Spiritual Farming

Well, I have never been a farmer, although I have pastored in two farming areas in North Carolina and Indiana for a total of 16 years. And I have some good friends, dear friends, who our farmers have been farmers through the years. And I certainly have come to appreciate the process of sowing seed and praying and doing whatever you can to till and then watch the crops grow or not grow. And that whole process, I have come to appreciate from their perspective. I have done gardens. In fact, Jeanne and I had the mother of all gardens in Indiana. We worked with one of our farmer friends there and gardened together and literally planted an acre for a garden. We had 120, 120 tomato plants. Now that was, we thought was a great idea when we planted them. But you know, come harvest time. That was a different story. Jeanne made tomato paste, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce. We ate fresh tomatoes. We learned to love tomato sandwiches. We stewed tomatoes. We canned tomatoes. We threw tomatoes at each other. We gave them away till our friends started going the other direction when they saw us. It was just tomatoes coming out of our ears. Now I appreciate the process and the work that goes into and the reward that comes from farming. You know, in the word of God, God uses a lot of illustrations and word pictures for evangelism. And one of the word pictures that he uses in the Bible is that of farming. It's really found quite often. And you would expect that in the Bible since it wasn't a Grarian society, a rural farming society you would expect. The whole illustration of farming is a concrete example that allows us to wrap our minds around the idea of what evangelism really is. It's a process. It involves several stages. And it involves a lot of hard work. And there is a process that goes into winning souls that is mirrored in the farming process. So what I want us to do this morning is to take a look at the farming picture in the Bible and how it really does illustrate for us the whole process of evangelism. So I want to begin this morning in John chapter 4 where we find the first of two biblical passages on spiritual farming. I want us to look at a couple of passages this morning on spiritual farming. Let's begin in John chapter 4. If you'll open your Bibles there and while you're turning there, let me just kind of bring you up to speed on what's happening in John chapter 4. Jesus is traveling from a southern province of Rome, the Judean province, Judea to Galilee, which is the northern part of Israel. And most Jews, when they made that trip, did not want to go on a straight line geographically south to north because that would take them through Samaria. And Samaritans and the Jews didn't get along very well together. There were some racial difficulties and history problems there. And so they didn't get along very well. So most Jews would, when they left Jerusalem, they would go east and cross over the river Jordan, then go north and then get up to Peria and cross, go west over into Galilee. Well Jesus decided I'm going to go to Galilee and I'm going to go the way the crow flies. I'm going to go straight, going to go, you know, like going from North Carolina to Ohio. You've got to go through West Virginia, which is the best part of all, right? Going through West Virginia. Well he says I'm going to go through Samaria. And so he stops on that trip at a little town called Cicare. And he sends his disciples in to get some supper at Donald's. And while they're gone, this woman comes out to the well. He's sitting there by a well. And a woman comes out to draw a water and she purposely comes at a time when she thinks no one else will be there. And we find out the reason as we read the story in John 4, the reason is because of her past. She's got a pretty checkered past. She's been married five times and the man she's living with at this time is not her husband. So she's got a lot of stories to tell about her past. And she comes at a time when she thinks nobody else will be there. Well there's Jesus. And Jesus engages her in conversation. It begins to talk with her about water. And he asks for a drink of water. And then he magnificently turns the conversation around to a different kind of water, a water that he's willing to offer her called living water. And he says, if you drink this living water, you'll never thirst again. Well, he's got her curiosity up. She wants to know what that's all about. And he explains the fact that that's eternal life that he's talking about. And the conversation moves into then bringing her face to face with her past and her sin and face to face with the fact that he is the Messiah. And you know, you have to read a little behind the lines or between the lines here to get the whole picture. And evidently places her faith in Christ and runs back into town to tell everybody who she's met. Well, as she's going back into town, the disciples are coming back out of town. And they meet up with Jesus and a conversation takes place. Let's pick it up in verse 35. John chapter 4, verse 35, do you not say four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Now Jesus in the first part of that verse was using kind of a cliche, something that people said, a proverb that they said in those days, you know, from the time that you finished planting and kind of wait for the harvest till the time the harvest is ready to reap. It's about four months in Israel. And so isn't there a common saying that everybody says four months and then is the harvest? And they're talking about the grain that's growing in the fields. Jesus says, the harvest is already here. And it's clear he's talking about another kind of harvest, a spiritual harvest and he makes that even more clear in verse 36. Notice what he says in verse 36, even now the reaper draws his wages. Even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. It's very clear now that he's not talking about the grain that's growing alongside the road being ready to reap. He's talking about an eternal harvest, a harvest that results in eternal life. This is a spiritual harvest. And it could well be that he's saying, lift up your eyes because see those people coming out of town over there. See those folks walking toward you. That's the harvest I'm talking about. These are people that have already had some seed planted. They've heard about me and they're coming now to find out more and you're going to reap that harvest. And notice how he says there in verse 36 that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. In other words, everybody who's had any part to play in these people coming to faith, they're going to rejoice together. There's no competition here. We're all in this together and everybody, no matter who it was, at what point in these people's lives that either sowed some seed or is going to be a part of the reaping process, no matter what part you play, we're all going to rejoice together when we see these people come to know Christ. And he follows that up with a statement in verse 37, thus the saying one so's and another reaps is true. Now we might think, well, you know, in farming it's usually the same guy who sows that does the reaping. But not in spiritual farming always. Jesus says in spiritual farming sometimes it's different. The person who sows is not always the person who reaps the harvest. Sometimes one or more people will sow seed and develop thoughts and give the gospel, but it will be someone else maybe years later that will reap the harvest. So the saying is true, one sows in another reaps and he flashes that out even a little more in verse 38 when he says, I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. So he's saying, see this harvest, it's here, it's ready to reap and I'm going to give you the privilege of reaping this harvest. Now I want you to be aware of the fact you've not worked for this. You haven't done the sowing and the watering and all the other things that need to be done, but you're going to have the blessed privilege of reaping the harvest. Others have done the hard work of sowing and so forth. And maybe he was talking about Old Testament prophets who had been in this area many, many years ago. Maybe he was talking about John the Baptist who administered in this area. Certainly he was talking about himself who had sowed the seed in this woman's heart and probably he was also talking about the woman who had taken that seed and planted it in a few other hearts in town and now they're coming out to find out more. So he's probably talking at least about those people but he's saying, you know, you're going to get to reap this harvest. You didn't work for it, you didn't sow the seed, you didn't water it, you didn't do any of the work of telling the ground, but you're going to get to reap it. So everybody has part and you're just going to be kind of on the end of this thing reaping the harvest. It's an interesting concept, isn't it, of spiritual farming. Now hang on to some of those thoughts and we'll come back to them by way of principles in a moment. Let's turn to the other biblical passage of spiritual farming in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and let me bring you up to speed on what's happening in that passage so we put it in context here. In this passage Paul is talking about some problems in the church at Corinth and the problem he's talking about specifically is the problem of disunity in the church. And the disunity has come about because people have chosen their favorite teachers and they're kind of followers of those teachers. And in this passage he talks about some people follow Paul, me, you know, and probably those folks were saying boy we like Paul's preaching, it's deep, he teaches a lot of deep theological truth, we were, that's our kind of guy, we're Paul followers. And then he said some people follow a Paulus, you know, a Paulus is kind of that eloquent guy that just the words flow off of his tongue and he's easy and fun to listen to. And you know, the Bible calls him in Acts 18 a man who is eloquent and mighty in the scriptures. So he combined good Bible knowledge with the ability to communicate it well. And some people said, you can have Paul, I'll take a Paulus any day, man, I really love the way of Paulus preaches. Earlier in chapter 1 he's mentioned two other parties of people in the church, one of them followed Peter. And you know, Peter is this bold dynamic preacher and maybe people, especially with a Jewish background kind of gravitated to Peter because he's the apostle to the Jews. And so there were people who said, I really like Peter, you can have Paul, you can have a Paulus, I'm a Peter guy myself. And then there were some others who said, well, I just follow Christ. Now at first glance that may sound like the most spiritual bunch but it may have been the worst bunch of the whole group. Because evidently in the context what Paul's talking about is these are people who would say, I don't have a need for any human teachers, I have a direct line to God, I just let Jesus teach me. Probably the most proud hypocritical self-righteous people in the whole church. Were those folks? And so Paul is saying, you got all these parties of people followers in the church. Now let me go back to the basics and explain how you got saved and the part those people played. And he adopts this farming illustration to get the point across. Let's pick it up chapter 3, verse 5, where he says, what after all is a Paulus? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, a Paulus watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow. He's a man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose. And each will be rewarded according to his own labor for we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. Now there's a couple of things I think Paul is getting across with this farming illustration. The one thing I think he really wants to get across to them is we must have a proper view of our role in evangelism. We've got to have a proper view of the role that we play. There are at least four things Paul says about that. First of all he says, we, Paul, Paulus, other people who brought you to the gospel, we're just servants. Now the word he chooses for servant is a very interesting word. It was the word for a table waiter for the most menial task in that day. Someone who kind of waited in the corner and served the table of a household. We might think of it today as someone who waits on tables in a restaurant or cleans up the tables after the meal. Now certainly those folks deserve gratitude and respect and honor for what they do, but you don't build monuments to them. You don't build movements after them. Wendy's is known for Dave, the guy who started the whole thing. He's the guy everybody looks up to. Who knows the average person behind the counter? It's not that they're not important. They are, but you just don't build monuments to table waiters. That's why Paul used that word. Who is Paul? We're a table waiter. We're a servant. Don't build monuments to us. Don't put the emphasis on the human teacher because that's not where the movement is supposed to be centered around. The movement is centered around Jesus Christ. You see, we're just servants. We're just table waiters. Just serving the food is what we're doing. So we got to keep our role very clear. We're table waiters. We're servants. We give the food out. Second thing he says about our role is that we have different gifts and ministries. Look at the end of verse five. We all have different gifts and ministries. He says, we're only servants as the Lord has assigned to each his task. So we have different tasks. God has assigned to each of us a task and he says, I planted a seed, a polished watered it. So we each had a different task. God has assigned us whatever task he wants to say. We have different gifts and ministries. You know, we all don't have the same role in evangelism. But everybody has the same role in evangelism. Some people are more of the seed throwing kind of person that they get the word out. They throw the seed out. They plant little seeds in people's hearts. There are other people who come along and they have more of a gift and a ministry of watering. God has assigned them to that task and we'll see what those specific roles are in just a few moments. But not everybody has the same role. God has assigned to each one his task. I was listening to a CD by Bill Heibos, a leadership resource that I get regularly and listen to when I'm out in the car. And he was talking about the whole concept of evangelism and how they view it in the church he pastors outside of Chicago. And he talked about the fact that some people are the more dynamic, outgoing evangelists, types that you normally think of, someone who can just witness to anybody they see on the street. Other people have more of a serving role and they show very practically the love of Christ to others. And it's easy for us to think that the only people who are effective in evangelism are the ones who are really out there with the verbal testimony witnessing to everybody they see on the street. And his point, which was very well taken, was that God has assigned us different tasks. And yes, we need those folks who are the real speaker types who can talk to anyone, have that real gift of evangelism in that sense. But we also need people who do other things and show the love of Christ in other ways all are apart. We all have a task to play in evangelism. The third thing he says about our role is that we all have the same purpose. Look at it there in verse 8 again. He says, the man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose. What is that purpose? It's to see that person come to know Christ. And no matter what role you play in that, no matter what stage of the process you contribute to, the same purpose is true of all of us. We want to see those people come to Christ. And not everybody has the same role in seeing that happen, but we all have the same purpose in seeing that person come to Christ. Then the fourth thing he says about our role is that we are God's fellow workers. Did you see that in verse 9? We are God's fellow workers. And he goes on to say, you are God's field, God's building. In other words, it's God's work. It's God's building. It's God's field. He's in control of it, but he's given us the wonderful privilege by his grace of being fellow workers with him. We get to come along for the ride and get to be used of him to distribute some seed and to water some seed and sometimes even to be a part of the reaping process. That's a wonderful thing when that happens, but no matter what part of the process you plug into, you're a fellow worker with God. That's a wonderful thing. It's a great privilege to be able to do that. So that's our role. We need to understand our role in that whole process, but then Paul also talks about a proper view of God. Not only a proper view of our role, but a proper view of God. Do you notice some of the things he said in verse 5, Paul says, for instance, God is sovereign in the use of people. When I say sovereign, I simply mean that God is in control of this. God is the one who makes the choices and decisions and does as he pleases in these areas. And as the Bible says, none can stay his hand. We can't say, oh God, you're messed up there. Did the wrong thing. No, God knows what he's doing. And God is sovereign in the use of people. Notice it there again. In verse 5, what after all is a Paulus? What is Paul only servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord has assigned to each his task? You know, God's made you the way you are. He's built you the way you are. He's wired you the way you are. Your personality, your life experiences, your heart motivations, all of those things, your spiritual