Matthew 9:35-38 Jesus Brings Compassion

Matthew 9:35-38 and Jesus’ Compassion for Humanity

But this morning, what we're gonna do is we're gonna continue on. In the book of Matthew,.

Where we've been.

Last week, we saw that Jesus came to Earth to provide mercy, kinda going through this Christmas theme, looking at the book of Matthew, at the things that Jesus did in life that show his purpose, the focus, the reason that he came.

And so, by way of introducing this message before the band comes and leads us in a couple more songs, he demonstrated his mercy to us last week we saw through miracles. There were blind people that came to him, and he healed them, and he showed mercy.

They were crying out for mercy, and he gave mercy to them. We saw a man who was demon-possessed that Jesus cast the demon out, and that man couldn't speak, and his tongue was loose, and he was able to actually speak after the demon was cast out.

Jesus came to show mercy, and he did so through the miraculous. This week, we're gonna look at a very short text in the book of Matthew that highlights the immense compassion of Jesus Christ, that he came to express compassion to humanity.

That is compassion that is a deep commitment to a caring love for us. So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter nine. We're gonna be looking at Matthew 9, 35 through 38. You'll find a Bible that's in the seat back in front of you.

If you grab that Bible, it's easy to find page 694 is where we're gonna be at in that Bible, and that's also the same version that I preach out of. If you don't own a Bible, or you don't own an English Standard version of the Bible, not that that's better than all the rest, or that's the only version or anything, just happens to be my preference and what I preach from.

If you don't own that, please take that one with you. The one in the seat back in front of you is a gift from us to you. We want everybody to have a Bible. There's boxes and boxes of those in a storage room back here to refill what is taken this morning.

So follow along as I read Matthew 9, 35 through 38. Again, a pretty short text. 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. 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.

Let's pray.

Father, as we gather together, we had an opportunity to see these cute kids come up here. We have an opportunity to sing some songs, to hear from your word. Father, I ask that you would meet us here. We are most in need of a connection with you this week.

There's all different kinds of things that we could take on. There's things that we could come here just to hear something that we need to do differently, to go away changed, or to go away doing something, doing something different.

But God, what's most important is that we know you, that we relate to you, that we understand what you have revealed of yourself and that we give ourselves over to you and your great grace and compassion.

I thank you for Jesus Christ. I thank you that you sent him to this place, that he lived here as one of us and came down and got his feet dirty and his hands dirty in the mess of real human life that he can relate to us and that he felt and experienced and acted upon compassion for us.

Most, most impressively shown at the cross that he did not just humble himself by becoming a man but to the point of death, even death on a cross. And so let us rejoice this morning, Father. I ask that you would receive our praise and our worship as we sing these songs and we rejoice that it is Christmas time.

It's a time of remembering incarnation that you came down and lived in this mess. I ask that you would infuse our praise with joy this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship this morning. I really appreciate that, Dave, the work that they put in every week. So genuine thanks. If you wanna make yourself comfortable, anytime you need to get some more coffee, I think we're out of donuts, wow.

But there is more coffee and there's more juice back there. So take advantage of that while supplies last. Our text this morning is gonna begin with a summary statement, a pretty intense summary statement of the entire life ministry of Jesus Christ.

So if you look at verse 35 in your text and you wanna open that, again, that's 694. If you lost your place over the course of the service so far, 694 in the Bible, Matthew 9. And then look at verse 35 here.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages. Now what I find is very interesting is you can take one phrase from the gospels. Have any of you encountered this before? You take one phrase from scripture and it's like it's just got depth and meaning.

And it's like you can figure out some of the things about Jesus' character just from the things that are said in just a few short verses. Have any of you experienced that in scripture? Where if you just take and you meditate on one phrase of scripture, you can get a lot out of just one little chunk.

Notice what can be deduced from just this short phrase, and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages. Jesus did not just hang out in one place and expect people to come to him. Like the, any of you remember the BC cartoons where there was the wise man who sat on the top of the mountain and people would come to, anybody know what I'm talking about?

