Harvest Workers Needed
Elder Mark Schmeissing teaches about Jesus’s call to the mission field in Matthew 9:35-38. Discussion points: Every person is made in the image of God and is worth our time to give them the gospel, God does not need us to be qualified before we commit to the work of the Lord, ask the Lord to help you be obedient to go where and to whoemever He sends you to bring the gospel.
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Scripture Reader: [Matthew 9:35-38] And 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. 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 laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Good morning. I too. I am getting a little over a cold. So please bear with me. And before you get concerned, Fletcher was planning to take the week off. So I'm still plan a for this week for preaching. It's exciting to see all the kids here with us this morning. And it's a privilege to share God's word with you all as we reach the end of 2023. And we start off 2024. I'm sure like many of you. I'm kind of thinking through the year ahead and all the things we're looking forward to all the planning and preparation that goes into whether we have big life events happening or just things we wanna see happen in the New Year. Maybe there's a big, a wedding or a graduation, big family event, a big vacation you're looking forward to. Um, but over the past couple of years we've seen that some of this planning around New Year's time can be kind of difficult just a couple of weeks into the year as 2020 showed us all your planning for the year can kind of go out the window rather quickly.
2020 the global pandemic that that hit us, you know, we saw our favorite restaurants closed and we spent our birthdays on group zoom calls. 2020 also was very eventful in kind of my personal life and my family's life because our son Liam was born in April of that year and his arrival was also a bit shocking like the COVID pandemic. My wife woke me up at 315 in the morning in that April day. And as anyone who in this room that I shook awake at 315 in the morning, I was a little confused and disoriented sense of dread, maybe. And that quickly shifted to a sense of urgency in the moment because the context here is that my older son was born in the hospital after a very short labor. So we knew we had to be prepared and ready to go as soon as things started moving with Liam. So my wife woke me up. We felt the urgency and we started to get moving. I called my friend Megan to, to come to our house to, to be with our older son, Luke and by around 4 a.m. So just after about 40 45 minutes, we were ready to go out the door.
We didn't make it out the door that war though. At 4 a.m. my wi my wife looked at me and said, we're not going to make it to the hospital. We need to call 911. And that's when things sort of shifted, mentally and probably physically for me. Um, as this feeling of urgency transition to this feeling of the sense of the gravity of the situation. That was before me, this great need for a baby to come into the world. And I was gonna have to deliver this baby in our small Somerville apartment bathroom. Thankfully, we lived in Union Square and the emergency teams came within less than 10 minutes or so. And soon there were two emts and several firemen in our living room. Now, you would think that would be the time in the story where Mark's comfort starts to settle in. But these two emts had never delivered a baby like this before. And the five firemen were looking at me asking what they should be doing to help in the situation.
Thankfully, my son was born happy and healthy at around 430. That is just over an hour after I had woken up for those of you keeping count in the morning in our tiny apartment bathroom with one EMT in the bathtub and another one in the doorway of our small bathroom. And I share this story with you all because I think some of these feelings of urgency and this great need staring in the face are similar to what Jesus is conveying as he went about his ministry and he looked at these crowds of people before him. A sense of the gravity of their eternal situation is eager to address their needs.
We're taking a detour this morning. We've been going through the book of John for the past several weeks and we're looking at Matthew this morning and in the preceding chapters in Matthew throughout Jesus's ministry, he's been actively healing the sick and restoring the broken proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and demonstrating his power and authority over sickness over demons and over death itself. And here in this few couple of verses that we read this morning, Jesus shares some of his perspective on the world around him and invites us to join in with him and his labor, I think as opposed to the urgency and the tension there with the birth of a baby. I often find myself approaching the mission that Jesus puts us on similar to waiting for an Amazon package. Usually I forget what I ordered. I have no idea when it's arriving and I don't really care. I, some can't really remember the last time that a lost package elicited in any sort of emotional response for me. And that's not to say that I go around disinterested in the salvation of the people around me. But I think a lot of us can relate when I say we just have a lot on our plates right now.
When it comes to the mission, I think in addition to sharing his motivation and his perspective on the world, Jesus puts out a specific call here for laborers, a specific call for you and I to see the need in the world around us and to respond in obedience. Jesus wants to use you on his mission to share the gospel, to share the good news. He wants us to be ready and obedient to step into the work that he's already begun in the lives of those around us.
