Introduction: The famous explorer, Rear Admiral Robert Peary, who is credited as being the first person ever to reach the North Pole, was on one of his many Polar expeditions one time headed north with one of his dog teams. At the end of the day, when he stopped to take a bearing on his latitude he was perplexed to discover that he actually was farther south than he had been at the beginning of the day.

The mystery was eventually solved when he found out that he had been traveling on a gigantic ice floe. Ocean currents were pulling the ice floe south faster than the dog teams were running north. In other words, he thought he was running in the right direction, but he was getting farther away from his goal.

I believe that same dilemma is one our church and any church must constantly monitor. We can be guilty of moving in many directions, trying many programs, attempting many tasks; but all the while getting further and further away from the goal that our founder, the Lord Jesus Christ, had for us from the beginning.

The one thing that interested the Lord Jesus more than anything else was the harvest. He calls himself in Matthew 9:38 "the Lord of the harvest." It was the harvest that moved him to leave the glory of heaven and come to a world filled with sin. He said in Luke 19:10, "The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

The harvest is also the reason we are here. He said in John 20:20, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you." Jesus Christ is still the Lord of the harvest, and He is still calling for laborers to join him in sowing the seed of the gospel and reaping eternal souls for the glory of God. I want you to see how the Lord Jesus viewed people as a harvest to be gathered.

I want you to see immediately how the Savior of the world became the servant of the world. God’s son willingly became humanity’s servant. When Jesus was on this earth He literally poured himself out in ministering to others. It was not easy.

Matthews tells us, "Jesus went about all the cities and villages." The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that at this time there were over two hundred cities and villages in the region of Galilee, which was an area about forty miles wide and seventy miles long. Because the land was so fertile it was a booming area for farmers, which was the number one occupation of that day. He estimated that the smallest villages and cities contained at least 15,000 people. So based on that assessment, Galilee probably contained at least three million people. Jesus went about from village to village, city to city, trying to minister to as many of them as he could. He could not get to everybody. But he was willing to get to anybody, whether they were a somebody or a nobody, if they needed ministry.

We are told that he had three priorities of ministry: Teaching, preaching, and healing. Now when you think about it, you realize why that pretty much sums up all of ministry. Teaching is ministry to the soul, preaching is ministry to the spirit, and healing is ministry to the body.

To put it another way, teaching ministers to the mind, preaching ministers to the heart, and healing ministers to our body. So Jesus had an intellectual ministry through his teaching, a spiritual ministry through his preaching, and a physical ministry through his healing.

There is a place for each one of these ministries, because they all meet a special need of every human being. Teaching addresses a person’s lack of knowledge; preaching addresses a person’s need to recognize their sin; healing addresses the need to be whole.

Here at First Baptist Church we teach the Bible…( Sarah Waddell’s Bible Study…) We preach God’s Word as truth…We seek for people to be fed, clothed and whole both physically and emotionally…Yet we are in danger of forgetting in all we do that the ultimate passion of Jesus was for there to be more people, all people, in eternity! He taught, preached and healed to see lost people saved, and so must we!

But the point not to be missed is this: Jesus was doing all that he could for God and all that He could for others. Jesus didn’t wait for people to come to him for ministry; He took ministry to the people. We ought to learn all over again that we come to the church to worship, but we must leave the church to work.

A Gallup survey discovered recently that only 10% of American church members are active in any kind of personal ministry, and that 50% of al church members have no interest in serving in any ministry. May I tell you the greatest need of our church? We need to turn every member into a minister and every believer into a servant. [Tell story of Donna] If your salvation has not motivated you for service, you had better go back and check your salvation.

"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd" (v. 36). Jesus saw people the way they really were. He could look past their faces and see their fear. He could look into their heart and see their hurt. When the Pharisees looked at a multitude, they simply saw a crowd of people. But when Jesus looked at a multitude, he saw a flock of sheep.

He saw how the sheep were hurting. We are told they were "weary." The word in the Greek language literally means "to flay or to skin." In other words, it means to be harassed, troubled, battered, bruised, mangled, ripped apart, worn out, exhausted. I have learned that if you talk to anybody long enough, you will find that everybody has had heartache and everybody has experienced hurt.

