really understand or support their working life. Why do you think the gap between faith and work is so common, and what might begin to close it?
Tim offered three starting points for making your job a place of discipleship: working with excellence as worship, being a presence of love, and praying for opportunities to share your faith. Which of these feels most natural to you, and which feels the most stretching?
Paul speaks of three generations of Christians passing the faith on by example. Where have you experienced this kind of mentoring, either receiving it or offering it? What gets in the way of it happening more?
Take up Tim's challenge as a group. Commit to praying each morning this month, "Lord, teach me today how to live my life as you would lead it if you were me." Before you finish, pray for one another, that each person would have eyes to see where God is already at work in their daily life.