Send Me
TCF Sermon Text
April 6, 2008
Isaiah 6:8 (NIV) 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Here’s the prophet Isaiah, fresh from an encounter with the living God, demonstrating a willingness to commit himself to service. His willingness came from a grateful heart – he had not only just encountered the living God, but he had found forgiveness. So, he was willing to commit himself to hardship, whatever may come. This is a tremendous example of total commitment.
A missionary society wrote to pioneer African missionary David Livingstone and asked, "Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to know how to send other men to join you." Livingstone wrote back, "If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all." Good News Broadcaster, April, 1985, p. 12.
I wonder how many of us have a “send me” heart – a send me attitude? And I’m not talking simply about a call to missions. We may have made choices to follow Jesus and serve Him at some point, but is this our daily heart attitude? Is our commitment continuing? Are we willing to say every day, Lord, send me.
C.T. Studd, the famous English cricket player, and a member of the English cricket team, gave away his vast wealth and became a missionary more than a century ago. His slogan was, "If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.”
There was a time in the life of this fellowship that being in any kind of leadership, whether it was house church pastor, elder, or many other roles in the church, required a commitment that, by today’s standards, seems almost unbelievable.
I cannot remember the last time, for example, we had a required meeting for the house church pastors. But in the 1970s and early 1980s, the house church pastors were expected to be at two meetings each week, in addition to their house church meeting, and sometimes more. Do the math. That’s at least three nights a week, apart from the Sunday night service, which you were expected to attend, as well. That makes four nights.
By the time I became a house church pastor, the course that was a prerequisite to serving in that role, called the MCS, had been trimmed down tremendously. It was once a week for about six months when Tom Buck, Hal Reed, some others and I did the MCS under the direction of Dave Troutman, but before that, it was significantly more demanding in terms of meetings, in terms of scripture memorization, and in terms of the volume of reading you had to do.
Today, our elders’ meetings go a few hours each week, seldom much more than that. There was a day that elders’ meetings often went on for five or six hours at least once each week. And it was likely that, as an elder, you had other meetings you had to attend each week, too.
The expectations went beyond just the leaders and those who served in various capacities. We as a church had a lot more meetings in those days. You were part of a house church, which meant one night a week. There was a Sunday night service, year-round, not just our Sunday night seminar 8 weeks in the fall and 8 weeks in the winter, concurrent with Bible Bowl. There was a Sunday school class before the Sunday morning service. There were numerous bible studies, and prayer meetings. There were more special events.
There was an expectation that if you were a faithful part of TCF, you were at all these things. A similar thing existed in most churches, not just TCF. When you became a member of a church, there were expectations. There were high demands. Frankly, at least at TCF, these things may have been too much, especially for leaders. They were high demands for a different era, and some people experienced some burnout because of the expectations.
Today, the pendulum has swung, and I for one, am glad we’re not still in those days of the 1970s and early 1980s. In fact, I was asked to take the leadership training course back in 1981, a little over a year after I began attending TCF. When I began to hear stories about the kinds of demands placed on leaders in this church, I politely declined.
Though I would never want to return to those days, I sometimes wonder if perhaps the pendulum has swung too far the other direction. There was a time that maybe as much as 75% of the church was involved in a house church. Today, I’d guess we’re at 50%, perhaps less. Our monthly corporate prayer meetings are seldom attended by more than 20 or 25 people, often less. Our rare weeknight meetings, apart from house churches, are seldom attended by more than about 50 people.
There was a time that when leaders asked someone to do something, or encouraged people to attend some meeting, there was more of an expectation that the person asked would agree. Let me be quick to note that I’m absolutely opposed to elders, or any other leaders in this church telling anyone what they’re supposed to do. I’m not here to lay a guilt trip on anyone. I believe one of our roles as shepherds is to help people hear the Lord, rather than merely tell them what the Lord’s saying. Yes, it’s appropriate and right to involve leadership in major life decisions, but we will not tell you what to do, even though there may be times when we might strongly suggest.
But I will also say that I sometimes wonder if we don’t take such invitations to serve, or to be a part of something or attend some event, seriously enough, knowing that leaders pray diligently about the people and the needs of this church, and carefully and prayerfully consider how God might fill those needs.
So, while I would vigorously oppose going back to those days of extremely high expectations, and I would not favor the imposition of the will of any elder, or any other leader of this church, into someone’s personal sphere of service, unless of course there was clear sin involved, I’m also reminded that we are part of a high-demand religion – a faith that brings with it very high expectations. How else can you take verses like these?
Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV) 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
Or how about this related verse, a few chapters earlier, again the words of Jesus:
Matthew 10:37-39 (NASB77) 37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 "He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.
