Into His harvest.
And then immediately following, of course, is the charge. In Matthew 10:1:
Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
And thus, skipping down to Matthew 10:5, it continues. He listed the twelve at that point.
These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: Do not go in the way of the Gentiles; Do not enter any city of the Samaritans; But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, “The kingdom of the heavens is at hand.”
Lord, we are so thankful You are a God Who speaks, and a God Whose heart beats when the saints gather together, two and three. We ask that Your anointing would be on us this afternoon to keep us awake, to keep us attentive to Your Word, and to challenge, by the Spirit, our inward life as we discuss this precious theme this weekend.
Lord, thank You for this opportunity. We ask that the Holy Spirit would move among us today, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but, you know, each of the Gospel writers snuck his signature into the Gospel, right? Without saying as much, they sneak it in, because that was actually the practice back in those days, and it’s done among all four.
Now, of course, how do we know? Where do we see Mark in the Gospel of Mark? That’s right: that naked boy who ran out of the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. When you look at the context, scholars realise there’s no earthly reason for that to be there except to show it was Mark, the young little kid who ran away at that moment. So that means that Mark was there—the guy who’s writing.
Now, John never really talks about himself, nor says he wrote the Gospel, except that he keeps talking about what? The disciple whom Jesus loved. Ah, there he is. But you see, it’s hidden there, isn’t it?
Luke, right at the start, gives it away by talking to Theophilus and saying why he has put the Gospel together.
Now, how about Matthew? Where does he sneak in? Of course, Matthew is mentioned in the Gospel, but where does he sneak in his signature? They call it a “Cama” nowadays, a C-A-M-A, because Albert Camus, the famous French philosopher, used to write books and call himself “Cama” instead of “Camus.” Anyway, it doesn’t make a difference. Where did Matthew sneak in?
It’s at the end of the parables that Jesus gave in Matthew 13. And the final—some people call this a parable, but actually it’s Matthew giving you a little hint that this is him. It says in Matthew 13:52:
And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings things out of his treasure, new and old.”
Matthew was the scribe, the pencil pusher, the guy who wrote everything down among the disciples. And in his experience, he became that great connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, because he went back to Abraham and shared precious treasures of old things, and then went forward, right to the Great Commission, sharing the things that are to come.
He is that scribe, trained as a disciple of the kingdom, which now gives us a clue to the context in which I would like to speak about this passage over these two days. It’s this: this is talking, in context, about the kingdom of the heavens. That’s the context we would like to speak about.
Now, already it’s been told to you that, if you put together his whole Gospel, it stresses five teaching sessions of Jesus, preceded by events. And, of course, we know that:
Matthew was burdened about the kingdom of the heavens: that kingdom that came in, and yet was still to come in. It was here, but not quite yet. It was now, but not quite. So that wonderful word, “The kingdom of the heavens is near upon you”—Matthew’s burden.
And so, when we look at this, we want to see where this all ties in with this wonderful passage about Jesus looking over the situation. So between these two sections—Matthew 5–7, the Sermon on the Mount regarding what the kingdom of the heavens is like, and Matthew 10, where you are to be disciples of the kingdom—between those two sections, we have this wonderful passage in Matthew 8–9.
And, of course, Lucio stole all my stuff on that! He told you about all the ten miracles. Did you see those miracles? Okay, here it goes.
Plus, everywhere He went, He healed everyone, every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Ooh, that’s a lot to take in.
And yet, these are the things we’re talking about. Matthew presents these ten amazing miracles because he’s trying to set up something regarding the kingdom for us to understand. Of course, he’s trying to show us that the kingdom was not just teaching, but the kingdom was a living presence, full of power and action and healing and salvation.
So I want to set us into the story a little bit by taking it, as it were, from Matthew’s perspective as he watched Jesus doing these things, and as, more and more in his heart, he sang the chorus, “O to be like Thee.”
Three things in Matthew 8–9, I think especially, influenced and spoke to and impressed this new disciple. So in Matthew’s Gospel, in Matthew 9, in this interim passage, is when Matthew is called from the tax table, and he holds a feast. So Matthew is a new disciple, watching with eyes this wide all these things that Jesus does as He’s walking through Galilee.
So the first thing, of course, he had to be impressed with was the overwhelming dose of God’s presence. Wow, if this is the kingdom, I’m glad that it’s here! People getting healed, people gaining their sight, people being saved, people who are lost being found. I mean, this is really something. I mean, what do you say?
The disciples at this point were still basically what? Spectators. They have not been sent out. They’re just taking it all in.
Matthew must have thought, “Man, this Guy is something. I wonder Who He is. A great rabbi preaching the kingdom of the heavens. Hmm, could He be the Messiah?” Of course, that’s the big question, isn’t it?
And especially wonderful, I think, and personal—which is maybe why Matthew brings it in this way—was the compassion that he saw Jesus express toward humanity. As a matter of fact, it came home very personally, because Matthew 9 tells the story of how, when he was saved, Matthew said, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, can I please hold a feast for You?”
