Go Now!

Sermon Summary:

This powerful message invites us to see the world through the eyes of Jesus—with compassion rather than condemnation. Drawing from Matthew 9:35-38, we’re challenged to recognize that people who oppose us or disagree with us aren’t enemies to defeat, but sheep without a shepherd who desperately need what we have found. The text reveals Jesus going, teaching, preaching, and healing—a model that remains relevant for us today. What’s striking is the Greek word for compassion used here: it literally means to have your innards stirred, a gut-level response that moves us to action rather than mere sympathy. We’re called to stop getting angry at lost people for acting like lost people, and instead to engage them with the same heart Jesus had. The mandate is clear: we must beseech God—persistently, urgently—to thrust workers into the harvest fields. This isn’t just about praying for missionaries overseas; it’s about recognizing that the harvest is everywhere—in our families, offices, neighborhoods, and networks. Whether we’re cultivators who soften hearts, planters who share the gospel directly, or gatherers who help people make eternal decisions, we all have a role. The beautiful promise is that God rewards every faithful laborer in His harvest, regardless of which stage we participate in.

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Sermon Points:

• PRAY – We must all pray!
• PREPARE – Some of us are gifted at cultivation.
• PLANT – Some of us are more gifted at sowing the seeds of the Gospel.
• PRODUCE – Some of us are more gifted at gathering the produce of the harvest.

Key Takeaways:

• Jesus’ ministry model consisted of going, teaching, proclaiming the good news, and healing—a model still relevant for believers today
• Christians should view unbelievers with compassion as “sheep without a shepherd” rather than with anger or judgment
• The mandate is to pray earnestly (beseech) God to thrust workers into the harvest field
• Every believer has spiritual responsibility in their sphere of influence—family, workplace, neighborhood, networks
• Evangelism should be natural and relational, not forced or weird; lost people are not targets but people who need the Lord
• Everyone has a role in the harvest: some cultivate (prepare the soil), some plant (sow seeds), and some gather the produce
• Transformation happens when we live out our faith in real-world relationships and settings
• God rewards all who participate in the harvest, regardless of their specific role

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Scripture References:

• Matthew 9:35-38 (primary focus)
• Matthew 4:23 (parallel passage)
• Matthew 10:1 (continuation of the harvest theme)
• 1 Corinthians 3:6-9 (roles in the harvest and God’s reward)
• Matthew 28 (the Great Commission)
• 1 Peter 2:12 (living a good life before unbelievers)
• John 1 (Philip’s invitation to Nathanael)
• John 9 (the blind man’s testimony)
• Acts 17 (Paul on Mars Hill)

Stories:

• The pastor’s experience at Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, where he and his wife stood in line twice to get into church, only to hear Pastor Jim Cymbala share about Psalm 23 and the need for a shepherd, resulting in hundreds responding
• The story of Matthew (the tax collector) who, after being called by Jesus, immediately hosted a dinner at his house and invited all his friends to meet Jesus
• The pastor’s brother Emerson, who witnesses to everyone including spam callers, offering to give them five minutes if they give him five minutes
• The illustration from “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” featuring Gladys Herdman as the angel who shoves the shepherds toward the manger saying “Go, what are you waiting on?”
• Personal mention of the pastor’s “938 prayer” initiative—setting phone alerts for 9:38 AM and PM on Mondays and Saturdays to pray for God to send laborers into the harvest
• Reference to church member Chris Clayman and his wife Nicole who moved to New York City and established Global Gates ministry, now leading the Joshua Project

Sermon Transcript:

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Michael and team, for leading us in worship today. We’re grateful for it. Well, our theme for this year is Kurt, mentioned earlier has been flourishing together, rooted in Christ. And we’ve had a great year together here at First Baptist Arlington. I’m truly grateful for what has occurred, this past year, if you’ll remember, we got introduced to the flourishing study, and there are six domains of human flourishing that the global flourishing, leaders are researching.

