Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Gospel and Evangelism (Gospel Series: Week 3)

This is an older sermon that I forgot to post.

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

February 6, 2010


Once upon a time there was a farmer who forgot how to farm. One day he was walking along the edge of his house when a fierce wind came and blew a tile off his roof. The tile landed right on his head and knocked him out. When he finally woke up, he seemed to be normal. He could walk and talk. He could remember his family and count to one hundred. But he had forgotten how to farm.

Most people didn’t notice at first because it was harvest season, and he still remembered how to harvest. He took his sickle out to the fields and collected all his wheat and rice … just like every other year. He gathered it into bundles and took it to the barn … just like every other year. Throughout fall and winter, life continued as normal … just like every other year.

However, when spring came, people began to notice a change in the farmer. He didn’t plow his fields like he did every other year. Instead, he made much smaller lines by bending over and dragging his sickle through the dirt. He didn’t put out fertilizer like he normally did. Instead, he took one bag of manure to the center of the field and cut it open with his sickle. He didn’t plant his seeds like he normally did. Instead, he threw a hand full of seeds into the air and whacked them with his sickle like he was playing baseball. He didn’t use his hoe to tend the fields. Instead, he chopped at the weeds with his sickle, but this brought down many good plants as well.

Farming this way was much harder work than the previous years. A sickle just isn’t designed to plow or to plant or to tend the field. The farmer was very disappointed at harvest time. His harvest was much smaller than years before. After working so hard, he had so little results.

The next spring, when it was time to plow the ground, the farmer said, “I’m not going to plow this year. It didn’t seem to produce results last year.” When it was time to put out the fertilizer, the farmer said, “I’m not going to bother fertilizing the fields again. It didn’t seem to help last year.” When it was time to plant, the farmer just couldn’t bring himself to do all of that hard work of planting when he had gotten so little results the year before.

When it was time to harvest, the farmer went out to his fields, and he swung his sickle all over that field. After working for weeks to harvest his fields, the farmer had gathered only a few sacks of grain.

The farmer cursed his fields for yielding so little wheat. He cursed his hard rice paddies for giving so little rice. He complained to his friends about how unlucky he was, about how his fields were so hard and unresponsive. He cried out to God that it was not fair to put him in such a barren place.

This farmer remembered how to harvest, but he had forgotten how to farm.

Throughout the New Testament, evangelism is often described through images of farming.

Ÿ Paul said, “I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

Ÿ Jesus said, The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens” (Mark 4:26-27).

Ÿ In another parable, Jesus says that God’s message is like a seed planted in our hearts. The seed grows or fails depending on the “soil” it finds in our hearts. (See Luke 8:4-15.)

Ÿ Another place, Jesus tells his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields” (Matthew 9:37-38).

We are often like the farmer who forgot how to farm. We still remember how to harvest, but we have forgotten how to farm. We take our harvest tools and go out into the fields of the world to “harvest” people for Jesus, but we usually end up with low results and high frustration.

Not many people respond to our efforts to “tell people about Jesus.” Many people are not interested in going to a traditional church service. Many people don’t want to hear what we have to say about the Bible.

We easily get frustrated. We can blame the world: “They have hard hearts.” We can blame our preachers: “They don’t know how to communicate.” We can blame the church: “Christians aren’t holy anymore. They live just like everyone else.” We can blame the methods: “Why don’t we just let them come to us? Why do we have to go to them?”

There may be some truth in all of this, but the fundamental truth is that we have forgotten how to farm. We are so concerned about the harvest that we have forgotten how to be good farmers. Evangelism is about farming not just harvesting.

Maybe part of the problem is that we have forgotten what evangelism really is. The English word “evangelism” comes from the Greek word euangelion or “Good News” or “Gospel.” Evangelism is Gospel-ism. Evangelism is to do the Gospel, to proclaim Good News, to bring Good News, to be the Gospel.

Evangelism is becoming the Gospel. Remember, the Gospel is that God sets us free through Jesus to come home to God, to be healed by God, and to join God’s mission of healing the world. Evangelism is living freedom and inviting others into freedom through Jesus. Evangelism is engaging the healing process for ourselves and inviting others into the healing flow. Evangelism is living out a deep hope that our world can be healed and is in fact being healed through Jesus’ work in and through us.

On Tuesday, I listened to missionary Dave Hane’s lecture at the Nazarene Mission Camp. I like how he defines evangelism: “Evangelism is the overflow of a life saturated with God’s love.” Evangelism is being so full of God’s love that it spills out onto others.

So let’s return to the imagery of farming. Evangelism is like farming. Inviting people to participate in the Good News of Jesus Christ is very much like the process of farming.

The first step of farming is always preparing the ground. This involves a lot of hard work – removing boulders and rocks, cutting away tree stumps. We can’t even plow until these are gone. In many places around the world, the spiritual soil is very hard, but we can’t really blame this on other people. In many ways, we have created the rocks and barriers.

Jesus last words in Matthew’s gospel are the famous Great Commission: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). In the developed world, the Church is failing with this Great Commission because we are committing the Great Omission.[1} We are omitting or failing to fulfill Jesus’ greatest teaching. Jesus said, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

We will never be able to make disciples of Jesus until we first obey Jesus’ most basic teaching. Love God with everything we are, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

The Church in the developed world has a credibility problem. We say we believe in Jesus. We say we want to follow Jesus. But mostly, we don’t believe, and mostly we don’t follow. And everyone can see that.

