Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our teaching
series Growing Season, where we are going back
to the farm to learn what the farm has to teach
us about faith. And today is all about tractors,
those big machines that power the farm, that
do all of the work, the plowing, the planting,
the cultivating, the hauling, and so much more.
But what do tractors have to teach us about our
spiritual gifts? Just like the Spirit has specific
jobs for us to do. That's what Rob is going to
unpack for us in today's sermon. 1 Corinthians
chapter 12, verses 4 to 14. There are different
kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes
them. There are different kinds of service, but
the same Lord. There are different kinds of working,
but in all of them and in everyone, it is the
same God at work. Now, to each one, the manifestation
of the Spirit is given for the common good. To
one, there is given through the Spirit a message
of wisdom. To another, a message of knowledge
by means of the same Spirit. to another faith
by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing
by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers,
to another prophecy, to another distinguishing
between Spirits, to another speaking different
kinds of tongues, and still to another the interpretation
of tongues. All these are the works of one and
the same Spirit. He distributes them to each
one just as he determines. The word of the Lord.
We are continuing our summer teaching series,
which we are calling Growing Season. Growing
Season. And what we're trying to do is figure
out what's the connection between farming and
faith, between agriculture and spirituality.
You see, the Bible was written thousands of years
ago, and it was written mostly to people who
were farmers, which is why when you read the
Bible, you see so many stories about, you know,
farms and fields, about seeds and soils. and
farmers, and so on and so forth. But I brought
a little tool with me today that I wanted to
kind of show off to you. And this is a, anyone
know what this is called? A scythe, that's right.
It's a scythe. And you might think, oh, the Grim
Reaper is here. The bell tolls for thee. Or you
may be thinking, Rob should not be handling that
thing in public. But the point is, a scythe is
an amazing tool that you would use to kind of
cut down hay or brush or grain. And you just
keep sweeping it and sweeping it and sweeping.
It's got a very sharp blade, a couple of handles.
The amazing thing about a scythe is, you know,
no batteries, no motor. All you need is a handle.
All you need is a, you know, a sharp blade and
then, you know, some strong arms that can wield
it. It works really well. It works really well
up to a point. right if you had you know maybe
a little patch of hay that you wanted to take
down it's the perfect thing if you had a little
patch of weeds you wanted to clean up it's the
it's the perfect thing but if you had acres and
acres and acres of hay that you were dealing
with well this is not the tool that you want
that would be absolutely exhausting and back
breaking work there is a limit to what human
effort can accomplish on a farm. And that's when
we come to the tractor, right? The tractor changed
everything on a farm. Whether it was the very
first like steam. powered tractors of yesteryear
or the gigantic diesel -powered monsters today.
A tractor brought new power to farm work, right?
Like farmers, all of a sudden, they weren't limited
by what their own arms could do or what their
own backs could do or what their own shoulders
could do. Now they had this source of power that
could pull and lift and haul and move and mow
and cultivate in ways that... that they could
never have managed on their own with their own
two hands. Now, on the farm that I grew up on,
I can remember distinctly during my childhood
three particular tractors that were very important
to us. First was the International 484. This
was a 50 -horsepower tractor, and we used it
mostly to run around wagons filled with hay or
maybe to mow the fields. That was the very first
vehicle, the very first vehicle I ever used.
ever drove as a, you know, 14 year old down the
concession six in Fisherville, Ontario. The second
tractor that I remember well was the Kubota 5040,
5030. It was a, it was a, had a front end loader
on it. And that meant that we used that when
we had to clean out our manure pit or anything
on the farm that needed lifting, got lifted with
the Kubota. It was also about 50 horsepower.
And then of course we had a slightly larger.
tractor, and that was the John Deere 2750. This
was a 75 horsepower tractor, and it could do
some of the heavier work like plowing, cultivating
the fields, or pulling like the baler plus the
wagon behind the baler. And here's the thing
about tractors. Power changes what is possible.
I mean, yes, a scythe can cut, right? But a mower
hooked to a tractor can cut down a whole field
in a fraction of the time. A shovel, yes, can
move a bit of dirt, but a front -end loader can
move a mountain of it. And a person, you know,
can carry a hay bale. And maybe if you're really
good, you can carry one in each hand. But a tractor
can pull a wagon at road speed, stacked with
200 hay bales in it. So this morning, that's
what I want to talk about. I want to talk about
power. But I don't just want to talk about power
as it shows up on the farm. I want to talk about
power as it shows up in your life. Because many
of us go through life with the equivalent of
a scythe in our hands, right? We do everything.
With our own strength. It all depends on us.
It's all about our effort. And I would say that
even Christians are guilty of this too. We serve
God, but we want to serve God completely with
our own power and our own might and our own ability.
And for a while, for a while, that might... even
work if we keep swinging and swinging and swinging
the scythe long enough but eventually eventually
we're going to get tired and we're going to discover
that human effort is not enough to get through
life is not enough no our life was never meant
to run on human strength alone specifically the
christian life is meant to have a whole different
power source. And that power source is what we
call the Holy Spirit. And for that matter, I
should say this, the church is also supposed
to be powered. Not by our own strength or ingenuity,
but by the Holy Spirit. And churches can also
become really good at just swinging the side
over and over again. We work hard. We plan hard.
We try hard. And that is okay. That is okay.
Because faithfulness and effort definitely has
its place. But God has called us to work in a
different way. As Zechariah said, not by might,
nor by power, but by my spirit. says the Lord.
Without the Holy Spirit in our lives, life...
and ministry becomes completely exhausting performance.
But with the Holy Spirit, with the Holy Spirit,
ordinary people are empowered to do the work
of God in amazing ways they could never do on
their own. So today, I want to ask a couple questions.
How does the Holy Spirit help us? And what does
this have to do with tractors? That's what we're
going to talk about. I've given you a few little
teaching notes. If you want to follow along,
I'd encourage you to do so. And I want to get
started by talking about getting stuck and getting
unstuck. This is a good place to start because
I would say that from time to time, all of us
get stuck in life. And it's in those moments
in life that we need a bit of power to help us
get going again. I can remember a number of years
ago, it was winter, and one of our neighbors
drove into our driveway to buy some eggs. We
used to sell eggs at the farm gate. And this
neighbor was driving. A Tesla. It was one of
the very first Teslas I had ever seen. I think
the year was like 2014 or something like that.
And it was a beautiful car. It was sleek. It
was silent. It was high, high tech. And it immediately
got stuck in about three inches of snow on our
driveway. And this impressive high tech car was
stuck and could not get itself out. So what did
we do? We got out the tractor and we got out
a chain. we hooked it up to that dainty little
Tesla, and we pulled it all the way back to the
road with his eggs in hand, right? That is a
pretty good picture of what happens in the Christian
life when we try to run on our own power. Oh,
we can look impressive. We've got our degrees
on our wall. We've got our sparkling personalities.
We've got all this experience. But sooner or
later, we get stuck. We get stuck in bad habits.
We get stuck in... Bad relationships. We get
stuck in sins that are deeply entrenched in us
and we can't break free from them. And yeah,
we try harder and harder and we spin our wheels
a bit, but it just keeps digging ourselves deeper
and deeper and deeper. The hardest part, I think,
of being stuck is admitting that you're stuck
because we think of, you know, asking for help.
as, you know, something that is a sign of weakness,
right? But actually, it's not a sign of failure.
For Christians, asking for help is a sign of
faith. It's that moment where we stop spinning
our wheels and we turn to God and we say, God,
I can't do this. I can't do this on my own. Holy
Spirit, come and give me some power. I don't
have enough power. You know, Jesus once said,
I think I have it up there. Yeah, Jesus once
said, apart from me, you can do nothing. Now,
that's not supposed to make you feel weak and
useless. Like, oh, I guess I can't do anything
by myself. No, it's actually supposed to give
you hope. Supposed to give you hope that no matter
how you're stuck in life right now, the spirit
of Jesus is there. help you so for that reason
spiritual power begins where self -reliance ends
when we finally surrender our own attempts and
our own efforts and we rely on the power of God
instead and this is a lesson I think we all need
to learn This is a lesson I need to learn. This
is a lesson, actually, that the whole church
needs to learn because that church can also be
like a noisy vehicle revving its engine, going,
going, going, but actually not moving anywhere
in the power of the Spirit, right? And so there
is this thing we often encounter that we're stuck.
Is there a place in your life where you could
even admit this morning, you know, I am stuck?
And I don't know how to get out. Whether it's
our lives or whether it's our church, guys, the
Holy Spirit is there to help us in our time of
need. There is power there to get unstuck. So
that's how it starts, right? The Holy Spirit
helps us get unstuck. But secondly, the Holy
Spirit's work involves cleaning out the muck
in our lives as well. You know, on our farm,
we had a manure pit, which you already heard
about. And what actually as gross as it sounds,
one of the most fun jobs I can remember was cleaning
out the manure pit because you got to take the
Kubota. And what you would do is you would back
it up from the pile and then you would lower
the bucket down just to, you know, so it's skimming
the surface. And then you would gun it and you
would run forward and you would jam the bucket
right into the bottom of the manure pile. And
then you'd kind of jimmy the hydraulics and you
would lift up this ginormous bucket of poop.
and you would drop it into the loader, and then
off it would go to be spread into the field.
And when the job was finished, I have to tell
you, there was just something really, truly satisfying
to see all that mess gone. This also is part
of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Yes, it's true. The Holy Spirit is given to us
to empower us to go and do all sorts of great
work in the world. But often where the Spirit
starts is by doing a really important work right
inside of us. And that is cleaning out the muck
in our hearts. And he'll do that work often before
he empowers us for the work in the world. In
fact, Jesus said this was one of the reasons
why the Holy Spirit was going to come. Jesus
said when the Spirit comes, he will convict the
world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
So the Spirit comes to us and convicts us of
sin. He brings truth into places where we have
been hiding stuff and exposes resentment. and
pride, and envy, and lust, and anger, and greed.
And he shows us all the manure that is piled
up in our hearts. And the reason the Holy Spirit
does that is not to make us feel miserable about
ourselves, not to condemn us, but to ultimately
clean us. Because let's face it, the muck in
our lives doesn't disappear just by pretending
that it's not there. It has to be brought into
the light. It has to be lifted up. It has to
be confessed. And then it has to be carried away.
And that is often how the Holy Spirit works.
Before he works through us, he works within us.
And I know sometimes we want the power of the
Spirit without the cleansing. of the Spirit.
You know, we want to get the tractor moving and
going and do something fun and exciting, but
we don't actually want to clean out the manure
pit first. But the Holy Spirit loves us way too
much to leave the muck of our lives sitting in
there. In fact, in our reading this morning,
Paul, he was writing to this church, and this
church had so many gifts, so many powerful gifts
of the Spirit there, but there were also plenty
of muck. And he goes on and on about all the
powerful gifts that they have. But then he also
mentions jealousy. And he mentions quarreling
that exists among them. And so while the Holy
Spirit gave gifts and power to these people,
the Spirit must also clean the hearts of God's
people. And I would say here at Trinity, man,
oh man, God has given us... So many gifts, gifts
for music and hospitality and prayer, gifts for
children and youth and young adults, gifts for
alpha or camp, gifts for outreach, gifts for
care, gifts for leadership, gifts for generosity.
But even good gifts can be mixed up with muck.
And a gift. that say is mixed up with pride,
can have that person start to say that, oh, this
ministry would fall apart without me. Or a great
gift that is mixed up with comparison will have
a person saying, well, why do they get recognized
and I don't? Or a great gift that is mixed up
with resentment turns that work, which should
be life -giving, into something that is heavy
and joyless. So that is why the Spirit doesn't
just give gifts, give gifts, give gifts to the
church. The Spirit also keeps mucking out the
church, convicting us, cleansing us, and renewing
us. So here we go. The Spirit's power can get
us unstuck and get us moving again in life. The
Spirit's power can muck out the manure in our
hearts, but of course, of course, this is the
fun part, when we end up connecting and being
filled with the Holy Spirit and hitching ourselves
up to the power of the Spirit, then all sorts
of amazing work begins to happen. Now, I don't
know, if you didn't grow up around tractors,
then you may not use the word implement very
much. But an implement is a piece of equipment
that gets hooked on to the back of a tractor.
