Andrew Chau - note taker extradionaire… sent me his notes from dangerous stories. I will be posting them up over the next few days. Thanks Andrew!

Alan Hirsch

“Blessed are you,
o lord our god
king of the universe
who has kept us alive sustained us
and brought us to this season
- to this moment.
Amen.”

(Ancient Hebrew Prayer)

I hope you get a sense of urgency for mission…
Marx said “Religion is the opiate” because religion can be used to dull us down, to just accept things as they are and to ignore the injustice of our time.
Christianity is not an opiate. Jesus is the one that disturbs us and keeps us moving forward. We need to go back to Jesus to re-find the church.

Mike Frost 1

Matt. 4:1 ¶ Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
Matt. 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Matt. 4:3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Matt. 4:4 ¶ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matt. 4:5 ¶ Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
Matt. 4:6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Matt. 4:7 ¶ Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Matt. 4:8 ¶ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
Matt. 4:9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Matt. 4:10 ¶ Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Matt. 4:11 ¶ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

This is an incredible dangerous story.

Jesus is about to launch his messianic mission. To embrace a very dangerous calling. His movement from obscurity, from the shadow into the public light. He embraces a particular rite of passage. Baptism by his cousin John. Now people at that time were getting baptised in order to readying themselves for the day of the lord, and so they came to John to repent for their sins. John’s reaction “You don’t need to be baptised, after all, baptism is for people to repent in readiness for you.” Jesus replies that “This is a rite of passage that my father has commanded me to do.” He humbles himself and embraces baptism.

And immediately the second aspect happens, where the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness and he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights. He is led by the Holy Spirit in order to be tempted. The Holy Spirit introduces him to Satan. It is a divine appointment by the Holy Spirit. People often use this passage to show us how we should handle temptation. This text is then used to prove Hebrew 4:15 which says “Jesus was tempted in all things”.

But this passage isn’t here to model how we should handle temptation. Jesus is saying: If you dare to embrace mission in my name - even after thousand years - this is how you take up my cross. I’m going to model for you what kind of preparation that is essential for you to do it.
This is a divine appointment - that involves going out to where the wild beasts are (as Mark says it). And there he is tempted by the wild beast. If you want to take up the cudgels of messianic mission, you will be confronted by temptations.

I only recently discovered there is a difference between dirt and soil. We moved into a new house over summer. The guy that showed us the house hated any living creature of any kind. He proudly showed how he killed everything around the house: dead gardens. You can’t plant plants in dirt, it is not the same as soil. Where there is no nutrition, plants won’t live. Not in dirt. You need to hack up the dirt first, then add nutrition to dirt (magic exilir stuff), then add some soil and then turn that soil through the dirt, over and over again. And only then will you be able to plant something in it.

Jesus was modelling that if you are serious about messianic mission, if you are trying to plant in dirt, it won’t take life if you only have dirt.

The dirt of ‘western’ Australia (that is Australia in the ‘western world’) isn’t conducive to growth. It is not going to sustain the kind of mission that Jesus is modelling in these dangerous stories.
He is showing you what it is to take the dirt of your soul, to turn, turn, turn it into soil, and then blossoming it into something God can do something with.

People want to do missional, do something emerging, but they are still caught up with things of this world, institutions, consumerism, selfishness, ambition, - and this is all dirt and sand and full of rock and Jesus can’t plant what Jesus is calling you to plant. It is not about cool churches in pubs and cafe, not about celtic tattoos, etc. That’s about style, it’s about cool, and it’s dirt.

Dirt is not what is going to give birth to the church of our nation. Jesus is saying: You have been baptised, if you want to do mission, come with me, and I will take you out to where the wild things are. And the Holy Spirit will introduce you to the tempter, and that’s where the dirt gets turned, and the worms emerge.

