A heart for God’s Mission
If you have attended Cornerstone long enough you have probably heard our mission statement or maybe you have read it on our website.
Late in the last century, when Angela and I were dreaming about what this church would look like, we were told that an important part of that process was to develop a mission statement and so we did.
30 years ago when people asked us what we were about we could tell them with conviction “Cornerstone Wesleyan Church exists to reach pre-Christians through dynamic worship and relevant preaching, bringing them to a life expanding relationship with Jesus Christ and guiding them into a practical holiness as evidenced through the fruit of the Spirit.”
We updated that a number of years ago, we didn’t change our mission, we simply changed the language. Our mission statement now reads, Cornerstone exists to provide a home for the spiritually homeless. Guiding them into a dynamic growing relationship with God and His Family.
So, the dream and mission of this church for the past thirty years has been that we would endeavour to reach the pre-churched, the de-churched, and the un-churched.
And we believe that is not only our mission but is God’s mission as well, after all we are told in John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
And that thought is reiterated in Romans 5:8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
So, if God loved pre-Christians enough to give his Son and Jesus loved pre-Christians enough to give his life, I would think that we should be willing to give up our traditions and preferences for them if that’s what it takes.
And so, 30 years later, our mission remains the same, although sometimes I will simply say “Cornerstone is here to help depopulate hell.”
And I believe that. I believe that there are people today in our church and in our community who will go to heaven because of who we are and what we do, and that wouldn’t have been the case if there had been no Cornerstone.
But sometimes I still have pastors or believers from more traditional churches accuse us of pandering to people, or watering down the gospel and dumbing down the message. Oh well. I am reminded of the story told about D.L. Moody, apparently someone asked Moody how he reached the lost. When he told them they informed him they didn’t agree with his methods. So, Moody asked, “How do you do it?” to which they replied, “I don’t.” Moody answered, “I like my way better.”
Our story begins in Luke 15:1-3 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! So Jesus told them this story:
Two thousand years ago, it was the same as it is today. Religion was seen as a closed club. You came to God on the terms of established religion.
You learned their language. You sang their songs, and you understood their rules.
Both the written rules and the unwritten rules. And Jesus began to shake that up. Instead of expecting those who needed God to take all the steps, Jesus made it easier for them.
He taught in fields and marketplaces, in people’s homes and with simple stories that people could understand. And the religious establishment got a little cranky because they were feeling threatened.
So, Jesus did what Jesus so often did. He told them a story. It wasn’t a theological dissertation. It wasn’t a sermon filled it religious terms and words. It was just a story.
When we lived in Australia, it is a beautiful country filled with wonderful people who are far from God, and I discovered that in most social settings if people asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was a pastor it became a very different conversation. Folks, shut right down. So often when someone asked what I did, I would tell them “I’m a storyteller” and that would often move them in a direction where we could talk.
But back to the message. This chapter is one of the most loved chapters in the Bible; it contains the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. Or as he is often referred to “The Prodigal Son.”
There are times that people will talk about these as three separate parables, but there is only one parable. There are simply three parts to that parable. It is like a montage, three pictures in a single frame, brought together by a single overriding theme. And in this parable, it would appear that Jesus was defining three types of lost.
So, let’s start at the beginning. Jesus looks at the religious leaders, I don’t know if he was sad, frustrated or angry that they didn’t get it, but he begins his parable by telling them. Luke 15:4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?
In the first instance The Sheep Was Lost Through Its Own Carelessness The story would be familiar to anyone who had ever tended sheep because they really weren’t the brightest of animals. Most of what I read about sheep would imply that they aren’t the sharpest knife in the animal drawer.
If I wasn’t so sensitive and careful with my words, I’d probably say that the sheep was lost through its own stupidity. But I won’t go there.
A sheep is driven by its appetites and the immediate, it has no long-term plans or desires, and its main concern is simply to find food for right now. And so with its head down the wayward sheep eats and wanders and wanders and eats until it has wandered far from the safety of the flock.
Its wandering is not a conscious act. The sheep didn’t start its day by saying, “I think I will wander off and get eaten by a wolf today.” Instead it is simply satisfying its base needs, oblivious to the bigger picture.
And there are folks like that today, perhaps some right here in this service. They are not far from God because that was their plan. God was never a part of their plan.
Their world is consumed with the immediate, earning a living, feeding their appetites, simply making it through life.
And some of those appetites and desires move them further and further from God, but it is carelessness and a lack of knowledge.
