The Power of the Gospel: Part II | Is This Thing On?

When we talk about the life of faith, we often have to talk about how to wait well.

The life of faith involves some waiting.

The life of faith involves believing even when we cannot see, and trusting even when we don't see progress.

It's good and right to talk about this.

If you've read Hebrews chapter 11, it's the famous Hall of Faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And it describes a number of Christians who basically didn't see a lot happen for a long time.

But basically they're commended for their faith because they waited well.

And it is hard to wait.

Can I get an amen?

But faith doesn't just require that we wait.

It doesn't just require that we endure.

It doesn't just require that we hold on for dear life and hold on to God's promises.

Faith also requires us to move.

Now.

Sometimes faith says, go.

And sometimes we know in our spirits that delayed obedience is disobedience.

And sometimes faith says it's go time.

And we feel like it's that time here in this church.

We feel like we've entered, as a church, a harvest season.

And we're no longer sowing in the same ways.

We're no longer trusting that what we've planted is going to grow.

We believe that we've entered like a harvest season.

I'll describe why we believe that, not just this week, but the next few weeks.

But the first thing that led us to this conclusion that we were supposed to direct our efforts in this way is that we gathered the members for prayer in February and we circled up in small groups all over the sanctuary and we sought God.

God, what's your direction for our church?

What would you have for us?

As different groups reported back, the unbelievable like consensus among these little prayer groups is that God wanted us to mobilize this body for the sake of evangelization of this city.

It was basically get going.

And we had a strong sense that God wanted to grow his family and advance the kingdom this year.

Then in March, the month later, we found ourselves attending our annual kind of confluence conference, which is the wider of family churches we belong to.

And the theme of that was raising leaders.

But it wasn't just like, hey, let's make more leaders.

It was like, look, the harvest is ready and the workers are few.

Mobilize your churches for harvest.

And then we came back and we met together as a staff in the month of April.

And as we prayed together as a staff through the things that we had heard, we had this really simple line get stuck in our heads, which is that every believer should make a believer and every leader should make a leader.

And it seemed simple, but it also seemed kind of profound.

And it seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit.

And to be honest with you, sometimes when the when the staff gets together in April, we're not always up for taking new ground.

Sometimes my staff is like your staff, and we and you go, I don't know if I can handle anymore.

I'm not doing well with what I have.

Why would I want to grow what we've got?

But there was this faith in our staff that we would labor to see Christ formed in others.

And there was a rise of faith in our staff.

And so in the month of May, we started preaching into this at celebration.

And the message that I'll bring this morning is one that I preached at at Celebration, our kind of family of churches camp at Hume Lake.

And so I'm going to share this this morning because we believe that there's a season of harvest in front of us.

The Lord's confirmed this in many ways.

And we also believe that it's good and right that every believer make a believer and every leader make a leader.

So my hope in the next few weeks is that you would have faith for this, a desire for this, and a plan for this.

Faith as in, like, I can see this, I believe that this can happen.

Desire, as in, I'm willing to pay the cost for this to happen.

There's all kinds of things that I can see happening, but I'm unwilling to pay the cost to see them happen.

And then plan as in I know what step to take next.

And since uh faith comes from hearing, hearing from God, I'd love you to open your Bible to John chapter 4, where we'll be together.

John 4 · chapter mention

As you turn to John, I'm gonna talk about Luke, which is the book that comes before John, and I'm gonna tee up John by talking about Luke, specifically talking about the parables of Jesus that are found in Luke.

Parables are these kind of uh simple stories that convey a really profound uh truth.

Jesus told these parables to help people get their heads around profound spiritual realities.

Some of the most famous parables that Jesus told concern a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.

Have you heard those before?

These were parables that Jesus taught to help a group of Pharisees understand why he was doing what he was doing.

These Pharisees, these religious leaders had grown up on Psalm 1.

Blessed is the one who doesn't walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers.

And this group of religious leaders was looking at the Bible, looking at what the Bible says, looking at Jesus' life, and thinking, this guy walks in step with the wicked.

