Shalom. Thank you, Pastor David and Pastor Mark, for this privilege to address Cross Points Church this morning on a very significant day in the church calendar.
Today I want to give each of you, as Brother Ernie used to say, some machine gun Bible texts in a rapid-fire manner that together tell a story, the story of God’s heart for the peoples of the earth. A story that began in the beginning and ends, in a world that doesn’t end. His story is our commission, that is, we are part of his story that is told this year in 2024 and each day of our lives. We are actors; we are participants in the Great Story of God’s love and redemption of all mankind.
Let’s listen to these, and I hope you will stay with me.
1) Genesis 12.1-3, Abraham receives the call of God to leave his family and go to a place he doesn’t know, and God promises him a three-fold blessing of seed, bounty and a land and what did he do as a result? Gen 12.5 He took his wife and possessions which would have included slaves and all his household goods, and the Bible says he took “the souls” he gathered. The rabbis teach that those ‘souls’ were converts to the Abrahamic religion. Abraham heard from God and immediately gathered others to follow this God. Being a disciple includes gathering souls.
2) Exodus 19.5-6 The scene is at Mt Sinai, 3 million Jewish people have just left slavery in Egypt. We are about to receive the Ten Commandments. God tells Moses that the people of Israel are special. Called to be a Kingdom of priests. Great. Wait a minute; Whom do priests serve? Themselves? Not at all. Priests serve others. If Israel is to be priests, the nations must be in God’s view.
3) Lev. 19:9-10 ‘aNow when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.” Corners of the field are for others. Don’t be selfish; let others gain from your prosperity. Lev. 19.27 You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.
4) Numbers 15.37-40 Wear tassels, fringes on the Corners of your garments. God is reminding the Jewish people saying Don’t forget the four corners of the earth. It’s not a private religion I’m creating; the garments you wear are to remind you to extend. The beard you grow is to remind you. Extend. Look beyond your borders. Four is the biblical number of universalism in contrast to particularism. Particular is about Israel; universal is about the world. It’s not about you, Israel, it’s for everyone. Abraham understood that and gathered folks.
For time’s sake, let’s jump ahead…
5) Jonah… You might remember him. A prophet, but a failure, dismal failure. He goes to Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian empire, to tell the pagans of God’s love and it works. Jonah 3.7-9 The mayor (Bible says, “King”) of Ninevah repents, and demands the entire country to join him in proclaiming Yahweh their king. Jonah is a successful missionary, at least for Ninevah, but Jonah is not happy. But, backup in the story, Jonah 1.3 Jonah left a little seaside village named Joppa, skipped town, tried to avoid the whole God thing, and that didn’t work out so well for him. He ended up being successful in his preaching to “those people’, the dreaded enemies of the Jewish people, so that they repented and became followers of the God of Israel, but his end is dismal. Jonah 4.1 He was angry. Can you imagine the And Jonah 4.3, Jonah 4.8, Jonah 4.9 three times in the final chapter he said he would rather be dead than to live if that’s the way God was going to treat those evil and foreign Gentiles.
6) If I may, two more scenes, and for many of you, the more comfortable side of the Bible. Look at the Newer Testament, in the book of Acts chapter 10, the scene with Cornelius, the Roman centurion who was a good guy, and we will see the apostle Peter. Cornelius is a military leader and had donated to the Jewish people under his charge. (Acts 10.5) In a dream God told Cornelius to dispatch men to Joppa, to find Peter, and to invite him back to his place. OK, no problem. At about the same time, Peter is down in Joppa (which, by the way, is wrapped around by modern-day Tel Aviv) and has a noon-time dream. Acts 10.11 A vision with a four-cornered sheet filled with unclean foods for Jewish people. Four-footed animals, and things we can find on Metcalf, like Red Lobster shrimp and bacon double cheeseburgers and such. Acts 10.13 A voice tells Peter to “Rise, kill and eat” Peter reminds God that he’s Jewish and so doesn’t eat such things. God answers him Acts 10.15 saying “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unclean.”
This dream came to Peter three times and you would think that Peter got it. After all, he had walked with Yeshua, with Jesus, for years. He had preached for 9 chapters and probably about 10 years by this time. Acts 10.17 “Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be” That means, even though he understood so much of God, the Bible says he didn’t get it. But overnight, God answered his query, and Peter answered the invitation, really a subpoena by the military Roman, and went to Caesarea. He travels the 54 kilometres north to tell Cornelius about the Lord, and Cornelius has gathered many in his home to hear God’s word. Some of the missionaries here in church today will tell you that in some Latino or Asian villages where they travel, a person will do just that, invite neighbours and others to hear the missionary speak about God. Those are awesome moments for each of us. Acts 10.28 may be a Bible verse you want to memorise if you are not Jewish, as it’s a significant reminder of who got you into this. There in his sermon, Peter tells the gathered, “God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” The four-cornered sheet vision was not about lunch for Peter, about those unclean foods. It was about people like folks in Rome or in Shawnee who eat those foods. The vision was about Gentiles being made clean in the same way Jews can be made clean. Titus 3.5-6 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 1.7 It’s the blood of Jesus that cleanses us and makes us right with God. God has done it all for each of us. Every Jew in this sanctuary ought to praise him; every Gentile in the sanctuary ought to shout Hallelujah! Amen!
