Latest / Reformed Thinking / Sheep Without a Shepherd, Harvest Without Laborers: Christ’s Compassion and the Church’s Call (Matthew 9:36–38)

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Sheep Without a Shepherd, Harvest Without Laborers: Christ’s Compassion and the Church’s Call (Matthew 9:36–38) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to the Deep Dive, and for those of you who share our
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  interest in Reformed thinking, we have something really central
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  for you today. We do.
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  We're going to be looking at just three verses in Matthew's
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  Gospel, Chapter 9, verses 36 through 38.
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  It's a very short passage. It is, but it's incredibly
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  dense. It's one of those places that
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  shows the king is not just all powerful but but personal.
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  It it really lays out the whole strategy for Kingdom work.
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  It's a hinge, really, a critical moment in the book.
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  If you want to understand Matthew's argument, you have to
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  get this part right. So that's our mission for this
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  deep dive. We've done the work, looked at
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  the sources, and now we want to uncover the heart and the
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  strategy of Christ's ministry that's packed right into these
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  verses. And you can really feel the
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  shift here. I mean, up until this point,
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  Matthew has been all about Christ's actions.
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  Right, the miracles. Exactly.
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  Healing the sick, commanding the weather, casting out demons,
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  He's establishing Christ's identity as the sovereign king.
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  But then you hit 9.36 and the camera, so to speak, zooms in.
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  It shifts. It shifts completely from the
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  public display of power to this private, almost visceral
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  revelation of the King's heart. And then he immediately connects
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  that heart to the mission strategy in Chapter 10.
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  That's the bridge we want to walk across today, the gap
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  between Christ's authority and how he does.
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  He then delegates that authority.
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  So we'll structure our conversation around the text
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  itself. Three main movements. 1st The
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  compassion of the Shepherd King. Then the urgent diagnosis of the
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  situation, this idea of a plentiful harvest, but few.
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  Workers and finally, the sovereign command to pray for
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  those workers. And this isn't just, you know,
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  ancient history. This is the operating manual.
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  It is. So let's start with that first
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  big movement, the King's compassionate site in verse 36.
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  OK, we've just come through two chapters of these just
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  spectacular displays of power. The leper, the paralyzed man,
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  the storm on the sea, the gerosene demoniacs.
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  Christ has shown He has all authority.
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  So why here? Why, at this peak of his power,
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  does Matthew pull the curtain back and focus on Christ's inner
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  emotional state? That's such a key question,
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  because if all we knew was this king who commands the seas and
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  terrifies demons, what we'd know He's a sovereign, yes, but we'd
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  be afraid of. Him.
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  We'd be terrified. We would.
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  We wouldn't know if that immense power was guided by love or just
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  cold indifference. Power without compassion.
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  As some of the commentary points out, it just risks becoming
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  tyranny. So Matthew shows us that the
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  authority Christ has and the authority he's about to give his
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  disciples is rooted in this deep holy mercy for people who are
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  lost. Verse 36 tells us the engine of
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  His kingship is his heart, not just his will.
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  I think that's a vital distinction.
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  The verse begins when he saw the crowds.
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  I mean, we all see crowds on the street at the store, and when
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  our natural eye looks at a big group of people, we usually see
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  an inconvenience, right? A traffic jam A.
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  Traffic jam or maybe just a statistic.
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  And the religious leaders of his day, the Pharisees, they
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  definitely saw the crowds as a problem to be managed with their
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  rules. So how is Christ's site
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  different from just our normal human perception?
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  It's discerning, that's the word.
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  When Christ looks, he doesn't just look at the crowds, He
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  truly sees them. He sees right through the
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  religious veneer, you know, the outward stuff.
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  And he perceives the spiritual ruin underneath it all.
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  He sees the exhaustion, the wounds, the confusion, the fears
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  that people are so good at hiding.
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  So his site is diagnostic. It's.
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  Absolutely diagnostic, where we might just see a bunch of people
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  going about their day. His gaze is moral, it reads the
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  heart, and it sees the consequences of sin.
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  And this sets up a principle for all ministry, really, that
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  faithful ministry has to start not with our own clever
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  strategies, but with seeing the actual spiritual state of people
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  the way Christ sees it. And what he saw in them produced
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  this immediate, very specific emotional reaction.
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  The text says he had compassion for them.
