Show Notes
Matthew 9: 35-38
Pastor Stephen Laurer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Find sinners drowning and bring them to yourself.
[00:00:20] O Lord our God. We are indeed such sinners, and we need the light of your word to shine brightly in our hearts so that in it we might see your glory, your compassion and love for us, and that we might be drawn to Jesus, the great seeker of souls, and that we might be found by him.
[00:00:46] Bless us by your word and spirit for Jesus sake. Amen.
[00:00:51] We're going to turn in God's word now to Matthew, chapter 9, reading verses 35 through 38, Matthew 9, beginning in verse 35.
[00:01:11] This is God's word to you, so listen and receive it with faith.
[00:01:18] Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.
[00:01:31] When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
[00:01:42] Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
[00:01:50] Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
[00:02:00] Please be seated.
[00:02:06] Well, when you were a child, did your parents ever send you on a mission?
[00:02:13] They handed you a trash bag and they said, go gather up everything and all the waste baskets all over the house and take it out and put it in the bin and wheel it out to the curb.
[00:02:28] Maybe that's a silly example of a mission, but it's a real mission. You have been sent with a task and an objective to get all the trash out of the house and out to the curb. That's a kind of mission. And there's a means of accomplishing it, a way to get this task done.
[00:02:47] You go around and you gather that trash into that bag and you take it out.
[00:02:53] Maybe that's a silly example, but it's simple and it gets us thinking. You get a little older in life and you may go on a mission for yourself. Many young people are on a mission.
[00:03:06] If you're married, you have fulfilled that mission. Many young people are on a mission to find a beloved spouse to share their life with.
[00:03:16] And perhaps there are various ways you might go about this. Trying to get her number, trying to get her attention, going out on dates, okay? Those are the means. And the objective is that you would win her heart or his heart, and that you would spend your life together, right? Well, perhaps Jesus mission here in these verses, a little bit more like the second mission. Jesus truly is a husband seeking his bride. That's the mission he's on. He is a king coming to save a people for himself, he is a shepherd coming to gather his sheep into his fold. He's a farmer coming to gather his harvest of souls in. We want to look this evening at Jesus mission as a king coming to gather his people into his kingdom. And first looking at Jesus preaching.
[00:04:11] Secondly looking at Jesus compassion.
[00:04:14] Thirdly looking at Jesus harvest.
[00:04:18] First Jesus preaching. This is the means by which Jesus gathers people into his kingdom.
[00:04:25] We read that Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming or preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.
[00:04:37] Preaching the gospel of the kingdom was at the heart of everything Jesus did.
[00:04:46] Everywhere he went, he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:04:50] And the reason he was doing this was so that people would hear this good news, this gospel, these good tidings of the kingdom. And when they heard the message, their hearts would be turned so that they would follow after Jesus and, and become his people and he would be their king.
[00:05:08] That's what it means to be in a kingdom. It's to have a king who rules over you.
[00:05:14] What is this good news, good tidings?
[00:05:19] This gospel that Jesus went around proclaiming? Well, if you've read the gospels in the Bible, you know that it goes something like this.
[00:05:28] We read that Jesus goes around or John the Baptist went around proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:05:34] And then it tells us what that message that good news was. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:05:42] We get this just that's all. Repent because the kingdom of heaven is here. That's the good news.
[00:05:50] Well, that's pretty simple, isn't it?
[00:05:53] What's going on?
[00:05:56] When they said that that kingdom of heaven is at hand, they were saying Jesus hid John. And when Jesus sends his disciples out in the next chapter, Matthew 10, they're going to preach the same news. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. What they're saying is that the king is here.
[00:06:13] The king is here and he's ruling.
[00:06:18] The king is here and his reign has begun.
[00:06:23] And connected with that is that his reign brings blessings, the blessings of the kingdom of heaven.
[00:06:33] That's what that repent part is about.
[00:06:37] Repent of your sin and you will be forgiven. That's a blessing of heaven. So the king is here, he's reigning, and he brings blessings. Now, maybe that sounds a little bit different from what we're used to hearing when we think of the gospel. If you were to be asked, what's the gospel? You would probably say, well, God's a holy God and you're a sinner, and you've sinned against him, and God's made a way for you to be forgiven of your sin and reconciled to him. If you believe in Jesus, who came and died on the cross for sinners, you would probably say something like that. That's how we're used to hearing the message of the gospel.
[00:07:16] But when they said, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The king is here, and he's reigning, and he's bringing his blessings, this was the way the Old Testament had proclaimed the good news of the gospel.
