Several centuries ago, a Japanese emperor commissioned an artist to paint a picture of a bird. A number of months passed, then several years, and still no painting was brought to the palace. Finally the emperor became so exasperated that he went to the artist’s home to demand an explanation. But instead of making excuses, the artist placed a blank canvas on the easel. In less than an hour, he completed a painting that was to become a brilliant masterpiece. When the emperor asked the reason for the delay, the artist showed him armloads of drawings that he had made of feathers, wings, heads, and feet. Then he explained that all of this research and study, this preparation had been necessary before he could complete the painting.
Life is full of preparations. This morning all of us prepared to come to church. All of us got dressed in our daily clothes as I see no one is here in their pajamas. I would expect most of us ate some sort of breakfast this morning in preparation for the day. I would hope all of us entered into this day in prayer especially because it is Sunday and we were coming to God’s house to worship him today.
However, everything we do, if you think about it, is preparation for something else. No matter what you do, you are preparing for something. Go grocery shopping you are preparing to cook something later and that is preparation to eat it. Put gas in you car you are preparing to go somewhere, maybe to work, which is in preparation to make money, which is to pay the bills and of course tithe to the church. So you see everything we do is in preparation for something else.
This season is a huge season for preparations. It is the Christmas season and just look at all of the things we are doing to prepare for that day. We may have been going through the ads looking at the deals or picking out the things we want receive. Maybe we have been going through the garage or attic looking for the Christmas decorations. Perhaps we have already hung some lights outside and made our homes look festive for the holidays. You may have purchased your Christmas cards and gone through the list of people you plan on sending a greeting to this year. Maybe you have not done any of this yet. You may be still preparing to prepare in your mind.
As Christians we are preparing every day or least should be preparing for Jesus to one day return to earth and claim his church. Even though we don’t know when that day will be we still prepare for it by making sure we are ready. We should also be making sure others are ready for that day as well. This Christmas season is a wonderful time to share your faith with someone, the door has already been cracked open for you because of the holiday.
This coming week we are going to have revival services as you know. I hope and pray that you are preparing yourself for this week. We need to humble ourselves in God’s presence and pray for him to move this week in our church, in our community, and in our lives. We need to prepare our selves for a revival to happen. God does not send revival just because we decided to bring an evangelist to the church! Revival will only come if we prepare ourselves for it.
In our scripture today we will see a wonderful story of preparation. Let’s turn to Mark 1:1-8 and read this week’s passage.
“The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ – ‘a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’’”
And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: ‘After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’”
Here we see John in the desert preparing the way for Jesus to come into his ministry. John was there preaching and baptizing in the name of repentance. And he said, “After me will come someone else, whose sandals I am unfit to untie. I am baptizing you with water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” In essence John was saying, “I am preparing the way for Him to come. I am getting all of you ready for Him. We are repenting now so we will be ahead of the game when he gets here.”
But what is the most amazing thing to me here is not that John was preparing the way for Jesus but that Jesus had already prepared the way for John.
Look at what the scripture says, “I will send my messenger ahead of you.” John was God’s messenger for Jesus. But God had already prepared the way for John. People didn’t come to John just because they wanted to see the crazy, dirty guy out in the desert. Traveling in those days was not easy like it is today. If we want to go somewhere we just walk down the paved sidewalk or hop in our cars, not then. Traveling any distance was an arduous journey at best. Much less traveling out into the desert. So I doubt people would have made the long difficult journey into the desert to see some sort of circus freak if that was all he was. No, the way was prepared for John in advance.
There had been over 400 years between the last prophet of God, Malachi and the time of John the Baptist. The time between our Old and New Testaments was filled with preparation of the Jewish people to expect a messiah. They were ready to hear the message after 400 years of not hearing from God. The way was prepared for John in advance by God Himself. John was not only preparing the way for Jesus but Jesus had already prepared the way for John.
In fact Jesus was in the preparation business. He spent three years in ministry with his disciples. During this time they observed and learned from Him. Oh they made their share of mistakes during this period but they were being prepared every day, whether or not they knew it.
Now, I can’t help think that we are that much different than the disciples. Jesus called the disciples out of their present lifestyle into some sort of ministry experience. Jesus has called all of us Christians into some sort of ministry as well. Once the disciples received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost they were an unstoppable force. All of their training during those three years with Jesus started to pay off. Look at what they did in Acts 2:42-47.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Friends, it would be easy for me to get off on a tangent this morning because here is the model for a godly church.
However, I want you to look at how their preparation with Jesus allowed them to do what they did. They ministered to the people, they enjoyed people, they fellowshipped with people, they gave to the people. I would suspect that some of the believers did the preaching, others ran the soup kitchen, some were people people and they welcomed the new believers into their mist. I bet there were many that were the behind the scenes type of people during the early church, those that prayed for the leaders, those that helped clean the temple courts, those that made all of the food. I don’t know what it was that people did during that early church but the passage says no one was left out. It says, “all of the believers were together.” Not some, not a few, but every single one of them were together. And what did the Lord do to reward them? “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
So what you may be asking. What does this have to do with preparation? What does this have to do with me? Let me answer that by saying that I think preparation is the key to any ministry or church surviving. If we see the Lord’s blessings in our life I am sure you can look back and see how preparation lead to the blessing. For us as Christians it always should start with prayer.
