Why Golden Opportunities Are Missed
Dr. Joe Grimaldi
Joe Grimaldi is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Kenmore in Akron, Ohio.
“In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:31-35)
Someone wrote a poem.
“There was a very cautious man, who never laughed or played.
He never risked. He never tried. He never sang or prayed.
When he one day passed away, his insurance was denied.
Since he never really lived, they claimed he never died.”
It’s true. So many times we miss so many opportunities to do things. In the sporting world I had chances to do things and was always looking back and saying, “I wish I would have done this.” I had a missed opportunity. One time when I was playing baseball as a sophomore, I made the varsity team. I never really got to play much, only if we were way ahead or way behind in the last few innings on the varsity team. There were only four sophomores on the team. One time there was a Pirate baseball scout who came, and they were scouting the catcher we had, and a pitcher who was also a center fielder. They came to scout them and everybody was told about it. There he was and in the last inning of the game, I got to pinch hit in front of a Pirate baseball scout. You say, “What did you do?” Struck out. Maybe that’s why I’m a preacher and not a baseball player today! I used to think about that.
There was a commercial somewhere and this little kid’s getting up to bat, and his mother is in the stands saying, “Please no curve balls, God. Please no curve ball.”
That was me. I was a fast ball hitter and I was up at the plate saying, “Please God, no curve ball. Please God, no curve ball, nothing off speed. Just throw me the heat.” He threw me three off speed pitches. “Were they curves?” I have no idea. Obviously I missed them pretty badly. I swung at the first three pitches. I was taking my cuts though, boy. That was an opportunity I missed.
When I coached sports, I’d have a team out there and we’d miss opportunities to score, miss opportunities to put the opponent away. I would say to myself, “Boy, that was such a big opportunity we missed.” It’s a sad thing when we miss so many golden opportunities.
There are times when I’ve hunted, and felt like there were golden opportunities afforded me. In archery season God was gracious to me and brought a lot of deer by for me to see and wave at, chase around a bit with my arrows. In archery season I shot several different times at several different bucks. It wasn’t the same one every time, but it may have been the same one a couple times. I think I shot at the same one at least twice, if not three times. I think I shot four or five times in archery season. Every time I would miss, I would sit there in the woods and go, “Grr, grr.” How many times in my life have I had an opportunity, not many, to be this close to a deer that actually has horns on it and then I miss. You go home and you kick yourself, missed opportunity. We understand that in the realm of our hobbies and our lives.
Maybe in business we see opportunities we had. People talked about years ago when McDonalds was first getting on the scene. They were selling the McDonalds’ franchise for $3000 to buy a franchise. Can you imagine what that would be worth today. $3000 you could have bought a McDonalds’ franchise, one of the stores, bought the franchise rights to it for $3000, worth a fortune today,. Missed opportunities.
When airplanes first became big, the railroad had a golden opportunity to be part of the airline industry and passed it up. They’re kicking themselves today because they never thought the airline industry would make anything of itself. It was always going to be about the railroad. They missed a golden opportunity.
The telegraph had great opportunity when telephone first became big to buy into it, and to have a big part, a big chunk of the telephone industry. They thought it would never catch on. It was just a fad. It wasn’t going to go anywhere. So they passed on the opportunity.
There are people who kick themselves continually for missed opportunities, whether they be in sports, whether they be in hobbies, whether they be in business, whatever it may be, they kick themselves over and over and over again for missing golden opportunities.
Yet we continue to miss golden opportunities to win people to Christ. Golden opportunities, time and time again, to have a part in someone’s salvation. Here in the text Jesus said unto them, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” People miss golden opportunities to serve Christ. There will be no soulwinning in Heaven. There will be no opportunity to witness in Heaven. It will be too late then. Their fate is settled forever. This is our opportunity to share the Gospel, to obey God’s command to us, to give people the opportunity to hear and believe the Gospel message, and quite often we miss our opportunity. We fail to take advantage of the time and the talent, and yes the treasure that God has afforded us here. I think there are several reasons why we miss those opportunities.
#1 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CONCEPT OF TIME.
Notice in verse 35 He said, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?...” They understood this whole harvest program, the planting, the reaping, and the harvest. They were thinking seasonally about crops. Christ was trying to get them to understand there is something more important here. You don’t understand what time it is. I know it’s not time to harvest the wheat crop right now. I understand it’s not time for you to harvest the grain that’s out there, but you don’t understand that it’s time right now to harvest some other kind of crop. You’re missing the whole point. You don’t have a concept of what time it is. Jeremiah laments the fact of missed opportunity when it comes to time, when he said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)
Years ago there was a famous skier. He beat his opponent in the Olympics by three tenths of a second. That’s not a very long period of time. Do you realize what that three tenths of a second meant? The next year he made three million dollars in endorsements. The guy who came in second made $10,000 as a ski instructor. The difference between three million dollars and ten thousand dollars was three tenths of a second. They had a very good concept of time. Time was vital and time was important in the race they were competing in.
Sometimes we just don’t have a good concept of time. We think we’re going to live forever. We think that other people are going to live forever. We think that we’ll have many, many other chances and many, many opportunities to take advantage of witnessing to someone and yet we don’t seem to understand our time.
We know that the Bible says our time is brief. “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14) We miss so many golden opportunities to win people to Christ because we do not have a concept of time passing us by. It’s a sad thing when we go to funerals and we see folks come to the casket -- whether it’s a loved one, a friend, or a relative, and they come there and there are so many things they wish they had said and done.
Dr. Hyles wrote a wonderful poem about a flower at a funeral. It’s one of those ‘would God I had’ kind of concepts. Many things we wished we had done, but you know we always think there’s going to be a tomorrow. There is nothing that went through your mind today that thought that tomorrow would not come for you. But you know, one day tomorrow won’t come for you. One day tomorrow won’t come for me, and tomorrow won’t be here for a lot of people.
