This is the first sermon in our "Gospel Culture: Living Out our Church Values" series.
SERMON OUTLINE:
1: What characterizes Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:35)
2: What motivates Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:36)
3: Who implements Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:37-38)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- Which of the aspects of Jesus’ ministry (Head, Heart, Hands) are you most excited about? Which do you most struggle with?
- What does brokenness look like in your neighborhood? How can our church help bring healing?
- Have a volunteer at your table pray for us to have compassionate hearts and for laborers to be sent into the fields.
Thanks guys. It's great to worship with you all. The technical term for what we just did is called corporate worship. The reason it's a corporate thing is it means that we're all doing it together. And so I think one of the things that Americans can fall into this trap of thinking is that when you go to church you're watching something happen on the stage and then you get to separate yourself from that the rest of the week. What the Bible actually teaches is that as the body of Christ we are all participants together in what's happening. So when we sing, the reason we all sing out loud we're not just listening to the band is because we want to and join our souls and our hearts to what it is that God is doing. That's that's that corporate aspect of this. Another corporate thing that we get to do come on up guys is we get to rally around each other and support one another and the work that God has called us to both as parents and as disciples. And so our church practices baby dedications or child dedications because little Adeline's not a baby anymore right? She's a young lady already growing up so fast one year old today so happy birthday. I would lead us in happy birthday but I don't think that would not be corporate worship if I'm the one singing in those things. So yeah and so Livia and Charlotte both have been dedicated previously as well so we're so grateful for the McDonald family and how we get to be a part of a church together. And the reason we do these dedications is we collectively as a church are saying that raising our children in a place in an environment that honors Jesus and proclaims the gospel is something that's too big for any one parent or one couple. Ultimately we need the body of Christ around each other to support us and to show us the the truth of the gospel when our hearts doubt are to remind us of grace when we struggle and to help our little ones grow and what it means to follow Jesus. And so so I'm going to ask the McDonald's to make an affirmation as parents of what it is that they are committing to as they raise Adeline in a home that honors Jesus. They are they are committing to that. They picked her name Adeline Joy even because this idea of joy is found in Christ and they want her as she grows and throughout her life to recognize that it's the nearness of Christ that will bring the joy that she that we all long for and she's going to be an example of that for us. And so so after I ask them to make this affirmation I'm also going to ask you all as the church congregation to stand and I may have a similar question I'm going to present to you. And the reason we do that is because it's it's communicating that that collectively we're in this together raising these children is not just up to the parents it's up to all of us to be participants in that. So if we are ready let me ask this question. So David and Samantha do you promise to raise Adeline in a home that honors God? Do you promise to instill in her the truth of the gospel? Will you seek to model for her a life that is dedicated to Christ? And in the midst of your failures and hers will you point her to the grace found in the cross? Amen. Amen. Will the church please join me in standing? As a community of Christ followers do we promise to support these parents? Do we promise to pray for and encourage them in their parenting? Do we promise to pray for and encourage Adeline as she grows in Christ? And will we seek to be a gospel-centered presence in their lives? We do. Amen. Let's pray. Well we're so grateful for this morning and for this chance to be reminded that we are the family of Christ. We are the body of Christ that you have brought us together as your grace and your mercy that draws us in. And we have this awesome privilege of coming before you knowing that you love children, that you love families, you love the weight to work in the family of Christ as one body here. Even though people have so many different backgrounds when we gather we are together one family. And so we ask that your grace would be known and the McDonald's family and their household or pray that as these girls grow that they would not remember a single day, that they don't love you, that they would give their hearts fully to you at the earliest possible age and they would serve you and love you all of their days. In the midst of difficulties God would we as a church be able to support them and point them to your mercy. Let's sing name of your son we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks guys. Well if we haven't had the chance to meet yet my name is Colbert. I would look forward to meeting you if you are new to the church this morning. Someone said like four or five times this morning someone has said happy new year as we've gotten started. New Year's is the dumbest holiday in the history of the world right. We all agree on that. Like hey let's flip the calendar and start off the year by staying up way too late and then waking up grumpy and tired. I mean if we're going to start up the year right we should go to bed at nine o'clock and get up early and do some reading. I think it's probably a more healthy thing for us all to do. But there is this thing in our culture right now where we all love this like new rhythms, new years, new resolutions, healthier habits, all of these things. And so because of that for the last 11 or so years as a church we have taken the first Sunday in January to just kind of cast some vision for what we want this upcoming year to be. We're trying to leverage this ridiculous holiday for all that it's worth for the sake of Jesus and his people. So with that a lot of times I have a little bit snarky there like I don't know if you know this but I don't like staying up late. But I've decided that this year like this isn't a forced habit for me. This isn't something where it's like well it's new years so let's try something different and do a vision sermon. I am really excited about where we're at as a church right now. I think God is doing some neat things in our body. I think this is a great time to be the body of Christ here in Falcon, Colorado. And I can't wait to see what God does in our church in the year ahead. What's going to happen as we move forward? And so because of that what we're going to do is actually take the next seven or eight weeks as a church and we're going to take a break from the book of Luke that we've been going through verse by verse. And instead we're going to focus on what we want our church culture to be. I'm going to give you a little bit of an overview of what our church is about. So we have our mission statement. Our church mission is why we exist. We want to create a space for all people to encounter the person of Jesus through the transforming study of his word to experience the love of Jesus through the love of his people and engage the work of Jesus through mission and discipleship. That's why we gather every morning. If you are new to church or if you're not a church person it's bizarre that we get up every Sunday morning and we gather as a people and we sing songs and we study there were all those things. But the reason we do that is because we think that spaces like this matter and that when you encounter Jesus, when you experience his love and when you engage the work that he's doing in us and through us in the world that's what we were created for. If you miss out on God's plan for your heart you're missing out on the greatest thing imaginable. And so we want to be unashamed and saying that's why we exist. And in order for that mission to go forth in order for us to participate in what God is doing we have to be intentional that when we gather we have a certain type of culture among us. The word culture is kind of a fun one. My favorite definition of it is it's the way we experience one another. So if you go to a school the school has a culture if you go to a sports event there's a culture you're stepping into there. When you gather as a church no matter what kind of church you go to or how healthy or unhealthy your church is there's a culture that you're stepping into. And so what we want to do as a church is say if this is this unique moment where God has positioned us for some some really awesome ministry in the year ahead we want to steward this this time well. We want to make sure that we're managing this well that we're doing the things that God has called us to as a church. We want to not only clarify the culture that we want to have as a church but we want to cultivate that. We want these principles and these these priorities these desires to be more deeply ingrained in our hearts so that when people come down that ramp into this gym whether it's the first time or the thousandth time that they would experience the love of Jesus through the love of his people. That is an audacious goal. That is a that is a massive challenge in front of us to say how can we get step into this gym and spend 85 minutes together in in such a way that we leave more in love with Jesus than when we came. That's an amazing thing to think about. That's that work that only ultimately the Holy Spirit can do. Only God himself can do that work among us but we want to say that whatever we can do we want to be intentional to do that and so so as I said that we're going to spend the next seven weeks going through our church values and talking about how we can cultivate a culture that is honest that is humble that's holy that's prayerful that's fruitful and that's generous as well those kinds of things and so before we jump into those over the next few weeks I wanted to take this morning to talk about an overarching principle of what it means for us to be a healthy church okay and what that principle is is this idea of are we a church that lives on mission or not right and so what it means to be a Christian is it means that you have someone who has put your trust in Jesus you have by faith rested in Jesus grace you understand that there's nothing you can do to save yourself there's no amount of good works or effort you can ever do to make God like you or approve of you but rather God loves you and approves of you because of what Jesus has done on your behalf it's like all those songs we sing it's uh the hope has a name his name is Jesus because he died for our sins and he defeated sin and death three days later when he rose again and so so if those truths of the gospel are reality if that is the thing that we were created for then the