Workers for the Harvest

 Luke 10 calls us to see the world as Jesus does: a plentiful harvest with too few workers. Jesus sends his followers into a world where some will welcome the kingdom and others will resist it, but the message remains the same: the kingdom of God has come near. As his people, we are called to pray for workers, recognize the harvest around us, and go as those workers ourselves. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. The sermon text reading for today is Luke 10, verses 1 through 11 and 16 through 17. You can find this passage in the Sanctuary Bible on page 1580. Please listen as I read God's word. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them out two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals, and do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house house, first say, peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them. If not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this, the kingdom of God has come near. Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. But whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me. The seventy-two returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. Here ends the reading.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Well, good morning, Elmwood. It's good to see everybody. I uh I was really worried that this morning was just gonna be a large, small group, because it's the 5th of July, and so we're gonna have to all pack into these two pews. So it's good to see everybody today. Uh it's good to see everyone. Uh, it is so beautiful outside. I need to actually get set here, so you're gonna have to give me a minute. Uh, real quick, there was one announcement that didn't make it into the announcements for Benjamin, sorry. Um, in two weeks, uh, we are going to have a uh welcome party. If you're new to Elmwood, uh and we'll just allow you to figure out what that means, new to Elmwood, we'll have a welcome party. It'll be in the fireside room right after the service, just 15, 20 minutes, maybe a half hour, so you can still get to lunch and hang out with people, but it'll be a chance for you to get to know other people that are kind of also new to Elmwood, uh, and then kind of get to meet some people that are have been around Elmwood for a little while. So there's a welcome party coming up. Uh, information is gonna be on the website uh or through the digital bulletin, it's always there. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you, speaking of meeting people, my name is Dave Hammond. I get to serve as the director of Next Gen Ministries here at Elmwood. It is an incredible joy to hang out uh with all of the Next Gen crew here. Uh, I didn't get to say digital bulletin like eight times today. I'm feeling a little bit off. Sorry, Caleb. Um, this is just how how I do when I come up normally. We are in the middle of a weird sermon series because our lead pastor is off. Our lead pastor is away, spending time rejuvenating and allowing the Spirit of God to build into his soul, allowing the chance for him to rest and take stock of what God is doing in his life and what where God wants to lead us over the next seven years. He's taking a sabbatical. Pastor John's away, and so there's a group of us that are stepping in and filling the pulpit until August comes around when he comes back. This summer, Elmwood gets the treat of hearing the same story from many different voices, the same ideas over and over again, saying the same things, and you get the opportunity to hear. Oh, that's how Bryce would say it. That's how Benjamin would say it. That's how Dan or Dave would say it. The different voices each week still speak this beautiful mosaic. And each sermon is beautiful, but together they form this picture, and it shows us how the scriptures really are a unified story with Jesus right at the center of it. Our sermon series on the heart is an opportunity for the preachers to kind of share what's been on their heart recently. Benjamin brought us a sermon about work. Dan Moose talked about discovering the importance of forgiveness. And Bryce last week talked about encouraging us to interact with God with all of our emotions. Today, the sermon I want to bring you, we're gonna be looking at the beginning of Luke 10, which Elise just read for us. We're gonna be spending most of our time kind of just building a massive foundation about the mission that God is going to call his followers on. And then I'm gonna offer just a very simple structure on top of that foundation. So we're gonna pack it down. We're gonna spend a lot of time building that foundation and then a small application point that I want to hand to all of you. As we look at Luke 10 today, we're gonna see three parts of Jesus' understanding of the mission he calls his followers on. Part number one, the world he calls them to reach. Part number two, the message he asks them to share, and part number three, the tools he encourages them to use. Before we dive into the text, uh, I invite you to please pray with me. God, you made him who had no sin to be sin for us, that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus. Thank you. For being sin for us, so that we might become righteous. We thank you that we have this chance to interact together, to be your hands and feet to each other as we journey on this life. Father God, I ask that you would prepare our hearts and minds to worship you as we listen to your word. Holy Spirit, convict us once again today, of our need for you. God, thank you for showing us your love by sending your son, the second person of the triune God, to die that we may live. We love