A CALL FOR GODLY GUIDES

Introduction

{Matthew 9}

The other day I read the story about a man named Lansford Hastings who was a purported pioneer in the 1800s. He wrote a book about a shortcut to get to California, however, he never actually took that route himself. In 1846 the Donner family and others decided to follow his book and go the way it said. Along the way they picked up others and group swelled to 87 people making the arduous trek.

Although running into warnings that the Hastings Cutoff was not a good way to go, they decided to press forward anyway. They ended up getting stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter, with probably half of the group dying from the rough conditions. They followed a guide that led them to their downfall.

This a warning for us to be careful who we allow to guide us in life, especially spiritually. There are many who claim to point people the right way, only to steer them to eternal disaster. What we learn from our passage is that a weary world needs godly guides who will lead them to Jesus. And I want us today to pray that God would raise up such people and that we also pray how we can take on that role ourselves.

Matthew 9:32–38 LSB

32 Now as they were going out, behold, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him. 33 And after the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds marveled, saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” 34 But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 35 And Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. 36 And seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 “Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

{pray}

Matthew records several miracles which prove his contention that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus’ teachings and actions demonstrate His power and His person which ought to lead people to believe in Him. Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God and He alone is the One that ushers people into that Kingdom. Therefore, the great work is to guide people to Jesus so that they become members of the Kingdom and have eternal life. And that is the work to which we are called. Let’s answer this question today: What can we do to be the guides this weary world needs to point them to Jesus? First, we need to:

1) Thwart the damage of deceivers (vv. 32-34)

In our passage Jesus heals a man who was mute allowing him to speak. We notice that this man was possessed by a demon which caused this physical malady, so Jesus went straight to the source of the problem and cast that demon out. The general population was beyond amazed, saying NOTHING LIKE THIS HAS EVER BEEN SEEN IN ISRAEL.

Not that there had never been exorcisms before—they marvelled at the sheer volume of Jesus’ miraculous works and the power that it displayed. In this chapter alone Jesus healed a paralytic, healed a woman from her issue of blood, raised a girl from the dead, gave sight to two blind men, made the mute speak, and He did many more miracles too numerous to record. The people were astounded.

But not everyone was impressed. The religious leaders didn’t like what Jesus was doing, so they went around telling people HE CASTS OUT THE DEMONS BY THE RULERS OF THE DEMONS. They tried to change the narrative. The Pharisees couldn’t deny that the miracles took place because they were all witnesses. But they didn’t want to legitimize what Jesus was doing, so they literally tried to demonize Jesus so that the hearts and minds of the people turned away from Him and God. They wanted the power, they wanted the recognition, and couldn’t stand anyone trying to take that away. Their only recourse was to undercut Jesus’ person, work, power, and authority.

And herein lies Jesus’ big conflict with the religious leaders of the day. Instead of guiding people to God, they actually turned people away from God with their manmade rules making it near impossible to actually find God in their midst. And now that God was there in the flesh to save the world, the Pharisees did whatever they could to prevent people from believing in Him and being saved. Since they couldn’t deny what was in front of people’s eyes, they tried to deceive people into believing something false. Instead of wanting the people to know the truth that this was the power of God at work, they said it was the power of Satan at work through Jesus.

Later, in Matthew 23, Jesus condemns the religious leaders because not only were they not entering God’s Kingdom, they were obstructing other people from entering as well. That was the great sin of the Pharisees—not that they knew or followed God’s law, but they were shutting off the entrance to God through their arrogance and manmade rules.

And we run into the same thing today, but the deception today comes through the twisting of Scripture, preventing people from finding the true God and His true Messiah, Jesus Christ. And we need to counteract this deception and make sure we ourselves are not deceived nor the deceivers. If people are going to be guided to Jesus, the work of false teachers that prevent people from actually finding Jesus needs to be thwarted.

This deceit comes in the form of opposite ends of the same spectrum—legalism or license—adding to Scripture or taking away from Scripture. Either of these will keep people from the true Jesus, preventing them from entering God’s Kingdom, just like the Pharisees did.

The legalistic side can take many forms. For example, it happens when someone adds human works or rituals as necessary for salvation—you need to be baptized, you need to eat a certain way, you need to dress a certain way. It might take on the form of requiring certain experiences otherwise you’re not saved—you need to speak in tongues, you need to have visions. Instead of pointing to Christ, it points away from Christ.

Then there is the other side of the spectrum who give license for people to just live however they want. For example, they weaponize grace to excuse sin. This means that they distort biblical grace to mean an automatic pass to live however you want, diminishing the biblical reality that true grace empowers believers to turn away from sin to godliness. Or else they redefine the biblical concepts of holiness and purity. They filter out texts that demand moral integrity or they normalize or downplay behaviors that Scripture explicitly warns will exclude people from inheriting the Kingdom. Or they relativize God’s moral standards, treating His commands as merely cultural or outdated in order to bypass His standards. Either extreme doesn’t lead people to the biblical Jesus, it leads them away. And we need to stop that from happening.

Think about someone who unknowingly buys a counterfeit Gucci bag. It might look perfectly legitimate on the surface, but it's fundamentally flawed, lacking the authenticity and value of the real thing. Legalism offers a counterfeit "salvation" that looks genuine, promising peace with God through human effort, strict adherence to rules, or participation in certain rituals. License offers a counterfeit "grace" that looks freeing, promising unbridled liberty and acceptance by God without requiring genuine repentance or a transformed life. But neither are the real thing.

We must be vigilant champions of the pure gospel message, understanding that the biblical Jesus Christ is the only "true currency" for salvation and the only path to the Kingdom. The most stunning thing about Jesus in this passage is that when He saw the damage the Pharisees had done, His first recorded response was not fury but heartbreak. So, we see in the second part of being guides it to:

2) Nurture a heart of deep sympathy (vv. 35-36)

For several chapters the story and miracles of Jesus had been centered in Capernaum. Now it says in v. 35 that He started to go throughout the cities and villages of Galilee. While there He taught in the synagogues—expounding the Old Testament texts, and pointing to their reality in Him. He preached the gospel/good news of the Kingdom of God—that He has inaugurated God’s reign in the hearts of people. And He healed their diseases and sicknesses—giving legitimization to the messages that He taught.

Jesus was guiding people to Himself. He wanted them to know that the God against whom humanity rebelled has seen their plight and taken actions to bring them back to Himself. Jesus wanted them to know that God so loved them that He gave His only-begotten Son, who would die for them, who would be raised from the dead, and all who believe in Him will have life. That is the greatest good for humanity. That is the good news the world so desperately needed.

And it says in v. 36 that while teaching, preaching, and healing, Jesus, SEEING THE CROWDS, FELT COMPASSION FOR THEM. Jesus saw what was happening to the people, and it moved Him. The word for feeling compassion is powerful. It wasn’t just a fleeting emotion that was there one moment and flittered away the next. This was a deep concern within Him. The word literally references the inner part of a person—the organs inside of us. We’d probably say it’s talking about our guts.

Have you ever been so moved by something that it twisted your guts into knots? Maybe you couldn’t describe it other than you just feel it right here {point to stomach}. That’s what Jesus felt for the people. He saw their plight and it tore Him up inside. But the word doesn’t just mean the feeling, it then leads you to do something about whatever it it that caused that feelin. It is compassion, love, affection, sympathy, pity—that’s what Jesus had for the people.

Why did He feel this way? It says because the people WERE DISTRESSED AND DOWNCAST LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD. Sheep aren’t the smartest or strongest animals in the world. They don’t do very good on their own. They need a shepherd, someone to guide them and protect them, and then they flourish.

But the people in Jesus’ day, much like ours, were distressed—they were worn out and troubled. They were downcast—they were neglected and vulnerable. Why were the people like this? Because they didn’t have shepherds to lead them and protect them—they didn’t have leaders who were guiding them to Lord who was their shepherd. As I mentioned in the previous point, the religious leaders were not guiding people to God, they were leading them away. So, the people were like sheep all alone in the wilderness, wandering aimlessly, prey for vicious enemies. Their supposed leaders didn’t care.

But Jesus cared back then, and He still cares now. And if we belong to Jesus, He wants us to care for the crowds like He does. He doesn’t want us to have some theoretical concern for the lives and souls for people. He wants us to have compassion and sympathy. He wants us to feel it in our guts.

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show that sent you on an emotional rollercoaster, you so closely sympathized with the characters. If they rejoiced, you rejoiced. If they were heartbroken, so were you. If we get so tore up over fictional characters, how much more tore up is Jesus over the souls of real humans all across the world? And if Jesus has that much compassion on them, shouldn’t we have the same?

Because, let’s face it, the vast majority of people in the world are distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. They are vulnerable, and without a guide to Jesus, they’ll actually be led to the slaughter. Shouldn’t we care about that?

Jesus looks at those who have been fed a lie by the world or culture that tells them that living within biblical boundaries is a prison, when in actuality it is freedom. Jesus looks at those who are part of a religion that lies about Jesus’ origins, His nature, His death on the cross, and His resurrection—in a sense demonizing the biblical Jesus, and feeding them a counterfeit, and leading them to hell. Jesus sees vulnerable children being maligned or manipulated—such sin that Jesus said it’d be better to have a mill stone hung around your neck and tossed into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. And Jesus cares. Jesus has compassion. Jesus has sympathy. And we should too.

It might be natural or fleshly to look at people who are part of a false religion, or people who live an unbiblical lifestyle, or people who claim there was no God, and merely think that they’re going to get their comeuppance one day. But if we’re going to look at them as Jesus looks at them, we’ll have sympathy and see them as a sheep without a shepherd, and want them to find the truth in Jesus Christ.

But that sympathy and compassion means that they need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The truth about their sin separating them from God. The truth about repentance and believing in Jesus alone by faith alone. It is not very compassionate to let people live in their sin and not share with them the truth. So, we share the truth in love. Then, finally, Jesus tells us where this compassion leads. He says it is to:

3) Pray and labor for the harvest (vv. 37-38)

Seeing this distressed and downcast crowd, Jesus gave His analysis of the situation, changing from the metaphor of sheep to agriculture. Jesus looked at the crowd and told His disciples: THE HARVEST IS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE WORKERS ARE FEW.

The people of this world are a harvest that is ready to be reaped. The problem is that there isn’t enough people to do the reaping. There aren’t enough people to guide people to Jesus. According to Lifeway Research there are approximately 660 million evangelical, Bible-believing Christians in the world. Statistics show there are approximately 8.3 billion people in the world today. That means that there are about 7.6 billion people who are sheep without the Shepherd.

That’s a pretty big harvest of people out there. It is definitely plentiful. But the problem is that we alone are not able to reach such a harvest. Me as an individual couldn’t even begin to guide that many people to Jesus. Even we as a church couldn’t begin todo it. The International Mission Board has about 3500 full-time missionaries scattered throughout the world to point people to Jesus, and those wouldn’t even begin to put a dent in the number of distressed and downcast sheep.

So, what does Jesus tell us to do? He tells us to PRAY EARNESTLY TO THE LORD OF THE HARVEST TO SEND OUT WORKERS INTO HIS HARVEST. He tells us to pray that God would raise up so many more people to get out there and guide people to Jesus. According to the IMB there are about 7300 unreached people groups, which means that these groups have less than a 2% evangelical, Bible-believing population. Out of those groups, there are about 3100 people groups who are considered unengaged-unreached, meaning that they have zero known evangelical presence, missionaries, or local churches.

And Jesus says to pray God would raise people up to go to these groups and guide them to Jesus. Without Jesus they are lost and headed to condemnation for their sins. I get asked constantly if people who have never heard of Jesus go to hell, and my answer is that according to the Bible everyone has sin, and unless those sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ, they will be separated from God for all of eternity. Our God is just, and our response is compassion enough to pray for workers—not hopelessness or despair.

It’s said that William Carey famously hung a homemade map of the world in his cobbler’s shop and prayed over it daily for years before becoming a missionary. We have more modern tools to help our prayers. If you ever read to the bottom of our newsletter, you will see a link to two websites—one leading you to pray for a country in the world, and another to lead you to pray for an unreached people group. You can actually get this same information through apps for your phone or tablet. One is called UNREACHED OF THE DAY and the other is called OPERATION WORLD. Each day you are given a new people group and a new country to pray for. There is no better way to fulfill what Jesus commands here.

But the other thing for you to consider is how you can be the answer to your own prayer. What can you do to be one that goes out into the harvest to guide people to Jesus Christ? What can you do to go out into the harvest and help lost sheep find the Shepherd? In the passage following this one, that’s what Jesus does—He sends His disciples out into the harvest. You can’t reach everybody everywhere, but you can reach somebody somewhere.

Imagine you're walking past an apartment building and you see smoke pouring from the windows. You know people are inside. You call 911 — but the dispatcher tells you there simply aren't enough firefighters on duty to respond. The building is still burning. Now transfer that image to the spiritual reality of this passage. There are billions of people in a burning building, and Jesus is saying: the fire is real, the people are real, and we desperately need more people willing to run toward it. Prayer for workers isn't a passive religious exercise — it's the urgent call of someone who sees the smoke.

Because of our compassion for these sheep without a shepherd, may we pray God raises up many, many more workers.

Conclusion

I want to end today of you thinking about a signpost. A signpost doesn't draw attention to itself. It doesn't demand credit. It simply points in a direction and lets the traveler move toward the destination.

Our world needs living signposts that point to the biblical Jesus, because, unfortunately, there are too many false signs pointing in wrong directions. This is the world’s only hope. So, what can we personally do? We pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. Specifically, may each of us identify one person who needs a guide, a signpost—be it a coworker, neighbor, friend—who doesn’t know the Shepherd, and pray that God gives us an opportunity to point them to Jesus.

For us here today who are believers in Jesus Christ, somebody guided you to Him. Come to the altar and ask God to raise up workers and ask God to use you to be one of those workers. Also pray that God raises up more pastors and missionaries. Our numbers are dwindling. We need God to call out more people to vocational ministry to lead churches and denominations to fulfill this great work.

But if you are one of the distressed and downcast who haven’t yet believed in Jesus, if you are worn out from your wandering, find rest for you soul in Jesus. God didn’t leave you without a shepherd. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who lived the life we couldn't live, died the death we deserved to die, and rose from the grave so that everyone who believes in Him would not be lost but would have eternal life.