Try Something

If you are new here this morning, your first time or you haven't been here for a few weeks, we've been working through a series on outreach, on evangelism called the organic outreach series. It's based on a book written by Kevin Harney on how to reach out, how to share the good news of Jesus with people naturally. One of the common sort of hang-ups we have is that we don't feel skilled enough or we don't feel we have the right methodology or whatever to be able to share our faith with people. And it's been a real challenge, but also a real joy to hear that there are many easy natural ways we can do that, and we're sort of starting to hone in on some practical examples towards the end of this series. Just as a bit of a recap to be reminded, the last four sermons we've looked at, we talked about, firstly, what is the motivation for outreach?

We heard that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. That is the core rule for us as Christians to live by. And so if we love our neighbours, the natural thing is for us to share with them the love of Jesus. We love the fact that we are saved. We love the fact that we are forgiven and cleansed.

And therefore, if we love our neighbours, we would want that for them as well. And we want that for them as well so that they may glorify the God who we love and who we know is worthy of everyone's praise. Everyone's praise. The whole world should know and should love our God. The second thing we see here is that the harvest is plentiful.

And Jesus looked upon the crowd where he was and he said, the harvest is plentiful. It's the workers that are few. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into the harvest field. That is a statement of faith. We are called to believe that the harvest is not hard.

Well, it is hard. But that is not it. It's not narrow. It's not impossible that we are to believe that the harvest is ripe for the harvesting. The third thing we saw is that it's God who does the work of making the harvest grow. We may be called to sow the seed and we'll talk about that a little bit today.

But we are and we're also maybe called to water the seed, but He is the one that gives the energy, that He is the one that gives the vitality to life, to eternal life for people's hearts to be born again. And then last week, we saw we talked about incarnational living. As Jesus entered the world through His incarnation, God taking on flesh. In John 17 verse 18, He says, as you have sent me Father, now I send them to live the life of Christ, to live the life of Jesus' mission out in our lives, in the workplace, in the neighbourhood to which we are called. So that is just a quick overview.

This morning, we're going to open to Matthew 13, however, and it's a parable that I'm sure you have heard or are familiar with. So we're going to reflect on that, but we will make some points from that because it is very relevant to what we're discussing here in terms of outreach. I'm gonna read Matthew 13 from verse one, and then we'll jump ahead to verse 18 as well. So verse one through to eight, and then from 18 through to 23. Matthew chapter 13 verse one.

That same day, Jesus went out of the house and He sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about Him so that He got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach and He told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear. Then we go to verse 18. Jesus explains this parable.

Hear then the parable of the sower, Jesus says. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while.

And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields. In one case, a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

So far, our reading. While we might get drawn into trying to understand the four different types of soils when reflecting on the detail of this parable, the people of Jesus' time when they heard this for the first time would have also had a keen interest in the farming technique of the farmer, of the sower. You may not know this, but we have a few novice gardeners in our church. John and Taya Campus have been growing some very nice courgettes of late.

I know because I've personally benefited from those courgettes. Now for the gardeners amongst us, you might wonder, as I think the people of Jesus' time did, what farmer in their right mind would waste precious seed by throwing it carelessly on the road, on rocky gravel, and deep into the thorn bushes? What sort of a farmer plants a garden that way? And the obvious answer is, a good farmer does it. Your average farmer wouldn't sow it that way.

Now this parable, as much as we are trying to figure out the different types of soil, there is a spotlight on the farmer here as well. And who is the farmer? Well, in this, later in this chapter, in fact, Jesus tells another parable in verses 24 through to 30, if you have your Bible handy. Another parable of sowing and of seeds. Jesus explains there that it's a farmer who throws good seed along with bad seed.

And the wheat and the weeds grow up together, and they have to mature before the harvesters come, and they can be able to distinguish which is which, which is grain, which is wheat, and which is weeds. Jesus then explains later in verse 37 that the farmer there who does the sowing is called the son of man. The son of man is the sower. Now if you read the gospels, if you've read the gospels, you know that when Jesus referred to Himself, it was the son of man. He called Himself the son of man.

