Miracle Workers

We've been practicing, or doing a trial run of bringing our clubhouse kids. If you don't know what clubhouse is, clubhouse is for those kids of parents who volunteer, and they show up here. Maybe it's super early, like 5 a. m.

Maybe they show up at 7:30, which is kind of your general call time. We do a volunteer rally, some huddles, do some setup.

We pray for all of you who came in here today. And then they go to class in the first service. But it's my belief — I didn’t grow up in church, but I knew a lot of people who did grow up in church who got to college and decided they didn't like church anymore. A lot of the reason was because they were kind of forced into it, and we don't want to be a church that forces kids into it.

We don't want to be a church that forces them to sit through something twice when they've already experienced it.

And so what we do is we do a clubhouse in our second service. During that clubhouse, we do a little bit of teaching, maybe some Scripture memory, some questions and stuff like that. But then they have fun and they play. It's clubhouse.

We want kids to love church.

Many of us grew up and didn't like church, but I want them to love it. I'm really proud of our team back there because we're just over two years in, and we have some kids who are best friends they found at church. That's pretty cool. I don't know if you've ever experienced that before, but if you have, you know that it's pretty cool that we can trust that our kids are growing up around other kids who are kind of on a similar journey to them.

I told the first service, our kids have way more potential than we do.

Way more. And it's our heart for your kids that as you bring them, that they would become maybe pastors one day. Maybe, maybe. Some of y'all parents don't want that.

But maybe doctors who do things in the name of Jesus.

Could be missionaries. That sounds uber spiritual to some of you. They could just be the best mechanic they can be, and in everything that they do, they do in the name of Jesus. That's what I want to see our kids doing.

Many of us, we grew up a portion of our lives not knowing Jesus.

That was me until eighth grade. And I know I became a Christian earlier than many of you. If you haven't become one yet, yeah, your kids have 10 to 15 years on you. If they trust in Jesus soon, or they already have, man, think of what God can do in that amount of time.

Some of y'all trusted in Jesus a couple of weeks ago, and you've already seen him do a work.

Fifteen years on you, these kids have. Man, picture what they're going to do in not just the valley, but man, God could use them so powerfully. So we're bringing them in here because we want them to experience worship and be ready for it when they hop into sixth grade. I love having these youth hop up here and stand behind them and worship.

It's something we haven't seen the whole time, and so I'm pumped about it.

It's worth a little bit of distraction once in a while. My daughter walked over. Well, no, she didn't walk over. I pulled, I grabbed her and pulled her over because she was being a little hasty in her worship, if you will.

I brought her over, and I got to worship with her.

It's worth it a little bit so that we can teach them how to do the things that we're still learning to do. Does that make sense to you guys? Man, we love our kids. I know you heard it during welcome, but we have our back-to-school bash right after this.

We've got water bounce houses.

Is it bouncy or bounce house? Raise your hand. Raise your hand if it's bouncy. Raise your hand if it's bounce.

I heard someone say bouncy castles on our Easter thing.

Where's Henry? Bouncy castles? I was like, “Who calls it that? ” But Henry, I love you, man.

We have bounce houses. It's official.

You heard her here first, all the people raised their hand. It's official. We had never determined that on the team before. I digress, but we're going to have those.

We have hamburgers and hot dogs, and we have an indoor space.

Hang out. I was listening to a guy that everybody likes these days. He's a preacher over in Georgia. I listened to a quote from him, and he just got really intense in a way that sometimes I get scared to get with you guys.

He's like, “You're looking for an answer from the Lord, but you walk out of here first thing, and you never spend any time getting to know anybody. ” He said it.

“That's your opportunity to get to know some people. ” If you want to find biblical community, you've got to stay around that biblical community for a second. So please, please hang out. I want to get to know you.

We just sang a song. It was about the Lord, but I just want you to never forget my posture toward you.

It's compassion. Splach nisamai, if you want to use the Greek word. I want to know you. I want to know you.

Not in a creepy way, though.

Just, I want to know your name. I want to help you find peace and develop purpose by revolving everything around Jesus. And we've been in a series. It's behind me, isn't it?

No.

Hey, put this. I just want them to say, “Hey, what's the series called, somebody? ” Miracle Worker. I don't know why I did the jig for a second.

Felt like Ashley Simpson. Anyway, that's a deep cut.

