Tyndale Chapel Podcast

George Sweetman

I think we all know that when we come together week after week in chapel, that we recognize that the Earth itself continues to spin on its axis. Day in, day out, month, week after week, month in, month out, year after year; it's a cosmological reality, isn't it? It spins on its axis, and yet we know also at a metaphorical level, it feels like it's spinning out of control. That's one of the reasons that chapel is so good. It's not, it's not an escape from reality. It's a moment in our week where we can breathe, be reminded of who we are in Christ and what we're being encouraged to do in Christ, for the sake of a culture around us. To be encouraged, to be reminded, to be challenged to pray that God is with us. Today, we are acutely aware of that, given what is going on around our world, but also given who our speaker is, and that tomorrow is Let's Talk Day here in Canada. Rockwell Dundas is with us today, he is the chief executive officer of the Scott Mission, which is a poverty alleviation organization based in the downtown core. Rocky has been with them for about six months, and previous to that, he worked for World Vision. He's done nonprofits, he's been in church ministry. He is somebody who has given his life for the sake of the gospel and glory of Jesus Christ in the world itself, and we are really encouraged that he's here this morning to share with us. He and his wife live just north of the city in Stouffville, and celebrate weekly in a church just north of there. But what's one thing that's really interesting about Rocky is he's married to a certain person who has some residence, at least the last name has some residence with some of you here. How many of you are in McRae house at Tyndale? Rocky is married to a McRae so you get points if you're here today, just because Rocky's here. Okay, so be sure you let me know that if you're in McRae house, get you an extra point or so. Let's pray together before Rocky comes. God, we are so grateful for this day, this moment in time, the reality that, yes, day by day, You are here, and the world continues to do what it ought to do because You've put it in place, but also recognizing that it feels a little bit weird right now, God. So, we pray for Your presence among us, and thank You for Rocky and for his ministry and for the words that he has prepared for us through Your Spirit this morning. May You bless him and bless us because of him. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Rockwell Dundas
Good morning everyone. It's a privilege to be here. Those of you are from McRae house, I will pass that on. My father in law, who's 92 was the former president here. He and my mother in law, and my mom, we bought our home in Stouffville so they could live with us. And so we have had the privilege of four generations going to church together. He has, over time, his last sermon he preached was in '86 and now he's wrestling with memory. And yet when he prays, the spiritual man is alive; it's a phenomenal thing. As the physical body depreciates the spiritual is alive, which is, I think, at the root of some of the things that we're going to talk about this morning. But I also want to say this, it is really a privilege here. Some of my early formation, for I became a Christian and within three years I was here at school. Not only has Dr. McCrae been a part of shaping my life; but so was Dr. John Wilkinson; so was Dr. Roy Matheson; so was Stephen Thompson; so was James Beverly. I think James Beverly is still here, is Dr. James Beverley still here. Wow, that's crazy to me, but yet, all these individuals were actively involved in my formation. Man, has the world changed. If I said to you, what's the biggest thing facing the church or Christians today, what would you say? For some of us it's disinterest, commercialism, apathy; I think it's irrelevancy.

How is the church or Christians become irrelevant in society? I'm amazed to see you here, as we look at what's happened post Covid to the church. Where leaders in the church, multiple generations are feeling this disconnectedness. We're watching changes occur, chaos, as it was described here. What is the one thing followers know? Christ is never irrelevant. The church is never irrelevant. It's more critical than ever. My hope, as we think about this together, and you have a copy of the Scriptures I was asked to speak on a text that I think has been defining for me, or at least the experience is defining, and probably for all of you here, at some point, it has value. This particular text, or understanding the nature of it, is identified in all four Gospels, interestingly enough. Because it's at the time of the calling of the disciples. Now it's framed within the four Gospels in various ways, as the writers had had had shaped it to understand the teaching and the aspect of wanting the congregation or the reader to understand the perspective. And in Matthew's case that we're looking at here, it's written to the Jew. A Jew who had felt the relevancy, potential, tension, understanding that the kingdom was critically important, that the introduction to the king was important. And we pick up this text in chapter four. The idea as I think about this, and if you want to, I'm going to give it to you in two ways. Jesus calls his disciples to participate or follow before they're qualified, because it's his authority, not the readiness, that creates the vocation. In other ways, I could frame this, and if you remember this, this is all you remember is this: you're being formed into disciples, not merely trained for a career, or service, or ministry. This place was incredibly important to my spiritual formation, but it didn't end here.

