Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: I read the story recently of a guy named Jeffrey Sims, who several years ago was in this place in life where he was working in the fire department in the city that he lived in. And he was he just said this. He said, "Man, this is this point of my life where I did not want to be around people." He said, "I was a workaholic and I was a gym rat." He said, "I'd been away from church for a long, long time."

And quite honestly, what I felt on the inside, he says, was that where I was in life, that God really didn't want to do anything with me and that there was no way that I could get back to a place of being in right in step with him because God wouldn't want somebody like me around. He said, "But there was this old dude at the gym that he went to, and he said that he was a member, he was always working out." He said, "His schedule as a fireman, he was able to work out at this time on certain days and another time on other days." But three days a week, he would cross paths with this guy in the gym.

He said, "He noticed that he just did a bunch of cardio, he lifted light weights." "But what he did do is he made his way around the entire gym just talking to everybody the whole time that he was there." He said, "He was into heavy powerlifting at that point. Jeff wasn't. He didn't have time to sit there and talk with this guy." But he said, "He came around one day and in the locker room, he spoke to me." He said, "Hey, man, tell me a little bit about your lifting program." So he said, "I just gave him the short answer and yeah, yeah, yeah, this is what I do." And then moved on.

He said, "But he kept talking to me later on in the morning, after working out, just small talk." He said, "I went home that day and I told my wife, 'Hey, there was this crazy guy at the gym that keeps talking to me.'" He said, "He must have heard that I do like renovations or remodeling on the side or that I have my personal trainer certification." He must want something from me.

But he said, "One day, he was working out and the older guy came up to him and said, 'Hey, man, where do you go to church?'" And Jeff said, "It clicked." He was like, "Ah, he's one of those religious guys. He's going to try to get me to come to work." That's the whole reason, come to church, that's why he's been talking to me. He said, "Man, I don't have time for things like that. I just stay busy."

Well, he responded and he said, "Well, man, I'm the pastor at a church in the area and I would love to have you come visit sometime with me." He said, "I went home and I told my wife, 'I know what that dude's up to now. He's one of those, kind of religious people who couldn't help themselves and that was the motive behind the conversations.'"

But anyway, they kept having conversations. Jeff said, and he told him, he said, "Man, every time I'd see him, they'd talk." And it was several months that went by of all these small talk and small conversations. He never mentioned church again. But he said, "He the older guy asked him one day, he said, 'Hey, man, do you like music? Do you like Christmas music?' It was nearing Christmas time." And Jeff said, "Yeah, sure do, man. We really like Christmas music." He said, "Well, I'd like for you to come to church on this night. We're going to have a time where we're just singing and doing a bunch of Christmas music. I'd love for you to come and be a part of that."

He said, "They really didn't have a good reason not to." And he said, "So we went." He said, "It was all right. Thought it was good, enjoyed it." He said, "The guy told him, 'Hey, there's no strings attached to this. I'm not trying to get you with this or anything like that.'"

But he said, "When he walked in the room, he said, what caught his attention is as he looked across the room, he saw several of his buddies from the fire department in years past who there's just something different about them now." He looked across the room and he said, "Man, those were the those were the rough guys, my drinking buddies. Those were the guys that I was doing all that stuff." "And now look at them, they're they're all here in church. Something's different about them."

And he said, "So they started going to church here and there." He said, "But when they went to church, they would slip into the modern service, a contemporary service at that church, and they would sit in the back." And he said, "We would always duck out to be the first ones out the door." He said, "But over time, they got involved in the church. Life was good." He said, "I lightened up a little bit." He said, "And I found that God was willing to meet me and and help me." And he said, "I was able to get my life back on track with the Lord."

He said, "And furthermore, just a few years later, he started to feel this tug in his heart that God was speaking into his life and wanting him to to to do ministry, whatever ministry was." He said, "I don't I told God, 'No, I don't want to do that. I'm going to go to Sunday school, I'll sing in the choir, but I'm good.'" But he said, "Over this process, over a few years, he finally realized that God was calling him to serve other people as that pastor had several years ago at the gym."

