Sermon Poetry, 14 February 2010
Sermon Title – “The Great Commission and the Church”
Sermon Text – Matthew 28:16-20
Preacher – Pastor Steve Garrick

Jesus Christ, Exalted King, has sent His Chosen Bride
He sends as One who rules and reigns, as One Who’s earned the right
Both God and Man, the Lamb Who died, our risen Potentate
Our slaughtered Lord, our sovereign King, our God who loves and saves

Our loving Lamb has bound the one who hates the Holy God
This devil’s bound by Jesus Christ and men are being saved
The Spirit moves and men are saved from every tribe and tongue
The Church is sent and used by Christ to call His chosen loves

Our Savior sends His holy Bride into a darkened world
So men are saved and sanctified, submitting to the Lord
Our goal is to disciples make, baptizing growing souls
So they can be more like our Lord, this work’s our worthy goal

The Great Commission’s still our goal, until our King’s Return
The Word proclaimed is till our task, the Church is going forth
Though single souls, we’re saved in One, the Bride of Jesus Christ
You love the Groom, you’ll love the Bride and work so she is saved

The Church is called to preach the Word to lost and deadened men
The Great Commission is our task, to missionaries send
We meet to pray, we hear the Word, we send to preach the Truth
The Gospel of our Lord and King to send into the World

The first step to knowing God is to know His Word.  He has revealed Himself to us in the written Word.  Without the Bible, we would have very limited knowledge of Him … Some people will go around the world to find God’s will for their lives, but will not go to the next room to read their Bible.

- M. David Sills, “The Missionary Call: Find Your Place in God’s Plan for the World“

Sermon Poetry, 1 November 2009
Sermon Text – Genesis 13
Preacher – Pastor Matthew Brennan

Lord give me wisdom to live for You
So that Your name is praised
Your glory loud proclaimed
Please give me strength to plant the seeds
Of Jesus’ Gospel sweet
So men Your mercy see
So sinners might be saved

Lord give me strength to live for You
I am a sinner small
I live with sinners lost
The sins around oppress my heart
Your name is never praised
Few sinners ’round are saved
Pour out Your lovely grace

Lord give me strength to rest in You
The sin about is dark
From dark and rocky hearts
Lord give me speech to speak Your Truth
Come save the sinners’ hearts
Your grace to men impart
Come raise from death to life

Lord give me strength to trust in You
To save the sinners’ hearts
Christ’s righteousness impute
I cannot save the sinners ’round
I just proclaim Your Truth
So men might worship You
Lord thank You for Your Grace

Lord give me strength to mercy show
To others never judge
To trust Your sovereign love
Please sensitize my sinful heart
To think on Holy things
To ponder Jesus’ Grace
To be like Christ my King

Preacher – Dr. Tom Ascol

The Father is seeking and saving and loving
To save all His children He loves
He sent Christ tas Savior to bleed and to suffer
So sinners like us might be saved

He loves us with fervor, ’tis shown on the Cross
christ died so that sinners might live
He sought us as rebels and loves us as son
The Father His Grace to us gives

We’re called as the Body to go to the World
And tell of the Gospel of Christ
We’re called on a Mission, to tell of the Savior
So sinners like us might be saved

Dear Father, please help us to speak of Your Son
To family and friends all around
To witness of Jesus and of our salvation
So sinners once lost might be found

Oh Father, come finish Your plan of Salvation
Your Spirit come send to convert
So sinners believing might have Christ’s Salvation
Together we worship Your Name

(set to the tune of “Do You Hear the People Sing”, from “Les’ Miserables”)

Have you heard the martyrs sing, singing the praises of the Lord
It is the music of a people who have followed Jesus’ Word
By His blood they have been bought
It is by Jesus they’ve endured
Throughout the peoples of the earth they have praised the Lord!

Have you heard the stories of
The martyrs who have bled for Christ
They have died with Jesus’ love
They witnessed by their sacrifice
Now look at them, ready to pay the penultimate price!

Do you hear the martyrs sing, singing the praises of the Lord
It is the music of a people who now follow Jesus’ Word
By His blood they have been bought
It is by Jesus they endure
Throughout the peoples of the earth they now praise the Lord!

