When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
We have been dealing with some of the “deep breath” issues of life…those times, when, to be obedient to our calling as believers in Jesus Christ we find ourselves facing a difficult task or decision; these are times we must “take a deep breath” and press on.
One of those deep breath issues is sharing our faith. We are mostly all afraid or ashamed to do that, or have been at times.
----- WORSHIP SKIT -----
(Beth enters cautiously, looking around, crosses to imaginary casket DC, one last look around, looks down at body)
Hi, Amy, it’s me, Beth. (looks around)
I suppose you want to know why I came to see you an hour before the funeral. I... I just wanted to talk to you alone... just the two of us... like we did when we walked home from school together. looks around, to self)
Here I am, talking to a dead body. Why am I doing this? If anybody sees me, they’re going to think I have a screw loose.(looks around, deep breath)
No, I HAVE to do this. (to body) Amy, do you remember all those times our discussion got around to the differences between our church’s? (laughs nervously)
You always laughed at me because I always carried my Bible around everywhere I went. Remember? (laughs nervously)
And I always laughed at you because you thought you HAD to go to church on those special church holy days, and because you thought you HAD to eat certain things and NOT eat others? Remember that? (sigh)
I must have asked you a half dozen times, "Amy, what do you think it takes to get into Heaven when you die?" You always answered, "Well, if you’re a good person and don’t do a lot of bad stuff and if you live a good life and do good deeds, you’ll probably get to Heaven."
(turns aside, sigh, turns back toward body) Amy, I always intended to tell you this, but I always I choked. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you. (sigh) Well, here’s the truth. Here’s what I was going to tell you a half dozen times and I chickened out: Amy, it’s a lie! It’s all a lie! You can’t be good enough or do enough good deeds to get into Heaven. Human beings are incapable of being "good" enough. There, I said it.
You know, I even memorized a Bible verse to recite to you, but I never had the nerve to recite it to you. So, let me recite it to you now:
Matthew 5:20. Jesus said, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
Amy, Pharisees spent their entire lives trying to be good enough to get into Heaven and Jesus said they’re not good enough. If they can’t do it, there’s no way any of us can make it that way either. (paces in front of the casket)
I guess the reason why I never confronted you about that is because every time I mentioned the name of Jesus, you got this funny look on your face, like I was mentally deficient or something. So, I sort of decided to wait for you to ask me about it or maybe I was waiting for a crisis in your life, or something. I don’t know. I mean, I look back on it now and think to myself, (hand to forehead) "DUH!" This is a no-brainer! Just quote the scripture. Tell her that Jesus himself said that there’s no other way to Heaven except by putting your trust in him. What could be simpler!?
Thirty seconds. Give her the chance to make an intelligent decision. What are you waiting for? This is not rocket science. (stops, looks down at body)
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I had to do it over again, Amy, I would tell you.
(paces in front of the casket)
You know, Amy, now that I think about it, I was really stupid, you know, I mean, short sighted. See, I was afraid that if I had told you about the lie that you had believed all your life, you might get mad at me and not want to be my friend. But, if I had given it any thought... any thought at all, I would have thought about the long term, you know, the future. If I had just been brave, you and I could have been friends for eternity in Heaven.
But instead of thinking about the future, I was afraid of hurting your feelings.... or, maybe mine. So, I put it off. I waited. I thought, "There’s lots of time." "We’re young." "We have a whole life ahead of us." "What’s the hurry?!" (stops, looks down at body, tearful)
But now, you’re dead. And you and I will never see each other again. Ever. I’m sorry. (backs away)
Good bye, Amy. [1]
Most of us have found ourselves shamed or afraid because we do not share our faith. It would not be surprising to find that more than half of us got uncomfortable at the beginning of this sermon when I first used the term “sharing our faith”. I would like to help you with that discomfort level. Sharing our faith comes in many sizes, shapes and styles.
You do not have to be a “street evangelist” hollering out memorized verses to share your faith. In fact, if you’re not called to be an evangelist, you are wrong to try to be one! The chief cause of most of our failure and misfires when it comes to being a soldier of the cross is using someone else’s weapons or tools…and not the ministry to which we have been personally called and gifted by God.
However, that does not mean believers can stick our heads in the sand and ignore the concept of sharing our faith. It is just as disobedient to God to NOT share your faith in the way He HAS gifted you, as it is to try to do something for which you aren’t gifted. When it comes to serving God, nobody is “off the hook”! You must use the gifts for ministry that God has given you…or face the judgment of the lazy servant. He was the one who buried his talent in the sand; the master of the house called him wicked and lazy. He was punished.
So, how can I recognize what my ministry is? How can I see what the focus should be for the way God wants me to minister? What is my ministry gift? Psalms 126:5-6 will give us, very succinctly, six characteristics of a focused individual ministry.
I. A Focused Ministry Will Be Specific.
It won’t just be that we say “I just want to love everybody”. That’s not specific, is it? A focused ministry is identifiable; it is something specific enough so that we can look and see where broken people and broken places are put back together.