Do you realize in the Pittsburgh area, there are over three million people? That’s not quite all of Allegheny county. In this county there is about three million people. We can count the soulwinning churches on one hand inside the county. What does that mean? That means we have great opportunity, great opportunity that we pass up and we do not take advantage of. One of the reasons we don’t take advantage of it is we have no concept of time. They didn’t have a concept of time. They thought harvest was four months away. They didn’t understand that there was a harvest that needed to be taken right now.
#2 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO VISION OF THE CAUSE.
Look at verse 35, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes,...” He said, “There is a harvest here that you don’t grasp. You’re not understanding what My cause is.” You look at the verses preceding this. They think Jesus is talking about food. They want to bring Him food. He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” They said, “Did somebody bring Him food? How did He get food?” He said, “You don’t understand. My meat is to do the will of My Father.”
Then He starts to talk to them about the harvest and once again they’re on the food kick. They must have been Baptists! He says, “No, no, no, not that kind of food. You don’t understand. There’s a harvest that you can’t see. There is a meat that I’m talking about that you don’t quite comprehend. You don’t have a vision of what’s going on here. You’ve lost the grasp of the vision of the cause.”
I think the reason we miss so many golden opportunities to win people to Christ, so many golden opportunities to get our hearts right with God in church services, is that we miss the idea and the concept that there is a cause out here that men are dying and going to Hell and we need to do something about it. I know in your little world there are so many things that are important. Think about this for a minute. Here’s God up in Heaven looking down, and He looks at you and He looks at the world from your eyes, and He sees the way you see the world. What’s your world?
Tomorrow ladies, is your world all about getting the laundry done and getting the dishes washed, and going grocery shopping and getting the food on the table, making sure the kids are out the door, make sure your husband is happy? What is your world consisting of? Those are some nice things and wonderful things. I’m for all of those things, but you know the world is a little bit broader than that. The world is a little bit bigger than that. There is a little bit more that goes on on this globe than that little realm of existence.
Men, what is your world about? You sit here today and may even be planning out your day tomorrow. You’re going to get up at a certain time. You’re going to show up at work. You’re going to punch the time clock. You’re going to do this and this, from this hour to that hour. When you get off work you’re going to stop by here. You’re going to do that. You’re going to come home. You’re going to fix this, or you’re going to take care of that, or you’re going to do something here. Then you’re going to eat. Then you’re going to go to bed. Then you’re going to get up and you’re going to do the same thing the next day. Is that what your world is? Is that all your world consists of?
Young people, what does your world consist of? You’re thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow. It’s a day off school and how you’re going to enjoy yourself, and what you’re going to do. Can I go and meet this person, or go and play this game, or have fun with this, or do this or do that? Is that all your world is?
I have a dog that sits at home today. His world consists of sleeping, eating, and playing. But do you know what? His world is not a whole lot smaller than most of us. That’s his whole world. His whole world is eating, sleeping, and playing. What’s your whole world? Add three or four items to that list and that’s about our whole world. What are you saying? We don’t have a vision of what really the cause is and what goes on around us.
You know the famous verse in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish:...” That’s a sad reality. The sad reality is we have hardened ourselves into a mind set what the world is like and on the fringe comes this idea of reaching people with the Gospel of Christ. It’s some little side line. It’s some little bridge thing. It’s some little thing over here, but it’s really not a part of my world and what’s important in my life.
I was driving down the road some years ago, and I saw a bag of cement on the side of the road. I’ve seen people do this before. You think this is great, a bag of cement. It must have fallen off a truck. It’s going to be great. I’ll get a free bag of cement. You stop and you go out and you’re going to get the bag of cement. Do you know what it is? It’s hard as a rock. Do you know what else is cool about it? If it lands on it’s end, the bottom is flat and you’ve got this oblong, weird looking thing. The cement has hardened into that shape. It stands up by itself, sort of like your blue jeans standing up in the corner waiting for you to hop in them the next day. It stands up there all by itself. Do you know what’s happened? That cement was not taken out of that bag. That wasn’t a mold for it. That’s not the shape. That’s not what the cement was made for.
My dad takes these little molds, and he’s got some pretty little sidewalks he’s making out of cement. They look like stone. He has a little mold and pours the cement and puts it in these little molds and makes these funny little sidewalk things, real neat looking things. Those look really nice. Maybe that cement was planned by somebody, whoever had it or wherever it came from to be a nice little sidewalk or to be a foundation for something. Somebody had some plan for that cement, but you know what? The plan for that cement was never to be in that shape in that bag. That was not the plan, but that’s the way it set up. Opportunity over.
Do you know what happens in the Christian life? God has a plan for your life, but somewhere you get thrown along the side of the road and you set up in a different shape, and you’re hard as a rock. Do you know the only thing that cement is good for? To be busted up and thrown in somewhere for filler. It’s just a filler. It’s not going to be used to make some beautiful shape any more. It’s not going to be used to make some pretty patio stone. It’s not going to be used to do that. It’s a sad thing that we miss golden opportunities that God has for us because we have no vision of our purpose. We have no vision other than our small little world.
#3 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO COMPASSION.
We talk about a time in history when people were so hard. We talk and think about medieval times, when people were hard and difficult, but can I suggest to you that in this modern compassionate era where we hear the politicians talking continually about a kinder, gentler kind of a nation. We hear people continually talking about feeling our pain, and feeling for one another. We live in a society, a day, an age, and a time where people are as far removed if not further than they’ve been at any other time from the feelings and the emotions and the needs of other people.
The church is where this all begins in my opinion. It’s our responsibility. First of all we have no compassion one for another. Take your Bible and tear I John out of it, and throw it away because we don’t follow it. We really don’t care about one another. Basically it’s sort of like, “Hey, just don’t bother me. Leave me alone and we’ll be fine!”
Let’s come to church. He comes. I come. We say, “Hi.” We shake hands. He sits there. I sit there. We have nothing to do with each other. As long as he doesn’t bug me, cause me any grief, we get along fine. But I don’t know anything about him, and I don’t want to know anything about him. Because if I know something about him, I might have to feel something for him. If I know something about him, and I feel something for him, it might call on me to perform some action. Far be it from me to have to do some deed of kindness. That might be a stretch. Let me just stay back in my own little world.
You keep people at arm’s length so that you don’t get hurt, so you don’t have problems and difficulties. That’s not the Christian way, but it is the way of many who call themselves Christians. Is that what I read in the Bible? It says that from cover to cover, doesn’t it? Thanks be to God that Christ didn’t think that way or act that way, or you’d still be at arm’s length from God. You’d never be able to be reconciled.
I’m saying that our problem is we just have no compassion. The Bible says, “And of some have compassion, making a difference:” (Jude 22) The problem is we miss so many golden opportunities because we’re just cold. We miss so many golden opportunities because we have no compassion. Compassion is an overwhelming love that moves us to action. That’s the part that scares us. Our problem is we miss so many opportunities because we don’t want to have to feel for anybody else. So let’s just keep people at arm’s length. It’s hard to witness to people when you just have this coldness. It’s hard to witness to people when you just don’t really care. You’re not really concerned at all. We don’t have compassion for one another. We don’t have compassion for the lost.
By the way, can I say this also? We don’t have compassion as churches anymore for other people in the ministry. It’s a sad thing. I’ve been involved with so many churches that have a great program. They’re all caught up in what they do. “How does it put money in our offering plates? How does it put people in our pews? How does it affect what we do?” Do you know what’s happened? The churches have taken on the complexion of the people. Might I say they’ve taken on also the complexion of the pastor. We’ve become selfish people. You folks know it, I’ll continue to go broke and I’ll continue to go crazy, and go gray, but I refuse to not be involved with other peoples’ ministries.
The couple that visited here last Sunday sat back here. The lady is a doctor and the fellow is in real estate, a nice couple, came to our services. He got a job in Butler. They just moved here, and the fellow he met in Butler that he had to deal with in the real estate business said to him at the first meeting at lunch, “Do you mind if we have a word of prayer before we eat?”
He said, “No, I’m a Christian. That’s wonderful. Let’s pray.” They prayed and they got to talking and he found out where the guy moved.
He said, “Oh, you’re down in that Pittsburgh area, kind of a little bit north of Pittsburgh.”
He said, “Yes.”
He said, “Do you know what? You need to go to Joe Grimaldi’s church. It’s Calvary Baptist Church in Allison Park. You need to go there.”
Do you know how that guy knows us? Because we were involved with a tent revival up in Mercer where he goes to church. I may have met him. I may not have met him. We sent them money, took bus loads of people, spent a lot of money on gas, put a lot effort in running back and forth, and blew up my Cadillac on the way up to the meeting in July. All kinds of aggravations to be involved with that thing.
There were preachers right there in that area that wouldn’t get involved in that meeting. I talked to some of them, and the reason was they didn’t feel it would benefit their church. That’s what they said. It was 62 miles from my door to where that tent was. I said to you folks, “It’s not going to benefit our church as far as bringing people into our pews and doing anything.” Is that what we’re in it for? Do you know what? We did have two people visit here that we would have never counted on from that meeting way up in Mercer. Even if that would have never happened, God blessed us because of it.
The problem is people just don’t have compassion anymore. They don’t have concern one for another. They don’t have concern for lost folks. They don’t have concern for other peoples’ ministries. It happens even inside the church. He drives a bus route, and you have a Sunday school class. He comes in a little bit late and you want to chew his head off. After all, he’s disrupting your class. You have no compassion for his bus kids. He has no consideration for your Sunday school class. So let’s fight. Let’s put on the gloves and go for it.
We’re in the middle of a fall program. What better time to have a fight? We haven’t had one yet. We’re almost three weeks into this thing. Let’s have a good fight somewhere. We have to have two Sunday school teachers going at it. There’s usually two lady Sunday school teachers who go down to the rest room there and have one of those hair pulling, cat clawing fights. What would the fall program be without a good fight? We have to have two bus workers or two of our men somewhere out in the parking lot hollering. We wouldn’t be Calvary Baptist Church unless we had at least one good fight during a program!
Excuse my sarcasm and satire, but it’s time that we understood that this whole business of compassion goes all the way across the board. It’s amazing to me. I’ve seen people that are so compassionate for their children and their pets -- little Foo Foo that looks like a squirrel that stuck it’s tail in a light socket.
If you have a thing you call a dog and you could put it inside a purse, it ain’t a dog! That’s a squirrel. Do you want to see a dog? Come to my house. I got a dog. If you could put him in your purse, God bless you. He weighs about 100 pounds now. He’s stupid and smart all at the same time. That’s a dog.
We’ll spend money. We’ll take him to the vet. We buy him this. We buy him that. We take and have him groomed and shampooed, have his little nails painted, put a collar on him with little diamonds in it, spoil him rotten. Then we’ll look at the guy across the street. We’ll have nothing to do with him. After all, he’s a human being. He is a never dying soul headed for heaven or hell.
Why don’t you just go out and kiss a tree. We’re playing right into the hand of all these animal rights and environmental wackos. We think more of our animals than we do people. We spend more money on our pets and pet food in the United States than we do on missions. More money is spent on pet food! “Are you advocating killing all of our pets?” If that’s what it takes to get missions supported, I’d be for it.
You only have compassion for your little sphere. You have compassion for your family, for your pet, for your little things, about those things you are very compassionate and concerned. When it comes to somebody else or something eternal, you don’t give a rip. You just want them not to bother you. What are you saying? I’m saying we miss golden opportunities because we have no compassion.
