Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Not sure if anyone has heard of these two people, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, they're British artists and I came across their work. I'm no like art scholar or critic, but I just found what they do pretty incredible. So Sue Webster, I think I've shared this before actually. Sue Webster did this piece of art called Sunrise Over Manhattan.
[00:00:26] And it blew my mind the first time that I heard about it because all it appears is that if you have that kind of table at the front there, all that was on it was like Coke cans and stellar Artois cans and they're all like got holes in them. It just looks like a table of rubbish.
[00:00:49] That's it.
[00:00:50] Which I don't like.
[00:00:52] I don't know, I don't know a lot about art. A table of rubbish doesn't look like art to me. But then the lights go down and it's flooded with this orange light and this is what comes out.
[00:01:07] It is a kind of a silhouette of the skyline of Manhattan that you look at this table of rubbish and what you see looks kind of inconsequential and not much worth. And where's the beauty and that?
[00:01:23] And yet when a new perspective, a new life is shone, what was trash becomes treasure.
[00:01:33] There's something beautiful that comes from that new perspective, that comes forward. And it's possible in the way that we see the world, that we can see trash or we can see treasure, that who here has ever known someone that no matter what situation comes before them, they're always going to see the glass half empty?
[00:01:55] Like it doesn't matter what they're presented with, it's just there's a hard wiring within them. It seems to be that what they see is just the terrible side of things.
[00:02:07] And as Megan shared last week, what we see with the Pharisees is that they are seeing everything that Jesus is doing.
[00:02:17] All of this healing, all of this teaching and the way that they perceive it is they're saying, look, the only reason he can do this is because he's empowered by the prince of demons. That's clearly like, that's a pretty negative Nancy perspective right there. Or a negative Norman, whichever one you want to go with.
[00:02:40] Like there's this. They are seeing the way this is playing out as from this particular perspective. But in the words that Jan read out for us, Jesus has this ability to see something that can be easily overlooked and yet sees it with this God given potential or actually an invitation into something more.
[00:03:07] And maybe there's a chance that as you heard the words that Jan read Out, you think, wait, that sounds a little bit familiar because we've been working through our series on Matthew and we're kind of working through.
[00:03:24] We're up to chapter nine, obviously. But these words that Jesus said, they're actually almost word for word, the same words as he has, as Matthew has recorded earlier in the book, in Matthew 4. This is right before he's about to launch into his teaching we know as the Sermon on the Mount. We read these words. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
[00:04:01] Fast forward five chapters or fast forward a whole lot of ministry. Later, Matthew records this as he looks at Jesus ministry. The Jesus went throughout all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom to heal disease and sickness.
[00:04:22] It is pretty much word for word, verbatim, the exact same words.
[00:04:32] And what Matthew is doing here is this. This single statement is like a hinge.
[00:04:40] On the one hand, it's connecting everything to what has happened previously.
[00:04:46] So what we've looked at through Matthew chapter five to nine, what we see Jesus teaching, you see Jesus unpacking what life is supposed to look like in this kingdom that is coming, that has come with Jesus arrival, but is also coming and again coming in a fuller expression that we have seen healing of so many different sicknesses and disease. This verse acts like a. This is what has happened up to this point, but it's also acting as a hinge for what is about to take place as well.
[00:05:29] And so did you catch the part of the sentence, the part of those words that were different Jesus went through in Matthew chapter four, Galilee.
[00:05:43] So everything that is taking place between verses five and nine is taking place in Capernaum, taking place in Galilee, taking place in kind of this central hub of Jesus ministry.
[00:05:55] But did you catch what was said in chapter nine?
[00:06:00] That Jesus went through all the regions, all the towns and villages, that this good news of the kingdom of God, his rule and reign, his preferred reality on earth as it is in heaven, was never meant to be just localized.
[00:06:23] 1 thought this was going to go wider.
[00:06:30] And the way that it's going to go wider is what we're going to unpack the next time that we land in Matthew in chapter 10.
[00:06:41] And so this verse, as a hinge kind of Matthew is walking here, the fine line between looking back at what has happened and also looking forward to what Jesus is about to do. It's the same ministry.
[00:06:59] It's the same like teaching Proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing. It's the same ministry that will happen.
