Matthew 9:35-38 35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
The scene Jesus describes here is kind of heartbreaking. Imagine a farmer who has done everything needed to prepare soil, plant seeds, and nurture the investment of the crops. Everything has gone as it should have, and all the crops have grown and are ready to be harvested. There is just one problem, there aren’t enough laborers to bring in the harvest. All of that soil tilling, all of that seed planting, all of that watering, all of the preparation and expense will have been for nothing because instead of being harvested, the crops will simply die. Everything that needed to be done in order to yield a harvest had been accomplished. The farmer had made sure of it. There just weren’t people who were willing to do the work of harvesting.
Using agricultural imagery, something those early disciples would have understood from their everyday life, Jesus painted quite a picture. It’s not just that the farmer in the story wants a harvest to be able to claim success as a farmer. It’s about way more than that. Jesus said what He said about a plentiful harvest and few workers because his heart was impacted by all the people He saw as He moved about. They were ripe for the Good News of the Kingdom of God, but so many were living without hope.
Jesus lived a life on the move. He went from town to town proclaiming the Kingdom of God. As He went, He healed the sick, He delivered people from demonic oppression, He called people to repentance, He pointed them to a relationship with their Heavenly Father, and He improved people’s quality of life. Everything He did, He did in response to people’s needs.
In verse 36, we read that He had compassion on the crowd because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So, we have two images here, a farming image and the picture of a shepherd and his sheep.
In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, (which I have been teaching through on Wednesday nights, by the way, and I would love to have y’all join us) there in Matthew 5, Jesus challenged the attitudes and behaviors of Israel’s religious leaders in several important areas. Instead of shepherding the people of Israel with kindness and mercy, the Pharisees and the other religious leaders judged, intimidated, and bullied the people into following rules and procedures that weren’t even found in the Law of Moses. The people were helpless against those leaders. Their participation in the worship of God and life of the community was dependent on the approval of those men. That approval was always out of reach. No one could keep up with the demands of the growing laws. They lived a burdened life.
Oh, there were people attending to the religious life of the Israelites, but none of them was really tending to their hearts. No one was talking to them about the deep love of God. No one was offering the hope that comes from recognizing we have been made on purpose for a purpose. No one was encouraged to seek God’s Divine will for their lives. It was simply about compliance with the expectations of man-made laws.
Jesus called it harassment. The hoops that men had created made people accountable to them rather than to God, putting them in a helpless state. Deviation from the religious leaders with their always-increasing demands came with a price. The religious leaders “lorded over” people with their power and authority. It was heavy, oppressive, and unfruitful.
Jesus’ compassion was about more than religious oppression. He saw how hopeless people were, as they lived disconnected from a true relationship with God. It impacted every area of their lives. That is the sheep without a shepherd part of his metaphor. When sheep have a shepherd, they travel together. They are never alone. The sheep look to the shepherd for everything. They totally rely on the shepherd. You take the shepherd out of the equation, and it is a bad situation.
Sheep are vulnerable to being attacked without a shepherd. They are defenseless without the shepherd. They aren’t good foragers. They don’t know how to find food. They depend on the shepherd to lead them to green pastures. They have to have a stream slowed and stilled by the creation of a dam so that they can even get a drink. Sheep are scattered, confused, hungry and vulnerable without a shepherd. I don’t want to be any one of those four things. How about you?
I don’t want to live disconnected from a life-giving source. I don’t want to wander aimlessly through life. I want to be part of a community of faith. I don’t want to feel as if I am alone in this life. I don’t want to be scattered from everyone else who is moving in concert with Jesus.
I also don’t want to be confused. I want to know the truth. I’m not interested in believing or following a lie. It is important to me to understand what truth is and to embrace that it never changes. I may deviate from the truth, but the truth never deviates from itself. It doesn’t ebb and flow. It doesn’t evolve and change with cultural mores. I don’t want to have to wrestle with whether something is right or wrong or how I should behave in a certain situation. I want to have mental clarity and a sound mind. I want to build my life on principles that will give me stability. I want to know why God made me the way He made me and accomplish the things that are part of His blueprint for my life. When we don’t have Jesus as our Shepherd, we will be easily swayed and influenced by circumstances, feelings and people and will live in a state of confusion.