We walked through five of them here on Sunday mornings at First Baptist Arlington in 2025. We talked about happiness and life satisfaction. We talked about character and virtue. We talked about meaning and purpose. We also talked about mental and physical health. We talked about close social relationships. And then you’ll remember earlier in the fall, we took this survey that has been designed by Kate Long and her team from Harvard that specifically addresses flourishing in the church.

And, we have just received the latest, analysis of those surveys that you all took. I have I actually have the analysis with me this morning is 78 pages. I thought I would just read it to y’all this morning. It’s, because it’s about y’all, you know, it’s how you answer these questions. Actually, the good news is, some of it is, is a little challenging to interpret because we’re somewhat new at this.

And so, Kurt and Katie and I have already met with Kate Long and her team, but she is going to explore explore this much more fully with us here in January. And she’s meeting with our leadership staff to walk us through the results of this survey and what we’ve learned and what we’re continuing to learn about what it means to flourish as a Christian and as a church.

And then this week, we’ll turn the calendar page to 2026. And as meaningful as 2025 has been for us, we are preparing for this next year. So also have with me this morning our plans for 2026. And some of it is, some of the plans to me are somewhat definitive. We’re going to begin next Sunday morning, the winter, a new series entitled Designed to Flourish.

And, you know, God has designed you to flourish. You know that, right? He’s designed his creation to flourish. If you don’t think that’s true, leave your yard alone for about 3 or 4 months. Just see what happens. It’ll just take over. That’s what happens. Our backyard. All we have is a swimming pool and just a you know, shrubs and whatever.

But if you don’t mess with them, it completely takes over the backyard, you know? And I’ve been reminded of, of the fact that God has just designed his universe to flourish. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that of all things in the universe, human beings who bear his image? We certainly have been designed to flourish, right? Not just to get by, not just to barely make it, but to flourish.

And flourishing looks differently in every season of life. And, that’s what we’re going to research a little more fully in 2026. We’ve left some room in our plans for 2026 to respond to this. What we’ve learned. And, so I invite you to pray with us as we are doing our best to figure out exactly what God is saying to us and how to lead you through it all.

And so, I couldn’t be more excited about this year ahead of us. But like I’ve said for the last couple of Sundays, we need to go ahead and finish this one through 2025 comes to a close this week, and much has happened in this past year in your lives. I have walked that path with many of you as I’m looking at you this morning, some significant events that have happened in, in a number of your lives has in our lives as well.

And, that’s typically the case, whenever we mark the end of a year and last the beginning of a new year. And so with that said, let me just remind you about what we’ve been doing for the season of advent. You might be new with us this morning. And so just to let you know, and for those of us that have been with us, you know that our theme has been the King and we have been allowing Matthew to be our guide.

Matthew and his gospel. He clearly communicates the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, and he is a King who has launched a new kingdom. And much of Matthew was given to that new kingdom because it was so radically different than any kingdom that anyone in the first century had ever witnessed before. Still true, for us today and so with that said, we use the word King as an acronym to guide our time together.

On Sunday mornings, I started the first sermon, Born the King, there a Prince, and then the identity gift. The identity gift Jesus has given us last Sunday was now and not yet. In today’s message, I’m entitled go now. So with that said, if you have your copy of the new Testament, I invite you to look with me at Matthew nine.

We’re going to begin in verse 40. I mean, verse 35, rather. And last Sunday morning we were reading Matthew four. A lot’s happened. Remember just when Jesus launches his second year of ministry, this really his public ministry, if you will. We don’t know much about that first year. We know so much more about the ensuing two years in the ministry of Jesus.

And that’s where we are in this text. And we have one of those summary statements that Matthew offered back in chapter four that we looked at last week. Let’s look at the one he offers us on page nine of Matthew. And let me just read these few verses for you. I invite you to stand if you’re able. As we honor Lord Jesus in the reading of the gospel is our custom.