That wasn’t on Jesus’ agenda. He said, “Okay, yeah.” And, of course, when Jesus got there, the whole room was filled with tax collectors. Now, nobody likes a whole room of tax collectors except Jesus. And as it says, He sat down and ate with sinners. What a scandal! Oh, my goodness, what is He doing?
Matthew was deeply impressed by this humble, approachable Jesus, reclining at table and sharing the wonderful Gospel of the kingdom of the heavens. Oh, my goodness.
Listen, you know the story, because Matthew likes to juxtapose Jesus and His compassion with the Pharisees, who are always looking: “Oof, He’s with sinners. What’s He doing?”
You see, the religious Jews thought these poor, harassed, broken people around them were there because they were cursed, because they weren’t following the covenant. They weren’t keeping the covenant and its 613 precepts, if you want to be a righteous man. And so this riffraff is just all around.
They had a name for these people, these lost sheep: the am ha’aretz, which means am, the people; aretz, of the earth—earthy people. It was originally a Hebrew phrase; it was a compliment, “people of the earth.” But now, the way the Jews were defining it, it was the nasty people, perhaps, that we should avoid.
You could see already that the kingdom compassion was hardly seen in the religion of Israel.
The third surprise, of course—it must have almost overwhelmed this young Matthew, the disciple—was when the Lord says, “Okay, here are the twelve apostles I’m picking out of the bunch. Matthew, you’re one of them.”
“What?”
How many of you are ready to be an apostle? Maybe a Christian a year—how many are ready? Sending you out: raise the dead, preach the Gospel, cast out demons, preach the good news.
“What? What? Who, who, who—me? Not ready!”
Do you think any of the other eleven felt they were ready? Except maybe Peter, huh? I don’t know. Did they? I think that’s quite a surprise. Well, so here’s the young Matthew, taking this all in. An amazing thing.
But this compassion of Jesus brings us back to a basic issue, which is found within the story, and it has to do with this word compassion itself. Mac gave a wonderful series of definitions about what compassion is. The Bible itself has some wonderful meaning behind this that I’d like for us to think about for a minute.
It’s talking about something deeper than love, deeper than emotional love. So let’s say deeper than heart love.
As our brother shared, the New Testament writers, when they wrote in Koine Greek, had to come up with a word to define this kind of compassion Jesus had. And so they came up with a word—one of our favourite words, I’m sure—splagchnizomai. Is that one of your favourites?
It comes from two words: splagchna, which means your intestines, small and large, and you can include your tummy if you want. Your bowels, as Paul always liked to say. And the “-izomai” means, “Mmm.” That’s why we have the translation “moved with compassion.”
Interesting, isn’t it? It’s talking about something that’s deeper than just emotion.
And even more wonderful, of course, because Jesus was speaking Hebrew or Aramaic in that day, is that the Hebrew word gives us an even more precious understanding of what compassion means. In the Old Testament, that word compassion is rechem, which comes from a word, rachem, which, in the Old Testament, is a word that comes from a word we use for a womb.
Jesus was moved in His womb. Something deep inside laid hold of Him: something that needs care, something that needs protection.
So we see that this word compassion is explaining something deeper than the heart, deeper than the heart. It’s something that goes beyond love or hate. It’s being connected to another person at the most primary level.
Now, you understand what compassion means if you’ve been this way. How about when you fell in love? Oh, boy, your heart was pitter-patter, right? How about when some severe thing came up, a tragedy or something? Don’t you get hit right there? I don’t know about you, but my belly is big enough, and I can feel it when something really hits my gut.
That’s what he’s talking about. That compassion is something that’s deep, and it’s a depth that will connect us in a wonderful way once we understand how that thing works.
Now, there’s no record at all in Matthew 9 that the disciples had any gut check. They just looked at Jesus: “Why is Jesus…?” Well, what was He doing? Do you think He was weeping? Perhaps.
I know sometimes I see somebody weeping, and it makes me weep. I don’t even know why they’re weeping. Maybe He’s weeping, but maybe He was groaning.
Because sometimes compassion, when somebody is hit in their bowels, there’s a groan—that groaning that Paul talks about the Spirit working in our lives. There’s a groaning for something so much deeper in our lives than we presently understand, something that’s called the kingdom and other things.
And so here is Jesus feeling that way, and here are the disciples, who must have sensed that there was a great kind of gap. I mean, when they looked down at the aretz, what do you think they saw? Yeah, yeah, nasty folk.
Then Jesus says, “Look…” Tears began to flow. “Wait, what am I missing here? What’s going on? Where am I not understanding?”
You see, of course, now, what do you think? Do you think they felt chastened by that? Do you think they felt perhaps they needed to repent of their hard hearts? They must have sensed that difference between themselves and Jesus, but Matthew himself was too new a disciple.
