2020 Vision: Mission Part 1
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. And just a quick announcement before we jump in. So, one of the things that we've been doing the last few months is joining our Kid City program and memorizing scripture. As a whole church family, we thought this would be a good idea to join together with them.
So, we have, over the next three years, 36 verses. One verse a month that we are, if you want to participate in, that we will recite together. It'll be on the announcements that scroll on the screen before and after gathering. It's also the top of group content. We want to grow in knowing the Word of God, have it hidden deep in our hearts. So, if you want to participate in that, just look for that every month as we look to growing that as a church.
Alright. So, we are in the last week of our 2020 Vision Series. The goal of this series was to show who we are as a church. That we are a gospel-centered community on mission. So, the first week, Chet walked us through what it means to be gospel-centered. That Jesus is central to everything that we do.
The gospel, that it's life, death, and resurrection. What that means for us is the center of everything we do. And then last week, Dr. Ken walked us through what it means to be a community. What it means to be a church family together. Which is a beautiful, man, last week was a beautiful celebration.
As two churches together as one. Learning about what it means to be church family together. And this week, we get a look at what it means to be on mission. That God has called His church, but He's also sent His church to go and make disciples. So, in doing that, we're actually going to jump back into Matthew. Alright, we're going to be in chapter 9, verses 35-38.
So, you can go ahead and flip there. But we're going to be walking through that. Which means, also, as we close out our 2020 Vision Series, we're jumping back into the Gospel of Matthew. So, we were in Matthew in the fall. And we're going to be in it for the next little bit. So, we're actually jumping back into Matthew as well.
And we'll continue that next week. As we close out chapter 9 and go into chapter 10. Okay. So, a couple of weeks ago, I read this article. It was on DesiringGod.org, which is just a website that has a ton of resources. Good teaching.
They have good writers. If you're looking forward to growing and knowing more of Jesus, we recommend DesiringGod. That's a good source. And I read this article from one of the younger staff writers. And he was critiquing masculinity in America. But honestly, as I read it, you could broaden that out as a critique for American culture and the church.
So, here's how he opened up his article. He said, So, that's a lot of big words and poetic phrases. But here's what he said. He said, When we spend so much of our time and our focus and our energy on things that will not last. On frivolous, empty pursuits. When that becomes all that we look upon, we become a shadow of the men, and I would say women of great density, that God has called us to be.
Something light. As opposed to something solid and weighty. He goes on, he says, Our society often promotes a silly, light, and airy moron of a man and its sitcoms and movies. He stands for nothing. Weeps for nothing. Lives for nothing but the next punchline or comedic blunder.
It's insulting on screen, but tragic in real life when we meet similar men who lack any gravity because they put off thoughts of eternity. Now, the rest of the article kind of flows out of that tone. And part of me when I first read it was like, Okay, you seem fun at parties. That was really heavy handed. But when you wrestle with what he is saying, he's not off.
That's exactly what our culture does. We spend so much of our time, our energy on things that will not matter in days, weeks, months, or years. They lack any really internal significance. We'll binge watch a show in a few days. We'll watch sports for hours on end. We'll put so much focus and energy on those things that do not last.
And listen, I love those things. I do. If you know me, like I love sports. I love watching my teams disappoint me regularly every season. I love culture, media, music, film. We could talk about it on and off.
Those are good gifts that God has given us. But the problem is, is that we elevate those to the status of worship, affection, time, energy. We get consumed by it and we become a shadow of what we're supposed to be. Men and women of great density that dwell on the eternal things and understand the eternal significance of this life. So, that is what the Bible is going to confront us on this morning. That's what the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 9 is going to confront us on as we look at the mission that God has called His church into.
So, as we walk through this, we're going to see three very simple, clear things that we need to see, we need to pray, and we need to go. So let me read it and then we'll pray and jump in. Verse 35, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few.
Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of harvest to send out labors into His harvest. Let me pray and then we'll jump in. Father, I thank You. I thank You for everything You're doing in the life of our two churches that have become one in this season. Amen. I'm so thankful for where we get to go, but God, I pray that You would confront us this morning, and that You would teach us and mold us and shape us into the church that You want us to be.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so, in order for us to understand the mission that God has called us to, we need to see. We need to have the vision, the eyes of Christ, and see the world the way that He sees it. So, verse 35, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and every disease, and healing every disease and every affliction. So, this is where we left Matthew in the fall.
