Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us,
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org, or just look
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
We are in the book of Matthew and Chapter #9 this morning as
we continue our series forward-looking at moving
forward in our service. And that, again, is not
necessarily in how we serve our church, although that is a
component of it. But going deeper in looking at
how we serve the Lord and how God calls us to be servants, not
just to this church, but to this world and how God has just
called us to be servants really in any capacity, in anything
that we do. You know, if you go around just
about anywhere right now, you're going to see signs outside of
businesses that say this help wanted.
Almost everywhere right now is looking for someone to apply and
looking for someone to. Work at that establishment.
There's a lot of different reasons for that.
You didn't come here today to hear me talk and to opine about
those kind of issues. No doubt.
However, we would all agree that you don't have to go very far to
see one of these help wanted signs.
And in fact, I was just at a couple different places just
this last week that had reduced hours or had reduced the
services that they offer because they didn't have enough help to
be able to run the establishment in the way that it.
Typically would run, you know, hours lesson at a restaurant or
maybe even a whole day that the restaurant is no longer opened
or perhaps there was something that was offered.
For free at a clothing store that now is no longer offered
because they just don't have the help to be able to do what they
normally would do in the past. And you know, when you're
talking about restaurants and when you're talking about
businesses of those kinds of natures, I'm not saying those
things aren't important in and of themselves.
But we see that when there's help that's wanted but no one
applies in those areas, it's not a great thing.
But in many ways, life moves on. Except for, of course, the
people that own those businesses.
That's their lifeblood in so many ways.
But consider this today. We could also say the same thing
about churches, couldn't we? That there are churches that
have closed, There are churches that have reduced.
What they're able to do, and I'm not talking about Liberty
Baptist Church. I'm just talking about maybe
under the broad umbrella that we would call Christianity Today,
that there are so many places that used to be able to do so
many things. There's so many churches that
used to be open. In fact, churches are closing
faster than they're opening here in the United States of America
today. There's so many places that need
help, and there's so many places that need services.
But there are churches. Christianity is not able to
offer that which God has called us to.
And the reason why is not because the problem doesn't
exist. I mean, listen, there are people
who need help, maybe even more than ever.
But yet maybe the issue is this help wanted that Jesus Christ
has called us to be the servants that we need to be, and we must
respond to that call. And Jesus talks about that here
in Matthew Chapter 9. If you're able, would you please
stand for the reading of the word of God?
Matthew Chapter 9? And we're going to be in reading
verse #32, and we're going to read it.
What may be a very familiar passage of Scripture to you this
morning, and as I always want to encourage you, if you've read
this passage of Scripture before, just understand that we
want to always read it with fresh eyes.
Not that we're looking for something new in the word of
God, but just that we want to make sure that we read it.
Not just glazing over in the eyes or maybe even in the mind.
Oh, this is something I've heard before, but a reminder that's
needed and necessary for us here in Matthew Chapter 9, beginning
in verse #32. Where it says this.
As they went out, behold they brought to him a dumb man
possessed with a devil, and when the devil was cast out, the dumb
spake. Now if you were concerned in
verse #32 what it's talking about when it talks about a dumb
man, and I'm not trying to be cute or funny about this, the
context is given to us right there in the next verse and
verse #33. And when and when the devil was
cast out, the dumb spake and the multitudes marveled, saying it
was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said he casted
out devils through the Prince of devils, and Jesus went out about
all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and
preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing every
sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on
them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep,
having no shepherd. Then sayeth he unto his
disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are
few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.
And we're going to. Focus anywhere in our text this
morning will be on the last two verses of that chapter.
Then sayeth he to his disciples. The harvest truly is plenteous,
but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the
harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.
You may be seated as we get into our message this morning.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you just allow me to be able to say
what needs to be said this morning from your word.
This is your time, not mine. And I pray that I will be a
vessel to be able to be used of you today, and that needs to be
met through the power of your Holy Spirit.
And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
Matthew, Chapter #9. If we were to read the entire
chapter, which we're not this morning, but if we were to read
all of Chapter #9, we would find that it's a chapter full of
service and full of ministry by our Savior to the multitudes
who, at this point in His ministry, are still flocking to
Him. We know that as the.
End of his ministry will draw closer that there will be people
who will fall away. But yet here at this time there
is still this great company of people who are following,
particularly because of the miracles, particularly because
of what's happening. In fact, that's what's happening
in chapter #9 in verse number six of Chapter 9.
