The Lord of the Harvest
Text: Matthew 9:35-10:1
Core Idea: The Lord of the harvest reminds us that the harvest is plentiful, but that the workers are few. Then my prayer for you is that your hearts will be broken for what breaks His because compassion will drive you to pray earnestly, go courageously, and proclaim the gospel faithfully wherever God sends you.
INTRODUCTION
Good morning, Lighthouse. It is great to see you. I want to welcome all of you but especially our Tugboat and Anchor friends as they will be joining us for the whole service today. As a church, we are committed to worshiping together at least once a month to remind ourselves that worship is an event for the entire family of God – not just the adults, but the children and youth as well. Of course, I understand that this is not always going to be easy – children might feel bored, and adults might be distracted. Then why do we continue to do this? Because it pleases God but also because it can be a great teaching moment for all of us. If our children find themselves bored in worship, then let’s teach them the significance of this event, let’s model for them the joy of worship, let’s help them to engage and participate, and let’s pray that God would fill them with the same delight that we experience in Christ. On the other hand, if adults find themselves distracted, then let the children teach us patience and self-forgetfulness – today doesn’t have to be about us. It’s true that the struggle may be real and costly now, but I firmly believe that this is worth it because, in the long run, it will prove itself to be rewarding. So, let’s continue to persevere patiently knowing that it’s always good when God’s people worship together in unity. Well, today, we’ll take a break from the Book of Philippians and will look at the Gospel of Matthew – following the curriculum that the Tugboat ministry is currently going through. So, please turn your Bibles to Matthew 9:35-10:1. I will invite Elia to the front – and she will read the passage for us.
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” 10:1 Jesus called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
Thank you, Elia, for reading the passage for us. And, children, I hope you enjoyed the video. I know the video wasn’t directly related to the passage that we read but it touches upon something that we’re going to be focusing on today – evangelism and mission. The part that stood out to me was when the narrator said, “The gospel was so amazing that Jesus’ friends told everyone they could find about the good news. And those people told other people, and those people told other people, and on and on. And that’s still happening today.” Isn’t that amazing? In fact, that’s how you and I received the gospel as well. If someone didn’t tell us, we wouldn’t have known about Jesus and all that He did for us. Then if you believe that the gospel really is amazing, tell others about this good news because that’s the only way your family and friends will come to know how amazing Jesus is. So, with that in mind, let’s turn our attention back to the passage – and let me point out three things from here.
· THE MOTIVE FOR OUR MISSION
· THE URGENCY OF OUR MISSION
· THE MEANS OF OUR MISSION
1) THE MOTIVE FOR OUR MISSION
Verse 35, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” Here, Matthew summarizes for us what Jesus did – He taught the Scripture, proclaimed the gospel, and healed every disease and sickness. Think about that for a moment. Wherever He went (in fact, He went through all the towns and villages), He did not reject anyone who came to find relief from their suffering – He cared for all of them. Can you imagine how exhausted Jesus would’ve been? Sometimes we forget that Jesus came to us as a man. Yes, He was the God-Man but a man nonetheless – which meant that He got hungry, thirsty, and tired just like us. He needed to rest in order to recuperate just like us. And yet He continued to serve them with love because, verse 36, “He had compassion on [the crowd].” There were three elements to His ministry (teaching, proclaiming, and healing) but just one motive – compassion. Then imagine with me Jesus standing on a hillside – looking down at this sea of people waiting for Him. Most of them had physical needs, diseases, deformities, or hunger. And He was able to see that many of them were exhausted – some were in tears because their pain seemed unbearable. Jesus saw it all. And it’s here that we get a glimpse into His heart. The word “compassion” in Greek literally means “to have your bowels or intestines yearn” – or, as we would put it, “to have a gut-wrenching experience.” It’s the kind of sympathy and sorrow you would feel for those who are suffering. And Matthew tells us that that’s exactly what Jesus felt when He saw this crowd – He felt their pain and suffered with them. Paul Brand, who worked with those who have leprosy, wrote, “Jesus reached out His hand and touched the eyes of the blind. He touched the skin of the person with leprosy and the legs of the cripple. When a woman pressed against Him in a crowd to tap into the healing energy she hoped was there, He felt the drain of that energy, stopping the noisy crowd and asking, ‘Who touched Me?’ I’ve sometimes wondered why Jesus so frequently touched the people He healed, many of whom must have been unattractive, obviously diseased, unsanitary, and smelly. With His power, He easily could’ve waved a magic wand. In fact, a wand would’ve reached more people than a touch. He could’ve divided the crowd into affinity groups and organized His miracles. Paralyzed people over there, feverish people here, people with leprosy there, raising His hands to heal each group efficiently. But He chose not to. Jesus’ mission was not chiefly a crusade against disease, but rather a ministry to individual people. He wanted those people, one by one, to feel His love and warmth and His full identification with them. Jesus knew He could not readily demonstrate love to a crowd, for love usually involves touching.” No wonder He had to heal every disease and sickness – His heart went out to every single one of them.
