The Lord be with you. Ah, some of you did. The response, and with your spirit. The Lord be with you. Amen. Thank you for making the effort to make the Lord's Day special by being here on time. Tonight at 6 o'clock our evening service will include some very fine music, as you can see in your worship folder. And also we'll conclude this evening the series in the book of 2 Timothy, dealing with serving the Lord expectantly.
I hope you'll be back tonight as we conclude the Lord's Day in fellowship together. The rose on the organ today is in honor of Samuel Elliott Dennis, born to Mr. and Mrs. Steve Dennis this last week. We congratulate them and share in their joy. We'd like to welcome any who are visiting in our service. If you do not normally come to Grace Roseville, we're pleased that you're here today to worship with us. Would you be kind enough to let us know that you're a guest by lifting your hand?
Our ushers have some material we'd like to give to you, including a visitor's card we would appreciate your filling out and putting in the offering plate when it's passed. As they work their way up the aisles, and they're coming right now, just lift your hand so they can see you. Thank you very much for doing that and for sharing in our worship service this morning.
As we conclude that process, let me go ahead and remind you that our 1987 Missions Festival begins next Saturday with the Men's and Boys' Breakfast at 8.30. Tickets for that are available in the lobby today. You need to buy them today, of course. This will be the last opportunity. We're looking forward to the ministry of Joseph Ton as our speaker on that morning. He is an exiled Romanian pastor. He is heading now a mission work to the Romanian people.
He has been here before. I don't need to say a whole lot about him if you've heard him. He's very challenging as a man who knows what it is to suffer in serving the Lord Jesus Christ. So men, be here to hear him next Saturday morning. Then Sunday our festival begins. As you leave this morning, you're going to receive the Missions booklet, which will explain the details of the conference.
There is a full schedule printed there for you for, in fact, all three of the churches, Edina, Roseville, and Richfield. We're right there in the middle, and you can see what's happening each day during the conference, November, up through November the 2nd, our faith promise Sunday. There's also, by the way, in there a Missions gram from our Missions Committee, which tells you about all the people who will be here as our guests during the Missions Festival.
Some of these are our own missionaries. Others of them are coming simply to represent certain missions. So please take time to look through this material, prepare yourself for what is going to be, as always, a dynamic and exciting week. And I hope that you will plan, along with your family, to be a part of every part of it. And then may I remind you that tickets for the banquet and also for the women's luncheon on November 2nd are available in the lobby.
Their banquet tickets, in particular, go quickly, so be sure to get yours today. All of us were saddened and shocked this last week with the death of one of the college students who attends here at Grace. Lynn Hummel was a student at Bethel College and was killed last Wednesday in an automobile accident north of the cities. Her family and some friends are with us this morning, and we extend to you our love and our prayers during this time of your loss.
And we want you to know that we will miss Lynn. She was a faithful part of our college ministry, and just yesterday I was calling some visitors to our church over the last two or three weeks, and one of the families had marked down on their card that Lynn had invited them to our church. So be praying for this dear family. The service for Lynn will be tomorrow at 10.30 at the Bethel Gym, if you'd like to be a part of that, and I know that you will uphold the family in prayer.
It is always a very sobering thing when this happens, and a time for all of us to evaluate our lives. As we prepare to worship this morning, may I call your attention to what Nahum wrote, The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who take refuge in him. Let's bow together in silent prayer as we wait on the Lord. Thank you, choir, for that reminder of what we have read in Luke chapter 10.
In just a few moments our elders are going to come and share with you some words, each one of them personally, regarding our ministry plan for 1987. Sometimes we call this a budget. Usher, you can come on ahead. I can see you're confused. Come on ahead. Sometimes we call that a budget, but when we do that, it seems to communicate dollars and cents. What we're talking about is people, the lives of people. Of course, that involves money, and that's part of it.
