God's Mission And My Prayer - 01/09/2022

Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes January 9, 2022 God’s Mission and My Prayer Matthew 9: 35-38 35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Today is Consecration and Prayer Sunday. It coincides with our 10 Days of Consecration and devotion to the Lord. This morning, I’d like to minister from the theme, God’s Mission and My Prayer -- taken from Days 3 and 4 of our daily consecration guide. Let’s begin . . . What is God’s Mission? What is the Mission of the church? God’s mission is to Save Souls. 1 Our mission, the church, is to make disciples. We realize the two through prayer. Prayer is defined as communication and communion with God. Talking with God. Through it and by it we seek to connect with God wirelessly to understand His Will, Word, and Way. We also communicate with God through prayer to acknowledge, by faith, His goodness, to ask His blessings, and to seek His face for an understanding of His overall mission He has called Believers to play a role in fulfilling. According to our 10 Days of Prayer and Consecration daily devotions, Days 3 and 4 reminds us that God’s mission to save souls is made clearer through prayer and that by prayer we “ask for” and receive wisdom to fulfill the mission. Proverbs 11:30 reminds us of this: it says . . . 30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, And he who wins souls is wise. In the past two days, we have also been reminded that carrying out God’s Soul Winning Mission through PRAYER cannot and is not accomplished in our own strength. In fact, Day 3 reminded us to “confess that kingdom work is not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit (Zachariah 4:6). In other words, it is not achieved by the flesh or human effort. Today, Day 4 [Part 2], continues to drive home the “mission message” in Ephesians 4 stating, “The power of the Spirit is for the work of the ministry through the Body of Christ. 2 It reminds us of how . . . At Pentecost, the 120 disciples in the upper room were with one accord and prayed and then the power from on high came upon them. Similarly, we have been challenged to ask the Lord to bring us into the unity of the Spirit that we will fulfill God’s Great Commission of winning souls and making disciples with power. Our Lord best illustrates the urgency and harmony of how God’s Mission and the Power of Prayer work together to accomplish His plan of soul saving in Matthew 9: 35-38. Listen to how it reads: 35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” In this passage, we see Jesus hitting every city and village with the teaching and preaching of the gospel – and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. We see Him banishing sicknesses and diseases in an unprecedented display of healing power and compassion. He was doing this in the face of Jewish push back and rejection of His deity as the Son of God. His own people refused to acknowledge Him as God in the flesh. But the miracles made it undeniable that He was come from God. 3 Yet, as the crowd grew bigger and bigger to multitude proportions, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. He saw that the people’s spiritual needs were even mor desperate than the needs for physical healing. Meeting that need would require more laborers. That’s when He said to His disciples: “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” This statement is the epitome of God’s Mission and Prayer. It is a perfect example of where soul saving, and the importance of prayer intersect. This passage also shows the how critically tied God’s Mission is to our prayer life. [The Lord frequently taught His disciples that they must pray and how they should pray. But He seldom told them what to pray. This He left to their sense of need and the leading of the Holy Spirit. But in Matthew 9: 35-39, He expressly directs them to remember one thing. In view of the abundant harvest, and the need for reapers, they must ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. The harvest spoken here is the spiritual harvest of souls for salvation. The souls are truly plenteous, they are an overwhelming number. So much so, until at this point, they outnumber the laborers needed to harvest them. In fact, the number of souls needing harvesting is so huge until the laborers are considered few – only a handful in comparison. 4 I believe we are faced with this same dilemma today --shortage of laborers today. I don’t think there’s ever been enough laborers to satisfy the harvesting of the many awaiting souls. It is God’s Mission to save souls. It is our mission to pray for wisdom on how to win them, them make disciples of them. Our prayer should be “Help us to be ever mindful that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” (St. Luke 19:10) In doing so, the Lord is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Father, give us the mind of Christ. As “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Here’s an often-unseen twist to this verse. While Jesus, the Lord of the Harvest, is speaking to the current labor force who are already in the fields harvesting souls – He knows that the only people who can really relate to the urgency of God’s Mission of Soul Saving are those who are currently doing the heavy lifting. Only they can feel the heat of the day and the sweat of their brow because they are hard at work. And because they are hard at work, they clearly understand how shorthanded the harvesting crew is. As a result, like overworked laborers, they will pray every day that the Lord increase His efforts to hire more laborers to lighten their load or 5 balance it out, or assist in putting a dent in the overwhelming number of souls that need to be harvested. So, what can we do? ✓ Pray for wisdom in understanding God’s Mission of Soul Winning and how critical your prayer life is tied to it. ✓ Submit to Holy Spirit’s teaching and training on how to become a soul winner. Take advantage of opportunities to learn how to better witness or share your testimony. ✓ Be intentional about praying for the seven or more people on your prayer – gospel sharing prospect list. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any open doors of opportunity and then provide the know-how, the courage, and the calm to share your faith or a timely unforgettable spiritual morsal. There is a great need for laborers in the fields of the world which are so ripe for the harvest. And meeting that labor supply depends on prayer. The Lord needs to hear our prayers and we need to feel the burden of the unsaved and unharvested souls with the same yearning and compassion as Christ did. Without the prayers of the Saints, fields ready for reaping will be figuratively left to perish. Our Lord, Jesus Christ has left to us, His children, the work of the ministry to harvest souls. Through us, He has placed confidence to get the work done. The power that He gives us to accomplish the work is real. It is found in prayer. Therefore, we must remember that the number of laborers and the measure of the harvest does actually depend on our prayers. 6 So then, we must commit to doing as 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 & 17 encourages: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. God’s Mission and My Prayer 7