Harvest Blessings & Burdens

Amen. And you may all be seated. And if you have your Bible, you can turn to Exodus chapter 18. That's where we'll be this morning. Make sure all our devices are plugged in. Exodus chapter 18 will begin reading in verse 1. Now, Jathro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, he heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel and his people. How the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt and how Jathro, Moses' father-in-law, had taken support of Moses' wife after he had sent her home along with her two sons. And the name of the one was Gershim, before he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land." And the name of the other was Eliezer. Before he said, "The God of my father was my help," and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. In Jathro, Moses' father-in-law came with his sons and his wife, Tim Moses, in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. And when he sent word to Moses, he said, "I, your father-in-law, Jathro, I'm coming to you with your wife and your two sons with her." Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare, and they went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law, "All that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way and how the Lord had delivered them." And Jathro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jathro said, "Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. For now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people." And Jathro, Moses' father-in-law, burnt offering and sacrificed us to God. And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God. The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning until evening. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, "What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around, stand around you from morning till evening?" And Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to inquire of God, when they have a dispute they come to me, and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and His laws." Now Moses' father-in-law said to him, "What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you, for you and not able to do it alone." Now, obey my voice. I will give you advice and God be with you. You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and you shall make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God who are trustworthy and hate-abroad, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, and of hundreds, and of fifties, and of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. For every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. Now, if you do this, God will direct you, and you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace. So Moses listened to the voice of his father in law, and he did all that he said, and Moses chose able men out of Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and they judge the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. Then Moses led his father in law and depart, and he went away to his own country. This is the word of the living God. - [Congregation] Amen, let's pray. Father, we thank you that you do indeed speak to your people. We pray that you would cause us to hear this morning. Give us eyes and ears to hear. We know that your word does not go out and return void. And so Lord, we pray that it would bear fruit. Give us a body of Christ that loves to obey your word. Father, be with us now through the preaching of your word. We pray in Jesus' name. - Amen. - Amen. Well, I love this passage. It's an example of what happens if you obey Genesis 1, 28, to be fruitful and multiply. You get a lot of people, and you know what happens when you have a lot of people, as you have a lot of messes, and you have a lot of problems as well. Now, one of the examples I was thinking about this week in preparation for the sermon is the Amish. And many of you have probably heard of this, but one of the things that I love is the Amish barn raising. It's crazy how all these people can get together. And in roughly one day, they build a barn, and they erect most of it in a single day. Now, of course, you can actually watch this on YouTube. I'm not sure how the Amish approved to that. But you can see the barn raising, and it's fun to watch. Usually they'll do a time lapse. But it's really interesting to me, as you watch it, you think of the ant and proverbs, and you think of all that can be accomplished when the community of God's people comes together for a particular work. Like you think of building a barn yourself, how long would that actually take? It's also interesting for the Amish, they appoint during this process several older men who are the engineers of the project, and these men will lay out foundations obviously beforehand, so that on the day of pulling up the frames and putting on the roof, everything's ready to go. But it's also interesting to me that the Amish call this a frolic. They call it a frolic. You think of children frolicing in the woods? It's a little bit like that. Why do they think of building this way? Because when the community gets together to do this work, the Amish see it as a time of joy. It's a time for the community to come together and to practice mutual aid. You know one day you'll need help, and so you show up for the barn raising. But they also feast as they do this. And as their feasting, they get to talk with neighbors whom they haven't seen in a long time. It's interesting when you read before about 1950, and especially as communities were more agricultural, most communities had something like this. A work project that would bring everyone together during something of a harvest season. Right? There's monumental work to be done, and so you have to bring people together. And when you come together, you get to know people better. We see this a little bit, say with like Jason, his chickens, or the shorts and butchering, you come together, and you work beside each