The Way of Jesus 8.0

We're continuing our series tonight, uncovering the way of Jesus.

now that August has commenced, I think this tips us into now our third month

as we look at this series, and if you are new to this conversation, what

this series has been about is about looking at, the narrow way that Jesus

calls us as disciples to walk in.

But we're also been looking at some of the wide ways that we can.

get fooled or tricked or convinced to walk in that we think will lead to life.

But as it says in Proverbs, there's a way that seems right to man,

but in the end it leads to death.

And so we've been contrasting this narrow way of Jesus, but also with the

wide ways that we can fall into and that we can actually find ourselves

living by, convinced that we will find life in these ways when there is no

life to be found there because Jesus is very clear there is the narrow way.

That leads to life.

And there is the wide way that what leads to destruction.

And so great wisdom is often needed in this space.

'cause often the wide way can look so done, compelling, but it

cannot produce in us the abundant life that Christ came to give us.

It is only walking in the narrow way of Jesus where we know the abundant

life that Christ's going to give us.

And, and then be able to share it with those around us when the world's set.

Desperately needs to know this true and eternal life.

Amen.

Goodell, how have you been enjoying the conversation format?

How have you been finding that

it's a set up?

Yeah, go on.

Tell us.

I don't love

it.

Just honestly,

everyone says boo.

I know a lot of you have appreciated it.

It's helped you stay engaged and having different kind of

perspectives and different voices.

I, I don't play well with others.

I didn't do team sports growing up.

I did, I did horse riding, right?

I was on the horse.

I never enjoyed team

sports and so this is not my happy place, but because I'm so humble

and sacrificial, I've submitted my.

Self to this, for your sakes.

I love it because you just get a couple of different perspectives on the same

topic and so there's a richness in it.

I think

it's great.

That helps us to ponder some of these.

I can

appreciate

that deeper.

You can appreciate it.

I

can appreciate that.

That's

good.

So what are we doing tonight?

My love

Tonight we are looking at the way of Jesus as the way of the harvest.

And a little subtitle to that is, and this ist might sound a little

bit cryptic, but don't worry, all will be revealed in due course.

The problem underneath the problem.

What is the problem underneath the problem to do with this particular topic?

And I say, oh, this is all very curious.

It is, but it's good.

And it will all come to light as we go through tonight.

So.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

So the big idea for tonight's conversation is to uncover the way of Jesus is

to uncover the way of the harvest marked not by strategy or striving,

but by compassion, intercession and the raising up of laborers.

Through prayerful, surrender the way of Jesus is the way of harvesting.

All right, let's explain more by looking at this passage of scripture

here from Matthew nine verses 35 to 38.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in

their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing

every disease and every affliction.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and

helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send

out laborers into his harvest.

So Jesus speaks to a problem here in this passage.

What is the problem that Jesus identifies here?

And so let's just talk about the word problem for a moment.

It's one that we're all very familiar with because we've all got them, haven't we?

We all.

Have problems.

There's unlikely to be anybody here tonight who's going, I don't

have a single problem in my life.

I mean, maybe you do, and God bless you, and you can come and tell us your secret.

But how do we define this word problem?

In its simplest definition, a problem is an obstacle.

It's a situation, a person, a thing that needs attention.

And needs to be dealt with or solved.

So you've got problems.

I've got problems.

Guess what?

Red Door has problems.

Yes.

Really we are a church that has

problems.

I know.

Shocking.

now I'm not gonna bore

you with my

personal problems, but in the spirit of

transparency and because I think this is actually deeply relevant to what we're

talking about tonight, let's just talk about

some of our problems here at Red Door.

Fun.

Oh, so funny.

I think there's a continuum on the spectrum of those who love talking about

problems and those who, like, where is the nearest sand patch that I can go and

stick my head in and, just go, la la la.

Surely there's no problems.

All the optimists in the building want to just kind of focus on,

these are the great things going on.

And just so you know, we are not denying that there's great things

going on at our redirect family.

There are great things

going on.

But we're just focusing a sense of how do we view the problems from Jesus's way,

his way of thinking, his way of being.

So here's some problems that Red Door is facing

that we have observed.

Maybe you'll agree, maybe you won't, and this is not tic and

condemn or shame or to be critical.

Just observations for your consideration.

All right.

We think that we have maybe something of an outreach

problem here at Red Door, right?

That we could be a little bit of terms of temperature wise, a little bit

hotter in our evangelistic efforts that I think within the body here.

What, and they're speaking very generally.

Okay, this isn't for everybody.

Right?

But speaking very generally, there is perhaps a sense that people

don't feel fully equipped to be able to share the gospel with

those who don't yet know Jesus.

Or perhaps even there is just a general apathy of heart in this space.

Not a real burden for the loss, not a real desire like.

I know Louise sitting, sitting here has a very great passion for this, right?

But as a church overall speaking generally, maybe our temperature's just

a little bit turned down in this area.

And is that a problem?

Hmm.

I think it is because it matters very, very greatly to Jesus as we

have just read in this passage here.

I think maybe in the area of serving, we've got a little bit of a problem too.

