976. Loving God with a Great-Commission Love for the World

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina were continuing a study series called loving God today speaker is Dr. Sam Horn, former Dean of the Bob Jones University seminary.

The title of his message is loving God with the great commission love for the world from Matthew 935 through 38 may ask you to take your Bible to Matthew chapter 9 a few weeks ago.

I have been thinking about this chapel for some time, but a few weeks ago we had a mission chapel and send Dr. Cushman got up and had people turn to this very text and thinking outmanned heat. This is going to be difficult because I have been thinking about this text for the sermon, but as I listen to his message in an Internet rate. Frankly, is not working. My own heart about the message I agreed to cyber leak because we actually are looking at the same text two different vantage points. So this morning as we come together at work were considering the idea of loving God, which we been talking about all semester and and really out of that theme flows. The idea that if we really are going to be loving God. Part of that means loving what he loves and so were coming to attacks this morning are a series of verses and a rickety in Matthew chapter 9 that lays out for us, something that God is intensely passionate about it. If we're going to love God properly were going to have to look at this text of Scripture and allow it to do more than inform us and impact us were going to have to allow the text actually shape the way we think about loving God and what that looks like so here's here's the question I want us to think about and really for the sake of time to put the question and then were going to jump right into the text to seek an answer for but all semester long we have been examining the idea talking about the theme of God's love for us and we been exploring that the idea of loving God and particularly looking at the dimensions of that love that that that sort of help us to recognize that the only reason we are able to love him is because he first loved us in and sort of being impacted and shaped by that concept. So when we think about the intense love that God has for his son and the intense love that he has for us. What could be so important to God that he would put the physical well-being of people who are the objects of that sort of intense love at risk the words of God loves us with the intensity that the New Testament seems to indicate if if in fact we are the objects of his love to the degree that we have seen in the Scriptures. What is it that that would be so significant to God that he would put people that he loves to this degree in situations that would at times call for the very lives and all you have to do is read a history of the church from the time of Jesus forward and you begin to recognize that this history has a significance segment or significant chapter in the history is about those very sorts of people that who in the will of God were called upon by God to take their life and shed their blood for something that God cared deeply about.

So, whatever that is. It needs to shape our idea of loving God. So with that in mind I would like you to take you to the text that were looking at in Matthew chapter 9 and were dropping right into the middle of a section of Matthew that is leading up to the commissioning of a group of men who are going to go and many of these men are going to be put into harm's way by the Lord himself was begin reading in verse 35 and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Letting Seth unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.

What could be so important to God that he would take people that who were the special objects of his love of his not just his general love, but of his specific intense love and put them in harm's way and the answer is a harvest that he has been preparing and we will never understand how to respond to that until we let Matthew talk to us a little bit from this text and so I would suggest that one of the things that Matthew is doing is helping us to see what Jesus saw before and understand how to love God properly.

In view of the harvest, that is a significant focal point for his attention and his work in and by which he intends to receive glory working to have to see as we come to a passage like this would have to see what Jesus saw. So what did Jesus seem to notice what you pick up in verse 36 when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them and and here's what he saw when he saw the multitudes uses two terms in the tax to sort of help you understand what he saw when he looked at the crowds that he was ministering to. By the way, we just saw in verse 35 that he had been going throughout the region and all of the cities and all of the villages and if Josephus is at all to be believed, there were some 240 cities and villages that made up this region where Jesus was minister so he had spent time going around these villages. In fact, if you go back to Matthew chapter 4 and you start looking at verse 23 through the end of the chapter. Matthew is bracketing something here at the very beginning after the baptism we read that Jesus was going around these same villages and then there's this long segment and make in Matthew beginning in chapter 5 that ends in chapter 9 and an bracket is verse 35 where he talks about sort of closing the gap now is coming back to this idea that he's been going around these villages and he has been seeing things and what he is been seeing is a multitude of people in these villages were faint and who were scattered now these two words are very intense words, we don't have time this morning to my not everything that Matthew intends by these words. But we could say it this way when Jesus looked at the multitude and he uses these two ideas to tell you what he saw. He was telling you about a group of people who have been severely damaged and all you have to do is go back in the chapters and start realizing what is been going on in the physical life of these people and what is been happening to them in their spiritual context and you would come to the conclusion that Jesus is articulating here that these people that he has been walking around in their cities and in their villages are people who have been severely damaged and seriously demoralized by someone. Someone has come into their midst and has REITs talk spiritually, physically, and in every way. And when Jesus comes to the end of this section of Matthew. He wants you to know what he sees what's striking about this is that Jesus is coming, as it were, to his own house. He is coming to the land that belonged to Israel that his father had given to Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob into the patriarch he is coming to the very spot on the globe to the physical place on the planet that God had given to his own people as it were. He's coming to his own house and he is recognizing as he is in their midst that an enemy has been in this place and has been wreaking all kinds of damage he's been doing it physically through disease and meet if you try to go back and start reading and in chapters 8 and nine you find examples where Jesus is meeting up with people and he is healing their diseases.

He is talking to people who have been spiritually afflicted by demonic activity, and you start looking at all the different categories in which Jesus encounters people and you get to the end when Matthew sorta closes the loop any kind of remind you that Jesus is been going throughout the villages, just like he told you. Chapter 4 uses now let me sum up for you in Jesus own words what he saw. He saw his own people is all portion of the kingdom. His own house, as it were vandalized, ruined, and in a disastrous condition morally spares out physically and spiritually. Because of the work of an enemy, and in Matthew is making that point very clear to the reader that brings us to the second but that piece of information is impacting as it is, will never shape us until we feel the way Jesus felt about what he saw in the text is very clear about how Jesus felt when he moved among the people when he encountered them in their daily life. When he when he was with them in their walk. When he stood with them in Capernaum. And when he walks them at the shores of the Sea of Galilee when he was with them in the city of Cana when he was with them as they made their way to and fro about their business and he began to realize that these people were leaderless. They were like sheep that had been abandoned by their shepherds and an enemy had come in and ravage them and damage them and demoralize them. The text says that Jesus was moved with something.

He was moved with compassion, and the term in the way that Matthew uses that phrase is, is not just the Jesus felt sorry for the people. This is a very deep inner heart sort of got wrenching a motion, pardon the sort of, of course, expression of that but it is a deep inner gut wrenching expression that has the ability to sort of sort of redirecting up a person's entire orientation. A person's entire life. When I give you an example of this is the kind of thing that would happen in the heart of a child, as they watched apparent go through the ravages of a disease like cancer and be completely powerless to stop that disease from taking the life of somebody that they were deeply connected to and as they watch this devastation their heart being so moved internally that they dedicate the rest of their life trying to find a cure for the disease that took their parent. That's the strength of the term that is being used here by Matthew, Jesus felt this way about what he saw and here's the bottom line until we feel this way about the condition of the people around us, we will feel sorry for them.

We will we will give money to them. We might say, from time to time reach out to them will sing songs about them will pray for them, but we will not be moved in our hearts sort of reorient our life so that we are actually committed to doing what Jesus is talking about here in this text to making a difference in the life of those sorts of people.

That's the strength of which Matthew is pointing that that's sort of the context that that Matthew was wanting to make sure we grasp as we get going into the into the next chapter where all of a sudden you see a group of men that are being commissioned to spend their entire life doing something about this harvest that Jesus is is looking so we we won't feel what Jesus felt, until we see what Jesus saw and that brings us really to the third thing.

If we really going to get this text in perspective, we have to understand we have to believe what Jesus knew we we have to be convinced of something that Jesus was convinced up and that is this that he is the answer to all of this devastation me when you when you really follow Matthew and you see what Matthew is doing. Matthew is introducing you to a person who has the right to come into this place and clean it up. He has the right and he doesn't just have the right to do this. He actually has the ability to do this in the way that Matthew sort of lays this out for you as as as he unfolds this in chapter 4. In fact, it might be useful if you go back to chapter 4 for just a moment and let's just take a moment and in our time is short but but let's anchor our thinking in a particular tax outside of Matthew nine go back to chapter 4. Look at verse 23. Just let your eye fall down as is. I point out a few observations about the text. Jesus went about all Galilee, so were in the same region, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching or announcing the good news of the kingdom and and here is what it looked like when Jesus went about doing this, he was healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

And then of course verse 24. His fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sick people and then there's sort of a further description of what these sick people were afflicted by.