other. And we find something interesting, don't we? It's not just work, but there's joy in the midst of this. What we see the same sort of need for a community to come together in today's passage, as the people of God have been fruitful, and as they've multiplied, but they also experience a blessing of God. This is what we call a harvest blessing. And again, their population explodes. But this also reveals something to us about harvest blessings. Harvest, as it turns out, are also heavy burdens. Most of us know this. If you have a harvest of children in your home, there's also a lot of dirty diapers. Right? There can be burnout. There can be frustration. We find Moses in that situation in the passage. Moses, as Jettro tells us, is doing something that is not good. He's overloaded, and he's frustrated. It's also worth noting that giant harvests can actually destroy our mission from ever reaching completion. Right? We always think that temptations are when things are going bad, but we also face temptation when things are going really well. Growth and wealth can actually destroy us. Right? Massive harvests require a change in the way that we, and the community, organizes itself, and this reflects Jettro's advice to Moses. So we have to learn things like organization, and administration, and delegation. We have to establish a hierarchy of leaders who will carry out the work of the mission, or the business plan, if you will. Now I want to quote from Nancy Wilson, of course Doug Wilson's wife, "I love what she says about seasons of fruitfulness." She says this, baskets of fruit are heavy. When God blesses a family or a church or a school, or a ministry with fruit, the burden increases. Managing the growth is a heavy burden. But she says this is good. This is the way that God wants it. And quote. So that's really what I want to talk about this morning as we examine Exodus chapter 18. We have a church that God has tremendously blessed. Many of you probably notice this when you can't find a seat on Sunday morning, or when you're in the upper deck area and you're burning to a crisp, because the heat seems to work up there and not down here. Right? We have many children who are running around in aisles, and sometimes even have to be told to get off the stage. I hear the stories and I listen to the families and I sort of chuckle my sons are a little bit older, but I too remember the stories of bath time and fecal matter and all the things that can go wrong. Right? This is where there's productivity and where there's blessing, there's also messes. But it's interesting too to me as I look at our congregation because I see pastors who've been faithful to sow the word of God and to preach it. I see pastors who have disipled well and we've done church discipline in a country where most churches don't. And even more than that, I look at the congregation and I see a people who is eager to obey God's word and you are an encouragement to us, truly as pastors. Right? Because of that we have been fruitful and because of that the building is bursting at the seams as it were. And we're all finding out together aren't we that fruit is heavy. It's a burden. So the question I want to ask and answer this morning is pretty simple. How do we handle blessing when it comes to us in this form? How do we respond with faith when there's a harvest upon us? How do we steward well these blessings? Again, when our families are growing and little children are making messes, what do we do? And also I want to ask you just at a personal level, as you see all these blessings, what is your knee-jerk reaction? Is it gratitude and joy or is it frustration? They took my seats again. There's another diaper. I don't even like the way that guy's face looks. I think Dan says that about me quite a few times. This is what life together is actually like. So I want to go through eight points from the passage this morning to help us with this. How do we receive harvest blessing with faithfulness? Point number one in the sermon is start with gratitude. We have to start with gratitude. And look with me if you have your Bible open, look with me at verse nine. This is actually Jethro's knee-jerk response to the situation. Verse nine says, "And Jethro rejoiced." He rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel. Seeing that, he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. Verse 10, "Jethro said, 'Blessed be the Lord,' who has delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians." Now I know, he said in verse 11, "The Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people." I find this quite profound. This is what wise fathers are supposed to do when you see harvest blessings. And how many people in the older generations and the midst of, not necessarily this church, but in the midst of American culture, how many times do the boomers at the grocery store see large families and is it a Jethro response? Are we rejoicing over what God is doing? Your family is huge. Thank God. When you see other families in the church and you see that they're bursting at the seams is this what you think? So often what we find is it's easy to complain about these things. Many of us experience conversations like these. I was talking to an older gentleman, not from this community, just on the telephone. And I was explaining everything going on in Ogden. And it was interesting because immediately began complaining about inflation. It was 401(k), which was shrinking. And complaining about the different things in his life. I know it must be so hard to deal with all those things. It was sort of a gut check. It was like, no, you don't understand. God is blessing our church and our community in a way that many churches are not being blessed. Personally, before coming to refuge, I spent something like 15 years in ministry and saw nothing but stony ground and hard hearts and almost no fruit. So many of us have to see the blessing for what it is. Again, I just want to encourage the older generations, especially