Viola Solid Rock Assembly
Heart for the Harvest
(audience applauding) All right, good evening. How's everybody doing? Awesome, all right. Glad to be sharing God's word with you tonight. Before I get started, I want to welcome my mom. She loves being put on the spot and I'm kidding. My mom's here all the way from Georgia and she made the long trip. We went last night to Little Rock to pick her up. And so she's visiting for a few days and I can't tell you how excited I am by that. Just does my heart a lot of good. So thank you mom for being here. Speaking of my mom, so her and my dad really instilled so many great things in me that I think any godly parent would want to instill in their kids. And one of the main things that sticks out to me is the fact that following Jesus is more than just choosing a belief system. It's not like we have a test at school and you got A, B, C, D, and you know, I'm just gonna pick C. It's a lot more than that. Following Jesus is about knowing Jesus personally. It's about getting to know his ways and spending time with him. And then as you get to know his ways, you're transformed into who he wants you to be. So the Jesus we see walking, the streets of Galilee, this Jesus we see in the gospels, knowing him, he can transform us into being more like him. And so we read that throughout scripture and God calls us to do that as believers. Not just to believe the right thing, not just to believe something on a certain topic, but to actually be transformed, the care about the things he cares about. So love the things that he loves, to dislike the things that he dislikes. So that's the Jesus that we're called to. And really we become more like that as we discover God. We read his word, we go through prayer, we worship, whatever it might be, but we draw near to him and he transforms us as we learn more about who he is. And I really love the gospels because you see this in action. We see the God of the universe, creator of everything, sending his son, Jesus, and Jesus living a fully man and fully God and countering people in all kinds of situations. And we see his reaction, his response. We see what he says, what he cares about. And so we see him in action and we can learn so much from that. And tonight we're going to be looking at a passage, actually we're going to be talking about three passages in Matthew, Luke and John, but really Matthew nine, if you're looking in your Bible, is the focus passage we're going to look at the most. But we kind of see that. We see Jesus around people and we see him reacting to what he's seeing, what's around him with people and how he's moved. That was hard as moved and how he would have our heart to be moved. And so tonight we're going to look at a heart for the harvest. It's a title of this message, a heart for the harvest. We're going to look at Matthew chapter nine, verse 35 to 38. I'm going to read that, it's also going to be on the screen. Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the good news about the kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, "The harvest is great, "but the workers are few." So pray to the Lord of the harvest, who is in charge of the harvest, ask him to send more workers into his fields. Tonight in this passage, we're going to look at three things that Jesus describes to us. The fact that there's an opportunity, there's a barrier and a solution. He presents an opportunity, a barrier and a solution. So the first thing that Jesus describes is an opportunity. So picture this with me, Jesus spending day after day, going town after town, moment after moment encountering people in their pain. Real people going through all kinds of sickness, hopelessness, confusion is what we read. And so people who are battling real things, people going through a lot of hard stuff. And so Jesus is surrounded by this. He made the choice to immerse himself being around people in their hurt. And it's in the middle of that that we see the compassion of Jesus stirred as he surrounded himself with people who were hurting. And as his heart has moved, we find this, that when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And that is such a powerful phrase. If we just let that soak in, that he had compassion on them because he saw they were confused and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And I think it just gives us a window into the perspective of heaven and how God sees people. The people who are hurting, the people who are down and out, the people who are desperate. When God sees them, he has moved with compassion and he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. Kind of just wandering aimlessly. And it's just an amazing insight into the state of humanity from the eyes of our creator. And if you can just imagine this, God our Father, creator of everything, formed Adam from the dust in his own image. We find that we are God's treasure possession. He has a love for us, that he doesn't have for any other creation, any other humanity. And yet sin comes in, the follow man happens. And everything that comes with that. And then we see Jesus physically here reading about this and the torment and all the helplessness, the confusion, all the pain that life brings people. And the love that Jesus had to see this face to face, seeing everything that people go through, he could not help but be stirred with compassion. The heart of Jesus hurts for people who are hurting. That is the heart of Jesus. It cares about people who are lost, people who are hurting. And so Jesus saw this in town after town. And so he's moved with compassion. And so here's the word in which is used for move with compassion. So that phrase, phrase move with compassion is a Greek word. I don't know how to say it, it looks like the word spaghetti. It's splag and the thesis or something like that. But it is the strongest word for pity in the Greek language. It describes the compassion which moves a man to the deepest depths of his being. This isn't a compassion that Jesus had where he's like, oh, poor, poor guy. He's really down and out, he's really going through trouble. This is a compassion that grips Jesus to the depths of his being. Can you think about that? The people that you encounter every day, the people you know about, the people you hear about that go through things like the terrible storms in North Carolina and everything, or whoever might be that you encounter on a day-to-day basis, somebody in your family who is really hurting and needs Jesus. Jesus is moved with compassion in the depths of his being. He is moved with compassion for those people. And I want to tell you, this wasn't just a snapshot in time where Jesus, it was like a one-time thing. When he was here, he felt that. He feels it today and I have a story that goes along with this. And when I was 21 years old, 21 years old, I grew up in a great home, thank you mom, and knew Jesus, but had some battles. And so I graduated high school and made some really poor decisions, got him with a really bad crowd. One thing led to another, the enemy tempted me and started going downhill really quick and ended up hooked on drugs really bad. It was bad, deep, deep addiction. And through that I was about a six-month period where I was starting to give up. I mean, it was bad. And I remember laying on my bed one night and not even saying these words out loud, I just stopped them. Jesus, please save me. I feel like a sheep without a shepherd. A sheep without a shepherd. 'Cause I'd heard this passage growing up and that for whatever reason, I just thought that in my mind. And the next day, my dad, he was such a prayer warrior, came to me and said, "Chris, God told me "that you feel like a sheep without a shepherd." And that he's calling you home. Sorry. And for me, it was just such a moment, it was a pivotal moment in my life because from that moment on, you couldn't tell me that God wasn't real. You couldn't tell me. I don't care what argument's out there. No, God, from my mind to God's ears and from God's mouth to my dad's ears and from dad to me got that message back that he heard my thoughts and he saw me in an absolutely desperate place and he had compassion on me. The same Jesus who had compassion on the crowds as they surrounded around him is the same Jesus who has compassion on the crowds around Viola Arkansas. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. And so if he heard me feeling that way, who ought to see here in our community? The people who are going through hard times, the kids that come through here on Wednesday, the youth that come through here on Wednesday, they have a terrible home life that need Jesus. He sees them as sheep without a shepherd. He sees them, he hears the crowd, he sees them. And so Jesus shows us here that he was moved by compassion and in verse 37, he says this phrase, "The harvest is great." There's an opportunity. This is the opportunity, the harvest is great. The harvest is there. There's another passage in John where it's the passage where he had met with a woman at the well. And the disciples that had went away, they went and got food, they got some Chick-fil-A or something, they come back and they were all concerned with, hey, did Jesus eat or not? They didn't know he'd had this conversation with a woman at the well. And he tells them, he said, "Hey," you know, he says, "Wake up." I've got it right here. He says, "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me and from finishing his work." You know the saying, "Four months between planting and harvest." But I say, "Wake up and look around, the fields are already ripe for harvest." The harvest is great, the harvest is here. And sometimes I think, you know, we get distracted, the disciples got distracted with food, all kinds of distractions can happen, but Jesus is saying the opportunity is today. It's not six months down the road. It's not whenever you get things figured out. It's not whenever you graduate, go to college and come back, teens. Kids, it's not when you grow up and you're a teenager in high school. It's today, today, today's the day. The harvest is today, the harvest is here. And distractions can pull us away from that. Here's what's very interesting. When you look through Matthew 9, you look at everything that happened before that, Jesus had some crazy stuff happen. He was casting out demons. And the Pharisees came and said, "Oh, he's only casting out demons through the power of the devil." So can you imagine that kind of criticism on your personal ministry and what that would have done to one of us, right? That would have thrown me off. People saying all that stuff. And yet, in spite of that, we see Jesus with a focus that says, all right, people are saying what they're gonna say. I've got distractions for you, you might be something different. It might be another distraction. It might be whatever, you name it. Number of things can distract us. Jesus didn't get distracted, but why could have distracted him? He kept his eyes on the people around him. And that's the challenge for us, is to see the harvest is great. The harvest is great. The opportunity is there. The people are around that God has for us to reach. The second thing, so first thing that Jesus describes is that there is an opportunity. The second thing that Jesus describes is that there is a barrier. In verse 37, we find this. He says to his disciples, the harvest is great, but the workers are few. You all have heard this passage many times. The workers are few. So Jesus is essentially saying, there are so many people who are lost and can come to God, but more people are what we need. And so the reality is that we have this incredible, incredible honor of partnering with God, being co-laborer in his harvest. Of doing this work, God puts this treasure in jars of clay. He puts this incredible thing like a Dixie cup, like who we are. It's incredible message in this gospel, what an honor. It's an honor, right? But it's also a responsibility that falls on us. And so think about this. Jesus here