Kempsey Baptist - Living in the Dead Zone

Kempsey Baptist Church

Sunday 1 June 2014

Scripture Reading: Acts 1:1-14

Let’s pray:

"Gracious God - bless now the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts.  Breathe your Spirit into us and grant that we may hear and in hearing be led in the way you want us to go.  Amen.

While our life on earth is temporal, Christians are in a battlefield with good versus evil. God when he created us, he gave us free will to make choices in life and to battle with temptations.

As I reflect upon the early apostles, disciples in the period of Jesus’ ascension into heaven and to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. I have called this period “the Dead Zone” and what do I mean by the Dead Zone.

According to dictionary.reference.com, dead zone has two meaning:

1.  An area in a body of water, especially an ocean having oxygen level that are not adequate to support life

2.  A period or place where there is little activity or excitement

It is the second reference that I am referring to in pondering the concept of “dead zone” to “there is little activity” in waiting or living in the time between ascension and Pentecost.

In Acts 1:4 we hear the instruction given to Jesus’ disciples “... Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift...” A very clear instruction after been commission: to go and make disciples, commence their Lord’s ministry.

In the waiting moments we can be affected by the action of evil tempting us and I am pausing here to listen to the voice a research assistant Alexander Griswold at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Alexander graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in political science and a minor in philosophy. IRD has been a voice for transparency, for renewal, and for Christian orthodoxy (a set of doctrines which were believe by the early Christians e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity).

In one of Alexander research article was called, Pope Francis versus the Devil. In this article he states the Pope believes in the Devil and there are a few points I will share.

In Pope Francis first homily expressed his belief that evil and disbelief in God are primarily demonic in nature, saying “Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the Devil. When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.” (Noticed by the Washington Post)

Alexander makes reference to a couple of protestant fathers, “John Calvin believed in a real powerful Satan, and Martin Luther reported personally plagued by Satan and demons on a regular basis.”

In a 2013 YouGov Poll – USA discovered that 66% of American Catholics believe in the Devil compared to 70% of Protestants. The narratives of the Gospels is fairly explicit, demons and the Devil are real, Luke 8:28-34, the account of Jesus casting out demons & Luke 4:1-13, Jesus temptation by the Devil in the wilderness after 40 days.

The Devil is a supernatural entity that is the personification of evil, which is my accepted understanding and brought up in my Christian education. In Greek the word is ‘diabolos’ which means slander or accuser.

Christianity and Islam have variously regarded the Devil as a rebellious fallen angel that tempts human to sin, if not committing evil deed himself. Judaism contains no overt concept of a devil.

A spiritual war requires a spiritual power, the Holy Spirit, one that only comes from God.

Last Thursday, Christians around the world celebrated ascension of Jesus, being 40 days after Easter Sunday.

The Acts of the Apostles which most translation has the abbreviated form as simply “Acts” is an attempt by Luke to record the activities, the birth of Christianity in the period after Jesus Christ to the death of Paul.

According to Ralph P Martin, a British New Testament Scholar in his book, 1988 “New Testament Foundation” advises his readers “the only safe way to read Scripture is with regard to its historical and contextual setting” and “Then, the cultural matrix in which the faith was born and nursed must equally be respected”. What were the formative influences that we find the book of Acts in?

·       The Jewish ancestral religion

·       The Greek ways of thought and expression

o  The widespread use of koine Greek

o  The prevailing atmosphere of Hellenism

·       Roman Society

o  Law and order

This is the backdrop of the early Christians found themselves living and surviving as a worshiping community.

In our reading of Acts 1:1-14, we see the resurrection to ascension is the conclusion of the earthly ministry of Jesus and the beginning of Christianity, the work of the church.

Luke has two important characteristics conveyed to us;

·       Jesus was alive (1:3)

·       It was the time when Jesus gave his marching orders to the apostles (1:4f; 1:7f)

Note the two significant points:

·       The followers of Jesus are designated as Apostles (1:2) and

·       The reference to the Holy Spirit (1:2)

Luke makes mention of Jesus’ suffering, the passion of the cross that Jesus has survived “the elements of torture inflicted on the innocent Jesus at his death” as commentator I Howard Marshall 1980 writes.

Jesus showed himself alive to his disciple on several occasions and as the commentator put it, “Luke stress lies on the factuality of the evidence”, which the disciples are truly eyewitnesses of actual events.

Last Thursday as mention earlier is regarded as the day of Jesus’ ascension back to his father. In some European nations they have a public holiday to celebrate the ascension. It is 40 days since Easter Sunday and 10 days before Pentecost. Jesus is still in mission mode of Luke 4:43, speaking about the good news of the Kingdom of God. The point which Luke has it, “is that this is to continue to be the theme of the witness of the church” as the commentator explains.

