Missional Push

I'm certainly not suggesting that I know anything about giving birth from a mama's perspective.

There's only respect for mommas, because I've watched my wife Leanne give birth four times.

But what I noticed in doing that, instead of writing shotgun, as it were, four very special words.

I need to push.

I need to push.

When it's time for a woman to push in birth, there seems to be often a very strong compulsion for that to happen.

It's a powerful, God-given urge that mums get.

Now, when I was thinking of a childbirth, I immediately, as you would, thought of William Carey, the founder of the modern missionary movement.

Because William Carey had this God-given urge to push, to push the church in 1792 in his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, an inquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen.

It's a catchy phrase for your essay, isn't it?

But God was putting a desire on his heart to push the church into the great missionary movement that happened in that century in the next one.

He went for 41 years to India.

David Livingston went to Africa, and they went with their wives, multiple wives, as the families suffered from disease and all sorts of things.

Hudson Taylor went to China.

He, Carey, in his famous battle cry for mission, preached, expect great things from God, attempt great things for God, push, push.

In July last year, we outlined seven strategic keys for us as a church to consider over the next 75 weeks.

We're 29 weeks in.

Those seven keys are spiritual formation, next 100, big Sundays, next generation, forward press, ministry mobilization, and missional push.

We want to take seriously as a church missional push.

I'm not sure we quite know how to do that.

It's sort of a bit easier to give money to the missionaries because that's partly what we do.

But how we push forward in evangelism in our lives, I think that's a challenge that hopefully we can have a think about as the year progresses and also today.

We're in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 1.

Mark's Gospel leaves the birth of Christ out and dives straight into the fact that Jesus on earth is good news.

It's good news, and it's good news that is worth proclaiming.

In fact, that's the key takeaway, I think, from our time in God's word today.

There is good news which Jesus proclaimed, and he made that news even better by actually fulfilling it in his own life, death, and resurrection.

And after Jesus returned to heaven, he gave the job of proclaiming this good news to the whole world, to his church.

And of course, that is us.

Mark chapter one, verse 14 and 15 says, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

The time has come, he said.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

John is John the Baptist.

I wonder if you realize how central to God's story of salvation the idea of proclamation is.

700 years before John was born, Isaiah the prophet prophesied, he preordained it by God's command that one would come who would proclaim before Messiah turned up and began his ministry.

And it was John.

John was born as a surprise pregnancy to Zechariah and Elizabeth of the priestly line, but it was 700 years in the making that he would come and he would proclaim.

And this is what Mark chooses to begin his account of the gospel with.

A proclamation.

Let me read from chapter one verse one.

In the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God, or the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet, I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way, a voice of one calling in the wilderness.

Prepare the way for the Lord.

Make straight paths for him.

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Have you noticed that God has a style?

Anyone?

Like you can see his patterns.

If you look at biology, if you study life in all of its forms, I mean, God is wondrous in his creativity, but you'll see patterns, won't you?

In biology, he has a style.

And if you look at cosmology, if you look at the planets and the stars, the Milky Way, you'll see that God has a style in how he creates, in his design and function.

You can see his style in salvation history, too.

He loves to partner with humans.

That's his style.

He got Adam to name the animals.

He chose Abraham and Sarah to be the spiritual parents of God's people, and they had jobs to do.

He chose Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, Let my people go on behalf of God.

He chooses people to proclaim truth on his behalf, yes?

He could have thundered it from the heavens, let my people go.

But for some reason, he chooses people to work on his behalf.

He chose Esther to save his people from the Persians.

And when it came time for the savor of the world, his son to turn up in the flesh on planet Earth, he chose someone to announce his coming, a voice of one calling, a herald.

Hear ye, hear ye, God is on the move.

Proclamation is a very important part of the economy of God.

We know that words are important to God.

He created with words.

Planets, stars, sunflowers and seahorses, everything was created by words, and he uses people also to use words to proclaim what he is doing.

The Greek word for proclaiming is kairouso.

Jesus proclaimed the beginning of his mission.

There's good news to be received.

But before Jesus began the proclaiming, John the Baptist was sent in front of him to proclaim that one would come and start proclaiming.

It's God's style.

