Hidden treasures
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Hey does anyone here remember Where’s Waldo? Those were fun games weren’t they. The idea was you would be given a really busy picture like this...
And then asked to find Waldo who looks like this...
In case you’ve been living under a rock since 1987, that’s right Waldo is the same age as my wife and Sidney Crosby, but I’m not gonna tell you how old that makes them, you will have to do the math yourself.
I know you all want a chance to try. Ok I’ll give you 60 seconds while I sip my tea. And go
Found him yet? I’ll give you a hint. He is right here.
The thing that make’s it a little challenging is he always wears that red and white top and hat and they make sure the there are lot’s of red and white misleads, red and white herrings if you will.
Which is why I always enjoyed the sub game. The sub game was they would also give you an assortment of different items hidden in the picture you could find.
let’s look back at our picture. In this picture they might ask you to find a crab or a sword. These other finds can be tricky, but in some ways they can actually be easier.
Because they are less obvious there are less red herrings to distract you. For me these are the hidden treasures of the larger picture.
That is what I want to talk to you about this morning. If you were here last week you heard me introduce this years focus on becoming more effective in all we do.
The idea is we will be looking at different areas of our Christian life as individuals and as a Church and asking a simple question.
How can we be more effective in this area?
How can we be more effective in this area?
I won’t keep reminding you of this but I did want to make sure you got it. Last week week I told you before we could start looking at ways to increase our effectiveness there was something I needed you to know.
Does anyone remember what that was?
It’s not about comparing ourselves to others, it’s about self improvement.
It’s not about comparing ourselves to others, it’s about self improvement.
This morning there is one more thing I want to make sure we all know before looking at increasing effectiveness in different areas.
So what is it?
So what is it?
Not all good fruit is Obvious
Not all good fruit is Obvious
Me: What do you know about Canola? Well let’s learn something together. First Canola was first developed by Canadian plant scientists in the 1970’s.
It is Canada’s 3 largest grain export with 15.3 million acres harvested each year in the prairie provinces and Ontario. the first two being wheat and barley.
But what is really interesting is what it is used for. 43% of the plant is oil. Low in Sat. fat and a relatively healthy choice for cooking. For this reason Canola oil is the third most widely used vegetable in the world, after soybean oil and Palm oil.
And for most people this is all they know Canola plants to be used for.
Canola oil is by far the most obvious product or fruit if you will of the canola plant and although its primary most obvious use is cooking the Canola oil has some non cooking benefits as well. It is also used as biofuel and bioplastics.
These uses are becoming more common and therefore more obvious as well.
But did you know that if 43% of the Canola plant is oil that means the majority 57% of the plant is not oil. And what a lot of people do not know is unlike say potato tops which are killed then disposed of farmers have found good and less obvious uses for the left over byproduct.
I first learned about this when working on my fathers farm, when a salesman came to try and sell my dad some new feed.
Turns out after crushing the seeds to extract the oil they can then compress the remaining product into a high energy pellet that can be used for cattle rations. Not to mention the plant can also be harvested much like hey and is quite palatable to cows much like alfalfa or silage.
The byproduct can also be used in pet food as well as fertilizer because like anything else that is living as it dies and breaks down it produces nitrogen, which is also why if you stop racing up your grass clippings you could also stop having to put chemical fertilizer on your lawn. Just saying.
What I want you to see here isn’t just this Canadian made marvel. What I wanted you to see is yes this plant has obvious uses and benefits but it also has many less obvious uses and benefits.
We: Likewise when we talk about raising effectiveness in different ministries in the church or different areas of our lives like parenting or marriage or in Worship and prayer, it is important for us to understand some fruit or benefits are going to be obvious but some less obvious. And it is important that we learn to identify, increase effectiveness, and celebrate these less obvious fruit as well.
God: The passage I want to read is 26. It is a familiar passage. I picked a familiar passage because as I read it I want you to see if you can identify some of the less obvious fruit in this story.
This is the story of the man being lowered through the roof to be healed by Jesus. So before I read let’s identify the obvious.
The obvious fruit of this story is
Healing, and Forgiveness of sins
Healing, and Forgiveness of sins
So let me read and if you take notes see if you can identify some less obvious fruit.
:17-26
One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.
Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus,
but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”
But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”
Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts?
Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’?
So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”
And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God.
Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, “We have seen amazing things today!”
One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.
Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus,
but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”
But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”
Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts?
Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’?
So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”
And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God.
Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, “We have seen amazing things today!”
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him.
So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them.
But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.
I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”
Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not.
But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.
New wine must be stored in new wineskins.
But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
So what was some of the less obvious, but still really Good fruit produced by this encounter?
So what was some of the less obvious, but still really Good fruit produced by this encounter?
You may have seen even more than me but let me share some of the less obvious fruit that I see in this story.
There was good solid teaching
There was good solid teaching
Strengthened friendship
Strengthened friendship
Increase in Faith
Increase in Faith
Proof Of Jesus claims and authority
Proof Of Jesus claims and authority
Worship and Praise of God
Worship and Praise of God
And
Someone got a free skylight
Someone got a free skylight
You: So why do I want you to know this. In your life as you pursue greater effectiveness in every aspect of life know that there are many ways to increase in effectiveness.
We: Yes we want to see the obvious fruit increase, but we also want to see the less obvious fruit increase. So that we are focusing as individuals and also as a church on growing in effectiveness in a more well rounded way.
Next Step: I want you to pick an area of your life. Maybe your marriage, or work, maybe you devotional life or prayer life.
And what I want you to do is first identify the obvious good fruit in that area.
Then spend some time identifying the less obvious good fruit.
By identifying all the good fruit we will be better equipped to grow in effectiveness as we know better what we are working towards.