Show Notes
Matt. 10:9-14
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] It is by your word and spirit that you reign in the hearts of your people.
[00:00:12] And we know that your reign is a glorious reign.
[00:00:19] When you exercise power, you do so in justice.
[00:00:26] You bring righteousness and peace everywhere you go.
[00:00:34] So our God, as we come to hear from you in your word, read and proclaimed.
[00:00:44] We come trusting that you will indeed exercise that authority that reign in our hearts, not from a man here on earth, but from your throne in heaven.
[00:01:00] That is our hope.
[00:01:01] O Jesus, we ask that you would work on our hearts.
[00:01:08] We have so much need for you to deal with our doubt and tenderly show us yourself that we might grow in faith, that we might learn to depend on you, to lean on you, as though we were leaning upon a staff and commit ourselves to you wholly for everything, body and soul.
[00:01:36] And, O Lord Jesus, our hearts wander and we stray and we fall into all manner of sin and. And that sin clouds our understanding and it keeps us from pursuing you.
[00:01:51] So, Lord Jesus, we ask that you would deal with each of our hearts and root out those sinful desires, clear our hearts and minds, and that we might be drawn to you and to walk in holiness before you.
[00:02:09] Lord Jesus, we commit these things to youo, and we trust that yout will hear us.
[00:02:16] Amen.
[00:02:19] We turn once more in God's word now to Matthew, chapter 9. I'm sorry, Matthew, chapter 10.
[00:02:26] Matthew chapter 10. Our sermon text is verse 9 through 15.
[00:02:33] I gave the wrong verse there. It's not 14 what's in the bulletin, but we'll go through verse 15, 9 through 15 of Matthew, chapter 10, and I'll begin reading in verse 5.
[00:02:46] As a reader remind you that these aren't my words. They aren't even really Matthew's words, but inspired by the Holy Spirit. These are the words of God, so give attention these 12 Jesus sent out instructing them. Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and proclaim as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:03:22] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons you received without paying, give without pay, acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals, or a staff for the laborer deserves his food.
[00:03:50] In whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay there until you depart.
[00:03:57] As you enter the house, greet it, and if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace Return to you.
[00:04:09] And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
[00:04:18] Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town thus far. God's word. Please be seated.
[00:04:54] Well, children, does your mother or father ever send you on an errand, give you a task to do, tell you, go and do this for me?
[00:05:05] When I was a little boy, elementary school, middle school, my mother would actually send me to the store with a grocery list to pick things up. We lived close enough and it was safe enough where I lived that you could do that. I've never done that with my son.
[00:05:21] Probably you children haven't had an errand like that where your mother handed you the grocery list and said, go do the shopping and bring it back on your bicycle. But perhaps your parents asked you to do other things. Go get this from a room, or go do that chore for me and come back, or go tell your brother or sister something to do and then come back and let me know how it goes.
[00:05:44] What. What your parents are doing is they are sending you on a mission.
[00:05:48] A mission. Now, we use the word mission in church circles a lot, but we don't use it a whole lot outside of the church. But what it means is to be sent, and to be sent with a task, something to do.
[00:06:03] We use the word mission. Maybe in the military, just about everybody I know who's in the military can tell me what his mission is. Unless it's classified, then he can't tell, tell me. But they know what their mission is. They've been given a task. They've been sent to go and do something.
[00:06:21] I had a friend who was in the Air Force, and he was sent on a mission to the Middle East.
[00:06:27] Part of peacekeeping mission, big job over there. That was a few years ago.
[00:06:32] But you get the idea. When you're sent on a mission, you're given a job to do, and whoever's sending you says, go and do this job for me. Well, that's what Jesus is doing here in this story. He is sending the 12 apostles, the 12 disciples, to go out on a mission. He is sending them to go and preach the gospel for him, that the kingdom is here and that men need to repent and turn to him. That's their mission. Now, we want to look at that mission, that task that Jesus sends the disciples on. This evening, as we look at three things, first, we'll look at the disciples preparation. The disciples preparation. Secondly, the disciples reception, how it is that people receive them.
[00:07:18] Thirdly, the disciples warning. The warning the disciples are to give to those who don't receive them. So as Jesus sends the disciples on a mission, he gives them instructions regarding their preparation, their reception, and finally, a warning they are to give.
[00:07:37] So first, the disciples preparation.
[00:07:41] Jesus is sending these disciples not just on a mission, but this mission involves a trip. It's not just a trip to the grocery store, but it's a journey.
[00:07:51] Like if you went on vacation or if you went on a business trip. There's some travel involved here. Not by car or plane, they're going to be walking, but nonetheless, it's a journey, but it's a short one. Perhaps a few days long, maybe a week.
[00:08:08] And it's not too far. The region of Judea. If you read later in the chapter, you'll see that he's sending them through all the cities of the region of Judea. It's not a terribly large region.
[00:08:21] They're supposed to go from city to city fairly quickly, staying a few days perhaps in each town to preach the gospel there and move on quickly to the next city and then go through all the cities of Judea and then return to Jesus. That's kind of what's happening here.
[00:08:39] And as Jesus sends them on this journey with this mission to preach the gospel of the kingdom to the Jews in all these towns, Jesus tells them they need to prepare for the trip. And he gives them instructions on how to prepare. And they're a little bit the opposite of what we would think.
[00:08:59] When we prepare to go on a trip, whether it's a business trip or a vacation or a camping trip or something, we make preparations.
[00:09:07] We pack and we pack appropriately and prepare appropriately for whatever the trip is. If you're going to the beach, you bring a towel, maybe a chair, some toys to make sandcastles with, right? You bring sunscreen if you're going camping. You pack your tent, you pack your sleeping bags. You pack a big cooler full of food.
[00:09:28] If it's a business trip, maybe you bring your briefcase, overnight bag if it's overnight, right? And you bring money for your hotel and so on. You pack and you make preparations.
[00:09:39] This is how Jesus tells the disciples to prepare themselves for their trip.
[00:09:46] That includes some overnights, lots of meals.
[00:09:52] Jesus says, take nothing.
[00:09:56] Don't take anything with you.
[00:09:59] No money for food or hotels.
[00:10:02] No backpack or duffel bag or suitcase to carry clothes or food or anything else with you.
[00:10:10] Don't Even take an extra tunic.
[00:10:13] What's a tunic? Well, this would be like if your mom sent you off to summer camp and said you don't get to take an extra change of underwear with you. This was the garment they wore next to their body that would wick away sweat and so on.
[00:10:29] Not even an extra pair of underwear, just the clothes on their backs.
[00:10:34] Not even shoes or a walking stick to lean on.
[00:10:41] This is, from our perspective, almost bizarre. You're sending them on a mission like a business trip, but you say take nothing.
[00:10:50] This would be like setting someone up. It seems not for success, but for failure. You don't even have the basics for human life, for living food and clothing and shelter.
[00:11:04] And I have to go out on this mission for several number of days, maybe a week, maybe a little more.
[00:11:11] What is Jesus doing?
[00:11:14] How is he preparing his preachers?
[00:11:19] Well, first of all, he's preparing them with a promise.
[00:11:25] Look at the end of verse 10.
[00:11:32] The laborer deserves his food.
[00:11:37] Don't take anything with you, but I give you a promise. The laborer is worthy of or deserves his food.
[00:11:46] What Jesus is saying is this.
[00:11:49] I'm the King and I will provide for you.
[00:11:53] In the previous chapter, if you look just a few verses back, Jesus said, look, the fields are white for harvest.
[00:12:01] Pray that the Lord of harvest would raise up workers.
[00:12:06] Now Jesus, the Lord of the harvest, sends out his workers and he promises to provide them their food.
[00:12:15] What Jesus is doing with this promise is this. He is teaching them to go out with nothing, trusting that he will give them everything they need to do their work.
[00:12:29] Now, as a preacher myself, this is exactly the kind of preparation I need to do the work of preaching the Gospel. I need no earthly tools, nothing else but what comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I need.
[00:12:48] This is exactly what I need. His promise to feed me, care for me, and give me what I need to serve you and others.
[00:12:59] Secondly, he prepares them with a promise. But secondly, he prepares these preachers for the message that they are going to be preaching.
[00:13:11] He prepares them as he gives them these instructions to take nothing with them for the message they're going to preach.
[00:13:19] They're to go around preaching the the King is here.
[00:13:24] King Jesus is here. The Messiah has come. He's setting up his kingdom. Repent and turn to him.
[00:13:31] And then they were to continue preaching, to preach the same kinds of things that Jesus himself had preached as they preached.
[00:13:41] Do not lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
[00:13:46] These men carried no earthly treasures with them. Do you see the parallel?
[00:13:52] Jesus was sending them out with no earthly treasures to tell others not to seek earthly treasures, but to seek those which are in heaven.
[00:14:04] You can go through most of these things and see that it lines up very directly with Jesus preaching In the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:14:13] They were to preach, don't worry, be anxious for nothing, right?
