Introduction:
Getting On Mission: Why Should I Care? (Matthew 9:35-38)
- I care because people are Hurting . (Matt 9:36)
Exodus 32:32 - But now, if you will forgive their sin--but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.
Romans 9:3 - For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Luke 19:41-42 - And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."
2 Corinthians 5:14 - For the love of Christ controls us...
- I care because of where people are Heading . (Matt 9:37)
- I care because God Does . (Matt 9:37b-38)
John 17:9 - I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me...
Ephesians 6:18-19 - praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel...
Colossians 4:2-4 - Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison--that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.
Romans 10:14, 17 - How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? ...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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00:58-01:08
The first Sunday in October kicks off our ministry year, and our theme this year is get intentional.
01:09-01:18
All right, so I want you to get intentional right now and grab your Bibles and open them up to Matthew 9.
01:20-01:22
And while you're doing that, let's just bow our heads.
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I'm going to ask that you would please pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's word, and I will pray for you, to have a heart open to receive it.
01:34-01:34
Let's pray.
01:37-01:42
Father, just now, please, open our hearts up for your word.
01:47-01:50
It's not about my thoughts or opinions.
01:54-02:02
It's not about trying to be culturally relevant or scratch itching ears.
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Above all things right now, Father, it is about receiving your word for what it is, for what you intended, not just being hearers of the Word, but being doers of the Word.
02:26-02:37
Father, I pray that today is the first day of a new and exciting chapter in the life of this church.
02:40-02:44
Father, glorify your name, we pray in Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, amen.
02:49-02:56
Have you ever seen online those memes that say you had one job?
02:57-02:58
How many of you have seen those memes?
02:58-02:59
You had one job.
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Some of you have.
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Well, I'm gonna show you some, okay, which I researched just for this sermon.
03:06-03:19
But these memes that show somebody obviously had a very simple job to do, but somehow they managed to get the whole thing wrong.
03:21-03:24
And the response is, "Well, how did you mess that up so badly?
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Because you only had one thing to do.
03:26-03:30
You had one job." All right, let's look at some of those.
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These kind of crack me up.
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How about this one?
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"You had one job." Now, if the person sitting next to you doesn't get why this is funny, Don't ride home with them.
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All right, let's look at the next one.
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Another road, when this would crack me up.
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You had one job.
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You're like, yeah, I did have one job and I'm not moving the possum to do it, right?
04:04-04:07
And I love whoever made this one has to have the commentary on their poor thing.
04:08-04:09
All right, next one.
04:12-04:12
You had one job.
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I don't know if you can see it, it's kind of small, but the prices you can trust and right above the 78 cents a pound, it says, "Long yellow things." Like, is there really somebody that's never seen a banana before?
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Right?
04:34-04:35
You had one job.
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Okay, what's the next one?
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I love that.
04:39-04:40
(audience laughing)
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Just walking down the stairs.
04:46-04:48
Okay, well, I think we have one more, right?
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This might be my favorite.
04:50-04:58
Not the fact that a dentist was assaulted, but like, hey, make sure that you put the first name and last name underneath the guy.
04:59-05:00
And they're like, okay, there he is.
05:00-05:04
First name, last name, be on the lookout for that guy.
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And we could go on and on.
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There's a million of them.
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And they're kind of funny.
05:12-05:18
But you know, it's not so funny when these kinds of things happen in God's church.
05:18-05:31
And sometimes I just, I just imagine that Jesus is looking down from heaven on the church and seeing all of these goofy things that churches are doing.
05:32-05:48
Things that have nothing to do with God's word, nothing to do with the mission, all these gimmicky, crowd-attracting, you know, Christmas series packaged around secular music, and we're dropping things out of helicopters, and all these goofy things that churches are doing.
05:48-05:54
And I just imagine Jesus is like, "You had one job, right?
05:57-05:58
"What is that one job?
05:58-06:00
"Well, we saw it in the video.
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"It's the Great Commission.
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"That's our one job.
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And I'm not really worried about what other churches are doing.
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I'm worried about what this church is doing.
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What I don't want is for Jesus to be looking down on us saying, "Harvest Bible chapter, what are you doing?
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You have one job." Collectively, church, we have one job.
06:26-06:29
Individually, as a Christian, you have one job.
06:30-06:31
It's the Great Commission.
06:33-06:35
I think our theme this year is get intentional.
06:36-06:48
And there is no better place to start than the mission of the church, especially coming off of a month where we focused on prayer.