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  We use that word compassion pretty lightly, almost
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  sentimentally. We do.
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  But the Greek term here is splenchna Sayer.
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  The sources highlight that this is way more visceral than just
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  pity. Why is it so significant that
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  Matthew uses this particular word?
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  Because it communicates an incredible intensity.
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  The root word splenchna refers to the inner organs, the bowels,
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  the gut. This isn't some detached
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  intellectual sympathy. It's a gut punch.
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  It is a gut punch. It's a profound inward stirring,
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  like an involuntary agonizing reaction to seeing something
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  horrific. You don't choose to feel sick to
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  your stomach. It just happens.
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  That's the level of holy mercy that's welling up from the
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  depths of Christ being. And crucially, it's a compassion
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  that moves toward people to save them.
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  The world often thinks compassion is just affirming
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  people where they are and they're broken.
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  It right just accepting it. But Christ's compassion moves
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  toward the brokenness to deliver them from it.
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  He's not sentimental about sin. He's strong enough to move right
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  into the mess with the goal of redemption.
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  So that intense, gut stirring emotion leads him straight to
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  this precise diagnosis of their condition.
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  He describes them with two words that are just shockingly raw.
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  They were harassed and helpless. Let's break down that first one.
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  Harassed. The Greek is eskilmanoy.
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  Your notes use language that sounded like spiritual violence.
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  What does that word really get at?
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  It's a shocking image, It really is.
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  Eskilmanoy is a perfect passive participle, which means it was
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  something done to them in the past that's still affecting them
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  now, and it literally means flayed, skinned, or mangled.
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  Blade, like their skin was torn off.
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  Exactly an image of physical assault where the skin is
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  stripped away, leaving the flesh raw and exposed.
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  And when you apply that spiritually, it becomes this,
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  this searing indictment of the spiritual leadership of Israel
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  at the time. So this is a direct shot at the
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  Scribes and Pharisees. Oh.
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  Absolutely. They were the false shepherds.
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  Instead of feeding the flock with God's Word, they were
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  fleecing them. They stripped the people raw
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  with all these legalistic burdens, the very things Christ
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  later calls grievous to be born. So legalism is spiritual
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  violence? That's a perfect way to put it.
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  It tears away the security of grace and leaves people exposed
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  and bruised by a moral code they can never, ever satisfy.
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  They were harassed, battered, exhausted, mangled by the very
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  system that was supposed to care for them.
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  That's a powerful and really unsettling picture.
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  OK, let's look at the second word, helpless Air Minoy.
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  This image seems just as severe. It suggests a state of total
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  incapacitation. It does.
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  Air minoy means thrown down, cast aside, or prostate.
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  It suggests an inherent inability to get up or to defend
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  yourself. The illustration that's often
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  used here, and it's a really helpful one, is the image of a
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  cast sheep. Cast sheep.
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  Tell us more about that. I think that connects this right
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  to a central theological idea. It does so in shepherding.
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  A cash sheep is one that has rolled onto its back and because
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  of its weight in his short legs, especially if it's a heavy
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  woolly sheep, it can't get back up.
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  It's stuck. Completely stuck.
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  It's just lying there, kicking its legs in the air, and it's
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  slowly dying from exposure or panic or from predators.
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  The critical point is it is utterly vulnerable.
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  If the shepherd doesn't come physically flip the sheep over
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  and hold it until it regains its balance.
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  That sheep will die. It can't save itself.
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  It cannot initiate its own rescue.
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  Wow. OK, that completely transforms
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  the passage. So when Jesus looks at these
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  crowds and calls them eremenoi, thrown down and unable to get
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  up, what does that mean for the doctrine of total depravity,
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  which is such a cornerstone of Reformed thinking?
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  It just shatters any idea that fallen man, apart from grace,
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  has some natural ability or power to choose God or to lift
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  themselves out of his spiritual mess.
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  If the text had just said they were wandering, we might think,
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  oh, they just need better directions.
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  Or more information. Exactly.
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  But because they are araminoic prostate incapacitated, they
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  aren't just sick, they're spiritually disabled.
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  They're dead in their trespasses and sins.
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  They need something external to happen to.
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  Them they need outside intervention.
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  Precisely. They need external divine
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  intervention, the supernatural regenerating power of the Holy
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  Spirit, to be set up right again.