#4 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CONCERN FOR OUR CALL.
It’s interesting to me that Jesus said to them that His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. He understood He had a calling.
Dr. Jack Hyles preached a great message on the four calls of soulwinning. The call from within -- it’s interesting when Jeremiah wanted to quit the ministry that he said he could not. He said he wanted to shut up. He wanted to just go and start a little hotel somewhere for wayfaring men. He said that he could not because ‘His Word was in my heart like a fire that burned inside.’ He said, “I just couldn’t. There was something inside of me. “
If you’re genuinely saved, there is something inside of you. There is a call from within that makes you want to tell people how to be saved. If it’s not there, then what you’ve done is you’ve quenched the Holy Spirit. You grieved the Holy Spirit so long that you can’t even feel it anymore. You’ve become like that bag of cement. You’ve become hard. He can’t work with your heart anymore. A person that is truly born again has the Holy Spirit working on the inside convicting him. Therefore he wants to win people to Christ.
He talks about the call from without. Acts 16:9 where the plea comes to come over to Macedonia and help us. There is no doubt. You look around our world and you see the call from without, lost people. Isn’t it a wonderful thing when you run into somebody who says, “Do you know what? I’ve been wondering about that. I really would like to know that. I’m interested in that.” People that just want to know. That doesn’t’ happen to you every week, and it may only happen to you a couple of times in your whole life, but there are people out there that just want to know, people that will contact you.
I keep telling that story about Tom Reardon, I can’t remember, but I believe one of the first times I was there having my car worked on he found out I was a preacher and said to me, “This religion thing has always been confusing to me. I’ve always wondered what really you have to do to get to Heaven.” I think that’s the way we started that whole program. I thought to myself, “Should I tell him?” Every time we’d come back and we’d talk, I would go in and he had customers. He had people there. He had chauffeurs that were there to drive some of the limousines and he’d be doing business and he’d say, “Wait a second. I’ve been wanting to talk to you some more about that.” He wanted to know. He was asking me. There is a call from without. People really want to know.
He talks about the call from above, the call from Christ Himself when He gives the great commission, the call from the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12. There is a call from above to win people to Christ.
Then there is a call from below, Luke 16. The rich man in Hell wanted somebody to get the Word of God to his brothers. People in Hell want their relatives to be saved. There’s calls from within, from without, from above and below, and yet it seems that we in Christianity have learned to cover our ears and hum a happy tune. Maybe you can ignore all the cries that come from around you. I think we miss golden opportunities because we have no concern for the call of God in our life.
#5 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO COMMITMENT TO CHRIST.
You’ll notice in verse 34, Jesus said to them, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Commitment. The Bible says, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:5) The Bible says, “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.” (Proverbs 16:3) To commit means to put in care of. Commit your way unto the Lord. Put God in charge of your way. Commit your works unto the Lord. Put Him in charge of it. Put someone else in charge. Commit it to someone else. When I say we miss golden opportunities because we have no commitment to Christ, what I’m saying is we do not decide to put Him in charge and let Him decide what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, and we will put forth the effort to finish His work.
We’re very concerned about our work. We’re very concerned about our lives and our work, and what we have to do. Sometimes we are very committed to it. Thanks be unto God that we have husbands and wives that are very committed to their marriage, and committed to their relationship and rightfully so. Thanks be to God that we have some people that are very committed to their job and their occupation and rightfully so. Thanks be to God that we have some students, I was going to say that are very committed to their school work, but I don’t know that we have any of those! I’m sure they exist somewhere. There are probably some students somewhere that are very committed to their school work. Thanks be to God for that, and we have some parents that are very committed to their children. We have some children that ought to be committed somewhere. They’re very committed, and these are good areas to be committed, to be dedicated in. That’s a wonderful thing, but we need to understand that our first priority must be a commitment to Christ.
We say time and time again what the Scripture says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” (John 1:12) That word in there to receive is talking about the same kind of a phrase and a same kind of a concept as a bride and groom receiving each other. Do you realize when you trusted Christ, you accepted His promises? Isn’t it a sad thing though that you have very little commitment back to Him? Thanks be to God that He is committed to us. He’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. He’s committed. But we have no sense of commitment to Him. How is it people can be saved and never come to church? You say, “Is it possible they could be saved?” It would be easier for me to rationalize that they aren’t. Truthfully, I think many of them are, but they lack commitment.
We live in a day and age in a society where people don’t understand commitment anymore. They don’t understand commitment. Because of that we foster that same thing inside Christian circles, and there is no commitment to Christ anymore. We need to put Him in charge and give Him the care of our lives. Now that He’s gone, He left us some things. He’s committed some things to us. He’s put some things in our care and yet we treat them with so little commitment.
What are you saying? I’m saying we miss golden opportunities because we have no commitment. Why are golden opportunities missed? They are missed because sometimes we have no concept of time. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no vision of the cause. Sometimes I think they’re missed because we have no compassion. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no concern for our call. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no commitment to Christ.
John Henry Newman said, “Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have begun.” The sad reality to me is that we miss golden opportunities quite often because we’re just afraid to do anything.
Someone once said, “The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious and acts upon them before they become obsolete.”
George Bernard Shaw said, “The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”
You’re just waiting for that perfect day to be a soulwinner, right? You’re just waiting for that perfect opportunity to be faithful in your Bible reading. You’re just waiting for that perfect opportunity to be the kind of Christian you know you ought to be.
You know what? That perfect opportunity is not going to come unless you make it. Make the circumstances right. Decide to be a person that doesn’t miss opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. Life is too short to waste it. Let’s decide that we’re going to lift our eyes up. We’re going to look at the fields, and we’re going to get busy in the harvest. Let’s be people that do something instead of just talking about it. Let’s not waste God’s time.
Someone wrote a poem.
“There was a very cautious man, who never laughed or played.
He never risked. He never tried. He never sang or prayed.
When he one day passed away, his insurance was denied.
Since he never really lived, they claimed he never died.”
It’s true. So many times we miss so many opportunities to do things. In the sporting world I had chances to do things and was always looking back and saying, “I wish I would have done this.” I had a missed opportunity. One time when I was playing baseball as a sophomore, I made the varsity team. I never really got to play much, only if we were way ahead or way behind in the last few innings on the varsity team. There were only four sophomores on the team. One time there was a Pirate baseball scout who came, and they were scouting the catcher we had, and a pitcher who was also a center fielder. They came to scout them and everybody was told about it. There he was and in the last inning of the game, I got to pinch hit in front of a Pirate baseball scout. You say, “What did you do?” Struck out. Maybe that’s why I’m a preacher and not a baseball player today! I used to think about that.
There was a commercial somewhere and this little kid’s getting up to bat, and his mother is in the stands saying, “Please no curve balls, God. Please no curve ball.”
That was me. I was a fast ball hitter and I was up at the plate saying, “Please God, no curve ball. Please God, no curve ball, nothing off speed. Just throw me the heat.” He threw me three off speed pitches. “Were they curves?” I have no idea. Obviously I missed them pretty badly. I swung at the first three pitches. I was taking my cuts though, boy. That was an opportunity I missed.
When I coached sports, I’d have a team out there and we’d miss opportunities to score, miss opportunities to put the opponent away. I would say to myself, “Boy, that was such a big opportunity we missed.” It’s a sad thing when we miss so many golden opportunities.
There are times when I’ve hunted, and felt like there were golden opportunities afforded me. In archery season God was gracious to me and brought a lot of deer by for me to see and wave at, chase around a bit with my arrows. In archery season I shot several different times at several different bucks. It wasn’t the same one every time, but it may have been the same one a couple times. I think I shot at the same one at least twice, if not three times. I think I shot four or five times in archery season. Every time I would miss, I would sit there in the woods and go, “Grr, grr.” How many times in my life have I had an opportunity, not many, to be this close to a deer that actually has horns on it and then I miss. You go home and you kick yourself, missed opportunity. We understand that in the realm of our hobbies and our lives.
Maybe in business we see opportunities we had. People talked about years ago when McDonalds was first getting on the scene. They were selling the McDonalds’ franchise for $3000 to buy a franchise. Can you imagine what that would be worth today. $3000 you could have bought a McDonalds’ franchise, one of the stores, bought the franchise rights to it for $3000, worth a fortune today,. Missed opportunities.
When airplanes first became big, the railroad had a golden opportunity to be part of the airline industry and passed it up. They’re kicking themselves today because they never thought the airline industry would make anything of itself. It was always going to be about the railroad. They missed a golden opportunity.
The telegraph had great opportunity when telephone first became big to buy into it, and to have a big part, a big chunk of the telephone industry. They thought it would never catch on. It was just a fad. It wasn’t going to go anywhere. So they passed on the opportunity.
There are people who kick themselves continually for missed opportunities, whether they be in sports, whether they be in hobbies, whether they be in business, whatever it may be, they kick themselves over and over and over again for missing golden opportunities.
Yet we continue to miss golden opportunities to win people to Christ. Golden opportunities, time and time again, to have a part in someone’s salvation. Here in the text Jesus said unto them, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” People miss golden opportunities to serve Christ. There will be no soulwinning in Heaven. There will be no opportunity to witness in Heaven. It will be too late then. Their fate is settled forever. This is our opportunity to share the Gospel, to obey God’s command to us, to give people the opportunity to hear and believe the Gospel message, and quite often we miss our opportunity. We fail to take advantage of the time and the talent, and yes the treasure that God has afforded us here. I think there are several reasons why we miss those opportunities.
#1 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CONCEPT OF TIME.
Notice in verse 35 He said, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?...” They understood this whole harvest program, the planting, the reaping, and the harvest. They were thinking seasonally about crops. Christ was trying to get them to understand there is something more important here. You don’t understand what time it is. I know it’s not time to harvest the wheat crop right now. I understand it’s not time for you to harvest the grain that’s out there, but you don’t understand that it’s time right now to harvest some other kind of crop. You’re missing the whole point. You don’t have a concept of what time it is. Jeremiah laments the fact of missed opportunity when it comes to time, when he said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)
Years ago there was a famous skier. He beat his opponent in the Olympics by three tenths of a second. That’s not a very long period of time. Do you realize what that three tenths of a second meant? The next year he made three million dollars in endorsements. The guy who came in second made $10,000 as a ski instructor. The difference between three million dollars and ten thousand dollars was three tenths of a second. They had a very good concept of time. Time was vital and time was important in the race they were competing in.
Sometimes we just don’t have a good concept of time. We think we’re going to live forever. We think that other people are going to live forever. We think that we’ll have many, many other chances and many, many opportunities to take advantage of witnessing to someone and yet we don’t seem to understand our time.
We know that the Bible says our time is brief. “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14) We miss so many golden opportunities to win people to Christ because we do not have a concept of time passing us by. It’s a sad thing when we go to funerals and we see folks come to the casket -- whether it’s a loved one, a friend, or a relative, and they come there and there are so many things they wish they had said and done.
Dr. Hyles wrote a wonderful poem about a flower at a funeral. It’s one of those ‘would God I had’ kind of concepts. Many things we wished we had done, but you know we always think there’s going to be a tomorrow. There is nothing that went through your mind today that thought that tomorrow would not come for you. But you know, one day tomorrow won’t come for you. One day tomorrow won’t come for me, and tomorrow won’t be here for a lot of people.
Do you realize in the Pittsburgh area, there are over three million people? That’s not quite all of Allegheny county. In this county there is about three million people. We can count the soulwinning churches on one hand inside the county. What does that mean? That means we have great opportunity, great opportunity that we pass up and we do not take advantage of. One of the reasons we don’t take advantage of it is we have no concept of time. They didn’t have a concept of time. They thought harvest was four months away. They didn’t understand that there was a harvest that needed to be taken right now.
#2 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO VISION OF THE CAUSE.
Look at verse 35, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes,...” He said, “There is a harvest here that you don’t grasp. You’re not understanding what My cause is.” You look at the verses preceding this. They think Jesus is talking about food. They want to bring Him food. He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” They said, “Did somebody bring Him food? How did He get food?” He said, “You don’t understand. My meat is to do the will of My Father.”
Then He starts to talk to them about the harvest and once again they’re on the food kick. They must have been Baptists! He says, “No, no, no, not that kind of food. You don’t understand. There’s a harvest that you can’t see. There is a meat that I’m talking about that you don’t quite comprehend. You don’t have a vision of what’s going on here. You’ve lost the grasp of the vision of the cause.”
I think the reason we miss so many golden opportunities to win people to Christ, so many golden opportunities to get our hearts right with God in church services, is that we miss the idea and the concept that there is a cause out here that men are dying and going to Hell and we need to do something about it. I know in your little world there are so many things that are important. Think about this for a minute. Here’s God up in Heaven looking down, and He looks at you and He looks at the world from your eyes, and He sees the way you see the world. What’s your world?
Tomorrow ladies, is your world all about getting the laundry done and getting the dishes washed, and going grocery shopping and getting the food on the table, making sure the kids are out the door, make sure your husband is happy? What is your world consisting of? Those are some nice things and wonderful things. I’m for all of those things, but you know the world is a little bit broader than that. The world is a little bit bigger than that. There is a little bit more that goes on on this globe than that little realm of existence.
Men, what is your world about? You sit here today and may even be planning out your day tomorrow. You’re going to get up at a certain time. You’re going to show up at work. You’re going to punch the time clock. You’re going to do this and this, from this hour to that hour. When you get off work you’re going to stop by here. You’re going to do that. You’re going to come home. You’re going to fix this, or you’re going to take care of that, or you’re going to do something here. Then you’re going to eat. Then you’re going to go to bed. Then you’re going to get up and you’re going to do the same thing the next day. Is that what your world is? Is that all your world consists of?
Young people, what does your world consist of? You’re thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow. It’s a day off school and how you’re going to enjoy yourself, and what you’re going to do. Can I go and meet this person, or go and play this game, or have fun with this, or do this or do that? Is that all your world is?
I have a dog that sits at home today. His world consists of sleeping, eating, and playing. But do you know what? His world is not a whole lot smaller than most of us. That’s his whole world. His whole world is eating, sleeping, and playing. What’s your whole world? Add three or four items to that list and that’s about our whole world. What are you saying? We don’t have a vision of what really the cause is and what goes on around us.
You know the famous verse in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish:...” That’s a sad reality. The sad reality is we have hardened ourselves into a mind set what the world is like and on the fringe comes this idea of reaching people with the Gospel of Christ. It’s some little side line. It’s some little bridge thing. It’s some little thing over here, but it’s really not a part of my world and what’s important in my life.
I was driving down the road some years ago, and I saw a bag of cement on the side of the road. I’ve seen people do this before. You think this is great, a bag of cement. It must have fallen off a truck. It’s going to be great. I’ll get a free bag of cement. You stop and you go out and you’re going to get the bag of cement. Do you know what it is? It’s hard as a rock. Do you know what else is cool about it? If it lands on it’s end, the bottom is flat and you’ve got this oblong, weird looking thing. The cement has hardened into that shape. It stands up by itself, sort of like your blue jeans standing up in the corner waiting for you to hop in them the next day. It stands up there all by itself. Do you know what’s happened? That cement was not taken out of that bag. That wasn’t a mold for it. That’s not the shape. That’s not what the cement was made for.
My dad takes these little molds, and he’s got some pretty little sidewalks he’s making out of cement. They look like stone. He has a little mold and pours the cement and puts it in these little molds and makes these funny little sidewalk things, real neat looking things. Those look really nice. Maybe that cement was planned by somebody, whoever had it or wherever it came from to be a nice little sidewalk or to be a foundation for something. Somebody had some plan for that cement, but you know what? The plan for that cement was never to be in that shape in that bag. That was not the plan, but that’s the way it set up. Opportunity over.
Do you know what happens in the Christian life? God has a plan for your life, but somewhere you get thrown along the side of the road and you set up in a different shape, and you’re hard as a rock. Do you know the only thing that cement is good for? To be busted up and thrown in somewhere for filler. It’s just a filler. It’s not going to be used to make some beautiful shape any more. It’s not going to be used to make some pretty patio stone. It’s not going to be used to do that. It’s a sad thing that we miss golden opportunities that God has for us because we have no vision of our purpose. We have no vision other than our small little world.
#3 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO COMPASSION.
We talk about a time in history when people were so hard. We talk and think about medieval times, when people were hard and difficult, but can I suggest to you that in this modern compassionate era where we hear the politicians talking continually about a kinder, gentler kind of a nation. We hear people continually talking about feeling our pain, and feeling for one another. We live in a society, a day, an age, and a time where people are as far removed if not further than they’ve been at any other time from the feelings and the emotions and the needs of other people.
The church is where this all begins in my opinion. It’s our responsibility. First of all we have no compassion one for another. Take your Bible and tear I John out of it, and throw it away because we don’t follow it. We really don’t care about one another. Basically it’s sort of like, “Hey, just don’t bother me. Leave me alone and we’ll be fine!”
Let’s come to church. He comes. I come. We say, “Hi.” We shake hands. He sits there. I sit there. We have nothing to do with each other. As long as he doesn’t bug me, cause me any grief, we get along fine. But I don’t know anything about him, and I don’t want to know anything about him. Because if I know something about him, I might have to feel something for him. If I know something about him, and I feel something for him, it might call on me to perform some action. Far be it from me to have to do some deed of kindness. That might be a stretch. Let me just stay back in my own little world.
You keep people at arm’s length so that you don’t get hurt, so you don’t have problems and difficulties. That’s not the Christian way, but it is the way of many who call themselves Christians. Is that what I read in the Bible? It says that from cover to cover, doesn’t it? Thanks be to God that Christ didn’t think that way or act that way, or you’d still be at arm’s length from God. You’d never be able to be reconciled.
I’m saying that our problem is we just have no compassion. The Bible says, “And of some have compassion, making a difference:” (Jude 22) The problem is we miss so many golden opportunities because we’re just cold. We miss so many golden opportunities because we have no compassion. Compassion is an overwhelming love that moves us to action. That’s the part that scares us. Our problem is we miss so many opportunities because we don’t want to have to feel for anybody else. So let’s just keep people at arm’s length. It’s hard to witness to people when you just have this coldness. It’s hard to witness to people when you just don’t really care. You’re not really concerned at all. We don’t have compassion for one another. We don’t have compassion for the lost.
By the way, can I say this also? We don’t have compassion as churches anymore for other people in the ministry. It’s a sad thing. I’ve been involved with so many churches that have a great program. They’re all caught up in what they do. “How does it put money in our offering plates? How does it put people in our pews? How does it affect what we do?” Do you know what’s happened? The churches have taken on the complexion of the people. Might I say they’ve taken on also the complexion of the pastor. We’ve become selfish people. You folks know it, I’ll continue to go broke and I’ll continue to go crazy, and go gray, but I refuse to not be involved with other peoples’ ministries.
The couple that visited here last Sunday sat back here. The lady is a doctor and the fellow is in real estate, a nice couple, came to our services. He got a job in Butler. They just moved here, and the fellow he met in Butler that he had to deal with in the real estate business said to him at the first meeting at lunch, “Do you mind if we have a word of prayer before we eat?”
He said, “No, I’m a Christian. That’s wonderful. Let’s pray.” They prayed and they got to talking and he found out where the guy moved.
He said, “Oh, you’re down in that Pittsburgh area, kind of a little bit north of Pittsburgh.”
He said, “Yes.”
He said, “Do you know what? You need to go to Joe Grimaldi’s church. It’s Calvary Baptist Church in Allison Park. You need to go there.”
Do you know how that guy knows us? Because we were involved with a tent revival up in Mercer where he goes to church. I may have met him. I may not have met him. We sent them money, took bus loads of people, spent a lot of money on gas, put a lot effort in running back and forth, and blew up my Cadillac on the way up to the meeting in July. All kinds of aggravations to be involved with that thing.
There were preachers right there in that area that wouldn’t get involved in that meeting. I talked to some of them, and the reason was they didn’t feel it would benefit their church. That’s what they said. It was 62 miles from my door to where that tent was. I said to you folks, “It’s not going to benefit our church as far as bringing people into our pews and doing anything.” Is that what we’re in it for? Do you know what? We did have two people visit here that we would have never counted on from that meeting way up in Mercer. Even if that would have never happened, God blessed us because of it.
The problem is people just don’t have compassion anymore. They don’t have concern one for another. They don’t have concern for lost folks. They don’t have concern for other peoples’ ministries. It happens even inside the church. He drives a bus route, and you have a Sunday school class. He comes in a little bit late and you want to chew his head off. After all, he’s disrupting your class. You have no compassion for his bus kids. He has no consideration for your Sunday school class. So let’s fight. Let’s put on the gloves and go for it.
We’re in the middle of a fall program. What better time to have a fight? We haven’t had one yet. We’re almost three weeks into this thing. Let’s have a good fight somewhere. We have to have two Sunday school teachers going at it. There’s usually two lady Sunday school teachers who go down to the rest room there and have one of those hair pulling, cat clawing fights. What would the fall program be without a good fight? We have to have two bus workers or two of our men somewhere out in the parking lot hollering. We wouldn’t be Calvary Baptist Church unless we had at least one good fight during a program!
Excuse my sarcasm and satire, but it’s time that we understood that this whole business of compassion goes all the way across the board. It’s amazing to me. I’ve seen people that are so compassionate for their children and their pets -- little Foo Foo that looks like a squirrel that stuck it’s tail in a light socket.
If you have a thing you call a dog and you could put it inside a purse, it ain’t a dog! That’s a squirrel. Do you want to see a dog? Come to my house. I got a dog. If you could put him in your purse, God bless you. He weighs about 100 pounds now. He’s stupid and smart all at the same time. That’s a dog.
We’ll spend money. We’ll take him to the vet. We buy him this. We buy him that. We take and have him groomed and shampooed, have his little nails painted, put a collar on him with little diamonds in it, spoil him rotten. Then we’ll look at the guy across the street. We’ll have nothing to do with him. After all, he’s a human being. He is a never dying soul headed for heaven or hell.
Why don’t you just go out and kiss a tree. We’re playing right into the hand of all these animal rights and environmental wackos. We think more of our animals than we do people. We spend more money on our pets and pet food in the United States than we do on missions. More money is spent on pet food! “Are you advocating killing all of our pets?” If that’s what it takes to get missions supported, I’d be for it.
You only have compassion for your little sphere. You have compassion for your family, for your pet, for your little things, about those things you are very compassionate and concerned. When it comes to somebody else or something eternal, you don’t give a rip. You just want them not to bother you. What are you saying? I’m saying we miss golden opportunities because we have no compassion.