gifts, even your personality, all of those things. He has wired you a certain way to be used in a certain way in somebody else's life. Not everybody's going to have the same impact or approach people the same way. But God's sovereign in the way he's made you and what he's gifted you to do. So God's sovereign in that. Anything, God is sovereign in bringing results. Verses 6 and 7. I planted a seed, a Paulus watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waterses anything, but only God who makes things grow. What he's saying very plainly, very clearly, is that only God can cause the seed that is sewn in a human heart to germinate, to find good ground, to germinate, bring forth fruit and life. Only God can do that. I can't save anybody. You can't save anybody. Only God can do that. We can sew seed, we can water it. Only God can cause things to grow. Only God can cause a heart to be receptive to the gospel and respond and be sensitive to that. And the interesting thing is, is that's a present tense verb in the original language that Paul wrote it in. When he says God causes it to grow, probably the best way to translate that would be God causes it to continue growing. In other words, if you're faithful to plant seed and water that seed, then God's going to be at work constantly, continually. Even at times when you're not aware or you're not around or you're not able to plant anymore or sew anymore or water anymore, God is still working based on what's been done before. You see God's sovereign and how he works in people's hearts and it's a wonderful thing to see God at work in people's hearts. And I want to come back to that in just a moment. Thirdly, God is sovereign in giving rewards, verse 8. God knows what he's doing and at the end of the verse it says, each will be rewarded according to his own labor. Now that's up to God. What rewards we get for what part we played in God's work and reaching people with God? That's up to God. He rewards each worker, but it's up to him how he rewards, how much he rewards, what kind of rewards, that's up to him. He's sovereign in that. We ought to be thankful for the fact that he calls us to do something and he equips us to do it and then he rewards us for doing it. I mean, it's all up to him. He's the one that gives us the ability to do whatever we do is wired us away, we're wired and then he rewards us for doing it. That's grace. And we ought to thank God for that. So this whole farming illustration is used for us to understand our role in evangelism and God's role and a view of God and evangelism as well. Now let's take what we've seen in those two passages. The biblical passages about spiritual farming and let's plug that in to what we can see of a biblical process of spiritual farming. I think the principles from these two passages really do lay out for us a sequential process, a step-by-step process of spiritual farming that's very important in evangelism. There are four stages. Stage number one is the sewing stage, the sewing stage. And by the way, there are stages. Evangelism is a process. The Bible speaks of people who are far from God, people who are near Jesus said one time to a group of people, you are very close to the kingdom of God. So there are people who are far away, there are people who are pretty close but not saved yet. You see, there's a process, there's a continuum, there's a spectrum along which people move coming to Christ. It's not like, boom, you hear the gospel, boom, you're all of a sudden right there, you're trusting. That happens with some people but usually even in those cases there have been a number of things that have led up to that. Evangelism is a process and sometimes even in each of these stages we're going to look at there are a number of steps to get from stage four to stage three and then to stage two, there are a number of steps involved in people's lives. So it's important to see that. It's important to see that the first time you witness to someone and they don't accept Christ, don't think you're a failure. You may have moved them one step along in the first stage of coming to Christ. So that first stage is the sowing stage. Jesus talks about it in terms of sowing seed. Paul talks about it in terms of planting seed. Same idea, it's giving out the word. So when we sow, when we plant seed, we're simply giving people the word or we're sharing our testimony as we saw last week or in some way giving people a part, maybe we don't have time to give a full blown gospel presentation but we're putting in whatever we can get in, it's that sowing of the seed. And don't feel like you failed if a person at that first opportunity doesn't come to no Christ. For one thing, you remember what Jesus said about sowing seed when he told that story? About a sower went forth to sow and he sowed there are four kinds of ground. Three kinds of the ground didn't even respond really in any lasting way. There was only one good soil that found the seed found good soil and sprouted and came up and pruned fruit. Only one out of four, only 25 percent if you go by the law of averages. So not everybody's going to respond anyway. So don't feel like you're a failure. Plus there are a number of stages and steps within those stages and it takes time sometimes for people to move from being far from God to being ready to make a decision to receive Christ. Sometimes it takes a number of steps. So we just have to be faithful to continue to sow the seed. Give out the seed. Get in the word whenever we can. Talk about our testimony. What Christ means to us. Let him see the difference in our lives. All those things we've talked about just keep doing it and don't get weary of doing it and God's going to use that somewhere along the line. I have a double first cousin. I forget how it works. I think my mom's brother married my dad's sister and so I have double first cousins. There are several of them actually but only one of them is a guy, David