Jesus traveling around the region of Galilee, healing the sick, performing miracles, casting out demons, flexing His divinity, showing this is someone different, a great prophet even more so. Someone has risen amongst us. He, this is the Lord. So, this is who He reveals Himself to be, and how He heals, and how He does these miracles. But then we get a glimpse of how He actually sees the world.
In verse 36, He says, When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed, and helpless sheep, like sheep without a shepherd. That's the first thing we need to see, and how we are looking to see the way Jesus sees the world. He sees harassed and helpless sheep. Now, sheep are cute. They're lovable. But they're not very bright.
They're not. It's kind of universally understood. They're like the Joey Tribbiani of the animal world. Or Patsy from Happy Days. Whatever is your flavor, right? They're cute.
They're lovable. But they're not very bright. I mean, they'll wander into terrain where it is dangerous. They'll get picked off by wolves and coyotes. They'll eat whatever's in front of them. So they'll starve if they're not led by a good shepherd.
That's sheep. And what Jesus just did was He compared the crowds, and by extension, humanity, to sheep. All of humans. I mean, we have value and worth. We're made in the image of God. We're cute.
We're lovable. Because of sin, and because of the fall, we have been marred in such a way that we are not very spiritually bright. We are easily picked off by the enemy. Led in temptation by the evil one. That we wander into dangerous spiritual terrain. We will eat whatever's in front of us spiritually when it is bad for us, when it starves us.
We are all like sheep. And this is why this is incredibly important for us to understand. In order for us to see the lost and see the way that Jesus needs us to see it, we have to clearly understand this. Everyone is at one point lost, harassed, and helpless. And if you don't understand that, what will end up happening is that you will see the lost as an opponent or as an enemy. And this happens in, goodness, in politics.
This is a political year, which means it's going to be so much fun. But what happens is you'll see lost, the lost in a different political party, and what you'll do is instead of seeing them the way that Jesus does, you'll see them as an opponent, as a threat, as someone that needs to be taken down. You've got to own the lives. That's what they say online. Right? Like it's, you'll see them as an opponent.
This happened with morality in the last 50 years in our culture. Back in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s as a kind of a moral shift happened. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. What happened with the church is they saw it as a threat. As a threat. And they saw the lost and helpless sheep amongst the people that were pushing that.
They saw them as a threat, as an opponent, and not actually who they are. This happens culturally today. And the cultural shifts that have happened on sexuality, on gender identity, and everything down the line, they are seen as opponents and not lost, harassed. Helpless. In need of a good shepherd. They're not seeing the way that Jesus sees them.
And this is why this is so incredibly important. Because all of us were once lost and harassed and helpless. All of us. Which means that none of us has a moral high ground to stand on. We were all once enemies of God. We were all once harassed and helpless.
Colossians 1 says, we were alienated and hostile in mind. Easily picked off by the enemy. Wandering in dangerous terrain. Not knowing the good spiritual food that a good shepherd brings. That was all of us. There's a song that we sing called In Tenderness.
It's by a band called Citizens. It is based off the hymn, In Tenderness, He Sought Me, by W. Spencer Walton. Which, with a name like that, you know it's good. But I love this song that we sing for three different reasons.
I love it because it's probably one of the loudest songs we sing as a church. And every time we sing it, the whole church collectively amps up a little bit. I love it also because we usually have a cajon with it. And Isaac usually plays it. And Isaac, if you've ever seen, he leads our Kid City stuff. If you've ever seen his hands, they're abnormally large and strong.
And he, like, abuses the cajon in such a poetic, beautiful way. But the real, honestly, the real deep down reason I love this song is because of the message that it brings. And it applies so much to what we're talking about this morning. It says, this is how the song goes, In tenderness, He sought me, weary and sick with sin. And on His shoulders, brought me back to His fold again. That's us.
We were all once harassed and helpless sheep. We were sick and weary with sin. But Jesus in His love, the Good Shepherd, comes from heaven and He seeks us. He finds us in our lostness. He picks us up as a lost and wavered sheep. He puts us on His shoulder and He brings us back into the fold of God through faith in Him.
