Over the past few months, we have been considering the missionary task remaining. We have presented a few statistics – and learned that one-third of our human family have yet to hear the gospel. We have examined some biblical background – and discovered again that we are commissioned to make disciples of all nations. We have considered, as well, the significance of strategic partnerships in pursuing this monumental task.
This month, the last month of the year, we will examine one final frontier. It is a vast and difficult frontier, and one that is often overlooked and sadly unengaged. But you do not have to travel so very far to find it. This is a frontier that you can measure in inches – the enormous 18 inches that separate our heads from our hearts, our “knowledge” or confession from our actual Christian lives. We may “know” biblical passages and missionary statistics galore. Yet not, perhaps, in a way that makes a difference in our lives.
In the last few verses of Matthew chapter nine and the first few verses of chapter ten, we find an example of this final frontier effectively engaged.
The passage begins with a sojourn “through all the towns and villages” of Galilee (9:35). Jesus and his disciples were on a ministry tour; Jesus was building his disciples into missionaries. Everywhere they went, they found crowds “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36). In every town and village they found “disease and sickness” and spiritual need. The disciples saw Jesus reach into these situations of need, “teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease.” The disciples were getting their statistics right: they discovered a world full of “harassed and helpless” – the needs pressed about them everywhere. Yet seeing the crowds and knowing their need did not make the disciples into missionaries. An important frontier remained – the final 18 inches.
The passage continues with an exercise in compassion. The crowds surrounding Jesus filled and moved the Savior’s heart. But the result was much more than sentiment: Jesus enacted compassion that day. Matthew employs here a verb that is full of dynamism and commitment. One scholar explains: “[biblical compassion] announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.” Jesus would not abide the brokenness before him. He immersed himself. He engaged the brokenness and disease. There are sheep without a shepherd! Compassion moved Jesus to find them.
We are not told what the disciples felt, however. The last 18 inches were not yet engaged.
Then Jesus commands the disciples to pray. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,” he explains. “Ask the Lord of the harvest… to send out workers!” And they did then pray, I suppose. Yet even now the disciples are not ready. They have seen the crowds; they have come to understand, a little, the scope of their need and the numbers involved. They have seen compassion demonstrated by the Savior. And now they have been praying.
But the disciples were not made missionaries – until the first few verses of chapter ten. In chapter ten the disciples were summoned to Jesus’ side. They heard the Savior call their name, each one individually. They received Christ’s own equipment and provision. Jesus gave them authority, instruction, a working strategy, warnings, admonitions, and promises (10:1ff.).
But most of all, he gave them himself. He sent the disciples, as he was himself sent. This is why he could say at the end of this chapter, “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me” (10:40).
Now the final 18 inches have been bridged. And it wasn’t because the disciples mastered the statistics, or found new compassion – or even because they were so very good at praying. The disciples were equipped for the mission of God by the grace and the calling of the Son of God. They met Jesus.
This is what I would like you to remember about this final frontier: our Lord Jesus is more interested in who we are than what we do. Jesus calls us to himself, always, always, before ever he sends us into the world.
Other posts in this The Task Remaining series: