Kingdom Come - Saved to be Sent - Jason Paredes

Grab your Bibles. We're going to learn more about this kingdom

that's come. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter nine. We're going

to pick back up in verse 35, Matthew 9. 35. Those of you who are

joining us as guests, we are just going through the Gospel of

Matthew chapter by chapter, verse by verse, working our way through.

But this particular morning, I'm going to go ahead and confess

to you. This isn't how I was supposed to start the sermon this

morning. And the Lord brought conviction to me and said, no, you

got to tell him. So I was praying this morning, and the Lord

very clearly said, jason, that message that you wrote that you're

about to preach, it's for you, it's not for them. I'm going to preach

to you a message that is really all about God preaching to

me, because I am royally failing in this particular message.

I'm going to share with you. The Lord this morning was humbling

me, bringing me back to a place of remembrance of what I bring

to the table, which isn't much, and what the Lord can do if

I would just humble myself before him. So I struggle with what

we're going to be talking about, and the Lord had to beat down

my pride. He did it in multiple ways. One was during my

time of journaling and prayer, which was meaningful. I'll share

with that in a second. The second thing, though, was through

a text I got from my wife as I was driving up. It was a very simple

text, but it was a passage of scripture coming from her Bible reading.

It's Proverbs 16:31. It says, gray hair is a crown of splendor.

Proverbs 16:31

It is attained in the way of righteousness. It was just highlighted.

That's it. Nothing else. I texted back to my wife and said,

I must be a very righteous man. She wrote, for reals. That's

what she wrote. So God just reminded me, humbling me. All you're

bringing is a bunch of gray hair into this thing and a Bible

and give them. Give them me, don't give them you. Here's what

the Lord is doing. He's revealing to me an area of failure.

I don't like to admit this to you, what I'm about to admit to you,

because I'm not supposed to struggle with this. But I don't love

people the way I should love people. There are far too many moments

when I view people, again, don't hold your tomatoes. I view

people as inconveniences, intrusions and interruptions. I'm

a Pastor, like, my calling is to shepherd the flock of God. And

there are times when I just. People get in the way of what I'm

trying to accomplish. You ever been driving and you're going at

cruising speed and then all of a sudden a car pulls in front of

you just to slow down, and then you're like, middle finger,

stay down, stay down. Come on. No, I'm a Christian. I don't do that

kind of thing. But that's intrusion. Like, what are you doing?

Get out of the way. You're late to something and all of a sudden

somebody comes and says, hey, I got this issue, Pastor, can you

pray for me? I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, sure. Yes. How can I

pray for you? And I view a person in need as an intrusion. And

it's horrible. Sometimes it's my own family, my own children. I'm

about to go out, full dress to go mow, and I'm in my shorts and

shoes, and my beautiful daughter Jovi will run up, hey, Daddy,

do my shoes match? You know, come on, baby. I'm about to go outside

the door. Ask your sister, she'll tell you. It's a don't bother

me right now, I'm busy mindset that I just carry with me all the

time. And I just this morning the Lord said, jason, that's horrible.

You don't view people the way I view people. And because you don't

view people the way I view people, you'll never be able to minister

to people the way I want you to minister to people. And he's calling

me out and he's showing me, here's where Jesus is, here's where

you are. And I have a feeling that as he humbles me, some of you

in this room will be humbled along with me. Maybe I'm just praying

for that Some of you will be humbled along with me. But we're

gonna let Jesus do the humbling. Going back to the Gospel

of Matthew, chapter nine, verse 35, we're gonna pick up and

finish up chapter nine. Here's what it says. It says, and Jesus

went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues

and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease

and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion

for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep

without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest

is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly

to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Alright, so here's what you got, you got Jesus now. And he's

saying, I want you to know what I've been doing this whole time,

actually. Verse 35, chapter 9, verse 35 is the bottom slice of bread

when there was a first slice of bread to make a sandwich. That

came back in chapter four, verse 23, where it says almost the

exact same thing verbatim. Jesus is saying, I came to preach,

teach and cure and heal every disease and sickness. Says then 4:23

says that again in 9:35. And you know what he does in between

that? He preaches, he teaches, and he heals every affliction. Chapters

five, six and seven are the Sermon on the Mount. He's preaching

and teaching at the highest level possible. Chapters 8 and 9,

he's healing every affliction, he's casting out demons, he's healing

the sick, he's raising the dead. I mean he's doing all kinds

of stuff. He's preaching, teaching and healing. But now in

this passage, it tells us the reason why. And this is where Jesus

and I get real different. Jesus was not doing this work so,

so that people would check him out like, aren't I amazing? Look

at me. He wasn't doing it for self glory or self attention. He

was doing it out of love. It says that Jesus saw the people and

he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless

like sheep without a shepherd. By the way, that phrase harassed

and helpless is an idiom in Greek. You could probably best translate

it. He saw them. They looked chewed up and spit out by the shepherds

who should have cared for them. In other words, life was so

broken, so heavy, so out of control that they were just, they

would just spit out on the floor, half dead, hopeless, helpless,

overwhelmed, at the end of their rope, nowhere to turn. He looked

out and that's what he saw. He didn't see intrusions and inconveniences

and interruptions. He saw people and he had compassion for

them. By the way, that word compassion in Greek, it's an interesting

word. It's born from the Greek word bowels or intestines. It literally

means he was sick to his stomach over the pain that he saw.

When he looked out over them, it hurt him in the deepest level

of his gut to look at them. We would say it broke his heart to look

out there and see them harassed and helpless and broken

and suffering on the floor, chewed up and spit out. That's what

drove Jesus to do what he did. And I look at how I view people and

they get in the way they slow me down. I got things I'm trying

to accomplish. And I realize how dissonant my view is of the people

around me and how glorious Jesus view of people around him was.

But God is trying to give you and me a gift, because I have a feeling

there are some of you in this room, maybe a little Type A like

I am as well. And you got your mission, you got your vision, you

got your goal. You're after it. And either the people are helping

you or they're in the way. Did you ever notice how interruptible

Jesus was? Here's the savior of the stinking world, and he stops

for a bleeding woman who touches his garment and say, all

right, stop the whole parade. Someone touch me. Always interruptible.

Why? Because the people were the mission. He looked out there

and saw them harassed and helpless. They weren't in the way.

That's why he came. And he says to us, here's what I want you

to know. People, my people, my disciples, as I have loved them,

I want you to love them, too. He's about to do something. This

is a hinge point in the whole Gospel of Matthew. So up to this

moment, Jesus has been doing all the work. He's the one doing

the preaching, the teaching, and the healing from chapters five

all the way to chapter nine, the very end of it. Now he's about

to say, I want you now to pick up the mantle and do what I've been

doing. I'm not gonna accomplish this mission on my own.

I'm handing it off to you to pick up the reins and to do what

I've been doing, preaching and teaching and healing every affliction

and every disease. I want you to do what I've been doing, and I

want you to love how I've been loving. I'm gonna give you three

points this morning. Here's the first point. It's the gift of

compassion. Compassion allows us to see people as harassed and

helpless and not as intrusions or inconveniences. He's trying to

give you and me a gift through compassion, to look out and actually

see people the way they are. And I want you to know all around

you are people who are harassed and helpless, chewed up

and spit out. It's that grumpy neighbor who always seems angry.

And what you don't realize is that one of his children is suffering

with cancer right now, and his whole life is shattered. And you

think he's just grumpy, but he's harassed and helpless, and you

get angry with him or you can go love on him or that kid in the

school who keeps on bullying somebody else. That a parent. You

just want to go tell that little kid and his parents what to

do. You don't realize that his parents just got divorced and his

whole life is in shambles, and that little boy is harassed and helpless

and overwhelmed, that he doesn't know what to do with it.

So he bullies somebody else. So we can look at them and we can

see intrusions and complications, interruptions, or

people who are harassed and helpless. And Jesus says, look at

them with compassion, see their brokenness. This is what I

stink at. I confess to you. I don't look at where people are and

why they're hurting. And therefore, my heart doesn't love.

And if my heart doesn't love, I don't do the mission of God. He's

calling us out this morning. Look at them the way I see them and

love them. And then he's going to tell them in just a moment and

take up my mission to them. But he starts in an incredibly simple

way. He starts with prayer. Did you notice that? He says. And

he said that after his heart is breaking over them, after he's

feeling the gut of his stomach, he says, calls the disciples,

says, therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest. By the way,

that's Almighty God the Father. And ask him to send out laborers

into the harvest. He said, the harvest is already plentiful. Send

out laborers, workers into the harvest. And I believe this is something

that we're supposed to take literally. Now, we could wait until

Wednesday to do it, but I don't want us to wait until Wednesday.

I want us to do it right now, to actually take Jesus literally.

So we're put a little pause on the sermon, and we're going to turn

this worship service into a prayer gathering. So here's what

I invite you to do. In just a moment, you're gonna find three or

five people around you. You're gonna huddle up. And I'd encourage

you. Don't worry about wasting time on introductions. Just come

together and start praying. And you're gonna pray for three things.

You're asking the Lord to send workers into three places. One, locally,

ask the Lord to raise up workers to go to the people who live

next to you in your apartment or on your block, or people who work

in the cubicle next to you, people who shop in the store that

you do or go to the restaurant. This city that we live

in, pray for God to send workers to tell them the good news.

Of the gospel, then two nationally, don't just pray for our

country. Pray for God to send workers to our country. Because the

answer to our country isn't politics, it's the gospel. And so

we need to be praying for God to raise up church planners who would

take the gospel to more and more places in our nation, but not

just this nation, to the ends of the earth. We need to pray for

God to send workers to the unreached, unengaged people groups

who haven't even heard the name of Jesus yet. So those three

things, locally, nationally, internationally, we're gonna pray

for God to raise up laborers. So I wanna invite you, just you can

pop up around your house, stand around, grab three or four

other people, and let's make this a prayer gathering. Spend just

two or three minutes. And then when that time is over, I'll pray

for us and lead us on to the next thing. So go ahead and move

around and do that now. Lord, thank you. Thank you that you hear

our prayers. Thank you that you can hear all our voices at the

exact same time. Your word tells us we're supposed to make your

house a house of prayer for all nations. Thank you that we get

to obey your scripture this morning. Thank you that you will

send workers simply because we've asked. Oh, God, we praise your

holy name in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Praise God.

Listen, as you make your way back to your seat, thank you. Thank

you for letting us do this. By the way, if you enjoyed that. Every

Wednesday night we pray and we do a lot of this kind of thing. If

you didn't enjoy it, come anyway on Wednesday night and learn

how to enjoy it, because it's a lot of fun. Prayer is one of those

things that you learn by doing. And so one of the reasons

why we don't like it is because we don't feel good at it.

Good news is you don't have to be good because God is good. We just

lift up our prayers, as imperfect as they are to him. And

that that means right now, this morning, some of you lift up

some very shaky prayers that the unshaken God will answer. And

so we're going to see him actually raise up workers. But I

want to go ahead and forewarn you. Jesus is a little tricky on

this one because he has a habit of making you the answer to

your own request. Oh, you pray for workers. How about you? In fact,

that's exactly what he does with the disciples. When you keep

on moving to chapter 10, what you're going to see is him say, hey,

disciples, I want you to go ahead and answer your own prayer

request. Look at verse 10. I mean, excuse me, verse one of chapter

10, it says. And he called to him his 12 disciples and gave them

authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every

disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles

are first, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother,

James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, Philip and Bartholomew,

Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus

and Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed

him. These 12 Jesus sent out. I'm going to pause there for a moment.

I can 100% guarantee you that the vast majority of you in this

room, when you read that list, all you focus on is, is the name

of the 12 disciples, the 12 apostles. Like, some of you are so

nerdy, you memorize the names of the twelve apostles because you

think somehow you're going to get, like, special bonus points in

heaven if you can name them all. We focus on the names of the

12. And that's actually not the point. I mean, you need to know

the names. It's cool to know the names and see they're real people.

But that wasn't what he was doing. That's not why Matthew put

their names here. He put their names here to show what Jesus is

doing in the turning point of the gospel. You can see it in a couple

of ways. One of the first ways you see it is in how Matthew lays

them out. I don't know if you notice this, but he lays them out

in pairs. You'll see the word, and between the couplets, it starts

off Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, his brother. Then it

says James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, Philip

and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, and. And. And what he does

is he gives six couplets. And here's the reason why Jesus sent

people out two by two. These are the six mission teams that he's

sending out. And he's telling them how they went out in teams.

That's why he's given the names that way. Another way, though,

that you can tell what he's doing here is not so much just giving

his names, but sending them out is because of what they're called.

Back in verse 2, it says that the names of the 12 apostles are

these. That's the first time the word apostle is used in the New

Testament, by the way. And the word apostle is an interesting Greek

word, it comes from apostolos. That's not that difficult. Apostolos

becomes apostle. Just a transliteration. It doesn't take

rocket science to figure that out. But in English, you don't see

what you would see very quickly in Greek. So the word apostolos

comes from the Greek word apostelo. I mean, that makes sense.

You can see the connection. An apostolos is somebody who has been

apostelo Ed. Well, apostelo means to send. So literally, if you

were to. You were to translate it in verse 2, the names of the 12

sent ones are these. And then he gives the 12 names. And then in

verse 5, it says, and these 12 Jesus aposteloed he sent out. So

often we focus on the 12 and think about their position like the

12 pillars of the Church, the foundational ones. But did you know

that his main point in here wasn't to show us who are just set

apart to be the pillars of the Church? He's telling us how he's

passing off his mission. And by the way, he doesn't stop with

these 12. You go to the book of Luke. He sends out 72 people,

two by two, to go do the exact same mission. By the time you get

to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, he sends out all his disciples

and says, go make disciples of all nations. He's ascending God and

he's sending them out. Did you know that there are people in the

Bible who are called apostles? Who are not these 12? There's at

least four where the Bible calls them apostles. Paul is probably

the best well known, calls him the Apostle Paul. But Barnabas was

also called an apostle. Sometimes the ESV is tricky. On this

one, it'll call it a messenger instead of apostle. But the Greek

word is apostolos. He's called an apostle. You also have Titus,

who's called an apostle. And you have Epaphroditus. All four of

those are called apostles. Which shows us he wasn't just talking

about the 12 original ones. He was talking about anybody who was

sent. His point here is the function. They are being sent out

to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why it actually says

that he calls them. In verse one, interesting. Verse one, it says,

and he called to him his 12 disciples. What's so intriguing to

me is that it sounds like there are all these disciples out

there somewhere. And he goes, okay, I pick you, and I'll pick you,

and I'll pick you. I'm calling you to me. But actually, the 12 were

already with him following around, he had already been bringing

them to himself. Every scholar I studied believes that this is actually

referring to a more technical like commissioning service, a calling

service where Jesus has these 12 and he lays hands on them and

commissions them with his authority. That's why it says, and

he gave them authority to do the very miracles that he was doing.

He's calling them to go out. By the way, I want you to know this.

No rabbi in Jesus time did it this way. Every rabbi had a pattern.

It's kind of like getting a PhD. Like you gotta do your years,

you gotta write your dissertation, you gotta, you got

to defend it. And then when you've done all that, then you are

given the mantle. You can go out and teach and do your thing.

That's how rabbis worked. They would call apprentices or disciples

to them. Those disciples would have to memorize everything that

that rabbi taught. He would have to show that he has been trained

well and he would just sit and spectate the whole time. And at the

very end of all of his training, if he had everything memorized

and he passed all the tests, then that rabbi would send him out

to be a rabbi. Jesus has a commissioning service at the very

beginning of his ministry and he calls them out when they have

no idea what they're doing and says, good luck, take my authority

with you. That's how he does it. Which means these poor trembling

disciples have no idea what they're doing. They're like, are

you sure? I'm a hillbilly from backwoods Galilee, Jesus, I don't

know what I'm supposed to do. Alright, it's okay. You got my authority.

Just go. Here's what I want you to understand about Jesus. Here's

the second point I want you to write down. Jesus doesn't send us

out when we're ready. Jesus makes us ready by sending us out.

It's completely opposite of what you would normally think. Oh

no, if I want to go share the gospel with somebody, I got to be

trained better. I'm going to go on a mission trip. I got to go

to seminary or something like that. I got to memorize my Bible

a bit more. I didn't even memorize the Sermon on the Mount.

Jason, I can't go on a mission trip. I can't share my faith with

somebody. They might ask questions too hard. I'm not ready.

Jesus doesn't send you out when you're ready. He actually makes

you ready by sending you out. So if you feel completely unqualified,

praise God, you're right where you need to be to be sent out by

Almighty God. That's exactly what he does with these disciples.

Bunch of hillbillies from backwoods Galilee. And he says, I'm

sending you out. That's verse five through 15 is their first mission.

They go out onto being the answer to their own prayer immediately.

Let's look at the first half of it. Pick it up in verse 5. 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. Heal the sick, raise the dead,

cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You receive without paying,

give without pay. Now, I want to put a little pause button there

for a moment because I want to deal with something that troubled

me for a long time when I read this particular passage. So Jesus

says, all right, I'm giving you instructions. You're going to

take the Gospel. Go out there, the Gospel of Peace. Just make sure

you don't tell the Samaritans and the Gentiles only go to the Jewish

people. I think sometimes we read the Bible and we don't stop

and actually consider the implications of it because we don't

want it to bother us. But that should bother you. Like, what in

the world is Jesus doing being so exclusionary here? Like, everybody

needs the Gospel of peace. Why is he saying, only go to the Jewish

people? There are other times Jesus did some things that are pretty

questionable until you understand why he's doing them. Like

telling a Gentile woman, like, oh, I'm not. The food is only for

the Jewish people, not for you gentile dogs. These are things that

Jesus said, you're going, bro, what's going on? You got to look

hard at these and understand why he's doing what he's doing. The

same thing with the Gentile woman. Jesus ultimately was just

testing her faith to see if she would still believe. And here

he's not saying, I don't want Samaritans and Gentiles to have the

Gospel. All this is is Jesus strategy. He's saying, I'm a Jewish

Messiah and a Samaritan, and a Gentile won't understand a Jewish

Messiah, but he would later go to the Samaritans and to the Gentiles.

In fact, if you read the Gospel of John, it says he intentionally

passes through Samaria, finds a woman at a well who's a Samaritan

and shares the gospel with the Samaritan people. So he's going to

take the Gospel to the Samaritans. At the end of Matthew

already mentioned it. He said, go therefore and make disciples of

all nations. He wants the Gentiles to have the gospel. But

he knew if he was going to start, he had to start with the Jewish

people. This is the same strategy Paul had, by the way. He

said to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile, start with the

base. Who can understand a Jewish Messiah? So Jesus says, go

to the Jewish people first. But he also says, and when you go,

heal the sick, cleanse the leper, cast out the demon, raise

the dead. Why? Because they ain't going to believe you're with

the Messiah if you don't have the power of the Messiah. You see,

Jesus knew this. He knew that every single Jew was expecting the

Jewish Messiah to come to earth with the power of heaven, sent

down as the long awaited son of David, who would bring the power

of heaven to earth. And so that's why Jesus did the miracles

he did. This wasn't some cheap parlor trick to say, check me out,

I can shoot lightning bolts from my eyeballs and webs from my

hands. Like he's. He's not trying to impress the people, he's

trying to show them I am the Messiah who's come down with the

power of heaven. And then when he sends his disciples out, the sent

ones, he says, you're gonna have to take my power with you or

they're not gonna. They're not gonna believe you are coming on behalf

of the Jewish Messiah. So here's my power. Heal the sick, cleanse

the leper, cast out the demon, raise the dead. I don't want you

to miss what Jesus just said. He said to a bunch of uneducated

hillbillies, you're going to go out and you are going to heal

the sick. All they've been doing at this point is watching Jesus.

And now he's going, you're going to go out and you're going

to cleanse the leper. You're going to go cast out a demon. You're

going to raise somebody from the dead. You little hillbilly, you.

You're going to go do it because you have my authority. That

should blow your mind that Jesus would give his authority to

people like these first 12 disciples. By the way, one of them

was a man named Judas Iscariot. And he still gave that

authority. Here's what this means for us today. When you feel

inadequate for the mission of God, praise God, because you're going

to depend on his power, not your own power. And he's saying to

you, I'm going to give you my authority and my power because you

go in my name. We should expect the same thing from God. In

fact, it's missionaries who are overseas to see the most miraculous

work of God because they're going in the name of King Jesus.

And Jesus himself said in John chapter 14, because I go away, the

John 14 · chapter mention

Spirit, the same Spirit that's in me is going to come to you. And

greater works than me will you do when the Spirit comes. If it wasn't

just the 12 apostles that he gave this power to, he gives them

to the 72 later. He gives them to all his disciples later so that

we can be his messengers, the sent ones who go out in the power

of God. This is why we don't have to be afraid. Yes, we feel inadequate.

Yes, we don't have answers. No, we don't know if they're gonna

be healed or not. But we pray over them. And God does miraculous

works. And people see the power of heaven come down and they

believe that's the hope that we have. We have the power of Christ

because we are the sent ones. But I do have to temper that. It

is absolutely true. God is going to give you unprecedented power

when you go on a mission that you would never see somewhere else.

But that doesn't always mean when people see the miracles from

heaven, they are going to believe. We talked about this last

week, by the way. The Pharisees saw all the miraculous

healings of Jesus and they still said, nope, that can't be real.

You must come from the Prince of Demons. There are going to be

people who don't believe. If Jesus is about to send his 12 out

of as sheep among wolves, and he says some of you are gonna. Some

of them are gonna believe, some aren't. So here are my instructions

of what to do. And that's where it finishes up in verses 9

through 15. So let's finish up the passage this morning. Picking

back up verse nine. He says, 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. In whatever town

or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there

until you depart. 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. 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. 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. We're going to finish that. I want

to go ahead and confess to you a second part I struggled to understand

when I first read this. It was that whole thing about, go to somebody

who's worthy, and if you find somebody who's worthy, let your peace

rest on them. But if they're not worthy, take your peace back.

What does that mean, to be worthy? You know, they're given an

assignment. Don't take a bunch of money with you and all these things.

You're gonna live off the hospitality of the people that you're

going to be with. He says, go and look for people who are worthy.

So it was incredibly important they understood what they were looking

for when they were looking for somebody who was worthy. So what

does it mean to be worthy for them? Did it mean that they had a

big enough house where they could sit in there? They had enough

money to put food on the table because they were supposed to live

off hospitality? Was it wealth? Was that what made them worthy?

No, no, not at all. Well, was it their Jewishness? I mean, if they

were a good enough Jew, if they went to celebrate the Passover

every single year and all the festivals and they tried to obey

the law of Moses, it was if they were a good Jew, Is that what

made them worthy? No, or he wouldn't need the message of the

gospel if that's what it was. What made them worthy? It was one

thing, actually. Verse 14 gave the clue to it that I hadn't seen

before. It says in verse 14, if anyone will not receive you or

listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet, and

right there you get the clue of what it means to be worthy. To

be worthy simply means you receive the message of the gospel

with faith. They will listen. Which, by the way, in Greek, that

word listen also means obey. You will let the message of the gospel

come in, and you will obey the message of the Gospel. That's what

makes a person worthy. He's saying, if you want the peace of

Christ, you have to receive the Gospel of Christ, and that will

make you worthy. But if you reject the gospel, then you are not

worthy. Now, I want you to know this runs in the face of everything

you have been taught in this world about what makes a person worthy.

This world tells you the size of house you live in that makes you

worthy. How fast your car drives, that's what makes you worthy.

How nice your clothes are, how successful you are at work, what

kind of extreme vacations you take, what kind of physical health

you're in, how well your children turn out. These are the

things that show you whether you're worthy or not. And it's a

bunch of hogwash. Those things do not make you worthy. Now there's

some of you smart enough to baptize some new ideas and think

that this will make you worthy. If I go to church, that'll

make me worthy. If I give money to the church or to the poor,

if I serve others, if I start memorizing scripture, if I read my

Bible daily, if I do all the spiritual disciplines, that'll make

me worthy. If the good outweighs the bad, I'll just make

sure that there's more good than bad in my life. Maybe that'll

make me worthy. And I want you to know that will actually keep you

from being worthy. The Bible calls all that effort self righteousness,

and it says it is filthy rags in the sight of God. It is our tempts

to be worthy that keep us from becoming worthy. Let me tell you

the message of the Bible. All have sinned and fallen short of the

glory of God. There is no one righteous, not even one, including

this preacher up here on this stage. None of us are worthy. There

is one human being who has ever been worthy on this planet,

and his name is Jesus. The only ones who have obeyed the Father,

done what was good, have been worthy. And the whole message of

the gospel is that Jesus was worthy in our place. Why there's

a baptistry that says Jesus in my place, Cristo en mi lugar. Because

he was worthy in our place. And then we come and confess, I am

not worthy. I have failed you, God. I have been unworthy. And I

can never make myself worthy. And so here's what I do. I throw

myself at your feet, Jesus. I put my unworthiness on you, Jesus,

because when you were on the cross, you paid the price of somebody

who's unworthy. You took my unworthiness on your shoulders and

you let yourself be crucified so it could be paid for. And then

you handed me in your resurrection, your worthiness. And

all I have to do is receive it by faith. That's the message of the

gospel. You have to be unworthy in order to become worthy.

As Christ comes inside you, that's the only way to receive the

peace of Christ. He says, if Somebody is worthy. If they will

receive you and your message, then bring them my peace. But if

they are not worthy, in other words, they don't receive the message.

Shake the dust off your feet. Take your peace with them. They can't

have it. I believe there are some of you in this room. There are

some of you who are worshiping with us online. And you desperately

need the peace of Christ. Your life is in shambles. I was talking

about harassed and helpless. You're going, that's me. I'm overwhelmed

by my circumstances, by my life, by my addictions, by my depression,

by my anxiety, by my fears, by my brokenness, by my relationships,

by my work, by my failures. I'm just overwhelmed by all of it.

You have no peace of Christ. And he says, I want to give you a

peace that surpasses understanding, the peace of Christ

that will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Let me tell

you how that peace comes. It comes when you finally say, I'm not

worthy of it, only Jesus is. And so I cast my unworthiness on

him. I receive his worthiness and I invite Christ to come into

me. And when Jesus Christ, the spirit of Christ, comes in you, you

become worthy. The Father looks at you. He sees his son. He

says, here's my peace. You can have it. Here's what I believe. I

believe those messengers went into the towns, that he sent them

two by two. And they knocked on doors. And some of those people

said, we don't want your message around here. Go away. And

some of those people said, I open up the door, come on in and

eat with me. And me with you. I want you to know there's something

else. Jesus said. Revelation, chapter 3, verse 20. He said, I stand

Revelation 3:20

at the door and I knock. Whoever hears my voice and opens

the door, I will enter into him and eat with him. And he with

me. Jesus said, don't force yourself into those homes. If they're

worthy, go in. If they're not, don't. And Jesus will not force himself

into your heart, even though he's what you most need. All he'll

do is stand at the door and knock. I believe he's knocking on

the door some of your hearts right now. And you have a choice

to make. You can say, not right now. Not a convenient time

for me. Or you can swing that door open and say, jesus, come in.

Come in and change me. Give me your peace. That baptistery, that's

the way you swing open the door. It's a symbol of faith. The

old you, dead and buried Unworthy. And you're raised up worthy,

not because of you, but because Christ did it in your place.

I believe some of you need to find the worthiness that comes in

Christ and the peace of Christ this morning. I'm about to give you

a moment to do it. But you're going to have to decide before I

do. There's one last thing I want to say before we finish up.

And here's what it is. Every single one of you in this room who

has been born again, who has believed in Jesus Christ and been

saved by the way. There have been so many people who've expressed

their faith in Christ over these last few years. Many of you

in this room have done so. Some of you have been believers for

a long time. You've believed in Jesus. You have been saved by

the grace of Almighty God. But there are some of you, perhaps many

of you, who've come under the false idea. Praise God. He saved

me. Now I'm just gonna coast through life until I make it to heaven

in the end and completely miss the whole reason why he saved you.

He didn't just save you for pie in the sky when you die. That's

not why you were redeemed. You have been saved in order to be sent.

That's your the mission is why he saved you, so he could get you

ready and send you right back out. That's actually what verse eight,

the second half of it was talking about. So profound a teaching,

you miss it in the English translation because sometimes it

talks about money, but it says literally in Greek it's four words,

but you have to do five in English. Freely you received, freely

give. That's what it says in Greek. Freely you receive, freely

give. He's talking a little bit about money, but he's talking

about so much more than that. He's saying, freely you have received

the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the redemption that I bring, my authority

and my power. If you have received it freely, give it freely.

Don't hold it to yourself. And yet so many of us hold it to ourselves.

Third last point, I want you to write down, if you don't mind,

and it's a heavy one the Lord has been breaking my heart over.

Here's what it is. Few things sting the heart of God more than

people who have freely received the gospel but do not freely

give it. Few things sting his heart more. He weeps over the selfishness

of his people who freely receive the gospel of Jesus Christ

and say, that's enough. I don't have to tell anybody else about

it. There was somebody who took the gospel. To every single

one of you who are believers in Jesus Christ, there was some messenger

who was sent to you. Maybe it was a mom and dad who shared the

gospel or a grandparent who shared the gospel. Maybe it was a

Sunday school teacher. Maybe for some of you, I got to be the

messenger, a pastor who shared the gospel. Maybe you grew up in

a different country and there was a missionary who brought the

gospel or a different city, a church planner brought the gospel

to you, but somebody took the gospel to you. And how hypocritical,

how dastardly, how horrible would it be to have somebody come

to us with the gospel and say, thank you for changing my eternity.

Now I'm not telling anybody else about it. We have been saved

to bear the message and we must obey. It's time for us to become

the answer to our own prayer. We've been praying for God to send

people to the people around us. Workers, it's time for us to

say, here I am. Send me. I need to go tell everybody the good

news that I found out. It's time for us to be willing. Now, here's

what I want you to know. The moment you say yes, you're going

to immediately feel inadequate. Now, I want to remind

you what I said before. He didn't send you out. When you're

ready, he makes you ready by sending you out. You just need to

say yes. Now, one of the best ways for you to be trained by going

out is to do it in partnership with other believers. That's why

our summer mission trips are so beautiful. We have a number of

mission, some on the field already in San Diego and in Puerto

Rico. We have a whole team going to Houston this afternoon.

And we got teams, all 322 people this summer going out on mission

from our church. It's an incredible way. You go over there

and you learn how to share your faith and you learn what it

means to be a gospel presence, and you come back more prepared.

But there are plenty of you going, well, I forgot to sign up

for that, so maybe next year. I got good news for you. I knew that

about 10% of our people go on mission, which means about 90% of

you don't have that experience. And so we wanted to create

the mission team, wanted to create an opportunity for you locally

to go on mission this summer. So I want you to do me a favor. I

want every one of you who has a phone to pull it out for just a

moment. And you can either scan the Connect code on the seat

back in front of you. Or you can just go to fielder.org connect

it'll take you to the same place just like you see up there

on the screen. Phil.org connect and when you go there, at

the very top of it, you're gonna see something that says be

sent locally. And so when you go there, you open it and there it'll

take you to a page that looks like this. It'll have some info that

you'll fill out, but if you scroll down, it'll give you different

ways that you can move off. There's seven different things that

you can do this summer with descriptions about it. And then you

get to the bottom and then there's a list of 14 different dates

over the summertime that you can say, I want to be sent locally

this summer. I want to experience this with somebody else.

Now I want to warn you, the band has come out because we're about

to sing a song. Now I mentioned this earlier. I'm going

to say it again. There's a great chance for hypocrisy because

you're going to be saying, send me, send me. Then you're going

to go, but not locally. I don't know, Lord, I. I can't do that.

And I just don't want you to say send me and then not be willing

to be sent. Cause that's hypocrisy. So maybe before you start

singing this song, unless you're one of those going on the

mission trip, I guess you're already set. But if you're not one

of those, maybe what you need to do is to check at least one of

those boxes. You can check all 14. And by the way, if you check

a box, that doesn't mean you're going on this thing. It just

means you want more information about it. So you're gonna

get an automated email for however many boxes you check about

that. And a leader will reach out to you to see if they can help

you get the info you need. But maybe you need to check at least

one box before you try to stand up and say send me. To make

sure that you're not being hypocritical about it. And so I wanna

give you a moment, maybe it's what you need to do and just make

that decision and then you can join the song. But one last thing,

in fact, I wanna invite you to stand up right now if you will. I'm

invite the prayer team down front. There are some of you in this

room. And as I was Talking about being overwhelmed, chewed up

and spit out by life and circumstances and heaviness and depression

and all that. That's you. You're saying, I feel like I'm harassed

and helpless. I need help. I want to remind you, Jesus has compassion

for you. He sees you. He sees your pain, he sees your struggle,

he sees your issue, and he wants to meet it because he cares

and he can do something about it. And we know our God is moving.

Last Sunday, we had so many people come forward for prayer, and

we were starting to get back reports of the miracles taking place.

I had a sister come up to me and say that they prayed. We prayed

for our daughter, her daughter who had cancer. And they came back

and all the reports were, cancer's gone. Praise God. He moves

that way. I was standing next to somebody on Wednesday night when

we had a prayer time, and I got to hear him being prayed over.

And the gentleman said that he. When he walked up, he couldn't

turn his neck, prayed over him, and immediately he could turn

his neck. God is answering prayers. Reggie was sharing. There

was somebody who came up who couldn't lift his shoulder this high,

prayed over him, asked him to lift it, and he lifted his arm all

the way up. God is doing this kind of stuff, real miracles, and

it's not a show, it's not a spectacle. He's not doing it because

we're trying to get on YouTube somewhere. So we're doing this because

he wants to show he's a compassionate messiah who has power

from heaven. So if you need him to move, there's nowhere else

you need to be but down front receiving prayer, asking for God

to move. And we want to pray over you in whatever needs you have.

But most importantly, if he's knocking on the door, if he's saying,

come believe in me, trust in me, you got to open your door to

him and say, jesus, I invite you in, and we'll help you take the

step of baptism. Whether it's today or another day, we want to

help you. You got to come before you sing, make sure you've

taken your step to be sent. I encourage you to respond right now

as the Lord is telling you.