The Only Opinion That Matters

[This is the journal entry from my quiet time with God this morning.]

Look: “Even with these words, they [Paul and Barnabas] had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples.” (Acts 14:18-21a)

In Lystra, Paul and Barnabas, commissioned to carry the Gospel to Gentiles and Jews, are the instruments by which the risen, ascended Jesus heals a man lame from birth. The local crowd thinks that Paul and Barnabas are gods. They’re intent on offering sacrifices to the two. Even after Paul and Barnabas explain that they’re not gods and have come with good news of new life from the one true God revealed in Jesus, “they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.”

No sooner had the two explained this than some of their fellow Jews, opposed to the preaching of Christ and from Iconium, convinced the Lystra crowd that Paul and Barnabas should be stoned to death. Paul was so badly pummeled, apparently unconscious and immobile, that the crowd left the apostle for dead. But, after the Christians gathered around Paul, presumably praying, “he got up and went back into the city,” heading off to Derbe with Barnabas so that the two could continue their missionary work.

There are two obvious things about this incident, I think. First, there’s the fickleness of the crowd. Within the span of a short amount of time, they have two conflicting reactions to Paul and Barnabas, both of them wrong. First, they want to worship the two of them. Then, they set out to kill them.

That’s not unlike how we treat the latest celebrated people to enter our lives: At first, we hail them as some kinds of gods; then, disappointed that they’re only human, we tear them down. This cycle is depressingly familiar.

The second thing that strikes me in the passage from Acts is this: Paul and Barnabas are not swayed by the fickle crowd. They don’t play to the crowd. When the crowd wants to make them idols, they’re faithful to Christ. When the crowd wants to kill them, they’re faithful to Christ.

Listen: Years after the incident recounted in these verse, the apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Paul wasn’t asking Timothy to do what he himself wasn’t willing to do. (Or hadn’t done.) The seasons in which the gospel we Christians are called to believe and to share with others change. Sometimes the message of the gospel we carry will reach people and they become disciples of Jesus too. Other times, people will misunderstand the message or us and treat us like we’re “all that.” And at other times, our message and we ourselves will be treated with contempt, sometimes even be subject to persecution.

But neither the God we know in Jesus Christ nor His gospel or our need of Christ and His gospel ever change! “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).” Even as we reach out in love to the crowds who need Jesus Christ to be saved from sin and death, we can’t allow their reaction to change the only message that can save them. As the apostles Peter and John said of Jesus shortly after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension: “ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” (Here, they simply reflect what Jesus says: “ I and the Father are one” and “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”)

I like to have people accept me. I don’t like confronting those who are hostile. I don’t like offending people, even when the offense is the revealed Word and will of God. By the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in believers, I need to be more like Paul and Barnabas, faithful to the God revealed in Jesus whether people’s high opinions or low opinions of me don’t match reality; faithful to Christ, whether people like it or not, whether they misunderstand it or not. It’s only this kind of faithfulness that authenticates the gospel, the good news of new life as a gift of grace from God through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Respond: Lord, help me to resist my desire to take my cues from the world. Open me today to the promptings of Your Holy Spirit seen in Your Word. Help me to remember that Yours is the only opinion that matters. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Bearing Fruit for God's Kingdom (Part 4)

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Hebrews 5:12-14
Matthew 17:17-20
Not long ago, a group of us met to plan this year’s Ohio Mission Region Convocation. The theme will be Baptized AND Living It! and I hope that a good crowd from Living Water will be able to attend. In the course of our planning, we looked at Acts 2:40-41, where we’re told that, on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to Jesus' disciples, the apostle Peter, “...pleaded with [his fellow Jews], ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

I was struck again by that last verse. I couldn’t help asking a question: Don’t you ever wonder why we’re not taking in 3000 new believers as members of Christ’s Church every Sunday today? At least on Pentecost Sunday? 

What exactly is wrong with the Church today, at least in the Western world, that we’re not seeing those kinds of conversions to Christ as a result of the Church’s proclamation of Christ?

