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Big Idea of the Series

When you ask someone what they think about the church, be prepared for any response. What they say may inspire feelings of anger, sadness, joy, or hope, depending on what they have experienced in their dealings with believers. This four-week series explores four congregational values that should define our relationships with those inside and outside the church. When we fulfill our biblical call to four c’s —commission, community, commandment, collaboration—we can be the church that glorifies God.

Sermon in a Sentence

Jesus stirs in his followers a compassionate love for others and calls them to share his truth with the world.

Evangelism is important. All of us work toward bettering the here and now needs to also include the hope of Jesus for a forever gospel of life eternal, that is the Great Commission.

Matthew Chapter 9

This chapter presents the healing of the paralytic lying on a mat, much to the chagrin of the teachers of the law, Matthew, our author is called from his tax collecting duties and follows Jesus, while the Pharisees complain about Jesus’ company and Jesus answers their complaint. The disciples of John inquired as to why Jesus’ disciples did not fast, and Jesus’ answer their complaint with an analogy. He restores a ruler’s girl to live and healed a woman who suffered for twelve years. He heals two blind men and and the man that was unable to speak. While on this world-wind church tour, the crowds grew and he realized that the field of souls were ready, but there were not enough laborers.

Productive Proclamation…vs. 35

Jesus’ teaching and healing ministry had a widespread impact on the church community. Wherever Jesus went, he was productive, and the laborers that would eventually take up the mantle of ministry would also have productive proclamation. As Christians, people not need to hear the good news, they need to experience the good news. The word teaching is didasko, denotes the activity of teaching; especially for moral instruction. The word proclaiming is kerysso, meaning to publicly announce religious truths and principles while urging acceptance and compliance. Jesus was teaching the truths of God’s word so that they could live by God’s standard.

Proper Perspective…vs. 36

What do you feel when you see the “crowds?” Jesus’ human emotions reflect a deep, gut-level “compassion. The word compassion is splanchizomai, to experience great affliction and compassion for someone. Jesus was literally feeling the crowds calamity and pain. The church today does not seem so compassionate....His compassion increases because Israel lacks adequate leadership, despite the many who would claim to guide it. The Twelve begin to fill that vacuum, foreshadowing the institution of the church. The language of “sheep without a shepherd” echoes Num 27:17 and Ezek 34:5, in which the shepherd is most likely messianic (cf. Ezek 34:23). Similar sentiments will well up in Jesus again at the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:34). As in the days of the prophets, the rightful leadership of Israel had abdicated its responsibility, as demonstrated by its inability or unwillingness to recognize God’s true spokesmen. “Harassed and helpless” literally means torn and thrown down (cf. Berkeley, “mangled and thrown to the ground”). Predators, and possibly even unscrupulous shepherds (Zech 10:2–3; 11:16) have ravaged the sheep. Verse 36 provides a stinging rebuke to the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees.

Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 166.

Pray for productive labor…vs. 37-38

Shifting the metaphor from flock to field, Jesus now envisions a vast crop of ripe grain in need of harvesters. The unreached people of his world need more preachers and ministers of the gospel. Jesus can personally encounter only a small number, so he will commission his followers to begin to reach the rest. Even then many more will be needed (cf. his sending of the seventy-two in Luke 10:1–12). Verses 37–38 have rightfully led Christians in all ages to pray for, call, and send men and women into all kinds of ministries. The need remains as urgent as ever, with billions who have not heard the gospel or seen it implemented holistically. “Send out” (from ekballō—recall under 9:25) could also be translated thrust out, and it could even refer to workers already in the field who “need to have a fire lit under them to thrust them out of their comforts into the world of need.”