But we must always look beyond the dollar signs to see the lives of people who can be touched through our ministry. I hope that you'll give heed to the elders as they come. Listen to their hearts as well as to their words, and then join us in prayer as we anticipate our missions festival and the response on the part of all of us to the challenge of ministry for 1987 on November 2nd and 9th in our Faith Promise Sundays. Would you bow with me, please, in prayer?
Father, I pray that today you would remind all of us that ministry revolves around people and that we minister when we invest our resources in the work of your kingdom so that your work can be expanded in our lives and extended to other parts of our globe.
I pray that as we think in terms of next year and what you would have us accomplish as a church and what that will cost in terms of money and the part each of us will have in debt and what it will mean in terms of our personal involvement in ministry. As we pray and consider and ponder these things, I pray the Holy Spirit will do a work in our lives so that our faith will not be small, that we will step out in faith and obey you.
Father, we have been reminded this last week in terms that none of us can escape the brevity of life and how important it is that we invest our resources while we can, not knowing when we will hear your voice and be called into your presence. Make us good stewards. I want to pray for this dear family, the Hummel family and their friends who have come with them this morning and others of their friends who are here because of our mutual love for Lynn.
I ask you to comfort and minister to their hearts by your grace in a way that is beyond their ability to explain or understand. May they sense your presence and even your hand in the circumstances of the last few days and know that you do all things well and rest in that. I pray that you will use the service tomorrow morning. Bless those who will be leading it. Grant that through the words spoken, hundreds of student lives will be touched and changed and dedicated anew to Jesus Christ.
These things we pray in Jesus' name. We'd like to share with you this morning just a few minutes of what the Lord has impressed on our hearts pertaining to ministry opportunities in the budget for 1987. The staff and the ministry leaders gave input to the elders for the budget. We've reviewed it and made some adjustments, and in some cases we've asked ministry leaders to go back and make the appropriate adjustments.
One of the things is John Benham has requested that he be relieved of the responsibility of the church administrator starting January of 1987. The elders have not reached a decision on that particular matter at this time, but as soon as we are able to we'll bring you additional or more information about that.
But for Grace Church to continue with the vision of reaching out to our community and to the world, we're going to have to step out on faith because we're looking at a challenge of a million dollar budget for 1987. To put that in proper perspective for some of you that don't know what the 1986 budget is, that's a little over $150,000 more than our 1986 budget.
Now this morning we're only going to share that one number with you, but in the next few weeks and in the near future we'll be giving you the detail of that budget. The important thing for us to pass on this advanced information to all of you and for us to consider it ourselves is so that we can seek the Lord's guidance in what we will be doing in our upcoming faith promise commitments.
I might add though that the opportunities that the Lord will be presenting to us will even be far greater than that included in a million dollar budget. In the name of a few other things that would be above and beyond the million dollar budget would be financial support for the many young adults that have committed themselves from our church, that have committed themselves to missions. Many of these people are already in training with the intent of being ready to go in the next 12 to 24 months.
And the question is will we be prepared to stand behind them financially as we should? Other opportunities that we need to consider are emergency and contingency funds for the repairs and maintenance of this facility and equipment that we have. Extra debt retirement so that we can look forward to future expansions. Extra debt retirement above what's actually required, the minimum required. Additional secretarial help to work in addition to the volunteers that we're now using.
Many of these kinds of opportunities are going to require us to step out on faith and will and should challenge us far beyond a million dollar budget even that's being proposed for 1987. I want to ask each one of us to take on a special assignment for the next couple of weeks. I'd like for us to search our scriptures for the great men of faith like Moses or Joshua, Caleb, Nehemiah. There are many others that we could name.
What I'd like for you to do is refresh your memory of the opportunities that the Lord provided for them and then study how they prepared themselves for those opportunities and how they responded. It's also going to require us to spend some real time in prayer to determine what our response will be and what our commitment will be. I'd like to leave you with the verse Ephesians 3.20 which points out God's complete sufficiency and his desire to work through us.
It says, Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us. When you serve as an elder it's a real joy to get a total picture of the ministry and all the opportunities that we have as a body of believers to serve our world and our community. One of the most difficult things about the job of being an elder is when you have to get around this time of year and start looking at budgets and then budget cuts.
Because of the vision you have for our community, reaching our community and the world, when we think of budget cuts it's people that we're thinking about and it's things like a Sunday school teacher who doesn't have a place to store supplies they need. It's a teacher that's teaching without the training they ought to have. It's a youth leader that has to leave a new Christian young person home on a retreat because they don't have the funds to attend that retreat.
It's an adult leader that doesn't have the supplies they need. It's a cut in the materials for the evangelism team of the church. It's things like no new music for the choir. It's saying no to missionaries who are waiting and eager to get to their mission field and it's saying no to the millions of people out there who are waiting for them to come. It's not paying off our principal on our mortgage so we have the money we're spending on interest to spend on ministry.
These are the things that get to you when you're an elder and you're cutting a budget. There's great opportunities out there and we feel the Lord has many things for us to do as a people in reaching our world for Christ. We're talking about a million dollar budget. I believe we should be talking personally about at least a million three hundred thousand or a million and a half and I don't think we'd really have to stretch our faith too far to accomplish that.
When I think of ministry, I think of opportunity. That opportunity comes in the theme that we have, stepping out in faith. If we understand what the word faith means, it means trusting and it means obeying. Trusting the promises of God's word and obeying the principles and commands of it. I am finding more each day in my personal walk that the way I do that, the way I step out in faith, is to understand the reality and many realities around me.
First of all, the reality of who God is and what he has done for me. Then to allow the Holy Spirit through his word and through wise counsel to understand the needs, the reality of the needs of you, the body. Also to understand that with those needs we need to train leaders, we need to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, we need to nurture the baby Christians who come in.
Then for God's Spirit to illuminate and to show me the reality of a lost world, of neighbors who are heading for hell right now. For lost tribes, as we have heard reports of people who have yet to hear the gospel in their language. The reality of that, for God's word through his Spirit to burn in my heart, to burn in your heart, the reality of these needs, the reality of who God is that he will provide. My God will provide, your God will provide all these needs.
It's my prayer for you, as it is for myself and my own luck with the Lord, that I will allow his Spirit to illuminate those areas that are dull, to perceive the realities of life, the needs of this body as we will hear in just a moment, the needs of a lost world going to hell, and the reality of who my God is. The one thing being last is that everybody has said everything before me, so I don't need to worry.
But I think we've got to look back in 86 and see the challenge that this church provided for the world. When you look at your bulletin this morning, we looked as if we touched 10 countries in the world, and I know that that's wrong. Because I talked to the Montgomery's, and I think they touched about five or six themselves when they were in Europe. So we've got to take a bow in that, that we supplied the funds for these young people to go and touch the world for Christ.
And our challenge this year in 87 is, yes, step out and face and trust the Lord, because that's the only way we're going to do it. We're not going to do it by ourselves. If we don't trust God to help us when our faith promise comes along, because we've got to sit down as families, individuals, and say, Lord, am I doing what I think I can in this faith promise? And that's the only way that we're going to reach our goals, because budgets change.
As we go through the year, the budget change is unbelievable. We plan, but I think the Lord has other ideas sometimes, and he makes a complete, make us do an about turn. And we have to change in the middle of the year or near the end of the year.
And though sometimes we read in the bulletin there, our budget's this, but if you really sat down in some of our elders' meetings and listened to what we have to do and the changes we have to make, it's just like when we watch television, we can become the great quarterback when we see the play went wrong. Sometimes we look at things and we say, well, why didn't they do this? But we don't. We have a decision to make, and we make the decisions the best we can.
And my prayer is to you people to look at our faith promise this year, and I challenge you to challenge the elders this year with the faith promise when it comes in. Thank you. Two of our men are out of town today and cannot be here to speak, but I thought it was important that you hear the heart of each of these men as they share their perspective on the ministry plan for 87.