And usually it connects to the hitch of the tractor,
but it also usually connects to that power takeoff
shaft, that PTO shaft that my dad was talking
about. And when you hook up implements, the different
implements will do different things, right? So
one implement will break up the ground. Another
implement will smooth the ground and prepare
the soil. Another implement plants seeds into
the ground. ground a manure spreader spreads
fertilizer a baler gathers hay and you know condenses
it into bales right the tractor provides the
power yes but the implements are all different
and in some way to think about it is it's different
ways of transforming the power for different
and particular purposes And that is a really
helpful way to think about how spiritual gifts
work in our lives. Paul makes it clear. You heard
Bruce read. Paul makes it clear. Not everyone
has the same gift. Not everyone does the same
kind of work. We're all different implements,
if you will. Right? But the same spirit is powering
each of us. Some people teach. Some people encourage.
Some people organize. Some lead. But they do
it all by... The power of the same spirit, right?
Some care for the suffering. Some work beautifully
with children. Some work with youth. Some are
gifted with hospitality. Some people here aren't
even 100 % sure what their gift is even. Maybe
they haven't even fully discovered that yet.
But we're all implements. We're all implements.
We're all created to do God's work. Not necessarily
the same work, but we're all powered by the same
spirit. Paul says to each, to each is given the
manifestation of the spirit for the common good.
To each, not to a few, not to the professionals,
not to the clergy, not to... to the staff, not
just to the extroverts, to each. And why does
God do it that way? Why does he give gifts to
each person? It's for the common good, for the
common good, which means that though not everyone
has the same gift, everyone is needed. Your gifts
aren't just for you, right? But they're for the
common good. to become a spiritual implement
connected to God is not just about finding your
passion or finding your place or finding your
sense of fulfillment. Those things may indeed
come to you, but they are not the point. The
point is that the Spirit gives gifts so that
the whole body can be built up. You know, a plow
is not offended that... it's not a baler or a
wagon is not jealous of a planter and a cultivator
doesn't say, well, why don't I get to do the
mowing? I want to do the mowing. No, each one
has its own work, right? Each one has its own
place and it's powered and it's pulled maybe
by the very same tractor. And each one matters
because it plays an instrumental role in the
purposes of the farm. And that is exactly how
it works with us. Every gift in this room matters
because every gift serves the body. And every
one of those gifts is powered by the same Holy
Spirit. Now, again, you could be sitting here
this morning and saying, I am unfamiliar with
this language. I don't know what a spiritual
gift is. I don't know what I've been created,
what unique work I've been created to do. And
that is okay. Because most people don't discover
their gifts by sitting there listening to a sermon,
trying to figure it out. No, we usually discover
our gifts as we hitch up to God. And we start
serving. We figure out what our gifts are when
we pay attention to see where our work is especially
fruitful and blessing other people. And we discover
our gifts when other members of the church body
start to recognize in us things that we're doing
in especially powerful ways. So like I said,
sometimes you just discover your gift by trying
something. Sometimes you don't know what an implement's
going to do until you get it out to the field
and hitched up and going. And so if you're not
sure what your gift is, I would say, you know,
serve, right? Try something, you know. And then
listen to what others are saying. You know, someone
might say to you, you know, you have a real gift
for making people feel welcome. Or you explain
things in a way that just helps people understand.
Or you just bring calm into stressful situations.
Or when you pray, it really, really comforts
people. To each one is given a manifestation
of the Spirit for the common good. And that includes
you and me. But here's the thing about those
implements. They only work when they're connected.
An implement can be beautifully designed, it
can be strong and sharp and perfectly suited
for a job, but if it's just sitting there in
the garage, it is not doing anything. You saw
in the video how my dad and I were walking around
this machinery lot full of all these big, shiny
implements with great big price tags on them,
but none of them was doing anything. None of
them were actually connected and in use. If an
implement isn't connected to the tractor, then
the tractor just drives away and leaves the implement
behind. The tractor may have power, but again,
if there's no connection between the tractor
and the implement, that power does not have any
purpose. The power can't be transferred unless
there's a connection. The same. It's true in
the Christian life. Spiritual gifts only do good
work when we stay connected to the source of
the power. The spiritual gift that is disconnected
from Jesus Christ just becomes a big ego or performance
or exhaustion. But a spiritual gift that is connected
to Christ becomes service. It becomes a blessing
to others. So the question to ask yourself this
morning is not just what might be my spiritual
gift, but the question is, how am I staying connected
to Jesus? You know, Paul says there is one spirit.