How can we expect anything from our Lord if we don’t talk to him? I have heard it suggested that once we make it to Heaven, Jesus will lead us into a great big room full of blessings we could have had here on earth in our life if we only asked for them. I am not sure if that will be true or not, but I do know that prayer should be our preparation for anything we do for the kingdom.
The early church all had a ministry. Everyone did something for the Kingdom, everyone. And the Lord brought great numbers of believers into their presence. I think the same thing can happen today. Are we that different? Can’t we all be used to prepare a way for the advancement of God’s kingdom? Can’t we be used in a way that will help God work here on earth?
The good news is we already have the tools, we already have the money, we already have the talents, we just have to use them. They exist already! We have to find them, we may have to develop them, and then we have to use them for the glory of God! Folks the fields are ripe and ready for harvesting!
The hunger is out there for something else, something meaningful, something true. The preparation for our ministry here on earth has already been done.
And God has chosen you to help him do the work!
“Whoa, Pastor Brian,” you say, “I don’t know how to evangelize, I don’t know how to speak to a group of people, I don’t know how to answer all of the biblical questions people may ask me, I don’t know how to win people to Christ, that is just not me. You have the wrong person in mind.”
No, I don’t have you in mind, God has you in mind.
John the Baptist was not the picture perfect evangelist either. Look at him for a second. He wore clothing made of camel’s hair. The passage we read earlier makes John out to be a pretty rough guy. Not one you would expect to be behind the pulpit, not one you would expect to be preaching about repentance. Not the one who would bring, “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” out to him.
And on top of that, he ate bugs! If God can use this man to prepare a way for Jesus to work he can surely use you.
So what is God preparing you to do for his Kingdom?
You see friends; the Lord has already prepared the world for your ministry. The preparation has already been done. The fields are ripe and ready for harvest. As missed up as the world seems to be they are ready to hear the Good news of Jesus Christ. God has used your life, your experiences, your talents, and your testimony all in preparation for your ministry for Him.
I don’t care if you accepted Christ when you were a child, or as a young adult, or even yesterday. You have a story to tell, you all have talents, you all have experienced things that no one else on the earth has experienced. Do you think for a moment all of that was on accident?
Do you want to know the best part of all this. God is allowing us to do the work! Sure he could make people accept him, sure he could do all of the evangelizing himself. Sure he could send Jesus back here for round two to do the work himself, but he isn’t. He isn’t coming to evangelize, He is coming to collect those that we have evangelized. Instead, in the mean time He sent the Holy Spirit, who works through all of us. We are the ones who get to do the work! Isn’t that good news?
And because we are the ones who get to do the work, God is allowing us to be the recipients of the joy and blessing that come with it. You know if this church would see someone come to Christ it is not me who can take the credit. It is not even the person who may have spoke to them right before they accepted Christ into their lives. No, all of us can claim joy from the experience because all of the believers prepared for that day! It doesn’t matter if you were the person doing the talking, it doesn’t matter if you were the person doing the praying, it doesn’t matter if you were the person vacuuming the carpet that day. If you have a ministry in this church you can share in the joy of seeing the Lord add to our numbers.
We have come to a time in society where someone coming to the altar is a rare occurrence. Why? If we all do our part then we should see our numbers added to every day. Why does it seem like this is a first century phenomenon?
So what is your ministry? What has God called you to do? What can you do? What has God spent your entire life preparing you for? What is it?
“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plan to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
Do you think for a moment that our God will lead you down a road in ministry for the church that he has not prepared you for? Do you think for a moment that He will not walk down that road hand in hand with you? Do you think for a moment that God would send you a ministry, one that he has prepared you for your entire life, only to make you fail?
Friends, today is your day! Today is the day to step forward and claim your ministry for Him! What is the Lord your God calling you to do? What does he want you to do for Him?
Some of you have no idea what God is calling you to do yet. That’s OK. Let’s pray about it, let’s prepare some more. I would love to sit down with you and see what you are good at. I would love to be part of that discovery process with you. Come see me if you would like to take that journey. I promise you it will be the best journey you have ever gone on before.
The rest of that passage in Jeremiah says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Let’s open our hearts today. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you this morning. Let’s seek him with everything we have. We are going to close with prayer and I will stick around after every one leaves if you want to pray some more. Perhaps we will not discover where God is calling you today, perhaps we will. But we can discover it together. We can come to God with open hearts and minds and call upon him for help. If you want to stay and pray some more come down to the altar during this prayer or afterwards and all of us who come will pray together.
