Gift

[00:00:00] Once more in prayer. [00:00:04] Our great God and our King. [00:00:09] You have indeed blown the gospel trumpet. [00:00:14] This news of the coming of the King and of all the blessings that he brings to those under his reign. [00:00:26] This message has gone throughout the world. [00:00:30] And it continues, O God, to go throughout the world every week as your Gospel is proclaimed. O Lord, our God, we come now to hear from you in your word, as it is read, as it is explained, as it is applied. [00:00:49] And we ask that you would give us hearts ready to receive, minds eager and able and open by your spirit to understand and to believe. [00:01:03] We ask, O God, that you would work in that Gospel message, not just here among us, bringing fruit of repentance, faith and new obedience, but that you would work around the world. [00:01:19] O God, we know that across this city of Tucson you have preachers of the Gospel who this day have proclaimed the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. And we know that this is true across our nation and indeed around the world. We ask especially that your eye would be upon those missionaries who have been sent to distant lands, that there where your Gospel is proclaimed, you would work mightily, both through those who proclaim it, and most especially by your Spirit in those who hear the Gospel. That the lost would be brought out of darkness, set free from chains and bondage to the devil, and that they would be brought into your kingdom of freedom, of light and of joy. [00:02:10] O Lord our God, we thank youk for your word, and we thank youk for your promises that yout work through it. So we rest this prayer then, and bring it to youo in Jesus name. Amen. [00:02:26] Our sermon text this evening is going to be from Matthew, chapter 10. We're really going to focus on the second half of verse eight, but I'll read chapter 10, verses one through eight. [00:02:46] So turning in your Bibles to Matthew 10, we'll read verses one through eight. Here we find Jesus commissioning his 12 disciples to go and preach the Gospel, hear God's word. [00:03:02] And he called to him his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these. First, Simon, who is called Peter, and 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 Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. [00:03:38] These 12 Jesus sent out, instructing them go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans. But rather Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. [00:04:00] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. [00:04:10] You received without paying, give without pay. [00:04:17] Thus far, God's word. Please be seated. [00:04:26] In our message this evening, we're going to focus on the latter half of verse eight. I read it from the esv, our pew Bibles. You received without paying, give without pay. [00:04:40] I'm familiar with it, having heard it many times over the years from other translations in a slightly more pithy translation. [00:04:48] Freely you have received. Freely give. Freely you have received freely give. The meaning is exactly the same. But if you hear me saying it, freely you have received freely give over and over and over again. And that's why that's how I memorized it years ago. And that's kind of how it rolls out. But we'll unpack or explain that expression, that brief phrase together this evening. [00:05:17] Let's start with a question. [00:05:20] Do you like birthday parties? [00:05:23] Do you like Christmas? [00:05:28] Do you like going to weddings? [00:05:32] What's something that all three of these have in common? [00:05:35] Certainly they're all joyful celebrations, I hope. [00:05:40] But there's something else that we do at all of them, something very specific that all three involve, and that is the giving and receiving of gifts. Really enjoy that, especially as children. Every time our birthday runs around and comes around and Christmas comes around, we look forward to it because we get to give and receive gifts. [00:06:02] The idea of the gift is at the heart of this verse. Freely you have received freely, gift. So we're going to look at that idea of the gift this evening, the gift of the kingdom, as we'll see. We'll look at that under three points. [00:06:18] First, the gift itself or the king's gift. The king's gift. Secondly, we'll look at how the gift is received, thirdly, at how the gift is given. So first, the king's gift. The gift received, and thirdly, and lastly, a gift given. [00:06:38] I commented to my wife on the way driving over here that this is one of those sermons where I have three different points. But really they all say the exact same thing. And by the time I finish preaching the sermon, I feel like I've said this same thing somewhere between 30 and 50 times. But bear with me, as we look at the gift of the kingdom, let's look first then at the king's gift. [00:07:03] Here in this verse 8, Jesus tells the apostles that they are to freely give something as they themselves have received it. They received something without pay they're now to give the same thing without pay. So the apostles, as Jesus sends them out, have something to give. [00:07:25] In other words, they have a gift, a gift that they're to go around the nation of Israel handing out, giving out freely. What is that gift? What is the apostles gift that Jesus sends them out to give? If you look at verse seven and verse eight, we get an immediate answer. What are they to give? Two things or two categories of things. First they're to proclaim something or in other words, they're to preach. Jesus is sending them out to preach. And the message that they are to preach is the kingdom of heaven is at hand. [00:08:07] That's the first thing that the gift involves is the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. [00:08:15] What was that preaching? Well if the apostles preaching mirrored Jesus own preaching, which it clearly does. Jesus, Jesus we told in Matthew 4 went around preaching the gospel and what did he preach? He preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand here. He sends them out to preach the exact same thing. [00:08:34] What's involved in this gift of preaching? What's the message? [00:08:39] It's something like this. [00:08:41] The king is here. [00:08:44] The king is here. [00:08:47] He's here. Everybody listen up. [00:08:50] He's arrived. [00:08:52] Remember that prophecy from Isaiah? All sorts of wonderful things were going to happen when God came and set up his reign over his people. That king, our God is here and he comes bringing his blessings. [00:09:09] At the heart of those blessings is a very truly wonderful thing. The King comes offering forgiveness of sins. He went everywhere. Jesus went everywhere, calling men to repent of their sins. And when they repented, he forgave them. [00:09:28] The King is here. He comes bringing blessings. The greatest of those blessings is that he comes to forgive our sins. [00:09:37] But he adds something more to that and you find something of this if you read through the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. That's Matthew, chapter five, six and seven. If you read through that Sermon on the Mount, here's what you find. [00:09:52] You find that Jesus promises to set up his reign, his rule. That's what the kingdom is fundamentally. Jesus as king, reigning over his people. And in that reign, here's what Jesus is going to do. He's going to deal not outwardly with swords and spears and with force, the way the police do or the soldiers do in earthly kingdoms. Jesus is going to deal with your heart. [00:10:20] Your problem is sin. You need to be forgiven of your sins, but you also need to have that sinful character of your heart dealt with. And Jesus comes and he says, I'm going to put My spirit in your heart. And I'm going to change your heart and set it free from a desire to sin and. And make it walk in God's ways. [00:10:41] He promises to bring the blessing of a changed, renewed heart, a heart that springs forth in what we call the fruit of the Spirit, or what Isaiah's prophecy called righteousness and justice, to give his people hearts that would not just want to do good things, but want to also love God and serve him aright. [00:11:04] This was their message. And so they called out to men, come, follow the King. Come, follow King Jesus. His kingdom is here, and he's come to save you. [00:11:16] That's the first part of the gift that the apostles were to give freely. The second part, if you look at verse eight, is what we might call miracles and healings. [00:11:28] Jesus said, go preach. But secondly, he said, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. [00:11:37] Why does Jesus add these miracles, these healings and resurrections and so forth to the preaching of the Gospel? He adds it to the preaching of the Gospel for the same reason he himself performed miracles. [00:11:52] Those miracles that people saw with their own eyes. They saw blind men have their eyes opened and now able to see. They saw paralyzed men who couldn't walk. When Jesus said, get up and walk, the men were able then to get up and walk, being healed visibly before their very eyes. What Jesus was doing was giving people a visible picture before their very eyes that they could see of what he had come to do in his kingdom. [00:12:23] Think of the servant of the centurion. We'll look at two examples here. Think of the servant of the centurion a couple chapters earlier, and I think it's in Matthew 8. He was lying in bed. We're told that he was tormented greatly by his illness. And that illness paralyzed him. It tormented him, but it also left him paralyzed in bed. [00:12:48] King Jesus healed him with a word without even going to see him. He. He said, I am willing. [00:12:54] And the servant was healed. [00:12:57] Why