All right, we've been in the past couple of weeks discussing how Jesus is a miracle worker. You came into church, maybe it was your first time, you knew he was a miracle worker. This isn't a surprising thing for you to hear. But the heart of the series wasn't just to articulate some information about Jesus being a miracle worker.

That's old news to you.

My heart, deep down with all of this, is to help you understand something that I think Matthew is trying to help his audience understand. If you've never read Matthew before, Matthew is 28 chapters. Matthew wrote all of his Gospel very intentionally. He was clearly a man who could pay attention to detail.

And in Matthew chapter 5 through Matthew chapter 9, he actually intended three chapters to be allocated to Jesus's teachings and two chapters to be allocated to the miracles of Jesus.

He actually bookends it. I did this in the first service, so it's not new to me at this point, but God blew my mind because I remembered lightly reading something in Matthew chapter 4. So I went back to it in the first service, and that's something you shouldn't do if you're standing on stage in front of people and you could be wrong about something. But if you have your Bible, I'm going to be back in Matthew chapter 4 for a second, verse 23.

This is how Matthew sets up chapters 5 through 9.

It says this: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people. ” And then in chapters 5 through 7, he teaches the best sermon ever. We call it the Sermon on the Mount. And in chapters 8 and 9, he gives us miracle story after miracle story after miracle story.

Matthew set this up with verse 23 of chapter 4. He says he went through teaching and healing people of all their infirmities and diseases.

Now, if you jump forward to the end of chapter 9, which is where we will be camped out today, Matthew repeats himself. This is how you know — I'm going to use the scholarly term for a second —this is how you know it's an intentional pericope. Matthew placed Matthew 5 through 9 in there intentionally, and he bookended them because he wanted to tell people about Jesus's teachings and his miracles. And he says right here in verse 35, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

” If it's not obvious at this point, Matthew intended to talk about the teachings and the miracles. Now, when you get to a place like this in Scripture where you realize that Matthew's closing off one component of the entirety of his book, which goes to chapter 28, you've got to read the next verse to see where he transitions to, because he put this set of chapters in there on purpose.

And so how is he going to transition? Let me read to the end of chapter — I'm going to read verse 35 again. It will be on the screen behind me. “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, ” and you may have heard this before, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. ” Okay, okay. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.

” He teaches, he performs miracles, and then he gives us this very popular quote: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask that the Lord would send out workers into the fields for harvest. ” This is why Matthew put chapter 5 through 9. He told us about how Jesus was a miracle worker so that he could indicate what it looks like to live like Jesus.

This series is not about Jesus as the miracle worker, though we're going to root everything we do in Christ Jesus because everything revolves around him. This series was about you because, believe it or not, you and I — we are called to be, and this is my sermon title, we're called to be miracle workers. I know what you're thinking. You're like, “Not me!

I didn't really — I don't think of myself as like a miracle worker on the regular. ” But this is what Jesus ultimately calls you to.

At the end of Matthew, if this isn't enough for you, at the end of Matthew we have what we call the Great Commission. In Matthew 28, he says, “Go therefore unto all nations, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ” And he goes further to say, “I'll be with you until the end of the age. ” When Matthew wrote this, Jesus had already ascended.

This wasn't just an infomercial for who Jesus was. This was a commission given to people who had never even met Jesus. And if you can understand anything from this Miracle Worker series, it's what Hebrews tells us.

It's that he is the pioneer, the forerunner that comes before others. He showed us in his life and his death, and let's be real, his resurrection, how you and I are called to operate. You're called. You — this has been foreordained from the beginning.

You were called to be a miracle worker.

Not just foreknew, though. It says, “Because those he called, he also justified. Those he justified, he also glorified. ” And we're ultimately all called.

It says this in Romans, I believe. I could be wrong.

I think it's Romans. What? “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove that which is the acceptable will of God, ” right? Like, this is what God has called us to.

He has called us to be people who accomplish his purposes in this world.

2 Corinthians 5 tells us we're called to be ambassadors. “Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. ” If he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. It also says that in some way we're supposed to embody ourselves the image of God.

I'm giving you way too much Scripture to tell you this very simple point: You were called to operate the way that Jesus operated while he was here in the world. He came to save you from your sin so you could spend eternity with him and live an abundant life right now.