He saw how the sheep were helpless. They were "scattered." That word literally means cast down, to be prostrate and unable to get up because of a mortal wound. If a sheep ever falls over on its back, it will starve to death because it cannot right itself and get up. Humanity is helpless to right itself from a place of being fallen from God’s purpose and plan.

He saw how the sheep were hopeless. They were "like sheep having no shepherd." It can be said, without apology, that a person without God is not only lost, he is hopelessly lost. Paul said that without Christ we are people "having no hope and without God in the world." Someone has described a lost person as "A blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there." Can you picture anything more hopeless than that?

You probably know that the most stupid animal in the world is a sheep and sheep cannot find their way home if they ever wander away from the flock; and if they get scattered, only a shepherd can bring them back together. Almost 3,000 years ago the prophet Isaiah said, "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6).

When Jesus saw these hurting, helpless, hopeless sheep, these "walking wounded," the Bible says, "He was moved with compassion." Compassion is the missing jewel in the crown of the modern day church. It has been well said many times, "The world will never care how much we know until they know how much we care." We will never care for people the way Jesus cared for them, until we see people the way Jesus saw them.

Too often we don’t have compassion for the lost because we don’t see them as spiritually dead. It is sad to be physically blind, but far worse to be spiritually blind and unable to see the truth. It is a challenge to be physically deaf, but it is far worse to be spiritually deaf and unable to hear the truth. It is sad to be physically impaired but it is far worse to be spiritually lame and unable to come to the truth.

"Then He said to his disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’" (vv. 37-38). The harvest is greater now than it has ever been. There are over four billion people on this planet who have never been given the first opportunity to receive Jesus Christ. There are 160 million Americans who have never been born again.

What does the Lord Jesus do? He calls us to prayer. But, amazingly, he does not ask us to pray for the lost; he asks us to pray for the laborers. He does not ask us to pray for the harvest, He asks us to pray for the harvesters. He does not ask us to pray for the sheep, He asks us to pray for the shepherds.

Every Christian has been commanded by the Lord Jesus to pray this prayer, and to ask the Lord to send out laborers into the harvest. But be careful before you pray this prayer, because every Christian is to be an answer to this prayer. Don’t you ever pray for a lost person unless you are willing to go to that person yourself and be the instrument that God uses to bring that person to Jesus Christ.

There is a harvest. Jesus called it "a great harvest," waiting to be gathered, ripe for the picking. The problem is not with the size of the harvest; the problem is with the lack of the harvesters.

A little boy was asked to go somewhere by his dad. His little boy looked at him and said, "I ain’t going." Well, his dad did not like that kind of language, and he said, "Son, you’re not supposed to use the word ‘ain’t.’ That is not proper English." He then proceeded to give his son an English lesson. He said, "Now listen carefully. First person singular: I am not going. Second person singular: You are not going. Third person singular: He is not going. Third person singular: He is not going. First person plural: We are not going. Second person plural: You are not going. Third person plural: They are not going." He said, "Now, son, do you understand it?" His son said, "Yes sir, it looks like ain’t nobody going."

Well, that is the problem compared to the need—nobody’s going, or at least not enough. You know, there are only two gears in a Christian’s motor—"go" and "no." Which gear are you in?

Conclusion: While I was in Washington, D.C. with the Youth Choir recently they sang one night at a place called Christ House. Christ House is a hospital for homeless people. In the large room where they sang there was a tapestry on the wall that got my attention. It was drawn by one of the residents and was made into a tapestry by a very gifted person. It showed in the first scene three figures, each holding a large item—a bottle, a crack pipe and a syringe. The next showed a figure lying down, obviously immobilized by their drugs. The third showed a figure standing before two buildings—an emergency room and a jail. The fourth frame showed three figures listening to someone preach. The fifth showed those same figures on their knees before Jesus—his face brown, his clothes African. The final frame showed those same three figures walking away from Jesus with nothing in their hand – totally free!

In the tapestry of our world we are called to be the figure in the fourth frame. We are not the reason they are lost. We are not the one who can make them whole or set them free. We are the ones, though, who can tell them who can set them free. Will you be the figure in the fourth frame—sharing ministry, seeing misery and seeking other ministers in the harvest?

Sunday, July 22, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org