Some Christians will say, “All of my friends are Christians. I don’t have anyone I can reach.” But all this explanation tells us is that we aren’t very good about reaching out to people who are different from us. While we  cocoon ourselves from non-Christian people, the numbers of our neighbors, classmates, and co-workers who have no religion increases.

Other Christians will say that ever since the courts took prayer out of school, it’s harder to share our faith; we live in a hostile environment. Listen: You couldn’t have found a more hostile environment for the Church than what existed in the first-century Roman Empire in which Jesus died, rose, and established His Church. When was the last time an American Christian was thrown into a den of hungry lions? 

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, he didn’t give it to the public schools, the United States government, the entertainment industry, or the people who make cups for Starbucks, all of whom are among the people and institutions about which American Christians like to bellyache. Jesus gave the Great Commission to us, His Church, to every baptized Christian, to you and me.

Our explanations for the lack of growth and vitality in our Western churches sound like excuses or rationalizations rather than explanations. So, why don’t our churches grow the way the first-century Church grew early on? 

The question isn’t a new one. Even the second-generation early Church faced it. In Hebrews 5, the preacher tells a congregation of Jewish Christians, “...though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:12-14) Evil happens in the world, in the Church, and in individual Christians' lives when we aren’t growing as Christian disciples.

We can’t be the instruments of God’s love and grace that Christ wants us to be (and which, I’m convinced that, deep in the heart of every Christian, we want to be) if we insist on remaining babies in our faith. Babies are only cute when they’re babies; not when they hit ages 20, 30, 40, 50, 80, 90. 

It’s Jesus’ expectation that the baptized children of God will grow up in their faith. In Matthew 17, Jesus upbraids His disciples for not bringing healing to a boy whose life was being decimated by demons from hell: “You unbelieving and perverse generation...how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.’  Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we drive it out?’ He replied, 'Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’” (Matthew 17:17-20)

Why then is the Church of our day not growing like it did in the first-century? Even allowing for the fact that there are eras in history and in different places when people are more open to the good news of new life through faith in Jesus Christ, part of the answer may be is our lack of faith! 

In places like China, Ethiopia, in Germany where Lutherans independent of the state church are seeing hundreds of refugees from Iran come to faith in Christ, and in other places, the Church is growing. Today, in fact, in terms of conversions, Christianity remains the fastest-growing religion in the world. But here, where we’re distracted and comfortable, not so much. We’ve allowed the relative ease of our lives to rob us of our faith in Jesus.

Folks: We cannot and will not bear as much fruit for God’s kingdom--we won’t see people come to faith in Christ through our churches or through us as disciples of Jesus Christ--if we’re not growing. 

And growing isn’t something we can manufacture. If you leave here today and resolve, “I’m going to grow as a disciple,” you will not grow as a disciple. You can't resolve to be a growing disciple. 

It’s God’s Holy Spirit, employing the Word of God, the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, and the fellowship of the Church built around the good news--the gospel--of Jesus Christ that will bring us personal growth and bring spiritual and numerical growth to this wonderful congregation.

Here’s how disciples and congregations grow: by getting close to Jesus every day. 

Growth in our discipleship is a byproduct of spending time with Christ and with His people, the Church. 

That growth allows us to bear fruit for God’s kingdom: 

• to persevere in praying for others in Jesus’ name when all seems lost; 
• to seek from God and receive opportunities from Him to share the good news with others;
• to live in God’s peace even in the most challenging of circumstances; 
• to emit the magnetic joy of Christ from every pore of our bodies! 

To get close to Christ, we spend quiet time with God each day, read and let His Word speak to us each day, regularly gather with others around God’s Word, regularly surrender to Christ’s lordship over our lives. We get close to Jesus! 

This isn’t magical. It’s as simple as this: When we take root in Christ, He fills us with Himself and we bear the good fruit that only comes from Him.

Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) 

The pathway of discipleship--knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and showing Christ--isn’t an end in itself. 

