Not Fantastic, Just Faithful

Introduction

This past week, the blockbuster movie, “Fantastic Four”, came out. It garnered so much success in such a short time, because though the movie is new, the characters are very old.

In fact, they were created all the way back in the 1960’s, and when I was a young boy my uncle collected comic books and would let me read them.

My favorite heroes to read about was this team, the Fantastic Four. Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic, the Thing, and the Human Torch.

They all had super powers, and were heroes.

They didn’t get tired, they were always super smart, they were invincible, they could do no wrong.

In their world, if anything was going to get done, it was going to be by the hands of these heroes.

The average joe, the regular guy could not compare to the strength of these heroes, they were just innately fantastic!

Sometimes, our flawed human brains try to apply that same principle to spiritual things.

We look at spirituality and living the Christian life, doing what God has called us to do as a super power.

If we see someone living for The Lord, we innately say, well he/she is just fantastic, I could never be like him/her.

Or, we come to Church, smile on our face, Bible under our arm, and we are super-spiritual - “we have the ability to live the Christian life - it is our super power!”

Therefore I’m invincible, and I can’t get tired, and I can’t have any weakness, bc then I’d not be fantastic, I’d just be normal.

Here’s what happens when we view spirituality as some super power someone possesses in that way: 1. We pretend to be more spiritual than we are, like we are invincible, and end up lying with a false persona or 2. (most commonly) we don’t even try, and we say that spiritual stuff is just reserved for those super strong spiritual people.

However, when we look at the pages of Scripture, we find a totally different notion of what it means to walk with Christ.

In our text today, we see Christ sending out the twelve apostles on a short term ministry trip to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom.

Here’s what we will observe - twelve ordinary men… no super powers, no supernatural abilities in themselves, just a calling.

When we see the ministry unfold, we realize that Christ is the only one who is fantastic… He is the preacher, He is the healer, He is the miracle worker. All they are doing is pointing to Him at every turn.

What set them apart? Simply this: faithfulness. They were faithful in their mission, therefore they accomplished what Christ set for them.

For a few moments, I’d like to look at six aspects of their mission, and observe how we can apply the same principles that they exercised to our own Christian life.

Obviously they lived in a different time, under a different ministry setting, so it is not apples to apples. (i.e. demon exorcisms, healing, etc.)

Some things in Scripture are prescribed, some things are described… not everything is written to us, but it is all written for us… and here we can examine the precepts that Christ desires from those who follow Him and carry out the mission He has called them to: Not Fantastic, Just Faithful.

Read our text.

I. Declare the Message

Mark 6:7 “7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.”

The mirror passage to this is Luke 9:2 “2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”

They had a baseline calling that was universal to each of them, proclaim the gospel.

Our life should be a proclamation life - faithfulness requires a proclamation of Jesus.

Paul said in Romans 1:16 “16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Each of us have different audiences to evangelize - Josh Crawford evangelizes the fire station, my wife evangelizes our children at home, Mrs. Lois evangelizes Brookside Living Center, every single person has been sovereignly placed in a different context - but we all universally have been called to proclaim.

They also had a calling to be in pairs, “two by two”…

Isolation is not the model for faithful living. We need the Church.

Not only do we need the church, we need individual people to speak into our life. We need accountability, we need companionship, we need someone to challenge us, encourage us, come along side us.

The Apostles NEVER went at it alone, they always had at least one other person with them… Except for when Judas went to the pharisees to betray Jesus, and when Peter went by the fire to deny Jesus.

We need one another if we desire to be faithful.

They were called to be compassionate… “authority over unclean spirits”

Obviously, we are not called to lay hands on someone to heal them in the same nature as the Apostles in that time.

However, we are called to the same principle of ministry, in that we are to show compassion.

At every turn, Christ uncompromisingly preached the truth to the masses, even when it was confrontational and seemingly harsh on the ears.

Yet, at the same time, Christ exemplified compassion and care for each soul that He ministered to… the same was expected from the Apostles.

We are not called to beat people over the head with our message, we are not called to brutality. This is what false teachers do.

We are called to exemplify the same things Paul told the Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 2:5–8 “5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.”

The divine grace and compassion that God showed us, should be manifest in the life of those who are faithful.

II. Depend on God

Mark 6:8–9 “8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.”

The Lord desired for the Apostles to live out their calling with a dependence upon Him and not upon their own means.

We have to remember these are fishermen, tax collectors, and so on. They have been called out of that and Christ is pulling them out of their natural tendency to depend upon their own hands to provide for themselves and start depending upon God.

He does this by stripping away the comforts they have afforded themselves, only permitting them the bare necessities, and preparing them to be nomadic and ready to move at a moments notice.

Obviously, the call here was not some permanent call to poverty, or Jesus indicting possessions as being inherently bad.

The lesson here is that for those who are faithful, their dependence transitions from being dependent on themselves and their own hands to provide things for themselves - to being utterly dependent upon God to provide the things they need.

For the faithful one, there lies an understanding that God provides. He provides the means by which we receive what we need. Use Jamey Brown - someone may say, “Well he depends on himself, he’s got his own company, his own work, etc.”

The response to that is this: Jamey has his company, in faithfulness to God, however, he depends and trusts God that he’s going to send him the jobs they can do, He trusts God to give him the labor to get the jobs done, He trusts The Lord to provide the machines to get the work done.

Then, when one of those things messes up, machine breaks down, workers quit, or if the jobs just suddenly stopped rolling in… Faithfulness says, “Okay Lord, you brought me to this point, You’ve shut the door here, now providentially lead me where You to my next step.”

Dependence on God is not selling everything you have, living off scraps, and just sitting on our laurels and saying God now just provide. - No. Because part of God’s provision to us is His giving to us the means to earn a living, or work our job, etc.

God does extraordinary things through the very ordinary means of our life. Often times in very boring ways, where we can’t even perceive it.

Yet, when we look back over the corridor of our life, we see the God’s hand was providing in ways we didn’t even realize it.

I see that in my life so often. In the ordinary means by which I met Cassie, the ordinary means by which I lost my Duke job opportunity, the ordinary means by which God brought us here.

There was no oracle in the sky, Gabriel did not descend and make any announcements, God didn’t write on the wall… Yet, His extraordinary fingerprints are all over the places of my life.

Not fantastic, just faithful. - God doesn't expect you to have extraordinary super-duper faith, He isn’t calling us to be Abraham, He simply says observe what I’ve already done for you and trust that I’ll continue that. Jesus says, in Matthew 6:25–34

Matthew 6:25–34 ESV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

III. Dwell in Contentment

Mark 6:10 “10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.”

In the days of the Apostles, hotels did not exist. There were inns and such but these usually doubled as brothels and places where criminals and dangerous people with sinful behavior resided.

For the itinerate preachers, a much more common place to stay was within the homes of those they were ministering to.

We see this happen throughout Scripture, Elijah is a good example. This carried over even into Paul’s ministry. It was common.

Yet, for false teachers, the openness of people and willingness of people to take care of them created a means for them to take advantage of people.

They would make a living going from home to home, seeking money from people, and then once paid, they’d leave and go to another home and do the same thing again and again.

They’d get invited to one home, but then once a more wealthy person came along and invited them in, they’d forsake the poorer one for the more wealthy.

Yet, the disciples were expressly warned against doing this. Instead of constantly looking for a more appealing situation, and especially financial gain from the ministry, they were instructed that once they entered somewhere to stay put until the Holy Spirit made it clear they were to leave.

They were to exercise contentment. This is a quality that is foreign to our society.

In fact, we live in a time that is literally characterized by discontentment.

Do you know why Apple is still in business? BC every time they come out with a new phone, we buy it. Why? BC we are discontent with the one we have when we see the new one.

This is not new, it goes all the way back to the Garden. Why was Eve persuaded to eat of the fruit? BC the Serpent said it would make her like God. Why did she want to be like God? BC she was discontent with just being human.

We must recapture the forgotten spiritual trait of contentment… exercising this would save us from a multitude of heartaches.

We are the most wealthy, prosperous, comforted, convenient generation to ever live. We have more stuff than any generation ever before us, yet we are the most discontent. I say “woe is me” on this.

Why do we bounce from church to church, situation to situation, person to person, and are always unhappy with the result? Because we have arrived at a place of discontentment.

We want perfection, and if something comes a long a little bit better than we have now, we jump to it.

Then, when we realize that thing is just as flawed as the one before, we start looking for the next thing and the next thing.

Suddenly, we have spent 20-30 years of our life wasted on looking for the next great thing, while we could have been exercising faithfulness with what God had provided us with initially.

Of course, Jesus says “until you depart…” meaning there will be times the Holy Sprit moves us and The Lord opens/closes doors for transitions of our life - Solomon said “to everything there is a season.”

The point is, while we are in said season, we should exercise contentment and gratitude for where The Lord has brought us.

People who have real, tangible joy and peace are people who are content in the circumstances God has brought them to. Remember Martha and Mary?

One is discontent, hustling about looking for the next thing that needs to be done, asking “what’s next on the list?” and then on the other hand is her sister, Mary… She’s content just being in the presence of Jesus. Oh, she knows there’ll be time for busyness, and time for looking ahead, but for now she’s just enjoying the Master.

If we are not careful, discontentment will rob us of the treasure Christ has for us in the present state we are in.

The stage of life you are in right now is exactly where The Lord has brought you - if we are occupying our time with a constant seeking for the next big thing, 1. We are expressing a heart of ingratitude but 2. We will very likely miss out on experiencing and learning what The Lord desires us to learn during the present.

You may say that your present state is terrible, unbearable and to that I would turn to our Apostle…

Paul says this, in Philippians 4:11–13 “11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Being faithful means exercising contentment in the places God brings us by His hand.

IV. Display Discernment

Mark 6:11 “11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.””

V. Demonstrate Obedience

Mark 6:12–13 “12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.”

VI. Draw Back for Rest

Mark 6:30–31 “30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”