Hollinsworth is his name. And when we were kids we used to spend a lot of time together the two families would get together. My uncle was a doctor at Duke Hospital and so we spent some time down there. They would spend time up here and we would have a lot of time together. David and I just got along great and the reason was I grew up with four sisters. He grew up with three sisters so we both knew what persecution was like. Now we both when we got together we did guy things because we didn't get a chance to do that with anybody in our family. You know, there's all these girls hanging around. We do guy things together. It was great. So David and I had a really close relationship when we were younger. As we both moved into adulthood we kind of lost track of each other and he went his way and I went my way. A few years ago I heard that David had come to faith, had come to Christ and he was in a good church in Raleigh, North Carolina. I know the church. St. Church, Dennis Till was in when he was a student down there at the seminary. Great church. And so I was interested to know what had happened. Well, I was going to be holding a meeting in the Raleigh area and David called me. He found out I was going to be there and he called and he said, hey, just get together. I'll come over to the service one evening and we'll get together after the service. And so we did and we began to catch up on all the years. It'd been probably, wow, 30 years since we'd had much contact with each other. And so eventually the conversation gravitated to David. What happened? Did you come to faith in Christ? Tell me the story. Now, the first thing out of his mouth was John, do you remember when we were teenagers and you told me about how to receive Christ? And honestly, I didn't. I did not remember that. But he couldn't forget it. Somewhere along the line, just as kids doing stuff, I must have somewhere along the line shared with him my faith in Christ. I don't remember how it happened. I don't remember what I said. Somewhere along the line, he heard that and it gripped his heart and he couldn't get away from it. Now, a lot of other things happened and it took a period of a number of years before David came to the point where he was willing to trust Christ as he saved you. But he said, that's where all started. I had no clue that just a little seed sowing by a teenage guy who didn't know anything about witnessing to anybody would eventually bear fruit sometime. Twenty-twenty-five years down the road. You see, that's how God works. If we're just faithful to so some seed when we have the opportunities, God has a marvelous way of taking that and doing with it much more than we could ever conceive of doing. So there's the sowing stage, the planting stage of witnessing. Second stage is the watering stage. Now the watering stage, the seeds already been sown, obviously, right, to carry through on the picture. The seeds already been sown. There's something already in that person's heart by way of an awareness of the gospel, some kind of knowledge of the gospel. So the watering stage is someone who comes along and speaks to someone who's already heard the gospel. And it's like the seed is there in the heart. God has said, if you're sowing the seed, I'm continually working. So God's doing some work there. But now here comes along someone else and waters that seed. I think it kind of goes like this. I think maybe that person is at a point in their life when they need to hear it again, maybe a little different perspective than what they heard before. Or maybe they're at a point in their life when they need a little more information. They're hung up on a point. They need a little more information to get them across that barrier. Or maybe they need a question or an objection to the gospel, clarified for them. God, the Holy Spirit, knows where people are at any stage of this journey, of moving from far from God to being ready to receive Christ. And so God brings along people, and it may be you at times, God brings along people just to occasionally water that seed. And it may be through an opportunity to share Christ with them, actually share the gospel. It may be through an opportunity to address a particular issue in their life that's been kind of a hang up for them as far as coming to faith is concerned. It may be through just simply giving your testimony. And God knows who along the way needs those little watering things that happen so that they might move a little closer toward receiving Christ. At the risk of embarrassing my mother, I want to tell a story about her. She's not here in this service. So I can embarrass her all I want, right? Last Monday, my dad was supposed to have cataract surgery and he was over at Bluefield at St. Luke's and the doctor had him in the operating room. He had to do the surgery and that's when the squirrel, did you read the paper? The squirrel got caught in the transformer and kicked the power off and so dad didn't get to have the surgery. They were really mad at the operating room and said, we're not going to risk this on backup power if that goes out and we're in real trouble. So he didn't get to have surgery. Mom and I are sitting there in this waiting room area and we're talking about family stuff and catching up on stuff and all that. And there's a guy over here, about two or three rows down. It's me and then my mother and then two or three seeds down as another guy. He's an older guy and it was obvious that he wanted to talk to us because he kept interrupting our conversation saying, let me tell you about, excuse me for interrupting, but let me and he'd start in the part of his story. Evidently, this guy was really some kind of character in the area where he lived. He has quite a story to tell and he began telling us this story of his background and we're listening and all of a sudden he tells about what Christmas used to be like when he was a kid and this is like 80 years ago. He's an