We can almost say a new disciple of the Lord doesn’t have much depth. Matthew just got saved. Not much compassion—that is, a deep connection—yet. There are things on the surface. You know, newly saved people are pretty selfish.
I was selfish. I was glad I was saved. My sins were forgiven. There was nothing about the Lord at that time, as a young Christian. It was just, “How wonderful it is for me.”
And there’s Matthew: “How wonderful it is for me. I’m walking around watching Jesus do these things.” And then Jesus says, “Look at that down there.” Jesus has got something deeper going on, you see, that I don’t know much about.
The other disciples, of course, also had been merely spectators at this point, and the King’s compassion wasn’t something that they seemed to possess.
And then, in Matthew 10, He charged them and gave authority, anointing, and ministry. And you know something? When the Lord gives you a ministry, an anointing, a gift of the Holy Spirit, within that anointing, when you minister under it, there is a love which comes from God that can be manifested and felt.
Very wonderfully and mercifully, the Lord gives some of us unlovely and unloving people, under an anointing, a love for people.
When you read sometimes the true stories of God’s great evangelists and missionaries and healing men and all kinds of apostles through the ages, we discover that a lot of them weren’t particularly likeable people.
They weren’t especially humble and compassionate like Jesus. No, a lot of them didn’t want to see the riffraff until it was time for the service, and then they’d come out and act all nice and everything, come up, pray for people and everything. But the reality was, the anointing brought the love of God into the people’s lives, and it was real.
Now, isn’t that a mercy of God? That God can love somebody through us even when we don’t feel that love. Maybe we’re actually quite an individual. Maybe we’re quite an introvert. We actually don’t want to get involved, but the Lord’s got us involved somewhere.
But this ministry love, or compassion, if you can call it that, is different from splagchna, is different from this compassion that they saw in Jesus. You see, some ministry, and some who minister, have little connection with the sheep. But God’s Spirit enables us to minister to the sheep in time.
Well, you know what? What happened, though, of course, as the disciples walked with Jesus—the fragrance released by the bowels of compassion will cause that double anointing in the lives of His disciples. Not only the anointing given by the Spirit from heaven, but the anointing of a broken life that’s pouring out this deep level of emotion.
Are you following me so far? Do you understand there’s something deeper going on here? That’s what I want us to see.
Now, we have to realise that Matthew is making a full exposure of a culprit against kingdom compassion that is present everywhere. There’s a culprit that keeps the disciples, and us today, from being those who bear the good news with compassion. You know what it is? Religion.
Religion causes us to think we are compassionate when we’re not being compassionate at all. “I just told him the truth”—without love. And we think that’s a good thing.
Now, the religion of Israel and the rabbis and all—you know these things—they had obscured God’s mercy by their religious legalism. “Well, we would help you, but I’m sorry, you didn’t come and do this. You have to do that. No, you can’t come first. You have to go to the priest,” and this and that. There are all kinds of rules and regulations for our compassion.
Oh, there are tricks there, and it’s still alive today. How could churches segregate if they had any deep connection with their brethren?
How could Hindus be Hindus and still maintain untouchables? How could Islam subjugate women? How can Protestants hate Catholics, and Reformers hate charismatics, and Calvinists hate Arminians? And what’s going on here?
I wasn’t expecting that answer, but there we are.
You see, brothers and sisters, now immediately you realise the King’s Gospel—the King Who was the Gospel—was a scandal to the Jews. Jesus dragging God through the mud, eating with sinners, touching lepers. These Jewish leaders avoided touching these people.
And then, of course, we find out later in the story, He goes on and heals Gentiles, and then, to add it all, He goes out and saves some Samaritans. I mean, what’s going on with this Guy? It’s completely against compassion.
A footnote: the Old Testament revelation of God tells us clearly that He was a God of compassion.
Just to mention one time, to show you what compassion can do: there was Moses. He’d just come down the hill with the two tablets, and he saw them worshipping the golden calf. He got mad, ground up the calf, made them drink this water—gold water, poisonous stuff—was mad at them, went away isolated, angry, disappointed in the people of God.
And he said, “God, I want to know You. No more with these people. I just want to know You.”
God says, “Okay. I’m going to cover you up, and I’m going to come show you Who I am.”
God came over him. He felt the presence of God come over him, and He says, “I am. I am the Lord, the Lord Elohim. And I am”—what?—“Compassion. Grace. Mercy. That’s Who I am, Moses. Who are you?”
It broke Moses. See, that’s when compassion can flow. It broke Moses, who became an intercessor for these same people for forty years.
How did he get connected to his people on a deeper level than just, “I am the boss,” or, “I am the appointed leader,” or, “I’m anything else,” on a shallower level? No, he was as connected to them as Paul was to the brothers and sisters in the church who were against him. He was actually saying, “I would rather you succeed and me not succeed, if you would just follow the Lord.”
There’s something there that broke Moses. It’s Who God really is. It’s wonderful. And this experience of Moses, in some way, has to be our experience if we would really enter into this thing, because this application of compassion has to do with this:
The kingdom Gospel must be recovered in the church of Jesus Christ.
And so let’s look deeper into that, just for a couple of moments. Our religious activity can hide the reasons for our lack of compassion. We’re very smart at devising ways of keeping from really showing compassion. Compassion is a costly reality.
The first one, and the cause of all—I’m going to mention three ways we get around compassion, but let me get to the root of the problem, why we don’t have compassion where we should have compassion. It’s all a matter of one thing: did we deny ourselves and take up the cross? There it is.
We can manufacture hundreds of ways of avoiding the cross, but the cross will break us. The cross causes us to be like that precious vase of fragrant oil, that if you can break that in us, compassion flows with an anointing toward other people. That’s real.
I have been privileged to know some true evangelists in my day, knowing some not so personally and some quite personally, but I can tell you one thing about every one of them: there was a connection they could make with people.
I don’t know if you heard this, but, you know, D. L. Moody was not a learned man. He spoke kind of a rough English, but he was very successful in crusades over in the States, and so they invited him over to Ireland, in the UK, for some series of meetings.
And when he got to—I don’t know if it was Cambridge or where, but someplace where there were some college students, seminary students and stuff—they mocked him because of his poor English. They would say some of his sayings, you know: “This ain’t right,” and all this kind of stuff.
And he just looked at them, and he laughed, and he says, “You’re right. I don’t have your language, but I have your God.” And he connected with those kids.
You couldn’t dissuade him. You couldn’t make him go, “Poof! Well, then forget it.” No, no, no. You know, true evangelists connect.
I was privileged in my lifetime to probably be in about ten of Billy Graham’s crusades. I worked on a team, actually, when I was in Korea, but worked in a choir sometimes, and always helping those people who would come forward in a Billy Graham crusade. Billy Graham could connect with people.
When I met him personally, he looked right down into my soul and talked to me. There’s something that has been broken in him, allowing more than just a preaching anointing to be his. It was a life that was being expressed.
And so the Lord wants us to come into this, but, oh, we can find all kinds of reasons and things for getting around the cross. But here, let’s just make a simple point:
There can be no sustained gathering of lost sheep, no harvesting and working in the field for a long time, no healing in the kingdom, unless disciples bear the real Gospel cross.
Now, when we talk about the cross, there are many different dimensions of it, but what was the basic cross Jesus was speaking to His disciples about? He said this: “You need to deny yourself, your basic self-life and comforts, and go for the sake of God’s kingdom, and share and speak and bring people to a living relationship to Jesus Christ. And it’s going to cost you something.”
You probably won’t be too popular. You might face rejection most of the time. Some of you may have even had a cold-sales job. Any of you ever done that? Phone sales, stuff like that? Whew, man, that’s tough. Everybody says no, ninety-nine times; finally one person says yes. You’ve got to have a strong ego to be rejected ninety-nine times. And in this ministry, there’s rejection most of the time.
The Book of Acts shows us many miracles and wonders that happened as the disciples went from place to place, but don’t forget, that’s telescoping thirty-five years of ministry. How often were Paul and Timothy out on the street in some city, preaching the Gospel, where people just stoned them or walked away? Nobody got saved. And yet they went on to the next town and preached the Gospel.
Listen, He’s talking about us doing some dealing with ourselves, to be willing to help Him in this large bringing-in of His kingdom. Of course, it probably means we may lose friends or family, or be rejected by our peers, be branded some kind of a fool. There’s probably some persecution involved, some strong reactions, some danger. Have you ever been through that? This is not easy, brothers and sisters.
But this is that which brings us to compassion. Taking Jesus to the multitudes has never been easy. It’s a blessing, and you know it if you’ve done it.
Remember when the disciples said to Jesus, “Well, we’ve left everything”? Well, partly. And then Mark 10:29—I love His answer, because this is so true. And Jesus, in Mark 10:29–30, says this:
So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, brethren, there’s no one who’s left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My sake and the Gospel’s, Who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time: Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions.”
Oh, boy. Why did He stick that in? Now, He just about sold the whole bunch of them on the promise: if you’ll go and share the Gospel, you’ll receive all of these blessings. You know, you check this out for yourself.
When you find people who have embraced the cross and own a higher life, a richer life, a fuller life, these are people who bore a cross and exude the very compassion of Christ. It’s true.
Corrie ten Boom was mentioned already, and there are so many examples we could give of these things. But when you talk to somebody who’s been through it for the Lord’s sake, you don’t find a miserable person. You find somebody who’s joyful, who’s full, who’s blessed in this lifetime. And He goes on to say:
In the age to come, eternal life.
What a privilege it is to serve the Lord.
Now, unless we take up the cross, we experience no real compassion for the sheep or the fields, and there’s usually little kingdom harvest, because compassion is part of that anointing that connects us to others on resurrection ground.
