The Call of Christ to the Ministry - Part 2 — Shane Idleman

Christ’s Power and the Mission Field

Last week I talked on the power of Christ, the power of Christ over the demonic realm, the power of Christ over demons, and I would submit to you the power of Christ over anything in your life. No matter what you struggle with, alcohol, drugs, nicotine, you know, whatever it is, pornography, Christ has the power to conquer those things, but it requires steps on our part as well.

So I'd encourage you to check out that message if you can. I kind of was left hanging because I didn't get all through my notes, and where I'm picking up now is Matthew 9, verse 35. Matthew 9, verse 35, and I want to talk about the call of Christ to the ministry, and not just the ministry, what I'm doing, or people full time at the church, but do you realize the entire world is a mission field?

Do you have a job? Do you work anywhere? Do you know any friends? Do you ever go get gas or go to the grocery store? Guess what? Mission field, mission field. I actually blew an opportunity yesterday.

I was up in the mountains walking, going on a bike ride actually. I think I brought my bike, and I saw a guy up there with his dogs, and he was just kind of overlooking the valley. I told him, you know, what I did, and I kind of related to him in construction, and then I was in real estate, and then planted the church, and I missed the opportunity to invite him, you know, because I was in a hurry.

I've got to get going, you know, and just as I was leaving, God convicted me for about a mile, so I was on my bike. I remember I rode, I just turned around, went back a whole other mile, tried to find this guy, invite him to church, and it didn't work out that way, but just wherever we're at, there's ministry opportunities.

We don't know where God's going to move, and just after the first service, a 10-year-old, I think he was 10 or 11, came up to me in the back and said, I need to know God. So I prayed with him on repenting and believing in Jesus, and, you know, so next time you say 10, 11-year-olds shouldn't be in here, I don't know.

That was powerful. So that kind of made my day, so I'm kind of on a spiritual high. But it's everywhere. No matter where we're at, Wal-Mart, you see a mom about ready to have a panic attack with her little kids, can I help with anything?

You need some prayer. Oh, it's everywhere, everywhere. So that's what I want to talk about tonight because it's everywhere. Jesus said that the harvest is everywhere. But guess what? The labors are few.

The frozen chosen. We've got a lot of God's Word, but we don't have a lot of application. I better get started. This is not going to be good. Step-on-toe sermon, right? So chapter 9, I'm also in a good mood because me and a few of the guys are heading out early in the morning on a fly-fishing trip up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

No phone and email for a few days. It's not a bad thing, let me tell you. So kind of looking forward to that. And with that little 10-year-old, just kind of really excited tonight. Anyway, chapter 9, verse 35 through 36.

Jesus’ Compassion and the Three Dimensions of Ministry

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

And I want to remind you tonight that Jesus is still moved with compassion. No matter what you're going through, your difficulty, some of us are here in a great mood, some of us here are in a very bad mood.

Or their marriage is falling apart, or there's challenges at work, or lawsuits. And the church has their ups and downs, valleys and mountains, and Christ has compassion for your situation. The same shepherd that saved you has not left you.

He's here, he wants to show his compassion on us. I know that from the bottom of my heart. And we see three aspects of Jesus' ministry here. He went teaching and preaching and healing. And other gospel accounts say that he went teaching and preaching and healing.

Teaching and preaching and healing, that's all he did. And I think that's vital in understanding ministry because there will be opportunities you will need to teach. There will be opportunities you might need to preach, not like what I'm doing.

I'll fill in the blank. And there might be opportunities where you need to help people in areas of healing. Teaching is teaching them the word of God, and that's wonderful. But preaching is awaking in them from that spiritual slumber.

Wake up, wake up, and you warn, or you convict, or you challenge. Listen, this is the wrong direction. And I had a man tell me a couple of weeks ago that if he would have had somebody years ago, early in his life, wake him up and say, listen, you're breaking your marriage.

You're destroying your family. Wake up. He would have changed. So there comes a time where we need to teach. We need to also preach. We need to tell our kids sometimes, hey, listen, you're going in a bad direction.

You're going in a wrong direction. We warn them. Why? Because we love them. And then also we see Jesus healing people. How did he heal people? Well, he just commanded a word and it was done. But this reminds me of helps ministry.

And we can heal people mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. There are needs all over the body. You can help them mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And this is the point of the sermon many people probably yawn.