But an abundant life right now is not you getting a few things that you want and ignoring Jesus until you enter into eternity and get to heaven one day. His salvation was not for you just to get out of hell free. His salvation for you was so that you could start operating the way that he's called you to operate. And it's with power and authority.

It's a power, power, wonder-working power.

Is that a hymn? That's a hymn, right? What's that hymn called? I didn't grow up in the church.

You've got to know this.

Sometimes they just pop into my head, and I've got to look at my wife because she grew up in a Baptist church. It's like, “Power, power, wonder-working power. Pray, blood of the Lamb. Power, power.

” I don't know. You've got wonder-working power.

I don't even need to sing that to you today. You've got wonderful, miracle-working power by the precious blood of the Lamb. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and he sent — this is the crazy part — his Holy Spirit to dwell in each one of us. And he says in the book of John that he will do greater things through you than even he performed in the world.

But we look back at Jesus and we're like, “Oh, this is a cool infomercial about how cool Jesus is. ” No, this is a commission.

You look at Jesus because he was the author, the perfecter, the sustainer, and the forerunner. But him being a forerunner means you've got to follow. You are called to be a miracle worker. I need somebody in this room to understand, you are called to be a miracle worker.

I know someone did that to you that one day, and you feel shame because of it.

Still, you are called to be a miracle worker. All that means is God can do a miracle in you. And when He does a miracle in you, you speak it out enough that God starts to do miracles in somebody else. It doesn't make you special; it makes you available.

All you got to do is be available.

I'm going to dive into here because I'm vamping a little bit too much. Let me give you a few verbs. Y'all know what a verb is? You said yes.

Yeah, the kids know.

You know what a verb is, right, Wyatt? Okay, Wyatt knows what a verb is, and he's younger than the rest of you. Do y'all know what a verb is? Cool.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but so often, you know, we hear a verb from the Scripture, but we never do the thing.

So I wonder sometimes if we know what a verb is. Hey, let's pause it up there. Verse 35. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Verse 35.

I'm so sorry. Yeah. Is that my son? No, he's right there.

Okay, anyways.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages. You can go blank. What was the first verb in that sentence? Jesus went.

He went.

You go. I mean, I like to look at the Bible as if they're real people; you know because they are. So often we read them as if they're fictional characters, and when I look at Jesus, I say, "Well, He did that, but you know I'm not Jesus. " No, I want to tell you, you got to kick that stuff out.

That's Satan trying to cause you to live beneath your calling. He went; you go.

He went throughout all the cities in Galilee; He went through the synagogues, and He went. He was healing, and He was teaching. He's doing all this other stuff. Jesus went, and if anybody could phone it in from one specific location, it was Jesus.

We know this because He healed the centurion's servant, and He did it from afar.

He could literally heal by sitting on His throne, but what did He do? He left His throne, and He came here so that He could sympathize with you and me, endured the pain and the suffering of this life, being fully man and fully God. And He died on the cross as a sacrifice for you and me. So He came; you go.

God has called you to go.

Not just the Great Commission in Matthew 28: "Go therefore into all nations. " He called you to go; like literally just move a little bit. Like when God's word speaks to you, it causes something to well up within you, and if that thing never makes its way out into the real world, you haven't gone anywhere; you're just pushing it down. I'm not trying to misquote Scripture, but then they say, "Don't grieve the Spirit; don't quench the Spirit.

" I don't know exactly what that means, but I like to think that pushing what God wants to get out there down into some weird compartment in my life where I don't have to do anything with it, that sounds a lot like quenching the power of the Holy Spirit to me. God's called us to go. You have to go overseas, though.

If you're called, you better. You should. You don't have to go start a church, though if you're called, you should. In fact, every single one of you, you need to go home after this, but you need to go home the way that Jesus went about when He did ministry.

He was looking for opportunities constantly for God to use Him to do something.

If you go home with purpose, just go home with purpose. Don't go home. Here's how you typically go home. And I know this because I know the feeling, and this is for those of you who just came.

You woke up earlier than usual or later than usual.

I don't know. You came, you got stuff you got to do; you go, you eat lunch, and then some of y'all, y'all get back maybe about one, two, three, and you take a nap. There ain't nothing wrong with a nap. How many of y'all know a nap can be good sometimes?