We have a great theme for our missions festival, and it's one that applies to our look ahead to 1987, that we might step out in faith as a church and as individuals and families as well. From the youngest to the oldest, that we take a step of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ in all areas of our stewardship, our giving to him. We want to praise him now with our singing. We're going to turn to 63.
And I just feel that John's going to announce we'll sing the first verse only, so I'll just go ahead and say that for him. Number 63. Would you stand please as we sing together? Praise him, praise him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer. Sing our worthiest wonderful love, broken heart. Hail him, hail him, highest arcades involving strength and honor, gift to his holy name. Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard his children. In his arms he carries them all day long.
Praise him, praise him, tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him, ever in joyful song. Please be seated. Imagine the chaos in your home if someone world famous were to come to stay with you for a period of weeks. You might respond by saying, well it couldn't be more chaotic than it is already. Well I can identify with that response. But consider if you will for a moment the extra arrangements that would be necessary. The media demands placed upon you.
The communication equipment perhaps that would have to be installed. And then the effect of that world famous person being with you upon your own public recognition. If in fact a world famous person were coming to stay with you, you might think twice about it. But then on the other hand, consider how exciting it would be to become personally acquainted with that individual. And to have the privilege to invite friends over for coffee or for a meal to meet that one.
Indeed it would be an honor to share such a guest with others, wouldn't it? Jesus stayed for two days in Samaria. And all because a woman was so impressed by a noon time encounter at the village well, that she invited Jesus to come and meet her friends. And they to come to meet him. And Jesus consented and stayed two days in that place. That brings us to our text in John chapter 4 and verse 27. And at this point Jesus' disciples came and they marveled that he had been speaking with a woman.
Yet no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak with her? So the woman left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all the things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is it? They went out of the city and were coming to him. So you get the scene. She's gone back to the city. She has spoken to tell others about this one who has told her all the things that she had done.
They came out of the city toward the well, a distance of perhaps several hundred yards. And as they were in the process of coming out, it says in the meantime the disciples were requesting him saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. The disciples therefore were saying to one another, no one brought him anything to eat, did he? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
Do not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest. Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.
And from the city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all things that I have done. So when the Samaritans came to him they were asking him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word and they were saying to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world.
You have a heavenly visitor who is staying in your home, abiding in your life. Has it ever occurred to you that others might be eager to be introduced to him? Our theme during this fall spiritual adventure is opening our homes to Jesus. We have been talking about the various results when we do that. Today we talk about bringing others to meet the King. When we open our homes to Jesus we are concerned to do just that.
I would like for you to look closer with me at the private instructions which Jesus gave to his disciples as recorded in our text. These instructions were quickly given as the people from that city in Samaria were on their way to the well. What Jesus says gives us a basis for an invitation to others to meet our King. I am speaking particularly of verses 34 through 38. Notice in the first place Jesus' priority.
Jesus says to his disciples privately, There is something that is more important than even the necessities of life, like food, and that is the will of God. You see, Jesus knew that life is given with a purpose. That it is not an accident. It is not given by chance. In fact, he was aware of this even at the age of 12, that he had an assignment from his father to fulfill. Must I not be about my father's business? He said to Mary and Joseph.
Later he summarized it to the crowds around Zacchaeus' house when he said, The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. That was the will of God in Jesus' life. That was his priority. He was willing to forego even the eating of food so that he might fulfill what he knew his assignment was. That is to seek and to save that which was lost. Now of course you and I today cannot save the lost. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could do that.
He paid the price by his death on the cross of Calvary. He rose again from the dead that he might be the Savior of the world. Only he can save the lost. But you and I can seek them. You and I can search them out and seek to introduce them to this King and Savior. Should that not be our priority? Can we not say that the will of God for you and for me in summation is that we might seek to introduce others to the King? And then look if you will at Jesus prodding of his disciples.
He says to them, Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? That may have been the agricultural situation at that point or it may have been simply a saying from that day that Jesus was quoting to them. But the point is given in the last part of the verse. Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes. Look on the fields that they are white for harvest. Jesus is saying, not four months from now men, right now, right now. And he prods them. He says, lift up your eyes.