elderly gentleman. He really begins to tell about Christmas and it was beautiful to watch. My mom picked up on that and she said, you mentioned Christmas a minute ago. How did you all celebrate Christmas? Did you really understand what the meaning of Christmas was and she kind of went into the whole thing about the Christmas as the birth of Jesus and why Jesus came and she just started sharing the gospel and I'm thinking, why didn't I think of that? Wow, just blew me away. So she's right in the middle of this and all of a sudden they wheeled my dad out and the nurse says he's ready to go and his eyes already dilated and you need to go out with him and keep him covered up so we're whisked down the hallway and have to leave this guy. As we walked down the hallway my mom said, I wish we had some more time with that guy. And I didn't think a lot about it at the time but as later in the week as I was preparing this message I thought, you know that may have been one of those watering times. That may be what that was about. God may have, God does know all things but it may have been that God knew that that man just needed a little bit of water on some seed that day and it didn't have to be a full-blown gospel presentation. Maybe it was just enough to get him thinking about it again. You see there's the sowing stage then there's the watering stage. The third stage is the growing stage. The growing stage. Now remember the growing stage is God's work. Remember 1 Corinthians 3? Paul says, I planted a seed, a polished watered it, God made it grow. And he says, only God can make seed grow. Makes it very clear this is God's work. The seed germinating in the heart, the response of good soil, the conviction in a person's heart that eventually leads him to the point they know they need Christ and they're willing to commit their lifetime. That's God's work. I can't save people. I can't convict people. I can do so to seed and water it as best I can with other attempts and prayers and so forth. And then God has to do the growing process. That's His work. But you know, He has a number of tools at His disposal to bring about this growing process. He really does. God uses any number of things and many of you could give testimony to the things that God has used in your life to bring you to the point where you trusted Christ. Maybe it was a life circumstance that brought you to the end of your rope and you said, you know, everything you'd heard, the sewing of the seed, planting, the watering, all that came back to you and you were ready. Maybe it was a life circumstance. Maybe for you, it was something like just a gentle Holy Spirit reminder. You face something in your life and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit starts bringing back things that you heard along the way and the gospel comes clear and you realize you're need for Christ. It may be someone doing a little watering of the seed that finally it all comes together and you realize you need Christ or you're going to spend an eternity apart from God and you make that decision. You see, there are any number of tools that God has at His disposal to do that work of growing the seed in somebody's heart. Paul told us that in 1 Corinthians 3. In fact, Paul is one of the best examples of that in the Bible, the way that God works in a heart. You remember those of you who were here last week, we were talking about Paul's testimony in Acts 26. I got to think about that again this week. Let me lift the verse out of that testimony again and show you what I mean by God growing the seed. Look at Acts 26, 14. Paul's telling his story to Agrippa and he says, we all fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Now look at this phrase, it is hard for you to kick against the goads. Now what is that about? Well a goad is like a cattle prod. It's like a stick or something that was used in those days to prod cattle or sheep to get moving in a certain direction. Come on, get up on the truck there and we'll take you to market. That kind of thing. That's a prod, that's a goad. And God's talking about spiritual goads that He was using on Saul's heart, things that kind of pricked His heart, pricked His conscience. Now He doesn't, Paul doesn't tell us what those things were, but if you go back and look at Paul's pre-conversion days, you can get an idea of what some of them may have been. Before he got converted, as he's telling Agrippa here, he used to persecute Christians, he'd throw him in jail. Wonder how many of those Christians, Paul, Saul, suffer graciously and even turn around to him and try to witness to him. Wonder how many times that happened. Wonder when he watched him being taken away from their families if he watched the love of Christ being demonstrated between those family members and he couldn't sleep that night because there was a goad pricking His heart. Wonder how many times that happened. We know from Acts chapter 7 that He was holding people's garments as they stoned Stephen to death. So we know that He saw Stephen look up into heaven and say, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. It's exactly what Jesus said on the cross. He saw Stephen display that spiritual Christ-like attitude and I have a feeling Saul had trouble going to sleep that night. He was seeing those kinds of things in people's lives and He could not understand how they could live that way and how they could respond that way and why they would be willing to die for what they believed in and who they believed in. I just think those are the kind of goads that were going at His heart all the time. And when He got saved, Jesus said to him, hard to kick against those goads, didn't it so? Hard to kick against those goads. You see, God has a wonderful way of doing this growing process in people's hearts and He has a number of tools at His disposal to cause the seed to grow and to come to full fruit in faith in Christ. Well, the fourth stage then is the