Ever since I was little I've been fascinated by the American Revolution, and I always wanted to see Concord Bridge, where it sort of all began. You know, the shot heard around the world? By the time I got there, I had two little boys of my own who were not fascinated by the American Revolution. I wanted to spend a while at Concord Bridge, imagining those Colonial farmers descending and the Red Coats stepping up to the bridge in their rigid formation.

Unfortunately my sons were not interested in all of that. I tried to tell them the story; yawn! Come on, this is vacation. Who cares about history, right? One last idea. I got their tricorn hats that we bought them and we got some sticks for them to use as muskets. I made them the Americans and I played Red Coat. So they came charging across one side of the Concord Bridge. I went running away from them. I eventually ended up fatally wounded. And when we were done they said, "Let's do it again, Daddy!" Of course they won every time. They became interested, but not until they had a part.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "From the Backseat to the Battle."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 20:6-7. Jesus is telling a story about a man who needs help at harvest time. He's gone out three times during the day to get more and more help. And finally, he goes out near the end of the working day, and it says this: "About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 'Because no one has hired us' they answered. He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'"

There's an urgent job to be done! Harvest time passes fast; you've got to get to it. There's only a few days to make it all happen. Big job - urgent job with not enough help. Men standing around? Why? Because they said they didn't have a job to do. So Jesus says here basically there's a job for everyone in the harvest; the harvest of human hearts.

See, a lot of church folks are like my sons at Concord Bridge. You hear the facts about the battle. You hear stories of what other people have done to reach people, but you're not playing any active part. You're just watching.

Actually God doesn't intend to have any of His kids just be spectators. This is a war with life-or-death stakes going on. He wants you out of the stands and into the game. Maybe your Christianity is kind of gray and boring. And it is until you get a mission, not just hear about people with a mission.

You need a job to do for Jesus, and you can be sure He's got one. You're surrounded by work He needs done. There are boys who need you. There are girls who need you to reach out to them. There are senior citizens who are lonely and need to hear about Christ in their few remaining years. There are teenagers maybe you could connect with. There are homeless people. There are Christian workers who are buried in administrative detail and you could help relieve them for the work that only they can do. You are urgently needed somewhere I'll tell you.

When you get a mission, when you get a piece of the action, your faith comes alive. You read the Bible with a new appetite, you pray with a new intensity, and you listen with a new openness. You can't just go to church to get filled up and meet your needs. It's a staging area for God's rescue operation on earth launched at the cross. It's a place for God's soldiers. It's a place to get ready for the battles that affect people's eternities.

Christianity seems hollow, meaningless and boring without a personal mission, and you are needed. So don't just listen to secondhand facts about the battle for human souls and for eternities. Do what my boys did. Grab a musket and run to the battle in Jesus' name.

It was one of those 3-H summer days: hazy, hot, and humid. It's not advisable to sweat on those days, because there's really no place for it to go. You keep running into your own sweat. And you know how it is on those days; you kind of feel "ugh"...you feel like doing nothing. Well, it was one of those days, and a brief storm went through. It was the leading edge of a cold front the weather man said, and the temperature dropped almost 25 degrees in a four-hour period of time. That heavy, muggy, hazy air suddenly cleared out; people started moving around again. I'll tell you, the view all of a sudden was crystal clear. The atmosphere was refreshing finally. Did you know a person can actually have that effect?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "An 'Others' Person in a 'Me' World."

There was, in that upper room where Jesus held The Last Supper, a very tense atmosphere that night. There was an argument brewing in the corners of the room as to who was going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Several people were fighting over the job of Assistant Messiah, I guess, and it was a climate of real selfishness. "Me first." "King of the hill." And then a refreshing front moved through the room and changed everything.

Our word for today from the Word of God is in John 13, and I'll begin at verse 4. "Jesus got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing and wrapped a towel around His waist. And after that He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet; drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him." Later on in the chapter it says, "When He had finished washing their feet, He put on His clothes and returned to His place."

"Do you understand what I've done for you?" He asked them. You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. No servant is greater than his master. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." Man, the atmosphere changed that night because of one thing Jesus did. He did the job no one else wanted to do; the lowly, smelly, dirty job that usually a slave did - washing feet.

