Believing For More Laborers

Amen. Thank you for that. That’s great. That was a wonderful who made that Chloe. Well done Chloe. Thank you Chloe. Amen. Welcome. Thank you for coming this morning. It’s my name is Michael on the five pastors here and so are churches. The honor to be a few today. It’s encouraging to have a beautiful sunday morning to be a few and talk with you, pray with you, fellowship with you, drink some coffee with you have a donut with you, sing with you, pray with you. It’s just fun to be with you as a church. I’m excited for this topic. I went long at the first service and I don’t have a second service coming so I will try to stay in my range of where I’m supposed to be at but I’m excited to look at God’s word together for this passage we’re looking at today. So before we jump into that, can you take a few moments and bow your heads and pray with me. Christians all over the globe are praying for the war in Ukraine. I like to just open our time for a moment of prayer on that. Bow your heads and pray with me Lord, I Lord, it’s war. There’s been conflict there in that part of the country for eight years. There’s an estimated four million people that are displaced Lord. There’s churches and seminaries and gospel believing brothers and sisters are trying to be assault and a light in a very difficult time at the end of a pandemic at the end of a global recession. Global pandemic. Then there’s a war in their backyard. Lord, there’s people displaced homes being destroyed, lives being lost. It is wild Lord, what is happening? Or I ask that you would make a way for the gospel. Make a way for lives to be changed. Make a way for the church to expand in the Ukraine, Ukraine and Russian territories. Lord, all all jurisdictions, all governors, all dictators, all rulers will bow in me to you someday I pray you would compel hearts change hearts capture hearts and and just control that scene in our, in our world. Lord, crisis and conflict is are all around the globe. Lord and we can watch this one in living color Lord as people because of technology. We feel this more than everything else that happens around the globe because we see it. Lord, we see stories of lives that are being transformed and destroyed by war. Help us not to waste our time. The time is dark. The time is for christians to act is now the days are getting short. The time is evil is what the bible talks about. Help us not to waste our days, Help us through. Our days are numbered and counted. Help us to manage our time while our fleeting time help us make this time count word, I pray for my brother Jason’s prayer request that you would you protect and lead him in that Lord protecting lead us all Lord as we as we attempt to be faithful. In uh in lean times, how to be faithful christians now we commit this time to you in jesus name. Amen. I’d like to open up a short story, March 17 of a year ago. I had, I was at a pastoral church planning residency builder with Dan and Derek and others. There’s probably two dozen pastors and staff from healthy gospel centered churches in the Lincoln Omaha area that came together for a day long training. I heard saw and experienced things at that conference that have, that have changed my perspective as a pastor this last year and I’ve walked in this sermon in these passages for a year and I’ve rehearsed this sermon unintentionally dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of time over coffee at dinner tables, over lunch is over people’s lunch hours. I feel like I’ve said this version of what I’m covering today several dozen times. I feel like this has been in my system for a year and I’m excited to be able to share these passages and these principles and these passages and I’m not sure that plagiarizing from the pastor of the conference that I was at, he’s my friend, he sent me his notes. They were good, I appreciate his notes, I appreciate what he shared. But I do, I do, I am excited about this topic we got to cover today. We, we, we try to deep dive into the God’s word year round with expository christ centered teachings because the word of God theology that changes people when you think and you learn your mind expands and adapts and your your whole life changes when your mind changes and we deep dive into the word of God. But we come up for air a couple of times a year, the next four weeks we will be coming up for air as we look through being our prayer, life as a church, believing God for more than four different areas as a church. I’m excited for today’s topic dan is gonna have a weak topic. Next week I’m supposed to do week three and then week four is derek and a guest preacher charlie are going to come and talk about the pinnacle of our four week series which is our Mount Everest as a church and that is, that is exciting. Week four is gonna be amazing. So set your calendars for week four, if you can get through today. Week four will be amazing. Do you understand what I’m saying? That’s our purpose as the church’s week four. Alright, so I’m excited for today but we’re gonna, after this four week series, we’re gonna jump into a palm sunday easter. Good friday service. Our first ever good friday service. We’re gonna have this easter. If you want to come, make history come, we’ll see what happens, it’ll be great. We’ll do a good friday service and then after that we’re gonna jump into a solemn series again and so I assume we’ll do something like this again in august or september of next year. We usually do deep dives into the bible, but this is more of a strategies and principles what we’re trusting God for as a church as we believe God for more as we believe that for more. I just thank you for letting us explore some rhythms that we think will bring is for our our good and his glory as people. My theme for today is praying for gospel movement, believing God for more laborers. That’s my theme for today. I’m to begin and cover believing God for more laborers. I am assuming a shared experience, vision, theology, biblical understanding and framework to jump into the rest of my sermons. So in five minutes I’m gonna try to do a high level flyover of the biblical foundation of what the heck they’re laboring for. If I’m talking about believing God for more laborers, what are they laboring for that? That should be in your, that should be in your mind. So if you’ve been around church before, you’ve probably heard of this thing called the Great Commission, the Great