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Well, please have a seat and since that last song is a great prayer for getting ready to hear from the Bible, I won’t pray again. Instead, let me kick off by asking: How do you feel about trying to tell people around you about Jesus? You may still just be thinking through what you believe – in which case, trying to tell other people about Jesus may not be on your agenda yet, but on the other hand, it may be because you may already have worked out that if this stuff about Jesus is really true, then it’s not just true for you in that postmodern ‘you have your truth, I’ll have mine’ kind of way; it’s true for everyone. So, you may already have realised that if you do put your trust in Jesus, you won’t just be able to keep quiet about him. You’ll need to start talking to family and friends. And I don’t know how you feel about that.

And for those of us already trusting in Jesus, there’ll be a whole range of reactions to that question: How do we feel about trying to tell people about Jesus? Maybe excited. Maybe daunted. Maybe expectant. Maybe pessimistic. Maybe encouraged. Maybe discouraged. Maybe fired up. Maybe given up. Well, tonight in our series in Matthew, we come to where Jesus basically says to his disciples; ‘One big part of following me is trying to tell other people about me’ or putting it another way, he says: ‘I want to use you to bring more people to know me’. And the most unfair illustration I’ve heard on that subject was from a speaker who said, ‘Imagine you’ve just discovered a cure for cancer. Would you keep that news to yourself? Or would you tell everyone you could? Well, the news about Jesus is even better… so why aren’t we talking about it more?’ And the reason that illustration is unfair is that everyone would want the news of a cure for cancer. Whereas, by nature, unless God works in people, no-one wants the news about Jesus. And that’s because it’s news of a cure for sin and sin is human nature’s default position of saying to God; ‘I don’t want you to be God in my life. I want to live as I please’. And so telling people about Jesus involves telling them they’re in the wrong with God, and need to be forgiven, and changed. And by nature, that’s not what any of us wants to hear. And that’s what makes telling people about Jesus a more uncertain, and sometimes harder, business than telling the world about a cure for cancer. And that’s why our next few weeks in Matthew’s Gospel will be really helpful; because Jesus gives us lots of encouragement to tell others about him. And yet, he’s very realistic about the mixed responses (positive and negative) that we’ll meet. So would you turn in the Bibles to page 814. That will get you back to Matthew 9. And we’re picking it up again at Matthew 9.35:

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.

And that’s a summary of what we’ve seen Jesus doing in Matthew’s record over the last five weeks. And it drew the crowds. And Matthew 9.36 says:

When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

And so lesson number one here, to help us tell others about Jesus, is that we need to:

1. See people as Jesus sees them

So I imagine yet another crowd had arrived, and as Jesus waited for them to settle, he turned to his disciples and quietly said; ‘Look at them….harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’ That’s how Jesus saw them. And it’s the first of three surprises in this Bible passage, because the language is actually much stronger than harassed and helpless. That just conjures up a picture of a mother sheep pushing her trolley around Sainsbury’s, with a newborn crying in a sling, a lamb kicking off in the trolley seat, and she’s just discovered she’s left her purse at home. But the words here are literally, ‘torn and thrown down, like sheep without a shepherd’.

So we were over in the Lake District back in the summer, doing some hill walking and there were signs everywhere telling you to keep your dog on a lead. And they had a picture of a sheep covered in blood, lying on the ground, with the farmer cradling its head and dealing with the wounds.
And in big capital letters, ‘A FAMILY PET DID THIS.’ And that’s the picture here; not harassed and helpless but ‘torn and thrown down’. Sheep who’ve been damaged through not having a shepherd who would have cared for them and kept life good for them. And that’s the first surprise (even shock) here, because that’s how Jesus sees everyone who doesn’t yet have him as their shepherd – which may still include you. He sees them as sheep getting damaged through not having him as their shepherd, because instead, they’re still saying ‘I don’t want you to be God in my life. I want to live as I please.’ But for lots of the people around us, it’s pretty hard to see them like that, isn’t it? Because they look happy and successful right now, living without Jesus (without God) looks to be going OK. But looks don’t always tell the real story. For example, I remember interviewing a student once in our church family who was really brave in talking about the difference between looks and reality. She’d finally come to faith in her third year but she said from first year, she’d been involved with this guy who all her friends thought was a real catch, but whom she was increasingly miserable with. And she slept with him against her better judgement, to hold on to the relationship. And she said, ‘I wasn’t the only one who was inwardly unhappy with what I was doing, but outwardly keeping up the appearance that we were all enjoying ourselves and having fun.’

