Matthew 9:35-38 The Harvest is Plentiful

Recast Church Missionaries and Ministry Update

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan. If you'd like more information on Recast Church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch .com.

All right, so.

We are excited this morning to have some guests with us and we have some missionaries John and Johnny McGinnis and in 2011 they went to Costa Rica with a ministry called Tactica and some of you that have been with Recast for a while have seen.

Probably seen them before they were with Bree and Church, and we have some connections through that Connection and they've been doing awesome work down there, and then just recently they Transitioned away from Tactica to a different role with ABWE.

They're sending agency and as They will explain it's given them new opportunities to connect with even more pastors in Costa Rica. And they are doing just some awesome work down there. They and their whole family and They got four beautiful kids they got Katie and Megan and Lindy and JD.

What's up, JD? Fist bump dude. Boom right there, so just a beautiful family, and we're really excited to have them share with us this morning so John come on up and.

John there we go. I Think we're on now all right. Good. I keep this light keeps flickering, but I got it. We're good here. Well. Good morning.

Wow.

Have you guys changed? For the better. I mean for good you look great. I'm like Don showing me every all the you might recognize my kid you recognize. All your guys's kids, and I don't recognize any of them.

They're all three years. Makes a big difference. When you're 10 11 12 13 14 years old it just changes drastically. It's incredible. We want to share briefly for the first 10 minutes or so here about the ministry and what God's been God's been doing.

Our mission our mission. Go ahead and hit the slide there. Hopefully our mission is to identify train resource and release church leaders in Costa Rica to fulfill their purpose to reach every man woman and child with the gospel and.

As we think through what our ministry is what our vision is is to see a bunch of churches hundreds of churches throughout Costa Rica unified around that same mission and that that mission is is experienced or realized when we see churches and pastors Who have mobilized their members in their church to do ministry to live a life of ministry?

And and that's our passion as was said in 2011 this month, October 2011 we moved down to down to Costa Rica. Do the next slide. There we go.

In Psalm 34 3 it says Oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. And that's what you want to do this morning. We're going to magnify the Lord for the last three years because he's done Incredibly exceedingly beyond what we could ask or imagine so please in the next 10 minutes that we have just magnify the Lord with us As you get to see what he has equipped us to do through his power alone and empowered us to do.

So we went down to Costa Rica and the first year was language school. And let me tell you that is humbling experience when you are unable to communicate with people that you desire so desperately to communicate with and After a year, you're still not able to communicate as effectively as you have desired to communicate.

It's a humbling experience and that's kind of what we experienced that first year as we're trying to build relationships and make connections and all those good things that you do because you love people and You're unable to do that in your own strength and ability and but God is able to do Above what we can ask or imagine and he allowed those connections to happen in and through his strength.

At the same time that we were going to language school. My children went to The international kids school that was there called sojourn and the neat thing about that is it's connected the language school is at the top of the hill and the kids went to school at the bottom of the hill and that's Awesome and awful at the same time because the first three months as I was listening and trying to do my language school I could hear my son Screaming as he's trying to adjust to school all in Spanish and that was hard for my mommy heart because I just wanted to go in and rescue and I couldn't and that was hard because you had to allow God to be the equipper of what he needed to be and train in the transition as well, so.

We always joke about between the two of us, I think we make a good Spanish speaker. I have no fear to speak whatsoever. I actually I enjoy it. I love it. We can talk about anything any topic doesn't matter.

It's English or Spanish, but my wife is always whispering my ear the correct way to say it. Because I I just I just go at it and if I don't know the word I'll just draw you a nice little picture until you come up with whatever that word is and.

But language school was a it was a challenge. It really drew out a lot of the Of who we really are which sometimes tends to be an ugly picture in that process. As we said you can do the next slide as we said we went down.

Originally with tactic of ministries, which is an acronym teaching authorities Christian truth and Central America. Tactica has a mother organization a BWE Association of Baptists for World Evangelism and Under the umbrella of Tactica we got to do a lot of unique and interesting things on the mission field.

We got to do a lot of police and tactical courses, which was a lot of fun. We I got certified or I'm certified in executive protection. So I was able to teach executive protection to believe it or not to the president's Secret Service in Costa Rica.