[00:07:31] We Read from Isaiah 40, verse 9 in the Call to worship this evening.
[00:07:38] O Zion, you who bring good tidings, that's gospel. You who bring good tidings, get up on the high mountains, you who bring good tidings. Lift up your voice, lift it up. Say to the cities of Judah, here's the gospel message. Behold your God.
[00:07:57] In other words, the good news is God is here.
[00:08:02] Or again, Isaiah 52, 7. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, the gospel.
[00:08:11] Who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things. Blessings.
[00:08:17] Who proclaim salvation, who says to Zion, here's the gospel message. Your God reigns.
[00:08:26] The Old Testament said, one day you're going to hear gospel preaching good tidings, good news. And that message you're going to hear is that God is here, and he set up his kingdom and he's reigning.
[00:08:39] And when Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom, that's exactly what he did.
[00:08:44] He said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Turn to me, repent, and I will forgive you.
[00:08:49] The king is here, he's reigning, and he's going to fix everything, make it right and bless you.
[00:08:55] That's the gospel message that Jesus was preaching, and that's really good news, that the King has come to save his people and to pour his blessings on them.
[00:09:07] And we're told that Jesus went everywhere to bring this message.
[00:09:13] He preached it everywhere, in every city, every village.
[00:09:17] And as he went, he showed the power of his reign, what kind of a kingdom it was that he was bringing, and how wonderful it was.
[00:09:27] He preached about salvation and blessings.
[00:09:30] Repent, he said. Why? Because I've come to forgive you.
[00:09:36] Then you read that Sermon on the Mount. And what does it begin with?
[00:09:40] It begins with a series of blessings of the King of Heaven.
[00:09:46] And what do those blessings sound like?
[00:09:50] You're blessed because I'm giving you the kingdom of heaven.
[00:09:55] You're blessed because though you mourn now, I will comfort you, you are blessed because though you don't see him now, the pure in heart will one day see God. Because I, the King, will bring you into his presence.
[00:10:10] Jesus came preaching the blessings of salvation and pouring out the blessings of heaven itself.
[00:10:19] And because people needed not just to hear it with their ears, but see it with their eyes. Jesus went around raining, driving back the reign of the kingdom of darkness, casting out demons, driving Satan and his kingdom out and bringing in his kingdom of light.
[00:10:41] He went around bringing his blessings of heaven and rolling back the curse that had come upon mankind because of sin.
[00:10:51] Everywhere he went, he healed every disease and, and every affliction.
[00:10:57] In his kingdom, there is no more curse, only blessing.
[00:11:03] You see, in Jesus kingdom, he doesn't just speak good news, he brings goodness.
[00:11:15] So Jesus went around preaching the gospel and that was how he brought men into his kingdom.
[00:11:22] It was a call, a call to turn from sin and a call to follow the king.
[00:11:27] A call to come and obey, which means to become Jesus servants.
[00:11:35] If the good news is that King Jesus is here, the response is that men need to turn to him and obey him, to submit to his reign, to seek blessings from his hand, to be forgiven by him.
[00:11:53] These are wonderful things. But see the eagerness of the man on the mission.
[00:12:00] He goes everywhere, every city he visits, every village he visits, the big ones and the little ones.
[00:12:11] The rich heard his gospel, the poor heard his gospel.
[00:12:15] He didn't just preach in the Sabbaths. On the Sabbaths, in the synagogues when the people gathered, he went through the countryside looking for people to preach to.
[00:12:27] You see, Jesus was vigorously pursuing sinners to bring them into his kingdom.
[00:12:34] And he's still doing it. Yes, he died to purchase a people for himself. He arose from the dead, he ascended into heaven. All authority is now his. And from heaven on high, he sits on the throne of in heaven as the God man, as king. And he's still pursuing sinners. It's still his gospel of his kingdom that is being preached.
[00:12:57] Jesus is seeking sinners. He wants to bring them into his kingdom. Why?
[00:13:04] So that he would bless them, so that he would care for them.
[00:13:08] Now, to come into Jesus kingdom isn't a terribly difficult thing. In the grand scheme of things, there's difficulty because we're sinners.
[00:13:18] But to come to Jesus doesn't require you to go on some trip to some other nation to go and be naturalized as a citizen of some other kingdom. You don't have to learn a new country, find a new home.