So, imagine you’d been a Christian friend of hers in first or second year. She’d have looked like an enviable, happy success – especially in the relationship department. She wouldn’t have looked like someone likely to think she needed Jesus. So it wouldn’t have been easy to start trying to tell her about him, but we need to see people as Jesus sees them. However they look to us, and however they look to themselves at the moment, Jesus says: the reality is living outside his loving and wise shepherding is not good – and that will become clear, sooner or later. So look at Matthew 9.36 again:

When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

And his compassion is extraordinary because the only reason why anyone is like a sheep without a shepherd is that consciously or subconsciously they’ve rejected him – the only good shepherd there is. And yet Jesus doesn’t look at us, and the damage we do ourselves, in judgement or contempt. He doesn’t say, ‘Well, I could have told you that would end badly,’ or ‘well, you got what you deserve’. He looks at us with compassion (whoever we are, whatever we’ve done) and says, ‘I want to forgive you and be your shepherd from now on’. And if that seems hard to believe, remember he said it loud and clear on the cross. Jesus put it like this in John 10.10:

I came that they [you] may have life and have it abundantly.

Which means forgiven, fresh-start-with-him life. And you can believe he wants that for you (whoever you are, whatever you’ve done) because he then said (John 10.11):

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

So Jesus sees people as sheep getting damaged through not having him as their shepherd, and as sheep he cared enough about to die for.And we need to see people as Jesus sees them. Then lesson number two here, to help us tell others about Jesus, is that we need to:

2. See evangelism as Jesus sees it

I know ‘evangelism’ is a Christian jargon word. I slipped it in to make that heading short. And it just means telling people the good news or gospel about Jesus. And the second thing here is that we need to see evangelism as Jesus sees it. So look on to Matthew 9.37-38:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

So Jesus switches pictures from people being like sheep needing to be brought back to their shepherd, to people being like wheat that needs harvesting and bringing into the barn. And they’re both pictures of evangelism. And here’s the second of the three surprises in this passage: The harvest is plentiful. And living in Britain in 2022, and looking at the stats about church decline, and thinking how many people we’ve ever seen come to faith - I don’t know how many of us would have said that. In fact, if we were writing Matthew 9.37 we’d probably say; ‘The harvest is few – there are few people who seem interested, or open to the gospel’. But that’s not how Jesus sees it, is it? Because he says: The harvest is plentiful. Ie, there are many people waiting to be told the gospel, who, when they are told, will respond – and that’s because God has already planned that. He’s already decided that, in his sovereign mercy, he will work in certain people as they hear the gospel, to overcome their natural resistance to him, so that they do respond. So the encouraging thing is that we know those people are out there – we just don’t know who they are.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know who they are. I’d like them to have some kind of glow around them, or maybe one of those little orange stickers you see on pictures in a gallery to show they’ve already been bought – so that I’d only ever try to tell people about Jesus who were interested and open. So that I’d never invite someone to church or Hope Explored or whatever – and have them say ‘No.’ Or, so that I’d never get talking to someone about Jesus and find them becoming argumentative or offended. In other words, so that evangelism would become free of risk and uncertainty. But that’s not how it is. Which is why Jesus told the parable of the four soils. He said that when we’re trying to tell people about him, it’s like a farmer sowing seed in his field. Or to Jesmondise the story, like you heading off to your allotment to sow your rocket or radicchio for all those sophisticated salads. And it’s a mixed bag of an allotment. So there’s some good soil that’ll actually grow something, but also some rocky soil, where nothing will live long; some soil full of weed seeds that’ll outcompete whatever you sow; and some soil so hard that no seed will ever get in.

But the thing is, you don’t know where the good soil is because on the surface, it all looks the same. So you’re just going to have to sow everywhere, and some of it will come to nothing, but some of it will grow. And Jesus is saying, it’s like that with evangelism. We don’t know who the good soil is. We don’t know who God has decided to work in so that they will respond to the gospel. So we just need to try and sow the gospel everywhere we can – knowing that some of that will come to nothing; but that some of it will bring people to Jesus, because the harvest is plentiful. There are many people around us who will respond to the gospel because God is working in them. And that’s why, in Matthew 9.38, Jesus calls his Father:

the Lord of the harvest

Because God his Father is the one ultimately at work through our evangelism, which means that along with all the discouragements of people being apathetic or uninterested or negative, there will always be a harvest. And I would pack in evangelism right now if I didn’t believe that. I mean, if I believed the harvest depended on my brilliance and persuasiveness in putting the gospel across, I’d pack in straight away, but it doesn’t. The harvest depends on the fact that the Lord of the harvest is at work through our evangelism – unbrilliant and weak as it often is. And our part is to be faithful in sharing the gospel. God’s part is to produce response. So that’s the second thing here; See evangelism as Jesus sees it So; See people as Jesus sees them, See evangelism as Jesus sees it. Then lesson number three here, to help us tell others about Jesus, is that we need to:

3. Speak to God before we speak about him

Look down to Matthew 9.37-38 again:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore…”

So how would you have expected that sentence to end? ‘Therefore…go and tell them. Get out there with the gospel.’ And here’s the third surprise of the passage, because that’s not what he says, is it? Matthew 9.37-38:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

So why does Jesus say the first step in evangelism is to pray (to speak to God) before we speak about him? Well, I think the answer’s in what we’ve just seen. It’s because God is the Lord of the harvest – he’s the one ultimately at work through our evangelism, and he’s the one on whom any harvest (any response) depends. And we recognise that whenever we make our first step in evangelism to pray, because it’s a way of saying ‘Nothing will happen if I just do this on my own. Lord, please will you send me and use me and work through me?’ So Matthew 9.38:

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.

Now I take it Jesus wasn’t just encouraging his disciples to pray that others would be sent. For example, he didn’t want Peter praying, ‘Well, Lord, send James and John and Bartholomew – I think they’d be good.’ No, I take it he wanted it to dawn on Peter that if he really meant it when he prayed for God to send out labourers into his harvest, then he needed to be willing to be part of the answer because that prayer’s like a boomerang that comes back and says, ‘So how’s that going to involve you?’ He needed to be like Isaiah in the Old Testament who, when God said (Isaiah 6.8):

“Whom shall I send…? [to speak to people back then], Here am I! Send me.”

So in the first place, I take it Jesus is telling us here to pray about our own evangelism. To pray: ‘Lord, please will you send me and use me and work through me in the people I know.’ So whether you’re feeling encouraged or discouraged in this area right now, can I encourage you from this to start praying or keep praying that regularly. In different words, that’s what the apostle Paul wanted prayer for in Colossians 4.3. He wrote:

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

In other words, ask the Lord of the harvest to create opportunities and to open people up to the gospel. And I have to admit that I don’t do that enough, and that you’ll sometimes find me bemoaning lack of opportunity but not actually turning to prayer for opportunity. Whereas a friend of mine who’s also in full time ministry said that every year he prays that the Lord will give him two people who are willing to meet and read the Bible with him – one who’s not yet a Christian, so he can help them towards faith, and one who is already a Christian, so he can help them live out and share their faith. And he says that in 30 plus years of ministry, the Lord has always answered that prayer. So I take it Jesus is telling us here to pray about our own evangelism. But it’s more than that. He’s telling us to pray that more labourers (plural) would be sent out into the harvest, and that will include to pray for more people to become Christians - because by definition, another Christian is another gospel labourer.

And it will also include to pray for some Christians to become full-time gospel labourers – whether in ministry in this country or somewhere else in the world. So will you also add those things into your regular prayers? And, like I said earlier, as we pray it may well dawn on us that we need to be willing to be part of the answer. And that’s often how God guides us into where he wants us to be labouring for the gospel. So for example, this summer the Garrett family went out to visit the Potter family, whom we support in northern Mozambique doing Bible translation. They live in a provincial town called Nampula about which the guide book says, ‘It’s an unremarkable place. No-one comes here as a destination. People only pass through.’ So we were the exception to that rule. And we enjoyed the sights and highlights, which took about five minutes. And although we know the Potters well, one meal time I said to Joe and Sarah, ‘Just tell us the whole story of how you came to be out here with Wycliffe Bible Translators.’ And Joe said:

Well it all began by praying for them during our time at JPC. We prayed for Alan and Ritva Brown and for Jock and Katy Hughes. We heard from them at World Mission Focus meetings. We got involved with the Wycliffe prayer meeting. [That’s always a slippery slope – actually getting into a prayer meeting for missions]. And that’s what planted the seed of thinking, ‘Maybe this is what we should be doing with our lives’.

And some of you need to be full-time evangelists and pastors. Some of you need to be church planters. Some of you need to take the gospel overseas. Some of you need to translate the Bible. So are you praying ‘Lord, here am I! Send me, if that’s your will. And help me to become clear what is your will for me.’ So that’s the help Jesus gives us here when it comes to telling others about him. We need to: See people as Jesus sees them. See evangelism as Jesus sees it. And, Speak to God before we speak about him. And tonight’s passage is just the introduction to Matthew 10 where Jesus has much more to say on speaking for him, living for him and dealing with all the mixed responses that will come our way. So please keep coming, because there’s no-one better to learn that from than Jesus himself. Let’s pray.