This is Lesson One of  the training manual Kathy and I are writing. We would very much enjoy any comments for improvements and corrections anyone has. We will be teaching this training program for 26 weeks this next year. Please help us by subscribing to this blog, commenting on each lesson, and encouraging your friends to do so as well. This blog is dedicated to helping people on the journey of life, living a life of wisdom and love.

Copyright 2015, Chris and Kathy Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2). In any discipling movement, Christians are asked to hear God’s call and go into God’s field to share the gospel in word and deed. In order to do this, we must hear the voice of God calling us from our current pattern of life, including our some small portion of our  hobbies, activities, and church activities, into the world which is God’s field to share the message and reality of God’s love with those we find there. God is not asking most of us to do anything radical. Instead, he is asking us to order our lives in love and wisdom to make the world a better place by sharing his love with others.

Jesus came to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God. He came to announce that God loves people, forgives people, and wants people to receive his Spirit so that they can live in his power. Mark begins his gospel with Jesus saying, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). To be a part of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of Jesus, someone has to call people to repent, turn around, look at themselves, recognize how far they are from God, and then turn from the kingdoms of this world to his Kingdom of Wisdom and Love.

People will never repent unless they believe there is a better, healthier, more joy filled way of life available in Christ. In other words people must believe and put their trust in the gospel that Christ proclaimed: that God loves us, sent his son to die for us, wants us to be his children, part of his family, members of his kingdom (John 3:16). When we are sent into the harvest, we are sent to proclaim in word and deed the gospel of the kingdom in ways that cause those who are open to hear, believe, and enter God’s gracious kingdom of love.

Our church and other churches are filled with people who have never shared their faith with another person. Some students of discipleship estimate that many, if not most, Christians have never shared their faith with another person. This is too bad. These people are good people. They believe in Christ. They know that their life is better off because of their faith in God. However, they do not have a real heart for those who struggle with a sense of the meaninglessness of their lives. They love their neighbors, but too often miss the emptiness in their hearts and the struggle of their lives.

Romans 8 is one of the most beautiful texts in the entire Bible. Here is the part of what Paul has to say in this lovely passage:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:14-17).

Here is the idea Paul is communicating: God by his Spirit is calling us. He has made us so that we desire to connect with an ultimate meaning and purpose. We have a longing for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. We have a longing for God built into all of our souls. This is reflected in St. Augustine’s famous line, “our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” [1] God in his great mercy has made us with hearts that yearn for meaning, purpose, faith, goodness, wisdom, beauty, and love.

The World is God’s Field

In Mark, Jesus tells a parable of the Kingdom of God. He says that his kingdom is like a farmer who goes out into a field that shows seed:

This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk then the head then the full grain in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe he puts the sickle to it for the harvest has come (Mark 4:26-29).

This parable is a story about the kingdom of God and about sharing the Good News. A farmer has a field. In the case of God, the whole world is God’s field. This is why John can say, “For God do loved the world that he sent his Only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The world is the place where God intends to plant his kingdom and harvest a great crop of human beings filled with the fruit of the Spirit.

Each of us lives and works in some small part of God’s field. We may live in a large city or in a small town. We may live in the center of a city or in a suburban neighborhood. We may live in a wealthy nation or a poor nation. Wherever we live and work, that is our field.

Like any good farmer, God wants to see the day when his entire field is bearing a crop. Therefore, he sends a sower into his field. Jesus was the first sower of the Gospel, but others, the prophets especially, came to proclaim God’s love and God’s will to the people of Israel. In Jesus case, he came into the world to proclaim and to bring into being God’s gracious kingdom of love. Jesus was, however, not the last or final sower. He has sent us into God’s field with the same commission as he received from the Father.

Sowers in God’s Field

In John, Jesus speaks to his disciples one the night after his arrest, trial, crucifixion, death and resurrection. He records Jesus entering the room the disciples were in and then speaking to them:

Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (John 20:19-23).

Jesus spent three years with his disciples sowing the Kingdom into their hearts. As his time on earth was ending, he would no longer be restricted by time and by space. He could be present to his disciples by the Holy Spirit he breathed upon them. What did he say? He said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:22). Jesus had been sent to proclaim the good news of God’s forgiveness of sins. Now, Jesus is sending the disciples into the world to sow the seed of God’s kingdom just exactly as Jesus sowed the kingdom when he was physically present with his disciples. The twelve were going to disciple people, and those people were going to disciple people, and those people were going to disciple people until God’s kingdom grows throughout the whole world.

Jesus never intended building the kingdom of God to be the preserve of a few evangelists or charismatic pastors. God does not want evangelism to be accomplished just by pastors or by specially trained laypeople. The reason God chose twelve ordinary people to be his first disciples is that he intends for all of us, all Christians, to participate in building his kingdom. He wants us to do so where we live, work, play, and meet people, etc.—everywhere we go. Just as God sent Jesus to us, we are sent by Jesus into our world to share the Good News with others. God does not just work through special people to share his love. He works through every heart captured by his love.

The Seed is the Gospel

It is no good for a farmer to have a field and the ability to sow the field if there is no seed. A sower needs seed. In the same way, disciples of Jesus need seed as they go out into the part of the world that is their particular field. The seed is the gospel. Most Christians know of the Gospel, but when asked to put it into words, they do not how to communicate that Good News to others. One of the primary purposes of this study is to equip people to share the good news by developing the ability to communicate it to other people in a simple, concise, non-threatening way.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel. In Jesus’ words, the gospel was the Good News that the long wait of Israel for the Messiah was over. In Jesus, the Kingdom of God had arrived (Matthew 4:23; Mark 1:15). In Luke, the birth of Jesus is portrayed as being announced by angels in such a way that it is clear that the birth of Jesus is the long awaited Messiah. Jesus begins his ministry proclaiming the Good News, saying:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me  to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-20).

The Good News is that the Messiah has come to undo the effects of sin and oppression in the lives of the people of God. As God’s commissioned disciples, we are called to go into the world and continue building God’s kingdom  of wisdom and love, sharing his Gospel just as the original disciples went into the ancient world.

The first disciples, as they went out into the world to share the gospel, had to develop a way to explain to people the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Apostle Paul, who was perhaps the most effective of these early missionaries several times tells his disciples what the Gospel is. Near the end of his ministry, writing to Timothy, his beloved helper, he said: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst” (I Timothy 1:15). Embedded in this little sentence is every element of a good testimony. The way to salvation is Jesus Christ. Christ came to save sinners. We are all sinners in need of salvation. Perhaps Paul’s longest version of the Gospel occurs in First Corinthians where he says:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born (I Corinthians 15:1-8).

In this passage, Paul outlines the gospel in narrative form. He begins by stating the importance of the Gospel. He then tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, emphasizing that Jesus died for sinners, just like all of us.

I Corinthians was one of Paul’s earliest letters. 2 Timothy was one of the last. In 2 Timothy Paul speaks again of the Gospel:

So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (3 Timothy 1:8-10).

Although the context and wording is different, the Gospel is the same. God’s appointed savior Jesus the Christ came because of God’s foreknowledge and was apparent in the death and resurrection of Christ. This Gospel provides a means of salvation for everyone who believe in Christ and accept the gift of the forgiveness of sins and new life God offers them.

One thing we will do in this training is to develop the ability to make a short presentation of the Gospel. For the time being, it might be enough to take the time to write out in your own words what you think the Gospel is. Try writing it down in your own words.

[1] At. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine tr. John K. Ryan (New York, NY: Image Books, 1960) Book 1, p. 43.