Or
1 Peter 1:15-16 (NIV) 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
Or how about the classic:
Mark 9:43-45 (NIV) 43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. 44 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.
Clearly, these passages are highly demanding – they come with high expectations of commitment.
You might say, well, Jesus was using hyperbole to make a point. And I would agree. But let’s not stop there. Let’s ask – OK, if he was using hyperbole – if he was exaggerating to make a point, what’s the point he was using hyperbole to make?
I don’t believe that Jesus would have us literally cut off our hands or our feet, even though the early church father Origen is said to have cut off another part of his body to help keep him from sin involving that part of his body. I don’t know of anyone who’s encouraging such self-mutilation. But, it also seems that we hear fewer calls for self-sacrifice.
Self mutilation? No. But what about self sacrifice? What about dying to self to follow Jesus? The call to that is more than just exaggerating to make a point. It’s one of those high demands. How about holiness? Is that just hyperbole? While it’s clear that apart from Christ, we cannot attain to anything approaching His holiness, I don’t think we can dismiss that passage as simple exaggeration, to drive home a point.
While we might readily agree we don’t go cutting off body parts, I don’t think we can simply dismiss such high expectations, implicit in these kinds of verses in Scripture – and we could cite many more. Why are these words of Jesus included in our Bibles?
Rather than say, “surely Jesus didn’t mean that,“ or, “it doesn’t apply to us in this time and place,“we should probably be saying, rather, does this apply and if so how? Let’s take the Matthew passage about taking up our cross:
Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV) 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
Now, it’s highly unlikely any of us will ever literally go to the cross. It’s only very slightly more likely any one of us will ever be asked to literally give our lives for our faith. So does that let us off the hook? “Well, I’m not called to die for my faith,” we might think. So what does this mean for me?
That’s where the idea of high demands and commitment comes in. And it goes well beyond our participation in church leadership, or church service, or anything else related to church life. These are only examples, and a miniscule percentage of the totality of what kind of commitment we are to have. It extends to every part of our lives.
Taking up our cross essentially means dying to self. It’s not necessarily putting up with tragic or difficult or painful circumstances. People get sick and they say, “it’s just my cross to bear.”
But, this passage is talking about the cost of following Jesus, and that cost is self-sacrifice – dying to our own interests, maybe to our own comfort, perhaps even to our own safety. Jesus was telling his disciples that following Him meant a total commitment. Real discipleship means real commitment. It means we pledge our whole existence to His service. As the song we sing says: “All of my ambitions, hopes and plans, I surrender these into your hands.” Is that really our prayer? Is that really our heart?
When we give our lives in service to Christ…we discover the real purpose of living. Jesus used the image of carrying a cross to illustrate the ultimate submission required of his followers. He is not against pleasure, nor was he saying that we should seek pain needlessly. Jesus was talking about the heroic effort needed to follow him moment by moment, to do his will even when the work is difficult and the future looks bleak.
We should be willing to lose our lives for the sake of the gospel, not because our lives are useless, but because nothing — not even life itself — can compare to what we gain with Christ. Jesus wants us to choose to follow him rather than to lead a life of sin and self-satisfaction. Life Application Bible
We live in a culture that has a very hard time with commitments. Look around you. Read the newspaper. Making commitments and keeping commitments seem to be difficult for our society. An easy target is the commitment of marriage. Once more, a few weeks ago, we had a very public figure make a very public revelation about how he did not keep his commitment in marriage to cleave only unto His wife, as we say in wedding vows. These are clearly difficult commitments for people to keep.
But as marriage can be easily used to illustrate this idea of not keeping commitments, I think it can also be used to show how we seem to have trouble making commitments in the first place.
In 1950, the average age at marriage for men was 22, almost 23. For women it was 20. By 2003, the last year I could find stats for, it was 27 for men, 25 for women. Why is this? And is this a good thing? Certainly there are a lot of reasons, and certainly there are some good reasons for delaying marriage. It’s a serious commitment and shouldn’t be entered into lightly.
But personally, I’ve encountered at least some evidence that the average age at marriage has risen because there’s an unwillingness to commit – an unwillingness to do the dying to self that all marriages require.
Someone doesn’t want to lose the freedom to do whatever they want without consulting their marriage partner, so they don’t make the commitment at all. Or they just live together, to get some of the benefits of married life without the genuine commitment.
Of course, the other end of the spectrum is well documented. The divorce rate is another example of our culture’s unwillingness to remain committed. We could find many other examples in our culture.
Let me cite one I’ve noted among some of our young people. It’s a silly thing, but illustrates a general trend I believe is revealed in many ways in our culture. I’ve seen young adults – teens and twenties – who won’t commit to something fun to do on a Friday night until they’re sure nothing better will come along.