And he came to this place where he said, "Yes," and he began to serve. And to this day, he pastures a church in the countryside of the area where he lives. And he said this about that whole thing. He said, "Sometimes, I think we forget the importance of inviting other people to church." He said, "Sometimes, a journey with Christ begins with a simple invite." "There's no way to know," he says, "where anybody is in life at a given moment." "They may be far from God or running from God. They may be in a bad place in their life or they may have even given up on God and church altogether."

And he said, "Your invitation or friendship may be all that someone needs to get back on track and to experience God's plan for their life." That's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes today. I want to talk to you about the power of an invite. In John chapter 4, that's where we're going to be, the Gospel of John chapter 4. So you can go ahead and open up your Bible if you have one. If not, there's maybe one in the seat back in front of you. I'll have it here on the screen for you as well.

But in John 4, there's this account that takes place of Jesus talking with his disciples, where he's going to demonstrate to us, he's going to show us really what's going on when you and I invite someone into the kingdom of God. Or when we, the easiest way we invite someone to begin to experience God's work in their life is to invite them to come to church, to bring other people along with you. So in this passage in John chapter 4, you may be familiar with the story, but Jesus encounters this woman, who has a little bit of a checkered past and she she's a Samaritan woman and they they begin this conversation. Which that's a little bit outside of bounds of social conventions of the day, a dude talking to a woman at the well, it just was kind of outside of what their normal flow would be.

So he has this conversation with her and he's he's inviting her into the kingdom of God. He's expressing to her, "Hey, God loves you and he has some incredible plans for your life." That's how we would say it today. He has this conversation with her and at the end of it, a light bulb goes off and it says she went back into the town and told people everything that he had that he told her, he told her everything that she had done. And she she took a step towards God on this day. And on the heels of that, Jesus' disciples show up right as that conversation is ending. And Jesus' disciples were so just spiritually in tune with what was going on in the moment. Right? Here's what they did.

Jesus is wrapping up this conversation with this lady where her whole life has been changed and they walk up and they're like, "Jesus, did you been here a while? Man, we're hungry. Let's go get something to eat." "Let's go grab a bite, man. You got to be hungry. We're starving." "Man," and they're talking about, he says back to him, "Well, my food, I got food." And they're like, "What are you talking about? You got food? Who gave you food? Man, let's go get something to eat." And then John chapter 4, verse 34, the story picks up.

Jesus answers after they're wondering, "Who got you food, Jesus?" He says this. "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me." "And from finishing his work." He says, "You know the saying, four months between planting and harvest." "But I say, wake up and look around." "The fields are already ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life." "What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike." "You know the saying, one plants and another harvests, and it's true." "I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant. Others had already done the work and now you will get to gather the harvest."

Now, what's going on here? You need to see first that the disciples missed what has taken place altogether. Jesus has just pointed this lady to the kingdom of God and and and they're ready to go eat something. And so he brings it back around, he says, "Guys, man, I need y'all to do something." Did you notice what he said? He said, "I need you to wake up." Wake up. "I need you to lift up your eyes and see what's taken place here." "This lady was hurting and he'd invited her into the kingdom of God." And all they're thinking about is, "Man, I'm ready to go to Zaxby's. It's time to eat something." "I'm I'm hungry." "I need something to eat, Jesus."

And Jesus is like, "Hey, I need you to wake up for a second. I need you to look around and I need you to see something about the world that's around you." "I know you think about food right now." Maybe some of y'all think about food right now. But you need to see something more important than food. When Jesus says the nourishment that I have comes from my father. He's saying, "Man, God has this purpose and this plan. He has this direction for my life."

Now, specifically, big picture, he's speaking of the road that he's walking to live a sinless life and to die upon the cross and to pay the price for our sin, to make us right with God, to offer that to us. And but yet in this moment, he's saying, "Man, the work that God has for me, it's what just took place in that woman's life." "That's what sustains me. That's what gives me strength." And so he he he understands that the disciples are are still just not getting it. So he says, "Let me talk to y'all about something that y'all know a little bit about, something familiar to you." So he starts to talk about farming.

He says, "You know the saying, guys, man, you know that there's a time gap between when you plant something and then when you harvest a crop." He says, "You understand that. You know that it takes a little bit of time." He says, "There's four months between planting it and then when you bring it in, typically speaking." But he says to you, says, "I say to you, wake up and look around." "There's no need to wait anymore. Look around and see where people are. The fields," he says, "are ready to be harvested." He's not talking about corn and soybeans. He's talking about people. He's saying to his disciples and he's saying to you and to me today, if you'll pay attention, you'll see that God is at work around you in the lives of people. He says, "Literally, lift up your eyes."