Oh, yeah, I've heard that many times before. But you don't realize that the power of God in your life only operates when we're working in the direction he wants us to go. If we're just getting fat on the word of God and not doing anything with it, we become Pharisees.

We become very good at telling people off. We become very good at identifying incorrect doctrine and incorrect doctrine. We become very good at being religious. But God says with that inflow, there needs to be an outflow.

Right? With that inflow, there needs to be an outflow. That's where I'm going up that way tomorrow. You know Mono Lake, right? Dry and dead and smells. But it's got the beautiful snow water running in.

Gorgeous snow water. Trout. You can drink out of that river running into this. What's the problem? There's no outlet. It's just a big salt area, salt lake. Little brine shrimp live in there. So it's got this wonderful inlet, but it's just sitting there, just dead, dying.

It stinks down there like sulfur. Same with the Christian life. I've seen it more times than I can count. It happens in my own life. We've got the Bible on app everywhere. Is it the translation? Is that the new King James you got?

The old King James? The Holman Bible? The Jerusalem Bible? The Message Bible? The ESV Bible? The NIV Bible? What Bible you got? We've got them all. We can look up the translations and we can look at the Greek nuances of the Word and the historical and the archaeological.

And boy, we have everything. Jesus said, that's wonderful, but you better get out and serve because that's what I called you to do. So if we don't have this, as we're getting this inlet, it's meant to be an outlet.

We're to learn the Word of God so we can apply it to our lives, but then so we can help and teach others as well. So any time you have just an inlet and no outlet, that you become moody, irritated, there's no joy, there's no peace, all those things are a byproduct of serving Christ.

And think about this. We don't necessarily serve Christ by just reading the Word of God and worshiping and praying. If it's all me, it's all self-focused. If it's all about me, service ministry is serving others.

So I'm fed so I can be a ministry to others. That's what this whole thing is about. And the funny thing is, studying this, we don't often see Jesus as a preacher, do we? We see this nice, little, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus.

You know, he's not going to upset anybody. He's just walking around with a robe and flowing. He doesn't get upset. But Jesus preached. He said, for this very reason, I came to proclaim the truth. That's the word preach is, to herald the good news.

Hey, hello, wake up, wake up. To preach, to proclaim, that's what the church needs sometimes is a wake-up call because you can take them through the Bible systematically and people fall asleep, which is good.

But sometimes, don't get me wrong, I listen to Chuck Smith on tape and John MacArthur and David Jeremiah, Alistair Begg, all the people you like to. I listen to them. I teach wonderful things. But sometimes, they've got to preach.

They've got to wake in the sleeping church. It's like the other day, I was up, again, the same area, walking in the hills. I let my dog off the leash. And on my way back, I heard, like, oh, that's a rattlesnake.

He's right over there where the white piece of paper is. And the rattlesnake's between me and him. Like, wow, get over here. Get over here, dog. You think I just, oh, come here, come here. Oh, let's see what happens.

Come on. What did I do? Get over here now. Come over here this way, this way. I'm empathetic. I'm emotional because there's danger right there. I can't go to him. He's got to come to me. I'm not jumping around a rattlesnake.

You get over here. And he's, oh, he's getting his tail and wanting to wag it. No, don't go get the snake. Get over here. You're in trouble. Get over here now. That's emotional. Why? Because you also have to wake in the church and say, listen, God says there's a judgment to come with the wages of sin, his condemnation and wrath against God, the fires of hell.

That's real. See, you got to proclaim it. Jesus did. I just read last week, again, where he said, do not fear him who can kill your body, but fear him who can cast both body and soul in hell. I don't like that people say.

It doesn't matter what we like. It's what God requires. And that's what preaching does. It makes us feel uncomfortable because when the power of the Holy Spirit hits our hearts and we hear, oh, my God, I'm not in right relationship with God.

I need to be. That's something that the dynamic that doesn't take place by teaching alone. Jesus preached. We're called to preach and to warn people, but to also love them. If I, you know, if I've said this before, the concept of hell and being separated from God eternally and eternal flames and weeping and gnashing of teeth where the worm does not die, not easy reading.

Don't really like it. Guess what? It doesn't matter what I like. It's what God has called me to do. As a pastor, how can I not warn? How can I only encourage and only encourage and only encourage but never warn?

Try being a parent and doing that. Little Johnny, I know you just hit your sister in the mouth, but it's OK. I'm just going to encourage you. You're going to be a big, good boxer someday. Well, I can't.