did Jesus do that? We said it was a picture of what he had come to do. Jesus was showing by healing that paralyzed, tormented man from his illness, that Jesus had come to set sinners free from the paralysis, the grip, the stranglehold that our sin has on us, and to set us free from the misery and the torment that our sin causes us. [00:13:24] And you know that both of those are very true. We have no power to keep ourselves from sinning. Our lust takes over, our covetousness takes over. And then what results from that utter misery and torment? Jesus was showing by healing that paralyzed servant and tormented servant that that was what he had come to do and that what he would do for sinners in his kingdom. You see something again similar in his healing of the leper. Again in Matthew, chapter eight. [00:13:55] The leper, his skin disease was ugly, visible, and what was worse, his leprosy made him unclean. It kept him from being able to draw near to God. He couldn't come and worship God with God's people. In other words, the leper had something that kept him from having fellowship, friendship, and communion with God. [00:14:19] When Jesus cleansed the leper, he restored the leper to communion and fellowship with God. Jesus showed that he, in his kingdom and in his ministry, had come to take sinners whose sin was unholy and unclean and kept them out of communion with God. He had come to take those sinners and cleanse them and and bring them into communion with God. [00:14:45] You see how all of the parables reveal the nature of the kingdom that Jesus was preaching. [00:14:53] This was the marvelous gift that Jesus gave to his apostles and then told them to go out and give freely to the people. It was the gift of the kingdom of heaven. [00:15:07] The king's gift is the kingdom of heaven. [00:15:13] Now, this was a gift that the apostles themselves had indeed received. [00:15:18] We read their 12 names. These men had truly received this, except for Judas, who we know later turns on Jesus and is called the Son of Perdition. But the other 11 men, they had received this kingdom. Think of Peter, Andrew, James, and John fishing by the sea. [00:15:38] Think of Matthew, that wicked, evil tax collector. Jesus called them. He said, the kingdom is here. I'm here. Come, follow me. And what did they do? They followed Jesus. They put their trust in him. They threw their lot in with him. They left everything behind, and they followed him. [00:15:57] And Jesus gave them the kingdom. [00:16:01] What does he do? At the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, he calls these apostles to himself. And he says to them, to these men, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and so forth. He says to them, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I've come to give you the kingdom of heaven. And then he says especially to them a few verses later, because he knows he's about to send them out to be persecuted and reviled. He said, blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. [00:16:40] Jesus came and he gave these men the gift of the kingdom of heaven. [00:16:46] Now this is a gift that we need, is it not that this world needs. [00:16:54] We all need it. Like them, we sit in darkness. We sit in the shadow of death. [00:17:03] Satan has a grip hold on sinners, and they live under the constant sentence of death, spiritual death, now in this life and eternal death in hell, forever under that shadow. [00:17:17] And sin causes great misery. We need this gift of the kingdom. [00:17:23] It's a wonderful thing then, that the kingdom is a gift with all its blessings, a gift given freely. [00:17:31] To picture that, to make it abundantly clear that the kingdom of heaven was a gift given freely. [00:17:38] The apostles were strictly forbidden from charging anyone for hearing the gospel message or for receiving the healings. [00:17:48] Do you see what Jesus is doing? You know what the gift is. Now go back and look. At the end of verse eight, Jesus says, go preach, Go heal and raise the dead. [00:18:02] You received this gift without paying. Now go give it to others without charging them for it. [00:18:10] The very manner in which the Gospel is to be preached back then and now to this day is to reflect the fact that this kingdom is a gift. We are never as gospel preachers to charge others for hearing the Gospel. It must always be proclaimed freely because it is a gift of the King. [00:18:33] It's his gift to give to his people, and we are not to charge people for it. [00:18:42] All sorts of applications there, no doubt. If you listen to the TV evangelists who are constantly asking people to send in money, I'll let you take it from there, but we will move on. [00:18:55] This is the King's gift. We said that is a gift. Secondly, we said we would look at it as a gift to be received. Now here we're considering this gift not as the gift in and of itself, but. But from the