So first, let's take a look at our passage and understanding Jesus's perspective as he looked at the crowds for Matthew nine verses 35 and 36. And 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. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them. And this weird compassion, I think we often would think of it as, as sort of a pity or maybe even at times a disgust for the crowds. But it's not that is that he feels in agony for their pain. He wasn't just emotionally moved, but he was physically affected with compassion for the people before him. It literally translates to the bowels or guts referring to the innermost core of the heart of Christ and his ministry.
And this can be found throughout scripture, this compassionate heart of Jesus. I think back to a few weeks ago when Fletcher was speaking from John two, where Jesus's mother comes to him with a request that seems sort of trivial in our eyes, at least about addressing the lack of wine at a wedding. And yet Jesus's compassionate heart responds in turning the ceremonial waters into wine and performing a miracle. Later on, he'll be preaching in a a house or some kind of structure and it's so crowded that people create a hole in the roof and drop their paralytic friend through the roof to get him access to Jesus. And Jesus doesn't chastise them, but he sees their faith and immediately heals the man and changes his life forever all the way through to the end of Jesus's life where he had been beaten and tortured, he hung on a cross to die. He had every right to be a little less compassionate and yet the words out of his mouth, the words that he prayed were father forgive them for. They know not what they do.
Many other times we see in between that Jesus was weeping in sadness and physically overcome with compassion, with those around them. This heart of God hasn't changed today. He looks at us and he sees our struggles and our pain and our challenges. He sees when we've been laid off, he sees when we've made mistakes and he has that same heart of compassion. The idea of God as this disappointed boss or this overbearing father is incompatible with the compassionate Jesus that we find in scripture. And in 2023 I think compassion has been in pretty short supply. You're not gonna find it online. Social media is probably one of the most toxic places on earth. Academia and the business world, they're not really known for being compassionate places. I think our compassion and love as followers of Jesus will stand out as unusual in a world that's very focused on what's best for me and my family in this moment.
What drives Jesus's compassion? It's here in verse 36 because they were, he saw the crowds and he said that they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless, could also be interpreted as bullied and oppressed or wearied and worn out. He saw people who were helpless and in need of a savior. He saw people whose lives were consumed as we relate each week. By this chase of religion, this pursuit of a set of rules that justify their worthiness. And another set of people who are consumed by irreligion, believing that all that they could find in sex or success or money or power at their job, whatever pleasures this world offers, they could find satisfaction in. But both of these paths leaving people exhausted, unsatisfied and empty all in need of the good news that Jesus had come to take his sins on himself, take our sins on himself and died, the death that we deserved so that we might live with him for eternity. So Jesus has this heart of compassion for the crowds as he sees the people around him and it's driven by his view into their need for a savior. What does this look like for us? Are we moved with compassion? When we hear the stories of people's lives around us? Are we focused on their spiritual needs? And do we have an eternal perspective on people's lives?
CS Lewis talked about this sense that the people around us are, are not ordinary people but people that will live on for eternity. He has this quote. You have never talked to me to a mere mortal nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal and their life is to ours. It's the life of a nat but it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry Snub and exploit immortal whores or everlasting splendors. We should take each other seriously. No flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. Fletcher, I think mentioned this a couple of weeks ago about how every Sunday morning, Siri on his iphone or, and all of us who have iphones can give you that screen time report of how you've used your phone and what apps you've been in over the last week. Not sure if Android does the same thing, but it does. Great, great. Fantastic.
What if instead of a screen time report, it was giving you a sense of how you used your life over the last week, who you had conversations with and what those conversations were about. What would it say about you? What would it say about how much time is spent talking about the football games on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and a discussions about the weather. What Taylor Swift was up to this week. What would our conversation report say about our perspective on the eternal nature of the people around us? Are we moved by their need for a savior? And does that even cross our mind if that did cross my mind in every interaction I had? How might that change my relationship with my coworkers and how I treat the man who cuts me off in traffic or the person bagging my groceries?
The need for a good shepherd drove Jesus's ministry and after sharing this perspective and the motivation for his work. Jesus turns to his disciples, those closest followers around him in verse 37 he says to them, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few now as he kind of does throughout scripture and especially in a lot of his parables, the stories he tells, he uses kind of an agricultural reference here, talking about the spiritual condition of people and the work of his ministry. The image of the harvest here is that the Lord is already working in the fields. He's already tilling the ground. He's already planting the seeds, he's already watering the fields, helping things grow. And now he's calling for laborers to come join him in the work that he's already begun. More than simply asking disciples to come join him in this work in the harvest.
He makes two specific observations though and I wanna pack both of those. The first is that the harvest is plentiful. I'm a finance guy. So of course, I was gonna bring some numbers into things this morning. Here's some startling statistics and that there not startling. It may say something about your heart. There's approximately 5 billion billion with A B people across the globe that do not claim to be followers of Christ of those 5 billion, over 3 billion people and over 7000 different people, groups are considered unreached. For those of you maybe not familiar with that term, unreached, unreached people is what I'm using to describe places in the world where the church doesn't have a significant presence where Christ is largely unknown. And it's maybe there's language barriers or geographic barriers. 3 billion people and over 7000 people, groups are unreached with the gospel.
If those numbers are, are difficult to comprehend, difficult to sink in, it's hard to think of what a billion is. Let's bring this closer to home. It's difficult to find statistics locally. But my best estimate and research says that there's probably over 60,000 people in the city of Somerville alone who do not claim to follow Christ. It's not Cambridge in Arlington, in Medford, in Boston. It's just our neighbors here in Somerville. 60,000 people, the harvest is plentiful and the needs are great. What are we to do with this information? There was a missionary in the 19 fifties named Jim Elliott who spent his life working with an unreached people group in Ecuador. He ultimately lost his life working with these people. But I love how concisely he put his understanding of the role of God and the role of himself in this mission. He said, rest in this. It is his business to lead command, impel, send and call it is your business to obey, follow, move and respond. Our need for God is urgent and of internal importance.
And there's billions of people outside these doors who've never heard the name of Jesus. I need a savior. Sometimes we think that we can let those numbers sink in and we can just let it wait just a little bit longer. There's probably going to be a more convenient time to think about these things. We're not promised tomorrow. We're not even promised this afternoon. I think back to the EMT who arrived at my house that April morning, who could probably make me a list of a lot more convenient locations to deliver a baby as opposed to crouching in my bathtub. But thankfully, he just responded to the need in the moment, the harvest is plentiful and the harvest is ready.
Let's move beyond these statistics, these numbers put faces and names to each of these people. Each one of them is made in the image of God and worthy of our time to bring them the good news of the gospel. Jesus's second observation should be heartbreaking in light of those statistics I just gave out. He says the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. You see the reason the gospel has not penetrated every single corner of the globe is not due to the Lord's lack of compassion or his lack of work. It's due to the Lord wanting to use human beings like you and I as his agents and his messengers to spread the good news of the gospel. And the reason the gospel has not penetrated every corner of the globe is due to too few laborers willing to go and join in the labor of the harvest. And the Lord's not calling you because you're skilled because you have this natural talent because of your experience because you are very articulate with those difficult questions. He's calling for your obedience. He's calling for people willing to do whatever he asks, willing to go wherever he sends them to make his name known around the world.
A friend told me a few weeks ago about a church that he visited. We're on the floor of the entryway as you leave, the church building was written on the ground. You're now entering the mission field. Do we have that perspective as we leave this building today? Are we prepared to be obedient to whatever God asks of us a challenge for you. Whether tonight as you're saying prayers before you go to sleep or maybe in the morning when you're spending time with the Lord is to pray and commit yourself fully to the work of the Lord and be obedient to wherever he sends you to whomever he sends you to bring the gospel to people who do not know Him, to commit yourself fully to the work of the Lord, wherever it sends you and to whomever he sends you to bring the gospel to people that do not know Him and don't take this request lightly. You may not be ready for a prayer like this because following this path might be very difficult personally and professionally. But the end result is the ultimate joy for the sake of the gospel. We may have to give up our jobs or our friends or comfortable houses or like Jim Elliott, we may have to give up our lives for the sake of the kingdom.
Jim Elliott is well known for this quote, this man who lost his life trying to reach people with the good news of the gospel for saying he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. What a challenging and convicting prayer for us that we would give over our entire lives in obedience to where the Lord is leading. As we set a vision for missions in our church here in city on a hill, Somerville. We hope that as a church, we see people sent out to all corners of the globe to reach the unreached people with the good news of the gospel. At the same time, we hope people will stay here in Somerville, planting roots and doing the hard labor here in Somerville to reach those 60,000 plus people with the good in the news of the gospel here in the Somerville and the greater Somerville area.
Whether you're here, whether you're far away, whether you're in an academic setting or professional setting, or stay at home mom, whether you're in full time missions, you're called to join in the work of the harvest and there's too few willing to dedicate themselves to this difficult labor as a church, we've recently connected with a family, a missionary family in Central Asia. This family is living in a country that I'm not gonna name or describe in too many details because of the danger. It is to be a Christian, spreading the gospel in that country. The government frequently is is skeptical about the spread of Christianity shutting down or, or harassing church gatherings, small kind of house church gatherings. This family has to be careful to kind of protect their visa status and our ability to stay in the country in the city where they are of more than 15 million residents. There's less than 0.001% of people who would claim to follow Jesus. The missionary's name is Michael and he owns and operates a business in the country where he's working and their vision is to see movements of grace, restoring and renewing the city through this business. kind of transforming the local community where they are and at the same time, they supporting the local church planting efforts. They're not full time on staff at the local church. but they're using their time to build relationships and through discipleship and training, supporting the local church there.
I hope that over the next couple of years, they'll actually be able to come visit us here in Somerville. A couple of times, we'll be able to put a face to the name, learn a little bit more about the work that's going on and we can further build that relationship with them. We look forward to seeing God's word spread and people come to know Him through their ministry and I bring this family and this relationship up to open up our eyes to the myriad of ways that God might want to use us as laborers in this harvest. Work too often. I think we have a narrow perspective of what it might look like to be sent out on mission, specially on mission to reach people for the gospel in a foreign place. But perhaps God is using your experience right now in finance or project management or biotech research, whatever it is you're doing to prepare you for his work going on in the harvest fields.
So Tuesday is gonna come around and for many of us, we gotta go back to work again on Tuesday to return to our routines. We have our 40 plus hour a week jobs or school, which maybe doesn't start Tuesday. Maybe that's next week. We probably have our calendars for January already filled up with all of our different commitments. And what are we to do with this information? What can I do? Mark just said, there's 5 billion with a B people who do not know Christ. What can I do? Thankfully, Jesus didn't stop there. Verse 38. He says, therefore, pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Pray earnestly. It's the Lord of the harvest that calls people to himself. The most effective thing that we can do in the face of these overwhelming, almost like incomprehensible statistics is to pray.
Jesus full well knows that in 2023 that number is 5 billion and he still calls us to pray. Please join me in praying for Michael and his family for more laborers, willing to join them in difficult places in the world. Pray for believers all over the world to have boldness and their witness and a willingness to join in the difficult harvest work. Pray for the gospel to grow in places where few have known Christ, where there are seemingly so many barriers and pray for God to comfort those who are persecuted. There are many places around the world where jail and torture or threats of jail and loss of life are realities for Christians who wanna share their faith.
But the compassionate heart of Christ doesn't stop there. We should also pray for the salvation of the persecutors. How many of us have spent time this week praying for the salvation of the leaders of Hamas? Do we even believe something like that to be possible? The existence of this should tell us that it's not impossible. Half of the New Testament was written by a man who personally oversaw the murder of many people simply because they followed Christ. Paul was a persecutor of Christians and had his life transformed by Christ.
I was challenged recently, reading a couple of interviews with Christians in Israel and Palestine. And it's reshaped how I pray for the conflict there. An Israeli believer said, if either side takes land from the Mediterranean all the way to the Pacific for those of us geographically challenged, that's all of Asia. If either side takes land from the Mediterranean all the way to the Pacific but does not have Jesus. It is nothing. He said they still need Jesus. And another Palestinian believer said, please pray for us that we choose wisely how to shine his light in a very dark place right now. Lord take all the evil, smash it as glass and grind it to nothing in this. We hold our hope that one day soon your ways will prevail. Let our prayer life be shaped by Jesus's compassionate perspective and our eyes on eternity. Let's also spend time and energy learning and better understanding the harvest, work around the world to understand their needs and how we can pray for them.