I got to just. I just got to encourage. Don't cuss at your mom that way. You'll be a good sailor someday, though. Just all we do is encourage. No, we encourage and we warn. If the Bible says the wages of sin is death, we are under the condemnation and wrath of God unless we repent of our sin and embrace His gracious gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross.

That's what the Bible says is the road to redemption. Yet I'm going to ignore it and never say anything? That's what the church needs to hear. We have to preach. That's what preaching is. Jesus did it.

Jesus did it. I think He'd be kicked out of some of our churches today. Do you realize that? Get out of here. Don't be preaching. I remember I talked about this before. I spoke at the American Baptist Conference in Wisconsin a long time ago.

And preaching like this and about that cross and the narrow way and the ten versions, five were without oil. And I gave an appeal. And I was shocked. I would say half the room raised their hand. I mean, there's 500 people there.

It's a big auditorium. Whoa, hold on. Wait a minute. This is a room full of Christians. I don't understand. I'm not saying that. But in my heart, I'm thinking, Lord, what in the world? This is amazing to me.

As I prayed and there's a line of people and I was talking to them. And every third person would say, we never hear anything like this. We never hear anything like this. We never hear anything like this.

Really? And you go to church, Baptist church, 150-year-old churches all across the Bible Belt. I mean, the whole choir, three quarters of the choir, boys 12 to 14, you want Christ? You're singing worship and you want Christ?

I left there. I was shocked. In the American church, nobody ever tells you that why we worship Christ? That we're sinners in need of a savior? That God has came to redeem us and you better be ready. Like the 10 versions 5, we're not ready.

It's not a pleasant thing when you're not ready for Christ. How do we get ready? You repent of your sin. You acknowledge him. Do you want to do that tonight? What? I mean, I was baffled, honestly. In the American Baptist churches, we don't hear that.

I said, what in the world do you hear? Encouragement. Encouragement. Encouragement. That's all. Now, don't get me wrong. How many people need encouragement? I do. I do. I'm in need tonight. When I get home, my wife says, it was a good sermon.

Don't worry. Because people are not happy. The Christian Post picked up another one of my articles this week. It's titled, What Did Jesus Say About Homosexuality? You think the last one got a lot of bad feedback?

I was called things I've never even know existed in the American language anymore. On a Christian website, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments. 600, 700 shares on Facebook. People are just like, what?

Truth, Warning, and the Necessity of Preaching

I love you, so I'm telling you the truth. When did this message of love become a message of hate? When? When? When did a message of love become a message of hate? The message of love becomes a message of hate when they don't want to hear the truth.

That's what I do when my baby cries at night sometimes. My wife says, listen, don't go in it, because every time she starts crying, what does daddy do? I'll hold you, and I just hold her for a while. Morgan says, she's got you trained.

She's got you wrapped around her finger. Put her in her crib. Let her go to bed. No, I can't. I can't hear her crying in her room. It lasts about five minutes. She says, well, put earplugs in or your fingers in your ear.

I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. There's people who say, Mr. Eidelman, you're arrogant, and you're this. You hate the homophobes. You're a homophobe. Hate?

Hate? If I hated you, I wouldn't say anything. I would say nothing. So somebody who says nothing, do they really love the person? I'm going to raise my kids for the rest of their whole life until they're 18 and say nothing?

I love you so much, I'm not going to say anything. I love you so much, I'm going to tell you things that hurt. And that's what preaching does. That's why they want to silence the pulpits. You realize that?

They're trying to pass what I call shut-your-mouth laws. You can't talk about these certain issues. Hate speech. It's a hate speech. It's in UK. It's coming here pretty soon. As soon as I mention, if I ever preach on Romans 1, and you talk about certain things, uh-oh, hate speech.

Why is that hate speech? Again, they avoid the truth. And that's what preaching does. That was my whole point. Jesus came on the scene, and they said, no man ever spoke like this man. Where does he get so much authority?

Because that's the purpose of preaching. There's a role of teaching. Thank God for it. I benefit from it all the time. There's a role for healing, and what would be conversation that helps, and talking to people, and counseling, and helping them work through issues.

But then there comes a time when the hammer must fall. And thus say it, the Lord must go out. And the people just are hit by the word of God. Because when you surrender and say, Lord, I can't do this.

