"The Harvest Is Plentiful, But the Workers Are Few” | Luke 10:1–20

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways.

Buckle up, folks, Wow, buckle up. I'm feeling it today. Okay,

it's gonna be a good one.

Jeff is raring to go. Yesterday you got rouled up?

Yes man, oh man.

Yeah. So we're we're in the middle of a series,

ladies and gentlemen. Uh, what if Jesus had a podcast,

he would be talking about, most likely some of his

most famous sayings.

Yeah, that's right.

We're just taking his most famous sayings and pretending like

it's his podcast.

That's right, that's right. So that's what we're doing. And

before we get into that, we have a segment that

Desiree has pieced together that's actually something I don't think

we've ever done.

Yeah, so that today is it's a dad joke showdown,

but we're putting a little twist on it. So instead

of using preapproved, professionally awful dad jokes that Desiree usually

gives us what.

She wanted us to do, she asked us to She

gives us great ones.

Sometimes she told them.

To each of us to ask chat GPT for the

worst dead jokes that could possibly generate.

And then find the absolute worst one.

So essentially, what she's doing is she's outsourcing the.

Cringe, outsourcing the cringe.

There you go, all right, here we go. It's a

race to the bottom right here? Are you ready?

There? It is? Do it all right? Why can't you

give Elsa a balloon? I don't know, because she'll let

it go.

Let it go. Yeah, it's terrible, and it's terrible.

It's really bad.

Okay, why did the tomato turn red? Why because it's

the salad dressing.

Oh, that's actually decent.

That's a good one.

I'm giving you the worst ones in me too. Okay,

did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? No

great food, no atmosphere.

That's a good one. Okay. What do you call a

fish wearing a bow tie? What sophisticated? That's a rough one.

I used to play piano by ear, but now I

use my hand.

I got that one too, did you? Yes?

Wow, I used to play the piano by ear, but

now I use my hands like a normal person.

That's what I said.

Yeah, I get another one.

That's really GPT is doubling up well, hey, that's okay, okay,

all right.

Why don't skeletons fight each other? I've heard this one before.

Oh they have no guts.

I didn't have the guts.

Yeah, you've heard this one too before. Why did the

golfer bring two pairs of pants? I don't know, because

you get a hole in one?

Okay, okay, okay. I told my wife she was drawing

her eyebrows too high. She looks surprised.

That's the one that was you got one? I was

going to read you this.

Oh wow, yeah, it sent that way.

Now this one I actually liked. Okay, Yes, what's orange

and sounds like a parrot? I don't know a carrot?

Okay, stupid? Okay? Why didn't I know that one? How

do you organize a space party your planet?

Yeah? Was that on yours?

Too? Yes? Oh wow, so so chet GPT doubled up?

Yes?

Okay, How about this one? I only know twenty five

letters of the alphabet. I don't know why.

That's a good one. That's really good act. Why don't

eggs tell jokes?

Why?

Because they'd crack each other up and scramble the punchline.

That's a rough, that's rough. That is rough. Okay, this

is a bad one. Okay. Why did the math book

look sad? I don't know. It had too many problems.

If they made a movie that you'd cry at it

would I yeah, animated half.

Books, so many problems, Billy, there you go. Uh what

did the oceans say to the beach?

I don't know nothing.

It just waved.

Oh wow, what do you call what do you call

a cheese that isn't yours?

Not to cheese?

My last one is why did the scarecrow win an award?

Why?

Because he was outstanding in his field?

Wow?

That's a rough Okay, Well I have one more. I

have one more. Did you hear about the guy who

invented life savers? He made a mint? So there you go.

That's all tan of mine.

Hey, I actually have my own that my daughter told

me that that I've not used on the air before.

I actually liked this one.

Okay.

Did you hear about the weasel who walked into a bar?

A weasel walks into a bar and the bartender says, wow,

we don't get many weasels in here. What would you

like to drink? Pop? Goes the weasel.

No, it's great, that's terrible. Okay, well if you groaned,

we did our job. Yeah, that was that was what

I think. That was her goal today was just was

to create as many like just please stop kind.

Of groans right as possible.

And so, hey, you're welcome everybody. But those were really

really bad dad jokes.

So and by the way, so I need to work

at it.

Some dad jokes are great. Yeah, I still like my

Harry Potter one.

Yeah, that was a good one. Yep, we need to

work at this more. You know what else needs more workers?

Oh really, wow, that's so good.

Yeah, Jesus said he needs more workers in the field

because the harvest is ready.

They're just enough workers.

You know. That's a great quote. Yeah, yeah, Jesus said it,

and today we're gonna talk about it.

I'm a big fan, big fan, So so we're doing

this podcast as if Jesus were taking famous comments he

made and say, hey, that's the theme for his podcast

for the day. And so here in Luke, chapter ten,

I was.

Wondering why you said, you know, we get to work

on this more. I'm like, what.

That's so trying to get there, I can think.

So, if you're a newer listener, we're always trying to

think of the worst possible transitions from the goofy segment

into the things. So in Luke chapter ten, we'll just

read one through ten.

I believe one through twenty. Ooh, yep, good.

So it says the Lord now chose seventy two other disciples. Hey,

remember yesterday we talked about twelve, and then there were

one hundred and twenty. Now there's seventy two. So the

Lord chose them. Yep, Lord chose seventy two other disciples

and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns

and places that he planned to visit. These were his

instructions to them. The harvest is great, but the workers

are few. So pray to the Lord who is in

charge of the harvest, and ask him to send more

workers into his field. Now go and remember that I

am sending you out as lambs among wolves. Don't take

any money with you, or a traveler's bag, nor an

extra pair of sandals, and don't stop to greet anyone

on the road. Whenever you enter someone's home, first say

may God's peace be on this house. If those who

live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand. If they

are not the blessing will return to you. Don't move

around from home to home. Stay in one place, eating

and drinking what they provide. Don't hesitate to accept hospitality,

because those who work.

Deserve their pay.

If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat

whatever is set before you, heal the sick, and tell

them the Kingdom of God is near near you now.

But if a town refuses to welcome you, go out

into its streets and say, we wipe even the dust

of your town from our feet, to show that we

have abandoned you to your fate. And know this the

Kingdom of God is near. I assure you, even wicked

Sodom would be better off than such a town on

Judgment Day. What sorrow awaits you, Corsine and bethseta for

if the miracles I did in you had been done

in the wicked Tire and Sidon, their people would have

repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap

and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. Yes,

Tire and Sidon will be better off on Judgment Day

than you. And you people of Capernaum. Will you be

honored in heaven? No, you will go down to the

place of the dead.

Wow.

Then he said to the disciples, anyone who accepts your

message is also accepting me, And anyone who rejects you

is rejecting me. And anyone who rejects me is rejecting

God who sent me. When the seventy two disciples return,

they joyfully reported him.

Lord.

Even the demons obey us when we use your name. Yes,

he told them, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look,

I've given you authority over all the power of the enemy,

and you can walk them on snakes and scorpions and

crush them. Nothing will injure you. But don't rejoice because

evil spirits obey.

You.

Rejoice because your names are registered in heaven. There you go, man,

that is.

Such an obscure and overlooked verse. Don't rejoice because evil

spirits obey, you, rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.

In other words, like as mighty as God is in

our lives and all the great miracles that He does

in us and through us, don't take pride in the

fact that God uses you for great things. Right, You

don't have pride in that right. Right, It's just like

it's a gentle reminder that you know, tells us like,

for instance, a little weird to reflect on this, but

in this context, everybody knows our spirit. So we just

had a baptism day on a Sunday.

Morning, and it was so much fun.

We experienced something that very few people on this earth

get to experience. Right, So our church baptized two hundred

and what was it, fifty.

Four, two hundred and fifty four people, two hundred and

fifty four people. That was our Sterling Heights campus. The

other two campuses have baptisms coming up in a couple

of weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, So so our one campus baptized two

fifty four people. And excuse me, And so what is

the average church they convert they experience brand new Christians baptism?

What was the average church baptized a year?

Oh boy, I saw that stat rate before one of

our staff meetings here recently, because I looked it up again.

They the average church averages one point five new believers

that are not already at tenders of the church, meaning

most churches baptized the children of people who attend the church. Right,

and then the average church baptizes less than two non.

Believers a year, right, who just you know, walking in from.

All from outside?

Right, and so, so all that to say, and they

don't baptize non believers. They're baptized people who gave the

life to crisis result of the ministry.

Now they baptized them. Yeah, they were non believers right

from outside.

Yeah. So anyway, all that to say this, yeah.

I think it's the average church baptizes less than five

people a year, but I don't remember what it is.

I'll look it up, let me ask.

So all that to say, like you and I, because

of our you know, knowledge, because you measure everything, sure, right,

we're able to understand that. Wow, what a great privilege. Right,

So a verse like this reminds us, Hey, don't rejoice

because God does great things. Right, there's no there's no

there's no pride. I want you to take in that, right,

That's how I read that. That's right, that's right.

And what do you say you didn't do it?

Hey? You want to you want to get excited over something,

Get excited over the fact that guess what your name

is registered in heaven? Like there's the miracle, right, right,

that's the miracle. You could brag on That's the miracle

you can find pride in. That's the miracle you should

brag about, not the other things that God uses you

for and get, you know, let you experience. That's the

way that I take that because that is translatable in

my you know, in my life. Because after all, think

about it, he's talking to the seventy two who are

going out and doing incredible things. Hey, you're gonna be

able to walk up on snakes and you're gonna be impenetrable,

right right, nobody's gonna harm you because I'm sending you

out as these incredible you know, people on mission who

are gonna go from town to town and you're gonna

do incredible things. You're gonna heal people, You're gonna heal

the sick. Right, You're gonna do all these great things.

But the only thing you should really take pride in

is the fact that God has saved your soul.

They were like, Jesus Man, we were casting out demons

in your name.

This is awesome, and he just goes, yeah, I saw

Satan fall from heaven.

Just side note.

Yeah right, it wasn't you, But it was the power

of my name that did it. That's what he's saying there,

which is is so funny, But we get excited about

those things. Sometimes you ever get around people who get

like super spooky, it's all they want to talk about,

is like demons and miracles and stuff.

All the time.

Right, And this is what Jesus is saying, is, hey,

there's more important things than that this idea. Rejoice that

your name is registered in heaven. I wonder if our

listeners knew that there are multiple times in the Bible

that talks about this book where our names are registered.

The Lamb's Book of Life is what it's called, and

it says those whose names were found in the Book

of Life entered into heaven, and those whose name was

not found written in the Book of Life was cast

into outer darkness. Right yeah, and it talks about that

second death is what it's talking about, talking about eternity

without Christ and hell. So the Lamb's Book of Life,

that's really it is. If your name is in it,

you're on your way. If your name's not in it,

you're not. And that's what he's he's making a big

deal about. So do you think that when somebody trusts

crist that's when their name goes in.

Yes, yeah, me too, me too. Yeah.

So anyways, I just looked it up, by the way,

a minute ago. It says that large churches average thirty

eight baptisms per year, medium churches average twenty two, small

churches average eleven, and very small churches average four baptisms. Now,

the average church in America is only sixty nine people.

And then it says thousands of churches see no baptisms

in a year. Right, so it looks like the average

on average, larger churches baptized more people obviously just because

they have more people. But the small churches typically it's

about four is what the average church in America.

And we have the potential to see probably upwards of

maybe what six or seven hundred.

Yeah, I think we will baptize over six hundred this

year for sure. Yeah, we're heading in that direction.

But which is wonderful.

Yeah.