Knowing Christ, growing in Christ, and showing Christ: These are gifts that come to God’s people as we dare to come close to Jesus. They're what God uses not only to increase our joy in being eternally saved by grace through faith in Jesus, but also to produce the fruits of Christ living in us: “...love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) 

Through people rooted in Christ, God the Holy Spirit grows His Church. But more than that, these gifts evidence that God is at work making us into the people He always intended His children to be: Human beings who reflect the image of God in which they were first made, transformed into the image of Jesus Christ Himself. Amen




[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Righteous AND humble?

[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God this morning. In my quiet time, I follow a format of stop, look, listen, respond. You can see more about this approach to being with God here.]

[UPDATE: Over on Twitter, @pudicat11 (Steve Martin) raises an interesting point on this post. Here's what he said: "Nice job, Mark. 

"But I certainly would never want to rely upon the genuineness (is that a word??) of ‘my repentance’.

"I know myself all too well. What I do, won’t do, and the awful thoughts I often have.

"I’m trusting in His working repentance in me. And in His forgiveness."

Great point! This post could create the wrong impression and a "new law" for salvation. But no law can save. So, here's what I wrote in response to Steve's important caution:

"Well put. I suppose what I mean by that phrase is one's intentions. Even our intentions are never pure, of course. But it's as with the Apostle's Creed: I feel sometimes that I should say, "I want to believe..." God takes that turning, I think, and turns it into faith we can't muster or manufacture, only receive."

I added: "What I meant by authentic repentance was the place of brokenness to which God takes us, inciting us to turn to [Him] in powerlessness rather than in the manner of a transaction. Think: Saul's 'repentance' versus David's; or, Peter's 'repentance' versus that of Judas."]

Look: “Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Zephaniah 2:3)

I’m preaching on Zephaniah tomorrow and ordinarily, I would avoid focusing during quiet time on a book from which I’m preaching, to avoid being utilitarian. Quiet time is meant to be a time when I commune with God, not a time for studying a book in pursuit of professional ends. But I missed reading Zephaniah earlier in the year when its three chapters were assigned. Because Zephaniah is one of what’s called “the minor prophets” (and sometimes, “ twelve”) in the Old Testament, with whom I’ve been spending a lot of time in my teaching and preaching this Advent season, I decided to read Zephaniah’s three chapters. I also decided to ask God to show me a truth He wanted me to notice today in a verse outside of the lesson appointed for tomorrow, something that He wanted me to see in my quiet time with Him.

He did.

The first thing that struck me about the words of Zephaniah 2:3 are their similarity words of repentance seen in the books of the other minor prophets.

When Jonah reluctantly proclaimed God’s Word to the people of Nineveh, the Ninevite king called his people, who had been foreign to ancient Israel’s God: “Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence,” the king said. “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." (Jonah 3:8-9)

And in Amos 5:15, the prophet, speaking for God, tells the people of Israel, facing judgment: “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.”

In each of these passages, the theme is the same: God calls people to repent for our sins with authenticity, with a true turning back to God. Whether that will spare the repentant from facing the consequences of sin is completely up to God.

To repent then is to value a restored relationship with God so totally that we’re willing to face the wrath we’ve incurred for our sin. We respect God’s sovereignty.

We know that if we must face earthly punishments for our sins, it’s only because God is a loving Father and He truly regards us His children (Hebrews 12:5-7).

We know too that in the resurrection, repentant believers will live perfectly in the “image of God” which God originally intended for all human beings (Revelation 21:1-27).

So, momentary difficulties aren’t to compared to all that God has in mind for us (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17)

This precludes any utilitarian approaches to repentance on our parts. There’s no, “I’ll repent for my sins if God will…” element in true repentance.

The classic example of authentic repentance is King David. David authentically repented for his adultery and murder. But he accepted that there were still consequences to himself, his family, his reign, and his nation that resulted from his sins. (Sometimes there are no discernible consequences. That too must be left in the hands of the sovereign God.)

The believer who is authentically repentant leaves it all to God.

The second thing that struck me about Zephaniah 2:3 today is its call to “seek righteousness, seek humility.” Righteousness and humility are presented poetically in parallel. According to this verse then, to be righteous is to be humble and vice versa.

