Matthew 9:36-10:15, Jesus seeks co-laborers

Reading Assignment: Matthew 9:36-10:15

Main Idea/truth: Jesus seeks co-laborers.

Key verses: Matthew 9:36-37

Jesus recruits laborers with three imperatives:

1.     Pray: Jesus calls us to pray, because prayer (as Jesus taught us to pray) conforms our hearts to God’s heart and will.

2.     Go: Jesus calls us to seek people to reach them with the gospel of God’s kingdom. His command for the apostles was for the Jewish people only, but that was a matter of priority. His will now is for all the nations to hear about Him and enter into salvation.

3.     Give: Jesus calls us to give freely, without charge. Just as we have received salvation without charge, so we are to offer the good news of Christ to all without charge.

Prayer Suggestions:

1.     Jesus, You have a heart of compassion, and You want all the lost sheep to come to You.

2.     Help me to develop a heart like Yours. Mature me to be a man of God or a woman of God who seeks lost souls like You, that one day I might also be a laborer like You for God's Kingdom. Fill me with Your compassion.

3.     Help me to have Your perspective, to see lost souls as lost sheep without a shepherd and that they need You. Help me to see those around me with this perspective whether those in my family, in my neighborhood, or in my workplace.

Transcript

OK, let's pray and we'll begin our time.

Our Lord, thank You for Your holy word. Thank You for revealing Yourself to us in Jesus; and in Him, in Jesus, we see such a great heart of compassion and love for lost people. We pray that You would teach us to have the same kind of heart that Jesus had. Thank You for Your word that is ever more available to us that we might feed upon it, that we might grow by it. Guide us, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

The next passage to be read is Matthew 9:36 through 10:15. The cut-off for this passage is a little odd; It's between the chapters, but that's because there is a thread of idea (lost sheep) that runs through the final verses of Chapter 9 and the beginning verses of Chapter 10. The main idea, which is also the central truth here, is this: Jesus seeks co-laborers. Jesus seeks co-laborers. The key verse is found at the end of Chapter 9, verse 36 and 37. The verses say this: “Seeing the people, He [that is, Jesus] felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.’”

As you would recall, the verse immediately before that, verse 35, was a summary of what Matthew had just been talking about. In that verse, he showed us that Jesus continued to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and that He healed people. Those were the two aspects of Jesus's ministry. And at this juncture, Jesus notices the multitude of lost people who needed the hope of His Kingdom and He sought for more workers to join in His works. Jesus wanted others to join in His ministry.

This is a really remarkable aspect of Christianity, that God actually wants to use people as the means by which His works are done on Earth. And at this point, Jesus notices the need for more laborers, more ministers, because He has such a depth of compassion for lost people; that is, lost sheep, sheep without a shepherd. This idea comes up again in 10:6. Jesus there talks about the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Well, Jesus’ recruitment of more laborers for God’s Kingdom comes to us with three imperatives. Jesus calls the disciples to pray, to go, and to give. Pray, Go, and Give. These are the 3 aspects of Jesus' recruitment efforts.

First, pray. You'll notice at the very end of Chapter 9 that this is what Jesus tells the disciples to do. Having identified the need for more laborers for the Kingdom, Jesus then tells them in verse 38, “beseech the Lord [that is, ‘ask the Lord’] of the Harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” That's the first aspect of Jesus’ recruitment, to pray. We might wonder, “Well, why does He want the disciples to pray?” Here’s the reason why. Because prayer, as Jesus teaches us to pray, conforms us to the will of God. You would recall Jesus's prayer from Matthew Chapter 6. He has taught us to pray, “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Then what does He say? “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done.” What this shows us is that if we pray as Jesus taught us to pray, we are always seeking to conform to the will of God, what is God doing, what He is interested in accomplishing. And so it's no wonder that theologians in the past have always said that prayer changes us rather than that prayer changes God (e.g., John Calvin). God is always going to do what He has already predetermined to do, and in this sense, prayer doesn't change God, because God's plans have been established from eternity past. However, when we pray, someone does change, not God (He doesn't change), but we change. Prayer aligns our attitudes and our affections with those of God's. And so Jesus tells the disciples first and foremost to pray. Because when we pray as we should, we find ourselves seeking God's Kingdom, and we seek God's will to be done. And what inevitably happens is our conformity to God and His desires. This is true of us, if we pray, seeking God’s will revealed in Scripture, we will soon find that our hearts become enamored with His will.

