Look Through Them for Their Sake

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. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38 ESV)

There has been a latent desire in my heart over the last decade that I am just now starting to understand. I have a weak, but yet substantive longing to see people transformed to love Jesus. That is nothing we create on our own, but something that the Spirit gives every believer when he gives us a new heart.

This desire, this gift, grows in us as we trust Jesus more. The more we know him the more we want others to know him too. It is a beautiful thing that brings more and more joy. 

Meeting new friends in our area that we want to see trust our God stirs the desire on but yet dries it up. When real people with real names and real eternities are involved it changes.

I have found myself obsessing about it, trying to manufacture it and sustain it. But, the Lord has shown me something even better: "Look Through Them for Their Sake."

Jesus didn't simply tell his disciples in this passage to go and engage those people. That would be good. Jesus set their eyes beyond the people he had compassion on because he had compassion on them.

What our Lord wants for his people is to come home to him to be sure, but also to have his righteous anger over sin, his joy over one who has even the smallest amount of faith in him, and his deep love that welcomes people to the home they long for. Jesus' compassion is too rich and too expansive to simply keep to himself- he wants that heart in everyone who is his child.

So, he pointed his disciples beyond the people right in front of them for the people right in front of them. Jesus called his disciples to look into the reaches of the world that they themselves could never reach...but the people in front of them could. Jesus wants the people in front of us to have the joy of loving the nations.

So, we want to make new friends in Seattle who come to trust Jesus with all of their heart. If my compassion only leads me to see them saved and not see through them to the people they will befriend, then my compassion is much smaller and weaker than Jesus'.

I want to look through the people we will grow to love to the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love. I want to look at my new friends, love them deeply and committedly, and longingly work to stir up the joyful gift Jesus' heart in them for the nations. The salvation we are given is more than a ticket out of punishment, but it is also into a full, adventurous life with Jesus.

Jesus never "overlooked" someone for someone else' sake. I don't want to either. I want their joy to be the joy of Jesus when someone comes to trust him. Isn't that what love is?

One more thing. Jesus told the disciples (and us) to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out workers. Every workers was once part of the harvest. May it be that he sends out people who whole-heartedly love him into the harvest field who are, today, in the harvest.