So you see God do something special and then you go, oh,

look what we did, and Jesus, hey, Jesus, we cast

our demons the name. Yeah, I saw Satan fall from heaven.

Yeah.

So he just has a great way of putting in perspective.

But you cast out a demon out of some drunkard

in town. I was there when we cast Satan out

of Heaven.

Yeah yeah, and I did it. I did it.

Yeah right.

That's just such an amazing, amazing turn on these guys.

It's cool, but one interesting. Let's go back to the

beginning of it. I think it's really great.

Cho when you said, before we get away from this thought,

you said, have you ever been around somebody who's like

super spooky? Oh? Yeah, and they all they want to

do is talk about spooky things. I remember one time

when I was in youth ministry, I set up a

sound system in the fellowship Paul, and we had this

big event, and it had a bad cable, right, it

had a bad cable, and sometimes it would work and

sometimes it wouldn't. And I said, I said, man, we

need to pray this thing works. And so the church

secretary or whatever the you know, administrative assistant comes over

and she puts her hand on the soundboard and she goes,

I pray the sound demons come out of this board,

and the demons would be cast out of this soundboard.

I'm like, okay, I'm pretty sure that it's just a

bad cable, But okay, if that's the way you want

to if that's the way you want to pray.

Yeah, yep, anyway, I just if the devil's gonna get

into anything, he'll get into the sound, saystem I'll tell

you that, or he'll pinch a baby in the service,

right right, those are those are the two things he

loves to do. Anyways, So Jesus is sending these seventy

two out. That's sometimes a surprise to people that didn't realize.

They thought it was just twelve disciples. The twelve were

like his inner circle, and then his inner inner circle

was Peter, James and John. Right, so but he has

he chooses these other seventy two, and I love it.

He sends them ahead in pairs to all the towns

and places he planned to visit. So these teams were Hey,

by the way, Jesus is coming. Do you ever wonder

why the crowds are so big? Jesus planned for big crowds, right,

that's what's happening.

Right.

So every once in a while, you know, you and

I will get criticized for working hard to figure out

how to capture people's attention, how to draw a crowd,

all these things. It's not a mystery. While why Jesus

crowds are so big. One he was taking sack lunches

and feeding thousands of people at a pop, right, and

he was raising dead people back to life. Those two

things will draw crowd.

That'll draw crowd.

But then if you want to maximize that and don't

want to lose out on the momentum, you go recruit

seventy two of your other disciples and say, hey, I'm

going to go to these ten towns. Go and tell

him I'm coming. That's what he did.

And then did you hear about that guy that fed

everybody with a sack lunch? Yeah, you hear about that

guy that raised the people from the dead. Yeah, he's

coming here.

And then do miracles in his name, yes, and make

sure that he gets the credit.

That's right in Jesus name, right right.

And so so this is why the crowds kept getting

bigger and bigger. Is Jesus planned to have bigger crowds. Now,

it was exhausting. We saw this a couple different times.

We'd have to leave the crowd. He'd go out and

get on a boat or whatever.

You know, and leave.

But he was sending the subject and I think a

lot of people have never thought about how intentional Jesus

was about getting the good news to as men people

as possible in that short little window of time that

he was doing ministry.

He was so intentional that he knew whether or not

it was the time, right, he says, all, my time

is not yet come. Sometimes he would reveal himself as

the Messiah and say, well, don't tell anybody just yet,

you know, don't, don't don't go to the highways and

the hedges, you know, kind of thing. And then and

then when he wanted it to happen, then it happened.

So so all that to say, think about how absolutely

incredible his intentionality was, right right, I mean his first miracle.

Remember what he told his mother it's not my time yet, yeah, right,

So he he knew exactly when he wanted his message

to go out, yes, which is yeah, which is great.