[00:13:34] It's as simple as this. You hear the Good news that Jesus is reigning on the throne of God in heaven and you bow the knee before him and you seek every good thing from him and from him alone.
[00:13:50] This is Jesus mission to gather sinners to himself and thereby extend his reign, his kingdom.
[00:13:59] Secondly, we want to look at Jesus compassion, His preaching, his compassion.
[00:14:04] Now here we find the reason or the motive for Jesus mission. You send your children with the garbage bag to gather up the trash and take it out. What's your reason? You want all that yuck out of your house and gone, right?
[00:14:21] That's a pretty silly one. But Jesus has a vast and wonderful reason for being on this mission to save sinners.
[00:14:35] Jesus traveled everywhere, we're told verse 35. He went throughout all the cities and villages. He went everywhere and everywhere he went he saw miserable people.
[00:14:47] He describes them as like sheep without a shepherd. What's he talking about there? Well, the Pharisees and scribes were the shepherds of Israel and they weren't doing their job.
[00:15:03] Shepherds are supposed to feed the sheep, to watch over them, to protect them. And they weren't doing any of these things. They weren't feeding them, they weren't protecting them, they weren't gathering them.
[00:15:14] And Jesus uses the term sheep here. He calls sinners sheep because sheep are helpless creatures. If you've ever cared for sheep or had a friend or gone and seen a herd of sheep being cared for, when they're left to themselves, they're helpless, they're defenseless.
[00:15:35] When they're not protected, they're easy prey.
[00:15:39] When the Bible calls sinners sheep, the Bible is not complimenting us. It's talking about our weakness, our frailty, our or foolishness, our utter need and dependence upon a shepherd to feed us.
[00:15:58] Well, these were sheep without shepherds because Israel's shepherds, the Pharisees were not doing their job.
[00:16:05] And Jesus sees the result of that.
[00:16:08] That they were weary and scattered, our translation said, harassed and helpless. It would be much better to read this as weary and scattered. They are weary and scattered. Jesus saw the multitudes without shepherds, people who had become like weak and scattered sheep.
[00:16:33] The Pharisees were teachers in the synagogues, the people's pastors, the people's shepherds. And they were not feeding the peoples souls.
[00:16:43] They weren't giving them soul food. What's soul food?
[00:16:48] Gospel truths.
[00:16:50] You see, God had promised salvation to sinners. We read a few examples of that from Isaiah. God had promised forgiveness and salvation to sinners. The gospel was there in the Old Testament and they were supposed to be feeding this to the people, forgiveness of sins and that one day a king would come and make it all right.
[00:17:13] Fix everything and bless them.
[00:17:16] And the people weren't hearing this.
[00:17:20] So their souls were weak.
[00:17:22] Their souls were weighed down with the burden of sin.
[00:17:27] They were sheep tormented with guilt.
[00:17:30] They had been fed a diet of man made traditions from the Pharisees.
[00:17:36] And they were left to pursue their worldly desires.
[00:17:41] Lusts for things that don't satisfy the soul. That's what happens when you feed on man made traditions.
[00:17:48] You end up going and pursuing something earthly.
[00:17:55] Their souls were not just weak as a result, their souls were scattered.
[00:18:00] They were wandering far from God like sheep in a desert with no shepherd to lead and to protect.
[00:18:10] Their souls were in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
[00:18:16] They were in a place where there was nothing that fulfills the soul's desire for communion with God.
[00:18:25] Weak and scattered sheep.
[00:18:30] The marvelous thing here is that Jesus sees the sheep.
[00:18:36] Jesus says, I see these sheep.
[00:18:41] What does he see?
[00:18:44] He sees your neighbor who desperately fills his spare time with golf or some other hobby.
[00:18:53] And he doesn't know that God has made his soul to love and worship his creator.
[00:19:02] Jesus sees your co worker who lives with guilt because his adultery ended his marriage.
[00:19:11] And he sees that your co worker does not know the good shepherd who died to redeem his soul and purify it of guilt.
[00:19:26] And Jesus sees you.
[00:19:30] He looks upon weak and scattered sheep and he sees you.
[00:19:37] He sees your heart pursuing its lusts and not God.
[00:19:42] He sees your soul tormented by past sins.
[00:19:47] He sees your family struggling with afflictions, physical, spiritual.
[00:19:54] He sees you with little hope from day to day.
[00:19:58] You see, Jesus sees sheep weak and scattered and he is moved with compassion for them.
[00:20:09] Like God at the Exodus who saw his people suffering under the hand of Pharaoh. Jesus sees you in your great misery.
