 You can title the message, do what you can. Do what you can. And I'm gonna take my reading from Matthew chapter 20 and we'll take first seven verses. Matthew chapter 20, first seven verses. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early one morning, hired workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay him normal daily wage and sent them out to work. At nine o'clock in the morning, he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around, doing nothing, being idle. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever he is right at the end of the day. So they went out to work in his vineyard. At noon again and three o'clock, he did the same thing. At five o'clock that afternoon, he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, why haven't you been working today? They replied, no one has hired us, the landlord told them, then go out and join the others in my vineyard. Okay, this parable of Jesus has many implications and it has layers of things that we can take from. But today I just wanna focus on this basic concept that Jesus is presenting here. And he's saying that there's a landowner that's going around looking for laborers, looking for workers in his vineyard. He goes in the morning and then he does it four more times throughout the day. And first thing, I want you to write it down. First thing that I want you to notice from this parable is there is plenty of work for everyone. There is plenty for work for everybody. Jesus said in another passage of scripture, he said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. The harvest is plentiful, it's ripe, it's ready. But really the bottleneck and what's stopping further advancement of the kingdom of God, what's stopping faster progress of the work of God on this earth is shortage of laborers. And like never before, I think today's situation in the economy, we can see the impact of shortage of labor, especially if you are a business owner. And in my personal experience, especially in last year and a half during pandemic and now I have a business and the business has a lot of potential. The business has a lot of unexplored potential. It has a lot of potential to employ a lot of people. It has a lot of potential to make money. It has a lot of potential to do a lot of good. But one thing that I've faced this year, this last year and a half is with all that potential, we have all the equipment, we have the space, we have the material, we have a way to move the supply chain, but none of that works without the labor force. None of that potential is utilized without a labor force. And it's not that you say after all the attempts and after all of the different ideas that we try to implement to be able to continue this business at the end of the day, this potential business, this profitable business, I had to make a decision to shut this business down because there is no labor force. And that's happening all across America now, that's happening all across, it's happening in our economy. So more than ever, we can see what shortage of labor, what it does to the country, to the economy, to the kingdom if I could say that. He has, United States is one of the greatest economies in the world and it's beginning to suffer right now because lack of labor, businesses are going out, people are going out of the business, businesses are shutting down and there's all sorts of issues, all sorts of problems. And that got me thinking when I read the scripture, when I was preparing, when I was doing my devotional and I was thinking about this, I couldn't help to think about my personal situation and the situation at large is that kingdom of God has so much potential. Kingdom of God is doing such a great work, we're rescuing people out of darkness, we're delivering, we're healing people, we're bringing the kingdom of God, we're bringing reformation, there's so much good that's done through the kingdom of God. But because shortage of laborers, it's limited, it could not progress, it could not bring the fullness of the kingdom of God, the full benefit of the cross to this generation. And so today I want to encourage you to get plugged in and get employed in God's vineyard. Get plugged in and get involved in the kingdom of God. We have this unlimited supply of resources. We have this, God has given us, Bible says a holy spirit without measure. All his gifts were given to us. The power of God, the name of Jesus was given to us. The blood of Jesus is on our side and all of this potential, but at the end of the day comes down to the laborers. How many people will say yes to the call? How many people will choose to go to his vineyard and do work for him, work alongside with him, work in God's kingdom? Second thing that I see from this parable is Jesus, or I should say landowner, in this case, he comes at nine or 12 or three and a five o'clock. He comes and he's surprised and he sees, I don't know if maybe he says he's surprised, but he sees people that are idle that are doing nothing. And we see that he begins to employ them. He says, why are you standing around? Come and work for me. We see that he does not like seeing people standing idle. And I want to encourage you today, especially not to be idle in the area of the kingdom of God. For you to utilize your resources, for you to utilize your time, utilize your gifts, everything that you have in your life to be employed, to be working, to be participating in a labor force for the kingdom of God. Because I believe that the idleness is a place of temptation. If we are not engaged actively in the kingdom of God, if we're not employing our gifts and talents, our resources, our time, if we're not giving that to the Lord, that we are at risk or we are putting ourselves in a place of temptation. And I can bring many stories through the Bible and I'll read the scripture from 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 13 says this. Besides that, they learn to be idlers going about from house to