Amen. Please remain standing for prayer this morning. Brother Russell Lyons, would you pray for us? And thank you baby seat unless you celebrate a birthday anniversary like recognize. Right. How many birthdays. OK. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Kind of unique those two kids birthdays on the same day. That's that's quite a deal quite a deal All right, and then Lucy turned 16 Sweet 16 how wonderful and I don't know if I remember turning 16, but anyway doesn't matter does it? So we're ending our missions conference today. It's been a good one. I hope that you've been able to be a part of And we had our international banquet last night, which was fabulous. And as always, we had way too much food. So today, lunch is on us. So you just stay and enjoy more of the same. It's gonna be a good time together. We will be taking our faith promise commitment at the close of the morning service. So hopefully you've been praying, asking the Lord what he'd let you do for the cause of missions this next year. There'll be team cleaning this Saturday here at the church, 10 o'clock. Bring your lunch money. Glory Bound's gonna be with us on March the 16th at seven o'clock. It's a Saturday evening. They'll be doing a concert. Please bring some desserts and we'll break about 8.30, have desserts, enjoy getting to meet these young men as they're out singing for the Lord. And then they'll be singing for us Sunday morning College days coming up. Kids already signed up for that. If you have any questions, see Brother Lalo. There's a youth rally at Faith Baptist Church on the 22nd at six o'clock. The cost is $13 a teen, and I know they'll have a great time going there. Man Camp is also that same weekend, the 22nd through the 23rd. We'll be going down to Mount Vernon, Missouri. Cost is $65. There's a sign-up sheet on the back table, and you need to bring all your necessities for that. Lord's Supper will be observing on Tuesday, March the 26th at 7 p.m. Encourage you to plan to be here church members and because of that there'll be no church service on Wednesday night the 27th and then Easter Cantata is going to be like we've done for several years now and we'll have a Presentation of that on Saturday night at 6 o'clock And then we'll have a cookie fellowship after that. And then on Sunday, we'll have breakfast starting at nine. And then the cantata will be at 1030. And when all those things are over and wrapped up, that will conclude our services for the day. And so plan to be with us. In the last few years, we've had as many as 90 visitors come over that two-day period. And so it's just a great time to invite loved ones and friends. There's not a lot of Easter cantatas out there. And so I encourage you to invite people to come. Invite your neighbors, invite your lost relatives. and we just look forward to a good time in the Lord's house. On the prayer area here, I ask that you'd remember to pray for these that are listed, pray that you would remember to pray for the Bushes, Glenda and Marty Bush, as they recuperate. Her from cancer, him from his car wreck. Continue to pray for Brother Durham, and he's at home, and we praise God for that, but continue to pray for his health, Pray for Pat Price. She's going to go in tomorrow and have surgery on her spine and so if you would be praying for her. Continue to pray for Deborah Benson as she's recuperating from her knee surgery. And so we have many to pray for. And that's just we're just barely scratching the surface here. Pray for one another. We need to pray for one another. Lift these up before the Lord. And to be honest with you, I'd rather be healthy praying for someone than to be the one in need wanting someone to pray for me. So please take seriously these opportunities to pray and ask God to intercede. I mentioned, maybe it was last week, maybe the week before, about a young man that had been lifelighted out of Wichita. grandson to the Cardi's and was lifelighted up to children's mercy. They went in, did emergency surgery. He had two buildups in his brain of strep and it actually got between the brain and the skull. They were able to get those out and then they had a nasal cavity all full of strep and they got that taken care of. And hopefully, he'll get to go home tomorrow. He's been in rehab since then. He's getting all his speech and motor movements back. And so that's just a real answer to prayer. And then pray for little baby Miles still. He's at home. trying to keep him healthy, you know? And so you pray for the Fosters, Stephen Reagan, little Miles, little Paisley, that they can stay healthy and little Miles can just get going, right? And we wanna see him up and toddling about and going, hey, don't do that. Hey, come here, let me hug you, you know? But we just wanna continue to pray for his health. We're gonna have Brother Foster come back and lead us in another song, and then we'll get together. We'll have our Sunday school lesson. It'll be joint classes here today, and Brother Carter's gonna be our speaker. Let's stand once again. We'll sing hymn number 389. Bring them in. Hymn number 389. God in this land, God in this land. Bring them in. Bring them in. Bring them in. Thank you, you may be seated. All right, we're gonna have Brother Jeshua come and have our Sunday school lesson today. It's been an honor to have