Our desire to fish for people will enlarge when our hearts are touched by the Great Shepherd so that we see people the way he does. The following passage summarizes our Lord’s heart for people who do not yet know him.
36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:36–38 (NKJV)
When we see people through the eyes of the Great Shepherd, we will also be moved with compassion. We will see them as they are – weary, harassed, scattered, and relatively helpless against the deception and onslaught of the devil. Seeing people in this light should motivate us to leave our relative ease and enter their world in order to lead them to Christ. Jesus left the glories of heaven to come after us. He asks us to follow his example.
Ever since the tower of Babel, an overriding principle at work in fallen humanity has been to gather, enlarge, and increase our size, power, control, and influence, in order to make a name for ourselves without any reference to God. This principle is at work in governments, businesses, and even the church. For a number of years there has been a decided shift toward what many call the mega-church. Concurrently there is another move toward decentralization into small groups meeting house to house. Both focus on gathering people, some into very large groups and others into smaller ones.
The Great Commission works contrary to the Babel principle of enlargement and calls people to “go.” Christ asks his followers to leave the comfort and security of the local church and go to where those who don’t know Jesus live. This does not mean we abandon our local churches, but that we set aside time for going into the harvest.
The Great Commission commands us to “go” make disciples, not stay put as safe and secure churchgoers.
The story of how God’s Spirit led the early disciples in fulfilling the Great Commission is found in the Book of Acts. God scattered the quickly centralizing church in Jerusalem through persecution, which caused the gospel to impact hitherto unreached areas. The church at Antioch, under the direction of God’s Spirit, chose to send out the best and brightest of its leaders and ministers to do apostolic (“sent out” missionary) work.
Antioch is our best model of a Great Commission church.
God is still in the business of sending out disciples to engage and impact those who do not yet know him.
Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” John 20:21 (NLT)
As we obey the call of the Spirit and go out into our neighborhoods, cities, work places, schools, and other places where people gather, God wishes to develop in us the same compassion that compelled Jesus to give away his life for others.
Being a “sent one” asks us to give away our lives.
This can happen if we believe that God is worth the sacrifice and, secondly, that lost people are worth serving with our time, resources, and everything else. This kind of compassion only comes via God’s Spirit. Where it is lacking, people will not serve as “sent ones.” They will take the easy way out and simply gather with other believers.
God wants us to do both – to go to the lost and to regularly gather with other sent ones in order to mutually encourage, equip, and strengthen one another for the 24/7 mission of working in God’s harvest field.
The Importance of Listening
If we have Jesus’ compassion, we will realize that every person has a story worth hearing and is a life worth saving.
Many who devote themselves to being God’s ambassadors here on earth are not good listeners. We imagine that others should listen to us since we have the message of life. This is what some call a “know it all.” We may think we can skip relationship building in order to quickly inject them with the gospel.
Jesus, however, was a good listener who tailored his life giving words to fit the unique human being who had his attention.
We may be tempted to resort to some sort of “canned” gospel message we find easy to remember. That is not how Jesus operated. He was always listening to people and, more importantly, to the Holy Spirit.
If people discern that we are not interested in them or their stories, why should they be interested in us or our message?
Compassionate sent ones care about every person’s life story. If we expect to become expert fishers of people, we must become excellent listeners… quick to hear and slow to speak.
Targeting People’s God-Fashioned Felt Needs
Every person has needs that only God can fulfill.
Because we live so isolated from one another, we may imagine that other people’s lives are just fine, not realizing that behind every door in our neighborhood some sort of drama is playing out that may be preparing their hearts to receive the Lord.
Some have desperately asked God to show them a sign that he exists or cares. Could it be that you are supposed to be the answer to their prayer? Others have given up, thinking that perhaps God does not love them or care about their situation after all. Many are embittered at what life has brought their way. Others are despondent, listless, and hopeless. While it is true that wealthy people generally may have less felt needs than the poor, it is not true that their lives are altogether rosy. Anyone with wealth knows that money is not the answer to life’s deepest questions nor does it satisfy our deepest desires. Many affluent homes are wracked by relational dysfunction and are reaping the whirlwind that comes as a result of putting other things ahead of God.
When we meet and relate to people, God wants to open our eyes to see them as he does – harassed and helpless sheep about whom he cares deeply.
Unless we discern what those deepest heart longings are, how can we fashion a presentation of the gospel that addresses them?
God is personal. He told the adulterous woman that she was not condemned. He told the Samaritan woman that she was important by engaging her in conversation and revealing that he knew all about her sins but did not reject her. He called Zacchaeus out of the tree and offered to dine with him.
In each case, the way Jesus engaged these individuals gave them hope that God knew who they were and cared about them.
He accurately represented Father God’s heart toward them. This allowed Jesus to minister at the deepest level with amazing results. Jesus wants us to partner with him in the adventure of being his personal representatives to lost and hurting people.
We need the Spirit’s help to pull this off. It does not come naturally to us. We cannot do it by ourselves. Only God can reveal to us what lies beneath the cleverly erected exterior that people use for self-preservation. Only God knows the deep heart cries lurking beneath often crusty facades. If we listen, he will tell us all we need to know. He will assist us to tailor gospel truth into a divine arrow that goes right to the heart.
Hope for the Hopeless
Every person has a hope, which only Jesus can fulfill.
Many of the people who live around us have descended into some form of hopelessness, but deep inside every individual, no matter how dim it flickers, is the hope that God knows and cares about us personally and is willing to help us.
People long for a Savior, whether or not they will admit it, since we instinctively know that we cannot save ourselves.
We hope for a Shepherd to guide us because none of us knows where we are going at the deepest level of existence. Our eternal destinies are hidden from us when we do not know Jesus. As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” We often bluff our way through life, hoping for the best, but, deep down, we would like some assurance that everything will be alright. John addressed this deep desire.
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5:13 (NKJV)
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only pathway to knowing the Father. He is the Good Shepherd, the Great Provider, our Protector, and the God of hope. We can be sure that, unless a person is resolutely hardened against God, there is something in him or her that will resonate with the Good News that Jesus gave his life away to bring us back to the Father and make us into born-again authentic children of God. They will be attracted to the promise that Jesus will lead them safely on life’s journey, if only they will surrender to his benevolent Lordship.
Fishing for people the “Jesus way” asks us to learn to see, love, and engage people as Jesus’ representatives. We have been given the privilege to care, listen, love, and speak in his stead in order to lead them to the Great Shepherd. Nothing could be more exciting or rewarding!
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