Ten More Minutes On A Plentiful Harvest

The clock on Sunday moves fast, but the questions and convictions linger. We open the door for ten more minutes that become a deeper journey into Luke 10, where Jesus says the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. That single line reframes our calling: the fields are not barren, they’re ready. When we believe that, we stop dragging our feet and start stepping with purpose, expecting God to move.

We talk about what gets left unsaid on a tight schedule and why dependence on the Holy Spirit changes everything. Acts 4 becomes our model for courage: ordinary people, filled with the Spirit, speaking with boldness as God shakes the room and saves lives. This isn’t about personality or perfect words; it’s about God’s power working through willing hearts. From there, we explore the often-debated number—seventy or seventy-two—and how it likely points back to the nations in Genesis 10. The takeaway is simple and sweeping: no one is outside the reach of Christ. Our path runs from our Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, and it starts with a neighbor’s name.

We also wrestle with how ministry turned from blessing to burden in our minds. Work was a gift in the garden; sin made it toil. In Christ, joy returns to labor as we share the gospel, serve our church and city, and watch hope take root in real lives. That joy is fuel, not an afterthought. As our church moves through 21 days of prayer and fasting, we lean into earnest, fervent prayer—asking God to send laborers, to fill us with His Spirit, and to renew hearts with fresh desire. If you’ve felt stuck praying the same words, this is your invitation to speak to God with honesty and expectation.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage to step into the harvest, and leave a review with one question you want us to tackle next week. Your questions will shape future episodes and help us keep the conversation going.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Show

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Ten More Minutes. This is a Cross Point Church original podcast. We're excited to bring you the first episode today. So thank you for tuning in. You know, we're really just looking to take a little extra time each week and linger a little longer on Sunday's message. We're excited to get into it. My name's Ryan Richie. I'm here with David Rogers. We're going to be bringing you each week just a little bit more time. You know, hardly a week goes by where we don't wish we had some more time on a Sunday morning, more time in worship, more time in the Word, more time just to spend in fellowship with God's people. And uh that dreaded clock moves fast. You know, we try to get people in and out. Um, but you know, if something from this past Sunday, you know, challenged you, stayed with you, spoke to you, uh, maybe you're wanting just a little bit more. This is the space for you. And so we're excited to dig into 10 more minutes. All right, let's get after it. All right, let's do it. I got Pastor David with me. This is the man of many talents. Oh, whatever. All sorts of jobs over the years, but for the last 20 years, been leading our church here in Valdasta, Cross Point Church, and you've seen God move all through those 20 years and grow this church, disciple people, see the lost saved. You've got a heart uh to reach people, and it's been exciting just for my spall, my small part of it uh to come and and and and partner with you guys and and be here and and and lead worship for you. Uh and we look at a Sunday and all sorts of churches have different philosophies on what their orders of service look like and how much time you spend you know on a Sunday morning. Some kind of maybe are shorter than ours, some much longer than ours, even. And um, we kind of have a little bit of a template that works for us, and we try to put a service together that uh you know we get the chance to worship together and teach together and have all the important things that are a part of that Sunday morning, but do it within a certain reasonable amount of time so we can kind of get people in and out. Um but that involves a clock. That involves all of us being on time. We got our clock theme, we got our little countdown clock down here. We've got all of our coasters have little clocks, we've got our hourglass, which actually is more like a minute glass. And oh, is it that's kind of how it feels on a Sunday morning. We set aside 10 minutes or 40 minutes for a message, five minutes for a host time, five, and by the time we look up at the clock, we go, Where'd the time go? What does it look like? How do how do you do you know I I don't know about you, but I I get up there and I talk sometimes. I don't even think about the clock until it's all gone kind of thing. What's your relationship with the clock and the clock?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, it's uh it's it's sort of uh one of those things where uh it's the dreaded look, you know, when you you know you have to look up there and check the time, you know, because cause something's coming, you know. I mean you gotta wrap it up and land the plane, as my wife likes to say. But um, but I you know when I what I don't start off looking at the clock, it's usually toward the end when I realize it's probably getting toward that time that I start glancing up there and and um uh I I just uh I feel like sometimes uh uh uh I just am constrained a little bit, you know, uh because you have so much more you want to say. That's right. You know, uh, but we understand the importance of it as well. We we have in the first service, we have another service coming in. That's right so you've you've gotta sort of wrap it up at some point. Yeah. But um but I I think uh I that's what I love about this podcast and what we're wanting to do here is just uh you know have that opportunity to explain a little more, to teach a little more, to to to share a little more with with our congregation and anybody else that wants to join in.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

