Preached in Markham Baptist Church, April 23, 2006

Have you seen the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?  It is, of course, an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ great children’s book of the same name.  There are seven books in the Narnia series, all telling of a faraway land which we learn in the first book is created by the great king Aslan, a lion - a land in which Aslan lives, and a land Aslan loves, even though it is marred by wickedness.  We see in the second book that he loves the people so much that dies for them and rises again and lives for ever to bring his creation back to it’s full beauty. 

It is a wonderful allegorical tale.  Nora and I have just finished reading the third in the series, entitled “The Horse and His Boy.”  And in that story we meet the lion Aslan again, the great king of all, and through the whole story you see him exercising his kingship behind the scenes, steering the events of the story to his desired end, guiding his people, protecting them, prompting them – from behind the scenes. And at the end when he finally reveals himself for who he really is and all that he has been doing – he speaks to one of the main characters - who has not shown much faith throughout the book, he has been slow to believe all that Aslan is – Aslan looks at this timid, frightened horse and says “Do not dare not to dare.”¹

Isn’t that a great word uttered by the king?  And doesn’t it reflect the Word of God and the attitude of the King of kings to each one of us - “Do not dare not to dare.”  Or to put it into the positive – dare to dare.  It is the very spirit of God’s missionary enterprise around the world.  Everyone who has been an instrument for God has dared to dare.  The early disciples dared to stand in the temple, on the street corners and the market places proclaiming Jesus Christ is Lord.  They went throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth in spite of persecution and threat of death proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.  They dared to dare. 

And as we look at the history of missions in the Christian church we realize that every Christian who has shared their faith with their neighbour over the backyard fence or with their fellow worker at the water cooler, every church that has reached out to the lost and lonely and hungry and the sick with the good news of Jesus Christ, every missionary that has ever gone out over seas has dared to dare. 

Think about William Carey - in the late 1700s called the founder of modern missions, praying for all the nations beneath a map of the world on his wall, then standing up before a group of pastors and sharing with them the grand vision he has for the church to reach out to the world and being told, “Young man, sit down.  When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”  But Carey dared to dare and went on to show the church that God cares for the world and loves the world and has a message for the whole world of a Saviour.  He dared to dare so that the age of 73 he had seen the Scriptures translated and printed into 40 languages, and the whole of India open its doors to the good news of Jesus Christ.  He dared to dare in the face of naysayers, in the face of narrow thinkers so that God through Carey was able to transform the church and the world. 

That’s the missionary spirit, that’s God’s word to the church – it is dare to dare.  And in some ways I am hesitant to preach this message because some of you, I know, have heard the word of God and you do indeed dare for God.  I know there are some of you who have daringly pray for our church, for your pastors, and our mission together.  I know, Colleen for instance dares pray for the kids in her children’s choir who do not have a church home she prays regularly for them and their parents and actively invites them to worship.  She dares to dare.  Or take Sharyn, when the women of her neighbourhood asked her about church and what it was all about she invited them to come along to church with her.  Or consider Andrea who had two of her classmates here last week for our Easter service.  They dared to dare.  And I know there many more of you – our Explorer leaders, Sunday School teachers, committee members - each one dares to give of themselves in service to Jesus Christ, believing that what they do makes a difference.  I can’t name all of you because of time constraints but there are many who dare to dare for the kingdom of God and so I am hesitant to preach this.

Yet at the same time I know there are others of you who are lost in apathy and you dare not speak of your faith to others, you dare not display an active faith in Christ, you dare not give up your old sinful ways, you dare not get too attached to Christ lest you be seen as a fanatic, you dare not to give out of your material wealth to the work of God - you do not dare. 

And I know that there are others of you who are so stuck in a rut of normalcy, the usual, what you are used to and what you are comfortable with, that you dare not – and anyone suggests that we do something that is daring, you say “We can’t do that, we dare not, it’s not been done like that in the past and it won’t be done like that in the present, we have to practice constraint, we have to hold back,” when all the time the word of God is to you dare to dare. 

And there are others of you who say, “I am not able, I am not equipped to do what God has called me to do – so I won’t do it.”  But God’s word to you is dare to dare.

This is the word of God to us, in Acts 1:8, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

God calls His church to dare.  And as we look at Acts 1 we discover some particulars.  God’s call is not some great unknown, but there are some very specific tasks to which God calls His people to. Let’s look at three areas in which God calls us to dare to dare. 

First, God calls us to dare to pray.  Jesus says to His disciples before He ascends into heaven, “do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised,” Now, waiting in this context is not simply sitting twiddling one’s thumbs. We see in verse 14 that waiting means praying.  This is what the disciples did.  They went to the upper room and “they all joined together constantly in prayer.”  Waiting is praying. 

Are you daring to pray?  Are you daring to pray for the lost and least and the lonely?  Have you forgotten the words of that great prayer text, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ASK or imagine …” (Ephesians 3:20)  It is a prayer text. Do you dare to dare in your prayers? 

Asking God to do that which, if it was done, you’d know that only God could possibly do it?  Are you praying for that old cantankerous uncle of yours who says he will never step inside the door of a church – but there you are on your knees praying for that uncle week after week?  Do you dare to dare in your prayers?  Are you praying for our church – “O God, so pour out your spirit that everyone of us would have such a vision of the face of Christ that we would be blind to every other face?  O God, pour out your spirit on our church that those who are weak in their faith would grow stronger, that those who are strong in their faith would help the weak that we would have a burden for the lost that we would not rest until all of Markham is rescued from an eternity without God?”

Are you daring in your prayers?  You are?  We need more people like you!  During the next number of months we will be planning our outreach event to Cornell and we need people to pray daringly for that event.  I have a vision of going door to door, before that event and asking the people of Cornell how we can pray for them.  And I need people who will join me in that endeavour.  We need to people who will dare to dare in their prayers.

Jesus also calls us to dare to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus says, “wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”  You will be submerged with the Holy Spirit.  And again in verse 8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

It is the power of the Holy Spirit that enabled the disciples to preach Christ to the very ends of the earth.  Think of Peter at the crucifixion and he is doing everything he can to wiggle his way out of any association with Christ. Then, after the resurrection and after the Holy Spirit comes on him in power, he stands before that great crowd and he does not stutter in his testimony of Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Saviour. 

It is the Holy Spirit who gives power to God’s people.  The early disciples had no confidence whatsoever in themselves.  But they had every confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring transformation in people’s lives, the power of the Holy Spirit to bring hope and healing and the truth of Jesus Christ to people’s minds and hearts. 

And it is the same today.  It is the power of the Holy Spirit that convicts people of their sin and renews the soul to be a child of God.  It is the power of the Holy Spirit that enables men and women to serve in difficult places in the church and all over the world. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who encourages and sustains and comforts when the ministry is hard.  It is as we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit that we are enabled to dare for Jesus Christ.

So when you hear God calling you to a task do you say, “I can’t do it, I don’t have the skills, I don’t have the eloquence, I don’t have the knowledge to speak of spiritual things?”  That may all be true, but my friends, we are called to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us to take our acts of service, to take our words of testimony to bring people to a knowledge of Christ.

I sometimes wonder if those people who don’t believe they can do a task are just the very people God wants.   Because when you have completed the task that God has called you to do, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit at work in you, you are then able to stand back and say, “Well it wasn’t me who did that – I don’t have the ability – it was God working in me.” That’s exactly what God wants, He deserves the glory. 

And He doesn’t always get that glory from people who think themselves gifted. But He gets the glory all the time from people who recognize their weaknesses and give themselves to him completely and in full surrender. If you don’t think you have the ability to lead a committee, the ability to teach a class, the ability to share the good news of Christ with a friend, you may be just the very person God wants!  If you rely on the power of the Holy Spirit you can dare to dare. So, do you dare to pray, do you dare trust in the power of the Holy Spirit? 

And then this do you dare to give your all to Jesus? Jesus says at verse 8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be MY witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” 

We Christians have one King, we have one Leader, we have one Master and it is Jesus Christ.  We do not go out to be our own witnesses, we do not go out to be witnesses for the church - we go out as Christ’s witnesses.  We belong to Him.  His agenda is our agenda; His goals are our goals; His desire is our command.  We are His witnesses.  We belong to Him.

Elisabeth Elliot has said that mission starts with a willing heart.  It starts with a person who gets down on his knees and says, “Lord, here is my body.  I present it to you, as a living sacrifice.  Everything in it, everything I’ve got, everything I am or will ever be is yours forever.” ²

You know this is perhaps the greatest challenge to us in affluent Markham.  We have so much.  We have families, we have jobs, cars, and boats and cottages and houses and tractors.  We have so much and Jesus Christ asks for it all. 