I don’t know if you know who David Wilkerson is. He was a famous Pentecostal preacher, but he was also truly an evangelist. And one of the problems they had with him when he came back to New York City, after having a large, large church in Texas—he came back to Times Square—they’d go to his office, and he was missing.
They’d have to go looking for him, and he was out on the street, connecting with the bums and the people and the drug addicts lying out on the street, talking to them about Jesus, giving them his pair of shoes and all kinds of things. There are stories about David, but I’m telling you what: when it came to connecting with those who needed help, that brother was sincere.
And the rest of the ministry team wanted to protect him, you know what I’m saying? See, they wouldn’t let him walk around with much money; he’d give it away, you know. Maybe ten or twenty bucks in his pocket, but that’s it, because he was Jesus for those people, and they could see it.
But that compassion is an anointing that’s found on resurrection ground, after bearing the cross.
And we, even as Christians, are just like the world, aren’t we? And this we have to say: you know, we have been bombarded by so much in media today that we’re traumatised from compassion. You know what I mean? There are so many things going on. Read one day the New York Times, or whatever newspaper, or listen to any broadcast of the news.
I remember I was thinking about this a while back, and I saw the perfect example. So they had a news flash, lasted maybe thirty seconds. Let’s see, in Nepal they had that mudslide. What was that, three weeks ago, a month ago? They said 1,500 were dead, 6,600 were missing. And that news flash took thirty seconds, followed by ten minutes on our rising gas price.
Do you know what I’m saying? It’s because we can hear that: “1,500 dead, 6,600 missing, la, la, la.” That’s what we’re in, in this world. Yeah, it’s stuff like that, and we just seal our hearts off from feeling anything. A person who’s in New York City learns how to have what they would call “guarded compassion.”
I don’t know if you know, around the corner from where I live—I walk every day—there’s a guy there, and he’s always asking for money every day. It’s his profession, you know? Well, somebody who doesn’t know comes on by to give him money. You know, they think, “Oh, hey, this guy…” That is his job. He shows up. He comes in his Cadillac, and he parks it and goes over there. It’s just amazing how we have to sort of prepare ourselves.
So the church has tended to protect itself and, in doing so, wall itself off from those who are truly in need, just like the Pharisees, you might say.
And this is unfortunate, you see. This is the whole thing, because what Jesus is looking at here is the need for God’s people to be recovered back to this love and compassion of God.
And it’s why most outsiders, when you talk to them about the church, what do they say about it? “Oh, it’s a place of love and compassion”? No. What do they say? “There are some people, they go in there, they play church, they sing some songs, they listen to a guy. You know, they feel like they’re more religious than me, because they keep telling me I’m going to hell,” and stuff like that.
The outsiders don’t have a view of the church that it’s a place of compassion, a refuge, a home.
So, anyway, it’s because, with time, the church learns creative ways to avoid the need for compassion.
As an example: “All my compassion, I gave at the office.” What do I mean by that? Oh, we let the church elders handle where we should send money.
Now, it’s good to send money. There are good mission projects and servants of the Lord all over the world. There are things that are legitimate about that. But, you see, if we just put our money into the pot, and then they put the money over here, and then it goes over here, I don’t know if that’s really compassion. All right, it’s caring, at that level at least.
But even though we do that, we don’t realise, in the process, that we’re removing a whole aspect of compassion that the Bible often talks about and we almost never practise individually. And what is that?
The Bible talks about us being sensitised to the needs of people individually, beyond what the church gives, beyond the church’s burden. It’s a wonderful thing when a person becomes aware: God wants you to give that person some money, or God wants you to send some money to something you heard about, or God wants you to help out a person with clothes or something like that—anonymously, the left hand not knowing what the right hand’s doing.
You see, half of what is spoken about is people individually being responsible to be compassionate. But if we just give at the office and we let it go, we’re missing an opportunity for us as individuals to be harvesting in a field, to be helping sheep as those who have compassion. Well, that’s the first one.
The second way we can compromise, I found in church life myself. You know, I was a pastor for a while. Oh, boy, I learned some lessons. A second way to avoid compassion is death by committee.
Now, what happens is we decide we want to talk about something. “How are we going to give to the poor? How about in our area? You know, in our area we’ve got this and that. How are we going to do it?” We get together as a committee, we talk about it, we plan, and nothing is ever carried out.
But somehow we believe, because we talked about it a long time, that we were compassionate, even though nothing was done. It gets killed in committee. “Well, there are too many problems right now. Let’s try it another time.” So we imagine we’ve been compassionate, but nothing’s really happened.
It reminds me of what we’ve just finished in New York City. The UN came together from all parts of the world, sat down and talked. Now, what happened? Nothing.
It’s like New York City’s government. I don’t know what “city council” means, because these people come together and just make up rules. Anyway, they never go anywhere.