Then do you see how powerful this image is? When Jesus saw them in pain, He felt their suffering as if it was His own and, as a result, His heart was drawn to their distress. Dane Ortlund wrote, “It is one thing to know the doctrines of the incarnation, the atonement, and a hundred other vital doctrines. It is another, more searching matter, to know His heart for you.” The reality is that many of us here may know who Jesus is, what He taught, and what He did but not many of us take enough time to reflect on Jesus’ heart for us. Brothers and sisters, do you know how Jesus feels about you right now? Do you think that He’s disappointed, frustrated, and even angry with you because you’ve let Him down this past week? Do you think that He’s embarrassed by you because you just can’t get things right? Do you think that He feels pessimistic about you because you commit the same sin over and over again? In fact, do you think that He even feels cynical and apathetic toward you – saying, “What’s the point in trying anymore? You’re never going to change. You always mess things up”? If this is what you imagine what His heart is like toward you, then look at the passage again – Matthew tells us that Jesus felt compassion toward the crowds because, verse 36, “they were harassed and helpless.” The word “harassed” in Greek literally means “to be worn out, exhausted, beaten up” while the word “helpless” means “to be thrown down or to lie down defencelessly.” In other words, the reason we think would cause Jesus to give up on us is actually the very reason why He wants to draw Himself closer to us. His affection for us magnifies because we’re helpless, confused, anxious, fearful, guilt-driven, shame-filled, beaten down, and hopeless. This is what drives Him to minister to us.
In fact, to help us better understand what Jesus felt, He gives us a metaphor – verse 36, “[They were] like sheep without a shepherd.” This was a common expression used in the Bible to describe the people of God because it was common knowledge that sheep were incredibly dependent animals. They simply could not survive on their own – there was no creature more vulnerable to attack, more vulnerable to getting lost, more vulnerable to getting themselves in trouble than sheep without a shepherd. Yet in our passage today, what Jesus saw was that this crowd was like sheep without a shepherd – but for that very reason, He had compassion toward them. Friends, do you realize that this is how He feels about you today? Do you take enough time to reflect on His heart for you? This is not wishful thinking – “I hope He still loves me after all that I’ve done.” No, we clearly see this in the Bible. Thomas Watson said, “We may force our Lord to punish us, but we will never have to force Him to love us. That’s His nature.” Brothers and sisters, compassion is what drove Him out of heaven to be amongst the lost. Compassion is what drove Him to teach the Scripture, proclaim the gospel, and heal the sick without ceasing wherever He went. Compassion is what drove Him to the cross. Compassion is what drove Jesus to take our sin and die as a substitute for our sins. Compassion is what drove Him to swallow the cup of God’s righteous wrath so that we wouldn’t have to. And if that wasn’t enough, compassion is what drives Him to intercede for us even now. And just in case we have a tough time accepting this (because we’re so performance-driven – trying to find value in what we do), listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Brothers and sisters, find rest in Christ today because compassion flows out of Him when He sees you.
