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SECTIONS:
Ordination
They Preached
Dangerous
Summary |
WHAT SHOULD believers do?
What do we actually do? What does the Bible tell us, and what
do we do because we have a habit of doing it that way?
I became a believer in Jesus
at the Open Air Campaigners meeting on the footpath in Goulburn
Street in Sydney on 8 July 1962.
I wasn't baptised until January 1964, and that was in a conservative
Baptist Church which always preached that we must not be bound
by traditions, but must always do just what the New Testament
Church did.
Yet the only evidence I can find for baptism in the New Testament
is that new believers were baptised as soon as they believed.
But there are always failures in any system, and after the apostles,
the church began worrying about the people who slipped through
the system. Some who were baptised never went on in their faith.
Others were baptised, but had weird ideas. So, after the apostles,
the church began saying that believers should be taught first,
then baptised when they passed. They were called Catechumens
until they were baptised, and Christians afterwards. Some still
dropped out, but at least they'd been taught.
Baptism should be the very first step for a newborn believer.
It's good psychology. You know about making a really hard decision.
One day you are sure you will go ahead, the next you are still
wondering. It’s the same with deciding for Christ. One day
you feel full of faith to follow Jesus anywhere; but the next
you are certain it's all just too hard to do.
So, as soon as you are ready to be a Christian all the way, without
reservations, get baptised. Then get the training you need!
The same with the Lord’s
Supper. Jesus said, “Do this, whenever you do it, in remembrance
of me.” There were no hard and fast rules. Believers were
invited to take part. That’s the Bible way.
Of course, some people just "didn't grasp how holy"
this ceremony is. Some just weren't ready to partake in a truly
reverent manner.
So after the apostles, the church started to say, “Baptise
them, but don't let them come to the Lord’s table until
the Bishop confirms that they have been baptised properly as
genuine believers.” So confirmation came in.
Some poor people... they believed, but they had to go to catechism
classes, and the next baptisms weren’t until next Easter
anyway, and then they had to wait for a Bishop to arrive... and
he only got there when the roads were passable and the latest
lot of bandits had been arrested. So you might wait a couple
of years before you could share in the meal that was supposed
to feed your soul and bind you with other believers and with
your Lord!
What if you had a baby, but you wouldn't give it a name until
it was able to discuss social sciences with you, and you wouldn't
let it be fed until a child psychologist came and guaranteed
that it was a child worth feeding! The world's population problems
would be solved in about a year!
There are all kinds of things
we have gotten wrong, and we don't even notice because we are
so used to doing them that way.
ORDINATION
Why do we ordain ministers? I've been ordained. It didn’t
do a lot for me, actually. But where does the Bible teach ordination?
The Greek word for “ordain” in old versions of the
Bible, is cheirotoneo. It really means, “appoint”
or “recognise”.
In elections in ancient Greece, the candidates stood on a platform,
all the citizens filed past, and, as they did, each one dropped
a piece of broken pottery called an ostrakon at the feet
of their favoured candidate.
When everyone had cast their vote, the president of the meeting
came and put his hand on the head of the one with the biggest
pile of ostraka, the biggest pile of pieces of pottery.
The word used for putting your hand on the head of the elected
candidate is the same word used in the New Testament for appointing
elders in the churches, or appointing bishops and deacons. Not
“ordination”, but “appointment”.
Here’s something else we
have gotten wrong. Early congregations never met in churches.
At most they would meet in a house where a couple of rooms had
been combined to cater for bigger gatherings.
Today we lose 15 people in a building made for 200. We can't
move on when we need to -- we are too tied up in finding the
money and the workers to fix that leak in the roof, or replace
the snapped-off stink pipe. We don’t have the sense of the
church as a dynamic, Spirit–led organism, and we wonder
why churches die.
One of the better services I’ve been to was a Catholic one
held in a room under a house. It was about as big as our blue
room, with about 30 people crammed in and the priest sitting
on the floor because he didn’t fit anywhere else. It was
informal, Biblical and inclusive. Services don’t need official
chapels.
So, I’m asking this morning,
“What did the first Christians do, and what should we do
today?
THEY PREACHED
And the simple answer is that they preached Christ.
Then Ananias
went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul,
he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared
to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so
that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes,
and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after
taking some food, he regained his strength.
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once
he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of
God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t
he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call
on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners
to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful
and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus
is the Christ.
Here is a new convert, and he's
straight out preaching the good news about Jesus in the very
place where he is most likely to find trouble!
We get this wrong, wrong, wrong! We say, “Proper preaching
is only done by trained, ordained ministers, or by people specially
trained by these trained ministers.”
So what happens?
First, you don't get the best preaching from these trained ordained
men and women anyway. If I remember correctly, about 28% of people
in Australia have degree level education. So you get a trained
pastor with a degree, and he's already part of a minority, and
he’s already learnt to think and talk like an educated person.
He’s going to be out of touch with 72% of the population.
I am not against education. I have three degrees, one at post
graduate level. I have a diploma. I have a certificate or two
at various levels. And I’m not someone who has only ever
studied theology. I’ve studied languages, history, philosophy,
management, planning, design, economics, psychological subjects
and even some law subjects, too.
Saul wasn’t against education. He had studied under Gamaliel,
one of the leading Rabbis of his time. Many people have said
that Saul was as close as they came to a PhD in his day. And
he had not only studied Theology with the Rabbi, he was clearly
familiar with the great literature of his day, like Aristophanes.
But the fact is that education easily puts you out of contact
with the general culture you belong to; it makes you an outsider
in many ways.