So then he sends him out two by two, which

I love. I love the fact that he's not saying,

go do this alone. God, God always wants us to

be working in teams. The importance of teams. I think

there's a real danger when we become kind of lone

ranger leaders or lone ranger Christians, we're out there just

doing ourselves. We kind of become our own heroes a

little bit. We think that we start believing our own press,

we start doing those things. But when you know there's

something about working together, we keep each other humble.

And I think that.

God desires a plurality of leadership. You read it through

the book, through the writings of Paul. He's always writing

to the elders plural at the different churches, and there's

something about this. So even in this when they're going out,

they go out in pairs to all the towns and places.

There's also some safety in that. You know, whenever the

executive leaders at Heritage Church travel anywhere, we always make

sure that we're going in groups. Right, a couple of

people at the time, and it's way more expensive. I'm

getting ready, I have to shoot over for a quick

meeting in India, and you know that by itself's not quick.

It takes two days just to get there. But I'm

grabbing somebody else and they're going with me. And it's

because we've had times when we're in our hotel room

and some lady comes up and knocks on the door.

You never know what's going to happen right, right, And

so for the sake of our own testimony, you know,

having Chad in the room or me being in the room,

when somebody tries to pull something, we're able to one

encourage each other to do the right thing too, we're

able to vouch for the other that hey, yeah, no

he slammed the door.

He didn't.

You know, do these things. It's safer, it's better. And

then I'm just gonna be honest, it's way more fun.

So I had a long layover. I was traveling somewhere

and Chad and I had a long layover. He was

with me, my executive pastor, and we had like an

eight hour layover in Paris. And so it was the

morning when we landed, it was like eight in the morning.

So we leave the airport, we go downtown, we run around,

we get some pictures, we get some great food, go

the stuff, we get on the thing. We come back laugh,

have all this fun to get things. About three months later,

I fly through Paris again and I had a nine

hour layover and I just stayed in the airport because

I was by myself. I was meeting people. They were

picking me up in the country. I was going to

So I was still traveling in a group, but I

just wasn't in that moment on that flight, I was

by myself. I was in one of the great cities

of the world, and I didn't leave the airport. I

just stayed in the airport. It's not fun to do, right, right, right, Yeah,

And so it's there's all these things. There's a lot

of safety, there's a lot of encouragement. One one person's discouraged.

There have been times when I got sick, or when

Chad got sick, or you got sick or somebody, and

we were able to help each other. But then it's

just way more fun to do it. And that's how

Jesus sent them out on this mission.

Yeah, I agree. And you know, we went to the

Dominican Republic. I was just there last week.

Yeah, yeah, and working with the Transformed.

One, working with Transform one and which is a ministry

that does.

What Yeah, we're working with Transform one, which rescues underage

girls from sex trafficking.

Yeah.

And as you can imagine, there's you have to be

with somebody.

There, yes, right, Yeah, you can't be in.

That type of ministry by yourself, right, And so I'm

with the founder, Jeff Jones, and I'm with my son.

So Steven went with us this time. And we were

walking up.

And down and Stephen is my son, Yeah, is six,

and so we want to take away with you.

That's correct.

So he's a man, he's he's a man. And we

were walking up and down the streets of a red

light district and uh, you know it's kind of nervous, right,

I mean, you know, it's like it's you know, there's

no necessarily like no danger or anything. But but you know,

when when you're around that environment, it's just.

So dark into an evil place.

Yeah, an evil place. It's just really dark. It feels

heavy and it and it's just you know, it's just

kind of you know, yucky or whatever. And uh but

uh but but you know, but basically, uh, Jeff Jones,

who's the founder of Transferring One, had spent the entire dinner,

like two hours of us just sitting there just coaching

Steven how to behave, what to say, what not to say,

where to look, what not we're not to look, how

to walk, you know, what to do? Right, I mean

it was just so unbelievably intentional coaching and I remember

thinking to myself, man, I am I am leap years

away from knowing half of that, right, Like I could

never ever survive right without that. All that to say,

what you're saying is, you know, going out two by two,

that's the way to do it, right. So this is

a great model for ministry, is what we're saying.

