In 1 Corinthians 3, there are various metaphors in the New Testament for the Church of Jesus
Christ.
Those metaphors give a rich meaning to the Church.
These metaphors or analogies can be grasped by the diverse elements of any local fellowship
to help us understand who we are and what we are to do, how we are to function in this
world.
There are metaphors that we have discussed that deal with constructing a building or
with medicine and physiology, such as we saw in the slide presentation a few moments ago.
There's the metaphor of marriage, of family relations, of household items like a lamp
stand or a loaf of bread.
Then there are aspects of agriculture or agronomy that are used as analogies for the Church.
For example, the tending of sheep or the tilling of a field.
It is that last analogy that we find in 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 5.
What then is Apollos?
What is Paul?
Servants, servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each
one.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes
the growth.
Now, he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according
to his own labor.
For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field.
And so the Church is compared to a field which is carefully cultivated.
This comparison is not unique to the Church.
In fact, it is used in a way of Israel in the Old Testament in several places, but I
would invite your attention briefly to the book of Isaiah, to the fifth chapter.
In Isaiah chapter 5, we have what is commonly called the parable of the vineyard.
The Lord writes through his prophet Isaiah and says in verse 1, let me sing now for my
well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill, and he dug it all around, removed its
stones and planted it with the choicest vine.
And he built a tower in the middle of it and hewed out a wine vat in it.
Then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones.
Verse 7, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the man of Judah,
his delightful plant.
Thus he looked for justice, but behold bloodshed, for righteousness, but behold a cry of distress.
And so the Lord explains how his vineyard, Israel, had not produced what he had expected
it to produce.
With all of its advantages, it brought forth only that which was worthless.
And so he took care of his vineyard by laying it to waste.
In verse 6 he says, it will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up.
I will also charge the clouds to rain no more on it.
And so the Lord cared for his vineyard by wiping it out in judgment.
That is the story of Israel.
And in her captivity she was taken away.
But turn over a few pages to chapter 27 and you see the Lord continuing the theme here
talking about restored Israel.
Beginning in verse 2, well actually let's begin in verse 1, chapter 27, in that day
the Lord will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, with his fierce wrath and great and
mighty sword, even Leviathan the twisted serpent, and he will kill the dragon who lives in the
sea.
Probably verse 1 is speaking about Satan and all of those who declare themselves to be
enemies of God.
He is saying there is a day coming when destruction will be theirs.
And then in verse 2 he says, in that day when the enemies of the Lord are judged and punished,
a vineyard of wine, sing of it, I the Lord am its keeper.
I water it every moment lest anyone damage it.
I guard it night and day.
And so here he speaks about his vineyard coming back.
And in verse 6 he says, in the days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will blossom
and sprout, and they will fill the whole world with fruit.
My friend that day has not come yet.
Now either God meant what he said or he didn't.
And if he didn't, why did he write it?
Obviously God did mean what he said.
And there is a day coming when Israel will be restored as is prophesied here, as a vineyard
that is blossoming anew.
Now turn to Isaiah chapter 61.
Even if you have not read the book of Isaiah, you should be familiar with these verses if
you have read the gospels because Jesus read from these.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news
to the afflicted.
Now who is speaking here?
Messiah, Christ.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom
to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.
And you'll recall that when Jesus read that passage in the synagogue, He stopped at that
point and then told the people very clearly that that day had come when Messiah would
come to do those things.
Why didn't he go on?
Because beginning with the next phrase, he describes what he will do with his second
advent, his second coming.
He speaks about the day of vengeance of our God.
He says, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead
of a spirit of fainting.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.
And so when is it that Israel will be restored?
At His second coming.
When He comes first to take vengeance upon those who are His enemies, but then to restore
to a place of prominence and blessing His people Israel.
He is speaking here regarding the millennial conditions, the thousand year reign of Jesus
Christ.
And again in verse 11, he uses this metaphor from agronomy to speak about that.
He says, for as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes things sown
in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before
all the nations.
And so we see in the Old Testament pictures from agriculture describing the people of
God.
As we come into the New Testament, we come in Matthew 13 to several parables that deal
again with agriculture.
And there in that context the Lord is speaking about the present form of His kingdom.
