Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

Not that those are good things, but it's good. That's what

families do. They get together and talk about what they need and

that's what we need to do here. And that's how we're able to

get our minds off of ourself and help someone else. So I appreciate

that. Thank you, Brother Reed. But tonight I am honored to be able

to speak tonight. I don't take these opportunities lightly. And

really I began to pray what the Lord would have me to speak on.

And I knew exactly what he wanted me to say before I was asked.

And this was just something that's been on my heart for a while.

It's actually something I learned back. And this was a truth

that I Learned back in 2014. And I'll explain that here in just

a little bit. But it really is not about me. I just, I think that

my story, I guess my illustrate or my experience will

help illustrate this truth. And I pray it be a blessing to you.

I do have another prayer request to add. I didn't put it in

there. I was seeing if my wife would do it, but she didn't. No,

I'm just joking. But my son Daniel just had all four of his wisdom

teeth pulled out of his head at the same time. And so they said

that he was not mission ready with all four in there. So now apparently

he is. But his head's about 10 gallons right now. And so pray for

him. He's hurting and he's recovering now. So pray for him.

And I appreciate that. I know he'll appreciate that as well. So

open your Bibles with me. Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter number

nine. Matthew nine. This is a familiar passage. And with us just

wrapping up our missions conference, our missions focus week.

This is a missions primarily focused in on mission work. And so

we're going to cover that. And let me just remind you again how

many people, missionaries and ministries are depending on us to

hold the rope. And so we have obligations to a missionary for the

life of their ministry. And, and so I would just encourage you

once again to pray what the Lord would have you to do this year

for missions. And we have a big obligation and I know that God,

if we are continuing God's work and we're doing it his way through

the local church, God will bless. And so just as an encouragement

here, but let's read In Matthew, chapter 9, verse, we'll

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

start in verse 35. The Bible says, and Jesus went about in all

the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and

preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing. Look what it

says. Every sickness and every disease among the people, it says.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion

on them because they fainted and they were scattered abroad as

sheep, having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples,

the harvest. Here it is. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the

laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,

that he will send forth laborers unto the harvest and to

his harvest. Let us pray. Lord, I pray that you calm my nerves,

Lord, help me now to speak what exactly you have for us tonight.

Lord, I pray I don't get in the way tonight. I pray that your

spirit would be evident, Lord, that you would move from seat to

seat, from people to people and heart to heart, Lord, and accomplish

exactly what we need tonight. Lord, help us to hear your word and

respond to it accordingly. Or may you be pleased with what you

see here tonight. I ask this in Jesus name, Amen. So this, this

compassion, this first I just want to give you some context. You

know this, but this is a way of reminding this is Jesus Christ

that we're talking about. He is speaking here. This is the one

that the Old Testament scriptures prophesied that there

would be a coming Messiah. And he would do many wondrous miracles.

Healing the sick, causing the blind to see, casting out devils.

That's what Isaiah prophesied. So their Old Testament, they were

longing for this person, this Savior, the chosen one to come. And

now he has come. And now he is actually in chapter what's amazing

about this portion of Scripture, Matthew 8, 9 and 10. It

kick starts his ministry in a way that we hadn't really seen. We've

seen the Sermon on the Mounts, we've seen some miracles. But if

you read through chapter eight and nine, it is packed full of miracles.

Jesus Christ is busy. He is. He is out doing the will of the Father.

And this is causing a stir amongst the people in the villages

and all the things that are happening. He's causing blind people

to see. He's causing folks that are paralyzed to get up and

walk. He's casting out demons multiple times throughout these chapters.

And this is causing a stir in the community, A following. His fame

is now spreading abroad. And now he simply goes to deal with these

two blind men. If you read back for the sake of time, I'll paraphrase

for you. But he does this miracle, he heals these two blind

men and he tells them, don't tell anyone. And they go and tell

everyone. I wonder if we did that Say, hey, don't go out on visitation,

would you do you know, I don't know, but he tells them, he tells

them, don't tell anyone and they go tell everyone. And this is

beginning, this movement, if you will, is just, I mean it's really

gaining momentum. Christ is accomplishing everything that he

had set out to do and he gets, and all this busyness of his ministry

and all the things that are happening. And I just wondered for

a moment what it would be like to be a disciple, an apostle. You

are watching this, you are watching this man do miraculous things.

In fact, they said, we have never ever seen anything like this

in all of Israel. Now remember, Israel was in the state

of, of this religious stronghold. They have replaced God

with their religion and all these people have been sold a false

bill of goods. They said, hey, you follow our religion and it will

satisfy you, it will help you in your time of need. And they said,

hey, we've washed our hands, we've kept all the laws, we've ate

all the food, we've done all the dietarial and the ceremonial,

you know, we've kept all those and you've lied. It doesn't fulfill.

We are worse now because we had a sense of hope than we were

before youe tell us, I mean this was the frustration that was

growing and these crowds were gathering and they, of course some

of them wanted to come. Just say, hey, do another one. Hey, you

know, can you do another one? And they're following Christ as like

this miracle monger. But there were some that really loved him and

began to get to know him and it made all the difference. But this

is kind of the setting of where we're at. This is 36, verse

36. It says, but when he saw the multitude, he was moved with

compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad

as sheep having no shepherd. Now the direct context of this is

salvation. They were lost people. These were lost people. But

you and I know a little bit, maybe a secondary application of

what it means to be without a pastor. You and I can feel that a

little bit. You know, there's some. That's hard. We're in a tough

spot right now. But the primary focus is upon the lost sheep.

Okay, so look what it says. It says, we're just going to try to

break down this small portion. So hang, stay with me and I pray

this be a blessing to you. It says, but when he saw the multitudes,

he was moved with compassion. Now I don't know about you, but my

Bible, I Have a red letter Bible. And Jesus is not speaking

here. Okay? Right. Or is he? Matthew's writing. How did he know

he was moved? How did Matthew know that Jesus was moved to. How

did he, Matthew, no doubtingly, Matthew was called later,

earlier in this chapter, he was called to be an apostle. He called

to be a disciple of Christ. And he's writing down the events

of what took place. He had just seen amazing things happen.

And he says there was something physically. Jesus was physically

affected by what he saw to the point that it got my attention. And

now the Holy Spirit has led him to lead. So you and I can see

this as well. And this is where we're at. We're at the place

where Christ is moved to the point of he is physically noticeably

different. He doesn't just see the multitudes. By the way, the disciples

saw the same multitudes, right? They were there. They could

look out and see the same people. Christ looks out and see

the same people. But he was affected differently. He was moved.

The Bible describes it. Moved with compassion. And the definition

of compassion is a suffering with another. He. This is nothing

that you don't know. But we have a compassionate God. He knows

what you're going through. He knows your heartaches. He knows your

shortcomings. He knows what makes you anxious and what makes

you discouraged and really how you function. He knows it affects

him. It affects him to the point where he does something about

it. And this compassion. Here's the other part of the definition.

A suffering with another, a painful sympathy, sorrow to pity

in the inward parts, compassion. This is also Webster's,

the last part of this definition. Listen to this. It says,

compassion mixed with passion, compounded with love and sorrow.

Do you have that? Do I have that? How many people did you pass

today? Driving down the road, gas station, convenience store, grocery

store, school, work, practice, whatever you had, whatever your activities

were. How many people did I pass today? I wasn't moved. Was I

moved? Did I have this same level of compassion on the people

around me? I don't know if I did or not. I want to say yes. I

want to say yes. And then the next question is, okay, what did

I do? Did I sympathize with them? Or was I moved to action? See

sympathy. David Livingston, he's a great pioneer missionary.

He gave this quote. He said, sympathy is no substitute for action.

So we can be sympathetic. We can sit here and see the missionary

videos and say, you know what I can see, you know, God bless those

that are in that closed country. God bless those that are

in Brazil or wherever they're at. And that's fine. That's good

to have sympathy. But compassion is different. Compassion

allows. It involves you moving to action. You take that sympathy

and it's moved to action. Now we're going to. We're going to do

something about it. Paul said in Romans 10, he says, Brethren,

my heart's prayer and desire for Israel is that they might be

saved. And you see, Paul didn't just give platitudes to things

that he loved about his people. He loved the nation of Israel.

He loved his people. He was called to the Gentiles, but he loved

the Jews. And Paul said, hey, I'm going to go to every single synagogue.

I'm going to be preaching in every major city. I want to go to

Rome. All roads lead to Rome. I want to get there, get. I want

to get this. He had compassion, he had a way. He had

a drive about him. And this is what Christ. This is the heart of

Christ that's beating right now. This is something, this broken

heart, these lost people attract the very heart of God. I

mean, God will stop what he's doing to look at the lost, to see

you're hurt, to do. I mean, look how far he came to save you.

He came from the glories of heaven to die on a rugged cross,

to be laid in the dirt as a baby, and then to go to die on the

cross. That was compassion. That was passion and action. And

he saw the multitude. He was moved by man's misery. He saw their

disappointments. And look what it says here. It says at the middle

verse, it says, because they fainted and were scattered abroad

as sheep having no shepherd. Now, in that context, that word fainted

means completely devastated. They were under the assumption by

the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees of the

day that the. This way, these actions, these religious rituals

can buy you and me favor with God. And they said, well, hey, we're

going to go do. We're going to check all those boxes. We're going

to do what you say. But it doesn't help. I don't feel any closer.

It's not working. And so now Jesus Christ comes on the scene.

