Hope for the Harassed and Helpless
Joel Gorveatte · Tidal Church Moncton · April 3, 2022 · All In series
Joel Gorveatte teaches from Matthew 9:35-38, showing how Jesus went out, saw people with compassion, and sent ordinary followers into the harvest. He encourages the church to leave its home court and invite neighbours to meet Jesus.
More from Joel Gorveatte · The All In series
Topics: Hope, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:01] Well, today we are in Matthew chapter 9. And so if you brought a Bible, or if you want to look it up on your phone in Matthew chapter 9, today we are going to talk about the connection between Jesus and basketball. And so we're gonna ask you two questions today. What do Jesus and basketball have in common? And why is it hard for churches and Christians to reach our communities for Jesus? And I think some of the answer is found in Matthew chapter 9. And so what I wanna ask you to do is, if you would, read this out loud together with me, the Word of God today, in unison.
[0:46] Those of you who are at home and online right now, wherever you are, it'd be great if you would read out loud as well. As we read together, this story from the life of Jesus in Matthew chapter 9, beginning in verse 35. Here we go. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
[1:33] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." Jesus called His 12 disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Now notice here that Jesus didn't just call His disciples to go out and make a difference, but He also equipped them with the power to do it. Because listen now, whatever God calls you to do, He will equip you to accomplish. Let me hear you say that out. Come on, everybody, repeat after me. Say it out good and loud. Here we go, repeat after me. Say, whatever God, come on, out, whatever God calls me to do, He will equip me to accomplish.
[2:28] Okay, so back to our two questions. What do Jesus and basketball have in common and why is it hard for churches and Christians to reach our communities for Jesus? I wonder if anybody's watching March Madness. Any college basketball fans, those of you, maybe some are watching online because you watched the game, you were up too late last night, I don't know. But tomorrow night is the national championship game, isn't it, the NCAA national championship game between Kansas and the Tar Heels of North Carolina. Now here's what's interesting. More than any other sport, college basketball is dominated by something called home court advantage.
[3:18] What is home court advantage? It is the statistical reality that it is easier for teams to win at home than it is for them to win on the road. Why? Because at home you have your fans who are cheering for you and clapping for you. They're encouraging you on, they're letting you know that you're doing a good job. I wonder if we could kind of practice what home court advantage looks like. They're cheering, they're encouraging you, they're letting you know. Okay, that's called home court advantage, right? When you know people are in your corner, they're there in the room to support you. In fact, statistics show that even referees favor home court advantage, giving them more favorable foul calls.
[4:10] Here are some of the statistics that show you home court advantage. In the last 20 years, Kansas has won 276 home games compared to only 15 losses. That is a 94.85% winning percentage at home. Duke, 269 wins to 20 losses. That is a 93.8%, .08% home court advantage. Gonzaga, 247 to 20, that's 92.51%. Michigan State, my Spartans, 260 to 32, an 89.04% home court advantage. That is how much stronger they are when they are playing at home.
[4:56] Now here's something interesting though, that COVID and crowd restrictions have actually changed things. COVID took away some of the home court advantage. Look at this chart. During COVID, teams won less when they had to play in an empty room. Isn't that interesting? With nobody there cheering them on. I wonder if this is kind of like church. I thought the similarities were interesting. Down from 68% down to 64%. Teams were more likely to lose during COVID simply because they did not have anybody there to encourage them.
[5:42] And I wonder if that's why many churches and Christians have struggled through COVID because people were not coming together to encourage and cheer each other on. And I know we had to do what we had to do, but listen, every choice has consequences. And so here's the point. Here's what that means. It's just a reality that winning at home is easier than it is winning out on the road. And here's the difference. The difference between good and great is the strength to operate outside of your comfort zone. See, the greatest teams are the ones who can actually leave the comfort and security of their home court and go out into hostile territory where the crowds are booing against you and cheering against you and yet continue to be effective even outside of your comfort zone.
[6:50] And listen, the same is true in church. This is our home court, right? Where we come and we talk about Jesus and we sing together and we pray together and we encourage one another and we challenge one another and we support one another and we love on one another in the name of Jesus. This is our home court. But Jesus has also called us to take the gospel out on the road where it's not always so easy, among our friends and our coworkers and our people at school and the people in our neighborhood. And so let's look back at our passage today.
