And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”—Matthew 9:35–38

Introduction: The Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission

Two weeks ago we introduced a term that was new for some people: the Cultural Mandate. We saw how Psalm 8 points back to the foundational text in Genesis.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”—Genesis 1:26–28

Remember that we said the cultural mandate is our original job description - a call to create cultures and build civilizations. It has two parts: (1) a call to develop the social world (be fruitful and multiply—build families, churches, cities, governments) and (2) a call to develop the natural world (subdue the earth—plant crops, build bridges, compose music, make gospel burgers).

Wayne Grudem came last week and developed this theme further by laying the theological foundations that brick by brick hold up the truth that business is good. It can honor God and help people. Your business should make a profit if your product is really needed and is really helping people. God created humanity and called them to take the good things that God has made as raw materials and then make something new out of them that didn’t exist before (bottled water—we made it out of the stuff of the earth and don’t have to go to the stream and draw water). We created something of value that did not exist before for the sake of human flourishing. When we make these things, we are called to enjoy them and thank God for them.

Let’s now explicitly make the turn toward missions. Let’s connect the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission. The Cultural Mandate talks about human flourishing in a temporary sense: felt needs. The Great Commission forces us to look at human flourishing in an eternal sense—not just felt needs—but forever needs. The Great Commission addresses forever flourishing. Can you really call something that ends in the flames of hell true human flourishing? Forever flourishing can only happen in the new heavens and new earth.

Therefore, our mission cannot merely be to do good labor or labor for good, but to do good labor for the greatest good (not just temporary flourishing, but forever flourishing). Let’s not be abstract. Establishing a business is good endeavor. It is a good thing to give someone a job. But that is not the greatest good. We don’t just want to give people a job; we want to give them Jesus. He is the greatest good. Jesus is the only way to forever flourishing. So Business as Mission sees him and says: through our work, we can connect people to the work of Christ and the forever flourishing found only in Him. This Jesus is the one who forces us to come to grips with the harvest field right before our very eyes. The harvest field is not a field of financial opportunities—a field of souls in which eternity hangs in the balance – everlasting misery or everlasting joy in Jesus.

Matthew 9:37–38 Outline

Three “p’s”: plentiful, pitiful, prayerful

1. Plentiful Harvest (9:37)
2. Pitiful Work Force (9:37)
3. Prayerful People (9:38)

Main Point: A plentiful harvest and a Pitiful work force should make us a Prayerful People. You won’t pray earnestly unless you see the problem clearly.

Do you see it? Because the harvest is plentiful and the work force is pitiful, therefore we should be prayerful—ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. For each point, we will see what Jesus saw in his day and then pause to ask what we see in our day.

1. Plentiful Harvest (Matthew 9:37)

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful …”

Jesus looks at the harvest and says, “plentiful.” He is looking at the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We do not know for sure how many people were in the crowd on that day. He fed 5,000 men (if you include women and children, we could be talking about estimates of 15,000). If you were to zoom out from that crowd to the population of the whole world, the number would grow to about 300 million people estimated people in Jesus’ day.

The scale of this need today is mind-numbing. Today there are an estimated 7.3 billion people in the world. If the population rate of growth stays the same, that number will soar to 9 billion people in 20 years.

This problem feels paralyzing (7.3 billion!) But the problem is bigger than billions of people. The problem is not merely mathematical – like saying there are lots of lost people. The problem of the plentiful harvest gets bigger when we factor in the fact that there are different levels of lostness: (1) lost people and (2) unreached peoples.

Let us see the distinction. First, there are many lost people. They are lost and don’t know Christ, but they have the benefit of being surrounded by a strong gospel witness. There is a strong gospel witness because there are so many gospel workers. 

Second, there are unreached peoples. This is a far more severe level of lostness. It is bad to be lost in a place with a gospel witness, but it is far worse to be lost in a place without any strong gospel witness. The Joshua Project distinguishes 16,562 people groups in the world. Of these 16,562 people groups, 6,847 people groups are still categorized as unreached with the gospel. “Unreached” means that the people is comprised of less than 2% evangelical Christians. An unreached people is a people with a very weak gospel witness because there are very few gospel workers.

Let us be clear about our context. There are some in the Twin Cities that have never heard the name of Jesus. We should feel a renewed responsibility to make every effort to multiply opportunities to hear the name of Jesus. Proximity implies responsibility—we should have compassion for the multitudes around us. Minneapolis, Mounds View, Lakeville and everywhere in the Twin Cities Metro is part of the Lord’s Harvest Field. Everyone here today is in the field. You are either an unbeliever—part of the harvest—or you are a Christian, a laborer in the harvest. Perhaps some believers here have forgotten the fact that they are called to labor wherever the Lord has placed them in the field. Sometimes we act like we never got the memo. I know that sometimes I forget. What are you doing here now? How can you grow in obedience to the Lord of the harvest here?

