The message
he's talking about. Then what is the solution? What is the means by which God reaches lost people today? Is it a personal testimony of all these wonderful things that have happened in your life? Is that the thing that redeems a person and saves?
Is it some influential argument that you give where you convince an individual intellectually through intellectual ascent and through great debate you convince somebody of the gospel or the good news of Christ that he is real that he is risen and that he is active and that Jesus accomplished everything that the word says he accomplished. Is it through convincing argument?
Is it through entertaining people? Because that is really how we feel in our culture today that we really just soothe lives, heal hearts, transform families. We believe a good movie, a great book, therapeutic advice will transform a life of an individual to the magnitude and to the degree that their life will be forever changed. If you'll just meet my therapist, your woes will become we will enjoy life in a different way.
Everything will change. If you'll just meet this health culture of mine, you will be changed.
We in our culture particularly are entertaining people to death.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:41
The problem is it's to an eternal one. It's a problem. And if you think this hasn't in infected the church or impacted the church in any way and the way that we structure and the way that we see what the remedy to our sin and our culture is. If you think that entertainment hasn't become a tool that we use to try to win lost people, you're wrong.
It's a problem because none of those things are a remedy that we even see in this text here. It's not at the very beginning of the text. It's interesting because it talks about Jesus preaching the gospel.
It wasn't too long ago. We were sitting in small group and the question came up. This was a while ago. So no, don't fret. It was a while ago. How many of you know that our church and you may not have know our church when we started 15 16 I don't know so many years ago I don't I quit counting quit counting quit counting our anniversaries here we've been here a little while but if you've been here a little while with us you know that our church had a tendency to think entertainment was the means by which lost people became found.
That's how we started. We realized that
It's very easy to dig a ditch a mile wide and an inch deep.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:14
And what we thought was true transformation, we really realized that people could sit in a small group seven years later and when they were presented with the question, what is the gospel? They had no clue. Oh, that struck me to the bone to the core. I began to sit back and wonder what are we doing here?
No one. No one in our group, no one in the group on Tuesday, no one in the group on Wednesday, no one in the group could answer the question, what is the gospel? Many of them could not. I shouldn't say no one. The pastors that were leading the group knew. That's good. But what of the people?
And we put so much emphasis on so many other things when we come to church that we fail to even know the gospel. You can come to church. There are people who can come to church their whole life and when presented with the question, what is the gospel? Not even know how to answer that.
We live currently in what Bara says one of the most biblically illiterate generations the world has known. This is problematic because a lot of people attend church on Sunday. How is it that we can commit ourselves to fellowship? We can gather together and still be one of the most biblically illiterate generations the world has known. How is that possible?
How is that possible? I think it might be because we do not value the gospel the way we should.
We do not understand
We look to everything else as a means of transformation. But we fail to understand that it is the gospel that has the power to save.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:09
This is what the Apostle Paul says. The apostle Paul later says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Not your delivery of it. Not the way you defend it.
Not the way you argue a case. Not the way that you set it up with a good worship set. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. The gospel, it stands to reason then when Jesus comes, sees a harvest, sees sheep without a shepherd, sees people that are troubled, see people that are far from God, sees people that are in bondage to sin and headed towards an eternal death.
What he does is, what does he do? What does he do? He preaches the gospel, but the kingdom is at hand. The gospel of the kingdom.
That's what he does. Because God is demonstrating, Jesus here is demonstrating to us what has the power to transform lives. That's what has the power. There are moments in Scripture when the heart of Christ is opened before us. All through Scripture, we can see like this culmination of events and particularly in Matthew, we see Jesus walking with the type of authority that we have not seen before.
We see his power to calm the seas. We see his holiness when he cleanses the temple. We see his authority over demons that tremble at his feet. We see his wisdom when his enemies are silenced. And this happens all the way through Matthew. But in Matthew 9, we're permitted to see something just a smidge bit deeper. We see what moves the heart of the son of God.
Jesus stands before a vast crowd of people who were broken. Now track with me today. There are people in here in this room right now that are broken. Now we live in a world today where you are seen but not truly seen.