[7:35] that we read together, Matthew chapter 9, and notice the first two words here: Jesus went. See, Jesus didn't just sit back in His home court and wait for people to come to Him. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness. And when He saw, now notice, what did Jesus see? What did He pay attention to? When He saw the crowds, He had what? Compassion on them. Why?
[8:21] Because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. They were harassed and helpless. Why? Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." And so let's go back and look at those key words that we highlighted. First, it says, number one, that Jesus went.
[9:08] He didn't sit around and wait for people to come to Him. Now, I don't know about you, but I grew up in church, right? And so often churches are like, here we sit with our address on Irrelevant Road at the corner of Stuck in Yesterday Avenue. And if people wanna learn about Jesus, they know where they are, they can just come on in whenever they want to. But that's not our calling as Christians. Yes, this is a place where we come to be encouraged and discipled and equipped to then go out and live our faith in the public square, to go out and be world changers. And so number two, it says Jesus saw the people.
[9:53] So when Jesus went, that is when He saw. Sometimes Christians will pray, and I admit that I've done this, will pray, "Lord, give me a heart for lost people. Lord, I just wanna see You change the world. God, use me." But see, we don't get a heart for lost people just sitting in church. We don't change the world sitting at home. If all we do is spend time with other Christians, then we will begin to lose our heart for the world. See, sometimes the worst thing we can do is to just spend all our time with other Christians. Yes, we need the home court to encourage and build us up and love one another and strengthen one another.
[10:46] But it's so that we can then go out on the road. Jesus went and He saw, and that's when He had what? He had compassion. Here's the question I wanna ask Christians today. When you look at all the sin out in the world, and you look at all the evil and brokenness out in the world today, which do you feel more for the world? Condemnation or compassion? Because come on, I think one of the problems sometimes, as Christians in our God-given desire for holiness, we want to see God's kingdom come into the world so that it's here on earth as it is in heaven, so that it's here in Moncton and here in Dieppe and here in Shediac and here in Salisbury and here in the Maritimes and here on this planet, around the world. Jesus said we were to pray that it would be here on earth as it is in heaven.
[11:54] We want His kingdom to come. And so we desire His holiness for the world. And yet, I think one of the problems is there can be a little shift that happens where we look at the world and instead of compassion, we feel condemnation for the world. And so why did Jesus feel compassion rather than condemnation? It's because when Jesus looked at all the problems in the world, Jesus saw things that sometimes we miss. See, Jesus looked beyond just the surface problems and He looked down beneath the surface to the root of the issue.
[12:45] And here's what He said, well, here's what it says in verse 36, "When Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them," because why? What did He see was the reality of what was going on beneath the surface in people's lives, who were hardened against God, and people who were struggling out in the world? Jesus felt compassion because He realized what was really going on is that they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. See, Jesus saw their sin, but He saw beneath it. Jesus saw their hatred and racism, but He saw beneath it.
[13:32] He saw their selfishness and their violence, and He saw the evil in this world. And Jesus saw four things, four things real quickly. First of all, it says He saw that the people feel harassed and helpless. Does this sound about right with inflation and rising interest rates and the cost of housing and the war in Ukraine and violence in other parts of the world, like the Oscars with movie star Will Smith going around slapping people? The slap heard around the world this week, with the division created in our society over the last few years with COVID stuff and vaccine stuff and politics and confusion and the world that just seems scarier and scarier.
[14:23] And Jesus looked beneath the surface of all that. And He saw that deep down at the root, that people are wandering around feeling harassed and helpless. Why? Because they're like sheep without a shepherd. In other words, number two, people are desperate for direction. That's what sheep without a shepherd means, right? People are stumbling around through life. They don't know what to do. They don't know where to go. And so what happens is, in our desire to be an independent person, we find our independence by going and just doing whatever the world does. Because sheep just do what sheep do.
[15:10] We just trail after what seems right in the moment and follow after the ways of the world. But Jesus said, what we have to realize in the midst of that is that there are some, number three, there are some who are actually ready. Jesus said there is some good news in the midst of the bad news of this world and that the harvest, whether we realize it or not, the harvest is actually plentiful. That there are plenty of people who are ready, that God has been preparing for a divine encounter with their Creator. They're hungry.
