Gracious Father, we thank you for the work that you have done
through the Lord Jesus Christ coming into this world,
dying on the cross, rising again,
dealing with the sin that separates us from you
and that you, through the Lord Jesus, reconciled us to yourself.
We thank you for your work in sending your spirit into our hearts,
illuminating our darkness so that we could see the glory of Christ.
Father, we pray that your work of drawing people to yourself would be our work,
that we would be committed to that, it would be our focus,
that we'd have a razor-sharp focus on your mission to draw people to yourself.
Lord, we pray that you would continue to reform our heart, our structures,
our practices, everything we do, so that our agenda might be aligned with yours.
And we ask it for your glory. Amen.
Chris Jones used an illustration some time ago.
I thought it was a great one, so I decided to steal it and redo it.
It's one of those illustrations that I think you shouldn't just tell once.
It's called The Parable of the Lighthouse, The Lifehouse, Life-Saving Station.
Parable of the Life-Saving Station.
It goes,
Now the Life-Saving Station became a popular gathering plant.
happy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt the more comfortable place
should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency
stretchers with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the life-saving station
became a popular gathering place for its members and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished
it sort of like a club. Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving
missions and so they hired lifeboats crews to do that work for them. The mission of life-saving
was still given lip service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in
life-saving activities personally. At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership.
Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a
hindrance to the normal pattern of club life. Some members insisted that life-saving was their
primary purpose and pointed out that in fact they were still called a life-saving station
but they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all various kinds
of people who were shipwrecked on their shores they could begin their own life-saving station just down
the coast and so they did. As the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that
occurred with the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was found
and if you visit the seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore.
Shipwrecks are frequent in the waters but now most of the people don't get rescued.
It's not hard to lose sight of your original purpose. A multitude of little decisions, even good decisions,
for right reasons, if not put within a greater context of greater purpose,
you can lead you down to a different path than was originally intended.
And this parable is a parable of the church on mission. It's easy for a church to lose
its original purpose. It's easy for a church commissioned by the Lord Jesus to make disciples
of all nations to lose sight of its purpose. And this brings us to our core value here at St. Paul's.
Like all our core values, our core value of local and global impact, that is global impact and local
impact for the gospel, is to shape our behaviour, our attitude, our structures, our practices.
That is, it needs to be explicit that God's agenda is our agenda as a church. So we're going to take a few
moments just to see what God's agenda is, just very broadly, very briefly. So far in this commitment
series, in the first four sermons I used Isaiah for three of them and so now we're going to make it
four out of five. It's a great book. The book of Isaiah taken as a whole is majestic. It's sort of
like the Bible squashed into one book. It asks us to imagine right at the beginning of Isaiah,
the creation and then the recreation of the entire world. It begins in verse two, chapter one,
with heaven and earth called to bear witness. It says, hear, O heavens, listen, O earth. And it
finishes, the last verse of Isaiah finishes with a new heaven and a new earth. As the new heavens and
the new earth that I will make endure before me, declares the Lord, so will your name and descendants
endure. And so Isaiah takes us, if you like, from the beginning of history to the end of all things,
from creation to new creation, which in fact is what the whole Bible does from Genesis to the
Revelation. It takes you from creation to new creation. And so Isaiah does that in a smaller
period. Isaiah insists that God is doing something throughout all of time and eternity, throughout
history, for which even the ends of the earth wait. God has an all-encompassing purpose.
And it unravels for us page after page in Isaiah in the same way that it unravels for us page after
page in the Bible. And of course, in unraveling God's great plans and purposes, we get a picture
of the magnificence of God. And we saw that in the first of these sermons on Christ and the Bible
saturation in Isaiah chapter six, the glory of God in display. And we get another one here in verse two
of Isaiah 66. This is what the Lord says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
It's the only place in the Bible where the earth, the thing that we're sitting on right now, you know,
apart from your chairs, and is described as God's footstool. This building is built on God's footstool.
But the significance of this is the enormity of God's footstool. It gives you a picture of who God is,
the enormity of who God is. The earth, which is God's footstool, is six and a half thousand
kilometres straight through. It's 40,000 kilometres if you go around the outside. It weighs something like,
guesstimate here, 60 million trillion tonnes. That's a whole lot of zeros there, I think.
