Contend and Communicate

Contend and Communicate:[1]
Using Basketball Camp to Fulfill the Great Commission

Introduction:
This last week I spent a couple of days with about six hundred pastors at the Refocus conference. The aim of the conference was to call pastors to faithfulness in preaching the bible the way it was intended to be preached. Paul Negrut, who was a pastor in Rumania during the Ceaucescu. He said that the government told them they would leave them alone as long as they tried to fit communism into the gospel. As long their faith was about Marx and Lenin and Ceacescu they would live. Many pastors died because of their conviction not to add anything to the Bible. Negrut saw first hand the danger of compromise and he fears that many pastors are doing the same thing in order to accommodate science, fashion and culture, which may give them fleeting success and acceptance, but damns souls in the process. During the Romanian dictatorship, Christians were willing to and often did dies for this book. That same kid of conviction is not present in modern evangelicals who fear, not the loss of life, but the loss of prestige and success and comfort. Preaching this book will not make anyone famous- just infamous.

Over the last 40 years Evangelicalism has become inebriated by its success boasting the ability to grow churches by means of the most up to date sociological, methodological, and psychological means possible. Did you know that most church adverting is geared towards attracting believers? But most preaching is designed unbelievers because that’s the level that most believers are at when they come into the church. Jesus said feed the sheep, not the goats. And the food is the word.
Seminaries no longer put out shepherds, but seeker sensitive practioners and on purpose marketers who have built monolithic churches that number as many as 20 000 people in worship on a given Sunday. They remind me of the abundant yield that comes from the seed that fell on the shallow ground and did not take root. When the cares and tribulations of life come, how many believers will remain? Not so in our church, I believe, because we have such a biblically oriented membership who love to hear the word preached.

It would be easy for us to do what the church growth manuals say, but is it ethical? Is it faithful? God is not going to reward us for how big we get, He will reward us for how deep we go though. For our faithfulness. The irony of all this success is that Canada is more secular, more pagan, more immoral, more porn addicted, more gay, more irreverent, more violent, more unchurched then ever before in our 200 year history. Even the churched have become unchurched.

And it’s no wonder, I watched a pastor, whom I know very well, sit under the teaching of John Piper, who is perhaps one of the most profound preachers (a prophet) in our day. The whole time John spoke about the Excellency and glory of Christ and the gospel, this pastor was surfing the net, reviewing his email and about every 2 minutes checking his Palm pilot and reply to messages. I thought, “you are preacher. You expect others to pay attention to you when you preach but you can’t even listen yourself to hear the magnificent truths of the gospel and magnify the Lord?” Imagine Isaiah in the temple when the glory of the Lord was revealed to Him yawning and turning to his Palm Pilot to delete spam.
The response of the church in Canada to our cultural milieu has been fight of yield: contend for the truth or sacrifice it on the altar of relevance. I think Gateway has been pretty good at contending. Mark Driscoll described those who contend as Fundamentalists: Fundamentalists are usually defined by what they’re against they so used to contending that when they run out of things to contend, they contend with each others contending. Fundamentalists are neither in the world, nor are they of it. Instead, they flee all contact with culture, “homeschooling their kids, reading books on the rapture, complaining about what's coming out of the city” (Driscoll) writing angry blogs, condemning every form of Christianity that is not a clone of their own; their anger is a stumbling block to the gospel. They are the fist.

Then there are the yielders; they are characterized by the open hand. They’re open to any new idea, anything that poses itself as truth, any new spirituality, any religion, any saviour… for the sake of relevance. Driscoll describes their spirituality as demonic. Its demonic because it has more to do with lies then truth, and since Satan is the father of lies, deceitful spirituality must be demonic.

I think both these options are wrong for our church. Let me show you the way of the Bible. Jude 3 says,
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Fight, be a fist against demonic spirituality and every doctrine that opposes what is good and true and holy.
Likewise, Paul told Timothy in to “remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1: 3). “Fight the good fight Timothy.” He said that the use of scripture is for “doctrine, for reproof, for correction” (2 Tim 3:16). Those are manly things aren’t they? Men like doctrine- it’s heavy, you need muscles to carry it. We like to reproof people, to set them straight. The Bible says contend. Contend for things like the sinfulness of sin, Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the Incarnation and Virgin Birth, Justification, the Sovereignty of God… that’s the fist!

But don’t just preach the doctrines of Paul without living the life of Paul. There were some things Paul had an open hand for, he wrote in 1 Corinthians
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews… to those who are without law, as without law… that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel's sake (9:19-23)

There were things for Paul for which, even though he had the right to demand them, he did not in order that he might contend for the things which he thought were essential. Let me give you this illustration: I recently visited a friend (whom I have known from youth) who is now 36 years old and was diagnosed last October with Pancreatic cancer. He was given 5 months to live. When I entered his house, o could smell the pot. And when I sat on the couch, there before my face was a half smoked joint. My friend introduced me to his common law girlfriend. Do I contend? Is this the place for the fist? I’m not the morality police! My friend needs comfort, he needs the open hand not the fist. He needs communication not argument. He needs milk not meat. If you force a baby to eat meat he’ll die- that’s murder. If you force an unbeliever to fulfill the law, you condemn him to hell. He needs grace, not just preached, but exemplified.

Listen how Paul balances the fist and the hand in 2 Corinthians 6:3-10.

We live in a city that is probably less then 1% Christian. There’s more Christians in some Islamic cities. There’s more light in Baghdad! And the Christians here are less willing to sacrifice comfort for the truth then those who belong to false religions are willing to sacrifice their very lives for a lie.

If God has called you to this church, then he has called you to make a sacrifice. He has called you to be a missionary to this city. It would be easy for all of us to pack up and join the 1500 member church down the road with the staff of fourty who cater to our every need and never have to feel uncomfortable or stretched. Why don’t we do that? Maybe God has put us here for a reason. The very fact that this church exists when we could all go somewhere else is evidence that God wants to do something with us and with this church.

He wants us to reach this city in a unique way. How are we going to reach them? By contending? With the fist? Yes, when it comes to the gospel we must not give that up or else all we’re left with is middle class respectable social working demonism.

But not without communication; not without being all things to all people that we might win a few; not without the open hand.
I want to tie all this into what we are going to talk about this afternoon, so I hope it doesn’t appear artificial or forced, but this is what I’m preaching towards

Maybe we can’t be all things to all people, but we can be some things to some people. We can refugees to the refugees. We can single parents to the single parents. We can be children to the children. That we might win some. We have some opportunities this summer to do that through our sports camps, through our VBS, and through block parties. But it’s not enough if its just activity. Its not enough if its just a bunch of things. Its not enough if its just an open hand- it’s just demonized spirituality. But there can be no contending if there is no open hand. We will have no opportunities to teach Propitiation, and Adoption if we hide our lamps under the bushel.

Notes
[1] This is heavily influenced by a message by Mark Driscol- he chose the phrase “Contend and Contextualize” which is more appropriate, but I was afraid to use the latter word because I would have to explain what it meant, which would detract from the flow of the message.