Say you have a friend who invites you to a movie. You like the friend, you’re interested in the movie you’re invited to go see. But when asked what you’re going to do Friday night, you say, I don’t know yet. I can’t tell you how often I hear that in my house. I don’t know yet. I don’t know yet, because I’m waiting to see if something I think is even more fun will present itself. I don’t know yet, because I don’t want to commit and be sorry later because I might miss something exciting. The something exciting’s not a sure thing. It might not even be on the horizon. But why take a chance? Leave your options open. Be spontaneous.
We see that in a lot of realms of our culture today, from relationships, to churches, to marriages, to activities, to jobs, to other very important life choices, and less important choices, like what to do on Friday night.
There’s something critical about this passage of scripture in Matthew, which is also repeated in the other gospels, that I want to get at. Look at verse 24 again:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me,…”
The New American Standard says: “wishes to come.” The King James says: “will come.” In this case, I think the KJV has the best translation. That’s because the word denotes an intentional choice – what we really want to do and decide to do – a willingness. This means that as often as not, our following Christ, and His demands on our life, or his direction, has to do not only with His leading, but perhaps as much or more to do with whether or not we choose to follow, in other words, do we have the strong “want-to” - and hence, we serve sacrificially, we live self-denying lives, with the same kind of deep commitment it requires to take up our cross. Like Isaiah, are we willing? Can we say, “Here am I. Send me.”
It’s a choice. And it’s an ongoing choice – not a passing thing. It’s a matter of our intentions, of our will. Our “want to.” So, a lot of times, it’s not “gee I don’t know what to do.” It’s more a matter of “gee, I’m not ready or willing to choose this path.” Or I don’t really want to.
It may be a path that’s perfectly and completely in line with God’s will. But, if we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t want to commit to it because there may be a cost. There may be death to self. There may be sacrifice.
Now, I cannot pick on the young people alone here, because this is very much inherent in our human nature. Dying to self is not something any of us would naturally choose. But choose it we must, to follow Christ.
Death to self is not so much a prerequisite to discipleship to Jesus as a continuing characteristic of it. Zondervan NIV Commentary
Well, you might say, of course that applies to those called to the mission field. Of course that applies to those called to “ministry” of some sort. Of course that applies to various areas of Kingdom service. But hey, I’m just a regular Christian. Let me tell you something. There’s no such thing. We’re all quote unquote, in the ministry. We may not all be called to the foreign mission field, and we may not be called to a paid role in some kind of ministry activity, but we do all have a calling to a mission field – probably more than one.
It may be, as we noted last week, through our art and the people that helps us encounter. It may be in our families. It may be in our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces. It may or may not be through TCF. But, it may be through this church by giving sacrificially of our time or our money to help equip others to do what God has called them to do – like go to China, or to Egypt or to Russia.
But the verse here says “anyone.” Anyone who wants to follow Jesus. That makes this an all-inclusive verse. Anyone in the Greek means anyone – by implication everyone. So the only qualifier is if you want to follow Jesus. If you don’t want to follow Jesus, then why are you here today?
I don’t know about you, but I want to follow Jesus. And if that means taking up my cross, dying to self, and it does…then I want to do that more and more in my life …I want to know what that means for me.
You know, 28 years ago last month, I came to TCF and stayed because I saw this as a high-demand church. I was 23. Jim Grinnell was already 24, because he’s older than me, but he wasn’t here yet.
It was 1980, and I was a young married guy, about 7 years old in the Lord.
I wasn’t deeply devoted to the Lord, but I did want a deeper relationship. When I came to TCF, and I think this is still true today, maybe even this morning, I heard sermons almost every week that challenged my faith. Sermons that challenged my complacency. Sermons that figuratively kicked me in the pants and encouraged me to take my life in Christ seriously.
Now, I may not have been incredibly, deeply devoted to Jesus, but I also was smart enough to know that if I ever wanted to be, I needed that regular motivation. I came to, and stayed, in this church, because the reality is we all tend to live up to the level of commitment of those around us. If we worship with a bunch of spiritual slackers, we’re not likely to get much beyond that ourselves.
But here at TCF, I found my walk with Jesus challenged by people who were absolutely and completely serious about learning and implementing what it means to follow Jesus with their whole hearts. I saw people who truly knew something about taking up their cross, sacrificing self, to follow Him.
And you know what? I still see that here, in many of you. So why am I preaching this? Because I want this to continue to be a reality about TCF. And I want it to grow. And - I don’t ever want myself, or this body of Christ at TCF, to grow complacent.