He heals A paralytic man by verse #9.
Talking of ministry, he calls Matthew the the the writer.
Humanly Speaking of this book, he calls him to join him as a
from a life of being a tax collector.
Which, by the way, I mean probably no one else cared much
about his soul, if you understand what I mean about
that. But Jesus cared about his soul,
this tax collector, you say? What do you mean?
This IRS worker. That clicked all right.
Yeah. This IRS worker.
Jesus cared about him and called him to follow him.
Ministry verse #22. Jesus heals a woman.
With an issue. Of blood, by the way.
He does that without even really paying attention to her.
He knew she was there. He knows everything.
But this woman just grabbed the hem of his garment by face.
She says if I just touch the very hem, the very bottom of his
garment, I'll be whole. And he healed her by the virtue
that came out from him. Verse #25 He heals a little girl
from the dead, she's. Dead.
And Jesus says, oh, she's not dead, she's just sleeping.
And the Bible says that they laughed him to scorn, but they
weren't laughing when that little girl came out of her room
alive. Just a few moments later he was
doing ministry. In verse #28 he restores 2 men
of their sight. We just read in our text of a
restoring a man who could not speak and then was able to
speak. And then we saw on verse #35
that Jesus went about all the cities in the villages, teaching
in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the
Kingdom. And healing every sickness and
every disease among the people. Chapter nine of the Book of
Matthew is a chapter full of ministry and service done by
none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
By the way, that's why he came. He came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister. Aren't you glad that Jesus came
to be a minister? It's because of that that you
and I have the ability to be saved today because Jesus
Christ. Died on the cross for you and
me. By the way, if you don't know
Jesus Christ is your savior today, you might hear some of
what I'm saying about service today, and you might be thinking
this. You know what?
If I'm a good servant? If I do enough, if I perform
enough, if I accomplish enough for Jesus, then maybe I'll gain
entrance into heaven. And certainly there is teaching
and doctrine from Christian organizations and denominations
that would say that. But upon the.
Preaching of the authority rather of the word of God.
I want to tell you this morning that there is not enough good
works that you can do in your life to achieve salvation.
You cannot do enough good to erase.
The sin that you and I have committed, that it's only by
accepting the free gift of salvation, by repenting of your
sin and calling upon Jesus Christ to save you, that you can
be saved. And so if you're hearing what
I'm saying today about service and about doing for the Lord,
and maybe in your mind you're thinking, you know what?
That's a good idea. If I do enough of that that I
know that he'll let me into heaven.
I would say that, although certainly humanly speaking, that
might make sense. But can I tell you, according
the word of God, that's exactly opposite of what it says the
Bible tells us. For certain that the salvation
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast. Ephesians chapter #2.
So all of this is going on in. Matthew Chapter #9 Jesus is on
the move. Jesus is going from town to town
and everywhere he goes, he's not waiting for people to minister
to him. He is reaching out to those who
he sees and he is ministering to them, either through the
miracles that he's doing or maybe even the greatest form of
ministry that he's doing. We saw in verse #35 that he's
preaching and teaching the gospel of the Kingdom, because
remember, he's not just there to meet their physical needs.
Because although their physical needs may be met.
We just talked about this a few moments ago.
Although the physical needs may be met, what would happen if
someone's physical needs were met but their spiritual needs
were ever met? Then they would be healed
physically, but they would still die and go to hell.
No, Jesus wasn't simply concerned.
I wouldn't even put it to you this way, that Jesus.
Did these miracles one because he had compassion on these
people, but also because it authenticated his ministry and
who he was so that people would listen to him as he preached the
gospel of the Kingdom, as he proved himself to be the Messiah
that he said that he was. But it's with all of these
things that's going on and with this backdrop that we see here
of Ministry in Matthew Chapter 9.
That Jesus makes the statement that we read over twice in
verses #37 and 38 about the harvest and about praying for
laborers of the harvest. And what I love about it is that
Jesus said this out of a heart of compassion.
Did you catch that look again in verse #36?
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion.
This means that he was going from city to city and village to
village, and as he did so, he saw people who did not know him.
He saw people who did not know his father.
And it moved him, it burdened him.
To see those who were so close to the Savior but yet still so
far away that they may have been close in proximity, but they
were far away in heart. And He sees all of this.
And he's moved with compassion. Let me ask you this today.