It is in a mystery form.
He is speaking there both about the church and about Christendom.
We don't have time to turn there and read those by the way.
In addition to Matthew chapter 13 where He uses agricultural analogies, our Lord in a
number of parables employed agriculture to explain truth to His people.
Now as we come to our text today, we see the Lord doing that again through the Apostle
Paul.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, He takes a picture from agriculture and applies it to the church
of Jesus Christ.
And He says that the church is a cultivated field.
We are the field of God.
Although this picture of the church, that of a field, is not prominent in the New Testament,
it nonetheless suggests several truths which are worthwhile for our study.
It is helpful if we remember that Corinth was an agricultural city.
It was famous for its agronomy.
Indeed, in the plains below the city of Corinth, there were many crops that were grown including
grapes and currants.
In fact, the word current is a medieval corruption of the word Corinth.
It was famous for what it grew.
And so as the people read this letter from the Apostle Paul, immediately they could identify
with what He was saying when He said, you are God's field.
Let's talk about that this morning and first discuss the purchase of the field itself.
For if one is going to have a field, he must buy the property.
Is that not true?
He must buy it in order to cultivate it and use it for his purpose.
Jesus in Matthew 13 told a parable about this when He talked about a man who found a treasure,
hid it in a field, and then went out and bought the whole field so the treasure could be his.
Let's talk about the purchase of the field and do that by turning to Acts chapter 20
and verse 28.
The Apostle is here speaking to the elders of Ephesus and He says to them by way of a
charge, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God.
Now notice how He says this, which He purchased with His own blood.
The blood of God Himself in human flesh was the purchase price for this field, the church.
You and I are the purchase of blood, the blood of Jesus Christ.
As Paul writes to the Ephesians in the letter addressed to them regarding Jesus Christ,
in whom you have redemption through His blood.
That word redemption suggests the Old Testament concept of kinsman-redeemer.
Are you familiar with that?
The law regarding the kinsman-redeemer was the Leverite ruling which allowed for the
protection of life and property of an Israelite in the ancient days.
If an Israelite for some reason became impoverished and had no means to support himself, he could
sell all or part of his property.
But that was a very serious move on his part.
Very serious indeed because God intended for that property to be retained within the family,
within the tribal possessions.
He did not want the boundaries moved.
And so it was very serious for one to come to the place of having to sell his property
to another.
One method of the land being retained within the family was redemption by a kinsman-redeemer,
a near relative, the Goel.
It is the male who was closest of kin to the one who was poor.
That person was the kinsman-redeemer for the impoverished one.
And he could pay the price for that land and buy it back so that the land would not go
out from the family's possession.
When he would do that, it would be an act of grace on his part in order to preserve
that field for the family.
Interestingly, Isaiah applied this law regarding the land in a spiritual sense to Israel.
We will not take time to read it, but in chapter 48 verse 20, Isaiah says that the Lord has
redeemed his people Israel from their bondage in Babylon.
And the idea communicated there is that the Lord is the kinsman-redeemer of his people
Israel, for they had lost their land because of their spiritual idolatry, and they were
carried away into bondage to Babylon.
But the Lord redeemed his people.
He acted as the kinsman-redeemer to bring them back to their land.
In chapter 49 verse 26 of Isaiah, God is called their Redeemer, and there the term is equated
in the same verse with the word Savior, Savior.
Jesus Christ today is the Redeemer and the Savior of his people, the church of those
purchased by his blood.
We have been purchased by God for his Son, by the blood of his Son.
We have been restored to God as his own peculiar possession by the price being paid by our
kinsman-redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
As God, he came into the world and became man.
Thus, he was qualified as our kinsman.
And as one of us, he went to the cross and there offered himself as only he could as
the infinite God, as the purchase price that we might be bought back from sin and given
to God belong to him.
We have been purchased as a field for God by our kinsman-redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we are his property.
We are his.
I hope that's true of you, that you are one of his, one of those purchased by the blood
of Jesus Christ.
You say, well, how can I know?
How can I be so?
Simply by opening your heart and receiving Jesus Christ into your life.
In so doing, you are made a part of God's family.
You are incorporated, as it were, into God's field by your receiving Jesus Christ, his
living Son, as your Lord and Savior.