[00:07:09] But Jesus, in order to see what happens when it goes to all towns and villages, is about to send out his.
[00:07:18] He is about to send out his followers to do what they had seen.
[00:07:28] This is what this one little verse has loaded into, is a summation of what has come before and a springboard into what is to come.
[00:07:40] And so spoilers for the next few months that we're going to be spending our time in. But as we're building this kind of theological understanding of the mission of God, this is a key foundational component of it that Jesus calls his people to go and do the things that he has done.
[00:08:09] And so this word mission can be a bit of a vague word, but the two definitions that I have found helpful.
[00:08:18] In his book Transforming Mission, David Bosch describes mission as alerting people everywhere to the universal reign of God.
[00:08:30] It's this idea that even if no one acknowledged it, God would still reign over the world because he is who he is.
[00:08:41] And part of our role, through word, through deed, through lifestyle, as his people, is to bring people's attention to the reality of God and His rule and the desire that he wants to see in this world.
[00:08:57] Chris Wright will break this down a little bit through our series has a bit more of a detail drilling in, but he says it is our committed participation as God's people, at God's invitation and command in God's own mission within the history of God's world, or the redemption or the bringing out of darkness of God's creation.
[00:09:21] I think Christopher Wright really wants you to guess that this idea of mission is not our activity. It's his idea. Predominantly it is our response to who God is and what he is doing. And so we're going to unpack that in greater detail over the next few months.
[00:09:43] But for now, Jesus is getting ready to send out his apprentices, his followers, his disciples, to do the very thing that they had seen, to proclaim the good news of this, of this rule and reign of God and to give people glimpses as to what this, what life in this reign looks like, where sickness is defeated and healing comes forth.
[00:10:16] And so what we see in the rest of this passage is a posture and a prayer from Jesus that helps us to engage the world which we are a part of.
[00:10:31] And so in verse 36, moving on, if you've got a Bible, feel free to follow along. It'd be great. In Matthew, chapter nine, read this. When Jesus saw the crowds had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep out shepherd.
[00:10:52] That we talked about people who kind of. When they look at the world, when they look at what is before them, it very much comes from a glass half empty.
[00:11:02] Jesus sees this massive crowd and when he sees them, his heart is. I don't know. The last time when you were in a big crowd. Do you remember, do you have in your mind the last time you were in a really big crowd?
[00:11:18] A few weeks ago, we were at Norwood Primary School, have a fundraising thing called Winterfest.
[00:11:24] It's kind of Friday night and they've got food trucks and a whole lot of stuff. It's really great. It's freezing cold because hence Winterfest. And so we were kind of. And it's packed. And it got to a point in the night that I just wanted to get through somewhere. I don't know if you've ever had that in a crowd where kind of you just. You just know where you need to get to and you just start trying to navigate and you don't want to bump people, but if it happens, it happens. And you're just trying to slip through and navigate and work through. And as I was.
[00:11:59] It was weeks later, as I was putting this message together and reflecting and read these words, when Jesus saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion.
[00:12:08] I kind of had to stop because not once during Winterfest did I look at the crowds with compassion.
[00:12:17] That emotion never came up for me.
[00:12:22] I just wanted to get through, to get.
[00:12:25] Get what I needed to get and then get to a space where I could, like, breathe for a little bit. I'm not an extroverted person, but being around that many people and trying to keep, like, keep track of kids, when it's dark and there's crowds everywhere, there was stress levels rising up.
[00:12:42] Not once did I, in the midst of this crowd, look at the people around me.
[00:12:48] Sense of compassion.
[00:12:53] And yet Jesus sees the crowds before him, and we're told he is moved with compassion, which is a very specific word that Matthew.
[00:13:09] So the scriptures that we have, you might have them in English, they were originally written in ancient languages. This New Testament was written in Greek. And the word that Matthew uses to describe this event is one called splagnidzomai.
[00:13:25] Got a great sound to it. Just really kind of from the gut.
[00:13:31] Splagnidzomi. And it is to be moved with compassion to the guts of someone, to the bowels, to the deep within us, that we are moved so deeply that it gets right down into our body.