Somebody, yeah, yeah.

Some of y'all saying, "Oh, a nap could be good for me. " Apparently, I'm all over the place. Some of y'all be like, "I ain't read the Bible enough this week. " You just ain't taking enough time to sleep.

Yeah, sleep is a spiritual thing. But sometimes we go home and we just phone it in with our family. But God's called you to go.

And it says Jesus went about Galilee. That was near His hometown. He just went about wherever He was doing what God called Him to do. What does it look like for you to go home and do what God called you to do?

I know He called us to open our word.

It might be simpler than that, though, because I know the word can be intimidating once in a while. You should totally read it and move past the intimidation of it. But sometimes it can be simpler. It's like, "Hey, kids, what did you learn today in church?

" Just ask them that question, and now all of a sudden you're having a conversation about the Lord. You're revolving this lunch conversation around Jesus.

Or maybe you go and you say, "You know what? The Lord's called me to do these specific things. And I know Monday morning that I wake up really, really negative. So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to spend some time intently in God's Word.

I'm going to watch something that is positive and encouraging rather than something that is, you know, lame and, you know, makes me feel, I don't know, distracted and inhibited in my walk with God.

And then I'm going to wake up Monday morning. I'm going to spend some time with Him. I might even go for a walk. And then the rest of my Monday, I get to revolve everything around Jesus.

" Y'all thought this was all like random, esoteric spiritual stuff? No, it's simple stuff.

It's just choosing to put Jesus first around it. Everywhere Jesus went, whether He was healing, teaching, prophesying, or whatever He did, it was all meant to revolve around the Father. What is God trying to do? That's my job to implement in this world.

So go.

No longer can you, should you, be somebody who comes in and just takes it, pushes it down, and says that's for somebody else. No, this is for you. And He called you to go. Go preach to your kids.

Go spend time with your spouse.

Go be the encouraging person at work. Go. This is what Jesus did. It says He went through all the towns and villages.

The next verb, teaching in their synagogues.

I'm going to make it real simple. He taught; you teach. He taught; you teach. Now I don't want to scare you because you're not Jesus, and He can do things at a better level than you.

I have learned as I've developed preaching, many of you don't know this, but when I felt called to ministry, I wanted to be a missionary.

You know why I wanted to be a missionary? Because I thought it was the dumbest thing ever; because I thought missionaries didn't have to teach or preach. I was wrong, but that's what I thought, and I didn't want to stand in front of people and talk. Yeah, I know; won't He do it?

He'll make some radical adjustments.

I'm not saying you got to do this, but I've lived enough in this position to know that there are tons of people that make me feel insecure about my ability to communicate. Every time someone comes up to me and they're like, "ADHD people struggle with this. " I can see that you've got ADHD. Early on, it was like, "Oh man, Lord, can you just help me be better or give me a different calling?

" Because I get on rabbit trails sometimes. And I've learned over the years that if He can use a donkey, you know what a donkey sounds like? That's what a doggy sounds like, and He can use them.

Do you know what a rock sounds like? About that quiet. But He says if we don't praise Him, even the rocks will cry out. Here's something I understand about God: if He wants me to teach or if He wants to teach somebody through me, He'll figure it out.

I don't have to understand everything.

I don't have to know my Bible, but I am called to go and communicate wherever He's called me to communicate. I don't even have to be articulate; He'll provide me an Aaron. That's what He did for Moses. Moses is like, "Oh yeah, but You called me to do this.

I'm not very eloquent.

I don't talk very well. I'm not good at this. " And God's like, "Hey, stop with the excuses. I got a guy for you.

" Like no matter what your deficiency might be, God has still called you to teach. And I don't want to diminish that because many of us have lived in the space where it feels like we can just like phone it in and sit back and relax because somebody else has a gift that I have not been given by the Lord. But the Lord has called you to do with whatever He's given you.

Some of these things, first you gotta go; second, you gotta teach. I don't even know how I even had to tell you different; I don't know if Peter walked around thinking, "I just want to teach all the time. " But in Acts chapter 2, he had to figure it out really quick, and what happened? A man from Galilee confounded all of the wise Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit took over, and he said something, and they were like, "This dude must be drunk because he's from Galilee, and we know those country bumpkins can't talk well.

