Well, last week we started off a series that Katie and I, we shared just God's heart that we feel like has been deposited into ours for this future space, this base that we felt called to many years ago, over a decade ago, the Lord gave us this idea of building a base in the Twin Cities, a missions base in the Twin Cities. And so we shared the core of the base vision, which is a house of prayer. And if you did not hear last week's message and you're part of the community, you must listen to last week's message, okay? You will most likely be confused when everything starts getting rolled out six months from now, you might be confused of what are we doing?
And what exactly is this if you don't listen to last week's message? Very important. Even if you've been around for a long time, we just feel like the Lord is calling us to unify in this moment, so that we're all on the same page of this is what we're building together. As I'm making sacrifice and Katie and I are planning for what we're going to give, I actually want to know, as I'm preparing to give financially on June 11th, big gift Sunday, so that kid's color run is the day before, big gift Sunday.
And I just can't wait for our kids to come in and share the number that they raised, you know, and contribute in that moment. It's going to be such a fun celebration. But when that day is happening and that time where we go as a household, we decide what we're going to give to this. We want you to feel like you understand what you're giving to and what we're going after as a community.
And so that's what we're doing over these next couple weeks. And of course, my answer questions in the living room is we're gathering together and celebrating. So last week I preached a message with Katie called for God that we are building the base in the Twin Cities for God. And this week my message is called for the lost.
For the lost. You can turn in your Bibles to Matthew 9. Matthew 9. I want to start in verse 35.
Matthew 9 verse 35 that says this. When Jesus went throughout all the cities, all the suburbs, all the villages, and He was teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel, the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven. He was healing every disease, every affliction. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
And these 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. Just picture Jesus, He's going from town to town, village to village. He's looking at all the crowds of people.
And it reminds me of something that came up this week. I learned about our property that we're going to be moving into in Roseville. And I learned that there's 150,000 cars that drive past the property every single day. We're going to have a sanctuary that's going to seat 700.
I'm serious, yeah, 700. But as I think about Jesus looking at our city, looking at the 3.6 million that live in the greater metropolitan area that we call the Twin Cities, I wonder if Jesus has the same perspective that He had when He was looking at all these villages and towns in Israel. If He was looking at the thousands and maybe the millions and He's going, look at all of the sheep without shepherds. You know, the thing about sheep is that they're really sitting ducks.
They're helpless. Just like the Bible says, they're helpless to any predator. They can't defend themselves. There's nothing about a sheep that creates a defense.
They can go for it. I mean, they are in herds, but they get isolated and they're just sitting ducks for the enemy. And when I think about our city, I think about all of the individuals that are sheeps in the spirit that don't have hope, that are oppressed by the demonic, that are depressed, that are fully locked in anxiety and shame and bitterness, unforgiveness, demonized, caught in addiction, caught in cycles of lies, unhealthy relationship to the next unhealthy relationship, trying to just get by and find hope. And all they are is helpless sheep that are looking for a shepherd.
And as I look at our city, I see the Lord's heart of compassion. Because he knows every single person that's in that car that's going to drive past our future space. He knows every single person behind the wheel as there's people on the highways and the byways of the Twin Cities. And he knows every detail about their lives and he's full of compassion, full of love, full of zeal for them.
And Jesus, in that passage, as he's talking about sheep without a shepherd, he says that there's a remedy, there's a solution for the problem of all of the sheep without a shepherd. If I look at our city and I go, let's say 50% of our city loves Jesus, which I don't think it's, I mean, that's very generous. I don't think 50% love Jesus. But let's say 50% love Jesus.
Let's say there's 1.8 million in the Twin Cities that don't know Jesus, don't love the Lord. When I think about that, Jesus, he's going, there's only one solution and one strategy to reach the 1.8 billion. Jesus lays it out right here and he goes, this is the way. What you do is you start praying and you start praying that there'd be shepherds and laborers that would go into the field.
