Restoring

Reading comes from Luke 4, verse 14 until verse 21.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

He was teaching in the synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom.

He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.

He began by saying to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Hi, I'm Scott Pilgrim, the Executive Director of Baptist Mission Australia.

Thanks for joining us in our Mending!

series.

Today we come to our third message in the series, and we remind ourselves that despite the brokenness we see in our worlds, in our own lives, in our local communities, across the world, we remind ourselves of a God who is daily at work restoring people and planet, restoring his creation, and we remind ourselves of God's gracious invitation to join him as co-menders in his restorative vision across the world.

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

My wife and kids love home renovation, home restoration programs.

If I'm honest, I don't, probably it's because I haven't got a handyman bone in my body.

I'm hopeless when it comes to renovations or restoration.

Now, I pick up a hammer in my house, and I'm told, put that down, dad, that's dangerous.

But my wife and kids love them.

And there are so many different shows they can watch across, you know, free to air and subscription television.

In fact, this has become one of the biggest genres, the biggest kind of areas of viewing across the world.

Hundreds of different programs in different countries and different languages across the world, focusing on people knocking down walls and backyard blitzes and putting in new kitchens and bathrooms and flipping homes and selling them.

It's a huge television industry.

And beyond, I guess, the joy of watching a program or getting great home improvement ideas.

I wondered at a deeper level what that says.

COVID forced us to look inward in our own homes, our own patches because of lockdowns.

And many people turned to restoration and renovation projects and got a bunnings boomed.

But I wondered at a deeper level, that interest in home renovation, restoration programs.

I wondered at a deeper level, does that speak to that innate desire, that innate yearning within us?

For restoration, for change in our lives, our communities, our worlds.

And we see brokenness all around us, don't we?

In my own life, in our local communities.

We see the Middle East and the Ukraine, poverty, food insecurity in Africa.

Our heart can break for things around our worlds.

And God has innately wired us with that yearning for change.

And how might we join him as co-menders in his restorative vision for people and planet?

You see, I can look through a lens of brokenness every day.

I can turn on the television news.

I can pick up my iPad and read the newspaper.

And I'll always see brokenness.

And I can become almost overwhelmed by that.

But from Genesis to Revelation, as we open up the scriptures, as followers of Jesus, we're encouraged to actually see the world through a restorative lens, a restoring lens.

Yes, brokenness all around us, but to remind ourselves, to align ourselves afresh with a God who every day is at work restoring our broken world.

A God who every day is pursuing Shalom.

A God who every day is pursuing the vision of Revelation 3 when we see a world where there will be no more pain, or suffering, or disease, or racism, or domestic violence, or climate crisis, or brokenness.

That is the confidence, that is the trust we place in our God who beckons us to join him as co-menders in his restorative vision for the world.

And what a beautiful, gracious invitation.

The mission of God in the hands of ordinary people is God invites you and I to cross the street in our neighbourhoods, in our city, across our nation, across the world, as Baptist Mission Australia team members do and our ministry partners in joining God in his restorative vision for our world.

Yes, there might be a lot of interest in home restoration programs, but our God is in the restoration business.

And as much satisfaction as you might get from a bathroom transformation, I don't know about you, but I can think of nothing more noble, purposeful, joyful or life-giving than recognising that I can roll up my sleeves and I can join God in my neighbourhood, across the street, across the world, being a person who pursues shalom, hope, justice, who joins in God's restorative vision for his world.

When we think of Jesus, we see him bring this restorative vision to life.

As God breaks into the human neighbourhood, as Jesus comes to us, God in the flesh, we see Jesus bring this restorative vision to life in a myriad of ways.

Jesus described what he's come to do.

He described God's vision in this way in the book of Luke.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.

In that powerful, beautiful reading we've just heard, in those challenging words of Jesus, we see Jesus bring to life his commitment to proclamation and demonstration.

That Jesus has come to bring the good news by word and deed.

And we remind ourselves today that those two things are inseparable, word and deed, proclamation and demonstration.

They're at the heart of our Baptist mission approach.

They're what we see being fleshed out in Baptist Church communities across Australia.

Leon Padilla described them as the two wings of an aeroplane.

You need both.

The proclamation of the good news, word, and the demonstration of the good news, deed.

The Micah Declaration captures them together and reminds us that they're inseparable and that we're called to integral mission together as we follow Jesus into our neighborhoods and roll up our sleeves as we open the scriptures and share the good news by word, as we tell our stories and our testimonies of hope and transformation, as we bring acts of kindness and service and deed in bringing the hope of Jesus across our worlds.

When I think of how Jesus brings those words to life, I think about Jesus' heart.

I think about how Jesus' heart was broken when he saw the messiness and the pain, the brokenness of life.

We see that in Luke chapter 7 as Jesus comes alongside the woman who's lost her husband and now lost her only son.

A picture of desperation, devastation.