That's right. Anytime you preach long enough, you kind of start to develop some um idiosyncrasies that people kind of latch on to. And uh, you know, one of them around here is just uh oftentimes there's a mention of, well, I gotta I gotta wrap it up. There's a I'm over time, I'm looking at the clock, and it's just about that time. And so we thought it would be a really neat thing to kind of bring a podcast together where we just say, you know what, let's go ahead and get that 10 more minutes. Right. You know, you joke often, you're like, all right, I've got 20 more points and five more minutes to do it. Are you ready to listen? You know, and so let's bring the 20 points in this thing and let's kind of get after it. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, that that's a lot of times me thinking out loud and thinking that uh, oh boy, I've got to really get on it now, you know, if I'm gonna say everything I want to say.

Journey To Jerusalem Series Setup

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Well, what do you think from this past message? You know, if you weren't here with us, uh we were walking through a new sermon series about journeying to Jerusalem. Right. And uh we started in uh Luke chapter 10, and and Jesus is sending out the 70 or the 72, depending on which translation you're looking at, and and he's uh he he's he's giving them authority to go and share the gospel in his name. Um, and then he just kind of shares with us about the laborers. He says the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few, and he asks us to pray earnestly uh for laborers, and and and you did a great job of of sort of uh unpacking that for us on Sunday, but but you look at that and you think, all right, I've got so much time to preach a message, and in your preparation, I know you're studying way more than that. Oh, yeah. What do you think is one thing that maybe you didn't share on Sunday that you would have liked to add if you had 10 more minutes?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Right. I I think it's interesting. Uh I didn't think about this till till um after church was over, both services. Uh usually I walk off the stage and think I left something on the table. Yeah. Uh but uh as I was processing the day and thinking about the message, I I realized that I had not really mentioned and I really wished I had our dependency on the Holy Spirit. You know, uh, you know, Jesus was compassionate for the people. He sent people out to share the gospel, but one of the things that we see all throughout scripture is our dependency, our reliance on the Holy Spirit. And uh, you know, this is God's work, it's redemptive work. It's uh we just get to be uh an instrument in the Redeemer's hand, so to speak. But it's uh but it's one of these things where we have to remember too that uh that if the Holy Spirit's not in this, uh our work is in vain.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

That's right.

Depending On The Holy Spirit

SPEAKER_00 6:06

And so uh, you know, I was thinking about uh how in Acts chapter four you see Peter and and John and and they're standing before the council, the religious leaders of the day, and and um and it says there in in chapter eight that they were I mean verse eight that they were filled with the spirit, the Holy Spirit. And and then in verse 13 it says that they had a boldness to share the gospel. And uh, and and that's what I I feel like I uh I should have said on Sunday, is uh just sort of help people realize how dependent we are on the Holy Spirit and the need for us to to really just pray uh to be filled with the Spirit as we go out into a world and accomplish his his kingdom work.

