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I
have no idea what’s wrong with the formatting of this page, but I’m not
going to waste any more of my life on it. Perhaps copy and paste the text into a Word document for
ease of reading. Sorry.
Doing Mission Together
This is part of a
sermon series preaching through the book ‘Gospel Centred Church’ by Steve
Timmis and Tim Chester,
To listen
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1 Peter 2:9-12
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who
called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. 10 Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had
not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear
friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain
from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such
good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong,
they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
[SLIDE]
What
is Church like?
[SLIDES]
Is
it like a jacuzzi or a waterfall?
Which
would you rather swim in? A warm,
relaxing jacuzzi. Or a big, scary
waterfall?
Well
the jacuzzi would be very comfortable.
It’s small. You can just
sit there and relax – you and a couple of friends or family.
Now
church ought to be a safe place for Christians to support and love one another. In many ways church should be a haven,
a safe place, for Christians. But
this evening we’re going to think about how the Church is also like a
waterfall.
Because
we’re not meant to keep Church to ourselves. Church is meant to flow out to the whole world. And so being a Christian is about
enjoying the benefits of being a Christian but these benefits flow out to
others.
So
it’s a bit like a jacuzzerfall…
[SLIDE]
It’s
about enjoying the benefits of being God’s people and then flowing out to
the world around us. Which means
being a Christian is big and its scary.
And – what we’ll learn about today – we’re going to have to help
one another. We need to support
one another as we flow out like waterfalls with the love of Jesus.
First
let’s look at the warm, comforting jacuzzi elements of verse 9:
Christians
are
a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
belonging to God
Here
Peter uses four different words for a community. A chosen people uses the word genos
from which we get genealogy. A
royal priesthood is another kind of community. A holy nation is the ethnos word
from which we get ethnicity.
Finally a people belonging to God is the word laos from
which we get laity. Peter is
drumming into our heads that we are a new community. In 1 Peter Christians are consistently
described as scattered, aliens and strangers in the world, but through
the work of Jesus Christ we have been made into a new community,
belonging to each other and to God.
How
has this happened? Well virtually
everything that 1 Peter says is true of the church here, he has also said
it of Jesus individually. What
Jesus is individually, His people are corporately.
So
in chapter 1:20 Christ is called chosen.
And here in chapter 2:9 the church is called chosen. In chapter 2:4 Christ is called the
Living Stone. In the next verse
His people are called living stones.
In 1 Peter 3:18 – Christ is described in very priestly terms:
Christ
died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring
you to God.
Christ
is the ultimate priest who brings us to God. But now in chapter 2:9, we are a royal priesthood. In chapter 1:11 it says Christ
suffered and then went to glory.
And really the whole letter is about how we, His people, suffer
now and then will go to glory. I
could go on, but you get the picture.
Whatever Christ is and does, His people are and do.
Christ,
the Son, makes us into children of God, and now, as part of this extended
family, we participate in Christ’s privileges.
Which
is an amazing thing to contemplate.
Here is the jacuzzi of God’s love that’s channelled to us in
Jesus. Look again at verse 9:
Here we are – God’s chosen people – choice in His eyes. Here we are royalty in God’s eyes,
priests declaring His praise in the world. Here we are – a holy nation – set apart by God. We are His special people. A people
that v9 says ‘belong to God.’ We
are His treasured possession.
All
of this reflects what the LORD said to the Israelites at the bottom of
Mount Sinai. There they were a
bedraggled mob of exiles, camped out in the desert. And this is what God says to them:
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all
nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is
mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation. (Ex 19:5-6)
Now
of course Israel did not obey God fully, nor keep His covenant. But the LORD Jesus came into the world
as the True Israel and He fully obeyed God for us. Now when we are joined to Jesus, we
become part of this true Israel.
If we count Jesus for our Brother, we have God for our Father and
He on His part considers us sons and daughter. He looks at us as His chosen, royal, holy, treasured
people.
Christian,
no matter what you’ve done this week, no matter what you will do next
week, if you belong to Jesus – you are chosen, royal, holy, treasured –
unshakably, unimprovably. This is
the great jacuzzi.
But
the jacuzzi is meant to flow over.
Do
you see how verse 9 ends. God
gives us these things…
that
you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into
His wonderful light.