Commission. Little did you know a little fun fact about this church. It’s had four names and 38 years. It’s very first name was great commission Church Lincoln, I believe, raise your hand if you’re here 12, two, you weren’t there 38 you’re definitely younger than me. Anyway, so men and women in the great commission Lincoln they changed the name because it was confusing the christians that went to that church got a better commission than the christians that went to that church. It was confusing sales name, it meant well, but it just impractical practicality, they say didn’t make sense, It was confusing more than helpful. The great Commission is not is not uh it’s in the bible Matthew 28 it talks about the great Commission, jesus and his disciples. If you look at me at the Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20 jesus came to his disciples and he says this and jesus said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the ends of the age. You see christians, the mission of the Church is baked into the Great Commission. We don’t have the luxury of creating our own cute mission statements apart from the heart and the spirit and the direction of the great commission. If you look at that passage in Medford 28 were supposed to transform and change the world, going to the whole world into all nations and all people groups. This great commission should be the driving force behind our mission statement as a local church and your your purpose and mission of your life. It’s going to all the world and make disciples of all nations. How do you do that by teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold up if you always to the even to the ends of the age, our church’s mission statement. If you’ve been to any of those membership classes, I’ve done every month. Our church’s membership in statement is to make authentic disciples of jesus christ who love and worship God and all they do it boils down to discipleship and and theology and your mind changed in your life being changed after your mind has changed. You see, we’re not we’re not a personality. Church were not built around my personality dan’s personality, Derek’s personality, Shane’s personality, Ben’s personality, those guys are great, I’m not as entertaining as those guys, I don’t know as good as stories as those guys, but our personalities are not the ultimate personality that we should worship. That is jesus. If you’re at a church where it’s built around a pastor’s personality and his gifting and his charisma and his charm and his blog and his books, that’s fine, but men and women, we should be worshiping one personality, jesus, not one of jesus creations and so I love the team of pastors were on and I love that, I’m not that fancy. They’re more fancy than I am, but I’m not that interesting, I’m not that charming, I’m not that outgoing, I’m not gonna, it’s not, we’re not a personality driven church, we’re not a program driven church were not built around the goods and services we do or don’t offer you as people, there’s not a daycare, there’s not a school, there’s not, you know, meetings you can have for every single special is that we don’t have that bandwidth that that desire as a church, We’re not a program driven church, we’re not a production driven church. Now worship was excellent this morning, but there’s no smoke machines blowing out smoke, there’s no technicolor, you know, tv monitors behind you taking for visual audio experience, it’s not evil, it’s just not us. Does that make sense? And we’re not a political church. My job is not to make good little insert the blank of whatever political affiliation you like, that is not our job, we’re not extension of a political party, we are a church that is actually attempting to build ourselves under the structures, roles and decision making to keep the main thing, the main thing And the main thing from Matthew 28 is making disciples making disciples is the main thing. So in an illustration, you all have shoes on, it’s cold today, right? Shoes, this is a shoe, this is my shoe, this is the shoe I have, I’ve had the shoe for a bit, if we’re a shoe company and we have, we have a logo, we have a board, we have committees, we have budgets, we have money and activity and events and structure and decision making. We have shareholders and we have, we have trucks coming and going raw goods coming in and out of our shoe plant and we never produced a single shoe, we’re going out of business, we’re a failure as a shoe company. Does that make sense? Alright, I’m gonna put this back on in front of you all. So, so we are, so we’re not a shoe company, we’re a church. We have all kinds of leaders, all kinds of logos and cool videos and social media and websites and branding and paper. We hand out and material, we’re giving away and people meeting and decisions being made and people talking and planning and and praying and attempting to do things and if we never make a disciple, we’re not the designed prototype church was seen in the bible. We want to be a church that is built to keep the main thing, the main thing. How do we do that? We pastors, elders are 50 leaders are paid staff are pursuing keeping the main thing, the main thing of making disciples by teaching them to observe all that. I have commanded you in that that line. It’s through the life knowledge, see all these theology transformation that occurs in the life of a believer that makes them a mature disciple. We’re not against learning and being learned folks, but you learning unleashes your mind to be a gospel witness, a disciple into your neighborhoods and your networks and that’s what sends you out on mission into your life And just we’re gonna pop, we’ll come back to this thought here. But as we pause, we’re gonna look for this is not just exclusively Matthew 28 you see this global conquest, this world domination, Great Commission. You see that in tobacco too. It’s an old testament and new testament theme of the Kingdom of God here among men, If you look at me and Ibaka to 14 for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. As the waters cover the sea. We see christ kingdom. His mission is for everywhere for everyone we see the purpose of God is that the Kingdom of God will live among the people of God among all the people groups around the globe. The first main thing you can see from these two different vision statements, these two mission statements and Ibaka and in Matthew is the vision is