So Matthew nine verse 35 reads like this Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. And then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

You ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Thank you. You may be seated. I want to begin today with the model that Jesus sets forth for us in this brief text, The Ministry of Jesus. We touched on this last week was characterized by going, teaching, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing the sick. That’s what Matthew says Jesus did. Now, last week, we looked at a very similar passage.

If you were to go back to Matthew four, verse 23, you’ll read almost the exact same sentence where Matthew is summing up the ministry of Jesus as he begins it. And now we’re a good ways into that first year. Matthew five, six and seven. We got the sermon on the Mount, and then we come to Matthew eight and nine, and the evidence of the kingdom of God begins to manifest itself.

And so how does Jesus show his followers what the kingdom of God is going to be like the kingdom of heaven actually referred to in Matthew’s gospel? They’re the same thing. Matthew often will not use that name God, because he was writing primarily to a Jewish audience, and they preferred not to use the name God in writing lest they needed to.

So Kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous. And so Matthew is sharing with us how the kingdom of heaven is being manifested on earth. So Jesus goes throughout these villages across that part of the world. And remember we talked about that last week. There were about 240 villages in the Galilee and region of Israel, around 400,000 people.

So if you’re if you could just imagine Jesus set out to do ministry, basically in the town of Arlington, about 400,000 of us scattered in villages and communities across that part of Israel, a very strong, Galilean, ministry that Jesus engaged in is connected to Gentiles because so many Gentiles lived in that part of Israel and in the first century.

So what did Jesus do? Well, if you were to go back and take the time to read Matthew eight, Matthew nine, you’ll hear Jesus doing some things that you would think Jesus would have done. Jesus is going to heal people. He’s going to heal a centurion servant. He’s going to cause a paralytic to walk again. But he does something very controversial.

If you remember that story, when they brought the paralytic to Jesus, and he’s lying on this mat and he’s unable to walk, and Jesus looks at him and says, your sins are forgiven. And all the religious leaders look at Jesus and are like, what? I wait a minute. Only God can forgive sin. Do as Jesus says. Yes, but he says, your sins are forgiven.

But in all honesty, you all. If you were there that day, how would you know whether his sins are forgiven or not? So Jesus knew what they were thinking. So what the Bible says. So Jesus said, just to show y’all that I can forgive sins. Go ahead and rise and walk. And the guy just gets up and walks.

Well, then that seals the deal. And can you imagine these disciples? Because they’re still brand new for the most part. And Jesus, he’ll continue in this journey preaching, teaching, healing. He will heal the blind. He’ll heal the mute. He he’ll even raise Jairus daughter from the dead. And so a lot has happened during this, this since we read Matthew four last week.

And so here’s the kingdom of heaven. Here’s how it looks. Jesus is going. That means he’s engaging people. He didn’t just stay in Nazareth. He didn’t just stay in Capernaum. He’s going out to the people. And when he goes, he teaches. He’s teaching the Word of God. He’s proclaiming the good news is sharing the gospel. He’s also very compassionate.

He’s healing those who need healing. He demonstrates his care. So the methodology of the kingdom has not changed the method that Jesus used in his day. Even though we’re not Jesus, obviously, but the method is still there to go and to preach and to proclaim and bring healing, bring care and compassion. Now the motivation. Matthew shares it with us briefly in this text.

The motivation under what Jesus was doing was that people need the Lord. Notice what this text says. It says Jesus was moved with compassion. It says he had compassion on them, that you know the new Testament in Greek, not in English. And the Greek word for compassion means to have your innards moved. They all say innards. In Texas, that might not be the right word.

We’ve just talked about innards because we take the innards of a turkey, you know, a chicken, and we make giblet gravy. I say we notice how I’m saying we, Cindy, anyway. But that’s what the word means. It means to have your innards stirred. It’s a in other words, it’s a it’s a gut word. It doesn’t mean that you’ve just seen something intellectually and thought,

Somebody ought to do something. That’s not what this word means. This word means I’m going to do something. It’s the kind of compassion that moves you to action. Well, that’s what Jesus had. That’s the motivation under all of this. So when Jesus saw the people of his day, some of them are going to reject him. Some of them are going to oppose him.