We have a small meeting in Manhattan. We’re still waiting. How long are we waiting now for a certificate of occupancy so we can legally meet there? I don’t know. We’re into the third year, maybe? “Ah, the government will get around to it. We’ve got to discuss some things. Something here, something there.” Oh, yi, yi.
James exposes this kind of stuff, doesn’t he? When there’s a lack of heart, he talks about those who have a lot of faith doctrines and theories and things, as opposed to people who are just doing true religion, helping widows and orphans: faith talkers versus faith doers. Hmm.
I remember, oh, my goodness, I was in a charismatic church for a while, and I remember one time we were burdened about the healing ministry, and that there should be a healing ministry in the body of Christ. There should be.
Well, we got together and talked about it, the elders and me, you know, all that. I was a pastor back then. And we got to talking about these various things, and so we’re going to have a healing ministry. We need to have a healing ministry.
But then we began to talk about, “Well, if we’re really going to stand by faith for healing, should we also allow doctors to deal with somebody? I mean, does God heal somebody who’s going to a doctor?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know. A good point. We’ve got to think about that some more.”
And then, you know, on the other hand, if a person’s going to come to be healed, maybe do they need to repent first? Should we just pray for somebody, no matter whether they’re saved or not? Or have they confessed their sins? Do they have faith? All of these questions came in. And, of course, guess what? We never ended up with a healing ministry. It just died in committee.
Now, a third level—I’ve got a picture up here. On the deeper level, this comes as the church develops a history. I’m just trying to be practical and honest here, because the other brothers are preaching good doctrine for you, but I’m just trying to be honest.
There’s this wonderful poem called “The Lonesome Tree,” by Loyal Marion Thompson. Listen to this. See if this doesn’t depict churches you’ve seen here and there.
A mountain tree, if it would see
The far horizons and the stars,
May never know a sheltered place,
Or grow symmetrical in grace.
Such trees must battle doggedly
The blast and bear the scars.
There are an awful lot of churches that start out just open, humble, the Spirit is moving, but over time, veterans have been hurt. They’ve gone through many battles, disappointments, and what happens is, in the midst of that, somehow compassion leaves, and we become lonely trees.
“We are a lonely-tree fellowship. We believe in this vision. We believe in this doctrine. We believe that Jesus is coming back next Thursday. We’ve got a lot of specific things we believe.” Staying here huddled up, waiting for Jesus to come back. A lonely tree.
No longer symmetrical in grace, which means a church needs to not only have great faith in the doctrines of God, but must be active in ministry out beyond the church walls. Otherwise, it gets asymmetrical.
Even the Lord’s shepherds, those dear responsible brothers and workers and whatever you want to call them, become drained after a while by all that goes on in the difficulties of fellowship life and the selfishness of the demands of the sheep. And they find themselves isolating themselves to be alone with God, to pursue an individual spiritual life, which becomes unbeautiful, jagged, unbalanced, alone.
I hope, if you gather with some people, that they’re not one of these lonely groups. They’ve got no connection with the world whatsoever. There’s no compassion, except perhaps for one another—hopefully, at least that. But these are some ways that we can avoid, by religion, the compassion of Jesus.
Now let’s share good news. How does the Lord take you and me, saints, and bring us into this place where, like those precious vials of fragrant oil, we are broken and our compassion begins to be seen in this world? Well, I think there are two parts, two ways the Spirit leads us.
The first one we’ve mentioned, and it’s quite obvious. You can see it right here. It’s that Jesus says, “Follow Me and watch what I do,” right?
So, you know, in Mark 3, when it talks about Jesus appointing the apostles, it says that Jesus appointed the apostles to do two things:
So the first thing we need to do is spend time with this precious Jesus, to watch how He deals with people, to see how He cleanses the leper, how He deals with raising the widow’s son. And in this, we see something. We begin to see a connection between compassion—that level of deep, visceral connection—and mercy’s flow.
Compassion and mercy are two different things. Compassion is that connecting, and mercy is the action.
We want to be those who are offering mercy. But without that compassion, we can try to be merciful, of course; but if we only are obeying the charge, and we’re obeying the charge and we don’t have the compassion, I think sometimes our obedience is ill-fated.
I don’t want you to raise your hand, but I’m sure there are a number of you who decided, at one point or time in your life, you’re going to go out and witness to people. Go out on the streets, go out, hand out tracts, or you’re going to witness to some friend of yours. And it was such a disaster that you’ve given up.
It’s tough. There’s a cross involved. But without that compassion underneath that Jesus had, that connection that’s deeper than words, doctrinal discussions—“I don’t believe this; I believe that”—there’s something deeper that can be found as we watch Jesus doing all these things.
You know, Jesus, as a man—I know you might think this is even wrong, but it’s not—Jesus had to learn compassion as a man. What does that mean?
Well, of course, being divine, God’s divine compassion, mercy, and grace have been everlasting. But, you know, He came down as a man and had to find Himself connected to Adam and his race, being rooted with these people. And when He discovered that through the brokenness He went through, He learned compassion by the things that He suffered.