It goes on, While angels in His presence sang, Until the courts of heaven rang, Oh, the love that sought me. Oh, the blood that bought me. Oh, the grace that brought me to the fold of God. Grace that brought me to the fold of God. That's the gospel. That His love, out of His deep love, because He loved us, He seeks us, because of His blood, He brings us into the family of God.
And by His grace, nothing good in us of ourselves, but because of His grace, He brings us into the family of God. And we get to dwell with a good shepherd for eternity. Which means, there was nothing good in us that He came for us. He came for us because He is a God of infinite love and compassion and mercy. That is why He saves us. And He brings us into the family of God.
Which means, we don't have a moral leg to stand on. You cannot look at the lost and think anything other than the way that Jesus calls us to. That they are harassed. That they are helpless. That should lead us to an intense urgency and compassion that we would go and take the gospel that they might come into the fold of God. You know who gets this?
New conference. People who just recently placed their faith in Jesus. I've seen this over the years. Someone places their faith in Jesus and they start following God and here's what happens. They're the closest to this vivid reality of what they were just redeemed out of. And they see the lost.
They see friends and family members who were lost. And they remember how bad that was. How hopeless that was. They're like, no, no, no. You have to understand. He's a good shepherd.
He is better than everything else. They're the ones that get it the most because they were so... It wasn't just that long ago that that's exactly where they were. May we as a church never lose sight of the vivid reality of what we were redeemed out of. That we were lost, that we were helpless and we were harassed. That God in His great mercy, this good shepherd, He came for us.
That is the first thing we need to clearly see. Here's the next thing. Verse 37. Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So He shifts metaphors on us.
He moves from sheep herding to farming. The harvest is plentiful. So if in South Carolina we have a harvest of peaches and there's a lot of peaches on the trees and we don't have enough workers to harvest them, that's a problem. That's what He's trying to help them picture. The harvest is plentiful. I mean, He's picking our eyes up.
Look, do you see the crowds? Do you see how harassed and helpless they are? Do you see how plentiful they are? This shows us that our God is generous to redeem. Our God is generous to save. There's a harvest waiting for us.
And He wants to see that. And I thought this morning I would pause and I would try to help us see the harvest that is right before us. specifically, I want to start here with Casey. There's a group called Insight. They're a ministry that does demographic studies, extensive surveying all across the country. They want churches to help see the mission field that is right before them. So, I spent some time studying a bunch of reports this week.
I got really excited and I brought all my information to our teaching team which Chet and Dr. Kent sit on and I spewed it all and their eyes glazed over and they died inside. So, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give you the highlights for the five of you that would have gotten really excited about that. Come to my office this week. We'll geek out about missiology.
It's great. Alright, so here's Casey. The population in Casey is a little over 14,000 people. Alright, it's about 68% white, 25% African American, 4% Hispanic. The highest age status demographic for this area is young and single. So, young professionals and that's a growing demographic for this area and this part of the city.
The next couple are young families and aging community. We have a lot of young professionals that have moved in this area. Alright, so they do some demo studies like that but then they also do a ton of surveying. A couple years ago they asked, they sent a ton of surveys out, they asked questions about people's beliefs, their practices, their opinions on the church, their opinions on religion, a whole wide spectrum of responses and I read through all the data and as to summarize it for us, here's what I found. About half of Casey does not believe in Jesus by their own responses in these surveys.
Either they're atheist, they're agnostic, they don't care, or they're just non-religious, that's the biggest growing denomination in America, it's just non-religious, no affiliation, or they have a different belief system altogether that doesn't line up with the gospel at all. About half of the people that responded, that's 7,000 people in the immediate area. 7,000 right around our church. Now, if you dig a little deeper, you look at some more statistics, here's what you will find. In Lexington County, about 44% of people either have membership somewhere or say they're actively involved in a gospel-centered church.