I can't do this. I don't know. This stammering, stuttering guy who barely graduated high school, people made fun of, fat, stupid, and silly. And they just made fun. I can't do this without you. And God empowers that vessel.

God says, good, now get out of the way. Now that you're out of the way, give me the filling of the spirit with the power of the word, and let me change the lies. That's all you have to do. Just be the empty vessel that proclaims the truth.

So that's why a lot of times I don't worry too much about what the perception is. Because if God's in it, I know that he's doing what he needs to be doing. Because all I'm supposed to do is tell you what's in here.

Not my opinion, not cursory study, but after spending time in prayer and humility and fasting and seeking God. And this is what the word of God says. Studying great theologians, here's what it says. Here's what the word of God says.

And that's my job. And many times that falls under the category of preaching. So don't forget that. When Jesus talks about ministry, sometimes that means to awaken and to challenge. After all, if we don't have the voices crying in the wilderness, who's going to cry out?

If all we're doing is cuddling and coddling and encouraging, where's going to be the challenging and the convicting? Did Paul say go and hide the unfruitful works of darkness? Expose the unfruitful works of darkness.

How do you expose the unfruitful works of darkness? You call them to the carpet. You say this is wrong. Woe be to the people who call good evil and evil good. Woe be to that nation. Woe be to that people.

Woe be to that church. Woe be to that denomination who begins to call good evil and evil good. And woe be to the church that scurries through a sermon, rushes through worship, and tries to get to the nearest restaurant.

God's not in that. Some of you I put on, I think I sent out an email. If you're not on the email list, fill out the card and we can put you on that. But I sent a video where they're talking about the underground church in China.

Six, seven hour prayer services and worship services where they're not in a hurry. They're just so glad to be there. And they're hiding. They're hiding. Yet we come in here, comfortable chairs, air conditioning.

I'm not trying to make you feel condemned. I'm trying to make us all feel convicted. So the heart change and we begin serving others. It should be a privilege to serve people. But really it becomes a burden, doesn't it?

Robert Murray McShaney said, Most of God's people are content to be saved from the hell that is without. They are not so anxious to be saved from the hell that is within. Wow. You've got to read some of these guys.

This guy died at age 29. He was one of Scotland's most anointed preachers. He would step to the pulpit. People would begin weeping. Oh, that's just emotionalism. No, it's called anointing. It's called spending time in the prayer closet.

So when you come up here, you're a vessel of the Lord. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands of God. Because it can break and it can convict. It can challenge. It can change. And that's what preaching does.

It goes and deals with the hell that is within as well. What's in the heart. Because don't forget, your heart and my heart is desperately wicked. Oh, don't tell me that. That might be offensive. Well, Jeremiah said the heart is desperately wicked.

Who can know it? I, the Lord, I search your heart. I search your mind to give every man, every woman according to the ways, according to their doings. That hasn't changed. The heart left to itself would ruin us.

Because desperate. Look at all these shootings. Everybody's going, oh, why is he shooting? You wonder why? It's not a gun problem. It's a sin problem. Don't give me emails and say. I'm not advocating for the NRA here.

All I'm saying is it's not. I think Cain killed Abel with an AR -15 or was it a. Well, was it? A rock. A rock. A big rock. He hit him right on the top of the head. Sin problem. Sin problem. That's the only.

Next time they say this, it's a sin problem. All the guys, mass shootings. They're addicted to violent video games. Oh, wow. You wouldn't have never guessed that. Sin problem. Problem of the heart. The heart is desperately wicked.

Who can know it? As some of you are sitting in the audience right now saying, my heart's wicked. I've never repented and believed on Jesus Christ. Why in the world do you think I came in here today? To tell you that.

Turn to him. Stop playing games. He knows you. See, we can come to church and have everybody fooled. I got my mom fooled. I got my dad fooled. I got that guy fooled. I got that guy fooled. But God says, no, not me.

Not me. You've not got me fooled. My son died for you. Would you stop playing games and repent? But guess what? That only takes place often through preaching and calling it out. That's one of the great things about preaching.

A man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself. Did you catch that? A person. Let me put it in a word. A person who loves you the most is the person who tells you the most truth about yourself.

Good and bad. Right and wrong. They tell you the truth because they love you. And think about it. We tell our kids, right? Listen, you're not going to scream at your sister like that and call her names.