Do you pray for those abroad
Who now today might die for Christ
They will walk that lonely road
Today they’ll give their sacrifice
Be ready to go and to die for the glory of Christ!

Will you hear the martyrs sing, singing the praises of the Lord
It is the music of a people who will follow Jesus’ Word
By His blood they have been bought
It is by Jesus they’ll endure
Throughout the peoples of the earth they will praise the Lord!

Go you Christians, go and sing, singing the praises of the Lord
Go now ye out into the earth and spread the message of the Word
By His blood you have been bought
It’s for His glory you endure
Throughout the peoples of the earth tell of Christ the Lord!

“I think sometimes we get so focused on getting the message out that we forget that the person we’re interacting with is a fellow human being made in the image of God with all the wondrous design and complexity that entails.  We need to treat them with respect as per 1 Peter 3:15 by listening to what they say.   We need to pray that God would aid our ears to help us discern how to apply Gospel first aid.    Jesus did that and with remarkable effectiveness cut to the heart of the problem -  Jesus was talking to a man who had no idea that he was anything else but a human rabbi.  In listening to him, Jesus discerned that the man’s (somewhat fawning) pious talk needed to be dealt with immediately.  Jesus was after the self-righteousness that thinks you can make yourself “good” and acceptable to God.  He is seeking to challenge this man’s whole concept of moral goodness.[Tim Keller's Study Guide on Mark]“
– Christopher Powell

He dwelt in Himself, in Him are no flaws
The One God of All, the Trinity Pure
Three Persons in One, One God who is Sure
This God then chose some, to all be His own
This God who is Just, and dwells on His Throne
He chose them with blood, the blood of His Son
The blood of the Lord has our vict’ry Won
For sin entered in, by God’s wise Decree
And death conquered man, he had not a plea
This sin’s not of God, He authored it not
This sin that brings death, and reeketh of rot
Mysterious thing, God’s glory we see
When sin entered in, by God’s wise decree
Our God is still just, and holy, and true
Our sin must be judged, or hearts made anew
How will it be paid, how will death be beat
How can we come in, to the Mercy Seat?
What’s our sacrifice, where can it be found?
To satisfy wrath, for death now surrounds
Where now is our Hope, where can it be found?
Despair closes in, it soon will surround
Just read in the Word, the Word of our Christ
The Gift of our God, of infinite price
Read Ephesians one, verse four and verse five
He chose us in Him, He chose us in Christ
Verse seven, verse eight; forgiveness is mine
The price has been paid, I’m no longer blind

We’re chosen with blood, the blood of the Lamb
The blood of our Lord, the blood of I AM
He obeyed His God, the Father Above
With Fellowship Sweet, and infinite Love
He died for His own, the chosen elect
He died for their sins, for every speck
He died for His Church, the Saints of the Lamb
The Body of Christ, the Bride of I AM

A virgin conceived, gave birth to a boy
The angels sang out, with marvelous Joy
The Savior had come, born like any man
A small helpless babe, ‘twas God’s Sov’reign Plan
The wise men then came, they knew who He was
The knew Him as King, the Lord of the Stars
The boy had no sin, perfection was His
The Great Sacrifice, the I AM who is
His life Jesus led, our Savior made man
Obeying God’s Will, His Life Jesus ran
And then it was time for Jesus to show
His power to all, so people might know
The Savior had come, sent by God above
The One Sovereign King, the Lord of all Love
He went up to John, the prophet foretold
And was promptly dunked, in water so cold
He started His work, His great Ministry
With wonders and signs, the blind He let see
The sick Jesus healed, the dead Jesus raised
His pupils He taught, His God Jesus Praised
And then it was time for Jesus to die
This Healer of Men, Hosanna they’d cried
But now all their screams were for Jesus’ blood
The once happy crowd was in a foul mood
They nailed hands and feet, they whipped and they scourged
It was Yahweh’s Will, set down in His Word
The blood trickled down, on down to the ground
And as it fell down, He made not a sound
Then after a shout, Christ’s head bowed down low
His body was dead, He gave up His Soul

We’re chosen with blood, the blood of the Lamb
The blood of our Lord, the blood of I AM
He obeyed His God, the Father Above
With Fellowship Sweet, and infinite Love
He died for His own, the chosen elect
He died for their sins, for every speck
He died for His Church, the Saints of the Lamb
The Body of Christ, the Bride of I AM

“The Celtic Way of Evangelism” by George G. Hunter III is an interesting, somewhat informative, trite and simplistic study of early Celtic Christianity and its historical role in missions and evangelism.