They were afflicted by all kinds of diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils or demons and those who were lunatic and those who had the palsy, and he healed them.

That's a summary of what is to come and then you get into this sermon in chapters 5, six and seven were Jesus is laying out the fact that he really has come with a kingdom that is that is a kingdom of righteousness that is different than even the righteousness of the Pharisees and the people when he gets done preaching the sermon. The text says the people heard him gladly, because he spoke to them as one having what authority and just so we don't miss the point.

Matthew was going to take chapters 8 and nine and he's good to show us how that authority actually worked when Jesus came to these multitudes. He healed people at a word, he opened the eyes of blind people. He cast out demons all throughout the chapter. You are being introduced to an individual who is in the middle of all of this devastation, and he has the authority and he has the ability to do something about it and for two chapters you're watching them actually do it and here's the point that Matthew want to see that this individual Jesus of Nazareth is actually the answer to all of the devastation. It's not just that Matthew wants you to see what Jesus saw and feel what Jesus felt he wants you to believe and be convinced of something that Jesus knew and what Jesus knew was this I am God's appointed one who is going to deal with every bit of this and that brings us to the fourth thing and that is this what did Jesus do about it.

What he actually do about what is it that Jesus is God that we need to recognize and here's the point when we see what Jesus saw and when we feel what Jesus felt, and we cut we become convinced of what Jesus knew about himself that he was in fact God's answer to all of this then what Jesus said it comes to next makes makes a completely profound impact our life and that is this Jesus is been doing something for all of these chapters, and he and he says it to his disciples. He says this.

The harvest is plenteous.

The harvest is plenteous, here's here's what Jesus means by this Jesus is saying this to his disciples. I have been getting a harvest ready. I have been at work in my place. I have been at work among these people. I have been in these cities, I have been in these villages.

I have been preaching and announcing a kingdom. I have been displaying my authority and my power. I have been getting a harvest ready and then he says something else that's very interesting. The laborers are what the laborers are few and here's where I am to say something that I want you to think about and I'm to give you an opinion here in the beauty of an opinion is, you don't have to agree with right I do want you to hear it and I do want you to think about it and I want you to put it in the context of everything else that you been listening to in terms of what Matthew is been communicating because I think what happens we come to a text like this is we sort of have the idea that there's this massive harvest that is about to go to waste because there is a lack of what of workers and if we could just get more workers. Then we could go out and the harvest would be saved and I'm not sure that's really the point that Jesus is trying to make. I think what Jesus is saying here is this. I have been getting a harvest ready and even with just a few workers I can get the harvest accomplished because I am the one who is prepared to harvest and I am the one who is going to send out the reapers mass the point.

I think that Jesus is making here there is this harvest that he has been getting ready and and you may look at this harvest. Here we are in a room and maybe there's 100 of us and were looking at it entire harvest that is ready to be reaped and we can almost say what can we do mean how can how can we ever hope to reap a harvest that is this big and this ready when there so few of us look at us here we are in a room and we would envelop the whole route.

There's maybe 100 of us and if we expanded out and we we take every student in the student body and we fill up the chapel and we have some 3000 bodies and there even 3000 is almost nothing compared to the size of the harvest that needs to be re-what can so few of us do it.

In view of the size of the harvest and I think that Mrs. the real point that Jesus is saying I have a harvest that I am going to read and I'm in a really bad with a few reapers honey think of what the implication of that statement is for the little group of us that are here if we would grasp the intent of what Jesus had think of what could happen in light of what Jesus is doing and what Jesus is saying if this little group of 100+ people were really to do what Jesus said to do and we were we were to go out and read it. So how how do I know that you really have the right opinion because that sorta goes contrary to a lot of mission sermons I've heard back. There goes a whole bunch of mission sermons I preached how many people do. Jesus commissioned next in chapter 10 I mean, there's a small group of men that get sent out into the harvest and by the time they're done that little group has grown from a small little group of followers to the book of acts. Maybe hundred and 20 and they go out and into this massive harvest and and pretty soon there's 3000 of them to thousand of them and there's 4000 of them, then there's another five and by the time you get to the end of book of acts. The gospel is gone to the very heart of robe and it started with just a few reapers that saw what Jesus saw, felt, what Jesus felt became, totally convinced that Jesus was who he said he was and that he had come to do what he said he had come to do, and they understood and recognize what Jesus had done that he had prepared a harvest for them to read and that brings us into the final thing and that is this what is it that Jesus told us to do with all of this information may, if we see were Jesus saw and we feel when Jesus felt and we become convinced of what Jesus knew about himself and we recognize what Jesus is been up to for 2000 years he's been getting a harvest ready what he's doing. All around us is getting a harvest ready. What is it that Jesus wants us to do.

He gives us one statement in the text and it is this pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest crate of the one who is owning this harvest pray to the one who is preparing this harvest crate of the pray to the Lord of the harvest, and here's what you ask and ask him to send forth. Ask him to thrust. That's the idea to thrust out what laborers here's my question. Who was Jesus physically talking to hear honey. We know from our understanding of inspiration that the application of this text is to every reader. But when Jesus was articulating what Matthew later wrote down. Who was he probably talking to who was standing there physically hearing what Jesus was saying we have indication of this, another tax week we started the that the PowerPoint presentation earlier today with a verse out of John were Jesus saying don't you know that the harvest is over. The fields are white in the harvest member that in John four, who was he talking to then and who is he probably talking to here in Matthew chapter 9, his disciples and he says to those men.

Now you need to pray that God will send forth thrust out laborers into this harvest and one chapter later who gets thrust out.

This is in a trick question.

If you get it right get another doughnut who get stressed out. Those men so here's the point. I think Matthew is trying to say to us when you get serious about the harvest and you pray this way, what you're asking God to do is to thrust you into that harvest Lord.

This is an immense harvest. You obviously care a great deal about it it it.

And in this harvest is hostile to you that there there there is an enemy in this harvest field that is determined to destroy the harvest and go after the harvesters and Lord.

It doesn't matter. This is a harvest that you care about so I want to go. I want to be a part of reaping that harvest because you love that harvest you feel a certain way about that harvest you you are you are convinced you know certain things about yourself that that apply to that harvest. And Lord, I am convinced of all of that. I believe all of that and I want you to take me and put me into that harvest is a very different concept than this single Lord of love lost people out there and sure hope so many witnesses to police and some of this is a very personal prayer that Jesus is exhorting the REIT that the heart of the potential harvesters to pull at the pray.

I see what you see. I feel what you feel. I believe what you know I see what you've done. And Lord, I want you to take me and put me into that harvest. And even if it cost me my life. I still want you to thrust me out.

You know what I think if we really pray that way. Do you think God would answer our prayer. I mean if that really were the deep heart cry of your heart. Do you think God would put you in that harvest. When you think I think he would do for you what he did for those men in the next chapter and he would send you out and he would invest your life and that harvest so my challenge to you and my challenge to myself is, are we really praying that way.

Loving God involves loving what he loves to the point that we are willing to invest ourselves in the cause that moved him in this way, so may the Lord help us Lord we take a moment to thank you for text like this that comes right into where we live and goes past all of the things that were involved in that have religious and spiritual overtones to the very core of who we are as a person and what we really desire in the depths of her heart and what we talk to you about when we talk freely and openly about what we really want in our life.

So Lord, we come to a text like this and we ask that you help us to pray like that that this Lord would really be in our chlorine in our heart that deep desire that we have invested in this harvest that you feel so deeply about and that you are preparing to Lord we want to be involved. Yes, thrust us to do it Jesus name, amen. You've been listening to a message preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Sam Horn which was part of the series. Loving God. Join us again tomorrow as we continue the series on The Daily Platform