Matthew 10
Today on Palm Sunday we come in our preaching through the chapters of Matthew to chapter ten.
This is a chapter that focuses on the sending out by Jesus of his twelve disciples to do the work he came to do. It may seem strange to you to preach on the sending out of the twelve disciples on Palm Sunday, but parades have multiple purposes. Parades welcome people into a place. Sometimes they welcome people back from where they have been and sometimes parades are held to send people out into one mission or another. In WWII parades were held to send the soldiers away to war.
The parade held for Jesus welcomed him into Jerusalem, but from his perspective, this was a parade sending him into Jerusalem on a life and death mission.
It is in this sense we will look at the sending out of the twelve this morning. (Matthew 10:1&5)
He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: âDo not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
There is too much in this chapter to cover in one sermon, but I want to make a few comments on three themes in this chapter: the call of Jesus, the message of Jesus and the response to Jesus.
Jesus called his disciples to him. Last week we talked about the call of Levi (later known as Matthew). Earlier in Matthewâs gospel the call of Peter, Andrew, James and John is recorded. John recorded the call of Philip in his gospel. The stories of the other six disciples are not recorded in Scripture but we know they were also called.
Each of us who are Christian have been called by Jesus. It may have been in a dramatic fashion at a moment in time or it may be that you can never remember a time when you were not Christian. But if you are a Christian, you were called by Jesus to follow him. Scripture does not record how the other six disciples were called and it does not record how you were called, but that does not take away from the significance of your call by Jesus to follow him.
I was aware of the existence of God for several weeks before I got to the point that I was willing to follow him. As I look back on my life I can see now that Jesus called me to follow him when I was 13 years old but I did not respond. At different times in my life I was aware of his existence, but being aware of the existence of God is not enough. We must submit to him. I remember clearly a prayer I prayed at the beginning of my life with Jesus and many times since. The exact words change, but the content is the same.
I give you my life. I want to live my life for you. I ask you to help me redirect my focus from what it is I want to what it is you want.
This is a form of the prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane Matthew 26:39)
My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.
Jesus calls us and we follow him as his disciples.
But then Jesus calls us more specifically to what it is he wants us to do. Jesus instructed his disciples:
Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
Jesus did not send his twelve disciples to the whole world. Jesus did not send his disciples to preach to everyone. He sent them to the lost in Israel. Jesus sent his disciples to preach and minister to the Jews.
Is it that Jesus did not care about those who were not Jews? When Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, he told him he was to be sent out to take the gospel to the Gentiles. In his earthly ministry Jesus cared about the centurion whose servant he healed but his specific calling was to the Jews. When a Canaanite woman pleaded with him to help her daughter, Jesus answered:
âI was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.â
When she persisted, Jesus praised her faith and healed her daughter.
Jesus cared but he knew to what he was called and he was obedient to his call.
All the world needs to hear the gospel. There is nowhere on earth that is not a mission field full of people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus. Europe is a mission field. The US is a mission field. The whole world needs to hear the good news of Jesus. But we need to seek Godâs specific call for us. What is it he wants us to do? Where does he want us to go?
I first became a follow of Jesus when I was a student at university preparing to apply to medical school. Over a three month period I resisted a call to go to seminary but finally on December 12, 1972, I submitted and began to prepare to go to seminary.
After seminary I searched for where God wanted me to go and ended up at a Methodist church in West Virginia working as a youth pastor. A year later I was searching again and found myself pastoring two Presbyterian churches in Ohio. After five and a half years, I went to work with my church history professor from seminary who was creating an organization seeking renewal in the mainline denominations of the church. Six months later he had health problems and I was once again seeking where I was to go and ended up working with my father for thirteen years in a family business. When that business was sold in February 1999, I was seeking what to do with the rest of my life and a man visiting our church told me he thought I would be a good pastor for an international church in Rabat, Morocco. I came for a visit for two weeks in September and returned in January 2000 to the church where I have now been pastor for more than eight years.
We need constantly to be open and seeking where it is God wants us to go. Our call to follow Jesus is a lifetime call. It does not change. But the specific call of Jesus does change. I have no idea of what I would do if I were not pastor of RIC. I like being here. I am fulfilled being here but I am open to wherever God leads me. We need always to be open to where God wants us to go next.
And we need to be open to what God calls us to do where we are.
I came to university to study but the most important experiences in those four years were not the courses I took, but the changes I made in my life. It was in university that I discovered who Jesus was. It was while I was in university that I first began to study the Bible. It was in university that I began to take to heart values that would rule the rest of my life. It is not that the courses I took were unimportant but what I learned in those courses was less significant than what I learned through my Christian community.
What is Jesusâs call for you now? Is his call the same call that brought you here?
I came to Morocco to be pastor of RIC but then I was called also to be on the board of the Village of Hope and called to be president of AMEP, the association to which our church belongs. As my involvement in each of these three areas increased, I felt stretched and had to ask, Where does God want me to focus? Should I step down from any of these responsibilities and focus more on the others?
I realized more than three years ago that I needed a team to help me with these ministries. I prayed, âHelp!â and God answered by sending Clement Yoro last November to help with AMEP and by sending Tracy Troxel who will come to RIC this summer.
I believe I am coming into some golden years of my ministry in Morocco. With a team, I believe we will see some great years here at RIC and in the association. The specific call of Jesus for me has changed over the years and I expect that will continue to be the case.
To what specifically has Jesus called you? In what ministry does Jesus want you involved? It may be a ministry to your family. It may be a ministry to fellow students. It may be a ministry to your colleagues where you work. A call does not have to be dramatic like a call to China or Timbuktu. What is important is that we are where God wants us to be, doing what he wants us to do.
God calls us to follow him. God calls us to specific ministries. And God gives us authority to do what he wants us to do.
He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
Jesus did not send out his twelve disciples unprepared. They had watched him preach and heal and cast out demons and now he sent them out, with the spiritual authority to do what he had been doing.
Can you imagine how frustrating it would have been for the disciples to go out and pray for healing and cast out demons and nothing happened? If that had been the case, the disciples would have come back discouraged and Jesusâ plan to build these men into leaders of the church he was starting would have failed.
But Jesus does not send us out without equipping us for what we are to do.
Matthew does not say what happened when the twelve went out, but Luke, when he wrote about Jesus sending out seventy-two of his disciples (this number including the twelve), recorded that the disciples came back excited. (Luke 10:17)
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, âLord, even the demons submit to us in your name.â
Whatever it is Jesus has called you to do for him, he has also given you the authority you need to do it. Jesus has equipped you to accomplish what it is he wants you to accomplish.
Jesus calls us to follow him. Jesus gives us a specific call to do the work he has for us to do. And Jesus will give you the authority you need to do whatever he has called you to do.
Jesus calls us and he gives us a message.
As you go, preach this message: âThe kingdom of heaven is near.â 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.
This was the message Jesus gave to his disciples and this is indeed what they did.
I received an email from a woman this past year who told me God had called her to a ministry of healing and raising people from the dead. My response to her was to say that this is all within the power of God and I wished her well, although I warned her of the necessity of spiritual preparation for a ministry like this.
As it turns out, this was not Godâs call for her.
I need to be careful here with what I say. Periodically I receive an email from someone who says they have a powerful ministry of deliverance and healing and want to come to RIC – and can I help them with the cost of coming.
I believe that God continues to heal and deliver demon possessed people and even raises people from the dead. But I also know that many Christians are attracted to this kind of ministry because of the glamour and excitement of it.
When we come to a ministry of healing and deliverance, we need to be called by God to so this. We cannot come to it with our own willpower and expect to see genuine acts of God. There is a lot of superficial emotion and fakery associated with this kind of ministry. Many reported healings are simply upswings in the emotion of the moment. A day or a week later and the âhealingâ has disappeared.
I know some today will take offense at my saying this but a study of history shows the great abuses associated with ministries of healing and deliverance.
On the other hand, those who say that this kind of ministry was restricted to the time of the disciples are also missing the mark. God does continue to heal and deliver people from demonic possession. A study of history reveals the genuine work of God in these ways, not only in the early church, but in the reformation and with the Puritans and all through the ages of the church.
The point I want to make is that because it is Jesus who sends us out, we are capable of seeing far greater results in our ministries than we can imagine.
Think about the disciples setting out with these instructions from Jesus. If you were one of them, how would you have felt? Intimidated? Fear of failure? Some, like Peter, must have gone out boldly, just as he did when Jesus called him to come out on the water. But others must have been much more tentative.
What would happen if they prayed just like Jesus and then nothing happened?
But when it is Jesus who sends us out on a mission, not our own desire for a glamorous ministry, but Jesus who sends us out, he gives us the authority we need to do what he called us to do.
And the disciples, no matter how tentative they were when they prayed, saw people healed and delivered of demons, not because of how they prayed or how much they believed but because of the call of Jesus that sent them out.
Jesus may not have sent you out to raise the dead, but because Jesus has sent you out, you are capable of far more than you think.
If Jesus calls you out on a ministry of healing and deliverance, go with the confidence that because of Jesus, you will be able to do far more than you ever thought possible. But make sure it is Jesus who is sending you and not your own desire for a glamorous ministry.
Whatever it is Jesus has called you to do, expect great things because of his power given to you.
The call of Jesus, the message of Jesus and now the response to Jesus.
Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
21 âBrother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another
Jesus could not be more clear about this. Persecution is the expected response to preaching the gospel. With the coming of Jesus, the kingdom of God moved into this world and came into conflict with the kingdom of this earth. Like a mass of cold and warm air coming together, storms are the inevitable consequence.
We would like it if we preached the gospel and everyone said, âThank you for telling us the good news,â and became followers of Jesus and life would get better, churches would grow, we would retire as respected elders in a nice home and everyone would live happily ever after.
If we are faithful to Jesus we will live happily ever after, but the interim period on earth will not be so easy.
Paul wrote to Timothy (II Timothy 3:12)
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
We should not be surprised when we share the gospel and we are rejected. Sharing the gospel is confrontational on many levels. The gospel will meet spiritual opposition. It will meet cultural opposition. It will meet religious opposition. It will meet intellectual opposition.
Persecution and resistance is to be expected but note the comfort in this passage for us when we face persecution.
But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Jesus sends us out but he does not abandon us.
When we are arrested or put on trial, the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say. Jesus did not say we would be spared the pain of flogging but he will be present with us.
When we are persecuted, it is not our failure. God will judge those who reject his messengers and his message.
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. 15 I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town
Jesus sends out his followers to share his gospel and they have often met with resistance and been persecuted. Jesus told his disciples
When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another
It is no shame to be persecuted because of sharing the gospel of Jesus. Being persecuted is not the worst thing that could happen.
The worst thing that could happen is not taking the message of Jesus out as he has instructed us.
This does not mean we are to be foolish, but we need not be intimidated either.
Jesus entered Jerusalem on a life and death mission that took him to the cross. His obedience even to his death led then to the triumph we will celebrate next week on Easter Sunday.
We are called by Jesus to be faithful to him, to be faithful to his specific call for us. To be obedient to his call will not be easy but we will never be out of his protective care.
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward
Those who reject us will be judged for their rejection. Those who help us will be rewarded for their help.
The world stands in opposition to the gospel of Jesus. We who are his messengers will be persecuted. Being a Christian is not for the fainthearted.
So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So donât be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32 âWhoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Find your strength in Jesus to do the work he has called you to do. Lean on him. Jesus will give you the authority to do what he has called you to do. Stand for Jesus now so Jesus will stand with you when you come into heaven.
