Weeping before Reaping

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Transcript:

Turn with me to Psalm chapter 126. Psalm chapter 126, and also you might want to mark your spot at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We’re going to look at a couple passages this morning.

Psalm 126 and 1 Corinthians 3. You know, back in 1988, when they were having the presidential debates, Michael Dukakis, who was then the governor of Massachusetts, was asked a question because the issue of the death penalty and the issue of crime had been a centerpiece of that campaign. And so Dukakis was asked during one of the debates how he would feel about the death penalty, because he was against it, if his wife had been attacked, had been assaulted, had been killed, would he favor the death penalty at that point?

And if you’ve never done anything political, I have to tell you, that is a dream kind of question. Because even though it sounds hard on the surface, asking somebody who’s not in favor of the death penalty, well, what would you do in this instance? Because what you have the opportunity to do there is not so much get your policy position across as to connect with voters.

A question like that where they ask you about your family, they put things in personal terms, is a goldmine of an opportunity to be able to get voters to walk in your shoes and identify with you. What Dukakis did, though, and I’m not electioneering for Bush or Dukakis. I think I would have had to vote none of the above if I’d been.

. . Well, I was alive in 88.

So don’t think this is a partisan thing one way or the other. What Dukakis did was instead of talking about his wife, instead of talking about his concern for her as a husband, he began to lecture the presenter about the ethics of the death penalty and about crime statistics. And from the reports I read, it turned a lot of voters off.

Now, some of y’all may have watched that when it happened. I was just pushing three years old the day of the 88 election, so I don’t really remember it. I remember 92, but I don’t remember 88.

I was pushing three years old, but I’ve seen the video since on YouTube. They’ve got it up there where you can watch it. And what I read in the reports is exactly what he did.

He began to dryly lecture the questioner on crime statistics and the death penalty and missed that golden opportunity to show some emotion, to show some passion, and to connect with people. And the report said it hurt him at the time because people couldn’t connect with him on that basis. Well, folks, we, in our work, in our work as Christians, it’s important, too, that we invest some passion, that we invest some zeal and some emotion at times in what we’re doing.

And what I’m going to tell you this morning is not that if you’ll just go and tell somebody about Christ and cry enough, then they’ll trust him. That’s not what I’m talking about at all. But as we do the work of an evangelist, it’s important that we really are invested in the work we’re doing, that we really do care about it.

And folks, especially when we’re preparing beforehand in our dealings with God, that before we talk to people about God, we need to talk to God about people. And in our doing that, sometimes we need to invest some emotion and show some passion in what we’re doing. Again, as I said, it’s not that if we just cry enough and show enough emotion, we don’t want to guilt somebody into making a profession.

That’s not good for anything. But what we do want to do is genuinely care about people because people can tell when we’re just doing something out of a sense of religious obligation or we’re just doing something out of motives other than our care and concern for them. People can tell the difference.

And I can’t tell you everything else that he said during his sermon, but something that has stuck with me for years. A good friend of mine who’s one of our BMA missionaries in Canada spoke a few years ago at a missions conference and talked about Psalm 126 and said, if you’re witnessing, if your efforts at witnessing are fruitless and you’ve tried everything, you’ve prayed, you’ve studied all you could, you’ve learned the arguments, and you’ve tried to find as many people as you could to talk to, and everything you do, your witnessing just comes up empty, and you’re not seeing anything happen. He said, if all else fails, try tears.

And he wasn’t talking about crying to the people. He was talking about being on our faces before God, talking to God about people before we talk to people about God. I shared with you last week that it doesn’t take certain qualifications and experience to be called to preach the gospel of Christ. And when I say preach the gospel of Christ, I want to remind you that what I’m talking about in this, and this is, as far as I know, the last in my series for now.

We’ll come back and revisit it from time to time, just like the series on worship. But this series on Christ-centered preaching, as far as I know now, this is the last installment of that. But when I’ve been talking about preaching all through this, I’m not talking just about what I do up here in the pulpit.