About 44%. Now, I think that is an incredibly optimistic number because there are plenty of people that have church membership somewhere but do not know who Jesus is and are actively involved in any gospel-centered church. And just because you say something like, yeah, I'm evangelical, I go to a church regularly, doesn't actually mean you understand the gospel and you have an active relationship with Jesus and you're actively involved in a gospel-centered church. So, in order to just be a little bit optimistic, let's just say that 40% of Casey is actively involved in a gospel-centered church and believes the gospel.
That means there are about 8,000 to 9,000 people right around here that are harassed and helpless and do not know the Good Shepherd. We have to see this. I want to actually visualize this. I have some people, you'll bring these tables up. I want to help us see and understand how many 8,000 to 9,000 people are in this area. I chose Skittles because they're like the best candy and our group leader is going to take these home because we're going to, as we walk through mission over the next few weeks, I want these Skittles to be out as a snack but also a visual reminder of what we face.
Now, each one of these represents someone down the street, someone in our neighborhoods right around here that currently does not know Jesus, doesn't even have Him Him on their radar. That is the people that live on the avenues, that is in the surrounding neighborhoods right around our church, that is all the people that live near the river walk, that is single moms that do not have the hope of Christ, that is people that are struggling with addiction, that is University of South Carolina students, we have student housing right down the street that currently are enjoying the world but actually don't know who Jesus is. That is people battling depression, that is people battling mental illness, that is people that we see if you're out here during the week at places like Peace Wise Coffee, there's a street, there's a restaurant down the street I love, Reggae Grill, that is people all over the city of Casey that do not believe in Jesus, that do not have the hope of Christ, that are currently walking into an eternity of destruction apart from God, from our Good Shepherd. That's the harvest in Casey and here's the deal.
If you looked at all the places that our church touches, downtown, West Columbia, Irmo, Red Bank, Lexington, Gilbert, there are at least 28 more of these that need to come up here. at least. That's the optimistic view. That is the harvest. That is the people that Jesus looks on our area with a broken heart because they currently don't know Him. That is the harvest that we need to clearly see. The incredible amount of harassed and helpless sheep that do not know this Good Shepherd, that have not tasted and seen how good He is.
We have to see the harvest. and we've got to see it clearly. And once we've seen that, we need to see the next part. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. The laborers are few. This is why we exist as a church, as a gospel-centered community on mission. Not to be just Christians, but to be laborers.
I did a Greek word study so I could further understand what the Greek means for that word. And here's what I found this week. It means laborer. It means worker. Shocking. Our English translations are great.
It means someone who labors, who actively works, not just someone who believes, but that belief takes the form of action and goes and labors to see the lost come and taste and see that He is good. That is what we're called to be. We're called to labor for the harassed and helpless sheep. I've got a buddy of mine. He's a buddy. He's also a mentor.
His name is Matt Friend. And I texted him the morning that we all got to worship together a couple weeks ago. We all got to... If you're new here, two churches came to emerge as one and two weeks ago was our first time worshiping together. And I got here early as I do every morning ready to set stuff up and there wasn't a whole lot to do. We've been set up and tearing down for years.
I mean, as a church and even before I was a part of Mill City since 2011 as a part of another church back when I was in seminary that was also a meeting in a school that also had to set up and tear down. So for the last eight, nine years this is what I've done. Got here early. Set up. And I texted my buddy Matt because he was a part of the church in Louisville as well. And I said, man, I'm here early at seven o'clock and I ain't got nothing to do. man, this is great.
And he texted back and he said, that's awesome, man. I'm so happy for you guys. He said, but don't get fat. And I knew exactly what he was getting at. I knew exactly what he was getting at because he left the church that I was a part of and he went to be the pastor of a pretty sizable church in West Virginia with a big old building. and he said, don't get fat because the reality is is that we can have kind of a field of dreams kind of mindset. If we build it, they will come.
And that is not the case. We cannot lose our hustle. I get it. It's exciting. We should absolutely be excited about what happened. For those of us who have been set up and tearing down every week in, week out to have a permanent place where we can mobilize mission from, that's incredible.
We should be happy. And I know that some of you that have been worshiping in this building for years are so happy to see it filled up again. We should be ever joyed. But we ain't getting fat. We got work to do. We got stuff that we need to do.
