Who, Me? | Matthew 9:35-10:8
Sermon Summary:
Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew chapter 9 to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest. Jesus says this after seeing lost sheep, harassed and helpless, and having compassion on them. There are plenty of people who are lost and in need of a Savior. There are relatively few people actively laboring to bring them to Jesus. Just a couple of verses later, at the start of chapter 10, Jesus answers the disciples’ prayer…by sending THEM! Isn’t that just the way things are sometimes? We pray for something, and God uses US to answer the prayer! In this sermon we will take seriously the reality Jesus describes about the need for His people to participate in His mission to seek and save the lost. We will look at how there is a need for people to answer the call by going into full-time church work ministry. But that is NOT the only way to serve the kingdom. We will explore the other ways too, and we will discover together how every single person in the kingdom of God has a role to play to bring the lost to Jesus.
The typical human response to a need is “Somebody else will do it.”
Jesus says, “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.”
The following shift needs to happen in our thinking:
From “God is not calling me to help with the harvest.”
To “What if God is calling me to help with the harvest?”
And even to “How is God calling me to help with the harvest?”
The lowest level of involvement in the kingdom is “There is nothing I can do.” Do not ever become so callous and indifferent toward the lost that you say this.
You can at least help “with your prayers and with your bounties.”
Some will labor on the ground in the harvest fields. Yes, that might even be you!
In Christ, I am ready because I’ve been made ready (through faith).
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