There was a book published in 1972 called Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. Now this didn’t necessarily imply anything political at all, but it had to do with theological conservatism. It talked about how high-demand churches, especially churches that expect their members to adhere to sound doctrines – seem to thrive, while low-demand churches, usually mainline, are shrinking.
Some researchers believe that doctrinal and behavioral strictness, and high demands, increases commitment, rather than scaring people off, and raises levels of participation.
Baylor Univ sociologist Rodney Stark writes:
People value religion on the basis of cost and they don’t value the cheapest ones the most. Religions that ask nothing get nothing. You’ve got a choice. You can be a church or a country club. If you’re going to be a church, you’d better offer religion on Sunday. If you’re not, you’d better build a golf course, because you’re not going to get away with being a country club with no golf course.
Of course, we have to be honest about all this. Even these most demanding of churches, with the highest expectations, are demanding only up to a point. It’s not hard to find examples of Christian churches or communities that make other churches look like slackers by comparison.
How about monasteries or convents? They have very high demands of poverty, chastity and obedience. They’re not attracting thousands to this lifestyle. There are as many people who attend weekly services at one large charismatic church in Houston, about 30,000, as there are Franciscan friars worldwide.
You also don’t see huge Amish communities either, – and there’s a definitely high-demand, high expectation community.
Then there are what some call the new monastic communities, where young people are intentionally moving into poor areas to serve (like Amy Hunter in Vancouver).
Mark Galli, an editor of Christian History magazine and author of the book Jesus Mean and Wild, wrote:
So, it seems we want some theological and more demands made on us, but not too many. Give us a somewhat challenging faith and we’ll do just fine. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather tithe, pray daily, serve on a couple of church committees, lead a men’s Bible study, serve on the church board and attend weekly services. As exhausting as (this can be), it’s infinitely easier than the demands Jesus would make on my life. Poverty, chastity and obedience – child’s play when stacked up against self-mutilation and self-sacrifice.
So, where does this leave us? Jesus’ disciples asked a similar question when He told them how hard it is for the wealthy to be saved. Here’s a high expectation:
Matthew 19:23-26 (NIV) 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" 26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Isn’t this the same kind of reaction we have – who can be saved? - when we look at the huge chasm between what our lives look like and what Jesus demands?
But, thanks be to God. That’s what Paul said when he considered the depth of his sin, knowing the demands, the expectations of sinlessness from God, and his total inability to overcome sin on his own.
Romans 7:21-25 (NIV) 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So, again quoting Mark Galli, who gives us a great analogy:
We look to the top of the spiritual Everest that Jesus expects us to climb, and our hearts sink. We didn’t bring the right boots. We don’t have enough water, nor a single oxygen tank, nor ice picks, nor climbing rope. We have no idea how to scale steep, icy slopes. And we’re so out of shape, we can barely walk back and forth from the campfire to out tent.
But Jesus, our gentle Sherpa, doesn’t expect us to get to the top of the mountain in the next couple of hours. He will never let us forget what the impossible goal is, but He is merciful. He will train us up in the way we should go. He will supply all our needs. He will patiently endure those times when we go two steps forward and three steps back.
Along the way there will be times when we’re pretty proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’ll be tempted to sit by the trail and bask in our accomplishments, noting how much further we’ve gotten than those mainline hikers way back there. But then, we’ll look ahead and see how very far the peak is, shrouded in mysterious clouds, intimidating, frightening, yet pulling us upward.
…when we’re willing to make these extraordinary demands on ourselves, we enter into a deeper knowledge of one another, a deeper love for one another.
If (married) couples love each other enough to make such demands on one another, is it hard to imagine that Jesus makes demands on us precisely because He loves us and because he wants us to know Him more intimately and love Him more deeply?
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As we prepare to close, let’s remember our opening passage, and indeed the title of this message: Send Me.
Right before Isaiah made this statement, he saw God with a clarity he’d never seen before.
Isaiah 6:5 (NIV) 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
Seeing God clearly, Isaiah became aware of his own powerlessness to do anything of lasting value, to make any kind of serious commitment, without God.
We’re the same – hopeless and helpless without the Lord. But are we willing?
Taking up your cross will look different for you than it will for me. Saying to God, send me – I want to follow Jesus, will mean something different for each of us. That’s why I’ve offered just a few illustrations of what this might look like, but will not say – this is what that means for you.
But where we’re the same is in this question: Are we willing? Do we want to? Have we decided to follow Jesus? Today. Here. Now. Always. Knowing that following Jesus means taking up our cross? This is the question we must answer in the affirmative not just today, but every day, as we take up our cross and follow Him, in essence saying, with that death to self – Here I am, Lord, send me. Pray.