a global vision, they sent the disciples into the whole world as the waters cover the earth, not as the waters cover Nebraska, as the waters cover the earth. It shows global domination. A global mission. So like we have a local mission mission as a church and this is part of it and it’s, this is one part of it. The second main part of it is in all those different community groups all over the city. That’s our local ministry area, local outrage, our local discipleship, our local mission, we have a regional efforts that happen. This could be mission trips. Those could be funds that we send to help with disaster relief when the river floods or when there’s tornadoes or if there’s a church plants efforts happening. I got a local local regional missionary emailed me asking for some of our gospel tracks this morning. I think we’re gonna send him those. If I can find out who has that file, we’ll send it to him this afternoon. There’s a look, there’s a regional effort and then there’s a national effort as a, as a mission. That national effort is funds and money and even sending a missionary to Alaska brock and Megan last year around a month or two from now this time last year. And then there’s a global mission with missionary efforts are happening outside the United States with money going outside the United States. The vision is global. It’s not just local, it’s a global mission. Local, regional, national and global, but the waters covered the earth. But the samples were sent throughout the whole known world. It is a global effort because God reigns and rules over all of the globe. While the planets activities, we don’t have the privilege to put boundaries on the people or the scope of the vision. The vision is the entire world. Our mandate, our biblical mandate as the church, the bride of christ is world domination expanding and planting gospel beacons of hope around the entire world. It’s like Pinky and the brain animaniacs. I know who, So it’s his cartoon when I was a kid, so half you can’t pay attention right now. Um what Pinky goes to the brace is what we’re gonna do tonight Pinky and he says, what are you gonna do tonight? He says the same thing we do every night Pinky try to take over the world and these two lab rats. It’s great, you’ll love it, watch it this afternoon. But our biblical mandate is global domination. World domination because our God has an authority in reign and rule over the entire planet. So his ministry, his church to the people over the entire planet should look like God. The second main thing we should see about the great commission is the vision is open and accessible to everyone. The vision is open and accessible to everyone. Our desire is to be a gospel beacon of hope and healing here on the corner of 27th in our street that is a healthy biblical church and it seems like we’re growing in health and growing in our biblical literacy as a church. But we are stewards under God of His church and we are stewarding the call of God for all the people of God, for the glory of God. The Great Commission is the grand mission, the grand purpose we can throw our lives into as people. This vision is open and accessible to everyone. Number three and my five minute summary of the great Commission, The vision is all encompassing. The vision is all encompassing as the waters cover the sea, water gets everywhere. I install the sink in my house on friday in the basement on my day off in the morning. There was a simple little kit. There’s a little dripping down there like that’s fine, it’s concrete and there’s this floor drain there and no one’s using the sink. But like we had a bigger than a little bit, we had a basement flooding water destroying event in our building two years ago and we we staff stacked these chairs against the walls and brought all the stuff out of the basement, laid it out all over here and this room smelled so bad and we threw so much away and I used as an opportunity to get rid of a lot of old stuff because churches can hold a lot of stuff and we got rid of a lot of old stuff. It was great, but water gets everywhere, it’s soaked into any box and any bit of technology and any and everything waters permeated and soaked into everything after it’s set here for a week. We’ve got it back into the basement after we cut it all. It was just, it’s just crazy when you have a flood that the earth would be filled. The knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the earth. The vision is all encompassing water gets everywhere every square inch of our cities. God wants to cover with the knowledge of his glory and God wants to start with you as the many representatives the disciple of jesus, he wants to start a few and start now. He wants to cover every nook and cranny of your life, all the ways in all your days, every nook and cranny of this city and every nook and cranny of your life with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. The desired will of God is to saturate you and saturate your neighborhood and your network with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. This desired will of God to get ever any man and any woman in any child access to the good news of jesus christ and growing the knowledge of jesus christ is God’s design. That’s our purpose as a church, the gospel, the great commission making disciples is the main thing, we need to keep that. The main thing as we talk about gospel movement and we pray for more more laborers. We gotta keep that in mind. I’m assuming you understand are accustomed to that Fast five min Flyover of one of the main messages of the Bible as we dive down to land a plane on today’s topic. Our main passages were believing God for more laborers are main passage we’re gonna look at is luke 10 versus 123 is jesus talking After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them out ahead of him to buy two into every town and place where he himself was about to go and he said to them 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. Go your way behold I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Now scholars, if your Bible says 70 or 72, that’s not as important as the scholars agree that those 70 or 72 is a symbol of the 70 some different non jewish ethnic groups around the nation of Israel at this time And Jesus Ministry was allocated just to the nation and the people of Israel to fulfill old testament prophecy but he knew and we know that the disciples would go to the ends