Matthew 9:36-38

Good morning, Saylorville! We have with us today, as Jason mentioned, we have Paul Davis and his wife Martha with us. Let’s give them a warm, Saylorville welcome here! (audience applauding) You do it one more time here, Paul. We have a friendship with the Davis’s. God has brought them to ABWE, which stands… we’ve had several people ask, what’s that stand for? Stands for the Association of Baptist for World Evangelism. And they’ve been around for many years. Our church has had, is it 70 years? No, more? 100 years! Okay, well, okay. I missed the first 30. Anyway, Wendell Kempton was the former president. He was saved out of this very church Wendell was. And so we have a great relationship or had one with him, he’s now in glory. But God led Paul Davis to ABWE several years ago and he has been the man for the job, highly esteemed, greatly loved and now he’s going to preach the word of God to you. Give your attention to Paul Davis and let’s warm him… Give him a warm welcome as he comes up. [APPLAUSE]

Well, I’ve got to tell you, ABWE loves Saylorville Church! We love our partnership. We exist to send missionaries all around the globe. You exist to reach people all around the globe locally and internationally, and we love the partnership that we’ve had for many years. As you send missionaries out, and as you support missionaries, that other churches have sent out, we’ve loved being a part of that. We kind of feel like we’re a matchmaker at times connecting churches with missionaries to reach the lost for Christ.

You watched the video. That video is a little out of date. We made that video last year, And we said we were in 84 different countries. We’re in over 90 countries now, and the Lord continues to open up doors for the good news of the Gospel. And we’re delighted to be a part of that! And we’re delighted that Saylorville is a part of that as well.

Before I get started, I’ve just got to share something with you. I’m notorious for being a horrible ‘Good News secret keeper.’ When my wife was pregnant, I would like 30 seconds after finding out she was pregnant, the whole world knew! It should be like, ‘Can we just wait five minutes? Can we just…’ ‘No! I’ve gotta let the world know!’ We have something that’s cool! And why are we in missions? And we’re in missions, one of the reasons is because there is a group of people that not long ago were a totally unreached people group. Not one person in this tribe, knew Christ. Not one person that spoke their tribal language knew Christ. Not one Christian song in their language, not a Bible in their language, not… totally unreached people group, until one woman received Christ. You see a lady from the Midwest, a Christian who grew up in a church who became a widow decided to give her life to missions and to spend her life serving the Lord cross culturally. She led one woman to Christ that was a part of this village in this unreached people group through a series of translators. It took two or three translators to get into the language. Long story short, she received Christ, began sharing Christ with other people, and a group of women began to receive Christ. And this missionary, the single widow woman missionary from the Midwest, began a Bible study, and these women began studying the Bible. And what they would do is they would have a Bible lesson, and as soon as they had a Bible lesson, they would learn a truth about Jesus Christ, and they would write a song about it. So the next week they would sing that song. And Martha and I got to visit this village, and we got to hear the songs that they were writing about, the lessons that they had learned the week before. Would you be interested in hearing what an unreached people group singing about Jesus for the first time sounds like? Yeah…? Let me play it, because I had my phone with me and I just recorded it, and I was like, secret. I was like, doing this one. Here it is. (singing in foreign language) Isn’t that cool? Paul was asking me for the lyrics earlier. I don’t have the lyrics, but if you’re singing that song next week, you’ll know what happened. I did find the lyrics. That is a totally unreached people group! No one in their language knew Jesus, and now they’re singing songs of praise for the Savior because of one single woman from the Midwest. Don’t tell me God doesn’t use missions.

So we’re going to look at a passage. I wish you take your Bibles out this morning to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. We’re going to be looking at a passage. It’s a unique passage in scripture. It’s one of the rare passages that does something that I love. All through the Bible, as you look in the Old Testament and the New Testament, we see a lot of passages that describe the things that God is doing, especially through people. God is doing something. He’s moving through people. In Genesis, you see it move in the life of Abraham, In Exodus. And you see Joshua and you see all of these people down through history, God using people and moving through people. In some other passages, we get glimpses of God more than Him moving. We get to hear how God is thinking. And we get to hear some thoughts of God as he shares the law with Moses and as He reveals Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. But there’s a very few passages that we get glimpse into what God is feeling, and those passages fascinate me! It fascinates me that the sovereign God of the universe has feelings like I have feelings. Like when He sees things, He feels about things like sometimes I feel about things, and sometimes I feel the same way God feels about things, and other times I don’t. And the reason why this passage interests me is because I think there’s an opportunity here. If we understand this passage, we will, first of all, get a glimpse into how God feels about some things. And I think we can then tune our hearts to perhaps begin feeling about the things the way God feels about them and align our hearts a little closer to the heart of the Lord. Because it’s one thing to know what God is doing. It’s another thing to know what He loves and what He feels, and what He sees and how He thinks about things. And so this passage is one of those passages. And so I want to dive into it and begin exploring this passage.

And I think this morning you’ll see how this begins to tie into missions as we get through it. So Matthew 9, we’re going to start in verse [36]. And at this point in time, Jesus is the most popular He will ever be during His ministry. This is right about the time of the feeding of the 5,000. And you remember the feeding of the 5,000? That 5,000 men… they weren’t counting the women and children that would have been a part of that crowd, so there could have been a crowd as much as 15,000 people following Jesus. He’s healing. He’s teaching. People are fascinated by this! They have sicknesses. They want to be healed. They’re trying to get close to Jesus. Not long after this feeding of the 5,000, Jesus’ feeding of the 4,000… so large crowds of people are around Jesus, and Jesus went throughout all the cities in the villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. Okay, this is why the crowds. I mean, there’s healing and there’s teaching — this is why the crowds. And this, verse 36, is where I want us to camp this morning.

Matthew 9:36

36 When he (when Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Now I want to camp on this verse because we get a glimpse into the heart of Jesus. When Jesus saw this crowd of four or five or could be as many as ten or fifteen thousand, when He looked on this crowd He had compassion… on them. And that word “compassion” is an interesting word. It’s an interesting word in the Greek, and let me give you a definition. I want you to hold on to this definition because compassion is “a deep understanding of the suffering of another person accompanied by actions to relieve that suffering.” Let me say that again. Compassion is a deep understanding of the suffering of another accompanied by actions to relieve that suffering. Okay? So it’s not just a feeling alone. It’s a feeling that gives birth to action. Okay? It’s like being zealous. You see something that maybe … makes you angry, and you do something out of anger. Well, this is doing something out of a deep understanding of the suffering of another. It compels you to action. That’s compassion. It’s different than empathy. Empathy is a deep understanding of the suffering of another. Empathy is good. We’re not told Jesus had empathy. We’re told Jesus had compassion. He had a deep understanding of the sufferings of the crowd that was going on in front of Him, but it was accompanied with actions to relieve that suffering. It wasn’t empathy. And it wasn’t sympathy either. Sympathy is ‘I feel your pain,‘ alright?

I don’t know about you. I have four children. They’re adults now, but when they were little, okay, when I would see them most sympathetic is when the flu would hit our house. And I don’t know if you’ve had four little children in your house with the flu, but what happens is they go down one by one. It’s like dominoes. The first child will get it, and you just kind of like… I’ll just take them and I just kind of put them in the bathtub… Just like, turn on the shower, rinse, take it out, repeat, you know. I mean, but then another child will get sick and the child that had been sick and was now in recovery would have great compassion, great sympathy for the other child. And they could feel their pain. They knew what it was like to be sick.

But Jesus… we aren’t told Jesus had sympathy. He wasn’t feeling their pain. He wasn’t understanding their pain. He had compassion on their pain. And I think this is important because if I’m going to align my heart with the heart of Jesus, it’s important that Jesus… can I just be transparent? Jesus doesn’t want us to just understand the pain of the world. He doesn’t want us to just say, ‘Hey guys, hey world, I feel your pain.’ Jesus wants Hs disciples, His followers to have compassion on the world, and when we see the lostness, when we see what Jesus is going to see, when we see this in the world, He wants us to have a deep understanding for what they’re going through accompanied by actions to relieve it.

And what did Jesus see? Now I’m using the ESV version here. You may have a different version, but when Jesus looked at the crowd, it tells us that He had compassion on them because they were” harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd.” Now these two Greek words, “harassed” and “helpless,” are very picturesque words. They’re words rich with meaning. The word “harassed,” if you want to understand the Greek meaning of the word harassed, you’ve got to be a Discovery Channel nature video watcher like I am. If I’m flipping through the channels and I get to the Discovery Channel, whatever channel, and there’s tall Savannah grass in Africa and an antelope standing there, I’ll stop. And there’ll be an antelope there and he’s walking through the tall grass. He’s having a little snack… just chompin’ on some grass, enjoying himself. ‘Hey, nothing bad’s going to happen to me today.’ And he’s walking through that deep grass. And then all of a sudden the camera pans to the other… and you start to hear little drums. (claps) I can’t play the drums, but you start hearing the drums, and all of a sudden you see in the deep grass, there’s a cheetah, and that cheetah, he’s walking in that deep grass. He’s got like the shoulders blades, you know, like the cat shoulder blades going up… and I can’t do it very well… but he’s like, he’s just stalking and then the antelope, he’s standing there, the drums stop… and the antelope, you know, little chirping of a bird, ‘chirp chirp chirp,’ and he’s, “Mmm… it’s delicious grass, mmm, yum.” And then back to the drums, back to the… and then all of a sudden the cheetah takes off! No more stalking. He’s just like… he’s running as hard as he can! — and the antelope’s like, ‘What?!’ — And he jumps, and you see the antelope, and he’s like kicking up dirt this way, kicking up dirt… he’s running, and he’s dodging, and he’s going back and forth, and they’re running like that! You’ve seen this video, right? (audience laughing) Tell me I’m not the only one that’s seen this video! Okay, I’ve seen it like a million times… And then the Cheetah gets close to the antelope and he gets his claws into the back hind end of the antelope and he drags him… he begins to drag him down. And the antelope’s like with his front legs, trying to fight, and he’s dragging… And then usually, like David Attenborough stops… and it’s like, ‘and then the cheetah will eat another day, or it gets away at…’ whatever.

When those claws are sinking into the hind end of that antelope, you would describe that with this word in Greek. That’s the idea of “harassed.” It’s not the idea of, ‘Hey, loser!’ That’s not the kind of harassment we’re talking about here. It’s talking about being hunted down. In other places, this same Greek word is translated with the word “flay.” Like if you were to take meat and take a knife and slice them in, “flay the meat.” That’s the same Greek word to “flay meat.” It’s also in other places used to describe what fish do to bait. When you put bait in the water, put meat in the water, and fish begin to attack it and they get into this furious, ripping and tearing of the meat in the water. That’s this word. This is the Greek way to describe fish ripping at meat in water, a knife flaying meat, an animal hunting down another animal.

And what Jesus is seeing is very interesting. He’s not looking at the crowd and seeing what I see this morning. I mean, you’re a good looking crew. You guys— I mean you guys clean up really nice!’ I mean, your hair’s done. You’re all pretty. I mean, from here, all of you smell good. And I can’t see the way the world has been ripping at you. But we’re all experiencing… we’re all experiencing things that are tearing at our relationships, that are tearing at our heart.

Sometimes we’re filled with hatred… and hatred is eating us alive… unforgiveness eating us alive… addiction to pornography eating us alive. The Bible tells us that Satan is a roaring lion. He’s seeking whom he may devour.  [1 Peter 5:8] And every one of us understand the dangers of the temptation. And we know what it’s like to give in. And we’ve seen the world tear people apart. How many of us don’t know someone that we’ve loved deeply that’s been ravaged by sin in their life, and their relationships have been destroyed, and they’ve lost their job, and they’ve lost homes, and they’ve lost families. And because Satan… he’s a cheetah, and because sometimes we live in the deep grass of dangerous things, and we don’t see the cheetah coming. And we play with sexual identities, and we toy with pornography, and we experiment with drugs, we give in to alcoholism, and all of these are things that are the deep grass that Satan uses to camouflage himself to flay us. And Jesus saw the way the world was flaying the crowd. And it welled up compassion within Him. See, our God is not a God who leaves us in this sin-cursed world to suffer and struggle alone. He has compassion when He sees it.

There’s another word here. It says, they were harassed. And again, the English word we have here is, and they were a “helpless.” The Greek word here for helpless is another interesting word. It has the idea of weariness, of being thrown down. It’s the word that you would use… if I were to take this table and just throw it on the ground, you would use the Greek word. It’s like, okay, Paul just did this to the table. It’s thrown down. but it’s not thrown down in the sense of… it’s thrown down in the sense of weariness, or powerlessness or ‘I give up.’ It’s someone who’s given up. And again, what Jesus is seeing is, Jesus is seeing the way the world has thrown people down time and time again. And He sees the person who’s saying, ‘I can’t do it anymore!’ ‘You don’t understand what I’ve been through!’ ‘I can’t take it!’ ‘Not one more time!’ ‘I’m done with this relationship!’ ‘Do you know how many times I’ve tried to quit?’ ‘I can’t do it!’ And Jesus sees that in the crowd in front of Him. They’re helpless, and then He describes it “like sheep without a shepherd.” They’ve been, they’re being flayed by the world by the temptations of this world. This world is just beating them up and flaying them and ripping them apart like fish. You’re bait. And then they’ve been thrown down time and… every time they get up they get throw down again, and they get up and they can throw down again. And Jesus sees this crowd of people and He has compassion on them, because they’re like sheep. They don’t have a shepherd and the wolves are just right outside the gate, waiting to rip them apart and throw them down.

