Missional Perspective Part 3: Church In Hard Places

Introduction

Mission Impossible is a series of American action spy films based on the television series of the same name created by Bruce Geller. The movies begin in 1996 and follow the IMFs central field team's missions under the leadership of Mr. Hunt, who is forced to take over after the unit is betrayed from within during the first film[1].

One of the most memorable parts of these movies is how the lead character receives his next mission. It is usually in some mysterious way, and the recorded message starts with the phrase "your mission should you choose to accept it[2]…" and then goes into a brief and concise explanation of what Mr. Hunt is asked to accomplish[3]."

Just like Mr. Hunt in the Mission Impossible movies, I can hear the words, "your mission should you choose to accept it[4]…" is to remain faithful, be the church, and be the people God is calling us to be.

Two weeks ago, we began a new series called Missional Perspective. This series is birth out of the fact that we, as believers in Christ, are being called and commissioned to do unprecedented ministry amid chaotic and unprecedented circumstances, for we are simultaneously facing three pandemics. There is a healthcare pandemic, an economic pandemic, and a racial pandemic going on right now.

In the first sermon, we faced the reality of our current condition and how God has made the intentional decision to send us out on mission as a means of addressing the pain, heartache, and devastation that surrounds us on each side.

In the following sermon, we looked at our identity as sheep in the Lord's flock concerning the environment we are being sent to. We were able to celebrate that we are in this together because Jesus the Good Shepherd has not sent us alone. But we are in this together!

Therefore over the last two weeks at both the individual and corporate levels, as a church, we have acknowledged and learned that we must wrestle with the implications of our context, that we may understand who we need to be and how we respond to this moment. As we move into our third and final installment in this series, I want to go back to a quote from Tod Bolsinger, the author of the book Canoeing the Mountains, that we are using to frame our conversation.

"The mission or "sentness" of a congregation is its true and authentic organizing principle: Missional church is a community of God's people that defines itself and organizes its life around its real purpose of being an agent of God's mission to the world[5]."

(Go with me to the Gospel of Matthew 10:16.)

Matthew 10:16 (NRSV) 16 "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

(As we continue in our series Missional Perspective, I would like to use as my subject the thought: The Church In Hard Places.)

I. Missional Warfare: Right beneath the surface, there is the reality of spiritual warfare.

As we attempt to pull this all together, we need to back for a moment before we go forward. Remember, during the first sermon in this series; we talked about the church is not a cruise ship but is a battleship where believers return for refueling and repair. To be dispatched again in the world on a mission for Jesus Christ.

Therefore, every Sunday and Wednesday service is supposed to function as a roll call for believers who are on the front line in Jesus' work to destroy the enemy's works. When we show up to the church, we are reporting for duty. We are receiving the healing and instructions that we need to grow personally in our relationship with God. Then we are dispatched back into the city carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ to the space we have been assigned.

What I was alluding to then and will draw our attention to now is that there is an aspect of spiritual warfare that we must consider.

Furthermore, Jesus can't make significant headway in taking back the property of this kingdom unless one first tie up the strongman who oversees the whole operation. This is what Jesus came to do. His whole ministry was about over-powering the fully armed strong man who guarded his property, namely God's people and ultimately the entire earth[6].

In this, we can see that every teaching, miracle, exorcism, and even sending us out as sheep amid wolves is fundamentally about destroying the works of the devil. We can also look at the violent and cruel death that Jesus experienced on Calvary as another clear indication that there is a backdrop of spiritual warfare waging beneath the surface and behind the gospels' scenes in general, our mission in particular.

But we remember that our warfare weapons are not carnal but mighty through God to the tearing down of strongholds. The warfare Jesus must conduct is not conducted with material weapons. Nonetheless, it is warfare. Herein is why Jesus said, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."

Jesus makes this statement following the news that John the Baptist has been arrested and imprisoned. Once the ministry of Jesus succeeded that of John the Baptist, the kingdom of God/kingdom of heaven was nonetheless advancing forcefully in its way.[7]

All of this shows that even with Jesus personally sending us, and even with the Good Shepherd by our side, but for us to partner with Jesus advancing the kingdom of God will require a particular skill set from us. At this point, many people can sense the mission and feel the pull of the mission but don’t know where to start. This raises a great question that we will attempt to answer as we bring this series to a close: How do we move forward from here?

