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The Provocative Church-Creating Desire & Provoking Questions (1 of 6)

By Charlie Vensel | June 14, 2008

NOTE: This Sermon Series is based on Graham Tomlin’s Book, The Provocative Church, and a sermon series done by Rev. John Holland at New Covenant Anglican Church in Oviedo, FL.

A story is told about a man who was on a luxury liner and suddenly he falls overboard. He can’t swim and in desperation he begins calling for help. Now it just so happens that there were several would-be rescuers on deck who witnessed the incident.

The first man was a Moralist. When he saw the man fall overboard he immediately reached into his briefcase and pulled out a book on how to swim. He now tossed it to him and he yelled, “Now brother, you read that and just follow the instructions and you will be alright.”

The man next to him happened to be an Idealist. When he saw the man fall overboard he immediately jumped into the water and began swimming all around the drowning man saying, “Now just watch me swim. Do as I do and you will be alright.”

The person next to him happened to be a member of the Institutional Church. He looked upon the drowning man’s plight with deep concern. He yelled out, “Now, just hold on friend. Help is on the way. We are going to establish a committee and dialogue about your problem. And then, if we have come up with the proper financing, we will resolve your dilemma.”

The next man on deck happened to be a representative of the school of Positive Thinking. He yelled out to the drowning man, “Friend, this situation is not nearly as bad as you think. Think dry!”

The next man on board happened to be a Revivalist. By this time the drowning man was going down for the third time and desperately began waving his arm. Seeing that, the revivalist yelled out, “Yes brother, I see that hand, is there another? Is there another?”

And finally, the last man on deck was a Realist. He immediately plunged into the water, at the risk of his own life, and pulled the victim to safety.

My friends, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We need realists in the church willing plunge into the water and go to work.

Often when Christians think of evangelism, we feel guilty, which makes a great deal of sense. When we know we ought to do something, but we lack the courage, the ability or the time to do it, it is a recipe for guilt. So it is with evangelism. As Graham Tomlin writes, “Evangelism is sometimes portrayed as the kind of thing that only those with a couple of theology degrees, an extrovert character and the emotional constitution of a rhinoceros would try.”

I understand. I’ve been accosted by all kinds of people about making sure I became a Christian, “Brother, are you saved? What would happen if you died tomorrow? Will the flames of hell be smacking at your backside?”

I remember a time back in high school when a good friend of mine had returned from a youth retreat. I was not at all a Christian at the time. He came straight up to me on the steps of the school that morning and said, “Charlie, you need some churching up! You need to quit drinking! Drinking is a sin and it will send you straight to hell. You need to clean up your act!”

My response was, “Hey, Brad, isn’t the body the temple of the Holy Spirit?” He said, “Yes. How did you know that?” I said, “I don’t know, but if it is, the Holy Spirit will enjoy the buzz along with me.” That shut him right up. And, after becoming a Christian, when sharing my own faith following Brad’s model, I have heard far worse in response. I’m guessing you have too. And, if that is evangelism, then it is no wonder so many of us feel inadequate!

Yet here we are beginning a six week series on being a provocative church, an evangelistic church, which also makes a great deal of sense. We are a young church, in the Anglican Mission in the Americas, and we are on mission to reach the lost of Littleton. Our growth should come primarily from conversions and returning prodigals, and not from church hoppers, or even ex-Episcopalians, though we certainly welcome them.

So here we are. My prayer for the next six weeks is not that you’ll all feel guilty for lacking a seminary degree and inadequate for being something other than an extroverted rhinoceros. Rather, my prayer and hope is that the next six weeks will empower us, and I mean us as a community, to refocus on our calling to be a mission-minded, evangelistic community, a church who belongs to the Anglican Mission; “mission” is, after all, our middle name. I hope we will understand and engage in how we as individuals and as a church call people to come into the rule of God, under the loving and joyous lordship of Jesus. If we will engage, if we act, then we will reach Littleton.

Will you make this journey with me for the next six weeks? And at the end of six weeks, the invitation will be to all that God has planned for us and beyond it.

Let us pray…

Anglican bishop Nigel MacCulloch says, “the issue that churches must face up to … is not so much that people do not believe in God, but that they do not find the churches credible.”

I found this to be true while an undergraduate student in the Philosophy Department at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. I studied with mostly non-Christian students and professors who had no interest faith and in many instances animosity to the church. Some had a positive view of Jesus or at least his moral teachings, but certainly no submission to his lordship. And they had felt far worse about the church and Christian people. The few students I knew well enough to talk about faith, told me stories of abuse by parents or other Christian leaders during their growing up years.

