now they they know good and we'll Taylor Swift ain't nowhere in my music library but we'll just go with that for the day you know it is very challenging right now for me to talk about rethinking evangelism one is because the african-american church that poured into me as a little kid and sent me on a course to be a preacher is struggling right now and my in-laws are still there working so hard to attempt to see this church recover and revitalize I'm a product of this african-american Baptist Church and when I think about it struggling I struggle in talking about evangelism but maybe that's why we need to rethink evangelism I'm also struggling to talk about evangelism because when I was in high school that african-american Baptist Church that I was going to on Sundays and singing in the choir and I was a junior deacon and a junior uh sure didn't have a youth group and so a friend of mine from high school invited me to the youth group at a Methodist Church that was predominantly white in my neighborhood I know that I'm standing before you today because that friend of mine in high school invited me to his youth group but that friend of mine who invited me to his youth group and I saw God use him to lead 20-some other kids to that youth group who became Christians that young man who was a friend of mine in high school is not following Jesus today I'm praying for him I love him it's hard for me to talk about evangelism but maybe that's why we need to rethink evangelism it's also hard for me to talk about evangelism because the youth pastor at that Methodist Church in my neighborhood who discipled me who took me through the Gospels who took me through the book of Romans who pushed me to be a disciple that that would make disciples who when I was dating a girl that wasn't a Christian took me out to my favorite burger place and told me how that probably wasn't a good idea to have a girlfriend that wasn't a Christian and after that relationship ended with that girl I met another girl who's now my wife but that youth pastor has now been all over Facebook all over Twitter on Christianity today because he's left Christianity and now as a humanist it's hard for me to talk about evangelism when I think about my youth pastor is no longer following Jesus but maybe that's why we need to rethink evangelism there is a word found in Revelation in chapter 7 beginning with verse 9 God is giving John a picture a vision of the kingdom of God and in Revelation chapter 7 starting with verse 9 it says after this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom and Thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever amen then one of the elders addressed me saying who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come I said to him sir you know and he said to me the are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more the Sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat for the lamb and the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd and he will guide them to Springs of living water and God will wipe every tear from their eyes from this text I just want to talk to you for a few moments on the title rethinking evangelism through the suffering rethinking evangelism through the suffering I am really into superhero movies people that know me or have heard me preach they know that I'm really into superhero movies it wasn't that long ago that I saw the movie The Avengers to team up with Iron Man and and and The Hulk and Thor and Captain America and Black Widow and Hawkeye I saw that movie three times at the movie theater I've seen it on the plane twice I've seen it on cable I'm a man I'm into that movie huh I saw the The Dark Knight Rises the last in the trilogy of the reboot of Batman I saw that movie three times then I bought the DVD and watched it three more times I've seen the reboot of the amazing spider-man three times I've seen Iron Man 3 I've seen Captain America to Winter Soldier I've seen Thor - I know that next year in 2015 Avengers 2 age of Ultron is coming out I also know that ant-man is coming out in 2016 Superman V Batman which is also going to have a cameo from cyborg Wonder Woman and potentially Aquaman that's going to set up in 2018 the Justice League movie which won't be outdone because by then Doctor Strange will have come out and I'm praying believing the Holy Ghost that the Black Panther will make it to the screen ah I know some stuff about the Bible too but you know my favorite comic book as a kid growing up was this Superman comic called bizarro world and it was about this evil place this other realm this upside-down world full of injustice and evil and there was a person in bizarro world who looked just like Superman except he was as evil as Superman is good and bizarro world was threatening to invade planet Earth here's the problem bizarro world has already invaded planet Earth we live in bizarro world the reason we need to rethink evangelism the reason we need more church plants the reason we need to revitalize existing churches to be missional is because we are already in an upside-down broken bizarro world full of injustice and evil there are some places where there's goodness and stable families there are some places where the kids are above average but for the most part we live in a tore up from the floor up messed up nasty snarly justice screwed up bizarro upside-down world and we can no longer afford as Christians to walk around as if it is not so we ought to have a sense of urgency about broken people about the suffering about human trafficking about modern-day slavery about disease about poverty about arrogance about ignorance about racism and sexism and people that are just walking just in nasty Pride this the broken marriage isn't broke we ought to have a sense of urgency that drives us to rethink evangelism on this planet here's the good news though over 2,000 years ago someone greater than any comic book superhero ever written about his name as Jesus came down here and he demonstrated and declared what this world would look like if it was turned right side up again if the kingdom of God rained on this whole planet he showed us a glimpse a picture of what that would look like this out of fuel how we do evangelism this Jesus but you know it's interesting many times when Jesus was declaring and demonstrating the kingdom of God he did it with the suffering with the marginalized with the outcasts how many times do we see in the gospel when Jesus wants us to see the kingdom of God when Jesus wants us to know that the kingdom of God is at hand when Jesus wants us to know who he is as the Son of God and the son of man he does it with the Samaritan woman with a woman did his disease but the paralyzed man with a man who is blind with a girl that everybody thinks is already dead he uses the broken the marginalized the left for dead the outcast the the oppressed to show us the kingdom of God here in Revelation chapter 7 we see the picture of the kingdom of God through the lens of those who have been suffering it says here that there's a multitude that no one can count from every nation all tribes peoples and languages standing before the throne first of all I don't want to skip over it we see a multi-ethnic multicultural picture of the kingdom of God and since we are in an ever-increasing multicultural multiracial multi-ethnic multicast mission field how can we afford for the majority of the churches in the United States of America to be racially segregated the kingdom of God is multicultural the kingdom of God is multi-ethnic the kingdom of God is multilingual but we want everybody to speak English I don't know if they're