of the Earth to the Matthew 28 Great Commission to all known people groups on this planet. We know the disciples did take the gospel to the whole world to unreached, unengaged people groups, they were pioneers, missionaries, ambassadors, trailblazers of the Kingdom of God to herald the Kingdom of God into unchartered, new territory, new markets, new clans, new villages, new national national languages Just concludes their ministry in Matthew and Luke 1016 he says this is the one who hears you hears me, the one who rejects you rejects him who sent me. These brothers were the hands and feet and mouth of God and they were preparing the people of God for jesus coming arrival. That same commission in Matthew 28 is our commissioning, there’s this micro commissioning here we just saw in luke 10 then there’s a macro commissioning that we’re living under as christians and the post jesus post resurrection world. Look at this jesus solution to all the problems the world, the devil in the flesh could throw at the church. His solution to the big three’s problems the world, the devil in the flesh. His solution was knowledge, teaching, instruction, knowledge, teaching and instruction. The vision of gospel movements of believing God for more laborers has to rest when correct theology, knowledge, teaching and instruction, good theology. Good information isn’t going to ruin people. It is what you need think back to when you learn to read. How old were you when you read? 5 6 seven How old do kids read? 456 five you started to learn to read when you’re five let’s pretend imagine with me right now if you didn’t learn how to read, how would your life be changed? Maybe drastically changed. Amen your life would be radically changed You would not be here and now with the people and do what you do, if you never learn how to read that knowledge, that information is completely transformed and changed the whole trajectory of your life because you learned how to read, they’re like, okay, okay, think back to when someone, when you first got your first smartphone, your smartphone woke you up, It sang to you while you brush your teeth, it directed you how to get here. It’s, you know, told you what to wear because it was cold out today. Your your phone’s gonna alarm. You know, you have friends coffee this afternoon, you have this this project due on monday. Your phone answers debates with you and your friends about what not. You can search something that used to be left out to the mysteries of the wonders of the world. Now, google answers all of our questions. Knowledge of a phone has transformed and changed your life mostly for the better. Hopefully the knowledge of God, understanding of God, theology about God that train jizz and transforms and opens up people’s minds so they can see God clearly. They can see this world clearly. They can see themselves clearly and their whole life has changed our job as a church, is to go in a deepening understanding of theology, information, Understanding about God Church, listen to me, we need to know more as a church as we grow older, but we need to do more as a church, your theology and your live Ology need to grow together if you’re, if you’re a person and a guy and you want like really big biceps alright and you go down, you lift weights in our basement of our church and like I’m just curls, curls, curls all day and you’re doing curls for the girls and you’re just working hard at those curls and you’re like, I’m not seeing the games, I want to see, I’m not seeing the game, you’re like well listen, you need to do biceps and triceps, you can’t just do biceps because those muscles are complementary, they gotta grow together. If you want maximum return on investment without injuries, you need to do your biceps and your triceps. So its theology and live Ology, it’s not just one or the other, it’s both. And mature wise christian does both and you know more and you do more. Your your why and your what are growing together, what you do and why you do it are growing together in a mature healthy christian. Look at me back to this passage and Luke 10, what do you see? I see front and center, a delegation, a division of labor is happening, jesus got his disciples in the game there from being here’s and learners with jesus for a season two dewars this is gospel multiplication, jesus, man hours blew up when he started to send out these disciples, let’s do uh let’s have fun. Let’s have a little fun. Here, I I saw this in college Ministry. I did this years ago. Let’s have fun. Could I have two volunteers? Okay, we got one. one volunteer in this whole room. Okay, we got to Ryan is the 2nd 1. Alright. All right, okay, okay. All right, so here’s our two. Here’s our two volunteers. We’re gonna have a little fun this morning. Don’t get hurt, Please don’t get hurt. Alright, who raise your hand back there? Sarah, Sarah, Sarah and Ryan. Here’s our here’s our application. This is a visual application. We’d like you to be a disciple of jesus christ. You have five seconds and your job is to touch as many hands as possible. Hang on, hang on, hang on, I’ll count out. Okay, uh, when she touches your hand, support her and sit there quietly. Okay, each second stands for like 10 years of your life. You have 50 years of faithful christian minister, you have five seconds on your marks. Get set, Go one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi four Mississippi five Mississippi. There we go. Faith is too late. Sorry, Sarah go back, come back, raise your hand. If Sarah touched your life, raise your hand. All right, look at you, evangelist. Sarah. There we go. There we go. Alright, so Ryan Ryan. Here, Ryan was at first service. Sarah where you at 1st service. Okay, everyone else Listen, when when Ryan touches your hands. You’re not just, I’m gonna sit on your hand. Your job is to be a Ryan. So whatever Ryan does you gotta do. So if Ryan touches your hand it’s now your job to touch as many hands as possible, okay, don’t get hurt, don’t get hurt. Everyone else don’t get hurt please. But think when Ryan touches your hand, you touch someone else’s hands as many people as possible. You have you have five seconds ready one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi four Mississippi five, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. All right, stop, stop, stop, hands up everyone. Hands up, hands up. This p part of the world has never heard or seen of jesus. We need to send a