He announces that he has acted and he is acting in human history.

Kairouso means to herald, to proclaim, to preach, to announce a message publicly and with conviction.

Verse 14, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

Have you heard of Teruo Nakamura?

Anybody?

What a shame.

Teruo Nakamura was a soldier, a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier in the Second World War.

The war ended in 1945.

Teruo didn't surrender until 1974, 29 years later.

Why do you think that was?

He didn't know.

He didn't know.

He was stationed on Morutai Island in the Dutch East Indies.

He survived somehow in the jungle.

My grandpa was actually stationed with the Australian Army on Morutai.

Imagine thinking that you were still an enemy of the Allies for 29 years.

Imagine being lost and alone and separated from your home.

All the while, peace has been declared.

Can you see the connection?

Sin is just like people who are lost, because that's what happens with sinners.

We feel lost, alone, guilty, and ashamed.

We're separated from God because of our sin.

If a lost person who still thinks God is only angry at them doesn't hear a herald come and say, peace has been declared, the war is over.

If they don't hear a herald with beautiful feet, amen, with beautiful feet who comes to them and says, Jesus has won the battle.

He has paid the price that God has set for sin.

You don't have to be an enemy of God anymore.

Hallelujah.

This is the essence of the gospel.

What a privilege to play a role in Caruso, Caruso.

Good news in Greek is euangelion, good news.

It's what Jesus proclaimed.

This good news, euangelion, is not just spiritual.

As Jesus walked around in his three year, particularly three year ministry, he was alive for 33, it would seem, but he healed blind eyes and he fixed lame legs, and he set people free from demonic possession.

He empowered and dignified the poor and the marginalized and touched the untouchable lepers.

Everywhere he went on his three year travelling mission, he embodied the good news of God.

This euangelion, or good news, was from God.

It's what the text says, the good news of God.

What's your impression of God?

The good news of God is really good news.

You might think he's a cosmic policeman, an old man, a Santa Claus figure, a stick-wielder.

Maybe you believe that everything is God.

The Bible says God is love and light and truth, and God is good.

And that's why the news you need to hear, or herald, is good news, amen?

The war is over.

Death has been defeated.

Sin has been pardoned.

The devil has been defeated.

It is the good news of God.

Can I herald this good news to you, if you need to hear it this morning?

Because some of you do.

For the first time, I wonder, is that the first time you've heard that you don't have to be afraid of God anymore?

You can come out of hiding.

Peace has been declared.

You can come and receive it.

Of course, as Jesus declared this good news, it was actually being played out real time in his life, wasn't it?

He still had to live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death and rise again for the good news to be the most good news.

Jesus said, the time has come.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

The word for time is kairos.

It's an appointed time, an appointed time, a period, a set God ordained amount of days.

This was preordained, that God would come in human flesh and Jesus is yelling it out.

God's timing is now.

You need to hear it and repent and believe.

Timing.

God gives us a period of time.

We don't know when it will end.

One of the first people that I was so privileged to lead to the Lord was, as a pastor, was a guy by the name of Rick.

Now Rick was just the loveliest Australian bloke.

He was six foot six, a basketball player, and he married probably an even lovelier Danish girl called Britta, and they turned up at church.

I remember we were at Carringbar Baptist, and Britta was looking for a choir.

We had a choir, so she came and started to get to know her husband, who was not a Christian, but he was interested, and so we ran an Alpha course in their home.

We had dinner, and apparently, at some point, he got to the point where I felt like I needed to give him a little push, as you do.

And apparently, I said something like, Rick, if you, as you say, you're sitting on the fence, you can't just stay on the fence.

You don't know when the end's gonna be.

I mean, Rick, there could be a Cessna 172 flying above you tonight, and the engine could fail.

And that engine could fail, and that plane could do a dive bomb straight on top of your house here.

Then what will you do?

You've got to give your life to Jesus.

Anyway, I get told later, and actually we hadn't been in touch for 20 years.

They went back to Denmark, and he was reminding me about two weeks ago of this story that he told at his baptism, because he became a Christian.

But at his baptism, he told the story that John O'Sead, and that night, guess who was lying awake, hearing every noise going, is that the Cessna 172?

