MBUGUA: Greetings. My topic today is, "Here We Stand in Africa." And because that's the topic,
"Here We Stand in Africa," it might be useful for me to begin by explaining who
"we" is, because I do not want to purport to stand behind this lectern and be speaking on behalf of
1.2 billion people in Africa. So here's a small description of the people who would
classify themselves in that "Here We Stand."
I speak on behalf of fellow Africans who long to see the church more clearly glorify God.
I speak on behalf of those who look to the giants of the faith in church history
and have been silently praying for our own.
Who though we are thankful for the mighty work of the Reformation, we are praying for one back home.
Those who would indeed be proudly African. They love the heritage of their warriors, our ancestors
who courageously chose to down their feet rather than live on their knees, who identify with the
strong roots of their ancestors, the Ashanti of Ghana, the Berbers of the North, the Nubians of
Sudan. They love the literary genius of the Chinua Achebes, the beautiful patterns of the kangas,
and like the fact that God gave us the innate ability to clap to a tune and to move to a beat,
which is something not everybody has. And yet, they do all of this holding
Athanasius, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Owen, Bunyan, Keach and others as our brothers,
because that's exactly who they are. For we are not just Africans, we are African Christians.
Those who are lovers of our dark skin, our musical gene also love confessions
and creeds. They praise God for ancient synods and councils that met to defend God's truth.
I speak on behalf of those who long to hear those same truths
echoed faithfully in our African tunes, proclaimed potently behind our African pulpits,
but most of all cherished deeply in African hearts. It's on behalf of those
that I'm able to say, not merely, "Here I Stand, but "Here We Stand."
I trust that there's more of those and I'm aware of, but I trust as well that as I go through this
whoever they are, wherever they are, they will indeed agree with these things that we're about
to say. If you're trying to get little handles to help navigate us through the next 15 minutes,
think about the first portion as an update on the state of the church in Africa, but then take the
next point as a description as to why we still have confidence and hope for the church in Africa.
And then lastly, we'll speak about a few points of prayer that you can be praying for as we pursue
the reformation and revival of the church in Africa. I will not highlight those points as
we're navigating through, but I trust that the turns in the conversation will be clear enough.
So the church in Africa has been described as a mile-wide and an inch-deep. It's something
that many have said. It's easy if you're like me to hear a phrase like that describing the
church and get defensive. Nobody likes criticism, right? It doesn't matter whether it's true or not,
if anybody calls you out for something, the most natural instinct is defensiveness.
It's important to say that generalities are useful when they remain as generalities, right? And as
generalities go, I believe that statement to be true. The church in Africa is indeed a mile-wide
and an inch-deep. A mile wide referring to the number of people who would claim Christ,
who would call themselves believers, right? Who might even be true believers, but an inch deep
when it comes to grasping to the biblical faith, as it has been articulated in the Scriptures.
There are, I must say, healthy churches in the continent. They are there.
There are many faithful pastors and preachers on the continent.
In fact, if anything, I feel like there are more of those today than there were 10 years ago.
By faith, I trust that there's many more healthy churches and many more
faithful pastors and preachers that I am aware of, but if you're to step back and take a
bird's eye view, a snapshot of the state of the church in Africa, it is not a very pretty sight,
specifically speaking if you think about church membership.
You're going to see a church that is not clearly demarcated. Kenya by itself will call itself
80% Christian. That's a pretty large statistic for one of the most corrupt countries on earth.
Who are these people, right? What is the church? It's an amorphous idea, "I'm Christian not
Muslim." That describes a lot of what is called African Christianity.
Well, what's the state of repentance in the church? Churches can be full on Sunday,
but where is the salt and the light on Monday, right? In the workplace, in the families.
When you look at leadership, if we were just speaking by ourselves,
if we were just a few trusted souls, just me and my buddies in a room, and we were to just simply
be asked the question, "What do you think about the state of leadership in the church in Africa?"
Would we be encouraged? Would we say that it's clear that on the continent
biblical qualifications define who is actually leading the church? No.