The book begins strong with a solid synopsis of Patrick, the “Apostle to the Irish” and does a decent job of telling the high points of Patrick’s life and ministry. Hunter does an equally good job in describing the community and lives of early Celtic Christianity, expressed in their loves for men and in their hospitality towards strangers. Hunter additionally goes to great lengths to articulate the Celtic Christian’s superb ability to relate to the culture around him and to contextualize the Gospel of Jesus to a lost and dying world. He describes the Celts’ love for art, music and story and he speaks of the Celtic Christian’s ability to craft music and narrative in such a way as to present the Gospel message to the barbarians of their day in the British Isles and to the lost on the European Continent in a meaningful and powerful way.

Hunter spends much of the last half of the book postulating how contemporary Christianity can communicate the Gospel message in the Celtic Way. By itself, this is not a bad goal. Hunter rightly notes the emergence of the post-Christian “New Barbarians”, making a semi-direct correlation between the New Barbarians of today and the barbarians of yesteryear. He notes in these New Barbarians the same worshipful regard for nature, the same disbelief in the God of the Bible and the same self-destructive behaviors of the barbarian. This is not necessarily a wrong correlation to make nor is it unwise to not only learn from past mistakes, but to learn from past successes and ask ourselves how we can use those means to communicate the Gospel. The problem in this book is with Hunter’s approaches to evangelism and Gospel Communication. Instead of asking himself first what the Bible says about missions, Hunter considers the task from a uniquely American and Pragmatic standpoint and asks the dangerous question: “What Works?”.

This faulty approach leads Hunter to trivialize the comparison of the Celtic vs. Roman ways of Christianity and because the Celtic Way “worked” in the British Isles, in Hunter’s mind it so dominates Roman means so as to leave Roman methodologies impotent to affect true change (no matter that Roman Christianity ended up winning and “working” in the long run). Hunter does make a valid point in his comparison, namely that it is better to aim for a people’s heart rather than the outward trappings of culture and society. Yet his pragmatic approach to applying the Celtic Way negatively colors his valid points and leaves the reader feeling his postulations are somewhat lacking.

The book is a good read and is, at the beginning especially, fairly thought-provoking. Hunter’s analysis of the Celtic Way is beneficial and it will cause the reader to desire to study the topic further. Still, the lack of thought given to the Biblical Way of evangelism and Gospel communication is disappointing at best and a dangerous precedent for the serious evangelist.

My previous posts in this series are below: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 I finished Part 3 in this series with a basic question: how is this missions model incarnational? To explain, the normal and traditional way of doing missions (at least according to this model) is shown below: Usually, the missionary is trained and mentored in the sending context and sent out into the rest of the world to evangelize, and for the church-planter, to plant churches. But, what if the model took on this shape: Notice in what context the whole model exists. Within this model the missionaries leave their home churches, go to their mission field and serve, are trained, are sent and plant planting churches within the indigenous context.

As many have noted, the number of “unreached” people groups have been dropping precipitously. This is a wonderful development and we should thank God for it. But, we dare not forget the scores of lost men who remain in groups that have been “reached”. We are called by God to make disciples among all the nations and all of the people groups, not just among those who are unreached. A direct (and obvious) corollary of the reality of there being fewer unreached people groups is the reality of there being more reached people groups. Because of this reality, there are more indigenous churches to serve in, to be trained in, and to be sent by to plant more indigenous, Bible believing, Gospel-Saturated planting churches.