Verse 4 pick up the theme of my message about waiting in the dark zone, the period of little activity: to receive from God the Father, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

There are a lot of people who do not know how to live without excitement, without stimulation. Whether it comes from pleasure – or from crisis – they thrive on activity, on doing things – on solving problems – on adrenalin.

The zone that exists between one crisis or another, between one activities or another is regarded by them as dead zone, as time and activity is lost – zone that is unimportant, time that doesn’t count.

Today’s scripture reading from the book of Acts tells us how the disciples found themselves in this kind of situation – how they found having to face a period in which they would simply have to wait for Christ’s promise to them to come true.

For many, waiting is a dreadful thing. Just ask any child. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

In this perspective - waiting is a positive 

thing, the time between the making of a 

promise and its fulfillment is a zone which

is, or can be, highly beneficial to us.

But living in the zone between, in those zone between one phase of our lives and the next,

   - Between one job and another,

   - Between the zone when the first child has married and the last has yet to enter school

   - Between the zone when we have lost one dear friend and have yet to find another

These dead zones can be difficult for us if we do not know how to wait in the manner recommended by the word of God.

So how should we live in the dead zones?

FIRST - we need to remember the zone in between are meant to be active times - not passive times; dead zones in which we are meant to work at that which is at hand - rather than at that which is yet to come.

Which leads to the SECOND important part of

learning how to live in the dead zones: 

- namely in those zones we are called to 

live as Christ has shown us how to live 

- in obedience and in connection with Him

 and the Father.

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:  

       Let us, then, be up and doing,

       With a heart for any fate; 

       Still achieving, still pursing,

       Learn to labour and to wait.

They disciples stayed together and they 

prayed - and in so doing, they prepared 

themselves for the job Jesus had told them 

that they would do when the Holy Spirit came 

upon them as he had promised it would. In 

Isaiah 32:15a we have these words, “Until a 

spirit from on high is poured out on us…” 

echoes the activity of Pentecost.

Prayer and devotion to the mind and will of 

God is of central importance because it is 

this which prepares us for the gift of the 

Holy Spirit - it this which allows us to be 

open to the power the Spirit bestows.

It is the Holy Spirit which enabled and 

guided the ministry of the disciples, and 

it is the Holy Spirit which enables and 

guides our own ministry as his followers, 

our own witness to Christ -- indeed it is 

the Spirit, and only the Spirit, which allows 

us to be fruitful with our lives.

Luke was more concerned with what is said 

that with what happened. The vital question 

of the disciples was God going to complete 

his purpose by finally establishing his rule.

These verses thus spell out God’s purpose and 

the place of the church in it.

The period of witness and mission must 

precede the return of Jesus.

In verses 7-8 note no direct answer is given 

– at least in term of time, “the matter of 

the time of God’s action is his own affairs 

and not us,” quotes the commentator.

The disciples must accomplish their task of 

being “witness” to Jesus. The scope is 

worldwide, global. For this task the 

disciples are promised the power of the 

Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49).

Now after Jesus give the disciples the 

marching orders, Jesus is now “lifted up” 

and “a cloud took him” away before their 

eyes.

“The biblical symbolism of the “cloud” 

figures as a sign of the presence and 

activity of God” (Exod 24:15-18; Luke 9:34), 

writes Anthony J Kelly in his book 

“Upward – Faith, Church and Ascension of 

Christ” published 2014.

The disciples looking intently into sky as 

Jesus disappear. The appearance of two 

figures dressed in white. Their function is 

to give a commentary on what has happened.

The story of ascension is completed with the 

disciples returning to Jerusalem to await the 

promised Spirit in an attitude of prayer.

And Third - and last for today - in the dead 

zones - we need to trust and have confidence 

that what has been promised to us by God will 

come to pass.

   - Whether that promise is of a spiritual 

gift,

   - Or a promise of comfort and of a new life

   - or a promise to bless us and use us in 

some particular way in his service.

In the dead zones, the zones of waiting, 

trust in the Lord to come through, remember 

his resurrection and his ascension into heaven 

to be at the right hand of God, remember what 

he has done for you in the past and wait for 

the next act - the next promise to come true 

with a firm hope.

Trust in the Lord - not in other things - and 

live today – this day - as he asks you to, 

connected to him and to his word by prayer and 

meditation with your brothers and sisters - 

and in holy obedience whether alone - or at 

work.  