That’s part of it, but the words that are translated preach or preaching in the Bible just mean to declare something or to make words. And in that sense, if you’ve been born again, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, if you’ve been saved, then you’re called to preach. It doesn’t take special qualifications, but folks, it does take special preparation.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. Psalm 126, starting in verse 4, says, Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. So what the writer of the psalm is saying here, starting in verse 4, he talks about their captivity. And if you’ve been here on Sunday nights or Wednesday nights, we’ve been talking about Hosea and Nehemiah respectively, one on the backside of the captivity and one before it happened.

that Hosea prophesying that Israel was going to be carried off, Judah was going to be carried off captive by the Babylonians. And then we’ve got Nehemiah bringing the people back after the captivity. And this is written and says, Lord, turn again our captivity, talking about taking that time of sorrow, that time when they were almost enslaved by the Babylonians and Persians, taking that time of weakness and sorrow and turning it again into something else.

And when he says, turn it again as streams in the south, streams being water, of course, In the south, the word there actually is Negev. Well, there’s a desert in the southern part of Israel. As a matter of fact, if you’ve seen a map of Israel, you know, it comes to a point at the bottom.

That big pointy part at the bottom is called the Negev Desert. Like any other desert, it’s a dry place. And so what he says is, Lord, turn our times of sadness into times of joy, refreshing times like streams running through the Negev Desert.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. There’s a time for sadness, there’s a time for mourning and weeping, and a time that later on God will comfort and God will bring joy. It says, they that sow, those who plant their seed tearfully will reap in joy.

There will be a harvest, a joyful harvest. And he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. You may say at this point, what does all this have to do with sharing the gospel? What does all this have to do with preaching?

We’ve all heard, I’m sure, the saying that, well, they didn’t get saved, but you planted a seed. We talk about the gospel in terms of planting seed, almost to the point where it’s become cliche now. But that comes also from the passage that I mentioned earlier in 1 Corinthians 3, as one of several places.

1 Corinthians 3, starting in verse 3, says, For ye are yet carnal, and he’s talking to the church at Corinth here. He’s talking to them about their divisions and the fact that one group said, I like this guy the best. The other group says, I like, no, we like this guy the best. And there were factions and division. He’s talking about the division in the church and how there should not be any division in the body of Christ. But at the same time, he comes around to the point of their work together and gives the image of them doing the work of God, of sharing the gospel, of reaching people, of making disciples, and talks about it in terms of agriculture, planting seeds.

He says, for ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? And so he says, the fact that there were divisions in the church was proof of worldliness. While one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?

And so you had two groups there. One says, I follow Paul, I like him the best. And the other says, oh no, Apollos is the best, we follow him. He says in verse 5, and this is Paul speaking, by the way.

He’s even telling people, you don’t need to be on my side. You need to be on the Lord’s side, and you need to be about his work. Who then is Paul, Paul asks?

Who’s Paul? And who’s Apollos? But ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.

He said, we are nothing more than ministers. We are nothing more than servants of the Lord that he used to bring you to belief, to bring you to faith. I have planted, Paul says, I’ve planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

And at times we may have to share the gospel, or not any one of us in particular, but at times the gospel may have to be shared with somebody multiple times before they get saved. Folks, I’ve seen that more often than I’ve seen somebody get saved on the first time you talk to them. And I was trained growing up in evangelism explosion and some other things like that.

Not that they’re bad programs. I use aspects of them still. But I was trained that you’re looking for somebody to make a decision right then. And what I’ve seen here lately is sometimes it can take three months, six months, nine months, a year.

At first sharing the gospel with them, following up with somebody, talking to somebody, nurturing that seed. And it may not be the same person doing all the work. For example, I could tell you about somebody that I shared the gospel with, and I know others did.

And I went and followed up with them. But I know also that some other deacons went and followed up with them. And other men in the church followed up with them until eventually that person came to Christ. Now, it took the seed being planted, and it took the seed being watered.

But folks, there’s not any one of us or not all of us together who are responsible for what happened. God gave the increase. See, without the Holy Spirit of God working in somebody’s life, all the gospel presentations I can give or you can give will fall on deaf ears.

It’s God who gives the increase. So neither then is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. I’m nothing, you’re nothing, God’s everything.