The comedian John Oliver has a weekly talk show last week tonight where he often does an extended segment on international social or political issues and he has a bit where he often starts with a map of the continent behind him and the country highlighted and I'll say something along the lines of tonight's story is about the country of Bolivia. This is a country that you think so little about that. You don't even realize I haven't highlighted Bolivia up here. I've highlighted Uruguay and it's funny and it's also convicting considering my own lack of knowledge of the world geography, people that God has made and loves people made in the image of Him. I'm struggling to pick out this country on a map.
I certainly haven't been praying earnestly for the harvest work that's going on there. What about here? What about in Somerville or Cambridge or Medford or Arlington where we live? What about this week? What about my coworker classmate? If you have a sibling or a spouse who doesn't know the Lord? The answer is the same. Let us pray. Let's commit to praying in 2024 for those that don't know the Lord. Let's pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers, send people along their path to help guide and point them to him and that they would come to know him this year as you set out this week. I hope that you'll join me and I wanna challenge you all to join me and just writing down. Maybe you do it on a piece of paper you can put by your fridge or your computer monitor. Maybe you do it in the notes app of your phone. Just write down five names of people that you can be praying for in 2024. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send people along their paths, to bring them the good news of the gospel and pray for wisdom and how the Lord might be using you in their lives, be ready and be prepared to share the hope that you have.
This is also a brief advertisement to join us on Tuesday mornings down the street at our community space for prayer meetings. When they start up again, you can join alongside others who are seeking to be obedient and dedicate some time to pray for God's work in their lives and the lives of those around them. We're to pray and respond in obedience and it's God who will draw people to himself. And as you pray, be prepared, be prepared that God might have plans for you and use you in ways that you don't even expect. What happens in Matthew nine. Jesus tells the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers at the end of chapter nine. And then if we carry on into chapter 10, how does it begin? The Lord sends those disciples out, proclaiming the Kingdom of God is at hand. The very disciples that were praying for more laborers were the laborers that God chose to send out in the same way.
Our prayers for more people to go out spreading the gospel, for more people in the paths of those five names that we put out to spread the gospel may result in the Lord calling us and using us as his messengers. God wants to use you on his mission to share the gospel that might look like you going out on short or long term missions trips that might look like you dedicating your life to prayer for those who do not know Christ. Or it may look like you using your financial resources as tools to expand the kingdom of God throughout the world. As we go forth this week out into the mission field, I pray that we go out with the eyes of Jesus and see the needs of those around us. I hope that we're reminded of the eternal nature of the people that we interact with and share Jesus's heart of compassion for them, recognizing the great opportunity, the great harvest that's before us.
And I pray that we respond in obedience, not out of guilt, not out of shame or fear and certainly not relying on our own strength, but respond to the call of the Lord who's already working. He's already moving and asking us to join in on his mission. May 2024 be a year where we don't just sit on the bench, sit on the sidelines. The Lord is in need of laborers and the invitation is here for you today to join in his labor. Let's pray earnestly and be ready for how we might want to use us to make his name known throughout the world.
On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took a loaf of bread and he broke it saying this is my body broken for you. And then he took a cup and he said this is my blood shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Each week we celebrate the sacred meal of communion, reminded of Christ's sacrifice for us and his continual presence with us. Please pray with me.
Lord were humbled and we're in awe that you wanna use us. You want us to join us in your labor in the harvest fields. I pray that 2024 will be a year where we grow deeper in our knowledge of you. We make it our life's mission to make your name known. I pray that we respond to your call and are obedient to you that we're willing to give up all that's trivial and temporary for the greater joy that is expanding your kingdom and knowing you, Lord, I pray that our hearts would be softened and compassionate to others around us. Quick to give an answer to those who ask us for a reason for the hope that's in us. Lord, give us boldness, grant us courage. May we join in the labor of your mission to spread your kingdom to the ends of the earth in your name? In your name we pray, Amen.