Let's hear the word of the Lord. Matthew 10, starting at verse 1.
Good morning everyone. It's great to be together today on the Lord's Day and
something else happened this week that was special. We had a day where we
reflected on the great sacrifices of many young men who were recruited by
their nations and sent out to battle with great evil forces that threatened
our freedom. I don't know how you spent your Anzac Day but there were many
things on different media platforms to get us reflecting on the things that
these young men experienced, like stories of how they saw horrid things which the
enemy had done to people and how they were equipped and commissioned with
putting things back in order by destroying the enemy in the places that
they had invaded. Now I mention all of this because we come to a part of
scripture this morning where in a very similar way Jesus, the King of God's
kingdom, recruits a group of men also as to send them out to start to engage and
drive back great evil forces with the authority and power of God himself. But
before we get into the text that we have before us this morning, why don't we ask
our Father to help us in the task? Would you please pray with me? Father God, we
ask that you would please enlighten the eyes of our heart this morning by the
work of your Holy Spirit, that you would show us more of our Savior, that you
would cause us to behold him, that you would change us, that we would take the
gospel and do something with it in the power and the authority that you give
your church. We ask for this in Jesus name, amen. Now if you've been with us
for any amount of time you'll know that we've been in the book of Matthew
following the public ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ which has been focused
on the kingdom of heaven invading earth through his ministry. That's what we've
been looking at since chapter 4. God through his prophets promised Israel
that God's perfect order would come and put things right which the enemy being
sin, death and the devil himself had destroyed through the fall of Adam. And
as we've seen Jesus has done this in a number of ways. In chapters 5 through to
7 we explored the sermon on the mount in which Jesus revealed the intent of the
law given to his people Israel which pointed people to the very heart of God
to which we are to live. Then we moved on to chapters 8 through to 9 and we
explored a series of events that Jesus engaged in with the enemy and its
ravaging effects. And what did we see? Well time and time again Jesus was able
by just the word of his mouth to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, make
demons flee, forgive sin and even raise the dead. All this went to prove that
Jesus not only had the power and authority of God but that he was the
long-awaited King of the kingdom, the long-awaited Messiah. This morning and
as Liam mentioned just before over the next few weeks we're going to be
looking at Jesus's disciples being prepared to be sent into Israel so that
they under the authority of God himself might push back and even destroy the
enemy within their nation. And so if you have your Bibles with you this morning
look with me at verse 1. We read Jesus called his 12 disciples to him and he
gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and
sickness. Okay so the first thing that I want you to see here is Jesus chose
these disciples so as to send them. Let me say that again Jesus chose these
disciples so as to send them out. Now believe it or not this wouldn't have
come as a shock to these guys and I say that because all the way back in chapter
4 as Jesus walked along the shoreline and recruited Peter, Andrew and James and
John he had said to them follow me and I will send you out to fish for people. Now
as we've noticed as we've been working our way through this book over the
months Jesus's ministry gathered many many people because the masses were
absolutely astounded with his miracle working power and it was from these
crowds that Jesus collected some other guys to train up and we see some of
their names there in verses 2 through to 4. Now we did this because as we saw last
week as important as the signs and wonders were as they testified to God's
very real power being at work among them the miracles were not the point of
Jesus's ministry. Now as we saw putting our faith in Jesus is the point of his
ministry that's how we receive the blessing of the kingdom it's by putting
our faith in Jesus and so these guys needed to know a bit about what Jesus
was about before they were ready to be sent. Now up into this point these guys
had been pretty much in the background and part of the crowds that listened to
Jesus and followed him around but now something changed in that Jesus called
them to himself so as to send them and he did that because if you look at verses
37 and 38 of the previous chapter you'll notice that Jesus had said to these very
guys that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few so pray to the Lord
that he might send some workers out. So something's happened there and these
guys were being prepared to be sent out prepared for this ministry and I just
want to say a couple of things on how our Lord prepared his disciples for this
ministry. First Jesus called these men to follow him and second he taught them.
I'll say that again first he called these men to follow him and second he
taught them. Now as I said before there were many many people who had come to
Jesus because they'd heard great things about this Jesus but it seems that Jesus
wanted these particular men to be a little bit more closer to him than the
others so as to learn privately from him and that's before you can be that's
because before you can be a teacher you must be a student and thus Jesus wanted
these guys to have access to himself. So we might say the way that Jesus trains
his people is that he calls them to be in his presence and have fellowship with
himself. I like the way that 18th century Puritan and pastor theologian Matthew
Henry puts it the best preparation for the work of the ministry is acquaintance
and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's important to note here. Jesus
equips those he will send out with first being a follower and disciple of himself
and I want you to take note of that because Jesus doesn't send people out
who are unprepared, unequipped and unfamiliar with a life of following him.
We see it in the way that he treats his own disciples. Jesus sends out his
disciples that was always the plan but he doesn't do it straight away. Now he
wanted them to have been following, listening and hearing what he had to say
and learning what it meant to be part of the kingdom of heaven. Remember verses
37 and 38. Jesus wanted to send workers out into the harvest because it's
plentiful but if his disciples just saw the miracles, heard the rumors, got caught
up in the hype and went out running out teaching wrong
information then people would get the wrong idea and be led to the wrong
conclusions. Jesus sends his people out into the field of ministry in some
measure equipped and prepared for that ministry. It is one of the great
tragedies of the internet age. There's a whole bunch of people out there in
YouTube land teaching and preaching from their bedrooms to millions and millions
of people that haven't been prepared and haven't been equipped. Those that the
Lord calls he equips. He doesn't send us unprepared which means if we're to serve
Christ in whatever capacity and in whatever place well we must first know
him and be in fellowship with him. We must first be his disciples and sit at
his feet and have communion with him, fellowship with the risen Lord. Now
obviously we can't be like these first men who physically sat at the feet of
our Lord and so the question begs how can we do that? How can we commune with
Christ? How can we sit at his feet? Well brothers and sisters might I say this is
why gathering together as the people of God around the Word of God and listening
and thinking and praying on his Word is so important. Faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word. What we do on a on a Sunday morning in our Bible studies in
our one-to-ones in our private reading time isn't just an intellectual pursuit
but a feeding on eternal words, a feasting on the manner sent from heaven.
Also that we might be corrected, edified, trained, shaped and built up in our most
holy faith. It's a wonderful thing to be in the Word, memorizing the Word and
meditating on the Word either corporately or individually. I heard this during the
week some Christians used to be called Bible moths because they would literally
live in their Bibles. Would you say that of yourself? Do you love to study the
Word? Would you say that you love to know our Lord's Word, to understand what Jesus
has to say about this world and what he has to say which applies to the
things that apply to our own lives? Are you hungry to hear from our God? These
things are the product of the work of the Spirit in the disciple, someone whose
heart yearns to know the words of our Lord. And just going back to the subject
of faith, well that's another way in which we grow in intimacy with our Lord.
It's by exercising the faith that we see, our faith in the things that we see in
the Word. Think about last week and how important faith is. Our faith in Jesus
will always lead us to trust him in what he has to say. Faith in Jesus will always
lead to action. Faith is integral in our sanctification and discipleship and
learning to trust our Lord is vital. One of the ways that our Lord grows us to
trust him more and more is through uncertain circumstances. This is why I
personally love being around men and women who have faithfully followed Jesus
through it all, because they testify to our Lord's faithfulness through the
hardest times, when everything around them didn't make sense and seemed so
dark, they walked by faith and not by sight and their testimony is always to
the faithfulness of our Lord in the darkest valleys who's leading and
guiding them. Now it might not always be through tragedy, but that's what Jesus
does with his disciples. He teaches us to exercise faith in him, teaches us to
trust his word because he wants to grow us in intimacy with himself. And so one
last thing to add here, knowing his word and trusting him will always lead us to
speaking to him. He speaks to us through his word, we walk according to his word
by faith and we speak to him as we live and trust and abide in him. That's what
prayer is. Prayer is the soul responding to our God who's speaking to us through
his word and we trust by faith that our words are heard by the living God who
desires intimacy with his people. Brothers and sisters, being a disciple
means being with Jesus. I don't know what our Lord will call you his disciples to.
