Our Corps is Our Ranch Kelly Durant 8-11-19
Acts 2:46
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
2. How many of you were here this past week for our vacation Bible School? We had the theme of a Ranch, like that of Cowboys, and the kids had fun. Kids love the idea of being outdoors with the animals and it is a healthy lifestyle. The work on a Ranch can be hard but it is rewarding when you see the animals grow and the crops bring you food. It is a rewarding lifestyle.
I have a Ranch joke for you. There was a German farmer and a Texas father that happened to meet at an International Fair. The German boasted, “My tractor is so powerful and fast it can go from one end of my property and back in 2 hours!” The Texan, somewhat jealous responded, “My tractor is as powerful as yours but to go from one end on my property and back you need a full day! There was a pause, Then the German farmer responded, “I feel sorry for you, I had a tractor once that was slow like yours!” (The German didn’t know the Texan had a farm the size of Berlin!)
So today I want to compare our Christian work to a Ranch. All things that God makes have multiple messages, and people at the beginning of creation started in a garden, which was sort of like a Ranch as Adam named the animals and took care of things. Farmers and ranchers have provided food for all since the beginning.
3. Today there are many Christian communities that still farm and live on Ranches. Have you seen some of the Mennonites or Amish people in the stores that live in towns not far from here? To have food, production, and success, there needs to be as many people as possible doing many different things.
In times past, couples aspired to have at least 10 kids so they would have enough help to work their land! To accomplish anything, you need to work as a team and when one finishes his job, he doesn’t just go take off and go fishing by the river, he goes to help his brother or sister who needs to finish feeding the cows, watering the plants, putting up a fence, etc.
Ranch work involves each person having a variety of skills, one needs to know the seasons and when to plant, another needs to know about breeding the animals, another needs to cook in the house where everyone meets and talks and has fellowship at the end of the day. On a ranch you work hard and you eat healthy and ranch folks are almost always healthy!
4. Most usually farms are made up of people other than just family members who live together, and hired servants work as well. We can compare this to our work here, there is the Corps (Core) family, the local leaders who plan and do most of the work, there is the staff and volunteers who also carry the load, and there is the community that contributes and benefits from the work we produce. And what is our main focus of production? It is to win souls for Jesus! It is to take broken lives and give them a new start!
Did you know The Salvation Army was also into farming? If you read William Booth’s famous book, ‘In Darkest England and The Way Out’, you will find that some farm colonies were established as a means to employ people coming to us who needed a job to survive. These served a purpose for their time, but our emphasis has most usually been in the cities, where people need shelter, food, recourses, and children and adult programs (Christian and educational) which are always lacking.
Today most ranches and farms are not run by individual families as they once were when this land was pioneered. The farms and ranches are mostly run by huge food companies and sadly, few people ever in their lifetime get to experience working with animals and crops. God’s nature is beautiful but 90% of us live in the concrete jungle where crime and demons prevail, we have a different mission, that of exposing the weeds and replanting, so the good folks can flourish doing good works to improve their selves and help those who are suffering.
5. So imagining us as on a ranch, what is our mission? What was the mission of the disciples? That of spreading the good news of Jesus to the whole world! Acts 2:46
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.
Here our Salvation Army church Corps you could come every day to volunteer if you wanted to! That is what this verse says, that they showed up daily in the temple. My wife and I used to be accustomed to that, in Atlanta, and often in Miami, where there were folks that would just show up daily to help with whatever was needed, to clean, to plan classes, and to sort donated food.
In large cities there are more people and sadly, here in this city few of you show up, and I know all of us have many commitments but those that serve the Lord get filled with inspiration!
6. Today this is an invitation, you should have a desire to want to show up as much as possible! And why should you want to be here in fellowship serving and helping? Because there is something special about the unity of being with other brothers and sisters as that brings on God’s blessings of happiness! When you are at “one accord” with fellow Christians you get recharged, and doing the mission fills your spirit up.
The verse also says they ate with each other. With some of you we have eaten quite a bit! And with others of you not very often and we need to get together. After the service today tell me when is that going to be, please! Sharing food together makes the Lord be pleased, we need to be with each other because ‘iron sharpens iron’.
Also it mentions house to house and my wife and I have been in hundreds and hundreds of homes of people we have met sharing the gospel. Let us know when we are going to your home! And in our home we have guests about once a month. Here you are always invited! Just let us know so we can ‘break bread’ and share a coffee. Just think, Jesus didn’t even have coffee!
7. Jesus Himself makes the comparison of sharing a meal with a person as the same as letting Him into your heart. Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
But once you let Jesus in, He will put you in fellowship with his followers so you can support one another in the mission of shining your light doing good works and most of all Mark 16:15
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Before there were the 12 close to Jesus, then there were 70, then there was the 120 men who got the Holy Spirit (but with a whole lot more women as well), then Peter preached and won 3,000 one day and 5,000 the next, so this is how God multiplies the crops and gives us a mission to train, teach the Bible, and put to work all those who come to Him.
8. Our work is like being on a ranch. Each person must do their part or the whole work suffers. When one teacher is absent, the kids miss their Bible lesson that day. When kids are absent they miss out on learning an import life lesson they will need to combat against sin and evil.
When the songsters don’t show up, the quality of the praise suffers, when the drivers don’t show up people miss out on coming, and should I go on? Do you see how as a team we must work with ‘one accord’ to make things happen?
So comparing our Corps to a ranch, do people drive by and see a beautiful place with everything in order? Or do people see crops unharvested on the field where someone dropped the ball and did not do their part? Luke 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Are you being faithful? Each person here has a unique skill and God needs you!
9. I pray you are convicted today to show up more and appreciate the love, fellowship, and food we share together as a Corps. I am here daily already for 26 years in fellowship with good Salvation Army friends and Christians because I already tried the world’s other systems and I got very disillusioned. The world’s systems are like ranch owners who use you as slave labor!
Have you experienced as I have the stupidity of hypocritical people that you thought were your friends but instead were just self-interested, narcissistic, ordinary, ugly fake friend users? In the world we never experience unity, or a ‘one accord’ harmony with others because each one is seeking his own thing and not the will of Jesus. Renovate your life, come and see how serving others doing God’s work fills up your spirit!
When we obey the scriptures we know, when we decide to follow Jesus (no tuning back!) then we get blessed as never imagined! Give more of yourself to Him today! Be in one accord with your Christian family! Help, serve, and love! God needs you!