him and family with us, and so if you would, Brother, bring us what the Lord's laid for you. Well, it has been a tremendous honor to be here. And I could probably spend the entire Sunday school hour just thanking you, church. And it's been a blessing. We've had to put up with Lalo the last couple of days, and that's been a blessing as well. It's been good. We've definitely enjoyed being here and just your hospitality and love for missions. You can see and you can feel it on this end. And it is a huge blessing. You don't get that everywhere. I'm sure that you know that not every church takes care and love for missionaries like you guys do. And it is a huge blessing. If you'll turn to Matthew chapter nine, I'm going to go ahead and preach the The ultimate mission's message. I think every missionary has probably a message over this chapter, over these couple verses. And so, why not? Might as well preach it too. And the Lord gave it to me, so that's what we're gonna preach. I don't wanna do anything that the Lord's not here and with me with, because it's useless. You guys don't need any of me, but we definitely need the Lord. And so, Lord willing, we'll mind him this morning. And to thank Pastor Metzinger so much for allowing us to be here and of course standing here at your pulpit and just appreciate you and your ministry. Matthew chapter 9 verses 35 through verse 38. And it says, And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest. Let's pray. Dearly beloved, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your love and provision, Lord. We just thank you for the great week that we've had already and just the, Lord, just the wonderfulness of the church and their spirit here and Just their willingness to serve and just to seek you I pray that you would just be with us today pray that you would just fill your spirit in the auditorium Lord and Lord that you'd remove me having to say nothing more nothing less than your will in your way We just love you and thank you for all you've done. Just name a man of course my title my message today is the harvest and It's an easy, easy title to grab from these verses because that's what the Lord is talking about here. But as we look at this, I want to kind of notice something important. I want to notice the example that Christ gives us in chapter nine of what to do during the harvest. What is his example? And as we look at Jesus' example, it begins with him in all cities. In the villages, in the synagogues, in the places that he was going, he was preaching and teaching the kingdom. That's what the Lord was doing here. I heard a man say that Jesus was a terrible example because he was perfect. That doesn't make any sense to me. It kind of irritated me when I heard this. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's a terrible example. And I get what he was trying to say. You're never going to be perfect. But you want an example that's perfect because it's perfect. I don't want to be taught by somebody that is going to do it the wrong way every time and expect you to do it right. That sounds terrible. It's frustrating. When communication fails and you don't do it the way they want you to, and then you get in trouble, right? It's irritating. It's frustrating when that happens. But he's the perfect example. So what better example than the one who set the example? The one who was working, and the one who was teaching, the one that was training, the one that was saying, hey, this is how we do this, and then taught them how to do it. In the oil field, I was huge on on-the-job training. I loved it. Because, you know, in the welding profession, it is very well known that if you can weld, you're the man, right? You've detained manliness, you know, everybody that's welders and everybody else. That was our mentality in the oil field. That's what was bred in the mentality of oil fields. And so you would go into these jobs and, you know, you would get in as an 18, 19-year-old man in welding. I had certifications, which meant I knew nothing other than the technical way of doing the job. And so you get in there and these guys that have been welding for 30 years, they take you beside them and they train you how to do the job properly because they wanted you to do the job properly. They didn't just want you to go in there and weld anything and everything. They wanted you to look at the process, think through the process, and accomplish it to the best of your ability to the schematics that were given to you. I could go in there and weld whatever they wanted me to. But I needed some training to properly get the job done. I needed some techniques. There's these guys that would weld for 30 years, 25 years, something like that. And they had techniques that were just a lot better than the way I was trying to do it. I didn't need to pick up 500 pounds by myself. There's techniques. You can do that. You can move things. You can be smart about the job. But I needed some training. I needed some guidance. I needed somebody to come beside me and say, hey, you're doing it like this, but we could do it a little bit better. If you just switch your technique, or if you switch your mindset, if you use the proper tools, that was a big thing. A wrench is not a hammer. But I can use a wrench as a hammer. It just takes a lot longer. And I needed some training. The perfect example was Jesus Christ. And how do we know this? If you look back at the beginning of chapter 9, what is he doing with the disciples as he's preaching and teaching? In verse 2, a man sick with palsy is laying on his bed and Jesus seeing him and heals the man. And in verse 6 he says, Arise, take up thy bed and walk. In verse 7, And he arose and departed from his house. What is he doing? He's doing ministry. And verse 9, he saw a man named Matthew, and he said to him, follow me. And Matthew, he followed him. As he's doing this, he's sitting with sinners and publicans, and people are seeing that. And at the end of verse 10, what is he doing? He's ministering. He's working the ministry. And verse 18, a certain ruler with a daughter that is now dead. And while he's dealing with that, as he's following him there, the woman with the issue of blood came along. And because of her faith, because of her faith in the Lord, the Lord says, thy faith hath made thee whole, and she's healed. In verse 24, the maiden's not dead. And they laughed him. And they laughed him to scorn, the Bible says. And then he took her by the hand, and the maiden arose. 27, the two blind men. Verse 30, their eyes were opened. Verse 32, man possessed with the devil. And verse 33, the devil was cast out and the dumb spake. Verse 35, we see here, as he is doing all of this, he's training them. Just imagine, if you will with me, our perfect example. As he takes the disciples and he's going city to city and synagogue to synagogue and he's telling, hey disciples, come with me. This is how we work the field that we're in. This is how we work the harvest. This is what takes place as we do all of this. and he's guiding them, and he's training them. And the perfect example that Jesus Christ was is he was working the harvest. My favorite type of boss was not a boss that sat in his office and enjoyed the perfect view of those four walls. That was a boss that went out there and encouraged us and showed us different things and invested in us as workers and as people that were trying to accomplish the job because he wanted it done right. That's what Jesus was doing with the disciples. He was with them, and He was teaching them, and I would even go this far as saying that's what Jesus does with us daily. Every day, even now, even though He's not walking with us physically, as He's not in a bodily form, He takes us, and He leads us, and He guides us, and He tells us everything we need to do right here. As our perfect example, as you look at chapter 9, as you look at these things, He's teaching us, and He's training us, and He's guiding us. and all things that are righteous and holy and godly and pertain unto your life. He's our example. In the harvest, we need an example. He was working the harvest. The interesting thing about a harvest, though, is a harvest doesn't stay ripe forever. There's a time where you can be prudent in the harvest that you're in, and there's a time where you just lose a lot of fruit. He, my dad was crazy growing up. I don't think much has changed. I don't think he's watching this morning. I hope not, but if he is, love you, dad. But we had a farm, and my dad loved to farm, and he loved to do that. His whole goal of farming was to make sure that we were as busy as possible, so we had no time to do anything else, and it worked. It was fantastic. We had sheep, we had goats, we had cows, we had at one point 500 chickens. I'm not exaggerating that number, I mean 500 chickens. He was literally buying chickens by the dozens off of semi-trucks. It was the craziest thing. And we had all of that. We had turkeys, we had guineas, we had anything that you could think of to have on a farm. And it was a blessing. And then he decided that wasn't enough. So we had half an acre of a garden. I don't know if you know how half an acre is. It's huge when you're trying to weed a garden. And so he was trying to teach us proper way of planting the seed. You would have a couple inches in between each seed, and you would make sure that it was built up, and you would make sure that there was no weeds around it. And then every day, if you didn't go out there and pick the weeds, you had a forest two days into not picking the weeds. And then it would choke out your seed. And so he was trying to teach us that. And then he planted an acre of wheat. And I thought that was awesome, you know. Finally, the yard was green, and it was great for a little bit until it turned golden, and it was awesome. And I was like, dad, this is fantastic. How are we going to deal with this? And he said, we have a plan. And right then, it should have been noted to me that I was going to be the one doing that plan. And so he bought two sickles and my younger brother and I, you know, they, when he brought them home, you know, a big curved knife, that was awesome. You know, your dad brought you two knives home and you and your brother get these knives and it was great because they were sharp. And, and then we were playing with them and we got in trouble. He's like, no, it's not what we do with these knives. And he would teach us how to grab the wheat, and cut the wheat, and make sheaves, and then put them in the garage. And it was irritating. I just want to be honest. It was irritating, because an acre of wheat is huge. And when you and your younger brother are trying to cut this entire acre by hand, it takes a lot longer than what he wanted us to do. And we lost a lot of wheat. Because we were out there, and we were boys. I'm just cutting wheat. I'm not doing it that way. This is a lot more fast. And then the wheat would just be all over the ground. And it was just one of those things. He was trying to teach us, though, while in the process. He would get out there, and he would show us. And he would teach us to grab a handful, and to cut, and to place it in the bag. And then you go back, and you do the same thing. And he would show us, and he would teach us, and then he would let us do the process while he watched. I think the example, and he was a really good watcher by the end of it. I think it took us like three weeks to cut that entire acre. It was ridiculous. It was my brother's fault, though, because he was younger, he didn't want to work. I did all the work. It was just how it happened in my home, I think. You can look at the word of God, and you can see that process with Jesus and the disciples. You can see him as he takes the disciples, and he leads them, and he teaches them, and as he took the disciples out of the city and ministered unto them, And then a multitude would come around and he would minister to the multitude. And then Jesus would just disappear sometimes. He would take a step back and he would let the disciples now minister to them, right? And then as they were ministering, you know, the disciples, they would get irritated. Well, Lord, why couldn't we cast that devil out? Well, let's get back and I'll show you again. I'll tell you again. And then he would show them and he would complete the process and then he would take a step back and let them try again. And you can see that all throughout the scriptures when he would train his disciples that way. My dad was trying to do the same thing. That you teach, you watch, you teach, you watch, you correct. And then after a while, you start to understand the process because you learn from an example. And he was doing that. The harvest in a physical sense, of course, doesn't stay ripe. If you don't take care of a garden properly, if you don't take care of wheat properly, you lose a lot of the blessing at the end. And with the wheat, we learned if we could chaff the wheat and we put it in a big barrel. And if the barrel wasn't properly sealed, Oklahoma's really humid. I don't know about Kansas. It's probably just as humid here. But it's really humid over there. And if it's not properly sealed, moisture gets into that barrel and spoils the wheat. We learned chickens don't care if it's spoiled, they'll eat anything. But then we lost some of our harvest because it was spoiled. Because the process wasn't done properly because of our haste and lackadaisicalness of, you know, it's, ah. It's not my wheat. It's not my job to really make sure the job is done right. Dad, it's not my job that your tools were put back in the barn properly. It's just rust. It will come off. We can get that way spiritually. We can. We can get that way spiritually. And sad to say, I've been there spiritually. Lord, it's not my job to witness to that person. Lord, the fruit, it might be ready to be harvested, it might need to be plowed a couple times, it might need to be planted, but Lord, is it really my job? Do you not have enough workers already in the field doing the job that you've asked them to do? Lord, I'm okay with just sitting right here and being perfectly fine, just watching the harvest go by. We could be that way spiritually. I could be that way spiritually, and I've been that way, and it's to my hurt. How much fruit of my account am I missing? Because the harvest wasn't important. It takes time to do the job right. I found that out. My grandpa would always say it's better to do the job right than have to fix it two or three times later. Because then you're wasting more time than you needed to to begin with. Being proactive. Watching. making sure that any time the Lord tells you to do something, or to move, or to harvest, that it was taking place when he told us to. My house, it was a stated fact, delayed obedience was disobedience. And we would be thus entreated properly for delayed obedience, just as if it was disobedience. And the same way it could be in our life, spiritually. How many people have delayed their obedience to God and missed the harvest, and now God doesn't have to deal with them, but you, but me, the slothful servant. He saw the people and he was moved with compassion. Compassion means this, sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering or misfortunes of others. We say it this way. The Lord saw them for their need and not for church members. He saw them for the souls that they were and not people just to follow him around and give him money. He went about the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted. And they were scattered abroad having no shepherd, sheep having no shepherd. Compassion moved Christ into action. We could see that, I think, clearly in this chapter. Compassion compels to action. I came up with that all by myself. I was so proud of myself. You know, some people do, you know, every point has the same letter. No, I can't do that. I'm not smart enough to try to think of words