Look at the fields. They are white, ready for harvest. Such would be the look of the barley fields in that area at the harvest time. Jesus undoubtedly, however, had in mind the Samaritans as they were coming out of the city to the well. As they marched along, undoubtedly dressed in white, they looked like a harvest of barley coming to him. And he says, men, look. Lift up your eyes from your present circumstances, talking to me, and look over there. Do you see those people?
The harvest is ready to be reaped, not four months from now. Not when you finish your training. Not when you saved enough. Not when you've gotten past the next goal in your life. Not then. Now, men, now is the time of harvest. And then his promise is given to them beginning in verse 36. He who reaps is receiving wages. He's talking there about the honor of being a reaper. A reaper is rewarded for his work. And he says he is gathering fruit for life eternal.
That doesn't mean that by reaping a man gains eternal life himself. That's not the meaning here. Jesus is saying he is reaping others, and because of his work in the field, they receive eternal life. That he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. The promise of Jesus is this, that reapers will receive wages. Or to put it in another biblical language, reapers receive rewards.
We're going to talk about that somewhat tonight as we look at the close of the Apostle Paul's life in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Reapers receive rewards. If we're involved in the harvest, God will repay us for that work. And he says sowers will share in it too. Notice that Jesus says, in this case the saying is true, that one sows and another reaps. He says, I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. What is Jesus saying here?
Well, he may have been talking about Moses. Moses who sowed the truth of God's word among the people of his day. Perhaps he had a more contemporary figure in mind in John the Baptist, who preached repentance to the nation of Israel. It may be that he had the woman in mind. For she went back to the city, you see, and sowed in the sense that she said to them, come and see a man who told me all the things that ever I did. This is not the Christ, is it?
Jesus may have had in mind himself sowing as he sowed to the woman and through her to the people. But whatever Jesus says to the disciples, others have sowed before you. Now I'm going to allow you to reap the harvest. His point is this, that those who sow and those who reap rejoice together in what is done. The facts are that some of us are sowers and others of us are reapers, primarily. Not that we all shouldn't sow, we should. Not that we all don't have the privilege of reaping, we do.
But by the spiritual gifts, the personalities that God has given to us, some of us tend to be sowers and others of us tend to be reapers. The one should not compete with the other, for both are essential if a harvest is to be reaped. We work together. We sow. We reap. And together we rejoice in what God does and we receive from him a reward for our faithful service. That is Jesus' promise. His priority, the will of God. His prodding, men look at the harvest. Now is the time to be involved.
His promise, those who sow, those who reap, together rejoice and will be rewarded. He exhorts his followers to become involved in the spiritual harvest of the world. Now you and I today are not untaught as were his disciples as they returned from that city. For we have heard Jesus' instructions to them. Now we have to respond. Dare we to stand idly by as the harvest in the world proceeds?
Some of us need to carefully think about our priorities as compared to the priority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you, can I honestly say today that the will of God is the number one priority? Whatever God wants in my life, that is the thing I am after. That's what I want to be achieved. Whatever the price, whatever the cost to me, my food is through the will of my Father in heaven. Some of us need to hear his prodding words when he says, lift up your eyes and look.
We need to become aware of the harvest around us. One of my favorite cartoons was in a yearbook a number of years ago of Snoopy. Snoopy was out in the middle of a field of grain that was ripened. The heads of the grain were bent over and heavy. And he had his head about that far above all the grain and it was turning around in circles. And the caption was, where's the harvest? And you know, doesn't that describe us so often? We get excited when we hear about the harvest fields of Asia.
And let me tell you, they're ripe. My heart was challenged as I saw the ready response of people on this missions trip a couple of weeks ago. When I was able to perceive that one can stand up before a crowd of 10,000 and a thousand will easily respond to trust Christ. The harvest fields of Asia are ripe and they're ripe in other parts of the world, but let's not forget that there's a harvest here as well.