The cartoon that was in the paper when I was a kid. Some of you know what I'm talking about. But there was always this wise man who sat on the top of the mountain and people would come and ask him words of wisdom.

And he would give some funny advice or something like that. He wasn't like that. He wasn't just a mountaintop kind of wise man who sat out or sat under a tree and expected people to come to him. He went out to the masses and he lived among them.

And think about how that ties in with the notion of incarnation. That Jesus came to be one of us, that he came down here and he spent time in this sin-cursed infested place. He got his feet dirty walking the roads down into the smelly, sin-cursed, messy masses of humanity.

And in the text we see he didn't just hit the major cities. Okay, what does it say? It says he went throughout all the cities and villages. And we even can see a story in John four where Jesus literally spends time, one lunch.

Okay, how many of you know he had a limited amount of time that he was here on earth? He spends an entire lunch hour with one woman at a well. And we have that whole account recorded. And by the way, it's just the two of them.

His disciples had left and gone into town to get something to eat, probably check out McDonald's. They were gonna bring him back a Big Mac or something. But they went into town and he's there by the well and speaking to one woman.

Anything that's pretty intense? Okay, anybody? No, I'm the only one that thinks that's, I mean, you know, and so you look at that and you just kind of say he had time for people. Okay, he went out to the cities and villages.

He wasn't just like on a massive big city tour or something like that. But he stopped at the lowly villages along the way as well. And everywhere he went, the text tells us he was teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction.

Now I've mentioned this before that when you think kingdom, what should you think? King, okay? There's a lot of complexity in trying to understand what is the kingdom of God and what does all of that mean?

When you see the word kingdom, think of the fact that there is a king and that's what you're intended to think. Who is the king? Jesus is the king. And he's going around and proclaiming the kingdom of God and the good news of the kingdom.

He's going around sharing that good news that God has arrived and he is the king. He did this often in subtle ways, obviously. He didn't just go out and immediately proclaimed everybody, hey, I'm the Messiah and I'm God.

But he did that in many ways that demonstrate that he is the king of the kingdom that God is ushering in. He did miracles like we saw last week to show that he has the power to set things right in the new kingdom.

Jesus did not, however, come merely to teach us, but he also showed us through his actions that he really cares about our problems. And we see in our text that Jesus was proactive, going out in the community and connecting with people in the real messiness of life.

Many of you know that Jesus had a reputation and it wasn't always good. He hung around the kind of people that had a reputation. He hung around prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners and people who had sold their own countrymen to the Romans and murderers and thieves.

How do you think that you're known by the company you keep? Has anybody ever heard that phrase? So Jesus actually got a reputation that he was just a drunkard and a partier. Some people actually, can you imagine?

I mean, what is your view of Jesus? Like, how do you think he lived? He was accused of being a party animal. Like, is that your view? Does that fit anywhere in your view of who Jesus Christ was? Wow, that's a little bit radical that he was accused of things like that.

He was out engaged in life with people. I fear that too often as Christians, we sit back and wait for the world to come to us. Many churches are sitting back and waiting and we can be guilty of that ourselves.

But it isn't like I said, like Jesus sat under a shade tree waiting. And he didn't pay for billboards out on the freeway between Jerusalem and Galilee, hoping that some motorist would fly by and see his advertisement from the tree that he was sitting at so that they would come to him.

You getting what I'm saying? What did he do? He went out among them, carrying hope and carrying the message of the gospel, the good news that there is a kingdom and all are welcome to join. I want to point out our calling is equally out there.

And we're a gathering of God's people in this place and that's an exciting thing, right? When we get together, how many of you need this? You need to get together every week for your spiritual growth, for connecting with others, for encouragement.

I've mentioned before that because things are tough out there we need to take seriously what goes on in here. We need to be loving each other and compassionate towards each other and merciful and encouraging and building up and strengthening one another with the word of God, rubbing shoulders with each other and having those real authentic relationships with one another.

But where is your primary calling? It's out there, out there. And so you come together for building up and for strengthening that out there matters. I would say what you do the other six days of the week matters more than what you do here.