(Let's look at the instructions provided by Jesus.)

II. Missional Wisdom: “so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Right away, we need to pick up on the balanced nature of Jesus' instructions. We need to be shrewd and innocent or, as some translation says to be wise and harmless.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said in his sermon A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart stated that "life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony."[8] A creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony is what we see in these words of Jesus. This creative synthesis of opposites empowers believers in Christ to live from a Missional Perspective.

In this text, there is a radical balance that Jesus is calling us to achieve. To be wise, without being harmless, will cause a person to believe that the ends justify the means, while being harmless without being wise is dangerous and will expose a person to unnecessary harm. But as we will see, even more than that, this balance is speaking to how Jesus wants to guide and equip both our internal and existential human experience.

Let's follow the order of the text and deal with the phrase wise as serpents. While time won't allow me to address this in great detail, I must give some words to our perspective of serpents in the Bible. Let it suffice to say that it is not inherently evil when the serpent is mentioned in scripture.

Old Testament scholar John Waldon in his book The Lost World of Adam and Eve. States that from an ancient near eastern perspective, the serpent would not have been identified with Satan. It would have been looked at as a chaos creature. "In the ancient world, the chaos creatures are not thought of as evil. They are amoral but can be mischievous or destructive[9]."

Also, think about when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and they were instructed to make a bronze snake and hold it up on a pole. Then those that vipers bit could look at the bronze serpent and live. In this context, the bronze serpent is a type of Christ who would draw all people to himself when lifted up. Let's move on.

As disciples of Christ, we are in a hard place. Even though we are in this together like sheep in the fold of Jesus Christ, and we have the Good Shepherd. Even still, being on a mission for Jesus is not a walk in the park. We are moving about as sheep among wolves means that we have an arduous task before us. Yet our Lord does not leave us without guidance in the form of the simple principle.[10] "So be wise as serpents."

Furthermore, Jesus doesn't tell us to be like serpents but tells us to be wise as serpents, for they do have wisdom that we can learn. This type of wisdom can is defined as astuteness or craftiness in dealings with others, especially in using one's understanding and judgment to one's advantage.

We can summarize this type of wisdom and cautious thoughtfulness. We can see examples of what this looks like in the wise builder who dug deep and built his house on the rock. Another example of this looks like how Daniel avoided eating the royal food in Babylon.

This is a character trait that scripture commends when seen in wise words and actions directed towards a worthy goal but condemns it when it takes the form of cunning and deceitful scheming for sinful and selfish ends.

As we move a little deeper into the metaphorical theology of Jesus, I have to wonder where we can find the wisdom of the snake? The snake's wisdom can be seen in how snakes tend to stay out of the way unless it is for some purposeful action.

Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, says to stay out of the way means live in such a way that you are not looking for controversy. To stay out of the way means that we aren't casting our pearls before swine and have a good sense of timing when sharing the gospel or biblical principles. Another aspect of this that we hold on to our principles very firmly and will stand up for Jesus when the time is fit, but do not exercise zeal without knowledge[11]

To push this a litter further, I can really notice the snake's wisdom is in the shedding of their skin. Snakes shed their skin to allow for further growth and to remove parasites that may have become attached to their old skin.

As a snake grows, its skin becomes stretched. Unlike human skin, a snake's skin doesn't grow as the animal grows; therefore, eventually, the snake's skin reaches a point where further growth is impossible without the snake shedding its skin[12], which means that the snake grows from the inside out! Literally, the snake grows out of its skin!

We need to be wise enough to understand we also spiritually grow from the inside out. We have to be wise enough to accept that our flesh will hinder our growth if we don't continuously shed our fleshly behaviors and thoughts. We have to be wise enough to understand that our flesh contains parasites that seek to destroy us that we must get rid of by dying daily to our flesh. We must grow out of our flesh!

Moving forward in our mission requires us to understand that growing out of our flesh means we must stretch ourselves more and more each day. We must forget what is behind us and stretch towards the high calling in Christ Jesus.

· Our faith must be stretched;

· Our gifts must be stretched,

· Our generosity must be stretched,

· Our compassion must be stretched,

· Our creativity must be stretched,

· Our capacity to love must be stretched.

(Let move to the second instruction.)

III. Missional Innocents: "innocent as doves."

The "innocent as doves" instruction counters the "wise as serpents" in that "the wisdom of the serpent would save them from unnecessary exposure to danger, but the innocents of doves would keep them from sinful methods to escape it[13].

Innocents is a highly valued quality to be eagerly sought after. In the OT, it stresses that the innocent deserve justice rather than evil. In the NT, believers are encouraged to attain innocence. The word translated innocent means to have pure motives. The word translated innocent means unmixed or unadulterated. In many ways, wisdom speaks to how we navigate our external circumstances, while innocence speaks to our inner life. In other words, wisdom is how we navigate being in the world, while innocence is how we maintain not being of the world. Her is where we find the fruitful synthesis of opposites because:

James 3:17 (NRSV)

17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

In this, we see that stretching alone is not enough. We must also operate out of pure motives.

Let us look at how this relates to the innocence of Doves. Doves are gentle and loyal birds. The morning dove, also known as the turtle dove, tend to mate with the same bird for life. Doves demonstrate teamwork in their relationships. Look at how doves care for their young. For the first four days of their chicks' lives, both the male and female doves work together to feed their babies.

When the fruit of the spirit is operating in our lives, we will find pure motives. Pure motives can produce loyalty in our relationships because we understand that our relationships are part of something bigger than our selfish wants and desires.

Pure motives flow out of our ability not to let the negativity going on around us, to get inside of us. Pure motives help us live in a community with others because we can put the community's needs above our own. Pure motives are seen when we help people not out of an arrogant desire to feel needed but out of our love for the person. Pure motives are seen when we share the gospel, not from the point of judgment. But from an understanding that if it weren't for the grace of God, I would be in the same situation.

Herein is the answer to our relevant question about how do we move forward. We need to move forward as The Church in Hard Places. When we synthesize our learning's about the serpent's wisdom and the dove's innocence, it enables us to approach our mission with a cautious thoughtfulness that springs out of pure motives instead of an opportunistic perspective driven by pride and selfishness. This is how we can be The Church In Hard Places!

· We are called and commissioned to be The Church in Hard Places.

· We are empowered to be The Church in Hard Places.

· We have been given power and authority to be The Church in Hard Places.

· We destroy the works of the devil when we are The Church in Hard Places.

· We advance the reign of God's Kingdom when we are The Church in Hard Places.

· The blind has their sight restored when we are The Church in Hard Places.

· Miracles signs and wonders will follow us when we are The Church in Hard Places.

· The captives are set free when we are The Church in Hard Places.

A missional perspective understands that the need for unprecedented ministry within our unprecedented context calls for us to be The Church in Hard Places. Our mission, should we chose to accept it, is to be The Church in Hard Places.

[1] Wikipidia, Mission: Impossible (film series), retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:_Impossible_(film_series) on May 24, 2020.

[2] Quotes: the worlds largest resource for quotes and sayings, Mission Impossible II 2000. Retrieved from https://www.quotes.net/mquote/62927 on May 24, 2020.

[3] Quotes: the worlds largest resource for quotes and sayings, Mission Impossible II 2000. Retrieved from https://www.quotes.net/mquote/62927 on May 24, 2020.

[4] Quotes: the worlds largest resource for quotes and sayings, Mission Impossible II 2000. Retrieved from https://www.quotes.net/mquote/62927 on May 24, 2020

[5] Bolsinger, Tod E. Canoeing the mountains: Christian leadership in uncharted territory. InverVarsity Press Downers, Grove, IL pg. 30.

[6] Boyd, Gregory. God At War: the Bible spiritual conflict. Intervarsity Press Downers Grove, IL. pg. 181-182.

[7] Niehaus, J. J. (2017). Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament) (Vol. 3, p. 24). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[8] King, Jr, Martin Luther. Strength to Love. Fortress Press, Philadelphia, PA pg.13.

[9] Walton, John. The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the human origins debate. Intervarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL pg.131.

[10] Spurgeon, C. H. (1877). Sheep among Wolves. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 23, p. 477). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

[11] Spurgeon, C. H. (1877). Sheep among Wolves. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 23, p. 478). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

[12] Wonderopolis: Why do snakes shed their skin. National Center for Families Learning©2014-2020. Retreived from https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-snakes-shed-their-skin on June 19, 2020.

[13] Butler, J. G. (2008). Analytical Bible Expositor: Matthew (p. 181). Clinton, IA: LBC Publications.