Pastors' Blog

One out of every eight people on earth lives on the continent of Africa.  But the mystique of that ancient continent—with its stunning natural beauty and its enchanting native lore—has been bowed by the twin epidemics of poverty and HIV/AIDS.  The World Bank identifies Africa as the greatest aid challenge on earth, reporting that more than 314 million Africans—nearly twice as many as in 1981—live on less than $1 a day. Thirty-four of the world’s 48 poorest countries, and 24 of the 32 countries ranked lowest on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index, are in Africa. Moreover, more than 3 million Africans are killed each year by HIV/AIDS and malaria, diseases that, combined, are estimated to cost more than 1 percentage point of Africa’s per capita growth each year.  (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/0)

Interface these statistics with headline reports of explosive growth in the Seventh-day Adventist church in Africa (the fastest growing segment of our global spiritual family), and the rationale for a Pan-African church leadership summit here at Andrews University this weekend is more than obvious.  How shall the global church join with the churches of Africa in strategically bringing the everlasting gospel to bear on the endemic challenges of poverty and AIDS?  And how shall we effectively nurture and disciple the millions of new Adventist Christians that throng the church in Africa?

Here on campus for that summit, our pulpit guest today is a friend of mine, since I had the opportunity of ministering with him in Johannesburg, South Africa, in March, 2005.  He was president at that time of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  But later that year he was elected general vice-president of our world church.  And I’m grateful Dr. Pardon Mwansa joins us today in worship.

I have invited this church leader to the pulpit, not only because of his influence in the church’s strategic mission to Africa and to Islam, but also because this campus parish represents the Adventist Church’s western challenge—the mobilization of a new generation of young professionals in the mission of Christ in Africa and on all the other continents of earth.  The staggering statistics of global poverty, disease, and political and religious instability notwithstanding, this must become our “finest hour” in the mobilization of new leaders, new missionaries, new servants of humanity.  And who better to go for Christ than the young of this movement?  And who better to articulate that call today than our guest preacher?

But then, the commission of Jesus belongs to all of us:  “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15 NRSV).  Irrespective of our disciplines, our majors and our professions, it remains our highest calling, does it not?

If you’re a firstborn, did you know there was a price on your head?  This headline is a tad old (about 3,500 years or so), but nevertheless it’s true.  On that dark and fateful night that the slave kingdom of Israel fled Egypt in the mighty Exodus, God declared that the firstborn of every Israelite family (and flock and herd) belonged to him, “It is Mine” (Exodus 13:2).

Was God playing favorites?  Not at all.  Rather, he was branding deep into that slave community’s perpetual consciousness the supernatural deliverance Israel’s firstborn received on the night of the tenth plague.  Remember the story?  Through Moses God warned both Egyptians and Israelites alike that death would “pass over” the land at midnight, and only those homes that had painted the blood of a lamb upon their doorposts and lintels would be spared the death of their firstborn.  “And it came to pass at midnight” that it happened just as Moses had decreed, and “there was a great cry in Egypt” (Exodus 12:29, 30).  Only the firstborn “under the blood” had been spared.

So that they would never forget that mighty deliverance, God later instituted in Israel a “head tax” for every firstborn, five shekels of silver (see Numbers 3:47; 18:16), a perpetual reminder that God alone was their Deliverer, firstborn and all born.

But when the story of the greatest Exodus of all (from the bondage of sin) is told in the New Testament, the fate of the firstborn is reversed!  For the sacrifice of Christ is portrayed, not as the deliverance but rather as the death of the Divine Firstborn:  “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead . . . who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5).  For at Calvary the death angel of divine judgment did not pass over the Firstborn.  Rather “he was wounded for our transgressions, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-7).

I happen to be my mother’s firstborn.  But no matter your birth order, the deliverance we have gathered to celebrate today declares us all “the church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23)!  And who’s complaining?  After all, the sacrificial love and death of our Savior truly is a one-way ticket to the Promised Land for all “the chosen” who believe.  Chosen as you are, then, do you believe?