" But for some reason, this dude's very eloquent. That's what the Spirit of God can do through you. I'll never forget; God spoke to me through a third grader one time.

Hannah, I was at a church camp. I went to help with a third-through-fifth-grade church camp, which you should totally do. I'll never do it again. Again, you know, these kids, yeah, they wet their beds sometimes and just drips on the mind, and it was not good.

Anyways, this all happened.

I know. And I'm just being a typical college-age student. And this third grader is being disrespectful. And I looked at her and I said, "Why are you being so disrespectful?

" Here's what she said. She said, "I'm just treating you the way you treat me. " And she opened my eyes.

Lucas, you're in fourth grade, don't you? No, don't do that. But you can if the Lord calls you to. Just be respectful, is my point.

My kid's in here; I forgot about that.

So I heard from her, and the Lord used it. Man, I have found that some people come in here for the first time; they make one comment, and it radically shifts my posture. I need you to know that if the Lord calls you to do something, He can use you to do it. So don't be ashamed or afraid or feel like you're ill-equipped to teach because God's called you to teach.

And if He hasn't called you to teach at this level or some other level, He's called you to teach your kids.

We are not excluded from the train your kids up in the way that they should go so that when they're old they will not depart from it. You're called to teach. You're called to teach your coworkers. You teach them way better than I do.

Man, when it comes to teaching, it's so interesting.

Y'all know Nick? Is Nick back here? Yeah. Nick back here, he's got the tattoos.

He's got a tattoo shop in town, and he started a Bible study at the tattoo shop.

And lo and behold, somebody who came to our launch team meeting three years ago texts me on Friday. It says, "I'm coming back to church. " I said, "Oh, this is random. I didn't even know they still had my number.

" And I said, "Oh, what happened? " I thought the Lord just woke them up one day. "I went to a Bible study on Tuesday, and I realized I needed to get back into church. " And I'm sitting here like, "A bunch of tatted-up dudes can make it happen.

" You know what I'm saying? Not even diminishing that, Nick; you've been killing it over there.

Slay, bro. Whatever. What am I doing? God can use you.

You're not excluded from the teaching requirement.

I jumped ahead here. Jesus went through all the towns, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Now, I thought for a little while, what's the difference between teaching and proclaiming? Now, they're different Greek words.

One word is really focused on the idea, like caruso, meaning to preach or to teach or to communicate with authority to a group of people who need to hear what you have to say.

That's the typical teaching. It's what I'm doing for you right now. It's what Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount. But the word for proclaim is a little different.

This is where, in a lot of ways, we talk about, you ever heard the word euangelion?

It's to proclaim or preach the good news. So it's different. It's simply proclaiming something that's already a reality. I'm not trying to, like, seed something into you by teaching.

I'm simply communicating that which already is.

And each of you who has experienced any of the miraculous works of God, whether you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, or you have simply heard from God at some point, or maybe something crazier, you can take that experience without even beautifying it to make it like a sermon or something like that and literally drop it into this world. And whoever hears it, God can use that to radically shift something. It was someone coming to me when I was younger talking about their story and what God did in them that radically helped me to start radically adjusting my view toward. God.

I read a story this week to our staff, and I didn't read it before I read it to the staff.

I like to do that sometimes so I can be equally surprised in front of people, so I don't have to manufacture it later and be all pumped about it. And I read this, and I'm reading this story from someone in our church, and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know this. " It had to do with giving and something God did in their giving as they trusted God financially. But as I'm reading through it, I've preached this.

Those of you who've been here since the beginning, we've preached like three series on trusting God with our finances. And then I read this story, and I am moved to greater levels of faithfulness because of that story.

They didn't preach it at me. They just simply told me what God did, and it moved me so deeply. I got to back up. You all have a story.

In fact, throw it up there, please, if you're in the back.

Look at it. Hey, you got to share this story because you may not be someone who comes up here and preaches. I'm being inarticulate today. It's almost like the Lord's trying to use that to help somebody understand that you don't have to be perfectly articulate to do what God's called you to do.

But you can scan that code, and you can share your story.

You can type it out. You can use ChatGPT to beautify it if you want to. Whatever you’ve got to do, but share it. Because when you share what God's done in you, it moves people in a way that you won't comprehend until you see it actually happen.

That really does occur.

