In this special Feature Episode of Focus, I’m sharing the message I gave at Oasis Church in Portsmouth on Sunday 9 August 2026, An Ox in the Ford. Over recent months, the Father has been developing my understanding of building, and I’ve found myself returning again to the words of Jesus, “I will build My church.” What did He actually mean? And what kind of people is He preparing through whom He can accomplish what He intends?

Beginning with Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and moving through the picture of an ox carrying a load through a ford, I share some of what I have been processing with Him about the preparation of the person, Christ being formed in us, and the Father developing sons who can carry the load. This message has become part of what I’m continuing to process on Focus, and I share it with you for your encouragement as Holy Spirit continues His work of growing, developing and maturing the new man.

In the final episode of our In Christ series, we come to the question at the end of Watchman Nee’s chapter: How are we actually in Christ? We discover the significance of believing INTO Christ, being baptised INTO Christ, and Paul’s extraordinary statement that it is from God that we have our life in Christ Jesus. We also look at unbelief as the resistance of self to what the Father has already declared to be true, before finishing with Hudson Taylor’s discovery in John 15:5: Jesus never said that one day you might become a branch, He said, “You are the branches.” The Father has placed you into Christ, Christ Himself is your life, and whatever is Christ’s is also yours. The question is whether we will believe Him and come into agreement with what our Father says is already true of us in His Son. Workbook link (series 26): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What kind of love is Paul talking about when he says that nothing can separate us from the love of God? In this episode, we continue reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross as we explore the difference between agape and eros, why so many believers still live from the wrong source, and how the Father has brought us into the very relationship that His Son has always enjoyed with Him.

This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What if everything the Father has ever desired to give you is already found in Christ? In this episode, we continue reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross as Watchman Nee shows us that redemption, forgiveness, justification and sanctification are all found in one place: in Him.

This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but what does that really mean? Continuing through chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross, we discover that the Father's verdict over the old man has never changed. Self remains under the same sentence, yet the new man, born from above and one with Christ, has never stood under condemnation because the Father has already placed us into His Son.

We also explore why Holy Spirit will never help self live the life of Christ, how victory rests upon what the Father has already declared rather than what we feel, and why the renewed mind learns to agree with the mind of Christ instead of the mindset of self. As our thinking comes into agreement with the Father's Word, we begin drawing upon the victory that has already been accomplished in Christ

This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

For many believers, the words in Christ are very familiar, yet few have stopped to consider what they really mean. In this episode, we begin reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross by Watchman Nee and discover the Father's solution to the problem of Adam.

Rather than improving what belonged to Adam, the Father placed us into His Son, where everything He intended to do for us has already been accomplished. We explore what it means that all is in Christ, why faith receives what the Father has already done, and how we begin appropriating what is already ours in Him.

This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this third episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we ask three questions. Who determines the people in our lives? What should our encouragement strengthen? And why has the Father given us one another? As we answer those questions, we discover a completely different way of relating to one another, where Christ stands between us, the Father determines every relationship, and every word we speak is there to strengthen what He is already accomplishing in another person's life.

As Christ is being more fully formed in us, we begin seeing people from the Father's point of view, learning to agree with the Father's words because we don't want to say anything He isn't saying and hinder what He is already doing in another son. We also discover why the Father has given us one another, so that He can speak His living Word through us, giving courage to continue with Him and leaving every son more firmly established with the Father.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this second episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we expose why flattery is so attractive to the flesh, and why Paul immediately recognised what was happening in the churches of Galatia. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, we trace the origin of flattery through the nature of Adam, discovering how it changes the way we speak, reveals the genuine needs the flesh is still trying to meet, is driven by self interest and ultimately works ruin. We discover why counterfeit encouragement creates unhealthy dependency, toxic relationships and a life that looks to people for what the Father has always intended to give Himself.

Are you in the early days of sonship, where the Father is beginning to expose the flesh and you are just starting to wake up as a son and see it as He sees it? Is there somebody whose approval you long for? Do you find yourself looking for their validation, hoping they will notice you, encourage you or affirm you? Do their words have the power to lift you up or leave you discouraged? Do you find yourself going back to them because there is something in you that still needs what they are giving?

Or are you further along the spectrum of sonship, where the Father has already brought many of these things into the light, and now you are finding that flattery is coming after you in a different way? Are you beginning to recognise when somebody has a hidden agenda? Can you discern the difference between someone who is strengthening what the Father is already doing in your life and someone who is trying to win you over? When somebody encourages you, do you find yourself looking more to the Father than to the person who spoke? Does that encouragement simply confirm what the Father has already been saying and doing in your life?

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

Paul warns the Galatians about people who were making much of them, paying court to them and trying to dazzle them. But why did he react so strongly? What did he see that they couldn't yet see? As we place Galatians 4:17 back into its setting, we discover that Paul wasn't simply listening to flattering words. He could see where these teachers were leading people. They wanted to draw these young believers away from the freedom they had found in Christ and back towards themselves.

In this opening episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we begin by asking what it really means to "make much of people," why flattery and encouragement are not the same thing, why flattery so often comes after sons who are awakening to who they are in Christ, and how Jesus immediately recognised the same hidden motives when the religious leaders came to flatter Him in Luke chapter 20.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

As we come to the final episode of Walking in the Spirit, we return to one of the most life-changing truths in The Normal Christian Life: God has only one answer to every human need, His Son. Through the gospel, we have been taken out of Adam and placed into Christ, receiving His life, His nature, and His indwelling presence. Looking back over the themes of this series, Watchman Nee brings us to the practical outworking of that reality and asks a simple question: do we know Holy Spirit as a living Person, and do we know Him as Boss?

Through Nee’s story of a newly converted couple in China, we explore the confidence that both Nee and the apostles had in the indwelling Christ and the resident Holy Spirit. The early church did not depend upon constant supervision, endless teaching programmes, or human oversight. They trusted that Holy Spirit would teach, guide, sustain, and mature the sons of God. Along the way, we consider the difference between the apostolic gospel and much of what passes for gospel preaching today, and why the greatest need of the church remains exactly what it was in the first century: a fresh revelation of the indwelling Christ.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk