AdAgrA 2023: Digging Deeper

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Plenary

Kameron DeVasher

Why Was Jesus Always Talking About Plants?

Daniel Nicholls

From Pot Grower to Gardening Teacher

Our Soul-Winning Bottleneck

Kendra Nystrom

From Artificial Culture to Agriculture

Almost Engaged

Gabriel McClover

Vonnella McClover

We Walk By Faith

Aubrey Seiler

Vivian Seiler

Ricky Seiler

Alane Waters

Tom Waters

Sabbath School: Black Box Thinking

Who Fed the 5,000?

Well, I don't know if we're gonna go that far.

But I can tell you that we have been blessed.

Our family has thoroughly enjoyed our time here, and obviously it's not over yet, but as we are able to be knee-deep in it right now, we can look around and see the blessing of the seminars as they were just talking about the interaction with people.

When I go home, I'm gonna plant a pawpaw tree.

I'm gonna make sure to avoid the poisonous foliage around us, too.

We're gonna plant more gardens, and by God's grace, not only feed ourselves and our own souls, but use it as an opportunity to somehow bless someone else.

I hope that's what we're all taking away from this week's experience.

We have another message this morning along our same series that we've been looking at, looking at that cycle of evangelism that's akin to agriculture.

And we're going to pray in just a moment.

But just to quickly set the stage, you remember that there is this cycle in soul winning that is directly analogous to the cycle of agriculture that we're all here studying about.

The Spirit of Prophecy gives us specific counsel about it.

And what we want to do more than just hear about it or reflect on it, is by God's grace apply it in our lives.

So that's what we're aiming for today in a message entitled, Almost Engaged.

Before we do anything, of course, let's start with a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this day of life.

We thank you for the convention that was so well-organized and the participants who have come to join.

The Lord Most importantly, we thank you for Jesus, his work in our lives, and the work in our lives that he wants to do through us.

Lord teach us to be more like Jesus, for we pray it in Jesus' name.

Again, there is this cycle of evangelism that involves sequential steps that are essential for true success in reaching people.

Now, I mentioned that Ministry of Healing 143 quote yesterday, where there's true success is found by following Christ's method alone, And we want to follow Christ.

We saw in his life that he would go through these sequential steps.

Number 1, he would prepare the soil of the heart.

You do that, of course, by ministering to people's needs, being intentionally kind and social, and building confidence by being a genuine, caring person.

Step 1, prepare the soil of the heart by disinterested benevolence.

Step 2, With that heart prepared, the soil softened, you introduce the Word of God, which is the seed for spiritual growth.

You can do that by sharing your personal testimony, inviting to meetings, distributing literature, dropping little seeds in of conversation that might twist from the temporal to the spiritual and start that trajectory going, but you're always looking for, and by God's grace, making opportunities to sow the seed of truth beside all waters, we're told.

Then step 3, when there is response to that spiritual interest, and there's a spiritual interest demonstrated whenever you sow some seed.

If you say, would you like to study the Bible?

You know what, if I haven't studied the Bible, yeah, I'd love to help you out with that course.

I'd be open to studying the Bible, or I'd love to hear that sermon.

Whatever the thing is, the best cultivation, as we're told, as newborn babe, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

You cultivate that precious seed that's now planted in the softened heart through Bible study.

And we talked yesterday about how this third step, especially the transition from 2, in particular 3, is our soul winning bottleneck.

And you can think like, okay, so if I have the courage to prepare the soil of the heart and to sow the seed of truth and the fortitude, the push to go on and go through that difficult, long, arduous cultivation process, well, surely it's downhill from here.

Maybe we can turn it over to a professional at this point.

So if I've already studied the Bible, pastor I'd like to introduce my new friend, here you go.

After cultivating interests with Bible studies, lead those embracing truth to make decisions for baptism.

Decisions along the way and ultimately a total commitment to Jesus Christ in baptism, right?

So you're not only conveying truth and information, by God's grace you're helping facilitate a transformation where those truths will be applied to their lives, a commitment is made to Jesus Christ, and a soul is saved for God's kingdom.

Decisions for Christ are most often made in personal Bible studies or public evangelistic meetings.

When you understand the truth, when you see that it applies to your life, The decision is called for, commitments are made, lives are changed.

And we mentioned this yesterday or a couple of days ago, that crops never harvest themselves.

It's a truth, both in the agriculture world and the evangelistic world.

Crops never harvest them, handy as it would be.

Now I know they have, you know, all kinds of ways you can graft things together and make a seedless something, but I've never seen A crop that can be grown and then self-harvest.

Where you would come in and all of it would be lined up on the countertop ready to be put to use.

Crops when they grow properly just stay right there on the vine or on the tree, just waiting.

We're going to say the same thing is true in soul winning work.

And Jesus was a master communicator and a skillful appeal maker.

You could say a lot of things about the encounters of Jesus, but 1 thing you couldn't say is that he was unclear, that people left like saying, I'm not sure what he meant.

Look at some of the examples of how Jesus would make direct, specific appeals to individuals or groups.

For instance, Matthew chapter 4, when he's calling his disciples, right there at the very beginning of his ministry, it says, in Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw 2 brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

So you're going to follow me, I'm going to make you fishers of men, this is what I'm offering you.

They immediately left their nets and followed him.

Jesus didn't hem and haw around and kind of walk by and smile and hope they caught on and went about his way.

No, he stopped and said, you, follow me and I'm going to make you fishers of men.

So they immediately left their nets and followed him.

Nicodemus meets with Jesus by night and in John chapter 3, it's a fascinating story, they're meeting under cover of night and he says, teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God.

Like, well, if you're, if we know it, how come you're the only 1 here?

And if you're so confident, why are we meeting at night?

So Jesus cuts through all of that obfuscation and excuse-making and hemming-hawing and circumventing.

Jesus answered, most assuredly, I say to you, unless 1 is born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

He goes on to say, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

Now what's fascinating about that story even more so is every time Jesus would say something clear, Nicodemus would say something vague.

You'll notice this sometimes, and you're working with, whether it's personal evangelism or public evangelism, you have the opportunity, you can say things very, very clearly that make complete sense and people will either not understand or they will pretend to not understand.

If you read on in John chapter 3, Jesus diagnoses the problem, why otherwise brilliant, insightful, capable people become stumbling, bumbling, incapable of making decisions.

It's not because their mind isn't there, it's because their heart isn't ready to receive the truth.

He says, everyone who practices darkness hates the light, lest their deeds should be exposed.

It's not like you don't know where the path is, You just don't like where it leads.

So he calls him out, you must be born again, stop all this other stuff.

Now, in the first example, what was the response?

Series

Plenary

Almost Engaged

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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