For some of you it might be to something local, for some of you it might be to
another city, even to another nation, but what I do know is that you belong to him
and you are his disciple and all of our lives belong to him and he can do
whatever he wants with us, but might I say whatever he has in store for you,
whatever he has in store for me, those the Lord calls he equips and doesn't
send them unprepared and we are being prepared, we are prepared by being in
fellowship with him, sitting at his feet, trusting him, talking to him, having
communion and friendship with him. So the first thing that we see here is Jesus
chose these disciples so as to send them out, he equips them. The second thing we
see is that Jesus gave them authority and power over the enemy. Now as I said
before we've spent weeks in chapters 8 through to 9 exploring the events that
Matthew presented to us of the absolute power and authority that Jesus had been
given by God so as to carry out the mission of bringing the kingdom of
heaven to bear on his people, but now notice it, Jesus gives this very power to
these 12 chosen men. This is important to notice because as Jesus was sent into
the world and couldn't fail in his mission because of the power and
authority given to him, well these 12 men were going to be sent with the very same
power, the power of God himself into Israel to break down the enemy
strongholds, to set the captives free as they went about preaching on the kingdom
of heaven. Now notice it, all that these men were sent out to do would rise and
fall on their having received what Jesus promised to give them. Notice it, where
has the source of their power come from? Well not their smart ideas, not their
entertaining services, attractive speeches or winning personalities, but
Jesus said I'm going to give you this power and that's because he has the
power to give. Jesus has the very power of God to give to his people. He makes
all the difference. He gives power for ministry and power to change situations
and lives. Now in this context the Apostles needed the power of God for a
few different reasons and we're going to explore this a lot more over the coming
weeks but for now just look at this. First because these disciples were going
to be a witness of a message that would be very hard for Israel to hear. You see
the Israelites had the law and the prophets but the teachers as we've seen
were leading Israel to wrong applications and so our Lord gave these
men his power in order that as they went and as they taught their teaching would
be accompanied by signs to show that their application was approved by God.
These guys weren't just giving their advice but God himself approved their
message. Upon reflection of this the writer to the Hebrews said this
salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those
who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Distributed according to his will. Hebrews 2 verses 3 & 4. Second if you
look at verses 2 through to 4 of the text that we have before us this
morning these guys you'll notice weren't exactly credentialed theologians.
No they were pretty much the working class of society and and that's actually
what they would be accused of throughout most of their earthly ministry. They
would be accused of by the theologians as being unlearned men. Now think about it.
Though they sat at the feet of the greatest teacher to ever walk the face
of the planet the theologians of Israel didn't acknowledge what Jesus said about
himself and so having the power of the Lord on them would testify to God's
message about his son. Third this power and authority was given so as to show
Israel that the devil's rule is coming to an end. For months now we've been
exploring the book of Matthew and we've seen that the king of God's kingdom had
arrived and that as Jesus had traveled around preaching and teaching he had
infiltrated enemy lines and the devil and his minions had no power to stop him.
And now all Israel was about to see that those Jesus had given his power and
authority to were going to go and do the same thing. Through the power of God
Almighty. Through the power of God they were going to go and tear down enemy
strongholds and set the captives free. And church that's still the case today.
We as the disciples of Jesus Christ need our Lord to work in and through us in
the city of Armidale and beyond. And so this is the warning when we don't rely
on him and when we're tempted to do ministry in our own strength then we can
expect no real change. It's tragic many have lost faith in God's power through
the gospel and instead of relying on him they've moved to things like
entertainment or feel good TED Talks to try and win people over. No the disciples
in any time or place we must find our power and authority in Jesus. We must
depend on our Lord in all that we do to affect real change in this world. The
gospel is the power unto salvation for all who believe. I loved loved having
our AGM last week. It was a real time of celebration but we have to remember
church our best efforts our brightest minds and best strategies will not
bring souls into the kingdom of heaven. No we here at Grace Christian Church
must be continually dependent upon our Lord because it's by his grace alone
that his goal will be accomplished in our midst. His gospel is the power unto
salvation not our designs not our plans and strategies. Now does that mean that
we should expect signs and wonders? Well in the ministry that our Lord has given
us to do we are to be faithful to the gospel message that our Lord has given
us and he can and will act in the way that he best sees fit. As we read just
before in Hebrews God will act in accordance with his will when and where
he likes. He has the power. His power changes situations and the gospel is the
power unto salvation that we are to faithfully proclaim. That is what we are
called to do here at Grace Christian Church and a soul coming into the
kingdom is the most awesome miracle that can happen. But in saying that in saying
that we can ask our Lord and if he wants to accompany the gospel proclamation
with other things then that's his business. And so first Jesus chose these
disciples so as to send them. Second Jesus gave them authority and power over
the enemy. Third Jesus changed his disciples into apostles. Now I want you
to notice the language here that Matthew employs. He begins by saying in verse 1
his 12 disciples but in verse 2 he says 12 apostles. Now we did look at this
before but Jesus had these men follow him so that he could send them out and
that's exactly what apostle means. Sent one. And I absolutely love that Jesus
calls them apostles because in the Greco-Roman world an apostle was an
ambassador. One who was sent to all the territory of an empire to announce good
news to them that the king had conquered more territory and that their enemy had
been defeated. That's exactly what Jesus was commissioning these 12 to do. Now I
do want to say something about the immediate context here. This isn't the
great commission. This isn't the great commission that we're going to see later
in chapter 28 to go into all the nations. Now this commission as we'll see in
verse 6 was to go to Israel alone and they were to do that by going to all the
villages and towns announcing that the kingdom of heaven had come near. Now you
might remember as we've been working our way through this book if we look at the
ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus who also announced that the kingdom of
heaven had come near. It was to summon people back to the living God. It was a
message of repentance and that message of course is a foreshadowing of the
great commission given to all disciples throughout all time. But for now this was
to the nation of Israel. And I want you to notice a couple of things about this.
First it's interesting that Jesus pairs these guys. Matthew records that for us
with the word and. We see it there in verses 2 through to 4. Simon and his
brother Andrew, James and his brother John. Now if we look at the other counts
recorded by Mark and Luke this indicates that these guys were paired up as they
went out on mission. In fact it said elsewhere that they were sent two by
two and that is a great lesson in our evangelistic efforts. The church hasn't
been designed to do things individually but together and that's because
evangelism and missions is best done when we have mutual support. Now that's
not a hard and fast rule for every single situation but it's a good general
application. A church that's on mission together supporting each other and
praying for one another will be a community that stands on firmer
ground because we'll be doing it together. All of us are called to witness
for Jesus and all of us will have differing contexts in which we are to do
that but this is a thing. We are not called to tackle armadale by ourselves.
No we have each other. We have each other's support, each other's prayers, our
mutual encouragement and we are to edify each other as we seek to share the
gospel with our city. Second and please humor me a little bit this morning
because this is quite technical but I want you to see it in our text because I
think it's going to help us in the coming weeks.
Matthew you may have noticed links these men with the number 12 repeatedly. It's
interesting that Jesus out of the masses of people that followed him that he
selected 12 men right. The number 12 is stressed we see it there in verse 1 we
see it in verse 2 and verse 5. 12 men were selected, commissioned, endured with
power and sent. 12 men sent to Israel that just so happened to have been
established by 12 tribes which had been ravaged by the enemy, sin and their own
apostasy. And so we might look at this and say by Jesus choosing 12 men he's
symbolically making a new people a new Israel if you will. Re-establishing that
which had been torn down. By doing this he's insinuating that he's creating a
new Israel and that these men who would become the foundation of the church
would be like the 12 patriarchs that were the foundation of Israel. If that
seems hard to understand don't worry we're going to come back and look at
this in greater detail over the coming weeks as we go through the rest of
chapter 10. But for now church I just want you to see a couple of things as
we bring this passage to a close. First I really want you to notice the kind of
people that Jesus has chosen in this list. We don't have all the back stories
of all these people but the first few guys that are mentioned here Peter,
Andrew and their mates James and John and we know Matthew from just a few
weeks ago. What were they? Well they were fishermen and a tax collector meaning
they weren't the scholars of society or the great philosophers of the age. No
they were were simple working-class men that Jesus chose to build his church. He
chose them to build his church. Now in and of themselves that would be
impossible but that's the thing. Jesus came to them. Jesus chose them. He called
them. He taught them and he gave them his power and commissioned them. This was a
diverse group of guys and Jesus drew them to himself by his grace alone and
notice it. Jesus didn't set this up for failure. Yes these men made mistakes,
tragic mistakes. One of them would even go on to betray our Lord but despite
their very very human failures our Lord's plan accomplished exactly what he set it
out to do. These men went out and eventually a foundation of a new Israel
was set, the church. Not because of their strength and power but because of the
strength and power of the one who had sent them. Jesus being the cornerstone
and Jesus is still building his church today and in like manner no matter what
it looks like out there in the dark dark world or within the church itself with
our very very human failings. Jesus hasn't set the church up for failure and
that's the second thing that I want you to think about. I want you to hear the
words of one of these men that Jesus chose and changed into an apostle. The
Apostle Peter who through the breathed out words of the Holy Spirit speaks to
the church today. He says you, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who
called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Once you weren't a
people but now you're the people of God. You're the people of God once you had
not received mercy but now you've received mercy. See what our apostle is
saying here? He's saying that we're a new people that have been chosen and
gathered together by the living God to live in such a way that we're to be a
testimony to the world. Much in the same way that Israel was chosen and gathered
to be an example to the Gentiles. So brothers and sisters with that said God
wants all of us, all of us to show the world and declare that the gospel is the
power unto salvation. Which means none of us are useless in the hands of our Lord
and Master. He has chosen us and he desires to use you and me in
accomplishing his good plan and design in this world. All his disciples no
matter how educated you are, how rich you are, how successful you are by human
standards, you are not useless to our Lord when you rely on his power and
authority. Our human limitations are not the limits of what God can do through
you and me. He has all power and authority to change situations and lives.
He has the power and authority to destroy the enemy and set the captives
free and he uses disciples like you and me to do so. And so would you join me in
praying in accordance with this reality that has been given to us by the grace
of our living Lord Jesus. Would you please pray with me?
Lord Jesus we come to you this morning knowing that you have put us in this city.
Knowing that if we think about and look on the statistics it's grim. Lord Jesus
we know that you desire that your church is a city on a hill, a light in the
darkness but Lord we do know that the harvest is plentiful of the workers for
you. This morning Lord Jesus we ask that we would be a church that doesn't
compromise on the gospel. That we would be a church that has communion with you
that is filled by your spirit and that the overflow would be a great want and
a desire and a commissioning from you to go out into this city. We ask that it
would be spirit led. We would ask that your spirit gives us the wisdom and how
to do these things and over the coming weeks that you would teach us what it is
to be faithful witnesses to you. Lord this is your church we are your people.
We ask that you would use us for your glory and by your power and authority
that we wouldn't compromise. We ask for this in Jesus name. Amen.