Praise Be To God, day by day.  Amen 

One Body but many Members

My morning thought has been centering on the Church and the convergent text, "The Church: Towards a Common Vision". The lead scripture text is found in 1 Cor 12:12-13 with the Church as one body but many members and what constitutes as members of that one body is "in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit".

I woke this morning with an emerging church of the body and many members like the community that I am staying in, a residential caravan park.  This micro unit has both long term and short term residents. I have experience in the past where the residents come together as one body to fellowship and worship God which is provider by a ministry of a local church within a larger community.

What constitutes a member of the residential park is paying a fee to live and experience life. Paying a fee is no difference than a shire residents paying their rates and likewise the shire residents are part of that one body. There is a common purpose, a place to reside with one another, irrespective of nationality or employment status and to share in the Spirit of the residential park.

Nothing more or less makes them a member of the one body.

Good Deeds through Social Welfare for Evangelism

The threads I have picked is in reference to the textbook by John Dickson The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission" on chapter 6 "Being the Light of the World" as page 92 "How Good Deeds Conquered an Empire".

The backdrop is the application of understanding how as a community of believers saw the concept of "Being the Light of the World" in Matthew's letter in the Roman Empire.

Jesus disciples devoted themselves to heroic acts of godliness by loving their enemies, praying for their persecutors and caring for the poor. In Acts we see the apostles establishing a care program and supervise by apostle's believers in Jesus.

Around AD46-48, a famine ravaged Palestine and God used Paul for decade long in running an international aid program from Gentile churches to contribute to the welfare work of the Jerusalem church. The Mediterraneans churches developed food programs, hospitals and orphanages.

The Christian church developed a comprehensive welfare system that was built upon the Jewish system but catered for the care of the poor and maginalised to both Jews & Gentiles, believers & unbelievers.

In summary, Good Deeds or works towards the community at large from the Christian family that comes together to worship Sunday after Sunday is to set their light to be shone in the midst of darkness.

The early churches demonstrated God's mercy in a welfare system for the care of the poor and maginalised through food programs, hostel, motels, age care and children services. They were provided for the community and for the travelers irrespective of their nationality, religion, sex, disabilities and education.

Our modern churches are now looking afresh since there seemed to be a separation of direct involvement by the local churches for the "Good Deeds" of the social welfare within the community. They are now overshadow by either a state or national system to administer on behalf of the local church and accountable to the state or federal governments for support.

Kempsey Baptist - To Seek and to Save

Kempsey Baptist Church
Sunday 30 March 2014
Sermon

Introduction

We are entering an age in church life to re-ignite the Mission of God, to seek & to save those that are lost.

Luke records these words that Jesus quoted in Luke 19:10

¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (NIV)

Not only he calls people to repentance, he seeks and saves.

We might ask, who are the lost?

In Matthew Henry’s commentary suggest “The deplorable case of the sons of men: they were lost; and here the whole race of mankind is spoken of as one body. The whole world of mankind, by the fall, is become a lost world: lost as a city is lost when it has revolted to the rebels, as a traveller is lost when he has missed his way in a wilderness, as a sick man is lost when his disease is incurable, or as a prisoner is lost when sentence is passed upon him.”

                                                                            

The Apostle Paul advises the Christians his mission as recorded.

1 Corinthians 11:1

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 9:22b-23

“...I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel that I may share in the blessing.”

The Apostle Paul in everything he does points to Christ and the kingdom of God, he shares in the redemption & restoration story of humanity back to God through Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit.

John Dickson, the author of my textbook, 2010 edition “The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission” reminds the reader that “all of us are wired differently & have different opportunities to convey God’s grace to others”(p59) and “...promoting the gospel involve just about every dimension of our existence, our social life, our prayers, our use of money, our behaviour, our conversations and even our regular church meetings”(p60).

After meeting the Skinner's family three doors away from where we lived in Bradbury, we were invited to tag along to the 11am service at Hillsong South West campus in Campbelltown NSW.

We experience the worship segment then celebration of the Lord's Supper prior to a guest preacher Dr Laura Koke, co-pastor with her husband Rob Koke at Shoreline Church, Austin, Texas, America. She is a Doctor of Chiropractic & mother of 3 children.

Her message was focus around 3 C's, Connect, Community & Cause and was fantastic as she delivered the importance of those 3 C's.

1.   Connect with God.

2.   Stay in Community with others.

3.   Live for a Cause bigger than yourself.

We so often focus on the first two, connect & community that we tend to forget about the third, a cause.