Will you today do that if you've not done it before?
I hope you will.
Because apart from that act of yours, there is no salvation for you.
You must receive him or forever be lost.
So receive him today if you've not done that before.
Let's move ahead from the purchase of the field to talk about the promise of a field
because why does one buy a field in the first place except to get something from it?
You purchase a field in order to gain fruit or produce, and that is the context of 1 Corinthians
chapter 3.
The apostle is speaking here regarding the process that had taken place in Corinth among
them.
He said, there are some who have planted, like myself, he says.
There are others who have watered the seed, for example, Apollos.
But he says, who are we anyway but the servants of the Lord through whom you believed?
Just servants.
He says, it is God who gave the increase.
It is he who owns you, his field.
And it is God's work that is important.
He says, the servants work together in unity, though we may function in different ways and
God may use us at different times in your lives.
He says, we are all one, although we will receive an individual reward, he says in verse
8, according to our own labor.
Nonetheless, don't divide yourselves over us, he says.
Put away your party spirit and realize that though we may function differently and have
different impacts in your life, we are one.
May I say to you very frankly, so it is with the staff of this church, each of us has a
different role to play as God has assigned us that within this body.
We function differently.
We have different impacts in your life.
I have the privilege of standing here and having this kind of an impact, whereas there
are others who minister to you in other ways.
But that does not mean that we are in competition.
Indeed, not.
We are one.
We are but the servants of the Lord working in his field.
He makes it clear too that the fruit, the growth does not come except the servants do
their part.
It's hard work planting and irrigating.
It's hard work.
But when the work is accomplished, it causes growth.
God uses that, you see.
I don't know how many of you were raised in a farm.
Maybe that would be an interesting thing to ask.
How many of you spent part of your years on the farm?
Maybe now you are on the farm.
Well, that's about a third of us, I would guess.
An honored background is my own.
If there is anything you learn on the farm, it is how to work.
If you don't, you don't stay on the farm very long.
You don't keep it.
Farming is just plain hard work.
I'm grateful that as a child I grew up with chores to do and morning and night.
And it may have limited me in some other activities that people get involved in.
But I don't regret a bit not having some of those backgrounds in order to have the
background of being on the farm.
Now, folks, this is a farm.
This is a farm.
We are God's field.
And I want to tell you something.
It's hard work.
Anybody who has the idea that you can serve the Lord of the church without having to work
very hard has the wrong idea about serving the Lord.
There's some people who too much put their own convenience before the work of the Lord.
You mean I've got to be here every week to do that?
You mean I can't sit with my family in every service?
You mean I've got to make an extra trip to the church?
You mean I have to spend time in preparation?
Why can't the young people do it?
I've served my time, to use a different analogy.
Hey, I want to tell you something.
If you're going to serve God, it means hard work.
Please remember that in heaven there are no rewards for retirement.
There are rewards for work.
We never get to the place, folks, in our service for God that we can say, well, I've gone the
route.
I'm over the bridge.
Now let them take care of it.
If we have that idea, we're carnal.
We are carnal Christians.
If we have the idea that somehow we're going to serve the Lord but it's not going to cost
us anything, then we are carnal Christians.
And if we think that we're going to please God without working hard, we are sadly mistaken.
This is a farm of God.
But if this farm is going to grow and produce for the glory of God, it means every one of
us has hard work to do and it's going to cost us something to serve here.
It's going to cost us time.
It's going to cost us energy.
It's going to cost us money.
But is it worth it?
Of course it is.
Because someday we're going to stand before the Lord, as the apostle says, in this very
context to give account of our work here.
It's not as though we go through this hard work and there's nothing at the end of the
line.
Indeed, when we get through serving the Lord and working hard, here we go before Him for
examination and there we receive our judgment and our reward.
And so labor now that when we appear then, we'll be accepted by Him, says the apostle.
Let's get off the idea that somehow God has a retirement program in this world for His
people.
He doesn't.
Whether you're 20 or 60, God has no retirement program.
God has no plans for some people to sit on the sidelines while others do the hard work
either.
I was handed this morning as I came to church a list of opportunities and some of these
are real needs for people to be involved in the farm.