Now it may be true that there is not the ready response of people in our society that there once was. We can't say there won't be again. We pray, God, there will be a response again, a spiritual waking in our nation. But even if there is not, the harvest is still here and there are people who need to be reached for our King. Some of us need to hear the prodding words of Jesus to open our eyes and look, to look beyond the present reality of things, to see the spiritual needs of people.
It's easy for us, isn't it, to work with people, to play with people, to live with people who don't know our Savior. And most all we see about them are their circumstances. We see them only in one dimension and we forget that they are human beings like we are and behind that dimension that they project there are real needs in their lives and they are, they can be made responsive. God wants us to look, to lift up our eyes, to see the harvest. Some of us may need encouragement as did they.
Encouragement to be involved as reapers or as sowers knowing that we will rejoice together, but encouragement to be involved in the Lord's harvest. We live in a world that is like a ripened harvest field and it is our privilege to follow the example of this woman ourselves and thus become active workers in the harvest. You say, how can we do that? How is it that we can really bring others to meet the King? Let me suggest several things.
First of all, and I think this fits together with our full spiritual adventure, we can use our homes to do that. We can use our homes as a means to bring others to the Lord Jesus Christ. For you see, He is a world famous person who lives in our homes. We can invite others to come in for coffee or for a meal and in the course of the conversation have the privilege of introducing them to the King. It is a natural and comfortable setting in order to do that work.
The Lord wants us to use our homes, I believe, for loving hospitality, resulting in others seeing Christ in us. I know you had a message a couple of weeks ago on the difference between hospitality and entertainment, so I won't go into that, but I do call it back to your memory. I would like you to turn with me though to Luke chapter 14 and to look at some words of Jesus that are especially stimulating. For here we have some instructions of Jesus to those who would invite others into their homes.
Luke 14 verse 12, and He also went on to say, to the one who had invited Him, you have to understand that Luke 14 is largely table talk. It's an occasion when Jesus was reclining at a table with some other people. He has already spoken to the invited guests. Now He turns to the one who invited Him, and He says, when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and repayment come to you.
When you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed since they do not have the means to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. The Lord Jesus says here to you and to me that when we think in terms of using our home for hospitality, that we go beyond the usual limitations that we set. That we look at those who have genuine need and we invite them. His point is that they may not be able to return the favor.
Therefore, God will at the judgment. When we invite those who are in need to enjoy the hospitality of our homes, it is a test of our motives. Our motives then must truly be selfless, for we will not be asking them that we might receive something in return, but only that they might be introduced to the King. And it is those who are in need who are most aware and most sensitive to their need for Him. We may ask the question, who are those in need? Who should I invite into my home?
Well, let me consider some categories, some possibilities for you to consider. And I want to urge you to do that. I am not saying don't invite others. What I am saying to you, consider using your home as a means to help others to come to know Christ, particularly those who have need. For example, what about those who are elderly? Some of the most lonely and needy people in our society are the elderly.
When I visit in some of the homes for the elderly in our area, in addition to being impressed with some who take good care, I am impressed that there are others where people are basically warehoused until the time that they die. I realize that that's a rather harsh way of looking at it, but that's really how it seems.
And when you walk down the corridors of these homes and elderly people look up at you with eyes wondering who you are, wondering if you are going to smile at them or have a word of greeting even, let alone a personal word of love or kindness, you cannot help but have a heart that goes away burdened. Have you thought about calling one of the homes in this area and saying to the administrator or to the nurse that you may talk to, I or our family would like to adopt one of your residents.
Can you give me the name of one who doesn't have a family and is lonely and in need? And once you have that name begin ministering to that person, what about that as a possibility? Or you may want to consider another avenue. All the time there are families in our community who are bereaved because of the loss of a loved one. These are moments when families are often most open to spiritual truth, especially those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ.