And what do we read?

Jesus' gut, his heart is moved.

Jesus' heart is broken for the woman.

When Lazarus dies, his friend, and Jesus comes into that story and that encounter.

What do we see?

We see Jesus weep.

We see his tears.

We see his humanity.

We see Jesus' heart break.

When Jesus comes and looks over Jerusalem and sees the brokenness of the city.

When he sees religious hypocrisy and corruption.

When he sees what the city could be, but what it is, his heart is broken.

We see Jesus' heart breaks for brokenness.

But then what happens with that?

We see, of course, Jesus' heart captivated by wanting to pursue God's restorative vision.

We see Jesus' heart captivated by wanting to wholeheartedly fulfill God's calling, the Father's calling on his life.

That he has come to be a commender, that he has come to be a restorer, that he has come to bring to life God's restorative vision.

And what do we see?

We see him preaching the good news.

We see him bringing healing, exercising demons, addressing evil, encountering injustice, bringing hope, bringing life and transformation.

Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus bringing the Father's restorative vision to life.

A heart that is captivated, that is wholehearted, that will go to Gethsemane, that will go to Calvary, where Jesus will lay down his life and his absolute commitment in loving you and I, in providing you and I the opportunity to know the Father, in wholeheartedly fulfilling God's restorative vision, Jesus will lay down his life.

A broken heart, a captivated heart, and a collaborative heart.

From the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, and we've repeated this in this series intentionally a number of times, we've reminded ourselves that Jesus calls us into missional community.

He calls us into kingdom community.

He calls us to join in God's restorative vision together as faith communities, as people on mission together, never on our own, never as lone rangers.

But we are a faith community who steps out into ministry together.

A broken heart, a captivated heart, a collaborative heart.

I see that come to life in Masangulu in Mozambique with Kath and Kam, who had the privilege of kind of walking alongside their life and their ministry there last year.

Kath and Kam, who'd be the first to say they're ordinary people, but with the mission of God in their hands, with their family for more than a decade who've lived in that remote part of Mozambique, who come alongside Yao people more than a decade ago, people they don't know, who now they're friends and neighbours with, people who are loved and who are very much a part of their world and their life.

They come alongside those people and a burden grows for people who don't know the good news in ways that make sense, for people living with poverty, for people with so many different needs who experience the brokenness of life.

And Kath and Cam, as they come alongside, as they live as good neighbours, as they get to know people, as they bring the model of Jesus to life, their heart breaks for the needs of local people.

But as their heart breaks, of course, their hearts are captivated.

Their hearts are captivated to bring the good news in ways that make sense in that community, to meet needs in the name of Jesus.

And what do we see happen?

We see people who can't read and write Yao, suddenly learning the local language and how to read and write.

And suddenly there's dignity and there's hope and there's a sense of opportunity.

We see people with music skills and the Yao love music.

And we see Cam come alongside some local people and a recording studio set up and local Yao music being recorded and being played on the local radio and an mp3 player is a sense of life in that community opportunity.

We see Kath come to the local hospital where the facilities are terrible and so substandard and broken.

I couldn't believe it was a hospital when I visited with her.

And yet patiently, graciously, and hopefully she comes alongside the team there.

And we see services improved.

We see toilets built.

We see new facilities open.

We see restoration.

And today in that village across the road from where Kam and Kath live, a village they first walked into more than a decade ago, today we see God's restorative vision coming to life in the most beautiful way.

As local leaders came alongside Kam and Kath and with the impacts of deforestation and climate change, the local leaders in that Muslim community said, you know, we want to plant trees, but not just hundreds of trees.

We want to plant a green canopy.

We want to plant thousands of trees that will leave a generational legacy for our community.

And so suddenly, what do we see happen?

We see the local Yao community joining with local government providing trees.

We see Australian Baptists backing in that partnership.

We see the need for fresh water and Kam with his skills and his capacity, able with local people to tap water from a mountain and bring the water down under a road into that village where fresh water flows for the first time.

A beautiful kind of metaphor of living water coming into that community.

And we're seeing this vision for reforestation.

We're seeing trees planted and water flowing.

We're seeing the beautiful picture of a restoring God come to life.

We're seeing what it means to join God as co-menders.

But it began with a broken heart, but then a captivated heart.

It began with a heart captivated of what could they do?

Of what could they do in joining God as co-menders in their local community?

And the story is only possible because of collaborative hearts.

The desire that they come alongside others, that they come alongside and listen to the needs of local people, that they don't impose their agenda, but they listen to what local people need and want.

And they say with what we have in our hands and our heart, how can we help local people?

We see local government get involved.

We see the local community fostered and harnessed.

We see the Australian Baptist community given the opportunity to provide funds to pray and be generous.

We see this beautiful collaboration, all being lived out in a remote community in Masangulu, Mozambique, a community that God has not forgotten, a community that is not insignificant to our mending God.