That’s just the way it is. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s just the way it is. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one.

In other words, we’re to be working together in this. And he says that because there were divisions in the church. I, Paul, need to work with Apollos.

You who are members of each faction need to be working together. But even without divisions in the church, it still stands that he that plants and he that waters are one. We’re brothers in Christ. We’re part of the same body of Christ. And we’re working together for the same goal here.

And every man shall receive his own reward according to his labor, his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. You ever stop to think about that, that we, in this sense, and in no way do I mean to imply that we’re his equals, but we get to be God’s co-workers in this.

He chooses to use us to accomplish the work. So I don’t, maybe we’re the tools he uses, but he says co-laborers. We’re laborers together with God.

Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereupon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So he talks here about the planting of seed, bringing them to faith, and bringing them not only to faith, but to maturity in Jesus Christ. See, our job doesn’t stop with people after salvation. One of the next things I’m going to preach about in a series is on discipleship. The need that once somebody comes to Christ, we don’t just abandon them there.

We invest our time, perhaps even more so in them at that point, and help them to grow to what they need to be in Christ, even as we’re trying to grow to what we need to be in Christ. That doesn’t imply that any one of us has arrived. But here in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, he’s talking about the work of sharing the gospel and making disciples and refers to it as planting seed. And folks, we can very easily just go and scatter seed and not really think too much about it.

And it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing to go and share the gospel as far and wide as we can. And sometimes we need to do it whether we feel like it or not, because we are responsible to do it.

Just like any other good thing that we’re to do, sometimes I don’t really feel like dragging myself out of my nice warm bed early on a Sunday morning and coming here. But I do it. Most Sundays I’m glad to get up and be here.

But I’d be lying to you if I said there weren’t occasionally days where I think, I just don’t want to go. And some of you feel that same way. And not just about coming to church.

About anything we’re supposed to do. Lord, I just don’t feel like reading my Bible today. Can I just commune with the remote instead?

Lord, I don’t feel like praying today. And folks, we need to do the right thing and do it out of pure motives, but sometimes we won’t feel like it and we still need to do the right thing. And so sometimes we’re going to have to share the gospel whether we feel like it or not.

But that doesn’t change the fact that before we share the gospel, before we go and talk to somebody about Jesus Christ, there needs to be preparation where in our hearts we’re cultivating the right kind of spirit and right kind of attitude about it. And when he talks here, the principle in Psalms of somebody going forth and sowing in tears, I think there’s some wisdom for us in that as we talk to God about people before we talk to people about God. It doesn’t take any special qualifications, but to be effective in our ministry, there needs to be proper preparation.

We should prepare to share by weeping over the destructiveness of sin. I started thinking today about what are some of the things if we’re going to go and sow our seed with tears and we’re going to be weeping as we’re sowing. What are some of the things, what in the world would I have to mourn about and be sorrowful for as I go share the gospel?

Ladies and gentlemen, the first one is the destructiveness. I’m having trouble saying that word this morning. The destructiveness of sin.

Sin is destructive. Sin is one of the most destructive forces in the universe. Left unchecked, it will corrupt, erode, and destroy everything in If you don’t believe me, how many lives have we seen destroyed?

How many families pulled apart and it all began with a little bit of sin left undealt with that grows and reaches out to infect everything? Folks, we weep as we share the gospel because we weep over the destructiveness of sin. We weep over the destructiveness of our sins.

If we go to do the Lord’s work, we need to do so with a clear conscience and in a right fellowship with the Lord, expecting Him to use us. And folks, from time to time, we need to confess our sins to the Lord. I don’t believe, based on what I read and what I’ve studied in the scriptures, that we lose our salvation because of sin.

But I believe as Christians, we ought not to let sin fester. We ought not to let sin grow. That ought not to be the overwhelming theme of our lives is sin.

And if we are not doing what we’re supposed to do, the fellowship with the Lord is not what it ought to be. So from time to time, we have to confess our sin. And we prepare to share Christ by weeping over the destructiveness of sin in general. It’s a reminder to us.