Because broken places and broken people are not general; they’re not just everybody, they’re individuals. Most of us have had a really tough time in life; if you haven’t, just wait a while! The fact is we are all – at some time in life – broken people.
Our text says that we plant seed. There are many different kinds of seed, but each kind is specific. You plant a seed in the ground and it comes up according to the specific kind of seed you planted. You don’t apply specific “seeds” (ministry) to general ideas or needs. Broken people are specific. If you are going to be involved in a ministry of any kind, it must focus on specific needs.
Don’t settle for, “Well, I’m just going to be the very best Christian I can be.” That may be a good place to start, but it is a terrible place to stop. If you don’t identify a specific area in which you’re going to involve yourself, you will get involved in such generalizations that there will never be anything to measure your progress in the kingdom; we become “Jack of all Trades, master of none”. Be specific…something you can measure.
II. A Focused Ministry Will Be Significant.
Human needs met in some way must be significant. Notice again in the text how it says we bear precious seed. The ministry “seed” must be significant enough so that there is “preciousness” about it.
Meeting human needs that are significant always costs – and it should. The text indicates that the sower goes forth and bears the seed; but he also weeps over it. Do you weep over insignificant things, or precious? I see weeping over lost loved ones, straying prodigals, health reversals and lost fortunes.
We go forth weeping, meaning we go for significant human reasons. Have you ever wept for someone’s need? Have you ever wept for someone’s soul, a lost person who just seems to stay out of reach of the Savior and His gospel?
I wept over a man’s soul one time early in our ministry. He came to Elizabeth and me in our first church out of seminary. John was not a nice man. He started attending our church. He was a rough, ex-military man; look up the definition of bad attitude and language in the dictionary – you’ll find John’s picture there. John was a drunk – mean and foul; he beat his wife, an all-around bad guy! I wept because I never really could reach John.
He made a profession of faith, and was baptized; we all thought it was genuine, but the man was as mean as they come, a serpent in sheep’s clothing. And I wept over him. A few weeks after he joined our church he returned to his old ways. During one of his drunken tirades Elizabeth and I had to hide his wife from him. The man carried a 44-caliber revolver; the last words he ever said to me were, “I’m going to make a minister out of you.” I told him that wasn’t his job, only Jesus could work with the likes of me.
Several weeks later John made the headlines. He committed suicide publicly, in front of a K-Mart store. I don’t know what happened to his soul; I am not equipped to look inside one’s heart – only Jesus can do that. But I wept again for John; I wept for the precious seed I shared with him. I also wept for the many others like John who are out there – people in the kind of anguish that only a lost soul can know. There is a significant ministry out there for each of us…precious seed needs to be sown.
III. A Focused Ministry Is Singled-Out by God.
Becoming involved in a ministry is something that God ought to pick-out for you. There should be something super-natural about the way you are brought to it. This is because we seek God’s leading, and we should wait upon that leading.
How do you do that? Your pastor is a resource, but he should not pick-out your calling. You have dear friends and Christian brothers and sisters in your Sunday School class who can be sounding boards; but they shouldn’t determine your ministry. There is nothing more appropriate when seeking God’s leading than getting alone with Him, on your face before Him and asking the Lord to reveal Himself.
Many people imagine God is playing some heavenly version of hide-and-seek; God is not doing that. He is not only willing to be found by you – that is His one desire – to lead you to a place of ministry and relationship with Him.
As much as He singles-out a ministry, it will be useless unless there is obedience to the call. Notice the text says, “He that goeth forth…”! Settling in prayer that God has called you to something is only a contractual agreement; performance of that agreement is what counts! Many people say, “Well, God is going to lead me into a ministry some day – I just wish I knew exactly which ministry.” Folks, I know people who could have grown a twenty-foot beard while waiting and singing that one note! Seek God, hear His voice and get involved.
Getting involved is a simple as starting. How? Fix a plate of beans and take it to one of our homebound members, or a neighbor. You say, “Well God hasn’t revealed himself to me that I should be involved in a ministry of benevolence.” Friend, if you’re not willing to be involved on the simplest measure of ministry, He will never reveal Himself for larger things.
I knew a man at seminary over 20 years ago who, when it was getting close to graduation, told me he was not going to even talk with a church that averaged less than 1,000 in worship. (He may still be there). Jesus put on a towel like a household slave and washed feet. You can cook beans!
When it comes to finding God’s will for your personal ministry involvement, start with the first significant (or even menial) need you hear about. God will lead you from there. Go forth with that seed, brother!
IV. A Focused Ministry is Self-Chosen
How contradictory here…does God lead you to it, or do you choose it? It is like our salvation. God leads us, draws us to the need and the Savior who meets that need. On the other hand, He won’t do it for us unless we take the first step of repentance and believe, confessing our sins. There is always a point – in salvation or ministry – where God will stop unless we yield and begin to follow. God calls; only we can surrender! It is like John Wesley’s illustration of the salvation house – we may stand on the porch of His prevenient grace, but it is our choice as to whether we walk through the door of saving grace.
