When I was 14, my father enlisted me to work with a peanut farmer, hoeing peanuts in a hot Oklahoma summer. There were a dozen or so of us working in those fields, with a huge and intimidating foreman keeping us at it. I had never hoed peanuts. I’d never worked in any fields. I had no idea what to do.
I thought maybe that big foreman might show me what to do. So, when I arrived, I asked him, “How do you do this?” He just looked at me without expression for moment, pointed to the big pile of wooden-handled hoes next to him, then to the field behind us, and said, “Grab a hoe, pick a row. It’s that simple.” And I did. For weeks. It was the hottest and sometimes the least enjoyable work I’ve ever done. You have stay at it to get those weeds out of there so the peanut crops can grow. Today, I’m a pastor. When someone asks me how we reach people who’ve never heard the Gospel, I like to use that old line. “Grab a hoe, pick a row – it’s that simple.” “Grab a hoe.” By that, I mean find the best possible method to share the Gospel that you can find. Teach your people how to do it. Equip them. “Pick a row.” Where do you send them? What’s the greatest need in your community where they can begin to share? Pick that spot, then go! “It’s that simple.” Actually, sharing the Gospel is not complicated. It’s just hard work. It takes us out of our comfort zone. But it’s SO IMPORTANT. If every Christ-follower, and if every church leader would just decide to be a Gospel-sharing follower, we can see the tide turn in our nation toward the God of the Gospel. But we must get into the fields.
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Today, I had the amazing privilege to preach the Convention Message of the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon being invited nearly a year ago to preach this message, God began to speak to me in prayer. “You won’t preach an ordinary message. You’ll preach what you live.” And what a year it’s been.
Message Title: “The Impossible Quest” Message Text: 1 Chronicles 11:3, 9, 10-14. It centers on three of the mighty men of David who defended a field against the Philistines. Remember, the Old Testament examples are given for us who live in this present day. The subject is the battle to defend God’s field against an incredible number of enemies – but the present day application is defending the Gospel – and sharing it by standing in the fields that need to be sown. First, that these mighty men RECOGNIZED THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. “…the people fled…they took their stand…” v. 13b, 14a It’s amazing how many people run away when a war is brewing. This story is really a picture of God’s work through the ages. It’s the story of all the heroes of faith. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Joseph, Daniel – and David – they all had to stand alone at times. And they all had to believe God enough to stand in the field in wartime when others had fled. Our New Testament fields are places where God’s seed (the Gospel) is sown and harvested. Eternity is at stake. And there are few in the fields. You’d think the fields would be full of workers. They are not. It is estimated that 95% of Christians do not share their faith at all.Most simply don’t want to. What will change this? Courageous men standing in the field – that’s who. ..Pastors who lead their congregations into the field. Paul said to Timothy, “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5 In brief, if pastors don’t get a plan to share the Gospel, and get in the field where it needs to be sown in their communities, we keep failing to reach our world. GET A PLAN and GET IN THE FIELD, Pastor. Second, the mighty men RECOGNIZED THE ENCROACHMENT OF EVIL. “They took their stand in the midst of the field, and defended it…” v. 14 When will we become aware of the encroachment of evil in our culture – and when will we decide that the Gospel is powerful enough to change it? These men knew it was time to take a stand. When will we do that? Third, they RECOGNIZED THAT GOD WAS ON THEIR SIDE. “…and the Lord saved them by a great victory.” V. 14b Here’s the picture of every conflict we have ever faced as God-followers. The Lord provided great victory. These men weren’t really fighting FOR victory, they were fighting FROM the victory promised in David…then Christ. But it was their courage and boldness that let them to stand toe-to-toe in the field with the enemy and win. Pastors and leaders, our day of battle is at hand. We go to the fields NOW or we give them up forever. We’re at a crossroads, and we now need pastors who will lead their people to be trained with the Gospel, lead them into the field to plant those seeds, and to see God transform the community. The story God unfolded in my life this year was a story of how He convicted me to get a plan where I could teach my people to share their faith to draw a line in the field and say “we’re taking the Gospel to every person in our community.” We know it will take all of us. God has blessed us with training over 300 people in 24 weeks, and we’ll have another 300 trained soon. We’ve shared the Gospel with thousands, and have seen hundreds saved. It’s the story God is writing in our hearts. But it’s also the story God desires to write in every church. It’s time to get in the field, lead our people and share Christ with every person. There is nothing God will bless more than His Gospel. “Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission.”
- John Piper Life is war. Have you discovered this yet? If not, you’re in a losing battle already. Like the German citizens who ignored the horrors of Nazi Germany, who chose to look the other way when all the signs of atrocity that accompanied the Holocaust were evident – we are in danger of missing the huge kingdom conflict all around us, living outside of reality. Our casual praying is the evidence of our disengagement. New Testament Christianity was birthed in persecution and cultural conflict. The early followers of Christ were aware of the life-and-death stakes of the Gospel message. They saw the blood of Christ, then the blood of the early martyrs, their friends and brothers. Many of them shed their own blood. Inseverable from the reality that war were passionate, desperate, battle-cry prayers. I see this in the Scriptures. I see this in my brothers and sisters battling for the Gospel in India. I see this “life is war” mentality in Cuban pastors and their wives who struggle from birth to death with how to live as followers of Christ in a communist country. I see their tears, their prayers, their dependence on God and their desperation for God’s powerful hand. I’m beginning to see it, ever so slowly, in my life. I see it unfolding in my family and my church. When the enemy inflicts injury, when spiritual opposition rises up with ugly power, when those we love the most are dragged downward with selfish decisions – we taste this war. It’s evident in the tear-stains on the faces of the people in our church as they cry out to God for personal victory in their lives every Sunday morning in full view. I know it’s real when I see our staff crying loudly for God to bring the break-through we desperately need. I see it in the yearning for victory to occupy our city with the Gospel, that He might knock down the walls that still stand, when we pray for an Unreached People Group to get just a simple opportunity to hear about Jesus. I smell the scent of war in the air and feel the thrill of advance when we charge together like an army. On the other hand, I know we’re sometimes on the losing end of this conflict when the vast majority of churches have completely given up in the battle for the Gospel. Completely given up. No plan. No leadership. No charge to go the fields with the Gospel. No desperate praying. Just surviving. When war is not part of our conversation, and when it is not evident in our prayer, we are missing the huge kingdom conflict we are emphatically called to. We are missing the incredible promise of victory that comes from our Commander in Chief. Get in the battle! Learn that life is war. Cry out to God for assistance and wisdom and courage. Then advance into the fray with bold, audacious praying – expecting that God will come to your aid in the battle He’s placed you in. |
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