This doesn’t really comply with the way we ordinarily understand the word righteousness, or words like it: goodness, moral, upright, or even faultless. When we imagine someone who’s righteous, we imagine them being anything but humble.

We’re more likely to see them as arrogant, judgmental. We picture self-righteous prigs (a good word from the UK) who look down their noses at the riff-raff of the world who don’t measure up to their high moral standards.

To hear Jesus tell it, people like this are also hypocrites, people whose repentance and faith in God are inauthentic and therefore worthless for them when they come into God’s presence: I think of Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).

When God makes a person righteous--I could as easily say, “When God justifies repentant sinners,” because in the Greek in which the New Testament is written, righteousness is dikaiosune and justify is dikaioo, meaning that when God justifies a sinner, He ‘righteousfies’ us, declaring us innocent of sin despite our sin because all who repent in the name of Jesus are covered by Christ’s righteousness--it doesn’t make that person arrogant. In fact, the opposite is true: We are humbled. (I am humbled!)

Arrogance is precluded for the repentant sinner who has been forgiven and made new--made righteous--by God’s action in Christ: His sacrificial death and resurrection. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of [good] works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from [good] works of the law.” (Romans 3:27-28 ESV)

Humility and righteousness go together in authentic repentance because we know that only God can make us righteous: right with God, humble before God, humble in our dealings with others, grateful for undeserved grace, open to God and to others.

Listen: Genuine repentance precludes arrogance in dealing with others, even with those who are themselves arrogant.

As a believer, a disciple, a human being, a citizen, a family member, a servant leader, a pastor, and a dean, I am called to make judgments about people and circumstances. But I am not to be judgmental. I may judge that something a person is doing is wrong. I may, out of love, confront them for it. But I am not to judge their eternal salvation in the bargain.

I’m to keep sharing God’s Word of truth, in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2), Law and Gospel, because God’s Law shuts our mouths and excludes our excuses and rationalizations for sin (Romans 3:19) and because the Gospel of Jesus Christ sets sinners free from eternal punishment for their sins (Romans 1:15-16), making us righteous (Romans 5:1, CEB).

I must trust that as I trust in God, entrusting my sins and my life to Him in daily repentance and enduring faith, He will keep imparting Christ’s righteousness to me. Like an alcoholic, I am called to daily surrender to God so that He can replace my sinfulness and arrogance with Christ’s righteousness and humility, my dead ways with His life.

Repentance is essential. I must honestly wrestle with my sins and submit them (and myself) to daily crucifixion. If there is to be a new Mark, it will not be built on my working at being righteous or humble. It will only come through this constant--and often painful because crucifixion is painful--regular submission to the God revealed in Jesus.

How will I know that I’ve become a humble, righteous person? I won’t. If I suspect that I’ve become that kind of person, it will be Exhibit A in evidence against my having become a righteous, humble person.

Does that mean I’m a hopeless case? As long as we keep turning to Jesus, laying my life before Him, I’m filled with hope: He shares His righteousness and humility with me, covering me with them.

I needn’t worry about taking on the project of becoming righteous and humble: As I daily turn to Christ, He’s doing the job (and a huge job it is) for me. I simply have to receive Him as I meet Him in His Word, in congregational worship, in the sacraments, in the fellowship of believers.

Respond: Today, Jesus, I turn to You. Forgive the sins of which I’m aware. Make me aware of the ones I don’t know about so that I can submit them to You. Make me fearless in pursuing the calls You have placed on my life: husband, father, friend, pastor, dean, communicator of Your truth. And, as I turn to You with an unveiled face, transform me, whatever pain is involved, into Your mage (2 Corinthians 3:18). Even when I resist You, fill me with Your righteousness and humility so that people don’t see me, but see You in me. In Your name I pray. Amen

Encouragement for Seed-Scatterers

[This was shared with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, during worship this morning.]

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gives His family, the Church, encouragement.

We need encouragement. We live in a world that is often indifferent or even hostile to the good news which you and I have been sent by Jesus to share with the world through our actions and our words.