For most, their bad experiences were epitomized by the man I will call the Bell Tower Preacher. Wearing a three-piece suit, he stood by the bell tower, the free-speech zone, in the center of campus and screamed hellfire and brimstone sermons at the students passing by and sitting to mock him. And he mocked gays, feminists, democrats, sluts, drunks and all the other sinners who were going straight to hell. But, it wasn’t jus the Bell Tower preacher, but everything he represented. These same sentiments were on the radio, the news, the Internet, and the newspaper, especially in the Bible Belt. This is all most of them knew of the church as the fanatics have always done a better job of getting their message out there than the rest of us. If this symbolized Christian faith, then my philosophy friends didn’t want Jesus or the church.

Like my friends, I had seen the church fail. But unlike my classmates, I had experienced a very different side of the church. Shortly after my conversion in 1998, and at the time I was returning to college to finish my undergraduate degree, I was mentored by a group of Christians who loved me, invited me into their lives and homes, were honest about their growth and failures as Christians, who modeled the Faith for me, who taught me to laugh and love, who forgave my sins and immaturity, and who invested financially in my education and ministry.

What was the difference between my fellow students and me? I had experienced the love of God’s people and it deepened the desire for God. People rarely need St. Thomas Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God, what they need is to see the life of Jesus incarnate in a community of people. The unreached must have friends who are redeemed by Christ demonstrate a better way to be human, a better way to live.

Let us learn from this. When we desire and obey the Lord, we create longing and provoke questions among the unreached. They begin to glorify God and to inquire about our hope and faith. Evangelism works best when we create desire and incite questions, then answer them. The point of our call to be a mission-minded community is for us to be arresting and provocative, a provocative church. Let’s take a closer look at these two tasks of a provocative church - creating desire and provoking questions.

Let’s begin with creating desire. The writer of Psalm 84 began with these words, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Psalms 84:1-2 NIV) Then in verse 10, he confessed, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” (Psalms 84:10 NIV)

The deepest desire of the psalmist is to have a home in the Lord’s presence. He longs more passionately than anything else to live before Yahweh. And his desires were fulfilled. The happy person is supposedly the one who gets what she wants. The truly happy person is the one who desires what actually satisfies, who wants what truly fulfills. The psalmist said the truly happy people are:

The ones who live in God’s presence and praise him (v. 4);
The ones who live in God’s strength on their pilgrimage (v. 5); and
The ones who trust in the Lord (v. 12).
Happiness is infectious. Fulfilled desires are contagious. When our hearts are satisfied in the Lord, then others will be attracted by our happiness.

The seventeenth century philosopher, mathematician, physicist and Christian apologist, Blaise Pascal, said of Christian faith, “Make it attractive, make good men wish it were true and then show that it is.” Pascal understood that we believe what we want to believe. Therefore, the first task of evangelism is not convincing someone to believe but in living Christ before them so that the Spirit incites them to want to believe. We find God, most often, not at the end of an argument, but at the bottom of our hearts. This means the first step of evangelism is a life consumed with the desire for God!

So are you consumed with God? Can you say with honesty the opening verses of Psalm 84? Do you long to be in God’s presence and to worship the beauty of his holiness? And our desire for God is not only for Sunday morning worship or for singing along to a good CD on the car ride or during a set prayer time. The psalm calls us to live continually in his presence. To practice his presence while changing a diaper and washing dishes. When shoveling the driveway or scrubbing the shower. To remember him when we have a difficult conversation with a co-worker. To see the cross with our heart’s eye in the moment of temptation. To play games with minutes, as Frank Laubach called it. Having a childlike joy in seeing how many times in an hour we can recall his presence with us and we can express our awe and love. This is the first step toward all of the Christian life, evangelism included.

…and not only a private life consumed with God, but also a public life consumed with God.

In what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that Israel was the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Israel gave the world its flavor and preserved it from ruin. She was the spice of creation. Israel was called to shine Yahweh’s light into a world darkened by sin’s power. She was the brightly burning candle in the wee hours of the morning while the storms of evil raged outside.

How was Israel the salt of the earth? How did her light shine for the nations? “…let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 NIV) In other words, Israel was to let her light shine by her good works. Israel led others to worship the one true God of heaven and earth by her good works, by living holy lives for others to see.

Moses said the same thing 1,400 year earlier in Deuteronomy. If Israel would carefully obey the Lord’s commands, then the nations would envy Israel for its wisdom and understanding. Israel was meant to incite a kind of holy jealousy; not a green eyed monster, but a blue eyed longing. God would be honored among the nations when Israel was obedient, when Israel trusted the greatness of the Lord and the goodness of his law.