This means that, if we leave preaching to the trained few, we
are making preaching less relevant to the majority of Australians.
I was listening to the radio recently, and I heard an advertisement
for a charity. I remarked to Chris, “That announcer has
to be a minister —” and I even suggested the denomination
he came from.
Sure enough, when the end of the ad came, it was from the welfare
arm of that denomination, and I discover that they do usually
use their ministers to do the voice overs on their promotional
materials.
He sounded just right to be one of their ministers. And, if ministers
start sounding like ministers, then something has gone badly
wrong somewhere! I hope I don't sound too much like a minister!
We need people who don’t sound like ministers to do the
work of ministry.
What did Saul sound like? I’d
guess that he preached with an accent, that he sometimes put
words together in an unusual way, and that he occasionally lost
his way when he was searching for the right word to use. When
you read his letters in the Greek and compare them with say John's
Gospel or the letter to the Hebrews, that's the impression you
get.
And, in a town like Damascus, where there were people from everywhere
around the world, I’m sure that he sounded “just like
one of us” to most of the people who heard him.
But isn’t it wrong and dangerous
to send young converts out to preach?
SOMETIMES DANGEROUS, RARELY WRONG
It can be dangerous, but it’s rarely wrong.
Tony Campolo says that we often make the mistake of thinking
that what we believe determines what we do. He says it’s
more true to say that what we do determines what we believe.
It’s true. If we just think something, if we assent to it,
but don’t act on it, it isn’t real to us. But, when
we act on it, it becomes real to us, because we have experienced
it.
I think that Campolo was actually trying to prod us into thinking,
so that we don’t just blindly copy what other people have
said.
Unless we believe that there is some reason to act, we don’t
act; but, once we have acted and seen that it works, then the
whole thing, what we believe and what we do, it all becomes part
of us.
So, I wouldn’t preach unless I believed I was called to
do it. But it is only in doing it that I begin to believe that
it is my calling. Whether I am good or bad at it is another issue,
but whether or not it is what God has appointed me to do, that’s
the issue, and I can only find out by doing it.
Tony Campolo says that the first week he became a Christian,
they took him out to his own neighbourhood to give his testimony
on the street corner. Everyone in the whole area, all the people
who had known little Tony Campolo, all the shopkeepers who had
watched while Tony grew up into a teenager, they all knew what
Tony was saying about himself. If he wasn't very sure of his
beliefs, he would have given up on Christ straight away, wouldn’t
he? But now he knew that everyone would be watching for the changes.
If he didn’t change, if his life wasn’t turned around
by Christ, then everyone who had ever known him in the neighbourhood
would know about it, and want to tell him about his failure.
There’s nothing quite like being put on the spot to confirm
your faith!
When I was still a fairly new Christian, our church used to have
an open air meeting on a Sunday afternoon before the evening
service. Sometimes people came late, and, if they did, we would
meet up on the bank corner anyway.
This Sunday, I was the only one there at starting time, so I
went down to the corner, and no one came.
I walked around the block, and still no one came — except
for a group of teens I didn’t know.
Well, I was there to preach, so I took a deep breath and I did
preach. I think I just said that God loved them and that Jesus
died for them and they could have eternal life if they trusted
in him. Not the most world shattering sermon!
But I still haven't forgotten it. I was scared half to death!
I can say something else about it. It gave me a greater sense
that I really am a Christian, that I do — sometimes —
do the things a Christian does.
Think of Saul in that synagogue. Here were the people who expected
Saul to come and say, “Well, I managed to hunt down a dozen
more Christians this week. They'll all be stoned to death by
the end of the month.” But, instead, he said, “This
Jesus, the one I was persecuting by killing his followers, he’s
real, he’s alive! And now I follow him, because he’s
the Messiah promised in all the prophets.”
Wow, eh?
SUMMARY
This is a one point sermon, really. Maybe two points. I have
said that we do a lot of things wrong, and I have said that Saul
shows us that one thing we do wrong is to coddle new Christians.
We do it, because we don’t trust the Holy Spirit to inspire
the public preaching of Christ any more. We do it because we
want to preserve the rights of the priestly classes. We do it
because we have forgotten any better way to go.
I am not going to tell you, “Get
up right now and start preaching the gospel down in Marrickville.”
Ananias didn’t tell Saul to go to the synagogue and preach.
But Saul went, because the Holy Spirit was directing him.
So I’m going to say, “Start letting the Holy Spirit
direct you into ministry. Do the things you should have been
doing from the beginning. Trust God! Believe in Jesus! Open your
mouth, and, God says, “I will fill it.”
I will go further. I will say,
“When you were first converted, didn’t you want to
go out and tell everyone?” When you were first born again,
the Spirit prompted and prompted you to obey and proclaim. There’s
an old spiritual,
I said I wasn’t
going to testify, but
Couldn't keep it to myself
Couldn't keep it to myself
Couldn't keep it to myself;
I said I wasn’t going to testify, but
Couldn't keep it to myself --
What the Lord has done for me.
Only you and I, we did keep it
to ourselves, because we didn't see anyone else testifying in
public, and our pastors didn’t encourage us — and that
includes me — and we had no models. So we shut up, we quenched
the Spirit, and, in the end, he left us alone.
The world out there is dying for Christ! And you and I let fear
and inertia and tradition and faithlessness keep us from obeying.
Whoever wins
souls is wise.
We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through
us, “Be reconciled to God.”
What are you and I going to do
about the Word of the Lord?
AMEN |