That’s where I was when I was 19. Another pastor and I were talking one day, and the question came up about making church relevant to people who are far from God. And I commented that the relevancy of the church never crossed my mind before I chose to follow Christ. I didn’t deliberately not go to church. It was just something that never crossed my mind to do.
I didn’t go to church. I didn’t attend meetings at the Lions Club and I wasn’t a Shriner simply because they weren’t a part of my life. I never stopped to think about the eternal or about creation or about God. I was lost and like the sheep who had wandered away wasn’t even aware that I was lost. But that didn’t make me any less lost. And it wasn’t until a friend confronted me about my lostness that I even gave it any thought.
And I would venture that the vast majority of the folks in our community who don’t attend church just don’t think about it.
And so, for them we need to present both the church and the kingdom in such a way that they actually stop and consider what we have to offer. And in most cases that will happen when people who already follow Christ talk to their friends and family members who are spiritually homeless, about the difference that Jesus and Cornerstone have made in their lives. It’s really that simple. No big plan or program. Just an acknowledgement that there is something else out there.
The second picture that Jesus draws is in Luke 15:8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? If the sheep was lost through its own carelessness The Coin Was Lost Through Someone Else’s Carelessness. Culturally there is a lot going on in this story. With the sheep the shepherd had lost one in a hundred, but here the woman loses one of the ten silver coins that she has. Not one percent of the total, but 10 percent of the total. And the commentators tell us that the coins may have represented a couple of different things to the woman.
Some say it was her household savings. Her rainy-day fund. Money set aside for a specific purpose, and that makes sense.
Maybe she was counting it wondering how much longer it would take her to have what she needed, or maybe she had what she needed and now was taking it out to spend it on whatever it was that she had saved it for.
At least one commentator offers a more romantic spin and claims in that time and culture the mark of a married woman was a head-dress made of ten silver coins linked together by a silver chain. And if that was the case and that it was one of these coins that was lost, she would have searched for it like you would search for your lost wedding band.
But it was not the coin’s fault that it had been lost. It hadn’t jumped out of the woman’s hand. She dropped it or she misplaced it, but it was her fault, not the coin’s.
But the coin had certain characteristics that allowed it to be pre-disposed to being lost. It was heavy and so it fell. It was round and so it rolled. It was inanimate, and so it just lay there hidden.
And there are people in our community today who are far from God because of the actions of other people. Parents who had no use for the church, I hear that from time to time, adults who from the time there were children heard nothing but criticism of the church and God, they were shaped from childhood to be lost.
Or maybe it was an incident where they were hurt or disappointed by a church or a believer.
I’ve heard those stories as well.
Or maybe today it is a result of the constant negative press the church seems to get in the national media.
And for those people, we need to prove ourselves, and we do that through our actions and through our authenticity. We not only say we care and can be trusted, we prove it through our actions and the actions of those who call themselves Christ Followers.
But remember, even those that are lost because of the carelessness of others are still lost and they still need to be found.
And that brings us to the third picture in the frame and probably the most familiar one. Everyone knows the term the Prodigal Son. Even people who have never set foot inside a church. Little side lesson here: often we think that prodigal is a description of someone who knew God and wandered away. Prodigal was actually a description of the lifestyle that he was living and had nothing to do with his past lifestyle or his future lifestyle.
And so, Jesus continues with his lesson. Let’s pick up where our scripture reading left off.
Luke 15:11-13 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living.”
The Son Was Lost Through His Deliberate Actions This is what sets this story apart from the other two.
It wasn’t carelessness that resulted in his being lost. It was a conscious thought and action. The boy deliberately walked away from his father and his father’s home. Have you seen the progression?
One sheep out of a hundred, one coin out of ten, but here it is one son out of two. We’ve gone from a loss of 1% to 10% to 50%. From a relatively insignificant loss to one of incredible significance. The loss of a son.
It wasn’t his carelessness that led the boy away from his father. He knew exactly what he was doing. And it wasn’t someone else’s fault, as far as we can tell, the boy had a good home and a loving family. And he decided to walk away from his home and his family. This was a conscious decision that he made. Nobody else made it for him.
And there are people out there today who have consciously decided to not follow Jesus or they were part of the family and decided that they didn’t want to be part of the family any more.
But regardless of why the son was lost. He was lost.
He no longer had any of the privileges of being part of that family. He no longer slept under their roof. He no longer shared their meals.
I think it is interesting that the shepherd went looking for the sheep, and the woman swept her house in order to find the coin, but the father simply waited for his son to return.
Because there wasn’t anything else he could do.
Once the boy had decided to go there were only two options that remained, let him go, or take away his free will. And as effective as shackles and a small room in the barn would have been, it was outside the scope of the father’s love.