Hey, I’m about to go talk to these people about their need to repent and trust Christ. Have I repented? Am I really following him the way that I’m supposed to? And it also reminds us of who the true enemy is.

I want you to hear me on this. Weeping over the destructiveness of sin reminds us from time to time who the real enemy actually is. When we’re out knocking doors, or when somebody knocks on our door, or when we’re talking to people in the workplace, or talking to family members, I want to make this abundantly clear.

The Mormon is not my enemy. The Jehovah’s Witness is not my enemy. Folks, their belief system may be my enemy, but that person is not my enemy.

The unbeliever who says over and over, I don’t need your God, I don’t need your Christ, that man is not my enemy or yours. The enemy is sin, and the enemy is Satan. And to recognize the destructiveness of sin and to weep over it, to go to God and ask Him not only to forgive what we’ve done, but ask Him to show mercy and ask Him to work in the lives of people who are snared, who are trapped in sin, and without Him.

To go to Him before we go to them about it, puts things for us in the proper frame of mind, puts things in the proper perspective, that we need to be in a right relationship with God as we go talk to them about getting in a right relationship with God. And we need to be reminded that no matter how much they resist, no matter how much they may offend, the real enemy is sin. We hear all the time, and I don’t like to say it anymore because I realized it didn’t come from the Bible, it didn’t come from a Christian, it came from a Hindu, I believe.

It may have been Gandhi, I’m not sure, who said, love the sinner, hate the sin. There’s some truth in it, but I prefer to say love the sinner and hate my own sin. Because quite frankly, I’ve got enough of my own sin to hate without worrying about yours.

But at the same time, I need to tell you about forgiveness of sins in Christ. But a friend of mine, we were talking a few weeks ago, and he’s in his 50s now, and said, you know, the more I’ve thought about this and been in ministry and watched through life, he said, I realize the wisdom sometimes behind those words. He said, it’s not this tension here that we think about that I’ve got to love them but hate what they do. He said, we hate the sin and we hate what they do because of what it does to them.

Folks, we should hate the sin because of what it does to the sinner. And yes, the sinner is not innocent. The Bible says in Romans chapter 1 that we’re all without excuse.

But at the same time, as people of the same stripe as they are, we ought to have compassion and be reminded that it’s sin that’s the true enemy. And Paul, also in the book of Romans, I’m sorry, Paul in the book of 2 Corinthians, I’ve got my references mixed up here, 2 Corinthians chapter 7, talks about godly sorrow working repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world worketh death, for behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, in what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge, in all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

And Paul gave thanks about the church in Corinth after he’d written the first letter to Corinthians about how wicked they were. It’s one of the major themes. And 2 Corinthians says, and yet there was this godly sorrow and this godly repentance, and you wept over your sin.

He said you were cleared in the matter, and it changed you. And folks, we need to have a proper perspective on sin, and that begins with mourning over sin, preparing to share Christ by weeping over the destructiveness of sin. When is the last time that you or I fell on our faces before a holy God in recognition that I have sinned against you?

I have sinned against him, and so have the people that we propose to talk to. And the same forgiveness, the same undeserved forgiveness that we’ve found in him is the same thing that they’re in need of. When’s the last time we confessed that before God?

And that drove us to talk to somebody about the Lord. Second of all this morning, moving through very quickly, before we preach Christ, as we prepare to share Christ, we should weep over the lost condition of our fellow man. We prepare to share by weeping over the lost condition of our fellow man.

See, Paul said in Romans, this is the verse I was thinking of a minute ago, in Romans chapter 9, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. Paul was grieved in his heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

Now what Paul’s talking about here, he’s not actually saying, I wish that I could lose my salvation so that they could be saved. Number one, it doesn’t work that way. And second of all, nobody in their right mind would want to lose their salvation.

I’m sorry, I want everybody in here to be saved, but I’m not so foolish as to say I’d give up my salvation for any one of you. It doesn’t work that way, and there’s a reason that I did not want to go to hell. But what he’s saying here is that if it could be possible, such is my grief over the condition of my brothers and sisters in Israel, that if it were possible, I could almost wish that I could give that up.