I've got to keep going. Jesus went through all the towns, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and, it’s a hard one, healing every disease and sickness. Now, I told you guys if you were here last week that we like to hold a lot of things in balance because we don't know the answers, and going to the extremes in some of these things is very difficult. And here's what I'll tell you.

God has chosen some really rare occasions to utilize me to enact physical healing in somebody else's life.

It is very rare. I think four times where I can look back and say, I think God used me to help this person with a physical ailment. I can look back and see tons of them where He used me to help them with something that was more important to Him, which is spiritual in nature. But in terms of physical, I look at that, and I'm like, I struggle with that.

I grew up in a community that thought those miraculous things of God had ceased way back when the Bible was compiled.

But I've experienced God do some really crazy things in my life. And so I have to hold these things in balance. Yes, I have seen people stretch their hand out and say, "Be healed in the name of Jesus. " And then someone thought they were healed, and they weren't.

And they were utilizing this gift from God to do selfish things. I've seen that.

But I've also seen people stretch out their hand, pray in great belief that God would do something in somebody's life physically, and He healed them. And when I look at that, it's like, I got to hold this in balance. Yeah, people can take the things of God and use them for selfish ambition, like Paul says in Philippians 3. But God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants, through whomever He wants.

And if God decides He wants to heal you physically, He can use somebody to do it.

And what it says here is He went through healing people. And I want to tell you He healed you. Heal. He healed.

You heal.

We're not only called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We're called to work out this sanctification process with some constant availability and kind of like we put ourselves in the Lord's hands and say, "Whatever You will, Lord, I'm going to do it. " And there have been times where He's called me to be really bold, and God did something crazy. And then there were times He told me to pray His will because He had a will that was different than what all of us wanted in that moment.

And sometimes I feel weak when I pray His will. And sometimes I feel like overtly strong in my own power when I pray like specific, miraculous healing over somebody's life.

Sometimes He works it. Sometimes it's His will that comes through, and He works something that I wouldn't have comprehended. Here's what I'll say: I don't know, but I know He's called us to do it. He's called you to speak healing into somebody's life, and if He leads you, you lay your hands on somebody and pray healing over their life.

He's not as concerned about the physical; He's more concerned about the spiritual, and that's what I've learned in my life.

God wants to use us to do. He wants us to go about our lives preaching the good news of Jesus that while we were formerly dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ Jesus, and now He's seated, and we have the Spirit, and we're called to move. We're called to teach, and we're called to heal. I've told you stories up to this point, and some of you have got stories.

I want you to look at your kids and recognize that they're going to have things that happen in their mind, that God has given you the explicit command to speak that out of their life.

When that seventh grader comes up to your kid, this happened to me, and says, "You're a loser, " and then he comes home, or she comes home, and they're feeling distraught. Some people don't think of this as healing. I think it's healing. I think it's using God's word to help somebody move from death to life a little bit better.

Speaking of death to life, almost got life to death there.

And then you speak a word that comes from God's word. You say, "Hey, man, think on the things of God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Don't you know He knows every hair on your head? He knew you while you were in your mother's womb.

You're the apple of His eye.

He has called you in ways that you can't even comprehend right now. He sent His Spirit to dwell in you if you've trusted in Jesus so that you would follow Him and actually get to be someone who delves out His grace in this world. He has called you to more. So whoever calls you a loser, pray for them.

But remember what He said about you.

That's healing, my friends. It's not just the physical stuff, but I don't want to diminish that either because I seem to. He healed; you heal. I'm not going to give you the easy way out to say you're called to this.

No, you're called to do exactly what this tells us He did.

That's what you're called to do. And I don't want to make it easy by saying, "You can do this; you can do this; you're not allowed to do this; you should do this. " Whatever God gives you, be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. Work it out with fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who works in you to will and accomplish His good purposes.

He has called you to heal. In verse 36, it says, "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. " He had compassion.

Many of the people in the church, we look out at people who don't know their left hand from their right. They may do wrong things, evil things, like sus things. They may do superficial things. And we look at them in the church, and we have the audacity to judge people outside who have never tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

But when God looked from heaven down to earth and saw us in our hostility, when He looked at the 5,000 people who were struggling and they didn't have food, and the disciples wanted to send them back to the towns, He had compassion on them.

