Dusty Disciples

And so when we come to this passage of Scripture this morning, Matthew chapter 10, and we're going to be looking at this over the next four weeks, this whole chapter.

This is a series that I've been planning for some time now, but it all revolves around the subject of discipleship, and I've called the series Lifetrack.

because I think that's the best way of describing what the life of a follower of Jesus is.

I was talking yesterday with a young guy, and we were talking about Christians and terminology.

And in the context of the conversation, he said, and there's nothing wrong with the title Christian, but he said, you know, he said, I'm more and more interested, not just in a person calling themselves a Christian, but he said, what I'm more interested in is are they actually following Jesus on a daily basis? And that's what we want to talk about over the next four weeks in this subject of Lifetrack because when you said yes to Christ, you began a journey on a Lifetrack that is distinctively different to the rest of the world.

It is a Lifetrack, it's the Lifetrack that we follow and we follow in the steps of Jesus.

And as I said a few minutes ago, you can tell a lot about a person by looking at them where they're going, where they've been.

And that is very evident in this passage this morning as the disciples, the 12, are sent out by Jesus on a ministry.

So let's talk about life track for a moment because I want to take you back to the immediate context.

If you just turn over the page in your Bibles or in your reading devices and have a look at the end of chapter 9 and particularly verse 35, we read there this interesting statement that Matthew makes.

Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness and seeing the multitudes, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the work is a few.

So Jesus looks out on the crowds, he sees the distress that they are in, the words literally used, I refer to people who have been actually thrown down by life into the dirt.

Jesus sees this.

He's moved deeply with compassion and his response is to turn to the disciples and he's saying to them, look out there, there is a plentiful harvest of souls.

There are people out there who are looking for a life track, who are actually looking for real life.

And then he says in verse 38, therefore, beseech or pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.

And so the prayer is that God will send out more people to tell others about the good news of the kingdom and the good news of Jesus.

And then we move immediately into chapter 10.