Shortly afterwards, I was alerted to a passage that was "Verse of the Day" on the Bible Gateway apps on Isaiah 1:16-17 ¹⁶ Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.
¹⁷ Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow. (NIV)

In short points that these describe our walks in the sanctified community, 'wash & make yourselves clean';

A call to repentance & reformation; to Israel by the Prophet Isaiah and a practical measuring stick for us today.

1.   Cease to do evil, must do no more wrong.

2.   Learn to do right, seek opportunity to do good.

3.   Seek justice,

4.   Defend the oppressed,

5.   Take up the cause of the fatherless,

6.   Plead the case of the widow.

Again Isaiah reminds Israel & us in chapter 58:10

   “and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

    then your light will rise in the darkness,

    and your night will become like the noonday.”

By our action, we took can break the darkness and be light.

To Seek and to Save

At this point, what do we mean by “to seek and to save”.

From my own life to seek and found that which was lost.

I knew as a child I had twin sisters whom were adopted, Joan & Jessie. I had a thirst to find them. At the time of my father death, Maria ensured that they were included on the death certificate and death notice. Also through the social media I had included as much details as possible. On late Wednesday evening after home group, I received a facebook message from a person in Canberra that traced me from the death notice which had Maria down as daughter-in-law on as she was doing family history. She was able to get her pre-adoption birth certificate which listed her parents as my parents. I am glad to say that Joan & Jessie are alive. When they were adopted they were living in Lithgow then the family more to Port Macquarie. Joan attended the University of New England & works as a public servant in Canberra. As I am preaching today, she is also preaching the Good News of the Kingdom and she is Lay Preacher in the Uniting Church in Canberra. So my siblings that I thought was lost, is now found. See was so excited that she shared with her home group on Thursday evening about her big brother and his ministry and studies.

Other avenues of service in promoting the Gospel are supporting a cause for justices, oppressed, fatherless and the widow.

Maria & I as members of TEAR Australia, we meet with other people on the mid north coast at Lake Cathie once a month. Now TEAR stands for Transformation, Empowerment, Advocacy & Relief.

TEAR Australia is a movement of Christians in Australia responding to the needs of poor communities around the world. Our motivation comes from our belief that God loves all people, and in Christ offers them the opportunity of a new life. We believe that God is just, and has particular care for the poor and those who suffer as victims of injustice.
We work in partnership with other Christian groups, including churches, relief and development agencies and community-based organisations, which are working with the poor in their communities. We seek to build effective relationships with these partners, grounded in mutual respect, trust and accountability.
Priority is given to those programs that strive to involve the most marginalised and exploited members of each community, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.
In Australia, we work to inform and empower Christians, in partnership with local churches, to make a biblically-shaped response to suffering and oppressed communities.
I will highlight two examples

Home: a simple word, a complex notion

“Home” is a key issue for many of TEAR’s partner organisations – those who work with communities whose homes are at risk, support displaced people who hope to return home, or advocate for those who need to establish new or safer and more supportive homes. At first glance, causes of displacement can seem obvious: war, drought, flood, and unemployment and so on. But listen long and carefully enough to the voices of the poor and more nuanced and challenging pictures emerge.

Hmai (not her real name) is a 27-year-old widow who has rebuilt her life through support from TEAR’s partner Shalom in Mizoram, North East India. Hmai and her husband lived near the border of Burma, but in 2008 they were driven from their community because of discrimination based on her husband’s HIV positive status. When they arrived in Aizwal they had no place to stay and, heartbreakingly, Hmai’s husband died and she lost her only child to pneumonia. The people of Shalom Mizoram have become Hmai’s new family and have helped her to open a small store and work to raise health awareness and reduce the stigma associated with HIV.

One can also be “homeless” at home. In Nepal, Poonam’s husband had lots of rules. “Don’t look out the window,” he would say. So Poonam stayed inside the house, isolated from her community. She had no idea what her husband did outside or why he wanted her shut in. Through her participation in a women’s group, TEAR’s partner UMN has helped facilitate a process of understanding between Poonam and her husband which has brought a sense of home to their house. Poonam has now begun running a small home business. Stories of settlement and displacement, of home lost and found, are likewise found weaved throughout the biblical story. The meta-narrative of the Bible, which is often viewed through the lens of creation/fall/redemption, could just as easily be understood in terms of being “placed/displaced/restored to place” or as Bouma-Prediger and Walsh contend, “home-making/exile/homecoming” (Beyond Homelessness: Eerdmans, 2008).

Global InterAction guide 2014, an agency of the Australia Baptist state that “40% of the people of Earth will go from birth to death without having the opportunity to hear about Jesus in a way that makes sense to them”.