most important thing that we can do as followers of Christ is engage the mission that he has given us that we can go love people who don't know Jesus with gospel intentionality and sometimes if you're here and you're not yet a follower of Christ it can feel weird to be hearing a sermon about mission and evangelism about talking to people who don't know Jesus because it can seem like you're sitting in on like a multi-level marketing scheme and we're talking about our business practices and best tricks to kind of convince people to to become followers of Jesus there is no multi-level marketing here there's no extra benefit for you if you lead someone to Jesus other than the fact that you could experience the deepest joy imaginable of seeing someone's heart transformed by grace and so so we're not trying to be weird or creepy we're just saying that the best thing in the world is Jesus and we want to celebrate him and know him better and help others come to know him as well one of my favorite quotes with that is that evangelism or mission is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread right we are all in desperate need of Jesus and if we can lead other people to him that's the thing where we will find our most healthy existence and so so the question I have for us this morning as a church is are we a missional church are we a church that is made up collectively of missionaries who are willing to tell our neighbors about the goodness of who Jesus is and what he has done the the reason that's important for us as a church is because our our name missio day we make lots of jokes about that however everyone that sees our signs thinks that we're the spanish church in town when they see the word missio day it's actually not spanish it's latin and it means the mission of god and the reason we pick that name the mission of god as our church name is because god is the one who has a mission for his church he created the church as a collective unit to go tell the world of his goodness and when we picked this name as a church 12 years ago the reason we wanted it to be something about the mission of god is because evangelism or sharing the love of Jesus is something that is so easily forgotten by christians of all the things that we're called to do sharing Jesus love with people who don't yet know him is the hardest thing for us to do it's the thing we most easily leave behind and so we picked the name missio day because we said if we ever become a non-missional church we want our name itself to hold us accountable to the thing that god has put in front of us and in this season as we as we're stepping into this new season we want to make sure that that accountability is still there that we are all living as missionaries no matter what our vocation is or what our calling is or where god has placed us and for me personally i'm feeling that this is an area i need to grow in i feel like this is an area where i haven't been as intentional as i should over the last few years and i've gotten kind of out of shape i've gotten kind of flabby when it comes to my soul and engaging mission i think i mentioned this before but every christmas i have this habit of putting on about 10 pounds due to eggnog and how much i love eggnog and i feel like my soul is like punching in at his eggnog weight we're like 10 pounds overweight as far as like spiritual health goes and so i don't know if that's true for you as a follower or not but i do know that if our church is going to live on mission it's going to be because collectively we are made up of a group of missionaries we're all living like missionaries for jesus and so with that longer introduction let's say word of prayer and then open god's word and study a passage together so uh lord we confess that we can do nothing apart from you the anything that's worth doing is only going to happen because it's your spirit that's leading us there so i ask that as we spend these next few minutes studying this passage that you would be the one to work in our midst that you would open our eyes and our ears that we would receive from you what you have for us that we would all leave here more in love with you than when we came and that we would be able to be a part of creating a church culture that glorifies you and shows the world how good you are what's the name of your son we pray amen amen all right so the this passage we have this morning is matthew nine verses uh 35 to 38 the one that tyler just read for us um i was realizing this morning as i was praying through this this uh passage uh it was 20 years ago that god first used this passage to really speak to me about what it means to follow him and i had this brief moment of panic of realizing oh my gosh 20 years is a long time uh for a long time ago for that to have happened but what the reality is is i've been consumed with this passage for 20 years now and it's amazing that every time i go back to it there's something new and fresh that god shows me from his word i think as far as a four verse chunk goes this is some of the most dense and rich passage in all of the new testament so i'm so grateful that we get to study this this morning as we get going about this i want us to ask the question keep in the back of your mind this question do i minister in the same way that Jesus does do i do ministry in the same way that Jesus does obviously there's some things about Jesus that we cannot repeat right he's the savior of the world we're not he's the messiah spoiler alert you're not no matter how hard you try to save someone you cannot be Jesus to them but the essence of Christianity is that we are called Christians because we are called to be like Christ where we're called to be little Christ in our neighborhoods and among our families and our co-workers and so the principle with this question of do i minister like Jesus is what we're saying is if Jesus has saved you he has also sent you to be a missionary if Jesus has saved you he has also sent you so let's begin by looking at this passage and seeing some of the characteristics of Jesus ministry and kind of evaluating our own lives in light of those characteristics so let's begin in verse 35 of Matthew chapter 9 says in 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 okay so so the first thing we see that characterizes Jesus ministry is he had a posture of going he says Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages a lot of us i think have a posture of staying and sitting and waiting and we think if God has something for us to do he's just going to drop it in our lap right ultimately if we're called to follow the example of Christ Jesus has this posture of going to the people that are in need of him i mean we just got done with Christmas right that's the whole message of the incarnation is that he loved us so much he left heaven and came to earth to be among the people who needed to be saved and so whether you are a missionary full-time right we have some people in our church who have given their lives to going overseas in order to tell people about Jesus and different parts of the world whether you're called to go to that extent or not we're all called to go somewhere right whether it's the end of your street whether it's your neighborhood whether it's your family your co-workers we all have to have that same posture that Jesus does of saying we're going to go be among people who need to be loved by Jesus we're going to go embody Jesus love among people this posture of going and notice where he went says he went throughout all the cities and villages okay so he went to the the big metropolitan areas where things were happening lots of influence and exciting things and he went to the back water towns as well he went to the the small places the villages where nothing exciting was going on he went to he went to Denver and he went to Falcon okay when we were starting this church 12 years ago there was like this really strong movement of planting churches in Denver and they would they would start churches because Denver was so awesome as the fastest growing city in the country and our network would fly people in and they would do videos with cool music and slow motion walking through Denver talking about how great this city was and for some reason no one ever asked to do a video about planting a church in Falcon for some reason it's almost like we're not as hip as some of these other places in our state but the point is whether you're called to a city or whether you're called to a village you're called there because there's people there who need Jesus right Jesus loved cities and villages because both of those places have people who need him and that's what he was called to do and so so he had this posture of going he went among the people but then notice how he went what did he do how did he minister he ministered to the whole person he didn't just have one narrow aspect of his ministry but he dealt with all parts of what it means to be human their heads their hearts and their hands look at this he was teaching in their synagogues he was proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and he was healing every disease and every affliction right so so teaching proclaiming and healing he he is giving intellectual answers to the questions that people have he is proclaiming truth he is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom that word proclaiming is this idea of preaching to someone's heart it's their emotional needs he's showing hope and then he is healing them as well he's dealing with the physical needs that the people had he's healing their diseases and their afflictions i think if you take each of those three things that is a full orbed picture of what it means to do ministry like Jesus did ministry right if we're called to do ministry in the same manner that he did we have to do all of these things you can't ignore any aspect of what it means to be human and still do ministry like Jesus so so jesus as someone who was teaching in the synagogues he was saying that they're what you think matters right that the life of the mind is important for for thousands of years christians have been the leading philosophers of the day they have been the leading intellectual movers and shakers they've been the ones coming up with the deep thoughts about how the universe works and i think it's only recently we've got this idea that somehow christianity and being intellectual are at odds right i mean blaze pascal did not think that they were at odds he was the one of the smartest guys that ever lived and he loved jesus have you look at all the different philosophers and apologetics out there teaching and understanding the life of the mind matters if we're going to love jesus we need to love him with our whole minds uh john calvin said that your heart can't love what your mind doesn't understand right if you don't understand who jesus is you can't love him to the full extent of what he's called us to love him but also we can't just be heads on sticks right we're not just brains we're not bobblehead christians but rather we're called to deal with people's emotional needs as well says that he was proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom this is a message of of giving hope that that word proclaiming is the word for preaching and in everywhere it's used in the new testament has this connotation of speaking to someone's heart you're speaking to what their emotional needs are you're not just answering their questions you're dealing with where their concerns are where they're their feelings are at their anxieties they're their pains those kinds of emotional needs um the kids were listening to a song the other day in the car that um by shaboozy didn't think you'd hear a shaboozy quote this morning in church uh but at the end of the chorus he's talking about how how broken his life is uh he's talking about how he's running to alcohol trying to have that be the answer to his problems and the line he uses is i tried to drown my sorrows but they learn to swim i think that's a great picture of of how when you run after something that's not jesus it will never satisfy the problems that you have but but then at the end of the chorus get this the line that he uses is all i really need is a little good news all right he's saying he's trying to find the solution is problems in the bottom of a bottle but all he really needs it needs is a little good news okay and the greek word for good news is what's translated here in verse 35 as gospel right what it means to be a christian is it means that you are someone who has encountered a little good news and that good news has transformed your hearts you're now a new person because by his grace he has changed you and transformed you out as weird as he's to say shaboozy is right all we really need is a little good news the problem is the good news can only be found in this proclamation of the gospel that jesus gives us in here he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and also he wasn't just speaking to their heads or to their hearts he was also dealing with their physical bodies so that he was healing every disease and every affliction now now the worst heresy the most christians seem to have adopted in america these days is this heresy of gnosticism and it's this this idea that somehow there's two different planes that we can operate on there's the spiritual plane and then there's the physical plane and if we're if we're evaluating the value of those two things we think that the spiritual life matters more than the physical life okay and that is not how the bible talks about creation at all right ultimately the spiritual reality exists it's a very real thing just as much as the tangible things that we can touch and see and that spiritual reality and that tangible reality are together what it means to be human and to live in the creation of the world that god created one is not more valuable than the other and so when we say oh we're just trying to do save their souls and not care about their bodies or their physical needs we're not doing ministry the way that jesus did jesus cared about every disease and every affliction that they had and i love that concept he administered to every disease and every affliction i think sometimes we can have these problems in our life and we're like this is just too big there's no way that god can deal with this bigger problem but jesus healed every disease and every affliction other times i think we can fall on the other side of that we can think this is too small like no one would really care about these little things that are bothering me right now i think i should just push it aside and say i'll be okay well jesus healed every disease and every affliction there's nothing too big or too small for his care he wanted to touch it all and and what that healing brings is this this rule and reign of jesus this idea of the kingdom of god where everything is functioning as it was designed to all right this this Hebrew concept of shalom that we talk about a lot is that it's everything working in the way that god had originally designed it to and with that it means that we have dealt with our intellectual questions uh if you if you have doubts or you wonder what truth is jesus is there he can answer those questions uh if you have a heart that is aching jesus proclaims good news he is there to provide those solutions and those healings and if you have physical or emotional or tangible needs jesus cares about those things as well our head our heart our hands all of it is all a part of what god is calling us to do and so this is where we typically i think our minds stop we we heard this call we're called to go do ministry like jesus did okay jesus went among the people he ministered to their head their heart and their hands so let's all go do that right let's pray and go and be on our way uh if only ever that easy right but the problem is i've heard so many different messages i've read so many different books on what it means to be a missionary or a missional christian who evangelizes and loves people and i find at the end of the day i just don't really want to right like there's something in my heart that says that seems like a lot of work that seems scary i'm not sure that that's for me right and then then i come across a quote quote like this by charles spurgen where spurgen says if sinners be damned at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies and if they perish let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees let no one go unworned and unprayed for i mean if you know anything about spurgen he was a man who did ministry like jesus did ministry and i read a quote like that and i say that's some passion right there there's a guy who cared there's a guy whose heart was on fire for the things that jesus heart was on fire for and then i evaluate my own life and i say that's not there that fire is not there what's going on and so i have two options we can either try to do it on our own we can say i need to do better and feel the guilt and the shame of of struggling with this when my heart's not there or we can read verse 36 and see what god does next right let's do that instead verse 36 when when jesus saw the crowds he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd right when jesus saw the crowds he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd and i think the reason why i don't do ministry the way that jesus did ministry is my heart did not feel the things that jesus heart felt right if we're going to do what jesus did we have to first feel what jesus felt and so when you see here jesus encountered this brokenness and he is deeply moved okay so it begins with jesus seeing the crowds you know right and there's our first problem right there right how often do we take the time to actually look at the pain and the brokenness that's around us i think we spend more time scrolling social media and reading news articles and convincing ourselves that somehow brokenness is something that happens in those news stories rather than in our own neighborhoods all right so so there's a there's 96 families in our church which means if you count all the houses that surround the households of our church there is 768 different houses that we have immediate contact with just in this room and you just tell me that in those 768 houses can you imagine how much brokenness and hurting and pain exists in our own neighborhoods all right so so we need to first of all see the same things that jesus sees open our eyes to actually see and when we do we find that people are harassed and helpless okay harassed is the things done to them helpless is what their response is or what they're capable of doing in response to that right the things that are done to us um addictions oppression and justice but also internal things like insecurity or loneliness or fatigue right how many of us just say our hearts just feel too tired to go on those kinds of things that's what it means to be harassed and helpless and Jesus says that's because they are like sheep without a shepherd right in the Old Testament the metaphor that God used in Ezekiel 34 was that the leaders of the nation of Israel were called to be shepherds and they were called to care for God's people but rather than being good shepherds who cared for God's people they were bad shepherds who allowed the wolves to come in and they even ended up devouring some of their own flock because they weren't caring for them as God had called them to and so when Jesus sees that he sees the crowds harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd how does he respond it says that he had compassion on them uh Tyler mentioned that Sam Albert is the guy who wrote the curriculum we're going to be using for our small groups I heard him say one time it's interesting that when Jesus encounters brokenness he feels compassion when I encounter brokenness what I usually feel is anger somehow I get upset at people for being broken why did you do this to yourself why did you make so many bad decisions if you had only done a better job you wouldn't be as broken as you are and I get angry at that Jesus doesn't get angry at brokenness he feels compassion towards it and its word compassion is amazing it means to feel something so deep in your heart that you can't help but do something in response it's not a oh that's too bad I'll pray for you and then I'll move on it's I feel this in the very depths of my my soul and I have to do something in action to respond to the brokenness that I'm encountering okay it sounds a lot like what that Spurgeon quote was about pleading with people because you love them so much and so then the question is well why don't I feel the things that Jesus felt right if I'm going to do the things that Jesus did I have to first feel the things that Jesus felt and it's this question of my heart and I think a lot of times we can begin by having to understand like I said a little bit ago you're not the Messiah uh you're not the good shepherd you're a sheep right you are part of the crowd you are one of those people that is harassed and helpless and and no one likes being called a sheep right um that's kind of it seems like an insult it does kind of feel like an insult my favorite story of what it means to be a sheep came from a book by 10 Whitmer I've told this story before but it's too good to not till again here's how dumb sheep are okay there's a new story about 25 years ago in turkey there was a a flock of 1,500 sheep right they're all grazing on this mountaintop and one of this sheep wanders over the edge to its death sheep being as bright as they are another one follows it over the edge and then another one and another one another eventually within a few hours all 1,500 sheep had wandered over the cliff following each other like that's how dumb sheep are but here's the best part of the story only 450 of the sheep died because eventually the fluffy mound of bodies was high enough that it cushioned the fall of everyone else so if you're going to be a dumb sheep just make sure you have another enough dumb sheep ahead of you that they will break your fall before you land on the ground but the point is that is us right I mean how many how much of the pain that I feel in my life is because of my own bad decisions how much of the pain that I encounter is because I've been giving my heart to things I shouldn't give my heart to I have bad habits I have bad desires I've bad longings in the midst of that when Jesus encounters my brokenness when he sees me as a sheep his response is not judgment and anger his response is compassion and love right that that's who Jesus is that's who we're talking about today and so if we're going to feel the things that Jesus felt we have to first put ourselves in that position where we realize we're one of those sheep in need when Jesus saw the crowd harassed and helpless he saw you he saw me I went when Jesus saw Colbert he felt compassion for him because he was harassed and helpless I put your own name in that verse and read it again when he saw you he had compassion for you because you were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd and the good promise of Jesus is he says he comes to be the good shepherd where all of our human leaders fail he alone is the one who can actually be the good shepherd to care for us and to lead us to the place where we need to go and so with that some things we want to do is make sure that we are seeing the world around us accurately right wherever you live brokenness or being harassed and helpless looks different there than it does somewhere else right brokenness and Peyton looks different than brokenness in black forest or in southern Colorado Springs or in the mountains or all these different places okay so so the question is what does brokenness and falcon look like do you have eyes to see that and then when you see that brokenness do you feel compassion right do you feel the same things that Jesus felt and so here's what Jesus does in response to how he feels the compassion when he sees the brokenness look at verse 37 and 38 says then he said to his disciples the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest and this is the most bizarre part of this passage though the weird twist you think he would say when he saw the crowds harassing helpless he told his disciples you have some preaching to do go out and get to work or you have some healing to do go do some healing or you have some proclaiming to do go do some proclaiming all the things that Jesus just did when he sees the disciples he says here's what your first step is and he's gonna spend some time praying pray for the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest and here's a he's a fun thing about this uh Jesus is a a good Calvinist here in this passage right he doesn't say that here's what you do go go study up on your apologetic arguments go get a nice little shtick of how to present the gospel and go save some people he says no that this is the lord's harvest this is God's field all that we get to do is join our heavenly father in the ministry that he is doing right this is this is the he is the lord of the harvest and so when he talks about the harvest what he's saying is is that there are people out there who are harassed and helpless everywhere but the workers are too few there aren't enough people who say I am willing to go love people who are hurting in order to show them Jesus basically what he's saying is my heart and my struggles to evangelize and to love people is something that's too common for all of us there there are have always been too few of labors for the harvest there's too few of us that are willing to actually go out and engage the ministry and here's the truth he doesn't say there are no harvesters he says that there's there's few so if you were here and you're someone who like God has equipped you and you are doing wonderful ministry and God is using you for his kingdom be encouraged like Jesus sees the ministry that you're doing Hebrews 6 tells us God is not unjust so as to overlook your your love and the work you have shown by serving the servant that saints as you still do right when you engage those ministries God sees that and he values them but for the rest of us who are too passive in this ministry notice the assignment that Jesus gives us doesn't say go preach doesn't say go proclaim go heal he says just pray I pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his field he doesn't also say just pray he says pray earnestly I pray fervently pray passionately pray desperately don't pray like you're reciting a bedtime prayer with your little kids pray like your life depends on it pray like their lives depend on it we've all had those moments where someone dear to us is suffering and we feel like we have no option but to cry out to God with all of our hearts because we know we need him to work and that's what it means to pray earnestly to pray fervently just ask God to be the one to do those things and here's why this is so important like I said at the beginning if Jesus has saved you he has also sent you okay so so in john 2021 says this is at the end of after the resurrection it says Jesus said to his disciples peace be with you as the Father has sent me even so I am sending you right so we have the same ministry that Jesus had we're called to do the same things that Jesus did but like we said a little bit ago the only way you can do that kind of ministry is to feel that compassion that Jesus has and here's the weirdest thing about emotions is you have no control over what you feel right you cannot manufacture compassion you cannot tell yourself to just feel this and like work hard on feeling this feelings are something that are outside of our our volitional will to decide and so that's why I think this passage is so key for us if we're going to be missionaries with Jesus and for Jesus is