John Gunter: It is a new time for us, with a teenager in the house. He was less than enthused about our singing Happy Birthday at home this morning as well. So, true true teenager. Yeah, we had just woken up. He's Tyler asked me, he said, will he be mad at me?
He said, no, he'll be alright. So, you can blame me. It's just fine. All right. We are going through this series I'm calling The Invitation as we prepare our hearts for the story as we start in August.
And last week, we kind of hopefully opened our eyes to to doing this, to preparing, to to invite. Last week, we hopefully what we saw was Andrew didn't need some kind of advanced degree to go home and invite his brother to come see Jesus, did he? And so we talked about what we need to do is just be people who say, come and see. People who invite and people who are looking for others. So, how many of you started praying for your people this week?
You don't have to raise your hands. You don't feel guilty, wouldn't you? So, what we wanted to do, the challenge I left with you last week is to start praying for that person that comes to mind. We think, you know what? I need to just invite them to come and see, to come and see Jesus and so, those are the people we wanna be and as we get close to the story, it it's a great place as I've mentioned to to kind of onboard people, to bring people in to kind of experience scripture and at a higher level, we're not gonna touch every page of scripture but to open the word of god and and to start understanding and so I hope that's what you'll begin doing.
How many of you have driven around a place that you've been a lot and all of a sudden, you discovered a building or a sign or something and you immediately thought, has that been there before? How long has that been there? And in this place, things are going up all the time. So maybe we have an excuse, right? There's always new stuff.
I never know. And so I remember Evan being a small child and we took him to IHOP and he got out of the van at the time and he said, oh, I like that smiley face in the logo. I didn't realize IHOP had a smiley face in the logo. I don't know how many times I looked at it, but it's it's been there. And I just missed it.
Sometimes I think I'm so in my head thinking about whatever that I'm missing all kinds of things. Anybody else been there? And so there's a real difference in being able to see and actually looking and observing. My wife gets on to me if she's trying to talk to me and I'm on Instagram or something like that. She wants to be seen.
Me scrolling and talking to her is not enough. And so sometimes we walk through life as if we're just scrolling on Instagram or doing something else while trying to live life. But Jesus is gonna show us something a little different this week. And so we're gonna start in Matthew nine in verse 35. Matthew nine in verse 35.
And Jesus went through all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And so Jesus didn't allow the activities of life to stop him from seeing people as they were. Sometimes again, we observe things, but we don't actually look intently in order to kind of put it into memory. As you're going through school, people teachers will tell you, oh, you need to write that down.
Anybody hate to hear those words? Yeah, because observing or just reading quickly and I were just trying to get through it doesn't cut it a lot of times. You gotta go back over it or you need to write it down. Something that commits it to memory. Jesus has the ability here in Matthew nine to look at the crowd.
When he saw the crowd, he had compassion for them. How do you have compassion on someone who don't really know much about them? He had the ability to look at them and understand what was going on in their life. Again, he said, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd and you can only imagine how busy Jesus was, right? Going about teaching, always coming into contact with people who'd really like to see him dead.
I can't imagine how much mental space, that would, that would take up but Jesus is able to do this. He's able to look and see, okay, Jesus can see people like this. Have you ever been so busy that you felt like that person coming up to you was an interruption? Say yes. You've been there.
I'm on a mission. I've gotta get this done. I've got a checklist and this person keeps asking me questions and you you all know that one person that's not going to ask you one question. That one question leads into this tree branch of things that we've gotta go down and all of a sudden, we've wasted an hour and a half or it feels like that, right? And and so, Jesus in this moment doesn't see the people as interruptions to what he's doing.
He sees them as people needing someone. How do you look at people when you go out to the store? Drive on the highway because if we just pay attention to negative media and things like that, it feels like our world is about to collapse in on itself, doesn't it? There's a lot of violence in the world and there is. It's all true.