You need this for what goes on out there. Is that making sense? Does anybody, is that resonating with you? But you live six days out there, you spend an hour and a half here. The way you live out there defines you more than what you do in here, right?

And yet this is valuable, I'm not diminishing this and saying gathering together is valuable for what goes on out there. So hopefully you're getting that. But our calling, how we are called to live is a calling about what is out on the streets.

The way we work in our workplace and the way that we interact with others out there. We are to be proclaiming a kingdom with an awesome and compassionate king. That is our calling out there. Many times as we're reading from the Gospels, we're left to assume the motives for Jesus.

Why does he do what he does? I think we can probably, as you read the Gospels, you get to know this man. You get to feel who he is and how he rolls and the things that he does. But take last week's message, for example.

We saw two blind guys following Jesus, shouting at the top of their lungs, son of David, have mercy on us. They're blind, they wanna be healed. They want him to pity them so that he heals them. And by the end of the passage, what happens?

He heals them, right?

But does it ever say in the text, Jesus had mercy on them and therefore he healed them? Does it say what was going on in Jesus' heart? Is it safe to assume that he did what he did out of mercy? I think that's a fair assumption, but the text doesn't tell us, so we're left to kind of fill in the blanks.

Does that make sense? This text is different. This text tells us directly, look at verse 36. It tells us what Jesus was feeling in his heart. How many of you think that's valuable? To know why Jesus was doing what he's doing is extremely valuable, right?

Do you think that's intentional in the text? Do you think we should zero in on that a little bit? Verse 36 says, when he saw the crowds, he had what? Compassion on them. He had compassion. Jesus came, and this is the premise of my message this morning, Jesus came to show compassion to humanity and on humanity.

Jesus was deeply and emotionally engaged with the crowds. The word for compassion is a messy word that doesn't seem very kingly. It's not a noble word, but it's a lavish sympathy that he experienced towards others.

And I wanna point out some important things.

About this word.

The word compassion is not a condescending word, but a word that implies an authentic desire to take someone in and care, to really see their plight, to really see their circumstances, and then to take a step further and actually act and do something about it.

But I think it's important to note that for Jesus, this was not just some emotional response. I think we can all relate to what that's like because we've all experienced this thing called pity. Have you ever felt moved by someone's plight?

Now, I don't spend a lot of time watching TV, so do they still have those commercials where they show the kids with the big bellies in Africa and they're starving? Do they still show those from time to time?

I don't really know. You see those sometimes from time to time? So how many of you have felt so moved with compassion towards those people that you had to turn the channel? Are you getting what I'm saying?

And then it's like, oh, look, Elphizan, great. And then you feel better, right? I love that movie, by the way. But anyways, that's not what I'm preaching about. But do you know what I'm saying? Have you felt so moved in your heart?

You watch these kids and it's just like, oh, man, I feel so much compassion. Click. Ah, that's better. Is that compassion? I'd call that something different than compassion. As a matter of fact, I think the correct word for that is pity, a condescending type of pity, but it is not compassion when you see that.

You see, there lies a difference between pity and compassion. Pity makes me feel bad and the focus is on me, right? Focuses on how it makes me feel and it makes me feel bad when I see it. Compassion makes me focus on them and how I can be a part of the solution.

So I would say this, and if you're taking notes, write this down. It's not super important because it comes from me, but I would say pity is compassion without action. Pity is compassion without action.

But equally, I would say action without compassion, acting without your heart engaged. In other words, going down and serving somebody without feeling anything towards them is called condescension. You hear that?

It's stooping low and, oh, helping those poor people out.

Because I'm so good.

So there's two extremes. There's pity, there's condescension, and somewhere in the middle is compassion, where our heart lines up with our actions. And I think all of us know what it is to fight that war in our hearts over our actions not lining up with our heart, where we can condescend and serve without our hearts engaged.

Anybody ever been there? Looks like me and Therese and no one else. Everybody else just serves completely out of a... Thank you. I was challenged on this point the first time that Recast went down to the gospel mission.