We got to gain our hustle. We have to go out and make disciples. We are called to be laborers. Now, this insight group did a specific survey and I'll share with you. They surveyed and asked, what are the three top things, just asking the area of cases, what are the three top things that you're looking for in a church? If you're going to visit, what are you actually looking for?
You need the three top responses. The first was warm and friendly encounters. That was the top thing. They're looking to be welcomed, to be a part of something, to be warm and inviting. That is why so often we have talked about as a church to get here on time, to get here early and to welcome people. That's why our host team is so important.
Do you know how much nerve you got to build up to actually visit a church if you haven't been a part of a church in years? Do you know how much nerve you got to build up if you've never been to a church before? It's scary. I remember when I was in high school when I wasn't a Christian, my life really was going downhill and I knew that something had to change and I felt like maybe I needed to check out a church, maybe I needed to check out a specific youth group. It took me like three or four or five months to actually gain up the nerve to go and that was kind of because somebody forced me to. It takes a lot of nerve to get here on a Sunday morning for someone to show up and no one to talk to them, no one to welcome them, no one to experience the familiness and the love that we get to experience week in, week out, in groups and on Sundays.
That's a huge miss, guys. I know we got friends and church family here that we love dearly, but you can see them other times in the first ten minutes. Welcome somebody. Get to know them. Invite them. Show them the love that we have so much in our church family.
That is hugely important. Second thing they're looking for is quality sermons. Check. Like half the time, which in baseball that's a 500 batting average. All right.
Third, adult social activities. Translation, community groups. Y'all, do you see what just happened there? We are primed and set up to reach the people of this area, to be warm and inviting, to preach quality sermons, to have community groups planted all over Casey in the city of Columbia. That's it. We are primed and ready.
And the reality is is that we have about a hundred ish members. Committed members of our church. But do we have a hundred plus committed laborers? That's the reality. The reality is the laborers are few. And we need to respond.
We need to grow in what it means to be a laborer. Which means doing the things that we've consistently talked about for years and actually laboring. It means being an everyday missionary. We talk about that in our church. Being an everyday missionary means being a missionary where you live, where you work, where you enjoy and live life. It means being an everyday missionary in your neighborhood, being a good neighbor, getting to know your neighbors, having parties, inviting people over, being a good neighbor and inviting them in to experience who Jesus is.
It means being a good co-worker, a good employee, a good employer, to spend time getting to know your co-workers, to take them out to lunch, to intentionally get to know them, to listen to them when they vomit all of their life problems instead of getting annoyed. To love your co-workers and to get to know them and share the gospel with them and invite them in to know who Jesus is in community groups and here on Sunday. It means being an everyday missionary in the parts of life that we enjoy. Maybe you've got kids that play sports or do dance competitions or whatever. It's a mission field. All their parents, that's a mission field.
A lot of them don't know Jesus. Maybe some of the ones that scream at umps. I'm just kidding. Christians are pretty bad at that too. If you don't have kids, whatever you do, bowling leagues, I haven't had a social life for years, so whatever the things extensively that you would fill in the blank that you do, wherever you live and enjoy life, you're called to be an everyday missionary right there. To invite them into knowing who Jesus is.
We need to labor as groups on mission. That's one of the things we talk about. That our community groups are not just for family and loving one another. They are and caring for one another. But they are groups on mission.
We are sent out as groups in the city every single week. And here's the reality. I think we've only had one group multiply in the last three years. And I'm so thankful for what Jesus is doing in our church. I'm so thankful for all the ways that He's working. But the reality is is that our groups are meant to multiply because more groups means more opportunities across the city for people to taste and see that our Good Shepherd is actually good.
So we've got to regain our hustle here and we've got to multiply some groups so that we can be groups on mission in this city. And it means laboring here on Sundays. It means coming here with a missional mindset that there are people that are going to come through this door that do not know Him. It means serving in different areas like host team where we need top-notch hospitality as we welcome people in. It means serving and volunteering in Kid City. Y'all, there's a harvest down there in the basement right now.
And they need the gospel. We need volunteers because they are thin and they are killing it with smaller Numbers. But how beautiful would it be if you committed yourself to volunteer once a month to be in Kid City and for the next three months, the next six months, the next two years to walk our kids through the gospel. I love seeing stories in our church when the baptism waters are filled with a child, their parent, and somebody else who's serving Kid City. Man, the harvest is plentiful even downstairs. It means doing the things that we need to do to be a gospel-centered community on mission on Sundays to see the loss be found.