we have to have our heart transformed so that we actually do feel that compassion and that's why Jesus doesn't begin by saying go preach go heal go proclaim all those things he begins by saying pray because God is the only one who has the power to change hearts I can't change my heart I can't change your heart no one can right it has to be a work of the Holy Spirit of God himself to do those things and so so the assignment here isn't go be a better missionary it's go pray more fervently pray and ask God ask the Lord of the harvest to change your heart to give you a heart of compassion so that when you see the brokenness around you you don't shrug your shoulders and say well that sucks to be them they made some bad decisions you say my heart is breaking over what happened to them and I want to be a part of God bringing healing in their lives right and here's the thing this is the crazy part about how God works when you pray and ask for a compassionate heart God loves to answer that prayer now when we pray and ask for God to send laborers into the harvest guess who he most often uses to send as a laborer into that harvest it's the people who are saying the prayers all right look look down just one more verse verse 10 or chapter 10 verse 1 and he called to him as 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast out these demons and to heal every disease and every affliction note does that sound familiar he's telling his disciples to do the same ministry that he was just doing and then if you jump down to verse five says these 12 Jesus sent out okay so so he tells them to pray for God to send laborers into the harvest and then he uses them as the answer to their own prayer what an amazing way that our God works he tells us to pray he gives us a heart for compassion and then he uses us as the answer to that prayer to see people far from him come to know his love and his grace and if Jesus has saved you he has also sent you but you won't be sent or you won't be willing to go unless you have the same heart that Jesus does which is what we need to pray for as a church so let's pray right now god we we love you we confess that we we don't love you enough we confess that our hearts are complicated there's so many different things that we can can try to carve a different part of our heart for and give ourselves to we know that ultimately our hearts will be restless until they rest in you so would you give us each a heart of compassion would you show us the brokenness around us would we have eyes to see and then we feel the longing deep within our souls to see healing and wholeness come amidst the brokenness that we encounter and lord would would you send laborers into your harvest into harvest and falcon and then call our springs and the ends of the earth and see your son's name we pray amen all right well so if you're new here we're so glad that you're worshiping with us we do this really bizarre thing where we sit around tables like this the reason we do that is because like i said a little bit ago is that we are called to participate in what god is doing all right and so one of the ways we participate is after we study a passage of scripture we turn towards our neighbors and we process what god is showing us from his word because that's how god loves to work is the Holy Spirit working in us and through us all so we have three questions behind me to to kind of guide the discussion these are just suggestions don't feel pressured to share anything beyond what you're comfortable with but it would be good to get this yeah as much as you're comfortable on the table and answer these questions you'll be loved well no matter what your answer is and then if you notice the very last question there is to just asking for someone at your table to volunteer to pray for a little bit we'll do that at the end i'll give you like a two-minute warning of when someone should pray it feels weird to pray in public a lot of times but all prayer is as you're talking to dad your heavenly father loves you and you're just going to him asking him to do the things that he has promised to do in his words so so any brave volunteer at your table can do that and then we will continue to worship through communion and singing and those things thanks lord you are our only hope it is an honor to be able to declare that it is the most true thing that we can say that we have no hope apart from you so in light of that would we be able to identify our own brokenness the ways that we are harassed and helpless and appreciate you as our good shepherd who who cares for us who who provides the healing that we need and from that place of healing God would you soften our hearts to the brokenness around us would we feel the same compassion that you feel and would we be quick to respond and to love those who don't yet know you and it's your name we pray amen amen now receive the benediction now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever amen amen go in peace love you guys [BLANK_AUDIO]
This is the first sermon in our "Gospel Culture: Living Out our Church Values" series. SERMON OUTLINE:1: What characterizes Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:35)2: What motivates Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:36)3: Who implements Jesus’ ministry? (Mt. 9:37-38)DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:Which of the aspects of Jesus’ ministry (Head, Heart, Hands) are you most excited about? Which do you most struggle with?What does brokenness look like in your neighborhood? How can our church help bring healing?Have a volunteer at ...