But is is that the totality of the circumstance? When you interact with people, do you when you go into HEB, do you keep your head down and just avoid everybody? Because one of things I wanna challenge you to do as we talk about seeing people is next time you go to a restaurant, somewhere with a lot of people, you go to a ball field, you go to HEB, wherever. I want you to look around at people and I want you to try to see them in the way that Jesus would see them because that's a different experience. Because sometimes what we do is we we talk about groups of people.
Whether it's political parties or you know, conservative, liberal, and we just lump people into groups, don't we? I I experienced that when we got involved in homeless ministry long time ago in Texarkana and It was unfortunate, but we were sharing that. We were trying to raise money to give them things, make sure they had clothing and food. I had people at my church say, Those people just need to get a job. Now, what did they know about those people?
Let me answer that for you. Nothing. Because they hadn't been there. Sometimes, we lump people into groups without seeing them. And if we don't see them, you can't care for them.
You can't have the same kind of compassion if you lump those people. If someone starts a sentence with all of those people are like x y z, just go ahead and throw that in the track. Because we couldn't say a lot of us were raised in similar churches, maybe, similar family structures, all of that. We can't say everybody about this group, can we? Being raised similarly, maybe the same place, all of that.
You can't say everybody about this group. So why in the world would we lump people together and just kind of throw them away? But that's often how we do. We don't actually see who they are or what they're dealing with, but Jesus says, I have time for these people. I have compassion.
I see they are like sheep without a shepherd. In first Samuel sixteen seven, but the lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the high of his stature because I have rejected him For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Amen. Right?
As long as I'm talking about me. Because I'd really like to be judgmental about those other folks, which is what's going on here in first Samuel. Right? Well, it's gotta be one of these better looking, sons here, not the ruddy little one. And so we look at people and we judge.
And we think, okay. You look like a CEO. I read one time that, well, I prefer a tall CEO. I've I've shared that with you before. I prefer a tall CEO for the to run my company.
Why? What does height have to do with anything running a company? Appearance. What is appearance? Nothing.
But that's how we do, isn't it? And that's also how we think about people. That's how we invite people, even to church. How many people in the world do you think need Jesus? What percentage?
Then why is it that a lot of times when we go out and we think I'm gonna invite those people, it's because those people fit a certain mold and I think they would, you know, they're already kinda kind. Already, they're already good people. So, they'd fit in. Now, think about the great stories of the world. Is it always they already fit and so we brought em in?
Or is it the the the story is almost miraculous. I can't believe you went from this to this. You used to be this kind of person. Now, you are this and that's the story of scripture, isn't it? That god didn't take, oh, well, he's almost there.
I'll take him because he just just about made it. Let me just bring him in. It's always the person that you wouldn't expect. It's the David and and this is David before the rest of his life, isn't it? The David who says, I'm gonna I'm gonna send her husband to the front line so he can be killed and so our adultery can keep going on.
It it is the apostle Paul standing holding the the the coats of people who are stoning Stephen and he's okay with it. God uses and transforms everyone. If we invite them to him, right? You believe that? Some of you stayed up too late popping fireworks, didn't you?
You kept miss Reba up by the way. Amen? Amen. Everyone. Yes.
Absolutely. And and so that's what that's the kind of people we want to be as people who see like Jesus sees. Not as man sees. I I know there are certain things we look for but we wanna be people who invite and have compassion while paying attention. Jesus saw deeper than the surface.
In Numbers 27, let me let me get to this real quick. You ever been at a ball field or a concert? That's a massive group of people. I like the people watch. Anybody else?
Oh, yeah. Because people are crazy. As long as I'm not talking about myself, right? You never talk about yourself when you say people are crazy, do you? But you ever you ever notice that you feel like we're all there for one purpose and I think I know something about you and how much do you know about those people?
You watch a team play a game, whether it's pro, college, whatever, kids on Saturday out here at the soccer field. And you feel like you have a sense of what's going on, but you really don't. As I have coached, little kids, you just never know. Someone's dad lost a job, and his parents are getting divorced, you never know what's going on. We do the same thing with pro athletes.
How many of you yell at the TV every once in a while? Catch the ball, kick the ball, and you have no idea what is going on in their head. Sometimes I've had kids show up on Saturday morning, 08:00 game, which I hate by the way. Hey, everybody get a good night sleep? I didn't go to sleep till two.
Okay. Well, that helps me know you don't need to play much. You're gonna sleep. But oftentimes, we look at people and again, we don't see beneath the surface. We just see groups of people.
We don't know what's going on. And quite frankly, a lot of times, we're not very good at sharing what's going on, do we? I was raised going to church as we used to say every time the doors were open. And, my family, some of the worst people, and I don't want to bother anybody and tell them what's going on. Anybody else?
As if I'm going to ruin your life by telling you, hey, would you pray for me this week? I've got this going on. Because I I don't know what it is but we feel like there there's he talked about the scarcity mindset and money, but I think sometimes we have a scarcity mindset and god didn't have time or he's got more important things or I don't wanna bother them with that with that thought. How many of you wanna pray for me if I've got something going on? Then why in the world don't you want me praying for you?
You don't like my prayers? I don't pray well enough for you? But sometimes we act like that. Right? And and again, it's it's getting down to, am I seeing beneath the surface?
Am I actually seeing with compassion? What is it that I am seeing? I didn't put the scripture back in here. Let me back up just a second. Verse 36, when he saw the crowds again, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd and again, this is something that is, that goes throughout scripture.
Here in, numbers twenty seven seventeen, who shall go out before them and come in before them? Who shall leave them out and bring them in that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep without a shepherd. Again, it's Ezekiel 34. So they were scattered because there were there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beast. My sheep were scattered.
They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth with none to search or seek for them. You think Jesus is concerned about people out here wandering around with no guidance, with no shepherd? You think Jesus is concerned about that? Do you think if Jesus is concerned about it, maybe we should be concerned about it.
Amen. So, do you see invite? Come and see. You don't have to have all the answers. Just understand Jesus sees this as important.
Come and see just like Andrew and Peter. Come on. Come look. We found the Messiah. In Romans fifteen seven, therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of god.
The church should be the easiest place for anyone anyone to come into. Yes or no? Somebody said, should be but not. The church should be the easiest place for people to walk into and feel like, okay, I I'm safe here. We can we can be accepted here in a way that I am human.
We're all humans here. I'm not less than because I didn't grow up in this way. The church should be this kind of person. Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of god. What he thread for communion this morning is a is a good example of this.
Sometimes, we feel like, I can welcome you if you fit this criteria. Jesus constantly got in trouble for dealing with people or having dinner with people that didn't fit that criteria. And he would say things like, it's not the well who need a physician, right? I need to go and and talk with these people. I need to be around these people because the people without a shepherd need a shepherd.
Yes? And so we go and we welcome. That should be what we have here, but unfortunately, a lot of times it's not. A lot of times what we meet people with is is judgment, and you're less than or something like that. Now, I'll be honest with you, I'd step on your toes if I thought that was going on here.
I haven't experienced that. If it is happening, I do wanna know about it. But I feel a good spirit in this place. Amen. We put our video together, at several comments to kinda talking about that.
Immediate acceptance. Feels like family and I love that. We need to continue that. I'm gonna step on your toes if we need to change some things but I also wanna praise you when when man, it is, it feels right and I feel that too. Anybody else?
It feels like family And so we want to continue that and we want to continue welcoming one another. Each of us are in different places in our life. Each of us are at different places in our faith journey, right? Sometimes that faith journey feels like a roller coaster. Couple of double loops in there sometimes, right?
You just don't know what's going on and and so we wanna continue being this kind of of church that we wanna be people who the doors are open. There's a seat beside me. You're welcome in. Whether it's small group, the elders have heard me say, I think small group, no matter how big, ought to always have an extra seat and say, you're welcome here. Because once you close that off, you begin to act differently and you are not doing this.
You are not seeking people the way Jesus, is seeking people. In verse 37 of Matthew nine, then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And so when I started this last week, maybe nobody came to mind. But I promise you because of what Jesus said and what you know if you think about it, Jesus is exactly right, right?