So let's not get fat. Let's work. Let's labor. Let's be the laborers that God has called us to be. We need to see the loss is harassed and helpless. We need to see the harvest is plentiful.
We need to see that we are called to be laborers and then we need to respond and pray. That is the next thing that Jesus teaches. We are called to pray. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly, earnestly, vigorously, consistently, unendingly. Pray earnestly to the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
The reason we pray is because God is the one who ultimately goes and works in our lives and the lives of unbelievers. God is the one who ultimately brings people to faith. We need to pray. We need to be a church that prays earnestly for the lost. There was a French Quaker pastor in the 19th century named Stephen Grellett. He was considering some of the things that we are talking about this morning and he was praying.
He was like, Lord, who do you want me to reach? And a French Quaker, God put on his heart American woodcutters. Now, woodcutters is a 19th century term for lumberjacks. And basically, back then, they were like people who worked on oil rigs. I mean, it's blue-collar workers isolated from the rest of the world. Pretty rowdy crew.
So God put American woodcutters on his heart. So he prayed and he planned and then he got on a ship and he crossed the Atlantic and he showed up in America. And he's a French Quaker, so there's one site where these American woodcutters are known to be found. So he travels his way through the wilderness and he shows up and there's been months of anticipation and buildup and he shows up at this site where they were known to be and it's empty. It was just recently deserted. And again, he's a French Quaker.
He's not a tracker. It's not Bear Grylls. He's not about to go find where these guys are. So he's there and it's empty. Imagine the amount of disappointment after all this time that God prays, he responds, he goes and there's no one there and he prays. He said, God, what do you want?
He says, it's my message. You came here. I want you to preach it. So he finds this shanty. It's a temporary housing setup. He goes inside.
He opens his Bible and he preaches the gospel. He just obeys Jesus. He preaches the gospel. He preaches the message that our Lord came from heaven and he sought us. He preaches of his blood and how we need covering for sin and forgiveness for sins. He preaches of the hope of new life in him, of the resurrection.
He preaches the gospel and then he shuts his Bible and he packs up his stuff and he goes home. And I can imagine that that trip home was a very frustrating one, was a very disappointing one. What was the point? God, why did you bring me all this way to preach to the empty, open air? I know I'm being obedient, but what was the point of what actually happened? Fast forward a few years.
A few years later, he runs into an American. The American sees him, hears him and recognizes him and he says, you don't know me, but I was an American woodcutter and years ago, we left our site, but I left some tools behind and when I came back to the site, I heard someone preaching from a shanty and I caught a glimpse of you preaching a message that absolutely confronted me in my sin. And it cut him to his core and he placed his faith in Jesus and he gathered his tools and he went on to the new campsite of where they were at and he said, I led a few more to Christ with that message who led a few more and by the time it was all said and done, over a thousand people tasted and saw that God was good. Now, I love that story for a few different reasons.
I love what it illustrates. I love that it illustrates that God is sovereign in salvation. He's the one who saves. He just was being obedient, but God had it all set up. God is the one that goes to work and brings people in to faith. I love it because of what it illustrates, the danger and the power of prayer.
That when you pray and you pray for the harvest and you pray for laborers to go out, what will often happen is God will raise you up and send you out. That might be across the Atlantic, that might be across the street. Both can be unnerving for different reasons. But when you pray, God goes to work and I love that it illustrates what it means to be a laborer. I think we should dream big. I think we should absolutely see the loss.
I think we should think about mission in such a big picture that is so big and so bold that Jesus calls us to. But oftentimes, it's the very simple making of disciples. Jesus called a few, 12, to impact the world. And he went across the Atlantic to impact one and through one, a thousand plus and a legacy of faith came out of it. We are called to labor. Once we see the need, the harassed and helpless sheep, once we see the harvest is plentiful, once we see the need for laboring, once we pray, ultimately, we need to go.
Verse 38 says, Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. To send, which means we need to go. We need to get on our knees. We need to pray. But man, we need to absolutely own this and go.