It's easy at times to sit here and think about all the dreams that you want to have in ministry, or service, or career. For some of you who are business; or teachers; or nurses; or seminarians; who are wanting to be a pastoral minister; or youth ministers; or worship leaders; all these things, or maybe into organizations to which I've had the privilege to serve; and you see and feel and sense this dream or calling and hope, "Man, I just, I just want to get there!" That's an expression of something that's most critical, seen in the text, and you cannot forget it. The things that you're going to hear today still apply to me today, because I'm being formed into a disciple, not a CEO, not a president, into a disciple. I appreciated, everyone loves the biography, but it's the latter part of the biography that makes most sense, "Why God have you chosen me? How have you allowed me the privilege to follow this calling?" It's rooted here, "...as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother, Andrew. They were casting their net into the lake, and he said, 'Come follow me. I'll make you fishers of men.'" You see a call comes before readiness. Jesus calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things. In Corinthians, what did Paul say when the church was struggling? He said, "None of you were extraordinary, none of you were noble. I chose the foolish things of this world" And in this calling, just imagine, here they are at the Sea of Galilee, the onset of Jesus ministry. He sees two two men, two brothers, fishing, and he says, "Follow me", and what do they do? And in the text, it's a declaration of the king, bringing in the kingdom, and the response of the people was immediate. Boats, work, family. For some of you, you've done this. For some of you, you have understood the calling, made those choices long before you're ready. Authority belongs to the caller, not the called. God's call is based on His purpose, not our preparedness. So then what's the role of Christian school, Christian seminary, Christian Church, Christian friends, Christian bubble? It's formation, it's discipleship, it's training, it's education, but I hope it's pushing you towards the fact that Christ has to be at the center. His Word has to be at the center. I'm often asked having traveled enough, and been around enough, and active in places where I have the privilege of serving, people talk about leaders. It's an interesting term, and for some of you have this dream or this idea of being a leader in the church, or in organizations, or in areas, or education, but to be a leader first, you have to be a good follower. This is the text. It's about formation, discipleship.