But even in spite of all of that, he still had compassion on them. He. Because here’s what Jesus knew about them when he looked at the people who were opposing him, the people who misunderstood him. Instead of being angry with them, he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. In other words, and his take his perspective. He was saying, they don’t.

They don’t know any better. That’s why they act this way. Now let me fast forward to 2025. You and I have a lesson to learn here, because so often we look at other people who disagree with us, our first response is to correct them, obviously. Right. And social media has just made that the norm. Just correct them. And if you can’t correct them, then you just castigate them and remove yourself from them because you just want to be influenced by them.

That is just so often what happens in our culture. That’s why there’s so much separation and so much anger. So let me just say this to y’all as Christians, come on y’all, let’s at least act like Christians, okay? And I mean by that everywhere. Okay, so before you hit post or send, think about it. Okay. So it’s so easy to castigate people.

Here’s what I would tell you. As a Christian, you and I should never get mad at lost people for acting like lost people. Come on y’all, why would we be angry at people who do not know Jesus? People who don’t have an understanding of what it means to have this shepherd in their lives. People have been transformed on the inside by the power of the gospel.

I should not be angry with them. I should view them as sheep without a shepherd. We all need a shepherd.

Years ago, Cindy. Now I’ve told you all the story. We went to Brooklyn Tabernacle to worship. We were in New York on sabbatical and, we got to Brooklyn Tabernacle late because back then we didn’t really have GPS. We got on the wrong bus. We ended up in Brooklyn at another little church called Brooklyn Tabernacle, and it was about as big as my office. No, no disparaging. But I mean, that was not the one we were looking for by the time we got to Brooklyn Tabernacle, there was a line out in front of the church, and we walked out there and we kind of got in line and said, what are y’all doing?

I said, well, we’re in line to go to church, but we’re not going to get in. I said, what do you mean? I said, we’re too late, not going to get in. I said, what do you mean? You got to stand in line to get in church? I said, yeah, but we’re not going to get in here in a minute.

Some guys came out, said, sorry, y’all were full. Could you come back at 1:00? I was like, no, I’m not going to stand in line to get in church and then get turned away and come back. No, actually we did. So we left. We did because I wanted to hear Jim symbolic preach. I’ve read his books, is a powerful preacher.

And so we go and we go get something to eat. There was a little couple there said, there’s a diner around the corner. This happens to us all the time because she’s always like, the husband says this about his wife, so we follow them around. We go to the diner or something. We’d go back, get back in line, and we get in.

So we have stood in line to get in church and been turned away. Now we stood in line a second time to get in church and we got in. Are y’all still with me? I’m excited. Jim Somalis going to priest Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir was incredible. They sang. It was glorious. Jim symbolic. Gets up, walks up Pope. And he says, I’m so glad you’re all here today.

I don’t have a sermon today. And I stood up and said, I have stood in line twice now here’s what he said. He’s I don’t have a sermon today because God convicted me this morning about this right here. He said, I want to share with y’all the most famous sentence in the Bible in the English language. Do you know what it is?

And he asked people to shout it out. In the beginning, God created the heavens and everything so and a good one. For God so loved the world. He said, oh, that’s a good one, he said. Research shows the most famous verse in the English Bible is the Lord is my shepherd. And he told a personal story about how much he needed a shepherd in his life.

And he said, I’m just so afraid that so many of you in this room don’t have a shepherd, that you’re not going to able to live life the way you need to. You’re like sheep without a shepherd, and sheep can’t thrive without a shepherd. You need a shepherd. So those of you that need a shepherd, just get up and come down here.

We’re going to help you find one. Y’all all remember, honey, do you remember how many hundreds of people got up and went for? He called the whole choir out. He turned around the car and said, what are y’all doing? Get down out of the car. I love to come down and pray over these people. The whole car loft is empty.