[00:14:19] Don't worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will put on.
[00:14:24] And as they preached that message to people, don't worry because King Jesus is here and he will care for you.
[00:14:32] There they stood with nothing but the clothes on their backs, no food or money.
[00:14:38] They had to believe the message they were preaching in order to be able to stand there and preach it to others. Jesus was preparing them to preach the message.
[00:14:52] Thirdly, Jesus was preparing his preachers to be like himself.
[00:15:00] He prepared them with a promise so that they would trust in him. He prepared them for the message so that they would literally have to depend on the very same things they were preaching.
[00:15:10] But thirdly, we can see that he was preparing them for their preaching ministry by making them to be like himself, at least in outward ways.
[00:15:22] When Jesus came and walked among the Jews, he came as one in poverty, with nothing for our sakes. Jesus became poor as he walked around. He himself depended upon others to support him, to feed him.
[00:15:42] He had, if you look back a couple chapters, Jesus says, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.
[00:15:56] Jesus had no home, no lodging, nothing.
[00:16:01] You see, he was sending his disciples out in the very same way that he himself had gone on mission to seek the lost.
[00:16:10] These men had become walking, talking, visible pictures of the Master who sent them, you might say, the perfect instruments of conveying the message of the kingdom of heaven. They even looked like Jesus.
[00:16:31] Now, preachers today should carry a wallet with sufficient money. We should pack a bag if we're going on a mission trip.
[00:16:42] But everything else is the same.
[00:16:45] We shouldn't lean on a staff, but we should lean upon Christ and his promises.
[00:16:51] And we must certainly be conformed to the message that we preach. What happens if I live a different way than what I preach? You would call me a hypocrite. People wouldn't listen to me. No, I need to not just believe that what I'm saying is true. I need to live it also.
[00:17:12] And what's more, it's not just the message, it's the person who's sending me that I need to be conformed to.
[00:17:20] Otherwise, I can't say with Paul, follow me As I follow Christ, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
[00:17:29] So Jesus prepares his preachers, and there's a great comfort here because the things that Jesus is doing, he is doing.
[00:17:40] He prepares his disciples, he prepares preachers to serve him.
[00:17:49] So the disciples preparation, the disciples reception.
[00:17:53] We're looking here at the next couple verses, verse 11, 12 and 1H13.
[00:18:01] Jesus sends them out and he doesn't send them with any food or anything else, but he tells them how he's going to provide for them. I will provide for you. Here's how I will provide for you.
[00:18:17] Go stay with the people who receive you.
[00:18:20] They will provide for you.
[00:18:22] They'll receive the Gospel you're preaching, and they will feed you and give you shelter and give you a bed to sleep on and so on. It's very simple, it's straightforward.
[00:18:33] But he gives them rules for finding such people. How do I find the people that will receive me and how do I know whether they've received me? In other words, their provision, the way that the disciples, the preachers would be provided for food and shelter and so on, that was tied directly to people receiving the Gospel message. And so he gave them rules around this. First, go into the town. They don't know anybody in the town. They're strangers. So go in and ask around and find out who is worthy. In other words, who is godly, religious, generally fears God and would be likely to hear the Gospel message.
[00:19:16] Which Jews are waiting for the Messiah to come and want to hear this news.
[00:19:21] They might also, we can infer, be willing to receive you into their home and feed and house you.
[00:19:30] So inquire who is worthy and then go into the home of that person and and greet them.
[00:19:36] This greeting is connected with peace.
[00:19:40] If the house is worthy. In other words, if it ends up being that the people are worthy, as you suspected, and they receive you, then your peace is to be upon them. So this greeting and this peace are connected. They really seem to be one and the same.
[00:19:55] What's going on here?
[00:19:58] This greeting in the peace is more than just politeness. Our parents taught us to be polite if we're guests in a home, right?
[00:20:05] Say hello, say please and thank you. Be polite. Don't leave a mess behind you. Right, Those kinds of things. This is more than just mere politeness.
[00:20:17] These men are messengers of King Jesus. They're his representatives. They carry his word, they carry his promises.
[00:20:29] They call men to come and serve King Jesus.
[00:20:33] And they, even if they're following Jesus instructions, have come to look in some ways in terms of their character and so on, like Jesus, what they are bringing and their reason for being there is connected to the Gospel preaching to the kingdom of heaven that they are proclaiming.
[00:20:57] They enter the home as representatives of Jesus and, and they are declaring, the King is here.