Which says something about Latin America and Costa Rica when John McGinnis who's only been in the Army National Guard But yet got certified in executive protection is now teaching. I mean one of my friends is the driver for the vice president of the country and The guys that actually protect the president and the guys that we trained.

It's it's a unique opportunity That God opened up for us in that process. We were able to train them tactical training. Use that as a platform to share the gospel. We of course share the gospel while we taught as well as the cops that would come down and work.

We're Christian cops from the states that worked in there. We taught a course on Riot control we had the Central American games down in Costa Rica and we had a almost 200 officers part of a whole riot control course that we taught.

I got certified in a Defensive tactics system called Krav Maga. It's Israeli Self-defense system and I was able to train and teach some of that while I was down there. But one of the I would say most beneficial or most enjoyable for me was The January after I graduated we did a canine course with the which included the Red Cross as you see right here the Red Cross search and rescue team as well as Firemen their search and rescue teams and then a handful of police officers.

We were given a donation of a dog German Shepherd that was a police certified and She she lived with us for almost three years. We actually sadly enough had to put her down right before we came home. She had cancer and so we had to make a tough decision right before we moved home.

But have been donated another dog, which we're picking up on Wednesday a Labrador That's been given to us that will be training with the Red Cross Search and rescue team when we're down there as well next slide as we Walking out of that search and rescue course.

There's a guy by the name of Carlos Carlos Velasquez, and he's a good friend of mine and Carlos came to Christ during that police course during that that search and rescue course and We not knowing at the time his girlfriend Andrea was soon to be his wife and Having met Andrea and Carlos during that course we had no idea what friendship would develop and over the course of a year and a half we I mentored and Discipled Carlos about once every week every week for about a year and a half and we saw this guy begin to Blossom in his spiritual walk like all of us.

He had good days, and he had bad days and good weeks and bad weeks. But to see him steadily grow in his faith To the point to where he and Andrea got married and they asked us to be what's called their padrinos.

It's kind of like Godfather or godmother and the way they have it in Latin culture is is it's it's not over a baby it's over their marriage and Because Carlos was led to Christ through our ministry because I discipled Carlos.

They asked to be their godparents over the spiritual aspects of their life, which is a great a wonderful privilege and to this very day we still continue to get calls from them and Help them out in their spiritual walk.

Next slide, please.

One of my main areas of ministry is hospitality. We can have anywhere from Three people to fifty three people at our table for a meal, which is fantastic. I Love hosting people. I love the opportunity to serve people in that capacity.

So God has allowed us to have all types of people in our home from Tico's which is a Costa Rican person to other missionary families to retired missionaries to People that are actually our bosses from our organization.

So just opportunity as we open up our doors to be able to have a bunch of people come in under our Roof and be able to show them the love of Christ in that way and that's fantastic. I love it.

Here's here's a formal invitation if you're ever in Costa Rica, we are in San Jose. You'll fly into San Jose when you fly into Costa Rica almost always. Stop in give us a call. Shoot us an email. Let us know you're coming down.

Our door is open. It actually it's kind of nice because you would speak English so it's even easier for us. But um, but I would encourage you if you are down in Costa Rica ever give us a call. It's a country the size of West Virginia, so it's not that big of a country.

We probably could be able to hook up somewhere during that time as well as was said earlier there was a transition that happened about a almost a year ago now in our ministry in January and. The reason why we went down with Tactica and the reason why we went down to Costa Rica was to connect with with churches and pastors.

And the issue was cops when they come to Christ and these rougher crowd. They're not readily accepted into these churches and they're a suspect. They don't like them and they're kind of this third-class Citizen they don't they don't pay attention to them.

They don't like them. Part of what we were doing was to connect with these pastors to help bridge that gap and In January or actually in December we kind of came to the realization that we weren't doing that yet.

We were so busy doing these courses and stuff which are wonderful and we love them guys are getting saved and all this discipleship time. Which is awesome but we were also beginning to feel a little burnt out because we weren't working within our specific giftedness and skill sets and As we step back and we reflected on it.