Jesus did the job no one else wanted to do, and in so doing, He displayed the power of one person who decides he will be the servant in his little corner of the world. "I will be the servant in my family, I will be the servant in my business, I will be the servant in my church, in my circle of friends. You say, "Well, not me. I don't want to do it." Well, what about Him, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. He did it. Think about the tasks that everyone avoids where you are.

Well, what if, in the name of Jesus, you just quietly started to do one of those? Notice, Jesus didn't say anything at first. He just unselfishly moved out and started doing it. When you do that, it defuses an atmosphere that's heavy with conflict and self-centeredness. It puts your faith into the kind of action that even your worst critic can appreciate, including a non-Christian family. They may not understand your beliefs, but they understand someone who will pitch in on what no one wants to do.

See, that makes you the Jesus-person in your situation. Just try it. Don't announce it; do it joyfully, do it consistently, and pretty soon you're going to win the special influence that only a servant has. See, you're a help and you're not a threat to people, so they'll listen to you. Now you said at one point in your life you would follow Jesus, right? And He's a foot washer.

Do the jobs no one else wants to do, and let God use you to clear out the oppressive heat of selfishness. What a refreshing change in the atmosphere you could bring to the place where you live.

There was a time when single parenting was kind of an exception in America. Not any more - millions of families where it's just a mom or a dad now. There's been a lot of conversation and a lot of articles written...a lot of commentary about the impact of not having a dad who's really being a father to you. A little while back, one of the leading health officers in the United States said, "The greatest issue facing us is fatherlessness." Then Time Magazine commented on women who actually choose to have a fatherless family. Here's what they said: "They are bringing a child into the world with a hole at the center of his life where a father should be."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I'd like to have A Word With You today about "The Father Hole In Our Heart."

However you feel about those comments and those quotes, we all know that life's a little tougher if you don't have a dad or somebody who isn't acting like a real dad.

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 15. This is the familiar story of the prodigal son, who got his inheritance early from his father, went to a far country, spent it all, ended up feeding the pigs and having to eat with them. Verse 17 says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father."

This is the story of a searching man whose real problem was that he was away from his father. Maybe that's a picture of you right now. In the story, God is the father, and God has told us He wants us to know Him as our Heavenly Father. You say, "Well, if he's like the father I had, I'm not interested." Well, remember this. God is not like the father you had on earth. He's like the father we all wish we had, and what you're feeling down deep in your soul, that's father lonely. We have a hole - a daddy deficit - that we're waiting for a father to occupy.

How do we lose Him? How do we find Him? Look at the verbs in Luke 15. It says that the young man "set off for a distant country." The Bible says actually we've all done that. It says, "We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal," we've wandered away like sheep. (the Bible says) We are away from God by our own choosing. The next verb says, "He squandered his wealth." See, all our years away from God are squandered years. They're wasted years until you know the relationship with a father that you were made for.

Then the next verb says, "He spent everything." You can do that so easily. We spend, in search of the missing part of us. We can't find ourselves in achievements. We can't find ourselves in relationships, or pleasure. We spend everything, and then it says, "He longed to fill his stomach." Maybe you feel an emptiness inside of you like a hunger that never goes away, a hole that's never been filled.

Then we read, "He came to his senses." Maybe that's where God is bringing you right now. It's hard to live without God. It's hell to die without Him. It says that the son went to his father. And see, there's only way you can get to the father you were made by and made for. In John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." What would happen if you came to Him today? It says, "While the boy was a long way off, his father saw him, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." That's the welcome you would get from God today. He runs to you with His arms wide open no matter what you've done.

Why don't you run to Him and be born into His family today? Don't you want to begin this relationship? Tell Jesus, "I'm yours."

Our website is ANewStory.com. Would you check it out? That's where you can find the information that will show you how you can finally belong to Him.

See, no longer would you then have the hole in the center of your life where a father should be. No father on earth could ever fill that hole anyway. It was made for your Heavenly Father. Come to Him and you'll never be father lonely again.