as your children are growing and they're aging out. And you see all these young families, be sure to be an encouragement. Help them give thanks. That's what Jethro is doing for Moses. He's going to provide practical solutions, wisdom to live well. He's going to provide that in just a minute. But first, it's simply gratitude. We have to understand that again, when we have a harvest set in front of us, there is a great temptation to see the mass and not the productive person creating the mass. We don't see the productivity. That's why our world looks at big families and they think you're robbing resources. They don't realize that these are productive people. They're going to contribute to society. They're going to have jobs and families. They're going to be able to do things. And this is really good. That's what Nancy was saying as well. It's also why we have to be sort of warned in Proverbs 14, verse 4 says this, "Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean. But abundant crops come by the strength of the ox." If you have a manger with no oxen in it, it is going to be clean. Many people set their houses up this way as well. They're not child friendly because they don't want children there. It's clean and there's no masses. But what is there also not? There's also not people. There's not productive people. We have to understand that this is the way God has hardwired His creation. Wherever He has producers, you're also going to have mess makers. The fundamental thing we have to do is to change our perspective. It's amazing, isn't it, how small changes in perspective can reorder the entire course of our lives? So the question for each of us is, will you or do you focus more on the productivity or on the mess? When you look at your children, do you see what they will become? Do you see that they will lead families? Do you see that they will be the mother of 10,000? Are they in your eyes? Are they producers and fruit and a blessing from God? Are they just inconveniences? They made another mess in my house and I'm surprised about it. They said this to my wife the other day. They said the kids, they just keep making messes. She was like, "Yeah, that's what they do." This is where we have to practice gratitude. Again to quote Nancy Wilson, I love, by the way, this is from a, I think a feminine podcast which was really just very helpful as they were experiencing growth in Moscow, sort of just her encouragement to people, how to receive it well. I thought this is so good. She says this, "If you're serving the Lord in it, He's going to add blessing upon blessing." That's what the Lord does. This is a sign that God thinks you can be entrusted with more. We do after all, she says, "One, our blessings to multiply." This is the expectation. You're faithful. God blesses and there's more of it. There's multiplication, not only of paychecks and everything else, but there's also more work to be done. To take away on this point, I want you to think on gratitude of getting really, really practical. Some years ago, I was listening to a podcast which is, I think, called the Happiness Lab and secular psychology, but I found this interesting. She said, "With her students, I think it's Princeton Yale, something like this. With her students, she gave a course on happiness. How can you be a happy person?" They tried all sorts of crazy stuff, but she said, "One practice was overwhelmingly the greatest increase of happiness among any of the students. If they practiced this one thing, they would go from like a self-rated three of ten on happiness to a six or seven out of ten on happiness by just doing this one thing." What was that one thing? She had them every morning taking a note card and she said, "For ten minutes of your day, I want you to start your day by writing down five things that you're grateful for and meditating on why they're such a blessing to you." Isn't that crazy that if you just take the time to actually think about and pray about what you're grateful for, it's going to completely change your whole perspective on life. And of course, for a Christian, we think of Philippians 4 or 6. Paul says this, "Do you not be anxious about anything? That's what harvest make us do. Do you not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God." So it's not just pray, but pray with Thanksgiving. And when we do that, we find something really interesting. It's extremely hard for anxiety to dwell in the heart that is grateful. This is why when harvest comes, there's actually a multiplication of opportunities and temptations for anxiety, and so you address them with gratitude. So I would commend that practice to you daily of praying and listing out the things that you need to be grateful for, particularly when they're the things that have messes attached to them. So that was point number one, gratitude. Point number two is also about perspective. This is simply that the reward for good work is more work. Now this might seem somewhat overwhelming, but just think about the way the workforce works. When you do a really good job and you get promoted, functionally what is happening to you. They're saying, "Hey, good job. Here's more work." And hopefully pay attached with it, but this is actually a good and normal principle about the way the world works. So again, in the church situation, if we're faithful and everybody's being obedient, you should expect blessing, and that means there will be more work. Especially if you take the principle in Matthew 25, if you're faithful and a little, you will be given more. This is the story that Jesus tells, and the master says to a servant this, again, Matthew 25, well done, good and faithful servants. So he says, "You did a good job. You were faithful." What happens after that? For you have been faithful with a few things, so I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. I think that last part is so important. You've been given small things. Then God deems you more. It gives you more. You've been