perspective of those who would receive the gift. If it's the birthday party, you're the birthday boy or the birthday girl. We're thinking about how you receive a gift. [00:19:21] You, the sinner, are to receive the gift of the kingdom. [00:19:25] If it is a gift, it means that it's something a person receives free of charge. [00:19:33] You, you don't pay money for a birthday gift. The person gives you the gift. That's why it's a gift. Right now, this is where it's pretty obvious, but I have to say it. The gift of the kingdom is something you cannot pay for. It's something you have to receive. [00:19:54] Now, there's probably other reasons, but I want to look at you, look with you at two reasons. Look with you at two reasons for why the gift of the kingdom is something you have to receive, something you cannot pay for. [00:20:10] Reason number one is our poverty. Our poverty. We must receive the kingdom as a gift from Jesus the king, because we have nothing to offer him. [00:20:24] We have nothing to offer him. [00:20:27] We have, as it were. It's like we're going to the store to buy the kingdom, but we have no money in our wallets. You take your wallet out, you look and you say, nothing in here is good for purchasing the kingdom of heaven. [00:20:42] We've got nothing. [00:20:44] We have to receive the kingdom as a gift if we're to possess the kingdom. [00:20:51] Now, Pastor, where do you see that taught in these verses? [00:20:55] Look at the healings with me for a moment. In verse 8, Jesus says, Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Let's look at two of those, although I think it applies to all four. [00:21:09] Raise the dead. The apostles were to go out and raise people who had died back to life. [00:21:18] If receiving the kingdom is like being a dead person who is resurrected, then the kingdom has to be received as a gift. Just like the dead person cannot do anything to raise himself again from the dead, it's impossible. The dead person has to be acted on from without by King Jesus, who gives him life and raises him from the dead. [00:21:46] We are like dead people in our sins. [00:21:50] We must be raised back to life. [00:21:53] If that's the blessing of the kingdom, then it's something we have to receive. It's not something we can ever pay for. [00:22:02] Or perhaps look at those who are enslaved to devils. He says, cast out demons. What are they doing when they cast out a demon? They're taking someone who is in bondage, in slavery to the demon, who can't set himself free from the demon, and they're giving him his freedom. [00:22:20] Can a slave set himself free from his spiritual overlords, the devils? No, he can't. It's impossible for him to purchase freedom from that kind of slavery. [00:22:35] We have nothing, nothing with which we can purchase the kingdom of heaven and its blessings. It must be received as a gift, received freely, without pay or money. [00:22:49] That's our first reason. But before we move on, I want to chew on it just a little bit with you. We have a struggle here. I think we have some deeply rooted errors in our thinking. This morning, Pastor Khelpka talked about our problem with the law, Right, that we have a problem in our relationship with the law, because we tend to think that in our relationship with God, if we keep the law, we somehow, in some fashion, can have friendship with God. And he said, no. The only way we can have a relationship with God is through mercy. [00:23:26] It starts with God's mercy to us, that forgives us and draws us into fellowship with God. It's grace. [00:23:34] But we have a similar error here in our understanding about trying to purchase the kingdom. [00:23:43] We think that somehow we need to earn God's favor. It looks like a number of different things and different people. [00:23:50] A lot of people who are in the church think that they're in God's kingdom because they're good people. It's common. I run into it even in reformed churches. [00:24:03] Why? Not necessarily because the teaching is wrong, but because the error flows from where it is in our hearts, so deeply rooted. Some people think that, yeah, I've done some bad things, but overall I'm pretty good. I'm a good guy. I take care of my family, I'm good to my co workers, I show up at church, I deserve to be here. I deserve to be in the kingdom. [00:24:27] What that basically is saying is I'm good enough to earn and deserve this gift that Jesus is giving. I've purchased it. That person is never going to see the kingdom as a gift given graciously. [00:24:43] But other people struggle with the opposite error. Whether they stay away from church or whether they come to church week after week, they think I can only be in the kingdom if I'm good enough. So in other words, it's the same problem, but the other side. I'm not good enough to be in the kingdom. I have to keep trying. And if I'm good enough, eventually, someday, maybe I'll make