[00:13:53] And this Word is only used a handful, about 12 times.
[00:13:58] Every single one of those times, it's connected to Jesus.
[00:14:05] There's something about Jesus that when those who are recording the details of his life and his ministry, the word that seems to come out is that they just see Jesus being compassion.
[00:14:23] Which makes sense, if the passage that Andrew read out for us earlier is accurate. He is the visible image of the invisible God.
[00:14:33] And the way that God defined himself for the first time that's recorded, it's in Exodus, chapter 34, and it says the Lord. The Lord is compassionate. It's the very first thing off the bat.
[00:14:50] It's no wonder that when people see Jesus, they see a man moved with compassion.
[00:15:01] When were you last moved like that?
[00:15:07] Clearly, for me, it wasn't Winterfest, but that's a challenging question to sit with.
[00:15:15] When was the last time that I was moved with that level of compassion?
[00:15:24] So why does Jesus have this?
[00:15:27] Why is he moved with compassion?
[00:15:32] Well, we're told that Jesus sees these people. They are harassed, they're helpless, that they are like sheep without a shepherd, which is a word that comes up numerous times in the Jewish scriptures in the Old Testament.
[00:15:52] And it's never really painted as a good thing for the people of God to be sheep without a shepherd.
[00:16:02] A shepherd was another word. God calls his kings shepherds, he calls his leaders shepherd. Because they have a role among the people, that they are to care for them, they are to lead them, they are to guide them, they are to bring them to environments that will lead them to peace and to flourishing. They are to bind those who have broken bones.
[00:16:29] They are to defend them against predators.
[00:16:33] That word harassed and helpless does not adequately again, go into the Greek, does not adequately sum up what Matthew is writing here.
[00:16:44] The word harassed is better translated torn, slayed, or skinned.
[00:16:51] It's the image of what happens to sheep when a shepherd is not there to protect them from predators.
[00:17:01] The very big link. Jesus looks out and sees this crowd of people that are lost, that don't have a sense of leadership, that don't know where to find peace, that don't know where to find that place of safety and refuge. Jesus looks at them and his heart.
[00:17:28] And I will put to you that we're living in a time where people are in that similar place. Again, this world feels like chaos at times.
[00:17:44] Like, who would have expected a trump one, let alone a trump two?
[00:17:51] Like, it's got to the point where economically everything is kind of in a place where we can't. We don't even know where Things are going to go next. Where do you turn to for stability?
[00:18:04] Where do you turn to peace?
[00:18:06] Where do you turn to for belonging? Where do you turn to for community in this time?
[00:18:13] Where do you turn to to understand who you are as a person, your identity, where you fit into this world, how you can contribute?
[00:18:22] That I would posit to that. I think Jesus, if he were walking around today, would look out at the people. He would see and would see very similar things. And I think he would be moved to passion.
[00:18:40] That this is how Jesus, I feel, longs for us, the around us as well.
[00:18:51] That actually in one of those passages in Numbers, God is speaking to Moses, trying to prepare him for the next season of what things are going to look like.
[00:19:03] May the Lord, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in. But the Lord's people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.
[00:19:21] That for Moses, as he's about to see the people go into the promised land without him, his hope, his desire is if one thing cannot happen, it cannot be that the Lord's people become like sheep without shepherds.
[00:19:38] What typically happens for the people of God in this place is that when they have no king, when they have no shepherd, that the line is riddled throughout the end of the Book of Judges, that they did whatever seemed right for them.
[00:19:54] And if you want a really gruesome read, read the end of the Book of Judges.
[00:20:00] That is not synonymous with human flourishing when we read those words.
[00:20:08] And so how do we see the people in the world around us?
[00:20:14] And I think probably a question that I haven't put there that would go beneath that.
[00:20:21] Do we see ourselves as someone who God has compassion on?
[00:20:31] Do we see ourselves as someone not just who intellectually get. Yeah, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. It's a beautiful thing. But for whom that has dropped from the head to the heart and that our way of living is shaped and permeated by knowing the depth of the compassion and love of God for us.
[00:20:57] It's out of that place that we can be people with compassion beyond us.
[00:21:03] Do we know deeply the love of God for me, for us as people?