That's the, that's step number one is God, you look up. You look up to the Lord and go, Lord of the harvest. Lord of, Lord of the sheep. Good shepherd and you look up and then what happens as you look up, you get his heart just like Ben was talking about and then you start looking up and you start seeing people.
And he says, if you pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest field and then you begin to realize that I am the shepherd, that we are all the shepherds, that we are all the everyday shepherds, all of the everyday reverence that are supposed to be in the fields. That, listen, most of the body of Christ is not in full-time ministry, is that right? There's 3% of the body of Christ that's in full-time ministry. 3%, can you imagine being a football team and being like, you know, we have 11 guys, but we only want to play with our running back?
We think that's going to be a good idea. Hey, why don't you go out, we'll sit on the bench, all 10 of us, you go out and you play in the game. We're all going to sit on the bench. Can you imagine how many wins?
There wouldn't be very many wins. And yet the body of Christ has delegated the great commission, the destiny of our lives, the purpose of why we exist, the call on our lives, we've delegated it to 3% of the body of Christ that get paychecks for doing ministry. We're going, you do the work of ministry and we'll just watch you. We'll sit on the bench, I'm telling you this, Jesus is going, unless we all get activated, all 100%, it's not going to work.
The Lord is going, I want you to all pray and I want you all to be laborers, but the mentality is, well the harvest is not ripe, like deep inside most of us are like, people don't really want God. And the Lord is going, no the harvest is plentiful, the harvest is ripe, it's ready, the only problem is there's not very many laborers. And most of the American church is going, wait me, I'm not pastor. How many times have I said that?
Have you said that? It's like, I'm not pastor. I didn't go to Bible school and we've disqualified ourselves and actually sat into spectator mode so much that most of the body of Christ is bored because we've got this cozy culture and it's just like cruise ship. It's just like, man, there's so many amenities and that was a great message.
We like show up a little bit early so that we can get the seat that we always sit in, you know, by the pool and what's happening is most of our Christ doesn't even want to look over the edge, over the railing to look inside or look out and see the ocean and see that there's 1.8 billion drowning looking for hope lost in depression. Lost in suicidal thoughts and they're lost looking for a shepherd helpless and they're drowning and we're like, wow, man, I thought the chicken at the buffet was going to be better than that. Going about our business so cozy and comfortable and when we do look over the edge, we just feel so overwhelmed by the need that we try to close our ears to it and just move on. The Lord's going, I'm calling all of you, calling all of you to get off the cruise ship of Western Christianity.
I'm calling you in to following Jesus Christianity. And when you follow Jesus, what does he do? He calls his disciples and he goes, hey, you are all to be fishers of men. You are all meant to be on lifeboats.
You are all meant to be in the fishermen boats, fishing boats. You're all supposed to be out on the water. You're all supposed to be, but then this is the problem that we hit up against. We feel overwhelmed.
Don't you just feel overwhelmed like I don't know how to do it? Like, how do I evangelize? How do I preach the gospel? And then we think about the people that preach the gospel on the street corners.
I'm like, that's not me. You know, like, I don't want to do the hold up the sign thing and accuse people. And then you're like, I'm not the guy that was in high school wanting to climb up on the lunch table and preach. You know, or like, I don't want to be a Mormon that goes to the front door and just knocks on doors and you know, it's like, that doesn't feel like me.
Are you with me? Yeah. And so we feel overwhelmed by that. And then because there's so many other things happening in our lives are so busy.
We just kind of like let life happen. And in 2012, I was in prayer and just really out of nowhere. It's November 1st, 2012 out of nowhere. The Lord began to speak to me about demystifying evangelism.
And he said the key to demystifying evangelism is to make it about sewing seeds. That's what he said to me. The key to demystifying evangelism is to make it about seeds. Because most of the time when we feel like when we share the good news of Jesus with somebody and every life, we'd get enough courage.
If we get enough, like, man, God said I have to now. My heart was beating so hard and I didn't want to do it. But then I stepped out. And then by the time you stepped out, you think, well, they didn't give their life to Jesus.