Y’all know I certainly never want to be hungry. One of my favorite verses is, Psalm 37:25 which says, “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.” I am glad because I need my bread! I am very satisfied with knowing that as I follow Jesus, He will make sure I have food to eat. That is a very literal understanding of a greater principle which simply is that God promises to take care of His people. He supplies all of our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. He promises to enable us to work, to make money, to use that money responsibly, to save for a rainy day, and to have what we need when we need it. I need a shepherd because I want to eat! I want to stay fed!
I also don’t want to be vulnerable. I don’t want to be an easy target for Satan. I don’t want to be naïve and easily led astray. I don’t want to be taken advantage of. I want the protection that comes from walking with my shepherd.
Psalm 91 is a personal favorite of mine. I had never read it from the contemporary Message translation until this week. It lit my soul on fire! Listen to this: 91 1-13 You who sit down in the High God’s presence, spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow, Say this: “God, you’re my refuge. I trust in you and I’m safe!” That’s right—he rescues you from hidden traps, shields you from deadly hazards. His huge outstretched arms protect you— under them you’re perfectly safe; his arms fend off all harm. Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night, not flying arrows in the day, Not disease that prowls through the darkness, not disaster that erupts at high noon. Even though others succumb all around, drop like flies right and left, no harm will even graze you. You’ll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance, watch the wicked turn into corpses.
Yes, because God’s your refuge, the High God your very own home, Evil can’t get close to you, harm can’t get through the door. He ordered his angels to guard you wherever you go. If you stumble, they’ll catch you; their job is to keep you from falling.
Who needs a maid, a chef, or a butler? I’ve got angels following me around, and their job is to be my bodyguard!
You’ll walk unharmed among lions and snakes, and kick young lions and serpents from the path.
14-16 “If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God, “I’ll get you out of any trouble. I’ll give you the best of care if you’ll only get to know and trust me. Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times; I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party. I’ll give you a long life, give you a long drink of salvation!”
This is what happens when you are like a sheep WITH a shepherd! Do you find yourself scattered, confused, hungry and vulnerable? You need a Shepherd! What I am about to tell you might not be the primary motivation for following Jesus, but it isn’t a bad one. Are you ready? If you follow Jesus like sheep follow their shepherd, you will have everything you need to live a full, protected and satisfied life. There are greater reasons than that, like needing eternal salvation when you die, but whether Heaven was ever offered to me, these basic realities are more than compelling for me to want to walk with Jesus.
And when Jesus encountered people with no shepherd, He had compassion on them. We were made to need a Shepherd. That’s why life is harder without one. We need a Shepherd. Religion cannot be your shepherd. Sex, money, prestige or power cannot be a shepherd. Social media cannot be your shepherd. Your friends cannot be your shepherd. Even education and career pursuits cannot be your shepherd. Only Jesus can offer what a shepherd offers his sheep.
When the text says that Jesus had compassion, it means that it pained Him to see them in the condition they were in. He felt so bad for people who didn’t know what was available to them. They were missing out. They didn’t know anything else was possible. Maybe that is you today. Maybe you didn’t know or still aren’t sure that a different life is possible. Maybe you have been living in a chaotic, anxious state. Maybe you are getting up each day just hoping for the best when you could actually live with a real sense of hope.
We all go through tough times, but the difference is that for those who know the Shepherd, for those who are truly following Jesus, we understand that the Lord WILL get us through those time times, and we can lean on Him for direction, provision, protection and strength. Tough times are a lot tougher, a lot harder, and way more complicated without Him. Believers know Jesus will shield us from unnecessary trouble and hardship. I say that because some trouble and hardship is needed in order for Christ to live in us and to live through us and to build faith in us so that we actually grow and become spiritually mature followers.