house, not only idlers but also gossip and busybodies saying what they should not. So apostle Paul warns that if we're idle in our life and that that speaks to all across the board physically, if we're not busy working with our hands, providing, taking care of ourselves, our families, and it also speaks in a spiritual area that then what we open ourselves to doing at best, in other scripture says talking nonsense. In another translation, NLT says, mandolin in other people's business, okay? And say things that we shouldn't, that at best when we're idle, that we gossip, we talk nonsense, and we meddle into other people's businesses that we don't have business being in business with, if I can put it this way. One businessman sent this quote that I really like. He said that the reason why people don't mind their own business, number one, they don't have a mind, number two, they don't have a business. Because if your mind is full of ideas, creativity, plans, you begin to work on things to get them accomplished. But if your mind is empty, you begin to start minding in other people's businesses. You know, we often get suggestions and things of how to do ministry, mostly from people that don't do ministry. How to do deliverance from people that never cast out one demon. How to pray for you, don't pray for healing like this, pray like that or the other. Well, have you prayed for healing? No, but I have ideas, okay? So when you're idle, Bible says that you will not avoid temptation. It's not in the Bible, it's just a parable, but it says that the idle hands are the workshop of the devil, right? Because when we are not busy working for the kingdom of God, Satan will get us busy with everything, with nonsense, with mandolin in other people's businesses. It will get us busy gossiping, get us talking about somebody else who treated you like this, who mistreated that person that way, and you're gonna be a collection, you're gonna be a garbage bin for all kinds of nonsense. An apostle Paul says, if you want to avoid it, get busy, what God's called you to do, get busy in God's vineyard, get busy working and doing something for God. If you see something wrong in the church, don't come and tell the pastors what's wrong with the church. Come and say, there's an issue that I would like to bring a solution to it. It's easy to point out somebody else's mistakes and somebody else's mishaps when you're watching on a sideline, but get in the game and get busy working for the kingdom of God. I want all our church, all of us, those are watching, those of us that are here. Let's not be spectators, let's be participators. Let's be playing, let's be on a playing field. Let's not just sit on a bench and tell, oh, wow, the sound is not sounding good today. Well, maybe go get educated and help us out. We'll take volunteers for sound. Or whatever it is that things are not being, oh, the bathrooms are not clean. Well, why don't you volunteer, come before and help us out and get things cleaned up or whatever the case might be. If you don't like something, don't come and complain about it. Come with solution and come volunteering your time and effort to change it. The second thing is, like I said, that the idolness at best leads to gossip, empty talk and nonsense, but at worst, it leads to sin. And we see that clearly in a story of King David, Bible says it was time for kings to go to war. And instead of going to war, King David, he felt like, well, I have been in church for some time and I've been serving for some time. It's my time to retire. It's let the young blood do some work. Let the young blood to carry some burden. And there is some sense in that. But there is work for everybody, for the young blood, for the old blood, for those that just got saved and those that have been saved for 30 years. I don't want us to develop as kind of a veteran's type of a mindset or mentality. A soldier in a God's army never retires. Now your function might change. You might do things slightly different. You might not have a passion and strength to run around and do things that you did 20 years ago at church, but there's things that you can do in God's kingdom. There's things you can do at church and still be an active duty. So I don't want to ask, because a few weeks ago I was with some wonderful person, and I believe we don't have those people in our church, but it was somebody from the other church. And he was like, you know, so I asked him what he does at church, and he was a nice kind of gentleman, by no means saying that he's a bad person or a bad Christian. And that's what he's attitude like, well, I served for 25 years in the church. It's time for somebody else to step up and do the work. Why can't you continue to do the work and encourage and train and disciple and show by your example of the new blood, new people in the church, younger people, of what to do and how to run the race till the end. Apostle Paul, he never retired. He said, I ran the race. I did what I had to do. I was a laborer in the kingdom of God. And even in jail where he couldn't physically maybe do, depraise the gospel like he could do, he changed his function and he began to write the gospel. So whatever season you're in today, that doesn't mean you have to retire and go on a sideline. Find a different function, but serve in the kingdom of God. King David, he retired, even though it was a time for him to go to war. And of course, when others are fighting, he's not doing anything. Bible says that he woke up in the evening, all right? Not in the morning, in the evening, meaning he was in bed all day. He was in bed, idle, doing nothing. And during that time, this was the temptation creeped in. Bible says he was just wandering around the palace, on the roof of the palace, just looking around, doing nothing. This is where he saw Bathsheba bathing. This is where he brought her in and he committed sin. And then that sin led to another sin, to a bigger sin, eventually to do something