It's just not going to happen. I love you enough to tell you the truth and I love her. Same thing in marriage, right? Spouses are often the ones who tell us the truth. Why? Because they don't like us?

Well, maybe some cases. I see some facial expressions out there that aren't too encouraging. Right? They tell you the truth. That's why my wife tells me sometimes, don't use those words in the pulpit.

You know, I've got a list now in my head. I've got to remember not to say. Sometime I'll tell you when they're not recording. Not curse words. They're just words that sometimes slip through. Okay, now let's get on the point of the sermon.

I'm going to go through quick. I know you guys are ready for the nearest restaurant. So, Matthew chapter 9 verse 37. But before I get to this, I want to recommend a good book. I want to do this more often because all the books I'm reading, I want to just kind of give it to you as well.

It's called On Being a Servant of God. On Being a Servant of God by Warren Wiersbe. But it's not for the fainthearted. If you're going to be convicted, you will be convicted. It's about our attitude and how we're serving God and different things.

It's in your bulletins. Verse 37. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into the harvest. And we talked about this already that the world is our mission field.

The Cost of Humble, Hidden Service

And think about this. Send out labors into the harvest. Do you know that word labor is not a term of relaxation? Think of a labor. Think of a day labor. You call the day labor places. What do they call them?

Labor ready? I need a day labor. You think that guy's just going to be sitting watching TV eating grapes? Oh, this is a great job. I wish they'd hire me full time. No, I used to hire the day laborers in construction.

I said, here's a hole I need dug four foot deep. I'll come back at lunch. Don't hit the gas line that's right there. And you might want to have a lot of water. Right here. It's going to be here a while.

Oh, man, come on. It's what you paid to do. Labor. You're going to labor. It's hard. So when Jesus said, you're going to go out and labor, it's going to be hard. But people come in the church fed up on the word of God.

They want everything to be easy. I'm going to pick and choose who I minister to. That's why people drop out of ministry all the time. It's getting hard. Exactly. It's supposed to be hard. What about if I said, you know what?

This is my last Saturday. I'm done with this. This is too hard. What? Why is everybody laughing? This is too hard. I'm tired of this. You couldn't pay me enough money to do this. People are mean. People are nasty.

They don't stay committed. I can't treat them the way they treat me. This is hard. They're gossiping. They're saying this. I'm done with this. This ministry stinks. Exactly. Your master made himself of no reputation, coming down from heaven, taking on the form of a man, a sinful man, and being found in the likeness of man, he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.

You will not know the power of Christ in your life until you humble yourself and stop saying, I want to be recognized. No, you need to start saying, I want to be used. There's a big difference. Everybody wants their name on the PowerPoint, but if you don't recognize them, I can't keep doing this.

This is too hard. We have enough people. We have enough worship people to last me the whole year. There's no lack of worship leaders or worship helpers. I get emails every month, people even out of state.

Here's my resume to lead worship here. No, we're good. We're good. We're good. We're good all the time. I can lead worship. We got a good worship. Hey, you need worship? We're good. If I said, hey, guys, I'm gone next Saturday.

I need somebody to speak for me, there'd be a line up here. 80 of them aren't called to do it, but they want to do it anyway. There'd be a line. Say, hey, guys, we need some children's ministry helpers.

Guess what? Hold on. What's the difference? What's the difference? We know what the difference is, don't we? I want to be recognized, not I want to be used. And Oswald Chambers in his book, Upmost for My Highest, said that God buries His men and women in the midst of paltry things.

No monuments are erected to them. They are in a place where they cannot be seen. And that's where they're used by God. See, too many times we're jockeying for position. We want this. We want that. Look, we bring corporate America into church America.

Church is not ran like a corporation. In some areas it is. I've got background in both, with budgeting and board-allocated budgets and profit and loss statements. You've got to make sure you're, you know, I got all that.

But the spiritual side is not ran like a corporation. You don't come here and it's all about me and climbing the corporate ladder. You actually come down off that ladder and humble yourself and serve others.

And I believe many people are irritated and moody and upset all the time because they're not serving God. You weren't meant to be fat on the Word of God. Just give me more. Give me more. This isn't working.

God says, no, you've got to move it out. You've got to move it out. And this is how we measure success, though, isn't it? This isn't working. I quit. This isn't working. I quit. I'm glad Jesus didn't say that.

Think about it. Everybody betrayed him. Everybody left him. Peter, what are you doing? No, he denies him. Judas betrays him. The disciples flee. He's hanging on a cross for them. I'm glad he didn't say, oh, this is not working out.