That's a dive bomb.

That engine's cut out as a step spiral.

I say that because it's a funny story, but also not that funny.

There is a restricted amount of time for us to accept the good news of God.

The Bible is clear.

Let me just tell you, if you may not know, anything less than perfection with God is a fail mark.

That's meant to be a downer.

And it is.

Because He is perfect and His heaven is perfect and the new earth will be perfect.

And anything less than perfection is a fail mark.

Good people don't get into heaven.

Perfect people do.

And there's no perfect person apart from Jesus.

That's the point of the gospel.

Amen.

He did it so that we didn't have to.

We don't earn our way.

We accept it by faith.

So, I wonder if you're in a kairos moment, a season of decision.

Are you trying to work out if Jesus is the son of God, if he is Lord?

Or maybe he's calling you to serve in a new way of proclaiming the gospel.

Jesus said the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

Jesus is the king of the kingdom.

If you ever hear that phrase, Jesus, that the kingdom has come near, it means the king of the kingdom has come near.

And of course, when God was walking around in human flesh, the king of kings in his son, the kingdom had come near and the kingdom is the eternal reign of God.

So wherever Jesus goes, the eternal reign of God is near.

And it's good news.

It's good news if God is near us.

We all know the deep need in human beings for community, don't we?

And we know that the fact that you can be surrounded by people and still feel desperately alone.

We all know that we have a longing for a significant other as human beings, and some of us are blessed with that.

But I would put it to you today that no significant other can come close to the God who made you.

And that's who you need.

If you have a deep longing for fulfilment, it's ultimately to know God.

And the good news of the gospel, the eungeleon, the good news is that he has.

He's come near and he can come near to you today through the Spirit of Jesus.

The Kingdom of God has come near.

Jesus said it's time to repent and believe.

But the good news is good news because there is bad news.

The bad news is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And because God can only accept perfection, to die without having our sins paid for would mean that we will live an eternal death.

We can't be with God because he's perfectly holy.

And that's bad news.

The other bad news is that you haven't lived up to your own standard of morality and neither have I.

Let alone God's.

We can't live to our own standard.

We just like to sort of say, at least I'm not as bad as that person.

But the Bible is clear, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and the wages for sin is death.

But thanks be to God, he sent his son to die in our place.

To, in many ways, take the fall for us.

He died in our place.

He exchanged positions with us on death row.

That's good news.

Let me herald it to you.

That's good news.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

Repent means to turn around.

It's just a word that means you were heading in this direction, turn around, you were moving away from God, but now turn around by God's grace and face Him.

And when you do face a holy God, the natural thing to do is to fall on your knees and ask for mercy, and that's a good thing to do as well.

That's what's required of us, to change our allegiance, that's what repentance means.

I used to be aligned to myself as the king, the world, the devil, without knowing it.

Repentance is to say, no, Jesus is my Saviour because He died for me, and my Lord because He rose again.

In this room, we are hearers, or we are heralds, hearers or heralds.

For some of us, maybe it's the first time that you've ever heard this eungeleon, the good news of God.

You don't get to heaven by being good enough.

You get to heaven and the new earth, an eternal life and sins forgiven by faith in Christ.

If you are a hearer, you now get to choose what you will do with this news.

You can repent and believe and be saved, or walk away unsaved.

Apologies for the seemingly simplistic nature of what I just said.

And it's bearings that are eternal, consequences that are eternal, but that is the simplicity of the gospel.

What about those of us who have heard?

Well, I was thinking about this week, and I was thinking of John 20 that Ben preached on last week.

Do you remember what Jesus said to the disciples after he rose again from the dead and arrived there in the upper room on Sunday night?

He said, Peace be with you as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

John the Baptist came and his job was caruso, or caruso, to proclaim.

And then Jesus did caruso, and then Jesus did the same to his disciples and said, Now you become the proclaimers.

You do this job of caruso.

Those who have been forgiven, who have received the grace of God, our job is to herald the news, not hide it.

Amen.

It's our job to herald the good news.

Do you remember what one of the most common prayers was of the disciples in the first century after Pentecost?

They prayed for something starting with B, rhyming with oldness.

Boldness.

To be what?