Where we are told and trained and taught to put out a version of us that would be accepted by the world. Pause. This becomes problematic because
What we really long for deep down in our hearts is to be seen for as we truly are and loved anyway.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:02
Now, everybody in this room today has their set of problems. I got mine. You got yours. But it says all of us are sinners in great need of a savior. You're like, "not as much as this guy. He has a higher quota." You do, too. And you need help. And let me just say this. Pause here for a second. Let me just say this. I'm not even trying to get points.
The more I live with Brooke, the more blessed I feel. Okay. She is wonderful. She's gracious. She's kind. She's sweet. She makes me coffee in the morning. Every morning without fail, she makes me coffee. I love her to pieces. I just can't think about how blessed I am. I am blessed beyond measure. I'm blessed. I feel blessed.
But a relationship between a husband and a wife, right? It requires things like this longsuffering that's in there, this love and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and longsuffering and all of those things, those fruits of the spirit. They're not they're not because I have that naturally in my flesh.
As wonderful as she is and as magnificent as she is and as much as I as grateful as I am, Brooke has some problems.
And I guarantee you I got something. What I feel so blessed by Brooke is that she loves me in spite of me.
I wake up on Saturdays most of the time just grumpy. And anybody else this week at some day during your week wake up grumpy? Just wake up a little grumpy like stay away from me for your own safety.
I love that there are days where I'm having not so good day and I feel the love of Christ come through Brooke.
It's hard to love unlovable people. Anybody can love somebody that makes you coffee in the morning.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:54
Try loving somebody that ignores you, rejects you, curses you, denies you, hates you.
Try loving an enemy of you. I when was the last time somebody did something against you to such a degree that it hurt you so deep down in your heart that you were wounded for years.
Now love that person. Love that person. This is what Jesus is doing when he looks out and has compassion on enemies of God.
Put it in perspective here. He draws near to people who are enemies of God. He provides for them the remedy to their damaged, sinick lives by presenting them the gospel.
He draws near to them. No one wants to draw near to their enemy. He shows compassion to them and he comes to them with an offering, a gift to present to them.
Some of you are an enemy of Christ. All of you were at some point an enemy of Christ. But he draws near to you this morning.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:29
He loves you in ways your parents will never love you.
They might give you a house. They might give you a car. They might give you stuff. They might give you the shirt off their back. But they will not give like Christ has given. They will never give like Christ has given. You might have a friend who has done lots for you, who sacrificed for you. I actually saw a video the other day. It said, "this is a real friend." And it was two guys fishing. One guy was on the shore. The other guy had caught what looked like a dinosaur in the water. It was a bass.
It was huge. Probably as big as my leg. It was enormous. The fish got off the hook right at the bank. It was halfway on the bank and halfway in the water. And he said, "this is what a real friend will do. Judge your friends by behaviors like this." This friend once he got off the hook, the friend that was on the shore watching, no net, no nothing, dove into the water and started hitting the bass back towards the shore until he was muddy and wet and whatever. He did whatever he could. He put his life on the line to get the fish on the shore.
If that's what a friend is, just to get a little wet and a little muddy so you can get your bass. Think about what Jesus has done. It is amazing. It is amazing. There is a story of a man who was an evangelist. He comes to the church and he is sitting on the front row and the pastor gets up and he said, "Hey, I have a sermon that I'm going to preach today. We're continuing through whatever book that we're continuing through. And here is my friend." He introduces his friend. And he said, "my friend is going to come up and he's going to share whatever he feels like he wants to share for the next five minutes. He's going to sit down and I'm going to bring a word today." Friend comes up, stands behind or on the stage behind the pulpit and he tells a story about a man that took his son and his friend out on the ocean.
The son and the friend got thrown off the boat and the ocean was rocking and roaring and they were both about to drown. The dad had a decision. He only had one line. Do I throw it to my son or do I throw it to his friend? He knew his son knew the Lord. So he decided to throw the line to his son's friend. And his son drowned.
We've heard stories like this. He drew in his son's friend and mourned his son's death. The old man said, "this is what Jesus has done for you." Went and sat back down on the front row. Pastor came up and preached a sermon. At the end of the sermon, people were coming up. They were like, "we love that story. That was such A beautiful story. But nothing like that would ever happen in real life. No one would ever sacrifice their son for their son's friend.
And the man said, "I am that father." And your pastor is that son's friend.
Now, as amazing as that sounds, as much as that might shock your heart, Jesus died for you.
God the Father sent Jesus to die for you. That's really what's going on. And he did it in spite of the condition of rebellion you find yourself in today or at one stage in your life. We are enemies of Christ. The people here that Jesus is seeing are ruined by sin. They're surrounded by false religion. And that's just as dangerous in my opinion. They're wandering towards judgment. Now, let me say this and we'll just jump right into this and we'll move through this quickly today because I don't feel so great. I think I'm passing a kidney stone yet again, but I'm going to get through this.
This passage does not begin with the need of man. It begins with the mission of Christ.
It does not center on the ability of disciplehip of disciples. It centers on the authority of the Lord. It does not present the harvest as a human project. It reveals the harvest as the possession of God. And don't think that American culture doesn't cause you to interpret this improperly. Don't think that American culture that every time you open up your Scripture, you do not have to war against the immersion of culture in our culture today and what it is teaching you where everything is fixated on you and not on him.
And we have to do the same amount of work in this text today.
The great hope of sinners is not that humanity has finally begun seeking God. The great hope of sinners is that God has come seeking humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:23
He came to you. This is not about you. Some of you are like, "Well, I've been in church a long time. He's calling me.
I'm a worker." Listen, it you are nothing. If he's chosen you as a worker, the Apostle Paul later says in first Corinthians that you are nothing. Even as a worker, you're nothing. This is not about you. This is about him being Lord of all. Here's a couple points. The first point, the king proclaims his gospel. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. First Jesus went.
Thank goodness he went.
Thank goodness he's not like a lot of churches today where it says come one come all but we don't go.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:27
Thank goodness that God left his home instead of his known instead of being known as pulling into his home and being swallowed up by his garage and never talking to his neighbor. Thank goodness God went. Thank God.
Thank goodness that Jesus is known for going for coming near for drawing near to people who we are uncomfortable to draw near. Thank goodness he demonstrates this in his life. The eternal son of God did not remain distery. He entered the world. He created. He took upon himself human flesh. He walked the roads of Galilee. He was covered in dust.
He entered forgotten villages. He stood among dis diseased bodies and sinful hearts and religious hypocrites. He drew near. He did not write people off as untouchable and people that I should not share my time with. You done that. He came near.
This is the wonder of the gospel.
The one before who ang whom angels cover their face entered the world that despised him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:48
Angels couldn't even look on him because of his holiness. But he drew near. He left them and drew near to people who hated him. The one who spoke heavens into existence walked among men who refused to recognize him as Lord.
Jesus went through the cities, it says, and villages proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Let me tell you what the gospel is not. Let me tell you what the Gospel is not. The gospel is not a message about human potential.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. There's a lot of things said in the church today to encourage your human potential. That is not the gospel. The gospel is not an announcement that people can improve their lives if they'll just follow Christ. Their lives will be better.
The gospel is not a promise that God will make sinners healthy, wealthy, comfortable, and admired.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:04
That's not the gospel. You're like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If I'm not going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, and comfortable, why am I here?
Indeed, why are you here?" That's not the gospel. The gospel is the announcement of God as king. His kingdom has come in the person of his son. His authority is absolute. His law has been broken. His wrath is just. His mercy has been revealed. The gospel begins with God, not you.
This is where so much modern preaching has failed. That begins with man's pain. Track with me here. Track with me today. Please track with me today. This is a problem. The gospel doesn't begin with your pain.
We make too much of your pain and your problems and your trouble today in the church.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:14
It begins with man's dreams, man's purpose.
Man's potential. If I just add Jesus to my life, then I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll fulfill my potential. If I just add Jesus to my life, my dreams will be fulfilled. The law of attraction. Put Jesus in here, attract everything that I want.
It presents God as though he existed to help humanity achieve personal fulfillment. But Scripture begins somewhere completely different. Let me tell you where it begins. I'm going to break this down for you. Here's where the Scripture begins. Here's where the gospel begins. In the beginning, you No, doesn't say that. It's amazing. It doesn't. It's shocking. I know. It doesn't say that though. In the beginning, God. That's where it begins.
God is the center of all things. Creation exists for his glory. History unfolds according to his purpose. Salvation is accomplished by his power. And the kingdom belongs to his son.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:21
Jesus did not travel through Galilee proclaiming the greatness of man. He proclaimed the kingdom of God.
The message of the kingdom is that God commands all people everywhere to repent. We've rebelled against its creator. Every person has broken God's law. Every heart has turned aside. Every mouth has spoken what is evil. Every life has failed to glorify God as he deserves to be glorified.
Travel with me.
Your greatest problem today is not low self-esteem. I might actually add your greatest problem is your esteem is not low enough.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:22
Because if you esteem yourself highly, you will not turn to him for help. You will be much like the Pharisees in this text. The sinner's greatest problem is not a lack of purpose. Our greatest problem, honestly, is God.
A sinner's greatest problem is God. God is holy, man. He is holy. God is righteous.
And what makes the following thing scary is he's just. God will judge every thought, every idol word you have ever spoken, every deed of the flesh, every motive of your heart.
He will judge it and he will come down on you with the gavvel of his wrath.
He's coming to take you out. This is why the gospel message is glorious. God is coming to kill those who are unholy. And he is coming to kill them and place them in an eternal death of judgment.
But Jesus drew near. He drew near. This is the gospel.
Your problem is God as a sinner today. And the solution to your problem is God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:33
Is God. The gospel does not announce that God has ignored sin. He has certainly not ignored it. It announced that God has dealt with it through his son.
Jesus Christ lived the life sinners refuse to live. He fulfilled the law of God perfectly. He loved the father with all his heart. When God spoke, he listened. When God told him to speak, he only said what God told him to speak. He obeyed the law in every part.
With his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. He obeyed him without failure, without compromise, and without corruption.
Then he went to the cross, and at Calvary, he bore the sin of his people. The wrath that could have fallen upon you fell on him. The judgment that belonged to you was poured out upon him. Isaiah 55:5 says, "but he was pierced for our transgression, and he was crushed for our iniquities."
The cross was not just simply a death of a martyr. It was not merely an example of sacrifice. It was not merely a demonstration of love. It was substitution.
Christ stood in the place of sinners. He bore their guilt. He suffered their punishment, your punishment. He satisfied divine justice. And then he rose from the dead to give you victory over the thing that has you in bondage.
He lives. He reigns. He commands every sinner to repent and turn to this kind of help.
We're not called to make the gospel more attractive. It's attractive enough on its own. We're not called to remove its offense. Sometimes antiseptic stings.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:43
Don't take the sting out of the antiseptic and remove its efficacy. Don't dilute what is already rich.
Number two, the shepherd sees his sheep. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because he because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
He saw them.
He saw them. Others saw numbers. Today when we think of the harvest and evangelistic crusades, we count numbers. He saw souls, individual ones.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:50
He sees you. He saw sheep without a shepherd. I actually saw a video this week and I had it for Wednesday and I forgot to tell them to load it just now.
Wish I had it, but it was sheep. And it said that this is why this is why we this is why we're referred to as sheep in the Bible. And it has sheep. There's kind of like and one sheep is being pulled out of a ditch that it got into. You've probably seen this on Instagram or Facebook or some other more relevant young person device or application. Because that's what old people use, right? Instagram and Facebook. You It's like you're ancient, you still ride in wagons kind of thing.
They pulled the sheep out of the out of a like a hole. The sheep jumps and skips and jumps right back into the same hole that it fell got pulled out of. We're like sheep without a shepherd.
We just keep running back into the same old thing. God pulls us out. We keep running back. How many of you without raising your hand would testify to the fact there are some things in your life that you just kind of keep getting yourself back into?
Ain't it ain't it good that he don't pull you out once and be like, "You're dumb. Stay there." But Jesus keeps drawing near, keeps pulling out and keeps helping you. See, salvation is not just one time. If you've lived any amount of time, you're like, I remember the day where I believed in my heart and I confessed with my lips and I repented and I remember that day and I placed my faith in him, but there are just times where I do what I don't want to do and that kind of thing and I find myself back into these situations that I'm not happy being in.
Isn't it good that God is still saving? It's good. Then there was this one sheep. It was crazy. I was like, and there was like this like a fireplace and it ran into the fire.
Why are you going in there? What? That don't make no sense. We laugh. We laugh. If you would see a sheep just run in the fire. They pull it back out and it ran back in again. There's all the places in the whole world to run. You're going to run into the fire. That makes absolutely no sense. Why are you running into the fire? Kind of sounds familiar, isn't it?
Because
Sin is your fire. Makes no sense when you see a sheep run to fire, but you run back to sin like a dog returns to his vomit all the time.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:54
Isn't it good? We have a shepherd who sees us as vexed, confused, and silly and still keeps drawing us out of what we run into.
Then there was the one sheep just he didn't run into stuff. He just he had found a bucket on his head and he was running around and then just bumping into stuff. Sometimes I feel like that just kind of like, you know, my son when he was little he his he was premature. So he was born at three lbs and something really tiny. And because of that his head was not skull was not fully developed. It was still in the developmental stages. So when he laid in the bed he had developed a flat spot in the back of his head. I won't tell you which sign. It was Ashton.
Little flat spots. So don't please don't go up to a day and say, "is it still flat back there?" You know, don't do that. That would be rude. And this is why pastor's kids don't like being pastor's kids. But he had a flat spot.
But we got him. We got to go and got to get him a helmet. Now, this becomes problematic when you're a kid because part of a kid's journey in discovering what you shouldn't ram your head into is that you don't have coverage there.
You learn head into wall. No, not good for Ashton. He never discovered that. Head into wall was fun because he had a helmet. Like falling back like this cuz he's excited. You do that once, hit your head, and you wouldn't do that again. You learn. That was a fun game for him because he had a helmet and his head, no worries.
His head grew into that and it's round now. So, he has a really cool shaped head. Right, Ashton? Don't you have a cool shaped head? It's a cool shaped head. Yeah, he's still waving at me back there. But the helmet protected him and caused him to live the kind of life where he did not was not cautious about things.
Today, even as a sinner, even as somebody who's rebelled against God, you are standing under his provision and protection. But one day, he will remove that.
There will be no protection. It will be gone. There is general mercy on the earth today for people who are far from him. His wrath is being withheld.
But one day his wrath will roll out on everyone like it did Christ on the cross.
And if you don't repent, that wrath will hit you forever, day in and day out, for all eternity.
Let me tell you, I know his creation power. I can't imagine his wrath. With just an utterance of a word, the entire galaxy was thrust into motion. Listen, when you were a kid and you got a tongue lashing from your mom, that was painful. It's kind of like just It's like, "Stop getting on to me. Just whoop me already so this will be over." Sometimes a tongue lashing was worse than a whooping. Just whoop a high knee and let's move on down the road.
But your mom's tongue lashing will be nothing like God's. Because when he speaks, stuff moves.
If he can create entire galaxies and forests and thrust mountains from the ground into the air, he can thrust he can make springs open up and oceans form. He can do that. What will he do with a one-s sentence rebuke over your life for the way that you've lived?
What kind of wrath will come from his words towards you? So Jesus comes with all compassion. He draws near you. He knows what's coming in ways that you will never fathom what's coming. He knows God's wrath. He is standing in between God and he's saying, "Repent before he comes for you." See, your problem is not you need A better sermon. Your problem is not you need to be entertained more. Your problem is not you need better therapy.
Your problem is not you need more purpose. Your problem is God. And he's coming to punish those who are far from him.
That's the go. And Jesus steps in as a propitiation for that punishment that's coming, that impending punishment that's coming, because he knows things you do not know. And he's concerned for his sheep.
He sees you.
He doesn't just see you. He sees what's coming for you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:20
John 10:1 says, "I'm a good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. He laid down his life for you." Number three, and the final point, the Lord owns the harvest.
Then he said to the disciples, "the harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.
Jesus changes the image from sheep without a shepherd to harvest and laborers. The crowd is first described as sheep without a shepherd. Now they're described as a plentiful harvest. And he says the harvest belongs to God. Belongs to God. And Jesus calls himself the Lord of the harvest. Let me tell you what's his. The field is his. The seed is his. The laborers are his. The power is his. The increase is his. And the glory is his.
The salvation of sinners is not a human enterprise. It is a sovereign work of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:40
No preacher, as much as you love him, can give life to a dead heart. Even Spurgeon, who's a prince of preachers. No missionary can open blind eyes.
No evangelist can cause a sinner to love Christ. No pastor will ever regenerate a soul ever. Men may preach, men may plead, but only God saves. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And this truth protects the church from pride. When sinners are converted, the preacher cannot boast. When churches are planted, the missionary cannot boast. When the gospel advances, no denomination, no ministry, no individual can claim the glory.
Should not claim the glory. Should not. But we do. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6. Let me turn there just to get it just so you don't get it convoluted today. Here's what the workers Here's here's here's how here's what the workers are good for. What was that? Where was I at? Three. What? 36. Okay. What then? We'll go to five. What then is Apollos? What is Paul? I like how it says what? What good is apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. The Lord even assigned the people to be under them, to believe in them, and to hear their words.
They didn't even draw them. God assigned them. God assigned the people to them. He didn't just pick the worker. He assigned the people to the worker. The worker didn't go get them. God assigned them. Well, I don't like who he assigned to me. He don't care. He's God. He's king of all kings. This is not a democracy. He chose. He assigned. He picked you. And he picked the people that will be with you. Don't miss it.
I planted was Paul and Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. And in case you're wondering which is more important, some sew, some water, some plant, some harvest. He who plants and he who waters are one. Now here's your worth. And each of you will receive his wages according to his labor. So he says verse 7. So neither who plants nor who waters are worth anything but only God who gives the growth.
So as we said in the South when I was growing up, you aren't. We would say ain't. We don't do that in the Midwest. You aren't. You aren't. Actually, in the Midwest, the further north you get, you are not. You ain't so such much. God gives the growth. God awakes the dead. God grants repentance. God gives faith. God draws sinners. I actually thought it was from an evangelism course 101 on how to win lost people.
You don't win lost people. God draws lost people.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:43
You know what you do? You pray that he'll send a worker. I can do more than that. I'm going to go cast the devil out of my neighbor. Your neighbor might think there's a devil in you. The scarcity of labors does not threaten the sovereignty of God. Can I just say that the Lord of the harvest will accomplish what he chooses.
Christ will build his church. That's what it says in the Bible. Not as long as I'm there working. His sheep will hear his voice. His gospel will be preached among the nations. A people from every tribe, language, people, and nation will worship before his throne. The triumph of the mission does not rest upon the strength of man. It rests upon the promises of Christ.
And God has chosen to accomplish his purpose through the proclamation of his word. And he sends laborers to do this.
You should know his word.
You see the problem here? If the harvest is plentiful, if in our world we see sheep without a shepherd and if in our culture is filled with people who are biblically illiterate, who don't hold the biblical worldview, the young generation, xers and such and zers and xers, and they just started naming them the last of the alphabet. 1% of them in the church have a biblical worldview.
And if the harvest is still huge and the gospel is the answer and young people don't know the gospel, we should be praying like never before.
That God would send laborers in the harvest. True gospel labors are not self-appointed celebrities contrary to what you might feel today. They are servants sent by the Lord. I'm almost done. They do not preach themsel.
They preach Christ. They do not seek applause. They seek obedience. They do not measure success by crowds.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 49:29
They measure faithfulness by the preaching of the word of God.
They do not soften the message to protect their reputation or to make people love them. They proclaim the truth because eternity is at stake, not their popularity.
The church does not need more entertainers. The church does not need more religious businessmen. The church does not need more men who use the pulpit to build their personal kingdom and pad their pocket. The church needs laborers who tremble before God, who love Christ, who believe the Scripture, who mourn over the lost and preach the gospel without compromise. The field is not ours. It is his harvest.
The laborers are not free to invent their own message. They have been sent by the king. I'm closing. The church does not have the authority to redefine sin. The church does not have the authority to remove repentance.
The church does not have the authority to offer Christ as an accessory to an unchanged life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:43
This message of the harvest belong to God. The mission belongs to God.
The harvest belongs to God.
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44:50
33:29
53:32