I came to conquer Rome, not be in submission to Rome. I came to conquer those soldiers, not let them be me. Powers in the submission of Christ to Christ. Powers in submitting ourselves, humbling ourselves.

Because the humbler you go, the more God exalts you. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. In due time, he will exalt you. You exalt yourself and he will abase you. Abase. You know what that means?

Put down at the uttermost parts of the lower earth and just stomp on it. He will abase you. He will crush you. He will crumble you because you didn't humble yourself. And many times he does that to us to help us humble ourselves.

Listen, I'm going to bring you through hell. I'm going to get rid of everything you trusted in, all your gods, all your glory. And now will you serve me? Now will you humble yourself? Now will you cry out to me and give me everything?

Oh, no, you still got some things you're hanging on to. Well, let me try to get rid of that and get rid of it. Now are you ready? No, not yet. Well, now are you? No, not yet. We keep fighting God. He just says, listen, everything's mine already.

Just give it to me. Hand over the reins and say, Lord, that would be a wonderful thing if we say, God, however you want to use me, use me. However. And mean it. Because many people say it. Oh, yeah, but I hope he doesn't put me in ushering cleaning up restrooms.

However you want to use me as I sing Amazing Grace next Saturday. There's no problem up here. Everybody thinks this is an elevated position. Actually, this is a servant's position. People don't realize that.

Any pastor who's truly been called of God realizes this is not a glamorized position. It's dying to self. It's crucifixion to the world. It's following guidelines in 1 Timothy 3, 10 things there. I can't be greedy for money.

I can't have a drink of alcohol. I can't have another woman in my life. Well, all these things are good. All these things. I can't love herself. I can't be easily this. I can't be boastful. All these things I've got to keep working on.

I've got to have my house in order. And as soon as I don't, people want to tell me. I've got all these things I've got to do. Why? Because it's a servant leadership. We serve best by leading. That's why we've got to grace resources and feed the homeless.

That's why I try to talk to homeless people once a week. That's why because I've got to lead by example. These aren't glorified positions. Anytime you get in the ministry and think I've arrived, I made it.

God says, oh, Lord, I haven't called you. Yet they ran. I haven't spoken to them. Yet they prophesied. But had they truly stood in my counsel, had they truly stood in my counsel, they would have turned the entire nation back to me.

The funny thing is if we said, listen, we've got a ministry opportunity. We want you to be in charge of. We'd have that person stay for years. In charge of. But we say, hey, we need you to serve in this area.

It's kind of inconvenient. It's tough. I don't know. I don't like kids. Really? So on that note, we do need a lot of helpers. Children's ministry, ushers, media sound, we need helpers. People that want to help in this area.

And guess what? You're not going to feel like it. There's not a Saturday that goes by that I sometimes don't feel like coming here. Oh, man. 2 .30, I've got to be there already? Can't we relax by the pool at our in-law's house?

No. No, got to be. But it's once you get there. I know I said this before, but it's going to sink in at some point. It's once you go through it, the pain of discipline. See, the reward comes after the fact.

See, a laborer was paid before he did the work. No? I can make a political speech right now, but I'm not going to do that. Wait until October, November. I'm just kidding. But anyway, a laborer was paid after his work.

He had to go through the work. Same thing with Christ. It's hard. Yes, it's hard. That's why it's called ministry. It's called serving. It's not easy. The joy comes later. I have to say, listen, I'm going to serve in this area.

It's hard. I don't like those little kids over there. I don't like the ages six and up. I don't like. Yeah, exactly. It's hard. It's hard. Ministry is hard. It's not easy. And here's one reason. Here's a few reasons why people get themselves into the ministry.

To prove that I'm spiritual or that I'm important. Not a good idea. For validation, they want people to validate themselves. Or they think it's a source of income. They think it's an easy job. And so on.

These aren't valid reasons. The true reason a person should be serving is saying, God, what do you want me to do? My life is yours. And that would be a very healthy statement that some of you could make tonight.

Say, Lord, what do you want me to do? He'll show you. Because when the desire meets an opportunity, an open door, that's where ministry happens. You have the desire, and I just open the door. There's open doors.

Children's ministry, media, sound, ushering. We need all those. The church is growing. There's more people in the first service now than here. And we can't even start children's ministry for the first service.