Dave Devenish continued his exploration of the life of Jesus in the Sunday morning session speaking from Luke chapter 4:14-30 - looking at the time when Jesus preached in the synagogue in Nazareth.
Here again are some of my notes and thoughts on Dave's message.
Dave explained that at the time of Jesus, Nazareth was a very Jewish community in the midst of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural region - Galilee.
All through Old Testament history, Israel was meant to be a blessing to all nations (not geo-political entities but people groups). Jesus came as a both a representative of and embodiment of that blessing to all nations.
Jesus' mission was mis-understood by the Jews. On occassions non Jews more readily understood Jesus than the Jews. "God's grace is for all, and faith comes in surprising places."
"Great grace leads to great faith"
Dave spoke about Jesus's annointing and our annointing. "We are annointed because Jesus is the Messiah [the annointed one] and we have Jesus in us [as believers]." This annointing is for mission.
"Any teaching on annointing that does not have a missional emphasis misses the mark."
Dave spoke about Jesus' manifesto Luke 4:18.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
Luke 14:8 (ESV)
Dave also spoke about the apostle Paul's manifesto from Romans 1:5
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
Romans 1:5 (ESV)
We are to combine these together to get our mission. "Our mission is to bring glory to God everywhere. We have received grace and apostleship - authority to go to all nations to bring them to obedience of faith."
Paul had a passion for the unreached. He wanted to preach the gospel where it had not been preached before. "A passion for the gospel is a passion to go to the unreached."
Evangelism and transforming culture go hand in hand and are joined by the annointing and are part of God's heart for mission.
Variety is essential to glorify God. God is more glorified in variety than in uniformity [diverse multi-ethnic, multi-cultural churches reflect this]. "The scattering of the nations was ordained by God and for his glory. Acts 17:24-27 and Habbakuk 2:14.
"Without sending across cultures it is not possible to fully grasp the gospel. We need an outside witness" We need to be open to input from Christians from other nations as their worldview will be different and can challenge areas in ours that have been tainted and are no longer biblical "... Job of a preacher is to change worldview so we approach culture differently."
We need to adapt and adopt to our cultural surroundings without compromising the gospel - the apostle Paul "I have become all things to all men."
Hopefully these notes capture some of Dave's message. All of the messages from the weekend will be available on the Newfrontiers website soon. They are well worth listening to.
It was encouraging to see many respond after Dave's message on Sunday to a call to go to unreached peoples.
