Deep Creek Anglican Church Blog

Chapter Seventeen: Our Mission from the Risen Jesus

Mission should always be at the forefront of our prayers and activity as followers of the Lord Jesus.  It is particularly so as I read chapter seventeen of Raised with Christ, having just completed our Sunday series on the Acts of the Apostles.

Our Mission from the Risen Jesus is Adrian Warnock writing at his best.  His obvious love for the Lord and joy of being part of God’s saving mission shines forth in paragraph after paragraph.  Here are some highlights (but make sure you read the chapter for yourself!):

• the church (“Jesus now lives on earth through His Body”) has been formed and empowered by the resurrection – so let’s declare and demonstrate it!
• the church is the only Jesus the world will see until He returns
• the Spirit gives us an infectious hope and joy – so share it!
• Jesus should thrill us more than anything or anyone else
• Jesus will accomplish the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) – He sends us out as a “direct command  of the ruler of the universe.”  It is not simply a suggestion
• “Jesus leads us to plunder the enemy’s kingdom, pushing forward in eager anticipation of what God will do through us”
• making disciples?  We need to train other Christians to love Jesus.  When we love Him, His commandments will not be burdensome
• Jesus is with His people to accomplish a specific goal – “if you want Jesus to go with you, than go and make disciples”

What’s the bottom line?  ”If we love, honour, and glory in Christ, we will find that we want to talk about Him with others.”

Here’s a short post on a really helpful section at the very end of:

Chapter Eight: Life Between the Cross and the Coming.

Graham Cole highlights three ‘commissions’ that Christians are to obey, as we live for Jesus in the world:

1. Creation Commission (Gen 1:28).  Our exercise of dominion is one of both care and control (eg. Gen 2:15).  I would put it this way: care for the environment is one aspect of being a follower of Jesus and a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
2. Discipling Commission (Matt 28:18-20).  God calls His people to make disciples – of all nations.
3. Moral Commission (Matt 22:37-39).  The Creation and Discipling Commissions are “to be shaped by love of God and love of neighbour.”  Indeed, as Graham rightly concludes: “Without love, creation care and discipling others become vacuous.  We gain nothing (1 Cor 13:1-3).”

If you have appropriated the peace dividend, how then are we to live?  That’s the very practical question addressed in the next chapter of God the Peacemaker by Graham Cole:

Chapter Eight: Life Between the Cross and the Coming

How should followers of the Lord Jesus live?  By faith.  And our author gives an excellent exposition of what walking by faith, and not by sight, looks like.  Living by faith means:

• always trusting God, including in the age to come
• living a life of love (Gal 5:6)
• the opposite to living by fear and by sight (Matt 8:26; 2 Cor 5:7)
• giving our total allegiance to the One who won our redemption (1 Cor 6:19f)
• responding to Christ’s love in a “self-donating lifestyle” (eg. Phil 1:13-26). Simply put, Christ is worth it!
• living as a true servant (“worthy of the Gospel”), exemplified in the Lord Jesus’ “great stooping both in incarnation and atonement” (Phil 2:5-11)
• being prepared to suffer for Christ (2 Cor 11:23-28; 1 Pt 4:12-16).  This is the reality for so many of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world
• attracting spiritual opposition from the demonic.  The devil has not disappeared; he is behind human hostility to the gospel and is to be resisted (1 Pt 5:8f).  The armour against his attacks are defensive (shield of faith, breastplate of righteousness, helmut of salvation) and offensive (the Word of God).  Prayer is crucial.  It needs to be specific and gospel focussed (Eph 6:14-20)
• living now, in the reality of what we will be – “Spirit-impelled resurrection life.”  In the most practical of ways, this means worshipping the Lord through the offering of our whole person as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2).  The individual believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20) as is the corporate Body (1 Cor 3:16-17) and that’s what needs to be displayed – not a physical Temple.

Living by faith (I think of it as being ‘up close and personal with Jesus, as we walk around the Sea of Galilee together’) means living as Kingdom people.  Graham zeroes in on two of the beatitudes in Matt 5-7: ‘blessed are the merciful’ and ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’  When we are ‘shalom-bringers’ we are acting like God in character.  And active peacemaking will be in sync with justice – reconciliation requires that wrongs are confronted and acknowledged.