Consider what a profound example of incarnational humility this can be. If you are a man called of God to someday pastor, it will be a great statement of trust in Christ and submission to others to, in faith, immerse yourself in another culture and serve in a local church in that culture. You then are trained by “indigenous” pastors and are sent by indigenous churches to plant indigenous churches that themselves plant indigenous churches that plant indigenous (or glory be to God, foreign) churches. You’ll more fully learn how to live with people of another culture. You’ll more fully learn how they think, how they live, how they worship and how they serve. You’ll be trained by men who know their culture, to serve others in that culture. You allow and encourage the indigenous church to take ownership and responsibility to plant indigenous churches that otherwise would have been planted by your home-culture church. Is this not a wonderful example of Christian unity? Is this not a wonderful example of the Biblical diversity that is found in the love of Christ? Is this not a profound declaration of the priority of our Heavenly Citizenship over the citizenship of our native land?

What are the full implication and ramifications of this model? Honestly, I have no way of knowing. I would pray that it would foster a passion for the glory of Christ in our unity as children of the Father. I pray it would encourage humility and discourage the arrogance that is found all too often in the saints. I pray that it would encourage us to preach Christ to all peoples. We must remember that every generation presents us with a new crop of souls to be harvested. May we ever submit to the Will of God and seek his glory, by the Son’s Grace and through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

In review, here is the suggested model for living and serving incarnationally in missionary church planting.

In Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-9, Ephesians 4:1-6) Christians are called to submit to and live in deference one to another. In Hebrews 13:17 Christians are called to submit to their leadership (within Christian mutual submission). Being a churchman can and should be a very humbling experience. As much as the human being desires absolute autonomy, the simple truth is that in Christ we are unified to each other. In Christ we are to submit to one another with humble selflessness, giving deference to each other. If a man cannot do this in a local church, how can he have any reasonable expectation of asking men and women to follow his leadership as an undershepherd? How can a pastor hope to lead like Christ unless he can first be led? There is so much emphasis in evangelicalism on being a good leader that many people forget that in order to be a Christ-like servant-leader you must be a Christ-like servant-follower. Pastors are servants, under-shepherds, slaves and messenger boys, called of God to minister to Christ’s Body.

It is within this context that certain men are called out of the body of believers into roles of leadership. Yet, this does not necessarily happen instantaneously. In the examples of Barnabus and his protégé Paul, and then in Paul and his protégés Timothy and Titus, there is a very strong element of pastoral mentoring that occurs.  In this modern era of Christianity, most of the heart of pastoral training is expected to be completed at a seminary. There is on the job training that happens, as with any job, but usually, to be a pastor means that one must go to seminary, get a degree of some kind, and then wait for one’s resume to be picked up by a church somewhere who will then call the candidate in question and examine him. Where is the ownership in the local church for a man’s training and development in such a system?  Seminaries are not bad institutions. There is a lot of good that come out of seminaries, as well as bad. The problem comes when the local church abdicates her responsibility and ability to train her own pastors, missionaries and missionary church planters by farming out the work to the plethora of available para-church organizations and denominational institutions.

Once the pastors or missionaries or missionary church planters are trained and ready, who sends them? Should the local church rely solely on Missions agencies and church planting networks to send their men and women to the field? I think the example of the Holy Spirit through the Church in Antioch is a hearty no! It was the local church in Antioch that sent Barnabas and Paul. The local church must send out her own! This duty, calling and privilege is not the purview of the missions agency or the denomination. Are missions agencies or denominational missions wings bad? Again, not necessarily. Problems arise when local churches renege on their responsibilities. The church must train her people and she must take ownership of her calling before God to send them out among the nations.

Finally, as men and women are sent around the world to spread the good news of the Gospel, it must be done within the realm of planting churches that plant churches. Thus we see the organic nature of the Church: by God’s Grace, in Christ and through the Spirit’s power, churches reproduce. Interestingly enough, the three previous elements of this model happen at this point. One the one hand serving, teaching/learning and sending comes into play with this fourth element; but at the same time, the planted church is learning how to serve, teach/learn and send. In order for a church to be able to plant churches there should be a corporately similar trajectory of growth for the church as their should have been for the missionary church planter.

There are two additional aspects of this model that should be explained.

First, each subsequent element of the model is within the context of the previous element. Every Christian should be a part of a local church, that’s the large context of the model. Yet not everyone will be mentored to be a pastor/church planter. Even fewer will actually become pastors and even fewer will actually become church planters. Of the church planters and the churches that will be planted, even fewer churches will be planted that actually go out themselves to plant churches.