reaping stage. And this is the fun part, the reaping stage. This is where you actually bring in the harvest. This is where you actually help someone cross that line of faith. Now maybe there's been a lot of sowing that's gone on and a lot of watering and little by little they have moved, step by step through the stages and now they are close. They're just ready and you happen to be there at that time, sharing the gospel with them, working with them, whatever when the time comes when it's clear they're ready to cross the line of faith and you're there to reap the harvest. That doesn't mean you're the only one that's had a part in their salvation. The only instrument God's used, there probably been a lot of people through the years, but you're there to reap the harvest and that's a wonderful time when that happens. When that happens, I would suggest when you sense that someone is ready to cross the line of faith, I would suggest you do three things. Number one, I would suggest when you're in that position you just sense the Holy Spirit's impressing on you, this person is ready. They are asking, can I trust Christ? What do I do this? I would suggest number one that you make very clear to them the nature of the commitment they're ready to make. In other words, go back through the gospel to make sure they understand what they're doing. Here's what it means, do you understand this? You're a sinner, Christ died for you, placed your faith in Him, the essence of the gospel, do you understand that? Second thing I would suggest you do, if you sense that at that point, press the urgency of that moment on them. Don't let them off the hook. Press the urgency, now's the time, friend. Today's the day of salvation, the Bible says, don't put this off. You have to be sensitive to Holy Spirit in these things because you don't do that with everybody. You can't push everybody. But someone that you know is ready to cross the line of faith, you sense they're ready, don't let them put it off. Press them to go ahead and make that decision. Then the third thing I would suggest you do is help them actually word their turning from running their own life to complete dependence on Christ, to forgive them and save them and give them a home in heaven. Just help them to word that expression of trust to the Lord. You may even want to pray with them. And say, I'm going to pray with you and here's what it means to word what you're saying, what you're thinking, what your heart needs at this time and just help them understand what it means to trust Christ. I would suggest you do those things and you know there's nothing like being a part of that reaping process. A few years ago, they've been earlier mid-90s when I was doing a lot of the follow-up on new people that would come to church. I was visiting in a home and I'm not going to mention the couple's name because they're still in our church and serving the Lord faithfully. But they had visited our church for the first time and I gave them a call and went over to see them and I'm talking to them and we were talking about family and background and jobs and those kind of things and then I eventually brought it around to where they were spiritually and I addressed the man and I asked him about his faith in Christ. Have you ever trusted Christ? Are you a Christian? And he explained to me his salvation experience, very clear that he had trusted Christ as he saved your. And then I turned to his wife and I said, what about you? She said, I'm not done that. I'm not saved. And it kind of shocked me because I just assumed they both were. I knew who they were. I just assumed they were both saved. And so I said, well, you heard what your husband said about how he came to faith in Christ and do you understand the gospel? Do you understand what it means to place faith in Christ? Kind of went through it real quick with her again. I understand that. Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to make that decision now? No, there's no reason. I'd like to make that decision now. And I thought, this is too easy. This is too easy. It's like picking candy from a baby. It's too easy. She just opened her heart to Christ and trusted Christ there in her living room. And they're still faithful members of our church. And what I realized after that is I got the blessing of being a part of the reaping process. But I'll guarantee you there were a lot of people who'd sewn seed up to that time. And there were people who had watered that seed. And there were people who had planted and worked and prayed and all those things. And maybe she had heard the gospel in church or heard the gospel through the radio or until I don't know. But there were plenty of other people that had an impact there. And I just got the blessing of being on the reaping side of things. Sometimes we don't get to see the reaping stage. Sometimes you're a part of the sewing or watering stage. It's growing, but you don't ever get to see the reaping. George Mueller was a great preacher and man who ran some orphanages in England in the 1800s. There were three men that he was very concerned about and witnessed a lot too. And he prayed for them for their salvation. For 60 years he prayed for their salvation. His whole adult life he prayed for their salvation never saw any of those three men come to Christ. But you know what? All three of them got saved after he died. One of them got saved to this funeral service. The other two came to know Christ shortly after. At least as far as I'm sure he was looking down from heaven and he saw it. But at least as far as seeing it happen while he was alive he never got to see the reaping part. But he was faithful to sew and water and God did what he said he would do it grew and somebody else did the reaping. But you know no matter what part of the process you're involved in, the Bible says we all are rewarded for that when it comes to heaven. It's very clear friend what our task is our mission