What the heck was that? You know, you feel like a failure? The Lord's going, scratch all of that. Make it about little seeds.
Seeds are like ideas and truths about who God is and what his heart is and what the gospel is. And as you sow those by opening up your mouth, you know, it's like this lie that we only do it through our actions. We never open up. No, you have to give language to what God has actually done in your life.
What his heart is, you got to open up your mouth and articulate it. And what happens is if we have the mentality of, I'm just sowing seeds, what's going to happen? There's a song that says this. We go out sowing and we come back having reaped.
I believe there's surprises coming to us where we go out and we're just like, I was just sowing to see. And all of a sudden the harvest was ripe. Wait, what? You mean, you want God?
Have you ever had that moment? I've had that moment before where I'm like sharing the good news and they're like, I want God. And you're like, are you sure? What?
Wait, wait, wait, what? You know, we get so used to people wanting to reject the gospel that when somebody wants to give their life to Jesus, it's like, are you sure? You know, turning the bottles of Mark 4. I want to continue with this.
Romans 10, while you turn to Mark 4, Romans 10 talks about how if no one sends the messengers, then no one will hear the good news. And as a community, we feel the conviction and the call to actually send everyday believers into the fields. That passage that we just read in Matthew 9 when Jesus says, hey, pray that the Lord would send laborers into the fields. That word sin is actually the word ekabolo, which means cast out.
It's the same word that's used for casting out demons. It's the same word that Jesus is saying, pray that God would cast Christians out into the fields to care for the sheep and reveal Jesus to the sheep. That is our call as a ministry is to cast you out into the fields. Cast you out of comfort, cast you out of just being self-focused, and navel-gazing, and consuming, and being a spectator.
Cast you out of that mentality and into love. Into loving the lost, loving our city, loving those that are oppressed, loving the orphan, loving the widow. You are called to get out of the church and be sent out of the church. Romans 10, hey, somebody has to send these messengers.
And we feel this call of you can gather and then you go. You gather and then you get sent. And so that's why every single service, I say, we're going to commission you. Why are we going to commission you?
Because you're supposed to fulfill the great commission. Because that's why you're here. To love God, to be loved, and then be commissioned out into making disciples of every nation, every tribe, every time. So this is when we gather, we gather to actually get provoked to love in good works as laborers in the fields.
Mark 4, the Lord goes, hey, the key is actually making, sharing the good news of Jesus about seeds. Look at Mark 4, the whole chapter is all about seeds. Jesus just lines up these parables about seeds. In verse 26 he says, he said, the kingdom of heaven is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.
He sleeps and he rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows. He doesn't even know how. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain and the ear. But when the grain is ripe at once, he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.
Jesus is painting this picture, he's going, what if it was about seeds? What if you just sow them? Can you imagine if the, some, let's say it's, let's say it's half, let's say it's 500,000 Christians out of the 3.6 million in our city. Let's say 500,000 love Jesus.
Can you imagine even 5,000 sowing seeds everywhere they go? Can you imagine the impact of that? Can you imagine the number of people that would go, wait a second, somebody just talked about Jesus to me last week? What's God doing in my life?
Ha ha. Wait, what did you say? Yeah, I said that God sees you and he knows you and he loves you. There's a girl that just came in here yesterday.
He said the same exact thing to me. Then Holy Spirit starts irritating them with his love. You know, Holy Spirit, the hound of heaven. Ooh, blood in the water.
Jesus on the move in our city. Just 5,000 of them. Just 5,000 activated to be love on feet. I want to, let's all stand.
I want to do an activity. I love activities. All right. If you're an out of towner, this doesn't count for you, okay?
If you're an out of towner, you can sit down in the first group, okay? But I want you to sit down if it took you less than 10 minutes to get to everyday today. 10 minutes, sit down if it took you less than 10 minutes. Wow, just horrible people that have that much kidding.
