"Trusting Our Sending Savior" - Mark 6:7-13

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where maybe you were getting

trained to do something or, you know,

it was at a job or you were growing up and you were working with a mom or a

dad and the time always comes at some point when you have to do it yourself, right?

Maybe they have to leave, they have to go somewhere or it's just your turn, right? It's your time.

And I can remember multiple times in my life where I'm usually working with

my dad, You know, he was always there.

He was always shadowing me on a construction site or doing something.

And I always had so much confidence because I knew if I mess something up,

right, if I took out a wall and something went haywire or if I put a screw in

a wall and water started coming out, those were all problems.

But but I knew, you know, my dad's here and we'll figure it out.

Right. He knows everything. He's like a wizard. And so I had that backing But

there comes a moment There comes a time,

Where he leaves And he says It's all yours man And then all of a sudden I get

a lot more hesitant To put the screw in the wall Right?

I get a lot more hesitant To take the wall down I get a lot more hesitant To

make a decision Because if something Were to go wrong Now it's like Well I guess

the house Just burns down Right?

I guess it's just Just going to be a flood now It's just not going to work Because

I won't know What to do But of course, you trust the person that leaves you

in charge. You grow from that. You make mistakes. You do those things.

And we all have experience doing something like that in some regard.

And this morning, what we're really getting into in Mark is it's the first time

that Jesus is going to send out these disciples and kind of tell them like, hey, it's your turn.

It's your turn. We're in Mark 6, going to start in verse 7 to this point.

He's picked these disciples. They have walked with him. They've seen him have all kinds of success.

They've been fearful. They've watched him calm a storm. They're just leaving Jesus' hometown.

They've really seen the first instance of kind of some, we won't call them failures.

Jesus doesn't fail, but we will say that there was a rejection that Jesus doesn't win.

He goes to his hometown and they reject him. They don't want anything to do with him.

Remember, they said, this is just some carpenter, stonemason guy.

We're not even so sure who his real dad is.

His mom had a virgin birth. We don't really believe that either.

And so they've seen a little bit of everything. And now Jesus is going to say,

all right, well, it's your turn. It's your turn.

And he's going to use a word here that we'll get into for the first time,

where to this point, he's called them disciples.

The Greek word there is meant to be a learner, right? A disciple is a learner.

When we say we're going to make disciples of Jesus Christ, what we're doing

is we're making learners.

We're making people that are coming under the authority of Jesus Christ to learn

from him, to hear from them. That's what we're making.

He's going to use a term here that we get our word from, apostle.

An apostle is one who is commissioned by his master with the master's own authority

and then sent out in the master's name.

All right, so there's a shift that's happening here, a major shift that takes place here in Mark.

So let me just start by reading the passage. This is Mark 6.

I'm going to read 7 through 13.

He says, and he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two.

And he gave them authority over the unclean spirits. And he charged them to

take nothing for their journey except the staff, no bread, no bag,

no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

But he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.

And if any place will not receive you and yet will not listen to you when you

leave, shake the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

So again, Jesus is going to send them out. Every Christian is a sent one.

Every Christian, every single one of us should read this passage and to ourselves

already be saying, this is me, right?

Jesus has picked me out just like he did his disciples. He's chosen me.

He's drawn me in. He's made me a child of God.

I've become his disciple because of his goodness towards me.

And there is a point to which Jesus goes, okay, now you got to go.

You have to go out. You have to do ministry now. You have to preach the gospel now.

You have to preach repentance now. Now, again, some of this,

some of this is not prescriptive.

What I mean by that is some things in the Bible are prescriptive.

They're prescribed to us that all of us should do. Some things are descriptive.

They're just describing what happened. Some of this is descriptive,

right? Jesus isn't still walking around.

He isn't walking up to people face to face. He isn't giving them specific authority

to do specific things, right? But he is with us.

There are prescriptive things that he calls us to do. There's definitely principles

here that we're called to do. So let's just look at a couple.

Number one, he sends them out two by two. There's an Old Testament principle at work here.

If you read things like Deuteronomy, it says that you need two witnesses,

right, to ascribe to whether or not something's true.

You can't just show up on your own and say, this is what I think.

And everyone goes, man, that seems true. There needs to be at least two witnesses.

But I think more than that, the Bible is very clear over and over again, two is better than one.

The easiest way for the devil to get ahold of somebody is for them to be by themselves.

Now, I think all of us know that. All of us know that that's probably a good

thing, but functionally in our ministries and the things that we're involved

in our gospel ministries, whether it's at our church or in our lives,

two by two sounds great until you realize we actually have to work together.

Right. Can you imagine Jesus putting out? We don't know who the groups were.

OK. Can you imagine like Peter and Andrew together?

Andrew, notoriously kind of soft spoken, generally known as a softer apostle.

He's really kind. And you got Peter who's like, we're cutting everyone's ears off like we are.

And Jesus is like, hey, man, you guys go work together. Go do some gospel ministry.

Do you think there's not some tension? Who got put with Judas?

We don't know. But I can imagine working with someone that doesn't really care

a whole lot about jesus even though he's been given the same authority Is going

to be really hard And really difficult But jesus doesn't let them off the hook.

He doesn't say hey, i'm going to send you out two by two And if it doesn't work

out if things don't go your way Then y'all can just do it by yourselves because

we just want to avoid a fight No, I think jesus knows hey, there's going to be tension.

That's part of working together right one of the things that I realized working in churches,

is that most of the time the thing that gets churches off kilter the quickest

is people unwilling to deal with tension to deal with conflict,

If there's conflict, churches are often ill-equipped to deal with those things

because we don't want anyone to not get along.

We think that is the worst thing that could ever happen, is two Christians not

getting along. That's a symptom of something terrible happening.

Let me just tell you, we're a small church. Obviously, we're not very old,

especially in the sense of churches.

Churches' years are like Baptist years. When you're my age and Baptist years, you're like 12.

Church years, we're not that old. We don't have a lot of deep-seated issues that we've pushed down.

But I promise you there will be a time, maybe sooner rather than later,

I don't know, where there will be tension.

There will be things that happen amongst us that just happen because we're people,

because we're people, because we're all sinners. And we all bring things to

the table that are hard to deal with.

Some of us are a little more bold than others, and that can cause tension.

Again, think of Peter and Andrew. You think there's not times that Peter did

something where Andrew's like, oh my gosh, this guy again, like he never shuts up, you know?

And Andrew's like at the back of the disciples, like talking to the crowds,

like, hey, I'm sorry. I don't know what to do with this guy.

He just keeps screaming and yelling. He never stops. He's the same way with

us, I promise. You wouldn't believe what he did in the boat.

And some of you guys have been put in that position with other people that are

bold, where like, you'll do something. Maybe you have a kid like this.

They'll do something and you're like, I'm really sorry, I don't know.

I didn't tell him to do that. He just does that sometimes.

I don't know who gave him the hatchet. I don't know. He found that.

And the flip side of that is all the ones that maybe are a little more bold

are looking at all the other people like, what a bunch of cowards.

Get up here, dude. I've got extra swords. We're all going out,

right? We're going to go knock on doors.

And if somebody doesn't answer, we're going to go in through the back.

Like we're just not going to take no for an answer.

Just that, just that general sense of, hey, this is hard.

This is hard. Working with each other is hard, but Jesus knows,

hey, we're going out two by two guys.

Number one, because two is better than one, as far as giving a witness to what

you've seen, but also because you need each other. You need each other.

Famously, everyone knows about the Titanic. At least if you don't, you should, right?

Read a book. But of course, famously, when the Titanic was built,

it was called the Unsinkable Ship because what they did was they cut the hole up.

They didn't cut it up, but they put it in these different, what am I thinking, sections.

And each section could be sectioned off from the other one. And the idea was

that if there was a hole in the boat, they could just section that one section

off, and the other ones would be able to keep it afloat.

Famously, this is a spoiler alert if you don't know what the Titanic is,

famously, though, it turns out a hole in the boat is a hole in the boat.

It doesn't matter where you section it off. A hole in the boat is a hole in the boat.

And I'm sure there was some science behind it. And I'm sure there was other

things that someone could explain to me that that's kind of their thing.

But I do know that the hole in the boat is a hole in the boat.

And I think oftentimes in churches, what we tend to do is when we perceive something

as a problem, whether it's a person or a situation or some tension,

what we try to do is we try and section it off.

And we try and say, okay, we'll just tighten the doors on each side of that.

And we'll act like it doesn't exist.

It's just going to be over there. And when visitors come and when new members

come and they go, hey, what's behind that door?

We go, we don't talk about that door. We do not talk about that door.

Have you ever been to a church that's been around for a long time that when

you bring up something, they go, we don't use that word here, whatever the word is.

For some, it's like, hey, I was looking at the carpet. We don't talk about carpet

here. There was a big dust up about carpet. We don't talk about carpet.

That's the worst thing you can do as a church. The worst thing you can do as

disciples, as people that are on ministry together, right? Tension is okay.

