Hi Professor,
I've been
trying to get my folks to leave their WELS church for some time now.
Last Sunday's sermon, I think, was enough to push them over the edge.
The sermon is not that surprising (typical crap-ola), but for some
reason it made it into the Top-Ten-Worst-Sermons-I've-
Now Hiring, by Pastor William Monday
Starts with token story about farmers.
Hard work is the only way to get treasure
What does it take for the Church to bring in the harvest? How much responsibility should we have (how
much work ethic) do we individually need to put forth to save souls?
Do we see things like Jesus does, that hard work is
necessary, or do we not yet see that it our responsibility to work hard to save
souls?
Why is Jesus spending all his time preaching and talking to
people? Why doesn't he spend his leisure
time on himself? His motivation was that
he had compassion on them. His heart
broke for them. When he saw everybody
without goals and without God and his heart broke for them. So, Jesus
spent all his time telling everyone that "God Loves You".
Jesus looked at all these believers (OT and NT) who are
struggling be passionate about the lost, struggling to harvest souls....so what
words does he have for us: (Quote: And I can imagine Jesus' voice cracking when
he says this) The harvest is plentiful,
but the workers are few. So pray to the
Lord of the Harvest to send worker
Can't you see the desperation in his eyes? Yes, Jesus paid the price for everyone by
dying on the cross but they won't all be saved because there aren't enough
workers in the field to tell them of the great work already been done!
[insert cute non sequitur story about farmers and puppies: 4 healthy puppies. 1 puppy with deformed leg. Little boy with prosthetic leg decides he
wants the deformed puppy. Boy says: That puppy is going to need someone who
understand him. The farmer promises to
give the lame puppy to the lame boy for free.]
The Moral of the Story?
The Love of the Lord--it is so important to sympathize with others...to
understand people. to be compassionate. Jesus is unique because he came to earth to
understand us. To sympathize with
us. In fact, he came to take our place. He sees our failure.
We're all cripples. Everyone
needs something. Jesus sees that and
becomes that except without sin. And
then goes to the cross and becomes crippled for us.
Doesn't that change us?
Doesn't seeing Jesus do this for us change us? Change how we see other people? Don't we begin to look through our Savior's
eyes? Don't we also have compassion for
one another? Doesn't that inspire us to
go from town to town and be witnesses for Jesus? Doesn't that give us the motivation we're
looking for to call out to our Savoir who is Now Hiring?
Jesus thought so. He
went and called 12 disciples and gave them authority to heal people and preach
the good news. [Insert Great Commission.] And this applies to all of us.
Let me sum up by asking a better question: How many of you have been assigned to a task
where you needed other people? Can you
lift a couch up the stairs by yourself?
I wouldn't advice doing it by yourself.
Can you play with a teeter totter by yourself? Nope. If you've experienced this then you can relate to Jesus in
this text. With desperation and a choked
up voice (verbatim quote) Jesus says to us: "There are souls that keep dying and
there aren't enough people to go out and rescue them!!!"
How wonderful things are when people volunteer and bring
donuts and clean up! How wonderful
things are when we have volunteers for money
counting and ushering! How wonderful
when people sign up for VBS and all the other things that are required (quote) to further the gospel ministry along for
ourselves and the Lost!
But how tough ministry becomes when nobody signs up for
anything. How tough it becomes to make
the place look good for visitors. You
know, when nobody signs up to pull the weeds around the front entry, those jobs
still get done. You know who does them? The leaders who have been charged with
preaching the gospel and reaching the lost.
They pick weeds and shovel snow instead of saving people.
I've come to find this out in ministry. That the most pressing needs are the ones
that get fulfilled...but not the most important. In order for outreach to happen, in order for
us to be able to till the soil and plant the crop and bring the harvest home we
need all those other things to get done. (shoveling snow, picking weeds, making
coffee, serving donuts) We need all of us together to work. We need all of these things to happen so that
outreach, which always happens last, can take place. So take a look at Jesus. He's standing there. The Kingdom is Now Hiring. Let us be people of prayer. Let us be the ones who are willing to do the
work. Let us be willing to go out into
that field and dig up that treasure. The
treasure of lost souls.
Let's do it together so that we can make sure we can turn over the field so that the
people charged with doing the one-on-one soul saving can save the lost. Maybe we're not all evangelists, but we can
all hold up the evangelist's hands can't we?
Let's work while it's still day.