missionary over there. So the idea is gospel multiplication. So the first hand was who, who was the first hand, these two guys and you guys were literally who doubled and tripled your manners right away. Right Ryan from 1 to 33 man hours and then you started to multiply your time in life and other people’s lives. So you have spent years instructing and disciple ng and teaching the disciples and he sent them out in pairs all throughout the known all throughout that region to speak on behalf of the kingdom of God. He was getting them in the game from theology and abstract concepts to oh I have to do something with what I’ve heard and they own the message a lot deeper. We want to be a church that sees gospel movement in our city. We want to see gospel movement outside of our city and we believe that in this passage, in jesus example of what he demonstrated for us is we see multiplication in the method of bringing in the harvest. Multiplication is the method for bringing in the harvest. What are his methods? Well, it’s multiplication of labor, the multiplication of disciples. It’s people, people are the advocate for bringing the Gospel, the word of God, the truth of God into people’s lives. And then his method is also in teams. If you look at that passage, he sent them out in pairs. He didn’t send them out one x 1 he said not in pairs to got to return a good return on investment. One gets worn down and tired. The other one carries his knapsack that 11 gets, you know, beat up the other one is able to help him. It talks about prayers in the bible in Ecclesiastes. We believe this is a big value for us as a church. We believe if we want to be part of a gospel movement and believing God for more laborers were believing God for more teams more, the bible term is plurality. More teams of christians, we can send out into new neighborhoods and new networks, teams of people preaching teams of people teaching teams of people doing work and ministry together. They got sent out in pairs. I’m sure they would periodically stop and pray for more laborers and they would sometimes be the answer to their own prayer of laboring on as faithful ministry. Other times they’d see someone and then I think that is a new labor that should join this team. The principle is when you pray for something you start to see it, you start to feel it and you start desire something. I was a kid once and had a kid conference at a team conference. Some youth group pastor was telling us all to pray for our future wife And I was like a 14 year old kid at the time and I’m like women wife, what are you talking about? But I took it to heart. I wrote it down like a good legalistic 14 year old kid would and I started praying daily for my wife. I did it’s like but then but here’s what happened everywhere I went I went to walmart, I went to school, I went to, I went to everywhere I went I like is she here? I prayed this morning? Where is she? Is she here? It’s just it was on my mind. I felt it. I desired it all of a sudden I wanted to see ever. I’m like is that her? Is that her, is that her everywhere I went when you pray for something that changed the desires of your heart we are called to pray from our laborers. And so the simple implication is at 10 02 am, my alarm goes off because 10 02 PM I don’t want to, I’m trying to fall asleep maybe 10 02 am. My alarm goes off and that’s an annoying reminder. Do I really care if you pray at 10 02 am because it’s luke 10 to do you get what I’m saying luke 10 to. That’s a creative way to say pray from our labors. I don’t generally care when you pray. I just think you need to be found praying for more laborers like jesus said to do the task is grand and huge and more than anyone can accomplish in their life. We have to be praying for more laborers to reach Lincoln, let alone the nation’s we can’t even reach the Husker nation without God’s hand moving in our city. We need more labor to join us and join us at praying for more laborers. I only do 10 or two to be an annoying example to people. I’ve been doing it for a year. You can pray for more laborers in the morning when you read your bible but when you start your day but we need to be found praying found faithfully asking God to send out more laborers to Ukraine more laborers to the south, pacific more laborers to central America more laborers to Asia more laborers in the Middle East where they train you in the Middle East. If you to not disclose your sources and your converts, if they start raping your family members, there’s some hostile countries that need to hear about the hope of jesus christ. We should be praying for more laborers. It’s our mandate world domination through discipleship through life, knowledge, transformation through life on life, deepening knowledge of each other and God. But we need to pray for more laborers because honestly it is overwhelming, there’s too much to be done. If we don’t pray for more laborers wherever you are, be found faithfully praying that jesus would do what he says to pray for, pray for more laborers. I propose that if your disciple ng people, you’re leading people, if you’re recycling people the next steps they need to take with their walking God, you’re leading at the highest level of the most heavenly, impactful level that is out there, don’t get turned on or turned off by the word disciple and leader keep that a godly balance that a godly leaders, Godly disciples and they, those two things when done well are done together, they’re done simultaneously. You’re leading people in the deepening knowledge of jesus christ your disciple in them in the ways of God. If you’re a leader that isn’t disciple ng others and how to walk with God and the deepening knowledge of what it is to be a christian, you’re not a mature leader, if you’re a leader that isn’t disciple in others and how to walk with God into a deeper knowledge of God, you’re not a mature leader, lead people to jesus, lead people from being lost to being saved and then lead people that get saved as infant baby christians, how to become toddlers and how to become cute little toddlers that we all these and then they become little teenage twins, awkward, gangly little christians and they become these, you know, teenager christians, so much potential and so much pride all at the same time and they become young adult christians are trying to pull some weight in the church and they become mature christians that are making babies and caring for babies. So that’s our job to grow people from baby lost dis found baby christians toddlers in the faith, teenagers up to a young adults in the faith, that is our biblical job of viewing Christianity through that lens and that change happens from knowledge and theology and life live ology growing together. We need all kinds of leaders to reach all kinds of people need all kinds of leaders to lead all kinds of people and plant all kinds of churches to arrange all kinds of people. Our culture used to be like a pancake, we all dressed alike. Talk alike, looked alike, thought alike. We used to be the same generations ago, but now the United States culture is like a waffle and the analogy that I heard when I explained this was, you know, you put syrup on a pancake that spreads over everything super fast and easy and it all, it’s got that great syrup, but in a waffle you’ve got to meticulously make it through each of those cultural ridges to get the syrup into each of those little squares, little nuggets of society and this is where disciple in churches do better in a, in a diversified culture, in a, in a non flat culture and a very waffle culture, churches that are good at discipleship, I realize that I don’t just reach those people by them coming and meeting a micro has triangles on his shirt, that’s silly, this shirt is silly and that strategy is silly, you becoming a disciple and going and reaching those people yourself because they look like you, they talk like you the same, same interest of you, the same experiences, you have common relationship with you, it moves better and faster and goes deeper when you are the ambassador, going to your part of the waffle and bringing the good news of jesus christ in the gospel of salvation with you, we as a church, we have a bunch of community groups all throughout this city, that’s the main thing we try to do, get people in the discipleship relationships in those community groups, The average community has about 14 adults in it and the average community has 3-5 discipleship groups in it and the average disciples group has 3-5 people in it and so you’re like okay 3-5 people that I meet every other week and then You know 14, 15 people that are there every week, we just break down to the established groups are prayer request for you, we want to see God do more gospel movement, we’re believing God for more laborers, we’re believing God for more laborers in the church. We’re praying for 11 new community group leaders to come up through the ranks of our current community group structure. If you’re not in those community groups, we can’t have you leave those community groups, you’ve got to be in those community groups, growing in those communities faithfully found in serving those communities trying to raise you up in those community groups were praying for 11 new community leaders who are praying for six new disestablished group leaders to rise up through the ranks of our farm team. Our discipleship teams are community groups, are disruptive groups. What is encouraging about believing God for more laborers because we started praying this prayer a year ago this time and at that time we had 28 ish leaders that were leading at our church and now we have 51 lead laborers leaders leading our church, we have 51 people that are a leader in our church that are growing in knowledge of what it means to be a leader, they’re trying to care for and invest in other people, Think about that 51 people that are leaders in our church And we have 206 people that are attending those small groups, those community groups most weeks, That’s a 4- one ratio. Do you realize how unique that is? The average Christian experience of small groups as you walk into church and there’s 20 some people and one leader, those 20 some people suck the life out of that one leader slowly because there’s just a lot of work to be done and then eventually they get burned out or or spent and then they run out of gas and they have to stop. And those 20 some people have started experienced Christianity and an authentic community for the first time. Watch the community fall apart because there’s there’s not a plurality, there’s not a team of people, they didn’t send them out in paris, they sent out one person and that one person can’t do everything unless they’re a full time guy and they can only do a limited amount. Still I pray, we should be praying that I’ll give us wisdom because our desires to raise up more leaders, more of the established group leaders, more community group leaders as we go as a church. There’s pain of making a bad decision on who he raised up as a leader. But there’s also pain of not having a leader and jesus has judas. I’m sure we will not be perfect on who we raise up as leaders, but I thank you for the permission of trying with people, giving them a chance to lead out and try to serve and bless their brothers and sisters. I think we figured out a few things about how we identify and raise up leaders. It’s the pathway through humility pathway through service. If you can’t serve church, you can’t lead a church is our mental view of this world. And so I think that helps gather humility, humble people but we value team here at church. The fancy word is plurality. We generally think teams bring out the best in each other. Teams allow specialization and gifting to come out. You don’t have to be everything all the time for everyone. There’s a team of people who can be developed and reaching out. This is what’s unique about us. One of our cultural distinctive teams go the distance, christian is the ultimate team sport. There’s an old proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together, Christianity is a long march. Men and women. We think teams do better in the long haul. And what’s encouraging is we were praying from our elders and pastors to join our pastoral team. We’ve been praying for that for a while as a church. There’s those prayer cards we handed out last year in March I think to everyone and uh We have 13 men that are going through this pastoral elder aspire class that we’re learning about the ins and outs of being a pastor. We’re doing theology and training and and teaching them in this rotation from each of us pastors and it’s been very good the last 120 days. It’s a two year class. We’re working through these men just because they’re in the classes. I mean there gonna be a pastor, but it does make them have a deep understanding of what it means to