The news--the gospel--that God the Son, Jesus, has died and risen so that all who turn from sin and surrender to Him--trust in Him, believe in Him--have life with God in this world and will have an eternally perfect life with God beyond the grave is really good news, of course.

But this message, isn’t something the world always wants to hear. That can be discouraging for Christ’s Church.

But we of Christ’s Church can also become discouraged by our own self-righteousness. We know that we are saved from sin, death, and futility not by our works or our virtues, but solely by God’s grace operating through our faith in Christ. But we get confused. Self-righteousness creeps into our hearts. We start to think we are good, the rest of the world is bad, and that we’d better just stay separated from the world, the frozen chosen hermetically sealed from this bad old planet. Living in isolation from God's will that we reach out to the world behind us, thinking of the world as irredeemable, disdaining others only brings us isolation from God Himself and that brings discouragement. 

Wallowing in discouragement though, will never help us to pursue the mission Christ has given to you and me.

Jesus shares a parable in the first portion of this morning’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 13:1-9. Later, He explains it in verses 18-23.

Take a look at Matthew 13:1, please: “That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.” In Matthew’s gospel, the word house often stands symbolically for the Church. The Church is the group of people who have been called into relationship with God through the good news about Jesus.

The Church, of course, is called together to hear God’s Word, to enjoy Christian fellowship, to be baptized and welcome the newly baptized (as we did this morning), and to receive Christ’s body and blood.

But as was true for Jesus Himself, we as His people, after we’ve gathered to do these things, are called to leave the safe confines of our house, our home in Christ, and go into the world.

In fact, the entire purpose for Christians to gather in worship and Bible study and prayer is to be empowered to scatter, taking the word about Jesus into our homes, places of work, schools, the places we hang out each day, the world.

If the only place we live our our faith in Christ or talk about Christ is the church or with fellow Christians, we just aren’t fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says: “...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,  not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...”

In other words, the Holy Spirit gathers us in Christ's Church in order to empower us to be scattered through the world with the Good News of Christ.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus left the cozy confines of the Church and went out into the world to teach a crowd that had been following Him. Because Jesus had been reaching out in love to the world around Him, He had earned an audience for His message. We do the same today as Christians when, in Jesus’ Name, we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Beginning at Matthew 13:3, Jesus tells a parable, a story that conveys lessons about the kingdom of God Jesus has come to bring to all who believe in Him. “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Jesus’ parable is a picture of the Church moving out into the world. Like the farmer with his seeds in Jesus’ parable, you and I are meant to indiscriminately and lavishly spread the word about Jesus wherever we go, however we can.

Eleven days ago, our Conspiracy of Kindness class went to the corner of Main and Central, just a few yards from the church, and gave away 120 cans of Coke in about forty minutes. Attached to each can was a card that told recipients that this was a practical way of telling them that God loves them. As in other such outreaches, we shared with teens and twenties and little kids, with working class folks and professionals, with people who had white faces, black faces, yellow faces, old faces, young faces.

We didn’t target a particular group.

We didn’t consider how we could do our work more efficiently.

And we didn’t stop giving when some people refused the gift.

We just gave the Coke away to help people understand that the God we know in Jesus is a lavishly giving, gracious God!

As members of the Church, you and I are called to do crazy stuff like that, to keep scattering the seed, spreading the word about the gracious God we know through Jesus, who forgives our sins and opens eternity with God to all who believe. And we do that no matter what reactions we get from some people.

The apostle Paul told the young pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach [that literally means proclaim or, we might say, scatter] the word; be prepared in season and out of season...” Not everyone, when we encounter them, will be receptive to receiving the word of the gospel. It may not be the right season of their lives for surrendering to Christ.

And many of God’s people will have to scatter the seed in some people’s lives for many years before the people with whom they share it begin to understand their need of the Savior and the depths of His love for them.



This is what Jesus demonstrates in the latter part of our Gospel lesson, when He explains the parable.