Are you moved with compassion at the state of the world today?
Many of us are moved with anger. Many of us are moved with with
all kinds of other. Emotions that take place.
But what we see in the world today should move us with
compassion, to be able to proclaim the truth of the word
of God. And that's what it's about.
It's not about just saying, well, I'm compassionate, so I'm
just going to leave them the world alone.
No, no, it's. I want to with compassion, with
neatness. As we talked about this morning
in Sunday School. I want to give them the truth of
the word of God because Jesus moved compassion, but it moved
him to do something what it moved him to do, to preach, to
teach, to give the gospel. That phrase, move with
compassion is very interesting. That commentator William Barclay
said the word which is used for mood with compassion, which is
the Greek word, space, nuclear is you say.
Why would you do that, Pastor? Because even this morning I said
I know that I'm not going to get this right.
So I just gave up on it right there.
All right. So that Greek word that I just
said, don't make me say it again, is the strongest word for
pity in the Greek language. It describes the compassion.
Which moves a man to the deepest depths of his being, that Jesus
was literally moved down to the deepest part of who he was.
Sometimes we're moved with compassion.
We say, oh man, that's pretty bad.
We just kind of keep walking on. And sometimes we're so moved
that we say, I can't do anything else until I take care of this,
until I take care of this person, until I take care of
this need. That's what Jesus is doing.
He is so move with compassion. And do you realize what he was?
Move with the compassion for the multitudes that we could also
say this this morning? He's moved with compassion for
you. He was moved with compassion
towards the cross so that you could be saved.
He's moved with compassion today so that you can live the
victorious Christian life once you are saved.
The compassion that Jesus had in those multitudes there in
Matthew Chapter 9 is the same compassion, that same pity, that
that same burden that he has, that he has for you here today.
And you say, Pastor, nobody loves me.
Nobody cares about me. Can I tell you that Jesus Christ
loves you? That he cares about you, and
that he wants you to have victory in your Christian life
today? And if you don't know him as
savior, he wants you to get saved today.
In fact, he may have got you up today.
He may have found a way to bring you here to Liberty Baptist
Church just so you can hear this message just so you could know
Jesus Christ, your Savior. What an amazing thing that the
God of Heaven would move heaven and earth to get you here today
to. Hear the gospel message.
It's an amazing thing. So with all of these things
going on, his heart of compassion, the ministry, the
service that's taking place, we have verse #37 and verse #38
where it says, then say if he unto his disciples the harvest
truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth
laborers into his harvest. But this is our backdrop this
morning. There's some things I want us to
consider. And as we go through this, I
believe some of it is found directly in our text, and some
of it is an offshoot or an extension of what we see in our
text. But all of it, I believe, is
here, either directly or indirectly, here in our text and
here in the word of God. And there's some things I want
to exhort you, and I want to encourage you here this morning,
whether you're part of Liberty Baptist Church, whether you're
just visiting Liberty Baptist Church, whether you know Jesus
Christ is your savior, and if you don't know Jesus Christ,
your Savior. My exertation to you this
morning is this. Get saved.
But for the rest of us, consider
some of these things this morning.
First of all, know this. We are to pray for laborers.
If you are a believer, if you know Jesus Christ, your Savior,
you know what Christ commands us to do.
I mean, it's right here in our text.
We are to pray for laborers. Christ starts by presenting the
twofold problem of ministry. Here's the problem.
There's a great harvest that's out there, but yet there's not
enough people to collect the harvest.
That's a problem, is that you don't have to grow up on a farm
to know that if there's a great harvest but not enough laborers
to collect the harvest, it's a problem.
You say, well, it's not a big deal.
I mean, you just kind of take your time and, you know, you
collect the harvest. You, you work at it long enough,
you know, you chip away at it a little bit here, a little bit
there, you know, a few months, a couple years, you know, you'll
eventually get it all. Do you realize the harvest is
only there for a? Finite amount of time.
If you don't get that harvest within time, it's gone.
It has to be collected at the appropriate time because it is
not going to be there in winter. It's not going to be there next
spring. If it's harvest time, you know
that the clock is running and you better get it because
eventually the clock will run out and the harvest will spoil
and all that you put the toil and effort into.
Won't even be there anymore. A J went his school.
His class went to Wardsberry Farm this week.
Have you ever been to Wardsberry Farm?
Let's see. That's good.
So how many of you ever paid $10.00 for three strawberries?