It’s
a bit like this. [SLIDES]
And
the end point is there in verse 12 – even amidst opposition, the hope is
that many will hear us declaring God’s praise and they too will “glorify
God on the day He visits us.”
None
of our Christian privileges are given to us purely for our own
benefit. We’re God’s special
people so that we can reach the world and invite them
in. The church is meant to open
its arms out to the world and say ‘Come and join us. Come and be God’s special people. Join us in the jacuzzi, and then you
can flow out into the world and bring others into the jacuzzi. And around and around. That’s what being a Christian is.
And
verse 10 gives us a great motivation – GRATITUDE
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once
you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Don’t
just spend your time in the jacuzzi peering down your nose at that
horrible world out there. Praise
God that you’ve received mercy, and go out and declare that mercy to
others.
But
if verses 9 and 10 have given us our motivation to mission, verses 11 and
12 alert us to the difficulty of the task:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to
abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of
doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he
visits us.
Do
you see how hard this is?
Christians are aliens and strangers in the world. We just don’t fit. If you stick up for Jesus you won’t be
popular. Look at verse 12, there will
be people who accuse you of doing wrong when all you’ve done is be good
to people. That’s very tough.
But
if that’s not bad enough, verse 11 tells us about another problem. Our sinful desires are waging war
against our souls. Every day we
will itch to serve ourselves, to be self-centred and not
Jesus-centred. And we will really
want to scratch that itch. But
it’s a battle, because if we scratch that itch – if we just serve
ourselves – then we don’t flow out in love for the world.
So
declaring God’s praises is hard because we don’t fit in in the world and
because our sinful desires tell us to quieten down about Jesus and just
have an easy life. It’s a
battle. And because it’s a battle
we need to first of all remember the jacuzzi. Remember these wonderful things that Jesus has already
given us.
But
secondly, we need to do this TOGETHER.
[SLIDE]
God
has made us a new community – verse 9 has drummed in the point. And He wants us to flow out to the
world as a community – not simply as individual missionaries.
This
morning we had a reading from Acts 15 (which I was going to mention in my
sermon but I accidentally skipped over it in my notes). Let’s turn there briefly: (keep a
finger in 1 Peter)
Acts 15:36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas,
"Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we
preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing." 37
Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38
but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them
in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39
They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas
took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and
left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41
He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
16:1 He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a
disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer,
but whose father was a Greek. 2 The brothers at Lystra and
Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on
the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that
area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they
travelled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the
apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So
the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
As
you read through Acts, before this point you see it’s Paul and Barnabas
did this and Paul and Barnabas went there. After this point you keep on reading Paul and Silas did
this and Paul and Silas went there.
Even when Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement and split up, they
made sure that they took along others with them. Verse 40 does not say “Paul said “Fine
I don’t need Barnabas, I don’t need Mark, I’m an Apostle goshdarnit I’m
going to go on my own.” The
Apostles just didn’t do evangelism on their own. Very occasionally they got separated
and Paul did a spot of solo evangelism in Acts 17 – but that’s it really. The work of mission is meant to be the
work of the community and it is far and away best done in pairs or
groups.
In
fact, let me show you Paul’s thinking that is a real shock to how
individualistically I usually think about evangelism.
2 Corinthians
2
12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found
that the Lord had opened a door for me, 13 I still had no
peace of mind (I had no rest in my spirit), because I did not find
my brother Titus there. So I said good-bye to them and went on to
Macedonia. 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in
triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the
fragrance of the knowledge of him.
Isnt
that stunning. Paul doesn’t just
say, people were quite spiritually hungry in Troas. They were quite open to the
gospel. He says Jesus Christ
Himself opened a door for gospel work in Troas and Paul left there,
because he wanted his brother Titus with him. Is this Paul confessing to us a sin? I don’t think so. He says in v14 this was all part of
God leading them in a great procession that spreads Christ to the
world. Paul doesn’t not step
through an open door of gospel opportunity on his own. He waits to do it together with others
in a triumphal procession.
Mission is meant to be done together.
And
in fact isn’t that what our passage from 1 Peter has told us? Flick back to 1 Peter. As this new community (v9) we are to
(v12) live good lives among the pagans.
(It’s all of a piece)
Do
we therefore need to repent of overly individualistic views of
evangelism. I know I do.
