Reaching Out in Love
I Thessalonians 2:8 (New Century Version) “Because we loved you, we were happy to share not only God’s good news with you; but even our own lives.”
A year ago we did a survey of 350 homes in our community. In our survey we asked several brief questions:
1. How long have you lived in this community?
2. Are you currently involved in a local church?
3. What could our local church do to better meet the needs in our community?
4. In your opinion why don’t more people attend church?
5. Do you have any prayer requests?
On the average about one family out of ten were involved in a local church. About one family out of twenty-five requested prayer. Most said they had no time for church. Sunday was their only day to shop and take care of their home and personal needs.
Jesus would have us as a local church to get involved in outreach for Kingdom growth. Jesus would say to us what he said to his disciples: “Do not say, ‘Four months more then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
No place in the New Testament does Jesus say to the unbelieving world. “Come to Church.” He does say to all Christ-followers – “Go into all the world.”
Jesus doesn’t want us to be satisfied with little or no harvests. Jesus wants us to reach out in love and bring people to Jesus.
Preparing for harvest is hard work. I grew up in a farming community in Gypsum, Kansas. I’ve spent many hours working on farms, baling hay, tossing bales, plowing fields, and harvesting wheat.
A good harvest is preceded by a lot of hard work. You have to prepare your fields for planting grain. First you plow the ground, then, you disc and harrow the ground. Then at just the right time you drill and plant the grain. You wait for adequate snow and rain. Then in Kansas around the first of July when the grain is ripe you combine the wheat. Harvest time has a brief window of several weeks.
If you harvest too soon the grain is too soft and can spoil. If you wait too long the grain becomes hard and shatters when it goes through the combine. You work from sunup to sundown to gather the grain.
My dad grew up on a farm and they harvested wheat with a threshing machine. They had to cut the wheat and take it to the steam-driven threshing machine. Today you can cut wheat in a combine with a 20 foot header, sit in an air-conditioned cabin and have the radio playing music, and computerized equipment, producing a greater harvest than before the combine was computerized.
As a local church we should not be satisfied to go through our routine of ministry programs without seeing people come to Jesus.
There are many metaphors that we might use to describe the local church – a hospital for the healing of human hurts, a Lighthouse, a Mission outpost, or a community of loving and caring people.
The theme for the 40 Days of Community for this week is “We Reach Out Better Together.” Philippians 1:5 “We are in partnership with the gospel, spreading the good news about Christ.” (NLT)
The purpose of the church is seen in the Old and New Testaments. The well being of the people of God was directly proportional to their obedience to God’s mission for them. When the people of God have a sense of mission things go well and the church is strong and healthy. When the church becomes introverted and loses its desire to minister in Christ’s name to those who are in need, problems set in.
When the church expends itself for the sake of others, it becomes healthy and grows. When the people of a church catch the vision of being a part of the answer to the hurts and needs of the world around them they gain incentive to participate in helping to advance the Kingdom of God.
Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. When we lose ourselves in something far bigger than ourselves, namely Christ’s work, we find ourselves.”
We fail to reach out in love when we become more focused on ourselves than on others.
When we continually look at what’s wrong rather than what’s right with the church we fail to connect with the outside world. A negative and critical spirit keeps us so busy putting out negative fires that there is no time to start any positive fires..
The Apostle Paul warned the Galatians in Galatians 5:14-15, “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: love others as you love yourself. But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.”
As a church and as individual Christians we want to reach out in love. We want to keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus said the main thing was bring people to Him and to make disciples of all people.
I. We Reach Out in Love Through Compassion.
Jesus said, “lift up your eyes and look on the fields, they are ripe unto harvest.” We reach out in love and touch people with “good news” when we see people as Jesus sees them. Jesus sees people like lost sheep wondering aimlessly through life with no meaning or purpose.
When Jesus looked at people he had compassion on them. What do you see when you look out over our city of San Jose?
Do you see people who have no interest in finding purpose and meaning to their lives? Do you see people who are not interested in God or forgiveness of sins? Do you see people who are calloused and hard hearted?
Or do you look through the eyes of vision and faith and see people who are seeking answers to the greatest questions in life and are open to finding and knowing their Creator? Do you see hurting people searching for healing of human hurts? You know that only Jesus can bring healing to the deep hurts of people.
Numbers 13 is an example of seeing the harvest field from different perspectives.
God commanded twelve leaders of the children of Israel (one leader from each of the 12 tribes) to go scout out the land of Canaan. God gave a command and a promise: “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I will give to the people of Israel.” Number 13:1
Instructions were given to the 12 spies: “Go spy out the land…are the people strong or weak, few or many, is the land good or bad, rich or poor, fertile or desert.” God wanted them to see for themselves the opportunities that lay before them. Vision is seeing the potential. Without vision people perish. Vision is going to spy out the land and faith is claiming the land for God.
12 spies went into the land of Canaan. 10 spies looked at the land and reported: “The land flows with milk and honey. The land is beautiful—paradise on earth. But the people there are strong—the cities are protected with walls, giants live there. WE are not able to defeat the people—they are stronger than we are—we are like grasshoppers in their sight.” Ten spies focused on the obstacles and the dangers.
Two men, Joshua and Caleb, gave a faith report: “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are able to overcome it. The Lord will bring us into the land and give it to us. Do not fear the people. Let us go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” Joshua and Caleb focused upon God’s promises and power.
What is your level of faith?
Little faith - “God can do it.”
