Do You Have Jesus Heart towards the Lost?

(Matthew 9:35-38)

I. Introduction.
A. Orientation.
Weve seen that to know Jesus
Means that His moral image is being formed in you.
That means that everything that is true of Him, morally,
Is becoming true of you in some degree
In other words, you have His heart
You love what He loves and hates what He hates.

Weve been looking at how this worked itself out in His life
So that you can see what His Spirit is doing in you
What He is aiming at
So that you can work with Him
To become more like Jesus.

We see in this part of Scripture

That as Jesus was going throughout Israel,
Teaching and proclaiming the Gospel,
And doing miracles
That not only proved He was speaking Gods truth,
But were also acts of grace and mercy
That as He looked at the people,

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His heart was moved
Not with anger
Although it could have been
Because they were, for the most part, unconverted;
These are the ones would later reject Him,
And hand Him over to the Romans to be crucified
He didnt look at them in anger, but with compassion.
Why?

He did because He looked beyond how they would respond to Him,

And what they would do to Him,
And He saw instead their need:
That they were distressed and dispirited
They were troubled and discouraged
Because they were like sheep who had no shepherd
They were people with no spiritual guidance.
Their leaders had neglected to feed them the truth,
And lead them in the ways of the Lord.
They had closed the kingdom of heaven to them,
And used them for their own gain.

Jesus looked beyond their spiritual condition,

He looked beyond what they would do to Him,
And He saw their need

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And He was moved with compassion He felt sympathy, pity for them
He wanted to do something for them, and He did
He healed them and ministered the Gospel to them.
But His efforts wouldnt be enough, and so He told His disciples:
The harvest is plentiful there are so many who need to hear the Gospel.
But the workers are few there are few qualified and equipped to bring it to them
Jesus was the only One doing this, while He was training them
And so pray to the Lord of the harvest that He might send more workers to reach
them
That He would not only equip and use them,
But that through their labor in the Gospel,
There would be even more that could do this work.
B. Preview.
What was true then is no less and perhaps even truer today:
The Lord needs more laborers in His harvest.
This morning, I want us to look at three things.
1. That there are many all around you who need to be reached with the Gospel.
2. That there are few qualified and equipped to bring it to them.
3. And so you need to pray to the Lord,
That He would use you,
And that through you, He would raise up many more to do this work.
II. Sermon.
A. First, lets consider that there are many all around you who need to be reached
with the Gospel.
I dont think I really need to labor this point.

This country wouldnt be in the situation it is in

Nor the world for that matter
If this werent the case.
The vast majority of people in our nation and the world are not believers.
Even most who claim to be believers are not believers.
There are few who have anything of Jesus image and nature being formed in them
As the Bible says will be true of all believers.
Jesus said many are called, but few chosen (Matt. 22:14).
The path that leads to life is narrow, there are few who find it (Matt. 7:14).
Im not trying to be ungracious; thats just the way it is.

Because there are so few who believer, there are many who are in danger.
I dont need to remind you
That whoever dies without repenting of their sins and trusting Jesus, goes down
into hell
Where they will face the consequences of every one of their sins
Against an infinitely holy God, forever,
Once there, there is no escape.
If theyre going to be saved, it has to be while theyre alive
Death seals their condition.

The only thing God has done to save them is the work He did through Jesus.
If they dont trust Jesus, if they dont repent, they wont be saved.
But if they dont hear the Gospel, they cant trust, they cant repent; they cant be
saved.

They need to hear the Gospel

The simple message of what God has done through His Son.
Does that mean if they hear it, theyll be saved?
No, they might reject it,
If the Lord doesnt have mercy on them.
But one thing is certain:
If they dont hear it, they have no hope at all.

B. Second, what compounds the problem is that there are few qualified and equipped
to bring this message to them.
Only true believers are really qualified to bring it,
And, as weve seen, there are few who are saved.

Among these few, there are fewer who are equipped to tell them.
Sadly, you can be a true believer
But be confused about what the Lord says.
Its very common, even among believers today
To think the Bible teaches that you are saved merely by believing the facts
You dont have to love and trust Jesus,
You dont have to repent of your sins,
But you will make it to heaven.

It is possible to be saved and believe this

As long as you are trusting and repenting.
Sometimes you can be the victim of bad teaching.

But if you tell someone they can be saved

By just believing the facts,
Without trusting and repenting,
You will leave them condemned and on their way to hell,
But convinced that theyre on their way to heaven
That is worst condition you can leave them in.

