The Sower of Seeds

Well, good afternoon again, brethren. Good to see all of you. It's delightful to have such a wonderful group, being able to get together and be able to share the Sabbath, and as was mentioned earlier, to be able to uplift one another. That's a part of our job. That's not just my job, that's your job, and that's a job that you all do a very good job with.

I commend you for that and ask that you continue to keep that up. As I mentioned in our announcements, and as we have coming up here shortly in the next few weeks, we're going to have our Kingdom of God Bible seminars, and they're having them around the country for the most part, beginning on May 12th, and then numbers of others will be on May 19th. That's when most of them will take place. I think all of you know we've had two of these.

We had one last September and one in January, and of course one now here in May, and I would anticipate the next one will be in September, this coming fall. We intend to have these, or are planning these, each four months. And of course, the whole design, or the whole purpose that is behind having Kingdom of God seminars in different locations is to involve all of us.

Involve all of us in reaching out with the gospel of Jesus Christ, even in local areas. Not just on the airwaves, not just on the television, not just in the Good News, not just in booklets, all of which you all know, we make available. We make available free. We'd like to give it away. We'd like people to have it. And yet, to be able to have local contact with someone, to even know that a church exists in the local area, that's a part of the design.

Of course, the focus of these initial seminars has been in Mark chapter 1. And of course, the theme that we've been using that actually runs through all of these is here in Mark 1 verse 14, where it says, after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God, saying, the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel.

See, actually, that statement, the summary that Mark uses as far as what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God has four elements. The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe the Gospel. So we're going to be focusing on repenting. We're going to be focusing on a message that involves what you read, and you actually start reading that very early, not only in what Jesus taught the disciples or what he had to say, but as they got into their work as the church, right after the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and 3.

You read through those chapters and you find that Peter makes two very clear, definitive statements about the fact that you just killed Jesus Christ. And you need to repent. You need to turn. You need to understand what's going on in this world. You need to understand how valuable, how much you need Jesus Christ. And that's ultimately a way of thinking about it, a way of stating it that I have come to believe is really, it's remarkably significant in this world today.

Because people have so many distractions. They have so many ways of being distracted, so many sidelines, so many things to take them away from what we could see and what we surely all say is such very, very basic foundational definition in our life. And that's an understanding of our need for Jesus Christ. We need Him in our lives.

We need Him in fueling our work. We need Him, of course, to come and save the world because the Kingdom of God needs to be established. This world needs to be rescued. And yet all of that's going to be done through Jesus Christ. Well, as I think about our seminars, and I want to, in a sense, kind of give what I hope is some encouraging information today.

Because I know, as I've thought of the seminars that we've had, and the kind of the system that we've been using, and the sign-up list, and how it either works or doesn't work, and how I know that we've tried to send out some cards or letters at times. And of course, other areas, I'm sure, are all trying to work through all of that same type of, you know, trying to decide what to do, you know, when to do it, or how to do it, or where, how far out to send things.

It really doesn't have clear definition. And, of course, you know, as all of us know, we probably haven't had as many people attend as we'd like. At least I haven't had as many people attend as I would like.

Yet, I know in other places there have been significant numbers who have been able to come, and been able to be a part of that seminar in different locations. But I know here, you know, we had several people attend our first session here in Kansas City. We had several people attend over in Topeka initially.

We've had, in our second session, I thought, oh, and we've got 29 people signed up. That doesn't mean anything. We all learned. That doesn't really mean... I mean, we have found, at least from watching over, you know, from four areas and two times now that we've done it, now the sign-up hasn't always indicated who's going to be there, because maybe people show up who you had no clue would be there. And then other times, you know, you find, well, someone showed up, but they didn't... or they signed up, but we never saw them. And so, in a sense, when you think about it, you know, we've not really seen...

and of course, at times, we may not have anyone, you know, who's brand new attending the sessions. And so, we've not seen too many attendees or even people who then later have followed up with learning and wanting to learn, wanting to know more about the kingdom of God. And so, the question I want us to think about is, should that discourage us?

Should that discourage us? Or should that cause us to be lethargic or indifferent to the doing of our seminars? Should it cause us to feel like we're not really doing any good? Of course, I can tell you the answer to those is no, it shouldn't. But I'd like to explain or look into what I've kind of outlined here as just an outlook on evangelism.

An outlook on our public proclamation of the gospel. How it is that we can view the messages that we have in our local areas as Bible seminars. How we can view those in a way that I think is positive and uplifting. And of course, it is our job. It's our job to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. And I hope, in going through some of the information that we can find in the Bible, I hope that it can instill a sense of enthusiasm, a sense of zeal in all of us for the work that God has given us to do.

Because even though we've had relatively low numbers as far as people who have attended, we don't know why. We will have this coming time. I know what the sign-up list says. I don't have anyone signed up in a couple of areas who have got one person signed up up in St. Joe. I've got eight people signed up to come here. Now again, I told you that means nothing. As far as knowing for sure, someone is going to show up. But those are kind of encouraging to at least get some people who appear to want to come or at least know when the date is.

And yet, we have covered in the past Matthew 13. We've talked about the parable of the sower, the sower, and the seed, and the soils. We've gone through that parable. And even that parable is something I want to focus on a little more today and in a totally different way. Because there are numerous other things that we need to keep in mind as we all involve ourselves in reaching out, as we make ourselves available. See, really, the effectiveness of the Bible seminars that we are having begin with just making it known that they exist.

And see, that's being done over our telecast. If anybody sees the telecast, it's advertised three or four times throughout that half hour. It's being said to thousands of people. People who are listening, people who have some interest in what the United Church of God teaches. And so they're being told, if you want to go to a Kingdom of God Bible seminar in your area, then more than likely there's one reasonably close to you.

And of course, you all know, as you get to Good News magazine, that there's a big fold-out, kind of in the middle of it, that advertises. So, everybody who takes the Good News, if they read it at all, if they take a look at it, if they even open it up, they probably see the page that folds, I think it's probably in the middle, if it's probably on purpose, to be able to say, you know, are you interested in coming to a Kingdom of God seminar.

That is being made available. And then, of course, if we were able to send letters or cards or whatever else we might be able to do, all of that is a part of sowing the seed. I'd like for us to look at Luke 8, because you've got another account. It's the Luke's account of what we went through in Matthew 13. But here it says in Luke 8, verse 4, when a great crowd gathered in people from town after town came to Jesus, he said in the parable, and so this is, of course, Jesus' parable, the sower went out to sow his seed.

And as he sowed, some fell on the path, and it was trampled on. And the birds of the air came and ate it up, and some fell on the rock. And as he grew up, it withered for lack of moisture, and some fell among thorns. And the thorns grew and choked the seed, and yet some fell into good soil. And when it grew, it produced a hundredfold. And as he said this, he called out, let anyone with ears to hear.

Listen. Now, he goes ahead to explain the parable, and that's not my purpose today. I went through that with you before. And I believe all of you understand this parable, because it's clearly explained down here in verse 11 through verse 15. It talks about the explanation of what the parable is about. It's about different soil that this seed falls on, that the sower has sown. And so, how is it that we can approach our job? Because we are the sower.

We, as a church, are the ones who are going to sow the seed of the Word of God. And I think we all should think about, how am I individually doing that? Is it my responsibility to individually do that? Is it only collectively the church's job to do that? Or should we not all feel an individual responsibility to be involved in sowing that seed in some way? Now, the seminars are a way that we are corporately doing this. It's a way that we are collectively doing this in a unified way, which is wonderful. And that clearly gives us a focus. It gives us direction. It gives us purpose. It clearly lines out. It actually gives us experience. Maybe that's what we're learning more than anything. We need experience in being able to present information to an audience other than like we're doing today. See, for the most part, I believe that most all of you understand and believe whatever I'm teaching. You know, I think you already know what it is that I'm teaching. And yet, of course, being human, we need reminders. We need to be encouraged. We need to be uplifted.

So we meet together, as God tells us to do, and we benefit from that fellowship. We benefit from communicating with one another. But see, do each of us have a responsibility in sowing the seed? I want us to think about that. The first thing I'd like to mention is back in Isaiah 55. Because whenever we think about our efforts in reaching out to the world, we believe that in each of our lives, and that in the lives of those who will yet come into the church of God before Jesus returns, we believe that God has had to intervene and draw us. That's what we believe. That's what I believe about myself. I don't believe that that would have ever occurred without God's intervention, without God's calling, without His opening my mind to understanding or knowing something that I didn't know up until that time. But here in Isaiah 55, I want to—I haven't found Isaiah yet, so it'll be a while, I guess— here in Isaiah 55, I want to just focus on one verse here, because this is our two verses. This is a very powerful verse. Because the fact is—and this is actually the first— I guess I've got about seven things I want to mention—but this is the first of those things. As we think about our presentations, as we think about our seminars, as we're thinking about our reaching out to others. Here in verse 10, Isaiah 55, it says, As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and as they do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So he's saying, as God waters the earth, He waters it through rain and snow and sleet and hail sometimes. But He provides that moisture in order for there to be growth, for ever the grass and the trees and the shrubs and everything to thrive. So He says in verse 11, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and it will succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

He makes a very bold statement here. Just as the water produces what God intends for it to produce here on the earth and watering the earth as I send forth my word, it won't return to me empty. It will accomplish what I purpose. It will succeed in why I sent it. And so ultimately, I think what we need to keep in mind, and the first thing just about our seminars, is if people hear and respond and want to continue to grow as Christians, if they're going to do that, it's not going to be because of how it was that Mr. Johnson, or myself, or anyone else spoke. It's not going to be because of smooth words.

It's not really going to be because of any high-tech presentation.

And we can try to figure out PowerPoint as we have it available to us, but it's not really going to be because of any smooth speaking on our own. It's not going to be because of how we happen to put together the presentation. We want to try to do that the best we can to make as much sense as we can. But see, the real power behind the message that we have to give is the Word of God.

See, the Word of God that we are teaching, that we are preaching, that we are telling people to look into, look at your Bible, study the Bible. I talked to a man this past week.

He's at least expressed a little bit of interest in the Church.

I believe he has some difficulty understanding things really easily. And yet, I tried to explain certain things to him that I thought would help. I thought this is what he probably would need to know. And after a while, I figured out, I'm in left field here. I'm not helping much.

So then I asked him a very significant question. Do you have a Bible? No, I never have had one.

Well, I think that's where I should begin. I think I should begin. Here's those Bibles we've been collecting back here. I need one to be able to understand what he expressed as his limitation.

I said, you need a Bible. That's the first thing. We need to figure out how to get you a Bible.

But what I'd like for you to do, as far as with the Bible, and so I've tried to read the Bible. And that's beyond me. I'm not able to read that and have it make sense.

And I said, well, I want to make it as clear and simple as I can. I'd like for you to, if we can get you a Bible. He said he'd get a Bible. He said, I'll get one. But I said, I want you to read Luke. He wrote Luke down. And he said, after you read Luke, I want you to read Acts. That's all. I want you to read the whole thing. Just read a couple of books. Now, even that, it may be difficult to do. I don't know. But at least I told him, well, that will give you the story of what I think has all the answers. The story of who has all the answers. The story of who has the words of eternal life that have power, that are life changing. And of course, I mentioned that to you in hopes that he will do that. But also to just point out, in a sense, we have to kind of figure out where people are. What do they really need? Well, they may not need a brilliant sermon. They may not need a brilliant PowerPoint. They may need something much more basic. But ultimately, and for absolute certain, the power of whatever we do is in the Word of God.

It's in the Word of God that is able to change lives. Because see, it's changing us. It's working.

It's working in us. And we want to be keeping that in mind as we reach out to other people in helping others to know what it is that we, in many ways, take for granted. Most of us are very familiar with teachings of the church. We could actually say we are a pretty highly biblically literate group. And yet, you can't really say that for many people in the world. And many people who could, and who would like to come to a service. So, the first thing is the power is in the Word of God. And it's in its ability to change someone's life. That's wonderful. That is absolutely fabulous. The second thing I want to mention, and this is kind of in connection with what we saw in the parable that Jesus spoke. Let's look at Matthew chapter 10. In the parable that Jesus spoke, He talked about different types of soil.

He talked about different types of soil. Now, the last of those four types of soil was the good soil. That's the soil that all of us would try to categorize ourselves in. We would want to be in that section. We would want to be a good soil. We want to be producing 30 or 60 or 100.

We would want to try to stay out of the thorny soil, which clearly could also be a difficulty that we can run into, so we don't want to negate that. But what about those first two?

The first two types of soil, well, one is rocky. Nothing would grow. It wouldn't take root, even if it did start growing. It would just wither and die, and the other is on the cement.

They must not have cement like I have at home, because my cement can grow more grass where I don't want it than anywhere in New York. But in the parable, he talks about a follow on the path, and just getting the birds eat it, and it goes away. See, the fact is, in that parable, the response depends on the type of soil. See, the response doesn't depend on the seed. Now, the seed is good, and the response doesn't really depend on the sower, because the sower's doing the job. But the response depends on the soil. What type of soil? Here in Matthew 10, as Jesus was beginning to teach his disciples and those who would later be his apostles, in Matthew chapter 10, in verse 5, he'd given them a mission. He'd send them out. He'd send them and tell them to go to, let's see, go to where among the Gentiles, enter no town of Samaritans, go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go proclaim the good news, the kingdom of heaven is near. So here he was starting. They were very new at this.

This was the first kingdom of God Bible seminar they had ever done, and they didn't know what was going to happen. And yet, what you see a little later, as Christ continued to work with his disciples here, he says, if the house, and he was saying, as you go to a town or village, and if someone invites you in, if the house is worthy, then let your peace come upon it. But if it's not worthy, then let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, then shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I tell you, it'll be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, but more on the day of judgment than for that town. So here he tells them, well, you know, go where, you know, people would want to know whatever you're saying. If people don't want what you have to say, if they don't want what the words of light are, well, then you can't pound that into their head. And so the second point that I'm wanting to pass on to us is the response depends on the type of soil. And of course, it all does come down to us as well, that, you know, we want to be in good soil. If we want to be producing, we want to be growing. And that's a part of the parable. But you also see that Christ mentioned other categories. And of course, I'm sure he did that for a reason. He did that in order to help us to be encouraged. The third thing I'll mention, and this is already very obvious, the Sower, 1 Corinthians 3, is where I'll read one verse in this connection. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. This actually just points out again something that's very obvious, and yet I hope it can be encouraging to us. 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 3, starting in verse 5. Now here in this case, the Corinthians are fighting among themselves. They're arguing over who's in charge. They're arguing over who's going to follow whom.

You know, they have division. They have difficulty. And of course, he says in chapter 1, don't let division divide you. Be united in the same mind and same purpose. That is a part of the culture of the church of God. That's what we wish to do. But here he says in verse 5, what is Apollos?

What is Paul? Obviously, well-known ministers at that time. He said there's simply servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord assigned to each.

And so here he says these two sowers, Paul and Apollos, they're simply people that you came to believe through. And I think in many ways, many of them, at least initially, came into the church because of Paul. Because Paul was directly there in Corinth for a long period of time.

And yet, he says these men are simply servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord assigned to each. He set it up. He created the setting. He created the opportunity.

And these men, these ministers, just did their job. They just did what I told them to do.

See, the sower has his work to do. He goes on to say, I planted, Apollos watered. So he's saying, Paul, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. For neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth. See, what does that tell us?

Don't do the job. Moan about it. Grown about it. No! It says, do our job. We're simply the seed throwers. We're simply the water carriers. That's all we are. And we want to appreciate that role because we want to learn the joy of sharing the Word of God with others. And that's our job. That's our responsibility. As we already mentioned, the real power is in the seed. It's not in the sower. It's in the seed. It's in the life-changing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the kingdom of God that Christ is going to bring to the earth. And so we want, as Paul is mentioning here, look, you know, Apollos and I, we're working together. We're on the same team. We're trying to achieve the same thing. We're doing a little different things as far as the work that we're doing, but ultimately, God is the one who gives the increase. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 9. 2 Corinthians 9, Chapter 6.

This again explains a little more about the process. And see, we can think back ourselves about how this process transpired in our minds. It might have been something we grew up with. It might have been something we were introduced to at a young age. It may have been something we were drawn into later in life. And yet, what it tells us here, 2 Corinthians 9, Verse 6, the point is this, the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Now, he's talking about a number of things, but, you know, this principle that he points out, that if we sow sparingly, then we can anticipate reaping sparingly. If we sow bountifully, then that's how you can reap more. If we want to reap more, if we want to reap more, then we ought to just sow more. It doesn't mean we should quit sowing. It means we should keep sowing, and that we should keep sowing even more.

And I know that we're all limited to a degree about how much we can do that, but it certainly is something that we want to keep in mind. Actually, ultimately, the goal should be, how many can we teach? How many can we introduce the message of the Kingdom of God to? How many can we reach out to a message of hope, a message of sanity, a message of security, a message that would appeal? See, that's what we want to do. And, of course, you say, in connection with this, it's kind of an explanation of how sowing and reaping work. You have to sow, and then ultimately you reap. It doesn't say how quickly you reap. It just says you've got to keep sowing. And so, that's what not only the job of the sower is, but that's how Jesus even talks about it here in John chapter 4. In John chapter 4, you see Jesus describing His work. He said in verse 34, My work food is to do the will of Him who sent Me in to complete His work. Do not you say, four months now or more, and then comes the harvest? But I'm telling you, look around and see the fields. They're ripe for harvest right now. See, Jesus' perception of what was going on right then, of looking around at all of the people, was far different than the disciples. They weren't quite sure what to do or where to turn. They said, look around you. There are people here that you can reach out with the gospel. You can reach out with service. You can reach out with love. You can reach out with concern. He goes on to say, verse 36, the reaper is already receiving wages in his gathering fruit for eternal life so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. But here, this saying is true. One sows and another reaps. So even though those go together, sowing and reaping. However much we sow, we will eventually reap. But as he points out here, he says, this is also a need to be understood principle that one sows and someone else may reap.

We can think back again to some of us. How long did it take for God to ultimately transform our mind to where we knew certain things and then we knew certain things and we knew more things and we finally realized, why am I not fully engaged in this? Why am I not completely immersed in what it is that God has shown me? See, it takes time. And of course, any of you try to grow anything in a garden or if you try to grow Mr. Wellburn out there on his farm trying to grow whatever he's growing out there. You grow wheat out there now? No, just garden. Okay.

Well, it takes some time. You know, whenever he got stuff planted, that was the initial part, whether it's seed or whether it's planting a plant. You got to hope that the plant grows some and ultimately, ultimately, and all of you of course have if you have gardens or grow anything, it takes time and ultimately you reap. Ultimately, it doesn't happen all of a sudden and so, you know, that shouldn't minimize our desire to sow. Our desire to sow the seed of the word of God and the excitement that we can have with that. Of course, we believe that God creates circumstances where He extends His calling. If you look at Acts 8, you can read through that. I'm not going to go through all of these, but in Acts 8, you find a situation where the Ethiopian eunuch wanted to know about God. And God worked it out, Acts 8, He worked it out where Philip would come in contact with this eunuch.

And again, I'm not going to read through the whole story, but see that was something that God orchestrated. He brought Philip wherever he needed to be to be able to find that this man who had a certain level of education, he had a certain level of Bible education, he knew something about the book of Isaiah. He said, I don't have any idea what this is talking about, but I think I need to know. And ultimately, Philip was able to talk with him and he could explain to him, well, you know, this is talking about the answer to all the problems that human beings have. This is talking about the hope of eternal life. This is talking about the source of living water. This is talking about Jesus that you need to accept as your Savior. He could explain about Christ, about the kingdom of God. God worked that out, and of course, we appreciate that. Here in chapter 18, this is just one of the incidents where you find, and of course, you read throughout the book of Acts, and you find that Paul is going from one place to the next, and sometimes he's getting kicked out, and sometimes he's getting kicked out and goes right back.

And other times, he's waiting for something else to happen. And yet, here in Acts 18, it says in verse 1, after this, Paul left Athens, he went to Corinth, and that's where he found Aquila and Priscilla, and he was able to stay with them. And it says in verse 4, every Sabbath, he would argue in the synagogue, would try to convince the Jews and the Greeks.

And so he was in a foreign country. He wasn't from there. And yet, he was in Corinth. He was in Greece. He was in a city that people clearly needed help. They were not close to God.

They didn't know God. They actually even professed that we don't know God.

And yet, what you see on down here in chapter 18, verse 9, Paul was probably relieved at that point. He'd already been thrown out at several places.

See, none of us, you know, primarily have been thrown out for preaching the gospel of some place. We might have had run-ins with people, but you know, not like Paul did. You know, not where they were, you know, trying to chase him down and kill him because of what he was doing, because of what he was preaching. And yet, God told him, well, don't worry about this. Don't be afraid. Go ahead and speak. Go ahead and sow the seed. Go ahead and preach the gospel.

For no one's going to lay hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.

There are many in this city. There are many people in this city who will come to a receptivity of the gospel, of the truth of God, of the message that you are preaching and teaching. This was something that I'm sure Paul was glad to see, and it says he stayed there for 18 months teaching the Word of God among them. See, he was actually, this was the initial kind of development or installation of the Corinth church. Now, as we read 1 and 2 Corinthians, they struggle with a lot of things, but there had to be a beginning. And what we find in this account is that God sent Paul there. He'd been a lot of places. He'd been thrown out of some, and yet God was quite clear in telling him what he can find here in Corinth. These people are mine!

You can help them. You need to do your job. You need to sow the seed. You need to do that with excitement. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he was glad to know they're not going to throw me out. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to preach and teach. And even if he runs into a certain level of opposition, if he runs into some difficulty, then he's just simply not going to work and worry about it. He's simply going to do the job that God had asked him to do. And so, we can apply that to ourselves as we realize that we're working together with God in this process. We want to realize that it's not just us, it's God and us. And we hope it is God working through us. That's what we pray. That's what we ask for. That's what we yearn for. And of course, God's the one who does open doors. If we go over to 1 Corinthians 16, you see that terminology used here in Paul's writings.

God's the one who not only opens doors for preaching the gospel, he's the one who opens people's minds to understand it. He's the one who has to give them that receptivity. So here in 1 Corinthians 16, verse 8, he says, I'm going to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost. Another reference that we have to the Holy Days in the New Testament. Not only is it in 1 Corinthians, it's in Acts, it's in the latter part of 1 Corinthians, the Days of Unleavened Bread earlier.

He says, I'm going to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, and for a wide door, for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

See, Paul realized, well, God's opened a door. He's opened a door for me to be here and for me to preach the gospel. Over in 2 Corinthians 2, probably a page over, in 2 Corinthians 2, you see another incidence. Again, just understanding that God is the one who opens the doors and the one who opens the minds of people if they're going to be receptive to the Word of God.

Here in 2 Corinthians 2, it says in verse 12, When I came to Troas to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, a door was opened for me and the Lord.

But he says in verse 13, my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there, so I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia. He simply was mentioning that, well, things, circumstances didn't work out where I could actually stay and do what I thought I needed to do or where it appeared God had even opened the door. But for us today, we want to realize that, well, this type of description gives us understanding that God really does open the doors. He's the one who draws people. And of course, whether we have one or five or ten, or whether we have none, we understand that God is involved. God is involved in us preaching the gospel and the benefit that that is to us, and certainly the benefit it can be to others. The last thing we'll mention here is just simply the power of prayer in our evangelism.

The power of prayer. See, all of us, I'm sure, pray that people will tune into the telecast, that people will want the good news, that they will not only want it, but they'll actually read it. They'll actually benefit from it, that God would open their mind. And the power of prayer is extraordinary. Here in Acts chapter 10, you see an account here. And again, this is when God was initially starting to bring Gentiles into the church. And yet, that's not a part of what I'm focusing on here. Cornelius was the individual that Peter would address and who God would actually work with to bring into the church, initially, Gentiles. But see, what is it that we see about Cornelius here? In verse 1, chapter 10 of Acts in Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, who was a centurion of the Italian court, as it is called, and he was a devout man.

