Let’s get back into Matthew this morning, continuing on.

Matthew chapter 9, we’re going to be in verse 35 to 38 this morning. Matthew chapter 9, 35 to 38.

It says, 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 when He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. And to His harvest.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a sinus infection. A lot of people get sinus infections. I remember the first time that I got a sinus infection. I didn’t know that that’s what it was. I thought I just had a really bad cold. Similar to cold symptoms. So I’m taking all kinds of cold medicines and over-the-counter stuff. But it’s not helping. It’s not working. I keep sleeping and I wake up and just feel terrible. And eventually I’m just so exhausted. I went to the doctor and within a few minutes the doctor said, You’ve got a sinus infection. You have a really high white blood count. And I was like, Oh, that’s what it was. And he gave me the right medicine to deal with that infection. And I read a story about a man in the hospital who the nurse was supposed to give him an antacid, but gave him a medicine that put him in cardiac arrest because the packaging looked the same. She gave him the completely wrong medicine.

So when we’re sick, we’re sick. And there’s not just any remedy for when we’re sick. The right remedy. Every sickness has the right remedy.

And if there’s anything encouraging about sin, about sin nature, a world broken, it’s this. We all have the same sickness, but it requires the exact same remedy. There’s one remedy. There’s one great need for your soul. There’s one great need for my soul. There’s one great. There’s one great need. There’s one great provision that the world needs. It’s a great need. What is the sickness? And what is the provision? I want us to see that this morning.

35, Jesus, it says, He went through the villages and the cities and He taught in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. So we see Jesus doing, don’t we? Time and time again, really only what Jesus can do. Jesus being only who Jesus is. And the two words I want us to hang on to as we consider this passage this morning is this. Jesus is unique and Jesus is effective. Jesus is nothing if not unique. If we’ve come this far in Matthew’s gospel and we think Jesus, boy, He’s a special person. We think, boy, Jesus is a really good person. Or perhaps. Even we think this Jesus, He sure is exceptional. We have misassessed Jesus. Jesus is like no other person.

I think many have passed through the world with enlightenment, so it’s called, with a special insight into the supernatural, into the spiritual. Many have misled the masses into a certain way of thinking. But no one has risen up to the status of Jesus, of our Jesus. No one. No one has power in His teaching and His preaching like Jesus. No one had power over human ailments like Jesus. No one has power over the world, over natural laws like Jesus. No one had or has power over life and death as He proved time and time again like Jesus. So Jesus claimed to be, did He not, the sum of all that man could hope to achieve. Jesus. Jesus claimed to be the greatest pursuit of any soul. He claimed to be the answer to all of life’s mysteries. He claimed to be the keys to life and life eternal. If we heard Matthew write, Jesus is unique.