Ÿ When 1/3 of the world lives on less than $1 a day and struggles just to survive …

Ÿ When we know people drink diseased water every day, but every day we buy cokes and coffee …

Ÿ When we buy big screen TVs while others can’t afford school books …

Ÿ When we build bigger churches while children sleep in the streets …

Ÿ When we care more about sports or movies than AIDS or malaria …

… Then, people know that we are not really following Jesus. No matter what we say, we aren’t loving our neighbors as ourselves. The ground is hard because we have made it hard. The first step to learning how to farm the “Gospel” is to get serious about serving the poor and changing the world.

Imagine what would happen if Christians:

Ÿ Ended world hunger

Ÿ Solved the clean water crisis

Ÿ Provided universal access to medical care

Ÿ Guaranteed education for every child on earth

Ÿ Gave a home to every orphan in the world.

Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, says that if we would take Jesus seriously when he says to love our neighbors as ourselves, then:

The global social revolution brought forth by the body of Christ would be on the lips of every citizen in the world and in the pages of every newspaper – in a good way. The world would see the whole gospel – the good news of the kingdom of God – not just spoken but demonstrated, by people whose faith is not devoid of deeds but defined by love and backed up with action. His kingdom come, His will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. This was the whole gospel that Jesus proclaimed … and if we would embrace it, it would literally, change everything. [2]

This would plow the ground for the gospel more than anything else we could possibly do or say.

The second step in farming is fertilizing. After the farmer gets out the rocks and breaks up the hard ground, he needs to fertilize the ground. The farmers spread manure (cow poop) all over the fields. This is what gives farms that … um … “fresh farm air.” It smells, but it helps the seeds grow better.

Before we can plant the seeds of the gospel, we need to get the ground soft and fertile. How do we do that? The answer again is love. We can get the rocks out through love on a global scale. We Christians get together and get serious about changing our world. But then, we apply the fertilizer through local love.

No one is going to become a Christian if they think all Christians are jerks! One of the first steps to becoming a Christian and experiencing the gospel is simply having a Christian friend whom you respect and like. When we throw a birthday party for the lonely person at our office, when we show extra care for one of our students, when we listen to someone who has a problem, when we invite someone out to dinner, we prepare their hearts for the gospel.

The next step is planting. Finally, we get to the planting part. Here, we usually think of preaching or “telling someone about Jesus” or “presenting the gospel.” Sometimes the Gospel is planted in this way, but usually these are most effective at the next stages of “watering” or “harvesting.” Seeds are small. If a farmer wants to grow apples, she doesn’t plant a whole apple tree or even a whole apple. The farmer starts with a very small apple seed.

Planting the seeds of the gospel is similar. Often by this time, if we have prepared the ground through service and love, our friends will start asking us questions. “Why do you live like that? Where can I get a good Bible? Why are there so many churches?” This is great! These kinds of questions mean the plowing and fertilizing is working. But we don’t need to give our friends a whole sermon. We can plant little gospel seeds that will grow in them and entice them to ask more questions. Just answer their question or give them a Bible, and then follow up with them later. Don’t try to cram an apple tree down their throats. Just plant one little seed.

If they aren’t asking questions, maybe you can ask a few gentle questions. “Would you mind telling me your spiritual story? Everybody has a spiritual side, so what’s yours?” Or maybe, “I was wondering. What do you think about Jesus?” That gets the conversation started, and signals to your friend that you are interested in talking about spiritual things. Then … you … wait.

Remember, Jesus’ parable: “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come” (Mark 4:26-29).

It takes time for a seed to grow. It’s a process. We can ruin it if we get out that harvest sickle too soon. We can’t forget the fourth step in farming: tending and waiting. Farmers have to tend the plants, pull the weeds, and water the fields. If we want to make disciples, if we want to be farmers of the Kingdom, then we have to tend to our relationships. We need to actually maintain those friendships. Once again, this is love. We keep watering those seeds of the gospel with love. We make space for questions. We make space for dinner guests and house guests. We keep dropping little seeds, and we love, and we wait.

Finally, if we have been faithful and patient, it will be time to harvest. One of the most beautiful experiences in the world is helping someone become a Christian. It is amazing to be there when someone starts to “get it,” to understand that God really loves her, that she really can have a new life, that our world really can become new. Sometimes, we can help the person say a prayer to put their trust in Jesus for the first time. Other times, people kind of grow into following Christ, and it’s so slow and gradual that they can’t say exactly when it began. But just knowing that we have helped someone experience God’s healing and become part of God’s healing mission – this is so deeply beautiful and satisfying deep within our souls.

So we love and we share and we plant, and slowly, slowly the seed grows and the grain ripens. People grow in the sunshine of God’s love. And then a beautiful thing happens, these people who we’ve been loving and tending and praying for … they become part of the mission. They start plowing new ground and loving new people and planting new seeds. The become part of our loving community that changes our world.

May God make us good farmers because this will - in fact - change our world!



[1] Richard Stearns, The Whole in Our Gospel, (Dallas: Thomas Neslon, 2009), 189.

[2] Ibid, 219.


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This sermon is part 3 of a 4 week of a series on the Gospel.
Week 1: The Gospel and the Bible
Week 2: The Gospel and Salvation
Week 3: The Gospel and Evangelism
Week 4: The Gospel and the Church


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