So first question, who is the farmer? Well, it's Jesus. You may have already assumed that, but it is. Now the parable is saying something about Jesus as much as He is saying something about the different types of soil. And so we have to ask the question, why is Jesus so extravagantly wasteful with this seed?

Well, you might argue, you might at least try to argue, it's because he's a bad farmer. But I'd like to argue this morning, it's because He's an incredibly generous farmer. Wanting to have life sprout even in the most obscure or unwarranted of places. He wants the gospel of life to take hold in even the most surprising and undeserving people. What this parable is showing is the way that Jesus sees His own mission.

He sows the gospel message far and wide. It's not just along the nicely ploughed good rich brown soil. He goes to those who haven't been prepared or who aren't yet ready even to receive. What we see is not a technique of sowing, but we see the character of the one behind it. And what we see is a sower who is abundantly generous, gracious.

He is liberal with His invitation to come and hear the call, to receive the word of life that brings healing. And Jesus showers this good news all over the place even amongst the rockiest soil and the thorniest ground. And so once we understand the motive of the farmer, we also have to or we will also start understanding that the four soils presented here are not so much a state of the heart that we need to prepare for ourselves. In other words, the soil types are not postures for performing. I must work hard to be a good soil.

I must plough the soil of my heart so that I may receive the word of life. These are postures for receiving. Not postures for performing. The crux of the parable is not how to make the sower happy, but rather how we enter into the happiness of the sower. How we enter the generosity of the sower.

So when we ask questions and when I preached on this a few months ago, I told the story of how this was my first sermon passage ever. And I started with the question, what kind of soil are you? But that leads to a self-defeating kind of moralism. Have I been fertile enough? We ask.

Have I prepared my soul, my heart well enough? Have I pleased God well enough? And we start agonising about whether our soul soil is tilled well enough so that by chance we might receive that one little bit of seed that falls our way. But Jesus says that He is a generous sower. He doesn't economically throw a single seed so that perhaps if you're not quite ready, then you've missed your chance.

No. The farmer scandalously, almost embarrassingly, pours lavish amounts of the good news everywhere. The question this morning we have to ask as well is how does Jesus do this today? How does He do that today? If Jesus is not physically here on earth to do it anymore, how does He sow the good news seed today?

Who wants to wager a guess? Through us. Through the church. The body of Christ. And last week, we heard the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 where He prayed to God the Father, as you have sent me into the world, I send them.

As Jesus lived out this mission here on earth, so the church is called to carry on this mission. It's not a suggestion. You are called to do this. The sowing of the gospel didn't end when Jesus ascended back to heaven. It still continues to this day.

And so what this parable of the sower is telling us, the church, is how we are to live out the mission of Jesus. And it tells us the same thing, that we are to sow the message generously. That is what we as Christians are called to do, to sow the seed liberally. Now one of the many inhibitors to evangelism that prevents us from sharing the good news is we don't know where to start. We sort of use that like, I don't know.

You know, do we start with saying this or do we highlight this or do we start about creation? Do we have to convince them that there's a creator behind everything? What's the right way to reach out to a person? We ask. How do we connect in meaningful ways with those who have not received Jesus yet?

This morning, I want to tell you the answer to these questions is it depends where you want to start. It'll depend on a person's temperament. It'll depend on their personality. It'll depend on their passions and their history and their context where you start. But this is what we need to hear this morning.

We have to try something. We have to try something. If you like neat five-step programs or proven formulas, or you're waiting for spiritual conditions to be just perfect, the soil to be just right for your friend to engage in outreach to them, I can tell you, you're gonna wait a long time. It's wiser to simply start with something, with anything, scattering that seed because some of the soil will be rocky. Some of the soil will be hard bitumen like the road.

Some of it will have tons and tons of weed that needs to be weeded out. We can ask, but Lord, what if the soil isn't ready? What if I encounter resistance? What if I sow and nothing happens? But like we've already said in this series, our job is not to guarantee results.

Our job is to scatter the seed. And we can water that seed. The key is not finding the perfect program. It's learning to sow the seed wherever we go. Jesus was teaching in this parable that we need to sow the good news of salvation liberally like He did.