is saying, the harvest is great, but more people are needed to gather in that harvest. And so I think sometimes we get the mindset that well, God's nudging me to help out with kids. God's nudging me to give. God's nudging me to witness to somebody at work. But you know what, I've got these reasons why I just don't feel like it's the time or I don't want to do it. You know what, God will raise up somebody else to do it. We'll think about, you know, and you know what, for God's redemptive purposes, sometimes he will definitely do that. He will do that. Thank God that he does that. He can send anybody he wants. But I do think this is interesting and this kind of can shake up theology a little bit. Every commentary I read on this kind of said the same thing. That the way Jesus phrases this is that, you know, you imagine this harvest field, harvest is great, all the harvest is there. But Jesus said, there's a barrier here and that the workers are few. And so there's this sense that there is potential missed opportunity for what we can do for God. There is, there is potential that if, let's say, we were to all just sit back and think somebody else is going to do the work, that there could be work that could be done for God, that won't get done. It could happen. And we have to be real about that fact. We have to be awake about that because the harvest is great and the workers are few. I don't know about you, but I would imagine, I don't know everyone's testimony here, but I would imagine that many of you, maybe most of you here are the product of somebody who was older than you, who taught Sunday school, who gave, who prayed for you. And that's how you came to know Jesus. That somebody else sewed into your life. Somebody else was a labor in the harvest and that you were sitting in this pew today because of that. And so think about that and now think about your life today and think about the fact that there could be people that you've never met, people who aren't born yet, who could end up in these chairs because you decided to be a labor in God's harvest. You decided to give. You decided to go plant in water and seed. People will come to know to Jesus today because tomorrow because of your decision to be a labor in the harvest today. The harvest is great. The laborers are few. And the third thing we find, the third thing Jesus describes is that there is a solution to this. So we find this, the harvest is great, but the workers are few, therefore so pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest, ask Him to send more workers into His fields. So this incredible opportunity for the harvest that we saw, people herning, God wants to save and rescue people. This challenging barrier, the workers are few. We need to have more people out there. And now we see that there's a response we can have to this. And the number one response we can have to this is pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest and ask Him to send more workers into His fields. And I just love the imagery we get from this. And I sort of envision like this giant field that goes as far as we can see. And we find that this is God's field. It says, pray to God who is in charge of the harvest, to send more laborers into His harvest. So imagine God's got a field, it's giant field as far as we can see. And people who are supposed to come and gather in this harvest, you're supposed to witness, you're supposed to water and plant and tell people, you're supposed to disciple and you come and you say, "God here, I'm ready to work." And he says, "All right, I need you over there." And somebody else might come, "Okay, well, I don't need you there. I need you over here together in this harvest." And so I get this mental image of God just pointing people out in the harvest and saying, "Gather here, so here, water here." And so he assigns us a place and a role to do. The problem is that Jesus says, "The harvest is great, the harvest is large, but the amount of harvesting needed could be larger than the amount of people we have. We have a numbers problem if people don't step up, if people don't pray, if people don't go." And so Jesus is beckoning us, he's imploring us, pray to God that he would send more people. So God over the harvest asked him to raise up more people and God can do, who knows God can do that? Who knows God can stir hearts still in people? Who knows that God can raise people up from anywhere, doing anything and work in their hearts? God can do that, it's a God thing. Listen, we can talk to her blue in the face, but God compels people's hearts to take action. And so we who are already laboring in the harvest, we should be praying and saying, "God, raise up more people in Viola." I pray that for these kids in kids' church, God send them as laborers out into the harvest. So this is the word for the word "sind out" this phrase, so "sind out" more workers into the field. So in the original Greek, it means to forcibly thrust. So the same phrase is used in the next chapter to describe how Jesus cast out a demon, almost like a military term, so get the idea, Jesus sending out people into the harvest of Jesus taking them and catapulting them out. He's launching them out. And that's the prayer I have for my kids at home, for the kids in kids' church, for these teens, for everybody here is that God would take them and just catapult you out to where you need to go. That when you encounter God in your daily prayer time or as a community here, as we pray together, that God would do something rich and real in your life to where you can't help but go. You're so compelled that God is just catapulted you. He shot you out into the field that you're supposed to be in, the people you're supposed to be around. And so pray that God would do that in your life. Pray that God would do that in your life. So he told us to pray for laborers to be sent out into the harvest. There's a couple of other observations here when it comes to how we're supposed to solve this labor shortage in God's harvest. And