Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Matthew 9:35-10:8
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  June 26, 2022

I’m guessing that at some point everyone in this room has either said or sung the words “God bless America.” In fact, it’d be interesting to have a count of the total number of times that short prayer will be spoken in the coming weeks as we approach the 4th of July. Right now, following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, I imagine there are some very different opinions on that short prayer. Just as I imagine there are some very different ideas of what it means for God to bless America as our nation celebrates its 246th anniversary. For short and simple as it is, for as common as it is, at the end of the day “God Bless America”, is pretty contentious, pretty broad, and ultimately a bit vague. Which is why, for our time together this morning, I want to focus on something more specific. I want to talk about how Christ’s Compassion Will Bless America. This is a specific and practical answer to how God wants to bless America. 

Right at the beginning of these verses, Matthew tells us that Jesus is going throughout the towns and villages of Galilee and as he preaches and heals, he gives an assessment of crowds of people in the form of two vivid pictures. When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were troubled and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out workers into his harvest.”

Here’s why those two metaphors are so striking. See, the spiritual condition of God’s people in Jesus’ day was pretty sad. They had taken God’s law and twisted it. They had turned it into a way for them to be superior to the other people around them. They had also taken God’s Gospel, his promise to send a Messiah to rescue them from sin and death, and they had reduced it to a merely political idea: They wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and restore independence to Israel. Then you had the Sadducees who had thrown most of God’s Word, including the resurrection. And you had many common people who had simply grown apathetic in faith. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) And yet, when Jesus sees these faithless people he calls them helpless sheep. In other words, that sad spiritual state was not something that these people were the cause of, it’s something that they were the casualties of. And so when Jesus comes across these crowds of people, he doesn’t get angry with them, he doesn’t degrade them, he is moved with compassion for them.  And in compassion he doesn’t see them as problems that need to be solved or enemies that need to be eliminated. No, he sees a field ready for the harvest, he sees an opportunity to share the gospel with them! That’s how Jesus assessed the times… So how do we?

It’s not hard to make the case that in our country today immorality is increasing. You might be able to make the case that hostility toward faith is intensifying. You might make the case that more and more lies about God are being bought hook line and sinker. I’d agree with you to a point. But are we able to look at people today, to look at the crowds, and see them the way that Jesus did? To see that they are primarily casualties, not causes of the sad spiritual state of our country today. I read a book that traces the development of western culture detailing how it was virtually impossible not to believe in God say 500 years ago, while in the 2022s many find this not only easy, but even inescapable. Isn’t it true, that no matter how sacred the believer’s worldview, no matter how devout, an American Christian today is constantly aware of the contestability of what they believe? Faith is just one option out of a thousand ways to live in our world today. And those dissenting voices, which were previously muted, now sing out secularism’s tune from our cell phones, tvs, and even school textbooks. In other words, people are brought into this world breathing in an atmosphere that has no thought or need for God. The ground beneath us has shifted, so to speak. Unbelief increasingly becomes the default option for people in our country. And of course our sinful nature is naturally hostile towards God to start out with. So if people were more casualties than causes in Jesus’ day spiritually, how much more true is that today?

I spoke to a father who was very concerned about his child’s social media usage, saying they had begun to parrot unchristian phrases and were conforming to a worldly perspective. And I wish you could have heard the love and compassion with which he spoke about his prayers for them. My friends, can we show the same compassion to others that we do to our own, especially when many of those people who we might consider ‘enemies’ have never had any Christian influence or love in their life at all. Can we humbly see dear souls who need a good shepherd just as much as we do? 

This past week was a gut check for me personally. I read many posts from people calling the overturn of Roe v. Wade simply the oppression of women’s rights, side-stepping and misrepresenting the main concern of prolife advocates. There were intellectually dishonest arguments with all sorts of red herrings. There was no concern for the consideration of the fetus as an actual human soul, who themselves deserve the right of life given by God. I was seething. But then I also read some Christian posts filled with hatred, not defending a biblical position, but just lashing out in anger. I realized that I too was getting sucked into this bitter, unproductive pit of hatred. And then I thought about our Scripture for today. Let us pray that God sends the Holy Spirit to renew our minds through the Word, to see people as souls who need a Shepherd. Can we be the ones to step outside of the rushing stream of “us” vs. “them” and show Christian compassion? Can we see other people as a harvest waiting for us to go to work with the Gospel? Can we see opportunities not to lash out but to love? How will Christ’s compassion change the way you approach divisive issues and talk about them? How will Christ’s compassion inform your prayers for others? How will Christ’s compassion enable you to speak the truth in love? How will Christ’s compassion move you just as it moved him? 

In the Gospel of Matthew, the word for “compassion” (esplagchnisthe) occurs exactly five times and each time it’s used Jesus is the one who feels it. And each time it moves him to do something on behalf of others. Here he sends out his disciples, in other places he heals people, and the other time he teaches and feeds the 5,000. Jesus demonstrates that what authenticates Christian compassion is the action that accompanies the one feeling it, not the emotion alone. Christ’s compassion should move us, quite literally. Did you notice that in our reading? Jesus’ compassion moves people. He sent out his disciples on a mission with his Gospel! 

So are you up to the task? Are you ready to show Christ’s compassion in word and deed? If you’re like me, you might feel quite incompetent. A bit too busy, a little too shy, definitely under-prepared, and maybe just too calloused to the world to speak and move with Christ’s compassion. But Jesus tells us that we can do what he asks, and he equips us for that task in the very last verses of our text today. He says “Freely you have received; freely give.” 

This equips us to serve others by first tearing away our pride. Before we can think about what we’re supposed to do for other people, we need to realize that the very same things that Jesus tells us to do in these verses, we needed him to do for us first. We needed him to look at us and rather than be filled with hatred, to be filled with compassion. We needed him to look at us not as problems that need to be solved, but as opportunities that need to be seized. We need to realize that Jesus saved us not simply by talking at us, not simply by sharing information with us, but by giving himself wholly and fully for us, by giving his very life in our place. By shedding his blood freely for the forgiveness of our sin. We need to see that, only by sheer grace, will that harvest on the last day include you and me. Friends, freely you have received. Now give as freely as you have received, because you’re not asked to give something you don’t already have!

You know, it’s interesting that in these verses Jesus sends out his disciples to do things like heal the sick, drive out demons and even raise people from the dead. But before he did that, he gave them the power and authority to do so. Has Jesus commissioned you directly to perform those miracles? …yeah, me neither. Don’t worry about what you don’t have. What has he given to you? Whatever that is, that’s what you give. And one thing that we all have received freely is Christ’s compassion. May this be our gift to those in our family, our community and yes, our country. Because Christ’s Compassion will bless America. Just as Jesus prayed with his disciples for the Lord to send out workers into the harvest field and then answered that prayer by sending those same disciples out, may our prayer for God to bless America be focused not just on what he gives to us, but primarily on what his compassion allows us to be for others. Freely you have received, freely give. Amen.