Bible Passage: Matthey 9:35-10:8
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: June 14, 2026

Bulletin – June 14, 2026

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

This past week I became aware of something I had never heard of before.  I learned about “the overview effect.”  The “overview effect” is what some astronauts experience when they look back on earth from space.  The “overview effect” is characterized by a feeling of awe, a feeling of being connected with the other humans on the planet, and the feeling of how frail and vulnerable earth appears to be with the universe in the background.  It must be weird to see the world like this!

It made me think about what Jesus sees when he looks at the world.  He has the ultimate  “overview” of earth.  He is the Creator of it all.  He is the Redeemer.  He is the King of kings and Lord of lords who now rules over it all.  What does Jesus see when he looks at earth?  Our text today helps us answer that question.  Jesus sees sheep.  And he sees ripe fields.  And he sees a place for his new Kingdom.  The question is:  Do we see the world as Jesus sees the world?

The first thing Jesus sees as he looks at this world is sheep.  Harassed and helpless sheep.  Our text begins with Jesus on the move in the region of Galilee.  He is busy.  He is traveling from city to village.  He is preaching and teaching and healing.  Crowds come together to hear him, to bring their sick loved ones to him for healing.  We are told, When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were troubled and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd. (v. 36)  The word for “moved with compassion” in the Greek is splanchnidzomai.  It comes from the root “splanchna.”  Your “splanchna” are you innards.  Your guts.  Your deepest emotions were thought to spring from your gut.  We sometimes talk about feeling something in your “gut.”  Jesus felt it in his gut when looked at the crowds!

They were like sheep without a shepherd!  Sheep without a shepherd are doomed!  They will starve or dehydrate or become lunch for some predator!  This is how Jesus saw, and sees the world.  Jesus sees the devastation sin has brought to people.  Jesus sees what humanity in rebellion against God has made of itself.  Jesus sees the brokenness.  The broken homes and the broken hearts and the broken relationships and the broken bodies, all because of sin.  He saw YOUR brokenness.  And his heart broke.  Something must be done for these doomed sheep!  Someone must care enough to save them!

So Jesus did.  He became the Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.  Jesus loves broken sheep!  On the cross, Jesus laid down his life for this world of harassed and helpless sheep.  Two mornings later, Jesus took up his life again so his sheep will have never-ending life with him in heaven.  He came that sheep might have life, and have it to the full! (John 10)

Do we see the world the way Jesus sees the world?  When you look out in the world and you see the brokenness, do you feel it in your splanchna?  Or do you feel disgust and contempt?  There is always that tension, isn’t there?  That tension of “hating sin” and “loving the sinner.”  It might help us to remember the one who always did it perfectly.  The Lord Jesus.  It might help, and humble us, to remember that Jesus might very well have looked at each of us with contempt and scorn.  Can you imagine how disgusted Jesus could be at your sinful life?  But he looks at you with compassion!  Can we see people with Christ-like compassion?

Jesus came to save these people.  So now, he switches metaphors in our text.  Now, instead of seeing sheep, Jesus sees ripe fields.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  (v. 37)  Jesus sees the world as a ripe field of grain.  It’s harvest time!  It’s time to harvest souls for the Kingdom of God!  But, Jesus tells us, the workers are few.  In real numbers, today there are 8 billion on planet earth.  Now, some have already been “harvested” and are believers in Jesus, many have not!  Jesus wants us to see the world the way he sees it!  And he wants us to pray about it!  Therefore, pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out workers into his harvest. (v. 38)

Then Jesus answers the prayer for workers before they can even pray!  He calls the Twelve to himself. There is something remarkable about this list of men.  Look at how different they are!  You’ve got fishermen, like James and John and Peter and Andrew.  You’ve got Matthew, who had been a tax-collector, and a guy named Simon the Zealot.  Matthew and Simon the Zealot would probably not be in the same room together!  Matthew had been willing to work for the Romans and the Zealots were a political group, fanatical, sometimes violent and extreme, who hated Roman rule.  But look at what transcended their differences and got them on the same page:  “Now is no time to let politics divide us!  Look at the fields!  The harvest is upon us!  There are souls to harvest for Jesus!”

And so Jesus sent them out to preach.  The kingdom of heaven has come near! (v. 7)  The Lord Jesus wants to plant the flag of his kingdom in human hearts everywhere!  He wants to liberate harassed and helpless souls from the tyranny of the devil and bring them into the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy!  Those first harvest-workers healed the sick and raised the dead and cleansed the lepers and drove out demons.  These miracles were just little preludes of what this Kingdom of God is all about.  It is the reversal and the undoing of all that sin has done.  It has begun now.  It will reach its death-less, sin-less goal one day when we are with the Lord forever.  Freely the Kingdom was given to us; freely we are to give it away to others.

This was the way Jesus saw the world.  This was his “overview effect.”  May we always see the world as Jesus did!  May we see the sheep.  May we see the ripe fields.  May we see the kingdom of the world become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ!

Amen.