Matthew 9:36-38 — an all encompassing message to the church (The Beauty of His Design)

I have spoken briefly before about some of the times the Lord has brought me a step back to reveal a larger message. One of those times being when I learned that there was no place for my hateful heart in His ministry, and that if I were to continue in the fight against human trafficking, I must do so with a heart full of love rather than a heart of hatred. Another time was when I was getting so caught up in all of these different ministries I felt called to and a burning on my heart for people to come to know Jesus but God took me back and said “I know you’re looking at the lost, but first look at my church.” My eyes were opened to a global Church in dire need of repair before the ministry to the secular world. In the same way, He continues to take me back further to reveal more and more of His heart as I continue to press into the things He places on my heart. I imagine us looking at a picture up close, and the more we seek Him, the more He draws us backwards to be able to see more of the picture. As I began to chase after this call for the Church to be unified, the Lord said yet again, “wait,” and awoke in me an urgency for union with the Father before union with each other.

My attention was brought to Matthew 9:36-38, which I believe is an all encompassing message to the Church right now.

“When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion (a) on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (b). Then he said to his disciples, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few (c). Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (d).”

Let me dive into the different sections of this passage and how the words started to mean something different to me when I read them through a new lens.

“When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion (a) on them,”

(a). Jesus’ compassion.

We have a call to the lost, but before that, we have a call to be the Church that He designed, but even before that, we have a call to our own personal intimacy with Jesus. I believe the global Church has gotten so crooked and scattered that we must return to square 1 — our hearts. Unity with Jesus means our hearts will be aligned with His and our eyes will see what He sees. We will ache for what He aches for, long for what He longs for, love what He loves, and detest what He detests. If we allowed Jesus’ compassion to puncture, seep, and fill us we would begin to care about both the salvation of the lost and the health of the Church — because you can’t care about the lost if you don’t care about how we reach them. If members of the Body of Christ would reunite with the Lord, there would a breakthrough of truth being spread with gentleness, and gentleness spread with truth.

In Matthew 9, Jesus wants the disciples to see the state of the sheep and gain a shepherding heart. Jesus wants us to see the state of the sheep in our churches, communities, nation, and world. We need His lens to see, His heart to care, and His  nearness to become shepherds who are being shepherded by The Shepherd.

“because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (b).”

(b). A call for shepherds.

Leaders are born out of the intimacy and secret place with Jesus. We are in desperate need of messengers who neither simply echo what they’ve heard in other messages nor have merely mastered the art in “relating,” but rather speak from what they have experienced, heard, read, and seen from their living Creator. We must move from polished sermons to holy language that penetrates.

What Jesus saw in Matthew 9 was not a people issue but rather a leader issue. Sheep left to wander astray become vulnerable to predators. I’ve said this before but I truly believe that our churches, our nation, and our society has become vulnerable to the predators because we have built so many churches on sand instead of on The Rock. There is a call for shepherds, pastors, leaders, and people of influence to guide their flocks towards Jesus instead of themselves. We see in places such as Ezekiel 34:10 where leaders are held accountable for the state of their people, yet I am afraid we are not taking this seriously enough.

I could go on and on about what we can learn from Jeremiah 23 regarding leadership, but I’ll keep it to a couple points:

• verse 4 talks about how flocks should only be living in fear of the Lord. We see lots of fear, anxiety, etc., in the Church, especially in the last few years, and I believe this is a direct effect of leadership lacking in union with Christ. You see, you can only lead where you’ve gone before, and many people of influence haven’t broken past the barrier of fear and into intimacy with their Savior.
• a major theme throughout this passage is a warning against false prophets. This is incredibly relevant to our day. I believe God is stirring up something as things are getting worse and worse, but many “leaders” are using this time to speak false hopes and visions from their own minds to their flocks. There is a massive revival movement happening and I’ve gotten to experience much of it first hand, and while it’s incredible and I believe there is so much more coming, I urge you to remember that God’s Word is more powerful than someone’s dream. We should be on fire from the Scriptures — the words given to each of us straight from the Father, which are alive and active, and not merely be a flame fanned only when someone has a new vision or dream. With words from people, we must proceed with caution, but with God’s word, you can always run. You see, we’ve begun to turn a Biblical rarity into a current normality. God can speak to us in so many ways, including a burning bush or writing on the wall or in a dream. The thing is, all of these occurrences in the Bible were not ordinary. But God’s Word remains living, active, and always speaking to us. Let us cling to His sure words in this hour, be set ablaze by them, and lead in accordance with them.

“Then he said to his disciples, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few (c).”

(c). Large harvest, few workers.

Jesus then goes on to tell His disciples that the harvest is ready, but there is a need for more laborers who are not only willing but also know how to reap it. This generation is THIRSTING for Jesus. I haven’t been alive for the other generations, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve never seen before a people more hungry to know their identity and find a sense of belonging, freedom, and joy. The issue when Jesus was talking to His disciples was not of readiness, and that still is not the issue. What is, however, is there are few who know what to do with the harvest once it’s brought in. In other words, we need obedience mixed with wisdom only gained through intimacy with the Father. We have pastors and leaders who are doing an exceptional job at dragging in crowds and multitudes but lack the wisdom to shepherd them towards Christ once they are gathered. Instead, we have lukewarm but fancy messages and even false Gospels being preached such as: acceptance of sin, lack of judgement, absence of love and compassion and gentleness, Christian humanism, fear, selfish ambition, and so on, that we are all sheep scattered around in different fields. Drawing into intimacy with the Holy Spirit will teach us how to lead, obey, and serve, but we can only unify with the Lord to the degree we submit and draw near to Him.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (d).”

(d). Jesus’ call to action is to PRAY!!!

The verse I’ve heard countless times at conferences, missionary gatherings, etc., used as a summoning to go is actually a summoning to pray. There is so much talk about how we must “go” and very little actual training for disciples and disciple making. Something I have been so bothered by lately is our neglect of the entirety of the Great Commission. Matthew 28 says to go AND make disciples, but too often we stop at “go,” and are left with a bunch of on-fire Christians running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Are we forgetting that God is a God of order, structure, and purposeful design? In the same way that the Church must operate in His design in order to be effective in ministry, He has a design of order laid out here in Matthew 9:

1.) Come into union with the Spirit of God and gain His heart, eyes, & compassion

2.) Be shepherded before you shepherd

3.) Pray eagerly to be sent & used

4.) Obey and move

Jesus calls God the “Lord of the harvest,” so it is He who knows about the harvest, not us. He knows who to send, how, where, when etc. What we are to do then, is to eagerly pray and ask God to send forth laborers, to be used by God, and for obedience to His commissioning. Sending and commissioning come out of the priority of prayer. You are not called out before you’re ready and you are made ready in the waiting, refining, and praying. True communion with the Holy Spirit teaches us to slow down, dwell in His presence, wait on the Lord, and allow Him to lead in His perfect ways and time.

Receiving theology degree after degree is no training compared to being called out of the prayer closet after receiving unity in the heart, mind, and eyes with Jesus. Therefore, I believe Matthew 9 shows us an urgency to head to the prayer room to unite our hearts with His. There are many of us, both in leadership positions and not, that either need to return to true intimacy with Jesus or find it for the very first time.

If we redirect our hearts to be in union with the Father, we will automatically act and think in accordance with His ways and, in turn, flocks will be shepherded, the Church will be unified, and the searching will be saved. Because that’s the beauty of His design.