be a leader, a husband, a labor, a father, a man of God. It’ll be blessing their soul and I think ultimately will bless this church with more elders, more pastors, more labor, more leaders. I think we should celebrate that. Give yourself a hand church for praying and working out that. Mm hmm. I’m excited about what God is doing with our leaders that, so where we are, we’re now operating in a truer plurality than we ever had before as a pastoral team. Thank God for dan and Derek. They’ve been a huge blessing. They’ve been a huge blessing to our world. We’re developing more leaders than I ever thought we are of a dream. You would, we have a more variety of gifts. Sing and experiencing and specializations coming out of the woodwork that we’ve ever seen before to build this church one of the best gifts God can give. His church is solid Godly leaders and I’m thrilled by the caliber of men and women. God has given us to do this gospel work. We are praying for more laborers. As I conclude here, I believe genuinely every person in our churches are made for kingdom advancing work. Do you have a purpose and a place in God’s kingdom where only you can do certain things that smokey the bear line only you can prevent forest fire only you can do what you’re gifted in and reach the people. God’s colleges arrange and serving and expanding the kingdom of God is bigger than just you handed out a donut to a kid. Uh, and that was your serving, check the box. You know, I mean, not a great job that is, you can hand out donuts to kids and call it serving or you can pour coffee for someone who can help someone find a car spot they can park. But I do believe gifting and how you’re gifted is to build up the church and our job is to equip you in that gift and pull that out of you and help unleash you in your gifting. And we pray for more laborers. We believe that we’re gonna do a spiritual gift assessment of all of our members and we’re gonna offer these classes for our members to get training in their spiritual gifts this next year. That’s our big project for this next year among our membership. And so if you’re gifted and mercy, we’re gonna get you training specialized training how to how to have a good merciful heart, how to uh, not be taken advantage of how to be biblical in your mercy, how to be leaning point people to christ. We can give you podcast books uh seminary certifications, teachings training, we’re gonna assimilate people into these groups and train them in their gifting all the gifts in our church. You’re gifted more than just pouring coffee and if its hospitality and that’s your gift, your passion, praise God, maybe that’s your main gifting. But most of you are doing something that may not be your most dominant gifting. We want to find identify and equip you in that But on top of all of that and in Matthew nine It talks about the same exact parallel kind of passage in Matthew nine and talking about Jesus from Matthew’s perspective talking about the harvest and plentiful And in Matthew nine GS talks about you see the heart of Christ in this passage, he had compassion for them In Matthew 9 35 because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. I think this is key as you pay for more laborers and leaders to join us. We want laborers and leaders that have a compassionate heart of christ for the last three years of existence as a christian, they’ve been pretty miserable for a lot of people and I think it was a chance for Christianity in America to really put love on display, to have compassion on display and care for hurting people and as a whole. We were really good at judging each other criticizing each other attacking each other in and out of the church. This, this, this passage here shows the transition from jesus ministry of healing and teaching Uh to commissioning his people out in Matthew nine. But we see our Masters Jesus heart, there’s a vivid verb here have compassion, a gut reaction. He saw people as a sheep without a shepherd. And this passage is two notes, a lack of spiritual care, lack of guidance for actual people, jesus gut level moment with jesus was he saw people’s life and their heart and he had a deep compassion for them in his bones. When we talk about evangelism, we can get weird, we cannot be compassionate, we can do it legalistically as christians, we talk about praying from our laborers, sometimes the wrong people rise to the ranks. We need compassionate humble laborers that were praying for. I’ve been praying that we have a burden as a church like christ had a burden for people and ultimately like it’s his harvest, not our harvest, it’s his church, he’s building, not our church, we’re building, it’s his work, we’re joining him in and it’s his burden that only he can carry. But if jesus heart has compassion for people. It’s my prayer that we would be a church that is laborers that has the compassion for people not a legalistic burden but a healthy burden. Love should lead you as you love. People compassion should should compel you, you should be burdened, not wishing that anyone in your neighborhood, your networks should perish your burden will never match christ burden, but you should attempt to care for the things God cares about. Jesus sees Lincoln the city of Lincoln, he sees every man, woman and child and he’s a gut wrenching compassion for the people in our city. Where is that compassion that bothered us? Like it bothered jesus, where is that heart to see the harassed and helpless people that are torn and thrown down like sheep unprotected before predator. Where is that heart among christians? I don’t think you look back at american christian in the last couple of years and give us high marks for compassion. Come on people, let’s learn from the past to move forward. In a disciple gospel movement, pray for laborers. We need to have a compassion driven heart as we go for people that are far from God teddy Roosevelt said, nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care as we conclude the harvest is plentiful, The harvest is ripe. The harvest is a picture of God’s coming judgment, but here in these passages that’s used to reflect that man’s readiness to respond to the gospel. People are ready to respond to the gospel now in Lincoln Nebraska, it’s harvest time. Every time you leave this building. Remember it’s harvest time, This church is 2nd name. It was great commission Lincoln? His second name was Harvest community Church. That’s a