Now I don't know if anybody else does this or finds himself in this place. But if you got your phone out in front of you, how many of you have missed somebody trying to get your attention for looking at something on your phone? Nobody, just me. Every now and then, I've done that, right? You're looking at your phone, you're you're reading something, you're scrolling something, you're watching something, and people are trying to get your attention. Nobody's ever experienced that? Y'all all lying in church today. I know every one of you have done that.

And so what does it take? It takes your wife saying, "Hey, over here!" Right? It takes your man saying to you, "Hey, girl, I'm I got something I'm trying to talk to you." Or one of your kids getting your attention. And that's what Jesus is doing with the disciples. Man, they're just looking down, they're stuck in right what's right in front of them. And Jesus is saying to them, "Hey, would you just lift up your eyes and look around you, but look differently than maybe you have."

If you don't lift up your eyes, you'll miss it. People are spiritually hungry. And I believe that God has placed you and me right where you are, right where I am in the midst of people to invite other people into the kingdom of God. And so before we get too much further in this, can I just ask you a question today? Are you looking around? Are you lifting your eyes up? Are you seeing more than your responsibilities at work or whatever your next notification is, or whatever other stuff you got going on, your next project at school or your next whatever it is? And do you see, do you see the people that are around you?

You see, we're we're distracted, right? We're all distracted in so many ways. And it's challenging to live with our eyes lifted up like Jesus is challenging his disciples and us today. We're busy, we're consumed with other things. We got our own stuff. We got our jobs, we got our hobbies, our friends, our schedule, and we can miss what Jesus is calling us towards right here. Lift up your eyes.

Now, you may or may not know this, but God is doing some incredible things right now in some very turbulent and unsettling times. Over the last several months, there has been a significant movement across our country, in particular, on college campuses. Where thousands of college students have been gathering together for worship and thousands of students have given their lives to Christ, and many of them have been baptized. But over the last several weeks, it seems as if it's only intensified after the assassination of Charlie Kurt, it seems like this movement's gained even more steam. Did you know that this past Tuesday night, at Thompson Bowling Arena in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee, around 8,000 students gathered to worship? Around 500 people gave their lives to Jesus Christ, and many of them were baptized as a result of that. But it's not just at UT, it's all over the country. And it's not just on college campuses. I believe it's happening in our faith family, too.

Some of you shared, I read a few of those earlier, but there were more answered prayers that were shared, and it just it's such an incredible moment when when you share, "Man, I've been praying for my kids for years and they're open to the movement of God in their lives for the first time in a long time." "Man, my grandkids have come back to church. My brother, my sister, my parents, my children have taken a step of faith. My best friend has decided to to begin to be open to the things of God." God is doing some incredible things. "You've been praying that God would move in your families and with your friends." And people are opening their hearts to the Lord.

This past week, I asked our staff, I said, "Hey, would you guys just tell me where do you see God at work with people opening their hearts with a spiritual hunger and where do you see the people of Bayside meeting folks in that place?" And they started telling stories of person after person in our church who's invited somebody to come with them, who's experiencing God at work in their life, and they're gathering people every chance they can. "Hey, you got to come to church. You got to come to church." Some of you are probably here today because somebody said, "Hey, would you come with me?" That crazy preacher, he talks about Mississippi State all the time, but the rest of everything he says, you're going to like it. Right?

Man, you've been praying, you've been asking God to move. And and and you God is bringing spiritual traction in people's lives. And often, what I want you to hear, church, is it's something as simple as an invite to come to church in the midst of the hunger, the spiritual hunger of our day. Where God begins to work and brings others into the kingdom. So Jesus says, "Man, wake up. Maybe that's look up from your phone, maybe it's look up from all your stuff and see the people around you that God has placed in your life."

