· I am here to love and serve you with my gifts. I pray that you will be blessed richly by the holy spirit we will see the Gospel triumphant and God receive glory for the work that he doing here in this community. (Pray)
· Intro the Story
o Good morning guys. In the story that we are digging into we are going to experience Jesus’s heart towards his city. In the piece of Matthew that we are going to be going over today we are going to rally behind and discuss how Christ models for us a heart of desperate love for those who he is sent to. We are going to discuss what it looks like for us to take on this posture, why we are taking on this posture, and how we can take on this posture. Its a beautiful snapshot. Lets walk through it together.
· Tell the story:
o 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. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”
o What were some initial things that hit you?
§ Look For:
· Proclamation of the gospel not just alluding to it.
· He is in the city, going to the centres of the city
· He is healing diseases
o How was he responding to the people?
· He has compassion for the crowds
· He sees there affliction (harassed and helpless)
· He sees they have no shepherd and he promotes the gospel as the remedy of that issue.
· We see in Christ’s heart for those who he was sent to as a desperately in love king. There is some irony in this story is there not? We have a king, the greatest king, humbled into total obscurity, pleading for the allegiance of his own people who are barely listening. Think about how frustrating that would be. It wasn’t as if he was a cruel king, he was the greatest king! The kindest, most joy filled, wonderful king of all. Yet they would not listen.
· I want to tell you guys another story. Its also about a king.
Adaption of Kierkegaard’s Parable of the King and the Maiden
o "There once was a king who loved a humble maiden. This king was of uncommon royal lineage. He was a king above kings, with power and might to make all others humble before him. Statesmen trembled at his pronouncements. None dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all who opposed him. The wealth of his holdings was unfathomable. Tribute arrived on a daily basis from lesser kings who hoped to gain his favour.
And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden who lived in the poorest village in his vast kingdom. He longed to go to this maiden and announce his love for her, but here arose the king’s dilemma: how to declare his love? Certainly, he could appear before her resplendent in his royal robes and surrounded with the Royal Guard, ready to carry her away in a carriage inlaid with gold and precious stones. He could bring her to the palace and crown her head with jewels and clothe her in the finest silks. She would surely not resist this type of proposal, for no one dared to resist the king.
But would she love him?
She might say she loved him. She might be awed by his royal splendor and tremble at the thought of being blessed with such an amazing opportunity. She might tell herself that she would be foolish to reject such a marriage proposal. But would she love him, or would she go through the motions all the while living a life of empty duty, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she love him or regret the moment of being face to face with the overwhelming grandure of the king?
Or would she be happy at his side, loving him for himself and not for his title or riches or power?
He did not want a wife who behaved as a subject to his royal decrees, cringing at his word and unwilling to do anything but agree with all he said and did. Instead, he wanted an equal, a queen whose love knew no restrictions or limitations. He wanted an equal whose voice would speak to him at all times without hesitation. Love with his beloved maiden must mean equality with her. He wanted a relationship with the woman that had neither barriers nor walls in which he was not a king and she was not a poor subject of the crown. The love shared between them would cross the chasm that threatened to keep them apart, bringing the king and peasant together and making the unequal equal. In short, he wanted the maiden to love him for himself and not for any other reason.
He had to find a way to win the maiden’s love without overwhelming her and manipulating her emotions. The king realized that to win the maiden’s love, he had only one choice. He had to become like her, without power or riches and without the title of king. Only then would she be able to see him simply for who he was and not for what his position made him. He had to become her equal, and to do this he must leave all that he had.
And so one night, after all within the castle were asleep, he laid aside his golden crown and removed his rings of state. He took off his royal robes of silk and linen and redressed himself in the common clothes of the poorest of the kingdom. Leaving by way of the servant’s entrance, the king left his crown, his castle, and his kingdom behind. As the next day’s sun rose in the east, the maiden emerged from her humble cottage to find herself face to face with a stranger, a common man with kindly eyes who requested an opportunity to speak with her and, in time, to court her for her hand in marriage."
· After they were married because of the kings sacrifice, how do you think she felt towards her new husband?
o She was immensely thankful to him.
o She loved him even greater then if he came to her in all his glory.
· How would you use your new position of queen after you were treated in such a manner?
· Is this not like us?
o Are we not the disgusting humble maidens who were adored out of the favour of the only great King? Did he not in his mercy humble himself into being a beggar –just as humble and despicable as us? HE WAS THE SENT KING FOR OUR HAND. IT WAS HIM WHO WAS SENT TO BE SACRIFICED FOR US! And he did this totally and utterly out of the radical love he has for us.
· This is the truth that allows us to be missionaries like Jesus. This is what enables us to serve, to love to share the gospel in all its forms.
o Let me tell you how.
· Matthew 9:35-38
o We see that Christ was so heartbroken for the people he was called to. This is exactly how we need to be in seeking after our mission. People who are not heartbroken over people who are dying will never help those who are dying. Think about every starving child commercial you have seen, now think if your friends child, or you neighbours child, or even your child were in the same place. You would try everything in your ability to save them from their horrible plight wouldn’t you? We do not care if we do not heartbroken over it.
o It is the same with our mission! People die every day and most do not enter life to be with the father. Hell is filling. They die, separated from the father because they did not put their trust in Christ. The only way that we will care enough to tell them about it is if we are living in the truth that we were once them ourselves.
§ We must realize and be desperately in love with them because we were saved by one who was desperately in love with us.
§ We need to be broken for our city because Christ was broken for us.
§ The intense dedication that we see in the scriptures to mission can only be achieved when we are believing that we were intensely dedicated to by Christ in his life, death, burial, and resurrection. This is the only thing that will free us.
· It is only in this practice of having faith in Christ that we will begin to see our sin of complacency die and life reign.
§ John 4:7-12
· 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
· It is only then that we can truly “have compassion” on your context. It is only then that you can see them “as sheep without a shepherd”. It is only then that “ you can pray earnestly for labourers”.
· How can we grow in this belief?
o Be living in a community that constantly is speaking and modelling this truth of the gospel to you
o Be in the word and prayer constantly
§ You can live in and experience by the holy spirit how Christ has done this on your behalf.
o BE HANGING OUT WITH PEOPLE
§ You cannot be broken over people who are not around you or who are un aware of you.
§ We need to be there.
· Go live in what Christ has done. I do not do a very good job of living in this heart of love for the context that I have been called to. Please aid me as my new community in spurring me on to this belief.