06:50-06:53
So let's be honest with ourselves, okay?
06:53-06:55
With ourselves, we're focusing here.
06:58-07:00
We become lazy when it comes to evangelism.
07:03-07:12
We've lost our passion, and I think, church, we choose not to think about the condition of the lost.
07:14-07:15
We don't want to think about that.
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And I have to ask you this morning one question, and you're the only one that can answer this question.
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Do you care?
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Do you care?
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about lost people.
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Church, we have become content as Christians in the United States, dare I say this church, we've become content to maintain the status quo.
07:54-08:05
We want to enjoy our religion, as long, I mean, as long as it's convenient for us, And we don't want anything to stretch us or take us out of our comfort zone.
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This is just the club where we show up once a week and we have some music and listen to a TED Talk.
08:21-08:24
Do you care about the lost?
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Maybe I should ask it this way.
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Do you want to play church?
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Or do you wanna be the church?
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Which one?
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Jesus' last command should be our absolute first priority.
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And we have to have the heart and the mind of Jesus Christ to do that one job.
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And that's what we're going to see here.
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Matthew chapter nine, are you there?
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Look at verse 35.
09:06-09:30
It says, "And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction." I just need you to note here that Jesus was both giving the message and meeting needs.
09:31-09:31
Notice that.
09:32-09:34
He was giving the message and he was meeting needs.
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You're like, what's the point?
09:36-09:37
Here's the point.
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Churches think that we're meeting the requirements of the Great Commission by doing one or the other.
09:45-09:53
And some churches can say, well, as long as we're preaching the right message and you're just focused on the message, but you're doing nothing for the community.
09:53-09:55
You're doing nothing to get out there and meet people's needs.
09:58-10:00
And guess what, you're doing half the job.
10:02-10:03
But some churches do the other.
10:04-10:11
They're like, "Well, we're just gonna get out there "and we're gonna feed people "and we're gonna give them coats." And they never talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
10:12-10:14
They never talk about the cross.
10:14-10:16
They never talk about the empty tomb.
10:16-10:22
It's just, "Let's just go love people "and let's just go let them know that we care." And we never tell them why we do.
10:26-10:31
But you know, when it comes to preaching, I can teach you how to do that.
10:33-10:40
And when it comes to getting out into the community and giving people coats and feeding them, I can teach you how to do that.
10:43-10:45
But there's something that I can't teach you.
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And that's to care.
10:52-10:54
That's to have a passion for the lost.
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We're going to see here that this is what motivated Jesus.
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This is what drove Him to do what He did.
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It has to drive us, church.
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And it's time we take an honest assessment of our compassion.
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Do you care?
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Do you care about the lost?
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And look, if you're right now saying, "Look, the answer is no." Okay, well let's be honest about that.
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Because we have healing from His Word here on your outline.
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I want you to write these things down.
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Getting on mission, why should I care?
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Why should I care?
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I'm hoping that after a few minutes, the word of God and the spirit of God gets us caring about the lost.
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Number one, write this down.
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I care because people are hurting.
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Look at verse 36.
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Look at this very closely.
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It says, "When Jesus, when he saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
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The word compassion literally means to suffer with.
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It's a word that was used to describe Jesus over and over and over and over in the Gospels.
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He was known as a person with compassion.
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He was constantly suffering with people.
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The interesting thing in the Hebrews is compassion is tied into the bowels or the guts.
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You know, in the Hebrew mind, they would use bowels, that term, they would use that concept in the way that we use heart, right?
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And I could say to my wife, you know, I love you with all my bowels.
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And you're like, well, Pastor Jeff, don't say that.
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But that's, that reflects the Hebrew mindset.
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In the Hebrew mindset, heart, and this is important, we're going somewhere with this.
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Heart is the root of action.
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Heart is the root of thought.
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Heart is the root of my will.
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But in the Greek, I'm sorry, the Hebrew mindset, bowels, that's the responder.
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That's the thing that reacts.
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And we get that, right?
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When you're nervous, where do you feel it?
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We say we get butterflies in our what?
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I'm starting over.
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Look, I do love you with all my bowels, but I'm going to need you to be a little more interactive.
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When we're nervous, we say, I have butterflies in my stomach, right?
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In my guts, right?
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In my stomach.
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When you're in love, have you ever been in love?
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Where do you feel that?
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Oh, you feel it in your tummy, don't you?
