In this sermon, based on 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 and Mark 1:14–20, our pastor, Rev. Ian Forest-Jones, reminds us that to be a vibrant and valid Christian church we need to have a clear and accessible pathway for helping everyone within our spheres of influence to move from knowing little or nothing about our Creator to then maturing in faith and lifestyle. We need discipleship for everyone!
This sermon was delivered on Sunday, 21 January 2024.
Introduction
While most people go on a vacation to rest and relax, I toss and turn, I can’t sleep at night. This happened over my recently holiday because my mind and spirit was striving to integrate some ideas that have long left me perplexed.
Thankfully, I came to some insights at 4 o’clock in the morning that I want to share with you.
Genesis 3 vs. 1-2 vs. 12
One insight I had was that the majority of evangelical Protestant Christians start their faith in Genesis 3. They focus on the Fall, on the sinfulness of humankind, and our need for repentance.
This has never sat well with me. I then came to the conclusion a better starting place was Genesis 1-2, focussing on the abundance and beauty of Creation. All God has created is good and, after the Fall, we would do well to be reconciled to him, accept his generous and gracious gift of forgiveness which brings about our re-creation in advance of the renewal of God’s creation.
Tossing and turning, I came to realise I do not really find my theological starting point either in Genesis 1-2 nor in Genesis 3, even though both of those passages are very important indeed. When I consider what I know about God and the human condition, in actual fact, I am more fundamentally inclined toward Genesis 12.
The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. (Genesis 12:1–4)[1]
Genesis 12 describes the first historical account of an encounter with our creator, the Lord God, otherwise known as Yahweh. From the record, we know Abram, who would later be renamed Abraham, was already a religious person, in the household of his father. He was a worshipper of pagan idols (Josh 24:2). Yet the Lord appeared to him, gave him instructions, and made him a promise. Abraham believed and obeyed and was ultimately called a friend of God (Jam 2:23; Ac 7:2-4).
This encounter sounds very much like Jesus giving the Great Commission to the Apostles (Mt 28:16-20) and the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:1ff). Indeed, our gospel reading, from The Gospel of Mark, describes Simon, Andrew, James, and John’s first encounter with Jesus, in which he gave them instructions and made a promise to them; so, they became his disciples.
To be a Genesis 12 Christian and church is to recognise the singular importance of conversion and discipleship. On this, Emeritus Professor Michael Knight AM has written,
“[The story of] Abraham begins [sic] a new spiritual dimension of humanity. This was completed some 2,000 years ago, when God revealed himself through Jesus Christ being born into our world fully human and fully God.”[2]
Abraham had an encounter with the Almighty God and the Apostles had an encounter with the risen Christ, Jesus. That is either historical fact or it is fiction. If it happened, then we can trust everything else that God has revealed and that is recorded in the Bible. If it did not happen, then the Bible’s message is no better than any other religion, being a good idea one can take or leave.
In fact, Christianity is the only world religion that relies on historical accountability and reliable testimony. It is not merely interesting speculation about the nature of the world and morality.
Beginning with Abraham, the Bible contains the testimony of a wide variety of encounters with the Living God by a wide variety of people. The Bible then challenges us to take seriously its claim that “this world in its current form is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31b). The only ‘protection’ is to become a disciple of Jesus.
I am committing us to returning to our first principles and to focus on discipleship. To be a vibrant and valid Christian church we need to have a clear and accessible pathway for helping everyone within our spheres of influence to move from knowing little or nothing about our Creator to then maturing in faith and lifestyle.
We need discipleship for everyone!
What Is Discipleship?
I have long been convinced that choosing to become a disciple of Jesus was the most important decision I ever made. It is the most important decision anyone can make. The problem is how to convince you of this.
On too many occasions I have tried to convince someone to place their faith in Jesus, only to have them tell me their life is good, so why would they need to follow Jesus? That is a fair question and challenge.
I dare say part of the problem is Genesis 3 Christians tend to describe the problem of sin, and our need of salvation, in biblical language, using ‘Christianese’ —which might as well be a foreign language because no one outside of the Church understands why they have a problem, so how can Jesus be the solution?
Which is why I have since chosen to use the term, “a friend of Jesus”, rather than “disciple” or “discipleship”. There is biblical precedent for using this term; it is the highest compliment found in the Bible after all.[3]
I have also chosen to describe the benefits of being reconciled to our Creator because that we can live a free, full, and forever life was promised by Jesus to his friends is far more compelling than telling someone he or she is a sinner and then asking if they know where they will end up when they die.
The friends of Jesus know there is a problem we all suffer —that we are estranged from our Creator— but how do we describe that problem in a way others will understand? This question has plagued me for many years.
After losing much sleep over my recent vacation, I came up with an easy-to-understand definition of discipleship I am going to use as the foundation for our discipleship pathway: The friends of Jesus place our faith in him, live a Christian lifestyle, and build each other up to maturity.
What Is Faith?
If our church is going to be a faithful Genesis 12 church, strategically focussing on conversion and discipleship, then we need to fully understand the first steps of this pathway. Let me unpack it for you this way: The friends of Jesus place our faith in him because, through an encounter with the living God, we have discovered God‘s story makes sense of our story. This occurs when we read the Bible, pray, and share.
Someone is now thinking to themselves, “The term ‘faith’ sounds a lot like Christianese…” That’s a fair statement, but it is not accurate. While people in our day like to pretend we live by reason and not by faith, in this we deceive ourselves. A simple demonstration will make this point.
Reach into your wallet and take out your Driver’s Licence or any other piece of official identification. Your official identification documents your date of birth, your place of birth, who are your parents, maybe even who are your brothers and sisters (in the case of Medicare cards). This information was provided to the government by your parents or others completing a statutory declaration that this information is true. You accept this information as true. You are certain of these details of your identity but why? You were not really aware of anything at the time, so cannot even confirm you were present, for all you know. You accept on the basis of your parent’s reliable testimony that these fundamental details about yourself are true. Relying on testimony, then, is a reasonable and respectable way of having knowledge.
We can draw a parallel from this to what we read in the New Testament of the Bible. The gospels are accounts from people who claim to either have been eyewitnesses or who have take their accounts from people who were directly involved with Jesus. We are justified in accepting their testimony as reliable because the tools of the science of history demonstrate this information is even more reliable than anything else we know about history. Eyewitnesses stated in their writings they had seen Jesus and the gospels record how it happened, and this is perfectly respectable knowledge of the same quality as many other things we know with certainty, although relying on testimony for that certainty.
At one level, then, to place one’s faith in Jesus is to accept what is written about him is true and that he is who he said he is. Accepting this, we then take his claims and his instructions seriously.
The next logical question then becomes, “So why have the friends of Jesus accepted this as true?”
Experience Is Better Than Reason
While the testimonies about Jesus are reasonable and reliable, we all want more. The friends of Jesus place our faith in him because we encounter the living God. Our own experience is more convincing than what we can reason with our intellect or what someone can convince us of, after all.
A supernatural, ‘blinding flash of light’ type encounter does and has happened to some people (Ac 26:12–18), but what can everyone else expect from or how can we know we have encountered the Living God? That is a fair and reasonable question, which is a little hard to explain because having an encounter with the Living God is an experience hard to describe.
I recently listened to the testimony of Dr. Guillaume Bignon, a French philosopher and theologian, whose story of conversion to Christianity was featured on episode #120 of the Undeceptions podcast (I hope some of you listened to that episode, as I recommended).[4] In explaining his experience he referred to his conscience being reactivated…
I was expecting some sort of an open heaven with a voice coming down and a welcome sun. The way I explain it is that God did something that was much less theatrical, but much more brutal in the end.
It is that he reactivated my conscience. And at the same time I had been investigating Christianity and had been reflecting upon those experiences I had also come to commit some really immoral actions that basically involved cheating on that girlfriend with various aggravating circumstances. It was so, so ugly that I had completely suppressed it and I kind of turned around and lived as if it never happened and shoved it in. And what happened is that God took this and he shoved it in my face and my conscience was reactivated.
I was just confronted with the fact that I had done those things. And this is all I could think about it. I was crippled with guilt, like literally crippling guilt. I was in pain and deep pain of having done this.
Let’s be honest: this does not sound like a pleasant experience; however, through the pain, Guillaume discovered freedom and joy and love. He eventually took the claims and instructions of Christ so seriously that he did not kiss his wife until they committed to each other at the altar of their marriage! Not until he was told, “You may now kiss your bride”.
Guillaume’s description of having his conscience reactivated fits with C.S. Lewis’ description of how our conscience is an indicator of our relationship, or not, with the Holy Spirit. On this he wrote:
These, then, are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Lewis had an incredible ability to clearly articulate key issues and then explain them in a very straightforward, easy to understand way. And what he did, in his BBC lectures and book Mere Christianity, was simple. He explained how: (1) we all have a real sense of right and wrong that we appeal to, but then make excuses for when we don’t keep it ourselves; (2) this “Moral Law” can’t just be another one of our instincts; and, (3) it can’t be just a product of education particular to any given society.
Lewis believed, as do I, that our conscience is that part of ourselves that is either in tune with the Holy Spirit or out of tune. The Spirit either provides energy for love and joy and peace, etc, or we reject the Spirit in favour of finding light, life, and love somewhere else … but we ultimately find only darkness and death and disconnection.
The great reformer and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, described an encounter with the Living God he had, which became a pivotal moment in his life that is now considered the start of the Methodist movement. In his journal, dated 24 May 1738, after a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, Wesley wrote:
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
If your conscience reverberates with an energy or instinct that seems to come from beyond you, that is because light, life, and love have now reactivated your conscience and you have encountered the Living God, my friend.