[00:21:14] Then we've seen this posture that Jesus has of seeing people with compassion and then gives us a prayer.
[00:21:24] He starts off by saying, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. If you were to just take that phrase, that feels like a bit of a hopeless reality, doesn't it?
[00:21:38] This harvest is enormous.
[00:21:41] It's plentiful. He sees the people.
[00:21:45] And this word harvest so often has been used of talking about judgment in different points. You can read it in Prophets, Hosea, chapter six, Joel, chapter three. But the language of a harvest is one of judgment. But this is not what Jesus is saying.
[00:22:03] Jesus is looking at this crowd of people, lost sheep without a shepherd, and he's saying, the harvest, the number of people who are ready and willing to hear about the good news of the kingdom, is plentiful, but it's abundant.
[00:22:25] But the workers, those who are willing to go in and share and live and proclaim this good news, are few. That seems like a hopeless equation. One side is far bigger than the other.
[00:22:44] This statement that seems hopeless, actually, it's full of hope because the instructions that they have been given is to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. But no matter how big, no matter how great, no matter how expansive this harvest seems, there is a God, a Lord, a king who is over it all.
[00:23:11] And so we shouldn't feel hopeless.
[00:23:14] I mean, if I'm just going to focus on what I can do and what I can contribute, yeah, absolutely. It's way too daunting. And I can't pull this off by myself. I don't know if you have ever had moments where you have felt you've had an opportunity to have a conversation and the thoughts that have come up for you have been like, I can't do this.
[00:23:36] Who am I to do this? I don't know enough. What if they ask a question that I don't know the answer to? Spoilers. People will, I'm not good enough.
[00:23:51] Can we just get them to come to church and hear from someone else who can say it?
[00:23:57] I don't know if anyone has ever had any of those thoughts that it can feel so overwhelming if we put it all on us.
[00:24:08] But there's a Lord of the harvest, one whose desire is that these people would find a good shepherd to lead them good pasture.
[00:24:21] And so there is an opportunity here to. Jesus is inviting us to pray.
[00:24:29] To pray and to ask God to send out workers into his harvest field. Whose harvest field is it His.
[00:24:40] What will happen is if we are seeing people with the compassion that Jesus calls us to see, and if we're praying this prayer, who want Jesus, who I think it's okay to say that a little bit of a tricksy hobbit in this situation is who are the people that he will then send out into the harvest? Who's he speaking to now, his disciples.
[00:25:10] He's asked them to pray for people to go into the harvest. In chapter 10, who does he send out into the harvest?
[00:25:19] His disciples.
[00:25:23] But the moment you start seeing people with compassion, the moment you start understanding God's compassion on it helps you to see God at work in others.
[00:25:38] And that as you start to pray, God will propel you into that harvest field.
[00:25:48] My belief is that God has people and opportunities for every single person who is here that has a heart, that has compassion for people. And so what we want to do at Summerhill over this next period of time is help equip and help empower.
[00:26:07] But whether it is as a collective body here, reaching out to the community, that we've been placed in reach, or that you, in your life among the people that God has placed around you, that you will feel that you can engage the work of the harvest, that's the hope, that's the prayer, it's the invitation of Jesus.
[00:26:36] I think what we start, what we see, and this is really important, what we see with the disciples, is that if this passage is a hinge passage and it summed up everything that has come before, what his followers have done is they have walked with him and they have watched Jesus do all of this stuff.
[00:27:02] They've watched him do it.
[00:27:04] And then there are many conversations, I'm guessing, that the disciples have with Jesus around it. And then you'll notice this. I think as we go through Matthew together, Jesus will often invite his disciples to help.
[00:27:22] That Jesus will do it, but he invites them to help the feeding of the 5,000.
[00:27:29] Jesus tells them, you give them something to eat, which they're flabbergasted by. They can't comprehend and wrap their head around it. They're never going to be able to feed this many people.
[00:27:39] Jesus is still going to do something incredible. But they get to help, and then Jesus will extend them. There's this progression that seems to happen that I think can take the freakiness out of stepping in to these spaces.
[00:27:59] Because I firmly believe that the way that Jesus went about engaging with people and ministering to them, he actually gave to his disciples for them to do.