is clear and it's to this every day we live do whatever work God assigns you at specific moments as opportunities arise. It may be that some of the opportunities you have are just a real quick seed sewing type thing. Just a little bit of a testimony or you know I had great church service yesterday or I love my church or I just love being with fellow Christians or you know it's just something little little bits of seed sewing. Maybe a full blown gospel presentation. Sometimes it may be watering. Giving a little more information, answering a question just showing the love of Christ watering that seed. But whatever God gives you the opportunity to do each day is the opportunities arise. He wants us to be faithful to do those and then he does the work of causing all of that to grow in a person's heart and who knows but what 30 years down the road they will come to Christ. And then when we get to heaven you know what we're going to see how the picture all fit together. One of my favorite movies is Mr. Hollins Opus. I just love that movie. It's never been a blockbuster or anything like that but it's got a great message to it. It's the story of a man who in his younger years as a musician and he wants to write a symphony. He has the ability to do that. He wants to write a symphony and have it published and you know be a known as a great composer. But that's kind of an idealistic dream and he realizes when he gets married he has to put food on the table so he takes a job teaching band in a high school. And at first he just hates going in every day but eventually he grows to love what he's doing and the impact he's having on young people's lives and he spends his whole career in that school teaching those kids. Now all the time he's still working on this symphony you know thinking I'll get it finished sometime it I'll get it published sometime. He's still working on that which he thinks is his opus his crowning work his achievement in music. But the day comes when he's been teaching a number of years when budget cuts require that the arts program is going to be dropped music program is going to be dropped in that school and so it's time for him to retire and he just decides okay I'm going to retire. I've had my day and he and his wife and his adult son are walking out of the school for the last time carrying the last box out of his office and they hear some noise in the auditorium he knows there's not supposed to be anybody in there and so they walk over to the auditorium and guess what they are throwing a party for Mr. Holland to commemorate and celebrate all that he has done the governor who is one of his former students has been invited to speak and introduce him. I know we've seen this one before but I want you to see a part of it again look at what happens at this wonderful wonderful time. Colleges from my tardiness and principal Walters I'd like you to know yes I brought a note from my mother. Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life on a lot of lives I know and yet I get the feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. He was always working on this symphony of his and this was going to make him face rich probably books but Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous at least not outside of our little town so it might be easy for him to think himself a failure and he would be wrong because I think he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around there is not a life in this room that you have not touched and each one of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony Mr. Holland we are the melodies and the notes of your opus and we are the music of your life. Mr. Holland we would now like to give something back to you to you and to your wife who along with you has waited 30 years for what we are about to hear. If you will would you please come up here and take this baton and lead us in the first performance ever of the American Symphony by Glenn Holland. We wish we had time to listen to the whole piece of music it's worth listening to but you know what grips me about that I don't have a Bible verse for this but I think that's kind of what heaven is going to be like. I don't know if we will walk into an auditorium and see the people that are gathered there that somehow our lives touched I don't know if it will look that way or work that way but I think in some measure we are going to understand when we get there the number of lives that we touched that we didn't know about here. The people like the David Holland's worst that you spoke to 30, 40 years ago you never knew what happened to them but God did something with that. The seed that you watered in people's lives the way God calls things to grow in people's lives you never knew about and when we get to heaven we are going to see what the impact of our lives really what you know down here it's so much like Mr. Holland we think really our lives have an amount of the much at all. When we get there we are going to see some things God did with us that we never imagined he did and the lives that we touched. Please be faithful, plant some seed when you have the opportunity, water that seed when you get the opportunity, pray that God will grow that seed and who knows maybe you'll even get to be a part sometimes of that wonderful reaping process. Would you pray with me? God help us just to be faithful and ward over a period of years maybe not days or weeks but over a period of years it's amazing what you can do with feeble instruments like us just servants, table-waiters. Lord I pray that we would live with the eternity in view that we would live for that day when we stand before you and you show us the impact our lives have had that we never dreamed of. It helps to be faithful in those little moments of each day to do what we can do to sow some seed, water some seed and even be a part of the reaping process if we have that opportunity. Help us Lord be faithful in Jesus' name. Amen.