great name. They didn’t have any websites to back that name. It was a great name though. Harvest community Church it’s our job to be harvesters in this, in the souls of men and women in our city the harvest is right in front of you, I would challenge you and a few things I challenged that one you’d pray with me personally for a burden for lost Nous as individuals as the church would have a heart a burden for lost this we have a compassion for people we’ve been burdened by people, some churches do not have that they do not have a burden and compassion for lost people we’re young the concrete of our churches soft were hardening up as the church as we grow old I pray that would be part of our D. N. A compassion a burden for lost Nous Two I said to you join me in prayer, join me in laboring with 3-5 younger people in their faith, leading them in the next steps of their faith, join the discipleship group and are we willing to lead with this opposite group in this church one pray for compassion for lost to join the discipleship group. Three would you faithfully consider faithfully praying with me for more laborers if you do an alarm or you just do a note in your normal devotional time pray for more laborers to join us and for would you be a more faithful labor And one way to check that is, let’s just say church or tenants If you’re 10 every other month. But then once a month Try that for the year 2022 coming once a month, not every other month once a month. And if you had 10 once a month, what about trying to times a month we’re trying to grow in the deepening understanding of God and stuff. You come once a month. That’s tough. Come twice a month. That will really help if you come twice a month tri three tri three times each month as a goal to develop and grow and this understanding of being a labor and knowing what a labor does and looking for laborers. If you come three times a month, try four times a month. If you come four times a month, that’s wonderful. I have a book for you. I’ll give you this. I have a book for you. If you come four times a month, it’s a great book. I can give it to you in the lobby. The first four people can have a book if you, if you uh, if you come five times a month. That’s wonderful email. Hello at our church dot com and say sign me up. We can get you connected with younger young professional men and women that are looking for an older father or mother figure in the faith who can mentor them in their walk with God. Just church attendance. Just the acid test to see like how you doing. I’m not saying that’s the only you know pulse checking thing but it’s a standard of how we’re doing it. You being a laborer a time sensitive action for all of us. I set up that lobby table in the lobby when you walk in there’s a bunch of business cards, a bunch of, We have a bunch of these three items out there because in 42 days it’s easter and that’s a culturally significant time in America. 71% of people in the United States said if their friend member or family member invited them to go to church, they would join them if they invited them. But we don’t invite our friends and family to come to church. 71% of people said they would go with you to church if you invited them. That means 29% won’t come, 71% welcome. So here’s three tools. Here’s this one tool. It’s the prey, it’s the prey and go tool. You’re supposed to basically hanging on the door and walk away and you’re supposed to pray for them. I challenge you to do your neighborhood, Do your dorm, do your apartment complex. It’s a simple little tool. zero contact. They can jump on our website. They can pull up social media and they are they are checking us out online. This is a way God you can pray for them and God can use your prayer and God can use some other Christians labor to present the church online for people to get to know who we are online is a tool. This is that this works, we would use this because it works. Does that make sense? This is another one. It’s a gospel track. You can go through this with someone, you can give this to someone On the very back page, it talks about where and when we meet as a church and the secret to do this is don’t just hand it to them. If you want to go through them, just read it one page at a time. If you can read, you can work through this and you can lead someone to christ many people have used these tracks and become christians over the years, other pastors are asking us for these tracks that the team has created. Thank you for that work team. The other options, you can just give one of these out. My, my friend, uh, my friends has uh told me about a guy, he knows that we both know my son’s taking guitar lessons from my friend’s friend and I just knew him as my kids to guitar teacher. But I had mentioned to my wife who is a bigger and better evangelist than I am and she already invited him to church that very same day and then my son and her invited him to church and I went the next week to pick my son up from guitar lessons at the Salvation Army thing and I asked him about his like you know that’s funny thing, I got that thing from your wife, this card from your wife, my wife is married, his own wife got a card from one of y’all The same exact day in the same city and the same thing and I’m like well that’s cool so you’re coming, you’re gonna come. You know I mean it’s simple things but 71% of people will come if you invite them. We have tons of tools in the lobby for you pray for laborers be a laborer we have 42 days till easter and if your digital person we have a digital facebook event coming for easter morning you can invite your friends and family will you buy your heads and pray? It’s a grand task and we need prayer Lord our prayer life shows our dependency on you and what we truly believe Lord as people as a church. I ask that you just really help us to be a church that is praying from our laborers. Lord wake us up to your mission. Lord your mission of discipleship Lord your mission of church planning Lord wake us up to your method. Lord of theology and life changed through life on life discipleship Lord uh wake us all up to the person of jesus christ Lord, I pray that uh, we would come to know christ as more frequently people become saved in the neighborhood and networks of these men and women here from their conversations, Lord in their labor also just really give us a wisdom and a burden and a compassion for the lost and direct us and Jason name. We pray. Amen.