you, Jesus. Amen. So, one of the greatest strengths of a Mosaic sermon series is that each week's Bible passage is completely different. It's it's this is completely different from the previous week. And so that strength gives us that chance to see how all the Bible points to the finished work of Jesus. But as is often said, your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness. So the dark side of a topical sermon series is that we need to spend some time kind of orienting ourselves around the book of the Bible we're reading each week. This week we're looking at Luke. We're looking at Luke, it's one of the earliest biographies of Jesus, and it opens with the lines Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke's writing to a person he calls Theophilus, that that name means loved by God. We don't know whether this is a nickname given to this guy in order to protect his identity, or if Theophilus is actually his name, but we do know that Luke is writing so that this guy could know what God has done through Jesus. And so Luke chose stories from Jesus' life to portray Jesus as a new Moses for all of humanity, not just the Jews. Jesus was for the outcast, he was for the sick, he was for the poor, he was for the foreigner, for men, for women, for Jew, for Gentile. Luke's point in writing his gospel was that Jesus came to bring everyone back into right relationship with God from their slavery to sin. Like Moses had brought the slave nation of Israel back into right relationship with God in the Exodus. The journey that the Israelites went on with Moses, where we start with slavery in Egypt, through the years of wandering in the wilderness, into the promised land, they're mirrored and reflected in Luke's gospel, beginning with Jesus' ministry in Galilee, his journey to the Passover feast in Jerusalem, and then bringing the promised land to all people in his death and resurrection. It's a three-part journey, just like Moses and the Israelites took a three-part journey. Our passage today from Luke 10 kind of is right in that, the near the beginning of that journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, which is why Luke starts off. Let's flip over to Luke 10. After the Lord, uh after this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him into every town and place where he is about to go. Jesus is about to go on a journey. There is no GPS. You cannot open your phone and Apple Maps or Google Maps or whatever and figure out where the red lines are and avoid the traffic jams. So he sends out his crew. Figure out where we should go. Tell the people, figure out where people are gonna be really mad, figure out where people are gonna be happy, guys. I need some help. There's uh there's uh for those of us that are Bible nerds, we've got a couple of us in the room, um, there's there's gonna be a translation issue with the word 72. If you're reading your Bible, there might be 70 in there. I'm gonna call this group the crew from now on in the sermon. Uh, this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the sermon. It's just a fun note for us nerds. Uh, nerds in the room unite. Uh, so it might say 70 or 72 in your Bible. We'll call them the crew because it's still a bunch of guys that are going forth and sharing the good news about Jesus. The first piece of the puzzle that we're gonna look at today, first piece of the puzzle we're gonna look at, is gonna be understanding this the world that Jesus is trying to help his followers reach. By the way that Jesus talks about this to his crews, I think we can see two big groups. Two big groups that Jesus is sending his followers out into. There's a group that says, There will be those who welcome you, and there will be those who do not welcome you. It's a great way to just split the world in half. Do you welcome the followers of Jesus or not? We see it clearly in verses 8 to 11. When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered you. Heal the sick that are there. Tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into the streets and say, Even the dust of your town we wipe off our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this, the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus doesn't call everyone together and say, All right, we're gonna a crew, I'm gonna send you out. It's gonna be great. Here's some rose-colored glasses. This is all you need, everything from now on is gonna be puppy dogs and unicorns and rainbows. This is not where we are. Don't worry, God's got you. You can do all things through me who gives you strength. All right, this is not what Jesus does. There's gonna be plenty of folks in your way that are not going to welcome you. There'll be plenty of folks who are super excited about to hear the good news that the kingdom is coming in. But there are going to be problems and issues and people who are unhappy that they're hearing that they are sinners in need of saving. And so Jesus called those who needed to hear the good news, and we're gonna be excited about it, uh, those who are gonna welcome you, but then he also called them a plentiful harvest. He did that, what, up in verse 2? The harvest is plentiful. This beautiful harvest. And I think that Luke in Luke's time and Jesus' time, they're talking probably talking about barley and wheat. Here in Minnesota and in the Midwest, it's probably gonna be corn. My family takes a trip down to Iowa every year, and we go to New London. No one knows where New London is. That's okay. It think like Iowa's a big rectangle, it's like as far south and as east as you can go. And so we drive all the way through Iowa every August to see some good family friends, and there's nothing in Iowa except for pigs and corn. And I mean, there's a few people to watch over the pigs and the corn. There are some, there are wind farms, there's a couple of them, but just fields and fields of corn, as just rolling hills of green. And when you're there in August, they still are incredibly green. Anyone that's ridden a motorcycle through the state of Minnesota will be able to tell you that Minnesota definitely has its own fields of corn as well. I know you guys can all picture in your head the fields of corn as you've driven through our state. Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful. And we think about, oh my goodness. The harvest is the all of the grain, the corn, the wheat, the barley is what Jesus is pulling to mind. There'll be those who welcome you, and the harvest is plentiful. Jesus said there will also be wolves as well. If we look at verse three, we see go. I'm sending you like lambs among wolves. By very nature, wolves hunt down and kill lambs. They they kill, they pick off the weaklings so that they can eat. This is not because they're mean or evil, it's because they consume, they're carnivores, they consume meat. And so when they see a lamb that is weak and not able to fend for itself, wolves destroy it. They rip it apart, they consume the lamb just because it's in their nature. By being on mission for Jesus, Jesus is putting his followers in a direct line of sight for those who want mu nothing more than to destroy the mission of God. I think, I think we can break down the enemies of God into two big groups. We've got uh the the heavenly beings and we've got the earthly beings. From time into history, Adam and Eve even had to deal with when when they were walking in the garden in the cool of the day with God, there's a group of heavenly beings that wanted to frustrate the plans of God. Satan shows up as a snake in the garden. The adversary ruins Job's life, the devil tempts Jesus in his ministry. By the time of the church, Peter is writing to people, encouraging them, be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. The Satan and the demons are real and pose a very real threat for those who are sent out by Jesus. On the other hand, so we've got heavenly beings, on the other hand, earthly beings, they're people who desire to fight to maintain their worship of created things rather than the creator. It could be worship of politics or of entertainment or of politics as entertainment, the worship of youth sports, the worship of food and drinking, the worship of success, or the worship of a demon masquerading as another deity. And as people who want to maintain that worship of a created thing rather than the creator, they they will ridicule the follower of Jesus for their devotion to him. They will chew them up, they will spit them out, they will say things like, What do you mean you can't come to the bar with us on a Friday night at work? They'll say things, you don't really need to go to church. It's really hard to get field or ice time for the kids. Just come to the game. They might say, You're a bigot to think that there's only one God. And we don't want bigots around here. They might see, say, what do you mean you didn't vote for my political party? There are people whose worship of something has clouded their judgment. There are people who would far rather protect the thing that they're worshiping than love God and love neighbor with a human being right in front of them. When Jesus looked at the world and called his crew together and said, Hey, let's go out and reach this world, he sees two big groups. He sees those who will welcome them, the plentiful harvest, and he sees those who are not going to welcome them. The wolves ready to devour them. Even though Jesus is honest with his crew about what's ahead of them, he sends them with just a very simple message. And he sends them with the same message no matter what side of the fence we come from. We looked at verses 8 through 11 earlier, but I want us to read this one more time. I'm going to read it one more time. I want you to listen for the message. What is the message that Jesus sends his followers out with? When you enter a town and are welcome, eat whatever is offered to you, heal the sick who are there, and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. But when you enter a town and are not welcome, go into the streets and say, Even the dust of your town are wipe from your feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this, the kingdom of God has come near. The message he asked them to share is the kingdom of God has come near. Well, we can spend an entire weekend really digging into the idea of the kingdom of God. We're not going to do that today. It's outside the purview of this sermon. The thing that stuck out to me this week for this message is how the folks that are welcoming and the folks that are not welcoming get the same message. It's the same thing. The kingdom of God has come near. It's not the job of apprentices of Jesus to figure out what kind of a response to give to different people. Tell everyone the same news. The kingdom of God is here. For those who have been waiting for the kingdom of God, those that are those welcoming folks, the plentiful harvest, for those that are super excited about the world where mercy and grace run the show, they're going to receive it with gladness. For those who are longing for a world run by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control, they're going to be super excited about it. For those who are wanting a better king than the rulers of today, this news, the kingdom is here, is incredible news. An