Global InterAction is about sharing “God’s greatest gift is a life-transforming relationship with Jesus” “with deep compassion and global interaction exists to empower communities to develop their own distinctive ways of following Jesus”.

Both TEAR Australia & Global InterAction are about “Missio Dei”, the mission of God or the sending of God.

Missio Dei as a term and concept in the church from the second half of the 20^th century and is a concept in missiology being used by theologians Alan Hirsch and Ed Stetzer. Both these theologians are of our generation. I shall highlight their voices around “to seek and to save the lost”.

Alan was born in 1959 in South Africa; he is a missiologist, author and a leader in the missional church movement. He study at the University of Cape Town, Australian College of Theology and was pasturing at South Melbourne Church of Christ. He is currently undertaking a PhD studies at Radbond University in the Netherlands.

Alan believes the word missional “goes to the heart of the very nature and purpose of the church itself.” He continues, “So a working definition of missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organises its life around, the real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organising principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purpose in and through God’s people.    (The Forgotten Ways, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006 p82)

Ed Stetzer was born in 1966, Long Island and grew up in Levitown, New York just north of New York City. He is a pastor, church planter and Christian missiologist. He study at Shorten University, Liberty Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Samford University. He is a contributing editor to Christianity Today and Lead Pastor of Grace Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. A congregation he planted in 2011.

Ed is one of my social media friends that I engage with. In an article “Moving to Missional Part 1: 3 Steps To Develop A Culture of Service” he suggested “Yet, many places in Scripture point to the church as a body of servants – being used by God to minister to one another and to the hurting worlds. For example, 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Based on the gifts each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God” (HCSB)”.

Ed further suggest “the key phrase in Scripture is “each one.” Each and every church member is to serve others. Most of the time we see verses like this it is to serve one another inside the body, but there are so many verses about the poor and hurting that we know are called to serve beyond the body. (Iike to say that we can serve “in, through, or beyond” our local church.)”

The very same thought was brought to my attention through an email update I received from Mission Network title “Sharing Christ in South Asia means sacrifice”.

 “Correct discipleship” includes an emphasis on evangelism, says the worker.

“This is God’s mandate for every person who believes in Jesus Christ: that he needs to become a witness,” the worker states. He then quotes Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

“I think the first example of the Holy Spirit coming upon you is being a witness,” he explains. As to being Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, “That’s not being one or the other, but being ‘here’, ‘there,’ and everywhere. That is how the text is actually written.”

Believers are to share Christ wherever they are, the worker emphasizes. In South Asia, that means learning nontraditional methods from SIU (Scripture in Use) to communicate God’s Truth with unreached oral cultures.

To recap, I have tried to highlight the principles of the mission of God as Jesus demonstrated to seek and to save the lost. Follow by Apostle Paul in following the example of Jesus and minister to the Gentiles, that he may save some. Then look at the Prophet Isaiah speaking to Israel in practical points of restoring the kingdom of God. To have nothing to do with evil, do no wrong, to learn what is right, seek justice, and defend the oppressed, the cause of the fatherless and the care of the widows.

I have look at an example of personal experience in seeking the lost. In seeking, I have look at partnering with a non-government organisation in communities through transformation, empowerment, advocacy and relief for the Good News of the Kingdom. I have brought around some voices of two theologians of the concept of missional church in the modern age. I have also shown a voice from the mission field in South Asia to why, whom and where to seek and to save the lost.

Yesterday I look at and listen online to the 2014 Baptist Assembly of NSW & ACT Baptist Association a presentation by Ken Clendinning Director of Ministries presented “Vision Pictures and 2014-2016 Strategic Plan” In the statement of purpose clearly identify one main existence “to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word, deed and sign, through interdependent partnerships”. There are five values they envisage of how to achieve this purpose.

1.   Christ centred

2.   Mission shaped

3.   Relationship committed

4.   People empowering

5.   Partnership Oriented

I am just going to highlight “mission shaped” which has four aspects;

·      Committed to the announcement and demonstration of the universal reign of God through Christ

·      Motivated by love for God and others

·      Seeing lives, communities and society transformed

·      Biasing our resources toward missions, both locally and globally

The values that Ken had presented also echoes what I have outline as a mission focus to seek and to save the lost.

I would like at this point to consider some further Biblical passages about who we share our faith with and as I look at what experiences of humans are being described. I would like you to think about the 3C’s that I mention earlier, that is connection, community & cause.

Psalm 88

Acts 8:1-6

Luke 19:1-10

Luke 1: 39-45

Closing prayer

Heavenly Father as we come before you, let us renew our hope in you and the task to bring others into your Kingdom. Amen