Untitled Sermon (7)

A heaviness in my heart. I don’t generally talk about matter within the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday mornings. I don’t like to get bogged down with some of that stuff.

But this one is important. I will try to do this as quickly as possible…but I believe it has some bearing on our text this morning in Luke 10. And another reason why I believe it’s necessary to say this is because we at Calvary want make sure that we are standing with Jesus among the vulnerable, the hurting, etc. We want to be everything that He calls us to be.

So if we have Baptist in our church name…and the Southern Baptist Convention does something which causes some sort of contradiction there…I think we need to explain.

But first…a bit of explanation as to how we are structured as a Baptist church. We have what is called local church autonomy. That means simply that nobody can tell us what to do…nobody from outside of Calvary can dictate what we MUST do. Now the SBC could say....”we don’t consider you to be in faithful partnership with us...” but they are not allowed to say, “Fire your pastor, hire this pastor, do this program, teach this doctrine, ordain this deacon, call this Sunday school teacher, etc.” It doesn’t work that way.

What the SBC is, fundamentally, is a missions sending strategy. 44,000 churches pooling their resources together to accomplish the mission of Jesus. We pool our money together to provide training, to provide missionaries, to provide seminaries, to do things like Disaster Relief. We believe we can do more together.

Now the SBC itself…in some ways…actually only exists 2 days out of the year when we gather for our annual meeting every June. On all those other days the will of the messengers/churches is carried out by what is called the Executive Committee. They are to do what the churches/messengers of the SBC have called them to do.

Okay so now…the issue that has me with a heavy heart. We have within the SBC quite an issue with sexual abuse among our churches, we have issues of abuse of power, we have lots of unhealthy things....yes, at the same time that we have good things—like sending missionaries, seeing people saved, disaster relief, WMU, Guidestone…but there is some not so good things.

There are some concerns that the Executive Committee…the ones who are in charge of determining how money is spent, how we fulfill our missions throughout the year, etc....some concerns that there has been mishandling of sexual abuse issues. So in June the messengers voted almost unanimously to approve this:

I move that the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting June 15-16, 2021, in Nashville, TN, ask the newly elected president of the SBC to appoint a task force within 30 days of the date of this Convention that shall be comprised of members of Baptist churches cooperating with this Convention and experts in sexual abuse and the handling of sexual abuse-related dynamics. This task force shall either assume oversight of the third-party review announced previously by the Executive Committee or initiate a separate third-party review. Said task force shall ensure that the third-party review includes an investigation into any allegations of abuse, mishandling of abuse, mistreatment of victims, a pattern of intimidation of victims or advocates, and resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives. The investigation shall include actions and decisions of staff and members of the Executive Committee from January 1, 2000 to June 14, 2021. This investigation should include an audit of the procedures and actions taken by the Credentials Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was formed at the Convention meeting in Birmingham, AL, June 11-12, 2019. The review shall be funded by allocations from the Cooperative Program.

We further move that the task force agree to the accepted best-standards and practices as recommended by the commissioned third-party, including but not limited to the Executive Committee staff and members waiving attorney client privilege in order to ensure full access to information and accuracy in the review. A written report on the factual findings of this review shall be presented to the task force 30 days prior to the SBC Annual meeting in 2022, and made public in full form within one week of the Task Force’s receipt of the report along with suggestions from the task force for actions to be taken by our convention.

Appoint a task force. That has been done.

Cooperate with the task force. Let the task force and the third party drive the investigation. Not so much.

This past week the EC voted to NOT do these things…or rather to punt the ball down the street just a ways…(might have some resolution this week).

But two things this has done…and some of the things said at that meeting caused my stomach to turn.

It fundamentally changes who we are. If they can say, “No we don’t want to do/we cannot do what the messengers said we should do...” Then that changes who we are. It changes our structure. This is concerning.

It communicates horrible things to sexual abuse survivors. We care about $$$ and keeping power. We don’t want to shine the light. Regardless of the truth of that…this is what was communicated. And so I’m grieved by this. And deeply concerned.

And as I’m studying in Luke 10 this week…Matthew 23:15 hits me like a ton of bricks.

Matthew 23:15 ESV

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

If we aren’t people of integrity…people who are motivated by true Jesus following and living in the light…then missions is just a smoke screen.

And what I hear sometimes in these types of discussion is that, “oh, these sex abuse things..this #metoo movement, all that stuff is just Satan trying to distract us from our mission of winning the world for Christ.”

To which I say....phooey. Being people of integrity IS your mission. Fixing brokenness IS our mission. We cannot run over people with our bus in the name of Jesus and think we’re somehow serving the kingdom. No…this IS our mission. If we don’t fix this then we don’t have any right to have an International Mission Board. We don’t have any right to “travel across sea and land to make a single convert” if we’re not people of integrity.

So I enter this text with a bit of trepidation because I think it’s often been a nice bait-and-switch that leaders can pull… “Hey ignore this over here....let’s get focused on the mission.”