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If you're driving down the road and you see an accident, you just, you get wrenched in your gut.
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It's the feeling that responds.
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And like, here's the point here.
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What the text is saying is when Jesus saw the crowds, he was wrenched in his gut.
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He wasn't like, well, I got an obligation to do this.
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I am the son of God after all.
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He felt something.
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He's like, "Oh, he heard for them.
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"He deeply felt." Do you feel anything?
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Why, why Jesus?
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Why did you feel that in your gut, Jesus?
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Well, it says, "Because they were harassed and helpless." That could also be translated exhausted and tossed aside.
15:28-15:58
that. People were treated like garbage, disregarded. Further clarifying, a great word picture here, they were like sheep without a shepherd. What happens when a sheep or a flock of sheep, herd of sheep, group of sheep, I should have studied this. What happens when a bunch of sheep, that's the word. What happens when a bunch of sheep don't have a shepherd?
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There's no guidance. They're unprotected. They're left to fend for themselves.
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They're defenseless. And they can get lost, and they don't even know that but they're lost.
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Do you see people the way Jesus saw people?
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And if we're being honest today, so many times we are just quick to make excuses to not help someone, right?
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We make excuses to not help someone.
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Like, yeah, yeah, I see that they're having a hard time, but you know what, he's hopeless.
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He's hopeless.
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Even if I gave him some money or gave him a coat or whatever, it's not really gonna help.
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Or we say, you know, even if I helped that person, they're not gonna appreciate it.
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I'm just gonna have to help them again.
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And we just make excuses.
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And church, listen, people are not the enemy.
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They're the victims of the enemy.
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They're dead.
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The Bible says apart from Christ, we are dead, right?
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And if you're like, well, you know what?
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I hear what you're saying, but they're just hurting themselves.
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I don't feel bad for them 'cause they're just hurting themselves.
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And I gotta tell you, that makes me feel worse for people.
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You're destroying yourself and you don't even realize it.
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I think that's a worst tragedy.
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You know, we think we know people, right?
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We're the armchair psychologists and sociologists and we have all the reasons why we shouldn't help people because we know, we know their hearts.
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We know, we know.
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Well, Jesus knew people perfectly.
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And he was still moved with compassion.
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So what churns your gut?
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For Jesus, it was seeing these lost people.
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He had a reaction to that.
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If I were to ask you, what is it that gets a physical reaction like that from you?
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If we're being honest today, There's probably something embarrassing, right?
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Like, I feel that when my sports team loses.
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Or, you know, I watched this singing show and my favorite person got voted off and oh, it just made me so mad.
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I went to Pantera Bread and they didn't toast my bagel.
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And we react to just the dumbest things.
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But what about somebody destroying themselves?
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Does that get a reaction from you?
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What about somebody who's lost and they don't even know they're lost?
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Do you feel that?
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What about somebody heading to hell?
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Do you care?
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You know, I look at scripture and I see Moses from Exodus.
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This is what Moses said about rebellious Israel.
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But now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.
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Moses had that kind of compassion for his people.
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And then we flip over a few pages, we see Paul, right, in Romans 9.
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He says, "I wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." And I'm like, man, do I care about people like that?
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And then we see Jesus, right?
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We flip back to Luke chapter 19, when Jesus was going to Jerusalem, the Bible says he wept over it.
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When was the last time we cared about the lost the way these did?
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If you're like, you know what, I hear what you're saying, Jeff.
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I hear what you're saying and it's in my head, but it's not in my heart.
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How do I get motivated?
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Well, it's not going to come from a guilt trip from a message.
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That's not my goal here at all.
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I could guilt trip you.
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I'm not trying to do that at all.
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I'm trying to have us look at the word of God and say, how are we doing, church?
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Are we going after this?
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Because if I guilt trip you, Do you know how long that'll last?
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91 minutes.
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That's how long it'll last.
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You'll go home and you'll get lunch and you'll turn on a football game.
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So where does the motivation come from?
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Here it is.
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The motivation to care can only come from one place.
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And that's our love for Jesus Christ.
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That's where.
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Our motive has to come from our love for Jesus Christ, which starts with his love for us.
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'Cause you know, Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." You know, evangelism is a commandment, right?
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The great commission, it's a commandment.
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If you love Jesus, you keep his commandments.
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And we have to be moved by the love of Jesus.
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Actually, the Bible says it's the love of Christ, 2 Corinthians 5.14, that controls us.
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I love that picture.
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The love of Christ controls us.
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You know what that means?
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It's like this.
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If I squeeze this water bottle, what's going to happen?
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You don't know?
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Come up real close.
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What happens if I squeeze this?
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Right?
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Oh, you were right.
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And you see, that's the picture here in 2 Corinthians 5.
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The love of Christ is the squeeze.
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And the squeeze absolutely causes a reaction.
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That water coming out was a result of the squeeze.
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That's the picture.
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The squeeze makes the effect.
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Then you see when you're in the love of Christ, that's the effect that he has on you.
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He squeezes that compassion out when you know him and you love him.
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So listen, if I'm talking about missions and evangelism and caring for the lost, and you're like, you're like, "Hefei, this ain't landing at all with me." I have to ask, well, how's your walk with Christ?
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Because when the love of Christ controls you, it has that effect.
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And another incentive, this is secondary, I want to encourage you.
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If you're like, man, I hear what you're saying, I'm just not feeling it, I'm just in a season of life that I really, quite honestly, don't care about anybody but myself right now.
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I would say, I appreciate your honesty, but I also want to encourage you to recall your testimony.
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Recall your testimony.
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You can say, "Ah, they don't wanna hear it.
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"Ah, they don't wanna hear it." You know, once upon a time, I didn't wanna hear it.
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I didn't.
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I was dead in my sin, as they are.
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But somebody cared that I was lost and hurting.
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And now I must care about people who are hurting.
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Do you care?
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I care because people are hurting.
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Number two, write this down.
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I care because of where people are heading.
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Look at verse 37.
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Jesus said, then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful." The harvest is plentiful.
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That's a very interesting way to phrase that.
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Jesus didn't say, hey, there's a lot of unsaved people out there.
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The way he words this, and not even there's a lot of hurting people out there.
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He uses harvest terminology.
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And when you see harvest in the Bible, that has to deal with judgment, right?
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Read Isaiah 17, Joel 3, Matthew 13, Revelation 14.
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Harvest has to do with judgment.
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And the point here is a plentiful harvest means that our evangelism has to have urgency.
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Because people are heading to judgment.
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That's the point.
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People are heading to judgment.
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Say, hey, we gotta get moving.
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We can't wait.
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Imagine if you were driving home from church, you pull into your driveway and your neighbor's house was on fire.
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And you look over at your neighbor's house and you can see in their picture window, your neighbor is sleeping on the recliner.
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He has no idea that his house is burning down around him.
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What do you do?
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You put the car in park and you get out and you say, You know what, I should do something, but you know, I don't wanna force my beliefs on him.
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My beliefs about fire and the destructiveness of fire and smoke inhalation, I don't wanna push my beliefs on him.
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I'm just gonna live and let live.
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You would be an absolute monster if you did that, wouldn't you?
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Instead, you would be screaming and you would be throwing things through the picture window.
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You'd be kicking the door down and dragging him out.
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And lost people are in a much worse predicament than even somebody sitting with their house on fire.
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Do you care?
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You see, Jesus saw people, that's the point here.
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He saw people with eternity in view.
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Hell is real and real people are really going there.
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Do you care at all?
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General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, once said, "I love this.
27:39-27:52
This always stuck with me." that he once said that he would like to send all of his candidates for officership to hell for 24 hours as the chief part of their training.
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If that were possible, do you imagine?
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Could you imagine if you went to hell for just one day?
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Would it make you more urgent to tell people, the lost people that you know, the lost people in your life, in your family, in your workplace, how to avoid going to this horrible place for eternity?
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See, I care because of where people are headed.
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And then finally, write this down.
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I care because God does.
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Look at verse 37 again, it says, then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
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Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
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He says the laborers are few.
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That's a problem.
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See, it's a problem that the need is so great.
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But the problem that comes with that is the laborers are just so few.
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There's just not enough people to meet the need.
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You know, every time I read this passage and I think about this passage, which is a lot, I've thought about this so many times, I'm like, "Why are the laborers few?
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Why is that?" Like, just take a drive through the area and look at all the churches, including this one, just look at all the churches.
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I'm like, "Where are all these people that receive the grace of God and they're just silent about it.
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Why are there so few laborers?
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Like I told you before, I really don't care about these churches, I care about this church.
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And I have to ask is what kind of church are we?
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Do we care about the thing that God cares about?
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Are we moved by what moved Jesus?
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because here's the reality, God loves the world.
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And do you know how he has chosen to show that?