We were just stand there weeping. I didn’t hear a sermon. I saw one, and I was reminded just how much I need a shepherd. So when I see lost people, let’s see them in the white Jesus season. The motivation for taking the gospel to people is because they need it, not because we want to just share it on our own initiative.

It’s because people actually need the Lord and so there’s our motivation. But here’s the mandate, y’all. The mandate in Matthew nine is found in verse 38.

Pray to the Lord of the harvest for workers to be sent into the fields. That’s the mandate now. I spent a good bit of time with this text and prayed over it. Jesus, he’s only one person. And so he’s looking at this 400,000 population field in northern Israel, and he’s chosen and been willing to limit himself to humanity so he can’t get to all of them from a human perspective.

So he says, pray to the Lord of the harvest. Now, interesting. Again, the New Testament not written in English. It’s written in Greek. So let me just walk through this with you. Look at verse 38. The NIV translates it like this ask. That’s the weak translation of this word into English. This word means to beseech. It means to beg.

It means to entreat. It means to constantly plead. This is what your kids do to you. That’s this word. Mama. Hey, mama, mama mama mama mama. Cindy. You know when they can’t get mama, they call her by her name. You know, that’s how our family always worked. They’re wanting something. They just. They won’t give up. That’s this word.

It’s plead. It’s ask over and over is say to God, this is serious. You beseech him. Dynamite is a Greek word. But here’s another word that’s interesting to me. Look at where it says ask, pray, beseech, entreat. The Lord of the harvest, therefore. And then the NIV translates this send out once again, that’s a little mild translation of the word send out.

That word is bolo, which means to drive out. It means to thrust forth if you want to see it. Also used in the New Testament if, if you look at this, and in, in Matthew chapter ten, that same word is going to be used again, in verse one, look at Matthew ten, verse one. Jesus called his 12 disciples to him, and he gave them the authority to drive out same word.

Jesus is saying, Entreat God to drive out the workers, to send them out forcefully, to thrust them into the harvest. Field workers. Laborers is the Greek word, the harvest field. God’s already at work. Here’s the thing you don’t have to worry about taking the Holy Spirit with you anywhere. He was already there when you got there. He is preparing people in your life, people in this world to hear this good news.

So the mandate is to pray. So I just want to challenge us all today to be people of prayer. As we look at 20, 26, to be people of prayer, we can pray. I would just say this. I think as Christians we have an obligation, if you will, to do this. So on the one hand, I would say we need to pray for our world.

If you’re not familiar with the Joshua Project, can I recommend it to you? It is a website that is actually a ministry that truly helps inform all of us as believers. What is happening in our world regarding the spread of the gospel. One of our former church members, Chris, claiming he and his wife Nicole, used to be members of our church.

They moved to New York City. We supported them in New York City. He established a new mission entity called Global Gates. Since he’s been on that board for many years, he’s now the CEO of The Joshua Project. Some of you know the Houston family in our church, but is actually on that staff. And you can go online and look at the material that’s available to you on the Joshua Project.

You can even sign up for an email like I have, that gives you every day an unreached group of people in our world to pray over. There are almost 5000 frontier people groups. That means there’s less than one out of 1000 people in the frontier people groups who know Jesus. So you can pray for the world, but you can also pray for the overwhelming ministries around the world of our church.

You can pray for our global centers. You just heard from Ashley about those our partner, the Baptist World Alliance. You can pray for the Baptist World Alliance. I do that regularly. You can pray for the ascent movement, which our church is a part of. Now, as we pray over North America, you can pray for our partners. Restore hope in the work that restore Hope is doing around the world.

You pray for Texas Baptist, but also, let’s bring a little closer to home because sometimes when we pray this prayer for workers to be sent out in the harvest, in our minds, that means to us we’re praying for missionaries. But that’s not exactly what Jesus said. He said, just pray for workers because the harvest is everywhere. And so you also need to pray in your own sphere.

Pray for a harvest to take place in your own family. Let’s start there. Just strong family, your friend group, people that you know that you’re associated with and some of them are not believers. Your your networks, your school, your office, your business. Pray for this community. We pray for God to send workers into these sectors of our society to take the message of Jesus.

Because Jesus is needed everywhere. He’s needed in every office, he’s needed in every boardroom he’s needed across our communities. He’s needed around the kitchen table in our family conversations. He’s needed everywhere. So I’ll tell you something that I’ve started doing and it’s new to me, but I would invite you if you want to participate. It’s not some kind of program, it’s just something I’m doing.

Personally. I’m calling my 938 prayer because this is Matthew 938. So I’m very creative when I do this kind of stuff. I think it’s I sometimes amaze myself with the creativity. But I’m calling it my 938 prayer. And so I’ve put it in my phone. So if you look at my phone, you’ll see there’s an alert and 9:38 a.m. and PM on Monday and on Saturday.

I’ve just chosen those two days. Monday, everybody’s kind of starting the workweek. I’m just praying for God to send laborers out in the harvest fields on Monday, Monday night, Saturday, Saturday night. People are preparing for worship, for church, maybe to, whatever it is that they may do. I’m praying for God to send people, and I’m praying for the people to whom they’re sent.

Does that make sense? And I’m just calling my 938. I’ll keep you posted. In the year ahead about how I see it working out. And I would encourage you, you don’t have to join the 938 prayer. Just do it as you feel it. But here’s what I would tell you though. You have to do it yet. It’s a mandate.

We’ve got to ask God to send forth laborers in the harvest. Now the mission. So what is the mission? What is what is the mission that Jesus is giving us? Well, pray go. Send. Allow God to use you to bless others. You heard a brief message from Luke today in the video. You can be a chaplain and your neighborhood, your family, your work, your school, your friend group, your child’s classroom, your network, whatever.

You can be a representative of Jesus there. Jesus sent these people. I want you to notice what happens. Jesus says, pray for God to do this. The very next page, Matthew ten. He sends them out. So this isn’t an academic exercise. It’s not just an intellectual conversation. Jesus puts feet to it by sending his own people out. Mark tells us about in Mark six.

Luke tells us about. In Luke ten, he sent his disciples out to the people. Because here’s what I’ve learned about being a disciple and trying to obey Jesus. Transformation takes place when we engage other people and live out our faith in a real world, in real relationships, in real networks, in real settings. That’s where the transformation occurs, not just in a dialog or a conversation intellectually about what we believe, but it’s when we actually put what we believe into practice.

That’s usually where the transformation takes place in our lives. Does that make sense? It’s one thing to have a conversation about what I believe is another thing, to live out what I believe when I’m challenged, when I find myself in those moments interacting with other people. And I’ve got to decide how am I going to behave, how am I going to show what I believe in this conversation, or in this relationship, or in this interaction?

And you don’t have to be weird about it. You can be, but you don’t have to be. You don’t have to be. You can be in a conversation with someone, and then all of a sudden you feel the urge. You don’t have to say, well, you know, the Bible says, let me quote it for you. Actually, in the Greek, you don’t have to be weird, okay?

You can just have a very natural conversation. Really. What do you believe about that? Well, what why do you think those kind of things happen? How do you see God factored into those kinds of things? Well, what do you actually think about what God might be doing? Not because you have some formula or some plan. You’re just in a relationship with real people.

And you know what? Real people want to be in real relationships. They don’t want to be a target. So lost people are not targets. Come on, y’all lost people are people who need the Lord. And you can learn a lot from lost people. You can. You can learn a lot about needs and ways to communicate the hope of the gospel.

And you can do it very naturally. How many of y’all can talk naturally about let’s just fill it in. You can talk naturally about your garden. You can talk naturally about your grandchildren. You can talk naturally about your class that you’re involved in around. You can talk naturally about Auburn football. Most everybody can do that. I’m just telling you, and I love to do it.

You can just bring it up. You can even be in the middle of a conversation where nothing’s going on, you know? Speaking of Auburn, well, how natural are you? How natural are you in talking about the single most important thing to you? And that’s your relationship with God and what God’s done in your life and what he is doing in your life.