But do you feel a burden for parts of the harvest field that don’t have any workers? Do you feel the staggering level of lostness for 6,000 people groups representing 2.7 billion people that have no chance to hear about Jesus because there is virtually no Christian witness? It is worse to be in an area where you can’t receive or reject Jesus because you don’t even know his name. There are no churches. How will they hear? Who will tell them about Jesus?

In the light of such a need, our priorities are pointed. We prioritize unreached peoples who have almost no gospel witness and thus almost no chance to hear the gospel. Our goal is not the salvation of a lot of people, but the salvation of all peoples. The harvest will be all peoples. It is a command in the Great Commission (make disciples of all the nations or peoples—and it is where all history is heading: every tribe, every tongue, every people—around the throne worshiping the Lamb who was slain for all the peoples. If there is a place that is unreached, we go to share Jesus there because the harvest is there.

2. Pitiful Work Force (Matthew 9:37)

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

Now Jesus looks at the laborers and says, “pitiful.” The laborers are few. Technically speaking, at this point, the laborers are singular—just one: Jesus (v. 35). He is the one teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction.

The scarcity of workers is still a staggering problem. My word “pitiful” could be misunderstood. It is not a quality problem (the people working); it is a scarcity problem (the amount of workers is not enough).

Here the earlier problem with the plentiful harvest becomes more pointed. The number of workers relates to level of lostness. Unreached peoples have a very weak gospel witness because there are very few gospel workers engaging them with the claims of Christ. Places that need the most people are actually receiving the fewest people (we are sending 10% of the work force to the place that needs it most). 90% of foreign missionaries work among already reached people groups. 10% work among unreached people groups (see Perspectives, Winter and Koch, p. 543).

But hear me clearly. There is a level of lostness that is even worse than “unreached.” It is worse to be both unreached and “unengaged.” What does it mean to be “unengaged?” Unengaged means that there is no gospel witness currently and none is coming because no one is even targeting them yet. They aren’t even on the radar of missions agencies. There are no gospel people on the ground and no gospel people in the pipeline. 70,000+ people die everyday in the unreached world without Jesus (see The Coming Revolution: Because Status Quo Missions Won't Finish the Job, by Mark Baxter, p. 12).

One statistic I read said there are 818 unreached peoples that have never been targeted by any Christian agency ever (World Evangelization Research Center). Of those 818, there are 532 unengaged, unreached people groups with populations of more than 10,000. They are perhaps the neediest of the needy – the most severe level of lostness imaginable—those that should lay claim to our greatest depth of compassion. They are the most hidden—out of sight and out of mind. Here is what is heart-breaking to me: Christ is unknown, untranslated, unheralded, unadored!

American Christians spend 95% of offerings on home-based ministry, 4.5% on cross-cultural efforts in already reached people groups, and .5% to reach the unreached (The Traveling Team). If you look at just foreign mission funding (the 5 percent): 87% goes for work among those already Christian. 12% for work among already evangelized, but Non-Christian. 1% for work among the unevangelized and unreached people (Baxter 2007, 12). Only .1% of all Christian giving is directed toward mission efforts in the 38 most unevangelized countries in the world (Barrett and Johnson, p. 656)

Do you feel paralyzed yet by how big the problem is? I was just weeping over these statistics this week. Then I remembered some other statistics that seemed staggering. I remembered they came in the Psalm 8 sermon. Our Milky Way galaxy is the light of 200-400 billion stars turning like a giant pinwheel (100 light years across). The best estimate is that there are roughly 170 billion galaxies gathered in clusters. We can’t even get our head around how many zeros are in 170 billion or how many stars there are if there are 200-400 billion stars in a galaxy. God put them all there—the work of just his fingers—and he knows them all by name. Suddenly I felt a surge of hope—this is too big for us, but not for you. We know the Lord of the harvest, the One who owns the harvest field. We can ask!

3. Prayerful People (9:38)

“Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Now Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “so be a prayerful people.” Do you see the point now? You won’t pray earnestly unless you see the problem clearly.

A plentiful harvest and a pitiful work force should make us a prayerful people.

Jesus’ words still catch us off guard as somewhat strange. It feels like it was building to a different climax. The harvest is plentiful, the labor force is pitiful, so let’s get go—let’s get busy. No. Let’s pray. As if to say, look at what we need, look at what we have, and you will come to the right conclusion: we can’t do it, but you can! Help!!!

