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Guiding Hand of God
09/17/05
Here is a lengthy
portion of the sermon where Kip states his opinion about the recent flurry of
letters from Churches in response to his Portland Story.
Click Here
Thanks to a friend, we have a transcript of a portion of the clip above:
"...…we wanted to make sure that the congregation was aptly informed
about some of the events of the past several weeks. The congregation here, I
think, has tried – and we will continue to try – to take the high road with
our brothers throughout the world.
On the other hand we also want
the congregation to be informed; and not to be taken captive by Satan or false
prophets. One of the things that happened early on this past year was a
boycotting of our Jubilee by several congregations. Some simply did not announce
it; other people directly put congregational functions on that weekend.
The Jubilee was planned a year
ahead of time. There was already a separation and a division.
At the Jubilee - I mean - it was
incredible. I mean 700 different people from 17 different nations. And that was
a boycotted Jubilee.
And on Sunday we printed the
Portland Story. And it was a bold explanation of the hand of God working in the
church here, in the past, in the present and in our future proclamation. We of
course have not only a vision to save not only Portland which has a little more
than 2.5 million people. But we really do, as a congregation, believe we’ve
got to obey the scriptures and have a heart for all nations. To do otherwise is
selfish and sinful. We cannot become Portland focused. We’ve got to live for a
lost world.
In the Portland Story we detailed
some of the things that we shared tonight – that we are discipling other
congregations.
As you know some congregations
believe that Overseeing Evangelists is not in the Bible or is optional.
Obviously they take offense at that.
We talked tonight about autonomy.
We oppose that. Not because we are anything awesome. It’s just in the Word of
God and we take our stand.
We oppose lukewarmness and the
preaching of cheap grace because we realize that it means the loss of salvation
not only for those in the Church - but there is no proclamation outside of the
church.
We believe in replantings and we
are very bold. At the Jubilee (sic) and saying, “Listen. enough is enough of
enough. This has gone on for years. And it’s time to start helping the weak in
these churches who are slowly slipping away and just fading into either just
denominational churches or just flat the world.
And so in response to the
Portland Story and “my divisiveness” - and in two of the letters your
divisiveness, too … Just, you know … you know, we’ve all got to hang
together. You know what I’m talking about right here (chuckling)? First of all
came a letter from Boston, and then a letter from Seattle, a letter from San
Diego, Chicago, Phoenix and Miami.
The letter in Seattle was read
even the Wednesday night before the whole Conference there to all the people.
And in special particular it said “Take special note of Kip”. I felt real
encouraged by that.
A letter’s gone out from
Phoenix marking me and you as divisive and dangerous. At the Seattle Conference
I was taken off of the program from speaking because I needed to be disciplined.
I also was not allowed to take part in the leadership shaping of the Movement. I
was left out of that meeting.
Out of the Seattle Conference, as
with us with Sasha last year – remember when Sasha (Kistenko? - last name) was
blocked from speaking here? He used to lead all of the churches in the former
Soviet Union. And the threat was the loss of his support and others that would
come to Portland. Montreal had invited Blaise (last name) from Abijion because
he is French speaking and Montreal is French speaking. And Friday night Blaise
was pulled aside and said, “Listen, ‘you go there and you could lose your
support.” And Blaise did not even talk directly to Danny about not coming
Sunday.
Interestingly enough, I am told
– and I don’t exactly know what the title of this magazine – but I guess I
made Cosmopolitan Teen Girl Magazine this week. Now, I have never made
Cosmopolitan before, and since I am not an avid reader, I don’t exactly know
the title of the magazine. But I was told – I was told I have a picture in
there as a cult leader.
Perhaps the most interesting of
the letters was the Miami letter. And though the Miami letter had many things
that they, they charged me and you with – and you know it’s a, it’s a very
lengthy, single-spaced letter – two sides. It does have this one little
paragraph near the end. It says, this is the elders of the Miami church going -
“We must learn about ourselves in this situation. Some of the criticisms
raised in Kip’s article are valid and apply to the Miami church: lukewarmness
in our relationship with God; lack of commitment to our love for each other and
the absence of evangelism are issues we must face in light of scriptures at a
congregational level.
Now guys – that’s what it’s
all about, right there. You know what we got here is we’re straining out a
gnat and swallowing a camel. If your congregation, and you recognize it, has
lukewarmness, no discipling and no evangelism – you don’t go around
criticizing other people who are pointing it out. You go, “Thank you, God!”
{skip a section}
....There are three main charges
against us. Number one is unwholesome talk. Number two is recruitment. And
number three is division.
