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 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)
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 20th
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