Why Seventy Or Seventy-Two Matters

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah. I love that. You know, one of the things you've been challenging us with a lot in the last several months has been just to to live and to walk with great expectation, knowing that God is always going to accomplish his part of the deal. Right, you know, and uh if we're faithful to accomplish ours, then then why wouldn't he do great things in our midst and and uh and to believe that and to to walk accordingly in that? Um you you brought up the the Acts 4 passage um and uh was a part of writing a song and it was just a song called Shake This Place because in that same passage, uh while they were bold to share and the spirit filled, the spirit also moved among the people, and the foundation of the place where they shared the gospel shook. Yeah, and and many people were saved. And you look at that and you think it wasn't because of the great orators, it wasn't because of the great talent of the disciples, it was all because of the spirit of God and his faithfulness to move, you know, in in relation to our faithfulness. And so uh that's a really neat point that you bring up there. Yeah, um, I've got I've got one from Sunday, you know, we were talking before about um you know the armchair quarterback kind of thing as a preacher. Sometimes it's hard to sit back and listen to somebody else preach and you know not think about how you might have said something a little differently at times. And uh, you know, I I was thinking about this number 70 or number 72, and he talks about this, and you kind of brought out like they're they're called disciples in a sense, and sometimes we only think about the 12, right? But in this case, you know, there was a a whole group of them that were screened out. And uh I wonder w we we have the significance of the number 12. We think maybe that's kind of this redeeming of the 12 tribes of Israel and and Jesus sort of representing that part of it in the New Testament. And maybe what this number 70 represents, I wonder. I was doing some research and uh read one of our commentaries from Warren Wearsby, and he he talked about the genealogy from Genesis 10. And he was saying in Genesis 10, from from Noah to Abraham, they present 70 generations, you know, and it's meant to be 70 groups of nations that sort of cover the whole earth in between Noah and actually it's the Tower of Babel, is what it is. And uh and and and I wonder if if Luke isn't just calling back to that kind of a number that maybe somebody and his readers might have listened to or understood as covering the whole earth, you know, of covering all nations. You know, in the Great Commission, it talks about that we're to uh make disciples of all nations, right? Of all nations. And and Luke is is clear in his gospel that he doesn't want anyone excluded from that. He he says, even the outcast, even the ones that are far from God, they're meant to be included in the all nations that we're meant to go and make disciples of. And there should be no uh you know uh ill favor shown to anyone when we go with the gospel message, it's meant to be a shared to to all people. It's meant to be a gift to all nations. Uh and and uh you kind of talked about this mission we have here, serve your church, serve your city, serve your world. You mentioned it on Sunday again, and and and I just think that's that's that's all that's really the part of this thing that God calls us to is that uh we should blanket the whole earth and and share the gospel, serve the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

That's right. And you know, one of the things when we start thinking like that, it can be overwhelming, you know, to think about the task being so great. When you start thinking about reaching our Jerusalem, that's a little more achievable. You know, you start thinking of your Judea, Samaria, you think, okay, he's taking us out, you know. But when you start thinking about the ends of the earth, you know, and uh it I think it that's one of the things that brings a lot of fear into people's life. It's just like, how are we going to accomplish this? You know, and obviously we're working with Christians all over the world as well to accomplish that great task, but but um but I think it's uh we we should never miss the heartbeat of God for all people to know you know who He is and to know Christ as Savior. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I love it. Uh I got another question here, just about 10 more minutes. If we had 10 more minutes, right? All right, what would be the point or the the part of a message that you might have lingered just a little longer on, that you might have stayed with a little longer if you thought I've got 10 more minutes to talk about one thing. What's that one thing you really would want to stay on?

Joy In Reaping The Harvest

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, I think um, you know, obviously the the passage was dealing with uh with with two main things. One, the harvest is plentiful, and recognizing that the harvest, you know, and and Jesus saying the harvest is plentiful, uh I find that very encouraging. He's saying that that there's there's a a harvest to be harvested, right? And so um reading through that, studying through it, I just felt like um man, that's I've never seen it as encouraging words before. But to know that that God has gone before us, the Holy Spirit's moving, uh God wants to transform lives. And so the harvest is ready, it's there, it's it's ready to be harvested. And uh, and I just thought through that um that we have such an opportunity. A lot of times we talk about uh the laboring of of sharing our faith or evangelism uh to our community around the world or whatever. Um but uh and he and and Jesus even says, but the laborers are few. And we so often think of gathering the harvest as being such a labor-intensive thing, and uh yet I feel like we miss sometimes the the uh the reality that there can be so much joy found in reaping the harvest. You know, to being faithful to what God has called us to, to go out and to to really engage in God's redemptive work, to be a participant. Uh it's it I said Sunday it's sweaty work, and it can be. It can be uh it can be um very labor intensive, uh so to speak, but but when you begin to realize that the the and you begin to see I think the joy in people's uh lives uh when they experience Christ for the first time. Yeah. When you see people come surrender their life to Jesus and and turn their life over to Him and recognize Jesus as the hope of their life. Yeah. You know, they move from hopelessness to hope, having hope in Christ. And and when you see that and you experience that and you realize that, man, you're you're really making a difference, it brings so much joy in our own hearts, you know, and so the harvest is ready. That's encouraging to me. The labors are few, that's a little bit, you know, of a sad reality. But we have this opportunity to be a part of something so much bigger than ourself. And I love that aspect of it. You know, I wish I'd have kind of spent more time there, lingered on that a little more.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