The harvest is plentiful. There are plenty of people in the world who are like sheep without a shepherd, needing the Messiah. Yes? But what does he say the problem is? The laborers are few.
So what does that mean? I know there's a lot of things out there, but I am choosing to not do anything about it. Now, how would you look at that in your own life, different responsibilities that you have right now? I know the grass needs mowed, but I'm not gonna do it. It's hot enough now and nobody blame you.
Right? What if you kept doing that and kept doing that and kept doing? Think about other things in your life. I know I need to go to work and make that paycheck. I'm choosing not to do it.
And we would say, alright, idiot. You're gonna lose everything. Right? Alright. Well, think about this.
The harvest is plentiful. There's plenty of it. The laborers are few. Jesus is recognizing even two thousand years ago, there are a lot of people that just aren't going to go and invite. And that's all he's asking you to do.
As we spend a lot of time last week, it's not something you need an advanced degree for. You don't need to have all the right answers for some kind of atheist that wants to fight you on everything. Just invite people And I promise you, we all have someone we know that needs an invitation. Yes? Amen.
We do. And that's all they need. I'd love for you to come sit with me at church. You may like John, you may not. You may like Tyler, you may not.
Bible class may ask you to move seats every once in a while. Right? You never know what's gonna happen. Just come and invite. That's what we're asking, and that's what Jesus would have us do as well.
But he changes and what you saw in this was he changed it from sheep to harvest. He's using things they know. You know it needs to be done. There are things there just to be collected and brought in, but the problem is is that people are choosing, I don't want to do that. The harvest is plentiful, should encourage us.
Do you want this place to grow? But often, I think we feel like maybe some will come in here every once in a while and the lord has blessed us and and some of you you people that are here today, we haven't even known that long. I didn't know you were around but God blessed us with your presence. And he says, the harvest is there are plenty of people out there. I told you earlier, I'm I'm from a small town.
I love being in a place that's constantly growing. It's crazy to me. I'm thinking about the things that were not here five years ago, that are now here. When I pulled out to Eagle Drive from Lakes Of Champions, I could see H E B, and that's not gonna happen anymore. Not that long ago, I could see Sunburger.
There's a huge building between us now. And so all those things are just signs of the harvest is plentiful, and in this place, we can see it growing. I think when I moved here, it was about 9,000 people just in Mont Belvieu city limits. Now we're up to, I think, around 13,000. That is a huge percentage of growth.
And so we, more than a lot of places or or people, should be able to look around and go, yeah, Lord, I see it. Because people are pouring into this place. And what I pray is when they come here, what they find is a church that loves Jesus and loves people. Yes? Amen.
That our door is open and what they they experience here is love and family and and come be a part of this. Have your life changed not by us. So, we're gonna play a part in that. We're gonna encourage you but we're not perfect. We're gonna point to a savior who is.
We want you to know about him. We wanna know, we want you to know about the sacrifice he made for you. Because god loved you. So, I want you to answer the question, who has god already placed in your life? I don't want this to be a theoretical thing like these faceless people, this faceless mass out there.
Who has god placed in your life right now that you can say, hey, Would you like to join us? Because those are the people that maybe your harvest as Jesus talks about this. They're the the people closest to you, the people that immediately jump to mind. People you should be praying about, yes? Who are your harvest?
Says, but the laborers are few. In first Corinthians three, six, and seven, Paul says, I planted Apollos watered but god gave the growth. So neither he who plants or he who waters is anything but only god who gives the growth. We covered this last week. If you were feeling pressure and guilt throughout the beginning of this sermon, this ought to take it all off.
Because it is not up to you to provide the growth for somebody. You understand that? You can't do it. I used the example last week of planting a garden, planting plants from seed. I can provide the best environment that I can, but after that, it's on God to provide that growth to that seed and a plant.
Right? And I go out every morning and I look and I go out the next day and I look and finally, there's a sprout. I take a picture of it and I send it to Heath. See, my stuff's growing. It it lived, right?
Because I had nothing to do with that growth. That's okay. Sometimes, we feel like we did because I put I put the soil in. That's what Paul says. Okay, I planted.