He was a man who feared God with all his household, and he gave alms continuously to the people, and he prayed constantly to God. That was very clearly an individual that God could probably very easily work with. He was already praying to God. He may have been praying for help. He may have been praying, I need peace of mind. I need a sense of security. I need to know the purpose of life.

He doesn't say what he was praying. He just said he was praying to God, or he was involved in that. And then who did God send to help Cornelius and to give him open his understanding to the truth of God? Well, in verse 9, about the noon, the next day, as they were on the journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. So again, here we find a servant of God. He was doing the work, but he was praying. He was praying that God would help him. He was praying that God would open to him an understanding of what it is he wanted him to do. He mixed those two together, both of them praying, one wanting something and one wanting to know how can we be brought together.

And you find great benefit in the power of prayer that God would work with these people. And, of course, in this case, he was going to bring Cornelius into the church as well as his whole household. And initially, he was going to begin then to work with the Gentiles. And, of course, the latter part of this chapter is about the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit. And if God was going to give the Holy Spirit, they certainly ought to be baptized. So, you know, they went ahead and achieved that as well. And yet, I point this out just simply, you know, that none of us can take for granted the value, the significance, or the power of our prayers to God about Him drawing people to Jesus Christ, bringing them to a recognition of their need for Him. And here in Colossians 4, you see Paul giving an instruction that all of us can easily follow today.

We can follow this as we prepare, you know, for our upcoming seminar here in a few weeks.

We want to make physical preparation for that and be able to, you know, have that all together.

But probably far more importantly, we want to do what it says in verse 2. It says, Devote yourselves to prayer. Keeping alert in it. Keeping alert in prayer with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the Word.

That we may declare the mystery of Christ for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly as I should. See, that was Paul's request of the church in Colossae to be a praying church, to be desirous of reaching out, desirous that God would turn people's minds in praying about that, and praying that he would be able to effectively communicate the message that he knew he had and that he had been appointed as an apostle to take that message to the Gentile world. In this case, he was in a congregation that was, to some degree, thriving, and yet it was a Gentile congregation. It was growing, and yet he told them, in order to continue to grow, in order for the gospel to continue to expand, in order for the work to be achieved in as great a degree as we can possibly do, then I want you to devote yourself to prayer, and I want you to pray for the success of the message that we are able to present. That's what he asks us to do.

So, I hope that some of these points, and of course there's a lot of other things that we could also cover or go through here as we think about our role in the Bible seminars, but I hope you realize that our efforts are, in a sense, only beginning. We want to continue to do these.

Really, the key to evangelism, the key to reaching out to other people, is perseverance.

We want to continue to persevere. We want to continue to do our job. We want to continue to sow the seed, and we don't know whom God will bring to an awareness of the need they have for Him. Those who persist in sowing eventually will bear fruit, and so I encourage us to continue to do that. Here in 1 Corinthians 15, the last verse we'll use, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58, he says, Therefore, brethren, be steadfast, be immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord.

He was wanting this church that was struggling and really was needing all kinds of encouragement and help. He says, just keep doing what you can do. Keep doing what you can do to help preach the gospel, to help support my efforts in preaching the gospel, as Paul was telling them. Brethren, be steadfast, be immovable, always excelling or abounding in the work of the Lord, because, he says, you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. See, our efforts, you know, whatever they might be, we want them to be not only well-intentioned but well put together. We want them to be biblically based and that's clearly what we're striving to do. But he says our efforts are not in vain if we're doing that in the Lord. So, I encourage all of you to look forward to our upcoming seminar, to be praying about it, to be appealing to God, that he will open people's minds, that he will bring people to whatever location, you know, they might be able to come to. And not only here, of course, we've got these lectures going on in many hundreds of places around the United States and several places in the world.

And so, we want to pray for the success of all of those. But I just ask that you not be discouraged, but be encouraged, and that we are blessed to be able to be a part of a work that God has commissioned us to have, and one that he is causing us by doing it, to grow, to be a part of his divine family.