We need to remind ourselves what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. This passages shows us three ways how to turn the dirt to soil:

Firstly:
The tempter comes, after 40 days of fasting: Why don’t you turn all these stones? That’s an evil temptation, isn’t it? Internet porn, etc pales in comparison. Why would it be inappropriate for our Lord to do turn the stones into bread? It wasn’t naughty for Jesus to turn water into wine soon after this, was it? Isn’t wine more naughty? What is so sinful about turning rocks into bread? After all, Jesus doesn’t have a problem with eating bread later on. When he came into a new town, he’ll pick out the richest guy in town and eats at that place. Jesus doesn’t have a problem with eating food. When his enemies were trying hard to come up with something bad to say about Jesus they accuse him of being a glutton and a drunkard. So why does he resist turning the stones into food after 40 days of fasting?
Jesus answers shows what he thinks is going on. verse 4. There’s nothing evil about eating bread. I can manipulate these. What is wrong is when you are prepared to abandon too readily to your physical appetites and you don’t recognise that you are sustained by the Word of God rather than bread and wine. If you do this, you won’t turn dirt to soil. Self-denial is the soil of messianic mission.

Today there are too many voices claiming to be the new thing, the new mission, but they are as committed and show as much physical appetites as everyone else around. We like to think the older generation aren’t with it these days, but the older generation know more about denial and resisting appetites than we do. Just because we might think the tired attraction churches aren’t going to do the job, doesn’t get us off the hook. This is not just about desperate self-denial. Sure, be free, eat and drink, but he models for us having enough spiritual muscle to say ‘no’ after 40 days of fasting. Many people in mission today have no spiritual muscle. I want you to love life, to be the living example of the glutton and drunkard that set us free, but he also recognised that he needed to turn the dirt of body into the soil of self-denial.

I grew up Catholic. So I know about self-denial, and the rituals and everything else that I felt so restricted and laden down with. And when Jesus eventually set me free, I was free indeed. But we sometimes throw out the baby with the bathwater.

For lent, you can choose to give up something for a month. Whatever you choose to give up, you are not saying there is anything evil about what you are giving up. You are saying I want to build some rhythm in my life that has the capacity to resist, a kind of spiritual callenstenics that shows that. Self-denial is central to it. And you do it not to win his affection, but to build spiritual muscle. And even though it feels like keeping a pebble in your shoe, you are turning greed, etc into spiritual muscle.

For those of you addicted to chocolate and you’ve given it up for Lent, when you awake on Easter Sunday on the day we remember that Jesus sets us free. You can get the biggest easter egg, and as an act of spiritual devotion you can eat all of it. To celebrate, the spiritual muscle you gained during Lent. For many us, however, Easter is where you eat a little more chocolate than what you normally do. Christians are as guilty as anyone else in not having spiritual muscle.

You might be a mission or ministry that looks cooler than normal Christian stuff, but without spiritual muscle it will be dirt.

Increasingly, there is a need to detox Christians, especially young adults - from greed, appetite, the ‘normal’ things our culture celebrates - before sending them out - is this not what Jesus is modelling for us here?

The missional church should not be identified by its outward appearance, but by its spiritual muscle. We went into the wilderness, to serve the poor, marginalised, those on the fringes, the disenfranchised, the post-modern, to minister to them, to be beside them, to show what it is like to be free from human appetite and need.

Secondly:
When Jesus quotes the Bible, the Tempter replies, “Oh the bible, two can play the game.” Just because someone quotes the bible doesn’t mean they get it right. So the Tempter then quotes - how the Son of David will be cared for.

If Jesus did go to the pinnacle of the temple, jump off and landed in the front courtyard, you could imagine the chief priests, etc, punters, etc - would be very impressed. It would be front page news and a great way to launch a ministry. The tempter is saying “Isn’t this what you wanted? When everyone will hear about you and know about you. If this is your destiny for everyone to know you, take it now, and you will have it now. Get what you deserve now.”

Jesus knows to follow his father’s will will eventually lead to his glory… when everyone will know him. But he tells his disciples over and over, 5 times explicitly, 8 times less so, I must be humiliated. He knew it, and was profoundly aware of it.

The Tempter is saying to Jesus here: Follow your destiny but don’t take the downward part, take the easy way.

Jesus replies: “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

I find the verse heartbreaking. I know I will be glorified. I will be famous. That every knee will bend. I don’t want to suffer and to die. But I also know that I won’t test my father as to whether he changed his mind or not. I will submit to his will. Isn’t that poignant?