Again from the text – “He that goeth forth, bearing precious seed.” Imagine the picture of the sower. He has gotten to the field just before dawn, loins girded-up, seed pouch slung over his shoulders. Our sower reaches into the pouch and discovers he has no seed. He isn’t going to be much of an asset in the field that day! Unless you pick up the seed you’ll have nothing to sow.
Self-chosen means picking up the seed to bear. If, for instance, God has laid it upon your heart to be a soul winner, you are drawn to sharing your faith with others. It would, therefore, be a good idea to pick up some seed. Put some tracts in your pocket, mark some passages in your New Testament and practice your testimony.
Pick up the seed and go forth! And when you do, you will find that your response will be joy. That is always the product of finding the center of God’s will for your life. The times I have taken a deep breath and said “Yes” to the Lord, because He had revealed His will for my life and ministry are the times of greatest joy.
V. A Focused Ministry is Strengthened.
The text says they which sow in tears shall reap in joy. Sowing and reaping is a process. Jesus talked about a sower who spread the seed; some fell on good ground, some on the hard or weedy ground. A sower who never learns to recognize good soil, or never tries to get better with his sowing technique will be less valuable to the owner of the farm. The ministry to which you’re called demands (because of its’ significance) that you train and become strengthened.
Your local church family ought to affirm the ministry gift and calling also. Too often ministries get started and then fizzle because the person fails to be accountable to the local body. There is little room in the body of Christ for “Lone Rangers” who, in a headstrong way, do “ministry” because they want to…or simply because they like it.
Accountability is part of Christ’s plan. Lone Ranger endeavors may accomplish something, but ministries anointed by God’s Spirit are full of folks who are accountable to each other; they have that pyramid of strength built by the Holy Spirit. It’s a focus we must not miss.
VI. A Focused Ministry Serves a Purpose.
L. B. Thomasson was the pastor of our home church in Crystal River, Florida. L. B. used to refer to the cosmic church. That was a popular term in the 60’s and 70’s. It means the whole body of believers of all time.
The relevance or determining litmus test of any part of ministry (if it is indeed genuine ministry) is that it must draw people into the cosmic body of believers, blood-bought followers, members of the family of God.
A fellow stopped at a gas station. After filling the tank on his car, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and he watched a couple of men working along the roadside.
One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old. The men worked right past the fellow with the soft drink and went on down the road. "I can’t stand this," said the man tossing the can in a trash container and headed down the road toward the men. “Hold on,” he said to the men. "Can you tell me what’s going on here with this digging?" "Well, we work for the government, "one of the men said.
"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You’re not accomplishing anything. Aren’t you wasting the people’s money?"
"You don’t understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there’s three of us - me, Sam and Jesse. ”I dig the hole, Sam sticks in the tree and Jesse here puts the dirt back. Now, just because Sam’s sick, that don’t mean that Jesse and I can’t work."
When it comes to the church of Jesus Christ, sometimes people do not think very much, either. People attend church, but they don’t get what church is all about, or they are blinded by assumptions. They just dig holes instead of planting trees.
Jesus said His ministry (the cross) would draw all men to Him. Our ministries, individually and collectively are to do that, point men to the cross. That is our job description; that is the purpose of ministry. Allow me to put some meat on the bones of that statement with an illustration.
Suppose your specific ministry is outreach – and the ministry in particular to which God has drawn you is newcomers. You have surrendered to that ministry, telling God, “Yes, Lord – I’ll do that. I’ll make it my business to meet the newcomers in this community.” The church has affirmed you in this ministry and strengthened you – maybe given you $500 of a budget to use in reaching newcomers.
You have been strengthened by training; perhaps you took an outreach class, and the pastor has taken you out to knock on some new homeowner’s doors to help you get started. And you’ve located the different sources to help you identify places where newcomers are to be found.
Imagine for a moment that someone new who has moved into our community has opened the door to you. You do your part, having prayed that God would bless your efforts, you got up, and picked up your precious seed and you go forth, caring deeply (weeping) for that new homeowner.
After sharing a brief greeting, you share an invitation to come to worship Sunday. A few words of witness, and a handshake later you’re on your way home. All that week you pray – “Lord, bless that seed, nurture it, and help it along.” Sunday morning comes and you’re standing outside the building waiting for that precious seed to return. You told her you would wait outside for she and her two kids; you would show them to the Sunday School rooms.
Just before class time their car pulls in. You show them around, introduce them. Then you sit with them in the worship service. And when the invitation is given your new friend turns towards you and says, “I’d really like to go, but what do you say when you get down there?” You say, “I’ll go with you if you like.” In a few seconds you and your new sister in Christ, along with her oldest daughter are standing at the front of the church. There are “east to west grins” on everyone’s faces. You have gone forth, weeping, bearing precious seed – and you have come again to the house of God…and you are standing next to the newest sheaves.
Sow in tears, reap in joy! That’s what peculiar people do! Friends, brothers and sisters…that’s a whole lot better than standing over a casket and apologizing when it’s too late.
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ENDNOTES
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[1] ©2005 Bob Snook. http://www.fea.net/bobsnook
Ed Vasicek on SermonCentral.com