You will be MY witnesses and you will be a witness to Jesus, and His power and His ability and His provision.  Do you dare give it all to Him?  Do you dare give it all up for Him?  Do you dare give to Him your job and say Lord use me in any way you see fit?  Bring people across my path to whom you want me to witness.  Lord help me to take a stand for you in my job, for justice and integrity and honesty.  Do you dare give Him your all? He cannot use your job as an area of blessing if you don’t give it to Him.  Think of the difference you could make in your workplace if you dared to take a stand for Christ.  Think of the people who would be helped and encouraged. 

Do you dare give to Him your finances? Do you dare trust Him in His promise that if you give to Him a tenth of your wealth that He will throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it?  (Malachi 3:8) Do you dare trust Him to keep that promise?  Think of the millions of people God could help if you dared give Him your finances.   

Do you dare give to Him your children?  Do you dare to pray Lord my children are not my own, they are but a trust given to me by You.  And if You would see fit to call them to full-time service, if you would call them to the pastorate, or call them to the mission field, I will praise you - I will not stand in the way.”   Do you dare give to Him your children?  O, the number of people you will change, the number of people you will affect because you dared to give your children to God.  Do you dare to give your all to Jesus Christ? 

Some time ago a very famous missionary by the name of Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”³ Do you dare give your all to Jesus Christ? 

During these weeks of Mission Month we want to focus on people in church history who have dared to dare - who have dared to make a difference.  This morning our focus is on Jim Elliot and four other missionaries who dared to make a difference in 1956.  They went to Ecuador in order to reach a group of natives, the Auca Indians.  The only people who got into that territory before was the Shell Oil company because they thought there was oil in that territory, but their surveyors ended up dead.  But these five men wanted to reach them.  They dared to dare for Jesus Christ.  They dared to pray, they dared to trust the power of the Holy Spirit, and they dared to give their all to Jesus Christ. 

This is their story.  (VIDEO clip from “The Gates of Splendor”)

I just want to finish our time together – and address a question about this daring to dare and the question is “Is it worth it?”  We look at the lives of these five missionaries and we ask, “Was it worth it?” 

Well it has been estimated that 10,000 people have gone to the mission field as a result of the martyrdom of those men.  I can tell you thousands more have been brought to belief in the power of God in Christ as Steve Saint has stood beside the man who killed his father with a spear and said, “This is my brother, more, my children call him ‘grand father.’ ”  It is a phenomenal story told in a book entitled “End of the Spear.”  Besides all that the tiny village came to know the love of God and hundreds of others.

But suppose none of that happened.  Suppose no missionaries ever heard responded to the call of God because of those five martyrs, suppose no villagers accepted Jesus Christ, suppose Steve Saint didn’t go down and work among his father’s killers. Would the sacrifice be worth it?

And the answer is “Yes!”.  A thousand times “Yes!” Why?  Listen, because John 12:24, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies it produces many seeds.”  My friends, the results are not our business.  Our part is in the words of Elisabeth Elliot - “our part is to be willing to be that seed that falls into the ground and dies.”

I’ve heard people say I can’t be a follower of Jesus Christ because I’m afraid of what He will ask me to do. I just die thinking of some of the things that He could ask me to do.  And I have to say, you won’t be much good to God and the Kingdom unless you do die to your agendas, goals and desires.”⁴  

Are you willing to dare in your prayer, in your trust in the power of the Holy Spirit, in giving your all to Jesus Christ. 

Will you dare to dare.  But will it be worth it?  1 John 2:17, “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” 

Is it worth it?  O, yes!  So do not dare not to dare!

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - April 2006

ENDNOTES:
 

2. Elisabeth Elliot in a book entitled The Unfinished Task. Her article is entitled, “Reflections on the Death of Five Missionaries” (U.S.A.: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 111.

3. Lionel and Carol Green, Dare To Make A Difference (Canada: SIM, 1997), 91.

4. Elisabeth Elliot, “Reflections on the Death of Five Missionaries” (U.S.A.: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 116.  

[Home] [Coming Up] [Programs] [Sermons] [About Us] [Contact Us]