[00:20:18] He sees your hopelessness in sin.
[00:20:21] And his heart is moved for you when he looks on you. Jesus heart is a fountain of compassion. An infinite, never ending fountain of compassion.
[00:20:38] He is full of pity for the sinner.
[00:20:42] And what flows forth is mercy and love for weak and lost sheep like you.
[00:20:52] God came in the Exodus to save his people. So Jesus came to seek lost sheep and save them.
[00:21:01] Jesus says, I saw you wallowing in your misery and I came to save you.
[00:21:10] You have no shepherd.
[00:21:12] I am the good shepherd.
[00:21:15] The good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.
[00:21:21] You see, this is Jesus reason for his mission.
[00:21:25] He sees you and his heart is filled with compassion for you.
[00:21:33] This is why he came to save and how great is his compassion?
[00:21:39] He says, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. And how far would he go?
[00:21:46] All the way to the cross to bear the Father's wrath for sinners, to the tomb to live in death three days that he might rise to save you.
[00:22:03] He is full of compassion for you.
[00:22:08] Thirdly, Jesus, Harvest, kingdom, shepherd and flock.
[00:22:17] Now, harvest, Jesus mission is like a harvest.
[00:22:24] This is the grand picture by which he begins to draw his church into his mission.
[00:22:32] The harvest is a harvest of souls. Not talking about corn or grain, but the picture is of a harvest of corn or grain.
[00:22:42] But what he's saying is that there is a harvest of souls that is taking place.
[00:22:47] A harvest of men and women who need to be reaped and gathered into his kingdom.
[00:22:53] And how are harvests gathered?
[00:22:58] When I first preached this sermon, we were in the Midwest.
[00:23:02] We know about harvests there. Every fall, you see, combines, just a few men driving large pieces of equipment, clearing massive swaths of fields.
[00:23:17] That's not what Jesus is describing here.
[00:23:20] Not a few men driving a few combines, but fields filled with many, many dozens of men carrying sickles by hand, cutting grain, binding it into sheaves, gathering in the harvest painstakingly with backbreaking labor, little by little.
[00:23:45] If this is a harvest of souls, then these workers are preachers.
[00:23:52] Men who gather with the gospel message, not combines, not sickles, but with words, good news, good tidings.
[00:24:04] And Jesus says, there is a Lord, a master of the harvest. You remember the story of Ruth and Boaz?
[00:24:12] Boaz was the master or the Lord of his harvest. Why, he owned the field. The crops were his. The servants were his.
[00:24:23] He ran the show.
[00:24:26] He told his workers, go clear that field and then do that one next.
[00:24:31] He hired them. He gave them orders. They did his bidding. He paid them. At the end of the day, Jesus is saying, God is the master of the harvest.
[00:24:44] The field is his. The workers are his. He is the one who raises up and sends preachers into healing his fields to gather his souls.
[00:24:55] You see, Jesus is using this metaphor to draw his church into his work. What began as Jesus mission remains Jesus mission. He's the master of the harvest. But now he's bringing you into his work.
[00:25:12] He hires. He raises men up. He sends them out to gather in souls.
[00:25:20] This is the ongoing work of the church until he comes again, until that harvest is completed.
[00:25:29] But he wants you to see especially the greatness of the harvest.
[00:25:38] The harvest is plentiful.
[00:25:42] He's saying to his disciples, you've come with me everywhere. I've gone.
[00:25:48] Everywhere I've gone. You've seen the souls and you've seen their desperate state.
[00:25:55] You've seen how many of them there are.
[00:25:58] Everywhere people are suffering and in misery because of their sin.
[00:26:04] You've seen how eager they are. They clamor around me. They gather in many multitudes to hear and receive the the good news and enter my kingdom.
[00:26:17] The harvest is truly ready.
[00:26:23] And if you spent any amount of time in this world as a Christian, you know the harvest is ready. You've seen souls all around you, in your families, your co workers, your neighbors. You've seen them.
[00:26:38] You've seen souls desperate for the reign of Jesus to forgive them, to set them free, to change their marriages, to change their lives, to give them not just meaning and purpose in this life, but to prepare them for eternal life that they were made for.
[00:26:56] You've seen the harvest.
[00:26:58] Do you see how great their need is though here and around the world?
[00:27:05] Do you?
[00:27:07] We know it up here, but do we know it here?
[00:27:12] We Christians often complain about the world.