Now this week we have another
article in our bulletin. And of course this goes on Upsidedown21. And I’d like
to read it to you because this is going to go out…[Kip reads his recent
article, A Mother's Proverb, to the group]
Right here I try to take the high road. On the other hand guys we are not
backing off what the truth is.
You know, the call and the felt
feeling of so many churches right now is “We all want to be unified. We all
want to be unified.” But you can’t legislate unity. True unity is of the
heart. You can’t say, “O, we want to be together with you” and “We want
to be with you, and …”. No. We’ve got to be unified in God. We’ve got to
be unified in God’s Word. We’ve got to be unified in God’s mission.
If we’re not unified in these
things, there is no real unity. It’s a fake unity. It’s a worldly unity.
It’s a denominational unity. Our unity must be based on our love for God, love
for each other and love for the Word of God.
Now, as I admonished us before,
as a congregation God has done great things. This is not a time for arrogance.
We are not better as individuals than anybody else in the other church. All we
are is just lucky.
On the other hand, it’s not
time to surrender our convictions and say, “Oh well, we are doing this whole
thing all together.” That would not be loving.
You know, let’s face it guys.
Going out and calling out a remnant from dead churches is not real popular these
days. So how do you know that? Well, I’ve been on the Internet.
You know, the funny thing is,
there are other brothers that believe in replanting. But they haven’t come out
of the closet. And it kind of reminds me when I was growing up … and a lot of
you guys probably have never heard of them. But I used to watch this, kind of
this humorous three guys called “The Three Stooges”. And (chuckling)
there’s this one episode where the Three Stooges – they’re kind of goofy
guys – they join the army. And they got the drill sergeant right there. And
the Three Stooges and all of the other privates are in a line. And the drills
sergeant goes, “Hey - I need three volunteers. Step forward.”
And all of a sudden everybody
else steps back. And there are the Three Stooges looking all around like “Wow.
We just volunteered.”
You know, I’ve been in
discussions with other leaders and they have talked very specifically about
replanting other places like London and Paris and Sydney. But when you take a
step back you look all alone.
Now, here’s the thing. The path
may get a lot darker and a lot more lonely in the next few months or couple of
years. Our issue is not, “Are we on their side or our side?” or anything.
The issue is “Are we on the Lord’s side? What does God want us to do?”
Turn to Ephesians 6 for our
closing scripture. We need a reminder about what is really going on. Verse 10.
(Reads verses 10 through 12).
Our enemy is not our brothers who
think differently than us. Our enemies are not these churches that wrote us up.
Our enemy is Satan. And the sad thing is, I will guarantee that those letters
are going to cause the falling away of people in this church and other churches.
I will guarantee it. I will guarantee it.
You know, already in Stockholm,
one of the brothers that visited here has started a separate congregation. And
that’s Argo and Emma (last name). Remember Argo? The bold guy. You know.
And he says, “Listen. It’s
just not happening there.”
Interestingly, another couple has
already joined them there. And this is kind of cool. You know how we always talk
about that we don’t have very many powerful or rich or royal people? Well this
guy is of royal blood in Sweden. So, we do have one guy. Amen?
Now get this. Sadly, to show the
retraction of our brotherhood, we used to have a church in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Which is a cool place. But that church has been withdrawn. There’s no more
church there. But this was the guy that originally led the church planting. And
he still has all the papers.
And so, in one way of speaking,
Argo called me today and said, “You know, technically speaking, now we’ve
got two churches here is Sweden. We’ve got one in Stockholm. And Eric is ready
to go back to Gothenburg ‘cause he’s got all the papers. Amen?”
As I said, it’s going to get
darker. I got a call from Raoul yesterday. He said the Florida churches have
called him because they want to talk about their relationship with him.
Now, if they stop supporting him,
we’re going to have to step up. We cannot allow a great work of God to be
destroyed out of money and division. And I am putting before you, Church, that
we are not here to propagate our message or my message. And we should not have a
fear of the past because if we decide to be on the Lord’s side, God will see
us through.
What is the guiding hand of God
calling us to do? The same thing we have been doing. Loving the Lord our God
with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength; loving each other in discipling
and preaching the Word to a lost world.
We want to see more and more
people baptized, more and more people restored, more and more people moving here
and rescued because they are dying in congregations. We want to plant new
churches – I mean next summer, Salem. Amen guys?
We want to get out there and
disciple churches that want help. And, by golly, because we love the weak
we’re saying, “Hold it. If you want to come out of a dead church and you
want a church to support you, give us a call in Portland and we’ll be with you
because God is with you.”
And to God be the glory. Amen,
Church."
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Audio