All right, that's oh, you've been to Wardsberry Farm.
All right, good. But it's the best strawberries
you'll ever taste. At least that's what they say
you, you know, you know what they do?
This is an amazing thing. So they they have people that
work for their farm. Already and they plant.
The strawberries, I believe they went to strawberry blueberries.
What he got, he was very excited about blueberries and said,
would you get Buddy blueberries? You know, he was very excited
about going and collecting those little baskets of blueberries.
But they plant way more than they can harvest themselves and
that's the trick, isn't it? So what do they do?
They don't have enough help and they have too much.
So they make us pay to go and do the work for him.
Have you ever thought about that?
I mean, you say, well, I mean, I mean, I get to take it home,
right? That little pint of blueberries,
it's $2.00 at Hanford's is $10 by the time you take it and you
didn't work to get it and you know you.
Do it and we do it too so. $40.00 for a bag of apples
that's selling Shaw's for 2:50. Oh, but it's.
The best apple you ever have? You can't tell.
Well, maybe you can't tell the difference, but.
It ain't a 3750 difference, you know what I'm saying?
No, think about this. What do they do?
They plant too much. But they say this.
We need laborers. They plant too much.
They need laborers and people line up and paying real money to
go out and be their laborers. And I've seen some families out
there and some of them are even happy about it.
I see some of them for a reason. I mean, what an amazing thing.
There's too much. They need help and people come.
Do you realize that what Jesus is saying here is this?
There's a harvest out there that's ready.
There's a harvest, right, Pastor?
I just don't see many people out there that want to get saved
today. No, I'm not asking you what you
see. That's not the eyes of faith.
There's a harvest out there. There are souls that need
someone to give them the gospel. And he says this If you go out
there and you pray for those laborers, no, they won't just be
standing there saying, where's the harvest?
You know what they'll do. They'll say we need more help.
We need more. We need more laborers.
We can't do this ourselves. So pray there for the Lord, the
harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.
We need to pray for laborers because Christ has told us that
help is wanted, and the one putting out The Wanted
advertisement is none other than Jesus Christ.
He is the one saying no, you say, well, why does he need
help? He's God.
No, no, it's not that he needs help.
He could use whatever method that he could to be able to give
the gospel. He could write it in the sky.
You could have the angels proclaim it.
He could send it through direct mail.
He could do it whatever way he wanted.
But he, through His abundant wisdom and his grace, has chosen
to use you, and it's chosen to use me as the vessels of the
greatest message that there ever was.
He's chosen us to give it to be as ambassadors, but he says this
There's not enough people to do the work because the harvest is
so great. He said pray there for the Lord
of the harvest that he'll send forth more laborers into his
harvest. So the question is this story.
Start this morning. When was the last time you
prayed for laborers? Well, the world's a mess pastor.
Well, when have you prayed for laborers for this world?
Our nation's a mess pastor. When's the last time you prayed
for laborers for this nation? Well, pastor, there's more work
that needs to be done in our church, and there is more work
that needs to be done in our church.
But will we pray for laborers that God will send them?
Pastor, there's a need for world missions.
There's so many places that still need to be reached with
the gospel. Are we praying that God would
send laborers still to the mission?
Field pastor, you said that there are churches that are
closing it. I will tell you, even in the
last 10 years there have been more Independent Baptist
churches that have closed or compromised in Southeastern
Massachusetts that have. Opened.
What do we do? We got to pray for labors.
Every town around us could use a Independent Baptist Church.
We could plan a church in Mansfield.
We could plan a church in Stoughton.
We could plan another church in Brockton has 105,000 people in
Brockton alone, and it wouldn't. Even touch what's happening at
Liberty Baptist Church. Why?
Because there's harvest fields in all these towns.
Are we praying for labors? I was talking to someone just
this last week who lives about 45 minutes from here looking for
a church in the area where he lives.
And you know my answer to that is we need laborers there.
We need laborers. Are you praying for laborers?
Well, Pastor, why would you tell me to pray for laborers?
Because it's not me the one that's telling you to do it.
It's Jesus who is saying it. And I would say that when he
says it in verse #38, he's saying it not as a request.
Hey, would you pray for laborers?
He's saying it as an imperative. In fact, the understood you
there would be this. You pray, pray ye it's right
there, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labors
into his harvest. This is not something that is
asked of us. If you have time, this is not
something that's asked of us. If you feel like it's
appropriate, he says, pray ye. You pray the Lord of the
harvest, that he would send forth labors, which means this.