Would you like to know what a group of students, faculty and community members identified as God’s top four agenda priorities for our world and our university?  For the past two weeks our House of Prayer has been focusing on “Seeking God’s Agenda.”  The premise to that quest is simply that the goal of the Christian’s prayer life is to embrace God’s agenda as your own agenda.  (Have you noticed—so much of our praying focuses on our own agendas for ourselves, our needs, our wants, our problems, our desperations.  Nothing wrong with bringing those to God, to be sure.  But the great prayers of the ancient scriptures reveal a compelling focus on the divine agenda first.)

But then, coming to a sense of agreement as to what the divine agenda might be isn’t really a complicated task, is it?  For example, if I asked you to list right now what you believe God’s most important priorities are in his agenda for this university or for your own life, for that matter, would it be hard to come up with them?

After prayerfully preparing our hearts through music and reflection, I was surprised at how quickly last week these agenda items were suggested by individuals in our prayer fellowship.  If God has a prayer list, what do you suppose is at the top of that list?  Here were their responses: #1—that this world of lost sinners might be saved (Isaiah 45:22); #2—that all might come to personally know Him (Jeremiah 9:23, 24); #3—that Christ might be lifted up and draw all to him (John 12:32); and, #4—that God’s name might be glorified upon the earth (Revelation 14:7).

Wouldn’t you agree?  I do.  After all, what would God want more than to save every lost heart on this campus, and this world?  Go down that list of four agenda items—is there one you would take off that list?  Sure, you may think of one or two you’d want to add to that list.

But here’s the proposition: what would happen if you took these four divine agenda items and began weaving them into your own private praying?  What could be more fulfilling than to know that what is preoccupying your praying are the very longings that preoccupy the heart of God?  After all, “can two walk together, unless they are agreed?”  (Amos 3:3)

If God were standing up front beside a white board right now, and we asked him to please write on that board what his top agenda is, what do you suppose he would put up as #1?  For Andrews University?  For Pioneer Memorial Church?  For our world?  What if you asked him to write up his top priorities for your own life?  What would he write up for my life?  Ever wonder what God thinks is most important around here?

John Franklin in his stirring book, And the Place Was Shaken, makes a point that I’ve continued to ruminate over these past few weeks.  He writes that the secret to transformational prayer—praying that turns the world upside down, or at least right side up—is moving from our own agendas to God’s own agenda.  I.e., moving from a prayer-paradigm that focuses on me-me-me, to one that focuses on God-God-God.   As evidence Franklin directs our attention to the greatest prayers of the Bible—from Nehemiah 9 to Daniel 9 to II Chronicles 6 to Acts 4 to our Lord’s prayer the night of his betrayal in John 17—in all of them, note how the prayers are radically God-focused from the very outset, and how the personal agenda of the pray-er is saved until the end of the prayer.  Whereas in my prayers, how often do I plunge immediately into my list of wants and needs, i.e., my personal agenda?

What would happen if when we gathered to pray together corporately, or even when you and I prayed privately, we were proactive in seeking to keep God and his revealed agenda for us front and center during our prayer time?   What if the psalmist was right, that in prayer to God, we are to “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4)?

I’ll be honest with you.  John Franklin’s counsel regarding corporate prayer in particular is challenging me and the way we’ve always “done” prayer meeting in the past.  But as I wrestle with what God must be longing for for Andrews and for Pioneer, I’m burdened to bring our corporate prayer life into harmony with the way God’s people prayed long ago.  If you’d like to join me this fall in seeking to know God’s mind and heart for this university in particular, I wish you would come and help me reshape our House of Prayer experience on Wednesday evenings.   It may not “feel” comfortable at first, but with your help and prayer partnership, I firmly believe that together we can learn God’s agenda for this place and that our prayers can consequently be ignited as we embrace it (and Him) as our own.

Student, faculty, community—come, and let’s pray together.   House of Prayer.  Wednesday, 7 p.m.