Has a surface area of 510 million square kilometres, a volume of around 10 trillion cubic kilometres.
It spins at 1,600 kilometres an hour, and God says, this is where I rest my feet.
It gives you a picture of the majesty of God. And again, what we're meant to get here from the
beginning of Isaiah is that we're small, he's big. Because my footstool that I'll go to tonight,
and I'll click up when I turn on the TV, is about this big. And you know, I can throw this thing.
It's not that big. God's footstool is this world in which we sit on. We're meant to get a picture
of the magnificence of the God that we have come to worship here tonight. He sits on a throne,
which we saw from Isaiah 6, is his right to rule, because it's the throne in the heavens,
it's his right to rule all the universe that he has created. And he touches the earth with his feet.
The doctrine of God is given further clarity in verse 2.
Has not my hand made all of these things? And so they came into being. His footstool was made by him.
The heavenly realms made by him. Everything made by him. And so what that means is,
because he is supreme over all things, it's his agenda, his purpose, that matters more than anything else.
And the last verse of Isaiah gives us his purpose.
As the new heavens and the new earth that I make endure before me, so will your name and descendants endure.
From one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me.
God's grand design is worship.
His grand design for his world is worship.
God's plan is for the world that he made, that is his footstool, would see his glory, would bow at his feet in humble submission.
Throughout all time, all of history and eternity to come, God's design is for people to worship him with humble and contrite hearts.
God says in the new heavens and the new earth, the redeemed of the entire human race will offer unending worship at the feet of their creator.
Isaiah.
And Isaiah, as you go through, we're not going to see this right now, but as you go through, Isaiah leaves us in no doubt that the key to this new world and this true worship
is God's perfect suffering servant king, who we know to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
The invincible purpose of God is that the gospel of the glory of Christ spread to all the peoples of the world so that they might come down and bow in worship of him.
Worship is his goal.
It's not a means to something else.
It is his goal.
It's made explicit for us that Jesus is the centre of it in the promise of Philippians chapter 2.
Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
This is talking about Jesus.
But he made himself nothing.
Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.
Therefore God has exalted him to the highest place and has given him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus is at the centre of God's purposes of worship.
And the final command of the crucified, risen, all authority of Saviour Christ is that his people deliver on his purpose.
While he was here, he bore witness to himself.
When he leaves, he said, your job is to bear witness to me.
He says this in Matthew 28,
Then Jesus came to us and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
We just read that from Philippians 2.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
It was the very reason that God sent the Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter 1 verse 8,
But you 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.
The invincible purpose of God is that the gospel of the glory of Christ spread to all the peoples of the world
so they might see the glory of God in the face of Christ,
and that they might know he's never changing,
he's ever-present love,
and that that would motivate them to bow in humble contrition
and offer their lives as living sacrifices.
That's God's grand design for his world.
And if it's God's grand design for his world and for people,
then I would suggest that it's his design for your life,
and it's designed for St. Paul's Chatswood.
That we would fulfil what he has called us to fulfil.
What is slightly more difficult?
Because I think overall, as Christians, we'd sit here and we would go,
yep, no problem with that.
Mission's what we do.
We give money to mission.
That's why we're signing these cards next week and things like that.
Slightly more difficult is that more and more,
I am persuaded from the scriptures
that God's design for the completion of his global plan
and the consummation of all of his purposes
includes the suffering and the sacrifice of his people.
God's plan is that his purpose triumph through the suffering and sacrifice of his people.
Now, I don't just mean that suffering is the consequence of being obedient to God's mission.
I mean that suffering and sacrifice is one of his strategies for the success of his mission.
Jesus said to his disciples as he sent them out in Matthew 10,
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.
And there ought to be no doubt in our minds what happens when sheep go in amongst wolves.
And in case there is, the Apostle Paul confirms the reality for us in Romans chapter 8
when he says, as it is written,
for your sake we face death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Suffering and sacrifice are not just a consequence of our obedience to the Lord's mission.
It is the central strategy of his mission.
Jesus calls us to join him on the Calvary Road.
He calls us to take up our cross, die to ourself and come and follow him.
We are not above our master.
And it's a very sobering word here.
God's plan is that his gospel spreading purposes triumph through the sacrifice and suffering of his people.
