Relating

Reading comes from Matthew 4, verse 18, until verse 22.

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.

They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.

Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people.

At once they left their nets and followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John.

They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets.

Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Hi, I'm Scott Pilgrim from Baptist Mission Australia and this is our Mending!

series.

Today in this second message in our series, we look at what it means to embrace God's invitation to join him as co-menders in renewing, restoring and reconciling relationships, in modelling the ways of Jesus, in building Kingdom community, and valuing the power of relationships as we join God on mission.

Mending!, joining with God in mending a beautiful, broken world.

One of the joys of my role is that I get to drop in and see creative, passionate followers of Jesus across Australia, across the world joining God with His gracious invitation to mission.

People like Sally, sitting with her on the red dirt in Masangulu, Mozambique, as she shares with friends and neighbours, as she sits with women and opens up the scriptures in ways that make sense to them, as she plays netball, serves food, as she prays, as she laughs, as she weeps, as she does life so authentically with her friends and neighbours.

Or walking with Dema and Carolyn in the outskirts of Chiang Rai, as they walk into a Buddhist funeral ceremony, and where they're at home and respected by their neighbours, and where they bring peace and grace and the presence of Jesus in such a genuine way.

Or recently on the Thai Myanmar border, walking with Tito in one of the largest refugee camps in Thailand.

And here is Tito, a respected Karen leader, who is investing himself in the next generation, in emerging leaders amongst the Karen.

And you see his encouragement and how he cheers on these emerging leaders.

You see again the power of relationship.

Or Pastor Paul in Hobart, a Nepalese pastor, and recently sitting around a table with lots of beautiful Nepalese food.

And there's Pastor Paul and new arrivals from Nepal, uni students and refugees.

And I'm privileged to hear some of their story.

I'm privileged to hear about some of their pain, about some of their challenges, but also their hopes and dreams as we celebrate the power of partnership and collaboration together.

What do we see in all of those stories?

We see people, ordinary followers of Jesus, who model the way of Christ, who understand the power and the potency of kingdom community, of embedding themselves in their local community, of building relationships, of seeking to be Jesus, their hands and feet in coming alongside others in their community.

When we think about God's invitation for us to join him as co-menders, when we celebrate that God is at work around the world today, mending, restoring and renewing, we remind ourselves today of the power of relationships.

We remind ourselves today of a God who invites you and I as ordinary people, as broken people, as the spirits at work in our life.

We remind ourselves today that God invites us to look afresh at the model of Jesus, that we might make ourselves available, that we might step out into our communities, that we might celebrate and cherish the power of building kingdom relationships as we share in God's mission.

In the passage we heard read for us today, that short, simple passage in Matthew, we see Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry.

And what's the first thing we see?

Immediately and intentionally, Jesus invites others into a relationship with him.

Immediately and intentionally, Jesus embeds himself in local community.

He calls others around him, Peter, Andrew, James and John.

He calls them into mission together.

He calls them into relationship with him.

Here is the incarnation in action.

We've seen God break into human history.

Jesus moves into the human neighbourhood.

And now immediately and intentionally, Jesus enters into relationship with others around him.

And we see that model of Jesus, not only the calling of the first disciples, we see it throughout the Gospels.

And what is Jesus calling us to model?

It's relational proximity.

Jesus gets up close and personal.

Jesus comes alongside people with intentionality.

He comes alongside them, knowing their life, their story, and inviting them to journey with him.

We see that in the calling of the disciples.

We see that also as Jesus encounters people living with pain and injustice.

Like the man by the pool in John chapter 5, paralyzed for almost 40 years.

And what do we read?

Jesus saw the man.

Jesus was proximal.

He got up close and personal.

He got his hands dirty in the pain and messiness of everyday life and brokenness.

And he brings healing and transformation.

In Luke chapter 7, a similar story, a woman living with great desperation, who's lost her husband and now her only son.

And again, what do we read?

Jesus saw the woman.

Jesus is moved with compassion.

Her pain becomes personal because he's proximal.

He's up close in the midst of the brokenness of life.

And again, we read of healing and transformation.

Whether it's in the midst of pain and brokenness, whether it's the calling of the first disciples and the shaping of missional community, we see Jesus modeling relational proximity.

He brings the incarnation to life.