That is the calling of His church through which He works. That is what we need to look for. That is what we need to create opportunities for in our lives, to spread the good news wherever we go, wherever we are. But more than that, we need to trust that if we seek to bring the love and the compassion and the hope of Jesus into the world, that God will use us. We have to believe that as well, that God will use us.

Living incarnationally, as we said last week, means we need to see every opportunity we find ourselves in as an opportunity. It means that there is no time off. There is no off-duty for the Christian. Life is filled with moments of opportunity if we are serious about taking the gospel to the world. If we're going to sow the gospel liberally in the lives of unbelievers, if we are to be salt and light to the world, we need to be intentional about the people we connect with.

We need to be creative even about how we build relationships with those non-Christians. So I want to just give some ideas to sort of stimulate our thinking. Some good ideas that may encourage you. Firstly, you may go walking in the morning if you, you know, want to keep fit. If you do that, why not consider asking a non-Christian neighbour to join you?

You get fit like you want to, but while you're getting fit, you're also building a relationship that might lead to someone receiving eternal life. You can throw a Matthew party. That sounds very weird, but it's a concept and you don't have to call it that. Please, perhaps don't. Matthew party is a concept, and I think it's in Kevin Harney's book as well, where Matthew became one of Jesus' disciples.

He was Levi the tax collector before he changed his name and his occupation. And the tax collectors were kind of the dodgy ones. And when he comes to faith in Jesus and starts following Jesus, what does he do? He throws a massive party to celebrate the fact that he's come to follow Jesus. And he invites Jesus, and he invites all the disciples, and then he invites all his tax collector mates to hear the gospel, to meet this Jesus.

And you can just imagine what an amazing environment that would have been. Non-Christians and Christians just thrown together into a room. Shake it up and see what happens. That's a Matthew party. Invite those mates from church and from your workplace together.

We tend to kind of want to keep things separate, but there's a wonderful opportunity here, especially if your friends are also on mission with you to cross-pollinate, to encourage one another. Another way we can create opportunities to sow the gospel seed generously is through intentionally joining a group or a club or an organisation. So join a book club at your local library. Great opportunity to talk. Great opportunity to reflect on some big things that come out of those stories.

Some huge life themes that stimulate thinking. It's a great opportunity to have meaningful conversations. Join our church playgroup that meets here on Tuesdays. We meet lots of neighbourhood people and they come through here. They read John 3:16.

They know that this is a church. It's a great opportunity. If you have a young one, why not join the playgroup? Get involved in a local sports club. Join a hobby group if you're not into sports.

Wood turning or whatever. I've just done a ten-week course of personal training with a new person I met, my personal trainer, and I think this is a wonderful opportunity for us now that I'm coming to the end of it. Thank goodness I won't have to be sore anymore. To ask him to come and go for a beer or something to celebrate and just to start a proper conversation with him.

We sort of know each other now, but now we can actually have some great conversation, a deeper relationship. See those relationships as opportunities. Cultural clubs. I want to encourage us, and I know that our church is influenced or has influenced there, but if we're involved in Afrikaans club, we don't have to assume and we shouldn't assume that every person there is a Christian. We don't have to assume and we shouldn't assume that every person there is saved.

There are great opportunities for us to reach out to those people. We speak the same language as them. We think in many ways the same way. That's a great opportunity to expose them, to invite them to our church, to small groups. And I mean, the list is endless.

Right? You can think of anything, but there are some opportunities that you can think of. And I mean, the beauty of joining in clubs or joining in these sort of organisations is that you can build a relationship with someone over a long term. You might be involved in a club already, but you may have never realised the missional opportunity that it gives you. So perhaps today, we can recalibrate why we're there.

We can recalibrate some of the opportunities we have there. Now it's important for us to realise that not everything we try will be a success. That's why I say try something. It may not be the be-all and end-all. You might have to change it.

That's okay. It doesn't have to be and it may not be a success. The parable of the sower makes it clear that not every attempt at sharing the gospel will bear fruit. Some seed did fall on the hard soil, but the parable also demonstrates that we are not responsible for the outcome. That is in God's hands.

If it's postures of receiving, there is nothing that the sower has done. Only God knows the state of a person's heart and only He can change it. But we also need to be careful not to be too pessimistic. And I put myself in that category sometimes and think nothing I try will be a success. Jesus is the generous sower.