Can you imagine a pure-hearted young man who lives in the light of the Lord and a precious communion? Then He watches people around Him: people destroying themselves, people dying, thieves, robbers. What does that do to His heart? It crushes Him. Why? Because He knows that He can’t do anything about it unless the Father tells Him to. But, oh, how He yearns for all of these people.
So much more than He can handle. He went around in Matthew 8–9, all of these ten miracles, plus many other miracles. And then, when He saw the multitudes: “I can’t possibly do it all, but I’m connected to every one of them.”
“I could wish myself accursed, that they could find salvation.” How did Paul ever get connected like that to his fellow brethren, to Jews?
And so Jesus had to learn compassion by the things that He suffered, as He watched mankind destroying itself, as He saw all the brokenness. And so the Bible says:
He had to be made like His fellow men in order to become a merciful and faithful High Priest.
You know why He’s so compassionate with you today? I hope you’ve known that compassion when you’ve come to Him and asked forgiveness for mistakes you’ve made and terrible things you’ve done. There’s a compassionate High Priest there, because He learned, when He was on the ground, about how He’s connected to people who are needing to be part of the kingdom of God.
And there’s transforming power as we behold Him. You remember how John says the Word of God became flesh, and we beheld Him.
As the disciples watched, they saw the glory and grace of God within Him. But it comes from beholding Him. And so studying the Word of God, walking with Jesus for a while, is so important.
Paul even says this: when you read about Jesus in the Bible, you should try to imitate Him. Paul says, you know, you should be imitators of Christ. He says in Ephesians 4:32:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ forgave you.
And in Ephesians 5:1:
Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children.
Like a child who should imitate Daddy.
You know, if you have kids, they can imitate you pretty well. They want to start when they become a teenager. You ever notice that?
We used to have a New Year’s party in one of the churches that I used to be involved in, and at the New Year’s party they used to do skits, and the teenagers would do skits. And suddenly I’d see my son come out on the stage doing his skit. He’d have a beard on. He’d have a guitar. He’d be talking like me, acting like me, imitating me, you know?
I mean, children imitate their father. As beloved children, they imitate what they see. You should try to imitate what you see in the Bible. Why? Because when you try to imitate, something deeper happens.
When you see a true view of Christ, grace is released in you, united with Christ, to actually be a bearer of mercy. Now, then, kingdom compassion, so precious to the Lord, can break forth like fragrance.
A second way is not only to watch the Lord, read about the Lord, imitate the Lord, but it’s this: in the end, with that cross as the basis of our life with the Lord, we learn compassion through our own suffering and trials.
There’s just no way around it, brothers and sisters. We can be compassionate on a human level, and there are some people, thank God, who are, I might say, naturally compassionate. But it’s through our own trials and our own failures and our own breakings and our own loss that something deep within us, deeper than our heart, deeper than our mind, connects us to people that we understand.
There are human examples of this. I’ll give you one of mine. Some forty years ago, my oldest son, named Dana, was killed in a car crash. And my wife and I had two more sons, but we were deeply broken over the situation.
Now, as a result of that, over forty years I have been part of a fraternity and sorority, welcoming all people who lost their child. People will come up to me from the East and the West.
My dear brother Joel over here, who has that deep Indian voice of prayer, he and I are brothers forever, as there’s some common ground connecting us in the loss of our child. You see what I’m saying?
And we look around at people, and we say, “I don’t like that person. You know, I don’t want to be near that person.” Wait till the Lord breaks you a little bit more.
We learn that, though, through failing. That precious jar has to be broken. As Paul says, you know:
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Then the Lord has to break us.
So we’re hard-pressed on every side, yet we’re not crushed; We’re perplexed, but not in despair. We’re always bearing about in our life the dying of Jesus, That the life of Jesus might be born in you.
What is happening to Paul when he says those things? Paul was a giveaway. Paul was a flow of compassion from depths within him, a visceral connection to people.
And so we learn these things. When we’re young—I remember when I was young, and I first became a Christian at twenty years old—I was quite judgemental and self-righteous about everybody else who wasn’t as good as I was.
Well, all it takes is sixty years of failure and problems and mistakes to realise that, when I see somebody in bad condition, I can say, “You know, there, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Why do we look at people around us in our fellowships who have problems—emotional problems, financial problems—and show them no compassion? It means we’re not grounded in the reality that we’re all, as Christians, of one race. We are all one people.
Why are there so many divisions in the church? Why don’t we realise we’re all one together? Because we lack that compassion, as we work and live and die with one another, to realise that there’s something deeper going on here. And so we learn these things.
And like the blind man who needed a second touch from the Lord, we who saw things in a certain way at an earlier time in our life, later on, you’ll look and see things quite a bit differently. But the Lord has to break down our righteousness, judgemental spirit, all these kinds of things.