We realized we've yet to really start to do what we went down to do. So with much discussion with our Sending Church pastor regional administrators Ryan and Gretchen Rott our teammates down in Costa Rica.

We decided to step out from under the umbrella the specific umbrella of Tactica stay under the umbrella of ABWE and focus on Churches focus on the connections that we can make with pastors which will help benefit these guys as we make more and more connections next next slide, please.

Our ministry has developed now since January into two main areas and they're pretty broad areas the city and the country. All right, and I'm gonna talk about the city for briefly here. And then during the sermon I'll talk a little bit about the ministry in the country but in the city, I got connected with a group of men the group is called pescadores de hombres, which is fishers of men and In January, I met with this group and this is actually we're heading towards Limon Providence it's a relatively dangerous area in Costa Rica and we were over there and I met some of these guys.

Just a unique ministry to have with these men. Pastors and and people in ministry sometimes tend to be the the loneliest most frustrated people. Okay, and I say this because we've been in ministry. We were I was a pastor for 11 years before doing ministry and It's just a lonely ministry and I found out that didn't change once you moved to a different country.

I Drove on this this trip up here to actually Esteban is the guy with the crutches there. You can barely see him corner there. We're driving up to Esteban's house and I had about two hours in the cars in the car with them and all these guys.

They were in a big van and I said guys If if if if a missionary came to you and he was a blank slate he said what is it that you want? What what would you say and I'm expecting to hear what we could use help building this building we could help with this we need.

This project we need all of them said. We just need love. We'd like we'd like a missionary or someone to come in and love on our family to love on our kids. To to really just pour into to us because we don't have that with anybody.

Which is exactly as pastors we see we it's just a very lonely ministry. So in the city. One of the main ministries that God has opened up for us is just that loving on these pastors. We have them in our home.

We we could tell you stories enough time. About meals that we have with them and some of them were very unique meals these breakfasts that we had. Costa Ricans don't eat sweets for breakfast. So they did not like the waffles with strawberries and all that stuff.

They did like the biscuits and gravy. They don't have that in Costa Rica and they were enamored by that. I couldn't believe that. Wonderful salsa blanca this white gravy stuff they just. Yeah, they loved it to to playing Phase 10 or playing Dutch Blitz at our table with another missionary or with another pastor.

The other ministry that we have these pastors in the city is connecting. Always connecting churches here in the States with these churches down there to be an encouragement to them. Example of that is we had our church team come down from Berean Baptist Church.

They came down to a did a 10-day missions trip with the man in the center with the green kind of plaid and wearing a hat his name is Marco Chavarria and. They did a whole missions trip with those guys and just an incredible blessing that churches in the states that we can be.

To these Costa Rican pastors you can hit the next slide and I'm gonna wrap it up here real quick. I'll talk more a little bit a little bit later about a guard though a guard this guy there with his thumb up.

That was actually on a trip that we took into the mountains and God has just opened an incredible Ministry into the mountains of Costa Rica into an area the Chiripo Mountain, which is the highest mountain.

It's about twelve thousand four hundred feet. With incredible opportunities for us to go in there and do ministry, which I'm gonna share with a little bit later. But that is going to be I would say fifty to sixty percent of our ministry.

It's working out in the countries with these guys. I just wanted to as we wrap this up here and and give you guys an opportunity to interact. Thank you for The opportunity to be your hands and feet in Costa Rica.

We want to thank you for the opportunity to represent you guys as a church and. The support that you give us not just in finances, but through prayer through emails. We we love it and we need it. Please continue to pray for us back on our little display thing in the corner there you can see.

We have.

We went from prayer cards to bookmarks. I think a little more practical. We'll kind of put them in your Bibles or you can they hang on the fridge just like everything else does so you can. I would encourage you to get one of them and Please be praying for us.

There's also an email sign up sheet back there. We send out an email every month. Please sign up back there. If you're not on that list, we'd love to Make sure that you're getting that information Also on Facebook.

We're there. It's real tricky. It's John slash Johnny McGinnis. Just look for us. I believe it's on the. It's on the card as well in the back look for us on Facebook. Just let us know who you are as you send a request that'd be helpful because we get a lot of requests from a lot Of people but I appreciate you guys and we really thank you for the opportunity to serve the Lord in Costa Rica.

And to be your hands and feet there, let me uh, let me jump on a soapbox here for one second before I get started. I.

Hope.

You don't take this for granted. If I do cry, this is the time when it's gonna happen. Just so you know I hope you don't take it for granted. Coming to church on Sunday coming together worshiping God serving God together.

One thing we have noticed being being missionaries. We miss this. Now we do that in Costa Rica. We do it in Spanish, but our first two years or a year when we're learning Spanish and then a year as we're adjusting.

That's just it's just hard. It's hard to go to church when you don't understand 90 of what is being said or sung about and your kids understand none of it. And that's a hard hard transition to go through three years later.

You know, we're getting it we get the messages. We're getting we're understanding. We're being challenged by God's Word the message I'll talk a little bit later today is actually a message that was preached to me.

In Spanish, so you're getting my John McGinnis translation of the Spanish. We're getting challenged in the language and by God's Word, which is great. But too often as Americans we go to church because we have to go to church we should go to church.

It's the good thing to do. I want my kids to understand, you know God's stuff. And we do it because you know, we sing these songs and yeah, they're great. But you know, I really like that song. It was too slow or the songs too fast, or I don't we always have these worship battles and fights and you know what?

It's not about us. It's not about our preferences. It's not about our styles. It's not about any of that. It is all about God. And we take it for granted and we feel that church is all about me. And I'll tell you as a family that doesn't get this regularly we miss it.

It's my challenge as I step off my soapbox. Don't take it for granted. Couple questions. What is your mission in life? What is your mission in life? Several years back Stephen Covey was really popular Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and he's still pretty popular now.

But really popular back several years in the night in late 90s. And it was all about making writing a mission statement for your family writing a mission statement for your life. What is Your mission in life, why are you here?

Why are you here today at church? Why are you here in Matawan? For us why why are we in Costa Rica when we're there? Why are you here on planet earth? What is the reason? What is the purpose? How do you spend? your time.

What consumes your life and what you do many of us? And we would probably be there too had we been living here. A lot of that is a kids sports and kids activities and things that are going on in school.

What consumes your time? What does God? want you to do. You can turn your Bibles over to Matthew 9. Let me tell you a little introduction here to this message. Several months ago my wife and I were getting ready for church and I'd hit this.

I hit I hit the stage in my life in the ministry. Where I was pretty vanilla. If you know what I mean, just pretty. That was about it that's the best way to say that, you know, I'm Christian life is a bit of a roller coaster.

Sometimes they're yeah, you had these great highs you go to camp. You do something you have great highs and sometimes we had these low valleys. I wasn't in a high. I wasn't in a valley. I was kind of in that just kind of plodding going on and doing life and This is take it, you know, I'm in Costa Rica this I'm a missionary.

We should be living up here most the time we think. But that's not truth. And we're just like what is it we're doing. Well, why are we here? We're tired. We were missing home. I mean I was we were we have our moments of homesickness where it just kills you.

Missing family missing friends love the Spanish language guys. I fought for three years to learn the Spanish language and it's still a fight. I love it, but I hate it. All right. I mean so one morning Sunday morning.

We get ready to go to church and I'm like, I'm writing in my journal and talking to God in my journal. I said God Please don't let Pastor Oscar preach. You got to know Pastor Oscar. He is a great man.

I could tell you stories about this man. The stuff I've seen him do in his life the example. He said his daughter was killed a year ago by a freak car accident the car actually got knocked out of gear rolled down a hill and killed her hit her and killed her and To see this man walk through one of the darkest hours of his life.

He's a rock. Okay, so by what I'm saying here, I do by no means want to diminish him. He is an incredible man. But he's an old guy in Spanish with a raspy voice. So he starts talking he kind of kind of preaches like this.

Of course, it's all in Spanish. And he's saying he gets going and he starts any and anyway, he gets really going in a message. He adds the little phrase bae. At the end of what he's saying What is bae?

It's nothing. He just gets going and he adds that so it's not a day. Yeah, and you're like I have no idea what this man is saying. I mean for a gringo an American I had no idea zero what this man was even saying and finally you realize.

