Hey, I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. There's this thing that sports teams do when they get down the home stretch, especially in basketball and hockey around where I live, and that is that they start jockeying for position right before the playoff starts. You got a big long regular season, 82 games, well, usually it's 82 games, and then you've got a bunch of playoff series that are best of seven. So all of those games come down to this effectively second season of playoff matchups, and who you get as a first-round opponent in the playoffs can really affect a lot. And so teams will rest their starters, they'll somewhat intentionally lose games to position themselves to get the first-round opponents that they want. And when you go online, you look at what people are saying about that and stuff, you know, some of the fans of like the really good teams that maybe your team just avoided are like, ah, that's so cheap and dirty. I'm like, think about it, dudes. How big a compliment is it that my team just intentionally lost at basketball so that we wouldn't have to play you in the first round? You just got to take that to heart and feel really good about stuff. Likewise, when we get to Matthew chapter 9, and Jesus is looking out over the crowds of people who are not part of the kingdom. And they're on the outside looking in, and maybe their lives are going okay, maybe things are going rough. But either way, he feels compassion on them. And he's like, hey, all these people out there who aren't a part of the kingdom, I liken them to a harvest that is ripe and ready to be brought in. And he looks at his disciples and like, you guys should pray that God would raise up harvest workers to go out and bring in the harvest. And I understand that much like the fans of teams who my team intentionally lost to avoid, the first impulse, if you're on the outside looking in and you hear Jesus talking like that, or you hear that Christians maybe are secretly strategically planning for how to try to convince you that Jesus is real and you should sign up to follow Jesus. I understand that your first impulse might be to be like, that is insulting. I'm living my life in a way that works. Things are going okay. How bad do you think I am at life that I need your God or your version of reality or your version of morality? And it's interesting because on the one hand, I kind of feel that way when people from other religions are plotting or making an effort to try to get me to sign up for their thing. It's like, why do you think I'm so incomplete? But part of what I really like about the way Jesus frames it up is that one, he's completely through the front door. And look, if you're outside looking in at this stuff and you want to process and better understand what your friends who believe in a religion that you don't or a God that you don't believe in, or thinking, I mean, you're just, you're awesome. If you're here and you're not a Christian, my respect level for you is through the roof. But maybe you're here looking at this and your first impulse is to be like, well, I don't like that Jesus is plotting this stuff. But I would say to you, my friend, it's kind of cool that he turned over all his cards, right? There's no cult here. You get to read the same Bible that all of the Christians who are theoretically responding to Jesus' call to go out and tell people about the values of the kingdom are reading. So everybody's got the same text in front of them. It's not like there's a secret bonus Bible that Christians have that only they get to see at the secret meetings that only they get to go to. Jesus fully discloses at all times. He discloses, yeah, following me is hard. It's usually pretty costly. You should be ready for that. He discloses to the people who are impressed with his miracles in chapter eight and are like, ah, I should totally follow you. And he's like, Well, that's cool, but I'm homeless and everything. So just bear that in mind. Like it's not going to be super luxurious. And the other guy's like, ah, I should follow you. I just got to bury my dead dad. And remember, Jesus is like, okay, well, maybe just let the dead take care of themselves. You can just come and follow me. And we don't know if those people follow him or not. But look, Jesus discloses. Unlike everybody else who's trying to sell you something, my friend, Jesus turns over his cards and is like, here's everything. In fact, he turns over his cards so much that in the process of our conversation about it, I mean, how many times have I been like, dude, that is a horrible sales pitch? You got to lean into the stuff that's sexy and you got to avoid the stuff that people might not be excited about. And then later on the back end, you kind of tell them, like, oh, well, also I'm homeless and this is a really big commitment. It might be kind of tough. But Jesus isn't like that at all. And we're going to see even as we move along through Matthew, that his language is always, hey, add this thing up on the front side. Take a good long look. So again, if you're somebody who's here and you would say, I don't know what to make about God. I don't know if I'm a Christian. I don't know if nine chapters of Matthew is enough for me to say that I think the Jesus thing is credible and that I'd like to be part of this harvest that you're talking about. High five to you for taking your time and thinking carefully and recognizing when something is trying to place a demand on like your entire life. Theoretically, if you sign up for this based on the terms that Jesus is putting out in front of you, it's going to be a pretty gigantic deal. I mean, you hear what he's saying. It's a total overhaul of like your values and priority and time. And so, I mean, it's a it's a big buy-in. There's a cost to the thing. And if you're taking your time to think about it, I think you're doing it exactly right. I think you're doing it the way Jesus describes. It is much more the exception than the rule when we see Jesus walk up to a tax collector's table and be like, hey, follow me. And the guy's like, all right, cool. Or Jesus walk up to some fishermen and be like, hey, quit your jobs. Just come with me and get a different job now. And they're like, oh, okay, cool. What you see a bunch more is people wrestling with it. That's why you've got these crowds that follow him around because they're thinking it through and trying to figure out what they're going to do with it. Well, if you're in the same boat, that's awesome. And if you are in that boat, the first positive thing I'd like to point out that I think is different about what Jesus is doing here in terms of saying, hey, uh, you should follow me. I'd like for you to be a Christian, versus what you get from most sales pitches and religions is one, what we just talked about, the disclosure thing. But the second thing is take the compliment. I mean, in the same way that it's a big compliment for my team to avoid playing your team because we think you're awesome at basketball. So it is a gigantic compliment for Jesus to look around at his crew and be like, okay, who do we have here? And we got you and you and you right there. Like, you're gonna be the guy that's pretty much like the social leader of my entire church that's gonna be the most influential organization in the history of humankind. So you're pretty good. But you know what? We don't have all the talent we want here yet. We need to go out there and connect with other people because they bring stuff to the table, because they're supposed to be in the kingdom, and we want them here and we want them to be a part. Now, here's the thing from a human perspective, what Jesus is saying there is that there's tremendous value to the kingdom that is out there in the harvest field, not brought in. But he doesn't really spell that out. That's just implicit that you are valuable and that you bring things to the table, whether you're a Christian or not, and that Jesus would apparently be really enthusiastic about having you be a part of the kingdom and an agent and ambassador of these kingdom values and all of that stuff because of all that you bring to the table. But if you look at his explicit language, you should also take the compliment because what he's saying is he understands the stuff that is broken and hurts about life. He understands that things get confusing and sideways, and he cares about you anyway. That's kind of the thing that I hope to hear from the people who say that they love me. It's one thing for people to look at me and be like, oh, that seems pretty polished. Seems like you're doing a good job. I get a decent look at you from a distance. I don't get to see the ugly stuff or the disappointing stuff or the things that would make people unfollow me on the Twitters or things like that. And uh, you seem great. Yeah, you seem cool. That's that's great. Well, I mean, that's nice. I'd rather have people think that than just overtly hate me. But you know what's really cool? Is when you get to know somebody and they just see you in a few different environments, they hear the stories about your past, good, bad, and ugly, and they're like, I value you anyway. I value you for the stuff that is awesome. I value you for the stuff that is in process. I feel empathy and compassion toward you for the stuff that is hurt and is broken and sideways and weird. And that's the tone we're getting from Jesus here. Not go get some more mindless drones and trick them into signing up for my weird cult by closing some more pushy sales deals, but compassion, empathy, sympathy. I'm sure you've all heard this before, but I think famously it was Pen Gillette, the atheist magician, who said, like, if you think that there's something true to what you believe about God and heaven and eternity and the Bible and all of this stuff, and you don't even bother to run that by me, it's kind of an insult. Like, like if you really think that, and you wouldn't even bother to mention it to me. I mean, what do you think of me? That's a gigantic paraphrase, but that was the gist of what he was saying. And yeah, to the best of my knowledge, Pan Gillette didn't come around and convert to Christianity or anything like that. But I respect his perspective on this, and I respect Jesus, even if I were to say something I don't believe, even if I were to say that Jesus is not the son of God, that he's not God in the flesh, I would still have to say I respect him for being convinced of the reality of this king and this kingdom and the fulfillment of prophecy and all of this stuff, and for being like, I'd like to have everybody on board. If somebody says, I want to have everybody on board, and I guess it's like what? It's like point four for why you should feel complimented and good about him trying to um bring you in as part of the harvest. Usually, if if somebody's like, I want to get everybody on board, why is that? Well, it's because you get power and money and fame. And in the end, when you build the gigantic organization, it's not like you put somebody else in charge. You're in charge of that thing. And everyone is now brought to heal before this new upstart authority who's really just a peer who got lucky and got on a roll and got a whole bunch of followers. Jesus is totally different. He invites people to sign up with this thing and then he just goes and dies. That's it. That's his big plan. Spoiler alert, he comes back to life in the end, and there's this whole other stage to how this thing unfolds that he articulates. But this is not how power grabs work. This is not how people get used and duped into signing up for a stupid thing and then controlled and then become a cog in the wheel of some larger project that is really just a vanity indulgence for some dude or some lady who, again, got lucky and got a whole bunch of followers. What the Bible is holding out here is a description of a character who's actually God, completely within his authority and his rights, then to just be like, everybody has to sign up. You must, I demand it because I'm God and I'm in charge of everything. So sign up. But then he doesn't do that. Instead, he goes with an invitation or an offer instead of force, which means that if you're in, it's because you felt like it. Instead of you're in because you got duped and tricked and manipulated at all costs to make you a part of this Borg, this hive mind that moves forward entirely to exalt someone who doesn't deserve to be exalted. Instead, we're talking about someone who does deserve to be exalted if we take the claim to deity seriously. And yet he still shows this respect and compassion and interest to people who aren't yet a part of his kingdom, which is interesting because there are no natives to his kingdom. There are no original inhabitants, there's no first nation of the kingdom. Everybody got invited. So in that respect, it's a kingdom of immigrants. Everybody at one point or another is migrating to be a part of this thing from world values to kingdom values. And we think of this like some cheap cult of personality of some weirdo who's gonna live to be an old person and then die while controlling everybody and weird sex stuff and everything like that. Then it's gross, but it doesn't have any of those characteristics. Instead, it has the characteristics of an actual deity who places actual value and empathy and concern and care and grace and patience on the people who are outside the kingdom holding out the offer for them to come in. And for those who are in the kingdom, it seems that he's prepared to constantly remind them, hey, like you got to expand this circle. This thing is for everybody. Don't write other people off. We want everybody to be able to be a part of this beautiful thing that I am building and that I am king over. So the point of this whole little episode is to step aside and just acknowledge and high-five the people in the room who would more identify with the description of the harvest field than would with the harvesters. I really like that we are very different people in very different places in the process of belief and truth and thinking and faith and what we do with it or not do with it, and that we all hang out together. And I just don't want to take for granted as I plow through this stuff that you're here and that you're hanging out. And I don't want to just blast by this and not stop to think honestly about how this would strike the ears of somebody who would identify with the harvester and somebody who would identify with being a part of the harvest. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.