that that he would never think David would do, killing an innocent person. When beforehand, if you rewind a decade before that, he would not even kill his enemy. He would not dare to raise a sword against him. And so, when we're idle, like I said, at best we would be, we would do empty things, useless things, we would gossip, we would mind, we would start getting to other people's businesses, telling what others to do while ourselves are not doing anything. And the worst, if we continue that path, Satan will introduce this temptation, show this temptation and we would fall when we're idle. So I wanna warn every person, and encourage and warn every person that there is no retired soldiers in the kingdom of God. Everybody is always an active duty. We retire when we go there. Your function might change, but your service to God still stays the same. And so, so that we don't find ourselves in situations that we would never think we would ever get to. And the best way to avoid it is to constantly be in service to God and service to his people, amen. So then you say, right, well, you convinced me, I'm gonna do it, what can I do? In first Samuel chapter 10 verse six to seven says this, at that time, that Samuel tells to Saul, spirit of the Lord will come powerfully on you, you will prophesy with them, you will be changed into a different person. And then he says, after you see these signs, do what must be done for God is with you, that's NLT. And KGV says, do then do as occasion demands. And NET translation says, do whatever your hand finds to do. So what I wanna encourage you is to find whatever you can do and begin to do it. We say, maybe that's not my passion. Well, but there is a need there to begin to serve. So the first thing, so there's two things that I wanna online from here. Do what you can do, number one, and two, do what the occasion demands to do. Let me explain to you the difference. Doing what you can do, it can speak of your gifts, your natural talents, maybe your education, maybe your line of experience. The other day I was talking with a gentleman who has a degree education and experience in the area of finances, specifically hoping to manage finances and things like that. So when I begin to talk with him and I begin to present the vision that we have a desire in our church to get people financially literate in our church. We have something that's going on right now which is Financial Peace University by Dan Rezima. This is just kind of like a starting pack to help you get out of your debt. But my desire, my goal is just to raise business people in our church, help the business owners, current business owner to help them to expand, broaden their horizons so they can go further. And I wanna see in our church that this area will grow and this ministry will expand. As I was talking to this person and he began to share his experience, how he's advising businesses, helping businesses to grow. I said, perfect. The occasion is, I mean, he has a skill. He can do this. And I presented him the vision. I said, would you be able to come alongside? He became a member of the church. I said, would you be able to come alongside and use your gifts, your talents and your experience to do what you can do in this area? So first thing, I would encourage you to find, discover your passion, your gift, your skill, your experience and come to church and bring that and say, I can do this. Is there a way I can serve? That's number one. The two is that maybe you have skill and experience in particular area that cannot be utilized at the moment at church. Do what the occasion demands. Right now, we have many different demands and occasions that you can be a part of. And just to list a few, we have a need in ushers. We have a need in welcoming team. We have a need in helping out in Spanish service. So if you can even do poquito Spanish, okay? You can come and help and serve in that service, okay? As you can see, my Spanish is not there. And we have all kinds of need in a sound department, in the video department, in a live stream department, we need help with volunteers in the kitchen all throughout the week. We have many different occasions that demand right now help. And so maybe it's not your, let's say cup of tea, it's not your necessarily passion or it's not even your area of expertise at the moment, but there is a demand and occasion is demanding and asking to fill these spots. We have a big demand in kid zone and help with the youth. And so I would encourage you is if you can find a place to serve in a church that fits your passion, desire, your talent, your gifting, your skill, and you can take that and enhance that area, please do, we have places where you can be involved in. But if you don't find something specific, don't just retire and say, well, I guess there's nothing that I want to do here at the moment. Do what the occasion is demanding. Just before the service, I came and today I was got ready to preach, I got dressed to preach as you see, okay? But I came here and there was a, there was certain issues that had to be resolved in a broadcast department and another thing. And so I'm here in this clothes crawling under the desks on the floor, plugging and plugging wires and helping guys to figure it out. Why? Because occasion demanded for it, even though I wasn't ready to do that today and I wasn't dressed to do that today, okay? Hopefully after this message, more of you will volunteer and help out that I will have to do that before the service. But my point is, this is what the occasion was demanding to do. And so let's be mindful of what, where and how we can serve and let's not have this attitude where there is no room for me to serve. There is room for everybody. Amen church. Number five, do all that you can do. Do all that you can do. This answers the title of my message. And it comes from the story of Matthew chapter 14 verses six through nine. Jesus replied, it speaks of a woman that broke an alabaster box