Plan ahead, figure out how to maximize the momentum. Yeah,

go in pairs and in teams, all those things. And

then he says, you know, I'm you need to pray

that God sends more workers. The harvest is ready. The

problem is if you don't have enough people to be

able to harvest it all, a lot of us going

to get wasted. That's the issue. So the harvest is ready,

you need to be praying, and we pray all the time.

God send us more workers, Send us more people so

that we can go out in the field and reach

more people.

For you.

His desire is a greater harvest, not a lesser harvest.

His desire isn't just go get what you can get.

He says, go get what you can get. Go in

a team, get as much as the two of you

can get, and then pray that God sends a whole

bunch more of you because we need more.

Right.

So God's not just satisfied with oh, well, I did

the best I could. God says, let's find every way

to get as many as we can. It's the heartbeat

of my life. I know it is yours as well.

And so then he says, I feel like I'm sending

you like lambs among the wolves.

Right.

You guys are so innocent, you just don't even know

what's about to happen. Because wolves eat lambs. Lambs don't

eat wolves, right, so it's going to be difficult. There's

going to be some difficulty there. So then he gives

them some instructions. It saysn't about the money, it's not

about what all you have or how you're traveling with style.

And then he says, instead, go find a person of peace.

Ye.

And it's amazing to me how often we've been, you know,

we'll wade into a ministry opportunity where we wo feel

like God's asking us to go to a place we

don't know anybody, We're not exactly sure. I remember the

first time we went into Egypt and we were trying

to figure out how to do some stuff in an

area that wasn't going to be super excited about Jesus' stuff.

And on the plane, this young guy and this young

girl come up and they go, are.

You guys Christians? Like yeah, he says, my dad's a pastor.

Turns out probably the only two Christians on the whole

plane is this brother and sister, and they wind up

bringing us to this church. We wind up meeting the dad.

The dad opened up a few doors. It was amazing.

You find this man a piece first, And that's what

Jesus is saying. You find that man of piece, somebody

who's local who can open the door for you rather

than just trying to bust through and all that kind

of stuff. So that's what he tells them to do.

I think it's really a cool, cool way you find

that man of piece.

Yeah, I agree. And then it's a shake the dust

off if they reject, if they reject, And so in

that day that was actually it makes a lot of sense. Right,

they had sandals, their feet were always dusty, which is

why they did foot washing. Right, they had all those customs,

and so shaking off the dust symbolically is like saying like, hey, like,

there's no excuse here. You know, Jesus was in person

doing miracles, and Jesus himself said, had these other wicked

cities seen these types of miracles? You guys are spoiled

and don't even know it, right, right, you've seen all

these miracles, and yet you reject me. And so it

sounds harsh what he's saying, right, like, is there going

to be blessing for you? Know? There's not. You know,

you had Jesus Christ himself, God himself in the flesh

doing miracles, preaching the good news, and you rejected him

like that's pretty.

And then understand, when somebody rejects you, they're not rejecting

your right when they reject your message and not rejecting you.

Jesus literally said, anyone who accepts your message is accepting me,

and anyone who rejects you is rejecting me.

Which is why sometimes I hear you say when you

when you talk about God's word, and it's a hard truth.

You go, I didn't write it.

I didn't write it exactly. I didn't write it. I'm

just telling you, right, that's great, it's fantastic. Well go

share the gospel with your friends. That's it.

Take somebody with you, and then understand if they reject it,

they're not rejecting you as a person, They're rejecting the

message of Jesus.

Yeah. So this is a great passage that says, hey,

God needs his workers, you know, pray that God would

say people out and and it's dangerous, but find people

of peace, find a ministry partner, and go out and

enjoy God's bless And if.

You're not yet on the team helping make new disciples

and reaching new people, we need you on the team.

Jesus said, we're supposed to be praying that you'd help

us out. Come on help us.

That's great. Yeah all right, well, hey, that's a great

place to end and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow on

the Bible guys,