Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Matthew 9:35–10:8
Your ministry is:
1. Pray for all
2. Go to one
Take a moment to think on your last year. Since June of last year, how would you summarize your life? What have you spent most of your time doing? Have you passed any big milestones? Have you fought through challenges? What events or accomplishments or tragedies would make it into a 30-second summary of your last year?
I ask because the first couple verses of our reading today are a summary of a big chunk of Jesus’ ministry on earth, his Galilean ministry. Matthew wanted to say in a couple sentences what Jesus had been up to for the past while, and here’s how he put it: Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
These are awesome verses. These are verses that make us say “that’s my Savior.” He’s going through all the towns and villages, boots on the ground, dirt under the fingernails, ministry. He’s got it all—he can teach better than the best intellectuals and he can serve among the commonfolk. And he’s doing it for the right reason: compassion. He simply sees that the people need his help, they’re like sheep without a shepherd, so he came to lead them.
But there’s two problems that these verses bring up. The first problem is one that Jesus himself brings up, and the second is one that we might bring up.
1. Prayer for all
The first problem is that Jesus is doing all this wonderful ministry but it barely seems to make a dent. Which feels weird to say, and is not really correct; obviously for each paralyzed person he healed and each person who believed what he preached, their lives were changed forever. But there were so many more who needed his healing. And Jesus was only one man. The region that Jesus was doing ministry in was Galilee, where historians estimate that around 200,000 people lived. And it wasn’t like they were all in one city; Galilee was about the size of Rhode Island, which sounds small, but Rhode Island has 1.1 million people, almost six times more dense than Galilee. So it’s not like Jesus could just set up shop in one place and everyone could come to him. Even when he did set up shop, like at the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand, people had to travel super far to hear him.
Anyways, all this to say that Jesus wanted to reach more people but he knew he physically couldn’t. He saw the crowds of people that would gather to hear him preach, and his stomach had a huge knot in it—that’s what the word translated compassion literally means here, that Jesus’ insides were twisted—because he saw the crowd and how they needed strong spiritual leadership, but he was only one person. He says, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Are you ever struck in the same way? Have you ever stepped onto a packed L train and wondered how many people there do not know Jesus? Have you ever walked through a street festival and thought: how many of these people have heard about God, but not truly heard the gospel? Have you ever been on the Lakefront trail and realized that every person passing by has a soul Christ loves?
Friends in our city, scratch that, in our neighborhood, scratch that, in your building the harvest is plentiful. So many people would believe in Jesus if only someone invited them to a church like Crossroads that preaches the pure truth about him. So many people would have peace no matter the problems in their life if only someone shared with them how Jesus gives us peace. So many people would be able to finally reconcile with their estranged family member, or finally be able to sleep soundly, or finally lose their imposter syndrome, or finally be on the path to eternal life, if only someone shared what Jesus has done for them. If only we could be strong spiritual leaders for them, to lead them boldly but humbly to see Jesus’ work is for them. But we’re only a few people in a city of millions. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Luckily for us, Jesus solved this problem as soon as he raised it. He identified the problem and then he provided a two step solution. The first step? Pray. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. You might think, well duh it’s a good thing to pray for. But don’t overlook it, because it’s really a deep thing to do. By praying, you are acknowledging your helplessness and God’s helpfulness. You’re saying, Lord, I see that there are so many people that I desperately want to share the good news of your love with. I am not capable of it. But you, Lord, this is your wheelhouse, you are the Lord of the harvest, Jesus says this is his harvest field. God owns this. He is capable of bringing home a great harvest. The first step, pray.
2. Going to one
Second step? Go. Did you notice how fast this happens? Jesus tells his disciples to pray for more workers, and then he immediately makes them workers and sends them out. He tells them to pray, and then he immediately says they are the answer to their own prayer. Might God be doing a similar thing for us? Might we pray that God would see the thousands of restless people in our neighborhood and bring them peace in his Son Jesus, and then have God say to us: you, turn around and go. That’s how Jesus solves this problem.
But that raises a problem for us. Because we don’t always feel like we are in a position to be a solution. This is the second problem with these verses: that we see Jesus doing this amazing ministry, and we love to hear about how he was a powerful speaker and he could heal any disease and he always knew the exact right thing to say to people. And then Jesus says to you and me: go and do what I do. And we think, I can’t do that. There are all kinds of reasons you might think that you’re not up for this ministry that Jesus sends you out to do. Maybe you think I didn’t go to school for this. I didn’t go to seminary, I don’t know how to preach about the kingdom of God. Or maybe you think, I’m in another career path. Jesus was in his ministry 24/7 it seems like, but I spend more time at my job that doing anything else. I just don’t have the time margins to go out and find hurting people and try to help them. Or maybe you think, I’m not really the best representative for Jesus, I’ve got too many questions about the Bible and the faith, and so I’m not the person to do so. Or maybe you think, well Jesus sent the disciples out and he gave them the ability to do miraculous healings, but he didn’t give me that ability, so I guess I can’t do it.
There is a one-word answer to all these questions: compassion. When Jesus saw the crowds who had wandered from God, and so they were hurting, he didn’t say, well you reap what you sow. He didn’t say, well that’s their choice. He didn’t think, I’m only one person and I can’t help all of them, so I’ll just worry about my own faith. His response was compassion. He got a knot in his stomach because he cared so much about these people.
And you can have that response too. We naturally don’t, we naturally like to think that it’s not our responsibility to be concerned with others’ spiritual lives. We naturally turn inward and think that following Jesus is all about his ministry to us and there’s no room for us carrying on his ministry to others. But Jesus has overturned that natural selfishness when he takes over management of our hearts, and he gives us this same overwhelming sense of compassion for others that he had.
When we look at Jesus here, we realize that we were just like those people who were like sheep without a shepherd. When you look back on what’s happened in your life the past year, however positive or negative the last year has been, we know that our year has been far from perfect. We’ve struggled mightily with sin. Our sinful hearts have tried to betray us so many times, trying to convince us that things are right when we know they’re wrong. We’ve had instances where we’ve failed to be good friends or family members. We’ve put the way God wants us to live to the side so we could live how we wanted. We know what it’s like to be sheep without a shepherd. We know what it’s like to set off on our own with big dreams of making our own life and our own future outside of God’s way, and then shortly after realizing that we are desperately incapable of finding a good way and totally capable of spiritual self-sabotage. The word compassion means to suffer with, and we look out at the people around us, those people who have been told that they need to be whoever they want to be, but who are now suffering because they have lost their shepherd. We know what that is like.
But we also know what it’s like to be rescued by our shepherd. We know what it’s like to have Jesus show up in our village. We know what it’s like to have Jesus’ voice speaking to through our parents, or through our Christian school teachers, or through a dear friend. We know that shepherd’s voice, who says that your sins are forgiven. Your shame is taken away. God no longer thinks about the wrongdoings you’ve done, so why are you? We know what it’s like to experience that flood of peace when we hear once again that our sins are forgiven in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit. We know what it’s like to watch as those wounds from the past are healed by Jesus. We know what it’s like to be able to retain our joyfulness even in the most difficult times because of the love our Savior has shown us.
And because we know firsthand our wonderful shepherd, when we get on the L or go on the Lakefront trail, we don’t look and see people who are worse than us because they don’t believe in Jesus. We don’t view others as inferior because they don’t know as much about the Bible as we do. We have compassion. We want to roll up our sleeves and do ministry—we want others to know what Jesus has done for them just like we know what he’s done for us.
To have a ministry, you don’t need to go to seminary. You don’t need to quit your job and go full-time public minister. You don’t need to never have a doubt about your faith ever again. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t even need to do miraculous healings. Do you know why Jesus gave the disciples the ability to do miracles and not you? The gospel of Mark also talks about Jesus sending out the disciples, and he says this: Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. Back then, people didn’t have Bibles. Most couldn’t even read anyways. So how could they know that the disciples were teaching what was true, more than the next person? Because the miracles confirmed God was on their side. God doesn’t give you miracles, why? Because he’s given you his Word, the Bible, which you can use to confirm that the forgiveness of Jesus is real and true and God actually wants to go out and save everyone in our city, your neighborhood, your building.
To have a ministry, you also don’t have to try to be a hero and save everyone. Jesus liked to work one by one. We’ll talk more about this at our Bible study on Tuesday, but so much more sharing of Jesus can be done in a one-on-one setting than if you go out with a bullhorn after Cubs games.
I’ll close with one example. Maybe you read this story, I posted it on our church’s Instagram and facebook accounts a couple days ago. In 1950, a Christian missionary was traveling through Laos in Southeast Asia. He passed some Lao people on a path, and handed them some brochures. The big statement on the brochure was “Jesus Christ has the power to overcome the devil, and he is the true God.” This was a bold statement, as the Lao people did a lot of spirit worship. But the Word of God worked. And these men came to faith. And they went back to their families and their village, and shared the good news, and they came to faith. One of those families was the Lor family. Fast forward two generations, and Bounkeo Lor has moved to the United States, where he came across our church body. He was so excited about how clearly our church body shared God’s Word that he signed up to study for years and years to become a pastor. And he did, and he began preaching at a church in Kansas City. One day he got a call from a pastor in Vietnam. The Vietnamese pastor had listened to Bounkeo’s sermon, found it refreshingly clear, and wanted him to come and teach the entire Vietnamese communist church how to preach. That was 15 years ago. Today, our church body operates the communist church’s seminary. Bounkeo is the president. He leads thousands of Vietnamese pastors in their studies, teaching them clear, biblically faithful teachings. Showing the entire country of Vietnam their shepherd. And it all started with one missionary.
Now, I’m not saying that you, as you go about your life being compassionate enough to share your faith with your friends, will start a gospel chain-reaction that leads to a communist government begging you to run their seminary. But I am saying that it’s happened before. What we can be certain of is that you have a ministry. You are blessed to know peace that many do not know but could know. You are blessed to be able to pray that all people would come to know peace in Jesus. And you are blessed to be able to carry that message to the people you come across, one at a time. As Jesus says, freely you have received, freely give. And then a year from now, think back on all the people you got the chance to talk to, to help, to serve, to share compassion with, to show Jesus to. I pray that it’s a summary similar to Jesus’. Because Jesus has given each of us a ministry: pray for the harvest, and go to people one by one.