and anointed Jesus. It says, leave her alone. Why criticizing her for doing such a good thing to me? Again, usually people that criticize others for doing something are the ones that are doing nothing. Are the ones that think they know better, but they do nothing. So they're criticizing her. And Jesus says, you will always have poor man you and you can help them whenever you want, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. He's anointed my body very ahead of time. I tell you the truth, whatever the good news is preached throughout the world. This woman's deed will be remembered and discussed. She did all that she could. Now I wanna talk to those of us that are serving, that have committed to serve. I want you to serve full heartedly. So that when we do serve, we can give our best to God. That we don't give have hearted. That we don't come and give. If we're serving in ushers, we just do what we were told to do. We just stand there with sour face. Yeah, I didn't have my coffee today because I was late to serving today. Welcome. Hope you find it enjoyable today, you know? Obviously it's just a funny example, but this is to encourage us that when we do something for God, that we do it with 100%. That Jesus could speak of us to others, says leave them alone. They have done all that they can do. It might be a little bit, it might be much. Some of us have more skills than the other. Some of us have more understanding of the others. Some of us are quicker than the others. But whatever you're at, and whatever you fall on the scale of capabilities, let it be said about you that you've done it with a full heart. Let it be said about you that you've done all that you can that you bring your alabaster's box, that you break it for the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the church. We see this woman, she served Jesus, and she anointed his body. Today I ask you that you will anoint the body of Jesus with your gifts, your talents, with your time, with your efforts, with your finances, with your prayers. That today you do everything that you can on your end and you give all of you that you do not spare anything. Because then Jesus says that everywhere this, everywhere the gospel be preached that her, she will be rewarded pretty much. And that's the last thing, that there is a reward. That everything that we do to God, anything that we do for God, everything that we do for his kingdom will be rewarded. When disciples came to Jesus and they said, we followed you, we're doing all these things for you, we're doing all these things with you, what are we gonna have? And Jesus goes on to say, he doesn't rebuke them, but he goes on to say that you will be rewarded in this life and then in that one. I want you to know that everything that you do for God and I wanna talk to every volunteer and I wanna, that serves, that gives of their life, that gives of their time, finances, that serves here, comes early in the morning, the worship team, every person that is here today that is serving, first and foremost, I wanna say big thank you for our Pastoral team. I wanna say big thank you from every pastor and I wanna say thank you from the church. Those people that run words in the back, you probably don't know them, never met them, but because of them, you can sit alone today and worship. Those people that are doing cameras and sitting in a dark room that you probably don't even know where it's at, those of you that are online that are watching right now, it takes a lot of people to put these things together, running sound, running lights, I mean, making these things beautiful, making it sound beautiful, making it presentable, so today you can come and enjoy and I wanna say thank you to every volunteer and every person now, thank you. Thank you. And yes, yes, we got Ruvim, we got Ryan, we got CJ there on the backboard, wave to you guys, wave to you guys. Come on, come on, we appreciate them for their service, but I want you just to know that at the end of the day, whether your name got called down today, whether you got appreciated today from the stage, whether you got thanked by a pastor, by a leader, and we try to cultivate a culture here in Hungry Gen of gratitude and recognition, but if by chance we missed it, remember that your reward is in heaven, that Jesus sees your work, your efforts, and he will reward you. As a matter of fact, the less people see you and reward you publicly, Jesus said, the more he will reward you, because oftentimes our public recognition is already our reward, but when we don't get recognized, that he recognizes and in this life he will reward us and so much more in the next one. And in the Matthew chapter 20 that we just read, Bible tells us that he called all the workers and he rewarded everybody. I wanna let you know that you will be rewarded not necessarily for your work, but you will be rewarded for your faithfulness and your obedience. You will be rewarded not for your work because there are some people that do work of God, Bible says carelessly, and if you do that, Bible even warns us that you will be judged for that, but you will be rewarded for your faithfulness and your obedience. Some of your load will be light. Some of your load will be heavy. Some of you will carry a heavy load, like these ones that complain, they said, Lord, we worked whole day and we worked through the heat of the day, we got exhausted. He said, you know, obviously that's a whole different story. They were complaining about why they got the same reward, but the point of the story is that you get rewarded not necessarily for your work, you get rewarded for your faithfulness and obedience. Some of you carry heavy loads, some of you here four, five, six times a week, some of you just come here 30 minutes before the service, but if you do it faithfully, if you do it as you do it unto the Lord, if you do it with obedience toward the Holy Spirit, you will be rewarded and your word is great in Jesus' name, amen.