If you pray, then the burden's on him to be able to send it.
Look, he says he will send forth labors, so you pray.
And then the burdens on him to keep his word.
And do you think he'll keep his word?
I somehow seem to think that he will.
So what do we see first? Here in our text, we see this.
That we are to pray for laborers.
Are you praying for laborers for the harvest?
We need prayers. We need prayers, but it's not
just that We're to pray for laborers. #2 This morning we
must commit ourselves to be laborers.
Could you imagine God asking God to do something that you're not
willing to do yourself? Could you imagine?
Asking God to do something that you're not willing to do
yourself. You know, there are times here
at the church or there are things that need to get done,
and there are times that toilets need to be plunged.
There are times that things have to get cleaned that aren't
great. And could you imagine me as a
pastor telling someone, hey, you go do that, you go take care of
that? But then, no one's ever seen the
pastor hold a plunger in his hand or a mop in his hand.
After a while you might say something like this.
Well, is he willing to do himself what he asked other
people to do? And you know what?
You wouldn't be wrong. And asking you say, Pastor, have
you plunged the toilet before? Yes, in a suit.
I didn't have to go to the dry cleaners on Monday, by the grace
of God, because you do what you have to do sometimes.
But could you imagine us saying, Lord, pray, therefore I'm
praying the Lord of the harvest send forth laborers.
And it might just be when you pray that prayer that the finger
of God comes back down to your soul and says I choose you, oh
Lord, I I meant someone else. Well, why would you pray and ask
me to do something that you aren't willing to do yourself?
So I don't see that anywhere in the text.
We'll know that this is just a biblical truth, that we are all
called to be servants. Why would we pray and ask God to
do something in others that we're not willing to do?
Listen, there are people who say God bring revival to America.
Just don't revive me. God change my spouse.
Just don't change me. God send laborers, just don't
make me one. Our prayers will be hindered
unless we are willing to be laborers As we're his disciples.
How can we pray for something that we are unwilling to do
ourselves? And God has chosen us to be a
servant, but He's also equipped us to be a servant as well.
He's given us the tools. He's placed his Holy Spirit
inside of us. He has been able to to show us
how to minister. We all have different ways that
we can minister. We have different spheres of
influence that we have to be able to minister.
We have different way. You know how different people in
this room are able to minister? It's different.
Everyone's different that's here.
But yet God has given us all the ability to minister and to take
all of those gifts, and to be able to put them together within
His church, but then also to be able to put them all together
within His Kingdom. To be able to accomplish His
purpose here in Easton but also here in His world.
But it requires what? That we don't just say Lord send
someone else, but we say Lord. Here am I send me remember
Isaiah chapter 6 Who shall I send and who shall go for us?
And Isaiah Said, God, someone else.
That's not what he said. He said here am I send me.
And after that he talked about being a man of unclean lips and
how he wasn't able to do the task.
And God, in summary says this, you don't worry about that.
If you're willing, I'll give you what you need to be able to go
and do the task. And maybe you would say this
morning, I don't know how to be a servant of God.
I just work a nine to five or I just have this thing that I do
during the day or I just. I don't have a whole lot going
for me, and I don't think anybody would even listen to me.
Well, listen, maybe it's just that you just need to be a
servant and God will give you the opportunities as you go and
you trust him that if he was to call for you to.
Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers that we
would be able to go ourselves. I don't have much you'd say I
don't have much to offer. Second Corinthians 3/5 and six
say not that we are sufficient of ourselves, not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but
our sufficiency is of God, who also had made us able ministers
of the New Testament. Now let me say that again.
When we say we won't serve Him according to that verse, it's
like saying that He's. Some of you, I mean, maybe
chewing on that a little bit. Never mind when we don't serve.
Because our sufficiency is in him.
It's as if we are saying that he's insufficient.
No, I'm not saying I've ever done this.
So we were laughing because you know where this is going.
I'm not saying I've ever done this.
I don't even say I've done this at church.
But there have been times I've written a check and maybe
because we have a couple different bank accounts.
I may have thought that check from here was from there or for
there was from here. And you end up going online and
you say, whoa, something happened.
And that's exactly right. You know, why insufficient
funds. And you know how they they help
you with that. They take away more money from
you to make sure that it's even harder to get sufficient funds.
