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New Testament Heroes 3 – 19/01/25 - Martin Mowat
Readings: Isaiah 61:1 – 6 and Acts 1:10 – 14
Last week we left the 11 remaining disciples staring up, incredulously, into the sky. Let’s remember that they had just experienced the most unimaginable 6 weeks of their lives – the last supper, the crucifiction, the resurrection, Jesus appearing unannounced here and there, and now this unprecidented, majestic, dramatic departure.
I can just imagine them turning to eachother and saying “Did you just see what I just saw?”
A few moments later two angels appeared, standing just there beside them, bold as brass, and said to them all ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking into the sky? Were they teasing them or reprimanding them? I don’t know, but then they came out with the most random, but extra-ordinary statement. This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go.’
So, what will the disciples do next? They will do exactly what they have been told to do, and that is to go to Jerusalem and wait - for Pentecost.
Why did they need to wait for Pentecost? Because, as we said last week, without the inspiration, the guidance, the enabling and the power of the Holy Spirit, they were going nowhere, and the church wouldn’t get built.
They needed it in order to fulfil the commission that Jesus had given them, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything he had commanded them.
To give you a present day example of just what Jesus was talking about, let me tell you what some missionaries, who work for the Christian Missionary Alliance, are currently doing in North Africa.
“We call them the Willow people” the missionaries say. “This is the code name we use because it would be too dangerous to use their real name publicly.
The Willow people are believed to have been Christians hundreds of years ago. In the late 1600s, however, members of a rival religious group conquered much of their region, violently driving out Christianity wherever they could.
Over the centuries, the Willow became devoted followers of the religion of their conquerors, reportedly even more than other neighboring tribes. To demonstrate their devotion, they openly opposed Christianity, blocking all gospel access, allowing no churches to be re-established among their people, and thwarting all forms of Christian witness by outsiders.
The men were even willing to go to war on behalf of the local authorities in exchange for the assurance that they would enter heaven as their reward. In the 1980s and 1990s, when radical officials decided to rid the country of Christians once and for all, they recruited Willow men to carry out a brutal military campaign, which left some two million Christians dead.
At that time the Willow were considered a model of the region’s majority religion. Seeking recompense for the horrific acts of violence they were committing, they demanded funding for schools, hospitals, and infrastructure improvements in their area. The authorities, however, had no interest in satisfying their demands, and formed and trained a militia to exterminate the Willow people and confiscate their land.
This genocide continues today and over the last 22 years, tens of thousands of Willow people have fled their homeland, becoming refugees in the North African country where we serve among them today. Many individuals and organisations from traditionally Christian nations have responded to this ongoing genocide, and refugee crisis, by providing food, medical care, and other forms of humanitarian aid.
This outpouring of generosity and compassion has softened the hearts of many of these displaced Willow people toward the West, with the result that many of them have left their former belief system and embraced the gospel as the only true way to salvation.
We continually praise God for placing us where the harvest is so ripe!
11 house churches have been planted among the Willow, and they are leading people to Christ weekly through clandestine worship, prayer, and discipleship sessions.
It is only with much courage—and after much deliberation—that Willow people choose to follow Jesus. After embracing Christianity, they often face intense pressure to return to their former religion. Believers may be refused an inheritance, disowned by family members, or even have their wives and children taken from them.
Despite these risks, nearly 50 Willow students are enrolled in an intensive ministry training program to become leaders in their underground house church network. All these students have committed to serving with The Alliance for at least five years after completing their education, which includes college-level coursework, hands-on training in ministry, Bible translation, radio outreach, and film evangelism.
From the beginning, the Bible translation work has been one of our highest strategic priorities. It involved first creating an alphabet for their native language, unwritten for generations. Since then, we have painstakingly worked alongside some of these students to translate books of the Bible into their language.
Through their generosity and prayers, our donors are effectively spearheading the formation of a new national church. Each new baptism and church plant is a step in that direction. This past summer, four of our seminary students were ordained as the first Alliance pastors from the Willow refugee community. Praise God for the courageous step of faith these men have made! We have confidence the Lord will draw many more Willow people to salvation through their work.
…. There is no end in sight to the violence that has engulfed the Willows’ homeland for more than two decades. Since April 2023, an estimated 10 million people from that country have been internally displaced or have fled to neighboring countries.
Many of them are still without the light of God’s Word to guide them out of darkness. We believe the sovereign hand of the Lord has guided them to safety here in North Africa so they, like those who arrived before them, can encounter followers of Jesus, be renewed by God’s Spirit, and receive the crown of beauty (Isa. 61:3) as coheirs with Christ in God’s Kingdom”.
That’s what we heard about in our first reading.
There’s a sense in nwhich we are living in the New Testament epoque, so can I make so bold as to say that these missionaries are also New Testament heroes who have obeyed Jesus’ call to his church. These are the sort of people, and this is the sort of project that we should be supporting.
As you know, this church is in the privileged position of having relatively few overheads. We make a generous contribution to the cathedral to cover any expenses involved in our use of these facilities each week, but more than half of our collections go to supporting missionary and charitable ventures such as this one.
One of the missionary organisations we do support is the Church Missionary society. Let me read to you a letter we received from them this week. …
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