gonna be speaking English I said it grammatically incorrect just so you would go with me I don't know if they gonna be speaking English or the English I just spoke in heaven if it is the case it will just be one of multiple languages that will be saying Hosanna amen and glory so we ought to be about the business of rethinking evangelism in an ever-increasing multicultural multiracial multi-ethnic multicast metropolitan reality around the world we must rethink but there's something else here John is watching through this vision this multicultural multi-ethnic multilingual multi tribal multitude I'm not saying that there's not unelect chosen people in heaven what I am saying is you better not try to count them and for those people that think that they already know the number of how many of the elect chosen people are gonna be in the kingdom of God it says right here there's a multitude that no one can count which means you just keep going to go out man I can't even count on people man whoa so hey I'm not saying there's not chosen elect people in heaven I'm just saying you can't count them and it's multicultural multi-ethnic mo tied link column I didn't write it I'm just saying it I'm just proclaiming it to you hey man y'all got quiet that's all right now also in this vision an elder someone of authority and insight not Jesus in the kingdom of God says to John in the vision do you know who these people are do you know who these multi-ethnic multicultural people in the kingdom of God are and John says what I would said you know I don't know you know and and he says these are the people who have come through the Great Tribulation now let me stop right here because some people take this text and what we've done in evangelicalism is all we do with this text for the most part is build a theology of tribulation like the movie you know left behind is is out right now and so the Left Behind thing will we will we will this is one of the texts we connect the Left Behind narrative to and so you got to decide in this text if you're pre-trib mid-trib post-trib what kind of trip you are right here you guys you got to decide it right here that's not what I'm doing I'm not interested in that right now right here today what what I'm what I'm interested in is this multitude that are that that are that are in the kingdom of God this multi-ethnic multicultural multitude has gone through great suffering while they were on earth now I don't know if John when he was seeing this vision was thinking like we evangelicals think today he might have been thinking we're going through Great Tribulation right now I can trace my family tree on my mom's side all the way back to a slave woman I wonder if she thought she was going through the Great Tribulation I wonder people right now that are in the Middle East that are being beheaded persecuted and killed for their faith I wonder if they think they're going through the Great Tribulation I mean maybe it's perspectival whether you're going through the Great Tribulation not what I do know is that most of the dominant models of evangelism and church planting that are presented around the country isn't presented from the vantage point of people that have gone through suffering into Kingdom citizenship it's usually from the vantage point of the privileged who aren't suffering much and some people wanted plant churches without suffering they want the money to be there they want the coaching they want the training they wanted all laid out for them they want in a nice package with a bow on it so they can go out and plant a church that's going to grow and take the world and take the city and they don't want to suffer but yet they want to experience the kingdom of God but they don't want tribulation they want to experience the kingdom of God but they don't want pain they want to reach me but they want to lead people to Christ but they don't want it to hurt they don't want to be rejected that's what privilege does the more you get the more you don't want to hurt the more you expect not to because what you want to do and I'm to a degree I'm privileged you know I I made it out of the urban community in which I grew up and and I'm highly educated and and and I'm an executive of a ministry and and I get to speak places I mean they're there there's certain privilege that I have even though sometimes when I'm driving home I get pulled over and they asked me why am I in the neighborhood and I'm like officer I live here but outside of that I'm pretty privileged and so even myself sometimes I want I want to progress through ministry without pain without hurt I don't want my kids to struggle I don't want my marriage to struggle I don't want to struggle I wanted to go well I wanted to grow I want a man but yet that's not how Jesus came Jesus God came to earth not in the package of a privileged human being why why did God decide to come to earth in the package of an oppressed Jewish exiled minority with no privilege status a carpenter's boy really that's how you're coming down here that's how you're going to proclaim the kingdom of God that's how the lost are going to be found that's how the broken is going to be blessed that's how you're gonna dismantle and tear down the temple and rebuilds up something new and eternal is in the package of a Jewish minority multi-ethnic carpenter boy and you're gonna say I am he I am here who you speak yes me and he did ministry in the muck and the mire in the stench in the controversy in the persecution of that human package and he demonstrated and declared the gate are you willing to rethink evangelism from the from the position of the suffering do we believe that the suffering and the poor and the marginalized the lies and the lowly can become missionaries in evangelist and church planters and and do we believe that they can be prophets and apostles in their own community or is the poor just objects of our compassion so we plan our church and once we get our church planted and once we evangelize and disciple some resource privileged people that bring resources to the table so we can build our programs then we start compassion ministry to reach the poor the broken and the lost which is a little backwards from what Jesus did Jesus went and recruited blue-collar people people that weren't trained already in Holly and say I know you're fishermen but I want you to follow me I want you to cast out evil spirits I want you to preach that the kingdom of God is at hand you Samaritan woman you can get up from this well and you can go into town woman and tell the men that you met Jesus you woman can come to the grave first and before a guy sees it imma let a sister see that I'm risen and you go back and tell the men go back and tell that guy that denied me three times that I got out of the grave early in the morning tell him and we say women can't preach a woman preach that Jesus is arisen a woman got it from a well and preached that's just saying why did I go there well well where's my notes okay here we go lord have mercy ah I believe that we need to move from having compassion for the poor those going through tribulation the suffering and we need to empower them in many major movements revivals awakenings city transformation it's been sparked through the lowly I say civil rights movement you say dr. Martin Luther King I say what about that domestic name Rosa Parks what about that little girl named Ruby Bridges Martin Luther King is not set up for leadership if ruby if Rosa Parks doesn't decide because my feet hurt from cleaning the house I'm gonna keep my seat on this bus that sets up dr. Martin Luther King jr.
no dr. Martin Luther King jr.