up, I'll change, I'll become a better person and God will accept me and the people around me in the church will accept me. And perhaps even at that point God will forgive me and receive me. Some people think they're good enough, other people think they're not good enough and so they can't earn the kingdom. [00:25:28] It comes out in other ways of our thinking too. Though it's a really pernicious error to use a big word we don't use very often. [00:25:39] It's pernicious. It sneaks up on us. It comes out in ways and in times that we wouldn't expect. [00:25:46] We often treat forgiveness in our families, in our relationships, with our children, with our spouses, as though it's something that people have to earn. [00:25:59] We do it. I think I've seen. I've probably done this myself with my children. I've certainly seen it from time to time. [00:26:06] We can sometimes withhold forgiveness from our children when they break the rules, when they disappoint Us, and we do it this way. Our children do something that disappoints us. And so we treat them with coldness. We treat them with some distance. [00:26:26] What are we doing? Maybe we give them additional sternness until they change their ways and they start to behave. And maybe a couple days later, when things their improvement, their behavior has improved. Now we start to treat them kindly, gently and warmly again. But until then, we remain aloof, cold. [00:26:44] Maybe we're stern. Why we're thinking to ourselves, I need to make sure that they know I'm disappointed with them so that they'll start to behave. [00:26:54] When we do this, we can fall into the error of teaching our children that they have to earn our forgiveness. [00:27:04] The child says, if I'm just good enough today towards mom and dad, then they'll be pleased with me, then they'll love me, then they'll forgive me, and they won't hold against me what I did a couple days ago. [00:27:18] It's very easy for us as parents to fall into this pattern. We can fall into it with our spouses, with others, to withhold forgiveness, to withhold love, until behavior changes, until we think they've really gotten it. [00:27:34] Children who grow up in homes treated this way often grow up thinking that that's how God's forgiveness works, that that's how God's kingdom works, works. [00:27:44] That's how forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ works. And you can see how it's a problem. [00:27:52] That's not grace. [00:27:55] That's not how Jesus Kingdom works. [00:27:58] Jesus Kingdom and the forgiveness and all the blessings that come in Jesus Kingdom are gifts. You can't earn them. You can't earn them by being good enough. You can't earn them by pleasing Jesus with enough good behavior. [00:28:13] It's a gift. It's a gift. And as parents and as Christian brothers and sisters, we have to learn that that graciousness of the gospel and of forgiveness and of the kingdom has to come and affect how we treat our children and one another. [00:28:30] So the kingdom can't be purchased because we've got nothing to buy it with. [00:28:36] But the kingdom can't be purchased, and it has to be given freely as a gift for a second reason. [00:28:43] It can't be purchased because it's not up for sale. [00:28:48] Even if you had something in your wallet to buy the kingdom, it's not up for sale. [00:28:56] No one's accepting money. [00:28:59] It's not sold in a store. [00:29:02] All Jesus does is send his gospel messengers out, his apostles and his preachers, to give it out freely as a gift. [00:29:12] It's not for sale. [00:29:16] Now, there are two ways in which you can see that the kingdom, this gift, is a gift and isn't for sale. There's others, but here's two. First of all, consider the forgiveness of sins. The very first thing we encounter when we come to King Jesus. He says, repent and follow me and I will forgive you. I. I will save you and deliver you. What is the forgiveness of sins? [00:29:41] It's dependent not on any money that anybody pays, not any good works that any of us do. It's dependent upon the mercy of the King. [00:29:50] It depends on Jesus loving kindness, his covenant kindness and love to sinners in mercy. He extends forgiveness. [00:30:01] If you owe a debt to a bank that you can't pay, you've got no money with which to pay it. And the banker says, you know what? Today I'm going to cancel your debt. Is that debt gone because you paid it? No, it's gone because he was merciful and he canceled it. It's similar with forgiveness of sins in Christ. It can't be bought by you because it depends on his mercy and him canceling the debt of your sins. [00:30:30] It can't be bought. It has to be a gift. [00:30:33] Secondly, consider that communion fellowship with God pictured in that leper being cleansed and being allowed once again into God's presence. [00:30:44] That communion with God is at the heart of eternal life. Jesus says that in John 17, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and His Son, Jesus Christ. [00:30:58] To know God, to have fellowship with him, is eternal life. To be friends with God, to dwell with him for all eternity, that is eternal life. And that is the most wonderful, glorious gift. At the center of the gift of the kingdom of heaven is that you will one day behold God face to face. [00:31:20] And guess what? It ain't for sale. You can't buy eternal life. It's a gift. [00:31:28] What does it depend on? [00:31:31] It depends on God loving you. [00:31:36] It depends on God reaching out to you and saying, I want to know you, dear child, and I want you to know me, and I want to be friends with you. [00:31:47] Even in human relationships, we know this. [00:31:50] Can you buy a woman's love? Men, if you go according, can you buy a woman's love? Well, if you could. Even in human relationships, if you could buy a woman's love, it wouldn't be worth knowing her, would it? She has to give her heart to you. No, to know God and to have eternal life can't be bought because it comes from the heart of God himself, drawing you to himself in the bonds of love. [00:32:21] Romans 11:35, which comes at that wonderful place in Romans. [00:32:27] But it's at the end of the whole exposition of how God saves his people and draws them to himself. [00:32:33] And he says this, who has first given to God that it shall be repaid him? [00:32:40] Is there any way in which man can hold God in his debt, where we can do something and God will owe us something? No, it's not possible. God gives himself to us freely, and therefore we have eternal life. [00:32:56] The kingdom must be received as a gift, because it cannot be purchased. It's not up for sale. [00:33:04] Look into your bank account. [00:33:07] All you have is the debt of sin. [00:33:11] You have to give up trying to earn ways to forgiveness or to communion with God. You have to look to Jesus the King, look him full in the face, and realize that as you look into Jesus eyes, the one whom you by faith are staring into his eyes, he has a heart full of love for you, and he desires to give his Himself to you. And in giving himself to you, to give you the Father and to give you the whole of the kingdom of heaven. It's all a gift. Let's pray. [00:33:54] Our gracious, kind, merciful and loving Heavenly Father, we come to you through our most loving and merciful Savior, Jesus Christ. [00:34:10] O Lord our God. Our hearts are full of thanks as we consider that unworthy, undeserving, unable, as we were indeed deserving not of love, not of forgiveness, not of eternal life, but deserving of hellfire and misery and torment far more than we experience in this life. [00:34:34] You, in your kindness, have removed all of that and drawn us to yourself and all of this graciously, unmerited, freely and without anything that we have done. [00:34:51] O Lord our God, we praise and exalt you and we glorify and magnify your name, the name that you have placed on Jesus Christ, the God man exalted on high, who now bears the name Jehovah. God as the God man in heaven. [00:35:11] We praise and exalt you, Jesus, our King. For there is no one like you, and there is no people like your people, who have a God like you, who saves. [00:35:24] O Lord our God, we cast ourselves upon you with joy, with love and with thanks. [00:35:31] We cast ourselves upon you in our need too. For we confess that we have many needs. [00:35:40] O Lord, we ask that you administer to those of our souls we are downcast. [00:35:46] We ask that you would lift us up and that you would fix our eyes on Jesus in heaven. Our God. We ask that you would be near to those who are straying. [00:35:57] Lord, many of us have fallen into all kinds of sins and have been tempted and are worried that we will pursue things that lead us away from you. Lord Jesus, draw us back to yourself. Bind our hearts to yours in the bonds of love. [00:36:14] We ask, Lord Jesus, that you would minister to our families, protect our marriages, watch over our children and our little ones. [00:36:25] We ask that you would keep us from the evil one. [00:36:31] Strengthen our hands as we seek to serve you in this evil world. [00:36:36] Help us that we might love one another so that the world may know that we are your children. [00:36:45] We ask that you would bless us as a congregation, that we would be knit together yet more in the bonds of unity and love. And that as we stand together, walking forward in this life, arm in arm, hand in hand, that our unity would not only bless one another as we lift one another up and serve one another, but that it might also bear witness and testimony to your work among us. That you have truly saved us and that your free grace is open to all sinners. [00:37:20] We ask that you would add to the number of those who are being saved even in our midst. [00:37:27] Lord Jesus, our King, we thank you that you hear our prayers. [00:37:31] Amen.