faithful. And this should cause happiness or joy, rejoicing. So often we think about this in homes. Before I had any children, I thought that one child would be really easy, and I was sadly mistaken. And then we had one child, and I thought, "How do these people have four?" Again, possibly, handle four. I can't even handle one. But then you get to two and three, and then it's one of my Hispanic friends told me. He said, "You're four, five, your poor, it doesn't matter. Seven, you're still poor, it doesn't matter. You're rich. You have children." I didn't want to bless you. Somehow the Lord teaches you, and you're able to increase in load. And you can handle more than you ever thought that you could. We have to understand this is the principle of God's world. Multiplication, growth and fruit are good. Yet so much of our world hates that. Now, I find it interesting if you go back a few chapters in the book of Exodus, Exodus 1, 7, we read this, "The people of Israel were fruitful, and they increased greatly. They multiplied, and they grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them." Now if you read your Bible and your student of Scripture, this sounds identical to Genesis 1, 28 in the command that the Lord had given to Adam and then to Eve, be fruitful and multiply. And the people had done that, and you remember in Exodus chapter 1 and 2 and following, the big kerfuffle, the big fight was between the people who were having children and Pharaoh and the midwives were somewhere in between. It was about children. They were fighting about this thing. This is what Satan and the serpent are always after is your children. But it's so interesting to me that the reason that Pharaoh was concerned, the reason that the people of God had become a political problem for Egypt and for Pharaoh is because they were simply faithful to Genesis 1, 28. They were fruitful and they multiplied, and now they had to be dealt with. It's so interesting, we sometimes over-complicate things and through all my years in ministry, there have been so many different strategies. You remember, seeker-sensitive movement and everything that was attached to it and all these smoke shows on the stage and smoke machines and everything that the church was trying to do. And yet nobody wanted to simply have children and raise them in the fear of the Lord. We make things over-complicated. But again, if you want to see a growing church in America, I think it's going to look a lot like ours. What are there? There's a lot of little people. This is a sign of life and vitality. Again, just changing the perspective that this is to be expected. I would also compare it to something like weightlifting. You know, when you start weightlifting, you think, "How would I ever be. " How do these guys lift 400 pounds on deadlift? It's impossible. Clearly, every one of them is on steroids. Many of them probably are. But then you realize as you just start incrementally increasing your load, that you will, in fact, gain strength. And then you get to, say, 400 pounds before you know what you're able to do it. And all the other weights along the way that were so impossible for you aren't actually that hard. Well, just consider that our father is doing the same thing with us by giving you increasing load in your life. And so again, I find that if, if that's just your expectation about the way life is supposed to be, it gets harder and harder, but better and better, then you're less likely to be disappointed when God gives you more. So that's point number two. Point number three, harvest, require all hands on deck. Exodus verse 18, we'll see this. But harvest, require all hands on deck. This is really what the illustration about the Amish is about. Now, you will see Moses in the passage in verse 17, if you see, Moses is running around trying to do everything, trying to do it all by himself. Contrary to what God says, which is later in the passage, you need help. It's not good that you do this alone. I find this fascinating as well. This is also an echo of Genesis one, and what God says to the man. He says the man is alone and it's not good. Now everybody today in our culture, we read that and we're like, oh, he needed some romance in his life. He needed somebody to watch Netflix with. Right, but that is not the main point of what God is saying. He says, I give you a monumental mission. Take dominion of the whole earth and you need help. Meaning, you need a woman for companionship, yes, but you need a woman also who is going to help you rear children and raise an army of workers to complete that mission. So again, God said to Adam, it's not good that you're alone. God of course, makes creation, does does everything, and then he says it's very good. And then again, we have Jeffery here in verse 17, he says what you were doing is not good. What you were doing is not good. You see, the creation account tells us about God's plan for order and hierarchy and structure and people. It also tells us something about the American way of thinking about work that is, I think sinful and badly out of step with scripture. God is a God of order, not chaos. And so burnout is not God's plan for his people. Burnout is not his plan for his people. So if you're in a state of burnout and you think that's the only way to get things done, you're acting like a fool. I think it's interesting I was involved with Acts 29 for a number of years. And I can remember at least five of my colleagues who were pastors going to the hospital usually around Christmas time because they had mental breakdowns, psychotic breaks. And then we're like, well, you're a pastor though. I mean, that's expected. I mean, we probably overpay you. You're paid $35,000 a year. Like this is the myth often attached to American working men in particular. And overall this God through Jeff Ron, this passage echoing Genesis 1, Genesis 1 says, this is not good. So again, just an encouragement not to buy the myth that you can do it all and all by yourself. You're not