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Through you.
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He demonstrated his love through Jesus on the cross.
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Yes, today, right now, how is God showing his love to the world?
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That's on you.
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He wants to show his love through you.
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So what do we do?
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Jesus says we have this huge harvest, we have few laborers.
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So what do we do?
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Let's get a program together.
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You know, let's get all eye of the tiger and rally the troops and come on, let's get out there and make some noise.
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Is that what he said?
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Look at this.
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Because of this huge issue, verse 38, he says, "Therefore, pray." Pray earnestly.
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Like pray earnestly for what?
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Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.
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By the way, this is the pattern of praying for the lost in the New Testament.
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Now I want you to tune in here.
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When you study your New Testament, the pattern of prayer, evangelistic prayer, is not praying for unbelievers to receive Christ.
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But it's praying for believers to be witnesses for Christ.
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That is how we should pray.
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Now listen, I've preached this before, and I always get pushback, but I want you to hear what I'm saying.
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I'm not saying that it's wrong to pray for your lost neighbor.
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I'm not saying that that's a sinful thing.
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I'm just saying that's not really a biblical thing.
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What I am saying is this, biblically, when we pray for the lost, prayers to God are directed for the people that God's going to use to reach the lost.
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Like look at how Jesus, this is actually Jesus praying, John 17.
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We covered this a while back.
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Jesus says in John 17, nine, "I'm praying for them," meaning his disciples.
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Look at what he says explicitly.
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"I'm not praying for the world." Like, why not?
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He says, "But for those whom you have given me." Jesus' prayer focus was on his people to reach the world.
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You're like, "Really?" Yes, really, look at Ephesians 6.
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This is Paul.
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He says, "Praying at all times in the spirit, "with all prayer and supplication.
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"To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, Making supplication for who?
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Making supplication for who?
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All the saints.
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And also for me.
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This is an evangelistic prayer.
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Look, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
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Notice he doesn't say, "Hey, there's lots of lost people out there.
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Pray for the lost." Who did you say to pray for?
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Pray for the saints.
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Pray for me to have a mouth, open boldly to proclaim the gospel.
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That's how I need prayers to go up.
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He says something similar in Colossians 4, "Continue steadfastly in prayer, "being watchful in it with thanksgiving at the same time, "pray also for," who?
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Wow, come on, sound it out.
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(laughing)
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Us, pray also for us.
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This is an evangelistic prayer that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ.
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He goes on.
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You don't see pray for the lost.
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You see, pray for us to reach the lost.
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And then we get here to Matthew chapter nine.
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Jesus says, pray for what?
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For the Lord of the harvest to raise up workers.
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Jesus didn't see the crowds and, hey, disciples, real quick, let's pray for the crowd.
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What did he say?
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Pray for the Lord of the harvest to raise up more people.
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'Cause we know the Lord of the harvest wants the grain harvested.
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If you think about it, to pray that God would save a particular friend or relative, that almost implies that we don't believe that he's been trying.
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I mean, let's just think about when we say, "Hey, I want you to pray for this unsaved co-worker of mine.
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I want you to pray for him." What do we think is happening when we pray there?
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Do we think that when we pray that we're giving God a little push?
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Like, "God, I have this co-worker that's unsaved, and God, what I'm asking is that you would start to take his salvation seriously." God already cares for that coworker more than anyone.
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Well, some people say, well, no, Pastor Jeff, when you pray for the lost, what you need to do is pray that they recognize their lost condition.
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That's what we're praying for.
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Pray that they recognize that they're lost.
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And I would say, how does somebody recognize that they're lost?
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How does that happen?
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How does that happen?
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The Bible tells us how that happens, right?
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Romans 10.
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How then will they call on him whom they've not believed?
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And how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard?
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And how are they here without someone preaching?
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And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
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How does somebody recognize their lost condition?
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A sent person takes the word of God to them.
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And then he says, verse 17, "Faith comes by hearing, "and hearing through the word of Christ." So what's our responsibility in evangelistic prayers when we look at the New Testament?
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Okay, if we're just looking at the New Testament, here is how we pray for the lost.
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We pray for ourselves.
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We pray for other Christians that we will have opportunity to witness and declare the gospel of Jesus Christ clearly, simply, and urgently.
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Those are evangelistic prayers if we're just using the New Testament.
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You know, you go through Christ's analogies.
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He compares the lost to grain, to a lost coin, to shepherdless sheep, to weeds, to the ill.