That's not the issue. The issue is we don't want to deal with that.

We don't want to go into where the leak is and I'll have an honest conversation

about, hey, how do we fix this?

Right? We're trying to do the same thing. We're trying to accomplish the same

goal. We need to figure this out.

So that's the first thing. He sends them out two by two. What's the second thing?

Second thing is the authority is given, not earned.

The authority that they have to do this is given, not earned.

It says he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

Now, obviously, like we just said, Judas is a part of this group.

What does Judas do to earn this?

Nothing. This is before Peter has his famous moment of proclaiming who Jesus is.

In fact, to this point, the picture we have of the disciples is not great.

It's not great. We have them in the boat, scared for their lives.

We have Jesus trying to explain these parables to them and them having a real

hard understanding that.

We have them around Jesus and experiencing Jesus and being with him,

but they don't really seem to, at this point, understand what's going on.

And yet Jesus says, go, go out there. Why can Jesus say that?

Jesus can say that for the same reason that he sends you and me out,

because their authority does not come from within them.

It doesn't come from them getting a degree. It doesn't come from them getting

AWANA awards or RAs and GA awards.

It doesn't come from them giving them out to the church. It doesn't come from

them being in Sunday school a certain amount.

Their authority comes from Jesus Christ himself.

And I pray that that's an incredible encouragement for you in the room.

I meet people all the time that they say things like, well, you know,

I really want to serve and I really want to get involved, but I just, I don't feel like I can.

You know, I meet this guy or I meet that guy and I've talked to this person

and man, they've taught Sunday school for 40 years or they have a degree or

they know these Greek words and they understand things that I don't understand.

And to that I say, Listen, number one, praise God for those people.

Praise God that he's raised up those people that have those experiences and

have that level of knowledge that they can share with the church.

But number two, take comfort in the fact that that doesn't make them any more

special than anyone else.

The same authority that God gives to somebody with 18 degrees behind their name

or 50 years of experience is the same authority he gives to anyone who goes

out and preaches the gospel and does finish.

They go with him. As these disciples go out, their job is not to go in front

of people and convince people that they're awesome.

And because they're awesome, these people should believe in Jesus.

You ever had people like that? Like their whole goal in Christianity is convince

people how great they are and by extension go, and you know why I'm so great? Because of Jesus.

No, that's actually flipped here in Jesus.

It's almost like Jesus wants them to go out and I want people to see how messed

up you guys are, like how much you don't know, how much you haven't figured

it out, how much sin you still struggle with.

You got to know that people are asking questions to the disciples that their

honest answer has to be, I have no idea.

I have no idea. They're like, well, exactly who is Jesus?

They're like, man, that's a great question. In fact, we asked that question.

We were in a boat and this guy called the storm. Our exact question was, who is Jesus?

Well, their authority is from outside of them. And so it is with you.

Your authority, when you go and preach the gospel, doesn't come from you.

It comes from the word of God. It comes from the word that he's given you to say.

You don't have to have the answer to every question. You don't have to live

the perfect life. You don't have to have, you know, 50 years of experience.

If God has called you to himself, he has called you to go out.

So first, it's two by two. Second, their authority is given,

not earned. Third, the authority is given and so is the power.

So is the power. Now again, I told you that this was descriptive in a lot of

ways and not prescriptive.

This is one of the ways I believe this is descriptive.

It says that he gave them authority over unclean spirits and he charged them

to take with them nothing, right? This power that they're going to have over unclean spirits.

I don't think this is prescriptive. In other words, what I mean is I don't think

he, he's saying everyone that Jesus is going to save is going to have this authority

and power to go out and do whatever they want with unclean spirits.

I think this is a specific time period that Jesus is saying these miracles that

you're going to be able to do are not for everyone, but they're to give credence

to the message that you're speaking, right?

They're to give credence to the message that you're speaking.

I think one of the most misunderstood things that people have in their minds

is this idea of miracles and signs and wonders and what the purpose of those things were, right?

If you take your Bible and you just read the whole thing cover to cover,

you would think if you look at certain movements in churches or church history,

that it's just full of miracles on every page, that every page is just one miraculous

thing after the other. And what you would find is that's not really true.

One of the greatest things about the Bible is it's almost weirdly normal.

There's a lot of just everyday normal stuff going on. And God calling people

to do godly things in the midst of their normal life.

The purpose of miracles, or I would say the fundamental purpose of miracles,

both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, was to authenticate the message of Revelation.

Now, I'm not talking about the book of Revelation. and talk about the revelation

of God to the people. All right, so you think of like the Exodus.

The reason that those 10 plagues exist was to authenticate God's message through Moses.

The reason he parts the Red Sea is not just so his people will be like,

man, this guy's awesome. Look how great he is.

No, he's authenticating what's happening.

He's saying the Egyptians have their gods. My people have their gods.

And listen, I am the one true God. You can have whatever God you want to have.

You know what they're not gonna be able to do? Stop these plagues.

They're not gonna be able to get these people, right?

So it is in the New Testament. As these apostles now go out two by two,

the miracles that they're able to do are not meant to just be miracles.

They're not meant to just be powerful.

They're not meant to get people in a room so everyone can be amazed at what they're doing.

The miracles are meant so that people will look at them and go,

what they're saying is true.

What they're saying is true because do you see the kind of miracles they're

able to produce because of what they're saying, right? That's the connection.

So that they trust his power. It comes from him.

Simple question here, right? Do you trust Jesus this way? Your ministry,

both within the church and outside the church, when you open God's word,

do you speak with his authority and not your own?

Do you get down on yourself because you don't have what you think is required

for ministry instead of trusting that Jesus has given you something that you need?

Do you look to yourself for the power to do things, for the ability to do what

God has called you to do, or do you trust that Christ has called you to it?

Remember one of the most famous and last things that Jesus says on the earth,

Matthew 28, 70 through 19.

Jesus came and said to them, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.

Why? and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

That's the comfort for us as we do ministry. The comfort for us doesn't come from outside things.

It doesn't come from us gaining more experience or knowledge.

That's not how comfort comes. Comfort comes from Jesus is with me.

If Jesus sent me out, then he'll give me everything I need.

If Jesus sent me out, he'll give me whatever power I need. He'll give me whatever

authority I need. He'll give me whatever tools I need.

He will give me the things that I need. My job is to go.

My job is to speak. My job is to do the things that God has called me to do.

And I trust him to supply all the things that I need.

Do you trust Jesus this way? He goes on.

Do you trust him with your provision? With your provision.

What do you need for ministry? This is a hard question sometimes.

What do you need for ministry?

Because spiritually speaking and when I'm, you know, when I'm trying to look

really holy and somebody goes, what do you need from this? I go, man, just my Bible.

Just give me a Bible in a room.

But, but in my heart of hearts, I know it would be really nice if that room

had AC, like, you know, just saying, like, it'd be, it'd be really nice if I

didn't have to deal with bugs.

It'd be really nice if I had a place to sit afterwards.

It'd be really nice if I had coffee and preferably not Folgers.

If you could get me some nicer coffee would be great.

It'd be really nice if I had, you know, we had TV.

It'd be really nice if we had someone to lead worship beforehand and pray.

It'd be really nice if, and you start making this list of all these things that

you're like, well, I mean, I know that God supplies all my needs and I know

that he's all powerful and I know he's given me this ability and I know he's

going to provide everything that I need, but, but I actually do need more.

I actually need some more stuff.

I can remember going to kids camp. We went to this place called Lake Texoma.

If you don't know what that is, that's probably because it used to be a concentration

camp of some type. I don't know.

It was awful. It was always 109 degrees. It was right on the lake.

There was always crickets and grasshoppers everywhere inside your beds. It was gross.

But I remember we met outside at the tabernacle.

And I learned real quickly that when they say like, hey, we're going to the

tabernacle, all that means is it's going to be hot.

Okay, so don't dress like you can't dress up. It was the only time of my life

at that point as a six, seven, eight, nine-year-old that I could wear shorts to church.

Because it turns out they would rather you wear shorts than pass out from heat exhaustion.

And so we would go to the tabernacle and we would all be under this big metal

roof. It's 9,000 degrees and everyone's sweating and gross.

And we would always have the speaker come in. Usually it was Kara's dad.

He'd be like, I'm so glad to be here tonight.

I'm so glad that we're here. I know it's hot, but it's going to be great.

And all of us, little kids, is like, no, it's not. Bro, this is the worst.

You're like, the Lord can move anywhere. I'm like, I don't know,

man. I think this temperature nullifies the Spirit. I think it's over.

And you would like to think that I grew out of that.

And at times, I have grown out of that. There's definitely times where I can look past those things.

But again, I see that in myself often, even as we've planted Trinity,

where there's times in my life where I go, you know what would really help us

out? You know what would really get us going?

Padded chairs. Now, I don't sit in the chairs very much, but I hear it, okay, and I see it.

I know one of the reasons you're like, hey, can you cut the message down a little

bit? It's like, because my butt is numb and I need to go.

But again, it's just a mindset of saying, listen, when Jesus sends you out,

he tells them, listen, don't worry about where you're going to stay, right?

Go into the village. When you enter a house that accepts you, stay there.

Don't look for five-star accommodations. Whatever the house is that you stay

at, you stay at. You got to sleep on the floor, you sleep on the floor.

Right? He says, if any place, or sorry, when you're in your house,

stay there, depart from there.

You stay there until you depart from that town. Hey, don't bring anything but

a staff, no bread, no bag, no money.

It's awesome that he says, but to wear sandals is like, I tell you what, I'll give you shoes.

If it's like, oh, thank you, Jesus. I was going to do this barefoot, but not even two tunics.

Of course, the point here is Jesus is saying, you're going to have to depend

on my father at every point of this mission.

You're not going to take anything with you. Not even the slightest bit of change in your wallet.

He wanted them to leave everything burdensome behind and rely totally on divine providence.

To rely on divine providence. Jesus knew the Lord knows where you're going.

He knows what towns they're going to. He knows what places they're in, right?

God has already ordained places for them to stay, houses for them to be at.

He knows how people are going to receive the message. He knows that this is

not always going to be easy.

He knows those things, and yet he knows, listen, comforts often cloud God's provision.

Let me say that again. Comforts often cloud God's provision.

What is comfortable to us all of a sudden becomes what is needed by us to do ministry.

The comforts that we need, the comforts that we think we need to do ministry

become those things that we will not do ministry unless we have them.

Paul says in Philippians 4.19, my God will supply every need of yours according

to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. It's a real simple question, right?

This passage is not easy or not hard to understand.

It's just hard to trust. Do you trust that God will provide everything you need,

even the people in your life that you need.

That's what Jesus is saying. Listen, you go out two by two, you go,

you find a house to stay at, stay there.

When it's time to leave, you leave. Don't worry about what you're wearing.

Don't worry about money. Don't worry about stuff.

Do you trust his provision in your life?

Now, he's got houses, but he's also got hostile places. Again, Jesus is realistic.

You ever talk to someone who's maybe come just off a youth mission trip or something

like that, and they're super stoked about everything they're going to do,

right? I'm never going to cuss again.

I'm never going to sin again. I'm going to go and reach every person in my school

for the Lord. We're all getting saved this year, right?

Everyone is kind. I know everyone will be singing Amazing Grace on the last

day of school as we graduate. It's going to happen.

That's an incredible attitude to have. And I'm sure some of the disciples maybe

even had that attitude as they got sent out.

But Jesus knows, listen, this isn't about your ability.

You just saw me go to my own hometown and they rejected the Lord of glory in the flesh.

So don't assume that everywhere you go, people are gonna be like,

man, we were just waiting on you guys to get here. Right, what's their message?

What's their message? Verse 12 says, they went out and proclaimed what?

That people should repent.

Listen, if that's your message, certain people will not be a fan of that message.

Now, if your message is, hey, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your

life, I imagine most people would be super stoked to hear that.

If you'll just come to church and give some money, man, God's going to make

this all work out for you.

But if the message is repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand, and turn from your sins.

They go, my sins? What do you mean my sins? I'm not a sinner.

Well, what about the lying? What about the cheating? Well, yeah,

I mean, I'm not perfect, but I'm not a sinner. Like you can't qualify me like that.

But if that's the message that you're called to go and preach,

and it is the message we're called to go and preach, there will be people that

don't like you. That's okay.

We talked about this this morning in Bible study, but I think it's true.

The reason most Christians struggle with loving their enemies is because they

haven't done anything to get in. You don't have any enemies.

You haven't said anything that would offend someone. You haven't preached the

word in such a way that people don't like you.

In fact, a lot of Christians spend their time, well, jokingly,

I've heard it said this way, following the 11th commandment,

which is thou shalt be nice.

In other words, I don't want anyone to not like me. I want everyone to get along with me.

I want everyone to feel great when they leave talking to me.

I want everyone to think that I'm super nice and super kind.

The problem with that is if you're going to be true to the scriptures,

if you're going to be true to the word of God, you will not always have that luxury.

There will be times in your life where someone will come across your path,

where they will ask you questions or they will become your friend.

They will get to know you well enough where you will have to say things and

do things that they're going to go, I really don't like that you think that way.

I don't like that you think that way about abortion. I think that's wrong.

Well, that's what I think the word of God says. I don't like that you think

that way about sexuality.

I don't like that you think that way about politics. I don't like that you think

that way about all these things in your life.

I think you're being bigoted. I think you're being narrow-minded.

I think you're being whatever word they want to use. And you just have to stand

with the word of God and go, man, it's just what it says. That's what it says.

Jesus knows that as he sends these guys out, that's true. That's going to happen.

And what does he tell them to do?

Right. Does he tell them to beg, to get on their knees and just beg people to

come to the Lord? Does he tell them to just become everyone's whipping post?

Does he tell them, hey man, just go along to get along, right?

Maybe don't say some of the hard things, right? Really get to know them,

really get these people to like you, and then maybe kind of slip in this repentance

thing where you can. No, he doesn't say that.

He says something incredibly what we would view as harsh.

He says in verse 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.

Whoa, that doesn't sound like fun Jesus anymore.

That doesn't sound like nice Jesus anymore. Well, no, Jesus isn't fun or nice or he's just Jesus.

Jesus is who he is. And what Jesus is saying to them is, hey,

when you go to places as my ambassadors, with my authority, with the power that

I've given you, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me.

And listen, Christian, you need to hear that. You need to know that,

that when you are rejected because of what the word of God says.

Now, listen, I'm not talking about you being rejected for being a jerk or for

having a short temper or for being a brat.

If you're those things, you deserve to be rejected, okay? But what I mean is

when you are humbly coming before people in your life,

speaking the word of God to them and being true to the scriptures,

when someone despises you, what Jesus is saying to them is, they're not denying

you, they're denying me. They're denying me.

And if they deny me, they deny their only way to salvation. They deny their

only way to come to the Father.

They deny their only chance, their only possible way to come to God in repentance

and faith. And so what does he tell them to do?

Knock the dirt off your sandals. Now, this was an Old Testament custom when

Jews would leave the Holy Land and go to other places.

And they would walk through these pagan nations when they would get to the other side.

Before they went back into the Holy Land, into the Promised Land,

they would knock the dust off their sandals.

They didn't even want to bring pagan dirt into that place.

And Jesus is adding to that principle to say, listen, if someone denies me,

that is the same as them denying God, right?

He's putting himself on that level as he's already done.

But this isn't the only place that Jesus does this.

Does this right after the most famous Bible verse in the entire world.

John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but in order that the world might be saved through him.

That's what the disciples and now the apostles are going out to do.

Again, they're not going to draw attention to themselves. They're going to proclaim Christ.

You're going to proclaim that the kingdom has come, that God is here,

that you need to repent of your sins and believe in the one true God.

That's what the disciples, and now again, the apostles are going out to do,

to say to people, hey, listen, God loves the world.

He loves every kind of person in the world. He loves Jew and Gentile and Greek.

He loves all of them. He loves the world. How do you know that he loved the world?

At this point, he's going to say, listen, he's going to give up his only son.

His only son is here. God in the flesh is here.

And his son did not come to condemn the world. In fact, he came so that the

world might be saved. But what does verse 18 say?

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned when? Already.

Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

The most famous verse in the Bible is followed by this incredible statement

of judgment. Why is that true?

Because as much as we would love to find middle ground in the Bible, there is none.

There is no middle ground in the Bible. When Jesus tells his disciples,

listen, get the dust off your sandals of these places as a sign of judgment to them.

In a lot of ways, this is mercy because the disciples would have come through

and they would have said, listen, repent and believe.

The kingdom of God is near. He's here. You need to repent and believe.

And people rejected that. And they said, all right, man. Hey,

man, that's your business.

If you want to keep worshiping Zeus, that's your thing. We just wanted to give you another option.

Hey, if you want to come and follow Jesus, we think it'd be a great thing. It's been great for us.

He calmed the storm. And I've seen him raise dead people. I've seen him heal sick people.

He'd be really great. Okay, no, no, no. You don't want to do that.

That's fine. That's fine. That's your life.

You never see that kind of mindset in the Bible because when the gospel comes

before people, there is only two options.

You either believe and you are redeemed.

You are saved. You're no longer condemned as John 3, 16 says,

or You are condemned where you stand,

That moment Every person in this room That has heard the gospel If you haven't,

you're going to hear it this morning You're condemned if you don't believe And

that's the most merciful thing I think I can tell you.

When a doctor gives a prognosis to someone that he knows will be death to them

if there's no action taken, but he has the cure.

He has what will solve the problem. If he were to say to them,

hey, listen, you have this disease.

It's going to kill you. It will kill you. I promise.

But here's how we can fix it. And that person goes, I don't really want to mess

with that. And the doctor goes, hey man, that's cool.

Just thought I'd give you the option. No big deal.

I know. I think most doctors that really care would try and persuade you,

hey, listen, this is the only way.

This is it. Nah, you know, I've gotten sick before and I've made it through.

I think I'll be fine. The doctors, listen, this will kill you.

This will kill you. There is no way out. There's nothing you can do.

There's no way to save yourself from this disease. You have to take this treatment

so that you will survive.

And for them to go, oh, you know, so when they walk out, what is the doctor

able to say? Listen, I presented the way of their salvation from this disease.

They denied it. As they walk out the door, guess what? They're condemned as they walk out.

There is nothing that they can do to solve that problem.

This is what it's like when the gospel goes forth. This is what it's like for

you and me to preach the gospel.

That when they deny the gospel, when they deny who Jesus Christ is and what

he's come to do, there is nowhere for them to turn.

It's twofold. He wants his disciples to know, as he would want you and me to

know, listen, you will not have 100% success for him.

You will not see everyone turn to the Lord.

You will not see all of your friends and family get it. They won't.

When they do, it's an incredible cause for rejoicing. But it's as if Jesus wants

them to know, hey, listen, when you fail, don't lose heart.

I think that's one of the main reasons that Jesus takes them to his hometown

to show them how they respond to him.

So that he can tell them, hey, listen, they denied me too. Don't lose heart.

Last thing, as we close here, he says, so they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

Again, ministry is hard and it should be. I think some of the biggest regrets

I've had in my ministry was that I just took the easy way out,

that I didn't confront the situation

that I should them, that I didn't say what should have been said,

that maybe I soft-pedaled on an issue that I shouldn't have soft-pedaled on,

that I didn't speak as boldly about something as I know I should have spoken

about because I didn't want to cause a fight.

I didn't want to cause tension. I didn't want to cause some strife.

I didn't deal with someone causing division or I didn't go about my life in

such a way that people would trust me to handle that situation.

What I've never had happen is for me to do exactly what God is asking to do,

no matter what it causes, tension, strife, a fight, someone not to like me,

someone even to hate me. I've had people say they hate me.

And I don't look back on those moments and think I did something wrong.

Because in all of those moments, I have found that God has been gracious and

kind to me to remind me, hey, listen, they don't hate you, they hate me.

They're not denying you, they're denying me. They don't hate your words, they hate my word.

And so let me just encourage you with this passage. Number one, do ministry together.

Don't lone ranger it. In the age that we live in, it's so easy to sit at home

and watch YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Instagram videos and get all

of your fill, all of your theological knowledge, all of what you think you need

from the internet and from a screen.

And I, listen, I'm as guilty of that as anybody.

I love the ability to look up any person I want, any topic I want,

right? I can find the people that I like to listen to talking about the stuff

that I want to hear them talk about all the time.

The problem with that is I have blind spots.

You have blind spots, right? You need the people of God in your life to help

you see your blind spots.

For some of us, we need people in our life to tell us like, hey man, relax, relax.

You need to be a little kinder. You need to be a little more patient here.

You need to be a little slower to get angry about those things.

And the flip side of that is some of us need people in our lives to go,

hey man, you need to pick it up.

You need to pick it up. This is not a place where you can just be lazy.

This is not a time where you can just put your sword down. It's time to go,

but we need each other. We need each other.

That's number one. Number two, do you trust his provision in your life and in your ministry?

Are you waiting for something to happen so that you can do what God has called

you to do, to go and make disciples?

Are you waiting to reach a certain level of knowledge, to attain a certain level

of knowledge before you go out and make disciples?

Are you waiting for a certain era of your life, a certain season of your life?

Now listen, different seasons lend themselves to different levels of disciple making. I get that.

I mean, let's say you got kids, you're making disciples. God bless you. Okay. We're all trying.

All of us, no matter what season of life we're in, have something to do.

We have disciples to make, people in our lives that God has placed there sovereignly

so that we would minister to

them and love them in such a way that they would come to know God better.

They would come to serve him more. They would come to be disciple-making people.

Every single one of us is called to that. There is no exception.

And so often our excuses have to do with either our inadequacies,

what we think we can and can't do, where we think we'll fail,

where we don't think we fit in.

I wrote this down. So this isn't me saying this to you, just so you know,

but the best advice I ever got on this subject, when I was sitting around,

I'm just kind of going like, man, I want to do that, but I can.

I kind of want to do that, but I can't.

I had a guy look at me and just goes, man, you need to shut up and get to work.

Put that in your notes. But that's what he said.

He said, just shut up and get to work. What do you mean you can't?

Who do you serve? Who's your king? Where does your power come from?

Where does your authority come from? What do you think you're here to do?

Stop making excuses and get to work. And that would be my encouragement to you.

Get to work, man. Find something to do. Find a ministry to get involved in.

If you're waiting for Trinity Bible Church to give you something to do,

I'll be honest with you, we're going to be slow to do that.

I'm not necessarily a programming guy. I don't want to have 19 programs just

so I can fill people in on something they can do.

Here's what I can tell you. There's stuff to do.

There's stuff to do. And I think more than anything, if you see something and

you go, man, you know what they really, you know what would really be great

if we had this, if we had this going on at Trinity, if we had this void filled,

I would just encourage you, if God's putting that on your heart,

maybe the next thing that needs to happen is you do it. now come talk to me first.

It'll show up with like, I want to start an iguana ministry.

It's like, we don't need that.

Right. Come talk to us, but, but do that. Step out in that, fill the void.

All right. Step out. So you trust his provision. You trust his authority.

Last thing you trust his providence, right? You trust his providence.

You trust that God will put the people in your life at the time that you need

them, in the specific way that you need them, exactly how it's supposed to happen.

Again, so much of ministry gets derailed by people looking into the future and

going, well, what if this happens?

What if that happens? Listen, I get that fear.

Again, when we plan a trinity, that was my number one fear is,

well, what if we get six months into this thing and this is just awful?

What if the people that join, I don't like them? What happens with that?

Like, I'm already prone to not like a lot of people. And so I'm just worried about that.

Right. What, what if, what if this bad things happen? What if this implodes?

What if, what if somebody passes away? That's a part of the church? Like, what do I do?

That comes from just pure fear and not trusting that God has providentially

and sovereignly put things in front of you, and he will meet every need that

you need when you need it.

We said this last week, but faith is not our business.

When we go and preach the gospel to people, when we go and try to disciple people,

it's not our job to conjure up faith in people. We can't do that.

Faithfulness is our business, to be faithful to what God has called us to,

to be moms and dads and husbands and wives and children and workers and church

members to be the kind of people that God has called us to be.

Faithfulness is our goal.

God will take care of the faith. Faith is a gift that he gives freely.

We trust that God will give faith where it is needed. We trust that God will

strengthen our faith when it is needed.

But faith is not our business. Faithfulness is. So do ministry together.

Trust his provision and trust his providence. I pray that's a blessing to you. Let's pray.

Father, as always, we thank you for, again, the chance to open your word in freedom.

I pray that a passage like today that we remind ourselves that all of us are

called to make disciples. All of us are called to go out into the world.

Specifically here, you're sending out really the first set of apostles,

the sent ones into the world.

And they have a very specific thing that they're trying to accomplish.

God, we recognize that that's not exactly our situation, but we also recognize

that the principles that you

sent them out with are the exact same principles that you called us to.

God, first and foremost, that we're called to do ministry together.

That it's so much easier to lock ourselves in our own little worlds and do ministry

however we want, however we see fit, whatever we think would work the best.

God, I pray that you'd break us of that pride.

You'd break us of the pride of thinking that we know better than everybody at

all times, that we need people around us.

No matter how smart or learned we are, no matter how much experience we have,

God, you have placed people in our lives to do ministry alongside them.

Pray that we would do that.

Only we would do ministry together, we would trust your provision that you would

give us whatever it is you need to give us that we could do ministry well for you.

We could preach the gospel. We could make disciples, not based on what we bring

to the table, not based on some comforts that we think we need,

but based on whatever it is that you want us to have.

God, I pray that you would keep that mindset inside of Trinity Bible Church

that whatever you give us is a blessing.

And whatever you don't give us, we don't need.

Because you have promised to give us everything that we need.

God, last, that we would trust your providence, that you would bring the people

into our church who you have called to be here.

And we wouldn't always be looking around, waiting on the next thing or waiting

on something else to happen, that we wouldn't be scared of what the next three

months or six months or three years or 30 years would bring because you have

promised us, God, wherever we go, you're with us.

You never leave us or forsake us.

You have, as Ephesians says, good works that you've prepared beforehand for

us to walk in, God. You know where we're going.

In fact, you're already exactly where we are going to be and you have already

set up everything there that we need, everything that we could ever hope to

have from you, you have given us first and foremost.

If we lose sight of the fact, that you haven't done enough.

If we get down on ourselves and think that you haven't provided for us in the

right ways, would you fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter

of our faith who went to the cross despising the shame?

God, he gave us a picture of what it looked like to trust you even in death.

We thank you for that. Be with us as we go.

Be with us as we live our lives in honor to you. In our prayer, amen.