I
hear a sermon about being more evangelistic. And I have in mind a list of resolutions about what I
individually need to do when I walk out the door of church and go on my
solo evangelistic mission. I
think of church as like a loose association of evangelists who get
together periodically to strengthen each other for our
solo-missions. But no. Church is
not simply the petrol station where we fuel up and then go our separate
ways in evangelism. Think of
verse 9: we TOGETHER are a
priesthood. It’s not that we are
a club full of individual priests.
As a people together, we are priestly – we bring people to God.
Our communal life is evangelistic.
And our evangelism is ideally communal.
Let me just give you three reasons why we should be thinking about
doing evangelism together.
Because
1)
priesthood is
corporate
a.
v9
2)
the world is a
war zone
a.
v11
3)
community
communicates
a.
v9 – the world is
meant to see
b.
John 13 & 17
We are an evangelical church.
And one of the things that marks out evangelicalism is belief in
the priesthood of all believers.
It’s the view that no believer is more priestly – more able to
bring you to God or God to you – than anyone else. Many of you were here last week for my
ordination and you may have noticed that Bishop Wallace Benn, wherever
the words in the service said ‘priest’ changed it to the word
‘presbyter’. (Presbyter means
elder). Why did he do that? Well because in the New Testament teachers
and leaders of churches are called presbyters not priests. No-one in the NT is individually
called a priest. Except
Jesus. Only He brings us to
God. And so I much prefer to be
called a presbyter than a priest – Jesus is a priest. You don’t need me
to get to God, you need Jesus.
But, we’ve seen that whatever Jesus is individually – we are
CORPORATELY. So all of us, if we
belong to Jesus, are this priesthood and we, together, declare God’s
praises.
So the priesthood of all believers is a wonderful truth. What it means is that we are priestly
in our togetherness. But I think
we distort this truth when we think of the priesthood of all believers as
meaning that every believer becomes an individual priest in
themselves. It’s not the
individual priesthood of any individual believer. It’s the priesthood that is the
community of all believers. My
priestliness doesn’t reside in myself – it resides in Jesus and it
resides in the community. I
cannot be priestly without Jesus and I cannot be priestly without
you. And you cannot be priestly
without me. So as we seek to be
priestly it’s best that we do that in community.
As to 2) – verse 11 tells
us there’s a war going on. Our
sinful nature is waging war on our soul.
In Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) goes on
a solo mission deep into enemy territory. He goes completely mad.
He becomes even more savage than those he is sent to.
Martin Sheen’s character speaks about how far from home Kurtz
really was:
And what about “his people back home… if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone? He broke from them and then he broke from himself. I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart..."
Going alone in evangelism is dangerous. We need each other.
As to 3)
Peter envisages we God’s chosen people living
among the pagans such that the pagans see our lives on view and are
converted. Our community
communicates.
Think of how Jesus said it in these two key passages from John:
34 "A new command I give you: Love one
another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another." John 13:34-35
May the church be brought to complete unity to let the world know
that you sent me. John 17:23
Jesus essentially gives the world the right to judge Him on the basis
of the church. Now that is
astonishing. Jesus says the world
is meant to look on and see Christians together, loving one another. And that will be at the heart of how
people become Christians. Now how
is that possible? We could build
churches completely out of glass I suppose and invite non-Christians to
come and spectate on a Sunday as we perform wonderfully loving acts for
an hour. I guess that would be
one way. But surely what’s in
mind here is that Christians live in the midst of the world in Christian
community. That we don’t just go
to church with other Christians, but that we do life with other
Christians in the full view of the watching world.
So as we finish – let me offer a few very
practical ways we can flow out into the world together.
What if three of our number:
·
joined the same
gym and went together
·
joined the same
book club
·
joined the same
local political organisation
·
joined the same
adult education course
·
joined the same
dance class
·
joined the same
toddler group
·
or just went to
the same pub
·
or the same kebab
eatery
·
or played touch rugby
at the same park every Sunday afternoon
What if it was
·
committed –
regular, shows an interest
·
intentional – we
do this as Christians – up front, gospel on agenda straight off,
prayerfully.
This is not a case of let’s do more
things. It is a case of thinking
– is there a way I can do what I already do, but of being mission minded
– community minded – in doing it?
So remember the Jacuzzerfall. We enjoy God’s blessings in
Christ. From this we flow out
into the world. And we do it together.
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