I love how they do that. It's, you know, just, you know,
anyway. You try to draw upon something
where there was nothing and what happened is it bounced.
It was insufficient. Do you realize if you draw upon
the resources because our sufficiencies of Christ, if you
draw upon the resources of Christ to sminster and to serve,
you'll never find that he's insufficient.
You will never find that he's insufficient.
Well, Pastor, I can't. You're right.
But he can. Well, pastor, I, I, I know that
this is what God's called me to do, but it but it makes me
afraid. Well, why don't you just rest on
him that he will help you? Pastor, there's people I want to
give the gospel to. I know that I need to, but I
just don't know what to do or how to do it.
Why don't you just rest on the sufficiency of Christ?
Listen, you can draw upon him over and over and over and over
again. He will never be insufficient.
Never. I've never come to the well of
the water of Jesus Christ and found it was dry.
Ever. He's the living water.
Why wouldn't we want to draw upon that?
And why would we want to give that to other people?
So what do we do? We pray the Lord of the harvest.
But then we're also ministering ourselves.
We're to commit ourselves to be laborers. #3 I also see this
this morning, and this is an extension of what I see here.
But #3 we should commit and train our children to be
laborers. We should commit and train our
children to be laborers, like a parent who desires for their
child to go into the family business.
We should also. Train our children and
grandchildren that there's nothing greater than to labor in
God's vineyard. There is nothing greater than to
labor in God's vineyard. You know, our girls have grown
up in church, and when you're a pastor's kid, you basically live
at church at times. You know what we've tried to do,
what we've tried to teach him? That it's not a drudgery.
That it's not a chore that you shouldn't be like, oh, those
poor pastors kids or what were. Those pastors, kids it it.
It should be no. They want to serve.
They enjoy to serve, you know, one.
Of the things that gives me the greatest joy as I watch my girls
specifically get older is to see them serve not because mom and
dad make them say, do you do that?
Yeah, I mean when you're start a church and.
You know, if it's not your family gets it done.
Nothing gets done. Then say, you know, hey, by the
way, you know, Kaylee, you're collecting the offering but and
counting it. What do you mean you can't count
that high? All right.
No, not not quite. Not quite that bad.
But they. But they did a lot.
But to watch them want to do and not just be told to do, it's a
wonderful thing. You know what we need to do?
We need to make sure the next generation understands that
serving is not a chore. By the way, if the next
generation doesn't serve, then what happens?
No one gets served. We have to pass it on.
Christianity itself is always one generation from extinction,
as long as it's not one generation giving the next
generation. Now we know that we have the
promise in God's word that the gates of hell will not prevail
against the church. But you understood what I was
saying. What I'm saying, practically
speaking, it's one generation teaching another generation
about the things of the word of God.
And it's one generation seeing Mom and Dad serve that teaches
that next generation to say that's what I need to do.
Or it's one generation seeing Grandma and Grandpa serving that
caused them to say that's what I need to do.
What It's like Hannah and First Samuel, chapter one, verses 10
and 11, where she said in bitterness of soul she prayed
and wept, and she vowed A vow, saying, Oh Lord of hosts, if
thou wilt indeed look on our affliction of thine handmaid,
and Remember Me and not. Get thine handmade, but will
give them thine handmade a manchild.
Then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life,
and there shall be no razor come upon his head.
What did Hannah say? Lord, if you give me a child, he
belongs to you, and that's what she did.
The Bible fact says that she lent him to the Lord, meaning
that she literally gave him over to the Lord's service.
I wonder if Hannah regretted that when she.
And I don't know that she lived this long, but could you imagine
that maybe she did? To see her son become the
righteous judge of Israel, following a line of very
unrighteous judges, a man who was able to bring restoration
and healing to Israel in some ways.
What happened? She trained a child that it was
good to serve. I I will say this that includes
the elder in our church, and I mean elder in in spiritual.
Experience more than elder of age, but the elder in our church
teaching the younger of our church not necessarily by age,
but by spiritual experience. Teaching them that it's good to
serve, it's good to serve, it's good to help.
We all like being served, but to be served, it means somebody has
to serve. And So what do we do?
We, we have to be servants. We have to recognize that we are
to serve other people. And we should, as the elder of
this church and spiritual experience, teach the younger
ones that no, it's OK to serve. It's OK to come to church.
It's OK to be a help. It's OK to be a blessing.