[00:28:12] He gives for us to be able to do as well is why we need help and empowering and equipping.
[00:28:21] But I just want to say, if you sit here and have thought there is no way in the world that I could do this sort of stuff, I respectfully disagree.
[00:28:37] It might not feel comfortable to do. Fair enough. I'll give that to you. But you can do it, it's something that I have wrestled with, something that I have struggled with. And I'm having different opportunities at the moment to be able to step in and do that. And so I think that's for all of us. I don't think that's just for me. I think that's for all of us. And it's the journey that we want to help people walking over the rest of this.
[00:29:08] So just to close a few points or questions for reflection, maybe you're here today and if we ask where you find yourself in the story, like you're not a follower of Jesus at the moment, that you're kind of just like, I'm here, I'm sussing it out. I don't know where I fit in and what I would say to you. If you're here today and not a follower of Jesus, would you ponder on the reality that Jesus sees you and loves you and expresses compassion for you?
[00:29:42] Take that to think and ponder on this week.
[00:29:48] Or maybe I've been talking about the opportunity that we all can step into these opportunities, into the harvest and share, and your thought has been, no, not me.
[00:30:03] I wouldn't even know where to begin. That's. That's why I use the word lost. It's not that I'm not a follower of Jesus, it's that you look at him. I don't even know a way through.
[00:30:16] What feelings. Try to name the feelings that arise in you.
[00:30:23] Just question them.
[00:30:25] Why has that come up for me?
[00:30:30] And maybe just that question. How do you see the people God has placed in your life?
[00:30:39] See them with compassion, see them with a bit of judgment.
[00:30:47] Why can't they just get their act together?
[00:30:50] How do you view the people that you counter and come across?
[00:30:56] And maybe. And this kind of leads into prayer as well. Ask God to help you see them as he sees them and pay attention to the crowds and the groups that you find yourself in this week.
[00:31:13] Maybe what hit you as we talked was the prayer that Jesus called and.
[00:31:18] And ask him for prayer and for help this week. Ask him to give you opportunities.
[00:31:24] Ask him to send you people who he would call as the person of peace.
[00:31:29] That's a language that uses the scripture, but basically just means people who like you, people who listen to you, and people who want to serve you.
[00:31:37] Who are the people that you have in your life this week. If you can't think of anyone, ask God to send and ask for opportunities to be able to share.
[00:31:49] And it might just be having a conversation that goes from surface level to Slightly deeper.
[00:31:55] That's a really good start. If you're in a place of freaking out about this sort of stuff and then if maybe you're sitting here going, I really feel I need to invite someone for coffee.
[00:32:10] I really feel I need to have a meal with someone. I need to have that conversation with someone.
[00:32:17] Take some time this week to reflect on John, chapter 20, verses 21, 22.
[00:32:25] And really, I'll read the verses out for you as we close our time together.
[00:32:33] This is Jesus after he has been raised from the dead. He speaks, speaking to his disciples, and he says this peace.
[00:32:44] As the Father has sent me, I am sending you and the verse to go on. And with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not given. There's a call that God is giving his people sent into the world as he was sent into the world.
[00:33:09] Reflect on this question.
[00:33:11] How was Jesus sent world?
[00:33:16] How did that happen? And why is that important? What does it mean to us?
[00:33:24] Jesus, I thank you that when you look at the crowds, when you look at people, you are moved deeply with compassion.
[00:33:36] And I just ask forgiveness for the times that I have not been moved in that same way that I have viewed people indifferently or judgmentally, or I've just tried to get through an interaction as quickly as I possibly can because there's something else on my mind.
[00:33:55] Help me help us to see people with this level of compassion.
[00:34:00] Help us to pray to you, the God of the harvest, to raise up and send up people to go into the world. And may we be willing to go.
[00:34:10] May we be willing and as nervous, as scared and as anxiety producing as that might be, that you are with us and that you empower us.
[00:34:24] Help us as a church to take seriously the call to be people who go out and participate with you, sharing the good news, Kingdom of God, your rule and reign, your preferred vision for this world.
[00:34:40] Help us, empower us. Apart from you, nothing. In Jesus name we pray.
[00:34:45] Amen.