It feels like he stands with sinners.

And not only does he stand with them, he sits in the company of these mockers.

Why do you do what you do?

You've had that talk before.

If you're a teenager, you've probably had that talk with your parents who are like, show me your friends and I'll show you your future.

Have you had that talk with your parents before?

That talk about choosing your friends wisely.

Well, this is the talk that the Pharisees want to give to Jesus.

If you're the Son of God, why do you roll with these guys?

Why have you chosen these friends?

I got this talk once from my parents in high school.

I was a sophomore.

I went surfing with a group of friends for the day.

We were on our way home.

I fell asleep in the car.

While I was asleep, unbeknownst to me, one of my friends peed in a 32-ounce cup.

I woke up from a nap, said I was thirsty, and my friend handed me 32 ounces of whiz.

I drank it.

I then they all started giggling.

I said, pull the car over, I'm gonna fight you.

And so on the side of the road in Kettleman City, I tried to fight my close friend.

I got home and somehow my parents had heard about it.

Word had spread, and I got to talk.

What's up with your friends?

And I'm like, well, these are these are good guys.

And they're like, oh, I don't know the good guys, make you drink pee.

And I don't know the good guys are the type of guys you fight on the side of the road in Kettleman City.

And you know what I did?

I stuck up for my friends.

I was like, you don't know them like I know them.

What's up with your friends, man?

You got bad friends.

So Jesus says, This is why I'm doing what I'm doing.

He's answering the question, why do you hang out with these people?

And he tells a story of a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and he lost one.

And then he talks about a woman who had ten coins and she lost one.

And then he talks about a man who has two sons and he loses one.

And I'm not great at math, but I can see that that's escalating, right?

A 1% loss, then a 10% loss, then a 50% loss.

And Jesus is essentially saying to this group of people, I'm doing what any one of you would do if you lost a sheep, lost a coin, or lost a son.

The shepherd doesn't say, Oh, it's cool, no worries.

I got it, I got 99 more, not a big deal.

The woman definitely doesn't say, Oh, I still have$900, what's a thousand?

I don't need to look for that hundred dollar bill.

And definitely a father that has two sons and is down to one doesn't go, I've still got a son, it's it's fine.

I've still got another.

No, that's not what happens at all.

And Jesus is essentially saying to this group of Pharisees, this is why I hang with who I hang with.

I'm coming to seek and save the lost.

I'm doing what any one of you would do if you'd lost something valuable to you.

That's what I'm up to.

I'll also never forget the first time I ever taught this trilogy of parables.

I've been pastoring this church for 22 years now.

And um it was, I think it was 2007.

We as Radiant Church met at the cellar door.

So a pretty busy corner, court, and Main Street.

We met on a Sunday morning, and often they didn't have time to clean up from Saturday night.

So just stunk of yeast, and there was usually some vomit to clean up, sometimes in a urinal, and you were thinking, why can't you just five feet over?

It was a dingy place, and our kids' ministry was not thriving.

Let's put it that way.

We had two kids in our kids' ministry.

It was Avery, my daughter, and uh Isaac Reynoso, my nephew.

And what I discovered when I was reading these parables was just the urgency of it.

What I discovered for the first time, for some reason I had read it through the years and thought, a shepherd had 99 sheep, and he thought, you know what, I'll go out and add another one to the fold.

Let's make it a hundred.

A woman had 900 bucks and she was like, you know what, I hope to have a thousand dollars.

Dave Ramsey says, have a thousand dollars in a savings account.

So I'm gonna get another hundred dollars.

Or a man has a family of three, and he's like, Man, being a father is working out for me.

I think I'll grow my family and add another son.

No, there's urgency in these parables.

A man had a hundred sheep and he lost one.

A woman had a thousand bucks and she lost a hundred.

A man had two sons and he lost one.

That's really different, right?

That's very different than me saying, yeah, my wallet's kind of worn out, and I think I'll get a new one.