[00:27:16] We see the sin and misery out there. We see it in our neighbors. And we complain about the problems, about the sinners and their sins.
[00:27:28] But do you see them as Jesus sees them?
[00:27:35] Do you see their misery in their sins?
[00:27:40] Do you see them weak and scattered, far from God and helpless?
[00:27:50] Is your heart not moved with their plight?
[00:27:55] Do you not see how much they need the gospel? Just as much as you needed it?
[00:28:02] These men and women are lost.
[00:28:05] To use the language of the Gospel of Matthew. They're sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
[00:28:14] And later in Matthew, if they remain in darkness and in the shadow of death, they're going to be cast into the outer darkness, far away from God forever.
[00:28:28] Jesus took his disciples around Galilee.
[00:28:31] I don't know, 100,000 people, 200,000 people that they encountered something like that.
[00:28:38] Jesus sends us out into the whole world.
[00:28:42] He says, go make disciples of the nations. All of them. They all belong to me. I purchased them with my blood.
[00:28:51] Go look out there. What do you see? Eight billion souls that need the good news of Jesus and his reign.
[00:29:02] Eight billion souls that need to be delivered through the message of the gospel.
[00:29:10] So Jesus says, pray, plead with the Lord of the harvest that he would raise up preachers.
[00:29:22] Now that's interesting.
[00:29:25] He tells you to pray to the Lord of the harvest.
[00:29:31] Now here's how you know that your prayers will be answered.
[00:29:35] The harvest is his harvest.
[00:29:40] It's not your field, it's not my field, it's the Jesus field.
[00:29:46] The crops that need to be gathered in are souls that he purchased with his blood.
[00:29:52] He wants them harvest. He wants his field cleared and prepared for eternity.
[00:29:59] If you plead with him, he will answer and raise up workers for the harvest and see what kind of a Lord you plead with.
[00:30:10] Is your heart moved with pity for 8 billion souls that need Jesus and saving salvation in him?
[00:30:18] Jesus heart is full of compassion for sinners in a way that you and I can never understand.
[00:30:24] We can only bask in it.
[00:30:27] He loved sinners so much, had so much compassion for sinners that he went and died for them.
[00:30:34] Surely if you plead with him, he will answer and send gospel preachers.
[00:30:42] The field is his, the souls are his.
[00:30:45] His heart is full of compassion for sinners.
[00:30:49] The workers are his.
[00:30:52] You plead with him to send out men that belong to him.
[00:30:58] No one goes unless God calls men to labor in the harvest. No one can go and preach unless God equips him, gifts him to preach the gospel.
[00:31:09] And you daren't do so otherwise unless he calls you and equips you.
[00:31:14] So plead with him that he would fill his fields with laborers.
[00:31:22] James tells us to pray with confidence and not doubting.
[00:31:26] Here's the confidence.
[00:31:28] It's Jesus harvest. He's the one at work.
[00:31:32] It will succeed.
[00:31:35] Let's pray.
[00:31:37] O Lord our God, our hearts are full of joy as we contemplate your heart and mind from eternity.
[00:31:50] Your thoughts towards us are very great.
[00:31:54] Though you knew that we would fall and rebel against you and follow the way of the evil one and join his kingdom, yet you had mercy and compassion on us. And your heart was full of love for us and you chose us that you might save us.
[00:32:11] O Lord our God, we rejoice that in time you sent your own son that he might come and be the apostle of our salvation, the one sent on mission, sent to gather a people to himself by dying and rising, and now by pouring out his spirit and through the preaching of the word. O Lord our God, we rejoice that though we are weak, we are sinners.
[00:32:41] Our flesh is weak and weary.
[00:32:45] You are strong.
[00:32:47] Should this mission depend upon us and our will, we would fail.
[00:32:53] But we rejoice that it depends upon you.
[00:32:57] We thank you, Lord Jesus, that we then can come with great assurance and plead with you to send forth workers into your fields. Lord Jesus, we ask that you would raise up men today from this church and from churches all around your world, that the gospel would go forth, that your kingdom would expand, that many more souls would turn to you, and that their lips would sing your praises, joining that great worship service which we are right now a part of going on in heaven, approaching your throne and exalting your name, O Lord our God. We long for that day when we will see you face to face, when all of your elect are gathered in, when all of them are not only sanctified, but glorified, where we will behold you face to face and with the angels forever. We'll praise your blessed name, Lord Jesus. We ask that you would accomplish your work and that you would come quickly.
[00:34:06] Amen.