Eloquence, leadership skills, social status have far more to do with who's leading in
the church than the standards that you're going to see in 1 Timothy 3, or Titus 1.
But what's the state of its teaching? What content is proceeding from pulpits?
When those churches that are full on Sunday gather, what are they sitting under?
Is it expository preaching? Is it a pastor seeking to communicate the meaning of God's Word and
powerfully apply it into the lives of those who are sitting?
Sadly, that's not typical. That's far more rare than what we would want to acknowledge.
It's not just merely the curse of the prosperity gospel that plagues the African church.
We can highlight that, but the places even where it's not the prosperity gospel that's reigning,
you'll find politics at play behind the pulpit in many cases.
Projects, policy, or politics when power
reign in the place of the primacy and centrality of the gospel in the life of the church.
When you think about the work of evangelism, oh, yes, God is not dead. The Spirit is drawing
people out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son across the continent.
But again if you stepped back and you look at the efforts of churches and ministries,
it feels like it is a whole lot more about winning people over, to men specifically,
or to ministries or even to denominations,
that's where their pride is, that's where their boasting is, not on winning people over to Jesus.
This is our dirty laundry. It doesn't please me to lay it out. Maybe it's a little easy because
the dirty laundry of the American church is on display on Twitter like every day.
So our church in Africa can speak to their fellows here in America and say it doesn't look good
in a different way. You guys are experts about your own.
But you need to hear me right when I speak about the state of the church in Africa.
You don't want to misunderstand me. Though Christ's bride in Africa is unkempt
in many ways, though she appears in unflattering light, she is still the bride of the King.
He still loves her, and he has purposed to cleanse her, to perfect her,
and to present her on that last day holy, blameless, and above reproach in Christ.
He who has claimed her as his own has purposed to see to it that this gets done. "How will this come
to pass?" I ask. How will we come from the state that I have just described, not flattering at all?
And yet I believe it's true. To the place where we aspire to be, a church that reflects the glory of
God to principalities and powers above. A church that is conformed to a biblical vision for what
it looks like to follow Jesus individually and corporately. How will we get there?
It's through his Word, the same Word through which all things were created,
the same Word through which all things are sustained is the Word that will sustain
his bride and cleanse her and purify her and make her ready for that day.
You need to hear me right. For us, when we say, "Here we stand,"
to pray for the reformation and the revival of the church in Africa is to pray that the church
will be submitted to the authority of God's Word through his Spirit, those two things are the same.
It's not gimmicks and tricks that will get us to the place that we long to get, it is through the
submission to the authority of God's Word. That's why we are able to say together with Luther.
That is where we want to take our stand because the Scriptures are the very words of God and where
God has spoken all other noises must be silenced. The authority of God's Word above all others,
its authority is not only over the pope and his councils, but over ever-shifting public opinion,
over sharp and eloquent liberal thinkers, over African traditional religion
and its resurgence. God's Word will conform the church in Africa into his image,
as we allow it to shape what we place our hope in. As we allow God's Word to define who we worship.
As we allow God's Word to dictate the values by which we raise up our children,
define our understanding of right and wrong, what is true
and what is false, what is good, what is bad, what is beautiful and what is not.
The church must bow down to the authority of the Scripture. Not culture, not cultic
leaders or tribalism or politics or liturgy. Church leadership must submit itself to God's Word
if we hope to see the church reformed and revived. Church structures, preaching calendars, the very
advice and counsel that we give in shepherding, all these things must be brought under God's Word.
In our theology, we must shun the liberalism that wants to equate culture
with the authority of Scripture. So that when you ask the question, "What does the Bible mean?"
Instead of looking at the words in the Bible and looking at the historical context,
looking at what other passages in the Bible say about the very verses you're looking at,
those who want to bring in the culture and they say, it is culture that will lead you to certain
kinds of meaning, so that meaning can be different in America and in Africa. Meaning can be different
in the past than in the present, we shun all of that and say that the Bible has the authority
to describe how it ought to be interpreted, and culture is not what comes into that conversation.