And because of the faithfulness of Jesus to the cross, what was true of Israel is true for every person who has faith in Israel’s Messiah. We Christians are the salt of the earth. We give creation its flavor and preserve it. Christians are the light of the world, chasing darkness away by keeping our candles burning uncovered. When we obey the law of Christ and walk with the Spirit, when we follow Jesus’ way of being human, our good works cause some of those around us to glorify God. They find worship rising up in their hearts because of the holiness of our lives. Our holiness causes desire for God to well up in their hearts like a cool underground spring in the heat of a muggy summer.

Peter makes the same point about holiness of life in his first epistle. In chapter 3 verse 15, he told his readers to, “set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts.” (1Peter 3:15 NIV) Christians are to consecrate Jesus as King in the very deepest part of who they are. From the center and core of who we are, Jesus reigns as Lord. And when he is enthroned, we live his life. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we carry on his ministry and mission. That happens for each of us as individuals and as a community.

But what does it look like? What kind of qualities are produced by setting apart Jesus as Lord in our hearts? Listen again to what Peter said a few verses earlier, “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1Peter 3:8-9 NIV) And in 2:12, Peter wrote, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1Peter 2:12 NIV)

What does it look like when we consecrate Jesus as King in our hearts? We are a holy people, a publicly holy people. Our unity, sympathy, love, tenderness, humility, and blessings are on display. Not because we are showing off or treating holiness as an evangelistic gimmick, but because this is how Jesus lived whoever he was with.

People wanted to be with Jesus. True holiness is beautiful. As Christ makes us more forgiving, others will be drawn to a people who know how to cancel debts in a world of long ledger sheets. As the Spirit builds unity among us, the unreached will be drawn to a community that loves instead of divides. As we show compassion not only on each other but on sinners and dignify them with our help, the lost will be drawn to a people who have found a way neither to ignore nor patronize the needy, but to liberate them.

Add illustration about Oviedo Supercuts…

When our marriages and parenting are marked by tenderness, those around us will be amazed that there are soft rather than sarcastic places to land. And when we bless those who mistreat us, when we pour out abundant kindness, lavish goodness on those who don’t deserve it, then those around us in Littleton will wonder. This is holiness. Not a set of stuffy rules that chain you to drudgery, but a way of life that makes you more humane and more god-like at the same time.

“For it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1Peter 1:16 NIV) Jesus lived a life obedient to the Lord. His way of being human is the way we were intended to be and live. There is no more attractive way. There is no better way than his. And the interesting thing about his life is that it provoked questions. People wondered about him and came to meet him, to hear him, and either to embrace or reject him.

So it is with us. When we live under his lordship, we provoke questions among the unreached. As St. Augustine taught, the distant memory of human glory in the garden is not wiped out entirely by original sin. When people see in us how life can be, then they are drawn to it. They are curious.

This is exactly the point Peter made in chapter 3. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience…” (1Peter 3:15-16 NIV) When Jesus is king of our lives, we will be asked questions. And we must be ready to give gentle and respectful answers for our hope.

In the 1st century, pagans feared death and what they called the oblivion beyond it. But Christians were different. They had hope beyond the grave. They lived with hope. Peter knew that a life marked by hope would provoke questions. And we have answers. Christ died for our sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, by being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. What is the answer? Jesus has washed away my sins, and his resurrection is my hope for life after death.

When a coworker hears you defend the reputation of a boss who passed you over for a promotion, there is an answer to give about honoring those in authority but even more because we honor the One who is ultimately in authority. When a friend observes how you’ve grieved the death of a family member, there is an answer to give about the promise of new creation won by Jesus’ resurrection. When a neighbor notices that you drive an older car, there is an answer to give about attachment, as well as the Lord’s provision. When they ask why we do that or what makes us like this, we have Christ-centered answers.

You see, brothers and sisters, the answers we give are not seminary papers, apologetic discourses or even necessarily gospel presentations. Our answers are the simple explanations of why we follow Jesus. And when they ask questions we don’t know the answer to, we’re not afraid to say so and we point them to a Christian friend or the pastor. But each and everyone of us can share the reasons of the mind, and more importantly, the reasons of the heart for our trust in Jesus.