supposed to. Verse 18, "You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out for the thing is too heavy for you. You're not able to do it alone." Even think about Jesus with the disciples, he doesn't go and train up one disciple and say, "Good luck." Right? Paul, during his missionary journeys, there's always multiple guys. You're not supposed to be doing this work alone. And so that will come to one of the next points that will address, which is that we have to train up other leaders. Before we move on to that, though, I also want to point out that something we talk a lot about is a pastoral team is mastering the 20 mile march, mastering the 20 mile march. This comes from a Jim Collins book, which is great by choice. But they tell the story of Rolton Aminson. I won't go into all the details. You can look this up if you're interested. But simply his goal to make to the pole through the Antarctic was simply to do 20 miles a day. 20 miles a day, no matter how bad the weather, no matter how good the weather. And what they found as they compared his journey, which was successful to other adventures, was that what they would do is they would spend 10 days in their tent when the weather was bad, and they would try to do 100 miles when it was good. And so he really mastered what he called and what Jim Collins calls a 20 mile march. You have to pace yourself during seasons of growth. And this is challenging because it actually means that you have to leave fruit on the table. There could be another thing that you could invest in and you have to say to yourself, we don't have resources to do that right now. Maybe later, maybe in 20 years, maybe in 30 years, one of our children will take up that wing of the project. But you actually have to limit growth so as not to implode the entire mission. All right, point number four. This comes from verse 19 and 20 as well as 21 and 22. So first of all, point number four, identify the core duties. We'll see Jeff Roddo this. Identify Moses, your core duties, part one, and then part two, create a hierarchy for delegation. So identify what you are called to do, what you're supposed to do, your central mission, only the work that you could do. And then beyond that, create a hierarchy to which you delegate other tasks. So gentle identifies what Moses primary duties are in verses 19 through 20. And if you have your Bible, you can look at these with me. Verse 19 says this, "You shall represent the people before God." Right, that's key. "You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws." Again, core function for Moses. So intercession, going before God for the people, think prayer, and then the second part, warning them about the statutes and the laws. This is his teaching function. All right, Jeff Roddo is identifying really two things. Again, intercession and prayer, plus ministry of the word. Now it's fascinating because if we fast forward to Acts chapter 6, it's almost as if the disciples had read their Bibles. That's tongue and cheek. Obviously they had read their Bibles. Because we find the same exact pattern as here in Exodus 18. This is what Acts chapter 6 says starting in verse 2. Right, they have this issue with the widows having to be fed at the tables and I don't have enough workers. So they bring it to the apostles and they say, "You need to take care of this." And this is what we read. Verse 2, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables." See that? Identify their core work and calling. The other works important, but they know their work. Verse 3, "Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer into the ministry of the Word." You see, it's the same thing that was happening with Yathara and Moses. They're identifying what the main work of somebody like Moses is or in Acts 6 of an apostle, of a leader, a pastor in the church. And they're saying the other work is really important. So we need to find men. And we need to have qualified men. We need to maybe train them. And of course, Acts 6 will lead into the deaconate and the appointing of Stephen, who is immediately martyred. But this is what has to happen. When you have a ton of work to do and you have a huge harvest, you're going to have to train other men, identify the core task, train other men, and delegate. So you need other qualified men. I think it's also really interesting what Jethro with tells Moses, "On small matters they can handle it. The guys who are low down the hierarchy can handle those things. On larger matters, there's a way to escalate." And so that's the other thing I would say. There's always a process for escalation. And this is one thing I would encourage you, and we'll talk more about this in a second, but as the body of Christ, so often our instinct is, "I need a pastor for this. What do you do?" Sometimes you do. But sometimes we've kind of skipped the hierarchy, or there isn't a hierarchy. And so what we've experienced is a lot of small things end up on a pastor's desk and we say, "Okay, well what we need to do is train a hierarchy out other competent men to be able to handle some of these issues. How do I bake sourdough?" Somebody asked me that the other day. I hate to break it to you, but I don't. My wife probably knows. A lot of the ladies know I have no idea. It just shows up on the table. It's glorious and I eat it. And that's all I know about it. So we have a hierarchy plus levers of escalation. And I just want to fill you in on the church as well. So one of my jobs, pastorally, is leadership and counseling. One of the reasons that we decided this was a need for the church among the pastors is because particularly after the conference last year, we sort of had a queues and we have a problem type response to the number of people coming to the church, the number of needs arising. And so we said, "Well, you know what we need to do is what acts six and Exodus 18. We need to do what we see happening here. We need to start training other men." And so we really restarted, something Brian had