And now things are happening. Now things are moving forward. They

said, we've never seen this before. Something's different. Christ

saw their spiritual condition. They were looking. It says that they

were looking and were scattered abroad because they fainted

and were scattered abroad. They were looking, but they never

found. They're still looking. And it broke his heart. And he really

wanted. Sometimes, you know, you read through the gospels, you

read through Christ's teachings. You know, there's times

where Christ taught and there's times where Christ preached

and then there's times where he is just in action and he's working

and doing. And this is one of the ones where this lesson, he's

not really teaching a lesson, so to say he didn't plan this sermon

three point outline. He's not typing, but he's preaching by his

actions. He's the only preacher ever to be able to preach

what he lives and lives what he preaches fully. And so they were

here, they desired this spiritual instruction and they had

gone to the world, they had gone to religion, they had gone to

all the things that the world had to offer and they were left empty.

It was the blind leading the blind and they were without a shepherd

and Christ's heart was broken. So then I want you to see first his

compassion. Secondly, I want you to see the problem. I want you

to see what is going on here. And what I believe to be the surface

level problem was there wasn't enough laborers. Well, the laborers

were right beside him. They were looking right at him. He had

laborers. Where was the disconnect? What are we not seeing?

The problem was that he was, he was dealing with a heart issue.

Let me share with you this story. This was in 2012. I started.

My wife and I started a van route in Dayton, Ohio. We started

with one family, a boy and a girl. And Lord grew that. And we

had to get my cdl as we started driving a bus. We started

averaging about 30 and things were going well. Well, VBS comes

on and VBS was crazy. Okay, VBS was crazy. And we had eight bus

routes and lots and lots of kids. And my route was on the west

side of Dayton. And just what you're. Yes, it was that what you're

thinking the west side of Dayton would be. And it was a. It

was a tough inner city neighborhood. Those kids were grown,

those kids were raised a different way and they were brought

up, they just experienced things that you and I. Maybe not.

Maybe you have, maybe not. But it was a difficult ministry and we

had VBS and I had taken off a couple days the week before, passed

out a bunch of flyers and. And we're going to have a big day. And

in the bus office at Cornerstone is a plaque and it's

called the 100 Club. And it gave like the few, like nine people

who had 100 kids on their route. And I'm like I want that.

I want to have 100 kids. 100 is my goal. And we're not talking

laws and safety. We're just talking just my ambition. So what

happened is the first night we had 72 on the bus, 72 on the bus.

And seven of them got saved. The police got called. They were

throwing stuff out the window at other cars. All of them didn't

get saved, Only seven of them, no. So I dealt with that, got home,

it was late, and I'm like, hun, that was a good talking to my

wife. I was like, that was good, wasn't it? She's like. She

starts breaking down, she's crying. And I'm like, what did I

miss? I thought this was good. I thought we did something well.

And she's like, I can't do this now. What, Lord? I was like,

what's wrong? She's like, it's just so much. She's like, there was

a fight. I broke up a fight. I'm picking up kids, they're jumping

over seats, they're doing this. They're throwing stuff out

the window. They're too much. And I said, okay. The next day, 89

kids. My wife's like, I'm done with you. But I needed her. I needed

her on. We had several workers and long story short, we. She's struggling.

She's really struggling. On Wednesday night, we went Monday through

Wednesday. And on Wednesday night, I just said, hey, let's just

finish this. Let's get through this. And will be done. Well, 98

on Wednesday night, almost 198. And that was just over the top,

just overwhelming. Can't handle this. This is just so stressful.

And I said, okay, well, this is the last night. And I did have

a talk with the Dayton police officer saying that, you know that

your bus is regulated for 72 riders, right? Okay, well. And so

do all my officers. They know that you know, that. Just want to

let you, you know, make sure we're on the same page. And I said,

okay, that's fine. Well, that evening I. That the day before we

went out, we ran an evening vbs. And I prayed and I said, Lord,

I said, I don't know how to really pray for this. I said, I've

sit here and you seem to be blessing the ministry. You seem to

have your hand upon this. I'm doing something wrong. What am I

doing? What is the problem? The disciples saw the same. What

is going on? I'm missing something. And God showed me later

in this verse. I didn't know it at the time, but reading through

this, the Holy Spirit said hey, do you remember that time in

Dayton when this happened? So yes, he said similar, not the same,

similar to this. And what happened after was that night we,

we went and we had another, we had 72 on the, on the route. We were

legal. We had a couple vans that followed behind us and it was,

it was a, it was a good year. A good, it was taxing. And that evening

we went to, to rally all the kids up to load them up on the bus.

Those kids just came around us, just loved on us. I mean we were

surrounded. There were kids like, I mean just everywhere and

they were saying, Ms. Leah, we love you Mr. Daniel, we love you.