And if He is using the church to sow the seed, then He is calling us to do that work for Him. We are not responsible for the soils to be ready, but we are responsible for sowing the seed. We are responsible for sowing the seed. Jesus promised the harvest is plentiful. It's the workers that are few.

Pray therefore that the Lord will send harvest workers into the field. The harvest is plentiful. The church needs to get out and start sharing Jesus. And so before we get too hung up about having all our ducks in a row and having a PhD in theology before we actually get to sharing the gospel, we just need to get out there and start. The great American evangelist, D L Moody, sometimes criticised by people in his day and age.

I think people from Calvinistic backgrounds, unfortunately, about why and how he shared the gospel with people. He famously writes, I like my way of doing evangelism better than your way of not doing it. Try something. That is the command Jesus gives to His church from this parable. And so when it comes to the different soil types, the hard soil, the soil full of weeds and thorns, or the good soil, we can't do too much about that.

In many ways, Jesus is giving a state of play explanation rather than a game plan. This is the state of play. This is the condition. He's not saying how things should be. Rather Jesus is saying how things are.

Because quite frankly, even if you're sitting here this morning and you are the hard soil, you may never realise that you are the hard soil until it's too late. And you may be standing before the throne of God and hear your sin condemn you to hell. And you may have thought all along that you were a Christian. You never made Him, however, your Lord in order for Him to be your saviour. Likewise, to us who are followers of Christ, who genuinely know that He is our Lord and saviour, who of us can point to a day and say, on this day, at this time, I chose to be good soil for the gospel to take hold.

None of us can say that. But one thing I want to do this morning, as we close, is to point to the generous sower, Jesus Christ, who again and again and again goes and He sows that seed. And He sprinkles that good news so unwaveringly, so determined, and He pursues not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to eternal life. Friends, come to Him. Even if you are beset by thorns and thistles, let Him make out of your heart the soil that will bear much fruit to His glory.

And Christian, if He has been so gracious to us, if He has been so liberal to us, what is stopping me from being generous to those around me? To anyone this morning, if you feel the hot warmth of the Holy Spirit working in your heart this morning, pricking your conscience, laying open some things in your life, thank God for that. There is soil He is preparing. Please know this morning that this seed has work to do. There is a message of salvation and forgiveness available to you this morning.

And if you are ready, if you are ready to receive it, please receive it. May the good news of Jesus do His work as we seek to share the power of that seed, of that news to those around us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your generosity, Lord Jesus. Thank you for your grace.

Lord, we need to hear. We need to receive this good news every week, every day. Lord, I thank you that it has taken root in our lives. I thank you, Lord, that we have the comfort and the joy of forgiveness and salvation with us. Lord, this morning, I pray for those who know that they are not right with you, who know that they have had hearts as hard as bitumen, have tried every way to outrun or outmanoeuvre you, to rationalise and excuse.

But this morning, know their sin is great. Father, I pray this morning for them. I pray that they may receive the life that you want to sow into their lives. I pray, Lord, that this message of your forgiveness may take root in their lives. That they may know you and confess that you are their Lord and their saviour, and that they may lay down their lives to take up yours.

Father, I pray for those friends and those family members around us who don't know this, who have not received this, who fight so hard against it perhaps. And I pray, Lord, that we will continue to sow this seed. I pray for creativity, wonderful creativity. God, I pray for this week and for the weeks to come for reflection and thinking and praying about these things. Father, I know that our time is limited and short.

I know there are so many competing things. Father, you are the worker of miracles. You are the God who can do a multitude of things at one time. You can accomplish all your purposes in a multifaceted way. And so, Father, I pray through our lives, through the people in it, through our hobbies and our work, Father, that you will use us.

Help us to stay fit spiritually. Help us to pray often for the lost. And, Father, I pray for an absolute explosion of the gospel in this church. To the glory of your name, Lord, to the building up of your kingdom, that more people may come to know you and praise you because you alone are worthy of that. We thank you for your word.

We receive it with gladness. We pray, Lord, may your will be done through it in our lives. Amen.