There have been some who've wanted to cancel our Cubbies program in Iwana because we have
no one at this point who's willing to work with those little children.
Now if I have to cancel prayer meeting on Wednesday night, beginning in October when
Iwana starts, and go down there myself and do it, we're going to have a program for the
Cubbies.
Those little children are more precious than any of the adult small churches that we have.
I'm sorry, that's just the priority that I give children, this church.
Yes, it takes hard work to be with children.
Yes, it's taxing.
It's tiring.
I know you're with children all week.
Maybe you teach school, maybe you have little ones at home.
It's hard.
But this is the work of God, folks.
It's not easy.
God didn't say it was.
We need people to help in the nurseries.
You say, well, I'm a grandmother.
Good.
Great resource.
You know how to do it if you're a grandma.
We need helpers with two and a half to three year olds in Sunday school, both during the
first and second hours.
We need people to help in the parking lots as we move back to our church.
We need a librarian.
You want me to go on?
There's probably 50 categories here, and some of them have multiple needs.
I want to tell you, if you're a farmer that's sitting over on your easy chair when there's
work to be done, shame on you.
If this is God's field, and it's the most important thing in the world, and it is, then
there's no place for any of us to be sitting on the sideline doing nothing while a few
are doing hard work.
I don't say that in anger, but I say it to you as plainly as I know how.
If we're going to get increase in this field, if this field is going to produce the promise
that God has purchased us for, then folks, all of us have got to get to work.
All of us.
And the most important thing I need to do is to decide where I'm going to get plugged
in and do my thing that God's called me to do in this field.
And to be willing to put in the hours, the time, the energy, whatever it takes to get
the work of God done on His farm.
Let's talk about the preparation of the field.
The preparation of the field.
We see this as an example in Isaiah chapter 28, because you know if you're going to produce
something from a field, it has to be prepared.
Isaiah chapter 28.
In verse 24 he says, does the farmer plow continually to plant seed?
No, of course not.
Does he continually turn and harrow the ground?
No, no, he doesn't continually do that.
Does he not level its surface and sow, dill and scatter, cumin and plant, wheat and rose
and barley in its place and rye within its area?
Yes, of course he does.
That's how a farmer works.
In order for the fruit to come, the seed must be planted.
But in order for the seed to be planted, the soil must be prepared.
The soil has to be prepared.
How is it prepared?
Well, you farmers know that one of the things you have to do is plow it.
You have to get a plow out into the field and begin to turn the soil over.
And following that, you have to come along with a disc.
In order to break up the larger pieces of soil, the clods of dirt.
And following the disking, you bring the harrow in.
And you begin to rake it and to go over it so that the pieces are broken down even smaller
and the rocks are taken off.
And then you plant.
Then you plant after doing all of that work.
Furthermore, that process of plowing, disking, and harrowing must be done every season.
Unfortunately, you cannot do it just once and have it last for five years.
Wouldn't that be great?
But you have to do that after every harvest.
You have to turn the soil over again.
You have to disc it.
You have to harrow it and prepare it so that you can sow again.
Plowing is hard work.
I want to apply that to the heart because the Word of God does.
Our hearts are God's farm.
Our hearts need to be kept tilled, soft, able to receive the Word of God so that it can
take root in us.
If you were to go out to a prairie and simply scatter corn seed on top of that prairie,
you would get nothing except a lot of birds eating your corn because you see it has to
go into the soil.
And so Hosea says, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord.
He says, get your hearts ready.
Be like the Thessalonians who received the Word that Paul preached for what it really
was, the Word of God, and the Word received there means to welcome it.
Hearts that had been cultivated and prepared took in the Word of God and it took root in
them and bore fruit for the glory of God.
Our hearts must be kept tilled.
Let me also say that this is a continuous process.
So you were soft and tilled last year.
What is your heart condition today?
So there was a time last spring when you were walking with God.
What about this fall?
It is not enough to say, yes, I had an experience.
Where are you with God today?
You see, that's the thing.
Is your heart tilled today?
It's a continuous process.
And finally, may I say regarding the preparation of the heart that sometimes God's plows hurt
– God sees your heart or mine hardened and he takes out a plow and he begins the furrow
and he digs deep and he lays over that soil of our hearts.