It's intriguing to me under this context, when we wrestle with this, He says to them, He calls it out, "Come follow me". They leave everything, and they follow Him. And the prescription was, "I'm going to make you fishers of men". How does obedience precede understanding? Early in the Christian life, for me, it was easy. Man, God saved my soul from my sin. I was overwhelmed with the fact that I was a sinful man. Over time, as you think about that in ministry, what happens? You become competent. You become educated. You become influential, and something occurs. And yet in the early days, the calling is to leave everything. Security, identity, livelihood. For some of you who may not know, I understand a little bit of that, but in every turn of my life, that is true. Why? Because God is constantly pushing me to become more and more dependent upon Him, and less and less dependent on me. The challenge is, as all of you know, that is so difficult to do, especially as you mature, and yet the obedience precedes calling. Now here's what's intriguing. Think about this in the text, all of a sudden He's walking along, He calls His disciples, and the disciples react and respond. They give up everything, and they follow Him, and they're in the midst of all these crowds, 1000s are gathering. When all of a sudden He feeds 1000s, 1000s appear, and they're feeding. And then when He speaks and teaches, hundreds occur. Big church stuff, right? And He gets in a real nice small group with 12. Awesome, what a run! Then He gets really tight with three people who He invests in, who are His closest. Whenever He's under challenge, He, Jesus comes and takes them, and they're really tight. They're really close. This seems to be a flourishing ministry, does it not? It's everything we propose. It looks so good. How many people were at the foot of the cross when Christ was crucified? You know, five? How many disciples? One, His mom and three other women, crazy. What do we want to encourage? We want to be at the foot of the cross. Obedience proceeds understanding. You want to stay close to God; to be effective, it is the only way. Years and years ago, at a chapel, a man said that here, "Want to be effective in ministry? Stay close to God. You want to see revival? Go into your office, draw a little circle, kneel in the midst and ask God to revive whatever is in the circle." That's what we want, that allows us to not be irrelevant to the culture. Why? Because Christ is at the center of my life, and I'm not rationalizing all these other things when He calls me, because that's what happens to those He calls and everyone here He calls to do crazy things. Literally, crazy. I look at my life, I've turned to my wife in many occasions and said, God has been so amazing to us. I left playing professional hockey, here in Toronto, after my first year, to come to school here. Worked as, went from condo downtown to a cockroach infested apartment, serving in youth ministry in the inner city. Rick Tobias mentored me, went on through youth ministry into lead ministry, and went from small church, to mid size church, to big church, to church planting, then into business, then into, you know, working at World Vision. And now it's Scott Mission. And as I look through that, it's all a series of right turns, because in the midst of it, God continued to call me and shape me. And as I look at that, speaking, all these other things, I, God, you chose some stupid hockey player who grew up in the prairies who never considered education, ministry, critically important. And yet, even in the old days, 30 years ago, and a little three piece band would go in the middle of nowhere, and we did ministry together with kids up in the north of Ontario. Why Lord would you do that? Because calling is a lifelong thing, not the vocation. Preparation and readiness has more to do with our ability to surrender and say, "Okay, Lord, my identity is not seen in what I do. It's seen in who I am, in the light of who You are." And then it's this principle, formation happens while following. He taught, He proclaimed, He healed, and the disciples had followed Him. They had no idea what fisher's of men meant, but in Acts chapter one, they did. Right? Church flourished under these disciples and apostles who ended up giving their lives, except for one. Because formation happens while following; we're followers of Jesus, and so are you here. Slow down and ask God, what is He, "What do you want with me, Lord?", not, "What do you want with me in the future?" and all those other things. "What do you want with me now, today?" Jesus doesn't call those who are finished. He finishes those that are called. The impact you have is directly proportioned to the proximity of Jesus in your life. One of the reasons at Scott Mission, I have the privilege of serving there, is because we believe Christ is at the center of the work we do, the Gospel is at the center. That we have a responsibility to the city, and to those we serve, to continually not just demonstrate the gospel, but proclaim it, the complete gospel; proclamation and demonstration. And while I do that, it forms me, shapes me, makes me more like the Son. So to end, here's my thoughts, meanderings, suggestions: Christian University, Christian seminary, is a response. It's not a qualification. You are called before you are trained. The training never ends. You are formed while you follow. You are sent because Christ's authority, not because you're impressive. Seminary, Christian school does not legitimize your calling. It stewards a calling already given. The profs, the president, everyone that's here, they feel the sense of stewarding that calling. I feel the sense as a leader of Scott Mission, as a servant at Scott Mission, a sense of stewardship what God has entrusted to me and to our our team, to be a voice and to be Christ's hands and feet in the city. The same is true here, the choices that those professors I talked about at the beginning, who poured their life into me. The shared ability to minister with someone 30 years ago in the youth ministry, to now see in the heart of what that feels like, or to have people I went to school with who are still in it. We need people to finish. We need people to finish, well. For some of you, we're at different stages along this journey, but my hope and prayer for you is that you will remain faithful as God forms you for the work, but most importantly, you will see Him and experience Him at the center of your life. Not just knowledge assessment, not vocational training, not becoming all these other things, but the fact that Jesus and this calling has allowed you to steward what He's doing, and how He's going to shape you and use you. What a privilege it is for me to be here. I'm the evidence at some level, maybe a small bit on the stewarding of this organization in my life. My hope is, in 30 years for you, one of you will be up here saying the same things. Because the one thing all of us know is, after it's all said and done, we stand before God, He's going to ask us, "How did you steward what I've given you?" And my hope is, and my prayer is, that we'll see a generation that will become faithful, not because they're celebrities, because they are faithful in committing to the formation, the one that's called you. I'd love to pray with you, and if you're mindful at times, please pray for the ministries that happen in our city and around the world. And hopefully, maybe one day, one of you will be here, leading either the institution to which I have, the organization and ministry I've had the privilege of leading 84 years, maybe to the next 84 years, if the Lord doesn't return. Let me pray. Father in heaven, thank you so much for this calling and Your scripture and Your word that teaches us, that roots us, that reveals to us who You are and who we are. And thank you for the identity that comes in Christ; the privilege of knowing You and to be known by You fully; the opportunity that when we surrender to You, You will take and You will use us for Your glory and honor. Use this place to form, but may we always be open to the formation that comes by Your word and by Your Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen.