Matthew 9:35-10:15 7 January 2018 Introduction To be a Christian is to be called by Jesus radically in to know God as our Father. But the moment Jesus calls us in, he also sends us radically out. This is the pattern of the Bible: Abraham receives amazing promises, is immediately sent to a land he doesn t know; Moses encounters God at the burning bush, is immediately sent to hostile Pharaoh. Isaiah sees the LORD on his throne, is immediately sent to a hard-hearted people. And whoever Jesus calls radically in, he sends radically out. To be a Christian is to have received a commission from Jesus to go on a mission for Jesus. And the particular mission we are sent on is described in 10:7: Go, proclaim this message: The kingdom of heaven has come near. The message we are to share is that a new king has been appointed over this world - not a mere earthly king, but one sent from heaven, the proof being that God raised him from the dead. And so God calls people to come under king Jesus rule now. The kingdom of heaven has come near. And every person whom Jesus has called radically in, he sends radically out with that message. We re not just to wait for the world to come to us. We are to go to them with this message whether they want to hear it or not. I wonder how that makes you feel. Maybe excited, but maybe daunted, inadequate, ashamed of the past, discouraged for the future. Maybe you re not yet a Christian and a little offended at the idea of Christians trying to convert people. This passage helps us to process those feelings. Let s begin with (1) The reason we do it (9:35-38) It s explained in 9:35-38 and it s very simple: we have a wonderful king and he tells us to. That s why we go and proclaim: because we have a wonderful king and he tells us to. 1
Breaking that into bits, first: we have a wonderful king. v35-36 summarise things we ve seen if we ve read chapters 4-9: Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So, for one thing we ve seen Jesus power. The miracles he performed in Galilee, mastering chaos, overcoming evil, forgiving guilt, delivering people from shame, restoring them to their right minds, calling them into the family of God, literally emptying the sick beds of the region. It s as if Jesus made Galilee a show home for what he is going to do for the world when he returns. So he s a wonderful king for his power. He s a wonderful king also for his teaching and we heard from the Sermon on the Mount how wisely he leads us into loving people, having perspective on things, being rooted in an inner life with God as our father that makes us humble. So he s a wonderful king for his teaching, also. But perhaps supremely he s a wonderful king for his compassion. For when Jesus looks out at this world gone badly wrong, he has a gutwrenching compassion for the people caught up in it. He s angry with their leaders, who have failed them in pointing them to him. He s angry with the lies they believe that leave them so harassed and helpless. He s weeping because he knows they are headed for hell. Indeed, such is his compassion that it will take him to the cross, to face that hell for them, so that any who trust in him need not perish but have eternal life. Friends, if we are Christians then this is our king powerful, wise, compassionate it s the blessing of our lives to be under him. And why do we go and proclaim the message of his kingdom? Because he tells us to: v37, Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. And what are we? We re workers. Can I put it another way? We don t go out and speak to people because we have great compassion. We go because God does. We don t go out because we see a plentiful harvest. We go because God does. He s the 2
Lord of this harvest and the reason we work for him is simply out of obedience, because we trust him. It s very important that we keep this straight in our heads, because the moment we start to multiply our motives is the moment things will start to go wrong. For instance, it is not the case that we are to look at people as harassed and helpless as if we ve got it all together and they don t and so we re condescending to give them some good advice. No, we need Jesus just as much as anybody does. And the moment we go to people not out of obedience to Jesus but because we think we re doing them a favour, is the moment we are just bound to sound smug and patronizing and holier-than-thou and no-one wants to listen to someone like that! To take another example, it s not that we go because we see the great need. The truth is that the task is so huge, and people are generally so uninterested in Christ, that if our eyes on them, we will quickly become overwhelmed, discouraged, fearful or frantic. Only one reason for going and proclaiming will help us do it well: and it s that we have a wonderful king who tells us to. We do it out of faith. We do it as our worship. And I hope that if you re not yet a Christian that that at some level makes sense to you, and you can see the rightness of what we re doing. Let s move on now to (2) The authority we re under (10:1-8) As we do this mission. As we think about how to do it, is that just between us and Jesus? Are we free to fulfill the mission as we see fit? Are we free to expand on that summary sentence, The kingdom of heaven is near as we see fit? Well, no! And the reason not is that this commission in chapter 10 was not originally given to us but to the Apostles. Notice with me how Matthew emphasizes that. First, through the names and numbers: 10:1, Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and illness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and 3
