PCI General Assembly

Afternoon Worship - Thursday 5 June 2008

Making a Difference - Mark 1:29-39

Address of Rev. Norman Brown at the Wednesday Afternoon Worship Session

I am sure I don't need to remind you of the Moderator's theme, but what does it mean to make a difference?

It took 20 years of struggle for William Wilberforce to see that passionate desire to make a difference become a reality.

It didn't take just as long for Ethel! When her son was born physically challenged, she came face to face with the fact that there was no local schooling provision for children with physical and mental disabilities. She was convinced the Lord was calling her to use her influence, her ability and her energy to address this situation and her vision became a reality years later. She made a real difference on behalf of an important section of the community.

There are many more examples of people who invested themselves to affect significant change and who testify to the fact that the passion, that the inspiration, came from their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches us that the Lord has established His church on earth to make a significant difference to people's lives, to be a source and catalyst of change. But how does this come about?

I think we have some answers to this 'how' question in that passage from Mark's gospel (1:29-39).

Some of the hints given through the example set by our Lord Jesus are very obvious. In the first place we make a difference by serving in the community (v 33, 34). We often say "There is no impact without contact." This, of course, was a feature of the life of Christ. He had close-quarter contact with people -- all sorts of people. He didn't stand apart, aloof, guarded by his 12 minders! He was up close and personal, within reach, rubbing shoulders, involved with people without exception!

While He was not of the world He was very much in it, relating to those with whom He came into contact. Jesus told us He came to serve; to offer himself -- His ability, His authority, His sympathy, to minister to whoever crossed His path.

Now, we know that the community is the context in which we live out and work out our relationship with Jesus Christ. We are to do what He did.

We are to make ourselves available -- our influence, our abilities, our resources -- to serve, without exception, those in our community, and we are to do this individually and collectively. Christ is urging us "Go, make a difference for me."

At the closing of Union College last month, one of the themes Principal Patton Taylor touched on and which caught my attention was 'The Church Without Walls'. We are not to barricade ourselves in our churches, separating ourselves from the world around us. Rather we are to get out and get our hands dirty and perhaps our hearts broken in order to reach lost people with the living message of Christ.

It is not so much a place we are urging people to visit; it is not so much a programme we are urging people to join. It is a person we are urging people to meet through us. We are not to keep his presence a secret!

There is a lovely comment made in Mark 7:24 which is very telling.

This should be said of us so we incarnate the good news of Christ who is in us. To make a difference we are to be serving in the community, getting involved in its life and activities. Where does the Lord want you to make a difference?

Notice secondly, learning from the example of our Lord Jesus we are to make a difference by developing an intimacy with God (v 35). Think about this -- our Lord Jesus was able to made an impact through His contact with people because His contact with His Father made an impact on Him. There was an engagement, what Desi Maxwell calls 'an interactive encounter' in this meeting between Father and Son. How true is this for each of us in our contact with our heavenly Father?

If our Lord Jesus needed this regular intimate contact with His Father to help Him stay on mission, how much more do we. We learn here that service is more about being than doing. We are worshippers before we are workers.

What about our contact with our Heavenly Father? Is it coldly formal or intensely personal? Is it merely cerebral, an intellectual exercise, or deeply relational, touching us, stirring us, changing us? Is there an increasing intimacy? Does that contact in the secret place result in an impact upon our lives that others will notice?

We know the saying, "The secret of failure is failure in secret". Does this truth disturb us? Are we determined this will not happen to us? A.W. Tozer once said, "The world is perishing for lack of knowledge of God and the Church is vanishing, starving for want of His presence." Is that assessment accurate today? Surely the world needs to see in us the people of God, the living presence of our Lord and Saviour. It seems to me that only as we develop this intimacy in private will we ever be able to express it naturally and compellingly in public. Do the sentiments expressed by David is Psalm 63:1 come anywhere close to describing how it is with us?

We make a difference by serving in our community; developing an intimacy with God. There is something else we learn from the example of Jesus if we are to make a difference -- fulfilling our responsibility (v 36-39).

For the leadership of the early church this was a vital lesson. People had their own expectations of Jesus. In this case there was unfinished business. People had come with their needs but Jesus isn't there for them! To the request He answered 'No' (v 38). Faced with these needs, with this demand, Jesus was prepared to be unreasonable, to disappoint some people, to leave Himself open to criticism, to face the prospect of being unpopular because He had other priorities, responsibilities.

There are some important issues here but permit me to focus on just one. We are responsible to people -- the people in our community, in our congregation, but we are not responsible for them.

Jesus said, "I must do what I came to do." They were not setting the agenda, He was! He was clear about His main responsibility, His first priority and despite calls from others He remained faithful to the mission He received from His Father. As leaders in the church of Jesus Christ we are responsible to our heavenly Father -- to know individually and collectively what He has called us to be and to do in the context of the community in which the Lord has set us. But we are also responsible to our people to fulfil it! Don't cheat them by being irresponsible!

We know that if we give people what they want all the time we feed the growing Christian consumerism that is plaguing the Church today and is perpetuating disloyalty, selfishness and immaturity. John Maxwell talks about "scores of passive parishioners... infected with a disease called 'spectatorism'. This untapped potential is generally educated beyond their level of obedience and is not transmitting truth into practice. Spectatorism creates flabby, weak, spoon-fed believers who have grown old but not grown up."

We are responsible to our people.

Do what the Lord sent us to do... to effectively communicate the message of Christ... to dare to enter enemy territory to see his influence broken... to join Him as He builds His Kingdom

Think of the possibilities!! Go, make a difference.

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