But as He is so unique, He is in His person as God and man, effective. Because Jesus has alone in the uniqueness of His person, He’s broken in to the endless cycle. He’s broken in to the endless cycle of living and dying that humanity is enslaved to. He was bringing, and hasn’t He said this, and we’ve seen it so many times, He was bringing in a new kingdom. It was going to be an endless kingdom. It was the kingdom of God. It’s what Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven. And He was nothing short, and He hasn’t been up to this point, has He? Anything but unstoppable. His power is unstoppable. He’s a force that’s going to, that is overwhelming the whole world. So when Jesus said, Jesus says, or Matthew says, Jesus went. It’s a big deal that Jesus went. Because once Jesus started going, He didn’t stop and He hasn’t stopped. And when He got in the grave and came back out, that wasn’t the end. That was the beginning of Jesus overwhelming the world with His kingdom of love and peace and joy. And it’s not going to stop until the whole earth is overwhelmed with His glory. So Jesus is uniquely with us. He is uniquely what you need. He’s uniquely what I need. He is uniquely what the whole world needs. His gospel, His power to change us and make us new. So Jesus thinks this about Himself, shamelessly. I’m what the whole world needs. There’s no apologies for that. I want to know this morning, are you and I as convinced as Jesus is, as shameless as Jesus is, that He is what the world needs? I’m just convinced of that. True disciples of Jesus see the great need the world has for Christ. A true disciple sees the great need. Verse 36, it says, When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Now Jesus’ ministry, we’d all have to agree, is never… Discriminant. Jesus always saw the crowds and they were always people He was willing to minister to, regardless of how much money they had, their social standing, from rich to poor, saint to sinner. He was willing to do it all. And I think if that seems a small detail to us, that Jesus was willing to interact with anybody in the crowd, what we have, I think, is a severely dull vision of how vast the love of God is, how deep the love of God is for all people, that God loves all people. It tells us something about the heart of God and it shows us, you know, how petty and small our love can be. How often do we only want to really love and help and be for people who are for us, people who are like us. We have preferences in who we want to choose to love, people who haven’t hurt us too bad. But there’s no factor here for Jesus. He sees the crowds. It’s everybody. And He has… Compassion. And I want you to understand this about this word, compassion. It’s only used of Jesus in the Gospels. Nowhere else is this compassion said of a person. It’s Jesus’ compassion that is the God man He has. And it means down in the guts, in the bowels. It means in the very heart, in the core of the person. You are moved in the deepest of ways. It’s a really, really deep… sympathy. It’s not passing concern that Jesus has for all people. It’s Christian compassion. It goes beyond the conditions of what’s deserved and it gets to the point of a person’s need. It is entirely selfless because Jesus is entirely selfless. The world has a lot of notions, don’t they, of charity. How many charities have we heard about? It’s a popular thing to give, to help. Philanthropic work. That’s not new. But no one’s compassion is like Jesus’ compassion because no one’s actions can match Jesus’ actions. He has a great compassion that comes out in a great action. And the reason why Matthew says he has such a great compassion for the crowds is because they’re harassed. They’re helpless. It means they’re beat down. They’re afflicted. They can’t do nothing for themselves. They were so, and we’ve talked about this a lot, they didn’t have good leadership. There wasn’t anyone around. There wasn’t anyone around them showing them the right way. Their religious leaders had hijacked God, hijacked religion and made it a burden. The God of their fathers, who was a God of promise, who was a God of love, now was a God that put endless laws on the people. That’s what their religious leaders made God and made religion at the time. And here’s what we always have to understand. Without a proper notion of God, there can’t be a proper notion of life. If we don’t know the God of compassion, and love, our lives won’t look anything like it either. So Matthew says it’s so bad, it’s like, this is how Jesus saw him, like sheep without a shepherd. Now I’m not a farmer. Never going to be one. I’m not an animal expert. But probably you, like me, you’ve heard sheep aren’t the smartest creatures. Did you know if a sheep falls on its back, it cannot get up unless someone helps it up. Sheep have horrible eyesight. They cannot, they don’t have any depth perception. They have to have leadership. One writer online points out that sheep are three things, dumb, defenseless, and directionless.

He tells a true story of one sheep that walked off a cliff and 1,499 followed him off the cliff and the shepherds watched in dismay. And it was a 74,000 sheep. And it was a $1,000 loss to the farm. They’re directionless. If you put a sheep in a good environment where it has everything it needs, it will wander into a bad environment and die.

Sheep are defenseless. They have no mechanism to either defend themselves or even pretend to defend themselves, like a dog that would growl. They can do nothing for themselves. Do you think that the Bible is making any clearer the plight of mankind?

What more could Matthew say that we’re a world in need, not deserving, but we’re a world in need of compassion.

The world has always been and will always be until Christ returns full of crowds. People who have no way to help themselves against the consequences of the fall of man. Scores of people who pursue myriads of religions and radical cults because they’re trying to be a part of the world. They’re trying to deal with shame. They’re trying to deal with past mistakes. They’re trying to deal with sin. Scores more that try to drown themselves in pleasure and possession to be happy. Many more that care nothing for other people and live selfishly. Others do their best to try to live good and live well. Others, they’re enslaved to addictions that promise them fulfillment, but only leave them wanting more. And friends, the great trouble, and we’ve always got to keep this in front of us as Christians is this. There aren’t many pathways to happiness and peace. Only many foolish pursuits. There aren’t many roads that lead to rest for your soul. Only one. But here’s the sad reality, if it’s not bad enough, that is the case. The same people that are going in these many pathways that lead to destruction, like a sheep, they’re most convinced it’s right. It’s like a child who’s just so bad, wants to stick their hand in the fire. They don’t know what will be taken from them. If they get what they want. But a sinner’s sin is his most precious possession, his corrupt heart, his trusted God. And you know what it’s easy to do? It’s easy to look on contempt that people that are so set in their sinful ways, they’re so sure they’re right. And it’s so easy to write people off. Maybe if someone’s not too bad, I’ll deal with you. But if you love your sin, if you don’t easily come to my gospel, my Christ, I’m going to write you off. The problem is this, that looks nothing like Jesus. Jesus does not teach us contempt. He teaches us compassion. Hebrews chapter 5, the writer says, Jesus can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Christ came to experience the weakness, the trial, the hardship of a broken world to identify with us, to deal gently with us. Jesus is always found among the people who need him most and see it the least. He’s among them teaching a better way, preaching a better way, showing a better way, pleading to go his way. And his way is himself. Jesus would be a shepherd to anyone who would respond to his call of compassion, who would come under his staff that would protect from any foe, his leadership that leads to still waters and green pastures. Jesus has, do you believe it, compassion from heaven. Jesus himself is compassion from heaven. The love of the Father and the love of the Son, it runs deep for crowds. Does our love run deep for the crowds? For people who otherwise would be nameless and faceless, if not for the compassion, the compassion of Jesus.

If Jesus has that much compassion, I don’t believe we can call ourselves his disciples if we look on the world and we’re ready to judge it. Heaven sent kind and quality compassion. You know, it’s only possible to really experience and appreciate if you’re near the heart of God. Because when we’re near the heart of God, you know what we won’t be? Away from sinners, near God’s heart, we will be like Jesus near sinners. Yes, see sin for what it is, a contemptible thing, but not sinners. What are sinners? Objects of God’s love, objects of God’s pity, objects of God’s mercy. And so the cross is. If compassion seems shocking, if compassion seems almost wrong, look at the cross of Jesus. Look at the perfect Son of God hanging there and for what? For undeserved sinners like you and I. Do you love the cross? Then for what? Friends, we must love compassion for those who deserve it the least.

I have a friend that lives in Seattle. And we were talking one time about the mountains all around. If you’re in Seattle, they have beautiful mountain range there and you can see them everywhere. I said, man, you must miss that. You know, seeing that mountain range everywhere. He said, yeah, they’re beautiful. He said, but the reality is once you live there for so long, you just stop seeing them. It becomes part of the background. You don’t see them anymore. And I think the risk is the same when it comes to seeing people the way God does. I hope that the face you see in your mind when you think of who doesn’t deserve God’s compassion, it’s not some world dictator. It’s not someone who’s hurt you in your past. I hope it’s not some political leader you don’t like. I hope the only face you see when you think about who doesn’t deserve God’s grace and compassion, is your own. Because until you see yourself alright before the cross of Christ, you’ll never see people that way. Until you see yourself as Paul did, as the worst of sinners, you’ll be ready to judge, not run to with mercy and pity. So friends, see yourself through the lens of the cross so that you can see others as God does. And love them deeply. You know, we’ve been talking about Zacchaeus here and there lately. What did Jesus not do? Jesus did not say, Zacchaeus! What’s wrong with you, man? These Jews are your own people. What are you ripping them off for, idiot?

It’s not what he does. He loves Zacchaeus. Compassion has a way of exposing sin for what it is without beating a sinner over the head. It’s God’s way and love of saying, look at the cross. Look how awful sin is that Jesus would experience that. But how much mercy and grace he has for you. It has a way of drawing us away from our sin in a way that a whip never could do.

It has a way of drawing us away from our sin in a way that a whip never could do. Is our church a place where people can come and not have it all together? I think that’s important. If we’re a gospel people, you know, it’s a terrible thing that churches a lot of times have reputations for being a place where you have to come and have it all put together. And especially if you’re a believer, like, I can’t be sharing struggles with other people because, man, I don’t want to be judged. And that’s terrible that I think that environment exists among believers. But how much worse for someone coming in and they just don’t know. I mean, yeah, there’s a time and place to address issues, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about loving people where they are and being patient, gracious with people. Because God was that with you. God’s that way with us. Do you want them to experience the compassion and love of Jesus? Do you want people to have what you have? That’s the question.

Verse 37, it says, Then he said to his disciples,

The harvest is plentiful.

But the laborers are few.

Now, there’s that constant contrast between the crowds and the disciples. Crowds follow and see, but Jesus expects a great deal more from his disciples in terms of service, in terms of devotion. But it does beg the question, doesn’t it? What does it really mean? What can it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Because you may go to school to be a doctor. You may go to school to be a lawyer. You may go to school to be a teacher, a plumber, whatever career or profession you have. And you can learn that even though that surely would be a challenging trade. But if we have established and haven’t we established that Jesus is unique and effective and no one is like him, how could it be possible to be a disciple of Jesus? That doesn’t hardly make any sense. Even you and I in our best forms, we’re not what people need. Jesus is what people need.

So it seems like the next step here for Jesus after he says, man, I have so much compassion for these people who need me, would be like, all right, boys, watch out. I’m going to have to keep doing ministry. I’m going to keep roaming around the earth till this whole thing is done and finished, right? Maybe being a disciple means like they can get him towels, you know, to wipe his head when he’s sweaty or take his lunch order, keep his calendar. Like maybe that’s what a disciple of Jesus can do. And that’s not at all what happens. He says, after in that moment of having deep compassion for the crowds, he says, y’all better get to work. He says, we need more laborers out in the field, more disciples doing ministry to the lost. And he shifts his metaphor because I think it fits. He sees the people, the lost like this huge harvest and they’re ripe and they’re there. But all there’s just a few people to bring them in before the rightness expires.

Now, you’ve never heard a missions organization say, we have just too many people sign up to be world missionaries. And there’s so many saved people out there. Like, I don’t, we don’t know what to do. You’ve never heard that, have you? You’ve never heard a pastor say like, I don’t know what to preach anymore because all my people, they’re so evangelistic. This whole town is saved. I mean, if we put on an evangelistic event, it’d be a waste of time. You’ve never heard that. And that’s just not going to be the case until Jesus returns. There’s always going to be a vast number of people who don’t know, who don’t have Christ in a few, a remnant would be the Old Testament language of people who are willing to go out and do the work. So you heard it from Jesus’ mouth, friends. If you love God and what you’ve been given, disciples don’t just see the need. Disciples get busy living for the need.

But still that question burns. How is it possible to do it if Jesus is unique? How can anyone else do it, right? Here’s how. Because Jesus empowers them for it. You will have to do all you can do to be the best at whatever profession you do, whatever trade you hold. But the gospel of Jesus is beautiful in this way, friends. It doesn’t just save us from dead works. It doesn’t just save us from a sin sick soul. The power of the gospel actually equips us and makes us new and ready to live like citizens of heaven on earth, to be truly to people light, salt. Remember, we talked about that a long time back. That’s what Jesus is doing by the power of the Spirit in us. Jesus is being effective and unique through you and through me. See what John says in John chapter 20. Jesus says to his disciples, Peace be with you as the Father has sent me, even so, catch it, I am sending you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

So please understand this about the nature of salvation. You have not just been forgiven. You have been given God. You’re one with Christ in the Spirit. You have Christ. That effective. Effective, unique Christ. He lives in you doing a work the flesh cannot do. Doing a work only the Spirit can do to make us like Jesus. And then in making us like Jesus, we become effective to live for the kingdom. So it’s a great privilege, isn’t it, to see the need. But oh, what a high, lofty responsibility to be called to live, to live for the need. Paul says you are co-laborers with Christ, co-laborers with God. We’re in fellowship. We’re in fellowship with God. What an amazing thing that God would use us, former broken, dirty old nasty sheep that don’t know which way to go. And now he’s raising us up to live for and do useful work for the kingdom. So I say to us always bask in the glory. I think if you don’t bask in the glory of the gospel and what it means to be saved, to have eternal security that 10,000 years from now I’m going to be with Christ. I’m going to have joy and I’m going to have life. That’s such a beautiful thing. Don’t stop. Basking in the glory. But if you’re really basking in it for yourself, you want to give it away. Give it away to other people. I don’t think we’ve seen the gospel, right? If it’s like, yeah, I’m glad I’ve got my ticket out of hell and I’m just doing the religious stuff until I die. No, I love this gospel and it’s got to go out through me by God’s grace. Paul says I struggle. I toil with all of his power that he works in me. See, it’s a powerful, powerful thing that the spirit of God is. It’s enabling and equipping you and I for the great work. It’s not a work of man. It’s a work of God through man. God’s means to reach the world is not supernatural experiences. It’s not visions. I’m not saying God can’t do what he wants. But if you read the Bible, God’s means to reach the world is through us preaching the gospel. Us living like heaven on earth. Us. Us having a unique, effective community. That is God’s means to bring in the harvest. It’s hard work, but it’s work worth doing because we’re calling in not yet brothers and sisters, not yet disciples, not yet co-laborers, right? And as this has been done for you by God’s grace, so we get to go and do this for others.

The cross of Christ. The cross of Christ was God’s labor of love. It was God’s great sacrifice. Friend, I pray that we always give back what little we have to God for having given so much to us in Christ.

I think about one missionary I read about a long time ago. Her name was Lucia Cousins. And she was a successful young businesswoman. She felt called to the mission field. So she went to Cameroon. She was there for many years doing the hard work. And she published in a missions magazine regularly about what hard work it was. And it will squeeze everything out of you, the good and the bad. It costs everything to do missions work. And after 29 years on the mission field, she was senselessly murdered in the middle of the night, stabbed to death. And as her husband, who was away on a trip, came back to his already buried wife, it just so happened that her last… article was published right then. And she quotes one of her favorite authors, I believe, by saying this. How can we claim for ourselves Christ’s command come unto me and yet claim exemption from His command to go?

How can we claim for ourselves Christ’s command to come unto me and claim exemption from His command to go?

Where is your harvest? You know, I think we read about missionary and be like, well, that’s really cool. It might be really cool for you to become one. You know, I’ve met a lot of people who all kinds of ages, all stages of life felt called in the mission field. Like, don’t ever say, well, that’s great for them. Like, it might be great for you. It might be great for you for God to raise you up to something like that. But even so, even so, that’s fine. We’re here. You’ve got a harvest. And harvests come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they? There’s not one shape of a harvest. There always must be. Desire to live for the harvest and God will show it to you. I think a lot of times our harvests, they have to be our own homes. We have to constantly be seeing our children as a harvest. When our children grow up and they know nothing of the Lord, it may very well be, a lot of times it is, we didn’t work in that field. We didn’t labor in that field. We didn’t tend to that field. So see that harvest. I’m going up to, you know, Kentucky next weekend for family. Family event. And I’m like, oh, I’ve all, it’s just like my tight, like it’s a tough harvest. Usually if it feels really difficult and tough and you have no idea what to do, it’s usually like a dead giveaway. It’s exactly where you’re supposed to be, right? That’s just the way it is. Because again, it’s God in me. It’s not me. Like if I could do like, yeah, we’re doing this and everybody’s saved. It doesn’t work that way. It’s like, Lord, I don’t even have any idea what you want to do here. And I feel so weak. But in that moment, God is so strong. Strong, is he not? So what is the harvest in your life? What’s the harvest for us as a church? We’ve got to constantly be praying towards that end. Well, let me not waste my time. I don’t want to waste my life. Figure out what it looks like and what it means. I want to be, and we say this all the time, I want to be a gospel proclaimer.

Verse 38, Jesus goes on to say,

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest, to send out laborers and do his harvest. So pray earnestly.

The kingdom of heaven is always, keep this in mind, upside down. God’s economy is not your economy. It’s not my economy. God’s way of doing things, it’s not our way of doing things, is it?

Higher is God’s thoughts. Higher are God’s ways. Job has to be silent for questioning God’s wisdom at the end of that book. God works in a very different way. We work in a very different way. We work in a day and age that loves and values as a virtue productivity. Go on Amazon and Google books on productivity, efficiency, how to be organized. They’re not bad things, but they’re not the main thing when it comes to the Christian life. And if we can get more done and get more done quickly, there’s a sense of like fulfillment, right? It’s totally backwards with God. Because Jesus said, hey, there is this endless harvest out there of lost people. They don’t know me. They don’t have hope. They’re dying, going to hell. And there’s like very few people. Like the only thing, like y’all better, one, some of y’all go work in the fields and the rest of y’all go enlist people now. Like don’t stop until you drop. I mean, go. But that’s not what Jesus says at all. Jesus says, just stop. Don’t do anything. And here’s what you should do. You should pray.