At the heart of true biblical mission, both for those who are on the front line of it
and those who are supporting it,
is the eagerness to live simply, to give lavishly and to joyfully sacrifice much
because he has loved us much
and he promises us much.
At the heart of true biblical mission is sacrifice and suffering,
not merely as a result of our proclamation of the gospel,
but as a means of the proclamation of the gospel.
So we know what God's purposes are.
We know how he achieves that purposes
through the suffering and sacrifice of his people.
What gets in the way?
And this is where I think there's some idiosyncrasies
and potentially even idolatries in the Western church
that results in a breakdown between us, God's people, pursuing his purposes.
Paul Borden is an American church ministry consultant.
Sydney Diocese has brought him out.
Our Anglican church has brought him out a number of times
to help us to grow cities,
to think about how to grow cities in this church.
Sorry, grow churches in this city.
And his primary focus is to help those churches,
whatever church he goes to and does a consultation with,
to see that they structure everything they do
to ensure that they are actively pursuing the Great Commission.
And he suggests that churches exist for the not yet Christian,
we ought to consistently,
not just be running a few mission programs,
but everything we do has to have an eye outward, outward, outward,
think it outwardly.
And he says when a church loses sight
of what it's meant to be doing, its purpose,
what it does is by default it looks inwardly,
thinks about itself,
spends time on its maintenance programs
and preservation of its history.
And so we slowly die,
which is what happens to, in America,
3,000 churches in America every year.
In the introduction to his book, Assaulting the Gates,
he writes, and I'm going to quote extensively from him
at various points here.
He says,
And he goes on to give perspective,
his perspective,
as to why the church has lost its focus on mission.
And he gives three reasons.
And I think these three reasons have got a lot of validity to them,
and we need to be constantly keeping an eye on them
to ensure that we are obediently seeking the Great Commission here in St. Paul's.
He says,
First of all,
if I was requested to find just one word that would describe our culture,
he talks about the church culture,
the word would be consumerism.
Consumerism results in a church filled with people
who are proud to be identified with Jesus Christ,
and yet who in their behaviours are far more concerned
with having their needs
and those of their family met
than reaching those who are spiritually lost and separated from God.
Time after time,
I and many others have taught
that the turnaround in the congregations of our region,
now what he's referring to there in his region,
he was in charge of 200 and something churches
on the west coast of America.
All of them, or the vast majority,
except a very small minority of them,
were actually in decline.
And his goal was to get those churches,
200 and something churches,
focused on mission,
thinking outwardly,
rather than just preservation,
and within 10 years,
70% of them were actually growing.
That's what he's talking about here.
Time after time,
I have, in many others,
have taught that the turnaround
in the congregations of our region
only happened
as we began to focus more on others
than on ourselves.
And every time I teach this truth,
I hear, but what about us?
What about our needs?
What are you doing to help the Christians?
I've come to learn that we American Christians
will reflexively make sure
that our needs are met.
Because after all,
at our very core,
we are all consumers.
I want to suggest
that consumerism,
having my needs met,
is the exact opposite
of what God's strategy is
to achieve his global agenda
in the sacrificing and suffering
of his people.
He says,
consumerism in our congregations
know no generational differences.
The only differences
are what the respective generations
demand congregations to be
or to do
in order to fulfil
their consumer requirements.
Often, older Christians
are more concerned
about their music
and the issues
of congregational structure
that allow them
to keep control
of what is happening.
The baby boomers
also want to maintain
the forms of worship,
the buildings,
and the ministries
that they created
in order to feel comfortable
in their settings.
The emerging generations
want their expectations
for size and groups
and media to be met
in order for them
to be happy.
In most congregations,
regardless of size,
age, or backgrounds,
it is all about me
and my needs.
And so if we say
that we value this value
of local and global impact,
it means laying aside
personal preferences
and in fact actually
becoming uncomfortable
for the sake of others
worshipping Jesus.
Secondly, he says
this consumer mindset
has created another phenomenon
which has its roots
in the fuzziness
of modern theology
while playing into the hands
of the consumer Christ followers.
That phenomenon
is the pacification
of the church.
The church,
as an institution
designed to meet
consumer needs,
will not tolerate dissension,
even if that dissension
is to point out
that the church
has lost its way
in relation to mission.