So I say all of this to say…we aren’t that. We won’t be that here at Calvary. We will be people of integrity who do missions for the sake of Jesus and not for the sake of distraction, sake of making ourselves feel better about who we are, or for the sake of trying to pretend we’re healthy when we aren’t. We will pursue health and be healthy and from this health we will engage in mission.

Now let’s get to work.

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This marks a new phase in the gospel of Luke. There is much material in the next few chapters that are going to be unique to Luke. This is one of those places. This is the only place where we see Jesus sending out the 72…or maybe the 70. It’s an extension of his mission…and we learn much about what we are called to do.

But how do we apply a passage like this? Do we follow it exactly? Or are some of these directives given to only these disciples. In other words…if you go on a mission trip should you be sure not to pack sandals? Or is there a general principle here which governs us…it’s the general principle

So in this passage I see a 8 principles for mission. Don’t worry they will be quick.

Pray for faithful workers

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. There is so much gospel work that could be done.

My excitement with Wednesday evenings.

What can happen with even more workers. Visioning counseling. Visioning outreach. But who is going to do that? It can’t be the same few people...

What happens when you pray…often the Lord will say, “why don’t you go...”

2. It’s his harvest

God is sovereign. He knows what he is doing.

God’s sovereignty is actually helpful for missions. He can change any heart. This is what helps us because there are those who WILL respond.

Join him in his work.

3. Expect opposition

Why would a shepherd send out lambs in the midst of wolves? This isn’t like saying I’m sending a chiuahua after a doberman. It’s saying I’m sending out a completely helpless animal against one that wants to eat it.

Why would you send us out like this? It’s because this is the way of the Cross. I want to show you something from Romans 8:31-39 .

I’ve preached through Romans 8:31-39📷 quite a few times in my ministry. And I’ll be honest and say that I’ve always kind of skimmed over verse 36. It’s seemed a bit awkward to me. Why in the world does Paul throw that verse in there?

It comes from Psalm 44. It’s a bit of a downer Psalm.

It recounts the history of God in dealing with his people. Those in whom the Lord delights he rescues. That’s His record. Until it isn’t. And that’s what has the Psalmist struggling.

They have lost in battle. They are suffering. They are being taunted. They are even being slaughtered. I think they could stomach that if they were being ungodly or idiotic. But they aren’t. They are being faithful to the covenant, and what’s really unsettling. Bad things are happening to good people.

So Psalm 44 is really a lament that is asking God why in the world he is doing the things that he’s doing. It’s a people saying that God isn’t making a lick of sense but they know He’s their only rescue and so their going to hang on—but they are deeply discouraged and filled with questions. We don’t sing like this in our congregations.

And that’s a shame because according to Romans 8 this is still our song. Psalm 44 is still going to happen to you as a Christian. That means you are going to at times feel like God has “sold his people for a trifle”. We’re still going to be a laughing stock to the nations. The sword will still turn on us and we are still going to be afflicted and oppressed when we’ve done nothing wrong and it’ll feel like God is just hiding his face from us. And that’s going to hurt.

“Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!”

That prayer has been answered through God sending His Son as our Rescuer and Redeemer. That’s an already thing. But the use of Psalm 44 in Romans 8 also paints a “not-yet” over that triumph. Psalm 44 is going to happen to you but it isn’t going to separate you from the love of Christ. Why? Because in Christ our slaughter isn’t the end of the story. Because His slaughter wasn’t the end of the story.

So rather than Paul just pulling Psalm 44 out to connect it to the Old Testament, I think it’s actually pretty central to his thought in Romans 8. Creation is groaning. We are suffering. Yet the Lion of the tribe of Judah who himself is a slaughtered Lamb reigns victorious. And because we are united to him, we too shall overcome.

This tells us then…that our mission is one of self-sacrifice. We might be slaughtered for THEM.

4. We embark in mission with calculated deficits

That language isn’t original with me. One commentator used that phrase and I appreciated it so I made it my own.

No excess. This isn’t about power…it’s not about taking your power, acquiring power, etc. If anything its about giving it away.

It’s reliance on him.

What is the implication of this for present day mission? Is it wrong to plan? I don’t think so. Is it wrong to be prepared? Probably not. Is it wrong to wait until you have every t crossed and every i dotted? Probably. Of course we use our head…but there is a certain going out with a deficit that we must do…reliance upon Jesus.

5. The home is the focus even more than the marketplace

Relationships over programs.

Getting to know people. Prayer groups. Adopting an area. Focusing there. Getting invited into homes. Finding people of peace.

6. Labor to heal those around you (v9)

Our job is to fix brokenness. The place where God calls us to minister. Leave it better than when you got there.

Benefit those around you rather than take from those around you.

7. The kingdom of God HAS come

How many decisions did you have?

It’s the same way. We aren’t responsible for their responses…we are responsible for faithfulness. Look at this response.

Newton modeled this well.

8. Judgment will come upon rejecting Jesus

non-responsive Jewish village is in essence a heathen village.

This tells us the importance of Jesus.

What are you going to do with Jesus?

What are you going to do about the mission of Jesus?

How can I pray? Join in praying?

How can I go? Join in going?