Psalm 119:129-136 (NIV)
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (HCSB)
Good Morning! I want to tell you a story this morning.
There was a Christian woman I know who once took a job with Taco Bell. At the time, she was quite gray, getting some age on her. The interviewing manager liked her nice, outgoing personality and so decided to put her on the first drive-through window, taking orders and the money from customers.
She struggled a bit the first week, for there were many codes to memorize to enter orders. But she had worked many places over the years, and soon had the codes under control. But another incident happened that first week that set the tone for what was to follow.
One of the teenagers who worked there was upset about something and came back near her, cussing a blue streak, loud enough the man in the car outside the window’s eyes widened. She said, “Excuse me a minute,”, closed the window, turned around and shouted, as only a woman who has raised several children and was working on grandchildren can, “Pipe down! The customers can hear you!”
There was silence. She turned back to the man, opened the window, smiled and said, “That’ll be $8.17.” The man gave her a big smile back.
Soon, she began talking and listening to the teenagers. She listened to their stories, she gave them loving advice, she hugged them, and generally treated them like any good grandmother would. The kids were lonely, usually had no idea how to handle life, and how their words were hurting the other teens in the shop. She taught them how to care for each other, and she prayed with them at the drop of a hat. She kept their confidences.
Once, she overheard a conversation where three girls were giving advice to another girl, “It’ll just take an afternoon and your parents will never need to know” was part of what she heard. As they moved away, she motioned the young girl over. “What’s happening?” she asked. The story came out – a good-looking young man, an evening in the car, news on a pregnancy test, and the young man said goodbye. The older woman explained about the Women’s Care Center, how they would provide diapers and help and other options that would allow her to raise the child.
An older worker joked about committing suicide. She sat with him on break and they talked. He seemed better. She gave him a ride home that evening and they talked more and they prayed. He began joking with her over the next few weeks – now in a positive way.
The girl came back a couple weeks later and said she’d keep the baby. And the older woman gave thanks and praised God.
This story is true. Since then, the woman has worked in several places, and always makes a point to listen to people, to give wise, biblical advice, and to pray with the people anytime, anywhere. She says that God puts her in different places and anywhere she is, she looks to share the love of Christ. There. With whoever needs Christ. And she loves her jobs, for she loves working for Jesus in those places.
I’ve found over the years that most people get the idea that we are to share the Gospel of Christ with people, but I’ve also found that most people don’t know how to do this, are afraid of doing it, or worried that they will mess up. Let me deal with a couple of things first.
Did you notice in our Gospel of Matthew reading that Jesus was talking about the kingdom of heaven in each part? Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed which grows into a large bush, to yeast in 50 lbs of flour, to a treasure buried in a field, to a priceless pearl, and to a net collecting good and bad fish. And at the end, he compares every disciple of scripture to a landowner who brings out of his storeroom what is new and what is old.
A couple of minutes on the details. A mustard seed is very small, but the Middle Eastern mustard plant can grow 10 feet tall. Jesus is saying that the kingdom will start small, but grow – and it will grow like a plant grows, not like a building.
There is a difference between builders and farmers. Builders make detailed plans and put together their buildings in large modules. If we were to expand this physical church, we’d draw up plans, raise money, and then put together a new building or a major expansion, right? But a farmer – a farmer puts seeds in the ground and then nurtures them with access to water, fertilizer, soil, and sun. The growing plant does the work. In fact, with the right conditions, the plants would grow without cost. Jesus does not compare the kingdom to a building like a palace, but to a plant. He expects the plant to grow itself.
This has definite consequences for us here today. There are church builders, church growth experts, who tell us that we need to invest thousands of dollars in sound and light systems, that we need to invest tens of thousands of dollars in local advertising, that we need to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions in buildings, and if we build it, they will come. After all, this is how Americans built all their great companies, their great industries, their chains of restaurants – capital investment, the hiring of professionals, the investment of much time and money in the development of the right product.
But Jesus did not ask us to do this. He says, The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows to become a tree. This is the difference between an organization created by men and an organism created by God. If the DNA is right, the organism grows from a tiny seed into a tree. The church grows from a tiny beginning into a large, strong organism.
Organisms have a strength that organizations don’t have. Plants have a strength that buildings don’t have. That strength is the ability to adapt and recover and grow from small beginnings.
I once had some crepe myrtles. I had planted them, little 18 inch whips, along our driveway at Lowell. Saundra went mowing – I told her to watch out for the crepe myrtles, but she thought I was talking about the apple trees growing in the upper part of our property. She mowed down all those little 18 inch crepe myrtles, pruning them down to the ground with the riding lawn mower. But they came up and formed beautiful bushes the next year.
A few years later, they were frozen down to the ground by some dry zero-degree weather. By July, they were back up, three ft tall and reached 6 feet that year.
That’s the difference between an organization like a restaurant or a clothing store – and an organism like a church. The organism has the DNA to endure bad times and recover. Our church can take this COVID stuff, adapt, and grow back where a restaurant like Ruby Tuesdays or a clothing store like Sears may not. We just have to work on getting the DNA right, on adapting, on making sure each one of our cells can grow by itself – and each of you are the cells of this organism.
Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven being like yeast that is mixed into 50 pounds of flour. The yeast cells actually grow and divide throughout the flour, going throughout the dough. It doesn’t take much yeast – just the right warm, moist environment, and some time for the yeast to multiply and spread, and the whole 50 pound loaf can be risen ready for the oven. What Jesus is saying is that we, the church body, are to grow throughout the world and help the world. We don’t stay in one spot with a handful of people, but we are constantly growing throughout the world around us until we spread throughout the world. Today, in particular, it doesn’t matter where we spread the kingdom – we can be online together almost anywhere! After all, most of us are in contact online with people all across the country, aren’t we? Each of us could potentially lead people to Jesus around town, around the state, even in California and never leave our home and spend nothing except a bit of time!
In verse 44, Jesus makes a different point. He says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man finding a treasure buried in a field. He sells everything he has and buys the field, for he recognizes the value of the kingdom. What are we willing to give up for the treasures of the kingdom? Jesus is clearly saying that we should be willing to give up absolutely everything for the kingdom, to know God intimately, to become close followers of Jesus, for Jesus repeats the meaning with the story of the merchant and the priceless pearl. Yet we often worry about spending too much time talking about church. Jesus would have us all make it a full-time job! And in another place, He reminds us that God provides for the sparrows – won’t God provide for us, too?
Finally, Jesus tells us tat the kingdom of heaven is like a large fishing net. It catches everything – tuna, mahi-mahi, halibut, flounder – as well as sharks, starfish, sea urchins and other things you won’t want to eat. There are good, righteous people – and there are evil people caught up in the kingdom. The kingdom net tries to catch them all – the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the teachers, the welders, the carpenters, the bricklayers, the custodians, the garbage truck drivers, the secretaries, the tattoo artists, the drunks, the drug users, the drug dealers, the hit men, the prostitutes, the reporters, the welfare mothers, the truck drivers, the gangsters, even the politicians and every other way people make a living. We aren’t the people who decide if someone gets into the kingdom – we just try to catch the fish.
God and God alone decides at the end of the age who God keeps and who the angels throw away. Yet we often fail at reaching the very people who need Christ the most because we are afraid. We are afraid and only invite people who are already attending church. That’s like fishing for men but requiring we clean them and filet them before we let them into the church. We don’t want to fish just for nice Mrs Paul’s fish filets in our churches – we also want the slimiest bottom feeding catfish we can find! God wants everyone in the net!
And if you understand this, Jesus says that every student of Scripture instructed in the kingdom of heaven – that means us – is like a landowner who brings new stuff and old stuff out of his storeroom. In other words – scripture teaches us some treasured ideas that are new – and some treasured ideas that are old. Jesus says Scripture that we understand is like treasures kept in a storeroom – but those treasures are to be shared.
So now that we’ve learned this from Jesus’ words, from Holy Scripture, how can we apply it to our situation here?
Folks, we need to adopt some kingdom thinking. We need to remember that God is a farmer, not a builder, and we need to remember that God’s Spirit dwells in all of us!
I used to have an orchard up in Lowell. One of the things I found was that in every part of an apple tree is all the information needed to make another apple tree. Orchard owners have known this for thousands of years. And so orchard owners take a tiny twig from a good apple tree – say, a Golden Delicious - and graft it to a good root from another apple tree, and then another Golden Delicious tree grows up and gives us more Golden Delicious apples. It is because the twig has the DNA of the Golden Delicious.
So in our church, we have to stop thinking that this is an organization – or worse, a dead building – and begin thinking of us as an organism like a mustard plant or an apple tree and we are the individual cells or the individual twigs!
Each one of us needs to be able to grow back the important part of our church by ourselves! Is that scary? It’s scary because we’ve grown up thinking that only programs pulled together by the leadership of the church can grow the church. It’s scary because we’ve been taught that we need to use professional programs, professionally made Vacation Bible Schools, large Christmas programs, professionally written Easter cantata’s, big church-wide sales, and other activities that always involve a big group of people and lots of money and resources. It’s only scary because we stopped doing church the Biblical way about a hundred years ago when we started treating churches like other American organizations, needing capital and human resources and land instead of the organism it’s supposed to be, needing only the words and deeds of individual Christians leading other people to Christ. And you know? When we changed from Biblical ministry to corporate ministry, that was about the time the Methodist Church began to decline. We started following the ideas of men instead of the ideas of God. So what are we supposed to do?
We are to become Christians. And you know what a Christian is? In the original Greek, it meant to be a “little Christ”. Jesus told us the night of the last supper, that each of His disciples would do far more than Jesus did. And so, we might want to look at what Jesus did.
Jesus talked a lot about loving God and loving other people. And Jesus walked the talk. He taught stuff and did the same stuff. We know that Jesus loved God and loved other people. You can too, right?
Last week, you’ll remember I suggested that you make a list of twelve people who are probably not practicing Christians, and to begin to pray for them daily?
Then, I said to call them once a week. Talk with them, ask them about life, if you need to tell them that you’ve just been a bit lonely and need to talk during this COVID time. Take a minute or two in the conversation to tell them something you’ve learned about God or Christ. It’s not necessary to convert them in this phone call. And I’ll open this up – text them, message them, call them, post on Facebook, share our sermons, share our worship services, even talk to people in person or write them an old-style letter! Let people know us as the people who talk about God!
Have you ever seen water work on a stone over time? Drop by drop, the stone gradually is worn away. That’s our strategy. Week by week, we will speak a bit about God and Christ until our friend or relative or neighbor turns to Christ.
If you don’t know what to talk about, try this. “I’ve been praising God for the beautiful weather we’ve had – no snow, very little rain – it has been beautiful to watch the clouds God’s given us out the window.”
And if it happens to rain – Praise God for the rain.
The important thing is to begin praising God to everybody for everything. Let me give you an example. If we're at Kroger’s, we have a full buggy, and the person behind us has only a couple items, we’ll probably let them in front of us, right? Of course we would. And then, they’ll say something like, “Thank you, you’re so nice!” And then, we’d naturally say, “You’re welcome.” And that would be it for the conversation.
But the person who is praising God will say in response. “Well, God asked me to let you in front, because He told me it would help you.” We are giving credit where credit is due, for the Holy Spirit really did speak to us about this.
We bake a great lemon meringue pie and someone tells us, “That’s a great pie!”
We might normally say, “Thank you!”, but the person who praises God will give credit where it is due. We’ll say, “Thank you, but God sent me a wonderful woman forty years ago who taught me how to bake.” We give credit where it is due. We praise God. We praise God about everything. We work to make it become a habit.
And you know, if we will start praising God to our twelve disciples – for that is what they will become, after all. I’d like us to consider that we, who have attended church for years, know much more about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit than our twelve people who probably aren’t practicing Christians do.
But if we start praising God once a week in conversation with them, if we’ll start praising God to the servers at the restaurant, if we’ll start praising God to our children and relatives and friends and neighbors online and the checkout lady and our friends at work – something wonderful is going to happen!
First, if we haven’t done much of this, all of these people will look at us like we’ve grown a second head. But after they get over the shock that we talk about God and Jesus, in about six weeks they’ll come to us one day and say, “I have a problem, will you pray for me?” and we’ll listen and we’ll listen and we’ll listen and we’ll pray with them right then and there just like my friend did at Taco Bell. And they’ll come back to us with deeper and deeper questions about God and Christ, and one day, we’ll be able to say to them – “Have you accepted Jesus as the Lord of your life?” And they’ll probably say, “no, not yet.”
And then, we’ll ask them – “would you like to?”
And then, they’ll either say, “I’ve got some more questions, or I’ll think about it.” Or they’ll look at us with tears and say, “Yes.”
And then, we just tell them to pray after us a prayer something like this, and you can pray with me this morning, even at home. I’ve put the prayer in our bulletin:
“Father God,
I need You. I’ve made a mess of things and I need Your help.
Please send your Son and Your Holy Spirit to take control of my life.
Help me to follow Your Son, Jesus.
Amen.”
Don’t worry about the exact words. The important things are that we help our friend confess their weakness and to ask Jesus to lead our friend.
"The measure of a successful church is the amount of time spent each week by the members lifting up friends and neighbors and family and pointing them to Christ."
I know another woman who worked at a deli counter. She began praising God to her customers and they looked at her strangely the first time, but soon they were coming to her asking for prayers and asking her questions about God’s working in this world.
I know a man who talks with his online video gaming buddies and has private chats with them when they are having personal problems and prays with them and teaches them about God and Christ.
I know a woman who simply calls up friends every day, finds out how things are going and prays with them after cheering them up. And another older woman who posts a devotional every morning explaining what she has learned from reading her Bible.
You see, all these people break the ice by praising God and then the people begin coming to them about God questions.
For the measure of a successful church is not the size of the offering. It is not the number of people who come to the worship service each week. It is not size of the building. The measure of a successful church is the amount of time spent each week by the members lifting up friends and neighbors and family and pointing them to Christ. For if a church is constantly praising God and explaining Christ to people, then it is doing God’s will and God will send people to them.
For we know that many people waste a lot of time talking about Mountaineer football, about politics, and about the trivial and fearful things of the world. Our duty as Christians is to be little Christs, praising God and lifting people up.
You know the nicest thing about following this Biblical model where everyone praises God? It doesn’t take big meetings and it doesn’t take big money and anyone can make a difference just by deciding, “I can do that!” on their own. Can you begin to talk a little bit about God each week to people who don’t appear to know Christ? Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor!” “I can do that!” “And Neighbor!” “I know that you can do that too!”
But Pastor, what about showing Christ with our lives?
That is critical also. But unfortunately, about 40 years ago we began using that idea as an excuse to stop telling people about Christ. And you know, many people today can’t connect the dots between you being nice and Jesus Christ. They think, “Some people are just nice and others aren’t.” They haven’t been to church more than a handful of times in their lives and so they don’t have the background to connect a pleasant person with Jesus Christ when television always shows Christians as mean, judgmental people or as the idiotic comedic relief character. Watch some British mystery shows – the Christian is always the murderer or an idiot. American shows are almost as bad.
So we need to both show Christ in our lives AND tell people about God and Christ, praising God and explaining Jesus’ teachings. And if you think you don’t know enough – what have you learned in the many years you’ve listened to sermons? Do you realize that if we come to church once a week for ten years, we’ve heard 500 sermons? Compared to people who have only come to church a handful of times, we should be experts!
Our world around us is very ignorant of Christian ideas. I had a college student – a grad student – ask me once: “Who is this pastor? Is he the government official in charge of the church?” Surely we can handle this level of question.
And so, this week, I want us to continue to pray for the twelve people on our lists. Make your list if you haven’t done so already – twelve people who probably don’t know Jesus Christ. Put the list on your refrigerator and pray for these people at breakfast or lunch every day. Call them or talk or text them once a week or once every couple weeks, using your Covid loneliness as an excuse. And find a way to praise God in the conversation at least once.
Next week, we’ll learn more.
Father, I pray for these people in these churches. Help them to become the kingdom of heaven here in this world, reaching out to grow new, young Christians through their praise of you, becoming fruitful in their lives and the lives of those friends, neighbors, and family around them. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remember: A mustard seed is fully capable of growing a huge mustard bush by itself. Make a list of twelve people and begin praying for their eternal soul and praising God to your friends, neighbors, and family – and this church will grow like a mustard plant. Be a mustard seed.
Benediction
Now Go into the world, hearing the word and understanding it as it lights your path. May what is given to you by God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit produce a wonderful crop of blessings for you and the world around you. Amen.
I know a man who talks with his online video gaming buddies and has private chats with them when they are having personal problems and prays with them and teaches them about God and Christ.
I know a woman who simply calls up friends every day, finds out how things are going and prays with them after cheering them up. And another older woman who posts a devotional every morning explaining what she has learned from reading her Bible.
You see, all these people break the ice by praising God and then the people begin coming to them about God questions.
For the measure of a successful church is not the size of the offering. It is not the number of people who come to the worship service each week. It is not size of the building. The measure of a successful church is the amount of time spent each week by the members lifting up friends and neighbors and family and pointing them to Christ. For if a church is constantly praising God and explaining Christ to people, then it is doing God’s will and God will send people to them.
For we know that many people waste a lot of time talking about Mountaineer football, about politics, and about the trivial and fearful things of the world. Our duty as Christians is to be little Christs, praising God and lifting people up.
You know the nicest thing about following this Biblical model where everyone praises God? It doesn’t take big meetings and it doesn’t take big money and anyone can make a difference just by deciding, “I can do that!” on their own. Can you begin to talk a little bit about God each week to people who don’t appear to know Christ? Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor!” “I can do that!” “And Neighbor!” “I know that you can do that too!”
But Pastor, what about showing Christ with our lives?
That is critical also. But unfortunately, about 40 years ago we began using that idea as an excuse to stop telling people about Christ. And you know, many people today can’t connect the dots between you being nice and Jesus Christ. They think, “Some people are just nice and others aren’t.” They haven’t been to church more than a handful of times in their lives and so they don’t have the background to connect a pleasant person with Jesus Christ when television always shows Christians as mean, judgmental people or as the idiotic comedic relief character. Watch some British mystery shows – the Christian is always the murderer or an idiot. American shows are almost as bad.
So we need to both show Christ in our lives AND tell people about God and Christ, praising God and explaining Jesus’ teachings. And if you think you don’t know enough – what have you learned in the many years you’ve listened to sermons? Do you realize that if we come to church once a week for ten years, we’ve heard 500 sermons? Compared to people who have only come to church a handful of times, we should be experts!
Our world around us is very ignorant of Christian ideas. I had a college student – a grad student – ask me once: “Who is this pastor? Is he the government official in charge of the church?” Surely we can handle this level of question.
And so, this week, I want us to continue to pray for the twelve people on our lists. Make your list if you haven’t done so already – twelve people who probably don’t know Jesus Christ. Put the list on your refrigerator and pray for these people at breakfast or lunch every day. Call them or talk or text them once a week or once every couple weeks, using your Covid loneliness as an excuse. And find a way to praise God in the conversation at least once.
Next week, we’ll learn more.
Father, I pray for these people in these churches. Help them to become the kingdom of heaven here in this world, reaching out to grow new, young Christians through their praise of you, becoming fruitful in their lives and the lives of those friends, neighbors, and family around them. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remember: A mustard seed is fully capable of growing a huge mustard bush by itself. Make a list of twelve people and begin praying for their eternal soul and praising God to your friends, neighbors, and family – and this church will grow like a mustard plant. Be a mustard seed.
Benediction
Now Go into the world, hearing the word and understanding it as it lights your path. May what is given to you by God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit produce a wonderful crop of blessings for you and the world around you. Amen.
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