And I said God, did I fall in love with the ministry or did I fall

in love with the people? You see, God sees people. He doesn't

see these ministries in and of themselves. God loves people. And

what, what happened next was I began to pray that God would give

me a love for those kids. Be careful what you pray for. We had

a bulletin board with all of these kids pictures on them with

all their names written. They had some unique names and we're trying

to remember all these names. Man, I could recall every one of

them. I know what they look like. God taught me a valuable lesson

that ministry is about the people. And if we are not loving

people, we're not doing it God's way. And we've got to get back

to where God, where we are serving God because we love what

he loves. That is the definition of the will of God, of

doing the heart of God, doing what God wants. This is what he wants.

And one thing too now what I've caught is every time I watch

a missionary video, you can hear it in the missionaries voices.

And they will say God has called me to this place. But look

at all the people. And when they put their focus on the people,

I would say most of the folks who come through this church, they

are, they, they, they have the heart for people. They're not focused

in on building big this or doing this. They love people. People

and that's what we need right now. We need to be able to serve

God, to minister to others with the love of Christ. And that

forever changed me in a way. You know, there's a way for us to

learn truth where we hear the word of God. We hear someone, our

pastor or our Sunday school teacher preach a truth and we receive

it and we say that that's great, I love it. We go tell someone.

But then there's Another way to receive truth, too. It's where

you live it out. It's where God has allowed you to go through

the lesson or go through the test. And then he teaches you the

lesson at the end. And that was this for me, where God said,

hey, these disciples who are looking at the same people who saw

their diseases, he saw all their disfigurements. They were paralyzed,

some of them. They were disfigured. They couldn't speak,

they couldn't see. And God saw not the outward way that broke his

heart. He saw their eternal spiritual condition. And he was moved

with compassion. He did something about it. Then. Now the

actual problem of not having laborers come about. So we see the

problem now. We see the prayer. Look what the prayer says

in verse 37. It says, Then saith he unto his disciples, the

harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Then he

tells the disciples, he says, pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the

harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.

This prayer is, I believe that these disciples. And you go back

and you can look, in Luke 10, there was more than 12. The Bible

says that there were 12 and 70 more. There was approximately 82

disciples, 12 apostles, 80 and 82 disciples that he was talking

to. And these. These disciples saw this. And this was such an impactful

moment in their life, in their ministry. Because the very next verse.

Look at verse 10, chapter 10, verse 1, it says, and when he had

called unto his 12 disciples, he gave them power against unclean

spirit to cast them out and to heal all matter of sickness and all

matter of disease. And then you see the first mission trip of

the disciples where they went out and they began to preach the

kingdom of God to all of them. So what they saw here, yes, the prayer

is needed. And I would challenge you tonight if you're involved

in ministry in any way. Usher, a deacon, a nursery worker, a Sunday

school teacher, any capacity at all for ministry, I would challenge

you tonight to ask yourself, why are you serving? Why are we doing

what we're doing? And if it's not for the people, it's not right.

I believe that. I believe that God is showing that here, that it's

this love for people that I can't teach you, that I can't give

that to you. I don't have what you need, but God does. And I promise

you, you pray and you ask God to give you a love for that people.

You don't have to pray for the ministry. You just love the people.

The ministry will do. God will give the increase. So hit this prayer.

God has been and is currently working in everyone's heart to bring

us all closer. He's allowing things in our lives and circumstances.

Passages through scriptures, daily reading, devotion, Sunday school

classes. All these things are family events. He wants you and I

to get to know him more. He wants us to come into a closer relationship.

That relationship, what does it actually mean, is when we start

to act upon the very heart of God. When we see what moves God's

heart and we say, that is what I want. I want that type of love.

I want to be able to affect people in those ways. And I believe

that God will respond to you in a great, great way. And I don't

know how the Lord will use this message tonight to help you.

But I needed a reminder of this. I needed a reminder about why

my why got a little off balance. Every time. Every time you

do something, watch your heart. Your heart matters so much.

We can please God with our actions, with what we do and why

we do it. But our heart is really the working ground of God.

And after they prepared the heart, after he prepared the heart

of his disciples, the ministry just took off. Everything was good,

you see, they turning the world upside down. Now would you

stand with me? Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, we come to

you tonight thankful for your word and the truth of it. Thank you

for how real it is in our life. Thank you for the effect that

it has. Lord, I pray now that you help me with my heart, Lord.

That you would prepare in all of us as a whole, Lord, exactly,

exactly what you would want from us, Lord. That we would see

your actions and we would be moved with compassion. Lord, I pray

that you would resonate this in a way that, Lord, I can't and

I'm not even going to try to. But I pray that, Lord, you can take

this and do what you do best with it. Lord, work. Help us now.

I pray in Jesus name, Amen.