that mean different things that start with the same letter. I'm from Oklahoma, so it's just one of those things. But I did come up with compassion compels to action. And we can see that here because as he was doing the ministry, he was compelled to action because of what he felt for them. Compassion should move us into action. compassion as we're out on visitation. And there was a good group of people yesterday out on visitation. As you're out there and you're knocking doors or you're putting flyers on and you come across people and you see them for their lost condition and not just someone that's just going to come to church and fill a pew, you get moved for compassion. You get moved into action because you want their soul to know Christ. And you see them for their soul. That's the compassion moving you to do something is why we have TV commercials. They present a need, and then they want you to fulfill that need. That's why for $19 a day, you can save a dying dog on the side of the road. And they show the video of a dog that's cold in mud. It's super skinny. You can see every bone of the body. And, you know, they play that sad music, the, what's the, in the arms of an angel song. in every commercial, and it's so sad, and you're like, oh, no, that dog is so precious. And if you would just give us your money, we could help this dog. Forget the 19 camera crew members that are out there looking at this dog. We want your money. And if we could get you to fill something for this dog, we can get in your pocketbook. For 19 cents a day, what was it, the old commercial, for a cup of coffee, you can give water to an African village, an Asian village, whatever village it is. They were trying to compel, they were trying to get your action by showing you something that would pull on your compassion, to pull on your heart strings of, hey, there's a huge need here. If we just show you something really sad, we might get you to be able to do this. And it works. Infomercials, you know, you have that stubborn hair that you can't get rid of. For $19, you can buy this thing and you'll be hairless for the rest of your life. They present a need. They try to show you something that you need. So was Christ. So was Christ. As He was with the disciples, as He was taking them, as He was going to the villages, as He was dealing with people, He was trying to present the need to the disciples that, hey, they don't need healing from their sickness. Hey, they don't need to see. They don't necessarily need to walk. What they need is Christ. What they need is His Word. What they need is salvation in their life. The same way with the church. As preachers get up and preach, as they open the Word of God, what the world needs is not more water. What the world needs is not more food, is not more clothes, is not more cars. What they need is Christ. We're missing a harvest in America because as Americans, it's all about us. It's all about what we can do. What can I get? What can I benefit myself? I had the pleasure in 2013 to go to the Philippines. And if you've ever been to the Philippines, it's sad, actually. My dad took it upon himself to every single time we would drive by somewhere that someone lived, he would point that out. And he said, Joshua, somebody lives there. A hut. There was trees that we would drive by. And people's stuff would be up in the trees. And a mattress would be propped up. And people would live on that mattress and sleep on that mattress. But they were happy. They didn't need, you know, Amazon next day shipping. They were happy. They didn't have much. They were happy. When you go to their churches there, They were happy that someone cared enough that they came down and talked to them. They were happy because they have a Bible they can read. They were happy because they have a church that they can go to and serve in. They were happy because they could get out as a church and flyer an area, and witness to people, and try to tell them, even though life is hard, even though everything in our life is hard to get, and money is tight, and the food is hard to get, and the water isn't clean, and we have open sewers, and everything like that, there's still a God that loves us. We've lost that in America. I don't think that's a bad thing. I enjoy living comfortably. I enjoy AC. But we've lost it. We've lost the compassion for those who don't know Christ. We've lost the compassion that Christ is imparting to the disciples here because we're comfortable. We don't want to be uncomfortable. We're in America. You can buy blankets and wear them. What more comfortable than that? But we're comfortable. You fulfill needs by doing it. You fulfill things in your life by putting action to it. I think it's funny, growing up in a pastor's home, we would, my dad would tell stories, you know, Pastor, the floors look terrible. I'm guilty of this. I'd be like, Dad, who cleans the church? Because this is nasty. You need to put somebody on this, Pastor. Pastor Metzinger, everything is out of place. Don't you have someone that does this? Well, yeah. Well, that makes sense, yeah. But oftentimes, you know, I would do this with my dad, and other people would be like, you know, don't we have somebody? Isn't there somebody fulfilling this need? I mean, it's a pretty big need. If I noticed it, it's a need. It needs