started, which was St. George's Guild. And this is pastoral and leadership training. We're starting now to, of course, with Ben and Ethan calling these men forward. They've done a wonderful job in serving. But that's why this is happening. That's a biblical warrant for why we're doing this so that we can meet the growing needs and demands of the body of Christ, which are real and which are important. That's why if you look, many of you are participating in this, but if you look and you see Ben and Ethan working with membership class or with the Akinol training, men's reading groups, essentially what we're doing is creating pipelines for identifying and training future leaders. And so one of the things I would ask you, if you're a man and you look at the qualifications in the scriptures and Timothy and Titus for the Deacon, which are very similar to the elder minus teaching. But if you look at these and you say, "I'm a qualified guy or I want to be and I want to work on this," perhaps God is calling me to step up in some way. So that's one response for hierarchy, people with official titles and stuff like that. But as we'll see in a moment as well, you don't need a title to love the body of Christ well. So the other thing we can be asking ourselves are, "Where do I see needs?" And perhaps God is opening my eyes to see the need because He's calling me to fill that need. This is so often what we find in scripture. God gives gifts, as we'll see to His people and then pastors and others serve the people. So where do you fit in? I would just encourage you to be in prayer about that. So that was point number four, creating hierarchies and delegation. Point number five, pray for more workers. Pray for more workers. This seems kind of simple, doesn't it? We find this in Matthew 936 and 38. Jesus is speaking to His disciples and they say, "There's a lot of crowds. There's a lot of crowds. How do we meet every need?" And Jesus says very clearly, verse 36, "When He saw the crowds He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd." Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful." Similar situation as we find here in Ogden, the harvest is plentiful. But He said the problem is, laborers are few. This is not new. Don't be alarmed. This has happened before. What do you do? Verse 38, "Therefore Jesus said, "Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest." He's the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. I find it interesting because Jesus says, "Pray, you should pray to God and God will send people." And if we check our heart many times, I hear verses like that and I'm like, "Okay, yeah, I know, but what do I have to do?" Yeah, "Pray." Obviously, that seems like thoughts and prayers. Doesn't mean anything. But Jesus says, "No, earnestly pray to the Lord of the harvest." The last summer, as we were having these thoughts, conference, tons of new people, new members, said, "What do we do?" I read this in just my daily Bible reading and I said, "Okay, now I'm going to pray. I'm going to trust the Lord. I'm going to pray." And you know, it's fascinating. Within a couple months, we had identified some core people to be a part of leadership. And the Lord had brought forward really Ethan and Ben to be a part of that work. And it was crazy. It was. We started seeing things in these guys' lives. It's like, "Wow, the hand of the Lord is really upon them." And they have a heart for this and they're good at it. And I didn't even see him before. It's God answering prayer. God is generous in answering prayer for His people. He is after all the Lord of the harvest. So that's point number five, "Pray." And I would encourage you to do the same thing. I know many of you have said, "How can we be praying for the church? Pray for more harvest and more workers, right? More laborers. Pray for God to send more men to the church and from within that can be raised up to lead well, trusting that God will do that work in and through the body." Point number six, "Pray for strength and supernatural resources." You know, it's fascinating as you read through the gospels, one of the things that you find is that the apostles, the disciples, are continually met with challenges that are overwhelming and actually just impossible. So we have a lot of familiarity with the passages, but Jesus is like, hey, go across the sea. There's going to be a storm. It's going to be really terrible. You won't be able to make it. You're going to have to walk on water. And we read those and we're like, yeah, of course. I mean, why is Peter doubting? Just walk on the water, Peter. What would you? I mean, seriously, how many times did Jesus put his people in a position where they're out of resources? It's even laughable. You know, I know Brian preached through the gospel of Matthew not so long ago and you have these passages where feeding of the 5,000. And it's funny actually because Jesus says, hey, what do you guys have to feed these people? I want you to feed them. And they're like, well, I got three fish. You got three fish. That is not going to cut it. Right? So many times we find ourselves in positions like this with growth and harvest. We say, I don't have the resources. But Jesus teaches us a pivotal lesson time and time and time again. You know, we read that in 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians 12, in the passage this morning. You know, your strength is not enough. But Jesus says to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. I want you to boast in your weakness so that what's magnified is my strength in you. I love this passage in Luke chapter 5, starting in verse 4. Jesus is speaking. And when he finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. This is like a picture of what gospel ministry is so much like and being a part of the church in this community has been like. And Simon answered, master, we, we twiled all night. We took nothing. You want us to put down the nets again. Okay? He says, at your