Oh, he's adding bae to it. So you cut that out and you start to make a little bit more sense. But I'm talking I got a stare at him while he's preaching and I'm like God Please don't let don't let him preach.

I need to hear from your word. I need to hear. I need to be challenged. I need to see what What what I have to learn that today so God graciously did that. He didn't preach that morning instead it was a missionary that preached and This missionary is a Costa Rican missionary to the Dominican Republic and His Spanish was crystal clear I'm talking my wife and I I think we understood probably 99 of what he said.

Unfortunately for us because apparently he had the message that God wanted us to hear and it was it is the message I don't want to share with you guys. This morning. It was a great reminder of why I am doing what I'm doing why we Do what we do and what we should be doing.

Did you know that Jesus was here on earth with a mission?

In.

How long was Jesus's public ministry. And I know more or less three years. Was about the time that Jesus actually had a public ministry on this earth. Did you know that Jesus accomplished? The entire mission that God gave him in three years.

Have you ever thought about that God gave him a specific mission a specific time frame. And he accomplished that in three years. Have you ever thought that God has given you a specific mission. That God has given you a mission that needs to be done.

Because he has.

All right.

We if you're here and you and you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord if you are in a relationship With him doesn't mean you're perfect doesn't mean you're you're. You got it all together and you understand everything.

But you are walking with the Lord.

He.

Wants you To do something he wants you to serve him. We are we are put into service. Okay God is looking for people Who will carry out his mission and his vision? So what is his mission and vision? I'm going to read here a pretty Typical I would say missionary passage Matthew 9 35 to 38 and Jesus went through went throughout all the cities in the villages teaching in their synagogues and Proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction and when he saw the crowds he had compassion on them he had compassion for them because they were harassed and Helpless like sheep without a shepherd and 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. The first thing I want to point out here is The very first phrase and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages.

Let me start just stop right there. You know how easy it is for me to stay where I'm at. To stay comfortable. I Love the fact that you guys are meeting here in a school and that you weren't meeting in the school three years ago.

Because it forces you guys To move it forces you to shuffle things up. I've every church that I've shared this at and usually I only have a few minutes to do it. So this is incredible. They have their seats, you know, and maybe you do even now here where like I always sit right here.

This is my seat in the 20 years. I've been in church. This is my seat. Okay. Well God asks us sometimes to move around. To interact with people around us to see to talk to people. Jesus went throughout the cities and the villages.

He didn't stay in one place. Jesus was mobile. So let me just stop right there. How mobile are you and I? How mobile are we when it comes to talking sharing reaching talking and reaching out to people?

Are we faithful in sharing at work? Are we shape faithful in sharing Christ sharing our lives with people at the grocery store at the gas station as we're on vacation? As we're out and about Do you sometimes purposefully?

Go out it says he he went throughout All the cities in the villages doing some stuff here teaching in their synagogues Proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction. Three things that I think God wants us to do as.

We follow Christ's example. The first thing is going to be preaching. Sorry teaching teaching in their synagogues.

As.

We look at God's Word. And we look at the world around us. Are there lessons that we need that that that need to be taught? Yes or no God's Word tells us everything we need to know about how to live a life how to live God and godliness how to Go through the good times the bad times the hard times the easy times.

But sometimes those lessons have to be taught. Now, how can we teach there are a lot of different teaching styles a lot different teaching methods, right? This is the teaching method. Ironically enough these teaching this teaching method tends to be the least effective.

Okay, standing up and teaching a lecture type. This is the least effective way to communicate. Okay, the interaction is the communication. That's why eye contact is important. Question and answer while we're going at this makes sense and the head nodding those things are important.

Sometimes we teach people by our examples. All right think in your life and how many lessons have you learned? Because someone else went through it and you're able to watch them. All right. I'm in ministry today probably because of my older brother Steve.

My older brother Steve. He's six years older than me. He was. He played football and was a quarterback. So naturally I played football and I was a quarterback. I was a very short weak armed quarterback, but I we need triple option.

