Called and Sent
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Mark 6:7-13
Mark 6:7-13
7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 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. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 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.” 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.
OPENING REMARKS
Back in chapter 3 we read about the 12; who they were and why Jesus called them
13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
They were called for two distinct purposes; that they might be with Jesus and that they might go out and preach Jesus.
This is true for any of those who follow Christ; you have been called to be with Jesus.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
And you have been called to proclaim Jesus.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
But what if I don’t feel ready? I don’t feel like I’m properly equipped?! I’ll just make a mess of it! These are some of the questions we’re going to deal with in todays sermon.
Firstly let’s cast our minds back to what has happened immediately before this. Jesus has been rejected in his own hometown. Hardly the ideal launching point for His ministry in human terms! Jesus wasn’t looking for His message to ‘catch on’ before He pressed on. He wasn’t looking for His approval ratings to increase before getting back out there. He knew what He was on earth to do and He got on with it! Do you know what you are here for? Are you waiting for someone or something to give you permission to get on with your mission? Are you waiting for approval from others before you’ll pursue God’s call on your life? Stop waiting. If you’re truly pursuing God’s call over your life then the approval of man won’t be yours anyway.
Equally the 12 disciples have just seen their Lord practically chased out of His own village. Now they’re being sent out to preach the same message. You know, I think there are lots of Christians in this country who are waiting for church and Christianity to become socially acceptable before they’ll open up about their own faith. There’s jubilation anytime there’s a reasonably positive story about a Christian in the news, and absolute acrimony any time there’s something embarrassing in the news about Christianity. These closet Christians spend most of their time denouncing the kind of Christianity that the news hates, hoping that this will bring about a change in the media’s attitude towards Christianity, or at least make sure they don’t come in for any scrutiny personally.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
The disciples didn’t wait for the tide of popular opinion to turn, they went out to preach and so must we.
Let’s also remember that these guys didn’t have a theology degree between them, but they had been with Jesus. That’s not to say that theology isn’t important, or that studying and having qualifications is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, they are good things! However, this is to show that a good education does not a minister make. Having a degree, having letters after your name, or having the title Dr. or Reverand doesn’t make you into a minister of the gospel; being with Jesus does.
Sometimes we feel inadequate, we think ‘Jesus are you sure you want to trust me to do your work?’ ‘Are you sure you want to trust me to represent you?!’ Let’s remember who He trusted in this passage; Judas! He had Judas preach the gospel, who He knew would betray Him, who He knew wasn’t a trustworthy character. If Jesus trusted a Judas to preach the gospel, He can trust you to do likewise!
He sends them out in twos with basically nothing; no bag, no food, no money. Just a staff, a pair of sandals and each other for company.
Why did He send them out in twos? Well firstly we know that a testimony was esablished by two or three witnesses.
1 This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
Also, they could be of support to one another on their mission.
It’s never good for a Christian to set out in mission alone; we are supposed to go together!
Why did He send them out with no provisions?
There’s no prestige entourage, no budget for a premier hotel to stay in, no state of the art lights, no worship team, no smoke machine to give that Shekinah glory haze while they preach! Obviously I’m taking this too far, but clearly Jesus didn’t think that having any of those things was essential to doing His work. Jesus didn’t get His disciples to commend themselves to the people they were preaching to by showing off their worldly goods. Yet there are ministers today who believe that it is essential that they ought to have all of the best things in order to preach the gospel effectively. One pastor in London drives his lambourghini around the council estate that he ministers in to prove the goodness of God. Clearly he had never read how Jesus thinks the goodness of God is proved.
Equally there are some that think that Jesus here intends that a minister should always be in lack, that they should live ‘by faith’ hand to mouth for everything. Yet there’s a passage in Luke that shows that this wasn’t always how Christ expected His disciples to minister
35 And he said to them, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” 36 He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.
Jesus sent the 12 out like this so that they would have to be dependent on God’s provision for their needs. He was teaching them a lesson. He was teaching them trust, reliance and dependence on God for all these things.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
The twelve were going to have to rely on the generosity of those they were ministering to for accomodation, food and their general needs. This sets the precedent for how a minister of the gospel is to live and earn an income, they are to rely upon the generosity of the community that they serve.
6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.
17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”
1 Cor 9:14-15 “14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. 15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.”
So what’s the lesson here? When we are doing God’s work, when we are serving Him in whatever He’s called us to do, we can rest assured that He will provide for all of our needs, He’ll take care of us.
When we as a team began Hope City Church, we had to trust God that He would provide for all of our needs. And we knew that if we had truly heard Him right and we were truly following His word correctly, He would.
What’s more is, though the 12 may have lacked worldly provisions, they didn’t lack spiritual provision. Jesus gave them authority and power over demonic spirits. They had been given the same authority and power that Jesus had to go out and minister. And verse 13 tells us that they put that authority into action; they cast out many demons and healed many sick people. This tells us two things very clearly;
Jesus is the only one who can give that kind of authority. He was the only one who had the authority to give away. This authority, this power wasn’t something the disciples had to discover within themselves, they didn’t have it, they had to be given it.
Jesus sent His disciples out not just with a message of truth to preach but with power to verify that message. Whereever the gospel is preached in the world it is always followed by powerful signs and wonders; lives changed, demons cast out, people healed. God never sends out His servants without giving them His power and authority to operate in.
So what did they preach? We are told that they preached the same simple message; that people should repent. James and John didn’t come up with a message about healing, while Peter and Andrew went out preaching about forgiveness, they all preached the same message, that they had heard Jesus preach before.
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The Christian message, the good news, the gospel doesn’t change, it shouldn’t be abandoned or added to, we shouldn’t tailor the gospel to suit our own pet doctrines it is always to be preached the same, a message of repentance, a message which calls people to turn from their sins, to leave their old life behind, die to self and turn to Christ.
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 41.52 μετανοέω; μετάνοια, ας
μετανοέω; μετάνοια, ας f: to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness—‘to repent, to change one’s way, repentance.’
Quite a simple message, so does that mean that the disciples just went about yelling REPENT! At the top of their lungs, a bit like Blackadder’s, puritanical stick in the mud relatives?! Well, I think there is another way to translate this verse from the Greek that gives us slightly more information. It reads Καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκήρυξαν ἵνα μετανοῶσιν, which can read literally ‘and they went out preaching in order that they might repent.’ It’s in the subjuntive form which very often gives this idea of the motive or intention of the action being performed, so they were preaching, with the end goal that those who heard them would repent. And that is the end goal of all gospel preaching; not that those hearing might get more knowledgable, or that they might leave feeling happier and better about themselves, but that they would repent.
I want for us to be moved by the stark warning that Jesus issues concerning cities that don’t receive this gospel message. He says leave them, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. This is what Jews would do whenever they left a gentile town, indicating that the town wasn’t clean, Jesus is saying that they should do this to Jewish towns who reject the gospel!
Jesus says that it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah which were destroyed with fires of judgement from heaven than for those places that shut out and reject the gospel in this time. How does this make us feel about England? How does it make us think about Wolverhampton? This is why we will continue to preach the gospel in this town while we have the strength to do so. Because we know both the glorious blessings that come with accepting Christ and the dreadful curse that comes by denying Him.
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, 3 and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4 then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5 He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.
7 “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” - Spurgeon
Pray