When was the last time we were so moved with compassion, so moved with a heart for the lost around us, that we thought, I would give up anything. If it were possible, I would give up anything for that man or for that woman to be saved. Or do we even care at all?

Folks, if we don’t prepare by weeping over the lost condition, and I don’t necessarily mean it has to be physical tears, but if we are not prepared to share with a desire, with a longing that they be saved, as though it’s the only thing that matters on earth to us, then we are not prepared to share the gospel in the right spirit. One of the great Puritan writers, Richard Baxter, said he preached as a dying man to dying men. As one man in a desperate situation, preaching, begging people in the same precarious, desperate situation to turn and trust Christ and to be saved.

If we don’t have so much concern that it keeps us up at night, that people are dying and going to hell, we are not prepared to share the gospel in the way it was meant to be shared, as a dying man to dying men. And folks, if it doesn’t keep us up at night, I’m not saying you should never sleep, that’s also a bad thing. But if it doesn’t flash through our heads as we try to lay our heads on the pillow at night, that there are still people out there dying and going to hell, and what have I done about it?

If that thought doesn’t ricochet through our heads at night, it ought to. And if we are not moved with at least the least compassion, so much so that we can’t even get up and go share with somebody, even if it might be awkward, even if they might reject us, folks, there’s something wrong with us. Even militant atheists, people who do not believe as we do, recognize this fact.

The famous comedian, I think he’s just called Penn, from Penn and Teller, has said that even though he’s a militant atheist and mocks the things we believe, said, if I was a Christian and believed as you do, that there’s a heaven, there’s a hell, there’s a judgment coming, and that those who don’t believe in Christ, those who don’t trust Christ, are going to hell. He said, there was nothing that would stop me from going to everybody I could possibly talk to and warning them about what was to come. Now, that’s a paraphrase of what he said, but that’s essentially what he said.

Ladies and gentlemen, even a militant atheist can recognize, and when I say militant, I mean they not only believe there’s no God, but they want to make other people believe there’s no.. . They’re a missionary atheist. Even somebody like that recognizes that if we believe what we profess to believe and don’t do anything about it, there’s something wrong with us.

And folks, we need to prepare to share, not just by saying I’m going to learn the facts and go throw them out at somebody, I’m going to weep over their lost condition, because it is literally a life and death matter whether or not they trust Christ. And finally this morning, we prepare to share by expecting God to work and to prepare a harvest. Now downstairs before Sunday school, the deacons and I meet every Sunday morning to pray. And just about every one of us, just about every week, pray that if there’s somebody in the service that morning who’s not trusted Christ, who’s not saved, that they would get saved. People in churches all over the country pray that same thing, that if there’s somebody here today who doesn’t know Christ, but I wonder from time to time, I know we believe God can do everything, and I believe that when we pray that, we’re sincere in that prayer.

But I wonder from time to time, do we really expect it to happen? Do I prepare my messages on Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night with the expectation that God’s going to do something, or would I be surprised if He did? When we prepare to go talk to somebody about Christ, do we expect that God will work in their hearts and give the increase, or are we going to be surprised if he does?

Yeah, I might be setting myself up for disappointment if I come in here every morning expecting that we’re going to have 50 people hit the altar, and that dozens are going to be saved, and we’re all going to get re-baptized whether we need it or not. I may be setting myself up for disappointment, but if I don’t walk in to everything I do, If I don’t walk in every time I preach the Word, not only from this pulpit, but as a believer in general, every time I preach Christ to somebody around me, if I don’t walk into it with the expectation that God is going to do something, I’m not showing a lot of faith in God to begin with. Where’s the power in that?

Where’s the power? Where’s the heart? Where’s the passion and the zeal?

Anybody can go and share the gospel with somebody and expect, yeah, it’s just going to fall on deaf ears. It takes tremendous faith in God to trust. I’m just opening my mouth and planting and watering and doing what God’s called me to do, but I trust that He’s the one who will give the increase. See, if we don’t expect God’s going to do anything about it, there’s never going to be any motivation to preach Christ. And so we prepare to share by expecting God to work and prepare a harvest.