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions Then notice the instructions they receive: Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: The kingdom of heaven has come near. Heal those who are ill, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. At the end of Matthew s gospel, we find the Great Commission, given for all time to all disciples to reach all nations. This commission is different, isn t it? It s just to the Apostles, to reach just the Jews. What they are offering is a kind of simultaneous extension of Jesus own ministry complete with all the miracles he was performing at the time. That s something that nowhere in the New Testament does it suggest we can do. And what that means is that when these Apostles speak, they speak fully for Jesus. His authority is their authority. This again has the most profound implications for Christian ministry today, because what it means is that if we want to serve Jesus, then we have to do it under the Apostles authority which means in practice submitting to the books they have written namely the New Testament. Many people today deny this. They claim to speak for Jesus without submitting to all that the New Testament says. They think they can be under Jesus authority without having to be under his Apostles. Do you see how in Matthew 10 Jesus explicitly rules that possibility out? It s as if he says, I say, Go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has come near. But if you want to know what that means (how to do it, when to do it, where to do it, what to say, what defines repentance, what defines faith, and so on and so forth), these twelve speak for me: they will tell you the answers to those questions. And of course, later he would give the same authority to the Apostle Paul. So if we want to say that we ve been sent by Jesus and speak for Jesus, this is the authority we must remain under. Of course, wonderfully as we do that, they help us. Freely the apostles received wisdom, courage, patience and so on from Jesus. And freely by God s Spirit they will give these things to us. So that s the authority we re under. But I want to move to our last point for today: 4
(3) The authority we have (10:9-15) We re thinking about being sent by Jesus to speak for him to all around us, even if they don t want to hear. And I know that many of us will be thinking, I couldn t! I m not that kind of person. It wouldn t go well. And even if we aren t thinking that, if we give it a go, certainly people around us will say, You shouldn t! In this day and age, we re not supposed to be converting people. It s not tolerant! And as some of you know at work, nowadays, if you persist in talking about Jesus, it s not long before people will seek to intimidate you with threats of disciplinary action or something. It s into that kind of context that Jesus speaks. v9: Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. Do you get a sense from those verses of Jesus very different way of looking at reality? Most people think that there is no God or if there is, we can t be sure what he s like and therefore the most important thing in this life is that we all just get on with each other, and live and let live. Jesus says that there is a God, who has come near in the person of Jesus, and so we can know exactly what he s like. And he offers peace graciously, despite the wrong things we ve done, he offers us a love relationship with himself. But he is the king. And to rebel against him is treason. And therefore the most important thing is not that we all live and let live. The most important thing is that people turn to him. We ve got to ask ourselves which of those two ways of looking at the world we believe. If we believe the first, then sorry to be blunt but we are not yet a Christian. But if we believe the second, then do you see that we are bound to speak for Jesus? And when we do, here is the authority that we have: it s that we really do speak for him, and the response people make to us is the response they are making to him. That s the point of the verses. As the disciples 5
go into a town, if people listen to them and receive them, they are receiving Jesus and they come into peace with God. But if those people reject them, they are rejecting Jesus and therefore they must face themselves the judgment that he graciously went to the cross to face for them a judgment worse, says Jesus, than the true story in the Old Testament when burning sulphur rained down on those cities. Do you see how this turns things on their head? As Christians, often we are embarrassed to speak for King Jesus and we are frightened for our own sakes of how people will respond, and people feel sorry for us almost for the way we are so not listened to. But the reality is, that as we proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is near, we ought not to be frightened for our sakes how people respond we ought to be frightened for their sakes, because upon their response to our words depends their eternal destiny. Do we see the staggering authority that we have, if we present ourselves to God as approved workers who correctly handle his word of truth? Conclusion As I wrap up, I just to pull out a couple of things from the passage that help us respond to this message today. The first applies to any here who are yet to place themselves under King Jesus, so as to allow their lives to be shaped by his Apostles commands. And if that s you, I want you to notice that this mission of the Apostles to the lost sheep of Israel soon came to an end. And by chapter 28, the messengers had moved on to other people. And I just want you to realize that that may happen with you too. You don t know whether God will ever give you another chance to respond to this call from Jesus to enter his kingdom. I hope he does! But I can t promise that and you can t guarantee it. And Jesus says that you are lost without it. Consider a dying man in hospital. And by his bedside are two pills in a cup that will save him if he takes them. What does that man have to do to die? Does he have to curse the doctors? Does he have stab himself or throw himself off a roof? Does he even have to vow never to touch the pills? No. All he need do is nothing. And the day of him being saved will pass. 6
Think carefully, therefore, about who Jesus is. And if he is King, think carefully how to respond, and when to. And if I can help you, I would love to. But the other thing I wanted to pull out is for the rest of us, and it s just this stuff about, a worker being worth his keep which points us back to 9:38, and reminds us that if we go and proclaim, then we are the Lord s workers and that therefore ultimately he is the one who provides for us. Which means: we can do it. Let s pray. 7