Bible | Pray | Share
You are, hopefully, now chomping at the bit, wondering, “How can I have this experience?” While it is not something you can control —for God will meet you in the time and place and method only he knows is right for you— there are some basic things you can and should do to get started. I will expand on these in more detail in future sermons, but for now there are 3 things you can do to prepare yourself for an encounter with the Living God: 1) read the Bible; 2) Pray; and, 3) Share.
The friends of Jesus know and understand that God has revealed himself in and through the words and stories and teachings of the Bible. So read it. Plain and simple.
If you are not yet reading the Bible and don’t know where to start, can I encourage you to start with the Revised Common Lectionary. This is a series of weekly and daily readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the New Testament letters, and the Gospels. The readings assigned to each day are not onerous to complete, taking no more than 5 minutes.
From now on, our Sunday sermons will be based on the readings assigned to Sundays. The daily readings support the Sunday readings, so you will get more out of our preaching by following along the lectionary. We will include each week’s readings in the weekly bulletin.
The friends of Jesus know and understand that God is a real being, a ‘person’ of a quality different from humankind, but still someone you can relate to and interact with. Relationships are built on communication. Where God speaks with us through the words of the Bible, prayer is how we communicate with God.
When Guillaume began to pray he described his experience this way,
There’s one experiment I can run as a scientist: I could pray and see what happens. If there’s a God, it might be interested, might be listening. So I started to pray as an unbeliever, as a hostile unbeliever. Let me disprove this and say, “Well, okay, God, if you are there —I don’t think there is anybody— but if there’s a God out there, why don’t you go ahead and reveal yourself to me?” And reading the New Testament, starting with some of the gospels, reading about this person, Jesus, tasted very differently.
Guillaume’s hostile prayer affected his Bible reading, leading to an experience with the Living God, that he is now sharing with you and I.
If you are not yet praying regularly and don’t know where to start, start with praying The Lord’s Prayer. Clearly, Jesus knows what is best for us and this is the prayer he gave to his disciples, so there is a good chance that it is a good prayer for the friends of Jesus too. The Lord’s Prayer provides a model for prayer that we will explore more in the future, but begin by praying it’s words so that you will learn its structure.
Finally, the friends of Jesus know and understand how important it is to share our faith. By this I do not mean evangelism per se —that comes later in our faith journey. I mean sharing our life together, our joys and our sorrows, our questions and our wisdom.
Last night, my family and I enjoyed the company of some friends. We talked about our favourite holiday spots, our favourite coffee machines, on whether we like smart homes or not, our favourite card games, our joys and struggles with our work, on the painting and music of Reg Mombasa, our favourite whiskies, among other favourite things. And we shared the joys and struggles of our faith. It was so natural because we were being real and genuine with each other.
Your family and friends, and even new acquaintances you meet on public transport, are happy to share with their joys and our sorrows, their questions and their wisdom, and happy to hear yours. Share your life and faith as if it is the most natural thing in the world because it is.
Let me give you another example closer to home: Our Church Administrator, Kym, posted the key verse of this sermon as the header image of our weekly bulletin. Our Prayer Coordinator, Pam, based her weekly encouragement on Kym’s sermon from last week, on the topic of being an influencer. These both were simple and natural ways to incorporate their faith into our community.
We do not have to convert the people around us to share our joys and our sorrows, our questions and our wisdom, but doing so just might encourage them to consider placing their own faith in Jesus, even as sharing in such a way will bolster yours.
God’s Story Makes Sense of Our Story
Reading the Bible, praying, and sharing are the most basic ways the friends of Jesus prepare themselves to encounter the Living God. Through these simple actions, we discover that God’s story makes sense of our story.
Like all men and women, boys and girls, we strive each day to find meaning and purpose, to find light and life and love. Sadly, our fallen world leads us into darkness, death, and disconnect or we walk into that ourselves as we try to find our way on our own.
What God reveals to us through our reading the Bible, praying, and sharing puts all the darkness, death, and disconnection into perspective. It explains what is going on and how to avoid it, how to find the free, full, and forever life Jesus promised to his friends. C.S. Lewis described his own faith this way,
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. (C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?”)
If you yearn, as I do, for light, life, and love, then let me encourage you to become a friend of Jesus. Place your faith in him because this world in its current form is passing away. Through an encounter with the living God, you too will discover God‘s story makes sense of your story. This occurs when we read the Bible, pray, and share. Respond to the call of Jesus and become his disciple, his friend.
Here at Narellan Community Congregational Church, we will focus our creative energy on helping us all to place our faith in him, live a Christian lifestyle, and build each other up to maturity (where sometimes we succeed, but mostly we learn).
[1]Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are taken from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN, USA: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017).
[2]Michel Knight, “How We Became Human from the Beginning”, ISCAST, 18-Jul-2011, https://replug.link/4988b650 (accessed 18-Jan-2024).
[3]See James 2:23; Exodus 33:11; Job 29:4-5; John 11:5; 15:4–5.
[4]Guillaume Bignon and John Dickson, “French Atheism”, Undeceptions podcast, episode 120, https://replug.link/d4b2eb70 (accessed 20-Jan-2024).
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