Heralds of the Eugenelion, which is not so many times called good news in the New Testament epistles.

It's translated as what?

Gospel.

We are heralds of the good news.

We are heralds of the gospel.

So, missional push.

We state this as one of our seven strategies that we want to keep in the forefront of our thinking as a church over these 18 months.

Why would we do that?

Because not many of us lead people to Christ.

Can I ask you?

This is not a pride thing, but who put your hand up if you've had the privilege of leading an adult to Christ yourself?

Okay, so I reckon 15 percent, 20 percent.

That might be the evangelistic gifting.

This, please don't take this, it's not sort of a heavy handed guilt trip.

It's really a question to us as a church.

We know that we're called to be heralds.

Are we not doing such a good job?

Are we lacking boldness?

Or is Jesus not that good at seeking and saving the lost?

The last one's not true.

He's really good at it.

Does God even need, for those of us who are great Calvinists, does He even need us to herald?

Well, Calvinism would say that there is a job for the herald.

Why would we need to keep this before our minds?

Because we're not seeing enough people come to Christ.

I hope that we could have a metric.

If we want to talk about metrics, let's have a metric of how many times you've been a herald, how many times you've shared the gospel in natural, non-judgmental ways.

That would be a great thing for us to think about, to pray into, that that's what really matters, that we get to share the gospel, not just in works, but in words.

Maybe the key, let me suggest something, maybe the key here is that we are not meant to be hearers or heralds.

Maybe the key is that we're meant to be hearers and heralds.

I'd suggest that the more that you experience the reality of being a hearer of the good news every morning, the more primed you will be to be a herald that day for the good news that has struck you.

Amen?

It's the truth.

We need to be hearers every day and heralds.

I think one of the revelations God wants to give us, our theme for the year is SEE23.

What is God doing?

What is He doing in our lives?

I think this is one of the key revelations.

We need to do more heralding.

Leanne was talking to a neighbour just this week, and we're going to have a coffee.

But she said, I have a real fear of death.

And we were struck with the wonderful truth that you don't have to be afraid of death.

Amen.

That's the herald's job to say, oh, Teruo Nakamura, didn't you not know the fear of death has been taken away?

Jesus conquered death.

You can look death in the face.

There's some fears, of course, but you can have absolute confidence he's made a way through death into the next life.

And for anyone else that would believe, do you know anyone who suffers from shame and guilt in your life?

And you hear them talking as you get to know them, and you're like, you need to hear the good news that someone has taken away your guilt and shame.

Do you know anyone who suffers from a lack of fulfilment and purpose in life?

We can be heralds of the good news that there is purpose and fulfilment in Christ.

Amen.

We're heralds of the gospel.

Missional push.

Missional push works, but it's far more responding to the missional draw, because the Spirit of God is out there.

He's out there.

Jesus is in the place that He's calling you to.

He's not pushing you going, I don't want to go there.

You go there.

He's going, come on.

I'm out of here.

I'm amongst the people that are feeling the pain of life.

Come and partner with me.

Share the gospel.

And what's it going to be like?

Well, this little passage started out with John, who was put in prison.

Do you remember John the Baptist?

John the Baptist was put in prison.

He got the job of being the herald of the Son of God.

But just when Jesus started really getting going, John was put in prison, and he started getting cold feet about whether he was proclaiming the true Messiah.

And if you remember, he sent his disciples to Jesus to say, could you just check?

I've got cold feet.

I'm in prison.

I'm wondering, was he really the anointed one?

Is he the king of the kingdom?

And Jesus sends back John's disciples and say, look, I love John.

John is Jesus' cousin.

And tell him the kingdom has come.

I am the anointed one.

The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk.

The kingdom is coming in power.

And John must have been so relieved.

And then he had his head chopped off.

He was decapitated.

And I think what we can take from that is the great herald, the first herald shows us that there is pushback when we engage in missional push.

That's what we can expect.

There is pushback, but it's worth it.

It's worth it.

We were talking this week at our prayer meeting.

I'm looking around for Rex.

Is Rex here?

Ah, there you are, Rex.

Rex, we were talking about missional push.

And somebody said, Lorraine said, look, do we have any tracks, anything that you can give out?