And then he comes back with another experience and he discs it and we say, ooh, ow, that
hurts.
It does because you see the preparation of our hearts is sometimes painful, especially
when we allow our hearts to remain fallow and untilled for a lengthy time.
Especially then does it hurt.
I'm talking to some people today who have a plow going across their hearts right now.
Your heart has been hardened by circumstances and God is taking a plow of further circumstances
and he's cutting right across the field of your heart today.
Now listen, it hurts, but the reason God is doing it is that he might plant some seed
in your life and bring forth produce.
That's why he's doing it.
God does never hurt us without a purpose in it.
It's always for our good.
So instead of becoming angry or bitter at God, will you today by faith thank him for
that pain?
Will you look up into his face and say, Father, thank you for that furrow that is coming right
across my heart because I know that through this you're going to plant seed in my life
and bring forth fresh fruit for your glory?
I think we can learn something regarding witnessing as we think about this as well.
Because as we witness to other people, folks, we cannot simply scatter the seed indiscriminately
and expect much of a harvest.
You see, the heart has to be prepared.
How is the heart prepared?
It is always in the first place by God.
He prepares the heart of the unregenerate to receive his word.
He sometimes does that apart from the knowledge of those of us who are planting the seed.
In other words, you may be planting the seed, throwing it out into the life of that person
at work, and it seems as though there's no reception.
But secretly where you can't see it, God is doing some work in that life and more of
that seed is falling into the prepared soil than you can imagine.
Remember this too, that often God uses us to prepare the hearts of the unsaved for his
word.
He uses the friendly relationships that we build with them so that they become more open
to us and to our Lord.
He uses us often to prepare their hearts.
There's a lesson here also regarding our heart condition, folks, as we come to worship.
As we think about the preparation of the field, let's think about the preparation of our hearts
as we come together to worship the Lord.
Our hearts need to be prepared to receive the word of the Lord.
They need to be continuously tilled and cultivated.
You say, how is that done?
Let me give you some suggestions.
In the first place, by the immediate confession of sins as we are convicted of them.
Don't allow sins to accumulate, unconfessed in your life.
But the moment that you become aware that in some way you have disobeyed the Lord, immediately
confess it to him.
First John 1, 9, the claim is forgiveness, is cleansing.
Don't allow them to build up, not even through a day.
Don't even let them accumulate for 12 hours and then before you get in bed tonight and
say, and God forgive me for all of my sins.
That kind of a prayer isn't really worth a whole lot anyway.
As you become aware of specific transgressions, right at that moment, acknowledge it to the
Father, confess it.
Immediately check any attitude that tends to harden your heart, whether it be the attitude
of doubting God or an unforgiving spirit toward another.
Whatever that attitude may be that tends to harden your heart, check it immediately.
Get rid of it.
Or else you will find that that sin will scorch your heart and harden its soil.
Third, remove any obstacle, hindrance or distraction that keeps you from hearing and receiving
the word.
Is there an obstacle or a hindrance?
Is there some distraction?
Maybe it's a relationship to somebody else.
Is there something that keeps the word of God from taking root in your life as it needs
to?
Then remove that.
Number four, receive the word of God with an advance commitment to obey it, whatever
God says.
Never go to any worship service, never listen to any message with the attitude, I'll take
what I want and I'll leave what I wish.
Always come saying, Lord, what is it today that you want to say to me?
Whatever it is, I will obey.
I will do it.
So easily are our hearts hardened.
I wouldn't suspect that even what I said a few moments ago about hard work in the church
and the importance for all of us to be involved has bounced off the hearts of some who've
listened here, whose hearts are hardened for one reason or another and have said, I'm not
going to do that.
How tragic.
Because you see our hearts need to be prepared.
Number four, let's talk about the problem of the field.
Very simply put, the problem is weeds.
I don't know a farmer that doesn't battle weeds and there must be a thousand different
varieties.
And I want to think of weeds in two applications.
First, the church corporately.
The problem of the field, weeds.
Remember the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13, he said there was a man who went out to
sow, he sowed wheat.
But then the enemy came and he sowed tares, weeds.
And the understanding of that parable is that in this age, our Lord is sowing his word and
there are people who are in truth responding, who are genuine believers.