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  This word ariminoy tells us that the unregenerate person isn't
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  some autonomous seeker who can resuscitate himself.
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  He's a cast sheep who needs the sovereign saving hand of the
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  shepherd to lift him. And then he ties this whole
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  diagnosis together with that familiar metaphor.
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  They are like sheep without a shepherd.
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  He's not just describing them here, he's claiming a role for
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  himself, isn't he? He absolutely is.
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  He's claiming his messianic mandate.
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  That phrase sheep without a shepherd shows up in numbers 27,
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  and it's really developed in Ezekiel 34.
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  Right in Ezekiel's prophecy, yes.
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  Where God indicts the human shepherds of Israel because they
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  were feeding themselves instead of the flock, and because of
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  their failure, God promises this great divine rescue.
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  He says I myself will search for my sheep.
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  I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David.
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  So Jesus is stepping into that role.
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  By looking at these harassed, helpless crowds and saying they
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  lack a shepherd, Jesus is revealing that He is that
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  promised shepherd from Ezekiel 34.
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  He's the one who has finally arrived to gather them, guard
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  them, and eventually lay down His life for them.
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  So his site isn't just descriptive, it's it's the
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  theological pivot that launches the entire mission.
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  That's it. OK, so that compassion for the
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  cash sheep is the engine. But it doesn't just stop at a
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  feeling. The emotional diagnosis
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  immediately turns into strategic instruction.
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  In verse 37, he turns away from the crowds and speaks right to
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  his disciples. This is that move from pity to
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  plan. Why is it so essential that he
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  immediately moves from feeling to instruction?
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  Because Christ's versity isn't a sentiment that we're supposed to
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  just wallow in. It's a catalyst for action.
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  If the disciples had just felt pity, they would have been
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  overwhelmed. It would have just sighed and
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  walked away. But instead, Christ uses his
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  diagnosis to teach his followers how they need to see the world
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  and engage in ministry. He reframes this exhausting
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  crowd from an inconvenience into a field that's ready to be
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  reaped. And that reframing is key to
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  discipleship. It's the essence of it,
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  receiving God's view of the world, not just sticking with
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  our own. The metaphor he uses is the
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  harvest is plentiful. That language creates such a
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  powerful sense of urgency. When you hear harvest, what does
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  that tell you about the need that's different from, say,
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  planting? Well, harvest implies at least
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  three things. First, ripeness.
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  The crop is ready right now. It's not some theoretical future
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  potential. It's immediate.
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  Immediate second urgency. There's a narrow window of time
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  before that crop is lost to rot or bad weather.
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  It's a perishable need. And 3rd and this is key, holy
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  optimism. Holy optimism, I like that.
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  When Jesus says the harvest is plentiful, he's rebuking every
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  cynical voice. He doesn't say the field is
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  barren or that people are just too hard hearted.
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  He says the problem is not a lack of people to be gathered.
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  The problem the constraint is somewhere else.
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  I appreciate that point on optimism, but I have to push
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  back a little for the listener because when you look at the
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  culture today, with all the scorn for truth and the apathy
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  toward biblical Christianity, it can feel really barren.
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  It can. Ministry can feel a lot more
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  like planting in frozen ground than reaping A plentiful
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  harvest. So how do we reconcile Christ's
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  optimism with the pushback we actually see?
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  That's a necessary tension. Christ's declaration is a
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  statement of God's sovereign intention, not a prediction of
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  ease. He's basically saying, look, the
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  ultimate constraint is not humanity's willingness to be
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  saved. I have dealt with that at the
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  cross. The constraint is the supply
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  line for the messengers. So the world is ripe.
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  The world is ripe because the Spirit is at work and because
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  human beings, being arimanoy, are fundamentally incapable of
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  meeting their own deepest needs without the Gospel.
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  The harvest is plentiful because the human condition, harassed
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  and helpless, cries out for the true Shepherd, whether people
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  realize it or not. So we should focus on the
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  constraint we can address. Exactly the shortage of workers
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  not doubting the effectiveness of God's call.
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  Which brings us right to the crisis point.
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  But the laborers are few. This defines the whole strategic
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  problem. The bottleneck isn't the field
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  or God's ability, but the scarcity of faithful workers.
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  So in this harvest economy, what exactly is a Libra?