invading force is here to change everything. Praise be to God. But for those who have not been on a lookout for a kingdom, those who are pretty okay with the rules of this world, those who would rather that uh the world just be governed by whatever kind of passions or desires our bodies can pull up, those who are are quite happy with the people who are in power, have no design, no desire to see them dethroned. This news that the kingdom is here is incredible scary news because an invading force is here to change everything. And they'll say no, thank you. The message that Jesus sends his crew out with is the same for those who welcome it and those who don't. The kingdom of God is here and it changes everything. The third stop we're gonna take on our journey today, because we've talked so far about how the world that the that Jesus is sending his crew out into. We've talked about the message that he's going to have them share. Lastly, I want us to consider the tools he encourages them to use. Before we do, it would be strange to not mention the fact that Jesus sends people out and says, here are some tools you can't use. He's wait before you go, we're just gonna stop you from doing some things. Verse four do not take a purse or a bag or sandals. Greet nobody on the road. Just okay. Take nothing to carry money in. Purse, right? So, like, uh gentlemen, your wallets are off limits. No more wallets. Don't carry a bag, so you get zero supplies. And it's no sandals. Uh, we don't really walk around in sandals all the time. I walk around in sandals all summer long, but sandals are the mode of transportation in the ancient world to get from one place to the next. And so your car for this road trip is off limits. No motor transportation, no money, no stuff. Jesus is asking his followers to do something and lean heavily into the wisdom that we find in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. I'm gonna flip back to a little Old Testament. I tried to say this from memory and it didn't work earlier. So trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. That's that wisdom that Jesus is asking his followers to lean into. Trust in God with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding. You think you might need a wallet, Dave, to go on a road trip. You think you might need supplies, you think you might Might need, you know, a mode of transportation, lean on God. Followers. This is not going to be easy, but God will provide. So Jesus doesn't send his crew out with a bunch of physical resources. But what does he encourage them to use? He sends them out instead. We already talked about one of them. He sends them out with a tool in verse 9 of a message. This message is incredible. Verse 9 talks about this. The kingdom of God has come near to you. It's a tool that can change the world. That can say, these people, I've been waiting for this kingdom. These people, not so much. An incredible tool, a message that can change the world. The second thing that he sends his followers out with is incredible power. Reading verse 9 starts, heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. It's super important we don't read past those first three words. Heal the sick. Instead, he's telling them go look at some withered limbs and tell it to grow back. Look at bloody coughs and tell them to stop. Look at leprosy and dead flesh and tell that tissue to be alive again. These guys are out here breaking the laws of time and space. And when they come back from their mission, they're so stoked and excited, they return with joy and said, Lord, even demons submit to us in your name. They not only have the authority to break the laws of time and space when it comes to healing, but the spiritual realm even submits to them. When Jesus tells his followers to go out on mission, he gives them the tools of a message that can change the world and the authority to perform miracles. When we look at Jesus sending out his apprentices in Luke 10, we can see them preparing by considering what is this world like. Jesus says, it's not all going to be great and it's going to be beautiful. There's going to be a harvest that is plentiful, and there's going to be wolves. He tells them to share the same message with everybody. The kingdom is here and it is near you. And he gives them some tools and he gives them authority to perform miracles. That's the mission that Jesus sends his followers out on. And so I want to offer you a little tiny application. Just a little tiny one. And yes, without question, I do hope that you will consider, start seeing the world you're a part of, where you live, work, learn, play, as Jesus saw the world and see, oh, there are people who are welcoming to the news, and there are people that aren't. I do hope that that is something that filtered through this morning. I hope we we will all spend more time in our daily lives sharing the wonderful news. The kingdom is here and sharing that with everyone we know. And I hope we can recognize the power of the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead that is dwelling within each follower of Jesus and the power we have to do incredible things. I hope we can do all these things, but the simple application that I want to offer everyone comes actually at the beginning of the passage in Luke 10 2. He told them, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go. First word of Luke 10, 3. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Pray to God to send out workers, go. The big takeaway, that little tiny application that we're putting on our foundation, that I want to put in front of all of us today is I want us to take the words of Jesus seriously. I want us to actually listen to our king. I want you to look into your life. Andwood does talk about where we live, work, learn, play, as ways to think about areas where God has put us in our lives. Look into your life, and I want you to consider the harvest. Jesus says that harvest is plentiful. It's like those cornfields in Iowa in the fall. Look at your life. There are plenty of people who need to hear about Jesus and the fact that the kingdom of heaven has come near. And as you look at your life, I hope, there's a little tiny application. I hope your heart can break for those people that haven't yet heard about Jesus. Whenever I'm talking with youth, we often end up with this question of what about those people that never hear about Jesus? What is God gonna do with them? And I realize I'm looking at a little evangelist because they're super excited. I'm looking at a little missionary because they're like, those people that don't know Jesus, that didn't ever get to hear. I'm like, great, go get after it. There's people that haven't heard, go share with them. Look at your life. Recognize that the harvest is plentiful, workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest. That's God, in case we're wondering. Lord of the harvest is gonna be God. Right. So ask God to send workers out into the field. I want to encourage every single one of us. Here's the little application. I want us to encourage every single one of us to designate a moment in their day for until John gets back and starts preaching. Every single day until John gets back and starts freezing, to pray to God and ask him, send workers out into the harvest field. Send workers out into the harvest field. Hey, it's seven words. That's so great. I'm such a nerd. Um, send workers out in the harvest field. Every day. If you guys hang out with me in the morning uh before church, some of you have seen me out in the foyer. Uh we it happened today, my alarm went off. My time is 10.02. My alarm goes off every day at 10.02. If you have coffee with me at 10, the first thing we're gonna do is pray for workers to go in the harvest field. Those of you that like we've done it before, right? Like it just happens, my alarm goes off. We read Luke 10.2, and we pray. What if every single one of us did it? Set an alarm on your phone. Oh, God said the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. The second person of the triune God, while walking around on earth, harvest is plentiful, workers are few. So pray. It would not be abnormal to see people pulling out their phones and sending an alarm. Right now, that'd be okay. Yeah, there it is. Benjamin's already doing it. And there's another one, right? Like, set a time, do it. I'm not joking. We've got like six more weeks until John starts preaching again. What would happen if we all did it? What would happen? When is your time going to be? 10.02 might be a horrible time for you, I get it. But it might be, oh, I I wake up and at six o'clock in the morning, I am just barely awake, but I can set an alarm at 6.03 every morning and I can say, I will, that's when I'll pray. I'm a late night person. 6.03 sounds horrible, Dave. I'm can you give me like 10.02 p.m.? Is that okay? Can I use 10.02 p.m.? And I can pray for God to send workers out into the harvest field. Because the harvest is plentiful, workers are few. Pray therefore for God to send workers out into the harvest. Each week, we come to this table and we do so to remind us that Jesus came to the harvest field and died, both to show us how to live and to save us from the brokenness that dwells within every single one of us. We come to the communion table. Can you go back to that slide? Nope. We come to the communion table because of that first word in verse three. Yep. That first word in verse three. Because the first word in verse three is the result of praying for God to send workers out into the harvest field. First word in verse three is go. Pray for workers. Oh, by the way, you're the workers. We come to the communion table because he told his followers to go, and I would rather stay home and watch the World Cup. I mean, it's so exciting this year. King Verde almost took out Argentina. It was but he told his followers to be the workers, Dave. And we don't always want to. Jesus showed us how to live, but we often prioritize something above Jesus in his kingdom. And so when Jesus died, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. And we come to this table to remind us once again of his actions to bring us broken people into the family of God. No matter what sin, if it's the sin that you have no desire to talk to anybody about the kingdom, that is the most important news in the world. No matter what sin it is, if if your sin happens to be you really, really do like food and success and youth sports and entertainment and whatever, I don't know what your sin is. If whatever sin though you have hanging around your neck today, I want you to receive the love and grace of God that none of us deserve and come to the communion table and be reminded of the death of Jesus that brings us into the family. This world is good. It was broken by our sin, but God made a way. So you might not have gone yet. You might not have looked at verse 3 and said, Oh, that's for me yet. And you haven't listened to your king yet. So come to the table. Because Jesus died for that sin too. As I invite you to the table, um, let's take a few minutes. Just a few moments, not minutes. We're not gonna take a few minutes, we're gonna take a few moments and uh just take some time in silent confession and reflection to bring our hearts before the Lord.