As Jesus was processing His feelings about the state of people’s lives, He said this to His disciples, 37 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Jesus was reiterating what He had told His disciples many times. Everything that was necessary for people to have a Shepherd, everything that was necessary for salvation, everything that was necessary for people to live peace-filled, powerful, protected, and satisfied lives was being accomplished through Him, but if people never found out what the Good News of Jesus was all about, they would be like crops that remained unharvested.
His solution to this dilemma was that the disciples start praying for people to go into the fields and to bring in the harvest. Jesus not only had a burden for people who didn’t have a shepherd, but He was burdened for His sheep to get serious about bringing in more sheep.
Look at it again: 37 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Something hit me between the eyes as I studied this passage. The Holy Spirit pointed out the obvious, but I had never seen it before.
Jesus didn’t pray for the lost. He prayed for us to show up for work.
Picture Jesus this morning, with a “Help Wanted” sign. I wonder, if we could chat with Jesus face to face about this topic, if He would simply say, “I can’t get anyone to work.”
Jesus said we are to pray for laborers, and I don’t think He meant that we should bow our heads and say, “Lord, send someone else.”
Maybe you have a long prayer list of people you are praying for to come to Christ. That’s a good thing. To pray for people to get saved is strategic, and the unsaved, the spiritually lost, should populate our prayer requests. However, here Jesus says we are to work to win the lost. If we have prayed, but haven’t worked, we have only done half of the assignment and doing the first half without doing the second half won’t get the job done. We are to pray AND work.
The fields are white for the harvest. That means many people are ready to believe. Many people are ready to resign from a broken way of life. Many people are ready to put their trust in something greater than they have to date. Many people are ready for change. Many people are ready to engage their hearts.
If every believer in this room just led one other person to Christ this year, we would have to have two services on Sundays. That would be the biggest problem I could ever love. We would figure it out. We would hire more staff to help.
What if we lived to make Heaven crowded?
Jesus called His disciples to follow Him and said if they would, He would make them “fishers of men,” Matt. 4:18-22. How many fishers are in the room? Have any of you ever had a fish just jump up out of the water and land in your boat? No! You have to have the right bait. You have to spend the time. You have to exercise patience. You have to know where the fish are biting and go where they are. You have to cast your rod into the water. You have to exert some energy. You have to gather all of the gear needed, and I live with two fishers, so I will tell you it’s a lot of gear (y’all think women have a lot of shoes or purses? It is nothing compared to the tackle a fisher has.) Fishing is work!
How many of you grow a garden? Have you ever had corn and beans pluck themselves and land on your kitchen table? I didn’t think so! To harvest a garden, you have to go where the harvest is, and it is a lot of work. You will get your hands dirty. Your body will know you have been through something when you get finished.
Just like fishing, just like harvesting from a garden, bringing people to Jesus takes work, but without the work there is no harvest. Let me say that again. Without the work, there is no harvest.
Jesus sees the crowds of people who have no shepherd. He says they are ripe for the harvest, and the burden on His heart is that we pray for workers. How about we become an answer to that prayer request? If we were going old school this morning, and I asked for prayer requests from the floor, and Jesus would raise His hand and say, “Please pray for harvesters. We need more harvesters,” what would you do in response to that request? Oh, we can pray for more harvesters, but we can also simply become an answer to Jesus’ prayer request.
Here’s what I know. We are running out of time. Farmers know that when you are out of daylight, no more harvesting takes place. The work stops. Friends, the Bible talks about this very thing.
John 9:4 says, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”
When Jesus returns, “daylight” will be no more. There won’t be another opportunity to gather a harvest. Believers, in light of that reality, how will you work now to bring in the harvest?
Do you agree with Jesus that there are a lot of people who are helpless, harassed, and hopeless, like sheep without a shepherd? Can you see them? Can you see how susceptible they are to sin, to danger, to being manipulated by the gods of this age? Can you see their confusion about what is true? About what is important? About what they should live for? Do you see how they struggle to get by when He would love to provide and care for them? Let it move you to be an answer to the prayer Jesus asked His disciples to pray. Become a harvester that helps many others get connected to the Shepherd who longs to take them to His forever home.
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