There is a powerful scene in the film version of The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom. The ten Booms hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. When discovered, the family is sent to a concentration camp where Corrie and her sister Betsy witness to Jesus among the women. One night as Betsy is reading from the New Testament, an understandably bitter woman erupts with anger at the notion of God’s love. Teeming with rage, she asks, “How can a loving God allow the evils of this place?” Betsy confesses that she does not know, but what she does know is the love of God in Jesus the Savior. She knows the cross.

Christ is Lord, and when he is Lord in our lives, people ask us. On any given day in Littleton, we will most likely not be met with anything so dramatic as the ten Booms, but the point remains the same. All that is required of us is to be a faithful, public follower of the king and an honest friend of the unreached. The Lord will handle the rest.

You know, being here just a few short months, I have come to recognize something about this community. It is a faithful and generous bunch. It is, by and large, a mature bunch. It is a group that has walked through difficult times, who rallied to meet the call of God to remain together and reach Littleton. It is an obedient bunch.

It is a group who set out to hire a full-time pastor. You searched high and low, and for a long time. You called me to be that person. Yesterday, I was ordained a priest in your midst and I would not have wanted to be ordained anywhere else. It is a tremendous sense of completion, both in my journey, and in this church’s journey. There is a real sense in which we all feel we have arrived at a major milestone in our lives together, and indeed we have.

But, there is something I must address in light of this sermon. Many, feeling we have arrived, have thought that the hard work is over. Many have felt that now that a pastor is here, everything will fall into place. In places, there is an unspoken thought, “Now that he is here, we can relax. He will fill the church with new people. He will grow this church. He will reach the lost.” They belive I will be knocking on doors, bringing the bag-boy to church from the grocery store, and the dry-cleaning lady in tow. Some, I fear, see me as the savior of the church.

Some have already asked, “Where are all the new people?” To them, I respond, “the same places they always have been. They are still across the street from you and living next door to you. Others are a few feet away from your desk at work. Some are under your same roof.” In other words, one person cannot grow a church. One person cannot reach all the lost of Littleton.

So I ask, “Who are your unreached friends? Who are you in relationship with who is not a believer?” Until you and I orient our lives to befriend the lost, we may not properly expect to grow as a church, in spite of programs, sermon series, and Christian education.

Do you know, that if we each, as an individual or a family unit, befriended one lost or prodigal person in 2008, committed to spend time with them as friends, brought them to church, even if it is just a social occasion at first, they would experience the warmth and hospitality that are most assuredly the gifts of this church? If each of us just brought one person, and were involved enough in their lives, to have them want to return and continue to ponder the things of God, we will have doulbed in size by this time next year. In fact, we might even triple, because no one witnesses as well as one who has just come to faith; new believers beget new belivers. “Let your light so shine!”

Though I have been speaking about our individual lives thus far, and as important as our individual lives of holiness are, there is far greater power when a community reaches the lost. Folks, hospitality and prayer are the distinguishing marks of ACTS; those are our spritual gifts. We should play to our strengths.

Imagine what would happen if we turned the power of prayer we harness here to those in our circles of influence that we want to see come to Christ. Then imagine what would happen when they experience relevant conversation, real friendship and relational community. It is why we will be starting small groups very soon; places where we can bring people to experience the warmth and fellowship this church has to offer. We are going to call them “Community Groups” to help us remember their underlying purpose.

These are the kinds of thing I can do as a pastor, as one person: teach skills, provide foundations, set vision, and provide structure. However, this working out of such a project is not something I can do alone. I’m convinced the best way to reach people for Christ, is to follow that old Cursillo motto, “Make a friend. Be a friend. Lead a friend to Christ.” If you believe that, and if you believe that telling people that they are going to hell and that they need churching up is the wrong approach, I need your help. I need some volunteer leaders to help get the community groups up and going in early 2008. If you are interested, please contact me next week.

Community group leader or not, Littleton needs what the world needs - Christians who embrace the life of God’s kingdom under Jesus’ lordship, Christians who demonstrate a better way to be human, people who are kind, humble, forgiven, hospitable, humorous, creative, honest, and generous. Littleton needs people who are like Jesus, a people consumed with a desire for God and the life of the Messiah, in their homes and among the lost.

May God make us such people and such a community, because in the end, he must. The first step to evangelism is not learning a track, nor some clever speech; it is getting our lives in order individually and as a community. It is being faithful. It is living in the presence of the Lord. If we do that well, the rest should require little real effort.

As the 20th century Anglican missionary to India, Lesslie Newbigin, wrote, “It is impossible to stress too strongly that the beginning of mission in not an action of ours, but the presence of a new reality, the presence of the Spirit of God in power.” May we individually and corporately demonstrate that presence. And to that we say, Come Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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