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And all of Christ's analogies imply that our task is to pray not for the lost themselves, but to pray for those who can help the lost.
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If a sheep escapes from the pasture, we don't say, oh, you know what, thoughts and prayers.
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Thoughts and prayers, lost sheep.
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I'm sending positive vibes for the lost sheep.
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What do we do?
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If an actual sheep escaped from an actual pasture, what would we do?
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We'd go tell the shepherd and say, "How can I help you get that sheep back?" Right?
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That's how we pray for the lost.
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Like, "Man, Pastor Jeff, "I pray that my neighbor gets saved." How does somebody get saved?
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You realize every single person who's ever been saved in the history of the gospel has gotten saved in the exact same way.
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They've heard the Word of God concerning his son, and they've believed it.
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So you pray that God send someone.
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And then you know what happens?
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After you spend time praying that God would send someone to reach this lost person, after for a while you realize that someone's probably you.
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So you gotta know.
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Look, I get the prayer requests every week and I love praying over those requests, but I gotta tell you something.
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When you're praying for this lost coworker or this lost adult child or this other lost family member that you have, when you ask for prayer for them, I'm praying for you.
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I am praying that God gives you opportunity to share the gospel with that lost person.
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I'm praying that God equips you.
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I'm praying that God, by His Spirit, gives you compassion to go after them.
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You're not gonna care for the lost until you make that your prayer.
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And then, the more you pray for the lost, the more you will care. So we're gonna pray. We're not gonna get into groups. I'm just gonna ask you right now to bow your heads. As our worship team makes their way forward, we're gonna pray for three things. We're gonna do one at a time, and I'll start, and then I just want I want you to have this time before the Lord.
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But first of all, let's pray that God would restore in us compassion for lost people.
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Pray that.
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Yes, we can say us as a church, but let's make it individual.
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Pray for yourself that God would restore compassion for the lost.
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Father, I confess before you, in front of my brothers and sisters, that it's so easy for me to get so focused on my own problems, or my own work, or my own projects, that I just don't think about the lost sometimes.
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Father, I'm asking by the power of Your Spirit, through the wisdom of Your Word, the example of Jesus Christ that we see.
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I pray, Father, You would restore a passion for the lost in my heart.
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Now pray.
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Pray for our workers here.
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We have a lot of people that work so hard in so many ways.
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Take a moment and pray for the people here who are serving Christ.
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Father in heaven, I lift up the workers in this church.
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There are so many who work so hard.
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We do it knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
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But I pray, Father, for a renewed strength A reminder of the vision, a reminder of the mission, a reminder of why we do what we do, Father.
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Pray for our workers.
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And now, church, as our Lord commanded, let's pray for God to raise up more.
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We're not finding the workload to decrease by any stretch.
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We're seeing more and new opportunities in this neighborhood and beyond.
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So right now, church, please, let's pray earnestly for God to raise up more people to carry out the work of the ministry.
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Father in heaven, we are doing as our Lord commanded.
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God, you see what's before us.
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There are so many hurting and lost people in this community.
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And I ask you, Father, please to raise up workers.
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whether it's people that are sitting here right now, or will be sitting here at the next service, or watching the stream from home, or watching this message later, whoever, Father, we reach, I pray that you would raise up more workers.
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Maybe it's people that we don't even know yet, people that we haven't even encountered yet.
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Father, raise up people, please, God, we ask you, to raise up the right people, the rightly motivated people, people who love you and who care about the lost.
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Raise up more and give us wisdom as more people are raised up to work.
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Give us wisdom and how to go after this mission that you have called us to.
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And Father, bring us back to the place where we're motivated by the love of Christ.
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Father, you know, we're not trying for some kind of a guilt trip here.
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But sometimes, God, we need a wake-up call because we're so easily distracted like sheep.
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Get us back to the place where we love you above all things, and that is manifest in everything that we do.
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Father, I thank you for what's ahead of us, and we're trusting you to equip us with everything we need, to provide us with everything that we need.
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Father, keep us rightly motivated.
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We ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 9:35-38
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why do you think many churches have drifted away from the Great Commission?
How can we prevent Harvest Bible Chapel from drifting away from the Great Commission?When was the last time you shared the Gospel with an unbeliever? What happened?
When was the last time you invited someone to be your guest at HBC? What happened?
What do you think would cause you personally to witness to people more often?
Breakout
Pray for one another, and HBC, to grow in compassion for the lost.
Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.