Brokenhearted Boldness

Welcome

Before Jesus ever told His disciples to go, He stopped and looked.

Matthew 9 says, “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

That word compassion is not mild sympathy. It describes a physical reaction — a churning in the gut. Jesus didn’t look at crowds and feel annoyance. He didn’t look at moral failure and feel superiority. He didn’t look at confusion and feel rage.

He felt sorrow.

He saw beneath behavior to bondage. Beneath arguments to anxiety. Beneath rebellion to lostness.

Then He said something striking: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

The problem wasn’t that people were uninterested. It was that they were spiritually wandering — and not enough people were willing to enter the field.

Throughout history, every awakening began when believers stopped arguing about culture and started weeping for it. Before the First Great Awakening spread across the colonies, small prayer gatherings formed where Christians confessed their own coldness and asked God to give them His heart for the lost. Revival did not begin with bold preaching. It began with broken hearts.

Boldness without compassion becomes aggression.

Compassion without boldness becomes silence.

Jesus embodied both.

If you want to grow in evangelistic courage, start by asking for compassion. Ask God to help you see people not as interruptions, but as eternal souls. Not as opponents, but as sheep without a shepherd.

When your heart breaks first, your mouth will open next.

Revival spreads when compassion outweighs comfort.

Ask God this week: “Let me see what You see.”

Connect

Take a few minutes to discuss one or both of the following questions:

• What is something that spoke to you in last week’s devotional or something that you experienced with God this week that you would like to share with the group?
• Has anyone ever shared Jesus with you (or have you ever watched someone share Jesus) in a way that felt natural and caring? What did that look like, and what made it land?

Watch

Watch the video, and write down anything that stands out, challenges you, or raises a question.

Discuss

1. Have someone read Romans 10:14–15. How does this passage answer the question: “Does sharing Jesus really matter?”
   This passage describes a chain: sent → preaching → hearing → believing → calling → saved. Where do you fit in that chain for the people in your life? Are you playing your part of it, or are you a missing link? Why?
2. Have someone read Matthew 9:35-38. What do you think it means that people are “harassed and helpless”?
   The Greek word for “compassion” here (splagchnon) describes a gut-level, stomach-turning feeling—not a polite concern, but something visceral. When you think about people in your life who don’t know Christ, what emotion tends to come first—compassion, indifference, guilt, fear, or something else? Why?
   Jesus says the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. What does this verse suggest about the spiritual openness of the people around us? What responsibility does that give believers?
3. The teaching suggested creating a ‘salvation prayer list’—five people you can pray for by name each day. Who are one or two people God has placed on your heart?
   It was suggested that as you begin praying for people by name, something starts to shift — in them and in you. Have you ever experienced this? Have you ever prayed persistently for someone and watched their heart soften toward God? What happened?
4. Where do you most need to grow in boldness right now? In what situations do you find it hardest to talk about your faith?
5. Acts 1:8 tells us that the Holy Spirit is in you to empower you to share Jesus with others. How does knowing that change your view of evangelism? How does it encourage you?
6. John shared the story of Earl Peters, the assembly line worker who shared Jesus with John’s grandfather and brought him to Christ. How does the generational impact of that boldness shift your view of what an ordinary conversation about Jesus could accomplish?
   Who is one person in your everyday routine (at work, in your neighborhood, at school) who could be your “Mark”? What would it look like to keep showing up for them the way Earl did, day after day?

Pray

Close your time together in prayer.

• Have each person share one name from their salvation prayer list — the person they feel most burdened for.
• Ask God to give each person in the group a spirit of brokenhearted boldness — the compassion of Jesus and the courage of Peter.
• Pray for open doors this week: specific conversations, specific invitations, specific moments of courage.
• Close by praying together for revival in your city, for the harvest that is plentiful, and for workers willing to go into it.

This Week

Write down 5 to 10 names on a salvation prayer list and start praying for them daily. Take one step of boldness and come back next week ready to share what happened—even if the step felt small.

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