As much as the father loved his child, he wasn’t about to take away his free will. Sound familiar?
I have been in pastoral ministry for 44 years, and we owned cats for 37 of those years and I have discovered that pastoring people is like owning cats. If they get out, you can’t run and catch them. You ever try to catch a cat? Not going to happen. Not until it wants to be caught.
Oh, you do the right things you call for the cat. You rattle the treat bag, but they come home when they want to come home. All you can do is to be prepared when they come back to let them back in.
And I have discovered that when someone decides to leave the church or worse turn their back on their faith there’s not a lot you or me or God can do to prevent that from happening. Shy of locking them in a small room in chains and that goes back to the free will issue again.
And so we call them and rattle the treat bag but we need to be prepared when they come home. In the story we read this Luke 15:20 “So he (the lost son) returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”
Sometimes we are better at tracking down lost sheep and lost coins then we are at welcoming back lost sons. Just saying.
But all three stories ended the same way listen again to the words of Jesus.
Luke 15:6 “When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’”
Luke 15:9 “And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbours and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’”
Luke 15:22-24 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.”
And then Jesus ties it all together with a bow when he said Luke 15:10 “In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”
Are we serious about our mission, about God’s mission? About reaching the spiritually homeless? It cost God his son. It cost Jesus his life and be assured it will cost each of us something.
And just like that, the light went on. March is money month. Indeed, it is. Because, without money, ministry at Cornerstone cannot happen.
If you are new to Cornerstone, you might be a little confused.
For those of you who have become a part of our church family in the past twelve months, here is a bit of an update. Up until 2002, Cornerstone operated like most other churches when it came to our financial planning.
In the Wesleyan Church, our church year goes from May 1 to April 30. There are reasons for that, but they really aren’t relevant to our message.
But for the first seven years of our existence, in late April, we would look at our previous year’s budget and adjust it for the upcoming year.
We might increase it by a few percentage points to show that we had faith, but there was no actual science to the process. We knew what we had to spend on some items and what we’d like to spend on other items, and that was the budget.
At the annual general meeting, the budget would be presented and, in most cases, would be passed. And then the new church year would begin.
Inevitably, at some point through the year, we’d realize that we were behind and we weren’t making the budget. And at that point, it would be determined that the pastor would need to do something.
Maybe the budget and weekly offering needed to be put in the bulletin or put up on PowerPoint so people could see where we were at. And the pastor, that would be me, would preach about giving in an effort to motivate or guilt people into giving.
And people knew, they knew that if Denn was preaching on money; it was a reaction to a problem, and you could feel people tense up.
In 2002, we knew that things needed to change and our District Superintendent, HC Wilson, directed me to a resource called Consecration Sunday. And the lessons I learned in that book have shaped how we’ve done finances for the past 23 years.
So, how did it change what we were doing? Well, it’s actually a two-part approach.
I now preach on Stewardship or Giving or Money. However, you want to think about it each March. It is during that time that I teach the theology of stewardship. What we have, and how we use it. And it’s not because we are in a financial jam, or giving is down, or we aren’t meeting our budget. It’s because it’s March.
And it’s not a topic that can be ignored. The Old Testament doesn’t ignore it. The New Testament doesn’t ignore it. Moses spoke about our finances, as did King David, King Solomon, the Apostle Paul as well as Jesus.
The second part of our approach happens on the last Sunday of the series. In this case, that will be on March 30th. At the end of that service, we will distribute a card called “an estimate of giving card,” and it is exactly what it says it is, an estimate of giving card.
And we ask that those who call Cornerstone their church home to prayerfully consider what they will give in the next year. If you are wondering if you are part of our church family, if Cornerstone is the church that you go to when you go to church, you are part of our church family. And if Cornerstone is the church you don’t go to when you don’t go to church, then you are a part of our church family.
It is not a pledge card, and it’s not a commitment card. It is an estimate of giving card. And we end our service that day by having you bring your completed card and laying it on the communion table as your act of sacrifice.
And I think that after twenty-two years we do it well. We don’t put anyone on the spot or embarrass anyone.
If you don’t wish to participate, that’s fine. If you’re worried that people are watching what you do, they probably aren’t, but you are more than welcome to bring your blank card up and lay it on the table.
And it is from what you estimate that you will be able to give in that church year that we develop our church budget. And when we build our budget, we don’t go over that, and if, through the year, something comes up that isn’t in the budget, it’s a big deal before it’s approved.
But this morning, the only question that remains is: Do we love lost people enough to pay the price?