Subject: The Church
Theme: Church Growth and Stewardship
Preposition: Every church can have church growth.
Transitional Sentence: By observing the characteristics of the ox set forth in this text.
Proverbs 14:4 “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.”
Introduction
Today, we will see the importance of the ox in this verse of scripture compared to the importance of the people in the church. You may say, “What in the world does a stupid, dumb, stinky, ugly, smelly ole ox have to do with me?” Well, certainly God is right when he said in II Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for correction in righteousness: (17) That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”
Let’s look at three characteristics of the ox:
I. His Person
A. Pictured as the Servant
1. He pulled the plow
2. He pulled the carts
3. He did the hard, dirty work
4. He stunk and was dirty
.
B. Pictured as the Saviour
1. Was used in sacrifices (peace and sin offerings)
2. In Judges 6:25-28 God told Gideon to take two bullock (oxen) and do two things:
a.) Break down his father’s altar of baal
b.) Sacrifice the other oxen on a new altar, to atone for his father’s sin.
· This will represent two things that Christ did for us on Calvary:
1.) He broke the bonds of death and sin; conquering death
2.) He made atonement for our sin.
3. As that ox had pulled the plow and that heavy load through the hard and dry ground, so Jesus totes our load of sin through this dry, hard world. The plow was made of wood just as HIS plow was made of wood. He also pulls the cart of the church and will one day pull it on home! Hallelujah!!
4. The ox was used to Barter or trade for something else as payment.
Illustration Potatoes Story
I THANK GOD FOR THE HARD AND DIRTY WORK THAT THE LORD JESUS DID ON CALVARY’S CROSS FOR ME AND FOR YOU!!!
Application
Just as the ox did all of the hard labor, so does the bus worker, the soul winner, the nursery worker, the bus mechanic, the jail preacher, the homeless preacher, the college students….And everybody has a part to do. We all have a plow to pull and work to do for the Master. We all have a cart to pull or a family to tote around or people that are dependent upon us to lead them. We all have the seed to trample into this world after the Master has sown it into our hearts.
II. His Purpose - much increase
A. His Loyalty
1. To Produce Results
· Furrows, Fruit, Food, Families needs met, Fortune,
· The Harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few.
2. To be driven by the masters bidding, not the other way aroun
B. His Labor
1. Trampled the seed into the ground
2. Trampled the stalks to separate the grain during threshing.
Application
The Servant vs. The Saviour
The servant of God can produce results and much increase by the laboring and the loyalty of the soul winner, the bus captain, the nursery worker, the homeless preacher….so on, so on, and so on. From the Labor and Loyalty of the Saviour, and what He did for us, we will become more and more like him and He will produce results in our lives.
a) As the sower (the Lord Jesus) has sowed the seed into our ground (hearts) let us get busy in the laboring process and “trample” the word into the hearts of others. Grinding it into the minds and the hearts of christians. The Saviour, too, grinds that word into our hearts with the Holy Ghost.
b) As the ox would trample the stalks on the threshing floor to separate the grain and the stalks, let us always, as men of God be seperating the bones from the meat in this walk. Let the Saviour in the Power of the Holy Ghost work in your lives to clean you up and separate those things not fit for your spiritual walk with him. As the ox would trample the stalks, it was forbidden for the people to muzzle the ox while he labored. We do good not to muzzle the down and out who are working and doing their best, for the Glory of God, in the midst of this church. Let them enjoy the fruit of their labor. Let them breathe a little. They shouldn’t have to worry about a jealous pharisee putting a muzzle on their joy because they are producing results.
c) As the Holy Ghost works in our lives to produce fruit and seperates those things in our lives that we don’t need and need to become, we do well to not muzzle the Holy Ghost who is doing his very best to work with us in this body of flesh.
Not only on an individual basis does the Holy Ghost work in this area, but the church too does well to let the Holy Ghost purge out the evil man (satan) and wolves in sheeps clothing.
III. His Power - “much increase is by the strength of the ox.”
A. There are some things that you can’t do without this ox
1.There are certain people in church that can get the job done.
B. More can be done quicker, more thorough, and more ground covered by the
strength of this ox.
The Saviour
There is some hard ground that only the Saviour himself can break up in our lives (fallow ground). Remember when your heart was so hard in your life that it caused no seed to take and grow, the water (holy ghost) just ran off of you like a dry desert, and the heat of the day in this world blazed down your neck and seared through your mind and you were hopeless in a world of wild animals and dangers…..But THEN the blessed Saviour came along in his POWER and hitched up to that ole plow (the word of God) and starts to trench a deep furrow in your heart and starts to break up that hard ground!!!
He says to you:
“It is appointed to man once to die…”
“For the Wages of sin is death”
“but the gift of God is eternal life….”
“For whosoever shall call……”
“I can do all things…..”
THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE A FIELD FIT FOR FRUIT AND THE SOWER PLANTS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, AND OTHERS IN YOUR LIFE!
IV. The Problem - “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean:”
A. Churches all across America want the results of a soul winning church but they want a clean crib to boot. It won’t happen. You have to put those oxen in your church to work and give them a chance for the Holy Ghost to use them to get the work done. If you depend on all of the upper class people to get it done…..all you will have is a clean crib with no increase, no power, and no God.
B. When an ox was matured and older in his way (labor), it was deemed too valuable to kill for food or to use for sacrifice….in other words…he was good at what he did….Why is it that churches try to put the elderly in the church in their “place” and forget them when they are far too valuable to get rid of…More wisdom comes from these people than can be imagined.
C. GO AHEAD AND KEEP A CLEAN CRIB AND SEE NO CHURCH GROWTH. THE CLEAN CRIB CHURCHES SAY:
· “You can’t preach for God, you are divorced!”
· “You’re past is too scarred for God to fully use you in this ministry”
· “You are a single mother, I doubt God would use you effectively.”
· “Don’t bring those homeless, bums in this church!”
· “I don’t want those stinky, unbehaving bus kids messing up this nice carpet and pews!”
· “Why we can’t have a pregnant woman here in this church who is not married!”
· “Been in Prison? There is no way possible you are gonna serve God here!”
· “Jail inmates…you want to do what? Preach? What good is that gonna do?
· “We’ll just baptize once a year…oh and put all of those old King James Bibles in the Baptistry, we are moving up to a more modern translation.
Without these people in the church…there is a good chance you won’t have any church growth. It takes people to reach people…Let God use who he will to reach who will be reached.