You know, you be in ministry for any length of time. At some point, you see the light bulb turn on for the believer that really begins to understand man, serving God is what it's all about. That's right. And and my life is blessed when I roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty and get into ministry and help people. And uh, you know, sometimes you ask people like, when's the last time you've shared the gospel with someone? And and it may be a little by a little bit for someone to think back, right? But those that really see that switch flip in their lives and they begin to share, they're filled with all sorts of joy to want to keep sharing, to want to keep seeing people change with the gospel of Jesus. We see stories like that all the time of people that come in and maybe they've just been filling the pew or filling the seat for a little bit, uh, but then all of a sudden in their life something clicks, the spirit gets a hold of them, and we see that change that's made. And it's amazing to see how God can move in people.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

It really is. And and I think uh, you know, one of the things I I feel like I'm I'm blessed with is a little bit of age and experience, and that I I see I have people come to me who who say, you know, Pastor David, thank you for what you're doing. And it's just one of the greatest blessings in the world to to know that you're you're making I I mean some I had somebody come up to me Sunday and and it was a couple young couple and they were just uh thanking me for the ministry and the impact that I'm making in their life. I didn't even know them. You know, I I was meeting in fact they came to introduce themselves. They've been at this church for three or four years. Oh wow. And um and of course they were very w much aware of other people, but I just didn't really know them. And so just uh that's when it it becomes real. You know, that that you're doing harvest work and it's such a a great thing to be a part of. Yeah.

Prayer And Fasting: Day Four

SPEAKER_01 15:20

You talked about the harvest being a blessing. You kind of use the analogy of a farmer. He said if you told a farmer that the harvest was going to be plentiful, they would be joyful and excited to do the work to bring the harvest in. But sometimes for us we look at the harvest and we think of it as a chore. Right. We think of it as labor. Right. And you know, labor, I think, is really meant to be something of a blessing to us. It is, and it's meant to be a joy back in the garden. Um, you know, when God created us, the system of life that God created was for us to be workers, was for us to be laborers, and for that to be a joy in our life. And and it's sin really, the curse of sin that has broken that part of it for us, and now we see it as hard work, we see it as labor, we see it as intensive, we have difficulty in it, right? Um, and and really it's Christ that comes back to redeem us from that brokenness and bring us back to a place where we see the work of Christ as something that is meant to be. I I kind of believe when we get to heaven, we're gonna be working. We're gonna be working, we're gonna be doing something, right? We're gonna be laboring. You know, there's I've I've heard so many times people call heaven this like never-ending worship service, right? And we think of it as kind of standing around singing songs around the therm throne. And there's some people I know that they probably wouldn't love heaven if that was it, right? If that was all we were doing. Uh, but I think I think it's more than that. I think we're gonna have some things and some work that we're meant to accomplish for the kingdom's sake, for the name of Jesus, even in heaven. And and it it's not gonna be a chore anymore. It's gonna be a blessing, right? Right. It's gonna be a lot of pleasure in that. Uh absolutely, absolutely. Well, uh, you kind of landed uh the plane, you know, on Sunday and and and brought us back around to this idea of prayer. And uh as a church, uh we've been going through 21 days of prayer and fasting. Right. Uh, we're on day four uh of that whole uh season in our church's life, and I'm excited to see what God is gonna do in that time and just uh maybe the work in our hearts uh individually just to grow closer to Christ, to hear Him a little more clearly in our lives. Um But in this text, you see that phrase, pray earnestly, you know, pray earnestly, and and that always just speaks to me in such a huge way. You you spent some time defining on Sunday what that word uh earnestly might mean. And and you even kind of said like it almost kind of is a hard one to really define at times. But while you were talking, I was I I wrote down in my notes the word entreaty. That's another word that's kind of hard to define too. But um when I'm talking to parents sometimes and counseling them through things that are going on in their children's lives, and how do I get a hold of my child to do the right thing or to listen or obey? Um sometimes I tell parents like it's okay to entr use entreaty to plead a little bit with your children so that they know honestly what's in your heart and the desire that you have for their lives. And uh, you know, sometimes our prayer life is just as mundane as it could be, right? But when we can earnestly entreat God, plead with Him, plead with Him, our heart and and see how that might mold and shape our prayer life. Uh, I'm really excited to see how that goes even in this 21 days.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Exactly. And that's that's our hope. I was meeting with some uh some men last night and we were uh talking about the 21 days of prayer and fasting, and and uh they they were sort of testifying about how their prayer life is really uh in just day four, they they're starting to see their prayer life just really transform into what they have always sort of expected prayer is supposed to be. But um, but they they feel like they're learning so much through walking through this time with the church and and uh and that's so encouraging to know that uh and we we had a great bit of discussion about it and what it means to pray earnestly because it's uh it's something I think we need to do. Another word we see in scripture is fervently, you know. And so there's a lot of ways that I think that um a lot of ways to sort of define how we're supposed to go to the Lord in prayer.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

