This is the second part of a message I shared at Southside Baptist Church in Orlando on Jan. 1, 2012. Read part one: They need Jesus.
Would you prefer good or great?
I drove to church in a 2002 Ford Focus. It’s been a good car for us. But a brand new Mercedes, well, that’d be a great car, wouldn’t it? If I offered you the keys to my 10-year-old Ford, or the keys to a new Mercedes, which would you choose?
Most folks would pick the great car over the good car.
The reason we don’t all drive Mercedes is that we’re not all willing to work that hard for a great car. For most of us, getting a great car takes a lot more resources than we’re willing to put into a car. So we settle for – or at least hope for – good cars.
It’s that’s way in life. We take good because great takes time, work, perseverance, dedication, and all those other tough things.
And we do that in church too. We do that when it comes to God. God gave us the Great Commission. You’ll notice that Matthew 28:19 is never referred to as a good idea. It is the Great Commission: Make disciples of all nations.
The church in the First Century understood that to mean establishing churches where there were no churches. We see in the book of Acts that they spent months in particular locations, left people there, and sent people back in order to establish churches. And that makes sense. Churches are, in a sense, disciple factories. If we’re called to make disciples, it makes sense to establish churches.
But you know what? That takes time, work, perseverance, dedication, and all those other tough things.
It’s easier to drill a well than it is to plant a church. We can do something good and move on. It’s easier to send in food or a medical team than it is to take on the long-term ministry of planting a church. A short-term trip is easier to fund and sustain – because you don’t have to sustain it long – than a church-planting ministry.
In the long run, those good works don’t create bodies of believers who are interdependent with other bodies of believers in carrying out the Great Commission. They create dependent people with a sense of entitlement. In fact, doing good works in most cultures does not speak of the love of Christ as much as it plays into and reinforces their beliefs that those who have more are responsible to share it with those who have less.
The real need is Jesus.
The Great Commission tells us to make disciples of all nations. Of the world’s 6,500 people groups, 2,500 have no church and no ongoing effort to establish a church – a body of believers who make disciples.
I know there are some who would say, “Well, you’re emphasizing the Great Commission at the expense of the Great Commandment to love one another.”
Hogwash.
Do people who say that think missionaries just go and say, “I don’t care if you’re sick and dying, I’m just here to share the Gospel?” You don’t plant a church without good things for the people among whom you are ministering. And because those good works take place in a context that is designed to introduce them to Jesus, they work together and truly do good, instead of creating dependency.
Besides, what’s the real problem? In most cases, the surface needs of the world’s unreached people groups result from lives lived in fear of spirits. They need to meet the One who is control of all things. If you do good things, but never address the real need, are you truly showing love?
The real need is Jesus.
Others will say, “Oh, but these good things do plant churches!”
Really?
Generally speaking, when you set out to perform a certain task, you are doing well if you manage to carry it out. It is extremely rare that someone sets out to do something small and ends up accomplishing something huge.
Let’s take a mundane example. Let’s say I was to drive you to Miami this afternoon. I have been to Miami only once. I don’t really know Miami. Nevertheless, I am pretty confident that I could get you there. But it would be ridiculous for me to claim I could show you a good afternoon and evening in Miami. It might happen. Then again, I might end up taking us to the wrong neighborhood and we’d get carjacked and robbed.
If I want to show you a good afternoon and evening in Miami, I need to do more work. I need to research what to do and where to go, and I need to make a plan, and I need to carry out that plan.
Exactly how is it that people think a simple good deed, or a two-week trip, or a Bible translation, can end up accomplishing the complex, multi-faceted and long-term goal of establishing a church?
Good works in the context of an ongoing church planting ministry can be quite effective and helpful. But to think that good works can establish a church is like thinking that clearing some land for a garden will result in a bumper crop of tomatoes.
Planting a church is not cheap, easy or quick. But it is biblical and effective.
The real need is Jesus.
Stay tuned for part three.
Go back and read part one, They need Jesus.
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