The Expanding Mission of Jesus
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 40:54
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· 21 viewsOur compassionate Lord’s mission expansion through the disciples extends to the lost sheep, depends upon His Father’s provision, and results in division.
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5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans,
6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
9 Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts,
10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.
11 And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.
12 As you enter the house, greet it.
13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
14 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.
15 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.
Our compassionate Lord’s mission expansion through the disciples extends to the lost sheep, depends upon His Father’s provision, and results in division.
Our compassionate Lord’s mission expansion through the disciples extends to the lost sheep, depends upon His Father’s provision, and results in division.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus extends to the lost sheep.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus extends to the lost sheep.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Why did Jesus command the apostles to go to only the Jews?
The promise from the OT is that Yahweh would gather His sheep from the house of Israel.
Jesus goes to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” because they were initially the ones thrown aside from the wayward shepherds of Israel.
The wayward shepherds that are denounced in Ezekiel 34 represent the under-shepherd’s that God has placed over Israel.
The “lost sheep” from the house of Israel would be gathered first.
My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
The sheep of the people of Israel have been scattered all over the country side because their shepherds have harassed and made them helpless.
Instead of protecting them, they only sought their own advantage.
We must understand what Jesus is doing in this first mission to the Jews.
He is doing exactly as Ezekiel prophesied and Ezekiel 34.
He is gathering the lost people of God to himself.
He is gathering the elect of God from the people of Israel first.
He will gather first from the people of Israel, and then as the mission of God expands outward to the Gentiles.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
But this first mission was to the sheep of the house of Israel.
What was their mission?
The mission that Jesus sent His disciples on was fundamentally an overflow of what we had already seen before…
36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
The compassionate Lord was compelled to action and this prompted Him to expand by sending out the disciples to multiply the ministry.
The mission that Jesus sent the Apostles on was fundamentally a mission with a message.
Their message was fundamentally two-fold.
It was a message that was validated by signs and wonders.
Notice that every time we see signs and miracles in the gospels, they always validate or give truthfulness to the message itself.
7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
The Message through Proclamation
The Message through Proclamation
We have seen Jesus demonstrate this message earlier in Matthew 4:17.
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The exact same phrase is used again here.
The disciples weren’t spreading their own message.
They were spreading the message of the Lord Jesus and His kingdom.
The authority of Jesus gave the disciples the validity to their message.
The message was fundamentally of the nearness of the kingdom of God.
The King has come, and His kingdom is coming near.
So you need to turn from your sins and trust in Messiah Jesus!
The same message is essential for us today.
The same message for us today brings life.
It wasn’t merely to preach a message…
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.
The Message of Signs & Wonders
The Message of Signs & Wonders
The signs validated the message.
The deeds Jesus performed with authority He is now passing on to His disciples.
It wasn’t because they were amazing men.
Here were average fishermen that Jesus will do extra-ordinary deeds through.
You received without paying; give without pay.
These men received the gift of passing on the message and the authoritative power to heal without cost.
They didn’t pay for it.
They didn’t earn it.
They didn’t even pray it down out of heaven.
They were given the message and the power to heal through the Lord Jesus.
This was a training mission of sorts.
It wasn’t the fullness of the mission, but it was the foretaste of the larger mission.
It is a first-fruit of the global mission that He is initiating, which began by reaching the Jews.
The powerful working of God expressed in the saving reign of God in the gospel is the life-transforming power seen in the compassion of Jesus.
The compassion that sees the people as “harassed and helpless.”
The compassion that compels His disciples to pray.
The compassion that moved Him to train His disciples for ministry.
The compassion that shared His authority with them that they might declare His message.
Jesus called His disciples to pray and the Father’s answer to that prayer was the spreading of the Apostles.
What would happen if we had “deeds” without “the Word”?
If we merely had the amazing deeds without the preaching of the message of the kingdom, you will be understood only to be a magician merely.
There were many charlatans in their day.
“Snake-oil” salesman.
We see examples of this in Simon the Magician in the book of Acts.
9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.
10 They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.”
11 And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.
Simon was regarded as someone who performed many mighty deeds.
People were awed by his power and ability.
12 But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Simon was amazed by Philip because Philip was an ordinary man.
Yet as he preached the message of Jesus boldly, Simon realized how shallow his tricks were.
He realized how empty and vain his searches for power were.
17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money,
19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
What Simon will come to realize is that the gift of the Holy Spirit is NOT to be acquired by “silver” or gold.
But HE is given as a gift from the Father to those who by faith have believed on the Son of God.
What Simon missed is the power comes from the Lord Jesus.
He missed that the authority comes from the Lord Jesus Himself.
The same is true even to this day.
The power and authority for the church is always a derived authority.
The power and authority for any Christian is similar to these twelves Apostles.
It will not be their strength or might.
It will be the authoritative and powerful Word of Christ.
It will be the powerful working of the Holy Spirit that comes upon the Christian for healing and for deeds of faith.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus depends upon the Father’s provision
The Expanding Mission of Jesus depends upon the Father’s provision
9 Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.
You may come over to my house and wonder,
“Look, he has more than one pair of shoes! I thought Jesus said we weren’t supposed to take more provisions than absolutely necessary.”
This is one of these places in the gospels we need to stop for a second and consider what Jesus is saying in context correctly.
The specifics of what Jesus is saying here applied directly to this first mission among the Jews.
But the principle does still apply to believers.
The first mission here was for a specific group of people in the Jews.
Why the command to go with so little provisions?
It’s interesting to compare this training mission to the Exodus account of the people of Israel.
Israel wanders for 40 years in the wilderness.
As much as the people of Israel grumbled and complained, Yahweh still provided for them.
He watered them from the rock.
He fed them with manna from heaven.
He provided for them sandals that would not wear out.
The paradox that is screaming at us, though is that Israel was meant to be a light to the nations.
But here, Yahweh is coming near once again to call forth his whoring bride.
The paradox is that what Israel was meant to be to the nations, He is sending common fishermen to bring them out.
There is something utterly unique in this first mission of the apostles to the Jews in particular.
It was meant to be a brief, temporary, and urgent message of the in breaking kingdom.
The first mission had brevity.
The first mission had brevity.
This first mission that Jesus sent them on was brief because they were expanding the kingdom first to the Jews in this region.
It was brief because there was more work to be done.
But the brevity does not diminish the significance.
The first mission had urgency.
The first mission had urgency.
The urgency was the fact that Jesus’ time was short and He knew it.
His time was quickly approaching.
It is this training mission that will actually further harden the Jews to His message for them.
As they heard the message more clearly, they hated it all the more.
Which led to greater persecution for Jesus in His ministry.
The first mission had an immediacy.
The first mission had an immediacy.
Immediacy meant the disciples ought not take anything with them.
9 Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts,
10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.
Does this command apply to modern believers?
The specifics do not apply to the Christian, but the general principle still governs.
The general principle is that Jesus’ followers were to go forth in faith.
To go forth in faith required them to trust the provision of their Heavenly Father.
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
They were to go forth trusting and believing that He would provide their every need.
So the next time you come over to my house and see two pairs of shoes, don’t freak out.
The specific’s of not taking “two shirts” or “two pairs of shoes” does not apply now to the mission Jesus has given to us from Pentecost.
But the general principle of mission still applies and it demands us to go forth trusting the Lord’s provision for us.
The mission must never be for financial benefit.
The mission must never be for financial benefit.
This does not mean that we shouldn’t support pastors, missionaries, and other ministry workers.
Because as we see elsewhere in Scripture there is a place for supporting them (1 Timothy 5:17-18)
But there is something deeply true about what Jesus is saying here.
The ministry they have received has been bountifully given to them.
They ought to bountifully give to others as they have received.
“The church should not pay its clergy for services rendered, as if somehow ministers and others live by earning their keep. Pushed to the limit, this might also suggest that a servant of the Lord is paid so much per prayer, so much per sermon, so much per hour of preparation, so much per counseling session with a distraught widow who has just lost her son, and so on.
No, the church does not pay its ministers; rather, it provides them with resources so that they are able to serve freely. The church recognizes that those who serve in this way must be “kept,” and are worthy of it. In practice, this means that the ideal situation occurs when the church is as generous as possible, the ministers do not concern themselves with material matters and are above selfish material interest.
The worst situation occurs when the ministers are grasping and covetous, constantly comparing themselves with other “professionals,” while the church adopts the attitude, “You keep him humble, Lord, and we’ll keep him poor.”
The Expanding Mission of Jesus results in a division.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus results in a division.
11 And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.
12 As you enter the house, greet it.
13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
14 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.
15 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.
16 “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus results in a division.
The Expanding Mission of Jesus results in a division.
This mission that Jesus is extending through the Apostles is a mission of compassion.
Now we may immediately think that everyone would be hungry to receive compassion.
Who wouldn’t want to receive compassion?
There is a secular notion that has creep into the church for far too long.
It says something like this,
“If I just share Jesus with them ‘nice enough’, then they will like Jesus more!”
“If I’m just polite enough…”
“If I’m just neutral enough…”
“If I’m just kind enough…”
By all means, don’t be a jerk.
But goodness me, it’s actually the compassion of Jesus that divides homes.
It’s the compassion of Jesus that divides people.
People who do not think they need it.
People who do not want it.
Compassion actually divides.
What does it mean to be “worthy” in a household?
It was likely not to do with moral uprightness or honorable.
It’s not about position within the community.
It’s not about ability to provide the most eloquent housing.
The idea here of worthy has more to do with “fitting” or “appropriate” manner.
Those who are “worthy” are those who are open to receiving the messengers of Jesus into their home.
Those who were open to providing for the ministry of Jesus through the Apostles.
They are to offer a blessing upon worthy households.
They are to offer a blessing upon worthy households.
11 And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it…
Homes that receive the Apostles are to be entered into with joy.
The “peace” that Jesus tells them to give was as common Jewish greeting that is still uttered to this day, “Shalom” or “Peace” we bring to you!
The peace that the Apostles are bringing is the peace that Jesus tells them to bring.
This is often times why missionaries have referred to when doing outreach, “People of Peace.”
Persons of Peace - (From the IMB)
“Missionaries and church planters talk about finding ‘persons of peace’ in a neighborhood, city, or marketplace. Often the person of peace will have friends and relatives who are open to gospel witness and are welcoming to followers of Jesus.
Finding them is but one ‘tool of the trade’ that assists us in locating those in whom God may be at work in a community. Often, these people or ‘households of peace’ are like a gateway relationship into a family, neighborhood, or community.”
14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
15 And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
Lydia was welcoming.
She was receptive to “pay attention” to Paul’s words.
You ought to pour your effort and energy in people who are people of peace.
People who desire to “pay attention” to the Word’s of Scripture.
We’re not saying that you shouldn’t share with them.
But
But there were also people who didn’t gladly receive the Apostles.
13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
14 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.
15 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.
They are to warn of the coming judgment for those who reject them.
They are to warn of the coming judgment for those who reject them.
It was common practice for Jews to shake their garments as a sign of judgment on a Gentile region.
When they would go into a Gentile region and then return, they would shake their garments of the sign of God’s coming judgment upon them.
Think of the offense that Jesus is ushering in here by telling His Apostles to do shake their garments upon Jews that have rejected Jesus and His messengers.
It is profoundly surprising that Jesus applies a cultural element of showing coming judgment to the people of God.
It may seem surprising that the gracious and compassionate Lord here
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
But then merely a few lines later says…
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Our compassionate Lord’s mission expansion through the disciples extends to the lost sheep, depends upon His Father’s provision, and results in division.
Our compassionate Lord’s mission expansion through the disciples extends to the lost sheep, depends upon His Father’s provision, and results in division.
Benediction
Benediction
27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”
28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