No, I'm just kidding. We're all jealous. Okay, now sit down if it took you less than 20 minutes to get to the Wake Indian services today. Sit down if it took you less than 30 minutes to get to service.
If it took you less than 45 minutes, whoa. Come on. Less than an hour. Whoa.
Come on. Okay. Where are you left? Winona.
Come on. How far? How far is Winona? Two and a half hours.
Oh my goodness. Wow. Jenny, how far away are you? An hour and 25 minutes.
Come on. Listen. I want you to pause and think when we just reflect on our future space, it's going to be in one place, one building. But you, you go everywhere.
You go everywhere. There's people everywhere you go. Isn't that crazy? That's wild.
If we put a heat map of where everybody lives from this community in the Twin Cities, we've done this before with a census, it's literally a splattering everywhere of an hour, 45 minutes in every direction. Listen. God has your neighborhood in mind. God has your workplace in mind.
The reason why you're going to a place in Minnetonka and a place in North Minneapolis and a place in Eden Prairie and a place in Hugo is because God has a heart for Hugo. God has his eyes on that, that barista and that manager and that middle manager and that teacher and that classmate. God has a passion for them. And they will never know me.
And they're never going to come to our church probably. Maybe. But they're going to know you. They're going to know that every day shepherd that has converged with their longitude and latitude because God loves them.
And it's about sowing seeds. We don't have to make it so complicated. But God is calling us into his compassion to look up. He's walking out of self-focus and into looking up into the trees like Jesus is walking and he looks up and he sees the key in the tree, in the Sycamore tree.
And it says in the word that Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. And I believe all throughout our city. There's people that want to see him. They're hungry for God.
They're hungry to know God, the real relationship with a real God. And for far too long the religious has been saying, shh, shh. The religious have stood a little too tall rather than getting low. And the Lord's going, go low.
Don't be afraid to sow seed. It's about seeds. In that 2012 moment where the Lord said, make it about seeds. Five years to the day.
So November 1st, 2012, the Lord says, make it about sowing seeds. Five years later, the exact same day, November 1st, 2017, I'm on the way driving our kids to school and harvest Gideon, our son Harvey, out of nowhere goes, Dad, I feel like God is saying that you're to be like Johnny Appleseed. Out of nowhere. Five years later to the day, I feel like you're supposed to be like Johnny Appleseed.
And listen, God's saying it over us. You're to be like Johnny. I always say this. You're to be like Jenny and Johnny Appleseed, right?
Well, after that happened, I was just so blown away with God's leadership. And I started looking for images on Google Images for Johnny Appleseed. And they're just the lamest images. Okay?
But there was one that stuck out to me. And I want to put it up on the screen. This is a picture of Johnny. Let's go.
I love this picture. I love it. This picture has so much going on. I want to walk us through this picture.
This is so great. Jesus, he's going, hey. Jesus, he goes, hey, make it about sowing seeds. And I mean, many of you think about Johnny Appleseed.
When we're talking about seeds, you've got to think about Johnny Appleseed. Why not? All right. And I love this picture because Johnny has his eyes up.
Do you see that? And it's almost like he's like basking in the sun. Or it's just like he's got his eyes up. I just picture us being like Johnny looking up at God, right?
And he has this joy about him. I don't want to get old and have a cold heart. I don't want to get hard in and bitter because of all the wrongs done to me. I want a soft heart full of joy and love.
And I just look at his face and it just feels like joyful love. And then he's got, he's on the move. Do you see that? He's like, go in somewhere.
And you are all going somewhere in everyday life. You're all going about your business and on the way. There's seeds sowing. It's happening.
Look at him barefoot. Beautiful feet. Just like Romans 10. You're all meant to have beautiful feet as messengers of the gospel.
Okay. The last thing, I love that knapsack of seeds. Come on. Look at the two things I want to point out is look at the color of the field that he's in.
White, right. The harvest is plentiful. The harvest is ripe. And then the sun is in the background and the sun is rising because it's a new day.
It's a new day for American Christianity. It's a new day for the Western church. It's a new day because we're all stepping in to our identity as messengers. And many of you are going, I'm not an evangelist.
I'm saying, yes, you are. You are. I'm more of an introvert. You're an evangelist.
I don't like preaching. That's fine. You're love on feet. When we're talking about being a messenger, I'm not talking about preaching messages.
I'm not talking about having a microphone in your hand. I'm talking about sowing seeds of listening to people. I'm talking about being a wonderful counselor with no credentials. And loving people well, being a safe place and speaking the heart of God.
I'm talking the heart of God over people through scriptures. And you can say, actually in the Bible says this, I believe God wants to do this in your life. I believe God's heart for you is this. Seeds everywhere.
You don't have to preach. Do you know that most people just don't want to be preached at? So it's good that you don't want to preach. People don't like preaching.
Some of you like preaching, but most people don't like preaching, especially if they're not in the church. They don't like preaching. So this is all perfect for you. This is amazing.
You're like, wow. Okay. Who is love on feet? You are.
You are to become love like Jesus and ravine. You are to become like Jesus and reveal his love everywhere you go. 2 Corinthians 5 talks about you being an ambassador, you being a representative, making an appeal to the world for who God is. You showing up on time for work and being a person of character is actually revealing God.
The kingdom is advancing and it's advancing forcefully. And I'm not saying that it's not going to happen through services or events. I've talked about that before. It's like it's not primarily about events or church services.
I believe that the 1.8 million are not going to come to Jesus in our city, primarily through events. And it's primarily not going to come through revival hitting the church. We need to know that. Revival services is not going to save the 1.8, but the people of God activated and awaken that go everywhere throughout our city and our rubbing shoulders with our whole city.
That's how revival happens. That's how the dead are raised. The spiritually dead are raised. That's what revival is.
Awakening is the church waking up. And we need awakening. I want to be awakened. And we need revival.
We need the lost saved. But the key isn't revival and a long church services and worship services. It's not even a service going for 2 hours or 10 hours or 50 hours or 300 hours. It's about us carrying his heart, carrying his love going everywhere.
The King of advances through people like Marla, who does hair in Frogtown. I don't know what it is about women's hair, but it takes forever to be women's hair. I don't know if you know this. If you're a guy, you might not know this yet.
If you're not married, but if you're married, you know this. It takes, whether it's straight hair or textured hair, it just takes a long time. But you've got Marla and she's sitting with all of her clients for 4 hours. She's doing their hair.
That's how the King of advances. Because that woman starts talking to her and she starts listening and then she starts speaking identity over them. And they just keep on coming back every couple months. What's going on in your life?
Those, that's how the King of advances. The King of advances through people like Jason Olten at Metronic. And all the sudden he just writes a scripture on his whiteboard. And then a year later, all the sun, someone brings him out of the building and says, Hey, I want to give my life to Jesus.
It's like Genesah at Cargill. It's like Nick in the story where he sees a high school friend. And the high school friend that he hasn't seen in like 4 or 5 years, he sees him and goes, Hey, you want to go to coffee? And Nick shares his story of what he used to live in and what God's doing right now.
And all of a sudden he just, this young man gives his life to Jesus, gets set free from addiction, goes to Team Challenge. And is now leading people in a relationship with Jesus everywhere he goes. And it's because Nick went to Mount View High School. And he was willing to be on the pursuit.
Do you know what happens in Mark 4 after Jesus shares these parables? He goes to the other side of the sea. He says, we're going to go to the other side. Because Jesus knows who is over on the other side, the demonized man.
And Jesus is in this fishing boat and the storm comes because everything in the enemy's power is going to get thrown at the people of God as they go after the one. And as Jesus is sleeping fully at peace, fully at rest, he gets up and the rest and the peace that's on the inside of him gets released on the storm. And he says, be still. And he gets to the other side and it says immediately.
The demonized man runs the stand. Jesus lifted his eyes. He looked up. He saw the man on the other side.
He saw the people in the trees. He saw the people in their cars of our city. He said, I'm going after the one. You don't have to save the whole 1.8 billion or million.
You don't have to go after all 100,000 of people in your city. You go after the one. You love the one. And you go to the other side and God is calling you as an everyday reverend, an everyday believer, an everyday messenger.
You are to be an everyday shepherd. And our call is to not just build a bigger church, but it's to build people that get cast out of the church building and go into the fields. Empower to be sent. Sure, many will be added to our number, but the purpose is to send them out, to be a sending and receiving base.
God's calling us to build that as a whole community, to activate the bride into a destiny of being on a mission together with her group, a co-mission, to disciple everyone, to disciple the Christian and the non-Christian. God's calling us to do it. Let's all stand. Like Jesus, you are anointed to preach the gospel to the poor.
If you want to close your eyes, you can just put out your hands to receive. I just want to speak identity over you, destiny over you as a people. The Spirit of the Lord is on you. It's like a look for it.
He's anointed you to preach the gospel to the underprivileged. He has sent you to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to the captives, to open the eyes of the blind. It's for freedom. It's for their freedom that you've been set free.
It's for their healing that you've been healed. We are to look up as a people, to see the zakias in the trees. It's a new day. I believe that God is ending spectator Christianity and that God is raising up men and women like Jeremiah.
And say, here I am. Like I say, here I am. Send me. He's raising up a people like the Moravians that would pray day and night and then say, Lord, it's for the land that was slain that he would receive the reward of his suffering.
Driven by the worthiness of Jesus. The Lord is saying that there's no one on the bench. Everybody's a starter. Everybody's in the game.
Everybody gets playing time. Everybody gets to be in the field. We need the whole body. The great commission is a whole body commission.
It's a team sport commission. It's not just for the mouthpiece. It's for the hands, the feet, the dishonorable and honorable parts. God's calling us the sons and daughters to get connected to the father of the harvest, the father of the fields.
You're always meant to be a Marian mission. You're always meant to have the pews be the launch pad into your destiny. You're always meant to be everyday reverence, not to wait for the person behind the pulpit to do the work of ministry, but to experience the joy of being a sent one. The joy of going to the other side, going after the one.
You're the chosen saint. Your destiny is to go out sewing seeds and to come back, having reaped with joy in your heart. This is who you are. The answer is that more churches or bigger churches.
The answer is more giddians like you, messengers like you. The hope of our city is believers like you walking with God, abiding in God. You are the keys to ending spectator Christianity. You're always destined to have your hands putting seeds into the dirt, not afraid of the mess.
He's calling all the genies and the Johnny Apples seeds, ones that listen and obey. God's raising up martyrs of love and MSP, those who have counted the cost and died to the fear of man like Mary. Let's push back all the all for the sake of love. God's considering the threats of the enemy in our hour into the fields we go, like the Moravians that were driven by the worthiness of the land full of compassion.
Shepherds that see the sheep. It's our beautiful feet that are to walk the streets. Lord, open our eyes to see the zikiasis. Open our eyes as your people.
Open the eyes of the church with the twin cities. Awaken us. We want to know your heart. We want your heart of compassion.
Just like on Mother's Day, here we are, 2023. One of the trademarks of moms all around the world is their compassion. A reflection of Jesus, your compassion. Lord, we want to be a people that doesn't point the finger at the world in our city, but the seas are seen through the lens of your heart of compassion.
Lord, give me a heart of compassion. I want to carry your heart. Lord, we say that we're going to build this for you. We're going to build it for the lost.
We want them to know you. We know you and we love you. You're my all. You're the best.
You're my joy. You've made me the righteousness of God and Christ Jesus. And we love you. I love you.
And I want them to know you. Lord, I just commission out these sons and daughters. Lord, I thank You that You've called them into the great call of making You known in our city. It's the little things.
It's the little seeds. It's the little acts of obedience that change history. We call them forth in Jesus name. And everybody said amen.