Now, here’s the reason why I labored so much of our time on this point. It’s because the very compassion that drove Jesus to pursue after us must be the same compassion that He has for those around you who do not know Christ as their Lord and Savior – your non-believing parents, spouse, children, friends, and co-workers. The person that comes to your mind right now, the person that you’ve been praying for years, the person that you know is living without purpose and hope, the person that you think will never give his/her life to Jesus (because they’re either prideful or content), and even the person that you don’t want to engage – Jesus’ heart goes out to them. He yearns for them. No matter how you see them, Jesus sees them as sheep without a shepherd. No matter how you feel about them, He’s broken for them because He knows that they will never be able to rescue themselves from the chains of sin and death. Then this must be the motive for our mission. We are Christ-followers – which means that we must learn to hate what He hates and love what He loves, to be shaped by Him and to be shaped like Him. So, if He went through all the towns and villages to proclaim the good news, we should do the same. If His heart goes out to them, our hearts should go out to them as well. If His love has captured our hearts, His love should now overflow out of us so that others can be captured by that same love. In other words, Jesus’ reason for reaching out to the lost should now be our reason to go, share the gospel, and serve them with love and compassion. Brothers and sisters, are you driven by this kind of compassion today? I ask this because, without this, we will never go – we will never move out of our comfort zone. But when we truly experience His compassion for us, it’ll cause us to go even if it disrupts our plans, even if it inconveniences us, and even if we have to sacrifice greatly because we know that true rest for their soul is found in Christ alone. Then as recipients of this compassion, I pray that we will all be givers of this compassion. The compassion of Christ is the motive for our mission.
2) THE URGENCY OF OUR MISSION
As Jesus’ heart was filled with compassion, this is what He said in verse 37, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” Now, it’s true that this metaphor can feel very foreign to us because none of us are farmers. Then to understand the weightiness of this picture, let’s think from their perspective why this would create great urgency in our hearts. Imagine that you’re standing in front of the most beautiful field you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s vast – full of grains that are ready to be harvested. Your heart is filled with gratitude knowing that this would not have happened without God’s generous provision. And at the same time, this satisfaction fills your heart because it feels like all your hard work is finally being paid off. But your joy is quickly swallowed up by concern and anxiety because you haven’t been able to find people who could help you gather the crops. This was a time-sensitive problem because if these grains weren’t harvested soon, they would all go to waste – bad weather could ruin the crops, or bugs could come and eat them. But more importantly, if you didn’t have crops to sell, you wouldn’t be able to feed your family, give offerings to God, and pay taxes in the city – and this was a huge problem because a failure to pay your tax could lead to a big fine, persecution, and even loss of your land. So, not having enough workers to harvest the field wasn’t just a small dilemma – this was a huge crisis. Then this sense of panic, urgency, and earnestness you would feel was what Jesus wanted His disciples to feel when they saw the vastness of this crowd because He saw that if they weren’t “harvested,” they would end up in hell – and that was something that Jesus didn’t want anyone to experience for He knew how devastating that was. So, He didn’t want His disciples to waste any more time – it was time for action.
Then, brothers and sisters, the same urgency and earnestness should fill our hearts today knowing that the harvest is ready around us – in that, God has placed in your life people who are ready to hear the gospel. The problem Jesus wants to address isn’t the fact that people aren’t ready to receive the good news – it’s that we are not ready to tell them. Friends, we cannot waste any more time. We must go because they need Jesus. One of the devil’s greatest lies is to convince us that people aren’t interested in Christianity, that it’s a waste of time to tell them, that they will reject, and that you’ll be left in shame. But we can be certain that that’s not true because, here, Jesus makes it clear that the harvest is plentiful. Now, does this mean that we will never be rejected? Of course not. But as we go faithfully, God will lead us to those who are ready to be “harvested” – those who are ready to hear the gospel with open hearts. All that to say, we must approach evangelism and missions with this sense of urgency for people’s souls are at stake.
