WORKING YOUR PURPOSE

SERMON OUTLINE

WILMINGTON FIRST PENTECOSTAL HOLINESS CHURCH

WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU HERE FOR? WORKING YOUR PURPOSE!

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Paul F. Evans

Introduction (Text: ; NIV)

Matthew 9:35–38 NIV

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

John 4:32–38 NIV

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Matthew 9:35–38 NIV

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

John 4:33–38 NIV

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

“Work your purpose!”

Too many Christians are inactive in the kingdom

-They are lazy, unconcerned, self-focused, and some are busybodies, telling everyone else what they ought to be doing ()! When the chief concern in the church is how we look after one another and keep the organization going and we forget that there are many thousands of souls around our church that do not know Christ, on their way to hell, we have utterly missed the focus of Jesus!

-Jesus spent his ministry for three and half years preaching the good news to people who did not know how to be reconciled to God

-They lived without any hope of salvation

-They flocked around him to hear his message and to witness the power of the kingdom of God, as he healed the sick

-There was no sickness or disease he could not heal, and the greater the crowds, the greater his compassion for them ()

Jesus was moved by the people because he saw them as sheep without a shepherd

-As people harassed and helpless ()

-Jesus look at people in a particular way, not as intrusions and interruptions, or as hard work needing to be done

-He saw them as God sees them, through eyes of grace and love, because they are lost and alienated from God

-This stirred the heart of Jesus to compassion for them, and a desire that they hear the good news

People don't have to remain lost and apart from God, but they can be brought into his kingdom

-Jesus’ goal was to bring as many as he could into the kingdom of God, to be reconciled to him

-This was his mission, he had come to seek and to save what was lost ()!

Development (Text: ; NIV)

1. The Barn Mentality!

A. Believers and church goers often view things from the perspective of the barn

-It's all about what happens in the barn

-How the furniture and equipment are arranged in the barn

-How comfortable or well organized the barn is

-It’s very easy when you are already in the barn to find yourself preoccupied with the barn and even obsessed with it

-You may not even want to bring animals into the barn because you have cleaned it and organized it

-You don't want anything to disrupt it or that might jeopardize all of the hard work you have put into setting the barn in order! B. Animals are messy and smelly, so we need to keep them out

-The farm machinery has been in the fields and is dusty, and smells of diesel or gas

-The farmer has just mucked out the pigs, if he wants to come through the barn he needs to take his boots off!

-No, we are not going store grain or hey in the barn because it will only make a mess!

C. Soon we will have forgotten what a barn is for!

-In fact, the barn has lost its original purpose as the place to store what is produced in the fields tom preserve it!

D. If the church has a barn mentality, then it will spend more time perfecting what goes on in church and less time and energy in the fields where the harvest is

-We may even lose interest in the fields, because it is hot, hard work, and the whole process of getting the harvest in is messy and disruptive

-It effects the tranquility and smooth operation of the barn!

2. The Field Mentality!

A. Jesus obsessed over the fields!

-He viewed lost humanity as a ripened harvest, needing to be gathered in for the kingdom of God

-It was his compassion that gave him that perspective

B. Jesus saw people as valuable to God, lost, harassed and helpless

-They were lost because they had no shepherd to guide them to direct to where they might find life and salvation

-They were harassed because life has a way of pushing and bumping people about, of putting people under pressure and stripping them of control over their own lives and destinies

-They were helpless, because there was nothing they could do about their situation to change or correct it

C. They could only be reconciled to God if God took the initiative to provide a means and shepherd to guide them in to the fold

-Until Jesus preached the good news and made the invitation for them to know God, there was no chance that they might find salvation

D. Jesus saw the world as a field with a plentiful harvest in it, waiting to be brought in

-But there are not enough laborers to go out into the fields

-Pray, Jesus said, that the Lord of the harvest, will send laborers into his harvest fields

-The problem is not a lack of harvest, but a lack of workers to bring it in! -If his disciples are not minded for the fields, then the harvest will not be gathered in and people will be lost

Conclusion (Text: ; NIV)

We need to work our purpose. Our purpose is not to organize and protect the barn, but to bring in the ripened fruit from the fields. It is hard work, requiring sacrifice and focus on the right things. When the disciples came to Jesus at the well in Sychar, they wanted him to eat. But he refused to eat because he was focused on the harvest of souls that was about to come ()