And that's at the heart of the Baptist Mission Australia approach.

It's at the heart of what I see across our Baptist movement with so many beautiful, inspiring examples of ordinary people embedded in their local communities with their sleeves rolled up being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Think again about Dema and Carolyn on the outskirts of Chiang Rai.

They embrace this way of Jesus.

They understand the importance of relational proximity.

You walk down the street with them and they drop in on neighbours.

They come alongside people with beautiful unsolicited acts of kindness and care.

They intentionally shop in local markets and eat at local restaurants.

They teach English in the local school and come alongside kids and their families.

They pray with people.

They open up the scriptures in ways that make sense to people in that culture.

They advocate for people.

They laugh.

They weep.

They open up their house.

They bring the incarnation to life because they understand the power and the importance of relational proximity, the way of Jesus.

Baptist pastor and now US Senator Raphael Warnock puts it this way.

You can't serve me if you don't see me.

And you can't love me if you don't know me.

And to see me and to know me, you've got to get up close alongside me.

You've got to be in my world.

That's the model of Jesus.

Whether it's crossing the street in our neighbourhood, or whether it's crossing the world like Dema and Carolyn or Sally, it's about relational proximity.

That could be in your street.

That could be at the Bowls Club.

It could be at a craft group.

It could be at the Men's Shed.

It could be at the University Cafe, at the gym, on the sidelines of the soccer field, at the soup kitchen.

But it's when we intentionally place ourselves, embed ourselves in our community, and we live with that vision and desire to be alongside us that God's Spirit leads us into those significant relationships where we have the opportunity to be the hands, the heart, the feet of Jesus to others.

In the calling of the first disciples, that's what Jesus does.

He invests himself in significant others.

We see it in his proximity to people living with brokenness and pain.

And our invitation?

To take up the words, the challenge of Raphael Warnock, that we might see others around us and serve them, that we might know them and love them, that we might meet them where they are, and like Jesus, break down barriers, build friendships, forge community, and live with authenticity, bringing the hope of Jesus into the lives of people around us.

But Dema and Carolyn don't just live with relational proximity.

They also understand the power of relational partnerships.

They're not lone rangers.

They're part of our Thai Baptist Mission Australia team.

They are part of a local cluster of followers of Jesus in Chiang Rai.

They're part of a broader collective of mission workers across Thailand.

They understand the importance of relational partnership, of collaboration, of working together on mission.

And again, so simply, we see that in the passage before us in Matthew 4 today.

What does Jesus do?

He calls Andrew and Peter, James and John, and again, with immediacy and intentionality, he calls them into missional community.

He calls them into mission together.

He models for us the power of relational partnerships.

I've recently been on the border in the Thai Myanmar area.

It's a challenging place to be.

It's a place of paradox, hopelessness and hope, darkness and light, pain and joy.

And while I was there, I had the opportunity of visiting this most amazing ministry initiative.

It's the TMK Learning Center.

It was established by a man of vision, pastor peacefully and some colleagues of his more than 22 years ago.

It began with 79 students, young people displaced from Myanmar, some with their families, some as orphans.

And they weren't given the opportunity to get an education in local Thai schools.

And so pastor peacefully visioned, create a place of hope, create a place of safety and security where these kids could have the opportunity to get an education.

You know, today there are 2,000 students in that learning center, in that school.

From kindergarten to university degrees, meeting people studying robotics and megatronics, whatever that means.

It's an oasis in the midst of all the challenges that are there on the border with displaced people and the human rights abuses in Myanmar.

It's an oasis of hope.

But at the heart of the TMK story is the power of relational partnerships.

Most of the teachers who teach in the school are former students.

They're investing their lives back into the next generation of displaced Korean youth.

Across the border, many of the teachers who risk their lives in local schools have come out of TMK.

Other teachers have come from around the world, called in to kingdom community, to missional community there on the border.

I traveled to Thailand with a group from a local church in Melbourne who have set up a great ministry called Sharing Hope that Baptist Mission Australia now partner with.

What's the Sharing Hope story?

It began when Korean refugees moved into the local suburb and people in that church had their eyes open.

They were relationally proximal, the way of Jesus.

They saw people, they got to know them, they heard their stories, they began to serve them and share with them, and a vibrant Korean faith community was formed.

