May 5, 2009 Matthew 9:35-38

Missions! Go! Look!! Be Moved! Pray!
Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News about the kingdom, and healing all kinds of diseases and sicknesses. When he saw the crowds, he felt sorry for them because they were hurting and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus said to his followers, "There are many people to harvest, but only a few workers to help harvest them. Pray to the Lord, who owns the harvest, that he will send more workers to gather his harvest." ~Matthew 9:35-38~

This passage was ironic to me because I am actually going on missions for the first time this summer. So basically what this passage is talking about is Jesus, the missionary.

The first step to missions is: going! Verse 35 shows that Jesus went. No questions asked, He just went; Jesus never asks us to do anything that He hasn't already done. He only leads by example, so that should make it easier for us to just follow in His footsteps. Not only did Jesus go around and evangelize, he did missions! There is a difference between missions and evangelizing. Evangelizing is reaching out to the people who don't believe in Jesus. Missions, on the other hand, is reaching out to the people who do not know that Jesus exsits. Jesus did everything while on missions: teaching, preaching, healing, and ministering. We should be able to do those things also.

Verse 36 shows Jesus' heart as He goes on missions. Not only do we need to physically go, we need to have the heart to go, otherwise it's pointless. The NIV translation of verse 36 states, "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Key part is that He had compassion...He saw, and He had compassion. To have compassion is to have your stomach tie into a knot. Either deep love or deep hate, in this case, deep love. Not only does this "Jesus say, He had compassion," come up in this verse, but it also shows up in four other passages throughout the bible. That shows how important it is. So at this point, we should ask ourselves, what makes our stomach tie into a knot?

Verse 37 talks about the harvest. "The harvest is plentiful," what does harvest symbolize? Harvest symbolizes us, believers. "The workers are few," what does workers symbolize? Workers symbolizes those believers called to missions. We're so privileged in the United States, that we sometimes forget how others may be suffering throughout the rest of the world. We're so privileged that we have so much harvest and we have plenty of workers just within the United States, but that's not where these workers are needed.

Finally verse 38 talks about prayer. Prayer to the one who owns all the harvest, God, to ask that He may send out more workers. Missions is hard work and it requires a lot. That is why we look to God for a calling to fulltime missions. Otherwise there are people who go on short summer missions and etc. Either way, we should pray, asking for God to send out His workers, and if that be us, that we may have that compassion and that heart. And although we may not be called out to missions, we still need to pray earnestly of those who have been called out. They don't receive enough recognition...we might not know them, we may never know them, but they're brothers and sisters doing God's work, just as we should be doing. Some are going through so much turmoil, there have been tragedies and devastations, but overall, our job is to further the Kingdom of God, no matter what it takes, and that's their mentalities. We need to always keep them in our prayers.