We were all baptized into one body and we were
all made to drink of one spirit. In other words,
we are all meant to be connected to this one
spirit. But notice also, we're also meant to
be connected to each other. So how do we stay
connected to God? Well, we stay connected, I
think, through spiritual practices. Practices
like prayer or practices like worship, like scripture
reading, like confession, silence, solitude.
In all of those ways, when we're spending time
with God, God is transferring power to his people
to do good work in the world. But just be clear,
spiritual practices do not create that power,
right? They keep us connected. to the power right
so so ask yourself this question what practices
in your spiritual life are keeping you connected
to the holy spirit because the church is not
supposed to be a showroom full of impressive
equipment just sitting there on display we are
supposed to be a group of people connected to
christ filled with the spirit's power and sent
into the world for the common good so Let's just
recap so far. Spirit's power gets us unstuck
in our lives like that Tesla in the driveway.
The Spirit helps muck out the mess of our hearts
like the Kubota in the manure pit. And the Spirit
enables amazing work through our lives because
we're all like different implements doing different
things for the common good. But we must stay
connected to God in order for that to happen.
And we stay connected through those spiritual
practices. Let me just end with this. Anyone
who's ever worked on a farm knows that when one
piece of equipment breaks down, the whole operation
feels it. I mean, imagine this. Imagine the hay
has been cut. It's all been raked into nice windrows.
The sun is out. It's shining. It's perfect for
baling. The time has come. The moment is here.
So you get out the tractor. You hook it up to
the baler. But guess what? The baler breaks.
And now you've got a major crisis because if
the baler cannot work in the moment when it's
called upon to work, everything backs up. And
the same way, the whole body suffers when gifts
are unused. The church needs the gifts that God
has placed in you. It's not because you're so
great or you're so indispensable by yourself,
but because the Holy Spirit has chosen to work
this way, to work through the whole body. Paul
says, if one member suffers, all suffer together
with it. If one member is honored, all rejoice
together with it. Now you are the body of Christ
and individually members of it. When people withhold
their gifts, the body is weaker. When people
compare their gifts, the body is divided. But
when each person offers what the Spirit has given,
the body grows stronger. When Jesus gave his
life on the cross, that looked like the biggest
breakdown you could ever imagine. The Son of
God, dead on a cross, buried in a tomb. But again,
it was the power of the Holy Spirit that raised
Jesus from the dead. And when Jesus appeared
to his disciples again, do you know what he did?
The scriptures tell us he breathed on them. And
he said, receive the Holy Spirit. Paul put it
this way. He said, the same spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead is living in you.
So our lives, our church doesn't run on our strength,
does not run on our talent or our personalities
or our programs. The church is the body of Christ.
empowered by the spirit of Christ, continuing
the work of Christ. And like we said at the beginning,
with power like that, anything is possible. So
are you stuck? Are you carrying muck that needs
to be cleaned out? Are you still swinging the
scythe? in your own life, right? Trying to do
things by human strength that only God can do.
Are you hitched up to God? Are you connected
to Jesus through spiritual rhythms and practices?
Are you offering the gifts that you have for
the good of the body? What work has the Spirit
created for you to do? And imagine this, what
might happen? If every person in this church
offered the gifts that the Spirit has given them.
Guys, the Christian life is not a call to try
harder by your own strength. It's a call to be
filled with the Spirit, connected to Christ,
joined to the body, and out in the world doing
God's work. A tractor without implements has
power, but no purpose. An implement... without
a tractor, has a purpose, but it has no power.
But when the power and the purpose come together,
then the Spirit accomplishes amazing work in
our lives and in our church and in our worlds,
not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit,
says the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. Thanks
for tuning in to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This sermon was recorded at Trinity
Church Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario on
July 19th, 2026.