But then together, they've now stepped out, serving on the border in Myanmar, bringing hope and justice and peace in supporting a range of wonderful initiatives that Baptist Mission Australia now partner in.

The power of relational proximity, meeting people where they are, coming alongside them, being the hands and feet of Jesus, but then recognizing our need for each other, celebrating the power of relational partnerships, just as Jesus calls his disciples together into missional community.

As we think about relational partnership, the invitation, the challenge for you and I in our neighborhood, in our local church, across the nation, across the world, through Baptist Mission Australia, how might we continue to value collaboration and partnership that we are better together?

And what can we do together in terms of collaboration, missional imagination that will allow us to serve together as the hands and feet of Jesus locally and across the world?

Dema and Carolyn, ordinary people with the mission of God in their hands in Chiang Rai, who have embraced Jesus' way of relational proximity and who understand the power of relational partnerships, of collaborating and working together with others.

And let me conclude today with one final thought, a third dimension that we see in this story.

We might miss it, but if we step back and think about it, it's so important.

Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to come and be fishes of men with him.

He calls them into kingdom community.

He models for them relational proximity.

But there at the heart of that story is Simon Peter.

Simon Peter has no idea what's ahead for him.

He's got no idea, but Jesus does.

Jesus sees Peter as he is, but as he can become, or even better, as he will become, as God's Spirit is at work in his life.

And what do we see from day one in Peter's calling, day one as Jesus invites Peter to come alongside?

We see that Jesus never gives up on Peter.

Jesus holds to that vision of who Peter can become.

And I don't know about you, but I so often can relate to Peter's story.

I can relate to his brokenness.

I can relate to Peter who promises the world and fails to deliver, the high water marks and the low water marks in his life.

When he holds on to his own agenda, rather than see Jesus' agenda, when he gets lost in his own purposes, when he wants to be part of this bigger movement but doesn't fully understand what God is yet calling him to.

But then what happens?

We see Jesus continuing to forgive, to restore, to renew, to reconcile.

We see our mending God who never gives up on Peter, our mending God who never gives up on us.

And Peter becomes a beautiful example of our mending God at work in the life of one individual, just as our mending God is at work across the world today.

And the challenge for me, the challenge for all of us, do we see others in our sphere of influence?

Do we see others in our faith community?

Do we see others in our local community through the eyes of Jesus?

Do we see them as they are, but as they can become?

Do we see people with the generous, accepting, embracing eyes of Jesus?

Or at times, are we judgemental in our attitudes poor?

Are we willing and quick to forgive and hold on to the importance of reconciliation and restoration in relationships?

Do we see people's potential as our mending God does?

Do we see people with the eyes of Jesus?

And where today might God need to challenge me or you?

Where might God's Spirit need to challenge us in our relationships as we seek to live as co-menders, as Kingdom people?

What do we see in this simple passage?

We see Jesus model for us relational proximity.

He gets up close and personal.

He gets his hands dirty.

He enters into the brokenness and messiness of life.

He gets up close and personal and calls others around him into Kingdom community, into significant relationships that are at the heart of being on mission together.

We see relational partnerships.

We see Jesus call not individuals, but he calls a group of people into service together.

And today we recognise and see God at work around the world in such a myriad of ways as we celebrate Kingdom partnerships.

What does that mean for you?

What does that mean for your church community?

What does that mean for us as Australian Baptists on mission together?

And we celebrate relational potential.

A God who never gives up on us.

A God who hasn't given up on me in my brokenness.

A God who is still at work in my life, loving, forgiving, accepting and shaping me by his Spirit into someone who looks and lives and loves and leads more like Jesus.

And our privilege, our challenge, our invitation to step out into our communities, to come alongside others, that we might be Jesus to them.

That we might invest our lives in them.

Just like Sally in Mozambique, just like Dema and Carol in Thailand, Tito in the border of Myanmar and Thailand, Pastor Paul in Hobart.

And as we model the way of Jesus, as we celebrate the power of relationships, God will use us as His hands and feet, as good news people, as shalom seekers, in bringing the hope and love to Jesus to people in our community.

Thank you for your partnership with us.

God bless you.

And let's celebrate the power of relationships together today, as we join our Mending God on His mission in our beautiful and broken world.

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