We will focus so much of our time and so much of our energy and so much wasted time and affection on frivolous pursuits that do not matter in a million years. This is the grand scheme of eternity. It does not matter. And if we do that, we will be a shadow of the men and women of great density that God has called us to be. We need to go. What would 2021 look like in the life of our church if we actually said, no, this year, I'm going to go.
I'm actually going to labor for the lost. What would it look like if we committed in 2020 to actually do this? What would the city of Casey look like in just a few years? If we said, no, we're going to intentionally reach this part of the city. We're going to plant community groups all across Casey so that people can experience who God is. What would our city look like?
What would downtown in Oralwood? What would, in West Columbia where our Riverbanks group meets, what would Irmo in Lexington in Gilbert, what would all of Columbia look like if we owned this mission and we actually went? we need to go. We got work to do. We got people to reach. We need to go. And for some of you, that may mean across the street.
That may mean across the cubicle. But for others, cubicle, but for others, that means across the world. We want to be a church that has everyday missionaries here that intentionally reaches this area. But we want to be a church that sends laborers across the world into the harvest. Into places like Egypt that we have been partnering in. In places like Columbia, South America that we have been partnering in.
And reaching unreached people groups all across the world. Some of you need to finally respond to that calling and you need to go. Here's what I love as we are going to walk through Matthew in the next few weeks. And really the rest of our time in this wonderful gospel. Next week, He is going to raise up the disciples, Peter, James, John, Bartholomew, Thaddeus, Lot. He is going to send them out to get a taste of what mission looks like, what He is calling to.
But ultimately, as the gospel of Matthew closes out, He says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. The way it ends is, Behold, I will be with you always to the end of the age. Which means, as we go out into Casey, as we go out into Columbia, as we go out into the world, we are not alone. The God of the universe is in His church working inside of us. And we get the thrill of laboring with God to see a harvest happen in this city. But we got to go.
We got to go across the cubicle. We got to go into our neighborhoods. We got to go into Kid City. We got to go and have tough conversations with our skeptic friends. And here is the picture of what it could be. If you committed to this, if we committed to this, how beautiful it would be if later this year, someone who doesn't have Jesus even on their radar steps in the baptism waters because you declared the goodness of our God.
And they say that Jesus is Lord. That's the picture. But we got to go out and get Him. Lindsay's going to come up and she's going to play. And in lieu of taking the Lord's Supper, instead of taking the Lord's Supper, I want us to pray. If you're new here, we're so glad you're here this morning.
This may feel a little bit different. We've got a few moments where we can silently pray together for the things that God is calling us into. If you do not believe in Jesus, if you've not experienced how good this gospel is, our hope this morning is that you would, that you would actually place your faith in Him. He's worth your life. He's such a good shepherd. You're harassed and you're helpless.
But He will bring you into the family of God. He's worth it. Would you believe? So right now, our hope is that you would pray, that you would ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. But for everyone else, I want to take a few moments and pray for three things.
I want to pray for Casey, all the parts of this city that need the gospel. Pray for Casey, that we're going to pray for Columbia and the greater Columbia area. I want you to think of people that you know, that need Jesus. I want you to think of people in your work, in your neighborhood. And then lastly, we're going to pray for the ends of the earth. So let's pray.
First for Casey. Jos hablar. Pai. vec giga close chasekel si escuch si se pedals si se, Lord, may you go to work in this city. May our church be a beacon of light and salt all across Casey. That they would experience how good you are. Amen.
I want to pray for Columbia. Lord, may you send our church out all across this city. May you send us back into our neighborhoods, into our places of work. May we labor for the lost all over Columbia, all over Lexington, all over Red Bank, all over West Columbia, all over Irma. May we go. Amen.
Lastly, let's pray for the ends of the earth. Pray for unreached people groups. Pray for places that you would love to see the Lord's sin labors into that harvest. Lord, would you raise up men and women in our church that would fearlessly go to the ends of the earth, that would make disciples in the darkest corners of the globe. May you reap a harvest amongst unreached people groups, amongst nations that desperately need the gospel. May we sin and may we go.
In Jesus' name, amen. May we as laborers go into the harvest. Amen.