We put that booklet together for our church to go through, and uh um you know I mean it's been really beneficial in our family's life. I'm loving it. Part of the the intro was just defining a little bit about prayer, defining a little bit about fasting, and just helping people understand it. And we put a quote in there um that uh said something to the extent of all of us have one prayer that if we can stop praying, we can actually start a real prayer life with that kind of thing. And uh man, I that was really challenging to me when I heard that because so often we pray the same prayer at the same time for the same things. Right. You know, we have one way of feeling like we know how to pray to God, and if we could really get out of that just mundane mold, right, we could start to really pray honestly, earnestly, right, fervently. Yeah, we could really plead our heart uh to God as if He is a relational God that loves us and that really wants to communicate with us in a real way. Right.

Community Updates And Engagement

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Um and so uh that that that's a really neat thing that I'm looking forward to see our church go through and mold and transformation that takes place and not only in our lives individually, but as a church, you know, coming together in a time of prayer.

Closing Prayer And Blessing

SPEAKER_01 20:30

It was a great way to kick that off this past Sunday. So I'm excited for that. Let's um let's close our time and and maybe we can spend some time praying for our church as they're going through this 21 days of prayer and fasting and and uh and just continue to pray for for laborers. Right, right? But uh right now I just kind of want to thank you guys for joining us for our first episode. We're gonna get better at this as we go along, right? We'll figure it out. Absolutely. I would love for you guys to consider also just engaging with us. Maybe there's a question you had from this past Sunday or a thought that you were lingering on that stayed with you. We'd love to know how God is moving in your heart, and we'd love to maybe even answer some of your questions as we go along. We're gonna try and post new episodes every Wednesday, and so make sure you check back on all of your social medias or wherever you get your podcasts. And uh, we'd love to just continue interacting with you and maybe answer some of your questions in future episodes. But uh right now, Pastor David, would you just kind of close us in prayer?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Absolutely. Let's do it. Father, we are just so grateful, uh, God, for who you are, uh Father, for the reality that uh you have called us unto yourself uh through salvation. And Lord, you just continue to sanctify us and grow us uh in this uh remarkable relationship that we have with Christ uh through uh through the Holy Spirit's working. And so, Father, we just uh we just thank you for this time here this morning. We thank you for the conversation that we get to have about your redemptive work in our community and around the world. And Lord, how you have called us as believers and followers. of Christ to participate uh in this great work. And what a privilege it is. What an honor. What a blessing. And so, Father, we just thank you for this day. We thank you for this time together. Lord, we just pray that you would go before us and be with our church as we continue to walk through the next several weeks together in this time of fasting and prayer. We love you so much and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen