Jesus – Pure and Simple: Eyes on the Harvest (Matt. 9:35-38)

Jesus - Pure and Simple
Eyes on the Harvest
Matt 9:35-38

INTRODUCTION:
When I was young, before age 5, my parents were foster parents. That was when we lived in St. Louis. Based on pictures that I have from my mom’s photo album, they were foster parents to about half a dozen different children. I remember one time, and this was before my dad started preaching, he was still working for the newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We were having a family devotional and one of the foster girls, a young teenager if I remember correctly, was praying and she thanked God for everything. Every single thing, it seems like. Every single item of clothing, for example.

I don’t know if it has any connection, but I remember as I was growing up, my younger brother was growing up, Mom and Dad had to guide us in our prayers. Rachel and I did the same thing when Jewell and Ana were very, very little. You guide them as you are teaching them how to pray.

The disciples of Jesus once asked Him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1). Wouldn’t you love to hear Jesus pray?

PRAYER FOR THE HARVEST - Matt. 9:37-38:
Listen to Jesus pray in this text. How many prayers has Jesus answered for you? A hundred? A thousand?

Maybe it’s time you and I answered one of Jesus’ prayers! Our “theme” for our first-Sunday-of-the-month sermons next year is going to be: “2020: Vision.” Consider this lesson today as a call to regain our focus on what our vision ought to be as Christians and as the church of Jesus Christ. This is a challenge to get our eyes back on Jesus and the things He cared about, the harvest.

You and I pray for our own needs and there’s nothing wrong about that. We probably don’t pray enough for our own needs.

But Matthew 9 is a request to pray for other’s greatest need: salvation. That’s pretty simple. Jesus always had His eyes on the harvest. He did not pray for more money or fewer problems. He did not pray for better health. He did not pray for more friends or more prominence. He did not pray for more blessings. He did not pray for a problem-free life. He did not pray for a healthy retirement account. He did not even pray for a pin-striped donkey to get Him down the road faster and in style.

In this passage, Jesus told His disciples to pray fervently for laborers who had their eyes on the harvest.

That is our challenge in 21st century America.

It is easy to lose focus in a world that is plagued by addiction after addiction after addiction and distractions after distractions after distractions. We often come to worship, thinking, “Boy, I need a ‘pick me up’! I sure need a shot in the arm! I need someone to wrap their arm around my shoulders and tell me it’s going to be alright! I need a pep-rally in Sunday worship!” We want to be inspired for another week at work or school.

But if we’re not careful, we can lose sight of our responsibility. Sunday worship is not an “end.” It is a means of partnering with each other in our need to reach our families and friends for Jesus Christ, for the sake of their salvation. It’s not just about Jesus working in us. It is about Jesus working through us.

Let’s not measure the Swartz Creek church of Christ by the number of people we have here on a Sunday morning. Let’s measure the Swartz Creek church of Christ by the number of people we have outside the church building on a Sunday morning.

STAY NEAR THE DOOR:
Samuel Shoemaker was a Protestant preacher in the 1920s who helped form the AA organization. He wrote a poem which begins:

I stay near the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.

The “door” Shoemaker was talking about was the door to a relationship with God. His intent was to be where he could show others the way. That is key for us too - to say near where people live who need Jesus Christ.

In Mark 5:25-34, Jesus is going about His daily life, His ministry, as He always did. And people heard about Him coming and they line up as if it were the Hometown Days parade. There is one woman in the crowd …

Jesus stopped and asked “Who touched Me?” The disciples are confused because it is a huge crowd. “Who touched You?” “Are you kidding? We’re in this massive crowd - it’s a madhouse! Everyone’s bumping into You!”

“No,” Jesus replied. “Somebody touched Me.” You can imagine the disciples shaking their heads. They were stifled by the crowds and stumped by His question. Jesus goes on…

“I felt power go out of Me.”

The woman, then, came and fell down before Him, knowing that she had been discovered. She admitted that she had reached out and touched Jesus’ robe and drawn virtue out of Jesus, healing virtue, healing power. She explained that for many years she had suffered from an illness. She was worn out and had depleted all her resources and had finally pinned all her hopes on the miracle worker from Nazareth.

Jesus stopped this massive procession and told the woman, “Your faith has made you well!” Incidentally, the verb translated “made you well” can also be translated “saved you.” Jesus might be forgiving this woman of her sins at the same time He is healing her sickness!

You see, there is a difference between bumping into Jesus and touching Him. Reaching out and touching Jesus will cause Him to stop the parade, the procession. It will cause Jesus to focus His attention and energy on you.

There is a lot of “bumping into Jesus” during the Christmas season, people who are only marginally interested in Jesus because that’s what this holiday is about to a lot of people. “Bumping into Jesus” is not the same thing as touching Jesus. Keep your hearts open to those who are reaching out to touch Jesus. Stay near the door.

Let me introduce you to another Christian from Iasi, Romania. He’s passed away now from hepatitis which he contracted from a blood transfusion. His name was Mihai Asofiei. Mihai was an orphan. He was homeless. He had made friends with one of our own Christians when they were in a different religious group. Mihai was teachable and he was baptized into Christ.

To get Mihai off the street, we rented an apartment for him for 6 months so that he could get a job and get his feet on the ground. Mihai loved people. He had a lot of friends who were homeless or down on their luck or were in different religious groups. Mihai kept me busy for a long time studying the Bible with different people.

Once we translated the Visualized Bible Study Series into Romanian, Mihai got an open door for us to show that series in several Pentecostal churches. I think it was three or four churches and we studied through all five lessons. Most of the Pentecostal churches in Romania are composed of gypsies or others who are illiterate. That made the video series that much more important. Mihai was disadvantaged in many, many ways, but his heart was not bound and he wanted people to be saved.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus reached out to build a bridge to people forgotten or ignored by society: the woman caught in adultery or the leper who had to yell for people to stay away from him, “Unclean! Unclean!” The lame man, the man with the withered hand, the blind, the disabled by the pool of Bethesda in John 5.

Jesus stayed near the door.

THERE’S A FACE IN FRONT OF YOU:
It may be at your work. It may be the person at school at the desk or chair beside you. We are in a sea of humanity and we can easily feel overwhelmed. Where do we start? Where do we begin the harvest?

We begin with the face in front of us. A neighbor. A family member. A teacher at our child’s school. The co-worker in the cubicle beside us. It could be the checkout clerk at the grocery store.

1. Nudge the person toward Christ. This might be a small word of encouragement, the reminder of a promise, an offer to pray, the hint of your personal support. You don’t wait for a response. You are opening yourself to being seen as a spiritual support. This is planting a seed.

Look at this this way. Every person has an unseen sign hanging around their neck that says, “Please help me feel valuable today.”

Pray that God will lead you to the person who is reaching for the hem of Christ’s robe.

2. Share the story of your life. This is not a “testimonial” as we might see in a denominational church; this is not something done in worship. But, in 1 John 1:3, John shares what he had “seen and heard.”

When I talk about sharing our lives, I mean letting someone know what your life was like before you became a Christian. Inform them how you became a Christian, how you obeyed the gospel, and why. Share with them how your life is different today. Let them know what the church means to you. We sing the song, “This is my story! This is my song!” That’s personal.

You need to be able to do this in a short period of time. Especially if you are at the checkout at the grocery store! Determine what you can say that shares the most powerful message in a short period of time.

3. Extend your own invitation. You can invite your friend or coworker or family member to number of activities that we have going on here at church. You can even have a cookout and invite several from church here to join you and invite your non-Christian friend to be a part of it. The more contacts they can make, the more likely they are to feel comfortable being in worship. The invitation is just getting them one step closer to Christ.

They might say no, of course. Don’t be discouraged. In our work in Romania, we might have to keep contact with someone for several years before we can finally get those obstacles removed that hinder them from obeying the Gospel. Defeating Satan can be challenging. God calls us to plant His seed; let God do the harvesting.

1 Cor. 3:5-9.

It’s not complicated. “Hey, we’ve got a men’s breakfast at church this Saturday, would you like to go?”

Here’s another approach:

“Would you like to know more about Jesus?” Share with them things about the life of Christ that you, personally, find most interesting or most exciting. You can always invite them to read a gospel with you. The Gospel of Mark is only 16 chapters long. The way my Bible is laid out, it would take me an hour to read the whole gospel account, from beginning to end.

“Would you like to become a follower of Jesus Christ?” Here’s where you get into a further discussion about the plan of salvation.

“Can I pray for you?” We’re not praying for people to be saved at that point, through prayer, but we are praying that God will bless them in their lives and remove obstacles that are in their way and that God will bless them with the time, opportunity, and heart to understand God’s message and obey it.

EYES ON THE HARVEST - John 4:34-35:
“Open your eyes,” Jesus says.

Let’s not get focused on ourselves as a church. There are good things we do that help us get to know one another and those are all good things.

But if we as a church are not focused on the lost in Swartz Creek, the lost within our own sphere of influence, then we are focusing on the wrong thing.

Jesus calls us to lift up our eyes and look out at the fields. It is tempting to look at the bushel that we have in front of us that is already full. We look at what we already have. Instead, Jesus calls on us to look at what we do not have - the lost who are in the world. We have 260 or so here on Sunday morning. Who is it that is not here in Swartz Creek, who need to be here? Who are they and how are we reaching out to them?

Never underestimate the power of one invitation. There’s a saying in missions that you can count the seeds in an apple but you can’t count the apples in a seed. We never know where a good act or a good invitation is going to go.

Family, if we will keep our eyes on the harvest, God will give us fruit. If we will stay near the door, we’ll find folks who can be invited in. If we’ll follow closely to Jesus, we’ll see those around us who are reaching for the hem of His garment.

Let’s finish by reading John 10:7-9. Jesus stands close to the door.

Take home message: Start praying for people by name in your sphere of influence whom you want to follow Christ. Pray for wisdom to lead them. Pray for their hearts to be open.