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  It's defined by one word, toil. We have to be so careful not to
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  confuse a biblical laborer with a modern religious celebrity or
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  a brand builder. Or a platform personality.
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  Yes, a laborer is a worker, someone who toils, who sweats,
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  who gets up early, who persists when the work is unglamorous and
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  the results are slow. Christ calls ministry labor, not
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  performance, not entertainment. So the work itself is
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  intrinsically hard. It's exhausting.
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  Think about a real harvest. It's back breaking workout in
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  the sun. Spiritual labor is no different.
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  It's the patient, unglamorous work of teaching accurately week
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  after week. It's visiting the sick,
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  counseling people through years of their mass, correcting error
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  gently but firmly. It's persevering when the only
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  applause you get is from Christ. And by emphasizing labor, he's
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  kind of quietly exposing the danger of looking for quick
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  fixes. He is.
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  He's saying the harvest will be gathered by faithful, consistent
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  oil, not by some new marketing gimmick.
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  This scarcity diagnosis also seems to be another critique of
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  the religious establishment of his day.
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  If the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, what's
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  that say about a system that produces a lot of religious
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  professionals? It says there's a failure of
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  vocational focus. It's entirely possible for a
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  religious system to have lots of voices, lots of committees, lots
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  of titles. The 1st century certainly had
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  that. Oh, in abundance, but very few
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  genuine shepherds or evangelists.
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  And the result is that people are starved of the Word and true
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  spiritual care. This scarcity happens when a
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  church gets comfortable with consumer Christianity, where
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  people want to be served but very few are willing to take up
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  the burdens of actually being a shepherd.
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  That distinction is so important because when people talk about
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  ministry shortages today, they often jump to operational
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  things. We need better tech, better
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  media, better sound systems. The notes we reviewed pointed
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  out what Jesus doesn't say. Can you clarify that for us?
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  This is hugely clarifying. Jesus does not say the harvest
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  is plentiful, but the methods are outdated or the branding is
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  weak. The crisis is purely and simply
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  the shortage of faithful workers.
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  So that forces us to focus on character and conviction, not
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  cleverness. Yes, if we're looking for a
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  solution, we don't need a business consultant.
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  We need a theological guide. The solution isn't in human
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  ingenuity, it's in seeking from God men of deep character,
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  anchored conviction, doctrinal stability, and just sheer
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  endurance. Because the Lord gathers his
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  sheep through the ordinary means of preaching.
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  He does through the simple, often despised means of word
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  ministry. If the workers are lacking in
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  character or doctrine, the harvest fails, no matter how
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  slick the method is. The constraint is spiritual, not
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  technological. OK, so the pressure point is
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  clear. Massive, ripe, urgent need, but
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  a critical shortage of qualified workers.
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  That's the crisis. Which brings us to the command
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  in verse 38. It starts with, therefore, which
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  signals a direct command. If the need is so urgent, why is
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  the first command prayer? Why not frantic activism or
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  aggressive recruitment? Because Jesus uses this command
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  to preemptively rebuke our natural instinct towards
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  self-reliance. And when we face a huge need,
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  our first tendency is to reach for what we can control.
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  Right Techniques, money, organization.
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  Jesus commands something that exposes all of that.
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  Get on your knees and ask for help from the owner of the
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  field. So prayer isn't just a
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  supplement to the real work. It is the primary appointed
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  means. He treats prayer as the engine,
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  not an add on. Laborers aren't manufactured by
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  clever advertising. They are gifted by God.
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  So prayer is the first step of obedience.
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  It teaches us that we have to move heaven before we try to
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  move men. And the nature of the prayer is
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  specific. He says pray earnestly.
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  Given the spiritual emergency of the harvest, what does earnestly
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  require from. Us.
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  It requires specific, persistent, burdened prayer, a
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  pleading that actually matches the size of the crisis.
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  We have to get beyond just vague requests.
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  Jesus expects his followers to feel the reality of this.
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  So we need to name it. Name it explicitly, Lord.
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  Raise up faithful pastors. Give them resilience.
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  Guard them from the love of comfort.
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  Anchor them in sound doctrine. It moves us beyond just noticing
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  the shortage. It does.
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  Earnest prayer really exposes our sincerity.
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  If we talk all the time about the crisis of few workers, but
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  we rarely bring that burden to God in specific, persistent
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  prayer, then we're just lamenting.
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  We're not obeying Christ's command.
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  We're. Living like practical
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  unbelievers. We are.
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  We're operating as if the whole thing depends on our energy, not
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  God's will. Earnest prayer means owning the
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  emergency and taking it to the only one who can actually do
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  something about it. And the prayer is directed to a
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  specific person, the Lord of the harvest.
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  That title is a theological anchor, isn't it?
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  What does that title tell us about how we should view the
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  mission? It's a throne title.
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  It places the entire mission squarely under divine
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  sovereignty. It declares that the field
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  doesn't belong to us or the Church board or any human
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  agency. It is his harvest.
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  And that deals with two big temptations in ministry.
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  It does. First, it refuses to spare.
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  If God is the Lord of the harvest, then the mission
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  doesn't hang on our strength or our budget.
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  The one who owns the field is able to gather every single
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  stock he intends to save. OK.
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  And the second temptation it deals with?
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  Presumption. We are not the owners, we're not
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  the controllers. We're servants who are called to
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  labor faithfully in his field by his methods.
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  We can't demand results, we can only plead for them.
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  This connects directly to the Reformed view of sovereignty and
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  means. I think a lot of listeners
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  struggle with this. If God is sovereign, if he
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  already knows who will be saved, why is our prayer even
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  necessary? That is the classic critical
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  question. And in a biblical view, God's
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  sovereignty doesn't make the means unnecessary, it
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  establishes them as the path of His purpose.
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  OK, Jesus isn't saying pray just in case God changes his mind.
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  He's saying because God is sovereign, because He has the
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  authority and power to send workers that no human
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  recruitment Dr. could ever produce.
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  That's why you must pray. So prayer demonstrates our
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  dependence on that very power. It's the highest act of Kingdom
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  alignment. If we didn't pray, it would
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  suggest we think we can solve the worker shortage ourselves.
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  Now let's look at the action we're asking for.
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  We pray for the Lord to send out laborers.
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  The Greek verb here is ekbale. The commentary we read
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  highlighted the force of this word.
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  What does it actually mean? Ekbale is a powerful, almost
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  violent word. It means to drive out, to thrust
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  out, or to compel forward. It's not a gentle suggestion.
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  Not at all. It's the same verb used when
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  Jesus casts out demons. So when we pray for God to
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  ekbala laborers, we aren't asking him to gently suggest a
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  career path to an interested seminary student.
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  We're asking God to conquer the real spiritual obstacles that
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  keep qualified men from laboring.
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  What are those obstacles? What does God need to thrust out
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  of their lives? They're always idols, aren't
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  they? The love of comfort, Attachment
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  to worldly security, Fear of suffering, the desire for
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  applause, the reluctance to get into the messiness and hardship
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  of ministry. The things that make men cling
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  to safe lives. Exactly so.
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  The prayer is a petition for divine power to forcibly
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  overcome the sluggishness of our flesh and create a holy
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  willingness to be spent for Christ.
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  We're praying for the conversion of the priorities of believers
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  who are called to labor. We're praying for them to be
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  violently thrust out of their ease and into the toil.
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  That's the prayer. And we're not just praying for
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  bodies to fill slots, we're praying for a specific kind of
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  work. Given that the crowd is harassed
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  and helpless, what qualifications should we have in
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  mind when we pray for men to be Ekbali?
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  We've to pray for qualified workers, not just willing ones.
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  The people are harassed by false shepherds.
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  They need true shepherds of high fidelity and fortitude.
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  We need to pray for men who are shaped by Scripture, with tested
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  character, humbled by grace, and anchored and sound doctrine.
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  Men who can endure hardship. And refuse compromise.
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  Men who can stand firm when the teaching is unpopular.
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  If a church is just relying on charisma or novelty to draw a
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  crowd, it's fundamentally misunderstanding the command.
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  Because the harvest will be gathered by faithful men who can
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  open the Bible. Yes, men who can preach Christ
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  clearly refute error soberly, and care deeply for individual
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  souls over the long haul. The demand is for quality, which
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  means taking biblical qualifications like in First
• 20:51
  Timothy and Titus seriously over any superficial appeal.
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  And this whole strategy, this command to pray, gets
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  immediately affirmed in the narrative, doesn't it?
• 20:59
  Chapter 10 follows right on its heels.
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  It's the dramatic confirmation Christ tells him to pray for
• 21:04
  laborers, and then in the very next moment he answers his own
• 21:08
  command by pointing and commissioning those same men to
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  go out and do the labor. So he's the Lord who commands
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  and the Lord who answers. Exactly.
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  It shows that the mission is his, not theirs.
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  And it proves that prayerful dependence has to come before
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  all action. The strategy works because the
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  Lord of the harvest is faithful. OK, let's pull back and
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  synthesize this. We drilled down into the text.
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  Looking at this through a Reformed lens, what is the dual
• 21:33
  identity of Christ that's revealed in these 3 verses?
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  He's revealed as both the compassionate shepherd King and
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  the sovereign Lord of the harvest.
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  These two identities are perfectly synthesized in him.
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  He's the shepherd because he's moved his blanche nee though by
• 21:45
  the misery of the flock. But his compassion isn't just a
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  static feeling of pity. It moves toward saving action,
• 21:53
  and that action is rooted in his kingship as the Lord of the
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  harvest. And the ultimate expression of
• 21:58
  this is the cross. Connect the cross back to the
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  language of verse 36 for us. He became the ultimate laborer
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  in the harvest. He was himself flayed by the
• 22:07
  judgement of God, the spiritual violence of the cross, and he
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  was thrown down into death, all to gather and purchase his
• 22:13
  sheep. And his resurrection confirms
• 22:15
  his title as Lord of the Harvest.
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  It grounds the entire mission in his authority and his finished
• 22:20
  work. So if Christ has this dual
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  identity, that implies a dual calling for the Church,
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  represented by the two metaphors sheep and harvest.
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  How does the Church hold those two together?
• 22:32
  They have to be held in tension. The sheep metaphor defines the
• 22:35
  church's internal shepherding, care, feeding, correcting,
• 22:38
  protecting the existing flock. The harvest metaphor defines the
• 22:41
  church's outward reaping urgency, proclaiming and
• 22:44
  gathering the lost. And what happens if a church
• 22:46
  leans too far one way? If a church only shepherds, it
• 22:50
  becomes inward looking complacent, It becomes a
• 22:52
  religious club just serving itself.
• 22:54
  If a church only reaps, it tends to produce converts without
• 22:57
  care. You get high pressure decisions
• 23:00
  but no real discipleship. Crowds, but not a flock that can
• 23:04
  endure hardship. So Christ modeled both.
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  He did. He spent time teaching his
• 23:08
  disciples, and he relentlessly moved toward the unreached.
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  The church has to do both. Let's bring this to application.
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  The labor shortage is still the crisis.
• 23:17
  So how must the church challenge its own culture about what
• 23:20
  ministry, what Labor even is? We need a sobriety check.
• 23:24
  We have to stop treating ministry like a career ladder or
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  a stage for personal brand building.
• 23:29
  We have to recover its biblical shape as hard labor.
• 23:32
  Messy, unglamorous toil. Exactly.
• 23:34
  And that means local churches have to recalibrate what they
• 23:37
  praise and affirm. Give us an example of that.
• 23:40
  What if the only thing we praise is rapid growth or viral sermon
• 23:43
  clips or big building projects? We're teaching the next
• 23:46
  generation that ministry is about performance and metrics.
• 23:48
  And that produces soft workers. It does.
• 23:51
  We have to start praising the patient, faithful pastor who
• 23:55
  spends hours counseling a suicidal member, or the elder
• 23:59
  who diligently corrects error behind the scenes.
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  That quiet persistence is the real labor the harvest requires.
• 24:05
  And what happens when we chase novelty and charisma?
• 24:09
  That seems to be the temptation when the harvest feels urgent.
• 24:12
  We just guarantee a deeper, more catastrophic shortage down the
• 24:15
  line. The need of a harassed flock is
• 24:17
  truth and care, not spectacle. Churches that prize novelty over
• 24:21
  doctrine will produce unreliable workers who can't rightly divide
• 24:25
  the Word and will compromise when things get tough.
• 24:27
  So the local church has to be a training ground.
• 24:30
  What does that look like? It means building robust
• 24:32
  pathways for men to develop character and biblical
• 24:34
  knowledge. It means mentoring
• 24:36
  accountability, putting them through the uncomfortable work
• 24:38
  of visiting the sick and facing criticism.
• 24:40
  And it means the current leadership has to joyfully
• 24:43
  encourage young men toward ministry, not just point them to
• 24:46
  higher paying, real careers. Let's bring this right home to
• 24:49
  the listener. Obese medians starts with sight
• 24:51
  and prayer. So first our sight.
• 24:55
  How does Christ's veer in verse 36 challenge how we see people
• 24:59
  every day at work in our families?
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  It calls for what we termed repentance sight.
• 25:04
  We have to ask, do I see the people around me as harassed and
• 25:08
  helpless, or do I see them as annoyances, competitors, or
• 25:12
  ideological opponents to be beaten in an argument?
• 25:16
  Our evangelism becomes cold and judgmental if it's rooted in
• 25:18
  pride, that subtle belief that if they were just smarter or
• 25:21
  better behaved, they wouldn't be such a mess.
• 25:24
  That pride makes us think we're better than the cast sheep.
• 25:26
  Exactly. We have to repent of our
• 25:28
  impatience and our contempt for the confused.
• 25:30
  We have to see them as souls to be pitied and rescued.
• 25:32
  If you feel no spiritual burden for the wandering people in your
• 25:35
  life, you're just not aligned with the Savior.
• 25:37
  And if we correct our sight, the next step is the command prayer.
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  Not organize a committee, but pray earnestly.
• 25:44
  What is earnest intercession look like for the listener right
• 25:46
  now? It means commitment and
• 25:48
  specificity. I challenge you to incorporate
• 25:50
  Matthew 9.38 as a daily prompt, maybe at 9 free date in the
• 25:55
  morning or evening. You genuinely plead for
• 25:58
  laborers. Pray for the men in your own
• 26:01
  church. You show promise.
• 26:02
  Pray for your pastor by name. And remember the implication of
• 26:05
  not praying. Prayerlessness here is
• 26:08
  functional unbelief. It's living as if the harvest
• 26:11
  belongs to us and depends on our cleverness.
• 26:13
  We obey by persistently asking the Lord of the harvest to
• 26:16
  conquer human reluctance and to thrust out workers.
• 26:19
  And finally, that obedience moves beyond just personal piety
• 26:23
  to the corporate life of the church, what you called the
• 26:25
  sending responsibility. What does a faithful church owe
• 26:28
  the mission in terms of sending? It owes its resources and,
• 26:31
  critically, its best people. A faithful church obeys this,
• 26:33
  not just by praying, but by participating in the sending.
• 26:36
  That means recognizing gifts, testing callings, and then
• 26:39
  affirming, commissioning and supporting qualified men.
• 26:42
  But the temptation is to hoard your best leaders.
• 26:44
  It's the greatest temptation for a stable church, but the harvest
• 26:48
  is his harvest, and the scope is always wider than our own
• 26:51
  building. True obedience requires a
• 26:53
  willingness to send away your most gifted people for the sake
• 26:57
  of the wider Kingdom. So if we're praying for God to
• 26:59
  thrust out laborers, we have to be willing to open the door when
• 27:03
  He answers, even if it means we feel depleted for a little
• 27:05
  while. That's faith in action,
• 27:07
  believing the Lord who sends will also provide for the ones
• 27:10
  who sent. Well, this deep dive really
• 27:12
  leaves us with a Searchlight on the heart of the mission.
• 27:15
  The world is still harassed and helpless, but the king who sees
• 27:18
  it is merciful and he has a clear divine strategy.
• 27:22
  He does, and that's the sovereignty we rest on.
• 27:25
  The Lord who commands the harvest will also gather it.
• 27:28
  And often he answers the prayer of Matthew 9.38 in the most
• 27:32
  personal way by changing the person who's praying it.
• 27:35
  If you are persistently praying for the Lord to thrust out
• 27:38
  laborers, you have to ask yourself what specific comfort,
• 27:43
  what worldly security, what idol in my own life might the Lord
• 27:46
  need to Eck Bala to violently compel out of me, to make me
• 27:50
  willing to become the very laborer I'm asking him to send?
• 27:54
  The obedience might just mean stepping into the field
• 27:57
  yourself. A deeply searching thought for
• 27:59
  all of us. Thank you for walking through
• 28:00
  these verses with us. My pleasure.
• 28:02
  Until next time, keep seeking to know the King and the strategic
• 28:05
  heart of his Kingdom.