[15:55] There was a survey done where they asked people who don't go to church, "Why don't you go to church?" And they found that the answer was not the profound, deep philosophical answer that you would think. Now we've been doing a survey. We've surveyed thousands and thousands of people in Moncton, both through email and social media over the last week or two, asking why don't people believe in God, some of the top reasons. But what we didn't ask is why don't people go to church? That was not the question, because that's not the series that we're gonna do starting in Easter. We're gonna do a series, "Why I Can't Believe in God," not "I don't go to church because." And yet what they found in this one survey is that many people, the simple reason that they gave for why they don't go to church is this.
[16:47] They say, "I've never been invited." I've never been invited. I remember I talked to a young guy here in Moncton not too long ago and I invited him to church. We were talking about it. He was like, "Oh, I used, you know, I graduated. My high school graduation was held there at that church." And he said, "And I think I went to a community event or a concert there one time. I've been there." And I said, "Oh, well, we'd love to see you on a Sunday morning." And he asked me an interesting question that Christians just wouldn't think. He was like, "Oh, how much does it cost? Like, what are the ticket charges to come to church on Sunday?" People don't know many times that they are welcome.
[17:35] And so Jesus said, here's the great problem. He said, number four, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Jesus didn't point just to the problem of sin or social justice or COVID or war or money or natural disasters. What Jesus said in the midst of all of those things what really grieved Him was the lack of people who share His heart of compassion for the world to go share the good news of Jesus. One of the great men of the 1800s was named D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody brought more people to Christ in the 1800s than just about any other person.
[18:23] He was a salesman. He was a salesman who was just working to make a living, working day by day. And one day somebody invited him to go to church and hear about Jesus, and he went and he gave his life to Christ and was just changed. And one day as he started to go to church, one day he decided to go to membership class. And so he went to the class and somebody said, who was at his church that he started going to, they said that they had never met anybody in their entire life who knew less about the Bible than D.L. Moody. He knew nothing. In fact, he went to membership class to try to join the church. And they started asking him questions and realized that he didn't know anything and said, "Man, you need to hang out for a little while before you become a member."
[19:13] So the next year he went back to membership class again and he still didn't know the answers to any of the Bible questions. But they saw how much he loved Jesus and how he had such a good heart. And so they let him become a member and he started to grow in his faith and studied the Bible and fell in love with people and as he shared the love of Jesus. And it is said that through his preaching, millions. You heard me right. Millions of people came to Christ. In the later years of his life he spoke in England and thousands would come to hear him speak, and yet he never had any credentials.
[19:59] He never was ordained. He never had a formal education. But he loved the Bible. He loved Jesus. He loved people. And God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Listen to what D.L. Moody said. He said, "If the church people don't like the work that you're trying to do, you can go out into the streets and gather the little children and bring them to Sunday school." By the way, this was in the 1800s. Today you would say with their parents' permission. He said, "The first couple of years that I attempted to talk in the church, I saw that the older people did not like it.
[20:44] I had sense enough to know that I was a bore to them. And so I went out into my neighborhood and found 18 children to come on the first Sunday. And I led them to Sunday school. And I found that I had something I could do. I was encouraged and I kept up that good work. And if I am worth anything to the Christian church today, it is as much due to that work as to anything else. I could not explain scripture passages to them, for I did not understand them. But I could tell them stories about Jesus and that He loved them and He died for them. I did the best I could. I used the little talent that I had, and God kept giving me more talent and let me continue finding greater work to do for Him."
[21:37] Isn't it true that the more you keep giving to Jesus, the more He keeps giving to you? And that's what happened in the next verse. So as you continue into the next verse in chapter 10, verse 1, it says, "So then Jesus called His 12 disciples to Him and gave them" what? He gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Look at that word "authority." You see, these disciples were just ordinary, everyday men. Matthew was a tax collector who, frankly, most people in his city didn't even like before he came to Jesus. Simon was a political activist. Many of them had been fishermen, people who were blue-collar workers, but Jesus gives extraordinary power to ordinary Christians.
[22:31] I received an amazing video this week from the Bahamas. You remember that our Christmas offering, not this year, but the year before, our Christmas offering was after the hurricane in the Bahamas that destroyed many of the villages and towns on some of the islands in the Bahamas. And that year, our Christmas offering, about $100,000, was enough to put roofs on, I think, pretty much all of the damaged houses in one particular town and rebuild the infrastructure in a village known as Eight Mile Rock. And this week, just this week, I received a video from the Bahamas that I wanna show you.
[23:18] Now, this was just taken impromptu by Tanya Nace as she rode in the back seat of the car there in the Bahamas, and she was talking to this guy, and you're gonna see him sitting in the front seat talking. His name is Pastor Raymond from our Wesleyan church there. And he mentions World Hope, which is our ministry partner that we do so many of these projects with. And then he says two names. He mentions Jon Westrup and Alan. He's talking about Alan Dunn, two guys from our church, along with a whole bunch of other people from this church. Many of you who are here today who went to be part of those projects, and some of you who maybe are online with us right now who went to be part of those projects to rebuild this village, listen to what Pastor Raymond says.
[24:19] Couple of persons before Jon came, right? And I mean, Jon got together and said, "Jon, these people have had promises over and over." He lived here. Yeah. And never got no help. What World Hope did for them is what they didn't do for them in over 20 years or so. And that was, I mean, one of the greatest help. And I thank God for that. And I thank God for World Hope. And for that reason, I kid you guys, it has become, it is a part of my prayer.
[25:08] I call it World Hope. And my prayer on a daily basis. Because I know what World Hope have done for the people of this island. I call Jon and Alan, those guys, in prayer daily. I will never forget them. Because what they have done in this island. And no offense to Jon and Alan and all the others who went to work in those projects at Eight Mile Rock. And no offense to all of you who gave so generously to make it happen. But guess what? We ain't nothing special. Jon and Alan and all the people on that team and the people from this church, we are just normal people.
[26:00] Just simple folks from a simple church in a little place called Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. But God still uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And listen, what God needs is not your ability, He needs your availability. He doesn't need you to be wonderful, He just needs you to be willing. People say, "Why don't I see God moving in amazing ways? Why don't I see God doing miraculous things in my life? Where is God's power?" And many times, maybe I am not seeing the power of God because I've not been courageous enough to work with God.
[26:55] You see, listen, when we settle into safe and comfortable lives and we sit back and we just follow the ways of the world and we just kind of do nothing for God, let me ask you a logical question. When you're doing nothing, taking no risks for God, why would you ever need to see the power of God? But it's when we have faith that rises up and believe in a great God and start to get God-sized plans and God-sized visions and we begin to step out in faith and step out to advance God's kingdom and to make a difference and to take risks with God and believe in Him for His power, to save us and to rescue us and to use us for His glory.
[27:46] It's when we do that that we begin to see Him move in powerful and miraculous ways in our life, amen. See, that's the difference. That's what's so often missing. And so at the end of this book of Matthew, Jesus gives what is called the Great Commission. What's interesting is these are the final words of Jesus on this earth before He ascended into heaven. We call it the Great Commission. Matthew 28:18-20 says, "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
[28:32] Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" Around here, we say it like this, God's love in us to the world. It's the Great Commission. In fact, I wonder if you'd read that out loud with me. Let's read that together. This is our calling, it's our commission. Jesus came to them and said, "Here we go." Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
[29:22] Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Jesus says the harvest is plentiful. Why? Because of this reality that people out there are harassed and helpless and feel like sheep without a shepherd. But then Jesus says, "Who will go for Me?"
[30:10] Will you be the one? For some of you, maybe you're in the position that I was somewhere around almost 30 years ago, three zero, long time ago, when God spoke to me and said, "Oh, I want you to go and be the one." And there are maybe some today that God is speaking to you, and while this is a general call for everybody, maybe God is speaking to you specifically about a calling to something in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
[30:55] Maybe it's a full-time ministry calling to begin training for ministry, or maybe it's a missionary work or a project that God has laid on your heart to begin. But there's a more general calling for everybody, and because of that, I just wanna thank you for how you serve on missions trips and children's ministry, the investment that you've made in the lives of the next generation and through teen ministry. So many people who on Wednesday night and throughout the week are investing in our teenagers, raising up the next generation for Christ, your commitment to your small group, and some of you who were afraid to take over leadership, starting a small group, but you answered the call of God to do that because you felt like it's something He put on your heart.
[31:47] Some of you who are serving those in need, all around this room I see people who are out in the community volunteering and making a difference in very tangible ways, being Jesus with skin on to your community and outreach projects, and the list goes on and on. But there's something interesting that happens this time of year, because this time of year around Easter, I don't know exactly why it is. I don't know if it's tradition and culture. I don't know if it's something supernatural. I can't explain it, but there is something that happens around this time of year as we head into Resurrection Sunday in English, often called Easter.