That thing that feels so, inefficient. Nothing feels so inefficient like prayer. Nothing feels like a greater waste of time than prayer. But here’s the reality. You could, in 10 minutes on your knees, do more than you could do in 10,000 years. God could do so much more just by moving his hand than you could do by enlisting an army vaster than the sand on the sea. See, God is that. God is that powerful. God is that wise. God is that great. So we’ve got to believe this as a church. The only work that matters is work that God does. And the work that God does only happens to the people who depend on him to get it done. No questions asked. When Zerubbabel couldn’t get the temple built, here’s what the prophet Zechariah said to him. It was a word from the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord. It is Zerubbabel. Not by my might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. What an anthem for living the Christian life. It’s not by my might. It’s not by my power. It’s by the spirit of the Lord doing the work. And it’s being done, friends, through people who depend on him alone. So prayer is that great awareness, friends, that we can do nothing and God can do everything. And even better, God will do all things. God will do all things through those who ask him. I mean, I just constantly, when I pray in the mornings, I try to imagine. I’ve said it before, I’m sure. It’s like God’s up against this barn. You know, it’s a cartoon where the walls are bending because the grain’s getting ready to pop through the windows. And he’s like, is somebody going to ask me for some of this? Like, I want to give it to somebody. I want to use somebody. I want somebody to be desperate for me to show up in their lives. So, yeah, see the need and live for the need. But before you even live for it, Jesus says, have this. This heavenly mindset, pray for the need. Because that’s what’s going to make the work worth doing. About that great apostle Paul, who penned so much of the scriptures, who planted so many churches. What does he say over and over and over again? Pray. If you don’t pray, I’m not going to have courage. Pray or the gospel’s not going to come to you, come to others as it did come to you. So Paul sees that. He’s nothing without the power of prayer.

But if we need more encouragement about prayer, Jesus says something peculiar. I don’t want you to miss it. He doesn’t just say, pray to the Lord. Notice he says, pray to the Lord of the harvest. In other words, this God you’re praying to, yeah, he’s totally already in control of who’s coming. He knows who’s coming. He knows how they’re coming. He is Lord of the harvest. So what you’re praying for, God’s like, all right, I’m going to do my best to get in there and figure out what we can do here. God is encompassing over the harvest already. He is Lord of it. It’s his harvest. And when God’s worker is filled with God’s power, going God’s harvest, friends, we’re going to get God’s fruit. We’re going to get a yield of eternity. So what more encouragement could you need to pray and go with all fears and fears? And it’s knowing that it’s the Lord in me, working through me in his field for his glory.

You know, Jim Cymbala, I’ve mentioned it before, but I love the quote. And I mentioned it a few weeks ago. You know how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday? You know how popular a preacher is by who comes on Sunday night? And you find out how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting. And I just think there’s so much wisdom in that. Do we? Do we want to depend on Jesus together to pray and pray some more? The labor is a privilege. But friend, it’s a privilege, isn’t it, to move the hand of God in prayer? A very, very popular quote, but it’s worth repeating. Oswald Chambers.

Prayer does not prepare us for the greater work. Prayer is the greater work.

Prayer is the greater work, friends.

The great need, I want to say to us here at the end, the great need is fulfilled by God’s great grace. We have a great need, but that great need is amply provided by God’s great grace. Jesus came, and Jesus came not just to show us the compassion we need, but Jesus came. And He was compassion to us. He was love to us. Jesus was our salvation. And Jesus, if we’ve truly seen Jesus right, you know what it’s going to cause us to do? I want to go live for Jesus because I found my new life, and it’s in Him alone. And I get to know Him and pray to Him and talk to Him. So the great need, friends, it’s amply provided by God’s great grace. And that great grace is moving out over the world, and Jesus isn’t going to stop us. He’s not going to stop until He’s called all His in. So I just want to end with just reading the Great Commission to us.

Matthew 28, 18, it says, And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. And behold, I’m with you always. To the end of the age. Let’s pray together.

Father, we come before You with boldness

because the shed blood of Christ has made us clean, has made us right, has qualified us to come into Your presence, to know You, to be heard by You.

And Father, we come and we praise You for Your compassion

that You would give up Your most precious thing, the one You love the most, Your Son, to die a criminal’s death, to die humiliated, naked, nailed to a piece of wood for us. Amen.

Oh, I just pray we would just love the Gospel, love the compassion of the Gospel, and we would be people of Gospel compassion.

That we would love people, not with our own power, not with our own strength, but with the fullness of the Spirit. That You would use us. That we would be instruments, that we would be Your hands and Your feet. And Jesus, how You are reaching the nations. How You are reaching the lost.

So Lord, I just pray You would break our heart for lost people, but empower us to reach them all the same.

And Lord, all we can do is just say thank You for Your grace

that makes us new. I just pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.