It's OK to give out a track. It's OK to help someone that's
down and out. It's OK to help someone that
needs a little bit of assistance here and there.
Why? Because we're committing to
train the next generation, the children, whether they be our
own children, our own grandchildren, or the spiritual
children. They come along here at Liberty
Baptist Church to teach them the servings.
Okay. In a culture where everyone's
taught, it's all about me. In a culture where it's all
about what can I get. I don't ever see a commercial
that says something like this. Help.
Someone else knows You need this, you need that.
You get this, you get that, you buy this, you buy that.
It's very little about. Hey, why don't you be a help to
someone today? Well, what do we need to do?
We need to model that here. We need to be part of that here.
So what do we see quickly? We are to pray for laborers.
We commit ourselves to be laborers.
We should commit and train our children to be laborers.
And we must also do this, number four.
And finally, we must challenge others to be laborers.
We must challenge others to be laborers.
And I kind of started talking about that in the last point.
But we can do this a couple different ways.
We can do it by modeling. Modeling.
What does that mean? We show other people what the
posture of a servant should look like.
We model the posture of a servant.
That's what churches need. That's what the world needs to
see people who are willing to be servants and and sometimes we're
very unwilling to do so. I think of Jesus and his
disciples at the Last Supper there were feet that need to be
cleaned. Now we don't want to dwell too
long on that, but there were feet.
That needed to be cleaned and all the disciples were looking
at each other. Kind of like anyone, anyone
else, Peters. Kind of like, say, hey John,
what do you think? And John's like, hey Judas, what
do you think? Judas says I'm out of here and
nobody wanted to do it. But what did Jesus do?
He gird himself with a towel, the Bible says, and he was a
servant. He modeled to his disciples what
they would not do for each other.
By the way, service isn't always doing what you want to do.
Sometimes service is doing the jobs that you don't want to do
or you don't think that you could do.
Yeah, I went over about the way I thought it would, but it's
Bible nonetheless. Service is not always doing what
you want to do. Well, I'll serve.
If it's in within my wheelhouse, I'll service.
If it's something that I like to do, if it's something that gives
me some pleasure, I'll do that services.
Lord, what would you have me to do today?
Well, Lord, I don't think I could do that.
Oh, you said you're sufficient that you will equip me, that you
will supply all my needs. Well, Lord, I'm just by faith
going to trust that this is what you have for me.
And I'm going to do that. And you do that and you model it
for other people. So by faith they will see that's
what service is and so they can start serving too.
We we model it, but but we also have to mentor it, such as
modeling. It's mentoring.
It means bringing someone along the side and saying why don't
you, why don't you come make a visit with me?
I'll show you what it's like to make a visit.
Why don't you come help us hang out some door hangers on
Saturday with the gospel. You come with me we'll cover the
same Rd. So I can kind of show you what
it's like when when someone comes outside and we talk to him
and and get to tell him a little bit about the church and take
get to tell him about the gospel.
Why don't you come with me. Hey, you know I'm coming up on
on on greeter duty. But you know, I don't want to do
it by myself. Why don't we, why don't we greet
together or why don't you know, why don't we find some ministry
together to be able to do, say, pastor people?
People don't really do that. That's not a natural thing to
do. Well, it should be because if we
don't mentor people. You know how I learned?
You know how I learned to make visits, pastor boy, you know,
you you make visits. You come over to people's house.
You know, if I don't show up for two weeks, you'll be at my
house. I mean, it's you know what?
How? How do you make visits?
You know what? I went with the man who led me
to Christ, and I started making visits with him.
I learned how to make visits actually go to.
You visit people in hospitals? Well, I do.
If they need a visit, I'll. I'll go see him in a hospital.
Well, how do you do? It must be uncomfortable.
It must be so, so strange to be able to do that.
It's not natural. Well, because I went with my
pastor and he taught me how he mentored me.
He would call me. Hey, Adam, I got a visit to make
19 years old. Going to the hospital, going to
the ER, go in the ICU and watching him have compassion on
people. About a year later after that,
my pastor went to the hospital. You know what I did?
I went to go see him. You know why?
Because he had taught me that's what to do.
We have to help each other with that.
We mentor it and we model it. We must challenge others to be
laborers. It said that 20% of any church
does 80% of the work. And I don't know if that's true.
I don't know if that ratio is correct.
But if it was true, I would say this 80% are missing out on
God's blessings in their life. By missing out on the service
that God has for him. But I might be tired, Pastor.
You know what? You'll be tired and happy when
you serve the Lord their days. You're just kind of bone weary
by the time you get done. But there's that joy that comes
with knowing I got used of God today.
I saw someone get saved. I saw a family that was a mess
start to have some victory. I saw someone that didn't have
some groceries. Now they have something to eat
for the next few days, and God was able to use that in my life.
What a joy that is. So what do we do if we're to
challenge others to be laborers? I mean, give you this very
quickly. We're to pray.
We're to pray, just like I mentioned before.
John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, said this
You can do more than pray after you've prayed, but you cannot do
more than pray until you prayed. Think about that.
You can do more than pray after you prayed, but you cannot do
more than pray until you pray. We pray for labors, but then we
pray that God would bless our ministry and labor.
When we labor, you know what else we do?
We give. We pray.
We give. What does that mean?
We give our time and our talents and our treasure to the Lord.
Lord, it all belongs to you, our time, which is probably our
greatest resource because it's so finite.
We all have the same amount, 24 hours.
Our talents that God is a uniquely equipped each of us.
In certain ways we're able to give that to the Lord.
And again, not just in church, but.
But but to be able to minister to people in our community and
then our treasure, knowing that well, even our personal
finances, that all belongs to God because it all came to him
in the 1st place. And even a church like this, the
only way we can move forward is to be able to know that we have
the finances, to be able to keep lights on and to be able to buy
backpacks and to be able to send kids to camp and to do those
kind of things. It takes us praying but then
giving but then it also. Takes us going, pray, give, go.
At some point, we all talk about service.
But it we have to serve. We can analyze it.
We can turn it around and look at it from every different
angle. We can pray over it.
But eventually we just got to go.
It's a story of a man named Judson Van den Venter.
Just Judson Van den Venter. He had a desire to become a
renowned artist. After attending a revival
meeting in Pennsylvania, he was moved to help reach the souls of
men. But for five years he fought the
calling of God to evangelism to pursue his art career.
Finally he yielded to God's call and soon found out he had a
talent previously unknown, which was songwriting as a remembrance
of the day he yielded to God. He eventually wrote a hymn that
was called I Surrender All, All to Jesus.
I Surrender All to Him. I freely Give from a Man.
Who gave up his talent as an artist and found that God had
something even greater for him? Do you realize today that
whatever you're trying to hold on to by not serving, God says
this. I've got something greater for
you. I've got a plan that's even
bigger than you imagine. I have a plan.
Here's a plan of how to minister to this harvest field that's in
front of us, but we can't do it ourselves.
We pray for other laborers to come, whether it's here to
liberty or whether it's here to Easton, or whether it's in our
nation or whether it's on the mission field that we pray for
laborers to come. But then we realize that if we
pray for the laborers that we can't pray a prayer that we're
not willing to answer ourselves. Lord, I'll go.
We teach our children and grandchildren and our nieces and
our nephews and and all of those young people who are in our
life. We teach them.
It pays to serve God. You say, well, it doesn't pay
real money. It pays something a lot better
than money because there's a lot of families have a lot of money.
But they realize, you know what, we would give up that money to
be able to have God's will in our life.
And then what do we do? We challenge others.
We mentor it, We model it, we pray, we give, we go.
We're servants. There's a harvest out there.
It's a harvest when it says the field.
Is white in the harvest. You know what that means?
It is so ready for harvest that if it's not collected within
mere hours, it's gone. When the field was white in the
harvest, it had to be collected tenderly, carefully.
You couldn't abuse it. You had to make sure that you
got it with the right precision so that you wouldn't lose that
what you collected. But most of all, you had to do
it quickly. Because if not, the harvest was
gone. Could you imagine a field of
grain just gone? Why?
Because no one collected it. It just sat out in the field and
the stalks that were so tall rising up to the sun eventually
started to sag and fall and corn starts to rot right there on the
field. You'd say what a waste and you'd
be right. But you realize that's what's
happening outside these walls right now.
There are people who have a death sentence on top of their
head, and they don't realize it. Bible says the lake of fire is a
second death where they will live forever for all eternity,
realizing that they've rejected Christ.
But you and I have the answer. You and I have the antidote.
We have the gospel message. And Jesus said this.
Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he'd sent forth
labors into his harvest, and what will you do?
If one of those laborers might just be you.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.