That’s the single most important thing about us. And so let’s learn how we can engage people and go to them and, and have some spiritual responsibility. I guess that’s what I’m going to ask you all to do. Just assume a certain level of spiritual responsibility wherever you are. You know, I’ve talked to a handful of people say, well, I’ve been looking at this neighborhood chaplain thing, but and I don’t know if I know how to do that.

Fine. But the chaplain to your family, then, you know, I was going to download that bliss app. You don’t have to download the app to be a chaplain to learn about what’s going on in. Never you can one of the ways you can get to know what’s going on in your neighborhood.

Is by being a neighbor. That’s really a good you don’t even need an app. Come on now. You can just you can just say, hey, how y’all doing? I noticed the ambulance came to your house last night. Everything okay? This is everything all right? You can just be normal and be a Christian. Okay, so now let me just say this real quick, and we’re going to be done.

Here’s how I see it playing out. Everybody has a role to play in the harvest. You know, when I pastored two country churches before I started working in urban areas, I learned a lot in those two country churches. They live and die by seed time and harvest. I’m just telling you, it’s very important. Those seasons are very important to them and they understand how they work.

Well, everybody has a role to play, and those farming families, trust me, they all do. You don’t find lone farmers. That’s not how it works. This is a family affair. Everybody’s involved. Well, we’re all a part of the harvest, okay? And so we all have primary gifts that God is going to use in the harvest. We start with prayer.

We all can pray. So we need to pray for ourselves so the God will help us know how we can be a part of the harvest. Anybody can do it. Everybody can pray. And you know what? You have certain proclivities, certain gifts. Use them for the glory of God. For example, Matthew gets called to be a follower of Jesus in Matthew nine.

First thing he does, you remember what first thing you did, Matthew just called. Being glad to be a follower of Jesus was the first thing he does. Now remember, he has a dinner, his house, invites all his friends over, and has Jesus come and introduces his friends to Jesus. I’m sure he had his friends over all the time.

Very normal thing for him to do. He just did it, but he did it differently now as a Christian. In other words, it was very. Matthew must have been a relational guy. Philip and John one. He’s talking to Nathaniel and he says, I think I found the Messiah. He’s from Nazareth. Nathaniel said, no way. Nobody can come from Nazareth and be the Messiah.

Here’s what Philip said. Come and see for yourself. Invitational. Just come and see. You know the blind man. You give your testimony. I love how the blind man in John chapter nine, when the Pharisees keep saying this, Jesus, he’s a sinner, he’s alive. He’s a or not, I’m not sure. Well, we don’t we don’t really know where he gets his power from.

I have no idea where he gets the power from. Well, what is it you do know? He said all I know is I was blind. Now I can see that. That’s all I know. And he’s the one who did it. So what I’ll tell you is that’s a testimony. You can share your testimony first Peter two verse 12.

Simon Peter himself says, live such a good life in a pagan society that people will see your good works and glorify God. Just have a lifestyle of Christianity. Now you can be Simon Peter and stand in downtown Jerusalem and point a finger at everybody. Say, y’all just killed the son of God. What are you going to do about it?

That’s the more direct mode of evangelism. Okay, that’s my brother Emerson. My brother Emerson has that about him, and it’s very authentic to him. He’s just that way. He witnesses to everybody. If you don’t want to get saved, leave Emerson alone, okay? Leave it alone. He gets that call. That spam call always answers it. And he says, I’ll give you five minutes.

You give me five minutes. And what I have, I’m not selling what I have. I’m giving away. Go!

Shares the gospel all the time. I would never do that. I just look at it go, I’m, I look at some of y’all closing out. That’s not. That’s not true. That is not true. I promise y’all, that’s not true. I don’t do that. I don’t do that. But anyway, my brother, though, I’m just telling you, my brother Emerson, he’s going to share the gospel with everybody.