word, I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and they filled their boats so that they began to sink. You see, blessing can be one of those experiences, can it? It can be sort of a sinking feeling. And what Christ is teaching us is pray for resources, pray for help. John 21, we read the same thing, the net are full, the nets are full. And yet they don't break. Why? Because God is moving powerfully through the Holy Spirit in the midst of His people's ministry. And so pray for those resources. Over and over again, Jesus says, pray and I'll give you whatever you ask. This is primary, He's the Lord of the harvest. And He's telling us to pray for these types of things. So I just want to encourage you, if you're a mother, father, sitting in the pews, church discipline, hard, many of you racing out frequently for that experience when the Board of Education has to meet the seat of knowledge. Right? You have a lot of burdens, a lot of challenges. It's not abnormal to feel overwhelmed. You shouldn't stay there, you shouldn't, you shouldn't do things about that. But that's a normal experience in the life of a Christian. And so again, my question would be, does it lead you to prayer? Does it lead you to prayer? Do you turn to the Lord? Do you put your trust in Him? Are you expecting God to do supernatural things in the midst of the body, your life? We shouldn't be surprised when we meet with challenges that are greater than our own strength. So be encouraged. This is expected. Number seven, the church does ministry. The church does ministry. One of the things that I've experienced in the American church particularly, many of you will be familiar with this. It's one of this idea that we pay pastors to do the work so we don't have to. Now I don't think that's the case in this church, but I'm just saying that's been the case in a lot of churches that I've been a part of. I've had people say to me, pastorally, well, that's why we pay you to let go do the ministry. But I want you to listen to Ephesians 4, verse 11 through 13. This is what Paul says to the church. And he gave the apostles, that is Christ, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, shepherds and teachers. Those are a gift from the Lord to the church. Why did he give them, verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry? Not to do all the ministry, though they certainly do ministry, but to equip the church, to equip the churchmen for the work of ministry for the building up the body of Christ. Verse 13, "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." This is how God and Christ have planned to build up their church. This is how they plan to do it is through the pastors and shepherds and teachers to equip you for the work of ministry. So it's not the case that pastors do everything, it's that we're teaching you how to love one another. We're teaching you how to encourage one another. Now it's interesting here as well that at least in the ESV we have the work of ministry in verse 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The word here is "degree" from which we get our word for "deacon." Again, another case for the "deaconate," but also just that the body of Christ is in some sense "deaconal in function." It can mean waiting tables, literally, or it can also mean active service offered willingly. This is something that all the preaching and all the teaching, all the sermons, and everything that you hear from us in the pulpit, what we're aiming at is equipping you to do the work of ministry to have service offered willingly. And so one of the things I would challenge you with is that when you see needs in the body of Christ, instead of first responding and saying, "I need to go get X, Y, Z." We sort of do this in the medical side in our communities as well in America. We think a doctor is the only person that can solve every problem. Now if you need a heart surgery, don't go to Brian. It's probably not going to be really productive. But, cut scratches like there's different levels of things. So the body of Christ can meet many of these. When you speak to a friend who's discouraged, you shouldn't immediately think, "Wow, you need a pastor, buddy, I don't know how to tell you." I've never been discouraged. Right, no, what you should think is, "I can encourage this brother." Or you see one of your mom friends and she's discouraged. You can actually do something about that. Again, one of the other things, because of passages like Ephesians 4 and Acts chapter 6, as I mentioned before, is establishing the deaconate. That is one of our goals. And so we've got Ethan and Ben and myself and pastoral team working on curriculum for that. But for this reason as well, training others to be able to do so much of the care within the body. When people have new babies to set up meal train, right? That's work that the church can do. It's important work. And this leads us into the last one I want to talk about today. Number 8, learn the art of one another. I would just encourage you, as you're reading through the New Testament, to see how many times you find this phrase. One another. Paul will say this, "Love one another." Hebrews 10, 24, has it this way. And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. This again is the ministry of the body. He's not talking to pastors. He's talking to the church. How do you stir one another up to love and good works? Verse 25, "Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another." There it is again. So encouragement, stirring one another up. And all the more so, as you see the day drawing near. Now it's interesting the Greek word here is one of my personal favorites. In the KJV it says actually provoke one another, which is closer to the true meaning. It means to irritate or provoke or jab or to cut. So sometimes you have to irritate people. Paul says you have to irritate people into love and good works. Sometimes you have to be that guy. Some of us like being that guy more than others. But somebody has to be that guy. It