Jesus Commissions the 12

Pre Intro:

What’s going on Oakwood! Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark 6 verses 7-13. Most of y’all probably don’t know who I am, Eli definitely does but I haven’t seen him in a while so he might’ve forgotten who I was for a second. I’m Seth I’m a friend of Brice. I’ve known Brice a long time and for a bit there you could say Brice was technically my youth pastor, my Junior and almost all of my senior year in highschool he filled in as interim youth pastor while our church was in the process of filling that role. I would say y’all got pretty lucky, what you’re used to is full beard and suits on Sunday Brice. I grew up with Baby face and nothing but chocco Brice. Speaking of Brice I know a lot of y’all got to go on a mission trip with Brice, show of hands who here got to go on the Atlanta mission trip? (Keep the hands raised) Now keep your hand raised if this was your first ever mission trip? “You” (call out student whose hand was still raised) were you nervous? Yeah you should be nervous, it’s a big deal. The text we are looking at tonight shows the first ever mission trip, at least recorded in the text, of the apostles, who were pretty much full on missionaries for the rest of their lives.

Transition Sentence:

So if you have made your way to the text by now, we will begin reading in Mark 6 starting in verse 7.

Mark 6:7–13 “He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the road except a staff—no bread, no traveling bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on an extra shirt. He said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. If any place does not welcome you or listen to you, when you leave there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”

Intro:

Open ended question time, who is the most famous person you have ever met? let them answer.

The most famous dude I have ever met, and this is about to blow y’all’s mind, is Kei Nishikori. (Insert Picture)

Jk I know most of y’all have absolutely no clue who this dude is, but in the tennis world, which was the sport I played, he is a legend.

Fun fact about this dude, he was kinda washed when we met him but at the peak of his career he ranked 4th in the world, 4th best tennis player in the world.

Now the reason this dude was such a legend was because when he played, the three dudes ranked ahead of him, also happened to be undoubtedly the three best tennis players of all time. Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic.

And so just imagine prime MJ, prime Lebron, and prime Kobe all playing at the exact same time, and then multiply that times two and thats the level of domination these guys had in tennis

What makes Nishikori so legendary, is this dude is one of the only players ever to beat all three of these dudes at least once in a single season.

And so I was at this small pro tournament, and I saw Nishikori and as soon as I saw him, I ran over to him and asked for a picture, as you can see in picture, im definitely estatic, he looks super bothered but we don’t care.

When I go home, I tell absolutely everyone that I might this dude. Most people I told were like “Cool”, my tennis teammates were like “WHATTTTT” it was awesome.

Transition:

This is somewhat similar to the Apostles situation, and similar to our situation as believers.

We come to Jesus, Jesus invites us to come to him. “Come unto me all who are weary and Heavy laden” But he doesn’t just end there, after we come to him, he then tells us to GO.

Just like how I told everyone I met this tennis player, we all know a dude, a king, a savior. One with whom many of us have a deep personal relationship with, and we are to go out and tell everyone about him, and that the kingdom he is establishing is near.

Main Idea:

So the main Idea of tonight’s message, and If you don’t get anything else from me yappin tonight, at least get this

Jesus sends us to advance his kingdom...

Big Question?

And so how do we go about advancing the Kingdom of God?...

The text outlines three ways we advance his kingdom

D1: Faithfully Trusting God

The First way we see in the text is by Faithfully Trusting God...

Lets read verses 7-9

Mark 6:7–9 “He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the road except a staff—no bread, no traveling bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on an extra shirt.”

Alright let’s break this down, looking here in verse 7, what do we see here first?

Jesus commissions the 12, it says he summons them, he calls them, but then he sends them out.

What we can take away is that this isn’t just for the apostles, rather this is the standard process for every christian.

You can even flip a couple pages over in Mark 1 and see Jesus talking to Peter and Andrew and telling them at the point of their conversion, that later down the road they would be sent out, “I will make you fishers of men”

Jesus “summons” or calls you to him, just like the rest of his church, but he never just leaves you in the state of called, he then sends you. Whether your career is gonna be in the Ministry, the Mission field, or McDonalds. If you are in this room and you’re a Christian, you aren’t exempt from this commissioning, you are, like the rest of the Church, SENT.

Lets move forward, verse 8. (read verse 8).

Y’all know those people, maybe some of y’all are those people, who will go on like a 2 day trip, and make a suitcase like the size of a walk in closet. Listen I have two sisters, thats the most annoying thing in the world to me.

Jesus here says thats a no go. No big suitcase, no extra pair of J’s, no chick fil A money none of that. Why? Because he is teaching them to do this in Faith.

And check it out, it’s pretty interesting how he does this, he doesn’t just tell them to do go out in faith, doesn’t just encourage them, he forces them to do this in faith. How? By stripping them completely of any possible self-reliance. He gives them absolutely no avenue to rely on themselves, only him.

And it’s amazing that he does this because in our human nature, we tend to try rely on ourselves as much as we possibly can, but with faith often times too much faith in ourselves results in a lack of faith in God.

And this sounds harsh of Jesus to do but he doesn’t just force them to have faith, he shows them why they can, and thats found back in verse 7 it says “he gave them authority over the unclean spirits”. Which in a way shouldn’t drive them to rely on themselves because that really is showing them that He has the authority.

And this is the promise that Jesus gives when he sends us

Look at Matthew 28 the Great commission, we are all familiar with verse 19 Go and make disciples of all nations, but what does verse 18 say? It says look, I (being Jesus) have been given authority over all the Earth.

That’s why we can have faith in missions, because he is the one with the authority.

So when he sends you out, know that he has already laid the path out for you. That it is not up to you to make the impact, or produce the fruit, thats on God because he is the one with the authority.

Our Job is just to be faithful and obedient to follow the path he has already set before us, and to do it to his glory

D2: Favoring God’s approval over mans.

Moving on, the second way we go about advancing his kingdom, is by Favoring God’s approval over mans.

Let’s read verse 10-11

Mark 6:10–12 “He said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. If any place does not welcome you or listen to you, when you leave there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

First off Jesus tells them, if you head to a town and you get invited to stay somewhere, you are gonna crash at that crib until its time to leave. Why does he do this?

He does this because Jesus doesn’t want his followers seeking better accomodations, nor does he want the spectators in these cities seeing them do this either. What do I mean by this?

Picture the disciples heading into a town right, imagine a lowly, poor man offering up his small raggedy home to the disciples. Say they stay there for a while, then two days later a wealthy man offers the disciples his home with 14 guest bedrooms. Jesus doesn’t want his disciples switching up on the first guy for the nicer place.

I think the deeper meaning behind this is that Jesus wants our priority on missions to be the spreading of the Gospel, not our own personal likes and dislikes.

Moving on to verse 11 (read verse 11)

This mission trip in this passage is focused only towards the jews. Now the Jews considered the Gentiles(Gentiles being non jews) unclean. So it was Jewish tradition that after visiting a Gentile area, that you are supposed to shake all the dust from your feet “Contaminated by the Gentiles”.

What’s the significance of this? The significance is that Jesus is telling them, hey when you go out and preach my name, that my kingdom is coming, if they don’t accept you, treat them as a gentile, one who is not my people.

Because what does Jesus say, he says if you are not with me, you are against me.

This here, verse 11, is tuff. And this is the level of Confidence you need when you go out and proclaim the Gospel.

That when people don’t accept you, they spit in your face, call you names, turn others against you. You can have the confidence in the approval of God to shake them off, why because they are not ultimately rejecting you, they are rejecting Jesus.

When God sends us, he doesn’t send us to be bummed out everytime someone throws shade in our face, and when we are thats because we are seeking their approval. But he sends us out with the stamp of his own approval. Meaning we shouldn’t about the approval of others, one because we have Gods approval, and two because we are going out with his message and not our own.

D3: Fearlessly Proclaiming the Gospel

Last way we see in the text, and most importantly is by fearlessly proclaiming the Gospel.

Lets read in verse 12-13

Mark 6:12–13 “So they went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”

They went out proclaimed that people should repent!

Let me try to paint this picture for you, the Disciples are told, commissioned to go out on their first mission trip, and that mission trip is to their own people. These people already believe that they have right standing before God, they believe that they are God’s children, God’s chosen one. And they come with a message of repent. Which means, “hey I know you think you are right before God but you aren’t, you need Jesus, repent, turn from your old and follow this new way”.

You think that would go over well? The disciples knew that wouldn’t go over well. Actually in the verses right before this passage, they see Jesus be rejected by his own hometown. In the account of Luke it says they tried to throw him off a cliff for it!

But what did the disciples do, they marched in, and preached REPENT! The message has never changed and it will never change. The same message the jews needed, is the same message needed at East Hamilton, at Ringgold, at Ooltewah or wherever.

Please here me on this, because i’m not far off from y’all, im 19. I graduated in 2024. There is not a day that has gone by since i’ve graduated that I don’t regret not doing this enough. Not being bold enough to tell my friends repent, or you will end up in hell.

And I would sugarcoat evangelism constantly out of fear. I would say, “well ill just acted good so people will see Jesus in me” or I would just give my friends good advice on how to live better. These things aren’t inherently bad but understand that your school doesn’t need your life, good advice, they need God. And they need to hear about him through the message of the Gospel.

Conclusion

They desperately need to know that they are sinners, and because they are sinners they aren’t right before God. And no amount of good deeds can bring them there. But rather, despite their sinful state, God desires their heart and devotion to him, and he made that evident through the work of Jesus Christ, that although he knew no sin, he bore our sin, defeated it and defeated death, so that we can return to God.

When I got back home from that tennis tournament, I told everybody I knew that I met Kei Nishikori. And nothing was gonna stop me from doing so.

We have The incredible message of the Gospel, what is stopping you from telling everyone you Know?

Pray.