[32:34] I don't know why exactly it is, but there's something about this time of year when people seem particularly receptive to Jesus, and because of that, we don't wanna miss this opportunity to be part of this Great Commission calling. And we've been trying to equip you over these coming weeks to, as simply as possible, for you to be able to plant some seeds out in the community as we leave our home court and go out on the streets and invite people to consider Jesus. And so you saw earlier the video that we have.
[33:19] They mentioned Facebook, but it's also on Instagram, and you can go on our socials and find that video on different platforms, and if you could share that to people, the more we share it, the more people see it, the more the algorithms push it, and the more likely that God might be able to use it to connect with somebody who needs Jesus. But we also this year have done these little cards that we gave you, and so around this room, I think we have some ushers who are ready if you, and up in the balcony, if you did not get one of these physical cards. Now, unfortunately, those of you online, I can't help you because I can't give you one in person, but you can do sharing all the video stuff online. But if you did not get one of these cards, we want everybody to have at least one card in your hand for what we're about to do next.
[34:10] And so if you just wanna raise your hand, if you happen to slip by without getting a card, right down here, we have a few more here, and so just keep your hand up until they get it. I promise they're on their way, and they'll get those to you. Everybody just at least one more card, and then on the way out, if you need more, we're not rationing these. If you think you can give out 10 this week or in the next two weeks on the way out, they'll have them there at the door, and you can grab 10 on the way out or 20 or 100 or whatever it is you think you need. Listen, if you think you can give out 1,000, we'll order more. You just let us know, okay? But what we're going to do, the reason we want everybody to have at least one card in your hand right now is I want you to get this card in your hand, hold it right in your fingers, okay?
[35:01] I want you to get it, and then as you get it in your hand, we're gonna stand together, okay? And what we're going to do together is we're going to pray that God will use this card as a seed. Jesus talks about casting out seed, and you never know what soil it's gonna hit. And Jesus says sometimes seed will hit rocky soil, and it might not seem to take root. And sometimes it'll kind of take root for a little while, but then it kind of gets snatched up, and people start to get excited about Jesus, but then they kind of drift away.
[35:50] But Jesus said every once in a while you're gonna find somebody who's ready, and you never know until you try, right? And what we're gonna do is pray over this seed. that God will give you an opportunity, somebody this week that will come across your path. Maybe it's even a name or a face that will come to your mind right now who you know you're supposed to go and intentionally make the appointment to give it to them. For others, it might be something that happens randomly, maybe at the grocery store, maybe at a restaurant, maybe at work, maybe at school, and you're gonna keep this card on you as we pray together this week for God's anointing. Are you ready? So let's get our card. Let's get our card in our hand.
[36:37] Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray over my card and the card of each person here in this room. And even those who are online right now as they find ways, whether it's through sharing the video or other conversations, specific ways to invite people, Lord, we pray that this card would do something amazing and supernatural, not because there's anything miraculous about a card, but because Your Holy Spirit can use those conversations and those invitations. Just like Philip and Nathaniel, when he said to his friend in the New Testament, "Come and see Jesus, come and meet the One who has changed my life, and I believe He can change yours too."
[37:33] Lord, we pray right now, this very moment, for those who You are preparing for that conversation this week, for that invitation this week, Lord, that You would be working in their lives and preparing them for the seed to take root. And Lord, not just to this church. Well, this is not about building Moncton Wesley and it's about Your kingdom. It's about people crossing over from darkness into light here and around the world. And so Lord, in advance of Easter, we pray for every church that will proclaim the gospel on Easter Sunday here in our community, here and around our province and around the world. Lord, we pray for a move of God's Spirit as there is a pent-up demand, as people continue to wrestle and struggle with the questions that they have not been able to answer in these last couple of years.
[38:27] Lord, we pray for this church and churches all around our city and around the world for a special anointing as the good news of Jesus goes forth, that the seed of God's Word would take root, a root in people's hearts, and lives would be transformed as people come to Jesus, as bondage is broken, as marriages are restored, as addictions fall, as healings and miracles take place, and most of all, as people find salvation in Jesus, who alone is the hope of eternity. And for that, we praise You and we give You all the glory and all the praise. May Your kingdom be here on earth as it is in heaven.
[39:14] And all God's people say together, amen, amen, amen, amen.