Secondly, Jesus tells the disciples to go. This is the commission that Jesus has for His disciples in Chapter 10. He chooses the twelve to be His apostles. Apostle in Greek simply means “sent away ones.” And Jesus selects these twelve men as His apostles, His sent away ones. They were chosen to take the message of God to other people. These twelve had a very special role in God's plan. They were the very first messengers of God. And as Jesus’ very first messengers, they were also given the authority to do the signs that He performed. But apart from the signs that they were to perform, which were specific to the apostles, God continued to send people after the apostles. Though they were not called apostles like these twelve, they are nonetheless laborers who go out to reach people with the message of the Kingdom of heaven. And this is the way the word of God has always spread throughout the ages. Today, we call these people missionaries, and we call their work missions. But this work began with the very first missionaries, the apostles, we read about here. The work of missions is important in God’s eyes, because His heart has always been to reach people with the word of God. Now, with the apostles, Jesus had very specific instructions. The very first missionaries, the apostles, were commissioned to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This comes up in 10:6, as I mentioned earlier. Right before that, Jesus actually prohibits them from going to the Gentiles and the Samaritans. Gentiles, being full foreigners to the Jews and then Samaritans who were half-Jews, Jesus told them in verse 5, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans.” And in verse 6, “but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Now, some people have stumbled over these words, because they seem a little discriminatory toward Gentiles like us, but what this was was a matter of God's divine priority. God made a promise to the Jewish people that he would send them the Messiah. And so when the Messiah comes, He ensures that the Messiah goes to the Jewish people first. This was a matter of order of outreach. After the Jews had their chance, the gospel goes out to the rest of the nations. That order is repeated in the ministry of the famous missionary, the apostle Paul. You can see that in the book of Acts. You also will hear it in the Book of Romans, where he repeatedly says “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” When he says Greek, by the way, he means the Gentiles, as those who speak the Greek language, the Hellenized world. But the point is this, even though Jesus gave specific instructions to the apostles to reach the Jews, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, God's ultimate aim has always been to reach the nations. When you get to the end of the book of Matthew, you can see this very clearly, for there Jesus gives this command, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” It's the same thing when you get to the book of Acts after Jesus has risen from the dead. Jesus commissions the apostles to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and to Samaria and even to the remotest part of the Earth” (Acts 1:8). That's always in the heart of God to reach all the nations. Though it begins among the people of Jews, it was always meant to spill over to reach all the nations. That was always the heart of God. And so Jesus tells the apostles to go and reach the people who haven't been reached yet among the Jews. But then later on, the commission will be for all the nations.

Finally, the third aspect of Jesus’ recruitment effort is to give. Now, this might at first sound like giving as in financial support or something like that. But that's not how I mean it here. Jesus says in verse eight, “Freely you received, freely give.” What Jesus was telling the apostles was that they received the gospel from Him free of charge, and just as Jesus has healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, casted out demons without charge, so they are to give the gospel and the kingdom foretaste without charge. You see, Jesus never had an admission fee for healing or for hearing His preaching. He always gave freely. And Jesus tells the apostles that they are to give freely like Him. And this has a great deal of truth for us to ponder. You see, we also received the word of God freely. The gospel has always been preached without charge. And so Jesus wants His people to bring His good news to people, other people, with that kind of liberality. And this was also true of the miracles that the apostles were to perform; but of course, the implication here for us is with regard to the preaching of the gospel. By the way, with the Apostolic miracles, we read in early church history, in particular with the church father Origen (2nd century AD) that the miracles that had taken place with the apostles waned after the period of the apostles, such that there were no longer miracles like that anymore. The 4th century church father Augustine of Hippo also said the same thing. Today, we don't see the miracles that the apostles performed; that's because by the design of God, the signs were given as the church was first being established to testify of the truth of Jesus Christ. But then afterwards, we are simply called to believe in the word of God that's been written down for us. But in any case, Jesus’ call here is that we should freely give. And this has implications for today. Churches should never have an admission fee. There have been weird churches that actually charged an admission fee for their church services. But that contradicts the spirit of Jesus, which is that we give freely. Just as we received freely so we should give freely. There should never be a fee for receiving spiritual benefits from the Church of God or from the people of God. The motto for every Christian worker is “freely you received, freely give.”

These were the three aspects of Jesus’ recruitment efforts: Pray, Go, and Give.

What might we pray from these things? I think there are several things we can pray for. First, we can acknowledge that this is the heart of our God, that He wants to reach more people. And so we can pray something like this.

“Jesus, You have a heart of compassion, and You want all the lost sheep to come to You. I can see that. I read it in Your word. Help me and mature me to be a man of God or a woman of God who shares Your heart, that one day I might also be a laborer like You for God's Kingdom. Help me to develop a heart like Yours that sees lost souls, to see their state of suffering, that they need You as their shepherd. Help me often to think about how much You have helped me, so that I would also desire to help others to find the same help from You. Fill me with Your compassion that I would always look upon those around me, in my family, in my neighborhood, and in my workplace, as lost sheep who need You, the great Shepherd of our souls. Forge in me a heart that longs for more people to become Your followers, so that they would no longer be lost. Amen.”

Jesus has a deep compassion for lost people and the striking thing is that He wants us to participate in His works and to share the same heart of compassion that He has. What a wonderful message here that we find at the end of Chapter 9 and the beginning of Chapter 10! Well, that's it for today. I hope you are enriched by the reading of this next portion of the Gospel of Matthew. And we are done for today.