to be accomplished. Can't you do something about that? And Christ says, yes, yeah, I could. But so could you. And so should you. And he compels you to do his work. And then I notice. Not only was he looking and because of his compassion, was he moved, but he saw the need for laborers. Verse 37, and he saw and he said to the disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. The laborers are few. The laborers are few. The preachers are few. The Sunday school teachers are few. The soul winners are few. In Portugal, out of the seven missionaries that I believe are doing proper in their doctrine and doing what they should for Christ, four of the seven are in their 70s and want to retire. And they can't. Because the laborers are few. There's not enough people, there's not enough young men and young families and young women surrendering to do the will of God in today's world. Because the laborers are few. If the laborers were few here, as he's training the 12 disciples, as you can look in a couple chapters later, as the world is flipped upside down, if the laborers are few here, today is even worse probably. The laborers are few. The people that are doing his will are less and less every day. There's less men surrendering to do God's will. There's less men surrendering to be faithful to Christ. There's less men surrendering to preach the whole counsel of God. There's less women doing the same. There's less women getting beside their man and helping them, training their homes. There's less women being faithful to church, just as there's less men. There's less young adults wanting to do God's will. When we were in the College of Career Ministry, it burdened me for the young people of America. Because when I grew up, I think we had 20, 25, 30 people in our youth group when I was in the youth group. And out of those 20 to 25, five of them Three of them being my siblings and the other two we married, they didn't have a choice, aren't in church. We're not serving in church. They get out of the youth group and they fall away. You become a college career. You get a job. And now what's important is money and paying bills and life. And if we go to church, we go to church. There's less young people surrendering to God's will. Because it's not important. It's not important in our homes. It's played as a game in our church, where we go to church and we're one way, and we come home and we're a different way, and it's just, it is what it is. That type of mentality. The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. I can't reach Portugal by myself. The other missionaries that are there can't reach Portugal by themselves. Shawnee Mission can't reach Shawnee, Kansas by yourself. You can't reach Kansas City by yourself. You can't get out there and you could probably as a, throughout the year probably work and try to put a track on every door in the area. You can't reach everybody by yourself. But a church that has no help or workers isn't gonna do the job any better. When we're not taking the example that Christ gives us and applying it to our life properly. And then lastly, the only prayer request ever given by Jesus is in this last verse. I think that's pretty awesome. I think if the Lord gives us something that's important, when he says something that's important, But how much the more a prayer request from the Lord. I think that should be on the top of our prayer list every day. Pray ye therefore the Lord of harvest that he send forth labors into his harvest. What happens when you have a burden for something and pray about it? Oftentimes, God takes that burden, you know, how small of a matter it is, and you start praying about it, and then your burden starts to grow, because you start to see the need. And the more you pray about it, the burden gets so big, and so big, and so big, and so big, and then soon you can't contain the burden. And then now, as you're praying about it, for the Lord to send laborers, you're like, Lord, if I could be that person, Isaiah, here am I, Lord. Just send me. If you can use me as a burden, as I feel a burden for the people of Kansas City, Lord, if I could be that witness, if I could knock on that door, if I could go across the world, if I could go across the state, if I could go to a different state, just use me. Use me. Take my burden, and let me work the field that you've given me, the harvest, before it's too late. There's a need for more people to surrender to God's will. I'm not saying surrender to ministry. Surrender to do God's will. Surrender to be obedient. Surrender to every day getting in your word and finding out what Christ has for you today. There's a need that more women surrender to do God's will. Not be a missionary's wife, not be a pastor's wife, but God's will. Could he change that as you seek his will? Yes. Will he? I don't know. But at least you'll know his will. At least you're surrendering some part of your life. There needs to be more kids surrendering to God's will. King Josiah was eight years old, and he knew God, and he was a friend of God, the Bible says, at eight. I don't know very many eight-year-olds that you could say that about, because it's not a priority anymore. What is our priority this morning, and how is your harvest? Are we losing it, or are we being faithful to the Lord in what we do? Very much.