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At the end of Matthew 9, great crowds of people were following Jesus, which caused him to declare that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. As we come to chapter 10, Jesus will commission 12 laborers into that harvest field and give them specific directions on how to serve. Let me ask you an easy question as we start this morning. Do you think that God needs us? Does God need you? I'm glad no one says yes. The answer is no. God means God. If God needed you, would God equal sign God? No. If God needs anything outside of external to himself, then he's not truly God. A demigod at best. That's not what we believe. We believe God means God. We believe God needs nothing. We believe that God is complete. He is full. There is no hole inside of God that you came along and filled. God is complete. He does not require us to do his good pleasure. He does not require us to do anything. But if that's true, then here's the question. If he doesn't need you to do anything, then why does he ask you to do something if he doesn't need you? If he could snap his fingers, if he can say a word. If Jesus could say a word and a man could be healed two miles away, why in the world would he ever call men to himself and send them out to go do the healing? If God could snap his fingers and accomplish all his good pleasure, he can do this, which he can, because he is God, then why in the world would he ever entrust any component of his workload to fallen people like us? Why would the God of all creation, the God who breathes and the universe comes into being, who can form stars and cosmos and galaxies just with a thought? Why would that God form this world and then place the spiritual equivalent of preschoolers in charge of it and give them things to do? Why would he do that? Well, as we said before, it's not because he has to. It's not because he needs to. So what's left? What's left is because he wants to. Now, why would he want to delegate? Why would he want to share responsibilities and opportunities and privileges? Well, what is delegation, I guess, is a way we could start. What does it mean to delegate? Well, to delegate is when one source of authority, a higher source of authority, takes some of that authority and puts it in the power of someone else to accomplish or to pursue. Now, right from the start, we see that that's the way God does things. This isn't a newfound thing. This didn't come around in Matthew, chapter 10. This has always been the way that God has worked right from the start. Right from the beginning. God creates everything. Everything is good. He founds the universe. Everything's wonderful. He says, it's good, it's good. It's good, it's good. Day one, day two, day three, and so on. It's good, it's good, it's good. He forms Adam, forms Eve, and then as part of the goodness, he puts them in charge. Now, what were they in charge? What was their job, so to speak? Job is not a bad word. It became a bad word after the fall. It was not a bad word in the garden. What. What job did he give our first parents? What did he have them do? What's one thing? Name the animals. Right. That's pretty cool. God creates giraffes and then lets man name the giraffe. Well, that's pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. God creates things and allows them to name them. But what else did he invite our first parents to do? Well, he says not only do you get to name the creatures, but you're in charge of the creatures. He gave mankind dominion, authority, reign over that which he had made as the supreme ruler. This has always been the way that God has worked from the garden right up and through the time of Christ himself. As we said before, Jesus could snap his finger, say a word, and the Roman centurion, son can be healed, right? God could do this. Jesus could do this. He didn't require men, and yet he calls these men to him, he calls the most unlikely bunch, which we'll get to in a moment, he calls this unlikely bunch. He gives them the privilege, the opportunity to be his means and his tools to accomplish his ends. Now again, before we return to verses one through four. Why? Why would he do that? Well, let me ask you, those of you who are parents, when your child was small, did you ever give your child some opportunity, some privilege to do something that ordinarily was reserved for you? A simple example is this. If you have a father who's handy, who builds things, he's got a hammer. One day a small child comes in, is just watching dad hammer. Dad's hammering, Dad's building, Dad's constructing, the child's watching, taking us all in. How cool is it when the dad looks at his son and gives him the hammer, says, son, you see this nail? You hit that one in. Now, what is the end result of that? Well, the end result of that is that the child gets the opportunity through this hammering, through this engagement, to model the behaviors the attitudes and the desires of the Father. And in a microcosm, that's why God puts apostles, and that's why God puts you and I to his good work. Because when we accomplish his work, we become more like him and we share his desires and his attitudes and his affections. And that's a good thing. When Christ asks you to do something for him, delegated to you by him, you will become more like him as a result of having done so. Let's see this now. Let's explore this now as we return to today's text about the calling and then the sending of the apostles. Let's return to verses one through four. Verse one. Now, when he when Jesus had called his 12 disciples to them, he gave them power over unclean spirits. Not everyone had this power to cast them out to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of diseases. Now, the names of the twelve apostles are these. First Simon, who was called Peter Andrew, his brother James the son of Zebedee and John his brother Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector James the son of Alphaeus and Labaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. All right, now remember as we do, that when you come to a specific text in God's word, that that text shouldn't be seen just by itself. It usually occurs in the context of what's going on around it. Well, if you were to look earlier in Matthew, in fact, if you were to look a couple verses earlier, at the end of chapter nine, you would see what you would see that Jesus Christ, he's been busy. He's been healing, he's been teaching, he's been preaching. He's been going to people. People have been coming to him. He's been a very busy man. All sorts of activities have been done. And he looks out at the end of Matthew, chapter nine, he looks at the great host of individuals who've been coming to him, and he takes his disciples to him and he in effect says this. He says, look at this harvest. The harvest field is right. The harvest field is full, and yet we need more laborers. Let's pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out more laborers into his harvest. So that's the very last line in Matthew, chapter nine. Well, the very first line in Matthew, chapter 10, what happens? Well, Jesus models what it means to send laborers out. He calls specific laborers and he entrusts them with specific works. As chapter 10 opens, Christ himself identifies 12 of these laborers, apostles from the Greater number of disciples and. And then he delegates to them his own authority. They would be representatives of Jesus Christ here on earth. With that said, what's interesting is what a motley group this was, a motley crew. You look at these names. One of these guys was a tax collector and another would betray him. Right from the start. You got to say, Jesus, this is an interesting group that you picked. Now, why would a tax collector be an interesting choice in that day and age? The tax collector was a Jewish individual who had sold out to Rome in order to take the taxes and the money from from his Jewish compatriots and give it to those who were oppressing them. So if you're a tax collector in this day and age, you are taking money from your brothers and sisters from the twelve tribes of Israel, and you're handing it over to the very entity Rome which had its boot upon you. So the tax collectors were considered the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst. Remember, when Jesus sits down and he sits down with sinners and tax collectors. Tax collector, tax collector. It came up every time as a pejorative, the worst thing you could be in this day and age. Well, almost, because also in this group was a betrayer. Now, why in the world did Jesus call these individuals? Well, on some level, we don't know. It's above our pay grade. With that said, it seems odd. There were clearly no tryouts at this time, and yet God knew exactly what he was doing. Jesus knew what he was doing. And for what it's worth, it's normative for Jesus to do the things that you don't expect him to do. It's normal enough for God to call those that you wouldn't expect him to call. That's just the way he operates. What do we see in 1st Corinthians 1 Corinthians 1, God says this for you. See your calling, brethren, that not many who are wise according to the flesh, not many who are mighty, not many who are noble, are called to this. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame that which is mighty. Consistently, regularly, God has taken the least of these, the choices that you would never take regularly, consistently, that's what God has done. With that said, rejoice in this. God chose you from out of this whole world. He chose you not because of something in you, but because of his sovereign will and volition. And that's exactly what goes on in verses 1 through 4, Jesus, through His sovereign will and volition, says, these are my guys. All right, let's look at verses 5 through 8. Verse 5. So these 12 Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, do not go the way of the Gentiles and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received and so freely give. All right? Something you'll look for, you can look for or you should look for when you read the Bible is this. When God calls individuals in Scripture, you'll notice that right thereafter, he sends them. Think about this. God calls Moses. Who did God send? Moses to the Egyptians? God called Jonah. Who did God send? Jonah to the Ninevites? God calls Elijah. He sends him to Ahab. God calls Paul. He sends him to the Gentiles. He does this time and time and time and time again. Verses one through four, God calls Jesus, calls the 12 apostles. And immediately, immediately, half a verse later, he sends them. Specifically, to who? To who does he send them? Well, in this text we see he sends them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He sends them to the Israelites, to the Jews. Now, that was a very specific sending, which is normal. For what it's worth, when God called individuals, he generally has a specific objective of where to send them. When he calls missionaries. You have a missionary that's sent to Peru. Where are they called to go to Peru? They're not simultaneously a missionary to France. Well, here those who are sent, those who are sent out, these ambassadors, these apostles, are sent to the Israelites. Now, that's not to say that God had no love for the Gentiles. Of course there was love for the Gentiles. You and I are Gentiles, right? God has a love for the Gentiles, but he had different individuals to send to the Gentiles. What's the dominant apostle in the New Testament that God sent to the Gentile nations? The dominant one starts with a P. His name is what, Paul. Right. So God had a plan. It's not that he didn't love them, didn't care about them. He had a plan he was going to send someone to him. He had an apostle for them. But these guys, their job was to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As a side note, the same is true for you and I. If God has called you, then he has sent you. We miss that. We think it's true of these big name guys in scripture. It's true. You and I as well. If God has called you out from this darkened hellscape of a world, if God has called you out and gifted you in the ways that he has gifted you, you, he's done so with the intention to send you to someone, to minister to them. But we rarely see that. We think that the people who vocationally, missionaries, pastors, what have you, that they're called and they're sent out and commissioned and all that, and the rest of us just sit back, you know, and kind of watch it happen and, you know, golf clap when things go well. No, you're sent. You and I are sent. And your mission field is different from mine. You are uniquely placed in relationships and context with family members, with co workers, with people down the street from you that are different than what anyone else in this room has. Your mission field is unique to you. You've been called out from this globe in order to go to them. You and I have been sent. The apostolic age and the gifts therein might not convey to us. I have yet to raise the dead. But. But the general principle that you and I are ambassadors, called and then sent, that 100% remains in effect today. With that said, in verses 5 through 8, what message he sends them? And he says, go do this cool stuff, you know, raise the dead, heal the sick, cure the lepers, do all this and wonderful stuff which will, by the way, which would validate that they were sent by him because he was the one famous for doing these things. If Thaddeus shows up and heals the sick and casts out demons, what did it tell the people about Thaddes? What did it tell people about Simon and the others? It told them that they had the authority of the guy who was famous for doing that, who was going around the countryside doing this. So it validated their ministry when they reflected the works of. Of Jesus themselves. And yet the works were not the sum total of what they were called to do. What were they called to do? Well, we see that there in verses five through eight. They had a message, a message that was to be conveyed, a message that was even more important than the healings and such that they had to offer. Verse 7, he said this. As you go out, as I send you, as I give you my authority, as I invest this in you, as you go out, you are to preach, and this is what you're to preach. The kingdom of heaven at hand. You know, 2000 some odd years have gone by, the message still applies. Let me explain this by way of a. I guess a simple and understandable anecdote. If you're in a movie theater, a full movie theater, and a fire breaks out, right? It's a full movie theater, fire breaks out. What is the responsible thing to do in Yale when you happen to be the first to notice that there's a fire? What should you do? Well, two things. Number one, you say fire, right? You alert people to the danger that exists. Otherwise they have no cause or no prompt to act. And secondarily, if you love them and care about them, you point to exits, right? Someone should point, here's the way out, here's the way out. Maybe there's one exit, go to that. Whatever the case is. But you say there's a fire, you point people towards the exit. That's the most helpful thing that you can do at this time. When people's lives are on the line, you identify the problem and then you identify the means of rescue. Dying people in a theater, they don't need more popcorn. They don't need their foot up. They need the. They need to know the way out of the danger that would otherwise consume them. We need to tell people the world's on fire. Be candid about it. Just look around, open a newspaper, the world's on fire, and in due time it'll consume all. With that said, there's a means of rescue. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Even as we watch the kingdom of men burn, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And in this particular case, right there in their very midst, the King himself had come down to the people. Truly, the words the kingdom of heaven is at hand had never been uttered with such primacy as they did the moment that Jesus Christ the King stood in their midst. All right, let's look at verses nine and ten. Verse nine, as you go. Provide neither gold nor silver, nor copper in your money belts, nor a bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staff for a worker is worthy of his food. You know something that's interesting? I went through seminary several years on the front end, and then I pursued an additional degree several more years. I spent a lot of time learning. The apostles, though, had only spent a couple years, really with Jesus, up to about three at the utmost. That's less time, less time than most pastors ever have in seminary now, because that's true, in fairness, they were learning from the best. They were learning from Jesus himself. So in fairness, what they learned during that window of time is more than I could learn, you know, in 50 years of seminar. They had a wonderful experience with that. Said, you could have said, after only three years of doing this. I mean, the other day, I was still a tax collector. I was catching fish. I was doing this other stuff. That's all I did. Up until just very recently. You could have felt, if you were one of these guys, that when Jesus says, I'm sending you out into this fallen world to go and confront the principalities and powers of darkness, you could have said, that's great, but I feel unprepared. Jesus says, go and cast out demons. And. And they knew what demons were in that day and age. We call them other things in ours. They understood what demons were in their day and age. And when Jesus says, you go and cast them out, I'm giving you authority to do so. They could have said, we're not ready. We're not ready for this unprepared. Now, on top of the unprepared thoughts and the lack of esteem they might have had in themselves at this time, notice in verses 9 and 10 that Jesus kind of compounds it. He says, not only do you probably feel unprepared, which is true, but at the same time as you go out into this world and face those very things and do the very things I'm calling you to do, and I don't want you to take any additional provisions. You got a tunic, Simon? That'll be your tunic. You don't need two. We don't need all the additional things. You don't need the gold and the copper and all the other things. Most of the time when we do anything in life, we think, I've got to get kitted out, I've got to be prepared. I've got to have everything I need before I go and do it. That can be true in ministry as well. We can say, I've got to have everything lined up. I got to have everything in place. Until everything's in place, I can't pursue xyz. But that's not the way this works. If you're saying, someday God will send me to the neighbor, someday he'll send me to go do this. Maybe when I understand more, when I've done this more, when I've accomplished more, when I've cleared these other things off the radar, when I'm better prepared, better equipped, when things are optimized for success, then I'll put myself in a position to do what God has called me to do in this particular text. We see that Jesus looks at unprepared guys who don't know what they're getting into, who are still young and naive in matters of faith. To a certain degree, he says, I'm sending you out. And although you may want and desire to stuff your pockets with all the provisions you could possibly have as you go out by the highways and byways to share, the kingdom of heaven is at hand as you do so, I'm going to tell you right now, don't. Why? Because your desire to feel prepared through your own provision and stuffing your own pockets and getting all the experience and all the readiness and all the optimization, what would happen if you made your life as optimal as possible, got every check mark done, filled your bank account, filled your wallet, filled your pockets, and then you went out and you accomplished something to Jesus at that point, what would you be inclined to do as you looked at that accomplishment? You'd be inclined to look at that accomplishment through the lens of your efforts to prepare for it. You'd be inclined to look at what you did on the basis of, boy, I was wise and shrewd and smart that I prepared myself in order to do this. Now, no one's saying you shouldn't be prepared for things in life to the degree you can go for it. But in this case, and in many cases, virtually all cases in ministry, God says the objective is not that you get all the power and strength and armament and shields and all these things, as if you're going to go out and conquer things. Why? Because then you'll trust in those things and others will look and trust in other things. I'm sending you out without the full provisioning that you would otherwise take for yourself. And when you then go and accomplish all these wonderful things for the kingdom, who's going to get the glory? God will. God would get all the glory for taking fishermen and tax collectors who didn't have two shekels to rub together in their pocket. God, we get the glory for sending them out and taking these very same men and frankly rocking the world with them. What did Churchill say? Seldom knows. So many owed so much to so few. Something along those lines that could be said of the apostles. The apostles and disciples would not have everything they needed. But that was the point. Because when God accomplishes wonderful things through them, then they would know that he gets all the glory. And when others saw that these fishermen were accomplishing these great things, they wouldn't trust in the fishermen. They would trust in the God who sent the fisherman. And that was the Point. All right, let's look at our last verses. Verses 11 15. Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who is in it that's worthy and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it's not worthy, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from the house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Let me stop there before we get to the that last verse. The custom that the Jews had at this time was that if they had to go through Gentile lands, if they had to go into a Gentile house, they had to walk through Samaria, if they had to go into these places that were unclean, dealing with unclean people. When they left the Gentile lands, when they got outside, when they left the Gentiles house, what did they do? They would kick the dust off their shoes. Because the idea was that some stain or some taint from that setting, from those individuals, from those pagans, from those Gentiles, they didn't even want to clinging to them as they walked into their own home. So this was very customary, very customary that you would knock the dust off your shoes as a way of speaking judgment upon or at least looking down upon those who were unclean. So here Jesus says, when you go in, find those who are worthy, stay there. If they're rejected, then leave. And when you leave, knock the dust from off your feet. Now verse 15, it adds this. And this is one of most strongly worded things that you'll ever see in the red lettering of scripture. Verse 15 just said, assuredly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Let's stop there. Sodom and Gomorrah. Without necessarily bringing to mind all the sins of Sodom Gomorrah, we can quickly establish this. Sodom and Gomorrah are the poster children for wickedness in Scripture. They are the poster children for wickedness. Beyond that, they're also the poster children for what it means to endure the wrath of God. What came down upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Fire and brimstone from heaven eviscerated Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet what does verse 15 say? Verse 15 says that those who reject Jesus Christ and his ministry and his ambassadors, those who reject the Gospel, they are due a worse fate, worse judgment than even that which befell the poster children for God's wrath. Sodom and Gomorrah, verse 15. Assuredly I say to you, I will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment than for that city. I'll get to the Sodom and Gomorrah in just a moment. But let me just add this before I forget it. You know how people react to you. Sharing the gospel is not your problem. If you're ever afraid about sharing the gospel because someone won't believe it or believe in you, well, that's just not the objective. The objective is not that you get to define the outcome of what you're doing. The objective is that you're obedient to what God would have you do, irrespective of the outcome. There's pastors, there's missionaries have gone out to the mission field, given their whole life to the mission field only to make the smallest dent. Not every missionary is William Carey. There are missionaries who've gone out and they look at their fruit and they say, there's very little fruit here indeed. But here's the thing. God determines the nature, quantity and size of the fruit that which is grown. And in some cases and in some relationships that we have, we say, this isn't bearing the fruit that I would desire it to have. But here's the thing. When irrespective of the fruit that comes from your work, he is pleased with you because of the obedience by which you did the work, you going and sharing the gospel, irrespective of how someone responds, that touches the heart of God. When you, his child, point to your father in the sight of those who reject him, God loves that and values it irrespective of what the outcome is. That's above our pay grade. Now, God willing, he will and does and has used your efforts to produce good fruit. In this case, verses 11 through 15, Jesus himself tells his own ambassadors, you're to go to the lost sheep of Israel. But many, they're just not going to like what they hear. In other texts he would tell guys like Peter, this is going to cost you your life. It's not simply that people are not going to like it. They're not going to sign up for your newsletter. There's people who will flat out hate you and what you have to say. And that's why the overwhelming bulk of all these apostles would die as what, martyrs? With that said, as we close this morning, let's get back to that verse 15. Jesus says assuredly. I tell you, it's going to be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for those, than for any city, village, town, hamlet, burg that denies that Jesus Christ is Lord will be better off to be Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than to be them. So what's going on there? John Calvin answered it this way. The greater the light that is given, the more severe the judgment. In the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, did they have a crucified Jesus? No. Did they have a risen Jesus? No. Did they have a New Testament? No. Did they have the apostles? No. Did they have light? Yes. But you could argue it was less. But in the days of Jesus Christ, when he was walking and teaching and preaching and breathing amongst the people and ultimately dying in full view of Jerusalem, you could argue that there's never been a brighter light shine from heaven than has ever been shown. Across the scope of humanity, the Gospel was highlighted not simply in words, but in deeds. People could look to the cross and see the Gospel, the embodiment of the Gospel there. If anyone was to take that and reject this, they are guilty of the greatest sin you can be guilty of. There's a lot of sins you can engage in. There's a lot of things you can do that are wrong, nasty and bad. Absolutely. But there's no greater sin in this than to deny the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is the greatest sin, and that's why it warrants the greatest judgment. This morning, the invitation is the same to us as it was to those in Jerusalem. And that is, rather than rejecting, rather than turning our backs on. On God's own Son, rather than denying his person, the divine Son of God, rather than rebelling against his work, dying on Calvary rather than doing this, we are called to embrace him and turn on Calvary. There was two examples of this. The reason Jesus was crucified between two other men is because those two other men typified the whole lot of us. Jesus is crucified in the middle. He's got a thief to his left, he's got a thief to his right. Initially, both thieves opposed. Both thieves mocked him like the whole world does. But. But then through the work of regeneration, one of the thieves who we believe to be the thief to Christ's right hand, his heart is changed. He's enabled and persuaded to see the man in the middle in a way he didn't see him previously, and to see that this one is dying for me. And so he looks to this one in the middle and he asks him a question. He says, lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus looks down at him and says this. He says, truly, truly this day you will be with me Me in paradise. The thief to Jesus left. As near as we know he died and went to hell. The thief on Jesus right, although he had done nothing to warrant God's grace, was a recipient of God's grace and he ascended into heaven that very day to be with his Maker, with his King, with Jesus in paradise. Why? Because he did not reject the message he trusted and believed. Saved through Christ alone, through grace alone, through faith alone, as instructed to us through his word alone. To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us@fpcgolfport.org or you can look us up@sermonaudio.com.