Secondly, every subsequent element of the model envelopes a larger and larger focus. For the first element, the focus is within the local church. As mentorship progresses to being sent the focus grows, finally culminating with an ever-expanding reality of planted churches planting churches for the purpose of worshiping God and evangelizing and discipling of all the peoples in all the lands throughout all the world.

A potentially obvious question is perhaps apparent. How is this incarnational?  I’ll answer that with the last and final post.

There are scores of ideas in our contemporary milieu of evangelical thought on how to best accomplish our Christ-given Great Commission Responsibility. There are many various and sundry models, concepts and strategies that are used to bring the message of Jesus to a lost and dying world in ways that are missional, confrontational, contextual, relevant and incarnational.

All of these ideas and means can be well and good, so long as they are within the realm of biblical thought, principles and orthodoxy. Is that not the rub? Are we biblical in our methodologies or do we evangelize according to our own abilities and devices? Our evangelical strategies and missiological frameworks must be examined in light of and submitted to the Truth of God’s Written Will and Word. As such, please permit me to submit to you a biblical model of incarnational missionary church planting, based on the example of the early Church as led by the Holy Spirit.

As much as we read and hear about the epistle writer Paul, it is very enlightening to understand how Paul became the Missionary Church Planter we read about in the book of Acts and in his letters. After his Damascus Road Experience, Paul does not automatically seek to become a missionary church planter.  After a time of learning from the Lord in Arabia, he sought to be with the disciples, in Damascus and Jerusalem. He recognized the need for the community and accountability that a group of like-minded believers can provide for each other. Then, when the need arose, Barnabas went to Tarsus (where Paul had been sent by the disciples in Jerusalem, because he had severely angered the Hellenists with his bold and biblical preaching), found Paul, brought him back to Antioch and together they ministered to the saints. The Scripture then says that in those days a prophecy was made concerning a famine in Jerusalem, so that the church in Antioch, taking responsibility to help their brothers in Jerusalem, sends Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem with relief. We’re then told in Acts 13:1-3 that while the disciples in Antioch were worshipping and fasting that the Holy Spirit sets Barnabas and Paul apart for the work that was prepared for them to do. And, in obedience, the local church in Antioch sends Barnabas and Paul on God’s mission.

It is in the middle of Acts 13 that we see a major shift in Paul’s Ministry. He takes the lead. The student had concluded that stage of his education and training and took the leadership responsibility of the missionary team. From that point on in Acts, we see Paul planting churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, and Philippi. It is important to note that Paul planted churches in major cities. It is from these urban centers that the indigenous churches were planted and from the urban areas that these planting churches planted.

In addition to Paul, we see this same example of serving/submitting, teaching/learning, sending and planting in Timothy and Titus. Both were men discipled under the ministry of Paul, both were trained in some measure by Paul and both then had the responsibility of discipling, mentoring and leading other men and churches.

Based off of the examples of Barnabas, Paul, Timothy and Titus, I would submit to you the following model for Biblical Missionary Church Planting:

In the next post in this series, I’ll explain what each element of the model means and why it matters.

There is much talk in evangelical circles on living missionally, incarnationally and with relevance.  There are strategies and ideas, concepts and creative methodologies to achieve such a mission.  Some are accused of going too far in this quest, outside of the realm of orthodoxy; and some are accused of not going far enough, not knowing how to get their tushes out of the church pews.  How does one balance these considerations? Here are some thoughts (and Lord willing born out by biblical examples).

To begin with, I believe very strongly that if a person is to minister to a group of people, that person must know the people. In order to know the people, that person must live with the people. To genuinely live with the people, that person must live like the people. This idea is, I believe, firmly rooted in the incarnation of Christ.