Much later on, Jesus asks his mates: ‘What were they saying about me?’
They talk about the freakiest prophets they can think.
Then Jesus says, ‘do you think they are right?’
Peter then says, ‘you are messiah.’
It’s almost as Jesus sighs and goes: ‘you finally got it.’ You understand what I’m on about, and what has to happen. Then he talks about how he will suffer, be tortured and then rise again.
Then Peter says, nay mate you’ll be right.
Jesus replies (and I find this distressing): “Mate, I am so close to walking away from this, I don’t need you one of my dear friends to be talking me out of it.”

Don’t you find this deeply moving? Satan says I think I can talk you out of it. And in the wilderness, in the garden of Gesthamene, we find a Jesus who, in his flesh, wants the easy road, but, in his spirit, knows that to follow his destiny, he has to embrace the downward road. In order to build spiritual muscle, we also need to embrace the downward road.

Some of us in life, get to pass ‘Go’ and collect $200. But some of us knows our call is to go to the poor, to preach to those who have not been set free, to minister to the young. Some of us feels we want to jump to the end of the line, but we know we can’t.

Stanley Jones, the great missionary, as a teenager felt called to serve God. He made a big list of what he could do for God - read his bible every day, pray lots, study hard, become a priest, etc. So he snuck into the chapel, and laid it on the communion table and on bended knee he said ‘this is what I would do.’ He felt nothing when he did that. So he thought, maybe my list is too pathetic. So he went away and added more, probably more like he would become a missionary and travel to cannibals, he wouldn’t fart, etc. Again he snuck into the chapel, laid the list on the communion table and said ‘This lord Jesus, I will do for you.’ And nothing happened. Then he had an epiphany. He took out a blank sheet of paper. And in fear and in trembling, he said “it is blank, lord Jesus, you write what you would have me do for you.” That my friends, is submission. It’s saying: “I want out, but the blank sheet is out. What do you want me to do?”

Are we missionaries who put out blank sheets of paper, and say to Jesus do what you want with me - serve the poor, clean up shit, feed people in the my house. Whatever you write, that is the soil that mission grows in.

We want to do whatever sounds cool. Maybe instead, God will call you to do something unseen, and unremembered by those you serve.

In the wilderness, I will bend my knee and do whatever you call me.

A friend in Sydney, in his 30s, a businessman, readily admitted he would do whatever he could for success - say whatever to get his sale. However he came to a point where the Holy Spirit snapped his soul in two. So he abandoned his business, and went to the theological college where I teach. He finished a Graduate Diploma in ministry. One day he was doing a prayer walk around his street, doing his blank page, asking God for guidance as to what to do next. A great business plan popped into his head. Whenever he prayed - he got more pieces of this business plan and it was a marvellous business plan. God put him right back where he started, but broke him first, and turned the dirt into soil. and sent him back as a business man as a missional.

It might not be cool. It might not be successful. But will you submit?

Thirdly…
Satan gets to the bottom line. He takes him to the top of the mountain and gives him a hallucinary experience - all of the world, all the civilisations of the world. “If you worship me now, I will give you all this.” When confronted with all the power, influence, art, food, culture, all the good and the bad, when confronted with the gift of all that, our friend and Lord says (and this is translated from the original greek) “piss off satan”.

What have you been offered, that you couldn’t say no to? Jesus is offered everything and he says no.

So a recap:
Self-denial.
Submission to the father.
Worship of the Lord God alone and only him.

If you can’t say no to coffee, to popularity, to comfort, how can you know what self-denial is, how can you know?

I know what it is like to do misison in dirt, to look like I’m a great missionary, to have no nutrition, no worms, to see your ministry die from the inside out.

I don’t want the missional church movement in this country to be planted in dirt. I have many contemporary leaders tell me they understand the emerging church and talk about the form, the style and the outward appearance. But the emerging church has to grow out of self-denial, submission and a pure worship of God the father alone.

Do you follow?

I don’t mind what your church looks like. I don’t mind what you eat or drink, etc.

The emerging movement is not about coolness or style. It’s not about a reaction to what has come before. It doesn’t grow out of appetite, need, or fear…

I want to see missionaries come out of this nation who are committed to self-denial - not committed to gratifying themselves; submitted to God - and not desiring what the world offers.

That is the agenda of the missional church. Don’t tell me it is about wine, or prayers, style, etc.

It’s about building spiritual muscle, and coming back and turning the world upside down.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 7:51 am by phil and is filed under Forge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.