The Harvest Is Plentiful - Dr. Rodney Orr

welcome everyone and thank you for joining us for this dallas seminary summer chapel and this is a very special chapel because this is known as a preview chapel for those of you that are viewing that may be looking at dallas seminary as a potential place of study so a very special welcome to you and our speaker today is also very special dr rodney orr dr orr spent his formative years in ethiopia and germany he served with crew campus crusade for christ for 34 years 17 of which were overseas dr orr taught at the nairobi international school of theology in kenya and serving as executive director helped build africa leadership and management academy also known as alma a graduate school in zimbabwe while stateside his ministry focused on yale university and united nations diplomats in new york city he is currently the dean of dallas theological seminary washington d.c and an associate professor of world missions and intercultural studies dr orr and his late wife cortina have two children ariel and bradley since october of 2019 he has been married to the beautiful enid walker i love to fish and when i was 11 years old 1967 in lake texoma my grandmother took me fishing and we spent the whole day it was 105 degrees out there we caught nothing and i wanted to catch a fish so badly that when we pulled into the slip to take the boat out of the water another boat pulled in beside us and the fish were just falling out of the boat into the water they had so many fish and i couldn't resist i went over and i got one of those dead fish and i put my hook in its mouth and i held it up and took a picture to show my dad what a big fish i had caught but jesus says in matthew 4 that one day he's going to make us fishers of men that if we follow him he will make us fishers of men and i want you to talk to you about uh the topic of this message which is the um the harvest is plentiful yes and the laborers are few i know that some of you are here today for this chapel message and you are considering whether this is the place that god wants you to be you're trying to decide discern his leading and we want you to uh to know that we're committed to building fissures of men so i know some of you love to fish but what we're really talking about here is preparing you to be fishers of men to go out and build disciples and so let me just pray as we begin lord jesus thank you for this time together thank you for this opportunity thank you for these potential students who are checking out dallas seminary thank you for those who are here on on summer classes and lord i pray that you would just speak to us about what it means to be a fisher of men what does it mean to the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few in jesus name amen well there are three words in this passage in matthew 9 verse 35 to 38. that i want us to look at but first let's just read the passage and jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease every affliction and when he saw the crowds he had compassion on 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 and so the three words that i want us to just look at in this passage are first compassion lord and send out send out that's one word in greek my my major 30 years ago i graduated with a thm from dallas seminary my major was a new testament and after 30 years of missionary work in africa in yale university scotland um the things that i still remember have to do with the languages that i learned and many other things for that matter and i want you to remember these three words so i'm going to give them to you in greek the first one is compassion and this is something you feel from your gut it is called splang nizami splanc needs am i and the idea is that that jesus was looking at all these people uh he was feeling compassion for them uh in this chapter in john chapter nine we saw him raise a little girl from the dead and while he was walking on the way to raise her he a woman touched him who had 12 years of issue of blood and she was healed she felt the power of god in her and jesus felt the power of god go out and then these two men who were blind who were were healed and jesus said now don't go and tell anybody else about this and they went out and made his name great in ma in mark one verse 45 it says that that that that when this man was healed he spread the the news about jesus so much that jesus could no longer go into a city he had to stay out in the rural areas because people were just flocking to him and then the the the uh the man who was healed of a demon and the the pharisees and the sadducees said well he heals demon-possessed people by the power of demons that he he's filled with with demons himself well what an insult you know here here here they're accusing satan of destroying his own kingdom by by by casting out his own people and jesus is is is is is honored and and and glorified throughout all the countryside would you love for his name to be great like that wouldn't you love for for people to just keep coming and coming and hearing more and more about him i can remember my first witnessing experience as a student at purdue university and my best friend lloyd would have been discipling me helping me to grow and one day he asked me how would you like to share this message with someone else and i said you know i'm enjoying the christian life and i like this fruit of the spirit but i don't really want to share it with anybody else and he said well look just come with me and i will do the sharing and so i went with him he shared the gospel and the guy said no he didn't want to hear and i thought okay now he's going to give him the hard sell but he didn't he said well you might change your mind you might want to receive christ later on and so he basically continued to share with him so that he would know what to do when he accepted christ i was so impressed with that and so i said lord if there's anybody you want me to talk to just let me know and and sure enough we were sitting in the cafeteria one day and one of the guys he just stood up all of a sudden and he said you know um i would kill myself if i didn't think that this school and this society