Maximum Impact

Introduction

I am not a farmer nor consider myself knowledgeable about farming. In fact, my attempts at growing much of anything from the ground has been limited. But I do remember one spring in which I worked with my grandparents to plant their garden. They had a fairly large plot of ground which they made into a garden each year. My grandfather owned four acres and ½ to one full acre was used to make a garden. They planted all kinds of things. My grandmother would take the harvest and can it and they would eat off that food all winter. I can’t remember all the vegetables they grew but I do remember helping to plant corn. It was then and still is now interesting to me how one can plant seeds into the ground and in time a plant grows which produces a crop. Fascinating.

There is a text in 1 Corinthians which uses “seed” language to describe the giving of the gospel to others. Paul calls himself the planter; Apollos the waterer; but God is the one who causes growth. Tonight I want us to briefly look at our role in reaching others and take a realistic approach to making a real impact in the lives of others with the gospel message in mind.

Intentional Evangelism

Perhaps the hardest part of this whole series will be this one point. We have talked about loving people; caring about people; being compassionate with people and giving your time to people. All of this was for the purpose of building relationships with people. Rarely does meeting a complete stranger bring about a conversion. It happens often enough that we still think that it may be the best way, but in order to make a real impact with others we must build relationships with them. But loving, caring, and being compassionate come out of who we are. There is nothing contrived; nothing manipulative about this. We make relationships with others because we want to and because we love even as God has loved us.

We have discussed different personality approaches to those we build relationships with. We discussed that we are not all the same in personality and that God can use us as we are to encourage others to think about Jesus. We have even discussed specific approaches to be used. Since we are not always comfortable with coming up with our own words to talk with someone about Jesus, we outlined some specific “speeches” that could be used in talking with another person about Jesus. These were all designed to give us some tools for evangelism and to create greater confidence within us that it is possible to openly discuss spiritual matters.

One of the great myths about evangelism is that all we have to do is live a good example in front of others and they will eventually ask us about our faith. This places the responsibility rightly on us, but then places the responsibility of asking the right questions on the other person. We live in a very superficial world. For all the openness sexually in our society there really isn’t a willingness to talk about things which really matter. We are more than willing to reveal the physical body, but to talk about matters of the spiritual nature is a bit more difficult. There is a reluctance to talk about spiritual matters because it is too personal. This cultural reality influences us as well. We are even reluctant to speak of deeply personal and spiritual matters with each other much less with our coworkers. This is one of the reasons why the myth is so powerful. Live right and wait for our co-worker to ask about our faith appeals to our cultural sense of isolation and noninvolvement.

So we keep things on the surface. But I am convinced that there is a spiritual aspect to every person and that while not every person has tapped into that spiritual dimension, by and large people still have some deep questions which demand answers. The truth is that in order to make the greatest impact with coworkers and neighbors we have to take the initiative to do a little farming. We build relationships with the intention of planting seeds. Questions like “what do you think about life after death?” shouldn’t be asked of a stranger. But such a question can be asked of a friend. We barbeque first so that we develop friendships. After these friendships are built we then search for ways to intentionally discuss the spiritual realm.

How?

This is the key—intentionality. We go to work with the intention of talking with our friend about spiritual things. Why? Because we love them, care about them, and want to give them our time. Because we care about them as people. How do we intentionally plant seeds? First, we see people as God sees them. How do you think God sees you? As a Christian you know that God sees you as his child. Do we believe John 3:16? “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…” Is it possible for us to love as God loves? Not as much but it is possible to love our friends. There is no substitute for building the relationships built upon the premise of love for people. Anything else is manipulative.

Second, we will intentionally plant seeds not only when we see people as God sees them but when we begin to see our life as God sees it. Our view of ourselves is much too diminished. There is a balance which must be struck. There is no room for arrogance, but neither is there any room for believing I am not important in this world. I have often said that most of us will die in obscurity. Our graves will be kept up by people who do not know us, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t important within our sphere of influence. Too often we see our lives as having meaning and purpose only in terms of the physical world. As Christians our perspective changes so that we see our value in terms of the spiritual realm. We understand that we play a significant role because we are spiritual people not only physical. The difference we make in this world is because we begin to see our lives from a spiritual whole rather than compartments. We are more than individuals, spouses, children, parents, employees, and leisure enthusiasts. Our whole life makes sense only when we see ourselves as spiritually whole people. All the different roles we play have their significance in a spiritual frame of reference. Seeing our lives as anything less diminishes our uniqueness and importance in God’s kingdom.

It is vital that we bring our cultural views more in line with God’s views. When we see ourselves and God as he sees then we will become much more intentional in planting seeds. This has nothing to do with guilt. This has to do with spiritual reality. When we say, “I could never talk to another person about Jesus” you are diminishing God’s view of you. When we think “my coworker would never want to talk about spiritual things” then we are diminishing God’s view of people. But when we change our thinking to be more in line with God’s view of us and others, then we see that planting seeds is a priority.

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