There's a difference between that and I can't find my wallet.

And the difference is like thrashing that goes around in my house, thinking about all the phone calls I would have to make and all the times I'd have to go to the DMV to get that license replaced.

It's very different, right?

To say, hey, we've got two kids and we're thinking about growing our family and having a third.

And we have three kids, and I can't find one of them.

And the difference is urgency.

Have you seen?

So I'm reading this and I'm thinking, oh, this is profound.

And I think, you know what I'll do to illustrate this?

I'll lose one of my kids.

So we've only got two in our kids' ministry, so we know who's there.

And I tell Tiff during the meet and greet, I want you to take Avery, who was two years old at the time, and I want you to go wait in our car down Main Street.

And so before I preached, I stood up and just said, Hey, we're we're missing Avery from the nursery.

Has anyone seen her?

Things started to kind of stir.

And then people started to realize that the real threat was not that we would have lost Avery inside the building, but that Avery would have gotten outside the building on the corner of Court in Maine.

So immediately my church is out the doors because that's where the real risk is at.

So finally, after watching my church like comb the streets, pound on people's windows, look for Avery, I say, Tiff, come on back in.

And I'm like, I did this to illustrate a profound point.

And the boos were like audible.

I I thought people were gonna be like, this is the most profound teaching I've ever sat under.

I thought people were gonna be like, tell us more, oh wise one.

Amy Stillwater was crying really hard and was like, whatever respect I had for you, which was little, I now have lost, and I can't listen to you anymore.

And she left.

She just left church.

There's a difference between, I think I'll grow my family, and I can't find the youngest.

And it's this kind of urgency that I was trying to convey, and it's this kind of urgency that I think Jesus is trying to convey.

This is not just what Jesus commissioned us to do, this is what we're commissioned to do, to seek and to save the lost.

We join him on this mission.

Faith says, now.

Faith says, go, not just wait, not just endure, not just white knuckle it.

Sometimes faith says, it's time for harvest, go.

Obey.

Can you imagine on that Sunday if I would have said, hey, Avery's missing?

And if someone in the congregation would have said, yeah, we'll look for it for her right after you finish your sermon.

I hope that all three points start with P.

I'm taking notes.

No.

Everybody was up, and my church left the building pretty quick because we knew there was something more important than the charade we had going on that morning.

John 4, verse 27 through 42.

John 4:27–42

It starts by saying, just then, which forces us to ask the question, just when?

And Jesus had just revealed his Messiah-ness to a Samaritan woman.

Famously, he promised the Samaritan woman living water that was gonna then become a well inside of her, welling up and bringing life to others.

So she wasn't just gonna take from others, she was gonna become a spring of life to the people around her.

Jesus covered the shame of her five failed marriages.

She was drawing water at a strange time of the day because she'd been ostracized by the community.

And Jesus kind of restored her dignity.

In fact, shared with her things that he was trying to keep on the down low.

He let her in and gave her the inside track.

Told her who he was.

And all this happened while Jesus' disciples went into town to get something to eat.

So the scene looks like this.

Jesus stops at a well.

The disciples are like, it's lunchtime, we're going into town.

What's your order?

They go into town, they come back to see Jesus speaking with this woman.

His disciples returned.

They were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked, What do you want?

No one asked, Why are you talking with her?

They just looked at her and communicated both those things.

Why don't you turn to your neighbor and give them a look that says this?

What do you want?

Why are you here?

You got a lot of nerve.

The first person to break loses.

Go now.

What do you want?

Why are you here?

You got a lot of nerve coming to the house of God.

So the woman gets this look and says, Man, I've seen this look before.

I don't think I'm welcome here.

So she leaves her water jar and she goes back to the town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did and doesn't look at me the way that most men look at me.

Could this be the Messiah?

And they came out of the town and they made their way toward him.

Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, you gotta eat something.

But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about.

And then his disciples said, Huh.

Could someone have brought him food?

And he's like, No, no! My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Don't you have a saying?