And I think all of us, if we think about it, this world is ready to do that to every one of us. And so Jesus has compassion. He understands the hurt that every one of us are going through. But if it’s compassion, it’s also accompanied by actions to relieve that suffering. And so what does Jesus do? Well, that’s the next verse. I’m glad you asked that. Verse 37;

Matthew 9:37

37 “Then He (Jesus) said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;”

“Then Jesus said to his disciples…” No… wait… stop! I believe that Jesus is powerful enough that if He looked at that crowd, I think Jesus could have just taken His hand and just went, ‘Wheew!’ — and every single person could have been healed. He could have done it with His hands behind His back! — just, ‘wheew,’ and they would have been healed. But it’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t do that. So there’s something in His compassionate heart that’s driving Him, that His compassionate action isn’t immediate relief of suffering. And so what Jesus does is something interesting. He turns to His disciples, and this tells me something about Jesus, and it tells me something about our relationship as disciples of Jesus Christ with Jesus. And it’s this, for whatever reason and I don’t completely understand what it is, God has chosen in his plan to redeem people for Himself to set people free from their bondage in sin, to free them from the flaying of this world, from the thrown down-ness of the world. Jesus in His sovereign power has decided that His disciples will be a part of His compassionate response. If you’re ever wondering, ‘Why did God create me?’ ‘Why did God put me in these relationships?’ — it’s because He has a compassionate response to the relationships you’re in. And as a disciple of Jesus Christ, He’s given you gifts and He’s given you abilities to be a part of God’s redemptive, compassionate response to the lost and dying in the world. That boggles my mind! — because I’m a ‘Sign-up. Get it done,’ type of… I would think that Jesus would just do it right now, but Jesus’ compassionate response is to use His disciples.

And there’s something interesting here, because of the way that He’s going to use His disciples bothers me. Can I just be transparent? Jesus will use His disciples in His compassionate response to the world, but the way He uses it, it bothers me. How does it bother you? I’m glad you asked! [Matthew 9:37] “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;” Therefore, sign up for the next mission’s trip that Saylorville… Look at verse 38.

Matthew 9:38, “…therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

This bothers me! It bothers me because I’m a sign-up kind of guy. Like, if I was Jesus and I looked out in the crowd and I could see the hurt and the harrassment out there, I would have my clipboard and I would be like, ‘All right, Martha.’ This is Martha. This is my wife. She’s, (Oh, she’s going to hate me for this!) I’m going to sign Martha up to do this job. ‘And we need somebody to go over here. And I’m going to sign up Bob. And I’m going to sign up Tim, Angie… gotcha.’ I’d start signing everybody up…sending you out… two by two. ‘Let’s go! Come on Saylorville! Let’s sign up! Let’s go!’ But that’s not Jesus’s response. His response is to turn to His disciples and command them to pray earnestly the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the field. And the reason this bothers me is because sometimes I don’t think prayer is the most compassionate response. Sometimes I think my action is bigger than God moving as a result of prayer. Can I speak…? — I’m just be honest right here. Sometimes Paul Davis thinks his action is more powerful than God acting because somebody prayed. Now Moses prayed and the Red Sea opened up. Joshua prayed and the sun stood still. Elijah prayed and it didn’t rain for seven years, and yet somehow I’ve forgotten that prayer is a compassionate response.

This is what really drove this home to me. As a part of ABWE, we started about four years ago, what we call the Open Initiative. The Open Initiative is our attempt to try to open up seven new fields in seven years. We didn’t really have a great strategy on how to do that. We just wanted to begin targeting that and praying about that. So four years ago, we began praying for that. One of the fields that we were praying about was Japan. And Japan was a field that ABWE had not sent a new missionary in a decade. We had a team there, but no new missionaries in the last 10 years. And we had sent one missionary, and it had been 10 years before that missionary had been sent. So in 20 years, ABWE had sent one new missionary in Japan. We began praying for Japan, and God began moving. We now currently have almost… we have 11 new missionaries headed to Japan and four that have already made it there. And in 20 years we’ve sent one missionary. Here’s… like I wish we had had some strategic mobilization plan that we would have put in action, but instead what we did is we let God work and we begin praying earnestly to the Lord of the harvest, and this is literally the prayer that I’ve been praying every morning at 9:38.

“Lord of the harvest, would you send laborers into the field and if you would see fit to send them through ABWE?”

That’s my biblical prayer and my little Paul part of the prayer, too. We didn’t have any missionaries in the country of Malaysia. We began praying for Malaysia. It was one of the seven unreached people groups. We didn’t have a team there. We wanted to have a team there. We had no missionaries there. The first couple went and have begun recruiting. Now we’ve just recently appointed our 15th missionary to Malaysia in four years. We’re praying for these seven unreached people groups, and in the last four years, we’ve opened up over 12 new countries. Seven years ago, the video that you saw there, we had a version of that video and we used to tell people, “Hey, we’re in 70 countries!” Three years ago, we made that video that you just saw this morning and we told you about 84 countries. Now we’re in over 90 countries. Why? — because we’re praying earnestly the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the field. Guys, I’d love to tell you we’ve got an amazing mobilization team, but we’ve actually struggled! I’m being a little honest. We’ve had to kind of put together people and to help people get going. What we’ve experienced is God stepping in in ways that, again I’m sorry, I’m being so transparent, but I want you to see this. Four years ago, I would not have dared pray for 15 missionaries in Malaysia. I wasn’t praying a number, but if I had been praying a number, I would have been like five. Five would be like miracle working God stepping in. Five. I know you’re like, ‘O, you of little faith. How did you get put in charge?’ I know. But God has brought 15. 15! Our team in Japan is bigger than it’s ever been in the history of ABWE! What changed? God’s people began praying!

And Saylorville, this is what I want to leave you with this morning. Yet, would I love for you to sign up and become a missionary with ABWE? Yes!… but wait. Do I want you to send money to missionaries and support missionaries? Yes, but just wait a second. Do I want you to be a part of what God is doing in the global work around…? Yeah, but hold your horses. Before Jesus gave the Great Commission to go into all the world, He gave this commission to prayer earnestly to the Lord of the harvest. And so, Saylorville, this is what I would ask. If you want to be a part of something bigger than what you… It’s going to be bigger than what you’re asking for, begin praying earnestly the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the field. Would you begin… and, and… add your little ‘Paul’ part of the… “Lord of the harvest, would you send laborers into the field, and would you use Saylorville to send them?’  ‘Would you allow our family to be a part of that?’  ‘Would you allow me to be a part of that?’

There’s a little something that we’ve done to remind us, and I’d love for you to do this. If you’ve got a phone, take your phone out. I think you probably have like what I have. I’ve got a little app that’s an alarm app. And I’m not going to have you walk the aisle. I’m a missions speaker and sometimes you come pray at the altar. I’m not going to have you do that. What I’d love for you to do is this. I’ve got… if you see my alarm, I’ve got an alarm set for 9:38 (Matthew 9:38)  pray earnestly for the Lord of the harvest, to send laborers into the field. At 9:38, set your alarm to go off on your phone, and when it goes off and it will bother you. At 9:38, I’m usually doing something. I’m usually in a meeting with somebody and all of a sudden you know goes, “Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” And people are like, “What’s going on? Why’s it…?” And I’m just like, “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s 9:38.” And then I do this. “Lord of the harvest, would you send laborers into the field, and if you would see fit to send them through ABWE?” It’s a simple way. Let me change that. This was Jesus’ compassionate response to the lostness in the world. When Jesus wants to… relieve the suffering of a world, when He sees that they are harassed and hurting. You know what Jesus does? Jesus turns to His disciples and He says, ‘Guys, pray the Lord of the harvest would send laborers into the field.” That’s what He does. That’s Jesus’ compassionate response. And if that’s His response, guys, my whole prayer for us is that we would align our hearts and be compassionate like Jesus. And whatever comes from these prayers, we don’t know. I couldn’t have told you what was gonna happen in Malaysia. I couldn’t have told you what was gonna happen in Japan. I don’t know what’s gonna happen here in Saylorville. Probably something cool.

Lord of the harvest, would you send laborers into the field? And Lord, would you choose, if it would glorify Your name, if it would spur on Your kingdom, if it would encourage this body of believers, would you use Saylorville to send them out? Would you raise up men and women with a passion for the lost, with eyes to see the world, the way the world is flaying and throwing down people over and over and over and with compassion and with care and with love, would they leave the comfort of their homes and their families and go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel? — to make disciples of every nation? — baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit? — teaching them to observe everything you’ve commanded? Lord, may we have a heart of compassion like your Son had a heart of compassion… and pray, and seek Your face and watch You move. In Jesus’ name, amen. [Music]