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Silver Street Mission

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Reaching our world

Mark 1: 9 – 18

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 26 Nov, 2006

I HAVE been thinking lately about something which keeps coming across from many sources — an idea that our Christianity has to be radically different from what has gone before. But it has become increasingly clear to me, while we have been together this weekend, that this change must begin in ourselves, in our hearts, minds and behaviours.

I think that I am too tolerant. I understand the struggles we all have with even thinking about turning around. I like to give people time to see what needs to be done.

Here's an example. If you have been around the church since I first came — the Bautistas, Gloria — you will remember that we used to have choir stalls up near where the keyboard is now.

For years, I said, “We need to open up the front of the church. Let’s remove those stalls. When I’m in the pulpit it’s like I am at the far end of a tunnel. It’s narrow and restrictive.”

And, for years, people said, “It will be OK. Maybe we will have a choir again. There’s no hurry to change it, no danger if we leave it.”

So we left it.

Then about 7 or 8 years ago, during a working bee, Joan Oates came to me. She had been looking at the choir stalls. She thought they made the church look so cluttered  

  “I know you don’t like to change things, Peter,” she said, “But the church would really look better without those choir stalls. Do you think we could remove them?”

“You are right. I don’t like change,” I said, grabbing a large screwdriver. “But if you think it’s a good idea, Joan — well, we can try it.”

More than half the deacons were there, so I just quickly checked. They all agreed with Joan. So I removed the stalls before anyone could change their mind.

No one ever complained, and I don’t suppose many of us even remember that there were stalls there once.

As a church, we have all been reluctant to change too rapidly. That can be good, if it saves you from silly choices. But it is more often a bad thing, because “Not now” so often translates as “Never.”

That story about the choir stalls illustrates our slowness, our patience with each other — and the fact that changes are often not nearly as bad as we sometimes think.

The passage I chose for today is about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. You will notice its three basic components: initiation, isolation and proclamation.

Initiation

^{MK 1:9} At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

When we become Christians, there are three components. There is intention, there is declaration and there is confirmation.

This means that we intend to follow Christ as Lord and Saviour, we declare that intention through confession of Christ as Lord and through baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that declaration is confirmed by God through the blessing of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Too many believers stop short at intention, and do not go on to become disciples. But, as Jesus said, as we go we are to make disciples. To make disciples, we have to be disciples.

Then again, many disciples are satisfied with declaration and don’t experience the Holy Spirit to any extent.

I wonder if we have ever really understood what this passage says to us.

During the week, I was asked to witness a signature as an authorised marriage celebrant.

Many people have a title, like Pastor, Marriage Celebrant, Reverend. I like to be able to drag out the Reverend bit when I need to bluff my way into the Intensive Care Unit. Otherwise, I don't need to make a big thing of it.

What certificate did Jesus have for ministry?

He took upon himself the intention to obey God in all things. He could have chosen not to obey. Don’t get me wrong here — I am not buying into arguments about the precise nature of Jesus’ will. I am saying that it was a situation where there were options, and he could have chosen otherwise. But he had the intention to obey, and he did.

Then he declared himself by confession and baptism. In his case, it was not so much the words, but his presentation of himself for baptism which declared his intention and his desire.

Finally, God accepted that intention and declaration by placing the Holy Spirit on him and naming Jesus as his beloved, pleasing Son.

I want to tell you that I believe in pastoral education. I think that every Christian should be well–instructed, both in the Word and in the world. We should understand what biology really says, because a lot of nonsense is spoken by Christians about evolution, about stem cell research, about AIDS, just to name a few.

We should have some sociological understanding. We Christians can’t just echo what some politician says, and not understand the issues.

We should understand how politics works, so we know what we are talking about when we ask a politician to change a policy.

Jesus said we should be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

But, despite the fact that instruction in the Word and instruction in human knowledge are both vital, what equipped Jesus above all else was the combination of these three things: intention, declaration and confirmation.

Are we above our master? Those are the three things that make every single one of us a minister of Jesus Christ. The rest is icing.

However, I will say that I have seen a lot of damage done in churches by people who had no training, or who had training but were emotionally out of control. So it is good to make sure that leaders know what they are doing and have been vetted to make it less likely that they will do damage.

You and I are called to minister. If you are a disciple, you are called to minister to the people around you. You are called to determine ways of reaching out. Not me: you. I have my bundle of responsibility; you have yours.

Isolation

Jesus didn’t go straight away into the villages and into a ministry. There was a desert experience. I think we all have a desert experience soon after we turn in faith to Christ. It may be different for each of us, but it is where the devil will do his darndest to draw us down to his den.