Great faith – “God will do it.”
Active faith – “God has done it.”
When we look at our ministry as a church reaching out to our community without vision or faith we see ourselves as grasshoppers. We see the obstacles, “We don’t have enough money.” “We are too small.” “People have no interest in God.”
We have too few workers.” “God wants us to expand and grow, but first we must wait until times are better.”
Jesus gave his followers this command: “Go and make disciples of all nations.…and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) The command of Jesus is for us to “go.” As we go Jesus promises to go with us.
As we reach out in love to others we do so in the power of the Holy Spirit.
II. We Reach out in love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In his farewell address to the disciples in Acts 1 Jesus commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
On the day of Pentecost the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to tell the good news of Jesus and His resurrection wherever they went. Where once they were anemic witnesses they became fervent and bold witnesses for the risen Lord.
An evidence of the Holy Spirit’s filling in your life is the overflow of love to others. You reach out in love through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul said, “Christ’s love compels me to witness.” 2 Corinthians 5:14
I like the simple definition of witnessing that says, “Witnessing is taking the initiative in the power of the Holy Spirit, sharing the good news about Jesus, and leaving the results with God.”
You can take the initiative in many different ways. You might even be waiting in line at Starbucks and have the opportunity to share your faith.
#Short Skit – Chuck and Chris
When we surrender to the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit helps us love as Jesus loved. Last Sunday we sang, “And They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love.”
A week ago Saturday Carollyn and I and Jake, our grandson, attended the movie, “March of the Penguins.” This is a fascinating move that shows the selfless love of a mother and father penguin in caring for the egg until it is hatched in 80 degrees below zero weather on the South Pole. Mother and Father take turns caring for the egg as first one and then the other walks 70 miles to get food. Their sacrificial love brings new life to their family.
Witnessing is a team effort. The more Christians a non-Christian knows the greater the influence is on the non-Christians life. When a person who is seeking truth visits our church it is the collective love and care the person receives that makes a lasting impression.
Last Sunday we had the Scott and Elizabeth Drury family visit our church. Scott is an attorney and represents the Free Methodist Foundation helping Free Methodists do estate planning. Elizabeth Drury handed us this note:
“What a super, talented, loving team you are! We have thoroughly enjoyed our visit to your church today. It has been a refreshing oasis. The several people who greeted and cared for our children especially made us feel welcome. Janet Faris gets our vote for most hospitable person, though more people reached out to us warmly than we can even count. The early service and breakfast fellowship was cozy and comfortable. Your sermons were challenging, organized, and skillfully delivered – and based on the Bible. Thank You. If we lived in the neighborhood, we would not be able to resist the love of this church body. Thanks for the blessing. Warmly, Elizabeth and Scott Drury
Because of your love and hospitality to the Drury family they sensed God’s love and acceptance from the Willow Vale Church.
We reach out better together showing the love of Christ.
1. We reach out in love through compassion.
2. We reach out in love through the power of the Holy Spirit
III. We reach out in love through prayer.
In John 4 Jesus talked to the woman of Samaria by Jacob’s well near the city of Sycar. While Jesus was talking to the woman about Kingdom of God truths the disciples were in Sycar dining on fish and chips. They asked Jesus if he wanted something to eat. Jesus replied: “I have food to eat you know nothing about. Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
Too often we are like the apostles, focused on the material things of this world….What restaurant we want to check out next or what new appliance we need to purchase. Jesus would have us give equal attention to spiritual issues.
Matthew 9:35-37, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask/Pray the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
As we go through the 40 days of community we are called to pray for people in our community and people in our sphere of influence.
As we pray we are to put feet to our prayers. When the Samaritan woman realized Jesus was indeed the Messiah, she traveled into the city and brought many back with her to meet Jesus. She heard the good news and acted. When we pray, prayer helps us put our love into action.
Through prayer we believe God can help us reach the agnostic, the skeptic, and the hard hearted person with the glorious news of the Gospel. Prayer opens our eyes and gives us faith to see situations and people as God sees them. Regardless of how challenging or how hopeless the situation seems, we know that God is greater than any obstacle the devil can throw our way.
Ask Moses – “What do you see?” No way to cross the Red Sea. No, Moses says, “Nothing is too hard for God – Let’s go forward. The Red Sea Parts.
Ask David – “What do you see?” The giant is too big for a teenager to handle. No, David said, “No giant is too big for God. He’s too big to miss.” Goliath is defeated.
Ask Joshua – “What do you see?” We are like grasshoppers in their sight. No, “Let’s go conquer the land; God will give it to us.”
I like the song that says:
I listen to the trumpet of Jesus
While the world hears a different sound
I march to the drumbeat of God almighty
While the others just wander around
I’m a member of the Holy Ghost traveling band
I’m moving on up to a better land.
I hear the voice of a supernatural singer
Like only those who know Him can.
We reach out in love better together-
We reach out with compassion,
We reach out in the power of the Holy Spirit
We reach out through the power of prayer
In our church program you have a 3 X 5 card. I want you to write 3 to 5 names on the card of people needing prayer – primarily prayers of God’s forgiving love – people needing to become a follower of Jesus. The list could include relatives, friends, neighbors or work associates. When the offering is taken place the card in the plate and we will compile the names and give the lists to our prayer groups to pray specifically for those on the list. Let’s expect God to work miracles in the lives of those we pray for. (Closing Hymn #447 Freely, Freely)