In that moment they are filled with all kinds of questions and they don't know where to ask them. And so often even their religious leaders don't know the answers. Have you ever thought about writing a note to that family you hear about that has suffered a tragedy, just expressing your love and concern, the fact you're praying for them, just say if I can be of any help to you, would you please feel free to call me? Maybe you would even want to bake something and take it to them.
Or in some other way show tangibly your love and compassion. But is that not a way that we can minister to people who are in need? May I suggest the poor? I must confess to you that after being in Manila and seeing the poverty that exists there, my response is we hardly have poor in this nation in comparison. On the other hand, in terms of our own society, there are those who have great poverty.
There are children in the city of St. Paul who don't have enough nutritional food to eat or good warm clothing to wear. Have you thought about going down to the inner city and getting involved in some ministry there, finding out a family that you could minister to, that you could invite to your home in the suburbs or wherever you live, so that you might make them feel loved and at home and be able to introduce them to the one who is visiting in your home this fall?
Did I talk about those who are punks? I know how that word has often been used, but you know today it does have particular meaning. It's these rather strange looking people that you see here and there around with clothing on that is unusual and hair to match. We look at them and often it's with despite, isn't it? You know that's exactly what they want us to do. They're trying to get attention and for some reason want that kind of response. What about loving them?
What about walking up to a punk if you dare and saying, how about coming over to my place for lunch? Can you imagine how that person might respond? The initial response will probably be rejection of you, but that only comes out of a super, out of deep hurt, but it's a superficial response. Keep after that person. What about those who are suffering from AIDS? You see a person like that?
Yeah. You see there are people all around us who are truly in need and who are reaching out saying, where is someone who cares? Where is an answer to my dilemma? You and I have an answer in Jesus Christ. Let's use our homes as a setting to do that work. By the way, on page 27 of your journal, if you have one of those, there's a box to record the use of your home this way. It's one of the bonus disciplines of our fall spiritual adventure.
Maybe you hadn't thought about doing it, but I would encourage you to do it. As we think about how to become active workers in the harvest, let me suggest that we look for those who are experiencing crisis in their lives. Beyond just those who are in need, let's talk about those for a moment who are in crisis in their lives, like the man in Luke 10, for example, of which we read earlier in the service, and of whom the choir sang.
This man in the parable of the good Samaritan who was mugged and left for dead. Jesus tells us there that compassion is not measured by how much trouble that one sees, but rather by how much trouble one will go to in order to assist one who is in a crisis. So we talk about abused children, abused wives, who are in a moment of crisis needing somewhere to go. So we talk about the one who is experiencing the desperate loneliness of an unwanted divorce, and who is in crisis because of it.
What about the victim of a rape, or the family that has lost a child from sudden infant death syndrome, or perhaps the family that has lost all of its worldly goods in a fire, or maybe it's that one that you know who is disappointed because of a failed romance. All of these are crises, and there are people all around us today in this room who are in some of these crises. Can you look for someone who is experiencing a crisis? And then will you do more than just look and pass by?
Will you minister to that one in crisis and show some real tangible caring and love? It's too easy for us all to respond as did that man that Jesus spoke to in verse 29 of Luke 10, who said, well, who is my neighbor? I mean, where do I get started? And Jesus' response to him basically was, don't worry about who your neighbor is, answer this question, whose neighbor are you? Find someone.
Finally, I want to say that as we talk about being workers in the harvest, it's particularly appropriate for us to look upon the wider opportunities. For just a week from today, we begin our missions festival. You know, there are those that we can never invite into our homes. There are those that we can never touch with compassion by a personal act because they live in a country far from here with a different language and different customs. How can we be involved in their meeting Jesus?
Well, of course, the first way is by prayer. Not prayer in general, but an intelligent, understanding prayer for the support of a missionary on a particular field. In our conference, you will have an opportunity to become a prayer soldier for at least one of our missionaries so that you can write to that person. That person can write to you, share specific needs.
You can study about that field, go to the library, check out books, get your encyclopedia out, find out something about that country, and begin to pray intelligently. That's one thing you can do. You can also talk about money. We've been praying the prayer that God would show us how to make our resources available to him for the work of his kingdom. We'll be responding with our faith promise in a few weeks. Our children is another way that we can respond. For many of us here have children.