The temperature maybe in the areas.

Serving has just turned a little bit down low.

in terms of, you know, huge source of exhaustion amongst those who lead

ministries here is around our culture of serving how hard it can be to

fill rosters, how unresponsive people can be in terms of communication.

Again, I say this, this is not a name and shame exercise, right?

Which is talking about some problems.

And don't worry, it become relevant soon in full transparency.

Seems we've got a bit of a clickiness problem here sometimes at Red Door, right?

Sometimes it can, we hear feedback from people who are new, how hard it can be

to break into the community here, and I think part of that is because there

is a really great community, right?

But sometimes when you're new, that can be kind of hard to like, oh, so maybe

we're just a little bit inward focused.

Maybe the temperature needs to be turned up a little bit in that space.

I think maybe sometimes we've got a bit of a cruise ship problem.

What do I mean by that?

It's where we think of the church as the destination rather than the vehicle.

Right?

It causes a cruise ship.

Cruise ships is a destination where you expect all your needs to be met.

Okay?

And this expectation can come upon churches sometimes, and I think

sometimes a lot of our church family can have that expectation.

The church is here to meet all my needs, and when it's not, I'm gonna come

and complain, or I'm just gonna get.

Twitter and bi and leave.

and a cruise ship mentality

or consumer mentality could be another way of saying that.

So maybe, maybe that's another little bit of a problem here.

And so this is not to discourage everyone.

Now don't leave.

Okay?

Because just like where two or more are gathered, Jesus is there we're two or more

are gathered, problems are there as well.

Okay?

So.

Every church has its problems, every gathering where people

exist have its problems.

That being said, like Adam said before, there is also much to

celebrate within our midst Also.

But let's go back to this passage for a moment, because what we can understand

to be the problem that Jesus is speaking about here, I think when we come to

understand it and we dive into it, which we're going to do tonight, I think

in many ways these things that I have

just talked about, you know, that maybe

are evident here at Red Door actually can be answered as we dive deeply into

the problem that Jesus identifies.

So in engineering circles, apparently.

There is a saying that goes along the lines, 90% of solving a

problem is an accurate diagnosis.

So Albert Einstein said, if I were given one hour to save the planet, I

would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.

Hmm.

Interesting, isn't it?

How many of us just go into problem solving mode?

Right.

Rather than actually taking the time, waiting and trying to determine, hmm.

What actually is the true problem?

'cause often as we'll find out tonight, there can be problems underneath.

The problem.

I know this is all very cryptic.

So with that explanation of that list of little things that Dale's

mentioned, well, maybe not little things, please understand that we

are identifying potential problems.

But today we are thinking about what is the problem underneath those things.

So those are a surface level presentation, but is actually a deeper

problem underneath which we want to expose, that we want to get to.

'cause you can solve at that level, everything else will

kind of take care of itself.

Does that make sense?

So what is the problem underneath the problem?

Jesus is trying to point out something here to help us.

All right.

You go

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the problem underneath the problem, so the

first point, if you're, taking notes tonight.

so Jesus is referring to the harvest.

and we wanna understand,

make sure we understand what the harvest is.

A harvest is.

Um.

Beautiful people that Jesus loves being ushered from the kingdom of

darkness into the kingdom of light.

There's a harvest for God's kingdom that they're children of

God and they step into that space.

Now, the first point here is you don't have a harvest problem.

You have a laborer problem.

You don't have a harvest problem, you have a laborer problem.

What do I mean?

So, so if you go to the next slide, I've just got a bit of a, sort

of a summary here.

Jesus' daily ministry

was preaching, teaching, healing, and when he saw the crowds, he was moved, right?

Not by anger, but by compassion.

And he saw the need and opportunity and he turned to his disciples

with insight and he says.

Well, let's say what he didn't say.

He didn't say Pray for the masses.

So he is looking at the crowds and he has compassion.

He says, a sheep without a shepherd.

And what he, he doesn't say is pray for them.

What does he say?

He actually says, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.

Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.

So Jesus' diagnosis here is that our problem in relationship to this

harvest, when we think about, even think about church and think about

our community, this solution is not, oh, we need more buildings.

The solution is not, oh, we need more money.

The solution actually is not the issue of secularism in our society.

Oh, this problem is so great.

The truth is being dissolved in this pluralistic world we live in.

Actually, that's not the problem Jesus is saying.

The problem is laborers and Jesus' diagnosis here is saying, listen.

Listen, the, the harvest is plentiful.

The work is a few, so this is not a harvest issue.

If I can put it in that phrasing, God can save people anywhere anyhow,

any way any means whatsoever.

Did you know that?

There's a beautiful couple in the life of the church, and I don't think

they're here tonight, and I didn't want to embarrass them, and I, I won't.

But, Ricky and Kira Russell, we baptized them a few about a month ago.

They're literally having encounters with Jesus, with no one speaking a

word to them, but they're, they're being drawn by the Lord under his own.

sovereign capacity to save and rescue, and no one's even involved.

So understand, what I'm trying to say is this is not a harvest problem.

This is a laborer problem.

Now, you might think, well, if God doesn't need anyone to save anyone,

what, what are we worried about now?

He, he desires to use us to, but understand that it's the Lord who

does the harvesting, not you and I.

There's not a harvest problem.

There's a laborer problem.

Another way to think about this is.

The, the way of Jesus could be defined as sowing and reaping.

Have you heard about that?

That the kingdom is a kingdom of sowing and reaping, and this concept

of sowing and reaping is, is obviously connected to how we understand harvest.

To write in an agricultural mindset, and I, I love the scripture in Jesus

speaking in Mark chapter four verses 26, and it says here, Jesus also said,

this is what the kingdom of God is like.

A man scatters seed on the ground night and day.

Whether he sleeps or gets up the seed, it sprouts and grows, though he

does not know how, don't miss that.

All by itself.

The soils produce grain.

First, the stalk, then the head, then the full corn kernel in the head.

As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sequel to it because the harvest has come.

Newsflash, this is not a harvest problem.

If sow a seed, God's gonna grow it.

I don't understand how, but that's above my pay grade because he's

the Lord of the harvest, not me.

We don't have a harvest problem.

We've got a laborer problem.

Does that make sense?

Like in the, we were hearing about this week where there's people in Iran

and Iraq who are having dreams in the middle of a night with a man in white

coming to them and and revealing them.

He's revealing Jesus, revealing himself to people.

And people were responding to the Lord of the harvest.

We don't have a harvest problem.

We have a laborer problem.

Now, when we think about laborers, I just wanna kind of help us to

understand what are we talking about?

'cause laborer, well, maybe in Perth, Western Australia, we use that term a bit.

You a brickies laborer, you're a, you know, you're a carpenter, you're a.

We understand that, but there's other words I think that are helpful

to understand what, when we say labor, what are we talking about?

So these are a list of four that I've got for you.

These are types of ways and attitudes of working.

Firstly, we've got influencers.

Influencers are an interesting type of workforce because they're.

Audience focused.

how do I get attention for my work?

And social media creates massive problems with this because it tempts

us to believe that more is happening when it actually isn't like it's

possible to create an illusion that something tremendous is happening.

Like a harvest.

My goodness.

Look at what's going on.

Have you ever seen those photos when you go to like a hotel,

you're trying to research and you go, oh, that one looks good.

And they obviously just took the photo at the perfect angle to, to almost,

give an illusion that the hotel is way better than you thought it was.

You have, is anyone doing suck it into that?

Yeah.

We've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

So this is a problem where if your, if your work is just to be an influencer, um.

You've gotta be wise because we're not actually talking about here

being a worker to create an audience.

We're not doing that.

The second one is if you're a hying where the focus is

actually money, it's a paycheck.

They're doing ministry for

compensation rather than, ministry because it

has a missions outward focused based on God's love and calling.

Jesus' Way is not focused on money for your work now workers as opposed

to labor, that's an interesting one.

Have, have wr written here.

My purpose, my work, my calling.

Sometimes when you, you can actually make your work all about your work.

This is what I'm doing.

This is my ministry, this is my calling, this is my thing, this is what I'm doing.

And make it all about the work that you are specifically doing.

Jesus didn't do that.

He wasn't about.

His work.

He was about the father's work.

He actually was about what he saw the father doing.

Jesus did.

Jesus came down to earth not to seek his own pleasure, but to do the one of the

will, do the will of the one who sent him.

But laborers, this is the, we're talking about here,

laborers, a harvest focused now.

I know there's only a handful of people who've been

involved in a harvest.

as I think about that

incredible agricultural task that needs to be done when it's harvest

season, but they drop everything to gather what has been sewn.

They work.

If you're a harvest minded, work a laborer, right?

You work from dawn to dust to make sure the fruit doesn't rot on the vine.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

The laborers, the whole point of harvest time is that if you act like it's sewing

time, in harvest time, you will miss out.

Jesus was outcome focused.

And so Jesus isn't asking for more influences.

He's not asking for more high links.

He's not asking for more workers.

He's actually asking us for more laborers, asking for

people with a harvest mentality.

Now, we can't just leave it there because the next point is super

valid, where we don't have a harvest problem, we have a laborer problem.

What's the problem underneath the problem?

Point two is we don't have a laborer problem.

We have a prayer problem.

Did you catch that?

You don't have a laborer problem?

We have a prayer problem.

Beautiful.

Can we just add the next slide up there, Sarah?

Thank you.

All right, so Jesus says in this passage, he says to ask the Lord

of the harvest, he says to pray.

And so the bottleneck as we consider the harvest that lies before us in

the world around us, the bottleneck that we can sow, often perceive it

isn't a lack of power on God's behalf.

It's not the pain in our cities.

It's not closed hearts.

Perhaps what it is, is actually our lack of intercession.

And what do we mean by intercession?

I think intercession is a word that can often get a little bit hijacked

and corrupted, and it's thought of as something for those special prayer people.

But intercession just means to pray on behalf of another, and it's this posture,

this heart posture of coming before God and asking the Lord of the harvest.

And so what Jesus is saying here is that what births, laborers is prayer.

Because we can't be guilted into caring and we can't be shamed into having a heart

of passion to see the harvest brought in.

We actually get prayed into caring.

And so Hudson Taylor, the founder of the Chinese Inland Mission, said it's.

Possible to move men, to move people through God by prayer alone.

Do we

actually believe that, is as we, as we sense

the burden

of the Lord, as we, are, exposed to

the brokenness of the world around us, and that meets that divine desire

within us for Jesus to come and to bring his salvation and deliverance

and his healing, are we moved?

To pray about that, what is our natural

instinctive motivation?

Do we actually believe that our prayer changes, things that we can actually ask

the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to send us to bring in this harvest?

And so as we consider this layer here, we don't have a laborer problem.

Perhaps what we actually have is a prayer problem.

Hmm.

But maybe there is even something under this.

Maybe next slide.

Maybe we don't so much have a prayer problem.

Ooh, maybe we might have a bit of a pride problem.

So,

can you see where this is tracking?

We're kind of just looking underneath, underneath, underneath

what's actually at the core, right?

So it's not a harvest problem.

It's not a laborer problem, it's not a prayer problem.

What's even underneath that?

We're saying there's a pride problem at play here.

PR principal Pride says, pride says, yeah, God, I, I know you've got this

harvest in mind and, I just wanna let you know, Lord, that I've got this.

In many

ways, we act like Lord, when we, when we don't pray, we

don't ask the Lord for laborers.

We are literally saying, Lord, you, you sit over there.

I got this.

Can you see the pride dynamic that's at play in the human

heart when we posture that way?

I think we actually make it a whole lot harder for ourselves to

participate in the way of Jesus in relationship to the way of the harvest.

The way of the harvest.

And I think, it's not that we consciously say this, but

this is what our lives testify

to when we are not, people who are grounded in prayer.

And, it is this prideful

posture.

Posture of I can do this, of, of self-reliance.

You know?

Yeah.

I see this thing, this call that you've got, Lord, I see this

ministry, but now I'm just gonna go and do it in my own strength.

And most of us know.

At some point who've tempted it that way, that it's just, it's only a matter

of time before you go running straight

into a brick wall.

because none of us

has the resources, the natural resources in ourselves to do the work of God.

We need the supernatural resources of his spirit.

So true.

But this is where it gets a little bit trickier because I think

we can isolate in our minds.

A a, a posture of pride that looks more like arrogance, like, I've

got this, leave, leave it to me.

But there's another one I just wanna highlight, and it's described

by disappointment, pride in an effort to protect oneself.

So this idea of seeking after his harvest, going after the way of harvest.

Is not easy.

There's pain attached to it.

There's a cost, and, and in that midst of cost where you can feel let down, you

can feel like difficult things happen.

Actually, what I'll do is I'll lower my expectations so I don't have to

put myself out there so much, because when it doesn't happen, it's kinda

like, well, I'm protecting myself.

Do you see how that's actually pride?

Where I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll make the playing field smaller

in order to guard my own heart.

I'll shrink my vision into something that I can manage.

Listen, I'll just aim to get over the line and that'll do, mate, and

all of that stems out of a pride because actually I've, I've been

hurt and I don't want to hurt again.

And that is a very subtle pride that is hard to identify because it stems

out of pain out of you trying to

protect myself.

I, over the last 13 years

have experienced this, and I've talked about

this before, where, over the last 13 years,

people leave.

Church community.

Did you know that you may not be here in 13 years time?

But the way my heart has processed that from time to time, it stings.

It hurts.

It guts you when you've invested into people and then they

leave and sometimes they leave.

Well, sometimes I don't leave.

Well.

You

know, like sometimes you're in a relationship maybe and you're

like, I thought we had something.

Totally.

I thought we did.

And the person leaves you like, but I thought we had something.

And, and that can really hurt

Totally.

I, I have found my heart

from time to time, trying to guard myself

from that.

That pain, right?

So pride says, actually Jesus, this way that you've

got me doing this, that's actually too

hard.

I actually want to do it my way.

'cause

it's safer that way.

it's less committal

from my heart.

I'm not gonna get so banged up in this journey.

And that's actually pride because I'm actually saying,

Lord, I don't want your way.

What I, what I want is what

is what is my way?

I think one way, we can understand this is if we, we know we're all supposed

to, pursue a life of faithfulness

to Jesus, right?

That to be a follower of Jesus is to seek to live a life where we

are faithful to him.

but if you think of a continu right?

You've got faithfulness

here.

And then on the

other end of the continu we got faith filled.

Yes.

Right.

And sometimes we can go, okay, if I just get over the line, right?

If I don't do anything really bad in my life, like if I get through my life and

I don't have an affair, I get through life with my marriage intact and I

don't commit any major crimes and I don't do anything true awful, then I've.

Done a pretty good job of not making Jesus look bad, right?

That's not a very inspiring way to live, is it?

'cause then at the other end of the continuum is this faith filled expectant

life that trusts in the capacity and the sovereignty of God that lives with.

This sense of expectation that God is indeed able to do far more abundantly

than we can hope or expect or imagine.

And that kind of posture lived out day to day is actually more on the rarer end of

the spectrum because we take some hits.

We sit in a self-protective mode and we just adopt this more kind of passive

looks nice, like nice Christian life on the outside, but we're really not

living a life of faithful expectancy.

It's very good for the glory of God and for the sake of the world around us.

Hey,

does that make sense?

And life is difficult, babe.

Of course.

Life is hard life.

It's, so, we're saying

this with all sorts of compassion to suggest that.

There is a normal process of grief that goes on, but we're talking about

when grief dictates the terms and causes your heart to shrink back.

But this is one of the deceptions, right?

This we get deceived into believing.

The way of self-protection is the good way.

And it's not.

There's a very great cost to living life in a self-protective posture

and self-protection has practically become a hobby in our Western

culture and in the church as well.

And so often people don't even have an expectation that God is able to

heal me, that God is able to restore me from the pain and the suffering

and the hurts that I've been through.

And you know, we were at this conference this week at

this, this one day, seminar, and the person

who was speaking was just reflecting on this reality, particularly that,

you know, pastors or those in frontline ministry places can just take so many

relational hits that they hearts they just end up guarded and then shut off.

And as he was sharing this and saying this, I'm just going, oh crap.

That's what I've done after 13, actually even longer.

Really, with 13 years of leading red, we've taken some big hits, not

just relationally, but in life as well, and it was only, as this person

said, they're starting to having this whoa moment of just how much.

I'm not living in a posture of faithful expectation to God anymore.

I'm just living safe, right?

I'm not living a life that's grossly disobedient, but it sure

as heck isn't one that's full of faith-filled expectation of what God.

Wants to do in and through me for his glory and for the

sake of the world around me.

And so that was a real moment of conviction.

And maybe it is for you too, and I wanna say this here tonight.

If you're prompted to say this, I didn't say this this morning, and

some of you maybe are struggling to place yourselves in what we're talking

about tonight, and maybe it's not.

Hitting you.

It's not connecting with you.

And I wonder if maybe that's because Jesus, for you isn't your Lord.

He's your life coach, and you don't actually consider Jesus as the one that

you follow and His life you seek to emulate, and that you seek to posture your

life to care about the things that Jesus.

Cares about, perhaps you've fallen into this wide way of treating Jesus,

which is, well, Jesus is just here to make my meet my needs and make my life

work, and when I've got some bad stuff going on, he's there to comfort me.

But really it's just about getting him on on my plans and adding a bit of Holy

Spirit sparkle juice to make things happen the way I want them to happen.

Right.

And we can fall into that trap.

Jesus is not your life coach.

He is either Lord or he is nothing.

Right?

He is Savior and Lord.

He's not just your savior and your homeboy, right?

And so there is no life outside of life.

Surrender to his lordship and pursuit of his.

Will.

And so I see that hand Dolly Dolly's getting amped back there in the back row.

Come on, Dolly.

Well, it's nice to know it reaches all the way to the back row all the

way, but maybe that's a place of repentance and confession for you.

Maybe Jesus isn't actually Lord, and maybe your heart has just,

maybe it's never even been there.

Maybe you've just always had this belief that, oh, I thought.

Actually, what do I believe about following Jesus?

And does it actually line up with what scripture says?

Because we are making the assumption here tonight that we are talking to

followers of Jesus whose hearts want to be in line with the will and the ways

of God, and whose hearts want to be burdened with what burdens God's heart.

And if that's not you, then

maybe invite.

The, examination of the

Holy Spirit to your heart and go maybe where, maybe I've gotten off

track, maybe the, maybe the things that life has thrown at you right.

Has caused you to kind of drift off this narrow way and onto this wide away.

All right.

That was just,

that's very good though.

That was just for

free.

So the,

the thing you asked there was like, what's on, what's on God's heart?

What's on, what's, what's on Jesus' heart?

And on his heart is his compassion for people.

Because they're like sheep without a shepherd, and so how we

respond, please don't hear that.

We're saying, well, this is what it's like when you're in a formal

ministry space in a church.

No, actually every single one of you are ministers of the gospel no where

to, no matter where your foot treads.

So don't reduce the kingdom of God to the size of your exhaustion.

Is that you hearing me?

That's what we tend to do.

'cause we've been living in safe mode.

I, I'm gonna go a bit

deeper, is that okay?

there's a slide there

with those laborers again, you know, the four laborers.

It's going back a little bit.

I just wanna pick up on something and I'm sorry.

So the laborer is harvest focused.

Okay.

When we're in self protection mode, we aren't harvest FO focused, right?

We can slip backwards.

I'm telling you my heart has, has from time to time slipped out of

harvest mode and back to worker mode where it's all about what I'm doing.

This is my thing.

This is my ministry, this is my thing, and I'll even tell you.

In a confessional space today is when my heart is completely wounded.

My desire just to go back to a hying mode where all I'm worrying about

is what I'm getting paid this week.

Great.

I. And that is not honoring to the king and his ways.

Does that make sense?

So when, when you, when you are feeling like in self-protection mode, there's

gonna be a desire to self-protect and that'll push you up the scale

of what type of worker you are.

Are you a laborer for the harvest or are you an influencer?

There's no influencers for the king in the kingdom of God.

Just so you know, there's only one influencer and his name is Jesus,

and you are a very far placed second.

Okay, anyway, I get off my soapbox.

This is what I wanna talk about.

Part four, you don't have a pride problem.

Remember what we said before?

You don't have a prayer problem, you have a pride problem,

and now we're going deeper.

You don't have a pride problem, you have a heart problem.

Can

we just say we not you.

I, I feel

like this is a

collective thing, right?

Yeah, it is.

But you is a little like, but

part of it is actually making it personal.

So we each shifts, but

just, just, I like the we Who prefers the we or the you?

Oh, ju Lou likes the, you No surprise there.

You

like we

all,

the confrontational in the room, like the, you, those who are a little bit more

gentle are like the we, it's all of us.

We're in the same boat.

Yeah.

Go Dale.

No, you, you go.

Oh,

okay.

All right.

I'll go.

we don't have a pride

problem.

We have a heart problem, so.

Let us consider this possible layer below this other layer.

We keep going deeper here.

So it says in this passage that we read at the beginning that Jesus had

compassion on the people because they were harassed and they were helpless.

And so, what is this word?

Compassion and

what?

It's this word.

in terms of the scriptural

definition, it refers to a deep agony in the gut.

And so Jesus was moved to his.

Core by what he saw.

He didn't just feel sorry for them.

He didn't just have some sad feelings about their situation.

He was deeply, deeply burdened.

And so let's look at some different

levels.

If we look at, the overarching banner

of this word compass.

We can understand it in four different kind of progressions.

Do you wanna go over these?

Yeah.

Four levels of our heart response.

So, pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion.

So pity's, like someone's going through a difficult time and you are, you

acknowledge it, but I'll have a flat wire.

Thanks.

You know what I mean?

You just acknowledge it and it ends there.

Okay.

As the rain comes down on the podcast, I wonder if I'll pick that up.

Second one.

Sympathy.

This is where you care about their suffering.

But empathy, the difference between sympathy and empathy is you feel it,

like it rocks you on the internal, right?

Like it, it's, it's actually making you feel pain.

But compassion is another layer down which says this is a burden you can't shake.

And it so affects me that I'm actually moved to action to help relieve the pain.

Which is the word compassion.

If you haven't heard it's co passion.

Passion is to suffer, co is to suffer with.

So you're not just watching and observing someone suffering.

You're actually saying, I'm gonna relieve that suffering and be a part of it.

That's compassion.

Beautiful.

So Richard Foster has this

beautiful quote here.

if we truly love people,

we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them.

And this will lead us to prayer and intercession is the way of loving others.

So it is this burden kind of love for people where we don't just want good

for them, but we want so much for them, so much more than we could give them.

For those of us who are parents in this room, we get that right.

You desire for your kids is always way more than you are

capable of giving them yourself.

But this thing when it comes to.

This burden, this compassion, this agony of gut for those who don't know Jesus for

the harvest, we cannot guilt ourselves into this depth of burden and compassion.

We cannot study our way there.

It purely comes through prayer and putting ourselves in the presence

of God and opening ourselves up to the blessing of his burden.

And when you consider that it was this passion of Jesus, this compassion of

Jesus that drew him to the cross, it is for this deep agony of gut, for the

brokenness, for the lostness of the world, that he went to the cross, which is why

it's called the passion of the Christ.

It is his suffering, but suffering birthed out of deep compassion.

And so I wanna talk about a moment.

About this idea of a blessing of a burden.

So as Jesus looked upon the crowd, he was burdened in the deepest part of

his being for what he saw, and there is a very great blessing in having a

burden from the Lord who here can say, hand on heart, I have a burden from the

Lord and it drives me in all that I do.

All right.

So there's, there's, there's like maybe six or seven hands

that, that went up tonight.

Maybe there's more and you just don't do the hand raising

thing.

that's okay.

but you, you're

not being assessed here, by the way.

No, you're not.

Um.

It's hard to carry a burden from the Lord.

It is not an easy thing to keep stoked, right?

The distractions of this world, the deceitfulness of wealth and riches

and the troubles of this world, all choke these things out of us.

But I have some observations that I have noticed about those that I have

the privilege of journeying alongside who live with this kind of divine.

Burden.

There is a beautiful passion about them.

They are energizing people to be around, yet they get, they are

just so focused on the prize and they are an absolute delight.

They're un offendable.

When people burn it is like they just have no time to be caught up in

petty things or like hurt feelings.

At the end of the day, that might sound a little bit insensitive, but

in light of a world going to hell, in a hand basket, in light of the

world that's in a place of deep and profound brokenness and suffering.

Have we really got time to be worried about some hurt feelings that ultimately

in the light of the Cheney, what on earth is it gonna matter anyway?

So I love the un offendable ness and I think about those in our midst, like

the Armors and the Steve Scrimmages.

I just cannot even imagine a world where those two would ever even bother

getting offended by anything or getting.

Distracted by things like just, just incidental things.

'cause they're so on mission and fueled by the burden that God has given them.

To see his kingdom come and his will done there is such a beautiful generosity.

One of the things that struck me about James Parker on Wednesday night.

This man is so insanely generous with his life, so his heart just burns with a

burden for the L-G-B-T-Q community, right?

That is his burden.

And these people, he desperately wants to see delivered and

saved and come to know Jesus.

And he's, I'm talking to him afterwards and going, oh, this person, you

know, has this question for you.

And he's like, just give him my number.

Just give him my number.

I'm like, are you insane?

And, but he just has this beautiful posture of my life is available

for the service of the king, and whatever he wants, I will do.

Because that is the, that is the nature of a God birth burden.

You just don't have time to be self-protecting, to going, you know, is

my life comfortable and ordered and safe?

It's just this beautiful life.

Of abandonment for the glory of God and for the sake of his mission.

And so something I've noticed, and I've noticed this in myself and I've noticed it

in others, I think it's a cultural thing, but it bleeds into the church as well.

Where there is an absence of genuine divine burden.

We tend to sanctify frustration.

Okay, so we have sanctified frustration so often in our

culture, and what do I mean by that?

We think if we have feelings of frustration, then that's our

demonstration of how much we care.

Oh, I'm so frustrated by this, or I'm just frustrated by that,

or I'm frustrated by this in the church, and I'm frustrated by that.

Frustration is not the same as a burden.

Very, very different.

It's a, it's

not a fruit of the spirit.

It's not a fruit of the spirit.

We

might think it is.

it is not, it is not

a fuel for your life.

It will actually exhaust you and exhaust those

around you.

Right?

So, you know, I have started

to listen to myself how often I use this word, and let's just say

I would think I would rather use the other F word than use this.

Frustration word as much as I do, right?

I think that would probably be more holier than actually the amount of

times I justify unholy attitudes with this word, frustration.

It can be a virtue signaling, right?

Look how much I care because look how frustrated I am.

Okay.

That's just garbage.

It's a tool of the enemy.

To draw you away from true, holy, divine burden and actually just

get you into the way of the world.

And if you are living by frustration, if you are just frustrated by the

people around you, by the world around you, by the people you work with,

by the people in your church, by the way, things are done in church, okay?

You are gonna end up shriveled your soul, end up shriveled, and

you are gonna end up exhausted.

It it one of those things that fuels the flesh in the moment,

but actually corrodes the soul and exhausts you in the long term.

Did you wanna say some more?

Yes, absolutely.

So remember, I'm just going back to the context of what we're

talking about here, just to.

Don't switch off right now because I know potentially why you are, because

burden is a hard pill to swallow.

I'm just about to give you the antidote in two seconds.

Just bear with me.

Okay, so we've gone from, we haven't got a harvest problem.

We've got a laborer problem, but the problem's not actually labor is, it's

prayer, but the problem isn't prayer.

It's pride.

The problem isn't pride, it's your heart.

Yeah.

You got the context.

So the, the antidote is receiving the burden of the Lord Now.

A percentage of you will hear that and you will automatically feel a sense

of heaviness because you're like, oh, I've gotta be more miserable.

Do you see?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm burdened by this thing.

Right.

But Dale just talked about how the people who are truly burden

of the Lord are passionate, un offend, outwardly focused, generous.

That doesn't sound like.

Negatively to me.

Do you know what I'm saying?

So don't equate the burden of the Lord as a heavy experience if

you're finding it hard to frame it.

Let me frame it to you like this.

Are you willing to receive the burden of joy?

Are you willing to receive the burden of hope?

Are you willing to receive the burden of beauty?

What was my last one?

Was it peace?

No.

Oh, the burden of rest.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Your hard posture for those things there will be completely

different to this concept of burden.

Would you agree?

Now, here's the kicker.

When you receive the burden of the Lord, it is always a repeat.

Always.

If it's not matched with this, it's not the burden of the Lord.

The burden of the Lord is always matched by the grace to carry that burden.

Do you hear me?

If you are just carrying a burden and it's heavy and there's no empowerment

of the spirit to walk that out, you haven't got the burden of the Lord.

So where we are going here is the way of Jesus is humbling yourself to say, Lord,

place your burden upon me so that I can carry it into the harvest field where you

will do mighty exploits through my life because I'm surrendered to your burden.

And in that, suddenly you're humbled.

You know why you're humble when you carry the burden of the Lord.

I have to stand up.

Because there's no way you can carry it by yourself.

So what happens is you have to actually deal with the pride 'cause

you can't carry it by yourself.

And therefore what do you do?

You humble yourself and you pray.

What do I pray?

I don't pray for the masses.

What I pray for is the Lord of the harvest.

You hear me?

Because you need his help.

You know why that's set up that way?

Because at the end of the day, he gets all the glory and you get nothing other

than rest, peace, hope, beauty, joy.

They're good things.

Are you hearing me?

So this is the way of, this is the way of harvest.

And I,

I just wanna say before you

go on,

you go out of that point.

No,

no.

Um.

And you consider, you know, what does

it say about Jesus?

as he went to the cross,

it was for the what set before him, it was the joy.

So there wasn't any greater burden than the burden that Jesus carried.

No.

But it was the joy that was set before him that he endured all that he

endured, that he endured that burden.

And, but it's 'cause every God birth burden should carry with it joy and hope.

This is why Jesus can say.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Right?

Amen.

'cause if you've just got a burden and it's all just making you have

a very big frowny face and looking like you've got a whole great dose

of spiritual constipation, right?

It's not being grounded in the joy.

And in the rest and the sufficiency and in the sovereignty of God.

And that is why whatever the burden is, right, it should not crush you.

It should fuel you and fill you with great joy.

And this isn't something that God has just really been and just.

Like sticking his finger on with me is like, because I'm a

melancholy personality, right?

I go to dark places very

easily and quickly and, I'm also quite prophetic

by nature.

So again, I tending towards, you know, the dark side quite easily.

But he's going, Dale, you have got to bring the energizing

power of hope into this picture.

In all that you see, in all you are discerning and all that

you are perceiving, you must.

Must, must, must bring the energizing power of hope into what you are

seeing and how you are perceiving it.

Because there is one, my friends, no matter how dark things look,

do we not serve a God who is able to work even in the darkness?

Even the darkness is not dark to him, even the darkness is as light to him.

So no matter what we're looking at, that can look so insurmountable and so very

hard we can come with the greatest hope.

And the greatest joy because we serve the one who was able to work

even in the darkest of darknesses.

Amen.

Spurgeon, said, when God places

his burden on you, he places his arms underneath you.

Oh, that's good.

Burden is not a weight to crush, but wings to ascend.

You hearing me?

You see this?

It's up.

It's right side up.

Right?

Oh man, I hope you're getting this.

So

where do we receive the burden of the Lord?

That is then the question, like how do we posture and position ourselves

to really get it, like get it good?

Not here, but.

Remember the heart, right?

We're talking about the burden is

in the bowels.

In the bowels.

It's such a

disturbing description.

Hey, blame it on the word of God.

I know, I know.

That's where the word of God puts it.

He's scared deep within you.

Right?

In your guts.

In your guts,

in your guts.

The the answer is in his presence in's presence.

It is not like a thing we would go into the presence of God.

Oh, it's a great sense of presence of God.

Now, Lord, now that I'm here, can you, can you lay the burden of the Lord on me?

That's, that's a good prayer actually, in light of what we're talking about.

So I want you to close your eyes right now.

Just steal your spirit, spill your heart.

Steal your heart.

Father, we, we wanna, we wanna have a changed heart.

We want to

feel

deeply.

Father, we want to.

I feel so deeply that it causes our hearts to be moved to compassion.

Firstly, holy Spirit will ask you to come and create us a pure heart

that the sensitivity of our hearts would grow the places of our heart.

That feel desensitized to the pain, to the anguish that is all around us.

Just come Holy Spirit and cause our hearts to feel once more.

Father, I wish we could get inside there and fix this ourselves, but

there's no way we can't do that.

Father, forgive us when we have dismissed

what's on your heart.

Because we've been afraid, because we've been scared of hurting

or being disappointed.

Forgive us when we've tried to protect ourselves when you are the

one who promised to be our protector

father.

For each one of these precious people here tonight, you, you have a very specific

burden that you want to place on us.

And so just in your own way, if you're willing tonight, just place your hands

out in front of you like you are gonna

receive something.

And, if you feel brave enough,

say, Lord, I, I, please, I would like to be given from you your

burden, the burden of the Lord,

and know tonight as you ask that his burden is light.

His yoke is easy.

Maybe tonight.

Some of you aren't willing to ask that, so let's frame it this way.

Father, ask for the burden of rest.

Ask for the burden of hope.

Ask for the burden of beauty.

Ask for the burden of joy.

Father, may your presence come and soothe the places of our hearts that

are hard, that are desensitized.

Many times we, we can't hear the burden of the Lord because we're so

fixated on comfort and self-protection.

Holy Spirit soo their hearts.

And if you're ready, go again and say, Lord, I ask for the burden of

the Lord to rest upon me, to speak to me, to witness to my spirit.

Maybe some of you have forgotten about a burden that you were shown and,

and a time gone, gone past, and he's reawaken that even right now.

Tonight in this posture of receiving a burden from the Lord.

I, I thank you, God, that you, you're not asking us to carry it.

You're actually just asking us to pray to the Lord of the harvest for laborers.

So if every person here who feels like you have something on your

heart, there's, there's a knowing.

Some of you already know, some of you are discovering, and that's all fine,

but do not be misled to think that all of that burden has to rest on you.

Father, today, in Jesus' name, we ask for laborers.

For you to bring forward into our sphere of awareness,

into our sphere of influence.

People who carry the burden, who carry the same heart, who carry the same

mission, who would come alongside us and carry the flame for your kingdom's

purpose into the harvest field.

And God, thank you that you are the Lord of the harvest, not us today.

And we trust you that you'll bring your harvest in your due time.

And in the meantime we just say, here I am.

Show me the burden of the Lord in a fresh way today.

I

in Jesus' name,

amen.