Kyle was speaking, we went down there, we had a church service, Dave played for him, it was really cool, and then we had a meal with them and I sat and I talked with some guys for a little while. One man got kind of vocal and was in my face about how we come down, how you people come down from the suburbs to come into the city to help us.

And he got really vocal. And he was, I mean, a couple people were kind of like, everybody's kind of starting to move over towards my table, I gotta figure out what was going on there. But he challenged me with this question.

He said, listen to me. If I showed up on your doorstep out there in Matawan and your family was eating dinner and I knocked on your door, would you let me in and eat dinner with you?

I had to think.

Okay, I had to think. And I'm being honest. I just wanna be completely honest with you guys. I mean, I'm picturing myself because I wanted to be honest. I didn't wanna just give him a flippant answer.

So I'm thinking about this and I'm sitting at my table. My family is there and we're having a nice dinner. And I knock at the door and get up, go to the door and there he's standing. And then I'm thinking and I'm wrestling.

I think I would.

I really think that I would, but I don't know. And given that circumstance, given that situation, what would you do? Put yourself in those shoes. I said, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Oh, he did not like that answer.

He did not. That's when things got very vocal, very loud. And the fact that it took me so long, by the way, I think I processed that entire scenario in real time. I don't know how long it took from the time.

But I think I was sitting there at the dinner table and I was getting up and I was walking.

I was answering the door.

I had a little chat with him. All in my mind, probably blank stare. And he thinks that I'm coming up with a lie. Like he's thinking I'm just gonna just fudge this one. And so he did not like that a bit.

But you see what he was accusing me of? What was he accusing me of? He was accusing me of condescension. He was saying, you're here to get your brownie points. Ultimately, what he said to me is you don't love me.

Do you hear that? Man, that was convicting. It really, I really had to process and had to really think it was a really good experience for me. I challenge everybody to think through that. Do we genuinely love others?

Or are we just racking up brownie points, just thinking, boy, God likes me better because look at what I do.

Think about that.

Think about compassion. Do we really love them? Recast, I want you to know. Jesus was a man of compassion. His heart was engaged with the people he was ministering to. Do you wanna follow him? Real question, do you wanna follow him?

All right, 10 of you. The rest of you just didn't wanna say. Then what we need to do is we need to train our heart.

To care.

We need to train our heart to genuinely care. And how do we do that? I think we need to ask God to open our eyes and to open our heart, to see ourselves. And I think it's very important to say ourselves.

Humanity, to see us, first of all, as a part of humanity. That's valuable because a lot of times in our hearts and in our minds, there's us and then there's everybody else, right? Have you experienced that?

Where you don't include yourself when you talk about humanity because they're all out there and I'm this, you know, I'm a little bit better. You know what I'm saying? Have you ever experienced that? So we have to include ourselves in humanity and then see ourselves, the human race, as God sees us.

We're gonna see how Jesus sees us here in a moment. What moved him to compassion? He looked out and he saw the crowds and he didn't just see, he didn't just have some general blind, oh, I feel bad for him, but he understood their situation accurately and correctly.

He looked out among the mob that day and I wanna tell you that the people that were in front of him, okay, how many of you know that all of them were sinners? And he looked out at the people in the crowd that day, there were sinners there in Galilee, okay?

So that's the only people, but there were real sinners there in that crowd that day.

You know what I mean?

I mean, there is something to be said about, you know, there's prostitutes there, there's thieves there. There were probably a couple of murderers in that crowd that day. He knows them. And what does it say?

He was moved out of judgment towards them. He was moved out of wrath for them. What did he experience towards them as he looked at them?

Compassion.

Why?

Because he saw their plight. He looks at this rough crowd and he sees sheep, it says, without a shepherd. And he looked at them and he saw them as harassed and helpless. These are really, really graphic, picturesque Greek words.

Harassed is a word that means mangled, ravaged, torn to pieces. That's what harassed means. Whoever translated that wanted to be gentle and delicate. It is not a gentle and delicate word. It is like what the picture that you have of this word harassed is what a wolf does to a sheep, okay?

It's a bad word. It means that they were mangled, broken. The word helpless means cast to the ground, thrown down. Think like the old commercial, I've fallen and I can't get up, okay? That's what this word means, helpless.

Anybody remember that commercial? Okay, all right, thanks. I was just wondering if I was alone on that one. What does a sheep without a shepherd look like? The result is delicious, but does not end well for the sheep.

Sheep without a shepherd, right there, okay? Delicious. Thanks, Craig. So how does Jesus respond to the plight of these people? Boy, is everybody hungry now or what? How does he respond? He sees them as just torn apart.

They are wolf food.

Sheep without a shepherd, no leader, nobody to guide them, nobody bring them into clear pastures, nobody to lead them by still waters, nobody to take care of their souls, nobody to correct the brokenness and the crud in their life.

And not only that, but they're broken and they can't help themselves. They're cast down and not able to stand in their own strength and they need help. And he's compassionate towards them because he sees us that way.

That's how he sees those people out there, but that's how he sees you and me, torn and broken and without the ability to help ourselves. That's how he sees us. And that's why he's moved out of compassion or moved to compassion.

He turns to his disciples and shares that vision with them. And I picture him gesturing with his arms as he says this in verse 37. In verse 37, he looks out at the crowd and gestures with his arms as if to embrace all of them.

And he says, look, the harvest is plentiful. And then gesturing to his disciples to drive the point home, but the workers are few. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. What is the harvest?

The harvest is when those in a mangled, broken state, those who are helpless, come to the one who can help them. Those who are without a shepherd receive their shepherd. That's what it means for the harvest to happen.

The harvest is one soul at a time coming to the understanding and the knowledge of who Jesus Christ is. And he says, they're ripe.

They're ripe.

And all we need is people, more people who will come and go to them and tell them. Now, how many of you know, this is a little bit of a strange notion, but how many of you know that to have harvesters, you need to have those harvesters harvested?

That making sense to you? Like they have to be made right in their hearts and in their souls first. They have to be restored and able to stand before they can go out. And so ultimately, Jesus is kind of saying, we need harvesters and where's he gonna get them?

From those people. So ultimately, we're just saying, go out and share. Go out and proclaim. Go out and win people and pray that God would see some fruit here that in turn is gonna turn into people who turn around and harvest.

Is that making sense to you guys? He tells them to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers in his harvest field. It's interesting that the way that Jesus responds in this situation with compassion should lead us to two different notions.

First, that we have a zealous diligence for the harvest, that we want to run to the battle, that we want to be the ones who are restoring the torn and broken sheep, the ones who are helpless, that this should light us on fire.

Jesus has this harvest out there. People are ripe and ready. And he's saying, go, go and do this, but pray. I'm encouraged to run to the battle, but equally I'm encouraged to rest in the commander's plans.

Does that make sense? So both a zeal for winning the lost and equally a resting in the plan of God. Because what are we primarily told to do? Jesus doesn't say the laborers are few, so you better take on more, you 12.

Or I'm gonna bleed you dry, or get to work right now. As we'll see next week, he does put them to work. And this passage occurs in the midst of a context where he's about to send them. He's about to send them out to do miraculous works just like he had done.

But he doesn't just put them to work, but he asks them to pray. And that prayer means a dependence upon God for the harvest. That we're dependent upon him to do his work.

Are we diligent?

Do we go out and do we share and proclaim this kingdom that there is a king who can restore your brokenness, that can restore you to wholeness? Should we be proclaiming that?

Yes.

Or should we be praying in dependence upon God, saying, send more. We can't get all the work done ourselves. We need more workers out. And it's interesting the title given to God in this passage.

I love it.

The harvest belongs to the Lord of the Harvest. What an awesome title. When lives are changed and people enter the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus, it is because the Lord of the Harvest has prepared the fruit.

So please, recast, ask him, earnestly ask him to send out laborers into his harvest. That people might be restored and changed because of this awesome king who has come and is full of compassion. Jesus sees us as harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Do you see humanity, yourself included, in that same light as Jesus did? Is that how you view the world around you? Helpless and in need of a shepherd. You see, Jesus looked out at all of them from the vantage point of a perfect human life.

How many of you know we don't have that vantage point? We've got to include ourselves in this, this whole helpless business. He was sinless, which is awesome. But we are not. So for us to adopt the vision of Jesus requires that we make sure that we humbly approach others, recognizing that we have been harassed, we have been helpless.

And it's only the work of God in our lives. So in summary, Jesus came to bring compassion. And we'll see more clearly last week that he passed that compassion onto his followers and said, follow me, be compassionate, and do the things that I did from the heart that I have.

You see, in our text, we see a bunch of contrast between us and Jesus, between us and God. Jesus is compassionate. We're harassed and helpless. Jesus is the shepherd. We are in need of a shepherd. Isn't that cool how that works out?

We need a shepherd? Oh, great, Jesus is the good shepherd. We needed that. He is Lord of the harvest, and humanity is ripe for harvest. Brief confession time. I have a long way to grow in my compassion.

I can easily slide into pity, that is becoming emotional without action, or to the other side, condescension, doing nice things without caring about people. Anybody relate to that? As a matter of fact, I would dare say that within the same five minutes, I can experience both.

And that's something that we have to constantly wrestle with. I believe that it's gonna take a supernatural work of God to find that balance in our lives, where our actions and our emotions line up in the middle, where we consistently love, and we do so by acting.

You know what I'm saying? It takes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to get that right. I dare say that without the Spirit, you will always be on one side or the other. You will always be either emotionally charged without a lot of action, or you will be acting without any emotion, without any passion, without any real, genuine care or concern for others.

And what I would suggest to us, Recast, is that as we begin to grow in our compassion, viewing the world through the eyes of Jesus, as revealed in this text, that we would please consider praying, praying earnestly.

That's a wrestling word, wrestling with God, wrestling with the Lord of the harvest that he might send more workers into the field. But let me warn you, and this is a tongue-in-cheek warning. I know many people, many, many people who began praying, God, send someone, and they found that they were the answer to the prayer they were praying.

And I know many people who are on the mission field and are out in full-time Christian service now because they prayed that prayer and kept consistently saying, God, send, God, send. And do you think about the fact that the sending process is just a replication of what God has done in heaven?

That's what we're celebrating at Christmastime. The sending of the one who is the answer, and then he, in turn, in our passage, is sending us. It's just an ongoing process of him sending to save out of what?

Compassion.

Out of the deep, emotional love that he has. And he wants to send us out with compassion. And let me just say that this is not strictly some missionary call, some, I've gotta go to Africa now, or I have to go to the Middle East, or I have to go overseas.

God's sending you where you live. Did you know that? To actually just take this on with compassion and to see humanity through the eyes, no matter where you work. Some of you here work at Portage School.

Some of you work at UPS. Some of you work at Pfizer. Some of you work at Stryker. Where is your mission field? Where is the place that God has planted you? And go with this heart of compassion. How many of you know that that's gonna have an impact on people around you?

If you genuinely care for them, if you see them with the eyes of Christ, and you say, man, I know that that person acts bitter, and angry, and malicious, and instead of seeing them as an angry, mean, bitter, malicious person, I'm gonna choose to see them as a sheep without a shepherd.

I'm gonna choose to see them as harassed, and broken, and in need of help. Do you see how that works? How many of you have somebody like that that's in your life that is just frustrating, and always bitter, and angry, and always a negative word, and a Debbie Downer, and every time you talk with them, it's just like, oh, man, that was a lot of work.

How do you view that person? Some people are ribbon people and pointing. That's not appropriate, you guys.

Cut that out, okay?

Rob, why were you pointing at me? I don't know, what was? God sometimes, in the process of us praying, sends some, make more workers for your harvest. His answer is, thanks for asking, I choose you. You see, the little baby in the manger came to bring compassion, and his final act of compassion was his death on the cross.

While we were helpless, we were cast down, we were broken like lamb chops, unable to get up from the weight of our sin, Jesus took that burden on himself, hoisted it on his shoulders, and carried it to a hill outside of Jerusalem, and let our sin die with him.