He says that the seed of His Word flung along the path gobbled up by birds represents those who hear about Jesus but don’t understand its importance. The evil one, the devil, removes the seed from such people.

Others, Jesus says, will initially welcome the word about Him but their faith will be shallow and they will soon forget the gospel sort of like a fashionista flushes last year’s hemlines.

Still others, Jesus tells us, will start to grow in their faith, but then get caught up in the cares of this world and lose touch with Christ.

Jesus says that some though, will receive His Word, believe in Him, grow in their faith, and have a life of faithfulness, becoming useful servants under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

There are four things I find encouraging in Jesus’ parable.

First, the power of the Church doesn’t reside in our programs. It doesn’t reside in our people. It doesn’t reside in buildings or liturgies, wonderful as those can be. The power of the Church resides in God’s Word, the Word about Jesus, alone. That takes all the pressure off of us in sharing the word about Christ with others. The seeds God gives us to scatter are the best seeds in the universe, God’s seeds of love! But as we scatter them, we’re not even required to have a good aim. We just scatter God’s love and leave the rest to God!

Second, as Christians all we have to do is spread the Word. We don’t have to be innovative. We don’t have to make up a new message. We don’t have to be marketing geniuses. God's Word about Jesus Christ doesn't mean additions or subtractions. It doesn't need to be made more palatable or politically correct. It doesn't need to be made cute. God is the only true innovator anyway: He makes new, eternal beings out of sinners otherwise destined for eternal death simply by calling them to trust in the crucified and risen Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Third, Jesus’ parable tells us that we shouldn’t be discouraged when the seeds we scatter don’t all grow.

The farmer in Jesus’ parable found that only 25% of his seeds survived, grew, and thrived. But that 25% grew like crazy and had an impact on the world in which they grew.

Whenever we invite people to events like Our Own Backyard, or serve others on our mission trips, or house the homeless, we may only plant the seed of faith in 25% of the people we touch. But what’s wrong with that?

If only 25% of the people we touched in that Kindness Outreach a week and a half ago are nudged closer to Christ, that's 31 people!

If just 25% of the men we served at Saint Vincent a few weeks ago grew closer to Christ because we served in Christ’s Name, that’s still 38 men!

And if a quarter of the 168 people served through yesterday’s kindness outreach have their wills cracked open a bit to Christ, that's 42 souls drawn closer to Christ’s orbit.

And just imagine how many people may be having the seed of faith in Christ planted in their lives through Upward, Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN), our mission trips, and the work Dan Mershon does with our community’s young people--our "parking lot kids"--day-in and day-out!

Christ depends on us. If we Christians never scatter the seed of Christ’s gospel in the world, we are guaranteed to fail. Nobody will ever know about Christ if we in the Church don’t tell others about Him, His cross, and His empty tomb.

If we do scatter the seed, we’re guaranteed that often we will fail from the world's point of view. But we are also guaranteed that we will reach some people with the news about Jesus that can change their lives for eternity.

Jesus says in Luke 15:7: “...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” I totally dig the idea that by sharing Christ with others, I can be part of getting a party started in heaven!

The fourth encouraging thing I take from Jesus’ parable is that when we scatter the Word of God, we are fulfilling the highest calling of our lives! You and I were formed in our mothers’ wombs to give glory to God in this way!

1 Peter 2:9 says: “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

As Christians, we’ve been born and reborn to be seed-scatterers!

Today, I think, Jesus wants us to learn one thing and to do one thing.

We’re to learn this: As His followers, you and I have been saved for all eternity by Jesus so that we can be indiscriminate seed-scatterers, sharing Him all the time.

And the one thing He wants us to do is to live that lifestyle, spreading the seed of God's Word about Christ everywhere.

Sign up for serving with Saint Vincent or IHN.

Show up for the next Kindness Outreach or do one yourself with some friends from the congregation.

Look for opportunities to develop relationships with spiritually disconnected people and ask God to help you share the Good News.

Share the Savior Jesus, Who loves you completely, with others He loves completely in all your words and all your actions.

That’s it.

That’s the message.

As Jesus says in our lesson, “Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Amen