But Satan also is out there sowing in Christendom today.
He is sowing not the true word, but false messages.
And there are people responding and there are the tares.
And what do we do about this field and its problem?
Our Lord told us what to do.
He said leave it alone because at the end of the age the difference will be made.
And the wheat will be gathered into the garner and the tares will be torn up and cast into
the fire and destroyed.
The application is obvious.
Application today would seem to have a lot more tares than it does wheat.
But that's what we were to expect in this age.
And when our Lord returns, He'll care for that.
But let me bring the application down to another level and that's to church members personally.
And to do this, let's go to James chapter 1 and with this we'll close.
James chapter 1 verse 21.
He says, Therefore putting aside all filthiness.
That word really was used in that day of dirty clothes, but it has the idea here of moral
defilement, moral dirt.
He says, Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness.
I think the King James puts it superfluity of naughtiness.
What it's talking about there in the second place is that we are to get rid of the overgrowth,
the excess of weeds, of wickedness in our lives.
And James seems to picture going out to the garden and pulling up the weeds, getting them
out of the garden because they'll take over if you leave them there.
The application to you and to me in our own personal lives is this, we need to pull up
the weeds that are there.
The overgrowth of wickedness so that in humility we might receive the word implanted which
is able to save our souls.
You say I'm already saved.
James is talking about a different aspect of salvation, saving ourselves from life's
troubles and its pitfalls and its sorrows by allowing the word of God to take root in
our lives and give us direction.
God desires to plant his word in your heart.
Is your heart prepared?
Is it able to receive it?
Are there weeds in your life that need to be pulled out so that God's word can take
root and bear fruit?
Did my brother and sister care for that today?
Plow up your heart.
Pull up the weeds and allow God's word to bring forth fruit in your life.
I would like to think of a church, our church, as a lovely garden filled with luxuriant vines
and flourishing plants which bear abundant fruit, a field which has fragrant flowers
that sweeten the air.
If the church is going to be that kind of a place, then you and I who are a part of
that field need to be sure our lives are that way.
What kind of soil is in your heart?
The Spirit of God in this hour has searched out our hearts, and he has spoken tenderly
as only he can.
Right now, I would say that most of us, if we have been listening at all, are being brought
face to face with the condition of our hearts and the kind of soil that is there.
God is right now making us aware of the fruit or its absence in his field.
As the Spirit of God does his work in your life, will you right now respond to him and
say, Lord, plow it up.
Lord, pull up the weeds.
I receive your word.
Bring forth fruit in my life.
I'll do what you want me to do.
I'll be your field, cultivated and fruitful.
Let's bow together in prayer.
I wonder just before I pray, if right where you're seated, the Spirit of God has done
a work in your life and you want to say to the Lord, but in a way so that I can see and
pray for you, yes, have your way today, Lord.
Plow up my heart.
My heart is hard.
Or my heart has weeds in it, Lord.
Let's get the weeds out.
Will you say to the Lord, have your way today?
As the Spirit of God moves, as he searches us, as he knows us, as he reveals to us what
we are, would you lift your hand and say, yes, pastor, today I'm one who needs prayer
in regard to the message I've heard today.
There have been aspects of the message that God has struck me with and today I want you
to pray for me in closing.
Would you lift your hand and then put it down?
Thank God.
Oh, Spirit of Lord, I pray that as we respond to you, we may respond in humility and honesty,
that we may be all that you've called us to be.
Do the work in our hearts that's necessary so that we'll be the kind of field that we
ought to be.
And as the Spirit of God moves and as the choir sings in closing, if today you need
prayer and you want to talk with someone, our staff will be standing here at the front.
You simply get up from your seat and come as all of us remain in the attitude of prayer.
Do what He tells you to do right now.
Would you stand together with me, please?
Oh, Spirit of God, we would not place ourselves in the dangerous place of hardening our hearts.
We would today, in humility, say to you, break our hearts, expose our stubborn wills, and
cause them to be broken down so that you might have priority and be truly the Lord of our
lives.
Lord melt us, move us, fill us.
May we be the field you've called us to be, cultivated and fruitful for the glory of God.
Would you sing with me?
Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.
Fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.
God bless you this week as you walk with Him.