[00:21:04] He promises peace upon you and your family if you as faithful Jews, would receive Messiah.
[00:21:12] That's what's going on here.
[00:21:14] Messiah is here. And in his name I promise you peace and joy, salvation and comfort. All of the things that we read about in Isaiah 52 and all the other places in Isaiah and all the other places and all the other prophets that, that the Jews would have known about, they're saying, all of that has come in Jesus. God Himself has come here in the person of His Son.
[00:21:39] And in his name we offer you peace, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and all that the King has to offer.
[00:21:49] That's what they were doing when they were greeting the person of the house and granting him peace.
[00:21:57] It wasn't just politeness, it was the message of the kingdom.
[00:22:04] Nothing here really has fundamentally changed. The reason you called me as a preacher to come here in your midst was to declare this gospel message.
[00:22:15] Jesus is here.
[00:22:17] He's come. He's brought the way of salvation, the way of forgiveness of sins, peace with God the Father, that's all here.
[00:22:27] And if you would receive Jesus, not me personally, but if you would receive me as his messenger and representative and receive his message, this peace is yours.
[00:22:40] You can walk away today knowing that your sins are completely forgiven and that you are accepted by God in His son, Jesus Christ.
[00:22:49] And that God, through Jesus Christ his son the King, loves you and that you are in his kingdom and that His Spirit is now in your heart and that he is reigning in you. And he will deliver you not just from hellfire and damnation, through forgiveness of sins, but by His Spirit working in your heart. He will deliver you from the power of sin to that has made you miserable all your lives and caused disruption and trouble in your home.
[00:23:19] Jesus promises to deliver you from all of that and bring you peace not just with heaven, but here on earth, with those around you, as he changes your hearts and the hearts of your loved ones.
[00:23:34] That's the greeting that I bring you and the peace that I pronounce upon you in the name of, of Jesus.
[00:23:45] Now, people who receive this, families who received this Jesus says the disciples were to find worthy and to stay with them.
[00:23:59] People who receive the messengers of King Jesus, they receive the message, of course, this gospel news of peace, we want that we want that king and we want his reign.
[00:24:11] We receive the message, we believe it, and we trust it.
[00:24:15] But anyone who puts his trust in Jesus and receives the message doesn't just receive the words and the promises. You actually receive Jesus.
[00:24:27] And if you receive Jesus, he gives you his kingdom.
[00:24:32] You know of those wonderful blessings in the Sermon on the Mount?
[00:24:36] Blessed are the poor in spirit, you who've come to Christ in poverty.
[00:24:42] Yours is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:24:46] All of heaven belongs now to you.
[00:24:53] You've received the message. You've received the King and his kingdom.
[00:24:59] You've received the gift that we talked about last week.
[00:25:04] Jesus says those who have received that gift will gladly support the ministry that proclaims that kingdom.
[00:25:13] It's as simple as that.
[00:25:18] You have received something in the gospel that you can't put a price tag on. I won't re preach last week's sermon. You can't purchase it. It can't be bought. It's not for sale. It's a gift.
[00:25:32] But it's a gift of inestimable value.
[00:25:35] No price tag on it. You can't get it insured.
[00:25:39] It's that valuable. Nobody would insure it. But of course, it doesn't need to be because Jesus has purchased it and secured it with his blood.
[00:25:48] You've received something that valuable.
[00:25:52] What's some food, what's some money to support those who preach the Gospel? It's nothing compared to what I've received.
[00:26:01] That's what Jesus is describing here as people receive the message and ultimately receive the kingdom.
[00:26:11] We said thirdly we would look at the disciples warning, there are those who are worthy because they receive Christ and his kingdom.
[00:26:21] There are those who don't receive it.
[00:26:24] Not everyone receives it.
[00:26:27] And here things kind of get dark, don't they? In the story begins in the second half of verse 13.
[00:26:37] If that house is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
[00:26:43] If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
[00:26:53] Jesus instructs his disciples to leave the house. And I'm going to say leave it with a warning, a pretty severe warning.
[00:27:06] If they find that not just that house, but every house they go to in that town rejects them, then they need to leave the whole town entirely, for it has also not received Christ and his kingdom.
[00:27:21] What's the warning?
[00:27:23] The first thing is that blessing of peace that they were to pronounce on those who received Christ.
[00:27:30] They were to retract it. It was to return to them.
[00:27:35] They were to assure Those people that if they continued to reject Christ and not receive him, that none of the promises of the old covenant, none of those wonderful prophecies of Isaiah, none of the blessings that Christ had pronounced from the mountain, none of them would come upon that house or that town.