On one hand, no man can live incarnationaly like Christ. He is the God-Man, we’re simply men. He humbled himself as deity to live as a human being. I can never hope to come even remotely close to that kind of sacrifice. But, in Christ, I can at least attempt something that is in a similar vein. When Christ came to earth, he did not commune with angels all the time and then at specific times venture out.  He experienced exhaustion like we do. His body needed replenishment like ours does. He went to the bathroom like we do. He felt emotions like we do. He reasoned with a human brain like we do.  He did not cop out or wimp out. He went through what he had to in order to save a people for his Father. In His incarnation He showed just how thoroughly He loves us. He was not sent by the Father to amuse Himself or to please Himself or to have a vacation. He was sent to be incarnated, to live amongst us, in perfection, to die for us and to be raised from the dead for us. If that kind of a mission propelled Christ, should it not also propel us? Are we not striving in this life to be Christ-like?  If a person is called to go overseas or to another culture, should he/she not give up his/her way of life here in the States to serve amongst a people, living for Christ, and learning the ways of another people in order to minister to and make Christ known to them? Or, if you’re not called to go overseas and you’re called to stay at home in the States, should you not study the ways of your people in order to minister to and make Christ known to them?

To think about it another way, the goal of the missionary church-planter is to plant indigenous churches.  If you’re not leaving your home to go serve the Lord in another culture, are you not serving already in indigenous churches? Another example of living incarnationally is the Apostle Paul.  As he rightly declared in Philippians, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews.  Paul knew the Jewish culture, religion, society and way of life.  He was raised with it and before Christ grabbed a hold of him and saved him he worshiped it.  Likewise, as can be seen in Acts 17, Paul knew something of Athenian culture.  He had read their prophets and studied their objects of worship.  Yet Paul, in being “all things to all men” still preached the same message: Christ and Him crucified.  In preaching a message that was absolutely insulting to Hebrews and Greeks (being a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles), Paul ministered and lived and preached and pastored to both groups of people.  Paul did not sit on his haunches.  He went and he lived.  YET, neither did Paul so relate to the culture around him that he destroyed the message of Christ.  In fact, more often this not, he was so ardent in preaching this message that he was almost killed for it, multiple times, and and in very creative and painful ways.  (see Paul’s litany of his sufferings for the sake of Christ in 2 Corinthians 11:16-33).

What does this incarnational ministry look like though?  I’ll give my thoughts of it in the next part.  :-)

In many ways, the Christian life is full of tension. This is seen most acutely in the internal war between the flesh and the spirit. When presented with sin, sometimes parts of us want to sin and we don’t, but sometimes we do. Most of the time we don’t want to sin, we want to do good, but we still sin anyways ( Romans 7:7-25 ).  We live in this world, but we’re not of this world ( John 15:18-19 ). We fight against multi-cultural pluralism, but we must also ward off arrogant ethno-centrism( 1 John 2:15-17 ). We’re not fatalists, but neither are we emotionalists. God’s in control, but we’re still held responsible for our lives. We must communicate the Gospel well, yet we must never ever lost the message of the Truth of Jesus Christ ( 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ).  We plead with men to turn to Jesus and be saved, yet we know that we ultimately have not the ability to save them; we must leave the saving up to God ( Ephesians 1-2 ).  We love our spouses, but we don’t love them the most. We care for our families, yet we understand that eternity will be spent with a much bigger, global family ( Luke 20:34-36 ).  We love our unbelieving friends, but we know that we can never have real, brotherly communion so long as they are apart from Christ ( 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ).  We strive to be sanctified, but we know we do not ultimately have the power ( John 17:18-23 ).  We preach to the lost and trust God to do His work, but we don’t really know what that might look like; some might believe, but some might also be hardened even further (we thus become God’s tool for a worse condemnation) ( Isaiah 6).  We live on this planet, in nations, societies, clans, cultures and families, yet we know in our heart, in our core, that this world is not our home ( 1 Peter 2:11-12 ).

Why the tension?  Why is the Christian pulled into so many different directions?  Is it a perspective thing?  Some might say that the Christian life could be thought of as an attempt to balance on that wire of tension between any number of extremes. Yet, is this the reality? Is life in Christ about balancing between vastly different (and wrong) ideas, or should it be about standing on the Standard? Is the balance dictated by the extremes, or are the extremes defined by the balance? Is right defined by all the wrong in the world, or is the wrong understood to be wrong by what is right? Is holiness defined by sin or is sin defined by holiness?  Is Truth defined as being non-false, or is False thought of as being  non-True?  Are such distinctions even appropriate?