We can be involved in encouraging them in the direction of international ministry. There is a price to pay in doing that because they may go. And there may be a separation of several thousand miles, like some in our church know, from their children who are serving the Lord on some mission field. But, oh, my friend, the joy of sharing in the reward of that individual that you encourage to go and you're willing to give up to go, we can give of our children to speed them on their way.
We can give ourselves for full-time work. Perhaps it's in the pastric or in the mission field or in some other area of ministry as we flew into the station where the Linettes and the Palmers are serving on the island of Taliabu, who were flown there by a man who 20 years ago was a pig farmer down in Indiana. He owned a large swine farm and was a pilot. And God called him to be a missionary.
So he sold all of his animals, intended to sell his plane but crashed it a week before he sold it, and went to learn how to translate the Bible. But once he got there and they discovered his abilities, they said, we need someone to head up our aviation ministry in this part of the world. Will you do that? He went and got extra training in aviation. And for the last 15 or 20 years, he's been a pilot in various parts of the world, the last several years in Indonesia.
A heart for God, a man who was called in his mid-30s to give up his vocation and go to the mission field he obeyed. What about short-term? Giving us several months or a year or two years to some part of the world, we can give of ourselves as we talk about how to be involved in helping these other people meet Jesus. Let's think in terms of international students who are here in this country. But we don't have to even get a visa to minister to them.
And they're here looking for someone who will teach them the common things from our culture and teach them some of the English language. By the way, there's a training session next Saturday for those who want to be involved in international student ministry. Hey, here's the point. When we open our homes to Jesus, one of the responses is that we want others to meet the King.
Do you feel that privilege to help others to meet him, to make him known, using your home, employing your resources to make it possible? Some of us are very good at analyzing the scene around us, but how good are we at seeing the spiritual realities? As Jesus said to his disciples, we need to lift up our eyes and look and see the harvest right here. But we are in a harvest field. What is your present involvement in sowing and in reaping?
In 1877, Charles Luther heard a certain Reverend A.G. Upham tell of a young man who was about to die after living only one month as a Christian. Regretting his fruitless life, this young man said on his deathbed, I am not afraid to die, Jesus saves me now, but must I go empty handed? Having heard that story, Charles Luther wrote the hymn. It's not in our hymnal, unfortunately, but sometimes we have sung it in the past. Must I go and empty handed?
Thus, my dear Redeemer, meet, not one day of service give him, lay no trophy at his feet. Not at death I shrink or falter, for my Savior saves me now, but to meet him empty handed, thought of that now clouds my brow. Oh, the years in sinning wasted, could I but recall them now? I would give them to my Savior, to his will I'd gladly bow.
And then he writes in the last verse, oh, ye saints, arouse, be earnest, up and work while yet is day, ere the night of death, or take thee, strive for souls while still you may. Let's pray. Our Lord, forgive our carelessness, our lack of enthusiasm for inviting others to come to know you. Forgive us for living in the harvest field and not being involved either in sowing or reaping. We would not go into your presence and be empty handed. Our hearts are smitten with conviction.
I pray that today you will lay in our hearts specific ways in which we can be involved in the harvest by using our homes, ministering to those who are in crisis, being personally involved in this harvest field and those around the world. Lord Jesus, cause us to be aroused, to be up and at work while the day of opportunity is ours. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. I wonder if by the uplifted hand you would say God has spoken to me and I have in mind a specific response to this message.
I know what God wants me to do and I might invite others to meet the King. By His grace I intend to do it and here is my hand to say so. Yes, God bless you. Oh, there are so many. Yes. Any more? I know what God wants me to do. Pray for me and I'll do it. I have a plan in mind. Oh, God, thank you for these who have lifted the hand and I pray specifically for them, use them and multiply them so that we might be effective harvesters in the world for Jesus' sake. And in His name I pray. Amen.