7) Revelation 5.9-10 In the final book of the Bible, and we could find many of these themes in so many of the books, but again, for time’s sake, we narrow our focus. We read, “Worthy are You to take the 1book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation .(Four again) You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.” God is saying that the redeemed are to be a kingdom and priests. A repeat of the call to Israel in Exodus. A reminder that the four corners of our robes or even of the facial hair, of the fields we harvest, everything about God is the extension of his rule over the planet. He wants us, as participants in this drama, to be kings and priests, to take his message, his love, his care to Lackman Road, to the 30,000 folks in our radius, to the ends of the earth. And to be happy about doing so.
Remember Jonah, although he was a success he was a racist, and didn’t want those undeserving Gentiles to hear about God. Oh, did you notice that Jonah and Peter were both in the village named Joppa. Both received the call to take the message of God to others. And the others were the dreaded enemies of the Jewish people? For Jonah is was Assyria. For Peter it was Rome. Both were military occupiers of the land of Israel. Both were enemies of the Jews. To each God wanted to share his love and care. And God chose a person to go to them. Jonah was reluctant but eventually went, and won them over, but failed due to his hatred of the Assyrians. Peter won the folks at Cornelius’ house, and won Romans 5.5 because the love of Jesus has been poured out into his life, and we can say, into our lives.
Abraham gathered foreigners and went to the Promised Land. Each missionary in this sanctuary and the others whom you will support today, and all year by your donations, gather souls to the Lord. That includes my work among the Jewish people of Australia and in Middle Tennessee, or Curtis and Mei Lin of Hong Kong and around Asia, or Bill and so many in Latin America, and each of the teams of YWAM around the globe, and all the unnamed but powerful emissaries you send.
I’m thinking of Adam in Western Australia, of another Andy in Sydney, both about 40 years old, both Jews, now both followers of Yeshua because we were there when God called them. We had the funds. We had the spiritual energy. God opened their eyes to the Gospel. I’m thinking of Michael, a very observant Jew in Sydney who found us on LiveChat and gave his life to the Lord with me a couple of years ago. He is now married, has a new baby, and loves his new life in the Lord. And Philip, my former dentist, now retired, for whom I was there at his time of spiritual hunger, so that now he’s following our Messiah. The list goes on and on. And we’re not done. The work is ever-expanding and ever-replicating, as God’s mission is our mission.
Dear saints at Cross Points, we missionaries thank you. We owe you. We honour you for the lavish grace you pour out on us. May I mention specifically the teams that care for us on the field, the prayer nets like the one that Wolfgang and Betty Jo lead in their home and on Zoom? Those nets are deep and powerful and keep us on the field and in the Spirit.
I’ve tried to show you that this drama, this story of God and the people of the earth began in the beginning and won’t end until Jesus returns and puts his foot down in Jerusalem, establishing his kingdom and rulership. Revelation 11.15 The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His messiah. Until that day we missionaries work. Until that day, each of us watching online or here in the sanctuary, who are disciples, want three things. We want 1) to be with Jesus, 2) to become like him, and 3) to do what he did.
God’s mission is our mission.
The people of Shawnee, of Johnson County, of Missouri and Kansas, of the US, and the people of the world await God’s mission.
Will you join him?
If you are not yet a believer in and follower of the Lord, I invite you to hear these words and to receive them. I’m speaking to you, perhaps a visitor for the first time to this building today, or even watching much later on the internet. God wants you to know him and to follow him, to bring others along with you to him, to be with him and to do what he does. He is reaching out among the peoples of the earth to share his care and peace in a turbulent and troubled world. Even your world.
I implore you to say ‘yes’ to Yeshua, to Jesus, and to become his disciple and follower. Learn of him. He is gentle and lowly and loves each of us. Thank God his arms are open to you, today, just now. Be forgiven of your sins, repent, and turn from them, be baptised and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and yours and all who are far off. Thanks be to God for his immeasurable gift.
Thanks to the pastors, the staff, the elders, the musicians, all the volunteers, and each of you, members of Cross Points, who make this place a City on a Hill, a light, a beacon of hope for the area. Let’s keep being about God’s business until Jesus returns. From me personally, after receiving 45 years of continued care and love, please hear my sincerest gratitude.
Shalom.
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