[00:28:00] You have rejected the king.
[00:28:02] You no longer receive his blessings.
[00:28:05] You no longer can expect those promises to come true for you.
[00:28:10] You don't have peace with God.
[00:28:13] And you can be sure that in this life you won't have peace with men either.
[00:28:18] No, in its place, we have a pretty clearly implied warning of the coming judgment. It gets fleshed out pretty clearly later in the Gospel of Matthew that those who reject the king's invitation to his feast are going to be cast into the outer darkness.
[00:28:34] Jesus says here that the judgment that these towns will receive will be greater than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words, one day Jesus the King is going to come.
[00:28:45] And anyone who's rejected his messengers and his message, he's going to judge forever.
[00:28:56] Now you may say that seems a pretty terrible warning for one man, person like Stephen Lauer here walking into someone's house and saying, the king is here. You need to repent and turn to him. And if people reject that, then, well, this terrible judgment is coming upon them.
[00:29:18] Is that really fair?
[00:29:30] He says that they're to, you know, kick or brush the dust off of their feet as they leave that house or town.
[00:29:41] Consider that for a moment, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
[00:29:54] Their action, the disciples action of shaking that dust off was to say, I can have nothing to do with you, you who have rejected the gospel message.
[00:30:12] It's so bad what you've done and the situation that you're in that I can't bear to have even the dust from your house or from your town contaminating me.
[00:30:25] That's how terrified I am as a gospel messenger of what will happen to you who have rejected the gospel.
[00:30:33] That's pretty awful.
[00:30:39] This was to be a picture, a warning, a testimony against that house or town.
[00:30:48] I can't associate you with you in even the smallest of ways.
[00:30:56] Not even your dust can touch me.
[00:31:01] You see, King Jesus had sent them on a mission with his message of peace.
[00:31:12] He sent them messengers who were like him in many ways, men who didn't come demanding money or anything from them, who had only one ambition, the salvation of souls. Jesus sent them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to deliver people from darkness and bring them into Christ's kingdom. To give them eternal life through knowing the Son.
[00:31:44] And these homes and towns spurned it.
[00:31:49] We don't want that.
[00:31:53] Yes.
[00:31:54] Jesus says that's worthy of the wrath of the Son of God.
[00:32:02] He says it's so bad that the judgment will be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:32:12] That's terrifying.
[00:32:14] You remember the story.
[00:32:16] You think of the judgment that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. But remember there were two men that came into the town of Sodom.
[00:32:28] The two angels. Of course, nobody knew they were angels.
[00:32:32] Lot gave them hospitality. He fed them and he put them up for the night.
[00:32:38] God's messengers.
[00:32:40] And what did the men of Sodom want to do? I won't say it in any detail, but you remember the story. They came and they beat on Lot's door because they wanted to have relations with those men.
[00:32:54] That's gruesome and awful.
[00:32:57] Not only did they not protect them and offer them hospitality, they wanted to violate them. And yet Jesus says that those who reject the Son of God and his offering of peace will be judged harsher.
[00:33:12] There's the warning.
[00:33:14] Well, Jesus sent his apostles on a mission, and he continues to send his church and his preachers on a mission today.
[00:33:22] And you've heard that mission.
[00:33:24] It's the offering of the gospel of peace in Jesus Christ.
[00:33:28] Let's thank the Lord for this.
[00:33:31] O Lord our God, we thank you that though we were like Sodom and Gomorrah, in great darkness, pursuing the lusts of the flesh, you saw us in our misery, you saw us in our brokenness, and you sent your son to rescue us.
[00:33:57] And we thank you that even now, from on high in heaven, the King is still on mission.
[00:34:05] And through us, the church is seeking out lost sheep.
[00:34:11] O King Jesus, we ask that you would help us in this mission, that your blessing would indeed rest upon us.
[00:34:21] So that we, as we go forth in our homes and in our workplaces and with our neighbors and everywhere you send us, that we might be like the apostles, a fragrant aroma of the gospel.
[00:34:40] That you, Lord Jesus, might be pleased in us and that you might use us to turn others to you.
[00:34:48] Lord Jesus, we thank you that we can look to you for everything that we need. And that we have your blessings, not just of eternal life and spiritual things, but also of everything we material. And we ask that you would care for your flock, that you would heal those who are sick, that you would bind up the brokenhearted, that you would bring back those who are straying, that you would comfort the lonely and be near to them.
[00:35:21] We ask that you would bless us now and hear our prayers.
[00:35:26] Amen.