So I can’t tell you how to do that. Only the Lord can engineer your life. But all I know is, every time you go through a time of suffering in your life, you’ll realise how one you are with all your brothers and sisters, even the ones you don’t understand.
I remember, for thirty-five years, I went to a brothers’ group in the springtime, men from all over Maryland and Delaware and elsewhere. Men of all kinds, high and low, you know, from doctors to guys who were engineers on trains, all kinds of guys. A lot of them, you know, they’d go outside after the meeting and smoke. There were about a hundred guys.
We met for thirty-five years. We looked at each other, and I’m North and that’s South. And in thirty-five years, we got to hear all the hundred brothers’ stories. And by the end, we were one.
You know, everybody’s got a story, a story you don’t know about, but the Lord sees it.
And so, when the Lord stands there looking—as we finish up here—the Lord looks over this valley and sees these sheep without a shepherd and all of this kind of thing. He has compassion for these sheep who’ve been left alone to their own devices and harassed by, who knows, wolves or whatever’s been going on.
But the visceral reaction was deeper than just knowing the condition of the sheep. There’s a second reason for His visceral connection and compassion. And what was that? He knew the Father’s heart was for that kingdom.
These are kingdom sheep in such bad condition. Israel was hardly the kingdom as a testimony of the character of God. I mean, when Jesus would look and say, “This is the kingdom of God. Look at this.” His burden was for recovery of that kingdom. Matthew has to do much with the recovery of the kingdom of Israel through the Messiah.
And in the same way, when He looks at the church, what do you think He feels?
The Lord of the harvest calls for prayer from a point of view of higher ground, to see the condition of God’s kingdom and be moved by it. Oh, how the Lord wants the church to be a place where somebody can meet Jesus—a place that’s a home, a place of grace, a place of peace, a place of humility, compassion, mercy, a family rather than some kind of hierarchical institution or business or whatever.
And here is the good news: the fields are now white once again. Isn’t that wonderful?
I don’t know, it’s the suffering of a generation that now we call Gen Z, and who knows, the millennials thrown in there, and who knows, maybe Gen Alpha. I don’t know about all this stuff, but there’s a whole bunch of people who are looking for a home, who are looking for compassion and reality, who actually do have all kinds of neuroses that came about by the way they were brought up, through COVID and all kinds of nonsense and stuff, and social media and over-psychologising. Oh, I just could go on and on with lists.
And they’re white unto harvest. “Show me a home. Show me a place where Jesus is. Don’t give me baloney. Don’t give me just a lot of doctrine. Do you love people? Are you caring for people? Are you accepting people? Are you gathering people?”
See, this is a field white unto harvest. And as we follow the Lord through cross, suffering, discipling, the Lord, in His wisdom, is building the Father’s house. How wonderful.
Listen, we’ll talk next time about the condition of the church a little bit more. Now let’s just put it this way: the Lord is recovering His kingdom right now. And you’re part of the harvest, and you’re part of the sheep being gathered.
But where are we going to gather people into? What if we get people saved, and then they come into some institution where it’s about numbers or money or doctrine or healing or anything?
Thank God, they’re sheep just waiting for their Shepherd. But they’re waiting for those who are charged to bear that cross and go out there and help gather the sheep.
I am so thankful when I see sheep gatherers. I love sheep gatherers. They just come, they bring people. Yeah, there are some people—we meet from Sunday to Sunday—some people bring in somebody new almost every week. Gatherers. Shepherds. This is what the Lord wants to do.
So, in the end, this whole matter of compassion I want to make relevant to the recovery of the church and His kingdom. That’s what this compassion is.
Jesus, the Son, looks at the Father—Who’s the Lord of the harvest in this context. He sees the Father’s heart for His kingdom, that everyone would be under His rule, under His safety, under His life, under His blessing. And yet here is our situation. This is what we’ve got.
And Jesus says, “Pray to the Lord of the harvest.” We need more gatherers. We need more harvesters. The time is now.
May the Lord help us not be spectators, not be religious, but be those who’ve been broken, with that compassion of the Lord, able to share it in this world in which we live.
Lord, we do pray that prayer for us. We know how selfish we are. We could go on and on with stories of things we’ve done wrong and all. But, Lord, that’s not really our burden here.
Our burden is, if we could just see You standing on that mount, and then look around at those same people that You look around at, and see their condition with Your eyes, and then look and see through Your eyes up at the Father, and to see Your burden that Your Father’s heart would be pleased by a kingdom that’s been restored and recovered, and not in such a mess.
O Lord, that we would rise up, receive our charge, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and be part of that recovery work that You are doing in Your kingdom.
We’re so thankful, Lord, for Your great love for us. We can’t even understand that deep, visceral connection that connects You to us. There’s something from the very roots of creation that’s being recovered by the great saving work of our Lord Jesus.
We pray that You’ll give us practical understanding in this as we walk in these days. In Jesus’ name we pray.