We have lost the idea
of being soldiers
for the cross,
an army marching
for the salvation of people,
and lightboat captains
rescuing the perishing.
Consumer Christians
desire a wonderful place
to worship each Sunday
that meets the needs
of myself and my family
without upsetting
the temporary camelot
that they call
their congregations.
In other words,
what he says is
that what is a core value
in so many churches
in the West
is surface peace.
Don't disrupt the peace.
Keep everything calm.
It's like this great cartoon
I saw many, many years ago.
It's a picture of the,
the cartoon is the Apostle Peter
on Lake Galilee
with the disciples
in the boat.
Jesus is walking
on the water towards them.
Peter got,
he's got one foot
on the side of the boat
and he's about to step out
because Jesus is calling him
to come
and the rest of the disciples
grabbed the boat
and said,
Peter, don't get out,
you'll rock the boat.
And, and,
and that's a value
is what Paul says.
The value is
don't rock the boat.
Peace.
Let's be calm,
comfortable,
coast along.
No one should be encouraging us
to give more
or do more
or anything.
Just,
just calm.
The third reason
for decline,
and these are all connected
in one way or another,
is what he calls
role clarifications.
He says,
pastors are called
to lead sheep
on a mission
to attack the forces
of evil.
God calls upon sheep
to attack roaring lions
and expects them
with his help
to win far more
than they lose.
Caregivers
are those people
God has called
and gifted
to employ mercy,
compassion,
tenderness,
and other attributes
to help those
who are hurting
and desperately
need the help
caregivers can provide.
The Church of Jesus Christ
is declining
in our
and similar nations
because we have
confused the role
of pastor
and caregiver.
Congregations
have allowed
the caregivers
to fulfil the role
of pastor
in most congregations.
We lift up
the stories
of how a faithful
caregiver
has helped
one person
because of
an unending
commitment
of time
and energy
as the epitome
of faithful service
while also
underappreciating
those who have
created effective
systems
to reach
many people
with the same
kind of help
during the same
amount of time.
The constant
message seems
to be that
the smaller
the congregation
the more spiritual
the pastor
must be.
Now there are
many reasons
for decline
in the effectiveness
of the mission
in the church
but he suggests
these are the
three major ones.
Many others
these are the
three major ones.
What is interesting
is that each one
of those things
the role of the pastor
peace in the church
meeting my needs
are all
unwritten
core values.
And so when you
have a stated
core value
coming up against
unwritten
core values
it will impact
the effectiveness
of the stated
core value.
So here's where
it gets a little
bit hard for me
personally.
St Paul's is a
church that has
a good and
honourable history
in its mission
support.
At one point
this church
led the
Sydney Anglican
Diocese in
its mission
in terms of
giving to
global mission.
That was a
while ago now
but it did
at one point.
It's had a
long history
of mission
support.
And yet
for some
reason
and I'll
tell you why
I found
this message
on local
and global
impact
the hardest
one to
prepare.
Not because
of me needing
to convince
that this
ought to be
a core value
but because
it has been
in one way
or another
in our history.
history.
The issue
is not
that we
don't agree
with it.
The issue
is that there
are other
unwritten
core values
such as the
three that I've
just mentioned
from Paul
Borden
that actually
undermine our
effectiveness
in local
mission.
By the time
I arrived
here about
five and a
half years
ago by
and large
St Paul's
agreed that
it needed to
be a church
of gospel
light in
a spiritually
dark world.
That was a
core value.
We are a
light on a
hill if you
like.
My perception
of things
were more
that we
operated like
a lighthouse
rather than
a lantern.
That is
core value
is global
mission was
the highest
value thing.
The people
that we raise
up as being
the height
of spirituality
are those
who leave
our shores
and go
elsewhere.
They're the
most important
Christians.
And so we
operate like a
lighthouse.
We illuminate
off in the
far distances
Europe,
Africa,
Asia.
And like a
lighthouse that's
got a strong
bream out there
in the distance
its own
foundation
is plunged
in darkness.
Its own base
is plunged
in darkness.
And my
perception was
that the
core value
of God's
global agenda
out there
was coming
into conflict
with the
unwritten
core values
of what we
expect the
church to
be like
here.