It is a little bit like a jar of honey. Honey is so drizzly sweet with yummy goodness that when you pour it, some drizzled honey remains at the mouth of the jar. When you try to open it the next time, the honey has dried up like glue that makes the jar hard to open. It is so tantalizing and so demoralizing when you can’t open the jar, what should a child do? Ask Dad. It is no problem for him. And he wants to do it. It honors him and he loves his kids and wants to help. Come on dads—how does this make you feel? You open it and show off a little bit how easy it is for you when it is so hard for them. God wants to show off his strength. We are supposed to glory in his strength.

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.—2 Chronicles 16:9 

He flexes and says, “I am for you—just ask me to show my strength.”

The end of chapter nine sets up chapter ten so beautifully. The Lord of the harvest who sends out laborers—is Jesus. Jesus sends out the disciples in chapter 10. The disciples, who are told to pray in chapter 9, become in part the answer to their own prayers when they go out in chapter 10. They are called and sent. They do what he has been doing. They preach and they heal. We have Jesus in effect saying to us, “I am asking you to ask me to send laborers into my harvest field.”

What do you think he will say when we ask him? The first part of our text tells us with stunning and moving clarity. Look at verse 36. He had compassion for the crowds. They were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. He himself is the good shepherd. They need Jesus. Ezekiel 34 had prophesied this moment. Israel’s shepherds were terrible. They took advantage of the sheep and misled them (like the Pharisees). The hope of Ezekiel 34 was two-fold: (1) God would come to his people and be there shepherd and (2) he would send his servant David to shepherd the flock. Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. He is the Son of God, the Son of David—God in the flesh—the Good Shepherd come for his flock.

He saw them not as strangers, but as his flock. This word “compassion” is a strong word. Splachnizomai is the word from which we get the English word “splanchtology,” which is the study of the visceral organs—the gut. This is not a shallow feeling Jesus had—no surface pity. Have you ever heard the phrase a “gut feeling”? It means you feel something deep down, at a visceral level. People can care and worry about something so much that they get a stomachache. Jesus felt the deepest possible care and compassion for these lost sheep. So what do you think he will say, non-believer if you come to him in faith? He will not cast you out. What do you think he will say, believer, when we ask him to send? Our all-compassionate Lord is not going to say “no.” If you think he will say “no,” then you don’t know him.

The Rest of the Story

The rest of Matthew helps us from here as we try to get our bearings for this harvest. First, chapter 13 helps us understand the urgency of the harvest. The harvesters in chapter 9 are humans (missions), the harvesters in chapter 13 are angels (final judgment) who gather the wheat and burn the weeds:

The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.—Matthew 13:39–43.

We live in the time when there is still time. We are in the missions era now— praying for Jesus to send out human workers before it is too late. The final judgment is coming, and he will send out workers—angelic reapers. And then it will be too late. If you have ears to hear, and eyes to see, have hearts to pray earnestly.

Second, chapter 27 displays the full depth of Jesus’ compassion. He not only preaches the good news (Matthew 9:35), he purchases it with his own lifeblood on the cross (Matthew 27). The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He doesn’t just feel it here (stomach), but he feels it and we see it here (head, crown of thorns), here and here (wrists and feet, nailed to the cross).

Third, chapter 28 displays resurrection power as the slain lamb becomes the risen Lord. He defeats every sin and death and hell. Fourth, the risen Lord of the harvest now sends the disciples in a new way—go to all the nations, all the peoples. It is not restricted to the lost sheep of the house of Israel like earlier in Matthew. That is why I said the mission—the Great Commission is not to save lots of people but all the peoples. We are sent with the promise of his presence and power.

As we consider the task before us, let us rejoice that there is a harvest. Without Jesus, there would be no wheat to harvest—only weeds to burn—including us. Without Jesus presence and power, no one would respond to the gospel. The harvest is plentiful because the gospel is so powerful to save! Jesus is present today to send you out with his power and promises.

So let us not make the mistake of taking the Lord of the harvest out of the picture. Here are the ditches:

False Reasons   to Stay	Good Reasons   to Go	False Reasons   to Go
Overestimate difficulty	Match up God’s ability   with our availability	Underestimate difficulty
Underestimate God’s   ability		Overestimate our ability
Woe is me (fearful)	Ask me (prayerful!)	It's up to me (prideful!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The call into the harvest field is not to focus on our ability at all. Don’t underestimate God’s ability and what He can do with your availability. Did you hear that? It is not about our ability—just our availability.

I like the point that Matthew 9 makes with laborers for the harvest. Just regular, every-day, average, run of the mill, day laborers. You don’t have to be an elite agricultural engineer with all the most advanced equipment and know-how. He is talking about daily workers, not miracle workers. They were not Ph.D professionals who had studied everything there was to know about field conditions and soil acidity and ph factors and average rainfall and locust prevention and pesticide performance. Day laborers are plodders, not Ph.D professionals. I doesn’t take a genius—just someone who is not afraid of getting dirty hands, a sweaty brow, and some bumps and bruises and scrapes and cuts.

It is so freeing to see that he is the Lord of the harvest. It is his harvest field. That is so freeing. You don’t own the harvest fields. You are just a worker on someone else’s field. A day laborer isn’t asked to recruit or hire other laborers. There already is a Master to do all that. He has oversight. He calls the shots. He hires the workers. He sends them into the field.

Not our ability—just availability. He is all-powerful. He has plenty of power to spare. He doesn’t sit around in the farm house drinking coffee in his easy chair while the workers sweat and toil. He is with us always. We are armed with his presence and power and compassion (Paul said in Philippians that he had the affection of Christ for them). We can have the compassion that comes from Christ when we see these lost sheep—just like he did.

So what do we do? Rush out there? No. Look to him! He is in this! He is asking us to ask him to send laborers into his harvest. If you are all in, then I’m in. If all we are doing here is matching up your ability and my availability, then count me in.

Don’t underestimate God’s ability and what He can do with your availability. I have his promise—I can plod. In Jesus name, I can press on.

Business As Mission Application

Let me now put a fine point on Business as Mission with the Harvest Field in mind. This is a big harvest field. There are certain parts of the field that you can’t reach without Business as Mission. Let me explain. To reach different parts of this field, you need something called a passport. Business as Mission can be a passport to places you can’t reach any other way. You can’t go certain places with a “church planting” visa. They won’t approve it. Business as Mission can be the key that opens the closed door of some closed countries. Our business—our work—is the only way to connect people to the work of Christ in these parts of the harvest field. One of our global partners, Eric B said that he has found business gives so many opportunities to speak of Jesus that he can’t take advantage of all of them. 

Ditches for Business as Mission

Job Taker	Job Maker	Job Faker
Take a job from   a national	Make jobs; create culture	Business is a front,   not excellent
No real help  (no platform)	Natural platform to   speak of Christ	Raises suspicion and does   not really help society (no platform)

 

 

 

 

 

 
Conclusion

We are going to do exactly what our text says: we are going to ask. We will obey the plea from the Lord to plead with the Lord. We will ask him to send more laborers. Some of the laborers are in this very room and have already been laboring. We want to pray to the Lord of the harvest about you.

I am going to ask three people to stand: current global partners, people in the nurture program, anyone beginning to sense a call (it doesn’t have to be crystal clear at this point. I am available and there is enough of a stirring that I need to get this sorted out; I need to clarify this calling thing further). You are not making a commitment to go immediately, just a commitment to explore thoroughly and pray earnestly until it becomes clear one way or the other.

Many of you have good reasons to stay, but that doesn’t mean that your availability is any less important. We need people with business expertise who are willing to partner with business as mission to mentor and disciple so the businesses can be excellent. We need people who say, “My wallet or my purse is available.” Most of all we need people to say, “My prayer closet” is available.” I will obey the plea from the Lord to plead earnestly with the Lord for the sake of his harvest until all have heard.

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline

1. Plentiful Harvest (v. 37)
2. Pitiful Workforce (v. 37)
3. Prayerful People (v. 38)

Main Point: A plentiful harvest and a pitiful workforce should make us a prayerful people.

Discussion Questions

1. What was the main point of the message? How was it clear from the outline of the passage?
2. How did the reality of what Jesus saw in his day relate to the reality that we see in our day? What influence does this realization have on you?
3. Discuss the two “ditches” for mission in general and for business as mission in particular.

Application Questions

1. What are some specific steps you can take to become a more prayerful disciple for the nations?
2. If we are all working in the Lord’s harvest field, what specific things are you doing for the harvest where he has placed you? What next steps could you take in obedience to the Lord of the Harvest?
3. If some are called to more unreached parts of our Lord’s harvest field, what are you currently doing to support them? What next steps could you take in obedience to the Lord of the Harvest?

Prayer Focus
Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send more laborers into his harvest field. Pray for a grace that our prayers would have earnestness and perseverance without being stale, emotionless, routine, or perfunctory prayers. (Prayerfully watch to see if you become an answer to your own prayers.)