Now, God is working. But I want you to think about this in the same way that God is working in your life. God is working in the lives of people who are not yet in the faith, who are not yet in Christ, who have not yet given their lives to Jesus. In the same way that we ask, we're like, "God, I don't understand this circumstance, but I'm praying that you would work. We're trusting that God is working upstream of this moment in each of our lives and in our faith family." But what you need to know is that God is doing the same thing in people who do not yet know Jesus Christ. And he wants you to be involved in that. He wants you to see with spiritual eyes the people around you. He wants you to to see that your neighbor is not somebody that's just doing something that grates your nerves or they're not just whatever or that coworker is not just somebody that you got to put up with or that person at school, but that he wants you to see them from his perspective.

God is at work behind the scenes in your life and he's doing the same thing in the lives of other people. You know, the picture that Jesus uses in this passage is the picture of farming. I think that's interesting that he does that. Jesus is bringing people into the kingdom of God is a lot like farming. I want you to know this, you're not a soldier, you're not a salesman, you're not a drill sergeant. The picture that Jesus uses is that you're a farmer.

And so from this farming metaphor, this picture that Jesus uses and it's throughout scriptures to speak of how people enter into and come into the kingdom of God and what as believers, if you're in Christ, what we're called to do, we're called to be farmers. But I want to share with you three stages that I believe are are a part of you sharing your life and faith with other people. It's not just sharing information. It's inviting other people into the church and into the kingdom in particular, is a whole lot like farming.

Now there's a book I read several years ago, I believe it's called Go in Public with Your Faith that kind of introduced me to this idea, I heard another pastor talk about it, so some of that has shaped what I'm going to tell you today. But I believe that there are three stages if you will wake up, if we will wake up and lift our eyes that we will see God has given us the opportunity to step into with other people. Not as a project, not as some, "Yeah, I did that" or "The preacher said I'm supposed to do that," but genuinely because of what God has done in your life and in mine.

So, so the first stage of farming is this. It's cultivation. Cultivation. Now what does that mean? This this stage is the hardest work. When you get ready to plant a crop or you want to put some some kind of crop in the ground, you don't go and just take the seed and just throw it everywhere. No, not if you really actually want to grow something. Instead, you prepare the ground. I've never farmed, but I have grown a few good food plots in my day and I know that if you want to do it right. You have to invest some time in sampling the soil, getting a sample the soil and figuring out what you need to do to make the the balance in the soil right so that it will grow in such a way, and to get it ready for planting. You have to clean out debris and maybe you have to take a bush hog and cut stuff down, then you have to disc up the ground and make sure that it's ready and soft and ready to receive the seed. You may even have to burn the stuff that's on there to get rid of it. You have to do whatever you need to do to make sure that the ground is ready for planting. You see, to farm, you don't just start with seed and start throwing it everywhere. There's a time of preparation to get the ground ready.

I think when it comes to you inviting people into the kingdom of God, bringing others along with you to church. I think this is this is where you get to know people. No, really. Get to know people. Lift up your eyes, look around you and truly get to know the people that you work with or you interact with often. Let people see who you are and know who you are. Again, not as a project. Too often when it comes to sharing our faith, we're told some tool or mechanism and it just becomes a deal to do. That's not what we're talking about.

Jesus says, "When you look around right where God has placed you, he's placed you where you are and he wants you to see people where they are." "And you need to get to know them." One of the things that can happen, and that's why we talk about this a lot, is that you need to begin with your own faith. We're not asking you at our church to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, do certain things, don't do certain things. That's not what we're about. We believe that God does a work inside us as we allow the word of God to be applied to our lives and the Holy Spirit changes your life and mine from the inside out. It's why we want to call you and encourage you to personally be walking with the Lord. You're not just going to church and doing good stuff and trying not to cuss and being nice to people every now and then. Man, there is this work that God is doing in your life that overflows in every aspect of your life. And so when you go to work, people see who you are, really who you are. When you're in the neighborhood, people see who you are, really who you are. And you can you can live distinctively, not because you're trying to be super Christian or because it's any other reason, that it's the overflow of what God's doing in you, it's just who you are.

Now, make no mistake, what Jesus is teaching us to lift up our eyes means that there is an intentionality to your relationships. Check this, if if you've experienced the power of God in your life, if you have experienced life change. Then your motivation is not because the preacher said or because you feel like you're supposed to. Your motivation is, "Man, God has done this for me. I want that for you." But it doesn't stop there. If all you do is cultivate the ground and you're just focused on just building friendships, if you cultivate the ground to build to grow a crop, all you're going to do if you prepare the ground and leave it alone.