doesn't mean that you're really low EQ. But what it does mean is sometimes people need a hard word. Sometimes people need challenged. You know, brother, I noticed that you're getting kind of lazy in your work. We have a higher standard. And I want to call you back to that standard. And I know that you can do it. Sometimes I've heard conversations like these and been deeply encouraged by them. When you talk to young ladies in the church and say, "Yeah, I've been fusing it my husband." I said, "What happened?" And she said, "Well, one of the other ladies told me that I was sinning and I needed a repent." Good for whoever said that. We have to have those conversations with each other. And that means that we men and women have to be courageous in the midst of personal relationships. One of the things we've talked often about because it's been a consistent problem is gossip. And one of the things that I would just encourage you to work up the courage and prepare yourself for the situation is what are you going to say when you hear gossip? It's actually really awkward sometimes to know what to say. And so preparing yourself and stealing yourself when I hear gossip, I'm going to say you know what, I don't think that's any of our business, it sounds like gossip. You should go talk to the person with whom you have a problem. If you're 18, you can preach on it. You should go talk directly to that person. I don't need to be a part of this conversation. That's one way that we provoke one another to love and good works. And then the second thing that is mentioned in Hebrews 10 is to encourage one another. Now I love this, the Greek word here is paracaleo. It's similar root words to where we get the paraclete or the helper, the Holy Spirit and John's Gospel. And it means literally to get up close and personal to stand beside or walk next to. So we're called as a body of Christ to get involved, to get up close and personal in each other's lives. And for many of us we do that. And for many of us, we don't even know people so that's impossible. So I want to encourage a whole host of things, including hospitality. But let's back up just a step beyond that. When you see someone new at church, how many of you have ever done this? You don't have to raise your hand. I've done this, even as a pastor. You see somebody new at church, which is like every third person every Sunday. And you're kind of like, I don't know what to say. Are they new? If I ask them if they're new and they say they've been here for four years, it's going to be really awkward. Some of it is you just have to get over the awkwardness. That is a person that I do not know their first name. Hi, my name is Eric. How are you doing? How are you doing? You're here. What's your story? Right? You can practice. You can get better at those things. But before we even get to hospitality, you just have to simply be friendly. We all have to do that. And repeatedly. It's not a one time deal. And then we do. We get to hospitality and invite people in your home. Don't expect that it's just the pastors who do that. We do love doing that, by the way. But what we really need, or what I've heard from families, who have come to me and said, hey, there's a lot of new people. Do you mind if we just start inviting them over? No, I don't mind. I love it. That's great. That's what needs to happen. Preparing your home to have other people in it. One of the stories, and then all clothes, that I've been encouraged with in the last year. One of our families had a miscarriage. And we were deeply grieved by that, of course. But what was so encouraging to me is I talked to three people who heard about it before I did. And I said, have you done anything? Have you reached out? And every single person, we went to their home. We brought the mammal. We prayed with them. That is what one another in the body of Christ is supposed to look like. I didn't take a pastor to get anything done. All the people who stepped up were just normal people. That's what we were called to as a body of Christ. So I want to conclude with this. Just recapping everything we've talked about in like three seconds. Most of all gratitude, right? When you look at the church, be grateful. You see blasting, you see harvest, be grateful. It's easy to murmur. It's easy to complain. But what we need to practice is gratitude. Number two, make sure that you're a people of prayer. Not the thoughts and prayers kind of prayer. But I'm talking to like, you have a space and a time in your life where take 15 minutes. If you take 15 minutes in the morning, set a clock, turn everything off. You have the word of God before you pray, right? Actually pray. Speak words out of your mouth, asking the Lord to bless with resources and more laborers and help and everything that is needed for the work to go on. And if you see problems, start with prayer. Don't start with complaining. And third, we need you in the body to continue growing in the work of one another. Again, deeply encouraged by this body and we just encourage you to grow and love all the more so. I'll close with a quote from Nancy Wilson and leave you with this. She says this, don't panic. Don't grow anxious as you're low to blessing increases. Instead, lean heavily on the Lord and ask him to help you. This is the Lord's blessing. And if you thank him for it and look to him for guidance, he will help you bear the load of blessing. So when you're up in the middle of the night, when you're cleaning spilled milk or helping a sick child, remind yourself that fruit is heavy because you're lifting. Your faith muscles are getting a workout and you're going to get stronger. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather in worship. We thank you for the Word of God, we pray that it would not return to us, void. Lord, we do pray for supernatural resources and pray that the body would build itself up in love. Father, we pray now as Jesus taught us saying, "Our Father, my Lord, I live in the land of the earth. [INAUDIBLE]