^1:12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, ¹³ and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

It is in our struggles that we discover our strength, and it is in the desert that we lift up our eyes to the hills, and find that our help is in the Lord.

I think that one of the hardest things is to learn to stand alone. Many marriages are designed to make sure that one or both partners never has to stand alone. Sometimes a partner who has to stand alone will withdraw rather than face that experience.

But at times we can only stand by and wait while a person goes through the dark valley.

Someone approached me about a horrendous decision facing the family. They have three choices. If they take one, one family member dies while another stays alive. If they take another, one family member takes a risk which might save the other’s life. Or the one takes the risk, and they might both die.

And my friend can only stand by and watch, knowing that the death of one or both will devastate the entire family.

What can we do? We can’t make decisions for others. We can only stand by and let them know we are there. I gave my friend my phone number and said, “I can probably only be your friend, but ring any time.”

Every life has its dark times. All I can say is that it is in the dark valleys that we who are believers have our growing experiences.

Paul wrote,

...for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

He faced more than most of us will ever face, but grew stronger and stronger in the experience.

Satan might attack us in the isolation of the desert, but remember that it was the Holy Spirit who drove Jesus out there.

Proclamation

Finally, we see that Jesus began declaring the gospel when he came back to Galilee, after John was killed.

^1:14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ¹⁵ “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

We must come to a time when we do what we were called to do.

When Jesus proclaimed the good news, he focused on God’s Kingdom. It was hopeful news, because God is doing a new thing. It was exciting news, because God’s deliverance had broken into the world. And it was liberating news, because the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus to proclaim good news to the poor and deliverance to captives, and the day of God’s favour to all people of good will.

There is a time to every purpose under heaven, and I guess there is even a time for proclamation. Although Paul did say to preach the gospel in season and out of season.

Next Sunday, John Dickinson from Open Doors will be our guest preacher. The founder of Open Doors, Brother Andrew, is a Dutch Christian.

When he was a young man, Andrew was praying for a girl to become a Christian. He asked her to attend an evangelistic meeting with him, and took her on the back of his bike.

On the way back, he wanted to talk to her about Christ, but knew that the Spirit was saying not to.

After a while the girl started a conversation herself.

“Do you think I have gone beyond God’s grace?” she asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you didn’t even ask me what I thought of the meeting. But I don’t want to be lost forever!”

And he led her to faith in Christ.

Her right time was not when the preacher preached, but when she had had a silent ride home to think about the gospel message.

Yes — we must be wise about when to speak and when not to speak. But our goal always has to be to bring good news to the world, and even our silences have to be evangelistic, otherwise, how are we different from the world around us?

Conclusion

I began by speaking about the need to radically change our view of what we are on about as a church.

I want to draw some conclusions from this.

First, I want us to be absolutely clear that every single one of us who has put our faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour is called to ministry.

Not everyone is called to lead a congregation or to be the primary teaching leader, or whatever. But everyone is called to minister in Christ to a needy world.

We Baptists talk about “Every Member Ministry.” But we don’t practice it.

You have seen what it takes to be a truly ordained minister of Jesus Christ: intention, declaration and confirmation. That means, the intention to follow him as Lord, the declaration of that intention, and God’s confirmation through the infilling of his Spirit. It says nothing about your sex, your ethnicity, your age, your intellectual ability.

I’m not saying that you will be mature or even necessarily right in every respect. But you will be launched.

Second, I want us to realise that our ministry will always involve hardship. We talked about paying the price yesterday, and that is something we need to realise.

There will be times when we feel like stepping right out of the Christian life. There were a couple of times when I was going through the hardest parts of my time here, when I very nearly just chucked my books and ran away to sea, or wherever disgruntled pastors run away to. I’d have destroyed my life and the lives of those around me, but sometimes the pressures get so that you despair of life itself.

There is a price to pay. But I want to say that that pain, that darkness, that time in the desert, will make you what you become.

You might be like a teddybear that has been through an industrial washing machine, but you will be usable to God. Don’t say I haven’t warned you.

Real ministry will begin after the desert. But most of us have been through the desert. We have received the knocks, and we have been moulded for ministry already. Let’s come back into Galilee!

Finally, we have a message of hope, of radical hope for a needy world. The kingdom is in reach, and we have to preach it and demonstrate it, and expect that God will also testify to it

...by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

God will do new things and bring great glory to himself, if we follow the patterns of his word, as revealed in Jesus our Lord. Let’s do it!

I just want to add one thing.

If you have the intention of following Jesus, now is the time to act, to declare it by testimony and baptism, and to expect the Holy Spirit to confirm it in your life.

Do it now! Today is the right day — don’t keep putting it off!

And may God bless you abundantly.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)