Don't we have a saying, Church?

Don't we have a saying?

I'll start that diet on Monday?

Don't we have a saying?

Well, it's still four months until the harvest.

Don't we have reasons to punt?

Don't we have a reason to push that off?

I tell you, open your eyes.

Look at the fields, Jesus says, they're ripe for the harvest.

Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.

Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true.

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.

Others have done the hard work.

And you, you're just reaping the benefits of their labor.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

He told me everything I ever did.

And she's excited about that.

Isn't that wild?

Who is Jesus?

Unreal.

She's like, I can't wait to tell you about a man who told me everything I ever did.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him, stay with them, and he stayed two days, and because of his words, many more became believers.

And they said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said.

Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man is really the savior of the world.

Don't say four more months.

Look up.

The fields are ripe for the harvest.

As I thought about this, I thought to myself, well, there's a number of reasons why I delay my obedience.

There's a number of reasons that I say, oh, four more months.

There's a number of reasons I pull up in my driveway, see a neighbor, and think to myself, today's not the day of salvation, maybe tomorrow.

There's a number of reasons that I don't do what God's asking us to do.

And I just want to work through some of these together.

So these would be four reasons.

We say, four more months.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

The first is that we expect hostility and not opportunity.

It's one of the reasons we punt.

We expect resistance, and Jesus is screaming, the fields are ripe.

But we're looking out and we think people are resistant.

They don't want to hear what we have to say.

They don't want to know about our God.

There's a story, a history of hostility between the Jews and Samaritans.

So much history, so much hatred towards the Samaritans, the Jews would not cut through Samaria.

They'd like to travel around.

When traveling from Judea to Galilee, the shortest way to make that trek is to go direct, but going direct meant that you had to go through Samaria.

So many good Jews would just say, let's just avoid that neighborhood.

Let's just not take those streets.

We'll drive around that part of town.

But Jesus, of course, says, Yeah, I think we'll go right through.

And I felt I found myself thinking, what would happen if we went into rooms, we went into neighborhoods, we went into situations thinking the harvest is plentiful.

We walked in thinking, oh, there's a lot of opportunity here.

We walked into rooms and we thought to ourselves, oh, this room is ripe.

Instead of rehearsing the line that this room is resistant.

I believe that we rehearse this because it gets us off the hook.

We love to tell ourselves we're the minority.

We love to tell ourselves we're persecuted.

And your algorithm loves to reinforce that.

California's coming for your kids.

All of it, you're persecuted, no one likes you, no one wants to hear what you have to say, you're the minority, you're neglected, you're overlooked, no one gets you.

All of it reinforces fear.

And do you know what fear encourages you to do?

Hunker down, build a bunker, and save your own life.

And do you know what Jesus said to people who sought to save their own lives?

They would lose it.

But if you lose your life for his sake and for the sake of the gospel, you'll find it.

What if you walked into a room like Jesus walked into a room and saw opportunity, not just opposition?

And you were like, who here is ripe?

And you didn't rehearse the well-worn line of, everyone here is resistant.

I wonder what would happen.

Jesus cruises in and he's kind of like, Oh, I'm here to finish his work.

Almost like God's already at work, and I'm here just to tip the thing over.

There's something so ripe in this room that it's about to fall off the tree.

I'm gonna touch it.

He says, the harvest is plentiful.

When's the last time you looked out on our city, looked at your campus, looked at your work, looked at the people around you, and thought, oh man, we're right on the verge of something good.

I say it with laughter because it doesn't happen very often in my own life either.

We're the minority.

No one wants to hear what we have to say.

We're hated, we're persecuted.

Bible sales in the US are up 40% since 2019.

A 22% increase from 2022 to 2024.

Nobody wants to know our God.

We're persecuted, we're misunderstood, we're hated.

The rate of new conversions in the Orthodox Church doubled in 2023.

There is an openness right now to the things of God that's unprecedented.

You should walk into a room and think, somebody here is about to tip over.

I'm gonna give them a nudge.