And we see God's restorative vision at play.

It's a wonderful story.

It's modeling the heart of Jesus.

Our God is a restoring God.

Our God invites you and I to cross the street, to join him in our neighbourhoods just as Cam and Kath are joining God in Mozambique.

And it begins when we allow our own heart to be broken.

We've reminded ourselves in this series that the Holy Spirit wants to be at work in our lives, that God is already at work in our communities.

And joining our restorative God begins with my heart breaking, with my heart being broken.

As I look at needs around me, where is God leading me?

What people has God already placed in my life?

What needs do I see around me?

Where do I see the brokenness and messiness of life?

Where do I join God in my local community?

Where is God breaking my heart?

My wife has a particular burden for refugees and asylum seekers.

And as she comes alongside local people with stories of great tragedy and pain, as she comes alongside local women in particular in our community who have lived as refugees or asylum seekers, as she hears their stories, she comes alongside them, as she hears their pain, their hopes and aspirations, her heart breaks, there's a God planted burden.

But then what does she do about that?

Her heart is captivated with imagination and action.

That might mean some asylum seekers coming to temporarily live with us.

It might mean a call out on Facebook to her friends to gather food and blankets and appliances to help people move into new housing.

It might mean advocacy in writing letters and helping people with appeals to government.

It might mean phone calls to politicians in government services.

A broken heart, a captivated heart, but then a collaborative heart that she never does that on her own.

That our family were part of that journey, our kids, our friends, others in refugee groups that she's a part of.

It's again modeling the heart of Jesus.

A broken heart, a captivated heart, a collaborative heart.

Today we want to remind ourselves of the privilege that is yours and mine to join God as co-menders in our broken, messy world.

I'm sitting here in a local church building in a local faith community that's out there serving Jesus seven days a week and we celebrate what they're doing because God doesn't want us to sit comfortable in these four walls.

He wants us to move out into the messiness and brokenness of our world, taking up the model of Jesus and for our hearts to be broken, for our hearts to be captivated, for our hearts to join with others in mission.

So my challenge to you today, my invitation, my encouragement, where is God beckoning you?

Who is God put into your worlds?

Who's across the street?

Who's in your neighbourhood?

Who's in your workplace at university, in your retirement village, your golf club, soup kitchen, across the street?

Who's God placed into your worlds?

And who can you serve as the hands of feet of Jesus?

Where's your heart burned?

Where is your heart broken?

And where is God leading you with that broken heart?

Where is God at work captivating your heart with imagination, the possibility of what you could do with what's in your hands and your heart, the mission of God in the hands of ordinary people?

And who's God inviting you to bring around you?

Someone in your local community?

Someone in your life group?

Another local service group?

Who's God inviting and encouraging you to collaborate with that you can be the hands and feet and take hold of that burden and serve others in Jesus' name?

That's the heartbeat of the Baptist Mission Australia story.

It has been for 150 years.

People's hearts have been burdened and broken, and they've been willing to step out of their comfort zones, and in some cases go across the globe with that burden, with that broken heart.

But they want to do more than just see brokenness.

Their hearts then captivated with missional imagination, humble, ordinary people, but with boldness and faith, who are doing amazing things across the world.

But we celebrate ordinary people doing amazing things in Baptist Church communities across the nation today.

And collaborative hearts.

We can only do what we do around the world because people partner with us across our Australian Baptist movement from our very beginnings at the heartbeat of our story.

Collaboration, what we can do together.

Cornelius Platinga, in describing Jesus' ministry, Cornelius Platinga, in describing our invitation to pursue Shalom in our broken world says, what does Jesus model?

Jesus models a commitment to living lives that say, that's not the way things should be, but pursuing that's the way things ought to be.

I love that.

That's the heartbeat of God's restoring vision, our mending God.

He looks at broken lives.

He looks at broken communities, at unjust systems, at the things in our world that shouldn't be.

And God's vision, the heartbeat of Jesus, this is the way things should be.

This is the way things ought to be.

I love that picture.

And as we wrap up today, can I leave that challenge and invitation with you?

What's it mean for you to look at your world, to see where you are burdened, to see brokenness around you, and to say it shouldn't be that way?

This is the way it ought to be.

And then to dare ask God, to dare pray that dangerous prayer, God, how might I be an answer to that need?

How might I embrace that brokenness in my world?

How might you use me as an ordinary person to be a good news sharer, a shalom seeker, a co-mender?

God wants to use each one of us in His mending vision.

It begins with a broken heart.

It's followed by a captivated heart, missional imagination, stepping out across the street, breaking out of our comfort zones, serving Jesus as His hands and feet, and bringing others on the journey with us that we might collaborate together, partner together, and join God as co-menders in His vision for restoration across the world.

It starts with us as we join our Mending God.

God bless you, and thank you for your partnership with Baptist Mission Australia.

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