Among these, there are still fewer

Whose lives measure up to what God calls them to be.
The message needs to come in power as well as in truth.
Your life, your love, your gentleness, your care and concern,
Speak as loud or louder than your message.

Among these, there are even fewer who are willing

To take the message to unbelievers.
Years ago, Donna and I were part of an Evangelical Church
That hosted about 3000 for worship every Sunday,
But could only muster about 50 when it came to evangelism
Thats about 1.6%.
Thats because there are only a few among those who are saved
That have the spiritual maturity necessary to want to bring it to them.
You need a love that is strong enough to minister to those
Who are like those Jesus ministered to
Those already bent against the Gospel,

Who will likely be antagonistic to what you have to say

Only those who have grown strong enough in Gods love
Will have the strength they need to reach the lost.

There are so many who need to hear the Gospel,

And yet so few equipped to reach them.
And so what should you do?

C. Finally, you need to do what Jesus told His disciples here: pray that the Lord
would use you and that through you He would raise up many more to do this work.
You need to pray that the Lord would use you
To reach these who are perishing.
When was the last time someone whom you knew died
Who didnt know the Lord?
How did that make you feel?
What went through your mind?
Why didnt I do more to help them find Jesus?
Why didnt I pray more for them?
Why didnt I reach out to them while there was time?

What does that teach you about what you should do for those still living?
You need to reach out to them with the Gospel while you can.
You need to make sure you know Him,
That you know the truth and can effectively communicate it,
That youre living a life that is consistent with the truth,

And that your love for your neighbor is strong enough

To endure whatever they might throw at you for telling them the truth.

This is something you should always be trying to do

Not just at certain times, but all the time;
Never being afraid that someone might find out youre a Christian,
But being afraid they dont find out, that they dont hear the Gospel.

Even if you witnessed to everyone you knew

Or had the opportunity to throughout your whole life,
You would reach very few,
And there are so many who need to hear.

What is it that gets in the way?

There are likely many things that seem to,
But they probably all boil down to one: fear.
Youre afraid you might lose a friend,
That they might get angry at you,
That they might not accept you and youll be an outcast
Then youre in good company,
Because the same thing happened to Jesus and His disciples
Maybe youre afraid that you might not do a good job
And lose the only opportunity they will ever have to hear the Gospel.
All these things are possible,

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But what will happen if they dont hear, if you dont tell them?
They will perish!

What can you do to overcome fear?

How did you overcome it in the past when you shared the Gospel?
Maybe the Lord gave you a clear opportunity
Things just fell into place:
The topic came up,
Someone asked what you believe,
It just naturally flowed in the conversation.

What about the times when it didnt come up,

But you told them anyway?
Where did you find the strength?
You likely found it in two places:
Your love for the Lord
Who wants you to share His Gospel with everyone
And your love and concern for that individual
Your father or mother, your brother or sister, your friend, your neighbor
You cared about them so much
That you pushed through all the barriers all the concerns
Because you didnt want them to perish.
In other words, your compassion for them overwhelmed you.

As Jesus went through these cities and villages

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And saw the situation His people were in

His heart was moved with compassion to reach out to them.
Thats what gives you the power to do the same.

If you want to be more effective in reaching others,

You need a greater compassion
A greater love and concern for their eternal wellbeing.
You need a love that can look beyond how they might respond,
To their need:
To what will happen to them if they dont trust Jesus.

Dont forget, theyre no different than you were.

You were dead in your sins,
Heading to the same place.
But someone shared the Gospel with you,
And the Lord changed your heart.
Look at what Hes done for you
He can do the same for them
He will do the same for them, if they are His sheep
But He will only do it through the Gospel.
They need to hear it,
And only someone who knows it and has embraced it
Can bring it to them.

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But theres one more point here:
Even if we and every believer today
Did all in our power to reach mankind,
It wouldnt be enough: We need more workers.
Where will we find them?
The Lord will raise them up, as we are faithful to this call.
We need to pray that the Lord would use us
To reach others
To evangelize,
And to make disciples,
So that they can join us in this work.

Dont look for someone else to do this work

It starts with us.
The harvest is plentiful,
But the laborers are few,
Lets pray to the Lord of the harvest
That He would fill our hearts with compassion for the lost,
That He would send us to this work,
And give us success,
That there would be more workers to carry out His work on earth,
And more voices to praise God in heaven. Amen.
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