we looked at it a minute ago, but this verse in John 434, when he encountered the woman at the will, had that great conversation, all the town of Samaria was about to come here, what Jesus had to say, the disciples get back and they're just completely out of the loop. They're talking about food. Jesus is talking about this right here. He says, "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, "who sent me, and from finishing his work, "you know the saying, four months "between planting and harvest." But I say, wake up and look around, the fields are already right for harvest. What fueled Jesus, what fueled him to do the work he did was not the same thing that was fueling the disciples. It's two different things. And sometimes we get our minds on the temporary, sometimes we get our minds on the things around us so much to the point that we're missing what God's doing. And so it's a focus problem, it's a focus issue. I know I battle that. Here's what I like, is that each time we see Jesus mentioning the harvest, it takes place after he's spent time with people. So there's three times that Jesus really kind of mentions this phrase, the one we looked at in Matthew, John four that we looked at, and then in Luke 10, chapter two, he says the same thing in a completely different time, three completely different times, he says, "Pray to Lord the harvest "to send out labors into the harvest." What happens before that though is Jesus had been around people and so this is a thing, if we kind of get siloed to where we're only spending time with people who are well, only spending time, which is the three people that are our friends, or whatever it might be, and we're not around people who are hurting, we can prevent ourselves from getting in compassion for the hurting, and we see Jesus stir with compassion after he was encountering the pain face to face. So I wanna encourage you all, be around people who are hurting, wherever that is, anywhere you know there are people who are lost, people who need Jesus, people who are in trouble and need prayer, be around those people because if you're spending time with Jesus in prayer, and you're spending time with people who are hurting, I feel that's a good recipe for getting the heart of Jesus, getting a heart for the harvest. I remember 2015, 2015, where you first started doing some working kids ministry, and we were serving, and at the end of the night, we had a prayer time for kids, and there was this kid who was probably 10 years old, and he had four siblings, and this kid had just lost his dad to cancer. And so I didn't even know this at the time, 'cause we were brand new to this whole area and knowing this family, and I remember he came there and he said, hey, I need prayer because my dad just died, and now I'm the one having to watch all my siblings and take on all the work in the house. How heavy is that? That's heavy. There is some real hurt going on in our world. I guarantee there are stories like that in this community. There are stories of broken homes and broken families and people who are absolutely hurting kids, teens, adults. And if we spend time with them and hear their stories, and let their stories hit home with us, it's a game changer. For Charity and I, I remember after that day, we were hooked on kids' ministry. We were hooked on impacting a younger generation because we knew that the impact we can make is real. And if you will spend time with Jesus, you will pray for labors to be sent out in the harvest, and you'll spend time with people who are hurting. You can be a laborer in this harvest and be somebody who duplicates yourself and sees other labors in the harvest. If you will, let's stand together. Jesus, we're just so thankful that you don't leave us where we are. We're thankful that in generations past, you have sent people who have prayed this prayer and who have sewn in our lives. They have prayed for labors. They have been labors in the harvest. They have discipled us. They have been prayer warriors and grandmas and grandpas, grandpas who have built grandmas who have been prayer warriors, whatever it might be. And we're here because of that. Thank you for that, Jesus. But God, don't let us be content just to be here. But God, I ask that out of this room, you would raise up labors for your harvest. I ask that you would raise that up, Jesus, right now. I ask Jesus throughout this room, that you would do a work that only you can do and let that compassion that you feel for souls, let it hit us, God, let it be real to us. Right now, God, do that work throughout this room. Give us a compassion for the lost. Give us a compassion for the hurting. Give us a love the way you see them as sheep without a shepherd. Confused and hopeless, help us to see it, Jesus. Open our eyes, God, wake us up. And help us not to just go through life day by day, just trying to get our checklist done. But Lord, impact our hearts for you. I ask tonight, God, as we go to a place of prayer, God, I ask that you would meet with us here. And so with all eyes closed, I just ask who, if you want to come up here for special prayer, we have people we want to pray over you. Maybe that's for something you're going through. Maybe you got a storm in your life. Maybe it's something where you know the fields are white for the harvest and you're not seeing it and you want God to open your eyes. You need God to shake you up today. We've all been there. God can help you today. You need compassion for the lost. Maybe you know people who are lost and you need help knowing how to reach them. Come on down, we'll pray for the lost with you. I would just ask as we begin to pray that if you're not spending time praying yourself, come find somebody to pray with. Jesus, just touch this crowd that's coming down. Moving hearts and lives today. Have your way in this place. God, we want to wait on you as long as you need to work. God, do an eternal change in hearts tonight. In Jesus name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]