would be glad if i was gone that's the only reason i'm still alive and everybody burst out laughing and told him to sit down and shut up but in my heart god spoke to me and said i want you to go talk to him and so i went i i i was wrestling with this uh you know should i obey shouldn't i obey and finally um i was able to go and talk to him and uh ask him i asked him you know could i share my testimony could i share what christ had done for me and he said yeah yeah and so he ended up trusting christ and he he became a disciple and he he started growing and i started looking at my classmates and my friends and everyone wondering is the only reason that they're not accepting the lord jesus is because nobody's taken the time to share a simple message with them and i felt compassion for people i remember taking my son to the doctor and he was sick and my daughter turned to me and said dad i hope he feels better because i can feel better you know she was feeling compassion but you see one thing you have to understand about compassion is that it has to be based on something that is real and indicative and the indicative here is that jesus is the lord of the harvest that the lord of the harvest is the one who is concerned about people and this is the second word this is kurios and kurios means basically lord but if you were a greek and you heard this word you would think of courier which means lords which is plural and you would be thinking of the gods of uh the uh olympus uh but as as as as uh the people got this word and and began to use it in re reference to the lord jesus uh they redefined it they redefined this word and he is the lord of the harvest according to this this passage he is the one that is uh that is leading us he is the one who is we are following and he is making us fishers of men i can't i can't emphasize that more is that you know just because you are compassionate and you want to go out and do something doesn't mean that you are going to fulfill the leading of the lord of the harvest you must follow him you must learn how to follow him and it's free i remember a lady came to know christ as i was preaching one sunday at a church in in in virginia and uh she came up to the pastor and i after the service and said i i would like to help with your ministry how much do you need for your ministry in africa she asked me and i told her how much and she wrote a check right there for the total amount and then she turned to the pastor and said how much do you need for your building program and he told her she wrote a check for the entire amount and then a little boy bumped his head and he was crying and she went over and wrote him a check and our pastor and i looked at each other and we thought this is a weak lamb this is a brand new baby and maybe she thinks that she has to pay us in order to cure this wonderful news that jesus christ has given to us and we both decided to give her those checks back and i tell you that was a hard check to return but jesus provided the entire amount from another source within two weeks and and that church was able to build its building and the reason is because he is the lord of the harvest he has the resources to provide for you to get through dallas seminary if that's where he's calling you to go he has the resources to enable you to do whatever he's called you to do and the issue is what does god want because he is lord and then finally is ekbalo that is uh pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest and this is a wonderful wonderful um idea and and i want you to understand what is this eck balo what does it look like to be sent out and i had this idea of a tube of toothpaste and if you take the the lid of the toothpaste off and you put the the the the tube of toothpaste on the ground and then you you stamp on it that's it when that toothpaste comes out that's a ballo there is a sense of urgency that that that god wants this work done it has to be done and he is calling us to be a part it is a privilege to be a part and i challenge you to read john uh matthew 10 which follows this passage which some people even list uh matthew 9 35-38 as the introduction to matthew 10. and you see this word balo battle bow he's sending out he's he's sending them out but he's going out as well um you know that i remember dr hendricks used to say if you want your people to bleed you've got to hemorrhage i mean you've got to be out there with them and showing them uh the way and so this is uh this is what we're talking about is is sending out is being sent out i was walking through the parking lot of this church and i looked at the vans and they all say uh gather uh grow and go and the going has the is the ec ballot that's the part that we must remember but we don't want to send you out without proper training and that's why we're challenging you to consider if if dallas seminary is where god wants you to be um you know there are many seminaries and and uh and many are are are struggling even now with with with resources but god is still the lord of the harvest and he hasn't changed and so i as i conclude i would like to just pray for you as as you consider this time and you consider what i've told you about compassion about lord lordship and about being sent out let me just pray dear god almighty sovereign lord of the harvest and head of the church your body we acknowledge that there are more people who need to hear about your love for the world than there are laborers willing to go we earnestly ask you to send out more laborers into your ready harvest we pray particularly for the church in china for the church in africa for the church in latin america for the church in north america we pray for the for the spread of your gospel in north africa and the middle east and places where your name has not been heard lord we pray for the laborers to be sent out starting right here right now in jesus name amen god bless

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 570

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Keywords: Dallas Theological Seminary, DTS, Jesus, Bible, Grace, Community, Dr. Rodney Orr, DTS-DC

Id: 6YPnknaF6fo

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020