Apollo's watered. That's great. That's good. You should do that but in the end, god provides the growth and so, how you should translate that to here is just invite. They don't have to be perfect people in the right income bracket or through the right stage of life or with the right past.
Invite. Allow god to do the changing and the molding and allow god to provide the growth. I thought I had one more scripture there. Maybe I don't. Alright.
Jesus commands us. He doesn't say go through this. He says to pray to the lord. Pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers. I think a lot of us have decided I'm not good enough or I'm not the one or anything and so we shut down.
We're not praying, we're not going, we're not doing anything. Jesus doesn't say here, go. He says, you start with praying. That's what I asked you to do last week with praying for your person. Pray for your one, the one you're going to invite.
Just say it like that because you're gonna invite them. Right? You're feeling hesitant right now? Just say, I'm gonna invite them. Go ahead and say that out loud.
I'm going to invite them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.
Can you do that? Can you begin praying knowing that god can handle this? Because prayer starts that preparation for us, doesn't it? You ever been through something and it's just worked you to the to the bone, you're nervous, anxious, whatever, and you realize you hadn't prayed about it yet. I don't know how many times I've said this stuff in here because I wanna make sure you know that's how I am.
I'm a I try to fix things and I work and trying to fix it and I'm worried about it and then I realized I haven't even prayed about it. And once you pray, how do you feel? Relief? Everything's changed all of a sudden, right? Begin to pray earnestly.
Do you think if you pray earnestly for god to send out laborers into the the harvest that he's gonna do it? Do you? Yeah. You you think god's sitting back there? Nah, I don't think so.
What you know about god, there's no way he's doing that, right? He's going, it wasn't a good enough prayer. I really like it in the King James version. God wants people to go out into the harvest. So, pray for that.
Pray for yourself to be able to simply invite because you are going to encounter people that I will not encounter. I am going to encounter people that you will not encounter. So, if we're both relying on the other person to affect everyone, we're going to fail. Yes. But if we as a church, if we as a group of people, if we start looking at the people within our circle of influence, however you want to say it, the people close to us, then think about it as branching off.
And again, that's why we're here, isn't it? Because someone cared enough to invite, someone cared enough to bring you in or to bring your relative in. And now here you are way down the line. Remember that inviting does not require all the answers. Andrew told Simon Peter, he said, just come and see.
We found the Messiah, come and see. And so I wanna ask you this question, who is the person you've been praying for? Can you picture them? Can you picture someone that you need to be praying for right now? Can you picture their family, their struggles, things that may even need to change.
I want you to begin praying for your one if you haven't done that so far. Pray for their heart. Pray for people we don't yet know that are coming to this place. Yes? That they can find someone in a church who loves each other and loves god.
When you go to eat, when you go to the supermarket, I want you to see people's faces today. I want you to see people who are people. I want you to see them as people on a mission just like you are because if if we start seeing people as people in need of a savior just like us, it will change the way you see everyone. I understand someone may cut you off in traffic today and you may want to see them in a different way. But see them as god sees them.
I I I'll be honest with you. I I did this probably a year and a half, two years ago. I felt like I was in a rut of, you know, I'd seen too many things on TV or something like that, and you felt like unsafe everywhere you went. You know, as soon as I got out of H E B, was doing this. Anybody else head on this level?
And I I just felt myself doing that. I was like, why am I why am I doing why not I feel anxious? And so I actually walked in and I started asking myself, I wonder what they're going through. Wonder what struggles they're dealing with. You know, ask questions like that as you go and humanize people instead of dehumanize people.
Allow god to work on your heart so that from that, we can pour out to others and so this morning, start praying. If you need encouragement from this church, we love to pray with you. We'd love to share our struggles and and walk beside you as we all try to walk closer to him. If you haven't begun that walk with him by being baptized, we'd love to baptize you into his name, to watch you begin that walk. And again, we will walk side by side, sharing our struggles, sharing our humanity.
But as we go, I want you to observe, and I want us to invite. So would you come this morning as we stand and as we sing?