3) THE MEANS OF OUR MISSION
With this compassion and urgency in our hearts, how are we to engage in missions? To our surprise, the first thing Jesus says isn’t, “Go and teach the Scripture, proclaim the good news, and heal the sick” – which is what we would expect to hear. “There’s work to be done – so, let’s get going.” Now, to be fair, He will call us to do exactly that in the next verse (10:1) – in fact, He’ll even give them the power and authority to do that well. But before He commands them to go, He first tells them to stop and pray – verse 38, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” Mission always starts with prayer. No doubt – there are a lot of things that we must do in missions. But more than accomplishing a lot of great things, what’s more important to God is first learning to depend on Him. Leon Morris writes, “In an age like ours, we would expect a call to take more vigorous and effective action ourselves. And situations continually arise where that is the right course to pursue. But Jesus points to prayer as the really effective thing. No matter how great our personal exertion, we will not be able to gather in the whole harvest.” Then what are we called to pray for? For the lost? No. We’re called to pray for workers to be sent out. Of course, this is not to say we shouldn’t pray for the lost, but we must pray for workers because one comes to faith only by hearing the gospel. Romans 10:14-15 says, “How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” Then today, we should start praying for more workers – that He would prepare them to speak boldly, to share wisely, to serve humbly, to approach tough situations gently, and to respond to rejection with grace; that He would equip them with wisdom and knowledge, compassion and urgency, love and kindness so that their words and actions would draw people closer to Christ.
Now, this is significant because when we pray this way, something happens inside us. If we pray, “Lord, please send someone to reach my friend,” and just keep praying that for a long time, pretty soon, we’re going to say to ourselves, “Uh, maybe I should go.” If all we’re doing is praying for the person to be saved, we can keep them at arm’s length. But as soon as we start praying for the Lord to send someone, we’re going to start feeling the Holy Spirit tugging at our hearts – “I want to send you.” Of course, we’ll be tempted to say, “No, not me, God. Send someone else because I’m busy, I’m scared, I’m not ready” and so on. But God will say, “No, no. I want you to go because that’s exactly why I put that desire in your heart to pray. If you didn’t notice, you are the answer to your own prayer.” In fact, that’s exactly what happened to the disciples. As soon as Jesus told them to pray, He said in Matthew 10:1, “Jesus called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.” Here, we see that our intercession leads to our involvement in missions. And the amazing thing is that because they obeyed, because they boldly proclaimed the gospel wherever they went, you and I were able to receive this gospel. Without them and without many who came after them, the gospel would have never reached us. Then as recipients of this gospel, how can we remain silent in our comfort? Brothers and sisters, this is the call that the Lord of the harvest is giving all of us today – to proclaim the gospel and serve those who are harassed and helpless with compassion and urgency in our hearts. Then think about your context – the family you’re part of, the neighborhood you’re in, the school that you attend, the job that you have, and the friends that you hang out with. Then in light of those places, God is telling you, “Remember that I sent you there.” Whether the job you have is temporary or your dream job, whether the house you’re in is just a one-year lease or a place you know you’ll be at for a long time, God is telling you, “I’ve sent you to those places because I want you to be the light and salt to the people there.” Then, friends, remember that wherever you are in life, it’s not an accident that you’re there. Remember that God has sent you there because there’s a reason – it’s because the harvest is plentiful. My prayer for you is that you’ll be an instrument that God uses to bring someone to faith because the joy that comes from bringing the lost back to Christ is incomparable to anything in this world. Then for your joy, for their future, and for the glory of God, let’s go to the lost, the harassed, and the helpless with urgency and compassion.
CONCLUSION
Lighthouse family, the Lord of the harvest reminds us that the harvest is plentiful, but that the workers are few. Then my prayer for you is that your hearts will be broken for what breaks His because compassion will drive you to pray earnestly, go courageously, and proclaim the gospel faithfully wherever God sends you. Whenever God calls, may we respond like Isaiah who said, “Here am I. Send me.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1) Verse 36. Why did Jesus have compassion toward the crowd? How does Jesus’ compassion for the lost become the motive and motivation for our mission?
2) Verse 37. How does this create urgency for missions in our hearts? What keeps us from feeling this urgency in our hearts today? How can we practically cultivate this kind of urgency for mission in our hearts today?
3) Read Matthew 9:38-10:1. Why should prayer come before going and proclaiming? What keeps us from praying? What keeps us from going? What can we do to pray earnestly and go courageously?
4) Pray that God will ready your hearts to be sent out to the field. Pray for the non-believers in your life.