#4 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CONCERN FOR OUR CALL.
It’s interesting to me that Jesus said to them that His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. He understood He had a calling.
Dr. Jack Hyles preached a great message on the four calls of soulwinning. The call from within -- it’s interesting when Jeremiah wanted to quit the ministry that he said he could not. He said he wanted to shut up. He wanted to just go and start a little hotel somewhere for wayfaring men. He said that he could not because ‘His Word was in my heart like a fire that burned inside.’ He said, “I just couldn’t. There was something inside of me. “
If you’re genuinely saved, there is something inside of you. There is a call from within that makes you want to tell people how to be saved. If it’s not there, then what you’ve done is you’ve quenched the Holy Spirit. You grieved the Holy Spirit so long that you can’t even feel it anymore. You’ve become like that bag of cement. You’ve become hard. He can’t work with your heart anymore. A person that is truly born again has the Holy Spirit working on the inside convicting him. Therefore he wants to win people to Christ.
He talks about the call from without. Acts 16:9 where the plea comes to come over to Macedonia and help us. There is no doubt. You look around our world and you see the call from without, lost people. Isn’t it a wonderful thing when you run into somebody who says, “Do you know what? I’ve been wondering about that. I really would like to know that. I’m interested in that.” People that just want to know. That doesn’t’ happen to you every week, and it may only happen to you a couple of times in your whole life, but there are people out there that just want to know, people that will contact you.
I keep telling that story about Tom Reardon, I can’t remember, but I believe one of the first times I was there having my car worked on he found out I was a preacher and said to me, “This religion thing has always been confusing to me. I’ve always wondered what really you have to do to get to Heaven.” I think that’s the way we started that whole program. I thought to myself, “Should I tell him?” Every time we’d come back and we’d talk, I would go in and he had customers. He had people there. He had chauffeurs that were there to drive some of the limousines and he’d be doing business and he’d say, “Wait a second. I’ve been wanting to talk to you some more about that.” He wanted to know. He was asking me. There is a call from without. People really want to know.
He talks about the call from above, the call from Christ Himself when He gives the great commission, the call from the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12. There is a call from above to win people to Christ.
Then there is a call from below, Luke 16. The rich man in Hell wanted somebody to get the Word of God to his brothers. People in Hell want their relatives to be saved. There’s calls from within, from without, from above and below, and yet it seems that we in Christianity have learned to cover our ears and hum a happy tune. Maybe you can ignore all the cries that come from around you. I think we miss golden opportunities because we have no concern for the call of God in our life.
#5 WE MISS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE HAVE NO COMMITMENT TO CHRIST.
You’ll notice in verse 34, Jesus said to them, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Commitment. The Bible says, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:5) The Bible says, “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.” (Proverbs 16:3) To commit means to put in care of. Commit your way unto the Lord. Put God in charge of your way. Commit your works unto the Lord. Put Him in charge of it. Put someone else in charge. Commit it to someone else. When I say we miss golden opportunities because we have no commitment to Christ, what I’m saying is we do not decide to put Him in charge and let Him decide what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, and we will put forth the effort to finish His work.
We’re very concerned about our work. We’re very concerned about our lives and our work, and what we have to do. Sometimes we are very committed to it. Thanks be unto God that we have husbands and wives that are very committed to their marriage, and committed to their relationship and rightfully so. Thanks be to God that we have some people that are very committed to their job and their occupation and rightfully so. Thanks be to God that we have some students, I was going to say that are very committed to their school work, but I don’t know that we have any of those! I’m sure they exist somewhere. There are probably some students somewhere that are very committed to their school work. Thanks be to God for that, and we have some parents that are very committed to their children. We have some children that ought to be committed somewhere. They’re very committed, and these are good areas to be committed, to be dedicated in. That’s a wonderful thing, but we need to understand that our first priority must be a commitment to Christ.
We say time and time again what the Scripture says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” (John 1:12) That word in there to receive is talking about the same kind of a phrase and a same kind of a concept as a bride and groom receiving each other. Do you realize when you trusted Christ, you accepted His promises? Isn’t it a sad thing though that you have very little commitment back to Him? Thanks be to God that He is committed to us. He’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. He’s committed. But we have no sense of commitment to Him. How is it people can be saved and never come to church? You say, “Is it possible they could be saved?” It would be easier for me to rationalize that they aren’t. Truthfully, I think many of them are, but they lack commitment.
We live in a day and age in a society where people don’t understand commitment anymore. They don’t understand commitment. Because of that we foster that same thing inside Christian circles, and there is no commitment to Christ anymore. We need to put Him in charge and give Him the care of our lives. Now that He’s gone, He left us some things. He’s committed some things to us. He’s put some things in our care and yet we treat them with so little commitment.
What are you saying? I’m saying we miss golden opportunities because we have no commitment. Why are golden opportunities missed? They are missed because sometimes we have no concept of time. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no vision of the cause. Sometimes I think they’re missed because we have no compassion. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no concern for our call. Sometimes they’re missed because we have no commitment to Christ.
John Henry Newman said, “Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have begun.” The sad reality to me is that we miss golden opportunities quite often because we’re just afraid to do anything.
Someone once said, “The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious and acts upon them before they become obsolete.”
George Bernard Shaw said, “The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”
You’re just waiting for that perfect day to be a soulwinner, right? You’re just waiting for that perfect opportunity to be faithful in your Bible reading. You’re just waiting for that perfect opportunity to be the kind of Christian you know you ought to be.
You know what? That perfect opportunity is not going to come unless you make it. Make the circumstances right. Decide to be a person that doesn’t miss opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. Life is too short to waste it. Let’s decide that we’re going to lift our eyes up. We’re going to look at the fields, and we’re going to get busy in the harvest. Let’s be people that do something instead of just talking about it. Let’s not waste God’s time.