And then that prompted Rex to tell his story of salvation.

And I asked if, Rex, I could give a very cut down version of your wonderful testimony.

And it's probably 60-something years ago, would that be fair to say?

Rex was kicked out of a boarding house.

And on his way out, he was given by a Christian man that was there at the boarding house, a copy of CS.

Lewis' Mere Christianity.

He was a herald.

But his heralding, K.

Russo, was through a book.

And Rex went and read that book, and he got stuck on the part that said, Jesus is the son of God.

And he had to wrestle with the Lord over that truth.

But he came to the realisation and belief that Jesus was in fact the son of God, and therefore his Lord, and he became a Christian.

And he thought, I'm going to go to church.

So he went home and didn't think his brother would come with him, but his brother did come.

And they came to a local church.

I wonder if you can guess which that church was.

Which church that was?

Hornsby Babs.

What a wonderful story because the Lord then saved all his family.

That's the way it works, isn't it?

That's the way it works.

Someone is a herald in all sorts of different ways, but it's just as long as the good news is shared, the eungelion.

Peace has been declared.

Come out of your enemy status by repenting and believing.

You've got to know this.

Not everyone gets saved.

Jesus died on the cross and rose again and made a way.

And that way needs to be declared and proclaimed so that human beings can respond with faith.

How can we as a church do a better job of engaging in a missional caruso push?

Because we're called to be both hearers and heralds.

When a mum needs to push, I've only seen it four times, but my wife knew that she needed to push.

And I reckon that friend of Rex's knew that he needed to push.

And I'm confident online or here today, there are some who you know you need that push to step out in faith and give your life to Christ.

So I wonder if we could pray.

And I want to pray and lead you in a prayer if today's the day that you're like, you know what, I've been sitting on the fence long enough.

I don't have to imagine a Cessna 172 landing on my head.

It's time.

It's Kairos time.

I'm not going to sit on the fence anymore.

Rick said to me, I'm struggling, because if I step in, I'm in all for life.

And praise God, he was.

And by God's grace.

So let me pray for you.

God will see your heart if you want to respond and receive his peace and offer of salvation and forgiveness in Christ.

You can pray a prayer that is simply around ABC.

A stands for admit.

So I encourage you to admit that you're a sinner before God.

I'm giving you space to do it if it's your time.

Admit that you're a sinner.

B stands for believe.

That's what's required.

To believe that God is good, and he has made a way.

It's up to you today to believe.

And that's all anyone else in here who follows Jesus has done.

They didn't earn it in any way.

So the gift is there.

Believe, admit, believe and confess.

Confess that Jesus is Lord.

And is the worthy Lord of your life and the entire cosmos.

I'm going to ask someone, I'm a teacher and a leader and an exhorter.

I don't have the gift of evangelism, but I do the work of an evangelist, and I've been given the spiritual gift of evangelism in a passing way, but I wouldn't say it's the dominant gift that I have.

But if you have a gift of evangelism, I want to ask you to come up and pray a blessing on anyone who wants to stand.

Just ask God to give you that gift.

Let me find out if I've got someone to pray first.

Anyone got a gift of evangelism and willing to come up and pray a prayer of anointing and blessing on those who would stand?

Cedric, fantastic.

Now we have to find some recipients of your prayer.

If you can resonate with what I was just talking about, about being a herald, and you have a sense that God has some more heralding for you to do, can I encourage you to stand and just humbly come before God and say, just open, if you want to make manifest in me that gifting.

Praise God.

Anyone else?

Dear Lord, this is a very special kairos moment for all of us.

For those who know you, for the challenge of becoming the herald, and for those who don't, Lord, for a moment of truth, we thank you that you are the truth.

And Lord, we ask that you would soften the hearts and open the minds of those who've been challenged by this message, and that we would be able to rejoice with them as they make that step of faith, which is going to change their eternal destiny.

And so Lord, I thank you for the wonderful work you've done in my life, and in the lives of my brothers and sisters here.

And it's our desire that all should come to a saving knowledge of you.

And so we trust you, Holy Spirit, to move in this place in an amazing way, because we ask it in the precious name of Jesus.

Amen.

‍