Mission ImPossible
Matthew 9:36-38 NLT
When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to His disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the LORD who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields.”
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a mission to me. A request for volunteers to be sent out on a mission so overwhelming that it will take the anointing of God to complete it. As Christians we should all be stepping forward, raising our hands and shouting, “Here I am Lord, send me!” After all the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19,20) commissioned all believers. The Apostle Paul, by example, set a purpose for the individual believer and the Church as a whole. To share the Gospel with as many people as possible. It shows spiritual growth and an increase in wisdom. (Prov. 11:30) I believe it carries with it the greatest reward a person could ever receive in this life. To be a part of the LORD’s harvest. All the gold and silver of the world cannot equal that.
The Lord told His disciples that the fields were ripe. Ripe would mean that the fruit or grain was mature and ready to be harvested. At that time the fruit of the fig tree (Israel-Hosea 9:10, Jeremiah 24) was anything but ripe, it was rotten and stinking. This was not new for Israel, many times they were in this condition. We today have the whole Word of God, but those living then did not. One could wonder what Jesus was looking at.
Jesus knew the spiritual leadership of Israel was idle and engaged in outward religious tomfoolery that produced a self-righteousness that He would later curse as spiritual barrenness. (Matt. 21:18-19) They were focused on their own self-preservation of their coveted places or positions. There was no spiritual revival taking place in their synagogues, whole cities were being upbraided, and the priest, scribes, and Pharisees were not recognizing their day of visitation.
As for the people, they were twisted up in chaos and despair. They were stressed, oppressed, and depressed to the point that they were looking for help from anywhere they could find it. They were the blind being led by the blind. What they received from their spiritual leaders was a list of dos and don’ts, rules that ignored relationship.
Then there were the hearers of the Master’s words, the disciples. Put yourself in their shoes, Jesus looks at them and says, “pray ye.” I picture in my mind eleven of them stepping back, leaving the twelfth standing there. If the disciples felt any inadequacy, if fear and anxiety filled their minds, the Lord did not allow them to wallow in it long. Right away, I am talking next verse right away, He called them together, delegated to them authority and specific instructions, and sent them out. I saw something one day that had eluded me the first hundred times I read these first few verses in Matthew 10. Jesus was not just sending the disciples out, but inviting them in. Into His, and the Father’s heart.
When Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and talked with disciples on the signs of His coming and the end of the age. He told them of several things that would happen, then gave three parables that tell each person’s responsibility to live ready, to be good stewards of what are given, and to serve others in need. When the Lord announced to His disciples that the harvest was ripe, He knew of the coming judgment that would come upon Jerusalem. That is why He told them to forget about the four months, get busy, the harvest had to begin right now.
What about you and me?
Are the fields that we are living in ready for harvest? Do we look out across the world today and think about how dreadful things are? Do we say, “This world has gone to hell!” Let me give you a revelation here, this world is an extension or annexed property of hell! Why can I say that so strongly? Because the Word says that satan is the god of this world, temporarily. It is his domain, temporarily. But it is not our job to worry about all that. We the Body of Christ are not under his domain. We are in another Kingdom and our King has given us a mission.
So, we do not need to look out from our ornate cathedrals and modern contemporary churches, and like the Pharisee in Luke 18, get all haughty and pray to ourselves. Nor should we like our early western settlers, circle our wagons waiting for the cavalry to come. The great commission that was given to the Apostles and those that were the first to believe, has not an end date.
Nothing passed away with the passing of the Apostles as some like to proclaim. The Lord is still wanting to heal people, to deliver them from bondages, to bless and be the Provider for children. It is easy and tempting to focus on the signs. But the only signs that we should be concerned with are the signs that show the Lord that we are harvesting. A deacon in a church I once attended made this statement, and it has stuck with me.
“We can get caught up in looking for a sign which will cause us to become stationary, or we can keep moving and listen for the call.”
At the time he said this I was working in a manufacturing plant. Toward the end of a shift some would slow down or simply stop as they were anxious to leave. This behavior would often bring a sharp rebuke from the supervisors. For the Body of Christ, staying focused on the tasks that the Lord has called us to, allows us to keep witnessing, discipling, and serving.
The Lord wants a harvest! My brothers and sisters, we are the laborers of this harvest. But we must be capable of dealing with this mission. To do this our lives must reflect the transforming power of the gospel. We must be willing to submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading and remain obedient in the mission that the Lord Jesus Christ gave us. By this we go from Mission Impossible to Mission ImPossible.