Preached by Jonty Allcock on Sunday, January 5, 2020
From the series Guest Speaker - Preaching
I have got a question for you. What you are you asking God to do in 2020? What would you love God to do in 2020.
Asking is what Christians do. To be a Christian means that you are a child of the creator of the universe. You get to call Him Father and therefore you get to ask him for things. So what are you asking him for.? One of the big mistakes we make as Christians, we fail asking God for anything. I learnt this the hard way when we were young, I have 3 brothers. Once we had a visitor in, this wasn't very normal. but he was a fairly wealthy man from Jordan and he was travelling back to Jordan and coming back to England, he said what would you like me to bring you. I was polite and I said: 'Can I just have a few sweets. My little brother who was less well-mannered said I want a remote-controlled car. We forgot all about it then he turned up. He gave me my sweets and then he gave my brother the biggest most extraordinary remote-controlled car I've ever seen.
I learnt an important lesson that day, You ask and what you ask for shows what you think of the person you ask.
Often the things we ask God for are about the things that affect us
In Matthew chapter 9:35-38 Jesus is going to teach us something something all of us should be asking for.
Can you see Jesus is telling us what we should be asking God in 2020. It's in verse 37, 38
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. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
We should be asking in 2020 that there would be more workers to go in the labourers sent by God. What would it
What would it be for you
To help bring it down, 3 ways
The idea of harvest.
The harvest is plentiful, the Lord of the harvest. What is he talking about? Why does he use this language
A rich biblical thing, it goes right through the bible.
The bible is one story from beginning to end, the Bible is not random verses where you pick verses that's nice for you.
it's the story of God and his work.
The idea of harvest
I'm not much of a farmer, and I get I do remember occasionally doing a bit of There are two bits of harvesting, 1st bit is scattering, you scattering the seeds all over the place then you wait
and then the comes the exciting bit : the gathering bit
To be honest, the scattering is a bit boring
Scattering and harvesting this is what
In the Bible, Jesus is talking about something bigger.When you hear the word scattered, that is a bad thing,
To be scattered, it's to be under God's judgement, when people do something wrong, he scatters them.
To be gathered, is a good thing
When they rebelled against him, what did he do, he scattered them out of the Garden, away from the Garden
in Genesis 11, humanity again rebells against God in a big way and it build a tower so that they can be gathered together.. in rebellion agasint God
It's very funny.
We are going to make a name for ourselves
They are building a tower to reach the heavens
Are they doing something down there?'I can't see what they are doing it's very small
When God comes down and sees the rebellion, do you know what he does? he scatters them, that's His judgement, he sends them away.
The story of the bible is how God from scattered people gathers them in the harvest.
That's what the Bible is all about
We discover time and again that when people do things wrong, they are scattered.
There is an evil king of Israel called Ahab, and his days, one of the prophet said to Ahab I saw Israel like sheep scattered without shepherd.
When there is something wrong, the people are scattered.
Turn to Ezechiel chapter 11, verse 17. Here is God speaking through Israel,
“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’
Here is God's great promise, that's God's judgement. Now in his coming, there is the time of gathering, not the time of scattering
that is what Jesus is referring to when he says the harvest is plentiful
Jesus as he is looking at Israel
Matthew 9 verse 36
Do you see a people content or do you see like Jesus see them
people who are like sheep without a shepherd. Do you know how they are, they are dead. For a little while, they could be happy, the reality is that if they haven't got a shepherd, they are in danger
As we walk through London
if we first see the need
He didn't walk through the world
There was a b
Jesus sees it
We pretend that everything is fine but it's not We live in a world
because this world is a scattered world
There are millions of people scattered
The danger is
that
we've got to fix it
Can we fix it?
Bob the builder, can we fix it? No not really!
We just need better education, heathcare,
a declaration
we don't want
The message in the bible is no you can't.
v 38 Therefore do, fix, therefore pray why,
Do you know what his Son come to do?
Right at the start of Matthew gospel, John the Baptist said..
his winnowing hand ..
Why does Jesus have to die in order to gather the harvest? I deserve to be scattered in hell but Jesus came to take the punishment in my place, he was forsaken by his people
This morning, do you know this Lord of the harvest
Those who refuse to be gathered, i will not be gathered by Jesus
broken, Jesus says Come to me, why don't you come
There is no
Only him
There would be more
Jesus is interested in labourers, he doesnt want fan, he doest not want
He wants people
He doesnt want customers,
Jesus doesn
want volunteers, that is very different to a labourer
Labourers work
The normal experience
How are you? I am tired. Exactly, that's what it's supposed to be like.
We are supposed to rest, you learn to rest.
Some of us need to be told: work
There are million people
how are they going to hear?
On this final day
It's our finest joy,
He is looking for labourers
Other time I go to the supermarket,
Saying to people about Jesus is the best thing ever
and sometimes we think that
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