The harvest is plentiful, the harvest is ripe.

The second thing that I want to challenge, and it's a reason that we say, oh, four more months than the harvest, is that we think we need to have the right answers, and all you need is the right questions.

Jesus starts this conversation with this woman with a question.

And then he listens to her, which is wild because it appears that he knows everything about her, including her five failed marriages, and that the guy she's living with now is not her husband.

So he knows everything, but he starts the conversation with a question.

Hey, could you get me a drink of water?

And I know that there's been times where I've thought, man, I'm not gonna share because they're not ripe.

But sometimes I've not shared my faith because I'm like, I'm not ripe, I'm not ready, I don't know all the answers to their questions, I don't even know what their questions are, but I'm not gonna ask them what their questions are.

I'm gonna figure out ahead of time what their questions are, I'll I'll figure those out, then I'll engage them in a conversation about faith.

I can't share Jesus with them.

I don't know how old the earth is.

And I don't know how I'll answer that question.

You can actually get in a really deep question uh conversation by just asking, how old do you think the earth is?

And guess what?

Your neighbor doesn't know either.

And your neighbor might go, I don't know, probably real old, millions of years.

Oh, why do you think that?

Well, I I I took a class, but do you know that?

No, I don't really know that.

I'm just trusting a group of people who told me that.

Oh, interesting.

Well, I'm trusting something that told me something different.

Might get in a cool conversation.

You don't have to have the right answers, you gotta have the right questions.

And then you have to be willing to listen, which honestly is dang hard.

I think that going forward, we're gonna convert people with just our attention, not our answers.

Because you know what is everywhere?

Content, noise.

Do you know what's everywhere?

Podcasts.

Do you know what's nowhere?

Listening.

No one's doing it.

No one's into it.

We just keep talking over one another.

And I think you could convert a person by just asking questions and generously listening.

And I don't want you to hear that and think, well, that's simple because it's not.

It's not easy to listen.

Our motivation for listening, by the way, is a God who listens to us, a God who generously listens to us.

Do you know how painful it is to listen to us?

Like he knows the answer already.

And we're like, well, you wouldn't believe this thing that happened.

And in his head, he's like, well, that's not even the whole story.

But he listens.

Unreal that Jesus would ever ask a question of anyone.

And then have the patience.

So it's the patience of our God and the way he listens to us that fuels us, asking questions and generously listening to others.

The third thing is that we're nearsighted.

In fact, we can't see past our own appetites.

And that's what's going on in this story.

Jesus is like, I'll stay here.

And the disciples are like, man, why is everything ministry?

I'm going to lunch.

It's lunchtime for us.

So if you want to continue healing people and doing what you do, we're going to get food because you know what?

I'm hungry.

And if I don't feed myself, I'm not going to be able to continue in this ministry, right?

So the guys go off to lunch because they have certain appetites, something so in their face that they can't sit and they can't stay.

And I don't know about you guys, but I also have these appetites, appetites that direct my life.

And we get really nearsighted, and we just can't see past our own needs.

And that's why Jesus is continually saying in these passages, look up, look up, look out, look past what's right in front of you.

Look beyond your own needs.

Because we walk around and it's like I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry.

My bills, my kids, my situation, my future, my anxiety, my Enneagram number, my needs, my needs, my needs.

Look up! Look up! Look out! Look beyond your own needs.

I'm not saying that you don't have needs.

I'm not even asking you to minimize those things.

I bet you do have anxiety.

I bet you do have kids.

I bet you do have fears.

But Jesus would say, look up, look beyond what's right in front of you.

Sometimes we're nearsighted.

Sometimes we look away because we don't want to see certain things because we'll feel responsible for what we see.

Sometimes we don't look with the eyes of compassion.

We look down our nose.

We look in judgment.

It says that Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues.

He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and sickness.

And when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them.

He didn't look down his nose.

He felt like they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

And he's like, Oh, I'm gonna go get one.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Jesus did this.

Jesus went.