That is
we want to
support global
mission but
right here
you need to
meet my
needs.
now I
firmly believe
that the
effectiveness of
global mission
is reliant
upon the
health of
mission in
the local
church.
It's reliant
upon the
health of
the local
church.
A church
that is
unhealthy and
slowly dying
ultimately will
not be giving
money to
global mission.
Will not be
prayerfully
supporting global
mission.
That is what I'm
saying is caring
about God
winning people
to himself on
the other
side of the
world but
not actually
caring about
my neighbours
being drawn
into fellowship
in the local
church to
me appears
to be sort
of like lip
service.
And it's a
lip service
that I myself
have paid.
I give money
to mission,
I talk with
our link
missionaries,
I pray for
our link
missionaries
and yet
except for
today,
I don't
know the
names of
my neighbours
in View
Street.
That's
because I
think it's
harder getting
entangled in
the relationships
that are close
than it is in
the relationships
that are distant.
It's much
easier to
deal with
stuff at a
distance than
it is to be
close with
people.
And that
explains something
of the pendulum
swing that I've
been trying to
lead us through
in all its
messiness for
the past
five years.
My focus
has been and
it will
continue to
be to lead
us to be an
effective
life-saving
station in
Chatswood.
And part of
those things are
ensuring things
like we are
constantly thinking
outward and
that our
pastors are
viewed and
operate as
mission leaders
and not as
masseurs,
for instance.
Not that we
do that.
What tends to
happen though
when I believe
that we keep
our eye on
God's global
plan, God's
global agenda,
what he's doing,
when we get
such a vision of
the majesty of
God, what
happens is
mission.
What flows out
of that is
mission.
That is the
way to raise
the profile of
mission in the
local church is
to talk about
God, not to
talk about
mission agencies.
It's to give
people a picture
of the majesty
of God.
And so I
believe that's
what's been
happening bit
by bit, as
imperfect as it
is.
Our giving to
global mission
has increased
from $66,000 in
2008 to over
$100,000 last
year.
We have grown
by 10% a year
consistently for
the last five,
six years,
something like
that.
Now I know
that's not
enough.
I believe that
we ought to be
able to be
doing more.
But my aim is
for us to
continue to
keep going.
Maybe we
should be
shooting for
something like
$115,000 this
year.
Now I'm fully
aware that we've
got a long way
to go, but I
am encouraged.
What I'm
particularly
encouraged by
is things like
the establishment
of the
International
Chinese School.
That's about
mission in our
local area.
That's what that
is.
And this church
has put a
phenomenal amount
of money into
taking a risk to
do something
different for the
glory of God in
this place.
That's astounding
in my mind.
What is really
astounding is other
things like there's a
group of ladies from
St. Paul's from
different congregations
right now attempting
to do mission work
amongst sex workers
in our area.
Friends, I don't know
if you realise this,
but there are people
hurting in Chatswood.
There are women
within hundreds of
metres of this
building who are in
sex slavery right
now.
And there is a group
of women who are
just trying to work
out how do we
minister, how do we
bring the gospel to
bear on those people
in our local area.
I'm excited about
that.
I've heard someone,
one of our younger
people is interested
in working out how
to do some ministry
in the nursing home
just over the road
in View Street,
you know, just down
there.
I'm excited about
grassroots initiative
of people who've
got a vision of
God's global agenda
for people to
joyfully bow at the
feet of the Lord
Jesus and worship
him for all of
eternity.
I'm excited that
people are looking
to do that.
And I want to
encourage you to do
that.
Find something you
want to do and go
and do it that people
might worship Christ.
So next week on
Commitment Sunday,
I'm calling you
to joyfully
sacrifice and
suffer a little
bit more.
To joyfully die
a little bit more.
To joyfully suffer
a little bit more.
To joyfully sacrifice
a little bit more
by taking up your
cross, following
the Lord Jesus
and giving your
life and your
resources and your
time to God's
agenda to be
fulfilled in the
lives of people
that you know and
those that you
don't.
I want to
continue to
encourage us as a
church to joyfully
embrace the
sacrifice that is
needed to see
St. Paul's stay
razor sharp in its
focus on its
purpose as a
life-saving station
in Chatswood.
Amen.
To joyfully
to joyfully