Paul stood on Mars Hill and acts 17 and gave an apologetic defense of Christianity. Well, that’s also does that make. Are y’all with me? You just got to figure out where you fit. There’s so many different ways to do it. And as a disciple, you’re transformed as you follow Jesus. So here are the areas that I think God can use.

You let me do them real quickly, okay? The stage is, first of all, prepare. Some of us are gifted at cultivation. Whatever your style of evangelism is, you’re that front end person. You’re the one that just usually just introduces people to this, to the cultivate the soil. You know, you got to cultivate the soil before you plant the seeds.

You don’t want to plant seeds on uncultivated soil. So what I’ve learned about cultivators is just cultivators is this it’s just good for last people to get to know them. You’re that kind of person or you just you just a relational person. You’re compassionate, you’re caring, and you’re more testimonial. Those are the people that usually soften the ground.

They’re the ones that prepare the soil. Second, there’s the planters. Some of us are more gifted at sowing the seeds of the gospel. These are people who are intentionally testimonial. Their invitation will come. See what? You come to church with me now. I’d love you to come in this Bible study what’s come to our house tonight? Because we want to share a meal with you.

They’re a little more direct. They might be a little more apologetic. And then the third process is the produce. Some of us are more gifted at gathering the produce of the harvest. There are some Christians that are just that way. They can gather the net. They just have that gift. They’re the ones that happen to be there. So often when somebody finally makes that crucial, eternal decision and they’re very natural and it’s almost like all the gifts reside in those people, it’s very natural to them.

The point is, we’re all spiritually responsible for our generation. We just are the one we live in. And I just want to encourage me and you to be responsible spiritually. So let’s pray. Let’s send others, let’s go ourselves into our world. Now, here’s the blessing that we’re all going to receive as we engage in the harvest. And then I’m done.

And that’s first Corinthians three six through nine. Here’s what Paul says. Paul’s writing to the church at Corinth, and he talks to them about Apollos who was there, talks about himself. Then he says this I planted the seed and Apollos watered it. But God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow, and the one who plants, and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor for coworkers in God’s service.

Your God’s field, God’s building. Paul says, no matter what role you play in the harvest, you’re going to be rewarded for it. And so whatever it is, find your place in it. But let’s pray for God to send all of us out into the harvest. So Matthew 28, here’s what Jesus said. Now go into all the world. Here in Matthew ten, he told his disciples, go to the Jews.

Matthew 28 he says, let’s go to everybody and let’s make disciples of everybody, and let’s baptizing them in the name of the father, son of the Holy Spirit. So if I can close with

one illustration from one of my favorite theologians, Gladys Herdman, in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, I don’t know if y’all remember Little Gladys. Gladys played the angel in the Christmas play and the Herdman family.

She’s the youngest. Herdman and, she was a spirit filled angel. If y’all have seen the movie and, so get to the end of the movie, and she is the angel that appears to the shepherds, and she says to them, unto you, a child is born, and these little kids just look at her. And she says unto you, A child is born.

Go, what are you waiting on? Go! And so she starts shoving them toward the manger.

God is saying to us, what are you waiting on? Just go. There’s people all over who need me. Go and share the good news that unto them a child who has been born, a child is born who will change their lives forever. Praise his name. Let’s pray together.

Oh Lord, we love you. And we’re grateful that you’ve allowed us to be a part of your kingdom’s work. Thank you for the gospel, its power, its effectiveness, the fact that it’s good seed, and when it’s planted, it will bear fruit. And so I just pray you help us to be faithful, to pray, to go, to teach, to proclaim, to share, to love, to be compassionate, to be caring all of those things that we will follow the model of Jesus as we try to do what you’ve called us to do.

And Lord, I just pray for anyone within the sound of my voice who today is a like a sheep without a shepherd. Pray that today, Lord, their hearts will be open to meet the good Shepherd and Lord. I just pray that you will send forth laborers into your harvest, and that would be us and so many others, so that we would see your kingdom bear fruit in this world. And that’s our prayer today. In Jesus name. Amen.