Splach nisomai. It means that in His gut there was a feeling. It echoes back to Nehemiah. When Nehemiah heard about the Israelites who didn't have a wall around their city, it says he was moved and he had to sit down.

I had a person look at me one time as I was pondering God's will in my life, and he asked me this question.

He said, "When's the last time you wept when you heard the Gospel and understood the sheer amount of people who have never heard it? " And I realized in that moment, I didn't weep. I'm too busy looking for me, but what did Jesus do? He did what His Father called Him to do, and He looked outward at the people who didn't know.

He said, "They're harassed, they're helpless, and it's because they don't know their shepherd. " So we had compassion. We, as a church, I want us to be a compassionate church.

When someone comes in for the first time, I don't care if they operate the way that you've gotten familiar operating, if they sit in your seat. I really don't care if they come in for the first time and they don't know Jesus. I want to look at them the way that Jesus looked at them. He drew them here because He saw them, and He said they are harassed, and they're helpless, and they don't know their shepherd.

So I want to look at them and I want to say, "I want to help them find their shepherd. " It is my job to have compassion.

Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field. " And I could give you an action step and say, "Go, teach, share, heal, have compassion on people. Just go do it.

" But when I read this, it forced me to pull back on my action steps. Because the first thing He tells us to do isn't just go out to the field. It's to pray.

And what I realized in that moment when I was prepping to preach this to you guys is that I'm so accustomed to telling you what you should do. But I don't want to do that today. I want to invite you to talk to God and pray that He would send out workers to the harvest because what I know you're going to realize is the same thing the disciples realized. Can I read it for you really quickly?

In verse 10, it won't be on your screen, or chapter 10, verse 1 says, "Then Jesus called His 12 disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness. " And then it lists them.

And chapter 10 is about the disciples going out two by two and His instructions for how they're called to operate. Can I tell you that when Jesus asks you to pray for workers for the harvest, what He's telling you is that as you pray, you're going to be called. I think in the church we get so accustomed to just consuming content. We treat it just like we do grocery stores.

And when we don't have enough grocery stores, we get frustrated.

I go to Fry's for this. I'm going to go to Bash's for this. And then it was just Fry's and Bash's for a little while, and that was fine. But then I've got to go to Sprouts now because they've got something different.

Safeway's not ready yet, but I can't wait.

But then there's Target, then there's Walmart, then there's Sam's Club, and we've also got Costco. And we look at what Jesus is saying here. He's like, "You know what? I'm going to go to the church, and I'm going to listen to the word of God; I'm going to hope it implement like I can implement some aspect of it into my life.

" But when He says something like this, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest, " and then He brings in the 12, and He's like, "You go do the same thing. " We hear that, and we're like, "That's different than just showing up and sitting and listening. " Like, we're used to getting frustrated when one store doesn't have something in stock that we want.

But what Jesus is telling us to do is He's saying, "Go out to the field and reap the harvest yourself. If you don't have the fruit you're looking for, go to the field. There's not enough workers. That's why you're not getting what you want by sitting still.

Go out to the field, start reaping, start sowing, start plowing. " And when you plow, you're going to find that God speaks to you in ways that you have never understood before.

It's not till I stepped into the labor of His kingdom that He started to reveal Himself to me in miraculous ways, day after day after day. You will not see, not at the level you could, until you move from expecting a download to being the person who works in the field. I know there are people who just came in here for the first time today, and you're like, "I'm not ready to work in the field. " I get you.

But I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to sacrifice the truth of this Gospel that says you have to bear your cross and follow Him.

The Gospel that says when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, right? That Gospel also comes with a life that sanctifies you. How are you sanctified? By doing the will of the Father.

But when you do it, your life is so much more abundant.

And so what I want to do right now is I want to pray for three different populations in. The room. First, I want to pray for those of you who don't know Jesus. I have seen people come in, not know Jesus, trust in Jesus, God gets a hold of their life, and all of a sudden they become far more mobilized than most of the people at the church I was a part of at the time.

God can use you even if you're brand new to this.

Can we bow our heads? Let me pray for those people. If this is you and you've never trusted in Jesus but you're ready to make your life better by putting Him at the center, you say something like this: God, I believe what Your Word says. I believe that Your Son died on the cross.

I believe He rose from the grave.

Father, forgive me of my sin. Make me new, and I will follow You for the rest of my life. Lord, put me to work.