So it worked out. Okay, we were still losing team. But that's all right. My brother Steve ran the hurdles guess what I did. Ran the hurdles in track. Steve did play basketball. I wrestled. Okay, my basketball coach said you did you need to wrestle?

That's what he told me. I fouled out of every game my seventh grade year every game. I fouled out. So he said try wrestling. So I did. My brother Steve pole-vaulted in high school in college. Okay, I pole-vaulted in high school in college my brother Steve is A pastor.

I kind of always grew up knowing I wanted to be a pastor whether it was through Steve's example or what? But I you know, I followed the lessons he learned how I don't remember getting in trouble a lot growing up which is pretty amazing because I have an identical twin brother and You would think that having identical twin brother.

We would get ourselves into a lot of trouble. We did when you're a little bit the older we get we got we really didn't have a big rebellious streak in us. We didn't have that. We want to try this and try this and try this.

Why? Well, I saw Steve try this and try this and try this and I saw the consequences so we teach through our examples. All right. Are we people who are going out and are we teaching the world around us?

By the way, we live our lives. The next one I would say would be a given Proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Are we people who preach the gospel? Are we now? What is the gospel start there gospel means good news?

The good news that we have a hope that when if I were to die today I have a hope that I will be spend eternity in heaven. It was interesting. I got an email this I told you about this. Um, this dog that's going to be given to us a donation dog.

It's a Labrador Retriever. I won't go into great detail, but let's just say it's a really really good Labrador Retriever. Okay, and we're driving to Maryland actually to get it. It's an incredible donation to our family and we can use in ministry.

I emailed the guy and I said, you know We're gonna leave on Tuesday be there by Thursday because we're gonna spend a day in Washington DC. Is that okay that he didn't get back with me? So I emailed him again a couple nights ago and his response was you have to excuse me I've I've had a really rough week.

My wife went home to be with the Lord yesterday. Okay, and then we talked a little bit in the email about Life and then some a little bit about this dog. But is it interesting that as a believer he responded my wife went home to be with the Lord and I know this man a little bit but what I've even seen so right just right now shows me and What I've my interaction with him is that this is a guy that he has a hope and a faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

One of the deepest darkest hardest times you can go through. We have hope. The world has a cancer called sin and you and I have the answer. And that is the gospel that Jesus Christ came to this earth 2 ,000 years ago.

And he lived a perfect life and that he died for our sins. Are we people who faithfully share that? Are we people who live our life in such a way that it just oozes the gospel? And then it says healing.

Teaching the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. Does the world around us need healing? How many marriages do we know that are falling apart? How many lives do we know are shattered?

How many children do we know are having issues and need help? Okay, again, we are given a hope we have a something in us. That is more than just us. We have the Holy Spirit working that wants to reach these people wants to help them and wants to heal them.

This is what Jesus was doing. He went around Teaching in the synagogues preaching and healing. This is an example that Jesus Christ gave us and it's something you and I can be doing every day of our life.

There's no reason whatsoever. We can't be a following Christ's example. Verse 36 when he saw the crowds he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

If you if you know me at all. And a few of you know me well. Compassion is not my forte. All right. I am I was one that. We take these spiritual gift inventories online and all that type of stuff mercy for me.

If it's like 1 to 40 or whatever it is, my mercy is like a 3. Okay, when my kids bless their hearts as they bang their heads when they're little kids on the table. The extent of my mercy was to rub it rub it.

So my kids are running around like this just like. Okay, it's just I'm not naturally a compassionate person. I'm more so now than what I used to be. And that's amazing. What happens when God opens your eyes to more and more issues and problems and and different situations and circumstances.

Are we people who have compassion for those around us when your neighbor? Irritates you a little bit. But they don't know Christ. Do you look at them and get irritated? Or do you look at them with compassion.

Story from our from my wife's family actually my wife's a neighbor my wife's family, they're their neighbor's name is a Waldo and Waldo shared a driveway with mom and dad and it was one of the things where mom and dad owned.

It's kind of confusing here mom and dad owns the property. But the driveway is on the property and he has the ability to go in and out of it. I still don't understand all that and Waldo would do things like he'd put gravel down on it which is okay, except the fact that that growl gets pushed over into the yard and and You know.