Jesus didn't just say, you know, come to me if you need something.

Jesus went out motivated by compassion.

And he would say, look up to us.

Number four, one of the reasons we say four more months is that we have a really complicated relationship with the will of God.

Even when I say that, I feel tempted to say the will of God.

It's very serious stuff, the will of God.

For Jesus, he heard the will of God and he thought, oh, that's like a dinner bell.

That's more satisfying than lunch.

You have a coworker who's like, well, I just worked right through lunch.

I just forgot about lunch.

And I'm like, I've never done that before.

There's nothing better than lunch.

Lunch is awesome.

I never lose sight of lunch.

Jesus is like, no, the will of God is so satisfying to me.

I'd forget to eat.

If I were to ask you this question, uh, if the will of God were a food, what food would it be?

Meatloaf?

Listen, you can say it's a cake, it's a delight, it's a donut, it's a cheeseburger.

I know deep down you think it's broccoli.

The will of God is something you should eat, but you don't want to eat.

The will of God is like, well, I'll probably end up having to go to Africa and I'll probably get malaria.

You don't say that.

You say, like, oh, I delight to do the will of God.

And then we're like, we don't even want to pray because we're scared he's gonna say something to us.

We're like, don't tell me what to do.

I can't have another person telling me what to do.

Jesus thought that the will of God was gonna satisfy him.

He didn't, he didn't think, oh, the will of God, and I need to burn calories.

He thought the will of God, this is going to refuel me.

This is gonna satisfy me.

I love how he describes the will of God as just finishing his work.

It's almost like, oh, the will of God is that God would work, and then I would get to come in at the end and move the last box and say, I helped them move.

The will of God is to finish his work.

I wonder if that's how we think.

I'm like, well, the will of God, I better get to work.

We're not gonna say four more months.

We believe that a season of harvest is upon us.

We believe that because we've received it from God's word and we're seeing wider trends in our church and in the wider world.

And I just want to ask you, because I I think what I'm hoping for is that in the next few weeks we're gonna pull out the old baptismal, which under the like black cover is teal.

It's not.

Promise.

Avery's gone.

I don't know where Avery's at.

She's old now.

Um, what I was hoping to do together is to just focus in and to think about one person who's close to us and is far from God.

And I'd like to actually write that person's name on our baptismal.

Don't worry, it'll get covered up.

It would be horrible if your friend came to church for the first time and they're like, why is my name written on a baptismal?

But I just think there's look, we don't know a lot, but we know a little bit more than some people about Jesus.

And we're just looking for you to give away what you got.

We're looking for you to pursue this year one person who's close to you, far from God.

And we really believe that we're gonna double in size.

And I know I I think some some part of me is like, I don't really even know what we'll do about that, but we trust that I know that we'll tear that out.

We're gonna tear that out a couple weeks from now.

My office is moving to Amigo Row, so we'll get 80 more chairs over there.

Um, we have some idea of what we're gonna do, but to be honest with you, this growth isn't gonna be coming through our programs.

I don't think my preaching is gonna get that much better.

I've kind of plateaued.

So I don't think it's gonna be because of what happens on the stage, and it has nothing to do with our programs, it has to do with your personal relationships and us wanting to equip you to be bold and to share what you do know with the people who you think might want to hear what God's saying to them.

So I'm gonna pray for us, but I want you to be thinking for the next few weeks.

Who's the one?

Yeah, I know you wish you could do it for everyone, but who's the one who you can actually do that for?

And I know you can't save them.

I'm aware of that.

I know enough about the Bible to know that you can't save.

But what can you do?

How can you invest in their life?

Worship team, would you guys come?

Spirit of God, just want to ask that you would come, bring focus to our hearts.

We don't need another thing to do.

We don't need another list, but I do want to ask that we would see obedience as a life-giving thing and the will of God as something desirable for our lives.

And I pray that you'd put a person on our hearts and that you would give us faith and you'd give us a desire like we want to pay the cost.

You'd help us to know what next steps to take.