We will look at the authority of Scripture and we say that we must shun pragmatism
in the church. When it comes to missions that our continent might not be the lab
for different ideas that are ever-changing and new about how to build up the church,
but allow the authority of Scripture to dictate how is it that the gospel will move forward?
And perhaps most importantly, we must personally bring our own lives under the
authority of Scripture. Seeking to bring every area of our lives under the authority, meaning
allowing the Scriptures to reign over our thoughts, our affections,
our plans, and our ambitions, in short, this means to never stop repenting.
We cannot be those who are seeking to call the church to a reformation and revival and
are personally not striving to ever continue to grow in faith, in the truth of this Word.
There's a few prayer requests that I have for you then.
As you're thinking about the church in Africa, it's quite useful to think
about the prayer that Luther prayed before he uttered those famous words.
R.C. Sproul calls it Luther's own personal Gethsemane. And after he asked for permission
to be given 24 hours and then came back the next day and he said those words, "Here I Stand."
We have the recording of the prayer that he prayed, he's wrestling with God.
If you want to see the church in Africa reformed and revived by sticking a stand on God's Word and
say, "This is what we shall trust in," you want to really understand the spirit behind those words,
"Here I stand." Because it's not just bravado, right? "Here I stand." Luther
was wrestling that night and he was lamenting. And I want to invite you guys to lament with us.
He speaks and he says, he's praying to God, he says, "How dreadful is the world?
Behold, how its mouth opens to swallow me up and how small my faith in thee."
He's quite aware about the darkness that is awaiting him in that room.
We are quite aware of the darkness that surrounds the African church right now,
and it's useful for us to lament as we pray to God to bring about this change.
So would you lament with us about the state of the church? The millions who are trapped
in false teaching. Would you lament about just how outnumbered we are when it comes to counting the
number of those who we would count as faithful across the continent and the number of churches
that you would say they're preaching a false gospel? Lament about just how pitifully few
you could point to and call them faithful. And would you lament just about how feeble
those of us who are trying to bring about this change really are?
Oh, I wish I was a John Calvin. I wish I was a Martin Luther, but all I am is a Ken Mbugua,
young, weak in 17,000 different ways. Lament about those things.
Would you pray as well that we would be humble as we seek to do this work? Because you see that
in Luther that night. He didn't stand up with confidence in himself, beat his chest and say,
"Here I stand." That was not what he did. Pray that we would not have that kind of youthful folly
as we say, "Here we stand in Africa." Pray that we would instead embrace our weakness, that we would
not ignorantly boast in our strengths and claim Tertullian and Athanasius and Augustine, these men
were Africans, Jesus came to Africa when he fled from... That's not what to boast about right now.
But that instead the same way Luther acknowledges how small my faith is. That's how he saw
himself before he said those words. Pray that we'd speak more like that,
not boastfully about our strengths. Pray that God will give us faith
for Luther as he prays he acknowledges, "O thou my God help me against the wisdom of this world.
Do this, I beseech thee by thine own mighty power." How did he say,
"Here I stand"? Not in confidence in himself. He trusted in the power of God. He relied upon it.
Would you pray that we would not say, Here we stand," with a confidence in ourselves?
And lastly, pray that we'd have a godly ambition. This stuff is complex. It's so easy to repeat the
truths of the Reformation in a way that seeks to draw attention to yourself.
It's so easy to proclaim faith in Jesus and Jesus alone in such a way that
causes you to boast in the praises of man. That's not how Martin Luther spoke. He said,
"I would have gladly passed my days in happiness and peace. I have no business here." He was not
seeking prominence by saying, "Here I stand," but to clearly acknowledge that this work belonged to
God. Would you ask that the Lord would give to us that sincere motivation as we seek to take a stand
in the Scriptures for the advance of God's work? Father hear these very things we have just uttered
for the sake of Your church in Africa, in your Son's name we pray. Amen.