As those who have appropriated the peace dividend (ie. those who are caught up in God’s reclamation project), we have a story to tell the world.  And it is undertaken by:

• evangelists, gifted by the risen Christ and equipped by His Spirit (Eph 4:11-13) to tell the story.  Our author gives a succinct account of the gospel content and proclamation approaches in the Acts of the Apostles.
• witnesses.  Every believer is not gifted to be an evangelist but every believer has a story to tell – of God’s ways and deeds.
• apologists.  Again, every believer has the task of answering questions raised by the gospel (1 Pt 3:13-16).  And we are to do so with gentleness and respect – if there is offence its source must be the gospel itself and not our manner!

Life between the Cross and the Coming is a life lived in the Spirit - the great applier of our salvation.  Graham provides a helpful overview on “filling” as seen in Luke/Acts.  And then in considering the Spirit’s role (in relation to the Trinity), he comments:

“…the Holy Spirit…uses our evangelism, witness, apology, shalom-making and mercy-showing…to bring to fruition the divine plan.”

This is a great chapter, linking biblical theology with helpful historical theology examples, with a focus on the way we live out our daily lives now, in this age.  There will be wonderful benefit in chewing on the contents of this chapter with our Bibles open, and hearts submissive to the Spirit’s transforming work.

We’ve just finished a three week series on sharing about Jesus with our friends.  John Dickson, in his stimulating book, Promoting the Gospel shows powerfully for Scripture how every follower of the Lord Jesus is able to promote His saving gospel – that’s good news for all you don’t consider themselves to be evangelists.  Praying to the Lord of the harvest and financially supporting Gospel ministry is a privilege and responsibility for all disciples.

And there’s still more each disciple of Jesus can do: participation in corporate worship that proclaims the greatness of God; living godly lives and living out the love of Christ in acts of compassion and mercy – simply being a light on the hill:

Our lives are to be not only visual but also audio! As the Apostle Peter states:

“…Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Pt 3:15)

Last Sunday night, I started the message on Jesus: Let’s talk About Him! with a video on ’8 Reasons Why I Don’t Share My Faith.’

Do you relate to any of them?

We commence a three-week series, this Sunday night, 25th April, on sharing our faith in Jesus with our friends.

Thom Rainer of Lifeway Christian Resources identifies Seven Characteristics of Highly Evangelistic Christians, namely:

1. Prayerful
2. Driven by theological conviction on necessity of salvation in Jesus Christ
3. Knowledge of God’s love for the lost through His Word
4. Compassionate
5. Culturally connected
6. Intentional
7. Accountable

Ian Harper is a very well known economist in Australia and was the inaugural Chairman of the Australian Fair Pay Commission.  He’s also a committed follower of Jesus and contributes a chapter in ‘A Passion for Leadership’:

Chapter Nine: Church Leaders and the Market Place (Ian Harper)

Just as in Jesus’ day, the business of commerce occupies much of the daily lives of people.  Christian leaders must therefore be familiar with it.  Familiarity is also essential if the Christian leader is going to be able to pastorally care for those impacted by its stresses, as well as ascertain mission strategies to reach the commercial world.

Ian encourages Christians to be involved in the marketplace.  Sure there’s sin present – the church response should be to bring god’s redeeming love to the marketplace, not withdraw.

The writer then confronts an often found myth: “It is a myth sometimes perpetrated in Christian circles that only those who work in the caring professions like health and education, or who work for the government are really serving their fellow human beings.  Christians who work in business, on the other hand, are just looking after themselves.  This is simply not true.”

Ian then provides some practical suggestions on ministering to the marketplace and encourages the appropriate use of marketplace principles/practices within the church.

I resonated with this chapter, having spent much more of my working life in business than in full-time ministry.  The workplace provides stacks of opportunities for relationship evangelism.  But it is not easy living as a committed disciple of Christ in this environment.  I came to faith 15 years after commencing my career and there was much that needed to be redeemed in my approach to business.  It is imperative that Christian leaders have some familiarity with this world, in order to more effectively minister to their people working in it, and to equip them for a very fertile but challenging mission arena.

Today, we completed the second message in our Christmas series Who is this baby? As we considered Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus in Matt 1:17-25, we turned our hearts to the wonderful mission opportunity of Christmas.  And in doing so, we were encouraged in praying for our friends in the words of Prayer for a friend by Casting Crowns, off their album The Altar and the Door:

Lord I lift my friend to You.
I've done all that I know to do.
I lift my friend, to You.
Complicated circumstances
have clouded his view.
Lord I lift my friend up to You. 

I fear that I won’t have the words
that he needs to hear.
I pray for Your wisdom , oh God.
And a heart that's sincere.
And Lord I lift my friend up
to You. 

Lord I lift my friend to You.
My best friend in the
world, I know he means much
more to You.
I want so much to help him, but
this is something he has to do.
Lord I lift my friend up to You. 

There's a way that seems so right to him.
But You know where that leads.
He's becoming a puppet of the world.
Too blind to see the strings.
And Lord I lift my friend up to You. 

Lord I lift my friend to You.
I've done all that I know to do.
I lift my friend, to You.

I love the words of the third verse: “Lord I lift my friend to You. My best friend in the world, I know he means much more to You….”  What a great testimony to the love of God; to the truth of John 3:16 and 1 Tim 2:3f.

We come to chapter four of ‘A Passion for Leadership,’ authored by Stephen Abbott, a gifted evangelist, formerly of Ridley Melbourne and currently Senior Minister at St Matthew’s, West Pennant Hills, NSW.  He is also the author of Everyday Evangelism.

Chapter Four: Leaders and Evangelism (Stephen Abbott)

In reflecting on 40 years of Christian journey, encountering many churches, Steve simply states:

“There are few, if any, things more difficult than creating and sustaining an evangelism culture.”

Steve gives some helpful guidance on creating, reestablishing or maintaining a mission culture in the communities where Christian leaders serve:

• Evangelism and leadership are in extricably linked

In the OT, God chooses individuals and then a nation to act as His leaders and mediators of His mission purpose.  And then supremely in Jesus’ earthly ministry, He is both Messiah King and the Servant who brings good news.

• Four foundational building blocks:

1. Prayer: intercessory prayer is a logical outworking of being a go-between standing between God and the world.  Steve recommends also that every ministry staff member should have a personal intercessory support team
2. Live it out.  Christian leaders must live out the call to evangelism and disciple making priority in their own lives
3. Be ‘person’ and not ‘program’ focussed.  Evangelism activities should flow out of people’s relationships, passions and gifts.  Christian leaders must stay close to their people, praying for them and supporting them in their daily missional interactions
4. Keep a kingdom perspective, rather than simply a local church growth perspective.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC, has a passion for taking the life transforming Gospel to cities.  See here for Adrian Warnock’s summary of a Keller presentation on the importance of cities at a Newfrontiers Conference (including video link).  Redeemer’s primary method of evangelism has been through the planting of gospel-centered churches.  See here for some useful links and books.

Tim is an inspiration as a preacher and gospel-focussed pastor.  When I read the following summary of his preaching by another pastor, I thought, “Yeh.  That’s Tim Keller!”  Here is part of it:

“To be a great preacher, one needs to be tri-perspectival in their exegesis. That is, they need to be committed to the exegesis of the Bible, the exegesis of our culture, and the exegesis of the human heart. Some preachers claim that if you exegete the Bible properly, you don’t need to bother yourself with the exegesis of our culture or the human heart. The problem with this view, however, is that the Bible itself exhorts us to apply Biblical norms to both our lives and to our world.

As a preacher myself, I benefit greatly from listening to a wide variety of preachers. In some cases I learn what to do, and in other cases I learn what not to do. But in every case, I learn something. Some preachers teach me how to be a better exegete of the Bible. Others teach me how to be a better exegete of our culture. And still others teach me how to be a better exegete of the human heart. But no preacher has consistently taught me how to do all three in the context of every sermon more so than Tim Keller. His balanced attention to all three forms of exegesis makes him very unique, in my opinion.

Tim knows how to unveil and unpack the truth of the Gospel from every Biblical text he preaches in such a way that it results in the exposure of both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts. His faithful exposition of our true Savior from every passage in the Bible painfully reveals all of the pseudo-saviors that we trust in culturally and personally. Every sermon discloses the subtle ways in which we as individuals and we as a culture depend on lesser things than Jesus to provide the security, acceptance, protection, affection, meaning, and satisfaction that only Christ can supply. In this way, he is constantly showing just how relevant and necessary Jesus is; he’s constantly proving that we are great sinners but Christ is a great Savior.”

Redeemer has generously provided 150 sermons and lectures by Tim Keller.  Here’s the link to a great resource.

In the following interview, Tim explores both the calling by God, and the cultural necessity, to promote the Gospel through acts of compassion and mercy.

Tim Keller Interview With Here’s Life Inner City from Here’s Life Inner City on Vimeo.

I will post chapter highlights from Tim’s latest book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters when I get my reading breath back!  It is receiving some great reviews.